His shoulder and side were glistening with a sticky layer of fresh blood.

CHAPTER FOUR

Oran, Algeria

Where is she?’

The voice was cool, just a hair’s breadth from turning cold, like the evening winds off the Hauts Plateaux of the Atlas Mountains. The man asking the question stared out of the window of a room on the third floor of a small office block in the commercial district of Es Sénia, a few kilometres from the centre of Oran on Algeria’s coastline. Nearby was the international airport, from where a steady roar could be heard as a cargo plane prepared for take-off. In the background came the tinny sound of a radio playing the lilting, stringed sound of kamanjah music.

The speaker was dressed in expensive trousers and a white silk shirt, at odds with the plain, even rough interior of the room, which had once been an office but was no longer used. His name was Samir Farek, known to a few friends and close associates as Sami. He was of medium height, heavy across the shoulders, with muscular arms and powerful hands. He had dark eyes in a fleshy face, a thick moustache and dark hair swept back and falling to touch his shirt collar, in the modern manner. Far from looking like a local, Farek could have passed almost unnoticed anywhere in Europe and especially in France – as he had done on many occasions.

Two other men stood by the door. Also heavily built, but with shaven heads and coarse features, their faces held identical expressions of careful boredom.

In the centre of the room, a man was eating, chewing hungrily at a simple meal of cheese, olives and leavened bread laid out on a small table before him. A dumpy glass of beer stood by his hand, from which he gulped regularly and noisily. He paused and looked up, a flake of bread falling from his lips. He had not shaved in two days and the stubble of his chin had trapped a faint scattering of crumbs and a tiny piece of cheese. His name was Abdou and he was the owner-driver of a battered Renault taxi in the city of Oran.

‘Huh?’ He wiped his face with the back of a grubby hand and flicked a wary glance towards the two men by the door. They ignored him. He had been brought here for a meeting, so he had been told, to discuss a position as a regular driver for Farek’s business activities, although so far, there had been no such discussion. He had, though, been encouraged to eat by Farek, by way of an apology for causing him to miss his lunch break. Poorly paid and in a competitive market, he had needed no second invitation, and even wondered if he would be permitted to take away what he didn’t consume, for eating later.

‘The woman you took from the house on Al Hamri Street,’ said Farek casually, as if the matter were of no great consequence. ‘The woman and the boy.’

Abdou blinked, and turned slightly pale. ‘Al Hamri? I don’t know that place.’ He gave a weak smile and shrugged. He was a very poor liar. He was also very stupid. It had not occurred to him to question why he, a lowly cab driver on the border of destitution, was being treated with such courtesy by a man known widely throughout Algeria to be the head of a large and very ruthless criminal empire.

He was about to find out.

Farek turned and snapped his fingers. Like a well-rehearsed team, the two men by the door moved across the room and dragged the table away to one wall. It left Abdou sitting alone, arms suspended and mouth open, confused by the sudden change in the atmosphere. And frightened.

‘Wait! I don’t follow …’ he murmured. But it was evident by his reaction to the mention of Al Hamri that he followed all too well what Farek was talking about. And with it seemed to come the realisation that agreeing to come here had been a serious mistake; a trap for the unwary. And he’d walked right into it.

Farek clapped his hands, and the door to the room opened. Another man stepped inside. ‘You two – out,’ Farek continued, and his two guards left the room.

The newcomer was large, in the way very fat men are large, and moved with difficulty, feet forced apart by the girth of his thighs. He was dressed in a long, white djellaba and wore industrial glasses with wrap-around lenses flipped up on top of his head, which was shaven and shiny with sweat. In his hand he carried an ugly, black handgun fitted with a long, slim silencer.

CHAPTER FIVE

Farek didn’t need to watch Bouhassa at work, but stayed, anyway. It was part of the ritual, just as giving the victim one last taste of a meal was his way of doing things … and of instilling an aura around himself. He was the boss here, le chef. And if you weren’t prepared to get your own hands soiled, even at one step removed, where was the honour to be gained? Where was the respect from those around you, and from those who heard only the rumours? It was the rumours feeding on each other which built and enhanced his reputation and power.

He sat on a hard chair in the corner and watched as Bouhassa flipped out the chamber of the revolver. Underworld rumour had it that he had ‘liberated’ the gun from a police chief in Algiers with a predilection for collecting weapons. But nobody had ever cared to confirm or dispute it; Bouhassa had a reputation, too. He inserted a single shell and flipped his hand again, locking the chamber.

As Farek was well aware, Bouhassa liked to load the shells himself, using a reduced charge. He also fitted a hollow point head which he’d worked on, in place of the standard head, to fragment on impact. For Bouhassa’s kind for work, range was never a priority.

The fat man cocked the hammer and looked at his boss. Abdou, horrified and frozen, swallowed hard as if the food he had just eaten was rising in his throat.

Farek took his time. Lit a cigarette, holding it between fleshy fingers, and considered the man in the chair like a minor puzzle waiting to be solved. He shook his left wrist, freeing a solid gold watch, the light glinting on two thick gold rings. It was a conscious move, a mannerism he’d seen and copied from a cop film when he’d served with the French army. The film’s villain liked to remind people of his wealth … when he wasn’t reminding them of the power he wielded over them.

Farek could relate to that.

‘You collected a woman and boy from Al Hamri five days ago,’ he said softly. For a few moments, the cargo plane had gone quiet, leaving a hush in the atmosphere as if ordered by Farek himself. ‘Where did you take them?’ Al Hamri was the broad, tree-shaded street where Farek had an apartment, away from the overheated centre of the city and cooled by gentle breezes from the hills.

‘I don’t remember … it was too long ago … I …’ He stopped, eyes locked on the gun in Bouhassa’s hand. It had a black, shiny finish, a thing of cold beauty with but a single purpose.

‘Where?’

Abdou dragged his gaze away from the gun and Bouhassa, and stared imploringly at Farek. ‘I got a call,’ he babbled, holding out his hands, palms upwards in supplication. ‘To collect a fare … that is all. I didn’t know who they were …’ He jumped up suddenly as if launched by a spring, but Bouhassa reached out a huge hand and pushed him back down.

‘I. Said. Where?’ Farek leant forward, enunciating the words with exaggerated care. ‘Did you take them to the airport?’

To the airport might have given Abdou a slim chance. Lots of people travelled to the airport for all sorts of normal reasons, and he couldn’t be held responsible for the whims of women. But where the woman had gone was not normal – not for one like her. He swallowed noisily and closed his eyes, as if all vestiges of hope had gone. Then he said softly, ‘No. Not there. Le Vieux Port. A ship called Calypsoa.’ He sank back like a deflating balloon, resigned to his fate.