Capital Punishment (25 page)

‘Not in.’

‘Are you his daughter?’

‘What about it?’

‘You got a name?’

‘Cheryl.’

‘Where is he, Cheryl?’

‘I dunno. Gone to work.’

‘His work’s shut.’

‘Then he’s out buying.’

‘Can I speak to your mum?’

‘Out, too.’

‘When did you last see your dad, Cheryl?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘What time?’

‘About seven.’

‘So he went out?’

‘He likes a drink on a Sunday evening.’

‘But he didn’t come back?’

A shrug that sent everything atremble.

‘You got a mobile number for him?’

‘He never turns it on unless he wants to use it. Doesn’t like them.’

‘We’re worried about him,’ said Mercy.

‘First time for everything,’ said Cheryl, cramming her bosom behind the door as she shut it.

Mercy went back to the car, set the SatNav for Grange Road. Twenty minutes later she found the end of terrace house opposite a church. It also had a rear view over a cemetery, this time the East London. What was the matter with Auber: was he terminally morbid or something?

There was a cab parked in front of the garage. She touched the bonnet. Cold. She banged on the front door. Blinds down on all the windows. She went down the side of the garage and into a bleak garden piled with scaffolding poles, wooden planking, building detritus and mounds of dead leaves. The kitchen door was locked. She checked the windows: one of the sash windows was open at the top. She pulled it down, leaned a plank up to the sill and clambered into a small bedroom with a single bed up against the wall, with small pink roses all over it.

The next room wasn’t so pretty. There was a man, grey-haired, slumped across the table, arms bracketing his head, like a kid crashed out over his homework. There was a black hole in the back of his skull and dark red, almost black, matter sprayed out over the formica of the table. Another man’s legs were sticking out into the room from the corridor that led to the front door and the foot of the stairs. He was young, twenties, and had a gun in his hand, a Browning HP35. He’d taken his bullet in the chest, which had knocked him back against the wall where he’d slid to the floor. A dark red vertical smear rose up the wall a metre and half behind him, ending in a broad spatter, like a naïve painting of a tree.

The corridor was dark, barely any light from the glass in the front door panels. She checked the other rooms, went upstairs. All empty. She called DCS Makepeace.

‘I think I’m looking at another two dead loose ends to add to Jim Paxton.’

‘Two?’

‘One is Jack Auber, I’m pretty sure. The other must be the back-up he brought for what he suspected was going to be an eventful evening.’

‘After what he’d seen done to the two immigrant workers,’ said Makepeace. ‘I think we’ve picked them up now. Two unidentified bodies floating down Barking Creek on their way to the Beckton Sewage Works.’

‘Five murders for the kidnap of one girl and still no demand,’ said Mercy. ‘What do you think we’re dealing with here? Charlie said the Pavis profiler thought he was a killer. Told him to bring in the Met.’

‘And here we are, but not in the cavalry role,’ said Makepeace. ‘There’s some organisation behind these killings. Gang stuff. This is bigger than a disgruntled employee.’

‘Has Frank D’Cruz offered any theories?’

‘He’s been almost totally silent,’ said Makepeace, ‘which, given that someone took a shot at him on his first night in London, might mean that he knows plenty but is too scared to tell. You should brief Charlie on what’s happened to the labourers in this kidnap and see if he can squeeze any juice out of D’Cruz.’

‘Yes, Charlie,’ she said thoughtfully, and hated herself instantly.

‘What about him?’ asked Makepeace, radar well-tuned.

‘He’s got his work cut out, that’s all,’ said Mercy. ‘He’s on his own in there. No Crisis Management Committee. It’s ... intense.’

‘I heard. Perhaps you should think of ways to take the pressure off him. But just you. Keep George out of it.’

‘We’ve hit a dead end here,’ said Mercy. ‘With Jack Auber and Jim Paxton down, that’s our main leads to the kidnappers gone.’

Boxer was sitting at the kitchen table between D’Cruz and Isabel, the MP3 player in the dock. They’d just listened to the Abiola recording from Alyshia’s mobile phone for the third time. Isabel was stunned, incapable of speech.

‘I’ve never come across a kidnap like this before,’ said Boxer. ‘Still no demand and the kidnapper putting his hostage through an extended psychoanalysis session. He must have done some heavy research. And the only reason I can think of for him doing that is to create some sort of dependency in her.’

