Flight Path: A Wright & Tran Novel (7 page)

“And if he’s not legit?” Jacob asked.

“Then I suspect we’ll bring our meeting forward,” Kara said.

It took si
x
seconds for Tien to break the lock code on the mobile phone. “Ah, don’t you miss the Nokia 3310? What a wonderful old friend it was,” Tien said, giving the small phone a pat and disconnecting it from the cable that attached it to the PC.

Jacob looked sideways at Kara and smirked, “Is geek or nerd the right term?” he asked.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Tien said as she flicked through the Nokia’s menus. “Oh, that’s interesting. It’s clean.”

“How clean?” Kara asked.

“Totally. No call logs, no texts in or out. No contacts, not so much as a hint of any use.”

“Interesting indeed,” Kara said as she watched Tien plug the phone back into the PC’s cable.

“What now?” Jacob asked.

Tien looked up and gave him a benevolent smile, “Clean doesn’t mean empty Jacob. The idea that you delete call logs and texts and whatever else you think you’ve deleted from a phone is just an illusion. Just like you can recover files on a PC you can recover almost anything back from a mobile. You just need the right software.”

“And we have it?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Oh yeah, we have it, but first things first,” Tien said as she began to type rapidly. The action was quite unusual to watch. Her prosthetic left hand, with extended index finger, prodded the keys in the style of a one-finger typist. Meanwhile, her right hand was the fully functional hand of an experienced touch typist. The resultant speed was much faster than most and much slower than Tien had once been.

The laptop screen displayed a new interface and a mobile number appeared in a box on the top left. Tien highlighted it and dragged it into another search box at the top right. A small egg-timer appeared and rotated for a few moments before another dialogue box popped up.

“This is an unregistered, pre-paid mobile, first activated for use in June,” Tien read off the screen.

“Unregistered?” Jacob asked.

“Not on a contract. A burner phone that isn’t in anyone’s name so it’s untraceable to an individual,” Kara explained. Jacob nodded.

“And,” Tien said as she continued to type and the display of the laptop changed again, “it’s only ever made one call and only ever sent five text messages. The call,” she paused as she transferred another phone number into another search box, “was the initial activation call to the network in June. The first text was also in June, loading on credit with an over-the-counter top-up. The rest of the texts were sent tonight,” she checked her watch, “twenty minutes ago. Ties in with Amberley’s trip to the toilet.” Tien turned the laptop around so Kara and Jacob could see the screen. “The messages on the right are outgoing, the ones on the left incoming,” she said as she zoomed the display in.

This is Francis 44619

Hello Francis, Pin?

826

Not quite.

392

Excellent.

Get a message to Del 44128

Contact me URGENT

A woman snifn about

Says there is money?

Insurance?

Need to talk

OK.

Tien closed the text display down and brought up a further interface. She opened a browser window and pasted yet another number into a search box. “Okay, these texts were sent to a mobile in Holland, or at least one with a Dutch country code,” she said and sat back from the laptop.

“Thoughts?” Kara asked.

“The fact that everything was deleted off the phone is significant in itself. The texts look like a challenge and response protocol, which infers a set of security procedures and our Mr Amberley was quick off the mark to reach out for help,” Tien said.

“But who’s he calling for help from?” Jacob asked.

“Don’t know yet, but I would say it’s more than likely Del is short for Derek. Whether that means Derek Swift and that he’s alive and well in Holland is something we’re going to have to ask Amberley about,” Kara said.

“When?” Jacob asked.

“No time like the present. I don’t think we can afford to wait, just in case whoever is on the other end of these texts decides to contact him by some other method.”

“So we’re going to go knock on his door?” Jacob asked.

“Yep,” said Kara. Conscious of her earlier reasoning to Jacob, she added, “He won’t have any home advantage this time. We’re going to be way less than polite visitors. I’ll brief you on the way.”

ɸ

The street had tightly packed, 3-storey terraced houses to the north side of the narrow road and much more substantial, detached houses to the south.

“It’s like Coronation Street versus Quality Street,” Tien said as they made their way along the ridiculously narrow footpath. The only light came from behind curtained windows, or the occasional faux-Edwardian porch light on the southern side.

“Why are there no street lights?” Jacob asked, in almost a whisper as he walked in the middle of the three of them, strung out in single file.

“Where would you put a pole? There’s hardly enough room for one person to walk on the footpath let alone sticking a light pole in. It would have to go in the road,” Tien whispered back.

