Background
Seconded to MI6, Charles and Helen are in Pakistan on a mission in the Hindu Kush to neutralise Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion), leader of an international terrorist network.
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The last paragraphs of Chapter 95...
The prospect of a potential ally in this hideous place cheered me. "It's all a mistake," I said. "I haven't even been charged with an offence, let alone convicted."
He shrugged. "A familiar tale, I'm afraid. Almost half of the people here could say the same. Some have been more than two years awaiting trial. My name is Javed, by the way." He held out his hand, and we shook. "What are you doing here, Englishman? Are you a spy?"
Chapter 96
I brushed off Javed's question with a laugh. "Me, a spy! Good lord, no! I'm a travel writer, name of Charles Brandon. There's been a terrible misunderstanding. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but when the police complete their investigations, I've no doubt I'll be released."
"If they investigate. They often don't, you know." He pointed at the madman. "Take him, for instance. Wrong place at the wrong time and still here six years later. Too bad, eh, Mr Brandon?"
I was unnerved by Javed's defeatist attitude and started to struggle to my feet. Overcome by a sudden fit of dizziness, I didn't quite make it and fell heavily against my new 'friend'. As he pushed me away, he spotted the contusion on the side of my head.
"What's that? It looks nasty. Police brutality, was it?"
I nodded and told him I was intending to lodge a complaint. It occurred to me I might be suffering the aftereffects of a mild concussion.
"Dear me, no. Better not to report such things. It will only lead to further beatings. You'll be marked down as a troublemaker." He eyed me speculatively. "Have you got money?"
So that was his angle. Perhaps he thought I was a soft touch.
"No. No money, I'm afraid. Not that I can get hold of, at any rate."
"Pity. Money can buy you a better time here. It's a good thing you're not Indian. Indians have the hardest time." As he spoke, the lights flickered and went out. "Power failure. Very common. The wiring is nearly as old as the building. They won't bother to fix it. Not worth wasting electricity on prisoners - except for torture," he added.
By this time, I was thoroughly depressed. I also had an incipient headache. "You don't paint a very cheerful picture, young man. I shan't listen to any more of that talk. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to try to get a bit of shut-eye." I turned away from him and rested the good side of my head against the iron bars.
Even after the muttering of the other prisoners subsided, sleep proved impossible. I sat staring into the gloom, imprisoned as much by my thoughts as by my surroundings. Was there any way out of this nightmare? I began to doubt it.
I fell to thinking of my cottage in Wiltshire, brambled lanes and the soft cooing of wood pigeons; kindly folk like Nancy and Jack Wilkins, who never ventured beyond Chippenham market or the Malmesbury fair; my good friend Bisto, messing about in a boat on the Thames, with Biggles asleep on the foredeck. The cottage, of course, was gone. I'd never see that again. I wondered if I'd ever see any of it again.
The madman started moaning. I could just make out his shadowy figure rocking to and fro, then he suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream. There was the scrape of a chair as a warder got up to investigate. He shone a torch in the madman's face and banged on the iron bars with his stick. Whatever his actual words might have been, the meaning was clear: Shut up, or you'll get another beating. The man started to whimper and was cuffed on the head by one of the wraiths beside him. He lapsed into silence, but the rocking continued.
My thoughts turned to France. Dear old Madame Bisset would have had a thing or two to say about all this. I could just picture her, arms akimbo, wearing pink slippers and curlers, with Serafina spitting at her feet. She'd soon have the bastards sorted out.
Not for the first time, I wondered how Kayla was getting on. I pictured her flouncing down the streets of Montmartre in her low-cut dress with its flamboyant red poppies, apparently without a care in the world. Then the image changed. I saw her spreadeagled across her bed, hair in tangles, mascara running, and struggling to focus on the world around her. Was Alain still looking after her, I wondered?
A cockroach scuttled across the floor and paused by my foot. I lifted my legs and brought my heel down on the poor insect with a crunch. Life is cheap. Life is precious. It depends on your point of view. My mind turned in a slow-moving kaleidoscope of fractured thought, and I sank deeper and deeper into despondency.
