Read Online A Dark Place to Die by Ed Chatterton - Free Book Online Page B

'In Liverpool.'

9
    It's taken six weeks for the container ship
Scanda-Hap
, registered under an Indonesian flag, to make the trip from Liverpool via Hamburg and Singapore. Right now she's pushing south hard down the east coast of Australia and is less than three days from berthing in Brisbane. The ship rolls easily through a moderate swell, the bulk of her load automotive, almost all of it cars from the Jaguar and Ford factories in Liverpool. In Singapore they'd unloaded a third of the cargo and filled up with an assortment of other goods, all sealed in containers and only distinguishable by the coded tracking system.
    Three particular containers, stowed by prior arrangement in the centre of a three-storeyed stack, are of special interest to the ship's cargo officer who is receiving a large sum of money to ensure that they're delivered to the right person without attracting the attention of customs officials.
    The cargo officer, a jittery Pole who makes more from this trip than he makes in a year of regular work, had inspected the containers himself once the voyage was underway and had found them to contain exactly what they specified: three expensive, brand new Jaguars. Nodoubt there is more to it than that but he knows enough to reseal the containers and think about it no more.
    At Brisbane the ship docks and, despite the acid tension knot in the cargo officer's gut, clears the customs inspection without incident. The Pole had expected nothing else, but he races to the head and unloads his stomach when the customs men have left. Later, marginally more relaxed, he leans over the side and watches the three containers being unloaded before heading below decks, his part in whatever this was over.
    Once off the ship, the containers make their stately way to a huge dockside container storage park to the west of the Port of Brisbane terminal where they sit for two days unmolested. On the third day a number of legitimate car dealership delivery drivers arrive and, again after undergoing scrupulous documentation checks, drive the vehicles inside the containers a short distance to a dealership car pound where the cars sit in the sun in neat rows, waiting to be transported across Australia. It's cheaper to transport the vehicles on double-decked car transporters than for them to remain in the containers.
    The three vehicles from the three special containers so carefully handled by the Pole are parked at the end of the first row nearest to the perimeter fence. They are there not so that they can be taken out under cover of darkness – that would be foolish; the vehicles can be moved easily when required – but in order that Max Kolomiets and Anton Bytchkov, who pull up on the perimeter road in a tricked-out Jeep Cherokee, can check their safe arrival. The two are very anxious to see the cars for themselves.
    Between them the Jaguars contain eight hundred kilos of cocaine.
    They are worth keeping an eye on.

10
    'That's where the kids must have got in.' Em Harris stops, her hand on the heavy lever attached to the container door, her voice barely above a whisper, and points to a section of the mostly well-maintained fence that has one tiny piece missing, revealing a small gap at its foot just big enough for a child to fit through. Keane acknowledges what she says with a twitch of his head but can't help thinking Em is delaying going inside. He pushes past her, suddenly anxious to see if their feeling about the container is right. Keane takes the lever and leans back using his weight to open the heavy door. He lowers the lever to anchor the door and steps inside.
    'Careful, Frank,' says Harris. 'This
is
the place, you know that, right?'
    Keane raises his hand in acknowledgment. He hasn't got a superstitious bone in his body, but a space where someone has met a violent death has an atmosphere unlike that found anywhere else. A kind of low-level psychological hum, a suppressed howl. Keane's been in too many of them for it to be all