Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  He was at Katz’s cabin door early the next morning in a new beige fleece, checked shirt and hard-wearing trousers. She invited him in while she finished packing. He looked at the bed she had slept in and sat on the corner, his back to the pillows.

  She patted down her white blouse and faced him. ‘The camera. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It was your camera; I didn’t expect you to have it. Following him was something I decided on the spur of the moment.’

  He stared at his shoes, still blemished with dry dirt, uneased by her kindness. ‘I keep thinking about what he’s done and how we could’ve nailed him with the footage. But I gave the game away… lost the evidence.’

  She held the cabin door open. ‘We’ll get him. You drive. I need to liaise with the Dutch.’

  Vinnie was on starting blocks, nose pointed at the foot passenger door. As soon as the footbridge grabbed on to the side of the ferry like the docking of a spacecraft, he hurried across to the terminal building where folk stood waiting for you, car keys hanging off their thumbs. He looked at the assembled who looked back and beyond. No Michael. Too clueless to find this place. He skittered down the stairs and fled into the July sunshine. It was eight forty-five and it felt like noon on a first-rate day. His gaze got to work on the car park then he realised he had asked his nephew to arrive in an unfamiliar car. Behind him the bow doors were already unveiling the car deck. Vinnie jogged up and down past the parked cars on dry land, peering at windscreens, his phone at his ear. He threw down his day-bag and sat on it. He should’ve told him. If he had told him that plod were on their case Michael would’ve stepped up, would’ve relished the fight, the game. But then he would want to know how come the fuckers found out and if he saw the washed-up border-jumpers on the news he’d run off on his own somewhere.

  Katz managed to ID Vinnie as they drove away from the terminal and phoned Hans van Duren.

  ‘I’ve just passed him on the way out, we’re in front of him.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got him, Esther. There’s only one road he can take. You park up a couple of kilometres ahead, I’ll be behind him.’

  Tyres squealed from within the sun’s rays. Vinnie tried to make himself visible. It was impossible to make out the driver from that distance, but he could tell by the reckless speed that it was his nephew behind the wheel. A silver VW Scirocco hurtled round the last row of bays and came straight for him.

  ‘Yo, Vinnie.’ Michael stepped out and patted the roof. ‘What d’ya reckon?’

  Vinnie got in, slammed the door and snatched at the seat belt. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m having a nightmare with the hostel, aren’t I?’

  ‘Just drive.’

  Atherton spun the dodgem-sized steering wheel with one hand and headed for the front of the exit queue to bully his way in. ‘That’s what I’m saying. They won’t leave the hostel. That big fucker in the vest, wherever he’s from, he won’t shift and he won’t work neither.’

  ‘It’s not our problem anymore, son. We’re moving on. I don’t like this town.’

  ‘I don’t mind it… Where we going?’

  Michael had leap-frogged, cut up, asked permission and took permission all along Moezelweg and was about to unwittingly give Hans the slip on the N220. Vinnie looked over his shoulder, pleased with their progress whilst the hoofdagent was waiting for some lights to change colour.

  ‘Brussels, that’s where we’re going, son.’

  ‘Yeah? …How far’s that?’

  ‘Not fucking far enough,’ hissed Vinnie.

  ‘When yer thinking?’

  ‘Tomorrow, today, maybe.’

  ‘What the fuck, Vinnie?! We got wages coming the end of the week. Wait till Friday at fucking least. We could get off with everyone’s pay then.’

  O’Grady and Katz waited at the next set of lights. Van Duren had phoned to tell them to expect to be passed by a silver ‘Scirocco, registration…’ O’Grady hugged the right-hand lane and, just as van Duren had promised, a Scirocco enlarged itself in the rear-view mirror and then pulled up alongside them in the left-hand lane. O’Grady looked down at his lap; Katz looked in the glove compartment.

  Vinnie looked across at a right-hand drive, at a couple that weren’t well-matched, at… the fucker in the camera, the bastard peeler. ‘Tell yer another thing, Michael. See, this car… yer going to have to get shot of it.’

