by Nick Oldham
Henry was back on his feet in an instant, trying to see what had happened to Georgia – but Scartarelli, dazed and battered as he might have been, launched himself for the discarded gun. Henry also went for it, seeing it was a snub-nosed, six-shot revolver of some type, not a pistol as he’d first thought. He reached it first, kicking it away, then scooping it up and pointing it unerringly. Scartarelli sat up groggily, but Henry decided to take no chances. He flat-footed him in the chest, sending him sprawling and hearing a satisfactory clunk as his head connected with a rock.
Only then could he find out what was happening on the other side of the buggy.
Henry smiled. Georgia was dragging the henchman across the ground by his collar. A flower of bright-red blood blossomed around the man’s left shoulder where she had shot him. She threw him down and returned Henry’s winning smile before flicking a few strands of hair away from her flawed, but beautiful face, and blowing out her red cheeks.
TEN
As Henry Christie had always suspected, it was very unlikely that the wheels of justice would spin quickly in the case of Paulo Scartarelli. Not because it was Cypriot justice. It would not have mattered where in the world Scartarelli had been detained, there was no way he would be extradited from anywhere, no matter how willing the authorities, within the promised two days. It just didn’t happen – such was life – but he was surprised that it took only four weeks, in itself a miracle. The problem, as ever, was defence lawyers and Scartarelli wasn’t going to be taken to the UK without a legal battle of some sort.
And just to draw out the process, he hired and fired a series of quite capable lawyers until a high court judge said enough was enough. Twenty-eight days after his arrest, Scartarelli was ready to be handed over to the British authorities – Henry Christie, in other words.
Since the arrest in the Akamas, Henry had been involved in shuttling back and forth to Cyprus because there was no way he would have been allowed to remain on the island for that length of time, despite pleas that fell on deaf ears. By the time Scartarelli was ready for collection, Henry was heartily peed off with travelling backwards and forwards on cramped planes. He was glad, in some ways, that the episode was drawing to a close.
And as his final journey to Cyprus ended and he and Bill Robbins clambered down the steps of the easyJet Boeing 737, hopping on to the bendy bus to take them to the terminal building at Pafos, Henry did have one big regret that this was all soon going to be over.
It was like being sardined into a packed Tube train, swaying and bumping into other people as the bus lurched across the tarmac on its short run.
‘You must be well used to this,’ Bill Robbins said.
‘Yeah – and pissed off with it all.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Bill sarcastically. He had not been back to Cyprus since the first visit. ‘I really hate coming to nice, hot countries,’ he mocked.
‘Just eff off, Bill,’ Henry said quietly. It had been another tiring journey, beset by unexplained delays, crap food, shrieking kids and simmering air rage inside him.
Bill pulled his face and shut up. ‘Whatever,’ he did manage to say.
For once, Henry’s bag was one of the first to come along the conveyor belt and he left Bill fuming because his was nowhere to be seen.
‘See you out front,’ Henry said.
He passed through customs and into the arrivals hall and the reason why Henry was filled with such mixed emotions was standing there waiting for him.
DS Georgia Papakostas.
Henry literally felt himself go weak at the knees and they approached each other and kissed formally on the cheek.
‘Where’s Bill?’
Henry jerked his head backwards. ‘Still waiting.’ He looked at her, mesmerized, unbelievably ecstatic to see her again even though it had been only a week since he last visited the island. She smiled widely, her eyes playing over his face; she, too, was overjoyed to see him.
‘Where’s Tekke?’
‘At the police station in Pafos. We’ll meet him there.’
Bill appeared through the door of the baggage hall, lugging his suitcase behind him, a big smile on his face at seeing Georgia. After an effusive greeting they were taken out to the Terrano and Georgia drove them from the airport.
‘What’s the plan this time?’ Henry said, rubbing his hands together.
