The lift doors closed and Boxer sprinted up the stairs, listening for the moment when the machinery stopped. Each floor had a door with a square glass panel through which the lift doors were visible. At the fourth floor the lift stopped. El Osito got out, turned to his right. Boxer opened the door a crack, enough to see the flat into which the Colombian disappeared.
Back down the stairs, crunching over the glass and out into the dark. Coming up to the Bar Roma Boxer saw the darkness waver and a guy appeared in front of him, head buried in a hood. No words, just the sound of a mechanism, and Boxer looked down at a steel blade pointing at his abdomen.
Still no words. A gesture. Hand it all over.
Boxer made no move. The hooded head came up. Their eyes connected. The ones under the hood realised they’d just made a very big mistake.
10
4:30 A.M., WEDNESDAY 21ST MARCH 2012
Railton Road, Brixton, London
You’re doing that loud blinking shit again,’ said Alleyne sleepily.
‘Leave me alone,’ said Mercy, her eyes stuck on the curl of lining paper in the corner of the room, which was lit by the orange street lamp coming through the slatted blinds.
She was here again. Couldn’t leave Marcus Alleyne alone. She was telling herself it was naked desire, that this would run its course, and sooner or later she would no longer feel that thrill. It was new, this feeling of being in lust with someone. There’d been lust with Charlie, but it had never been this pure. It had been cut with emotional baggage, or ‘head shit’, as Alleyne would have it.
He made her laugh. He was freeing up her mind, relieving her of some strange feeling of restraint she never knew she had. Having this mysterious, unknown fantasy life gave her power. It was so unlike the real Mercy, but then again she wasn’t sure who that was any more.
Now she was going through the morning routine of beating herself up over it, but lightly, not bare fists but kid gloves. What was worrying her more was the call she’d had from Boxer. He’d told her how he’d used the photo and struck lucky with the DJ, but he’d also added that his famous nose was playing up. He was sensing that something had gone wrong, but not where it was on the scale of catastrophe. This had sent Mercy into a mental spin and she’d called Alleyne almost immediately and asked herself round to his flat. Rum. Sex. Guilt. Self-loathing. A natural progression from the shock of hearing Boxer’s words on a bad line from Madrid. At least she’d held back from the spliff this time.
‘What are you doing now?’ asked Alleyne.
‘I’m getting up, Marcus. What does it look like?’
‘It’s four thirty in the morning, Mercy. We’ve only been in bed a few hours.’
‘I’ve got things to do.’
‘What? Like a paper round?’ he said, rolling over. ‘Make ends meet?’
‘A paper round would be a fine thing,’ she said. ‘Beautifully mindless.’
She showered, trying to be thorough with her nether regions in a pathetic attempt at post-coital prophylaxis. She really had to get a morning-after pill. What was she playing at? She didn’t know this guy. She wasn’t taking precautions. She tried to think when she’d had her last period, wouldn’t admit the other thing into her brain. She got dressed. Cuffed Alleyne on the shoulder.
‘Are you sleeping in?’ she asked.
‘Trying to,’ he said. ‘People keep batting me around.’
‘I’ll call you.’
Alleyne rolled onto his back, put his hand behind his head, smiled.
‘You’re just using me like your toy boy.’
‘Bigger than a toy, older than a boy.’
‘Stop with the clever shit, Mercy. You just hiding behind that stuff.’
‘At least I haven’t become one of your bitches yet,’ she said. Alleyne blinked, not quite sure how to handle her.
‘When I first came round here your neighbour said you were out with one of your—’
‘Right, well that’s just the way the kid speaks. It’s not the way I am, Mercy.’
She nodded, conceding nothing, and shoved herself away from the door jamb.
‘You can push me away, Mercy,’ he called out after her. ‘Then you’ll be out there all on your own.’
