Scared to Live

24

Fry was on her way home through Edendale when she took the call from Hitchens. Turning off Meadow Road, she bumped her Peugeot over a patch of rough ground in front of the old cattle market, wincing as a front wheel bounced into a deep pot hole and muddy water splashed over her offside wing.

‘Yes, I heard about the explosion in Chesterfield. What’s our interest in it? Oh, really?’

While she listened, Fry stared at the ruined buildings that had once been the premises of Pilkington amp; Son, livestock auctioneers. The demolition workers had left two rows of sheep pens standing outside, exposed to the weather. Rusty gates were falling off their hinges, iron bars had been bent out of shape by vandals, or by panicking animals.

‘The Zhivko brothers? That’s more than a coincidence … yes, I bet they are.’

Fry felt suddenly tired, and an inexplicable tremor of fear ran through her. Not at the thought of the explosion that had killed the Zhivkos in a Chesterfield street. The fear was caused by something else, closer to home.

‘Yes, of course, sir. I’ll liaise with Sergeant Kotsev.’

She ended the call, and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror, seeking a trace of that fear in her own eyes.

‘Oh, yes — liaise. That’s what I’ll do.’

Fry sat in her car for a few moments longer. A section of the main cattle market building remained, gaunt and roofless. Through the chain link fence with its Keep Out signs, she could just see the edge of the sale ring. Almost nothing was left of the tiers of wooden seats that had once formed an amphitheatre into which frightened animals had been driven for auction.

The closure of Pilkington amp; Son meant that half of the town centre was no longer brought to a halt on market days by trailers and cattle transporters. Ben Cooper said that a vital element had been taken away from Edendale. Something about its long history as a rural market town, a dislocation from its agricultural hinterland.

But the cattle market had another meaning for Fry. This was a place she had once thought she was going to die.

Instinctively, she raised a hand to her face and touched the faint bump under her skin, the remains of a scar that everyone assured was no longer visible. Maybe they were right. Yet whenever she looked in the mirror, she could see it for herself.

Fry looked at her watch, remembering how little time she had to reach home and get changed before she was due to go out again. She rolled the car slowly along the fence, strangely reluctant to tear herself away from a crowd of unpleasant memories, compelled to scan the derelict buildings for familiar doorways and walls.

Beyond the main building, she glimpsed a tangle of trees over a tunnel of dark shadows. The cattle market had been built close to the railway station, in the days before road transport became the norm. But the overgrown tracks where cattle wagons were once unloaded had been torn up now, leaving a secret back lane through this part of town.

That was something everyone needed now and then, wasn’t it? A glance down a hidden, private road that might lead to a new life.

Angie was due at her job tonight, working behind the bar at The Feathers in New Street. Yet she had that secret little smile on her face as she pulled a denim jacket over her T-shirt.

Diane was glad her sister looked so much better than when she first moved in. But there was something still there, below the surface, that she didn’t know how to deal with. It was the main reason that she sometimes had to nerve herself to enter her own flat, the way she had tonight. Yes, she had to brace herself to face her own sister. And then she had to suppress the guilt, of course.

At least the job meant Angie wasn’t sponging any more. Or not so much, at any rate. With her wages and a few tips, she ought to be able to afford some new clothes. But clothes seemed to be the last thing Angie was interested in.

The other problem was that the flat had only one bedroom. The sitting room had become a second bedroom where her sister had been sleeping for months now. Actually, quite a few months. It was funny how some people’s homes could feel too lived in.

While Angie got ready to go out, Diane looked at the wallpaper, striped in a faded shade of brown that she’d barely noticed.

‘Hey, Sis, would you like to help me re-decorate?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘It’s long overdue. I was thinking of something modern. Off-white and charcoal grey. What would you say to that?’

Angie groaned. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you, Di? Are you turning into Carol Smillie? If so, you might as well shoot me now, because I can’t live with you any longer.’

‘Who’s Carol Smillie?’