‘I’ve booked you into a hotel in Pafos – separate rooms.’ She eyed Henry. ‘Tonight we’ll chill. Tomorrow is paperwork day, then the day after he’s all yours to take back – and that’s the last we’ll see of you,’ she concluded wistfully. ‘But,’ she went on brightly, ‘I do have some news of my own, kind of mixed.’
Henry waited.
‘Promotion – detective inspector.’
‘Oh, well done,’ he said genuinely.
‘Yeah, brill,’ Bill perked from the rear.
‘What’s the mixed bit?’
‘Tekke is being moved and I’m taking his place. He’s being posted to Protaris on the other side of the island.’ She gave Henry a short smile that said an awful lot.
Henry and Bill didn’t see Georgia or Tekke that evening. They went out for a meal in Kato Pafos, down at the harbour. Henry was eager to see the spot where Haram had been murdered and the Pelican, though they didn’t dine there. However, they ate and drank too much as usual, then hit the sack. Both were exhausted from the long flight and the delay.
As soon as Henry’s head hit the pillow, it was lights out.
The morning after, a uniformed cop picked them up after breakfast and took them to the main police station in Pafos where they met a strained-looking Georgia and an extremely grumpy Tekke who spent the time communicating with them in monosyllables. They were clearly not a happy couple, but Henry tried to ignore it as much as possible and get on with what they were there to do – complete the file-checking with the Cypriot lawyer who was representing the police.
Scartarelli’s fate had been sealed at a hearing two days earlier and this was the final run-through of the extradition papers. It was certain his lawyer would be engaged in the same activity and if anything was found out of place, it had to be spotted and dealt with.
Eight hours after starting, the task was complete.
Henry, Bill, Georgia and Tekke sat back and watched the lawyer leave. Then there was a collective sigh of relief.
All that needed to be done now was to arrange an escort for Scartarelli from the prison in Larnaca in which he was lodged and for that to tie in with the scheduled flight back to Manchester the next day. Henry also needed to be met at Manchester with a further escort to take the prisoner to the cells in Lancashire.
The four looked at each other.
‘Mine’s a pint,’ Bill ventured.
‘Mine’s a red wine,’ Georgia continued the theme.
‘I’ll have whatever’s going,’ Henry said manfully.
Tekke grimaced, stood up and left the room, saying nothing.
The three of them, showered and changed after a clammy day inside, walked on to the harbour at Kato Pafos and ate a meal at one of the waterfront restaurants. As the sun dropped, the heat fell a little, but it remained warm and pleasant. Bill decided on a lone stroll after the meal, leaving Henry and Georgia sitting across the table from each other, slowly and thoughtfully spinning their wineglasses by the stems, inspecting the ruby liquid as it rolled around.
‘How’s the guy you shot?’ Henry asked to break the ice.
‘Well enough to face trial.’
‘And what’s eating Tekke?’ Henry asked eventually.
‘Mm … he asked me to marry him last night. I said no.’
‘Bit of a bummer for him,’ Henry said, realizing this must have been the reason for their no-show the previous evening.
‘Add to that his unexpected departure from Pafos.’
‘That, too.’
‘And the fact I’m taking over his job.’
‘And that.’
‘And he simply doesn’t want
me being a cop – especially after our little shoot-out in the Akamas. Not a woman’s job. He thought it would have dawned on me after that, the drive-by shooting, and the chase after Scartarelli, and Haram’s murder – still undetected, incidentally. A woman’s place, at least in the eyes of the men in our society, is still in the home, cooking, giving birth, screwing her husband. He’s a through-and-through sexist and I think our relationship has come to a grinding halt.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Deep down I’m sure he’s a good man.’
Her face tightened. ‘And there’s the age difference.’
‘That’s not his fault,’ Henry said reasonably.
‘I mean – he’s as old as you, Henry,’ she laughed.
Henry sat back and surveyed her, a smile twitching on his lips. He had very much come to be obsessed with her and he knew she felt the same way about him. At least neither of them had done anything about it, other than flirt and enjoy each other’s company. No harm done so far.
