Facing Justice (2 page)

His beaten, befuddled brain then realized where he'd been dragged to and dumped, and what the building was, or used to be.

He waited, listened for a few seconds, hearing nothing but the crash of his heartbeat. All he could feel now, even above the pain that wracked his injured body, was complete and utter fear.

He moved away from the building, limping, dragging himself along, knowing he had no time at all to worry about his wounds, what might be broken, damaged or bruised. Somehow he had to get away from this place. He forced himself to walk as quickly as he could across the barren, rocky ground, stumbling but managing to stay upright. He scrambled up an incline to the top of a mound of earth and stood squinting across a vast, open expanse in front of him, a huge black hole on the face of the world. But he did not pause for long. He moved on, hoping he had regained consciousness sooner than they thought he would.

He caught his foot, stumbled, fell, smacked down on to his sore knees, jarring his whole being. He cried out involuntarily and tried to muffle the noise, turning it from a scream of agony into a moan. But a noise nevertheless.

Then he was on his feet again, half sliding down a rubble-strewn slope and skidding into a wheel rut, cut deep into the clay.

Which way?

He started to follow the ruts, hoping there was some logic to this plan. Surely they would lead somewhere.

Once more he kicked a big stone and lurched. His body jarred and the broken rib touched his lung again, making him hiss with pain. He crumbled to the ground, waiting for the pain to ebb. Slowly it receded. He took a few more seconds for complete recovery.

Then, somewhere behind him, a slight scuffing sound. And another noise to accompany this: a rough, sawing cough.

The fear he felt intensified.

He rose slowly to his full height. Turned and looked into the darkness behind him. All his senses prickled. He was ready to flee.

Now he recalled what the man had said about his knees: ‘Don't break 'em. He needs to be able to run.' Run! That was the word and Massey now knew why his knees hadn't been smashed and broken. It was always the intention that he would wake up. That he would live through the beating, as savage as it was. Intended that he had some ability to run, or at least hobble, on two feet. So he could take part in a dangerous race for his life.

He could not see or hear anything now. ‘So it's true,' he said to himself. Then shouted, ‘Come on you bastard,' into the dark.

And then he remembered that other thing. The stench. Now he placed it and he knew what was out there in the dark just beyond the periphery of his vision.

The moon had been covered by cloud which now peeled away and cast light across the rutted ground.

There were two short coughs.

Massey spun. He had been looking in the wrong direction. For a moment he was fixed to the spot, anchored by injury and terror, paralysed. Then he moved, but too late. His ankle twisted in a tyre rut, he screamed and went down. The last thing he saw were the two almond-shaped eyes reflecting silver in the moonlight.

TWO

F
lynn immediately didn't like the guy. Smelled the stale alcohol on his breath, instinctively knew there would be trouble to come.

Had times been less harsh economically, Flynn would have told him the boat was fully booked and pointed him in the direction of one of the other charter fishing boats moored along the quay. But any charter is a good charter, Flynn's boss had told him, especially in this day and age. The fishing business had gone pretty limp over the last few months and there had been a rumour about mothballing some of the boats next month – January – if things didn't pick up. That meant no income from fishing and, for Flynn, a long, unpleasant spell as a doorman at one of his boss's clubs up in Puerto Rico's Commercial Centre.

So, quoting a vastly inflated price for the day that did not even cause the man to bat an eyelid, and separating him from 800 euros, Flynn said, please step aboard, sir. The only good side of it was that trailing behind the guy like a petulant teenager was his scantily clad lady friend, who looked as though she would rather be anywhere else in the world than climbing aboard a sportfishing boat in Gran Canaria. Her continually rolling eyeballs and accompanying body language told their own sorry story.

Flynn introduced the customer to Jose, his Spanish crewman, who extended his bear-paw of a hand to be shaken and was completely ignored by the man. Jose, undaunted, maintained his professional attitude and kept his broad grin in place as he withdrew his hand and redirected his attention to the even less receptive girlfriend.

She teetered up the gangplank on to the deck, losing one of her flip-flops into the water, and demanded, ‘I want to be inside, I want food and booze . . . ugh, I feel sick already.'

