The Body on the Shore

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

  Chapter 30

  Gillard only took a few steps into the hallway of the flat. The doorway into the lounge was open, and a woman’s clothed body lay partially in view, a discarded shoe on its side stained with blood. He pointed to another door off the hallway on which some graffiti had been written in marker pen.

  Kreshniki −2

  ‘Minus two Kreshniki,’ he said. Gillard stepped a little further into the room, pulled out his phone and photographed the woman, who had been shot in the chest. She was not Zerina Moretti, but could have been her sister. He carefully opened the door into a bedroom, on whose bed a man lay, also shot dead.

  ‘Poor guy. He’s never going to need his pi-pi again,’ Gillard said. He photographed him, then quickly checked the other two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The children were not there.

  ‘If this investigation falls to the Dragusha-owned detective, the gang will never be called to account for it,’ Tokaj said.

  Gillard shrugged. ‘It’s in his patch, there’s nothing we can do. Our priority now is to find Zerina Moretti and the two kids in the Accursed Mountains before the Dragusha do.’

  They then slipped out of the flat and carefully closed the door behind them. Snow was just beginning to fall, thick flakes drifting down in the orange sodium-light glare which whitened the darkness, muted the traffic and softened the edges of urban Fier.

  Before they had got back to the car, Tokaj took a phone call from his wife. His face became grave as he listened to what she had to say.

  ‘Leila says the Dragusha have sprayed their symbol over our front door,’ he said as they got into the VW. ‘And someone keeps ringing the landline but not saying anything. It’s freaking her out, obviously.’

  ‘Do you think the Dragusha would really come for you there?’

  ‘For me? No, they would come for us, but especially for you. As an outsider, seen sneaking around at the Butcher’s funeral, you have a pretty big bull’s-eye on your back, my friend. You were insolent and disrespectful to him at the prison, and they probably think you need to be taught a lesson. They have their spies. They will know that I am hosting you. That is why my wife and I are in danger.’

  Gillard let the reproach sit between them for a moment. ‘I really wouldn’t want to put you in danger.’

  ‘Too late for that, eh?’ Tokaj said with a savage grin, gunning the engine and pulling out into traffic. ‘Never mind, we’ll be okay. A bit of stiff British lip, eh?’ He slapped the British detective’s thigh.

  ‘Upper lip. You’re allowed to wobble the lower one,’ Gillard corrected.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘For a start we’re not staying at my home tonight. We’re taking Leila and going to my older brother’s farm in the hills, which will be safer. His wife died a few years ago and he will be glad of the company.’

  They stuck to the coast road heading north out of Fier, but even on this lower route snow was soon lying thickly on fields and walls, and beginning to settle even on gritted roads. They arrived at Tokaj’s house just before 11 that evening. The moment he opened the door Leila flung herself into his arms. Behind her were several suitcases which the Albanian detective quickly packed in the boot of the Golf.

  ‘I hope you do not mind, but Leila has packed your things too, in the red case,’ Tokaj said. ‘It saves time.’

  The journey to the farm took only half an hour, mainly on narrow roads, where theirs were often the only tyre tracks. They pulled into a parking area where the snow was already three or four inches deep, next to a snow-capped red tractor which looked at least 60 years old. The brother, a ruddy-faced man who resembled the classic image of Joseph Stalin, welcomed them all with glasses of home-made raki.

  ‘We will be safe here,’ Tokaj said, and raised a glass. ‘Here’s to the serpent who dispatched the Angel of Death.’

  ‘And here’s to us finding out who he is,’ Gillard said, sinking his in one.

  ‘Tomorrow we head off to the Accursed Mountains.’

  ‘What was the name of that place that the waitress told you?’

  ‘Haj. The x is silent.’

  ‘What x?’

  ‘The one at the front: X H A J.’

  ‘Good grief,’ Gillard said. ‘That isn’t a word, it’s a car registration number. What a language!’

  ‘It works for us, my friend.’

