The Alex King Series

by A P Bateman

  King shrugged. “I just think it should be contained, that’s all. I spoke to my boss this morning, and he thinks the same.”

  She smiled. “I was sent here by the Home Secretary himself,” she said. “I think my chain reaches a few links higher than that of your boss.”

  King continued to eat through his plate of food, ignoring her attempt to pull rank. He’d ignored Prime Ministers before now. They were long gone, but he was still here.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  King nodded. “I heard.”

  “Well?”

  He shrugged. “It’s your career.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You’ll make or break on this. You’ll climb a few rungs higher, or you’ll plummet beyond recovery,” he said. He put down his cutlery and drank some tea. It was cold, so he topped up with more from the pot and a splash of milk. He stirred in a spoonful of sugar, watching her as he tapped the spoon on the rim of the cup. “This will be your biggest case. There will be little chance of you ever topping this. It will be looked at for years to come. If it isn’t thorough, if it isn’t perfect, then you will be a footnote in history. They will use you as a lesson in what not to do. You’ll be a training resource on that PHD of yours.”

  She went to say something but thought better of it. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Okay,” she said. “I suppose it won’t hurt to keep the provincials out of it.”

  “It never does.”

  “I’ll phone and tell them that I will start the autopsy on the Jameson’s this afternoon, after I have finished Snell’s autopsy.”

  “I’ve already done that,” King said.

  She frowned. “You are presumptuous.”

  He nodded. “I’m in charge of this investigation. Whether you like it or not, you’re working for me. So, you’ll work on the Jameson’s after you have worked on Snell, but only after we’ve taken another look at his house.”

  “His house?”

  “Yes. You can give me a lift, I have a problem with my car and the mobile service will fix it while I’m out.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I don’t see what else can be gleaned from looking at his house again.”

  “We’ll see.” King shrugged. “About last night…”

  “Forget it,” she interrupted. “You were questioning my work, and it had been a long day. I should have said goodbye, but I also didn’t think it was appropriate for you to ask me to stay. You have a fiancé, Alex.”

  “I offered you my spare bed for the night,” King snapped at her, annoyed she had turned his offer around on him. “Given your state, there was nothing wrong in that.”

  “What state?” she asked incredulously. “I was tired, that’s all.”

  King shook his head. He wasn’t going to drive the fact home like a nail in a coffin, but he hadn’t liked her slant on what or was not appropriate. He left it there, but decided he’d had enough breakfast. He put down his cutlery and picked up his cup and sat back, looked out at the sea view like she wasn’t there. She was in denial and she wouldn’t recover until she accepted it. He wasn’t a charity worker and he had more important things on his mind than her sobriety. He hadn’t heard from Caroline in a while, knew the procedure. She’d said she would call and she would when she had the opportunity. It didn’t stop him worrying though.

  17

  Cape Town, South Africa

  It was a cool day, colder than she had anticipated, but certainly warmer than she had been used back in London, or Lyon in France, where she had been spending a great deal of time recently.

  The light was incredible, reflecting off the boats in the mariner and the sea looked slick and glossy. Perhaps there was some fuel on the surface from the engines, but she liked to think it was from reflected from the tremendous sky of blue that seemed bigger somehow, bigger than she had ever seen. It was such a bright and cloudless day; the sky so azure it wouldn’t be hard to imagine seeing stars with a suitable pair of binoculars. She didn’t even know if that was possible, but it didn’t seem out of the question to her to try. She would like to see the night sky, witness the stars with such clarity, but doubted she would get the chance. It had been raining when she arrived late last night, and this was to be a flying visit, if she managed to get what she wanted, she could well be on a plane by early evening. At least she had no time difference to contend with. Sixteen-hours of flying, and her body clock was still ticking along just fine. Longitude travel was the way to go.

