Wake Up Happy Every Day (37 page)

‘I don’t know! Yes, I guess. There’s a note.’

‘A note?’

‘Yes, a freaking note. Jeez. I told you already.’

‘What does it say?’ She starts wailing again. ‘Come on, Mary get it together. What does it say?’

‘It just says . . .’ I hear her gulping for air. ‘It just says, “The kid will be fine as long as you’re smart. Wait for our call. Don’t call the cops.” That’s all it says.’

Fuck’s sake. It’s like something from a shit no-budget made-for-TV movie.

I repeat it back to her. ‘“Kid will be fine as long as you’re smart. Don’t call the cops.” That’s really what it says?’

‘Yes, and it says to wait for their call. I’m really sorry, Russell. I was only out of the room a minute—’

I cut her off. ‘I’m coming back. I’ll get a cab. Where’s Sarah?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve left a message.’

‘Keep trying her. And Mary – if something happens to that little girl I’ll . . .’ I’ll what? What will I do? I can’t finish the sentence. I just click off.

I’m already on my feet and I throw a note on the table. I don’t even see what denomination it is. I look at Catherine, the woman who has been wasting my time with her stupid mad shit. But I’m taken aback by how she’s looking at me. Just for a second I am shaken out of my rising panic. She’s looking shrewd, alert, focused. She looks fucking sharp. Entirely fucking sane is what she looks like.

‘I have a car,’ she says. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

I hesitate. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Take you ages to get a cab.’ And she’s right. She might be nuts but she’s right there and she’s got a vehicle.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘But don’t talk please. Just drive me where I say. And don’t say a fucking word.’

‘Deal,’ she says. And then she moves from her seat fast so she’s in front of me and she pulls me into a powerful hug.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I say. ‘We’ve got to go.’

‘Of course,’ she says meekly, and she shrugs. ‘I was just—’

‘Forget it. Let’s go now. Please.’

Thirty-nine

CATHERINE

If her passenger had been taking in anything of his surroundings he might have been impressed with how she handled the car. She certainly doesn’t drive like a mental case. Catherine drives that Toyota Camry – the middle-aged female jogger of cars – as all cars should be driven, with an unhurried deliberation but still with an eye for gaps in the lines, opportunities to bob and weave to shave minutes off the journey time as estimated by the satnav. No over-fussy traffic cop would have found anything to pull her over for, and yet they are in Russian Hill way quicker than your average chump commuter could ever manage it.

Yes, if Russell Knox was in any state to think clearly about things he would applaud. That’s what Catherine thinks anyway as she watches him swipe his card at the gate of this mansion block and dive inside.

Catherine puts the Camry into drive and moves off. As soon as she is out of sight of the house, round the corner in Jackson, she stops and pulls Nicky’s phone out from her pocket. It takes her twenty seconds to find Mary’s number and another twenty to scan that number with Ariadne. How, she wonders, had they managed to operate before that neat little app had been developed?

But anyhoo, less than two minutes after delivering Russell Knox back to his house of tears she has Mary’s address and is heading there. One thing she knows about child abductions – whether by perves or ordinary decent thieves – is that they are usually an inside job. Want to find that paedo child killer? Start with the uncles, the stepbrothers, the neighbours. And the father, of course. Don’t forget him. That ransom note? Usually dictated by a trusted retainer. Except where it is dictated by the uncles, the stepbrothers, the neighbours or the father.

Even driving the way Catherine does, it’s going to take her twenty-five minutes to get to Potrero so she has plenty of time to think.

She’s confident that if the kid is still alive, then she can get her out, that won’t be too much of a problem. It’s what she’s going to do afterwards that’s the concern. She should, actually, be pretty pissed off with Tough because he’s put her right in the shit.

As soon as Madam knows that she knows what the firm is really about, then it’ll be goodnight sodding Vienna. So her only option really is to disappear. Drop off the radar, like Tough did himself. Not Abkhazia necessarily, though Tough has offered her his place there, but somewhere like it. Somewhere out of the way, some failed state without much likelihood of rejoining the civilised family of nations any time soon. And somewhere where her skill-set might be valued and rewarded.

