by R J Bailey
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Give me a minute.’
He hoisted the knees of his trousers, got down on the ground and began an almost melody-free whistling. From his pocket he took out a compact Maglite and examined the chassis. He ran his hands around the bumpers, too, and the wheel arches. The whistling stopped abruptly.
‘You found something?’
‘Nope.’ He pulled a clump of mud out of the wheel arch. ‘OK, open her up.’
I pressed the button. The car flashed its sidelights and the interior lit up. I opened the door and was hit by the new-car smell of leather, plastics and faux-wood. I sat in, adjusted the rake of the steering wheel and moved to fire it up. ‘No. Before you start the engine.’
He leaned inside and looked under the dash, checking all the panels were tight.
‘Pull the bonnet release, can you?’
Another quick inspection around the engine bay and he slammed it closed.
‘Trunk.’
‘Boot,’ I corrected. It took me a while to find that one.
‘Sorry, we’ll be doing this every time we have left it unattended. I need to check.’
‘For trackers?’
‘Yes. I’ve got a GPS and RF detector I’ll run over it too. But I’m also looking for something nastier. Used to be they used mercury tilt switches,’ he said. ‘Easy to spot. Now they use the same technology that puts a spirit level in your iPhone.’ He held thumb and forefinger a few millimetres apart. ‘Tiny. But the first corner you lean into . . . Boom.’
‘You honestly think . . . ?’ I began.
‘Ez dakit,’ he said softly, before switching back to English. ‘I don’t know. No stone unturned, eh?’ He brushed dirt off his hands, then his knees, and walked to the rear of the vehicle.
‘Right. No stone unturned.’ I watched a cohort of jerky black shadows diving above the lights on the square, scooping up a final meal of insects. Bats. My insides felt as if there were a couple of them trapped inside me, flapping about. I hadn’t figured on worrying about bombs.
‘Sam,’ Konrad said. ‘Come here a second.’
I got out and walked around to the rear of the Peugeot. At first I couldn’t see what he was referring to, just the yawning black hole of the boot’s interior, but then he flicked the Maglite’s beam on, just for a second, long enough for me to take in the curled-up body and the grey pallor that only death can lend to human skin. The delivery driver, I assumed.
‘Welcome to Omaha Beach,’ said Konrad softly.
THIRTEEN
Monday
Rubbish day today. Laura told me we were going to have brunch up above the rice paddies. That’s over on the other coast, up in the mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but I knew something was going on. She was all tense the whole way. We had a driver with us, Putu, who works in the bar. He laid out the blanket while we looked down over these ridiculous terraces carved into the mountainside. The view was spoiled by all these ships anchored off the coast, dozens of them. Laura said some of them were waiting to get into port, but others were waiting for ‘orders’ about where to sail next. She said they could be there for months. Some of them were really rusty and looked like they had been there years. Anyway, while we were eating Laura told me she was going back home for a bit. That was her news.
How long is a ‘bit’, I asked.
She doesn’t know. Her dad is ill and she has to go back to help her mum. I sulked for a while but I suppose she has no choice.
We’ve got another few days before she goes. She has got me another tutor, she says, a nice English girl called Sarah. But it won’t be the same.
I feel so ALONE.
Monday (2)
I forgot to write about The Boy, didn’t I? The one in the picture I sent to Becca, Saanvi and Aileen. He’s not like my boyfriend or anything. He was called Eric and that picture was taken in the bar. He’s eighteen and on a gap year with some mates. They are from Reading. (I suppose I’ll miss the festival.) Anyway, he was a bit drunk on Bintangs even though it was only like five o’clock in the afternoon, and messing about being jokey and he put his arm round me and we took some selfies (I’ve got my phone back btw, yay). Anyway, Dieter came and yanked him off me. Told him to behave. Gave him a slap round the face. Not hard. But they said they are never coming back to the bar, ever. Dieter told them they were barred anyway. I saw Eric in the market when I was out with Laura a few days later but he just blanked me.
Can’t blame him. Dieter can be a bit scary.
There’s lots of too fit Australian boys around though. Spicy!!!!!!
