The Last Exile (33 page)

I
T TOOK
Asim less than an hour to extricate Tallis from the clutches of West Midlands Police. Shades of Cavall, Tallis thought as he was escorted out of Lloyd House. But Asim, he explained, would have to wait.

“I have to go back to the apartment.”

“I’ll take you there,” Asim said.

“No.” He didn’t want this man near him. He didn’t want anyone.

“They won’t let you in unless I’m with you.”

Tallis glared belligerently at Asim, saw the sharp intelligence in the man’s eyes, saw something else—kindness, he thought. With great reluctance, Tallis agreed.

As expected, the place was crawling with SOCOs and police officers and medical bods. Tallis looked on as a guy in a white suit efficiently examined Belle’s body and gave the signal for her to be zipped into a body bag and moved. Part of him wanted to help, to be close to her one last time, to arrange her limbs carefully, make sure her hair was placed just so, but already he could see that death had settled on her beautiful features, that Belle wasn’t Belle any more.

Afterwards, they found a quiet corner of the lounge of
the Burlington Hotel, a genteel, old-style establishment that incorporated Burlington arcade. It was the kind of place where you took tea. They ordered whisky. Tallis listened while Asim did the talking.

“So there really was a Home Office operation,” Tallis murmured at last.

“Yes.”

“Christ.”

“But there was never any intention of state murder,” Asim said.

Tallis hiked a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Cavall met John Darius while at Cambridge. He was her tutor, but she had no sympathy for his beliefs and had nothing to do with him afterwards. As you’re aware, many young men hold idealistic, sometimes anarchic views, but lose them or see them as largely irrelevant as they grow older.”

“Except he didn’t.”

“The BFB has a respectable and legitimate front, even if you don’t agree with the philosophy.”

“But Fortress 35 …”

“We knew of its existence. We knew very little about the organisation. Like many terrorist groups, they work on a cell network.”

“There are others?” Tallis said in alarm.

“Quite possibly.”

Fuck, Tallis thought. “So, as I thought, Cavall used her old contact with Darius in a bid to unearth Fortress 35 and nail the elusive and shadowy Mr X.”

“Who turned out to be your brother,” Asim said. As if he needed reminding, Tallis thought, frowning. “You have to remember Darius is looking after his own interests,” Asim continued. “In many respects he resembled the
double agent, supplying info from Dan to Cavall and vice versa.”

“Which was how Darius put me in the frame.”

“In the beginning, we thought you were part of the conspiracy.”

No surprises there, then, Tallis thought. Except …

“Cavall noted your seeming reluctance to get involved in the operation,” Asim said, as if reading his mind. “But you wouldn’t be the first to engage in a little pretence.”

“She also knew of my doubts about the shooting of Rinelle Van Sleigh,” Tallis said pointedly.

“Which was why we reckoned you now had the motive,” Asim continued. “Resentful and bitter after your career was brought to a crashing end, you decided to take the law into your own hands. Either you were working for Darius, or provided us with the opportunity to find out about the armed wing of the group.”

“You used me.”

“We used each other,” Asim said with a pragmatic smile.

“And you never suspected my brother?”

“Why would we? A serving police officer, clean record, cleared from the very top.”

“But Cavall and Dan at the police station.”

“Think about it. For quite separate reasons, it was in both their interests for you to continue. For Cavall, to see where the trail led. For Dan, to pull you deeper into the shit.”

“Going back to Barzani …”

“Sheer fluke that your brother was involved in the case,” Asim smiled. “Your brother had no idea that we’d singled out Barzani as one of our most wanted.”

Fluke or hunch, Tallis thought, not at all sure he
believed Asim. “And the others were singled out at random?”

“Pretty much. The idea was to whet Darius’s appetite.”

“You used those people as bait,” Tallis said, tight with sudden anger. “Every time you made a move, you let Darius know about it. Why the hell didn’t you put Darius, or those two henchman of his, under twenty-four-hour surveillance and find out where the trail led?”

“We tried,” Asim said, a dark glint in his eye.

No, Tallis thought. You’d rather use someone like me to do your dirty work. This was never about due process, about evidence or court trials. This was about eliminating the enemy. He wondered what on earth would happen to Dan. “And what happens to Darius now?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Tallis said, mystified.

