The Body on the Shore

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

  Someone had just in the last few minutes arrived to fill the final vacant chair. It was someone he recognised. A slender, almost androgynous man with a halo of fine blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. He was wearing a very well-tailored suit and had numerous rings on his fingers. Gillard could not be absolutely sure, but it looked to him like the so-called angel that Amber Lund had talked to on the lawn of Colsham Manor. It was the same face that had been caught on CCTV a few days later on the night that Sophie Lund had chased an intruder on horseback and ended up face-to-face with the chief constable.

  This was the man who had told the little girl: ‘Tell them. I have come for vengeance.’

  This man was almost certainly a murderer.

  The Angel of Death.

  * * *

  After what Tokaj had said, Gillard assumed the Albanian police had no DNA sample from this man. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to get one for himself. As the meal came to an end he tried to make his way towards the top table. He didn’t tell Tokaj what he was doing, and the Albanian policeman trailed after him. Such was the crush of guests, and the hearty backslapping and embracing amongst the big men at the top table, that he couldn’t make much progress. The Angel slipped from his view. That still left the cutlery and glassware that he had used on the table, and Gillard kept it in focus. He was just three feet away, within reaching distance, when a young waitress gathered up the plates and cutlery from dessert. He cursed inwardly, now focusing on the chair that the man had used. The top table had leatherette chairs, rather grander than the cloth-covered seats which filled the rest of the restaurant, and somewhat worse for the retention of hairs. Nevertheless, Gillard was able to take an unused paper napkin, dip it in a water jug, and then wipe the backrest of the chair that the man had sat on. Having done so, he folded it and put it in his pocket, ready to send back to the UK for DNA testing.

  It was late evening when Gillard and Tokaj took a taxi back to their car outside the nightclub. As they drove back to his home, the Albanian policeman became a little more open about the Dragusha family. ‘I couldn’t tell you anything at the restaurant. That policeman sitting opposite you, you remember? He works for them. He may understand English even though he claims he cannot speak it.’

  The Surrey policeman found he was struggling to adapt to a world in which even the most minor of police procedures needed to be checked against the sensibilities of a powerful mafia. Tokaj in turn admitted that he had been very circumspect early on with Gillard’s investigation because it had often happened that foreign policemen caused problems by behaving as if they were at home.

  Besin Tokaj said that some of his superiors, having heard what Gillard’s intentions were, would have been happiest to have him taken on various minor and irrelevant excursions to waste his time, until he realized that the case could not be solved. This was not Tokaj’s way. ‘I may be a realist, but I’m not without ideals. I want to see justice done. I want to see these animals behind bars. If you can get it done, I will try to help.’

  Gillard thanked him, and returned to an earlier question which Tokaj had previously ignored: who hates the Dragusha family? And who is powerful enough to strike against them by murdering their one innocent and vulnerable brother, living a blameless life in a faraway country?’

  It took half an hour for the Albanian detective to list all of the enemies who would want to destroy one of Albania’s most powerful mafias. ‘But wanting to do it and having the capability are not the same thing. The Xhakja clan from Shkoder, the Bregus and the Allushi, and of course the Banda e Lushnjës, all have rivalries with the Dragusha. There are low-level skirmishes, the occasional murder but not outright war. It may be about blood but it is also about business, and fixing the boundaries between the two. Things have not always been so diplomatic. The Dragusha wiped out one of their biggest rivals, the Banda Kreshnik, three years ago. The Kreshniki had a lucrative trade in car theft from Germany, Holland and Britain. They have lost all that now. Almost the entire family are dead.’

  Gillard’s head was spinning at the prospect of delving into the intricacies of internecine mafia politics. ‘In the end, this may all be beyond the scope of my investigation. But I would have thought that the Dragusha would want to help find out who killed their youngest brother.’

  Tokaj demurred. ‘They would prefer to do it themselves. It undermines their honour and machismo to seek the help of the police. I think in inviting us to join the funeral meal the Dragusha wanted to show the pain they have suffered. But they are too proud to put it into words for you.’

