Bad Boy (33 page)

Not surprisingly, being there made Banks immediately think about
his brother Roy, and that night he had wobbled back, a little drunk, from the Dog and Gun, puzzled as to why Penny Cartwright had turned down his dinner invitation, and found Roy’s distress message waiting for him. That had set off a chain of events that took him down to London and deep into the shady world his brother inhabited. Burgess had been involved in that case, too, as he had in so many.

Banks dropped his suitcase in the bedroom, noticing the bed was freshly made up, covered in a green candlewick bedspread, and glanced out of the curtains. Nothing had changed. The room looked out over a tiny disused Sandemanian graveyard, no bigger than a garden, and some of the tombstones leaned against the wall beneath his window. He had often enjoyed a feeling of tranquillity sitting on the window seat looking down over the graves on moonlit nights, listening to the gentle wind sough through the long grass, but tonight he didn’t feel like sitting there. That night five years ago, he hadn’t known just how closely death was to brush against him, but this time it almost had. Almost. Annie was alive, though she might lose the use of her legs, or even everything from the chest down. Tracy was alive, though her life was in danger. He was in no mood for
memento mori
.

Banks took his smaller carry-on into the bathroom, where he unpacked his regulation plastic bag of toiletries before settling down in the living room. Then he took out the bottle of ten-year-old cask strength Laphroaig, all dutifully sealed and stamped, that he had bought at the San Francisco Airport duty free. He hadn’t been certain when he bought it that he would want to drink it himself, but the little taste Burgess had given him at Heathrow had gone down very well indeed.

After he had poured himself a small measure into a glass he found in the kitchen, Banks opened the living room curtains and lifted the window a few inches to let in some air. The room had a magnificent view north, from the thin ribbon of Gratly Beck glittering in the moonlight past Helmthorpe Church, with its square tower and odd turret attached, then beyond the lights of the small market town to the opposite daleside, peaking in the magnificent limestone curve of Crow Scar above the high pastures and drystone walls, still visible, white as bone in the silvery moonlight.

Banks carried a portable docking station to play his iPod in hotel rooms, and now he took it out and plugged it in. The sound wasn’t great, but it was impressive enough coming from a unit the size of a paperback. He docked his iPod, selected Norma Waterson’s solo album and turned out the overhead light as that beautifully forlorn voice started singing “Black Muddy River,” one of his favorite late-period Grateful Dead songs. He sat down and put his feet up, sipped Laphroaig, looked out toward Crow Scar and luxuriated in the music.

When he closed his eyes the backs of his eyelids seemed to fragment in discs and chips of bright shifting colors, like a kaleidoscope. He rubbed them, but it only made them worse. He sipped some more whiskey and tried to keep his eyes open. It was about three o’clock, and he didn’t think much was likely to happen until morning. He felt so impotent, unable to do anything for Tracy, and he agonized again over getting in touch with her mother, his parents, or Brian. If anything happened to her, they’d never forgive him. But if she came out of it as he hoped she would, then they need never know. Her name hadn’t been mentioned in the media yet

Norma Waterson sang about how God loves a drunk, and Banks continued to follow the drift of his thoughts. He didn’t know if he even wanted to try to sleep or not. It had been so long, he feared that if he did drop off he might not hear the phone, which sat on the chair arm beside him, might never wake again. It seemed ages since he had woken up in Teresa’s bed at the Monaco in San Francisco. Surely it couldn’t be only two days ago? She would be back to her life in Boston now, and their encounter would start slipping slowly but surely from her memory, the way such things do without further contact. The flesh forgets.

When Banks finally became aware of the mobile playing the opening notes of Bach’s
Brandenburg Concerto
no. 3, Norma Waterson had long finished, and an early-morning mist was rising from the valley in wraiths around the church tower, like will-o’-the-wisps slithering up the opposite daleside. Above Crow Scar the indigo sky was tinted with the rosy hues of dawn.

He awoke with a start from a dream that scuttled away into the dark recesses of his mind like some light-shy insect, but left him feel
ing unsettled and edgy. Reaching for the phone, he almost knocked it off the arm to the floor, but he managed to hold on and flip the case. “Banks,” he mumbled.

“It’s Winsome. Sorry for waking you but there’s been developments. Madame Gervaise wants you to come in now. Shall I drive over and pick you up?”

