Stealing People

  The image of the envelope, the tape inside and the letter from his father came to him again. He’d let Isabel penetrate the last line of defence and all the hurt that had so consumed him after his father’s disappearance had bled away to be replaced by something that had eluded him all his life: happiness.

  He decided there and then to take the advice his father had given in his letter: destroy the tape and forget the part of his personal history that had only ever brought him pain.

  Isabel turned and smiled. He could see that she was happy, too, and that this was a unique moment for them. He seized it. He took her face in his hands and kissed her eyebrows, her perfect mouth.

  He stopped and looked into her eyes.

  ‘We’re on the sunlit uplands,’ she said, ‘running free. Nobody can touch us.’

  ‘I can hear you thinking,’ said Siobhan croakily from the bed, tapping her head. ‘What?’

  ‘If you must know, I was thinking that penises aren’t exactly things of beauty.’

  Amy had pulled an armchair into the bedroom and was watching Siobhan dozing in the bed. A table lamp on the floor provided some dim light. Siobhan had asked her to sleep with her, not to ‘do’ anything, as she was in no condition, but just to have someone close. Amy demurred, a word she’d only ever associated with Jane Austen types, but now found herself, a nineteen-year-old Londoner with street cred to spare, doing just that.

  ‘So now you’re spooked about me?’ said Siobhan.

  ‘Not spooked, just unsure.’

  ‘I like to shake people up,’ said Siobhan. ‘I know I shouldn’t, but think about it, your life’s been pretty predictable while I’ve had to live with the uncertainty of being neither M nor F. All I’m doing is sharing some of that uncertainty, and sometimes it fucks me up.’

  ‘My life’s not been that predictable, you know. I’ve been trouble, but my father thinks you’re off the scale.’

  ‘He’s probably right. That’s all I’ve had all my life. It’s just gotten to be the norm. I never used to seek it out because it had no problem finding me. Now I save it the bother and just reach for it.’

  ‘So why do you dress and behave like a woman when you’re more evidently a man?’

  ‘I’m both, remember, but women have nicer clothes.’

  ‘But you prefer women to men?’

  ‘You got a high opinion of yourself, girl,’ she said. ‘I like both but mostly one more than the other at any given time.’

  ‘How does your father feel about that?’

  ‘I’m lucky, given that I’m an “aberration”, that my father didn’t insist on corrective surgery. A lot of parents of intersex kids take that decision for them, decide that you’re more of a boy or more of a girl and ask the surgeon to be decisive. The only problem being that what’s evident down there is not always the same as what’s going on inside. And you end up with something cut off that you really needed to make you into the person you think you are.’

  ‘How does your father feel about you?’

  ‘Good question. Most of the time there’s too much going on in his head to know what he feels emotionally. He doesn’t communicate. He keeps all that stuff deep in his English reserve. Occasionally, though, he’s shown me something and it was always when I was smaller and being more boyish. He preferred that. I think he always wanted a son, but he’s never said so.’

  ‘So why define yourself on the outside as a woman?’

  ‘The same reason you do,’ said Siobhan, rolling on to her back and groaning. ‘Now shut up and get me some more painkillers so I can sleep.’

  Amy fed her another paracetamol and she sucked the water through her damaged lips, dabbed them with the duvet cover.

  ‘Don’t forget how you felt when I kissed you in the gallery,’ said Siobhan.

  ‘How did I feel?’

  ‘Your hair went Afro from the steam coming out your ears.’

  ‘Very funny. Don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘I saw what I saw,’ said Siobhan. ‘Nobody will ever kiss you like that again in your life.’

  Mercy was on the Railton Road, ringing the doorbell of Alleyne’s young neighbour, Tonell, who he used for keeping an eye on his car when he was loading up before going on a job. Mercy and Tonell got on now. He curtailed his language for her. Didn’t use the word ‘bitch’ any more.

  ‘Yo, Mercy,’ said Tonell.

  ‘Have you seen Marcus today?’

