Denial (Sam Keddie Thriller Book 2)

by Paddy Magrane

  It was as if a starting pistol had been fired in his head. Sam lurched forward, hearing a rip of material and feeling a brief slash of pain from his back. He pelted after Zahra, who had left the slippery pavement and was running in the middle of the empty road on a surface of watery slush.

  As Sam chased after her, he turned to see the man struggling with the same exposed pieces of wire, his larger frame too big for the narrow opening. He was caught momentarily, giving Sam and Zahra a vital few seconds.

  The Metro station loomed ahead, a big lump of concrete, steel and glass, an oasis of urban civilisation. A building where others would be around, where the man wouldn’t dare follow them, let alone attack. Surely.

  Zahra was at an intersection in front of the station. The first traffic of the morning was moving through a soup of melted snow, sending arcs of grey slop either side. Zahra darted across the road, Sam following the path she’d carved in a gap in the traffic. A car that had been moving quicker than Sam realised slammed on its brakes and he looked to his left to see it sliding towards him, the driver’s eyes wide with alarm. The car came to a halt inches from an immobilised Sam. An angry chorus of horns rang out. Sam’s heart was beating so fast he thought it might burst from his chest. Then, seeing the man about to cross the road behind him, he felt a fresh shot of adrenaline and began running again.

  Seconds later, he was inside the Metro station, Zahra just ahead and darting up an escalator. Sam followed, barging past a handful of sleepy commuters. He looked back. The man was inside the station. He had slowed. But then he glanced up at Sam, and picked up the pace.

  Zahra had reached the barrier and leapt over it in one graceful movement. By contrast, Sam’s attempt at a vault was a mess of stumbling limbs followed by a clumsy landing. The man was seconds behind but by now, a Metro official was at the barrier, shouting in Sam’s wake. Their pursuer swotted the official aside with a shove of his hand and clambered over the barrier, dropping heavily the other side.

  A train was pulling in, accompanied by a protesting screech of brakes and an engine whirring to a stop. The doors opened with a hiss and Zahra was in, swiftly followed by Sam. They watched through the opening as the man limped towards the train. He appeared to have twisted an ankle and was wincing with every fall of his right foot. But he was now feet from them.

  ‘Close,’ hissed Sam, willing the doors to shut. ‘For fuck’s sake, close.’

  A pinging noise heralded the imminent departure of the train. The doors began easing shut just as their pursuer reached them. Sam’s heart was in his mouth. The man stretched out, his fingers getting trapped as the doors closed against them. He now stood inches from Sam and Zahra. The hoodie and balaclava still hid everything except his eyes, but these bore into Sam with a look of utter hatred. Zahra reared back in terror.

  The man tried to slide another hand into the gap but, as he did this, the fingers already trapped in the door, the tips shiny with sweat, lost their grip and, seconds later, the train eased out of the station with a heavy sigh of surging engine. The man stood motionless in the train’s wake, his eyes rooted on Sam, until he disappeared from view.

  Chapter 28

  Amsterdam

  Zahra and Sam sat side by side, panting like dogs. Sam’s lungs felt like they were on fire.

  He knew what would happen. That their pursuer would catch the next train, resume his hunt. But for now, they were safe. There was time to think.

  The man had clearly been following Sam ever since he’d arrived in Amsterdam, perhaps before. Which meant that, in all likelihood, he knew where he was staying. Depending on the frequency of trains the man was, at worst, minutes behind them. Perhaps they had longer, but Sam had to assume not. He had his passport and wallet in his coat pocket. That would have to be enough. Going back to the hotel was too dangerous.

  He looked at Zahra. Her dark skin glowed with sweat, but her breathing had slowed. She was staring ahead through the window, the suburbs of Amsterdam flying by. Apartment blocks and snow-covered streets, cars and people moving slowly through the awakening cityscape. Her face looked mask-like, numbed.

  The train was whizzing through stations and Sam realised that they’d caught an express. Perhaps luck was on their side. He sniffed derisively. If staying a few minutes ahead of a violent predator was luck, then he needed to take a long, hard look at the situation he’d got himself into.

