Page 85 of Savage Obsession

“A… a favour.”

“Oh?” I’m at a bit of a loss. What on earth does she imagine I’m able to do for her?

She rummages in the front of her dress and produces a folded-up note. She hands it to me.

“What’s this?” I unfold the sheet of paper. “A phone number?”

“That’s my dad’s number. When you get home, would you phone him? Please. And tell him where I am.”

“Why don’t you phone him yourself?”

“I have no phone. And Adan would not…” She hesitates. “If you prefer not to, I understand. It is a British number. Long-distance.”

“It’s not that,” I assure her. “Of course I’ll phone him, if I get out of here.”

“You will get out. Adan has said so.”

“You believe him?”

“He does not lie to me. He means to let you go.”

Her confidence is heartening, though it sounds as though she’s as much a prisoner of Adan San Antonio as I am. I refold the paper and tuck it under the mattress. “Thank you, and you have my word. I’ll phone him as soon as I get the chance. What’s your dad’s name?”

“It’s Nathan. Nathan Darke.”

CHAPTER 21

Baz

“Got it, señor.” Henio leaps up to hop from one foot to the other and whoops from his cluttered corner of the warehouse.

Two days have gone by. Two interminable days during which I’ve spoken several times to San Antonio, but despite my threats, he has refused to allow me to speak to Julia again. I fed him the intel about the shipment in Los Cristianos, and he’s now fifty thousand euros richer as a result. Or so he thinks. Our plan is to relieve him of the product he ‘liberated’ before he has time to cut it, contaminate it, and let it loose on the unsuspecting fun-seekers on the island. It’s not good for business to have holidaymakers turn up in the Emergency Room having OD’d on dirty coke.

San Antonio, equally unsuspecting, seemed satisfied with that outcome, for now, but his ultimate goal is to see the Kaminski empire in tatters.

“Thank you, my friend,” he gloated when I phoned him after I got confirmation from our courier that his cargo had been ‘diverted’. “I look forward to concluding our bargain in due course. You have six days remaining.”

“I know the deal. I’ll keep my side of it. I want to speak to my wife.”

“Alas, that is not possible.”

“Why? What have you done to her?”

He simply ends the call whenever I get too pushy, leaving me shouting at thin air. Bastard.

Kris and I cluster around Henio’s screen.

“What is this?” Kris demands.

“There. The van. You can just see the rear doors.”

We lean in. “Right. You sure it’s the one?”

He rewinds the video, and we watch the van in reverse, the red lettering clearly visible on the side of the vehicle. It pops out from beside the cottage in the image to disappear backwards into the surrounding woodland, only to trundle back when Henio plays the film forward again.

“What is that place?” I ask.

“Just an old farmstead. One of the places I’ve been watching.” He zooms out, and a small town scattered around a sandy beach comes into view. “That’s Playa de Castro. Looks to be a couple of kilometres to the west of the farmstead. Nice beach but a bit off the tourist track.”

---