You Will Never Find Me (38 page)

‘That's the good news,' said Kidd, ‘because if they were using FSB safe houses in London we wouldn't have a chance.'

 

‘Tea's all right,' said Lomax, ‘but there comes a time of night when there's nothing better than a little drink. How about you, Alice?'

They were sitting waiting for Amy. They knew they had at least thirty minutes before she'd show.

‘Oh, I don't keep any drink in the house, Jake,' said Alice. ‘Far too tempting.'

‘Trying to keep yourself on the straight and narrow?'

‘I like a smoke and an occasional drink, just don't want alcohol in the house, that's all. Been a source of too much trouble, know what I mean?'

‘Totally,' said Lomax, thinking Alice was just the sort to get clouted around the joint after a few bevvies. ‘I've got a bottle in the car, mind. I could bring it up, we could have ourselves a little glass and as soon I've handed over the package to Amy I'll take it away again. No harm done.'

She didn't have to say anything; the gleam was in her eye. She'd have killed for a shot. Lomax went down to the car, tapped on the window.

‘Are we on yet?' asked Tel.

‘Nearly,' said Lomax. ‘She's on her way. You come with me now.'

Lomax went to the boot, where he kept a box of assorted booze for when he went on sales trips. Nothing like a shot of vodka over a coke deal. He took a bottle of Stolly and a couple of cans of Coca-Cola. He'd need the Coca-Cola to mask the slight saltiness of the GHB. Not that Alice would notice a damn thing.

On the way back up Lomax stationed Tel on the fourth floor.

‘When I text you, come to the door. Don't knock. Just wait outside. If the girl gets spooked she might make a run for it, and I want you there when she opens the door,' said Lomax. ‘And no tonking her on the head.'

‘Right,' said Tel. ‘No tonking.'

Lomax went back up to Alice Grant's flat. She had three glasses laid out with some ice ready in a bowl. He poured the drinks in front of her. They sat with their vodka and Cokes.

‘So where's Mr. Grant?' asked Lomax.

‘Oh, he's long gone,' said Alice. ‘I think I was lucky he hung around until Chantrelle was born.'

‘She never mentioned her dad,' said Lomax.

‘She never knew him,' said Alice. ‘Just as well. Bit of a bad boy. That's why he skipped off. Used to run crack on the estate. Then the cops got heavy on it and that was the end of him.'

‘To become a guest of Her Majesty's Prison Service?' asked Lomax.

He'd been right about her. She had the look of a crack hag.

‘Don't think so,' said Alice. ‘I think he might have been . . . done away with. He had a bit of a mouth on him and quite a temper. Not a good combo when you see the company he was keeping.'

‘Chantrelle's a bit of a tearaway, I have to say,' said Lomax, taking a measured guess.

‘It's not been easy for her,' said Alice. ‘I've had my problems, it has to be said. Not always been there for her.'

‘Problems?' asked Lomax.

‘You know,' she said, wiggling her wrist.

‘Drink?' said Lomax, then nodded. ‘Ah yes, Mr. Grant. Crack?'

‘How did you meet Chantrelle?' she asked, as if changing the subject, but not.

‘We ran into each other in a club in Madrid. You know, English people together. She was with some foreigners all yabbering away in Spanish so we got talking,' said Lomax. ‘My God, she can dance, that girl. You must have done something right, Alice.'

‘She's a devil of a dancer,' said Alice. ‘That's how she got started, I reckon. Had to keep going . . . all night.'

Rather than having a crackhead mum who probably didn't stop during the pregnancy, thought Lomax.

‘She was definitely partial to a little snort,' said Lomax. ‘Yes, we had a very nice time together and she introduced me to some great people. Real snow kings.'

He could see her sneaking looks at him, sizing him up, working out where he was coming from. She had all the slyness of the user who could smell drugs on someone through four lanes of London traffic.

‘Let's raise a glass to Chantrelle,' said Lomax, chinking glasses with Alice, looking her in the eye. ‘I was going to leave her a little present, but seeing as you're being so nice . . . '

He handed her a little baggie with six rocks in it. She was out of her chair and into the bedroom in a flash. He heard the bubble of her pipe and a huge sigh, as if all her cares had been lifted from her shoulders. Lomax took a plastic phial of liquid GHB from his pocket and gave Alice's half-finished vodka and Coke a heavy squirt. When she came back in her eyes were bright, she was smiling and there was a little shimmy in her hips.

