‘Did your husband ever talk to you about his work?’ I asked her.
‘No. That was always his business.’
I raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Never? You were married twenty-three years, and he was a journalist that whole time. And you never discussed his work?’
‘Maybe in the early days, but not for a long time.’
She looked me dead in the eyes as she spoke, as if defying me to disbelieve her, but she seemed uncomfortable, and I noticed that she was rubbing her hands together anxiously, and tapping her foot. My police interview training was a long way out of date, and it was obvious that with the death of her husband she’d suffered a huge shock to her system, but even so, something in her tone felt wrong.
She knew something. I was sure of it. So, it seemed, was Tina.
‘When did you come here, Mrs O’Riordan?’ she asked.
‘On Friday. For the weekend.’
‘My sister will be staying here longer now,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘After everything that has happened.’
Tina nodded. ‘That’s understandable.’ She smiled reassuringly at Mrs O’Riordan. ‘And when was the last time you stayed here with your brother?’
Mrs O’Riordan frowned. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’ she asked testily.
Tina feigned surprise. ‘I’m sorry. I was just interested.’
Mrs O’Riordan shrugged dismissively. ‘I can’t remember. Some time before Christmas, I think.’ She looked up at Jean-Paul, and he smiled down at her. ‘I don’t stay as often as I’d like.’
‘Do you know what your husband was planning to do last weekend, Mrs O’Riordan?’ I asked, breaking their moment.
She shook her head. ‘No. Working, I think.’
I looked at Tina, and she gave a tiny nod. It was time for Plan B. Provoking a response.
‘Do you know who the man killed alongside your husband was? We have his name as twenty-six-year-old Vincent Baltar,’ I added, quoting from the newspaper report.
‘No. He must have been a friend of Patrick’s.’ But I could tell by the flash of anger in her eyes that she knew exactly who he was.
‘Vincent Baltar was your husband’s male lover,’ I said, wanting to rattle her.
It worked. She stared at me as if I’d just slapped her. So did Jean-Paul, who looked like he wanted to slap me back. Twice as hard.
‘How dare you!’ she yelled. ‘What are you talking about? Patrick was not homosexual!’ Again she looked up at Jean-Paul, who still had the protective hand on her shoulder. ‘Jean-Paul, make them leave. They are lying.’
Jean-Paul started to come round from behind the chaise longue, an enraged expression on his face.
Tina and I both got to our feet, knowing our time was running out. ‘Mrs O’Riordan,’ said Tina firmly. ‘The people behind your husband’s murder are responsible for killing young children. You have children. Imagine what it would be like if you’d lost one of them to paedophiles. If you have any idea who could have killed your husband, please tell us now, and it won’t go any further, I promise.’
‘No,’ snapped Jean-Paul, grabbing me by the arm and pushing me roughly towards the door. ‘You must leave now.’
I had a gun beneath my jacket, in the waistband of my jeans, and I was sorely tempted to produce it now, but I held back.
He tried to grab Tina as well, but she shoved his hand away angrily. ‘I’m a police officer,’ she snarled. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’ She then turned to Mrs O’Riordan. ‘This is your last chance to help us, and to help yourself. Because if you have anything to do with this, I’ll find out. I promise you that. Now, I’m going to put this card with my number on it on the table here, and I’d strongly advise you to call it.’
Mrs O’Riordan began to sob loudly, and as Tina placed the card on the coffee table, Jean-Paul started to go for her again, but this time I got in the way. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘we’re leaving,’ and I ushered her out, with Jean-Paul bringing up the rear and telling us not to come back.
But as we came out on to the driveway, we all stopped. A police patrol car was coming through the gates, and as we watched it pulled up behind the rental car, effectively blocking us in.
I stiffened as the two cops got out, suddenly very conscious of the gun in my waistband, and my lack of any police ID. The driver was short and squat – late twenties probably, and already balding fast – and he had a wide, pudgy, frog-like face. His partner was late forties and whip-thin, with horn-rimmed glasses and neatly pressed trousers that were pulled up so high they must have come close to castrating him. He looked an officious sort, while Frogface, who had big, dead eyes and lips set in a lazy sneer, had the air of the psychotic about him.
They sauntered over, Mr Officious frowning at us sceptically. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘We were just visiting Mrs O’Riordan,’ replied Tina, meeting his gaze.
‘They were bothering her,’ said Jean-Paul, coming out from behind us. ‘And making accusations about Mr O’Riordan’s death. They claimed they were police.’
Tina pulled out her warrant card and held it up. ‘We are police. I’m Detective Inspector Tina Boyd.’
Mr Officious inspected the card carefully, his lips pursed with disapproval. ‘The British police have no jurisdiction here. Why were you questioning Mrs O’Riordan?’
‘There’s a connection between her husband’s death and a murder in the UK.’
‘What connection?’
Tina hesitated. It was clear she didn’t want to elaborate too much. ‘Mr O’Riordan had a number of phone conversations with a journalist in the UK shortly before his death. That journalist is also now dead.’
‘No one told us about any of this,’ said Mr Officious. He turned to me. ‘Where’s your ID?’
