The Body on the Shore

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

  ‘So what’s the next step?’

  ‘I want Hodges and Hoskins to look again at the CCTV footage of the second bus, the one that passed the architects’ window at the correct time. Amongst those posh little schoolboys on their way to St Cuthbert’s, they might find a small, unassuming, dark-haired boy bent on murder.’

  ‘I’ll let Gabby Underwood know,’ Mulholland said.

  ‘Yes but keep it from the Lunds for now,’ Gillard responded. ‘Claire, I need you to ring round some schools: the girls’ secondary school to see if any of the pupils remember a small boy sitting upstairs, St Cuthbert’s to see if any of the regular boys who sit downstairs remember David, and the Lunds’ own primary school to see if David was missing that day.’

  ‘We’re going to have to think about how we handle this with the press,’ she said.

  ‘Agreed. But it’s the least of my problems now. Albania’s most powerful mafia has been stirred up like a hornet’s nest. Word will be out amongst the other crime families that a young child has humiliated the mighty Dragusha. You can’t imagine a more profound blow to their honour. They are thirsting for blood. If they find David and Amber…’

  ‘You’ve got to find them first, Craig.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  * * *

  DI Claire Mulholland was having her own difficulties. Laura Diaz had finally admitted to receiving mysterious phone calls in the days after Peter’s death. They were from withheld numbers, asking for permission for members of Peter’s extended Albanian family to come to the funeral in Surrey.

  ‘At first I said yes,’ a tearful Diaz told the policewoman. ‘But I asked for the names and details so I could arrange accommodation. They told me they weren’t sure who was coming yet, and would make all the arrangements themselves. I was very suspicious of this, because I had never heard from any of his family in all the years we’d been together. I obviously asked too many questions. Then this man said: “You will do what we say if you want your children to stay safe.” I was told that I couldn’t have the cremation that I wanted, that Peter was to be buried at a particular place they had reserved and paid for. He was to be prepared for an open casket. There were all sorts of demands. They said they would pay, money was no object. I really didn’t feel I could refuse, and I certainly couldn’t tell you. If they were stopped, they would kill my children.’

  ‘Did you see any of them at the funeral?’

  ‘I saw a few people I didn’t recognise, but they stayed towards the back. Of course you can never be sure when there were so many mourners anyway: people who worked with him, passers-by who had read the papers. Anyway, it was only after the funeral reception, after all the guests had gone home that I went upstairs to my own room, our room, and there sitting on my bed was this very scary man with a face like a cherub.’ She began to cry. ‘He said terrible things to me, and he threatened the children if I ever spoke of having contact with him.’

  Mulholland handed her a handkerchief.

  ‘I had no idea that they would steal my Peter to take him back to Albania. What a cruel thing to do to me and the children, to take him away from us. It’s as if we do not count for anything in his life.’

  The detective kept her counsel. She had already informed Laura that the body had been taken to Albania, but had not provided any details. It seemed better to wait until Gillard was back with a fuller account of what happened.

  * * *

  When Mulholland got back to Mount Browne, she led an impromptu incident room meeting.

  Carl Hoskins and Colin Hodges were already there, fast-forwarding through CCTV on a laptop. Rob Townsend, who had been working on trying to locate the aunt from her phone, was already in place. Michelle Tsu was on her way over from Colsham Manor and would arrive later.

  The DI began by marking a minute’s silence for Geoff Meadows. The unspoken fear amongst those present was what had happened to Geoff could easily happen to Craig Gillard.

  On top of that there was a sense of stunned disbelief among the assembled detectives that one of the most vulnerable of the potential victims in the investigation, David Lund, could turn out to be the perpetrator.

  ‘Look here,’ said Colin Hodges. ‘This is the bus CCTV of the stop before the one outside the architects’ office. As you can see there is this great horde of schoolgirls piling off. There’s two people trying to get on. You can see an elderly lady hanging back at the stop. And there’s this child’s head which you can just see. He’s only just tall enough to get in the frame.’ He froze the footage. There was a dark-haired boy, in a dark jacket with shirt and tie, a strap over one shoulder. He was only visible for a fraction of a second.’

