unstable quayside, his insides seemed to drop from a great height. The tropical evening had drawn in and his way was illuminated by lamp posts along the quay which varied in strength. Some flickered, some glowed dully, others cast intense white light. Even so, Flynn could clearly see the big shape that had once been the Ba-Ba-Gee, Boone’s houseboat and home.
The old concrete barge was tilted at a forty-five degree angle away from the quay, like an immense, dead, beached whale. It had been completely gutted by fire and everything that had been so lovingly and expensively refurbished by Boone — upper and lower decks, the outside seating area, the galley, the bedrooms — was all destroyed. All that remained was the seemingly indestructible concrete hull, half sunk in the water.
Flynn approached the wreck slowly.
Inside he was cold and raging. Outside his skin had tightened on his skeleton, and now his breathing was laboured and he started to dither.
He walked alongside the barge and up to the point on the quay where the fleeing Boone had been shot in the back of the head. His body draped across the old railway sleeper that was still there.
Flynn stooped to one knee and touched a bullet hole in the planking, slipping his little finger into it. Then he looked up sharply, his face distorted by venomous anger. He came upright slowly, carried on walking along the banking to the next inlet where Boone’s fishing boat Shell had been moored. Flynn had originally moored Faye2 alongside, such a long, long time ago. A light year away. Since then he had been shot, and managed to make it back to Gran Canaria, where a discreet Spanish doctor had treated the wound and taken an excessive amount of money to keep quiet. During his recovery, Flynn had done his research, remembering the Internet pages that he had briefly looked at on Boone’s laptop in the seconds before the man himself had rushed back, pursued by desperate killers.
Splattered all over the news pages that Flynn had accessed back in Gran Canaria was the face of the man he’d watched getting off Boone’s boat. The man who had been injured, the same man suspected of involvement in the planning of terrorist activities in the UK. The man who was now wanted by the authorities and whose name was Jamil Akram.
Flynn had only seen his face briefly from his hiding place behind some oil barrels, but he was convinced it was Akram. His eyes were as good as they’d ever been, honed by five years of searching sun-glistening waves for the sight of blue marlin on the move.
It wasn’t a difficult equation for Flynn to work out.
Boone was clearly still in the cargo trade. He had brought Akram back to the Gambia from wherever — the news reports, Flynn noticed, were sparse on the details of where Akram might have gone to. But Boone was involved. Old habits and all that shit, Flynn had thought. Boone was just keeping his hand in, making money as and when. It was in his blood. That’s what he did. And it had led to his death because the men who came after him were the ones who had been guarding Akram.
So what had Boone done to incur their ire?
He’d delivered the package. But then what? The fact was that Boone had been browsing pages on his computer about a man who, it was alleged, had been helping some young Islamic fundamentalists to cause carnage in Blackpool, a place Flynn knew well. He’d been a cop there once. Had lived with his wife there — until it had all gone wrong.
Flynn concluded that Boone hadn’t known who he was transporting at first. Then he’d found out. And had that knowledge killed him?
Flynn asked himself again — what had Boone done to bring about his death?
The answer was a guess. Boone was a hothead, a guy with an eye for the main chance and not above blackmail.
Could that be it? Had he discovered the true value of his cargo and gone to demand more money, or had he threatened to go to the authorities? Or both? Flynn could imagine Boone combining the two with the subtlety of a bull elephant’s charge.
What Flynn had also found interesting in the news reports he had read was a name that cropped up a few times — that of Detective Superintendent Henry Christie who had been at the scene of the police shooting of one of the suspected terrorists. Henry Christie — a name Flynn could conjure with all day. But, interesting as the name was, Christie was peripheral to Flynn’s own investigations and intentions.
Flynn had healed quickly, one of the benefits of being fit and healthy. The gouge the bullet had taken out of him had been closed, meshed and bandaged by the tame, money-driven doctor. Then, with the assistance of liberal doses of good painkillers, sunshine and alcohol, and a festering desire for retribution, Flynn had reached a stage where he thought he could act.
And now he was back in the Gambia. He didn’t care what the reason was for Boone’s death, he just knew that he didn’t deserve to die in that terrible way. And what of Michelle? Not knowing her fate had been gnawing away at Flynn intensely.
He turned into the creek and stopped abruptly.
Boone’s boat was still tethered there, apparently unscathed. Flynn’s heart whammed in his chest. He truly had not expected this, especially having just seen the wreck of the houseboat. At the very least he thought he would find a burned-out husk or no boat at all.
But here she was, Shell, rocking gently in the creek water alongside the other boats moored here.
Had she been commandeered by Boone’s killers? Did she now belong to someone else?
He moved quietly in his soft-soled deck shoes, his right hand snaking to the small of his back, fingers clasping the handle of the Glock which he extracted slowly and held down by his hip.
There was no sign of life on board, but the boat looked OK.
Instinctively he dropped into a defensive crouch as he approached the stern, where he stopped and listened. Heard nothing.
It was a short leap on to the aft deck, sidestepping the fighting chair. He landed with hardly a noise and stood completely still, listening again. He approached the sliding door that led into the cockpit and tried the handle. The door slid open an inch. He opened it further, wide enough for him to step through into the cockpit. To his right were the wheel and controls, to his left the bench seat and bait area. Ahead was the door, beyond which were the steps leading to the galley and living accommodation.
He crossed to this door and tried the handle. This was locked.
Flynn swore under his breath, took a step back to weigh up the door which was made of thick UPVC in a frame, rather like the back door of a house. In his time as a cop Flynn had booted down many doors, although it had become progressively harder. As a drugs branch detective, entering premises through locked doors was a regular occurrence. In the old days, most doors could easily be removed by size elevens and determination. But as UPVC and multi-lock doors became more common, the cops had become more sophisticated, in a rough sort of way, in their attempts to batter them down. The door Flynn faced that evening was of the newer variety, and even though it was on a boat it was still substantial. He doubted his ability to kick it open using the flat-footed method — but was going to give it a try anyway.
He angled himself side-on to the door, gritted his teeth, and got into the mental attitude required to boot down the door.
But at that moment he felt a gun barrel pressing into the back of his neck, just below his trimmed hairline, at the point where his skull connected with his spine. Flynn did not move an inch, other than to open his fingers when a voice said, ‘Drop your gun.’
FOURTEEN
Mark Carter had not answered his bail and Henry was fuming, convinced he could be doing better, more interesting things than hanging around in a grotty police station. Although when he analysed that thought, he wasn’t exactly sure what. As Alison was back at her pub in Kendleton, he wouldn’t be with her, so the probability was that the only place he would be right now would be alone, splayed out on the settee at home gripping a beer and trying to get his head around why Kate had loved soap operas so much. Or maybe propping up the bar down at the Tram amp; Tower, his local, bending the ear of Ken, the landlord, who’d become a bit of an unwilling listening
