Candleburn (16 page)

31

Asp slammed the front gate to his home sourly.

Hours
of research and he had nothing to show for it. He still couldn’t place a finger on what his men were trailing that might have led to their deaths. He crossed the garden path, scuffing his leather shoes against the stones until halfway across, the security light flicked on, illuminating the garden.

The
front double door of his home was swung wide.

“Why
the hell are you open?” he asked aloud.

He
jogged the last few metres and peered inside.

Flipping
the switch, he saw the obvious signs of a struggle – a great fight spread across every downstairs room of the house. Broken vases, overturned tables, fallen picture frames.

Pools
of blood.

“Jesus,”
he gasped.

He
pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled Mehr Zain.

It
rang.

That
was a start, at least his phone was still on. Perhaps the burly Egyptian had fought off the attackers.

“Mr
Aspinal,” a mechanical voice answered.

“Hello?”
Asp replied. “Where the hell are Zain and my family?”

“For
the moment, they are safe,” the voice replied. “How long they remain that way, depends on you. You are interfering in events that are not your concern. That cannot be tolerated. You know what we want. You must bring the package to us. Instructions will be sent shortly. Do not involve the police. Do not involve the authorities. Sit and wait. We will contact you.”

“I
want...” Asp began.

The
phone went silent.

Asp
swore a long trail of expletives. His head began to spin as he looked at the debris.

“Oh
my god,” he muttered, leaning against the wall for support. “My Ginny, my Pepper, my Alex...”

He
looked at his phone.

“No
police and no authorities.”

He
scrolled furiously through his contacts. In years of nefarious work in corporate espionage there had to be someone he knew in the Middle East who could help...

Asp
stopped filing past the names.

“Ron
Casabian,” he said. “Of course.”

***

Blake walked calmly from the shadows of the car park towards the security doors at the front of Alice’s marina apartment complex. A couple leaving the elevator opened the card-enabled entrance just as he reached it. He walked with his head held high, the flight bag clutched firmly in his right hand, talking into his phone in his left.

“Yeah,
yeah – look, tell them to just sell it. It’ll be fine,” he said loudly into the mobile.

He
nodded politely to the couple as they held the door for him and proceeded swiftly past, still talking loudly as he gave a perfunctory blink to the man at the desk. The guard gave a polite greeting back.

Once
past the desk, Blake stopped. He took five paces back, drawing level with the security man once again. He didn’t acknowledge the guard this time and proceeded to run his eyes over the last few groups to sign in to the building.

He
saw what he wanted, two hours previously. A “Mr Clipshaw” had entered the building escorting a party of five. The writer had tried to disguise their usual writing style and had used a false name.

“
Duncan,” Blake thought, recognising the obvious similarities with his colleague’s calligraphy. “Such a twat.”

“Can
I help you, sir?” the security man asked helpfully.

“Excuse me just one moment,” Blake said into his phone. “Yes, I know – I’m very sorry for the interruption.”

He
gave the guard a withering look.

“Can’t
you see I’m on the phone? This is an important business call.”

“I’m
sorry, sir,” the security man said deferentially, his hand tugging on the brim of his peaked cap as he said it.

Blake
went to leave but turned back to face the guard once again at the last moment. He pointed a finger and spoke forcefully.

“The
group of six that went to see Miss Alice; how many have left so far?”

The
guard felt on the spot.

“Er...
Two sir. First the tall American went, then one of the local men.”

“So,
one local man is still here?” Blake asked.

“Yes
sir. And three others,” the guard said.

32

On the twentieth floor, there was an air of nervous apprehension.

The
Somali watching the lift door firmly gripped a farmer’s shotgun between his sweaty fingers. His cousin was behind the sofa in the room. Their friend was in the stairwell, following Mr Oassan’s instructions to the letter.

The
man’s name was Lameck. He and his cousin had lived in a shanty-town outside Bosaso, in Puntland, in what had once been part of northern Somalia. They had moved there, like many others, for work. It was the fastest growing city in the country. They were optimistic when they left their village and made the long journey, part walking, part by bus, to get jobs and grow rich.

They
started out trying to work as fishermen. Foreigners labelled all Somalis as smugglers and pirates, yet they knew the opposite was true. Bitter years of civil war left the country unable to protect her coastal waters and valuable fisheries – the best in all of Africa – so they were plundered by raiders from abroad, dragging trawler nets that ripped the sea bare.

After
two years of failing to make ends meet, he and his cousin tried other jobs – he trained to be an electrician. But you only got work if you paid for it. Corruption was endemic. It was no way to make a living.

When
the oil men came, Lameck thought that might make the difference. Instead, he found himself talking to the great Aarez. The man understood him, recognized his plight, knew what he wanted. Aarez realized that life was hard and the path to the future was to make it easier.

Lameck
convinced his cousin Yousef and together with a friend, Moein, they signed up to join the revolution Aarez promised. The wealth of the land should be claimed by the people!

Now,
as he stood, doing the bidding of the man to whom he’d sworn his loyalty, Lameck was less sure this path would lead to riches. He could smell the metal of the gun as it shifted in the sweat of his palms.

“Oassan,
the lift is coming again,” he called out loudly.

