Blood Whispers (11 page)

Keira wondered if she was the only person taking the situation seriously. She’d expected to see a few police officers milling around, or at least a patrol-car waiting, when she arrived outside her block of flats, but the street was empty except for a few parked cars and an old guy out walking his dog.

She paid the taxi driver then quickly made her way across the grass island to the glass entrance door.

She climbed the stairs and hurried along the corridor towards the front door of her flat, the cold, concrete walls amplifying the smallest sounds and sending strange, hollow echoes reverberating up and down its empty length.

She was out of breath.

The small flight bag looped awkwardly over her left shoulder kept falling in front of her as she fished around in her handbag for a set of keys. Even though most people were shut up indoors getting ready for the week ahead, the building seemed quieter than usual.

Eventually Keira found the key, twisted it in the lock and bumped the door open with her backside.

The door at the end of the short hallway leading into the kitchen was wide open and she could see David standing at the sink. He turned as he heard her come into the hall.

‘You made it.’

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ she asked, dropping her bags on the floor.

‘Mobile’s been dead for most of the day. Couldn’t find a charger at the office, but it’s fine, everything went okay.’

‘I tried you here as well as soon as I landed.’ She took a few paces forward until she stood framed in the doorway of the kitchen.

‘Really? The phone hasn’t rung once.’

Kaltrina Dervishi, who had been sitting with her feet up on the sofa watching television, stood and acknowledged Keira with a slight nod of the head. ‘Thank you, Keira, for everything,’ she said, lifting her shoulders in an awkward little shrug. ‘I am confused what happen.’

‘You’re not the only one.’

‘Are you okay?’ David had picked up on Keira’s distracted stare. ‘You’re standing there like you’ve got a toffee stuck up your arse and you’ve forgotten how to chew.’

‘We can’t stay here. We need to go.’

‘Now?’

‘Straight away; it’s not safe.’

‘I was just making Kaltrina something to eat. Wee bird hasn’t eaten for a few hours. At least, I think that’s what she said: she was miming in an Albanian accent.’

Keira was still preoccupied trying to figure out why everything felt so wrong. ‘What about Janica Ahmeti? Did you get a hold of her?’

‘I left her a message, but she didn’t show.’

‘Have you heard from her?’

‘No.’

‘No sign of the police or Gary Hammond?’ continued Keira, talking over him. ‘I expected them to be here.’

‘The police have been and gone, left about an hour ago, but no sign of your pal Hammond. They asked if you would give them a call. Didn’t seem too fussed, but they want to have a chat. The implication being that they’re getting a wee bit concerned you’re losing your grip on reality. Are you not going to introduce us?’

Keira stared back at him, like she hadn’t quite caught what he’d said. ‘Sorry, say that again.’

‘I said, are you not going to introduce us?’

Suddenly Kaltrina Dervishi screamed and lunged toward Keira, her face twisted with rage.

Keira recoiled instinctively, taking a step backwards and raising her arms in front of her chest to protect herself from the attack.

That’s when she became aware of a movement behind her, and realized that Kaltrina was not screaming at her, but the figure of a man standing in the hallway. Keira didn’t have to look round to know who it was. The musky odour of stale aftershave had already given the intruder’s identity away. Her instinctive reaction was to spin round and lash out, but as she started her turn a sharp hollow blast punched through the air and knocked her violently to the floor. It felt as though a truck had hit her from behind. Winded and struggling against the sudden pain, she tried to sit up, but a sharp, poker-hot sensation coursed in a straight line from her pelvis to her ribcage making even the smallest movement almost impossible.

There was another hissing thud, followed in rapid succession by two others as three more shots found their targets. Out of the corner of her eye Keira saw David’s head suddenly snap backwards at the neck and drop grotesquely to one side as the first bullet tore through his neck. She watched transfixed as – in the same instant – his body lurched violently to one side and slumped to the floor with blood spurting in thin jets from two holes that had appeared in the upper half of his chest.

Keira could feel the vomit rising in her throat and had to battle hard to stop herself from throwing up. She could hear a soft, lowing groan and realized it was coming from somewhere deep within her own chest. She tried to focus her gaze, but the room was swimming around her, with images pulsing in and out of focus and a strange, rhythmic pounding in her eardrums.

