In Cold Blood (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 1) by Mark Dawson

Author:Mark Dawson [Dawson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2015-07-14T07:00:00+00:00

The roads quickly became busy with people and traffic, and she had to lean on the horn several times to clear stray donkeys from her path. She drove into the enormous refugee camp. There were structures made of wood, canvas and sheeting material with the letters “USA” printed on them. The streets disappeared off in all directions, some servicing neat lines of UN tents and others picking paths through accommodations laid out haphazardly, with no sense or design. It was nothing like the other refugee camps Beatrix had seen. This one had an air of dogged permanence about it, and the facilities that would be associated with a town of a similar size had all sprung up like mushrooms on a compost heap: shops, bars, makeshift offices.

Beatrix found her way to the UNHCR Reception Centre in Dagahaley and asked for directions to somewhere she could stay for the night. The clerk behind the desk gave her directions to a small area where tents could be hired for a few pennies. She drove the short distance to the facility and took one.

She hoisted her rucksack over her shoulder and went out again into the dusty street. The camp was labyrinthine. An open sewer trickled alongside the gutter, choked here and there with dung and fetid strips of plastic. There was a camel butcher who advertised that, for religious reasons, he only slaughtered his animals at 3:00 a.m. Next to that was the Candaalo Beauty Salon, where you could have your hair braided and cut and henna tattoos applied. She passed men and women who were bedding down in the doorways of their tents, the better to watch the stars above and the people who passed by.

She stopped a local for directions and walked on for a hundred yards until she found the metal shack that he had described. It was called the Sabrina Hotel and was in the Ifo 2 area of the camp. A metal sign daubed with black paint greeted visitors in English and Arabic “with open hands.”

She pushed her way through the door into just the kind of bar she was looking for. Most of it was open, with a collection of mismatched patio chairs and tables spread out across a dusty yard. The bar itself was fashioned within the corrugated tin walls, a long plank of wood suspended on two piles of bricks with a collection of bottles arranged on another shelf behind it. Beatrix approached and ordered a beer. The bartender handed her a lukewarm bottle of Tusker Premium, and she paid for it with five dollars.

“Anything else?” he asked her when he noticed that she was looking at him.

“You might be able to help me,” she said. “I’m looking for a guide.”

“A guide for what?”

“I need to get into Somalia.”

“I doubt it.”

“Unofficially.”

“Why would you want to do something like that?”

“I’m a journalist,” she explained. “I’m writing a story about the jihadists.”

“Then you’re crazy.”

She smiled patiently at him. “I need to be over there to write what I need to write, and I won’t be able to explain myself if I have to cross at a checkpoint.

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