by Tim Adler
"You are not going mad, Mrs Julia. Whoever that man is, we will catch him."
So grief had not driven her insane. The Albanian police did believe her, and if the police believed her, then her husband's killer could soon be behind bars.
Inspector Poda escorted Kate to the car park. He had a peculiar rolling, bandy-legged walk, as if he'd once been a sailor. Bypassing a line of police cars, he ushered her into a beat-up Fiat. "Best not let them know we're coming," he explained. "Otherwise, we'll set the cat among the pigeons, yes?"
They exited the police headquarters and turned right up the dual carriageway. A gulch ran through the middle of four lanes of traffic. The inspector was driving her back to her hotel, and the nearer they got to the city centre, the worse the traffic became. Poda drummed agitatedly on the steering wheel with his thumb. "There was never any traffic before there were women drivers," he muttered.
Ten minutes later, they pulled up outside the National. The police tape keeping onlookers back had gone, and it could have been any normal Saturday morning. Normal for everybody else, that is. Through the window, Kate glanced up at the hateful balcony that her husband had fallen from. When she got out of the car, she noticed that the pavement looked clean. The management clearly didn't want anybody reminded of last night. For them it was business as usual. Except that whoever had cleaned the pavement had not done a very good job. There was still a dark patch where her husband's brains had been dashed. She shuddered as she stepped over it.
As they walked through the double doors, the receptionist looked embarrassed to see them. She wouldn't meet Kate's eye. "Good morning, Mrs Julia. We are sorry for your loss."
The inspector interrupted. "We need to speak to the manager," he said.
"Of course. I'll just see if he's free. Who shall I say needs to see him?"
"Inspector Poda of the Albania State Police."
Kate took in the chandeliers and marble floor while they waited. The hotel had a classical feel. She remembered Paul telling her that an Italian architect had designed it as the economics ministry before the war. It had been government offices right up until the Nineties.
The manager with the Van Dyck beard appeared. He reminded Kate of those drawings of Willy Wonka in a Roald Dahl paperback she had as a child.
"Who ordered the crime scene outside to be taken down?" Poda asked in English.
"I don't know. One of your colleagues, I suppose. They said they had everything they needed." The manager looked nervous, as if he wanted them out of there. Bad for business. "How can I help you?"
"We need to show you a photograph." Poda gave Kate a look indicating that she should get out her iPhone. "Do you recognise this man?"
"Yes, it's the man who killed himself." Then, remembering who Kate was: "Sorry, madam, I meant no offence."
"No, not him, the man behind, the one coming through the curtains."
It was a moment of vaudeville comedy, and Kate wished she had never embarked on such a wild goose chase. The manager looked dubious and then slowly nodded. "I suppose there could be somebody there. It might just the way the curtain's moving." He stroked his beard. "Yes, I'm pretty certain I know who that is."
"You know this man on the balcony?" repeated the detective inspector. Kate's heart thickened with surprise. This was all going much faster than she had expected. Maybe the police could even have Paul's murderer under arrest within the hour, she thought optimistically.
"Yes. He works as a dishwasher. We've had a lot of stuff going missing: jewellery, passports. We've never been able to prove anything, though."
"What makes you think it's him?"
"He's just trouble. He's always late or too hungover for work."
"Is this dishwasher on duty now?"
The manager looked at his watch. The wall clock behind him said nearly noon. "He should be here. Do you want me to find him?"
They filed downstairs through the basement restaurant and turned to the right. The manager ushered them into a typical industrial stainless-steel kitchen. Two cooks in chef's whites were getting lunch ready, and the one chopping vegetables looked up as the manager held the door open. The dishwasher stood with his back to them rinsing plates, his long hair in a ratty ponytail. The manager said something sharply in Albanian, and the dishwasher turned around. With his unkempt grey beard and tied-back hair, he looked like a California mountain man. There was no doubt in Kate's mind: this was the man who had been lurking on their balcony.
The man who had murdered her husband. The stranger who had pushed him to his death.
