The Last Exile (9 page)

“Known Goran long?”

“Three years.”

“Good guy to do business with?”

The small man leant over the glass, the genial manner gone. “No questions.”

Tallis smiled a
fair enough
. “Thanks again for the chips. Be seeing you. She was good, by the way,” he called over his shoulder.

The evening was spitting with rain. Logging the exact location of the chip shop, he began to walk, finishing his supper on the way. He soon found himself in a mixed sprawl of residential and industrial estate. Low-flying aircraft indicated he was near the airport, the sheer density
of houses suggesting that they’d been there first. A gang of kids shambled along the road towards him. One was on a bike, zigzagging along the pavement, the others larking about behind, effing this and effing that. On seeing two girls walking up the other side of the road, they let out a stream of sexual abuse. The oldest lad, who happened to be of mixed race, looked to be about fourteen years old. Tallis wondered if this was the future, if they were the next generation of thugs. Drawing near, it became clear from the feral expressions on the boys’ faces that nobody was going to step aside, nobody was giving ground. He should have done the simple thing and walked round them. Better to be safe than wind up dead with a knife in your stomach, but Tallis felt in a perverse mood. He kept on walking, calling their bluff, his eyes fixed on the ringleader riding the bike. As Tallis predicted, the lad swerved at the last minute to avoid him, the others following suit. Not quite so hard as you think you are, Tallis thought with a smile.

The urban landscape was changing. Roads were wider and busier, the concrete more connected and commercial, less grim. There were airport hotels where you could walk into Reception and catch a glimpse of people in swimming costumes kick-starting their holidays, sipping pina coladas around bathtub-temperature swimming pools. Maybe Tremlett, the probation officer, was right, Tallis thought, if not about the ethnicity of the inhabitants, about the location. On he walked, occasionally glancing over his shoulder, for an irrational moment feeling as if he were being followed. Eventually, seeing a taxi, Tallis stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Dropping the plastic tray in a nearby bin, he sprinted across the road and instructed the driver to take him to Euston.

“Fair way to go,” the cabbie said, dubious.

Tallis suddenly realised how dishevelled he looked, unshaven, smelling of booze and fish and chips. He pulled out a wad of notes. The driver told him to hop in. “You often do this run?” Tallis asked.

“Several times a day, usually pick-ups from Heathrow.”

“Know the area well, then.”

The cabbie laughed. “Stating the bleeding obvious, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“What about the people living here?”

“What about them?”

“Good mix of cultures?”

“You mean how many immigrants we got here?”

“Well, I wouldn’t …”

“Answer to that’s bloody hundreds of them. Slough’s an Asian stronghold. Here’s full of Eastern Europeans and Polish. Well,” the cabbie said, blowing out between his teeth, “don’t get me started. Poles all over the bleedin’ place, ain’t they? Begging, and doing us out of a living and all that. Me, I live in Dagenham. Know where I belong.”

Bet you vote BNP, Tallis thought. “Many Albanians live here?”

“Shouldn’t wonder. Know how to use guns, don’t they?”

Everyone from the Balkans knows how to use a gun, you prat, Tallis thought.

They pulled up at some lights. Tallis whipped out the photograph of Demarku, held it up for the driver. “Seen this guy before?”

The cabbie looked in his rear-view mirror. “Not a clue, mate.”

“You sure?”

The cabbie eyed it again. “Mate of yours, is he?”

“No. Someone I need to find.”

“Right,” the cabbie said, looking again. “Bit of a sort, ain’t he?”

“Think so?”

“Know so. Looks like a bleedin’ foreigner.”

D
OG-TIRED,
T
ALLIS SLEPT
most of Monday. After his customary run and shower, he left the hotel around two, ambled down Tottenham Court Road and found a café where he ordered and ate a sandwich before making his way across London and over the river to the Imperial War Museum. Some hours later, sobered and not a little depressed, he retraced his way back, walking through St James’s Park to clear his head then catching the tube to Westbourne Grove to an Italian restaurant he’d seen advertised in a free newspaper. After downing a plate of prosciutto and pasta with clams, washed down with two glasses of house red and finished off with a heavy-duty espresso, he took another tube to Hounslow West, changing once.

