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Roadworks
By Gerard Readett
Writers Exchange E-Publishing
http://www.writers-exchange.com
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For my father,
Who entertained the dream
and would have been thrilled.
Roadworks
Copyright 2002, 2015 Gerard Readett
Writers Exchange E-Publishing
PO Box 372
ATHERTON QLD 4883
AUSTRALIA
Published by Writers Exchange E-Publishing
http://www.writers-exchange.com/
Electronic ISBN 1 876962 96 8
Print ISBN 1876962771
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my mother for proof reading numerous rewrites of the manuscript, Stephane and Florence for thrashing out some of the storyline with me, Frederick for being the reader of the first version, Paul for being the critic of the penultimate version.
Special thanks to my wife, a native French speaker, who patiently waded through the final copy and made useful corrections to the story.
Without the appreciation and hard work of Sandy at Writers Exchange E-Publishing all the sweat and tears would have been in vain.
Finally, I am grateful to Michael for producing such a stunning cover.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
About The Author
Other Mystery Books By This Publisher
Back Cover
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Prologue
Brussels, Belgium
The sun was high in the sky. Even through the soles of my shoes, I felt the heat rising from the sand. In the distance, a couple of lonely trees shimmered in the haze.
An eerie, high-pitched shriek made me look upwards. I used a hand to block out the sun. Far away, I could just make out the dark shape of a vulture, circling lazily. As I watched, it started to swoop down towards me, but then it veered and caught another thermal. I shuddered involuntarily.
The sheet in the doorway flapped as a warm breeze stirred the air. I stepped through gingerly, trying to keep from making any noise. They had warned me that the patients tended to sleep through the scorching African afternoon.
My wife, lying peacefully in an ankle high bed, and covered by a single white sheet, was deathly pale. The mosquito net, hanging from crude wooden bedposts, surrounded her like a ghostly shroud. Seeing her like that made me want to hold her and tell her everything would work out. A net might be a thin barrier against mosquitoes, but for me, it was like a prison wall. It tore me apart to see her like that. She held on by a thread, a strong will to live. The doctor had stressed that one more mosquito bite would sever that last thread.
It was my fault. She had not been particularly keen to come to Africa. It had taken me a week of cajoling to convince her that a month-long Safari trip would be an unforgettable experience. Well, unforgettable it certainly would be.
Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, then gently trickled down over her eyebrows and onto her cheeks. She moaned once, and her head fell to one side. I reached out to touch the mosquito net. For a long time I stood there, staring at her while she fought the fever.
She moaned again, and her arm fell from her side, hitting the floor. I bent down, gently taking her hand in mine. It was very warm and slightly clammy.
Suddenly, she gripped my wrist. My head snapped up, and our gazes locked. The crazed look in her eyes curdled my blood. Her mouth curled into a horrifying, lop-sided grin.
The sweat on her forehead drenched her face. She must have seen the fear in my eyes, but kept on grinning. The skin on her face was rapidly reddening, and my wrist felt as if someone had poured boiling water on it. I tried to pull away, but she only tightened her grip, and pulled again.
Blisters began to form on her cheeks, then on her forehead. Tears flowed in continuous streams, her nose began running, and she opened her mouth. Her tongue, bloated beyond recognition, was a sickly shade of grey. I began sobbing while I scratched frantically at her hand.
Then the blisters burst.
I sat up and felt around me. Beneath me was something soft and yielding. The ambient darkness disoriented me. My heart was pounding out a frantic rhythm, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. It took several seconds for my brain to make sense of the last few minutes. The panic receded as the rush of adrenaline stopped, and my racing heart slowed to a walk. My bedside clock displayed 06:30 04 April 2022.
That nightmare would be the end of me one day. It was still as clear as the first time, and still as painful. I rose and headed toward the bathroom, where I splashed water on my face, then drank some from the tap.
Back in the bedroom, I found the newspaper cutting, and read it for the thousandth time. It always devastated me, but it was the only way I had found for facing another day without Sarah.
"Mrs. Sarah Ryan died on Tuesday of a malignant form of malaria that she had contracted on a Safari trip with her husband, Mr. Hugh Ryan. Medicines needed for the treatment of her ailment were unavailable at the lodge where they were staying. Some had been ordered and flown in from the capital but they had arrived too late."
I flopped back onto the bed. For a year and a half, I had that nightmare every day. Nowadays, it was a bit less frequent, but I no longer have any tears left to shed. Lifting my hand to look at the picture, I sighed.
