Stealing People (37 page)
‘Then there’s the set-up of the kidnaps,’ said Deacon. ‘You know we brought Jennifer Cook back. She took quite a beating from those … well we don’t know who they were exactly. Anchorlight operatives reporting back to Kinderman, maybe?’
‘Have they let you anywhere near those guys?’
‘No, even though Cook was travelling with four other soldiers who’ve confirmed her story.’
‘How helpful was Jeff Cook?’ asked Boxer.
‘Her left-wing conspiracy theory is interesting,’ said Deacon. ‘If we’re to believe Jensen, then it fits our analysis at the Cross that this was a crucial part of his plan to draw out the extremists in the
CIA
. Socialism does something to extreme right-wingers’ brains. The targeted threat of each hostage was important, too. Taking Sophie Railton-Bass was obvious, but all those other countries are places where extreme right-wingers want to have influence.’
‘Even the Russian mafia?’
‘That was one of the most interesting targets of them all: organised crime, banking, access to the Kremlin all wrapped up in one guy.’
‘So you
are
coming round to my version of events?’
‘We don’t doubt you, we just lack corroboration,’ said Deacon. ‘We know that American politics has never been more polarised, but it’s another leap to say that a right-wing extremist faction has been infiltrating the
CIA
. You can’t build an intelligence strategy on rumour. We need facts, not pretexts.’
‘Maybe that’s why you’ll remain one step behind the game.’
‘But at least we’ll be right,’ said Deacon, laughing.
Boxer and Amy were on their way to see his mother, Esme, in her flat in Mount Vernon for Sunday lunch. They were walking up Haverstock Hill; it was raining and they were huddled together under an umbrella.
‘How’s it going with the shrink?’ asked Boxer.
‘Don’t call her a shrink,’ said Amy. ‘It makes her sound like some African witch doctor who boils heads down to a manageable size.’
‘They’ve always been called shrinks. I don’t even know why.’
‘Anyway, I’m not going to tell you about discussions with my analyst.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s about sex. It’s private.’
‘Does she think you’re a lesbian, is that it?’ said Boxer. ‘I’ve got no problem with homosexuality, you know. It’s just the way we are.’
‘Dad? Just shut the fuck up. I told you, this is precisely the conversation I
don’t
want to have with you.’
‘All right,’ said Boxer, changing tack. ‘Can I ask you something about the baby?’
‘Don’t take the piss.’
‘How would you feel about Alyshia and Deepak adopting Jamie?’
Amy stopped in her tracks, pulled him round to face her.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Can you see me bottle-feeding a baby up in that flat before flying out to Pakistan for three weeks to earn a living?’
The rain thrashed across the umbrella.
‘No, I can’t, you’re right. You’d be hopeless.’
‘You OK with the idea?’ asked Boxer. ‘He’s your half-brother.’
They walked on, arm in arm, in silence for several minutes.
‘I can’t think of anyone better,’ she said.
Boxer was with Alyshia. It was late afternoon and dark. They’d spent some time with Jamie and gone for a cup of tea in the hospital canteen, and were now heading back to the Neonatal ICU. Boxer pulled her over to the window and they looked out across the wet Fulham Road.
‘I don’t know how to put this,’ said Boxer, ‘so I’m just going to ask you straight. It’s a big question, so you don’t have to answer immediately. I wanted to know if you’d like to be Jamie’s mother.’
Her head turned slowly away from the glass. She could see Boxer’s face clearly enough in the reflection, but she needed to see him for real, to make sure that the offer she’d heard was genuine. She smiled.
‘Did Mum tell you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘About Deepak and me?’
‘All she said, when she asked if I wanted her to have the baby, was that it should be you not her having a child … that’s all.’
‘Deepak and I have been trying to conceive for over a year now. I’d just started IVF when Mum came over to Mumbai and we found out she was pregnant. It hit me hard. I was angry with her, envious, but I got over it, came round and got involved.’
‘So you’ve already thought about this?’
