You Will Never Find Me (35 page)

‘It's lucky we're in Madrid,' said Jesús. ‘Full of arseholes trying to keep fit. There's probably a few thousand five-kilo weights just here in the city centre.'

‘They'll know the weights don't come from a gym.'

‘You got to talk to Vicente,' said Jesús.

‘I've been talking to him every day for months. Whenever I mention the problems El Osito has with black girls, he tells me to shut up.'

‘Maybe now he's killed one he'll start listening.'

‘Slow down, Jesús,' said Jaime. ‘We've got to clear everything up first; only then do I go to Vicente. If I go to him with shit still down my front you know what he'll say.'

It was quiet in the Charada. They went through to the bar and sat on stools, ordered two shots of mescal
reserva
. The barman poured, stood in front of them as there was nothing else going on. He knew who the brothers were. He was a user. He took every opportunity to be nice to them. He left the bottle on the counter, didn't ask for any money.

‘You were here last Saturday night?' asked Jesús. ‘You remember us?'

‘Sure,' said the barman, shrugging his shoulders, smiling.

‘You remember our group?'

‘You were with the tall girl, Conchita—long legs, long dark hair, great dancer—and El Osito was with a
mulata
, but I didn't know her. She was a foreigner.'

‘How do you know she was a foreigner?'

‘She came to the bar, didn't speak any Spanish. One of the DJs sent her a note written in English, asked me to give it to her.'

‘Did you read it?'

‘My English is not so good and he was probably asking the same thing all the guys ask.'

‘What did she do with the note?'

‘She read it and dropped it on the floor,' said the barman. ‘I mean, she was with you guys, what does she want with some DJ? Watch him play music all night? You got to be in love for that.'

‘What was the name of the DJ?'

‘It was David . . . David Álvarez. Nice guy. Good music. He's not on tonight.'

 

Mercy's phone rang at the Netherhall Gardens house. Chris Sexton picked it up and explained the situation to Papadopoulos.

‘So something's going to happen tonight . . . finally?'

‘Difficult to say with these guys. There's been so little contact we haven't been able to get a hold on them,' said Sexton. ‘We're not even sure what will happen if there's a satisfactory show of trust. Bobkov and Kidd have effectively taken it out of my hands.'

‘What did the DCS have to say about that?'

‘He said they're spooks and they think they know more than anybody else about everything. He's cleared it with the Home Office.'

‘Is there a tracker on the car?'

‘No, we're concerned that they're FSB. They seem to know about our phone triangulation technology so we reckon they'll be able to detect a tracker. We're using CCTV to keep an eye on their progress.'

‘I've got a list of estate agents that Irina Demidova, aka Zlata Yankov, visited looking for a property to rent with a spec that sounds like a place you'd want to keep a hostage. But I'm having trouble tracking down numbers. I doubt I'll get news on any of this until tomorrow morning.'

‘And we can't stop what's happening now,' said Sexton.

 

‘Have you spoken to Tereshchenko's widow about what's happened to Sasha?' asked Mercy, pulling away from the traffic lights. ‘Of course,' said Bobkov, staring out of the window, Regent's Park flashing past on the right-hand side. ‘She thinks they're FSB. She would. She's completely paranoid, with good reason. She just told me to do anything and everything to get Sasha back.'

‘Does that include breaking your promise to her about finding the perpetrators of the polonium 210 poisoning?'

‘She loves Sasha. She wouldn't hold me to that,' said Bobkov. ‘I told her about this—what we're doing now, this bizarre process where I have to show them that I'm trustworthy. Me? They steal my son off the street, torture him and
I
have to show
them
. This is what she thinks is classic FSB behaviour. I am somehow in the wrong. They now expect me to show my allegiance. This was why Tereshchenko and I left the FSB in the first place. We got out before we had to do something that we really couldn't live with.'

‘So you agree with her? This is an FSB operation?'

