Cold Heart
Sean-Paul Thomas
Cold Heart is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents represented are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is solely coincidental or used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2020 by Sean-Paul Thomas
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author, except in the instance of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. Thank you for respecting the work of this author. For enquiries, please email:
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Prologue
Even the prostitutes and pimps were sleeping in the early hours of the bleak, rainy, miserable, Glasgow weekday morning.
It was almost the beginning of summer in the hardened, grizzly-edged city of sin, where culture and historic industry (mostly shipbuilding) came colliding together like two heavyweight sumo wrestlers. It wasn’t pretty to look at, not by a long shot, but it was damn good fun to be around if you squinted your eyes just right.
If summer was on its way, then the weathermen and women of the Scottish news channels had failed to let the boisterous citizens of Glasgow know about that startling little fact. It rained almost three hundred and sixty days of the year there in Europe’s wettest city. So, any more than two consecutive days of continuous sunshine became a joyful occasion to celebrate—a little blissful summer all to itself.
Glasgow. One of the first European cities to incorporate the street grid system. New York’s hideously obese older brother. The shameful black sheep of the industrial revolution family. But still, a city that the majestic, cosmopolitan metropolis aspired to be and better itself upon, and boy, o boy, did it do just that and then some.
The first rays of dawn were gently sinking in from the East side of the river Clyde as a large, black van with tinted front and back windows came speeding out of the darkness to cross the eerily deserted Albert Bridge. The van was traveling from the Gorbal suburbs on the southeast side of the river, one of the rougher and poorer neighborhoods of the city. But a district that had also recently started to clean its act up over the past few years due to the influx of immigrant families moving into the area, mostly from Eastern Europe and the War-torn Middle East. No more evidence was needed of that little fact than the huge south-side river mosque that lay on the nearby southern shores of the mighty River Clyde, a few hundred yards southwest of the bridge.
These past few years Glasgow had welcomed its fair share of immigrants and refugees with open arms, especially those from Syria and Iraq. Sure, Glasgow’s hardy exterior wasn’t much to look at from afar or from way up high with a bird’s eye view, unlike it’s stunning, more beautiful and picturesque older sister Edinburgh, fifty-odd miles over on the east coast of the country. But if it really is what’s on the inside that counts in this world, then Glasgow surely had that trait in abundance.
And just as the famous rooftop banner and city center slogan clearly stated as it proudly beamed down upon the vibrant George Square center, engulfing its citizens, old and new, like a blanket of warmth since their birth and arrival: People Make Glasgow.
The black van sped further along the bridge, suddenly swerving and pulling upright onto the wide, shallow footpath on the western side. It screeched to a grinding halt almost smack bang in the center of the slab of concrete that connected the Gorbals to the city center’s grid system on the opposite side of the Clyde. It was a bridge that wasn’t going to win any picturesque or architectural awards anytime soon. But it was a sturdy, reliable crossing that served its purpose well.
In the few moments that followed everything happened so fast. Even an old man who couldn’t sleep and was out on his nearby tower-block balcony overlooking the bridge and river, missed the whole damn dramatic scene unfold in the few moments it took for him to gently hustle and ease a cigarette from its tight, new packet and casually light it up on his third attempt.
Way down below, two averagely built men, dressed from head to toe in black and wearing dark balaclavas to match, swiftly slid open the van doors. They were still a meter or so away from the bridge’s low railings, but without straining or groaning in the slightest they managed to effortlessly throw the petite and casually-dressed body of a semi-conscious young woman into the murky depths of the black river beneath them.
In another blink of an eye, the two men had already slammed the van doors violently shut before speeding off into the eerily quiet and dark Glasgow morning as rapidly as they had roared out from it.
The woman was barely conscious as she slammed headfirst into the murky, bleak, ice-cold, oily water. Her drug-induced state barely had time to register what the hell was happening to her during her final few moments and reminiscent of some surreal living nightmare. A nightmare which the girl had drowsily convinced herself she was going to awaken from at any second, and well before she hit the river’s surface.
She never did awake from that nightmare though, and in the process swallowed enough water to fill a small bathtub. The final thought and image that came to the young girl’s mind was that of a faint and distant figure: a protective older sister from her childhood past and a sibling long since departed from this world… Or so she had always believed. An older sister she’d never really gotten to know as a young teenage girl or in her later years as an adult woman, but a sister nonetheless.
But she expected to see her again very soon in the afterlife, if there indeed happened to be one waiting for her in those cold, murky depths—an afterlife that throughout her entire existence she had never truly believed in, but how oh how she so desperately wanted to believe in one now as eternal darkness came for her like a never-ending swarm of nothingness.
