The Last Exile

Tallis returned to the map. According to the notes, Demarku, now thirty-one years old, had left Wormwood Scrubs two and a half months ago. He’d still have a young man’s hunger, Tallis believed. Still have that burning desire to make up for the stolen years of childhood and time wasted in the nick. But the world would be a very different place to the one young Demarku had briefly left behind—more rush and thrust, more watching and checking, more pen-pushing and paper-chasing. Tallis rested his finger on the road outside the prison. Which route had Demarku taken? Via the bright lights of trendy Notting Hill in the hope of bumping into one of the beautiful people, or had he slunk off in the opposite direction to the lesser charms of Acton or Ealing? Which had it been?

He needed to get inside Demarku’s head, to throw away his own values and adopt the attitudes of a psycho, a bit like learning a new language. People with great vocabularies and grammar often failed to convince because they lacked mastery of their accent. They continued to speak by using the same muscles and lip and tongue movements employed for their native speech. In learning a new language, you had to forget all that, and converse with new sounds, new speech patterns.

Tallis didn’t doubt that the police had already done their homework and carried out the usual enquiries, talked to close associates and friends, visited Demarku’s old haunts, so the only way forward was to look with a different eye and find something extra, something that would lead him to his man. Start with the obvious, Tallis thought. But first he needed to cover his tracks.

Across the road from the avenue was a long row of shops that included a mini-supermarket, newsagent’s, an Indian take-away and launderette, a couple of charity outlets, anything-for-a-quid stores, and cheap-price booze emporiums. The mobile phone shop was at the end next to a hairdressing salon called Wendy’s. Twenty minutes later, he came out with the latest up-to-the-second gadgetry, not because he fancied a new phone but because he needed a new identity.

As soon as he returned home, he called the Met, and asked to be put through to Detective Chief Inspector Marshall at Kentish Town Police Station, Camden.

Several minutes later, he was told that DCI Marshall had taken early retirement. Tallis scanned the report, found the name of his right-hand man, DI Micky Crow.

“On a rest day. Can I take a message?”

Tallis exhaled slowly. “Can you say Mark Strong wants to discuss an old case? Mention the name Agron Demarku.” Leaving his number, Tallis rang off, briefly considered calling Wormwood Scrubs, but decided that a black man stood more chance of attending a BNP rally than he had of pumping the governor for information. Instead, he phoned into work and said he wouldn’t be coming back then rummaged in his bedroom for the weights he’d slung under a pile of blankets. Changing into a tracksuit, he gave himself a thorough workout, followed by a run to offset any stiffness in his joints. On his return, he showered, felt a million times better and checked out the train times from New Street to Euston.

Birmingham seemed small and parochial by contrast, Tallis thought as he stepped off the train and was swallowed up by a tidal wave of human traffic. It had been a while since he’d seen so many people, so many different shapes and sizes, nationalities and styles of dress. In the space of five minutes, and as his ear became attuned to his environment, he caught snippets of at least seven foreign languages, including Russian, Arabic and Portuguese. It was all so different to when he’d driven up a couple of days before. Cars, even crap cars, had a habit of sanitising one from the outside world and, given the circumstances, he’d been too zoned out to engage with it anyway. Here he felt a stranger, but he couldn’t escape the undeniable buzz, the sense of being at the hub, that he was important again.

He caught a tube north, standing room only, swaying with the roll and clatter of the tube’s manic flight through narrow tunnels, feeling like a human cannonball. The confined space strongly smelt of spices, body odour and unwashed clothes. Catching the eye of a pretty young woman, he smiled, his reward a downturned mouth and a look of distrust meshed with scorn. Most of the faces were tired looking, or disinterested, he thought. Bunched up with others, he was given the unsettling impression of fleeing refugees. Maybe they were in a way. Not fleeing from war or destruction but life.

He surfaced into wet air and schizophrenic weather—one moment sunny, the next clouding over and tipping it down. Instinctively, he scoured the faces, wondering if Demarku was among them, unsure that he would recognise the guy even if he were. For all he knew, Demarku could have radically changed his appearance. Detective Inspector Crow hadn’t contacted him yet, but Tallis planned an ambush. First, he needed food.

