The Ice House

by John Connor

  He started to repeat himself but then Zaikov stepped away from the chair, taking his eyes off him for the first time. The hand went up to his mouth and he leaned sideways. He made a noise in his throat. It took Carl a moment to realise he was retching. It went on for a few seconds without him actually being sick. Then he took deep breaths through his mouth, produced a white handkerchief, dabbed at his lips, straightened up. ‘I feel sick when I look at you,’ he said, in quick Russian.

  Carl frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, replying in Russian. ‘I don’t understand. I want to …’ He stopped. He wasn’t sure how to respond, or what Zaikov’s words had meant. But he could read the expression on the old man’s face all too clearly now – the downward twist to the lips, the bitterness in the pulled back cheeks. ‘I’m not sure—’ he started again, but then another door opened behind Zaikov and a younger man strode in.

  Tall, fit, in his forties. ‘Is this the fucker?’ he demanded loudly, in Russian. ‘Is this him?’ There was a baseball bat in his hands. He started to cross the room, headed for Carl. Carl shifted stance, his hands coming up, his brain starting to re­assess everything he had thought about the meet. There was some confusion, clearly, and he had to dispel it quickly. He tried to get the one behind him into the periphery of his vision, and started to say something at the same time – again mentioning Viktor’s name. But Zaikov spoke sharply, raising a hand. ‘Not here,’ he said feebly. ‘Not now.’

  The man with the bat stopped immediately. He was halfway between Zaikov and Carl. Carl thought he might be the oldest surviving son – Andrei. Carl started to speak quickly to him, trying to get an explanation out: ‘I don’t know what you think I’m here for, or who I am, but you should have known I was coming—’

  ‘Is it really him?’ the guy asked, ignoring him and glancing across at Zaikov. ‘Why is he here? Is he totally fucking stupid?’

  Zaikov snapped something back, too quick for Carl to get because his attention was behind him now. He had heard movement there. He spun to see the security guy pointing something at him – something plastic, brightly coloured. It was like a playground toy, a joke gun. The thing went off with a silly popping noise and two little darts leaped towards him, so slowly he could see them come out of the gun, see the thin trail of wire spooling out behind them.

  It was a taser. The darts hooked into his jacket. No time to dodge or duck.

  There was a split second of lucidity, then his whole body tightened, snapped straight, his mouth open and yelling. A massive contraction shot through him, turning him into a rigid knot. He was aware of it, conscious, but every muscle frozen. He saw the guy staring at him, pulling the trigger, saw the little wires in the air, connecting him to the gun, saw the ceiling spinning off as he went down. Then his head smashed off the floor, he rolled into a fetal ball.

  There was a gap long enough to feel his body buzzing like a fused machine, his head spinning with dizziness, then it started again. But this time the pain was like a vice around his chest, real pain that made him scream, made him think that if they kept doing it his heart would stop.

  32

  Julia had driven badly at first, so badly she almost crashed reversing out from the concrete space. Wrong side of the road. She had pulled out automatically as if driving in Spain, a car had braked, hooted her. So she had pulled to the side of the road, tried to calm herself. She couldn’t do something stupid that would attract police attention. When she started again she was more careful, easing herself back into it.

  Traffic was lighter than she remembered in London. There was a satnav built into the car. She had to stop again coming up to Ealing Broadway and work out how to program it. She put in the first address she had seen on the laptop, on the Hammersmith Road. The device had told her it would take her twenty minutes to get there, but it had taken over half an hour.

  She was behind the place now, in a side street near Brook Green. A posh bit of Hammersmith. She had been sitting in the car for a few minutes thinking about what she was doing. But nothing was clear. She couldn’t see how thinking was going to help. She needed to know if Rebecca was here. Here or in one of the other addresses – she thought she could remember them all. She would go through them one by one.

