Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2)

by Paddy Magrane

  Pozzani, Sicily

  They hugged tightly, Sam certain that, if he let her go, she would evaporate.

  ‘You survived,’ said Sam, as they peeled apart. ‘I should have stayed at the river. Found you. I tried to look but the men were there. I’m so sorry, Zahra.’

  There were tears running down her cheeks. She beckoned him to sit down.

  ‘How did you make it?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I was thrown downriver,’ she said, drying her cheeks with a sleeve. ‘I was sure I was going to drown.’ Her voice trembled with recollected fear. ‘Then I hit a metal grille. It was right across the river. There were bits of wood and plastic caught in it. I used the metal to pull myself to the embankment. I could hear the men on the other side. So I waited till they’d gone. Then made my way back to the camp.’

  ‘You must have been freezing.’

  ‘I tried to run, get some warmth back into my body, but I could barely walk. Eventually I got back to the camp. There were people there, sifting through the remains, looking for belongings. A couple of tents were still standing. They found me some dry clothes.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  He saw her smile, a brief moment of levity play across her face. ‘Same as before. Containers. But not cabbages this time. Toilet roll. Much more comfortable. And warmer.’

  There was a sound of creaking timber. Sam shot a look down the church and saw no movement. But given the darkness, visibility was down to about ten metres. They sat in silence, listening out for any other sounds. But there was nothing more, and Sam concluded that it was the sleeping figure. He relaxed a fraction.

  ‘You remembered Pozzani,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘It was the lights –’

  ‘– reflected on the water?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I saw the sign lit up on the front. You saw that out to sea, didn’t you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Still no other memories?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But you came back.’

  ‘I have nothing left, Sam. I have to get my memories back. Find out why they want us both dead. I hoped you might be here to help me.’

  There was a click from further down the church, like the sound of a shoe’s heel on marble. Sam’s eyes darted down the nave again. Nothing. But he sensed that the noise was close.

  He felt Zahra’s hand grab his, the cold fingers grip hard. He braced himself. Ready to run again. But where, this time?

  The next sound they heard was a vibration. Followed by another. Then another.

  A mobile phone was ringing.

  Zahra was off first, pulling Sam’s hand as she darted into the darkness behind the altar, heading for the rear of the church. Sam hoped to God there was a doorway at the back, otherwise they were trapped. Footsteps – slow and deliberate, not a run – echoed down the church. Someone was on their tail.

  Shapes emerged from the shadows. Choir stalls to their sides and, ahead of them, the rear wall of the church, a crucified Christ surrounded by cherubs and angels in plasterwork, disturbed candles causing ghostly shapes to flicker across its surface.

  There was a door off to the right. Perhaps to a vestry and then out the back. Zahra was first to it, turning the handle and pulling it open. A cold, fungal smell escaped like a sigh.

  There was no time to pause. Zahra was through the door first, fumbling for a switch in the darkness. Lights blinked on to reveal a staircase dropping away, damp stonework lit by a series of bulbs that hung from a loose cable overhead. Zahra turned to Sam, her face stricken.

  ‘Go!’ he shouted.

  Zahra moved down the steps, her initial speed tempered by a fresh terror. Sam was not exactly keen to rush headlong into this part of the church. The low ceilings and stench of decay were already pressing in on him, bringing that familiar sense of breathlessness.

  There was a cry from below. Zahra had reached the base of the staircase and frozen on the spot. Catching up, Sam saw what had caused her reaction.

  A narrow corridor lay ahead, off which were small chapels. The string of light bulbs lit the corridor – and the interior of each chapel – in a cold, yellow light.

  Sam had read about catacombs like this in Palermo, huge underground chambers filled with what he could now see at the lip of each chapel. Coffins framed in timber but cased in glass. Just to the right, a man’s face, skin stretched parchment-like over his skull, eyes closed, a waxed moustache above dry lips. Elsewhere, those who’d not been afforded the luxury of a coffin. A figure hanging on the wall in the chapel to their left, head twisted in deathly curiosity, eyes black hollows, skin like brown leather, hair carefully parted to one side.

