The only state Boxer wanted to be in now was alone. He had plans forming rapidly in his mind and they included acts that were best executed some distance from the eyes of a homicide detective.
The call came through from the Royal Free and Boxer listened to the doctor’s description of his mother’s condition and her treatment.
‘The good news is that she’s stable and her pupils are still reacting to light. What we don’t know yet is the real extent of the brain activity. I’m still concerned she may lapse into deep coma and become effectively brain dead while we artificially maintain vital signs.’
It was not a terminal conversation but the prognosis was not great. The doctor did not hold back on how serious it was to mix benzodiazepines with alcohol, even if the litre bottle of Grey Goose had not been full. It was, he said, the most common combination for successful suicides. Boxer told him he would be on the first flight out of Madrid in the morning. The doctor hoped there would be no change in her condition for the next twelve hours. They hung up.
Boxer lay down with the mobile on his chest and stared at the ceiling. At least he hadn’t lost both mother and daughter on the same day. It didn’t make him feel any better. It wasn’t cold in the room, but he felt chilled to the bone, his fingers as stiff as porcelain. A wind was whistling past the window, rattling something against the side of the building. It was no different to what was going on inside his chest except somehow smaller. The vast, cratering blackness under his ribcage felt as terminal as a collapsing star. All vestiges of light were being consumed by it. He couldn’t ever imagine being refilled or lit in any way.
He reached for the phone, called room service, ordered a hamburger and chips. He booked a flight out of Madrid in the morning. He waited for room service to arrive and called reception to say he wanted no calls or visitors, that he was going to sleep. He put the food into the wastepaper basket’s bin liner and tucked it into his jacket. He put the plate outside his room and took the stairs down to the garage, where he threw the hamburger into the rubbish. He located all the CCTV cameras and worked his way along the walls and up the access ramp and out into the cold Madrid night.
14
10:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY 21ST MARCH 2012
Isabel’s house, Kensington, London
I don’t talk to anyone now,’ said Isabel.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t have intimate talk, revealing talk, interesting talk with anyone any more,’ said Isabel. ‘My closest friend lives in Brazil. My daughter has her own life and keeps me at arm’s length. I have my colleagues at the publishing house, but I don’t tell them anything important.’
They were in the sitting room. Mercy was back drinking tea. The second glass of wine had set off an inner trembling, as if there was a lot more in the sub-cranial murk of her mind that wanted to surface. She needed to be in control if she was going to talk to Isabel, whose intuition and clarity of mind was attractive but unnerving. She’d spoken to Charlie briefly, just to say she was all right. Hearing his voice had given her some solidity and made her more wary of Isabel. There’d been a change in Mercy’s body language. At the table they’d been close and open. Now Mercy was leaning away, heels up, while Isabel was lying on the sofa, head propped on hand, wine glass on the floor, unaware of this other Mercy now watching her.
‘I thought you and Alyshia were close, especially since the kidnap.’
‘I learned more about her during the kidnap than I wanted to. I’d built an idea of her, but now I know there was a lot missing from it. That’s all gone. She’s still my daughter and I love her, but I don’t know her any more. I wanted to know her, which was probably my mistake because it made her secretive. It’s a difficult thing to learn that your child is . . . another person. And Alyshia is more like her father, which means I’ll probably never know her. It’s strange that all the things I found romantic and sexy in Chico, like the dark side, the mystery, his secrets, his ambition, I find I can’t abide in Alyshia. Things might change now. She’s been more loving since the kidnap was over but . . . There I go again. Ever hopeful.’
‘And Charlie?’
‘We haven’t had much of a chance,’ said Isabel, taking a huge glug of wine. ‘But you know, Mercy, that’s not how I am in love. I say that as if I’m an expert, and yet there hasn’t been anyone since Chico. But on that form I would say that I’m not looking for total intimacy from a partner. Chico was never that intimate—we never revealed things to each other—which was probably why we lasted so long. If I’d known more I’d have run screaming.’
‘So what was it?’
‘He was beautiful and unknowable. I’m a sucker for both. I’m not destined for happiness.’
‘You must have talked about something.’
‘We talked about everything except the thing that was always just out of reach.’
‘And you wanted to find out what that was,’ said Mercy. ‘And when you did . . . was that the end of it?’
Isabel slumped back and stared at the ceiling.
‘I suppose that was it,’ said Isabel. ‘What made him tick was his ruthlessness. Nobody mattered more than him. Everybody was dispensable, including me. So I got to the bottom of him and found there was nothing there.’
‘Is it the same with Charlie? Mystery and good looks?’
‘It sounds pathetically romantic, doesn’t it?’ said Isabel. ‘I wouldn’t buy it in a book, but it’s different on the inside. I know I’m not attracted to the light. I want to be intrigued. On the other hand, I don’t want to find myself lying next to someone dark and empty . . . or evil.’
‘You think your ex was evil?’ said Mercy. ‘You’d go that far?’
‘Hard to admit, but yes, I would.’
‘I’ve come across evil people. Serial killers. Most of them are boringly normal until you find yourself in their basement.’
