You Will Never Find Me (42 page)

‘Like how much is it?'

‘Two per cent.'

‘That doesn't sound too bad.'

‘A day?' said Lomax. ‘Five hundred and sixty quid
a day
.'

‘So your debt doubles every two months?'

‘Thanks for reminding me,' said Lomax. ‘And that's if you
pay
the vig. If you don't, you get
compound
vig, and I don't want to talk about that.'

‘Why don't you just . . . run away.'

‘That's your solution to everything,' said Lomax. ‘You don't know these people. They've got reach.'

‘Well, I wasn't suggesting you just ran away to Cardiff.'

‘Cardiff? I wouldn't go to Cardiff if you paid me,' said Lomax. ‘Maybe Cardiff's not such a bad idea. They'd never look for me in Cardiff.'

‘I meant Argentina, somewhere like that.'

‘And one day I'd be trudging up the stairs to my shitty little apartment in Buenos Aires, and I'd fit the key into the lock and
thuff
,' said Lomax, putting his fingers to her head. ‘The last thing I'd see is my brains all over the door I was just trying to open.'

‘You've got far too much imagination.'

‘And I don't speak Spanish . . . apart from:
Yo tengo un lapiz castaño
.'

‘I've got a brown pencil?' said Amy. ‘Is that supposed to be dirty?'

‘No. It's all I remember from my Spanish classes at school.'

‘I can tell you're educated.'

‘Not in languages.'

‘So you went to uni.'

‘A lifetime ago.'

‘What did you do?'

‘History,' said Lomax. ‘And like every politician in the world I learned nothing from it. I went in there with a scholarship. I got a first in my first-year exams. Then I discovered drugs. Here I am. A success story. You?'

‘I'm not going,' she said. ‘Can I have some more water?'

He knelt down, cradled her head again, let her drink to the end of the bottle.

‘I'm hungry,' she said.

‘Live with it. There's nothing until I'm relieved.'

‘When's that?'

‘Fuck knows.'

‘What sort of a blind date
is
this?'

He laughed. He liked her. Even fancied her a bit. Pity she was so young.

‘What are you thinking?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Liar.'

‘I was thinking you're all right, if you have to know.'

‘Is that one of your more successful chat-up lines?'

‘I have to admit that one's been around the block a few times.'

‘So you haven't got a girlfriend?'

‘It's one of the drawbacks of being a coke dealer.'

‘Why?'

‘You suddenly find there are lots of girls who want to go to bed with you but . . . it's not because of your gorgeous looks and scintillating conversation,' said Lomax. ‘And there's nothing worse than spending your life with a cokehead. They think they're brilliant, entertaining and wonderful, whereas . . . they're dull, repetitive and complete whores.'

‘Is that bitter experience talking?'

‘How old are you?'

‘Seventeen.'

‘Jesus.'

‘What?'

‘You're a child,' said Lomax. ‘I'm thirty-two.'

‘Then fuck off, Pops,' she said.

They both laughed.

‘You know what?' said Amy. ‘I've got to go to the toilet again.'

‘You're drinking too much.'

‘It must be something to do with whatever you gave me.'

‘GHB.'

‘Did you tell me that before?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Where was I?'

‘Can't say.'

‘Who was I with?'

‘You were on your own.'

She didn't remember a thing about it.

‘Get the bucket,' she said.

He played it the same way: checked the door to the basement, put the bucket in the corner, pickaxe handle against the wall, cut the cuffs around her ankles and wrists, told her to sit up slowly and tapped her on the head with the pickaxe handle.

She was feeling a lot better, but sat up very gingerly.

‘Christ,' she said. ‘How much GHB did you give me?'

‘A squirt,' he said, thinking about Alice convulsing, wiping it from his mind. ‘Probably too much.'

‘I still feel like shit.'

‘O.K., stand up, put your right hand out to the wall.'

She stood as if she was still very shaky and worked her way along the wall until her foot hit the bucket. She gave a little swoon.

