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

off for now and waited until it had passed. Behind it, the sparkling Mercedes drove close by. Grant pulled out and flicked on his lights. There was a queue to get out, but it didn’t take long and the lorry took a right south along Quai de la Joliette. Traffic grew busier as they left the port area and headed away from the Old Port.

‘Where are they going?’ Grant asked.

Helen looked at the street names. ‘Rue de la République, Boulevard de Dunkerque…’ They stopped at traffic lights and lost sight of the lorry only once as it made better headway through the city.

‘There!’ Helen pointed.

‘They’re leaving the city,’ she said. ‘There’s a sign up ahead. So, we’re heading for the turning for Aix-en-Provence and Lyon.’

They made some distance up on the autoroute and Grant skilfully changed lanes and changed speed to fit in with the surrounding drivers. As far as they were aware, they hadn’t been spotted. The driver of the lorry and the Mercedes weren’t showing any signs of nervousness or making any rash decisions.

‘The Merc is turning off,’ Helen said.

‘Let’s stay with the lorry – we need to know where it’s going and what’s inside,’ Grant suggested.

Helen agreed. After another twenty minutes, they came to another sign, and the lorry signalled to turn off for the A7 to Lyon.

Grant settled in, anticipating the three-hour drive ahead. They travelled in silence and Helen fidgeted in her seat. It was already eleven o’clock at night. She checked her emails and Angelo had updated her on Nabil Tradings. He’d also sent her the maritime manifest and the entry summary declaration for the ship that just docked in Marseilles. She read both documents and unsurprisingly, the cargo was logged as citrus fruit, canned goods, textiles, chemicals, seafood, pottery, fertiliser and argan oil as expected. Every item was registered as the product of AlGaz. Of course, the ship belonged to the oil giant, so it made complete sense. The question was, which of his imports had Khalil sacrificed to make room for Fawaz’s contraband?

‘Your boss must know which of the containers were handed over to Fawaz,’ she said.

‘You’re awake then?’ he replied.

She bent her head over towards his seat.

‘You look beautiful,’ he said. Lights flashed past them and the air had cooled since leaving Marseilles, and inside the car, the air-con wasn’t top notch anyway, so they opened the windows. Her hair blew slightly.

‘You always said that to me when you were trying to avoid something,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘Tell me you missed me and that you thought about me every night when you were alone.’

‘Actually, now you mention it.’ She smiled. But her humour was short-lived. ‘We were both in a bad place. I couldn’t move on. Not for a long time. Seeing him so perfect and then knowing that his skull hadn’t formed properly.’ She looked ahead. ‘I don’t blame you, Grant,’ she added.

She knew that this was their Achilles’ heel. He hurt too. That was what she knew he wanted to say, but couldn’t, because he didn’t think he had the right. It had been her body that carried Luke for five months and her labour that brought him into the world. Tiny, but perfect. Army men weren’t very good at showing their emotions, but she knew Grant felt pain. She read his face like a favourite old book, well-thumbed and given pride of place on the bookcase. Being in the same space as him after so long, she felt at ease; as if she was home. Not that she’d ever had a home in the army, because home to her was inside, and this is how it felt. She swallowed hard. What made them so fractured that they couldn’t weather the storm together? Couples do it all the time, survive the death of a child, but they’d failed.

‘Fawaz didn’t tell Khalil which container was used, it was simply provided and loaded with all the others.’ Grant changed the subject, but Helen knew that he only did it because he, like her, couldn’t allow himself to lose focus right now. But the feelings she was experiencing nagged at her. She always thought that he was a part of her past and she’d moved on. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

‘But surely he knew which container because it had to come from somewhere at his instruction,’ she said. ‘And it would have a manifest. I’ve got one here, and it’s all the usual imports from North Africa that you’d expect. If I knew which container it was, I could work out where the goods were headed and prove that they never arrived.’

‘Isn’t it more important to follow the actual goods rather than the paperwork?’ he asked, nodding towards the truck in front.

‘Yes, right now it is.’ She looked ahead at the lorry. It was nearing one o’clock in the morning, but she knew that there would be a night shift at Interpol HQ who could trace the registration plate. She made the call and asked for it to be run through their databases as well as the plate for the Merc. ‘I take it Khalil knows who he’s dealing with? Is he clean?’

‘Who, Khalil?’

‘Yes.’

‘As far as I can tell. I looked into the company before I started to work for them, Levi rooted around for me too, and I found out that Fawaz and Khalil used to trade together until Fawaz followed the dope and Khalil wanted nothing to do with it,’ Grant explained. ‘Levi confirmed it.’

‘Why can’t Interpol pin anything on him?’ she asked.

‘These guys go to extraordinary lengths to protect their empires. No doubt there’ll be a money trail that no one has ever found. I reckon it’s always a simple case of following the money.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’ve found a company registered to an address in Mayfair, London, called Rafik Mining and Minerals.’

‘His son.’

‘Yes.’ Helen sighed. ‘It’s so obvious, it’s laughable. But very well hidden.’

‘How are you going to handle Sir Conrad?’ he asked.

‘I don’t