“Please,” said Banks. “Tracy?”

“No, no, it’s not Tracy or Annie, but it is important. I can’t tell you any more right now. Information’s still coming in. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be ready.” Banks closed the mobile and ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. Twenty minutes just about gave him time for a quick shower and a shave, which might help make him feel more human. He’d brush his teeth, too; he could still taste the Laphroaig. As he moved toward the bathroom he wondered what Gervaise could be in such a tizzy about.

O
VER TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES AWAY, AND NOT
much more than an hour earlier, Commander Richard Burgess, Dirty Dick to his friends, was equally discombobulated when his phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning, and the officer commanding the stakeout team watching Justin Peverell’s house requested his urgent presence there. The cheap lager Burgess had been drinking earlier down the pub had turned his stomach sour, and it rose up in a loud and tasty belch when he stood up. He glanced back at the bed to make sure he’d been sleeping alone that night. He had been. Then he pulled on yesterday’s clothes, helped himself to three paracetamol, two Rennies and a large glass of water fizzing with Alka Seltzer, grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and headed out to the garage. If he had no time for coffee in a morning, he always found that Coke gave him the caffeine jolt he needed to get his brain into gear. These days, his body tended to lag a bit behind, but his work was rarely physically demanding. Getting up early was usually the hardest part of his day.

The traffic around the Canary Wharf wasn’t too bad in the predawn light, and he was heading northwest, driving through the fringes of Limehouse and Bethnal Green, then through Hoxton and Holloway in no time. His destination was just off Highgate Hill, past Junc
tion Road, and all in all, it took him a little over half an hour.

The house they had commandeered for surveillance was on the op
posite side of the street to Justin Peverell’s semi, a few houses down. Luxury surveillance was one of the perks of Burgess’s new position, which mostly involved counterterrorism and not shutting down a valuable people-trafficking network for the sake of an old friend’s daughter. Not for him a shitty old Subaru littered with McDonald’s wrappers and a plastic cup to piss in. That national security was at stake was all they had to say these days. That covered a multitude of sins and opened a multitude of doors, including this one. They had packed the occupiers off to a cheap hotel for the night, moved in and made themselves at home. According to DS Colin Linwood, the surveillance team leader, the owners couldn’t get away quick enough, visions in their minds of wild-eyed barbarians aiming portable missile shooters.

“So what’s so bloody important you have to wake me up before dawn?” Burgess demanded of Linwood as he stormed into the house.

“They’ve gone, boss,” Linwood said.

Burgess scratched his head. “Who’s gone? Where?”

“French and Brody, sir,” quipped DC Jones, who was now, in Burgess’s mind, about to remain a DC for an unusually long time.

“Ciaran and Darren, that is.”

“Hang on,” said Burgess. “Let me get this straight. I put you bozos on surveillance, and the first thing you tell me is that the men we’re waiting to see arrive have left? Am I even close?”

“They must have been already inside,” said Linwood. “There was no way we could have known.”

“Geez, I would never have thought of that.” Burgess flopped on the armchair and swigged some Coke.

“Fancy a coffee, sir?” said Jones. “They’ve got one of those fancy Bodum things and some of that nice fair-trade Colombian.”

“Might as well,” said Burgess, putting the Coke can down on a smooth polished table, where it made a sticky ring. “Black, two sugars. And strong.”

Jones disappeared into the kitchen. “So what time did you lot arrive?” Burgess asked Linwood. “Remind me.”

“Eleven fifty-four
P.M.
”

“And Ciaran and Darren left when?”

“Three thirty-six
A.M.
”

“That’s a bloody long time. You sure you couldn’t have missed them going in?”

“No way, boss. We’ve even got a man watching the back.” He smiled. “Not quite as comfortable as we are in here, but…”

“Someone’s got to get the short end of the stick.”

“Anyway, like I said, they must have been already in the house when we arrived.”

“Which means that their man in Yorkshire tipped them off as to where to find Peverell well before we did our little favor for our colleagues up north.”

“Well, boss,” said Linwood. “In all honesty, they’re pretty lucky we did it at all, given the circumstances.”

“So they were in there for over four hours?”

“Looks that way.”

“And you didn’t clock anyone else coming or going?”