“I’ll take it as a lucky omen. It certainly works to our advantage,” Kara said softly over her shoulder. “All set?” She asked, receiving whispered agreement from her two followers.

They crossed the road to the terrace side of the street. Jacob walked out and around her, going to the far side of the single ground-floor window. Tien stopped short, once more hidden in shadows. Kara stepped up and raised the dulled brass knocker that was mounted on the faded black door. She rapped twice and waited.

The venetian blinds on the window to Kara’s right twitched and Amberley’s face looked out into the night. His hand against the glass to see better, he looked at her and frowned. She faced him, illuminated by the window’s light-spill, and raised the mobile phone. Giving her best fake-smile she waggled the phone as if to say, ‘look what I found’. The blinds dropped back into place.

“Jacob,” Kara said softly and he came to stand to her left-hand side. The sound of a deadbolt being withdrawn at the top of the door and a chain being released from the latch were the precursors to the final Yale lock being turned. As Amberley opened the door fully, Kara took a step to her right. The stockily built Jacob exploded into the tiny hallway, his left arm went around Amberley’s waist while his right hand clamped over the shocked man’s mouth. Jacob’s momentum and the six inch height advantage he enjoyed allowed him to lift the smaller man easily. Kara followed close behind. Tien stepped into the hall, casually shutting the door to the outside world.

ɸ

The house was a traditional Victorian terrace but with additions. The original living room to the front, facing the street, was connected to the kitchen by the narrow hallway which also accommodated the stairs. At some point in its history the house had had a two-storey extension added to the rear, hence the back garden being reduced to what Tien had called a postage stamp. The rear extension housed a small dining room on the ground floor, accessed through an arched opening from the kitchen. Upstairs, the extension accommodated a bedroom, which had allowed one of the original two bedrooms to be converted into a mid-landing bathroom with toilet.

A further flight of stairs led up to a third storey with a single long, narrow attic room running from front to back of the house. As Kara glanced into it she saw it was fitted with dormer windows to both the front and rear elevations and crammed with cardboard boxes. By the time she returned from her quick look around and entered the dining room, Amberley had been secured by Jacob and Tien.

“Hello Francis,” Kara said as she pulled a dining room chair out from the small round table and sat down facing him. “So nice of you to have proper wooden dining chairs. Makes securing your hands behind you so much easier. It even lets my friends here tie each ankle to its own proper chair leg. How thoughtful of you!”

Amberley’s mouth was covered in grey duct tape but his eyes were clearly visible and they were darting around much as they had in the Old Seafarer. He looked at Tien who stood in the archway leading to the kitchen then he strained to see Jacob, who stood behind him. Not able to twist around, he focussed again on Tien, then Kara, the ceiling, the floor and back to Kara. His breath was ragged through his nose and his body, even though restrained, was still bent slightly forward from the waist.

Kara waited for his eyes to settle back on her. “Now Francis. You have some explaining to do, but I have some facts for you to contemplate first. We are not the police. We do not give a damn about the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. We do not consider that you have any rights and even if we did, we wouldn’t uphold them. We
do
,” she stressed the word as dramatically as she could, “care about a few things that you
should
know about.” Amberley’s eyes darted off her again to Tien. Kara leant forward and slapped the flat of her right hand against the wooden dining room table. The force of the blow sounded like a whip crack. At the same time she raised her left hand to within inches of Amberley’s face. The effect of the movement and noise caused the man to flinch so dramatically he almost tipped his own chair over. Jacob reached out and steadied it. Despite no physical blow hitting him, Amberley’s nostrils flared and his eyes glistened with tears.

“Pay attention Francis. You look at me when I am talking. You don’t look anywhere else. Are we clear on that?” Kara paused and counted inside her head. She hadn’t reached three before Francis Amberley nodded his agreement.

“That’s good Francis. Well done. Now, as I was saying, there are some things my friends and I do care about. We care about the money that went missing and we care about what happened to Derek Swift. That’s all. That is all we care about. We do not care about you or what part you played in it. We have no desire to see you go to prison or even for you to talk to the police. Not at all. We only care about Derek. That’s it.” She paused again, waiting. She heard Tien turn on her heel and saw Amberley’s eyes momentarily flick towards the movement, but almost instantly return to her. Kara leant forward with her hand raised and watched him flinch his head away. She reached forward and patted his cheek, “There, there Francis, I wasn’t going to hit you, sit up straight, look at me.”

