Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2)

by Paddy Magrane

  My legs were weak but I followed Abel up a small set of steps on to the main deck. I couldn’t believe what I saw. A dinner table with two empty chairs. Silver cutlery, empty bottles of Champagne and wine, plates with half-eaten slabs of steak, the remains of a lobster on a large dish in the middle of the table. I almost passed out at the sight of the food.

  Beyond the table were some glass doors that opened into a lounge area. And there, sitting on a long sofa, were two naked men. One was Harry Tapper. They were watching a film on a large screen. At first I couldn’t work out what they were looking at. It just looked like a mess of limbs and flesh. Then I realised it was three men having sex with each other.

  Tapper was chopping up white powder on the glass table and then he rolled up some money and snorted the powder into his nose. The other man did the same.

  Abel and I stood watching. It was like we had stepped into a different universe.

  Then the other man turned and saw us. First he looked shocked, which I can understand. But then he glanced around him, at the drugs on the table and the film playing on the screen, and started looking panicked.

  He reached for a remote control and the TV screen went blank and the music died. He grabbed a towel and stood, wrapping it round his waist.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he shouted.

  Abel spoke first, but his throat was so parched he could barely get the words out. ‘We need water,’ he finally managed. ‘Food.’

  The man marched out of the lounge and on to the deck. Tapper followed.

  The man began shouting. ‘Get off the boat, you fucking parasites!’

  Abel’s English wasn’t as good as mine, but he understood the man’s sentiment. We were nothing to him, worse than nothing. Bloodsuckers who weren’t even worthy of a cup of water.

  Abel knew the man was serious, but I could see he was angry that someone could be so hateful. And of course he was starving and dying of thirst. He grabbed at a bottle of water on the table, took a long gulp, passed it to me. Then he snatched a lump of lobster flesh, took huge hungry bites.

  The man went insane. Started screaming at Abel. Abel responded by eating more lobster, scooping up the remains of the flesh and stuffing it into his mouth.

  That was when it happened. The man grabbed a knife from the table and ran at Abel, plunging it into his chest. Not once, but again and again.

  Abel collapsed to the deck and I must have screamed, it’s hard to remember. But the next thing I knew was that the man was coming for me with the same knife. I stepped backwards, completely terrified, and missed the steps down to the platform. I was suddenly falling backwards. I remember a crack and a brief moment of unbelievable pain. Then everything went black.

  Chapter 58

  Ragusa, Sicily

  Zahra stopped talking. She looked exhausted. As if the telling of the story had sucked the life from her. She bent forward, cupped her head in her hands and began sobbing quietly.

  Sam pressed a hand to her back, felt her shuddering. Inside he was reeling.

  She would soon long for the amnesia to return, to blot out the horrific visions that had just been unleashed. He would help her all he could, but this was her pain to endure, one that would take a long time to process, and even longer to recover from. Christ, he thought. She’d dreamt of a new life in Europe and this was what had greeted her.

  Reni’s mobile rang.

  ‘Pronto.’

  He listened, then fired off a couple of questions before ending the call with an angry punch of his thumb.

  He turned in Sam’s direction. ‘The hotelier has just called the station. The two men have disappeared. Taken their bags and passports, and gone.’

  ‘Does that matter?’ asked Sam. ‘We have Zahra’s testimony.’

  Reni looked pained. ‘We need evidence. A murder weapon. DNA. We have nothing.’

  Sam had a fleeting memory. ‘I need a laptop.’

  ‘There’s one on the desk over there.’

  Sam gently removed his hand from Zahra’s back and propped some cushions in the corner of the sofa, gesturing for her to lie down. She responded like a pliant child.

  At the desk, Reni fired up the laptop.

  ‘Search for Tapper again,’ Sam said, his voice charged. ‘But this time, just the images.’

  Reni typed the words and pressed ‘Enter’.

  The screen was filled with images. Sam took the mouse from Reni and scrolled through the pictures. He stopped, scrolled upwards. There it was. The image he remembered from the station. He double-clicked on it.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  It was a picture of Tapper at a marina. The aft of a large white motor yacht behind him, nestled between two other similar craft. The name of the boat and the port in which it was registered sat beneath a British ensign.

