Dead if You Don’t

99

Sunday 13 August

17.00–18.00

In a red mist, his nerves shredded, Dritan Nano had ridden recklessly out of Brighton on his Ducati motorcycle, his pride and joy, then randomly along the country roads of East Sussex, towards Kent, not even aware of where he was going, just riding, hard and furiously, as if trying to ride a demon out of his body. Eventually he circled back round towards the outskirts of Brighton. He was driving much too fast. Stupid, he realized, slowing right down to the speed limit as he joined the A27 dual carriageway, heading towards Lewes as he had been instructed. Maintaining the speed limit along the bypass, with the University of Sussex campus to his left and the Amex Stadium to his right, he was feeling increasingly shaken as the enormity of his actions was dawning on him.

I shot three people. Dead.

Because Jorgji Dervishi made me.

Made me.

Oh shit.

Now the boy is going to die.

He was close to tears.

This was not what he had signed up to when he had come to this country, when he had been honoured to take the job as bodyguard to the consiglieri. He had been there to protect Dervishi, not to kill for him. Now it was all falling apart. He’d killed his friend to protect his own family back home.

He and Valbone had done a deal with Aleksander. The plan was to help his friend, Mungo, screw some money out of his father. They would split it four ways. His share would have given him enough to afford to quit his job with Mr Dervishi and start his own coffee bar in the city. He had already identified one with a lease that was up for sale.

All that was gone now, since Dervishi had hijacked their plan. Dritan was a fugitive here in England. In a few hours, Mr Dervishi had promised him, he would be smuggled out of the country on the private plane which was kept at Brighton City Airport, with a payoff big enough to start a new life back in his home country. The money Mr Dervishi had promised him, given him his word, his besa, would be enough for him to get an apartment in Tirana and buy a coffee bar there, instead. He just had to get safely to the rendezvous address he had been given, on an industrial estate that Mr Dervishi had built. And then he would be taken to the airport and flown out. Back close to where Lindita was.

He would find her. He would explain. She would listen to him, wouldn’t she?

Please, Lindita, I can’t live without you.

I am seeing someone else and I think he is better for me.

No, you can’t. You are going to marry me. I will explain everything when I see you. I’ve changed. I’m not that person any more. I’ve changed. I love you, Lindita.

His eyes misted as he rode on past Lewes, down the long hill towards the Beddingham roundabout. A murderer. Could he trust Mr Dervishi to protect his back? Shield him? To do what he promised?

Of course he could. Besa. No Albanian, ever, failed to honour his besa.

The police would start a manhunt soon, if not already. A massive manhunt. For him.

The one person who could shield him was Mr Dervishi. With Dervishi’s help he would be back in Albania tonight. But doubts filled his head.

Could he really trust his boss, despite his besa? The man had a hold on him. Multiple holds. He knew where his family lived and now he could quietly slip his name to the police.

Shit, what had he done?

Should he just leave now? Get out of here while he still could?

As he entered the roundabout he wondered should he turn right and down to Newhaven? Dump the motorbike and jump on a ferry and just get away? He could hitch-hike back to his home country to avoid being detected at railway stations or airports.

Good plan, apart from one big problem. His passport was in his room in the apartment he had shared with Valbone, above Mr Dervishi’s garages.

He went round the roundabout for a second time.

Mr Dervishi had connections. Long tentacles. People would be capable of finding him, wherever he hid, however deep in Albania, if he further angered the man. And as Dervishi was well aware, they didn’t even need to bother trying to find him — they knew where his family lived.

He had to follow his instructions. Hope for the best. And in a moment of clarity, he was comforted by the knowledge that it wasn’t just Mr Dervishi who had a hold on him. He had a hold on Mr Dervishi, too. Stuff on his boss. Stuff he could tell the police.

Fortified by that thought, he continued round the roundabout, then back up the hill, faster now. He circled at the top, headed back down the hill and after a short distance turned left at the sign which read RANSCOMBE FARM INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.

