by C A Devine
‘Dad,’ I warned again, knowing it was futile. Max shot her eyes to me, sniggering.
‘And what with him living with that gay friend of his,’ Dad continued, ‘we were beginning to think … not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.’ Dad shrugged and Max spluttered a laugh.
‘Okay, let’s go.’ I couldn’t take any more. ‘Mom, we need a ride.’
‘Welcome back son,’ Mom handed me my badge and gun. I felt the familiar weight in my hand; it was good to be back. ‘And just in time, they brought forward the pre-trial hearing to tomorrow morning.’
‘What? When did this happen?’
‘Yesterday, they have some slick new lawyer. We were going back to court today to try to get a continuance. Now we don’t have to.’
My parents, in their matching blue raincoats, walked on ahead, splitting the crowd with the same hard-earned authority.
‘Okay?’ I looked at Max, her tear-stained face, her dark soul-piercing eyes. For a moment I just looked at her. She was here, real, alive, back in New York, with me.
We started to follow. ‘Are they always like that?’ Max asked.
‘Always. It’s so embarrassing.’
‘I don’t know, I think they’re quite entertaining. And talking of entertaining, Afghan, English soap opera bullshit?’ I shrugged. ‘You vent some great stuff when you’re angry, New York.’
*
Thirty minutes later, after some security confusion at the front desk, we stepped into a bland hospital room. Joe McKenzie lay in bed, eyes closed, wrapped in a hospital gown, his body sinking into a mass of pillows. His right arm was bandaged and held in a sling. Cecile was tight in by his bedside, swallowed in big beige vinyl chair. High up on the wall, a familiar blonde news anchor mouthed the latest story from a silent television.
‘Dad,’ Max shouted and Joe’s eyes flashed open. She flew to the bed and threw her arms around him. He flinched away from her. ‘Ouch, sorry,’ she skipped back a step.
‘I’m just glad you’re here,’ Joe hugged his daughter to him with his good arm. He eased her back and looked at her, ‘I heard a rumour that you arrived earlier than expected.’ He looked into her red-rimmed eyes frowning, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Malak’s dead. I shot him.’
He paused a moment, then grasped her hand, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I didn’t want it to end like that.’
‘I know.’ He paused a moment then asked, ‘How are you doing?’ She shrugged and he hugged her again.
‘I owe you an apology, Lizzie. I should have trusted you,’ Joe said.
‘You did what you thought was best for me. I know that,’ then after a moment added, ‘I understand that.’
He pushed her back and ran a hand over her capped scalp, shaking his head, ‘What I think is best is not always the right thing.’
Max snorted a laugh, ‘You think? When did you come to that bold conclusion?’
He smiled at her, ‘Don’t be …’
‘Cheeky,’ she finished with a smirk.
‘You’re all grown up. And you have good instincts, I should have seen that. Your mother would. I won’t make the same mistake again. I promise you that.’ She nodded, tears brimming her eyes. He hugged her against him once more and held her there. Finally Max pushed back, sniffing.
‘Lieutenant,’ Joe McKenzie turned his head to me.
‘Commissioner,’ I stepped in and took his offered left hand.
‘My trust in you was deserved, son,’ his voice had lost none of its power. ‘I owe you a great debt of thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I didn’t know if he’d be saying that to me a few hours ago. My eyes drifted away from him as I felt a twinge of guilt.
The breaking news ticker on the bottom of the television screen grabbed my attention. ‘Turn that up,’ I said. Everyone’s eyes darted to the screen. Cecile grabbed the remote control from the bedside locker and hit the volume.
The blonde’s voice blasted in, ‘Unconfirmed at this stage, but it is from more than one source. Reports are coming in that family members of troops killed in Afghanistan have received packages in the mail this morning. Packages of – and it is as disturbing as it sounds – human flesh,’ she forced all the drama this revelation deserved into her voice. ‘The Associated Press is reporting that the packages contained a note. Do we have that note?’ She placed a hand to her ear, ‘No … Yes, I believe we do.’ There was another dramatic pause. ‘My children deserve to be whole. So do yours.’ She gave a further long pause for effect, tossing her hair back, ‘What a horrific story, John.’
