Hold Still – Tim Adler #3: A Psychological Thriller

by Tim Adler

  "John said you knew where Zogaj has his headquarters. That's where they've taken him."

  "Everybody knows where Zogaj is. That's not the point. Everyone is afraid of him. I told you, everybody here is on the take. This place is infested. It's all about…" He rubbed his thumb and forefingers together.

  "But what are you going to do? You can't just leave him."

  "Zogaj lives in Tirana's best hotel. Top floor. Private lift. He has men watching everybody who comes and goes."

  "So why don't you go and rescue John?"

  Poda looked at her as if she was mad. It was the first time she had ever seen him angry. "You think I can just walk in and say, 'Hey, Al Capone, give me this guy back?' You think it's easy? They have weapons, guns … better guns than we have. Listen. I need to speak to my boss, speak to the army, speak to Europol, do you understand? This will take time."

  "But he might be dead before then."

  "Before I speak to my boss, I need more information. Tell me more about who kidnapped you."

  "There were two of them. One was small and bald and always wore sunglasses. The other had a teardrop tattoo right here." She dabbed the corner of one eye.

  "Could you identify them if I show you pictures?"

  Kate nodded.

  "Okay, wait here. I'll go and get the file."

  "Is there a toilet I could use? And a cup of coffee. I've been awake a long time."

  "Sure, coffee. No problem."

  It had been a struggle to keep her eyes open. Once she was alone in the toilet cubicle, she knelt on the floor and lent over the bowel, sticking two fingers down her throat and gagged reflexively. After a couple of dry heaves, she vomited what was left in her stomach, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Stringy bile stuck to her fingers. There, that felt better.

  Poda was back sitting at his desk when she returned, a large lever-arch file packed with mugshots open in front of him. The inspector looked concerned while she turned over the plastic sheets showing a toad-like man grinning in a pork pie hat, dead-eyed thugs, front and side shots of scarred farm boys. Finally she came across Mr Punch.

  "He's the one I was telling you about," Kate said, tapping his photo.

  Poda swivelled the lever-arch file back to himself and started reading out loud. "Saimir [Sammy] Rudaj, 35. Father unemployed and convicted of raping Rudaj's sister, aged 13. Worked as a dogcatcher … then a plasterer before being convicted of theft and arson. Released in 1999 and conscripted to fight in the Kosovo War before he deserted. Sent to prison again in 2005 for attacking a woman with a hammer and raping her." Poda grimaced and set the file down. "Known associate of Zogaj crime family, for whom he works as an enforcer. Nicknamed 'The Butcher'. Suspected of murder of Gona Krasniqi, 26, after torturing her with an iron in her apartment. Her boyfriend, Zef Lika, had gone into witness protection after turning informer. Suspected of planting a bomb in the car of Dardan Petrela after the Petrela crime family set up rival movie-piracy website."

  "I've heard enough."

  Poda put his hands together in prayer and rested his nose on his index fingers. "No hotel. Hotels are all watched. My parents live in the Highlands. You'll be safe there. My parents are poor people, but my mother will look after you. We'll wait few days, then we will take you across the border into Kosovo, okay?"

  "Why can't I go to the British Embassy? Surely I'll be safe there."

  "You think a portrait of the Queen on a wall makes any difference? I promise you, the moment you walk in there, they'll know about it."

  "I find that hard to believe."

  Poda leaned forward. "Mrs Julia, I wish everybody was as naive as you."

  "What about my friend, the policeman?"

  "We need backup, support. Not from here, they're all friends of Zogaj. There are other policemen I know, people like me. We can trust them. Do you like cowboy films?" Kate was nonplussed. Poda mimed lassoing something. "We'll get a posse together, just like in the movies."

  This funny little man with his magnified eyes seemed more like Mr Magoo than a tough, cynical cop, yet he made her feel safe. The detective punched in a number and waited a few moments before speaking. He'd said only a few words before the other person interrupted him. Poda shrugged helplessly as if to say, "Mothers". Finally, he was able to get in a word, and mother and son spoke rapidly in Albanian before Poda set the phone back down.

