You Will Never Find Me (15 page)

‘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.'

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.

The lift doors closed and Boxer sprinted up the stairs, listening for the moment when the machinery stopped. Each floor had a door with a square glass panel through which the lift doors were visible. At the fourth floor the lift stopped. El Osito got out, turned to his right. Boxer opened the door a crack, enough to see the flat into which the Colombian disappeared.

Back down the stairs, crunching over the glass and out into the dark. Coming up to the Bar Roma Boxer saw the darkness waver and a guy appeared in front of him, head buried in a hood. No words, just the sound of a mechanism, and Boxer looked down at a steel blade pointing at his abdomen.

Still no words. A gesture. Hand it all over.

Boxer made no move. The hooded head came up. Their eyes connected. The ones under the hood realised they'd just made a very big mistake.

Y
ou're doing that loud blinking shit again,' said Alleyne sleepily.

‘Leave me alone,' said Mercy, her eyes stuck on the curl of lining paper in the corner of the room, which was lit by the orange street lamp coming through the slatted blinds.

She was here again. Couldn't leave Marcus Alleyne alone. She was telling herself it was naked desire, that this would run its course, and sooner or later she would no longer feel that thrill. It was new, this feeling of being in lust with someone. There'd been lust with Charlie, but it had never been this pure. It had been cut with emotional baggage, or ‘head shit', as Alleyne would have it.

He made her laugh. He was freeing up her mind, relieving her of some strange feeling of restraint she never knew she had. Having this mysterious, unknown fantasy life gave her power. It was so unlike the real Mercy, but then again she wasn't sure who that was any more.

Now she was going through the morning routine of beating herself up over it, but lightly, not bare fists but kid gloves. What was worrying her more was the call she'd had from Boxer. He'd told her how he'd used the photo and struck lucky with the DJ, but he'd also added that his famous nose was playing up. He was sensing that something had gone wrong, but not where it was on the scale of catastrophe. This had sent Mercy into a mental spin and she'd called Alleyne almost immediately and asked herself round to his flat. Rum. Sex. Guilt. Self-loathing. A natural progression from the shock of hearing Boxer's words on a bad line from Madrid. At least she'd held back from the spliff this time.

‘What are you doing now?' asked Alleyne.

‘I'm getting up, Marcus. What does it look like?'

‘It's four thirty in the morning, Mercy. We've only been in bed a few hours.'

‘I've got things to do.'

‘What? Like a paper round?' he said, rolling over. ‘Make ends meet?'

‘A paper round would be a fine thing,' she said. ‘Beautifully mindless.'

She showered, trying to be thorough with her nether regions in a pathetic attempt at post-coital prophylaxis. She really had to get a morning-after pill. What
was
she playing at? She didn't know this guy. She wasn't taking precautions. She tried to think when she'd had her last period, wouldn't admit the other thing into her brain. She got dressed. Cuffed Alleyne on the shoulder.

‘Are you sleeping in?' she asked.

‘Trying to,' he said. ‘People keep batting me around.'

‘I'll call you.'

Alleyne rolled onto his back, put his hand behind his head, smiled.

‘You're just using me like your toy boy.'

‘Bigger than a toy, older than a boy.'

‘Stop with the clever shit, Mercy. You just hiding behind that stuff.'

‘At least I haven't become one of your bitches yet,' she said. Alleyne blinked, not quite sure how to handle her.

‘When I first came round here your neighbour said you were out with one of your—'

‘Right, well that's just the way the kid speaks. It's not the way I
am
, Mercy.'

She nodded, conceding nothing, and shoved herself away from the door jamb.

‘You can push me away, Mercy,' he called out after her. ‘Then you'll be out there all on your own.'

She put the battery she'd had on charge overnight in the camera she'd brought with her. She went back into the bedroom, knelt on the bed, Alleyne put his hands up in mock protection of himself. She kissed him and smiled her enjoyment at him. He smiled back but was puzzled by her.

Brixton was almost silent as she drove through it to Clapham. The Common struck her as dark and threatening, its emptiness defended by high, swaying trees that clacked in the wind above her head. She thought, as she made her way towards pursuing her hunch, that she was on the brink of something terrible but was unsure of where the horror was going to come from. She was playing a rash game, as if outside a railing on a high building, leaning back and letting go and then snatching back at it. There was only one possible end to this kind of recklessness and it was a long way down.

The Wandsworth one-way system hadn't had the chance to develop its usual mortar-grinding slowness, and she flashed through it and drove alongside the park with some early-morning dog walkers. In the blackness beyond was the turbid Thames and the point of her hunch. She parked near Putney Bridge outside the Star and Garter pub, got her camera ready.

