Complicity

CHAPTER 7 — LUX EUROPAE

Twelve hours later I'm in the fucking Channel Islands still nursing a hangover and thinking, What in the fuck am I doing here?

"Eh? What?"

"Wake up, Cameron; there's a phone call."

"Oh. Right." I try to focus on Andy. I can't seem to get my left eye open, "Is it important?"

"Don't know."

So I get up and pull my dressing-gown on and head down to the cold, dusty lobby where the phone is.

"Cameron. Frank here."

"Oh, hi."

"So, are you enjoying your wee hol in the Highlands?"

"Oh, yeah," I say, still trying to persuade my left eyelid to lift. "What's the problem, Frank?"

"Well, your Mr Archer phoned."

"Oh yeah?" I say warily.

"Yes. He said you might like to know" — I hear Frank rustling some paper — "Mr Jemmel's real name is J. Azul. That's the initial J, then A-Z-U-L. And that Azul knew the full story but he was leaving on a foreign trip… well, this afternoon. That was all he'd say. I tried to ask him what he was talking about, but —»

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I say, pulling my left eyelid up and hurting my eye and starting that eye watering. I take a deep breath, trying to wake myself up. "Say all that again."

"Mis-ter," Frank says slowly. "Ar-ch-er… phon-ed…"

Frank repeats the message. Meanwhile I'm thinking. Leaving this afternoon… leaving from where?

"Okay," I say, when Frank's finished talking to me as though I'm a Sun reader. "Frank, could you do me a big favour and see if you can find who this guy Azul is?"

"Well, I'm quite busy you know, Cameron. We don't all treat deadlines with —»

"Frank, please. The name rings a bell; I think I've seen it… Christ, I can't remember, my brain's not working. But please, check it out, Frank, will you? Please? I'll owe you one. Please."

"All right, all right."

"Thanks; if you find anything call me right back, okay? Will you?"

"Yes, yes, all right."

"Great. Brilliant. Thanks."

"But if I'm ringing you I just hope you answer faster than you did yesterday."

"What?"

"Your Mr Archer rang yesterday."

"Yesterday?" I say, feeling my stomach churn.

"Yes; lunch-time. Ruby took the message. I was out but when I got back I tried calling but there was no answer. I tried your mobile as well but I didn't think it would work up there in the mountains and sure enough all I got was the recording saying try again later."

"Oh, Christ."

"Anyway, another thing —»

He's going to come out with another of his ridiculous spell-check semi-jokes; I can't fucking believe it. Meanwhile my mind's racing, or at least trying to race; right now it feels like it's stuck at the side of the track trying to get its legs out of its tracksuit bottoms and hopping around and falling down while the race takes place elsewhere.

"… What if it's a common name?" Frank asks. "What if half the people in Beirut or somewhere are called Azul? I mean it sounds like a sort of —»

"Frank, listen," I say, suddenly inspired, and sounding a lot more sober and calm than I feel. "I think I remember where I know the name from. I saw it in the back of Private Eye. Something to do with… I don't know; the sort of thing that gets into the back of the Eye. Please, Frank. He might be connected with defence, aerospace, intelligence or the arms trade. Try Profile; just type in "Get Azul" and —»

"I know, I know."

"Thanks, Frank. I'm going to get dressed now. If I don't hear from you in about half an hour I'll ring anyway. Bye."

Christ; those five murdered guys, not to mention all the others McDunn's investigating, and this guy leaving this afternoon. Rang yesterday. Christ, I hate deadlines! I'm panicking; I can feel it. My heart is racing. I'm trying to think but I don't know what to do. Decide!

I decide: When in doubt it's vitally important to keep moving. Velocity is important. Kinetic energy frees the brain and confuses the enemy.

I'm gulping hot coffee and pulling on my coat; my bag's sitting on the reception desk in the hotel lobby and Andy's standing, hunched and blinking and bleary-eyed, watching me stuff toast into my mouth and slurp coffee from a handle-free mug. Andy is looking at my bag. One of my socks is poking out from where the two zips meet, like a floppy white hernia. Andy pulls one of the zips open, pokes the sock back in and then recloses the bag.

