Blood Tracks

by Paula Rawsthorne

  “Of course I do. This is where your dad killed himself.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t you want to see where your friend died?”

  Tom shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. “No, I made the decision not to. It would have been too painful and I was right. Listen, Gina, just give me the diamonds and we can go home.”

  “No, not yet.” She looked up at the blackening sky. “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah and this isn’t a good place to be in the dark.”

  “We’ll be okay. The street lamps will come on in a minute,” she said, nodding towards the rows of lights down the cobbled street.

  “No they won’t, none of them work,” he said. “We’ll be standing here in the pitch-black soon, if we don’t sort this out.”

  Gina struggled to remain calm but she could feel herself beginning to tremble. “How do you know that if you’ve never been here before?”

  “What? Well…I don’t know… It was just an educated guess. Look at the state of the street; full of boarded-up houses, it’s unlikely the street lights would still be working.”

  “You don’t have to guess, do you, Uncle Tom,” she spat, “because you were here that night, weren’t you?”

  Tom threw his arms up. “What the hell are you talking about? I spent that night in a hotel in Glasgow. I was on business up there. You were so traumatized I don’t expect you to remember. I didn’t come home until your mum phoned me in the early hours of the next morning – I drove back at a hundred miles an hour all the way, to be with you all.”

  “Liar!” Gina bawled. “You weren’t in Glasgow. Your own business expenses don’t show any payment for a hotel that night.”

  For a second he was speechless; then he went on the attack. “Have you been looking at my business expenses? You’re obsessed, Gina. Did it ever cross your mind that I may just have forgotten to claim for it?”

  “Really! Well, now that these diamonds have turned up, I’m sure that the police will be interested in checking the hotel’s records – then we’ll know whether you stayed there that night.”

  Tom’s demeanour changed; he puffed his chest out and sneered at her. “Are you really saying that I was on this bridge that night? Did you see me then, Gina? Strange how you haven’t mentioned this before.”

  Gina started to back away from him and towards the cluster of bushes and trees at the side of the bridge. She opened her school bag, pulling out the bottle of aftershave.

  Tom watched open-mouthed as she started to sprinkle drops of the perfume into the greenery.

  “What the hell are you doing with my aftershave?” he demanded.

  “I’m just trying to jog your memory. It sounds like you’ve forgotten that you were hiding in those bushes. When I ran to the bridge that night, looking for Dad, I came over here and there was a smell, an expensive, exotic smell that, even in my panic, I realized was odd – out of place. The smell lodged itself somewhere in my memory until you brought this bottle back from Paris. As soon as I smelled that scent again I could see myself standing right here, in this spot, on that night.”

  “This is ridiculous!” he bellowed. “You’re mad! Clare should have dragged you back to that psychiatrist, instead of letting you get worse and worse. I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut. The police have got better things to do than to follow up the crazed rantings of a teenager who can’t accept her father’s suicide. Be careful, Gina. The doctors will put you on so much medication that you won’t even know what day of the week it is. I was in Glasgow that night, everyone knows that!”

  “Everyone knows what you told them,” she shouted. “No one had any reason to doubt you. But you didn’t stay the night in a hotel, you came back here, to this bridge, to meet my dad! It was about the diamonds, wasn’t it?”

  “Enough!” He powered towards her, pinning her against the wall of the bridge. He ripped the bag from her shoulder and over her head. Throwing it open, he emptied the contents onto the ground, then rifled through the textbooks and exercise books, her PE kit and lunchbox. He searched the bag again and found her phone in a side pocket, but no stones.

  “Where are they?” he snarled in her face, his perfect white teeth bared like a dog poised to attack.

  She shrugged defiantly. He started to frisk her, his hands sliding over her body.

  “Get off me,” she screamed, swiping her nails across his face.

  He recoiled. His bitten hand flew to his stinging cheek. His frame trembled with rage but he was desperate to appear in control.

