You Will Never Find Me (29 page)

He called Isabel, told her he was back and that he'd been to see his mother in intensive care. He was shocked to find it was news to her. Talking to her calmed him. The call filled most of the half-hour wait for Zorrita. He hung up and immediately the intercom phone rang. Someone at the door outside. He went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, said hello. No answer. He looked up at the screen to see who was on camera. Someone slipped out of frame. A shoulder was there and then gone. Kids?

Time to call Zorrita.

‘You found another bag,' he said.

‘Just north of the site where we found the first bag. Same type, weighed down with an identical five-kilo weight,' said Zorrita. ‘Had any luck with the DNA?'

‘I've arranged a private analysis as well as giving it to the police lab here in London,' said Boxer. ‘Why?'

‘And how quickly do you expect to get the results?'

‘The private lab said later today.'

‘O.K., that's good.'

‘Any reason for these questions, Luís?'

‘No, no, it's nothing. It's just if there was a delay.'

‘What have you found?'

‘A distinguishing mark,' said Zorrita. ‘I've spoken to the authorities and explained our time problem with the DNA testing, and they've agreed that if you were able to tell us about the mark they would be prepared to release the body under the special circumstances. But, look, if you're going to get the result in an hour's time or so, then that would be better.'

‘A mark, like a birthmark?'

‘Yes, but it's not a birthmark.'

‘A mole?'

‘No.'

‘In fact, she has no birthmarks and no moles,' said Boxer. ‘Do you mean a tattoo?'

‘Yes.'

‘I don't know. I've never seen one, but that doesn't mean anything,' said Boxer. ‘I know she doesn't have one on her arms, legs or back, but I haven't seen her naked since she was a child.'

‘This was on the left buttock.'

‘I'll ask her mother.'

‘If the DNA results come through, that won't be necessary. It was only if you were going to have to wait a week or more for the analysis.'

‘That's very good of you, Luís.'

‘We're operating on two sites now. I pushed for another team of divers because there are so many crossing points over tributaries to the Manzanares. We'll find . . . everything, Charles. Don't worry, I won't stop until she is returned to you. You have my word on that.' Boxer was moved, squeezed his eyes shut. Held himself across the chest.

‘You're a good man, Luís,' he said. ‘I couldn't have asked for more. How . . . how's the investigation going?'

‘It was lucky that we knew she was staying in the Hotel Moderno so we can trace her movements. She spoke to the concierge about clubs, and we'll start by checking those and getting her face around the Puerta del Sol. It might take time, but someone will have seen her. We'll get our break, have no fear.'

Boxer's hands went clammy at the thought of David Álvarez. He thanked Zorrita, hung up and sat back, stunned, as his mind pursued the consequences of the homicide squad connecting with Álvarez. His mobile vibrated. The screen told him it was Dr. Perkins from DNA Solutions.

The sweat came up again. The moment of truth. The irrefutable evidence. Was he a father? Did it matter? He took the call.

‘Mr. Boxer, I have your results for you,' said Perkins, who paused as if he wasn't quite sure how to proceed with this.

‘Is there a problem?'

‘Are you certain that these slides contain tissue taken from your daughter?'

‘The Madrid homicide chief has assured me that is the case.'

‘Well, she's
not
your daughter, Mr. Boxer.'

He felt a little faint with shock, had to breathe in gulps as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the air. Perkins kept going.

‘And nor is she the daughter of Mercy Danquah,' he said. ‘The DNA from these tissue slides matches neither of you. Do you understand me, Mr. Boxer?'

T
his was not something to be talked about on the phone; this had to be done in person. Boxer sent Mercy a text asking where she was. Still in the Netherhall Gardens house, half a mile away.

