Deacon was there, and afterwards he gave Boxer a big hug and told him he’d made a great choice for Jamie. They went outside on to the small patio during a brief moment of sunshine.
‘I haven’t seen you for a while,’ said Boxer.
‘Been busy with a new terrorist group in Syria and Iraq,’ Deacon said. ‘You won’t have heard of them yet but they call themselves the Islamic State.’
‘You’re looking at me in that questioning way of yours,’ said Boxer, wondering if Deacon was teeing him up to ask about the American Republic of Christians.
‘You’ve had no word from Jensen?’
‘Me? Why would I have word from him?’
‘There’s still no satisfactory explanation for your involvement in that business back in January.’
‘I can’t help you.’
‘You will get in touch with me if you ever hear from him?’
‘Sure, but I can’t think why he’d want to make contact,’ said Boxer. ‘It’s all over now. What have I got to offer him?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Deacon, looking at him hard. ‘We never knew.’
‘Does that mean I’m back on the suspect list?’
‘It means we don’t have an answer to a fundamental question,’ said Deacon.
‘Did you get anywhere with the CIA?’ asked Boxer. ‘Or ask Mercy to talk to Ryder?’
Deacon shook his head.
Esme came out of the house for a cigarette and the conversation changed to the Russian takeover of the Crimea.
The party was over by four o’clock and Boxer left to go back to Belsize Park. It was strange leaving the house under the circumstances, and he had a sustained pang of grief as he walked down the hill to the tube station.
Just as he started to go down the steps, he had a call from an unknown number. He took it. There was a beat of silence. A voice said:
‘Hello, Charlie, this is Louise.’
Acknowledgements
This is the first book I’ve written since the death of my wife, Jane, and it could not have been done without the support of my family and friends from all over the world.
I would especially like to thank Bryony Spencer who looked after me in the immediate aftermath of Jane’s death, taught me yoga and kept my head together. She left her life in France and came over at the beginning of 2014 to stay with me in Oxford while I got this book off the ground and then later helped me transfer to Portugal to finish it. Without her, my task would have been doubly difficult.
I would also like to thank Mick Lawson and José Manuel Blanco who kept me going with their phone calls of love and support from Seville. They were very close to Jane and that was enormously important to me.
Paul Johnston, my old Oxford pal and fellow crime writer, also phoned me regularly from Napflion in Greece, which was hugely helpful.
Jane’s family: Michael and Marianne, John, Louise, Anna and Fenella, Annabelle, Geoff and Eleanor, Guy, Chantalle, Tyrese and Morgan, John Luke and Robyn all played their part in keeping my spirits up.
I’d like to thank my mother, who provided much-needed insight and love. My thanks, too, to my sister, Anita, and her husband, David, for being there for me.
I was also very lucky to have my old Oxford housemates, Peter and Monica Tudor, nearby as they often had me over and couldn’t have been better friends in my hour of need.
It was strange, after all these years, to be living in Oxford, where I had also been to school, and to find friendship extended from that quarter. I’d like to thank Mike Stanfield, Chairman of the Board of Governors of St Edward’s, and Chris Jones, who’d been my first 1st XV captain, both of whom were very warm and supportive.
My thanks to Kristian Lutze, my German translator, and his partner Anne Braun, for looking after me at the Cologne literary festival and being great friends.
Once I went back to Portugal to finish the book, I was brilliantly supported by Alexandra Monteiro, Manuel and Deb Pilar, Nucha and Miguel, Joris and Sandra.
With Jane’s death I had not only lost the love of my life but also my first reader and editor. I was fortunate that Liz Wyse, who’d read all my books and knew me well, could step in and give me excellent advice and do it with love.
I am very fortunate to be a part of the literary agency Aitken Alexander Associates and I would like to thank everybody there for the support they showed me over that difficult year and especially Anthony Sheil, Lesley Thorne and Sally Riley.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Orion for sticking by me through that difficult time. They never put me under any pressure and I only ever felt total support from them. I would especially like to thank Genevieve Pegg who gave me the best editorial notes I have ever received on a book.
My thanks, too, to Anu Ohrling, who advised on the medical condition of one of the characters in this book.
Finally I would like to thank Lucy Maycock, the new light of my life, for being close but giving me space, for enlivening my mind and making me laugh, for opening my eyes to new experiences and making me happy. Lucy and her daughter, Tallulah, have made me feel that I belong again.
About the Author
Robert Wilson has lived and worked around the world, including spells shipbroking, tourguiding and exporting bathrooms to Nigeria. Eventually, Rob settled in Portugal, and turned to novels. Since then, he’s written many acclaimed crime novels including the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning A Small Death in Lisbon and the Falcón series, recently adapted for television. His first novel featuring Charlie Boxer, Capital Punishment, was shortlisted for CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. Find out more at www.robert-wilson.eu.
Also by Robert Wilson
You Will Never Find Me
Capital Punishment
The Ignorance of Blood
The Hidden Assassins
The Silent and the Damned
The Blind Man of Seville
The Company of Strangers
A Small Death in Lisbon
A Darkening Stain
Blood is Dirt
The Big Killing
Instruments of Darkness
Copyright
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Orion Books
This ebook first published in 2015 by Orion Books
© Robert A. Wilson Limited 2015
The right of Robert Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 4818 0
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Robert Wilson, Stealing People
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