Blood Money (9 page)
‘Yuck,’ said Hex. ‘And it’s still muddy.’ Amber gave him a look of scorn. He smiled inwardly at how easy she was to wind up. Then he retreated back into his thoughts, idly flicking through websites. But he was only half paying attention even to that. He was mulling over what Alex had said about the previous night and re-running the scene in his head. The indistinct figure in the torchlight, its outline broken up by the bushes. It hadn’t occurred to him that it might be Bina. He’d been about to catch up with her too, when Alex had stopped him.
But he couldn’t blame Alex. What they did had made sense at the time. Now they’d have to put it right.
Pradesh put the brakes on, hard. The van screeched to a halt.
‘What’s happened?’ said Li.
‘Cow in the road,’ said Pradesh, ‘so everyone has to go around it.’
The large grey cow was lying peacefully across two lanes. The orderly lines of cars, bikes and lorries became a chaotic scrum as they tried to pass it on either side. In the middle of it all the beast lay calmly, its jaw rotating thoughtfully as it chewed, unperturbed by the squealing tyres and honking horns.
‘You’d think it would be scared of the traffic,’ said Alex, ‘but it’s just sitting there.’ A bike roared past the beast, just inches from its nose. The cow didn’t budge.
‘That’s cows for you,’ chuckled Paulo. ‘You can’t move them when they get comfortable.’
‘How will its owner get it out?’ asked Amber.
‘Its owner probably set it free,’ said Pradesh. ‘Food is scarce, but the cow is holy so no one will kill one. That is why their owners let them wander into the cities.’
Hex reached into a holdall on the floor and brought out a small black pouch. He passed it to Amber. ‘Take one and pass it on.’
She reached inside. Her fingers pulled out a small silver locket on a leather thong. She smiled, recognizing it like an old friend. Li was next, and recognized hers too. They were miniature transmitters to allow Hex to track the team in the busy streets of Chennai.
Hex, Alex and Paulo had similar devices, on small rings like washers. They fitted the washers over the hooks of their belt buckles, under the leather.
‘Quick check,’ said Hex, and pressed a button on the palmtop. The display showed a map and a cluster of pulsing dots. ‘Yes, all working.’ He powered it off again.
Outside, the landscape had changed again. The smell hit them first: a greasy mixture of drains, dung and diesel fumes. Gradually, as they reached the town centre, the buildings became closer together and taller, the advertisement hoardings more frequent. They were in the heart of the city.
‘Sure this is the one?’ Alex looked up at the massive Art Deco facade of the Regal Cinema. It was painted in red and blue and displayed a huge cutout of Marilyn Monroe. Pradesh’s truck disappeared into the traffic.
Hex pointed to the pink and yellow poster advertising the movie
Aparichithan.
‘Yes, that’s it. And there’s the chemist’s shop two doors along.’
Aparichithan.
‘Yes, that’s it. And there’s the chemist’s shop two doors along.’
‘Then that looks like the place we want,’ said Li.
Opposite the cinema was a long, low, single-storey building painted in pale yellow. The sign said:
ST THOMAS’S CLINIC
. One section of the building had bars on the windows.
ST THOMAS’S CLINIC
. One section of the building had bars on the windows.
Li turned round and pretended to take an interest in the film poster. ‘How are we going to enquire about her?’
Amber joined her. ‘We could say her mother is ill and asking for her to come home.’
‘Risky,’ said Alex. ‘That might really worry Bina if she heard us.’
‘Suppose we say we’re her friends and we’ve come to visit her,’ said Paulo. ‘Nothing suspicious about that. And we’ll just see what they say.’
‘I’ll go in,’ said Li.
‘And me,’ said Paulo.
‘Right, that means Hex, Amber and me are backup,’ said Alex. It was their standard practice when investigating to go in twos. Then, if they had to follow up or try a different approach, there were still three who hadn’t been identified. ‘We’ll find an RV point and text you the location.’
