Agonizingly, Henry’s bag came last down the conveyor belt, whilst Bill’s was one of the first to appear through the rubber flaps. The firearms officer waited patiently for Henry whilst the DCI became increasingly annoyed, suspecting that it might not even have made the flight.
‘How can this be?’ Henry moaned. ‘Our bags went in together.’
‘It’ll come,’ Bill assured him.
And it did, eventually, all by itself.
Henry tore it off the belt and angrily set off towards the doors which opened out into the comparatively tiny arrivals hall, Bill in tow.
By the time they appeared, all the other passengers from the flight had gone and the hall was quiet.
Henry stood and looked around. Bill tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a person holding up an A4-sized piece of white card on which had been scribbled ‘CHRISTIE & ROBBINS’. Bill set off, Henry a beat behind him.
Bill stretched out a hand in greeting and the woman holding the sign broke into a wide, welcoming smile as she shook Bill’s hand.
‘You must be Detective Christie,’ she said to Bill, whose bottom lip dropped stupidly open as he took in the sight of the woman sent to meet and greet them. ‘You’re just as I imagined.’
‘I’m … er,’ he blubbered.
‘It’s so lovely to meet you,’ she said and looked at Henry as she prised her hand from Bill’s grasp and proffered it to Henry. ‘You must be Constable Robbins,’ she said, shaking his hand firmly. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Papakostas … Georgia Papakostas.’
Henry’s mouth also drooped, almost flopping on to the tiled floor, his anger over his late luggage immediately evaporating, to be replaced by a sort of awe at the sight of one of the most stunning women he’d ever met. Her jet-black hair was pulled back tightly from her face and tied in a neat ponytail. She had honey-coloured skin, deep-brown eyes, an imperfect complexion with two tiny pockmarks on her left cheek that only added to the overall effect of a true Mediterranean beauty. There was no make up other than a touch of lip gloss which simply served to accentuate the full mouth and pure white teeth of her hot, real smile.
For a few moments Henry could not form any words. He and Bill just simply stood before this woman drooling like imbeciles from a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
‘Pleased to meet you, Sergeant,’ he managed to say.
Her thick black, but perfectly trimmed eyebrows knitted together in puzzlement. ‘I have got it the right way round, haven’t I?’ she said in a lightly Greek-accented voice. ‘You are Bill, yes?’ she said to Henry.
‘Oh no, I’m DCI Christie … this is PC Robbins.’ Henry moved forward a couple of steps, positioning himself slightly ahead of Bill because there were times when it was only right and proper for a DCI to lead from the front.
Georgia giggled. ‘I’ve been looking at the names on the paperwork, imagining what you both would look like.’ She gave an apologetic tilt of the head. ‘Got it wrong.’
Henry caught the merest scent of light perfume from her, reminding him of strawberries.
‘All you need to know is that I’m the brains and he’ – he thumbed disrespectfully at Bill – ‘is the muscle.’ And immediately regretted what he’d said because he knew it made him look stupid.
‘Thanks, boss,’ Bill said under his breath.
To try and compensate, Henry gave Georgia his cute tilted-head half-smile he kept for use on such occasions, coupled with a few blinks of his eyes.
She smiled and emitted a pleasant chuckle. ‘Anyway, I’m very pleased to meet you both. As you probably know I’m the officer in this case and may I formally welcome you to Cyprus, halfway to the Orient, as they say.’ She bowed her head gracefully and gave a very minor curtsey.
She was wearing a black trouser suit with sensible black shoes, good practical clothing for a female detective. As she bowed, her unbuttoned jacket flapped open slightly, revealing her red blouse fastened just above her breasts. Obviously these caught Henry’s eye, as they did Bill’s, but what really caught Henry’s breath and what made him realize that this might not be just a jolly to a sunny holiday island was the sight of the pistol strapped to her right hip.
Stepping out of the terminal building, Henry was struck in the face by the incredible heat of the day and the myriad of intoxicating aromas associated with the island, particularly that of the sea, which was literally just across the road.
The two Lancashire officers followed DS Papakostas down the ramp, past a few lounging and moustachioed taxi drivers touting idly for work, all of who watched the female detective’s progress with dirty eyes and thoughts. She led Henry and Bill across the car park to a Nissan Terrano, a big four-wheel drive beast, into the back of which they heaved their cases and then themselves.