  "It's all settled. We'll drive to my parents' village and you'll wait there."

  "Why can't you just take me across the border now?"

  "Do you have a passport?" Kate shook her head. "In any case, all borders are watched. We'll wait three days. Don't worry, I'll arrange everything. "

  Chapter Thirty

  The tramp picked the first of the collection of smoked cigarettes off the park bench and sprinkled what was left of the tobacco onto the paper. He flicked the butt away before taking the next one, all the while keeping an eye on police headquarters. Nobody ever paid any attention to him, he was just a fixture. An hour ago the Englishwoman had turned up, just as Zogaj said she would. Out of the corner of his eye, the tramp saw the gate sliding open and the woman clearly visible in the passenger seat of a Fiat car. He reached into one of his plastic shopping bags for his phone, pressed redial and whispered that the woman was heading north on the ring road.

  Less than a mile away, a despatcher at the bus company replaced his handset and watched the Fiat on CCTV screens as it moved through Tirana, switching from one angle to the next as it queued in rush hour traffic. His fingers tapped out an email addressed to "all users" that plunged into the innards of the bus company server and out again to dozens of mobile phones that pinged with the same message. Like dogs barking across a city raising the alarm, the message read: "Registration #TR 467 28 AA … a man and a woman … pass the word, tell Zogaj, tell Zogaj."

  They were on the appallingly ugly highway out of Tirana when Poda pulled over for petrol. Kate sat in the passenger seat taking in the crazy Flash Gordon-on-Mongo architecture across the road as the detective inspector refilled the tank. "Here," he said, handing her a packet of crisps and a can of cola as he got back in. "Road food."

  Car washes seemed to be on every third plot of land as Kate and Poda sped out of Tirana. They passed by ugly shops selling wipe-down plastic furniture, primitive farmhouses with satellite dishes. The mountain range, what Poda called the start of the Highlands, lay in the distance, and the air there was almost black. It had turned cold, indicating that a storm was coming. Sure enough, there was a tungsten flash, and somewhere far off the bronchial sky crackled. Seconds later, thunder rolled quickly across the empty fields. "You'll like my mother," Poda said, tapping the steering wheel. "She'll cook kackavall fure for you. You know kackavall fure? It's like a rich cheese fondue, set alight. You'll love it." The idea of going somewhere where there would be a bed turned down for her, where she would be looked after, seemed almost dangerous to contemplate. Kate felt raddled with exhaustion.

  They were circling the main square of a small town when she saw what looked like an oddly bumbling statue of a man. "Is that George Bush?" she asked. "Oh yes," said Poda. "We love George Bush for what he did to help our brothers and sisters in Kosovo. We love Uncle Sam." He waved his hand as if he was holding a tiny American flag. "God bless America."

  Outside the town they found themselves on a nasty, twisty road going upwards. In summer it might have been fun to drive fast round these blind corners with Primal Scream blasting on the car stereo, but today it felt like a long, hard crawl up the hairpin bends. Occasionally a lorry would appear out of nowhere and Poda would pull over sharply, cringing against the side of the mountain until the vehicle was safely past. There were fir trees on either side of the road. Thunder boomed and the first fat drops of rain started chasing each other down the windscreen.

  "Tell me about your family," Kate said, glimpsing an upturned car resting at the bottom of a ravine hundreds of feet below. One wrong turn and they might join it. Rain drummed on the car roof
.

  "My father was a policeman, too. In those days, police were like Stasi – getting people to spy on each other, neighbours telling on each other, children betraying parents. Bad days. You have to remember that there was nothing here. Albania had no friends apart from China. Hoxha said that even Russia was too western. We were always at war. I remember marching like soldiers in my kindergarten. It was what we did instead of playing with toys."

  "But things are better now."

  Poda made a face. "Things are different now. Instead of Communism we have corruption, the Mafia. Everybody has a price."

  "You don't think much of your colleagues."

  "Some are good, some bad. The problem is that you don't know who to trust."

  "You trust your boss, though?"

  "Oh yes. He's a good man."

  "What about my friend? What's happened to that posse you were talking about?"