“He’s more use to us where he is. If we arrest him, someone will take his place.”

Tallis opened his mouth to protest.

“In circumstances such as these, it’s more fruitful for us to leave a player in situ. It’s what intelligence officers are trained to do.” So that’s why Cavall was also left in place, despite the obvious risks, Tallis thought. Asim was still talking. “And now that we have your brother safely tucked away, Darius is going to think twice before he does anything to undermine his own position.”

Tallis frowned. How many dictators were propped up because they were considered more malleable than someone with more scruples? “Going back to the real immigration officers, what happened in the case of Demarku?”

“Unfortunately, they went to the wrong address and by the time they found the right one, Demarku was already dead.”

“Turning what should have been a PR coup into something of a disaster.”

“It got worse. We put in our own officers for Djorovik, but they never arrived at all.”

Of course, Tallis thought, the road accident, the fireball. “Intercepted en route, shot and their car set on fire.”

Asim smiled in admiration. “Seems to me you were one step ahead of the game.”

Not quite. If he had been, Belle would still be alive. “So that explains why there was little mention of it in the press.”

“Same reason there was no mention of the girl in Totnes,” Asim said matter-of-factly, “or the brothel in Hounslow.”

“Or Cavall?”

Asim nodded.

“You cleaned up?” He found it very, very hard to understand this entirely alien world. Having always been a bit of a conspiracy rather than a cock-up theorist, he was beginning to think they were indivisible: cock-up preceded a cover-up followed by conspiracy.

“With Hounslow, it revolved around split-second timing,” Asim said.

It would have done, Tallis thought. As soon as he’d left Elena, Darius had turned up and confronted Duka, fleeing minutes before the clean-up team had moved in, followed by the hapless Crow. He screwed up his eyes, suspicious. “What about Kelly’s mother?”

Asim said nothing. Tallis pressed the point.

“She was told her daughter died in a road accident,” Asim said, meeting his eye.

So that’s how things are done, Tallis thought, depressed.

‘And the guys who roughed me up, what was that all about?’ he asked Asim.

“Cock-up on my part.”

“Let me guess, crossed wires with another branch of Intelligence?”

Asim smiled warmly. “You’re getting the hang of it.”

Tallis blinked. What was this, some kind of protracted job interview? “Why not call the whole thing off? Innocent people were dying. You could have had me tailed …”

“You need to let people run before you can reel them in. Thankfully, I managed to track you to Belle’s apartment.”

Tallis flinched. How was he going to spend a lifetime forgetting her? He flashed Asim another sharp look. He was beginning to feel like a fish in an angling contest—drag him out, check him out, chuck him back in. “It was an extremely audacious plan. You were taking a hell of a risk.”

“We always had Darius as a firm target,” Asim said. “The rest was down to you.”

“I still don’t understand why it was allowed to go this far. Why didn’t you send more of your people, instead of letting Dan’s henchmen move in?”

“As I explained, we tried.”

Tallis said nothing, shook his head in disbelief.

Asim sighed and spread his hands in front of him. “Because it was too late. Once the killing started, we lost the moral imperative.”

Because you had nothing to lose, Tallis thought, seeing Asim in a new, unattractive light. Because what were a few men and a woman, all of them bad people, when matters of state were at risk? They were all so expendable. And so was he. Asim was still talking.

“We needed enough evidence to lead the trail positively back to Dan and nail him.”

“How much, for Chrissakes? You let seven innocent people die, and there were God knows how many other casualties.”

“Seven?”

“Belle Tallis.”

“Regrettable, I agree.”

Regrettable?
That was the kind of catch-all word politicians used when civilians, mistaken for soldiers or terrorists, were killed. And they weren’t even going to arrest Darius. “And Cavall,” Tallis spat out.

“Ah, Cavall,” Asim agreed.

Something in his eyes suggested to Tallis that she had been a victim of her own lack of judgement. What would they call it—a miscalculation? And then it hit him: when he’d turned up at Darius’s house, Cavall had been trying to protect him. “And two others from your own side,” he pointed out.

