The Mercy Seat (8 page)

‘A weekly column and boring the arse off the staff with old Fleet Street war stories.’

Donovan smiled, taken back in time for a second or two. A happier, simpler time. ‘So,’ he said, pulling himself back into the present, ‘Sharkey. What’s the deal with him?’

‘He’s the company’s lawyer. Very good at his job, one of the best, but …’ Maria shrugged.

‘A twat.’

She laughed. ‘I was going to be a little more diplomatic than that, but the gist would have been the same. If he says he can do something, believe him. But don’t trust him.’

‘Interesting distinction.’

‘I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.’

Donovan nodded. ‘So the police haven’t been called yet?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Maria remembered the phone call with Sharkey before she had arrived at Donovan’s house that day. Where she had told him she was calling the police in.

‘The police?’ he had said. ‘I say not. Not yet. I mean, this boy. Who is he? Does he know where Myers is? Is he holding him? Is this a prank? A hoax? We don’t know. Gary Myers could be away working, and this boy has seen a chance to make some easy money. We just don’t know. And we won’t until your man has talked to him face to face.’

She had tried to speak, but Sharkey had overridden her.

‘If we go to the police and Gary Myers turns up, we’ll end up looking foolish. Our competitors will have a field day. No police. For now.’

She relayed all that to Donovan, who nodded.

‘Well, let’s hope he’s OK. Spoke to his wife?’

‘Same thing with her. We didn’t want to alarm her unnecessarily.’

Maria had left out one part of the conversation with Sharkey.

‘You promised to help him find his son,’ she had said to the lawyer. ‘I’d like to know how you propose to do that.’

Sharkey had sighed. ‘We’ll have to postpone this conversation until another time, I’m afraid. I’m late for an appointment.’

‘Francis,’ she had found herself almost bellowing into the phone. ‘Joe is a very desperate and damaged man. If you have no intention of backing up your words with actions, then he’ll be a very angry man. And you know what that’s like.’

She heard him involuntarily clear his throat.

‘So are you stringing him along? Or is there something concrete you can do for him?’

Sharkey had sighed again. ‘We’ll talk later. I really must go.’

And the line had gone dead.

‘What?’ said Donovan.

‘Sorry?’

‘You were staring.’

Maria reddened again. ‘Miles away. Listen, I’d better go.’

And she had left. Donovan had watched her leave. Then, finding he couldn’t settle in the house, had gone for a walk along the shore.

First thing the next morning a heavily laden courier had arrived at the door. Donovan had started work immediately. Time passed without him realizing, he was so engrossed in the work. He was looking for clues, triggers, anything that would bring back a memory, start the ball rolling again.

Nothing.

He rubbed his eyes again, checked his watch. Ten to five. He had worked the whole day up to his nodding off. He had missed lunch.

He stood up, stretched, looked around the room. Torn from his work on the computer, it was like seeing it anew. The place was a tip. Did he really live like this? He ran a hand over his face, felt the stubble growing like an untended garden. Felt his hair: greasy, long hanks. Looked down at his clothes: filthy sweatshirt and boxer shorts. And felt, for the first time in years, shame in his appearance.

Had he really sunk so low? Was he really living with so little pride?

He looked again at the computer screen, tidied the papers up beside it. His stomach rumbled. Time for dinner, he thought, and walked towards the kitchen.

He thought of Gary Myers. A hoax? An opportunistic prank? Maybe. He hoped the journalist was OK, even if it was just for the sake of the man’s wife, ultimately. Donovan knew only too well what it was like to carry the burden of worry over someone you love going missing.

He thought of Maria, too, felt a curious sensation inside. What must she have thought of him looking the way he did?

He diverted his route to the bathroom instead.

Time for a bath and a shave and a change of clothes.

Time to sort himself out.

Gary Myers opened his eyes yet still saw blackness. A clammy, claustrophobic, itchy blackness.

The hood was still in place.

Using his free left hand, he moved it slowly up his face, stopping every quarter of an inch, expecting a harsh voice to bark at him, order him to pull it down again.