The grey river was materialising out of the first light, flowing rapidly and relentlessly towards the bridge. The traffic was beginning to tighten, headlights no longer flashing over the bridge but moving spasmodically. And now the first cyclists appeared in front of her, freewheeling down the ramp and onto the embankment. She got two decent shots of the blond-haired Jeremy Spencer as he leaned round the bend and came out of his saddle for the final sprint to the London Rowing Club boathouse, his black rucksack bobbing on his shoulders.

It was almost an hour before the boat returned to shore. Clearly the crew had jobs to go to because they had the boat out of the water and stowed with their oars and were all cycling away before seven o'clock. Mercy drove up the ramp behind Spencer and they joined the rush-hour traffic heading across the bridge. The queues weren't too bad, but Spencer was making much better headway on his bike. Mercy was dodging and ducking, trying to keep an eye on his massive shoulders, the rucksack in between. He went down the New King's Road and after about a mile swung right and stopped outside a large Edwardian house on Ryecroft Street. He lifted the bike up the steps and let it hang from his arm as he rang the bell.

Mercy's next shot was of the woman she suspected was Irina Demidova in her dressing gown, blonde hair brushed, make-up in place, opening the door to Spencer. The woman backed down the hallway as he brought in his bike and leaned it against the wall. They kissed in a way that no one could describe as chaste. Mercy took two more shots. They came apart. Spencer stripped off his rucksack and dropped it next to his bike. Irina Demidova went back down the hallway and closed the door to the street.

The camera shutter clicked for the last time and Mercy sat back in that curious cop state of elation and sadness. Elation that she'd been right about Spencer's nervous reaction when she'd asked if he might have known Tracey Dunsdon's old friend, and sadness at having to root around in other people's dirty secrets, the necessary confrontation and the inevitable denial. Or maybe not. Perhaps the spook, James Kidd, would have other news about Demidova's pedigree.

 

Irina Demidova had kissed some ugly frogs in her time so Jeremy Spencer was a welcome change. He had a body that she found genuinely exciting and she could see from the bulge in his training tights that the feeling was mutual.

Pulling out his waistband, looking into his eyes, she closed her small, cool hand around his hot tumescent cock. He pushed his hands down the front of her dressing gown and grabbed her breasts, caught her nipples between his fingers.

She wanted this to happen in the bedoom so she started to lead him up the stairs, but Spencer had more urgent needs and ran his hands up her legs to her buttocks and tried to bring her down to her knees to take her from behind on the staircase.

This really had to happen upstairs, so she broke free and ran up to the top where she looked back at him and let the dressing gown fall away to reveal no bra and a ridiculously small pair of knickers. He leaped up the stairs three at a time. She ran to the bedroom at the front of the house and threw herself on the bed. He came after her, stripping off his top. She sat up on the edge of the bed and beckoned him to her.

She wrestled his training tights down to his knees and ran her fingers up his bare thighs and took him into her mouth. She could sense his urgency, that he wasn't in the mood for foreplay, but she needed to slow him down, create as much time as possible. Spencer had other plans. He pulled away, rolled her over, stripped down her pants and drove into her, gripping her hips. Within a few maddened thrusts he was finished and fell forward, crushing her beneath his colossal frame, moaning into the duvet. She squeezed out from underneath him.

‘Sorry,' he said, panting, face down on the bed. ‘Bit quick. Bloody desperate.'

She rolled over on top of him, fitting her breasts in between the wings of his shoulder blades.

‘You could always make it up to me,' she said, whispering over his shoulder into his ear.

A noise came from downstairs. Spencer looked at her over his shoulder.

‘What was that?' he said.

‘I didn't hear anything.'

‘Christ,' said Spencer, rolling over so that she slid off his back. ‘Valery's not here, is he?'

‘No, no,' said Irina. ‘He's staying with a friend.'

Spencer slumped back.

‘So what was that noise?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Irina, taking hold of his limp cock, trying to renew his interest. ‘It was probably just the writer guy next door. He's always knocking around the place, tearing his hair out.'

She bent her head down over him, but he pulled her back up, held her in the crook of his arm.

‘I told you,' he said. ‘This is going to have to stop. After that detective came to school yesterday. I can't . . . '

‘What?'

‘I told you,' said Spencer. ‘The Bobkov boy was kidnapped. There's going to be a lot of poking around. They're going to find things out and I'm a hopeless liar.'

She'd read him just right. It was, after all, like looking in the mirror. She knew he felt guilty, manipulated too. His cock wasn't responding.