You Will Never Find Me

by Robert Wilson

  ‘So Bobkov and Tereshchenko are very close,’ said Mercy.

  ‘It’s believed that after the funeral Bobkov made a promise to Tereshchenko’s widow that he would find out who had poisoned her husband with the polonium 210 and who ordered it.’

  ‘I thought they already knew that. Wasn’t it this guy Lubashev and his sidekick under orders from the president?’

  ‘Whatever you do, Mercy, don’t do a press conference on this without speaking to me.’

  ‘I thought I was quoting the CPS, sir.’

  ‘What you’ve just said is not what the Russian government want to hear, nor their henchmen in the FSB. They really are the last people you want on your back,’ said Makepeace. ‘What is our business is that we have to make this look like a perfectly kosher kidnap and rescue operation.’

  ‘Did I miss something, sir?’

  ‘There was a phone call before the police arrived. Bobkov took it. An electronically manipulated voice asked to speak to Tracey. There was a lot of background noise as if it was from a call centre. At first Bobkov thought it was a sales call. He said she wasn’t able to come to the phone, which was true. An ambulance had been called. She was confused, undernourished, dehydrated . . . whatever. The voice insisted it was very important and would only speak to Tracey Anne Dunsdon. Bobkov reiterated that she was incapable and on her way to hospital. The voice asked him who he was and he replied. There was a short silence. The phone was muffled by hand. The voice came back and made a demand for five million euros in used notes in denominations no greater than fifty. The money was to be ready for delivery by 17:00 today. Instructions were to follow.’

  ‘Is Bobkov worth anything like that or is that just a mad first demand?’

  ‘He’s not at the Premiership-football-club-owning level, but he’s very well off. He gave that house in Netherhall Gardens to his ex-wife. And that’s got to be a few millions’ worth.’

  ‘So how did Bobkov react to the demand?’

  ‘Possibly because of his long-standing friendship with Tereshchnko, he’d been expecting something like this, or maybe it was just his old FSB training kicking in, but he had the presence of mind to ask for some kind of proof of capture. The voice asked him for a question to put to the boy. Standing in the living room, surrounded by bottles, he asked them what Tracey’s favourite drink was. The caller said he would come back to him and hung up. Within minutes he was back with the answer: Harvey’s Bristol Cream.’

  ‘God almighty,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Can you imagine? She had cases delivered by Tesco.’

  ‘It’s not a conclusive proof-of-capture question,’ said Mercy. ‘If somebody had been watching the house they could have known that.’

  ‘It was the best he could come up with at the time.’

  ‘Is anybody jumping to conclusions yet?’

  ‘No. They’re open-minded so far, but wary. Despite this spook dimension we’re going to run it as a completely normal kidnap and rescue operation by the SCD 7 Kidnap and Special Investigations Team. Bobkov’s friend James Kidd is staying with him, as is his lawyer, Howard Butler. They’re the Crisis Management Committee.’

  ‘Who’s been appointed the consultant?’

  ‘Chris Sexton,’ said Makepeace, naming a colleague.

  ‘This is his first case flying solo, isn’t it?’

  ‘He’s proved himself,’ said Makepeace, ‘and it will be good for him to have you and George in support. Doing your usual brilliant investigative work around the boy’s disappearance. Door-to-door, school, teachers, pupils, parents. You know what to do. While you do the routine stuff MI5 will try to find out whether this has got anything to do with his . . . interference in the Tereshchenko affair.’

  ‘If this gang are straight criminals and have nothing to do with Tereshchenko, you don’t want them to think they’ve bitten off more than they can chew and get frightened into some sort of drastic action.’

  ‘Everybody’s aware of the situation.’

  ‘Has Bobkov made any recent breakthroughs in his Tereshchenko research and, now that the Russian prime minister has been re-elected president, has that—?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Mercy. Leave that to MI5. You and George just do your work. Don’t tell George the bigger picture just yet; get him concentrated on the detail.’

  8

  4:00 P.M., TUESDAY 20TH MARCH 2012

  Northwest International School, Hampstead, London

  We’re still in shock,’ said the principal. ‘I’ve taught in schools all over the world and never in my career has a child been kidnapped. And Sasha, such a lovely boy. Do you know what time he was . . . taken?’

  ‘We’ve got a problem with that,’ said Mercy. ‘The boy’s mother, Tracey Dunsdon, was in no fit state to speak to us.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘What I mean is she’s an alcoholic. Has been for a while. So we’re having to work back from when Sasha’s teacher first called her to find out where her son was. That was at 08:55.’

  ‘Sasha’s mother is an alcoholic?’ said the principal, aghast. ‘There’s nothing in his file about that.’

  ‘I’ll be interested to hear what his teacher’s got to say about it.’

  ‘Mr. Spencer will join us in a minute,’ said the principal. ‘He’s only been with us since last September. A young chap. Cambridge. English degree. Goldie. It’s not easy to find male teachers at primary-school level so we grab the well-qualified ones when we can.’

  ‘Goldie?’ asked Mercy, who could tell the principal had a soft spot for Mr. Spencer.

  ‘The Cambridge University second crew . . . in the Boat Race,’ she said, stunned at the ignorance.

  A knock at the door and Jeremy Spencer, a colossus, came in. He was the sort that made ordinary folk lean back, as if looking up at a tall building, to talk to him. Introductions made, they sat down. His trouser material strained over his massive quadriceps. Solemnity sat awkwardly on what would normally have been a cheerful demeanour. He sat very still as if one false move and he would crack.

  ‘Detective Inspector Danquah tells me that Tracey Dunsdon is an alcoholic,’ said the principal.

  ‘Maybe it would be better if I spoke to Mr. Spencer alone,’ said Mercy. ‘I think we want different things from the same interview. It could be confusing.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said the principal, swishing out of the room in her crisp trouser suit.