"The phone often goes off," he says apologetically. "Probably the storm last night."

"Never mind." I glance at my watch. Past time to phone Frank.

"Listen," Andy says, scratching under his chin and yawning. "The police might want to talk to you —»

"I know; I'll let them know where I am, don't —»

"No, I mean the local cops."

"What? Why?"

"Oh," he sighs. "There was a bit of a rumble last night when the boys left, outside. Looks like Howie and his pals jumped the two traveller guys on the road; landed one in hospital, apparently. Cops are looking for Howie. Anyway, you were asleep when it happened but they might want to have a word, so —»

"Jesus, I — " I begin. The phone rings. I grab it and yell, "What?"

"Cameron; Frank."

"Oh, hi. Have you found anything?"

"I think so. Could be a Mr Jemayl Azul," he says. He spells out the first name and I'm thinking Jemayl/Jemmel, uh-huh. "British citizen," Frank goes on. "English mother, Turkish father. Born 17.3.49, educated Harrow, Oxford and Yale."

"But is he in defence or —?"

"Has his own arms company. Connected with the Saudis but he's sold arms just about everywhere, including Libya, Iran and Iraq. He's bought up a lot of small UK firms in the past, mostly to close them down; been the subject of a question in the House. The Israelis accused him of selling nuclear information to the Iraqis in 1985. You were right about him being mentioned in the Eye; appeared a few times and I got the cuts up…" More paper rustling. "According to the report here, one of the aliases he used in share deals and bank accounts was Mr Jemmel. How's that?" Frank sounds pleased with himself.

"Brilliant, Frank, brilliant," I tell him. "So where is he?"

"Addresses in London and Geneva, an office in New York… but based on Jersey, in the Channel Islands."

"Telephone number?"

"I checked: unlisted. And just an answering machine at his company address. But I called a pal of mine in St Helier who works on the local rag and he reckons your man's at home."

"Right. Right…" I say. I'm thinking. "What about an address?"

"Aspen, Hill Street, Gorey, Jersey."

"Okay. Okay." I'm still thinking. "Frank, that's brilliant, an incredible help. Could you put me through to Eddie?"

"What?" Eddie says, when I tell him.

"Inverness to Jersey. Come on, Eddie; I'm onto something here. I'd pay for it myself but my card's up to the limit."

"This had better be good, Cameron."

"Eddie, this could be fucking enormous, I'm not kidding."

"Well, so you say, Cameron, but your record overseas isn't terribly encouraging…"

"Come on, Eddie, that's cheap. And anyway, Jersey's barely overseas and I'm giving up a day's holiday here."

"Oh, all right, but you're going economy."

"Some life," Andy says, putting my bag into the rear of the 205. "Yeah," I say, getting into the car. I can feel my headache attempting to reassert itself. "Looks exotic on occasion; doesn't feel it."

I close the door and wind the window down. I'm not at all sure I'm fit to drive but I have to if I'm going to get to Inverness in time for the connecting flight.

Andy says, looking dubious, "You sure you know what you're doing?"

"Covering the story," I tell him, and grin. "See you soon."

I make Inverness Airport in ninety minutes, through showers of hail towed under tall, grey clouds. Sound track by Count Basic and Islam's answer to Pavarotti in the even more enormous shape of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; voice like a tripped-out angel in a dream even though I have no idea what he's singing about and always sneakingly suspect it's something on the lines of "Hey, let's string up Salman Rushdie, yeah-yeah'.

