by Tom Bale
‘Clive,’ Michael said, as if the name itself was a sour taste.
Nerys clicked her tongue. ‘It proved to be a mistake.’
‘So you are twice divorced?’
‘He died.’
A beat of silence, Renshaw nodding to himself as he digested the news. ‘A pity,’ he said at last, ‘that he was unable to share in your good fortune.’
‘Well, there you go,’ said Nerys. ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t that what they say?’
Michael decided that they had revealed more than enough to put Renshaw at ease: it was time to reverse the direction of travel, conversationally-speaking. He said, ‘My mother’s always been vague about her working life. You’re the only one of her colleagues that I’ve met.’
Renshaw gave Nerys a quick, uncertain look, then said, ‘It was a small team.’
‘But not NHS? Some kind of private care?’
Renshaw nodded. ‘Quite run-of-the-mill.’
‘Doing what, exactly? What was your role?’
‘A doctor.’ Renshaw was bristling, his pudgy face bright red above the grey fluff of his beard. He didn’t like this line of questioning, but a subtle nod from Nerys told Michael that he was authorised, for now, to go on pushing.
‘A doctor? Wow. What did you specialise in?’
‘I was a GP, originally. I worked in several locations. Inner cities, some truly horrendous places. Just as I was becoming jaded, I was offered a new … opportunity. Your mother, I knew from her days as a midwife. She too was eager for something different.’
‘So who employed you?’
‘Ah …’ Renshaw heaved out a sigh, set down his glass and rested back on the sofa.
‘That question, I’m afraid,’ said Nerys quietly, ‘brings us to the reason why Edward needs to stay here tonight.’
Renshaw nodded wearily, then shut his eyes, as if he could barely compose an answer.
‘As with your late father, our employer demanded absolute loyalty. But there were criminal elements to some of his businesses – elements which your mother and I knew nothing about.’
Yeah, right, Michael thought. As if his mother would work for someone and not acquaint herself with every little weakness, every scam. That was one of the things that had so infuriated his father: the way Nerys had been able to root out every skeleton in his closet. Given that ability, it was little wonder that her own secrets had been buried so deeply.
Playing along, Michael said, ‘So what are we talking about here? A gangster?’
The question was directed at his mother, who nodded.
‘Rather a melodramatic term, but that’s what he is at heart, yes. A gangster.’
Renshaw sighed again. ‘And now it seems that, quite inadvertently, I have made an enemy of this man. I am so very grateful to Nerys here, for the refuge she has offered me.’
Thirty-Eight
So that’s you. What about the woman, and her kid?
This was the question Michael was itching to ask, but he could see that Renshaw was exhausted, tetchy, and half drunk. A look from Nerys confirmed it: leave him for now.
While Nerys escorted Renshaw upstairs, Michael fetched a bottle of Grolsch and paced the room until his mother returned. He felt a pleasant tingle in his stomach; a sense of nervous anticipation.
She came in, turning to push the door to, but not shutting it completely.
‘We need to hear if either of them comes down.’
He couldn’t help but grin: she was ahead of him there.
‘I’m trying to imagine what kind of criminal organisation needs its own in-house medical team.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘Would I?’ He grunted. ‘Actually, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I suppose I was shocked, at first, but not really surprised.’ He flashed a smile. ‘I’m more annoyed that I didn’t worm it out of you at the time.’
She said nothing until she’d helped herself to a fistful of cashew nuts and settled into an armchair. ‘I don’t think many children give a thought to their parents’ careers, as long as there’s food on the table, and money when they need it.’
‘You’re saying I didn’t show an interest?’ He pulled on his bottom lip while he trawled his memory. ‘Did I show an interest? I must have done.’
‘We met up so rarely, there were better things to talk about.’
‘Like Dad and his pneumatic girlfriends.’
‘And that.’ She met his gaze. ‘But when you did ask, I used to lie.’
‘Mother!’ he exclaimed, with mock outrage. ‘Lying to your son and heir!’
