Blood Tracks (25 page)

Declan couldn’t shake them off. From the bathroom window the two officers had been able to see the direction he was heading in. They’d radioed for support and he’d found his path blocked as he reached the top of Gina’s street. He’d panicked and begun running around the alleys like a headless chicken, the policemen closing in on him. He had to get out of there! He made it to the end of the alleyway opposite the entrance to the docks and recklessly sprinted across the heaving road.

He waved frantically at the security guard on the gate.

“Dave! Raise the barrier, quick!”

Dave seemed amused. “You’re a bit keen to get back to work, aren’t you, Declan?”

The breathless Declan put his thumb up in thanks and scarpered into the docks.

Dave was still smiling after him when, a minute later, two panting officers and a police car with its siren whirring appeared in front of him.

Gina left the yard and headed for the dock road. She’d done the best that she could under the circumstances but things weren’t going to plan and she was plagued by doubt.

Oh my God! Have I just made a massive mistake? They may not even remember what I told them. But what other choice did I have? Where the hell is Declan?

She paced up and down the pavement of the busy road, making herself as visible as possible. As the minutes ticked by, she became more stressed – what if he didn’t find her?

She gave a sigh of relief when Tom Cotter appeared from one of the side streets and spotted her. She waited until he got closer and then she started to run.

Daylight was fading as she sprinted along the canal with Tom in pursuit. Tom’s leather shoes pinched his feet, his tie flapped up into his face, his arms pumped, his legs pounded. Gina had stamina but Tom had speed. He was gaining on her. As Gina looked behind at him, her foot dipped into a pothole in the towpath and sent her flying forward. She scraped along the cobbles. Her tights ripped, her knees burned and her shoe got stuck in the pothole.

She saw Tom come skidding past her as he tried to stop. He halted and started to walk back towards her, hands on hips, panting heavily. He couldn’t see what Gina saw: a teenager on a bike, racing along the towpath at the speed of light. Gina saw the look of bemusement on Tom’s face as she suddenly rolled to the side of the path. An aggressive shout came from behind Tom: “Get out of the way!” But he didn’t have time to react before the cyclist rocketed past him, clipping his shoulder, sending him stumbling over the edge and into the green waters of the canal.

Gina picked herself up. She glanced at her smarting knees, checked in her shoulder bag to see that she still had everything and headed back to retrieve her shoe. But Tom was already clawing his way out of the canal, looking like a swamp creature, covered in a layer of green scum.

She had to abandon her shoe and keep going, blocking out the pain in her knees, and the jarring of her foot against the cobbles. She skirted around a young couple having a stroll along the stagnant canal. Seconds later she heard their cries of protest as Tom ploughed through them. He put a spurt on, closing the gap, getting so close that he lunged at her, but his fingers slid down her back, unable to get a hold. She pulled away. She heard his breathing turn ragged, losing any rhythm. That’s when she knew that she could outrun him, that’s when she kept her pace steady and led the exhausted man to where she wanted them to be.

Gina made it. She got out her phone and left a breathless message.

“Declan, where are you? I’m at the bridge, the place we first met. Tom’s going to be here any second… He’s here! I can see him! I’m going to make him tell me the truth. I’ve got to go.”

Danny opened the front door and stepped inside the house.

Everything’s okay
, he reassured himself.
Uncle Tom will still be at work. Mum and Gina will be home soon. I’ll just play Xbox until they get back.

As he swung the door shut, a man lunged from behind it, slapping his hand across the boy’s mouth. Danny’s eyes were huge with shock.

“Shush now,” Mr. Sissouma told him. “The last thing I want to do is to hurt you.”

The port police were quickly informed about the suspect: a seventeen-year-old called Declan Doyle, who worked in Cotter’s cocoa warehouse. He’d been seen running into the port area only minutes before.

They checked on their database for his security ID and a photo of his cheeky, smiling face appeared on the screen. It wasn’t long before they spotted him on their bank of CCTV screens. They put a call out – the suspect was heading for the warehouse.

Declan thought he’d slipped into the warehouse unseen. The sliding doors were fully open and his workmates were too busy loading up a truck to notice him. He disappeared down an aisle and secreted himself amongst the sacks, but less than a minute later he heard a kerfuffle, as a mixture of security guards and police arrived at the entrance, demanding to search the building.

Kylie tottered out of the office.

“What’s this about, fellas?” she asked.

“An employee here, Declan Doyle. He’s resisted arrest. He’s been seen running into the warehouse. We need to look for him,” one of the officers said.

“What’s he meant to have done?” Kyle asked, shocked.

“He obstructed a police officer.”

“Oh, is that all,” Kylie said, raising an eyebrow. “He’s hardly on the Most Wanted List, then.”

“This is serious. We don’t need your permission to search the premises,” the police officer said, walking past Kylie and her workmates.

Kylie hurried back into the office to call Tom.

He needs to know what’s happening
, she thought. However, Tom was far too busy to answer his phone.

Declan quickly shifted the sacks around him to make a hiding space. He held his breath as footsteps echoed down the aisle. They stopped in front of him. He cringed as he noticed his trainer was sticking out between the sacks. He inched it out of sight, but he was too late.