‘You O.K.?' he asked.

‘Dizzy, that's all.'

She straddled the bucket, undid her jeans, pulled them down, squatted. She peed lengthily.

‘What are you doing?' she asked.

‘I'm standing here with a pickaxe handle in my hands.'

She tried to push up with her legs, but collapsed back onto the bucket.

‘You're going to have to help me again,' she said. ‘My legs won't work properly. Is that normal?'

‘GHB affects motor coordination,' said Lomax, leaning the pickaxe handle against the wall. This time she put out her hands. He took them in his and she lunged forward and drove her head into his solar plexus. She heard the wind shoot out of him as she rammed him back onto the bed and pulled up her jeans. He fell back, cracking his head against the wall.

Amy tore at the tape and mask over her face, pushed it all up to her forehead, saw Lomax slumped on the bed, reached for the pickaxe handle but could see that he was already out.

She ripped open the door, ran down the corridor, wrenched at the door to the basement, realised it was locked. Pulled at it again. It was solid. She ran back to the room, saw him still out on the bed, knew he must have the keys, saw them sticking up in his pocket on his thigh. She picked up the pickaxe handle and walked towards him very slowly. His face was slack. His eyes quivered a little under his lids. She put the pickaxe handle down and rammed her hand into his trouser pocket.

B
oxer couldn't sleep. He was walking down Rosslyn Hill to the Royal Free Hospital with his holdall. There were people he was going to have to see today. People he had to say goodbye to without saying goodbye. And he had to go to his flat and pick up the money.

He'd thought it through. The obvious thing was to tell Mercy what had happened, but she, unlike him, was not a lone operator. She worked within a team. It would be impossible for her to act without alerting the rest of the kidnap unit to Amy's situation. Once they knew about it, Mercy would lose control. She would not be allowed to act in the case of a family member as it would compromise her decision-making. She would become the victim's mother and be kept at a distance from the negotiations. Amy's survival would be in the hands of others. If there was any suspicion of police involvement it would mean the end for Amy. El Osito had effectively killed her once and he'd have no problem killing her again.

The safest solution, as Boxer saw it, was to hand himself in to the kidnappers. The Londoner he'd been speaking to knew this was between El Osito and himself. There was no such thing as a guarantee in that criminal world. Even in a normal kidnap there was always a moment when the gang had everything: the hostage and the money. Only the relationship built through the negotiation process could guarantee a safe passage for the hostage. Boxer had taken the decision, based on his conversations with the Londoner, that he could trust him to release Amy. In fact, if anything, he'd sensed in him a distrust of El Osito over the incest allegations, that the Londoner now felt he'd been played. It meant that Boxer could rely on him to make sure Amy was safe and gave him greater confidence in this scenario than one with the kidnap unit's involvement. There were the same unknowns in both, but should El Osito discover police involvement there was the absolute certainty that it would be all over for Amy. The only thing that mattered to Boxer was her survival.

He found his way to the ICU and spoke to the nurse. Esme was comfortable. All vital signs were normal. She'd responded to and spoken to the consultant last night and was sleeping well. They were due to wake her to give her some breakfast.

Boxer went in, sat down by the bed and held her hand.

‘Is that you, Charlie?' she said to the ceiling, eyes still closed.

‘It's me,' he said and leaned over her.

She opened her eyes, nodded at him.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I came to see me old mum,' he said.

‘Not that old, mate,' she said. ‘Have you found Amy yet?'

‘I'm getting there,' he said. ‘I'm hoping that by the end of today she'll be back. She hasn't made it easy for us.'

‘It's my fault, you know . . . this whole thing,' said Esme.

‘I doubt it,' said Boxer. ‘Something like this had been brewing for a long time.'

‘She'd been driving me crazy all that week she stayed with me while you and Mercy were working, going on and on about how unhappy she was at home. Mercy does this, Mercy did that, Mercy never does the other. And one night I just cracked, told her if she felt that strongly she should just get out. Run away. You'd done it. Mercy had done it. Why shouldn't she do it?'