  He held out his hand. “Give them to me. I need them, Gina…we need them. Have you any idea what kind of man Sissouma is? And the person he works for? Don’t mess with these people. They’re dangerous.”

  “I know all about you and your warlord and your blood diamonds,” she said in disgust. “You help smuggle a murderer’s diamonds in the sacks of cocoa beans, you get them out and pass them on to an illegal cutter.”

  “Where did you get that story from? Not Declan Doyle by any chance?”

  Her eyes dived to the ground, betraying the answer.

  “How does he know all this? Who’s he working for?” Tom asked.

  Confusion spread across Gina’s face. How does Declan know so much? Why didn’t he tell me who he phoned?

  Tom leaped on her doubt. “It seems that your friend Declan has been keeping you in the dark. Maybe he’s not really your friend at all. Maybe he’s been using you to find out about me. Weren’t you the one who recommended that I take him on in the warehouse? Did he ask you to get him a job with me?”

  Her body felt suddenly hot and clammy as the truth dawned on her.

  “Oh, poor Gina,” Tom said mockingly. “You’ve been taken for a ride.”

  She bit her lip, holding back the urge to burst into tears.

  “Kylie, I’ve done nothing wrong,” Declan whispered from under the desk. “I’ve got to find Gina. She’s not safe, but how am I going to get out of here with all of the port police looking for me?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m on it,” Kylie answered. “There’s only a couple of the coppers left here now. The rest have gone to look around the dock.”

  Much to Declan’s relief, Kylie stood up. He uncurled his aching limbs. She passed a yellow hard hat under the desk.

  “Right, put the hat on and, when I say so, you get out from there and follow me to the entrance of the warehouse, but keep your head down,” she warned.

  Declan did as he was told and Kylie led him to the Chunky Chocs lorry that had just been loaded up with cocoa sacks for the chocolate factory.

  Kylie opened the passenger door of the cabin and ushered Declan in.

  “Hey, Kylie, what are you up to?” the surprised lorry driver asked, lowering the bacon cob that had been heading for his mouth.

  “Hiya, Charlie. You know Declan, don’t you?” She smiled sweetly. “I just need a little favour. Could you be a wonderful man and give Declan a lift out of here?”

  “Well, yeah, no problem.”

  “Only thing is, he needs to lie on the floor until you get through the gates,” she said, pushing Declan onto the litter-filled floor of the cabin.

  “Why? What have you been up to?” he asked Declan.

  “Nothing bad,” Kylie interjected. “Just a little game of hide and seek with the port police. You’ll do this for me, won’t you, Charlie?” She pouted at the pot-bellied driver.

  “Anything for you, Kylie,” Charlie replied, revving up his engine.

  Declan waited until they were clear of the dock road before he got up.

  “Thanks a million, Charlie,” he said, checking his phone.

  The driver glanced over and saw the look of panic on the young man’s face as he listened to Gina’s breathless message.

  “What is it?” Charlie asked.

  “I need one more favour,” Declan said. “Can you make a little detour to drop me off somewhere?” />
  Gina tried desperately to compose herself. “I don’t care about some stupid boy,” she blustered to Tom. “So what if he’s used me? At least he’s told me what I needed to know. At least I know what you’ve been up to; the kind of man you really are, working for this warlord when you know how…how evil he is.”

  “It’s just business,” Tom retorted. “I’m not responsible for what some man is doing thousands of miles away, in a country I don’t even know or care about.”

  “But those diamonds help pay for his weapons.”

  “If it wasn’t me then someone else would be profiting.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Long enough. It’s been easy money. It’s a simple system that had never caused a problem before…”

  “Before what?” she demanded.

  Tom clammed up for a moment. “Just tell me where the diamonds are, Gina. Time’s running out!”

