The Body on the Shore

by The Body on the Shore (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  News that it was Zerina Moretti who had abducted the Lund children rather than some deadly Albanian mafia changed the nature of the enquiry. Gillard rang Geoff Meadows, who had already heard the news directly from Sophie Lund. ‘That’s a great relief,’ he said. ‘It’s so much easier now that we’re sure the kids aren’t in danger, and that they are in Italy instead of Albania. Hopefully we can have this wrapped up within the week.’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  ‘Moretti’s husband comes from quite a wealthy family. He has an estate down in the south, near Bari, sort of on the ankle of Italy’s boot, but there’s also a flat in Rome. I got the details from Dag and Sophie, so I’ll fly off tomorrow. I’ve got good contacts in the Italian police, which should help. However, it’s the social workers who will have the court order, while for me as a PI it will be a matter of persuasion. I must have left 25 messages on the woman’s phone, so it’s not going to be easy.’

  Gillard laughed. ‘Well, good luck with that.’

  ‘One thing, Craig, as you’re going to Albania, I’d appreciate you checking in at the orphanage where Sophie first met the kids. I’ll need all the original documents they can let us have.’

  ‘It’s already on my list,’ he replied. ‘Let’s keep in contact.’ He hung up.

  Chapter 22

  Thursday

  Peter Young’s funeral took place at St Nicholas’s Church, Thames Ditton on a still but bitterly cold mid-February morning. Several hundred mourners shuffled into the twelfth-century flint-built church, far more than the narrow pews could contain. Claire Mulholland, playing the role of a miscellaneous mourner, was in plain black trouser suit and modest heels. She stayed towards the back, leaving Gabby Underwood in uniform as the official presence, soaking up the many pointed questions about the lack of progress in the case. Claire’s role was more subtle. Though she didn’t really expect to find a professional hit man turning up in a tuxedo, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the assailant had wanted to see the last few moments of his target’s earthly existence.

  The entire practice of Hampton, Deedes, Gooding seemed to be there, and some of Laura Diaz’s Peruvian family too. The two daughters, pretty honey-skinned creatures of seven and eight, wept inconsolably as the coffin, a pure white casket with golden handles, was borne into the church. Six identically dressed male pallbearers carried him solemnly by.

  Around her she heard whispered comments by elderly ladies about the tragedy for the family and the anguish of the children. And each conversation ended with the same question: ‘They haven’t caught him, have they?’

  Mulholland recognised Peter’s foster parents near the front, supporting each other in an embrace. In the eulogy it was noted that Eric and Margaret Robinson had Peter baptized, and instilled in him the regular habit of church attendance. The priest made much of Peter’s escape from the war in Kosovo, and noted that he appeared not to have any living relatives who could attend the funeral. Claire watched carefully to see if heads turned to look at anyone who could be a relative.

  After moving tributes from work colleagues, the coffin was carried out into the churchyard. Though there were no buds to be seen on the many trees that surrounded the almost rural-looking graveyard, there were plenty of snowdrops and winter flowering shrubs.

  She was too far back to see the burial itself, only the sashes and the white surplice of the priest breaking through the mass of dark clothing. Peter Young had come from mystery. Now he was being returned to the soil. A sharp gust of wind brought flurries of snow which flecked the grass.

  Mulholland wished now she had brought an overcoat and, beginning to shiver, hurried away from the mourners towards the lich-gate. As she did so she passed two tall, shaven-headed men in leather jackets watching the funeral. Their dark eyes, sallow complexions and sharp cheekbones gave them a Mediterranean look. They spoke softly enough to each other, but it was still obvious to Claire that the language was not English.

  Albanian perhaps?

  * * *

  Gillard had promised Sam that he would cook her Sunday lunch. When he left her asleep at 6.30 a.m. that morning he had stolen downstairs in his dressing gown and slippers, quietly extricated their largest casserole dish from a stack of cookware, placed in it the half shoulder of lamb he had bought on Friday from the farm shop in Colsham village, then padded outside onto the patio to tear off three bay leaves from a shrub in a pot. It was almost the only thing in the garden that still had leaves. He dug out a bottle of what he called Millwall fighting wine and emptied the whole thing into the dish, tossing in an entire bulb of garlic and a stock cube. He gently sliced up half of an aubergine, two onions and a large potato, before adding them too. He set the oven on low, put in the casserole and gently closed the door. It should easily be done by two o’clock, when he hoped he’d be finished at the incident room.

