by Tim Adler
"The police, they all crooks. Corrupt. They all kopil. So why those men want you?"
Kate lowered her voice. "My husband, the man who died. They were blackmailing him. He was going to go to the police. So they killed him."
"Your husband at hotel?"
"They pushed him off our balcony, these men."
"Have you told police this?"
"Not yet, no."
"The police. They make life bad for me. You tell police I had nothing to do with husband?"
"Of course. I was wrong. I'm sorry for what I did."
"You have money?"
Kate shook her head. Marooned in a country a thousand miles away from home with no money and no passport. "I'll go to the British Embassy. I was there just a few days ago. They'll remember me."
The dishwasher looked thoughtful. "Come, we go."
He stood up, and Kate realised that he wanted her to follow. The air was thick with steam and grease. The dishwasher said something to the café owner, who jerked his head for them to go out the back way.
Outside they stood in a dismal courtyard where the rubbish was kept. Around them were piled-up sagging dustbin bags, one of them torn and spewing vegetable discards, leftovers and egg shells. Chunky dog turds were strewn on flagstones. The dishwasher tested a rotten-looking door, which shook a little on opening.
Now they were walking down an alley away from the café, parallel to the main road. Kate's wet trainers slapped the tarmac, and her greatcoat was dragging her down.
"I don't even know your name," she said, breathing smoke.
"My name is András–" he pronounced the "s" as "sh" – "and I am from Hungary. Why do I come here? I come here because of girl, you know. I work all over the place, I work in London at Ritz Hotel, Dorchester Hotel, Claridge's Hotel – you know Claridge's Hotel? Very good hotel. Everybody know András. I like London very much. Nice girls, football, Kings Road. We have party in Kings Road with Charlie George. You know Charlie George? Arsenal football."
"Your English is excellent. How long were you in London?"
"I live in Norwood." He almost crooned the name of the south London suburb. "You know Norwood?"
It was hard to imagine this dishevelled man living it up on the Kings Road with Seventies dolly birds and Jaguar e-types. "So why did you come to Albania?"
"I meet Albanian girl, I come here. Big, sexy mountain girl. This was in bad days with Hoxha. Everybody here inform on each other. One day they come and take me to prison. They say I am foreign spy. They beat me, torture me, pull out my fingernails. I know those bastards, Sigurimi, police, they all the same. We go to my place, you be safe."
Kate wondered if he was drunk. He certainly smelled of booze, even this early in the morning. They trudged back along the potholed road, and again she wondered why this man was helping her. She'd cost him his job. She remembered Poda saying the hotel was going to charge him with theft, even though he had nothing to do with Paul's death.
She felt she had to apologise again.
This time the dishwasher shrugged. "I get another job easy. I have lots of friends."
Soon they were climbing the stairs in his apartment block. There were the same cooking smells as before and everything was painted shit brown. Halfway up she rested her hand on the banister – she felt grey with pain and all of her hurt. "You okay?" András asked. Kate nodded and girded herself for the rest of the climb. What would they do to John Priest once they realised the laptop didn't contain the information they wanted? What the dishwasher said about torture crossed her mind. Priest had told her to get to Poda, to get to safety, and that the police would contact Europol. They would know what to do. And then this nightmare would finally be over.
András's bedsit was just as she'd remembered it: the faded rose wallpaper and the window looking out onto a brick wall; the two-ring cooker and thin pink bedspread. All of a sudden she felt overwhelmingly tired; she had to close her eyes and let everything go. Her brain felt clogged, unable to absorb anything more.
"You want drink? Skanderbeg?" András asked.
"Do you have anything to eat?"
András cut a piece of black bread and handed it to her with a slice of thin cheese. "Your girlfriend, is she here?" Kate asked, wolfing down the sandwich. She had never tasted anything so delicious.
"She at work. Hotel let her keep job. Why she keep job? She hard worker, she good girl. Drita take care of András." He reached into the wardrobe and pulled out what looked like a bottle of brandy. "Skanderbeg. National hero of Albania."