I had been the perfect incarnation of the tourist, with my flowery silk shirt covering my protruding belly, and my camera hanging loosely around my neck. At the time, I had sported dark, shoulder-length hair at the back, accompanied by sideburns. My blue eyes seemed to sparkle, and my round face had radiated happiness.
A week after the picture had been taken, everything had changed. The only thing that remained nowadays was my height. On long sleepless nights, the loneliness and guilt had driven me to exercise. Carefully keeping away from fitness centres where I would be forced to meet other people, I had taken up running and home training. The excess weight had been replaced by muscle. My face had thinned, and I had started to keep my hair in a crew cut, along with a well-trimmed beard. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe to compensate for the change in sizes. When I had gone shopping, I had chosen only smart clothes of good quality, and had vowed never again to dress c
arelessly.
I must have spent twenty minutes or so, reliving the guilt and the sadness. Up until now, I had been like an automaton, losing myself in my work, but today was going to be a step forward. I put my morbid thoughts behind me and got up to prepare for court. I tried to dress better than usual - white jeans, black cord belt, mustard yellow shirt, and a pair of suede shoes. The jacket was one I had bought while Sarah was alive, so it was several sizes too big, but I wore it for her.
For the first time since Sarah had died, I had a goal in my life. It was one that would have made her proud of me.
I arrived early to avoid the crowds that would once again descend upon the trial. The trouble was finding a suitable parking space far enough away from the entrance so that I could depart unmolested by journalists. The trial took place inside one of the most majestic sights in Brussels. The Palais de Justice was an impressive work of art by the famous Belgian architect, Joseph Poelaert. From the outside, it was difficult to judge the daunting size of the building, and the big cupola sticking up from the centre was reminiscent of the Capitol in Washington D.C. Entry to the law courts was up an enormous stone stairway and through tall marble pillars. In contrast, the back entrance was rather simple and mundane; it looked just like any other building entrance. There were already a few clever journalists gathered nearby. I darted past them. In the courtroom, I quickly took my place near the front row of benches. Ten minutes later, all the benches were full, and only the jury was missing.
The murmur of whispered conversations slowly died away as the jury trudged back in. Clearly imbued with the importance of their role, they were playing out their brief moment of fame for all it was worth, making a show of solemnly resuming their seats.
Photographers, who only seconds before had been quietly chatting amongst themselves, went berserk. They pushed and shoved to obtain the best shot of the accused, to get the picture that would be splattered over all the papers the following day.
At the back, the fake marble pillars graced the room more with the air of a Roman senate than a contemporary court of law. Beside these and slightly more demure than the photographers, were the journalists. They promptly powered up their laptops while trying to avoid the judge's disapproving glare, as a chorus of beeps, buzzes and whirrs disrupted the silence.
Media coverage, in the first few weeks, had superseded virtually all other stories, both at the national and international levels. However, as it soon became apparent that the case would be a long, drawn-out one, other news items began taking precedence. The reporting had been relegated to weekly hour-long updates on only a few major networks.
From the start, the case had been full of surprises, but even the moguls of the TV stations were stunned. The weekly shows soon afforded them the highest ratings ever recorded for a non-fiction programme. They even rivalled the most successful soaps; so much so, that on Friday nights popular shows were reprogrammed into other time slots.
The tabloids had tagged the case with the unsuitable name of 'The Bank Holiday Fiasco', although it had taken place on a normal working day and, for maximum effect, during rush hour. Some clever-dick reporter had written an over-the-top sarcastic criticism of the security forces, suggesting that the police force as a whole had taken the day off. That the reporter and his editor were subsequently fired for placing the paper in an untenable position, and that the following day a disclaimer was published did nothing to alter the fact that the unfortunate name stuck.
Again, the courtroom was jam-packed. The Mayor of Brussels or the Bourgmestre in French, as well as various high-ranking city officials, crammed the two front rows. Twenty-odd people were squeezed onto hard wooden benches, built to hold half a dozen. They bore the discomfort stoically.
The accused slouched in his chair, calmly observing the chaos of photographers in front of him, like a child watching a magician performing tricks everyone has already seen many times. His round fleshy face had, in the past few months, been splashed on every magazine cover, newspaper front page and prime-time television news show in the country, despite his having long ago given up according interviews.
Since then, an amazing transformation had taken place. The Saville Row suit had been traded for a pair of faded black jeans, the shirt and tie replaced by a dark blue T-shirt featuring a gun-wielding actor and the words 'Make my day'. The expression now on his face was a sardonic smile that he did not even bother concealing from the photographers.
