‘Strictly P and C?’
‘Of course, you don’t even have to ask.’
‘I do, because it’s the Kinderman Corporation. The CEO’s daughter has been kidnapped.’
‘There’ll be money in that, political pressure and Christ knows what else.’
‘Money’s all they’ve asked for … so far. Not a ransom, but … expenses.’
‘Expenses?’
‘Twenty-five million’s worth.’
‘Is Forsyth employed directly by Kinderman or through a private security company?’
‘I think it’s direct. They have a history.’
‘Find out for me.’
She suddenly reached across the table and grabbed his hands, looked long and hard into his face.
‘You want me to do something for you, I can tell.’
She dropped her forehead down on to the union of their hands.
‘I can’t ask you to do this,’ she said, whispering into the tabletop.
‘Look at me,’ said Boxer. ‘You can ask me anything you want and I’ll do it for you. You know that.’
‘If I find the people holding Marcus, will you … deal with them?’
‘Deal with them?’ he asked, frowning.
‘They’ve threatened Marcus, they’ve threatened Amy and they’ve threatened to break me … crush my bones and crumple my heart, to use their words.’
‘And you think this is a better way to proceed than through the legal channels of the Met?’
‘They’re watching me. I don’t know how. They must have someone on the inside. They knew I was the unit’s top investigator.’
‘And that you would be given the Kinderman job.’
‘It’s even bigger than the Kinderman job. There’ve been five kidnaps and six victims. We don’t know what it’s about. I’ve just had a meeting at Thames House and they’ve no idea … any of them MI5, MI6, JIC, not one of them,’ said Mercy. ‘All I know is that if I deviate from the gang’s line, at the very least Marcus will die.’
‘You can’t be seen to be behaving strangely.’
‘And that’s the point … you can.’
‘What exactly did you mean by deal with them?’ said Boxer. ‘And why would you think I’m the man to do that for you?’
‘I know you have a gun, which you keep under the floorboards in your flat,’ said Mercy. ‘And no, I wasn’t snooping. Amy told Marcus years ago. So she knows, too.’
‘Amy?’ said Boxer, nodding, things making sense, remembering his mother telling him how Amy had gone through her flat when she’d been left alone there. ‘I’ve never had to use it, you know.’
‘I knew what you were going to do to El Osito in Madrid.’
Silence as he recalled the baseball bat blows to the Colombian’s knees and the more lethal one he’d planned to the man’s head.
‘Makepeace asked me what that was all about. I told him you were alone and under particularly stressful circumstances,’ said Mercy. ‘What I didn’t tell him was that in your shoes I’d have done the same.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What am I doing now?’ said Mercy.
‘There’s one big difference.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve found enough anger to step over a moral boundary,’ she said. ‘It surprised me. I don’t know where it’s come from. Do you?’
More silence from Boxer as he held her hands and stared out of the window, the layers of the past stacking up in his mind and the sense of equilibrium he’d felt stabilising his life only hours ago spinning out of control.
‘Do you?’ asked Mercy, eager to have the benefit of his experience in such extreme matters; worried, too, that he’d have no idea, that it might be something psychopathic in a man who’d been the first she’d ever loved.
‘I wanted to tell you something important,’ he said, stumbling through the nightmarish landscape of his subconscious. ‘Something that might help you understand. Isabel is pregnant.’
It stunned her. The impact of the news and its incomprehensible relationship to what they’d been talking about.
‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s going to have the baby.’
‘I know what being pregnant means,’ said Mercy. ‘When’s it due?’
‘All being well, May.’
‘Congratulations, but … what does that have to do with … with what we were talking about?’
‘That’s what it takes for a human being to morally transgress,’ said Boxer. ‘If any harm came to Isabel, I would not hesitate.’
A relief spread through her and she felt reconnected to the person she’d loved for more than twenty years. Her phone beeped and she looked at the text, said she had to leave.
‘Give me any leads you can get from Glider,’ she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
He watched her go, glad for the break, relieved that she hadn’t questioned him further, because it was a place he hadn’t visited for quite some time. In fact ever since he’d aimed that blow at El Osito’s accusing face, he’d managed to avoid answering the questions raised by the Colombian’s enquiring mind.
Amy knew the flat was empty the moment she opened the door. In the bedroom she found the duvet turned back and brownish stains on the pillow where Siobhan had dribbled in her sleep. She looked for a note. Nothing. She called Siobhan’s mobile and heard its ringtone elsewhere in the flat. She called her father, told him Siobhan had gone and not taken her mobile.
‘No sign of a break-in or a struggle?’
‘Difficult to say. The flat’s still a bit of a mess but the doors are intact and the locks were changed by your guy last night, so if they’d come back, they’d have had to bust the door down again.’
‘There’s nothing you can do, no way of contacting her. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait.’
‘Is that what you want me to do? There’s other stuff back at the office.’
‘I don’t want you to go back to the office,’ said Boxer. ‘Your mother didn’t come clean. After your meeting with her this morning, the gang made another threat in which you featured as the victim if she dared to talk to her colleagues. She thinks they’ve got someone on the inside. At least you’re not moving on normal lines. They’ll have difficulty finding you. So wait there and text me when Siobhan gets back.’
