‘She lives on the Andover Estate in Islington, which, as far as I know, has had its fair share of crack problems, so I doubt it.’
‘I don’t like it, Dad. The whole thing stinks to me.’
‘Nobody likes it, but the shit’s on our doorstep,’ said Dennis savagely. ‘And we don’t want that girl exposed to her father’s . . . attentions any longer, right? We’re doing ourselves a favour and doing a bit of good on the side.’
‘Look, I know you’ve always had a problem with that kind of thing. Me too, don’t get me wrong. But this is business,’ said Darren. ‘We get the girl, Amy. We reel in the father. What then?’
‘El Osito says he will deal with the father.’
‘And the girl?’ said Darren. ‘And Alice Grant? They’ll know who we are. Are we going to let them go? Let them run to the cops? No, so they’re going to have to be dealt with ’n’ all. It’s going to be a right bleedin’ mess of killing, all because of El O-fucking-sito. And then you won’t have rescued her from her father, will you? Out of the frying pan—that’s what it’s going to be for her.’
Silence from Dennis.
‘I renegotiated the deal,’ he said finally.
‘What?’
‘ I reneg—’
‘I heard you, Dad. I just can’t believe that’s the most important thing running through your head right now,’ said Darren. ‘Our whole organisation’s at stake because of this fuckin’ Colombian. And I don’t believe a word about his legs getting done in a car accident, neither. There’s a lot missing out of this. A lot of shit. What happened to this girl Chantrelle, for instance? Do we know?’
Dennis had to stop and think. Reimagined himself at El Osito’s bedside to bring all the detail back to him.
‘Yes, he said something about . . . he heard later, from Charles Boxer, that she’d been found murdered. Yes, that’s right, that’s why Boxer had come to see him, because he was the last person—’
‘You’re really confusing me now, Dad. I just don’t get it any more.’
‘Look, we know what’s got to be done,’ said Dennis. ‘There’s no getting away from it. El Osito has Vicente’s blessing. We have to do everything we can for him. What we’ve got to decide now is who’s going to do it, because it’s not going to be either of us, is it? We’re here and it’s got to be done tonight or first thing in the morning. This Boxer fella is in with the Madrid homicide squad. He’s getting information from them. He’s already on to it.’
‘Well,’ said Darren, ‘if you ask me, it’s got to be someone who’s got his head screwed on tight and . . . we don’t mind losing. Because that’s going to be the upshot, innit?’
‘So who’d be up for it and who owes us?’
Miles Lomax was a thirty-two-year-old Scot with an English accent because he’d been to a public school where anything regional had been ironed out. He’d gone to Durham University to read history and had been all set for a first when he ran into the druggy crowd. He’d left with a 2.2 and had headed straight for London and a life of as little work as possible with as many drugs as he could take.
The first thing to crash was the state of his finances. The next was his innocence, when he lost his girlfriend, Tanya, to an overdose: he woke up with her next to him, blue-skinned, very cold and dead. He’d left her there in her flat, all alone. Finally he started dealing, small scale, and earned himself a criminal record. The only reason he didn’t do jail time was that he was nicely spoken and was caught with slightly less than a gram.
Only then, after all that damage, did he get sensible. Not sensible enough to leave drugs behind, but intelligent enough to realise that taking them was dumb and dealing them was the best way of making money without going to an office every day. He started working for the Chilcotts and was their main conduit for cocaine to the upper middle classes and city slickers.
He was not happy with the job he’d been given tonight, but that’s what happened when you fell in love. Arabella Risley-Banks had reminded him of the girl he’d lost. She had the same long dark hair and aquamarine eyes and the same inclination to take too many drugs. He’d made the mistake of giving her credit and Arabella had taken to cooking up speedballs. She’d got herself into such a state that her parents had flown her to a rehab clinic in Switzerland, leaving Miles Lomax with a shortfall of twenty-eight grand and a blank space in his heart.
Never again. How many times had he said that to himself?
