Stepping down from the bus, Caramarin hurried across Cheetham Hill Road and let himself into the girls’ house. Light from the lounge filled the hall. Inside, he saw Ewelina sitting on the two seater couch, her laptop on her knees. She'd obviously only recently come out the shower as she was wearing her white robe with a towel wrapped around her head. She glanced up before carrying on tapping away. One mule dangled from her toes. Caramarin brewed them both a mug of tea and brought it in for her. He sat next to her and waited for her to finish.
Ewelina shifted slightly to face him. Either she didn't notice or didn't care as her bathrobe slipped open to reveal a shapely white thigh.
"If you're on your internet," said Caramarin, "Could you do me a favour?"
She nodded.
"Look up a man. Gjergji Shkurti, please." Caramarin spelled out the name for her. "He's a Manchester businessman now."
"Albanian? You're mixed up with those guys? But they're..."
"Yes, I know."
He spelled out the name for Ewelina and she bent over her laptop. A few seconds later, her hand flew to her mouth.
"Oh," she said. She carried on searching for the next few minutes. There seemed to be quite a lot of entries about this man.
"What are you into, Nicu?" asked Ewelina. Her pretty face frowning with worry, her white teeth biting her lower lip.
"Go on," said Caramarin.
"It says here, he's got away with murder," she said. "Literally."
Ewelina covered her leg then gave him the low-down of some of the known activities of Gjergji Shkurti.
Since arriving in Britain a few years before he'd shown up on the police radar more than once. His first brush with the law came when a warehouse full of illegally distilled potato vodka blew up. A Polish worker was killed and another received severe third degree burns. The warehouse turned out to be run by a company owned by Shkurti. He denied all knowledge – claiming he intended the warehouse was solely for used car parts and the Poles were working on the side without his permission.
A week later, a lorry carrying imported Russian vodka went missing. The driver was found on the M62 motorway. By a miracle, the driver was still alive, if only just. He told Manchester Police he'd been ambushed by Albanian gangsters. A day later, some mix-up with the saline drip at the hospital killed the driver. Later, the vodka turned up in clubs all over the North West and Yorkshire. Again, Shkurti was hauled in for questioning but any charges dropped like a lead balloon.
Worse followed. Gjergji Shkurti's brother, Bekim, was found floating face down in the Rochdale Canal. This provoked what even the police admitted was a gang war. Over the next few months, a few Russians turned up dead. All of them shot through the head.
The Petrograd Boutique Lounge burned to the ground It was a restaurant with a small nightclub popular with Premier League footballers and girls hoping to bed one. The blackened shell was bought by Shkurti and reopened. Nobody ever saw the chef again.
An Albanian driving along the M62 from the docks at Hull was stopped outside the Petrograd Boutique Lounge. When the car was stripped down, five kilos of pure heroin was discovered. Once again, Gjergji Shkurti found himself called in for questioning. But, through his translator, he claimed to know nothing about anything.
Shortly after the courier was sprung from the prison van ferrying him from Strangeways prison to the courts. Two escorting security guards were badly beaten. All the other prisoners were soon recaptured but the Albanian courier was never found. Maybe he ended up in the same place as the Petrograd's chef.
"I remember that," murmured Ewelina. "The papers said one of those poor guards will never walk again." She crossed her legs, once again her thigh showed.
The gang war died down for a while but then it looked like Shkurti might have over reached himself when he was arrested in a dawn raid and tried for the murder of a Russian gangster, Yevgeny 'T-72' Malyarov. Shkurti's DNA was found at the scene. To the Crown Prosecution Service it had all the hallmarks of an open and shut case. But the only witness developed amnesia and the jury returned a 'Not Guilty' verdict. Definitely leaned on, Caramarin thought.
He'd done his share of intimidation himself in the past. Once you reminded witnesses that police protection usually lasted only until the verdict and after that the law wasn't interested, they saw matters any which way you wanted them.
Ewelina next showed him the Youtube video of the police's response to the verdict. Standing on the court's steps, Caramarin didn't need to understand English to see the anger and disappointment on the Inspector's face.
Ewelina also showed him a video of Gjergji Shkurti leaving court. The clip must have been filmed only minutes after the Inspector's. Shkurti stood behind a tall, patrician, well dressed solicitor reading a prepared statement.
Studying the video, Shkurti was dark skinned with black hair. He stood impassive, glaring at the cameras. He wore a sober navy blue suit with a well matched painted silk tie. Caramarin wasn't sure now but thought he might have seen him at the illegal bare-knuckle fight at the barn.
"While you're on your internet, see if you can find the address of a woman's refuge centre? Y'know for battered women."
She gave him a look. "I don't think I want to know what you're into, Nicu."
"It's okay. I'm not into battering women," he grinned, trying to make a joke of it.
