Authors: Andy McNab
Remote Control (17 page)
I passed the bus stop and carried on towards the first alleyway. After two more turns I took off my coat, wrapped it round the cylinder and folded the whole lot up. I took off the hat and folded that into the coat as well. I carried on walking, found a bin and got rid of my bundle. That was me sorted; a new man, or I would be as soon as I put on my glasses.
Once out on the road again I got out the wallet, as if I was checking whether I had my credit card. I opened it up and found that I was a family man; there was a very nice picture of me, my wife and two kids, the family of Lance White. I didn’t think Mrs White would be too pleased with the state of me when I got home.
There was about $240 in the billfold; White had either just been to an ATM or done some early-morning deals. There were also a couple of credit cards, but I wouldn’t keep them; it would be time-consuming to sell them, and if I tried to use them for cash back it could only be in the next hour or so – but why run the risk of the police doing a trace and ending up with my description from a sales assistant? The rest of the stuff was shit, bits of paper with phone numbers on. Probably his client list. As I passed another bin I jacked everything except the cash.
I now had just under $400 in my pocket, enough for the next few days if I couldn’t contact Pat or he didn’t come up with the goods.
The piss on my trousers was starting to dry up a bit as I walked, but it was stinking good-style. It was time for a change of clothes.
I reached the Burger King and all the other shops near the hotel. I was in and out of a discount shop in about a quarter of an hour, with a holdall containing new jeans, sweatshirt and underwear, all bought with cash. Kelly had also got a complete new set of clothes, down to knickers and vests.
I had a quick look at my watch on the way up to the room. I’d been gone about two and a quarter hours, a bit longer than I’d said I’d be.
Before I even got to the door I could see it was ajar. I looked down and saw a pillow keeping it open. I could hear the TV.
Pulling my pistol I went against the wall, the weapon pointing towards the gap. I felt disbelief, then shock. I felt emptiness in my stomach and then I felt sick.
13
I moved into the room. Nothing.
I checked on the other side of the bed, in case she might be hiding there. Maybe she was playing some game on me.
‘Kelly! Are you in there?’ My voice was serious and she’d have known it.
No reply. My heart was pumping so hard my chest hurt. If they had her, why hadn’t they jumped me by now?
I felt sweat slide down the side of my face. I started to panic, thinking about her in her house, seeing her father being beaten, screaming for her mummy. I understood that feeling of desperation when you want someone to take all the scary things away.
I forced myself to stop, calm down, think about what I was going to do. I came out onto the verandah again and broke into a run, calling, ‘Kelly! Kelly!’ in a loud semi-shout. I turned the corner and there she was.
Pleased as Punch, she was just leaving the Coke machine, wrestling with the ringpull on a can. The ‘look at me, aren’t I a big girl?’ smile soon changed when she saw me, weapon in hand, looking as serious as cancer.
For a moment I was going to read her her horoscope, but I bit my lip.
She was suddenly looking sad and sorry for herself. Getting herself a can of Coke was the first thing she’d done on her own since leaving the house and I’d ruined it by coming back so soon. Leading her back to the room, I kept looking round the open square to check we hadn’t been seen.
There were empty crisp bags and all sorts on her bed; it looked like a scene out of
Animal House
.
Animal House
.
I sat her down while I went and ran a bath. When I came back she still had a long face. I sat beside her. ‘I’m not cross with you, Kelly, it’s just that I worry if I don’t know where you are. Will you promise not to do it again?’
‘Only if you promise not to leave me again.’
‘I promise. Now get undressed for a bath.’ I picked her up and basically threw her in the bath before she had time to think.
‘Do you wash your own hair or do you get somebody to do it?’ I asked; I didn’t have a clue.
She looked like she was going to cry.
I said, ‘Do you want me to wash it for you?’
‘Yes, please.’ I wondered what was going on in that little mind of hers.
I got out the shampoo and got stuck in; she moaned about the soap in her eyes and that the suds were tickling her ears, but I could tell she loved the attention. I couldn’t blame her; she hadn’t had much lately. Her world had been turned upside down and she didn’t even know it yet.
‘You stink!’ Kelly made a face as she caught the smell of Lance White’s bladder on my clothes.
‘These clothes are a bit old,’ I said. ‘Make sure you get all the shampoo out of your hair and wash yourself with the soap.’
She looked as if she was having fun. I was glad somebody was. Walking into the bedroom I called behind me, ‘Then I want you to put on some clean clothes. There’s knickers and a vest on the bed.’
‘What’re knickers?’
‘These.’ I picked them up and walked back to show her.
‘They’re not, they’re panties!’
Kelly was a water baby. That was great for me; the longer she was in the bath the less time I had to spend dealing with her. I was finding it quite knackering having to clean, dress, talk and answer questions. I left her splashing around for another half an hour, then dragged her out and told her to go and dry herself.
I got in the shower, had a shave and got changed, bundling all my old clothes and Kelly’s into a plastic laundry bag and stowing it inside the holdall. I’d get rid of it at the first opportunity.
We were both in the bedroom and she was dressed. Her shirt buttons were in the wrong holes; while I was undoing them and sorting them out, I realized she was looking disapprovingly at me.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Those jeans. They’re sad. You should get 501s like Daddy.’
On top of everything else, I had the fashion police after me. She went on, ‘You can’t get 501s in my size. That’s what Mommy says anyway. She doesn’t wear jeans; she’s like Aida, she likes dresses and skirts.’
In my mind’s eye I saw Marsha kneeling by her bed. I turned away for a moment so Kelly couldn’t see my face.
I got to grips with her hair. It was another new skill I hadn’t mastered and the brush kept snagging and pulling. Kelly kept crying out and grabbing at my hand. In the end I gave her the brush and let her get on with it.