Amy started in the sitting room, worked her way methodically through the things that Siobhan had gathered up and thrown in the two suitcases. She sorted out the clothes that clearly belonged to Conrad Jensen, checked them, seams and all, for anything strange. She folded and packed his clothes into the Samsonite and went to work on Siobhan’s. Then she crawled around the room tilting back armchairs and the sofa, looking underneath. Nothing. She moved into the bedroom and collected Siobhan’s dirty clothes, stripped off the bloody pillowslip and tidied the bed. Underneath she found a small piece of paper with a UK mobile number on it.
‘Found what you’re looking for?’
Amy screwed the paper up in her fist, turned and sat on the floor looking up at Siobhan, who was in skinny black jeans and the multi-zipped leather jacket. Her hair covered her puffy eye. The only visible damage from the night’s attack was her bruised mouth, cut lip.
‘You recovered quickly,’ said Amy. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘You’re not my mum,’ she said. ‘I go where the fuck I like.’
‘Without your phone?’
‘Too easy to track.’
‘So what were you doing that you didn’t want to be tracked?’ asked Amy. ‘If we’re working together, we’ve got to know your movements.’
‘I was out buying something a little stronger than paracetamol.’
‘Like?’
‘Percocet. Paracetamol but with some oxycodone thrown in,’ said Siobhan. ‘I went out like a cripple and I’ve come back healed.’
Amy sent a text to her father.
‘Reporting me to your superior?’
‘He’s trying to help you … if that’s wha
t you want.’
Siobhan shrugged.
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘It means I’ve done what I’ve been told to do by Mark Rowlands. What else is there?’
‘Don’t you care about your father?’
‘D’you care about yours?’
‘Yes,’ said Amy, looking at her steadily.
‘Why? What did he ever do for you?’
‘He put himself in danger for me,’ said Amy. ‘I didn’t know him until that moment. What do you know about Conrad?’
‘He’s a spook … or something like it. What can you ever really know about a spook?’
‘Even spooks need love … probably more than most if they’re living in an artificial world.’
‘You’re clever for a kid,’ said Siobhan. ‘I can tell you listen. Most people don’t. As far as love is concerned, my father doesn’t want anything complicated. I told you, he doesn’t show his feelings. It’s probably a professional requirement, as well as the fact that the poor bastard’s male and English.’
‘So what’s your motive for finding him?’ asked Amy. ‘Are you just being professional under instruction from Mark Rowlands?’
‘Don’t try and get inside me,’ said Siobhan, pointing at her chest. ‘You’ll find a big NO fucking ENTRY sign right here.’
‘But you’re allowed to go around kissing me, winding me up sexually and emotionally, and fucking off without telling us?’
‘That’s my Cuban side. I’m mixed race as well as mixed gender.’
‘We should get on, but we don’t because you won’t talk to me. You just give me a whole load of riddle-me-ree.’
‘Riddle-me-what?’
‘My gran’s expression for nonsense,’ said Amy. ‘I’m not interested in riddle-me-ree, so if that’s all you’ve got to give, I’ll keep my distance.’
‘I’m the one who does everything for him and he tells me nothing in return,’ said Siobhan. ‘Do this, do that, do the other. I’m like his … his skivvy. Then he just walks off into the night without a fucking word and I’m left picking up the pieces, as per fucking usual.’
‘Has this happened before?’
‘No, he’s never left me without a word of where he’s going, but he has left me with a mess to clear up.’
‘What about this time? Was that why you had to get out of here? Was it just for the Percocet, or something else?’
12
11.00, 16 January 2014
Knightsbridge, London
‘So what was the vanishing act all about?’ asked George. ‘Is that another part of the cabaret you didn’t tell me about?’
‘I was gathering intelligence on Colonel Ryder Forsyth,’ said Mercy. ‘I was told that he was flying in on a Kinderman jet from Zurich, where he happened to be at the time of the kidnap, and that he wouldn’t get here until, well, now, and he’d need some time to sort things out, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to do a bit of digging. Always good to go into an unusual scenario forewarned.’
‘Maybe we should have taken a look at the crime scene,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘And why didn’t you want me there for the intelligence-gathering bit?’
‘I wanted you to be able to observe without preconceptions,’ said Mercy. ‘We’re going into a much more complicated situation than usual and this guy Forsyth is a big personality working for a company with powerful connections in the US government. We have to get off on the right foot. But when I’m acting I don’t always have the best powers of observation, which is where you come in. I’ll be concentrating on forming a relationship with Forsyth, but there’ll be a crisis management committee, which I’m sure will consist of some important people, given the nature of the child’s mother’s ties to Kinderman.’
They pulled up outside 31 Wilton Place, next to the grey brick Victorian church of St Paul’s Knightsbridge. Mercy pressed the buzzer on the intercom, which was answered immediately. She was told to hold up both warrant cards to the peephole before they were admitted. A man in a dark blue suit, who did not introduce himself, took their coats, led them up to the first floor and showed them into a small sitting room, which was empty. He withdrew without offering anything.