He started walking, taking it all in—busy-looking car park, wheelie-bins, a skinny guy with a baseball hat on back to front crouched down on some concrete steps, unbelievably lighting a rock of crack in broad daylight, litter, dirty doorways, used condoms and spent syringes. He passed a fire station and a meeting house for Jehovah’s Witnesses, shops and more shops, some rundown, some holding it together. At last, he found a café to suit his taste. He went inside and ordered an all-day breakfast from a youngish woman who definitely didn’t want to be there. She didn’t so much walk as slouch to the table.

“Fried bread?” Nasal whine. Eyes glued to the notepad.

“Please.”

“Tomatoes or mushrooms?”

Both, he wanted to say but thought it might further upset her day. “Tomatoes are fine.”

“Eggs—fried or poached?”

“Poached would be good. Oh, and …”

“Yes?” Her eyes swivelled from the notepad. Never had he witnessed such an innocent word convey so much menace.

“Tea?” he said, giving her the benefit of his best smile. Without replying, she bellowed his order for all of London to hear, and did a nifty turn on her heel that must have taken hours to perfect. Miserable cow.

In spite of the waitress’s distinct lack of customer-facing skills, the breakfast was surprisingly good, and fifty minutes later Tallis was back on the street, halfway between Camden and Kentish Town, standing on the pavement in front of a battered wrought-iron gate. Almost off its hinges, it opened onto a stone flight of chipped steps leading to a raddled-looking basement flat. As Tallis leaned over, catching a strong whiff of dead flowers, a cat shot in front of him and darted across the road. He watched it skitter along the pavement before disappearing down an alleyway then returned his gaze to the tightly drawn and grubby curtains, felt the cloak of silence. Kitty, it seemed, was the only sign of life.

Walking away, Tallis wondered whether the current occupants knew that, just over a decade before, the place had served as a knocking-shop, that a young woman, tortured and beaten, had lost her life there.

Tallis didn’t know who was more taken aback.

“Micky, short for Michelle,” the DI explained, as if she were talking to a deaf simpleton.

They were standing outside the police station, mainly because Crow, who had the build of an all-in wrestler, needed to smoke. She had short brown hair, and a rumpled expression that matched her trouser suit. Her complexion was that of a drinker, cheeks stick-of-rock pink and premature lines around her sagging mouth. She looked knackered, Tallis thought. He launched into his hastily prepared spiel, explaining that he was writing a book, non-fiction, and had an interest in the Demarku case.

“Why?” Her eyebrows moulded together to form a long, dark, hairy line.

“I’m partly Croatian,” Tallis said.

The look on Crow’s face suggested that he’d just pissed in her vodka.

“Several generations ago,” he added with a reassuring smile. “I’m British born, British bred.” Christ, it sounded like a strap line for meat traceability.

“Right, well, that’s very interesting,” she said, puffing away, “but I don’t do chats with press unless I have to.” Her eyes flicked to her watch. He noticed her fingers were trembling. He’d observed the same symptoms in Stu. Drinkies, Tallis thought, Crow was counting the hours.

“But I’ve come all this way.”

“Shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

“Off the record, that’s all.”

Crow narrowed her puffy eyes. “You’re starting to annoy me. How can I put this nicely?” she snarled, squaring up to her full height so that her bloodshot eyes were level with Tallis’s shoulder. For a worrying moment, Tallis thought she might lump him one. Time for one last roll of the dice, he thought. “I’d love to take you for a drink after your shift.” He almost gagged at how charming he sounded.

Crow threw her head back and laughed. Sounded like threatened consequences. “Persistent bastard, aren’t you?”

“That’s me.” Tallis grinned. “So what do you say?”

“Tried the press office?”

So it wasn’t a downright refusal. “They’ll only tell me what they want me to hear.” At least, that’s what Finn always told him.

“Off the record, you said?” Crow’s eyes narrowed against a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“You have my word.”

At that, she actually smiled. It was horrible, like a cheap, nylon nightdress. Tallis smiled back, he hoped with more sincerity than he felt.

“All right,” she said, won over. “The Freemasons Arms, Downshire Hill, opposite Hampstead Heath. Meet me there at six.”