The cry went up, “Over here! Aisle Six.”

Declan kicked the sacks at the policeman and scrambled into the aisle. He started to run but was met by a blockade of uniformed men. He turned to try the other way but now both ends were covered. They stampeded towards him. He spotted the rolling ladder attached to the shelves and realized that the only way was up! He climbed to the top like a demented monkey and stepped off, onto the highest shelf. Looking down, he saw that two of the officers were already on their way up.

Declan ran along the top of the long, towering shelf. Puffs of cocoa dust burst into the air with every step, but his path of sacks was uneven and kept sliding dangerously beneath his feet. His pursuers were too nervous to look down. They followed him with slow, shuffling steps. There was no need to hurry, anyway. The boy had reached the very end of the shelving. Where could he possibly go from here?

“It’s the end of the line, son,” one of the officers called as he shuffled towards Declan. “So why don’t we all just get down from here before we break our bloody necks?”

Declan moved to one side of the shelf and started rocking on his feet like he was powering himself up.

“No way!” said the man in alarm. “Don’t be crazy. You could kill yourself!”

Declan ignored him, keeping his focus on the shelf on the next aisle and trying not to think of the two-metre gap between them and the twelve-metre drop below. He gritted his teeth and ran across the width of the shelf before leaping into the air. His outstretched arms slammed down on the shelf opposite. He dug his fingers into the stored sacks and tried to lever up his dangling body, but terror gripped him as he felt the sacks starting to slide. There were gasps from the ground below as he started to slip. Declan grabbed for the next sack along, like he was on the monkey bars in a playground. He prayed that it could take his weight as he started to haul himself up.

He felt like kissing those sacks of beans as he lay safely on top of them for a brief moment, but he had no time to waste; he was quickly up and running, locating the aisle’s rolling ladder. His pursuers suddenly lost sight of him as he slid down the ladder. They ran around to where he should have landed, but he was gone.

Kylie had been craning her neck, watching Declan’s escape attempt with her heart in her mouth. She too had lost sight of him and went back to the office to try Tom again but, as she crossed her legs under her desk, they hit something.

“Aww,” Declan whimpered, as her stiletto dug into his ribs.

She looked under the desk, her mouth open.

“Declan,” she hissed.

“Ssshh.” He put his finger to his lips, breathing heavily.

“Hello, officer!” Kylie suddenly announced. “Have you lost him?” Declan curled up in a ball. Kylie’s long legs pressed against him.

“Don’t worry. He can’t stay hidden for ever,” the officer said confidently. “He’s a mad lad though, isn’t he – did you see that jump?”

“Yeah, and he’s probably legged it out of the warehouse by now. You won’t mind if I don’t see you out? We’re trying to get the deliveries sorted.”

“We’ll go when we’re good and ready,” the policeman said gruffly.

Clare sighed with relief as she walked into her hallway. She was looking forward to a relaxing night in. She half hoped that Tom wouldn’t visit tonight. She wanted to spend some time on her own with the kids. She put her bag on the table and spotted her mobile.

“There it is.” She tutted to herself. “I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on.”

But a sense of unease descended on her. The house seemed far too quiet, no TV, no music, no footsteps from upstairs.

They can’t be doing their homework!
Clare thought incredulously.

She called out, “Gina! Danny! How was school? I’ve brought home a steak pie. I hope you two haven’t been eating loads of biscuits, you’ll spoil your tea.”

The sight of Mr. Sissouma and Mr. Egon emerging from her living room made Clare jump.

“Who are you?”

“Please don’t be alarmed,” Mr. Sissouma said. “We are business associates of Tom Cotter’s.” Mr. Egon gave a sharp bow and a sickly smile.

“Mr. Cotter had to leave on an urgent matter and asked us to wait here. He shouldn’t be long. He’s told us that you wouldn’t mind. He said that you were a most hospitable lady.”

“Where are my children?” she asked anxiously.

“Gina is out, I believe, and your delightful son is in here.”

The men ushered her into the living room where she found a drained-looking Danny on the sofa.

“What’s happened, Danny?” Clare asked in alarm as she saw the destroyed tank.

Danny remained silent.

“A little accident,” Sissouma reassured her.

Clare turned and headed for the hall.

“Where are you going, Mrs. Wilson?”

“I’m going to phone Tom. Find out what this is about,” she said firmly.

“It’s not a good time to phone him. He’s busy.”

“Please don’t tell me what to do. In fact I think it’s best that you and your colleague wait somewhere else for Tom. Why don’t you go to his warehouse?” She gestured to the door.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wilson. I’m afraid I must insist we stay here until Tom returns.”

“And I must insist you leave. I’m busy. This isn’t a good time.”

Mr. Sissouma snatched her mobile from the table and put it into his jacket pocket. “There will be no phone calls. Please sit down quietly with your son. He needs his mother to set a good example. Once Mr. Cotter returns everything will be all right.”

She watched as Tom, bent double and panting, wiped the green scum from his face and hair.

