#taken

by Tony Parsons

  ‘No regrets?’

  ‘The truth is that Harry and I were glad to see the back of each other. We were both relieved that it ended so painlessly. Jessica was the way out for both of us. I had already met Josh. And you don’t cheat on Harry Flowers.’

  A small white van entered Eden Hill Park and took a long slow loop around the estate. The private security guard. What was his name? Modric. He looked at me and nodded. I didn’t nod back.

  Modric parked the van and got out, watching Mo and the cousins carry the boxes. An ineffectual little man, I thought. I could understand how easy it must have been for him to bottle it the night Jessica Lyle was taken. I could understand why Whitestone hated him. I turned to Snezia.

  ‘Were you and Jessica still friends on the night she was taken?’

  ‘Of course! Listen, if it worked out for Harry and Jess, then I was happy for her. Happy for him. Happy for both of them. But come on! How could it have worked out? Harry has a wife who he will never leave. And who will never leave him. Oh, Christ on a stick.’

  A silver Mercedes-Benz was entering the estate. At the wheel was Ruben Shavers. Derek Bumpus was beside him, his broken arm in its blue plaster cast resting on the open window.

  And in the back seat was Meadow Flowers.

  ‘Guess who gets the apartment next?’ Snezia said, her eyes not leaving the silver Merc. ‘Daddy’s daughter and her new husband. It’s a wedding present.’

  Josh came out of the building carrying a contraption made of chrome, tinted plastic and extractor blades, a smoothie blender so complicated it looked as though it might have been designed by NASA.

  Meadow Flowers buzzed down her window.

  ‘Put it back, bitch,’ she told Snezia.

  The Merc came to a halt directly in front of the removal van. Shavers switched off the engine. He got out of the car, relaxed, calm, his default charming smile on his handsome face, his arms hanging loosely at his side.

  Bumpus also got out, not quite as smoothly, and stared at the fine-looking young Josh and then at Mo and lastly Mo’s helpers, who had all suddenly come to a dead stop.

  ‘I didn’t know the al-Qaeda did removals!’ Bumpus said.

  Nobody moved. The big engine of the Mercedes ticked and clicked as if tut-tutting at the unauthorised removal of the smoothie blender.

  Meadow was still sitting in the back seat, like a monarch about to wave to the crowds. But finally she got out, sighing with exasperation.

  ‘Put. It. Back. Bitch. What part of put-it-back-bitch don’t you understand?’

  Josh turned to carry the blender back into the house.

  ‘Stop,’ Snezia said. ‘No, it’s not right. It’s mine. I paid for it with money I earned.’

  ‘On your back,’ Meadow smiled, which got a laugh from Bumpus, whose smile vanished and face reddened as Josh started to carry the tug-of-love blender to the removal van.

  Bumpus roared one word.

  ‘Don’t!’

  And that was when the security guard began to move.

  He had parked his vehicle at a respectful distance from the removal van, but now he was jogging towards it, reaching for his phone, his eyes never leaving the large man with the broken arm and the flushed face glaring at the young man carrying the smoothie blender.

  And all at once I got it.

  The men who took Jessica Lyle had said one word to the guard, and it was enough to unman him, and it was enough to seal her fate.

  Don’t, they had told Modric.

  And he didn’t.

  But he was going to make up for it now.

  ‘That’s them!’ he shouted at me, still moving towards Bumpus and Shavers, still fumbling with his phone. ‘The men who took the woman!’

  And Shavers was laughing, his massive scarred hands spread wide, making no move to run, but Bumpus was already climbing clumsily into the driver’s seat of the silver Merc and gunning the engine. Shavers called his name, telling him to stop, but the car was moving and Shavers snatched at the open passenger door and threw himself inside, the door flapping wildly as Bumpus swung the car around, driving with his one good hand, gravel flying and tyres screaming as he sped away.

  Straight at the guard.

