Evil in the Land Without

by Colin Cotterill

  "That's great. You blokes are good."

  "We're the government. I believe . . . I believe they still haven't found your sister and her boy."

  John considered whether there were advantages to telling him. There weren't. "Not yet."

  "I'm so sorry. I'm sure they'll turn up. She sounds like a resourceful lass. They're probably hiding out somewhere. Please take down this number. It's my cellphone. You can get me any time on it. I believe we’ve been put onto the case officially." He gave the number and said good-bye.

  John had been sitting out in Emma's car for a better signal. He walked back into the house.

  "Em. Is this your own phone?"

  "No. It was one of the department's."

  "So, it couldn't be traced to you or this house?"

  "No. Only to the department."

  "Then, would you mind going back to work?"

  "What?"

  "No one knows you're connected to us or Te Pao. The only way anyone would get suspicious is if you mysteriously disappeared from work for the first time in forty years, without giving a reason."

  She glared at him but knew what he'd said was true. "You're right, but—"

  "Susan and Eddo will be safe here, and Shirley and I can keep an eye on them. Once I've worked out where to go with all this, I'll let you know."

  "John, there's a team."

  "They're operating blind. They don't know anything important, and I can't tell them. We're the team." He started to put on his coat.

  "You going somewhere?"

  "Into town. I have to pick something up."

  "John. Teamwork begins here."

  "Yeah. You're right. They have photos of Bohmu Din from the South African Service people. I'm going to pick them up from the embassy. They're hoping to get an ID from Mombassa, but I'm afraid the kids there aren't going to be queuing up to talk to us."

  "That's better. Good boy."

  48

  The largest of the three photos of Bohmu Din was staring up at John from his lap. The train to Kingston was almost empty, so the other two were on the seat beside him. Since he'd opened the package, he'd been racking his brain to recall why the face of the Burmese seemed so familiar to him. He knew he'd seen it before.

  These were telephoto shots, the type most secret services take of staff at dubious embassies. The man had cropped white hair, and bad skin as Tiger had described, but he looked nothing like the artist's impression. That he put down more to the artist's inability to sketch than to the boy's ability to describe.

  "I know you, you bastard. Why do I know you? Where have I seen you before?"

  Just by sitting in the train with Bohmu Din and looking into his eyes, John was slowly able to put together a plan. It was a ridiculous plan, and one that would lose him his job. But better to lose a job than a life.

  At Kingston, his car was parked several blocks from the station. He walked away from it at first, then doubled back. Before getting in, he checked the locks to see whether they'd been tampered with, then he slid underneath and looked for electrical devices that didn't belong there. Satisfied, he got in and drove off.

  But John had underestimated the lengths Bohmu Din was prepared to go to. When he'd learned from Bruce that John was away in Thailand, an incredible anger steamed inside him. Of course, he knew it was no coincidence. He'd checked the airlines and found Jessel's name all the way to Chiang Mai. The angel boy had gone too far. Whatever he'd discovered was more than he should have. He wasn’t supposed to know anything.

  An intensive search for John's car had uncovered it at the special bay at Heathrow. It had been an uncomplicated process to remove the number plate and attach a simple but highly effective homing device. It was in there and functioning when John and Shirley returned from Bangkok. It was in there when he drove to Mendleton House, and back to his flat. It was in there when he followed Emma the night before and parked three blocks from her sister's house, and it was in there still.

  *

  John, Susan and Shirley sat at the kitchen table looking at the photographs. Eddo was in the living room using the remote as a ray gun to zap anyone on TV who said rude things.

  Susan looked into Shirley's eyes. "Do you mind me asking? How does it make you feel . . . seeing his face again after all this time?" The two women had been together all day. Shirley had re-told her story. They had developed a strong liking for one another.

  "I don't know. I guess I don't feel anything. It's just a picture. It's like when I wrote my story down and tried to re-read it. It wasn't me. The words and the picture aren't what happened. That's inside me. I see his face always. I feel the story always."

  John thought for a moment. "Would you be satisfied if justice took its course; if he were convicted and imprisoned?"

  She didn't have to think about her answer. "No."

  "I'm a copper. That's what I'm sworn to do. I have to believe the law can serve as public vengeance."

  "Then I'll have to do it without you."

  "Emma's home," Eddo shouted from the other room.

  The conspirators in the kitchen were silent when she walked in. She was carrying a large paper grocery bag.

  "Dinner?" John asked.

  She poured the contents onto the table.

  They looked at the pile of phones and beepers. "Hmmm. Looks delicious. How do you cook these again?"

  "I brought us one each. The beepers are small enough to hide, and powerful enough to use anywhere."

  "I want one," Eddo yelled out.

  "Didn't your mum teach you the 'p' word?"

  "Yes. But I don't want to pee. I want a beeper."

  They laughed, but he had no idea why. Adults were the strangest things.

  Em ma bent down to him. "Yes, little spy. I got one for you, too. Here, I'll show you how to use it." She took him into the living room. Susan rocked back on the kitchen chair in a way that would have given her mother heart failure.

  "We're going to have to draw him out somehow, aren't we."

  "I think there's a way to find him," John answered.