  * * *

  It was Monday, three days after Craig’s warning, that Sam noticed she was being followed. It was nearly five, dull and overcast. She was in the little Ford Ka, with the rape alarm in the glove box. She had only got to the end of the close when an old black BMW that had been parked half on the pavement fell in behind her. The two youngish guys in it were wearing sunglasses, and one had a dark beard.

  She was glad that she had changed her routine.

  Normally she would run to the class, and that would have left her much more vulnerable. But Craig’s warning on Friday evening had shocked her. Nothing is quite as frightening as realizing that the toughest and most capable person you know, who has looked after you and kept you away from danger, suddenly feels unequal to the task. So she had looked at the safety procedures Craig had put together for her in case her ex, Gary the stalker, should come back. There were things to do to indicate she wasn’t alone at home even if she was. What to do if she was followed, a list of police colleagues based nearby who could check up on her if Craig was away, that kind of thing. She had changed her shopping routines too, she left a radio on low near the door when she was out, set the night-time security light, and stuck a ‘Beware of the Dog’ sticker on the front door, even though she hadn’t got a dog.

  Now, with her worst fears coming true, Sam again did what Craig had suggested, even though it wasn’t really convenient. Instead of heading straight to the gym, she drove up the A23 to Purley. There was an ANPR camera in Coulsdon, and she noted the time she passed it, to make it easy for the police to find her and identify the car behind. Then she drove to the giant Tesco Extra and parked near the front, in the mother and baby section, within reach of the CCTV. Once inside she rang one of her old colleagues in the police. She didn’t see either of the guys following her along the aisles. She slipped out without buying anything and drove off to the gym. She didn’t see the men or the BMW for the rest of the evening, but when she got back home saw that some kind of symbol had been sprayed on the front door.

  A triple-headed eagle, just like Craig had described.

  * * *

  Gillard was given a rustic bedroom above the stables where the brother’s two horses and donkey were kept. There was a small brass-framed bed and a solidly built bedside table on which there sat a well-thumbed copy of the Koran. The brother brought the detective up a ewer of warm water, a rough grey towel and some soap. There was a hurricane lamp should the electricity fail, as he was told it sometimes did during the snow. The low-ceilinged room was certainly warm enough, and its hand-carved wooden shutters added a charm to the place. However, the stamping of the animals beneath, the jangling of harnesses and some early morning braying interrupted his sleep.

  Breakfast was a big loaf of rustic bread, its gnarly crust a challenge to the teeth, with a chunk of creamy butter and a comb of honey suspended on cotton from the light shade over a lit candle. The three of them sat around a small rustic table, watching the honey drip out into the dish below, before scraping it onto their bread. It was delicious.

  The brother, who spoke barely a word of English but had a gap-toothed smile for every eventuality, patted the British detective manfully on the shoulders and said: ‘Good?’ And it was, tasty and filling. The coffee was strong and dark, and Gillard was urged to sweeten it with honey if necessary.

  ‘We have an important rendezvous today,’ Tokaj said, checking his phone. ‘We are going to meet our undercover officer from the funeral. She apparently speaks good English, and now thinks she knows who killed the Angel of Death.’

  Tuesday afternoon
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  Tokaj had arranged to meet the police spy in Shkoder, the mountain city which was the gateway to the Accursed Mountains. The woman, whose code name was Yeta, had suggested a rendezvous at the public library, half an hour before it was due to close at 4 p.m., giving plenty of time to get there in case the roads were blocked by snow. The old Golf did them proud, hauling itself noisily through one or two snowdrifts in exposed places and overtaking lines of trucks which were defeated by the icy slopes.

  After defrosting themselves in a local bar in front of a roaring open fire, Gillard and the Albanian detective went next door to the library and waited as instructed at a large communal table in the reference section at the back. There was no one else in the place, except a male librarian who busied himself at the main desk in another room. A few minutes later a petite woman of about 60 with neatly coiffed grey hair and glasses entered through a rear door, shaking snow off her umbrella. She walked past, perusing a shelf of history books, then disappeared around the corner. A minute later the Albanian detective’s phone vibrated, and he answered it. Gillard could hear her speaking from the other side of the shelf.

