The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (11 page)

H
ans
raced back to the jeep. He needed to speak to the Fulani, figuring the Mercedes
tailing him and Alvarez’s impromptu disappearance had something to do with her inquiries,
desperate to hear if she had information on Jessica’s whereabouts. He brought Djenabou’s
address up on the satnav and drove toward her home, aided by B. A. Baracus’ dulcet
tones.

As a precaution, Hans parked two streets from the woman’s
building, changed into his lighter-colored clothes and shoved the Beretta into
his waistband.

He keyed the radio: “Penny.”

“Hans, are you okay?”

“Fine, but Alvarez took off, and I had someone on my tail.”

“Oh God.”

“Listen, I’m going to see the Fulani. I want you to call
down to the front desk and tell them under no circumstances to give out your
room number or let anyone up to the suite. Tell them to say you’re out and to
take a message. Don’t answer the door to anyone, and turn off the lights as a
precaution. I should be back within the hour.”

Hans slid the jimmy inside his jeans, where it hung
conveniently by its hook. Rather than approach the front entrance, he made his
way down the back alley, knowing Djenabou lived in the fourth building from the
end of the block.

A battered wooden fence ran either side of the alley. Hans took
out the jimmy, prized off a couple of slats and squeezed through into the
building’s backyard.

A dog barked a couple of doors down, setting chickens off in
someone’s henhouse. Hans ignored the raucous birds, scooting across the dirt
and climbing onto the roof of a shed to get to Djenabou’s window. Her drapes
were drawn, but no light shone through them, giving Hans cause to worry. Djenabou
would have long since finished her shift at the fish factory and knew Hans was
coming to the apartment.

The sash lock was across, so Hans put on his gloves, inserted
his knife through the gap and knocked the small brass lever off the locking
plate. He held back the drapes and hopped inside.

The coppery smell of blood told him the Fulani was dead.

In the beam of the Maglite, Hans saw she lay on her front,
with an arm stretching toward one of the room’s cracked plaster walls. He secured
the drapes and stepped over her lifeless figure to flick the light switch.

Whoever committed the murder had clicked shut the padlock on
the outside of the door. Hans rammed a chair under the interior handle for
added security.

He rolled Djenabou over to find her throat cut and the front
of her kaftan drenched in blood – the work of an amateur or a sadistic
individual who enjoyed watching their victims suffer, as, judging by the
hideous red sprays from floor to ceiling, her death had been a slow one. Yet
the Fulani had refused to die in vain, for written on the wall in sticky dark
blood was a name.

Logan?
Hans pondered, then squinted at the squiggle-like
mark. It looked like the letter
w
or an animal claw, or perhaps it
represented something else altogether. He put his cell phone to use once again,
taking several snaps of Djenabou’s desperate last message and capturing a slow
sweep of the room on video.

On the table were two glasses and the bottle of bitter
spirit Hans had shared with the African the previous night, giving him the
impression she must have known her assailant or that his approach had been
friendly. Holding the glasses up to the light, Hans was relieved to see both
had fingerprints on them. He found a plastic carrier bag in the Fulani’s
kitchen space and placed them inside and then, using a third, smaller glass,
took an imprint of the woman’s bloody dabs for later comparison.

After a last check all around, Hans used a rag from Djenabou’s
dishwashing bowl to wipe the lettering off the wall. He took the photograph of little
Binda from the dresser and placed it in her mother’s hand. Then, after pausing
to give a moment of respect for this courageous woman, Hans turned off the
light and left the way he had entered.

A
waking
on the cold stone floor, Jessica had a pounding headache, and her thirst raged.
The last time she felt like this was when she drank mojito with Marcel, the
kind Dutch sailor they had met on the yacht trip. Her papa did say it would
make her sick as a pig, but she’d gone ahead and downed a glass anyway. She
knew this feeling was something to do with the pill the Mouthwash Man gave her.
She’d named him Mouthwash Man because his breath smelled like mouthwash, the
same smell as the stuff that her papa defrosted the car windshield with in
winter.

Jessica dipped the beaker into the bucket and gulped the
water down, then refilled it and drank another. As she satiated her thirst, the
little girl’s mouth filled with horrible metallic-tasting saliva, and she threw
up. Knowing Mouthwash Man wouldn’t be happy, she began scooping up the sick and
dumping it in the toilet bucket. After carefully rinsing her hands so as not to
spoil the drinking water, she crawled back under the blanket and fell asleep.