‘It’s not a game, Michael. You’d do well to remember that.’
Chastened, he said, quietly, ‘I just can’t believe you led this sort of … double life, and I never cottoned on to it.’
‘I took the view that the less you knew, the better it was for you.’
‘But you used to be so disapproving of Dad’s financial shenanigans.’
‘Only because I thought he’d get caught – and then look at the trouble you’d have been in.’
‘Well, that makes sense.’ He came and perched on the side of her armchair. ‘So why am I here, exactly?’
‘First, you need to understand that I wouldn’t involve you if I had any other choice. You and the grandchildren, you’re all I’ve got …’
Her voice choked up a little. Sometimes she did it for effect, especially if Robyn was competing for his time and energy, but in this instance it seemed genuine.
‘He sprang it on me. Called up this afternoon and said he needed a room for the night.’
‘He didn’t mention the woman or the baby?’
‘Not a word. And he didn’t say the problem was anything to do with Nathan Laird. Otherwise I’d have told him, quite frankly, to swivel.’
‘Nathan Laird,’ Michael repeated slowly. ‘What is he, a Tony Soprano character?’
Nerys didn’t crack a smile. He watched her pushing the nuts into her mouth, one at a time, like some kind of burrowing animal.
‘Edward knows not to cross a man like Laird, that’s what worries me. Sneaky little sod.’
‘What, Laird?’
‘Renshaw. He was burnt out as a GP when Laird picked him up. He’d been done for embezzlement. Kept moving practices because he was so rude and dishonest. And he used to assault the patients.’
‘Sexually?’ Michael asked; more interested now.
‘Not really. Just rough with them. Though it was often the young females,’ she added, as if that had only just occurred to her.
‘And what do you think he’s done now?’
Nerys pursed her lips. ‘It’s serious, goes without saying. But I know he left the organisation last year, around April or May, it was, because one of Laird’s people emailed, asking if I’d be interested in going back with them.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘Wasn’t relevant. I turned them down flat. Didn’t need the hassle, or the money.’ A bleak smile. ‘I also made it clear I wasn’t any fan of Renshaw’s, and I’m bloody glad I did. But they never gave a hint that he’d caused them trouble.’
‘So where’s he been all this time? And can you please tell me what he’s done to piss them off?’
‘He’s taken money, he admitted that much.’ Another snatch at the bowl of nuts. ‘But there’s more to it. He knows something he’s not supposed to know.’
‘What, like, market sensitive stuff?’ Michael was taken aback when she looked at him as though he was a pitiful idiot.
‘No. Like something he can use to destroy them.’
‘Can’t he give it back?’
Her scorn went up a level. ‘If somebody takes a secret from you, there’s only one way you can be sure they won’t blab.’
Michael was silent for a moment, both overwhelmed and worried about making a fool of himself again.
‘Murder?’
‘You have to understand that Nathan Laird isn’t some common-or-garden thug,’ Nerys told him
. ‘He’s a businessman, every bit as much as your father was.’
Michael raised his eyebrows. Like most successful entrepreneurs, his father had always had a touch of the street brawler lurking within him.
She went on: ‘To start with, it was drugs, I think. This was years before I joined them. Gradually it all became more legitimate. Gambling, clubs and pubs and what have you. Laird keeps himself very clean, but there are people who’ll do the messy work for him.’
She paused, but Michael knew she had more to say.
‘The thing is, if Laird hears that I’ve given shelter to Edward, that’ll be me written off. I’m a traitor. Worse than that, a threat.’
‘And Renshaw knows this, I suppose?’
‘Oh, yes. You can bet he does.’
Responding to the stress in her voice, he placed a hand on the back of her head, gently stroking his fingers through her hair. ‘So, in effect, we’re bound up in this now, whether we like it or not. What do we do about that?’
This earned him a grateful smile – because he’d said we – and then she was sombre again.
