Flight Path: A Wright & Tran Novel by Ian Andrew

for some time.”
    “Perhaps not, dear. But he’s bigger and stronger than some. I hope he’s okay?” the elderly woman called after them.
    Kara and Tien were fully aware of the question that had been asked.
    “He’s fine Daphne. Everyone’s fine, thanks,” Tien said.
    “As long as you’re sure dear?”
    “As sure as a Hackney girl can be.”
    Daphne held Tien’s gaze for a brief moment before smiling broadly and turning to serve another customer.
     
    ɸ
     
    It took a couple of hours for Franklyn to come back to them with an agreed plan and quite a few more to get the assets in place. By then Kara, Tien and Jacob had rotated the watch on Amberley a number of times. They could have taken shorter stints, but the look Kara had caught on Amberley’s face gave her no inclination to leave Tien alone with the man. She couldn’t explain it and hadn’t even tried. Her friend would have been furious if she had thought Kara was doubting her ability to keep the man subdued. Nonetheless, Kara hadn’t left her on her own. During their non-guarding stints, they verified as much as they could about Dutch trollers.
    Now, both women and Jacob were back in the small dining room of the Victorian terrace, with Amberley once more tied to the chair. In the intervening hours they had cleaned up the floor and allowed him to shower, change, eat and drink, all of which he did in a submissive state, offering no resistance. Now the panicked look had returned to his face. He sat with his head down and his eyes locked on Kara. The only noise was the electronic tick of a wall clock in the kitchen.
    “You said you were going to let me go?” he said, a pronounced tremor to his voice. 
    “I lied. Now be quiet,” Kara said and checked her watch.
    “I suppose you lied about the insurance money too?” he said, pouting.
    “Seriously Francis? You have to ask? Of course I lied. Now be quiet or I’ll reapply the tape over your mouth and extend it to cover your nose.” Kara rechecked her watch. It was one minute past three in the morning. A further minute dragged by. Then another. The door knocker that she had used almost eight hours before, sounded twice. It had been rapped softly yet the noise cannoned off the walls of the small house. Amberley and the chair both jumped a few inches clear of the floor. He let out a small moan of terror.
    “We’ll be going now Francis. Thank you for your help, or lack of,” Kara said.
    Amberley’s face was still flushed from the shock of the sound of the knocker. He tried to stammer something but stopped when he heard a key turning in the front door.
    “It’s okay Francis, I put your door key into the lock. Your new guests are just letting themselves in.”
    Kara, Tien and Jacob walked past him, out the back door and into the small rear garden. As they climbed over the fence and back on to the narrow road, four plainclothes police officers made their way down the narrow hallway and into the dining room. They secured Francis Amberley, led him out of the house and into a waiting, unmarked van. The Woodbridge Police Station had ample facilities to secure a prisoner and was only a mile away, but the van didn’t go there. Neither did it go to the Regional Police Headquarters less than half an hour away.

Chapter 9
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Amsterdam, Holland. Thursday, 19 th November.
     
    Trains from Schipho l Airport to the Gothic-Renaissance splendour of Amsterdam’s ‘Centraal’ railway station took twenty minutes. Another ten minutes and a taxi, having negotiated the narrow streets, tight turns and unending swell of cyclists, deposited Kara, Tien and Jacob outside a rental apartment next to the Keizersgracht.
    Tien gazed up at the buildings lining the banks of the canal, their height dwarfing the British idea of three or four-storey construction. The older townhouses were easily identified by their narrowing roofs and what looked like pulleys and hooks suspended from above the topmost windows. She