The four of them sat in the restaurant, the only people there. It was that empty hour before lunchtime service began. The dishwasher sprawled in his chair. For somebody being interviewed by the police, he looked almost relaxed, even bored. The inspector began speaking in Albanian and showed Kate's iPhone to the dishwasher, who shook his head. The conversation became heated. Kate didn't have a clue what was going on, and eventually the dishwasher folded his arms. Poda turned to Kate and said, "He says he wasn't in the hotel last night. He was watching the fireworks with his girlfriend. She was with him all night, apparently. Of course, we will check." The inspector spoke to the dishwasher again, who shrugged. Their suspect had agreed that they could speak to the woman who'd been with him last night. Suddenly, Kate didn't feel so confident.
They left the dishwasher with the manager watching over him. Poda said he needed to call headquarters for backup.
The detective inspector turned to Kate while they waited. "The hotel must have paid off my colleagues to take down the crime scene. Not good for business. This whole country's on the take. What do the Italians call it? La mordida. The bite. One hand washes the other." He mimed washing his hands.
"Will it hurt your investigation?"
"Probably not. Forensics got everything they needed. I'm more interested in what happened on your balcony. We'll need to dust for prints again. Check CCTV."
A dark blue Volkswagen marked Policia pulled up outside the hotel, and a couple of tough-looking policemen got out. They, too, had Balkan meathead haircuts, short on top and shaved sides. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them, Kate thought. A minute later they were marching the dishwasher across the lobby and through the revolving door. She and Poda would follow in the inspector's beat-up Fiat.
The outskirts of Tirana were even more chaotic than where Paul's mother lived. There was a confusion of shops with wedding dresses stuck in the upper windows. Everything looked as if it was being built or had been abandoned. Cranes were everywhere. If anything, the potholes were even worse on this side of town.
Flanked by two policemen, the dishwasher walked up the worn stone steps of his apartment block. There was no lift. He lived on the top floor, and Kate peered over the handrail down the central stairwell as they made their ascent. Paul's body sprawled at the bottom flashed into her mind, and she yanked her head back. She felt nauseous. Perhaps Paul's death had given her vertigo as well.
The top-floor landing was a long corridor with doors on either side. All the woodwork was painted chocolate brown, and there was a strong smell of cabbage. The policemen stood outside one door and knocked. A young woman tying a dressing gown opened the door, looking at them suspiciously. They exchanged words in Albanian and the dishwasher went in.
The room the couple shared was really just a bedsit, with a double bed taking up most of the space. There was a wardrobe and a table covered with ratty-looking velvet on which a couple of electric rings stood. A corner vanity basin doubled as the sink, and all the woodwork was painted the same shit brown.
The four of them stood jammed in a corner until the inspector shook himself free, shooting a look at his officers as if to say, you idiots. The chambermaid answered his questions quietly, and after a brief exchange Poda turned to Kate. "She says they were together all last night. They watched the parade and then the fireworks. They have friends who saw them together." Kate was starting to have qualms. Who was she to ruin a man's life, and on the basis of
what, a Snapchat photo? And in any case, what did it matter? Her husband was dead. The man she had loved with every atom of her being had gone, and everything else seemed pointless. "Tell him I'm sorry. There's been a mistake. I'm not going to press charges," Kate said. The dishwasher nodded at her gravely; clearly he understood some English.
"That's not for you to decide," said Poda.
He began looking round the room, opening wardrobe doors. The young woman stared down at the floor. Poda picked up a book from the bedside table, flicked through the pages and then shook it, as if he expected something to fall out. The tension became palpable. It was like an awful game of hot and cold as Poda rattled open a table drawer, jangling the cutlery. He reached in with his arm and pulled out a watch: a Cartier Tank. Kate recognised the design. Holding it up with an I-told-you-so expression on his face, Poda searched again, and this time he pulled out a passport. At this, the chambermaid began shouting at her dishwasher boyfriend. One of the policemen cut in and shoved her down on the bed. The inspector said something sharply, and the cops hustled the protesting dishwasher out. "I'm arresting him on suspicion of stealing from hotel guests," said Poda before he turned to the woman, speaking softly to her. She looked dejected.
Kate didn't want to be in this squalid room anymore. In fact, she wanted to be anywhere but here. So Paul had been killed because they'd panicked a burglar – and for what? Apart from her iPhone and Paul's MacBook, there hadn't been much else in the room. She imagined the life they could have had together: Paul's baby growing inside her, jolly family days on the beach, helping their son – it was always a son – get ready for his first day at school. Well, none of that would happen now. This man had erased whatever future with Paul she might have had. She waited outside until the inspector joined her in the corridor.
