The Wreckage: A Thriller (47 page)

“The man wanted an address for Polina,” says Miss Lindop. “I told him that I might have one upstairs. I thought if I could distract him I could use the phone and cal the police. But he fol owed me.”

“How did you get away?” asks Luca.

“He was searching the spare bedroom when I locked him inside.” She looks at her hands. “He was yel ing terrible things and kicking at the door, but I ran… I have a bicycle; I know the cycle paths and shortcuts. I can pedal pretty fast for someone my age.”

Behind them a door opens and an elderly man in a homburg dips his hand in the holy water, making a sign of the cross, before taking a seat in the shadows. Kneeling. Praying.

“Why didn’t you cal the police?” asks Luca.

Miss Lindop frowns. “Afterwards, I thought maybe he
was
a detective and I was going to be in trouble for locking him up. I didn’t go to work today. It’s the first day I’ve missed in eight years, but ever since Mr. North went missing I’ve had nothing to do. They took everything away.”

“The police?”

“The lawyers. They went over his appointments book and diary, wanting to know who he spoke to and where he went…” She glances at Luca. “They asked me about a journalist: Keith Gooding. Is that you?”

“A friend of mine.”

“They wanted to know if Mr. North had ever spoken to him.”

“What did you say?”

“I had no idea. I don’t think so. Then they made me sign a confidentiality document. They said I’d go to prison if I talked to anyone. Am I going to get into trouble?”

“No,” says Ruiz.

Elizabeth squeezes the older woman’s hand, surprised at the shal owness of her own grief. Ruiz glances over his shoulder. The man praying in the rear pew has gone. The church is empty again.

Outside the sun is coming and going, giving little warmth. Ruiz pauses on the pavement. Ponders his next move. Every new detail comes back to the notebook. The murder of Zac Osborne. The break-in at Elizabeth’s house. The search for Hol y Knight. Richard North had been investigating certain accounts, according to his secretary. That was his job as a compliance officer, but these inquiries were private. Hidden.

Elizabeth lets out a cry of pain and muffles the sound with her fist. Another contraction, this one is real. It forces her to lean back, legs splayed slightly, trying to take pressure off her cervix.

“How often are they coming?” asks Ruiz.

“I don’t know.”

“Since the last one?”

“Ten minutes maybe.”

Ruiz holds his hand to her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“I’m fine. Claudia isn’t due for three weeks.”

“I don’t think Claudia is going to wait.”

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is less than fifteen minutes away. Ruiz parks and waits as Elizabeth fil s in a form and changes into a hospital gown. A midwife is summoned, bel -shaped with blue trousers and a white blouse. Ruiz feels clumsy and out of place.

“I can wait outside,” he says, fidgeting with his car keys. “Is there someone I can cal ?”

“You can give me my phone back,” says Elizabeth, who is sitting on the bed, her knees together and hands flat on the mattress. Ruiz puts the SIM card in her mobile.

“How long since you’ve been in a place like this?” she asks.

“Thirty-two years. My wife was having twins. They wouldn’t let me stay. Not that I minded. I didn’t real y want to see the business end of things.”

“The business end?”

“You know what I mean.”

The midwife pul s the curtains around the bed and asks Elizabeth to lie back and part her knees.

“You can stay away from
my
business end,” says Elizabeth, motioning him to the top of the bed.

Grimacing slightly at the intrusion, she stares at the ceiling, letting her left hand reach across the gap and take hold of Ruiz’s fingers.

“You’re six centimeters,” announces the midwife. “Cal who you have to cal —this baby is coming today.”

Fifteen minutes later Ruiz watches as they wheel Elizabeth along the corridor and into the lift. Her father and brother are on their way. They’re going to welcome a new addition to the Bach family—another limb to the family tree, a dynasty in progress.

Ruiz uses a payphone in the visitor’s lounge.

“Capable.”

“Mr. Ruiz. Sorry. Shit! No names. Stupid of me.”

“Relax.”

“OK. Yeah.”

“Any messages?”

“Your friend cal ed. Is he real y a professor? I’ve never met a proper professor.”

“What did he want, Capable?”

“Ah, I wrote it down, he said, ‘Hol y remembers the notebook’ and he gave me an address.”