  Caroline Darby threaded through a few men who were casting fishing rods into the marina. They were black and dressed shabbily. She got the impression they were not fishing recreationally, but more as a direct attempt to secure food. They certainly didn’t have vast tackle boxes or the latest equipment. She noticed one man was using a length of bamboo as a rod and a small empty plastic drinks bottle for a float. She noticed too that the boats had changed from expensive pleasure craft to wooden work boats as she had worked her way down the harbour breakwater. She had strayed far from the tourist area on her run. She slowed up, looked back at the town and decided to head for the street and work her way back to the hotel.

  There were all manner of stores and shops. Some were serving soup and coffee and many people were wandering around dipping great chunks of bread into cups, taking their breakfast on the go. She had never seen people eating bread and soup for breakfast, and hoped breakfast at the hotel would be more acceptable.

  There were many dogs, all ribs and teeth, rooting around in piles of rubbish that had spilled out of over-full bins or ripped sacks. Everyone eyed her curiously as she jogged past in her colourful tight-fitting active wear, her glossy blonde ponytail swaying from side to side. She knew she had strayed from the tourist area, but she was making good pace and on track to make the marina in another ten-minutes of so.

  Ahead of her, three large men fanned out in front of her. They wore tattered T-shirts and faded and ripped jeans. One wore a pair of scuffed trainers, the other two went barefoot. She glanced across the road. There was a parked van with the sliding panel door open. The driver got out, looked at the men, then nodded.

  She knew she was in trouble. She could take any one of these men on their own, but not in a group. She glanced behind her, noticed a white saloon car driving behind. For a moment, she thought of her fiancé Alex. What would he do? He would have been carrying a knife for sure, would probably have used it by now. She cursed herself for being taken in by the magnificent hotels, the mariner. She should never have run so far, taken the city on face value. She’d been a dumb tourist. She wished she had used the hotel’s gym instead.

  “Miss Darby!” the man called from behind. He had stopped the car, it’s engine still running. He rested a large black semi-automatic handgun on the roof of the car, casually and unassuming, but the dangerous end was aiming at the man in the middle of the three. “What a coincidence,” he said. “I was early for our meeting and thought I’d take in the sights as well.” He looked at the three men, who were all frozen on the spot. “You fellas got someplace else to be?”

  They hesitated, seemed to catch the man’s drift in unison and scattered in all directions. The man with the van was already driving away, the door still open.

  The man with the gun smiled at Caroline. He was tall and bronzed, his hair was fair, and he wore an open shirt which was not quite Hawaiian in design, but was in the same postcode. He looked like he should have been advertising Old Spice in the seventies. “I’m Peter Kruger, State Security Agency,” he said as he holstered the pistol in a cross-draw holster under his shirt.

  Caroline stepped off the pavement. “Well, I’m glad you just happened by,” she said, then smiled. “I don’t think you did, but I’m certainly glad you came along.”

  “Cape Town is a beautiful place, but like all towns, it has its bad places,” he said, his accent was thick with tones of Afrikaans and a guttural drawl.

  “Well, I’ll make sure I don’t go to those places again,” she replied casually
. In truth she was relived, felt a release of adrenalin from the close call. It didn’t bare thinking what the men had wanted to do with her.

  “Oh, believe me, this is a good area still, compared to most,” Kruger said seriously. “But you would certainly have seen a worse place with those guys.”

  “What do you think they wanted?”

  “Here, get in,” Kruger stepped around the bonnet and opened the passenger door. He waited until they were both inside before continuing, “They would have gangbanged you for sure,” he said. “Gang rape. A pretty white woman like you, well… Let’s just say, they would have called all their friends, made a little money for the day.”

  She was visibly shocked. “That happens a lot?”

  “More than it should, I guess.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t happen at all.”

  “I mean, yeah. It happens. They take a woman back to the townships, some are worse places than others. There was a young, white South African girl found out near Khayelitsha last month. She’d been raped so many times, well… Anyway, she was eventually strangled, and her body dumped outside the township. The police tried their best, but the investigation is going nowhere. Too many blacks living outside the system.”

