Stealing People (15 page)

14

13.05, 16 January 2014

in transit, Belgravia, London SW1

On the way to Lyall Mews, Mercy called Conrad Jensen’s mobile but got no response. Papadopoulos was driving and listening to a preliminary report from the forensic team who had done most of the work on the front doors and seating area of the Mercedes. They had just been sent Pat Gould’s and Sophie Railton-Bass’s prints and so far had found nothing unusual.

‘Once we’ve checked this out, I might leave you and pursue this Conrad Jensen lead at the Savoy,’ said Mercy.

‘You think that smells of something?’

‘Don’t know why,’ said Mercy. ‘Maybe it’s because he’s a guy moving in on a vulnerable woman with a huge amount of money.’

‘You didn’t make Emma Railton sound very vulnerable,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘And Jensen practically works for the
CIA
.’

‘That’s never been a recommendation in my book,’ said Mercy. ‘The
CIA
were cagey with me this morning. My friend in MI6 reckons they’re worried that some of their personnel or contractors might be involved and they want to keep cards tight to their chests. And even intelligent, capable women are emotionally vulnerable when their marriage busts up.’

Mercy left Papadopoulos to investigate the mews and do a door-to-door in Lyall Street, and drove to the Savoy to investigate Conrad Jensen. She quickly discovered that he’d been staying there with his daughter, a woman in her twenties, whose name they did not have as her passport had not been required for the booking. Emma had made no mention of the daughter. Jensen had left the hotel suddenly with no luggage and had been followed by his daughter some days later. Mercy asked to look at the room, a two-bedroom suite, but it was occupied and had already been completely cleaned twice. She asked to speak to the cleaners and to anybody who had interacted with Conrad Jensen or his daughter.

The Portuguese cleaners had never been in the room with Jensen and his daughter present. They had not noticed anything unusual in the rubbish nor in the things littered about the rooms. Mercy moved on to the waiters in the various dining rooms that Jensen and his daughter had frequented. The only interesting thing to emerge from these interviews was that no waiter had ever picked up even a snippet of conversation. Whenever a waiter approached their table dialogue ceased and would only resume once they were out of earshot.

‘Was that intentional?’

‘We thought it was weird,’ said one of the girls. ‘He always used to say: “My daughter will have the steak tartare.” As if he was trying to establish something. We began to think, even with the forty-odd years’ age difference, that maybe they weren’t father and daughter, but lovers. We played a game one night taking it in turns to pass by their table pouring wine, cleaning crumbs, trying to catch them out, and we noticed they used sign language. Eventually they just shut up and we left them alone. But there was something about them, you know, not right.’

A call came through to tell her that they had found the receptionist and doorman who were on duty at the time Conrad Jensen left the hotel.

They sat in an office behind reception.

‘So Mr Jensen didn’t check out?’ asked Mercy.

‘No, his daughter checked out about three days after we last saw him and put the bill on her father’s credit card,’ said the receptionist.

‘Did you get her name?’

‘No.’

‘Is that odd,’ asked Mercy, ‘for people in an expensive two-bedroom suite to check out separately?’

‘Not so unusual for the very rich.’

‘Anything you can tell us about his stay here? Visitors? Unusual requests?’

‘According to his computer file he asked us to admit one Walden Garfinkle to his room on the eleventh of January at six p.m.’

‘Did you see Jensen on the night he left?’

‘He nodded at me on his way out. That’s all.’

‘Did you see the daughter during the following three days?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘How would you describe her demeanour?’

‘She was almost constantly on her phone, and when she wasn’t, she would sit in the lobby staring into it intensely, her face only inches from the screen, as if she was expecting news from a lover. As far as I know, she only went to her room to sleep.’

‘That’s very observant,’ said Mercy.

‘She was a striking woman … even for the Savoy.’

‘What about you?’ asked Mercy, turning to the doorman. ‘Did you have any contact with the girl?’

‘She used public transport every time except on the last day, when she ordered a cab to go to Islington.’

‘No street name?’

‘Just Islington.’

‘Can you remember the cab driver?’

‘He was a regular,’ said the doorman, nodding.

‘I’d like to talk to him,’ said Mercy. ‘What about Mr Jensen?’