He did, but not before booking into a two-star hotel in Cardington Street, Euston. It was the wrong side of basic, but would fit the general image he hoped to convey. Sooner or later, he’d be mixing with criminals. Wouldn’t look right to be staying at Claridges.

To maintain his new fitness programme, he went for a fast run through streets heavy with car fumes. He still reckoned he was better off than the lowly cyclist. At least people didn’t try to actively kill you. After a shower and brush-up, he got to the Freemasons ten minutes early and ordered a pint of Fuller’s London Pride. He liked the place immediately. Nice and airy, a little bit Eastern looking, and it had the most wonderful windows providing great views of the garden. The courtyard was already filling up.

After taking a glance at the sumptuously inviting menu and realising that he was hungry, he took his drink out the front into warm evening sunshine and managed to bag the last table. The crowd, he noticed, was young and well dressed, even the girls, which he found refreshing. He was getting tired of the bare belly and roll-up fags routine. He wanted his women, to look like women not dockers.

Crow arrived, looking hot and sweaty.

“Get you a drink?” Tallis said.

“Large V and T. Been a fuck of a day,” she said, plumping herself down, dragging a crumpled packet of cigarettes from her jacket pocket.

Tallis went to the bar and returned with Crow’s drink. She took a deep draw, as though she’d walked halfway through a desert for it. “So,” she said, blowing two thin streams of smoke through her nostrils. “What do you want to know? Presume you’re already familiar with the details.”

“Most of them,” Tallis said. “I understand after Demarku finished his sentence he was inadvertently released instead of being deported.”

Crow grinned knowingly. “So that’s your angle.”

“One of the angles,” Tallis countered.

“Fucking disgrace. If I’d had my way, he’d never have been let out.”

“But he was,” Tallis said, trying to keep her on track, “and now he’s on the loose somewhere.”

“Frankly, not my problem,” Crow said. “We did our bit twelve years ago.”

“So no effort’s been made to find him?”

“Seen my workload?”

“I’m not criticising.”

“Should hope not,” Crow said, taking another pull of her drink. At this rate, he was going to be making an early trip to the bar, Tallis thought. “Put it this way, we’ve trailed likely haunts, talked to the usual suspects …”

“Informers?”

“Uh-huh.”

She didn’t sound very convincing. Actually, it cheered him. Demarku wasn’t so much as eluding the cops as they weren’t exactly busting a gut to find him. It meant he was in with more of a chance of unearthing his man. “What about the guys he shared a cell with, all that kind of stuff?”

Crow cast him a withering look. “Two words—targets, clear-up rate.”

“That’s more than two.” He laughed.

“You get my drift. It’s all about moving onto the next case,” Crow said, stubbing out a cigarette and lighting another. A young woman with a child in a pushchair cast her a venomous look, but Crow either didn’t mind or wasn’t taking any notice.

“What was Demarku like?”

Her face drooped then she began to cough, eyes watering and streaming, mouth opening and closing like a struggling perch as she tried to get her breath. Beating her large chest with one hand, she grabbed at her glass with the other, taking a large swig. It seemed to do the trick. “Disturbing,” she croaked. “Came across as being very polite, quiet, thoughtful even, the type of guy who most mothers would want as their son. If only they knew.” She frowned, taking a drag of her cigarette. “Underneath the little-boy-lost facade, he was seething with fury. He’d as soon as slip a blade between your ribs as look at you. Probably smile while he was doing it.”

For the first time, Tallis registered a note of respect in Crow’s voice, not born of admiration but fear. “Another?” he said, gesturing at her empty glass.

“I’ll get them,” Crow said, making to get up.

“Stay where you are, admire the scenery.” He wanted time to collect his thoughts, think about what he was going to ask next. He ordered another pint and the same again for Crow.

“Gather Demarku had also been linked to a serious rape,” he said a few moments later, putting their glasses down on the table.

“Didn’t have the evidence to nail him.”

“No DNA?”

“No.”

“What about the victim? Couldn’t she ID him?”

Crow shook her head. “Never properly recovered.”

“Too scared to point a finger?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

“Think she’d talk to me?”

Crow snorted. “You’re a charmer, but I don’t think so. She’s had a shit time since the attack. Marriage collapsed under the strain. Kids went with dad.”

“Christ.”

“Christ indeed.” Crow picked a flake of tobacco from her tongue.

