‘I haven’t left the boat since…’ Michelle started to say. She was in the front passenger seat of Boone’s old Land Cruiser, a vehicle that had seen much better days, but kept going. Flynn was driving and they were entering the environs of Banjul, the Gambia’s capital city. The streets teemed with people and traffic, fairly typical of an African town. Progress was slow, the heat tremendous and the air-con unit knackered. Flynn sweated heavily.
‘I understand,’ Flynn said for the umpteenth time, coaxing her gently along. He’d explained he had fleetingly seen the man that Boone had returned with from wherever, and that he thought that person would probably be well gone by now. But he expected that the small man who had helped the man off the boat, and the heavies — the ones who had returned to wreak havoc and death — would still be local.
Flynn had described the small, besuited man. Immediately Michelle exclaimed, ‘That’s Aleef.’
‘Aleef?’
‘Mamoud Aleef… he’s a fixer, a middleman, makes deals, takes a cut.’
This conversation had taken place a little earlier on the deck of Shell. Michelle had sobbed heavily for what seemed like a very long time before it had all subsided and Flynn had pushed her gently away from him, wiped her tears with his thumbs, reassured her and listened to her story. The fear, watching them destroy the houseboat, the rapes, the beatings. And also how, when the police came later, they simply sneered at her, dragged Boone’s body out of the water and that was the last she saw or heard.
‘I need you to help me find these men,’ Flynn insisted. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. You need to point me in the right direction.’
She nodded. ‘I will.’
Flynn had described to her what he’d seen when he’d gone to meet Boone arriving back from his hurried, mysterious journey. How he’d hidden behind barrels and watched the tough guys lounging by the big old Mercedes, the little man — Aleef — helping to transfer the injured man from the boat into the car. He had seen all their faces, they hadn’t seen him, and he had since managed to identify the injured passenger.
‘Who was he?’ Michelle asked.
Flynn then told her about the computer pages Boone had been browsing and when he’d got back to Gran Canaria, he’d found the same pages — and more.
‘A man on the run from the British cops on terrorism charges. I’m certain it’s a guy called Jamil Akram.’ He watched Michelle’s face as he said the name, but saw it meant nothing to her.
‘Boone brought a terrorist back from somewhere?’ she mused thinly.
‘Seems so.’
‘The utter fool. But why did they come after him? Surely he had done what they wanted?’
Flynn sighed, knowing Boone’s character of old. ‘I don’t know for sure, but my guess is he didn’t know who his cargo was until he read the news and saw pictures of Akram. Then suddenly he puts it all together… and…’ Flynn’s voice trailed off.
‘He went for more money. Blackmail,’ Michelle said, showing that she too knew Boone pretty well. ‘I’m sure the small man you describe is Aleef. He’s been around a long time, but in the shadows… he’s a businessman, got lots of henchmen. But I’m shocked he’s linked to a terrorist.’
‘Money,’ Flynn said. ‘How do you know him?’
‘Just do. He flits around the clubs, where he does a lot of his business… where I used to do my business. Until Boone gave me a future,’ she concluded resentfully.
‘Take me into town and find this Aleef. I’ll take it from there.’
The prospect of stepping foot off Shell and going into town clearly scared her. ‘I haven’t left the boat since,’ she said then, and when Flynn finally got her into the Land Cruiser, which he’d found to still be in working order, she continued to repeat the mantra all the way into town. She was plainly terrified of being out and about again.
‘They threatened to kill me,’ she said, turning her face to Flynn, half-hidden in the shadows, but her eyes were wide open. He swerved the Land Cruiser to the side of the road and said gently, ‘I’ll take you back. I’ll try and find them myself.’ He was being honest, not manipulative.
‘No, no,’ she insisted. ‘I’m doing this for Boone. They destroyed him and though I am saddened to say it, I want this, I want them dead, Flynn.’ She then looked forward, jaw set hard, a totally different woman to the one he’d met less than two weeks before, now transformed and changed for ever by the trauma she’d experienced. ‘Do it,’ she said.
Donaldson was back at the American embassy. Alone in his office, he was watching the DVD of the video that had been released by al-Qaeda of Rashid Rahman, the young man who had been shot dead on the motorway, who was ranting on about how he would take the fight to the infidel.
His wish — ‘To take as many unbelievers as possible so they may go to hell and I to heaven… and this is only the beginning, the big one is yet to come.’
The words, as ever, sent a shiver through Donaldson’s bones.
‘What a waste,’ he sighed and skipped the disc backwards and watched it again, leaning forwards, closely studying the image, this time with the sound turned down, his head shaking sadly at the terrible loss of a life. Then he noticed something that made him sit upright and think back to the moment he had spotted the other would-be terrorist, Zahid Sadiq, walking along Blackpool promenade, showing all the outward signs of being a suicide bomber. Inappropriate clothing. Robotic walk. The mouth chanting, mumbling his last prayers. Eyes fixed, staring ahead. And something else…
Donaldson shot forwards again, froze the image and pressed print screen.
‘You didn’t find him, then?’ a smug Rik Dean asked.
Henry had driven back to Blackpool police station to drop off the CID car, which had made it unscathed off Shoreside. He’d bumped accidentally into Rik, who had changed into some rough clothing and was making his way to the police garage with the keys for, as he described it, ‘the shittiest police car in there’. A turn of the millennium Nissan, tucked away in a dark corner, which no one used unless absolutely necessary. It should have been changed long ago, but cost cutting meant that if it had gone, there would have been no replacement, so the CID clung on to it as a last resort. It came in useful for jobs like tonight — keeping obs — but it wasn’t something you turned up in if you were out to impress.
‘I did, actually, but he needed to sleep it off.’
‘Pissed?’
‘His life’s going down the pan — literally,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve arranged for him to come in first thing in the morning.’
‘And you think he’ll turn up?’ Rik’s voice said he didn’t.
‘Yep.’
‘Henry, you’re too soft with that lad. It’s not your fault his sister OD’d, his brother’s a dealer and his mum got whacked.’
‘I know, but I think we have some sort of obligation to him.’ Henry sighed. It was an old conversation.
They were face to face in a narrow, poorly lit corridor just outside the custody office. A section van reversed in and two uniformed cops dragged a belligerent drunk out of the back doors. Another body for Blackpool police station’s prisoner sausage machine that processed over 12,000 each year.
‘Anyway, I’m going to give it a couple of hours.’ Rik dangled the car keys at Henry. ‘Until midnight, then I’ll find somewhere for a nightcap. You still coming?’
‘If you want some company,’ Henry said.
‘So long as you don’t go all social worker on me about Mark Carter.’
‘Promise.’
‘And I drive you home to get changed. Not certain a suit is the best attire for observations.’
‘OK… and I thought we could talk about shagging, y’know, like blokes do.’
Rik said, ‘I’ll go for that.’
Flynn and Michelle drifted from bar to bar, drinking soft drinks and sitting in dark alcoves from which they could keep watch for Aleef. It was hit and miss, no guarantees, but at least they were doing something. Flynn felt better about that. He was a man of action and some violence and moping about did not suit him. He needed this. Inside him, the desire for revenge was like a caged beast wanting to be set free. Even if Boone hadn’t been killed, had somehow escaped, Flynn would still have gone after the men who had shot him.