Grave Island: a compelling mystery thriller

by Andrew Smyth

  21

  I’d arranged with Ali that he and Giles Hathaway would keep in touch by phone when staking out the meeting house, rather than meeting nearby. I assumed they were somewhere around, but to their credit I couldn’t tell where, although I’d heard a helicopter go past earlier and wondered whether it was anything to do with them. I’d already told Sayed that I was going to hide in public – I’d put on my dirtiest jeans – I had a wide choice after working on Salacia – and was sitting in the workman’s café that we’d agreed upon. I took along the Daily Star as camouflage and was flicking through it when the phone buzzed.

  ‘Have you heard anything from Sayed?’ It was Ali. ‘I’m with Hathaway and we’re ready to follow as soon as you tell us.’

  ‘Not yet.’ I was surprised at his impatience – I’d told him I’d contact him as soon as I heard anything. ‘Can we keep this line open?’ I pulled out my smartphone and checked the map to see where Sayed’s GPS tracker was and it hadn’t moved from outside the meeting hall down the road. I checked the position of his phone to make sure, but it confirmed it from the tracker.

  I went back to my newspaper and the fascinating story of why celebs like dressing up in latex but didn’t think I could be blamed for my attention wandering and I almost missed the low buzzing of a received message. It was a vehicle registration number – presumably of the van that Khazim was going to drive. I forwarded it onto Hathaway and Ali without comment. They could call Swansea and find out what type of vehicle it was – assuming that they weren’t false plates.

  It was a frustrating wait for the next message which finally arrived after about twenty minutes. I was worried that people might be getting suspicious of anyone who could spend that long reading the Daily Star. The message said simply: “Meet me outside”. Again, I forwarded it to Hathaway but added that I assumed he meant outside the café. I folded my newspaper but kept hold of it in case I needed it again, and walked out and tried to look nonchalant as I waited on the pavement. I was just a workman waiting to be picked up by a workmate and taken to a job. I didn’t understand why Sayed couldn’t phone and tell me what was happening, but assumed that sending a message was safer, but it made me nervous not having direct contact.

  After about five minutes, a van pulled up at the kerb next to me. I could see that Sayed was driving but what I hadn’t counted on was that the registration number was the one he’d texted me. This was the van he was telling me to follow and he was driving it himself. He leant over and opened the door and I got in. I started to ask what was going on, but he silenced me and pointed to the phone on the dashboard.

  After a while, a voice came through giving him directions. It was in a guttural, heavily accented English and I had difficulty understanding what he was saying.

  Eventually, Sayed nodded at me and reached over and turned off the phone. ‘Sorry about that. We can talk now. I hope your car’s going to be safe wherever you left it.’

  ‘Car?’ I asked dumbly before I remembered that I hadn’t told him anything about the team from MI5 but I realised that I would have to tell him if I was to keep his trust. ‘You were right about being watched,’ I said and tried to see his reaction but he was concentrating on the road. ‘When I told them about you, they said that arrangements were already in hand to watch the meeting and follow Khazim when he left.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Sayed said. ‘I told you I was worried about it.’ He stopped at some traffic lights and turned to me. ‘Is that true, or did you bring them in yourself even though I asked you not to?’

  ‘I told you I couldn’t keep it to myself. That’s why I brought Ali in. But they were following you anyway.’

  A car behind hooted as the lights turned to green and Sayed started off again. ‘I suppose it’s too late now. Whether you brought them in or they were already watching doesn’t make much difference.’

  I was relieved that he seemed to be taking it philosophically. ‘Why did you give me the number of the car you’re driving?’ I thought it was a very simple question. ‘We don’t need to follow you if you can tell us where you’re going. Where are we going, incidentally?’

  ‘I’m sorry. There was a last-minute change of plans. I think they were also suspicious that there might be a leak. They didn’t give me a choice, they gave me the keys to Khazim’s van and told me to drive it. They said they’d give me instructions as I went along – as you heard.’