  Michael shook his head, revved up and kickstarted the car in third gear, under a new-born red light, taking out his fury on the clutch. In three and a half seconds he had vanished.

  O’Grady jumped the light in his wake, the thoroughfare tightening to single lanes with the addition of roomy cycle paths either side. His way was clear until he approached a bend with a cyclist taking the long curve as slow and as wide as he liked. O’Grady gambled on straddling the white lines when a 4x4 coming the other way flinched him to the right. Katz heard a sound like a tambourine thrown onto the pavement. ‘Stop!’ She turned to see the white polyester figure lying star-shaped in the road.

  ‘Gavin, forget the pursuit. We have to stop.’

  O’Grady braked and went back, returning to the scene of the accident.

  Thirty

  Rotterdam

  The casualty wasn’t moving.

  ‘You alright, sir?’ enquired O’Grady.

  The man lay on his front, head to one side, on the edge of the cycle lane. There was no blood and he had a helmet on. He wasn’t stirring or groaning, and the sergeant was unsure of where to take it from there. Katz kneeled and took a hand to hold – the fingers were limp. From closer inspection he was somewhere in the pastures of mid-life. She located a pulse, but his eyes remained shut, though there was some dribble on his chin.

  ‘Hello, can you hear me, sir?’ she said slowly.

  He remained oblivious.

  ‘Ring an ambulance,’ she said.

  O’Grady reached for his phone, then hesitated, ‘What’s the number for that here?’

  Katz shrugged; the casualty stirred and said, ‘It’s 112, and ask for the police as well.’

  O’Grady walked up the road out of earshot to make the call. As the traffic glided past, he looked in the direction that Vincent Gilheaney had gone. When he returned to the scene the casualty, whose name he didn’t want to know, was on his back with his knees raised and his head propped up on Katz’s coat.

  ‘Where does it hurt?’ O’Grady asked him.

  ‘My neck and my back,’ he replied.

  ‘But you can move your legs okay?’

  The casualty whimpered, lowered his legs and placed a palm over his face.

  ‘Try not to move,’ cautioned Katz.

  Van Duren arrived and started getting out traffic cones and a warning sign. Without a word to his English colleagues he went over to the casualty and began a conversation in Dutch. Although he didn’t speak a word of the language, O’Grady was certain van Duren had asked him for an account of events and the cyclist described the driver as a dangerous grim reaper of the highway. He walked over to have a word in van Duren’s multi-lingual ear.

  ‘Fact is, Hans, he swung out of the cycle lane into the car. He was going too fast on the bend. Way too fast.’

  ‘On a bike?’

  O’Grady replied with a glare; van Duren responded loud and clear as if he were chairing a public meeting. ‘Okay, I hear you, Sergeant, and you will have your chance to tell your story at the station.’

  It was like that then.

  The casualty smiled up at the heavens. The ambulance came and he was softly helped on to a stretcher, requesting a neck brace.

  ‘Okay, you must follow me to the station now. Esther, you can drive.’

  O’Grady slammed the passenger side door.

  ‘For a moment I thought Hans was going to draw a chalk line around him.’

  Katz reacted with a look t
hat semaphored, don’t.

  Michael Atherton raged all the way from the jumped traffic lights to the flat on Dwingelostraat.

  ‘What do you mean, sell the motor? Just fuckin’ got hold of it, you dick. Are you mad? I graft too, yer know, I have to deal day and night with those fuckin’ pain in the arse border-jumpers, you asked me to get a car – well, this is it and it’s no run-around – it’s worth a lot of dough to people who appreciate cars…’ He snatched up the handbrake and fell silent.

  Vinnie allowed the hush to colonise before voicing his lines. ‘Look, son. It’s a nice car, a lovely car. But the peelers are here. And they have the number now. That was them next to us, back at the lights you left.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘They must have been on the ferry,’ surmised Vinnie.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think? They’re after you, son. Through me. They’ve followed me from Hull to find you. That’s why I left the lorry, that’s why the car has to go. I’m sorry, it’s a nice car ’n’ that. How much did it cost?’

