Blood Whispers Read Free Page A

wild flowers growing along the dusty track that led away from the main road, up towards her cottage.
    The small plot of land surrounding the cottage sat two kilometres or so into the foothills that encircled the village.
    An impoverished life had left its mark on Valbona’s once handsome features; she looked much older than her fifty-five years. A dark nest of unkempt hair fell around her shoulders in a dry lifeless weave: her weather-beaten skin, which was creased in deep lines along her forehead and around her eyes, had baked into a permanent frown. The light blue flower-print dress she wore was faded and frayed and hung loosely from her bony shoulders. Her eyes, which appeared closed, were set against the harsh rays bouncing up from the bleached, arid landscape of her surroundings.
    The wide path was edged by a chest-height, drystone wall to her left that stretched in a long arc for its entire length and climbed gently into the craggy hillside. After just a few hundred metres Valbona started to notice something different in the way the loose stones lay on the ground – at first almost imperceptible, but as she walked on further she could quite clearly make out a set of tyre tracks impressed into the thin layer of dust covering the surface of the heavily compacted soil. She stopped for a second and followed the line of the tracks with her gaze until they disappeared from view round the gradual curve in the road. It struck her in that moment that in all the years she had lived there she had never once seen a car, nor any other vehicle for that matter, on this stretch of road. There were three other small cottages similar to hers dotted along the hillside, with Valbona’s being the furthest away, but none of her neighbours owned a car. As she made her way past each of their houses in turn it became obvious to her that whoever had driven along this way had most likely come to visit her. Moreover, as there was clearly only one set of tracks, and the road was a dead end, the probability was that they were still there.
    A look of anxiety crossed her face and she set off again at a quicker pace; every instinct in her body screaming at her that this had something to do with her daughter Kaltrina.
    Fifty metres from her house she saw a white Mercedes parked outside the breach in the wall that marked the entrance to her small garden. A man was leaning casually against the driver’s door smoking a cigarette. From the short-sleeved black shirt and dark sunglasses he was wearing it was obvious to her that he was a member of the Clan. When he spotted her approaching he pushed himself off the vehicle and stood watching her dispassionately as he finished off his smoke.
    He waited until she was just a few metres away before he spoke.
    ‘You’re late.’
    Valbona didn’t respond.
    The small area of overgrown grass in front of the house was littered with the flaked and rusting skeletons of obsolete farm equipment. Aware that he was following just a few paces behind, Valbona continued on up to the front door, her heart pounding in her chest. The door opened directly into a small kitchen, with an opening on the left leading to a cramped living area and another door on the right that led to a narrow corridor with a bedroom on either side. An insufficient, wooden-shuttered window at the far end kept the corridor in almost total darkness.
    Her husband Edon was sitting at the kitchen table with another man directly opposite. Edon stared up at her with heavy, doleful eyes that struggled to focus. The top half of his cream shirt had deep, red stains spattered down the front and across the shoulders. There was significant swelling around the left-hand side of his face. A steady flow of blood glistened as it dribbled from the side of his mouth where his lip had split open.
    They all turned as if they had been waiting for her.
    Valbona placed her shopping bags on the worktop by the sink and started to unpack the fruit and vegetables.
    She didn’t