#taken

by Tony Parsons

  ‘It’s difficult to hide infidelity these days,’ she said. ‘Especially for a man as stupid as my husband. We’re all so connected, aren’t we? Some of them – men like my husband, unfaithful tart-shagging bastards like him – think that a second phone and deleting a few racy text messages will keep it a secret. But there are no more secrets. Not any more. Everything comes out in the end.’

  ‘The wife and the mistress teaming up to rid themselves of the threat to the status quo,’ Whitestone said. ‘There’s a first.’

  Charlotte’s mouth twisted with contempt.

  ‘We didn’t team up,’ she said. ‘Snezia was my employee, not a partner.’

  ‘Then it was your idea,’ I said. ‘To have Jessica Lyle killed.’

  ‘I made mistakes,’ she said, and I saw Whitestone was right.

  Charlotte Flowers could not say Jessica Lyle’s name.

  ‘Using those two apes, who Harry has been debasing for years, that was a mistake,’ she said. ‘One of them – big black Ruben – always short of cash for a lifestyle he could never afford. And the other one – bat-crazy Derek – resentful that Harry’s workforce were starting to reflect our multi-racial society. And then involving that stupid stripper who Harry was trading in for her younger, fitter flatmate. But it seemed so right at the time! They were all so unhappy with Harry. His boys, Shavers and Bumpus. His bit on the side, Snezia. They have all suffered endless humiliations, just as anyone around my husband will. Harry has a roving eye, you see. And a roving cock, of course. Always on the lookout for something better! But I thought our little task force would be enough to rid us of that skinny bitch who threatened everything. I thought Snezia might be the weak link. The stupid stripper. But it turned out to be Ruben. Going soft on her! I should have seen that one coming. And I should have done it alone. What’s the old saying? Never work with hired thugs and hookers. That was my mistake, wasn’t it?’

  She again looked fondly at the photograph of her unborn grandchild, happily drifting away.

  ‘You made your big mistake long before you decided to kill Jessica Lyle,’ I said. ‘You made your mistake when you doused the Mahone family in petrol and didn’t tell your man Bumpus to drop the match. Because those children were always going to grow up. And whatever the world did to them, they were never going to forget you.’

  Her thumbs worked at the edges of the photograph, as if she was trying to soothe the baby, caress it, rock it to sleep.

  ‘Boy or girl?’ Whitestone said.

  ‘Girl,’ she said. ‘Thank Christ.’

  ‘But why did you want Jessica gone?’ I said. ‘It had happened before. Harry had always had his women on the side, probably since you expanded the business for him and the serious money started rolling in. What was so different this time?’

  Pat Whitestone and Charlotte Flowers looked at me and then looked at each other.

  And for a long second there was a real closeness between them.

  Mrs Flowers took a deep breath and gently placed the image of her grandchild on the desk of the interview room.

  ‘This one just had to go,’ she said. ‘Jessica Lyle. There – I said her name. Happy now, are we? This one had to really go. Because this was something no wife on the planet could ever forgive. This was a special kind of humiliation. This was new. There was no coming back from this one. This time was different from all the other times – from all those other women in all those other rooms on all those other nights because this time my faithless, whore-fucking husband fell in love.’

  The interview room was silent.

  ‘And where does the money come from?’ I said.

  For the first time, I saw her squirm.

  ‘What money?’ she said.

  ‘Your beautiful home,’ I said. ‘Your daughter’s wedding. The love nest in Hampstead. Your husband’s women. The Bentley Bentayga with the nice polite driver. Are we meant to believe that recycling scrap metal pays the bills? Are we meant to buy the lie that dead cars pay for all that?’

  Charlotte Flowers folded her arms across her chest.

  And now she wanted a lawyer.

  37

  My boss was happy at last.

  There was a lightness about DCI Pat Whitestone, and an easy smile, and she no longer seemed as though her attention was locked in some other, darker place. So when days were growing just a little shorter and the sun was shining on the last Sunday afternoon of true summer, we gathered in her small back garden for a party.

