Girl Seven (24 page)

‘Where you staying?’

‘Kentish Town.’

I smiled, but as I passed her to leave I knew I wasn’t fooling her. She leant against the row of lockers and watched me until I was gone.

She knew something.

When I got outside I put my hand in my pocket and it was empty. I didn’t think anything of it until I’d called Alexei and dropped the recorder with the driver a couple of streets away. It was then that I checked all my pockets again and I knew for sure that she knew something, because Nic’s drawing was gone.

She’d pickpocketed me! I almost couldn’t believe it. The little bitch must have actually pickpocketed me. Or else she had some­how got into the locker, which was a much more worrying prospect.

I couldn’t go back and confront her, so I let it go. I had no idea what conclusions she’d draw from it, or whether she’d even correctly identify the sketch as Nic’s. But at least it was nothing to do with Noel and the Russians.

A day went by. Two days.

Daisy didn’t come into work.

I wanted someone to call me,
anyone
, to tell me something new about DCI Kenneth Gordon. If I was going to disappear, he’d be the person I’d care most about leaving behind. But I didn’t have a choice. I sat on the floor at the foot of my bed and drove myself half crazy with thinking, but I didn’t have a choice.
I didn’t have a choice
. I couldn’t leave, not without him, because once I left I’d never be able to come back.

Until now it had seemed a distant obstacle, but the closer this day had come the larger it had risen in front of me and now here I was, a victim of failed perception.

I took out my mobile and called Noel, but hung up before it started ringing.

Another few minutes of fidgeting with it in my lap and I called him again.

I hung up.

I scrolled through my address book and hovered over ‘Mark’ but I couldn’t tell him. He’d be more loyal to Noel and Ronnie than he was to me. There was only so much I could expect him to do. Daisy wouldn’t understand. Too much had happened. She’d tell Noel because it was the right thing to do, because I couldn’t... Even thinking of Seiko did nothing to calm me. Even if I did find her again, how would I be able to face her after everything I’d done? She’d be able to tell; she’d see that I’d changed. The killing and the lying would have painted something invisible across my features that only she would be able to see.

But I had to leave.

All roads here pointed to dead. I was surrounded by people, suffocating with people, but no one who could help.

Don’t die.

Then my phone rang and it wasn’t any of them.

My hands started shaking the second I recognized his voice.

I whispered, as though I wasn’t alone, ‘How did you get my number?’

‘You left it, remember? First time you were here.’

‘Oh.’ I had a vague recollection of Mark leaving some num­bers but I hadn’t known my mobile had been one of them. ‘Um... Hi.’

Leo Ambreen-King was also speaking quietly. His phone call sounded public; I could hear the movement and activity going on down the line. ‘I get a call out sometimes and... Did you really mean what you said? You can sort me out?’

I could barely stop my words from running into each other. ‘Yes! Yes, I will. I promise. I give you my word.’

‘Really? You got that kind of money?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘I was thinking about what you said... and about your parents and stuff. I didn’t know it was anything to do with anything like that. I didn’t know there was a kid involved, I mean a little kid... I wouldn’t have done it I’d known it was some shit like that.’

‘I believe you.’

‘And I’m really sorry about your family and... stuff.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And you promise you’ll sort me out?’

‘I promise. You have my number. I promise!’

He lowered his voice even more, so that it was almost hard for me to hear him. ‘That picture you showed me was this guy who... I thought he was police. He talked like police.
You
didn’t. He, er... found me through a mate who said I could do some work for him and he offered me a load of nice shit, money, a flat... It’s not like I had a future where I was, it wasn’t like I was gonna go to college or any of that, so I thought... I thought he would sort me out, so he asked me to shoot this kid who I didn’t even know and he told me this kid was a thief and that this kid had done some real bad things so... I did it. I didn’t ask him what this kid had done, really. He wouldn’t have told me anyway.’

My eyes had filled with tears. I couldn’t speak.

