‘Who’s he?’ asked Boxer.
‘George Papadopoulos,’ she said, and mouthed ‘Detective Sergeant’. ‘We call him George Papa.’
‘Nobody told me about him,’ said Boxer. ‘Who’s he supposed to be?
‘My trainee consultant.’
‘And on whose authority is he here?’
‘I think this goes right back up to the Commissioner of the Met,’ said Mercy, finger on chin. ‘Part of the deal.’
‘That nobody thought to tell me about.’
‘There was a manpower clause,’ said Mercy, bringing her thumb and forefinger together. ‘Small print.’
‘So what’s the idea?’
‘George is going to do the footwork while I work my connections,’ said Mercy. ‘Have we got a time and a place of the kidnapping yet?’
‘No.’
‘Are we allowed in or do we have to set up a tent out here?’
‘You got one?’ asked Boxer. ‘Ray Moss, the Pavis profiler, has been on the line, having listened to the call. He doesn’t like it. Thinks we’ve got a killer rather than a kidnapper. He said, “Bring in the Met”. How do you like that?’
‘You don’t often hear those words from the private sector.’
‘There’s no Crisis Management Committee, either,’ said Boxer. ‘Isabel Marks doesn’t want one. She won’t even give me names in the event of her incapacity. She’s on her own in there.’
‘What about the ex-husband?’
‘They don’t get on under “strained” circumstances.’
‘No friends?’
‘Only in Brazil, and with her own problems.’
Mercy sighed, ran a long, slim, gloved hand over the tight curls of her hair.
‘Let’s have the good news,’ she said.
‘Jordan, our kidnapper, is the playful type. A show-off and a tease. He’s keen to spin this one out along the lines: “You don’t know what your daughter’s really like”.’
‘Been there, done that,’ said Mercy emphatically.
‘I spoke to Mum, by the way; she’ll take Amy and I’ve sent Amy a text,’ said Boxer.
‘Did Esme love you for that?’
‘Oh, I think so,’ said Boxer lightly. ‘The bad news about Jordan is that he’s on the volatile side. One call he’s calm and in control, the next he’s arrogant and cavalier.’
‘Right. So we’d better get on with it,’ said Mercy. ‘Can we do this inside, Charlie? I’m bloody freezing out here.’
Her eyes were now tearful, turning rheumy, and her normally dark, lustrous skin was going grey. She hated the cold, had never got used to it, even after twenty years in England. He opened the door, let them in, shook George Papadopoulos’s hand as he came through. They shed their coats, went into the kitchen where Boxer introduced them to Isabel Marks, who poured the coffee. He hadn’t doubted it, but he was glad to see that Isabel and Mercy liked each other on sight.
‘So, Mercy, how will you and George fit into this . . . this scenario?’ asked Isabel.
‘I’m Charlie’s back-up,’ said Mercy. ‘If it’s a prolonged kidnap, I’ll take over after two weeks. That means I have to know everything.’
‘And George?’
‘He observes and learns. He’s my trainee.’
‘Mercy and George will also be doing some research around the kidnap,’ said Boxer.
‘Meaning what exactly?’
‘We’ll find out where Alyshia was last seen, at what time and with whom,’ said Mercy. ‘We’ll build a picture of the lead-up to the event, in the hope that it might give us an indication of who we’re dealing with. Someone alone or with a gang. A disgruntled boyfriend. Perhaps people in her everyday life can shed light on any strange personalities, difficult business interactions, that sort of thing. We also might find out stuff that we can use in our negotiations with the kidnapper, something to give us an advantage. As you’ve realised from your conversations with Jordan, knowledge, in this game, is power.’
‘But you won’t contact the police.’
‘Don’t worry, this is a very private investigation. We tread very carefully. We understand the threats that have been made,’ said Mercy. ‘Now, we’d like to start by hearing your story. We’ve had a briefing from the Director of Operations but there’s nothing like hearing it in your own words.’
Mercy listened to Isabel’s version of events. She got her to go back in time and, being a sympathetic woman and a clever investigator, she dug deeper and was rewarded.
