The Burning Hill

by A. D. Flint

  “Come on, Grandpa, you don’t know how to do this stuff, do you?”

  “I think the problem is that they make the questions too easy these days. I would understand if it was more difficult, eh cabo?” he said, glancing up at Marinho.

  Marinho nodded, playing his part. “True enough, Chief.”

  “We haven’t even started on the difficult stuff,” Ana Lucia said. “I have algebra to do next.”

  “My God, algebra.” Nogueira looked at her, crossing his eyes.

  She slapped him playfully on his arm. “Ah, Grandpa, you said you could help.”

  He picked his head up and sat straight, pushing his shoulders back. “And I can. I will.”

  His mobile phone rang.

  “Hold on a second, child, let me just take this.”

  “Nogueira,” he said and then listened. “Yes, that is my precinct.” He listened some more. “Yes, I know that name. Where was it you said you were calling from?”

  His face turned to stone and Marinho could see that his granddaughter was wary, pretending to concentrate on her homework now. Marinho guessed that she must have seen this before – her grandfather turning into a different person. A scarier person.

  “No, I don’t understand,” Nogueira said. “Why all that trouble from going to tell the mother her son is dead?”

  His face grew darker as he listened, harsher lines drawn in it. “I see,” he said. “And you’re absolutely certain?”

  After the call he held the phone in the palm of his hand, as if weighing it. “Okay, cabo, let’s go,” he said.

  It was only as he stood that he seemed to remember his granddaughter. “Sorry, child, Grandpa’s duty calls,” he said, smiling and bending to kiss the top of her head.

  Her grandpa was back, and Marinho saw her shoulders relax.

  Chapter 24

  Vilson

  He heard the front door open and close from the kitchen.

  The gringo was standing with his back to the door, the deadbolts clunking home from outside. What the hell was this? Was he now a prisoner too?

  The gringo looked even worse than before. And he looked beaten. That angry, crazy flicker in his eyes had gone.

  Vilson’s heart was thundering in his chest. He needed a weapon to go at him. There was nothing to hand. The cop had removed everything sharp from the kitchen. He had even taken the heavy glass ashtray that had sat on the coffee table. Vilson bunched his muscles to attack. Willing himself on. But the gringo was bigger than him, stronger. Bide his time. That’s what he would have to do. He had been given another chance to rebalance fate, but he had to take the opportunity at the right time. The moment would come. He tried to ignore the voice in his head that was saying something else.

  The gringo went through his bedroom door and closed it.

  Not even a word? Vilson heard the sound of a latch on the other side of the door. He strode up to it and tried the handle, even though he knew it was pointless. He hammered his fist on the thin wood. “What’s going on? I can’t be kept prisoner.”

  “I’m sorry,” came the muffled reply.

  “What does sorry do?” Vilson shouted. “I just want out of here.”

  He pressed his ear to the door. Nothing. “Is that it?” He thumped the door, swearing. “Porra.”

  *

  The courtyard was filled with early-afternoon sunshine, the brief period each day when it escaped the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings.

  Vilson was on the couch, legs pulled beneath him. Watching the run of afternoon novelas on the TV.

  The gringo hadn’t reappeared.

  The gate buzzer went. Vilson didn’t even look away from the TV.

  It buzzed again.

  The gringo emerged from his room and went through the process of unlocking the door. He had a key. The son of a bitch wasn’t a prisoner after all. He left the door ajar.

  Vilson reached down for the plastic carrier bag of clothes he had kept next to the couch, ready for a quick escape.

  He held his breath. The gringo hadn’t returned.

  He left the TV on and went to the front door. Peeping out, he could see the courtyard was clear, the gate half open.

  He crept up to it. No sign of the gringo. Stepping through, he was on the street. Free. There was a car pulled up at the kerb, an old Japanese saloon with tinted windows. Something drew his attention to it. The dappled light coming through the trees lining the road made it difficult to see through the car’s back window. He squinted. There was movement inside.

  An enormous weight slammed into him from behind, taking him off his feet.

