Lia felt her breathing quicken as they walked slowly, tracking Mkapinga’s movements but also remaining unnoticed. If Lia hadn’t practised tailing with Paddy, she would have had a hard time controlling herself.
Most of the building’s sights, beaten-up artefacts and old pictures in showcases, were on the bottom floor. When Mkapinga and his guests ascended to the first floor, Lia and Rico could see that no one else was up there. The upper floors of the building had handsome prospects over the whole city, but many of the exhibition halls were bare.
Mkapinga’s group soon grew bored since there was so little to see. Lia glanced at Rico but didn’t need to say anything. They were both thinking the same thing: they had to get Mkapinga further away from the entrance lobby.
Occasionally they had to let him out of sight for a moment so he wouldn’t wonder about the foreigners following him.
What if he disappears? What if he notices us and makes a run for it?
But Mkapinga’s soft voice continued echoing through the halls. Lia looked at the empty exhibition room he was walking through with his group. Large, wooden louvres clacked against the enormous window frames in the light breeze. Although outside the sun was shining, inside was surprisingly dim. There were no lights, since the museum didn’t have the resources to keep a generator running during the day.
That was just fine for Rico and Lia. They wandered around the building. Minutes passed. Mkapinga was in no hurry. He knew the tourists he was leading would pay more the more time passed.
In the heat of the afternoon, Lia felt as if she could have stayed in this moment forever. Soon a lot of things were going to happen, including things they wouldn’t be able to control. They were following a man who could be hiding anything. The heat created a deceptively calm, sluggish feeling.
Voices came from the adjacent hall again. Rico nodded, and a shudder rippled across Lia’s skin. The group of three tourists was leaving, and Mkapinga was wrapping up the tour and collecting his fee. He did it skilfully, without mentioning money at all.
The tourists disappeared to walk around the outer terraces. Mkapinga was all theirs.
He was surprised when they walked up to him in the large exhibition hall at the back of the building and greeted him. But Mari had planned how to dispel his suspicions.
‘I’m looking to make some purchases,’ Rico said to Mkapinga.
‘What kind of purchases?’ he asked, looking at them carefully.
‘Different kinds. For me and my bride,’ Rico said, motioning to Lia standing next to him.
Audax Mkapinga quickly understood where this was heading. A young, foreign couple, interested in Zanzibari antiquities. Maybe also in things that lay in legal grey areas.
Mkapinga’s expression said that he was ready to negotiate about anything.
‘Who did you hear about me from?’ he asked.
‘Friends,’ Rico said. ‘We met a couple in London who had been thinking about buying a flat here.’
‘Yes. Indeed.’
All that was in the hall were a few modest posters that no one was guarding. If the building had camera surveillance, it wasn’t going to be working now without electricity.
Rico gave Lia a signal with a little squeeze of her hand.
‘I’m tired,’ Lia said. ‘This endless heat.’ Lia went and sat on a bench at the side of the hall. ‘You men can talk business while I just sit down here for a second.’
Mkapinga looked satisfied as Rico led him to the other end of the room.
‘I want to buy some of these old, ornate doorframes you have on the island. But not just ones that look old. Genuine antiques,’ Lia heard Rico say.
She saw Mkapinga agreeing – he was pleased to have such an eager buyer. Then Lia saw Ron step into view behind Mkapinga. Something black arced through the air.
The sound knocking out Mkapinga made was negligible. It was drowned out in the complaints of the old, creaky building, the squeaks of the floorboards on the other levels. There was no danger any of the other visitors had heard the sound.
Lia waited for a moment and then went closer.
Mkapinga lay on the floor unconscious. Ron had acted quickly and carefully. Lia saw him holding the small weapon he had used: a Monkey Fist, a round metal ball covered in rope to soften the blow. He had finished up his attack by flinging a black fabric bag over his target’s head.
Rico searched their unconscious victim’s pockets for a phone. He checked for weapons but didn’t find any. Ron stayed to bind his hands and gag him while Lia and Rico took Mkapinga’s mobile phone to Mari and Paddy waiting outside.