  He felt a stinging pulse from his back and remembered how he’d got caught on the wire of the fence. He sat forward, reaching an arm behind him. The coat and shirt beneath were torn. He touched ripped flesh and winced at the pain. When he examined his hand, he saw blood on his fingertips.

  The train was slowing, an automated female voice announcing the next station in Dutch. There was a pause, and then the same voice intoned: ‘We will shortly be arriving at Amsterdam Centraal. Next station, Amsterdam Centraal.’

  Zahra stood, moving to the doors, readying to run. Sam followed, bracing for more after the brief respite of the journey. Through the windows, the dark walls of a tunnel were replaced by a platform thronged with people, a city awake and ready to work.

  The train stopped, the doors slid open and Zahra was instantly out and pushing through the wall of bodies. Sam followed.

  Zahra jogged ahead of him, moving towards another barrier that they’d have to negotiate without tickets. She nudged in behind a woman, slipping through the barrier in her wake. Sam spotted an elderly man and took his chance. The man was fumbling with a ticket, struggling to feed it into the slot in the gate. Sam approached, touched the man gently on the shoulder. The man turned. Sam smiled and nodded towards the gate, as if offering to help. The man looked puzzled but Sam didn’t wait for consent, gripping the shaking hand and guiding it to the barrier slot where the ticket was drawn inside. The gate opened and Sam, pressing into the man’s back, moved them both through.

  He and Zahra ascended an escalator into the square in front of the station. It was a bright, sunny day. A day for tourists who wanted to wander the pretty snow-covered streets and canals, to break for coffee or hot chocolate in snug cafés. But all Sam felt was a desperate need to hide, as if the light made them more visible, more of a target.

  He spotted a queue for the cabs, decided this might be the best way to gain some proper distance from their pursuer. Where they went was immaterial, they just needed to get away. Sam rushed to the front just as one cab sped off and another car moved into place. The two people at the head of the queue, a pair of men in suits, were reaching down to pick up bags and Sam took advantage of the moment, opening the back door of the cab and jumping inside. Zahra swiftly followed Sam, climbing in the opposite side.

  ‘That’s our cab!’ One of the men had appeared at the side of the vehicle, grabbing the door handle before Sam could pull it shut. He directed his next comment at the driver. ‘They jumped in front us!’

  The driver turned to the rear of his cab, gave Sam a weary, irritated look. He signalled with a jutting hand and outstretched thumb.

  ‘I’ll pay double,’ said Sam.

  The driver’s face paused momentarily in thought. But then the suited man’s voice cut into the car again. ‘This is our fucking taxi.’

  ‘Get out,’ said the driver.

  Sam knew that the more they argued, the more time was lost. He signalled to Zahra and they got out. As he passed the man in the suit, Sam was shouldered out of the way. Sam’s fist clenched then slackened. This idiot was not the problem.

  They began running away from the station. There was no logic or thought to the direction, just a need to clear ground.

  They’d barely got twenty metres across the slippery, snow-covered cobbles when Sam turned and saw, to his horror, the bulky form of the man who’d been hunting them like animals since the early hours. He’d clearly emerged from the station, noticed the commotion by the taxi rank, and zoned straight in on them.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Sam, his parched throat reducing his voice to a croak.

  Th
e man was jogging, like a robot that never tired, in their direction.

  Sam saw a break in the traffic and sped right, across the road, Zahra close by.

  On the other side they darted down a narrow street of shops, windows filled with huge, wax-covered wheels of cheese, wine, mannequins in winter fashion.

  ‘There!’ shouted Zahra, pointing across the street. Two bicycles were propped against the window of a gift shop, its frontage twinkling with fairy lights. Zahra grabbed one of the bicycles and mounted it, skidding on the cobbles as she moved off. Sam pulled the other bike from the window and climbed on. He pedalled in standing position, pushing down hard on the pedals, accelerating away.