‘You can have use of this,’ she explained, ‘but I’ll drop you off at your hotel first.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Henry, barging Bill out of the way to get into the front passenger seat alongside Georgia, who climbed in behind the wheel. The two men exchanged scowls, but Bill relented and got into the back seat with great reluctance. It was only as Henry settled himself in and pulled on his seat belt did he realize that the vehicle’s steering wheel was on the right. He said, ‘You drive on the left,’ with surprise.
‘Oh yes,’ she said.
Bill tutted and Henry shot him a quick look which said, ‘Watch it.’
‘You haven’t been to the island before?’
Henry shook his head. ‘I have,’ Bill piped up.
Georgia smiled. ‘Lots of British influence here, still,’ she explained, manoeuvring the Terrano out of its parking space. ‘We only recently changed to the euro,’ she added.
‘From what?’
‘Pounds … Cypriot pounds, that is.’ She drove on to the road, the shimmering Med on their right, and gunned the big, but lazy, diesel engine which responded sluggishly. There then followed one of those slightly stifled introductory conversations covering such inanities as flight comfort, in-flight meals and other bits of trivia to break the ice. This included the fact that her father was Cypriot and her mother English, hence her almost excellent use of the language.
That done, Henry asked about the plan for the remainder of the day ahead.
Georgia checked her wristwatch. ‘If it’s OK with you guys, I’ll take you to your hotel and get you settled in. Then, maybe, we meet up and plan for tomorrow, which is when we’ll move for Scartarelli. It will have been a long day for you today, so you just need to chill for the remainder of the day and maybe we get a meal later?’
‘Sounds OK to me,’ Henry said.
‘And me,’ Bill seconded from the rear. ‘I’m dying for a large Keo.’
Henry turned and grimaced at him.
‘The local brew – very nice.’ Bill smiled and licked his lips.
‘I’ll go with that, Henry agreed, turning forwards huffily, then looking sideways at DS Papakostas’s profile. ‘How far to the hotel?’
‘Maybe half-hour. It’s in a place called Coral Bay.’
‘In that case could you give me a bit of background as to how Scartarelli came into your sights?’
She gave a short laugh. ‘Good phrase, because that’s what he did – come into my sights.’ She patted the gun nestling against her right hip.
She had a good informant, one she had been keeping to herself, something Henry could relate to. He had been a smuggler for many years and was in his early sixties, though he looked fifteen years younger despite his weather-beaten face and grey moustache. Georgia had encountered the man known as Haram when she had been a keen rookie cop patrolling the streets of Nicosia, the island’s capital, in the early days of her service. She had, in fact, worked her way up to Haram. He had been the one every cop in the southern half of Cyprus had wanted to catch red-handed. Her trail had begun with the spot-check and subsequent arrest of a minor drug-dealer under the battered ruin of Pafos Gate. A deal had been struck leading her to the next dealer up the chain and so on, until she reached the final link: Haram. He was known to smuggle Turkish heroin down through the north and then cheap cigarettes and booze in the opposite direction. Although he had been arrested on a multitude of occasions, no prosecutions ever ensued.
But Georgia – ambitious to be a detective – bided her time. Constantly digging and building a jigsaw of Haram until she had four informants, all with jail penalties hanging over them, passing on information to save their own arses.
All the patience came to fruition almost a year after the encounter with the first dealer under the gate in Nicosia. Haram was bringing a carload of drugs across the border from the Turkish north of the island by a circuitous route around the western tip from where he would be supplying the tourists and the British forces bases in the south.
If her intelligence was correct – and jail sentences would happen if it weren’t – Haram would eventually be travelling south down the coastal E704 towards Polis, a town popular with backpackers. Once on that road, there would be no escape for him.
That had been ten years ago and Haram, terrified by the thought of losing his liberty, had reached an ‘understanding’ with Georgia who, after successfully transferring to CID, used his intimate knowledge of the Cypriot underworld to further her career.
She had met Haram most recently and clandestinely on the waterfront at Kato Pafos, where they sat at a quayside restaurant called the Pelican, sipping mineral water. It was called the Pelican because a real live one wandered around the tables, seeking scraps from the diners.
‘I want to give you something,’ he said in his quiet, gravelly voice.
