‘Are we taking the scenic route? Feels like we keep turning left.’
‘Just following Helena’s directions. Only a few more minutes and you can take the blindfold off.’
‘If you’re trying to disorientate me, I wouldn’t waste your time. I could see how frightened your friend was. I’m not going to say anything to anyone about our meeting.’
‘Everyone is paranoid. The Clan are very dangerous. People don’t like to talk openly about them around here. Engjell E Zeze may be far away in Scotland facing the rest of his days in jail, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of commission.’
The car slowed to a halt. ‘See: that’s us here.’
Keira pulled the pink headscarf from her face and waited for her eyes to adjust to the sunshine streaming through the windscreen.
The car had stopped near the crest of a hill, outside the cottage belonging to Kaltrina Dervishi’s mother and father.
‘You sure you want to go in? You see all those little purple flowers everywhere.’ Ardiana indicated with a nod of her head the overgrown garden in front of the house. It was covered in a blanket of black hellebore. ‘They’re planted to ward off evil. I’ve got a feeling it didn’t work too good.’
‘Just for a quick look round. When I get on that plane tomorrow I want to feel I’ve tried everything. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.’
‘Why don’t you just wire the kid the money via Western Union? That’s what everyone else does around here.’
‘I have to find him first.’
‘What about old Rozafa? Let’s go knock on her door, see what she has to say.’
‘After this we’ll go next door.’
‘We?’
‘You don’t have to come.’
‘Yeah, I might sit this one out. Witches used to throw handfuls of those flowers up in the air to make themselves invisible. Might be some of them standing in the garden right now and you wouldn’t know.’
Keira shot Ardiana a look.
‘I don’t want to get any closer to this situation than I already am, you know. I’m just doing Fatjo a favour, I don’t want to be seen as one of the players.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Keira as she climbed out of the car.
It was warm and – except for the occasional click and hiss from the cooling engine – everything was quiet: no birdsong, hum of insects or rumble of distant traffic to break the silence. Keira stood for a moment taking in the view. The dirt road leading to the cottages quickly disappeared out of sight, cutting in a long arc down towards a plain of fields and farm buildings in the distance.
Keira turned towards the house. Tall grass and other weeds hid the wheels and upright stanchions of a collection of disused farm equipment, rusted by the wind and rain, which lay scattered around the garden. The path leading to the front door was covered in long weeds, with clumps of grass growing through the gaps in the broken flagstones. Keira stepped through a tumble of boulders that marked the perimeter wall and made her way to the front door.
The door handle was difficult to turn. Keira applied more pressure, but the stem had rusted to the dark metal rose on which it was mounted and didn’t move. A faint buzzing made Keira turn her head to help locate the source, but the sound was so slight it was difficult to tell which direction it was coming from.
A loud clunk made her spin on her heels. Ardiana had slammed the car door closed and was now leaning, back against the bonnet, facing out across the valley – a cloud of cigarette smoke rising into the air around her.
Keira turned her attention back to the door. She tried peering through the panel of glass – no more than thirty centimetres square – in the middle of the door near the top, but there was nothing to see. The glass was obscured by a piece of black cloth that made it opaque except for a small chink of light in the bottom right-hand corner.
Keira made her way around to the rear of the cottage, checking for any other entry points. All the windows were shuttered or had curtains blocking the view inside and all of them were locked.
Keira walked back round and launched a kick at the front door. Then, leaning in with her shoulder she grabbed hold of the handle again and tried twisting. That was when she noticed that the glass panel was now clear. The cloth covering had fallen to the floor, shaken loose by the impact of her kick. She pushed her face against the glass and tried to peer inside, then instantly recoiled. The buzzing sound was there again. Just as suddenly as it had cleared, the panel turned opaque again. Keira’s view inside was almost instantly obscured by thousands of insects regrouping on the inside of the glass.