She was right. When Mouthwash Man entered the cell, carrying
a whiteboard and a bowl of food, he was far from pleased to see the mess in the
bucket.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Jessica Kerry Larsson,” she said, scowling.

“
What’s your name
?”

“Maria,” she acquiesced, opting to play it safe until her
papa arrived and beat this man to a pulp.

“Very good.” He nodded and then cleaned her face with a wet
wipe. He placed the whiteboard against the cell wall, grabbed Jessica’s hair
and dragged her in front of it. “Look happy,” he ordered, taking a camera from
his pocket.

Jessica feigned a smile, and the man snapped several shots.

“When is your birthday?” he demanded.

“The eleventh of November,” she replied.

“Okay, say, ‘My name is Maria Dennis, and I was born on the
eleventh of November.’”

Jessica did as told to prevent the man getting angry. He
made her repeat it ten times, then scooped a beakerful of water, handed it to
her and took out the bottle of tablets. She placed the opiate in her mouth and,
as the man screwed the lid, maneuvered it under her tongue and pretended to
wash it down.

Mouthwash Man grunted and left the cell.

H
ans
eased open the door of the hotel room to find Penny asleep on the couch.
Careful not to disturb her, he grabbed a beer from the enormous refrigerator in
the kitchen area and returned to the living room, content to sit there watching
her sleep, feeling a sense of deep gratitude as a host of memories washed over
him.

He recalled their chance meeting in the marina in Plymouth
as he and Jessica prepared
Future
for the transatlantic crossing, how she’d
hit it off immediately with his little girl and hadn’t hesitated to accept his
offer to crew for them. He thought about the inner demons she suffered because
of the abortion she’d had following the fling with the cheating millionaire –
her trauma worsened when a fortune-teller she’d visited for a bit of fun on a friend’s
bachelorette party “saw” the termination and declared the baby would have been
a girl.

Watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Hans experienced
a sense of closeness to this beautiful woman, one he hadn’t expected to feel
again, not since losing Kerry. Penny came into their lives when he and Jessica
still didn’t know which way was up, not expecting anything in return and bringing
her ever-caring and effervescent persona. He would get Jessica back for all of
their sakes or die trying.

Needing something stronger, Hans went to the kitchen and
fetched the half-empty bottle of rum. When he returned, Penny stirred.

“Hans, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but the Fulani is dead.”

“No!”

Hans got another glass and filled Penny in on the details,
including the bloody message and the mysterious
Mercedes
.

“Why would someone kill her, and who would be following you?”

“I’m not sure. Something doesn’t figure, but . . .”

“Did you get the license plate?”

“I’m hoping I got better than that.” Hans took out his cell
phone and downloaded the video he had captured to his notebook computer.

“Here goes nothing.” He double-clicked the file icon.

The result wasn’t what he’d hoped, the
car
flashing past in the blink of an eye.

“Damn!”

Hans replayed the video in a series of pauses, but even
reduced to its original frame size, the image was grainy at best, the registration
number blurred by the car’s speed and its license plate light. The driver
remained shielded from view by the car’s tinted windows.

“No good?” Penny frowned.

“Not brilliant. The car’s an
E-Class Mercedes – a
popular choice for the
movers and shakers on the island . . .” Hans’ words trailed off, and he stared
into nothing.

“What is it, hon?”

“I’ve seen this car before. I just can’t think where.” Hans stroked
his stubbled chin. “And can you see on top of the license plate there’s a logo
of some kind?”

Penny fixated on the small yellow blur. “Could it be
territorial, like where the car’s registered?”

“I don’t think so. We have that at home – you know, like
this plate’s from Alaska or such and such. But I haven’t seen it here.”

“Guess we’ll have to keep our eyes open and see if we can
spot this type of plate.” Penny shrugged.

“We could try Google Images.” Hans opened a web browser, but
a search turned up nothing of interest. “We’ll have to make some inquiries with
the police and whoever produces the license plates around here,” he concluded.

“And the name Djenabou wrote? Are you sure it was for you?”

“Who else could it be for?”

“Right, and you think Alvarez killed her.”

“Sure looks that way.”

Hans downloaded the image file from his cell phone and
brought the haunting message up on the notebook’s screen.

“What is that, Hans? Lo . . . gan, Logan?”