  She got out and walked down to Hammersmith Road, a wide, two-lane artery running towards town from Hammersmith Broadway, busy with cars, trucks, buses, courier bikes. The block Bowman’s flat was in was on the north side, off to her left a little – a seven-floor structure that had scaffolding around one end. There were barriers narrowing the road in front of it, skips and building trucks. They were renovating it, a sign said. To get to the main entrance you had to walk under a section of scaffolding.

  She walked as normally as she could, got to the big glass double doors and noted they were wedged open, despite the security lock and number pad. She pushed one of them open, stepped into a vestibule. It was quieter, but she could hear banging noises from inside the place, punctuated by the whine of a drill.

  Straight ahead – beyond another set of doors, also wedged open – there were two lifts, to the right a large panel with individual buzzers for each flat. There was plastic sheeting, stained with boot marks, leading through the doors towards the lifts. To her left the wall was a rack of locked letterboxes. She stepped up to the buzzers and looked for his name, found it at once. Top floor, flat 75. Bowman. She swallowed, turned, walked out, suddenly overcome with fear.

  She crossed the road at a run and walked towards the Broadway a bit, glancing back all the time. There was a coffee shop a little further on and she went in, sat at a bar in the window, from where she could see the entrance. A man took her order for a tea but she didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on the building.

  She tried to work out which set of windows would be Bowman’s flat but had no idea which end it would be. The furthest end was wrapped in scaffolding and protective boarding, so you couldn’t even see the windows of the rooms. She couldn’t get her head to compute the possibility that Rebecca might be being held inside the place she was looking at. There were builders, everything was public, life going on as normal. How would it be possible to get her daughter into the place? She couldn’t believe it.

  Her eyes dropped to street level, looked at the entrance again. Some­one walked in, a woman with two kids – younger than Rebecca – came out. Her eyes moved sideways. A man standing near to the start of the scaffolding, on the pavement, was facing her. Her eyes switched to him because she suddenly realised he was staring in her direction. She focused on his face. He was looking right at her. She heard her breath slip out in a gasp. Was it the man she had seen in the crowd at La Linea, the man with the pistol? He had the same backpack, the same clothes. He turned away immediately and walked quite casually under the section of scaffolding. It went around the corner of the building into the next street, so she couldn’t see if he had emerged at the other end or not. But he didn’t walk back onto Hammersmith Road, and he didn’t go into the building.

  She was stunned. Was that Bowman? There couldn’t be another explanation. But if that was him, where had Rebecca been when she had seen him in La Linea in the middle of the riot? She started to shake because the desperate, horrible facts seemed suddenly bitterly clear – she had been that close to Rebecca in La Linea, that close – she had looked at Bowman and he had looked at her, then he had got away. If she had followed him, shouted out to him, anything, then maybe she could have changed things. Why hadn’t she run to the nearest police, told them, begged them to go after him?

  She got out the phone Drake had given her and called him. He answered at once. ‘He’s here,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve seen him.’

  ‘Where are you?’ His voice was calm. ‘And who do you mean?’

  ‘Bowman. I saw him in Spain, and I’ve seen him here. I’m in Hammersmith, outside the address …’

  ‘Why did you go there?’

  ‘Don’t worry about
that. You’re looking for Bowman – well, I’m telling you I’ve seen him. I’ve found him. You need to get here now.’

  ‘You’ve seen someone outside the place, or inside?’

  ‘Outside. He was standing around, watching me …’

  ‘How did you know it was Bowman? It could be our man. There will be at least one of our people there. Where exactly are you now?’

  ‘In a coffee shop, opposite.’

  ‘Can you get back to the car? Did you use the car?’

  ‘I used the car, yes. But you need to get here—’

  ‘You should go back to the car. Now.’

  ‘No. I can’t just sit by and wait. I want to go over there. I want to check. I let him get away once, but not this time. Will you come here? Will you help?’

  ‘Listen. There are problems you don’t know about. What you’re suggesting is fucking dangerous – for you, for Rebecca …’ Abruptly, he sounded different – not calm at all – anxious enough to make her pause.

