Wanted (28 page)

Good news for me, he thought, allowing himself a half-smile. The more people who thought he was there, the safer he was here.

A crackling sound in his ear. A jangling of keys. The turning of a key in a lock.

He folded his newspaper and dropped it into a bin as he marched towards the park gate.

It was time to pay Beyoncé Gilloway’s mother a visit.

The Kid’s sister – if this was indeed her – was tall and lithe, Danny saw, as she answered the door. She must have been around thirty, with spiked, dyed hair, as red as her wrinkled, bloodshot eyes.

‘Yeah, what?’ she said, keeping the door half closed, as she looked him warily up and down.

He didn’t take his shades off, or his cap, for fear of her recognizing him from the news, although she clearly wasn’t the kind of person who would make a big point of keeping up with current affairs.

A gold stud glinted dead centre of her chapped upper lip. Pronounced muscles showed where her baggy white T-shirt had been cut off at the shoulders and where her denim miniskirt had ridden high up her thighs. This wasn’t the kind of physique that came from hours spent in some uptown gym, though, Danny reckoned. More a symptom of dependency. Maybe just nicotine and alcohol. But probably something worse.

The nostrils confirmed it. Inflamed and red. Coke or amphetamines. A dotting of scars on the inside of her right arm. Old track marks. Maybe so old she was now off whatever she’d been injecting, or maybe she’d just taken to injecting herself somewhere less noticeable now that she had a child and, maybe, social services people to deal with.

It would be easiest, of course, for Danny to terrify the information out of her. And he’d have been lying if he’d claimed the thought hadn’t already crossed his mind. It would be fastest, too, to extract what he needed if he seized her by the throat and forced her back into her hallway, where none of her neighbours could hear her scream.

A patter of footsteps on tiles. A little girl appeared in the doorway, curling round the Kid’s sister’s legs like a cat, peering curiously up at him through beautiful big brown eyes.

Danny had read covert operational memos, detailing how young children could be used to coerce adults, and how the resistance of even the most militant extremists could be pushed to a point of collapse in the face of a threat to their offspring’s life.

‘Achilles Heels’ – that was how one of Danny’s former Company colleagues had referred to children. A man who’d had no children of his own, he’d perceived them as nothing more than ‘flesh and blood crowbars, a God-given gift for prising open locked secrets from their murderous, wayward folks’.

Based on the accompanying case studies this man had not only cited, but had claimed to have been personally involved in, Danny had judged him as scum, with lower moral standards than a snake. And the fact remained that, no matter how badly Danny had ever needed information, he’d never stooped to such methods, and knew he never would.

‘Hey, sweetie,’ he said now, keeping his accent good and English, kneeling down so that his face was level with the little girl’s. ‘And you must be Beyoncé, right?’ He tousled her hair. ‘That’s such a pretty name.’

The little girl’s face lit up. ‘Everyone calls me Bay,’ she said.

‘That’s even prettier.’

Another bright, gap-toothed smile.

As he straightened, he saw the child’s mother clearly wouldn’t be so easily won over. She crossed her arms, still not opening the door. Those wary wrinkles around her eyes had tightened into outright suspicion. ‘How d’you know my little girl’s name?’ she said.

Her accent was a match for the Kid’s. Harsh and abrasive, it contained the same urban London grit that the Kid’s always had, which no amount of money or working abroad had ever smoothed away.

‘My name’s John,’ Danny said, using one of his old schoolteachers’ names, ‘John Morden. I’m a friend of Adam’s,’ he said, ‘your brother – the Kid.’

‘Yeah, I know what he’s called,’ she said, confirming everything Danny had hoped she would. ‘But I don’t know what he’s doing giving you my address. Because he ain’t here, if that’s what you think.’

There’d been no stumbling in her speech, but too much movement. A flick of her eyes to the left. A tightening of her forearms and the tendons in her throat. He would have put money on it that she was lying.

‘In fact, I haven’t seen or heard from him in nearly a year. He ain’t even called.’

And now too much talking. Another sign of nerves. She’d seen the Kid all right. Or had had contact. This expensive address. The fresh paintwork. Somebody was paying for it and, from her bloodshot eyes and empty bottle collection, Danny guessed it sure as hell wasn’t her.

