Dirty Business (The First Acer Sansom Novel)

by Oliver Tidy

  He hoped his words could offer her some comfort at least, even if he didn’t really believe what he had said. Settling himself down beside her, he ran over in his mind what Botha had told him of Bishop, making sure that he had the facts clear, should he ever have the opportunity to do something with them.

  *

  Two hours had elapsed since he had spoken on the phone. Sansom felt stiff, cold, hungry and tired. However, being in control on the boat, he had the upper hand in the psychological stakes. As his hostage and subject to the same physical conditions, the woman across from him couldn’t have been feeling any better than him.

  He understood that she was shivering beneath her picnic blanket and he regretted his petty cruelty in throwing her clothes over the side, letting his anger get the better of his reason. It was a spiteful act. But there was nothing to be done about it now.

  ‘You said you’d tell me what this was all about,’ she said, breaking her silence.

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ he said, ‘but I will.’ He was grateful of the opening for conversation, for the chance to pass some of the interminable waiting doing something other than agonising over what was to come. There was also the opportunity to let her know, if she had any doubts, just how evil her husband was.

  ‘A little over a year ago I was a happy and contented man. I was on the holiday of a lifetime on a ship in the Pacific Ocean. I had a job. I had a home. I had my wife and child with me. I had a good life. And then your husband’s men came over the horizon.

  ‘They murdered everyone on board: men, women and my child. That’s what I’m doing here. And do you know why they killed them? Business.’

  In the near darkness, he was unable to determine how she received the information, but she was silent for a long minute.

  He gave her that minute, before saying, ‘What’s up? Cat got your tongue? Why aren’t you defending him, telling me you don’t believe it?’

  ‘Because I do,’ she said. Her words, when they came, had a despondent tone and were delivered in a manner suggesting disillusionment, weariness and intense sadness.

  ‘So now you know why I’m here,’ he said.

  ‘Revenge?’

  ‘Yes. Plain, simple, age-old revenge. He’s taken away everything that ever meant anything to me and now I’m going to do the same to him.’

  She let out a low moan. The blanket dropped from her shoulders as she sat up, the implications of what he was threatening dawning upon her. She made no effort to cover herself. ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You can’t harm the children. They have nothing to do with this. They are innocent.’ She was almost pleading with him because now that she understood his motives, she was afraid for the first time.

  ‘So were my wife and my child. So was everyone else on that ship. Your husband’s hired killers made a premeditated trip of thousands of miles to commit murder. My wife and child were innocent, as was everyone else on that boat. People’s lives mean nothing to men like your husband; they’re just pawns to be sacrificed to maintain his position and lifestyle. Your lifestyle.’

  She fell silent. Sansom doubted whether she would speak again when she surprised him: ‘Tell me something: your child, boy or girl?’ The phone began to vibrate and ring on the seat beside him.

  Ignoring it, he said, ‘Abigail, a nine-month-old girl.’ Her head sank down to rest on her chest. She pulled the blanket once more around her, hiding herself from further conversation.

  Sansom picked up the handset and answered it. ‘Yes.’ He felt invigorated with his refreshed anger, his renewed reason for being there, his only reason for being alive.

  ‘Acer?’ The sound of Eda’s voice threw him.

  ‘Eda.’

  ‘We’re OK,’ she said. ‘Unharmed. They’ll trade both of us for her.’ While he was thinking of what to reply, what words of comfort and assurance he could offer, the deep accented voice took up the slack.

  ‘That’s all you get. Now,’ it said, ‘let me hear Mrs Botha. Once I’m satisfied that she is safe and unharmed, we can talk.’

  Sansom kicked the bench to get her attention. She raised her face to him and he could make out the tracks of tears coursing down her cheeks. He fought down any sympathy that threatened his feeling towards her. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  She wiped her face on the blanket and took the phone from him, composing herself with a deeply-inhaled breath. Her voice, when it came, was returned to something like the authoritative woman’s he remembered cursing him on the deck of her husband’s yacht. ‘Lucifer?’ she said. ‘No, he’s not hurt me at all.’ She listened for a few moments longer and then passed the phone back to Sansom. Her eye contact was different. The burning hatred of earlier was replaced by something that Sansom couldn’t fathom.