The ticket's waiting for me at the desk. I'm still officially on holiday so I force myself not to read any newspapers. I think about buying some fags but the headache's still there behind my eyes and I have the feeling smoking a cigarette would make me want to throw up. Of course what I really need is something chemical and crystalline but I don't have any and wouldn't know where to start looking for it in Inverness. I feel the need to do something so I buy a dumb little hand-held game and sit playing it while I wait. The flight's delayed but only slightly; I change at Gatwick in breezy sunshine and the 146 touches down on Jersey in relatively balmy conditions. I even manage to hire a car with the credit card, which seems like a blessing.

The Nova comes with a map; I drive through the neat little lanes and some straighter, faster roads, feeling even in those few miles that the place is too damn clean and twee and crowded after the West Highlands. Gorey is easy to find, out on the east coast, looking out over the sands and round to the point where the castle I always thought was in St Helier actually is. Hill Street takes a little longer, but Aspen is conspicuous; a long white villa set just below the crest of a low, wooded ridge, surrounded by white walls with ornamental black railings and little ball-head shrubs standing in wooden tubs. Terracotta tiled roof. It looks cool. I imagine its value is probably pretty cool too.

There are tall black iron gates but they're hooked open so I just drive through and up a drive of pink bricks to the door.

I ring the bell and wait. There are no other cars in the drive but there's a garage block attached to the house with two double doors. The sun's dipping down over the trees and a breeze gets up, rustling the leaves on the ornamental shrubs and blowing some grit into my left eye, making it water again. I ring the bell once more. I look through the letter-box but I can't see anything; I reach in and feel a box on the far side of the thick door.

After a few minutes I take a look round the place, stepping under Moorish archways and over low white walls, past an astroturf tennis court and a swimming pool about the same size, uncovered and still. I kneel and test the water with one hand. Warm.

I try to look in the windows of the house but they're either covered with those plastic roll-down external shutters you usually see in France or closed off inside by Venetian blinds.

I go back to the car, thinking maybe Mr Azul's only out for a short while. Of course, maybe I've missed him entirely and he's already set off on whatever trip Mr Archer seemed to know about. I'll give it half an hour, maybe an hour or so, then I'll call the local paper and ask for Frank's contact. I consider playing the hand-held I bought in Inverness but I'm either not hooked on it yet or my jaded palate has produced game-boredom already.

I'm thinking there might be something wrong with my plan to wait as I close my eyes (only to rest them), but even as I yawn and put my hands into my armpits I think a spot of rest isn't such a bad idea so long as I don't fall asleep.

Andy runs out across the ice. I am five years old and he is seven. Strathspeld is everywhere white; the sky is still and shining, hiding the sun in a dazzling, brilliant haze, its light somehow distanced by the intervening layer of high cloud overlooking a chill wilderness of snow. The mountaintops are smothered, black crags violent spattered marks against that blankness; the hills and forests are blanketed too, the trees are frosted and the loch is hard and soft together, iced over then snowed upon. Here, beyond the gardens of the lodge and the woods and ornamental ponds, the loch narrows and becomes a river again, bending and funnelling and quickening as it heads towards the rocks and falls and the shallow gorge beyond. Usually from here you can hear the thunder of the falls in the distance but today there is only silence.

I watch Andy run out. I shout after him but I don't follow him. The bank on this side is low, only half a metre above the white plain of the snow-covered river. The grass and reeds around me are flattened under the sudden, overnight fall of snow. On the far side, where Andy is heading, the bank is tall and steep where the water has cut into the hill, removing sand and gravel and stones and leaving an overhang of earth and exposed, dangling tree-roots; the dark gravel space under that ragged overhang is the only place I can see where there is no snow.

Andy is yelling as he runs, coat-tails flapping out behind him, gloved hands outspread, his head thrown back, the ear flaps on his hat snapping and clapping like wings. He's almost halfway across and suddenly I go from being terrified and annoyed to being exhilarated, intoxicated; overjoyed. We were told not to do this, told not to come here, told to sledge and throw snowballs and make snowmen all we wanted, but not even to come near the loch and the river, in case we fell through the ice; and yet Andy came here after we'd sledged for a while on the slope near the farm, walked down here through the woods despite my protests, and then when we got here to the river bank I said well, as long as we only looked, but then Andy just whooped and jumped down onto the boulder-lumped white slope of shore and sprinted out across the pure flat snow towards the far bank. At first I was angry at him, frightened for him, but now suddenly I get this rush of joy, watching him race out there into the cold level space of the stilled river, free and warm and vivacious in that smoothed and frozen silence.

