The Body on the Shore

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

  ‘But who did the planning?’

  ‘It was given to me. For the first year after Armend’s murder, while Albana and Dretim were being prepared for adoption, I tried to work out a way to strike back at the Dragusha here in Albania. It was difficult, they were too well protected. But this is where Jetmire, for all that he was a pariah, helped us. Through his Dragusha boyfriend he learned that one of the Dragusha brothers lived in England, and was an architect. Once I heard this, I spent the next few months trying to find him. Fortunately, I discovered him through an online article about some architectural award.’

  ‘How did you get the weapon into the UK?’

  ‘Simple. There are no significant border checks on the route we took. The gun and the ammunition were taken from Albania on the ferry to Italy, and driven by my husband to France. He passed them on to an associate on a tourist visa who took the Roscoff to Cork ferry, and crossed from the Irish Republic into Northern Ireland, where there is no border check at all. Then he took the ferry to Liverpool. We had originally planned the execution before Christmas, but I needed to train David with the weapon. Fortunately, we found somewhere quiet on the Colsham Estate, while Sophie Lund was at work. He was an enthusiastic pupil, and turned out to be an excellent shot.’

  ‘The bus was a very clever idea.’

  ‘Yes, it only came to me quite late, when I was watching the architect offices, that there seemed to be hardly anyone upstairs on the bus. I took the trip myself on a couple of occasion, in disguise, to check it would work.’

  ‘But within a week, the Dragusha had struck back.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I was surprised how quickly they found Jetmire. Still, I think he had been a little careless. The Albanian community in London is very close-knit, and there are many spies. I expect that when Nikolai Dragusha came to kill him personally, it was a statement of how seriously they took the eradication of my family. They took Jetmire hundreds of miles north to fool the police about who he was, and give themselves time to prepare for killing David and Amber before the heat got too intense. That was always Nikolai’s way, to scare his victims, to feed off their terror.’

  ‘So that is why you abducted David and Amber.’

  ‘Abducted? I rescued them from certain death! The Lunds had no idea how close the children were to being murdered. Once David had rung me to tell me what had happened, I knew I had to act quickly.’

  ‘When did you hear about the death of the Butcher?’

  ‘The same day he died, when I was staying with my sister in Albania. We had already heard that he was failing, and I wanted to be back in Albania to be ready. I had long prepared David for killing Nikolai at this funeral in Fier. But the death of the Butcher came sooner than we expected.’

  ‘What if David had been recognised?’

  ‘The haircut was a good disguise. Besides, the Dragusha family is so big that a child joining the entourage attracts no attention. He feigned tears, and was taken under the wing of one the Butcher’s granddaughters, who held his hand. The most difficult thing to get right was the escape route. For weeks, I had David training to run fast downstairs at Colsham Manor during games of hide and seek, and running down stairs wherever we found them. I reckoned he had less than a minute after the shots to run down those stone steps to the pedestrian exit before the Dragusha realized who had fired the shot.’

  ‘That’s the entrance I came in through,’ Gillard said. ‘So presumably the child squeezed under the locked gate?’

  ‘Yes. We had practised that the evening before. But on the day, when I was waiting in a car outside, that was probably the most terrifying moment of my life.’

  ‘What a terrible burden has been laid on that child.’

  ‘We Albanians know that it is the weight of our burdens and how we shoulder them that turn boys into men, youths into warriors and princes into kings. Our country lies on the crossroads of history, and since the times of Alexander armies have beaten their way through our farms and our homes, looking for gold, for God and for glory. We have faced that, sinew against sinew, blood against blood. Meanwhile you English,’ she sneered, ‘you hide behind the waves that protect your shores.’

  Gillard knew there would be no meeting of minds with this woman. He walked out of the room and into the cold hallway, where ancient home-made coats and cracked leather boots lined up against the walls like the corpses of history. He dug out his old phone and turned it on for the first time since leaving Tirana more than a day ago. There were half a dozen missed calls from Tokaj. Feeling a little guilty, he rang his liaison officer to ask how the raids against the Dragusha were going. The Albanian was a little cagey.