  Gillard guessed that Peter Young, or Pjetër Dragusha as he now knew him, had wanted to escape the violence, the rivalries and gang criminality of Albania, to come to Britain for a new life. Despite the fact his family was already ‘in blood’, undergoing a murderous vendetta with the Kreshniki, they had reluctantly accepted his decision. They may perhaps have helped him establish a new identity, knowing that there was still a chance he would be targeted. In life they granted him some freedom, but in death he was pulled back firmly within the enfolding family. Gillard had one further conclusion.

  ‘We already suspected it was the Dragusha who were skulking around Colsham Manor, advertising with their symbols and night-time conversations that they knew who the Lund kids really were. That message was lost on the adoptive parents, but someone else in that rival family must have known. Could it have been Jetmire Kogan? He was a member of the same family.’

  ‘Or maybe it was somebody else,’ Tokaj said. ‘Someone senior.’

  ‘So once we solve the mystery of who Kogan and the Lund children really are, then we know which family is involved in a feud with the Dragusha.’

  Tokaj smiled. ‘Dear Craig, you make it sound so straightforward. Finding out will only be half the battle. Tomorrow morning, I will show you some of those battlefields and some of the fallen. And only then I will tell you about the Angel of Death’

  * * *

  Even though they arrived back at Tokaj’s home at midnight, there was another substantial meal awaiting them. Gillard was too polite not to finish the fish dish that Leila Tokaj set in front of him, and was happy enough with the thick crusty bread and astringent white wine that she served with it. Besin Tokaj translated Gillard’s many compliments and Leila grinned with pleasure, fiddling with curls of her hair under her hijab. After the wine came more raki, but Gillard really did demur this time.

  A little while later, as he sat in bed with his phone, ready to email Mulholland, he heard the sound of springs from next door and Leila Tokaj’s muffled moans of pleasure as her husband made love to her. He thought what a tough calling it was to be an Albanian policeman. The temptations of bribery ensured the easy life were always there. But to do it right, to single-mindedly pursue justice, was dangerous.

  He looked down again at his phone. In the last few minutes of the restaurant meal, he had managed to take a selfie of himself with the bent Italian-speaking cop, by then much the worse for drink. He’d taken three pictures, and in only one of them achieved his goal, which was to capture in the background between them the blond man, Amber’s angel.

  He attached the picture to the email and pinged it off to Mulholland with a short message. Britain was an hour behind Albania, but he was still surprised to get a quick response. He read it twice but still couldn’t believe it. Gillard had stopped worrying about the Lund children because he assumed they were still safely with their aunt in Italy. But Claire Mulholland had upset all his assumptions.

  Italian immigration confirms Zerina Moretti left the country with two children yesterday. They took the ferry from Brindisi to Vlorë, Albania, arriving 11.55 a.m.

  He couldn’t believe this turn of events. What possible reason was there for an aunt who claimed to be protecting the children to bring them back into the heart of danger? It crossed his mind that perhaps this woman was not who she claimed to be, though the familial DNA links between her, David and Amber seemed clear enough. Those poor
children could have no idea what danger they were being exposed to.

  Gillard forwarded the text to Geoff Meadows, then turned over in bed, unable to sleep. There was something wrong here, something he couldn’t understand. This just didn’t make any sense. If the woman was being forced to bring the children back, surely she would have been able to leave some message with Sophie Lund or even to have returned one of the many calls that he himself had made. Sleep evaded him, and he got up and went to the window. He slid up the sash and let the cold night air pour into the room. The Dragusha gang seemed to have a massive gravitational pull: not only able to retrieve their own dead from exile, but to draw their enemies to them, even the children of their enemies. Their reach was prodigious.

  Surely it was not possible that Zerina Moretti was a member of the Dragusha. But what other explanation could there be? If it was dangerous for them in Surrey, it was surely deadlier here.

