‘New name, mate. From now on, you’re Ginger Tom – the cat with nine lives!’
Ginger opened one eye and raised a non-existent eyebrow at Mac. He was lying propped on a stack of pristine white pillows on a bed in a private room in the Italian Emergency Hospital in Lashkar Gah.
‘Blown up, shot in the leg – gotta salute you. I would shake your hand, but…’ Mac looked down with a grin. Both Ginger’s hands were heavily bandaged, as was his head. His face was plastered with a noxious-looking ointment.
‘Fuck off!’ he said good-naturedly, before being overcome by a coughing fit.
‘Nasty cough you got there.’ After all, if you couldn’t rib a mate when he was down, when could you rib him?
‘Get out, Mac. It hurts too much when I laugh.’
Mac guessed they must have put him on some pretty powerful painkillers. The drive back to Lash the previous afternoon had been hell for Ginger. With the loss of another vehicle, space had been at a premium. Ginger and a wounded militiaman had been laid out flat on the back of the GAZ-66, on either side of the gun mounting, but the ancient Soviet vehicle hardly boasted the most luxurious suspension, and the men were bounced and jolted through the ferocious desert heat for over seven hours. Baz and Mac had done what they could with the scant resources of the trauma pack, but it was a gruelling experience Mac hoped he’d never have to witness again.
When Dr Marchesi had met them at the hospital entrance, Mac and Baz had practically melted with relief at being able to hand over their patients to a professional. The militiaman had gone straight to surgery for a gunshot wound, during which time Ginger’s burns were dressed. He’d then gone to surgery to have the bullet removed from his leg. At the same time, Bakker was admitted and checked over. Marchesi told them later that the worst of his injuries were his broken fingers, which had quickly been reset. However, the abrupt cessation of his antidepressants had totally fucked with his head, and that was going to take longer to sort out.
‘Can I talk to him now?’ said Mac, bumping into Marchesi in the corridor after he’d visited Ginger the following morning. ‘Need to debrief him on what happened.’
‘You can talk to him for a short time,’ said Marchesi warily. ‘He will tire easily as he’s been through a highly traumatic experience.’
Him and me both.
‘What about you?’ said Marchesi. ‘How are you holding up?’
Mac’s arm was back in the sling, and he was still walking with a slight limp. He decided it was probably wiser not to admit to the doctor that he’d spent part of the past forty-eight hours with the butt of an AK47 pressed up against his broken collarbone.
‘Getting there,’ he said.
Marchesi nodded. ‘It’ll take a while, but it would be quicker if you rested, you know.’
‘Time and tide,’ said Mac, leaving Marchesi with a puzzled expression as he went off in search of Baz.
They sat down, one on either side of Bakker’s bed. It wasn’t quite that they were going to play good cop, bad cop, but Mac knew that Baz would be a calming influence if some of the questions he asked cut too close to the bone.
Bakker still looked like a broken man, but he’d been cleaned up and his wounds tended to, and that was something of a transformation compared with how he’d been the day before. He was asleep when they went in, so they sat for a while, watching the rise and fall of his chest, happy to take a moment’s respite. When he opened his eyes, he looked at them blankly, and it was several seconds before he recognised or remembered them.
‘Hi Tomas,’ said Baz.
He started to say something in Dutch, then switched to English. ‘You… you were the people who rescued me, yes?’
Mac nodded. ‘You were in a bad way, but you’re safe now.’
Bakker glanced around nervously as if to confirm his words. Then he looked at his left hand, swathed in bandages, and winced.
‘Did Jamali do that to you?’ said Baz.
Bakker nodded.
‘Jamali’s dead,’ said Mac. ‘I killed him.’
Relief flooded Bakker’s face. But there was something Mac didn’t understand. Why had Jamali tortured Bakker, breaking his fingers, flaying his back to a pulp? Mac hadn’t suffered in the same way when he was being held by Jamali.
‘Did Jamali have you make a ransom demand video?’ he asked.
‘No, nothing like that. He didn’t want me for a ransom.’ Bakker rubbed his uninjured hand across his eyes, as if reliving some of the horror he’d been through.
Mac exchanged a glance with Baz. This didn’t make sense.
‘Tomas,’ said Baz quietly. ‘Let’s just go back to the beginning, to the night you were taken. Tell us who killed Vinke and what happened next.’
The hand dropped away from Bakker’s face abruptly, and he stared at Baz with wide, fearful eyes.
‘But you know who killed Vinke, don’t you?’
‘No,’ said Mac.
‘Yes, you know,’ he continued, nodding his head. ‘It was me. I killed Lars.’
Mac could have fallen off his chair. Had Bakker completely taken leave of his senses? Was his memory playing tricks on him? ‘No, Tomas, you didn’t. There was someone else there. We found a shoe under Vinke’s body that didn’t belong to anyone who worked at the property.’
‘Ja, ja, that was Khalo’s shoe. It came off when Lars attacked him.’
‘Sorry, who’s Khalo?’ said Baz.
Mac knew he’d heard the name before somewhere.
‘My friend,’ said Bakker. He looked down and his face coloured. ‘I met him in a café in central Lash. We got talking, and he agreed to come back to the house.’
‘So you’d just met him?’ said Mac. ‘But you said he was your friend?’
‘I met him a couple of months ago. He came back to the house a few times.’
‘Why did Lars attack him?’ said Baz.
