“Sort of,” Tallis bluffed. If you could call a fierce exchange in a police station a conversation. “But I honestly didn’t know about the car.”
“Then how did you know the make?”
“Same type of personality.”
“A car has a personality?” she smiled, shaking her head.
“Take one look at the dash. It’s a show-off, designed to resemble a cockpit so the driver can pretend he’s flying an airplane. Dan’s big on pretence, isn’t he? Then there’s the whole creature-comfort thing, heated leather seats, etcetera. All extras come as standard. Doesn’t have to pay more for them—appeals to his mean streak. As for the performance …”
“Character assassination complete,” she quipped. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Pudding?” he said with a hopeful smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TALLIS left Belle a shade after five the next morning. He felt torn. A Sunday, they could have spent it together, acted like any normal couple, except to Tallis’s ears that sounded too staid and boring a description. Theirs was never going to be a shopping-at-Tesco, visiting-a-garden-centre, seeing-the-in-laws type of relationship. It couldn’t be. Already there were too many restrictions. With them the usual rules didn’t apply, or was he guilty of falling into the trap of thinking that theirs was a unique kind of love affair never before experienced in the whole history of mankind or the universe?
After filling the Rover with petrol, he started out for London. The sun was already belting down.
For most of the journey, he found himself dredging through his last conversation with Finn. He thought about Cavall’s difficult childhood, how it had shaped and defined her, how the violent and sudden death of her father had turned her into a woman bent on retribution. Yet it was inconceivable that the Home Office was blind to her background, unthinkable that Cavall’s link with John Darius was unknown and unreported.
He didn’t arrive in Barking until midmorning. As Tallis parked the car and stretched his legs, he felt as if he’d wandered into the type of wasteland you found round an empty nuclear reactor. Street after street of flat-looking two-up-two-downs. Second- and third-hand Ford cars, alloys missing, lined roads that were grey and lifeless in spite of the climbing heat of a summer sun. Emptiness permeated the heart of the place. Empty factories, empty warehouses, empty lives. And there was fury and betrayal. The air seethed with it. Tallis could smell it.
The pub was off a set of traffic lights, easily identified by the number of cars in the car park. Tallis walked inside. He couldn’t tell if he was in a lounge or public bar. It was all one dirty homogenised stew of colour, dark plum and aubergine, brown, the odd splash of orange. Oddly seventies, or how he imagined the seventies to have been. The air felt sticky with old cigarette tar. As for the people, they either looked up for a fight or recovering from the previous night’s brawl. There were a lot of shaved heads, bad complexions, a lot of gnarled-looking faces, every one of them white. With his darker colouring, Tallis almost felt under threat.
“Meeting upstairs?” he murmured to a surly-looking barman. The guy was small, ferret-faced, with a large birthmark spreading from his neck to his cheek. The answering grunt was indecipherable. Not particularly fluent in Neanderthal, Tallis bought an overpriced soft drink and drifted among a group of likely looking supporters who were making for a rickety-looking staircase.
The meeting was already well under way. Tallis inched past a thickset minder with white-blonde hair and razor-sharp cheekbones. Feet creaking noisily against the wooden floorboards, Tallis slipped into a place at the rear, standing room only. He was met with a sea of sturdy backs, men and women, young and old, their attention focused on the raised platform at the far end, on which was a microphone, table and two chairs. A woman with oppressively dyed blonde hair was sitting down, a tall corpulent-looking man with pale eyes standing and speaking.
“Up to five hundred foreign psychiatric patients with criminal records freed when they should have been deported. Rapists granted leave by the Home Office to remain for an indefinite period. Paedophiles and murderers released on bail when they should have been sent packing back to their own countries.
“We have immigration officers who are so poorly trained they wouldn’t recognise a black man in broad daylight.” Faint titter of laughter from the back. “And, incidentally, my friends, did you know that the default position in Immigration is to allow these people in?” The crowd groaned with censure. “And what do our politicians say?” The speaker paused, rolling his pale blue eyes for effect. “That they want to give all illegals an amnesty because they’re afraid they’ll be exploited.”