The two of them leaned over the balcony and watched the policemen taking the dishwasher downstairs. He was struggling and complaining. The chambermaid had just admitted he had bullied her into giving him her pass key, Poda said. Her boyfriend stole from hotel guests and sold the goods on to a fence. Suddenly the dishwasher looked up and stared directly at Kate. It was as if he was looking right into her. "The man who die," he called up. "I know nothing. I know nothing."
Pushing the dishwasher's head down into the police car, neither officer paid much attention to the homeless man trundling a supermarket trolley along the street. His filthy clothes were stiff with dirt and his hair was matted with dreadlocks. It was the smell that was worst: people got out of the way because of the stink of booze and urine. The trolley's wonky front wheel made it veer off course. The tramp stopped to pick some litter off the pavement, all the while watching the police car. He dug a Samsung phone out of his rags and spoke softly into it. "Tell Zogaj they've made an arrest."
Chapter Eight
The room was packed with men standing shoulder to shoulder, bearded men, mostly shopkeepers, and a few local students. Hashim was one of the last to be let in. The imam, who was sitting on a carved wooden chair, was in the middle of his talk as the Albanian squeezed his way through. The digital clock behind the imam told the local time. In fact, there were clocks everywhere, giving the time both here and in Mecca. The imam's voice was comforting and reminded Hashim of home, of golden minarets rippling in the midday heat, a call to prayer ululating over the city, a mystery as old and timeless as the Qube itself. He jostled in-between his fellow believers as the imam stood up, revealing a crescent and star carved into the seat. The bearded cleric broke off and looked round the room for support, as if he wasn't quite sure as to the truth of what he was saying.
His talk over – homosexuality, the most corrupting and hideous of sins, was a vile perversion that went against human nature, fitrah – the imam sat back as a Pakistani in a djellaba stood chanting with his back to the room. As one, the worshippers dropped their gaze to the elaborate Persian carpet and Hashim noticed that his right sock had a hole in it. He wiggled his big toe where it poked through. The worshippers dropped down again on their haunches, prostrating themselves, and Hashim heard the man next to him whispering urgently.
Quickly it was all over and Hashim emerged into the street, ignoring the man in a hi-vis jacket collecting donations in an empty curry-sauce bucket. The mosque was a shop front in a busy Soho street. All around them were kuff sex shops: women in chains being throttled, beaten and grabbed by the hair while men finished off in their insensible faces. Turning his leather collar up, Hashim pushed his way past the other men chatting and joshing each other, smoking cigarettes as they made plans. This place was on its knees as well. The smell of corruption stank in his nostrils. Soho was gearing up for Saturday night: the tourists and staggering-drunk women, the lonely men who slipped into the hostess bars. Zogaj owned most of them. Hashim nodded to a bored peroxide blonde sitting on a bar stool touting for custom.
One of his early jobs had been to persuade the owners to sell up to Zogaj. "We supply the girls. Now we want to own the bars as well," Zogaj had told him. He'd had to get rough with some of them, but that was the thing: prison didn't frighten Hashim; it was better than where he'd come from. The English guys, it was like there was a cut-off point as to stuff they wouldn't do. Hashim never felt like that. For him, there were no limits.
His bedsit was down the road from the shop-front mosque. He trudged upstairs past the grubby anaglypta wallpaper and the sign saying "Model First Floor". Hashim glanced up at the red naked light bulb. The whole place stank of cat piss. Letting himself in, he looked round the shabby room and lay down on the single bed, not bothering to take his boots off. He tapped one of the strong Greek cigarettes he'd brought over on the crushed packet and sparked up, exhaling through his nostrils. Only one left.