While she was doing that I sat on the bed and said, ‘Kelly, do you know your dad’s special code for his phone? I don’t; I’ve tried it loads of times. I’ve pressed 1111, 2222, I’ve pressed them all and I still don’t know. Have you got any idea?’
She stopped brushing, stared at me for a few moments, then nodded.
‘Right! What are the numbers, then?’
She didn’t say anything. She seemed to be working something out in her mind. Maybe she was wondering if she’d be betraying her daddy by telling me.
I pulled the phone from my pocket, turned it on and said, ‘Look! What does it say? Enter PIN number! Do you know what numbers your daddy puts in?’
She nodded and I said, ‘Come on, you show me, then.’ She pressed the buttons and I watched her fingers.
‘1990?’ I said.
‘The year I was born,’ she beamed, going back to brushing.
We were in business. I fetched the Yellow Pages from one of the drawers and went back.
‘What are you looking for?’ she asked, brushing smoothly and expertly.
‘A restaurant called Good Fellas,’ I said. I found the address. ‘We’re going to go there and look for Pat.’
I thought about phoning the place and asking about him, but they’d probably just fuck me off. In any case, that could trigger off a series of events I’d know nothing about until we were both suddenly lifted. It would be better to go there.
I put on my glasses and she giggled. I got her coat and held it for her to put on. As she turned round I noticed she still had the label dangling off her jeans; I ripped that off, then checked that nothing else looked out of place – just like any other unfashionable dad taking his daughter out for the day.
I put on my jacket, checked for the mags and phone, and said, ‘Do you remember Pat?’
‘No. Who is she?’
‘It’s a him; he’s a man called Patrick. Maybe you’ve seen him with Daddy?’
‘Is Pat going to take me home?’
‘You will be going soon, Kelly. But only when Daddy is better and if you’re a good girl and do what I say.’
Her face fell. ‘Will I be home for Saturday? That’s Melissa’s party and she’s having a sleepover and I must be there.’
I carried on. There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t have the skills to coax her out of her mood.
‘Pat came round to your house. Surely you remember Pat?’
‘And I’ve got to buy her a present. I’ve made her some friendship bracelets, but I want something else.’
‘Well, we’re going to try to find Pat today because he’s going to help us get you home. Maybe we’ll have time to do your shopping, OK?’
‘Where is Pat?’
‘I think he might be in the restaurant. But you’ve got to be really quiet when we get there, OK, and not talk to anyone. If anybody talks to you, I want you just to nod your head or shake it, OK? We’ve got to be really careful, otherwise they won’t tell me where Pat is and then we might get into trouble.’
I knew she’d be all right on the dumb act. She’d done what I’d said by the bins. I felt bad talking about her going home, but I couldn’t think of a better way of controlling her behaviour; and anyway, with any luck I wouldn’t be there when she was finally told the truth.
There were a couple of other jobs to do before we left the room. I took the bottom left hand corner of the blanket on my bed and folded it in a neat, diagonal pleat. Then I took a matchstick from the book I’d picked up in reception and wedged it between the wall and the long low chest of drawers that the TV rested on. I put a pen mark the size of a pinhead on the wall and covered it with the match head. Finally I placed the paper clip in one of the drawers under the TV, and turned the volume up a shade.
I had a quick look round the room to make sure we hadn’t left anything compromising lying around; I even put the Yellow Pages back in the drawer. The pistol was still in the cistern, but there were no problems with that; there was no reason for a cleaner to come in, let alone the police with a search warrant.
I picked up a couple of apples and chocolate bars and put them in the pocket of my brand-new three-quarter-length blue coat. Then I closed the door, checked the sign and off we went.
We took a taxi to Georgetown. It would have conserved funds if we’d taken a bus or the Metro, but this way meant less exposure to commuters or pedestrians. The driver was a Nigerian. The map of the city on the front passenger seat didn’t instil much confidence, and he could only just about speak English. He used what few words he had to ask me where Georgetown was. It was like a London taxi driver not knowing Chelsea. I patiently pointed on the map. By my guess it was about thirty minutes away.
It was spitting with rain, not enough to keep the wipers on, but enough to make him give them a flick every minute or so. Kelly munched on an apple and looked out of the window. I kept an eye out for other motels. We’d have to move again soon.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, until it occurred to me that the driver would expect to hear us talking. ‘When I was your age I hadn’t been in a taxi,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I went in one until I was about fifteen.’
Kelly looked at me, still chewing on the apple. ‘Didn’t you like taxis?’
‘No, it’s just we didn’t have much money. My stepfather couldn’t find a job.’
She looked puzzled. She looked at me for a long time, then turned her head and looked out of the window.
The traffic was queueing for Key Bridge. Georgetown was just the other side of the Potomac and it would have been quicker to get out and walk, but it made sense to stay out of sight. By now Kelly’s face would be in the newspapers, maybe even on posters. The police would be putting in a lot of time and effort to find her abductor.
I leaned over the front seat, picked up the map and directed the driver to the river end of Wisconsin Avenue, the main north-south drag. I remembered Georgetown as almost self-contained, with a genteel, quaint feel to the town houses that reminded me of San Francisco. The sidewalks were red brick and uneven, and every car seemed to be a BMW, Volvo, Mercedes, Golf GTi or Discovery. Every house and shop had a prominent sign warning that the property was guarded by a security firm. Try breaking in and you’d have a rapid-response team climbing aboard you before you even had time to rip the leads from the back of the video.
Wisconsin is a wide road with shops and houses on either side. We found Good Fellas about half a mile up the hill on the right-hand side. As restaurants go it looked one of the moody, designer-type places; the whole front was black, even down to the smoked-glass windows; the only relief was the gold lettering above the door. It was now nearly lunchtime; all the staff would have clocked in.
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