‘Another name?’
‘Yes. They’re not as pleased with her now as they were when they took her on. She’s a con artist, as I’m sure you’re now aware. So, seeing as the only other person who knew her intimately is dead, I was hoping for some insightful pillow talk.’
Campbell’s eyes roved the desk for inspiration. He squeezed his hands white.
‘How did it come about, your affair with Irina?’ asked Mercy. ‘What did you do for her?’
‘Why would you think that I—’ He stopped as he saw the flat of Mercy’s hand put up to his face.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ said Mercy. ‘What are you? Late forties to her thirty-six?’
‘Valery earned a scholarship,’ he said finally.
‘You mean he was awarded one,’ said Mercy, ‘and you became a regular at her flat in Cannon Place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you hear anything unusual while you were in her company? Any odd phone calls or strange visitors?’
‘The phone calls were always in Russian,’ said Campbell. ‘There was one visitor while I was there. We were in bed. The doorbell rang. She checked her watch, dressed quickly, told me to go into the spare bedroom and keep quiet. I looked through a crack in the door. I had to see who it was. He was a big guy. Russian. She was nervous. He grabbed her by the hair and said things into her face while she squeaked with pain. He punched her in the side and she dropped to her knees. He left. I went to help her. She puked up with the pain, told me to leave and crawled into bed, fully clothed.’
‘And you asked her who he was?’
‘Of course, but I didn’t get an answer.’
Boxer had tried calling Mercy but her phone was shunting him straight to voicemail. She did this when she was working, couldn’t stand having her interviews interrupted by calls. Why was she working? He couldn’t understand it, called Makepeace.
‘I’m not happy about it either,’ said Makepeace, ‘but I have an agreement with her. If it gets too much she’s to stop and George is reporting to me on her.’
‘She’ll never stop and she controls George.’
‘Sometimes I think . . . no, not sometimes, I do think she has a split personality,’ said Makepeace. ‘She has this professional mode . . . no, it’s more than a mode, it’s even more than a role. It’s like I said, a different personality. One that she escapes to when her life has become too chaotic or upsetting. She seems able to bring her twenty years of experience to bear on a case while leaving her twenty years of emotional history behind.’
‘I know it,’ said Boxer. ‘When Amy’s campaign was at its worst she would just go to work. Her police partners over the years told me she was always calm, focused and had a line for every situation: funny, tough, insightful, unrelenting, whatever was demanded. What worries me now is that this isn’t a normal level of turmoil. We’re in uncharted territory. I know you can’t discuss it openly, but what is this case?’
‘The case is the point,’ said Makepeace. ‘She said it would help her deal with the . . . the loss. A young boy’s been kidnapped. A kid who’s been hiding his mother’s alcoholism from the world and going to school as if nothing’s wrong. It’s given her something to hold on to. She couldn’t save Amy but she can save this boy. Her words, not mine.’
Boxer swallowed hard, trying to keep his own mind at bay. All he could see was El Osito’s black stare beyond the fat end of the baseball bat in his hands. He changed the subject, told Makepeace about the Madrid lab’s processing problems. Boxer asked if he was able to deliver Amy’s tissue samples to the Met Police’s forensic lab in Southwark could Makepeace get it fast-tracked?
‘I’ll pave the way at Southwark,’ said Makepeace, ‘but they work a system, and the best I’ll be able to do is to get it introduced into tomorrow’s processing run.’
They hung up. Boxer dropped off the samples, took a cab to the Royal Free Hospital and found his mother in ICU. She was still on a ventilator, wired up to machines, entubated and catheterised. It was a sobering sight to see his mother reduced to such incapacity when her default setting was ‘utterly capable’.
He held her hand, which was cold, lifeless and wrapped in tape. The ventilator hissed and sucked. He’d never seen her so helpless. It occurred to him that he’d never actively thought whether he loved his mother. She was not the loving type herself and, once his father had disappeared and she’d sent him away to school, an even greater distance had developed. He’d retreated and she’d got on with her life assuming that everybody was like her and work stood still for no man. Then his own life took off and he was immersed in the army, homicide and kidnap consultancy.