Keira took a step back and stamped the flat of her foot hard against the door again. This time it screeched open twenty centimetres before jamming up against something inside.
A cloud of insects swarmed towards Keira, who lurched backwards, arms flailing as she tried to shield her face. The air around her was filled with the sound of buzzing as hundreds of flies collided with her face and became entangled in her hair.
The flies brought with them the stench of putrefying flesh. The odour gripped Keira’s throat like a vice and had her reaching to cover her mouth and nose to avoid inhaling the rancid air, but it was too late. Keira staggered along the path towards the car – and vomited into the long grass.
Ardiana was already over the boulders and heading her way.
‘What the fuck is it? Are you okay?’
Keira shook her head in response and retched again.
Ardiana caught a hint of the foul-smelling air. ‘We must leave this place.’
Keira stumbled past, making for the car.
‘Get in the car and let’s get out of here,’ continued Ardiana, the panic rising in her voice.
‘Do you have any perfume in your bag?’ spluttered Keira.
‘Any what?’
‘Perfume . . . with you?’
Keira hauled open the passenger door, stretched inside and pulled out the pink headscarf, at the same time lifting Ardiana’s bag from the footwell and handing it to her.
‘Please, let’s just go.’
‘Perfume,’ repeated Keira.
Ardiana rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Gucci Rush.
Taking the bottle from her, Keira held the scarf in one hand, depressed the atomiser and covered it in a thick, sweet-smelling mist. Scrunching the piece of pink cloth in her fist, she pressed it to her face, making sure to cover her nose and mouth, then set off back along the path.
‘What the hell are you doing? You’re not going in there,’ said Ardiana, calling after her. ‘Please! This is bad . . . very bad. We should leave,’ but Keira was already gone.
*
Flies continued to buzz around her as she squeezed into the tight opening between door and jamb. Keira tried to widen the gap, but whatever was on the floor was stuck fast. The perfume helped block out the rancid smell, but it wasn’t enough; Keira started to gag.
Leading with her right arm and shoulder, she tried to squeeze her hips and torso through into the hallway, but twisting sideways and craning her neck for the final push was too painful. Each nudge wedged her more firmly into the gap. Her head movement was restricted. She tried edging back out towards the garden, but that didn’t help. She was stuck, lodged between the door frame and the edge of the door.
Keira took a deep breath, sucked in her stomach and managed to tug her belt buckle free from the door handle, then with one final effort she pushed through into the darkened lobby.
What little light there was spilling in through the open door cast shadows in the gloom. It was just possible to make out the outline of a kitchen table and beyond that the arm of a sofa in the far corner. A solid, misshapen mass lay heaped on the near side of the table, shimmering in the darkness. With one eye on the shadowy mound Keira dropped to a squat and ran her hand along the bottom of the front door. Her fingers came to rest on something soft, jammed underneath. Applying a little pressure to the door, she yanked the object out and held i
t to the light. A child’s soft toy, an animal of some kind, too stained to be recognisable beyond that.
Keira was now able to open the door fully, allowing the lobby and kitchen to fill with light and cleaner air.
The misshapen mound in the kitchen was now clearly visible.
The remains of two bodies collapsed against each other, sitting where they had died, their clothing stained dark with blood. Ermir’s grandparents.
Valbona Dervishi sat nearest, arm across her chest, a withered, skeletal hand clutched to her throat. Her husband Edon’s body was slumped in the chair next to her, head flopped back, the hole in his ribcage visible through what remained of his shirt. The little flesh they had left was being slowly devoured by a plague of maggots and cockroaches. The insects crawled and writhed across their faces and exposed limbs in a seething mass, giving the impression that the cadavers were somehow alive. In the gloomy silence it was possible to pick out the buzz and click of thousands of tiny jaws consuming the rotten meat.
