37

Adam Zaleski climbed out of the small plane onto the tarmac and was greeted by a wave of searing heat and humidity. Even through his dark glasses, the sky was an electric blue, not a cloud to be seen. Bag in hand, he waved goodbye to the pilot and followed behind the two other passengers towards the airport buildings at the end of the short, dusty runway. They were no better than a collection of shabby, prefabricated huts, a herd of strange-looking, scrawny cattle plucking at the scrub in front, everything reassuringly far removed from the Western world. Even the air smelt different. He felt like skipping for joy, jumping up and down for the sheer fucking fun of it. He was free. Totally free. He had got away with everything.

He had picked up an English paper along the way and read about how Donovan and Tartaglia had been rescued in the nick of time. It was the only thing that grated and it made him angry just to think about it. He should have poured the petrol over their fucking bodies. But no point in crying over spilt milk. He was long gone and the photograph of him, printed in the paper, was a dud. Nobody would recognise him as he was now, tanned, with short, dyed blonde hair and a light beard. If anything, he looked a bit like David Beckham, although his eyes were the wrong colour. Anyway, he was now well out of reach of English newspapers.

Sam Donovan’s small face swam into his thoughts again, all lipsticked, rouged and perfumed, ready for death and cradled in his arms as he carried her back downstairs before dumping her beside the other policeman. He had dressed her in one of his grandmother’s favourite silk numbers but she was such a scrawny little thing, it kept gaping open and he’d had to tie the belt around her twice to make her decent. Sam. The dirty stain on an otherwise glorious chapter. He thought of her as she was before, sitting on the sofa beside him, eyes half closed, mumbling, struggling to keep her mind together, failing dismally. ‘Why?’ she had asked. Why? Why? Why? The question still hung in the air, nagging at him, screaming at him just like his fucking grandmother. Even though he hadn’t actually seen her for a while, her voice was still there, whining and wailing in his ear like a fucking banshee. He’d thought about it a lot since, tried to come up with an answer to silence the witch once and for all, make the old whore go back to her grave along with all the rest of them. Why does anybody do anything? Why? Because they want to. That’s why, stupid cow, stupid fucking bitch. Because they can. It’s that fucking simple.

Little Sam. The one who had wriggled away. The only one. He didn’t care about the other stupid wanker of a policeman. He was nothing. But Sam mattered, she mattered all right and the thought was eating away at him until he had no peace. He’d been greedy to go for her, plain greedy and he deserved a ticking off, a firm, hard rap over the knuckles. He should have called it quits after Yolanda. But along came the little whore, gagging for it, offering herself to him on a plate, poor fucking, pathetic tart. It would have been churlish to refuse, although it had cost him dear. At least they had nothing on him to link him to any of the others. No forensic trail. Sweet fuck all, in fact. Still, it was a pity she had lived to tell the tale. She was unfinished business. He couldn’t rid himself of her, her face, her voice, her smell. That awful smell of gardenias from his grandmother’s old scent bottle. Sam was taunting him, laughing at him. The one that got away. But not for long. As he crossed the short stretch of tarmac, he promised himself that he’d find her again. One day soon. Then he’d make the little bitch rue the day she first tasted Polish vodka.