The attack had been meticulously planned and executed, with two distinct objectives. Stunned military strategists had participated in a top security meeting with a government intent on avoiding a recurrence of such an embarrassing event. They were rumoured to have said that ingenuity, co-ordination and sheer bravado had not been heard of on this scale since D-Day.
Ironically, though, the professionalism of the police force, outstanding as it was, did not succeed in preventing what happened. The attack was a beautiful mechanism, a masterpiece, and a living work of art. Not something usually attributed to the criminal mind. Still, it failed.
If anyone was to blame for the debacle, or to be congratulated, depending on your point of view, it was Murphy, who, when he expounded his law, 'If anything can go wrong, it will', really knew what he was talking about.
The plan fell apart, only when it seemed the 'bad guys' were going to get away with it. In the end, a few of them escaped, unsuccessfully, I hasten to add; the others were killed in a peculiar set of circumstances that to this day remain, at least partially, unexplained.
In sharp contrast to his client, the lawyer was a small nervous man, who frequently had to remove his glasses to wipe perspiration from his tiny forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief. Throughout the trial, he had not stopped fidgeting, and during moments of extreme tension, when the testimony of a witness was hurting his client's case, he took to frantic scribbling on his legal pad. For my sins, I must say that I have followed this case assiduously, never having missed a single court appearance. I know how many pads that lawyer went through in the last eight months: one hundred and thirty-four.
The lawyer for the accused glanced over at the jury, as he had done many times during this case, with a defeated look. The faces of the jurors said only one thing -
"Guilty."
The judge seated himself.
Flashes went off in every direction, while whistles and cries reverberated off the walls. The defence lawyer flopped into his chair, then dropped his head onto the table in front of him, placing both hands on the nape of his neck. His client, seemingly unaffected by the ruckus, laughed aloud and clapped him on the back.
The judge banged his gavel, and glared at the reporters. "Could we next time dispense with such a lurid display? And," he turned to the audience, "if I hear any more noise, I'll clear the court." As silence settled, he motioned the prosecutor to continue.
The whole thing had started nearly a year ago. At the time, I didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle but these court proceedings were clarifying it all. Now, I had virtually the whole picture. To fully understand all the events that led up to today, I needed to go back to the beginning. For my purposes, I had to have to replay it all, and include the actions of certain people that I only learned about here, in this courtroom. Like that scumbag, Wellens.
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Brussels, Belgium
Most heavyset men tend to have a slow ponderous walk, a kind of waddle, as if they have to swing their weight around to give the necessary momentum for each step. Others manage to stride around with a light step and no outward sign of being hampered by their weight or the mass of large muscles. Wellens fell into the latter category. Short, as well as stocky, he impressed more by the thickness of his body than his height. The only apparent part of him that consisted of something other than perfectly toned muscles were his flabby jowls.
His appearance had long been a stumbling block for his senior management staff that he regularly thrashed at their weekly squash tournaments. He insisted his employees ma
ke use of his company's gym, and regularly used his favourite quote 'Healthy body, healthy mind.' With that company policy in effect, he made it a point of honour to be in better shape than any of his employees. However, it was more for personal satisfaction than to set an example that he worked out four hours a day.
The lift door opened, and he stepped out, greeted his secretary cheerfully, and entered his office. A cup of hot coffee sat on his desk, placed precisely where his right hand would be once he sat down in his chair. He sipped the coffee, and smiled. This was the kind of efficiency he had taken so long to foster.
Twenty years ago, he had started a small services company that filled a niche no one had thought of before. He had noticed that few computer centres spent any time, or money, on the cleanliness of their equipment. He offered a cleaning service for computer-heavy businesses, cleaning blackened keyboards, and wiping dust and greasy finger stains from screens.
His success had been immediate, but it had taken more than hard work to start up. A combination of events had plagued his fledgling career. His wife ruined him in a nasty divorce settlement, and then his brother had come to him for help in paying off gambling debts to a loan shark.
The small profit he made stretched only so far. Just as he was about to declare himself bankrupt, one of the companies he worked for made him a proposition that would change his fortunes. They offered to pay him handsomely for any type of insider information from their competitors, who Wellens also happened to work for. With nothing to lose, he jumped at the chance. Initially, he only passed on confidential internal memoranda that careless employees had left lying about, but he soon progressed.
Often in computer centres, access to sensitive systems was protected by passwords. Employees tended to find this restriction a nuisance and, in blatant disregard for even basic security measures, taped their passwords to screens and desks nearby. Wellens took advantage of this human foible. He copied the passwords, thereby giving away access to competitors' systems. He never looked back after that.
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