You Will Never Find Me (30 page)

He'd noticed that they didn't always come and sit with him in the room. Sometimes the new guard would come in, there'd be an exchange in Russian, some of which he understood, then they'd handcuff him to the slatted bench and both go out. That was worst because it would mean hours on his own, lying down, getting uncomfortable and bored.

This time there'd been the usual handover but the guard had stayed in the room and said hello. None of them said hello. He'd uncuffed him even though it wasn't eating time. Sasha could tell from the atmospheric pressure in the confined space of the room that this guard was more friendly. He thought maybe he had a son like him.

‘I'm very worried about my mother,' said Sasha, head down, palms on his knees, legs dangling off the bench, feet not reaching the floor.

‘I can understand that,' said the man. ‘She's not well.'

‘She drinks,' said Sasha.

‘I know,' said the man.

‘It's not really her fault.'

‘It never is.'

‘She's unhappy.'

‘A lot of people are,' said the man. ‘It's called life. You don't understand it yet.'

‘How do you know?'

‘You're a kid. Life is simple when you're a kid.'

‘Is it?'

No answer.

‘She'll be really, really worried by now,' said Sasha.

‘She's being looked after.'

The emotion welled up and, although Sasha didn't want to, he couldn't help himself. He sobbed, felt the tears wetting the material of his mask. The guard sat next to him, put an arm around his shoulders, hugged him into his chest. Sasha got himself under control.

‘Nobody talks to me,' said Sasha. ‘You're the first one. Why doesn't anybody talk to me?'

No answer. The man knew perfectly well why nobody talked to the boy. They knew to keep their distance from someone they would have to . . . deal with. But he was different. He cared.

He rested a hand on the Sasha's thigh, squeezed it reassuringly and his little finger tickled the boy's groin.

Sasha's spine turned to ice.

 

Jesús and Jaime were sitting in a bar drinking beer with a copy of
El Mundo
open between them. There was a small article on page 6 about an unnamed girl who had been murdered and a part of her body recovered from a bag found under a motorway bridge near Perales del Rio. All their contacts in the Madrid police force were in the drug squad and had no information about homicide cases unrelated to drug dealing or trafficking. El Osito had told them to drop the police, stick to the journalist, which was why they were waiting for Raul Brito from the weekly
Interviú
to turn up. The only break they'd had was at the Hotel Moderno, where they'd found some leaflets on reception with a photo of the girl as they'd seen her on Saturday night and beneath, in Spanish, ‘Have you seen this girl? Her name is Amy.' This was followed by a Spanish mobile number, which they'd already tried and found to be dead.

‘What do you think about all this?' asked Jesús, broaching the subject he really wanted to talk about but until now hadn't quite dared.

‘El Osito did it,' said Jaime. ‘No question about it. We're not running around like this for fun.'

‘And the English guy?'

‘I don't know. If El Osito knows he's not telling us.'

‘So we got to be careful. Don't want to end up—'

‘Look, before El Osito came out here Vicente told me everything I needed to know. Warned me. This has been coming for a long time. We're lucky we haven't been clearing up a mess like this every week.'

‘Why didn't you tell
me
?'

‘I did. I just didn't give you any details because I know you can't keep your mouth shut. The one thing Vicente warned me about was not to cross El Osito. You give him the wrong look and he'll blind you, you tread on his toe and he'll take your leg off.'

‘I remember that bit.'

‘I'm glad it stuck. I can see you shitting in your pants every time he talks to you.'

‘This thing he's got about black girls . . . '

‘It's a bad thing. That's all you need to know.'

‘Did Vicente tell you why?'

‘There doesn't have to be a why. The wiring's all fucked up in his head. That's the why. Too much snow. That's the why. He's a nut job.'

‘But did he tell you?'

‘He told me that El Osito's father was shot dead in a hotel in Cartagena de las Indias. It was a gang war thing. They used a black girl to get him into the hotel. Shot her too. He was fucking her at the time.'

‘Long hair? Ringlets?'

‘You want her shoe size as well?'

‘O.K., here comes Brito.'