Now he was running down Holly Hill through the cold, grey late afternoon, past houses whose front rooms were lit, showing scenes of blissful normality. He hit the junction with Hampstead High Street. The schools were out and the streets full of uniformed kids, as if time had gone back to another era of simplicity and order. He flashed past a group considering the evening showing of a movie at the Everyman and nearly knocked over a
Big Issue
seller outside Tesco Express. He sprinted down Fitzjohn's Avenue and turned the corner into Netherhall Gardens and saw Mercy standing in the street, hands in her pockets. She was looking at him with wild white edges around her eyes, as of a startled horse. He ran down the road to meet her, grabbed her by the shoulders, held her tight at arm's length, told her breathlessly what he'd done with the tissue samples when he'd flown into Heathrow.

Mercy broke down. She hung on to his wrists with both hands, dropped her head and wept.

‘I'm sorry, Charlie. I'm so sorry.'

‘Listen to me.'

‘I should have told you.'

‘Just be quiet and listen to me.'

She looked up; their eyes met. She saw what was in his and it wasn't anything she'd expected to see. It was joy.

‘The DNA derived from the tissue samples from the body part in Madrid does not match
either
of ours. The body they have found is
not
Amy's.'

It was too big for her to grasp. The emotional volte-face demanded was too extreme. She stared at him, still hanging on to his wrists, as he nodded the new truth into her.

‘Amy is
not dead
.'

‘But I saw her at Heathrow . . . on CCTV. Her passport . . . ' ‘You remember what you said right at the beginning, about Amy putting up a smokescreen? The strange feeling we got reading her note that this was
her
challenging
us
. “You will never find me.” She fooled us. She knew our emotional involvement would distort our vision. She sent us on a wild goose chase.'

‘But you said that everybody saw her in the hotel in Madrid. You showed them the photo.'

‘They just saw a pretty black face under lots of dark ringlets with blonde highlights. You know what people are like, especially with different ethnic groups. They just see a black face, an Asian face. They don't see features, eye colour—difference.'

‘I want to believe it, Charlie. I really do. But I just can't quite bring myself to. I don't know why. I'm afraid. I've put everything in one emotional basket and now I've got to take it all out and I can't do it. Not in one go. The disappointment would be too horrible. It would be tragic if—'

‘The detective on the case called me, said they'd found another body part and it had a distinguishing mark on the left buttock. A tattoo.'

‘Amy hates tattoos,' said Mercy, hope registering in her voice. ‘She despises them. Karen is always trying to get her to have one done.'

‘When did you last see her left buttock?'

‘I haven't . . . for years. She locks the bathroom door. You know what she's like.'

‘Call Karen. They shared a room in Tenerife. She must have seen her bum, for Christ's sake. They went to the beach.'

Mercy called Karen, asked the ridiculous question, got silence in return.

‘You're kidding, right, Mrs. Danquah?'

‘No, it's very important. We need to know.'

‘There's nothing would make Amy have a tattoo,' said Karen. ‘She hates them. Hates mine. And doesn't mind telling me.'

‘But did you see her left buttock?'

‘Left, right, the whole show, Mrs. Danquah. We all went skinny-dipping in the hotel pool. She didn't have a tattoo, I'm telling you. What's this all about?'

‘Nothing, Karen. We're just trying to help with an enquiry from Spain.'

She hung up, didn't want to get into dead bodies with Karen. She nearly smiled. Boxer grabbed hold of her, hugged her fiercely, buried his face in her neck.

Mercy whispered in his ear, ‘I should have told you.'

‘That you weren't sure I was her father?'

‘I should have told you.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘I
wanted
you to be her father.'

‘It doesn't matter,' said Boxer. ‘And you know why? Because when I found out that the dead body wasn't Amy's, that she hadn't been murdered, I was so elated. I felt whole again, and I knew that with or without my DNA, she was mine.'

Mercy hugged him to her, wouldn't let him go. The truth was out. A truth that had been stuck in her like a piece of shrapnel that the body had grown around but with an odd movement could still hurt. Every time she'd seen Charlie and Amy together it skewered her, not just with doubt but with guilt at the omission. She'd done it because she loved him, and yet what a thing to do to the one you loved. It had been one of those four-o'clock-in-the-morning torments for the last seventeen years and now it was gone. And what a way for it to have come out. With so little damage. In fact, the opposite. Joy.