  ‘Yeah, I seen him. Loaded his van ’bout six fifteen this evening. He goin’ on a job.’

  ‘Did he say where?’

  Silence.

  ‘Tonell?’

  ‘Just thinkin’, Mercy.’

  ‘No rush,’ she said, looking at the time on her mobile phone.

  ‘He was doing a deal with somebody he’d worked with before but new crew. Jamaicans he thought ’cos of the accent. Caribbean anyhow,’ said Tonell. ‘He was nervous. Yeah, that was it. He was nervous ’cos the contact name was Glider what he had a run-in with on account of you. He didn’t much like where he had to go ’n’ all. East Walworth.’

  ‘No street name?’

  Tonell shook his head.

  ‘Did Glider give him the contact or did the buyer say Glider would vouch for him?’

  ‘Glider and him don’t speak no more, so I guess …’

  ‘What did you load into the van?’

  ‘Thousand cartons of smokes.’

  ‘What does he get for that?’

  ‘Pro’ly ten gees, ’bout a poun’ a pack.’

  Mercy’s mobile went off. She walked back to her car, taking the call on the way.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said.

  ‘Marcus says your father’s village is called Anfoeta, in the Volta region of Ghana,’ said the voice. ‘And it took a long time because Marcus is very protective of you, Mercy. We had to take out our frustration on him. He took a very severe beating on your behalf. I hope you realise that.’

  Silence from Mercy as anger and fear battled away. She got in the car, dropped her head on to the steering wheel. She was not prone to tears, never cried in her professional life, whatever the horrors of the case. Her job demanded a cool head at all times. But in this situation she couldn’t help herself: professionalism went out the window, the tears flowed as her imagination ran riot with images of Marcus’s bloodied face. She had to grip the wheel and remind herself of the basics of kidnap negotiation. The mind game. The power of the unseen.

  She breathed it all back down, found that savage streak within her.

  ‘Just get on with it,’ she said. ‘You’ve had your fun. Let’s get down to business. If it’s money you’re after, you’ve got a long wait. I’ve got a four hundred and fifty grand mortgage and two cash ISAs, which might cover my Christmas credit card bill. I have a net worth of zip. So what is it?’

  ‘I’d heard you’d be a hard nut to crack, but that’s my speciality and crack you I will,’ said the voice. ‘And not just the outer shell. Right the way into the middle. The first thing you’ll hear is the crushing of your bones and the crumpling of your heart. Good night, my little Mercy.’

  8

  04.30, 16 January 2014

  unknown location, London

  Alleyne was back in the chair. He didn’t like it there. At least when they left him lying on the concrete floor they weren’t hurting him. The chair was metal, cold and unstable, and in his struggles he’d fallen backwards so that his head had flicked back on to the concrete and he’d knocked himself out. They’d brought him round eventually and asked him about Mercy’s father’s village, which he’d struggled to remember. Now they were on him again. This time they’d said they were filming him and he was to speak nicely and look good for his audience.

  ‘So, we’ve been successful, Marcus,’ said the voice. ‘We’ve got over the first hurdle: Mercy’s taking us seriously now. She’s satisfied that you’re with us. Now we’re going to up the pressure.’

  ‘You told her what you want yet?’ asked Alle
yne, confused. ‘Can’t think what that would be. I mean, she’s broke. I’ve got more available cash than her. You want her to do something for you, I don’t know how that goin’ to happen, because she works in a team. They looking over each other all the time, supervising their arses off, assessing each other’s performance. She start acting strange, doing things different, poking her nose in places where it should not be poked, she will get found out. She will not survive in that environment. You get me?’

  ‘How many of her colleagues know about you?’

  ‘None,’ said Alleyne. ‘If she told them, she’d have to quit her job. Too much of a liability. It’s sensitive work.’

  ‘What’s that say about you?’

  ‘It doesn’t say anything about me.’

  ‘Think again, Marcus,’ said the voice. ‘She’s still in her job because …’

  ‘Because she loves her work.’

  ‘Yes, and … what’s the logical progression of that sentence?’