  The Leopard, Southampton.

  Sam opened the page and began reading, his voice gathering pace.

  ‘It’s from a superyacht magazine. “Sir Harry Tapper chose to moor his new 50-metre superyacht, The Leopard, in Siracusa Marina. He praised Siracusa for its intimate feel and spacious berths. ‘It gives me access to some stunning cruise grounds’, Sir Harry said. ‘The southern coast of Sicily and the Egadi Islands are close by and The Leopard is also within a day’s reach of the Amalfi coast and Capri.’”’

  ‘I know the marina well,’ said Reni. ‘It’s just by the harbour where my father’s boat is moored. We can be there in less than half an hour.’

  Chapter 59

  Siracusa, Sicily

  Reni’s foot was pressed to the floor as the car roared down a wide avenue in Siracusa. Sam pushed himself back in the seat, certain that, if a pedestrian decided to step into the road and Reni braked, they’d been flung violently forwards and no airbag would save them. But the policeman was clearly not in the mood for caution.

  The road narrowed and Reni eased off the accelerator a fraction as the car sped down a thin strip of cobbled street between homes with delicate Baroque balconies. Suddenly the houses on the right disappeared and there was the sea. And what should have been a dark mass stretching out into the distance under thick stormy clouds was broken by a sight that made Sam gasp.

  Reni braked and pulled the car over, mounting the pavement. He and Sam climbed out of the vehicle and stood by a shallow wall just above a quayside. There were a handful of large motor yachts moored, noses pointing out to sea. There was a conspicuous gap between two of the boats and directly in front of that gap, about one hundred metres into the water, a stationary vessel.

  It was on fire, great angry flames that crackled and spat and seemed to be eating the vessel alive.

  As Sam looked closer at the burning boat, he saw something that made him recoil in horror. At the rear of the vessel was a figure, a bulky man moving through the blaze with the stumbling gait of a drunkard, as if he were no longer sure of which direction to go in.

  From a distance, the flames seemed to dance playfully around him, licking him. But his body movements told a different story. His arms reached out in front of him, groping desperately, searching in vain for relief from his torment. His mouth was open in a silent scream.

  He was being burnt alive.

  Sam wanted to look away, but he was drawn to the scene like a motorist to a pile-up on a road. The man looked like a guy atop a Bonfire Night pyre, his whole body surrounded by a halo of flame. Still he stumbled forward, arms raking the white hot air.

  Then, whether because of the pain or the smoke in his lungs, he fell to his knees and tipped forward. He briefly lifted his head and opened his mouth. At that moment, the spit and crackle of the inferno around him seemed to quieten a fraction and Sam heard the animal-like roar of a man in unbearable pain, a man seconds from the most agonising death imaginable. Then he collapsed to the deck, not to rise again.

  Chapter 60

  Siracusa, Sicily

  Reni made a call. There was a rapid exchange of Italian.

  ‘It’s already been called in,’ h
e said to Sam. ‘But the harbour master’s vessel is in dry dock, the coastguard are at least twenty minutes away and the island’s only police launches are in Palermo and Catania.’

  The policeman shook his head in frustration. Then his eyes widened with an idea. He made another call. Sam heard the word ‘Papa’ used three times.

  The policeman gestured to Sam to get back in the car. Reni did a three-point-turn and then accelerated back up the alleyway. When the lane widened he yanked the wheel left and pulled into a small piazza that overlooked the edge of the same quayside. But where previously the boats were large, sleek and luxuriant, here there were more tightly clustered vessels, a mess of wheelhouses, aerials, winches and lines.

  Reni descended a staircase that dropped to the quayside and then sprinted across the tarmac towards the boats. Sam followed, his eyes darting to the left where the almost white flames of the burning superyacht drew his gaze. It was then he saw the solitary car parked on the quayside. Sam halted in his tracks and strained his eyes. There was someone at the driver’s seat. A head resting against the window. Something wasn’t right.

