Dead if You Don’t

76

Sunday 13 August

11.00–12.00

‘How long have you worked for me, Dritan?’ Jorgji Dervishi asked with a kindly smile, soon after the police officers had left.

‘Ten years, sir, Mr Dervishi.’

Despite being a foot taller and weighing one hundred pounds more than his boss, Dritan was afraid of the man.

‘And in these ten years, have I ever given you any reason to be unhappy with me?’

‘No, Mr Dervishi.’

‘None at all?’

‘None at all.’

Dervishi lit a cigar. ‘Yet you wish to leave me and go home to Albania? You don’t like to work for me any more?’

‘It isn’t that. My girl — Lindita.’

‘She’s very pretty but she doesn’t like that you work for me, does she?’

‘Why you say that?’

Dervishi pointed at his own eyes. ‘I see it in how she looks at me. She thinks I am a bad influence on her sweet little man, yes? You want to go back home, where she is going to convert you into a good little citizen, eh? Run a little shop together — no — a coffee house, right?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you have to go.’

‘Yes.’

‘But now you find out today that the cut you were going to get from my son’s plan with his friend is no longer going to happen, right?’ He blew a smoke ring. ‘Gone, yes, like a puff of smoke? You had plans for this money? Enough to start your own business with your sweetheart, Lindita?’

Again, Dritan said nothing.

‘This money would go a long way in Albania — much further than here, I think. It would buy you a very nice coffee house in Tirana, perhaps?’

‘Maybe.’

Dervishi smiled. ‘I think the timing could all be very perfect! Perhaps we come to an arrangement, a deal in which I forgive you, in return for a little favour. How would you like it if I fly you home tonight on my private plane, out of Brighton City Airport, with the £60,000 or whatever it is your friend Valbone has screwed you out of — would this be of interest to you?’

‘What would this favour be?’

‘Your colleague — friend — Valbone, did he ever say he was unhappy with me?’ he asked.

‘Never, Mr Dervishi.’

‘Never?’

‘Never.’

Dervishi drew pensively on his cigar. ‘You are very well acquainted with Thatcher, are you not?’

Dritan nodded. Thinking about Lindita’s text. He knew Thatcher was one of the things she had been referring to.

I don’t like some of the things you do, u know what I’m talking about.

‘You have seen, my trusted Dritan, how Thatcher likes human body parts, especially arms and legs?’

Dritan nodded, feeling a little sick with fear, wondering what was coming.

‘You would not like me to inflict one thousand cuts on you and then feed your right arm to Thatcher, would you? And watch him eat it? As punishment for what you and Valbone had planned?’

‘No, Mr Dervishi.’ He was trembling.

‘Of course you would not.’ Dervishi looked at his computer screen, momentarily distracted by something on it. Then he tapped deftly on the keyboard, before returning his attention to his employee. ‘How is your mother, Dritan?’ he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

‘My mother?’ Dritan frowned. In ten years his boss had never asked him any questions about his family, so why now? ‘My mother is good, thank you. She is well.’

‘She and your father in that village, they still work their little farm, don’t they?’

He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

Dervishi nodded. ‘Your gjyshe, too, she lives there and helps them. You are fond of her, are you not?’

‘I love my grandmother very much,’ he replied, curious that Mr Dervishi suddenly seemed so interested in his family. ‘Very much. She was always so good to me — and she looks after my kid brother.’

‘Your kid brother — he’s just eighteen now?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Nineteen.’ Dervishi nodded. ‘Nineteen, in a wheelchair, with the mind of a two-year-old.’

‘My mother had a difficult birth with him, he did not breathe for too long — he got brain damage.’

‘That’s too bad. So, for your grandmother he will always be her little baby grandson?’

The bodyguard pursed his lips and nodded.

‘So, Dritan, all I ask you to do is to find Valbone. Find his associates also, the ones who arranged, behind your back, to take Mungo Brown. Find them and explain to them all I am not happy — am I clear?’

‘Explain to them?’

‘Explain. You understand what will happen if you do not, Dritan?’

‘I understand.’

‘You understand or you think you understand? You look a little confused to me.’

‘I understand, Mr Dervishi.’

Dritan’s phone beeped with an incoming text.

‘Please,’ Dervishi said. ‘Check your phone. I believe you have a new text.’

Dritan did as he was told. He saw a photograph of a small rustic dwelling taken with a telephoto lens. A pig was visible in the foreground and a farm dog in the distance.

‘You recognize this house, Dritan?’

‘Of course. My family’s home.’

‘Where you grew up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take a look at the details on the photograph. Check the time and date,’ Dervishi said, calmly.

Along the top of the image, Dritan saw the date, yesterday; and the time, 4 p.m. ‘Who took this?’ he asked.

‘Someone who is there to protect them.’

Dritan gave his boss a quizzical stare, part frightened, part angry. ‘To protect them? Really?’ He clenched a fist. ‘If anyone hurts them—’

Dervishi placed his cigar in the ashtray and raised his hands. ‘No one will hurt them. Not if you do what I tell you when you find Valbone. If you can find him.’

‘I will find him.’

‘Of course you will.’

Dritan said nothing.

‘Use your motorbike, their number plates are harder for cameras to recognize. Attach a fresh plate.’

‘Yes.’

‘Very good. When you have finished, go straight to the Lewes warehouse. I will meet you there to make the payment and arrange your safe transport to the airport, if you are able to confirm to me the job is done. Yes?’

Dritan nodded, dubiously.

Jorgji Dervishi reached down to the floor, lifted up a Waitrose carrier bag and handed it to him.

Dritan took it. Whatever was inside was heavy.

‘Please explain to Valbone this is a little gift from me to him. To show no hard feelings. To thank him for his years of working, loyally, for me.’

Dritan looked at his boss uncomfortably, then peered inside the bag. Immediately, his mouth went dry and his heart felt heavy.

‘You have any questions, Dritan?’

‘I can trust you? I do this and you fly me in your private plane, yes? I can trust you?’

Dervishi shook his hand. ‘I give you my besa.’

Besa was a word of honour. No Albanian who gave besa would ever break it. Dritan left on his mission, reassured.