Behind them on the mantel sat a collection of memorabilia: trophies, ornaments and a number of framed photographs. In one, the fresh face of a young girl, barely in her teens, stared thoughtfully into the room. An unguarded moment of innocence at odds with the scene it overlooked. Her face was swollen with childhood and softer than the Kaltrina Dervishi that Keira had known, but she recognised the young girl immediately. In the frame next to Kaltrina’s a young boy of four or five with the same expression as his mother: the same eyes and soft, high cheeks, his head tilted to one side, nuzzling something between his chin and his shoulder.
This was Keira’s first glimpse of Kaltrina’s son: she was in no doubt that the boy staring back at her was Ermir.
Filling her lungs, she drew the headscarf from her mouth and used her hand to steady herself against the near wall. As she stretched across the dead bodies towards the mantel her leg brushed against the chair, causing Valbona Dervishi’s hand to fall from her chest and knock against Keira’s thigh.
She jumped back.
‘Shit.’
The car horn sounded outside.
Keira took a step closer, taking care to avoid any further contact. Balancing on the tips of her toes, she braced herself against the wall again and this time managed to hook her fingers round the back of the nearest frame and drag it along the mantel until she could grip it properly. Using the frame to extend her reach Keira tipped the photograph of Kaltrina so that it clattered face down onto the mantel where it lay – blind now to the horror in front of it.
Moments later Keira was back on the garden path, retching until there was nothing left in her stomach.
*
‘You okay?’ frowned Ardiana as Keira approached the car.
‘Thanks for your help.’
‘You’re lucky I’m still here. I was all set to steal the car and get to hell away from this scary shit. We all done?’
‘Nearly.’
‘Don’t even think of telling me what’s in there. Whatever it is, I don’t want the picture in my head.’ Ardiana craned her neck to look at the photograph Keira was carrying. ‘This is the boy?’
‘I’m pretty sure, yeah.’
Ardiana nodded in the direction of the cottage. ‘Please, it’s not him in there that smells so bad.’
‘It’s not him.’
‘The grandparents, like you said?’
‘I thought you didn’t want to know.’
‘I don’t want to know what they look like. I am just checking you were right.’
‘I was right.’
‘This is what they do to keep people afraid.’
‘Who?’
‘The Clan; they don’t let anyone near the place to get the bodies for a funeral. It’s to show everyone they are in charge of everything round here: whether you live or die, whether they will let you go to the afterlife. Even when you are dead, still, they are in charge of you. They are cursing the family. It is not good what you have done. They will know. We must leave here straight away.’
‘I need to talk to Lule’s mother.’
‘You think old Rozafa there will have anything to say to you?’ Ardiana wagged her index finger in the air. ‘The people in that tomb were her neighbours. She will know what’s in this house – what has happened – and her mouth it will be stitched tight. You will get from her, nothing. We must leave here.’
‘I think she knows where the boy is.’
Twelve
Lule was on her way to drop off some shopping at her mother’s house in Dushk when she got the call. Rozafa was talking in whispers.
‘They been at the front door three times now.’
‘They?’
‘She . . . a woman.’
‘On her own?’
‘Just a woman on her own and another one sitting in the car.’
‘There are two of them?’
‘Been peering in through the windows ’n’ looking over the fence into the back yard.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘In her car.’
‘Both of them are in the car?’
‘Parked right outside the gate: I can see her plain as day.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one who was at the door. Looks like they’re gonna wait there. They’re both in the car now, talking to each other.’
These days most of Rozafa’s experience of the world came via the television, which was nearly as old as she was and sat babbling away in the corner of her living room. Her politics came courtesy of TV Klan’s long running political show Opinion, but her favourite was the American show Gruaja a Mirë: The Good Wife. The only time she left the house was to tend the vegetable patch behind the house and feed the chickens picking over what was left of her dusty lawn. Lule had told her this day would come. She’d warned her that people would come looking for her, but Rozafa had dismissed her daughter’s concerns as paranoia. Lule had not been the same since returning from her travels. Her youthful confidence was gone: whatever happened while she was abroad had hollowed the girl out; made her nervous and withdrawn.
