Candleburn (19 page)

37

“Hey my angel, it’s me,” Blake said into his phone as he pushed the speed limit towards Eleanor’s house.

“Lovely,
it’s so good to hear your voice,” Cathy said. “I was worried. I’ve been trying the house phone for the last hour and no-one’s answered. Normally you send me a text if you’re working late.”

The
car ignition tapped lightly against Blake’s leg as he hurtled along the outer ring road. It dangled loose from the steering column from crooked wires. Blake had hastily lashed it back together. He had been fortunate. The car restarted despite the patchwork job.

“I
know,” he replied. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up.”

A
deep sigh of resignation from his wife.

“What’s
that bitch done?” she asked. “I swear, I know we had a lot of reasons for me to return to Britain – the cancer, my job, my hopes that I could get a better shot at IVF if I came home – but the stress that woman caused was a big factor. I seriously believe she was a contributing factor to my disease...”

“Baby,”
Blake halted her as she continued to talk.

“What?”

“She’s dead.”

“What?”
Cathy exclaimed.

“She
was killed earlier this evening.”

“Killed?
How? By whom?” she asked. “Jesus – it wasn’t you, was it?”

Blake
snorted derisively. Oh God, he’d thought about it.

He
opened the small flap that concealed the car’s ashtray. The stench of stale, burnt ash wafted free. He clicked the round lighter button down. With a snap it began to heat.

“No, baby. It’s too complicated to explain over the phone, especially since we don’t know who’s listening – but no, it wasn’t me.”

Silence.

“Shame,” she said flippantly. “If you can’t talk about what happened, can you at least tell me you’re safe?”

“I’m
in a lot of danger here,” Blake replied. “I was sent a package, as I told you earlier. Turns out somebody was setting me up or it was a desperate cry for help or something. Terrorists want it. They killed Alice because they thought she had it.”

“You’re
in your car?”

Blake
indicated and overtook a bus load of workers heading home from the construction parks in the north of the city. They gazed down in astonishment. It was a shock to see a westerner driving in a vehicle that was so battered and scratched.

“I
am. I’m going to put Jeffrey somewhere safe.”

“Don’t,”
she said. “Follow the safety plan you outlined to me the day I arrived. Just drive right now for the border with Oman. Visit that vet friend of yours, have Jeffrey tranquilised so you can get him through customs – you know how poorly they check the cars of Westerners – then make for the airport in Muscat. Boxcat can go to my friend Bill at the Opera House, who can send him over later.”

Blake
rubbed his hand across his mouth and chin. Already, stubble was forming. Cathy’s idea had merit. Why didn’t he just get out of there? He could be in the UK before the authorities figured out he was connected to the city’s growing death count.

Cathy
continued talking on the phone. The button lighter popped. Blake pulled it out and lit his cigarette.

He
weaved around a few more cars, carefully breaching the speed limit and slowing for the speed cameras.

Why
didn’t he just leave?

“Blake?”
Cathy said.

His
attention was brought back to the conversation.

“What
is it that’s keeping you there? Is this connected to your past?”

There
it was. The question. Cathy knew the vaguest of details about his history. She never pushed for more. She was a smart woman. From the way he checked out a room upon entry to the way he sweated his way through night terrors, she’d pieced it together.

Blake
sucked heavily once again on the cigarette.

Ten
years of marriage. Simply avoiding talking about these things doesn’t keep them hidden from a partner who truly loves you.

“No,”
Blake said. “These events are unconnected to my past. But they have reopened the door to it.”

“Close
it. Come home.”

Every
fibre of his being wanted to do as she wanted. It seemed so easy when said like that. He pushed the car faster.

“I’ve only scratched the surface on this,” he said. “I’m not a fool. This is an iceberg, most of it is hidden. I know from before that when you just get this feeling... it goes much, much deeper than...”

“This
isn’t your fight. The US government doesn’t own you anymore.”