The camera panned out to a hurriedly encamped second anchor, ‘We’ll bring you more on this story as soon as we get it.’ He lifted his hand to his ear, ‘Actually, I am just being informed that some veteran amputees have also received the packages.’
The picture quality degraded as VT ran. ‘And this was just posted on YouTube in the last hour,’ John introduced the footage.
‘It’s her,’ Cecile said, ‘the driver Jason picked up in Provence.’
‘The night I was arrested?’ Max asked.
Cecile nodded.
A small bleach-blonde woman sat on a red velour armchair, her face cast in shadow, but they were doing a poor enough job of disguising her.
‘My brother was a sergeant in the Yorkshire Regiment. He was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he was killed by a roadside bomb. When his body came home, he only had one leg. Mum had been brought up to believe that if you weren’t buried with your entire body then you would spend the whole of eternity without the missing part,’ she talked with a quiet dignity. ‘Mum said she kept imagining him hobbling around in heaven. She became totally obsessed. She would sleepwalk in the night muttering, “We have to find his leg, we have to find the leg.” It would have been comical if my brother wasn’t dead. The government didn’t care. They said, considering the force of the explosion, we were lucky we got anything back at all.
‘Then one night I bumped into one of Jack’s old army mates down the local pub. He told me about this guy who had this campaign going to recover the missing bits of our soldiers. I think something had happened to his family.
‘He was looking for volunteers to drive the recovered remains to a lab for DNA testing. I was only too happy. It felt like the least I could do for Jack. It felt like I was doing something. And when I told Mum, well, now she waits for my every word, wondering if I’ve found it.’
The screen switched back to the anchors.
‘So much for thinking we had this contained,’ Joe said.
‘Mon Dieu,’ Cecile swallowed. ‘Does anyone find this really disturbing?’ We were all a little paler.
‘I think he was looking for some kind of atonement,’ Max said. Everyone looked at her. No-one commented.
‘The one thing I still don’t get,’ I said, breaking the awkward silence, ‘are the fancy cars.’
‘Joe did not tell you?’ Cecile piped up.
‘What?’
‘The cars that we recovered from the villa were all registered to professional footballers.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I asked.
‘The young lady we have just seen has another brother and he plays for Manchester City.’
‘These boys are donating their cars?’ Max asked.
‘That’s what it looks like,’ Joe said. ‘No-one is talking yet though. I’ve heard talk of super-injunctions.’
‘What?’ I said.
Cecile’s cell started chirping birdsong. Then Joe’s blasted Lady Ga Ga’s ‘Pokerface’, causing us all to look at him. He shrugged.
This was far from over yet.
*
I was apprehensive as I stepped out onto Wall Street and into the grand foyer of one of America’s oldest merchant banks. Okay, apprehensive was possibly the biggest understatement of the year. We rode the elevator with an ancient lady in an elegant haute couture suit carrying an odorous Cavalier King Charles Spaniel pup
in a designer handbag. Mantovani piped through the on-board entertainment system, jangling my nerves. The senior citizen eyed our group up and down. Who the hell did she think kept the robbing hordes from her monstrous door? She stepped out, with a sniff, on six.
‘The thing I still don’t understand,’ Max said when we were alone, ‘is how did Malak …’ Her eyes swung back to the elevator doors, ‘No, hold on, how does that old flute get the stench of dog poo out of her Birkin bag? That is so not right.’ I snorted a laugh. She turned back to me, ‘How did Malak know that you were going to be at the marina in Spain? And how did he get the details of the satellite phone to track us out in the ocean? Michael didn’t know where we were or that Dad did.’
‘I had a lot of mulling-over time last night and unfortunately I think I do.’
She looked up at me, but at that moment we pinged out on the ninth floor. We approached the high-sided teak reception desk. I flashed my badge – it felt good – and asked for Marcus. An elegant suited woman said she’d call him, but I persuaded her, with my legendary charm, to point me in the direction of his office.
We followed a deep red pile carpet, my stomach doing somersaults, to a door marked Marcus Crackstone. I pushed it open and strode in.