  Chapter 25

  Jake

  Jake opened the gate cautiously. He didn’t recognise the two men. One of them had a piece of paper. “Bom dia, Senhor,” he said, sounding bored, “you must sign for your delivery.”

  “What delivery?”

  “Don’t ask me, man, I just bring the stuff. Look, I’ve got your address right here,” he said, holding the piece of paper up.

  Jake opened the gate more, leaning forward to take a closer look. The other man grabbed his wrist, twisting it behind his back. He got his other arm around Jake’s neck in a choke, kneeing him in the back of his legs to move him toward the waiting car. Jake tried a couple of digs with his elbows, tried to twist and drop. The guy was big and solid. Incredibly strong. Jake couldn’t get any purchase or leverage. Couldn’t hurt him. Then the paper-toting fake deliveryman sprayed something in his eyes. Jake managed to turn his head and only caught it fully in one eye. Pepper spray. He tried to concentrate on working an escape but his eyes were burning like crazy. Even the good one was closing up, tears blurring his vision.

  An ageing street cleaner in his baggy orange uniform was pushing his dustcart toward them, the handle of his broom sticking out.

  The arm tightened around Jake’s neck. He could barely get any sound out. “Please, help me.”

  “Just go on about your business, man,” the fake deliveryman instructed the street cleaner. “Nothing to see here, right?”

  The street cleaner did as he was told and went on past with his dustcart.

  The fake deliveryman rushed ahead to open the back door of the old Nissan parked a few metres away. Jake was bundled into the back, his captor following him in and stuffing him facedown into the footwell. The door slammed shut. Some kind of hood was dragged over his head. Boots and fists thumped into his spine and ribs as he fought. They got his arms behind his back. He heard a zipping noise and felt a sharp pain in his wrists as a plastic cable tie was pulled tight. The car door opened and a heavy weight landed on the back of his legs.

  There were thumps on another body and gasps of pain.

  The car pulled away. Jake heard the zip of another cable tie and the weight on the back of his legs was still. He was furious with himself. Cold-cocked like an amateur. He’d let his guard down because he’d allowed Eliane to whip him into submission on that long drive back to the city. But straight on the back of that thought was the acknowledgement that he only had himself to blame. He would have had to go a long way to find a pair that looked less like deliverymen than those two.

  Pressed down in his confined space he started to feel nauseous as the car rolled along the city streets. His eyes were still burning. He badly wanted to rub them. And then the note of the engine rose. It felt like they were going uphill. There was no point in thinking about where they might be going or what might be about to happen. He had to blink the pain from his eyes and concentrate on the moment. Right now, they had him trussed up like a chicken at the bottom of a bag of groceries. He just had to stay alert for any opportunity.

  The car finally slowed and started to lurch and bump. They were off-road now. He felt a bang and scrape on the metal beneath him as the car bottomed out. When it stopped and the engine died, there was nothing for a few moments, just the sound of Jake’s own breathing inside the hood and the ticking of the hot engine.

  Another car drew up nearby. Doors opening.
>
  Rough hands hauled Jake from the car and dumped him in the dirt. He could hear footsteps near his face. Tiny pinpricks of sunlight shone through the dark cloth of the hood. He curled up protectively.

  The hood was torn from his head and he tried to blink the tears away from his stinging eyes in the harsh light of a small clearing in a forest. He was lying on a patch of red dirt at the end of a track surrounded by lush green. The glare of the sun and the pepper spray kept him squinting.

  “On your feet,” the guy holding the hood commanded. With his hands tied behind his back, Jake had to roll in the dirt to get his feet beneath him. He saw Vilson struggling to do the same at the rear of the car. And he could see that Vilson understood just as quickly where this was going.

  Perched on the bonnet of the other car was Nogueira. A heel propped on the bumper, resting his arms on his raised knee. He didn’t have his amiable-cop face on. It was set hard. The jeans and tee shirt he was wearing seemed to be the dress code of the day. A bunch of uniformed cops out of uniform. Not good.