  ‘Well, in terms of numbers it’s pretty impressive. As I told you before lots of seizures of weapons, drugs and so on. But we also know that some of the senior family members have been tipped off, and they were not where we hoped they would be. We know they have spies both in the local police and here in headquarters. They may even have connections in the telecommunications company to trace your phone. We certainly do know that the unit that is tasked with wiping out the Kreshniki is still out there somewhere.’

  Gillard told him about having found Zerina Moretti and the children.

  ‘So were they in Xhaj?’ Tokaj asked. The request was so casual, so natural, that Gillard almost answered it with a simple yes. But at the last moment a cautionary part of him intervened, and he said: ‘No, by the time I got to them they had left and were actually in Shkoder.’ He felt bad for lying and not trusting his Albanian colleague, but there was always the chance that his calls were being monitored. The fewer people who knew, the better.

  * * *

  Zerina’s father prepared them an enormous lunch of grilled vegetables with goat’s cheese and home-made pastries. Gillard returned to the car to contribute some of his own picnic, which he had not yet touched. The air was crisp and cold, and shafts of sunshine were piercing the cloud. Shielding his eyes against the dazzling light reflected off the snow, he opened the hatchback and lifted out the basket of goodies. As he slammed down the door, he eyed the road. There was a people carrier moving slowly up and past the farms. Against the sun he couldn’t see how many people were in the dark vehicle, but he had a bad feeling. It went up the road and disappeared out of sight.

  Going back in, he shared his misgivings with Zerina. Amber was being very chatty, and had pulled up a spare chair to the table for her favourite dolls. Among them was a small blue nylon kitten, about six inches high, on a neck strap. It said something in Albanian when you pressed its tummy. ‘Kitty says “I’m hungry”,’ she said, offering it a piece of pastry from the table and mimicking the sound of eating.

  ‘What a great little pussycat,’ Gillard said, ruffling the little girl’s hair. ‘Did Teto Zerina buy it for you?’

  The child shook her head. ‘Mummy got it for me.’ She continued to feed the cat, while Zerina’s father continued to bring in dishes from the kitchen.

  ‘Sophie Lund bought it for her. The Lunds shower the children with gifts,’ Zerina said disapprovingly. ‘They spoil them.’

  Gillard choked back a retort about the real ruination of childhood. He looked again at the toy. ‘May I?’ he asked Amber, making to pick it up.

  ‘As long as you hold her gently,’ Amber said, passing the toy to the policeman. ‘She’s very little. I have her with me always.’

  ‘Your mummy was very clever to get you a pussycat that speaks Albanian,’ Gillard said. ‘British shops don’t usually have cats that speak Albanian.’

  ‘My mummy speaks Albanian,’ Amber said.

  ‘No, darling, she doesn’t,’ chuckled Zerina, beginning to cut and serve out pastries. ‘Just hello, goodbye and thank you. Her accent is awful, she sounds like a Serb with a cold.’

  Suddenly Gillard stiffened as a realization came to him. He pressed the button on the toy’s belly and heard the squeaky words that emerged from it. He turned the animal over and looked for the label. A small nylon tag showed the toy was made in Ch
ina, but there were a few safety notes in tiny print in various languages and then, in red, shortened country codes. Among those codes he recognised Greece, Albania and Macedonia. He found a switch and turned it off. He also removed the batteries. ‘I wonder if Sophie got this on eBay?’ Gillard said.

  ‘My mummy does speak Albanian,’ Amber said. ‘My mummy in heaven.’

  ‘She can’t have got you that kitten, Amber darling.’ Zerina rolled her eyes at Gillard.

  ‘It’s from my real mummy!’ the little girl shouted. ‘She sent it to me. From heaven.’

  ‘I don’t think so, darling,’ the aunt responded, pouring out wine for herself and offering a glass to Gillard. The detective said he would pass on wine, and continued to work his phone. The signal was very weak, and the Internet kept dropping off. He eventually found what he was looking for. It was an online toy shop serving the Balkans. ‘Zerina, can you find Amber’s toy on here? It doesn’t offer a translation.’

