She had got to her too late.The time wasted besting Leyla’s thugs, then the gangmaster herself, had cost both Helen and Viyan dear.Having been blown off her feet by the eruption of heat, Helen had scrambled back up, racing round to smash the prominent red button on the control panel, killing all power to the machine.Limping back to the open doorway, Helen had bravely stepped inside, shielding her eyes, her face, holding up her arm to deflect the savage blasts of heat that ripped over her.It was impossibly hot inside, Helen’s skin prickling in agony, every instinct in her body urging her to turn and flee the inferno, but pressing on, she collided with Viyan, lying face down in the dirt.
Grasping her arm, she felt the skin shift beneath her fingers as if it might slide clean off, but forcing down her unease, she dragged the unconscious mother to the door, lifting her overthe treacherous lip and out into the fresh air.The temperature change rocked Helen once more.Dizzy, she sank to her knees, turning her attention to the badly burnt worker.To her dismay, the change in temperature had not stirred Viyan, who remained motionless, her blank face turned up to the sky.Most of the exposed parts of the poor young woman were cracked and blistered, but fortunately her face had not been so badly damaged, perhaps because it had been pressed down into a thick layer of ash.Seizing on this, Helen had set to work once more, desperately trying to revive her, but to no effect, all her efforts falling short.How she cursed herself now for not getting here sooner.If she had, then things might have been different.But her tardiness had proved fatal, the incinerator putting paid to another life.
Agonized, Helen laid Viyan’s body gently onto the ground, before turning to advance on her killer, determined to vent her burning rage on the floored trafficker.To her surprise, however, Helen realized that she was too late.The yard was now a writhing sea of violence, a pitched battle taking place between the oppressed workers and their minders.For months the threat of a bullet between the eyes had kept the masses in check, but having realized they had been duped, that the guns were not loaded on site, they had thrown themselves at their captors, sensing that liberation was finally at hand.Leyla’s arrogance, her cocksureness, had come back to haunt her, her own words releasing the workers from her thrall.Some of the guards were trying to hold their own, others had already fled, realizing the game was up.Which meant that Leyla no longer had anyone to protect her.
The gangmaster lay on the ground, ten yards away from Helen, clutching her face and groaning loudly, but already the vultures were circling, a couple of the desperate workers standing directlyover her.Having suffered under her pitiless yoke for so long, they now had the upper hand and planned to exact their revenge.
‘No, no, no …’
Helen was already on the move, urging the pair not to give into their growing bloodlust.But one of the assailants now struck Leyla, stamping violently on her floored adversary.
‘Please don’t …’ Helen cried out.‘Let me handle this.’
Others had now realized what was happening, joining the attack in growing numbers.And though some also called for caution, mercy even, trying to pull the aggressors away, they were in the minority.There was a murderous fire in the eyes of the growing mob.They wanted justice.They wanted revenge.
Still Helen pushed through the crowd, grasping desperately at the trailing arm of a young woman, who’d just picked up a rock.She wanted to still her violence, make her see reason, but Helen now felt herself being dragged back, before being thrown roughly to the ground, her way to Leyla blocked off by the encircling group of workers.
Terrified, Leyla made a desperate attempt to free herself from the clutches of her attackers, but catching hold of her, they threw her to the ground with a roar of anger.Lying on her back in the dust, breathless and immobile, Helen caught sight of the gangmaster as a trio of irate workers descended upon her.Leyla tried to cry out, to raise an arm to defend herself, but it was hopeless, the women falling on her, hammering her with fist and foot.Their violence was immediate and extreme, Leyla shrieking out in terror and pain, before suddenly falling silent.Was she already dead?Helen hoped so, because the frenzied group now fell upon her, tugging at her hair, tearing at her ears, determined to rip her limb from limb.Sickened, Helen turned away, unwilling to witness this brutal end.Perhaps Leyladeserved an agonizing death, but this wasn’t justice, this was vengeance, and she wanted no part of it.
Turning away, Helen crawled back to Viyan’s body, her sense of defeat total.Even as she did so, she heard one last blood-curdling scream that seemed to echo around the farmstead, as if the unfortunate Leyla was dying a dozen gruesome deaths.And it was as this piercing noise was slowly dying away that Helen noticed something.Viyan’s right hand had started to twitch.Stunned, Helen scrabbled over to her, cupping the young woman’s head in her hands.
‘Viyan, Viyan.It’s me, Helen.Can you hear me?’
Helen scanned her face, hoping against hope that this beautiful woman might live, might somehow survive this awful nightmare.There was no response.Helen couldn’t believe it.Had her mind tricked her?Then slowly, almost reluctantly, opened her eyes.
Chapter 103
‘Has anyone got eyes on him?’
Charlie had dispensed with the protocol of addressing each team individually, such was her desperation.But her general appeal yielded nothing.
‘No sightings currently,’ DC McAndrew announced, her desolation clear.
‘Same here,’ DC Roberts concurred, his voice crackly but distinct.‘He’s vanished into thin air.’
Cursing, Charlie lowered her radio, scanning the dockside urgently for any sign of their quarry.But the scene in front of her seemed entirely normal and workaday, dockers and stevedores going about their business largely unconcerned.If Charlie had her way she’d demand that they all down tools immediately and join the search, in fact if she had any power here she’d close the whole bloody port down until Visser was found.But the port authorities had already made it plain thatthatwas not going to happen, meaning Charlie and her team were now engaged in a desperate race against time.