I think he's done it, I think he's across the river and safe and there's a buzzy glow of vicarious accomplishment starting to well up within me, but then there's a cracking noise and he falls; I think he's tripped and fallen forward but he isn't lying flat on the snow, he's sunk up to his waist in it and there's a pool of darkness spreading on the whiteness around him as he struggles, trying to lever himself out and I can't believe this is happening, can't believe Andy isn't going to jump free; I'm yelling in fear now, shouting his name, screaming out to him.

He struggles, turning round as he sinks deeper, chunks and edges of ice rearing into the air and making little puffs and fountains of snow as he tries to find purchase and push himself out. He's calling out to me now but I can hardly hear him because I'm screaming so hard, wetting my pants as I squeeze the screams out. He's holding his hand out to me, yelling at me, but I'm stuck there, terrified, screaming, and I don't know what to do, can't think what to do, even while he's yelling at me to help him, come out to him, get a branch, but I'm petrified at the thought of setting foot on that white, treacherous surface and I can't imagine finding a branch, can't think what to do as I look one way towards the tall trees above the hidden gorge and the other along the shore of the loch towards the boat-house but there are no branches, there's only snow everywhere, and then Andy stops struggling and slips under the whiteness.

I stand still, quietened and numbed. I wait for him to come back up but he doesn't. I step back, then turn and run, the clinging wetness round my thighs going from warm to cold as I race beneath the snow-shrouded trees towards the house.

I run into the arms of Andy's parents walking with the dogs near the ornamental ponds and it seems like an age before I can tell them what's happened because my voice won't work and I can see the fear in their eyes and they're asking, "Where is Andrew? Where is Andrew?" and eventually I can tell them and Mrs Gould gives a strange little shuddering cry and Mr Gould tells her to get the people in the house and phone for an ambulance and runs away down the path towards the river with the four Golden Labradors barking excitedly behind him.

I run to the house with Mrs Gould and we get everybody — my mum and dad and the other guests — to come down to the river. My father carries me in his arms. At the riverside we can see Mr Gould on his stomach out on the ice, pushing himself back from the hole in the river; people are shouting and running around; we head down the river towards the narrows and the gorge and my father slips and almost drops me and his breath smells of whisky and food. Then somebody calls out and they find Andy, round the bend in the river, down where the water reappears from a crust of ice and snow and swirls, lowered and reduced, round the rocks and wedged tree-trunks before the lip of the falls, which sound muted and distant today, even this close.

Andy's there, caught between a snow-covered tree-trunk and an iced-over rock, his face blue-white and quite still. His father splashes deep into the water and pulls him out.

I start crying and bury my face in my father's shoulder.

The village doctor was one of the house guests; he and Andy's father hold the boy up, letting water drain from his mouth, then lay him down on a coat on the snow. The doctor presses on Andy's chest while his wife breathes into the boy's mouth. They look more surprised than anybody when his heart restarts and then he makes a gurgling noise in his throat. Andy is wrapped in the coat and rushed to the house, submerged to the neck in a warm bath and given oxygen when the ambulance arrives.

He'd been under the ice, under the water, for ten minutes or more. The doctor had heard about children, usually younger than Andy, surviving without air in cold water, but never seen anything like it.

Andy recovered quickly, sucking on the oxygen, coughing and spluttering in the warm bath, then being dried and taken to a warmed bed and watched over by his parents. The doctor was worried about brain damage but Andy seemed just as bright and intelligent afterwards as he'd been before, remembering details from earlier in his childhood and performing above average in the memory tests the doctor gave him and even doing well in school when that started again after the winter break.