‘Chantrelle's not the only one who knows how to dance,' she said.

The doorbell rang. Alice veered away from Lomax and down the corridor to the front door.

‘Amy!'

‘Hello, Alice.'

‘You're just in time for the party.'

Lomax squirted a more carefully judged shot of GHB into an empty glass and slammed some ice on top of it. He picked up the glass as Amy walked into the room, held it up and gave her a small measure of vodka, which he topped up with Coca-Cola.

‘Have a drink, Amy,' he said. ‘I'm Jake, Chantrelle's friend.'

He handed Alice her glass and picked up his own.

‘Here's to Chantrelle,' he said, and they all chinked glasses and drank.

Alice socked back the rest of her drink in one go and slammed the glass down on the table.

‘I'll have another one of them please, barman,' she said. ‘Let's have some music.'

She threw out both arms to Amy, hugged her and let her go.

‘Go on, have a drink, love. Get it down yer,' she said.

Amy took another inch as Lomax poured Alice a careful measure of vodka. Amy was checking him out. She was young but not completely green.

‘You didn't see Amy with all her hair,' said Alice, knocking back half her drink in one go. ‘They could have been sisters, her and Chantrelle, couldn't you, love?'

Amy smiled. Lomax guessed she'd seen this state before. He gave her an encouraging look, a little shrug.

‘Jake met her in Madrid, didn't you? They had a lovely time together.'

She swerved away and went to the old CD player, turned it on, hit play and danced away from it without caring what was on. Lomax sent Tel the pre-prepared text as Amy Winehouse's ‘Rehab' boomed out. Alice, who'd picked up her drink and knocked back the remainder, wheeled round to give the CD player a murderous look.

‘We're not having that, are we?' she said.

Lomax gave Amy a small cheers, sipped his drink; she took another half-inch of hers.

‘Alice said you have a package for me.'

‘It's in the car,' he said. ‘We'll pick it up on the way out. I'll give you a lift if you want. The Tube's going to close in a bit. I'll whip you down to Old Street in no time.'

‘This package . . . ?'

‘Chantrelle didn't tell me anything about it. She was having a great time, hanging with a crowd. She told me she'd ring you and that I had to give it to you in person. She just forgot to give me your mobile number and address.'

‘That's because I didn't give them to her,' said Amy. ‘She should have been back here on Monday. That was the idea.'

‘You ever been to Madrid?' asked Lomax. ‘It's an addictive scene down there. You hit with the right crowd and you could lose two months of your life. That's a place that knows how to party. What was she doing down there? I mean, I asked her, but she was very coy.'

They were alone in the room now. Alice had used the distraction of the music to slip into the bedroom to smoke another rock.

‘I'm lucky she didn't sell it,' said Amy. ‘My passport.'

‘She didn't need to,' said Lomax, feeling her starting to trust him now. ‘The guy she was with had plenty. What was she doing with your passport? I wouldn't give mine to anybody. Fancy a top-up?'

Lomax was pouring himself another, not too generous.

‘I'm O.K. with this,' she said, taking another inch. He didn't push it. He wasn't a creep trying to get her drunk.

‘Smoke?' he asked, handing her one of Alice's cigarettes. ‘I'm sure she won't mind.'

Amy took one. Lit up. She told him why she'd given Chantrelle her passport. Wanted to impress him.

‘That's a pretty fucking elaborate way to leave home,' said Lomax. ‘All I did was go to uni and hightail it to London straight after.'

‘My mother's a cop and my father's a—'

‘Don't tell me.'

‘You'll never guess.'

‘A professional hit man.'

‘No,' said Amy, ‘although . . . '

Lomax laughed. Amy did too. Just over ten minutes in and the drug was loosening her off. The inhibitions were falling away.

‘He's in the firearms unit . . . SCO19?' said Lomax, deadpan.

‘No, but he does have a gun.'

‘Legal?'

‘No.'

A little sweat came up on Lomax.

‘Your parents still married?' he asked.

‘Separated. Divorced. Ages ago,' said Amy, smoking, taking another drink. ‘Where the hell's Alice gone?'