And now here they were at a strange hiatus. Maybe that was one of the purposes of death or life-threatening moments, to put everything on temporary hold so that thoughts could be gathered. Mercy had never liked his mother. She had reciprocated with a lack of enthusiasm for Mercy. Boxer himself didn’t much like his mother. She didn’t make herself likeable. She needled him when they were together as if he represented something too complicated for her to deal with. Too much communication and interaction were required for them to reach a point where they overlapped. So they clashed rather than merged. They air-kissed, bumping cheekbones, and never hugged. He’d read somewhere about the narcissistic mother and decided that Esme fitted that bill almost exactly.
The registrar came in. She was in a hurry. She told him the first brain scan post-admission had shown decent activity. They were proceeding with the detox, which would finish later that day. As long as brain activity continued to develop they would try taking her off the ventilator tomorrow. She was optimistic. She left and the ICU nurse came in carrying his mother’s effects in two plastic bags. She told Boxer to talk to Esme out loud. It helped this sort of patient to hear the voices of those close to them—it started things up in the brain. Boxer wondered what those ‘things’ might be in his mother’s head: ‘Oh God, not Charlie again. I think I’ll stay in the coma world if there’s only him to look forward to.’
Boxer took a closer look at Esme. Her skin had that ancient parchment look, the smoker’s lines around the lips, paper-thin eyelids. He was struck by how little he knew her and yet how he’d never quite extricated himself from her bond. And with that thought her finger twitched against his and was still again.
‘Irina Demidova was working for DLT Consultants under the name of Zlata Yankov,’ said Mercy, in the sitting room of the Netherhall Gardens house.
The effect of those words was instantaneous. Bobkov and Kidd came off the sofa, phones in hand, punching in numbers. They left the room, yabbering into the mouthpieces, and went into the study, where they’d set up a computer and communications station.
‘What did I say?’ said Mercy.
Sexton looked at her imploring. The lawyer wasn’t there.
‘I can tell you’re not happy, Chris.’
‘I’ve never been on a case like it,’ he said. ‘Never had so little communication with the kidnappers. I don’t know what to do with myself. They just don’t call. It’s been nearly forty-eight hours without a word. Have you ever been sweated like this?’
‘What’s the DCS make of it?’
‘What can he say? There’s nothing to comment on. I’m the pork chipolata at the Jewish wedding.’
‘Ease up on yourself,’ said Mercy. ‘You can only work with what comes your way. If they won’t communicate there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘It’s as if they know the game,’ said Sexton.
‘They might well do,’ said Mercy. ‘Let’s hear what those two have to say once they’ve moved the threat levels up to critical.’
Bobkov and Kidd returned after fifteen minutes, took their seats with Mercy watching them, expectant. She got nothing.
‘It’s just been confirmed by the UK Border Agency that Irina Demidova left the country, under the name Zlata
Yankov, with her son on the Eurostar with tickets to Paris,’ said Mercy. ‘We’re now waiting to hear from the French whether she boarded a flight or took other transport out of the city. Interpol have been alerted.’
She talked them through Jeremy Spencer’s alleged murder and Demidova’s affair with the headmaster and the assault she sustained in his presence in her flat at Cannon Place.
‘When did that take place?’
‘Late June last year. By September she was working for DLT Consultants and had moved to Parson’s Green,’ said Mercy. ‘It’s not the sort of treatment you’d expect to be handed out to a spy, is it?’
‘It depends,’ said Kidd, ‘how you want things to look to the outside world.’
