The Last Exile

by E. V. Seymour

  Mr Clarke, a married father of three, was brutally murdered by one of the gunmen after putting up a spirited defence. Two women, in the shop at the time, were also threatened, one of them with being set alight and assaulted by gang members. A can of petrol was later found at the scene.

  It’s believed the gang made their escape in a stolen red Ford Escort found abandoned just outside Prestwich, the gang believed to have switched vehicles with the intention of heading for Yorkshire. Three men have since been arrested in connection with the incident after a police chase along the M62.

  Detective Chief Inspector Sean Hutchinson said, “This was a vicious and brutal attack on an unarmed and defenceless man. It was carried out with complete disregard for life and we believe that it was only Mr Clarke’s bravery that prevented a young woman from sustaining very serious injuries. Without his intervention, the outcome could well have resulted in further tragic consequences.

  “I can confirm that three men of Asian origin were arrested at 20.45 hours on the outskirts of Huddersfield and are currently helping us with our enquiries.”

  A later article included photographs of all three individuals. Tallis tried to look beyond the posed exteriors to the men. In Hussain’s case, it wasn’t easy. He had a face that exuded threat. His spatulate nose suggested it had been broken at least once and his eyes were flat and dead. Glossy hair tied back, in popular fashion at the time, he had deep sideburns that crept down his face like large hairy caterpillars. A later photograph suggested he’d ditched the ponytail, possibly because he’d been going bald on top. The eyes remained the same, shifty, skin pitted and lined due to prison conditions. A medical report confirmed that he suffered intermittently from smoking-related bronchitis. Guess I’m looking for a tall guy with a cough, Tallis concluded, looking for notes on visitors and seeing none, which struck him as odd.

  He returned to the personal file again. He didn’t think it a stereotypical view but most individuals he’d come across of Asian origin had reams of relatives. There’d been a standing joke at the warehouse where he’d briefly worked about the time taken off by certain colleagues to attend funerals. There always seemed to be an uncle or aunt pegging it and it was never a simple afternoon or morning’s absence. There’d be days of preparation and fasting and prayer. Yet Hussain seemed absolutely alone in the world, both inside prison and out.

  Tallis turned to the interview records. Hussain revealed nothing. He employed a deliberate policy of not answering questions and refusing to confirm his real identity. Interestingly, it was never actually proved which one was really his. For some reason, Hussain was settled on, through what reasoning Tallis didn’t find out. Of no fixed abode, it was discovered that Hussain had, at one stage in his life, been living at an address in Moss Side, an area engulfed in gun culture and home to Yardie power.

  Tallis took out a pad, reviewed everything once more and jotted down some notes. It didn’t take him long to realise that this time he was sunk. His Urdu was about as good as his Chinese: in other words, non-existent.

  He took it easy for the rest of the day, thought about returning the Z8 to Belbroughton and decided he couldn’t face the silence. As a precaution, he put the car in the carport, and hoped not too many undesirables would notice. He had no intention of taking Cavall’s advice. The stitches didn’t need to come out of his face for several days so there was no time to be lost, if only he knew where to start looking. Start with the obvious, he supposed. It amazed him how often criminals felt compelled to return to their old haunts. If Hussain, or whatever he called himself, had survived for several years in the Greater Manchester area, Tallis had no reason to believe he would be in a tearing hurry to leave. Which left him with a problem. Tallis’s only connection to the city was with a bloke he’d met on a training course who was serving with Greater Manchester Police. He didn’t know the city and its environs at all. The thought of walking straight into his brother’s new stamping ground left him feeling cold.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AFTER a beer and a strange dinner of pasta bake with a sausage chucked in, he took a long hot shower, turning in for the night with the newspapers he’d bought in Devon. Spreading them out on the bed, he read, paying more attention. Nowhere could he find any mention of the events of the weekend. To be certain, he combed through the Western Morning News again. The lead article highlighted the case of a man who preyed upon young homeless boys in the city of Plymouth. Several short pieces covered a stabbing in Union Street outside one of the nightclubs and various other assaults at different locations. There was no reference to the abducted baby that had gone walkabout, not even as a slice of late news, although there was a short piece about a road accident in which a car had been turned into a fireball, incinerating its two unfortunate occupants. So that’s what all the shock and awe had been about, Tallis thought. Then his eyes hooked on something.