  ‘So where’s Khazim? Is he still supposed to be collecting this drugs shipment, or are we going to do it just the two of us?’

  ‘They left him standing there,’ Sayed said. ‘He was distraught. After all the effort he’d put in sucking up to them and they pull him back at the last moment and get me to make the collection.’

  ‘They must have thought you were one of them after all.’

  ‘They didn’t give me any time to think about it. They took the keys from Khazim and handed them to me and told me to get on with it. Poor Khazim. I wonder if he’ll speak to me again.’

  ‘So do you know where we’re going?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve got to wait for further instructions. They told me to go over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge over the Thames and then they’d give me a postcode to find.’

  I called Hathaway to let him know of the switch but before I could say anything he interrupted. ‘We’re tracking the car. It’s a white Ford. He’s stopped to pick someone up.’

  I hesitated before replying because I knew he wasn’t going to like what I had to say. ‘That was me.’ I thought I’d break it to him gently.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘It seems there was a change of plan. Instead of Khazim making the collection, they told Sayed to do it and I’m in the van with him now.’

  ‘Sayed? I thought you said he was your informant.’

  ‘He is, but they don’t know that. They think he’s one of them.’

  ‘Shit! Are you sure? What about Khazim – are you sure Sayed’s not just a decoy?’

  ‘Not unless they’ve got another van for him to drive,’ I said. ‘Perhaps they suspected that you’d made Khazim so they decided at the last moment to give it to someone else.’

  ‘They’d certainly have a surprise if they discovered that you were following Sayed from inside the van.’

  ‘Yes – ironic, isn’t it? But you’re still following?’

  ‘We’ll stay with you,’ Giles said. ‘If your Sayed is going to make a collection you’ll probably need backup.’

  ‘Okay. Stay with us.’ I put the phone back in my pocket. ‘So where are we going then?’ I asked Sayed.

  ‘I told you, I don’t know. I have to wait for them to phone with the next set of directions.’

  At that moment his phone rang and he gestured me to shut up and put it on loud speaker. Once again the guttural tones of his controller came through and I could just make out that we were being directed south across the Thames and then east towards Kent – Jeff Masters’ guess had proved right.

  At the end of his instructions, Sayed’s controller said something I didn’t understand. I could see Sayed glance across to me before saying simply ‘Sama da’ and reach over and disconnect the call. But my Pashtun wasn’t up to understanding what he’d said “okay” to.

  There wasn’t much I could do now, so I made myself as comfortable as I could and settled down for the ride. I still couldn’t decide whether Sayed was really on my side or whether he was simply diverting me from the real shipment.

  I was dozing lightly when an abrupt change in the road noise woke me. I looked around groggily. We’d turned off the motorway and were heading towards Sittingbourne. I pulled out my phone and called Hathaway but he didn’t answer so I texted him “Still there?” and waited for his reply.

  “Still with you,” he texted back after a few minutes although I couldn’t understand quite why he hadn’t answered the phone and told me that.

  ‘Do you have new instructions?’ I asked Sayed.

  ‘They sent m
e a postcode. I’ve put it into my phone and we’re heading there. It’s about fifteen miles away. A place called Sheppey Island.’

  ‘The Isle of Sheppey,’ I corrected him. So Giles Hathaway was right in his guess. I’d sailed around these waters but it had been quite a while ago and I couldn’t say I knew them well. There were plenty of creeks where a boat with short keels could be run up at high water and sit in the mud quite happily as the tide went out.

  Sayed’s phone went again, but this time he picked it up and held it to his ear. Despite this, I could hear the same voice giving further instructions. Sayed listened and said nothing and then hung up the phone and put it back on the dashboard.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Sayed said and I looked at him in surprise. And he didn’t look his usual controlled self.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that we still haven’t been given our final instructions yet, so we don’t know what’s going to happen. We go to this postcode and wait.’

