Who the hell was calling at this time?

He dashed back to the sitting room to where his cell phone was vibrating on the coffee table. “Max?” Tallis said, bewildered.

“Sorry to disturb you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, dizzy with relief. “I wasn’t in bed.” He should have been, he thought, checking his watch. It was three-thirty in the morning.

“Something wrong?” Tallis said. Course it blood was.

There was an uneasy silence as though Max hadn’t quite rehearsed what he was going to say. “Just had the police on the phone.” His voice was grave. “They got my name from Felka’s belongings.”

“Something happened to her?” Of course it had. He knew only too well how people dished up bad news.

It started in increments.

“She’s dead,” Max blurted out. “Murdered.”

About the Author

E. V. SEYMOUR lives in a small village in Worcestershire. Before turning to writing, E.V. worked in PR in London and Birmingham, then moved to Devon where, five children later, she began writing.

E.V. has bent the ears of numerous police officers in Devon, West Mercia and the West Midlands—including scenes-of-crime and firearms officers—in a ruthless bid to make her writing as authentic as possible.

The Last Exile

E.V. Seymour

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For lan With a song in my heart…

Acknowledgments

This book would not have come into being had it not been for a small number of serving firearms officers. Because of reasons of security and protocol, I am neither allowed to mention them by name nor state the place where we met. They know who they are, however, and I thank them for their time, generosity and good humor. I should also add that my take on a firearms officer’s job is just that, with dramaticlicence. Moreover, the views expressed in the book are not those necessarily shared by those I talked to.

Major thanks go to my agent, Broo Doherty, for having the perspicacity to encourage me to write something completely different and, most important, giving me the confidence to do it. Thanks also to Catherine Burke, my editor at MIRA Books, for spotting the book’s potential and putting it through its paces, and indeed the whole of the MIRA team for their warmth and infectious enthusiasm. Most notably Guy Hallowes, Sarah, Oliver on the marketing side, and lan on sales—not the lan to whom the book is dedicated; we got on well but not that well! Those I’ve failed to mention in person, apologies! Thanks, too, to Jana Holden for turning my schoolgirl Croatian into colloquial Croatian, and for sharing a little of her family history with me.

Lastly, thanks to an unlikely individual, to Tim, the inspiration for Jimmy. But that’s not an excuse for further turning up the volume!

PROLOGUE

THE woman was running. Running for her life. Small and sinewy, she moved at speed, twisting like a desperate vixen. But there was no escape. Not for anyone. She knew it. Tallis knew it. From the instant he and Stu barrelled through the automatic doors, he understood how it was going down, how it was going to be. All of them were ensnared in a dance of death.

Tallis didn’t register the glossy-looking, brightly lit stores, or the homely sweet aroma drifting from a biscuit stand nearby. He failed to admire the display of brand new Minis parked at the mall’s entrance. He didn’t detect Paul Young crooning hoarsely through the centre’s speakers. Sound, taste, smell, touch all disappeared. His focus was on the woman. Only the woman. The woman with the rucksack on her back.

Fuck, she was going down the escalator the wrong way. Tallis sharply elbowed a middle-aged man aside, and leapt on, feet skimming the moving parts, shoppers cursing his jostling form. Stu, close behind, snarled an order to get out of the frigging way. An acne-faced youth spat at them then, seeing the guns, recoiled and cowered, his bottle gone. Men with weapons in full tactical firearms kit represented the visible arm of the law. Guys in plain-clothes, whatever their rank and standing, were scary, unknown quantities.

Women and children started to scream. Tallis, fearing it would force the woman to detonate her lethal load, bounded clear of the moving staircase, feet landing square, the fleeing figure still ahead, ducking and weaving. For the second time, Tallis shouted a warning. Again he used her native tongue, yet there was no break in step, no change in pace, no backward glance. Relentless, Tallis thought, but not nearly as relentless as me. Whatever the cost. Whatever the personal sacrifice.

People were fleeing now. Those who’d ordered morning lattes were dropping them where they stood, the contents spooling over a floor the colour of rancid butter. Boisterous school-kids already bored by the prospect of long summer holidays dived for cover. A security man too old and fat for the job looked clueless then slack-jawed then barked a What the hell? into a mobile phone.

Area should be cleared by now, Tallis chafed as a woman pushing a baby buggy almost cannoned into him. What the fuck was going on? Where was back-up? Two foreign-looking men selling cosmetics from a stand extolling the virtues of Dead Sea salt turned and gazed, the laconic expression in their eyes suggesting that they’d seen it all before.

Tallis’s earpiece crackled. A designated senior officer had already confirmed the identity of the target, an Algerian woman with links to the recent failed bombing in Birmingham. Now he was upping the game, issuing instructions to prepare to eliminate the threat—code for execute or shoot to kill. Tallis tightened his grip on the Glock but judged the scene too chaotic and unstable to take aim and fire should the final code word be given. Public safety, threats of criminal proceedings, phrases that tripped off the tongue in the aftermath but made no sense in the context buzzed round his brain like a swarm of demented hornets. Strained faces were everywhere, there seemed more shoppers than ever. And that was dangerous.

Tallis was subliminally aware of Stu drawing abreast of him, feet pounding the floor. They were gaining now but another escalator loomed ahead, ascending. Glancing up, Tallis saw two colleagues openly brandishing weapons, sealing off the exit. The woman’s head lifted minutely in mid-pace. She saw it, too. Tallis caught his breath. His gut tourniqueted. This was when she’d do it. This was when she’d blow them all to kingdom come. He raised his weapon but a group of gormless-looking lads oblivious to the action wandered across his line of vision. Stu let out a yell, making them scatter.

Tallis picked up the pursuit again, speeding around a corner flanked with banks and building societies, the financial heart of the mall. The woman was only metres ahead, losing pace, through stitch or fear, the fight abruptly abandoning her. Nothing left to lose, Tallis thought, raising his weapon a second time, imagining the blinding flash, broken bodies, twisted wreckage, crippled lives. This time he took aim, homing in for a head shot. “I can take the shot,” he radioed back to Control.

“Take it,” was the response.

Then something happened, something more terrible than he could imagine. In that heart-charged split second, she turned, small hands spread in a defensive gesture. Young, her dark face was arresting rather than beautiful. She had a wide, noble brow and brown eyes wet with tears and terror. Not that it mattered, Tallis thought coldly. An order was an order. Question the method, the timing, but never the command. Even so, Tallis experienced an ugly sensation, felt something he wasn’t paid to feel. His earpiece crackled. Maybe they were going to be asked to stand down, he thought wildly hopeful. It crackled some more: the gold commander was giving the code word authorising the use of lethal force.

Before Tallis could act, two shots rang out from Stu’s Glock, one winging wide, missing by inches a startled bank clerk taking a break, and ricocheting harmlessly off a pillar. The other felled the target. Tallis ran forward, saw the stain from a wound in the young woman’s shoulder spread and dye her T-shirt a darker hue. In shock, she made no sound. Just fluttered a hand towards her body, a movement that, whatever instinct was stirring inside him, was to cost her her life. With the colour still draining from her skin, Tallis emptied five bullets into her head and neck, witnessing her final second of life, hearing her last breath, watching as her life-blood flowed freely on the floor.

An eerie stillness descended. People stood silent, in dread and awe and shame, all of them witnesses to something they neither understood nor desired. One woman was weeping. The bank clerk, white with horror, eyes drilling into Tallis, murmured, ‘Murderer.’

“Job done,” Stu said, the relief in his voice drowned out by the gathering clamour of local police and forensics in full cry.

Tallis nodded, feeling hollow.

CHAPTER ONE

One year later

RED silk tie or navy? Paul Tallis held both of them against the white shirt and dark blue jacket hanging from the top of the doorframe. Maybe red would come across as a bit aggressive, a bit over the top. Then again, he wanted to look as if he knew how to do the business. But he was supposed to be protecting a school-kid, not some foreign head of state, he reminded himself. Navy, then. Gave the impression of responsibility, reliability, confidence. Yeah, navy was definitely a safer bet.

He turned away, satisfied with his choice though not quite so thrilled with the out-of-shape figure reflected back from the long mirror propped against the wall. At six feet two inches, he was able to carry several extra pounds and get away with it, but lately his trousers had started to feel a little tight around the waistband. Sure, he knew that to the untrained eye he still cut it. It was more a case of not being as super-fit as he used to be. Always happened when you reined back on a fairly demanding exercise regime. Fact was, in twelve months he hadn’t run much, been to the gym or cycled. Hadn’t seen the point. The best he could muster was a quick thrash up and down Max’s swimming pool and that was only because he wanted to impress the au pair. Pathetic, he knew. Felka was considerably younger than himself, bright and fresh-faced, and with an innate sweetness and innocence that he had no intention of despoiling in spite of the fact that, on a number of occasions, she’d made it quite plain that she wouldn’t have minded.

He let out a sigh, smoothing his not-so-taut six-pack. No matter, he thought. His future employers weren’t going to interview him in the buff, and with his clothes on he still presented a commanding figure. He clowned a face in the mirror, thrust his chin out, the way he did when he shaved. Still had all his own hair and teeth, which at thirty-three he bloody well ought to have. The faint scar across his forehead made him look interesting rather than dangerous, he thought, and he still had the up-for-it look in his eyes. He grinned and winked. Once he got the job, could see a way forward again, he’d get back to his old exercise routine, get back to his old self. He’d done it before after he’d spent a stint undercover early on in his police career—nothing more guaranteed to screw up your brain and pile on the pounds than hanging out with people whose lives revolved around pubs, clubs and fast food. He’d had to drink so much alcohol to fit in that his weight had ballooned to Sumo proportions.

Not like Stu, Tallis thought grimly. The more the guy drank, the thinner he seemed to get. Last time they met he’d been wasted before Tallis had sunk his first pint. Tallis had ended up piling him into his car, a shit-heap in Stu’s opinion, and taking him back home or hame—the more drunk, the stronger Stu’s Glaswegian accent. Stu’s hame had turned out to be a room in a house full of deadbeats. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Yet Tallis recognised that he, too, was one of them. It still astonished him how quickly one’s fortunes could change. In one single minute he’d ripped up the ground from beneath his feet. One false decision and the world, as he’d once known it, had changed for ever. To say he regretted the shooting didn’t even come close. An innocent woman had died, for Chrissakes, but there were other regrets: the collapse of the team and loss of personal identity.

It took him twenty minutes to shower, shave and clean his teeth, five minutes to dress and splash on the last dregs of aftershave. He’d shined his shoes the night before. Half an hour to kill, he thought, glancing at his watch, flicking on the radio. “The men were arrested in South London last night. The raid followed a long period of surveillance by police and MI5. It’s thought…” Tallis switched off and picked up the TV guide, idly flicking through the pages. He usually worked in the evening so TV was a bit of a luxury. Maybe he’d take in one of those home make-over shows, he thought, closest you could get to property porn. Might give him some ideas about how to transform his less than glorious surroundings. He suddenly became acutely aware of the horrible floral design of the wallpaper, the decrepit-looking gas fire in the tiled fireplace, the campaign table which was really a fold-down from Ikea and for which he’d paid six quid, the smell of old lady and lavender. In the thirty years his grandmother had lived there, she hadn’t changed a thing.

The phone rang. Tallis eyed it warily. After the shooting, and in spite of strict orders not to talk, his phone had never stopped. Since his fall from grace, it had never rung at all. He’d become a social and professional pariah: no status, no self-esteem. Someone once said that you could judge a man’s standing in the world by the number of calls he received. Applying that criterion, his was on the same level as an amoeba’s.

“Paul, it’s Max. You OK?”

Tallis smiled in relief. “Bit nervous.”

“Yes, well… erm, there’s been a change of plan.”

“Yeah? No problem,” Tallis said cheerfully. Flexible was his middle name, especially if it meant the prospect of landing a decent job that paid well. Since his decision to leave the force, finding work had proved a soul-destroying task. There weren’t too many orthodox lines of business for an out-of-work killer, as he’d been famously dubbed. To keep body and soul together, he’d taken a rubbish job as a security man at a warehouse. The work was tedious in the extreme, the pay lousy, with the result that he was seriously into his overdraft. That his grandmother had left him her crumbling wreck of a bungalow should have saved him from penury, but he’d spent so much time and money attempting to sort out the faulty plumbing and dodgy wiring, it was haemorrhaging his already limited resources.

“Thing is,” Max said, strain in his voice, “they’ve changed their minds, Paul.”

“Changed their minds about having a bodyguard or changed their minds about me?”

Sweaty silence. Tallis imagined Max rubbing his face with a paw of a hand. In looks, they were quite similar—tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, ‘fucking good-looking’ according to Max in one of his more expansive moments. “It’s all my fault,” Max said. “I should have come clean, told them the truth from the start.”

Tallis almost laughed. The truth that we were given duff intelligence, he asked himself, or the truth that we were obeying orders? “Don’t worry, mate. Notoriety does strange things to people. To be honest, I’m not sure babysitting an over-pampered public schoolboy is really my thing anyway.” Tallis felt his neck flush. Pride was a terrible thing. Another month playing security guards and he’d go mental and be no good to anyone.

“I feel really bad about this,” Max said, deeply apologetic. “It was me who put you up to it, for Christ’s sake. Look, if there’s anything I can do…”

“You can. Have a nice holiday.” Tallis loosened the tie from his collar. “When do you fly?”

“Leave Heathrow tonight. Kids are so excited they’re already driving Penny nuts. Think she’s beginning to regret not taking Felka with us.” Paul smiled. He liked Penny enormously but she didn’t strike him as a natural at motherhood. How would she cope for six whole weeks without her au pair?

Max was talking again, hell-bent on trying to make amends. “Why not take a trip out to the sticks, check on the house, give it a once-over?”

“Doesn’t need a once-over. It was me who advised you on security, remember?”

“Well, go and see if Felka’s all right. She doesn’t leave until tomorrow. You could have a swim, make sure she’s not throwing a party or entertaining unsuitable young men.”

“You asking me?” Paul laughed.

“Keep an eye on her, I said, not get your leg over.”

