It was just such a surprise to be standing in front of her. Forget for the moment the widespread bamboo-zlement, I was momentarily flummoxed. Of course, she did not know me from Adam. The photo shoot, which I recalled as being particularly stressful, was a few years back, but even if it had been yesterday, she probably still wouldn’t have recognised me, and not only because I was out of context. There is a particular self-absorption that comes with fame, an expansion of the ego that prevents the famous from recognising anyone they do not perceive to be on their level of importance. They are not necessarily rude or obtuse, and they will chat away quite happily. They just will not listen to a damn word you say. Gail Pike was like that. Or, as Trish would say, up her own arse.
Gail beamed at me and said, ‘I’ll get it for you now.’ She turned from the door to a telephone stand, picked up an envelope and gave it to me. It wasn’t sealed, just tucked in. I peeked inside. Cash. Five twenties. I looked up at her. She was still smiling. She raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said. Her brow furrowed. I was surprised that it could. ‘I’d also like a word, if I could?’
‘With me? I’m just on my way out.’
‘It’ll only take a minute.’
‘Is it professional or private?’
‘My profession or your profession?’
‘Are you trying to be smart with me?’
‘No, ma’am.’
Ma’am? Behind her, Marija crossed the hall from the kitchen, with the child attached to her leg, dragging him playfully along. She glanced at me, and then did a double-take. She hurried on into the lounge.
‘I mean, do you wish to speak to me in my capacity as an MLA, and you as a private citizen, or do you wish to speak to me in your capacity as a representative of Malone Security and mine as a householder who overpays you every month?’
She said it with a smile.
I gave her my smile in return. It wasn’t in the same league, but it has been known to melt the hearts of confused drunken women. ‘It was security I wanted to have a word with you about.’
‘If it’s the usual lecture about setting my alarm and informing you when I’m away on business, then I’ve heard it all before.’
‘It’s not that, Mrs Pike.’
She studied me. She must have liked the cut of my jib. She said, ‘This way, then . . .’
She turned and walked into the kitchen. I followed her. The kitchen had a stone floor and an island in the middle with half a dozen bar stools around it, though they probably had a different name for them. There were toys scattered about. From the lounge I could hear what sounded like Scooby-Doo.
‘Mrs Pike . . .’
‘Call me Gail. Excuse me while I . . .’ She had her mobile phone in her hand. She glanced at it, shook her head, and quickly began to pick out a text. While she did it she said, ‘That’s the problem with mobiles, you’re never unreachable. There.’ She sent the text. ‘Do you want a coffee? I’ve been in politics a long time; when people say it will only take a minute, it never does.’
‘No – thank you, Mrs . . . Gail.’
‘Please yourself.’ She pressed the switch on the kettle. Her hand was bony, the skin loose, big, expensive rings. Hands and neck, you can’t do much about them. I knew she was mid-forties but her tits were still toddlers. She said, over her shoulder, waiting for it to boil: ‘So what’s going on?’
‘There was an incident a few days ago at the house immediately behind you. Jack Caramac’s place?’
‘Really? A burglary?’
‘Someone enticed their son into a car, took him away for approximately one hour, released him unharmed.’
‘That’s awful.’ She poured her coffee and turned with it. ‘I didn’t hear it on the news.’
‘Mr Caramac wanted it kept quiet. We’re just warning the neighbours, particularly those with children, to be extra careful.’
‘And have they been caught?’ She sat on one of the stools.
‘No, ma’am.’ I cleared my throat and sat opposite her. ‘You haven’t noticed anything or anyone unusual, out of place, suspicious in the area?’
‘Nope, but then I’m hardly ever here. My husband’s the same.’
‘Professor Pike.’
‘That’s him. We’re very busy people. If anyone’s seen anything it would be Marija . . . our nanny. Do you want me to . . .?’
‘In a wee minute. Marija . . . she’s not local, then?’
Gail glanced towards the living room, then leaned a little closer. ‘No. She’s . . . European.’