  ‘We can’t tell whether he went upstairs or down, can we?’ Mulholland asked.

  ‘No. And though it’s possible he’s David Lund, he could be somebody else. Carl and I ignored him because he didn’t fit what we were looking for.’

  Carl Hoskins took over: ‘So what we’re thinking now is that the lad bunked off school on the day in question, was dropped on Roosevelt Avenue by his aunt, caught the bus for a couple of stops, shot Peter Young through the window and was then picked up again. We know that the aunt was in Britain over Christmas until midway into January, covering the time when the murder of Peter Young took place. It’s a question of the car she was driving.’ He turned to look at Michelle.

  She stood up and went to a pre-prepared flipchart covered in marker pen bullet points. ‘I tracked down the details of the credit card that Zerina Moretti used when she took the ferry to France with the abducted children in February by cross-checking it with her passport. Using this card number I was able to cross-reference it for a deposit taken when she first went for a test drive at the Fiat garage a few days before, even though the dealership no longer had a record at their end. It also flagged up a B & B she stayed at in Haslemere, within easy reach of Colsham Manor, for the two days before the abduction of the kids.’

  ‘What about the first hire car, back in January?’ Hodges asked.

  ‘I’m coming to that. I got a list of all the other transactions on it,’ Michelle said. ‘Going back to January, her first visit, there is a blue VW Polo hired at Gatwick airport. There is also a boy’s jacket and trousers, some toys and a satchel, which we probably saw the strap of in the CCTV, all bought a week before Peter Young was murdered.’

  Rob Townsend then took up the account. ‘The blue Polo appeared on three occasions along Roosevelt Avenue, according to ANPR data. The first two captures preceded the murder by several days, and the last was on the same day, half an hour before the time Peter Young was shot. That must have been when she was giving the child a lift.’

  ‘We can put the aunt in the vicinity at the time of the murder,’ Mulholland said. ‘David, of course, is below the age of criminal responsibility, but the aunt must have brought in the weapon, silencer and ammunition.’

  ‘Through Gatwick, ma’am?’ Hodges asked. ‘It’s possible in the hold, but it’s a bit of a risk, innit?’

  ‘Given she is connected to the Kreshnik gang, I suppose it’s quite possible that weaponry was already available here,’ Mulholland conceded. ‘That’s something I would have liked to ask Geoff Meadows.’ She paused for a moment to reflect.

  ‘One thing that gets me, ma’am,’ Hoskins asked. ‘Why get the kid involved? She’s got the gun, she has done the recce, knows where Peter Young is, what time he gets to work, that he’s in an office overlooked by the top deck of a bus. That’s all the hard stuff. Why get that poor kid to pull the trigger, eh?’

  Mulholland smiled. ‘It’s a very good question, and one I put to Craig when we last talked. He said that Albanian blood feuds require a male response. It would be a loss of honour to the family to have a woman defending them against a rival clan.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Michelle said. ‘What a responsibility to put on an eight-year-old.’

  ‘Who said he didn’t want it?’ Mulholland said. ‘If this child witnessed the execution of
his parents, he might be more than happy to be involved. Sophie Lund said that he was withdrawn and had problems at school. No wonder. It’s enough to make anyone a psychopath, surely.’

  ‘What’s the next stage?’ Hodges asked.

  ‘Finding him and his sister,’ said Mulholland. ‘Gillard texted us the name of the village. Well, hamlet really. Google Maps shows it as a tiny place. It’s down to how soon he can get there. I hear they’ve had blizzards.’

  * * *

  Gillard answered the call from Mulholland while he was on the road with Tokaj. The Albanian was just overtaking a couple of heavy lorries on a steep blind bend on a mountain road, and the British detective’s feet were unconsciously active on imagined clutch and accelerator as the car climbed laboriously, past the diesel-belching vehicles.