‘Where did you say you knew him from?’

‘He’s an ex-colleague.’

‘Army?’

Danny said nothing, wondering what else she might give away.

‘GCHQ?’ she asked.

Again he didn’t answer, smiling at little Bay instead, wondering if her mother might mention some other part of the Kid’s subsequent career history he knew nothing about. But this time, she kept quiet.

‘Something like that,’ he said, with an apologetic smile.

The answer seemed to satisfy her. She nodded, sniffed, and seemed to reappraise him. ‘Yeah,’ she said, some of the harshness dropped from her voice. ‘Well, he never much talks about his work either.’

Talks.
Present tense. Not
talked.
Not the past. Meaning they weren’t estranged. They were still in regular contact.

‘I’ve got something for him,’ Danny said.

‘What?’

‘Money,’ he lied, choosing the one thing he thought would interest her most. And, right away, he got his reward: in his peripheral vision, he noticed her fingers tightening once more around her arm – a grasping motion. ‘A lot of money. Cash. And something else.’

‘What?’

‘Something private. Something I’ve got to give to him in person.’

Again he saw that tightening of her fingers. Maybe all this – the new paintwork and bike – was just for his niece and the Kid’s generosity didn’t extend to funding his sister’s lifestyle, too.

‘So why don’t you just call him?’ she said.

‘Because all the numbers I’ve got for him are dead. All I’ve got is this address.’

‘He gave you
my
address?’ She sounded surprised.

‘He said he was thinking of moving, but that you were more settled.’ A hint of flattery in his voice. She lapped it up. She smiled.

‘Yeah, well, you know him. Always up to something. Never could sit still.’

What Danny needed – what he now
craved,
so much he had to resist just shouting it out – was a live number for the Kid. Dial that through to Spartak and his contacts could set about attempting to trace the Kid’s location via his phone.

‘I haven’t got a working number for him either any more,’ she said.

The disappointment must have shown on Danny’s face.

‘Last time we spoke,’ she said, ‘he told me he had to go away on business. And said he wouldn’t be able to surface for a while.’

He ignored the contradiction, that she’d said before that she’d not heard from him in more than a year. Did this mean she was lying about not having a phone number for him as well? There was no way to tell. And no way of putting any additional pressure on her, not with her little girl there.

He thought of the bug in his bag. He needed to get inside and out of her sight line long enough to tap her phone, then wait for her to call her brother and get the Kid’s number that way instead.
If
she had his number, that was, and
if
she decided to give him a call.

Only then she came up with something much better. ‘I have got an address for him, though,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’ He couldn’t believe his luck.

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, that’s great,’ he said. ‘So that thing I need to get to him, I can just could take it round there and deliver it.’

‘Right.’

‘Or I could even just post it,’ Danny said.

‘Sure.’

‘So what’s the add—’

‘But the cash,’ she interrupted.

Of course, he thought. Nothing in this world was for free.

‘The cash?’ he asked.

‘You wouldn’t want to risk putting that through the letter box.’ She was trying to play it cool. But that hand was grasping her arm again. ‘You know, just in case he’s got someone else staying there – or a cleaner goes in.’

‘Oh, right, yeah, that’s true,’ Danny said, as if this had only just occurred to him. He frowned, as if confused as to what to do next, making sure also to pat his bag, so that she knew he really did have the cash on him right now. ‘That would be a risk.’

‘A big risk,’ she agreed, unable to stop herself glancing at his bag.

‘Hey,’ he said, as if an idea had just dawned.

‘What?’

‘Maybe I could . . .’

‘Yeah?’ she prompted, smiling now.

‘. . . just leave the cash here with you.’

‘Exactly.’ The corner of her mouth tightened, as she struggled against the desire to come right out with it and grin.

‘Well, OK,’ he said, looking as pleased and relieved as he could. ‘I’ll do that and then you can . . .’ he unhooked his bag from his shoulder and began to unzip it ‘. . . give me that address, right?’

‘Right. Of course.’

He reached past the Glock 30 pistol and took one of the ten sealed envelopes from his bag. Inside was five thousand pounds. He handed it over to her and watched the same hand that had been digging into her arm only moments before now close around it like a vice.