  WOMAN’S BODY FOUND ON RAILWAY

  TRACK

  Western Morning News

  Transport police are trying to identify the body of a woman who was found on a section of track outside Totnes station in the early hours. The woman, believed to be in her late forties to early fifties, had one distinguishing feature, the tattoo of a dice on her right hand between her thumb and forefinger.

  A substantial amount of alcohol was found in her bloodstream and police are wondering if anybody noticed an inebriated woman fitting her description. A spokesperson for the police said: “This lady was probably quite distressed and agitated. Clearly somebody knew her. She might be someone’s mother or aunt, sister or daughter.

  “Fortunately, we have very few deaths of this nature but we have noticed a recent rise in the number during this time of year. We remain open-minded as to whether the lady was local or visiting the area. It’s not uncommon for people to take their own lives some distance away from where they normally live. In this instance, no foul play is suspected. We are treating the death as a suicide.”

  With a slight lurch, Tallis wondered how clever Cavall had been and, if not, how long it would be before an association was made between the woman who’d been present at the pub on the night of the stabbing in Stonehouse and the one now lying in bits in a mortuary. With luck, it could take time before the Transport Police linked up the information with Devon and Cornwall. But that wasn’t really his main concern.

  Without hesitation, Tallis contacted Cavall. The number rang and rang. Doubt worming in his mind, he made three more attempts during the night. Still no reply.

  It was just possible, he supposed, that Djorovic had made an escape and ended up beneath the wheels of the train, or perhaps she’d been escorted onto the train and fallen by accident. No, he thought, that wouldn’t work. There’d be some record of Djorovic buying a ticket and boarding with the immigration officials in tow. And why would they be catching a train in any case? They had a car.

  He got up, flicked on the kettle, made himself some coffee. What if it wasn’t suicide? What if she’d been taken to some secluded stretch of land near to the train track, filled up with alcohol and pushed? Jesus, he thought, was that why Cavall wasn’t answering his calls? What happened now?

  He took a gulp, almost scalding the roof of his mouth, suspicion gnawing at him. He still had no idea what had happened to the murdered girl’s body, how much his tracks had been covered at the crime scene. Enough? Or was there a little bit of evidence that could be used against him as some kind of lever or bargaining chip? Was it even possible to forensically sweep and clear away so much blood? Should he continue, or should he ditch the entire operation? What would be the consequences? Did he already know too much? And if he shared it with someone else, would they, too, be at risk?

  As soon as it was light, he called Finn Cronin from his mobile phone. He’d taken the precaution of wandering outside into what passed for his back garden.

  “Fuck me, you’re up with the lark.”

  The lark hasn’t slept, Tallis thought grimly. “Early bird and all that crap. Anyw
ay,” he said deliberately sounding upbeat, “it’s too nice to be lying in bed.” In, fact from where he was standing, it looked as if it were going to be a glorious day.

  “And you thought you’d call to tell me about it.”

  Tallis smiled. Didn’t feel too convincing. Time to cut to the chase. “Finn, I need your help.”

  “Go on.”

  “Cavall—can you dig deeper?”

  Finn let out a sigh. “Not sure I can, mate.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Why?”

  Tallis hesitated. “What I’m going to tell you next has to remain between you and me.”

  “Discretion’s my middle name.”

  “Discretion’s no good. This requires secrecy. Can’t breathe a word, use the information or leak it. And no questions.”