‘Mac? Am I seeing things? Is that really you?’ Marcus smiled his big toothy grin as he bounded out from behind his antique inlaid desk. His huge stride crossed the office in three steps. He grasped my hand.
I pulled him into a hug, ‘It’s good to see you, buddy.’
He pushed back, frowning, ‘What are you doing here, Ryan? You shouldn’t be here,’ reality was hitting home, ‘you should be out in the mid-Atlantic, on my yacht.’ His eyes shot to Max, then back at me. ‘Do you want to explain to me why you are not? Where is my yacht? Did you sink my yacht?’ His eyes widened to saucers. ‘Don’t tell me you sank my yacht.’
‘Okay, I won’t.’
‘Oh God, you sank my yacht.’
‘Kinda.’
‘Kinda?’ he stared blankly, the colour draining from his olive face.
‘I think maybe you should sit down.’ I pushed him into the nearest seat.
‘I told you about chicks as captains, I knew this would happen,’ he gasped, shaking his head. His eyes shot back to Max, ‘Is that her? Is she the one who sank my beautiful baby?’
Max took a step back. I stepped back beside her. ‘Marcus, this is Max; Max, this is Marcus.’ Max stepped forward again and offered her hand. Marcus didn’t take it. I turned to Max, ‘He’s usually much more charming than this. We have to give him some leeway, what with the shock and all.’
‘Did she sink my boat?’ Marcus asked again.
‘No Marcus, a bad man with a flare gun sank your boat. Now, I need you to listen to me.’ He sat in silence, staring out of his floor-to-ceiling picture windows, chewing his nails. He could have been a statue for the ten minutes it took for me to explain what I needed from him, except for the shallow breaths panting from his freaked-out lungs. And I asked myself, once again, how I could I have been so blind?
37
Just because you’re paranoid …
When we stepped out of the car in front of the old precinct’s stone façade, Max slipped her hand into mine. I grasped it tightly and felt my resolve strengthen. We strode in through the doors. The guard at the metal detector welcomed me back with a huge grin. I’m sure he was laughing at me, not with me, but I didn’t care. I was on the way back. Finally I could feel it, that old familiar adrenalin buzz of a case coming together. I felt like me again.
We bound up the stairs, two at a time, with Mom and her two aids on our heels – our feet echoing on the open stairway. When we stepped out onto my floor, I heard the comforting sounds of phones ringing, people chattering and perps shouting. The aromas of bad coffee, sweat and perfume, all grazed my nostrils. It was good to be home.
Yolanda’s eyes hit me immediately, shock registered on her face and for a moment she didn’t move. I headed straight for her. As I neared, she sprang from her seat, circled her desk and threw her arms around me, squeezing me tight. She pushed me away and looked me up and down. ‘Well damn, you got your little white ass back in one piece,’ she smiled.
‘It’s good to see you too, Detective,’ I said.
The noise dropped back to nothing as suits and uniforms turned to see what all the fuss was about. Some smiled, some frowned. None of them said anything, probably because my mom was there. I gave them a small salute.
‘When did you get back?’ her eyes glanced to Max, two steps behind me, then my mom, ‘Mam,’ then back to my face, as she did her cop weigh-up of the situation.
‘Just this morning.’
‘And you decided to hit the house so soon?’
‘I’m back, Yolanda,’ I slapped her on the arm, ‘and I’ve got paperwork.’
‘Paperwork?’
‘Can you believe I had to go to Spain to catch The Baron?’
‘You what?’ Her face frowned in puzzlement.
‘We caught The Baron.’
‘Caught him? When? No-one …’
‘We did indeed. Just this morning,’ I nodded in Max’s direction and Yolanda’s eyes followed. ‘It was all very last minute.’
‘Dead or alive?’ Her eyes lingered on Max this time.
‘Dead. I’m afraid he didn’t give us much choice.’
‘You know it looks better on paper when you bring in suspects alive,’ she tutted. ‘And we could have got good intel from him.’