  We were a motley collection of neighbours, her son’s friends, and murder detectives from Homicide and Serious Crime at West End Central, all of us loaded with barbecued chicken on paper plates that sagged in the middle and most of us with something to celebrate.

  Justin, Whitestone’s teenage boy, was basking in the success of his final exams, and the tall, good-looking kid in dark glasses stood surrounded by his student buddies, all of them still young enough to be self-conscious about openly holding alcoholic drinks, all of them with the rest of their lives ahead of them.

  Pat Whitestone stood grinning in the smoke of the barbecue. She looked more than happy. It was as if some weight had at last been lifted from her.

  And I realised that I had not seen her looking like this since the death of Edie Wren.

  The barbecue steamed up Whitestone’s glasses and she took them off, blinking myopically as she cleaned them with the hem of an apron commemorating the Queen’s diamond jubilee.

  ‘So what happens with Justin now?’ I said, indicating her son and his friends.

  She handed me a cold Asahi Super Dry from a portable fridge.

  ‘University,’ she said. ‘Which means moving out. And living in another town. And independence. And all-night parties.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t want to think about the parties.’

  I raised the Japanese beer in salute.

  ‘Justin did so well,’ I said. ‘And so did you.’

  ‘All him,’ she said, sipping a small plastic bottle of mineral water.

  We stood in the comfortable silence of people who have worked together for years, our dogs milling at our feet, Dasher the large yellow Lab and Stan the small ruby Cavalier both wild-eyed and salivating at the sweet scent of all that barbecued meat.

  Stan suddenly spread his front paws and lowered his head, growling with menace at the far larger Labrador.

  ‘An invitation to play,’ Scout explained. ‘Stan would never hurt anyone.’

  The dogs chased each other to the end of the small garden and then back again. I took a sip of the cold Japanese beer. It felt good.

  Because we were celebrating too. Everyone responsible for the abduction of Jessica Lyle was in custody or on the run or dead. Sightings of Derek Bumpus’s great menacing bulk had been reported in Ibiza and Phuket, and he would eventually be run down, either days or months from now. Because nobody gets to run forever. Ruben Shavers was in his grave. And the two principal conspirators, Charlotte Flowers and Snezia Jones, the wife and mistress of Harry Flowers, were in Holloway prison, awaiting trial.

  And in a quiet corner of the garden, Joy Adams and her girlfriend were eating from the same paper plate and flicking through the latest copy of Grazia. Jessica Lyle was on the cover. The Woman Who Lived, it said.

  ‘So it’s over,’ I said.

  ‘Not yet,’ Whitestone said. ‘But soon.’

  She lifted the plastic bottle to her lips and took a brief sip. And in the scented air, so full of barbecued meat and mown grass and the summer city smell, I got a faint whiff of something else.

  It was vodka not water in that plastic bottle.

  ‘Ah, Pat,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘It’s not the same. It’s all under control.’

  ‘Harry Flowers can’t hurt you,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t have that power.’

  She nodded, humouring me. ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  A couple of Justin’s friends appeared for a refill. Whitestone loaded their plates with chicken and salad
. I waited until they were gone.

  ‘You’re safe,’ I said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  She smiled at me through the smoke of the barbecue.

  ‘I know that I will be soon,’ she said.

  More guests were arriving. More of Justin’s friends. Old colleagues of Whitestone from New Scotland Yard. She threw king prawns on the barbecue and ordered Justin and his friends to bring more wine and beer from the house. Some music began to play. Bob Marley and the Wailers, the eternal sound of summer in the city. And with Bob singing ‘Lively Up Yourself’ and with our host feeding the latest arrivals, I put down my Asahi Super Dry and my empty paper plate, and I went into the house.

  I took the stairs two at a time.