‘We chatted about football. He was a Chelsea fan. I ordered him cabs most days. He went twice to Wilton Place, and to a restaurant called Moro in Exmouth Market on the tenth of January at around eight p.m.’

‘And on his last night?’

‘He gave me a tenner, didn’t ask for a cab. He just walked up to the Strand, turned left and that was the last I saw of him.’

‘Find me that cab driver,’ said Mercy. ‘And someone who can give me a physical description of Walden Garfinkle. What about room service? Once Mr Jensen had left, the daughter probably ordered up room service rather than sit in the dining room on her own.’

The receptionist tapped into the computer, looked at the bill and made a call. The doorman left to find the cab driver. A few minutes later a young oriental woman from room service came into the office. She spoke perfect English with an accent that made Mercy think she’d learnt it from the BBC World Service. She remembered delivering food to the Jensens’ suite on three consecutive evenings. She’d been struck by the tension in the room and how lonely Jensen’s daughter seemed to be.

‘I didn’t exactly feel sorry for her because she seemed too strong for that and too rich, being in a three thousand pound a night room. I thought it might be a lover problem. I’ve seen plenty of that in my time. Bust-ups, coming-togethers, disappointments, even fights with punching and biting. I talked to her as I laid out her food. Nothing special, just to see if she wanted any contact.’

‘And did she?’

‘She made a pass at me. More than a pass. She asked me if I wanted to go to bed with her. And I told her I wasn’t that way inclined.’

‘How did she react?’

‘She shrugged as if I’d turned down an offer of a Coca-Cola or something, like it was nothing,’ said the young woman. ‘The strange thing about it, for such a beautiful woman, was her approach. It was very masculine. She sat there playing with her phone, legs slightly apart, elbows on knees, and said: “Fancy a fuck?” I remember being confused by her.’

‘Were you nervous when you delivered food to her again?’

‘No. Like I said, it was nothing to her. I wasn’t interested. No problem. We just talked for a bit … that’s all. She told me her dad had left a few days ago without telling her where he was going.’

‘Was she worried about him?’ asked Mercy. ‘Did she talk about her father at all?’

‘She was tense, but maybe from waiting for her phone to ring. She never let it go. I asked her what her father did and she just said he was a businessman. She gave me the impression that he’d disappeared before. She said he was probably chasing skirt.’

‘Did you get her name?’

‘Yes, it was Siobhan.’

Boxer was on his way back to his flat in Belsize Park. As he came out of the tube he had a message from Glider to call him.

‘Got a lead for you, haven’t I,’ said Glider. ‘But don’t get your hopes up, it’s not cast iron.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’ve gone back through my old records to see what business I put Marcus’s way and tried to find somebody in that lot who Marcus might still trust if he got a call from them promising decent returns.’

‘That doesn’t sound very exciting.’

‘I checked them out ’n’ all,’ said Glider. ‘And they’re still active doing a lot of cigarettes to pubs. Thousands of pounds’ worth. And they’re south of the river. Bermondsey. That’s right next to Walworth.’

‘Let’s have it, then.’

‘His name’s Harvey Cox and he operates out of a warehouse off the Old Kent Road at the end of Latona Road, not far from South Bermondsey railway station. And you can use my name as long as you’re not going to kill anybody. You’ll have to find your own way in. Your best bet is to find a need for some cigarettes or maybe a supply. Lots of them.’

Glider gave him a number and hung up. Boxer called, gave his name and Glider as contact. He asked to speak to Harvey Cox. The voice on the other end said he’d call him back in five. It took ten.

‘Cox,’ he said. ‘You Boxer?’

‘That’s me.’

‘What you got?’ asked Cox. ‘Buying or selling?’

‘Buying,’ said Boxer, who reckoned this was the best way to meet Cox face to face in his warehouse in Bermondsey.

‘What you looking for?’

‘Five hundred cartons a month.’

‘We can do that.’

‘I’d like to come and see you.’

‘We deliver.’

‘I prefer face to face. I want to see your set-up.’

‘Glider’s name is normally good enough, my friend.’

‘He said he hasn’t done much business with you, and not in that line. I need to see that your operation is … functioning.’

