Screen Savers

Chapter 55

Captain de Witt had changed into plain clothes; he and I stood at the back of the room, listening as the Dutch customs commander addressed her squad. They nodded as she spoke, each of them glancing occasionally at a copy of the snapshot with which old Joe Donn had put the finger on his nephew.

I hardly understood a word, but I knew what she was telling them. It was mid-afternoon and we had five hours before the flight which we had identified was due to take off; a KLM flight, bound for Jakarta through Singapore.

We would catch him at the gate, of course, but the sooner the better, so the customs team was being instructed to sweep the huge hub airport. The briefing was over, quickly, and the officers dispersed, leaving de Witt and me nothing to do but wait in that small office. I grew more excited, and more tense, by the minute; I’d have loved to have been out there looking myself, but it was too risky. We had one chance at this and if I was spotted first. .

‘Are you always as obsessive as this, Oz?’ the soldier asked me, idly. Like many Dutch people, his English was almost perfect. ‘You could have left the rest to us, you know, and gone back to England with your friends. I am not saying that this will be dangerous, but you never know.’

‘I’m obsessive,’ I replied, ‘when someone is obsessed with me. . and when someone thinks they can take the piss out of me and get away with it. As for going home, I have to know all the answers, and I have to hear them for myself.’

We sat there for almost an hour, almost telling each other our life stories. When I had finished mine, de Witt pursed his lips and nodded. ‘I understand you better now,’ he said. ‘I see why you have to be here.’

He had barely finished before the door opened and the commander reappeared. ‘We have a sighting,’ she said, in English, for my benefit, ‘in one of the restaurants on the upper level. Come on.’

We followed the woman out of the room, into the concourse. I know Schiphol Airport well — I travel through it often with the GWA team — so I had a fair idea of where we were headed. The place is so big that even at a brisk pace the walk took us almost ten minutes. Once or twice, air crew buzzed past us on wee motorised scooter things, and I wondered why the customs lady couldn’t have ordered up three of those. But we got there, eventually; to the place which I had guessed, a restaurant not far from the Casino, one level above the crowds.

A customs officer was waiting by the doorway; he spoke briefly to his boss. ‘Third table from the door,’ she told us, quietly, ‘in the centre of three ranks.’ I knew the layout; I’ve eaten in the place myself. Henke de Witt nodded and stepped inside, with me at his heels.

We were unnoticed, until we were no more than five yards from the table; then Stephen Donn looked up, directly into my eyes. ‘Hello,’ I said, treating him to my most self-satisfied smile. ‘I’ll bet you thought you’d cracked it. Wrong.’

He didn’t say a word. Instead he picked up a wicked looking, saw-edged steak knife and grabbed the arm of the woman at the next table. I guessed at the time that he planned to use her as a hostage to make yet another getaway; in fact, that’s still my guess, but I’ll never know for sure, for de Witt turned out to be quicker on the draw than Billy the Kid.

I know that he snatched it from his shoulder holster, but it happened so fast that it was as if the gun had just materialised in his hand. Before Donn could pull the woman in front of him, a nice round red hole appeared in the middle of his forehead. He stiffened for a second, then toppled backwards, dead as a doornail.

Across the table, closer to us, Mike Dylan pushed himself to his feet, half-turning towards us. Captain de Witt shot him too, through the side of the chest; he gasped and slumped to the ground. I dropped to my knees beside him as he lay, writhing, on the floor. As he looked up at me, I read a mix of shock and terror in his expression; I couldn’t do anything to comfort or reassure him, for we both knew that he was dying.

He grabbed my jacket. ‘Clever bastard. . right. . enough,’ he murmured, with a great effort. The words seemed to bubble out of him. Then he stared up, into my eyes. ‘Only personal with him, Oz. Just the money with me. . had to have my own. You understand. .’

Those were the last words my poor, daft pal Dylan said to me, before he drowned on his own blood.