  After hurried greetings, Yeta sat with them and began at a whisper. ‘I have only ten minutes before I have to go back to Tirana,’ she said. ‘However I managed to secure some strong evidence, some video recorded by one of the other female mourners on her phone, and I was able to get a copy. Watch very carefully.’

  She held up her Samsung. The recording began midway through the funeral liturgy. The viewer seemed to be opposite the bishop, about ten yards away. Nikolai Dragusha could be seen on the left of the image. Gillard would have been visible on the right of this frame, had he not been hiding behind a monument. At the bottom of the screen, a child pushed through the mourners. It was a back view, but the phone picked up the Dragusha emblem shaved into his hair and the teddy bear still clasped to his chest. There was no sign of the older girl whose hand he had been holding. The child passed out of the frame on the left, and another mourner, a short man with an ill-fitting jacket and dirty hair, seemed to get in the way. The man looked around, and seemed to feel for something in his jacket pocket. The image wavered slightly, and then there was the first pop. For a second the camera shook, and then there was an exclamation from the woman, then a second pop as Nikolai began to topple. The screaming of the crowd now dominated, and the image was too shaky to tell what was going on. Then it ended.

  ‘I don’t see anything useful,’ Tokaj said. ‘Maybe the scruffy guy, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘Okay,’ the woman said. ‘Let’s look at the second video and then go back.’

  The second video was much shorter and showed a huge seething crowd, screaming, with some running away. There were more shaky images, and then a few seconds of clarity which showed one of the Dragusha henchmen, earpiece clearly visible, standing high on a monumental plinth aiming a weapon down towards the western gate. He shouted something in Albanian, which Tokaj helpfully translated.

  ‘He’s shouting “Everyone down so I can shoot the bastard”,’ he said.

  A second later the video jerked left, in the direction the gunman was pointing, to show a scrum of suited men piling down the steps towards the gate. The first of them seemed to be crouching, and one even tried to squeeze underneath.

  ‘You can’t get under there,’ Gillard laughed. ‘I looked at it on the way in. The gap’s less than a foot.’

  A few seconds later, one of the taller henchmen helped an athletic guy onto his shoulders, who then attempted, initially unsuccessfully, to climb over the spiked railings at the top of the gate. The video then ended.

  ‘This tells us something,’ the woman said, taking off her glasses.

  ‘I’m not sure what,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Assuming they were following the assailant, the initial attempt is to squeeze under the gate, rather than force it open,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps they had shouted for the woman to open the gate, but had no reply,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Exactly so,’ she said. ‘Now let us go back to the last section of the previous video. I don’t have great slo-mo on this phone, but HQ can take it apart frame by frame. Now watch.’

  She restarted the video just where it was getting jerky just before the first shot. She hit pause, and then pointed with a propelling pencil to the bottom left-hand corner of the image. ‘See the teddy bear.’

  A sliver of the bear’s golden-brown fur could be spotted between the dark trousers of two of the male mourners. ‘That’s the bear held by the boy with the symbol shaved in his head,’ Gillard said. ‘But where’s the girl?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I spent quite a while looking for her, until I realized that it’s not the girl who is significant. Look,’ she said, trying to move the video on in slo-mo. It took a few attempts, and then she showed it to the two detectives. ‘Look. The boy is standing right behind Nikolai Dragusha. I cannot get a clear image for the moment of the first shot, but this I think is the second.’ She played around with the screen a little more, and then turned it around to them as a still, using the pencil again to point out a detail.

  ‘The bear’s head jerks right back, and is that smoke?’ Gillard asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s the gunshot,’ Tokaj said. ‘I think there was a silenced gun inside the bear.’

  ‘So the child smuggled the gun in to someone?’ Gillard asked.

  Tokaj shook his head. ‘No. That is unnecessary. Many adults would normally carry guns.’

  ‘I believe the young boy was the assassin,’ the woman said. ‘He simply walked up behind the Angel of Death and fired at point-blank range.’