I met Sarah my new tutor. She has locks and cornrows. She’s nice. BUT SHE DOESN’T SURF.
Thursday
Had to go to hospital today. We went to the monkey temple at the bottom of the island. It’s nice – looks like something out of that Tomb Raider or Zelda. Anyway, I went with Matt and he said, watch the monkeys. Don’t take any food or they’ll steal it. I didn’t have any food with me but one of them jumped on me and put its hands around my neck. It was going for the diary key. They go for anything shiny.
I fought it off and Matt kicked it but the f-ing thing bit me on the hand. I had teeth marks and blood. Matt insisted I go to the hospital. They said the monkeys PROBABLY don’t have rabies. Probably????? Not so far they said. Always a first time I think. But all I got was a tetanus jab. So my arm hurts now. The nurse was really nice and very pretty and Matt was chirpsing with her. I told him he was just so embarrassing. He thought it was funny.
Saturday
I’ve been following the Poobags on Facebook. Not contacting them. Just looking at their posts. It doesn’t help. It’s like they’ve forgotten all about me. I’m not doing it any more.
FOURTEEN
Normandy, France
It turned out that the brightly lit brasserie on the square still had an old-fashioned wooden telephone booth, with a concertina door for privacy, out the back. The place was busy with yacking locals and I barely earned a glance when I strolled in and ordered a coffee at the bar. I took the opportunity to scan the room. Only a woman near the door, fully dressed in an overcoat and a scarf, made my gaze linger. The café was warm enough that you wouldn’t sit there in outdoor clothes unless you were looking to make a quick exit.
But then she began to sneeze into a handkerchief and gave an almighty blow that had fellow customers looking at her askance. I agreed with them. She should be at home in bed, not spreading germs. Nobody else raised any alarms, so I downed the coffee, paid and sidled off to use the phone. I dialled the Colonel but there was no answer. I waited two minutes and tried again. Nothing. I strolled back to the Peugeot, slid into the driver’s seat and looked across at Konrad. ‘No answer.’
‘You think he’s set us up?’ he asked. ‘The Colonel?’
I had considered that. But I shook my head. ‘He wouldn’t dare. Either for business or personal reasons. I don’t think he’d do it to me and if word ever got out that he was double-dealing . . . there wouldn’t be much of an empire for that accountant son of his to inherit.’
He thought on that and delivered his verdict with reassuring confidence. ‘I agree. The Colonel depends too much on his reputation to play games. And he’d know I’d come looking for him if he fucked us.’ He didn’t make that sound like it would be a social call for kaffee und kuchen.
‘I don’t want to try his mobile. Or use mine, just in case. Someone could be watching with a spot mic trained on us. I’ll ring again tomorrow, once we are on the road. At least we know that there is opposition now.’
‘But why kill this guy?’ he asked, more to himself than me.
‘Maybe just to frighten us.’
‘Harsh,’ he said. ‘Killing one of the cogs just to put the wind up us.’
‘Worked though, eh?’
He grunted. He didn’t want to admit he was rattled. Me, you could use for a maraca, that’s how rattled I was. ‘More likely to frighten Mrs Irwin,’ he said. ‘Maybe into bolting.’
We bo
th pondered that. A frightened client can be very unpredictable. Might even turn round and head back over the Atlantic. But might also panic and do something really stupid. Like not listening to either of us.
‘Any likely candidates in the café? Just watching to see our reaction?’
I shook my head. I had given it a good scan. Nothing had caused the hairs on my neck to stand to attention nor my stomach to flip. A good PPO doesn’t ignore a good old-fashioned instinct that something isn’t quite right. But the café seemed clean. ‘Not that I saw. Family groups, friends. No ones or twos, no obvious out-of-towners. And yes, I checked the plates of the cars outside. And for anyone sitting around waiting for the entertainment to start. Again, nothing suspicious.’ There is a simple surveillance rule when you are looking at people. Ask the question: what are they doing there? Is there a reason for that person being in that place? If it isn’t obvious, look again. But nobody triggered that response.
