The Mercy Seat (23 page)

‘Taking a risk, parking it in Byker.’

She laughed. ‘Anybody touches this is taking a risk.’

Their plan. Peta and Amar, along with Donovan, return to the flat. Maintain surveillance but let Father Jack know they are on to him. Make him force his hand.

Maria stay at the hotel. Wait for Sharkey, try to reach Jamal on his mobile.

In through the communal entrance smelling of stale air and vinyl flooring and up to the flat. Peta put the key in the lock, opened the door. They stepped inside. Donovan closed the door behind them. Peta hit the light switch.

And stopped dead.

Sitting by the window, before the cameras, was Father Jack.

‘This belong to anyone?’ He held up the minidisc.

Four figures holding baseball bats detached themselves from the shadows and ringed the three. Faces twisted, bodies
cranked up for violence. Waiting for their corpulent master’s Pavlovian command.

The cameras had been wrecked.

Donovan looked at Jack. The fat man didn’t look well. He had changed clothes into a looser Hawaiian shirt and bigger chinos. His stomach was distended even further, pushed out by the wadded dressing covering his injury. His skin looked sickly; he was sweating. He smelled bad. The hand that held the disc shook.

He looked haunted, a ghost that didn’t know it was dead.

‘Called in some favours …’ Father Jack gestured to the bat-wielders. ‘Gym candy and a bad attitude. Perfect for me … bad for you.’

Father Jack held the disc up.

‘You’re going to … suffer for what you’ve done to me …’ Anger broke through his pain. ‘So this is your last chance.’

The three of them looked at each other, expectant.

‘Ready to make a deal?’

The Gate. Short strips of franchised bars and fast-food restaurants topped off by a multi-screen cinema. Blockbusters churning in perpetual rotation. The décor, all metal and neon, dated as soon as the last screwdriver was packed away.

Maria stood on the top level of the high glass-fronted building, looked down on the city, her feet tingling with vertigo, watched ordinary lives being played out: people driving cars, buses, leaving just-closing shops, entering bars, restaurants, going home. Ordinary lives. The other city.

‘Man, this feels like you’re standin’ on air, an’ shit. Man could fall an’ keep fallin’.’

She turned round. Jamal had materialized at her left, was staring down at the street, eyes avoiding hers. Dressed identically to the last time she had seen him; but his emblematic
urban armour of Avirex and box-white trainers had lost their shine and lustre. He hopped from foot to foot. She caught his eyes. He looked more than agitated. Scared.

Tread carefully. ‘Thought you wouldn’t come.’

Jamal shrugged, aimed for casual, his tension giving him away. ‘Said I would, didn’t I?’ Shaking slightly as he spoke.

He had said a lot more than that. Maria had left a message on his mobile voicemail, reminding him who she was, asking him to get in touch so they could go ahead with what he had agreed with Donovan. His response had been surprisingly swift.

He told her he had to meet her. Had something big to tell her. Like, major big. And to bring her handbag ’cause it was going to cost her. He had arranged the place and time, hung up.

‘So,’ said Maria, smiling unthreateningly, like he was a wild animal she didn’t want to spook, ‘what have you got to tell me?’

‘You got the money?’

‘If what you’ve got to say turns out to be the truth, then—’

‘No. Now. I gotta split.’ There was pleading in his eyes, his voice. ‘I need it now.’

Maria sighed. ‘I’ll have to hear what you’ve got to say first.’

Jamal weighed his options. Nodded.

Maria waited.

Jamal’s eyes darted around, as if the half-deserted level was full of eavesdroppers.

He shook his head. ‘Not here.’

‘Well …’ Maria looked around, saw the restaurants. ‘You hungry?’

Jamal shrugged again. And again his eyes gave him away.

Ravenous, she thought.

‘Come on, then.’ She walked towards the escalator. ‘I’m buying.’

Jamal pretended nonchalance, but almost ran to get there.

Nando’s was quite empty. It took them hardly any time at all to get their food.

As with other branches of the franchise, the restaurant was all exposed dark beams, flagged terracotta floors and rough adobe walls. Was it just her, thought Maria, or was the idea of being sold a fake sense of history along with her meal unsettling? Especially in a steel and glass edifice like the Gate.

She filed the thought away for future reference. Saturday colour supp. piece, perhaps.