  Michael had calmed; his voice verged on apologetic. ‘Nothing. I robbed it. But I like it.’

  ‘A shame, right enough.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Michael.

  ‘We leave town, son. Get on our toes. Dump this car somewhere else. I’ll pack the van and we just go.’ Vinnie clicked his fingers. ‘You remember what De Niro said in Heat?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  They recited in unison. ‘Never have anything in your life you cannot walk away from… in thirty seconds if you feel the heat come around the corner.’

  Michael nodded. It was time to get professional.

  *

  Katz and O’Grady were in the main office of the politie bureau. Katz was introduced to someone of equal rank while her sergeant was invited to sit in a corner. Dutch bobbies weren’t the laid-back types O’Grady had envisaged. Patrol officers marching through the building wore body armour and even the one nearby playing solitaire on her computer was packing a sidearm. Everyone, bar van Duren, was kitted to some degree in a black uniform. There was no background radio, no coffee or apple-based pastries on anyone’s desks. One or two politieagenten looked in his direction and spoke in repetitive glottal stops.

  The solitaire player clicked back into a document, turned and smiled; O’Grady smiled more.

  ‘Wacht je om iemand te zien?’ she asked.

  ‘Not sure, I’m English. I think Hans van Duren is taking care of me.’

  ‘Okay… I’m Brigitte.’

  ‘Gavin.’

  She was short, stocky, defined by hips and shoulders, by her blonde bob, but mostly by welcoming eyes. She swivelled back to her keyboard and he looked around for any sign of Katz or van Duren. He was being typecast as a suspect, as someone parked in a waiting area until after dinner. Officers glimpsed at him and he looked back until they looked elsewhere. He considered leaving the building for an elevenses but instead got up and strolled over to the eight-foot-high windows. He was eye level with the crown of a sycamore. The tree was not yet mature; its leaves were bright, splayed, shimmering with sap, and the time would come, probably within the next ten years, when it would have to be reined in with a chainsaw. Cyclists sped along under the canopy.

  ‘Would you like a coffee?’ asked a voice from behind.

  ‘Indeed, why not, Brigitte,’ he said.

  ‘Want to come with me?’

  He followed her down the length of the open-plan office into a small room of water coolers, microwaves and the tang of melted cheese.

  ‘I hear you’re a police officer from England.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said once more. He went on, ‘I’m here on an operation pursuing a murder suspect.’

  ‘Really, well, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help… I’m just trawling through files right now.’

  She was, he estimated, about his age, and he thought for a moment how absurd it was that he had considered holding Katz in his arms. He filled Brigitte in on his case and asked about their traffic cam software, but before she could answer Hans van Duren thrust his head around the door.

  ‘Okay, Sergeant, if you please.’

  He thanked Brigitte with his most boyish of smiles and followed van Duren to a windowless interview room. Resting on the centre table was a black box tape recorder. O’Grady pulled up short.

  Hans pointed to a chair. ‘Okay, sit.’

  O’Grady stood his ground. We usually say please, even to the rapists. ‘Are you interviewing me under caution?’ he asked.

  Hans placed his first-choice biro down on his clipboard. ‘Okay, you’ve been in a road traffic accident and the casualty is in hospital. We need to treat this like we would any other incident.’

  O’Grady sipped his coffee and took a moment to swallow. ‘Here’s the thing, Hans, I’m a serving police officer and I was pursuing a suspect. He, Mister Casualty, didn’t stay in his cycle lane. He hit me, with his pension plan bike.’

  Van Duren ignored that. ‘Do you want a lawyer?’

  ‘No. Because there’s not much more to it. He left the pink cycle lane as I was passing him and bounced off the rear of the car. There was nothing I could have done.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll see what Detective Katz has to say, but I should tell you something, Sergeant. The law in Holland is a little different from the UK. Where there is a collision between a cyclist and a motorist, the presumption of guilt is always with the motorist. Until proven otherwise. We feel it provides protection for the cyclist.’

