Boxer talked her through a less spiralling version of Chico’s explanation. She stared out of the window when he’d finished.
‘It didn’t come across quite as clearly as that,’ said Boxer.
‘It never does,’ she said.
‘I’m not sure what’s real and what’s acting,’ said Boxer. ‘Was Amir Jat responsible for the original kidnap? I don’t know. There were too many logic gaps for my liking. But Frank’s desperation to get Alyshia back seemed sincere and it is possible that Amir Jat wants to punish him for what he’s done.’
‘That’s Chico’s way: to send you down a single channel. Get Alyshia back. Never tell anybody too much. They’ll create their own picture and it’ll give them ideas beyond their capabilities,’ said Isabel. ‘That’s his theory, anyway.’
They came onto the Embankment, followed the great black snake of the river coiling through the city. They moved in the peristaltic traffic, amongst cars containing the vague forms of others. Boxer glanced across at her unmoving face, wondering if they were on their way to something more permanent; wanting it, but fearing what he had growing inside him, willing it to obscure that other thing that could just as easily expand in his chest.
‘Tell me about Frank,’ said Boxer, searching for clues, but also trying to keep her from getting nervous. ‘Was he different when you first met him?’
‘I used to think he was, but not now,’ said Isabel. ‘Only by getting free of him, or as free as I could possibly be of him, did I see his real nature, which I think was always there at the centre of his being. It’s a curious thing about humans . . .’
She drifted away, lost in her ghostly reflection in the window.
‘What?’ said Boxer, pulling her back to the moment.
‘We have an irresistible attraction to something strong,’ said Isabel. ‘The sad thing about goodness is that it’s bland. Evil has the power to provoke extraordinary emotions. And we’re drawn to the excitement of the extreme, rather than the dullness of the everyday.’
‘And you?’
She looked across at him in the darkness of the car, the outside lights flickering in the cockpit to reveal an eye, a cheek, a mouth, a nose.
‘Me?’ she said. ‘I think I’ve been very clear. Or did you really mean you?’
‘All right, what do you see in me?’
‘You’ve had a traumatic childhood. Your father leaving you like that, so young, and with this terrible accusation hanging over him, which inevitably hung over you, too. That would be enough to lodge something dark inside anybody. But then, terrible things happen to lots of people and not all of them turn to the dark. You have taken the next step, I know that. I don’t want to know what you’ve done. You’ve been in war, so you’ve probably killed people, but that was twenty years ago. There’s something present in you now that I haven’t seen in a man since, well, Chico.’
‘Is this why you haven’t had a relationship with anybody since Frank?’
‘Do you seriously think, after being with Chico, I could be drawn to someone like that sleek little banker who lived next door to me in Edwardes Square?’ she said, derisive. ‘I did try, just by putting myself in the way of a normal person and, believe it or not, my soul withered in the face of it. I couldn’t bring myself to kiss such a man on the lips. It would have been like an exchange of life for death.’
‘And with Alyshia?’
‘I’ve been in denial about that,’ said Isabel. ‘I see in Alyshia what I see in myself. I never met this guy, Julian, but I saw a photograph of them together and I could see he was bad and that she was lost in him. I was determined to break the cycle. I knew something had happened in Mumbai at an emotional level, which had changed her in a more permanent way than her experience with Julian. After Julian, I thought she could be saved. After Mumbai, I was worried that she was lost, but I didn’t give up. I was still trying to fix her up with normality, even last Sunday, only a couple of days ago, which feels like a different life now.’
‘Do you think the Mumbai problem is to do with Deepak Mistry?’
‘Yes, he worried me. Deepak was so like Chico. He didn’t have his charisma, but he was more dangerous for the lack of it,’ said Isabel. ‘Chico lived amongst people who fed off his charisma. Deepak was the loner.’
Boxer came off Upper Thames Street, just before London Bridge. At Bank he turned down Cornhill and slowed.
‘What are we looking at?’
‘Frank’s cars,’ said Boxer, pointing across her. The City was empty at this time of night but the lights were still burning money all the way up the buildings.