It was a miracle, his mother said, and the local newspaper agreed. Andy and I never did get properly told off for what happened, and he hardly ever mentioned that day to me unless he had to. His father didn't like talking about it much either and used to be slightly dismissive and jokey about it all. Mrs Gould gradually talked less about it.

Eventually it seemed it was only I who ever thought about that still, cold morning, recalling in my dreams that cry and that hand held out to me for help I could not, would not give, and the silence that followed Andy disappearing under the ice.

And sometimes I felt he was different, and had changed, even though I knew people changed all the time and people our age changed faster than most. Even so, I thought on occasion there had been a loss; nothing necessarily to do with oxygen starvation but just as a result of the experience, the shock of his cold journey, slipping away beneath the grey lid of ice (and perhaps, I told myself in later years, it was only a loss of ignorance, a loss of folly, and so no bad thing). But I could never again imagine him doing something as spontaneously crazy, as aggressively, contemptuously fate-tempting and unleashed as running out across the frozen ice, arms out, laughing.

You're already wearing your moustache and wig and glasses and you have clip-on sunshades over the lenses because it is quite a bright day. You ring the doorbell, watching down the drive for any cars while you pull on your leather gloves. You're sweating and nervous and you know you're out on a limb here, you're in the process of taking some terrible risks and the luck, the flow that comes from being justified and in tune and not taking too much for granted, not being contemptuous or disrespectful of fate; all that's in danger here because you're pushing the envelope, you're maybe relying on one or two too many things going perfectly. Even getting it all set up to get you this far may have taxed your fortune to the limit already and there's still a long way to go. But if you're going to fail you'll do it full-face on, not flinching, not whining. You've done more than you thought you'd ever get away with and so in a sense it's all gain from here, in fact it's been all gain for some time and so you can't complain and you don't intend to if fate deserts you now.

He comes to the door just like that; no servants, no security phone, and that by itself gives you the green light; you haven't the time for any finessing so you just kick him in the balls and follow him inside as he collapses, foetal on the floor. You close the door, take off your glasses because your vision is so distorted, and kick him in the head; far too softly, then still not hard enough, as he scrabbles round on the floor, one hand at his crotch and the other at his head, making a spitting, wheezing noise. You kick him again.

This time he goes limp. You don't think you've killed him or severed his spine or anything but, if you have, that can't be helped. You make sure he can't be seen from the letter flap, which is covered by a sealed box, then you look round the hall. Golf umbrella. You take that. Still nobody coming. You walk quickly through, see the kitchen and go in there, pulling down the Venetian blinds. You find a breadknife but you keep the umbrella too. You find some tape in a kitchen drawer and go back to the front hall, turning him round so that you're between him and the door. You tie his hands and wrists together. He's wearing expensive-looking slacks and a silk shirt. Crocodile slip-ons and monogrammed socks. Manicure and a scent that you don't recognise. Hair looks slightly damp.

You take off both his shoes and stuff both socks into his mouth; they're silk, too, so they ball up very small. You tape his mouth closed, put the roll of tape in one pocket, then leave him there to search the rest of the house, pulling down the blinds in each room as you go. In the kitchen again, you find the door to the cellar. On the first floor you hear music and the sounds of water.

You creep along to an open doorway. Bedroom; probably the master bedroom. Brass bed; huge, maybe even gold-plated. Disturbed bedclothes, broad sunlit balcony beyond windows and pastel-pink vertical blinds. The sounds are coming from the en-suite bathroom. You go into the bedroom, checking the position of the mirrors; none of them ought to show you to anybody in the bathroom. You're listening as you approach the bathroom door. The music is loud. It's a Eurythmics song called Sweet Dreams are Made of This. A power cable stretches from a socket in the wall into the bathroom. That's interesting.

The voice sings along with the song, then turns into a hum. Your heart sinks. You were hoping he was alone in the house. You look through the crack at the door hinge. The bathroom is big. In one corner there is a sunken Jacuzzi with a young person in it, moving sinuously in the bubbling waters. Caucasian, with short black hair. You can't tell whether the person is male or female. The research you did on Mr Azul didn't cover his sexuality.