‘Alyshia left and went to rent her own place because we weren’t getting on so well. I was finding her reticence difficult to take,’ said Isabel. ‘Something had happened in Mumbai and, while I expect my ex-husband to be secretive, I don’t expect my daughter to withhold. She’s always told me everything.’
‘Everything?’ said Boxer. ‘Is there such a thing as everything?’
‘No,’ said Mercy. ‘As we find out all too often, and to our cost. Young people have their own lives.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Isabel.
‘The kidnapper has dropped Alyshia’s mobile phone somewhere off the M4. We’re waiting for it to be brought in,’ said Boxer, ‘with more revelations.’
‘About?’ asked Mercy.
‘About Alyshia’s “involvements”, I think,’ said Isabel. ‘A boyfriend, I assume, that she’s never spoken to me about.’
Boxer put the iPod in the dock and they played the recording of the second phone call.
‘All right,’ said Mercy, ‘let’s build a picture, starting from the moment of the kidnap and working back. Where does Alyshia work?’
Silence.
‘Isabel?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Isabel, conscious of falling at the first hurdle. ‘All she said was that she was working in a bank in the City. When I asked which one, she just said it was one of the big investment banks. I didn’t pursue it because she’d already started to get quite scathing with me if I “intruded” on her life too much.’
‘And where does she live?’
‘She’s renting somewhere in Hoxton. That’s all she’s told me. This was part of her need for her own space. Part of the separation process. Trying to stop me living my life through her. She had started to get quite brutal with me. I was feeling like the clingy lover.’
‘Has she ever worked in the UK before she got this job in the bank?’
‘Yes, when she finished school and after university, before she took her place at the Saïd Business School.’
‘And she was living here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she leave any of her paperwork behind when she moved out?’
‘There’s a box file in my office full of stuff she didn’t want to take with her.’
‘Is there somewhere George can set up a computer?’
Isabel took Papadopoulos into the dining room before going upstairs with Mercy. They chatted non-stop. Boxer grabbed a notebook to start doing some forward-thinking, taking the opportunity to get some strategy together to draw a demand out of Jordan. This was the problem with no Crisis Management Committee. He was with Isabel all the time. He was everything to her: adviser, consultant, friend, consoler, intimate and, now, lover. It meant he had little time to do his work.
What he wanted Isabel to do, despite her loathing of Jordan, was to engage with him. There had to be a relationship. This would slow the phone calls down, open up more opportunities for Jordan to be revealing. The vague voices returned, louder. Mercy reappeared in the kitchen, gave Boxer the nod. They had something.
Martin Fox called. Boxer took it in the sitting room, looking out into the grey, frozen garden.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Tricky, on my own,’ said Boxer.
‘I spoke to Frank about that. He’s going along with what his ex-wife wants, but he has given me two names. Her lawyer and the woman who runs a residential property consultancy he uses. Apparently Isabel and this woman got on well together when she moved her out
of the Edwardes Square house.’
‘Have you contacted either of them?’
‘Frank said that I should only do that in the event of Isabel’s incapacity, or on her specific instruction.’
‘Well, it’s a start,’ said Boxer. ‘Mercy’s here, by the way – and George.’
‘Sorry about that. We had to agree.’
‘I can feel them muscling in on us,’ said Boxer. ‘Mercy’s already assuming control.’
‘You know how it is. It’s in their nature to assume that the private sector is, at best, money-motivated and, at worst, venal, whilst we think of the Met as hobbled and incompetent.’
‘The perfect working relationship,’ said Boxer. ‘I’d rather George didn’t meet Frank.’
‘Right. Got chevrons on his suit?’
‘Have you spoken to Ray Moss?’
‘That’s why I’m calling.’
‘Isabel knows what he thinks. She’s taken it on board.’
‘No breakdown?’
‘Not yet. She rarely shows it, but she’s got some steel in there. You might think she’s just a warm, good-natured woman, but there’s the right stuff holding her together.’
‘While I’m trying to relieve the pressure on you, I’m also following a lead from a different source,’ said Fox. ‘A friend of mine at the Financial Times recommended that I talk to this guy who’s a competitor in the steel business to Konkan Hills Securities. I haven’t spoken to Frank about this yet. And I don’t want it to reach him. So it’s a name you shouldn’t run by Isabel Marks, although I think she might have even met him once. I want more dirt and to get it verified.’
‘Is this a disgruntled employee scenario?’
‘Could be. My contact gave me the name Deepak Mistry. He’s in his mid-thirties, although there’s some question mark about his birth date. As far as we can work out, he was a computer science graduate who put together a group of programmers and started up a company in Bangalore. They developed most of the software used by Konkan Hills, and in one of those “I liked the product so much I bought the company” moves, Frank incorporated Mistry and his business into Konkan Hills IT department.’
‘Did that make Deepak a rich man?’
‘Not a multi-millionaire, but comfortably off,’ said Fox. ‘One of the reasons Frank did this was that he liked Deepak Mistry. He admired his entrepreneurial spirit, and within a year Deepak was head of IT for Konkan Hills. And, apparently, it didn’t stop there. Deepak was brought into the inner circle. As head of IT he was given a place on the board and, in the space of a couple of years, became Frank’s untitled right-hand man. And he was still in that position when Alyshia flew out to Mumbai a couple of years ago, with an economics degree, an MBA and no experience. My informer doesn’t know quite what happened next, but he does know that Deepak Mistry has disappeared, not just from Konkan Hills Securities’ board, but also from the southern Indian business scene.’
‘Did your informer’s company want to offer him a job?’
‘Exactly that,’ said Fox. ‘And nobody knows where Mistry has gone. I’ve got some private investigators in Mumbai trying to track him down.’
‘I thought you said Mistry was in IT. Why is a steel competitor looking to employ him?’
‘Frank had a Chinese business friend who’d bought a steelworks in Germany, dismantled it and was shipping it piece by piece to China. Frank sent Deepak Mistry to Shanghai for two years on and off to watch the Chinese rebuild that German steelworks and make it twenty-five per cent more efficient. Then Frank had him use his knowledge to rebuild the steelworks he’d bought in India.’
‘It sounds more intriguing than promising.’
‘It sounds like both to me.’
Mercy appeared at the door, beckoned him into the kitchen. Boxer hung up.
Papadopoulos was in his shirt sleeves, capable hairy hands at his sides. Isabel was seated, puzzled.
‘It seems that Alyshia wasn’t working for a bank but a recruitment agency, called Bovingdon Recruitment. They have ten branches in central London and she was based at Tottenham Court Road. Her home address was given as Flat 1, Lavender Grove, London E8, which is in Dalston, close to London Fields. Not that far from Hoxton, I suppose,’ said Papadopoulos, offering some mitigation.
‘I find that so strange,’ said Isabel, bewildered and hurt. ‘Why lie to me about such ridiculous things?’
‘It might just be a symptom of another problem,’ said Boxer. ‘You shouldn’t take it personally. It’s more about Alyshia, less about you.’
‘What other problem?’
‘Whatever it was that happened in Mumbai, maybe?’ said Boxer. ‘She came back here and hasn’t been herself since.’
‘Now I’m worried that, without my seeing it or wanting to see it, she’s been having some kind of a breakdown,’ said Isabel. ‘I mean, recruitment? That’s not her at all.’
Her mobile vibrated on the table.
‘Chico,’ she said, glancing at the screen.
Boxer moved the others out of the kitchen and into the living room.
‘I don’t want Frank D’Cruz, who she calls Chico, to see you,’ said Boxer.
‘Why not?’ said Papadopoulos.
‘Because he’ll take one look at you . . .’
‘At me?’ said Papadopoulos. ‘You think I look like a copper?’
Boxer looked at Mercy, eyebrow raised.
‘Let’s go,’ said Mercy. ‘We’ve got enough to be going on with.’
Papadopoulos picked up his jacket and computer, threw his mac on, with aggressive shooting movements of his arms. Isabel came in to say Chico was coming over. Mercy and Papadopoulos excused themselves. Boxer took them to the door. Mercy pulled him out into the street, told Papadopoulos to go to the car.
‘So what’s going on here?’ she asked.
‘I spoke to Martin Fox about it and he agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea . . .’
‘You know what I’m talking about, Charlie,’ said Mercy. ‘What’s going on between you and Isabel?’
‘We have no Crisis Management Committee, that’s what’s going on,’ said Boxer. ‘Which means . . .’
‘I can see the way she’s looking at you,’ said Mercy. ‘I bet even George can.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’
Mercy got her face up close, nose to nose. His cool, green eyes looked into the pitch-black wells of her wide pupils, her brown irises almost invisible.
‘My God,’ she said. ‘I don’t bloody believe it.’
‘Don’t bloody believe what?’ said Boxer, annoyed.
‘You’ve been there, Charlie. I can tell.’
Only long experience at playing poker enabled him to maintain eye contact with her, but even that gave away too much.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Charles Boxer. A girl’s life is in the balance here.’
‘I’ll make sure you get a copy of whatever’s on Alyshia’s iPhone,’ he said.
Mercy, dismayed and furious, turned without a word, headed for the car.
Boxer hovered at the front door, annoyed at being so readable by women, as well as speared by Mercy’s professional correctness, but still burning with his new desire.
The traffic had been spectacularly bad, even by Mumbai standards, and it was 6.30 p.m. by the time Roger Clayton reached Vile Parle, close to the airport, where the taxi turned off the road and headed for Juhu Beach and his final meeting of the day. The crowds were gathering for sunset and the snack vendors were doing a huge trade. The taxi dropped him off and he wandered past the balloon-sellers, drummers, fun rides, shooting galleries, fortune-tellers and performing monkeys, to the food stalls.
He squeezed through the crush and uproar of a thousand snacking Mumbaikers, who seemed oblivious to the Rothko bands of dark blue, purple, violet, red and pink as the sun eased itself into the black waters of the Arabian Sea.
Gagan was waiting for him at his favourite pani puri stall. He was already on his third
crispy doughball as Clayton joined him. They chatted and let the spicy madness in the pani puris explode in their mouths. They paid up and moved to the massive circular iron griddle at the centre of the pav bhaji stall. Clayton bought two plates of the potato and vegetable curry with bread on the side, shaking his head at the prospective calorific intake. He slipped a $50 bill under one plate and handed it to Gagan, who accepted the gift with a small bow.
They walked away from the brightly lit stalls and the din of the generators, and into the darkness of the beach. Gagan was in his twenties and rail thin, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt. Both were a size too big for him, so that the trousers had to be cinched at the waist and the shirt puffed out at the back. He had thick black hair with brown streaks and a side parting. His default setting was a broad white-toothed smile. It was easy to see why Sharmila D’Cruz had hired him: he was both pretty and uplifting to the spirit.
Clayton was relieved that Frank D’Cruz paid his staff so badly that $50 made Gagan a willing accomplice. He was doubly useful because, as a general servant, he went everywhere in the house. He could also rustle up very good snacks, too, and specialised in D’Cruz’s favourite and fattening pakodes, croquettes, Goan pork pies and patties. He also lied to Sharmila about D’Cruz’s intake, which made him just about the only servant D’Cruz spoke to, rather than barked at.
‘So your master has gone to London,’ said Clayton.
Gagan’s eyes widened with astonishment at Clayton’s knowledge. He was disappointed too, because this was to have been his opening nugget of remarkable intelligence.
‘Yes, it was something very sudden. Not planned at all. Mrs Sharmila very upset.’
‘Why?’
‘They were supposed to be going to a big film premiere this week and a big party to celebrate the start of the IPL cricket tournament. Now there is nothing for her to do.’
‘Have there been any changes at the house and the compound here in Juhu?’
‘Yes, yes. Much more security now. Everybody being searched before they coming in. Men with dogs in the gardens at night.’
‘Anybody different come to the house before he left?’
‘Oh yes, Anwar Masood.’