‘That’s always good to hear.’ She was always cool with him, always in control, never wanting to give him the impression he was anything more than a piece of useful shit.
He held up his hands. ‘You want it, or not?’
‘Haram,’ she began patiently, her brown eyes taking on a glint of steel. ‘Give.’
She knew that he still operated very much in the centre of the Cypriot underworld, often protected from the law by her, and that he had grown wealthy on the proceeds of crime because she had allowed him to do so. He could now so easily just be stepping out of a prison cell if the two of them hadn’t reached that understanding – something none of her bosses knew about, incidentally.
‘A man has appeared on the scene,’ he said gruffly. ‘An interloper.’
Georgia gave him a crooked smile. ‘And he’s treading on your toes?’ she ventured.
Haram looked quickly away. Georgia knew she had struck a nerve, read his mind. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
‘He’s Italian, mixing with the Maltese guys in Nicosia. Low profile, but starting to throw his weight around with us. He has good connections …’
‘And he’s treading on your toes?’ Georgia said again, knowing that many of Haram’s snippets of information were given simply just to get the competition off his back. Such was the nature of informants. They were always in it for a reason, and Haram’s was to keep operating unmolested – and not to go to prison.
Haram nodded. The pelican approached their table, its big beak clattering hungrily.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘People, drugs, prostitutes … trying to set up a new line. Hookers, mainly, but also a lot of drugs … using Albanian girls.’
Try as she might, Georgia could not keep a sliver of interest out of her eyes.
‘I want him caught, neutralized,’ Haram stated.
‘So you can continue to do the same?’ she said cynically.
He raised his eyebrows. They were grey and overgrown. ‘And there’s something else – a bit of glory for not much work on your part,’ he teased. ‘I have checked out this man carefully. Here, on the island, he goes by the name of Corelli, but I have discovered he is really called Scartarelli.’ Haram passed the detect-ive a scrunched-up piece of paper. ‘His details. Check him out on your computers. You will find something interesting that will get him out of both our hairs.’
Her hand covered the paper. She looked sideways at the expectant pelican. ‘And how will that happen?’
‘I will give him to you on a plate.’
It was just the sort of job a detective likes occasionally. A decent arrest, not much paperwork and some kudos to boot.
When Georgia checked out the name, the computer she was using became all bells and whistles. Corelli, also known more correctly as Paulo Scartarelli, was wanted by the English cops for murder. What better fun could there be? To execute a simple arrest and get a big-time player off her patch with hardly any paperwork.
There was a tense few days waiting for Haram to come through, but he did via a call to Georgia’s mobile phone.
‘Tonight … he will be driving three Albanian prostitutes, illegals, from Pafos to Limassol using the B6 … Audi A4.’ He recited the registered number. ‘Leaving Pafos seven-thirty.’
‘How good is this, Haram?’
‘The best. Take him, get rid of him, flush him down the shitter.’
She thumbed the end-call button and felt a pleasant tremor of anticipation shimmer through her.
Henry listened as the story unfolded, but something about the situation did not quite add up. ‘I take it it didn’t go to plan?’
She looked squarely at him for a moment. ‘You could say that.’ Her voice sounded bitter, upset. Her attention returned to driving as she negotiated her way through Pafos, a dusty town that struck Henry as sun-baked and not very picturesque.
Despite her fine arrest record, which outshone most other detectives on the island, she could only muster the use of one double-crewed car – and herself – to pull the vehicle a murderer might be in. She argued that two would be better, but the police in Cyprus had the same resource issues as every other police force the world over – i.e. never enough. One would have to do.
At seven on the evening on which Georgia had got her information she sat in the rear of a liveried Fiat Bravo on the B6, facing the direction of Limassol, waiting for an Audi A4 to pass them, a male and female cop in the front seats.
Which it did one hour later, four people on board.
The Bravo slotted in behind and followed for a couple of miles, passing Secret Valley and reaching Aphrodite’s birthplace, where they decided to tug the Audi. Using blue lights, a tweak of the siren and flashing headlights, they indicated for it to pull off on to a scrubby parking area overlooking the two spectacular rocks in the sea below them, set against white cliffs. It was from out of the foaming water here that Aphrodite herself was alleged to have emerged from the ocean. The Audi pulled in as instructed and the three cops were quickly out of the Bravo, covering both sides of the Audi. It was all going very smoothly.