‘Your wish is my command,' Jose said and ushered her into the stateroom, passing within earshot of Flynn, mouthing a Spanish obscenity to him.

‘Nah then, mate,' the customer said to Flynn, who hooked the floating flip-flop out of the water with a gaff, ‘I'm told you're the best skip in the Canaries. Let's see, shall we?' He rubbed his hands and raised his face challengingly. ‘If I don't come back having caught a blue marlin, I'll be really pissed off.'

‘The marlin run ended late September,' Flynn told him. ‘Won't be much chance of catching one, I'm afraid.'

‘So what will we catch?'

‘Maybe nothing, but there's plenty of thornbacks, stingrays and congers out there. Maybe lock into a shoal of tuna if we're lucky. Shark are always out there, too.'

‘Don't want luck to be a part of it. You got fish finding equipment, haven't you? Sonar, y'know?'

‘The most sophisticated and up to date,' Flynn confirmed. ‘But even that doesn't guarantee fish.'

‘Good job I know my stuff then, isn't it?'

‘You're an experienced sport fisher?' Flynn asked as though he was interested.

‘Oh yeah.'

Flynn waited, but there was no elaboration. ‘I'll do my very best for you, then,' he assured the customer and began to prepare the boat – named
Faye 2
– for the day ahead.

The fishing turned out to be pretty good. No great monsters of the deep, but a fine array of specimens including a very meaty red snapper that Flynn kept and gutted, and would be his supper that night. The customer, whose name turned out to be Hugo, was kept reasonably happy and busy, though none of his claimed skills were either evident or tested much.

It was a different matter for his girlfriend, Janey. As the charter went on, she became progressively more seasick until she was begging Hugo to have the boat turned back to dry land. She had gone the colour of the decks, pure white, from an original golden brown tan, had spent some time with her head down the chemical toilet and even more hanging pathetically over the side of the boat, all sense of modesty having vanished as she hollered dreadfully at the sea gods.

Eventually she could bear it no longer. She dragged herself across the deck like a wounded animal to Hugo. He was strapped regally into the fighting chair with a rod rising majestically from his lower belly area. She begged him to end her misery.

Flynn watched the exchange from his lofty position in the flying bridge. It ended with Hugo roughly pushing Janey away. She fell flat on her backside and looked up appealingly at Flynn, as did Jose whose expression was a dark scowl of anger. Flynn sighed and slid down the ladder on to the deck. He helped Janey to her feet and back into the stateroom where she flopped on to the sofa and closed her eyes, gulping.

Then he spun back on to the deck and approached Hugo, who was still in the fighting chair.

‘That's the end of the charter, sir,' Flynn told him.

Hugo's good-looking face turned towards him. ‘Why would that be?'

‘You want me to spell it out?'

‘I think you'd better.'

‘I don't tolerate your sort of behaviour on board.'

‘What sort of behaviour is that?'

Flynn's chest tightened. He gestured to Jose. ‘Bring in the rods, we're heading back.'

Jose nodded and grabbed one of the outriggers.

‘I paid good money for this charter,' Hugo whined.

‘You can have it back, less what it's cost so far.'

‘Does that include this?' On his last word, Hugo pulled the rod butt out of the gimbal that was fixed to the leather pad worn around his waist and jettisoned the rod, reel and line out of his hands and into the churning sea behind the boat.

Flynn's mouth drooped in astonishment. Words began to form on his twisted lips, but before he could say anything, Hugo rose from the fighting chair, elbowed past him and stomped into the stateroom. Still not having said anything, Flynn watched him, utterly dumbfounded by his action.

Jose had witnessed the whole thing. He said, ‘He threw that into the sea deliberately,' his Spanish tongue struggling slightly on the last word.

‘I know,' Flynn said, turning desperately to the water to see if the rod was still there. It had disappeared instantly. Flynn's expression changed to anger and he took one step towards the entrance to the stateroom. Jose saw the alteration on Flynn's face – something he had seen too often recently, and invariably it meant trouble – and stepped in front of him, holding up one of his big hands.

‘No boss,
nada stupido
.'

‘I'm gonna launch that son of a—'

‘NO,' Jose said firmly, looking into Flynn's eyes, holding his gaze.