“The thought had never crossed my mind.” It had, and often, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Max. For reasons that baffled him, he’d acquired an unfair reputation for being a womaniser. In his book, there was a huge difference between having erotic thoughts about a woman and having base designs on one. It was all right to look and admire, but not to act on every instinct, which was why he was careful to keep his thoughts and emotions about the female of the species to himself. Somewhere lurking at the back of his mind, he suspected his brother had started the rumour. From the time they had been in their teens, Dan had always been jealous of the fact that women were more attracted to his younger brother than to him. So much easier for Dan to accuse him of being a letch rather than recognising the simple, uncomplicated truth that women preferred men who were nice to them.

“And if you need a decent set of wheels …”

“What’s wrong with my car?”

“Where to start?” This time Max laughed.

Tallis had to admit that his car was neither cool nor sexy. It wasn’t even very practical. Price alone had guided his decision to buy a Rover. After the demise of Longbridge, they had been practically giving them away.

“I’d look on it as a personal favour if you took the BMW out for a good run,” Max said persuasively. “No point the lovely beast sitting in the garage for all that time.”

Tallis almost punched the air. Things were looking up. This wasn’t just any BMW. This was a Z8, the dog’s bollocks. “Deal.”

“Good man,” Max said, voice warm with absolution as he cut the call.

It was too early for a beer but Tallis decided to have one anyway. Screw the fitness and weight-loss regime.

CHAPTER TWO

SEVERAL beers later, Tallis was in danger of feeling maudlin. He’d changed back into jeans and T-shirt, feet up on the coffee-table because there was nobody there to tell him not to, and was considering his lowly domain. The road in which he lived, a mile out of Birmingham city centre, was the type where people regularly dumped litter and the remains of last night’s tikka Marsala in the privet. Dog shit regularly anointed the pavement. Compliments of the next-door neighbour’s fourteen-year-old son, rock guitar blasted out at all times of the night loud enough to shatter the windows.

Tallis could cope with all that—just. But not the bungalow. Bungalows were for others—disabled, retired and those who cared not a jot about image. In short: for old people. For a bloke with all his life ahead of him, living in one was a travesty. Because of his less than cool surroundings, he’d actually bottled out of bringing a woman back. Once. The thought made him feel ashamed and disloyal. His gran had been exceptionally generous in leaving the place to him but, aside from the obvious lack of refurbishment, Tallis felt she’d handed him a poisoned chalice. Certainly his older brother, Dan, already as bitter as cyanide, viewed it that way, citing his younger brother’s devious ability to deceive and wheedle his way into an old woman’s affections as clear evidence. His mum had been restrained in any form of criticism, (difficult as it was her mother who’d played fairy godmother). Dad, utterly predictable, had taken Dan’s side.

Tallis wondered what his grandmother would have made of the ensuing family fallout. He’d loved her to bits. A Croatian by birth, she’d never fully got the hang of English even though she’d lived most of her life in Britain after marrying his grandfather. It had been Gran who’d given him a love of foreign language, Gran who listened when nobody else had, who’d never judged, never taken sides, and though he was glad that she wasn’t around to witness his current circumstances, he badly missed her. Not that he’d been short of takers desperate to hear his tale of woe. Plenty of people had listened at first, the I-jackers, as he thought of them, the people who’d hijack a conversation with the express determination to talk only of themselves. Fortunately, Tallis had Max, the closest he’d come to finding a confessor. They’d met several years before in a pub and had hit it off from the start, probably because both of them had been three-quarters of the way down a bottle of Bourbon at the time. Max, Tallis often thought, was the most elegant drunk he knew. Beyond this, and their joint lust for life, theirs was an unlikely pairing. Max came from a wealthy background where nannies and public school, university and a job in the City were normal. Tallis was a guy who came from humble and uncomplicated origins—left school at sixteen to join the army, eight years on joining the police. Then much, much later, had made the screw-up of all screw-ups.

Her name was Rinelle Van Sleigh, a Liberian who’d overstayed her visa. The explanation for her frantic flight from the police that mid-July morning a year before was explained by the stolen pair of trainers she had been concealing in her rucksack. Perhaps her over-reaction to the law had been connected to growing up in a country where coups and civil war had been commonplace. Aside from his brief stint in the army, Tallis had heard enough from his grandmother about the breakdown of law and order that could befall a nation, the hatred and suspicion it generated, and the madness that ensued. Maybe the Liberian girl had recognised something horribly familiar in the eyes of the plain-clothes police officers, and in her fear, a fear not misplaced, had turned tail and run. Tallis revisited that day often, playing the events through in his mind, frame by frame stopping, rewinding. To kill the wrong person was a firearms officer’s worst nightmare. That it had happened to others before provided no solace. But to kill someone you instinctively believed to be innocent was like a fast track to eternal damnation.

Tallis rubbed his temple, replacing the image of the dying woman with the memory of the second-by-second news coverage, the graphic headlines. Only the better quality press had emphasised the importance of correct intelligence, the chain of command, the fact it had been a dynamic or fast entry rather than an operation of containment based on accumulated information. As usual everyone had blamed everyone else. Overnight he’d shot to fame but one not of his choosing. He’d heard himself and Stu described as gunslingers and woman-haters, of being institutionally racist.

Tallis grimaced at the irony. Throughout his life he’d constantly defended the rights of the black man, mainly against his own father, a man who harboured a rabid and irrational dislike of people whose skin colour was different from his own. To be accused of holding those same views was a terrible insult to Tallis. For a time he and Stu had been the talking point of every radio phone-in and television show. While experts had opined and members of the public heaped insults, Tallis had received death threats. All this while he’d been on suspension, another force engaged in finding out if rules had been broken, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigating the case with the certainty of an internal inquiry and the possibility of criminal proceedings.

He recalled the debrief afterwards. Stu had already chewed his ear off on the journey back to base.

“You entered that shopping centre with the absolute conviction that you were doing the right thing, ridding the world of a bomber, saving people’s lives.”

“Yes, but—”

“No but,” Stu snarled, sharp eyes glinting.

So Tallis told the great and the good what they wanted to hear: yes, he’d believed that lives were in danger; yes, he’d believed the woman had been a suicide bomber; yes, he’d been convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt.

He’d been returned to a desk job and normal duties, the standard procedure following suspension, and usual after the discharge of a firearm. He didn’t remember much of his time spent in the close company of a computer. He’d been too much in a state of frozen shock. Everything had seemed amplified. People, noise, as if all his senses had been in revolt. He’d become almost agoraphobic.

And then there’d been Belle. Immediately his mind tumbled with memories. His heart began to race. He thought about that very first time they’d gone out for dinner. He’d wanted to take her to an Italian restaurant but, because they were meeting out of town, they’d settled for a tiny French place serving international cuisine. The food hadn’t been bad but neither of them had eaten very much, as he recalled. Time had seemed too short for something so functional. But there had been something else. With each precious second that had passed, both of them had known that they were closer to saying goodbye, both of them, even then, had sensed how it would end between them. As it turned out, and for everyone’s sake, they’d agreed to go their separate ways, a hard decision made painful by the simple truth that they loved each other. After the shooting, he’d wanted to call her but had known it wouldn’t have been fair on either of them. He didn’t have the right to open old wounds.

Eventually, he was cleared through the formal channels of any wrongdoing, though absolution in his own eyes was harder to come by. Legal proceedings against the force were still pending, the inquest adjourned. Offered his old job back, he didn’t feel up to it. Hesitation could get him killed. Fear might kill someone else.

Staring at walls dingy with age and neglect, he thought the bungalow reeked of defeat. He really ought to get off his rear and go to the supermarket, if only because the beer had run out.

He’d taken to frequenting the cheap end of the food market. Sunglasses protecting his identity, he could lurk behind aisles piled high with boxes of cut-price goods without being noticed. The products all seemed to have strange-sounding names that reminded him of supermarkets in the far reaches of the Czech Republic. The clientele were interesting, too, in a lurid sort of a way. In summer they sported tattoos and nipple rings, in winter cheap, shiny imitation leather jackets—and that was just the women. The blokes had necks like tree-trunks, shaved heads and what’s your problem expressions.

Making a brief detour to the newsagent’s to pick up a copy of Loaded magazine, he dropped the shopping off at home—stashing the beer in the fridge, frozen stuff in the freezer—and grabbed some swimming gear, then headed the car south-west. Traffic was dense, with a succession of roundabouts, traffic lights and speed restrictions to further impede the motorist. The more ground he put between him and the city, the leafier the landscape. Clent Hills stretched out on one side, a whisper of Kinver Edge on the other, nothing like the place where he’d grown up in rural Herefordshire, home and county to the Special Air Service. Once upon a time, Tallis had nursed hopes of joining the SAS but hadn’t been considered good enough. It had been the first time he’d seriously encountered disappointment. Up until then he’d seemed to have led a charmed life, which was probably why he’d dealt with the rejection in his laid-back, don’t-give-a-fuck fashion. For the rest of his brief, if eventful, army career, he’d stuck with the First Battallion, the Staffordshire Regiment.

Belbroughton, the highly desirable village in which Max Elliott and his family lived, was the kind of place where the size of houses was only rivalled by the size of lawnmowers. Even the council homes were gabled. So-called down and outs could generally be found sitting on one of the many wooden benches donated by some worthy, consuming strong cider while speaking into expensive mobile phones. Cars louchely parked on block-paved driveways fell into the BMW, Mercedes, Porsche category. Aside from the village’s upmarket credentials, the place was steeped in history, a subject dear to Tallis’s heart. It was a regret to him that he’d not taken the subject more seriously at school, though he’d done his best in later years to make up for it and educate himself. When walking through the village on previous visits he’d studied a plaque on the main wall that told the story of a young woman convicted of theft and packed off to Australia. He’d also discovered various references to scythemaking, indicating that it had once been the mainstay of Belbroughton, the industry having petered out somewhere around the late 1960s. As Tallis drove past yet another multi-million-pound house, he couldn’t get past the feeling that had assailed him when he’d first discovered the village, that he’d entered a little oasis of glamour. God knew what the neighbours thought of him driving up to Max’s not inconsiderable pile in his lowly Rover.

Keying in the code to the security pad, the electronic wrought-iron gates swung open allowing Tallis a tantalising glimpse of the house, which was Italianate in style with arches and domes to rival the Duomo. On his first visit there, Tallis had harboured serious suspicions about what exactly Max Elliott did for a living, fearing either he was a drug dealer or bent lawyer rather than the City financier he proved to be.

A paved drive led to a gravelled area and what Tallis called the tradesman’s entrance but was really the indoor pool and sauna. Spotting him through the glass, Felka beamed, threw aside the magazine she was reading, and swivelled her neat, deliciously put-together body off the sun-lounger to greet him. Tallis got out of the car, glanced up and smiled for the camera, part of the state-of-the-art security system. He’d personally advised Max on it free of charge after discovering that his mate had been royally ripped off by a cowboy security firm that didn’t know the first thing about protection and was only interested in taking a sizeable wedge of the client’s money each month on a bogus maintenance contract.

“Paul,” Felka said, “I didn’t expect you.” Felka had trouble with x’s and s’s, so it sounded like ‘eshshpect’, one of the many quirky things Tallis found deeply sexy about her. She had flame-red hair, pale features and the greenest eyes imaginable. Slight in build, she was wearing a bikini displaying perfectly rounded breasts and an enviably flat stomach. He suddenly felt old.

She tipped up on her toes and planted two impossibly chaste kisses, one on either side of his cheek. Tallis inhaled her perfume of musk and roses. “Max said you had an interview.”

“Change of plan.” He shrugged.

She studied his face for a moment, her expression suddenly serious. “You are sad,” she said. “I can tell.”

That obvious, he thought. He hoped she wasn’t too much of a mind reader—she’d be appalled by what else he was thinking. “Not for long.” He broke into a grin.

“Come,” she said, grabbing his hand. “We swim.”

“No splashing,” he teased.

The pool was thirteen and a half metres by six and a half, and over two metres deep at the far end. The floor, painted turquoise, gave the impression of clear Caribbean. Tallis let her push him in but not before he’d scooped her up off her feet, making her squeal, and threatened to dump her unceremoniously into the water.

“Promise we talk in Polish,” he said laughing, dangling her squiggling body over the edge.

“I promise. I promise,” she shrieked.

“Rude words, too.”

“Yes, yes.” Yesh, yesh.

Afterwards they sprawled out and watched the warm early July sunshine pour through the smoke-tinted windows. Several statues graced the outer perimeter of the pool. They looked like snooty guests, Tallis thought, sipping the coffee Felka had made.

As far as he understood, Felka was leaving to go home for a holiday the following morning, home being Krakow—a city on the river Vistula. According to Felka, and if he’d grasped it right, Krakow had been the capital during the fifteenth century, existing now as an industrial centre producing tobacco and railway equipment. Who needs work? he thought. This way I get history, geography and a foreign language all in the space of an afternoon.

“Can you tell me how to get from Euston station to Heathrow?” She was speaking in Polish again.

Tallis took a stab at it, pretty sure he had the right vocabulary but, worried he might send Felka off in the wrong direction, lapsed back into English. “Don’t want you ending up in Scotland.” He grinned. “I’ll draw you a map.”

“Good idea,” she said, jumping to her feet. That was the thing he loved about her. She was so full of zing. As she scurried off, he took a long look at her luscious, retreating form. There was something unbeatable about a semi-clothed woman with wet hair.

Felka returned with a notepad and pen and dropped them playfully on his chest. He picked them up and lightly swiped her bottom, making her break into peals of laughter. Sketching the route, he advised her to take a cab rather than tube because she had a very poor sense of geography. She’d once managed to get lost with the kids in the city centre. Penny had spent nearly an hour walking up and down trying to locate her, and that had been with the aid of mobile phones.

Felka frowned. “Much expensive.”

“Too expensive,” he corrected her.

She stuck the tip of her tongue out, half playful, half come-on. Tallis ignored the gesture. “Believe me, it would be safest.”

“No, no, I take the tube. I like the tube,” she insisted.

“But—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” Tallis sighed, advising her to take the Victoria line Euston to Green Park and change onto the Piccadilly line for Heathrow. He wrote it all down, sketched a map and handed her the notepad. “You must be looking forward to seeing your family.” He could manage that bit in Polish.

“Especially my little brother,” Felka said. “He changes so quickly. I hope he’ll still remember me.”

“‘Course he will.” How could he forget? Tallis thought.

“And you, Paul. You have a brother, too?”

Tallis flinched, wondering what was coming next. “Yes.”

“His name?”

