‘That debt is now thousands,’ said Tariq.
‘But how?’ asked Laura. ‘Even with interest, how could they have had to pay back more than a dollar?’
Tariq sighed. ‘My grandparents’ story is a common one in Bangladesh and India. Millions of people are in this situation. They borrow money from quarry or factory owners who make them pay by working them up to twelve hours a day. My grandfather and later my father slaved from dawn to dark breaking rocks in a quarry, but the owner of the pit charged him rent to live in a small grass hut on the site. He also charged them for the use of water drawn from a dirty pool and for the flour for our chapattis. On special occasions, we ate a scrawny chicken, and he charged us for that too. In the summer, the boulders heated up to the temperature of fire. From the age of six, I joined them, and we were soon covered in burns and calluses. Even so, our debt grew each month. We were locked in bondage.’
When Tariq’s grandparents died their debt was inherited by Tariq’s father, who in turn passed it on to Tariq. With one difference. Tariq’s mother, Amrita, was descended from a line of gifted tapestry artists. When the quarry owner’s wife discovered Amrita’s lineage, she pulled her from the pit. Frail Amrita slaved for even longer hours, this time making tapestries, which were worth much more than crushed gravel. The quarry owner’s wife demanded she train Tariq, then six, to take over from her if anything should happen to her.
‘I was eight when my mum was rushed into hospital. She died three days later. She had never received a cent of compensation for her tapestries, yet the quarry owner told us our hospital bills and funeral costs meant that my dad owed him so much money we would never be free if we lived five lifetimes. Not long afterwards, my father had a heart attack while smashing a boulder. Before my ninth birthday, I was alone in the world and responsible for my family’s debt.’
Tears were running down Laura’s face. Never in her life had she heard such a horrific story. But Tariq’s eyes stayed dry.
‘Two and a half years later,’ he went on, ‘the quarry owner’s wife passed away after floods caused a cholera outbreak at the pit. Her sister arrived for the funeral. No prizes for guessing her name.’
Laura dried her eyes on her sleeve and gasped as she made the connection. ‘Mrs Mukhtar?’
His expression told her the answer. ‘At first, I believed she was different. She looked like the Bollywood stars I’d seen on posters, like an angel. She was nice to me. It was years since I’d been praised or treated like a human being, but she raved about the tapestries and told me that I was very talented. The day before she and Mr Mukhtar were due to leave, she came to me and said that they could not bear to think of a boy such as I “going to waste” in the quarry. They were going to pay off my debt and take me to England, where I would be educated and live with them as their own son. She described golden beaches, cobbled streets and quaint artist’s studios, and said that in exchange for doing some tapestries and helping out around their grocery store, I’d live a life of luxury few in my situation could dare to dream of.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘I wanted to believe her,’ said Tariq. ‘To me, anything was better than a lifetime in the heat, dirt and thunder of the quarry, with me making tapestries on my own while my friends broke rocks in the baking sun. I could hardly sleep for imagining sunny beaches, blue sea, and ice-cream. I thought I might be a servant to her and Mr Mukhtar. I didn’t realise I’d be a slave. I know now that slavery comes in many different forms.’
Footsteps passed their cabin and Laura steeled herself. Very shortly, they would learn their fate. But the corridor went quiet again and soon she could hear nothing but the waves slapping the bottom of the boat. She asked: ‘How much of what Mrs Mukhtar promised you actually happened?’
He shrugged. ‘Some. In the quarry, I’d slept on hay and a ragged blanket. I’d eaten food that pigs would not touch if they were starving. I’d worked fourteen-hour days - sometimes longer. Here I slept on a mattress in a storeroom and ate dhal or curry and rice. Compared to my old life it was luxury. But in the quarry, I’d had many friends. Here I was alone. The tapestries were much more popular than the Mukhtars anticipated. Along with cleaning their apartment and minding the store, I often had to work twenty-hour days to keep up with the demand.’
Laura felt ill. It was painful to discover that the whole time she’d been visiting Tariq and feeling overjoyed to have made a friend, he’d been a prisoner worked to the bone. He had not received one penny for his labours - not so much as an ice-cream - because the Mukhtars had told him he owed them thousands of pounds for paying off his family’s debt, for flying him from Bangladesh to Cornwall, and for his rent and food.
‘And yet you still found time to make me a tiger.’ Laura had a lump in her throat. ‘I love it, by the way. It’s exquisite.’
Tariq’s weary face creased into a smile. ‘Did you find it? Mrs Webb told the Mukhtars she’d thrown it into the gutter. They were livid with me, but it was the least I could do to say sorry. Your friendship meant the world to me and when they forced me to hurt you, it was torture. I had to do something to try to make amends. So many times I was tempted to tell you my secret. But I was afraid to trust you. Plus the Mukhtars had told me that if I let slip to anyone what was going on, they knew people who could make both of us disappear.’
It was on the tip of Laura’s tongue to say that the Mukhtars threat might be about to come true, but she thought better of it. ‘I wish you had trusted me.’
‘So do I, but my secret had been sealed in my heart for so long it had become a habit.’
