Lethal Profit (6 page)

A tense silence filled the room as the two men stared at each other while their room-mates ignored them and continued to play a slow and unabsorbing game of cards. The brothers always fought, both here and at home, it was just how it was with siblings.

‘No, I am not joking.' Nijam's stocky frame moved swiftly over to where his brother remained by the window. He had the large, open face of a child, the body of a heavyweight boxer and the hands of a professional strangler. ‘I told you, I have found God now and I do not think this killing to order we are doing fits with His plan.'

Wiraj laughed scornfully. ‘Your God is a white man's God. He has no time for you.'

‘He has time for everyone, Wiraj. All those who follow the path.'

‘Like sheep.'

‘We are his flock and he will guide us.'

Wiraj stared at his brother then suddenly threw his cigarette to the stained wooden floor and ground it down with his heel. ‘You have become weak, my brother,' he growled, with such an intensity that the three men at the table glanced over.

Nijam was immediately placatory. ‘I know that we are here for good reason but, Wiraj, can't we achieve the purpose peacefully?' He stepped closer to his brother and laid a conciliatory hand on him. ‘After all, what kind of purpose must it be if we need to kill to achieve it?'

Immediately Wiraj cast off his brother's arm. ‘What
purpose
?' he spat. ‘You stand there and ask me what purpose?'

He pushed his brother backwards with the flat of his hand, destabilising Nijam, whose face was etched with surprise. As suddenly he remembered they were not alone, Wiraj glanced warily over at the table where the other men sat; they continued to play cards but he could see they were listening. Roughly, he grabbed Nijam's shoulder and hustled him over to the window, before continuing in a hushed voice. ‘Their purpose is unimportant, it is for our own ends that we are forced to do this. You forget, my brother, what we have lived through,' continued Wiraj, stroking the thick scar running down his left cheek. ‘The poverty, the violence, the sanctions imposed on our broken nation by those that should have stepped in and helped. Instead they branded us terrorists, left us at the mercy of our corrupt government. These
super
powers, these rich nations. They will only help themselves.'

‘But, Wiraj, now we have… '

‘Now we have
nothing
, Nijam, only an opportunity.'

Nijam was silent now, his brother's anger and the truth of his words hitting home with double-edged accuracy.

‘We have nothing without this opportunity,' repeated Wiraj at length. ‘Do you want to go back to Sudan a failure? Is that what you want?'

Nijam quickly shook his head.

‘If you had morals you should have left them back home.'

He turned to Nijam and seeing the compliance on his brother's face, Wiraj began to cool down. ‘Do you understand, my brother?' he said, taking a step towards Nijam and cradling his left cheek with his hand. ‘Yes?'

Nijam nodded, any religious fervour roundly trounced from him.

‘Yes, Wiraj,' he said quietly, ‘I do.'

Eva opened her eyes. Nothing. She shut her eyes and opened them again but it made no difference. The darkness was complete. She blinked into the gloom then sat up and felt around for the light on the bedside table at the hotel. Her outstretched arm knocked over a glass and it fell to the floor with a loud crash. This was not her room at the hotel. Further exploring with the palms of her hands, Eva found that she was sitting on a single bed with a coarse covering that seemed to be wedged in the corner of a room papered with uneven wallpaper. There was a wall behind her head and also to her right; the air smelled of cigarettes and aftershave.

For a second, Eva wondered whether she was dreaming. Since Jackson's death she'd had almost no dreams but she had no idea where she was or how she had got here, which made a dream the only plausible explanation. But her left leg was aching horribly and her head was thumping. That pain was very real. As she felt herself starting to panic, she heard heavy footsteps coming closer to the vague outline of a door she could see across the room. Suddenly the door was thrown open, filling the room with light.

Eva raised her hand to shield her eyes as her pupils adjusted to the brightness. As soon as she was able to see again she dropped her arm. She squinted at the shadowed form in front of her. A man stepped fully into the room; he had broad and well-muscled shoulders that looked enormous, like a cartoon action hero. Eva tried to control her racing pulse. This was not a good situation. The man flicked on a bare light bulb above the bed and stared at her for several seconds. She stared back, counting each breath in and out for three to make sure they remained even and calm.

