The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (12 page)

B
ack at the hotel, while Penny took a shower Hans powered up his notebook
and began typing out a timeline of events, adding in brackets the unanswered questions
each incident threw up. He knew his liaison with the island’s police force was long
overdue, and he wanted to have the upper hand when they met.

Penny emerged from the bedroom in jogging
bottoms, a T-shirt and flip-flops,
toweling
her damp
locks.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking someone – possibly this Logan
character in Djenabou’s message – is trying to cover up any links to Jessica’s
kidnapping now that he knows I’m after him.”

“But why not just take you out?”

“He could easily have done that as I drove
down the coast road to meet Djenabou tonight. Instead he used me to get to her,
to eradicate her, and to spook Alvarez into doing a runner before blowing him
to kingdom come.”

“I-I—”

“I’m confused too. We can assume that whoever
it is knew Djenabou had been making inquiries and was gonna spill the beans but
didn’t know where she lived, hence the tail.”

“But you said you’d lost them.” Penny
slumped on the couch beside him.

“I thought I had, but somehow they managed
to stay one step ahead.” Hans poured Penny a shot of rum. “And they were watching
our movements tonight,” he continued.

“How do you know that?”

“The explosives planted on the
Rosa
Negra
must have been radio-controlled – as opposed to a timer – or the boat
might have blown up in the harbor. And they detonated them before we could
reach her, saving us from going up in smoke and causing an international
incident.”

“So someone was watching the boat leave the
harbor tonight.” Penny downed her rum and poured two more shots.

“I just can’t figure who.”

“Are we in danger? Here at the hotel?”

“No, what with all the media interest around
Future
’s sinking and me returning to the island, they would draw
attention to themselves by going after us.”

Penny yawned and checked her watch. “Hans, it’s
almost three. We should get some sleep.”

H
ans threw back the covers on the huge
bed and answered his cell phone.

“Odysseus, what you
got for me?”

“Orion, check your email, dude.”

Hans nudged Penny, then flashed up his notebook in the living
room and hit a message titled “Bingo!” Jonah had prepared a full PDF report on
Logan, with details procured from various sources.

“I’m reading.”

Eddy Logan was a low-level British criminal from South-East
London. He owned a bar in Praia called Chico’s, bought following a four-year
jail term in the UK for money laundering. Logan had served in the British Army,
seeing action in Iraq, but received a dishonorable discharge for “conduct
unbecoming of a soldier.”

Hans scrutinized a paragraph detailing how Logan got off a
charge for child abduction two years previous.

“Odysseus, this is gold.”

“Orion, that claw thing in the woman’s message – look at the
guy’s Facebook profile.”

Hans scrolled to the end of the report to see a shot of Logan,
a bald musclehead with a goatee beard, fists clenched doing a bodybuilding pose
for the camera. Creeping above the neckline of his T-shirt were the claws of a full-torso
dragon tattoo.

“Odysseus, you’re ace.”

“I know.”

“Listen, get me everything you can on this guy – phone
records, bank statements, emails. I need a picture of his movements,
particularly the last two months.”

He ended the call.

“Hans, what’s happening?” Penny joined him in the living
room.

“Jonah’s found our man. Here.”

As Penny read the file, everything fell into place – the
name and claw symbol drawn in blood, Logan’s military and criminal record, and the
child abduction.

“What do we do?”

“If this guy’s based in Praia, then I need to be on
Santiago.”

“You?” Penny threw a sideways look.

“Hon, you have to leave Cape Verde. Four people are dead,
and there’s no telling what Logan will do next.”

“Then I suggest you find a place on Santiago where he can’t
find us, because I’m staying.”

Hans knew there was no point arguing.

J
essica
endured the same routine for weeks, waking up afraid in the dimly lit chamber,
not knowing whether it was day or night, forced to repeat the name Maria Dennis
and her assigned birthday. The only way to tell the approximate time was by the
meals Mouthwash Man brought her, and although she was afraid of him, eating was
the only thing she had to look forward to. Breakfast would be fresh buttered
bread with ham, cheese or jam, initially with a mug of bitter black coffee, but
as she couldn’t stomach it, the man brought orange juice instead. Lunch was
always a bowl of potato and kale soup with chunks of chorizo floating in it. Dinner
would be meat, fish or poultry, with vegetables, her favorite being salted cod
baked with pumpkin, onions, tomatoes and olives.

