by Max China
‘I think a lot of people do that, avoid facing up to things.’ The irony of his words was not lost on him. ‘What was his name?’
‘It was Henry,’ she whispered, as though betraying a secret.
‘Henry Black,’ he repeated slowly.
‘Did you know him?’
‘No, no, the name sounded familiar that’s all. Probably just the connection with you ...’
‘There was always a big fuss whenever he came home. Like he was a soldier or something. He’d been injured covering the Korean War. A piece of shrapnel tore through his lower calf. Left him with a limp, but never stopped him from doing his job. Wherever there was a story to be had, he was there. Anyway, I was twelve or thirteen when he finally came home. Mum said he’d changed. I wouldn’t have noticed, but she said it was because he’d had to take a boring job working on a local rag.’ Distant memories defied focus. Hazy, and too few to retain a sense of sharpness, they centred around the clatter of typewriter keys coming from behind a closed door, the whirr of the carriage, and the whine of the rollers as each rejected sheet was torn from the machine. But what she remembered most clearly was the silence ... tense, ticking moments, waiting ... and then the sigh of relief from her mother when the keys resumed their rhythm, the bomb disposal unit in his brain having bypassed his short fuse.
‘Carla …?’
‘Oh, yes, sorry … I drifted away. He began drinking heavily and he turned from being the dad I barely knew, into a stranger who criticized everything I did. No matter how good my school reports were, they were never good enough. He always demanded high standards whenever he was home, but he got ridiculous. This sounds awful, but I began to hate him. My hormones were all over the place, he was caustic and abrasive and that was it really. I made my mind up. I was never going to be like him if I had kids.’
‘You spoke of him in the past tense. I’m assuming that’s because he’s no longer with us?’
‘He should have been the most important man in my life, helping me prepare ... Oh, I don’t know, the more I think of myself, the more I realize I’ve grown up just like him. How does that work?’ She searched his eyes for an answer.
He met her gaze. ‘It’s hard to say, but sometimes we recreate environments we knew when we were kids, either to feel safe, or maybe work through them ... Tell me something –you said he was in Korea?’
‘He was.’
‘Did you ever talk to him about those days?’
‘How strange.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s about the only thing I ever did discuss with him, before he died. He was telling me there was something he regretted, and I thought for a minute he was going to say ... that he wished he’d got to know me better, but it wasn’t that. It was that he’d missed out on a big scoop. He’d bumped into a veteran of the Imjin River campaign, one of the Glosters. The Chinese captured him and brainwashed him into thinking he’d escaped, and planted all these other ideas in his head—’
‘Wait a minute,’ Miller said, ‘did he tell you his name, the veteran?’
‘Yes, he did. It was a guy called Wilson. Dad spent years trying to track him down, to get the full story; he interviewed countless vets trying to get more to go on, without success. It was his Holy Grail. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’ Miller couldn’t help wondering if Henry Black had interviewed his old schoolteacher, himself a veteran of that battle, himself an escapee from Gloster Hill. And if he did, would the teacher have told him anything?
‘You should have been a shrink,’ she said. ‘You’ve got me thinking about things differently now ... Not sure if that’s a good thing, but what about you? I’ve never heard you talk about your parents.’
His voice sounded distant. ‘I went through a phase where the people closest to me always seemed to die, for one reason or another, and I just felt if I never spoke of them, whatever it was that dogged me might just fail to notice how much I cared, and from there I just got into the habit of keeping quiet about them. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about you.’ He turned his face towards her, his expression an apology for his next question. ‘Back in the bar you never finished telling me about the body they found in the hotel.’
‘I didn’t see it. I tried to get back to my room. After Mo ... before he told me it was the cleaner. Sorry, I’m a bit confused. He told me Boyle grabbed him and threw him off the roof.’
‘How did he survive that?’
‘He did that free-jumping thing a lot of the kids do. He scraped himself quite badly, but survived.’
Sensing she was on the brink of falling apart again, he said, ‘We’re not going to have much chance of getting you out of the country in the boot of the car. If we go to the consul you’ll be arrested, but you’ll have the chance to put your side ...’
