He flagged down a cab and instructed the driver to get him to the American embassy.
‘Look what the cat kicked out,’ Henry said at Mark’s eventual appearance in the kitchen doorway.
Mark scowled and sloped across to the sink where he ran the cold tap for a few seconds before bending over and angling his mouth underneath the flow, swallowing and then spitting out a mouthful of water. He wiped his face with his hands and said, ‘What are you doing in my house?’
‘You’re under arrest for not answering your bail.’
‘Oh, fuck.’ He held himself up against the sink. ‘Completely forgot.’
‘Forgot you were on bail for murder?’
Henry had filled the kettle, which he switched on, and found two clean mugs on the drainer. Mark sank on to a chair by the unstable breakfast bar.
‘Yeah, forgot.’ His head was in his hands.
‘Got pissed instead?’ Henry heaped some instant coffee into the mugs. ‘How long have you been asleep?’
‘Dunno. Started drinking at three this aft, after I finished work. Probably zonked out about six.’
Henry watched the kettle boil.
‘I didn’t do it, you know.’
‘Well, that would be the point of answering bail, wouldn’t it? So we can have a chat about things in more detail.’
Mark, head still in his hands, eyes closed, had changed into fresh clothes. ‘I need to clean up that spew.’
‘Oh yes,’ Henry said. He poured the boiling water into the mugs, then handed one to Mark who sniffed it; his head reared away from the aroma.
‘Ugh — hate coffee.’
‘Take a sip.’
Mark did so, tentatively. ‘Yuk, needs sugar, lots of it.’ He stood up, unsteady, and crossed to a work surface on which there was a sugar bowl. He heaped a lot of sugar into the coffee, Henry watching him as he did so. Mark managed to drink some of the resultant mixture.
‘I’ve got to come with you, have I?’ he asked Henry. ‘I didn’t do it, honest. Ask one of the brown musketeers,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’
Mark shook his head. ‘Nowt.’
‘Right, tell you what. I’ll do a deal with you.’
Mark eyed Henry suspiciously. ‘Like with the devil?’
Henry sighed. ‘Get your room cleaned up, get yourself some food down you, watch a bit of telly, go to bed and then turn up at the nick at nine tomorrow morning, bright, sober, ready to roll.’
‘That’s your deal?’
‘Second option — I drag you down to the nick right now and trap you up for the night. You’ve had a skinful and I’d say you’re not fit to interview, so maybe a night in the cells would do you some good. And, as horrible as it might seem now, your vomit will be easier to clean up while it’s still wet. Once its dried, it’ll be a complete nightmare.’ Henry cocked his head at Mark.
Mark sighed. ‘I’ll take option one.’
‘Good.’ Henry pointed at him. ‘If you’re a minute late, I’ll drag the whole thing out for the day, understand? Be on time and we’ll sort it, OK?’ Mark’s mouth curved downwards. ‘I’m doing you a favour here.’
‘I haven’t left the boat since…’ Michelle started to say. She was in the front passenger seat of Boone’s old Land Cruiser, a vehicle that had seen much better days, but kept going. Flynn was driving and they were entering the environs of Banjul, the Gambia’s capital city. The streets teemed with people and traffic, fairly typical of an African town. Progress was slow, the heat tremendous and the air-con unit knackered. Flynn sweated heavily.
‘I understand,’ Flynn said for the umpteenth time, coaxing her gently along. He’d explained he had fleetingly seen the man that Boone had returned with from wherever, and that he thought that person would probably be well gone by now. But he expected that the small man who had helped the man off the boat, and the heavies — the ones who had returned to wreak havoc and death — would still be local.
Flynn had described the small, besuited man. Immediately Michelle exclaimed, ‘That’s Aleef.’
‘Aleef?’
‘Mamoud Aleef… he’s a fixer, a middleman, makes deals, takes a cut.’
This conversation had taken place a little earlier on the deck of Shell. Michelle had sobbed heavily for what seemed like a very long time before it had all subsided and Flynn had pushed her gently away from him, wiped her tears with his thumbs, reassured her and listened to her story. The fear, watching them destroy the houseboat, the rapes, the beatings. And also how, when the police came later, they simply sneered at her, dragged Boone’s body out of the water and that was the last she saw or heard.
‘I need you to help me find these men,’ Flynn insisted. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. You need to point me in the right direction.’
She nodded. ‘I will.’
Flynn had described to her what he’d seen when he’d gone to meet Boone arriving back from his hurried, mysterious journey. How he’d hidden behind barrels and watched the tough guys lounging by the big old Mercedes, the little man — Aleef — helping to transfer the injured man from the boat into the car. He had seen all their faces, they hadn’t seen him, and he had since managed to identify the injured passenger.
‘Who was he?’ Michelle asked.
Flynn then told her about the computer pages Boone had been browsing and when he’d got back to Gran Canaria, he’d found the same pages — and more.
‘A man on the run from the British cops on terrorism charges. I’m certain it’s a guy called Jamil Akram.’ He watched Michelle’s face as he said the name, but saw it meant nothing to her.
‘Boone brought a terrorist back from somewhere?’ she mused thinly.
‘Seems so.’
‘The utter fool. But why did they come after him? Surely he had done what they wanted?’
Flynn sighed, knowing Boone’s character of old. ‘I don’t know for sure, but my guess is he didn’t know who his cargo was until he read the news and saw pictures of Akram. Then suddenly he puts it all together… and…’ Flynn’s voice trailed off.
‘He went for more money. Blackmail,’ Michelle said, showing that she too knew Boone pretty well. ‘I’m sure the small man you describe is Aleef. He’s been around a long time, but in the shadows… he’s a businessman, got lots of henchmen. But I’m shocked he’s linked to a terrorist.’
‘Money,’ Flynn said. ‘How do you know him?’
‘Just do. He flits around the clubs, where he does a lot of his business… where I used to do my business. Until Boone gave me a future,’ she concluded resentfully.
‘Take me into town and find this Aleef. I’ll take it from there.’
The prospect of stepping foot off Shell and going into town clearly scared her. ‘I haven’t left the boat since,’ she said then, and when Flynn finally got her into the Land Cruiser, which he’d found to still be in working order, she continued to repeat the mantra all the way into town. She was plainly terrified of being out and about again.
‘They threatened to kill me,’ she said, turning her face to Flynn, half-hidden in the shadows, but her eyes were wide open. He swerved the Land Cruiser to the side of the road and said gently, ‘I’ll take you back. I’ll try and find them myself.’ He was being honest, not manipulative.
‘No, no,’ she insisted. ‘I’m doing this for Boone. They destroyed him and though I am saddened to say it, I want this, I want them dead, Flynn.’ She then looked forward, jaw set hard, a totally different woman to the one he’d met less than two weeks before, now transformed and changed for ever by the trauma she’d experienced. ‘Do it,’ she said.
Donaldson was back at the American embassy. Alone in his office, he was watching the DVD of the video that had been released by al-Qaeda of Rashid Rahman, the young man who had been shot dead on the motorway, who was ranting on about how he would take the fight to the infidel.
His wish — ‘To take as many unbelievers as possible so they may go to hell and I to heaven… and this is only the beginning, the big one is yet to come.’
