upon the table. “He’s retired and resentful. Mad sod will talk to anyone who’ll listen.” She laughed like a crazy cat, sliding the notes off the table and pocketing them.
After a night of very little sleep, Tallis got up early, went for a run then showered and dressed, but decided to stay unshaven. He took advantage of the hotel’s all-inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t a patch on the one he’d had the day before, but he was so hungry he wasn’t complaining. At nine-thirty, he phoned Peter Tremlett, dropping Crow’s name by way of an introduction.
“Christ, Micky Crow?”
“Yes, I—”
“Woman ought to be locked up.”
Tallis didn’t like to dwell on what Crow had done to the unfortunate Mr Tremlett to elicit such a forthright response. He moved swiftly on. “Thing is, it’s about the Demarku case,” he said, feeding Tremlett the same line he’d fed Crow. “Understand you were his probation officer.”
“Only in the technical sense. If you mean did I spend any time with him, the answer’s no.”
Tallis scratched his head. “But you had to work out a risk assessment for the parole board?”
“Oh, yes,” Tremlett said, voice packed with scorn. “But things aren’t as they used to be. When I first joined the probation service you spent time with your clients. Got to know them, got the measure of them. We did good work with some, prevented them from returning to a life of crime. Nowadays, we’re so swamped with paperwork the client’s the least of our problems. Know what happened in the Demarku case?” Tremlett’s voice soared. “I was given a sodding thick file to read and asked to talk to him via a video link to the prison. It’s ridiculous. Body language is often key to working out whether someone is genuine or not. You can’t pick up on a tapping foot or clenched fist if you’re staring into a screen. I mean, it’s laughable. There I was, having to make a judgement on a man without even being in the same room as him. And,” Tremlett said, anger convulsing him, “it’s not unusual. I’m just glad I’m out of it. You said you’re writing a book?”
“That’s right,” Tallis said, flinching at the slightly professorial tone.
“I’m thinking of doing the same. It will be a grand exposé.”
“Good for you,” Tallis said. “Going back to Demarku …”
“Ah, yes,” Tremlett said, in an I told you so manner. “Skipped deportation. Not that you can blame Immigration. They’re even more swamped than us.”
“Any ideas where he might be?”
“The spit of land between Hounslow and Heathrow, I dare say.”
Spit? Tallis thought. How had he come to that conclusion? He asked him.
“My sister lives there. Says the place is full of his type of people.”
Except it wasn’t. Thirty minutes out of central London, he expected to hear foreign accents, yet to say the place was overrun with Albanians was a myth.
Hounslow reminded him of parts of Moseley but with riverside walks and open spaces. According to the guide he’d picked up, it was supposed to play host to five historic houses, not that he’d seen much evidence of deep cultural heritage. The high street looked similar to hundreds of others: unremarkable. The only place of interest was a small trashy-looking letting and estate agency off the main drag. Some of the homes on offer, Tallis thought as he studied the window, he wouldn’t want to put a dog in. He wandered inside. A large black guy sprawled in front of a computer with a nervous-looking couple caught his eye and smiled, said he wouldn’t be a moment.
“We have no references,” the woman was saying in halting English.
“No problem.”
“But without references, we cannot get a mortgage.”
“I can get you a mortgage,” the black man said confidently. “I can get you anything.”
Passports, visas too, Tallis thought, ticking off the mental list. “It’s all right, I’ll come back later,” Tallis said, walking back outside, narrowing his eyes against a bright sun and sky veined with light. From there, he made his way back to central London where he trawled the outside of two mosques. Studying the faces of the faithful leaving after Friday prayers, he was met with a wall of dark suspicion. As an antidote, he headed for Soho.
Six hours later, footsore and weary, Tallis returned to the hotel. Many years before, he’d gone out with a girl who’d worked in Great Marlborough Street, something in public relations, he thought. She’d invited him down for what he’d hoped was a dirty weekend. He’d met her at her office after work full of expectation. She’d taken him on a whistle-stop tour around Soho—maybe it was to get him in the mood. He’d been gobsmacked by the place. It had seemed like the centre of the universe, bursting with life and colour. It hadn’t been the vice trade that had captured his attention, the restaurants, or the swirl of scandal boiling in the streets, but the presence of the film and television industry, all the small independent production companies, theatrical agents, actors’ support groups. There had been people like he’d never seen them before; with attitude, daring, assertive, look at me, darling. He’d loved the smell of success and, yes, the sometimes seediness, even liked the street names—Berwick, Frith, Brewer. It had seemed dangerously intoxicating to a poor lad brought up in the sticks. But that had been then. This time he looked with fresh eyes, jaded eyes maybe. When he spotted a small cinema it was one promising adult viewings, cards in windows advertised the prospect of a good time. It made him think only of Demarku and pain and exploitation, and no amount of gawping at astonishingly priced menus in staggeringly inviting eateries was going to change all that.
The following day he visited gyms, clubs and cafés. He hung out in several bars, eavesdropped on any number of conversations, flashed Demarku’s latest mugshot to a couple of likely looking sorts and came up empty. As a devout Muslim, Demarku was unlikely to be found in a back-street boozer, but Tallis hoped that it might spark a connection, cause a chain reaction. With the aid of Google Earth, it was possible to locate a guy by the brand of condom he used. All you needed was an address in a suburb. Via a computer, you could trace a mobile-phone user, even with the phone on sleep mode, to within five hundred yards. But he had no address, no phone, no nothing, in fact. He was beginning to feel the awesome nature of the task ahead of him, wondered how he was going to get that one lucky break. Around four, he found himself in a bar full of old people and dispossessed-looking men and women on benefits, drinking their way to oblivion. The old folk had red eyes and red faces, the younger lines and heavy jaws. The talk was of soap stars and TV shows and somebody’s latest operation. Nobody spoke of politics or the state of the nation. Afterwards, he took a detour through Chinatown, eventually picking up the underground at Tottenham Court Road back to Euston. Not a very productive day.
But tomorrow would be different, he promised himself. Tomorrow he was going to a pub in Earl’s Court. According to a snippet of conversation gleaned from two unsuspecting Croats rabbiting away on the tube, the place was well known for its eclectic clientele.
CHAPTER NINE
SUNDAY morning in London, beautifully warm and sunny, with only a few wisps of cloud in a sky panelled with light. Perfect. Resisting the temptation to visit the Imperial War Museum, Tallis decided to meander down the Kings Road, and eventually found himself staring into the branch windows of some very expensive estate agents. Their business cards, he noticed from a display, were printed
