‘How did you communicate with her about Sasha once you’d left?’
‘By text and occasionally we’d talk on the phone. Bare bones. Nothing more.’
‘And Sasha never talked about her problems?’
‘I can’t believe how he’s been living, but it doesn’t surprise me that he’s coped. He’s that kind of boy. I’ve always taught him to look out for others less fortunate than himself. It was in his nature anyway. It was only when I got in here and saw Tracey’s state and the bottles that I realised how hard he’d been working to maintain the façade. He’s never said a word against her. Only positive things.’
‘If you don’t mind my saying,’ said Butler, ‘these are strangely angled questions.’
‘We’re just building a picture,’ said Mercy. ‘My next question is whether there would be anybody else who could possibly know about her vulnerability—apart from the Tesco manager who’s been supplying the cases of sherry.’
Butler nodded his approval. Bobkov stared into the floor, thinking.
‘Somebody’s studied this situation very carefully,’ said Mercy. ‘There’s nothing spontaneous about it as far as I can see . . . except, maybe, not having a proof of life sorted out before the initial phone call. But then they were expecting to talk to your ex-wife. I noticed they caved in pretty quickly when you said she was incapacitated. Normally a kidnap gang would fight harder to keep the mother in the frame as she’s their best chance of emotional leverage. They gave up quickly, as if they knew about Tracey’s state already.’
‘The only people who would know the answer to that are Tracey and Sasha,’ said Kidd. ‘Andrei’s too removed from the situation to be of any help.’
‘So nobody else comes into this house. Not even a cleaner? Not even once a week?’ asked Mercy. ‘We’ll have to do some digging on that.’
The phone rang. Sexton nodded his big square head, blue eyes concentrating. He’d given everybody some preliminary training before Mercy and Papadopoulos had arrived. Kidd pressed the speaker button. The recording equipment connected to the tracking equipment back in South Lambeth Road kicked in.
‘Hello,’ said Kidd.
‘Who is this?’ asked a voice.
‘My name is James.’
‘Where is Bobkov?’
‘He’s out trying to arrange the money. The last time you called you said you would come back to us with instructions, but you didn’t give us a time.’
‘He has until six o’clock tomorrow evening.’
‘We’re going to need longer than that. He’s just called to say that so far he’s managed to put together one hundred thousand euros.’
‘Don’t fool around with us. We know perfectly well that Mr. Bobkov has the capacity to pay. You tell him: if he’s only got one hundred thousand then that’s how much he’ll get of Sasha. A hand, or maybe one of those magic feet.’
The line went dead.
‘Are you the guy looking for the girl in the red dress,’ said the voice in English, music thumping in the background.
‘That’s right, her name’s Amy,’ said Boxer.
‘I saw her. I didn’t speak to her. I didn’t know her name. I just saw her with some people she shouldn’t have been with,’ said the voice. ‘One guy in particular. I wrote her a note and asked the barman to give it to her. She read it and dropped it on the floor.’
‘Was the note in Spanish?’
‘No. I could see she was foreign so I wrote it in English.’
‘What did the note say?’
‘Something like, “The guy you are with means you harm.”’
‘Your English is good.’
‘I lived in London for three years.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘David Álvarez. I’m a musician and DJ. I saw your daughter in a club called Charada on Calle de la Bola on Saturday night.’
‘That was one of the clubs the concierge at the Hotel Moderno mentioned to her as a good place to go.’
‘I work there. I do a two-hour slot for them on Friday and Saturday nights. I always go a bit early to see what sort of a crowd they’ve got, see whether the music’s working for them, ask around and see what I can change to make it better. I saw this girl in a red dress. She looked very beautiful and very young and I wasn’t sure she knew what she was getting herself into.’
‘Can we meet?’
‘Sure, but I’m just about to start a set at Joy.’
‘I can go there,’ said Boxer.
‘O.K., it’s in the Calle Arenal, close to the Hotel Moderno. It’s a big place so I’ll get the doorman to let you in and arrange for you to be brought up to my zone.’
‘Your zone?’
‘It’s an old theatre. El Teatro Eslava. You’ll see what I mean when you get here.’
It was a short walk from the bar. Even in recession-hit Spain there was a queue in the rain. He walked past the crowd. There was nobody over twenty-five. Two girls in silver shorts, silver boots, black tights and silver hair went through their moves under their raincoats, cigarettes in the corner of their mouths. Boxer veered into the entrance. The doorman, very wide, hair cut en brosse, black coat, black polo neck, put a hand on his chest, lightly. Boxer said his piece. The doorman spoke into his cheek mike, nodded, told him to wait by the door for a girl to come and take him up.
The girl arrived, dressed head to toe in black, her hair cut in a bob that was so black and shiny it looked mineral. She had bee-stung blood-red lips and told him that house rules demanded that everybody bought a ticket but that it came with a free drink. He paid the money, followed her into the club. The music entered the structure of his body, fizzed in his joints. He followed her swaying hips, past people in varying states of undress by the cloakroom. They burst into the old auditorium of the theatre with three gold tiers ranged above them: dress circle, upper circle and balcony. The girl ordered a drink at the bar, which she handed to him with words he did not hear. It was slightly cloudy with ice and greenery in it. They went through a door at the side of the bar and got into a service lift, which took them up to the first floor. The girl stared ahead with a smile on her face as if amused at something going on in her head. Out of the lift onto an empty floor, none of the old theatre seating. They walked around the balcony to the middle, where the DJ was operating on a raised platform above the dancers. The girl waved him through and left him. Boxer sipped his drink. Mojito.