‘This secret, whatever it is, must be bloody valuable. And like I say, we’re hung for a sheep as a lamb. The challenge is how we put Laird’s mind at rest, and give him back whatever it is Edward took – ’cause he’s got to have some proof – without making ourselves the sort of liability I just mentioned.’
She closed her eyes, enjoying the massage, as he asked: ‘The sort that has to be eliminated?’
‘Mm. Exactly.’
‘Well,’ he said drily. ‘That is going to take some finessing.’
She laughed, more at his dry delivery than at the comment itself.
‘And there’s the woman,’ Michael added. ‘Where does she fit in?’
‘No idea, yet.’ A wariness crept into her voice. Her eyes opened and she sat forward. She knew what Michael was asking, and he thought: Sod you, then.
He stood up. ‘What’s she like, anyway? Is she my type?’
A snort. ‘They’re all your type, Michael.’
‘How old? Tall, short, slim, curvy?’
‘She’s about thirty. Quite pretty – and smart with it, I’d say. Light brown hair. Same height as Robyn, but slimmer, narrower at the hips. Maybe a size ten. Good legs, I would think.’
‘I’m liking the sound of this. And married, yes?’
‘Yes, but hubby doesn’t know where she is. Edward let her send a text, using one of his phones. He took Alice’s phone when they stopped at the services and made sure to drain the battery.’
‘Clever old fox, your friend Renshaw.’
‘He is. It means the husband has seen a message that Alice is safe, but the only way he can contact her is through Edward’s phone.’
Nerys confided that, as a further precaution, she’d disconnected the landline after showing Alice and her daughter to the nursery.
‘The last thing we want is the police turning up, and Alice claiming she’s being held here against her will.’
‘Is she likely to do that?’
‘I think she trusts Edward, more or less. And I laid on the charm with a trowel. But it’s important that we control her ability to communicate, at least till we’ve decided where this is going.’
Michael nodded. ‘Okay, so let me get this straight. When Alice texted her husband, she couldn’t tell him her destination?’
‘Apparently all Edward said was near Gloucester. No specifics.’
‘So nobody knows where she is?’ He could barely contain his excitement. ‘And, uh, what—’ His voice had gone thick; he cleared his throat. ‘I mean, what are the possibilities here, do you think?’
Nerys fixed him with a steady gaze. In that moment he could see exactly how his father had fallen for her: she was a perfect combination of tough and pragmatic and – well – sexy.
‘If it’s my honest opinion you want, Michael, I’d say the sky’s the fucking limit.’
Thirty-Nine
Ruth woke to utter darkness. A pounding headache. Her mouth so dry it felt like her throat might crumble into dust.
But she remembered it all: that was something. No cognitive impairment; just a burning shame that she had been taken so easily.
Within a few minutes she had ascertained that she was alone in her captivity. She was in some kind of large metal box: a shipping container, possibly. There was rough matting on the floor, which stank of old sweat and rotten meat. Ruth wasn’t restrained in any way, so she could kneel, and then stand, making sure there were no injuries she’d overlooked.
A weak slap against the side of the container produced a dull metallic echo. Clearly they were not concerned if she made a noise. Had to be somewhere remote.
Her head was woozy, so she dropped to her hands and knees once again and crawled around the perimeter, looking for something to use as a weapon. Her hands grew sticky from the dirt and grime that covered the matting. The stench was revolting.
She didn’t hold any hope of finding a way out, but neither did she expect to find a torch. And yet there it was, unmistakable in shape, waiting in the far corner for her to discover it.
A penlight. Not big or heavy enough to hit someone with. Still she gripped it for a second, comforted for only as long as it took to understand why it had been placed there.
Something they wanted her to see.
They probably thought she’d understand that, and perhaps try to resist; but knew that curiosity would prevail.
As indeed it did.
Ruth had already guessed: she just hadn’t admitted it to herself. The smell told her what it was.