  "What? Without offering him our necks?"

  Eddo ran into the kitchen breathless. He was so excited he couldn't pull the words out of himself.

  "Eddo. What is it? What's wrong?" Susan ran to him and rubbed his back. "Calm down and breath slowly. . . . Good. Now, what happened?"

  "Uncle John is on . . . on telly."

  "What?" Shirley looked at John who just smiled before they all ran into the living room.

  Emma sat stunned in the armchair. "Jessel. Tell me that isn't you giving a press conference."

  "Man, you look official in there."

  "The scar makes him look very Celtic warrior, don't you think?" Susan put her arms around him and watched over his shoulder.

  The TV John Jessel, surrounded by microphones and cameras, was staring back into the living room full of stunned people.

  ". . . and we've just received this sketch from Kenya. The local police are searching for him in relation to murders committed there, which are very closely related to the murders we are investigating here."

  "Clumsy sentence."

  "I was nervous."

  "Sshhh."

  ". . . reason to believe that this man is currently in England. If anyone has information that could help police find and question him, please call the following number.” John turned over his mobile phone on camera and read the number. “0121548655." It also appeared on screen.

  "Surely you could have memorized the number, Johno."

  "Ssshhh."

  ". . . picture will be distributed to newspapers and police stations. We caution you that this man is extremely dangerous and should not be approached under any circumstances."

  Emma's mobile started to ring on the kitchen table. Susan and Shirley squealed with delight.

  "Go, John."

  Back at the studio, the newscaster spoke briefly before a full-screen version of the sketch of Bohmu Din appeared with the mobile number beneath it. The n
ext item appeared and Susan clicked the mute.

  Emma stormed into the kitchen, grabbed her phone, and turned it off. "Talk," she spat when she got back.

  John sat down on the sofa, Susan and Shirley either side of him, giggling.

  "We want to hear this, too."

  "I don't see this as being very funny," Emma lectured at them. "You just saw a man abuse his authority, act irresponsibly, and lose his job. If I'm not mistaken, that performance may even get the fool put inside from three to five.

  “Lawless was on the phone to me today, already asking where the hell you were and telling me he’d lodged an official complaint about your conduct. I assume you didn't have his permission to give a statement to the press on his behalf."

  "I didn't tell anyone it was an official statement. I just phoned around and said I was on the inquiry squad and I had something to tell them. I hadn't expected quite so many to turn up."

  "The whole bloody country was there," Shirley said in a bad English accent, still with a big smile on her face. Eddo crawled onto her lap with a magic marker and started to draw on her cast. She pulled back the sling for him.

  "Holy Moly. There's no evidence against him. There are no witnesses,” Emma ranted on. “There's nothing to connect Bohmu Din with the murders here. He can sue our arses off."

  "That would certainly draw him out of the shadows," said Susan. "Either way, he no longer has the freedom to stalk that he used to have. I think it's brilliant."

  "I do, too," Shirley agreed.

  "Right. And what do I know? I'm just a dumb bimbo police superintendent with thirty years experience on the force. Jesus! When they find out I'm involved in this, they'll have my badge as well." Her eyes were beginning to moisten.

  John went across to her and knelt beside her chair. "Em. I didn't do anything that would get you in shit. You can go into the office tomorrow and make a statement like the rest of them saying I'm mentally unstable and a drunk. I don't mind. They never need to know you were involved. But we'll get something out of this. I know we will.

  "I thought about the beachboys in Mombassa. They hate the police so much, I can't imagine for a second they'll agree to act as witnesses. It could be weeks before the cops can bully one into giving evidence, and by then we'll all be dead. I really didn't see any choice. I stopped off at one of those 'instant portrait' places and got a sketch made up from the photo. The boy did a great job.

  "This is a war, Em. It's more important than my job or anyone's reputation. I just want the ones I love to stay alive. We can't do that by hiding and waiting for him to make his next move. We've already proved that doesn't work. I'm going on the attack, Em, and this is how I fight."

  She gave out an exasperated grunt, threw her head back, and looked at the ugly paint on the ceiling. The room was quiet apart from Eddo humming as he drew. Slowly, Emma lowered her head and looked one by one at their soldiers. At last she said, "We take the phone calls away from this place. I don't know how advanced tracing has got on mobiles. And you answer. I don't want anyone recognizing my voice."

  There was a round of applause. She shook it away like flies at a picnic.

  "Em, do you have a tape recorder?" John asked.

  "I've got two interview hand recorders in the car. We'll need to pick up batteries. I've got some blank tapes in my bag."

  They continued planning as they walked into the kitchen. Susan, Shirley, and Eddo remained on the couch. . . .

  "It's a bird, right?"

  "Nooo."

  "Airplane?"

  "No, it's a pectoractile."

  "Pterodactyl, mate."

  "Pterodactyl."

  "Good boy. It's one of your best. Let's cut her arm off and sell it to a gallery."

  "Susan."

  "Uh huh?"

  "Your brother. . . ."

  "The one on TV?"

  "Yeah, that one. He's nuts."

  "Completely."