Amberley brought his head up to face her. His eyes locked on hers as Tien returned to the room and placed something down on the dining room table before she walked back to the arch. Amberley never dropped his gaze from Kara.

“It’s okay Francis. You can look at what my friend has brought,” Kara said indicating the table with a wave of her hand. Although muffled by the duct tape there was no mistaking the terror of Amberley’s choked scream.

Jacob had t
o
hold the chair still as Amberley thrashed against his restraints. Tears spilled from the man’s eyes while wailful moaning battered and broke against his sealed mouth in waves of despair.

“Sssh Francis, sssh,” Kara soothed him and stroked his cheek. “These are only here if you don’t listen to me and don’t do as I ask.” She waved her hand once more to indicate the table, and this time she let her fingers rest on the handle of the bread knife that Tien had set down next to an old-fashioned, wooden-handled corkscrew, a straight-blade screwdriver and a couple of forks. “Come along, be quiet now, or I’ll have to make you be quiet Francis,” she said, the soothing lull of her voice replaced with a sternness that had immediate effects. Amberley looked at her, wide-eyed but silent. The panic in his stare was enough for Kara to know she had arrived at the point where she needed to be. It hadn’t surprised her how quickly the man had capitulated.

“Is Derek dead?” she asked, holding the man’s stare.

Amberley shook his head.

“Did he abscond with the money?”

He nodded.

“Do you know where he is?”

He shook his head. Kara knew there had been no deception, no hesitation. Amberley didn’t know where Swift was. It made sense when considered along with the text messages. If he had known where Swift was, he wouldn’t have asked a third party to get a message to him.

“I’m going to take your gag off now Francis. If you scream I shall put it back on and never take it off again. I shall spend the rest of my night seeing how many ways I can hurt you with the tools my friend brought me from your kitchen. Are we clear?”

The nodding was instant and protracted. Jacob reached around and ripped the duct tape off.

“Who did you text, Francis?” As soon as she asked the question she saw his eyes dart away and back again. He hesitated just fractionally and breathed in to speak. She cut him off, “Careful Francis. Be very careful,” she paused and placed her hand on the man’s knee. Despite his restraints he recoiled from her touch. “If you say no one, I will not wait to reapply your gag. I will have my friends kill you.” She said it calmly, like it was a perfectly normal thing for her to say. The impact on Amberley was anything but calm or normal. His eyes widened again and he bit back whatever words had been forming in his mouth. Kara continued, “There will be no second chance. You need to realise that some questions I already know the answer to. I am only asking to see if you are staying honest. If you answer those questions with a lie, I will no longer need to talk to you at all. I can’t talk to you if you lie to me. My friends will kill you and then they will hang you from your stair bannisters. You will be found with a proper suicide note. No one will ever suspect.” She paused again and counted silently to three. “Now, who did you text?”

“Rik. I texted Rik in Holland.”

“And who’s he?”

“He arranged for Derek to get out.”

Kara’s hand shot out, grasped the serrated bread knife and hammered the butt of its handle into the wooden table. Amberley let out a pained whelp, reared away from the glistening blade and again Jacob had to prevent the chair falling over.

“I didn’t ask you what he did, Francis. I asked you who he was. You need to pay attention.”

Tears were streaming down Amberley’s cheeks. He sniffed as hard as he could but the mucus from his nose was forming thick bubbles at his nostrils. His breath came in short snatches, “I’m sor- I’m sor- sor- sorry.” 

Kara nodded and repeated herself, “Who is he?”

“I don- I don’t know. It does- it doesn’t work- it doesn’t work like that.”

“It? What’s it, Francis? How many more of your friends have you helped to disappear?”

Amberley’s brows creased together and he looked genuinely confused, “Non-, none. None. I don’t have-” he stopped himself and Kara felt the smallest twinge of sorrow for a man so obviously lonely and devoid of human contact. She stifled it and went to get on with the job, but was stopped by Tien’s hand on her shoulder. She laid the knife down flat, stood and walked towards the kitchen.

Tien used a handful of paper towels to wipe Amberley’s face. She gently cleaned and wiped until he had ceased gasping for breath between sobs. Then she stepped away.

Kara retook her seat and tapped Amberley’s knee, “Tell me who Rik is, Francis?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he pleaded. “I only know his name is Rik. No last name. Derek told me he knew some people that would help him. All I had to do was take him out on my boat. Then he would be gone.”

“How?”

“We met another boat. They threw a rope over. Derek took it and jumped in the water. They pulled him across. That’s all I know, I swear. I swear.”