  She laughed viciously. “But the thing is, ‘Uncle Tom’, time’s not running out for me, only for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I haven’t got the stones. I’ve given them to someone – someone you don’t know – and I’ve told them that if they don’t see me within an hour then they’re to take the diamonds to my house and give them to Sissouma. And I gave this person a very important message to pass on to Sissouma; they’re going to inform him that the stones are from me, Gina Wilson, because you, Tom Cotter, were planning to take them and disappear. So you see, if anything happens to me, those diamonds will be delivered to Sissouma and then he’ll come after you.”

  “I’ll just phone him and tell him it’s a lie,” Tom said brashly.

  “And you really think he’s going to believe you?” Gina scoffed. “Didn’t he tell me that you’d already tried to cheat him once today? The only thing that will save your skin is if you hand him those diamonds. That’s the only way that he can be sure that you weren’t going to run off with them; you know I’m right, don’t you?”

  Tom didn’t answer. She saw his fists clench.

  “I’m prepared to do a deal with you,” she said, repeating the words she’d been rehearsing in her head. “If you tell me the truth about my dad, how he got those stones, what happened on this bridge that night, then I’ll tell this person not to take the diamonds to Sissouma. But if you won’t tell me, or if I think you’re lying, then I’ll make sure that you never get a chance to take the stones back to him.”

  “How can I tell you what happened, when I wasn’t there?” Tom hissed.

  “We both know that’s a lie.”

  “Do you understand that you’re playing with my life here?” his voice rumbled.

  “Of course, I do,” she answered coldly.

  He moved closer, looking down on her. She could smell the stagnant canal on him; his clothes were filthy, his tanned face haggard, his immaculate veneer gone.

  “Gina, you don’t make deals with me. You’ll do as you’re told. You’re going to phone whoever you gave the stones to and tell them that you’re fine and that we’ll come and collect them. Under no circumstances are they to take them to Sissouma.”

  Gina shook her head at the ground. “I’m not going to do that.”

  His face darkened. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  She looked up and held his gaze, forcing her voice to be strong. “Wow! Aren’t you the big man? You can do what you like. I won’t tell you anything, or phone anyone.”

  He lunged at her, seizing her by her school shirt, pinching her skin. He raised his other arm high above her head.

  “Make the call.”

  “No!”

  His arm swished through the air, his hand slapping her across the face with such force that it rocked her off her feet. He let go of her, and she stumbled against the side of the bridge, grappling around for support. Her ear rang from the impact of the blow. Tears of pain and fury rolled down her blazing cheek.

  “Please don’t make me do this, Gina.” He looked genuinely pained. “Phone the person you gave the stones to.”

  She straightened herself, brushing her clothes down before declaring, “You really are a special kind of ‘uncle’.”

  “You’re forcing me to do this,” he mumbled.

  “Do you want the name of the person I gave them to?”

  “You know I do.”

  She paused, as if it was on the tip of her tongue, but then said, with a supercilious smile, “Sorry, it’s slipped my mind.”

  He snapped, grabbing her again and delivering a blow to the same side of her face that was twice as brutal. It felt like he’d hit her with a brick. She crumpled to the ground; a sliver of blood trickled from her red-hot ear. He stood over her as she struggled to get up only to fall back again.

  He looked on the verge of tears – for himself? For her? She couldn’t tell.

  “For God’s sake, Gina, tell me who’s got them.”

  She slurred like a punch-drunk boxer. “No. And if you hit me again I’ll pass out and then you’ll never know.” She started to chuckle manically, red-stained saliva dribbling from her swollen mouth.

  Tom crouched down to her slumped body and held her face in between his hands, his wild eyes searching her dilated pupils.

  “Do you want him to kill me, Gina? Could you live with yourself knowing you could have stopped it?”

  Gina’s eyelids drooped, her head fell forward. He shook her skull. “Come on, Gina, please phone them!”

  She rallied, easing herself into a sitting position against the bridge wall. “I’ll phone them,” she mumbled through ballooning lips, “but only after you tell me the truth about what happened that night with my dad.” Her blurred eyes strained to focus on her watch. “Tick-tock, Tom, your time is running out. Only thirty minutes before they give the diamonds to Sissouma.”

