The Last Exile (18 page)

T
HE SPICE EMPORIUM WAS
on the apex of Oxford Road and Grosvenor Street, not far from Manchester University. Although students were officially on vacation, there were still plenty milling about, some working in the numerous bars to help pay their tuition fees.

Tallis spent the afternoon checking out the location, watching who walked past, how often, volume of customers. He wanted to obtain as much information as possible. Knowledge was power. It might also save his life.

Watching was relatively easy. The street was busy with punters and shoppers so he didn’t stand out from the crowd and was able to make several trips up and down, identifying the entry points, the absence of CCTV cameras, gauge the general state of the building. By taking an avid interest in the menu outside, he had a good view through the large single window. There were probably forty or so covers at the front, twenty of them currently occupied by lunchtime diners. How many at the back was difficult to tell. Tallis pushed open the door and walked inside, and was immediately hit with the soft aromatic fragrance of coriander and cumin.

A short narrow corridor led to another door, through
which there was a bar and reception area. Eyes adjusting to the change of light, Tallis asked a handsome-looking youth if it were necessary to book a table for that evening.

“No need, sir, but I will take your reservation if you wish.”

“Thanks,” Tallis said, eyes flicking to the back of the room, making a mental note of the number of potential covers, the fire exit, the sign for the toilets, the door to the kitchen, another door marked private.

“For one,” Tallis said, “but I’d like to dine as late as possible.”

The young man reached for a book, turning the pages to the relevant day. Tallis registered two other waiters serving, wondered if any of them were in on the robbery. It wasn’t so unusual. Often there was an inside man. A glance at the rota pinned up behind the bar suggested that four would be covering the evening.

“Last orders at eleven,” the young man said.

“Perfect,” Tallis said with a convincing smile.

“No problem. We look forward to seeing you this evening, sir.”

“Thanks,” Tallis said affably. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Kismet, sir.”

Tallis smiled, nodded and walked out. No evidence of CCTV inside. No sign of guard dogs. Had there been, even if locked in the private quarters, he’d have started sneezing by now. Unfortunately for Kismet, he’d be seeing him later.

Tallis glanced at his watch for a second time: ten minutes past midnight. He’d wolfed down chicken choyla, a Nepalese speciality, followed by lamb jalfrazi with a side
dish of tarka dal and topped it off with a pudding of coconut and persimmon ice cream. Passing on the lager, he’d drunk mineral water. Catching Kismet’s eye, Tallis ordered coffee.

Tallis had stationed himself halfway down the dining room with a clear view of the entrance. Most diners were paying their bills and drifting away, leaving five other tables occupied. Combined noise of conversation and cutlery had dipped enough for Tallis to hear the sublime strains of sitar music through the restaurant speakers.

“Busy night,” Tallis remarked as Kismet returned.

“And boisterous.” Kismet smiled.

At least the clientele were well behaved. He’d been in Indian restaurants in Birmingham where the customers were so rude he felt ashamed to be British. “Business always this brisk?”

“Always,” Kismet said, glancing at the door.

“Profitable, then.”

Kismet nodded and, catching the eye of a diner who wished to pay his bill, disappeared.

Tallis spooned sugar into his coffee-cup, slowly stirred the contents, watching as one table emptied, the other party on the other table engaging in a brief, amicable discussion as to who was going to pick up the tab. That left his and three other occupied tables. All situated towards the back of the restaurant, a party of ten celebrating a birthday, a starry-eyed young couple holding hands and three businessmen who showed no sign of going anywhere soon. Problem, Tallis thought. They’d consumed enough booze to attempt fight instead of flight.

Seventeen minutes past midnight. The young couple were making moves to leave. Kismet hurried over, keen to take their money and get them out, planting a single
rose in the hand of the young woman and opening the door for them in a flurry of goodwill. Eighteen of us, Tallis counted, including the waiters, twenty when Hussain and his henchman arrived. Too many, he thought, for a clean job.

After rapid discussion, one of the waiters reached for his jacket and left, leaving the other three to clear up. Tallis watched them. One was older than the rest, probably early forties, his waistcoat buttons straining as he whipped off the tablecloths, the other, a hawk-faced man with a slight build and mild manner. Neither looked as though they’d put up a fight and although that was good, Tallis knew it was impossible to tell who became heroes in a crisis.

Kismet approached the birthday party and asked if they wanted anything else. Only the bill, one man said. Kismet smiled, went to the till, added up the items, printed off the chit and handed it back. All in less than forty-five seconds, Tallis noticed. As Kismet walked past his table, Tallis saw the young man’s eyes flick in his direction. On his return, Tallis asked for a refill. Kismet nodded, an odd smile on his lips. His face was pale and his gaze was somewhere else.