Steely resolve returned to her voice. ‘Miller, I need him to come after me, or all this has been for nothing. If I get detained, and they catch him first—’
‘You won’t get your story.’ And I won’t get what I want either. ‘Then we’ll have to get you a passport another way.’
She arched her eyebrow quizzically.
‘The backstreet boys. Chinese, Pakistani ... When we get to Tangier, we’ll get it sorted. It’ll cost a few grand, but you’ll pay me back.’
‘How long will it take?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. A couple of hours, if we’re lucky.’
She turned, leaning more comfortably against the door, and sighed, ‘I’m just going to rest my eyes.’
Chapter 16
The motorcyclist noted that the road was far busier than it had been when he first drove down. Passing the wreck of the garage he’d destroyed a couple of days earlier, he pulled back on the throttle and roared past without a second glance, ignoring the taut lines of police tape twisting in the breeze.
He rode recklessly, timing overtaking manoeuvres to perfection, to the accompaniment of horn blasts all around him as the bike thundered on, slowing only when passing through towns. Attracting unnecessary attention was the last thing he wanted.
The throb of the engine beneath him turned the headache into a thudding drum roll, sweetened with a fiery pain that travelled down his spine and united with nerve centres in his lower parts; the need to urinate joined in, enhancing sensations that added to his state of excitement. Images of women he’d known flashed across the screen in the cinema of his mind, and he was lost on autopilot, until it reached an intensity he’d not experienced on a motorcycle before.
‘Fuck it,’ he muttered as he ejaculated. He needed a woman.
His tongue flicked over dry lips. His mouth was parched. The dull pounding returned and encircled his skull. Although he hadn’t urinated in hours, he knew he needed water to top his system up. His stomach growled, reminding him of the need to eat. He had to reach the port before she did, and snatch her away before anyone realized what was going on. He reasoned that she was either in a taxi, or she’d managed to hitch a ride.
He’d find time to eat once he’d caught her. A tiny seed of doubt nagged at him. You’ve already missed her, boy.
The words only succeeded in driving him on. You’re wrong about that, Dad! The police would know who he was by now, thanks to that bitch, but they’d not stop him. It was shit or bust. To feel the full heat of satisfaction, he needed her now. Later would do, but it wouldn’t be the same. He had plans.
He’d been riding for an hour. From the size of the tank and the distance left to travel, he guessed he’d need to stop at least three, maybe four times to fill up. He glanced at the fuel gauge. It registered empty.
On the outskirts of Bouguedra he stopped to refuel at a service station and bought himself a litre of water. He winced, as he attempted unsuccessfully to remove his helmet. The pain in his head had become almost impossible to bear, and he was no longer convinced it was anything to do with dehydration. Breaking the seal on the bottle, he drained half the cool liquid before replacing the cap and packing it away in his bag. The engine started, he
pulled out onto the road, keeping to the speed limit until he’d cleared the small town. He didn’t want to draw the attention of the police if he could help it. The gendarmerie was a paramilitary force. If they tried to stop him and he refused to comply, they’d shoot him given half a chance.
Opening the bike up, crouching low, he rocketed past a lorry, and twisting the throttle still further, roared on. A mile clocked over on the odometer every thirty seconds. His head pounding again, he dug in deep. March or die.
Anger, and thirst for revenge, drove him on at suicidal speeds between towns.
Once he was past Casablanca, the number of native cars heading for Tangier increased, many of them piled impossibly high. Suitcases and other personal effects were secured in all manner of imaginative ways, but mostly with an array of ropes running under roofs, and criss-crossing through windows, anchored to door handles and bumpers.
The vision of a piece of household ware falling into the road in front of him spurred him into overtaking the mechanical camel train of cars, giving them a wide berth long before he needed to.
Racing along the road, through an expanse of desert, his mind switched to Brooks.