‘There was something else though,’ Leo said, talking faster and faster, as if he had been waiting to say this for years. ‘He thought for a little bit that I was gonna have to kill someone else, just one more person, this older guy. Like... twenty or something. But in the end I didn’t have to; he never asked, and then I was nicked so it didn’t make a difference anyway.’

Jensen McNamara, I thought. I wondered if it was my lies that had saved his life.

‘Why...? Why did you phone to tell me this?’ I asked, biting my lip in an effort to control myself.

‘I thought... Well, it was what your mate said, your part­ner or whatever. I thought, he’s not gonna do anything he promised, is he? He’s not gonna sort me out. Someone like me doesn’t mean shit to someone like him.’ He sighed. ‘You guys really shit me up, but you’re real people and everything you told me kinda made sense. You ain’t one of
them.
’

I forced the words out around the lump in my throat. ‘... Thank you.’

‘And... the kid that I...’

‘Nate Williams.’

‘Yeah.’ His voice became strained. ‘Look, I didn’t just do it cos I was offered money or whatever. He told me this kid, Nate Williams, had done real bad things. I thought... I was doing in some criminal, you know. I’m not a bad person, I swear I ain’t.’

‘It’s OK, I know.’ It was all I could offer him. ‘Thank you, Leo. Thank you so much for calling me, I can’t even say how much it means...’

‘That’s fine. I gotta go, but I’m gonna call again.’

‘Right, OK. Leo, thanks—’

The line went dead and I pressed the phone against my forehead.

‘I was right.’ I banged the phone against my skull and started laughing as I repeated the words over and over again. ‘I was
right.
’

By the time Alexei called and told me they were picking me up for a drive-by, I felt calmer. I’d been psyching myself up for that call at least.

I wouldn’t need both until the evening, but one dagger was strapped between my shoulder blades underneath my jumper with my homemade harness. I knew almost exactly what I was going to do. If my plan didn’t work, I wouldn’t live to regret it anyway. They’d made their stance on doing away with me and taking back my indulgent share of the money pretty clear when Alexei had been shaking me by my throat.

This time I sat in the middle of the car, wedged between Alexei and Isaak, while the driver wore sunglasses in the front, even though it wasn’t sunny enough to warrant them.

I memorized the name of the street we stopped on.

‘Over there.’ Alexei pointed in a vague direction, towards some semi-detached houses.

‘Who lives there?’

‘Neville Hallam. We heard him being discussed on your recorder.’

I recognized the name, but only a little. ‘And?’

‘There is a back door through that gate, where the cat is. But you think you can simply walk through the front, yes?’

I gave Alexei the most scornful of glances after I’d managed to identify which house he was talking about. ‘Well he’s a man, so
I
can, yes. You can’t. You won’t be able to come in with me, you’ll attract too much attention. It’s a nice idea, but you know it can’t actually work, right?’

‘You will make it work.’

‘Alexei.’

The driver’s voice from the front surprised me. It was firmer than usual, a definite slap-down, and Alexei reddened.

‘She is right,’ the driver said. ‘We have no reason to deviate from the strategy that worked last time, least of all for your need to control. What do you think she will do, Alexei? She will not be armed sufficiently to restrain the family and then turn on you.’

His English wasn’t as good as Isaak’s but better than Alexei’s.

It irked me being discussed in the third person but that wasn’t what prompted me to speak.

‘The family?’ I repeated, looking at the house with the cat rolling around on the driveway and the neat row of plants and the bicycle tracks down the front lawn.

‘Two children: the daughter is a toddler and the boy a teenager. The older boy may not be there but the mother will be.’ Isaak’s expression didn’t change for a moment when he talked about children, but I saw Alexei purse his lips a little.

My theory about him having a family of his own was con­firmed, which meant that he had something to lose. I wished that I knew enough to attack him through them rather than attacking him directly. It would be easier. It made me think of Mark’s terrifying sing-song voice...

‘And what do you expect me do with them?’ I snapped.

‘Whatever you need to do.’

I looked between them. ‘Seriously?’

‘Think of it as a test of loyalty,’ Isaak said, his hollow white cheeks appearing even more sunken than usual.