Jamal had wolfed down his peri-peri chicken and fries and corn on the cob in record time. So much so that she had ended up giving him part of hers.

Jamal drained his glass of coke, sat back satiated.

‘Enjoy that?’

He smiled. ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Now, business. What have you got to tell me?’

The smile disappeared. He began speaking but ended up stammering, tongue-tied.

‘Just take your time,’ she said, trying to calm him. ‘There’s no hurry.’

Jamal looked grave. ‘There is. I gotta go.’

He took a deep breath, continued before she could say anything else.

‘The disc, yeah? It’s two guys. Talkin’.’

Maria nodded, interested, encouraging.

‘One of them is that reporter guy. The one who turned up dead.’

Maria felt her heart quicken. She struggled to stay seated. ‘Go on.’

‘The other guy—’

‘Look, Mr Myers …’

‘The other guy …’

He told her. Slowly and carefully. The man from the TV. The newspapers. The missing man.

Him.

Jamal finished speaking. Maria sat there stunned, her heart smashing furiously like a John Bonham drum solo. She wanted to jump up, run from the restaurant, start screaming orders into her mobile, get the staff moving. If this was true, it was going to be one of the major stories of the year.

If it was true.

‘Can you prove this?’

‘Yeah. If I had that disc you could hear for yourself.’

‘Where is the disc now?’

A shadow crossed Jamal’s features. ‘Father Jack,’ he mumbled.

Maria took the mobile from her bag. ‘I’ll phone Joe.’

‘Don’t bother.’ The words were said quietly; she didn’t hear.

‘No reply,’ she said, putting the phone down and looking at Jamal. ‘What’s the matter?’

Si.

He was unmoving …

‘Listen,’ said Jamal, pleading desperately. ‘I’ve told you what you want to know. I need that money. Now.’

‘Why?’

‘I just …’ He looked as if he would bolt, scream or burst into tears. ‘I need it …’

Maria sighed. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I can authorize a thousand pounds. But I have to wait and see if your story checks out.’

Jamal almost pounded the table in frustration. ‘I gotta have it, like I gotta disappear, man …’

That was the last thing Maria wanted. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I just need to make a couple of phone calls. Go get another cola or something.’

Jamal sighed, then, when he knew she would say no more, made his way to the drinks dispenser.

‘Right,’ said Maria, folding up her phone and replacing it in her bag. Her notebook, open before her, was filled with copious notes.

She had spoken to several journalists on her own paper, trying to piece together the facts behind Colin Huntley’s disappearance.

He had vanished the previous Tuesday, telling his cleaner that he would be back late or stay overnight. He lived alone following the death of his wife. His only daughter lived in Newcastle. He lived in a village in Northumberland. Wansbeck Moor.

His work colleagues talked of him as being anxious, distracted in the days before his disappearance. ‘Like he was building up to doing something he wasn’t looking forward to,’ one fellow worker had said.

The day had been booked off work, so no one had thought anything of it. But when he failed to make a prearranged dinner appointment with his daughter on the Wednesday night, the police were called. And an official investigation started.

‘Apparently CCTV footage has him getting on a King’s Cross-bound train in Newcastle on the Tuesday,’ Maria told Jamal. ‘And a similar one in London shows him getting off. So that would appear to back up your story.’

‘Can I have my money?’

‘Let’s just get this straight.’

There had been no contact between Colin Huntley and his daughter. Other friends and family had been questioned
and eliminated. Publicly, the investigation was ongoing, but unless there was a break soon, Maria’s sources had told her, it would start to be wound down.

‘You’ll have to talk to the police, you know,’ Maria said. ‘You’re a witness.’

The colour drained from his face. He began to shake. ‘No way. Joe said that. I gave you this so I wouldn’t have to. I just want my money.’

Maria sighed. She couldn’t just let him go. He was, at present, the only source for a potentially huge story. She had to have his credibility verified, have him protected from her competitors. Even get a sympathetic plod to talk to him when the time was right.

She looked at her watch. Sharkey would be here soon. He could throw some kind of legal blanket over the whole thing, buy her some time. Until then, she had to hang on to Jamal, not let him out of her sight.

She smiled at him, putting pen and notebook back in her bag. He didn’t return the smile. Looked only anxious.

