The Last Exile

by E. V. Seymour

  Blisteringly hot, the air distilled with salt and the rowdy caw of seagulls, Tallis was suddenly reminded how hungry he felt. There were any number of small eateries and bistros in the shape of former warehouses around the harbour. Without much thought, Tallis decided on a pub that served fresh crab and lobster. Ordering a pint of Heavitree, he went outside and watched the fishing boats bobbing up and down on water the colour of deep purple. As he listened to the ebb and flow of passing chatter, he became acutely aware that for every second wasted Djorovic was on the run for that little bit longer, that there was an increased risk of some innocent girl falling victim to her obsession.

  Within the hour, and vaguely suffering from indigestion, he was back on streets that were higgledy-piggledy, and cobbled underfoot. It was like walking around a souk without the guttural backdrop of Arabic, Tallis thought. In fact, he heard no foreign accents at all, only the warm burr of West Country competing with the odd blunt nasal of West Midlands. Most shops were geared to tourists, and sold local art, pottery, bric-a-brac with fishing themes, gaudy trinkets, home-made pasties, clotted-cream fudge and ices. A design centre with more up-to-the-minute creations vied with the late Robert Lenkiewicz’s now defunct art gallery, both mausoleum and memorial to the great painter’s art.

  Avoiding yet another band of holidaymakers, he questioned what the hell he was doing there. Djorovic was hardly going to pop round the corner and slap into him, however much he willed it to happen. His was an absurd idea and it was time to face the horrible truth that his hunch was nothing more than that. Worse, without it leading anywhere, he was finished. He was just debating what to do when his mobile rang. It was Darren.

  “Got something for you.”

  Tallis had the feeling that Darren was about to become his new best friend.

  “Been doing a bit of careful asking around. Turns out your woman’s been sighted.”

  Where? How? Had she been arrested? Tallis asked none of these things, simply listened.

  “Got a mate who works in Stonehouse, rough end. He was called out to a pub where a stabbing had taken place. Usual procedure: pub closed off and everyone at the bar interviewed.”

  “Djorovic was a witness?”

  “Not exactly. Just happened to be there. Said she was from Slovenia, on holiday here, staying with a friend.” Darren paused, clearly reading from his notes. “A Kelly Anne Simmons.”

  “This Kelly, she was with her?” Tallis asked, hardly daring to hope.

  “Yup, bit the worse for wear, I gather. Pissed as a fart, Dean said.”

  “And Dean didn’t think to investigate Djorovic’s credentials?”

  “To be fair, not exactly uppermost in his mind. What stuck with him was her tattoo.”

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got an address for Miss Simmons?”

  “Just about to give it to you, my son.”

  Tallis took it down, thanked Darren profusely and promised that he owed him big time.

  “Don’t talk so soft,” Darren said. “Remember Desert Storm? If you hadn’t come to the rescue, I’d be playing a fucking harp.”

  It took him longer than expected. Terrified he’d scratch the Z8’s beautiful bodywork, he spent a lot of time in reverse, making way for caravans and trailers and people who didn’t know how to drive. Some clown had driven down one of the narrow lanes at speed and straight through a tribe of ducks that had somehow lost its way and ended up on the road. Tallis pulled over, helped another driver gather up the remaining ducks and shoo them into a field and safety. Afterwards, he swiftly dispatched the dying.

  By the time he found a free slot in the car park at the top of town, parked and walked down the road towards a street market, traders were already packing up, though it was still quite busy. A dark-skinned man selling rolls of brightly coloured fabric flashed him a gold-toothed smile. He had an impressive leopard-print pattern tattooed onto his head.

  Stepping into a lane littered with people, Tallis was immediately struck by the alternativeness of Totnes, mostly in the way the inhabitants dressed. It was as if he’d gone back in time to the hippie generation, except these folk appeared more grounded; there was a lot of talk of organic food and drink, bartering goods in return for favours.

  Armed with the address, he walked into the nearest shop, a greengrocer, and asked for directions.