“Dan. We don’t see so much of each other,” he added quickly, heading her off. “You know how it is.” Except she didn’t, of course. A sudden memory of Dan piling into the bedroom they’d shared, years before, flashed through his mind. Dan had had an infuriating habit of getting up in the middle of the night and switching the lights full on, often to locate his copy of Penthouse magazine. It hadn’t mattered that Tallis had been fast asleep. Usually it had ended in violence. And that had meant their dad had got stuck in. On Dan’s side.

Felka frowned. “That’s sad. Brothers should be close. Is he older or younger than you?”

“Older, but not by much—eighteen months or so.” Not that it felt like it. For as far back as he could remember, Dan had been like their father’s emissary, taking every opportunity to push him around, spy on his activities, report back to base. Because of Dan, he’d been continually in trouble—caught smoking red-handed, out after dark, consuming his first illicit pint, you name it. Because of Dan, he thought darkly, he’d often been humiliated in front of his mates. She nodded thoughtfully then spontaneously took his hand, squeezed it. “I will miss you.”

“No, you won’t. Think of all those lovely Polish lads.”

Felka pulled a face.

“You don’t like Polish boys?”

She let her viper-green eyes rest on his then slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him close. “I think I prefer English,” she whispered softly, nibbling his ear.

Tallis felt quite the gentleman as he drove home. It had been a long time since he’d so firmly rejected the charms of a lovely young woman. It wasn’t that he didn’t fancy her. He’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to, but he knew in his heart of hearts that Felka neither wanted nor needed him. She only thought she did. And she really was very young. There were too many sad bastards flaunting their younger and more malleable girlfriends to shore up their own inadequacies, and Tallis didn’t intend to join their club. Fortunately, his gentle put-down hadn’t offended Felka. He’d told her how gorgeous she was, sensitive and intuitive beyond her years, but that an affair was out of the question because of Max and Penny—they were his friends and she was their employee. It wouldn’t look good. She’d nodded solemnly then broken into a radiant smile. “Another time,” she said.

“Another place,” he agreed in a worldly way, believing he’d spotted something like relief in her young eyes.

“We’re still mates, then,” she said, slapping his arm.

“Best mates.” He laughed.

He got home shortly after six, intending to take something out of the freezer and bung it in the microwave. He’d bought some cheap Italian wine from the petrol station on the way back in honour of his considerable self-restraint and a mark of his confirmed celibate status. If it was good enough for Catholic priests, it was good enough for him.

He parked the car in the lean-to, loosely described by estate agents as a carport, and walked up the short path to the front door, expecting to encounter the same old silence. Except he didn’t. There wasn’t sound exactly, nothing you could readily identify. It was more a recognition of some disturbance, something different, the kind of feeling he’d sometimes experienced as a soldier.

Tallis put the bottle of wine down on the low wall that edged the garden, and moved forward cautiously. Since receiving death threats, he was more attuned to detail, to things not being quite right. A quick visual told him that the porch door was locked, the front door closed. All just as he’d left them. Skirting down the side of the building, he checked the back—again, door firmly locked, no telltale footprints in the overgrown borders, no sign of broken glass or break-in. Peering in through the windows, he saw no signs of disturbance in the kitchen, nobody lurking in the bedroom. Bathroom window was shut tight. At least bungalows had some advantage, he thought as he continued his tour of duty. They might be easy to break into but they were also a doddle to check and clear. Feeling the pressure ease, he glanced in through the side window at the doll-sized sitting room, and tensed. The image seemed to dance before his eyes so that he had to blink twice to take it in: an immaculately dressed blonde, classy looking, hair swept back in a ponytail, long tanned legs, sitting on his sofa, as cool as you like. To add insult to injury, she was flicking through his brand-new copy of Loaded.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHO the bloody hell are you?”

The woman glanced up as if he were an unreasonable husband demanding to know why his dinner wasn’t on the table. “You normally greet people like this?”

“Only when they break into my house.”

She arched an imperious eyebrow and transferred her gaze to the walls. Tallis felt his jaw tighten. “How did you get in?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

She smiled—nice set of white teeth—and leant towards him. “Aren’t you a tiny bit intrigued to know why I’m here?”

She sat back again, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them. She was wearing a dark brown linen dress with a plain square neck and three-quarter-length sleeves. Her arms were slender, fingers long. Apart from a thin gold necklace, she wore no other jewellery. He estimated her as being the same age as him, possibly a little older. She was actually very beautiful, he thought, and she knew it. She had soft brown eyes displaying vulnerability she didn’t possess, small breasts, about which he had a theory. Women with small breasts were dangerous. You only had to look at Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish pope with whom it was rumoured she’d had an incestuous relationship. Even by sixteenth-century standards, Lucrezia was judged to have been cruel and avaricious.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Sonia Cavall.” She extended a hand. He didn’t take it. She let it drop. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing,” Tallis said, ignoring the invitation.

“I’d have thought that was obvious.” She put the magazine away, slowly, carefully, met and held his gaze.

He blinked. This was barmy. She was so composed, so in control. Was he going mad? Or was he missing something? Horrible questions hurtled through his brain. Had they met before? Had he been drunk? Had they slept together? Christ on a crutch, was she pregnant with his child? No. He gave himself a mental shake. He was always very, very careful about stuff like that and he hadn’t slept with a woman for God knew how long. “Explain or I’ll call the police.”

Again the astringent smile. “Oh, I don’t think so.” Confident. Authoritative. He immediately thought spook. “Consider me your fairy godmother.”

Playing games, are we? Tallis thought. All right, baby, let’s play. He donned a smile. “I never read the Brothers Grimm.”

“Should have. They’re quite instructive. Full of moral fervour.”

“Can we cut the crap now?” He was still smiling but he felt fury. Whoever this woman was, she was too smart for her own good.

“What if I said you’ve been selected for a job?”

“What job?” Suspicion etched his voice.

“Finding people.”

He burst out laughing. “Come to the wrong house. It’s not what I do.”

“What do you do?” There was a scathing intonation in her voice.

He should have thrown her out on the spot yet he badly wanted to know what this was all about. “What sort of people?”

“Illegals.”

“A job for Immigration, I’d have thought.”

Cavall said nothing. Tallis tried to fill the gap. Immigration remained in rather a pickle, which was why the latest Home Secretary, like all the rest, had pledged to take a robust approach to failed asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants.

“We’re talking about people released from prison after serving their sentences,” she told him, “and mistakenly released into the community.”

“Mistakenly?” Tallis suspected some inter-agency cock-up.

“They should have been deported,” Cavall said, ice in her voice.

“Not exactly original.” Tallis shrugged. “It’s happened before.”

“But these individuals are highly dangerous. It’s feared they may reoffend.”

“Ditto.” And everyone knew the recidivist rate was high. The only difference was that released British lifers were monitored. One slip, even for a relatively minor offence like drunk and disorderly, could land them back in prison. The people Cavall was alluding to had presumably dropped off the radar.

“A decision has been taken at the highest level to have them located.”

Tallis shrugged. So what? he thought. Bung them on a website or something.

Cavall’s face flashed with irritation. “You don’t seem to understand the seriousness of the threat.”

“Oh, I understand. It would be a source of great political embarrassment should it come to the attention of the public, particularly if one of them should reoffend.”

“We don’t want to spread panic and fear,” she said evenly.

“So put your finest police officers onto it.”

“We already have.”

“We?”

“I represent the Home Office.”

This time Tallis’s smile was genuine. Which bit? he wondered. “So this is an arse-covering exercise.”

“Damage limitation,” she corrected him.

To protect reputations and ease some politician’s way up the greasy ladder of success, he thought. “Britain’s finest failed, that right?”

“I’m sure you’re aware of the pressure on police resources.”

Code for they’d got nowhere. Doesn’t quite square, he thought. The British live in a surveillance society. With over four million cameras tracking our every move, each time we log on, use our mobile phone or sat nav in our car, fill in a form, make a banking transaction, someone is logging it. Except, of course, the information is fragmented. It takes a measure of expertise to draw the right inferences, match the electronic footprints and plot the trail back to an identity. While the ordinary citizen might feel threatened and guilty until proven innocent by the power of technology, a determined criminal could still manipulate it and evade detection. Either he stole someone else’s identity or had no identity at all. “Why not wheel out the spooks?”

“Snowed under with the terrorist threat.”

Tallis flinched. The security service had foiled many plots since 9/11 and 7/7. They were mostly doing a fine job in difficult circumstances, but the death of Rinelle Van Sleigh was a stain on their history. Somehow, somewhere, there’d been a chronic lapse of intelligence, and for that an innocent woman had paid with her life. To a far lesser degree, so had he: life as he’d once known it was over. “So these individuals aren’t on control orders?”

“They pose no terrorist threat,” Cavall confirmed.

“What happens if and when they’re found?” He suspected a form of extraordinary rendition.

“They’re handed over and deported, like I said.”

“Handed over to whom?”

“I think you’re forgetting that these are extremely dangerous individuals.”

“They still have rights.”

“So did their victims.” Her look was so uncompromising, he wondered fleetingly whether she’d been one of them. “Rest assured, they’ll be handed over to the authorities responsible for deportation.” She smiled as if to put his mind at rest.

“How do you know these people haven’t already left the country?”

“They don’t have passports.”

Tallis blinked. Was she for real? “Heard the word ‘forgery’?”

“No evidence to suggest that’s the case.”

Tallis stroked his chin. That had not been a good answer. There was something fishy about all this. Too much cloak and dagger, smoke and mirrors. What authorities, what agencies? “You say a decision was taken at the highest level.”

“From the very top.”

“And it’s legal?”

“Yes.”

He studied her face—impassive, confident, certain, the type of woman who once would have appealed to him. He idly wondered, in a blokish way, whether she was beddable. “Why me?”

“Because you have the right qualities. We need someone who’ll follow orders, but also kick down doors. We need someone with a maverick streak, Paul.”

Tallis frowned. He didn’t recognise the man she was describing.

“At eighteen years of age, during the first Gulf War, you were part of a reconnaissance troop that came under friendly fire by the Americans. You rescued a colleague showered with shrapnel and pulled several others to safety then, still under fire, retrieved an Iraqi flag, waving it in surrender until the firing ceased. For that you received the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for Heroism. The citation ran ‘outstanding courage, decisiveness under fire’. On joining the police, you became a firearms officer, during which time you fell out with a sergeant who tagged you as a chancer.”

A stupid, dangerous bastard, Tallis remembered. So concerned with procedure, the man daily risked the lives of his men. “I was put back on the beat.”

“And swiftly caught the attention of CID, where you became rather a good undercover operative until you got your old job back and then graduated to the elite undercover team. You also speak a number of foreign languages. Your credentials are impeccable.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

A killer smile snaked across Cavall’s face. “Trust me, Paul. I forget nothing.” She glanced at her watch, an expensive Cartier. “Goes without saying there’ll be generous terms and conditions.”

“Well, thank you but, no, thank you.”

“You don’t have to decide straight away.”

“The answer’s the same.”

Her smile lost some of its light. Tight creases appeared at the corners of her mouth. It was enough, Tallis thought. She’d briefly shown her cards; she hadn’t banked on him refusing her kind invitation. “Don’t be too hasty, Paul. This could be your chance to redeem yourself.”

“Redeem myself?” Tallis scoffed. “From what?”

Cavall leant forward. He caught a whiff of opulent scent. Her eyes were so dark they looked black. “A man sleeps with his brother’s wife and he doesn’t need redemption?”

“How fucking dare you?”

“Your weakness for the opposite sex is well documented,” Cavall said in an even tone.

“Get out,” Tallis said, barely able to control the mist of anger that was fast descending on him, his desire to physically remove her crushing.

“I’ll leave my card,” Cavall said smoothly, slipping one from the pocket of her jacket and placing it on the coffee-table. Her fingernails were short and unpolished. “One more thing,” she added, rising to her feet, “in certain matters, it’s better to obey one’s conscience than obey an order.”

Tallis stared at her. He suddenly felt as if his gut had been gouged with shrapnel.

“Don’t worry,” she smiled, walking stealthily towards the door, “I won’t whisper a word to anyone about your doubts about shooting the black girl.”

CHAPTER FOUR

TALLIS burrowed deeper beneath the duvet. After finishing the wine the night before, it had seemed the obvious thing to hit the Scotch. Bad idea.

He turned over, groaned, his head throbbing with the highlights of last night’s conversation. He’d already come to the deeply unsettling conclusion that Cavall had used her Home Office contacts to get into his home. How she’d been privy to such personal and what he’d thought confidential information he was less certain, though that too seemed to point in the same direction. Clearly, someone, somewhere had talked. Not that he was denying Cavall’s obvious powers of persuasion. Hers was a rare combination of cleverness and good looks. No point having those kind of attributes if she didn’t exploit them. She’d done her homework well, using the intelligence with rapier-like precision. He was still bleeding from the final thrust.

The only person who could have betrayed him was Stu, but Tallis didn’t believe his old friend would do such a thing, not even if he were absolutely trousered. Tallis pulled a pillow over his head, thinking that this was a morning when he really didn’t want to go out to play. Budding Jimmy Paige next door wasn’t helping. Perhaps if he lay very, very still, his head would stop hurting and his mind stop racing. But they didn’t. Instead, his thoughts dragged him kicking and screaming to a period of time he didn’t want to revisit, to him and Belle, to the exposure of their affair.

They’d been seeing each other intimately for about six months. On this particular occasion, Belle had told Dan that she was letting off steam in town with some of the girls from the Forensic Science Service where she worked. In truth, the two of them were meeting at a bustling country pub eighteen miles away. Later on, when Belle had called Dan from her mobile to let him know she’d be back later than expected, making the excuse that she was going onto a restaurant with the girls for something to eat, she’d accidentally left her phone line open. Worse, she’d left the phone on the table where they’d been sitting, exchanging sweet nothings. Dan had heard her every word, every promise, every declaration. He’s also identified the man to whom she’d been making them. The fallout had been devastating.

“Don’t you ever darken my door again,” his dad had spat in the aftermath. “Know what’s going to happen to you?” he’d added with breathtaking savagery. “You’ll end up walking the streets, holes in your shoes, stinking of piss, with a carrier bag in your hand. A useless nobody. Just like you’ve always been.”

And, yes, Tallis felt remorse, guilt about the affair, about the betrayal of his brother, but there had been extenuating circumstances. In reality, had either he or Belle exposed the truth, the consequences would have been cataclysmic.

