by Adrian Wills
‘You’re such a tough guy, innit.’
‘We’re not here for any trouble. We’re here to help Shaz. Sit down and stop making a fool of yourself.’
‘I don’t like you.’
Blake shrugged. He doubted the boy had the balls to actually use the knife. At least he hoped so, with so many of them crammed in the tiny kitchen. In that small space, things could turn messy quickly.
‘I’m hungry.’ Degsie suddenly snatched the knife away. He reached into one of the cupboards, hunting through tins and glass jars. ‘You ain’t got much to eat, Kesh.’
He went to the fridge, swiped a bottle of milk, poured a glass and gulped it down in one, without taking a breath. He smacked his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Mind if I have another one?’ he asked, with the angelic politeness of a choirboy.
The look on Keisha’s face was pure contempt. ‘How’s your dad, Degsie?’ she asked, like a kid sister trying to rile her older brother.
‘Shut your fucking face, you bitch,’ he screamed. The little boy on Keisha’s lap howled. ‘And I told you to shut that kid up!’
‘He’s tired,’ said Keisha, jigging him on her knee and trying to shush him quiet. ‘He probably needs a sleep. I’ll put him down.’
When Keisha had left the room, Degsie offered Parkes his glass. ‘You want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He tried a different cupboard and found a packet of digestive biscuits. He shovelled a handful into his mouth, crumbs spilling down his front.
‘Won’t your parents be wondering where you are?’ Parkes asked. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘My mum don’t care where I am, as long as she got her Russian and twenty smokes.’
‘And your father?’
‘I don’t got a dad. And I don’t need one neither.’
‘So I guess that makes you the man of the house,’ said Blake.
‘Yeah, whatever. So how old are you?’ he asked Parkes.
‘Old enough to be your mother. What about you?’
‘Sixteen in November.’
‘You should be at home taking care of your mum, not out causing trouble.’
‘Who’s causing trouble?’
He tossed the packet of biscuits across the table and hunted through two more cupboards before turning his attention to a white ceramic sugar pot on the side. He unscrewed the lid, reached his hand inside and pulled out two rolled up twenty-pound notes. ‘Sweet,’ he said, pocketing the cash.
‘You can’t take that,’ said Parkes.
‘You going to stop me, bitch?’ he screamed, turning on her with a snarl. His naked aggression made her recoil.
‘Calm down,’ said Blake.
‘Who are you telling to calm down, old man?’ He swung the knife dangerously close to Blake’s face.
Blake glared at the boy, fighting his instinct to put him on his knees and bury his face in the filthy floor until he was begging for mercy. ‘You’ll have someone’s eye out if you’re not careful.’
‘You need to learn some manners, innit.’
Blake bit his tongue and swallowed his pride. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘But you shouldn’t have taken that money. I’m guessing Keisha needs it for food for the baby.’
‘It’s my fee.’ Blake raised an eyebrow. ‘For looking out for her while her old man’s away,’ said Degsie. ‘Some nasty sorts on the estate.’
‘That’s noble of you,’ said Parkes, with a withering look.
‘I told you to shut it, bitch.’
‘Do you have a problem with women telling you what to do?’
‘I said shut up.’
‘That’s enough, Degsie.’
‘Fuck you.’
That was it. Blake stood slowly, maintaining eye contact with the teenager. Degsie took a step back, his knuckles pale as he gripped the knife. Behind the bravado, Blake saw a little boy, wrapped up in fear and insecurity, trying to prove his worth the only way he knew how. ‘Put the knife down.’
‘I think it’s time for yous to leave.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Blake. He held out the palm of his hand. ‘Car keys?’
The boy grinned. ‘When I’m ready.’
Blake stared at the boy, trying to work him out. ‘All right, let’s go.’
They traipsed out of the flat in single file, along the covered corridor and back down the stairs. When they reached Parkes’ Volvo, there were even more kids floating about. Word had obviously gone around. Faces turned towards them as they approached, watching them with suspicion and contempt.
Two young boys, who looked barely old enough to be at school, sat on the roof of the car smoking cigarettes. They were blowing smoke into the air and watching it drift off in the orange glow of an overhead streetlamp. Two older lads inside the car were playing the radio loudly. Some urban track with a thumping bass.
When they saw Blake and Parkes approaching, the two boys on the roof flicked away their cigarette butts and jumped down. Blake stopped in his tracks and turned on Degsie without warning. ‘My friend would like her car keys back now, please,’ he said.
‘No problem,’ said the boy. He reached into his pocket and dropped them at his feet. ‘If you want them, why don’t you come and get them.’
‘Arsehole,’ Parkes muttered.
‘What’d you say?’
Blake went to step in, to save Parkes’ the humiliation Degsie obviously intended, but she held up a hand to stop him.
‘It’s okay, I’ll get them,’ she said, a determination apparent in her tone.
She moved up into his face, ignoring the knife perilously close to her stomach. They stood eyeball to eyeball for longer than felt comfortable, neither of them blinking, brazening it out. And that feeling came back. The one that had Blake aching to wipe that smug smile off the boy’s face. It would have been so easy. A swift punch right under his Adam’s apple and he’d have gone down like a sack of logs. The fact that he would lose all credibility in front of all the other kids on the estate only made the idea more appealing.