  ‘She’s good at it, too.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘All right, she loves me.’

  ‘And how do you feel about her?’

  Silence.

  ‘I love her. We’re lovers.’

  ‘How much do you love her, Marcus?’

  ‘It’s not quantifiable,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Try.’

  ‘It’s not to your advantage to know.’

  ‘Why don’t you let us be the judge of that?’

  It was strange to find himself in this situation. He’d spent quite a few mornings thinking about the woman lying in bed next to him. Mercy Danquah. He even loved her name, had to stop himself from whispering it in her ear when they made love to each other. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. He knew that she was the one for him. The only one. Had known it from the moment he’d first seen her standing on his doorstep being demanding. And yet it wasn’t until now, under the peculiar stresses of this kidnap, that he realised the full extent of his involvement.

  ‘I’d lay down my life for her without a thought,’ he said.

  Boxer was up early and on his way to Perth House on the Bemerton estate, just off the Caledonian Road, to see Glider. Mercy had called him back with some additional intelligence, which he was thinking how to use. He wasn’t looking forward to this meeting, as it would probably call for some violence, and, having left the warmth of Isabel’s bed, he was steeling himself for the task.

  He’d first met the tattooed thug that was Glider a couple of years ago. Mercy had sent him there after she’d persuaded Alleyne that his life as a fence would be over unless he gave her the address.

  As Boxer came off the Cally Road, he was aware that even at 6.30 a.m. he was not alone. He’d earned a couple of outriders who were bringing him in. In the square of muddy greenery with its broken-hearted children’s playground outside Perth House where Glider had his flat, there were others. By the time he reached the stairs, he had four behind and two in front and he came to a halt.

  ‘Can I help you boys?’ he asked.

  ‘I know you,’ said a voice from behind.

  ‘Then you’ll know I’ve come to see Glider.’

  ‘Let’s have your name again?’

  ‘Charles Boxer.’

  Someone peeled off and made a phone call. Boxer looked at each gang member, saw the nerves in their faces: the shiftiness in the eyes, tension around the mouths. One of them was a girl.

  ‘No reason to be on edge,’ he said. ‘It’s just a social visit.’

  The man with the phone came back, nodded. They grabbed his arms, two kicks to the back of his legs and he was kneeling with his arms up behind his back. The girl came down on to the first step and dropped to her haunches so that they were eye to eye.

  ‘A little body search,’ she said and went through his pockets, took everything out, ran her hands down his flanks, under his jumper, coat up over his head, hands all over his back, round his crotch and arse, down his legs. Shoes off. Not just a weapon search but a wire check too.

  They walked him up the cold concrete stairs in his socks to the third floor and along the walkway to Glider’s flat, where the door was opened from the inside and he was handed over to two men. Only the girl followed from the welcoming committee, carrying his shoes. They took him into the living room, where there was now dark blue furniture and the walls were a bright, buttery yellow like fields of rapeseed. The carpet looked new and was the sky blue of a clear Arctic day. They pressed him into a solitary armchair on the other side of a coffee table from a three-seater sofa. It was warm in the room.

  ‘Your shoes are by the front door,’ said the girl, in bare feet now. ‘He doesn’t like shoes on his new carpet.’

  They waited. She was still holding his possessions.

  ‘The security’s stepped up since I was last here,’ said Boxer.

  ‘That’s my speciality,’ said the girl. ‘He brought me in after your last visit. I could see he was too exposed, didn’t have the right personnel. We’re tight now. So do your business and leave quietly and everything will be fine.’

  ‘Why’s everybody so nervous?’

  ‘Not for me to say.’

  The door opened and Glider came in. He’d let his hair grow out so that it was now en brosse, and he was wearing a dark blue suit with a white shirt open at the neck. None of his tats were visible and his nose looked as if it might have been remodelled into a better shape. A red tie hung from his left hand. He looked like a successful businessman rather than the north London thug he’d been the last time. The girl put Boxer’s things on the coffee table. Glider sat down in front of them.