  It was a small house, an old terraced two-up, two-down that had somehow survived the Blitz and the property developers. I opened the door to the bathroom but quickly turned away. Not in here, I thought. I went to the next room, Justin’s bedroom, impossibly neat for a teenage boy. Bed, desk, a poster of Steve Jobs on the wall.

  I looked through his desk drawers, and felt at the back for a secret compartment. Nothing.

  I looked under the bed mattress. I quickly rifled the bookcase looking for some hole in the wall beyond the books.

  And it was not in here.

  Strange kid, I thought, watched by Steve Jobs as I left the room, then going to his mother’s bedroom next door.

  I checked the wardrobes.

  No safe.

  A safe would have been the obvious place.

  But there was no sign of a safe.

  I took off my shoes, stood on the bed and rapped my knuckles against the ceiling. The ceiling would have been the next obvious place. But it felt solid.

  Voices drifted up from the back garden. Smoke and laughter and Bob Marley singing about the joys that were waiting in his single bed. Someone came into the house and I froze but they did not go beyond the kitchen. I heard the fridge door open and close, the chink of cold beer bottles. Then I opened all the wardrobes and found nothing but clothes. I lifted the mattress of Whitestone’s bed.

  I paused at the top of the stairs, feeling a growing sense of relief.

  Maybe I was wrong, I thought. There was nothing here.

  I went into the small living room. The worn leather sofa, the new TV, a dining table for two. The dog’s basket. And that was it.

  I breathed out, feeling ready for a second beer. The back door was open and I could hear Bob Marley singing ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ and smell the king prawns sizzling. I had begun moving towards the sound of music and the smell of prawns, looking forward to the sunlight and the smoke and the laughter, when I suddenly stopped and turned around.

  Dasher’s basket.

  Which was not really a basket at all but more of a bed. A deep, cushioned sleeping area with a high bolster around three sides, designed to enhance your dog’s sense of security. Stan had one just like it, but in extra small rather than extra large. Designed for dogs who love to nuzzle and nest.

  I felt under the velvet-soft mattress.

  And that is where I found it.

  I expected my hands to touch cold steel, but the firearm was made of high-strength nylon-based polymer.

  Closer to plastic than steel.

  Lightweight. Slimline. Fantastically user-friendly, sitting snugly in my hand as if we were made for each other.

  The Glock that Jackson Rose had sourced for Pat Whitestone.

  I felt my stomach lurch as I looked at the short, stubby block of death, precision engineered for all forms of personal protection.

  I felt its weight.

  Less than a kilo.

  ‘I can’t let you out of my sight, can I?’ Whitestone said behind me.

  Her face was ruddy from the sun and the heat of the barbecue. Her fair hair was pulled back in a plastic band. She wiped her hands, greasy from feeding so many, on her diamond jubilee apron. The lenses of her glasses were steamed up and smudged.

  ‘You must know this is a mistake,’ I said.

  She shrugged.

  ‘A single-stack magazine with a capacity of six rounds,’ she said. ‘I figure that should be plenty.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I said. ‘Are you a hitman now?’

  ‘I’m tired, Max. I’m tired of watching too many of them get away with it. Tired of clearing up their mess. I’m just so tired, Max.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘I haven’t thought it through yet.’

  ‘Then it’s time you started thinking,’ I said. I showed her the Glock. ‘Listen to me, Pat. I can get rid of this for you. Let me walk out of here with it and I’ll make it go away.’

  ‘The gun is not the problem. Harry Flowers has his claws in me and he is never going to let go until one of us is done.’ A beat. ‘And what are you going to do? You going to rat me out, Max?’

  ‘It’s not going to come to that.’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘I don’t want it to come to that.’

  We stared at each other.

  The sound of small trainers running down the hall.

  ‘Daddy!’

  I slipped the Glock back under the mattress. Scout stood breathlessly before us, Stan panting by her side.

  ‘Justin and I made you dinner!’ she said. She took my hand and began dragging me towards the garden. ‘Come on, will you?’