This time a bitter twist of laughter rippled right across the room.
“Not content with allowing these foreign criminals to stalk our streets, they invite more foreigners into our country.”
“To take our jobs,” one bloke shouted out.
“Yes,” the speaker said, raising an index finger to emphasise the point. Tallis noticed that sweat was breaking out on the man’s forehead. No surprise. It was roasting in the room and the man was wearing a suit and tie. “And where you and I have to have a national insurance number to enable us to work, these people can do so without any such restriction.
“Brothers and sisters, I tell you that the wages of the British working man have halved since the latest flood of Eastern Europeans. Migrants have cost almost 100,000 British men and women their jobs. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Experts, far more knowledgeable than I, are saying the same, as if you needed further proof,” the man added with a derisory smile.
A deep rumble of approval echoed off the walls.
“Look around you. See the rows of boarded-up shops, boarded-up lives. It breaks my heart,” he said, his deep voice cracked with emotion. “And all because our country has been ruined by this foreign invasion. Oh, yes.” He flashed a cold smile. “The politicians in government will tell you that we need these people. We need their skills, their willingness to work for dirt wages, that their culture is good for us. Well, they are wrong.
“Our very identity, our entire way of life is under threat. To continue to court the ethnic minorities, we risk race riots and civil war. That is the reality.” Another pause. Tallis glanced at his watch, wondered if the guy was working up to a grand finale, perhaps finish off with a round of audience participation. “There are those in this country who say they want separateness. Well, we want separateness.”
“Hear! Hear!” a woman shouted out from the crowd. “Send them back to where they came from.”
“They say we should be sensitive to their culture. Well, I say they should be sensitive to ours,” he said with a grotesque grin, to the clear delight of the assembled. “And those not of our faith should respect our religion and our customs. They say they want freedom. Well, I say to you, I want freedom—freedom from unfair discrimination, freedom to say what I think, freedom to have my children grow up without fear of them being brainwashed into thinking their lifestyle is wrong, their beliefs ungodly, without fear of them being blown to bits or raped. I want to have open debate without being labelled a bigot or racist, or risk being thrown into prison or charged with harassment, unlike the Muslim clerics who can say the vilest things about us, stir up racial hatred, and nobody lifts a finger to prosecute them. Just another example of one law for them and another for us.”
More shouts of approval.
“But if love of country and the people who truly belong here means that I’m accused of being a racist, a member of the far right, then bring it on. I want our country back for our people. I want us to be great again. And I leave you with one final question. When the day of reckoning comes, as it will,” he said, his voice falling to a new darker pitch, “when there are rivers of blood in our streets, who will you fight for?”
The applause was rapturous. People were on their feet, clapping, shouting and chanting like football hooligans, ‘Dar-ree-us, Dar-ree-us,’ the man virt
ually mobbed by his supporters. The woman sitting at his side tipped up on her toes and kissed him. Wife, maybe, Tallis thought. He watched as Darius glad-handed, laughed, joked. He looked on as Darius put his arm around a weeping woman’s shoulders, whispering words of comfort in her ear, observed as Darius switched to mood music and touched the tender heads of sleeping babies and children, Christ-like in his bearing. The image of a millstone slung round Darius’s thick neck flitted through Tallis’s mind. As a sea of people parted to allow Darius through, Tallis stepped forward, catching the great man’s eye. John Darius smiled graciously. “Not seen you here before.”
“Surprised you noticed. There must be at least a hundred people in this room.”
“I always perk up at the sight of a new face.”
Close up, Darius was bigger and broader than he looked on stage. Anywhere between mid to late forties, he wasn’t fat exactly but he had one of those fleshy faces that made him seem so. He wore a beautifully cut dove-grey suit, blue shirt with a striped tie. His blue eyes were sharp and intelligent, his smile warm and friendly. Easy to be conned by him, Tallis thought. Darius’s affable and appealing manner lent a lie to the vicious words that poured from his mouth.