“Keep in touch?”

“Yeah, I do, actually. Not on a regular basis. Just call in when I can. And no, I’m not telling you who she is and where she lives,” Crow added, giving a deep, dirty, thirty-a-day laugh.

“Fair enough. Think Demarku might try and find her?”

“Have a hard time. She’s moved twice in the last twelve years. Anyway, I don’t think that’s his game.”

“And what is his game?”

“Prostitution, and if he embraces our brand-new world and joins his brothers, people trafficking and drugs. The Albanians have cornered the market in London. Should suit you, if you’re ever out of a job.” She laughed.

Tallis eyed her over the rim of his glass. He wasn’t joining in.

“Keep your pants on.” Crow grinned. “The Albanians trust no one but, at street-distribution level, they employ Croats. Fuck knows how they understand each other.”

Tallis quietly filed the information away. Crow obviously didn’t know much about the Balkans. Croatians spoke and understood Serbo-Croat as did the Albanians, even if they didn’t like to admit to it. “Going back to the rape. Anything stick in the victim’s mind about the attack?”

“Apart from its degrading nature?”

“Thinking more along the lines of Demarku himself, about his character, the way he behaved.”

Crow’s dark eyebrows drew together. “You into all that psychological stuff?” She didn’t sound very enamoured.

“Just trying to find something original to say.”

“There was something, actually. I picked up on it too, so it’s not exactly revealing a trade secret.”

“Yeah?”

“Cologne. The guy liked to smell good. Not any old cheap rubbish either. And he liked expensive clothes. Definitely got a bit of a flash streak.” She gave her glass a mournful stare. “One for the road, I think. What’s yours?”

Tallis told her. “A half’s fine,” he added.

Crow returned with a pint for him. “No point in pissing about,” she said, grinning happily. “Thought of someone else you could talk to.” Tallis raised an eyebrow. Alcohol was definitely having the desired effect. “Guy called Peter Tremlett. He was the probation officer involved in the parole board decision to release Demarku.”

Tallis knew enough about this most secretive of breeds to know that Crow was way off the mark. Probation officers had much in common with customs and excise officers: both kept their mouths shut. “He won’t talk to me,” he scoffed.

Crow winked. “Twenty quid says he will.”

Tallis eyed her. She was definitely confident. “All right,” he said, intrigued, taking two tens from his wallet. “But, remember, I know where to come looking if you’re telling porkies.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Crow leant forward, allowing her large bosom to rest upon the table. “He’s retired and resentful. Mad sod will talk to anyone who’ll listen.” She laughed like a crazy cat, sliding the notes off the table and pocketing them.

After a night of very little sleep, Tallis got up early, went for a run then showered and dressed, but decided to stay unshaven. He took advantage of the hotel’s all-inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t a patch on the one he’d had the day before, but he was so hungry he wasn’t complaining. At nine-thirty, he phoned Peter Tremlett, dropping Crow’s name by way of an introduction.

“Christ, Micky Crow?”

“Yes, I—”

“Woman ought to be locked up.”

Tallis didn’t like to dwell on what Crow had done to the unfortunate Mr Tremlett to elicit such a forthright response. He moved swiftly on. “Thing is, it’s about the Demarku case,” he said, feeding Tremlett the same line he’d fed Crow. “Understand you were his probation officer.”

“Only in the technical sense. If you mean did I spend any time with him, the answer’s no.”

Tallis scratched his head. “But you had to work out a risk assessment for the parole board?”

“Oh, yes,” Tremlett said, voice packed with scorn. “But things aren’t as they used to be. When I first joined the probation service you spent time with your clients. Got to know them, got the measure of them. We did good work with some, prevented them from returning to a life of crime. Nowadays, we’re so swamped with paperwork the client’s the least of our problems. Know what happened in the Demarku case?” Tremlett’s voice soared. “I was given a sodding thick file to read and asked to talk to him via a video link to the prison. It’s ridiculous. Body language is often key to working out whether someone is genuine or not. You can’t pick up on a tapping foot or clenched fist if you’re staring into a screen. I mean, it’s laughable. There I was, having to make a judgement on a man without even being in the same room as him. And,” Tremlett said, anger convulsing him, “it’s not unusual. I’m just glad I’m out of it. You said you’re writing a book?”

