The fear sliced through him but his professionalism held firm.
‘You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to believe you.’
‘That’s why we need your mobile number,’ said the voice. ‘Can’t send pictures down these lines, can you?’
He gave it to him. A few moments later he heard the message signal and opened the photo of Amy. Her hair in corn rows confirmed that it was recent. He couldn’t believe they’d got to her so quickly.
‘How did you find her?’ he said, thinking out loud, rather than asking a serious question.
‘Superior intelligence,’ said the Londoner, back on the phone again. ‘Now you understand why you’re going to contact David Álvarez and tell him to keep his mouth shut. And why you’re going to promise, on your daughter’s life, that you are not going to go to the Met in any way, shape or form. Not even to the girl’s mother. Right? If you do go to the Met and they track us down, the one thing I can assure you is that, whatever happens, if we’re all surrounded and there’s no way out, your daughter will not survive.’
‘So what do you want for her safe return?’
‘You.’
26
4:50 A.M., FRIDAY 23RD MARCH 2012
Rowland Estate, Bermondsey, London
Amy came to. A strange awakening into the dark. The first thing was the smell. Whatever she was lying on had the stink of rancid human about it, a sharp penetrating odour that touched off some atavistic alarm. The next thing was that she couldn’t move her arms or feet. She was lying on her back. Her wrists and ankles had been secured to the four corners of the bed. Panic fluttered in her throat. Her head felt as if it had been split in two and inexpertly put back together with low-grade glue. She felt nauseous and dizzy. She couldn’t seem to think straight for longer than two seconds and had no memory, certainly no memory of how she’d ended up in this strange state. And she had to go to the toilet.
‘Morning. Thought you were never going to come round.’
The voice made her start, which had a terrible effect on her head, a blinding light followed by searing pain, as if someone had driven a screwdriver into her left eye socket and out through the back of her skull. She moaned against it, thought she was going to be sick. She squeezed her muscles together to stop from peeing herself.
‘Best thing is you lie still. If you have to move, move very slowly as if your whole body is made from the finest Chinese porcelain. All right?’
‘O.K.’
‘There’s no need to be frightened.’
‘There isn’t?’
‘Nobody’s going to hurt you,’ said Lomax. ‘I’m not going to hurt you and I’m the only one here at the moment.’
‘What happened?’
‘You were drunk and drugged and you passed out. I brought you here.’
‘Where is here?’
‘Somewhere in London.’
‘That’s . . . precise,’ she said, having to work hard to find that word.
‘It’s the best I can do.’
‘I don’t remember what happened.’
‘That’s normal.’
‘So what am I doing here?’
‘You’ve been kidnapped.’
She blinked behind her mask, trying to think why she should have been kidnapped. Was she a rich man’s daughter? No.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Can’t tell you. I’ve got no idea. I was just told to bring you here.’
‘I’ve got to go to the toilet.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Lomax.
‘It’s just a pee.’
‘There are no facilities.’
‘I have to go.’
‘Hold on,’ he said and left the room.
There was nothing in the tool room, he knew that. He checked the other rooms. All empty except the last one, which had two big bottles of water, a half roll of toilet paper and a bucket.
How the hell was he going to do this? He needed Tel and Vlad for this game. Should have kept them on. Then again they were a liability. Too thick and too desperate.
He picked up the bucket and loo roll, went back to the room. He jammed the bucket in the corner, put the loo roll on the floor. He made sure the main door to the basement was locked. From the tool room he took some gaffer tape, some new plastic cuffs and a pickaxe handle.
Kneeling on the bed, he wrapped the gaffer tape around her head securing the sleeping mask to her face. He didn’t want her seeing him because now she would remember and blindfolded he’d have the advantage if she tried anything.
He told her how it was going to be. Then he touched her on the head with the pickaxe handle.
‘Any trouble and I’ll brain you.’
‘I just want to go for a pee, for Christ’s sake.’
‘That’s what they all say.’
He cut the leg cuffs and then freed her wrists. He told her to sit up slowly and stand. She sat on the edge of the bed, but struggled to stand. He had to help her to her feet. She was still all over the shop from the drug and disorientated by never having seen the room. He put her hand on the wall and told her there was a bucket in the corner. When she got there he put the loo roll in her hand.
‘Do it.’
‘With you here . . . watching?’ she said.
‘You’ll get used to it and I’ve seen it all before. I’m no perve.’ She dropped her jeans and pants, slid down the wall to the bucket, peed. She was still groggy, her legs weak and her head pounding, but her thinking went on for a bit longer before breaking up. She knew what she had to do, remembered it from all those endless boring conversations between her parents about kidnap victims and the best way to behave.