In the clinic’s reception area, a fan rotated slowly below a yellow ceiling. A nurse holding a clipboard bustled up to the counter. ‘Yes?’
‘A friend of ours is here having treatment,’ said Paulo. ‘She asked us to bring something for her.’ He patted the small leather bag on his belt pack as though it contained the item. In reality it contained a toolkit.
The nurse frowned. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Bina Bhattacharya.’
The nurse shook her head. ‘I don’t think we’ve got anyone of that name here. What was she in for?’
Li thought quickly. The principle was always to say as little as possible, and to stay as close to the truth as possible. ‘Tests, I think.’ She deliberately made it sound vague. The less they seemed to know, the better. ‘But she definitely said it was here.’
Paulo’s phone bleeped: he had a message. He clicked to open it. It was from Amber. A photo of Bina came up on the screen; it had been taken a few days before at the building site. She was standing next to Li and Paulo, holding a trowel. ‘Look,’ said Paulo. He showed the picture to the nurse. ‘Here’s what she looks like.’
The nurse stared at the picture. Her manner changed. ‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘Your friend is not here. She has not been here.’
The same thought occurred to Li and Paulo simultaneously: Why had the nurse’s mood changed? But they were careful not to let their reaction show in their faces.
The nurse gave the phone back to Paulo, keeping it at arm’s length, as though looking at the picture was going to make her give something away. ‘You’ll have to go now,’ she said. ‘If you don’t have an appointment you can’t see anybody.’ She turned away from the desk, as though eager to escape.
Definitely trying to hide something, thought Paulo. And flustered by it; as though she doesn’t have to do it very often. But it was clear they weren’t going to get any further by asking questions.
He pulled Li’s sleeve. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. He looked at the nurse. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.’
They turned and left the clinic. Beside the entrance, a rubbish bag was propped against the wall. A rat scurried away as they approached, but it had left a hole in the black plastic. Something caught Li’s eye and she crouched down as though tying her shoelace.
She only needed a glance. In among the papers and wrappers that had been thrown away was a small red band of plaited cotton. It was Amber’s friendship bracelet – the one she had given to Bina. What was it doing there?
13
C
ONSPIRACY
ONSPIRACY
‘Has Alex texted the RV?’ said Paulo.
Li clicked through her messages as she walked away from the building. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘South for a couple of blocks; the park with the big white building.’
The route took them back past the gaudy cinema. They walked slowly, like two friends having a chat. Someone might be watching from the clinic, so they wanted to look as casual as possible.
They reached their first turning. ‘There’s someone behind us,’ said Paulo. ‘He’s been there since we came out of the clinic.’
Li kept her voice quiet. ‘Do you think he’s following?’ They kept walking at the same unhurried pace.
‘Might be.’
They went past a café with a big smeared window. They paused and glanced in, pretending to read the menu but using the glass as a mirror. They could see him, three metres behind them – a man in a dark red shirt and fawn linen trousers.
‘He didn’t stop when we stopped,’ said Li.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s not following,’ said Paulo.
‘I might be being paranoid,’ said Li, ‘but I think we should lose him before we meet the others. We mustn’t bust their cover.’
‘Let’s go round the block here,’ said Paulo.
They turned down the road. Li took out her phone and pretended to make a call, but she was using the polished screen as a rear-view mirror. The red-shirted man turned too. ‘He’s still behind.’
Paulo chose another turning and Li watched in the screen. The man carried straight on. ‘We’ve lost him. All clear.’
Paulo grinned at her. ‘Just paranoia. We’ve been doing this job too long.’
Li shook her head. ‘That nurse looked paranoid enough to do anything. If I were her I’d have tailed us.’ She hit a speed-dial key and called Alex. ‘No joy. They say they don’t know her, but they’re hiding something, big time. Before we left we saw a friendship bracelet thrown in the bin – it looked like Bina’s. I think we should go to the police, get them looking for her. There’s something fishy going on at that clinic.’
