After the meeting with Hallam, Nicole, Steve, and Lawrence, I roved around a few of my favourite London haunts: watched some Covent Garden buskers, browsed idly through some Charing Cross Road bookstores, walked along some of the Embankment, saw a forgettable movie at the Roxy in Brixton, and took the Tube back to Earl's Court when the cold gray fog of jet lag began to close in on my mind. Despite the crowd of rowdy Spaniards that shared my corner of the hostel I slept like a baby.
I woke late and by the time I had eaten breakfast and read the Times and the Guardian it was two o'clock. I spent the afternoon playing tourist at the Tower of London, which was perhaps not an excellent choice considering how blades and torture implements had featured heavily in my dreams of late and the Tower had an entire wing devoted to medieval instruments of death and agony. By the time I got to the Pig and Whistle the other four were already there.
They'd already bought me a pint. I sat and lit up a cigarette. Hallam opened his mouth to say something but I shook my head and waved him quiet.
'I just wanted to say,' I said, 'that I don't even know if I've done the right thing by asking for your help, and honestly I'll be almost as glad to hear nos as yeses. It's… I don't know. It's crazy. I know it's crazy. Maybe I'm crazy. But one way or another, I'm not going to stop, I'm going to go after him. Any of you who are crazy enough to want to help me are welcome, but anyone who isn't, believe me, I completely understand.'
'Oh, stop torturing yourself, you angst-ridden lout,' Lawrence said impatiently. 'That sick fucking bastard needs killing and I for one am very happy to help.'
I turned to Hallam and Nicole.
'We thought this over pretty hard,' Nicole said. 'We wanted to come up with some brilliant alternative plan that would keep him locked away for life. But we can't imagine what that would be, and if you've been chewing on it for some time now and you can't think of it either, then I guess it doesn't exist. That old long arm of the law is too short for Morgan.'
'He needs to be dealt with,' Hallam said, 'and it has to be us that do it, because nobody else will. Simple as that.'
I turned to Steve. By now I was smiling.
He grinned back and said, 'Course I'm with you, mate. Somebody has to keep the rest of you lot out of trouble. And next time come to us sooner. Bloody hell. Sounded like you could have used a little help down there in Indonesia.'
'So we're off to Morocco,' Steve said, a couple of pints later. 'Bloody big place as I recall. Where did you have in mind for catching up with our old mate?'
'Todra Gorge,' I said.
Four heads nodded slowly.
'Todra Gorge,' Hallam repeated. 'Perfect.'
Chapter 24 The Pillars Of Hercules
Three days later Crown Air flew us from Luton airport, a little strip of a runway some distance north of London, to Gibraltar. It was the only flight that got us to the area for a reasonable price, and there was no need to pay two thousand pounds more to fly to Casablanca. We had plenty of time. Morgan had bought the special offer hook, line, sinker, and rod, and in two days' time he would fly into the country. Two days after that, if all went according to plan, he would arrive in Todra Gorge.
It had all been surprisingly easy to arrange. It helped that Nicole worked in a travel agency. We had put together a travel package that consisted of return airfare to Marrakesh, one night in Marrakesh, two nights in Todra Gorge, two days of camel-trekking in the desert, and two nights in Essouaira on the Atlantic coast. As far as the hotels knew, or Morgan for that matter, we were a new package-tour company called 'Marrakesh Express Holidays' which specialized in Moroccan packages for solo travellers or couples. I spent a few hours in a London copy shop using their computers to create official-looking documentation, using samples from real companies as a guide. It was Nicole's friend Rebecca, thinking that we were arranging a surprise birthday party, who called Morgan and gave him the last-minute cancellation story. He accepted on the spot.
Hallam, Nicole, Steve, and Lawrence had all managed to get one of the four weeks of vacation allotted to British employees despite their minimal notice. We were due to fly back from Gibraltar one week from today. If all went even remotely according to plan that gave us ample time and opportunity.
Once in Gibraltar we got off the plane, picked up our bags, and hiked across the enormous military-sized runway, which actually had an traffic light on it to indicate when it was safe to cross. The Rock of Gibraltar loomed above us, taking up a good third of the sky.
'Remember the last time we got here?' Hallam asked.
'I remember being bloody happy to get here,' Nicole said. 'First place that wasn't bloody freezing. I'd had enough of sleeping in car parks for one life, thank you.'
'Sleeping in Dover car park because of Steve's minor oversight,' Lawrence added.
'Come on now, I think I've heard enough about that for one life,' Steve objected. 'How was I supposed to know that Australians need to get their visas in advance for bloody France?'
'That's true, how was he supposed to know?' Lawrence asked. 'Nation of penal convicts, you can't expect them to be able to read.'
'Well, at least we don't bloody well abuse our sheep for unnatural sexual practices the way you Kiwis do — '
The usual Anzac bickering continued well into town. We were in no rush; the ferry didn't leave for a good six hours yet. None of us wanted to climb up the Rock, we'd done it last time and it didn't seem worth a repeat. We made a few last-minute purchases, found a pub near the waterfront, and whiled away the afternoon with cigarettes and beer and a truckload of nostalgia.
I had met the Big Yellow Truck and its inhabitants for the first time within sight of the pub in which we now waited. The truck had set out from London but Rick and Michelle and myself had bypassed the first week and flown to Gibraltar. Rick and I did this in order to gain an extra week's worth of pay. Michelle, typically, had missed the rendezvous in London and had to scramble to catch up.
I had mixed emotions at first. The truck was older and creakier than I had expected. Its denizens had already bonded into a group, with their in-jokes and their newly formed couples, and I felt very much an outsider at first. But everyone seemed nice enough. Hallam and Nicole were friendly and easy-going and self-assured, and you could tell that there was steel beneath their laid-back exterior. Steve seemed like a stereotypical loud, boisterous, jovial Aussie lager lout at first. It took me some time to realize that that was only half his story. And Lawrence and I got on famously from the start, when I climbed onto the truck and he wordlessly offered me a beer. We fell into a conversation about the merits of San Miguel versus Kronenbourg. Then a dark-haired girl came over, draped an arm around Lawrence’s shoulder, and smiled at me.
'Hi,' she said. 'My name's Laura.'
The trip was supposed to go straight across Africa to Kenya, but we separated in Cameroon. War had broken out in the Congo, the border to Chad was reportedly closed, but those were side issues. Laura's death had been shattering for everyone. Me most of all, of course, but it took the spirit, the joy of adventure, out of everyone. We stayed together only long enough to arrange our flights out of Cameroon. Most of the rest of the group flew to Kenya. A few gave up and went back to Europe. I alone flew to Zimbabwe. Partly to visit my family there. Mostly to escape the memories of Laura that crowded around every corner of the truck, every familiar face, like an army of ghosts. I was drinking heavily, every night. It didn't help.
On our last night, camped beside a dirt road just outside Douala, after a while it was just me, Hallam, Nicole, Steve, and Lawrence. Everyone else had said their tearful goodbyes and climbed into their tents for the last time. My mood was black despair, and when Nicole told me, gently, that it would eventually get better, I flared up angrily.