‘What, killing a kid? A two-year-old!’

‘We never said you’d
have
to kill them,’ Alexei chimed in. ‘Just that you will have to deal with them. They will be there.’

Isaak got something out of his pocket and held it near my face.

It was a passport. The excitement leapt into my face before I remembered to remain stoic.

‘If all goes well,’ he said, enunciating every word, ‘you get to take this home.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the driver nod.

I thought back to what had happened with Issa and felt the colour drain from my face. I doubted I’d be able to talk my way into the house with the promise of sex as I had last time. I could talk my way past any man, but not a woman.

‘OK, what time do you want to do it?’ I asked the driver.

‘Nine.’ Alexei glared at me for having addressed someone else.

‘Do you know how hard it’s going to be, getting into a
fam
­
ily
house at night? They won’t just let anyone in, you know. They have children.’

‘Are you saying you will not be of any help?’ he sneered.

‘No.’ I sighed. ‘No, I’m not saying that. It’s just going to be harder than last time, that’s all.’

I searched for Nic’s car but couldn’t find it. He may have been parked nearer the house. I knew he had a silver Audi from all the times I’d seen him pick Daisy up, but maybe he wouldn’t be using his personal car for a stakeout?

‘Fine.’ Alexei sat up straighter, trying to brush past the driver’s putdown. ‘We will go in, but after you have taken care of Neville Hallam and the... others. We will give you some time to do what you need to do, then we will enter through the back door, where you will let us in out of view of the road.’

‘OK, fine. Permission to bring my bag, like last time?’ I looked down and noticed that Alexei had a white band of skin around his ring finger, where he had removed a wedding ring.

‘We will search you, so do not think of trying anything clever. All weapons are to be kept in the bag until you are inside. No guns.’

‘That’s ridiculous, even the pathetic thing you gave me with one round in it will be better than
no
gun!’

The driver raised his hand. ‘The Derringer is fine.’

For a moment I thought Alexei was going to cry. He sank a little lower in his seat and was silent, chewing his gum furi­ously. I guessed they might have had an argument amongst them­selves before coming to pick me up. The atmosphere between the three of them was simmering and it didn’t seem to be anything to do with me.

Isaak put my passport back in his pocket.

The driver started the car and reversed out of our space, turning around a little way down the road.

I stayed as low as I could, out of sight of the windows, but I hadn’t seen any sign of Nic. I just hoped he hadn’t seen any sign of me.

I typed the name of the street into the GPS on my phone and caught the underground from Mark’s flat when the Russians had left me alone. It took me about forty-five minutes to get there and during the entire journey I was praying: Let Nic be there
.
It all depended on being able to find Nic. If I couldn’t find him then I was severely lacking any sort of back-up plan.

It took me a while to find the house; the houses on suburban roads like this were all too similar. But the cat was still wander­ing about the driveway and the lawn still had tyre tracks across it.

I stopped outside Neville Hallam’s house and couldn’t see any sign of a silver Audi parked in the road. Crouching down to pet the cat, I tried to spot Nic in the front windows of any of the surrounding cars.

The little black and white ball of fluff wound itself around my fingers.

‘Come on, where the fuck are you?’

I stood up and carried on down the street, in the opposite direction to where we had parked earlier, and that was when I saw it. Nic wasn’t parked in the road. A silver Audi was parked in someone else’s driveway, almost obscured from view by a garden hedge, but not quite.

Taking a deep breath, I made my way over, rehearsing my story.

I’d gone through all the questions he was likely to ask me and I had an answer for them all. But still, there was no way of being certain.

I knew he must have already spotted me when I’d paused outside Neville Hallam’s house. When I was close enough to see the shadow of a figure through the windscreen I gave him a small wave. When I was close enough to see his face Nic got out of the car, looking left and right down the road. He was wearing dark jeans and a hoodie that didn’t suit him. He also looked as though he hadn’t slept properly for days.

‘Er... what are you doing here?’ he said, not bothering to conceal his annoyance or surprise.

‘I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.’