‘My name is Leon,' said the man in English with a French accent, walking over towards her and holding out his hand. He had dark hair and dark eyes and he wore a pair of black jeans and a navy cargo sweater. Eva nodded at him. Was she supposed to shake his hand?

‘You're probably wondering where you are.'

‘Yes.'

Eva realised her throat was painfully dry.

‘You had a car accident – well, you ran out in front of my car – and you passed out.'

Suddenly Eva remembered running across the road away from the stranger she had thought was following her. She recalled the pain of being clipped by the car – that explained the leg at least.

But why was she not in hospital?

‘Why am I…'

‘I brought you here because you were injured.'

‘I see. Well… thank you.' She made a move to get up. ‘I should go…'

‘Eva…'

She stopped and stared straight at him. The hairs began to stand up on the back of her neck.

‘You know my name.'

He nodded. A silence descended on the room. The man looked at the floor. Eva tried to force herself to move but she seemed to be paralysed from the neck down.

‘I knew your brother,' he said suddenly. ‘Jackson.'

Eva felt her blood drain southwards.

‘You knew Jackson?'

‘Yes.'

‘How well did you know him?'

‘We were close.'

Eva had never heard Jackson mention someone called Leon.

‘I can see you don't believe me.'

She said nothing in response. She was starting to feel very uncomfortable. What this man had done – bringing her to his flat – was not a normal thing to do. In fact, it was almost kidnapping.

‘Wait… let me show you something…' Leon started for the door.

Instantly, Eva was on her feet. As Leon turned right out of the door, she silently followed him to the edge of the room. She looked carefully around the door-frame, just in time to see him disappear through a door at the end of the corridor. She heard the click of a key turning in a lock in the room Leon had entered. The corridor was shabby, with a dated but clean carpet and old, well-preserved light fittings. On the opposite wall there was a photo of a family standing in front of a farmhouse. Leading off the corridor were two other rooms and then to her left… bingo… a front door.

A quick appraisal of the door revealed a Chubb lock system and a manual key below that. She glanced once more towards the kitchen and then began to tiptoe across the thin carpet, her heart hammering in her ears. She flicked up the notch on the Chubb mechanism and quickly turned the key in the lower lock. Both movements were soundless. She heard a cupboard door close again at the end of the corridor and quickly she twisted the Chubb handle and smoothly pulled open the door in front of her.

Outside was an unexpectedly twee doormat with a picture of kissing bees and beyond that a dark and cavernous unfurnished hallway decorated with graffiti and, from the smell that hung in the air, urine. Eva pulled the door closed behind her and then started to run. She ran across the concrete landing and down a stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. She had no idea where she was and no idea where she was going to go when she reached the end of the stairs, but she trusted her own instincts more than she trusted this person. She would find a road, there had to be a road somewhere, and she would flag someone down. But the stairs just kept coming.

‘Eva!'

Eva gasped out loud as she heard her name. ‘Shit,' she muttered and tried to pick up her pace. She heard the ominous thundering of footsteps on the stairs above her and tried to remember how many flights she had put between the flat and where she was now. There had been at least four, surely he couldn't catch her.

‘Eva, wait! You don't understand!' Leon's voice echoed down the stairwell.

Suddenly Eva pulled up short – she was at the bottom of the last flight of stairs and there were no more steps. And no door. Eva stopped, her heart thumping, and then realised she had come down a flight of stairs too far and was in a utility space with no exit. She was going to have to go back up towards him to get out. Panic singing in her ears, Eva started up the stairs two at a time, holding her breath and expecting at any minute to see those dark features appear around the corner. At the next break in the stairs she looked around her and after several seconds of rising anxiety realised she was standing right next to an emergency exit door. She threw herself against it and suddenly she was outside in the bitter night air, shivering. She looked over her shoulder but there was no sign of Leon. The door slammed behind her and she looked back again and took in the enormous tower block she had been inside. Then she turned, started to run and cried out as she hit what felt like a brick wall. Hard fingers gripped her, flipping her over onto her front, pushing her to the floor and a bag was whisked over her head. She tried to scream but the bag was pulled tight over her mouth as she felt someone trying to fasten her wrists together behind her back.