I noticed Frogface watching me with those dead eyes, his fingers gently touching the handle of his holstered gun, as if he suspected I might try something. In my admittedly limited experience of dealing with the Filipino police – particularly local, out-of-town guys like these ones – I’d usually found them to be slow and lazy. But these guys were different. They were alert, they were confident, and for the first time I wondered how they’d got here so fast and where they’d come from.
‘I’m not a police officer,’ I said. ‘I’m a cousin of the journalist murdered in the UK.’
Mr Officious’s frown grew so deep it made his face shrink. ‘Passport,’ he snapped, holding out a hand.
I handed him my fake one, and he opened it at the photo page, gave it the once-over, and handed it back. I was hoping he’d leave it at that, but he didn’t. He stood staring at me for several seconds, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I could take them. If I was fast. I knew I might have to. Because if they searched me and found the gun, I was finished. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tina staring at me as well. The message in her expression seemed to be ‘don’t do anything stupid’, but I ignored it. They were all staring at me, and at that moment I was only a hair’s breadth from committing at least two more murders.
My hand started to move ever so slowly towards the gun in the back of my trousers.
‘I don’t care who you are,’ said Mr Officious loudly, jolting me out of my preparations. ‘Either of you. You don’t come here and question people on Philippine soil. Now, leave this place, and if you come back, we will arrest you. Do you understand?’
Relief surged through me, but outwardly I remained completely calm. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘We’re going.’
Tina said the same, and this seemed to mollify Mr Officious, although Frogface continued to watch me closely as we got back in the car and waited while they reversed their patrol car out of the drive.
They followed us back on to the main road, and it was only when they turned off half a mile later that Tina finally broke the silence.
‘You would have shot them, wouldn’t you? If they’d tried to arrest us? I could tell.’
&n
bsp; I saw no point in lying. ‘If it’d come to it, yes.’
She shook her head. ‘Jesus. What the hell am I doing with you?’
‘I didn’t do it though, did I? Why don’t you worry about things after they’ve happened rather than before?’
Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘Because it’s too late then, isn’t it?
The people are already dead. Like Pat O’Riordan. How did it feel seeing his widow?’
‘It didn’t feel good, Tina, all right? Is that what you want to hear? I’m just trying to make amends, that’s all. Give me a chance.’
‘Christ, if anyone found out I’d teamed up with you, a wanted fugitive, I’d end up losing everything. My career, my liberty. Everything.’
‘I already have lost everything, Tina. Because I didn’t kill you.’ I looked at her. ‘We need each other for the moment. So let’s work together, OK?’
She sighed loudly. ‘OK.’
‘Mrs O’Riordan knows something.’
‘I agree. But it’s too risky to go back there with the local police around.’ She rubbed a hand across her scalp, making her bleached-blonde hair stand up in tufts – a habit I’d noticed of hers. ‘Let’s hope your friend’s more cooperative.’
I thought about that one. ‘If I find him, then I promise you, he’ll have no choice but to be cooperative.’
Thirty-two
They moved through the airport in silence, taking their places in the queues for immigration and then customs. Two seemingly ordinary western men. One big, powerfully built and blond; the other, shorter, balding, but with a confidence about him that commanded respect.
Both men were tired, having flown all the way from the UK, but they were used to lack of sleep from their military days, and were able to cope with it better than most. This last part of the job was comparatively routine. They were to pick up a package from Manila and take it to an address a few hours outside the city, then provide security for a meeting that was to be held there. Nargen knew what was in the package, and if he was honest with himself, its contents scared him. But he and Tumanov were being paid fifty thousand dollars each to make sure it reached its final destination – a lot of money for less than a day’s work. It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that he’d decided to take the job.
As they walked out of the arrivals hall into the stifling midday heat, crossing the access roads and making their way through the waiting crowds, a large man in a burgundy suit, his face partly hidden by a black panama hat, stepped into their path, blocking their way.
The man tipped his hat, and Nargen’s immediate reaction was one of distaste. The man’s parched, flabby skin was an unhealthy shade of yellow, and looked as if it would disintegrate if it were ever exposed to the light of the sun. He was wearing an unpleasant, leering smile that showed off stained, uneven teeth, and even from feet away Nargen could smell his rancid breath. He looked like a walking corpse, except for his fish-grey eyes, which glinted with a malignant cunning.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said in a sonorous voice. ‘My name’s Mr Heed. I’ve been sent here to meet you. I have a package for you to collect.’
Nargen didn’t bother shaking his hand. ‘Where is it?’
‘I have it kept securely. Come with me.’
They followed as he led them to an old black Cadillac parked in a restricted zone nearby, and got in the back. The interior smelled strongly of air freshener and disinfectant, but there was another odour beneath it that Nargen recognized all too well, and which made him wonder what had gone on in this car.
When they were out on the highway, Heed removed his panama hat, revealing hair the colour of a nicotine stain, and made a call on his mobile. He spoke quietly into the phone before passing the handset to Nargen. ‘It’s for you,’ he said, as the car slowed in the morning traffic.
It was Bertie Schagel. ‘I have another job for you.’
‘Yes?’