‘You need to do what’s right for you,’ Henry said in a very clichéd way. ‘Sometimes you fall into things, relationships, that seem right but they turn very wrong and it’s hard to pull yourself out of them, but it can be done.’
‘There speaks the voice of experience.’ She sighed deeply. ‘But there is a part of me that thinks I should settle down and have kids, grow fat, feed an even fatter man. That is a big pull, believe it or not. But I know Tekke isn’t the man for that side of me. Oh shit, Henry, what should I do?’
They made their way up from the harbour, spending a little time in a couple of bars before finding their way to the hotel where Bill and Henry were staying. They sat and chatted for a while in the bar, then Georgia excused herself reluctantly and left. Bill and Henry had a couple of nightcaps, ouzo and lemonade.
‘You OK about tomorrow?’ Henry asked.
‘I’d be better with an MP5 slung across me and a Glock in my holster – but yeah.’
‘Just make sure you’re happy with everything, OK? Not that I’m expecting anything to go amiss, but you never know …’
Once again, Henry Christie’s male ego and self-destruct button were working in parallel with each other – but only in his mind, fortunately.
His hotel room was pretty standard fare, two double beds side by side and air-conditioning blasting away, but even this comfort did not help him sleep that night. He tossed and turned on the wide bed, unable to drift away, until midnight passed. As the time approached 1 a.m. he rolled off the bed, had a much-needed pee, then did something he rarely did – raided the mini-bar. He took two mini-bottles of Bell’s whiskey and a couple of chunks of ice from the freezer unit and went out on to the balcony overlooking the pool.
The whiskey hit his throat harshly, but felt great going down into his chest.
He was annoyed with himself.
He couldn’t get Georgia out of his mind and he was annoyed with her too. Why hadn’t she come knocking? Why weren’t they making hot, passionate love?
But most of all – why was he bothered?
Why in the name of hell and his new marriage was he even thinking like this?
He sneered at himself, feeling his face darken with anger.
Would he never change?
Would he always be destined to feel the need to seek new sexual adventures for as long as he could manage it? Encounters which clearly had no rhyme or reason?
He felt pathetic and inept, both as a man and husband.
There was no doubt that he and Kate really had something going now, better and deeper than it had ever been, and here he was, two thousand miles from home, wishing a sexy, vulnerable woman would come knocking on his hotel-room door and fuck him.
‘You pathetic shit,’ he said aloud.
‘I’m not sure that’s the way you should be talking about your travelling companion,’ a voice called back from the next balcony along. Bill Robbins’ head bobbed up over the dividing screen and held up his glass of double whiskey and clinky ice and said, ‘Cheers. I hope these are on the firm.’
The knock came at 2.16 a.m., about three-quarters of an hour after Henry had finally managed to get to bed, having clambered across on to Bill’s balcony and raided his fridge for another couple of miniatures each before calling it a night.
Henry was asleep, but the persistent light tapping eventually worked its way into his brain and switched him on.
He jerked awake, swallowing something hard, trying to recall a strange dream about being naked in a shopping trolley in Debenhams. What the fuck did that mean? He flipped off the single sheet and, pulling up his baggy sleeping shorts, padded to the door and peered through the spyhole.
His heart fell and soared at the same time.
He took a moment to compose himself, detached the security chain and opened the door to see a very distraught Georgia out in the corridor. She immediately stepped into the room and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face between his developing man-boobs, sobbing.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ he said gently, easing her away from him. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I told him,’ she gagged, ‘I told him it was over.’
‘Ah. How did he take it?’ Henry held back from saying, ‘How did he Tekke it?’ in a Lancashire accent.
‘Badly.’
Henry stepped into the corridor and checked it both ways before closing the door and shuffling Georgia ahead of him into the bedroom. He sat her down on the edge of a bed. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’
He raided the minibar again, finding an ouzo for her and another whiskey for him. He poured both neat, handing her the ouzo.
