Brute Force

60

The phone rang six times.

I cut straight in when I heard her voice. 'Just phoning to say thanks for the ginger cake; it was lovely – as always.'

But she didn't screech with delight as she usually did at the sound of my voice, or launch into intimate details of her latest bingo adventure.

She was in shit state.

'Something terrible . . . I . . . It's . . .' She gulped in air.

'What's happened, Leena? Is it Brendan?'

There was a long silence.

The phone clattered to the floor.

Traffic raced up and down the coast road and I pressed my ear hard against the receiver.

'Leena?'

I heard a rustle as the phone was retrieved. I could hear her breathing.

'Leena?'

'They mugged him . . . right outside Costcutter . . . they killed him . . . He was only going to get his HobNobs.'

I wanted to commiserate with her, but there was no time. I needed information out of her before she dissolved. 'Who did it?'

'The police don't know yet. It's so awful. So many strange things today.'

'Strange things?'

There was another long silence.

'Talk to me, Leena. This is important.'

'Well . . . just this morning, he had some people from the old country turn up . . . and then this . . . I told him I'd go later, but he wouldn't hear of it. Said I had enough to do . . . and now . . .'

I heard her distressed breathing retreat as she replaced the receiver.

I redialled and got the engaged tone. She'd taken it off the hook.

The street lights had come on without me noticing. I walked fast to the café.

Lynn had waited for me to return before starting on his panini.

I took a bite and leant towards him. 'We're fucked.'

His eyes widened. 'What, more than we were ten minutes ago?'

'I'll explain later. We've got to take the passports as compromised. We've got to get to an ATM. I'll draw out as much as I can then I'll bin the card. Then it's straight to the flat.'

Within an hour we were back in the middle of a bus, this time heading north. My ripped-up card was buried in a couple of Chiavari bins.

Lynn's eyelids drooped and he kept rubbing his face. His stubble rustled under his fingers.

'It's going to get worse than this, believe me. We've tried it your way. There's only one place we can go now.'

'Where's that?'

'Libya.'