The journalist took a seat, pulling the chair up to the table using a hand between his legs. He had soft brown eyes in a shrewd, pouchy face and hair whose shape, colour and thickness could survive doomsday. He looked from Jaime to Jesús and down at the newspaper.

‘
El Mundo
?' he said, as if he'd caught them reading Descartes.

‘Beer?' asked Jaime, which seemed to be the only possible retort.

Brito nodded. They called the waiter, ordered three beers.

‘What's going on?' asked Brito. ‘This about the Russians?' Jaime turned the newspaper round for him, pointed at the article. Brito read it, nodding.

‘We've been talking about that in the office today,' he said. ‘One of the young guys wanted to run with it, but we had no photo.'

‘Why don't they give her name?'

‘They only found a body part and a passport so there's been no formal identification,' said Brito. ‘They're running some DNA tests, but the backlog with the cuts . . . '

‘DNA tests?'

‘You know, Jaime, they extract DNA from a tissue sample—'

‘Don't fuck with me, Raul,' said Jaime, setting the tone. ‘What are they comparing the sample to? You have to have verified DNA from a victim or her parents to confirm ID.'

‘She was a runaway. The father came looking for her. So I imagine they're comparing her DNA with a cheek swab from him.'

‘So you've done some work on this?'

‘Not me. It was talked about in an editorial meeting last night. It was put on the “possible” list if the journalist can find a photo and an angle.'

‘Have you got a name?'

‘Not yet, and we've only got about a quarter of the story,' said Brito, tapping the newspaper, ‘which is why this article is only five centimetres long and on page 6. An ugly crime, but not quite interesting enough . . . yet.'

‘You remember that information we gave you about the Russians on the Costa del Sol. You ran that piece about local government corruption, the girl trafficking . . . '

‘I remember,' said Brito. ‘I also remember it solved some of your problems when the police launched Operation Scorpion and there was quite a bit of, what shall we call it, ethnic cleansing? A scouring of the Slavs.'

Jaime looked at him steadily, letting him know that he'd just overstepped the mark: turning what should be his gratitude into doing them a favour was not how it was supposed to work.

‘What's
your
interest in this case?' asked Brito, leaning forward. ‘Did one of your boys get a bit out of control?'

‘Not one of
our
boys,' said Jaime, touching himself on the chest.

‘Is this the Russians again? Is this a girl-trafficking thing?'

‘We don't know. We just don't like this kind of thing happening without us knowing about it. So we want you to get us all the information you can. All the names. But you don't run with any story. That could be dangerous for you. We don't know who you're dealing with. You print something, they might come after you.'

‘This is beginning to sound
very
interesting,' said Brito.

‘Here's a start,' said Jaime, pulling out the leaflet. ‘The girl was staying at the Hotel Moderno. Her father put out this photo of her. The mobile number is dead. We want full names and anything you can find out behind the names. You do that, we'll be very happy and we'll show our gratitude.'

Brito folded the leaflet into his pocket, made some notes, finished his beer and left.

‘I don't know what's harder,' said Jaime, wiping his hand down his face: ‘dealing with journalists or the police.'

 

Sasha shrugged himself out from under the man's arm. The man grabbed at him, got him by the collar of his shirt, hauled him back. Sasha didn't even have time to try to rip his mask off; he just lashed out, kicking, punching and screaming. The man took the blows, silent with the effort and concentration on what he wanted. He grabbed Sasha's arms, pinned them to the sides of his body and tucked him under his arms, holding him firmly around the waist. The man rolled and slammed him face down on the slatted bench, tore at the waistband of the boy's trousers. Sasha was momentarily stunned and winded from the impact with the bench. He went limp, blinked behind his mask.

The man had released his arms and Sasha's fingers gripped the wooden slats. He whimpered as he tried to pull himself together for a last monumental effort, knew he would only have one chance. The man stood back. Sasha heard the unbuckling of a belt, turned and kicked out with both feet, and made perfect contact with the man's groin. He went down with a low, guttural groan and slumped against the wall.