“For God’s sake, Gina, why have you brought me here?”

“You know what happened here, don’t you?” she said, keeping her distance from him.

“Of course I do. This is where your dad killed himself.”

“Have you been here before?”

“No.”

“Didn’t you want to see where your friend died?”

Tom shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. “No, I made the decision not to. It would have been too painful and I was right. Listen, Gina, just give me the diamonds and we can go home.”

“No, not yet.” She looked up at the blackening sky. “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?”

“Yeah and this isn’t a good place to be in the dark.”

“We’ll be okay. The street lamps will come on in a minute,” she said, nodding towards the rows of lights down the cobbled street.

“No they won’t, none of them work,” he said. “We’ll be standing here in the pitch-black soon, if we don’t sort this out.”

Gina struggled to remain calm but she could feel herself beginning to tremble. “How do you know that if you’ve never been here before?”

“What? Well…I don’t know… It was just an educated guess. Look at the state of the street; full of boarded-up houses, it’s unlikely the street lights would still be working.”

“You don’t have to guess, do you, Uncle Tom,” she spat, “because you were here that night, weren’t you?”

Tom threw his arms up. “What the hell are you talking about? I spent that night in a hotel in Glasgow. I was on business up there. You were so traumatized I don’t expect you to remember. I didn’t come home until your mum phoned me in the early hours of the next morning – I drove back at a hundred miles an hour all the way, to be with you all.”

“Liar!” Gina bawled. “You weren’t in Glasgow. Your own business expenses don’t show any payment for a hotel that night.”

For a second he was speechless; then he went on the attack. “Have you been looking at my business expenses? You’re obsessed, Gina. Did it ever cross your mind that I may just have forgotten to claim for it?”

“Really! Well, now that these diamonds have turned up, I’m sure that the police will be interested in checking the hotel’s records – then we’ll know whether you stayed there that night.”

Tom’s demeanour changed; he puffed his chest out and sneered at her. “Are you
really
saying that I was on this bridge that night? Did you see me then, Gina? Strange how you haven’t mentioned this before.”

Gina started to back away from him and towards the cluster of bushes and trees at the side of the bridge. She opened her school bag, pulling out the bottle of aftershave.

Tom watched open-mouthed as she started to sprinkle drops of the perfume into the greenery.

“What the hell are you doing with my aftershave?” he demanded.

“I’m just trying to jog your memory. It sounds like you’ve forgotten that you were hiding in those bushes. When I ran to the bridge that night, looking for Dad, I came over here and there was a smell, an expensive, exotic smell that, even in my panic, I realized was odd – out of place. The smell lodged itself somewhere in my memory until you brought this bottle back from Paris. As soon as I smelled that scent again I could see myself standing right here, in this spot, on that night.”

“This is ridiculous!” he bellowed. “You’re mad! Clare should have dragged you back to that psychiatrist, instead of letting you get worse and worse. I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut. The police have got better things to do than to follow up the crazed rantings of a teenager who can’t accept her father’s suicide. Be careful, Gina. The doctors will put you on so much medication that you won’t even know what day of the week it is. I was in Glasgow that night, everyone knows that!”

“Everyone knows what
you
told them,” she shouted. “No one had any reason to doubt you. But you didn’t stay the night in a hotel, you came back here, to this bridge, to meet my dad! It was about the diamonds, wasn’t it?”

“Enough!” He powered towards her, pinning her against the wall of the bridge. He ripped the bag from her shoulder and over her head. Throwing it open, he emptied the contents onto the ground, then rifled through the textbooks and exercise books, her PE kit and lunchbox. He searched the bag again and found her phone in a side pocket, but no stones.

“Where are they?” he snarled in her face, his perfect white teeth bared like a dog poised to attack.

She shrugged defiantly. He started to frisk her, his hands sliding over her body.

“Get off me,” she screamed, swiping her nails across his face.

He recoiled. His bitten hand flew to his stinging cheek. His frame trembled with rage but he was desperate to appear in control.

He held out his hand. “Give them to me. I need them, Gina…
we
need them. Have you any idea what kind of man Sissouma is? And the person he works for? Don’t mess with these people. They’re dangerous.”

“I know all about you and your warlord and your blood diamonds,” she said in disgust. “You help smuggle a murderer’s diamonds in the sacks of cocoa beans, you get them out and pass them on to an illegal cutter.”

“Where did you get that story from? Not Declan Doyle by any chance?”

Her eyes dived to the ground, betraying the answer.

“How does he know all this? Who’s he working for?” Tom asked.

Confusion spread across Gina’s face.
How
does
Declan know so much? Why didn’t he tell me who he phoned?

Tom leaped on her doubt. “It seems that your friend Declan has been keeping you in the dark. Maybe he’s not really your friend at all. Maybe he’s been using you to find out about me. Weren’t you the one who recommended that I take him on in the warehouse? Did he ask you to get him a job with me?”

Her body felt suddenly hot and clammy as the truth dawned on her.

“Oh, poor Gina,” Tom said mockingly. “You’ve been taken for a ride.”

She bit her lip, holding back the urge to burst into tears.