What she said wasn’t what happened. That fuckin’ Brooks, the liar! The fuckin’ liar! You’re dead, Brooks. Do you hear me? A chorus of voices inside his head joined in. His skull filled with nagging pain.
‘You’re all dead, can’t you understand that?’ The sound of his voice startled him. He’d thought he was only thinking. ‘Leave me alone!’ He spat out the words, but they were deadened by the padding of the helmet.
A mocking female voice sneered his words back at him. ‘Leave me alone!’
Boyle surprised himself with the realization that he had uttered the words himself. A pitch-perfect rendition of her voice.
Despite the soaring unseasonable heat, it left him chilled to the bone.
High above, he felt the eye of someone watching him. A helicopter? He couldn’t hear any rotors above the sound of his engine.
Now nudging one hundred and thirty miles an hour, he didn’t dare look up.
Chapter 17
Driving, the lieutenant found, helped him think abstractly. Hamed’s voice in the background didn’t distract him at all. A reporter writes a book about a killer. Somehow, she finds out he is in Essaouira. She comes and puts up posters and distributes copies of the book. There are no other posters put up anywhere else in Morocco – Hamed had already checked that. So, why? ... She wants him to find her! He came looking for her in the hotel, went to her room, and the maid disturbed him? Perhaps ...
His subordinate spoke rapidly, mixing Arabic with French. Mohand’s attention switched to the younger man as he queried the radio operator at the other end, ‘Then who is he?’ he said. ‘I want to know immediately there is further development.’
‘What was that about?’ Mohand asked.
‘The body is that of a German tourist, according to his passport, but they can’t be sure.’
‘Can’t be sure? What do you mean?’
‘The passport was reported stolen two weeks ago.’
Mohand held the bridge of his nose as if he had a nosebleed. ‘What does all this mean?’
‘We’ve learned he was staying across the street from this Boule. We don’t think they were connected. It looks as if he was killed for his motorcycle. It’s missing.’
‘Do we have the licence plate number?’
‘Soon we’ll know. How can you be so sure this woman is heading for Tangier, lieutenant?’
Mohand’s eyebrows lifted, feigning surprise. ‘Because she’s on the run too, and if she can’t get the plane what else can she do?’
‘If she’s really on the run, she could try a fishing boat ...’
‘Hamed, she has no passport. She doesn’t use official channels. She was in the hotel. She knows we want to speak with her, no? She is wrapped up in this somehow. I don’t know what spider and fly game they are playing, but I have a feeling if I catch her, I’ll catch Boule also.’
‘You can’t go to Tangier, you have no permission.’
‘Hamed, what permission do I need? You forget something. I come from Tangier. My mother, she lives there.’
‘What about me?’
‘What about you?’ The lieutenant looked him up and down. ‘You can’t.’
‘I still don’t understand why you’d take such a chance, acting outside your jurisdiction.’
The lieutenant checked the radio was off and, despite the fact only the two of them were in the car, lowered his voice. ‘I don’t have the proof, only what I feel – here.’ He thumped his left breast. ‘If I don’t act, he’ll be gone, and someone else will report their daughter missing. Maybe not here, maybe Spain, or France ... It only takes a few good men to turn their backs for evil to flourish, Hamed’
‘This I know, but how will you get the proof, what will you do?’
‘The woman. She can help me. Of this, I’m certain.’
‘Lieutenant, it’s now 14:00 hours, so they have ... we don’t know how long ago, but the man, he’s at least three hours ahead. You’ll never get to the port in time.’
‘Didn’t I tell you I have contacts? Didn’t you think I got to this position because I don’t make friends? One such man, he has a helicopter ...’
‘He’ll fly you there?’
Mohand thought about the years he’d turned a blind eye to the man’s illicit selling of alcohol, always turning down the bribes offered, knowing one day he’d call in a favour. ‘If he knows what’s good for him, he will.’
At some point, Miller couldn’t be sure exactly when, Carla’s breathing changed, and she began to snore softly.