It was after nine when he reached the chip shop, two hours before his meeting with Goran in Earls Court. Tallis walked in, exchanged a glance with the small, wiry guy who’d given him the chips the day before. This time there was less warning in his manner: he came across as relaxed, bordering on friendly. “Back already?” Then with a leer, he said, “That good, huh?”

“The best, but this time I pay,” Tallis said with a grin, taking out his wallet.

“Duka takes care of it. Go on through,” he indicated with his thumb. “Know where to go.”

Duka was mean and malodorous. She turned her slow eyes on Tallis who explained he wanted the same girl as the night before. “No,” Duka said without explanation.

Tallis smiled as though he didn’t understand, part of his brain racing. Had the girl talked? Had she betrayed him? “She with someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“No,” Duka said again, emphatic.

Tallis raised an eyebrow. This time he wasn’t smiling. Duka shrugged. “Take another girl or come back tomorrow.” Who gives a shit? her expression implied.

Tallis walked straight up to her, put his face close to her face, inhaling breath foul with garlic and tooth decay and hostility. “I’ll come back tomorrow afternoon at two. Make sure she’s here.” Then he turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come.

Tallis was three hundred yards from the pub when two blokes in hoodies appeared from nowhere and jumped him. The biggest bloke was in front of Tallis, the other slighter figure moving to the left, catching Tallis on his blind side. It was a typical pincer movement and one he was familiar with. Had it been one assailant, he would have reacted differently, perhaps tried to talk him down, but with two, the odds were greatly against him. Only one thing for it, he thought. Attack.

Eyes flicking to the right, locating the bloke’s jaw line, Tallis pushed off his back leg, letting out a blood-curdling scream and simultaneously lashing out with an elbow. His reward a gratifying snap as he connected with the man’s
jawbone, felling his attacker and knocking him into the side of a car parked illegally in the road. A split second later, the bloke built like a brick wall had landed a right hook heavy enough to make Tallis’s brain rattle around his head. Immediately, Tallis grabbed the man’s hood with both hands, forcing him down, and brought his own knee up sharply, smashing into his opponent’s head. The man rocked backwards momentarily then pulled out a blade. Suddenly, everything slowed. Tallis knew that the situation could cut up very dirty, very quickly and wondered whether the guy was pumped up on drugs.

Almost crouching, his attacker sliced the air with his knife hand, feinting with the other. Tallis, eyes fixed on his assailant, waited for the strike then blocked the guy’s knife hand with a forearm punch. Kicking out with his foot, and hooking it round the guy’s thigh, he knocked him off balance. As he crashed to the pavement, knife flailing, Tallis moved in to stamp on the guy’s chest. To his astonishment, the man raised his hands, and let out a laugh. The hood had slipped back, revealing a face: Goran.

“Fuckin’ weird sense of humour,” Tallis said in Croatian, grabbing Goran’s arm and pulling him up. “Oh, Christ,” he said, looking at the staggering figure unpeeling himself from the wing of a Mini. “That Janko?”

“You fight good,” Janko said, eyes rolling, still dazed.

“Come,” Goran said, slapping his arm around Tallis’s shoulder. “We drink. We celebrate. Then we meet Iva.”

Iva had the bearing of a rattlesnake. He was tall and thin with deep hooded eyes that never let you know what was going on behind them. As Tallis had clearly passed his little initiation ceremony with flying colours, he seemed
affable enough, but Tallis wouldn’t have trusted him as far as he could have thrown the mighty Duka. By now, Janko and Goran had melted into the background. This was Iva’s show.

Iva was from Osijek, a large town on the south bank of the river Drava. Like Vukovar, its near neighbour, it had suffered heavy bombardment during the hostilities in 1991. Tallis prayed Iva wasn’t going to quiz him about his so-called homeland and his alleged activities during the war. Fortunately, Iva appeared more curious about Tallis’s commercial interests.

