The Magpie Trap: A Novel (44 page)

Hunter shook his head, trying to reopen the e-mail to show her.
Frustrated, he picked up the glass of rum and coke and lifted it to his lips.

‘I’m sorry Jim,’ said Ruth, quickly. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but I
know that you’ll be able to tell. I got Diet Coke instead of Coke; I know that
you hate Diet Coke.’

Jim slammed the glass down and shouted back at her, making her jump
backwards. ‘That’s exactly what the Dodo said! He told me that just before you
came into the room. There’s a camera in here…’

Ruth spotted it straight away; a red light was just about discernable, right
there, in the middle of a statue of a Dodo which was propping open the
door.
 

They talked as
they walked; Jim filling her in on the e-mail conversation and the trail of
Dodos that they were supposed to follow in order to find their contact’s house.
This time, for once, Jim’s attention to detail proved to be the key element in
solving the riddle. They had passed a tall whitewashed wall and Jim had been
alerted to some graffiti which was almost hidden by some weeds growing at the
bottom. He had the policeman’s eye for spotting things which were out of the
ordinary, and this was the first example of graffiti that he’d seen in
Mauritius. He bent down to inspect the drawing, and saw that it was the black
spray-painted caricature of a Dodo; the exact replica of the one on the
business card which they’d found in the café.

Once Ruth knew the game, she became an expert very quickly. Soon, she’d
identified the second and third Dodo symbols; one on a high kerbstone, and the
second on a large metal bin. Hunter could barely keep up with her now; she was
on a roll, loving every minute of it. He saw her crouch down by a lamp-post,
and then turn and give him the thumbs-up. She was almost dancing her way
through the streets now, sashaying from one side of the road to the other, keen
eyes surveying every gate, every trellis, and every garden wall. Hunter saw
that they had turned into a wide avenue of imposing, white colonial houses.

Suddenly, all of the cars in the driveways were Rolls Royce or Jaguar.
He wasn’t usually one to take notice of cars, but his attention was drawn to
the low-slung two-seater which was in the driveway of one particular house. It
was identical to that belonging to Steve Elton back in Morley. Ruth came to
stand by his side as he stared at it.

‘I’m sorry Jim,’ she said, ‘I seem to have lost the trail. I’ve walked
right to the end of this street, and there’s no more Dodos, I’m sure of it.’

But Jim was still staring at the racing car; instead of the usual silver
lady on the back, the badge in this case was a small, black Dodo.

As Jim and Ruth
approached the palatial entrance-way to the house, a small, wispily bearded man
came out to greet them.

‘Ah Mr. Hunter, I’ve been expecting you. Do come in,’ he said, waving
his hand towards the open front door.

‘How do you know my name? Have you been watching us? Are you the Dodo?’
The questions streamed from Jim like a river which had broken its dam.

‘One thing at a time, Mr. Hunter,’ said the small man, shepherding them
towards his front room. ‘I think you need to see something.’

He led them into the darkened front room, and as Jim’s eyes grew
accustomed to the gloom, he saw a massive wall of monitors; it was bigger even
than that of the
MMC
at Edison’s
Printers. The small man smiled, and patted Hunter on the arm.

‘Yes, Mr. Hunter, I can confirm that I am the Dodo. Now, how can I help
you?’

Although he was expected to respond, Jim was staring speechlessly at the
images on the monitors; he saw the grainy image of the hotel’s computer room,
and then, next to it, an image of the bar. On another screen was an image of a
much plusher hotel room which had a fantastic tapestry hanging on one of the
walls.

‘That’s the Midas Hotel,’ Ruth almost shouted, pointing at the same
image which Jim had been looking at. ‘How do you get all of these pictures?’

The Dodo smiled, ‘I am a computer engineer, Dr. Sharp. I get access to
all of these places through my job. But I like to see what goes on behind
closed doors in my country. There are some people here who are intent upon bringing
ruin upon our wonderful land, and I am intent upon stopping them.’

‘But why have you been watching us?’ Jim had finally recovered the power
of speech. ‘How do you know our names?’

‘Ah, well, I know quite a lot of things about you, about both of you. I’ve
been waiting for you to arrive ever since the raid on Edison’s Printers. As
soon as I learned about the theft of so many Mauritian rupees - and your
precious Precisioner printer - I knew that our paths would cross. Do you know
what damage the influx of all of that money would have on our economy?’

Hunter shook his head.