‘On what?’

‘On him, the kidnapper,’ said Boxer. ‘He’s talking to her about the most intimate events of her life: somebody committing suicide over her. He’s forcing her to relive the experience and getting her to relate it to her current behaviour. He’s creating a special bond with her and, in the process, revealing to you how little you know about your own daughter. Undermining on two fronts.’

‘Yes,’ said Isabel suddenly, coming out of her stupor. ‘What
did
you know about all this, Chico? The Saïd Business School would have contacted you. You were ... whatever you were doing for them, you must have been important to them and they ... I’m sorry, I’m not thinking straight. Just tell me what you knew, Chico, what you didn’t tell me.’

‘I knew everything,’ said D’Cruz. ‘I was told about the suicide by the Dean. I spoke to her and that son-of-a-bitch, Julian—told him never to go anywhere near Alyshia ever again, not to contact her, nothing. I took Alyshia out of the course and straight to Mumbai. I told her not to talk about any of it to you, because I knew it would upset you.’

The tension in the room was audible, with a ringing intensity, like stress-induced tinnitus. Boxer’s mobile vibrated across the table towards him. They were grateful for the distraction. He took the call from Mercy in the living room. She briefed him on the five murders they’d uncovered in the last twenty-four hours and told him how he should present them to D’Cruz, to show that there had been no police involvement until the discovery of Jim Paxton.

‘How’s it going otherwise?’ asked Mercy.

‘Otherwise?’

‘Don’t make me say it, Charlie.’

‘The ex-husband is here. I’m discovering the limits of their endurance together.’

‘Need any help?’

‘You’re my co-consultant.’

‘Yes,’ she said, unhappy to find him withholding from her. They hung up. Boxer went back to the brutally silent kitchen, asked D’Cruz to join him in the living room.

‘I know you wanted to keep the police out of this, but there have been some developments which make that impossible,’ said Boxer.

‘I have a guarantee from the Home Secretary,’ said D’Cruz, jutting his chin.

‘Not even the Home Secretary can prevent the police from investigating multiple murders,’ said Boxer. ‘The Pavis research team have found that, on the night of her kidnap, Alyshia was out drinking with colleagues at a leaving party of the recruitment agency she was working for.’

‘What recruitment agency?’

‘She left that party to look for a cab with a man called Jim Paxton, who was later found dead, hanging in his wardrobe. My colleagues reported that to the police.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you can’t leave dead bodies hanging around. Excuse the pun,’ said Boxer. ‘In their subsequent investigation, the police found CCTV footage of Jim Paxton putting Alyshia into a taxi. In the follow-up, the cab driver has now been found dead, with another unknown man, in a house in East London. That’s three killings, plus the pot shot taken at you last night. There are two investigations ongoing in the hands of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command. They will want to talk to you, as will the Head of the Serious and Organised Crime Command.’

‘I expressly asked for the police to be kept out of this. Police and press. This is putting my daughter’s life—’

‘The police kept out of the kidnap, yes, but these are murders,’ said Boxer, ‘and the reason I’m having a private talk with you about this is so that you can start telling me things that are going to help us get Alyshia back. I know it’s not in your nature. But it’s clear to everybody that there is a level of organisation behind this kidnap that rules out loners looking for revenge. The fact that we have no demand and they have no interest in financial or material gain, but have asked you to take them seriously and applied maximum pressure to achieve it, means, to me, that you must have
some
idea who we’re dealing with. Even if you don’t know them personally, you must know the direction from which this pressure is coming. So let’s have it, Frank.’

‘I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not being difficult. As you know, my affairs are, to put it mildly, very complicated. My background before I became a businessman was pretty damned spicy. I have my own internal investigations going on, trying to find out who could possibly be doing this. I have my suspicions but I don’t want to reveal them and have people shooting off in, what could possibly be, wrong directions.’

‘Look, Frank, you’ve asked me to do something for you and I’ve agreed in principle. If you want me to honour that agreement, you have to start revealing your suspicions and trust me to act on them.’

‘But they must stay between you and me until I have confirmation, because if you tell the counter terrorist team at Special Crime Command about the sort of people we might be dealing with, they will launch a massive hunt and the heat will be so intense that I am sure the kidnappers will kill Alyshia and run.’