‘I’ve been hoping,’ she said, ‘waiting for you to ask.’
‘And Deepak?’ asked Boxer. ‘It’s not always easy for a man to have a child that’s not his own in the house.’
‘He’s cool,’ said Alyshia. ‘We’re still going to try for our own.’
‘I’d want you to adopt him. That would be best. I’ll be his godfather,’ said Boxer. ‘And by the way, I’ve spoken to Amy and she’s hoping you’ll agree.’
‘Are you all right with us splitting our time between London and Mumbai?’
‘Is that what you’re planning?’
‘Dad’s reeled Deepak back into the fold,’ said Alyshia. ‘He wants him to build the electric cars in the UK plants. So if anything, we’ll be more here than there.’
Mercy and Marcus Alleyne were eating groundnut soup in her kitchen in Streatham. It was Alleyne’s favourite Ghanaian food. They’d just started on the second bottle of Malbec.
‘I’m going to talk to
DCS
Hines about you,’ said Mercy, out of the blue. ‘Tell him that I’m in a full-blown relationship with a known criminal.’
‘I’m not known to him, Mercy,’ said Alleyne. ‘I’m only known on the street.’
‘You think?’
‘I’m very careful.’
‘People know about you, which means
we
know about you.’
‘Then why aren’t I in
HMP
Wandsworth?’
‘Probably because you’re the acceptable face of crime. You’re not violent. You don’t use firearms or knives. You keep a low profile. If we busted you, the replacement might be a lot nastier.’
‘So you’re being … kind?’
‘You
could
think of it like that.’
‘If you tell
DCS
Hines, maybe that kindness is going to run out.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Before you talk to him, I got some news for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m selling the stock left in my flat and I’m out. No more fencing.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Got me into some scary shit, that’s why,’ said Alleyne. ‘Don’t want to go through that again. I told Charlie, I thought I was done for. That’s no way to live.’
‘How’re you going to make a living?’
‘I still haven’t got the answer to that, Mercy. But I will find it. I guarantee.’
Alleyne put his knife and fork together, finished his Malbec and wiped his mouth with his napkin. He took a pouch out of his pocket and proceeded to roll a large joint, which he lit and smoked.
On the day that Jamie Boxer was due to leave the Neonatal ICU, the adoption process had still not been completed, so Boxer went to pick him up and bring him back to Isabel’s house in Kensington, where Alyshia and Deepak were now living so that they were close to the Chelsea and Westminster.
There was a small party for his arrival of about twenty people standing around drinking champagne. Boxer made a very moving speech about Isabel, the adoption and Alyshia, who looked radiant holding the still very tiny bundle in her arms.
Deacon was there, and afterwards he gave Boxer a big hug and told him he’d made a great choice for Jamie. They went outside on to the small patio during a brief moment of sunshine.
‘I haven’t seen you for a while,’ said Boxer.
‘Been busy with a new terrorist group in Syria and Iraq,’ Deacon said. ‘You won’t have heard of them yet but they call themselves the Islamic State.’
‘You’re looking at me in that questioning way of yours,’ said Boxer, wondering if Deacon was teeing him up to ask about the American Republic of Christians.
‘You’ve had no word from Jensen?’
‘Me? Why would I have word from him?’
‘There’s still no satisfactory explanation for your involvement in that business back in January.’
‘I can’t help you.’
‘You will get in touch with me if you ever hear from him?’
‘Sure, but I can’t think why he’d want to make contact,’ said Boxer. ‘It’s all over now. What have I got to offer him?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Deacon, looking at him hard. ‘We never knew.’
‘Does that mean I’m back on the suspect list?’
‘It means we don’t have an answer to a fundamental question,’ said Deacon.
‘Did you get anywhere with the
CIA
?’ asked Boxer. ‘Or ask Mercy to talk to Ryder?’
Deacon shook his head.
Esme came out of the house for a cigarette and the conversation changed to the Russian takeover of the Crimea.