  ‘Reni!’

  The Ispettore had reached a fishing trawler and was standing by the vessel looking expectantly down the quayside. He turned at Sam’s call.

  ‘There’s a car,’ shouted Sam, pointing at the vehicle, ‘and someone in it.’

  ‘Leave it!’ shouted Reni. ‘Back-up’s on its way. Stay there!’

  Sam stood on the quayside, watching the inferno out to sea, a fire accompanied by the crackle and pop of burning fibreglass. But his eyes kept returning to the car. What if one of them was in it? To his right, Reni had been joined by his father and he was now untying ropes on the quayside, readying to set off.

  He looked at the car again. After everything that had happened, everything that these men had done to him, he could not simply stand by.

  He approached the vehicle slowly. When he was about ten metres away he saw that the figure inside was either unconscious, or dead.

  A small explosion on the water made Sam jump. Something on board the superyacht had gone up with a bang, sending a ball of flames into the night sky. The fire had now spread forwards and every inch of the boat seemed engulfed by angry white flames. The cold sea air had become tainted with a sharp, choking stench that caught in Sam’s throat. There was no longer any sign of the figure that had collapsed on the deck, which was now a bed of flames.

  Sam returned his gaze to the car. As the flames from the boat lit up the quayside, Sam realised, with a mix of nausea and rage, who was behind the wheel. Tapper.

  He was feet from the vehicle. Was this some kind of elaborate trap? He had to assume not. The head resting at the window was still. It struck him then that Tapper might well be dead.

  At this thought – and the prospect of denied justice – rage engulfed Sam. He marched to the car, grabbed the door handle and wrenched it open. Tapper dropped out on to the tarmac, his body limp and lifeless.

  Sam lent down and fumbled for a pulse in the man’s neck. He was alive, alright. Just knocked out. Just then there was the juddering sound of a diesel engine and Sam turned to watch a small fishing vessel, with Reni and an older man at the helm, starting out towards the burning yacht.

  He heard a cough from below and turned to see that Tapper’s eyes had opened. He stared up at Sam with a look of utter dislocation. But then he caught sight of the yacht.

  ‘Pat,’ he said gently. Then he cried out, his voice loaded with dread and panic. ‘Pat!’

  Tapper’s anguish for his barbaric friend – a man who’d attacked Eleanor and drowned Fitzgerald – filled Sam with a visceral disgust. He felt hatred flood his veins.

  ‘You bastard!’ cried Sam, grabbing Tapper by the collar of his coat and pulling him off the tarmac before slamming his head down again. Tapper reached up with weakened arms to try and grip Sam’s neck. But Sam beat him to it, moving his hands in a shot from Tapper’s collar to his throat. He closed his hands around the flesh, tightening slowly. Tapper pawed at Sam’s hands feebly.

  With Tapper’s face darkening, Sam felt a warped pleasure surge through him.

  A siren was gathering strength behind them but Sam barely heard the noise. Staring down, he saw Tapper’s face – his eyes bulging with both pressure and terror – and felt all his anger distilling to a single point in his hands. He poured all his strength into them in a final attempt to snuff out the man.

  It was then that he felt strong arms on him, and his body being pulled away. He cried out in frustration as he was yanked backwards and pressed, face down, on the tarmac, his hands wrenched behind his back.

  Chapter 61

  Ragusa, Sicily

  Sam sat in a small cell in the basement of the building he and Zahra had been in hours earlier.

  As he got up to pace the cramped grey room for the umpteenth time, he heard a key being turned in the lock. The door opened. It was Reni.

  The policeman sat on the narrow bed, sighing loudly. ‘I’m sorry you were arrested,’ he said. ‘They were just doing their job.’

  Reni’s hair clung damply to his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot.

  ‘You look terrible,’ said Sam, leaning against a wall. He’d done enough sitting.

  ‘I had an asthma attack out on the water. From the fumes. But that was preferable to what followed.’

  Reni picked at the foam surface of the mattress. ‘The boat incident has taken this whole case up the chain of command. There are other people involved.’

  ‘But that’s a good thing, right?’