“The boys say you have contacts in the South-West,” Iva said, taking a sip of brandy, his lazy eyes focused on Tallis.

“That’s right,” Tallis said. “We like to make extensive use of the region’s natural resources.”

Iva inclined his head.

“Fishermen are key to the success of the enterprise,” Tallis explained.

“And heroin is so much more lucrative than cod, I think,” Iva said with a slow smile. “Tell me how it works.”

“Drugs are generally imported through larger foreign vessels coming from the usual routes—cocaine either from the Caribbean or Colombia, cannabis from North Africa through Morocco and Spain. We have a deal going on at the moment with one of the cross-Channel ferries, but that’s a separate venture,” Tallis said, hoping that this would tempt Iva to take him seriously and realise that he was playing with someone in a bigger league. “Smaller craft meet the foreign vessels out at sea, take the goods and land them in one of the many coves along the coast. It’s an old-fashioned technique, once used for smuggling contraband, and known as coopering. Goods are recovered
and driven up the motorway to wherever you want them.”

“And police?”

“When did you last go to Devon?” Tallis snorted. “Plods are only concerned with boat theft and CD players nicked from cars.”

“I have never been to Devon.”

“Well, now’s your chance. I’ll show you the sights,” Tallis said with a smile.

Iva didn’t react. This bloke was nobody’s mate, Tallis thought.

“I understand you’ve pissed someone off,” Iva said.

“He pissed me off.”

Iva gave a thoughtful nod. “You work alone?”

“Does anyone?”

“What would your colleagues think?”

“About what?”

“Doing business with us.”

“As long as there’s money in it, they’d be happy,” Tallis smiled.

“So you can effect an introduction?”

“Naturally.”

Iva nodded again and asked Tallis where he could be contacted. Tallis gave him his number and they agreed to talk some more the following day.

This time there were no problems. Tallis paid Duka and went straight to room eleven. The girl was sitting in exactly the same place. Only her face was different. A bruise was blossoming on one of her cheekbones and her bottom lip was puffy and split. Tallis moved silently towards her, rested a hand on the top of her head, making her flinch. He kept it there, stroked her hair, talking softly. “Tell me your name.”

She looked up at him. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Elena.”

“Why are you crying, Elena?”

“Nobody asked my name before.”

Tallis crouched down so that his eyes were level with hers. “It’s the perfect name for a very pretty girl. Here, I’ve brought you this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a bar of chocolate. She took it shyly, with caution, as if she expected him to snatch it back. “Go on, eat,” he said.

She looked up at him and smiled for the very first time since he’d met her. It reminded him of light on clear water. Reminded him of Belle.

“Where are you from?”

“Lithuania,” she said in a small voice, biting a chunk off and offering the rest to Tallis who politely refused. She ate carefully, with great self-consciousness, as though embarrassed. When she’d finished, she said, “Take me away?”

He didn’t know how he was going to do it but he knew that it was impossible to leave her there. Again, he was reminded of Belle. “Trust me?”

She nodded.

“Good.”

“I have something for you, too,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper. “The man you are looking for. He is sometimes known as Mickovic. He lives in Belgravia.”

Tallis gently smiled. “Can’t be right. This man has only just come out of prison. It’s a very expensive part of London. How could he afford to live there?”

“It is true,” the girl said firmly. “He travels in a Mercedes, new plates, black.”

Sounded like everyone’s idea of a gangster’s mode of transport. “How do you know this?”

“One of the girls remembered him. He’s very cruel, brutal. He hates women.”

“She say anything else about him?”

“She said he smelt of trees.”

Cedar, a classic fragrance in men’s aftershave, Tallis thought, remembering what Crow had said. “All right,” he said, getting up. “Act normally. I’ll come and get you when the time’s right.”

“Soon?” she said, grabbing hold of his arm, her eyes pleading.

He put his hand over hers. “I promise.”

“She’s just one girl, for Chrissakes.”

“My point entirely,” Cavall said.

“I’m not asking you to send in an army.”

“Look, when I told you to call this number, it was specifically for problems. This is not a problem. This is you thinking with your dick.”