His heart was beating fast, fear pumping blood round his body … push a little further … he could hear his breath hitting the fabric before his mouth and nose, feel sweat along his forehead and neck … further, further … his mouth free, his nose … they had forced him to keep the hood on … a good sign … meant they intended him to live … further … meant there would be an end to all this, that they wouldn’t keep him for long … a push, then stop … checking for the voice … then more … further … stop for another few seconds, waiting, expecting that voice … a punch even … then a little more …

But the voice never came. No one touched him. Gary continued pulling and rolling until the hood came free.

He quickly closed his eyes, blinked away the sudden light, the attendant hurt. He tried again, opening them slowly this time.

The place was dimly lit but seemed overpoweringly bright compared with his view inside the hood. He waited a few minutes, allowed himself to acclimatize, his vision to come into focus.

It looked like a disused garage. Small, no longer operational. And for some time. Wooden double doors to the front were chained up, access granted by a small, rectangular door inset in the right-hand door. That, Gary knew, was
bolted and double-locked from the outside.

An ancient Granada sat on a ramp in the centre of the garage. Body flaking rust like dead, leprous skin, tyres flattened and sagging like flabby, middle-aged beer guts. Behind the car a workbench holding a collection of rusting, blunted tools. Tools that looked solid enough to hurt. Tools that, judging by the deposits left on them, hadn’t just been used to mend cars. Piles of decaying engine parts dotted the corners. The walls and floor were dark with accumulated dirt and dust, the stickiness and stink of old, rancid motor oil.

Behind the workshop, glimpsed through a filthy half-glass door and wall, was the office. An old, scarred metal desk, a swivel chair that had long since ceased to offer comfort and now haemorrhaged its innards, a ransacked filing cabinet and a calendar of naked young women who must now have been of pensionable age.

And in the centre of the room, the chair.

The mercy seat.

His first memory of captivity, before they had handcuffed him to the heavy iron radiator on the wall of the old garage. It scared him to look at it, had scared him even more to sit in it.

He had woken up bound to it. The hood had stopped him seeing his captors’ faces, but he had heard their voices; barking questions at him, hurting him when he didn’t give the answer they wanted to hear.

His companion had fared even worse. He had known his captors, tried to talk to them using first names, engage with them on a human level. That had resulted in an even more savage and severe beating than Gary had been given.

Gary looked at his companion lying uncomfortably next to him, handcuffed to the other end of the radiator. Two old blankets and a stinking slop bucket between them. It was all right at present, but when it filled up the place would stink. That, he thought, was the least of his troubles.

Poor Colin, he thought. Tried to do what he thought was right and honourable and look where it had got him. A broken arm, possibly several broken ribs, severe bruising and, from the pain he had described, internal damage. He wasn’t a young man either. He wondered whether Colin could cope with whatever their captives had in mind.

Gary wondered if he himself could.

He knew why they had been taken. They both did. After the blue-toothed skinhead had burst into the hotel room in King’s Cross it had been obvious. Apparently his minidisc player had been stolen, and this seemed to annoy them most. They had stripped and destroyed his laptop, but the loss of the minidisc had left them very, very unhappy. And although Gary knew nothing about that, he had paid the price for it. After heavy persuading, they had reluctantly agreed with him.

So he waited. He looked at Colin. Sleeping. A fitful, uneasy sleep. His stomach turned over yet again. He winced at the pain, a combination of heartburn from the cheap fast food their captives provided, the beatings and fear.

Gary sighed. The air left his body in shuddering gasps.

Fear. He had never truly understood the meaning of the word until this moment. Fear. Just sitting.

Meant they intended him to live.

And waiting.

Meant there would be an end to all this.

And not knowing.

That they wouldn’t keep him for long.

Fear.

Gary sighed again, felt more than air bubbling up.

Quickly he grabbed the bucket and, eyes closed and nose blocked, threw up into the mess.

He kept vomiting until there was nothing left inside him.

Except fear.

‘Seventy-seven … seventy-eight … seventy-nine … eighty …’

With the air exploding from her lungs, Peta Knight flopped back on the floor, sweating. She felt the familiar trembling ache around her lower stomach and down the fronts of her thighs, felt the sweat bead and prickle her hot skin. She breathed deep, her lungs red and raw. Her muscles felt worked, her body burning; she flexed and unflexed, the second skin of black Lycra moving with her.