  "My boss says it's better if we do an exchange: two of Zogaj's gang for one British policeman. We have plenty of his gang in prison. Drug dealers. Pimps. Don't worry, your friend will be okay." He slapped her knee encouragingly. Don't do that, she thought.

  "I still don't understand why I can't get a plane back to London. Or a ferry to Italy. Why do I have to cross the border on foot?"

  "Zogaj controls the docks and the airport. He has eyes everywhere. In Albania, we call his gang Oktapod, the octopus."

  They listened to the thock of the windscreen wipers as the rain eased off. Despite the ominous clouds, the thunderstorm had been brief. The Albanian countryside, though, reminded her of miserably wet family holidays hill-walking in north Wales.

  Medieval castles dotted the landscape. "An Englishman's home is his castle, isn't that the saying?" Poda continued, as if reading her thoughts. "Same in Albania. Everybody wants to have their own castle. Lots of buildings are never finished. The recession hits, and developers go bust."

  The fields here were all cultivated and, looking closer through the passenger window, Kate could see what they were growing. Cannabis. Fields and fields of it. "My God, is that marijuana?" she said. Poda kept on looking straight ahead. Perhaps he was embarrassed. "I told you. The gang bosses pay for politicians' election campaigns. The farmers make more money growing cannabis than regular crops. Nobody dares enter the cannabis fields because they are all mined. Leftover ordnance from the Kosovo War."

  They passed a flatbed truck with a man sitting in it, as if guarding the marijuana fields. Kate turned back round and said, "I can't believe it's so open here."

  "Better than growing olives," Poda said.

  The village where Poda's parents lived was a delightful hodge-podge of a place, with what looked like a bazaar running down a side street. Its little white houses resembled nothing so much as a Cubist painting stuck on the side of a mountain. The Fiat protested as the detective inspector changed up a gear, and they turned into what Kate guessed was the main square. Suddenly an enormous unfinished tower block loomed over them. Floor after floor of empty concrete rooms and a staircase that abruptly ran out. It completely dominated the square. An old concrete mixer stood on a hillock of cement lumps and twisted metal. The site was fenced off, abandoned, as if the workers had just given up and gone home.

  "Another Mafia building," Poda grimaced. "They build without planning permission, so the government stops them. Nobody knows what to do with it now. It was the same in Croatia. They destroyed the countryside. We don't want it here."

  "You really care about this country, don't you?"

  "Of course. The Mafia are rats, eating into everything. They steal copper wire, so there are no phones. They put crack in cannabis to get kids hooked. They win government contracts for roads that are never built, buildings that collapse. Somebody has to do something."

  The Fiat bounced down a side street and, as it was now dusk, Poda switched on its old-fashioned yellow headlights. The road was really bad by now, and they lurched from side to side. Finally they drew up outside a high white wall with a doorway in it. They had arrived. A couple of boys were kicking a ball aimlessly against the wall, and Poda spoke sharply to them. They ran off down a plank of wood laid over the middle of the alley. Slamming her car door, Kate heard the ululating call to prayer floating down the mountain. Poda hurried over to an intercom and spoke quickly. A buzzer sounded and the detective inspector pushed the heavy door open.

  They climbed up steps and emerged onto a patio with a swimming pool where somebody was doing laps. Steam rose from the water. Looking up at the house, Kate could see it was one of those vulgar castles that Poda had told her about, like something out of a creaky horror movie. Her scalp crawled. Something was very wrong. "I thought you said your parents were poor," Kate began. Poda wouldn't meet her eye, and she felt her kneecaps dissolve as Mr Punch stepped onto the patio. He was opening a clasp knife. Behind her she heard the person doing laps get out of the pool. She turned around and saw his strongly muscled back covered with tattoos as he heaved himself up onto the cement.

  Of course. It could only be Teardrop.

  He picked up a towel and dried his hair, moving with a kind of exaggerated ease, as if to show he was the one in charge. Poda, however, squirmed. All Kate could think to say was, "How could you?" Poda pulled down his shirt collar and revealed the letter "Z" tattooed beneath his collarbone. The same tattoo they had forced onto Paul. "All of us are caught in the web," he said, shrugging.