She struggled hard and heard swearing as she succeeded in freeing one of her wrists.

‘Merde!'

Then a huge hand grabbed both her wrists behind her back and held them together as hard plastic was wrapped around them and pulled tight. Before the plastic was fastened suddenly there was a noise like a basketball thudding against a wall, followed by the sound of splintering bone and a grunt in her ear as the weight of the person lifted from her. She lay on the ground trying to figure out what was going on as noises of a scuffle filtered through the bag. When she realised she was no longer the centre of attention, Eva tried to free her wrists from the unfastened plastic handcuffs, pulling and tugging as she felt them gradually become loose. Then a gunshot rang out. She lay face down, rigid, blindfolded, confused and disorientated.

‘Eva.'

Leon's voice. The bag was pulled off her head and Eva looked around her. Leon was behind her, pulling the last of the plastic handcuffs off her. He threw them away and then came to stand in front of her. In his right hand was the dark shape of a gun. Eva looked past him and saw a lumpen form on the ground behind the back tyre of a burned out car.

W
ITH
SOME
HESITATION,
A
SHAKY
Eva allowed Leon to shepherd her back into the tower block and up to the sixth floor where he poured her a shot of cognac. She lowered herself unsteadily onto a patched, brown suede sofa in a room that reeked of 1980s décor.

‘Do you understand what just happened?' she asked, looking at him with large, round eyes.

Leon nodded, screwed the top back on the cognac bottle and stowed it into a drinks cabinet with only one other bottle in it.

‘This is difficult to explain.' His voice was gravelly and accented, he sounded like he never got much sleep.

‘Try.'

Leon looked at Eva as he heard the hostile tone in her voice.

‘Wait there.' He walked out of the room, glancing back at her as he went as if he was afraid that she might once again make a bolt for the door. Several seconds later he came back into the room carrying a brown paper file. He laid it down on the sofa beside her, moved over to the window and lit a cigarette.

‘Read it.'

Eva put her empty glass down on the floor and picked up the file. She could feel Leon's eyes watching every move she made. Inside the thin file were some photos. In one, Jackson and the flame-haired girl Eva recognised as his girlfriend Valerie, and in another Jackson with a short-haired blonde whom Eva had never seen before.

‘I don't understand…'

‘There's more.'

Eva turned over the two photos to reveal two more. This time Valerie was being photographed from a position across the street. Eva recognised the outside of Jackson's office building. Valerie was standing several metres down the street from the entrance to Jackson's office, pulled back into a doorway. She was on the phone but her attention was elsewhere. Eva looked at the focus of her gaze and recognised Shaun the bike courier standing next to Jackson smoking a cigarette.

Eva tried to make sense of the picture. It was obviously taken moments before Jackson disappeared, but it changed nothing.

‘Who took this?'

‘I did.'

‘So you saw what really happened to Jackson?'

Leon shook his head. ‘I left almost as soon as I took the photo.'

‘I must be missing something. I don't understand what you think this means, or how it's relevant to what just happened.'

Leon shook his head, frustrated, and stubbed his cigarette out in a Moroccan ashtray.

‘That guy in the photo – the bike courier,' he said, moving over to where Eva sat and jabbing his finger in the direction of the photo.

‘What about him?'

‘He's dead.'

Eva put the photo back in the file. ‘I know.'

‘I didn't take this photo because of him. I took it because of Valerie.'

‘Jackson's girlfriend?'

Leon nodded.

‘Why?'

Leon began to pace the floor. He lit another cigarette and scratched distractedly at his hair.