By the time the girl resurfaced again a few minutes later, her lungs were filled to the brim with the filthy, polluted river water. She was conscious no more. And as the first waking seagulls squawked and cried out from their rooftop beds, rising with the new dawn to catch the early worms of the new day, the body of the young, petite woman continued to drift down the river Clyde and towards the even murkier firth beyond.
Chapter 1
Alex drove into the quiet staff car park of Cairo International Airport and parked up in a vacant slot at the far, secluded end of the long and narrow rows of parking bays.
Alex was a baggage handler for some of the biggest major airlines at the huge international airport and had been for almost seventeen years now, ever since he’d left school in his late teens and taken up the first job that had come his way. Although, he’d acknowledged gratefully every day since, that he had been one of the lucky ones.
It was his job now to supervise and oversee the loading of luggage, cargo, and goods to and from the departing and arriving aircraft. He was a team-leading supervisor so his signature was legally required to sign off all loading done to every single aircraft that were assigned to his shift.
During
times of staff shortages, which was pretty much every day of the summer holiday season, his greedy airport bosses always refused to hire any more workers to help the team out, even when the company was at breaking point. So, Alex along with the other acting supervisors would have no other choice but to get their hands dirty too by mucking in with the other baggage workers and load the aircraft, sometimes even by themselves when the shit really hit the fan.
Despite the diabolical pay, the stresses of getting flights in and out on time and along with the physical aspects of the job (which he actually thoroughly enjoyed when his back wasn’t giving him grief, as he treated the baggage loading like his own, personal workout session) Alex really did love his job.
At 35, he was a proud family man. He’d married his beautiful 29-year-old wife Salma five years earlier after almost two years of courtship and trying to convince her stubborn father to let him date his only daughter—a daughter whom, in her father’s eyes, was far too good for any man let alone Alex the underpaid baggage handler.
Alex and Salma had one child together, a little boy called Ali. They wanted more children, of course. Many more, in fact, but only when they could afford to do so, which would be as soon as Alex got his big promotion to general airside manager. He felt it was coming too, and very soon at that. One more bad summer of delays and staff shortages and his bosses would surely have no other choice but to promote him, their most experienced man on the job, to take charge and train the new wave of baggage loading recruits that they so desperately needed in order to keep the airlines happy and their cutthroat contracts alive.
Despite the stresses caused by the busy holiday season, baggage handling was a job Alex thoroughly enjoyed with every fiber of his being. Well, up until that very morning at least.
Alex’s early afternoon backshift hadn’t even started yet and he was already having one of the worst days of his life. In fact, no. This was in fact the very worst day of his life. Full Stop. And it had only just gone a few minutes past 11:30 am. He even dared to think that it might be worse than the time he lost both his parents in a car crash three years ago. Although, so far that morning, he hadn’t lost a single person yet.
Alex switched off his car engine but remained inside the humid vehicle for a few minutes more. He sat in complete silence, wearing an anxious hound dog-look upon his face as he continuously gazed deeper and harder out of his front window at nothing in particular.
In the distant foreground, on the other side of the carpark, a never-ending wave of passenger planes were landing from one direction while taking off from another, one after the next. There seemed to be no end to it. No end to it at all.
Usually, Alex loved to just sit and watch them. Especially before the start of a long, tiresome back shift. The planes seemed to calm and relax him immensely, helping to take his mind off the trials and tribulations of life. Just watching them land and take off. Land and take off. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Boom, boom, boom. One after the other.
He’d always been fascinated by planes and the magic involved in getting those big hunks of steel up into the clear blue skies. All that weight. All those bags and people. It truly was modern-day wizardry at its finest and most days Alex just couldn’t pry himself away from watching them.
But not today.
Today Alex was in a solemn mood. He had the lives of his loved ones in the palm of his bloodied hands and he still didn’t have a clue what he was going to do about it. He continued staring into oblivion for the next ten minutes, blatantly ignoring the active aircraft. He couldn’t believe or even begin to comprehend why this was happening to him. Was it just a random occurrence or had he actually been deliberately targeted and handpicked by this horrible woman?
His dark thoughts edged towards the latter.
Everything had happened so fast that morning as he went about his daily routines and prepared to take his son, Ali, to school before getting ready for his own work. His wife had been so excited to spend some quality time on her own also, now that their son had started primary school. She was even talking about trying to write again, perhaps a children’s book that she’d accumulated ideas for over the past few years—something she hadn’t even thought about attempting since before her marriage to Alex. Which he had always encouraged her to follow her passions and to do what would make her happy. It was one of the main attributes she loved about her husband.