“No way.”

Jones came back with the Bodum and cups on a silver tray. “We’ll just let it brew a few minutes, sir, huh?”

“Where did they go from here?” Burgess asked.

“Ferguson and Wilkes followed them to a hotel on the Old Compton Road. Mid-range. Nothing too ostentatious. Lot of tourists. Americans, mostly.”

“I don’t need the pedigree of the fucking hotel,” said Burgess. “I hope Fergie and Wilkes are sitting tight.”

“They are, boss. Nobody’s going anywhere without us knowing.” Jones poured the coffee and they all took grateful sips. “Well done, lad,” said Burgess. “Terrific coffee. We’ll make a detective of you yet. The way I see it is like this. Brody and French were in there an awfully long time. Either Peverell wasn’t in and they were waiting for him, or he was in and…”

“They worked him over, got what they wanted?”

“Something like that. Either way, soon as we’ve finished our coffee, we’d better get over there and suss out the situation.”

“It might be an ambulance job, boss,” said Linwood. “If they were in there that long. Maybe we should go in right away.”

“After DC Jones has taken the trouble to make us this wonderful coffee? Peverell is a scumbag who helps smuggle in underage girls forced into prostitution,” said Burgess, ever fond of the crude American slang he picked up from TV and movies. “Letting him bleed a few minutes longer won’t do anything but good for the human gene pool. It’s Brody and French who’ll lead us to McCready and the DCI’s daughter now.”

So they finished their coffee in peace as the light grew slowly outside. A weary-looking shift worker got out of his car a few houses down. It was still a dull, overcast morning, and bedroom lights started going on as people got up to get ready for work. This was a decent neighborhood, Burgess thought. People had worked hard for their little piece of England, and while they weren’t rich, they were mostly comfortable in their middle age, despite the recent credit crunch. Perfect protective coloration for a smooth operator like Justin Peverell. Not that he’d be home all that often, anyway, in his line of work. But if Peverell was expecting McCready, and, more to the point, expecting handsome payment for forged documents, then there was every chance he would have thought it worthwhile hanging around for a day or two.

“Okay,” said Burgess, putting down his empty coffee cup and getting to his feet. “Let’s go. You got the door-opener, Col?”

“In the boot.”

First they picked up the battering-ram on their way. They wouldn’t use it unless they had to, a quiet entry being far more desirable than waking up the entire street. Then they would have to send for reinforcements just to keep the neighbors back if anything went awry, as things so often did when Burgess was around.

The door was maroon, with pebble-glass windows at the top. First, Burgess knocked gently and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He glanced over at Linwood, who shrugged, then tried the handle. The door opened. The three of them paused a moment on the threshold, then entered.

They found themselves in the hall, with hooks for coats and a mat for shoes. Burgess calculated that the living room was off to the right, through another door. The front curtains had been drawn, so they hadn’t been able to see inside from the street.

Burgess went in first and switched on the overhead light. He stood transfixed and appalled for a split second, then he turned and stumbled into Linwood and Jones before he doubled up and vomited up last night’s curry and lager all over the hall mat. The other two held on to him as he gasped for air and cursed. It was the first time he had ever been sick on the job since he’d been a cadet, and he had seen some things in his time.

When Burgess had regained his equilibrium, helped by a glass of water Jones brought from the kitchen at the back, he took a deep breath and led them in. The scene was so posed, so markedly surreal, that it took everyone a few moments to put the pieces together and work out exactly what they were looking at. Then Jones and Linwood staggered back, handkerchiefs over their mouths. The smell was awful. Piss, shit and fear desecrating a nice upper-middle-class London semi.

Two hard-backed chairs, the kind that had probably been at the dining table, faced each other about eight feet apart. In one chair sat what had once been a very beautiful woman. Probably Peverell’s girlfriend Martina, Burgess guessed, long black hair trailing over her pale naked shoulders. Naked as the rest of her, as far as he could see.

From what Burgess could make out on a preliminary examination, it had taken her a long time to die, and it had been a very painful process. Gray duct tape covered her mouth and bound her hands to the chair behind her back, one ankle to each front leg. It was hard to say exactly what had killed her. There were cuts and areas where the skin had been stripped, or peeled, from her flesh, blood between her legs. On her left hand, her index and middle fingers had been docked at the first joint, the flesh peeled off and the bone sharpened like a pencil point. One eye was wide open, dead and staring, but the other socket contained only the raw remains of an eyeball; a viscous trail streaked down her cheek like bloody, unset blobs of egg white.