  Modric held up his hands, and he said one word which may have been ‘Stop!’ before the car drove through him, crumpling his legs just below the knees and violently bouncing him first off the bonnet and then off the windscreen of the big Mercedes.

  I heard glass crack and bones break. Someone was screaming. And then the Merc was gone.

  I bent down to look at the young security guard, his smooth, unformed face a bloody mush, and I touched the shoulder of his silly uniform, because I wanted him to know.

  He had not been a coward today.

  And then I went after them.

  23

  I ran up Hampstead Grove, and it was more like a country lane than a road in central London, the day suddenly twilight under the thick canopy of trees, and the road always getting steeper as I climbed towards the highest point in the city.

  I heard what sounded like an explosion not far ahead of me.

  The silver Mercedes had stopped on the wrong side of the road, the front of the car caved in, the hood lifted and folded in on itself, the guts of the engine spilling out and smoking.

  There was no one inside. I kept running, not noticing the car it had hit until I was almost past it.

  There was an old grey Mini trapped between the crashed Merc and a lamppost. The driver’s side was sheared off, steam or smoke billowing from under the hood. There was an elderly woman behind the wheel. She had the look that I had seen before in the victims of sudden trauma. As though time had suddenly stopped stone-dead, but they couldn’t understand why it had happened.

  I gently eased the woman out of the car. She could walk so I led her away from the wreck, calling 999 with my free hand. Her face was impassive but drained of all colour or awareness.

  ‘You’re safe,’ I told her. ‘But you’re in shock. I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that?’

  No response.

  I quickly felt her back, neck and head, keeping one eye on the wreck. I didn’t like all that smoke. She had no obvious injuries so I helped her to lie down on the scraggy grass verge by the side of the road and used my jacket to elevate her feet by about 12 inches.

  Then I went back to the wreck.

  The Merc and the Mini were almost welded together. Both the engines were still running. I turned off the ignitions and switched on the hazard lights. Then I went back to the woman. The sirens were already coming but I crouched beside her and stayed with her until the ambulance arrived.

  And when the paramedics were attending to her, I went on.

  I stopped at the top of the hill, slowing my breath, uncertain which way Bumpus and Shavers had run.

  On both sides of the road, separated by a large pond glinting in the last of the sunlight, Hampstead Heath unfolded. Eight hundred acres of woodland, grasslands, meadows, heathland and ponds. You could get lost here. You could hide.

  If they went east, to the great green and wooded mass of the Heath, they had more chance of losing me. They would be spoilt for choice when making their exit. They could leave the Heath via the landscaped gardens of Kenwood to the north or the bathing ponds or Parliament Hill and then out to the crowded streets around South End Green to the south.

  I stood there panting and thinking. There were sirens in the air but they didn’t seem to be getting any closer and they were not going to help me.

  If they went in the other direction, I thought, looking off towards the long slope down to West Heath and then Golders Hill Park, they had a mile or so of thick woodland to cross before reaching Golders Green. I could not see Bumpus and Shavers camping out beneath the stars.

  So I went west, jogging down a steep dirt lane and then turning into the thick woods. I walked for a few minutes, watching the trees for movement, and to my right and high above me there was a building that looked like
a palace that had been abandoned long ago. Time-stained columns covered with climbing plants ran the length of the empty halls.

  The Pergola, I thought. One of the prime residences of Edwardian London, left to rot for a hundred years.

  And that is where I saw him.

  Ruben Shavers, walking slowly through one of the Pergola’s halls, as if out for a stroll.

  No sign of Derek Bumpus.

  I ducked behind a tree and let Shavers walk on and then I climbed the steep hill to the walls of the Pergola.

  No Dogs, said a sign on a gate. Not even yours. I listened but I could hear nothing. Even the distant sirens seemed to have stopped. I clambered over the gate and dropped into the Pergola.

  Shavers was walking slowly between the stone columns, walking in circles, I saw now, but still looking as if he was strolling, touching at his forehead, looking at the blood on his hands.