“That’s right,” Tallis said, flinching at the slightly professorial tone.

“I’m thinking of doing the same. It will be a grand exposé.”

“Good for you,” Tallis said. “Going back to Demarku …”

“Ah, yes,” Tremlett said, in an I told you so manner. “Skipped deportation. Not that you can blame Immigration. They’re even more swamped than us.”

“Any ideas where he might be?”

“The spit of land between Hounslow and Heathrow, I dare say.”

Spit? Tallis thought. How had he come to that conclusion? He asked him.

“My sister lives there. Says the place is full of his type of people.”

Except it wasn’t. Thirty minutes out of central London, he expected to hear foreign accents, yet to say the place was overrun with Albanians was a myth.

Hounslow reminded him of parts of Moseley but with riverside walks and open spaces. According to the guide he’d picked up, it was supposed to play host to five historic houses, not that he’d seen much evidence of deep cultural heritage. The high street looked similar to hundreds of others: unremarkable. The only place of interest was a small trashy-looking letting and estate agency off the main drag. Some of the homes on offer, Tallis thought as he studied the window, he wouldn’t want to put a dog in. He wandered inside. A large black guy sprawled in front of a computer with a nervous-looking couple caught his eye and smiled, said he wouldn’t be a moment.

“We have no references,” the woman was saying in halting English.

“No problem.”

“But without references, we cannot get a mortgage.”

“I can get you a mortgage,” the black man said confidently. “I can get you anything.”

Passports, visas too, Tallis thought, ticking off the mental list. “It’s all right, I’ll come back later,” Tallis said, walking back outside, narrowing his eyes against a bright sun and sky veined with light. From there, he made his way back to central London where he trawled the outside of two mosques. Studying the faces of the faithful leaving after Friday prayers, he was met with a wall of dark suspicion. As an antidote, he headed for Soho.

Six hours later, footsore and weary, Tallis returned to the hotel. Many years before, he’d gone out with a girl who’d worked in Great Marlborough Street, something in public relations, he thought. She’d invited him down for what he’d hoped was a dirty weekend. He’d met her at her office after work full of expectation. She’d taken him on a whistle-stop tour around Soho—maybe it was to get him in the mood. He’d been gobsmacked by the place. It had seemed like the centre of the universe, bursting with life and colour. It hadn’t been the vice trade that had captured his attention, the restaurants, or the swirl of scandal boiling in the streets, but the presence of the film and television industry, all the small independent production companies, theatrical agents, actors’ support groups. There had been people like he’d never seen them before; with attitude, daring, assertive, look at me, darling. He’d loved the smell of success and, yes, the sometimes seediness, even liked the street names—Berwick, Frith, Brewer. It had seemed dangerously intoxicating to a poor lad brought up in the sticks. But that had been then. This time he looked with fresh eyes, jaded eyes maybe. When he spotted a small cinema it was one promising adult viewings, cards in windows advertised the prospect of a good time. It made him think only of Demarku and pain and exploitation, and no amount of gawping at astonishingly priced menus in staggeringly inviting eateries was going to change all that.

The following day he visited gyms, clubs and cafés. He hung out in several bars, eavesdropped on any number of conversations, flashed Demarku’s latest mugshot to a couple of likely looking sorts and came up empty. As a devout Muslim, Demarku was unlikely to be found in a back-street boozer, but Tallis hoped that it might spark a connection, cause a chain reaction. With the aid of Google Earth, it was possible to locate a guy by the brand of condom he used. All you needed was an address in a suburb. Via a computer, you could trace a mobile-phone user, even with the phone on sleep mode, to within five hundred yards. But he had no address, no phone, no nothing, in fact. He was beginning to feel the awesome nature of the task ahead of him, wondered how he was going to get that one lucky break. Around four, he found himself in a bar full of old people and dispossessed-looking men and women on benefits, drinking their way to oblivion. The old folk had red eyes and red faces, the younger lines and heavy jaws. The talk was of soap stars and TV shows and somebody’s latest operation. Nobody spoke of politics or the state of the nation. Afterwards, he took a detour through Chinatown, eventually picking up the underground at Tottenham Court Road back to Euston. Not a very productive day.