Georgia tapped the driver’s window. The man behind the wheel looked up through hooded, dangerous eyes and just so he made no mistake about who was who, she flashed her badge at him and indicated that he get out of the car – now! He climbed out slowly, like a cat, doing as instructed, placing his hands on the roof and spreading his feet. The two other cops were doing the same with the female passengers. They were young, pasty-faced girls, immediately reminding Georgia of pimp-fodder.
She searched the man, asking him questions, then expertly cuffed him. He made only guttural, non-committal responses.
Georgia looked up as the woman cop searched the last of the females. She saw what happened next in slow motion, knowing she would be able to replay the scenario in her mind forever.
The female suspect acquiesced to the search, but as the officer spun her round to slap on the cuffs instead of doing it from behind, a knife appeared in the girl’s right hand from somewhere, probably having been secreted up her sleeve. It had a short blade, no more than three inches, with one serrated edge. Georgia screamed a warning, started to hurl herself across the gap as the prisoner jerked up her hand and thrust the blade up to the hilt below the officer’s ribcage.
‘There was no need for it,’ Georgia said sadly to Henry. She reduced the acceleration of the Terrano as the road inclined up to the Coral Bay junction. ‘She was just a silly, frightened kid from Albania, she panicked and a cop got seriously injured.’
‘She didn’t die, then?’ Henry asked.
‘No, but she’s still poorly and could die.’
‘I’m slightly confused though. How come we’re moving on Scartarelli if he’s already in custody?’ But he knew he had answered his own question then. ‘The guy wasn’t Scartarelli, was he?’
‘Just some pathetic low-life enforcer and gofer. He wasn’t anyone, really, just a driver.’
‘What did your informant have to say about that?’
‘It was two days before I managed to speak to him again.’
From the back of the Terrano, Bill interjected, ‘Was it a set-up, then?’
They met back at the Pelican in Pafos, Papakostas and Haram, a desperate tense encounter. Haram had lost much of his laid-back cool, his eyes darting all around, and they were sitting inside the restaurant so he could have his back to the wall and watch both entry and exit. His hand shook as he raised his strong coffee to his mouth and he kicked out petulantly as the tame pelican waddled by.
‘He knows … he knows it was me,’ he said jerkily.
‘How?’
‘I’m the only one who could have told you. He played me and I fell for it. No fool like an old one,’ he said caustically.
‘No argument with that, Haram,’ Georgia said. ‘Add to that one of my officers is fighting for her life. Unnecessary. For what?’ she spat. ‘Three whores from a lawless country? Someone treading on your toes? And your useless information. Have you any idea how much I am suffering personally and professionally from this, this, cock-up?’
‘I think my life may be in danger,’ Haram said bluntly as though he hadn’t heard a word said.
She stared angrily at him, unable to speak, but then she said, ‘All you wanted me to do was take him off the streets for you, isn’t it? Just to suit you, nothing else.’
He looked away, sucked on the last of his cigarette and stubbed it out. He fumbled in his trouser pocket and extracted a crumpled piece of paper, the second one he’d passed her in days. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘He stays there from time to time. That’s all I can do.’
He stood up wearily, his joints showing his age. He gave a curt nod and left the restaurant.
Georgia’s fingers took the paper, then she finished her bitter espresso in one swallow and went to the toilet at the back of the restaurant.
As she washed her hands after peeing, she clearly heard four cracks in quick succession and knew it was not a car backfiring.
Haram had twisted out of the Pelican and walked along the quayside towards the car parks and shops of Kato Pafos. It was early season and there were not many tourists yet, so the front was rather quiet. He reached the wide-open promenade area and stopped by the low sea wall, looking into the clear water where he could see big fish swimming lazily. He flicked a cigarette out of the crumpled packet and drew it out between his lips, clicked the disposable lighter and dipped his head between his cupped hands to light up.
He never saw who killed him. Whoever it was walked quickly up behind him, placed the 9mm pistol against the base of his skull and pulled the trigger four times. The force of the impact rocketed Haram over the wall and into the water.