The DJ standing in front of his electronics and turntables was almost as active as the people on the dance floor. The scene below was like the devil’s vision of paradise. Girls with massively enhanced tasselled breasts danced on podiums in string knickers and thigh-high boots. Two bodybuilders, one black the other white, in tiny trunks struck poses on the stage behind. In between them on a walkway a masked woman in a black rubber bodice and red cape lashed at the two men with what looked like a carriage whip. Dancing around the podiums was the disco crowd, a fluid mass of arms, shoulders and heads that rippled in different colours as the overhead lights changed from blue to yellow to red. It was fantastic, a lurid dream sequence of thwarted communication but ever-rising emotional pitch.
A pair of headphones was put in his hands. He slipped them on and the music was muffled to a dull ache.
‘I’m David,’ said the voice that appeared in his head. ‘Can you hear me?’
Boxer nodded. They shook hands, during which Álverez switched the shake to a hand clasp. Boxer was glad it didn’t get any more complicated than that.
‘She’s going to be O.K.,’ said Álvarez.
‘I’d like to believe you,’ said Boxer, uneasy with this constant reassurance. ‘What you told me was not encouraging. Who is this guy you were warning her about?’
‘He’s a Colombian.’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘I don’t know his real name, only his nickname,
which is El Osito.’
‘The Little Bear?’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty creepy that. It’s what a girl would call her boyfriend if she was being really cutesy—mi osito. But it also describes him physically. He’s short, very broad, muscular and mean. The opposite of mi osito. Tiene muy mala leche.’
‘Nasty enough to turn milk off?’
‘More like his mother’s milk being bad,’ said Álvarez. ‘It’s made him evil.’
‘How do you know him?’
‘He’s been a regular at all the places where I DJ for the last year or so. For an osito he’s a really good dancer. Very light on his feet and fast. Endless stamina . . . but that’s probably because of the coke.’
‘Does that mean he’s a Colombian who’s in the business?’
‘We’re not supposed to know this—we’re not supposed to even talk about it—but a lot of people here are users. That’s how they keep going. We know he’s a big man in a gang, but we don’t know which gang. He’s not a dealer. He doesn’t work on the ground. He’s the guy who runs things. That’s why nobody talks about what he does. Total respect. I’ve heard people say that he purposely lives a bit of a low-life existence so as not to attract any attention. They say he lives in a cheap block in a barrio called Pan Bendito, which tells you quite a lot . . . if you know Madrid.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Don’t go there if you don’t have to.’
‘I can understand you warning my daughter not to get involved just because he had some kind of criminal background, but you said he meant her harm. What’s that about?’
‘I could see she was on her own and foreign. Her type is one of his prime targets. Young. Vulnerable. Out for a good time. He’s a charmer. Everything is great until it turns bad. Maybe it’s something to do with the coke. It’s turned him a bit psycho. He’s beaten up girls I know in the clubs where I work.’
‘And they’re too scared to tell the police?’
‘You’ve got to be kidding. He’s the sort who’d have them killed.’
‘Did you see Amy leaving with this guy?’
‘No, I didn’t. I was working later. I saw them on the dance floor while I was doing my set, but they were gone by the time I finished.’
‘What state was she in when you asked the barman to pass her the note?’
‘She was pretty far gone. I’d say drunk and coked up . . . Sorry.’
‘I need to know these things.’
‘Not many parents want to know these things about their kids. Mine wouldn’t.’
‘So where can I find El Osito?’
Álvarez turned, took a good long look at Boxer, sized him up. ‘I can tell you’re not an idiot,’ he said. ‘You look like you’ve had some training. A friend of mine from school was in a special operations unit in the navy and you have that look. So you know he’s not the sort of guy you walk up to and say, “Do you know where my daughter is?” He has his freaks around him for a start. Mexicans. You know what I mean. Cuidad-Juarez-type Mexicans. I think they’re brothers but they don’t look it. The older one is heavy, lots of dark hair, moustache, while the younger one is slimmer, has long hair in a ponytail, smooth skin, nearly effeminate but always with a girl.’
‘But where would I find him, El Osito? Just to take a look.’
Álvarez checked the time on his phone.
‘I’ve only just started here. I’ve still got a couple of hours to go. I’ll see you out front at two thirty. I’ll point him out to you on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That you don’t try anything with him,’ said Álvarez. ‘You want to talk to him, you’ve got to come up with a strategy.’
‘You hungry?’ asked the voice, different to the first one but male with a Russian accent.
‘Yes,’ said Sasha. ‘You haven’t given me anything to eat.’
‘The drugs can make you sick. We had to wait.’
