Dead if You Don’t

110

Sunday 13 August

17.00–18.00

Riding his machine flat out, Dritan passed the Amex Stadium and the Sussex University campus, leaning over for the uphill right-hander. He crested the hill, continued at 150 mph down the far side into the valley, then up again. There was no cop car in his mirrors. As he neared the top, he slowed, took the slip left, braked hard and turned right at the roundabout, past the top of Dyke Road Avenue. He raced along the spine of the Downs, then the fast, twisting road down into the valley, finally braking hard again and turning sharp left into the narrow lane leading down into the village of Poynings.

A few minutes later, holding his feet out to prevent the machine from slipping from under him on the gravel drive, Dritan pulled up beside a bronze Bentley Bentayga and two black Cadillac Escalades, outside a grand, white mansion. He kicked down the stand and dismounted, removed his helmet and placed it on the saddle.

Perspiring heavily, he walked up the steps to the entrance porch. The door was opened before he reached it by an unsmiling, shaven-headed minder in dark glasses. ‘ID?’

Dritan produced his driving licence. A second minder appeared and frisked him. Then he was escorted along a black-and-white-tiled hallway, into a large, opulent drawing room. An elderly man in a wheelchair, talking on a mobile phone, sat on one side of a marble fireplace with unlit logs in the grate. Sunday newspapers were stacked on the coffee table in front of him, along with several mobile phones and a delicate china teacup on a saucer.

When he clocked his visitor he said, curtly, ‘I will call you back in a while,’ and ended the call, placing the phone down among the others.

One of the minders announced him.

Edi Konstandin greeted his visitor with an inquisitive smile and firm handshake. ‘Please sit down, Mr Nano.’ He beckoned him to the sofa opposite.

Dritan mopped his face with his handkerchief and sat, feeling uneasy and a little intimidated. His motorcycling leathers felt wrong in these grand surroundings. The oil paintings on the walls. The beautiful furniture. The sculptures on plinths. A different world, grander even than Mr Dervishi’s home.

‘Can I offer you some refreshment, perhaps? Tea, coffee, water?’

‘No, thank you, I–I am good.’

Konstandin peered hard at him. ‘Really, young man? You don’t look too good to me, not good at all. You look a little agitated. Are you sure you are good?’

Dritan nodded, feverishly, still wondering why his three texts had not worked.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? You told my security that Mr Dervishi has sent you — for what purpose?’

Dritan’s mouth felt dry. ‘Yes — I—’ He looked at Konstandin’s steel-grey eyes, fixed intently on him. He was shaking. ‘I just need to talk to you, in private.’

Konstandin raised his hands. ‘So, we are private here, talk!’

Dritan hesitated, then blurted it out. ‘Mr Dervishi sent me to kill you.’

Konstandin looked amused. ‘Well, you do not seem to be doing too good a job of it so far.’

Dritan smiled nervously back. ‘You see — I didn’t want to do that. I don’t know you. So, I decided I wouldn’t do it.’

‘You’ve presumably killed other people you don’t know, have you not?’

‘I have changed.’

‘That’s what you came to tell me? That you were going to kill me but decided not to?’

‘I came to see if—’ He shrugged. ‘If you could help me.’

‘So how exactly were you supposed to kill me?’ he asked.

Dritan told him.

When he had finished, Edi Konstandin was no longer looking amused. ‘OK, so what is it you want from me? You want me to shake your hand and say thank you for not killing me?’

‘I want to go home to my girlfriend, my fiancée, who is angry at me because of what I do. I need to find her and get her back.’

Konstandin smiled again, but there was no warmth in his face. ‘Ah, a romantic. How lucky you are! A love story. You were willing to kill me for your love?’

‘No, never. I never wanted to kill anyone, Mr Konstandin.’

‘Yet in ten years of working for my nephew, you did kill people. You helped feed body parts to my nephew’s crocodile, Thatcher, right?’

Dritan nodded, feeling deeply ashamed. ‘Yes.’

‘And now you have been offered money to come and kill me, and instead, being disloyal to the man who has employed you for the past ten years, you are warning me instead of killing me — why?’ There was menace in his voice.

‘Because—’ Dritan said, scared suddenly. Had he made a mistake in coming? He had thought this man would be pleased.

‘Because?’

‘Because I am not a killer. I don’t want to be a killer. I want to be a good person.’

‘You don’t think you have left that a bit late?’

‘Can a person not change?’

‘You believe you have changed?’

‘Yes. That’s why I am here.’

‘And now you want to go home.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, go to Gatwick Airport and get on a plane!’

‘I think that might not be possible for me. I wanted to ask if you could help me — I know you have influence and connections.’

‘Perhaps you should let me have the whole story. If you want help from me, I need to know everything about you, everything you have done — right from the beginning.’

Dritan told him everything. Right from the start and up until the moment he had ridden up to the entrance gates, less than ten minutes ago.

Konstandin listened, only interrupting occasionally to clarify a point. When Dritan had finished, the old man sat in silence, staring at him with an unreadable expression. ‘So much violence you have committed, and always at the request of my nephew, Jorgji?’

‘Yes, yes always. And now a child has died.’

Konstandin fell silent, reflecting, then he said, ‘You know, young man, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found violence increasingly repugnant. I am proud of being born an Albanian but I am not proud of some of the things my people here in this country, in this city of Brighton and Hove, have done.’ He studied Dritan. ‘I would like you to know that if I am to help you to disappear from this country, it would not be out of gratitude for sparing my life — it’s because I want to get rid of vermin like you who tarnish the names of all good Albanians, do you understand?’

Dritan felt his face burning. He wanted to say something back in his defence, to tell Mr Konstandin that he misunderstood him. But the old man didn’t misunderstand him at all, he was right. That’s how he must look to a man living in this grand style.

Vermin.

‘Tell me about this former medical student, Gentian Llupa, who also kills people for Mr Dervishi. Do you know where he is?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are able to contact him?’

‘Yes, he is my friend.’

‘Of course he would be,’ Konstandin said. He steepled his fingers. ‘You may use my phones or if you need to go and see him, my driver will take you. I want you to give him a message. It is a very simple one, a choice. He leaves the country with you, today, or I will see to it, personally, that the police have enough to arrest and convict him.’

He paused to peer down at one of his phones, the display of which had lit up. Then he looked back up at Dritan. ‘Breaking news: a big explosion on an industrial estate some miles north-east of Brighton. You wouldn’t know anything about this?’

‘Explosion? Where?’

The old man peered at the screen again. ‘It says on the Ranscombe Farm Industrial Estate.’ He looked at Dritan quizzically.

Trying not to show his excitement, Dritan thought, It did work!

‘You know about this explosion?’

‘No,’ Dritan retorted, a bit too quickly.

‘You just disarmed the phone to make it safe, and dropped it down two different drains, correct?’

‘Correct.’

There was a long, uncomfortable silence between them. It was finally broken by Konstandin.

‘So, Dritan Nano, how do you feel I should repay you for sparing my life?’

‘Can you have someone fly me out of this country and back home?’

‘How soon?’

‘Today, if possible? One problem is I don’t have my passport — it is at Mr Dervishi’s house.’

Konstandin shrugged. ‘I can arrange to get you home without your passport. But airports can be dangerous, Dritan, even our little local one. A boat might be a better choice — do you get seasick?’

‘I don’t know.’

The old man smiled. ‘Let’s hope not.’