The Ice House (12 page)

He crouched down in front of her and tried to take one of her hands, but she wouldn’t let him. ‘You’re going to hurt me,’ she shouted at him. ‘You’re going to kill me.’ She could hardly breathe. She was backed up against one of the walls, with him right in front of her. He was boxing her in. She could hear herself shouting without any control. She could see herself doing it but couldn’t stop it. Her head felt fuzzy, confused, like she’d had a bang and couldn’t hear properly.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. He had to speak loud because behind him she could see a helicopter hovering in the air above the blazing lights, getting lower and lower. The noise it made was beating at her ears like when you left a car window open and you were going really fast on the motorway, only worse. She put her hands over her ears and sobbed. She felt confused and frightened. What was happening? Why was she with this man? She wanted it all to stop, everything to go back to normal.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said again.

The rhythmic beating began to slow down. The helicopter was out there now, on the ground. She was meant to get in it, she knew that. They had spoken about it. She took her hands from her ears. ‘I’m not doing it,’ she shouted at him. ‘I’m not coming with you.’

‘Look at me,’ he said. He was frowning at her, but not like he was angry. ‘Look at my eyes.’ He pointed at them with two fingers. ‘You know I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you. Look at me when I tell you and you’ll know it’s true. I’m not lying. I’m here to protect you. That’s all I’m doing.’ He was staring at her so hard she had to look.

She remembered what he had done. He had killed men who had shot at her. She had seen them dead, on the ground, the blood running horribly out of their heads. But he had stopped them doing
that
to her. She felt sick suddenly, like she wanted to throw up. He was still saying things to her, still talking.

Then he smiled. It was the first time he had smiled at her, the first time since he had appeared yesterday afternoon, running down the hill behind her house. A man appeared in the doorway behind him and shouted something, but he just ignored him and kept his eyes on her, with the smile changing his whole face. It was a stupid smile, like a little kid, completely different to the way he had looked before – it broke up the way he frowned, turned his face into something friendly and nice, because something about it made him look clumsy and normal, like he couldn’t be serious, like all he could do was tell jokes or take the piss. It made her want to laugh, despite everything. She brought a hand up and wiped her eyes. ‘I don’t have to go?’ she asked him. ‘You won’t force me?’

‘I will never force you to do anything,’ he said. ‘The helicopter is here to take us to a plane which will get us to London. I think we should do it. But you can choose. If you don’t want to then I’ll think of something else. You have my word. It’s entirely up to you.’

20

Julia sat in the front passenger seat of Molina’s car, wiped her eyes on her sleeve and suppressed a sob. Her arms, her legs, the muscles in her face – everything was trembling. She had read about people who lost their kids, read about a kind of numbness that fell over you, paralysing your capacity for fear, but she wasn’t getting any of that. What she was experiencing was continual, sustained terror – a fear so powerful that it was flooding her bloodstream with adrenalin, stretching her senses to a kind of hallucinogenic awareness of every single detail around her as her brain ploughed the million horrific things that Rebecca might be suffering. Her need to hold her daughter, to have her right there, in her arms, was like a hole in her heart, a physical absence that radiated a pounding pain up into the back of her skull and down her limbs with every beat of her pulse. She was past the point of exhaustion, past worrying that the irregular thumping meant her heart was about to stop, past being able to process anything clearly. Her life had become an inflamed concentration of anxiety. It had been going on since the moment she realised Rebecca was missing, growing in strength with each minute that passed without news or progress. What she had thought of as reality was not that at all. What she was living
now
was reality – a terrifying exposure to the worst thing that human life could throw at her.

Molina was outside the car, in the darkness, talking on his mobile in a whisper. They were on some minor road between Gibraltar and Marbella, on the way to Malaga, supposedly. He had taken this route without telling her why. There was a huge, empty motorway that at this time of night could get them to Malaga in half an hour. But he had turned off it, climbed into the hills, used back roads, stopped repeatedly to speak to people on his mobile. The only explanation he would give was that it was part of the investigation. There was no police radio in the car, so he had to use the mobile.

He had used it in La Linea too, almost constantly, whilst she had sat impatiently in a first aid van, in amongst a handful of riot police with blood streaming from injuries, waiting for the single doctor to look at her knee and bleeding nose. The result had been predictable – bandages and painkillers – then back out with Molina whilst he tried to coordinate a four-hour search of a certain section of the town.

But he was competing for resources by then. The riot had not ended with her injury, and Rebecca had slipped from focus as flaming bottles shattered on riot shields and the town began to resemble a minor war zone, with broken glass carpeting the streets and upturned cars on fire. By the time it was dying out and Molina’s men could get on with what Molina thought was the priority, it was well past midnight and all Julia could think was that it was too late. They were gone, if they had ever been there. She could feel it in her bones – her daughter was gone.