Blake
considered this. He tapped the burnt end of his cigarette into the ashtray. What was it driving him?

“If I don’t put this down here and now it will follow us to London,” Blake said. “They tortured and killed Alice. They blew up her building. They have no qualms about the most horrific acts and are apathetic to harming both bystanders and people who are peripheral to meeting their goals. All this puts you in danger. That’s not something I’m willing to accept. It wasn’t when we met and it certainly isn’t now.”

Cathy
went quiet.

“Is
there anything I can do?” she asked.

“Pack
a bag and move out of the house for a few days,” Blake said as he smoked the cigarette. “Stay in a hotel. Don’t tell anyone – not even your mother and father – where. That’s important. Anyone you tell is put at risk. Switch your mobile phone off and take the battery out.”

“How
will you contact me?”

“I
won’t,” Blake said. “In three days, you can resurface. By then, this will all be over.”

The
car was slowly filling with smoke. Blake wound a gap in the window.

“You’re
sure?”

“Trust
me, you’ll see this on the news.”

“Will
you promise me one thing?” Cathy said slowly, “that you’ll come home safely?”

A
pause.

“That
I can,” Blake lied, and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

38

Al Barari was a district of Dubai so exclusive that 95% of the city didn’t even know it existed. Even for those that did, finding it and gaining access was an Olympian feat. Situated on an unimposing minor side-road that peeled away from the second of the outermost bypasses, Barari was purposefully designed to be hidden from prying eyes.

Blake
followed the elaborate series of contortions, double backs and loops that eventually meandered their way into the core of the complex – a patchwork of botanical landscapes that would drop the jaw of even a Kew gardens curator.

As
he considered his next course of action, a humming bird danced ballerina-like in the Audi’s headlamps and flittered away between the yuccas that lined the road. In the back of the car, Jeffrey protested loudly.

“Shhh,
little boy, shhh,” Blake soothed, pulling to a halt in front of an Arabian mansion built between a waterfall and a forest of coconut palms.

“It’s just until tomorrow. I promise,” he whispered, taking the distressed cat from the back seat.

“I was expecting you hours ago!” a voice said behind him.

Blake
jumped, startled.

Eleanor.

“Bloody
hell!” he laughed nervously, clutching at his heart. “You terrified me!”

“I
guess Boxcat’s not the only one who’s high-strung this evening.”

Jeffrey
continued to scratch and mewl with persistence.

“You
want to tell me about it?” Eleanor asked.

Her
cultivated North Shore Sydney tones were almost harmonic with the relaxing spatter of water against the rocks. Blake let out a deep, dark, sigh as Eleanor lifted the cat-carrying case from his hands.

“I’d
love to,” he said. “I can’t. I worry it would put the two of you at risk.”

She
poked her fingers through the front of Jeffrey’s cage and made comforting noises. The cat responded by rubbing his cheek against her fingers.

“Work
trouble?” she asked.

“Sort
of – but not what you’d think,” Blake replied. “This isn’t a story I’ve written that’s kicked a hornet’s nest. It’s much, much worse.”

“Want
to come in?”

“Is
His Excellency at home? I really need some advice.”

“Legal?”

“Eventually, possibly,” Blake replied. “More importantly, though, I need to reach out to people high up in the British establishment – way outside my league and normal chain of contacts. People he would more probably have links to.”

“Well,
if it were legal advice, I’d have to suffice this evening. Mac’s working late,” she said, before poking Blake with a finger. “And don’t call him His Excellency: you know it makes him huffy.”

“Really?”
Blake feigned innocence. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“A
likely story.”

“What
time’s he home? I may need to call him.”

Eleanor
looked up at the sky and thought about the conversations she’d had with her husband earlier in the evening.

“It’s
probably an all-nighter,” she said. “Apparently big dos over this India-EU trade deal. I’m not allowed to say much but it’s regarded as huge potatoes for the UK. The British government is really hammering it through.”