András poured himself a tumbler and looked at Kate as if she was a puzzle to be solved. If only she could close her eyes for a moment.
"Tell me about your husband."
Kate went through the whole story, revealing how Paul had effectively been the bookkeeper for this criminal gang. "This other man, the policeman, he was trying to protect me," she said in conclusion. "They still have him. They were taking us to their boss, a man called Zogaj."
András took a sip and shivered, although she wasn't sure if it was from the brandy or fear. "Zogaj," he said softly.
"You know Zogaj?"
"Everybody know Zogaj. Newspapers know Zogaj, TV know Zogaj. Still they do nothing. Why they do nothing? Because he pay off politicians." András tapped the table with his index finger for emphasis. "Zogaj pay for their election campaigns. He has big cannabis fields in the north, plenty money, plenty guns. The police are afraid of him. They say, 'Zogaj not so bad, Zogaj gives us euros.' I tell you, this Zogaj is like cancer … he–" András couldn't find the word and mimed spreading outward "–one day he kill whole country."
"Can you get me to the British Embassy?"
András waved his arm grandly. "Sure, British Embassy. No problem."
Her leg was throbbing as she limped past the bed. She knew she had done something bad to it in the accident but was afraid to look.
András noticed her limping. "Show me," he said.
Kate sat on the bedspread and hitched up her army fatigues. Her left leg was bruised and swollen, and just thinking about it made her sweat. András prodded and she winced. He tutted and rattled about in a desk drawer for what looked like a bottle of painkillers. "Here, you take this. You rest and then we go British, okay? No police." Kate nodded gratefully and swallowed two orange-jacketed pills without water.
She unlaced her wet trainers and stretched out on the bed, still wearing the military coat. András sat at the table smoking, and she noticed how cigarettes had turned his beard yellow. He coughed and turned the glass in his hand, contemplating it. Ah, the reward of Morpheus, she thought, and she imagined her shoulders and back spreading out as they oozed into the mattress, the bliss of oblivion. She simply had no more capacity for thought. Kate closed her eyes as the pills took hold and felt herself tipping backward, as if she was falling off a high-diving board.
There was a knock at the door.
Instantly she was awake. András put his finger to his lips and crept up from the table, motioning for her to join him.
"Kush eshtë?" he asked.
"Policia. Hapeni"
András mouthed the word "police" before turning back to the door. "Jam sëmur. Cfare doni?"
"Gruan Angleze. Ne e dime qe ajo eshte me ju. Ne duam ta cojme tek zyra qendrore.
"Ketu nuk ka asnjeri. Largohuni."
András shook his head and gestured for her to help him. He was standing beside the wardrobe, and he nodded for Kate to give him a hand shifting it. Quietly, ever so quietly, they slid the wardrobe along the wall. Her eyelids felt so heavy – if only she could shake these damn pills off. The armoire was heavier than she expected, but now she could see what András was doing: there was a hole behind it you could just about squeeze through. It must have been where he kept stolen property from hotel guests.
Whoever it was on the outside lost patience. There was a hefty kick on the bedsit door, which bulged for a moment. Another couple of kicks and they would burst through.
Kate forc
ed herself through the crack while András heaved the wardrobe back into place. Now she was standing in about a shoulder's width of dusty pitch black with rubbish bags against her legs. The dust made it difficult to breathe. She fought rising panic and the feeling of being suffocated. The one thing she knew was that she had to hold still.
There were raised voices through the plasterwork. Kate strained to listen and could imagine Teardrop and Mr Punch pushing their way in. Shouting. András must have been telling them she wasn't there. Then silence. András let out a terrible scream and she pressed her ear against the plaster, trying to figure out what was going on. The wardrobe scraped along the floor and light flooded her tiny crawlspace.
They had found her.
Her heart dropped through her ribcage and fear pooled in her stomach. "You come out," Teardrop said calmly in English.