‘So either they didn’t stick around to admire their handiwork . . .’
‘Or they’re too good for me to spot,’ I said before he could.
‘I’m hoping for the first one.’
Me too. ‘What do you want to do with him?’ I asked, throwing a thumb towards our lifeless companion in the boot. ‘We can’t take him to Luxembourg. And he’s beyond needing the hospital.’
I had checked. He was still warm but cooling fast, and there was no pulse. He’d been shot once in the temple. No exit wound. Of course I should go to the police, but only if I wanted to get my client arrested on the Europol warrant. That wasn’t in my job description. And I had a gunman with me. Maybe fully legal, maybe not, but the cops would certainly be interested in him.
‘I vote we put him somewhere that will keep him overnight and you can get the Colonel to retrieve the corpse down the line. There’ll be people who will miss him. They deserve a body to bury.’
I’d never met a gunman who cared about friends, wives, lovers or family before but he was right. Dumping him at sea or burying him in a shallow grave would be callous in the extreme.
‘The bullet to the head is going to be difficult to explain away,’ I said.
‘He’s a driver. He’ll die in a car smash that causes terrible cranial injuries. Nobody will be looking for a bullet. Anyway, someone will make sure it is no longer there by the time he has the accident.’
He made it sound like he had done this kind of thing before. A lot.
In the end we drove to the beach where we had arranged to pick up Mrs Irwin, the Principal. During the journey mercury tilt switches – and their modern, compact replacements – and plastic explosives were at the front of my mind, but no bomb disturbed the peace or added to the night’s death toll. On the shore we found an upended, rotting rowboat that clearly hadn’t been moved for some considerable time. It would make a reasonable temporary casket. Carrying the body down the path to the shingle was no easy task. All dead people are heavy, but this one was well over six foot when he was alive. I was grateful for whatever workout regime Konrad used, because he took the bulk of the weight.
It was gone ten by the time we had finished the gruesome business and the only noise was the hiss of the incoming tide on the stones and my ragged breathing. I needed a shower. I wanted to scrub my skin raw. Even then I’d have trouble getting the smell of death, and the corpse’s aftershave, out of my nostrils.
I stole a glance at the luminous hands on my watch. ‘We’ve got time to get back to the hotel and pick up our stuff,’ I said.
‘No we haven’t,’ he said. He had put on a pair of aviator sunglasses. He caught my look of disbelief and said: ‘When they come ashore waving their flashlights, it won’t fuck up my night vision.’
‘They won’t be here for over an hour,’ I pointed out.
Konrad pointed out to sea. ‘Listen.’ I did so. Above the thump of the waves I could just about hear the thrum of an outboard, growing louder by the second. ‘They’re early.’
Not only that, there was twice the number we were expecting.
He had on a college sweatshirt under a Superdry nylon jacket, jeans and trainers so bright their glow cut through the darkness. I swear the stars dimmed. Acid yellow was the closest I could guess to the colour. As the kid helped Mrs Irwin out of the beached RIB, Konrad identified the supernumerary for me. Myles.
‘Who?’
‘Her son.’
‘Son?’ Nina hadn’t said anything about a son when she had finally briefed me on the woman I would be escorting. ‘What does he think this is? Spring break? Did you know?’
Konrad shook his head. ‘Nope. I knew there was a son. I didn’t expect a mother and child reunion.’ He caught my expression at the phrase. ‘They don’t live together.’
‘Is there anything else I should know?’ I asked, exasperated.
‘No. He probably thinks it’s just a European holiday.’
Not that many holidays began with a clandestine landing on a deserted beach where, as it happens, there was a dead man hidden under a boat.
I introduced myself to the client as the two crewmen took the RIB back out to sea. There wasn’t enough light, despite Myles’s sneakers, for me to get a good look at her. She had on a headscarf wrapped tightly over her hair and knotted under the chin and a pair of large-framed sunglasses. I didn’t think she needed to worry about paparazzi and I doubted she was concerned about her night vision. But sometimes they just act as a security blanket. That’s the reason you see celebs wearing them on rainy days.