She weighed the envelope in her hand and smiled, all traces of her former hostility gone. Then she looked him over, her eyes lingering a little this time, as they took in his waist and chest. ‘You want to come in?’ she then said. ‘I was just about to fix myself a drink.’

A little way back in the hallway, the little girl, Bay, started to sing. Danny recognized the tune and the words. An old Burl Ives number: ‘Ugly Bug Ball’. A half-smile crossed his face. He remembered Lexie singing it as a kid. Jonathan too.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but no. I’d better get going. Places to go, people to see.’

The address was a west London red-brick mansion block, built in 1892, as the plaque on the wall next to its entrance proudly proclaimed. Judging by the row of delis, restaurants and boutiques opposite, as well as the Porsches, Aston Martins and Mercs parked in the residents’ bays outside, this was something of a yuppie haven. Meaning there’d be plenty of alarms inside.

Danny set up camp in a small but busy café opposite and sipped his way through three espressos over the next hour, watching various smartly attired men and women step out through the building’s entrance, and either get into waiting cabs or head west towards the nearest tube. It was getting dark and he swapped his Aviators for thick-rimmed glasses, to make himself even less noticeable.

The seat he had chosen was next to the window. No one could look over his shoulder, leaving him with ample opportunity to use his phone to zoom in on the mansion block’s doorway each time it opened.

He saw the entrance lobby inside was too small for there to be a doorman, which meant he’d only need to worry about other residents questioning his purpose in being there once he was inside.

It looked like there was some kind of party going on upstairs on the second floor. A guy and a girl were leaning out of the open window there, sharing what looked like a joint and swigging from bottles of beer. He could see other people moving back and forth behind.

Situations like that. Social gatherings. Even cafés like this, with people his own age sipping coffee and talking about their relationships, the movies they’d seen and the holidays they were planning, left Danny feeling more and more an outsider. And not just because of what had happened to him here in London, but because of who he was now, compared with the happily married man he’d once been. He had grown into the habit over the years of watching people as he would do a film in a language he did not understand. He felt as if he were on the other side of a screen that he could never break through.

He zoomed in on the panel of doorbells at the entrance to the mansion block, memorizing the names. There were twenty, giving him a one-in-twenty chance of getting busted for lying by one of the residents if he used the ruse he was planning, namely doorstepping the place and trying to slip in by telling someone coming out that he was going in to visit a friend.

But then the odds swung in his favour. A red-haired guy, late twenties, exited the mansion block and crossed straight into the café.

‘Hello, Matt,’ the friendly Polish girl behind the counter said.

As she fixed Matt a coffee, Danny wandered up to the counter to pay.

‘Matt Jones, right?’ he said, turning to face him, acting like he’d only just noticed him there.

‘Er, no,’ said the ginger-haired guy, looking confused. ‘Matt Banks, actually.’

‘Oh, right.’ Danny kept his accent flat and English. ‘Only I heard the young lady here say your name and I had a meeting with a Matt Jones. Meant to be here half an hour ago. Only he never showed . . .’

The ginger guy shrugged apologetically. ‘Wrong Matt,’ he said.

‘Sorry to have bothered you.’ Danny put a twenty-pound note on the counter and told the girl, ‘Keep the change.’

He turned to go, and walked right into a tall woman with short dark hair coming in through the door.

‘Sorry,’ they said at the same time.

Annoyed, she brushed past him, adjusting her shades.

Still haven’t lost the magic touch then, he thought wryly, as he headed out into the warm evening, glad to escape the Muzak and sickly sweet aroma of cinnamon and hot milk. He walked twenty yards along the pavement, then stationed himself on the next street corner. Leaning against the wall, he opened his newspaper and checked over its top to make sure he had a good view of both the mansion block and the café, then waited.

Matt Banks emerged five minutes later and turned left, away from the mansion block. Danny moved in towards its entrance. There were way too many people for him to risk using the lock-buster. Plus a CCTV camera was pointing straight at him from across the street. Instead, he positioned himself two yards from the block’s front door and pretended to make a phone call, even though he’d dialled no one, making sure he kept his back to the camera the whole time.