In the phone they recognised the killer’s number. And now they had a name. Filip Dillon.
They stared at the name for a moment. Rico started searching it on the Topo. Hardly any results came back, and none of them offered anything interesting.
‘Try Philip with a ph,’ Mari suggested.
Maybe Mkapinga had written the name wrong not knowing its modern English spelling.
There were a lot of Philip Dillons, but none of the top hits seemed like the man they suspected of homicide.
‘This doesn’t tell us anything yet,’ Mari said. ‘This guy knows how these things work. We aren’t going to catch him with just a name.’
Still, the name was important. It changed things: they knew something about him now that he didn’t want the world to know. At least about the name he was using, whether it was real or not.
Rico sent a message to Maggie in London and asked her to find out everything she could about the name Philip Dillon.
Mkapinga’s mobile turned out to be a goldmine. The memory contained dozens of old text messages, some of which were from Philip Dillon. They communicated in English, but the texts showed that Mkapinga wrote English much worse than he spoke it.
Mari read Mkapinga and Dillon’s messages for a while and then wrote a draft of a new message.
Hurry to meet. Tanzaniah govment man come tomorrow morning check house.
She didn’t send the message, instead standing and staring at it for a while.
‘Too correct,’ Mari said.
She added a couple more misspellings and sloppy words. Huree meet now. Tanzaniyah man comin tomoro mornin check hows. She sent the message.
A couple of minutes passed and then Philip Dillon rang the phone. Mari let it ring instead of answering. A few seconds later she sent another text to Dillon:
Fone top up gawn. Come here tanx Audax.
Dillon replied quickly.
Where should I come?
Darajani market 15 minuts. Need money govment man, Mari wrote.
On my way, Dillon answered.
Ron returned from the House of Wonders. He had hidden Mkapinga, carefully bound, in a cupboard he found in the remotest corner of the dozen rooms on the top floor.
‘No one is going to find him there until we want them to,’ Ron assured them.
Quickly they set off for Shangani.
How did Mari know that Philip Dillon wouldn’t invite Audax Mkapinga to meet him at his own house? Lia asked.
Mari had sized up Mkapinga in the House of Wonders.
‘I don’t think he knows what’s happening in Dillon’s house,’ she said. ‘Dillon doesn’t want anyone coming in. He wants to be alone there in the kingdom he has created for himself.’
They only had a few minutes to prepare to meet the killer in his own world.
48.
They left the van two streets away, partially as a precaution and partially because many of the alleys in Shangani were too narrow for car traffic.
It was almost four o’clock. They still had a good two hours of light. In Zanzibar, sunset was always after six, year round.
If the men hadn’t been with them, Lia would have been so terrified she couldn’t have moved. Now she was just able to keep it together. Knowing that Paddy, Rico and Ron were there helped, and knowing that they had guns.
Mari also had to have other safety measures she wasn’t talking a
bout. She had to.
Lia and Mari walked together, slowly. Step by step they approached the house. The streets were so narrow here, just small lanes surrounded by high building walls. It felt as if someone could have just reached out from one of the houses and touched them at any moment.
They saw the crumbling walls of Tippu Tib’s great house and the gaping windows of the upper floors. A bad smell wafted from the large, once beautiful door, like the stench of a mouldy cellar. They circled the building, approaching its corner and the side alley with no name.
Philip Dillon was there.
They recognised him immediately, the man whose legs they had seen on the videos, the man who had killed Berg on their own snuff film.
Dillon almost had his back to them, stopped in front of his house staring at his phone. They saw his strong back and that he was punching buttons on the device.
They just had to go, Lia knew.
Mari walked ahead, a large tourist map held poorly folded in her hands. Dillon heard them coming and turned to look. For a quick moment Lia gazed at the man who had killed five people, a man the likes of whom should not even exist and who did not deserve to walk free in the same world as real people. And yet, here he was.