  “You in trouble?” Finn’s voice was ringed with concern.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Can you run a check on deportations, one in particular, a guy called Agron Demarku, an Albanian. He’s served life for the murder of a prostitute. Immigration officials were supposed to be putting him on a plane back to his homeland.”

  Tallis could hear Finn scratching a pen across a pad.

  “Run to appeal?”

  “Erm, not that I’m aware of.”

  “OK.”

  “Next, a girl was murdered in South Devon at the weekend, place called Totnes. I can’t find any record or any news coverage of the killing. Not even sure the police were called in.”

  “Not called in?” Finn let out a laugh, “they must have been. People don’t get bumped off and disappear. Well, not in this country anyway.”

  Unfortunately, Tallis suspected they did. “You need to tread very carefully. This is all highly sensitive. I shouldn’t even be discussing it.”

  “And Cavall’s in the mix?”

  “Uh-huh. Kind of.”

  “Fuck,” Finn sighed. “All right, let’s recap.”

  Forty minutes later, Finn began to wrap up the call. He didn’t have a question, only a statement. “Sounds as though you’re really in the shit this time.”

  Without a trace of humour, Tallis couldn’t help but agree.

  He spent the next few days in a state of partial paralysis. Part of him wanted to operate like normal, the other found he couldn’t. It was just like before, after the shooting in the shopping mall. He had spent whole days obsessing about the girl with the midnight eyes.

  Finally, his fear was replaced by the hope that either Finn or Cavall would phone and clarify everything so that when Cavall eventually called back, in the middle of him performing a home surgical to remove the stitches from his face, he was taken by surprise.

  He came straight to the point. She didn’t deny it.

  “Collateral damage. Djorovic employed the oldest trick in the book. Said she had to have a pee then made a break for it. The rest you already know. How did you find out, by the way?”

  “Newspaper,” he said dully. It sounded plausible even if Cavall was cold-blooded about it. “What about the alcohol?”

  “What about it?”

  “Where did she get it?”

  “Must have been tight when you picked her up.”

  “She wasn’t. And she had nothing to drink in the car.”

  “You were with her?” Cavall suddenly sounded as suspicious as he did.

  “Briefly. The immigration guys gave me a lift.”

  “How many of them?”

  “Same as last time, one bloke, one woman.”

  “Where did they take you?”

  What is this? I’m the one supposed to be asking the questions, he thought. “To collect my vehicle.”

  Cavall said nothing. He could almost hear the cogs in her brain revolving. He pressed her again. “Basically, you’re telling me it was an unfortunate accident.”

  “And we have to move on,” she said firmly. “The reason I called, there’s been a sighting of Hussain near Stockport.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “In the main shopping centre.”

  “When?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Makes my job easier.”

  “Not too easy, I hope.”

  “You’re still getting your money’s worth. One other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “The murdered girl.”

  Cavall gave a silvery laugh. “You really worry too much, Paul. By the time we’d finished, nobody would have had a clue you’d been there.”

  He knew from Belle that it was an impossible task to remove all evidence. It only took one spot of blood, one hair, half a footprint impression …

  “But what about Kelly?” he persisted. And the dead baby, he thought.

  “Unwise to get on first-name terms with victims.”

  “She wasn’t my victim.”

  “No need to be defensive, Paul,” she soothed. “All taken care of.”

  That’s what bothered him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TALLIS’S first impression of Stockport was that it hadn’t moved on since the Industrial Revolution. A huge hat museum, and testament to the city’s millinery credentials, formed the main tourist attraction. Other than that, there were the usual types of shops with the usual types of people, the overall impression one of suppressed criminal activity, judging by the hard-looking shaven-heads prowling the town’s precincts. But first impressions were deceiving. In among the mills and chimneys, there were some very fine examples of thirteenth- and fifteenth-century architecture. A huge brick-built nineteenth-century viaduct, a determined suicide’s dream, dominated the town.