‘We’d get sudden inflation… so many people would be made poor. I cannot
let this happen. I watched the raid on Edison’s Printers. I saw that you were
not to blame, Mr. Hunter. I always try to hack into the Edison’s network, but
I’ve never managed to do so. That one night, I suddenly got in; because they
set up a dummy network, it was easy to hack into. I saw the group of men make
their escape. I waited for them to arrive in Mauritius as I knew they would.
And then they arrived here a couple of days ago. But you were not here. Alone,
I cannot stop them, but with your help, we can. I have arranged a meeting with
them in two days’ time. You must come with me.’

Jim felt as though he was going to faint; had this man been manipulating
him ever since the heist, dragging him further and further into the knot of the
plot, forcing him to act? His head was spinning; was this man some kind of
crazed militant? Ruth voiced similar fears.

‘You talk about stopping them, Mr. Dodo. How do you intend to do that?’

A crafty smile crept onto the small man’s face, his beady eyes narrowed
to tight slits. ‘You think I intend to make them extinct? Well, that remains to
be seen. At this stage, what I want to do is to punish them for their actions.’

Hunter had to regain control of a situation which was rapidly becoming a
nightmare.

‘I say that we get the police involved. It’s the only way,’ he said.

But the Dodo cut him short with an abruptness which was almost savage in
its intensity.

‘The police, you say? The British police? The very police that are right
now eating their doughnuts, watching completely the wrong gang, in the
erroneous hope that at some point they’ll be led straight to the Precisioner?
Do not insult my intelligence, Mr. Hunter. They would come here and trample
over everything, like elephants. We will solve this ourselves. After all, why
else have you come here on your own? You are not a policeman.’

‘That’s right, Jim,’ said Ruth, rounding on him. ‘What the hell are you
planning to do once they do walk into the trap?’

The Hotel Vasco
Da Gama

Danny was
becoming a little more amicable towards Chris as they travelled towards the
north coast of the island in a battered red hire car; at least the end was in
sight now. They would finally meet the elusive
Mr. Ramnawaz; the Dodo. Once they had finished their dealings, completed
their transaction, they would be able to go wherever they wanted. Maybe the
freedom that would afford them would allow them to resume their friendship away
from all of the mistrust and doubt…

But Danny still had reservations about the
imagined future. If they did manage to get the Precisioner working - their
licence to print money - it would continue to act as a temptation to both of
them; a temptation to be stolen and enjoyed as a lone pursuit. Maybe they’d
have to set up some kind of security measure in order to take away this
temptation; something like hiding the Precisioner somewhere which could only be
accessed by both of them at the same time. Maybe they could put it in a
security box in a Swiss Bank; a security box which needed two keys to be turned
at the same time.... or maybe somewhere where they both had to sign-in.

We’re
going to have to set up our very own Fort Knox
just to keep ourselves out,
Danny
thought;
oh the bitter irony
.

Chris’s face was set in stern concentration
behind the wheel.

Maybe
he’s having the same thoughts
, Danny reflected.
Or maybe he’s planning something else…

Danny tried to stop the express train of
thoughts in his head.

‘Nearly there, cocker; do you reckon he’ll
have heard about you roughing up his gardener?’

‘Fuck off Danny,’ Chris laughed, easing the
tension a little. ‘We probably did him a favour. He’ll think twice about hiring
dwarves in the future.... that guy could hardly even pick up a spade.’

‘Wasn’t much of a doorman either, was he?’
laughed Danny, joining in. ‘Can you imagine him working as a doorman in Leeds;
he’d get trampled underfoot in the rush to get into somewhere like Majestyk…
Can you imagine the headlines;
Dwarf
killed by Stray Stiletto
.’

 
          
‘There
it is,’ breathed Chris, wiping the laughter off Danny’s face. They had rounded
a tight bend in the road and saw, along the coast, the Hotel Vasco Da Gama.
Chris increased the pressure of his foot on the accelerator, drawing them ever
closer to their moment of destiny. From a distance it almost looked as though
the hotel was overgrown with palm trees.

As they pulled into the sandy car park, they realised that their initial
impression had been right. The hotel looked deserted; piles of rubble were all
over the place, fallen trees had crashed into the reception, the once-grand
sign was hanging by a single wire. Windows on the frontage were either smashed
or boarded up, and some of the side wall had collapsed into a heap of broken
bricks. There was only one other car in the car park; a large black
four-by-four which was rather like the taxi they’d taken from Port Louis
Airport what seemed like months ago.