Lameck
watched the numbers tick down slowly. Oassan was a powerful man and he frightened them all. Lameck had seen Oassan do terrible things and, at first, he had believed the calming words of Aarez that all those who stood in the way to wealth for the people had to be removed. But lately…

The
lift continued climbing.

Floor
nine. Floor ten. Floor eleven.

Lameck’s
thoughts halted as the lift rose. It was as Oassan had predicted. He laid out four plans. If the lift went to the roof, Lameck would call out and they would prepare to be attacked from the windows. Moein would aim his pistol at the glass and shoot the intruder.

Floor
twelve. Floor thirteen. Floor fourteen.

If
the lift went to the twenty-first floor, Moein would have to be ready but so would Yousef on the stairwell with his own pistol.

Fifteen.
Sixteen. Seventeen.

If
it went to the nineteenth, that would be entirely down to Yousef on the stairs and Lameck would turn to guard the stairwell door.

Eighteen.

And
if it came to the twentieth... Lameck raised his shotgun ready.

Nineteen.

Oassan said there four possibilities and only four, if the man was coming to claim the body of the girl. Oassan might be frightening but he was never wrong.

Lameck
watched the numbers.

Twenty.

Ping.

The
elevator doors rumbled and shuddered.

Lameck
breathed fast and shallow. His finger twitched. The doors began to open.

“It’s
twenty! He’s here! He’s here!”

He
pulled the trigger.

The
boom deafened him. Lead shot sprayed forth. He didn’t hear the sound of metal rain as the cone of death spattered off walls, steel doors, and the back of the lift. The rifle rose under the recoil. The elevator opened wider. He pulled the trigger again.

Another
blast.

The
lift opened fully.

It
was empty.

The
back wall was now pitted and grooved with buckshot.

Lameck
frowned. Where was the man? He stepped forward as he opened the breach of the gun and removed the two spent casings.

“Did
you get him?” Yousef called from the stairwell. “Is he dead?”

Lameck
looked around the lift in disbelief.

There
was a spatter of bullets. The lift lights went out. Lameck had time to look up and see a series of holes open up in the ceiling.

He
didn’t answer his cousin.

***

Moein watched through the open door of Alice’s flat from behind the settee.

He
saw the lift lights go dark and Lameck stumble backwards into the hallway, before he collapsed onto the ground. Moein’s eyes widened. Yousef ran in from the stairwell and, on seeing his cousin on the ground in a pool of widening blood, he pointed his pistol at the ceiling of the elevator.

Yousef
turned his face away and let off three rounds. There was a scraping noise as the lift doors tried to close, hit Lameck’s legs, and opened wide again. Lameck was still shuddering, like a fish pulled from a stream and dropped onto the river’s bank.

Yousef
turned back to face the roof of the lift. More scraping. But this wasn’t the lift doors trying to close. Moein watched Yousef release five more shots into the ceiling.

Nothing.

Yousef stepped back and looked at Moein.

Moein
shrugged.

Another
hail of bullets.

The
stairwell door splintered. Holes appeared in neat rows across it.

Yousef
jiggered, the strangest dance. He fell against the wall. More bullets. He slid to the floor, slumped over Lameck.

Moein
began to pray. He raised his pistol and pointed it at the stairwell door. Next to him was an open mobile set to speaker phone.

Before
he could turn to it and ask for instructions from Oassan, the lights went out on the entire floor. Moein’s whispered prayers grew louder. He fired his pistol at the door.

Once,
twice, three times.

Then
the door slammed shut.

“Oh
God be merciful,” he thought. “The devil himself is in here with me.”

***

Down on the street Oassan was listening on his phone to the pandemonium in the apartment. He smiled every time he heard another hail of gun fire.

“Oh
this one is good,” he said.

The
lights on the twentieth floor of the apartment block went dark. Oassan raised his eyebrows in surprise. When he heard the final burst of gunfire he laughed even louder.

“Brilliant!”
he clapped his hands. “Just wonderful!”

He
turned and walked brazenly along the small side street beside the apartment, looking at the cars. He saw the one he was after: a slightly battered Audi with a garish gouge down the side.

Each
of the windows was wound down by an inch. On the back seat was a cat in a carrying case.

“Excellent,”
he said.

He
reached into his pocket and removed a receiver the size of a deck of cards. He pulled out the aerial with his teeth.

“Now
we have your car, I believe we probably don’t need you, Mr Helliker.”

He
pressed the button.

The
twentieth floor of Flamenco Towers Apartment Block C exploded in a brilliant fireball.

“And
that’s how you burn down a marina tower block,” Oassan chuckled, wiping a tear of laughter from his eyes.

He
pulled a small strip of metal from a blue rucksack he had slung over his shoulder and began to jimmy the Audi doors open. The lock clicked and he was in.

There
was a frantic meowing from the backseat.

“Well,
good evening,” he said. “You must be Boxcat. Oh, I’m going to have some fun with you.”

Oassan
lifted his head up to observe his handiwork as he sat back in the driver’s seat. Billowing balls of ambers, golds and reds curled higher from the middle of the building.

“London’s
burning, London’s burning” he began to whistle as he started hotwiring the Audi.