Flynn ground his teeth, did a mental back-count from ten and took a deep breath. ‘I'm OK.'

He went into the cockpit and grabbed the radio handset, pressed the transmit button, thinking he would call the coastguard and have them get the police to await their arrival back at port. Then he decided on a different approach. He ducked into the stateroom where a still sick Janey was laid out dramatically on the couch, eyes closed, a forearm covering her eyes. Hugo lounged in a chair, legs splayed, a bottle of San Miguel resting on his stomach. He glowered belligerently at Flynn.

‘That gear's worth fifteen hundred euros.'

‘And?' Hugo shrugged. ‘Accident. Claim on the insurance.'

‘Listen, bud, when we get back it can go one way or the other. First way, we go along to our quayside kiosk, you present your credit card and pay up. Second way – my preferred way – cops're waiting for you.'

‘On what charge?'

‘Criminal damage. Whatever way – no refund.'

‘Do what you want.'

‘Oh, just pay him,' Janey piped up from her sick bed. ‘This whole holiday sucks.'

‘Tell you what, Hugo, I'll have the cops waiting either way, eh?'

Hugo took a long, noisy draw from the bottle and scowled at Flynn. People seem to do that a lot, Flynn thought: glare at me.

‘You're a big, hard man, aren't you, Mr Flynn?'

Flynn shook his head and sighed. He pivoted away, could not be bothered. ‘Cops it is,' he murmured – but loud enough for Hugo to hear.

What he didn't expect was for Hugo to jump him.

Flynn patted Hugo's cheeks. ‘C'mon, c'mon, wakey, wakey.'

Hugo had been placed in the recovery position – after Flynn had roared like a bear and thrown Hugo over his shoulder – and that was as long as the fight had lasted. Hugo smashed the back of his head on the corner of the door frame as he landed awkwardly and was knocked out instantly. Flynn had looked down at him in disbelief.

‘The stupid . . .'

‘Oh, what have you done?' Jose demanded, seeing the towering, muscled frame of Flynn standing over the unmoving body. Of a customer.

Flynn looked at him pointedly.

‘He didn't do a thing,' Janey piped up despondently. ‘Hugo went for him. He's like that, only he usually wins.' She propped herself up on one elbow, no colour whatsoever in her complexion.

Flynn gasped in exasperation and bent over to check Hugo's vital signs, which were fine. Even so, he hadn't recovered full consciousness by the time Flynn edged
Faye 2
back into her berth in the marina at Puerto Rico half an hour later. An ambulance was waiting on the quayside, as was Adam Castle, Flynn's boss and owner of the boat, as well as other boats and businesses. Castle slid the gangplank across to the stern and stood aside as two paramedics trotted aboard to tend to Hugo. Castle waited on the quayside, a stony, serious expression on his face.

Flynn briefed the medics and they carted a groggy, cross-eyed Hugo off into the ambulance.

Janey, having miraculously recovered from seasickness simply by standing on terra firma, made no attempt to join Hugo in the ambulance. She looked fine now.

‘You not going with him?' Flynn asked.

‘I don't think so. I'll catch up with him later.' She produced a wallet from the back pocket of her minute shorts. ‘I'll pay for the fishing tackle. Hugo's credit card's in here and I know the PIN.'

‘Thanks,' Flynn said.

The ambulance pulled away and Janey started to walk towards the booking kiosk, but paused, turned and looked meaningfully over her shoulder at Flynn. ‘If you're interested . . . I'll be in the Irish bar in the Commercial Centre at eight tonight.'

‘What about Hugo?'

‘He won't be there, whatever.' She smiled. All her colour had returned and she was a completely different character to the one Flynn had been introduced to originally. ‘Your choice, Flynn. One thing though – try not to bump into Hugo again. He bears grudges.'

He nodded graciously and then Adam Castle stepped into his line of sight. ‘Words,' his boss said. ‘Now.'

Castle led Flynn along the quayside, saying a great deal with just his body language. Flynn, big man that he was, followed meekly and they went all the way around the harbour into one of the first-floor cafés in the mini commercial centre overlooking the marina. Flynn sat glumly whilst Castle ordered a couple of Cruzcampos and set the chilled beers down on the table.