  ‘Get on your knees,’ I said.

  He turned to look at me, woozy from the crash, maybe concussed.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said.

  ‘On your knees.’

  He remained standing but held up his hands as if in surrender. There was a livid gash above one eyebrow. Could I take him? He was a big man, but it had been a long time since I saw him fight in York Hall. I fancied my chances with his head split open and possible concussion kicking in.

  I walked towards him, taking my time.

  ‘Down,’ I said. ‘Last chance, Shavers.’

  He slowly got down on his knees.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘It’s not what you think. I know who took her. And I know why they took her. And I know what happened to her.’

  People lie to me all day long.

  Perhaps people lie to everyone all day long. But if you are a policeman, lies are the air you breathe. People lie so they will not be punished. They lie because they are afraid. And they lie because they are guilty.

  ‘You took her,’ I said. ‘You and that fat ugly bastard.’

  ‘Not me. Bumpus maybe. But not me.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I can help you. I can take you to her. She’s safe. She can go home to that little baby of hers.’

  I had my phone in my hand, ready to call it in.

  But I nodded to him, telling him to keep talking if he had something to say.

  ‘It’s like this,’ he said, and I saw his eyes flick beyond my shoulder just as Bumpus hit the back of my head with what felt like half a brick.

  It doubled me up, my vision a mass of black stars, like the end of the universe. The pain made me sick to my stomach.

  But Bumpus had not knocked me over, I was still just about standing, so he grabbed my hair and forced me to the ground. On my knees and then over on to my back and his large fleshy head was above me and he was kneeling on my chest, a sliver of drool coming from his mouth as he wrapped one hand around my throat.

  For a guy with one arm in a cast, he had a pretty good grip.

  He began to choke me with his good hand.

  ‘Your daughter,’ he said. ‘That sweet little girl. That beautiful thing. I know where she lives. What does her bedroom look like? I have thought about it many times.’

  And I could not speak because the stink of him filled my nose and throat and lungs and he was my darkest nightmare made real, a man who wanted to do my child harm, real harm, the worst kind of harm imaginable, and I knew that it would give him nothing but pleasure, nothing but sick joy.

  ‘How old is she?’ he said. ‘Is she ready for me?’

  ‘I will kill you,’ I told him, and he laughed at me.

  Shavers cursed behind him.

  ‘Del, do you really want to top another one?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Bumpus said. ‘I want to top one more. This one. This pig who broke my arm. Him more than anyone. Top him. Then pay a visit to his daughter.’

  Then Bumpus was releasing his grip on my throat to turn and stand up and shout at Shavers. A disagreement among professionals.

  I tried to sit up but the nausea from the blow made me lie down again. The back of my head was pulsing with pain. I closed my eyes and when I opened them to the sound of their voices they were standing with their faces pressed together, awkwardly shoving each other. One man with blood streaming down his face and the other with a broken arm.

  I fought for air, the feel of those fingers still embedded in my throat, trying to think.

  Do you want to top another one?

  Bumpus looked down at me and laughed.

  He had seen something change in my eyes.

  Top another one?

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘You dumb pig. Oh yeah. You don’t think you’d be my first, do you?’

  Sirens again.

  Getting closer.

  In the silence of that abandoned palace, the three of us paused to listen to them for a moment, as if discerning their meaning.

  Then Ruben Shavers was tugging at his partner’s good arm.

  ‘Del,’ he was saying. ‘We have to go.’

  But Bumpus was not finished with me.

  ‘Do you want to find that bitch?’ he said.

  He could not resist. He just could not resist. Sometimes they can’t resist rubbing your face in the mess they have made of someone’s life. He kicked me in the face. More flashing black stars. The universe ending all over again, that last moment for all things flashing on and on for eternity.

  ‘Try looking in the graveyard,’ Bumpus told me.

