The Mark of Halam (6 page)

14.

B
arbara Heywood dialled the number written on the back page of her diary. After three rings an automated voice directed her to press two and wait. A real voice answered and she was put on hold. The pencil from her America’s Cup mug appeared in her fingers and began battering the desk mat in a more adrenaline-pumped fidgety way than the usual mindless habitual tapping. Barbara sensed a meaty story within her grasp. In a few seconds it might be confirmed.

“Brian Cunningham speaking.”

“Brian, thank you for taking my call. It’s Barbara Heywood from Channel Nine News.”

“Hi, Barbara,” Cunningham said. “What can I do for you?”

Barbara heard a hesitation in his voice. Guarded. To be expected. No one liked talking to the press unless they were a politician. She had met Brian on a number of occasions over police business. A cautious but friendly understanding had developed between them. A colleague had once described cops and reporters as two circling wild animals, one looking to steal the meat and the other looking to bite necks.

“Brian, do we have a killer roaming the streets of Auckland?”

She decided to get to the point. Brian had never come across as someone who liked chitchat.

Brian laughed. “No flattery to get a story. I’m disappointed.”

“You’re thinking of used-car dealers. We journalists are all mouth and no diplomacy.”

“But why phone me? Talk to the detective in charge of the investigation.”

“I heard that the attack in the apartment the other night was a murder attempt, thwarted by a flatmate. The girl would be dead now if she had been alone. No apparent motive from what I hear. An alarm bell rang in my head. It led me to think that if someone is seeking to randomly kill a member of the public, the public has a right to know.”

“Crime happens like that sometimes, Barbara. Unusual, yes, but I think it’s a little early to be jumping to the conclusion a killer is on the loose. No one died.”

“A lucky break from what I hear. If the girl attacked had been home alone she would be dead. Am I jumping to conclusions?”

Barbara waited for a response. A trick she had learnt from a sales friend. Sometimes you got more from shutting up, forcing the other person to fill the silence.

“I can see how you might get there, Barbara, but you’re way off track.”

“All right, Brian, sorry to have bothered you, but I had to follow up on my assumptions.”

“Of course, you have a job to do. Feel free to phone me at any time. But as I said, this is a police matter. I’m sure you’re aware I’m with the Special Tactics Group.”

“One last question while I have you on the phone.”

“Shoot.”

Barbara said, “Was Mary Sumner the Olympian involved?”

“Where did you get that information?”

“You know better than to ask that,” Barbara said. “Was there a note left by the killer and why have you suddenly been seconded to the investigation? What possible interest could the Tactics Group have in an assault on two women? Come on, Brian, what’s going on?”

“Please hold a moment, Barbara.” She knew he had his hand over the speaker. Probably talking to someone. She had rattled him. She loved this part of the game. “Are you there, Barbara?”

“I’m here.”

“There is a coffee lounge in the entrance of the Central Library.”

“I know it.”

“Meet me there at 4pm.”

“I’ll be there.”

“And, Barbara, I’d appreciate you keeping your theories to yourself until we’ve spoken.”

“You can count on it, Brian. Thank you.”

Barbara put down the phone. Jesus. It must be true. She wouldn’t do anything with the information until she had spoken to Brian Cunningham. She had always played it straight with the police and they had always kept her in the loop but she had been in the business long enough to know Amy’s information was right on the button.

Zahar pushed down the kettle button and waited until he heard
the hiss from the first boiling bubbles. He turned his attention to the
cupboards, found a cup and rummaged through the larder until he found a pack of herbal tea bags. Sami Hadani was going to check on the teams. He had wanted to go with him but had in the end decided against it.

His men had begun bickering. He put it down to cabin fever. They had all the comforts supplied by their minders but were under strict orders not to leave the safe houses. In a few days they would move into operational mode and the grumbling would stop. But between now and then they needed to be controlled. He had every confidence Sami would calm them. Sami was a scary man. Zahar had met many scary men but Sami had an edge and a craziness that made him stand out.

“Good morning, Zahar. You slept well, I hope?”

Sami Hadani stood in the doorway, yawned then scratched at the navy blue T-shirt where it covered his expanding belly. He reached across in front of Zahar with a hand the size of a bear paw and flicked the switch on the espresso machine. Zahar stood back and allowed the big man to spoon coffee grains into the filter. He added water then walked back through the door.

“I need a crap,” he said, then disappeared.