Tallis struggled out of the covers and forced himself into a cold shower. Dried and dressed, he downed a handful of painkillers with a pint of water, made strong coffee and picked up the phone. It was coming up for noon. The line rang for a considerable time before being answered. Tallis didn’t dwell too heavily on the standard hi, how are you warm-up routine. He could tell from Stu’s voice how he was—grim, sense of humour failure, depressed.

“You ever spoken to anyone about my reservations about the Liberian girl?”

“Fuck you take me for?” From sour to fury in 0.4 seconds.

“Fine,” Tallis said.

“Why?” Stu growled. There was a paranoid hitch in his voice.

“Nothing, nothing. Know how it is. Too much time on my hands, I expect.”

His poor-old-soldier act had the intended effect of softening his friend’s prickly edges. “No luck, then? Still doing the warehouse job?”

“Got one or two irons in the fire,” Tallis said, jaunty. Who was he kidding?

“Glad for you, mate. Does your heed in, not having a proper job. I should know.”

“But you’re all right,” Tallis pointed out.

“Aye, pushing bits of paper around.” His voice was corrosive.

If Tallis had been a decent sort of a mate, he’d have told Stu that he was never going to get his old job back as long as he was on the sauce. Truth was, Stu wasn’t in the mood for listening. Hadn’t been for quite some time.

“You’ve got to stop thinking about the past, Paul. Won’t do you any good.”

Tallis could have said the same. Why else was Stu drinking himself to hell in a bucket? “You’re right,” he said. “Well, you take care, now.”

“Aye, have to meet for a bevy.”

“You’re on,” Tallis said, eyes already scanning his address book for the next number on the list.

This time it was answered after the first ring.

“Christ, you’re quick off the draw.”

“Right by the phone. How you doing?” Finn Cronin’s voice was full of warmth and, for a moment, Tallis was reminded of Finn’s brother, Matt. Matt had served with Tallis way back. They’d joined the army together, trained together, got drunk and pulled birds together. Matt had been the colleague he’d rescued under friendly fire. In spite of Tallis’s best efforts to save him, Matt hadn’t made it home.

“Good,” Tallis lied. “And you?”

“Not bad. Carrie’s pregnant again.”

“Christ, how many’s that?”

“This will be our fourth. But that’s it.”

“Going for the unkindest cut of all?” The thought made his eyes water.

“Carrie’s idea. Doesn’t want to spend the rest of her days on the Pill, screws around with her body apparently, mood swings, headaches, mostly.”

“Fair enough,” Tallis said, feeling awkward. “I was wondering if I could ask a favour.”

“You want to doss down at ours for the weekend.”

“Smashing idea but no.”

“Pity. I’d hoped we could have a repeat of the Dog and Duck.”

“Only just recovered from last time.” Tallis let out a laugh. “No, it’s…” He hesitated. Was he asking too much of Finn? Would it put him in a difficult position? Oh, sod it. “I need something checked out.”

“Come to the right man. I spend my entire life checking things out.”

“Well, it’s not a thing exactly, more a person, a cool-looking blonde, actually.”

“Tell me more,” Finn said, voice throbbing with curiosity. “I can feel my journalistic streak stirring.”

That what these Southerners call it, Tallis thought drily. “Her name’s Sonia Cavall. She’s connected to the Home Office.”

“The Home Office?” Finn sounded amazed. “And you’re asking me to check her out?”

“That’s about it, yes.”

“Nice looking, you said.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Not like what?” Finn laughed. So what’s it really like? his voice implied.

Tallis held back. He’d known Finn for years. After Matt’s death, they’d vowed never to lose touch so that whenever Tallis was in the West Country, he made a big point of seeing him. However long the absence, they always had a blast. Tallis was also godfather to Finn’s youngest son, Tom. Tallis trusted Finn, but he was still a journalist and God knew what he might do with the information. “She’s tying up loose ends, you know, from last year,” he said elliptically.

“Right,” Finn said, his curiosity seemingly appeased. “Timescale?”

“Soon as. Don’t kill yourself for it.”

They talked a bit. Tallis sent his love to Carrie and the kids, double-checked Tom’s birthday, which happened to be the following week then signed off.

In the two hours before he went to work, Tallis tidied up, pulled on some sweats and trainers, and went for a run in the hope that it would flush the last of the alcohol from his system. A shower and cheese sandwich later, and dressed in black trousers and a bright white shirt with the company logo emblazoned on the breast pocket, he drove the short distance to the out-of-town warehouse where he worked.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE job mainly consisted of looking important and acting as a glorified car-parking attendant. His working environment was a sentry box complete with barrier to allow staff in and out. Tallis spent much of his time studying grainy images captured on the archaic CCTV system. The only highlights were the odd spot check, usually in the run-up to Christmas when theft was considered a good little earner, and the occasional request by one of the ops managers to frisk a member of staff suspected of stealing. If said suspect was found guilty, it was down to Tallis to liaise with police and escort the culprit, usually swearing and protesting innocence, off the premises. Big deal. Lately, if there was more than one security man manning the fort, he’d taken to hiving himself off and reading one of the many cookery books distributed through the company at knock-off prices. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about how to feed a family of four healthily, or the various types of power foods reputed to keep the aging process in check. There was no literature for sad, lonely bastards on a tight budget.

The shift, which finished at nine-thirty at night, seemed to drag more than usual. Fortunately, Archie, one of the other security blokes, broke the boredom by sneaking out to the fish and chip bar up the road and smuggling enough booty back for both of them.

When Tallis returned home he half expected Cavall to be there. She wasn’t. All that lingered was the faint smell of her perfume, a pleasant contrast to salt and vinegar. He changed out of his work clothes and took a beer from the fridge, flipping off the top and drinking straight from the bottle. He’d barely sat down when the phone began to ring. He glanced at his watch. This time he felt no anxiety. There was only one person it could be: his mother.

She spoke softly so as not to wake his dad. Tallis asked after him.

“Not so good. Had another session of chemo yesterday. Always knocks him about.”

Tallis bit his lip. How long could his dad go on like this? he wondered. Did stubborn men take longer to die? “And you, how are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, stoic as usual. Only Tallis could detect the false note in her voice. Early on, when the cancer had been diagnosed, he’d thought her nursing experience would help. Now he believed it a curse. She was far too aware of the medical implications. However viewed, his dad’s condition was terminal, and his mother was in bits about it.

“Shall I come over?” he asked. “To visit you?” he added nervously. His father had refused to see him since the blow-up with Dan and Belle. With his dad being so ill, Tallis didn’t feel he could challenge the old man’s decision.

“It’s difficult at the moment,” his mum said, guarded. “I really don’t like leaving him.”

“What about the nurse? Couldn’t she stay with him for a while?”

“He wouldn’t like it.” No, Tallis thought. There was so much his father disliked—him, for a start. An early memory of sweating over maths homework flashed through his mind, his father standing over him, jaw grinding, demanding the correct answer and, in the absence of one, telling him he was no bloody good. For a long time Tallis had believed it to be true. They’d always had a strained relationship, probably because his dad had been a police officer and his youngest son had had a habit of running with the pack as a teenager. His dad had never been so pleased as when he’d decided to join the army. Of course, by then, Dan was already cutting it with West Midlands Police. Dan, the favoured one. Dan who never did any wrong.

“You need to take care of yourself, Mum, keep a bit back for you.” She hadn’t done in almost forty years of marriage, so why start now? he thought. Except now it was more important than ever. How else would she survive when his dad was gone?

“I’m all right, son. You mustn’t worry.” You have your own troubles was what she meant. “Any luck with finding another job? Didn’t you have an interview lined up?”

“Care of Max. It fell through,” he said honestly.

“Never mind. Something will turn up.” It just did, Tallis thought gloomily, but he’d have been mad to take it. “I spoke to Dan yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tallis said with cool. “All right, is he?”

“Fine. Settling in well, enjoying the new job. Seems to be finding his feet nicely. Says the other officers are friendly enough.” She sounded breathy and awkward.

“Good.” Not that it ever bothered Dan if colleagues liked him or not.

“He asked after you.”

“Did he?” Why? Tallis thought suspiciously.

“Don’t you think you two …?”

“No, Mum.”

“But you can’t go on like this.”

Why not? Tallis thought. His father hadn’t spoken to his own brother for over twenty years. Vendettas must run in the family. “The way it has to be.”

“Funny, that’s what Dan said.”

“Did he?” Tallis said, genuinely taken aback.

“I hate all this. You used to be so close.” Her memory was cushioned by nostalgia, Tallis thought. He mostly recalled being beaten up and humiliated. It had been Dan who’d swung a spade at his head from which he still bore the scar. “Remember when you were kids?” she said brightly. “You used to play removal men.”

“Doug and Kredge,” Tallis burst out, grinning in spite of his feelings. God knew where the names had come from. He’d have been about six at the time. Dan had played the foreman, bossy as ever. He’d been Doug, his oppo.

“You spent hours shifting stuff about.” His mother laughed.

His mother’s laugh was so rare these days it made Tallis misty-eyed. “No change there,” he told her.

“Still steeped in home alterations?”

“‘Fraid so. Not that I seem to be making a great deal of progress. The garden’s a wilderness and I still can’t decide whether I did the right thing, knocking the sitting room through to the kitchen.”

“Must be costing you a fortune.”

“It is.”

“Thought about getting a lodger?”

Only if they were dark-haired, thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six. Tallis smiled to himself. “I don’t think so, Mum.”

“Might help with the money.”

“The way the place is, I’d have to pay them.”

His mother laughed softly. “Think you’ll stay?” The question was floated like a feather on a millpond. He was aware that his father had suggested he sell up and divide the proceeds with Dan.

“For now,” Tallis said, noncommittal. “Depends on work.”

This seemed to satisfy her. They talked a little more, briefly mentioned his sister, Hannah, her kids, but he could tell that his mum was anxious to end the call. Probably time to administer more drugs to his father. She promised to phone again towards the end of the week. “Doug and Kredge,” Tallis murmured fondly, putting the phone down and returning to the sitting room.

“Jesus!”

Tallis started. He was freezing cold and mildly disorientated. Must have fallen asleep on the couch, he thought, looking blearily around him, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the unaccustomed light. Noise, he registered, noise from … Then it stopped. He staggered to his feet, went through the arch into the tiny galley kitchen and stared at the phone. Who the hell was calling on his landline at this time? Then another noise started, less intrusive. He dashed back to the sitting room to where his cellphone was vibrating on the coffee-table. He snatched it up, thinking it might be his mum, but didn’t recognise the number, then, shit, he thought his dad had taken a turn for the worse, that … “Max?” Tallis said, bewildered.

“Sorry to disturb you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, dizzy with relief. “I wasn’t in bed.” He should have been, he thought, checking his watch. It was three-thirty in the morning. “Something wrong?” Tallis said. ‘Course it bloody was.

There was an uneasy silence as though Max hadn’t quite rehearsed what he was going to say. “Just had the police on the phone.” His voice was grave. “They got my name from Felka’s belongings.”

“Something happened to her?” Of course it had. He knew only too well how people dished up bad news. It started in increments.

“She’s dead,” Max blurted out. “Murdered.”

Tallis felt as though someone had drop kicked him in the kidneys. Four questions pounded his brain. Where? How? When? Why?

“Found in Lisson Grove near the Harrow Road Flyover.”

“What the hell was she doing there?”

“God knows.”

“But I gave her detailed instructions. She was supposed to take the tube from Euston.”

“There was some problem with the rail network, an incident on the line. She had to change trains so she arrived at Marylebone instead. I guess she got disorientated.”

“How was she killed?” Tallis said tonelessly.

“Stabbed.”

“You know why?”

“Does there have to be reason?”

“I was wondering whether it was a mugging, or robbery.” Then another thought occurred to him. “Any sign of sexual assault?”

“Christ, not that they mentioned. Would they tell me a thing like that?”

“Maybe not.”

“They’ve arrested a guy, a fucking illegal, Somalian, the police said.”

Tallis briefly closed his eyes. Somalia was a country of extreme violence, some of which had been exported to Britain. Guy was probably zombied out on khat, a cheap, highly addictive drug, which had already crippled the Somalian economy and help fan the flames of civil war.

“Should have been deported months ago but went to ground,” Max continued.

Tallis swallowed. His throat was so tight it hurt. “Her parents been informed?”

“Just coming to that. They’re catching a flight to London later today, should arrive around five o’clock British time. I could get the next plane back, but …”

“You’ve already travelled halfway round the world.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not that. They don’t speak a word of English.”

“You want me to meet them?”

“Could you?”

“Of course.”

“You sure? I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“Not a problem, Max. Let me grab something to write with and I’ll jot down the details.”

Tallis kept a night-time vigil. He didn’t pray for the girl with the flame-coloured hair because, although brought up in the Catholic faith, he wasn’t a believer, but he did plenty of thinking. As darkness made its slow and ponderous passage into the light, Tallis recalled their first meeting. He’d been having a drink with Max. Felka had bounced into the drawing room and introduced herself. She’d seemed so eager to please, to make a good impression.

All sorts of other images flashed through his mind. Felka with the baby juggled on her slender hip, of her playing with the older boy, nursing the kids when they were unwell, cajoling them to eat their meals—quite the little mother. And only eighteen years of age. Snuffed out before she’d even got started. He frowned and drained the last dregs of the Scotch from the bottle into his glass. She’d once told him that her name meant lucky.

As the first rays of sun bled across a pale blue sky he thought of the balletic way in which she’d moved, how she’d spoken, that strange intonation on certain words, how she’d flirted. And, of course, he remembered the sensual way, the very last time he’d been with her, she’d whispered in his ear. Felka, he thought sadly, what a terrible, terrible waste of a life, and what a Godawful way to die—lost, alone, in pain in a strange land. He hoped her little brother would always remember her. Raising his glass, Tallis promised never to forget.

CHAPTER SIX

TALLIS paid no attention to the design of Marylebone Police Station in Seymour Street. Copshops were copshops. He’d been inside enough of them during his career not to take much notice.

He approached the Formica-topped reception desk and gave his name to a female desk sergeant, stating the reason for his visit. Instructed to take a seat, he was informed that Detective Inspector Ashby would be with him shortly. Tallis sat down, staring at the various posters on the wall, reading them without digesting a word. All he could think of was Felka and the miserable way she’d died.