  There was silence for a few moments. ‘You should come here, then,’ she said. ‘We can work out what to do.’

  ‘Listen to me!’ He almost shouted it. ‘You remember the man Rudy? I’m at his place now and someone has been here, there’s been a fight, there’s blood. Do you understand? Rudy is not here.’

  ‘Rudy?’

  ‘The guy who was meant to meet you in London. The guy whose house you were meant to wait in.’

  That Rudy. But she had no idea who he was. So he’d been in a fight – what did that mean? And why did Drake assume there was a connection? In the front of her head there was only one thing – that Rebecca might be up there, right opposite her, metres away. ‘When is Michael coming?’ she asked. ‘He needs to know about this. You need to tell him I’ve found Bowman.’

  ‘OK.’ She heard his impatient sigh. ‘We’ll do it this way. Stay where you are. Don’t move from where you are. You understand? I will come to you. Do you hear?’

  ‘I hear.’ She cut the connection, irritated that he was giving orders suddenly. Besides, why would he think the man she had seen was one of Michael’s men? She had said she saw the same man in Spain, told him that.

  A blur of confusing connections formed in her head, ending with a sudden doubt about Michael Rugojev. With nothing concrete to back it up, no clear reason. But still …

  She got off the stool and walked out, without waiting for the tea. She crossed the road and looked down along the line of the building, under the scaffolding. No sign of the man. She took a deep breath and spoke aloud, without realising it. ‘I might be mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t him.’ How clearly had she seen him? She had a good view now, but not back in Spain. Her nerves were overwrought, she was exhausted, living on adrenalin. It was likely she was being really stupid, that it wasn’t the same man at all.

  33

  The more she thought about it, the more she was sure Drake was right and the man she had seen was someone else entirely. Because she couldn’t see Bowman bringing Rebecca here. Anyone could get into the building – there were builders trekking in and out, all the doors jammed open. The pavement running under the scaffolding was relatively busy too – how would you get a little girl in, unnoticed? But Rebecca wasn’t little – she just thought of her like that. In reality, she looked like a teenager. She had seen teenagers walking in and out alone whilst she’d been watching the place. And she remembered Rebecca’s messages – Rebecca thought this Carl Bowman was helping her.

  She got out Drake’s phone and saw that he had been trying to call her. But she didn’t need to argue with him right now, so she switched it off, started up Molina’s instead, called Rebecca’s number, heard the miserable out-of-service message for the five hundredth time. The fear started rising inside her again, the obsessive, hopeless thoughts. Rebecca might be in Spain, or here, or any other European country – or much further afield. There was no way to search effectively, no way to even start. She had heard nothing from her for over twenty-four hours. This was what it was going to be like, for the rest of her life. Never knowing, never seeing her child again.

  She got her mind out of it with difficulty. The panic was misplaced, because it wasn’t like that, wasn’t quite so hopeless. She had one card in her hand – they wanted her too, they wanted to kill her. They had engaged with her once already to try to achieve that. So it could happen again.

  And the culprits were known. And she had powerful men on her side. That limited things, brought the scope of it in. It wasn’t as if Rebecca could be anywhere. Michael Rugojev would know roughly where she was. She had to rely on that. Rugojev would put the resources into it. He would know what to do.

  But if that was true, she couldn’t see Michael’s resources – unless, as Drake suggested, the man she had just seen was one of them. It was possible. But why wasn’t Michael himself here – why hadn’t he come to explain? She stood on the pavement, feeling her body heating up with agitation, trying desperately to think things through clearly. But her brain had stopped. She was too exhausted and stressed to think about anything clearly. She just had to do it, go up there, find out. If Rebecca and Bowman weren’t here then it was possible she could still get back to Seville in time.