‘The secret of your slavery?’
Tariq flexed his wrists to try to restore circulation to his hands. ‘No, the secret of my education. Do you remember me telling you that my great-grandfather was a teacher and that my grandfather considered himself to have bright prospects before he borrowed the seventy-five cents from the quarry owner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, my grandfather knew that education was the only way he or his family would ever escape from debt-bondage. He also knew that it had to be hidden from the quarry owner or it would be exploited, just as in later years the quarry owner’s son exploited my mum’s tapestry skills. At night, in secret, my grandfather taught my dad to read, write, do sums and speak English, and my father did the same for me.
‘When I came to live with the Mukhtars, I realised straight away that my education would either save me or get me killed. I had to keep it a secret until I’d learned enough about your country to try to figure out how to escape. I spent hours reading the newspapers while I was minding the store. Through them I learned that millions of people are free and I can be one of them. But I couldn’t do it on my own. I needed help.’
‘So you came up with the idea of putting messages in a bottle?’
‘It seemed the easiest, safest way to get a letter to you. I knew you liked to walk to school along Porthmeor Beach and the Island path. All I had to do was put the bottle in a place where only you would see it. It took a few days to get it right, but finally I managed it. When you wrote back to me and said I could trust you I was nearly insane with joy.
‘But I took too many chances. After Mrs Webb told the Mukhtars about the tiger tapestry, they became increasingly suspicious. They were paranoid that it would somehow get out that their supposed son was a slave. A couple of times they had me followed.
‘Yesterday morning, after I saw you with your wolf dog, I decided to tell you the truth. I was waiting outside your school when a muscle man dragged me into a car. He’s called the Monk. I tried to yell to you, but he drugged me with something. Laura, this gang - the Straight A’s - they’re evil.’
There was a commotion in the corridor outside and Tariq fell silent. The smell of the cabin - a combination of dried salt, stale sweat and mildew - had got into Laura’s throat. She’d have braved a school of piranhas for a single glass of water. Her skin had stopped burning, but her head throbbed. The voices died down a
gain. The only sounds were the creak of wood and the dull roar of the sea.
‘How are the Mukhtars mixed up in this?’ she asked. ‘Why are they working with the Straight A gang?’
‘The Mukhtars became friendly with the Straight A’s when they were trying to obtain a false passport so I could come to the United Kingdom. That’s what I heard the Monk saying to Mrs Webb after they snatched me yesterday.’
‘Mrs Webb!’ cried Laura. ‘I knew it.’
‘She’s pretty frightening. I don’t know how you lived with her as a housekeeper. Anyhow, I think the reason they started working together is that the Mukhtars are bankrupt. They have big debts because both of them are always shopping and going on holiday. The bank was always sending them red letters saying that they were going to repossess the North Star if they didn’t pay up. I’m guessing that they got talking to the Straight A’s about how they could team up and make a huge amount of money.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I’m not sure, but they’ve been waiting for something big to come from Bangladesh - some massive delivery. Maybe its drugs or guns. The Mukhtars have been talking about it in coded language for weeks. Two days ago, I heard the details I put in the invisible letter: twenty units, Dead Man’s Cove and L.A.T, whatever that means. I thought your uncle might be able to help. Once, I overheard the Mukhtars discussing him, saying he was the most dangerous man in Britain.’
Laura snorted. ‘To criminals maybe.’
‘I figured that out because they said they’d been told that when he was at the top of his game, there was no one in the police force who could touch him. A week ago, I heard Mrs Webb telling the Mukhtars that trying to find information on him was like trying to prise secrets from a sphinx. I was going to warn you about her if I ever got to speak to you. Now it’s too late.’
There were shouts and the thud of boots running on wood. A key rattled in the lock. A wave of pure terror ripped through Laura.
The gaunt kidnapper, who, she was fairly sure, had used chloroform to knock her out, came in. He had white hair, black eyebrows, a slack jaw and the flat, lifeless eyes of a cod. His gaze roamed the cabin restlessly. He’d swapped the Pizza Perfect uniform for a black jacket and dark grey trousers with a sharp crease.
‘Ah, Laura, good to see you’re awake,’ he said in a bright tone that contrasted oddly with his colourless appearance. ‘Wouldn’t want you to sleep through all the action. Regretfully we had to give you a little something to calm you down, but you had the minimum dose and will feel all right in no time.’
‘Who are you?’ demanded Laura, her fear giving way to fury. ‘What do you want from us?’
The cod eyes fixed on her. ‘Rumblefish is my name. As to what we want from you, all will be revealed in good time.’
With a boldness she didn’t feel, Laura said, ‘My uncle is one of the best detectives in the world. When he finds you, you’ll be spending many years in jail reflecting on the massive mistake you’re making keeping Tariq and me hostage.’
Rumblefish raised a black eyebrow. ‘Laura, you are to be applauded for your misplaced faith in former Chief Inspector Redfern. Perhaps he failed to mention that the Straight A’s have a reputation for excellence of a different kind. Rest assured that by the time we’ve finished with you and Tariq, you’ll be gone without a trace. Your beloved uncle will not find one hair on your heads if he walks from here to China.’