  They heard footsteps on the stairs.

  Sam saw his fears mirrored in Zahra’s face, which was creased with terror, her forehead beaded with sweat.

  ‘We have to hide,’ he whispered.

  As the noise on the stairs gathered strength, Sam and Zahra inched into the crypt. Each chapel was lit by a single bulb, one that cast its grisly contents in a horrifyingly harsh light. There were shelves of bodies stacked to the ceiling, as well as rows of suspended corpses. Men and women in their Sunday best. Two toddlers in night dresses, hands still clutching dolls, mouths agape as if they’d died screaming.

  To their left was a chapel in which the light bulb had gone. Sam pulled Zahra into the darkness. Something cold and brittle brushed his face and he shuddered. His free hand reached forward in the darkness. He felt the timber of a shelf to his right and, moving his hand up, cold, hard bone beneath a thin layer of dry cloth. He moved his hand down to waist height. Another skeletal corpse greeted him, this time with dusty, bony fingers. He was certain he was seconds away from a panic attack, a bout of breathlessness that would leave him gasping for oxygen in a place that only offered dust.

  Sam let his hand drop further and found a cavity. A place in which two bodies could have been stacked. They could, he reckoned, both squat in the space. He let go of Zahra’s hand and, summoning the last residue of courage he could muster, crouched down and tucked into the space till his back met stone. Dropping his backside to the ground, knees drawn into his chest, he reached out for Zahra’s trembling hand and pulled her towards him.

  She dropped down, crouching by him. Now he’d found a place to hide, Sam’s mind let loose on the imagined horrors all round him. Faces without eyes stared at him, skeletal hands reached out for him. He felt death in his nostrils, enveloping him in a cold embrace from which there was no escape. His breathing was accelerating, reaching the point of panic. Next to him, Zahra was shaking uncontrollably.

  The footsteps, slow and steady, were getting louder. Could they spring from their hiding place, use the element of surprise? But of course there was no element of surprise. Their pursuer had them trapped in this hellish place. He could take all the time he wanted.

  And it was then that Zahra began speaking. Not whispering, but speaking.

  ‘They were lined up on the beach. Body after body.’

  ‘Please,’ hissed Sam. ‘Not now. You mustn’t speak.’

  But Zahra was deep in her memories, oblivious to the danger closing in on them both. ‘They were all dead.’

  She stopped and Sam saw that the light in the corridor was disturbed by the silhouette of a man.

  He was about to die. He was certain of it. To die in a ready-made tomb.

  Chapter 50

  Pozzani, Sicily

  The silhouette spoke. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  Sam knew who it was, even if he couldn’t see the man’s face against the harsh light of the corridor. It was Reni, the policeman who’d just interviewed him.

  ‘I’m sorry I scared you both,’ he said. He glanced around the crypt. ‘But your choice of hiding place does not help either. Here.’ He reached into the darkness and took Sam’s hand. Zahra was still cowering in the alcove.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Sam, his heart racing and throat tight
, offering his hand to her.

  Zahra took the hand and Sam pulled her off the floor.

  Reni led them up the stairs. At the top were two uniformed officers. When Zahra saw them she flinched.

  ‘They won’t hurt you,’ said Sam.

  She shot him a wide-eyed look.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘We need an ally.’

  The eyes relaxed a fraction, as if she realised they couldn’t run any more.

  There was a brief exchange of Italian between Reni and the men. Then the policeman turned to Sam.

  ‘Perhaps you should come back to the station with me.’

  They were not handcuffed or strong-armed out of the church. Reni simply walked in front with the two other men, Sam and Zahra behind. As Sam’s breathing began to slow, he wondered why the policeman was so calm. His recent behaviour must surely have aroused their suspicion. Unless Reni knew something he didn’t.

  Reni invited them to sit in the back of his car then, without locking their doors, walked round to the front of the vehicle, got in, and drove back to the station.