  She waited for his next move, desperately trying to hold her nerve, terrified at the thought of another blow. But Tom didn’t touch her. Instead he bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. He remained crouched like this, as if he’d retreated into his own world. Her instincts told her not to break the unbearable silence, so she sat and watched, fear keeping her throbbing brain alert.

  The silence was only broken by the sound of a train, which sped beneath the bridge, making Tom’s whole body shudder. He uncovered his face; the weight of his stare pressed down on her.

  “You’ve got to promise me that you’ll stop this person taking the stones to Sissouma, because I’m going to tell you the truth.”

  At that moment Gina knew that he meant it and a terrible sense of dread flooded her.

  “I always make sure I’m at the warehouse if I know I’m getting one of my special deliveries,” Tom began, “but this shipment arrived two days early from the Ivory Coast. I was up in Glasgow so Marty just took control; he got the cargo stored and carried out the quality control checks on random sacks of beans. And that’s when he found them – a fluke. I suppose, after all these years of getting away with it, my luck just ran out that day. Of course, your dad wasn’t stupid. He guessed what they were; why else would a pouch of stones be hidden in a sack of cocoa beans?

  “He phoned me straight away, told me what he’d found, said he was about to contact the port police to hand them over. I told him not to. Pretended I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I said that I wanted to see them for myself before we brought the authorities in. Alarm bells started ringing for him. He asked me outright, ‘You’re not involved in this, are you, Tom?’

  “I said, ‘Of course not. How many years have you known me? It’s just I’m the boss, it’s my business and it’s not your place to go making decisions before I’ve even had a chance to assess the situation.’

  “He agreed but I could tell he had his doubts.

  “I told him that I’d drive straight back from Glasgow. I’d been having meetings, I hadn’t even checked into my hotel. I told him that we’d meet up so he could show me the stones and that he wasn’t to tell anyone yet, in ca
se one of the lads in the warehouse was involved. I said to send everyone home, shut up the warehouse and that I’d phone him to let him know where to meet when I was close to home.

  “I spent the whole drive with my stomach in knots, working out what I was going to say to your dad. How I was going to convince someone as straight as Marty to give me the stones. I knew what was at stake. If Marty blew the whistle, I was more scared of what Sissouma would do to me than the police. By the time I got to the city it was dark, the weather was foul and I was so wound up that I stank of sweat and stress. I doused myself with aftershave to try to mask it. But I tipped the whole bottle on myself, I was so nervous.

  “I needed to meet Marty somewhere secluded, away from prying eyes. I came straight here. I know this place well. I never tell anyone, but this is the street where I grew up. That was my house in the middle. Even back then it was barely fit to live in.

  “I phoned your dad, told him where to meet me. He said that he couldn’t, that he was outside the sports centre picking you up. He said that he’d see me tomorrow, but I couldn’t let that happen. I knew that the more time Marty had to think about it the more likely he was to go to the police. I insisted he came to meet me. I told him it wouldn’t take long, that he should leave you in the car, well out of sight. I told him that you’d both be home in no time and that you’d be none the wiser. He wasn’t happy but in the end he agreed.

  “I was already on the bridge getting soaked to the skin by the time I heard Marty’s car. The moon was the only light but my eyes had adjusted to the dark, so I was able to watch him as he felt his way towards me. I waited until he was close and I whispered, ‘Where’s Gina?’

  “‘In the car, down the street. She can’t see anything, she knows nothing.’

  “I said, ‘I really appreciate this, Marty. Let’s sort this thing out, hey? Have you got the stones?’

  “Marty patted the pocket of his overalls.

  “‘Let’s see them, then.’

  “He handed me a leather pouch. I tipped the contents into my hand and inspected them as best as I could in the bad light – there were five of them, rough, dull and bluish stones. They looked like what I’d expected to see. Sissouma had already informed me that this delivery was particularly special – not the usual white diamonds.