His father featured in one of his earliest memories. He couldn't have been more than three or four. There had been one hot, airless night in particular, the heavens swagged with pendulous stars. Papa had carried him up the mountain on his shoulders, and they had lain on the hillside gazing up at the stars as he explained the constellations. Could he see the shape of a plough? And there was the Archer, shaped like a bow and arrow. Thoughts of Papa turned into other thoughts: how Zogaj had clamped a pillow over the old man's head. "Zogaj always wins, Zogaj never loses," was what they said. Well, not this time, thought Hashim. Zogaj, Zogaj – the name was like an abscess leaking its poison into his nerves. They said that revenge was a dish best served cold. Well, he would just bide his time.
There was a knock on the door. Hashim wondered who it was; hardly anybody knew he was back in London. A couple of teenagers stood on the landing, probably up on a school trip. The one in front was a red-headed Yid, brashly confident, while his friend looked away down the stairs. "Can I see the model, please?" the Yid asked. "Not here," Hashim said. The shy one tugged his friend's elbow, signalling for them to go. He was attractive in an adolescent way and Hashim felt the familiar stirrings, hating himself at the same time. The Koran was clear: Whenever you catch somebody committing the act of the people of Lut, then kill both parties to the act. He wondered what it would be like to unbutton the boy's school shirt and kiss his nipples, put his hand down his trousers and feel his cock and his silky balls. Why did Allah torment him like this, what did he want with him? Hashim thought for the thousandth time that day as he watched the boys go downstairs and out into the street. They would kill him if they knew his thoughts. The punishment was death by stoning. He could see them standing in front of him, hatred on their faces, his surprise as the first stone struck a glancing blow. The stones would come thick and fast after that, an incoming sleet of rock. Seeing his own death gave Hashim pleasure. Lying there under a pitiless Albanian sky with the crowd standing over him, his torment would finally be over.
As he lay back down on the nubbly magenta bedspread, Hashim gazed at the neon sign rippling outside, a glass of drink pouring electric bubbles into a glass. The bedspread reminded him of the pink house. His thoughts turned back to that day with the Serbian soldier. His cousin had lat
er told him what he'd seen. The pink house near the airport must have been a school before they used it for this. Three school desks had been jammed together; on the floor beneath them was what looked like dried blood. Medical rubbish was heaped in one corner: busted-open packaging, empty drip bags and plastic tubing. It had dawned on his cousin that this was a makeshift operating theatre. When they took the plastic bag off the soldier's head, he had also realised what was going on, and that's when he really started to struggle. For a moment his cousin had stood rooted to the spot, not quite believing what was happening. "Are you going to fucking help?" a doctor had said. It had taken all four of them to lift the private onto the tables and get him sedated. The soldier was still shouting and struggling, and his final words as he went under, his cousin said later, were "Bozˇe pomozi mi. Nemojte to da mi radite." God help me. Please don't do this to me.
There were voices on the stairs and Hashim realised that he had better get going. Besides, he was hungry. Just one more message to deliver for Zogaj. They treated him like a messenger boy and not a family member, he thought resentfully.
The Vietnamese restaurant was busy, and there was a small queue by the door. Waiters bustled about with plates of food. Hashim sat down, studied the photos on the menu and ordered a bowl of noodles. He wondered if the waitress who took his order was one of theirs. But no, there was a defiance about her, plus the nose ring and the sleeve of tattoos. Probably a student. The girls who worked for them were too afraid to meet your eye. Any resistance had been beaten out of them long ago. He remembered reassuring one of them that he was her best friend, and she had believed him – even when the police raided the nail bar where she worked and transferred her to hospital, she escaped and came back.
The last of his broth pooled in his spoon and, satisfied, Hashim pushed the bowl away. He fished in his leather jacket for the crumpled box of cigarettes and lit his last one, tasting a crumb of sweet tobacco on his tongue. Almost immediately, the waitress noticed what he was doing and came over. "You can't do that. No smoking," she said, affronted. Let the bitch stew. He drew on the cigarette and exhaled slowly in her face. She looked askance and then belligerent. "You get manager," Hashim challenged her. Sure enough, the owner came out wearing dirty chef's whites and wiping his hands on a filthy tea towel. Flames shot up behind him as another cook furiously beat a wok. "What you problem?" the restaurant owner said, flinging the cloth over his left shoulder. "No smoking here." He was a big man in his mid-sixties who'd let himself run to fat. Zogaj said he'd been something during the war, that he'd made money selling heroin to American GIs. The proprietor stood over Hashim.