Lia lowered her eyes. She couldn’t stare. Dillon looked surprisingly small and strange. His hair was cropped unusually short. He was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit any puzzle, and yet his bearing exuded a focused power.
God help me. Get me away from here.
Lia felt Mari’s grip on her arm. Mari went first and Lia had to follow. Mari’s will carried them forward. Lia felt her legs faltering.
How would they look to him? Dressed for the heat, sunglasses, the woman in the front carrying a big wrinkled tourist map.
Does he realise who we are? Has he seen us in the city? Does he suspect something?
‘Excuse me,’ Mari called to him.
Lia froze. Mari dragged her along, encouraging her to continue walking, and Lia thought she had never seen anyone be so brave. Her head was pounding, echoing warning cries of danger.
They walked forward slowly. Dillon was only ten metres away now, staring at them.
They could see his face properly now. A narrow, expressionless face, as if chiselled with a knife. The man whose videos of murder were like personal messages from the Devil.
‘Excuse me,’ Mari said, ‘is Freddie Mercury’s house around here?’
Lia walked towards the man in a complete fog. She registered his movements, saw the distance to him growing shorter but didn’t know how Mari could continue forward.
Lia couldn’t any more. She couldn’t even breathe.
Then Dillon took a long step towards them. They saw his strength, his body pure pent-up power. He moved lightly, his phone still in his hand. He didn’t say anything.
Dillon looked at them intensely, with something in his eyes Lia didn’t recognise. She had never seen eyes like that before.
Was it possible that eyes like that existed in this world, eyes that showed both intelligence and some unnatural presence?
Dillon extended his hand with the phone, pointing with it at their map, the big pile of paper in Mari’s hands.
Then Ron appeared behind Dillon, something black flew through the air, the same black arc as in the House of Wonders.
This is a miracle, Lia thought.
Dillon was already on his way to the ground when he shouted and lashed out. The black hood blinded him, but he flailed back furiously with something sharp and shiny that had appeared in his hand. Lia gave a yelp, and Mari jerked backwards, but Ron was prepared for the attack.
Ron dodged and with a quick, calm motion of his arm knocked the knife from Dillon’s hand. A shiny silver switchblade fell to the ground. Ron grabbed Dillon by the neck and forced him down to the street.
They heard Paddy coming, running up behind them and jumping on Dillon.
The three men wrestled. Hooded, Dillon was like a bellowing, nearly uncontrollable animal. He pulled and kicked, struggling with his whole muscular body. And then Ron pressed his pistol against Dillon’s metatarsus and fired a shot through the silencer. Dillon twisted in pain, and as he collapsed to the ground, it occurred to Lia that she had never seen anything like that happen to a person. It was as if the plug powering him had simply been pulled out of the socket.
49.
Paddy and Ron carried the killer in.
Philip Dillon was still wearing the black hood Ron had put on. It was made of a light fabric that wouldn’t suffocate him but kept him from seeing and muffled his voice. As the first order of business, they tied his hands behind his back and bound his feet at the ankles.
The front door of the house wasn’t locked, so getting in was easier than they had dared to hope. As they stepped through the dark, low wooden door set in the thick, white stone walls, Lia noticed that she could breathe again.
The order of tasks was clear to everyone. This was what they had been going over all day. They had to find out what was in the building and make sure they were safe. They had to put Dillon somewhere he couldn’t get out of and then immediately determine whether his prisoners were in the house and alive.
Ron locked the front door after them and, weapon in hand, checked that no one was in the inner courtyard. Paddy and Rico dragged Dillon, and Mari and Lia followed.
Lia had a hard time taking her eyes off Dillon, even though staring at him was strangely taxing. Here was the killer who had taken so many lives. Even sprawled on the floor unconscious he was frightening. It was as if he might power back up at any second and attack them.
Dillon was wearing heavy, black shoes – the ones they had seen in the videos. His trousers were a lighter, thinner fabric than the jeans in the video images. His shirt was thin with short sleeves.