The car was a silver saloon mounted on a stage and striking a dynamic pose as if it had just taken off after a leap over a small rise. INVEST IN THE NEW DECRUZ ELECTRIC CAR was the banner headline on a speeding news bar. Four security guards hung around the podium, which at this hour was unlit.
They carried on through the City and turned onto St Mary Axe. In the open square in front of the Aviva building was the second car, a sporty-looking estate with the same electronic banner and another four security guards.
‘That’s so typical of Chico,’ said Isabel. ‘Getting permission to put his cars in front of the Bank of England and between its two most iconic expressions of wealth – the Fabergé egg of the Gherkin and the industrial might of the Lloyd’s Building. You’ve got to hand it to him: he knows how to show off.’
They headed north, past Liverpool Street station, crossed over onto Bethnal Green Road and parked outside the Rich Mix Cinema, with five minutes to spare.
Skin had dropped his dexy and was jogging down the Regent’s Canal, thinking what a good idea it was to be using the empty towpath. He ran past the moored narrow boats next to the railings of Victoria Park. Steam was rising from them, the smell of cooking and muted voices.
He passed underneath Commercial Road, went up the steps, walked back and looked over the brick wall to the towpath below. He stepped back to find a suitable marker and saw what the council had painted along the wall. He called Dan.
‘I’m on the bridge over the canal on Commercial Road,’ said Skin. ‘There are numbers painted on the bridge. She’s to drop the bag over the wall between one and two.’
‘You got a car yet?’
‘Give us a fucking break.’
‘Get one. Call me back.’
Skin walked the streets off Commercial Road, found an old white transit. He took out the wire coat hanger, unwound it and straightened it out. With the pliers, he fashioned it into a rough hook. Still using the pliers, he gripped the rubber seal around the window and tore it out. He slipped the coat hanger wire in between the door and the window glass. First yank and the door lock came up. He got in, bust the steering wheel lock, hot-wired it and drove back down Commercial Road. He called Dan.
‘I got a van, a transit, so we’ll feel right at home.’
‘I want them to think we’re checking that they’re not being tailed,’ said Dan. ‘Park off Bethnal Green Road near Brick Lane and call me.’
Skin drove. The traffic was light. His adrenaline was high but he was careful. He didn’t jump any lights, kept to the speed limit. He parked up, called Dan.
‘Write on a piece of paper: “Go to Stepney Green Tube”, and tell some kid to give it to the passenger in a silver Golf GTI by the cinema.’
Amir Jat was at Upton Park tube station where he’d arranged to meet Saleem Cheema. A boy in a furry-hooded parka with a salwar kameez underneath approached him and led him by the hand up Green Street, past the Pakistani clothes shops, women’s shoe shops, jewellery stores and a large DVD emporium. It was all closed at this hour, but Amir Jat felt strangely at home in this anglicised version of Lahore, with its pavements and Belisha beacons, its pubs and Duncan’s jellied eels. The boy took him down past the terraced houses of Boleyn Road to a semi-detached house behind a low wall, which had a red garage down one side. The boy had a key. They went to a door under the stairs. The boy pressed twice on a concealed buzzer and the d
oor opened.
They went through another padded door and the boy pointed Amir Jat down some brick steps into the basement and left. There were three men in the room and, amongst them, a fourth, who was naked, blindfolded, with headphones on and tied to a chair. He looked completely broken down. There was a pool of urine at his feet. His legs were trembling. Amir Jat could hear the tinny sound of the heavy metal music that was being thrashed into his ears via the headphones.
The three men greeted Amir Jat with a display of great respect.
‘Who is this?’ he asked.
‘One of our dealers. He rented a workshop to the two men who’ve taken over the kidnap of the girl you want. It’s in another part of town, a few miles from here,’ said Cheema. ‘We’re watching the place as we speak.’
‘How many people holding the girl?’
‘Two, but most of the time there’s only one. The lookout just called to tell us that the one known as Skin has just left, which means the girl is with the ex-nurse, called Dan,’ said Cheema, kicking MK in the leg. ‘This one’s friend.’