Ruiz jots it down on the back of his hand. “Another favor, Capable, I want you to find someone for me. Polina Dulsanya. She might be working as a nanny. You could try the agencies.”

“What do you need?”

“An address.”

22

LONDON

As the last rays of token sunlight strike the towers of Canary Wharf, four divers tumble backwards from the Zodiacs. Slick as seals, they disappear beneath the surface leaving barely a trace save for the brown bubbles that fil and pop.

The officer in charge is short and barrel-chested, clad in a wetsuit that makes him look as if he’s carved from ebony. He swings an air tank into a boat and uses a towel to wipe his face and neck before washing out his mouth with bottled water.

Campbel Smith is standing on a narrow strip of beach that bleeds back to a stand of wil ow trees.

“We found the body about eighty yards from here,” says the senior diver. “You can see the orange marker buoy. They weighted the body with chains and breezeblocks.” Campbel glances at his shoes, which are sinking into the fetid ooze. Paul Smith brogues. Unsalvageable.

“How?”

“One bul et. Back of the head. Execution style.”

“We likely to recover a shel ?”

“Entry and exit wounds. We’l keep looking for the murder weapon but it’s blacker than black down there. Visibility nil. We’re working a circular search pattern from a single anchor chain, moving further and further out, working by touch.”

Behind him, a white tent has been raised around a bloated and discolored torso, strung with weed and wrack. The body is curled in an embryonic position, with drying mud giving it the color and texture of desiccated leather.

“Where’s Noonan?”

“On his way.”

23

LONDON

The lockup is one of a dozen single garages in the laneway, each with double doors that are scrawled with graffiti signatures, crude diagrams and territorial markings. Streetlights barely shift the gloom and trains clatter past on the main line from Waterloo.

Joe watches the faces in the brightly lit carriages, passive and incurious about the world outside their windows.

There is a car parked at an angle halfway along the lane. The door opens, but no light comes on. Even in silhouette Joe can recognize Ruiz. He walks like a bear, rocking from side to side, the legacy of a bul et that tore through his thigh six years ago.

Hol y lets out a squeak of excitement and runs to Ruiz, stopping suddenly when she seems certain to hug him. Instead Ruiz takes hold of her shoulders. It’s strangely intimate, like watching a grandfather admonish his granddaughter for running in the house.

“Have you been avoiding me?” she asks.

“I’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been crazy bored.” She glances back at Joe. “I mean, no offence, but he’s got this creepy way of looking inside your head.”

“Yeah, I know, but you two are made for each other. You’re a human lie detector and he’s a professional mind reader.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Quite the contrary.”

He nods to Joe. “I got your message. Which one is it?”

Hol y points. “Zac has the only key.”

Ruiz goes to the boot of the car and pul s out bolt cutters along with a torch. Running his fingers over the padlock, he notices the gleam of scratched metal. Someone has tried to pick the lock.

The teeth of the cutters slice through the padlock. Lifting the floor bolt, Ruiz swings the doors open and runs his hand along the wal at chest height, feeling for a switch. A tube light blinks and blazes.

Hol y’s shoulders sag under another defeat.

The floor is swept clean except for a pile of rubbish that includes old clothes, oil bottles, paint tins, polish, leather protector and a sponge. An old bicycle frame hangs from one wal , along with the wheels of a pram.

“It’s gone then,” says Hol y.

“Who knew about the lockup?” asks Joe.

“Locals. Kids mainly. They play footbal in the lane. They were always pleading with Zac to give them a ride of the bike. He used to pay them to keep an eye on the place.” Ruiz crouches and begins sorting through the large pile of rubbish on the floor. Pul ing at a strap, he drags a scarred leather pannier across the oil-stained concrete, into the light. It belongs to a motorbike. Inside the pannier is a plastic bag. Inside the bag is a jacket. Inside the jacket is a notebook.

24

LUTON

The three men get off the bus at Dunstable Road and walk beneath the railway underpass and along Leagrave Road. Syd and Rafiq are kicking a squashed Coke can along the pavement while Taj listens to music on his headphones.