  It was only when they’d reached the next junction that he dared look back. Their pursuer was pulling frantically at a bicycle that was obviously securely chained to railings, his means of chasing thwarted. For now.

  Chapter 29

  Amsterdam

  They abandoned the bicycles in a backstreet in Jordaan, leaning them against a garage door. The house next door had window baskets filled with shrubs dense with plump red berries. The colour caught Sam’s eye and he thought immediately, not of life in the midst of winter, but of blood and death.

  Zahra paced up and down the street, muttering to herself. She then turned, her face flushed with rage and rushed at him, both fists raised. She brought them down on his chest like she was beating a drum, one fist after another. Caught unaware, Sam took three powerful hits to his chest before he was able to bring his hands up and grab her wrists. He could feel the strength in her arms, the tension ready to explode.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘It was OK before you came!’ she shouted.

  ‘No,’ said Sam, as calmly as possible. ‘It was OK before you saw that man at Creech Hill.’

  A voice called out from a window above. A woman shouting angrily.

  Sam felt some of the pressure in his hands subside as Zahra calmed. Her arms dropped and he let her wrists go. Her head sunk into her chest, the fight gone out of her.

  ‘You’ve upset someone,’ said Sam. ‘Someone who has ordered that man to find us. You’ve seen him. He’s a machine, who doesn’t care about the law. He will do whatever it takes to locate us. And, I’m guessing, whatever it takes to silence us.’

  ‘I’m frightened.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Sam.

  ‘I can’t help,’ her voice cracked. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sam. ‘And I understand.’

  She looked up at him, eyes glassy with tears, but jaw set hard.

  ‘I need to get out of here.’

  Sam knew that another plea to talk to the police would fall on deaf ears. She was terrified – convinced, more than ever, that men in uniform were not to be trusted. Maybe he could call Emery when he had a chance – tell him that the man hunting them was, so Zahra believed, the same person who’d threatened her at Creech Hill and therefore in all likelihood the man who’d pushed Fitzgerald to his death. But the fact was, the police would still need to talk to Zahra and the moment she discovered he’d made the call, she’d bolt.

  So his only hope lay in staying by her side. But now it all hinged on her accessing lost memories – trying to figure out the significance of the suited man.

  The problem was, retrograde amnesia caused by head trauma was only eased by time and, more importantly, rest. Zahra wouldn’t be remembering anything any time soon.

  Sam had another idea. Maybe, just maybe, there was someone in this Eritrean community in Rome who remembered what happened on her voyage – someone who could help them fill in the moments leading up to Zahra’s ‘waking’ in Catania.

  ‘I’ll take you to Rome,’ he said. ‘But I need to ask for something in return.’

  ‘I’ll find my own way if it involves the police.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the police. I just want you to ask around the community you mentioned, see if anyone knows anything about your journey across the Med.’

  Zahra shook her head. ‘You think I haven’t asked? I got separated from my husband, Abel. I’ve asked everyone.’

  ‘Surely the community changes all the time. People coming and going. There might be someone new who knows something.’

  Zahra closed her eyes. When she opened them, it was with a look of resignation. ‘I’ll ask. But I can’t promise anything.’

  Sam experienced a swell of hope. ‘We need to find transport.’

  As soon as the words escaped his mouth, he felt his morale take a dive. As their recent experience had demonstrated, the people after them had the means to track their movements, which meant he and Zahra had to be careful. ‘We cannot travel on trains and buses, or hire a car. Names will be taken, passports checked.’

  ‘You don’t think –’ Zahra’s voice was tinged with fear.

  ‘Who knows? We just can’t take any risks.’

  ‘So how exactly are you going to help me get to Rome?’

  As Sam tried to think of an answer, Zahra came up with one of her own. ‘Ruby has a car. She lets the girls use it. If you fill it up, we’ve still got a deal.’

  It sounded good, but Sam had a reservation. ‘I don’t think we should go back.’

  ‘It’s not on the estate. It’s just north – in a garage that belongs to a friend of hers. We used to go to the supermarket in the car, drop off our shopping then take it back there. The key is kept hidden in the garage. We can get a cab there.’