‘Not a problem. This lady here,’ I nodded to Max once again, ‘she’s his niece. They were very close. She came to Spain to kill me.’ Max’s eyes shot to me, but I didn’t acknowledge the glance. ‘Lucky for me, she couldn’t go through with it.’ Sweat dripped from my forehead to my nose. I slipped out of my coat and sat my hip on the edge of Yolanda’s desk. ‘This raised two interesting questions in my mind,’ I paused, eyeing the gathering crowd. Finally Yolanda picked up the cue.
‘What questions?’
‘One,’ I focused back on my partner, ‘how did The Baron know I was there? He knew, not only that I was in Spain, but he knew the exact town. Very few people did. First we’ll need to track down all the individuals that did know and extract exactly who they told.’ Yolanda stared at me. ‘Well are you gonna take this down?’
‘LT, this isn’t our case.’ I said nothing. She blew out a breath, ‘Yeah, sorry, sure,’ she fumbled inside her tan tailored jacket, pulling out a leather bound notebook and flipping it open. She grabbed a pen from the nearest desk and began to scribble.
‘We always suspected The Baron had someone on the inside and this should lead us right to them,’ I stopped speaking again.
‘Okay,’ Yolanda nodded enthusiastically, ‘and the second point?’ She looked up at me, her face serious.
‘Well that,’ I said in my best dramatic tone, ‘is way more interesting.’ I settled myself more comfortably on the desk. A large group had gathered now. And I wanted all the people who had written off Lieutenant Mac Ryan to hear. I was going to enjoy this little revelation. I just hoped I was right. ‘The Baron came to Spain to finish me off, but when he got there he found his niece. And well let’s just say I had proved too nice to reap revenge on,’ I smiled over at Max and I was grateful when she smiled back. ‘Not that I was surprised by that myself, of course, because, hey, I’m a likable guy.’ Max snorted a laugh. ‘When The Baron found me with his niece, he decided kidnapping and torturing her for her betrayal was more important than killing me. Funny thing though, Max claims that during her abduction The Baron’s henchmen were army grunts – US army grunts.’
Yolanda frowned again, ‘Torture victims are not generally considered reliable witnesses.’ She turned to Max, ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Max smiled at her.
‘I’m not quite sure that’s the official government line, but you could be right, Detective,’ I said. ‘However, there was one big overriding factor that gave credence to her story.’
‘And that was?’
‘We found her tied up on a US military base.’
‘A US military base? In Spain?’ Yolanda’s frown deepened.
‘I know, you’d be amazed at all the places we’re embedded. Anyway, none of it made sense until we were abducted by pirates,’ I wiggled my eyebrows, ‘on the high seas.’
‘Pirates?’
‘Yeah, they sank Marcus’s boat.’
‘You are not making a lot of sense, LT.’
‘No, I’m serious, pirates sank Marcus’s yacht.’
‘Does Marcus know?’
‘Oh yeah. And he’s not a happy bunny,’ I rolled my eyes.
‘I’ll bet. But I’m not getting what all this has to do with The Baron.’ Yolanda ran her eyes around the watching crowd, then stepped up to me and lowered her voice, ‘Are you okay? You seem a bit … distracted. Are you sure you’re ready to be here?’
‘Oh, one hundred per cent,’ I crossed my legs. ‘Just bear with me a little while longer.’ I scanned the crowd, little whispers, nods and shakes of the head were flying around. I was going to have to do a better job at selling my sanity. ‘Anyway, back to the pirates. The Baron sent a boat out to intercept Marcus’ yacht. And one of the crew turned out to be not only a childhood friend of The Baron, but of Max too. And we all had a very nice chat on the pirate ship en route to New York.
‘He told us The Baron – who was English, as Charlie suspected all along – began his criminal empire smuggling liquor into Afghanistan for the pleasure of the troops. He started with the Brits, then got into a bit of wine with the French, but he was desperate to muscle into the bigger, more lucrative US market. He needed someone on the inside. And he didn’t have to look too far to find a battle-weary GI who thought, where’s the harm? Didn’t our boys deserve a few beers, what with all they have to put up with? The Baron made contacts, friends even, in the US Army. He might have looked and dressed like an Afghan, but he sounded like an Englishman and by all accounts he could have charmed the pants off my mother.’ I heard a sharp intake of breath. ‘Sorry Mom.’ I turned to give her a sheepish grin.