‘Almost everything points to it: the president getting back into power, the inquest into the poisoning coming up here in London in the autumn and next year, and I admit I've been stepping up my investigations. Only James knows this, but I even managed to recruit a Russian nuclear scientist to our cause. He was so disgusted by what had happened he promised to help in whatever way he could.'

‘And the British government? How do they feel about it? I mean it's good that they've given you James Kidd, but then again that keeps them in the loop.'

‘Now the pressure is really coming down on the British government, who, of course, would like good relations with Russia, but cannot accept executions using nuclear material by a foreign power on their soil. I think there are a lot of people who would like this unfortunate problem to disappear. One man's death is standing in the way of an awful lot. Morality often goes out of the window when the economy is in trouble.'

‘So you think Sasha's kidnap is part of the process to get people to shut up about Tereshchenko?'

‘Not just me, but his wife as well. She has an eighteen-year-old son. Something else is always implicit in these actions,' said Bobkov. ‘On the other hand we always have to be aware of, and wary of, paranoia. Russia is not a normal country. A literary agent asked me to write a non-fiction book about the Tereshchenko case. I said I wouldn't do it but I'd be happy to write fiction. I've always admired John le Carré. The agent wasn't interested. He said there were three places in the world where he thought crime fiction didn't work: Africa, South America and Russia. When I asked him why, he said that they were all too surreal; nobody would be able to suspend their disbelief.'

‘And what does James Kidd think?'

‘He hasn't made up his mind. He's like that. He only operates on what he knows, which is that Sasha has been taken and, thanks to your investigation, how it was done,' said Bobkov. ‘He's unnerved by Irina Demidova and the murder of Jeremy Spencer. He hopes that this next stage of the process will reveal more to us.' Mercy pulled up outside Wunjo Guitars on Denmark Street. Bobkov went up the stairs to the side of the shop window. The Internet café was on the first floor behind a flimsy door. A couple of people were working online behind some rows of monitors while a gothic-looking girl sat behind a Formica counter.

Bobkov asked for his package, produced his ID. She gave him a Jiffy bag. He took it back down to the car and opened it. It contained a mobile phone, a coil of rope about seven millimetres thick and a printed page in Russian.

 

This phone can only receive calls. You will tell your driver to take you to Tower Hill Tube station and drop you there. She is not to follow you. We will be behind you and if she interferes she will get hurt. You will bring the case of money with you and the rope. You will be instructed by phone what to do with it. If all goes well you will be rewarded. If there's any outside interference Sasha will be killed.

 

Bobkov translated for Mercy, who started the car, drove down to the Embankment and past Blackfriars, Southwark and London Bridges. She dropped Bobkov off at the Tower.

He crossed the street, case in one hand, phone to his ear, shoulders hunched over, the desperation growing inside.

 

‘This is very good,' said El Osito, lying in bed, both legs slightly raised, leafing through Raul Brito's research and the documents. ‘How much did it cost you?'

‘Nothing much. We paid for it out of our own pockets.'

‘That's not an answer.'

‘I commissioned it. I paid for it. It's not a legitimate expense.'

‘A very careful response.'

‘Vicente is even more careful,' said Jaime. ‘I assume you don't want to have to explain all this to him. You know what he's like about risk.'

‘That's good. I'm glad you understand how things are, Jaime,' said El Osito. ‘I've already spoken to Vicente.'

He registered the surprise in Jaime's face.

‘You think I can operate like this for two months without Vicente knowing?'

Now Jaime wondered what he'd told Vicente. El Osito had already confused him by calling Dennis Chilcott as soon as he'd finished reading Brito's report and telling him to come to room 401 in the clinic. Why was El Osito involving the British in their domestic business?

‘What about the other problem?' asked El Osito.

‘The Englishman found out about you from one of the DJs in the clubs,' said Jaime, who told him what they'd discovered from the doorman at Joy and the barman of the Charada. El Osito remained calm, hands folded across his flat stomach, the morphine drip maintaining a steady near-euphoric state.

‘You know what to do,' said El Osito.

‘I've sent Jesús to Kapital. We'll take the DJ to La Escuela after he's finished his set.'