  ‘Two for one then,’ said Lucifer. ‘It’s like a supermarket offer, don’t you think?’

  ‘Dawn, Akyarlar. And they’d better both be OK if you want her back in one piece.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ said Lucifer. ‘You need to be worrying about yourself. When this is done, I’m coming for you.’

  ‘No need. Just keep looking over your shoulder – sooner or later, I’ll be there.’ He ended the call, as satisfied as he could be under the circumstances. ‘Lucifer,’ he said to her, ‘Is that his given name or something that he’s earned?’

  ***

  25

  Lucifer stood beneath the dim naked bulb in the middle of the cell-like outbuilding where Eda and Tallis had been confined for what seemed like several hours. His bulk was exaggerated by the smallness of the confined space. The angle of the light upon his features gave him an almost demonic countenance. Another of Botha’s men waited just outside the doorway, although his presence was superfluous. There was nothing that the combined efforts of Eda and Tallis could have done to pose this man-mountain any physical threat. The big man appeared to be experiencing some uncertainty.

  Eda edged back to the straw bale that she was sharing with Tallis. Tallis looked up, still half expecting some form of retribution for his earlier fictions, although, for the moment, all that appeared to be forgotten if not forgiven.

  ‘Dawn at Akyarlar, he says,’ said the ogre, standing over them. ‘He was quite decisive. Why would he choose that time and place do you think?’

  He was asking the question to neither of them specifically, but Tallis felt that it would be prudent, under the circumstances, not to appear indolent and uncooperative. ‘He knows Akyarlar. We’ve been here a couple of times looking for you, actually. It’s quietish, or it probably will be at that time of the morning. I would also imagine that he would rather perform the exchange in daylight. Not so easy for him to be caught out with any nasty surprises.’

  The big black face distorted into a pained look. ‘You think that he might not trust us?’

  Tallis responded with a look that said, how could he not?

  ‘Bit of a coincidence though: us already being here, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Life is full of coincidences,’ said the policeman.

  Lucifer extended a forefinger the size of a small calibre pistol barrel at Tallis. ‘That is very true, Mr Tallis, very true.’ He wheeled around to go. When he reached the doorway, he turned and said, ‘Anything you would like to eat or drink? I believe it’s traditional to ask.’

  For a moment Tallis was fooled by the man’s offer and was about to ask for water, at least, but the implication of the final remark dawned on him. His face must have betrayed his confusion of feelings for the big man broke into a hearty spontaneous chuckle. He shut the door firmly and they heard the lock engaged. Seconds later the light was extinguished from some outside switch. Plunged once more into almost total darkness, they shared a feeling of depression for their lot.

  ‘What did he mean by that?’ said Eda, as Tallis was afraid she might.

  ‘Oh nothing,’ he replied, as lightly as he could. ‘Just his little joke with us.’

  A child’s high-pitched squealing, so out of place the
re, saved him from having to elaborate or face further probing from Eda on a comment that had sent a chill through his innards. He pushed himself up from the bale and stepped up on to an upturned metal bucket for a better view of the courtyard. Craning his neck to see the cause of the commotion, he made out a short procession filing into pools of light created by the main building’s security lights. Botha was among the welcoming committee, soon joined by Lucifer. Tallis counted four children at the centre of the fuss and guessed that Botha’s yacht had finally made it round the coastline to Akyarlar.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Eda.

  ‘Looks like Botha’s children. I imagine that he wants them where he can keep a good watch on them after what happened earlier.’ As he spoke, he saw Botha scoop up a little one and cradle it against him in a show of affection. It struck Tallis how strange Man could be – murderous one moment and full of love the next.

  ‘Did Acer do the right thing?’ said Eda, behind him.

