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Canongate Books - Parker Bilal

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235 pages

English

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A TIMES BEST CRIME BOOK OF THE YEARIn London, private investigator Dr Rayhana Crane is contacted by a woman who has received an unexpected letter from her estranged son Jason, not seen since he left to become a fighter for Islamic State. When his steps are traced back to the old stomping ground of her partner, Cal Drake, the former policeman goes undercover to infiltrate the sinister network which took Jason abroad. Meanwhile, Crane pursues a woman whose seemingly unconnected disappearance off the English coast is soon found to reveal a deadlier connection. As the two investigators delve deeper, they find themselves mired in a violent world where terror and organised crime intersect.

Informations

Publié par	Canongate Books
Date de parution	07 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838855130
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0240€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Parker Bilal is the author of the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner , was longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. The Divinities , the first in his Crane & Drake London crime series, was published in 2019. Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. Born in London, he has lived in a number of places, including the UK, Denmark, Spain and, currently, the Netherlands. @Parker_Bilal | jamalmahjoub.com
Also by Parker Bilal
Crane and Drake The Divinities
The Heights The Makana Series The Golden Scales Dogstar Rising The Ghost Runner The Burning Gates City of Jackals Dark Water Standalone Whitehavens

First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2022
by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in Canada
by Publishers Group Canada
canongate.co.uk
This digital edition first published in 2022 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Jamal Mahjoub, 2022
The right of Jamal Mahjoub to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 83885 512 3 eISBN: 978 1 83885 513 0
‘O’er those dead bones they built their city.’
Dante
*
‘The Eighth Circle of Hell is a huge funnel of rock, round which run a series of deep, narrow Trenches called “bolges”. Malbolges is . . . the image of the City in Corruption: the progressive disintegration of every social relationship, personal and public. All . . . are perverted and falsified, til nothing remains but the descent into the final Abyss where faith and trust are wholly and forever extinguished.’
Dorothy L. Sayers, Notes on Dante’s Divine Comedy
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
1
T he single wiper scraped back and forth across the glass, making almost no impression against the pummelling rain. Rab Otley squinted through the sheet of water into the darkness, trying to make out any feature that would help him navigate. He’d been out in worse weather than this but not often, and the night was shaping into a real zinger.
The wheelhouse door flew open and a figure appeared. Small and covered in dirty yellow oilskins, you could hardly make out the damp, wispy hairs on the narrow chin.
‘Get back up to the bow, Lemmy!’ Rab yelled. ‘I need your eyes.’
‘I think there’s something out there,’ the boy gulped between gouts of saltwater. He wiped a hand over his wet face and pointed. ‘Starboard quarter.’
Keeping one hand on the helm, Rab leaned out through the doorway. It was easier to focus somehow without the water streaming down the glass. He narrowed his eyes and squinted blindly into the blackness. A long minute went by before he saw it. Nothing more than a faint flicker, but his instincts told him that it was something real.
‘What do you reckon, skipper?’ Lemmy spluttered.
Despite the wind and the rain, Rab could still catch a hint of the sour smell of the boy’s breath. He didn’t seem to believe much in personal hygiene. The deck of the Aurora Grey was heaving up and down. It tilted sharply, forcing them to lean into it. Rab stepped back inside to grab the wheel with both hands.
‘What do we do?’ Lemmy asked again. Nineteen and fresh out of prison for some juvenile foolishness, he was not a natural fisherman. Rab suspected he didn’t even like the sea.
‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’ said Rab.
Inside the shelter of the wheelhouse, Lemmy tugged off his hood. The expression on his face suggested he wasn’t convinced about the wisdom of this decision. Rab let out a loud laugh.
‘Cheer up, son, this is nothing. Just a little shower.’
The only reason Lemmy was out here was that back in the day – when there were still fish in the sea, as Rab liked to say – Lemmy’s father had taught Rab everything he knew. The old man was gone now, or as good as. Dementia. Couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, or which side of the pot to piss in. The Aurora Grey had passed to Rab, who took the boy on as a favour to the old man. A decision about the wisdom of which he asked himself every day. Rab wasn’t the type to complain. He just got on with things. Lemmy would be all right.