  Zerina tapped and swiped until she found the right page. ‘There. Lost-Kitty-Find-Me. Phew, not so cheap. It’s 3,200 lek,’ she said, passing the phone back to Gillard. ‘Do you have a grandchild to buy one for?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Gillard said. He then turned to Amber. ‘Where did you find Kitty?’ he asked.

  ‘She was all wrapped up, waiting for me. She was late for Christmas.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘In the boot room, Kitty was hiding in an old cupboard.’

  ‘How did you know how to find her?’

  The child’s big soft eyes were wide with trust, and her little pink tongue worked at the corner of her mouth. She leant up towards Gillard and put her tiny hand around her mouth as if confiding the most delicate of secrets. ‘The angel told me.’

  They all gasped.

  ‘What angel?’ Gillard whispered.

  ‘The angel who came in the night. He said it was a secret, so you mustn’t tell anybody,’ she breathed. ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ Gillard replied.

  Chapter 33

  Gillard looked Zerina in the face. ‘The Dragusha know exactly where Amber is. This toy has GPS. Lost-Kitty-Find-Me has a strap to be worn around the neck, designed for nervous parents to know where their children are. Nikolai Dragusha left it for her, with a spurious message from her birth mother. I bet it never leaves the child’s side.’

  The aunt buried her face in her hands. ‘My God,’ she said.

  ‘We have to leave immediately – they could be here any time,’ Gillard said. ‘How often was the toy on?’

  Teto Zerina looked heavenwards. ‘All the damn time. “I’m a hungry Kitty, when is dinner?”’ She mimicked. ‘I told her to stop pressing the tummy button, which she eventually did, but I’m not sure she ever turned it off.’

  Zerina explained the situation to her father who looked baffled and then angry. He strode up to Amber and snatched the kitten from her carefully arranged chair of toys, prompting an outraged squeal and then a piercing scream as she saw him head towards the blazing fire. He pulled his arm back to throw the bear in, but Gillard seized his wrist and hand. ‘No, we can use this to our advantage,’ he said.

  Zerina translated, and the old man shrugged and sat down.

  ‘We have to leave here now. Where is your car?’ Gillard asked Zerina.

  ‘Under a tarpaulin in the back barn. It is my father’s car, he came to collect us from my sister’s flat in Fier. But we are not going.’

  Gillard decided this was not the time to tell Zerina that her sister had been horribly murdered. His priority now had to be to save the lives that could be saved, not to lament those that had already been lost. ‘Okay, I will take my car and the toy, to leave a false GPS trail further up the mountain. You should drive down towards Shkoder and we can rendezvous—’

  David’s shout cut him off. ‘There are men getting out of two cars,’ he yelled. The house erupted into shouting in Albanian between Zerina and her father. Gillard raced out to the front window by the side of the main doors and peered down the drive. A black minivan, the same one he’d spotted earlier, was parked at the end of the drive, the best part of 60 yards away, and there was another car behind. There were a half-dozen tough-looking men with sunglasses and big coats emerging. At least two of them had rifles with telescopic sights.

  ‘And no plan B,’ Gillard murmured. Zerina’s father seemed to be upstairs, judging by the sound of creaking floorboards above. Turning around he saw David on the stairs, struggling to carry up a wicked-looking automatic weapon, while Zerina followed behind with a huge crate of ammunition clips. Amber, sucking her thumb and holding her kitten toy and a couple of other dolls, brought up the rear.

  The detective realized that everybody here but him had long prepared for this siege. He grabbed his phone and dialled Besin Tokaj. He knew it was futile, given how long it would take anyone to get here, but he wanted the Albanian policeman to know what was about to happen, in case no one lived to tell the tale. Three of the Dragusha gunmen were wading up through the now knee-deep snow, while the two riflemen took cover behind a drystone wall.