Now he was heading north from his comfortable modern two-bedroomed flat in a dreary 1970s block in Elm Park Gardens in Chelsea to an infamous estate in some godforsaken corner near Seven Sisters, N bloody 7. The only time he’d been up this way was to visit Tanya, who’d done six months in HMP Holloway for her umpteenth shoplifting offence.
The story Darren Chilcott had spun around the scenario he was heading into had him shaking his head. None of it fitted, gaps everywhere. His reluctance must have fitted itself down the phone line to Madrid and burst into Darren’s head because he’d volunteered some muscle to help him out and Lomax had just picked up Tel and Vlad, as they were known, outside Tufnell Park Tube station.
Tel sat up front while Vlad, big and eager, hovered between them like a Labrador who didn’t want to miss any of the jokes. Given the cock-up they were heading into, jokes were thin on the ground, although Vlad had as much chance of understanding them as a pooch anyway.
‘So what’s the job?’ asked Tel. ‘Darren said you’d need some help, but he wouldn’t tell me nothing about the job.’
Vlad’s grey eyes bored into the side of Lomax’s neck, making him itch.
‘The job requires us to think on our feet,’ said Lomax, trying to be inclusive.
Vlad’s eyes swerved away, looking to Tel for a translation.
‘Does he speak English?’ asked Lomax.
‘Not a lot,’ said Tel, ‘but he’s got hands of iron.’
Vlad stuck his hands forward between the seats, proud of his gnarled and battered lumps of fist.
‘What’s going to happen,’ said Lomax, taking a deep breath, ‘is that I’ll go up and talk to this woman, find out where the girl is we’re suppose to be bringing in.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ said Tel.
‘The less you know the better,’ said Lomax. ‘I barely understand it myself. The only time I’m going to need your help is when we abduct the girl.’
‘What’s abduct?’
‘Kidnap.’
‘Oh yeah, we done a bit of that before, haven’t we, Vlad?’ said Tel. ‘A girl ran away from Vlad’s mate’s knocking shop in Forest Gate. We had to bring her back.’
‘How did that go?’
‘Finding her was the hard bit,’ said Tel. ‘Then we just tonked her on the head, stuck her in the boot and drove her back.’
‘Well, there’ll be no tonking on the head this time,’ said Lomax. ‘That’s how you end up with dead people on your hands, especially girls. They have thinner skulls.’
‘You got a better idea?’
What Lomax had access to were drugs: roofies, special K and G, otherwise known as Rohypnol, ketamine and gamma-hydroxy-butyric acid. The only difficulty was getting it inside the girl. They all had to be ingested to work. This, Darren had said, was why he’d been specially selected for the work.
He parked up on a road in the middle of the Andover Estate. He told Vlad to stick with the car while he and Tel went up and found the block where Alice Grant lived. Lomax, as always, was wearing a suit with an open-necked white shirt and, against the cold, a dark blue overcoat with a scarf. He believed in always looking like anybody but a drug dealer. He went up to the fifth floor of the block and saw that there was still a light on in Alice Grant’s flat. He took Tel back to the lifts, got his mobile number.
‘I’m only going to need you when the girl gets here,’ said Lomax, ‘so I’ll send you a text when she’s on her wa
y and you come up to the fourth floor. You got that? That’s the fourth floor, not this floor, the one below. You wait down there. When she arrives I’ll send another text, and then you just come up to the front door of the flat and wait. You don’t do anything. Right?’
‘What about Vlad?’
‘We don’t involve him. He’s too much trouble without the language. If we need some heavy lifting then he can come in, otherwise he stays with the car. We’ll use him at the other end.’
‘At the other end?’
‘Where we’re taking her.’
‘Oh, right. Didn’t know how many ends there were to a girl.’
‘Thanks, Tel.’
Lomax went back to the flat, rang the bell.
The door opened on a chain. Three things hit him straight away. The first was that she was white, the second that she had faded blue eyes and the third that she was a user. He’d seen that ravaged look too many times: forty but looked fifty-five. She was smoking, and at the end of the drag the creases around her lips did not disappear. He felt his job get just that little bit easier.
