by Nick Oldham
Instinct
( Henry Christie - 17 )
Nick Oldham
Nick Oldham
Instinct
ONE
Boone was sick of waiting. He took one last drag of his hand-rolled cigarette, inhaling the pungent smoke deep into his ravaged lungs, before exhaling with a death-watch beetle rasp, then flicked the minute butt over the side of the boat into the muddy river. It extinguished with a tiny ‘ phtt ’. A fish, believing it to be a fly on the surface, rose quickly and took it, but spat it out in disgust.
Boone hunched the collar of his battered flying jacket up around his ears and thumbed open the tobacco tin that contained another dozen or so pre-prepared filterless roll-ups. He selected one, closed the tin and tapped each end of the cigarette flat on the lid, and lit it with a disposable lighter. This was the fourth in the present chain.
As he blew out the smoke he tilted his head upwards and looked at the African sky which was becoming increasingly leaden. Thick black clouds moved ominously in from the west, laden with moisture, and the wind had started to build. Boone scowled as the first big spat of rain slapped on to his forehead.
He stepped under the cover provided by the cockpit of the sportfishing boat named Shell and turned to the man sitting uncomfortably on the bench seat. The man looked up at Boone through watery, yellow eyes.
‘We need to get moving if we’re going to make it,’ Boone complained. ‘I’ll need to beat the weather out of the estuary.’ He tapped his wristwatch to emphasize the point.
‘He’ll be here,’ the man said. Set between his ankles was a briefcase that Boone glanced at, causing the man to react by sliding his feet closer together to trap the case more tightly.
‘Don’t worry,’ Boone mocked, ‘I won’t nick it.’ He checked the digital clock on the instrument panel and sighed impatiently. ‘If we don’t get out we could be trapped here for four days,’ he warned the man. ‘Big storm a-coming.’
‘That cannot happen.’
Boone shrugged and sucked on his cigarette, already burned down to his fingertips. His roll-ups didn’t last long. ‘I don’t make the weather.’ He paused. ‘He knows where to come?’
‘He knows,’ said the man, who had introduced himself as Aleef.
Boone considered him and gave a ‘whatever’ shrug, then dropped down the tight steps into the galley where the kettle had started whistling on the single gas hob. He made himself a mug of strong tea, laced with a shot of Black Label. Now he could hear the rain hitting the boat’s superstructure. Actually, the weather wasn’t usually too much of a problem for Boone and his boat. At thirty-five feet long, Shell was a classic sportfishing craft, and although its length matched its age, it was still a formidable, trustworthy and well-designed boat, with a superbly balanced flying bridge, a functional galley and adequate sleeping accommodation. Rough seas and bad weather posed no problem for such a vessel.
Boone came back up into the cockpit bearing an extra mug of tea for Aleef, which was taken with gratitude, although he did sniff the brew suspiciously before taking a sip.
‘No whiskey in it,’ Boone confirmed. ‘I know you lot don’t like alcohol.’
‘Very true.’
Boone nodded and walked to the outer cockpit door, leaning against the jamb to drink his coppery tasting brew. He watched the rain fall harder and looked down the road that ran by the creek where the boat was moored, near to Denton Bridge. It was eight p.m., still hot and humid, almost thirty degrees. Two other sportfishing boats were tied up on this creek just off the main Gambia River, but no one was aboard either vessel. They were owned by rich African businessmen, rarely seen in these parts. Boone was paid a retainer to keep an eye on them and see to their maintenance. Regular money, but not enough to keep him going.
He sighed, knowing he needed the money from this ‘charter’. He took a sneaky glance at Aleef, the man who had approached him two weeks before in a seedy bar in Banjul, the country’s capital, and put a proposition to him. Aleef had obviously done some homework on Boone prior to the meeting.
The approach and offer had been simple: two and a half thousand US dollars for a drop-off on Gran Canaria, then a pick-up three weeks later and a return to Banjul.
One package, no questions, simple return trip. Bread and butter.