But he couldn’t do it.
For all his cockiness, Degsie was only a child, a product of the estate and his upbringing. A child without a father and a mother who obviously didn’t give a shit about him. And Blake wasn’t about to start assaulting minors in the street, no matter how much they might deserve it.
Parkes scooped up the keys and turned towards the car. ‘Get out!’ she yelled at the two lads in the front seats.
Blake took his time. He wasn’t going to be rushed. He took one last, long, lingering look around before climbing in the passenger side. ‘Christ, it stinks of weed in here,’ he said.
‘Never mind that. Shut the door. Let’s go.’
The engine roared into life and Parkes rammed the gear stick into reverse, twisting in her seat to see out of the back. ‘Shit!’ she hissed.
Blake glanced over his shoulder. A dozen young men were advancing towards them, the streetlights picking out the baseball bats and pick handles they held aloft.
A roar of anger echoed off the buildings, and a cold chill ran through Blake’s veins. ‘Drive!’
Parkes found first gear as the windscreen shattered into a million fragments. Through the crazy-paved splintered glass, Blake saw a figure raise his arms and swing what looked like a scaffold pole. It struck the windscreen so hard it dislodged tiny fragments of already broken glass over the dashboard.
Parkes sat wide-eyed with terror, frozen in her seat with her hands clamped on the steering wheel.
‘Elodie! Snap out of it. You have to get us out of here.’
The car rocked on its axles as a dozen youths surrounded the vehicle, thumping the car with their fists. Blake reached for the steering wheel, but Parkes pushed him away. She stamped on the accelerator hard, but as they lurched forward she stalled the engine.
‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’
Blake had a sudden foreboding. He�
�d witnessed the blood lust of out-of-control crowds before, most notably in central Africa when a frenzy of excitement had driven mobs to an insane level of violence. Once he’d watched a man dragged from his car, stripped, beaten and hanged. And afterwards, nobody really remembered why.
Blake flipped open the glove box and grabbed his Browning. He checked the magazine, chambered a round and thumbed off the safety. His finger hovered over the button to wind down his window. A warning shot might win them a few seconds.
The engine rumbled back into life.
‘No,’ said Parkes, when she saw the gun. ‘They’re only kids.’
‘I don’t care who they are. If you don’t get us out of here in a hurry, they’re going to rip us limb from limb.’
Parkes spun the steering wheel and accelerated, knocking bodies out of the way, not caring much who got hurt.
Blake climbed out of his seat and kicked out what was left of the windscreen. The Volvo mounted the opposite kerb with a thud, and dropped back onto the road. Parkes jumped on the accelerator and with a squeal of rubber the Volvo shot off, swerving around parked cars, and not slowing until they’d left the estate far behind.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
With the car in no state to be driven any distance, Blake and Parkes checked into a budget hotel in the centre of the city and left the wrecked Volvo in an underground car park with a plan to find a garage first thing. With luck, they could be back in Devon by mid-morning. But that evening, neither of them felt much like sleeping, still wired from the adrenaline rush. Instead they headed for the hotel bar and took a table by a window, on the opposite side of the room from a raucous group of businessmen. Blake ordered whiskeys, triple measures in straight glasses. No water. No ice.
Parkes’ hand trembled as she picked up her drink. She looked pale even under the dim lights.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘You were right, we should have waited for back-up.’
‘We had to move quickly.’
‘But I put you in danger.’
‘I can look after myself.’ Parkes winced as the alcohol hit her throat.
‘You should let Hubbard know you’re safe.’
Parkes shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know we’re here. He might have stopped me coming if he’d known,’ she said, running a finger around the top of the cut glass tumbler. ‘I mean, he’s so caught up with his own theories.’
‘You don’t have much time for him, do you?’
‘It doesn’t really matter what I think.’
‘You’re a good detective,’ said Blake. ‘You shouldn’t let him put you down.’
‘Maybe. So what now?’
‘We get your car back on the road and then we find Shazhed Ali.’
‘How?’
Blake shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. A public appeal?’
‘I don’t think Hubbard’s going to sanction that.’ Parkes stared out of the window at the late-night taxis swarming past and the traffic lights scrolling through their never-ending clockwork pattern of red, amber and green. ‘Do you think Keisha was telling the truth?’
‘It doesn’t really matter. If she knows where Ali is, she’s not saying.’
‘You realise he’s been missing since the day Kyle Hopkins disappeared?’
‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ said Blake. ‘It’s circumstantial at best, and we have nothing else to suggest he’s involved.’
‘So what was he doing in the pub asking for Kyle?’
Blake finished his drink and peered into the bottom of his glass. ‘I don’t know, but let’s assume the call Hopkins took on the night he vanished was from Ali. That means the two men must have known each other.’
‘But how?’
‘Drugs? Money? Sex? Who knows?’
Parkes cringed. ‘Sex?’