  Caroline wasn’t comfortable with the way Kruger spoke, the way he seemed to rest the emphasis on blacks, but she had been forewarned that Cape Town wasn’t London. Culturally, and politically it was worlds apart. Apartheid was over, many of the jobs had gone to black people, but there were still white people with twenty-year-old views living and working in the system. Many of them were disgruntled at the change in tide.

  “Where are we going?” Caroline asked. “I need to take a shower and change before we visit the prison,” she said. She could see the Victoria and Alfred Hotel in the distance, but the road was winding around to the left.

  Kruger pulled the car into the side of the road and a tanned man with a long ponytail opened the rear door and slid in, he wrapped his hand around Caroline, let the tip of the knife rest under her chin. She froze, pressed her head back into the headrest to avoid the glistening blade.

  “Should have let those caffer gangbangers take you back there,” Kruger said. “But they might not have finished the job, eh ‘bro?”

  “Fucking right,” the man with the knife said, then added, “No body, no pay, eh?”

  “What are you doing?” Caroline gasped.

  “Thought we made that clear?”

  “Is this about Vigus Badenhorst?”

  “Who?” Kruger glanced at his accomplice in the mirror. “You know that name, Vince?”

  “No, ‘bro.”

  “Never heard of him. Is he the guy you’re visiting at the prison?”

  Caroline remained silent.

  “You want her to talk, ‘bro?” the man in the rear seat asked. “I’ll make her fucking sing!”

  “Don’t need to, Vince. Just need to cut her throat and dump her someplace. Like I said, should have let those caffers have their way with her and kill her for us.”

  “Oh, I think we can each have a go in her before we do the deed.”

  Caroline wanted to scream and shout. She wanted to lash out, to tell them what she thought of them. But she also wanted to get away. There were ways of doing that, and keeping calm would be one of them. She was a former soldier, an intelligence officer in 14 Intelligence Company before joining MI5. She had been in tight situations before, and now that they were moving, as far as she was concerned the only one of threat to her was the man behind her with the knife. Once they found someplace quiet and both men got out of the car, then she would be as good as dead.

  They left the road at a junction and Cape Town was fading into the distance behind them. There were occasional shacks. Some were clearly homesteads, others were open for business selling everything from fruit and vegetables to tacky gift shop souvenirs. One shack seemed to sell nothing but broom handles. A mile down the road and the next shack sold broom heads. Both owners must have kept in business by remaining in the chain. Stores could have learned from this worldwide.

  Another mile and they turned off at a sharp right-hand junction and the road, although still tarmacked, was in a terrible state of repair. Kruger didn’t slow his speed accordingly and they rattled and shook over the potholes.

  Caroline took several deep breaths. The man behind her had relaxed his knife hand a little, and the blade waved eight inches or so in front of her neck. She glanced at the speedometer. They were travelling at fifty-miles-per-hour. She had been travelling with her hands in her lap. She carefully raised her left hand to her breast, fingered an imaginary itch.

  “I suppose it’s better than falling into the hands of those caffers,” Kruger said. “You’d have been passed around like a piece of meat. They’re clumsy too. Not professional killers like us. We’ll have a ride first, then do it really quick.”

  Caroline turned towards him, moved her right hand across and rested it on her right knee. “You’re assuming a great deal.”

  “What?”

  “You’re assuming a great deal,” she said again.