‘And has she worked for you for long?’
‘A few months.’ She came even closer, leaning in. I averted my eyes. ‘Why, is she . . .?’
‘No, no . . . just checking, I’m sure she’s . . . just fine.’ Gail sat back again. She sipped her coffee and made good solid eye contact with me over the rim of the cup. ‘Do you . . . mind me asking how you came by her? An agency, or personal recommendation?’
‘It was . . . I’m not sure. I think my husband handled it.’
‘You’re aware that she also works for the Caramacs?’
‘She does? Ah – maybe I did know. I just can’t recall. I deal with so many people every day . . .’
‘Are you not close to the Caramacs?’
‘Close? No. I wouldn’t say that. They’re actually quite distant, I mean physically; what with the length of our garden and the fences and hedges, we wouldn’t really see them at all, especially now with the new house going up.’ She set her cup down. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you’re asking an awful lot of questions for someone from Malone Security.’
‘Just trying to be thorough, ma’am.’ There it was again. Get a grip. ‘You don’t have a CV or references from . . . Marija, is it?’
‘Marija, yes. And no. Now that I think about it, maybe she came to us through the church. We do a lot of outreach work in some of the poorer countries. Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s it.’
‘You haven’t noticed any unusual behaviour? Maybe people you don’t recognise calling to see her at the house?’
‘No. She’s been perfect. Really.’
‘Does she have a husband, boyfriend? Involved in a lesbian relationship?’
Gail almost choked on her coffee. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘It’s just something the Caramacs mentioned. They have, ahm, suspicions. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. This day and age. Just with children around . . . formative age . . . well, you know what I mean . . .’
She was watching me very closely. She flicked at her hair. She set her cup down. ‘What’s your name, Mr Malone Security?’
‘My name? Paddy. Paddy Barr.’
‘Well, Paddy Barr, you’re very thorough. I’m impressed.’
‘Just trying to keep the area safe, Mrs Pike.’
‘Well keep it up, you’re an absolute inspiration.’ She hopped off her stool. ‘Now I must fly.’
‘Understood. Thanks for your help. Can you let yourself out?’
She nodded and started to turn away. Then swivelled back. ‘Can I what . . .?’
I slipped off my own stool. ‘Only rakin’,’ I said.
She laughed.
I laughed.
She could have my vote, any time.
Abagail Pike issued instructions to Marija through the open living room door, then led the way out of the house. I pulled the front door closed behind me. I had to back out of the drive to allow her to get the Porsche out. When she straightened it, I waved my hand, indicating that ladies should go first. She wiggled her fingers thanks in the mirror as she sped away. As soon as she rounded the bend, I reversed back into the driveway. I’d made sure to leave the front door on the latch. Marija was suitably surprised, not to mention terrified, when I strode into the lounge. So surprised, not to mention terrified, that she let out a scream and dropped the baby.
But it was okay.
Babies bounce.
32
Marija was backed into the c
orner of the sofa with the screaming tot now held tight against her chest like a very soft human shield. She was trying to shush it as I stood over them and pointed my big hand down at her and said, ‘Now I want some answers,’ but she could hardly hear me over the baby, and in truth I probably wasn’t that threatening. The bandages were so thick I looked like Winnie the Pooh with his hand stuck in a honey pot. Patricia would just have laughed at me. But Marija was a stranger in a strange land, and one with a guilty conscience to boot. I could see the fear in her eyes as she peppered the top of the baby’s head with kisses. As it quieted, she whispered, ‘Please . . . don’t . . . hurt the child . . .’
I backed up a bit. I sat on the arm of the chair opposite her. ‘Your name is Marija Gruevski. You are from Macedonia. Last time I checked, Macedonia was not in the European Union. That means that unless you are an undercover brain surgeon, you are here illegally. Of all the people you could have picked to work for, you first pick Jack Caramac, then Peter and Abagail Pike. The Pikes have built their careers on being whiter than white. If they discover that you are illegal, they will have you out of this country quicker than a very quick thing. If they find out you’re a lesbian and illegal, which they would prefer to be one and the same thing, they will probably burn you at the stake.’