And just as she reached the point where she thought she might allow herself some joy something terrible occurred to her.

‘If that body wasn't Amy's . . . '

‘I've got to call Luís in Madrid,' said Boxer.

‘Are you listening to me?'

‘I've got to tell the homicide chief.'

‘Amy found a double. She asked someone to impersonate her. To fool us. And now that girl is dead. Murdered. Cut into pieces because Amy decided she wanted to show her parents how clever she was. She's got to know how much her little prank has cost. It's a whole life that's gone because—'

‘It wasn't part of the plan,' said Boxer. ‘She didn't mean for it to turn out like that. It was just bad luck. That poor girl met the wrong guy at—'

‘You don't know how it was. You don't know the circumstances. All you know is that this girl went to the Hotel Moderno. You don't know Amy's responsibility. What
I
know is that if Amy hadn't wanted to stick one to her parents that girl would still be alive. She'd never have gone to Madrid.'

Boxer got through to Zorrita, gave him the news. There was a long silence.

‘Do you understand me, Luís?'

‘I understand you,' he said. ‘I just don't understand how a girl can end up wearing your daughter's clothes with your daughter's passport and not be your daughter.'

Boxer did his best to explain, said he'd put it all in an email and the translator could talk him through it. They hung up. He turned to Mercy, saw her anger.

‘Come on, Mercy.'

‘Amy's little game has cost a girl's life, made your mother want to kill herself and has caused us so much
pain . . . 
For what?'

‘Amy's still a kid, which means she's at her most selfish. The world revolves around her. Only
Amy
really understand things. She wasn't thinking about history or consequences. Life's a game to be played.'

‘One dead girl, an attempted suicide . . . '

‘Did you tell your family?'

‘No.'

‘No?'

‘Uncle David's funeral started today. I couldn't face telling them about Amy when they were about to start mourning somebody else. It would have . . . Just imagine if I had.'

‘Better the way it's turned out,' said Boxer.

‘How
is
Esme?'

‘Functioning but on life support. There's brain activity, so they're hopeful.'

‘This case I'm working on,' said Mercy, gesturing at the house behind her. ‘The boy who's been kidnapped. A ten-year-old. Looks after his alcoholic mother, doesn't tell anyone. Hides it because he knows how much it means to her to have him near her. He has to get himself up, make his own breakfast, entertain himself. Probably has to scrape her off the floor, get her into bed, then run off to school. Then come back to that sort of crap every afternoon. All weekend. And Amy thinks she has a hard life. What did Esme call it? A deficit of love. I think that was it.'

‘Steady on, Mercy. You've given yourself half a second of joy and you already want to strangle her.'

She cried. She grabbed hold of the lapel of his jacket and wept into his chest. He stroked the back of her head, kissed her close-cropped hair.

‘The main thing is that she's alive,' he said, and the word caught in the back of his throat.

After some minutes Mercy pushed herself away, dug out a tissue, wiped her face.

‘Sorry,' she said, looking at the house. ‘I'd better get back in there. We're coming up to forty-eight hours with no word from the kidnappers.'

‘We've got to find Amy,' said Boxer, not listening, galvanised now by a new fear: the look he'd seen from the Colombian coming down the length of the baseball bat at him. The intent. He would have a name by now. It would be in the newspapers; some journo would have latched on to an ugly murder like that. And there was the Hotel Moderno—he'd given that to El Osito. If his name wasn't out there yet, then the hotel would supply it. Too many people knew.

And then there was that order El Osito had roared several times: ‘Don't shoot!' He's mine, leave him for me. And what would be the best way to get to him? He'd work it all out, El Osito, Boxer was sure of that. This was a man who had been brought up on revenge.

 

The first one had poked him in the chest, the second had put a gun in his mouth, and the third had beaten him up for trying to find a window in the toilet, the fourth had smacked him round the head for catching him cheating at chess. Now Sasha was with a fifth guard.