Disparate things came back to her. Long-buried words of advice. Her father holding her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes before a judo fight. Telling her before she went onto the mat: look at your opponent, learn about her, how she sits beforehand, how she walks, how she bows. It’s all telling you something. Everything helps you decide what you’re going to do.
Lomax watched her like a hawk, the pickaxe handle in both hands, feeling ridiculous hovering over her. She tried to stand up, couldn’t make it.
‘You’re going to have to help me. My legs don’t work properly.’
He leaned the pickaxe handle against the wall, stood in front of her, hooked his hands under her armpits and pulled her up to her feet. She yanked her jeans up as she stood and leaned into him. He held her by the shoulders and eased her down onto the bed. She was still in poor shape. He got her to lie down, legs together, cuffed them again and secured them to the bed.
‘Do you have to tie my wrists?’
‘For the moment.’
She put a wrist to each corner. He cuffed them and stood back. She knew now that he was definitely operating alone and there could be opportunities when she was feeling stronger and needed to go to the toilet again. Mercy’s words came to her: gather your information gradually; don’t try to rush it—people will be suspicious. Everything you do should have the aim of improving your situation, your physical and mental state.
Where did that come from? Was it a seminar she was about to give? Something else: make your captor care for you. The more they care the less likely they are to hurt you.
‘I’m thirsty,’ she said.
He picked up the bucket, left the room. She listened. He didn’t go far. He was back in a moment. He cradled her head in one hand. She felt the rim of the bottle on her lips, drank the water down, thanked him. He pulled up a chair, sat by the bed.
‘There’s no need to be scared,’ he said.
She wasn’t. She had been scared when she first woke up, but now she knew a little she was more solid. She felt sick and weak but that was the drug. Something else had kicked in.
‘I’m going to ask you some questions. I want you to tell me the tru
th. It’s very easy to check your answers, and if we find you’ve been lying you’ll be punished. And you don’t want to find out what those punishments are.’
The questions were about her parents: their names, where they lived, what they did. She could sense his interest when she told him about her father. She embellished it by saying how much time he spent out of the country, all the jobs he’d done in South and Central America, Pakistan and the Far East. How she didn’t see much of him. She was aware of making it sound as if she was telling him a lot but she was withholding as much as she could. It was more difficult with Mercy.
‘She’s a copper?’ said Lomax.
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Amy, empathising.
‘What sort of copper?’
‘A detective inspector.’
‘Fuck me.’
‘She’s tough too. Made me stand to attention by my bed before lights out.’
‘Get away.’
‘That’s why I ran away from home.’
‘Is it? I thought it was because your father was messing about with you.’
‘Messing about?’
‘Sex. Fucking you. Incest.’
‘Are you soaked or what?’
‘That’s what it says here. “Did her dad force himself on her?”’
‘Who’s asking these stupid questions?’
‘Fuck knows, but did he?’
‘No way,’ she said, disgusted at the idea of it. ‘I lived with my mother. I told you, my father was never around. In my whole life I’ve probably only spent about three nights at his place. So I’ve no idea when this was supposed to have happened.’
‘So you ran away from home because your mum was giving you a hard time?’
‘I was bored,’ said Amy because what he’d said sounded too pathetic. ‘I was bored by school, bored by rules, bored by the future.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lomax, as if this was obvious. ‘It’s like that for everybody, but you only run away if somebody’s sticking it to you: beating you up or sexually abusing you. Otherwise you just get on with it. It’s part of the job of being a kid.’
Nobody had ever put it to her like that.
‘Everybody thinks it must be great to be in a band, for example,’ said Lomax. ‘But it’s just another job, except the job is to sing in front of large crowds of screaming people. But it’s still work. They live in shit accommodation, eat crap food, travel all day, work all night and take drugs to keep going. I know. I supplied the drugs.’
‘So what’s it like being a drug dealer?’
‘Long hours. You take a lot of crap from all sides,’ he said. ‘Your suppliers want you to sell more, the customers don’t want to pay. You’ve got to keep your runners in line or they’ll cheat your arse. It’s dangerous . . . from the cops and other gangs, even your own gang sometimes.’
‘And the good things?’
‘You make money,’ said Lomax. ‘You don’t have to get up in the morning and go to an office. That’s about it. It’s like any job. A lot of shit for some financial reward.’
‘Is that why you moved into kidnapping?’
‘Good to hear your voice, David,’ said Boxer.
‘I’d like to be able to say the same,’ said Álvarez.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Boxer. ‘I’ve just got one more thing to ask of you.’