This man who kills almost for fun wears lighter clothing in hot climates. Just like everyone else.
The thought felt absurd but also helped her snap back to reality. Philip Dillon was a man, dangerous but stoppable.
Suddenly Lia was back in the situation and in control of herself.
The house was big, the rooms connected by narrow, winding corridors. Ron listened at each door for a moment, pistol at the ready, waiting for sounds inside.
One by one the rooms turned out empty.
No one. Neither of the prisoners they had seen on the videos.
Finding that Dillon didn’t seem to have any accomplices was a relief, but they immediately moved on to other matters. It was much more important that the prisoners weren’t there.
‘There must be a cellar,’ Mari said.
An old building like this was almost guaranteed to have a cellar. Rico went to look for it.
Paddy and Ron were lifting Dillon off the floor when the kick came.
Lia saw it but didn’t have time to cry out. All they heard was Ron’s terse grunt when Dillon’s legs shoved him in the temple.
Suddenly revived, Dillon had strained his body to the limit, but the kick didn’t land hard. Dillon couldn’t see where to aim through the bag, and his legs were tied at the ankles, so his effort was imprecise. Ron only staggered backwards.
‘Shit!’ Paddy yelled, grabbing Dillon by the legs.
He tried to kick Paddy, but Paddy’s grip held and then Ron was back in charge of the situation.
‘Stop,’ he said and pressed his gun against Dillon’s head.
The kicking stopped.
‘His shoes,’ Mari said.
Paddy took off Dillon’s shoes. Feeling the touch of Ron’s weapon, Dillon didn’t try to resist any more.
Paddy and Ron dragged Dillon into the next room and dumped him in a chair. Paddy checked the cords on Dillon’s hands and ankles while Ron stood guard.
None of them could speak. Surprising the killer, getting into the house, sweeping the rooms and getting him tied up had been a huge effort. Now the strain began releasing bit by bit.
Only Dillon remained tense. Lia could see his muscles flexing as he tested the stre
ngth of the ties on his hands.
When Rico returned and asked Mari and Paddy to come with him into the cellar he had found, there was a moment of confusion.
Paddy didn’t want to leave Dillon, but Ron claimed he could guard him alone.
‘Lia, can you stay here with Ron?’ Mari asked.
Lia blanched.
‘Yes… Yes.’
Everyone heard the uncertainty in Lia’s voice.
‘Take this,’ Paddy said, handing her the familiar Heckler & Koch P7.
Holding the pistol helped. Lia immediately felt surer with it in her hands, as if all those hours she had spent practising shooting were concentrated in this moment. No matter what kind of creature Philip Dillon was, he wasn’t going to be able to get up and out of that chair without Ron and Lia having time to stop him.
Mari, Rico and Paddy left for the cellar. Lia and Ron waited quietly, both of them staring at Dillon bound to the chair. The only sound in the room was Dillon’s breathing. He seemed to be gasping for breath under the hood, but Lia didn’t want to take it off. If someone asked her to remove the hood, she didn’t know if she would have the courage.
They each took a turn inspecting the cellar. Rico soon returned to ask Lia and Ron to come with him once Paddy was back to guard Dillon.
‘Bastard,’ Paddy hissed at Dillon when he walked into the room, and in the cellar Lia saw why.
There were three small rooms. Windowless chambers. In the first there were only shelves on the walls with containers, boxes and paper files. In the middle one there were metal buckets filled with something festering with a dark, saccharine smell. Lia had no desire to linger, and didn’t dare look at the contents of the buckets.
In the rear room was a desk with computers and a tangle of wires on the floor nearby leading to devices Lia didn’t recognise. Somewhere beyond the walls a generator hummed.
All of the computers were on, and Lia could see that Rico had used one of them. On the screen were images. The machine had a camera connection to somewhere. In the small windows they could see movement, people just barely visible in the darkness.
Black Noise Page 30
