Lethal Profit by Alex Blackmore

marketing for many businesses and almost impossible for any company to escape even a mention of its name on a website or chatroom posted there by someone else. The only organisations that didn’t have a public web face were those that didn’t want the public to know they existed.

    However, whilst the internet had proved to be barren ground for information on Bioavancement S.a.r.l., the papers in the sports bag had not and she had discovered that one of the printed-out Google maps showed a Paris location with the word ‘Bioavancement S.a.r.l.’ scrawled next to it in black pen. The writing was Jackson’s, without a doubt, and his unintelligible scrawl made it virtually illegible to anyone other than another person with an identical style of terrible handwriting. Once she had finished her breakfast, Eva packed the papers away deep in her bag, other than the map, which she stowed in the pocket of her jeans. She asked for a glass of water, which she finished in one go, and then she paid her bill and left. Outside, the sky was still a brilliant blue and the streets were quietening down as the post-rush-hour buzz began to fade away. Eva took her phone from her pocket and opened the maps app in which she had managed to find the Bioavancement S.a.r.l. address, thanks to a Métro stop and road names on the paper copy. The app showed that she was less than a mile away, just north of the location. She memorised the next three turnings she would have to take, pocketed the map and then set off south.

    When Wiraj had heard nothing from the boys he had recruited to rob the young English woman of her phone, he had taken Tahir, Muhammad and Nijam and gone to look for them. The estate where the children hung around was across the road from the flat where they knew the dead English man had lived. When the four men went back there after a wintry darkness fell that afternoon, there was a police cordon around the flat where the execution had been carried out. Wiraj was acutely aware that he was breaking every rule in the book by coming back here. They could be identified at any minute by a neighbour or the crazy old man they had passed at the front door, but Wiraj had to find that phone. He hoped that under the cover of darkness, with their hoods and low-slung jeans making them look like all the other shadows moving stealthily around the dark housing estates, he and the others would not be identified. The four men took a side road away from the cordoned-off area and traversed the estate opposite looking for the kids. At the back of a long-abandoned children’s playground, they saw the shadows of a group of five people smoking and taking long gasps of air from black plastic sacks. The men approached the group silently, so that they all jumped when Wiraj stepped out of the darkness and spoke.
    â€˜You were supposed to contact me.’
    The tallest boy turned in his seat on the asphalt and looked up at him steadily, meeting his gaze with darkly ringed eyes. ‘There was no point.’
    â€˜I paid you to get me the phone.’
    â€˜We did get it.’
    â€˜I want it.’
    â€˜We don’t have it any more.’
    Wiraj took a step forward. ‘Who did you sell it to?’
    â€˜We didn’t.’
    â€˜Then where is it?’
    The boy rose to his feet. He was as tall as Wiraj, although skinnier and not as broad.
    â€˜I told you, we don’t have it,’ he said, aggression leaking into his voice.
    â€˜Then give me my money back.’
    â€˜No.’ Silence fell between the two.
    Wiraj regarded his opponents. These were not children, he thought steadily, forcing himself not to overreact. They had the angry, unpredictable air of damaged adults. Before he could complete his train of thought he realised that the boy opposite him was now holding a knife. It had a curved, serrated blade that caught the light as he moved it subtly from hand to hand. He looked at the boy who met his gaze