  He turned to look into the darkness from where her voice came. In the light borrowed from the lamps outside and what was left of the moonlight, she could see enough of his profile to understand the emotions behind his reply.

  ‘Taking the woman, do you mean?’ She grunted affirmatively. He took a deep breath while he thought about it, sticking out his bottom lip and turning down the corners of his mouth before he spoke. ‘Under the circumstances, I suppose it could be argued that he did. It’s given him something to bargain with at least. And they’ll be taking him very seriously.’

  ‘But?’ she said, sensing he was not fully convinced.

  ‘But it’s going to bring things to a head. I mean, an exchange, I can’t see how he’s planning to pull it off. As you said, there’s one of him and at least four of them that I’ve counted. And Akyarlar? Why the hell here? There’s one road in and one road out. Let’s say they allow the swap to go off peacefully, and that’s a big ‘“if”’. How does he expect to get us out? We’ll be sitting ducks going up that hill.’

  As soon as he’d finished, he regretted voicing his candid assessment of their chances. For a moment, he’d forgotten the fragile emotional state that Eda was in. ‘Still,’ he went on, trying to inject some positivity into his words, ‘like I said, he’s a resourceful and determined man. We have to help him where we can, keep our eyes and ears open. You understand me? He’s going to need us alert and attentive. I don’t intend to let him down. Plus, I’ve still got good reason for making it back to England.’

  She lapsed into silence, which, while it troubled him, was preferable to further awkward questions. He plonked himself down next to her again. ‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long now.’

  *

  Sansom judged that the moon had traversed enough of its arc to make dawn imminent. And as if to reinforce this thought, he believed that he detected the faintest glimmerings of the sun hovering just below the horizon, ready to herald the new day.

  Stiff with cold and the cramped position that he had endured, he eased himself into a position to stretch. His knee ached with the knock that he had suffered; his back ached from the cold; the muscles in his legs and shoulders ached with the physical exertion of the night’s efforts, and his spirit ached with tiredness. All in all, he reflected, it was not a great start to such a momentous day.

  Detecting his movement, she looked up at him. For a moment he almost felt some pity for her position in all this but it passed as quickly as it had surfaced. She said nothing, only pulled the blanket tighter around her.

  Sea conditions were ideal. The cove they had sheltered in bore hardly a ripple. The air was still and the quiet made him regretful that he would soon be firing the engines and spoiling it all. He noticed a faint rising of vapour from the surface of the water and realised that he wouldn’t have seen it a quarter of an hour before. It was time to leave.

  He started the engines, shattering the peace. As they idled, he scrambled on to the prow as he had done a few hours before, this time to retrieve the anchor.

  He kept a closer watch on the woman, but she reminded him now of a broken animal, a tamed creature who, through the most primitive of means, had been shown who was boss and accepted it. She made no move, even with her eyes, to monitor his actions.

  Slipping behind the wheel, he eased back the throttle and steered a course to follow the increasingly-better-defined coastline towards Akyarlar.

  *

  They came for them in the greyness of dawn. Tallis had been aware that it was fast approaching and, like a condemned man, had sat waiting for sound of them. Eda had dozed fitfully against him. She was clearly exhausted and, though his old body protested at the prolonged discomfort of his position, he had been unwilling to move and wake her. A bolt was thrown back and the lock sprung. The big man filled the doorway.

  ‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said.

  Artificial light was unnecessary for Tallis to make out the man’s features now. Everything about his head and face was oversized. It could have been comical, thought Tallis. But in this situation he only found it intimidating. His shoulders stood out most of all. Their breadth hinted at Herculean strength, as if Tallis needed further evidence of this after having his own arm almost torn out of its socket at his hands. His shoulder still ached and he had no intention of creating a situation where the man would feel it necessary to repeat himself.

  Eda stirred and eased herself upright.

  ‘Come on,’ said Tallis. He took her under the elbow and helped her to her feet. As they approached the cell entrance, he felt a fluttering in his stomach, a reflection of his distrust for a man who might smile at you one moment and then snap you in half for fun the next.