Weapon drawn, Georgia raced out of the restaurant and ran towards the small knot of shocked onlookers gaping over the sea wall. And she knew Haram was dead even before she slowed down. He had foretold his own demise only moments earlier and now he was in the water, face down, floating, his head blown apart and the fish, over their initial panic when he hit the water, now in a bubbling frenzy of feeding on the blood and brain.
She went silent as she reached this part of the story, then pulled the Terrano into a space by the roadside.
‘Here we are,’ she announced. ‘It’s a hotel, but split into apartments. Hope that’s OK.’
‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Henry said.
‘Cosy,’ Bill said casting his eye over the apartment. ‘Which side are you sleeping on?’
It was a one-bedroom apartment, meaning a kitchen area, bathroom, lounge and one separate bedroom, a very common type of holiday accommodation for the unwashed masses.
Henry grimaced. The sofa obviously converted into a bed, but he wasn’t sure if this was appropriate lodgings for two grown cops on an official job. The two would never have shared a normal hotel bedroom together and there was enough money in the kitty to have separate rooms, or at least a two-bedroom apartment, either of which would give a greater degree of privacy required by two men well into their middle age. It wasn’t as though they were twenty-somethings on a piss-up holiday. They were blokes who had their own ways and foibles and needed somewhere private in which to do them.
Henry wished he had personally sorted out the hotel instead of leaving it to the judgement of the locals.
‘I’ll go down to reception,’ Henry said, ‘see if I can sort something out.’
‘I’m not after bumming you, y’know,’ Bill reassured him. ‘But then again, after a few Keos I’m anybody’s.’ He blew Henry a kiss.
Appalled by the thought and related image, the recently married Henry hurried down to see if anything could be done.
The accommodation issue was easily sorted. They were transferred into a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the pool (even though the bathroom was still shared), which was a much better arrangement. They had quickly changed out of their travelling gear, showered (separately) and re-dressed in clothing more appropriate to a warmer climate. Henry was in a baggy T-shirt and three-quarter-length trousers and trainers; Bill was in a vividly coloured short-sleeved shirt with lots of names of cocktails splattered all over it, three-quarter pants and open-toed sandals.
‘Hey – we might only have one night of debauchery,’ he defended himself against Henry’s chides. ‘I’m into the holiday groove.’
‘We won’t have any nights of debauchery,’ Henry said sternly like some kind of police supervisor. ‘We’re here on a job, OK?’
‘You won’t be saying that after a pint of Keo.’
The duo strolled down the main street in Coral Bay, past restaurants, mini-supermarkets and tat shops. The place was reasonably busy and had a nice, easy feel to it. The evening was warm, a bit clammy, and Henry was already dripping.
‘She said meet here, didn’t she?’ Bill pointed to an open-air restaurant across the street to which they duly made their way. Bill treated Henry to a Keo, which came in an iced pint glass. It tasted better than any beer he had ever had before, immediately dissipating the dryness of the journey which, when everything was taken into consideration, had taken a full half-day. He could feel the beer spreading its icy tentacles out across his chest. ‘Good, eh?’ Bill said. His own pint was already gone.
‘Bliss,’ Henry gasped, his eyes half-lidded in ecstasy.
DS Papakostas walked into the bar accompanied by a surly man with a thick black moustache who looked like a stereotypical Greek straight from Shirley Valentine. However, Henry did not pay him much heed. His eyes were firmly fixed on Georgia, who, though dressed casually for the evening, looked more stunning than ever. Her hair was pinned up in a much more feminine way than earlier and now, with make-up expertly applied, she was the Greek beauty to the Greek beast that walked beside her, scraping his knuckles on the ground.
Henry stood up and shook hands with her.
‘Hello, Henry … Bill.’ She nodded and smiled at the PC, who had a glazed expression on his face. ‘May I introduce my inspector?’ She stood aside and indicated the man with a gesture. ‘Inspector Tekke.’ He proffered his hand and Georgia continued, ‘This is Henry and this is Bill.’
Tekke regarded the British officers through dark, ringed eyes. He reminded Henry of a lemur with a ’tache, but even so, everything about him screamed, ‘Cop!’ Henry felt immediately at ease in his presence.
‘Welcome to Cyprus,’ Tekke said, flashing a set of unnaturally white teeth.
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope your visit here will be worthwhile.’
‘I’m sure it will … please, sit. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Just a water for me,’ Georgia said.