And there’s always Mossad, of course. There’s always them. They take anyone. They’re always hiring.

Yeah, she should be pissed off with Tough, but she isn’t. Always worth knowing the truth, even if it complicates your life.

And there is the question of vengeance. Madam, and the others like her and above her, they should answer for what they’ve done somehow.

Catherine shifts in her seat, the air con is a bit buggered and she feels sticky, clammy. She tries to put her mind into neutral the way she does before any gig, even a small one like this. She flicks on the stereo. Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits. Perfect.

The drive takes her all the way from ‘Don’t Stop’ to ‘Tusk’. ‘Tusk’ makes her wonder about going back to Africa, even despite that close call in Sierra Leone.

Then it is time for action.

The apartment is above a florist. She presses the button. A wary Latin voice answers.

‘Yo?’

‘I got the money.’

‘What the fuck? You don’t bring it here!’

Bingo.

‘New plan.’

‘Fucking A.’ The buzzer sounds angrily and Catherine pushes her way in and along the narrow hall that smells of flowers. Gardenias. The smell follows her as she goes up the stairs. That must be nice to wake to every morning, she thinks. Or maybe you don’t notice after a while.

The door to the apartment is open and she walks straight into the living room. A tall, handsome Latino is standing in the centre of the room, biting his thumb. He looks like a villain in a Western. Drooping moustache and everything. Long black hair slicked back. Maybe he could do with losing a few pounds, but he carries it well. The room is cheaply furnished but immaculate. On the foam cushion of a pale, oatmeal Naugahyde sofa sits a small girl, her eyes intent on some kind of DS. She doesn’t even look up.

The Latino guy faces Catherine, puts his hands on his hips. It makes him look even more like a gunslinger.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘You a friend of Mary’s?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And it’s safe, right? I mean no one knows you’re here?’ He pulls at his moustache. ‘You want a drink or something? Water? Coke? Beer?’ He’s panicky, gabbling, absolutely not a pro.

‘Just water. Thanks.’

He goes to the kitchenette. While he’s gone, Catherine takes a proper gander round the room. Your typical hutch really. Everything very Sears and Roebuck. Nothing of value, no weapons.

And when the Latino comes back he says, ‘We only got con gas unless you want it from the faucet.’ And then he notices she’s got a gun pointing straight at him. Always surprises Catherine how long it takes people to register a gun in the room. And in this case it’s not just any gun, it’s her favourite gun, the one she hardly ever uses – a Smith and Wesson 38 special, Model 36, five-shot revolver J-frame, blued finish with Dymondwood grips. It was a present from Tough. He’d got it for her after the Iceland trip. Seems appropriate to use it for her last job.

Then she thinks maybe she could go back there. To Saudarkrokur. Disappear there. Live in a cabin miles from anyone, work in the Sportsbar maybe, write her kids’ books.

‘What the fuck?’

‘This is how it goes. I’m going to take the kid home. You try and stop me, I will take you out.’

The Latino is silent. Pondering his options. Catherine makes things easy for him. ‘You actually don’t have any options here,’ she says.

‘What about Mary?’

‘As I drive the kid home, you call and explain things to her. If she’s still at the house when I get there I’ll incapacitate her. Probably with lethal force. Depends how polite she is. How cooperative.’

‘You ain’t the police.’

‘No. I’m what the police should be.’

And then the kid looks up from her toy and says, clear as a bell in beautiful unaccented English, ‘I like it here. Don’t want to go home.’

Forty

LORNA

One of the English habits Megan has adopted is that of the lingering bath, which is why she is still in the tub when Amelia calls round.