  The walk to the waiting vehicle passed without comment or incident. Tallis and Eda were directed into the rear seats and waited.

  *

  Sansom answered the phone on the fourth ring. On the third, he had completely cut the engines, so that they were now just bobbing and drifting in the currents. He had no intention of forewarning the enemy of his chosen mode of transport, giving them time and opportunity to organise combative measures of their own.

  ‘Wake you?’ said the voice he had come to recognise as Lucifer’s.

  ‘You’re there?’

  ‘Just waiting for the guest of honour. That’s you by the way?’

  ‘I’ll be on the seafront in fifteen minutes.’ He cut the call and was about to restart the engines when she spoke her first words that morning.

  ‘They’re going to kill you all. He can’t let you beat him. It’s how he maintains his position. Fail him, cross him, stand up to him, fight him, insult him – he kills them all. It’s his way.’

  Sansom gave her a lingering look. He thought she might be about to say something else but she resumed her defeated look. He gunned the engines, drew back the throttle to its fullest extent and, in the clear stillness of the breaking day, bounced them across the surface of the Aegean to their shared destiny.

  *

  Tallis observed that there was not another soul around as they crawled along the seafront road. He still could not see how Sansom intended to extricate them from here. If anything, it seemed a foolish and poorly-selected place to meet, especially for an experienced soldier. His feelings appeared to be shared by Botha and the big man.

  ‘He just said the seafront?’ said Botha.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucifer. ‘Perhaps he realised what a rat-trap this place is for him and has changed his mind.’

  From his position in the front seat, Botha indicated to the driver that he should come to a stop in a deserted parking area that overlooked the sea.

  Although Tallis had seen or heard nothing of such an arrangement, he was quite sure that on the deserted steep and winding road out of the sleepy little resort there would be a welcoming committee awaiting them if, indeed, they ever got the chance to leave. His stomach lurched again with the renewed thought that he might never see the evening. He wondered what he could do to avert disaster, what kind of pre-excha
nge warning or advice he could get to Sansom in order for him not to lose his advantage, give up the one thing that Botha appeared to value enough to go through all this.

  ‘Call him,’ said Botha. ‘I want to know where that fucker is.’

  *

  Sansom let the powerful engines grumble at their lowest revolutions. With a glance at the woman, he stood on the bench seat, raised Tallis’s binoculars and confirmed what he’d thought when he coasted into the bay of Akyarlar – Botha’s yacht was anchored inshore. He was assimilating this information into his plans when the phone rang again in his pocket. This time, he made no attempt to hide the engine noise. He was there and probably so were they.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ said Lucifer.

  ‘I’m here, waiting, can’t you see me?’

  ‘Stop playing games.’

  ‘You’re just not looking in the right place,’ said Sansom, patient. ‘There’s more to Akyarlar than land.’ There was a pause – a long drawn out moment during which Sansom could hear the muffled conversation of his enemies – before the voice on the phone said, ‘It makes no difference. Are you coming?’

  ‘I thought that you might like to come out here. Keep it private.’

  ‘I think that might suit us nicely,’ said Lucifer.’ The phone died. Sansom replaced it into his pocket.

  Scanning the seafront, he eventually made them out. He counted them getting out of a vehicle. He counted six bodies: Eda, Tallis, Botha, Lucifer – the only one recognisable, dwarfing the others – and two suits. Within minutes he saw a small craft set out from the little jetty. Satisfied, he took the speedboat a little further out.

  Now, with the physical reality of it all, his adrenalin was pumping. His fatigue had evaporated with the warmth of the early morning sun on his back. He felt as he had done in the conflict zones that he had experienced as a soldier: fully alive, engaged, focussed, wound up, alert and ready. Military training and experience had prepared him for this. It would see him through it. He removed the two pistols that he had accumulated, checked their magazines once again and stored them. His old RSM’s words leapt from the dim and distant past into his mind – ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. He’d done his best, the best that he could. Now it was up to his mettle and his luck.