The ghetto-blaster lies less than a metre away from the lip of the Jacuzzi. There is at least another couple of metres of flex coiled on the floor.

The young man or woman sings along with the song again again, putting their head back as they do so. Probably female; neck smooth, no real Adam's apple.

You look again at that power cable.

Your mouth is dry. What to do? It could be so quick, so easy and it would simplify things so much. It is almost as though fate is saying, Look, I've made it easy for you; just get on with it, do it. Whoever or whatever they are they're associating with this man and if they don't know what he does then they should.

But you're not sure. This violates the code, this goes against what you originally decided were your operational parameters. There have to be rules, laws, for everything; after all, there are even rules for war. Maybe this is fate testing you, offering you a litmus test, an apparently simple way round a problem that will prove you, find you out. If you take the easy way you will have failed, and nothing will save you then, not your skill, not your determination or righteousness, and not your luck because that will have turned against you.

The young person in the tub looks happy enough for now. You go to the bed, put down the umbrella and start looking in the drawers and cupboards built into the wall units surrounding the head of the bed. You keep glancing to the bathroom door. The drawers slide smoothly in and out without a sound; one of the perks of picking on the well-off rather than the chipboard classes.

You find a gun. Smith 8c Wesson.38. Loaded. Box of fifty rounds. You permit yourself an almost inaudible sigh and grin to yourself.

You lay the knife beside the umbrella, heft the gun and put it under the duvet to click the safety off. Peek in the drawer again. No silencer; that would be too much to ask for.

But then in another drawer you find something maybe even more useful. You stare at the gear in the drawer, a glow in your belly spreading through you. You have made the right choice and you are being rewarded. You glance over the thick tubes that make up the emperor-size brass bedstead, and smile.

You take the bondage hood out of the drawer. It zips up the back and its only feature is a nose-shaped crease with a couple of little nostril slits at the base. You take out your penknife and cut a couple of eye-holes, continually glancing at the bathroom door.

You try the hood on, then take it off and slit some more leather off the eye-holes. You put it on again, zipping it up halfway at the back. It smells of sweat and that scent Mr Azul favours. You take one of the pairs of handcuffs from the drawer and go into the bathroom, pointing the gun at the figure in the tub.

"Jem," she says, "what are you —?"

You decide to use your Michael Caine voice. It doesn't sound very much like Michael Caine, but then it doesn't sound like your own voice either and that's all that matters.

"It's not fucking lover-boy, dear, now get out of the fucking bath and do as you're told and you won't get hurt." It's not too bad; the mask helps disguise your voice too.

She stares at you, mouth open. It's a bad time for the doorbell to go, but that's what happens. She looks past you.

"Make a noise, darling," you say quietly, "and you're fucking history, understand?"

The doorbell goes again. The Eurythmics song finishes and you put a foot on the ghetto-blaster's power cable and drag it smartly across the bathroom tiles, pulling the lead from the back of the machine. You half expect the next song to start anyway because there are batteries in it, but, instead: silence.

The girl stares at you.

You watch her. It all feels strangely academic, as though you don't really care what happens next. If she does make a noise you probably won't shoot her, and anyway there's a chance she couldn't make enough of a noise to be heard outside the front door; it's a big house and although there are a lot of hard, sound-reflective surfaces in it, you're not convinced a scream would make it all the way to whoever's outside, either down the stairwell or through the double-glazed balcony windows. Plus, of course, you might have time to get over to her and hit her, knock her out before she could even gather a decent breath, but it's dangerous, edge-working stuff and you'd rather not have to think about that.

The doorbell doesn't go a third time.

You pull a towelling robe from the back of the door and throw it at her. She half catches it as it lands to one side of the Jacuzzi. "Right. Put that on now, come on."