András was sitting on the bedspread with a nasty burn on his forehead. His eyes said, "I'm sorry", and she noticed the cooker ring was deep red. A smell of burnt flesh hung in the air and a tuft of hair was stuck to the ring.
Teardrop and Mr Punch looked at her almost admiringly. Mr Punch was holding the automatic he'd revealed in the car park. They were laughing at her. "You come with us now," Teardrop said. "No more funny games." András looked in despair. "It's okay," Kate said, touching his shoulder as she went past. Reluctantly she took a step towards the bedroom door. The three of them were about to leave when András stood up and said something. Whatever he said must have antagonised Mr Punch, who stepped forward cocking the handgun. The men started arguing. The next thing she knew, András had gone for the pistol. The two men were wrestling for it when suddenly the gun went off.
The gunshot was so close it seemed to explode inside her head.
András appeared to sink like a ship turning on end, sliding down second by second. A kind of red mist hung in the air. The dishwasher settled on his knees, gazing directly at Kate as if he was about to ask her a question. Then he toppled sideways, bending at the knees with his legs doubling beneath him.
Nobody said anything, and she remembered the sound reverberating for the longest time. They were all in shock. Then, as if reading her mind, Teardrop made a grab for Kate, but she was too quick for him. She pulled the door open and threw herself outside, screaming her head off as she pelted down the corridor. Her banshee yell followed her as she crashed through the first set of double doors, throwing herself downstairs. She cleared the first flight in a single jump, clattering down the rest of the stone steps. She sensed people coming out of their rooms. What the hell was going on? Who was making all this noise?
The only thing Kate knew was that she had to get out of there. Get out. GET OUT.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shouts echoed around the stone stairwell as she cleared another flight of steps. All she could hear was the sound of her ragged breath. One more flight to go, except this time she landed badly and pain shot up her left side. Dazzling pain. Grunting with the effort, she half-ran, half-dragged herself towards the outside door, which seemed to recede the nearer she got to it.
Pulling the entrance open, she felt tepid winter sun on her face and nearly toppled down the steps in her hurry to get away. There were cars at the other end of the alleyway – surely one of them would stop and help – and she set off, dragging her bad leg down the street.
She had seen a man murdered in front of her.
The side street was in shade, but rush hour must have started because the main road was gridlocked, cars and lorries bumper to bumper waiting for traffic lights. The air was thick with diesel smoke. She ran up to the first driver and banged on his window. "HELP ME," she screamed hysterically, thumping the glass. She didn't care what people thought. The driver shrank back in alarm, and she realised how she must seem: a deranged woman in an army uniform running between cars, looking as if she'd escaped from a mental hospital. Kate looked round frantically. The lights were changing and any moment her chance would be gone. Car horns blared for her to get out of the road. Traffic started moving, and if there was ever a moment that she just wanted to sit down and give in, this was it. Nobody was coming to rescue her.
The moving traffic revealed a queue of women at a bus stop. A couple of old men stood with them smoking cigarettes. A bus was coming down the street and Kate knew this was her chance. She could worry about where the bus was headed later. But then Kate realised that she had no money. She stood there impotently, waiting to cross the road. Then saw Mr Punch's head bobbing between the commuters going to work. He was weaving through, searching for her. Come on, come on, why weren't the lights changing?
The bus was pulling over just as she reached the stop. The pain in her leg was dizzying, and she felt as if her calves were bleeding. Her only chance would be to sidle past the driver as the other women boarded. Sure enough, the door wheezed open and the women pressed forward. She did her best to get caught up in the scrum. The driver shouted back at her. She ignored him, hanging on to a strap while pretending to look out of a dirty window. Just a stupid tourist who didn't speak English. The other women regarded her with suspicion. The driver shouted again, and still the bus would not move. Mr Punch had stopped and was looking straight at her. For God's sake, get the bus moving. An old man harangued the driver, who slapped the steering wheel in frustration before revving the engine. Finally they were off.