“Agreed, but the others,” Asim said, lip curling, “innocent?”

“Yes, innocent.”

“In matters of state one always has to look to the greater good.”

Asim’s words had a strangely echoing effect. Someone had once told Tallis the same thing after the shooting of Rinelle Van Sleigh. He hadn’t believed it then and he didn’t now. He was so consumed with thought he almost missed what Asim was saying. “We’d like you to join our team.”

Tallis stared in astonishment.

“Think about it.”

“To do what? To chase people who never mattered anyway? Bloody foreigners, aren’t they?”

“Paul, it’s n—”

“You touched on something earlier. Made me think about the Balkans, the Middle East, the continual neglect of swathes of people in Africa. Know why all that came about?”

Asim frowned. “I sense a lecture on Western politics.”

“No, I’ll make it really simple for you. It’s because we don’t care. We allow it to happen and then we watch it happen. If there was more political will, massacres on a colossal scale could be averted, wars prevented before they began. Just so we’re really clear,” he said, angry now, “there are too many places where blind eyes are turned. What’s happened here,” Tallis said, voice brittle with anger, “is no different. It doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is, or the faith you believe in—violence is violence. Those people never stood a chance, were never meant to stand a chance. They were simply pawns in the political machine’s game. And you expect me to become a part of it,” he jeered. “No, thanks.”

Asim leant towards him. “What would it take to make you change your mind?”

Tallis got up, crossed the floor. He was almost out of the door. “Pardon Rasu Barzani,” he called over his shoulder. “Make him a British citizen.”

“We need you,” Asim’s voice rang after him.

Tallis didn’t look back. A woman locked in his cloakroom needed him more.

W
HILE
Jace Jackson was being arrested for the murder of his father based on new evidence, and Astrid Stoker and Jackson’s mother were receiving a visit from the police, Tallis was sitting in a hospital room, flanked by armed officers. Dan sat bolt upright, eyes cold as if the fire had gone out in them a long time ago. If Tallis expected remorse, he wasn’t shown any. But that wasn’t what he’d come for.

“You talked to Mum, didn’t you?”

“Sons usually talk to their mothers, Paul.” Insolence in the tone.

“Not you. You don’t really like women, do you?” That’s why you find it easy to hit them, to kill them, Tallis thought. A match had already been found between the gun Dan had been carrying and forensic evidence found at the scene of Cavall’s murder.

Dan looked at him, boredom in his expression.

“I’ll bet you pretended to be a reasonable kind of guy, forgiving maybe, but really you were pumping Mum for information about me, how I was faring after I left the police, my state of mind.”

Dan said nothing, but the accompanying smile was
devious. “It was necessary, yes. For the cause. Have to say that little Polish friend of yours getting herself killed like that was a godsend. I knew then you’d change your mind.”

“I understand. But why?”

Dan flashed him an exasperated look. “I just told you.”

“You told me the reason but didn’t explain the hatred.”

“Hatred?” Dan sneered. “You’re way off the mark. I did all of this because I love my country and my country, in case you hadn’t noticed, is falling apart. Look at the crime statistics, the spinning and cover-ups. Violence is at an all-time high and we stand more chance of being blown to bits by our so-called fellow countrymen, wolves in sheep’s clothing …”

“Spare me the ideology, Dan. I mean why did
you
do it?”

A sly smile crept across his brother’s face. “You want absolution.”

Tallis remained impassive.

Dan leant towards him, making the sheets on the bed rustle. “You think this is about you and Belle, that your sordid little affair drove me over the edge. I founded Fortress 35 five years ago. That good enough for you?”

It was. Tallis stood up and walked out of the room.

T
HE
woman was running. Running for joy.

They were in western Scotland on the waterfront at Helensburgh in Strathclyde. The wind was lifting the waves off the slate-grey water and dancing.

“Let me see it again,” Viva said to Rasu, snatching the newspaper off him. She read it for a second time.

Come home, last exile. All is forgiven. Bring V with you. Regards, your sixteenth-century counterpoint friend
.

Rasu Barzani put his arm around his love and smiled. His joy was not for himself but for the woman who’d breathed life back into him.

“We can go back,” she laughed, kissing him. “We can have a life.”