You expect her to crouch and try to put the robe on before she's fully out of the water, or to turn her back to you, but instead there's something like a sneer on her face as she stands up facing you and wraps the robe around herself with a kind of disdain. She has a good body, and that single vertical tuft of pubic hair you need if you're a model or the possessor of a high-cut swimsuit.

She puts her head back with a nervous, resigned sigh when you put the gun to her head but she doesn't try anything as you cuff her hands behind her back. You tape her mouth then you walk her down to the kitchen and down into the cellar. As you pass through the hall you notice that Mr Azul is just where you left him.

The cellar provides lots of rope. You tape her fingers together and then tie her — sitting on the floor — to a stout wooden workbench. You remove anything sharp from the workbench surface and check there's nothing within reach of her legs. You take some of the rope with you. You go back up to Mr Azul, and he's gone.

You go stupid on yourself for a moment, as the luck wobbles, threatens to fly away and leave you; you stare at the place where he was, lying curled up, tied up in front of the door; you stare at the empty stretch of carpet, dumbly, as if staring will help.

Then you turn and run into the main lounge.

He's there, still curled up and still secured by the tape, but he must have wriggled his way through to here while you were down in the cellar; he's knocked over a table with the phone on it and he's just turning the phone the right way up as you enter the lounge and see him.

He wriggles, getting his face over the buttons on the base of the phone. He stabs at the buttons three times, then wriggles over to the handset and makes muffled shouts through the gag until you cock the gun and he hears it and looks round at where you stand, next to the wall, waving the telephone's wall-plug.

You haul him upstairs and throw him on the bed; he struggles and tries to shout. It's getting dark, so you turn the pink pastel vertical blinds closed and pull the curtains before putting on the lights. Mr Azul screams through his silk socks and masking-tape. You hit him. He's only groggy, not out, but you're able to secure him to the bed with the other set of handcuffs and the leather straps from the same drawer the hood came from. You're satisfied he's tightly held; the bed is sturdy and the straps are supple but quite thick. They fit perfectly. He struggles a little.

Then you take the rope you brought from the cellar and measure out four lengths, cutting them with your penknife.

You tie one length round Mr Azul's upper right arm, as close to his armpit as possible, over his silk shirt; you kneel on the bed and haul with all your might and the rope bites deep into the sheen of the pale silk shirt; Mr Azul cries out behind his gag; a strangled, anguished shriek.

You do the same to his other arm.

You tie his legs too, fitting the rope up to his crotch and tying it tight, bunching the fabric of the slacks. Mr Azul bucks up and down on the bed in a bizarre parody of sexual energy. His eyes are popping and sweat stands out on his skin. His face is going red as his heart struggles to pump blood down arteries blocked off by the ropes.

Then you take out the little plastic box from your jacket and show him the syringe needle. He's still bucking up and down and he's shaking his head too now and you're not sure he understands, but it doesn't matter all that much. You prick him once on each arm and leg. This is a refinement you thought of only recently and are quietly proud of. It means that even if he is discovered in time, before necrosis sets in, he will be HIV-positive.

You leave him there and go down to check the woman is all right. Mr Azul's screams sound harsh and hoarse and far away.

It's sunset when you leave, locking the quiet house securely behind you. The sun flames orange and pink behind the trees above the house, the breeze is cool rather than cold, scented with flowers and the sea, and you think what a pleasant if rather bland place this would be to settle down.

I jolt awake with a bad taste in my mouth and my left eyelid stuck down again. It's almost dark. I look at my watch. Where the fuck is this guy? I take another look round the house; no lights. Back in the car, I try to use the mobile but the batteries are flat and the Nova doesn't seem to have a cigarette lighter. I head for St Helier.

"Shit." I've just tried the local newspaper but Frank's pal has gone out and they won't give me a contact number.