‘Listen. Mr Sharkey, the man with the money, won’t be here until later on tonight. I’ve got to do some work before then. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘Doin’ what?’ He sounded suspicious.

‘Colin Huntley has a daughter. And she lives just up the road. Now, I need to talk to her about all this, so why don’t you come along? You don’t have to say anything. I’ll tell her you’re a trainee or my assistant or something.’

Jamal shrugged, although there was a hint of pride somewhere in his features. ‘’K.’

Maria smiled with what she hoped was encouragement. ‘What harm can it do, eh?’

They left the restaurant, the crowd flowing against them, eager for the latest slice of Hollywood comic-book escapism, and headed for the cab rank outside.

Donovan stared hard at Father Jack. Tried not to let the lethal goons on either side intimidate him.

Failed.

Donovan tried to keep his voice calm and even. ‘What’s the deal, then?’

Father Jack looked at the disc.

‘This,’ he said, clearly enjoying the moment despite his all-too-obvious pain, ‘in return for – let’s not be greedy – fifty thousand pounds. And that half-caste boy.’

The last few words spat out, Jack’s brows twisting with fury.

‘Good try, Jack,’ said Donovan, ‘but the price is too high. And last time I saw Jamal, he was with you.’ He smiled despite the situation. ‘How’s your injury, by the way? Is that a nappy you’re wearing? Didn’t know they made them so big.’

A fresh wave of sweat broke over Father Jack. His breathing became heavier, his gaze darker.

‘Mock all you want,’ he said, ‘but what’s about to happen is going to hurt you more than you hurt me. I take consolation from that.’

‘Take your pleasure where you can,’ said Peta, angry and unafraid, ‘because your nasty little operation is finished.’

Father Jack attempted another smile. ‘Don’t be … so melodramatic. Your cameras … are destroyed …’

‘Think we didn’t back things up?’ said Amar.

‘Think we didn’t expect something like this?’ Peta said, hands on hips.

Donovan was impressed by how cool she was being. He was still terrified.

Jack waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘I have friends …’

Peta continued: ‘It’s all been passed on to a national paper. There’s enough hard evidence to convict you. And you won’t be able to rely on your tame councillors or police. They’re part of our package. Get ready, Jack. You’re going to be famous.’

Father Jack was wheezing hard now, red-faced, as if he was sitting in a pressure cooker. He looked about to explode. When he spoke, his voice had a forced quality to it.

‘This disc …’ he said, ‘… you still need this disc. Trade. Pass over what you’ve got. And you walk out of … here … unharmed.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Donovan, with a fearlessness he wished he felt. ‘Like we believe you.’

‘And it’s too late,’ said Amar, seemingly as unperturbed as Peta. ‘We’ve passed it on. Finito.’

Father Jack looked like he had reached the foothills of a major heart attack.

‘Mark …’

One of his soldiers stepped forward, helped him to his feet. Once there, Jack seemed unsteady, swaying as if about to faint. He passed the disc to Mark, nodded.

Mark placed the disc on the table, brought his baseball bat down on it. Again. And again. Until there was nothing lift but silvered shards.

Jack locked eyes with Donovan, his face a mask of pain and hatred.

‘Nobody wins now.’ His voice was a fetid whisper.

He gestured. Mark helped him to the door. He turned, spoke to him.

‘Wait till I’m gone, then … have some fun with them.’

Father Jack closed the door behind him. In the silence that followed, he could be heard making his laboured way down the stairs.

Silence returned to the room.

‘Sorry, folks,’ said Mark, smiling. ‘Nothing personal.’

The men laughed.

Peta didn’t.

She kicked out sharply, hitting the nearest one with a blow to the groin. He doubled over, air leaving his body in a painful huff of surprise. His grip on the bat loosened. Bringing both hands up, she disarmed him, dislocating his thumb and several of his fingers in the process.

‘Joe!’

She threw the bat to Donovan. He clumsily caught it, put the right end in the palm of his hand.

The thug dropped to his knees.

Her actions had bought them precious seconds, the thug crew too surprised to respond. Now they did.

They attacked, one on one, anger driving their movements. They didn’t like being bested, especially not by a woman.

Adrenalin kicked in to Donovan; he felt no tiredness, no ache, just the desire to survive.

‘Bastard!’