Dark Flight Read Free Page B

his mother and grandmother. Rhona asked Sam to turn up the sound.
    The report was short, with little detail. A six-year-old boy, Stephen Devlin, was missing, after the grim discovery of the murdered bodies of his mother and grandmother in a flat in the west end of the city. Anyone with any information on the boy’s whereabouts should contact the police immediately.
    Chrissy returned from the toilet and glanced up at the screen. ‘No sign of him?’
    Rhona shook her head. As long as they hadn’t discovered a body, they had to believe the child was alive. Tomorrow, she would study the attacker’s print against the one Chrissy found. If he was carrying the boy as he left, the difference in pressure should be detectable.
    Sam came back to check on Chrissy. She gave him the thumbs up and he deposited another pink bottle in front of her. His ebony skin and high cheekbones gave him the look of an African god. He had told Rhona his ancestors were Fulani, a wandering tribe who herded their cattle through Northern Nigeria and its neighbouring states. He’d been brought up in the northern city of Kano. As well as working behind the bar he played jazz piano a couple of evenings a week and his work in the club supported his medical course at Glasgow University.
    ‘Why don’t you ask Sam about the bones thing?’ Chrissy suggested.
    ‘The bones thing?’ Sam gave Chrissy a suggestive smile. ‘This isn’t another one of your anatomy tests?’
    Rhona didn’t like to imagine what the anatomy testsconsisted of. She pulled a notepad from her bag, drew a representation of the crossed bones and pushed it across the counter.
    Sam had a look, his expression changing from humorous to serious. ‘Are they human?’
    ‘I think they are. A child or small adult.’
    He thought for a moment. ‘They were tied like this when you found them?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It looks like a juju
tsafi
to me.’
    ‘
Tsafi
?’ Chrissy raised an eyebrow.
    ‘A fetish.’ He caught Chrissy’s eye. ‘We’re not necessarily talking sex here.’ Sam smiled. ‘Although they’re often for that.’
    ‘An object believed by primitive people to have some magical power?’ Rhona tried.
    ‘Not always primitive,’ Sam corrected her. ‘Lots of well-educated people in West Africa still believe in witch doctors. Let me show you something.’ He extracted a folded piece of paper from his wallet. ‘My mother sent me this in case I needed a bit of help from the old country.’
    He spread out the paper on the counter. There was a name and address at the top:
Mallam Muhammed Tunni Sokoto, 21 Yoruba Road, Sabon Gari, Kano
.
    Beneath was a long list comprising fifty-six ways your witch doctor could help improve your life.
    Chrissy ran an eye down the page. ‘Medicine for a commanding tongue?’ she read out.
    ‘Well,
you
don’t need that one,’ Rhona told her with conviction.
    ‘Mmmm. Now here’s one I like. Medicine for love.’
    ‘How did you think we two got together?’ Sam grinned.
    Chrissy read on. ‘Medicine for a tired penis?’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t need that.’
    Rhona joined in the laughter. ‘So the bones might be some sort of witch doctor medicine?’ she asked Sam.
    ‘Bones are important in juju.’
    ‘There were three deep scores on each bone.’
    He looked startled. ‘Where did you find them?’
    ‘Outside a house.’
    He thought for a moment. ‘Beats me. But I don’t pay much attention to that sort of stuff. I could email my mother,’ he offered. ‘She would be the one to ask.’
    ‘What if I send you a digital photo of the bones?’
    ‘Sure.’
    He wrote his email address on the back of her drawing.
    A nasty thought struck Rhona. ‘How do the witch doctors get the human bones to make the fetish?’
    ‘Poor people die all the time in Nigeria. In the cities you find the bodies in the streets. In the UK?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It would be more difficult.’
    ‘Not to say illegal,’ Chrissy said.
    ‘Would someone