“Did you know that Darius was a Persian king?” Tallis said.
“Who subjugated Thrace and Macedonia, 500 BC, I believe.”
“Five-twelve BC.”
“An educated man.” Darius twitched a smile. “But I’m sure you didn’t come here today to tell me that.”
“I didn’t. I was interested in your view of the government—the police, in particular.”
“May I ask why?”
“I used to be one of them.”
Darius rested a hand on Tallis’s shoulder. It weighed heavy. “What are you doing now?”
“Well, I work for—”
“Sorry, I apologise for not making myself clear. What are you doing next?”
Tallis shrugged. “Having a drink, I suppose.”
“Why don’t you join me and my family for lunch?”
“What now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I—”
“Be my pleasure. It would provide the perfect opportunity for us to talk.”
Tallis was transported out of Barking and into the Essex countryside in a new Range Rover Sport. Red, with a big chunky design, thrusting square exhausts servicing a V8 engine, it was as aggressive looking as John Darius’s philosophy. The ostentatious blonde was indeed Darius’s wife. “Liz,” she introduced herself, twisting round in the passenger seat. Her voice had a definite Southern twang.
“Craig,” Tallis said. “Sure this is all right?”
“Of course. Sunday lunch is a big thing with our family. We often have friends join us. You won’t be the only singleton, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
It wasn’t.
Tallis looked out of the window, noted the route, making small talk only when he was spoken to.
“Craig used to be a police officer,” Darius explained to his wife.
“Used to?”
“Got disillusioned and left,” Tallis said.
“Not surprised,” Darius chipped in. “It’s a terrible job for any right-thinking individual nowadays, what with all this politically correct nonsense.”
“And half the officers they recruit now are black,” Liz said with distaste. “Where was your patch?”
“Birmingham.”
“In the thick of it.”
“Gun crime at an all-time high, I believe,” Darius said.
Actually, it had dropped a little. Nottingham was the new kid on the block. “Uh-huh,” Tallis said, noncommittal.
“I hear if you get shot in the city nowadays, you have to wait an hour before armed response turn out,” Darius said.
“That a fact?” Liz said. “Shocking. Is that your experience, Craig?”
“Heard something similar,” Tallis said, looking out of the window, his eyes almost popping as the Range Rover swept up an immense drive with views of what looked like a stately home. Like its owner, the nearer they got, the bigger the house seemed. Queen Anne, at a guess, Tallis thought, surveying the plain simple lines. “This is fabulous,” Tallis enthused. “How long have you lived here?”
“Been in my family for several decades,” Darius said with pride.
A nightmare to maintain, Tallis thought, wondering whether the health spas and leisure centres was his only source of funds. He commented on the lack of obvious security.
“We’ve just passed through a laser-activated alarm that sounds in the house,” Liz said proudly. “Nobody can get inside without us knowing. And, of course, there’s the dogs.”
A number of cars were already there. Several children were scooting about outside.
“It’s such a fabulous day we’re eating in the garden,” Liz said, climbing out. “You two go on through. I’ll check on the kids.”
“Are you married, Craig?” Darius said as they walked into a huge marble-floored hall with a regal-looking staircase ascending from two sides. Tallis noticed that Darius had a slight limp.
“No.”
“Should give it a try. Best sort of stability there is.” Again the false smile. “Get you a drink—wine, spirits?”
“Glass of red would be good.”
“Why don’t you go out onto the terrace, introduce yourself, make yourself at home?”
Tallis gravitated to where there was the most noise, passing through a separate living area with huge baronial-style chairs, and into a dining room, which exuded grandeur. The table, he noticed, was laid for twenty-five. Huge French windows opened out onto a terrace and open-air swimming pool. To one side of a deep bed of roses lay a long trestle table laid for lunch.