  “Walk down the hill and there’s a turning to your left, about halfway down, leads you into a courtyard with a café. Go past there, past the supermarket, out the other side and you’ll find a row of houses tucked away in a cul-de-sac. Kelly’s ma lives in the double-fronted last but one from the end, number five.”

  Tallis thanked him and walked on. His initial impression of the town was further confirmed by his journey down the high street. Shops on dark arts and crystals, mystic therapies and homeopathy cuddled up to organic greengrocers and second-hand bookshops, and places selling hippie kitsch. The faintest whiff of aromatic oil and cannabis mingled with sea air. Half the population must be stoned, Tallis thought.

  Number five was exactly as described, handsome, tended, everything in its place, except Tallis thought, glancing to the left, the green aspect as it was known in firearms speak, something wasn’t quite right.

  He went up the short gravelled path and knocked at the door. If Djorovic was there, he was going to come up with an excuse about getting lost while delivering goods in the area then turn her in. If she wasn’t, he intended to find out where he could locate her. He knocked again, took a step back, looked briefly up at a bedroom window.

  “Help you?”

  Tallis turned. A thin, reedy-faced man was standing over the other side of a small picket fence in the next-door front garden. Tallis walked over. “Looking for Kelly or Kelly’s mum. They in?”

  “Kelly’s mum isn’t—on holiday in Ibiza. Not sure where Kelly is. Got a friend staying with her, foreign woman. Some talk about them going to the music festival in Salcombe, last I heard.”

  “Right, thanks.”

  “Take a message for her?”

  “No worries. I’ll maybe call back later.”

  Tallis made to go, moving slowly, waiting for the sound of the neighbour’s retreat, the slam of the front door. Alone again, he went back up the path, noiselessly, followed it round the side of the house to where the garden gate had been let open. The bolt, he’d already noticed from when he’d first observed the property, hadn’t been shot.

  Glancing behind him, making sure he was unseen, he walked inside and across a minimalist area of coloured gravel and tropical-looking plants and into a walled garden with vines and fig trees and bamboo, each small section broken up by statues, an ornamental waterfall, a table with two chairs and a brick-built barbeque. It seemed as if a great deal of thought and love had been lavished on it, Tallis thought, glimpsing an old swinging garden seat. Like one his mum had, it had metal supports with a candy-stripe canopy, and tasselled side panels to enclose and protect anyone seated inside from too much sun. It was set in an arbour near the boundary wall.

  Tallis entered the cool swathe of green, the enveloping darkness, hearing the buzz of insects, and stopped. Something was wrong, badly out of place. Heart bumping in his chest, all his senses alert, he dropped his gaze, saw where the grass was roughly flattened and bent, the ground disturbed. A light warm breeze picked up, travelling through the tunnel of green, rocking the covered garden seat. Next, he saw blood.

  He knew before he saw. Wasn’t mind-reading, wasn’t sixth sense or instinct, or clairvoyance. As he began to unzip the awning, experience confirmed that inside was a body.

  He looked down. No gasp, no muted cry, only pity and fury.

  The girl was on her back, eyes half-open, chest a mess of stab wounds, some deeper than others. The weapon, a vicious-looking barbeque fork, was impaled in the swell of her stomach. Jesus, Tallis thought, feeling faintly sick. Not just one victim, two. In no doubt that the dead girl was Kelly Simmons, he wondered how long she’d been there, wondered if he could have
moved sooner … Perhaps if he hadn’t rested that weekend, hadn’t trolleyed about the countryside, consumed that pint …

  Now what? Tallis thought. Ought to report it to the police but, fuck, I’m not supposed to be here, double fuck, I’ve been seen by the bloke next door, and my dabs and footprints are all over the crime scene. Pulling out his phone, he contacted Cavall, explaining the situation.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she cursed. Tallis said nothing, wondering if her ire was for him or the situation. Certain police departments viewed firearms officers as thugs without brains. Was Cavall thinking the same? He waited for her to calm down, which she did in less than a heartbeat. “Move out of there. Find Djorovic.”

  “I can’t just leave.”

  “You can.”

  “But the police …”

  “You have to find her.”

  Tallis ran a hand over his chin. He hadn’t a clue where to look. “Put out an alert on ports and airports.”