‘Are you kidding? She used to do those TV makeover shows, re-decorating people’s houses.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘It’s entertainment.’

Fry paced around the flat. ‘So you wouldn’t be able to live with the idea, then? A couple of off- white walls here, and a charcoal grey one there. Maybe one abstract picture in a chrome frame.’

‘It would drive me mad,’ said Angie. ‘It sounds totally cold and soulless. I couldn’t stand it for more than a day.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ said Diane.

‘You’re not really going to do it, are you?’

‘One day. One day I might.’

When Angie had left, Diane stalked the flat for a while, restless and dissatisfied with something. She seemed to have been dissatisfied ever since she came to Derbyshire.

She gave the wallpaper another glare, then realized how hungry she was. Then she thought about Ben Cooper. She imagined he was a proper little domestic god when he was tucked up securely in his home in Welbeck Street.

Later that evening, Georgi Kotsev leaned across a table at Caesar’s restaurant and raised his glass. ‘We say Nazdrave.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Yes. Cheers.’

‘Is the wine all right?’ asked Fry. ‘There isn’t much choice of places to eat in Edendale.’

‘Losho nyama. No problem.’

The last time Fry had eaten in Caesar’s, she’d been with Angie. It had been one of those futile attempts at re-creating the bond between them. She remembered that she’d only ended up feeling embarrassed by her sister. No, a bit ashamed — and therefore guilty, too.

It was the only place she’d been able to think of at short notice to bring Sergeant Kotsev. Inexplicably, she’d felt the need to give him a good impression of Edendale. As if it mattered — to him, or to her. They were both strangers passing through, except that Kotsev would be gone a bit sooner.

Though it was supposed to be an Italian restaurant, Fry had a suspicion that the waiters were East European. Judging by the shouted exchanges she overheard occasionally, probably the kitchen staff were too. It hadn’t occurred to her when she chose the restaurant and booked the table. But now she wondered whether an idea had been in the back of her mind to make Kotsev feel more at home, give him a little bit of Eastern Europe right here in this strange, foreign town.

But then, as they’d entered the restaurant, she had a momentary panic at the thought that he might be offended instead. The waiter who’d served her last time could have been Albanian or something. There were a lot of old territorial disputes and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans. Didn’t Bulgarians and Albanians have some kind of long- standing hatred between them? Might Kotsev refuse to be served by an Albanian waiter and make a terrible scene?

Oh, God. And all she’d wanted to do was make life a bit easier for someone. That would teach her to keep out of other people’s lives.

But Kotsev behaved impeccably. And she was relieved she’d chosen somewhere smart, because her guest was turned out nicely for the evening. She was glad she’d made a bit of an effort herself. Come to think of it, she might have been wearing the same cord blazer and hand-knitted alpaca cotton top that she’d put on tonight when she came here with Angie. She didn’t get many opportunities to wear them, and nothing else in her wardrobe had seemed suitable.

Kotsev looked at the menu. ‘Could you recommend anything?’

‘The confit of duck is excellent,’ she said, since it was the only thing she’d ever eaten here.

‘I think I will try a steak,’ he said.

Fry wondered if he’d read her ignorance so effortlessly.

‘What would you normally drink in Bulgaria?’

‘Our national drink is rakia — grape brandy. Or wine. People of this country are acquainted with Bulgarian red wine?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Our white wine is also delicious. But Bulgarian folklore presents a lot of songs about red wine and only one about white, which goes: “Oh, white wine, why are you not red?”’

Fry laughed. ‘You said you were born in a village. So your parents were country people, Sergeant Kotsev?’

‘Please. Call me Georgi.’

‘I’m Diane.’

‘Yes, I know.’

Kotsev’s brown eyes were rather sad when you came to look closely. The dark hairs on his wrist curled over the band of a gold watch, and his shirt cuffs were white and crisp. His clothes surely hadn’t come out of his suitcase like that. Fry could picture him ironing his shirts in his hotel room. Not many men could use an iron properly, but she bet that Kotsev did it very well.

