He shook himself and zipped up his fly. ‘Sorry, boss. Had to go. You know how it is.’
The driver continued to laugh as he walked back round to the cab and hauled himself up. The port police officer waved him on and the lorry slipped forward, then stopped at a barrier where a number of vehicles were waiting at a set of traffic lights.
‘The toilets are one hundred metres away.’ The police officer frowned. ‘Are you finished?’
‘We’re done, thanks,’ Holm said while glaring at Javed. ‘You run a very efficient operation. I’ll be putting in a favourable report to my superiors. I think there’s a lot we can take from the way you structure things here.’
The officer turned and walked off. At the control building entrance he spoke to another officer, jerking his thumb back in the direction of Holm and Javed.
‘What the hell were you doing?’ Holm said. ‘You’re a disgrace. Pissing on that man’s truck.’
‘Boss?’ Javed looked hurt. ‘It was a diversion. He won’t remember me poking around the back of the vehicle, only the stupid little British guy with the weak bladder.’ Javed pulled out his phone, the screen a beacon of light in the darkness. Holm peered across. There was a map of the port of Rotterdam, a little icon in the dead centre of the screen. As the lorry moved through the traffic control and edged round towards the main road, the icon slid across the map. ‘And look, I’ve attached the phone so we can follow our truck wherever it goes, day or night, rain or shine, hell or high water.’
Chapter Twenty
They drove through the Dutch countryside, the darkness punctuated by an orange glow from dozens of greenhouses. Up ahead the truck rumbled on at a steady fifty. After a couple of hours they passed into Germany and Kowlowski took the opportunity to stop, pulling off the autobahn and into a rest halt set amid a forest of trees. The interior light flicked on and they had a clear view of the Pole as he clambered into the rear of the cab. A curtain slipped across and the light went out.
‘You’re kidding me.’ Holm looked round. There were several other lorries parked up, a gentle hum of an engine on a refrigerated trailer on one of them. Away from the lorries the halt was deserted, lines of empty car-parking spaces washed by the light from above. This wasn’t like a UK motorway stop. There was nothing. No restaurant, no petrol station, nowhere to grab a snack or buy a newspaper.
‘It’s going to be a long night, boss,’ Javed said. ‘A very long night.’
The clock on the dash crawled through the hours. Twelve, one, two, three. Holm contorted himself into various positions but couldn’t get comfortable. He rested his head against the side window and gazed up at the cloudless night sky where thousands of pinpricks of white light inched across the heavens. Javed lay across the back seat, sleeping as if he was in a luxury hotel bed. Another one of life’s paradoxes, Holm thought: the young slept easy, whereas when you were old and tired and your head was full of worry, sleep wouldn’t come.
At five, the morning light began to filter across the eastern horizon, and half an hour later Kowlowski was up and checking the truck. A cursory kick of the tyres and a more sustained examination of the rear doors of the container and then he was back in the cab, the engine firing up and the Pole easing the lorry down the slip road and back onto the autobahn.
Holm started the car and followed. Javed continued to sleep until Kowlowski pulled into an Autohof for breakfast.
‘I’m starving,’ Javed said, sitting up and gazing across to the service station building. ‘Do you think…?’
They could see Kowlowski loading a plate with food before finding a seat in the cafeteria. He’d bought a newspaper and was thumbing through the sports section.
‘Yes,’ Holm said. As much as he needed food, he was desperate for the loo. ‘You grab some snacks while I powder my nose. Then we swap. If Kowlowski heads off we’ve always got your app, right?’
‘You’ve changed your tune.’ Javed slipped out his phone and checked the screen. ‘But yes, it’s working fine.’
‘Good, let’s go.’
An hour later they were back on the motorway with a load of food and several bottles of water. The girl on the till had looked at Holm with some suspicion as he’d piled up a huge selection of snacks on a tray. ‘English,’ Holm said, and the girl had nodded as if that provided an explanation for just about any kind of deviant behaviour.
They travelled south, the Swiss mountains looming ahead. Holm began to feel uneasy. Where the hell was Kowlowski going? Javed sat with a European road atlas open on his lap. His forefinger ranged the page as he studied the map intently.
‘Italy,’ he said.
Silva woke to the smell of fresh bread and coffee and the sound of a rap on the door.
‘Colazione.’ Gavin’s voice floated in. ‘Breakfast.’
Silva blinked. A harsh light sliced through the window shutters and painted bands of gold on the wooden floor. She rose from the bed and walked across and opened the shutters. The view was incredible. Below, a turquoise sea shimmered in a breeze, dozens of boats bobbing on a gentle swell. To her right, cliffs soared above the town, layers of houses beneath stepping down to the beach like some sort of lopsided wedding cake. Away from the dense cluster of apartments and hotels, individual villas dotted precipitous slopes that climbed to a blue sky, a wisp of cloud caressing the clifftops. Then she blinked and her eyes were drawn across to the far side of the town and the green house with the terrace, and she remembered the reason she’d come to Positano. Her heart sank and