Nargen was irritated. Like most professional killers, he didn’t like changes being made to jobs when he was out in the field, but knew better than to argue with the man who’d been his boss for the best part of the last ten years.
‘The target you missed in England—’
‘You mean the target you told us to spare when we had the opportunity to deal with her.’
‘I’m not interested in semantics,’ grunted Schagel. ‘As you know, she’s in Manila, and we need to deal with her quickly. You also need to deal with the man she’s with. He’s armed and potentially dangerous. Until a few hours ago, he was working for me, but now he seems to think that he is better off siding with her.’
‘Do you have their location?’
‘I will have it very soon. They have just been to see an informant of Mr Heed’s. She will make sure that they go back there. In the meantime, Mr Heed will provide you with the tools you will need to do the job.’
‘Do you want them dealt with before we collect the package?’
‘Yes. Their presence threatens the whole operation. I want them dealt with today. Can you do that?’
‘If you get us a location, then of course. But it will cost you. The lack of preparation time means it will be risky.’
‘How much?’
‘Another hundred thousand dollars.’
Schagel grunted. ‘Just do it,’ he said, and hung up.
Thirty-three
From Ternate we drove south and joined the main South Luzon Highway, heading to Batangas, which was the main ferry port to the island of Mindoro – the place that had once been my home.
I’d been happy then. Running a sleepy little dive operation in the palm-fringed paradise of Big La Laguna Beach, along with my old mate Tomboy. Taking people out every day to dive the myriad sites that peppered the craggy, volcanic coastline; coming back to watch the sun set every evening at the beach bar and guesthouse we also owned. Letting life slip by in that warm, familiar ex-pat fog of drink and sand and heat, enjoying the occasional affair, never thinking too much about what the future might hold.
Until that one day when it had all ended. When I’d decided to go back to England to find out who’d murdered an ex-colleague of mine, and by doing so had ended up opening a Pandora’s box that’s given me nothing but regret and heartache ever since.
I often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t gone back. I wouldn’t have met Emma, of course, a thought that even now was difficult to bear. But life would have been good all the same, I was sure of that. Dull perhaps, but my conscience in those days had purged itself of guilt, and I would have been content. I would never have known about Tomboy’s past – his single, terrible crime – and our friendship would have been untainted.
It seemed strange to think that I was coming back here now, fully prepared to kill him if it came to it.
It was gone two p.m. by the time we’d wound our way in hard, thoughtful silence through the sprawling, semi-industrial maelstrom that was the port of Batangas, and parked the rental car near the ferry terminal in the shadow of one of the giant oil refineries that bordered the city.
The terminal was quiet, with just a few families sitting round under shelters lining the gangplanks, and a couple of boats bobbing up and down in the water. After some asking around, followed by a bout of haggling, I found a guy who agreed to take us on his outrigger direct to Sabang, the small tourist town on Mindoro where Tomboy and I had been based, for two thousand pesos, as long as we didn’t mind travelling with a party of holidaying South Koreans.
It was a glorious sunny day with barely a cloud in the sky, and the journey across the clear blue waters of the Verde Island Passage that separated the main island of Luzon from the mountainous majesty of Mindoro passed quickly. The sea was calmer than I remembered and halfway across we were joined temporarily by a pod of bottlenose dolphins, much to the delight of the South Koreans on board, although their presence did little to lift the continuing tension between Tina and me.
I watched her looking out to sea, and I could see the stress she was u
nder. For a young and attractive woman in her prime, she’d experienced far more than she should have done in life, and the frown that seemed to be her default expression sat far too easily on her pale features, now showing the first deep lines. Maybe I should have left her in the hotel room the previous day after I’d failed to pull the trigger, because by staying with her I was only adding to her pressure. And yet for all her toughness, I wasn’t sure she could do this alone. She was in a dangerous foreign country, up against well-organized enemies. I figured that with me alongside her we at least stood a chance of success.
Or maybe I was just kidding myself. Maybe I was with her now because I was attracted to her in a way I hadn’t been attracted to anyone since Emma.
‘That’s Verde Island,’ I said eventually, pointing to a large rocky landmass swathed in green and dotted with the occasional building that appeared to our left as we got closer to Mindoro. ‘There are a couple of rocks a few hundred metres off the southern end. They barely stick out of the water, but they’re the pinnacles of two underwater mountains, and the diving down there’s magnificent. I used to take people there all the time.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Tina, before turning away, and I fell silent again, wondering how long she was going to keep this up for.
And then, a few minutes later, Sabang Bay opened up in front of us, with its thin white line of low-rise buildings nestling between the sea and a mountainous green backdrop, and I felt a lump in the back of my throat as my memories finally took on a physical dimension. Over half a decade, and little had changed. Kids still played on the narrow strip of beach amid the outriggers pushed up on the sand; music still blared from the floating bar in the middle of the harbour, and its few square yards were still filled with drunken, pink-looking westerners swaying in the mid-afternoon heat. It struck me then that, although it was nice to have the smell of the sea in my nostrils once again, I’d outgrown this place, and actually missed my new home in the landlocked hills of northern Laos.
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