“Now that’s not true Francis. You knew a number to text and how to get a response. Tell me about that.”

Amberley remained focussed on her. His eyes were again watery but they weren’t darting about. His answers came in rapid, staccato sentences, “Derek gave me it before he left. Told me to memorise it. Told me it was for emergencies. Told me how to use it. I never had to before. But he never told me about no money. Never mentioned an insurance payout. I thought I needed to know about it. That’s why I got in touch.”

“What’s with the Francis 44619 number?”

“Derek told me I needed an identity. He had one too. If I didn’t have one Rik wouldn’t pass messages. Wouldn’t know who I was.”

“And the pin number?”

“Same. He said I needed it so Rik could be sure it was really me. I was to give a wrong one first. That way, I’d know if it was really Rik. Only he would know the right one.”

“All seems strange to me Francis,” Kara said and hovered her hand across the implements on the table.

“No, no!” he shouted, wiggling within in his restraints and moving the chair from leg to leg. “That’s it. That’s all I know. That’s how it was set up. That’s how I had to get messages to him. He said it was all part of the deal for them to get him out.”

Jacob stepped forward and put his hands on the man’s shoulders to steady the chair and stop it from bouncing. Instead of quieting him, Amberley let out a long wail, “Please, please don’t let him hurt me, please.”

Kara leant in close, her mouth next to Amberley’s ear, “Calm down Francis. He’s not going to do anything to you, unless I say so, but you need to calm down and stop squirming.”

Amberley again gave a series of protracted nods, but his squirming ceased, the chair steadied and Jacob stepped back. Kara was convinced that she had been told the truth. What she wasn’t sure about, was why there would be so contrived a security protocol. She glanced over her shoulder to Tien and raised her eyebrows. Tien spoke from the archway, “What was the name of the other boat?”

Amberley looked across to Tien and Kara caught the strangest of expressions cloud his face. She couldn’t quantify or classify it, but it made her feel distinctly uneasy. Then it was gone. 

“Answer my friend Francis. What was the name of the other boat?”

“I don’t know, I’m sor-”

Kara stood and turning to leave, nodded to Jacob, “Kill him, we’re done here.”

“No, please, no, God no. Ple-” Amberley’s pleading was cut-off as Jacob’s hand clamped over his mouth. The muffled screams were frantic and accompanied by a dark stain spreading over the front of Amberley’s trousers.

Kara stopped just short of the archway and turned back, “I warned you Francis, lie to me and I have no use for you. You would have spent some time next to the other boat while Derek made his escape. You know the name of it. You tell me and I may let you live,” she said and gave a small flick of her head. Jacob released his grasp.

“It wasn’t English. Honestly, I couldn’t read it, it was foreign. Please, please don’t kill me, please. It had an E. It started with an E. Two words, erelike winding. Please, that’s the truth.”

“Other numbers on the side? A homeport? What type of boat was it?”

“It had a registration mark, VD something. There were numbers, four or five of them. But I don’t remember the rest. Please, I don’t remember what they were.”

“What else?”

“It was a fishing boat, a troller.”

“You mean a trawler?” Kara asked.

“No. A troller. It’s smaller.”

Kara checked over her shoulder and Tien gave a small shrug as she pulled her smartphone out. After a few moments she handed the phone to Kara, who in turn walked back to stand in front of Amberley, careful to avoid the puddle of liquid around the chair. She showed him the image on screen. “Like this?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “like that, only it had a red hull.”

Kara sat down again, “Good Francis. Well done. One last question. Answer this and we’ll let you go, okay?” she said and waited for the man to look up. She held his stare, “Okay?” she repeated.

He nodded.

“Why did Derek leave?”

“I don’t know.”

Kara paused. The answer had been given too quickly and delivered with no conviction, but there was a new look to Amberley’s face. The timidity and fear was masked by a strange expression. Kara examined the almost instant change that had come over the man. She finally figured that it was defiance. She tried again, “Now that’s just not true Francis. Why did Derek leave?”

“I don’t know.”

Once more the lie was delivered too quickly but his voice was stronger, more assured. Kara wondered what the hell was going on. He should have been getting more compliant, not less. She allowed her hand to rest on the old corkscrew. She nodded up to Jacob, “Hold his eye open.”

In a single fluid movement Amberley’s head was secured and Jacob forced the man’s left eye wide. Kara stood and brought the tip of the rusty metal down.