Kaltrina was screaming at the gunman in Albanian as she launched herself through the air punching and kicking.

The speed and ferocity of the attack momentarily took the gunman off guard. He stepped back and raised his arm to parry her blows, but Kaltrina had connected. Her fingers dug into his face and made him cry out as she ripped at his flesh with her nails: drawing deep lines of red down the side of his cheek. The attacker lashed out with the stock of his pistol, striking her heavily several times on the back of the head as he tried to shake her off. He twisted the gun round and dug it into her ribcage ready to loose off a shot, but Kaltrina raised her elbow in a sharp upward movement and knocked the weapon spinning from his grasp. The dull metal Beretta slid along the floor and came to rest close to Keira. She stared at it for several seconds before slowly reaching out her hand towards it. The effort sent shock waves of pain stabbing at every nerve in her body.

She heard herself groaning again.

Her fingers wrapped slowly round the knurled grip and her index finger slipped inside the trigger guard.

The gun felt impossibly heavy, but she managed to lift it off the ground and point it towards the doorway. The gunman had a large clump of Kaltrina’s hair in his fist and was holding her head down as she struggled desperately to throw some punches and break his hold. As they pulled each other around in a grotesquely awkward dance Keira could feel her strength beginning to fade. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger. Suddenly Kaltrina was standing in the way, blocking the shot. Keira’s mind was starting to lose focus: random thoughts crowding in on her. When she was fifteen she had tried to take her own life by slashing her wrists. It was more a cry for help than a serious suicide attempt: there was never any real danger. The situation she was in now, however, was very real. She recognized this violence and knew there could be only one outcome. Memories of what had happened to her when she was eight years old – how she had watched her uncle in the same struggle for life that Kaltrina was in now – flashed through her mind. She saw herself standing on a stairwell pointing a gun at the man attacking her uncle and knew that when she pulled the trigger she would be ending not only that man’s life but her own as well. The memory had haunted her ever since, yet here she was, about to leave this world, and her final act would be to take another human being’s life.

Keira heard a voice calling from another room, but couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like her grandmother, but that wasn’t possible.

The gunman stood side-on with his back against the wall, clutching something in his hand that glinted in the darkened hallway. He was holding Kaltrina Dervishi’s dazed and battered body up by the hair as her arms swung limply by her waist and her legs kicked out lamely in front of her, in a pathetic attempt to break free from him. She was exhausted, all her energy spent, every part of her clothing dripping with blood.

Keira struggled desperately to keep her eyes open and managed to raise the Beretta one last time. She followed the line of sight down her arm and along the barrel of the gun straight to where the attacker stood, his right hand covered in blood, stabbing Kaltrina Dervishi repeatedly in the stomach.

All she had to do was squeeze the trigger.

Suddenly the gun started to shake uncontrollably, as though it had taken on a life of its own. Keira’s grip slackened, her arm fell heavily to the floor and she knew she had lost the fight.

She opened her eyes again and saw the attacker drop Kaltrina Dervishi’s lifeless body to the floor.

There was a presence nearby.

A figure in the gloom, standing over her, slowly raising his arms out to his side, making the shape of a cross.

Another bullet slammed into her shoulder and knocked her face down on to the hard wooden floor.

In the darkness that followed there were brief, disjointed moments of awareness: noises that seemed to echo around in the dim shadows. Keira heard raised voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She heard more gunshots, but for some reason they sounded louder than before. Someone was speaking her name . . . a voice she recognized, but couldn’t place. Keira tried to respond, but the floor suddenly disappeared beneath her and she felt as though she was falling headlong into a silent void.

Officer Tommy Aquino sat with his elbow on the desk, resting his chin in his left hand and stared at a playback of the live RSS feed from BBC Scotland’s newsroom in the United Kingdom.

An attractive redhead was reading the headlines. ‘There are unconfirmed reports of three fatal shootings in the Thornwood area of Glasgow early on Sunday evening. The victims, thought to be a lawyer, a legal secretary and a young woman – believed to be a client – were discovered in the lawyer’s apartment at around eight o’clock yesterday evening. We’ll have more on that story later in the programme.’