But she had sat through it all despite that, answering his questions until nearly four in the morning, when he had decided to end the fruitless search and told her that Malaga was the priority. In Malaga they had set up an incident room with all the right equipment, including phone lines and dedicated staff. His theory was that a criminal gang had burgled her house, set the fire, caused the gas bottles to explode, killed Juan and Maria. Rebecca had stumbled into it and been kidnapped. A ransom demand would follow, but not soon. They would wait weeks before making contact. He hoped to find her before that. His plan was to go to the media at daylight, have her sit in front of cameras and beg for help from the public.

But first they had come here. She had no idea why. She looked out of the open window she was leaning on and could see vague, dark shapes in the night. Hills and trees – in the distance a line that could be the sea, at least forty kilometres away. They were high in the hills somewhere. There was a smell of wild rosemary and pine resin, the clicking of crickets and, more faintly, the sound of a stream or waterfall, from higher up, ahead of her. They were a long way from any houses, even further from the nearest town. That had been Casares – from the sign she had read – a tiny
pueblo blanco
with a narrow road winding up through its deserted, sleeping streets.

The driver’s door opened and Molina leaned his head in. ‘We walk from here,’ he said, in Spanish.

‘Walk where? Where are we? Why aren’t we on the motorway, headed for Malaga?’

He sighed and got in beside her. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is what’s happening.’ He was looking right at her with those same worried eyes. ‘I’ve been trying to set up a meeting with the informant …’

She shook her head, not getting it. ‘What informant?’

‘The one who gave the info that they were in La Linea. The same guy—’

‘You told me you traced her phone. You never mentioned an informant …’ She saw something flick through his eyes, a small mental adjustment.

‘I thought then that was what had happened,’ he said. ‘Arroyo told me that. But it wasn’t accurate. You can’t trace phones that quickly. It was an informant who gave us the information. A reliable informant.’

She frowned. He was lying, she thought – the first time she had suspected him directly. He didn’t lick his lips or change
expression, but she picked it up somehow. ‘Arroyo was in with me when you came and told him you had located her,’ she said. ‘ So it can’t have been Arroyo.’

He shrugged, looking vexed. ‘His people, I mean. Does it matter who exactly told me?’

She stared at him. Where was the lie? Which bit of what he was saying? She couldn’t work it out. Was he trying to conceal the phone trace, or was there never one? She was going to ask him but he started to get out again. ‘We’re in a hurry,’ he said. ‘I’ve arranged a meet with this guy. I’ll meet him here, in the car. The guy will drive here in his own car, then meet me right here. It’s arranged. But you can’t be here, so I have to move you into the woods there. There’s an old hunting hut that belongs to my family. You can wait there, I’ll meet him, see what he has to say, then I’ll come back for you. We need to be in Malaga in fifty minutes so I can brief the whole team.’ He paused to check she had got it all. She had, but she said nothing. ‘Get out,’ he said. ‘We have to be quick.’

He closed his own door, walked round the car and opened hers, then stood there, waiting for her to get out. But she had an alarm bell ringing. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘Just take me to Malaga, then meet with him—’

‘The meeting is in fifteen minutes. We can’t get to Malaga before it happens.’

‘Who is he? Why do you need to speak to him?’

‘I can’t tell you who he is. He’s a top-level informant, well-connected to organised crime networks here. He’s the man who told us your daughter was in La Linea. He’s helping you. He has more information. It could be crucial. He might be able to tell us where she is right now. Get out. Come on.’

Still she didn’t move. ‘Why can’t he give you the information by phone?’

He sighed again. ‘It doesn’t work like that. Phones aren’t safe …’

‘And where’s my phone? Do you have it?’

‘I already told you I don’t have it. It’s at the lab. You won’t be getting it back until we find Rebecca. Now please get out and follow me. If he arrives early and sees someone else he will simply drive away. This is important. You understand?’

She looked up at him. ‘Where are you wanting to take me? Tell me again.’

‘A hunting refuge. Just over there a few hundred metres.’ He pointed. ‘Some of this land belongs to my family. That’s why I came here, why I arranged it for here. The place is comfortable enough. You will only need to wait twenty minutes probably.’

She got out carefully, trying not to put too much weight on her bandaged knee – though there was much less pain now, she could feel that there was swelling. She stood in the open door facing him and looked into his eyes, from very close. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’ she asked. She remembered again Rebecca’s message about the policeman shooting at her.

He frowned at her. ‘Why would I not tell you the truth? I’m trying to find your daughter. That’s my job. I know what you’re going through.’ He spoke quietly, his eyes on hers, his voice inflected with a wounded tone.

She felt a tightening in the back of her throat. There was nothing to tell her he was lying, except that tightness, something operating below a conscious level. But was she being stupid? She was exhausted, living on adrenalin. Could she trust reactions based on some kind of instinct? If anything, he had seemed relatively sympathetic to her, had seemed committed and honest.

She decided quickly. She would go with him, look at the place, but that didn’t imply she trusted him. She didn’t trust him, no matter how decent he seemed. She would need to make him think the opposite though. Because that was the safest way. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Not any more. You lead, I’ll follow.’

21

‘Her mother is alive. The dead woman was a
friend
of the husband. The dead woman was not her mother.’ Viktor’s voice, speaking to Carl through a headset given to him on the plane. ‘I saw it on the news and checked separately. The dead woman was Maria Jimenez. The girl’s mother is Julia Martin.’