More commotion as the birthday customers pushed back chairs, gathering up presents, reaching for jackets. Kismet raced to the door, flinging it open, throwing the flowers into the hands of the ladies, thanking all profusely for their custom.

“We have run out of fresh coffee, sir,” the mild-mannered waiter said to Tallis. “I can put through some more, if you wish.”

“Why not?” Tallis smiled, catching Kismet’s stony expression.

Twenty-seven minutes past and counting. One of the businessmen got up and lurched towards the toilets. Tallis fell in behind, watched as the bloke drunkenly bounced off the doorframe, farted loudly and let out a snort of laughter. Once inside, Tallis tapped him on the shoulder and as he lurched round hit him straight on the jaw. “You’ll thank me for it later,” Tallis said, catching the man and dragging him to the nearest cubicle, jamming the door shut after him. Next he returned to the door leading onto the main dining area, opening it a crack and seeing two men striding purposefully down the main aisle, one of them Hussain, his face paunchy either with drugs or booze. He’d beefed up considerably, his extra weight added to his height giving him a formidable appearance. The other man, shorter and wiry in build, brought up the rear. Slipping his cellphone from his pocket, Tallis made the call to Cavall, his eyes never leaving the two men. Discretion was off the menu tonight. If Cavall didn’t like the idea of witnesses, it was too bad.

Kismet was nowhere to be seen. The older waiter, obliviously washing glasses behind the bar, moved like a sloth towards the front of the restaurant, turned the open sign to closed and bolted the door, effectively denying all means of escape. This left the hawk-faced, mild-mannered waiter in the firing line. As he approached the two men, Hussain roughly ordered him into the room marked private. No weapon, no gun. The waiter appealed to his older colleague for help but was met with blunt and hostile rejection. Confusion engulfed the man’s face followed swiftly by alarm. In the seconds it took Tallis to process what was going down, Kismet shot out of the kitchen, and Tallis saw, to his horror, he was wielding a meat cleaver and waving it frantically at Hussain. Entirely
misreading the situation, one of the businessmen stood up and tried to remonstrate with Kismet, the other falling silent and transfixed. Hussain nodded silently at his accomplice who produced a knife.

The odds should have been in Kismet’s favour but youth, fear and uncertainty was no match for a determined criminal. Stepping forward neatly, he lashed out, slicing at Kismet’s arm. The youth let out a scream and dropped his weapon, blood pouring through the white of his shirt onto the carpet, dyeing the gold red. Like a beautifully crafted piece of choreography, the older waiter appeared, kitchen knife in hand, threatening the two remaining customers, insisting that he’d slit their throats if they didn’t comply. Something about the coldness of his expression suggested that this was no bluff. Kismet gabbled something in Urdu to his former colleague, his expression pleading. The man merely flashed a contemptuous look and, dragging the man still seated to his feet, forced the two terrified customers through the swing doors of the kitchen, emerging minutes later with a wad of keys, tossing them onto a side table. Both waiters, mute with shock, were bundled into the room at the back. Nobody seemed to remember the two missing diners.

First, there was silence. Tallis tiptoed out and across the floor, ears keen. The air felt electric with violence and fear. Then he heard the low note of urgent voices, punctuated by a shout, a yell, the noise of shattering glass, furniture being overturned, rising to a crescendo and a terrible scream of pain. Picking up the redundant meat cleaver from the floor, he made his way noiselessly to the back of the room. Before he reached it, a door flew open, the treacherous waiter, pouring with blood, trying to claw his way out before being dragged back by Hussain’s accomplice.

Without breaking stride, Tallis burst in, eyes flicking as he took in the scene. One body down, blood on the floor, Kismet’s beautiful face beaten to mush, the hawk-eyed waiter making a run for it, Hussain’s henchman in pursuit. Hussain, his face cracked with menace, remained silent. Still no gun, just rank, brute fear. Planting himself firmly between the fleeing man and his aggressor, Tallis took a swing with the meat cleaver, catching Hussain’s man full on the elbow, cleaving flesh from bone, almost severing the limb. The man’s face contorted in agony as he collapsed and splayed on the floor, his jacket falling open. Tallis saw and reached for the gun just as Hussain pulled his, pointing it at Kismet’s head. Tallis smiled. No guidelines, no restrictions, shoot to kill. His first shot hit Hussain between the eyes, felling him. The second, close up, dispatched him.