Aquino pulled the stem microphone attached to the headset he was wearing closer to his mouth and spoke.

‘You watching this?’

‘The Dervishi girl didn’t last too long out in the big, bad world. Five hours then Bam! That must be a world record, no?’

‘You coming down?’

‘I’ll meet you at the coffee station in two.’

‘See you there,’ replied Aquino, pulling the headset off and slamming it hard on the desk.

Gregg Moran made his way down the long glass corridor of the CIA’s Langley headquarters wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He reached Tommy Aquino – who was waiting for him with a paper cup full of steaming black coffee.

‘Drug deal gone wrong. Simple as that,’ said Moran with his usual offhand tone that was beginning to piss Aquino off. ‘Only there’s no goddamn mention of drugs. What the hell is that all about?’

‘Jesus Christ, Gregg! We told the son-of-a-bitch: only the girl dies.’

‘Let’s take it one problem at a time. There’s no frickin mention of what should have been a significant drug find in the apartment. You think they haven’t found it yet, or d’you think the shit was never there?’

‘I was told the end of last week it was in place, or it was definitely going to be in place. I have no idea what the hell happened, but I’ll find out.’

‘We’ve got to feed the drug scenario into the mix: get the signal-to-noise ratio working in our favour by creating plenty of static. It was only ever a back-up plan if the lawyer started screwing us about, but she’s dead now anyway, so she’s got nothing to bitch about if her reputation gets trashed. It could still be useful, though. It’d buy us some time, but where the fuck is it? With her discredited – whether people believe the drugs rap or not – anything else that shows up in the meantime in relation to Abazi can be dismissed as rumour and speculation too. We got anyone on the ground over there, apart from that useless piece of shit Kade?’

‘No,’ replied Aquino, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I already told you.’

‘There needs to be some merchandise found at the crime scene to back up the scenario that the lawyer was dirty. You think that’s gonna be possible after the fact?’

‘Truthfully, I don’t see what the hell difference it’s going to make now.’

‘Without the drugs it’s a straightforward homicide with one possible explanation. With the drugs it opens up all sorts of possibilities as to who and why: confuses the investigation.’

Aquino gave Moran a look. ‘I don’t need a fucking lecture on how it works, Moran. What I’m saying is, it’s too late: the lawyer is dead, we don’t need the leverage, and to try and plant it in there now just to muddy the waters would be crazy. I told you already, my information was that it had already happened. As soon as I speak to Abazi, I’ll find out what the hell is going on. But let’s forget about that now. Whether the drugs are there or not is minor league. We have a much bigger problem to deal with. We need to have a serious look at the possibility of replacing Abazi.’

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Moran, sipping at his coffee. ‘Really?’

‘Every fuck-up in history has had a starting point, a moment of crisis where the wrong decision is made, that’s followed very quickly by the resolution point where the undertakers stand with open coffins waiting for the guys that didn’t realize they were fucking up. Our starting point was Kade getting a crack on the skull and the girl getting picked up trying to leave the goddamn country: our crisis point is right now. We’ve got to make sure we don’t make the wrong decision.’

‘If – as you say – this is the touchpaper lit, let’s not wait around to get our asses blown off. If it’s time to move on, let’s do it. Let’s clean up and get the hell out of there. If it’s just a blip, then we need to have someone ready to step in and take over from Abazi, but even as I’m saying this out loud, I don’t believe it’s the way forward. My assessment is that the Serbian is no more. Hell, we could take the asshole down in a second: we’ve got a whole detachment of Navy Seals scratching their butts just up the road on the west coast of Scotland. But tempting as that scenario is, we have to play it smart. He spots one cloud of the storm coming his way and we’re all catching a cold in the rain, y’know what I’m saying?’