I was sick with worry about Helen and couldn’t bear to think what that monster, Habeeb, might be doing to her. He’d left me in no doubt about his intentions However, if I’d been able to see beyond the walls of the prison, my spirits would have soared. She was, as I later learnt, more than capable of looking after herself.
Soon after I had been dragged from the Chitral Police Station, Tariq Habeeb made the mistake of entering Helen's cell with impure intentions. He took advantage of the absence of his two henchmen to ensure absolute privacy. The acts he had in mind were better performed without witnesses. It didn't take Helen long to size up the situation. She had seen that look in a man's eye countless times when she was working in Bangkok, and she knew exactly how to deal with it. If Habeeb had been aware of her prowess in Thai kickboxing, he might have been more cautious.
When Weaselface and his oppo returned to their post half an hour later, they found their esteemed leader lying naked on the floor with a pink ribbon tied tightly around his testicles. His legs were manacled to the bars of the cell, and blood dribbled from his lips, the place where his smile should have been.
There was no sign of the prisoner, nor of her backpack, so they turned their attention to releasing their superior officer, taking care not to snigger. Had they known it, Helen was less than half a mile away, casting the key to the manacles into the Chitral River and wondering what on earth she should do next.
With this knowledge, I would have been much better able to bear the privations of prison life, but as it was, lurid imaginings compounded my misery.
Author Notes
List of Characters
Charles Brandon - the narrator, a well-known travel writer.
Rasheed - a Sikh taxi driver in Lahore, radicalised by ISIS
Abdul - a taxi driver in Islamabad, working undercover for the British High Commission
Hassim - a tour operator
Ash - a French liaison officer attached to the British High Commission in Islamabad. Also a member of the French anti-drug squad (la Brigade des stupefiants), whose operations are directed by Jeanne Durand.
Montague (Monty) - a member of staff at the British High Commission in Islamabad.
Sir Robert - the Deputy High Commissioner at the British High Commission in Islamabad (a personal friend and confidante of Group Captain David Bamforth, the British Air Attache in Paris)
Tariq Habeeb - the Senior Superintendent of Police in Chitral
Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion) - Coordinator of an international network of ISIS cells
Helen Culverson - a woman of increasing mystery
Kayla Culverson - her older sister, who disappeared somewhere in Bangkok and has surfaced again in Paris.
Group Captain Bamforth (alias Sir David Brockenhurst) - an intelligence officer with MI6 and Air Attache in Paris
Madame Jeanne Durand - a French magazine editor and undercover agent with the French Drug Squad.
Madame Madeleine Bisset - Helen's landlady in Paris
Mr Bukhari - a Pakistani businessman (now deceased)
Ian 'Bisto' Kidman - an ex-RAF friend of Charles's.
Monsieur Bellini - a denizen of the French Underworld.
Andre (aka Scaramouche) - an actor in Montmartre and friend of Kayla's
Dr. Laurent - a veterinary surgeon in Versailles.
Father Pierre Lacroix - vicar of the Versailles Notre Dame church.
Madame Lefauvre - an old woman living in Versailles - the town gossip.
Alain Gaudin - brother of Francoise, a gardener at Monet's house in Giverney
Francoise Gaudin - Alain's intellectually disabled sister.
Estelle Gaudin [deceased] - mother of Francoise and Alain, a prostitute
Mademoiselle Suzanne Gaudin [deceased] - Alain's grandmother, to whom the mysterious 'French letter' of 1903 was addressed.
Jack and Nancy Wilkins - a Wiltshire dairy farmer and his wife.
Gaston Arnoux - Owner of an art gallery in Paris. A triple agent, who infiltrated the ISIS network in France and fed information to MI6, but who is now providing information to Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion).
Colonel Neville Arnoux [deceased] - Gaston's grandfather. Author of the infamous letter of 1903.
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