Boone had swigged back the last of his drink, imported Dutch lager he’d become rather too fond of. Blinking at Aleef in the murky light of the riverside bar, he’d eased away a prostitute who’d been squirming around him most of the night, declaring her undying love for him, and had pushed his luck with Aleef by saying ‘Four.’
It wasn’t that he was flush and could manage without the money. Boone was constantly broke, always chasing the dollar or its sterling equivalent — but never the local currency that was as weak as water. He thought he could bargain with a man like Aleef — a man he had never met personally before that day, but someone he vaguely knew of as a shady entrepreneur. No doubt Aleef was acting on behalf of others — Boone had immediately pegged him as a middleman, a link in a complex chain just like Boone himself — and two-point-five G was simply the opening figure. If he couldn’t get more out of him, then so be it, but he had to try. Business was business.
Boone didn’t even ask the nature of the cargo, but knew it would obviously be a body, probably a crim, maybe a freedom fighter — someone else’s terrorist — but Boone didn’t care. It was the bottom line that interested him.
Aleef had shaken his head at Boone’s preposterous response.
‘Hey — ’ Boone had pointed at Aleef with the roll-up held between his nicotine-stained fingers — ‘it means I go there and back, there and back. It’s a long way and it costs, and even four big ones is a snip.’
‘Mr Boone,’ Aleef said patiently. ‘I know what you do for a living. You deliver packages of all sorts up and down the coast. You purport to be a charter boat fisherman, but it’s well known that your tourist business is, shall we say, virtually non-existent.’
‘Not true.’
Aleef shrugged and gave Boone a withering look. A few beats of silence passed between the two men as they sized each other up. Boone, still over six feet tall, but his width now narrowing; Aleef, small and slim, of Asian origin, smart, dressed in a light summer suit, probably made by one of the tailors in Banjul; Boone, casually dressed in three-quarter length pants, tattered T-shirt and four days’ growth on his face.
‘Three-five,’ Boone said, dropping the price. He knew he could actually make a decent profit on two and a half if he used the cut-price stolen fuel he had access to, but that wasn’t the point. He had other jobs in the pipeline, even a few legitimate fishing charters, but he wasn’t exactly rolling in it and needed every extra cent. This wasn’t like the good old days of short crossings on a rigid inflatable and big bucks. They were long gone. Summer in the Gambia wasn’t far away, the doldrum months — and he needed the cash to see him through. The cost of living was still pretty cheap out here, but booze and tobacco was rising all the time, as were the demands of his African wife to be.
Aleef considered this and said, ‘Three. If you say no, I walk away and find someone else.’
‘Yeah, but no one as honest and trustworthy as me,’ Boone countered without a hint of irony, just complete sincerity. ‘Three it is.’
And that was the deal made. Aleef dropped him five hundred dollars there and then, promised a thousand on the day, then the rest at the end of the final return — when ‘the package’ was brought back in one piece.
Boone disliked the terms, but the five hundred in Aleef’s inner jacket pocket weakened him and made his eyes twinkle. He snatched the wad off him in mock disgust and quickly secreted it so none of the whores in the club would spot it and converge on him.
Aleef slid him a paper with a time and date scribbled on it and added, ‘At your boat on Alligator Creek.’ He slid off his barstool and seemed to disappear instantly into the crowd, while at the same moment the prostitute Boone had fended off earlier reappeared at his shoulder. Boone might have been quick to hide the wad of cash, but her eyes had been quicker in spotting it.
And now, here they were; at the appointed time, day, date and location, with the weather coming down fast. Boone wished he didn’t have to go now, would have preferred to be in the bar flirting with the hookers before leaving at midnight to pick up his fiancee, Michelle, from the dancing club where she worked, sharing a late night curry, then curling up with her in the houseboat on the river.
But income had to be earned. Michelle’s wages and tips were nowhere near enough. His earnings were spasmodic and his capital was dwindling.
A pair of headlights turned on to the creek road, the car bouncing in the potholes.
Aleef rose quickly. ‘He’s here.’