She loved that feeling. But it wasn’t enough.

Seven thirty a.m.: her regular morning exercise session half completed. Four hundred sit-ups, eighty at a time, alternating extended legs. Sixty push-ups, three sets of twenty. Then side bends, stretches. All aerobic. Four sessions with the small weights.

But it wasn’t enough.

She missed her bag, the heaviness of it on her foot as she kicked it, the resistance when she punched it. She missed the gym, the machines, her sessions in the dojo. She missed running and cycling. She missed the free exertion, the exhilaration. The release of endorphins into her body, the only chemical change she dared allow herself these days.

She needed the strict regime, the drug-free self-abnegation. Going back to her old ways was not an option.

But she hated being stuck in the room with virtually nothing to show for it.

She checked her watch. Nearly ten to eight. He would be here soon.

Bending her left leg and straightening the right, holding it six inches off the floor, she breathed deeply once, twice, knotted and locked her fingers behind her head and started again.

‘One … two … three …’

She reached fifty-four when the door opened. He stopped, stood there smirking.

‘I heard all that panting on the landing,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know whether to come in or not.’

‘Piss off,’ she gasped. ‘Fifty-five … fifty-six …’

He entered carrying a paper bag, closed the door behind him. Yawned, then smiled.

‘You know you should get out more,’ he said. ‘Enjoy yourself for a change.’

She ignored him, keeping her rate steady, uninhibited by his presence, until she reached eighty and lay flat on the floor, panting again.

‘Like you, you mean?’ she managed between gasps. ‘Have fun, did you?’

The man smiled, took off his jacket, the leather soft and high grain, the tailoring several cuts above standard chain-store sweatshop wear. He draped it carefully over the back of a chair, folded his arms. He was in good shape, but there was narcissism to his actions; for his prone, gymhead partner a good body was an end in itself, but his was only a means to an end. However, he also practised martial arts and as such carried himself well, gracefully even, Peta had to admit.

He placed the brown-paper bag on the table. ‘Coffee and croissant in there for you,’ he said, taking out his own. ‘Starbucks. Last night, right, business and pleasure? Can’t beat it.’

She sat up, propped her body on her elbows, looked at him.

‘You’re going to catch something one of these days, you know that? Either that or get arrested.’

He sighed, bit into his croissant, brushed crumbs away from his thighs. ‘Oh shut up and drink your coffee. It’s just good fun, Peta. And it brings in the money. God knows we need that.’

Peta looked away. Said nothing.

‘And anyway,’ he continued, taking a mouthful of coffee, ‘I’m just there to watch, aren’t I, darling? Well, most of the time …’

Peta sighed. ‘Amar …’

‘And,’ Amar said, ‘most of them have never seen an Asian poof before. Well, not outside an arranged marriage, anyway.’

Peta stood up, wiped sweat from her body with the towel. She opened the bag, took out the coffee, had a sip. ‘You had any sleep?’ she asked.

‘Nope. You?’

Peta shook her head. ‘Well, on and off. Not much.’

‘Go get some,’ he said. ‘I’ll take over here.’

‘You sure?’

‘Don’t worry.’ He smiled, gave a mock sniff. ‘Got something a little stronger than caffeine in my pocket. That’ll keep me going.’

Amar knew she was looking at him, probably disapprovingly. He avoided her eyes. Kept his gaze on the window.

‘So did I miss anything?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ said Peta, also looking towards the window. ‘Fat boy’s client left in the wee small hours.’

‘Positive ID?’

‘Not yet. Took a minicab. May have to take a chance, you know. Do a bit of shadowing next time he turns up.’

Amar nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘Only that new boy. The light-skinned one.’

‘What about him?’

‘Went out again. On his own.’

‘So? Don’t they all?’

Peta frowned. ‘Yes, but he was … furtive. He circled the block a couple of times. Hid and waited. Like he was up to something and wanted to make sure he wasn’t being followed.’

Amar raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting. Where did he go?’