He kicked open the door. ‘On that cheerful note, shall we go?’
23
‘THIS IS WHAT you get when you work with amateurs. Incompetence. Delays. Idiocy. What are they waiting for - Christmas?’
The Monk’s dimpled cheeks were pinched in annoyance. He paced briskly up and down the short beach at Dead Man’s Cove, his stocky wrestler frame and brown suit bathed in the silver light of a full moon.
‘Settle down, Monk,’ snapped Rumblefish. He had infrared night-vision goggles to his eyes and was squinting at the ocean. ‘The best laid plans can have unexpected hitches. Mr A might have had some last-minute instructions, or there could have been some unforeseen complications with the delivery. We must be patient a while longer. Remember, this is the first of many such journeys.’
‘It will be the first and last if they take too much longer,’ grumbled the Monk. ‘The tide waits for no man - not even Mr A. We have a minuscule window of opportunity. If we miss it we’ll be dicing with disaster. I’ve never been partial to drowning, myself, have you?’
Huddled together by the wet, seaweed-coated rocks, Laura and Tariq shivered with cold. They’d been drenched as they clambered off the boat in choppy waters, and had been unable to warm themselves because they were still trussed and bound. Hearing the Monk’s words chilled them further, because they now knew the meaning of the acronym, L.A.T. - Lowest Astronomical Tide.
On the journey to the shore, one of the boatmen had explained to the gangsters that a combination of the full moon and extreme weather in the Atlantic had brought about an extra low L.A.T, meaning the tide went out much further than usual. The delivery had been timed to coincide with that.
Nothing more was said, but Laura’s blood ran cold. There could be only one reason to visit Dead Man’s Cove on a night when the tide was at its lowest point of the year and that was to gain access to the old smugglers’ tunnel. Her uncle had told her it was sealed up and impassable, but either the Straight A gang had information he didn’t or they were blundering headlong into catastrophe. Worse still, they planned on dragging her and Tariq with them.
Approaching Dead Man’s Cove from the ocean had been even more heartstopping than gazing down on it from the cliffs above. The sheer walls of black granite towered above the Atlantic like the battlements of some ancient fortress and the waves charged up to the beach like wild white stallions with flying manes. The tunnel was exposed - a black gash in the rock.
As soon as Laura, Tariq, Rumblefish and the Monk were ashore, the powerboat had shut off its lights and zoomed away into the night. Laura’s spirits had plummeted as she watched it go. She and Tariq were quite literally caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Even supposing they were to break their bonds and outrun two hardened criminals, there was no way out of the cove except to scale a sheer cliff face or swim the lethal currents of the Atlantic. Barring a miracle, there was no escape from whatever grim fate awaited them.
Every few minutes Laura craned her neck to look up at the cliff top, willing her uncle to pass by on one of his midnight walks. But, of course, he wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight. It was close to 3am. More than five hours had passed since she’d been abducted by Rumblefish. By now, Calvin Redfern would be going berserk. He’d have seen Tariq’s notes and put two and two together, but without the clues in the invisible letter, they were unlikely to help him.
‘We’re not going to be saved, are we? I’m never going to see my uncle or Skye again,’ she said to Tariq. She wondered if he was as terrified as she was. Although he was shivering and uncomfortable, an inner stillness radiated from him.
‘No one is going to rescue us,’ he said, ‘but we might still save ourselves. We must wait for our chance and have faith.’
He gestured towards the sea with his bound hands. ‘Here comes the delivery.’
Laura followed his gaze. Silhouetted against the moonlit horizon was a cargo ship. Not a single light burned on its decks. It crouched in the darkness like a panther waiting to pounce.
‘The tide is turning, I’m certain of it,’ moaned the Monk, casting a pebble in the direction of the crashing waves. ‘I must say that had I known a burial at sea was on the cards, I’d have come better equipped. With a wetsuit and flippers, not to mention my last will and testament.’
Laura had noticed the same thing. Minute by minute, the sea was creeping nearer to the hungry mouth of the tunnel.
‘Shut up, Monk,’ ordered Rumblefish, taking the night-vision goggles from his eyes. ‘You could make a person nervous with that talk. Anyhow, you need concern yourself no long
er. Our passport to riches is on its way.’
Across the sea came the drone of the returning powerboat. The gangsters snapped into action. Rumblefish checked the ropes securing Laura and Tariq’s wrists and the Monk cleared some stray rocks from the landing area. Laura looked at Tariq. They both sensed that their fate was somehow linked with the delivery.
The moon laid a shimmering path across the sea. It was along this path that the powerboat travelled. As it drew nearer, Laura heard something else above the engine’s growl - a kind of keening. It made her hair stand on end.
The boat cut its engines and drifted closer. The keening stopped following a shouted curse. Presently a burly man jumped off and hauled the vessel onto the sand with the help of the two gangsters, turning on a couple of lights while it moored.
Laura Marlin Mysteries 1: Dead Man's Cove eBook Page 14