Every day Jessica tried to hide the horrible pill under her
tongue and spit it out after the angry man left. She wasn’t sure what the
medication was for but remembered her father and Penny discussing something
written in a travel guide about not leaving drinks unattended in bars because
bad men could put pills in them and make you ill, and then steal all your
belongings or make you do stuff against your will. She thought it must be to do
with this and made sure to act woozy on the days she avoided swallowing it.

“Daily routine, runner bean!” was another of her father’s
aphorisms. Hans began each day by jumping out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and waking
the household up with a bloodcurdling Tarzan bellow, drinking a pint of water
and then going for a ten-mile run along the coast. “Structure holds your life
together when things are bad,” he would say, so Jessica stuck to this approach
now, and, following breakfast and before going to sleep at night, she did
push-ups like she did with her papa and then ran around the tiny cell twenty
times, increasing to fifty as the days went by.

After the morning exercise she occupied her mind with
singing songs, telling jokes to Bear as if he were there with her, reciting
riddles and repeating the names of the kids in her class at school. Other times
she ran through the preparations for a scuba dive – strapping the air cylinder
to the buoyancy jacket, connecting the hoses, loading her mask, fins, wetsuit
and diving knife into a kitbag and stowing it in her papa’s truck for the trip
down to the beach. Then kitting up and going through the prechecks – buoyancy
vest, weights, quick releases and air – before wading into the water, putting
on her fins and doing a final check. She loved diving with her father and could
recall the details of all thirty recorded in her logbook, such as time, depth,
temperature, leftover air and the marine life she saw.

“Jab, jab, hook, straight, uppercut!”

Jessica danced around the cell shadowboxing an imaginary
opponent, in this instance her friend Stevie Worth from the Little Dragons Muay
Thai School in Portland.

“Front kick, straight, jab, jab!” she puffed, then – “Ooph-ooph!”
– took a couple of shots to the head.

“Is that all you got?” she mocked Stevie, although her pa
would not have been happy if she ever said that in the ring.

The more Jessica visualized the sparring session, the realer
it got, to the point where she could see and feel the gymnasium, the boxing
ring and equipment, even picturing the orange shorts Stevie wore and the
bright-red padding protecting him from her punches and kicks.

She was proud of her own shorts, electric-blue silk
embroidered with Thai script down the right leg, ones JJ gave her as a
Christmas present.

“Jab, jab, uppercut, elbow smash, push kick . . . spinning
back kick!”
Jessica polished off little Stevie and turned to face three
more contenders. “If you wan’ it, come an’ get it!”

P
enny
ordered a breakfast of bagels with smoked salmon and scrambled egg, which they
ate while packing. Afterwards, Hans flicked through the channels on the suite’s
widescreen television to find a local news report. A shot of the quayside cordoned
off with blue-and-white police tape and packed with emergency vehicles filled
the screen. In the background the coastguard patrol vessel and a police diving
unit circled the scene of the explosion.

“What are they saying?” Hans asked.

Penny dumped her rucksack on the couch and listened as a female
reporter spoke in rapid-fire Portuguese to the camera.

“She says a fishing boat caught fire and sank as it left harbor
last night. The three crew members are in hospital with burns and that this
should serve as a reminder to local fishermen to pay attention to maintenance issues
and safety equipment.”

“Well, they’ve played that down,” Hans mused.

“Do you think Logan has friends in high places?”

“It’s possible, or it might be the media has been told to
keep a lid on it for the sake of tourism.”

“Will the police have
spoken to Baba?” Penny felt uneasy at the thought of them interrogating their
kind friend.

“I’m sure they’ll get
around to it.”

“And you told him it was
okay to tell them about us?”

“I had to. The explosion
woke up every crew in the marina, and they’re bound to have seen us out there
in the launch.”

“Do you think the police
will want to speak to us?”