‘You know, there were many different types of people in my family in the past,’ he said. ‘But mostly they were shepherds, goat chasers. Peasants, in other words. Sometimes men would come to our village from the city. If they wore long leather coats and had moustaches, we knew they were from the police, from the local administration or from the Party. The law was theirs. One word from them could have changed our lives. It’s difficult for you to understand the way we lived.’

Kotsev’s English wasn’t quite perfect, after all. She was starting to detect a tendency to pronounce the past tense of certain verbs as if there was an extra syllable on the end. Liv-ed. Chang-ed. She put it down to a lack of opportunity to practise conversation with native English speakers. It was understandable, too — since sometimes there was an extra syllable. Fry wondered whether she should correct him when he did it, or if he’d be offended. She decided not to mention it, unless he asked. It wasn’t a problem. In fact, she found it rather appealing.

‘Was this near Pleven?’ she said.

‘No, in the far south of our country, near the border with Greece. Quite a remote region of Bulgaria. No one spoke English there. Generally, it seems that all Bulgarians learn Russian, and a few learn German. But outside of Sofia, English is not commonly spoken. I was glad to go to the capital with my family. Otherwise, I might still be living with the goats.’ He put down the menu. ‘Have you chosen?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

Kotsev looked at the waiter across the restaurant. That was all he seemed to do, yet the man was instantly at their table to take their order.

‘But it’s good to know a little of your family history,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘My grandfather worked in a macaroni factory. When we were living in the countryside, my father used to talk of a girl, the daughter of a jeweller. I think he fell in love with her, you know. But they could never have married. Her family were bourgeois exiles from Sofia.’

‘Bourgeois?’

‘Yes. You understand what that means?’

‘Of course.’

Fry hadn’t heard the expression ‘bourgeois’ for a long time. Not since her student days, when there were still some old-fashioned Socialists around in Birmingham. It sounded rather quaint now.

‘Sadly, my mother died when I was very young,’ said Kotsev. ‘I don’t remember much of her. Only a green scarf with glittering threads woven through it. And I remember she had beautiful teeth. As white as Greek cheese, my father used to say.’

‘Good grief, what sort of compliment is that?’

‘A simple one, but honestly meant.’

A bottle of wine arrived, and Kotsev waited while it was poured.

‘As for my father,’ he said. ‘The memory from my childhood is a smell — a Soviet aftershave, which I think was called Tachanka.’ He smiled. ‘And you, Diane?’

‘Me?’

‘You say you don’t belong in this rural area?’

‘No, I’m from the Black Country. That’s near the city of Birmingham. An urban area, with a lot of people. Over a million.’

‘I see.’ He took a drink of wine. ‘And what of your parents?’

‘My parents?’ said Fry. ‘Like you, I remember almost nothing of them.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Almost nothing.’

Kotsev waited patiently, but realized she wasn’t going to say any more. When the waiter returned, they ate quietly for a few moments. Fry supposed she ought to ask him what he thought of the food. But food didn’t interest her much as a topic of conversation.

‘What exactly is your role in Pleven now, Georgi?’

‘Oh, you wish to talk business?’ he said.

‘I’d like to know how the Zhivko brothers might fit in to our present enquiry. Can you fill me in on some background?’

‘Ah, the Zhivkos — our dear friends Anton and Lazar. They were previously suspected of being engaged in a great number of criminal activities in my own country.’

‘Yes?’

Kotsev’s smile became quizzical as he hesitated under her expectant gaze.

‘There are many issues involved, Diane.’

‘Tell me some of them, at least.’

He nodded. ‘Well, as I mentioned, I’ve been working in co-operation with our colleagues at Europol for some time. Bulgaria is not a member of the European Union yet, you understand, but we co-operate nevertheless. We value their expertise in organized crime. A lot of events have been happening in my country, because of the EU.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Our government has been given conditions to meet before we will be allowed to join the EU. “Clean up your act,” they say. One of the things the EU does not like is our organized crime, our Mafia.’

