‘Here.’ The man took a grey-striped djellaba from a hook and passed it to Dan, gesturing for him to put it on. Dan did as he was bidden. The man then signalled for him to pull up the hood and beckoned him to follow.
Outside, in a narrow alleyway, a youth sat astride a motorbike. He nodded at Dan, twisting to point at the seat behind him. Hitching up his djellaba, Dan climbed on board. As soon as he was settled the youth started the bike and headed down the alley. At the end, he turned left into a street busy with traffic and pedestrians, then right, and left again, weaving his way expertly through the Medina, dodging scooters and shoppers, bicycles and hand-drawn carts, until finally they nipped through the orange-red clay gates of the old Medina and were buzzing down a main road with buses and Mitsubishi trucks for company.
They rode for over an hour before turning off the main road and onto a rough, pitted dirt track. They passed a man on a donkey, riding side-saddle. A couple of scooters. Gradually, they began to climb. Stones spat beneath the tyres. Goats grazed the verges. They came to a concrete house. Bright blue sky swept over a bowl of hills, leading to a wall of white-capped mountains in the distance. After the dust and bustle of Marrakech, the air felt clean and pure.
The youth pulled the bike to one side. Stopped the engine. Dan looked down the hillside. Nobody appeared to have followed them and if they had, they would have had to have dropped well back to avoid being seen.
The young man gestured for Dan to dismount. Together, they walked to the house, stepped inside.
‘Alab!’ the youth called. ‘Nahn huna!’ Father, we’re here!
His voice echoed across the tiled courtyard. Dan took in the ornamental waterfall, the heavy wooden chairs and benches, the bright wall hangings, the faint scent of incense.
Mohammed appeared. He kissed the youth on both cheeks before sending him away. Then he said to Dan, ‘Come.’
Dan followed Mohammed through the house. Ochre walls, ornate mirrors, colourful rugs. Nerves alert, but not in overdrive – he didn’t feel threatened – he entered a room painted a peaceful blue, which overlooked a tiled terrace. A woman sat beside a bed, reading. She looked up at him, then at the bed.
Dan walked across. Looked down.
A pair of brown eyes looked steadily back.
‘Dan Forrester,’ the man said.
Dan felt a euphoric rush of relief. ‘Mehdi. Thank God.’
26
‘We’ve charged him,’ announced the SIO. ‘But be warned. The CPS want us to seal this. Watertight.’
Jaya would be devastated, Lucy thought. Thanks to Ricky being their only suspect, the chances of him being allowed out on bail was infinitesimal. He’d be with them for a while yet.
‘There are still lots of questions unanswered and I want every base, every angle covered.’ Jon Banks’s eyes clicked to Lucy. ‘I want Lucy to keep on top of Teflon Tom. Find out how he knows Chris Malone. Who Chris Malone is. Why she tried to kill Ricky with a sodding peanut butter sandwich… Revenge for killing Kaitlyn? And who knew Ricky was allergic? His family, his friends… I’m still not convinced that Tomas didn’t have a hand in this…’
His eyes roved the room as he doled out tasks to the team. ‘I want every one of Ricky’s clients answered for. I want to know which ones Tomas knows, what nasty little deals they’ve been doing. I want to know everything about Ricky, what makes him tick, if he has a temper on him, if he’s ever threatened a woman, a girl, a school friend…’
Once again, his gaze landed on Lucy. ‘I want to know if Tomas moved in on Kaitlyn, did Ricky see red?’
Anyone could see red, given the right circumstances, but in this case, Lucy wasn’t convinced. Even if Kaitlyn had a relationship with Tomas, would Ricky have killed her for it? Wouldn’t he have gone for Tomas?
As the SIO wound up the meeting, her phone buzzed. Her stomach gave a lurch when she saw it was a text from her father.
Caffè Nero, terminal 3 arrivals hall, midday. OK?
Lucy checked out the café on the net then checked the journey times out to Heathrow. Lastly, she checked her watch: 9:25. She’d catch the Heathrow Express later in the morning, and link to Terminal 3 on the tube.
In two and a half hours I get to see Dad! Will he look the same? Of course he won’t, you idiot, he’s fifty-one now, not thirty-three… will he have gone grey? Put on weight? What’s he been doing if he hasn’t been in Australia? Why America? What business is he in?
Questions buzzed around Lucy’s head like a swarm of bees, the colours confused, rioting rainbows. Excitement warred with apprehension until she began to feel nauseous.
Desperately needing a distraction, she grabbed a desk and tried to immerse herself in Ricky’s list of clients. They ranged from scrap-metal merchants to car dealers, a chain of pharmacies, engineering and chemical firms, food processing plants, but by far the biggest were the property developers, one of whom appeared to have struck a deal with one of the car dealers to buy their land for an exorbitant price. Planning permission for two blocks of flats was apparently being sought. Lucy thought of Tomas’s luxurious millionaire’s pad overlooking the Thames and sighed. Fingers and pies. Money laundering. Favours rendered. How to unravel things?
She went and fetched a good old-fashioned pad of paper and a pen and started drawing a diagram of which companies did business with which. Charles Tyne Associates seemed to be involved quite a bit along with a manufacturing company in Wolverhampton.
As she drew lines and made notes, she still couldn’t help looking at her watch. Time couldn’t crawl any slower, could it?
‘Got to be somewhere?’
It was Jon Banks, the SIO.
She looked at her watch again and saw that, thank God, it had staggered to 10.30am.