  Now washed, shaved and showered, he was just towelling himself dry, congratulating himself on not waking Sam in all of the kitchen activity, when the landline rang. Five shrill rings later it was a sleepy Sam who wandered naked into the bathroom with the cordless handset. ‘DCI Greycoates for you, all the way from sunny Lincolnshire,’ she smiled, beautifully dishevelled hair cascading around her shoulders.

  ‘Trevor, what can I do for you?’ Gillard asked, watching Sam’s rear as she shuffled back towards the bedroom.

  ‘Sorry to get you up so early on a Sunday,’ Greycoates said, not sounding sorry at all. ‘But we now know who our dead body on the beach is.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ said Gillard as he dried his testicles.

  ‘We think his name is Jetmire Kogan, 22, a Starbucks barista of Albanian nationality who lived in east London. He’s been missing for two weeks.’ Greycoates permitted himself a small laugh. ‘And as I thought, he was gay.’

  ‘Who have you spoken to so far?’

  ‘His employer and his landlord yesterday and now, finally, his flatmate. I’m heading down to Ilford now to interview her. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of questions for her. So fancy meeting me there, 10.30?’

  ‘Okay,’ Gillard sighed. That would put paid to lunch, then. He took the details and hung up, then went in to break the news to Sam, who was now snuggled under the covers again. ‘Best make it dinner, love,’ he said.

  She smiled up at him and gently slid the covers from her body. ‘What time do you have to be there?’

  He told her. ‘Traffic across London shouldn’t be too bad on a Sunday.’

  ‘Good. I fancy a meaty breakfast,’ she said, reaching under the towel.

  * * *

  Avril Lennox had shared a studio flat with Jetmire Kogan. The place, though tidy, bright and modern, barely looked big enough for one person. An open-plan kitchen, a tiny bathroom and a bed-sitting room. Gillard and Greycoates sat side by side on one of the two settees and wondered how the arrangement worked.

  ‘It’s simple,’ said Avril, a short 20-something woman with blonde hair and a lip ring. ‘Both beds are fold-down. You’re sitting on his, and that one is mine,’ she said, pointing to one on the other side of a bookcase. ‘It only works because I work nights in the warehouse at Tesco and he worked days at Starbucks. We’d often share meals – breakfast for me, supper for him, and vice versa. It worked really well. He didn’t mind curry for breakfast or Weetabix for supper.’

  The logistics of Jetmire Kogan’s life sorted, Gillard wanted to know about the man himself. ‘He was kind and gentle, a real darling,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill him.’

  ‘You mentioned that he was gay,’ Greycoates said, apparently unable to stay off the subject. ‘Did he have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He wasn’t into the scene as such. He never brought anyone home. To be honest I think he was nursing a broken heart from some time before he even came here. The man he loved died, and I don’t think he was ready for anything else.’

  A slight sneer slid across Greycoates’s face. Gill
ard turned away and flicked through the meagre collection of documents that Kogan had left behind. An Albanian passport, a British residency document, a UK driving licence and a bundle of envelopes and photographs in a shoebox.

  ‘Did you know anything about his parents or family?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘He didn’t talk about his family. I think his parents were dead; there may have been some distant relatives perhaps. He used to say that he hated his country and wished he had been born somewhere else. It was his dream to come and live in London, and he didn’t mind that he had no money and lived squashed in a box with a wee Scottish lassie like me. He was just happy to be who he wanted to be. And, boy, he could make good coffee!’

  ‘So we’re not sure who the next of kin is?’ Greycoates asked.

  ‘No.’