She pressed the button and a thin beam of light illuminated the floor at her feet. She moved it around in a slow circle, then directed the beam on to each of the four walls in turn.
Blood. Dried to black in splashes on the walls. Dark puddles of it, congealed on the matting.
This was a warning: See what we can do.
See what we can do to you.
Harry didn’t have a great night. Every time he suppressed his anxiety enough to make sleep possible, another guest would slam a door, flush a toilet or trundle past his room with a wheeled case that seemed as loud as a Formula One car.
By six o’clock he’d given up, and made a final weak coffee from the tray of complimentary beverages. Then he showered again, slowly massaging his scalp beneath a stream of blissfully hot water. It wasn’t much of a struggle to decide what to do next, simply because his options were so limited to start with.
He was ready to go by six thirty, leaving a five-pound tip for the cleaner. He knew Ruth had paid up front the night before, so he had no qualms about not checking out. He felt slightly bad about leaving her case behind, but only slightly.
No one paid him any attention as he left the hotel. It was another fine and bright day, the sun just appearing; with only a little high cloud creeping in from the west. A deep frost sparkled on the cars and the grass verges. Harry shivered as he walked. His shirt and tailored jacket had been fine yesterday for work; not so good for travelling on a freezing cold morning.
Crawley’s train station was only a couple of minutes from the hotel. He kept his head down as he entered the station from East Park Road, on the opposite side to the main building. He used a self-service machine to buy a ticket to London Victoria, and was glad to see that, being a Saturday, the platforms were virtually deserted.
He crossed the tracks to the booking hall, intending to buy a newspaper. There was a plastic stand outside the small café, but Harry stopped abruptly when he saw the front cover of the local paper, the Argus. His own photograph occupied almost a quarter of the page, below a screaming headline: BRIGHTON MAN SOUGHT IN DISAPPEARANCE OF WIFE AND DAUGHTER.
He turned and bolted, certain that anyone who glanced at him would immediately make the connection. The only saving grace was that in the picture he was clean-shaven, whereas now he had several days’ growth of stubble.
He stood at the far end of the platform, telling h
imself that his fellow passengers wouldn’t notice him: they had their own lives, their own preoccupations. When the train arrived he leapt aboard and kept his face turned to the window. The journey passed in a mist of panic, and he arrived at Victoria unable to recall having had a single clear thought in the previous forty-five minutes.
The concourse was quiet here, too. Harry decided to risk using the ticket office. He needed information on the best route to Thetford, and figured it was unlikely that many people in London would have been scouring the news about Sussex. He didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that the hunt for him had interested the national media.
The woman who served him was pleasingly indifferent. Harry paid for his ticket in cash, wondering if later the police would examine CCTV and trace the relevant transaction.
Tough if they did, he thought. He wasn’t an expert; he wasn’t a spy or a secret agent. He didn’t even know what he hoped to achieve by going to Norfolk.
All he knew was that Alice and Evie were lost to him – and Ruth, despite her vanishing act, seemed like his best hope of finding them. And this woman, Keri, was his only link to Ruth.
Forty
There was no good reason to delay the inevitable, so Ruth elbowed the side of a container a few times. She heard a shout, and felt the thud of running feet.
A series of clunking noises warned her that the door was opening. Even when she shielded her eyes with her hand the intrusion of daylight was overwhelming. She had to turn away, which suited her captors just fine.
‘Shut your eyes! Kneel down, hands behind your back.’
She glimpsed a large man in black overalls and a clown mask, holding a gun in one hand and a canvas bag in another. Another man behind him, smaller, in a full-face balaclava. Beyond them, a patch of waste ground, mud and brambles and the beginnings of wide open country. The sky was the palest shade of blue, studded with dabs of cloud, and gloriously beautiful; a mackerel sky.
She weighed up her odds and didn’t care for them. She offered no resistance as handcuffs were applied and the canvas bag placed over her head. They bundled her outside, steadying her when she caught her toe on the lip of the container.