‘When is that?' asked El Osito.

‘One o'clock.'

‘You cover every exit,' said El Osito. ‘If he gets away that will represent this “risk” that you and Vicente worry about so much.'

‘It's already done.'

A knock at the door. A nurse showed Dennis Chilcott into the room. He looked as bewildered as a tourist who'd found himself yanked out of a holiday and into real life. He was flat-footed and overweight, with his trousers belted under his gut and hanging off his arse. His rumpled roll-neck sweater seemed to be choking him. A brand new Burberry trenchcoat mac was the only thing holding him together.

Dennis Chilcott hated hospitals. Even from the outside. He would do anything not to go in one. The only reason he hadn't cut up rough over the phone was that El Osito had called it a clinic, but as soon as the cab pulled up outside he knew. He steeled himself as he entered the glass doors, saw the blank walls beyond the reception, the people in white suspended in the sterilised interior.

It was better than the NHS hospitals back home. The antiseptic smell was not quite so pervasive and there were no bleeding hooligans or raving drunks ricocheting off the walls. He put on his mental blinkers, joined a gaping-mouthed man on a trolley in the lift and stared at a nurse's calves to distract himself from the horror.

Now he was in room 401 and so appalled by El Osito's damaged legs that he could barely contain himself.

‘Jesus Christ,' he said in a voice that came up from the basement of his own nightmares, ‘what the hell happened to you?'

‘I had a car accident,' said El Osito. ‘My legs took the full impact. I'm O.K. but it will be two months before I can walk again.' Dennis allowed a wondrous delusion of relief to spread through him. He was still nauseated at the idea of injury, but at least it wasn't a punishment attack or a gang-war wound. No sooner had he thought this than he revised his idea. Was he kidding himself? He knew about the brutality of Vicente's competitor, El Chapo. The media was full of it, and he had the global reach to pull it off.

‘I can see you're concerned,' said El Osito. ‘Don't be. Tell me.'

‘Your competitors, have they . . . ?'

‘This is nothing to do with the competition,' said El Osito. ‘That all happens back in Cuidad Juarez. This was a car accident. Unfortunate. Nothing more.'

Jaime looked to see if Dennis believed it. He seemed to have suspended judgement for the moment, but he wasn't happy. He was looking at those broken legs as if they were a pair of battered wives insisting that they'd had a fall. The Mexican wished his English was better. He had enough to grasp that El Osito was passing his injuries off as a car accident, something he might well have spun around Vicente too. What concerned Jaime more was that he probably wouldn't be able to understand why El Osito had called Dennis to his bedside. He was maintaining the blankest possible expression in the hope that El Osito wouldn't send him out of the room.

‘I want you to do something for me in London,' said El Osito.

‘I'll do my best,' said Dennis.

‘You have a good network of dealers,' said El Osito. ‘How many?'

‘Maybe fifty,' said Dennis, not wanting to reveal too much of his operation.

‘All over London?'

‘We've got it covered, yes.'

‘And you have a lot of safe places?' said El Osito. ‘Places where you can keep product for distribution and money for collection?'

‘I've got a chain of hardware stores and timber yards and, yes, other commercial property where I can store things.'

‘I want you to find somebody for me.'

‘You know, when I tell people I live in London they always ask me whether I know so-and-so,' said Dennis. ‘They don't understand how big London is, how . . . different it is now. You can live there for years without meeting your neighbour. I assume, from the way you've just asked me, that you have a name but no address, and I'm telling you it's not going to be easy. Allow plenty of time.'

‘I have a name
and
an address, but I know you won't find him there. You can try but my instinct tells me you won't have any luck. But what I can do is tell you how you're going to find this person for me.'

Dennis didn't like the assumption in El Osito's voice. In fact, he didn't like the way this conversation was proceeding at all. It seemed to him that the Colombian's request was not unconnected to the state of the man's legs, and he felt distinctly herded, even if it was by a cripple.

Despite this unease, his finely honed business instincts were intact and telling him to hear the man out, just to see if there were any opportunities on the way.