‘Please,’ begged Marija, ‘I need job . . . money . . . please.’
‘Then tell me what happened with little Jimmy, Marija, what happened with Jack’s boy?’
‘Nothing happened. Please, I . . .’
‘You kidnapped him.’
‘No. Yes. It was not like . . . All we do . . . we go for ride in my wife’s car.’
‘Betty.’
‘Yes. Betty. She is drunk. She love the baby, cannot have her own. She wants to keep him, for us to go away, nobody will ever find us. Maybe to my home in Skopje. She does not know what it is like, it is poor country. I earn here more as nanny than home as teacher. I tell her no, I am happy here, we must take back. We fight. I am very angry. I tell her I am taking Jimmy home, and I am going to tell police. She threaten me. But I take him. I put him in garden and then hide until they find him. I did not hurt him. I am so sorry. Please.’
‘You’re forgetting about the note, Marija, the note, the shut the fuck up note. What about the note?’
‘My wife write note. She drunk and angry, thought I was going to tell police. I was locked in room with Jimmy, would not let her in. She write lots of notes . . . threatening me, what she will do, what will happen, and puts them under door, but I do not see this one. Jimmy pick it up and put it in his pocket. Mr Caramac, he find, he thinks there is real kidnapper. There is not. This is the truth. Please do not tell. Do not send me home. I cannot go home. I love my wife. She will do nothing like it again. She does not drink any more. She promises.’
The tears were flowing down her cheeks. She was shaking. The tot began to wail again. He either sensed her distress, or he hadn’t bounced that well.
I stepped outside. If I’d been a smoker, I would have lit one. Two, possibly. Her story was believable. I had the evidence of my right hand to know what Betty was capable of. Twenty years of journalism had taught me that there are very few criminal masterminds; that conspiracies are in the crossed eyes of the easily convinced beholder; that most crimes are domestic in origin; that the victim usually knows the perpetrator; that they are mainly committed with a staggering amateurishness; that the great majority are fuelled by drugs or alcohol. Betty’s bungled kidnap fitted in with all of this quite nicely. And I wanted to believe her. It would allow me to walk away. I could stamp the file closed, or better still, solved. It didn’t particularly matter to me if they got away without punishment. Jack and Tracey now knew to keep a better eye on their son. Marija had been given a scare. Betty was off the drink. Little Jimmy hadn’t suffered. They say kids don’t remember anything before the age of six. They could have kept him for a couple of months and kicked him up the arse every morning, and he still wouldn’t recall it a year down the line. There were three hundred and sixty degrees of resolution. The problem was that it was all a little bit too much like Quincy.
It didn’t explain Jack’s sudden decision to fire me. Paranoid one day, upbeat the next. It didn’t explain Tracey, flirty and ready for action one minute, incommunicado the next. It didn’t explain Jack sending in a solicitor to threaten me with legal action, or recruiting Malone Security to warn me off when I’d done little more than ask a few questions and hang around a bit looking gormless.
I patted my pocket and took out the envelope Abagail Pike had given me. One hundred pounds. There was something not quite right about that either. I could see why she would pay a tradesman in cash, but a security company? In the age of internet banking, or failing that, direct debit and standing orders? I’d walked up to the home of one of our leading politicians, and his wife had stuffed cash into my hand without me having to ask for it. Cash meant off the record, off the books, tax free. Marija was off the books, an illegal alien, that meant tax free. Jack had brought me in instead of going to the police; he had paid me with an envelope of cash, off the record, tax free. Jack spent every day of his working life questioning the integrity and honesty of important people. Times were hard, the economy was screwed, everyone was holding on to what they could, but it still didn’t feel right for the Pikes and the Caramacs to be paying cash.