Only now could she start to digest what had happened. Teardrop and Mr Punch had murdered an innocent man right before her eyes. Priest was probably locked in the boot of the Land Cruiser, and now they were taking him to Zogaj. The words of the 23rd Psalm floated back to her: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." She knew what she had to do. The police knew who Zogaj was and where his headquarters were, while she had the smoking gun that revealed which British officials were on the take. Who knew how far up this went? What Inspector Poda had said about the Albania State Police being corrupt came back to her; he was the only one to whom she could tell everything.
There were more billboards the closer they got to the city centre. Cute youngsters munching biscuits. Sexy women advertising shampoo, mobile phones and cleaning products. Now they were going past the jarringly camouflaged buildings, and she recognised the gulch running between the four lanes of traffic. Her clawing anxiety peaked the moment they passed the police headquarters – she dinged the bell, desperate to get off – yet she felt warm because she was finally in touching distance of safety.
Kate felt the effects of the pills coming on again the moment the bus doors slammed behind her. She had to get the damn things out of her system.
The solitary policeman on duty paid little attention to the woman hurrying through the gate. He slapped himself and breathed smoke while stamping his feet. Albania's police headquarters was a truly ugly building that could have been a modern hotel, apart from the red police shield on the wall. A smoked-glass atrium and central staircase divided the Seventies structure in two.
People sat on benches, waiting beside a couple of desk sergeants. "Please," Kate said, placing both hands on the counter. "I need to see Inspector Poda." Her voice was a panicky, breathless kind of gulp. The policeman turned to his colleague, who said carefully in English, "How can I help you?" She leaned in and repeated that Mrs Julia needed to see Inspector Poda. Urgently.
There were the usual posters on the wall for missing children, rabies and wanted criminals. Sitting there, she finally felt the enormity of what had happened. This time last week she and Paul had been an averagely happy couple, both struggling to pay the mortgage, he with a failing internet business and she as a freelance textile designer. Now she was on the run. She alone was the one who would bring down the whole house of cards.
Her mind was still running through what to say when she spotted Poda coming downstairs with his peculiar bandy-legged walk. He came through the turnstile, clearly puzzled as to what she was doing here. Kate stood up.
"Mrs Julia?" he asked.
"Thank
God. You must help me."
"Sure. Are you okay? You don't look well."
"Please. Is there somewhere we can go?"
He walked her upstairs to his office, where there was the almost forgotten sound of telephones ringing along with the clack of typewriters. Police in Albania, she realised, still used old-fashioned electric machines.
Poda ushered out the two other detectives he shared his office with. Squeezed into suits with their Balkan meat-head haircuts, they resembled gorillas. She wondered if these two were on the take as well, and that was why Poda wanted them out of earshot. Her one piece of luck was the man sitting in front of her.
"I don't understand. What are you doing back in Tirana?"
"My husband didn't jump. He was murdered."
For a moment, Poda was about to roll his eyes. "Mrs Julia, I told you. The man we arrested–"
Kate interrupted, "No, you listen to me."
Once again, Kate launched into the story she had told András, the chain of events that led to her sitting in this office. "Look, you don't have to take my word for it. There's another man with me, John Priest, he works for Europol."
Her words were tumbling out of her, falling over one another. Poda held up his hand. "Slow down. What you mean, Europol? Where is this man now?"
"They've still got him. The boss of this gang is called Zogaj."
Poda looked startled. "He knows Zogaj?"
Kate explained, "So, when Paul came to Albania last week for his uncle's funeral, my guess is that he told Zogaj he wanted out, that he'd blow the whistle unless they let him go." She was reaching here, but that did seem the most plausible explanation.
Something told her to hold back the ace in her hand – the names and contact details of everybody caught in this dark web. That she would give only to John's boss himself.
Poda looked as if she'd just slapped him across the face. She had forgotten quite how his glasses magnified his eyes so comically. "That's quite a story you're telling," he said.