  They were led to the same interview room Sam had sat in earlier, given coffee, then left alone.

  ‘What does he want?’ asked Zahra, her voice still quivering with fear.

  It was the first time she’d spoken since the crypt. Since she’d recalled the sight of bodies lined up on the beach. A memory triggered, without doubt, by the corpses arranged around them in the darkness. There were more questions to ask. Did Zahra now remember anything else, how those bodies – her fellow passengers, of that he was sure – ended up on the sand? But now wasn’t the time.

  ‘I may be very wrong,’ said Sam, ‘but I think he wants to help us.’

  The door opened and Reni came in, clutching a laptop. His face had lost the look of scepticism it had worn during the first interview. He smiled gently.

  ‘And this must be Zahra Idris, the woman you mentioned,’ he said. Reni placed the laptop on the table and sat down. He smiled gently at Zahra. She nodded hesitantly, her hostility towards the police still evident.

  ‘I spoke to this man earlier,’ Sam said to Zahra. ‘He knows everything.’

  Zahra’s face flashed annoyance.

  ‘I had no choice. They’re here. The men who tried to kill us in Rome. They nearly succeeded this time.’

  Zahra visibly tensed.

  ‘Your story intrigued me, Signor Keddie,’ said Reni. ‘And what you spoke about in the church, particularly what Signorina Idris said in the crypt.’ The policeman looked saddened for a moment, as if it had struck a chord within him. ‘My colleagues visited the hotel to talk to the other men. But they were not there. The hotelier said they were out. In fact, that was the news I received in the church when my phone rang. Causing you to run.’ He smiled again, as if apologising.

  ‘Then I suggest you find them as soon as possible,’ urged Sam.

  ‘My men are returning to the hotel as we speak.’

  Reni ran a hand through his hair, which seemed to do nothing but further increase its dishevelled appearance.

  ‘I need more if I’m going to take this further.’

  ‘So where do we start?’ asked Sam.

  Reni reached for the laptop. ‘Harry Tapper.’

  Chapter 51

  Pozzani, Sicily

  Emerging from behind the church’s organ, Tapper dusted down his coat and began to breathe again.

  Following a call from Wallace, he’d joined his old cellmate outside the church. They moved stealthily through the building, discovered the policeman standing at the top of the staircase.

  But before they could make any decisions, they heard a car screech to a halt outside, knew they’d soon be outnumbered and caught. There was no option but to hide.

  Tapper was now pacing the marble floor.

  ‘I’m fucked!’ he cried. ‘Completely fucked! They’ve found a sympathetic policeman, and they’re going to fucking talk.’

  ‘You’ve got to calm down, Harry,’ said Wallace. ‘You know how police investigations work. They don’t go anywhere without evidence. What do they have?’

  Tapper’s brain raced with the implications of what had just happened. All Keddie needed to do was finger them for assaulting him, and that might be enough to get the ball rolling, to start a trickle of suspicion that turned into a flood. He knew how it worked, how shit blossomed. At the very least, the police were going to be curious as to why he, Harry Tapper, CEO of Tapper Securities, had booked into a one-star hotel with a former cellmate in some backwater in out-of-season Sicily. It was a bloody good question.

  And that was looking at the whole matter in an optimistic light. Idris and Keddie were back together, a potentially credible team. And while they were probably not in possession of any real evidence – after all, what did they have without a murder weapon or a body? – they did have a story. And what a bloody story it was. It took an infamous event and added a grisly and horrifying angle to it. Who wouldn’t be curious?

  Maybe they hadn’t talked. They’d certainly had opportunities before – back in the UK, and in Amsterdam – and not taken them. He would have heard by now.

  He quickly discounted that crumb of comfort. They were with the police now. Two terrified, hunted people. They were bound to be talking.

  Bile rose to his mouth. He spat the yellow saliva on to the marble floor.

  Evidence.