“Paul Tallis?”

Tallis started, stood up, shaking the hand of the man standing in front of him. “Tony Ashby,” the DI introduced himself. He was mid to late thirties, small for a police officer, Tallis thought, but the world-weary eyes and the shadows underneath them were one hundred per cent copper. “You’re here regarding Miss Rakowski?”

“I’m collecting her parents from the airport.” Except the flight had been delayed due to a security alert.

“Ah, yes, they’re catching a later plane, I understand.”

“That’s why I came here.”

Ashby inclined his head. Confusion misted his eyes.

“Thought I could help,” Tallis said.

Confusion morphed to suspicion. “In what way?”

Tallis met his eye. “I used to be in the force.”

Yeah, yeah, Ashby’s expression seemed to say. So bloody what? Then something happened, like a light flashed on in his head. “Tallis,” Ashby murmured, emphasising the syllables. “You were one of the firearms officers got roasted in Birmingham.” He said it slowly, meaningfully.

Shit, Tallis thought. Should have kept my mouth shut.

Ashby suddenly beamed. “Coffee?”

They sat down in an interview room. “Bad luck, all that stuff in Birmingham,” Ashby sympathised, passing him a plastic cup of vile-looking brew. A couple of other officers wandered in and out for what seemed to Tallis fairly thin reasons. After the initial pleasure of being one of the guys again, he was starting to feel part celebrity, part animal in the zoo. “Sugar?” Ashby said.

“Thanks.” Cop coffee was impossible to drink without sweetener. “About Miss Rakowski,” Tallis said. Sounded strange to use her full name. He’d only known her as Felka. “Any idea what she was doing near the flyover?”

“Fuck knows. Getting lost, I presume.”

Tallis shook his head sadly. “She was given very specific directions to get to the airport, but from Euston. I even drew a map for her.”

“We found it. It was in her hand luggage. Thing is, there was an incident at Coventry, which meant a change of train and change of destination.”

“What type of incident?”

“Cow on the line.”

Tallis nodded for Ashby to continue.

“Know what kids are like. Any deviation and they panic. Can’t find their way out of a paper bag, most of them, and what with her being a foreigner.”

Tallis cast Ashby a sharp look. He didn’t think any offence was intended, probably just the way it had come out, and to be fair to the guy there was truth in the statement. He let his eyes drift and rest on a folder on the desk. Ashby seemed to recognise the manoeuvre. The shine went out of his good-natured expression. He threw Tallis a penetrating look. No, you don’t, he seemed to say. “Knew her well?”

“She’d worked for Mr Elliott, a good friend of mine. Yes, I knew her well. Good kid,” Tallis said, cringing at the phrase. “I presume you’ve logged her movements from the station.”

“Witnesses are hard to come by. Nobody seems to remember her.”

“Could always do a scene reconstruction.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Because you have your man.” Tallis smiled. “Fast result.” It sounded critical, even though he hadn’t meant it to be.

Ashby smiled back, cool. He pushed the folder over to Tallis. “Warn you, it’s not nice. Stabbed five times and throat cut for good measure.”

Tallis didn’t react, didn’t miss a beat. He opened the file, took out the crime-scene photographs, studied them. The first frames displayed the outer perimeter of the scene, shots taken from a distance—the road, the sign for the car park, the outline of bottle recycling bins. Then he looked at the close-ups. She was on the ground at an awkward angle, face to one side, barely identifiable. Too much blood. Too much chaos. It was an appalling scene, even to Tallis’s experienced eyes.

“Good job we’ve got the piece of shit off the street,” Ashby said.

“Post-mortem carried out?” Tallis said, looking up.

Ashby nodded.

“Any sign of sexual assault?”

“None.”

Thank God, he thought. Not that it made any difference. Felka was dead.

“There was extensive bruising,” Ashby said. “She put up quite a fight.”

“Weapon found?”

“Not yet. Serrated blade, judging from the nature of the wounds.”

“And the offender?”

“Fits the profile—young, opportunistic, disordered. Blood was found on one of his trainers and a substantial amount on his clothing.”

“So pretty conclusive?”

Ashby agreed. “We’re not looking for anyone else.”

“Think robbery might have been the motive?”

“Quite possibly. We’ve several reports from witnesses that he’d been hanging around the area, begging and behaving in a threatening manner to those not disposed to give him money. He was the last person to be seen with her.”

Tallis nodded, took one last look at the photographs. He didn’t doubt Ashby. It looked like an open-and-shut case. “Your suspect,” he said, “still banged up here?”

“Waiting for his brief.” Ashby exchanged a conspiratorial smile with Tallis. Duty briefs were busy people. It could take time for one to materialise. In the meantime, they could sweat the Somalian.

Ashby stretched back in his seat. For someone in charge of a murder investigation, he seemed very laid-back, Tallis thought, probably because the investigation was buttoned down and there was a distinct lack of urgency.

“Possible for me to see her?”

Apart from mortuary staff and investigating police officers, only close relatives of the deceased got to see the bodies of their loved ones, mostly for identification purposes. As the Rakowskis spoke no English, and he was to act as interpreter, he’d be needed to accompany them to the mortuary, but he really wanted to see Felka alone. Somehow, he felt as if he owed it to her.

Ashby frowned, studied him for a moment, his look one of extreme doubt. “Bit irregular,” he said.

“Not to worry,” Tallis began. “It was—”

“But I guess, as it’s you …” Ashby suddenly smiled “… we could stretch a point.”

Ashby drove. Conversation en route to the mortuary revolved around Arsenal, Aston Villa’s performance under Martin O’Neill and the latest cricket score. “Used to play a bit myself,” Ashby said, “but don’t get the time now.”

The formalities swiftly dispensed with, Tallis was shown into a viewing suite. The contrast from the crime scene shots was powerful. Cleaned up, Felka resembled a statue. Apart from where the gaping wound to her throat had been sewn up, and the bruising on her arms, her skin was the colour of old alabaster. In death, Tallis thought, she seemed childlike. He resisted the temptation to bend over her pale cheek and kiss her.

“That her?” Ashby said.

Tallis affirmed it was. “Extensive cuts to her hands,” he murmured.

“Defence injuries.”

Tallis nodded sadly.

“Come on,” Ashby said, giving his elbow a nudge. “I’ll buy you a drink. You look as if you could use one.”

Tallis cracked a smile, allowed Ashby to guide him back out into the world, to cleaner air untainted by death and decay.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE Rakowskis eventually arrived six hours later. They looked like any other bereaved parents—shocked, red-eyed and frightened. Tallis did his best to convey his condolences, but there was no language in the world that could soften the blow of losing a child, especially in such horrific circumstances. He stayed with them at the police station, acting as interpreter, escorting them to the mortuary and eventually booking them into a small hotel nearby. As he left to travel back to Birmingham the following morning, Mr Rakowski, a small man with ginger hair and a wispy, greying moustache, clasped his hand with both of his, thanking him profusely. Mrs Rakowski, handsome in spite of the emotional drain on her features, tipped up on her toes, kissed him on both cheeks, just as her daughter had done less than forty-eight hours before. As Tallis walked away, he felt choked.

Driving back up the motorway, exhaustion started to play games with his concentration, the misery he felt at Felka’s sudden and violent death inexplicably triggering thoughts of another long past miserable episode in his life when he and Dan had engaged in a fistfight in the middle of their parents’ kitchen. For weeks, Tallis had suspected that Dan had been stealing money from him. What had most upset him was that the loot had been so hard earned—he’d saved it up from many nights of laborious washing up in a rathole of a pub, then the only avenue to making money for a twelve-year-old schoolboy living out in the sticks.

He couldn’t remember now on what pretext he’d challenged his brother. Try as he may, he’d had no hard evidence that Dan was stealing yet he could come to no other conclusion.

Dan threw the first punch. “You little tosser,” he snarled, missing Tallis by inches.

“Tosser?” Tallis sneered back. “You’re the one with the mucky magazines. I’m surprised the whole village hasn’t heard you jerking off.”

Dan’s face contorted in rage. “Why, you—”

But he didn’t get any further. Tallis leapt at him like a lion taking down an antelope. The rest was a blur of shouts, blows, scrapes and fingernails in skin. That’s why Tallis didn’t realise that his father had stepped into the fray. Until it was too late.

“Come here, you little bastard,” his dad cried out, his cheek already beginning to swell where Tallis had landed one on him.

“What’s going on?” Tallis heard his mother cry.

“Stay out of this, Sandra.” Dad never called her by her Croatian name, Sanja.

“Accused me of stealing,” Dan said, bloated with indignation. “More likely, one of your mates. Right little tykes.”

“This true, Paul?” his dad demanded, eyes cold with fury, fists jabbing the electric air.

But Tallis’s gaze was on his mother. A curled hand was pressed hard against her mouth, the white knuckles making indentations in her skin. Her eyes were full of anguish.

“What, Mum?” Tallis said, suddenly feeling his skin crawl.

His mum turned imploringly to her husband. “I meant to put it back. I was going to,” she insisted. “It was just to tide us over, money being tight,” she mumbled, apologetic.

His father stared at her with belligerent eyes for what seemed like minutes then everyone gaped at Tallis. He, the accuser. He, the one who’d hit his father in anger. Dan, by contrast, wore the triumphant expression of someone who’d just won a phenomenal game of poker.

His father ensured that his youngest son was sorry for making such a poor error of judgement with a beating cut short only by his wife’s intervention. Neither of them noticed Dan looking on, mouthing Stupid cow in his mother’s direction.

He spent the rest of the journey wishing he’d taken Max up on his offer of the BMW. The Rover had about as much acceleration as a snail, and there were too many lorry drivers playing boy racers. Knights of the road, he thought grimly as yet another beast of a vehicle veered out in front of him without warning in a vain bid to overtake a similarly sized juggernaut.

His thoughts meandered to Cavall, the visit, illegal immigrants, what Finn would dig up, if anything. Questions that shouldn’t have concerned him spiked his thoughts. How do people go to ground? If they want to become invisible and lead an invisible life, where do they go? How do they reintegrate into a society when they never had a stake in it anyway? Easy, he thought, they don’t. They’re much too hard-wired for bad. All right, but I’m good at bad, he thought. So how would I go about finding someone who is hell-bent on disappearing into the ether? No National Insurance number to check, no Inland Revenue, no bank accounts, no driving licence. All the usual routes blocked.

He pulled off at the next service station, got out, stretched his legs and bought a shot of high-voltage caffeine. Taking a thoughtful sip, he reckoned the best place to look for people on the run would be in the kind of traditionally low-paid industries where nobody asked questions—building and construction, fruit picking, food preparation, kitchen work. In spite of threatened government clampdowns, unscrupulous employers still exploited those ripe for exploitation. But this was all obvious stuff. The guys Cavall was talking about had either returned to their criminal careers or gravitated towards people of the same ilk: in other words, one and the same. That’s why his skills undercover all those years before were important to Cavall, he realised. Infiltration was key to information.

He climbed back into the Rover, slotted Eminem into the CD player, jacking up the volume, and swiftly joined the M6. His first assignment undercover had been to chat up and gain the trust of a known drug dealer by posing as a dealer from another part of the country. For a short, adrenaline-spiked period of time, Paul Tallis hadn’t existed. Whether it was because he’d been a tearaway as a kid, or the dark side of his nature had come to the fore, he’d slipped into the role with unsettling ease. Humans, even the male of the species, were predisposed to gossip, and most secrets were leaked not because arms were twisted up around backs but in the natural course of trading information and friendship, usually down the pub. Two important lessons he’d learnt were never underestimate the enemy and always treat them with respect. But that was all a very long time ago. Undercover was all right, but it was the buzz of firearms that had turned him on, which was why, as soon as he’d been able to get back into it, he’d leapt at the chance.

Eminem was cracking on about one shot, one opportunity when Tallis’s mobile rang. He pulled over onto the hard shoulder, turned the volume down. It was Finn. “Cavall’s a political adviser with a formidable reputation. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and studied Political Science at Cambridge, where she was awarded a first class honours degree. Recruited by the Home Office, she worked for four years as a research officer before moving further up the food chain. Known to be a real babe with an obsession for meeting targets.”

Tallis scratched his ear. He couldn’t imagine Sonia Cavall being anyone’s baby, more the type of woman to freeze a guy’s plasma. “So you’re saying she’s above board?”

“As much as anyone in the department,” Finn said in a voice tinged with cynicism. “Gather she’s a bit of a cause merchant.”

Tallis thanked Finn and promised him a pint then pulled Cavall’s calling card from his pocket. He had meant to chuck it away, but Felka’s death had changed everything. Maybe a cause was what he needed.

After a hot shower and coffee, he rang Cavall’s number and listened to the click and buzz of the call being rerouted.

“Cavall speaking.” Not Sonia, not hello.

“Paul Tallis. That job you wanted me to do, I’ll take it.”

Silence.

“Hello, you still there?”

“I am.”

More silence.

Suffering Christ, the woman was a ball-breaker. What did she want him to do, beg? “Of course, if you’ve appointed someone else …”

“Why the change of mind?”

Change of heart would be more accurate, Tallis thought, but he wasn’t going to discuss his motives with Cavall. “Something to do with my bank balance. You’re all that stands between me and penury.” Actually, he hadn’t checked his finances for ages. He tried not to. Every time he did, he was deeper into his overdraft.

“So it’s money.” Her tone was scathing.

This time Tallis said nothing. After suffering at the hands of his father, he was no longer easily humiliated, and if she were going to be sodding difficult, he’d rather forget the whole thing. “I suppose I could fit you in tomorrow,” she said, finally. Sounded like a huge favour was being bestowed.

“Can’t,” he countered. No apology, no excuse, no reason. He had nothing planned, but he was fucked if Cavall was going to exert that much power over him.

“All right,” she said crisply. “Botanical Gardens, outside the Orangery, thirty minutes.” Click. Tallis closed the phone. Females for you, he sighed, unpredictable, capricious and utterly enthralling. No doubt about it, this was going to be a battle of wills. And in his experience, women always won.

He was three minutes early. Puffy clouds scudded across a sky the colour of a cormorant’s egg. The air seemed quieter because of the sunshine. It was going to be a nice day, he thought. Well, maybe.