"I know that. But there's more than one way of hurting someone, and I don't want you hurting our Narcisa," she said. Caramarin said nothing, just shook his head.
She typed and searched some more and wrote down an address for Caramarin. On an impulse Caramarin gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you," he said.
Neither heard the front door open. Narcisa stood in the lounge door, melting snow on her shoulders, speckling her dark hair. The look on her face, she'd seen their kiss and Ewelina's thigh. She stamped her feet and shook out her coat. Ewelina jerked away from Caramarin and closed her bathrobe. The two women spoke rapidly in English.
"Ewelina was just looking up something for me on her internet," said Caramarin with what he hoped was a winning smile.
"It's the internet, not her internet," snapped Narcisa. She stormed upstairs.
Caramarin raced after her. Her bedroom door was shut tight. He knocked twice and stepped inside. Narcisa was sitting on the end of her bed, crying. He sat next to her, draped his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. He kissed her head. She tried to push him off but he held her close.
"It's not good enough," she wept. "I let you stay and as soon as my back's turned you're all over Ewelina and she's practically throwing herself at you."
"Come on, it wasn't like that at all. You know you can rely on your Auntie 'Lina, even if you don't trust me. She was just looking up some information for me on her computer."
"While you were looking up her legs is more like it," Narcisa cried.
"No. Anyway, you've got much better legs than her." Not strictly true, but honesty is not always the best policy.
"How would you know I've got better legs?" Narcisa sniffed.
"Let's see them and I'll prove it to you," smiled Caramarin. His hand slipped down to her thigh.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Nicu. A bad day at work and the manager had another go at me. I've been in a funny mood all day. I'm sorry." She shook off his hand. "I'm starving. Let's grab something to eat."
Caramarin handed her an Indian takeaway leaflet and some money. "Yeah, something hot and spicy. Warm us up."
Narcisa sighed and made the call. She ordered enough to feed an army. However, Caramarin noticed his money was getting low again as he paid the delivery man. A few minutes later, Caramarin noticed Narcisa and Ewelina talking more rapid English in the kitchen as they unpacked the foil containers. They looked at him several times and both looked worried.
Full, the crew sprawled out before the television. Artur rolled a couple of joints and passed them round. The tense, edgy atmosphere of earlier faded away on the heavy smoke. Caramarin inhaled deeply. He hadn't felt this relaxed for ages. Stoned, even the programme started to make some kind of sense. Narcisa took the blunt then dragged on it just as deeply. She giggled and curled up next to him.
Caramarin bumped along to the kitchen for more potato chips. The passage was at a strange, unearthly angle now. He giggled. Out of the window he saw snow falling. Fumbling with the key, he unlocked the kitchen door and watched the flakes drift to earth, covering the ugly, littered, mossy yard with whiteness.
He turned his face up to the heavens, staring up as they floated slowly to the ground, pale brown in the sodium glow of the street lights, but pure brilliant white when they landed. Each one a little cold kiss on his face. He felt Narcisa's arm slip around his waist.
"Look," he said, "there's thousands, millions, zillions of them."
Narcisa burst into laughter. And that set off Caramarin. The others crowded around them, awed like children with the snowfall as infinite flakes fell around them. Artur lit up and the green passed round some more.
"I'm getting cold," said Narcisa. She took hold of Caramarin's hand and led him into the house and upstairs. Both had a fit of the giggles half way.
Much later, as they lay together in each other's arms, he felt her body shudder with silent sobs.
"You're going to hurt me," she cried. "I just know it somehow."
"That's just the weed talking. But what makes you say that?" Which was not exactly a denial.
"You're not really looking for someone. You're not here to learn English, find work or get a normal job are you? You're looking for trouble. Ewelina told me you were interested in some Albanian gangster. You're totally in the life, aren't you? I should've known better ..."
Caramarin gripped her shoulders. "Forget the Albanian," he said. "Don't you mention him to anyone, understood? No-one at all."
He thought for a second. "Sometimes you get into something and you can't get out of it so easily. I've got a few things to sort out and then I'll see what happens. Get myself right with the world again."
He dried her eyes with his finger tip, and then kissed her.
"What do you want, Nicu? I mean really? Since you've been here, you've been beaten to a pulp, you've got no money, you're dossing on a couch and..."
"I've moved up in the world. I'm in your bed," he pointed out, squeezing her boob.
"Beast. And you're messing with the Albanians?"
"You asked what I want? Maybe a little farm, somewhere in Romania or Moldova. Out in the country. Somewhere with plum trees, maybe even a little vineyard where I can make my own brandy. A good woman to share it with. Kids running around the yard?"
Where had that come from? The weed?
Narcisa snuggled next to him. "Sounds lovely. Hope you make it."
You not we.