  49

  John and Shirley had been awake until 3:00 a.m. receiving calls. They were in the bedroom of his mother's still lonely apartment. Emma, to her increasing annoyance, had been voted off the telephone detail. It was agreed that someone had to stay at the house with Susan and Eddo that night. She would also have to go to work the next morning as if nothing had happened, so she was the only candidate.

  Most of the calls were from nutcases claiming to be The Paw. Some were just glad for the opportunity to tell the police which objects they should insert in their recta.

  Lawless managed to get through at one stage and burn John at the stake. John responded politely, apologized twenty times, and promised to bring the sketch and disclose its source at his office the next morning, first thing. It was an experience not unlike his many audiences with head teachers at school. Bow your head, never get into a dialogue, sing a song to yourself in your mind.

  There was no doubt he was about to be kicked off the force. Lawless said as much. Bohmu Din had turned everything upside down. John loved his job. He was good at it. But he accepted he had given the chief no choice. He just prayed that it wouldn't be in vain.

  Two other calls were possible sightings. One was in Scotland and unlikely. The other was at an address in South London. John phoned the details through to the commander. He thought the whole press conference thing had been a jolly good idea, but he wasn't a policeman and admitted he wouldn't have got away with such a stunt at MI6.

  An hour later he called back.

  "Chinese restaurant. The owner was from Hong Kong. He did have white hair and blotchy skin, but he was about sixty kilos heavier than your chap. Probably some dissatisfied customer getting revenge for bad service."

  There was only one other likely sighting that night. Someone thought they'd seen him at a service station in Epsom, only nine miles from Kingston and John's flat. He phoned the sighting through, but there wasn't much that could be done. The station manager had confronted the man—exactly as he'd been told not to do—and he drove off without filling his tank.

  The phone had been ringing non-stop and there were still the odd calls from drunks and lonely people. Even though they had taken it in turns to patiently listen to and record all the crap, John and Shirley were exhausted.

  "Should we turn it off?" she asked. "There won't be many normal people phoning between now and the morning."

  "We could I suppose. It'll be busy when the newspapers come out. Lawless wouldn't have had time to stop the first editions even though he'd threatened to. We do need sleep."

  They were side-by-side on Coletta's bed, propped up with pillows and cushions.

  "I get the sofa tonight, right?" she said.

  Inside his head he suggested they both sleep on the bed, just for company. It sounded so pathetic and desperate, he didn't bother. "No, I prefer the couch."

  She looked at him sideways.

  "Serious. Mother always insisted on sleeping on porridge. The softer the better. I like my beds concrete hard with the odd spring sticking through. He switched off the phone and plugged it in to the charger.

  "I suppose that shouldn't surprise me."

  "G'night," he said. Without turning back, he walked out of the bedroom and into the living room. He didn't bother to turn on the light there, just walked to the couch, and lay down. From the bedroom he heard a distant "Good-night," and the click of a light switch that dropped the whole apartment into blackness.

  Shirley lay back and sank deep into the feathers. He was right. The old lady must have had terrible posture. She let all the events of the week play out in her mind as she drifted. She felt grateful to have an ally like John. She liked him. She liked him as an ally. She couldn’t have imagined what grief she was causing in him, or even that he had given her a thought beyond their mission. Had images of retribution not been so concentrated in her head, it may have crossed her mind. But there was nothing there beyond Bohmu Din.

  John slept badly and in patches. At times he was fighting off Coletta's snarling lap mongrel. The couch he was on had been its
palace, its mountain retreat. Its spirit was probably still there haunting it. He still had no idea why the little runt had made a comeback after all these years.

  At times he was awake, listening for movement from the bedroom, imagining that he could hear her tiny breaths and smell the scent of her skin.

  At times he would see the face of Bohmu Din. In his disturbed dreams, the major was younger, smiling; a more familiar Bohmu Din to John than the man at the South African Embassy. This one had friends. They drank together. They were. . . .

  "Damn." He hadn't quite left the dream, but his body shot forward on the couch. "Damn." He moved as quickly to the bedroom as a drowsy person could, and flicked on the light switch as he passed it without thinking.

  Shirley was immediately sitting up in the bed. Her reflexes were sharp, too. She was holding a steak knife, and wearing a very small, loose tank top.

  John wasn't sure which unnerved him most, the tank top or the knife. "Where in blazes did you get that?"

  "Kitchen World."

  "Jesus. Remind me not to creep up on you in the dark." He went to the side of the bed, dropped to his hands and knees, and pulled back the skirting sheet.

  "What is it, John?"

  "I tell you, if it isn't here this time, it'll really give me the willies."

  "What?"

  "Mother's suitcase. I put it back here after they checked it for . . . ah ha. Here."

  "I take it you've had another Jessel thought."

  "It's been nagging at me all day since I saw Bohmu Din's pictures. I was absolutely sure I'd seen him before." He clicked at the hasps and rifled through the papers and photos. "I just wasn't able to make a connection for some reason. Now I know why."

  "Why?"

  "Lateral thinking. Always look where you least expect to find the answer."

  "In your mom's suitcase?"

  He had the photos and was shuffling through them. When he had seen them first, he'd focussed on the sour faces of his parents. He'd barely noticed the people in the background. But one of them had obviously stuck.