‘Are you sure that this is the place?’ Danny
asked, nervously.

As if in answer to his query, his mobile phone
impatiently buzzed in his pocket. It was a text message, from a withheld
number. Danny read it aloud.

‘It says that we are in the right place. And
that only one of us should go to meet them by the pool.’

‘Sounds like the Dodo read our minds,’ Chris
commented. ‘Funny place to pick though…’

Returning his phone to his pocket, Danny felt
the straws tucked in there too.

‘We’ll have to draw for who goes, and who
stays with the bags…’

‘Well, whoever goes will have to take the
Precisioner…otherwise, how’s he going to fix it?’ Chris’s eyes narrowed
menacingly.

‘Fuck it. You pick,’ Danny fanned out the
straws and held them out to Chris. He could hardly breathe for the tension.
Chris slowly reached over and took a hold of the first straw, was about to pull
it out, and then he paused, and pulled the other - the long straw.

‘Looks like it’s me,’ Chris laughed. ‘See you
in a bit Danny; when I’m back, I’ll have the keys to the magical kingdom.’

With that, he swung open the car door and
stepped out. Haltingly, Danny passed him out the bag with the Precisioner in it
from the back seat. And then Chris was gone.

Jim Hunter and Ruth Sharp wordlessly packed their
bags at the hotel in Rose Hill where they’d never even spent a night. Jim knew
that Ruth was in shock at the chink in Jim’s rhinoceros hide which she’d seen
through; she’d seen right through to his core and his potential to do harm. She
had suddenly realised what Jim himself had not; that there was only one
possible outcome to his trip to Mauritius; death. The only thing still to be
decided was whose death it would be.

There was a soft knock
on the door of their shared room; Ruth went to answer it, still not looking at
Jim. A maid followed Ruth into the room, speaking French. Jim couldn’t
understand a word of it; all he could see was a lot of wild gesticulating, as
though they were conducting competing invisible orchestras. Finally the compact
woman left the room, shaking her head.

‘What was all that
about?’ said Jim, who’d taken a seat on his single-bed to watch the show.

‘Two things, Jim, and I
will only tell them to you if you promise that you won’t be involved in any
bloody violence. I’m sick of bloody violence…’

She took a seat next to
him and started crying.

‘What is it? Ruth, what
is it? What did that woman say to you?’ Jim was stroking her hair, trying to
coax some sort of explanation out of her. He’d never seen her lose her cool
before.

‘Don’t be fucking
stupid. I’m not crying because of that… I’m crying because of the situation! I
can’t believe I’m involved in something like this. Out of the frying pan and
into the fire,’ she sniffed, finally regaining control of her shaking.

‘What are you talking
about?’

‘Bloody men! Bloody men
and your stupid adventures; your stupid ideas of revenge; your violence. Adrian
hit me; you never knew that did you. He hit me because he was jealous about my
career. And do you know what? I felt guilty about it. I felt guilty because I
shouldn’t have been outstripping my husband. I shouldn’t have been running off
having affairs. You don’t believe it do you; how could the eminent doctor deign
to be hit? Well I bloody did; I threw myself into his fists. I wanted someone
to punish me… Now you’re punishing me, Jim, and I can’t take it any more…’

‘I promise there’ll be
no violence,’ pleaded Jim.

‘Can you not see?’ she
looked imploringly into his eyes. ‘Can you not see what you’re getting yourself
into with this Dodo-man? You are doing exactly what I used to do! You’re
punishing yourself for the fact that Callum Burr was in that coma and not you.
I can’t watch you kill yourself. I came here to keep an eye on you, but I’m not
strong enough…’

Jim again knew that her
knowledge of his desires, his motivations was so much better than his own. He
may have been good at reading other people, but he had never even dared to open
the book of himself.

‘I’m so sorry, Ruth,’
Jim muttered, realization of the suicidal nature of his plan again hitting
home. ‘Please; book yourself on the next flight out of here.’

‘Do you know? That’s
exactly what that woman told me. She said that she saw the desperation in your
eyes… She also told me…’ Ruth paused, as though deciding whether to tell Jim
what she knew or not, ‘… she also told me that she did see another set of
English people at the other hotel she works at. She told me that she saw the
same look in their eyes. And Jim… there were only two of them, not three. What
if they’ve killed the third member of their gang? What if that’s just another
one in their spree of violence? What if you’re next? Come with me Jim. Come
home with me… I’ve left Adrian now. We can be together. But only if you come
now…’

Hunter hung his head in
shame; he knew that he would stay. He had to see things through. He knew that
he was on course for a Wild West shootout and that there was a very high
possibility that he might die. Pride was setting him up for the greatest of
falls.