  ‘Thanks, Jess,’ he said. ‘Behave himself ?’

  ‘Dream guest, boss,’ she said, and left.

  ‘How d’you like it?’ asked Glider.

  ‘Your new set-up or the equal opportunities for women?’

  ‘She’s a diamond, that Jess. Break your arm soon as look at you. Black belt in tae kwisine or something like that. Wipe the smile off your face with her left foot, kill you with her right. Body made out of ship’s hawsers. Lovely.’

  ‘You’ve gone pro, Glider,’ said Boxer. ‘Been making a living?’

  ‘Gone very well since I last saw you,’ he said. ‘Lots of crusty pies, not enough fingers.’

  ‘You know why I’m here?’

  ‘Can’t say I do,’ said Glider. ‘I don’t do black girls any more, if that’s what you’re asking. I moved on. Had to change my tastes. So if your daughter’s done another runner, you better start some other place.’

  ‘Not my daughter this time,’ said Boxer. ‘You were a big help on that. Thanks. She’s very well now.’

  Glider was riffling through Boxer’s wallet, asked for the PIN number on his iPhone, worked it over.

  ‘Your new security outfit seem very nervous,’ said Boxer. ‘You expecting trouble?’

  ‘It’s not a trouble-free business I’m in,’ said Glider. ‘I’ve learnt that. Learnt that from you. Have to expect it from all sides.’

  ‘You’ve got to that point where you’re doing favours for people?’

  ‘Favours? You make it sound like I never done any favours,’ said Glider. ‘Did you a favour, didn’t I?’

  ‘And I thanked you for it.’

  ‘I noticed. Sounds like you’ve got another favour lined up for me,’ said Glider. ‘And the answer’s no.’

  ‘That last time I came here,’ said Boxer. ‘You know how I got to you?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Glider.

  ‘I think you do,’ said Boxer. ‘You don’t organise a security set-up like this without good reason and one of your security detail let slip that this all started because of my last visit. So let’s try again. How did I get to you the last time?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ said Glider, hardening up now, some steel in his look.

  ‘You’re on their radar now, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Whose radar?’

  ‘The Organised Crime Command.’

/>   Now he was listening.

  ‘You’ve heard about the National Crime Agency?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The OCC and the kidnap unit are under the same roof.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I could give you a bit of free consultancy seeing as we had such an amicable relationship the last time we met.’

  ‘I don’t remember the amicable bit,’ said Glider. ‘You threatened to ram an ashtray through my teeth … that wasn’t very fucking amicable, was it?’

  ‘We were talking about my daughter and you weren’t taking the situation very seriously. I had to get your attention.’

  ‘Who or what are we talking about this time? You’re going in circles. You’re not getting to the fucking point.’

  ‘You still using Marcus Alleyne to fence stolen goods for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Marcus Alleyne’s a friend of mine and he said you gave him a job.’

  ‘He’s a friend of yours?’ said Glider as if this was the most unlikely thing he’d heard in a while.

  ‘To be a bit more accurate, he’s a friend of my ex-wife … Amy’s mother. She’s a detective inspector in a special investigations unit attached to the kidnap and extortion department of the Organised Crime Command.’

  ‘And Marcus Alleyne is her friend?’ said Glider. ‘What the fuck is she playing at? Nobody in their right mind …’

  ‘Come on, Glider,’ said Boxer, wearily. ‘Don’t make this sound like it’s news to you.’

  ‘What goes around comes around,’ said Glider, with cold blue eyes.

  ‘You want the OCC on your back?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to help them even if they humped me nicely,’ said Glider. ‘You’ve got to get it straight in your head. I don’t know what’s going on with Marcus Alleyne. I don’t use him any more.’

  ‘So when did you last give him a job?’

  ‘That’s not how it works,’ said Glider. ‘I don’t have jobs to give. I don’t have stuff that needs to be fenced. People ask me who they should use. I give them a name. If they use the name, I get a cut from the deal. I’m just a … whaddyacall’em … facilitator. That’s the word.’