There were three distinct groups of people, none of whom Tallis recognised from the meeting and none sporting two heads and a tail. The accents were British, Southern, a hint of cut glass mingling with estuary. They all turned to look at him, smiled, voices dipping, but Tallis had eyes for one face only: Sonia Cavall’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
BLOOD buzzed in his ears. Hot and sweaty, he felt nauseous. He hadn’t factored in that Cavall would so openly consort with Darius—sneak information to him for sure, but not actually appear in public. A big part of him seriously wanted to turn tail and run. Instead, he forced himself to walk straight towards her on legs that felt like metal girders. She issued one of her coldest smiles.
Tallis dropped his voice. “What the …?”
“Fabulous house, isn’t it?” Cavall said loudly.
“Can we dispense with the games?”
“Games, Mr Tallis?” she said softly, her expression one of extreme menace. “Seems you’re something of an expert.”
“How long have you …?”
“Arrived about an hour ago,” Cavall said, looking over his shoulder and smiling at John Darius stalking towards them.
“There you go,” Darius said, planting a glass of wine in Tallis’s hand. “You two know each other?”
“No,” Tallis leapt in
“You all right, Sonia?” Darius said, concern on his face. “Look a little peaky, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“I’m not good in the heat.” She smiled, tipping her glass to her lips.
“Thank God Liz put the table in the shade. Can’t have you keeling over on us,” Darius laughed. “Oh, sorry,” he said, turning to Tallis. “This is Sonia Cavall, one of my oldest friends. Used to be at uni together. Sonia, meet Craig.”
“Craig?” Cavall said, narrowing her eyes.
“Jones,” Tallis said, pointedly.
“Craig Jones,” Cavall repeated, as if trying the name out for size. She flashed Tallis a wicked smile.
Fuck this, Tallis thought. “So, what do you do, Sonia?”
“She works for the Home Office,” Darius said with a smug grin.
“Nice one,” Tallis said, holding her gaze. “Isn’t this rather off your patch?”
“I see no c
ontradiction,” she said, lofty. “I’m off duty after all.”
“Wonder if the chaps at the Home Office would take the same view.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Tallis shrugged. “Just wondered what they’d say.”
“Say or do?” she said, unflinching, staring at Tallis as if he’d left his toenail clippings in her bath.
“Fact is, they don’t know,” Darius said with emphasis. And we want to keep it that way was what he meant. Which was why Cavall hadn’t been at the meeting, Tallis thought. MI5 had those kind of gatherings covered, which meant he, too, was under the spotlight. He looked around him, studying the faces, nobody under thirty, most over forty, all part of the deception, Tallis thought. He wondered how Darius bought their silence.
“Not that we have anything to be ashamed of or hide,” Darius added smoothly.
“‘Course not,” Tallis agreed. “Don’t get me wrong, I entirely support BFB philosophy, but don’t people in the Home Office view you as a bunch of dangerous right-wing fascists? Present company excluded,” he said, skewering Cavall with another smile.
“Dangerous?” Darius said, his eyes suddenly narrow and hard.
“Politically.”
“Ah.” Darius smiled. “That’s the trouble when you have a weak opposition. Like you, Sonia is disillusioned with the way things are going in our country.”
“Why not effect change from within?” Tallis said, eyeballing Cavall, who threw back her head and laughed. “Flattered you think I have such power. I’m only a humble adviser.”
“Humble?” Tallis arched an eyebrow.
She threw him a stony look. “There are certain constraints.”
“I’m sure there are,” Tallis said.
“EU laws for one,” Darius cut in. “Means we can’t control our own borders.”
“And no political will to get things changed,” Tallis said.
“Hit the nail on the proverbial,” Cavall said, surprising Tallis by agreeing with him, but, of course, he thought, they were both acting a part.
“Problem is time,” Darius said.
Cavall agreed. “We need a radical approach to a fast-escalating situation.”
The Last Exile Page 26