  The number was still ringing out when a thunderous cacophony of shooting on full automatic started from upstairs. The three approaching gunmen were instantly cut down in a blizzard of pink snow. An answering shot from the Dragusha blew out a window somewhere above. Gillard raced upstairs to see David in a front bedroom lying full length on a mattress on the floor. He was aiming the weapon through what appeared to be a purpose-built sniper’s hole in the stonework. He fired a crisp second burst of less than two seconds. Looking to the right, he saw Zerina’s father crouched on a chair at a window with a rifle and telescopic sight. One of the panes of the window had been blown out. At the far side of the window, Zerina looked to be loading another full-size weapon, one of half a dozen lying on the floor. Seeing him, she pointed at one of the assault rifles. ‘Come on, it’s loaded.’

  Gillard looked around and saw Amber sitting at the back of the room wearing ear defenders. She was kneeling with her dolls and the kitten hidden behind a palisade of cushions. ‘Pow!’ she shouted, revealing a compact matt-black pistol pointing at him. She laughed at his horrified expression, and pointed at the safety catch to show it was on. Gillard felt trapped in some nightmare from which there was no awakening. ‘Zerina,’ he shouted, as another fusillade pounded the walls of the farmhouse. ‘You can’t win this. We should go out the back way.’

  ‘We are not cowards. The Kreshniki will go down fighting,’ she said, banging a fresh clip of ammunition into an automatic weapon, and sliding it onto David’s mattress.

  Gillard ran down the stairs and back through the kitchen. He needed to see how feasible it would be for them to escape through the back of the farm. The kitchen’s rear was a long, low, rough-stone corridor ending with a solid timber back door, secured by a giant bolt. Left, on the hinge side, was a tiny glassless slit window, like something used by medieval archers. It gave a narrow view of a long stone building with a large timbered overhang, and beyond it a snow-covered meadow leading up to the pine-clad foothills of the Accursed Mountains. A figure in a dark quilted coat, just a few yards away, darted across his vision, carrying an automatic weapon. A moment later there was a thump and rattle as he reached the kitchen door. A shout in Albanian from just the other side was answered by someone further away. The detective retreated further into a stone alcove left of the door. He was now regretting not picking up one of the many proffered weapons upstairs. All he could see nearby was a shovel and some tins of paint. There was a solid kick at the door, which did not trouble the massive bolt, and then a few seconds later another, heavier one. Immediately after the third kick, Gillard reached across and slid back the bolt, before retreating again to his alcove. The next kick made the door fly open, closing off his alcove. He heard the crunch of boots and a breathless man pass along the corridor towards the kitchen. Gillard picked up the shovel, then kicked the door, which flew back to its original position. A dark-coated man, AK4
7 in hand, started to turn around. The detective thrust the shovel, the blade catching the man across the jaw, jerking his head backwards against the stone wall. As he fell, already losing consciousness, Gillard trod the barrel of the AK47 down. The gun coughed once, a deafening series of ricochets and chips of stone. Gillard grabbed the gun and retreated again into the alcove at the sound of another set of heavy footsteps crashing through the snow towards the kitchen door. The door flew open again, closing off the alcove, and there was an oath as the man spied his unconscious comrade. Judging the position of his enemy by the sound from the other side of the door, Gillard kicked at the solid wood and felt it crunch against something. There was just enough of a gap for Gillard to see the second gunman, on his hands and knees, entangled with the prone body of the first. Gillard pressed the tip of the AK47 into his back and said: ‘Don’t move.’

  The man must have understood enough, because he clambered slowly to his knees so he could hold his hands up. This allowed Gillard enough space to emerge from the alcove and lead the captive at gunpoint to the kitchen. The man was short but broad, a shaven-headed bruiser, but he was scared. Gillard got him to pull the unconscious and bleeding body of his colleague and prop him in a kitchen chair. With one eye and the AK47 trained on the captives, Gillard rifled the kitchen drawers, looking for rope, and eventually found some sisal string, thin but tough. He got the bruiser to tie his colleague to the chair, supervising the knots to ensure they were tight enough. He then sat the remaining captive on a chair and tied him up.