‘What have you got?’ asked Sasha, who was sitting up, hands still tied behind his back, the weird blindfold over the top of his face. He leaned against the wall, knees up, heels dug into the wooden slats.
‘Spaghetti Bolognese.’
‘I can make that.’
‘This will be better.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s been cooking for three hours.’
The man left the room and came back minutes later with a plate of food that smelled fantastic. He set the plate down on the bench.
‘Are you going to untie me?’
‘Just wait.’
Sasha heard a sound and flinched as he felt something cold come to rest on his cheek.
‘Know what that is?’
Sasha shook his head.
‘Open your mouth.’
Sasha opened his mouth a little bit.
‘Wide,’ said the voice.
Something large, intrusive and metallic was pushed between his lips, grated against his teeth. His tongue made contact with the hole in the end. Unmistakable.
‘Know what that is?’
Sasha, too terrified to even nod, unable to speak with his small mouth full of the massive weapon, managed a squeak at the back of his throat.
The gun came out of his mouth, taking a string of saliva with it.
‘Now I’m going to untie you so you can eat your food,’ said the voice. ‘I just wanted you to know what’s pointing at you. You touch your mask, I’ll hit you over the head with it. You try anything, I’ll shoot you dead.’
Boxer went back to the Hotel Moderno, managed to sleep for a couple of hours and was back outside Joy for two thirty. David Álvarez came out still wired from the music. They didn’t talk but headed back to the main square and then on to a club called El Sol. Boxer waited outside. It was easier for Álvarez to go in on his own. A lot of the doormen knew El Osito, and if they didn’t the barmen did. Most of the time it was a matter of asking a question and getting out. He wasn’t and hadn’t been in El Sol. They went up Gran Via to Ohm and then on to Reina Bruja. No luck. They caught a cab when it started raining and stopped outside a club called Mondo. Álvarez was back in five with the news that El Osito had been there with his freaks, no girls. They tried the Charada, where Álvarez had first seen Amy, and finally asked the taxi driver to go down to the bottom of Calle de Atocha to Kapital, where Boxer paid him off.
‘If he’s not in here we’ll have to try again tomorrow night,’ said Álvarez. ‘You’ve got my number now.’
‘Is there any way we can get El Osito’s number?’ asked Boxer. ‘Of all these people you know there must be someone who wants to buy some coke. Someone must have his mobile number.’
‘Like I told you, he’s not on the ground. He has dealers doing that. He’s running the operation.’
‘How about if you wanted a kilo?’
‘A kilo?’
‘The dealers are doing grams, right?’
Álvarez studied him again. Thinking.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m an angry father.’
‘Right, but you’re not an ordinary angry father. You’re very cool for an angry man. You’re thinking clearly,’ said Álvarez. ‘Clearly, but dangerously. I said there was something trained about you. You’re not a special cop of some sort, are you?’
‘I’m used to working in very stressful situations,’ said Boxer. ‘And I know Colombians. I’ve worked there. You know FARC?’
‘Shit. You’ve been in there?’
‘I’m a kidnap consultant.’
‘That’s more useful than a marketing consultant for the work you’ve got in mind,’ said Álvarez.
They heard male laughter. An exchange of obscenities. More laughter.
‘There he is,’ said Álvarez, looking up. ‘El Osito. Coming out of the door now.’
&n
bsp; They stood back as the group of four men walked past. El Osito was unmissable. He was smaller than the rest of the group but there was no doubt who was in charge. The overworked quadriceps of his thighs gave him a particular gait, like a weightlifter approaching the bar. There was an arrogance in the strut. His colourful shirt was open to the waist despite the cold and rain and strained over his biceps. His chest and stomach had no spare fat. El Osito beckoned and pointed to his back, and one of his freaks put a coat over his shoulders. Two of the guys peeled away and hailed a cab. Boxer was sure one of them was English. El Osito and the coat carrier headed for the Metro station. It was now after six in the morning and it had just opened.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, David. Thanks.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to follow him, find out where he lives.’
‘Be careful and not just of him, Pan Bendito is not the best place to be in the dark.’
‘Just try and get his number for me,’ said Boxer. ‘And it’ll be dawn soon.’
He headed into the Metro, bought a ticket. There were a few other people on the platform, but not enough. He stood behind the Colombian and his friend, who looked Mexican, and followed them into the train. They sat in the empty carriage. No glances were exchanged. They got out at Pacifico and transferred to Line 6. There were more people around now and it was easier to get lost in the pockets of the crowd. This time he boarded a different carriage and kept an eye on them through the door.
They were the only people to get out at Plaza Eliptica and they were the only people on the Line 11 platform. He got into the carriage behind them and, when the train arrived in Pan Bendito, he waited until the last possible moment before getting out. El Osito was almost off the platform. Boxer let him get away before following.
Outside the Metro he saw the two men had turned left and were heading towards a park, where they parted. The bigger man crossed the road and walked by the park while El Osito took a path behind a Mahou beer sign over a place called Bar Roma, which seemed like a long way from Rome. The Colombian disappeared into a run-down eleven-storey block of flats. The glass in the door had recently been broken and shards were still scattered all over the floor. El Osito’s shoes crunched over them to the elevator.