‘I think we should keep our direct involvement to a minimum . . .’ replied Aquino. ‘How about we wait and see who reacts first? Word on the wire is that Abazi has few friends anyway. A lot of the local, well-established drug gangs are none too happy about being constantly undercut: can’t figure out where the hell he gets his supply. All they know is they’re being forced out of the market. But none of them can get near him: he works with a very small unit, three or four guys at the most, and they don’t take any shit. Maybe we could drop one or two of his competitors a line: give them some intel on where he’s at. If a narco war breaks out and he gets hit, no one’s going to look deeper than what’s floating on the surface. That way our involvement is barely noticeable.’

Moran was shaking his head. ‘We gotta move fast. Drive this situation in the direction we want it to go. We may be on a bus with a bomb strapped to the exhaust, but we’re still in charge of the GPS. A narco war is fine, but we have no control over the outcome. Let’s put some measures in place that are going to guarantee the Serbian’s future is a short one.’

A female in her early twenties was striding along the corridor towards them holding a brown file full of papers. She beamed Aquino a smile as she approached. ‘This just in. I’ve got the scoop on the lawyer you’re interested in.’

‘Too late, Gonzalez,’ interrupted Moran. ‘She’s getting measured up for a wooden sleeping bag, as we speak.’

‘She’s dead? Are you bullshitting me?’

Aquino shook his head.

‘Shit! I just hit the jackpot.’

‘What’d you get?’

‘Got up early this morning, too . . . should have stayed in bed.’

‘What’d you get?’ repeated Aquino.

‘Her grandma just died . . .’

‘Hold the front page!’

‘Hold your dick Moran, or next time you need a favour I’ll ask my supervisor if putting the CIA central computer to this sort of use without an Operations Title or authorization is strictly legal. Maybe tell them who it was that requested the info as well.’

‘So, what did you get?’ asked Aquino for the third time.

‘Grandmother, mother and daughter were all living under an assumed name.’

‘Okay. How’d you find that out?’

‘Granny’s death certificate. She wanted to be cremated back in Ireland, but the name on the certificate doesn’t match the one she’s been using in Scotland. Lynch is not the family name. Mother and daughter changed it legally, Granny never bothered. When we followed that on we found out the lawyer has a major paramilitary connection through her father: Granny’s son.’

Aquino raised an eyebrow. ‘Shit! You just never know the minute, do you?’

‘How strong a connection?’ asked Moran, suddenly showing an interest in what Gonzalez was saying.

‘At one stage the father was in line for the top job in the Irish Republican Army: his brother – her uncle – was a goddamn hit man and‚ although not a card-carrying member of the IRA, that’s where most of his work came from. Curiously, her online presence is almost zero, but by a happy coincidence MI5 have a lot of intel on her, all to do with her work as a lawyer. She was quite outspoken and regarded as a troublemaker – anti-establishment. They keep a “soft” eye on her. There’s been a shift in the law over there – or they’re trying to shift it – so that, effectively, instead of the state having to prove a person committed a crime, the person has to prove they didn’t: something to do with agreeing admissible evidence and disclosure, I don’t know the ins and outs, but she was fighting it all the way: got a “first in, last-out” work ethic. A lot of the Establishment don’t like her; shame she’s dead. I even did some character profiling. I liked her.’

‘I told you she had something going on,’ said Moran. ‘All that therapy bullshit when she was younger! “Events” don’t get much more “significant” than having two terrorists in the family.’

‘D’you still need this,’ asked Gonzalez, holding up the file, ‘or did I give up my lie-in for nothing?’

‘Sorry. We’ve only just heard the news ourselves.’

‘You want me to shred it?’

‘I’ll hang on to it, but thanks.’

‘Yeah! I’ll give you one,’ chipped in Moran.

‘The expression is, “I owe you one.”’

‘I know.’

Gonzalez thrust the file into Aquino’s hand and set off down the corridor shaking her head. ‘You’re such a loser, Moron.’

‘That’s Moran!’

‘I know,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she disappeared round the bend.

Moran waited until she was out of earshot. ‘Goddamn it, if we’d known this earlier we wouldn’t have wasted our time setting the lawyer bitch up for a drugs rap. This is frickin dynamite!’

‘Was frickin dynamite,’ replied Aquino.

‘You screwing Gonzalez, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch?’

‘She’s screwing me.’