  ‘Not here,’ said Reni, looking crestfallen.

  The Ispettore stood and went to the open door, peering out into the corridor in both directions. He returned to the bed and coughed wheezily. He pulled an inhaler from a pocket, shook it and pumped it into his mouth.

  He paused as his lungs relaxed.

  ‘Tapper has given my commanding officers his side of the story,’ he then said. ‘The reason why he was in Rome and then here. He has told them that, as the CEO of a firm that detains thousands of immigrants, he wanted to learn more about their experience – their journey.’

  ‘But that’s bullshit.’

  ‘Please,’ said Reni, pleading with both hands. ‘Tapper said he wanted to do this discreetly, not as part of some big trip accompanied by other important people. He brought along a man he says he has known for years, a trusted employee. But he claims the man had been acting increasingly strangely. He attacked another British visitor – you, who Tapper says he does not know – in the street in Pozzani. He alleges that his associate forced him to come to the marina and demanded the start code of the yacht. When Tapper refused, his associate hit him repeatedly till he gave in. Tapper was then knocked unconscious. The next thing he knew, he was being strangled by the man who his associate had attacked in Pozzani. You, in other words.’

  Sam’s blood boiled. He began pacing the room again. ‘So they’re being sold a story that Wallace was some kind of obsessive. And that he went mad, took Tapper’s boat out into the harbour and set it on fire.’

  ‘It seems that way.’

  ‘But that’s all lies.’ He stopped pacing and looked Reni in the eye. ‘I mean, your superiors have heard your side of the story, right? They know that I was with you. And what I told you.’

  ‘They know, yes.’

  And then Sam understood. For whatever reason, Reni was being sidelined.

  ‘Look,’ said Reni. ‘Tapper is a man with great influence. His firm, under a different name, runs the custodial transport system here. As far as my superiors are concerned, he has committed no crime. In fact, he has been the victim of one. So my involvement – your story – is just an inconvenience to them.’

  ‘Even though it’s plausible? I mean, why would anyone make something like this up?’

  ‘I honestly believed that the boat might provide the answer I needed to make my superiors finally take an interest in Abel’s strange death. But the vessel is gone no
w. It was set on fire with diesel. At the rear, where there were no sprinklers. The fibreglass caught, the flames became white hot. The sprinkler system in the next area to catch – the main saloon – was completely overwhelmed. I think Wallace must have intended to escape but became trapped by the flames. The fire was only extinguished when it reached the water line. By then the vessel was a blackened, distorted mess.’

  Reni coughed again. ‘If there was any evidence, it’s gone now. The deck was teak. If a murder had occurred on board, there would have been blood in the timber’s grain. But there’s no hope of finding that now.’

  Sam leaned back against the wall, sliding down it to sit, defeated, on the floor. ‘Tapper must have come to the same conclusion, that the murder scene still held a clue. And with Zahra and me talking to a police officer, there was a risk we’d come looking.’ He paused, a thought occurring to him. ‘And where is Tapper now?’

  ‘He’s been checked into a private clinic in Palermo to be observed. There are some worries about concussion – and swelling around his neck – and then he’s flying home.’

  None of this surprised Sam. As he was only too aware, the rich and powerful had a gift for extracting themselves from all manner of sticky situations.

  ‘And what about me? The man with the ludicrous story? The man caught with his hands around the throat of Sir Harry Tapper?’

  ‘Tapper has graciously decided not to press charges. You are free to go. To be honest, my superiors would prefer you did not exist. You do not fit with what they have decided to believe. I imagine my statement will be destroyed. I strongly urge you to leave the island as soon as possible. And not return.’

  ‘But what did your superiors make of Zahra’s positive identification of Abel?’

  Reni hung his head in shame. ‘I’m afraid that, in telling the whole story, I have alerted them to the fact that Zahra has escaped from a detention centre in the UK. She will be flown back to your country, detained and most likely deported to Eritrea. So what she says or thinks is immaterial. She is a non-person as far as they are concerned. As for Abel, they’ve never been interested in him. Nothing has changed.’