‘Are you Chantrelle Grant’s mum?’
‘What’s it to you?’ she said, looking him up and down.
‘I owe her some money,’ said Lomax, getting that in as soon as he could. ‘I’m having trouble tracking her down.’
‘She went away,’ said Alice, fixing him in the eye. ‘She’s still away . . . far as I know.’
‘In Madrid, right?’ said Lomax. ‘The only thing is I’m leaving for the States tomorrow, first thing in the morning, for a couple of months, and I wanted to give her this money.’
‘You’d better come in,’ said Alice, unhooking the chain.
He came into the corridor, stood by her while she closed the door, waiting to be invited in, being polite not pushy.
‘Cup of tea?’ she asked.
She brought him into the living room, sat him down at the dining table and went into the galley kitchen to make the tea. She came back with a tray: tea, biscuits, cigarettes, an ashtray.
‘She also asked me to give a package to a friend of hers,’ said Lomax, ‘but that’s a bit more complicated.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I have to give it to her in person, but Chantrelle didn’t know where she’s living at the moment and she didn’t have a phone number. So I’m a bit stuck with that one. But the money . . . I can leave the money with you, can’t I? Or would you rather not take the responsibility?’
‘No, no, that’s all right,’ said Alice, keen to be of help. ‘What’s this friend’s name?’
‘Amy Boxer.’
‘Oh, I know her—she’s been calling me every day, asking after Chantrelle,’ said Alice. ‘She came round only yesterday. Left her phone number. Said that as soon as I heard from Chantrelle to call her.’
‘So Chantrelle’s being a bit mysterious, is she?’ said Lomax. ‘Now, look, you wouldn’t do me a favour, would you? Give Amy a call while I get Chantrelle’s money ready for her and tell her to come round here as soon as she can so that I can give her the package?’
Alice picked up her mobile, made the call, stayed at the table counting out the money with Lomax, wanting to know how much it was.
‘Oh, Amy. Hello love, this is Alice Grant, Chantrelle’s mum. Now look, good news . . . ’
Pause.
‘No, she’s not back yet, but Chantrelle’s sent this very nice man with a package for you. Chantrelle said he was only to give it to you in person.’
Pause.
‘Madrid.’
Pause.
‘What’s your name, love?’
‘Jake,’ said Lomax.
‘Jake met her in Madrid and she gave him this package for you.’
Pause.
‘Can’t you just leave it and she’ll pick it up in the morning?’
‘I promised Chantrelle,’ said Lomax. ‘The money and personal delivery of the package.’
‘You’re only in Old Street, aren’t you, love? It won’t take you long to get yourself up to Archway, will it?’
24
11:00 P.M., THURSDAY 22ND MARCH 2012
Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead, London
That was my reward,’ said Bobkov. ‘Three minutes’ talk with Sasha. Even at two hundred and fifty thousand euros a minute it was worth every cent. He sounded very fine. He said they hadn’t hurt him and they played chess with him, but none of them were any good. His . . . his voice . . . ’
Bobkov was in an armchair with his foot up on a stool. Mercy was cleaning the deep scratches to his leg with antiseptic wipes. She looked up to see the emotion struggling in a face not used to dealing with such extremes of love.
‘What about his voice?’ asked Mercy.
‘It was beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’d never thought about it before. It’s so clear and innocent. You forget . . . what it was like to be so sweet.’
Kidd was carrying out the debrief. MI5 had positioned someone in the carriage, the young guy with the laptop pretending to listen to music, but they hadn’t tailed Bobkov from Crossharbour DLR station. There were too few people on the street and it had been considered too risky.
They’d discussed an investigation of CW Boat Hire and decided against it, reasoning that it would get back to the gang too quickly. They were better off working the estate agents on Olga’s list in the morning.
‘If it was the FSB, wouldn’t they have access to safe houses where they could keep a hostage pretty much indefinitely?’ said Mercy.