Rubbing his eyes, he sat next to her.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, I’m so sorry.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘It’s just – my family are in Nicosia. I’ve no one else to go to. Just you, Henry Christie.’
‘That’s OK,’ he said with a shrug of acceptance and a smidgen of dread now. ‘Come on, take a deep breath, tell me everything.’
There were moments, Henry knew, when he could easily have taken advantage of the situation. He could have put his arms around her, held her tight, turned her face up to his and kissed her, but something inside held him back. Not long ago he would have done, but Kate and the girls were now his first loyalty and infidelity was no longer on the to-do list. It would have to remain within the confines of his cranium for the rest of his days.
Georgia told him how she had informed Tekke their relationship was over. He had exploded. She had never seen him so angry and dark. At one point she thought he was going to attack her, but he held back – fist in the air – and at the last moment stormed out of their flat. He hadn’t been seen since.
‘He mentioned your name,’ she said. ‘He accused me of having an affair with you.’
A chill of fear swept through Henry’s veins. ‘I hope you put him right on that?’
‘Yes, yes, of course, but I don’t think he believed me.’
Henry exhaled long and hard, wondering how he’d got himself into the middle of this mess.
Eventually she calmed down and said it would be best for her to return home. Henry didn’t try to prevent her from leaving and with a heavy heart he steered her to the door after pulling on a pair of jeans and a shirt. He accompanied her to the hotel foyer and on the steps outside she turned to him and kissed him.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and walked away. Henry watched her get into the Terrano and drive off. He turned glumly back to the hotel, knowing he would be unlikely to get any sleep now.
He failed to see the dark shadow, which then moved, revealing the brooding figure of Tekke.
Next morning, two bleary-eyed men and one delicately balanced woman met in the hotel foyer and had a breakfast together. They discussed the fine-tuning of the plans for the day, the main problem being timing. They had to ensure that the prisoner was picked up at the prison by an armed and properly briefed escort at the correct time; was taken to the airport to meet the pl
ane due to fly him back to Blighty; was handed over to the British authorities on the tarmac (i.e. to Henry Christie and Bill Robbins, ambassadors extraordinaire of the British justice system); and was flown out of the country – and then the Cypriots could wash their hands of the bastard. Lots of bits of things depended on other bits being right and if the plane was delayed, the whole process would be thrown out of kilter.
As they reached the end of their discussion, Henry enquired about Tekke.
Georgia shrugged. She looked completely exhausted. ‘He reported sick, but I haven’t spoken to him. Don’t even know where he is.’
Henry thought about that and felt vaguely uncomfortable. A man on the loose who thought he was having an affair with his girl was not a good thing.
Bill eyed the two of them, not understanding any of the subtext.
Henry looked at Georgia, sensing Bill’s position. ‘I think Bill should know what’s happening.’ She nodded. ‘To cut a long story short,’ Henry continued, ‘Georgia has split up with Tekke. There are several private reasons for this, but the one you might need to know about is that he suspects Georgia and me of having an affair …’
Bill’s eyes flicked from one to the other. Then he guffawed, ‘You and her? An affair?’ and suddenly burst into a huge, sustained fit of belly laughter, interspersed with the occasional word such as, ‘You? … Her? … An affair? … You!’
Henry and Georgia watched the display of mirth stony-faced, Henry because he felt affronted by the realization that Bill seemed to think it preposterous that he could even contemplate sleeping with Georgia and that Georgia would even fancy him at all.
‘It’s not that far-fetched,’ he said.
‘Yes it is.’
Eventually he regained some sort of control over himself, wiping his tear-stained eyes with his knuckles. ‘Look, I’m really sorry you and Tekke broke up … that’s not what I find funny … it’s the thought that …’ He gave a dismissive wave. ‘Sorry, sorry.’
Georgia hung her head. Henry glared at the firearms officer and shook his head in disbelief.
‘Totally inappropriate, Bill,’ he said coldly.