‘Is organized crime such a big problem in Bulgaria?’

‘A big problem?’ Kotsev laughed. ‘You might say that. There are certain people who have become very rich running crime in my country. They grow so rich that they buy football clubs, or casinos in Sunny Beach. They rule their kingdoms by violence — punishment beatings, shootings. These are very ruthless men, and very powerful. The mutras, we call them. Clever and cruel killers.’

‘Mutras?’

‘In Bulgarian, mutra means “ugly face”. If you saw these people, you would understand. Many of them were out-of-work body builders or wrestlers who had to look for alternative employment. So they learned to shoot guns and joined forces with shady businessmen to exploit Bulgaria after the Change. You know what I mean by the Change? The events of 1989?’

‘Oh, the end of Communism.’

Kotsev nodded. ‘Well, these people made a big name for themselves by offering security to businesses — for a monthly fee, you understand. Owners who refused to pay fell victim to repeated robberies. You would call it the protection racket. Now mutra daddies drive around in armed convoys, and the only way we can get rid of them is if one of their own does it for us. These people behave as if they’re living in a Hollywood movie. We have Anton “The Beak” and Vassil “The Scalp”. Until now, they have been untouchable.’

‘Why untouchable, Georgi?’

Kotsev tapped his nose. ‘Connections. It is said that some of our highest government officials owe their positions to an association with these gangsters. And now they’re in a difficult position. Our government wants to join the European Union. The European Union says we must get rid of our Mafia. “If the police are issuing traffic tickets but turning their backs on major organized crime,” they say, “it raises a question over how democratic your country is.” Would you agree?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Dobre. There you have our problem. Sadly, if we don’t make progress in this area, it will delay our entry. A very big problem.’

‘I see.’

‘But, ah!’ said Kotsev, throwing out a hand. ‘Not such a problem, after all. Suddenly we have a miracle! And now, things are going our way.’

‘A miracle?’

‘In the past two years some of the most powerful Mafia bosses have been eliminated. One of them is shot leaving a casino after celebrating a victory by his football team. Another is gunned down with his bodyguards outside a bar. Sometimes, an entire family is murdered, as was often the case in blood feuds. All these killings appear to have been carried out by an expert shot. Perhaps more than one, we do not know. The suspects have never been caught, or even identified. The official theory concerns a war between rival gangs, who have employed hit men to do their dirty work.’

‘That sounds feasible.’

‘Yes, of course.’ He waited expectantly.

‘Are you suggesting the Zhivkos died in this way?’ asked Fry.

Kotsev spread his hands apologetically. ‘You understand there is much I can’t say.’

‘I’m too junior, is that it?’

‘My apologies, Sergeant. But, you see, the Zhivko brothers found themselves in the middle of all this. First on one side, as the agents of a leading mutra chief. Then, suddenly, they are on the losing side of the game. The Zhivkos are in danger of their lives, and they must leave the country. Yet even here, in Britain, they were not safe.’

Fry knew there was something else that he wasn’t telling her. His silence invited another question, if only she could work out what it was.

‘Wait a minute — you said that was the official theory. What’s the unofficial one?’

Kotsev smiled. ‘You may know, Sergeant Fry, that we have a highly efficient secret service in Bulgaria, the Darzavna Sigurnost. They were trained by the KGB in the old days, and many of them have remained in their employment. Their usefulness did not disappear with Communism.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re saying, Georgi.’

‘Some of these people have a talent for convenient assassinations. What more efficient way could there be to remove annoying criminals and save the difficulty of a trial, where embarrassing facts about government officials might emerge? A few extra stotinki in the pockets of a Darzavna Sigurnost operative. Boom, boom. Problem solved. Now it’s, “See, Mr EU Commissioner, we don’t have the nasty Mafia any more. How lucky. Now you can let us into your club.”’

Fry put down her fork. ‘No, that’s too incredible,’ she said.

Kotsev’s eyes crinkled as he held up a forkful of steak.

‘To you, perhaps. But you’re not in Kansas now.’