  Gillard thought back to what Sophie Lund had told him about Amber’s nightmares. The shtriga, the female vampire who feasted on the blood of children. Albania was such a male-dominated society, the women always consigned to the shadows. In Albania’s Kanun, a woman was dismissively described as ‘a sack, made to endure’, worth ‘half a man, or a dog’. Underestimating women was ingrained into Albanian society, but he realized he and his fellow detectives had fallen into the same trap with Teto Zerina. She’d already shown she was ingenious and determined in the way she had kidnapped the children. But what if this woman, this kindly aunt, was actually a killer too?

  Chapter 24

  Thursday

  The main cemetery in Fier is draped over a wooded hill south-west of the city. It is surrounded by a high stone wall as if the many thousands of the departed might otherwise escape into the world of the living. With an early start for the long drive, Detective Sergeant Besin Tokaj and DCI Craig Gillard were there at 9.45 a.m. They parked on the street and entered at the main eastern gate. The flower sellers’ displays were fresh and bright, droplets of moisture standing out on the petals. There were huge bunches of chrysanthemums and lilies, roses and carnations, and there were also wreaths of laurel and holly. As Gillard gazed at the fragrant display, a stocky, ruddy-faced woman waddled out to encourage him to buy. Much to Tokaj’s surprise, he did: a big bunch of mixed chrysanthemums and lilies. He also wrote a note on the label he was provided.

  The two men strode purposefully along the main avenue which divided the cemetery into two, heading towards the crest of the hill. The British detective was surprised to see Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim graves side by side, a seemingly random cohabitation that might perhaps have proved elusive in life, and in many countries even in death. The Muslim graves, each with a crescent moon engraved on the headstone, were generally aligned to the east. They tended not to have images of the dead, while the Catholics and Orthodox had not only photographic inserts but, on some of the grander tombs, inlaid mosaic images of the interred. As they ascended the hill, the headstones and graves became more elaborate, glossy granite plinths, with delicate marble angels and crosses of every type and size. The lack of moss, mildew and grime proclaimed not only the care with which the deceased were attended to, but the relative recency of their departing. Deaths from the 1980s and 1990s, especially of the youthful, seemed to dominate. The grief of riven families was writ large and often across that hallowed hill.

  Towards the top, family mausoleums dominated, and Tokaj stopped to point out the resting place of one particular crime family. ‘This is the resting place of the Kreshniki,’ he said. It was a sizeable basalt monolith, with a huge crescent moon above. Beneath it, engraved in gold, were the names of the many deceased listed in columns like First World War battle casualties. Gillard looked, but could find no reference to anyone called Jetmire.

  Underneath was a quote.

  Vdekja do të të gjejë edhe sikur të fshihesh në kështjellat e ndërtuara të forta dhe të larta. Kur'ani 04/78

  ‘What does it say?’ Gillard asked.

  Tokaj sighed. ‘It is from the Koran. “Death will find you even if you hide in fortresses built up strong and high.”’

  ‘That’s a bit depressing.’

  ‘What do you expect? Almost every Kreshniki man is dead from Dragusha bullets. An entire bloodline eradicated. And, actually, I do not mourn a single one of them.’ He pointed to the list of names and dates.

  ‘This is where it really started: 1997.’ Tokaj read out an unpronounceable name. ‘This man set up a pyramid scheme, which made the Kreshniki rich. He promised a 15 per cent return each year from investing in new hotels that were supposedly being built for tourists along the Mediterranean coast. The middle classes loved the idea, and piled in their life savings, hoping to see Albania open to the world. Some hotels were built, and the first investors got their payments, but without knowing the money came solely from the new deposits. Word spread, more people bought in, and there were more new deposits to fund the interest on the old ones. The news always seemed good, even though none of us ever seemed to meet the foreign tourists who were supposedly flocking in. Of course, like all such things, it collapsed when there were new no new suckers like me to put in their savings.’

  ‘You were affected?’