‘Only just in time,’ Boone remarked.
Aleef crossed the gangplank to the wooden quayside as the vehicle arrived, splashing his white trousers as its wheels threw up a wave of muddy water from a puddle.
Boone leaned on the cockpit door, another roll-up dangling from the corner of his mouth, watching with interest.
The car was a big old Mercedes, fairly common in the Gambia. The driver and the front passenger got out — two tough looking black guys — and spoke hurriedly to Aleef who did plenty of nodding and displayed lots of submissive body language. Boone made out the dark profiles of two other men in the back seat of the Mercedes, catching the glint of their eyes in the light cast from the boat. Aleef pointed to Boone. The men glanced over, their faces expressionless. Then they shouldered their way past Aleef, stepped off the quay and boarded the boat, bringing mud from their shoes on to the pristine deck.
Boone, though annoyed by this, kept quiet, a condition encouraged by the handgun each of the men carried. They were heavy pistols, ugly, black and dangerous looking — rather like their owners, Boone thought.
The first man aboard said, ‘We search.’
Boone shrugged, stepped aside. They went past him, down into the galley and stateroom, the toilet/shower, doing a sweeping and fairly cursory search. One lifted the engine cover, stuck his head down into the bowels of the boat, finding only a well-maintained Volvo diesel engine in there. Satisfied, they left the boat and went back to Aleef who was standing getting drenched in the rain as a heavy downpour came. His neat suit became misshapen and baggy. They exchanged a few more words, then one of them opened the rear door of the Mercedes and the two other men slid out.
Boone noticed that Aleef kept himself angled slightly away from these guys, eyes averted.
They came on board, the second one with an H amp;K machine pistol slung across his chest. The first man — who appeared to have Arabic features — walked straight past Boone, down into the stateroom, and closed the door behind him. The second man sat on the bench Aleef had been on a few moments earlier. He laid the H amp;K across his lap and regarded Boone stonily through creamy eyes.
Aleef stepped back on board.
Boone spun angrily at him. ‘Two things here, Aleef,’ he hissed. ‘One — I don’t allow guns on board, and, most importantly, two — the deal was for one passenger. ONE.’ He reinforced the word by jerking his middle finger in front of Aleef’s eyes. Truth was, the gun didn’t bother him. Firearms were a fact of life in the way he made the bulk of his living — collecting and delivering packages dropped by ships from South America anchored in international waters just outside the Gambian national limits. But he did have an issue with numbers. Didn’t like the change in odds.
The smaller man said, ‘It’s changed. Two will go and you’ll bring him back.’ Aleef indicated the lounging gunman.
Boone snorted. ‘In that case the price has gone up. I’ll do it, yeah, but it’ll cost another grand.’
Aleef swung his briefcase on to the table next to the wheel, thumbed the combination and opened it slowly, slanting it away from Boone’s inquisitive eyes. He handed over a stack of dollars. ‘One thousand, as promised.’ Then he gave him another stack, less heavy. ‘Five hundred extra, and on the return pick-up run you’ll receive another thousand.’
Boone snatched the money and tucked it under his jacket. Clearly these guys had dosh to spare, he thought, and said, ‘You were expecting this, weren’t you?’ He sniggered.
‘A man like you, Mr Boone, is very easy to second guess, something I factored into the equation. But you do need to know that you will not receive a penny more, nor,’ Aleef added, ‘should you even think about demanding more. That would be a very bad move on your part.’
‘That suits.’
‘May I also warn you not to engage in conversation with these men,’ Aleef said. ‘Speak only when spoken to. In fact, keep your distance, do your job and then forget the faces — am I clear?’
‘Crystal.’
Aleef took a piece of paper out of the briefcase and unfolded it. ‘You will be met at these coordinates just to the south of the Canary Islands and the package will be transferred. I take it you have the necessary electronic equipment on board to accomplish this.’
Boone took the paper and nodded.