She put the battery she’d had on charge overnight in the camera she’d brought with her. She went back into the bedroom, knelt on the bed, Alleyne put his hands up in mock protection of himself. She kissed him and smiled her enjoyment at him. He smiled back but was puzzled by her.
Brixton was almost silent as she drove through it to Clapham. The Common struck her as dark and threatening, its emptiness defended by high, swaying trees that clacked in the wind above her head. She thought, as she made her way towards pursuing her hunch, that she was on the brink of something terrible but was unsure of where the horror was going to come from. She was playing a rash game, as if outside a railing on a high building, leaning back and letting go and then snatching back at it. There was only one possible end to this kind of recklessness and it was a long way down.
The Wandsworth one-way system hadn’t had the chance to develop its usual mortar-grinding slowness, and she flashed through it and drove alongside the park with some early-morning dog walkers. In the blackness beyond was the turbid Thames and the point of her hunch. She parked near Putney Bridge outside the Star and Garter pub, got her camera ready.
The grey river was materialising out of the first light, flowing rapidly and relentlessly towards the bridge. The traffic was beginning to tighten, headlights no longer flashing over the bridge but moving spasmodically. And now the first cyclists appeared in front of her, freewheeling down the ramp and onto the embankment. She got two decent shots of the blond-haired Jeremy Spencer as he leaned round the bend and came out of his saddle for the final sprint to the London Rowing Club boathouse, his black rucksack bobbing on his shoulders.
It was almost an hour before the boat returned to shore. Clearly the crew had jobs to go to because they had the boat out of the water and stowed with their oars and were all cycling away before seven o’clock. Mercy drove up the ramp behind Spencer and they joined the rush-hour traffic heading across the bridge. The queues weren’t too bad, but Spencer was making much better headway on his bike. Mercy was dodging and ducking, trying to keep an eye on his massive shoulders, the rucksack in between. He went down the New King’s Road and after about a mile swung right and stopped outside a large Edwardian house on Ryecroft Street. He lifted the bike up the steps and let it hang from his arm as he rang the bell.
Mercy’s next shot was of the woman she suspected was Irina Demidova in her dressing gown, blonde hair brushed, make-up in place, opening the door to Spencer. The woman backed down the hallway as he brought in his bike and leaned it against the wall. They kissed in a way that no one could describe as chaste. Mercy took two more shots. They came apart. Spencer stripped off his rucksack and dropped it next to his bike. Irina Demidova went back down the hallway and closed the door to the street.
The camera shutter clicked for the last time and Mercy sat back in that curious cop state of elation and sadness. Elation that she’d been right about Spencer’s nervous reaction when she’d asked if he might have known Tracey Dunsdon’s old friend, and sadness at having to root around in other people’s dirty secrets, the necessary confrontation and the inevitable denial. Or maybe not. Perhaps the spook, James Kidd, would have other news about Demidova’s pedigree.
Irina Demidova had kissed some ugly frogs in her time so Jeremy Spencer was a welcome change. He had a body that she found genuinely exciting and she could see from the bulge in his training tights that the feeling was mutual.
Pulling out his waistband, looking into his eyes, she closed her small, cool hand around his hot tumescent cock. He pushed his hands down the front of her dressing gown and grabbed her breasts, caught her nipples between his fingers.
She wanted this to happen
in the bedoom so she started to lead him up the stairs, but Spencer had more urgent needs and ran his hands up her legs to her buttocks and tried to bring her down to her knees to take her from behind on the staircase.
This really had to happen upstairs, so she broke free and ran up to the top where she looked back at him and let the dressing gown fall away to reveal no bra and a ridiculously small pair of knickers. He leaped up the stairs three at a time. She ran to the bedroom at the front of the house and threw herself on the bed. He came after her, stripping off his top. She sat up on the edge of the bed and beckoned him to her.