“Depends on whether they buy Baba’s story that we borrowed the
launch for a spot of night fishing.” He shrugged and turned his palms up. “I
guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Hans called Karen’s cell phone en route to the airport. “We’re
shifting to Praia and need somewhere to stay that’s quiet.”

“Come to the embassy. I’ve got just the place.”

A little before 7:00 a.m. Hans and Penny returned the jeep’s
keys to the Hertz desk, but as they were about to leave the office, Hans
grabbed Penny’s arm.

“I
knew
I’d seen it somewhere!”

“Seen what?” She followed his gaze to see a poster of an
E-Class Mercedes,
the rental agency’s
executive model.

“That’s the car,” he whispered. “The one I got on film.”

“Which explains the yellow tag on the license plate,” Penny
whispered back. “It’s the Hertz logo.”

“Logan or one of his thugs must have rented it here when he
flew in from Praia. It’s the only Hertz outlet on the island.”

“Can you ask who?” Penny looked over to the agent serving
behind the counter.

“I don’t want to draw attention. I’ll call Jonah. He’ll find
out for us.”

Hans and Penny boarded the island hopper and took up their
seats. Soon after takeoff, the flight attendant approached.

“Mr. Larsson?”

“Ma’am?”

“We’ve had a call from the police. They wish to speak to you
when we land in Praia.”

“Did they say why?”

“I was only told to give you the message.”

A police car was waiting on the tarmac as the plane touched
down. Out stepped a short, fat local man dressed in black dress pants and a
Hawaiian shirt, which looked as if it would burst open at any second. He walked
over and introduced himself as Barbosa Amado, the chief inspector of the
Judicial Police.

“Mr. Larsson.” He pumped Hans’ arm up and down. “Miss
Masters.” Penny received the same treatment. “The hotel said you were on your
way to Praia. Would you come with me please?”

“What’s this about?” asked Hans, stepping into the vehicle
and noting from the nervous look on Amado’s bloated face that he felt way out
of his depth.

“Inside, inside.” The chief inspector waved a finger in the
direction of the terminal, as if this bypassed the need for an explanation.

The car dropped them at the arrivals building, Amado ushering
them up a flight of stairs into a nondescript office. A slim Italian-looking man,
midforties with graying black hair, stood waiting to greet them, sweating
profusely in his dark wool suit.

“Mr. Larsson, Miss Masters, this is Inspector Leonardo
Mucci
from Interpol’s Praia office.”

Mucci pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his palms before
shaking hands.

“Inspector
Mucci
is coordinating the joint
operation with Scotland Yard into the British girl’s disappearance,” Amado
continued. “You know of Holly Davenport?”

“We’re aware of her, yes,” said Hans.

“Forgive me, but you returned to the islands to recover the
body of your daughter, er, Jessica.”

“Correct.”

With Mucci keeping quiet in the background and Amado’s lack
of eye contact, Hans knew this was a fishing exercise.

“But you have no luck, huh?”

“It’s a big ocean out there.”

“Exactly. And I understand you have recently acquired a
diplomatic passport.”

“I’m doing a little work for the embassy, yes.”

“Detective work, huh?” Amado’s eyes kept flicking down at
the desktop.

“That’s my job,” Hans replied, his stare unwavering.

“Would that explain what you were doing in Mindelo harbor
last night when the fishing boat – er,
what was her name?”

“I don’t know,” Hans replied deadpan. “What
was
her
name?”

“Ah yes, the
Rosa Negra
. She was blown up while you
were out, erm,
‘fishing.’”

“Blown up?” Hans raised an eyebrow. “I thought it was a
fire?”

“Yes, a fire, of course.”

“And are you suggesting I had something to do with it?”

“Not at all Mr. Larsson—”

“Call me Hans.”

“Hans, you understand my predicament. You didn’t find your
daughter, and next you’re chasing a local fisherman and
boom!
”

“Chief Inspector Amado, my sole aim is to explore every
possibility of recovering my daughter’s body. You have my word if in the course
of my investigation I come across any information that links to Holly Davenport’s
abduction I will let you know.”

“I trust you will do.” Amado took a business card from his
breast pocket and passed it to Hans. “And if I can be of assistance to you in
any way, don’t hesitate.”

“Of course,” said Hans, reciprocating the gesture.