‘Chico wasn’t that,’ said Isabel. ‘Nor is Charlie, but there’s a dark side to him. He’s secretive. There’s definitely something . . . ’
‘Charlie isn’t bad,’ said Mercy adamantly; ‘he’s as straight as an arrow. He’s the good guy. He’d do anything to bring a hostage back safely. And he’ll do anything to provide for and protect his family . . . even if we are all over the place.’
And as she was saying it Alleyne flashed through her mind, telling her Charlie had a gun under the floorboards.
‘Then again,’ said Mercy, ‘you can never tell.’
In one of those strange developments of the global village Chinese people now had shops in almost every urban centre on the Iberian Peninsula. They sold beer at a price cheaper than the breweries made it, which brought the Spanish through the door, then they sold them anything they could think of, from crisps to hardware. Boxer went into a Chinese shop on Calle de Alcalá and bought a length of thick electrical wire, a roll of gaffer tape, some latex gloves and an adjustable spanner, all of which he stashed in the inside pockets of his jacket. He went back out into the cold windblown night.
There were always young people gathered in the square at Puerta del Sol at night, drinking and talking. Boxer circulated among them, finding himself drawn to groups of teenage girls, watching them show each other their smartphones or pass a litre bottle of Mahou beer between them. He expected this to make him feel sad, but it didn’t. He felt nothing now. There was no room for any emotion as the black hole inside had expanded to maximum capacity.
Boxer stared at a mime artist dressed as a cowboy, who stood stock-still with face, hands and outfit painted a tarnished silver. There was no reaction until, just as Boxer was about to leave, the cowboy drew his gun and blew him away before mechanically reholstering and reforming into a statue once more.
He went to a bar and ordered a caña of beer, saw himself in the mirror behind the young woman who served him. He seemed normal. The girl smiled at him as she handed him the beer, asked him if he want
ed a tapa. He smiled back, shook his head. She gave him a sweet shrug. He found a dark corner, stood at a high table, sipped his beer, looked at his fellow humans.
Two guys, one in his forties, the other thirty, came in, ordered beers and walked through the crowded bar to the empty space around him, asked if he minded if they put their beers on his table. They knew from his face he was foreign. They talked to each other in a Spanish that even Boxer recognised as South or Central American rather than castellano. Boxer went to the bar, ordered another beer. He returned to the table to find that a woman with long black hair perched on very high heels had joined the two men, who did not involve her in their conversation but kept glancing at the entrance to the bar.
Boxer had one of his untraceable mobile phones with him on which he prepared a message to send to El Osito. He was so concentrated on his task that he didn’t notice the door to the bar swing open and the two guys beckoning and calling out to the person who’d just walked in. The newcomer worked his way through the scrum of people and embraced the two men. Boxer looked up, couldn’t take his eyes off the newcomer. It was El Osito. After extricating himself from the manly hugs and ignoring the woman he looked over the high table to Boxer.
‘Quién es?’ he asked. Who is he?
The two guys glanced over and quickly explained. They asked El Osito what he wanted to drink.
‘We’re leaving,’ he said, turning and shouldering his way through the crowd.
The two guys exchanged glances. The younger one grabbed the girl around the waist, pushed her forward, and they followed El Osito out of the bar. They stood outside in the street, lit cigarettes, had a discussion with their backs to the door and moved off, blowing plumes of smoke over their shoulders.
‘You don’t know anything about anybody until you live with them,’ said Mercy. ‘The mask can stay in place for quite a while, but not for 24/7.’
‘The risks you take,’ said Isabel, shaking her head, ‘when you’re young.’
‘You make assumptions,’ said Mercy. ‘Anybody looking at my father would only ever see a chief of police, an upstanding member of society, a man who didn’t tolerate corruption in his force, which in Africa is a major achievement. But if you lived in his house you’d see the real man, how cold and cruel he was. Incapable of love. Capable only of delivering pain.’
‘So what was Charlie like to live with?’
‘It didn’t last that long, and it was seventeen years ago so I’m not sure it’s relevant,’ said Mercy.
‘Everything’s relevant.’
Yes, thought Mercy, when you’re crazy about him.
‘So what was being married to him like?’ said Isabel, pushing.
‘That was the worst time,’ said Mercy. ‘He was in the role of a husband and father he didn’t want to be in. I was feeling guilty for putting him there, even though I’d wanted it. But, of course, what I wanted was the real thing, not this hideous scenario that we were playing at. It was a relief when it ended and we could go back to being how we always were.’
‘How was he as a father?’
‘He was good with Amy as a baby. He was at home a lot, studying to get into the police force. I used to tease him that he liked her better when she couldn’t talk back. That was the only decent length of time he had with her. Once he went into the police and then kidnap consultancy he hardly saw her. In fact we both saw less and less of him. So much so that when he came back, Amy wasn’t that happy to be left alone with him. He was a stranger to her but oddly loving and fatherly. She couldn’t work it out.’
‘And how were you in all this?’