  Whitestone smiled at her. ‘You hanging out with the big kids now, Scout?’

  ‘Yes! They’re my friends!’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ I promised. ‘And get me a beer from the fridge would you, please, Scout?’

  Her eyes were wide at the seriousness of this mission.

  ‘Sure!’ she said. ‘But come soon!’

  My daughter and our dog raced back to the garden.

  Whitestone was waiting. ‘I need you to support me on this,’ she said.

  ‘How can I, Pat? This is crazy.’

  ‘No, it makes perfect sense. Did you hear what he said to me? I own you now. Do you think he means it?’

  A pause.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think he means it.’

  ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘So if Flowers gets found with one in the head and one in the heart, you going to rat me out, Max?’

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  But she smiled as if it could not end any other way.

  ‘He can’t own me. I can’t be his creature. He has poisoned so many cops. And he’s not having me, Max.’

  Dasher padded into the living room and curled up in his basket, as if something had been decided. For a moment we both watched him, full of wonder and envy at the dog’s ability to fall asleep at will.

  Then we went out to the garden where our children had carefully placed our dinner on two paper plates.

  38

  Sports day.

  A big blue sky and the sweet feeling that another school year was done and dusted and the long summer holiday was coming soon. But Scout looked solemn as she shouldered her kit bag.

  ‘Just try your best,’ Mrs Murphy urged. ‘That’s all anyone can ever do.’

  Scout nodded grimly. But what if trying your best was never quite good enough? What if trying your very best – really trying very hard – never got you among the gold, silver and bronze stickers that they handed out even for the heats – even for the heats! – so that children who did not have a sporty bone in their family tree came away with some sort of prize. What then?

  We walked to school, the one day of the year that Stan did not accompany us, and I felt that we marched in the terrified silence of condemned men.

  Because sports day was always a struggle for a summer baby.

  With her birthday in late July, Scout was younger and smaller than all of her classmates. This only ever mattered on sports day, the one day of the year when I couldn’t say to myself – ah yes, but Scout can read better than anyone else, and she is smarter, prettier and nicer than everyone else. None of that mattered a damn when t
he sun was beating down on the fifty-metre dash. On sports day Scout was expected to compete against giants and she always came home – my dry-eyed, uncomplaining, brave Scout – without a sticker.

  But this year sports day was different. This sports day was special. This year – for the first time ever – I would not be cheering her on alone. Her mother was coming.

  By the time Anne parked her car on a double-yellow line outside the school gates, the games had begun. You could hear the birdsong of the children, the bossy instructions from the tannoy, the cheers of the parents.

  My ex-wife wore a little black dress, those serious high heels with the red soles and big round dark glasses. She looked as though she was going to a dinner party in Monaco rather than a primary school sports day in a quiet corner of North London.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said.

  I felt like hugging her. I felt like jumping for joy. I felt that Anne’s presence would make a difference to this sun-drenched dark day. I honestly believed it might even inspire Scout to get among the stickers – not in the finals, but maybe a bronze sticker for coming third (out of four) in one of the heats? Was that too much to hope for?

  ‘No problem,’ said my glamorous ex-wife, frowning at my dopey grin. ‘How are you, Max?’

  There was a large phone in her right hand and she clutched it to her breast, as if to ward off evil spirits. We did not touch, of course, not even when she stepped on to the playing field and her spike heels sank into the soil.

  I reached for her but held back when I saw her flinch.

  ‘Will parents please refrain from entering the sports field,’ ordered the voice on the tannoy. ‘The year four 50-metre heats will begin at nine forty-five precisely.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Anne said, hobbling uncertainly, her long legs lifting like a baby giraffe as she sought to remove her spiked heels from the ground.

  Her phone began to trill importantly.

  ‘I’ll call you in five minutes,’ she told it.

  She managed to work out a way of walking that involved stepping mostly on the balls of her Louboutin-shod feet.