For all I knew, Marija was the greatest actress in Macedonia, or the only one. Her story might be true, in so far as she was telling me exactly what had happened with Jimmy, but I was sure there was something more lurking in the background, something whose significance she mightn’t even be aware of. I needed more detail, not just about her and Betty, but the Caramacs as well, and for the hell of it, the Pikes.
I was just turning back inside when the first Malone Security Range Rover pulled into the driveway. I say first, because it was swiftly followed by a second and a third. Out of these vehicles six men emerged. They gathered together, and advanced.
Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.
I said, ‘You’ll be wanting your motor back.’
I removed the keys and tossed them forward. Nobody tried to catch them. They landed on the ground with a pleasant jangle. In their eyes it probably meant that I had just attacked them with a deadly weapon. In response they withdrew expandable batons from within their zip-up jackets, the jackets with Malone on one side of the zip and Security on the other. They then proceeded to expand them.
I said, ‘Those are classified as offensive weapons under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953.’
For some reason, even though I was right, it did not deter them.
They advanced. I would have retreated into the house and locked the door against them and they could have laid siege, quite possibly for months; I could have survived on baby food and Calpol. Could have, if the door had not been unceremoniously slammed in my face by Marija, with the tot in her arms. Given the time frame, she would have had to press an alarm button while I was inside talking to her, but unless it was located in the back of the baby’s head, I was fairly certain she hadn’t. It made more sense that Malone Security had some means of keeping track of their vehicles, and that once Paddy Barr and the cruiser had reported it stolen, it was a simple matter of following the bleep.
‘Is it too late to apolo—’
As ever, I was too late with the sorrys. The blows began to rain down on me, and I fell to the ground. Getting a hiding is the same virtually everywhere. Lenny’s husband and his mates had adopted a similar approach, possibly because it worked. They beat me, and they beat me, and they beat me. And when their arms were sore, they rested them, and instead kicked me, and kicked me, and kicked me.
When they were finished, they picked me up and threw me into the back of the lead car, although not before they put down a plastic sheet to collect the blood. They were talking at me, but I couldn’t hear them. One of them sat beside me and held me upright when I threatened to keel over. My head rested against the window. I blew misty red
bubbles on to the glass. We pulled out of the driveway in convoy. Through the red haze, just a few metres along from the gates, arms folded, leaning against her Porsche, stood Abagail Pike.
33
Someone who sounded a lot like Patricia was saying, ‘We should get him to a hospital.’
Someone else who didn’t was saying, ‘There’s no broken bones, and I know how to cure him.’
‘You’re not a doctor and he’s not a ham.’
‘I’ve performed more operations than any thirty surgeons in Ulster combined.’
‘On cows.’
‘Pigs, lambs, rabbits, three ostriches and a kangaroo. It’s still surgery.’
‘It’s not surgery when you’re just cutting them to shreds.’
‘There’s an art to it, you know.’
At last Patricia’s lovely face swam into view and she said, ‘Awwww, darling, you awake, how you feeling?’
And I mumbled without anything resembling words coming out.
Another face appeared over her shoulder. ‘Hey, there, you okay?’ asked Joe the butcher.
I grunted. My mouth was dry as bone, and my nose stuffed with blood.
A third face: Bobby Murray. He just looked at me, shook his head and turned away.
I said, ‘Harp . . .’
Patricia smiled and gently set the rim of a bottle of water against my fat lips and tilted; I coughed and spluttered and dribbled.
‘There you go, easy now, babe . . .’
I was on a single bed, in a small, neat room. There was a TV in one corner, a two-ring cooker in another. There was a shower, with an open curtain, a small sofa.
‘Where . . .?’
‘My humble abode,’ said Joe.
‘I . . . how . . . Trish . . .?’
‘Whoever did this to you dumped you outside your office. Lucky Joe was in his shop at the time, came out and got you.’
‘Joe? You live . . .?’
‘Yep, on the premises, all on me ownio.’
I raised my hand. ‘I’m Dan.’
‘I know that.’ He shook it. It hurt. ‘Hope you don’t mind, went through your phone and by a process of elimination found your wife’s number.’
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