  24

  Frank Lyle slept sitting up, the sleeping position of the dying man in a hospital bed, a transparent oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, his face dark with stubble. I had only ever seen him with his face clean-shaven, I realised. But everything was changed in here.

  There was a plastic sheet surrounding his bed like an oversized shower curtain, separating him from the other men in the ward. Some of them slept deeply, the bottomless sleep of opiates, while some twisted and moaned in the night, somewhere between sleep and waking.

  The old cop stirred, writhing with a sudden spasm of pain, and then he was staring at me, as if unsure whether I was only in his imagination.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ he said, peering closer at the raw scuff mark high on one cheekbone. ‘You look worse than me.’

  We both smiled at that.

  ‘And when someone in a cancer ward tells you that you look rough …’ he said. Then he winced with a sudden stab of pain.

  ‘Frank,’ I said. ‘We know who took Jessica.’

  He waited, and I could hear his laboured breathing.

  ‘Two of Flowers’ men,’ I said. ‘Ruben Shavers and Derek Bumpus. We assume they were freelancing for a third party.’

  ‘Are they in custody?’

  ‘Not yet. They ran. But we’ll find them.’

  He thought about it, his eyes shining with helpless tears in the twilight of the hospital ward. Then he shook his head.

  ‘So – what? They were bought by some business rival?’ he said. ‘Or an old face from long ago who has waited a lifetime for payback?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ I said.

  He held back the tears but he could not stop his voice from cracking with emotion.

  ‘There are only two real possibilities,’ he said, as if we were working this case together. And I guess that in a way we were. ‘They took her and killed her immediately. Or they took her …’

  He waited for the breath to come, and when it finally came there was still not quite enough of it.

  ‘And then they raped her,’ he said. ‘And then they killed her. Anything else you can think of?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But if we don’t have a body then she could still be alive. Somewhere, somehow.’

  I resisted the urge to touch his arm.

  He was not the kind of man who had much use for a reassuring pat.

  ‘We’ll keep looking,’ I said. ‘For Bumpus and Shavers. For Jessica.’

  Look in the graveyard, Big Del had boasted, just before he
kicked me in the head.

  Was Jessica Lyle really buried in a graveyard? But what graveyard? And how the hell was I ever going to find it?

  ‘My only child,’ Lyle said.

  Was his mind wandering? Perhaps it was the painkillers. The medication would be heavy duty by now.

  ‘But you have a son,’ I gently reminded him. ‘You have Tommy, don’t you?’

  He laughed bitterly, remembering.

  ‘Oh yes. My son.’ His eyes flashed with irritation in the twilight of the hospital ward. ‘I meant – my only daughter. That’s what I meant.’

  His back arched with a sudden slash of excruciating pain.

  There was a scarred metal box on his bed for calling for help.

  ‘Frank,’ I said. ‘Do you need some more morphine?’

  But he shook his head, his face still twisted by the pain.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’m rationing the hard stuff. Or it will only be much worse later.’ He stared at me, panting for breath like an overheated dog on a summer’s day. ‘You’ve been in a place like this before, haven’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘My parents,’ I said. ‘Both of them. And my grandmother. My nan.’

  I didn’t like to say the word. Even now, half a lifetime on from losing my family, I hesitated to name the thing that had killed them.

  So Frank Lyle said it for me.

  ‘Cancer,’ he said. ‘Some of the men in here, some of them are younger than you, I bet. And somewhere else – in some other hospital – there are children with cancer. So what do I have to moan about? I tell myself that I have had a life. Some of them in this ward, like him in the next bed, their life hasn’t even started. I try to count my blessings. But it is the hardest thing in the world, trying to understand the good luck you have had. What happened with your folks?’

  ‘They died within twelve months of each other when I was a kid,’ I said. ‘Lung cancer. Smoking-related, although they had both stopped for years. Same thing with my nan. She looked after me when my mum and dad were gone. I reckon there comes a point where it’s not worth giving up. My old man didn’t tell anyone he was dying, like it had slipped his mind.’