‘Christ above,’ Carl whispered, in English. They had been speaking Russian.

‘Your call, brother,’ Viktor said. He didn’t sound amused. ‘What now?’

Carl looked up to where Rebecca was stretched out in a wide leather-upholstered reclined seat, at the back of the cabin, ­blanket over her, eyes closed. He assumed she was asleep, assumed she wasn’t listening, assumed she didn’t understand Russian.

They had been airborne for only twenty minutes, en route to London, having taken off from a municipal airstrip just inside Portugal. It had taken the helicopter just over half an hour to get them there. There had been no going through customs, no passport checks, no questions at all. The helicopter had landed about fifty metres from the jet and they had simply walked over to it. Carl was used to that from previous travels with Viktor, but the efficiency and speed with which Viktor’s people had cleared and set up the whole itinerary had certainly surprised him. Previously, he had no idea that Viktor had any interests inside Spain or Portugal.

The plane was small – a Learjet converted to carry six passengers, though right now they were the only two. There were four luxury seats, facing each other in banks of two, with a table between, then another row of two seats further back, to sleep in. The cabin was quiet – less noisy than a commercial airliner – but the ride was bumpy by comparison and the space very constricted. He had thought Rebecca would find it difficult to sleep, had expected her to need more reassurance. But she was past that, it seemed – she had been asleep within ten minutes, at the end of her reserves. Carl had got the blanket out and spread it over her. He had then walked to the cockpit and asked the co-pilot to set up a call to Viktor, via the satellite link.

‘We need to get her out of Spain,’ Carl said to Viktor now.

‘The mother, you mean?’

‘Yes. They will come for her again. Can you get her out? Get her to London – then we can give her back her daughter. Can you handle that?’

‘You could turn back and get her yourself. You’re already there.’

‘I can’t go back. Not with the girl. I need the girl someplace safe before I can do anything.’

‘I’ll try,’ Viktor said. ‘It will take longer than this has taken though. I had someone there I could trust, but I can’t use him again.’

‘Thanks. When we get to London I’ll make a decision. If necessary I can go back for the mother.’

‘Not London. I diverted the flight to Helsinki.’

Carl frowned. He had promised Rebecca that they were going to London. ‘Why?’

‘It’s always safer to change the flight plan. You don’t know who has had access to the original. But anyway, you’re coming to me, and I’m not in London, I’m in Helsinki. I found out who is behind it.’

Carl stood up and walked towards the cockpit end of the cabin, a little further from Rebecca. ‘Tell me,’ he said, quietly.

‘Sergei Zaikov paid for it.’

That led to a long silence. Carl chewed his lip, tried to ­organise his thoughts. ‘You sure?’ he asked.

‘No. But pretty sure. I’ll know more later today. But that’s what I’m being told right now.’

‘Zaikov.’ He cursed under his breath. ‘Why would Zaikov hire me? I don’t get it.’

‘I’m certain he never knew it was you,’ Viktor said.

‘He would surely know who he was hiring.’

‘Why? You never knew who was hiring you. That’s the way it works, isn’t it? Guaranteed anonymity. On both sides.’

That was how it was supposed to function – an anonymous cartel of businessmen hiring anonymous contractors, but the screening arrangements had never prevented Viktor from getting behind the façade, as he had now – so why couldn’t Zaikov do the same? ‘Why does he want her dead?’ Carl asked. ‘You get anything on that?’

‘Nothing but rumour. It’s possible the husband had a debt.’

‘The guy I found in the house?’

‘I assume so.’

‘So Zaikov wants the whole family put down? How much was the debt?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if that’s good information. It’s the middle of the night in Europe – difficult to get as much as I would want. I’ll have more later. You’ll be in Helsinki in three hours, so we can talk face to face. Zaikov will arrive here either today or tomorrow, on one of his boats. He has a conference. That’s why I’m here.’

Carl was impressed. ‘You can find out where Zaikov is going to be? Your people gave you all this in the middle of the night?’

‘No. I already knew that. Zaikov is important to me.’

That puzzled Carl. There was an obvious way that Zaikov had been important to both of them during the last ten years, but Viktor hadn’t meant that.

‘Does it change anything?’ Viktor asked.

‘That it’s Zaikov? No. I don’t have an alternative. I need the girl safe, I need her mother out of Spain, then I need to see him. I need it cancelling.’

Viktor grunted. ‘I’m ahead of you, little brother. I’ve already considered that. I think it might be possible but I can’t say more now. Not on this link. We’ll discuss it when we meet.’

The conversation over, Carl walked back through the cabin, pondering the new information. He stood near Rebecca, watching her, trying to work out the meaning. She was asleep, no doubt about it. He thought about waking her, to give her the good news that her mother was safe and well, that his brother would get her out of Spain and they would meet again, soon. He could tell her all of that without lying, but then realised he would have to tell her the destination was no longer London. She might not like that. It could wait until she had rested more, he thought. He didn’t want a repeat of the screaming fit in the waiting room at the helipad.