The party was over by four o’clock and Boxer left to go back to Belsize Park. It was strange leaving the house under the circumstances, and he had a sustained pang of grief as he walked down the hill to the tube station.
Just as he started to go down the steps, he had a call from an unknown number. He took it. There was a beat of silence. A voice said:
‘Hello, Charlie, this is Louise.’
This is the first book I’ve written since the death of my wife, Jane, and it could not have been done without the support of my family and friends from all over the world.
I would especially like to thank Bryony Spencer who looked after me in the immediate aftermath of Jane’s death, taught me yoga and kept my head together. She left her life in France and came over at the beginning of 2014 to stay with me in Oxford while I got this book off the ground and then later helped me transfer to Portugal to finish it. Without her, my task would have been doubly difficult.
I would also like to thank Mick Lawson and José Manuel Blanco who kept me going with their phone calls of love and support from Seville. They were very close to Jane and that was enormously important to me.
Paul Johnston, my old Oxford pal and fellow crime writer, also phoned me regularly from Napflion in Greece, which was hugely helpful.
Jane’s family: Michael and Marianne, John, Louise, Anna and Fenella, Annabelle, Geoff and Eleanor, Guy, Chantalle, Tyrese and Morgan, John Luke and Robyn all played their part in keeping my spirits up.
I’d like to thank my mother, who provided much-needed insight and love. My thanks, too, to my sister, Anita, and her husband, David, for being there for me.
I was also very lucky to have my old Oxford housemates, Peter and Monica Tudor, nearby as they often had me over and couldn’t have been better friends in my hour of need.
It was strange, after all these years, to be living in Oxford, where I had also been to school, and to find friendship extended from that quarter. I’d like to thank Mike Stanfield, Chairman of the Board of Governors of St Edward’s, and Chris Jones, who’d been my first 1st XV captain, both of whom were very warm and supportive.
My thanks to Kristian Lutze, my German translator, and his partner Anne Braun, for looking after me at the Cologne literary festival and being great friends.
Once I went back to Portugal to finish the book, I was brilliantly supported by Alexandra Monteiro, Manuel and Deb Pilar, Nucha
and Miguel, Joris and Sandra.
With Jane’s death I had not only lost the love of my life but also my first reader and editor. I was fortunate that Liz Wyse, who’d read all my books and knew me well, could step in and give me excellent advice and do it with love.
I am very fortunate to be a part of the literary agency Aitken Alexander Associates and I would like to thank everybody there for the support they showed me over that difficult year and especially Anthony Sheil, Lesley Thorne and Sally Riley.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Orion for sticking by me through that difficult time. They never put me under any pressure and I only ever felt total support from them. I would especially like to thank Genevieve Pegg who gave me the best editorial notes I have ever received on a book.
My thanks, too, to Anu Ohrling, who advised on the medical condition of one of the characters in this book.
Finally I would like to thank Lucy Maycock, the new light of my life, for being close but giving me space, for enlivening my mind and making me laugh, for opening my eyes to new experiences and making me happy. Lucy and her daughter, Tallulah, have made me feel that I belong again.
Robert Wilson has lived and worked around the world, including spells shipbroking, tourguiding and exporting bathrooms to Nigeria. Eventually, Rob settled in Portugal, and turned to novels. Since then, he’s written many acclaimed crime novels including the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning
A Small Death in Lisbon
and the Falcón series, recently adapted for television. His first novel featuring Charlie Boxer,
Capital Punishment
,
was shortlisted for CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. Find out more at www.robert-wilson.eu.
You Will Never Find Me
Capital Punishment
The Ignorance of Blood
The Hidden Assassins
The Silent and the Damned
The Blind Man of Seville
The Company of Strangers
A Small Death in Lisbon
A Darkening Stain
Blood is Dirt
The Big Killing
Instruments of Darkness
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Orion Books
This ebook first published in 2015 by Orion Books
©
Robert A. Wilson Limited 2015
The right of
Robert Wilson
to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN
: 978 1 4091 4818 0
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