  ‘Yes. Leila and I had a smart flat in Tirana once. But we lost it in the pyramid scandal. You would probably say that we were naive to trust such a scam, but we had just emerged from decades of dictatorship under Enver Hoxha, and we were blinking like trusting rabbits in the bright, optimistic light of democracy. So when the government said these schemes were fine, Albania will join the world, we believed them.’

  Gillard stared at the policeman. ‘That must have been terrible.’

  ‘We are Albanian, we know how to suffer.’ He turned back to the list of the fallen. ‘The wife of one of the senior Dragusha crime lords lost a million when the pyramid collapsed. This man,’ he tapped the same golden letters. ‘He fled to Switzerland. The Dragusha poisoned him, and he died in slow agony.’

  ‘That was the start of the feud?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Yes and no. It had been low-level before, but this marked an intensification. The Kreshniki retaliated within a month, killing a krye, a boss. Two of them rode past his car on a motorcycle, and the pillion passenger shot him through the window. The man who died was the brother of the Butcher of Fier, and in the time of anarchy the Butcher was able to flex his muscles without restraint. Look at all the victims: 1996, 1997 three times, 1998. It goes on.’

  Gillard stared at the list of the dead. ‘There’s a little cluster of deaths just three years ago. And isn’t that a female name?’

  ‘Yes. That was a notorious incident, even by Albanian standards. And this is where I tell you about the Angel of Death. At the funeral dinner last night you may have noticed one man with a crown of blond hair at the top table.’

  ‘I did,’ Gillard said. ‘I recognised him from the CCTV in Surrey. So that really is him?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t expect him to be there. He came late, with his personal bodyguard, and he left early. That is his way. His name is Nikolai Dragusha. He is the third son of the Butcher, but he is known as the Angel of Death. He is a very cruel man, even by the standards of the Albanian mafia. He enjoys killing, not just because it is a family duty. It gives him pleasure. He made it his duty to kill every Kreshniki.’

  Gillard felt his blood run cold as a realization came to him. Could Amber and David Lund turn out to be part of the Kreshniki? Is that why they were targeted?

  Tokaj continued. ‘He had already killed many Kreshniki, but eventually tracked down a cousin of the instigator of the pyramid scheme. This cousin, Armend Kreshnik, may well have been involved in the gang’s car theft operations, but he was not a major player.’

  ‘Armend? Gillard said. ‘I think Sophie had said the children’s father was called Armend.’

  ‘It’s a common name in Albania,’ Tokaj said. ‘Anyway, the Angel left symbols as a warning for the family, to terrif
y them, because that is what he likes to do.’

  ‘That fits with what we found at Colsham Manor too.’

  ‘The family got guard dogs, but they were poisoned. They hired an armed guard, a former policeman, but he turned out to be an informer working for their enemies. One night, when the family were asleep, Nikolai and his men slipped into the house using a key supplied by the security guard. They tied up Armend and made him watch as they did unspeakable things to his wife and teenage daughter, before slitting their throats and leaving them to die like beasts in a slaughterhouse. He would have done even worse to Armend Kreshnik, had it not been for the sound of sirens.’

  ‘The police came?’

  ‘The Kreshniki were not without power and, yes, the police were on their way. But fearing the Dragusha, the police in Fier were neither so fast nor so stealthy that they might prevent the crime or catch the perpetrator. That is the nature of their compromise with evil. So, hearing sirens, the Angel of Death settled for firing five bullets into Armend Kreshnik and left him for dead. Amazingly, he survived for several weeks. He was in the hospital under guard, but in the end succumbed to his injuries.’

  Gillard’s mind was racing. ‘Were there any other children in that family?’

  ‘I do not think so, which is why I doubt that the abducted children are Kreshniki. There was a rumour that one male Kreshniki escaped. If so he must have fled abroad, because they are just women now, that family. A few old women, hiding in the Accursed Mountains. No men, no fighters. But the Dragusha are merciless. They do not have the honour of their ancestors. That is what new money does to ancient peasant virtue. It corrupts, it cheapens. Blood survives but honour is washed away.’ He made a noise of disgust in his throat and turned away to spit.