Apart from staff, there were few people about at that time on a Thursday afternoon. Tallis paid the admission charge and made his way through the entrance, following a designated route outside and across landscaped gardens skirted by vibrant borders of rhododendrons and azaleas. According to the information sheet, there were more than four hundred trees, a rose garden, rock garden and terraces, as well as cactus, tropical and palm houses, but all Tallis could think about was Cavall, the job, what lay ahead.

She was already there. Wearing a white fitted jacket over black trousers and top, she looked more formal. He glanced at his watch: she was bang on time.

Cavall acknowledged his presence with a minute flicker of her eyes, and picked up her briefcase, which looked heavy. He immediately offered to carry it. “Ever the gentleman.” She smiled with dry humour. “But, no, thanks. I can manage. Walk and talk?”

He nodded, falling into step beside her. She had large feet for a woman, he noticed. “Money has already been wired to an account for you, details in here,” she said, briefly lifting the briefcase. Tallis was impressed but said nothing. People only gave money away with that much alacrity if there was risk involved to the recipient. “There are four individuals in total,” Cavall continued. “All served sentences for violent crime, including murder. We want them found. To assist in your search, you’ll be handed prison files and, in some cases, computer disks giving full profiles of each offender.” Tallis didn’t break stride. He wondered how she’d got hold of the information. Home Office or no Home Office, prison files were seen on a read-only basis.

“And the mechanics?”

“How you go about finding each target is up to you.”

“But you want them alive?”

“Of course.” Cavall shot him a sharp look, clearly repulsed by the notion of it being any other way. Good, he thought, he wanted to get that absolutely straight from the start. “As soon as the target’s located, call the contact number,” she continued. “It’s your job to stay with your man until the handover.”

“That it?”

“Yes.”

Sounded simple. Too simple. “What if there’s a problem?”

“You call and wait for further instruction.”

“Who’s on the rest of the team?” he asked. They were cutting through the palm house, steam rising, orchids and evil-looking insect-eating plants the only eavesdroppers on their conversation. It felt swelteringly hot. The damp air smelt of sap.

“There is no team.”

Tallis stopped. Cavall turned, met and held his gaze. He was trying to decipher whether one good man was good enough, or whether he was merely expendable.

“Think of me as your handler,” Cavall said, as if that should improve the situation. It didn’t. ‘Handler’ was a word used for police who ran informers. Tallis was starting to feel grubby.

“Do I carry a warrant card?”

She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail rock from side to side. “This is the equivalent of a black operation.”

“So I’m completely on my own.” There was no alarm in Tallis’s voice. He just needed to clarify the situation.

“Think you can do it?” Her brown eyes drilled into his.

“Don’t see why not.”

They carried on walking again. Tallis saw some kind of carnivorous plant swallow up a large bluebottle. “Will I be armed?”

“What the hell for?” She looked entirely horrified.

To protect myself, he thought. Should the need arise, he knew where to get hold of a weapon—not that he would do so lightly. After the Van Sleigh incident, he’d never wanted to carry a gun again.

“We really can’t have any fuss,” she said, half-smiling, more conciliatory.

He stole a glance, bet she was a blinding fuck. Not that he had any intention of trying to find out.

They left the suffocating dome of heat and emerged into open air scented with roses. “If this is unofficial, will I be able to talk to arresting and senior investigating officers involved with the case?”

“Up to you,” Cavall shrugged. “You’ll have to think of a cover story.”

Christ, this gets better. “Former cellmates?”

“I’m sure something could be arranged.”

What and how? he wondered. “And which prisons are we looking at?”

“The Scrubs, for starters.”

They walked in silence along a terraced area, Cavall’s heels clicking on the gravel. Sunshine leaked onto the ground. Distant traffic hummed through a background of trees. Eventually they came to a bench. Cavall sat down, clicked open the briefcase, handing Tallis a thick buff-coloured folder. He stared at it. Another poisoned chalice, he thought. He was accumulating them like people collected supermarket vouchers. “You realise these people might have reformed, gone straight. They could be trying to rebuild their lives.”

“Can’t afford another crisis of conscience, Paul.” She smiled but her voice was humourless. He noticed that whenever she used his first name, it served as a rebuke.

“They’ve done their time,” he insisted.

Cavall eyed him, her expression coldly remote. “They’re here illegally. They’ve already killed your fellow countrymen, women in some cases, and in the most horrific manner. In all probability they’ll reoffend. But if you want out, say so now and stop wasting both our time.”

He felt tempted. Just get up, walk away, and pretend he’d never seen her. Then Tallis remembered Felka, thought of the wounds to her body, her fear, her pain, and the piece of scum who’d inflicted it. “No,” he said decisively, “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Cavall said, standing up. “Oh, and, Paul,” she said with a dry smile, “if you attempt to go public, or expose the plan, all knowledge of any link to me, and the department, will be vigorously denied. There will be no trail, no evidence, nothing to prove.”

Tallis looked up at her. “And if it goes wrong?”

“It won’t.”

But if it did, Tallis thought, watching her hips swing as she walked away, he’d be hung out to dry. Alone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BACK in his bungalow, Tallis stared at the folder as if it were an unexploded bomb. He must be cracked, he thought, taking a fresh bottle of single malt out of its bag and unscrewing the cap. Twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth cracked, to be exact, and that was just a down payment, according to Cavall.

He poured himself a healthy slug, looked at it, changed his mind and poured it back into the bottle. Unlike Stu, he now had a reason to stay sober. Pulling the file onto his lap again, this time slipping out all the contents, he spread them on the knee-high coffee-table. There were prison documents, press cuttings, reports of the police investigation and details of court hearings, and, of course, mug shots of Agron Demarku, past and present.

Demarku was Albanian. His crime: torturing and beating a prostitute to death with a baseball bat. Tallis expected someone with broad shoulders and aggressive raw-boned features but the lad, for Demarku had been barely nineteen years old at the time of the offence, was a mere slip of a guy. He had kind-looking eyes and the type of small cherubic mouth Tallis had only seen on little children. He wondered how, after twelve years inside, prison had changed Demarku. Generally inmates went one of two ways: got lean or got fat.

Tallis turned to the latest recorded photograph of his man. Demarku had lost the freshness of youth. The hair was dirty blonde, skin more sallow. The blue eyes were dead behind the light. And he was thin, very thin.

According to the prison profile, Demarku had been born in Durres, an ancient port on the eastern Adriatic and more recently, Tallis thought, a focus for Albanian Mafiosi. Albanians, in spite of religious differences, had fought bravely, sometimes alongside Croatians, against a common enemy, the Serbs. As far as the Mafiosi were concerned, they maintained a code of silence to protect against betrayal. Like their Italian counterparts, they believed in honour.

A model prisoner, Demarku had spent much of his time reading and improving his English. He was also a devout Muslim. His medical records were without note, but a psychiatric report deemed him highly intelligent, manipulative and dangerous. In other words, Tallis thought, psychopathic. Demarku had expressed no remorse for his crime and maintained that his extreme actions had merely been the result of severe provocation. Had Demarku been a wife-beater, Tallis thought, something snatching inside as he viewed the crime-scene shots, Demarku’s defence would no doubt have fallen into the she made me do it category. Scalds and burns inflicted on the twenty-three-year-old victim’s body spoke another narrative.

The offender profile suggested that Demarku’s viciousness towards women stemmed from a mother who’d abandoned him when he’d been four, leaving him in the questionable care of his older brothers and father. The shrink had stated for the record that Demarku’s formative years had been blighted by regular beatings and worse. A strange, unwelcome thought formulated in Tallis’s brain. He wondered what his own childhood would have been like without the restraining influence of his mother.

At the time of the killing, Demarku had been minding a small brothel in Camden, North London, which struck Tallis as unusual. Following the break-up of former Yugoslavia, the Albanians currently had a powerful hold on crime in the capital, but twelve years ago they’d been virtually unknown. Tallis considered how Demarku might have made his way to Britain: slipping away into the night on a fast boat and heading for the Italian coast as so many did. From there it would have been a relatively simple lorry ride to the UK. But why had he fled his native country? Not because of his vile family, surely? Tallis thought. And Demarku was far too young to have been caught up in the warm-up to the conflict that had engulfed the neighbouring region in the early 1990s. Educated guess, Demarku was on the run. A note by the senior investigating officer, a guy called Marshall, suggested that there was circumstantial evidence putting the young Demarku at the scene of a serious rape in which a middle-aged woman had been left a basket case only four months after Demarku’s arrival in the UK. No wonder the big guys want you found, Tallis thought, feeling the blood pump in his veins.

Apart from his most recent visit to Marylebone Police Station, it had been many years since Tallis had last walked the streets of London. To reacquaint himself, he foraged through his only bookcase and, among a number of history books, found and pulled out an old A-Z. Plenty of scope for the ex-con to return to his old stamping ground, Tallis thought, locating Camden. He’d heard anecdotally that nearby Haringey was a first stop for ex-prisoners, and the chronically deprived borough of Hackney next door one of the most dangerous places in the UK for gun crime, but would Demarku return there? Would he even stay in the capital? With his fellow countrymen heading this way in droves, it still seemed unlikely he’d beat a retreat to his homeland, but Tallis had to admit that was more based on hunch than fact. And that, he supposed, was the beauty of this particular job. He was not constrained by police procedure. He did not have to abide by the rules of PACE—Police and Criminal Evidence Act. He could be a maverick and go with the flow. But against this, he had no back-up, no armaments, no fibre-optic cameras, no listening devices, battering rams, no body armour or respirator. No listening ear, no guiding light, no companion, he thought sadly.

Tallis returned to the map. According to the notes, Demarku, now thirty-one years old, had left Wormwood Scrubs two and a half months ago. He’d still have a young man’s hunger, Tallis believed. Still have that burning desire to make up for the stolen years of childhood and time wasted in the nick. But the world would be a very different place to the one young Demarku had briefly left behind—more rush and thrust, more watching and checking, more pen-pushing and paper-chasing. Tallis rested his finger on the road outside the prison. Which route had Demarku taken? Via the bright lights of trendy Notting Hill in the hope of bumping into one of the beautiful people, or had he slunk off in the opposite direction to the lesser charms of Acton or Ealing? Which had it been?

He needed to get inside Demarku’s head, to throw away his own values and adopt the attitudes of a psycho, a bit like learning a new language. People with great vocabularies and grammar often failed to convince because they lacked mastery of their accent. They continued to speak by using the same muscles and lip and tongue movements employed for their native speech. In learning a new language, you had to forget all that, and converse with new sounds, new speech patterns.

Tallis didn’t doubt that the police had already done their homework and carried out the usual enquiries, talked to close associates and friends, visited Demarku’s old haunts, so the only way forward was to look with a different eye and find something extra, something that would lead him to his man. Start with the obvious, Tallis thought. But first he needed to cover his tracks.

Across the road from the avenue was a long row of shops that included a mini-supermarket, newsagent’s, an Indian take-away and launderette, a couple of charity outlets, anything-for-a-quid stores, and cheap-price booze emporiums. The mobile phone shop was at the end next to a hairdressing salon called Wendy’s. Twenty minutes later, he came out with the latest up-to-the-second gadgetry, not because he fancied a new phone but because he needed a new identity.

As soon as he returned home, he called the Met, and asked to be put through to Detective Chief Inspector Marshall at Kentish Town Police Station, Camden.

Several minutes later, he was told that DCI Marshall had taken early retirement. Tallis scanned the report, found the name of his right-hand man, DI Micky Crow.

“On a rest day. Can I take a message?”

Tallis exhaled slowly. “Can you say Mark Strong wants to discuss an old case? Mention the name Agron Demarku.” Leaving his number, Tallis rang off, briefly considered calling Wormwood Scrubs, but decided that a black man stood more chance of attending a BNP rally than he had of pumping the governor for information. Instead, he phoned into work and said he wouldn’t be coming back then rummaged in his bedroom for the weights he’d slung under a pile of blankets. Changing into a tracksuit, he gave himself a thorough workout, followed by a run to offset any stiffness in his joints. On his return, he showered, felt a million times better and checked out the train times from New Street to Euston.

Birmingham seemed small and parochial by contrast, Tallis thought as he stepped off the train and was swallowed up by a tidal wave of human traffic. It had been a while since he’d seen so many people, so many different shapes and sizes, nationalities and styles of dress. In the space of five minutes, and as his ear became attuned to his environment, he caught snippets of at least seven foreign languages, including Russian, Arabic and Portuguese. It was all so different to when he’d driven up a couple of days before. Cars, even crap cars, had a habit of sanitising one from the outside world and, given the circumstances, he’d been too zoned out to engage with it anyway. Here he felt a stranger, but he couldn’t escape the undeniable buzz, the sense of being at the hub, that he was important again.

He caught a tube north, standing room only, swaying with the roll and clatter of the tube’s manic flight through narrow tunnels, feeling like a human cannonball. The confined space strongly smelt of spices, body odour and unwashed clothes. Catching the eye of a pretty young woman, he smiled, his reward a downturned mouth and a look of distrust meshed with scorn. Most of the faces were tired looking, or disinterested, he thought. Bunched up with others, he was given the unsettling impression of fleeing refugees. Maybe they were in a way. Not fleeing from war or destruction but life.

He surfaced into wet air and schizophrenic weather—one moment sunny, the next clouding over and tipping it down. Instinctively, he scoured the faces, wondering if Demarku was among them, unsure that he would recognise the guy even if he were. For all he knew, Demarku could have radically changed his appearance. Detective Inspector Crow hadn’t contacted him yet, but Tallis planned an ambush. First, he needed food.

He started walking, taking it all in—busy-looking car park, wheelie-bins, a skinny guy with a baseball hat on back to front crouched down on some concrete steps, unbelievably lighting a rock of crack in broad daylight, litter, dirty doorways, used condoms and spent syringes. He passed a fire station and a meeting house for Jehovah’s Witnesses, shops and more shops, some rundown, some holding it together. At last, he found a café to suit his taste. He went inside and ordered an all-day breakfast from a youngish woman who definitely didn’t want to be there. She didn’t so much walk as slouch to the table.

“Fried bread?” Nasal whine. Eyes glued to the notepad.

“Please.”

“Tomatoes or mushrooms?”

Both, he wanted to say but thought it might further upset her day. “Tomatoes are fine.”

“Eggs—fried or poached?”

“Poached would be good. Oh, and …”

“Yes?” Her eyes swivelled from the notepad. Never had he witnessed such an innocent word convey so much menace.