I'm standing in a phone box near the harbour. I watch a white Lamborghini Countach trundle past on the street outside and shake my head in disbelief. A Lambo. More than two metres broad and barely one high. Just the car to have on an island full of lots of narrow, high-hedged twisty roads and a 60-miles-per-hour speed limit. I wonder if he ever gets the beast out of second gear.

Maybe I should phone the police: hello hello I've just spotted a cretin recklessly in charge of an obscene amount of money is there a reward? (Tempting.)

Every bastard's out. Frank isn't at home, Azul's unlisted, I try the local paper here but they can't or won't help and the airlines refuse to give out information on passengers. I put the phone down. "Shit!" I shout. It sounds very loud in the phone box. I phone Yvonne and William's house but there's only William's voice on the answer-machine. I remember Yvonne saying something about being away on a job for the next few days. I think about phoning her mobile but she hates me doing that so I don't.

Oh, bugger this. If I was some fucking private eye or something I'd head back out to Mr Azul's big house and break in somehow and find something really interesting or a body or a beautiful woman (or just get slugged on the back of the head and wake up wise-cracking). But I'm tired, I've still got a headache, I feel beat and out of ideas and I feel embarrassed dammit. What in the fuck am I doing here? What was I thinking of? Hell, this seemed like such a good idea this morning.

I can still make a flight back to Blighty which will connect with the last plane to Inverness. Forget covering the story. Sometimes a tactical retreat is the only course to follow. Even Saint Hunter would agree. If I feel the need to do something I can always exercise my creative abilities trying to think of a story that'll appease Eddie. Fat chance. I take the Noya back to the airport.

An hour to kill. Time to hit the bar. I start off with a Bloody Mary as this is breakfast in a sense, then cleanse the palate with a bottle of Pils. I buy a packet of Silk Cut and carefully smoke a cigarette — making sure that I'm actually enjoying it, not just doing it out of habit — while managing to fit in a couple of large and very refreshing G&Ts before the flight's called and there's just time for a single knocked-back whisky to provide a bit of nominal support for the Scottish export drive.

I board the plane feeling no pain, eat the evening meal and continue with the G&T theme, land in Gatwick and make the connection via the smoking area of the bar and another gulped Gordon's, then pass on the second offered dinner but not the accompanying booze and quietly pass out somewhere over the West Midlands, to be woken by a dishy blonde with an impudent, dimpled smile and we're here we've landed we've arrived, we're on the stand at the airport and I'd ask her what she's doing later because I'm drunk enough to not care when she says «No» as she probably will, but I know I'm too tired and besides my left eyelid's stuck again and I suspect it makes me look a bit like Quasimodo, so I don't say anything except, "Uh, thanks," which is cool or sad, I'm not sure which.

I walk into the terminal thinking, Well, at least there isn't that smell of sewage around you sometimes get when you arrive in dear old Embra; I'm not sure I could handle that right now. I walk through the lounge thinking something looks wrong somehow, then stop and stand still where the lounge opens out into the main terminal building, suddenly filled with horror and confusion; it's all too small and not shaped right! This isn't Edinburgh! Those amiable but blatantly incompetent buffoons have brought me to the wrong fucking airport! Dickheads! Can't they even navigate, for fuck's sake? Christ, I bet there isn't even a flight back from… Where the hell am I?

I see the sign saying Welcome to Inverness just as I remember where I left the car and where I left from this morning and just before I turn and stamp to the nearest desk and demand in my highest dudgeon to be taken to Edinburgh on a charted Lear if necessary or limoed immediately to the highest-starred hotel within a reasonable radius for a free overnight dinner, bed and breakfast and unlimited bar tab.

Narrow escape from Terminal Embarrassment.

People are walking past looking at me oddly. I shake my head and set a course for the car park.

It's kind of late now and I'm in no condition to drive so when I get the 205 I only take it as far as the outskirts of Inverness where I stop at the first lit Bed and Breakfast sign I see and talk politely and slowly to the pleasant middle-aged couple from Glasgow who run the place and then say goodnight, close the door of my room and fall fast asleep on the bed without even taking off my jacket.