  Gillard looked through the shoebox. There were dozens of letters, presumably in Albanian, with neat handwriting and the kind of flourishes that would only be used between the closest of friends. He had no doubt that they were love letters. He found several photographs of two young men, perhaps in their late teens, with their arms around each other’s shoulders. One undoubtedly was Jetmire.

  While Ms Lennox went into the kitchen to make them her version of a good coffee, Gillard turned to Greycoates. ‘I’ll leave you to sort out a DNA match from personal items here. I know it’s your case but I’d like copies of the personal correspondence and photographs, to see if they can shed any light on the connection with the missing Lund children.’

  Greycoates nodded. ‘I hear that you’re off to Albania on Tuesday.’ He gave a wry smile as he got up to leave. ‘Fucking dump of a country by all accounts. Gangsters, drug dealers and car thieves. I hope I don’t read about you lying dead in a ditch.’

  ‘Thanks for the encouragement,’ said Gillard. ‘One more thing. You haven’t found his phone, have you?’

  ‘No, but the landlord and his employer both gave me the same number. I’ll get on to the service provider tomorrow.’

  ‘Can you copy me in on any text messages and emails, and all the metadata? I’d particularly like to know any Albanian numbers that he contacted.’

  ‘I’ll also be looking at the location data,’ Greycoates said.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll get much. Assuming the guy that murdered him was a professional, he’d either have ditched the phone before dragging the victim off to Lincolnshire or at least kept it turned off.’

  Greycoates nodded. Avril came in with the coffee. Proper wide cups, foaming cappuccino and a little sad face in the froth.

  ‘That’s for Jetmire,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know him for long, but it was long enough to know that he didn’t deserve what happened to him.’

  Book 2

  Albania, Tuesday

  DCI Gillard’s early-morning flight from Heathrow arrived promptly in Tirana. As the jet descended through a thick layer of cloud, snow-strewn mountains came into view, partially encircling the city. The sprawling Albanian capital was veiled in haze, but patches of snow could be seen in the thousands of narrow strip fields around it.

  Detective Sergeant Besin Tokaj was there to meet him in arrivals. An upright grey-haired man in his 60s, Tokaj gripped Gillard’s hands in both of his. ‘So good to meet you,’ he said, in heavily accented English.

  The Albanian told Gillard that he didn’t need to stay in the hotel that had been booked for him. ‘Stay with me and my wife Leila,’ he said. ‘You are my guest.’ This was the first but not the last example of what Gillard later learned was called besa, Albania’s medieval code of honour that pledges hospitality to strangers. Tokaj led him through a slushy car park to his aged white Renault and told him they were heading south of the city. ‘Now, Craig,’ said Tokaj, looking across at his passenger. ‘If I understand correctly, the children who were abducted are now in Italy. But you still have a murder to solve?’

  ‘Two murders, actually.’ He explained about the Lincolnshire murder, and then reminded the Albanian about the murder of Peter Young, the details of which he had sent to him the previous week. ‘We have two ethnic Albanians, both executed in Britain within a couple of weeks of each other. They are not related, from the DNA tests we have done. However, the man killed in Lincolnshire does seem to be a close relative of the abducted children. It seems to me that the answer to why all this happened must lie in Albania.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Tokaj said. ‘However, Albania’s police force is still constructing a DNA database. The project began in 2014 with the help of the Polish police, and still continues. The taking of DNA samples from suspects is still haphazard and irregular, and not everyone is well trained. We have had a few embarrassments, so must rely on more traditional investigatory methods.’

  ‘I feared that may be the case,’ Gillard said gloomily.

  They were still on the outskirts of Tirana when Gillard noticed a half-built four-storey building. At the top were three mannequins hanging by the neck from concrete reinforcing rods. ‘Whoa! Please stop the car,’ Gillard asked. Tokaj did so, and the British detective jumped out to take a closer look. ‘Why are these here?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah. This is an old Albanian custom,’ Tokaj replied as Gillard got back in the car. ‘You will see this on every new property, on many farms and gardens. It is just a little piece of superstition, from the time when Albania was a simple rural economy. We call them monkeys, and they are talismans of good luck.’