As Tallis ran to the terrified waiter, he heard a clamour, the sound of doors crashing, voices, clatter of footsteps, strangely familiar. The door to the office burst open. Three firearms officers piled in.

“Drop your weapon,” the lead firearms officer barked. “You’re under arrest.”

Tallis did as he was told, arms raised, letting them roughly push him to the floor, frisk and cuff him. Then he heard a voice that made his mouth dry. He lifted his head from the carpet. The stance was familiar as was the expression.

“Hello, Paul,” Dan Tallis said.

T
HEY
glared at each other. Histories of confrontation, accusation, lies and argument roared into the forefront of Tallis’s brain. The room was so thick with mutual contempt it felt airless.

“This is completely out of order,” Tallis fumed. “You’re my brother, for Chrissakes. You’re not allowed to interview me.”

They’d taken him to the nearest police station, read him his rights, put him in a holding cell for an hour before dragging him back out again. Dan, whom he hadn’t clapped eyes on in over a year, gloated over every minute of it, just as he’d done when they’d been kids and Tallis had been taking a bollocking from their father. He looked well, Tallis thought, hair thick and shiny, eyes bright, and the pale grey jacket he was wearing fitted snugly and expensively across his broad shoulders. Power obviously suited him.

“So let’s run through this again,” Dan said. “You hit the guy with the meat cleaver, almost severing his arm, and then took his gun and killed his partner. Nice double tap, by the way.”

Tallis said nothing.

“The alternative scenario is that you were in on the robbery. Things got heavy and you decided to take the opportunity to eliminate your rivals and take the money for yourself.”

“Why would I do that?” Tallis said, cold.

“Because you’re a washed-up nobody and need the loot.”

Tallis let out a laugh, the quickest way to antagonise his brother. “What do the waiters say?”

“Haven’t spoken to the witnesses yet.”

Too traumatised, Tallis thought, staring at Dan. Looking back through the history books, Tallis often considered how brother could fight against brother, father against son. The answer was usually found in the cause. In the case of the Balkans, nationalism led to ordinary decent people betraying their neighbours, often when they’d lived alongside them in harmony for many years. But this thing between him and Dan was not about a cause or a difference of religious belief or creed, not even about him taking his brother’s wife. The seeds of hostility had been sown a long time before. When exactly, he couldn’t put a finger on. “I’m allowed a phone call.” One to Cavall, that’s all he wanted. She wouldn’t be able to spring him from this one, more likely to abandon him, but she might know a decent lawyer.

“But we’re still having a chat.”

“I’m not bloody talking to you.”

“Think that’s what you said the last time we met.” Dan smiled, his upper lip curling in contempt.

“Please, don’t tell me that’s what this is all about.” Tallis let out a derisive laugh.

“You flatter yourself.” Dan’s eyes were like stone, reminding Tallis of their father.

“Moved on, have you? Repaired your wounded pride, or still playing victim? Just like you always do.”

Dan’s jaw pulsed with hatred. “Know what you are? You’re a shag-and-run merchant.”

“Still clinging to convenient lies,” Tallis scoffed.

“Always have been. Always will be.”

“I’d rather be accused of that than a wife-beater,” Tallis said, leaning forward, eyes drilling into Dan. “For the benefit of the tape,” Tallis repeated, “Dan Tallis is a wife-beater.”

The tic in his brother’s face throbbed a little faster. “You have no evidence to support that allegation.”

“You deny it?”

“Not worth a response.” There was a shifty expression in his eye that only Tallis could detect. Tallis was determined to press home his advantage. He hoped the whole fucking station would hear about his lovely elder brother.

“So what are you saying, that Belle lied?”

Dan threw back his head and laughed. “She constantly lied. About where she was, whom she was with, what she was doing. Why wouldn’t she lie about that, too?”

“Because you’ve always had a vile temper,” Tallis said, pointing to the scar on his forehead.

“Not that old chestnut again,” Dan mocked. “It was nothing more than a little high spirits. A simple childhood accident.”

“Wasn’t high spirits with Belle, though, was it? The hospital reports tell a very different story.”

“What story?” Dan said with derision.

“The story that tells the truth.”

“The truth?” Dan exploded. “Good, coming from you. Why didn’t she press charges, then?”

Tallis sat back meditatively, folding his arms, feeling
the small of his back against the hard plastic of the chair. He suddenly felt totally and utterly in command. Reminded him of the day he’d confronted his father in the bus shelter, seen the fear in his eyes. “You really don’t know her, do you? And that was always your trouble, Danny boy. You neither took the time nor the trouble to find out.”

