Kingston noir, p.30
Kingston Noir, page 30
“What if we don’t? Will you then close the border? Will you let us be arrested?”
“No. I do not do that. You helped me.”
“Yes. There was an exchange, that too. For which we remain grateful.”
“And now I ask you again for help. Not for myself.”
“No: a mother and her daughter. You play this game very skillfully.”
“Thank you. Are you doing it?”
The man said nothing.
“This afternoon a hitman tried to kill the girl, and he would probably have killed the mother as well. Terrence, the girl’s father, intervened. But those people, those behind this hitman, are at their wits’ end. They will send somebody else. Hitmen come cheap in Kingston. I want to make sure that this does end right now.”
A short break. Then: “Get me more information about those men.”
Afterwards, she sat in the car for a while. She had opened the door because it was damn hot. It would again be a hot day in Kingston. She was thirsty. She would drive back to the office in a moment. She would ask Tim to meet with the Israelis again. This time with a sealed envelope.
Of course he would want to know what was in the envelope.
But she wouldn’t tell him.
She would keep the names of the two men to herself.
Public prosecutor Deveaux hurriedly walked out of his office and looked at his watch. He was late as always. He had to hurry as always.
He was expected in court. The judge would not be kind if he did not show up at the agreed time.
Balancing on the edge of the sidewalk, he looked out for a taxi. There were always taxis around in Kingston’s business district, but they never seemed to be there when you really needed one.
He just had a quick lunch with the assistant public defender, who assured him that three suspects in a child pornography case would not immediately see the light of day again. They would have to wait another six months for their trial, but at government expense.
Not that the government spent a lot of money on people in prisons.
Ah, a taxi.
The vehicle, a black Japanese SUV, stopped right in front of him.
He opened the back door, snarled, “Main Court,” assuming every cab driver in town knew where it was, and then sat back in the seat.
Only then did he realize that the taxi already had a passenger.
That was highly irregular. There were laws against this.
The other passenger was sitting in the front seat, next to the driver.
The car accelerated quickly, crossed the road, and made a sharp turn onto a side street.
This was certainly not the route to court. And why was the driver so rude?
The man in the passenger seat turned to Deveaux.
He pointed a gun at the prosecutor. A gun with a silencer.
Devaux’s first thought was: organized crime. I put the wrong people behind bars.
But no, that would never have happened, because he knew very well how to settle matters with organized crime. He knew very well who was untouchable, and he steered free of these people.
“Who sends you?” he asked. He felt he had a right to know. He would settle things with these men or with their employers.
“A woman and her daughter,” said the man with the gun.
He had an accent, although he took care to enunciate his English clearly.
“A little girl who doesn’t want to die because of your perversions,” the man added.
Deveaux realized that this was not an organized crime case.
After that, he didn’t realize anything anymore because his brain and part of the back of his skull ended up against the back window of the car.
An hour and a half later, two visitors announced themselves at the office of police chief Vandermeer. The man and woman identified themselves as diplomats from the Canadian embassy. They wanted to talk to the police chief about the safety of a group of Canadian sportsmen and surfers who wanted to come to Jamaica for a winter internship, sometime in December.
“And that’s what they want to talk to me about?” Vandermeer asked his secretary. “Where are they now?”
“They said they got your name through the State Department, sir,” the secretary said. “They’re waiting in the hallway.”
“Foreigners,” said Vandermeer. He looked at his watch. He actually wanted to go to his favorite club and then, when it got a bit cooler, play golf. He had people to see at golf.
But now: Canadian diplomats. About safety.
“Well, let’s see them then,” said Vandermeer. “Let them in.” Here was perhaps a chance to earn a bit of cash. Canadian dollars, why not.
He lifted his bulky body from his large leather chair. The man and the woman who entered were still young, in their thirties, he guessed. They didn’t look like he imagined Canadians to look. But hey, it was an immigrant country, like the US. He shook their hands and sat down again.
“Madam, sir,” he said, “what can I do?”
“Chief Vandermeer,” the woman said in precise English. “We come here because of a woman and her daughter.”
He sank back into his chair. “Not related to surfers?”
Had his secretary misunderstood?
“You already know the daughter,” said the woman. “You kept her tied up in the basement of Harkaway’s house.”
Vandermeer froze.
For a moment.
Then he opened the drawer of his desk.
Where he kept his gun.
However, the woman already had her gun in hand.
The last thing he saw was the thick, matte black silencer on the weapon.
After a few moments, the man and woman stepped out of the office.
The man turned and said, “Thank you for your cooperation, Chief,” and closed the door. Then he smiled at the secretary.
They both quietly stepped out of the building into a waiting car.
With the storm in the press somewhat subsided, two days later, Vassell had accompanied Tim to the airport. They had coffee in a bar in the departure lounge. She wanted to offer him his last Blue Mountain coffee, but the bar did not sell such an expensive brew. Too expensive for the average airport user. She would send him a package over the mail.
She had come to wave him out. Least she could do. She owed him that. Even more so because she had done her best to avoid him for the past two days.
Because he probably had some pertinent questions, which she was not going to answer. But she was sure he would not force her to. If he wanted, he could have locked both of them in her office or taken her to a bar, where he would have confronted her with what he assumed had happened. He would have figured it out.
But he had done nothing. Their last conversations had kept to the surface of the whole case.
Anyway: he would not be able to prove her involvement, even if he wanted. The murderers of the two high-ranking officials had long since returned to Israel. They would never be found. Apart from two bullets, they had left no traces.
But Tim knew about the agreement with Mossad regarding the data card.
He also knew that Lucy and Anna would have no peace until the true murderers were caught.
He had heard that Harkaway had suddenly and hastily left the country, despite the ongoing investigation, and that he was the object of an international police search. He would hide, maybe successfully, maybe not.
Vassell could not care less. As far as she was concerned, Harkaway could rot somewhere in a faraway country. He would never return. He would assume another identity and disappear altogether, minus a significant portion of his fortune. He knew that Vassell knew about his involvement in the murders, even though he may not have had any blood on his hands. He read the news. He read about the murders of Deveaux and Vandermeer. He might as well connect the dots.
She and Tim had very little to talk about for the last two days of his stay. More important was what they didn’t share. They were now bound by a mutual silence and by the hope that the whole conspiracy, which had caused the death of at least nine girls, was eliminated. What they did not know was this: had anyone else been involved in the kidnappings and murders besides Charlie, Harkaway, Deveaux, and Chief Vandermeer?
They didn’t know the answer.
Vassell realized she would probably never know the answer.
The murders of two prominent citizens of Kingston had not been linked to the case of the murdered children. The reputation of these men remained intact. Vassell regretted that. No one knew what sort of monsters they had been.
Still, she assumed Lucy and Anna would now be safe. She told Terrence that much, but in confidence. He hadn’t asked her to explain. Maybe he too knew how to connect the dots.
About the Author
Guido Eekhaut has published crime books, thrillers, and speculative fiction in both Dutch and English. His novel Absint (Absinthe) won the Hercule Poirot Award, and he has been nominated twice for the Golden Noose Award, as well as the Diamond Bullet. In addition to his Noir series, Eekhaut also writes detective novels under the name Nellie Mandel. He divides his time between Belgium and Spain.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Guido Eekhaut
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 979-8-3372-0259-4
This edition published in 2025 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Guido Eekhaut, Kingston Noir
