Milkshake Read Online Free PDF Page A

wait here David. I’ll find a phone, give
them a call and sort this out. Don’t move!”
    David felt his face flush hot and his stomach tense. Something
weird was definitely going on and somehow he was being inexorably
drawn into it. Things beyond his control were happening around him
and to him. Too much out of the ordinary had happened in the last
thirty-six hours.
    The flight was to depart in ninety minutes. As soon as
Katherine came back from using the phone, he would find a policeman
and ask to see someone in authority. He wanted no more sleepless
nights trying to ignore the wild scenarios in his head.
    Katherine was walking back towards him, zigzagging through
islands of people and baggage. Her head was turned and, as she
rounded a trolley, a man in a suit met her in front of it. David
found himself sizing up the approaching stranger - tall,
close-cropped dark hair, European. Police? MI5? They were talking.
For a moment he considered walking away, disappearing into the
crowd. But then, they were both in front of him. “David, this man
is from British Customs. He wants to talk to us about credit card
fraud.”
    Credit card fraud, not murder, David reassured himself.
Katherine’s face showed the concern of someone whose credit card
had been stolen, nothing more. Another man and a woman joined them.
“Mr Turner, my name is Tony Burton. I’m with British Customs. We
need to talk to you about your stolen card. There’s a bit of a
racket here at the airport, and we need to get a description from
you. It won’t take long. Please follow me. The other officers will
look after your wife.”
    A fleeting image of a dank, dark cell, dripping water and
electric shocks flashed through David’s mind before reassuring
himself Burton was British. He had absolutely nothing to hide. In
fact there was plenty he was just dying to get off his chest. He
just expected Katherine would have been the first to hear
it.
    They walked towards a door adjacent to the baggage security
desk. David went over his story, deciding whether he ought to
change anything or leave anything out. At least for now Katherine
was taken in the opposite direction. Burton calmly reassured him
“Don’t worry about your wife. You’ll be boarding the flight
together.” There was no reason to doubt him.
    It was a small windowless room. Against the opposite wall
three men stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking a little
uncomfortable to have found the size of the room offered them less
personal space than they would have liked. There was a table
between them and David. Burton clicked shut the door gently behind
them.
    “Mr David Turner?”
    David nodded, his vocal chords momentarily dry beyond
use.
    “Mr Turner, I’ll be as brief as I can. We
don’t have much time. You have to be on that plane in just over an
hour. Firstly, this is about your credit card, or rather the card
you currently have. To get straight to the point, there’s a group
moving large amounts of money around the world at the moment.
They’re doing it using legitimate credit cards and travellers as
mules. They monitor the card and wait for a foreign travel booking
to occur.
    Just before the unsuspecting cardholder travels to the holiday
or business destination, a large sum of money is placed on the card
account. Local operatives then steal the card and remove the money.
As far as the cardholder is concerned, he has just had his card
stolen and is totally unaware of the free courier service he has
provided. Are you with me so far?”
    “But that doesn’t explain … ” David stopped before
implicating himself in something they may not even be interested in
talking to him about.
    “This is where it gets interesting. We’ve
been trying to second guess these people for a number of months
now. A pattern has been emerging of the kind of people they are
targeting, people like yourself and your wife, planning to live
permanently overseas, for example. We’ve been liaising with a
number of overseas