  ‘I don’t think Ruby will be too pleased,’ said Sam, a smile breaking across his face.

  ‘Ruby’s a dictator. I don’t like dictators.’

  They visited a bank. Zahra hung back while Sam withdrew a thousand Euros. The cashier chatted breezily to him. Was he on holiday? What did he think of the weather? Had he visited the Rijks Museum or Anne Frank’s House? Sam played along – telling the woman he’d liked the Vermeers in the Rijks (which was true, from his previous visit) but that he hadn’t visited Anne Frank’s House – as his stomach churned with acid and his feet strained inside his shoes, as if readying for another sprint.

  The cashier counted out the notes, placed them in a plastic envelope and passed it, along with his passport and credit card, under the plate glass separating them.

  Outside the bank, Sam noticed that Zahra was shivering. Her cheeks had a grey tinge to them.

  ‘We need to get you some more clothes,’ he said. ‘You’ll freeze to death.’

  Despite the shivering, Zahra shot Sam a look. ‘We get the car first. If someone else takes it out, we’ve got no transport.’

  They caught a cab to an area north of Bijlmer. They were dropped on a high street of sorts. A handful of stores were open – a kebab shop, launderette and grocer with a window clad in steel mesh – but the others were boarded up, the surfaces covered with Dutch graffiti – not, Sam guessed, messages of love and peace. Zahra led him down a narrow alley between two shops, the ground slippery and shiny underfoot where the passage of cars had flattened the snow.

  The garage was one of a row of six. Zahra lifted the door, which swung upwards with a high-pitched screech, as if crying out for lubricant. As the light of day penetrated the space inside, a rat, its long, worm-like tail giving it away, scuttled for the nearest hiding place.

  Inside, between walls stacked with shelves that groaned under the weight of paint cans, cardboard boxes and rusting tools, sat the Opel, the dark green of its bonnet spotted with water, melting snow from a recent journey. Patches of rust were creeping up from above the front bumper. A piece of black gaffer tape had been attached to a corner of the left front light where the glass was broken – just about discreet enough, Sam hoped, to avoid attracting the attention of the police.

  Zahra reached for a shelf just to the left, lifting a can of varnish and pulling a set of keys from underneath. She handed them to Sam.

  ‘I never learned to drive,’ she said, a sheepish look on her face.

  The car had a heavy gearbox and brakes that were –
whether due to the road conditions or because they were worn out – reluctant to bring the car to a standstill unless Sam pressed his foot to the floor. And the rear window only partially defrosted, offering him an oval of visibility. But the interior soon warmed and Sam got used to the car’s idiosyncrasies.

  They visited a hypermarket south of Bijlmer, where Sam bought Zahra some extra clothes and basic toiletries. Then they stopped at a garage and he filled the tank and bought a European road map and a dressing for the wound on his back. In the toilet, he peeled off his jacket and shirt and used a dampened wad of toilet tissue to clean the cut. Staring at his torso in a dirty mirror, Sam saw that the gash, wiped clean of blood, wasn’t as large as he’d expected. But it was still a deep cut, and bleeding slightly. It probably needed stitching, but that would have to wait. He peeled open the dressing and placed it, as well as he could given the angle, over the wound, pressing down the edges.

  He balled his right hand. The cut sustained outside the theatre still hurt. But he figured the sensation would prove handy, keeping him awake on the journey ahead.

  In the car park, he rested the road map on the roof of the Opel, plotting a vague route that amounted to a shorthand of cities they would pass as navigation points – Antwerp, Brussels, Reims, Dijon, Lyon, Grenoble, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Rome. The route wasn’t arrived at with any skill on Sam’s part, merely some sense that the alternative – travelling through Germany and then across the Alps – was a journey the Opel might not manage.

  He closed the map and climbed back in the car, anxiety biting in his stomach. Rome might have represented a haven of sorts to Zahra, but at that moment – his body battered and tender, and terrifying images of their machine-like pursuer still replaying in his mind – Sam felt anything but safe.

  Chapter 30