Syd is puffing hard, unfit and overweight. He’s hungry. They stop at a chippy opposite the Britannia Estates and buy five quid’s worth of chips with curry sauce, sharing a feast on butcher’s paper. Afterwards they throw rocks at an abandoned bus propped on bricks and push a supermarket trol ey into the stormwater drain, where it bounces end over end and settles in the mud.

When they reach the Travel er’s Rest, they fol ow a side path along the chain-link fence, out of sight from the main road. The air smel s of exhaust fumes and chemicals that blow across the industrial lots and freight yard. Syd goes first because he knows how to work the lights. As he puts the key in the lock he hears something behind him, beyond the fence in the freight yard. Maybe it’s a dog scavenging for food, he thinks, peering through the fence. There are shipping containers stacked in neat rows and freight cars rusting on the sidings.

Stepping inside the room, he kicks aside a crumpled cardboard box and closes the curtains, before turning on the lights.

The others fol ow him. Taj sniffs the air. “What’s that stink? Smel s like somebody rubbed shit on the wal s. Did you take a dump, Syd?”

“It wasn’t me.”

“It’s always you,” says Rafiq.

Syd is banging on the top of an old TV that has never worked, trying to get a signal. Taj is sitting on a sofa that is spil ing foam. Rafiq keeps watch at the window. Through a half-inch gap in the curtains, he sees the Courier coming, moving along the walkway.

“He’s here.”

The young men take their places. Standing. Showing respect. Aware of how the atmosphere in the room changes whenever this man appears.

The Courier looks from face to face, stopping at Syd.

“Have you been talking to anyone?”

“No, not me, not a soul, nobody.”

“I heard you were bragging to your mates.”

“No fucking way.”

“The next time you come in here, lock the door.”

The Courier paces the room, checking the light fittings, power sockets, running his fingers under the edge of tables and along the underside of the windowsil s. His lips are flat and thin against his teeth.

Satisfied, he returns to the table and opens the cardboard flaps of the box. He pul s out a canvas vest—a simple garment tailored to fit a man or a woman’s body. Thick shoulder straps hold the midsection in place.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks.

Nobody answers.

“This large disc just under the breast area is fil ed with three-mil imeter steel bal s. Behind that, next to the skin, is a compartment fil ed with C-4 plastic explosive. Two detonators, one on either side, are rigged to timing devices or can be triggered manual y or via a text message from a mobile phone. When that happens the vest becomes a bomb, kil ing or maiming anyone within a hundred-foot radius.”

Syd looks like he might vomit.

The Courier tosses the vest towards him. “Here, try it on.”

“We’re not suicide bombers,” says Taj.

The Courier breathes loudly through his nose, as though smel ing the odor of fear rising from their armpits. “So you’re not wil ing to die?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“What
are
you saying?”

“You didn’t say anything about suicide vests,” says Rafiq.

The Courier shows his teeth in something approximating a smile. At the same moment he slips a vest over his arms, buckling it in place.

“You only have to wear the vests until you get inside. After that, you place them near the dance floor under tables or next to the bar. Crowded areas.” The Courier unfurls a map on the table, holding it down with broken bathroom tiles. On top he places the floorplan of a nightclub cal ed Nirvana in Piccadil y, just off Regent Street.

There are gal eries on each of the three floors. The main dance area is on the ground level, while the loft level has a VIP area next to an open-air terrace. The basement has another dance area and bar.

“You park the van here,” he says, pointing to a loading area a block away. “You’l be wearing the vests by then.”

“How do we get inside?” asks Taj. “Most nightclubs have metal detectors at the doors.”

The Courier produces a key from his pocket. “This is for a service entrance.” He points to the floorplan. “It takes you into a storage area used for liquor deliveries. One door leads to the bar. The other into a storeroom used by the cleaners. It’s dark. Noisy. Lights are flashing. On a good night they get a thousand people in Nirvana. Nobody is going to see you come out of the storeroom.”

“What about the CCTV?”

“You wear basebal caps. Keep your heads down. Once you’re inside you split up. Go to the toilet. Get a cubicle. Take off the vests. Once you plant them you leave as quickly as possible through the main door, without drawing attention. Don’t talk to each other. Don’t communicate at al .” Syd raises his hand, as though in a classroom. “Who’s going to detonate them?”