  Having switched cars before the journey, Tallis parked the Rover in a multi-storey car park, a concrete construct that smelt of piss, within a short walk of the Merseyway Shopping Centre. The journey to Stockport would have been made in half the time in the Z8 but he didn’t dare risk Max’s car in an area where the criminal scene was heavier. He’d already seen one parked car on his way in with its window smashed, bits of windscreen over the passenger seat. If someone nicked the Rover, they’d probably be doing him a favour.

  He started off by trying to get a feel for the place, the territory, to check the pulse beneath the surface. He went into various shops, bought an A-Z of Manchester and a basic guide, talked to people, showed them Hussain’s photograph and was met either with indifference or hostility. After a couple of hours he started a trawl of the pubs. Same reaction. If Hussain had been there two days ago, he wasn’t now. And nobody was telling anyway.

  Walking down a street, he saw two ugly-looking white girls being chatted up by four Turkish Lotharios. As he passed, catching a drift of the Turks’ native tongue, he wondered if the girls realised the depth of depravity on offer. From the coy smiles on their faces, he guessed they had no idea. Further on, a paramedic on a motorbike was cheerfully driving across a pedestrian walkway. Maybe he was looking for prospective patients, Tallis thought drily.

  Getting nowhere, Tallis gave up and headed for Manchester and found a modern, comfortable hotel at Salford Quays, not far from Mighty Manchester United’s Football Club. He fancied he could almost hear the victorious cries of Man U. fans as he stepped out of the car.

  After checking in under an assumed name, he took a trip round Salford and was surprised to see that it was a fairly affluent neighbourhood, or at least not as rundown as he’d expected. There were several blocks of newish-looking flats. Streets were lined with trees, not too much evidence of graffiti or litter. The women looked groomed, make-up immaculate. Some bordered on flashy and cashed up. Fake tan was popular with both camps.

  Salford Crescent Police Station, he noticed, was closed, enquiries directed to the new twenty-four-hour police station in Chorley Road at Swinton. Not that he had any intention of popping in.

  The sub-post office looked as though it had been the subject of a facelift. Clean and modern, it was hard to imagine the place as the scene of so much misery ten year
s before. Following the map he’d sketched in his head, he crossed over the road to where the stolen Escort had been parked for the getaway and where parking restrictions now marked the spot. Glancing at his watch, it would have been roughly the same time. Traffic lighter than it would be now. He wondered how Hussain had felt at the prospect of getting his hands on the money. Excited, pumped up, apprehensive that his plan might go wrong? No, Tallis thought, there was nothing nervy about the man with the gun. If he shouted and screamed orders, it was to intimidate, to display power, not because his was a disordered personality.

  So where would Hussain go? Back to where he’d come from, where gun law was king, Tallis thought, but Moss Side could keep for the morning.

  He started early when the crack dealers were still asleep. Armed police with bulletproof vests routinely patrolled the area, though he saw none. Walking down streets disfigured by poverty, the grinding atmosphere of criminality and decay was inescapable. Acutely aware of his surroundings, Tallis ran a mental commentary—hidden doorway to the right, alley up ahead, wasteland, two black guys wearing woollen hats giving him the look. It was the kind of place where outsiders were viewed with deep suspicion, where you never met a stranger’s eye. Even the sun seemed reluctant to make an appearance, the sky opening up a crack, enabling it to take a peep and decide, no, thanks.

  Terraced houses were numbers with no name, down at heel, deprived, gardens more concrete and gravel than flowers. Even the pavements felt lethal beneath his feet. Cars in assorted states of abuse lined the road, some torched, some bent, some abandoned, and those on drives were swathed in tarpaulin, though this rarely protected from vandalism. Graffiti adorned walls and hoardings made play of the gangster culture that had come to dominate the area, reminding him of Northern Ireland. The site of the Old Maine Road Stadium, bulldozed and awaiting redevelopment, lay like a permanent scar, providing a magnet for more crime. A bank of freshly laid flowers in a local park marked the spot where a teenager had been shot dead, another mother losing a son.