“Tea?” he said, giving her the benefit of his best smile. Without replying, she bellowed his order for all of London to hear, and did a nifty turn on her heel that must have taken hours to perfect. Miserable cow.

In spite of the waitress’s distinct lack of customer-facing skills, the breakfast was surprisingly good, and fifty minutes later Tallis was back on the street, halfway between Camden and Kentish Town, standing on the pavement in front of a battered wrought-iron gate. Almost off its hinges, it opened onto a stone flight of chipped steps leading to a raddled-looking basement flat. As Tallis leaned over, catching a strong whiff of dead flowers, a cat shot in front of him and darted across the road. He watched it skitter along the pavement before disappearing down an alleyway then returned his gaze to the tightly drawn and grubby curtains, felt the cloak of silence. Kitty, it seemed, was the only sign of life.

Walking away, Tallis wondered whether the current occupants knew that, just over a decade before, the place had served as a knocking-shop, that a young woman, tortured and beaten, had lost her life there.

Tallis didn’t know who was more taken aback.

“Micky, short for Michelle,” the DI explained, as if she were talking to a deaf simpleton.

They were standing outside the police station, mainly because Crow, who had the build of an all-in wrestler, needed to smoke. She had short brown hair, and a rumpled expression that matched her trouser suit. Her complexion was that of a drinker, cheeks stick-of-rock pink and premature lines around her sagging mouth. She looked knackered, Tallis thought. He launched into his hastily prepared spiel, explaining that he was writing a book, non-fiction, and had an interest in the Demarku case.

“Why?” Her eyebrows moulded together to form a long, dark, hairy line.

“I’m partly Croatian,” Tallis said.

The look on Crow’s face suggested that he’d just pissed in her vodka.

“Several generations ago,” he added with a reassuring smile. “I’m British born, British bred.” Christ, it sounded like a strap line for meat traceability.

“Right, well, that’s very interesting,” she said, puffing away, “but I don’t do chats with press unless I have to.” Her eyes flicked to her watch. He noticed her fingers were trembling. He’d observed the same symptoms in Stu. Drinkies, Tallis thought, Crow was counting the hours.

“But I’ve come all this way.”

“Shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

“Off the record, that’s all.”

Crow narrowed her puffy eyes. “You’re starting to annoy me. How can I put this nicely?” she snarled, squaring up to her full height so that her bloodshot eyes were level with Tallis’s shoulder. For a worrying moment, Tallis thought she might lump him one. Time for one last roll of the dice, he thought. “I’d love to take you for a drink after your shift.” He almost gagged at how charming he sounded.

Crow threw her head back and laughed. Sounded like threatened consequences. “Persistent bastard, aren’t you?”

“That’s me.” Tallis grinned. “So what do you say?”

“Tried the press office?”

So it wasn’t a downright refusal. “They’ll only tell me what they want me to hear.” At least, that’s what Finn always told him.

“Off the record, you said?” Crow’s eyes narrowed against a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“You have my word.”

At that, she actually smiled. It was horrible, like a cheap, nylon nightdress. Tallis smiled back, he hoped with more sincerity than he felt.

“All right,” she said, won over. “The Freemasons Arms, Downshire Hill, opposite Hampstead Heath. Meet me there at six.”

He did, but not before booking into a two-star hotel in Cardington Street, Euston. It was the wrong side of basic, but would fit the general image he hoped to convey. Sooner or later, he’d be mixing with criminals. Wouldn’t look right to be staying at Claridges.

To maintain his new fitness programme, he went for a fast run through streets heavy with car fumes. He still reckoned he was better off than the lowly cyclist. At least people didn’t try to actively kill you. After a shower and brush-up, he got to the Freemasons ten minutes early and ordered a pint of Fuller’s London Pride. He liked the place immediately. Nice and airy, a little bit Eastern looking, and it had the most wonderful windows providing great views of the garden. The courtyard was already filling up.

After taking a glance at the sumptuously inviting menu and realising that he was hungry, he took his drink out the front into warm evening sunshine and managed to bag the last table. The crowd, he noticed, was young and well dressed, even the girls, which he found refreshing. He was getting tired of the bare belly and roll-up fags routine. He wanted his women, to look like women not dockers.

Crow arrived, looking hot and sweaty.

“Get you a drink?” Tallis said.

“Large V and T. Been a fuck of a day,” she said, plumping herself down, dragging a crumpled packet of cigarettes from her jacket pocket.

Tallis went to the bar and returned with Crow’s drink. She took a deep draw, as though she’d walked halfway through a desert for it. “So,” she said, blowing two thin streams of smoke through her nostrils. “What do you want to know? Presume you’re already familiar with the details.”

“Most of them,” Tallis said. “I understand after Demarku finished his sentence he was inadvertently released instead of being deported.”

Crow grinned knowingly. “So that’s your angle.”

“One of the angles,” Tallis countered.

“Fucking disgrace. If I’d had my way, he’d never have been let out.”

“But he was,” Tallis said, trying to keep her on track, “and now he’s on the loose somewhere.”

“Frankly, not my problem,” Crow said. “We did our bit twelve years ago.”

“So no effort’s been made to find him?”

“Seen my workload?”

“I’m not criticising.”

“Should hope not,” Crow said, taking another pull of her drink. At this rate, he was going to be making an early trip to the bar, Tallis thought. “Put it this way, we’ve trailed likely haunts, talked to the usual suspects …”

“Informers?”

“Uh-huh.”

She didn’t sound very convincing. Actually, it cheered him. Demarku wasn’t so much as eluding the cops as they weren’t exactly busting a gut to find him. It meant he was in with more of a chance of unearthing his man. “What about the guys he shared a cell with, all that kind of stuff?”

Crow cast him a withering look. “Two words—targets, clear-up rate.”

“That’s more than two.” He laughed.

“You get my drift. It’s all about moving onto the next case,” Crow said, stubbing out a cigarette and lighting another. A young woman with a child in a pushchair cast her a venomous look, but Crow either didn’t mind or wasn’t taking any notice.

“What was Demarku like?”

Her face drooped then she began to cough, eyes watering and streaming, mouth opening and closing like a struggling perch as she tried to get her breath. Beating her large chest with one hand, she grabbed at her glass with the other, taking a large swig. It seemed to do the trick. “Disturbing,” she croaked. “Came across as being very polite, quiet, thoughtful even, the type of guy who most mothers would want as their son. If only they knew.” She frowned, taking a drag of her cigarette. “Underneath the little-boy-lost facade, he was seething with fury. He’d as soon as slip a blade between your ribs as look at you. Probably smile while he was doing it.”

For the first time, Tallis registered a note of respect in Crow’s voice, not born of admiration but fear. “Another?” he said, gesturing at her empty glass.

“I’ll get them,” Crow said, making to get up.

“Stay where you are, admire the scenery.” He wanted time to collect his thoughts, think about what he was going to ask next. He ordered another pint and the same again for Crow.

“Gather Demarku had also been linked to a serious rape,” he said a few moments later, putting their glasses down on the table.

“Didn’t have the evidence to nail him.”

“No DNA?”

“No.”

“What about the victim? Couldn’t she ID him?”

Crow shook her head. “Never properly recovered.”

“Too scared to point a finger?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

“Think she’d talk to me?”

Crow snorted. “You’re a charmer, but I don’t think so. She’s had a shit time since the attack. Marriage collapsed under the strain. Kids went with dad.”

“Christ.”

“Christ indeed.” Crow picked a flake of tobacco from her tongue.

“Keep in touch?”

“Yeah, I do, actually. Not on a regular basis. Just call in when I can. And no, I’m not telling you who she is and where she lives,” Crow added, giving a deep, dirty, thirty-a-day laugh.

“Fair enough. Think Demarku might try and find her?”

“Have a hard time. She’s moved twice in the last twelve years. Anyway, I don’t think that’s his game.”

“And what is his game?”

“Prostitution, and if he embraces our brand-new world and joins his brothers, people trafficking and drugs. The Albanians have cornered the market in London. Should suit you, if you’re ever out of a job.” She laughed.

Tallis eyed her over the rim of his glass. He wasn’t joining in.

“Keep your pants on.” Crow grinned. “The Albanians trust no one but, at street-distribution level, they employ Croats. Fuck knows how they understand each other.”

Tallis quietly filed the information away. Crow obviously didn’t know much about the Balkans. Croatians spoke and understood Serbo-Croat as did the Albanians, even if they didn’t like to admit to it. “Going back to the rape. Anything stick in the victim’s mind about the attack?”

“Apart from its degrading nature?”

“Thinking more along the lines of Demarku himself, about his character, the way he behaved.”

Crow’s dark eyebrows drew together. “You into all that psychological stuff?” She didn’t sound very enamoured.

“Just trying to find something original to say.”

“There was something, actually. I picked up on it too, so it’s not exactly revealing a trade secret.”

“Yeah?”

“Cologne. The guy liked to smell good. Not any old cheap rubbish either. And he liked expensive clothes. Definitely got a bit of a flash streak.” She gave her glass a mournful stare. “One for the road, I think. What’s yours?”

Tallis told her. “A half’s fine,” he added.

Crow returned with a pint for him. “No point in pissing about,” she said, grinning happily. “Thought of someone else you could talk to.” Tallis raised an eyebrow. Alcohol was definitely having the desired effect. “Guy called Peter Tremlett. He was the probation officer involved in the parole board decision to release Demarku.”

Tallis knew enough about this most secretive of breeds to know that Crow was way off the mark. Probation officers had much in common with customs and excise officers: both kept their mouths shut. “He won’t talk to me,” he scoffed.

Crow winked. “Twenty quid says he will.”

Tallis eyed her. She was definitely confident. “All right,” he said, intrigued, taking two tens from his wallet. “But, remember, I know where to come looking if you’re telling porkies.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Crow leant forward, allowing her large bosom to rest upon the table. “He’s retired and resentful. Mad sod will talk to anyone who’ll listen.” She laughed like a crazy cat, sliding the notes off the table and pocketing them.

After a night of very little sleep, Tallis got up early, went for a run then showered and dressed, but decided to stay unshaven. He took advantage of the hotel’s all-inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t a patch on the one he’d had the day before, but he was so hungry he wasn’t complaining. At nine-thirty, he phoned Peter Tremlett, dropping Crow’s name by way of an introduction.

“Christ, Micky Crow?”

“Yes, I—”

“Woman ought to be locked up.”

Tallis didn’t like to dwell on what Crow had done to the unfortunate Mr Tremlett to elicit such a forthright response. He moved swiftly on. “Thing is, it’s about the Demarku case,” he said, feeding Tremlett the same line he’d fed Crow. “Understand you were his probation officer.”

“Only in the technical sense. If you mean did I spend any time with him, the answer’s no.”

Tallis scratched his head. “But you had to work out a risk assessment for the parole board?”

“Oh, yes,” Tremlett said, voice packed with scorn. “But things aren’t as they used to be. When I first joined the probation service you spent time with your clients. Got to know them, got the measure of them. We did good work with some, prevented them from returning to a life of crime. Nowadays, we’re so swamped with paperwork the client’s the least of our problems. Know what happened in the Demarku case?” Tremlett’s voice soared. “I was given a sodding thick file to read and asked to talk to him via a video link to the prison. It’s ridiculous. Body language is often key to working out whether someone is genuine or not. You can’t pick up on a tapping foot or clenched fist if you’re staring into a screen. I mean, it’s laughable. There I was, having to make a judgement on a man without even being in the same room as him. And,” Tremlett said, anger convulsing him, “it’s not unusual. I’m just glad I’m out of it. You said you’re writing a book?”

“That’s right,” Tallis said, flinching at the slightly professorial tone.

“I’m thinking of doing the same. It will be a grand exposé.”

“Good for you,” Tallis said. “Going back to Demarku …”

“Ah, yes,” Tremlett said, in an I told you so manner. “Skipped deportation. Not that you can blame Immigration. They’re even more swamped than us.”

“Any ideas where he might be?”

“The spit of land between Hounslow and Heathrow, I dare say.”

Spit? Tallis thought. How had he come to that conclusion? He asked him.

“My sister lives there. Says the place is full of his type of people.”

Except it wasn’t. Thirty minutes out of central London, he expected to hear foreign accents, yet to say the place was overrun with Albanians was a myth.

Hounslow reminded him of parts of Moseley but with riverside walks and open spaces. According to the guide he’d picked up, it was supposed to play host to five historic houses, not that he’d seen much evidence of deep cultural heritage. The high street looked similar to hundreds of others: unremarkable. The only place of interest was a small trashy-looking letting and estate agency off the main drag. Some of the homes on offer, Tallis thought as he studied the window, he wouldn’t want to put a dog in. He wandered inside. A large black guy sprawled in front of a computer with a nervous-looking couple caught his eye and smiled, said he wouldn’t be a moment.

“We have no references,” the woman was saying in halting English.

“No problem.”

“But without references, we cannot get a mortgage.”

“I can get you a mortgage,” the black man said confidently. “I can get you anything.”

Passports, visas too, Tallis thought, ticking off the mental list. “It’s all right, I’ll come back later,” Tallis said, walking back outside, narrowing his eyes against a bright sun and sky veined with light. From there, he made his way back to central London where he trawled the outside of two mosques. Studying the faces of the faithful leaving after Friday prayers, he was met with a wall of dark suspicion. As an antidote, he headed for Soho.

Six hours later, footsore and weary, Tallis returned to the hotel. Many years before, he’d gone out with a girl who’d worked in Great Marlborough Street, something in public relations, he thought. She’d invited him down for what he’d hoped was a dirty weekend. He’d met her at her office after work full of expectation. She’d taken him on a whistle-stop tour around Soho—maybe it was to get him in the mood. He’d been gobsmacked by the place. It had seemed like the centre of the universe, bursting with life and colour. It hadn’t been the vice trade that had captured his attention, the restaurants, or the swirl of scandal boiling in the streets, but the presence of the film and television industry, all the small independent production companies, theatrical agents, actors’ support groups. There had been people like he’d never seen them before; with attitude, daring, assertive, look at me, darling. He’d loved the smell of success and, yes, the sometimes seediness, even liked the street names—Berwick, Frith, Brewer. It had seemed dangerously intoxicating to a poor lad brought up in the sticks. But that had been then. This time he looked with fresh eyes, jaded eyes maybe. When he spotted a small cinema it was one promising adult viewings, cards in windows advertised the prospect of a good time. It made him think only of Demarku and pain and exploitation, and no amount of gawping at astonishingly priced menus in staggeringly inviting eateries was going to change all that.