They didn’t talk much but what he had gleaned from the overweight Kosovan was that he had built a successful export business and long ago fallen out with his wife. She and the children lived in a house in West Auckland. He sent them money but never visited. She had a restraining order against him. Sami complained it was because she just didn’t like him but Zahar had little doubt he had beaten his wife. Sami reminded him of many of the villagers he’d met in developing countries where the only joy in their miserable lives was making their wives’ lives miserable. In the mind of a man like Sami his reasoning would be that at least someone was worse off than he.

During the Kosovan war he had reportedly raped and murdered Serb women, even young girls. Unsubstantiated reports they might be and Zahar had no way of verifying if they were true but from the short time he had spent with the man he didn’t doubt it for a second.

Sami had a nice home in one of the better suburbs of Auckland city. It had a gym but dust on the apparatus and Sami’s expanding frame was testament to the lack of an exercise regimen; too much food and too much cognac. He was a bitter man, although Zahar could not fathom why. He had money and a good life. He paid for women when he needed fulfilment. Sami had told him women could offer him nothing except sex so why let them invade his home and mind? He had tried it once and once was enough. A man needs to be a man. No one in a skirt would tell him what to do.

Zahar smiled as he thought it through, if Sami had all he needed, why the bitterness? He had formed the opinion that Sami was unstable. As long as Zahar was in Sami’s home he would be forever watchful.

He turned on the television to catch the news. There was a mention of two women scaring off an intruder. No names and no mention of the note and no mention of Jeff Bradley. The police were keeping it quiet. To be expected.

The New Zealand police force was proving to be wilier than he had given them credit for. They were not panicking as he had expected. Had they informed Bradley? He would have to strike again. They had left him little choice. Until pressure came from the public the police would not go public and he needed the media and police and security forces focused on him and his team.

This was one aspect of the operation that had confused Zahar and he had argued with his boss. He wanted to know why they should put themselves at risk. Every available cop and security agency in the country would be out looking for them. Auckland was a big enough city for them to stay lost in and the safe houses and modes of transport and escape routes had been established before he and his men arrived. It would have been much easier for him and his men to complete the mission without the eyes of the world on them. But Avni had said it was not for him to ask such questions. Those paying for their services had paid extra. Avni had offered a million dollar bonus to him if he did it this way. And when Avni had told him that Jeff Bradley, the man who had killed his brother, lived in New Zealand, and once he had completed his mission he could take care of the New Zealander, Zahar had accepted. But he was not about to wait to avenge his brother, if something went wrong with the mission he might miss his chance. Avni Leka did not need to know that his attacks on Bradley had begun.

The plan to leave New Zealand was already in place. One of the minders had bought a forty-seat airplane and it sat on the tarmac at Auckland airport. The New Zealand Air Force had no strike aircraft. Once airborne they would not be shot down. The escape route and flight plans were already lodged and everyone had the correct documentation for customs clearance in the countries on the flight path. Failing that, a freighter was standing by in international waters 250 kilometres off the New Zealand coastline. They would not become trapped on the New Zealand islands.

When this was over he would take his money and retire to the village in northern Iran with the two daughters the village headman had promised to him and his brother. Halam was dead but the village elder was still keen on the original deal. The price for his daughters was already set. The headman had said Zahar would be a happy man with two beautiful women to care for his every need. Zahar was not so sure. It was not the life he had wanted but it was now the only life available to him. Terrorism had no future, and as much as he had learned to live knowing each day his life might end, he had no desire to die. He would fulfil his brother’s dream. As his brother’s image came to mind he clenched his fist. Halam had protected him as a small child then raised him when their parents were killed. He carried him through the rubble of Palestine and sheltered him in the Hezbollah camps in Lebanon. Halam was his mother and father, his life. Bradley had killed his brother’s dream. Bradley was going to experience what it was like to lose someone close to him. Then he would die.

Zahar placed the teabag in the cup and poured in the boiled water.

A sip. Too hot. He placed the cup on the breakfast bar and pulled up a stool.

A knock on the front door had Zahar looking for Sami. Halfway
down the hall the big man emerged from the bathroom drying his hands on a towel. He tossed it at Zahar who reluctantly caught it.

“Hang that up for me.”

Zahar’s glared message, I’m not your nursemaid, stopped him in his tracks. Sami half smiled. “Please. And stay in the bathroom until I call.”

Zahar closed the door but the aromas Sami had left behind had him holding his breath and opening the window.

After a minute Sami called out to him.

Esat Krasniqi stood in the lounge, face flushed and rubbing the top of his forehead. Nervous eyes flittered round the room, avoiding eye contact. Zahar inwardly smiled at Krasniqi’s discomfort. Avni Leka’s man was frightened. Good. Frightened men were more easily controlled.

“How are the men in your care, Esat? No problems I hope.”