She wrestled his training tights down to his knees and ran her fingers up his bare thighs and took him into her mouth. She could sense his urgency, that he wasn’t in the mood for foreplay, but she needed to slow him down, create as much time as possible. Spencer had other plans. He pulled away, rolled her over, stripped down her pants and drove into her, gripping her hips. Within a few maddened thrusts he was finished and fell forward, crushing her beneath his colossal frame, moaning into the duvet. She squeezed out from underneath him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, panting, face down on the bed. ‘Bit quick. Bloody desperate.’
She rolled over on top of him, fitting her breasts in between the wings of his shoulder blades.
‘You could always make it up to me,’ she said, whispering over his shoulder into his ear.
A noise came from downstairs. Spencer looked at her over his shoulder.
‘What was that?’ he said.
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Christ,’ said Spencer, rolling over so that she slid off his back. ‘Valery’s not here, is he?’
‘No, no,’ said Irina. ‘He’s staying with a friend.’
Spencer slumped back.
‘So what was that noise?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Irina, taking hold of his limp cock, trying to renew his interest. ‘It was probably just the writer guy next door. He’s always knocking around the place, tearing his hair out.’
She bent her head down over him, but he pulled her back up, held her in the crook of his arm.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘This is going to have to stop. After that detective came to school yesterday. I can’t . . . ’
‘What?’
‘I told you,’ said Spencer. ‘The Bobkov boy was kidnapped. There’s going to be a lot of poking around. They’re going to find things out and I’m a hopeless liar.’
She’d read him just right. It was, after all, like looking in the mirror. She knew he felt guilty, manipulated too. His cock wasn’t responding.
‘So why did you come here?’ she asked.
Silence.
‘To say goodbye,’ he said, which he knew wasn’t quite the truth of it, but it would have to do in the absence of any willingness on his part to face up.
She rolled away from him, could feel his eyes on her back, but no hand reached out to draw her back in. He stood and pulled up his training tights, slipped his top back on. She sat up, drew her heel up onto the bed and rested her chin on her knee.
‘You know it really is best you say nothing if you want to keep your job,’ she said. ‘Because you won’t get another one if you talk . . . ever.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but you should see this detective. She has a way of looking at me, listening to what I’m saying. Not believing me.’
She got up, walked straight past him and retrieved her dressing gown from the top of the stairs, wrapped herself in it. She could see that his rucksack had been moved. They went downstairs. Spencer didn’t notice a thing, too involved in himself. He shrugged into the rucksack, picked up his bike.
‘It’s been good,’ he said and kissed her on the cheek, let himself out, shut the door behind him.
She shook her head sadly and went downstairs to the basement. Valery was sitting in front of a computer with three-dimensional shots of Spencer’s house keys on the screen.
‘Everything O.K.?’ she asked.
‘I’ve just sent them through,’ said Valery.
‘He heard you,’ said Irina. ‘I told you to be quiet.’
‘I heard you too.’
Mercy drove to the school in Hampstead wondering where Demidova’s son might be during these trysts, and waited in her car for the teacher. She had no chance of following him through town in traffic. He arrived at 8:35 and weaved his way between the Range Rover Evoques, Porsche Cayennes and BMW X5s. He was still dressed for rowing with his rucksack on his back. She waited five minutes and went in to see the caretaker. She showed him the last shot of Irina Demidova closing the door. He confirmed it was her.
On the way up Netherhall Gardens she saw George Papadopoulos on the pavement and pulled over, told him about Spencer and Demidova.
‘Interesting,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘Have we got a shot of Demidova’s son?’
‘That might be pushing it a bit, to have him as the bait,’ said Mercy. ‘Too risky, don’t you think?’
‘Worth a try.’
‘I haven’t checked to see if the boy enrolled at the Westminster school,’ said Mercy. ‘If he did, he might find it tough getting all the way from Hampstead to Westminster in time for registration in the mornings.’
‘There’s also the fact that Sasha would know him, which is a good and a bad thing,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘As a kidnapper you would never release Sasha if you knew he could identify the Demidova boy.’