  I thought this an odd answer but let it go. I brought up my phone and checked the map of where we were heading. Much of the island was a nature reserve and there was little else to justify the high-level bridge they’d built over the Swale River, but this was a popular inshore route for yachts so they, at least, were grateful they could still pass underneath. The railway track alongside had an ancient lifting bridge which added character – although it didn’t look as though it could always be relied on to work.

  As we left the outskirts of the town, the buildings were thinning out. I called Ali and suggested that they back off.

  ‘Nice to be told how to suck eggs,’ he said. ‘We’re going to take the road up to Sheerness and let you both go on ahead.’

  ‘What about me?’ I asked. ‘I’m not going to be able to do much on my own.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Tell us where you are when you get there. We’ll get someone to you.’ He didn’t say how.

  We were now moving into open fields and Sayed stopped and picked up his phone and studied it carefully. ‘I know the place,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve been here before.’

  I couldn’t imagine the circumstances under which he could have been there before, but said nothing. He put the phone down and headed off again. The road got narrower and rougher until he came to a stop. ‘I think this is far enough. Before we go any further let’s check out what’s ahead.’

  The sky had that grey, flat look that you see on the east coast, as though it couldn’t be bothered to put on a show if there was no one out there to watch. Fortunately, the recent dry weather meant that the path wasn’t waterlogged as I imagined it often was. We walked up a small mound and ahead could see the narrow River Swale and the Thames estuary beyond it, but it was difficult to see where the sky ended, and the grey water took over. The mud seemed to stretch out until it reached the sky. There was a ramshackle old hut by the side of the path with the remains of fishing nets and a string of cork floats hanging outside. It had to be years since anyone used cork as floats and it could have been years since anyone used this shack, although it wasn’t bad as a disguise.

  We stopped behind the mound and found a clump of bushes and hid behind them. As far as I could tell it was nearing high tide but still a lot of the mud remained uncovered. I cursed myself for not checking the tides before setting out, but I’d find out soon enough. The path led beyond the shack to a dilapidated wooden jetty but when I looked more closely through the binoculars, I could see some signs that the cross-braces had been reinforced with new bearers attached as splints, although the new timbers seemed to have been covered with mud to conceal the work. This was definitely looking promising. I called Ali again – they’d followed our progress to the coast but had now dropped back. I told him that there was nothing to see and that it was likely to be a long wait. Sayed told me that he’d better take his van down and park it next to the shack – this was where the pick-up was supposed to be and they’d be expecting someone to be there when they arrived.

  I was uneasy about the situation – there was something that didn’t seem quite right, but perhaps it was the effect of this desolate place. These were the marshes of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and I was expecting Abel Magwitch to come crawling out of the mud at any moment. I searched the mouth of the creek for any signs of a boat, but there was nothing. I looked around at the ring of seaweed indicating the recent high tide mark. From what I could tell there could be another two hours until high tide and the boat wasn’t likely to come until it could get right up to the jetty.

  I thought about the probable cargo. It was only a 15cwt van so that seemed to confirm that they weren’t waiting for anything too heavy. It certainly could be drugs of some sort, though by now I realised they came in many different styles.

  Across the mud flats, I could see the shipping in the river beyond. A few distant white triangles were visible, although the wind was light and sailing boats would be unlikely to be making any headway if they were sailing against the tide. This seemed such an unprepossessing place given the history that it had seen over the centuries. This was once the main artery of a huge empire and yet it looked like a grey backwater that was home to nothing more threatening than the occasional polluted oyster.

  I found myself daydreaming again until I realised that a small motorboat was heading towards the entrance of the river. It was too far away to tell what it was, but it looked to be about forty-seven feet. Its almost insignificant wake suggested that it was capable of much more speed and as it closed, I could see that it was an elderly motor yacht with a small mizzen mast at its stern. If this was the boat that was bringing in drugs then it looked as though it might have brought them from the evacuation of Dunkirk.