  ‘And I bet Mister Casualty knows all about the law.’

  Van Duren got up and opened the interview room door for him, the way the police do for suspects.

  He went back to his corner to wait for Katz. After another humiliating interval she was finally led back into the office by her opposite number, a woman so power-dressed in comparison to Katz, she made her look like a middle-aged intern. The Dutch detective half nodded to a few obsequious uniforms before being approached by van Duren who requested, in English, a few minutes with ‘Esther’. O’Grady watched her enter van Duren’s interview room and watched her intently thereafter, seeking signs of loyalty, signs of betrayal.

  *

  Vinnie swung his case into the back of the blue transit; the chosen wily getaway transport to Brussels. Michael had been sent to leave the VW Scirocco a few miles away from the flat. The transit might be in need of a service and a jet-wash, but a train journey would expose them to the scrutiny of cameras. Vinnie had spoken to cousin Kenny, and Kenny had a room for the two of them and six shifts behind the bar between them. He would know something was amiss but wouldn’t ask any questions and wouldn’t expect any asked of him. Vinnie had once thrown a fight for Kenny for a slice of the proceeds; like Vinnie, he was a survivor on his toes. He would be sure to have contacts in Brussels and beyond, in other countries, no doubt.

  Michael had left the Scirocco on Geertruidenbergstraat with the keys in the ignition and was ambling back to the flat. The walk had given him time to think. Maybe it would be best for them to split up; there might be less chance of them both getting caught. Vinnie had helped him escape and would get some time for that. They could go their separate ways for a year or two, perhaps – plod wouldn’t chase them forever; they’d leave a warrant outstanding and hope that the two of them would turn up somewhere. He’d known people who’d escaped from jails, from court, from transport, after twelve months they were back drinking in their local with their backs turned to the door. Plod must be pretty pissed off to have come all the way to Rotterdam. Pretty clued up as well. How did they know it was Vinnie that had sprung him and that they were in Rotterdam? Michael’s slowing stroll came to a halt. I’ll tell you why, you stupid fucker, because they’re on to his game with the border-jumpers. It’s not you they’re after – it’s him.

  He arrived
at the flat; before he could drop down into an armchair, Vinnie issued an order. ‘Pack up everything up, every last trace of you, put it in the van.’

  Michael stared at his uncle, incredulous at his cheek, at his own naivety. ‘Plod haven’t come all this way for me, have they? They’ve come for you, haven’t they?’

  Vinnie shrugged – his nephew spelled it out for him. ‘They might not find this flat, but they will find the hostel. We need to stop off there and lose the evidence.’

  ‘What evidence?’ asked Vinnie in his ‘chill your beans’ voice.

  ‘The fucking boxes and crates, the stuff you’ve been putting people in.’

  Vinnie raised an eyebrow in a ‘you might have a point’ way.

  In front of the apartment block, on a patch of grass bordered by a knee-high wall, Black Vest Guy was conducting a wrestling class for a group of children. He spat on his palms, waved them towards him, swaying on his haunches. Holding a boy on each shoulder while another tugged at his leg, he still managed to acknowledge the arrival of Michael and Vinnie. Michael headed into the hostel whilst Vinnie went around the back to the garages. He raised an aluminium door and took in the contents: a skip full of crates, cardboard, soft packaging and clusters of one-pint water bottles. Vinnie envisaged an out-of-control bonfire but settled instead on a familiar plan of a series of fly-tip stops along motorway slip roads.

  ‘You making another trip to England?’ Black Vest Man’s voice was close behind.

  ‘That’s right,’ answered Vinnie.

  The shadow of Black Vest Guy spread into the garage, but Vinnie didn’t turn.

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Soon, very soon.’

  ‘You’ll let me know?’

  ‘You’ll be the first to know.’

  As the shadow retreated Vinnie breathed out. He had played him like a violin.