Lorna is puzzled, people don’t just call round any more, they just don’t. And now it’s happened twice in two days. First Jez. Now Amelia. Conscious of the marketing emergency situation – whatever that could be – Lorna buzzes her up. So, maybe her and Megs won’t drive out to Russian Hill today after all, maybe she’ll catch up with her buddies from the nineteenth century instead. See if Mr Zwaademaker has anything else to teach her. That won’t be so bad.

She goes and calls through the bathroom door. ‘Hey, marine girl. Your boss is here.’

There are paroxysms of splashing behind the door, which opens suddenly. Megan appears – flushed, wet and naked – without so much as a towel. Clothed only in steam and panic. ‘God girl, you are magnificent,’ says Lorna, because her room-mate does look amazing, like some warrior lioness woman. Like Xena only hotter. Only she isn’t exactly acting much like a warrior. She’s jumpy, twitchy.

‘Shush, Lorna. Amelia’s here? Now?’

‘Yep, she’s on her way up.

‘You haven’t buzzed her in?’

‘’Course I have. Why not?’

‘Shit.’

Megan disappears behind a closed door again and Lorna goes to answer the knock on the door to the flat.

Amelia is wearing Roman sandals, a white shirt drawn tight on a blue skirt, her lips smiling, too red. And she is wearing too much blusher. She looks like she has got dressed in a hurry or with her mind on other things.

‘Hey, Lorna.’

‘Hey, Amelia.’

Lorna wonders if they are meant to kiss hello, but Amelia doesn’t seem inclined to go for one. ‘Come in, take the weight off your feet. Megs is in the bath. You were lucky to catch her in. We’re off out in a bit,’ which is a dig about not phoning first like normal fucking twenty-first-century people. But Amelia just nods.

‘She’s taking a bath?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Figures.’

A weird thing to say, and in fact the whole atmosphere is becoming so deeply odd that Lorna can feel her mouth going dry and her hands getting sweaty. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea?’

‘Yes. OK.’

Yes. OK? One of the things Lorna has struggled to get used to over here is the lack of eagerness when offered tea. In England if you are offered a cuppa you seize on it with the enthusiasm of a dry man in a desert. ‘Oh yes!’ you say. ‘That would be lovely! I’d love one! A cup of tea! Yes, please!’ Cheap and easy to make it may be, but you celebrate each and every cup like it is a rare and exquisite spice brought back from Samarkand at great peril.

Not here. Here tea is just one more beverage option in a land full of them.

‘Right. How do you have it?’

‘Just black.’

And drinking it without milk is wrong, and not saying please or thank you is an absolute diabolical liberty.

She goes to boil the kettle and get out the cups. To make a point she’s going to do it all properly with a teapot, a milk jug – who cares if the Melster doesn’t take it – and those pretty little cups and saucers that they hardly ever use. She is going to use the loose Yorkshire tea bought on a whim in the English deli when she was downtown one day. She is going to use a strainer.
Be the change you want to see.
You want people to take tea-drinking properly, then you have to set an example.

Biscuits. Where are they? She hopes she didn’t eat them all last night while she was wondering where Megs was.

She didn’t. There are six left. Hobnobs. Another English product taking the States by storm. Perfect.

And now she hears a violent sneeze from the living room. And so she guesses that Amelia is being ostentatiously allergic to poor old Armitage Shanks. She hopes that Megs will be able to get rid of her pretty soon, though this work crisis is clearly bad enough to make everyone behave like freaks. Maybe the firm is going bust, which will be shit but at least they might be able to finally get to go on that Yosemite trip. And Megan will get another job. She’s skilled, talented, sorted. Anyone can tell that just by looking at her. She radiates competent good sense. Megan is the most employable woman she’s ever known. And, in any case, they are loaded now. Lorna has to keep reminding herself about that.

She carries the tray with all the necessary into the living room just as Megan walks in from the bathroom. She’s dressed carefully, Lorna can see that. Her super-skinny claret Hudson jeans. The ones that make her legs even longer. Her black Wildfox sweater. Her Porselli pumps.

Lorna pretends not to notice the heavy weight of the silence as she sets the tea things down.