The crew had left her luggage, two large Louis Vuitton cases, on the damp shingle. Myles was making do with a small backpack. Or maybe one of the LVs was his. Neither of them showed any sign of picking up the cases. And Konrad wouldn’t want to be caught in the open with his trigger finger around a kangaroo-skin handle.
Which left me to play bellboy.
‘Hi, I’m Myles. With a “Y”.’
I ignored him and turned to his mother. ‘We thought it was just you coming over, ma’am,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound tetchy. But I was tetchy. One cold, dead driver, one unexpected warm body. Neither had been on my call sheet for this one.
‘Change of plan,’ she replied in a raspy voice that suggested a serious current or past cigarette habit. Just like that. Bring an extra person along, the more the merrier. ‘And don’t call me ma’am. Ruth will do.’
‘I thought . . .’
‘Ruth is the name in my new passport. Or will be. I thought I’d better get used to it.’
That’s thinking ahead. ‘As you wish,’ I said, but I had no intention of using a Christian name. Keep it professional. ‘I need your mobiles, please. Cellphones, I mean.’
That got me more bristles than a toilet brush. There always were. These days people always act as if you have asked for their genitals on a plate when you want to take their mobiles away.
‘No way,’ said Myles, less than helpfully.
‘Why is that?’ asked Mrs Irwin, her voice cool enough to make ice cubes.
‘Security, ma’am. Any call you make might give our position away. Phones can be remotely hijacked.’
Myles made a ‘huh?’ sound, as if he didn’t believe me.
I ploughed on regardless. ‘Texts and emails can be intercepted. And I bet you’ve got something like FMF on there so you and your pals can all keep track of each other. That’s why I need the cellphones. You’ll be off the grid for a while. Twenty-four hours or so. You’ll live.’ That was meant for Myles. He didn’t seem convinced human survival was possible without Pokemon Go or Minecraft or whatever was the current jeu du jour. ‘I’ll give you the SIM cards for safe keeping.’
Nobody moved.
‘I can’t force you to hand them over. I can only advise you on the best course of action, Mrs Irwin. And you are paying for that advice.’
Konrad broke the resulting silence, his voice low and urgent. ‘When we turned up here, someone had murdered the driver who delivered the car. I think it’s fair to say that whoever that
was knows you are here. It’s a good idea not to make it easy for them. Phones make it easy, believe you me.’
I cursed myself for not discussing with Konrad how – even if – to break the news to the client. But I had to admit it was more effective than my attempt at phone fear.
‘It’s true,’ I said glumly. ‘Bullet to the head.’
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ said Myles, as if Konrad had just told him I had four nipples rather than a man had been murdered. I wouldn’t have broken it to them quite like he had – if at all, there, on that beach – but that cat was out of the bag now and scampering down the road.
‘That’s very much what I’d like us to do,’ I said, brushing hair from my face as the breeze strengthened. Maybe it was the situation, and the body nearby, but the air seemed distinctly chill now. ‘We need to get out of here, ma’am. And we need to stay secure.’
‘Give her your phone, Myles,’ Mrs Irwin said. ‘They know what they are doing.’
From the corner of my eye I saw a light out at sea, sweeping as if searching for something. ‘How reliable were the crew?’ I asked her.
‘Considering what I tipped them, they’d better be damned reliable.’
That didn’t sound much like a ringing endorsement to me. Money doesn’t buy loyalty. Well, it does until a thicker wallet walks through the door. Or the cops. I picked up the two cases. ‘We should get a move on.’
I ushered them, One Man and His Dog style, up the beach. Konrad hung back, alternating between watching our backs and checking nobody was blocking our fronts. How he could see much through those bloody sunglasses beat me. But something about his body language – and the gun in his right hand, held close against his body so as not to draw attention to it – reassured me a little.
‘Hold up.’
We waited in a breeze that had matured into a wind as Konrad performed his inspection routine on the car.
‘What’s he looking for?’ Myles asked.
‘He lost his lucky rabbit’s foot,’ I said.
‘I’d thank you not to be quite so sardonic with my son,’ said Mrs Irwin.