The little vessel lurched. Rab grabbed the helm a little tighter. Through the glass Lemmy glimpsed what looked like a forest of tall, white trees. Straight trunks that were higher than anything he’d ever seen on land. They were bare of branches and leaves and seemed to be made of some weird kind of wood that didn’t look as though it belonged on this planet. Trees made of bone. And they were talking to him.
The whisper was a steady beat, indistinguishable at first from the rain but now he could differentiate the two. The rhythmic hiss sounded like a gigantic thresher, the blades scything through the damp air overhead.
‘What’s that sound?’ Lemmy squealed.
Rab ignored him. He was leaning forward over the wheel, trying to see what was ahead of them. They were way off course. The coordinates he had been given had to be wrong. Either that or the GPS naviagator was playing up. He ought to have replaced it months ago, but how was he supposed to afford that?
Suddenly he realised what it was. He threw his arm out and pulled back the throttle.
‘Turbines!’
He cursed himself under his breath. Fuck’s sake, Rab, what were you thinking?
In this weather they were going to have their work cut out to avoid hitting anything. The deck was heaving like a trampoline as the Aurora Grey came to a stop.
‘It’s not on the charts,’ said Lemmy, scrabbling across the board, looking at the map.
‘Of course it’s not.’ Rab thumped the screen of the GPS device bolted to the instrument panel, realising that the wind farm wasn’t marked. They would have to find their own way out of this. The small trawler was bobbing angrily. With the engines idling, they were at the mercy of the waves. They couldn’t stay here for long.
Lemmy pointed off into the distance.
‘What is that?’
Rab leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the glass. The wiper swept back and forth in front of him.
‘Are those people?’ Lemmy asked, his voice spiralling upwards again.
‘Shit!’ muttered Rab. He pushed the throttle down and spun the wheel. Lemmy gave a yelp.
‘Hey, skipper, wait, what are you doing?’
Rab looked at the boy. No one could say he hadn’t given the kid a chance.
‘I’m not going in there, lad!’ he yelled back. ‘We’ll hit one of the pylons for sure. End of story.’
Lemmy was horrified. ‘But we can’t just leave them out here in this. They’ll die, for sure.’
‘Not my problem, lad.’
‘You can’t do it, Rab. You just can’t.’
There was a long moment in which the only sound was the wind and the rain, the steady thump of the engine. Then Rab swore again.
‘Get up to the front, then, and keep a lookout. And clip your harness in!’
Lemmy looked as though he regretted having spoken now. Then he realised that he had no choice. He pulled up his hood and headed out of the wheelhouse. The wind and spray hit him in a full-frontal blow. He staggered sideways until he got his footing, then he leaned into it and moved forward, clinging to the slick gunwale with both hands, hauling himself on. Ahead he could see the fluorescent spray breaking over the rising and falling of the bows. They were making progress again, slowly but enough to make a difference. The Aurora Grey was gaining momentum.
Lemmy reached the bow of the little fishing boat and stood there swaying, trying to hold on. He grabbed for the safety lanyard and fumbled, attempting to clip his harness into it. The snap catch was giving him trouble again but after several failed attempts he finally managed, crouching down for protection from a huge wave. When he peered out again he could make out two figures perched on the bottom of the access ladder at the base of the wind turbine dead ahead of them. Lemmy wiped a hand across his eyes to try and clear his vision. Behind him in the wheelhouse, Rab switched on the overhead lights. The powerful beams picked out driving darts of rain. They were closing in steadily. Lemmy shifted across to the starboard side. He could see now that one of the two looked like a child. The other was a woman. How in hell did they wind up out here?
Rab hung his head out of the wheelhouse door and yelled something that Lemmy couldn’t catch. Something he was doing wrong, no doubt. The miserable bastard was always on his case. Lemmy tied a line to a life ring that he cast over the side. Rab was yelling something again. Fuck off, Lemmy willed in his mind. Leave me alone. I’m doing the best I can. He found himself praying. Dear God, let me help those people. That poor kid out there. He peered over the bow again and this time he could no longer see the two figures. Were they in the water? He leaned further out over the side, trying to look down. Rab was turning the little searchlight on top of the wheelhouse left and right, sweeping the beam out over the dark, heaving surface, trying to pick up anything else in the water, but there was nothing. No people and no vessel of any kind.
Rab could make out the two figures now. A woman and a small child she was clutching to her. A toddler. No more than a couple of years old. She had one arm wrapped around the maintenance access ladder that led