‘Yes, where
has
she gone?' said Lomax. ‘This is supposed to be her party.'

He went to the bedroom door, gave it a little knock, opened it a crack.

‘Alice?'

He opened the door more. Alice was on the bed convulsing, her muscles in spasm. She was unconscious.
Shit
. Had he been a bit too heavy with the GHB and the first shot of vodka?

‘Is she all right?' asked Amy.

‘Just crashed out, that's all,' he said, going into the room, pushing the door shut behind him. He rolled Alice over, got her into the recovery position.

Amy pushed open the door behind him, saw Alice's state. ‘Christ,' she said, pulling out her mobile. ‘We'd better get an ambulance.'

Lomax turned and slapped it out of her hand. She looked at him in shock. He smiled a little sadly and it instantly dawned on her: the strangeness of the situation, the way she'd started to feel. She turned and made a run for the front door but nothing would quite work properly. It all seemed too slow, as if she was in wellies full of water.

She reached the front door, wrenched it open. There was a man standing there. She had to blink to see him straight. She felt dizzy. He put his hand on her sternum and gave her the gentlest of shoves backwards, and she fell on her bum like a toddler. Tel stepped into the flat, closed the door behind him, saw Lomax in the living room in a hyperactive state.

‘What's up?' said Tel.

Amy was struggling to get to her feet like a child in a bath full of water.

‘Shut the door, keep an eye on her.'

Lomax was working at maniacal speed. He'd found the rocks of crack in the bedroom, pocketed them. He turned the music off using the remote, tossed it onto the sofa. He had his coat on, the bottle of vodka in one pocket, the Coke cans in the other. The money he'd been going to give to Alice he stuck in an inside pocket. He found some kitchen roll and wiped down the table. The glass he'd been using he emptied in the sink and stuffed that in with the vodka.

‘How's she doing?' he asked.

‘She's out,' said Tel. ‘What the fuck is this?'

Lomax looked around the room. ‘Let's get out of here,' he said.

 

‘I don't know whether this is going to be any use to you, but I've found a couple of girls who know Amy,' said Glider, on the phone to Boxer. ‘That photo you sent me, I put that around all the girls I know and they forwarded it. We've had a couple of replies. Girls who saw Amy on Saturday night in Camden at a club called KOKO right next to Mornington Crescent Tube.'

‘That's a start,' said Boxer. ‘How do I get in touch with them?'

‘I'll text you their mobile numbers.'

This was a job for Roy Chapel's son Tony. Boxer forwarded the text to him, asked him to follow it up. He sat back thinking, if Glider had come up with those girls on Monday he'd have saved us a lot of trouble. It was the photo: everybody looks at a photo; nobody reads words any more.

A text from Tony. He'd made contact. The girls were in a club in Shoreditch called Sy-Lo. He'd be with them in ten. Boxer thought of the club DJ David Álvarez. What had he said when he'd been thinking about how to contact El Osito? The Spanish market was dead. They were looking north and to London in particular. El Osito must have people here ready to act for him.

Two more thoughts came to him as he sat in the darkened room. He must warn David Álvarez. El Osito would know that Boxer had got to him somehow. They'd work it out. His visit to Álvarez in the Joy club had been no secret, what with the doorman and the girl taking him up to the DJ's zone.

As he sent a text to Álvarez, he worked on his second thought: only what was known in the Jefatura could be leaked to the outside world. It would be in some report or other, filed by the homicide squad: the body wasn't Amy Boxer's, the left buttock tattoo wasn't hers. Only if Zorrita had found another bag with something more revealing could that leak out into the world and expose him to danger. But Boxer was no longer in the loop. Zorrita had no reason to call him now. He was not an interested party any more. He checked his watch, midnight, one in the morning in Madrid. He called Zorrita.

‘I'm sorry, Luís.'

‘No need to be sorry, Charles. Just let me get out of bed. My wife hates to be disturbed by my work.'

The rustle of bedclothes, the pad of feet, the flap of some clothing, the pulling out of a chair.

‘Tell me, Charles.'

‘I just need to know if you found anything else today. I mean, something that would help you identify the dismembered body. If I knew the identity of her double in Madrid it would improve my chances of finding Amy.'