‘D’you think this is it?’ continued Rozafa. ‘Is this the thing you said was going to happen one day . . . is this it happening?’
‘I don’t know, Mom. You think maybe they’re Policia?’ asked Lule.
‘More like someone from a bank – the one that’s come to the door, anyway. Plain, not showy; an accountant maybe.’
‘Why would someone from a bank come visit you?’
‘I’m just saying what she’s dressed like.’
‘What sort of age?’
‘Hard to tell what she looks like: her face is all beat up, like she’s been in a fight. Doesn’t have any smile lines round her eyes; definitely not Albanian. The other one is. She looks familiar. I’ve seen her before.’
‘You got close enough to see the lines around her eyes?’
‘The beat-up one came right up to the front of the house. Was peering in the windows. I was standing on the other side of the nets looking straight at her.’
‘Have they gone next door?’
‘The car parked up about an hour ago. Figure they went in to have a look. Got a rental sticker on the windshield; could be she’s from out of town. You want me to go get the shotgun; ask her what the hell she’s doing? I could end this right now.’
‘No,’ said Lule. ‘Don’t do anything. Do they know you’re in the house?’
‘Don’t think so. Where are you?’
‘I’m nearby. I’ve been to the market. I have a couple of bags for you.’
‘You have the boy there too?’
‘He’s asleep in the back.’
‘Turn around and go back to your apartment. Don’t come here, Lule. I’ll take care of it.’
‘I’m at the bottom of the hill.’
‘Take him away from here, Lule. You can bring the shopping tomorrow.’
‘I don’t have the car tomorrow.’
‘Wait, I hear something.’
‘Don�
��t go out there, Mom.’
‘I’ll call you back.’
‘Don’t go out there,’ hissed Lule, but the phone was dead.
Just past the turn-off to her mother’s house, Lule eased her foot on to the brake and steered the light green W115 Mercedes onto the verge. The soft tyres bulged and bounced along the potholed surface until the car eventually came to a stop. In the rear, the boy’s head rested at an awkward angle against the car window. A small teardrop of saliva escaped his mouth, ran down over his soft chin and dripped onto his shoulder, turning a patch of light-blue cotton T-shirt a darker shade. Lule cut the engine and sat for a moment taking in the silence. She wound down the window and let the car fill with warm air from outside. Where her arm rested on the top of the door panel she could feel the sun’s heat on her bare skin.
When she’d dressed for work earlier that morning it had crossed her mind that today could be the day. It wasn’t intuition; she’d had the same thought every morning for the past few months. Ever since the boy had walked through the garden and into her mother’s house – covered in blood, his eyes wet with tears, his stomach cramped with hunger – she’d wondered when they would come. From the moment she’d decided to take the boy and look after him she’d barely slept. The least noise: the creak of a door or crack of a floorboard would have her sitting up in bed fighting to catch her breath. Ermir would wake too and start asking for Hathi, whoever or whatever that was. The rest of the night would then be spent trying to comfort the boy back to sleep. Money was tight: she worked part time in a grocery store in Tirana and shared a flat with her friend Nikki Shyri, but that wouldn’t last. Nikki was already making noises about Lule finding somewhere else to live and now this: two women outside her mother’s house.
Ermir would be awake soon and it would be impossible to deliver the shopping to her mother without him becoming distressed. Ermir was afraid he was being taken back to the house where his grandparents had been murdered. He would become agitated, start crying – wail until he made himself sick. The only options were to leave him with a neighbour or drive to her mother’s house when he was asleep and drop the shopping off without even getting out of the car. Leaving him with a neighbour caused the boy to become even more anxious. He couldn’t bear to be separated from her. It was the same for Lule: she couldn’t bear to be separated from the boy. He’d barely spoken since the day his grandparents were murdered: just one word that he repeated over and over again. ‘Hathi’.
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