There
were only two rules laid down when Blake was first invited to the home of the Right Honourable Lord Justice MacHaranger and Lady Eleanor. The first was simple: he was to be called Mac and she was Ellie while being talked to in and around the extensive house. The second was that everything said by anyone at any time was totally off the record and under no circumstances was it to be used in any way for the furtherance of a story.

Blake
routinely broke the first by calling Mac every chivalric title he could think of, except the correct one. It wouldn’t even have entered his head to violate the second. He had given his word, and that was sacrosanct.

“Crap,”
Blake said.

“I
can have him call you as soon as he gets home?” Eleanor offered.

Blake
took a small, cheap phone he’d picked up en route at a petrol station out of his pocket. He took her mobile and punched the number in.

“What
happened to your usual one?” she asked.

“This
is a burner.”

“I
can see that – did you become a drug lord overnight? Just how much trouble are you in?”

“The
worst possible amount,” Blake said. “You’re going to read about it all tomorrow, I’m sure, unless they clamp down on the press.”

Eleanor
took a step backwards. Blake watched her as she noticed the full change in his demeanour. Her stare flowed from the bruises on his face, down the all black clothing covered in dust and encrusted blood, to the burnt holes in his jeans.

“Okay,”
she said, the truth dawning on her face. “I take it I’m to say to no-one that you’ve been here?”

“You’d
be putting yourself in mortal danger if you did. That’s why I’m entrusting you with just the cat. I’ve been careful to make sure there’s no-one who’s followed me.”

She
nodded her head.

“I’ll
have Mac call you as soon as he’s done.”

“Excellent.
I’ll be back for Boxcat tomorrow.”

“Where
next for you, now?” she asked.

“Now?”
Blake pulled his car keys from his pocket. “Now, I have to complete a bargain I started earlier this evening”.

A
quizzical expression crossed Eleanor’s face.

“I
have to sell my soul for a second time,” Blake spat through gritted teeth.

39

Mehr Zain awoke groggily.

He
was stripped to his underwear, his arms and legs tightly roped to several heavy duty metal pegs that were staked deep into the earth. He tried to lift his head. There was a sharp pain in his neck. A thin wire garrotte was stretched across it, attached to two further pegs.

He
rested his head back on the hard soil.

Unusual.

There
weren’t many places in the Emirates that weren’t either raw rock or desert sand. He wondered where he was and how long he’d been unconscious.

Hours?

A day?

Above
him, bright halogen lights were caustically bright, almost burning his retinas. He sniffed. There was a musty smell. Urine soaked sawdust. He tried to swivel his neck without cutting himself.

Wire
mesh fronted cages.

Becoming
more alert, he began to hear the sounds of birds. Falcons. So popular in the Middle East, anyone who’d lived there long enough could recognise the sound of their distinctive calls.

“You’re
awake,” Aarez said from somewhere outside of Zain’s vision. “Good, I had one of my men inject you with a stimulant a few minutes ago but I was worried it wasn’t working.”

Zain
said nothing. He tugged gently on his restraints to see if he could free his hands or feet.

He
was held fast.

“You’re
welcome to test your bindings – but careful with the piano wire around your neck. You’ll want that unsullied for later,” Aarez said.

He
stepped into Zain’s view. Aarez had changed into a fresh dishdasha and leered forward malevolently.

“You
and your friends have caused me a great deal of trouble,” he said. “I have lost contact with my lieutenant, Oassan. I can only assume the worst since I sent him to retrieve something of great importance to my current goals.”

A
small feather drifted from one of the falcon pens. It floated on the air, a soft, downy beauty, a cherub hovering above Zain’s body.

“What
I need from you is information,” Aarez continued. “I need to know how much you and the others chasing me have deduced.”

Mehr
shifted his gaze to Aarez. The Arab moved to a small table placed closer to the bird cages and began fiddling with some tools.

“I’ll
tell you nothing,” Zain replied.