‘I was all right. My family started to come over from Ghana so I was able to help set them up, and they gave me support. Amy got to know them all; they all loved her and she thought they were great. It worked fine . . . ’
‘Until she became a teenager.’
‘It was extreme, an overnight phenomenon. She went to bed sweet and came down in the morning a real pain in the arse. I stopped being Mum and became the beast she loved to bait. I sucked it up for a year before I took her to a psychologist. Amy played her brilliantly. We were interviewed separately at first. She was obviously charm itself whereas I was Mrs. Uncontrollable Anger. In the joint interview she behaved so perfectly I ended up trying to bait her into being the real Amy. It was a disaster. The psychologist had more concerns about me, probably wanted to report me to social services, but I was a detective sergeant by then, which must have counted in my favour.
‘I can nearly laugh about it now. Nearly, but not quite.’
It had been fate: El Osito coming to him. Boxer couldn’t help but believe that. There’d been some sort of recognition too. It was as if El Osito intuited something from their brief contact. Boxer assumed it was his profession, or military past, which had given him the authoritative look of a drug enforcement agent or an Interpol cop. What he now had was power. Boxer knew his enemy, had looked him in the eye and felt no fear.
There was no need to follow El Osito and his friends, which would have been awkward after their chance meeting. The mobile number that David Álvarez had given him, which he’d entered into his phone tracker app, meant that he could follow the Colombian from a distance or wait for him in bars.
At first he was with his friends and the perpetually ignored lone girl. Then the other guy picked up a girl. Some time after one o’clock in the morning El Osito came out of the club Joy with a young girl in her early twenties. She had expensively curled long black hair and a dark complexion. She wasn’t that steady on her feet and he held her up with a big hand around her waist, as if he already owned her. They hailed a cab in Puerta del Sol and he took her to Kapital on Calle de Atocha.
This looked like a modus operandi: cut the girl away from any herd she might belong to, lose his own friends, show her a great time. Then take her away, move in for the kill. Boxer felt a sudden urge to talk to El Osito. He had to know this man, get an insight into his particular darkness. He would have to find out from the inspector jefe whether any other dark-skinned girls with long ringletted hair had gone missing. Where did El Osito’s obsession come from; what were the motors that drove his grotesque needs?
‘So what was going on with Charlie when he left the army? Was he damaged by that experience in Iraq?’ asked Isabel, back on the sofa with her wine and levering at her own little obsession. ‘I mean did he suffer any post-traumatic stress disorder? I’m surprised he came back and wanted to break up with you. I’d have thought he’d be looking for stability rather than . . . chaos.’
‘It was a time when everything changed. He left the army and was trying to get into the police. I think there was another woman too. So, you know how it is, I just became a part of that change. We agreed to split up and then I complicated it all by getting pregnant.’
Her voice wavered over that word. Even Mercy heard it falter. Hardly surprising after all the talk they’d been through.
They looked at each other. This was, after all, the ultimate aim of the confessional, thought Mercy, to bring oneself to the point where you can tell someone everything. She said nothing until Isabel caught the look in her eye.
‘Oh Christ. You can’t be certain that Charlie’s the father?’
Silence.
‘I hadn’t been seeing much of Charlie in the run-up to our split. I was lonely. I had no family in London. I was a runaway. I was emotionally needy. I was having an affair with another policeman. A dark, brooding Irishman. Not my type really, but he did have green eyes, which reminded me of Charlie’s. We had sex. Charlie reappeared. I had sex with him too. Eight weeks later I was pregnant and . . . I decided it was Charlie’s.’
Boxer was in Kapital. It was massive, arranged over seven floors with music ranging from house to trance to R & B. He walked into the noise, was sucked into the sound, became part of it.
Once he’d spotted El Osito he watched him from
different vantage points on the various balconies. He and his girl disappeared frequently and came back with their energy revived to do some more frenetic dancing. They left some time after four in the morning. As they stumbled out into the night, it was clear the girl’s limbs were barely coordinated. She must have been a model: her balance mechanism so hard-wired that she tottered and teetered but never tripped and fell. El Osito bundled her into a taxi. Boxer shuddered as he watched him folding her legs in after her, as if he were dealing with mannequin parts.
Boxer got into a cab and offered the driver a twenty-euro tip if he could get him to Pan Bendito in twenty minutes. The driver went at the task as if he’d been waiting for this role all his life. They were there inside seventeen minutes, the rain steaming off the bonnet, smoking away from the wheels. Boxer gave him thirty euros. The cab screeched away.
The Bar Roma was long shut—if it ever opened in these crisis-torn times. The temperature had dropped and the wind was cutting. Boxer, wearing latex gloves, waited in the dark until he heard the unsteady tickety-tockety-tack of the girl’s crazy heels on the uneven pavement. El Osito yanked at the metal-framed door of the apartment, which screeched over the tiled floor. Still no replacement glass, but someone had cleared up the shattered fragments.
El Osito jabbed at the lift button. The girl tried to rest her head on his shoulder, but he was too short and the angle impossible for her to sustain. In the poor automatic light of the foyer Boxer could see a pair of lacy pants hanging from El Osito’s pocket.