‘Yeah, it’s functioning,’ said Cox, flat with irony. ‘All right, you know where we are. We’ll be expecting you. You could bring the first instalment. What sort of time?’

‘Between five and six?’ said Boxer. ‘Money?’

‘The money is one fifty a pack.’

They haggled to £1.25.

‘Make sure you get here before six,’ said Cox. ‘We let the dogs out after that.’

They hung up. Boxer opened the safe behind the Italian painting and took out £7,000. He went into the kitchen and lifted the floorboards at the back of one of the units and extracted his lightweight Belgian-made FN57 semi-automatic pistol and loaded it.

‘You going to come with me this time?’ asked Siobhan, consulting her mobile phone.

‘Where?’ asked Amy.

‘They don’t say. They just said get going, instructions to follow.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I don’t know, but I imagine they’ve got news of my father or they wouldn’t be calling me out.’

‘So it’s the same people you met before, your father’s network?’

‘I don’t know if I’ll be meeting the same person but it will be someone from the network.’

‘I’ll have to call my dad.’

‘Get on with it then,’ said Siobhan. ‘When these people say jump, you jump.’

Amy went into the bedroom, called her father, who was just going into the tube.

‘Stay put,’ said Boxer. ‘Don’t go with her. That’s not for you.’

‘What about you, why don’t you go?’

‘I’m on something else at the moment and there’s a time limit.’

‘So let me go?’

‘You’re not trained, Amy. You’re dealing with professionals here. Even Siobhan has been trained. You won’t know what to look for.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The signs that things are going wrong, not unfolding as they should do.’

‘Why don’t I follow her?’

‘You won’t get anywhere near. They’ll lose you on the first street corner if they’re any good,’ said Boxer. ‘You stay in the flat, let Siobhan do her thing. I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got to go now.’

He hung up. Amy went back to Siobhan, who had her coat on ready to go.

‘Huh!’ said Siobhan. ‘Daddy’s little girl’s going to do what she’s told. Sit on the sofa and look at your nice little goody two-shoes.’

‘I was thinking I’d follow you.’

‘I’ll have to tell them you’re coming or they’ll see you and cut you out like a limping wildebeest.’

Silence.

‘See ya later,’ said Siobhan, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

‘All right, I’ll come,’ said Amy.

Siobhan punched a text into her phone.

‘We’ll have to wait now, see if we’ve got permission.’

At five o’clock, Alyshia D’Cruz was ringing on the doorbell of her mother’s house and not getting any answer. She called Isabel on her mobile and frowned as she heard it ringing in the house. Then she got worried, remembering her mother’s tiredness, the news of the pregnancy. The long flight back from Mumbai even in business class had been hard for her; maybe she’d picked something up in India. She couldn’t stop herself from doing what everybody did in these situations: she dropped to her haunches and looked through the letter box, thinking she’d have to find a way into the house, regretting that she’d given her key back to her mother.

The hall light was out but the light above the stairs was on and that meant she could see her mother lying on the granite tiles, her feet still up on the last steps. Alyshia fell back in shock at the sight. She called an ambulance sitting there on the hard, cold pavement, and then took off for the estate office, thinking it might close and she needed to get a key to the house.

The woman in the estate office caught her mood immediately. The look of horror on Alyshia’s face transmitted everything. The woman dropped her handbag and, with the words ‘unconscious’, ‘pregnant’ and ‘ambulance’ resounding in her head, found the spare key to Isabel’s house. They tottered on heels too high for urgency past the parking area and the perfunctory gardens. Sirens whooped in the distance. A strange wind gusted around the courtyard in front of the house buffeting them, making them unsteady on their feet and lifting the woman’s flared skirt, which Alyshia knocked back down.

Only the Yale key was necessary. The woman fell through the door as Alyshia barged past her, stepping out of her heels and throwing herself down the hallway, landing on her knees and skidding over the granite tiles.

The woman shouted that she would go to the front gates and open them so that the ambulance could get as close as possible. Alyshia didn’t hear her as she came to a halt at her mother’s crumpled shoulder and was seized with panic as to what to do. Should she move her? It was clear she’d fallen down the stairs. She could see the bruise, broken skin and blood on the side of her forehead. Had she damaged her neck in the fall?