Mac spotted Ginger leaning against a dusty Land Rover as soon as he clambered down the plane’s steps onto the rudimentary airstrip. Ginger Jameson had been his assistant while he’d worked at the Afghan police training academy the previous year, and after they were both ‘let go’ for their overzealous pursuit of an international arms, drugs and antiquities smuggler, they’d kept in close contact. You couldn’t have too many friends in Afghanistan was the way Mac saw it.
Ginger waved him over, his boyish features cracking into a wide grin.
‘Hell, am I pleased to see you.’
They gripped hands momentarily, until Mac let go to punch Ginger in the upper arm.
‘Great to see you too, chum.’ He looked round. ‘Who are they?’
A group of four or five westerners were handing their cases over to be stashed in the aircraft’s hold, then climbing the steps to board.
‘Well Diggers’ expat staff. Anholts, the country manager, called them back to Kabul until we find Bakker and get proper security up and running.’
‘Just as well – gets them out of our hair while we sort it.’
On the drive into town, Ginger filled Mac in on the details of what had happened. They sat in the back of the Land Rover, while Ginger’s interpreter, Darab, sat up front next to the driver. Mac looked out of the car window with interest as he listened. The outskirts of Lash weren’t dissimilar to the outskirts of Kabul – the usual patchwork of dusty roads lined by rows of compounds, all surrounded by high walls so you couldn’t really get a sense of the properties or people inside. However, the scale of the two cities couldn’t be more different, and without the roadblocks and gridlocks of the capital to contend with, they were in the centre of Lash in ten minutes.
‘Still nothing from the kidnappers?’ he asked when Ginger finished speaking.
‘Not a dicky.’ Ginger shook his head. ‘There was a nightletter pinned to the compound gate, but Nagpal, our logistics guy, checked – they were pinned all across the neighbourhood.’
‘But you’re sure the one Well Diggers received was the same? Could be a smart way of delivering a more personalised message.’
‘Jesus,’ said Ginger, rubbing his hand across his forehead. ‘I’ll get Nagpal to take another look at it.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘Hi, Nagpal… you still got that nightletter?’ He listened for a few seconds. ‘Can you do us a translation? Could be important.’
‘What now?’ said Mac when Ginger had disconnected the call.
‘I’m not sure what else we can do at the moment. The governor couldn’t have been less interested – he said he knew nothing about it and hadn’t heard any rumours. The police are supposedly searching for Bakker, but I’m not holding my breath.’
‘Let’s go straight to the scene,’ said Mac.
‘Not much to see… the body’s been moved to the morgue at the Italian Emergency Hospital.’
‘It’ll give me a feel for how things could have gone down.’
The house on Herat Street was empty now – Vinke and Bakker had been its only residents – so Mac was surprised to see an old man sitting on the side of the road in front of the locked compound doorway when they pulled up.
‘Who’s this?’ he said.
‘Darab,’ said Ginger to the interpreter, ‘ask this man what he’s doing here.’
Darab gave Ginger a puzzled look. ‘Mr Ginger, this is Mahmoud. He is Mr Vinke’s gatekeeper.’
The mysterious guard who’d been missing first thing was now waiting patiently to get back to his post.
Ginger pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the compound door.
‘Tell Mahmoud to come in,’ Mac said to Darab. ‘We’ll need to ask him some questions about what happened.’
The air inside the house smelt stale and the surfaces already looked dusty. Apart from some dirt trodden in near the front door, there was little sign that the police had come and gone earlier in the day. There was no forlorn crime-scene tape flapping in the wind, no traces of the silver fingerprint powder Mac would have expected at a British crime scene. It didn’t even look like they’d searched the house very thoroughly, though with the attackers coming from outside, maybe there wouldn’t be much to find. But you didn’t make assumptions like that – that was sloppy policing.
The house itself, while large and well-furnished by Afghan standards, lacked personality in the way expat rentals often do. There were no photos or ornaments, and the few houseplants looked as if no one took proper care of them. Clearly, Bakker and Vinke were not exactly homely types.
Mac took a cursory look around, in case anything obvious had been missed. Upstairs, he peered into the two bedrooms in turn. ‘Which room is which?’ he said to Ginger, who’d come up behind him.
Ginger shrugged and went into the messier of the two rooms. He looked around for a couple of minutes. ‘I think this is Vinke’s room – I’m pretty sure I saw him wearing that shirt,’ he said, pointing to a pale yellow short-sleeved shirt that lay crumpled at the foot of the bed. ‘D’you think the fuckers grabbed him up here?’
Mac studied the mess – a tangle of discarded clothes, books stacked by the bed, a couple of empty glasses on the nightstand and shoes kicked off by the wardrobe.
‘No, this just looks like normal shit admin to me. No sign of a struggle.’