  She took the stairs at the side of the lifts, running up them so that when she came through the doors at the top and stepped into the seventh-floor corridor, she was out of breath. She paused to recover, taking in the layout. A long corridor that turned off at both ends. There was a plush beige carpet underfoot, to the left covered with plastic. Doors for two flats in sight. She walked to the first, right opposite the stairway. Number 73. Bowman was 75.

  She went past the lifts. In the other direction there was a clatter of building works, hammers and drills, the long scrape and bang as stuff was pushed down a waste chute into a skip below. The air down there was hazy with dust. She thought the builders must actually be in the flat furthest down there, so it couldn’t be that end. She went past flat 74 and got to the corner.

  There it was, down a dog-leg. Flat 75. No name on the door. She took a breath, stepped closer, heard the lift start up behind her and stepped back to watch for it, automatically. It didn’t stop at her floor though. She heard it come to a halt, heard the doors open, voices on the floor below, most probably. She got her eyes back on the flat door. What was she going to do?

  She crept up to it, stood very still, holding her breath, listening. She could hear nothing. Nothing at all. She took Molina’s phone out again and called Rebecca’s number. Same message. She got up the number she had called in Spain – the one the message had come from telling her to go to Seville. She held it to her ear, listening to it ringing, hearing nothing from inside the flat. She heard the ring tone pause, then change, as if the number had automatically diverted to another number, but that just rang also. Whoever they were, they weren’t at the other side of this door.

  She cut the connection but had only got as far as putting the phone back into her pocket before it started to buzz. She got it out at once, holding it to her ear without saying anything.

  Silence. But someone was there. They were at the other end now, listening to her breath. She could sense it. ‘Hello?’ she said, to check. She thought she heard an intake of breath, very faint. She put her hand against the door, still listening, then felt it give immediately. It was open. Her eyes flicked down to the lock, saw marks, scrapings around the keyhole, some wood splintered away. It had been forced open. In her ear a voice said, very quietly, ‘I wish it didn’t have to be like this.’

  She cut the connection quickly, suddenly very frightened. Had she recognised the voice from somewhere?

  She called Rebecca’s name. Not very loud, but loud enough. If she was inside she would hear. She pressed against the door cautiously. It swung open. She swallowed, stepped forwards, pushed it right back on its hinges.

  She was looking at a short corridor, pictures on the wa
lls, doorways off only a few metres ahead. Her mind noted the details – the open doors, the complete and utter silence, the marks on the carpet. She walked slowly in, leaving the door open behind her.

  There was a stale smell in the air, as if no one had been here for a few days and all the windows were closed. And something else. It made her pause before she looked around the first door but didn’t manage to prepare her, so that when she saw the room beyond the breath was sucked out of her, like someone had punched her in the chest. She had to lean against the wall to stop herself collapsing.

  It was a bedroom. There was a double bed, behind it curtains pulled away from the window. Lying on the floor, in the gap between the bed and the window, was a body. Long, very blonde hair covering a face. Hands clenched tight. Blood. Blood on the walls in long streaks, blood on the bed. The smell of it in her nose. She put her hand in her mouth, bit on it, said ‘Christ above. Christ.’ She stepped back.

  It was a dead woman. Not Rebecca. She couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see what had killed her, but the room was in total disorder, things toppled onto the floor, items smashed. There had been a struggle. The woman was in her nightclothes, she thought, in pyjamas.

  She backed out of the room, almost tripping up, then stood panting, pressed against the wall outside, her brain racing, her limbs cold.

  In a daze she moved quickly through the other rooms, praying Rebecca wasn’t going to be there. There was a kitchen, a lounge, another bedroom, a toilet and bathroom, all ordered and neat. Nothing had happened anywhere else, just back in the first room. There was no one else here, not Rebecca, not Bowman.

  She forced herself back to it, the breath strangled in her throat. She should go over to the body, check it, check if the woman was alive. But she couldn’t. She stood in the space outside the room, planted her feet firmly, then looked round the corner and saw the legs and arms in exactly the same frozen pose. She had the urge to run, to turn and flee.