‘Whatever it is, the answer is no.’
‘You mustn’t go to the police,’ said Boxer. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’
‘You think I’d go to the police after what I’ve been through?’
‘Some people might.’
‘I’m finished with it. I’m not going to talk to anybody about it. I know this is El Osito.’
‘That’s good, because they told me if you did, they’d come after you but only once they’d dealt with your parents and your two sisters.’
‘They said that to you?’ said Álvarez. ‘My two sisters? How do they know about them? They don’t even live in Madrid.’
‘That’s what they told me.’
Silence.
‘They’ve got something on you, haven’t they?’ said Álvarez. ‘You wouldn’t be talking to me unless they’d scared you into it. What do these cabrones want now?’
‘It’s O.K., David. They’re getting what they want. You just have to forget everything now. I mean it. Forget I ever came into your life. Don’t talk to anyone about this. You break that and they’ll kill you and your family.’
‘I’m feeling bad now.’
‘Don’t. You did a very fine thing. You sent a girl a note to warn her. A lot of other people wouldn’t have dared to do even that. You do anything else and it’ll turn out very badly for you and for me. So promise me.’
‘O.K., I promise you.’
Boxer hung up, took a deep breath. That had been harder than he was expecting. He called the number he’d been given, told them that he’d guaranteed Álvarez’s silence.
‘So you’re a kidnap consultant?’ said the voice. ‘This’ll be a first for you, to be the ransom in your own negotiation. Got a nice little something to it, hasn’t it?’
‘Irony?’
‘Yeah, maybe that’s the word,’ said the voice. ‘We done a bit more research on you now that Amy’s given us the basics. Bit of a poker player, aren’t you?’
‘It has been known.’
‘Now look. We’ve incurred some expenses having to deal with your bloody nonsense. So when you hand yourself in we want you to bring a hundred grand with you. Pounds. That should cover it.’
‘I can lay my hands on twenty grand today. The rest will take until next week, and that’s if the bank’ll let me remortgage.’
‘I know poker players, and they’ve always got funds for a game,’ said the voice. ‘It’s what they live for.’
‘You’ll be talking about really good poker players who don’t blow their winnings on the horses.’
‘Bring fifty and we won’t say anything more about it.’
‘Like I said, I can bring you twenty today. The other thirty will take some time. I could probably raise that by Saturday evening.’
‘Bring thirty and don’t give me any more shit.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Boxer. ‘Let’s just get this straight now: I’m the ransom, plus thirty grand?’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘So I hand myself in with the money and you will release my daughter?’
‘That’s it in one.’
‘Tell me how that’s going to work.’
‘We’ll think of a way to pick you up some time later this afternoon, and as soon as we’ve got you in hand we’ll release the girl.’
‘My problem is not with you. It’s with El Osito. What guarantee do I have that you’ll release her?’
‘I’ll guarantee that. I’ll make sure she’s with me when you hand yourself in. I’ll be the one who releases her.’
‘What time is it?’ asked Amy.
‘Six thirty.’
‘What day are we on?’
‘Friday.’
‘How long will you keep me here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What’s the ransom going to be?’
‘Don’t know that either.’
‘So you’re doing this for somebody else?’
‘I don’t like it, but I have to.’
‘Why?’
‘I owe them money.’
‘And you sell drugs for these people?’
‘Yep,’ said Lomax. ‘Which is why I do as I’m told and there’s no argument.’
‘And they’ll cancel your debt in return—is that it?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s twenty-eight grand and I was reminded of that fact tonight when I told them
I’d got you,’ said Lomax. ‘The best I can hope for is they’ll cancel the vig.’
‘The vig?’
‘The vigorish.’
‘Still don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘They don’t teach anything at school these days,’ said Lomax, lamenting. ‘It’s Yiddish, probably Russian originally.’
‘My boyfriend’s a Russian Jew.’
‘Is that Josh?’
‘How do you know his name?’
‘He called you,’ said Lomax. ‘I didn’t take it. Didn’t want him getting jealous.’
Silence. It made her a bit sad that he probably wouldn’t get jealous.
‘Why didn’t you bring Josh with you last night?’ asked Lomax, thinking that would have been awkward.
‘He wasn’t there,’ said Amy. ‘He likes to go out.’
‘On his own?’
‘Tell me about the vigorish,’ she said, almost childlike, squirming into the mattress, wanting to be told a story.
‘It used to be the percentage taken from a gambler’s winnings by the people who’d set up the game,’ said Lomax. ‘Now it just means a fucking excessive rate of interest. I call it the invigorator.’
‘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.’