“I think so.”

“But what about this clawlike thing?” Penny studied the
bloody symbol.

“Hell if I know. I’ll email it to Jonah. See what he can
come up with.”

Penny’s cell phone rang – Baba on late shift at the marina. “Miss
Penny, the fishing boat is sailing.”

“We’ll be right there!”

Hans grabbed the keys to the jeep and they rushed to the
elevator, arriving at the marina’s office fifteen minutes later to find Baba,
the huge Senegalese, with binoculars in hand.

“What’s happening?” the American asked, panting.

“She put to sea a moment ago. Here.” Baba passed the
glasses.

“How many aboard?” Hans asked as he watched the
Rosa Negra
rounding the port’s protective wall with her running lights off. “Did they have
a child with them?”

“I didn’t see.” Baba held up his pink palms. “I only heard
her engine start up and saw a couple of guys throwing off the mooring lines.”

“Do you think Jessie could be with them, Hans?” Penny cast
her eye over the pile of the Holly Davenport “missing” leaflets the marina’s
staff had been handing out to yacht crews.

“There’s a slim possibility, or Alvarez could just be making
a discreet getaway.”

“Where would he be going?”

“One of the other islands.” Hans looked to Baba. “Or
possibly the North African coast.”

Baba nodded. “It’s only three hundred miles. He’ll have more
than enough fuel on board.”

“Hans, he’s the only link we have to Jessie.” Penny clutched
his arm.

“I know. Baba, can we request the coastguard intercepts him
with their patrol craft?”

“We can, Hans, but they only operate a standby crew. By the
time they put to sea, the
Rosa Negra
will be one of many blots on the
radar screen.”

“In that case I need to borrow your launch.”

The marina owned a small speedboat, mostly used to rescue
inexperienced skippers who drifted too near to the shore and couldn’t start
their motors.

“It’s yours.” Baba pulled the launch’s engine cutout key
from a peg and gave it to Hans.

“And get on the radio and request other boats keep watch for
the trawler.”

Baba was already on it.

“Penny, you drive. I need you to get me alongside.”

The two of them rushed along the pontoon and untied the
launch. Penny inserted the cutout key into its socket on the launch’s console
and clipped the end of the leash to a belt loop on her shorts. In seconds they
roared out of the marina,
the city’s lights reflecting off the
Rosa
Negra
’s
superstructure, giving away her position in the pitch-black
night.

Outside of the harbor’s protective lee, the swell kicked up,
drenching them in spray. The little craft pitched violently, launching off
breakers and slamming down on the shimmering ocean, threatening to somersault. Penny
eased back the throttle.

“No!” Hans shouted above the noise of the outboard engine, redistributing
his weight to keep the bow up. “Give her all she’s got!”

Penny thrust the throttle forward, the two of them instinctively
bending their knees each time the launch went airborne off a crest. Just as it seemed
they’d catch up with the
Rosa Negra
, she picked up speed, her huge bulk
indifferent to the challenging conditions.

“He’s seen us!” Hans yelled, spotting Alvarez’s silhouette
in the pilothouse’s rear-facing window.

“She’s no match, Hans,” Penny screamed back as they entered
the larger boat’s wake, intuition telling her they would outrun the trawler.

Hans cocked and reholstered the pistol and shifted across
the launch. “Okay, I’m gonna board her—”

The
Rosa Negra
exploded into a million burning pieces.

Hans slammed back against Penny, knocking her into the sea,
a huge fireball engulfing them as shrapnel from the trawler’s hull began raining
down.

Fortunately, the cutout key did its job, and the launch
slowed to a stop. As Hans dragged Penny back aboard, his thoughts turned to Jessica.
He prayed she hadn’t been on the doomed vessel.

“Are you okay?” he asked, holding up the flap of his jacket
to shield them from the heat.

“I’m fine.” Penny spat out seawater and restarted the
outboard.

Without another word, she twisted the throttle and chugged
through the debris field toward the site of the explosion.

Two dead crew members floated faceup side by side amongst
the flotsam, giving the impression the dead men were holding hands.

Hans reached down into the oily scum and grabbed the body of
a third, rolling it over to reveal Alvarez, with half the flesh stripped from
his skull, resulting in a hideous death grin. He thrust the corpse away in
disgust, knowing the captain had the easy way out.

There were no other human remains, so Penny spun the launch
around and headed back to the marina.