  Three of them were standing with handguns close by Jake and Vilson. Another stood at the edge of the clearing holding a carbine, covering them. And there was one more cop inside Nogueira’s car.

  He got out. Jake hoped the shock didn’t register in his face.

  It was Marinho.

  He looked from Vilson to Jake, giving each a casual once-over.

  Now Jake wasn’t sure about anything.

  “Thank you for joining us at such short notice,” said Nogueira. “I appreciate you must be busy people.”

  He just couldn’t leave it with the lame jokes, thought Jake. But there was no smile from Nogueira.

  “The gringo who didn’t learn a lesson,” Nogueira went on, “and the favela boy who wouldn’t die. An odd pair. Your little game – did you cook that up with your crazy favela boss?”

  Vilson shook his head, stumbling over his words. “No, sir. I’ve got nothing to do with him. He believes I’m dead.”

  “He does, uh? It might have worked on a strung-out hoodlum but you really thought you could fool me? They’ll never find you two, you know. A gringo that got into one too many fights and was never seen again, and a favela kid that was already dead. Neat, I think. No paperwork.”

  “You can’t do anything to us.” Jake was brazening it out, even if he didn’t believe his own words.

  Nogueira tutted amiably. “Oh, gringo, you really should have listened to me in that hospital. You’re in a different country, my friend. You won’t get your moment on TV, not even as a fried corpse, and if it’s not on TV no one cares. You got one thing right, though, I’m not going to kill you.”

  He swapped legs on the bumper, leaning on his other knee. He looked at Marinho, flicking his head toward Jake and Vilson. “I get other people to do that for me,” he said.

  Marinho went to the car and pulled a wooden pick handle from the back.

  The blood turned to ice in Jake’s veins. Everything seemed to slow down around him.

  The cop on the edge of the clearing brought his carbine to bear. The cops near to Vilson and Jake moved out of the firing line.

  Marinho was looking at Jake, holding his gaze. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  Jake took two deep breaths, refocusing on what he could do to stay alive. “You honestly think no one will notice we’ve gone?”

  “You think someone will miss you?” said Nogueira. “Oh wait, I know, you’re talking about your lawyer friend, yes? Don’t worry, I’ll be paying her a visit.”

  Jake lunged for him, fury exploding. The nearest cop was ready and caught one of his tied arms, checking his progress as Marinho stepped up to block him. He jabbed out the pick handle, catching Jake in the solar plexus and folding him.

  Jake writhed in the dirt, winded.

  Marinho held the thick head of the pick handle close to Jake’s face. Clean, blond timber ready to stove in his skull. Marinho wasn’t here as the inside man, ready to turn on Nogueira to save them. He had obviously decided things had got too sticky and had rolled over for his boss.

  Gasping for air, Jake realised he only had one card to play. Betray him, as Marinho had betrayed him and Vilson. He knew that wasn’t going to keep them alive, it was just an act of vengeance. Vengeance for Eliane. For all the good it would do her.

  Nogueira sucked his teeth. “This taste you have for challenging authority, gringo,” he said. “I don’t know. Even jail time in Cruzeiro didn’t put you off, uh?”

  Nogueira looked from Jake to Vilson, screwing up his eyes in the sunlight. “Oh, wait a minute, our young favela friend suddenly looks very confused,” he said. “I suspect that someone didn’t tell someone else about their little escapade to Cruzeiro. Am I right, gringo?”

  Nogueira slid off the bonnet of the car and paced the clearing. Jake stared straight ahead. He couldn’t look at Vilson.

  “Maybe I should give you a little time so you can explain to your friend about his mama?” Nogueira marked his route to the edge of the clearing and back, ambling now. “You two made me angry. And, as you know, gringo, anger clouds the judgement. Now I’m thinking more clearly, and I’m thinking that I can make you two work for me a little better. Ha. Yes. I have an idea.”