The wealth on display in the conservatively decorated room silenced them. They sank into their respective armchairs and did not speak. Thick dark blue velvet curtains kept the gunmetal sky at bay. The grey fitted carpet gave background to a silk weave Tree of Life rug that was so sharp it looked as if it had been painted on the floor. Two prancing statuettes – a bronze of a hoofed Pan playing his pipes, and a fleeing girl – occupied the mantelpiece on either side of a Van Cleef & Arpels gold clock. There was a bookcase with leather bound volumes, which did not look much read, and four paintings, one on each wall.
‘Know anything about art?’ asked George in a whisper.
Mercy shook her head.
‘Above your head’s a Degas, that one over there is a Cézanne and the nude in the bath is a Bonnard,’ said George. ‘This one behind me is a Seurat, I think. That’s about three mil just on these walls.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Mercy. ‘By you, not the paintings.’
‘I did a history of art option at uni.’
The blue-suited one returned and took them upstairs to another, bigger living room. Sitting on the sofa was a man who seemed to be dressed in clothes he did not wear very often: dark blue worsted trousers and a white shirt under a grey jacket. His shoulders strained against the confinement and his feet looked awkward encased in black brogues. His hard, lean tanned face, which was borderline haggard from too much exposure to the sun, made him look as if he wore a wetsuit most of the year. He had one blue eye that seemed to work but the other eye, fixed in its socket, was made of glass and was brown. He had a number of head scars, as if he’d made the mistake of looking over the parapet just as the bullets started flying. He had long grey hair combed back in rails that rested on the collar of his jacket. The top of one ear was missing and the scar, from a machete blow, went to the corner of his glass eye. He stood, and at six foot four made the room feel small and crowded.
‘Ryder Forsyth,’ he said, in a voice that had had gravel raked over it.
They shook hands. Mercy noticed he had a finger missing. Despite her extensive life experiences, she felt like a teenager in this man’s company, while Papadopoulos looked on the brink of taking an aeroplane out of his pocket and flying it around the room.
‘You taken a look at Lyall Mews yet?’ asked Forsyth. His accent, no longer entirely English, had developed a Texan drawl.
‘I went to Thames House for a meeting and then came straight here for our briefing,’ said Mercy.
‘You’ll see why it was chosen,’ said Forsyth. ‘I dropped by on the way here. There was scaffolding covered with plastic sheeting over the house on the right side and the street level window of the flat on the left has security shutters and a blind permanently drawn. I’m told that both places were unoccupied at the time. You might be lucky and find a witness in the mews, but I doubt you’ll find anyone who overlooked the action. I reckon it took ’em less than a minute.’
‘We’re waiting for the forensics from the car, and it would be good to talk to the chauffeur.’
‘I think you’ll draw a blank on both,’ said Forsyth. ‘The gang was very well organised and the girl’s chauffeur was just that: untrained in anything other than driving. Didn’t even lock the doors, according to Mrs Railton-Bass.’
‘Would it be possible to talk to Emma this morning?’
‘Why?’
‘As an investigator I like to have as much information as possible about the victim and the parents: a sense of their relationship, the mother’s view of her child, the girl’s personality, her strengths and weaknesses. All that right down to the clothes she was wearing, any illnesses, teeth missing … you know, everything.’
‘I’m not sure I understand the point,’ said Forsyth. ‘How’s all that going to help you find her?’
‘
The point is we never know the detail that’ll help us make the connection to where the girl is being held. We just need to know everything possible,’ said Mercy. ‘The last time we investigated a highly sensitive case of this kind we found that the kidnapped boy played trick football, and that gave us a crucial line of inquiry.’
‘I’ll talk to Mrs Railton-Bass,’ said Forsyth. ‘I’m trying to keep her mind as uncomplicated as possible … you read me?’
‘We also like to form an emotional connection to our subject. It inspires us,’ said Mercy. ‘Have you heard from the gang again since this morning?’
‘No, Mrs Railton-Bass just took that one call. We’ve had no proof of life, just a money demand.’
‘Are you, the family or Kinderman expecting anything other than a money demand?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Forsyth, with an edge to his voice.
‘Kinderman is a big corporation and there’s been a shift in public sentiment against them. They’ve been perceived as gaining unfair access to government contracts. There’s been talk that they actively promoted the Iraq war for their own benefit. They also seem to have dodged a bullet in the oil spill scandal in the US Gulf. Since we’ve been in the austerity years, they’ve come under the spotlight again, as a number of their higher-profile employees are perceived as outstanding examples of the unequal distribution of wealth that might cause people to rise up and start a revolution. On top of that, Anchorlight have killed people in unstable parts of the world. So I’m sure there are people out there who could be looking for some sort of revenge: the Taliban, other religious extremists or maybe just destroyed families.’
‘You’re making some unfortunate implications,’ said Forsyth.
‘Unfortunate?’ said Mercy, frowning. ‘I’m just voicing some of the attitudes that prevail around the world. You don’t have to take them as coming from me.’
‘Whatever. We have people looking into that.’
‘You mean the CIA?’
‘I mean them and people contracted to the CIA.’
‘You knew my ex-husband,’ said Mercy. ‘Charles Boxer. You were in the Staffords together.’