There was more, much more, things the likes of which Burgess had never imagined before and would remember till the day they put his body in the ground. He was crying, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Such beauty. Such pain and horror. Linwood and Jones weren’t in any condition to notice his tears, anyway.

In the other chair sat Peverell, fully clothed, also gagged and se
cured with gray duct tape. At first glance he seemed dead, too, nobody home behind the glazed eyes, but Burgess noticed that when he looked carefully, he could see Peverell’s chest rising and falling. There wasn’t a mark on him, but if Burgess had to choose, he couldn’t for the life of him decide in which position he would rather be.

“Right,” he said, turning to his men. “Stop staring at her tits, Jone-sey. Get on to Fergie and Wilkes and tell them to bring French and Brody back here right now. Back here. Got it? I want a word with those bastards
before
we have to get the brass and the lawyers involved. And Col, the SOCOs will have our balls for this, but get a sheet from upstairs and cover the poor cow up, would you? Then somebody see if they can’t find a bottle of decent whiskey in the place.”

TRACY AWOKE
with a start, Jaff shaking her shoulder, and realized that she must have dozed off in the early dawn light. Perhaps Jaff had, too. But now he was wide awake, fully dressed and looming over her, fiddling with the ripped sheet to untie her. “Come on, wake up,” he said. “Wake up. It’s time to go.”

Tracy opened her eyes and moved her head groggily. Jaff was fresh out of the shower, but she hadn’t heard a thing. The curtains were open, and she could see people already at their desks in the office tower. She gathered the sheet around her and headed for the bathroom. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Eight o’clock. Get a move on. You’ve got ten minutes.”

Tracy showered as fast as she could. There was no time to do anything with her hair except give it a quick rub with the towel. Luckily, it was short and it would dry quickly. She wished she had more clean underwear, but she was wearing the last of her new pairs of knickers. The best she could do was turn them inside out before she put them on. She binned her bra. She had always thought her breasts were too small, anyway, so she really didn’t need one. The outer clothes she had put on last night in the van were still fine.

Before she could even finish brushing her teeth, Jaff was standing at the door. “You ready yet?”

“Coming,” Tracy said. “Coming.” She glanced desperately around
the small bathroom for an escape hatch or a weapon of some sort. There was nothing. It would be no use, anyway, as Jaff hadn’t allowed her to lock, or even to close, the bathroom door. Resignedly she rinsed out her mouth and went back into the room. Jaff was just finishing off a line of coke, probably not his first of the day.

Everything went smoothly at checkout. There was a different girl at the desk this morning, a tanned brunette, but the smile was the same, the flirtatious body language. When he had finished, Jaff strode over to Tracy with that cocky, confident walk of his, hold-all still in his hand, and nodded toward the door. She left with him.

Tracy had expected that they would take a taxi to the garage, but Jaff clearly had other ideas. Taxis could be traced, he explained, when she asked, and taxi drivers could be questioned. Caution, or paranoia, seemed to be his natural state of mind now. They walked all the way to the Corn Exchange among the hordes of city workers dashing to their little hutches for the day. How Tracy wished she were one of them. Everything seemed so normal, yet so completely unreal. At one point Tracy realized that she wasn’t too far from Waterstone’s, where she worked, and she wondered if she should make a dash for it. Then she remembered the things Jaff had said, the threats of retribution he had made, and she believed them. She couldn’t live her life like that, always feeling scared, in fear, always looking over her shoulder. She had to go through with this right to the end. Whatever that end might be.

They caught a bus to Harehills and Jaff sat silently all the way, tapping his fingers on his knee and gazing out of the window. Soon they would be in a new car racing down to London, where Jaff would get his new identity, sell his wares, pack enough cash to start somewhere else, and disappear. Tracy didn’t believe he would sell her into slavery, and she still couldn’t believe that he would just kill her in cold blood, despite the evidence of his violence she had witnessed. With any luck, once he got where he was going and got what he wanted, he would simply lose interest in her, dump her and forget all about her. She hoped.