Sasha rolled away, scrabbled across the floor holding his trousers around his waist as the door flew open and savage Russian shouting exploded into the room. There was a fight, tremendous blows were exchanged, and Sasha sensed that his attacker had taken the worst of it. He heard him being dragged out of the room. There was a furious argument in the doorway. Sasha tried to get his face mask off, desperate to see what was going on. He couldn't work out the clasp at the back and he felt the material cutting into his nose as tried to yank it off. He was hit hard on the side of the head and knocked into the panelled wall.

‘Stop it,' roared the Russian. ‘Leave it alone.'

Sasha lay stunned on the floor. He recognised this voice and the hand that had hit him. It was the bad loser at chess. The two Russians continued their argument, then the door shut and there was silence in the insulated room, just the panting of his own breath in his ears and his heart banging around in his chest. He did his trousers up as best he could.

Somebody came in. Sasha winced, expecting another blow, but all he did was lift him up onto the bench, cuff his hands behind his back and leave.

The adrenaline backed down and Sasha started to assemble the Russian he'd heard exchanged between the two men.

The fear was racing through him and he trembled uncontrollably as he pieced together the line from the man who'd assaulted him. He was hoping he'd got it wrong, but somehow he didn't think so.

 

Boxer left Mercy, walked to his flat nearby in Belsize Park. He called Isabel on the way, gave her the almost unbelievable news about Amy. They laughed at the absurdity of having to confirm the butterfly tattoo with Karen. Isabel was desperate to see him. He said there was still a lot to do and he'd call later. They hung up as he reached his flat.

Boxer took the gun out of the safe, put it in the false bottom of a holdall with some cash and packed clothes on top. He dropped the bag off at his mother's flat. He'd decided he'd be better off away from his own place from now on if El Osito was hunting him down.

As he walked to the Royal Free he put in a call to Glider, the small-time gang boss who Amy had slept with on the cigarette jaunt to the Canaries.

‘I haven't heard from you,' said Boxer.

‘That's cos I got nothing to report,' said Glider, as if that would be obvious to anybody but a moron.

‘All right. Tell me what you've done so far.'

‘Like you said, I put out all my feelers and I got nothing back,' he said. ‘Mind you, the club scene doesn't really take off until tonight and over the weekend.'

‘Do you know anybody who
looks
like Amy? Same size, same height, same skin colour, same hair. Bit of a cokehead?'

‘What sort of a question is that?' said Glider, incredulous. ‘Do I know anybody who
looks
like Amy? What the fuck is this? You one crazy mofo, you know that?'

‘Mofo?' said Boxer. ‘That's the kind of word that really annoys me, Glider. Maybe you and I need a bit more face to face.'

‘Look,' said Glider, backing down. ‘I'm just saying that's a weird thing to ask. I didn't know Amy at all until ten days ago. I spent a weekend with her and now I wish I bloody hadn't—the grief I'm getting. And you start asking—'

‘She used a double to fool us, to make it look like she'd gone abroad. If I can find out who that is then I might be able to find her.'

‘A name would help.'

‘I haven't got one,' said Boxer. ‘I'm asking you because I know you like black girls. You know where they hang out. If you liked Amy maybe it was because she reminded you of someone else—I don't know. Would you like me to send you a photo of her?'

‘That would help,' said Glider. ‘So, now I'm not sure who I'm looking for. Amy or her double?'

‘You're not looking for her double because that girl was murdered in Madrid on Saturday night,' said Boxer.

‘Fuck me,' said Glider. ‘I can't believe th—'

‘Shut up and listen,' said Boxer. ‘You're still looking for Amy and, failing that, you're trying to find the name and address of someone who looks like her and who's now gone missing.'

He hung up, sent him the photo of Amy. He called Roy Chapel of the LOST Foundation, realising he hadn't been keeping him in the loop. He told him the full story. Chapel was appalled.

‘I'm sending you the photo of how Amy looked on Saturday night,' said Boxer. ‘I want you to look through the latest crop of missing persons and see if you can find a match—someone she could have used as a double and who's now been reported missing.'