“Stay where you are, admire the scenery.” He wanted time to collect his thoughts, think about what he was going to ask next. He ordered another pint and the same again for Crow.
“Gather Demarku had also been linked to a serious rape,” he said a few moments later, putting their glasses down on the table.
“Didn’t have the evidence to nail him.”
“No DNA?”
“No.”
“What about the victim? Couldn’t she ID him?”
Crow shook her head. “Never properly recovered.”
“Too scared to point a finger?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Think she’d talk to me?”
Crow snorted. “You’re a charmer, but I don’t think so. She’s had a shit time since the attack. Marriage collapsed under the strain. Kids went with dad.”
“Christ.”
“Christ indeed.” Crow picked a flake of tobacco from her tongue.
“Keep in touch?”
“Yeah, I do, actually. Not on a regular basis. Just call in when I can. And no, I’m not telling you who she is and where she lives,” Crow added, giving a deep, dirty, thirty-a-day laugh.
“Fair enough. Think Demarku might try and find her?”
“Have a hard time. She’s moved twice in the last twelve years. Anyway, I don’t think that’s his game.”
“And what is his game?”
“Prostitution, and if he embraces our brand-new world and joins his brothers, people trafficking and drugs. The Albanians have cornered the market in London. Should suit you, if you’re ever out of a job.” She laughed.
Tallis eyed her over the rim of his glass. He wasn’t joining in.
“Keep your pants on.” Crow grinned. “The Albanians trust no one but, at street-distribution level, they employ Croats. Fuck knows how they understand each other.”
Tallis quietly filed the information away. Crow obviously didn’t know much about the Balkans. Croatians spoke and understood Serbo-Croat as did the Albanians, even if they didn’t like to admit to it. “Going back to the rape. Anything stick in the victim’s mind about the attack?”
“Apart from its degrading nature?”
“Thinking more along the lines of Demarku himself, about his character, the way he behaved.”
Crow’s dark eyebrows drew together. “You into all that psychological stuff?” She didn’t sound very enamoured.
“Just trying to find something original to say.”
“There was something, actually. I picked up on it too, so it’s not exactly revealing a trade secret.”
“Yeah?”
“Cologne. The guy liked to smell good. Not any old cheap rubbish either. And he liked expensive clothes. Definitely got a bit of a flash streak.” She gave her glass a mournful stare. “One for the road, I think. What’s yours?”
Tallis told her. “A half’s fine,” he added.
Crow returned with a pint for him. “No point in pissing about,” she said, grinning happily. “Thought of someone else you could talk to.” Tallis raised an eyebrow. Alcohol was definitely having the desired effect. “Guy called Peter Tremlett. He was the probation officer involved in the parole board decision to release Demarku.”
Tallis knew enough about this most secretive of breeds to know that Crow was way off the mark. Probation officers had much in common with customs and excise officers: both kept their mouths shut. “He won’t talk to me,” he scoffed.
Crow winked. “Twenty quid says he will.”
Tallis eyed her. She was definitely confident. “All right,” he said, intrigued, taking two tens from his wallet. “But, remember, I know where to come looking if you’re telling porkies.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Crow leant forward, allowing her large bosom to rest 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