For the first time in this kidnap negotiation, the sweat came up on Boxer’s palms. He was used to the rush, expected it, liked it even, but this was more like fear. He had to check D’Cruz for veracity but the billionaire’s face told him only what he would expect to see in any man’s eyes in this position: desperation and terror.

The man is an actor, pulsed through Boxer’s brain.

‘You haven’t given me your word, Charles.’

‘It wouldn’t matter if I gave you my word,’ said Boxer. ‘I am bound by the terms of my contract with Pavis to keep the Director of Operations informed of all developments.’

‘Then I have to keep my suspicions to myself for the moment,’ said D’Cruz. ‘And that’s all they are. I have no proof.’

‘So what do you expect me to do?’ asked Boxer. ‘You’ve hired me to get your daughter back safely.’

‘All you can do is maintain negotiations.’

‘But there aren’t any negotiations,’ said Boxer. ‘We’re in their hands. We have no way of manipulating the situation to our own ends. We can’t even find out where they are, now that the people who’ve done the dirty work are dead.’

‘This level of ruthlessness is not unusual, as I’m sure you know,’ said D’Cruz. ‘All you can do, for now, is sit tight, support Isabel, think positively—’

‘Are you negotiating as we speak?’

‘No, not negotiating, merely investigating—just as Pavis has done.’

The doorbell rang. Boxer got to his feet. D’Cruz grabbed his arm. ‘Isabel shouldn’t be told about these murders,’ said D’Cruz.

‘So what’s the story?’

‘I’ll think of something. You follow my lead. Ask me if I’m involved in anything controversial that demands a decision in the near future. We’ll improvise from there.’

Boxer stormed past him into the corridor and held Isabel back from the front door.

‘Expecting anybody?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said.

He looked through the spyhole. Man in motorbike gear, behind him a Vespa with a box on the back and the legend ‘Domino’s Pizzas’ and a telephone number.

‘Anybody order pizza?’ he asked, remembering the pot shot taken at D’Cruz the night before.

‘No.’

‘Go to the living room with Frank, close the door.’

Boxer sprinted upstairs, took his semi-automatic out of his case and put it down the back of his trousers. The doorbell rang again. He rumbled back down to the hallway, opened the door.

‘Pizza delivery.’

‘We didn’t order one.’

‘There’s two.’

‘We didn’t order two.’

The biker checked the number on the door against the delivery sheet.

‘This is Wycombe Square and my order says two pizzas for number fourteen and that’s the doorway you’re standing in.’

‘Who took the order?’

‘I don’t know. I do the delivery.’

‘Let’s have a look at you.’

The biker flicked his visor up. He was a kid with freckles. Sixteen at the most.

‘You’ve got to pay for it, too,’ he said, grinning.

‘How much?’

‘Nineteen quid.’

‘Where did you pick up the pizzas?’

‘Domino’s on Westbourne Park Road.’

‘How many stops on the way?’

‘Four. You’re my last,’ said the biker. ‘You know, you need to chill, man. You’re way too tense.’

‘You leave your bike in the street at any point?’

‘Like, of
course.
This is the only house I can pull up in front of the door.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Darren Wright.’

Boxer gave him a twenty and a pound coin, took the pizzas, watched him go. He closed the front door, stayed out in the street, opened the first pizza box. Pizza: spicy sausage and chillies. He closed the lid, raised the box to a right angle to open the one below and saw the plastic slip case stuck to the underside with a DVD inside. Opened the next lid. Four seasons or something like it. Closed the lid. Went inside. Ripped the DVD slip case from the box, shook out the disc, went to the player in the living room.

‘Another message from our friend,’ said Boxer.

‘Maybe just Charles and I should look at this first.’

‘Forget it, Chico.’

‘Just to make sure it’s nothing disturbing.’

‘It’s an idea,’ said Boxer.

‘No,’ said Isabel and ripped the DVD from Boxer’s hand and stuck it in the machine. She picked up the remotes, clicked on the TV and the player, sat down. White noise and then Alyshia dressed in her long black mermaid dress. She started her speech. The camera moved in to pick up the tears on her jaw line.

The three of them stared unblinking. She finished, went down on her knees, grabbed the man’s jacket. The camera held her head and shoulders. The gunman swiped her hands away. She fell out of the frame.