  Retrieving a newspaper from the dashboard of the car, Nogueira went to Vilson. “Cut him loose,” he said to the nearest cop. Pulling a lock-knife from his pocket, the cop unfolded it and cut the plastic tie binding Vilson’s wrists. Nogueira then presented the newspaper to Vilson. “Hold it against your chest while I take the photo.”

  Vilson just rubbed his wrists. He looked like he was elsewhere.

  Nogueira thumped it into his chest. “I said hold it, before I lose my temper.”

  Vilson took it.

  Nogueira pulled his mobile from the pocket of his jeans and snapped a couple of photos. He shaded the screen with this hand to check the results. “Perfect. Now I can start playing my own game.”

  He gestured to the other cops. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Marinho followed Nogueira to the car without a backward glance. The cop with the lock-knife cut Jake free. Jake tried to rub away the pain in his hands and wrists as the circulation came back.

  Nogueira leaned on his open door, watching the other cops get into their car. “You keep an eye on him, gringo, that’s your job now. That’s why you’re still alive. I will have need of him. If he disappears or you think about running back to England, then I’ll be calling on the lawyer, and if she’s not there I’ll go after her family. There’s a thread running all the way through to our favela friend here. I just tug on one end and he comes running. You understand?”

  Jake had no smart answers, no angry retort. He was still struggling to get enough breath into his lungs.

  Nogueira got in the car and the driver made the turn to get back down the track, stopping level with Jake. Nogueira leaned out the window. “So long, gringo. You need to head that way for the city,” he said, pointing down the track. The driver chuckled.

  The tyres spun, kicking up dirt, the other car following. The cop in the back tossed Vilson’s plastic carrier bag of clothes out as it passed. The billowing dust swallowed up the cars.

  Chapter 26

  Vilson

  The gringo lay curled in the dirt, coughing. Still trying to get his breath.

  Searching around, Vilson prised a chunk of rock from the hard earth with his fingers and went to stand over him. He could tell that the gringo knew he was there a good few moments before looking up.

  Vilson raised his arm and the gringo shrank back, flinging his hands up protectively.

  “Did you go to Cruzeiro? Was he telling the truth?”

  “Put the rock down, for fuck’s sake.”

  Vilson raised it higher. “Tell me.”

  “Yes, I went there.”

  “Did you find my mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alive?”

  “Yes, of course. She’s okay.”

  “Graç
as a Deus.” The relief was overwhelming. His arm was starting to shake and he lowered the rock to shoulder level. And then the anger came back. “You thought it was okay to keep this from me?”

  “I didn’t know how to tell you. I found her, out on a farm. I think she’s with the farmer. There’s something bad going on there, but she didn’t want to be found, she didn’t want to go back to the past.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Look, I know it’s hard, but that’s what she said.”

  “You know nothing,” Vilson said. He knew the truth. It was in all those letters his mother had written. “You don’t know her mind.”

  “Vilson, she asked me to tell you she was dead.”

  “You’re lying,” Vilson shouted, raising the rock with both arms. Something had snapped inside him. He could do it.

  The gringo scrabbled backward in the dirt. Vilson could see the fear he had felt so many times himself.

  “Tell me where I find her,” he demanded.

  And then the gringo took a breath and lifted his chin. “No.”

  Vilson loaded his arms to strike, but the gringo didn’t budge.

  “Kill me and you’ll never find her,” he said.

  Chapter 27

  Jake

  Vilson walked ahead of Jake on the dusty track, deceptively fast with his shuffling, slope-shouldered gait. They were in an area of thick forest just above the north-western side of the city. Reaching a tarmac road that ran down a steep hill, Jake could see the ocean below them through a gap in the trees.

  He trudged on down the road. Simple thoughts were like pieces of furniture that wouldn’t fit through a door. Vilson wasn’t the same kid. Something had shifted or broken inside him. Wavering out on the beach with a revolver. The shaking hand brandishing a knife in his kitchen. Vilson hadn’t had it in him then. Holding that rock above his head, ready to smash it into Jake’s skull, his eyes had changed for a few moments. Jake recognised where that change could take a person.