  “Don’t tell me my job—just find the fucking woman.”

  Ordinarily Tallis found the combination of upper-class accent and obscenity a turn-on. Not this time. “What about the stiff? My DNA’s all over the place.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  How? Tallis wondered. Cavall wasn’t above the law, even if she thought she was. “Look, something you should know—both women were recently interviewed by Devon and Cornwall police. They were in a pub in which a stabbing took place. Somebody is going to make the connection.”

  “How many more times?” she railed. “I told you, it will be taken care of.”

  “The woman’s committed murder, for God’s sake. She needs to go through the judicial system.”

  “Tallis, I don’t have time for this.”

  “Well, have time for this,” he snapped, staring at the body. “The girl was pregnant.”

  The seaside resort of Salcombe was heaving with musos, wannabes, locals and luvvies. Finding nowhere to park, Tallis left the car at the top of a hill in a residential area of whitewashed houses and walked down a steep incline, curved like an upside-down coat-hanger, and into the town. A favourite with yachtsmen and holidaymakers, Salcombe’s tiny streets reeked of history and smugglers’ tales of derring-do, the natural harbour providing a dramatic portal to hundreds of creeks, making it, Tallis thought, a drug importer’s dream. But would Djorovic be there? If he were Djorovic, he’d be legging it up the M5. Jesus, maybe he’d gone the wrong way entirely. Maybe he was wasting more precious time. Then he thought of Cavall. Would she have the sense to have the motorway covered? He looked around him in an agony of indecision, trying to focus. Who the hell in their right mind would go to a music festival when they’d just committed the most appalling act of murder? Conversely, Djorovic didn’t strike him as a particularly sane individual. To catch her, he needed to think with her illogical, superstitious mindset.

  Tallis pushed his way through crowds of people, and inhaled the strong smell of salt and alcohol mixed with sweat and high spirits, the vibrant sound of salsa music pulsating and growing louder and louder in his ears as it funnelled down the narrow street. Mums and dads clutching their children close to them, it was as much a family event for locals as it was for marauders, Tallis thought, watching a bloke wearing shorts and flip-flops do a moonie in front of some shrieking teenagers. Further on, drunken nautical types cavorted with braying women spilling drinks with lots of greenery in them while a couple of coppers looked on, benign. Would the sight of the law be enough to spook Djorovic?

  Slowly and tenuously, Tallis found his way to the centre of town and a square used routinely as a car park, judging by the location of some toilets. At the end was a quay signposted Whitestrand.

  Set against the exotic backdrop of Salcombe Harbour, a large stage, where a ten-piece band were belting out a hip-twisting number to the obvious delight of the crowd, formed the main attraction. Tallis pushed, cajoled, smiled his way to the front near the music and turned round and faced the assembled crowd. Combing through any number of eager-looking faces, he came to one painful conclusion: he’d have difficulty identifying his own mother in the crush. After a few lame attempts at ‘Have you seen this woman?’ and flashing the photograph, he beat a retreat and walked past the ferry steps and a pub of the same name, up the hill away from the noise and clamour, trying to think.

  The shops looked more expensive, as did the restaurants. A smell of garlic and cooked onions in wine pervaded the salt sea air. As if to illustrate the cultural divide, a high-class estate agent, with windows lit by soft halogen, displayed vast seaside retreats at eye-watering prices. Tallis walked up to the furthest end, where the road dipped and narrowed and led past a yacht club and the Marine Hotel, sensing that he was going nowhere. Turning round, retracing his steps, his mind nauseously flashbacked to the girl on the garden seat.

  By now the band had finished one set and was about to embark on another. Tallis walked back down the main street, ignoring the route he’d first taken into the town. After exploring a short quay and peering into the windows of the Custom House, he continued past a shop selling rock and ice creams, a deli and restaurant, past The Fortescue pub at the end, weaving his way along by the harbour wall, feeling a light evening breeze play upon his face. The sun looked as if it had fallen and dashed itself on the ocean, shards of gold and red shooting up into the darkening evening sky.