  Sayed had finally picked out the boat and opened the rear doors of the van and then walked to the edge of the jetty. The water had now risen up the supports making it accessible to shallow draft boats and I imagined that the approaching motorboat wouldn’t draw much more than a couple of feet. I called Ali and told him to keep out of sight – which I realised was unnecessary but I felt a strange reassurance in having him and Giles Hathaway as backup. I didn’t know whether they could track the elderly boat with their satellite system but presumably they had to identify it first and after they’d unloaded, it might be too late. Assuming this was our target, that is. But as they approached it became clearer that they were heading for the jetty. A man came out of the cabin and stood on the foredeck with a line which he tossed to Sayed as the boat gunned its engines to push it through the last of the mud and bring it to rest alongside. Sayed tied the rope off as though accustomed to dealing with boats, which seemed unlikely coming from the heart of Afghanistan.

  The crewman walked aft and hinged up the two leaves of a deck hatch which covered much of the stern deck. Another man came out of the cabin to help, and together they lifted out boxes and put them on deck.

  When they’d got a pile of them, they climbed out and started unloading them over the side onto the jetty. Although they were bulky, they didn’t seem to be particularly heavy and they moved them easily. Eventually they had a pile of boxes and I wondered whether they were all going to fit in the van. Sayed went over and reversed the truck down to the jetty and they started loading but from what I could see, they’d hardly addressed any words to him.

  When they’d finished, Sayed shut the doors of the van and pulled out his mobile phone. From what he’d told me, he’d have no idea where he was supposed to be taking them and I guessed he was waiting for a call to give him directions.

  Meanwhile, I phoned Ali to see if he’d seen the transfer. ‘We’ll stay with Sayed,’ he told me. ‘Can you go with him?’

  I thought about that. ‘No. I think I’ll stay here. There’s something not quite right about this. It’s too easy.’

  ‘Go with him, otherwise you’d be wasting your time. Go back with Sayed and we can find out where he’s taking them and then set up surveillance. Why stay?’

  To
be honest, I couldn’t really answer that question, I had a nasty feeling that things weren’t quite as they appeared and I wanted to see if anything else happened. ‘Sayed can ring me when he knows where he’s going, and you’re following him anyway. I need you to send someone to collect me. When it’s all over.’

  ‘It is all over. Jeff and I will come and pick you up.’

  ‘No. I want to see what happens.’

  ‘If you do, you’ll have to find your own way home and there aren’t any passing taxis at this time of night.’

  I checked my phone. ‘I’ve got a couple of bars, I can call a taxi.’ I couldn’t see why he was so keen that I left with Sayed.

  ‘I thought you trusted him. Do you think he might be setting you up?’

  I wasn’t going to tell him that the tide had turned and the old wooden cruiser wasn’t going anywhere now for at least eight hours. ‘We’ll see when this is all over,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure we would recognise the end when we saw it. If what we had seen this afternoon was indeed the start of a new campaign then it might not be over for a very long time.

  I watched as Sayed got into the van and drove it back up the track and out of sight behind a training bank.

  Hathaway gave me a quick call to say they were following. ‘A textbook operation. Couldn’t have gone better. He’s not going to get away from us now – we’ve got four cars following, but it always helps to have someone on the inside. We’ll let you know how it pans out.’

  Four cars? And they couldn’t even spare one for me. Glumly, I hunkered down into the hollow I’d made by the bush and checked out the boat through my binoculars. There was little sign of life – both men had gone back inside the cabin and I couldn’t see in through the windows. By now, the boat had settled into the mud and was listing at a slight angle. I went over the events in my mind trying to pinpoint why I had this feeling that it wasn’t quite over. Whoever was controlling them must have rumbled that Khazim might be under surveillance – people like that are professionally suspicious and switching drivers at the last moment could have been a natural precaution. Switching drivers? I realised it probably wasn’t just the drivers they switched, it could have been the vans as well since Giles and Ali couldn’t have checked out which driver they were using.