“No, everything’s fine,” he said, giving the marshal a bright smile. “He’s just jealous ‘cos I rode rings round him.”
The marshal eyed them both for a few seconds, face layered with doubt, then he shrugged.
“A bit of friendly rivalry is good,” he said, his tone a warning. “Just as long as it stays friendly, all right?”
***
“So, would you care to tell us what’s
Daz had the grace to flush a little, hunching his shoulders. The adrenaline generated by the track was dissipating now and the cooling sweat made him shiver. It had started to rain again and that didn’t help.
“All he was supposed to do was go meet with the courier and Tess was supposed to verify the diamonds were kosher,” he said.
“When?”
“We rang the guy when Jamie came back off his session,” Daz admitted, flicking nervous glances at William and Paxo for support. “The two of them went to meet him while you were both out on track.”
Sean didn’t reply right away, just stood with his hands on his hips staring from one face to another as though he couldn’t believe their naive stupidity. He wasn’t the only one.
“You bloody fool, Daz,” he said quietly at last.
“It was a straightforward exchange,” William put in evenly, coming to his friend’s defence.
“Yeah – for a shit-load of diamonds you’ve already paid for,” I shot back. “Did it not occur to you that they might try and keep the cash
“Erm, actually, they don’t have the cash,” Daz said, not quite meeting our eyes as he confessed to yet another lie. “Not all of it, at least.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “So where’s the rest?”
“In the safe in my room,” Daz said. He caught the look of outright disbelief on our faces and flushed again, deeper this time. “Look, all Jamie was supposed to do was check the gear over with Tess, yeah? Then he was supposed to give us a shout over the radio and we were going to take the guy back to the hotel and give him the rest of his money. Now we can’t raise him, so he must have gone out of range. I don’t understand what’s gone wrong. It was supposed to be so easy.”
Sean flipped him a bitter and cynical smile. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s what they always say.”
***
It took us less than ten minutes to get back to the fuel station where the clandestine meet was to have taken place. It was nearly twelve o’clock now and the forecourt was still bustling with bikers either on their way to the afternoon sessions at Mondello Park, or coming back in to refuel from the morning.
Beside the small squat kiosk itself there was the brick-built toilet block Jamie and Paxo had used earlier, and a large rutted car park at the rear. Two cars were parked on the rough gravel, an elderly battered Fiesta that looked as though it belonged to the kiddie serving in the petrol station, and a nearly new Audi A8 on Dublin plates. Was that, I wondered, the kind of car a dodgy diamond courier would drive?
Of Jamie’s little Honda, there was no sign.
We pulled up alongside and climbed off the bikes. Sean turned a slow circle, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene.
“Spot on, isn’t it?” he said to me.
“No overlooking houses and the CCTV only covers the pumps,” I agreed quietly. “Yeah, it probably is.”
Sean indicated the door to the ladies’ loo. “You want to check in there for any sign of Tess while we do this side?” he said.
I nodded and did a quick sweep. Inside, the ladies’ had a cracked tiled floor, a grubby stainless steel handbasin and two cubicles with planked wooden doors. Neither of them were occupied.
I came out just in time to see Paxo come rushing out of the gents’ and vomit into the weeds by the side of building. I didn’t stop to ask him what was wrong, just pushed the door open and went in.
The gents’ toilet was bigger than the ladies’, with a row of four cubicles as well as the usual urinals along the wall opposite. It stank to high heaven – not an uncommon state of affairs for public loos. But in this case the smell was overlaid with another, more rancid tone.
Blood.
As I came in, William backed out of the largest cubicle right at the end of the row, clutching at the door jamb for support. Daz followed him out so fast they nearly tripped over each other’s feet. He looked up in alarm when he saw me approaching.
“Charlie, no!” he said. “Don’t go in there—”
I didn’t bother to explain to him that, whatever was in there, it was unlikely to be the first time I’d seen it. Or something very like it. I pushed past him, gathering myself for the shock, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.
The dead man was a stranger. He was sitting fully clothed on the pan with his body propped against the cistern and his head thrown back. The pose revealed the gaping wound across his throat, like he had a second mouth that was silently screaming.
The blood had soaked down through a good suit that had once been dark grey. His knees were together but