“You
can talk, or not,” Aarez replied. “Personally, I think you will. But first, you should learn the rules of this game and then make your decision.”

He
pulled a small iron sickle from the table and began to walk back towards Zain.

“Stick
and carrot,” Aarez continued, “I’m a great believer. First: the carrot. If you talk to me, then I shan’t have to try and extract the information from someone else – perhaps one of those lovely young girls you were guarding.”

Zain
chewed at his tongue. He felt a pang of shame. He felt as though he’d been tasked with protecting Asp’s wife and children. If they were here, he had failed.

“Next:
the stick,” Aarez said. “The stick should always be bigger than the carrot, in my opinion. Anything less is a great error. Human beings respond so much more viscerally to anguish than pleasure.”

He
reached forward with the sickle and swung it into Mehr’s exposed belly.

A
dull splat.

Zain
clenched with pain, the ropes biting into his ankles and wrists. The wire tightened across his neck as he pulled against it. His trachea, constricted, strangled his exasperated scream.

The
sickle cut jaggedly through his stomach, gouging a rough, hatcheted gash from one side to the other. Aarez drew the red tinted blade from Mehr’s skin. He plunged his hands into the wound with relish.

Agony
emanated through Mehr’s entire being.

He
felt simultaneously intense burning as his intestines were wrenched onto the ground and the depths of cold they were exposed naked to the air.

“The
stick is quite simple,” Aarez called out, stepping away towards the bird cages.

He
clicked at catches and allowed three birds to spring forward and perch on the wooden bar that ran along the front of their pens as a perch. He whistled and trilled as they hopped out.

The
birds chirped in reply.

“We’ll
start with these four falcons,” Aarez said slowly, “but I have many, many birds here – kestrels, Harris hawks, kites – and it will take them hours to fully gorge themselves on your body. The stimulant you’ve been injected with will prevent the regrettable occurrence of you passing out from pain.”

Mehr
tried furiously once more to yank at the restraints. He’d heard stories as a child of humans finding miraculous strength in times of peril – grandparents lifting cars clear of fallen children following a crash. The body was a phenomenal thing.

He
muttered a prayer calling for strength from God.

With
all his might he heaved until he collapsed, exhausted and panting.

The
pegs did not budge.

“You
are left with three choices,” Aarez said calmly. “First, you can tell me all I wish to know and the pain will end as I give you a quick death. Second, you can allow yourself to be eaten alive by my feathered pets, knowing that if you don’t talk, once you are dead I’ll simply hook the girls in next to your morbid corpse.”

Mehr
found it difficult to focus on the soothing tones of Aarez’s voice through the pain. He felt as though his blood was bubbling out of his belly like a fountain and trickling away in a bright crimson stream to the dirt.

“There
is, of course a third option,” Aarez continued, “and this one is particularly delicious. You can use what little strength is in your body to slit your own throat against the piano wire.”

Cold
sweat dotted Mehr’s forehead.

Despair.

He knew he wasn’t the most religiously attentive man – he smoked and he enjoyed the occasional drink – but he still regarded himself as Muslim in his heart. He avoided pork at all times. He prayed. He had been raised well and any lapses he had were the result of a hard life escaping the dirty streets of Cairo and the corrupting influences of modern society.

“But
suicide?” he thought. “There has to be another way.”

It
was one of the greatest sins imaginable – totally destructive to a hallowed path to the afterlife.

He
closed his eyes.

With
an almighty burst he tried once more to break free, pulling hard against the pegs. The ropes dug and sliced into his wrists and ankles.

His
energy spent, Mehr slumped against the pottery coloured soil.

“Very
well, then,” Aarez said. “Let us begin. We’ll start with my first question once the birds have begun eating.”

The
flutter of feathers in flight.

Tears
formed in Mehr’s eyes as a Saker falcon, wings outstretched, circled over his body.

“Oh
God,” he thought. “How I love birds. They always remind me of mala’kah.”

Looking
down on him, the falcon swooped low and began its feast.