‘Usually, I only brought Khalo home with me when Lars was away, and when Nazanina was at her own home. But on this occasion, Lars had returned unexpectedly. He thought what we were doing was wrong.’
‘What were you doing?’ said Mac. But then it dawned on him. A friend that Tomas only brought home when the house was empty. The condoms they’d found in his bedside table.
‘Surely it was none of his business?’ said Baz.
‘Of course it was none of his business. But he threatened to report me to the country manager. He said he would get me sacked and sent home.’
‘For seeing a man?’ said Baz. She sounded outraged.
‘For seeing a boy,’ said Mac quietly. ‘I saw Khalo at Jamali’s stronghold. He can’t be older than sixteen or seventeen.’
Bakker was immediately defensive. ‘He told me he was eighteen. He looks younger, but…’
Baz’s outrage had turned to revulsion. ‘So he’s just a kid? No wonder Vinke was angry.’
‘Lars caught us… having sex. He lost his temper. He dragged Khalo outside and started hitting him. Khalo was small compared to Lars – he didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Then what happened?’ prompted Baz.
‘I went to defend Khalo. I was so angry with Lars for hurting him – he was my friend.’ Bakker stopped talking and made a noise that sounded like he was trying not to cry. ‘Khalo got away and he ran out of the gate. I was holding onto Lars to stop him going after Khalo. That’s when Lars said he would make sure I lost my job. I grabbed him by the neck and then… and then… I realised I was strangling him. And I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. He was such a bastard…’ Bakker was crying openly now.
Baz got up and fetched a plastic cup of water. Mac studied his boots, giving Bakker time to compose himself.
‘When I realised Lars was dead, I dropped him on the ground, and I ran after Khalo. I knew where he stayed – at a big compound on the edge of town. I went there, through the empty streets, and banged on the gate. By then it was nearly morning. No one answered, so I waited there until daybreak.’
At that moment all the pieces fell into place for Mac.
‘It was Jamali’s compound, wasn’t it?’ he said.
Bakker nodded, and Baz gave Mac a questioning look.
‘Khalo was Jamali’s bacchá bazi,’ said Mac.
‘Oh my God,’ said Baz, putting a hand to her mouth.
‘I tried to persuade him to leave Jamali so many times,’ said Bakker. ‘But Akhtar gave him money and clothes. He wouldn’t leave.’
‘What happened in the morning?’
‘The gate opened and I pushed my way in, shouting Khalo’s name.’
‘Which is when Jamali took you hostage?’
Bakker nodded. ‘He was jealous. He made me suffer and he made Khalo watch. He humiliated me in front of Khalo. I would rather have died. I deserved to die after killing Lars. You shouldn’t have rescued me.’
Mac stared at Bakker’s miserable face, at his red-rimmed eyes. He didn’t know what to say. Baz was also lost for words.
Dr Marchesi came into the room and took one look at Bakker. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘My patient needs to rest now.’
As soon as they were outside the room, Baz erupted with anger. ‘That bastard!’
‘Jamali?’
‘No, Bakker. Actually both of them. Fighting over a teenage boy. They’re as bad as each other and both deserve to rot in hell.’
‘Jamali’s already there,’ said Mac. ‘But there’s not a lot we can do about Bakker.’
They went back to Ginger’s room. Logan was there, hanging out of the window to smoke a cigarette.
‘Jeez, Logan,’ said Baz. ‘Ginger’s suffering smoke inhalation. Couldn’t you give it a rest for just one moment?’ She was still angry.
‘That’s why I’m leaning out the window, babe,’ said Logan, turning back into the room as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.
‘It’s fine,’ said Ginger, before succumbing to another monstrous coughing fit.
Baz gave Logan the sort of look that Mac hated being on the end of.
Over the next few minutes, Mac and Baz recounted what Bakker had told them.
‘Man!’ said Logan. ‘You mean the whole thing was some sort of twisted love triangle? That’s what we risked our lives for?’
‘So it would seem,’ said Mac.
‘Hardly love,’ said Baz. ‘Exploitation is a better word for it. What will happen to him? He committed a murder.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ginger. ‘I’ll tell Anholts – it’ll be up to him how to proceed.’
‘But it had one good outcome,’ said Mac. ‘Jamali’s reign of terror is no more.’
Logan shrugged. ‘Sure, we’ve created a power vacuum. Now there’ll be a turf war. Jamali’s next in line will fight to keep his opium fields, while Khaliq and his brother will view it as an open invitation to move in. Not a great outcome for the local population.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Mac, feeling chastened.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ said Logan. ‘This is Afghanistan and you can’t make a blind bit of difference to the way things go down here.’
‘We can try,’ said Baz. ‘I want to make a difference.’
Logan snorted, but Mac thought Baz was right. If they were going to be here, they might as well try to be a force for good.
‘Got a plane to catch,’ he said. ‘Can you give us a lift to the airport, Logan?’
‘Sure.’
Baz’s face lit up. ‘A plane? Dubai, finally?’
‘Uh, no,’ said Mac, a little surprised that she thought that. ‘I start my new contract in Kabul tomorrow. Had you forgotten?’
‘So no holiday at all?’ She looked crestfallen.
Mac gave her his most disarming smile. ‘Come on, you’ve had two weeks of sun and sand, haven’t you?’
She stepped forward and put her arms around his shoulders.
‘Yup, and cocktails are overrated anyway,’ she said. ‘But you owe me, you bastard. You owe me a holiday big time.’
She wasn’t wrong.