  ‘Good luck? The mother of the missing children was terrified to discover one near her home in the UK.’

  ‘Different cultures,’ Tokaj shrugged. ‘Trust me, many rational and educated people still believe in the evil eye, and this is seen as a protection.’

  Gillard didn’t hide his scepticism.

  ‘Do you walk under ladders?’ Tokaj asked.

  ‘Not if someone’s balanced on top with a pot of paint,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Well, most Albanians will not go underneath a ladder at all, and I think this is also common in your country. Listen, my wife broke a mirror a year ago. That is seven years’ bad luck, a belief going back to Roman times.’

  ‘I hadn’t realized it was that old.’

  ‘Yes, and so is the antidote.’

  ‘There is an antidote to the bad luck?’

  ‘Yes. You must take all the pieces of the mirror, every last little sliver, and bury them under moonlight. Leila did this.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘I’ll let you know after the end of the seven years,’ Tokaj said with a chuckle. ‘But this little piece of witchcraft was very important to my wife.’ As he drove along he then pointed up at a newly constructed apartment block. ‘Look, another monkey. You see, we all believe.’

  It was true. On the journey he spotted dozens of scarecrows and mannequins. These so-called monkeys were on construction sites, allotments, porches, fence posts and even petrol stations and car wash businesses. He realized what he had seen in the woods around Colsham Manor and in Geraldine Hinchcliffe’s conservatory was an everyday part of Albanian culture.

  As Tokaj drove out of the capital into a small town, Gillard’s attempts to talk about the case were met with smiles and polite evasions. ‘There is no hurry,’ Tokaj replied. ‘For best results we do things the Albanian way. First we eat drekë, lunch.’ The detective’s home was 20 miles south of Tirana, a charming and partially renovated cottage with an attached smallholding, still buried under a blanket of snow. He trundled Gillard’s wheeled suitcase up the icy path and in through the front door, then called out for his wife. Leila Tokaj was a tiny woman who greeted them wearing a headscarf and soon retired into the kitchen, from which delicious smells emanated.

  Gillard got out his briefcase and passed across copies of all the passport, nationality and residence documents of the two murder victims. ‘This is all I have. Peter Young arrived in the UK as a 15-year-old without any documentation, and a year later was given official Right to Remain as a child refugee from Kosovo. His original name was Pjetër Ardian Cela. However, th
e authorities in Pristina have no record of him, so he may be from Albania.

  Tokaj shrugged. ‘Maybe, there were many such cases.’

  ‘In the case of Jetmire Kogan, we have an Albanian passport and a date of entry on a tourist visa with an address in Pogradec. He overstayed on the visa, but had managed to get a flat share and work in London without too much difficulty.’

  ‘What are the other papers?’ Tokaj asked, pointing to the remaining stack.

  ‘These are the adoption papers for the Lund children, from a Roman Catholic orphanage in Shkoder. At some stage I would like to check them.’

  ‘Then this is what I suggest,’ Tokaj said. ‘Pogradec is a long way to the east on bad roads, even by Albanian standards.’ He laughed. ‘So if it’s just to check the given address of Jetmire Kogan, it seems easier for me to just phone a colleague there. The orphanage is much closer, we can visit this afternoon.’ He went to a cupboard and brought out a crystal bottle from which he poured healthy measures of a clear liquid into shot glasses. ‘You must join me in a glass of raki,’ he said. ‘I am afraid I may be judged a very bad Muslim, but in Albania we say better that than be judged an inhospitable man.’

  Unwilling to appear rude, Gillard sipped at the liquid, which seemed even fiercer than the one Meadows had given him. Tokaj drained his in one, then emitted a happy sigh.

  ‘That is strong,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Strong enough to do the job,’ Tokaj said.

  Or stop you doing the job, Gillard thought. ‘Speaking of the job, I would also like to interview Vjosa Dragusha, who I understand is in Tarduz prison,’ he said.

  Tokaj laughed and shook his head as if Gillard just requested the impossible. ‘The Butcher of Fier is a sick man. He is also not someone we can just demand to see without going through the proper channels and formalities,’ he said.