“Yes,” he said simply. He had long ago taught himself to expect nothing, to ask for nothing. It was the way of the exile. This man, Tallis, had not only given him his freedom. He’d restored his hope, his faith and identity, immeasurable gifts.

“No more on the run, no more hiding, no more subterfuge or looking over our shoulders,” Viva said, clapping her hands, dizzy with delight. “Not that we have to go back. We can go anywhere we choose.”

The last exile smiled, kissed his love, and drew her close.

Tallis guided Elena through the check-in at Heathrow and waited with her until her flight was called. She was like a small girl waiting for Christmas, excited and emotional. She couldn’t stop thanking him. He couldn’t stop telling her thanks were unnecessary. Both of them knew that the chances of them ever meeting again were remote.

“You take good care,” he said when at last it was time to say goodbye. “And watch out for that little sister of yours.” He smiled, giving her a final hug, watching her walk away with tears in her eyes.

Afterwards, he drove west, through the spires of Oxford, skirting leafy Gloucestershire and on to Hereford. He wanted to see his mum and dad, to try and explain and, if possible, mend fences. Well, that’s what he fondly imagined. After the revelations about Dan, his father’s health had taken a nosedive. Discharging himself from hospital, the old man insisted he wanted to die at home.

Neither of Tallis’s parents knew about his impending arrival. He didn’t know how or if he’d be welcomed, but something inside told him that he had to make an attempt, to break the impasse. He guessed he’d inherited his father’s stubborn streak.

Familiar landmarks snapped into view—the river Wye, the cathedral with its chained library, streets where he’d walked as a small boy. As the urban landscape evolved and became more rural, he recognised places he’d visited and played in as a lad, the farm where he’d worked for a summer, the ratty old pub where he’d washed dirty dishes, the school he’d attended with his brother, all of them triggering memories more bad than good. His feelings towards Dan remained raw and confused. To say he hated him was almost too simple because when he looked at
Dan, he remembered Belle. When he looked into his brother’s eyes, Tallis saw his father staring back.

The ringing of his mobile phone cut into his thoughts. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he pulled over. It was Asim.

“How are you doing?”

Not great. “As well as you’d expect,” Tallis said evasively.

“Wondered if you’d had time to reconsider my offer?”

Christ, this bloke didn’t hang around. Sod the tea and sympathy. “No.”

“No as in no, or no you haven’t had time to think about it?”

Tallis looked out of the window. Two crows were fighting on the side of the road over a piece of stolen bread. “Haven’t thought much about anything.” That, at least, was an honest answer.

Asim continued to talk. “The best cure, Paul, is work.”

“That right? I’d rather thought a holiday.”

“Perfect,” Asim said, a laugh in his voice. “How does Turkey sound, all expenses paid?”

“Turkey? SIS territory, I’d have thought.”

“Precisely,” Asim said mischievously.

“And the catch?”

“Does there have to be one?”

“There’s always a catch.” Tallis smiled. A sparrow had joined the fray. While the crows continued to fight, it was helping itself to lunch.

“Just want someone out there to soak up the atmosphere, keep their ear to the ground.”

Tallis grimaced. Asim would have to do a lot better than that. “Look, Asim. I don’t want to join your club, or any club.”

“But—”

“And actually I’d be far more use to you on a freelance basis.”

“Not the way we do things.”

Then what had the last few weeks been about? “Well, there you go,” Tallis said, starting to enjoy himself, mainly because he didn’t care. Either they played by his rules or not at all.

“That’s your final word?”

“It is.”

There was a moment’s considered silence. “I’ll be in touch,” Asim said in a way that left Tallis in no doubt.

Tallis closed the phone and pulled back onto the road. Almost within sight of his parents’ home, he could already imagine the gate, the stony path, the cared-for garden, the wheelbarrow full of flowers outside, the bright red front door and the plain curtains at the window. Home, he thought, that strange seat of happiness and sadness, of warmth and hostility, of conflict and passion. And then he remembered the streak of suppressed violence simmering just below the surface in thought, in word, in deed.

Seeing an open gateway, Tallis stopped, reversed the car into it, turned around and drove away.