He heard the door slam
behind Ruth as she walked away from him. She walked out of his life for the
second time.

Then, leaving enough
time for her to call a taxi, he followed her out of the room and set off for
the Dodo’s house. He had a different path to tread. It was a path full of trepidation
and danger, and at its end lay the confrontation he needed in order to purge
his soul of the evil he felt.

Danny tried to fiddle with the dial on the radio,
trying to pick out something which was not just static. He rooted through his
pockets to find a cigarette to smoke to ease his rising sense of panic, but
found that he had none. Then, his fingers closed around the straws again. He
pulled them out of his pocket and took another, closer look at them, slowly
turning them over in his hands.

Looking more
attentively, he realised that a small cut had been made near to the top of the
longest straw…

Maybe it’s simply been squashed in your pocket, or
maybe… Maybe it’s a fix! Chris has duped you!

The sudden
realisation
washed
over Danny like a wave. Chris had run off with the Precisioner!

One thought ploughed
through his mind, clouding his vision:
Chris
is shitting on me, just like we did to Mark. There’s no
honour
amongst thieves.

He raced out of the car
door, not even pausing to slam it shut. He careered through the dilapidated
reception area, leaping over fallen racks of postcards and upended chairs. He
flew past the ransacked guest rooms on the ground floor and the Mary Celeste
dining area. He ran out of another set of doors which led to the pool area, and
saw, as he had expected, that it was empty. The pool had long since stagnated,
and there was the rusting remains of a scooter bobbing about on the surface,
its petrol congealing around it like blood.

Where is he? How has he got away? Is he in this
with the Dodo?

Danny’s paranoia was
reaching new heights. He plunged onwards, past broken-down outbuildings, a
disused shower area. Gradually the thick carpet of lush grass began to turn
into sand; he was heading for the beach. Desperation clung to him like a
well-worn coat; he frantically turned to look back at the hotel.

Where the fuck are they?

Danny could smell the
salty tang of the sea as his legs pumped him onwards and through the cover of
trees onto the vast expanse of dazzling white sand. The fiery sun played tricks
with his eyes; he had to adjust his settings to cope with the overwhelming
intensity of the light after the sweaty darkness of the palm grove.

Was that a small boat
that he could see? Danny had to shield his eyes with his hand to try and
discern what it was. He ran closer; seeing the flickering illusion turn into
solid form. And then he saw it.

There was a long,
wooden jetty which promenaded out into the sea; a fishing boat was moored to
one of the struts. The shadow of a small figure was moving quickly between the
jetty and the boat, loading what looked like petrol tanks and canvas bags onto
the back of the boat by the engine, which was gently chugging in readiness. At
the beach-end of the jetty was a small solidly-built timber hut, it had
probably been used as some sort of water sports centre for hotel residents when
the hotel had been in operation. Within the hut, Chris Parker was sitting
comfortably, as though waiting for a bus, or maybe a boat, to carry him away.
He was sitting with the Precisioner on the table in front of him, as though he
had no care in the world.

Danny started running
again; full pelt. The adrenalin in his blood was making him crazy; all he
wanted to do was smash Chris in the face. He wanted to keep punching him until
that smirk was wiped off his fake-tanned face. Chris had tried to double-cross
him. He’d been made to look a fool; like the man who’s watched someone
disappear into a puff of smoke on stage, and is left standing there, scratching
his head, wondering:
how did they do that
?
 

Danny ran into the hut
with a barbaric yell and crashed through the table and into Chris, knocking the
Precisioner onto the floor. He had Chris by the throat and was yelling
unintelligible nonsense into his face; all of the pent-up rage and pain at his
lost life, at losing Cheryl was in that roar.

He never noticed that
as he had crashed into the table, he’d sprung the trap. From the straw roof of
the hut, a row of metal bars crashed down, blocking the only entry and exit
route. He was only stopped from killing his old friend by the tears which were
clouding his vision. And then he heard a noise behind him.

Mid-punch, Danny turned
around, and the full horror of the situation dawned on him. Through the steel
bars of their cage, he saw two faces staring at him, as though they were
watching animals in the zoo. Danny’s arm dropped meekly to his side and he fell
backwards off Chris’s prone body. Through his crushed and broken mouth Chris
was mumbling something: