‘Come on, Alyshia,’ said the voice. ‘I’m going to start clearing this equipment away in two minutes. You’ve got—’
‘I’m sorry for what I’ve done and I’m sorry for what I have not done. You mustn’t blame yourselves for any of this. You gave me the perfect preparation, the best genes, the deepest affection, the greatest attention, the right instruction, and I have squandered it all. I regret my cruelty to you, Mummy. You did not deserve any of it. I know now that it came from my own sense of failure. I love you more in this moment than I have in my entire life. I am sorry I abandoned you, Daddy. You gave me opportunities. You’ve been giving but demanding, and loving without smothering. I wish I could have returned it to you, with the interest it deserved. I am going now. But I want you to know that I’m not ignorant, selfish, arrogant and indifferent anymore, but regretful, humble and wishing that I could see you both one last time.’
The last words were soundless, mouthed through saliva that had clogged her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks, drops hung at her jaw.
‘Very nice,’ said the voice. ‘Surprisingly restrained, I must say. Now let’s get it done and out of here.’
Hands on her shoulders, pressing her down into a position she did not want to be. She knelt on quivering thighs, facing the man with the gun. She looked up, desperate and pleading into the black, glinting pupils beyond the holes in the hood. The gun came up. The barrel came to rest on her forehead. She reached her hands up and clung to the lower edges of the man’s jacket, while behind her the other man unrolled a length of plastic sheeting, which went over her heels. The man with the gun slapped her hands away and she dropped onto the plastic sheet on all fours, like a retching dog.
Mercy Danquah had just finished a fruitless meeting with the first of her informers, Busby, and was on her way to her second meeting with Nelson. She noticed that her gear-changing had become increasingly irritable and that she was leaning forward out of her seat and gripping the steering wheel tightly. She was angry with Boxer. He’d put her in a position. She was going to have to tell DCS Makepeace what had happened, or rather, what she believed had happened between him and Isabel.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said out loud, to God, Boxer and the traffic.
The sound of her own voice broke something open in her and she began to suspect her motives, caught a glimpse of something else she didn’t like to admit. She smacked it down, thought about Nelson instead. Why he was the better bet. Yes, Nelson, he was more in the thick of it because he lived on disability benefits and spent most of his time in the pubs and clubs of Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and Stepney.
She parked up, not far from where they were meeting in a local café, E Pellicci, on Bethnal Green Road, just round the corner from the Kray twins’ old house on Voss Street. The walls were lined with light brown wooden panels in which there were marquetry designs that dated from the 1940s. The windows had stained glass. People sat on wooden chairs at formica tables with the triumverate of brown sauce, tomato ketchup and mustard in front of them. The tea came in big cups from a large chrome urn by the till. The healthiest food on the menu was baked beans on toast. Mercy ordered a plate, seeing as she hadn’t had breakfast that morning. Nelson, despite the hour, was taking advantage of her offer to pay by having the full English, whose centrepoint was a pile of inch thick chips, which he doused in salt and vinegar and dipped in ketchup before cramming them into his mouth, leaving red flecks at the corners.
Nelson was the codename Mercy used to protect his identity. He’d lost his arm in an industrial accident some time ago and only last year had compounded his codename by losing an eye to glaucoma. At least he didn’t wear a patch, but had a glass eye with a disturbing clarity, which made Mercy think that he could see more out of that one than he could through the rheuminess of the good one. He was not a small man, with a bowling ball gut and a full head of grey hair swept back. He talked in a way that made Mercy think he’d spent a lot of time in libraries while absentmindedly shovelling eight teaspoons of sugar into his tea.
‘You know, maybe it’s something to do with the economic downturn or the government austerity measures,’ he said, ‘but I’ve heard more talk about kidnapping in the last couple of years than I have since—’
‘What’s the economic downturn got to do with it?’
‘Fewer young people with jobs, no money to buy drugs, so the drug dealers have to look elsewhere to make their money.’
‘You should be in a government think tank,’ said Mercy. ‘You’re wasted here.’
‘There’s less money around at street level, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘I thought that’s why they were bringing in plant food from China for the kids to snort.’
‘Plant food?’
‘Mephedrone,’ said Mercy. ‘Don’t worry about it, admiral. Tell me why kidnapping’s back in fashion.’
‘It’s mainly the quick twenty-four hour stuff. Nothing complicated. Track your mark. Stick them in the back of a van. Smack them about a bit. Put them under. Make your phone calls. Take your money. Tip them out and run.’
‘What about longer term stuff, for big money?’
‘You mean the new tax on the rich?’ said Nelson, stabbing his fried egg viciously, as if it were the eye of a banker. ‘Make them pay for all the shit they’re putting us through. Steal their kids and give them an alternative education.’
‘On what? Dog racing?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the dogs, Mercy.’
‘Let me know when these gangs start their Samuel Beckett workshops and I might turn up myself,’ said Mercy. ‘So have you heard of anybody getting involved in longer term stuff?’
‘What? Like that Indian businessman they nabbed in East Ham a while back? Asked for a Fergie. Kept him on an industrial estate in Essex.’
‘A Fergie?’
‘That’s half a mil.’
‘You never forget, do you, admiral?’ said Mercy. ‘Yeah, that’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. Long term. Safe house. Big ransom demand.’
Mercy recognised Nelson’s methodology. He’d given some intelligence on the Indian’s kidnap, which had been very useful in getting the hostage back. She felt the excitement kick in at the thought that he might actually have something.
‘It’s not that easy in this part of London anymore.’
‘You mean with friends like you littering the place and listening in on the chit-chat?’
‘Let me know how you get on when you lose your right arm, Mercy.’
‘Only teasing.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nelson, disbelieving.
‘What about somebody doing something to order?’ said Mercy, trying to jog Nelson along. ‘Like a businessman with money and resources but no expertise or manpower, who hires a gang to carry out a kidnap on his behalf?’
Nelson nodded, concentrated on his food, put together a forkful of bacon, egg, sausage, tomato and a chip.
‘You’ve gone all quiet on me, admiral,’ said Mercy, nervous that she might have pissed him off by reminding him of his snout status.
‘I’m eating,’ said Nelson, swilling down the last mouthful with the dark, brown, sweet tea that he sloshed around his dentures. ‘You know why I like to come here?’
Mercy sank a little inside. More stroking was going to be required. ‘Think of it as foreplay,’ they’d said on the Met’s informer course, but that, in Nelson’s case, was just too disgusting.
‘It’s a nice place,’ said Mercy, looking around. ‘I go to the Winning Post down in Streatham every now and again. I’ll take you there one day.’
‘The thing about this place, Mercy, is that Nev, the owner, doesn’t change anything.’
‘Even the Ladies?’
‘And out there,’ said Nelson, ignoring her, pointing over her shoulder at the traffic pounding through the grey on Bethnal Green Road, ‘it’s changing all the time.’
‘How’s that?’
‘We’re getting squeezed by the Bee
s out there.’
‘The bees?’
‘The Bankers, the Brokers and the Bengalis,’ said Nelson. ‘There’s not many of us left.’
‘Which tribe are you?’
‘The white working class,’ said Nelson, brushing his front. ‘Nowadays you go out there and there’re Poles and Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Bulgarians, Chinese and Jamaicans, Punjabis and Pashtuns. We don’t know who we are any more. But, at least, in here, I know: I’m English and I belong.’
‘Even though Nev’s Italian,’ said Mercy. ‘And by the way, you left out Ghanaians. I’m hurt.’
‘You’re not Ghanaian, Mercy. You’re bleeding English,’ said Nelson, pointing his fork at her across the table. ‘You know what? Nev doesn’t even know what a latte is.’
Mercy thought that unlikely, but let it go.
‘It’s Grade Two listed in here,’ said Nelson, looking around at the marquetry and the stained glass windows. ‘That’s how English it is. It’s become part of our heritage, an institution.’
‘And you’re all in it,’ said Mercy. ‘What’s your point, Nelson?’
‘Kidnapping is not an English crime,’ he said.
‘I think you might be forgetting that the bloke who kidnapped that Indian in East Ham was called Danny Gibney.’
‘Irish,’ said Nelson, weighing his fork. ‘Most kidnaps I hear about are Yardies, nabbing someone’s sister because they haven’t paid their drugs bill. Or Ukrainians, grabbing illegal girls and sticking them in brothels.’
‘Sweet,’ said Mercy, finishing her beans. ‘But what I’m talking about is different.’
‘I hear what you’re saying.’
That was when Mercy knew for certain that Nelson had something and he was just putting her through the negotiation process. Either that, or he had something on someone a bit too close for comfort.
‘One of the things that concerns us about this kidnap is that we’re not convinced that they’re looking for a ransom,’ she said. ‘We think they’re going to tease, torture and kill. You don’t want to let people get away with something like that, do you, admiral? Not with a young woman.’
‘How young?’ asked Nelson, pushing back his plate, cleaning the nooks and crannies of his front teeth with his tongue.
‘Mid-twenties.’
‘What nationality?’
‘Half English, half Indian.’
‘The only thing is,’ said Nelson, playing the edge of the table with his remaining hand, ‘this’ll come back to me too easily. So, if I tell you, you’ll have to find another way in. You’ve got to promise me that.’
‘I don’t know how easy that’s going to be.’
‘You’ll see when I tell you.’
‘All right. I’ll guarantee you that,’ said Mercy, cocking her head to one side. ‘It looks as if there’s something else, Nelson.’
‘It’s going to be pricier than usual.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m more exposed.’
‘Is he a friend?’
‘What sort of a bloke do you think I am?’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘He’s connected. I could end up getting knee-capped.’
‘How much?’
‘Monkeys. Triplets.’
‘Now I’m going to have to go out into the cold and call someone,’ said Mercy, kicking her chair back, annoyed.
She went out into the street, walked up and down outside the yellow Vitrolite exterior of Pellicci’s café and called DCS Makepeace, told him Nelson was after £1500 for his grubby piece of information.
‘That’s pushing it,’ said Makepeace. ‘Doesn’t he read the news? Reduction in police numbers, public sector cuts, wage freezes . . .’
‘We’ve covered that already,’ said Mercy wearily.
‘Tell him we’re working on the CCTV footage of where Alyshia was taken and we’ve got a time on it too, so we’ll get there in the end with or without his expensive info. Five hundred’s the max, or if we’re quick enough, bugger all.’
Mercy went back into the café. Nelson was sitting in a food daze. Nev was clearing the plates.
‘Anything else I can get you?’ he asked.
‘I’ll take a latte, please,’ said Mercy.
Nev looked completely clueless for a moment.
‘All right, make it a white coffee,’ she said, sitting down.
‘I told you,’ said Nelson.
‘Bollocks,’ said Mercy. ‘You put him up to it.’
‘Are we on?’
‘We’re nearly there under our own steam,’ said Mercy. ‘We’re just checking the CCTV footage in Covent Garden of where the girl was last seen. The boss said you can have three hundred and that’s it – or sweet FA if he calls me back before you spill your beans.’
Nelson shifted in his seat, irritated, and she knew they were on the right track.
‘Make it up to a monkey and it’s all yours.’
‘Three hundred is tops.’
‘Bloody hell, Mercy.’
‘I’ve got it with me, too.’
‘Have you ever heard talk of The Cabbie?’
‘No.’
‘He’s not a cabbie, but he drives around in one: a London black cab. He runs a legit business off Violet Road in Bromley, buying and selling office furniture. He also employs illegals fresh in from Calais, pays them bugger all. They sleep in dormitories above the warehouse and he farms them out as cheap labour.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Jack Auber,’ said Nelson. ‘But if you’re talking about killing people, Jack doesn’t do that.’
‘But he does exploit people,’ said Mercy.
‘All right,’ said Nelson. ‘I’m just telling you he doesn’t kill people.’
‘So what did he do and how do you know he did it?’
‘There’s a builder in Stepney called Fred Scully. The building trade is dire at the moment. So when Fred gets work, he has to make it count.’
‘So he uses Jack’s cheap labour.’
‘Fred’s using two of Jack’s lads; been using one of the lads on and off for a year, trained him up good. Friday afternoon, Jack asks Fred to send the two lads over to his house on Grange Road, I don’t know the number, but it overlooks the East London Cemetery at the back and it’s the only one with a garage. Fred knows the place because Jack lets him keep his gear there. They’re working late and he can’t drop the lads off until after nine. Jack says as long as they’re there for midnight, he’s not bothered.’
‘So what time does he drop the lads off?’
‘Just after nine-thirty.’
‘Does he see Jack there?’
‘Yeah, the cab’s parked outside. Jack lets them in. Gives them some coffee. Tells them to clear the scaffolding out of the garage so that he can fit his cab in there and then stay at the house until he gets back. Fred leaves. The next day the lads don’t show. When Fred calls Jack, he says: “No problem, Fred, I’m sending you another two. They’ll be with you in an hour.” Fred wants to know what happened to his two boys, and Jack says there was an accident. Don’t ask questions.’
‘When are we getting to the kidnap bit?’ asked Mercy, looking up, head low down near the tabletop.
‘Look, I’m just telling you how I know Jack was involved,’ said Nelson. ‘Jack’s daughter, Cheryl, and Fred’s son, Vic, are having a thing with each other. Jack’s got Vic down as his future son-in-law. So Fred asks Vic to find out what happened to the two lads. This is the story that comes back. When Jack fetches up at the Grange Road house in his cab at around half past midnight, he parks the cab in the garage, because he’s got someone in the back, asleep. He goes into the house and waits with the lads. Half an hour later there’s screaming and shouting from the cab and he sends the two lads in there to dope the girl and bring her into the house.’
‘The girl? What girl?’
‘An Indian girl, in her twenties and a cracker,’ said Nelson. ‘The lads bring her in, put her in the bedroom at the
back of the house. Then they wait. Half an hour later, two blokes turn up in hoods. Jack’s expecting them but not what they do next, which is . . . strangle the two lads to death. They put the bodies and the drugged girl in their van and left. Jack was shocked. Hasn’t been able to get over it, which was why he spilled it to Vic, told him not to tell anyone, not even Fred, but you know how it is . . .’
‘Let’s you and I go for a little walk, admiral,’ said Mercy.
14
1.30 P.M. (LONDON TIME), 6.00 P.M. (LOCAL TIME), MONDAY 12TH MARCH 2012
Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai, India
‘Anwar Masood is a gangster,’ said Roger Clayton, making his telephone report to Simon Deacon of MI6 in London, with the pav bhaji he’d eaten with Gagan on Juhu Beach still chupping quietly in his stomach, encouraging soft burps and worse. ‘A big Muslim gangster who does what gangsters do: prostitution, girl trafficking, drugs, betting, protection and all the rest of it.’
‘How far back does he go with Frank D’Cruz?’ asked Deacon.
‘Masood was in the gold smuggling business on the Dubai to Bombay run twenty or thirty years ago. Before Frank got his break in the film business he was running an import/export business between Bombay and Dubai, where there’s always been a large Indian Muslim expat community. I’m sure that’s how he knows Masood.’
‘So what’s their relationship now?’
‘Difficult to know, precisely, but for some years he’s been an alternative security department for Konkan Hills,’ said Clayton. ‘He doesn’t pitch up at board meetings or work alongside Frank in any way that might link them publicly. But he makes sure that Frank is aware of all pertinent underworld intelligence, and he guarantees that nobody close to Frank will get kidnapped, as well as protecting his construction sites, warehouses and offices from being mysteriously fire-bombed.’
‘I’m assuming that this “Mister Iqbal” and Lieutenant General Abdel Iqbal are one and the same. He was mentioned by your source in the D’Cruz compound and Divesh Mehta from the Research and Analysis Wing.’