  Despite their best efforts after what had happened – the scrubbing, the disposal of clothes and the knife – there was one way to link him to what had happened.

  It was unlikely – so unlikely – and he knew his mind was off again at a hundred miles an hour, but there might, just might, be a body. And if Zahra could identify that body and the murder scene, then there was evidence. Evidence that no amount of cleaning into the small hours could ever completely eradicate. He knew how people were sent down thanks to the existence of a single hair, or a fleck of blood. And there’d been a lot more than a fleck.

  His mind was suddenly filled with the images of that night. The horror that had so quickly unfolded.

  As he paced past Wallace, his old cellmate’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm. The grip was strong, almost painful. But its effect was instantly calming. He was held, protected, just as he’d been back at Ipswich.

  Tapper fixed Wallace with his eyes. Saw the solidity there. And knew then, as his brain slowed, that there was something they could do to end this. The evidence they could destroy. And if, after that, the police kept coming, then he’d set Tapper Security’s legal team on them.

  He was sure there was a way to explain his presence in Sicily. Perhaps he was paying an incognito visit. Discovering more as he prepared for his next role. With Wallace’s hand still gripping his arm tight, and an alternative narrative growing in his head, he started to rally, to feel a surge of confidence.

  He placed his free hand on Wallace’s arm. ‘One last stop, Pat. Then it won’t matter what shit they throw at us.’

  Chapter 52

  Pozzani, Sicily

  Reni angled the laptop so that all three of them could see the screen, then typed the words ‘Harry Tapper’ into Google.

  The screen began to flood with search results. Sam zoomed in on an image to the right of the page, of a well-groomed man in his fifties with grey hair.

  He turned to study Zahra, wondering whether she’d crumble or, worse, be consumed with terror. He thought of the memories that were beginning to emerge, how fragile she was. Was this blunt technique wise?

  It was too late.

  ‘That’s the man I saw at Creech Hill,’ she said, pointing to the screen, finger quivering.

  ‘Is there anything you can remember about him?’ asked Sam.

  Zahra shook her head emphatically.

  Reni clicked on the first link, Tapper’s biog on the Tapper Security website.

  ‘Big cheese,’ muttered Reni. ‘So what’s he doing having fights in the street in a place like Pozzani?’

  Sam scan
ned through the copy. ‘His company runs Creech Hill. Which at least explains how he managed to get Wallace into Zahra’s cell.’

  He thought about the two men. The friendship that seemed to exist between them. Which was odd, given their social divide.

  Reni had returned to the search results and was now looking at a bank of images of Tapper. There were photos of him pressing the flesh with various political figures, another of him standing outside Creech Hill, a smug look on his face. Then a picture of him dressed more casually, with what looked like a marina in the background.

  Reni broke away from the screen. ‘Can I ask, Signorina Idris, when you crossed the Mediterranean?’

  ‘Last summer. It was August.’

  ‘And how many were travelling with you?’

  ‘About one hundred.’

  The policeman paused, weighing up Zahra’s words. He looked at them both. ‘You may already have gathered that Pozzani is getting a bit of a reputation as a place where immigrants arrive. Immigrants whose boats have drifted from their intended destination, which is normally Lampedusa. They are rescued by the coastguard or the navy. Sometimes by voluntary organisations.’ He turned back to Zahra, smiling gently. ‘The lucky ones, that is. There are many who don’t make it. Lots of sad stories.’

  The policeman scratched his beard. ‘I need to show you something, Signorina Idris. But I should warn you now. It will not be easy.’

  Chapter 53

  Pozzani, Sicily

  Tapper left the engine of their hire car running. Wallace entered the hotel by a side door. Tapper watched his silhouette move through the unlit dining room before he disappeared through a doorway and up the stairs.

  Minutes later he re-emerged with their luggage. He opened one of the rear doors, flung the bags on the back seat, then climbed in the front. He pulled two passports from an inside pocket and deposited them in the glove compartment.

  Tapper accelerated away. The hotel would not be a problem. They had his credit card details.