The Evolution of Fear (Claymore Straker #2) - Paul E. Hardisty Page 0,143

young woman in a dark jacket and slit skirt, a pile of documents clutched to her breast, schoolgirl-style, followed him with a smile in her eyes. Her thick, dark hair and something about the way she stood and held her head reminded him of Rania. He met her gaze for a moment, but she glanced at his stump and looked away with a frown.

At the conference room doors, Hope stopped and touched Clay’s elbow. ‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you are doing, Clay.’ She went up on her toes and kissed him.

The conference room was full. Easily a hundred and fifty people seated in rows of chairs, more lining the walls, half a dozen TV cameras on tripods trained on the main front podium. Someone had pried open a couple of windows along the garden-facing wall behind the podium, but the thin gasp of air that managed to slip into the room was quickly lost in the claustrophobia of sweating bodies.

Hope led him to the front of the audience and indicated an empty chair. Clay lowered himself slowly into its sculpted concavity, feeling the sutures on the backs of his legs stretch and then compress against the hard plastic.

Hope stepped up to the podium, sat behind the cloth-draped head table and faced the audience, the glare of the TV camera lights illuminating her face. Behind the podium, the flags of Cyprus, the UN, the EU, and the red-and-white stripes, star and crescent moon of the TRNC. To her left, a fine-jawed man with dark hair and severe eyebrows scribbled something in a notebook. The name plate before him read: Duplessis, European Union. To her right, Thornton of the United Nations, grey haired, mid-sixties, Clay guessed, a man of obvious experience.

Off to the side of the podium was an elevated wooden platform arranged with a single white plastic chair and a microphone – the witness stand.

Thornton blew into the microphone, invited the audience to turn off their mobile phones and opened the day’s proceedings. The first witness of the day was called.

Dressed in a dark jacket and tie, his left leg in a cast, Nicos Chrisostomedes planted and swung his way to the stand on a pair of crutches. His mouth was set in a flat line of pain. Sweat pooled in the deep parallels channelling his forehead. He sat, stated his name and was invited to continue his testimony.

The audience fell quiet.

‘Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I apologise.’ Chrisostomedes adjusted the microphone. ‘Yesterday, I was unable to attend because I was in hospital. I have received some bad news. My doctors have told me that without these,’ he raised one of his crutches for all to see, ‘I may never walk again.’

A moan from the audience, then silence. Cameras whirred and clicked.

He continued: ‘I tell you this not to gain your sympathy, but because it is of immediate relevance to these proceedings. The well-known journalist Lise Moulinbecq has for some weeks now been conducting her own investigations here in Cyprus. Her findings have been widely published. They corroborate all of my earlier testimony, including the devastating effect of coastal development in the north on sea-turtle populations. I have just heard from the police that Ms Moulinbecq disappeared a few days ago. During several interviews that she conducted with me, she shared with me that she feared for her life, that she had received death threats from Mohamed Erkan.’

Murmurs from the audience.

‘In fact, I have just learned that Mademoiselle Moulinbecq’s aunt was kidnapped and brought to Cyprus by agents acting for Erkan. But Moulinbecq refused to be blackmailed, and continued to write the truth. Police found her aunt yesterday, in Limassol, dead in the boot of a car.’

Chrisostomedes turned and faced Clay. ‘Today you will hear from a new witness, a close colleague of Doctor Bachmann, a Mister Declan Greene. He is in the audience now.’ Chrisostomedes pointed at Clay and glared. ‘Less than a week ago, this man held a loaded gun to my head and threatened my life.’

A hundred indrawn breaths.

‘And after a desperate struggle, he shot me in the leg, before fleeing like a coward.’ A long pause, Chrisostomedes letting it sink in, basking in the sympathy. ‘He is a Turkish Islamic agent.’

Two police officers, stationed at the back of the room, started to move through the crowd towards Clay.

Clay took a deep breath. Shit. Here we go.

Hope covered her microphone, leaned towards Thornton and spoke into his ear, sliding a document across the table