‘Has he shown you the layout?’ asked Jat, looking down at MK, who was crouching and shuddering.
‘The workshop has big windows overlooking the canal,’ said Cheema, nodding. ‘On the street side there’s only one window, high up, which belongs to the kitchen. He thinks they’ll be keeping the girl in a small flat upstairs.’
‘Keys?’
‘We have them both, to the workshop and the flat.’
‘We’ll have to cover the canal side as well as the street side,’ said Jat.
‘How do you mean?’
‘The canal provides an escape route. It will have to be covered.’
‘No, what I mean is, we do not carry out this sort of operation,’ said Cheema. ‘There are trained teams for that sort of work.’
‘Can you contact them?’
‘No, I can only contact the people who contact me.’
‘And who are they?’
‘People who’ve approached me through my suppliers,’ said Cheema. ‘They call themselves the UK Command Centre.’
‘We haven’t got time for that,’ said Jat. ‘We have to act now.’
‘But we haven’t been given any training for this kind of operation,’ said Cheema, ‘and we must get clearance from UK Command.’
Jat wasn’t used to people answering him back. He looked around him, at the young men in their modern clothes and styled hair, and was dismayed by what he saw.
‘You are no different to the people we are trying to defeat,’ said Jat. ‘You have developed a Western corporate mentality, with politics to match, and it has paralysed you. You have to learn to take the initiative.’
Nobody spoke.
The paranoia was working on Jat. He stared into his own complex world of associations and networks and wondered where things were breaking down and who was responsible. He no longer felt as if he was operating the levers. He couldn’t throw himself clear of the vortex of thought that told him no one could be trusted. And yet there were people he still had to rely on.
‘What about you?’ said Jat, pointing at Rahim, who was hunched under the low ceiling of the basement. Jat recognised where he was from, spoke to him in Pashto, excluding the others, asked him if he was ready and willing to carry out such an operation.
‘There’s only one man and the girl,’ said Jat. ‘How many of you are there?’
‘We are six,’ said Rahim.
‘Two in the street. Two on the other side of the canal. And two go in. You . . .’ said Jat, casting around and finding Tarar. ‘And what about him? He looks like a fighter.’
‘He’s a boxer. He’s never fired a gun.’
‘Any of the others fired a gun?’
‘Just two.’
‘Take one of them,’ said Jat. ‘Show me the layout and I’ll tell you how we’re going to do it.’
‘What are you saying to him?’ asked Cheema.
‘He’s agreed to carry out the operation,’ said Jat.
‘These are my people,’ said Cheema. ‘They operate in my network. They’re not trained for this kind of thing.’
‘They don’t need any training with me to plan the assault,’ said Jat. ‘This isn’t a complicated operation like the Mumbai attack in 2008 which I was responsible for planning. These boys are only up against a nurse and the girl, who will be handcuffed.’
Rahim and Tarar were clearly impressed by Jat. They started talking, off to one side.
‘But they are valuable members of my network. What happens if one of them is hurt or killed? We will lose the ability to fund other operations.’
‘How much funding do you want?’ asked Jat. ‘I’ll give you all the funding you need. I guarantee it.’
‘We’ll do it,’ said Tarar.
They looked at Cheema.
‘We’ll do it on condition that we keep the girl and take the ransom. That will give us the funding we need,’ said Tarar.
Cheema nodded his agreement at him from behind Jat’s shoulder.
‘I want to interrogate the girl, once we have her in our hands,’ said Jat. ‘I need answers from somebody and she will give me the ability to apply pressure. Once I have those answers, she’s all yours. Is that agreed?’
They all nodded.
‘What do we do with him?’ asked Tarar, pointing at MK.
‘There’s only one thing to do,’ said Jat.
‘No more mess,’ said Cheema, disgusted by the pool of urine.
A teenage girl in a black puffy coat walked along the pavement towards the Rich Mix Cinema. She stopped by the silver Golf GTI, knocked on the window. Boxer lowered it. She handed him a note, moved off.