‘Where the Russian state is concerned you can’t leap to any conclusions,’ said Bobkov. ‘The FSB, which the president used to run, operates in all strata of society. He understands perfectly not only the nature of control, but also the strange blend of business and the criminal, the government and business and therefore the necessary overlap between government and the criminal. And as James says, that incident could have been staged to achieve a number of things: to make it look as if she was managed by gangsters, to induce fear or a sense of protection in the headmaster, or even just to give her orders. The FSB exploit people too. Irina Demidova might not have a choice in the matter. They could be threatening her family. She obviously has the necessary attractions of a honey trap and then there’s the encumberance of a child to be fed and educated. She looks like a strong candidate for exploitation and, if this is an FSB operation made to look like a kidnap gang, they could be expanding her role as the situation develops.’
‘It might be more interesting to consider why they had to murder Jeremy Spencer,’ said Kidd.
‘Presumably to do with the pressure we were applying?’ said Mercy. ‘Maybe he had been giving her information about Sasha, he was feeling guilty and, now that he’d seen what had happened to the boy, was threatening to blow her cover.’
‘It concerns me,’ said Bobkov, ‘that we haven’t heard from the kidnappers for so long. They seem to have pulled Demidova and they’ve terminated Jeremy Spencer. This is beginning to sound like an aborted mission, and that’s not good for my Sasha.’
‘Let’s keep thinking positively,’ said Mercy. ‘George has established that DLT’s driver hasn’t used the Mercedes CLS for the last two weeks and he’s also revealed that it was fitted with a tracker system in the event of it being stolen. George is working with DLT trying to recover the vehicle now. We’ve also applied for a search warrant for the house in Ryecroft Street that Demidova was using.’
‘Didn’t DLT offer to let you search it?’ asked Bobkov.
‘It’s a precaution,’ said Mercy. ‘I don’t think Dudko is being obstructive. He’s realised that he’d been set up to take Demidova on last year.’
‘How was that?’
‘It seems she came with the sweetener of a contract attached. There was some industrial diamond deal that Dudko had been trying to pull off for the previous six months and it was miraculously resolved when he took on Demidova. I suppose the FSB is very strong on satisfying base male needs,’ said Mercy. ‘Sex and money.’
‘Well, we’ve got the cash lined up if the latter is still in play,’ said Bobkov.
A text came through from Papadopoulos.
‘They’ve found the Mercedes,’ said Mercy.
Boxer went to his mother’s flat, used a set of keys from her effects to let himself in. He wandered around Esme’s home, stopping at the photos of his mother and Amy that Papadopoulos had left out on the desk the night before. He could see from the shots why his mother had taken such drastic action, found his arms squeezing his ribcage to keep the expanding darkness in his own chest under control. It came to him, one of the constant refrains of Betty Kirkwood, his mother’s old work friend, who for years after the death of Esme’s business partner and the disappearance of her husband kept saying, ‘Your mother really needs to find a man.’
‘Why?’ he’d asked her one day.
‘Because she’s going to get lonely,’ said Betty. ‘Not for a while yet, but when she quits this business . . . It’s one of those industries that drops you like a stone. One minute you’re connected and experienced, and the next the fashion’s changed and the show moves on.’
And here was the new love of her life—not a man but Amy.
Why had Amy never spoken about her relationship with Esme? Too private, too intimate? They did things together like cooking, which Amy had rarely done with her own mother, not even when she was a child and Mercy had made the occasional cake.
A message came through from Zorrita in Madrid: ‘We need to talk about the second bag. Call me at 17:00 Spanish time. I will have the translator here in case we have a problem.’
He checked his watch, half an hour to go. He went through the shots again, nodding at the two faces he knew so well but which he’d never seen so infused with affection.
He called Isabel, told her he was back and that he’d been to see his mother in intensive care. He was shocked to find it was news to her. Talking to her calmed him. The call filled most of the half-hour wait for Zorrita. He hung up and immediately the intercom phone rang. Someone at the door outside. He went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, said hello. No answer. He looked up at the screen to see who was on camera. Someone slipped out of frame. A shoulder was there and then gone. Kids?
Time to call Zorrita.
‘You found another bag,’ he said.