  He found himself in a quieter zone of seaside flats and terraced hideouts with gardens lit by lamps and candles, their owners sitting drinking wine, territorial. The less privileged congregated on the few available wooden benches along the quay, eating pasties and listening to the soothing beat of small boats bobbing against the sea wall, threads of light casting a silver sheen across the water. Hearing a mewing sound behind him, Tallis stopped, turned, stepped aside with a smile to allow a woman pushing a pram to get by. As the pram drew level, he glanced down at the crying child, a newborn by the look of it, not that he knew much about babies other than his sister’s brood. This one was blotchy-faced with a milk spot on its lips. Weeny, he thought. Then he saw the hands that pushed the pram. He looked up, met the stranger’s eye, felt as if someone had thumped him with a cattle prod. Part of him wanted to grab her then and there but, aside from the child, those weren’t his orders. Instead, he watched, slipping into the shadows behind her, and called Cavall.

  Wide road of terraced houses, junk shop on the opposite side, nameplate: Island Street. He relayed the information. “There’s a problem. She has a baby.”

  “Fuck,” Cavall said. “Stay with her. Team will be with you asap.”

  “What about—?”

  “Do it.”

  “But—”

  “I forbid you to make an approach, understand?”

  Tallis closed the phone, kept moving. The baby was really crying now. Djorovic, seemingly oblivious, wearing a long flowing coat too warm for the time of year, walked with a sure stride, heading, it seemed, to a chosen destination. Either that, or she was trying to escape the night. Tallis wondered how long he’d got to spring her, how difficult it would be with a baby involved, how soon Bill and Ben would reach them.

  The landscape was changing—houses one side, boat-builders, yards, sailing shops the other. Something inside told him that Djorovic knew he was in pursuit. At any second he expected her to veer off down one of the side streets or alleys, into one of the nooks and crannies, and face him down. Maybe some of the superstitious nonsense had rubbed off on him. Suddenly a flurry of teenagers appeared from nowhere, jostling and leaping like frogs on speed. Without warning, Djorovic shoved the pram hard into the middle of the group and took to her heels. In slow motion, Tallis imagined the pram spin, keel over, throwing the child headfirst out onto the road. He broke into a run, shouting. One of the lads made a grab, catching the pram inches from hitting a brick wall. Another lad was already lifting the screaming baby out, comforting it. Tallis yelled at them as he flew past, told them to contact the police.

  Another wave o
f late-night revellers rounded the corner, not too pleased to be forced aside by a man perceived to be running full tilt after a woman. Fortunately for Tallis, they were too apathetic to do anything about it. But his momentary lapse in concentration had cost him. He found himself in a boat park, Djorovic nowhere to be seen. Christ, he thought, regretting the call he’d made to Cavall. Bill and Ben wouldn’t be too pleased at a no-show.

  The man drove the car at speed. The woman followed the map reference and issued instructions. Belonging to MI5, they were playing the role of immigration officers, taking their orders directly from the Home Office. Unlike real officials, both were armed. They didn’t want another screw-up like last time.

  Their mission was crystal clear—pick up the woman, without force, weapons only to be used in exceptional circumstances.

  More crucially, they were to be as convincing as possible to those they encountered, their brief to identify, watch and observe the players, find out their contacts and see where they led.

  “What’s that ahead?” the man said.

  The woman glanced up. “Shit, looks like a car’s gone off piste and into the wall. Slow down, there’s a body lying in the middle of the road.”

  “Fuck, we don’t need this.”

  “Can’t just drive away.”

  “All right, you call an ambulance. I’ll check it out. Be two ticks.”

  The man stopped the car, got out, and ran towards the body. He didn’t make it. Only saw the flash and black. Startled, the woman reached for her weapon, the last thing she did before she, too, was shot in the head at point-blank range.

  Footsteps masked by the eerie clank of halyards, Tallis darted up and down, hugging the boats for cover, peering behind yachts, dinghys, gin-palaces, fishing craft, sensing that Djorovic was near but unable to locate her. At any moment police would arrive, he thought, worried. Deciding his only option was to hide and sit it out, he positioned himself behind a large yacht lying like a sleeping dog waiting for its master’s return.