“Next you’ll be telling me you were only interested in her mind,” Dan sneered.

Tallis felt his knuckles tense. If he hadn’t been in a police station, he’d have punched his brother in the face. “You’re such an arrogant prat. You think she stayed quiet to protect you.”

“Nothing to protect me from. I didn’t hit her. Never hit her. Wouldn’t lay a finger on her.” He sounded confident but the sudden pallor of his skin told a different tale.

“I saw what you did to her,” Tallis hissed.

“All lies.”

But Tallis wasn’t letting it go. Not this time. “What kind of man hits a woman? Someone with problems, insecurities?” He thought of Demarku. “Someone who can’t get it up …”

Dan leapt from his chair, and launched himself across the table, grabbing Tallis round the throat.

“She wanted to protect Dad,” Tallis spat at him. “She didn’t want to break the heart of a dying man.”

Dan stared, frozen, his grip on Tallis tight then loosening. Seconds thudded by. For the very first time Tallis wondered how Dan would cope with their father’s inevitable death. How badly it would hit him. Finally, Dan let him go. Dusting the shoulders of his jacket, Dan stood up and pressed the eject button on the tape recorder, slipping the tape out, holding it up. “This
one’s faulty,” he said, spooling out the contents and scrumpling them up in his hand. “Shame,” he said, walking out.

Instead of being questioned again, Tallis was taken back to his cell where he spent the next couple of hours asleep. Wasn’t easy. His was the only cell not filled by the latest influx of overflow prisoners from Strangeways. Shortly before six in the morning, he heard footsteps outside, a woman’s voice and the sound of jangling keys. As the lock sprang open, Cavall glided in, groomed and composed. There wasn’t a hair out of place and her make-up was perfect. Tallis bet she was one of those women who regularly rose at four in the morning to work out.

“You’re free to go.” She smiled.

“Power and influence,” he said, throwing her a quizzical look as he walked past. How the hell had she wheedled her way round this one? He thought it was supposed to be a black operation, that, in all likelihood, he would be disowned rather than rescued.

Together they collected his belongings, for which he signed. There was no sign of Dan. The only thing Tallis missed was not seeing the expression on his brother’s face at the report of his release.

As he stepped outside he thought urban air had never smelt so good.

“Sorry I can’t give you a lift,” Cavall said, indicating the car parked with its driver a hundred yards up the road.

“No problem. I’ll walk you there.”

“Chivalrous to the last.” She smiled.

Tallis returned her smile and played escort. On reaching her car, he opened the back passenger door for her. “Expect you’re waiting for a vote of thanks for getting me out of another hole.”

She turned to him, agreed with her eyes, flashed another Kodak-moment smile.

“Well, I’m not going to,” he said, pushing her in and jumping in beside her. “Tell him to drive,” he snarled.

Startled, Cavall told the driver there was a change of plan, instructing him to take a turn round the block.

“Can he hear?” Tallis said, his voice low.

“Not any more,” she said with a wintry smile, sliding the glass partition across. The driver looked into his rear-view mirror, concern on his face. Tallis beamed at him and nodded hello.

“Did you know my brother was going to descend?”

“Tallis, of course n—”

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“For God’s sake, Paul …”

“I’ve just killed a man.”

“What was the alternative?”

“Killing wasn’t part of the deal.”

Cavall rounded on him. “I never said it was going to be easy.”

“And you never said that people like Djorovic would die.”

“Oh, God, what is it with you and women?”

“She was a human being. She was supposed to be put on a flight home. She …” He stopped. Was she? What was really supposed to happen to these people? Christ Almighty, what had he got into? “Who are you?” he said, eyes drilling into hers. Then he suddenly remembered his very first impression of her. He’d had her down for a spook.

“I already explained,” Cavall said testily.

“Your explanation isn’t convincing enough. I want out. Now. No argument.”

Cavall clicked her tongue. “You’re being tiresome. I don’t like to point out the intricacies of your situation. I’ve done everything in my power to protect you, but …” She tailed off, let the full implication of what she was saying sink in.

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Please, don’t be so dramatic.” She rested her hand on his arm. “One more job and it will all be over. Money in the bank. You can sell up. Go abroad, if you want to. Clean slate. And we need never meet again.”

“What about Dan?”

“What about him?” Her brown eyes levelled with his. There was something in her manner that went way beyond the question. It seemed as if she was issuing him with an invitation to confess, but to what he couldn’t fathom. They were almost back at the police station. She lifted a briefcase onto her lap, opened it, took out a file and handed it to him. It came with an ominous warning.

“Your patch,” she said.