‘Something ugly for us to think about,’ said Mercy.
‘I’ll see you up at the house,’ said Papadopoulos.
Bobkov and Kidd were playing chess, sipping small cups of tarry coffee, leaning forward, elbows on knees, the tension between their shoulder blades palpable. There’d been no further calls from the kidnappers. They broke off to listen to Mercy’s report. No sign of Butler, the lawyer. Sexton listened in.
‘I’ve checked out Jeremy Spencer and he’s clean,’ said Kidd. ‘Demidova’s a bit more complicated.’
‘Is she legal?’
‘Oh yes, she’s legal. She has a son called Valery. She was married but split up with her husband before she came to the UK.’
‘Why did she come to London?’
‘She answered one of those Russian girl ads, you know—sad, lonely guy in London seeks gorgeous blonde, totally out of his league, to be a part of his fascinating life in Lewisham,’ said Kidd. ‘She got here, enrolled in a language school and after a year got a job. Then she rented a flat in Cannon Place and brought her son over.’
‘That must be some job,’ said Mercy. ‘Thousand pounds a week rental, boy at an international school. I mean the place I’ve just seen in Ryecroft Street down in Fulham has got to be a couple of grand a week. What does she do?’
‘That’s where it gets complicated. Originally she was self-employed and paid by several different Russian companies as a freelance consultant.’
‘That sounds entirely above board,’ said Mercy, easing her foot off the irony brake.
‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring her in for questioning just yet. We’ve got people working on the Russian end of things,’ said Kidd. ‘As far as the UK is concerned, her self-employed status finished last June and HMRC haven’t been able to track her down since.’
‘So she might have become a consultant kidnapper or reverted to being a member of the FSB,’ said Mercy.
‘Or both,’ said Bobkov.
‘I don’t expect you to tell me anything specific about your investigation into your friend Tereshchenko’s poisoning, but could you indicate whether your enquiries had started annoying powerful people?’
‘That’s not any easy question to answer,’ said Bobkov. ‘Let’s put it this way. I haven’t been walking around Moscow asking my old FSB pals openly about what they know, but I have been working with people and we’ve been talkin
g to sympathetic scientists to try to find the provenance of the polonium 210. We know, from the contamination of BA flights, that it came in from Moscow. What we’re trying to prove is that it came from a specific nuclear facility to which only certain people have access and from which, we imagine, very few people have the right or power to remove something as deadly as polonium 210.’
‘And have people started to feel . . . uncomfortable?’
‘We’ve had no luck, yet.’
‘Has there been a change of approach as a result?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has that involved more open talk?’
‘Not by me. I’m too obvious. But I have carefully selected people working in Russia, making visits to nuclear facilities.’
‘You heard who won the presidential election on March 4th?’ said Kidd.
‘Plenty of people were unhappy with the way the vote was . . . manipulated, if that’s the right word,’ said Mercy.
‘And here we are two weeks later,’ said Bobkov, taking a call on his mobile.
They watched unmoving as he listened. Sexton got to his feet. Bobkov held up a hand.
‘Tracey had a stroke,’ he said, closing down the call. ‘They’ve moved her into intensive care.’
At 7:30 A.M. Juan Martín, still unemployed and now twenty-one, was walking his parents’ dog by the River Manzanares on the outskirts of Madrid not far from Perales del Rio, close to his parents’ flat. He was just going under the bridge of the M50 orbital motorway when the dog scrambled down the bank to the river’s edge to inspect a black plastic bin liner. As Martín drew near he coughed against the horrific stench of bodily putrefaction. He shouted at the dog, who became more frantic in his scratchings. As he slid down the bank trying to control his gagging reflex, Martín saw a swollen human foot sticking out of the bag. He grabbed the dog’s collar, hauled him back up onto the path and connected the lead. The dog lunged and barked. Martín dragged him away back to the motorway bridge. He tried to call his parents. No signal. He walked back to the flat.
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