  ‘There must have been a pocket inside the bear that he could reach into and fire the weapon,’ Tokaj said.

  ‘This child I think is less than ten years old,’ the woman said. ‘But amazingly, I have a picture of him from earlier, because I thought he was so sweet.’ She pulled back her phone, worked the buttons for a few seconds and then turned it round again.

  It was a lovely portrait of the girl in the severe dress holding the hand of the boy with the teddy bear. Gillard looked at the face of the boy, and his heart somersaulted.

  ‘I don’t believe it. That is little David Lund.’

  Chapter 31

  Tokaj looked at Gillard, his eyes wide. ‘You know this child?’

  ‘He’s the adoptive son of Sophie and Dag Lund. He was the one kidnapped together with his sister Amber from the family home in Surrey. And to think all the time I’ve been worried about what might happen to him. It never occurred to me that I should have been more worried about what he might do to others.’

  The woman looked at Gillard with a sympathetic expression. ‘I’m sure in your country there are no precedents for this kind of behaviour. But here, if you are in a family feud, the obligation to protect the honour of the clan moves down from father to son, from elder brother to younger brother.’

  A revelation exploded in Gillard’s brain like a firework display. David didn’t just shoot Nikolai Dragusha. He also murdered Nikolai’s younger brother, Pjetër. Pjetër Dragusha, Peter Young. Finally the connections were all falling into place. David Lund was the last male in the Kreshniki line, the last chance for the honour of this dwindling crime family to be satisfied. His shooting of Pjetër Dragusha in Surrey, to avenge the death of his own birth parents, had reignited the vendetta, leading quickly to the death of David’s older brother Jetmire, and the threats against the Lund children.

  Gillard had a hundred thoughts popping in his head, but he voiced just one: ‘He could not have done this alone.’

  Tokaj nodded. ‘I agree. This was meticulously planned, even down to getting a Dragusha hairstyle to provide him with cover. There was the gun and silencer to provide, ammunition to procure, a teddy bear to hollow out. Someone brought him to the funeral, someone picked him up afterwards and whisked him away. While only a man can defend a family’s honour, a woman could easily do any of these other things.’


  ‘I’m pretty sure I know who must have organized this,’ Gillard said. ‘Zerina Moretti, the children’s aunt. Of course, that’s why she brought the kids back to Albania. They had a murder to commit! We have to find her, and soon.’

  ‘Certainly before the Dragusha do,’ Yeta said. ‘And they already have the original of this recording, and perhaps other pictures too.’

  Tokaj blew a long sigh. ‘I bet they already have a good idea of where she and the children might be. Though undoubtedly the organization will be slowed down by this assassination, they have, as you have seen, much greater resources to bring to bear on it than we do. We have to make the most of our time.’

  After the agent left, Tokaj stepped out into the car park to call his boss in Tirana.

  Gillard remained seated in the library, his hands steepled either side of his nose. How on earth was he going to explain this to Sophie and Dag? Their quiet, introverted child an assassin? That made sense of another piece of evidence: the target practice near Colsham Manor, which was probably the aunt helping the boy to train. And of course with a silencer fitted to the weapon, no one would have heard a thing.

  Tweedledum and Tweedledee had spent all their time combing the CCTV footage for a male adult on that bus. They should have been looking for a child.

  * * *

  Gillard rang the incident room in Guildford to let them know his discovery. Claire Mulholland was patched in to the call.

  Mulholland listened in silence as Gillard described what had happened, and the overwhelming evidence of David Lund’s responsibility.

  ‘That’s staggering,’ she said. ‘We assumed David and Amber were simply potential victims.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve been caught by our own cosy preconceptions,’ Gillard said. ‘Gun use in Britain is confined to a few hardened criminals, and it was only adult perpetrators we were looking for. But look at YouTube. It’s packed with videos of American five-year-olds being taught to shoot, sometimes with automatic weapons. Albanians might not make those videos, but gun possession is almost as common here.’