‘I shall see you when you return, then.’ Aleef stepped off the boat and walked across to his own car on the quayside, a battered Citroen 2CV. The men who’d searched Boone’s boat leaned impassively against the big Mercedes, guns hanging loosely by their sides.
Boone’s mouth puckered unhappily as he turned to the wheel and pressed the starter, bringing the engines to life with a healthy burbling sound.
‘Ready for off?’ he asked the man on the bench. He got no response other than a half-lidded contemptuous look that brooked no conversation. Boone thought he would try anyway, despite Aleef’s instructions to the contrary. He wasn’t really someone who could not talk — unless he was banged up in a police cell — so he shrugged and turned his attention to the job at hand. Getting the human package from the Gambia to the Canary Islands, then bringing him back three weeks later. Straightforward and simple — with the exception of having an armed man on board, something difficult to explain should they run into the authorities. But that was something Boone was good at: slipping under the radar, keeping a low profile, so he wasn’t too concerned on that count. Having a pretty nasty looking dude on board who looked as though he got a lot of pleasure drilling 9mm bullets into people was the bit he didn’t like.
‘Don’t ask,’ Boone said to himself. ‘Just do it, keep your mouth shut, eyes closed, take the fucking money and run — and hope the bastard gets seasick and suffers.’
With that in mind, he released Shell from her moorings, gave the men ashore a cheery wave — got no response — and headed carefully out of the creek into the main river channel, hit the open sea, programmed his instruments and let the boat do the rest. Then he settled down for a long journey that promised to be rough.
TWO
The phone rang. It was two thirty in the morning. It continued to ring and even though the first ring didn’t need to wake him, because he was already awake, Henry Christie did not reach across to the bedside cabinet to answer it. Then it stopped and the room returned to silence with just the faintest echo ebbing away. He lay there, the duvet halfway down his body, his upper half naked and chilled, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
He knew it, or his mobile phone, would ring again. It had to because he was the only one available and they would keep trying until they contacted him, even if it meant sending someone round to knock him up. Part of him devilishly thought about taking it that far, but he knew he would answer next time. Henry did not like to keep people waiting, not where death was involved. Or as in this case, as he knew it would be, murder.
The call would be from the Force Incident Manager, the inspector based in the control room at police headquarters in Hutton, just to the south of Pre
ston. All call-outs for Senior Investigating Officers — SIOs — were routed through the FIM, who held the rota for all disciplines, from public order to serious crime.
The bedroom was in darkness, a vague glow filtering in from the street light outside.
Henry’s eyes were fixed open, staring upwards at the ceiling, his fingers interlaced across his sternum. He breathed shallowly, could feel the regular pumping of his heart and the occasional gurgle of his stomach as valves opened and closed and liquids gushed.
His mobile phone rang, as he had predicted. He had downloaded the Rolling Stones’ studio version of Wild Horses as his ringtone, a melancholy, emotional number that had fitted his mood at the time. Now, as brilliant as it was, it sounded stupid and needy, and he thought he might change it back to something more upbeat later. Crazy Frog, maybe. Something to make him smirk, not make his guts lurch. He needed to smirk.
His mobile lay next to his house phone and he fumbled for it with his right hand, the slight contortion and stretch hurting his mostly healed left shoulder, and answered it, mumbling something.
‘Detective Superintendent Christie?’ It was the voice of the FIM, a female inspector.
‘Yuh.’
‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but…’
Henry sat up stiffly, pushing the duvet back, taking the pad and pen from the cabinet top and jotting down the gist of what she was telling him: ‘Murder… female… teenager… not yet identified… strangulation, maybe… Poulton-le-Fylde… near Carleton crematorium.’ Henry wrote down the exact details of the location, the circumstances of the discovery of the body, asked if an arrest had been made — no — and if there was a suspect — not yet. Which detective was at the scene? After further questions, Henry ended the call with a time check — 2.38 a.m. — his thanks and an ETA.
He rubbed his eyes, making them squelch, then stood up and made his way to the en suite bathroom. There was a light knock on the bedroom door, which opened an inch.