‘And for you?’
‘Call me Andrei, or Andrew if you like,’ Tekke said easily. ‘And water will be fine for me, also.’
Henry turned to Bill and raised his eyebrows.
‘Er, I’ll have another Keo, if that’s OK?’ Bill said, misunderstanding Henry’s non-verbal signal that meant, ‘You get ’em.’ Henry looked at him as if he was stupid. ‘Oh, you want me to get them?’ he said.
‘That’s the general idea,’ Henry said.
‘Mm, OK. Another beer for you?’
Henry nodded. ‘Cheers, Bill.’ He indicated for the two Cypriot detectives to seat themselves at the table.
‘Have you settled in?’ Georgia asked.
‘Yeah. Slight hitch with the room size, but that’s sorted now.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Not a problem,’ Henry beamed.
DI Tekke leaned forward. ‘Can I say I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Christie?’
‘I’m pleased to meet you, too.’
‘I’ve done some research on you.’
‘Oh,’ Henry said, withdrawing slightly.
‘You’ve had an interesting and varied career.’
‘You could say that.’
‘So how come you’re acting like a bounty-hunter now?’ The question stung Henry, for it was one he had asked himself. He was sure that Tekke did not mean to offend, so he took it on the chin and in the spirit in which it was intended.
‘There’s a few wanted people who needed catching,’ he said simply.
‘And you were chosen for the job?’
‘Yep.’
Bill returned with the drinks from the bar and distributed them, then slumped down and instantly sank half of his new Keo.
‘What about you, Andrew?’ Henry took the opportunity to deflect the question.
He shrugged modestly. ‘Work hard, follow procedure, stick to the letter of the law, get results, that’s me.’
It was at that point that Georgia laid a hand on Tekke’s arm and Henry caught a quick glance between the two that gave him a very incisive insight into their relationship. ‘He’s being modest,’ Georgia said. ‘He has one of the best clear-up rates of any detective in the force.’
‘Not, you understand, that we have much crime. Not like Britain. Ours is a very low-key-crime country. Nicosia has its share of organized crime and the bigger resorts do have a drug and prostitution problem, but our main crimes are usually Brits killing Brits. Usually easy to solve.’
‘And every so often we get someone like Scartarelli in the mix,’ Georgia added. ‘Which is why we’d like to get him, catch him for you and deport him, never to come back.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure to take him off your hands,’ Henry said. ‘But I’m presuming you’ll want to have a long talk with him first? He may be implicated in a murder and the serious assault of a policewoman, I believe.’
‘Yes, when we arrest him, we will interview him,’ Tekke said. ‘But the consensus is that we would rather have him off the island than on – and unless he immediately confesses his involvement in the matter you refer to, then let’s get rid of him.’
‘But first things first,’ Henry said.
‘Yes, we need to arrest him … which is why I suggest we talk about how we hope to achieve that before too much alcohol is imbibed. And then, when we’ve done that, I am going to treat you to the best Greek mezze this side of Nicosia,’ Tekke said. ‘But business first – before you stay awake all night with a distended stomach.’
There was no particular theme to the mezze they consumed that evening. It was a heady combination of fish, meats and vegetables and Henry lost count of the number of dishes they ate after the eighth course. On reflection he estimated there could well have been fifteen dishes brought out to them, each one tasting wonderful. These, combined with more beer and wine, had a very stretching effect on his stomach. Bill, on the other hand, did not seem too affected by the amount of food and drink. It just seemed to disappear into a hollow container.
The meal concluded at eleven, having taken about three hours.
Bill and Tekke had fallen into a long-winded conversation about guns, whilst Henry and Georgia made very small talk.
Their bill came with a complimentary brandy for each of them that tasted like rust.
Bill and Tekke were discussing the merits of the H&K machine-pistol. Two firearms buffs together.
Henry clinked glasses with Georgia. It was her first taste of alcohol that night.
‘Can I just ask something?’ he said hesitantly.
‘Of course.’
‘I got the impression that your informant was known only to yourself, from what you told me.’
‘Only Andrei knows of him.’
‘Ahh. I know what it’s like to lose an informant, one who’s been with you for a long time,’ he said. ‘I won’t patronize you to say I know how you feel, but I’ve been there very recently and found it hard to deal with.’ Henry explained his recent experience and she listened carefully. ‘The difference is that I put my informant in a dangerous situation. You didn’t.’