He went across the landing to what must be Bakker’s room. It was the complete opposite – tidy to a fault. The bed was made, shoes lined up in pairs under the window, clothes precision folded and neatly piled on the wardrobe shelves. Surfaces clear of clutter. ‘Military background?’ said Mac.
Ginger shrugged. ‘Not that I know of. But it’s either that or OCD.’
Mac opened the drawer of the bedside table. There wasn’t much in it. A wristwatch, stopped. Nail clippers. A wrist support bandage in a box, unused. A few loose condoms. A box containing pills.
Mac scooped up the condoms and held them up. ‘Don’t imagine he had much use for these in Lash.’ He dropped them and picked up the meds instead. He read the label. ‘Zoloft. Any idea what that’s for?’ He opened the packet. The information sheet was missing, and half the pills in the blister pack were gone.
‘Not a clue,’ said Ginger.
Mac slipped the meds into his pocket. ‘Let’s see what Mahmoud’s got to say for himself.’
Through Darab, they instructed Mahmoud to sit on one of the chairs by the kitchen table. He looked around the room, and then frowned at Ginger and Mac. Mac realised why.
‘No one’s told him what happened yet,’ he said to Ginger.
‘But he should have been here last night. And, for that matter, first thing this morning. He lives on the property. Nagpal and I got here at just after nine, and we were here until when I phoned you at – what was that? Ten thirty, elevenish? Why wasn’t he here then?’
‘Darab, ask him whether he was here last night, and where he’s been this morning.’
Darab turned to the gatekeeper, and they spoke for a couple of minutes in Pashto. As Darab mentioned Vinke and Bakker’s names, the man’s face registered a look of shock and then he let out a theatrical moan. He shook his head and agitated the prayer beads on his wrist.
Darab spoke in English. ‘He didn’t know that Vinke is dead or that Bakker is missing. He got a message yesterday from his home village – his mother was taken ill and he needed to see her.’
Mac studied Mahmoud’s stricken features. He would have described Mahmoud as an old man, and was surprised that he had a mother still alive, but a harsh life under the Afghan sun often made men appear older than they were.
‘He travelled back there yesterday afternoon and stayed the night at his family home. Mr Vinke had given him permission to do so.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mac. ‘Please tell him that we hope his mother recovers soon.’ But he had to wonder. Conveniently out of the way when the assault had gone down.
Darab passed on the message and it elicited another bout of moaning from Mahmoud.
‘Insha’Allah, Insha’Allah.’ If Allah wills it.
‘Ask him if he noticed anything suspicious in the last few days – people watching the house, if anyone visited and argued with either Vinke or Bakker…’
‘Ask him about nightletters,’ said Ginger. ‘There was one tacked to the door this morning, but Nagpal said that’s pretty routine.’
Darab questioned the man again, and this time Mahmoud seemed to have plenty to say. Mac and Ginger waited patiently until he ran out of steam, then they looked at Darab.
‘No, nothing has been out of the ordinary in any way,’ said Darab.
‘He took his time telling you that,’ said Mac.
Darab waved a dismissive hand through the air. ‘He’s a superstitious old man, and he likes to talk. He moaned about the nightletters – he’s worried that the Taliban will gain power again.’
Mac glanced at Ginger and wondered how much they could trust the translator. But it was a conversation that would have to wait until Darab wasn’t around.
‘Just one other thing – give me a moment.’ Ginger ducked out to the Land Rover and got the envelope with the sneaker in it. Being careful not to touch it, he shook it out onto the kitchen table. ‘Is this his?’
Mac could tell by the way Mahmoud looked at the shoe that he’d never seen it before.
Darab confirmed it. Mac glanced down at Mahmoud’s feet. They were old and gnarled, with protruding bunions. He was wearing sandals made from an old tyre, and Mac doubted he’d be able to get his foot into the sneaker.
He and Ginger took a cursory look around the rest of the house, mainly for Mac to get the lay of the land. Then Mac took some time to examine the outer door of the compound. There were no signs of forced entry.
‘So, if Vinke had given Mahmoud the evening off, presumably the gate would have been bolted from the inside?’
‘You’d have thought,’ said Ginger.
‘Which means either Vinke or Bakker opened the gate to the attackers – in other words, they knew them – or possibly the attackers came over the wall.’
They walked along the inside of the perimeter wall, looking for heavy footprints in the dirt as a sign that someone had lowered themselves over it. They found nothing.
‘Let’s look outside,’ said Mac. ‘Maybe they drove a vehicle up to the back of the compound and used it for a leg-up.’
But the Well Diggers compound backed onto a similar compound in the next street, with a shared back wall. And likewise, the side walls were shared with the two neighbouring compounds, so there would be no way of surreptitiously breaching the property from the sides or the rear.
‘I guess either Vinke or Bakker let them in, then,’ said Mac, as they stood outside the gate. ‘Right, time to take a look at the body.’