‘She'd been planning it for longer than that.'

‘Yes, you're right,' said Esme. ‘But she was looking for my approval. She knew I adored her and she wanted my blessing. I didn't want to give it. I didn't think it would solve anything. I just thought it was a matter of time. But she drove me into a corner and forced my hand.'

‘She's good at that. She does it to Mercy all the time.'

‘I tried to withdraw what I'd said, but I could see her mind was made up so I made her promise that whatever happened she would always keep in touch with me. I told her then that I couldn't bear to lose her. So when you called that night from Madrid and told me she'd been killed on her first night of freedom, I thought . . . I took full responsibility for it.'

‘I didn't know the two of you were so close.'

‘Mercy knew and she couldn't stand it. Hated me for it. I couldn't resist it, Charlie. It's been the only thing that's kept me going all these years. I never expected it. It just came out of the blue. I saw her as a baby, looked into her eyes and thought, you're mine.'

‘You never told me and Mercy never let on.'

‘It's been a silent battle with Mercy. I've had to play a careful game to make sure I could keep seeing Amy, especially when her Ghanaian family came over. I thought Mercy might turn off the tap at any moment.'

‘Mercy's hard, you know, but not cruel,' said Boxer. ‘And she's not that hard either. It's just something she keeps in place for old times' sake.'

‘You'll have to tell her,' said Esme. ‘You'll have to tell her and I'll have to pray she'll let me back.'

‘Why don't
you
tell her?'

 

Amy ripped open Lomax's pocket, jammed her hand in and yanked out the keys. Her concentration was so intense she didn't even see it coming. At the last moment she flinched at the shadow in the corner of her eye. Her head kicked sideways and she felt something crack in her neck and the room turned over. Her cheek hit the floor and she had a millisecond's view of what life was like under the bed before she blacked out.

She couldn't have been out for long, but he already had her up on the bed, blindfolded with tape over another sleeping mask and cuffed to the four corners of the bed. Her face hurt on both sides. Her jaw felt huge; the inside of her cheek was ripped and there was the taste of metal in her mouth. She licked her lips.

‘You're a
fucking
idiot,' he said. ‘What you have to go and pull a stunt like that for? Was I hurting you? Was I scaring you? Fuck, no. I was being civilised, completely bloody civilised.'

‘You call this civilised?' said Amy, screeching with fear now. ‘Keeping me tied to the bed. Is that your idea of civilisation? I don't know what your game is or what the people you're doing this for have in mind. For all I know it might be gang rape and murder. Course I'm going to try to escape. I'd be an idiot not to. Or did you really think I was going to lie here nice and quiet until the real nutters turn up?'

‘They're not nutters,' said Lomax, quietening. ‘Well, one of them can be a bit, but only with idiots who try to fuck him over. Never with women. No, that's not true either. I've seen him slap some crack whores around the place. But that's all you can do with them. They're beyond seeing sense.'

‘Listen to yourself,' said Amy. ‘He sounds like the blind date from hell.'

‘They're not unreasonable,' said Lomax. ‘If I'd let a customer run up twenty-eight grand in credit with some of the other bastards out there I'd be hobbling around on no kneecaps.'

‘Just think about it for two seconds,' said Amy. ‘I'm not one of your crack whores. I don't snort coke. I've got nothing to do with your business. I'm not a buyer and I'm not a competitor.'

‘So?'

‘So what the hell am I doing here tied to the bed?' she said, roaring at him now, head off the pillow, terrified.

‘Just calm the fuck down,' said Lomax.

‘Tell me and I might,' she said.

‘I don't know. I've asked them, and they just told me to mind my own business,' said Lomax. ‘I'm only doing this because I have to. You think I get a kick out of kidnapping kids?'

‘Don't call me a kid,' she said.

‘You know why I'm really mad at you?'

‘Mad at
me
?'

‘You've just given me a huge bloody problem.'

‘I'm crying for you now.'