‘Just north of the site where we found the first bag. Same type, weighed down with an identical five-kilo weight,’ said Zorrita. ‘Had any luck with the DNA?’
‘I’ve arranged a private analysis as well as giving it to the police lab here in London,’ said Boxer. ‘Why?’
‘And how quickly do you expect to get the results?’
‘The private lab said later today.’
‘O.K., that’s good.’
‘Any reason for these questions, Luís?’
‘No, no, it’s nothing. It’s just if there was a delay.’
‘What have you found?’
‘A distinguishing mark,’ said Zorrita. ‘I’ve spoken to the authorities and explained our time problem with the DNA testing, and they’ve agreed that if you were able to tell us about the mark they would be prepared to release the body under the special circumstances. But, look, if you’re going to get the result in an hour’s time or so, then that would be better.’
‘A mark, like a birthmark?’
‘Yes, but it’s not a birthmark.’
‘A mole?’
‘No.’
‘In fact, she has no birthmarks and no moles,’ said Boxer. ‘Do you mean a tattoo?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean anything,’ said Boxer. ‘I know she doesn’t have one on her arms, legs or back, but I haven’t seen her naked since she was a child.’
‘This was on the left buttock.’
‘I’ll ask her mother.’
‘If the DNA results come through, that won’t be necessary. It was only if you were going to have to wait a week or more for the analysis.’
‘That’s very good of you, Luís.’
‘We’re operating on two sites now. I pushed for another team of divers because there are so many crossing points over tributaries to the Manzanares. We’ll find . . . everything, Charles. Don’t worry, I won’t stop until she is returned to you. You have my word on that.’ Boxer was moved, squeezed his eyes shut. Held himself across the chest.
‘You’re a good man, Luís,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have asked for more. How . . . how’s the investigation going?’
‘It was lucky that we knew she was staying in the Hotel Moderno so we can trace her movements. She spoke to the concierge about cl
ubs, and we’ll start by checking those and getting her face around the Puerta del Sol. It might take time, but someone will have seen her. We’ll get our break, have no fear.’
Boxer’s hands went clammy at the thought of David Álvarez. He thanked Zorrita, hung up and sat back, stunned, as his mind pursued the consequences of the homicide squad connecting with Álvarez. His mobile vibrated. The screen told him it was Dr. Perkins from DNA Solutions.
The sweat came up again. The moment of truth. The irrefutable evidence. Was he a father? Did it matter? He took the call.
‘Mr. Boxer, I have your results for you,’ said Perkins, who paused as if he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed with this.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘Are you certain that these slides contain tissue taken from your daughter?’
‘The Madrid homicide chief has assured me that is the case.’
‘Well, she’s not your daughter, Mr. Boxer.’
He felt a little faint with shock, had to breathe in gulps as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air. Perkins kept going.
‘And nor is she the daughter of Mercy Danquah,’ he said. ‘The DNA from these tissue slides matches neither of you. Do you understand me, Mr. Boxer?’
19
4:15 P.M., THURSDAY 22ND MARCH 2012
Hampstead, London
This was not something to be talked about on the phone; this had to be done in person. Boxer sent Mercy a text asking where she was. Still in the Netherhall Gardens house, half a mile away.
Now he was running down Holly Hill through the cold, grey late afternoon, past houses whose front rooms were lit, showing scenes of blissful normality. He hit the junction with Hampstead High Street. The schools were out and the streets full of uniformed kids, as if time had gone back to another era of simplicity and order. He flashed past a group considering the evening showing of a movie at the Everyman and nearly knocked over a Big Issue seller outside Tesco Express. He sprinted down Fitzjohn’s Avenue and turned the corner into Netherhall Gardens and saw Mercy standing in the street, hands in her pockets. She was looking at him with wild white edges around her eyes, as of a startled horse. He ran down the road to meet her, grabbed her by the shoulders, held her tight at arm’s length, told her breathlessly what he’d done with the tissue samples when he’d flown into Heathrow.
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