The Rift by Rachel Lynch (good book recommendations txt) 📕

around the fountain, free from bothersome visitors. He answered to no one. It was time to be alone and lose oneself in a stupor, so the memories couldn’t sting like the spines of a lionfish. If he stayed sober too long, when moods of melancholy caught him unprepared, the pain seared his blood and made his head spin. The helplessness and the injustice turned him murderous, and there was no telling what he might do.

He’d learned, over time, that the only safe thing to do was to retire to his chamber, get drunk and fall asleep. He had to be up early; tomorrow would be a new day, and he had plenty to keep him busy. Everything was almost in place, and it wouldn’t be long before he wrought his revenge. The scent of flowers cheered him a little, and he smiled, at least secure in the knowledge that shortly Rafik’s memory would be avenged. He checked his several mobile phones before going to the drinks cabinet and pouring himself a fresh glass of booze. He lay on his bed and opened his shirt, revealing hot, sweaty skin. He was not fat and soft like some men of his age; his body was hard and tight. He lit another cigarette and clicked a switch by his bed, which turned on his music system. He always listened to the same music when he was in this mood: Moroccan soul. It fused the traditional instrumental sounds of the lute, other string instruments and flutes, with a modern, cool Ibiza-type twist that relaxed his body and soothed his overstimulated brain. It also reminded him of Rafik, as it was on one of his trips to Europe that he’d discovered it and brought it back for his father. Fawaz would do anything to get close to him.

He closed his eyes and images flooded his memory of Rafik playing in the pool as a boy. The way his chest moved up and down when Fawaz went to say goodnight to him and he was already asleep, covers kicked off because he was too hot. The curl of his hair and the softness of his skin when he hugged his father in thanks for a birthday present. The deep chestnut colour of his body and the contrast of his two huge new white adult teeth when they came through, unmissable when he smiled, which he did often. Images of another boy haunted him: a fit and free vision of male promise, with his life before him, the son of another, but not for much longer.

Then, just before Fawaz dozed off, the terror began, as it always did: Rafik’s last phone call to him. The panic in his voice as he realised he was in serious danger; a peril that his father could not make go away. The gut-wrenching desperation gripped him, and he opened his eyes again, staggering off the bed for a refill. Would it never end? He’d have to get fully intoxicated if he stood any chance of making the images go away, but his ability to cope with alcohol was stronger than ever, and it took more to anaesthetise him every time. He gulped at the whisky.

He lit another cigarette and barely breathed in between drags. He sweated profusely, and he tripped and landed on the floor, the glass tumbling noisily across the tiles, his drink soaking through his shirt. His heart pounded with the toxins circulating in his blood. He closed his eyes tight shut and hoped that inebriation would overcome him soon. Rafik’s face filled his vision, and then he saw him beaten, broken, begging for his life, and, finally, thrown into a grave somewhere unknown for all eternity, damned to agonising separation from his father forever. His body remained unclean, his soul committed to wander, rootless for all time, and no one was allowed to pray for him.

He’d had countless people assassinated: government officials who swore they knew nothing of the young man’s identity beaten to a pulp in a Moroccan jail, and the police who were on duty that night, but still he never learned where Rafik was dumped. Somewhere in the desert, no doubt.

Was he still in pain?

It was yet another reason to turn his back on religion.

Three hours later, a gentle knock on his door turned into a rather loud one that jolted him back into the land of the conscious. His body was exhausted from processing alcohol and he felt mildly fuzzy. It took him a few seconds to work out where he was, but when he did, he knew that it was time to get going. He dragged his still-intoxicated body to his shower room and stripped off, turning the taps on.

‘Give me ten minutes!’ he shouted through the door. He stepped under the water in an attempt to revive himself, and it worked. In five minutes, rather than ten, he was refreshed, clean, dressed in pristine clothes and ready to go. He grabbed the photograph of his son and slipped it into his casual bag. He didn’t want to draw any attention on his journey. He wore jeans and a white shirt, carried two sports bags, a jacket and wore brogues on his feet.

He stopped by the door and looked around. Out in the riad, he allowed the breeze of the early-morning Sahara to wash over him, and quietly he said goodbye.

Chapter 12

Dirty Harry watched as the trucks lined up outside the stone building he guarded.

The pre-dawn light cast an orange glow across the black sky and he was reminded how much he loved the desert at night. He made out the fading Milky Way, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Jupiter. He wouldn’t be accompanying the trucks on their onward journey; his job was simply to make sure no one poked their nose around as they loaded. The route to the Algerian border was simple enough. However, the problem was that it had been closed since 1994. So they had to take