The following day he visited gyms, clubs and cafés. He hung out in several bars, eavesdropped on any number of conversations, flashed Demarku’s latest mugshot to a couple of likely looking sorts and came up empty. As a devout Muslim, Demarku was unlikely to be found in a back-street boozer, but Tallis hoped that it might spark a connection, cause a chain reaction. With the aid of Google Earth, it was possible to locate a guy by the brand of condom he used. All you needed was an address in a suburb. Via a computer, you could trace a mobile-phone user, even with the phone on sleep mode, to within five hundred yards. But he had no address, no phone, no nothing, in fact. He was beginning to feel the awesome nature of the task ahead of him, wondered how he was going to get that one lucky break. Around four, he found himself in a bar full of old people and dispossessed-looking men and women on benefits, drinking their way to oblivion. The old folk had red eyes and red faces, the younger lines and heavy jaws. The talk was of soap stars and TV shows and somebody’s latest operation. Nobody spoke of politics or the state of the nation. Afterwards, he took a detour through Chinatown, eventually picking up the underground at Tottenham Court Road back to Euston. Not a very productive day.

But tomorrow would be different, he promised himself. Tomorrow he was going to a pub in Earl’s Court. According to a snippet of conversation gleaned from two unsuspecting Croats rabbiting away on the tube, the place was well known for its eclectic clientele.

CHAPTER NINE

SUNDAY morning in London, beautifully warm and sunny, with only a few wisps of cloud in a sky panelled with light. Perfect. Resisting the temptation to visit the Imperial War Museum, Tallis decided to meander down the Kings Road, and eventually found himself staring into the branch windows of some very expensive estate agents. Their business cards, he noticed from a display, were printed in both Russian and Arabic. He wondered where the average well-heeled Albanian was buying property these days.

Walking up to Sloane Square, Tallis took a tube to Earl’s Court. By one o’ clock, he was sitting in a ratty-looking pub on the corner of Earls Court Road. Two days without a shave, his clothes slightly rumpled, he blended into the scenery well. The pub was crawling with down-and-outs and those whose dissolute hue suggested that they were recovering from last night’s hangovers. Not easy, Tallis thought, when your head’s throbbing with the blast of sound from Big Screen Sky TV and three pool tables.

Tallis took his drink and sat down at a beer-stained table overrun with last night’s empties. Scouring the blunt-featured clientele, it wasn’t long before Tallis heard the sound of hrvatski, the official language of Croatia, and traced it to two men standing at the bar. They looked to be in their mid to late twenties. Both had shaved heads. Both had flat, slanted cheekbones. One had the triangular physique of a bodybuilder on anabolic steroids. The other was smaller, less pumped up. They were rattling away, joshing one another, excited about something. Tallis pushed his way through to get closer. They were talking about a VAT scam with mobile phones. After five minutes or so the conversation switched to drugs: heroin and amphetamines.

Tallis listened. From the way they were talking it was clear they were small fry, runners for someone else. Tallis wondered who their supplier was. He listened some more but no name emerged. “Oprosti!” he said, breaking into the conversation. “Excuse me.” The two men threw him slow, suspicious looks. Keeping his voice low, he asked whether they could supply him with some cocaine for personal use. He was careful to ask only for a small quantity so that he didn’t alert their suspicions. The triangular-shaped guy ignored him. The other issued a flat, ‘Ne razumijem’. I don’t understand.

“Come on, guys,” Tallis said persuasively, continuing to speak in their native tongue. “I’m off my own patch. It’s just to keep me going. Blood brothers and all that.”

Triangle shape burst out laughing.

Tallis looked him straight in the eye. “If you can get more, I’ll take it.”

The big guy stopped, stared. His sludgy-coloured eyes were unblinking. “Where are you from?”

“Vukovar.”

Both men exchanged glances. As Tallis already knew, Vukovar struck an emotional chord in the heart of every Croat. It wasn’t a place readily forgotten. A prosperous pretty little town on the Danube, Vukovar had once been the showcase for baroque architecture. No more. In the early 1990s, it had become a battleground, laid siege to by Serbian forces, a siege in which more than two thousand people had died, many more afterwards, a lot of them buried in mass graves. Tallis had visited once. The weather had been cold and damp and miserable, yet even if the sun had shone, the place would still have felt tainted. He thought of the town as a beautiful woman who’d had the misfortune to catch smallpox. Every street corner was pitted and made ugly by gunshot and mortar. Tallis remembered his grandmother weeping over its destruction.

The triangular-shaped man clapped a thick and meaty arm around Tallis’s shoulders. “Drink, my friend,” he said, ordering brandy. “A pity it isn’t slijvovica,” he added, referring to the fierce plum brandy traditionally drunk in Croatian restaurants. “My name is Goran,” the big guy explained. “This is Janko,” he said, indicating his waxy-faced friend.

“Marko Simunic,” Tallis said.

Two hours later, they were all drunk and the best of mates. Goran and Janko were originally from Split. Both had come to the UK at the start of the hostilities in Kosovo in 1999. Lying about their ages, they’d worked as bartenders for a couple of years before getting into a more lucrative line of business. As Tallis had guessed, they were runners for someone else. In return, Tallis told them that he’d been involved in a drug smuggling operation in the South-West. At this, Goran’s flat, almost Slav features twitched into life. “All you need is a fishing boat, a dinghy and some lobster pots.” Tallis laughed. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what he was saying. “There are many small beaches, all of them accessible.”

“What about Customs?” Janko said.

“Non-existent.” Tallis grinned. “They used to run small inshore boats but they got sold off. Officers now spend most of their time patrolling Dover, the major airports, this neck of the woods.”

“So you think it would be a good way in?”

“Oh, sure.”

“And you have contacts?” Tallis decided that Janko was the smart one.

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here?” A cunning light in Goran’s eyes suggested that the brandy had not even begun to seep into his brain.

“Lying low.”

“From what?”

“A guy I pissed off.”

“How?”

“I wanted a slice of his action. It’s being sorted.” He’s being sorted was the implication.

Janko seemed to accept the story. Goran didn’t. “Why do you choose to do business with us?”

“I told you.”

“Why us?” Goran persisted, evil-eyed.

“Hey,” Janko said. “This is our friend, our brother.”

“More drinks,” Tallis said, standing up, feeling the heat.

“Sit down,” Goran snarled.

“Fuck you.”

The air was electric. Tallis had visions of thrown fists, thrown chairs.

Janko stepped in. “Guys, guys, calm down. We are as one. Our enemies are the same.” He meant the Serbs, Tallis thought. “Go get the drinks, Marco.”

Tallis felt more rattled than he should have done as he pushed his way to the bar. He took a few deep breaths. Told himself not to be so bloody unprofessional.

On his return, Goran had softened. “This operation in Devon, it’s easy to import the goods?”

“Dead easy.”

“We know someone,” Goran said, trading a look with Janko, “someone we work with. He might be interested.”

“Yeah, who?”

“Our boss,” Janko chipped in. “We need to run it past him. We’ll let you know what he thinks.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Zivjeli!” Goran said, raising his glass. “As a sign of good faith, Janko has a tester for you. You like it, we can discuss more.”

Without a word, Janko stood up. Tallis knew the routine. They both headed for the toilets. Janko discreetly passed him a wrap, which Tallis pushed into his trouser pocket. Job done, they went back to Goran. “You like girls?” he said.

Tallis grinned in what he hoped was a convincing manner. These guys were into machismo. To state otherwise would have displeased them.

“We fix you up,” Goran said, knocking back the rest of his brandy. “Come.”

Tallis stood up and followed him. He didn’t feel he had much choice.

They travelled in a bottom range Mercedes-Benz E-Class, still an impressive ride. Janko drove and broke into raucous song. Goran turned round, laughing. Tallis joined in, more as a cover than amusement. He was watching where they were taking him. They were headed for Hammersmith. Tallis thought they’d go over the flyover and join the Great West Road. Instead, they dropped down underneath it.

Traffic seemed heavy for a Sunday. The sky was losing some of its light, the day its energy. The brandy was starting to kick in just behind Tallis’s eyes. He closed them for what seemed a fraction of time. When he opened them they were outside a chip shop. Great, he thought. It would soak up some of the alcohol. The boys had other ideas.

Exchanging greetings with two men behind the counter, Janko and Goran led the way. Tallis followed them through a scullery and into a small, enclosed, paved yard. Encased in glass, fruitless vines hung from the roof, it smelt like a greenhouse. Instead of tomatoes growing, big hessian sacks of potatoes lined the walls. The yard formed a bridge between the chip shop and another building in which there was a closed door with an entry phone next to it. Goran pressed a button and spoke his name. There was a click and the door sprang open, leading into a narrow hall with a flight of stairs leading steeply up to a short landing. Carpeted in worn deep purple, the stairs had seen some action. They went up another flight, and through another door which opened out onto a dimly lit bar with barstools in faded leather. Tallis took it in at a glance—furnishings dark and indecipherable, three sofas, one of which looked badly sprung, door off to the right, one man, nervous looking. And no surprise, Tallis thought as a fat woman emerged from behind the counter. Well, not fat exactly. Not even overweight—more a human hulk with a pockmarked jaw and teeth like an Orc.

“This is Duka,” Goran said, grinning like a demented hyena.

Tallis looked at Goran, looked at the woman, stunned, thinking, Please, God, no.

“Duka looks after the girls,” Janko explained, with a laugh.

“Oh, right,” Tallis said, grinning now, sharing the joke.

“You want girl?” Duka probed a tooth with a dirty nail.

“Give him the new one,” Goran said. “On the house,” he added, a sly expression in his eyes. Tallis wondered what was expected in return for the favour.

Duka waddled along the length of the bar and out of sight, flesh sliding over flesh. Tallis heard a grunt, a curse then a jangling sound of metal. When Duka returned, she was sweating like an elephant on heat. “Eleven,” Duka said, belligerently handing him a key.

“Through the door,” Janko explained. As Tallis pushed it open, he heard Goran order more brandy.

He stepped into a dingy corridor, doors off, not unlike a cheap hotel. He could hear nothing other than his own feet creaking on the thinly carpeted floor. Either business was lax or, as he suspected, the rooms were soundproofed. Number eleven was at the very end. He waited outside, collecting his thoughts, then slipped the key in the lock, turned it, tapped on the wood with his free hand as he entered, the sound hollow in the surrounding silence.

Inside smelt of cheap perfume and damp. A double bed dressed in black satin sheets, more funeral pyre than love nest, rested in the middle of a room that took seediness to another level. There was a cracked sink in the corner with a bottle of baby oil resting on the ledge. The window, from which hung faded brown polyester curtains, had bars. To the right of the window was a single wooden school chair on which a girl was seated. Dark-haired, pallid, she gazed straight ahead with big eyes, seeing but not seeing. Tallis recognised the expression. He’d witnessed it before in the eyes of war-hardened civilians who had lost everyone and everything. The girl, no more than Felka’s age, wore a black bra and panties. Her feet, resting square on the floor, were bare, nails polished but chipped. She possessed a full figure, the skin close knit and youthful. Her right arm was crossed over her left breast as if to protect herself, the fingers of her hand resting on the shoulder strap. She had a large, recent bruise on her thigh. She was breathing fast.

He approached her softly. She turned to him with large eyes and pushed the strap off her shoulder, allowing him a tantalising glimpse of her nakedness.

“No,” he said, looking around him for something to cover her with. Seeing nothing, he took off his jacket, put it round her shoulders. For the first time, she lifted her eyes and looked at him, whispering something he couldn’t make out.

“It’s all right,” he said, sitting down on the bed. “I only want to talk.”

She swallowed hard, nodded.

“What’s your name?”

She didn’t answer, wouldn’t answer. He wondered how long it had been since she’d felt like a person instead of a thing. “Where are you from?”

She shook her head, sudden fear in her eyes. She glanced at the door. “Nobody will hear us,” Tallis assured her.

Still the big-eyed stare.

“Do you understand me?”

The flicker of light in her eyes told him she did. “Were you brought here?”

She opened her mouth very slightly, closed it.

“Against your will?”

Her dark eyes filled with tears.

“I can get you out of here,” Tallis said urgently, “but first I need your help.”

Her face sagged. She looked down at the floor. He’d blown it, he thought. “My name is …” He wanted her trust but knew that telling the truth could get both of them into a lot of trouble. He started again. “The guys out there know me as Marco,” he told her, “but my real name is Max.”

“Max,” she said softly, as if committing his name and her lifeline to memory.

“Yeah.” Tallis smiled warmly. “I have a wife and kids and I live in a lovely big house in a village called Belbroughton, not far from Birmingham.” Then, meshing fact with fiction, he told her about where he’d grown up, that he hadn’t always been so successful, that he, perhaps like her, had come from humble beginnings.

She gazed at him in awe. “Thing is,” Tallis said, wondering how long he’d got before the others became suspicious. “I need to find this man.” He pulled out the most recent photograph of Demarku, showed it to her. “You recognise him?”

The girl drew back, shook her head sadly, disappointed that she couldn’t help.

“His name is Agron Demarku. He’s an Albanian with a history of violence towards prostitutes.”

Again, the closed-down expression.

“Do you talk much with the other girls?” Tallis said.

She gave a mournful shrug.

“All right,” he said, gently slipping the jacket off her shoulders. “See what you can find out. I’ll return tomorrow night.” Without looking back, he left the room.

There was no sign of Janko or Goran. “They left,” Duka said tonelessly.

“They say anything?” Tallis said.

“Nothing.” Duka glowered.

Retracing his steps, Tallis found his way back to the chip shop. He caught the eye of one of the two men who’d greeted Goran and Janko. “Here,” the man said smiling, handing Tallis a portion of fish and chips in a small plastic tray. Small and wiry, he had a broken front tooth and blunt features. He spoke Croatian, his accent suggesting that he, too, was from the north. “Goran says to meet him back at The Courtfield tomorrow night at eleven.” Tallis thanked him and began to eat. Food customers came and went. Other punters, knowing the ropes, walked straight through. Tallis dismembered a piece of fish. The batter was chewy, but he was hungry and didn’t care. During a lull Tallis turned to the small guy.

“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.

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