  Mr Punch pushed her behind Teardrop and Poda, and they filed into the house, passing through a dining room with a suit of armour standing in the corner. A weapon, perhaps. Her fingers brushed a gauntlet. The entire thing was a stage prop made of cardboard. There was a hall with a staircase leading to the upper floors and a kitchen to the right. Kate stood trembling with fear. They would get rid of her just as they'd taken care of her husband. All loose ends tied up. "What have you done with my friend?" she asked. Nobody replied. She looked down and noticed her right hand was shaking uncontrollably.

  Teardrop walked back into the kitchen, having changed into his usual black tee-shirt and jeans. He nodded for Mr Punch to pass him the clasp knife. The bad guys really do wear black, Kate thought, as Teardrop hoisted himself onto a work surface and began peeling an apple. He did so languidly, appearing to take great pleasure in curling the skin. Finally he speared a chunk and popped it into his mouth.

  "I don't understand why you want me," Kate tried again. "You killed my husband and destroyed the servers. Anything he had on you is gone."

  "You know too much." The implication hung there: there was only one way to solve the problem of somebody with too much information.

  "Why not just let us go? Two people are already dead. You don't want more blood on your hands." She wanted to say that Europol was onto them, but she knew there was no cavalry riding over the hill to their rescue. A tinny bugle sounded at the back of her mind.

  Sliding down, Teardrop said, "Zogaj say you make copy. With copy you betray us, tell police or ransom maybe. Zogaj tell me to search you. Turn around."

  He stepped up behind Kate, sweeping his hands along her shoulders and arms and then down her torso and legs. This was the moment she had been dreading. If they found the memory card, she might as well have signed her own death warrant. Kate tried not to think about it as Teardrop dug his thumbs into her waistband and ran his hands around. Pulling Kate towards him, he patted down her front before stepping back. Nothing. There was only one other place the memory card might be, and they both knew it. Mr Punch arrived in the doorway. "Ai kërkon atë," he said.

  There was a steep flight of steps down to the basement, and Kate had to duck as the men led her underground. Despite the dampness, she thought she could smell the fear down here. This would be where they tortured people, where those men Priest had told her about were battered to death. There was an anteroom in the cellar that was used as a tool shed. Hacksaws, pliers and handsaws hung from the walls, and a vice sat on a workbench. There were outlines where some of the tools were missing. Two men were s
itting with their backs to the doorway on wooden chairs, their hands duct-taped to the crossbars and their ankles bound to the front legs. The man in the left-hand chair was John Priest: she recognised him immediately from his broad shoulders. He was slumped and looked in a bad way. The floor was discoloured with what could only be dried blood.

  The man in the other chair was her husband.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Her husband had come back from the dead. She had crossed a line into another world, and nothing made sense anymore. Perhaps she had died back in that forest and had been ferried across the River Styx.

  Kate slowly reached out to touch his beautiful face, making sure he wasn't a ghost. Paul looked haggard but still in one piece. All those questions she had crowding her mind – the dead prostitute he had betrayed her with in the hotel room, the agony he'd put her through when he had stepped off that balcony – disappeared. Her husband was alive and that was all that mattered.

  Priest, however, had suffered a brutal going over. His face was bloody and swollen, and one eye had closed up. Paul smiled weakly, and with that Kate wanted to cry.

  Lifting her face, she turned to Teardrop, "Haven't you done enough? How much more killing does there have to be?" Her voice had a righteous anger she'd never heard before.

  "I told you I would never leave you," Paul said hoarsely.

  "It's all right, my darling, we're together now," Kate said, stroking his face. "They're never going to keep us apart."

  Paul shook his head. "You don't understand. I never wanted you to come here. I was trying to keep you safe."

  "Darling, I love you so much. We're going to be together."

  "Don't you understand, we're both finished. Being dead was the price I had to pay for keeping you safe. Kate, I never wanted to do this to you. I thought I had no choice. When they found me, I told them I would carry on hosting their payoffs as long as they left you alone."

  "Don't listen to him, Kate," said Priest.