Boxer read it, gave it to Isabel. They set off down Bethnal Green Road. Seven minutes later they were outside Stepney Green tube. Boxer searched the night. Nothing. He sat back. A kid walked past, slapped a piece of paper on the windscreen. GO TO MILE END TUBE STATION AND WAIT. Boxer turned left onto Mile End Road, pulled up outside the tube a few minutes later.
‘I was Frank’s conscience for the first ten years of our marriage,’ said Isabel. ‘Until we fell apart. For the next fifteen years he had no conscience. Anybody who came into his orbit, he corrupted them.’
‘What about Sharmila?’
‘She’s from that world. She left a gangster to be with Chico. He put her in charge of his “escort agency”. She provides whores for his clients. And, this is Chico for you: he’ll make her do terrible things until she’s as black as he. The corruptor is only satisfied when his corruptees have been totally immersed in his darkness.’
‘But you’re out of that now.’
‘Am I?’ she said. ‘What am I letting myself in for this time?’
‘I’m not rich. I don’t want power over others. I don’t corrupt.’
‘Are you ruthless?’
He checked himself before he answered that one. Didn’t want to lie to her.
‘Yes, but only with those who’ve done wrong.’
An old man in an overcoat, long grey hair spreading out over his shoulders from under a woollen hat, crossed the road in front of them with a limp. He stopped by the car.
‘Where to?’ asked Boxer.
‘You got a cigarette?’ he asked, until he saw Isabel and leaned in further. The alcohol and tobacco were fierce on his breath. ‘Are you married?’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said, smiling.
‘You should be,’ he said. ‘You’re a fine-looking woman. Is he married?’
‘No,’ said Boxer.
‘Are you sure you don’t have a cigarette?’
‘We don’t smoke.’
‘A fine-looking woman,’ he said, staring intently. ‘Where do you want to go now?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Isabel. ‘We’re waiting to be told.’
‘Have you got a message for us?’ asked Boxer.
He switched his gaze to Boxer and said, ‘Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc, unde negant redire quemq
uam.’
‘Sorry?’ said Boxer.
‘“Now he goes along the darksome road, towards that place from where they say no one returns”,’ said the old man. ‘Good night.’
He moved off. They turned to the middle of the car, looking out of the rear window.
‘Loony?’ asked Boxer.
‘I think so,’ said Isabel. ‘Or perhaps a revenant.’
‘A what?’
‘A ghost, sort of. Someone who comes back to tell you something.’
‘Let’s hope he was talking about himself going along the “darksome road”,’ said Boxer, a little shaken at the thought that he himself might have gone beyond the point of no return.
They turned back in their seats. One of the Metropolitan Police flyers fluttered under the wiper, slightly damp. Boxer retrieved it.
‘The most important thing to remember in this country,’ he said, showing Isabel the flyer. ‘Never lose your sense of humour.’
The flyer showed the photos of Skin and Dan, except that Skin now had scribbled bouffant curly black hair and a moustache and Dan had glasses. Underneath it said: ‘GO TO SHADWELL STATION, Yours Cannon and Ball’. Isabel started giggling, half involuntary, half hysterical. Boxer did a U-turn.
‘By the time we get to Shadwell, there’ll be some bloke playing the next destination on squeaky cats,’ said Boxer.
Ten minutes and they were outside Shadwell DLR station. It was just after 11.30 p.m.
‘Why are you checking the rearview all the time?’ said Isabel.
‘You never know with the Met,’ said Boxer. ‘They have ideas of their own. We don’t know what information they’re operating on, but it’s likely to be more than ours. I just don’t want them to screw things up for us. I want to get this over and done with before anybody else catches up with Skin and Dan.’
‘But wasn’t this the idea, to make sure we weren’t being followed?’
‘It’s been more for show than real,’ said Boxer. ‘There’s only two of them and one is with Alyshia. They’re making us think they’re checking us out. The Met know that. I saw Rick’s mind at work.’