There were over a dozen ships due to set sail today, some of them in the next few hours.If he was smart, Visser would try to board one of these vessels, either sneaking directly onto the ship itself or hiding out in a container lorry queuing to board.She had already dispatched officers to the ships that were due to leave imminently, paying particular attention to one bound for Amsterdam, but who was to say he would target that boat?Maybe he’d head to France first, or Belgium, before making his way home?Or perhaps he’d head further afield to Spain or Scandinavia to really throw them off the scent?That was assuming he was still on site, of course, that he hadn’t found a weak point in the port’s perimeter to slip back into the city.
Chiding herself for her defeatism, Charlie pushed away this last notion.Visser knew that the game was up, that Viyan’s intervention would prove crucial in the dismantling of this horrific trafficking operation.He had no associates, no cronies here, his network was back in his hometown of Rotterdam.Surely he would have to head there as soon as possible, especially as there was now an international warrant out for his arrest?His best chance of escape lay here, amidst the hustle and bustle of the busy port complex.But which ship would he target and how would he make good his escape?
Striding along the quayside, Charlie frantically scanned the workers before her, seeking Visser’s now familiar form.But already she felt like she was looking for a needle in a haystack.The port covered three hundred and seventy-five acres of land and employed thousands of people daily.With only a dozen of her officers combing the site, how on earth were they supposed to cover all bases?To cut off all escape routes?In her mind’s eye, Charlie could already picture Visser sneaking up the boarding ramp or secreting himself in a lifeboat, privately congratulating himself on his wit and ingenuity.The thought made her blood boil.Surely they couldn’t let him just slip away after all the blood, sweat and tears they’d exhausted in identifying and locating him?Was all that hard work, all that pain, really going to be for nothing?
Upping her pace, she hurried along the quayside, her eyes crawling over a large container ship bound for Denmark.This ship was due to leave within the hour, its walkways and ramps alive with sun-kissed sailors who called out to each other in Polish, laughing and joking, buoyed by thoughts of their departure.None of her officers had yet made it here, so Charlie paused, her eyes raking over every inch of the battered vessel, searching for some anomaly, something out of the ordinary, that might direct her attention to a trespasser on board.But there was nothing that seemed remotely out of place and cursing, she turned away.
Moving on, she pushed into the huge warehouse that bordered the dockside.This would be a fantastic place to hide out, endless rows of crates and containers waiting to be dispatched, a makeshift maze of assorted goods from around the world.Suddenly, Charlie felt very small, very insignificant, framed by the huge expanse of cargo, the cavernous warehouse seeming to grow in front of her eyes, mocking her with its vastness.Robbed of all energy, she stood stock-still, defeated and despondent, letting the sights, the sounds, the smells of the huge space wash over her, her failure all too obvious.They had had Visser in their clutches, but he had vanished into the ether, perhaps never to be seen again.
And yet it was as she was standing there, forlorn and helpless, that she noticed something.Or, more accurately, smelt something.There were a host of competing aromas in the atmospheric warehouse, from the aged timber of the crates to the salty tang of the sea air, but this smell was different.Pungent, rich, aromatic.The memory of something Helen had said to her now stirred in Charlie and she held her nose to the air, trying to work out from which direction the aroma was coming.Padding slowly forward, she seemed to lose the scent almost immediately, pausing tochange direction before picking it up again as she moved to the right-hand wall of the warehouse.Convinced she was on the right track, she picked up the pace now, but even as she did so, her radio crackled into life.Shocked, she reached down to turn it off, managing to kill it before it revealed her presence.Slowing her breathing, she crept on, padding as quietly as she could, the rich smell of tobacco smoke growing stronger with each passing second.She was making her way to the far back corner, into the darkest recesses of the warehouse, her heart thumping now as she proceeded cautiously, but purposefully, forwards.She was sure she wasn’t imagining the smell, that her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her, Viyan’s reported testimony that Visser smoked Dutch cigars now fresh in her mind.Was it possible that he was really here?That she might yet snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
The smell was strong now.Creeping up to the edge of a crate close by the rear corner of the warehouse, slowly, cautiously, she peered round the edge, fervently praying that the gods were on her side today.
And, to her immense surprise, there he was.It was Visser, no doubt about it, casually smoking the thin cigar as if he had not a care in the world.Oddly the sight filled Charlie with anger – what right did he have to be so relaxed, so insouciant when her officers were frantically searching high and low for him?When he had conspired to abuse, exploit and degrade so many innocent people?Gritting her teeth, she crept forwards, inching her way towards him.She was only twenty feet away from him, the trafficker’s face turned to the wall as he blew plumes of smoke into the air, contemplating the way they danced and dissipated above him.Visser seemed utterly transfixed, revelling in his own invulnerability, totally unaware of the danger he was in.
Taking great care with each step, Charlie continued to movetowards him.The floor was rough and dirty, splinters of wood and bits of gravel decorating the surface, but tiptoeing between them, Charlie continued to make good progress.Her heart was pounding, her fingers slippery with sweat as she now eased the handcuffs from her belt.She was now only five feet from her quarry, but he remained oblivious, his hand resting on his belt as he drew the cigar to his lips, drawing in deeply.Did she spot a slight shift in his head position?A sidewise glance in her direction?Either way, she didn’t hesitate, stepping forward boldly as she declared:
‘Matthijs Visser, you are under arrest for—’
But she didn’t get any further, the desperate fugitive spinning on his heel and driving a knife into her chest.