‘We’ll see you at the police station,’ said Alex.
‘I want to report a kidnapping,’ said Alex. Alpha Force stood in the reception area of the police station – a poky corridor bounded on one side by a long counter. A floor-mounted fan stirred a faint breeze that fluttered the notices yellowing on the notice board. At the end of the corridor a tiny woman dressed in rags was lugging along a huge bucket of water and a mop.
An officer stood behind the counter, shuffling papers. His khaki uniform showed dark flowers of sweat under each arm. He carried on shuffling as Alex spoke – until he heard the word ‘kidnapping’.
‘You want to report a missing person?’
‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘She’s—’
‘Wait, please. I fetch Sergeant Chopra. He looks after missing persons.’ The man disappeared through an arched doorway.
A minute later another officer came through. Unlike his colleague he obviously wasn’t confined to desk work. With his khaki uniform he wore a gun belt and holster in leather the colour of ox blood. But whatever he did, it couldn’t have been very active: a large paunch protruded over his waistband like a balloon. Not for the first time, the five friends couldn’t help but notice the contrast with the lean villagers.
Sergeant Chopra spoke. ‘You want to report a missing person.’
Paulo gave a brief description. ‘She’s just turned thirteen years old – went missing last night from the village of Nayla—’ He got no further.
‘Nayla? That’s not in our district.’
Li leaned on the counter and looked at him earnestly. ‘We have strong reasons to believe she’s been brought here. We think she’s been kidnapped to steal her kidneys.’
Sergeant Chopra turned his back on her before she had finished. Li looked at his solid bulk disbelievingly.
He turned round again and put some papers on the desk. ‘Start by filling in these forms. We need your names, addresses, address of your parents or guardians, relationship to the missing girl . . .’ He spread the forms out in a fan shape. There were several pages to each.
Li looked at the paperwork with mounting incredulity.
Alex knew that expression; soon it would change to impatience. Li wasn’t the most diplomatic person in the world. He stepped in. ‘We’ll give you all the details we can. Can I borrow a pen?’
Li spotted a biro beside the telephone. ‘There’s one.’ The policeman picked it up, slowly took the cap off and handed it over. Then he disappeared through the door again. Li glared at his sweat-marked back.
Alex took charge of the form and they filled it in. A short time later the sergeant returned. ‘Have you finished?’
Alex handed the papers over in a neat pile. The sergeant put them straight into a basket on the desk.
‘What will happen now?’ said Alex.
Sergeant Chopra folded his hands in front of him on the counter. He looked like a Buddha. ‘We’ll look into it.’
Li butted in. ‘There’s somewhere you could look right now. We think she’s here in Chennai. We saw something belonging to her at St Thomas’s Clinic – a friendship bracelet we gave to her. We think that’s where she is.’
Sergeant Chopra maintained his implacable pose. ‘We’ll get someone onto it,’ he said. ‘Thank you. You can go now.’
The five friends were all dying to talk, but they made sure they were well away and out of earshot before they let rip.
Hex got his comment in first. ‘Ever had the feeling that someone wasn’t very interested?’
Li practically exploded. ‘He didn’t even look at the forms we filled in.’
‘Do you know what else is odd?’ said Alex. ‘He never asked if we had a picture of her.’
‘That’s right!’ added Amber. ‘I was just about to show him the picture and then I got this hunch. I thought I’d wait and see if he asked for it. Don’t you think there was something really odd about him? He gave me the creeps.’
Paulo was a little more laid back. ‘Maybe that’s just the way they operate in this country.’
Li snorted. ‘Perhaps we interrupted his morning nap, but if we don’t find Bina fast, someone else is going to be operating.’
Alpha Force weren’t the only people who didn’t want to be overheard. Sergeant Chopra watched them disappear, had a quick look around the station to make sure no one else was nearby, then got out his mobile and pressed a speed-dial key.
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