‘Of course they would,’ said Bobkov.
‘But they’ve learned their lesson from the polonium 210 debacle,’ said Kidd. ‘That pointed the finger too obviously at a state-run act of terror. Now they’re determined to make it look criminal by not using state security forces or their facilities.’
‘So we have to find where they’re holding Sasha,’ said Mercy.
‘That’s the good news,’ said Kidd, ‘because if they were using FSB safe houses in London we wouldn’t have a chance.’
‘Tea’s all right,’ said Lomax, ‘but there comes a time of night when there’s nothing better than a little drink. How about you, Alice?’
They were sitting waiting for Amy. They knew they had at least thirty minutes before she’d show.
‘Oh, I don’t keep any drink in the house, Jake,’ said Alice. ‘Far too tempting.’
‘Trying to keep yourself on the straight and narrow?’
‘I like a smoke and an occasional drink, just don’t want alcohol in the house, that’s all. Been a source of too much trouble, know what I mean?’
‘Totally,’ said Lomax, thinking Alice was just the sort to get clouted around the joint after a few bevvies. ‘I’ve got a bottle in the car, mind. I could bring it up, we could have ourselves a little glass and as soon I’ve handed over the package to Amy I’ll take it away again. No harm done.’
She didn’t have to say anything; the gleam was in her eye. She’d have killed for a shot. Lomax went down to the car, tapped on the window.
‘Are we on yet?’ asked Tel.
‘Nearly,’ said Lomax. ‘She’s on her way. You come with me now.’
Lomax went to the boot, where he kept a box of assorted booze for when he went on sales trips. Nothing like a shot of vodka over a coke deal. He took a bottle of Stolly and a couple of cans of Coca-Cola. He’d need the Coca-Cola to mask the slight saltiness of the GHB. Not that Alice would notice a damn thing.
On the way back up Lomax stationed Tel on the fourth floor.
‘When I text you, come to the door. Don’t knock. Just wait outside. If the girl gets spooked she might make a run for it, and I want you there when she opens the door,’ said Lomax. ‘And no tonking her on the head.’
‘Right,’ said Tel. ‘No tonking.’
Lomax went back up to A
lice Grant’s flat. She had three glasses laid out with some ice ready in a bowl. He poured the drinks in front of her. They sat with their vodka and Cokes.
‘So where’s Mr. Grant?’ asked Lomax.
‘Oh, he’s long gone,’ said Alice. ‘I think I was lucky he hung around until Chantrelle was born.’
‘She never mentioned her dad,’ said Lomax.
‘She never knew him,’ said Alice. ‘Just as well. Bit of a bad boy. That’s why he skipped off. Used to run crack on the estate. Then the cops got heavy on it and that was the end of him.’
‘To become a guest of Her Majesty’s Prison Service?’ asked Lomax.
He’d been right about her. She had the look of a crack hag.
‘Don’t think so,’ said Alice. ‘I think he might have been . . . done away with. He had a bit of a mouth on him and quite a temper. Not a good combo when you see the company he was keeping.’
‘Chantrelle’s a bit of a tearaway, I have to say,’ said Lomax, taking a measured guess.
‘It’s not been easy for her,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve had my problems, it has to be said. Not always been there for her.’
‘Problems?’ asked Lomax.
‘You know,’ she said, wiggling her wrist.
‘Drink?’ said Lomax, then nodded. ‘Ah yes, Mr. Grant. Crack?’
‘How did you meet Chantrelle?’ she asked, as if changing the subject, but not.
‘We ran into each other in a club in Madrid. You know, English people together. She was with some foreigners all yabbering away in Spanish so we got talking,’ said Lomax. ‘My God, she can dance, that girl. You must have done something right, Alice.’
‘She’s a devil of a dancer,’ said Alice. ‘That’s how she got started, I reckon. Had to keep going . . . all night.’
Rather than having a crackhead mum who probably didn’t stop during the pregnancy, thought Lomax.