He was the complete opposite of every other man she’d ever known, men who were usually handpicked and recommended by her own overbearing father, who she always profusely refused giving the time of day too let alone her hand in marriage. At their heart’s core all these other men had ever cared about were her looks: to marry a pretty face before keeping her locked away inside her own personal hell away from the outside world; a never-ending cycle of life of cooking and cleaning and raising children while putting her husband’s selfish wants and needs before her own.
But thank the gods, she had always told herself, for that day at the fruit market when she had literally bumped into Alex for the very first time. Both of them clumsily spilling their baskets of fruits as they accidentally clattered into each other.
He was a humble gentle giant of a man who had always put her needs, values, and opinions well ahead of his own, even at times when she had begged him not to. Making her his trophy bride had never been Alex’s intention. But Alex had always wanted Salma to keep writing. Always. Even when her own parents had practically forbidden her to do such a un-ladylike thing. So, throughout the majority of her teenage years and young adult life, she had always written her stories in secret and kept them well hidden and away from her family.
Alex was the first person she’d ever spoken to about her stories. And after reading them for the very first time he praised her for their charm and wit, rather than judge and condemn her efforts like she was convinced he would at the beginning. Shortly after their first few secret dates, they’d fallen in love. He had won her heart. And she swiftly accepted his proposal of marriage even though her father begrudgingly did not approve of it one bit. But to hell with her father, was Salma’s response. To hell with them all!
Because she wasn’t marrying into money and had gone against her father’s wishes, the family became severely divided and the two never spoke to each other again. Even to this day, Salma’s stubborn father still hadn’t set eyes upon his only grandson. Although she’d hidden it well, the whole drama had secretly eaten Salma up inside. Yes, her father had always been strict, but he did have a fun, playful, and meaningful side to him, too, when it came to children. Now, Alex had some pretty big and bold decisions to make within the next few hours. And many, various lives would all be at the mercy of those decisions—even people he never knew or would ever get to know.
Suddenly, there was a loud rat-a-tat knock upon his driver’s side window. Alex jumped in fright. His hazy mind, which was previously zoned out and transfixed in another time and place, was swiftly jolted back to reality. He glanced up through his dusty window and saw one of his fellow baggage-handlers grinning down on him. It was Akmed. Always grinning, always smiling, always happy, Akmed.
“You walking down to the terminal my friend, yes?” said his cheery, rough-shaven, and barrel-shaped friend.
Alex forced a grin and gently nodded. His clock was ticking.
***
Alex and Akmed made their way into the main terminal building of the airport. They were both carrying small rucksacks slung over their shoulders—rucksacks that contained their packed lunches, books, and iPads, their downtime tools of distractions for their deserved breaks in between nonstop flights during their chaotic ten-hour shifts.
As Alex made his way towards the staff security gate, he took a quick glimpse around the main check-in hall. It was filled to the brim with people, holiday makers, but mostly young foreign families heading back to their homeward destinations after spending some relaxing vacation time in his beautiful country.
Alex and his workmate made their way inside
the staff security search area. Akmed was still yakking away about his life and how his dull monotonous week had been. Alex hadn’t said a word, though. He’d been strangely quiet. Not that his talkative friend had noticed. In fact, Alex wasn’t even listening to Akmed anymore. All he could hear was noise coming from his mouth, but that was all it was. Just noise.
The staff security search area was a lot more lenient than the normal passenger security search, that was for sure. Everyone inside the room knew each other well. Most of the airport staff were even on first name terms with the security guards, so the atmosphere was a bit more casual and laid back. It was perhaps one of the main reasons Alex had been targeted to perform a very disturbing task on that day of all days.
The three security guards on duty all hovered around a tiny laptop screen, watching a live football match that had recently kicked off. A liberty they would never have been able to get away with up in the main passenger security area. But as long as their airport bosses weren’t mulling around—and they usually never were on a slow Sunday morning shift—then anything went in the working area.
Alex approached the scanner first. He had to pretend that everything was okay and nothing out of the ordinary was occurring or occupying his racing, anxious mind. Plus, he just wanted to get this over and done with. If he was going to be caught out, then he’d rather it happened sooner rather than later, so the fate of his loved ones would be swiftly taken out of his hands.
As Alex predicted, the main security guard was too preoccupied with the football match and his banter with his other workmates to notice anything suspicious that was going through the security scanner.
Not that he would have noticed anything sinister about Alex’s rucksack anyhow. Everything in that department had been well and truly taken care of, Alex had been firmly assured. All the security staff would see, if they even bothered to take a close enough look, was an old, bulky iPad, amongst his belongings, and there was nothing unusual about that in this day and age.
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