  ‘We’ve got all the paperwork in place this end for extradition, for both Moretti and the kids,’ Mulholland said. ‘Once you find them.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be too hard, if we can get there,’ Gillard told her. ‘At least we’re heading in the right direction. We’re on our way north to a meeting of the police organized crime department in Tirana. I think there’s going to be a big raid on the Dragusha soon.’

  Tokaj turned to him, eyes wide and a finger on his lips. ‘Shhh!’

  ‘I will attempt to borrow my colleague for a trip to the Accursed Mountains,’ Gillard added. ‘Assuming the meeting doesn’t last too long.’

  ‘Be safe, Craig,’ Mulholland said.

  After he had hung up on the call, Craig looked at the liaison officer and wondered how much to tell him about the tracing of Zerina Moretti. Using David Lund to assassinate both Peter Young and Nikolai Dragusha may have been ingenious, but it was also an act of desperation by a crime family that had few resources left to defend itself. Tokaj had promised Gillard some time with one of his older colleagues at headquarters who knew the Kreshniki in their heyday, when they were a force to be reckoned with.

  Gillard appreciated the offer, but felt that his first priority should be to find the aunt and the two children and get them out of the country. It was an extraordinary situation, because of the pivotal role of David Lund who was simultaneously an accomplished and coolheaded assassin, and a vulnerable, exploited and damaged child. Amber, his sister, was the only one of the three untainted by the crime spree. Teto Zerina, initially described to him by Sophie Lund as a jolly but rather unworldly matron, whose ideas were as out of date as her clothing, had now metamorphosed into something much more dangerous. She had inspired in her nephew a murderous spree, and at least initially covered her tracks and his very effectively. She was about as far away from the idea of a kindly aunt as could be imagined. She would undoubtedly resist any attempt to get the children from her and back to the UK. In Britain, Gillard had occasionally been present when children were taken into care, and it was often the most upsetting scene imaginable, the tearing apart of the bonds of motherhood. Mothers would resist with imprecations, pleading and tears. Zerina may only be an aunt, but Gillard didn’t know whether she was going to be armed simply with Albanian persuasiveness or an AK-47 and grenades.

  * * *

  As soon as they arrived at police headquarters, Tokaj took Gillard to the records section in the basement. Here, working as an archivist, was Altin Hyka, a white-haired man in his late 50s, confined to a wheelchair. He spoke some English, and greeted Gillard warmly.

  ‘I understand you were the first officer on the scene after Nikolai Dragusha and his thugs broke into the house of Armend Kreshnik three years ago.’

  ‘I will never forget,’ he said. ‘The father had crawled to the front door to get help, blood was pouring from him. I left him to the paramedics and stepped over the bloodstained carpet into the lounge. There was the naked body of his eldest daughter…’ His voice broke and he reached for a handkerchief. ‘It was terrible.’

  ‘Had she been raped?’

  He nodded. ‘Violated everywhere, and by every assailant. She was 13 years old. That was the age that the Angel of Death liked best.’ He paused for a moment to gather himself. ‘The mother had been shot in the head, and violated in the kitchen. She was already dead. But it was a few minutes later when we found the other children.’

  ‘So there were more children?’ Tokaj whispered.

  ‘Yes. A little boy of five, Dretim, was found underneath the settee on which his older sister had been murdered. In his arms was his younger sister, Albana. Just two years old. He had kept a hand on her mouth during the whole ordeal to avoid giving their hiding place away.’

  ‘David saved Amber’s life.’

  Hyka nodded. ‘We all knew that their lives would be lived under a shadow if the Dragusha ever discovered that they had survived. So in the official police record there is no mention of these two surviving children.’ He wheeled his chair around, and along a narrow aisle between two great floor-to-ceiling stacks of documents. ‘I have the original case notes here.’ There was a rail on top of the stacks with a kind of shuttle lift attached. Hyka was able to use a piece of dangling string to move the shuttle across to the correct location in the stack, then use a wheeled pulley system to lower the correct file down to where he could reach it. He came back to them with a box file open on his lap. ‘Here is the official version, and here is the informal version.’

  Tokaj flicked through the documents.

