Book Extract ~ Death Flight by Sarah Sultoon

Chapter Three

Jonny answers in both Spanish and English, almost within the same word. Clammy hand slipping on the plastic receiver, he repeatedly barks his nonsense. Nothing. Unless that is the faint whistle of breathing on the other end? He recoils as the dial tone suddenly blares, harsh and insistent.

Wrong number, he thinks. Of course that happens in Buenos Aires as often as anywhere else. It’s easy enough for a finger to tremble, for memory to slip. Isn’t it? He replaces the receiver with a soft click; only for it to ring again almost immediately.

‘Hello?’ Jonny’s shouting now, plastic receiver giving an indignant squeak as he squeezes it. ‘Hola?’

A beat of silence – yes, definitely silence, unless Jonny counts the scooter backfiring on the street below. And then the unmistakable rattle of a sigh – he peers out of his window, suddenly torn between the mystery of who is on the end of the silent telephone line and who might be riding the motorbike he can see disappearing around the street’s far corner. In the direction of Plaza Miserere, he notes as he barks down the phone again, but now it’s only the dial tone answering him.

Jonny curses, most definitely in English this time, slamming the phone back into its cradle. Not even baleful eyes meet his searching gaze from the pavement below; they’re focused on their pavement parillada. He scrabbles for his lost notebook again, ripping at the sweaty lining of his empty pocket. Who has this apartment’s telephone number? What numbers are so similar that they might be confused with his? Finally a useful idea: why not try calling an almost identical number to see who picks up? But just as his hand touches the receiver again, it rings. And this time there is no mistaking the voice on the other end.

‘You won’t believe it,’ he gabbles at Paloma while she gabbles at him just as urgently. She’s trying to catch her breath, gasping every few words.

‘I’ve got the pictures, but — ’

‘Someone stole my notebook — ’

‘They’re all there, except — ’

‘I’m pretty sure I know who it was, but — ’

‘A frame is missing — ’

They both stop in the same breath.

‘Missing?’ Jonny asks just as Paloma says, ‘Stolen?’

‘Hang on a second,’ Jonny says, the sweat still glistening on his naked chest turning colder. ‘You mean one of your pictures is gone? Which one?’

‘Yes,’ Paloma replies. ‘There’s no doubt about it. I counted, I don’t know, probably twenty times, just to be sure. There aren’t enough prints.’

Jonny mentally flicks through their last roll of film, snapped in a hurry during their first visit to the police station in La Plata. The crime-scene photographs, the police report, the pictures of pictures – torn and aged mugshots, spread out on a grimy table top in front of them. Evidence of people who are still missing. And now one of those pictures is missing too.

‘It can’t be a coincidence,’ he mutters, pulling at the frayed lining of his pocket, which still hangs inside out down his trouser leg. ‘She must have been telling the truth.’

‘She? Who? What are you talking about?’