‘They put themselves into dangerous situations. They’re usually in dangerous situations to begin with,’ Georgia said philosophically. ‘Situations that can easily go wrong.’
Henry thought about it. ‘Maybe.’
Tekke picked up the bill and slapped a wodge of euros on it and waved at a passing waiter. He had not been as alcohol-free as Georgia and was slightly drunk. Bill was suddenly very drunk. Henry was just about right, but bloated by the food.
They all stood up and left the restaurant, tumbling on to Coral Bay’s main street.
‘I parked outside your hotel,’ Georgia said. She and Henry walked ahead.
Bill and Tekke were loudly discussing the merits of the Glock pistol. Apparently it was light, well constructed, reliable, had hardly any recoil and was therefore a good weapon for putting bullets into villains’ chests.
‘Great double-tap,’ Bill slurred, eight pints of Keo swishing about inside him.
‘One of the best,’ Tekke concurred, two bottles of wine in him.
Henry and Georgia had put about twenty metres between them and the firearms argument. The street was fairly quiet now, many of the restaurants starting to close up for the night, all the shops having done so an hour and a half earlier. A few cars drove past.
‘Live locally?’
‘Pafos.’
‘That’s why you’re sober – designated driver.’
Georgia nodded.
Henry yawned. ‘Been a long day.’
‘Could be a long day tomorrow. Will Bill be all right for an early start?’
Henry laughed. ‘In the best traditions of the Lancashire Constabulary, he’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’
They stopped at the kerb.
Forty metres away, Bill and Tekke were loudly disagreeing over the best sniper rifle available.
‘What about your inspector?’
‘I’ll make sure he’s up.’ She glanced quickly at Henry, confirming his guess about them.
‘Good.’
‘That’s my car.’ She pointed diagonally across to another Terrano and took a step off the high kerb.
Henry heard the acceleration of a car, the deep growl of an engine, a crunch of gears. His head twisted quickly to the right. Headlights on main beam glared at him, four of them on a bull bar, and a huge four-wheel drive vehicle hurtled towards them. Georgia had left the kerb and was now a metre and a half into the road. She spun to face the noise, stunned momentarily in the beam. The vehicle was maybe twenty metres away to her right. Not far. Maybe two seconds away from ramming into her.
A roar emanated from Henry’s throat.
He saw the vehicle, two figures in it, driver and passenger, the passenger leaning out of the window, in the hand the dark but unmistakable shape of a gun.
He saw Georgia in the road.
And he had four pints of beer slushing inside him and a huge mezze, neither, either separate or combined, designed to make him the most efficiently operating human being on the planet.
He reached out and grabbed Georgia’s forearm and violently dragged her back to the footpath, the force of his strength making her go like a rag doll. The vehicle swerved in towards them, front wheels mounting the pavement. Henry yanked her as if they were in some kind of brutal dance, still twisting her away. Both of them staggered until the back of Henry’s knees hit a low wall surrounding a cafe terrace and they fell over it, falling through spiky bushes and smashing into tables and chairs, landing hard on the concrete-paved floor.
Henry looked up from their embrace.
The vehicle had stopped.
The passenger was leaning out. The weapon he held was aimed at them – and he fired.
Georgia screamed.
Henry, still holding her, gripped tight and rolled them over and over across the terrace, crashing into the furniture, hearing shots fired, bullets whizzing just over them, all the while expecting to be hit. Then the vehicle accelerated away, and there were three more shots and shouting.
He had rolled on top of Georgia.
She pushed him roughly off and clambered to her feet, drawing her own weapon, which Henry didn’t even know she had in her possession tonight. She scrambled back over the wall and ran into the road.
Suddenly Bill Robbins was standing over Henry.
‘You OK, boss?’
Henry picked himself up very gingerly. He’d clattered a few parts of his body – the backs of his legs, his elbows, his sore ribs and his head, but all in a minor way. Bill assisted him to his feet and they were joined by Georgia and Tekke, both now with weapons drawn.
‘I got three shot shots off at them,’ Tekke said, still dangerously waving his gun in the air.
‘I thought you said you didn’t have much crime on Cyprus,’ Henry said accusingly.