  ‘This could only work because there was no court case,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Yes. There were no witnesses, not surprisingly. Though we had DNA evidence for the sexual assaults, we could not compel any of the Dragusha to give us samples for cross-checking. A senior judge, no doubt intimidated or bribed, ruled that it would be an invasion of their rights of privacy given that there was no other evidence to link them to the crimes.’

  ‘So who looked after the children at that point?’

  ‘There was an aunt who lived in Italy,’ Hyka said.

  ‘Teto Zerina,’ Gillard said.

  Hyka nodded. ‘She came over with her husband, and though at that point the children’s father was still alive, we suggested that the children should be adopted by her. Otherwise they would have to go to an institution. But she refused.’

  ‘Sophie always wondered why the aunt didn’t take them,’ Gillard said.

  ‘She was afraid, I think, that they would attract attention and drag her back into the crosshairs of the Dragusha assassins. Having moved to Italy, got married and changed her name, she had escaped from Albania. She didn’t want to go back to be part of that doomed family.’

  ‘So they ended up in the orphanage,’ Gillard said. ‘Besin and I visited the Orphanage of the Blessed Saints in Shkoder where they were taken. The names were registered as Dretim and Albana Goga. The surname was obviously false, even though it had been attested by all the required signatories.’

  ‘Yes. We facilitated the change of name, because obviously anyone with the name Kreshnik would be a potential target. Dretim and Albana didn’t stay long at the orphanage, because we had already been tipped off there was a British couple looking for a boy and a girl to adopt. It seemed the perfect solution.’

  Gillard stared at the man. ‘Can I ask you why you stayed involved with these two children? It must have been beyond the remit of your police work.’

  ‘Yes it was. I suppose I felt sorry for them. On the day I drove them to hospital in Fier, to say goodbye to their father, I remember how brave the little boy was. He was wearing a little woollen coat with bright brass buttons, and he was taken in to see a man whom no doubt he had once thought as invulnerable as the enfolding sky. But Armend Kreshnik’s liver had been badly damaged by Dragusha bullets, and nothing could be done. At that point I left them and went out for a cigarette. I finished maybe three before they were ready for me. The aunt was crying, the little girl was inconsolable but Dretim had the same impassive face that he always had. The father had died as they watched, raging against their enemies.

  ‘What about Jetmire Kreshnik?’ Gillard asked. />
  ‘Ah yes. The errant older son,’ Hyka smiled. ‘Another tragic Kreshnik tale. The problem with Jetmire was that from an early age it was clear he was a bytheqir, a faggot. Now you might think that Albania is a model of equality and liberalism based on the laws that we have passed in order to accede to the EU.’ He chuckled. ‘But there is a great shame in the traditional families to discover that a son is not a man. From what Armend told me in the hospital, Jetmire wanted nothing to do with the traditional Kreshniki criminal activities. He wanted to travel, and go places where he would be accepted. There was a rumour that he had a clandestine relationship with a boy from the Dragusha family.’

  ‘A gay Romeo and Juliet,’ observed Gillard.

  ‘Yes and just as tragic. The Angel of Death dispatched Jetmire’s boyfriend, and his name was never listed on the family vault. He was excommunicated after death by the bishop at the insistence of the head of the Dragusha family. No one knows where he is buried.’

  ‘No wonder Jetmire wanted to come to London.’

  ‘To nurse a broken heart.’ Hyka nodded. ‘He probably thought the tragedies of his life were over. But the Dragusha never give up.’

  * * *

  The Director for Serious and Organized Crime knew how to hold a meeting. Mr Zok had arranged for huge plates of food, brimming urns of coffee and a few discreet bottles of raki to be available for the more than 100 officers who were to be involved in the operation to take down the Dragusha. Gillard could just about follow the PowerPoint presentation, which described the strength of their enemy in almost military terms. The slide which showed the pyramid of power up to the Butcher of Fier was replaced by one which depicted a little explosion at the apex. There was a little nervous laughter at this across the room, with one officer raising a glass of raki in a toast that even Gillard could understand: ‘Kreshniki!’