A yellow light illuminated the tank symbol on the dashboard. Christ! He thought quickly; on most cars these days there was at least fifty miles of petrol left when the warning light came on. The last sign he’d seen showed the next town was a hundred kilometres away. He eased his foot off the accelerator, slowing to the optimum fuel consumption speed of fifty miles an hour, and did a mental calculation. That’s sixty miles away. Unless there was a margin built into the triggering of the light, he was going to be short.
Perspiration sheened his forehead and his palms felt clammy. Vehicles started overtaking, even some of those that were stacked high with belongings.
The brilliant headlights of a motorbike appeared in the rearview mirror. In spite of the daylight, they dazzled him.
‘Well, go on then. Overtake,’ he mumbled.
A few seconds later, it was obvious the bike was tailgating him. He’d heard about such antics when he’d hired the vehicle. The advice given was to ignore them. Through the glare, he just made out the biker’s jet-black helmet. And a hand, finger outstretched, pointing down at the rear, right-hand corner of the car.
Cursing his lack of attention while talking to Carla, he wondered if the rider could see the yellow light, if he knew he was almost out of gas. He dismissed the thought as illogical, but still the bike sat squarely behind. Scenarios played out in his mind. He would run out of juice in a remote place, and if the guy had bad intentions ... He could see that he was big. He thought about weapons. He could pick up a rock, but what if the other man had a gun? Sweat soaked the back of his shirt and then he realized he wasn’t afraid ... not for himself. If he’d been on his own, he wouldn’t have cared.
‘Oh, Carla,’ he whispered. ‘The shit you put me through.’ He glanced in the mirror. The bike roared and swung out, slowing as it came level with his door. The rider’s head turned towards him. For an instant, he saw himself and the car reflected in the black visor, and then, with a thunderous burst of acceleration, the biker was gone.
Chapter 18
Hamed had taken over the driving, while Mohand radioed the station to advise that his mother was sick, and it was imperative he left immediately to be with her.
The next call he made on his mobile and, having explained his predicament, the need to get to Tangier quickly, the man on the e
nd of the line agreed to help. ‘You’re very lucky, Mustafa Mohand. I have one helicopter available immediately. We aren’t busy at this time of year. I can make a special price for you.’
‘We’ll talk about that.’
After a short pause, the man at the other end of the line said, ‘I’ll have my man meet you at the general air terminal. Sadly, my friend, you still need to check in.’
‘No problem.’ He ended the call. ‘Take me to the airport,’ he said.
‘You’ll fly?’ the younger man asked.
The lieutenant looked out of the window, as if seeing his world for the first time lit brightly in the early afternoon sunshine. ‘I hope so,’ he said with a laconic grin. ‘I’ve never been in a helicopter before.’
‘A helicopter?’ Hamed chuckled. ‘Let’s hope the pilot knows how to crash safely ...’
Twenty minutes later, Mohand clambered out of the car outside the airport terminal. After the air-conditioned journey, the heat was stifling. He closed the door behind.
‘May Allah be with you,’ Hamed called out as he drove away.
Surprised to see Mehmet outside the entrance, Mohand marched up to him. His father’s old friend was too busy smoking and thinking to notice his approach. A portly man, almost as wide as he was tall, his head was as big as a football; his swarthy features were anchored in place by the obligatory handbag moustache, surprisingly black, when what little remained of his hair was grey. ‘Mehmet, so good to see you again.’ They shook hands vigorously.
The lieutenant recalled his father telling him how he had encountered him not long after Mehmet opened his first shop. They’d been friends since school, and while one had chosen to become a policeman, the other had taken his chances, like a dog in the street. He’d shown his old school friend around the modest premises, told him of his plans to make it big one day. For the first time in his life, Mehmet had a legitimate reason to feel proud. After that, they’d met frequently. His father had been astounded at his rapid progress, greased by the elimination of his business rivals, aided by a few well-placed bribes. His father never took any money, but accepted occasional favours. It is better, my son, for a man like Mehmet to have gained this position than his rivals. For this reason, I turned a blind eye to his activities provided he did not go too far. And besides, sometimes a policeman can use the help of a man from the other side of the law.