‘Why not? It’s as good a reason as any for Hopkins to drive up onto the moor alone. If he was having an affair with another man, he’d have to hide that not only from his wife, but probably felt he had to keep it from the regiment too. The army hasn’t quite caught up with the modern world yet.’
‘Okay, but then what?’
Blake shook his head. ‘Maybe they had an argument.’
‘So you don’t think Ali’s a terrorist after all?’
‘All I’m saying is there could be a hundred and one reasons why Ali would arrange to meet Hopkins alone on the moor.’
Blake’s phone vibrated on the glass table. He snatched it up in one hand. ‘Harry?’
‘Sorry it’s late. Did I wake you?’ said Patterson.
‘No. What’ve you got?’
‘Not much, I’m afraid. I came back to the office to check out what we had on your man, Ali, but he’s clean. I can’t find anything on him.’
‘Looks like we’re going around in circles.’
‘You didn’t find him either?’
‘He’s not been home for the best part of the week, and his girlfriend has no idea where he is.’
‘Are the police co-operating?’
Blake glanced at Parkes, running her fingers through her hair as she gazed out of the window, her face turned away from him. ‘Yeah, they are.’
‘I also looked into those instructors from the Duke of Yorks.’ Blake heard Patterson tapping on a computer keyboard. ‘You were right, the regiment was posted to Basra in 2004 on a six-month tour of duty. But I checked the names you gave me, and none of them took part. They all remained at the regimental headquarters in Surrey while the rest of the regiment shipped out.’
‘All of them? Are you sure?’
‘Positive. I double-checked. All five of them, plus another guy called Anthony Okeke.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘They were assigned to some kind of office duties. It’s not entirely clear what they were doing.’
‘But Claire Hopkins was adamant her husband had been in Iraq before the school was established. Why would she make something like that up?’
‘She’s under a lot of stress. Could be she’s confused?’
‘That’s what Ryan Fletcher tried to tell me.’ Blake thought about the photograph he’d seen when he’d visited Claire, of Hopkins in his desert fatigues.
‘I tell you what, let me do some more digging. I’ll call in a few favours, see if I can speak to someone from the regiment who knows what went on.’
‘Thanks, Harry.’
Blake hung up and tossed his phone on the table.
‘Who was that?’ asked Parkes. She’d been crying. Her eyes were red, and her make-up streaked.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ She dabbed tears from her cheeks and put on a fake smile.
‘Really?’
The smile slipped. ‘Christ, Blake, I was so scared tonight.’
‘Me too.’
‘You didn’t look scared.’
‘I guess I’m used to situations spiralling out of control.’
She studied his face for a moment, like she was trying to read him. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, honestly?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We could have been killed back there, but you hardly batted an eyelid.’
‘They were only kids having a bit of fun.’
‘He had a knife, Blake. He was threatening to gut you like a fish.’
‘And he was lucky I didn’t break his face.’
‘I believe you. And that’s what scares me the most. I don’t know who you are or what you’re capable of. You’re certainly not some office clerk who sits around analysing data all day. You carry a gun, and I think you know very well how to use it.’
Blake hung his head. He’d spent so many years living with the lies he hardly knew the truth anymore. And what could he possibly tell her anyway? ‘I wish I could tell you, but you want the honest answer?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t know anymore.’ It was the most sincere he’d been for a long time. The military had lef
t him a ghost, a shell of a man with few friends, no family and no future, destined to live a lie until death finally caught up with him.
‘What kind of a stupid answer is that?’ said Parkes, frowning.
‘I’m trying to be honest.’
‘Then try harder.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘You know, under the tough guy act, you’re probably a decent man. But you can also be a fucking arsehole.’
That cut deeper than any hunting knife. He didn’t know what to say. She was probably right. The tough guy act was all he had left. He didn’t know how to be anyone else.
‘I’m tired,’ said Parkes, standing unsteadily. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘I’ll walk you to your room.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’d rather be on my own. Thanks for the drink.’
‘We should make an early start tomorrow. I’ll call around the garages as soon as they’re open.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A loud knock at the door woke Blake from a fitful sleep. His hand reached for the Browning under his pillow and in an instant he was fully conscious, his heart pounding. He checked his watch. It was a little after 5:30am. Still dark. The hotel was silent, the room stuffy. He padded across the hotel room in bare feet. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ said a muted voice.
He snatched a glance through the spy hole and saw Parkes weirdly distorted by the fisheye lens. Her head and upper torso appeared much larger than the rest of her body.
‘Where’s the fire?’ he asked, opening the door. He checked along the deserted corridor and ushered her inside.
‘What?’
‘It’s five thirty in the morning. What’s the emergency?’
Her hair had been tied back in a hurried ponytail, and she was wearing no make-up. ‘They’ve found Ali,’ she said. ‘I just got a call from the station.’
Blake put the gun on the side and sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his face in his hands. ‘Where?’
‘Staggering along the side of the road between Plymouth and Exeter.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘A motorist nearly hit him and raised the alarm. They’ve taken him to hospital in Exeter.’