Tallis bit down hard. He wanted Cavall’s help too much to rise to a jibe like that. “The girl’s given me valuable information.”

“Checked it out?”

“Not yet, but I’m onto it.” He was sitting in a taxi, heading for Belgravia.

“
If
the intel’s good, we might be able to do something.”

Might?
Tallis stared at the floor. “Forget it. Sorry I asked.”

“Good,” Cavall said crisply. “Glad we’ve got that out of the way. Can’t afford to be sidetracked …”

“But—”

“Put it like this, we send in the cavalry, she goes home, next thing you know she’s retrafficked to Greece. All a bit of a waste of our time.”

“Sure, thanks.”

“Call me soon, Paul. We’re counting on you.”

Tallis closed his phone and looked disconsolately out of the window. Streets and shops and people rushing about in a game called living. Without exception, the women were slim, attractive and well maintained, the men taut and ambitious, the cream of the gene pool. Then he had an idea. He slid open his phone again and called Micky Crow.

Tallis didn’t make it to Belgravia. He was intercepted by a phone call from Iva who told him that they were on for a meet at the pub. Tallis thought it an unlikely venue but didn’t argue. Instructing the cabbie to drop him off at Hammersmith, he walked the rest of the way. A prickly feeling in his gut told him that something was off. As a precaution, he took out the photograph of Demarku, shredded it and pushed it into the nearest rubbish bin.

Goran and Janko were waiting for him at the bar. They went through the usual comrade routine—
”Bok, kako si?”, Hi, how are you
?—and ordered drinks, though on this occasion Tallis was careful to pick Pepsi. He explained to the boys that he had a bad stomach. After two hours of chatting about cars and football and the fact that the actress Sharon Stone had a home on the Dalmatian coast, Iva appeared. As expected, Goran and Janko made themselves scarce. Obviously, the boss liked to do business alone.

“Drink?” Tallis said.

Iva looked at his watch. “No time. Ready?”

“Sure.”

He followed Iva outside where a black Mercedes with new plates was waiting. Iva opened the door for Tallis in a curiously hospitable gesture that made Tallis nervous. Tallis smiled a thank you and climbed in. Iva, next to him, instructed the driver to start driving, and fell silent. Tallis took his cue from Iva and didn’t utter a word.

They arrived in Knightsbridge, pulling up outside a smart perfumery. Iva got out and Tallis followed. The shop was all bright lights and whiteness, like a space-age pharmacy. A heavily made-up young woman stood behind a counter. She, too, was dressed in white, although there was nothing virginal about her manner: too pouting, too come and get me. Tallis flicked his eyes to the rows of clear glass bottles filled with varying shades of oil and scent and read the names, ylang-ylang, rose otto, bergamot, neroli …

Iva leant towards the woman, murmured something in her ear. Nodding in agreement, she walked to the front of the shop, locking the door, turning the open sign to closed then led them through a door at the back and into a warren of rooms, each connected like a spider’s web. There were boxes and boxes of top-brand mobile phones. Tallis felt a sense of creeping unease as door after door closed behind him.

He heard the voice of the man before he saw him. “Did you know that musk is gathered from the balls of musk deer, Marco?” The man, who had his back to him, turned round with a blinding smile. Two months in the outside world had put weight on his body and colour in his cheeks. His hair, tinted blond, was well cut. His hands looked manicured, clothes expensive. In short, his manner and bearing were regal. But there was no mistake. This was definitely Demarku. Tallis could hardly believe his
luck. “Musk forms the basis for nearly every fragrance,” he continued, speaking in heavily accented English.

“Brings out the animal in us, I guess,” Tallis said.

“Very good.” Demarku let out a laugh. “You speak good English, too.”

“Have my mother to thank for that. She’s British but married a Croat.”

“Unusual,” Demarku said, still smiling. Tallis remembered what Crow had said.
He’d as soon as slip a blade between your ribs as look at you. Probably smile while he was doing it
. “Does it trouble you that I’m Albanian?”

“Why would it? I have great respect for your people.”