He rode past a development of chalet-style holiday homes and entered the industrial estate, passing a noticeboard and a unit with two large skips in front, and then along past rows of identical steel units with yellow doors, all with deserted parking bays. One advertised itself as a pump specialist, another was pet food supplies and another recycled electrical waste. He threaded his way through the network of roads and units until he found the address he had been given. He cruised along, past a unit with an elderly model Jaguar estate car parked in a bay, then reached Number 26, CABURN HEATING & PLUMBING SERVICES.

Two vehicles were parked outside, a small Hyundai and a van bearing the business name.

Freewheeling onto the forecourt, he kicked down the stand and dismounted, carefully balancing the machine, before walking up to the office door and rapping on it, hard. There was a frosted-glass window to the right of the door, behind which the distorted shadow of a figure moved.

He heard the door being unlocked — two locks, then a third — and finally it was opened by a short, thin, bespectacled man in his twenties, with a shapeless mop of thinning dark hair. He was dressed in an anorak, badly fitting jeans and cheap trainers, and looked nervous. ‘Ylli Prek?’

‘Yes — Dritan?’

He nodded.

‘Come in, quick.’

Prek peered past him, anxiously, then shut and relocked the door immediately after he had entered. Dritan followed him into the main workshop area of the unit and received a hostile glare from a shaven-headed man who was bent over the casing of a camera, a roll-up dangling from his lips.

The bomb-maker looked at the new arrival with suspicion. ‘You are here why?’

‘I work for Mr Dervishi. He told me to come here — to wait for him after a job I have done for him. What do you do here?’

‘I make bombs for Mr Dervishi.’ He removed his crinkled cigarette and smiled, flashing his metal teeth.

‘You are making a bomb from a camera?’

‘Yes.’

‘You like some tea — we have Albanian Balcony Tea or coffee?’ Prek asked the visitor.

‘Tea, please.’ He looked around, curious and wary. ‘What kind of a bomb, exactly?’

‘One that explodes!’ Lebedev grinned. ‘That’s what bombs do, don’t they?’ Again, he grinned, put the cigarette back in his mouth and held the flame of a plastic lighter to the end.

While Prek filled the kettle, Dritan addressed Lebedev. ‘You are happy for your handiwork to kill and maim innocent people?’

‘It’s not my skill that does this — that is the choice of the people who pay me.’

‘I know what your tattoos mean,’ Dritan replied.

‘So?’

‘They are Russian. You are Russian?’

Lebedev shrugged.

‘Do they make you feel brave?’ Dritan asked, coldly.

The bomb-maker stared at him. A long, silent, penetrating stare, full of loathing. ‘Why don’t you fuck off and mind your own business?’

‘Each spike of barbed wire is a year spent in prison. The skull means you have killed someone. As does the dagger. You have four daggers on your arms.’

‘Would you like me to make it five? It wouldn’t be a problem, it would be a pleasure.’ He tugged at each of his sleeves, provocatively, pulling them up as if readying for a fight.

The kettle began to whistle. At the same moment, there was a sharp ratta-tap-tap-tap from the direction of the office.

All three of them looked round.

The knocking repeated.

Ylli Prek hurried through, crouching low out of sight of the window.

Lebedev and Dritan stood still as he disappeared into the office. Dritan heard Jorgji Dervishi’s voice, and moments later his boss strutted into the room, wearing a fancy checked jacket and holding a smouldering cigar in his hand. He looked straight at Dritan.

‘So?’

‘I did what you instructed, Mr Dervishi. You have the money?’

Dervishi nodded, drew on his cigar and strode over to Lebedev. As he reached him, he pulled a mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket. ‘I want you to fill this with explosive, now, Luka.’

The bomb-maker frowned. ‘Explosive? How much?’

‘Enough to take a big house down — and everyone inside it. Enough to make sure no one survives. How quickly can you do this?’

‘There’s not enough room in the phone to make a bomb that effective.’

‘Make the room.’

‘Sure, I can make the room for the explosive, but not if you want the phone to work.’

‘Think of something.’ Dervishi puffed again and blew out a perfect smoke ring. ‘That’s why I pay you.’

‘OK, come back tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not having a pissing contest with you, Luka. I don’t want it tomorrow, I want it in thirty minutes.’