  Kruger turned to her. “Listen, lady…”

  Caroline heaved on the handbrake and vehicle slewed on the poor surface. It slowed suddenly and with it the man in the rear seat was thrown forwards. Caroline grabbed his hand around the wrist with her left hand and pulled. At the same time, she chopped the edge of her right hand into Kruger’s throat. There was an audible gasp and he took his hand off the wheel and clutched his throat as he fought for air. Caroline got both hands around the other man’s wrist and twisted his arm over. She could hear him grunting, but his arm had twisted to such an angle, he was unable to use his superior strength to right himself. It wasn’t going to snap, but he couldn’t fight against her either. She went for the knife, but as her grip halved, the man was already getting back some control of his arm. The car was slowing steadily, and the inertia which had briefly propelled the man in the rear forwards was levelling out. Caroline finally got control of the knife and she whipped it around in an arc and stabbed Kruger in his stomach. It glided in like it was butter and stopped at the hilt, with Caroline’s fist resting against his stomach and the blood that had quickly appeared. The man screamed, but it trailed off to a gasp. Caroline twisted in her seat to take on the man in the rear, but he was scrambling over the headrest and pummelling her with an onslaught of vicious blows. She had pulled the bloody blade from Kruger’s gut and slashed it backwards catching her attacker’s forearm. He didn’t seem to notice, but soon would as it had filleted almost a pound of flesh from the bone, leaving it hanging by mere threads. He started to scream, clawed at the door and rolled out onto the dirt as the car slewed to a halt.

  Kruger was reaching for his pistol, but Caroline buried the knife into his stomach once more and he gasped again, groaning as he exhaled. She caught hold of the butt of the pistol and pulled it clear. It was a 9mm Beretta model 92 and she had used one before. Many years ago, but you don’t forget. She eased back the slide, saw the chambered round and dropped the safety catch with her thumb. She felt the rush of air as the door opened. She barely had time to look, let alone aim, but she twisted around to see the other man standing over her, his right arm a mass of red, his left holding the door wide open. She got the muzzle less than two feet from the man’s mid-rift and fired three times in quick succession. The man buckled at the knees, but he wasn’t down. She moved her torso and bettered her position, but screamed as she felt Kruger’s hand grip around her throat from the driver’s seat. Again, she fired multiple shots at the man in the door opening, then smashed her elbow backwards into Kruger’s face. She already had the pistol tracking back towards him as he recoiled. She put the weapon into his bloodied gut and fired again. Once, twice, three times. The man went still and limp behind the wheel, but he exhaled long and slow, like a tired sigh. She had heard the sound before, the man’s final breath, followed by a wet death rattle in his throat. She hurriedly unbuckled her seatbelt and clambere
d outside, stepping over the man on the ground. She was almost clear, when she felt him grab onto her leg and pull her close. She screamed again, but already had the weapon pointing down. She fired once at his head and felt his grip release. A fountain of blood pumped out of the exit hole and into the passenger foot-well. It surged and waned with every heartbeat, but became more diminutive with every second. She staggered backwards then fell onto her rear, watching the surge of blood pump as the man bled out.

  She looked away, then down at her blood covered hands. The working parts of the gun in her hand had locked open, indicating that the weapon was empty. She dropped it onto the dusty ground beside her and cradled her head in her hands.

  18

  King had left the keys to the hire car with reception. He had organised the replacement glass through the hire company, declined their offer of a replacement vehicle as he was going to travel with Amanda Cunningham so would not need one, and been told that both screens would be replaced by a mobile specialist. The hire company were sending out someone to valet the interior by mid-afternoon.

  He was waiting for Amanda in the hotel’s nautically-themed foyer when his mobile phone rang. He checked the caller ID and was relieved to see it was Caroline.

  “Long time no speak,” he said.

  “Oh darling!” she said breathily.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. Caroline wasn’t one for dramatics.

  “I was abducted. Don’t panic. I fought them off, I’m okay…”

  “Where? Are you sure you’re alright?” He felt his heart pounding, his gut squeezing tightly. “Is there still a threat? Keep moving, don’t be static, never stop moving!”

  “It’s okay, they’re down. And they’re staying that way.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I want friendlies. I was meeting someone today. Either he was a hostile, or the locals can’t be trusted. I think he was an imposter,” she said. “Somebody knew I was coming.”