Esat shook his head. “No, Zahar, I have supplied the men with everything they need just as Avni said I should. They are becoming restless, as I have told to Sami. I am wondering how much longer they will stay?”

“As long as it takes,” Zahar snapped. “Is this a concern for you?”

“No. Of course not,” Krasniqi answered, the flush of redness now fading to pale.

Sami said, “Zahar, leave him be before he shits himself, I don’t want it all over the carpet. Come on, Esat. I will be a few hours,
Zahar. Make yourself at home. There is a list of hookers above
the phone if you need some comforting. And can you turn off my
cof
fee. Esat can buy me a cup before he buys me lunch.”

15.

B
arbara Heywood arrived early for her meeting with Brian Cunningham. She sat at a table by the window. The space between it and other occupied tables was enough that they would not be overheard.

The University Campus which had started life on Symonds Street now spread from Waterloo Quadrant past the top of Wakefield Street and down the slopes into Queen Street. The Central City Library had been in the path of this ever consuming academic lava flow. The café, once a coffee stop for readers dropping off and borrowing books, was now a haven for students seeking time out from classes and the bustle of campus life. Hunched figures sat glued to laptop screens, sipping from bottles of mineral water and munching blueberry muffins.

Barbara needn’t have concerned herself with the self-absorbed students. None had even glanced her way.

She waved when Cunningham entered the café. He mimed drinking a coffee. Barbara held up her cup and waggled her finger. He was as she remembered him: tall, good-looking, a bulky physique, not fat but underneath the dark suit she doubted she would find a toned body. His healthy crop of brown hair had a suspicion of grey sneaking into the sideburns. Overall Brian Cunningham was a commanding presence.

At drinks after media briefings he had paid her scant attention and when he did speak it seemed to Barbara it was more out of professional courtesy than attraction. However more than once she had caught him watching her and she was certain that on those occasions it was her ass that held his attention and not her ability with a pen. She guessed he was very much like herself. Married to the job. No time for romance. She did know he had married, now divorced.

They exchanged friendly smiles as Cunningham sat.

“I guess a lot is happening,” Barbara said.

He smiled. “Am I being interrogated already?”

“Friendly banter,” Barbara said. “I promise there will be no traps and everything we discuss will be off the record until you say otherwise.”

“Fair enough,” Cunningham said. “I’m all yours.”

“Do we have a potential killer running about the streets of Auckland?”

“Yes, we do.”

Barbara nodded thoughtfully. She ticked off the first question on her notepad and scribbled ‘I smell a rat’ next to it.

“Was one of the intended victims the Olympic medallist Mary Sumner?”

“Yes, she was.”

“And was a note left in the apartment by the assailant confirming he was after Mary?”

“Yes a note was left behind.”

Barbara’s mouth fell open.

The waitress arrived with Cunningham’s coffee. Barbara rested her notepad on her lap until she left.

“Okay, Brian, what’s going on here? I ask three straightforward questions and get honest answers. This is unnerving.”

“You’re complaining?”

“No, of course not, but why are you telling me these things? What’s the catch?”

“No catch, Barbara. There have been major developments and the police investigating team aren’t certain whether to involve the media or not. Lives are at stake so it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. Having said that, you have obtained sensitive information, which is upsetting. It means a leak in the department. Well, okay, what’s done is done but I need to stop it going any further for now.”

Barbara nodded. It had happened before. She had been in the business long enough to know the police used the media to their advantage. This annoyed crime reporters. They made their livings off the scraps of information.

“I already have enough for a story, Brian, even without police confirmation,” Barbara said. “The network does pay my wages.”

“I understand that, Barbara, but a much bigger story is developing. Work with me and you can have it all, exclusive. For the moment I’m asking you to sit on it. Your choice.”

Barbara tapped her pad with her pen, not happy. What choice did she have? Do as she was told or stay out of the loop. Her nose told her Brian was offering her something special. His presence as head of the Special Tactics Group in an investigation of an assault on two women puzzled her. Why on earth would he be interested? If she didn’t play ball she would be locked out and never get to the truth. It was also unlikely the station would air her findings without police verification.

“It seems I have little choice. I could be sacked when the station learns I made this deal. If that happens you owe me dinner,”
Barbara said, switching to a playful tone.

Cunningham raised an eyebrow. A hint of a smile. The type that a man and a woman throw at each other the first time they switch to intimate. Barbara sensed Brian was assessing if she was flirting. The dinner proposal remark had simply fallen out of her mouth. The result of having a big mouth and never keeping it shut. Her mother told her it would get her into trouble one day. How right she had been. But, now it was out there, if he did ask her to dinner, she might say yes.