  ‘You’re in shock,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Doubly so,’ he said. ‘Sasha’s been kidnapped and Tracey’s an alcoholic.’

  ‘Is that what you called her—Tracey?’

  ‘I started with Mrs. Bobkov, but she didn’t want that. She insisted on Tracey,’ said Spencer, gnawing on his thumbnail, staring into the floor between them. ‘She came to every parent–teacher evening. She listened. She was attentive. She even asked questions. I can’t say she looked that great. Heavy bags under the eyes. Thin hair. People told me that she’d taken the bust-up with her husband very badly. I thought she was probably depressed. And she struck me as lonely.’

  ‘I understand from the principal that she was friendly with one of the other mothers, whose son has since moved to the Westminster school of Northwest International. A Russian woman. Irina Demidova. Perhaps they—’

  ‘Before my time,’ said Spencer quickly. ‘The school secretary will more than likely know about that.’

  ‘Tell me about Sasha,’ said Mercy. ‘Let’s start with his routine. Was he ever late for school?’

  ‘No, no, the opposite. Registration is at 8:45 every morning, but the school is open by eight o’clock. Sasha was always the first here at eight or eight fifteen,’ said Spencer, slowed down by his thoughts. ‘Now that I think about it, with your new information, he was probably desperate to get out of the house. You know, not easy for a kid to be around that sort of thing. I sti
ll can’t believe it of Tracey. She must have really pulled herself together to be able to handle those parent–teacher meetings. They’re not easy. I mean, I know when someone is drunk, and she was never . . . ’

  ‘When you know you’re going to lose your kid if there’s the slightest suspicion that you’re incapable you make sure you present a perfect image to the outside world,’ said Mercy. ‘Don’t blame yourself. Alcoholics are very practised at that kind of thing. And Sasha was protecting her too. I doubt the state she was in this morning was that unusual. When they went into the house all the washing-up had been done for dinner and breakfast. One setting for each.’

  ‘Jesus. The poor kid.’

  ‘You don’t have to be underprivileged to be neglected,’ said Mercy from personal experience. ‘What else about him?’

  ‘He’s bright. Not a genius, but you never know at his age. I would say more orientated to maths than the arts, but I saw some interesting paintings he’d done. He’s good at chess. He’s an unusual boy. What I like about him is that all these kids are from very privileged backgrounds. They come with a thick artery of entitlement running through them. Some of them are little buggers, you know, really think they’re the business. It’s what they’ve been led to believe from year zero. Sasha isn’t like that. He always stands up for other kids and especially the more unfortunate ones, the socially awkward ones. I suppose his mother being in that state, he probably did a lot of caring for her. Must be in his nature.’

  ‘Is he popular?’

  ‘He kind of disdains popularity. Some kids set out to become popular. They have an innate understanding of PR. Sasha isn’t like that. He’s never short of other kids wanting to sit next to him, but he never courts the big personalities. He’s just himself and, yeah, he’s crazy about football. Thinking about it now, he must spend a lot of time on his own because he’s the best trick footballer I’ve ever seen. He can do amazing things with a ball. He can stand there talking to you and just keeping it going on his foot and pop it up onto his head, roll it down his back and arms. Like Beckham. Other kids like that kind of thing. It impresses them. But Sasha never showed off. He could have brought the playground to a standstill but he didn’t. It was a private thing. Something he could lose himself in maybe.’

  ‘Sounds like a really great kid,’ said Mercy, dismayed to find her own parental ache intruding on her professional life. Should she be in Madrid with Charlie? ‘What about the father? Did you meet Mr. Bobkov?’

  ‘Yes, but only once a term. He never came to the parent–teacher evenings. That was Tracey on her own. He travels a lot. He and I have had a couple of good talks about Sasha. He’s an impressive guy. I know he’s a businessman—he has his own trading outfit in the West End—but he didn’t strike me as one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Businessmen are all about surface. My father’s one, and all my father’s friends are like that. They know how to get on with you. I’m always aware of technique. It’s why I didn’t want to go into that world myself. My father was furious when I stayed on at Cambridge to do a PGCE. And primary school teaching? He just shook his head. He’s the CEO of something in the City and even I don’t understand what they do.’

  ‘And Mr. Bobkov?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. He was different. He had no artifice . . . at least not with me. From the moment we started talking about his son he just opened up. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but you knew you were talking to the real person and not some carefully fashioned image. When I talk to the other fathers, the only real thing they show me is a little bit of condescension, not so much that you’d want to hit them, but just enough to let you know they’re unimpressed.’

  ‘Mr. Bobkov and Sasha, were they close?’

  ‘I’d say so. Even though I don’t think they saw that much of each other. If he was in London they’d always go to a game. They were big Arsenal supporters. Yeah . . . ’

  ‘You’re nodding to yourself, Mr. Spencer?’

  ‘What? Yeah, I know. You only really start to think about people when something like this happens, or maybe it’s that the things you thought subconsciously come to the surface. I always felt about Mr. Bobkov that he was operating in a whole other mysterious and unknowable world and that his son was the only true person in his life. Why? I have no idea.’

  ‘Yes, I remember her,’ said the male receptionist at the Hotel Moderno. ‘She’s a very pretty girl. Red minidress and a little jacket, black, over her shoulders. It was cold. High heels, black too. Bare legs, I think. I remember shaking my head. Oh yes, and a small black leather bag over her shoulder.’

  ‘And you didn’t see her again?’ asked Boxer, thinking, guy, late forties, hair thinning. He probably noticed all the pretty girls, every detail.

  ‘I go off at midnight. The night shift comes on until eight in the morning.’

  ‘We’ve spoken to everybody in the hotel at the time,’ said the manageress. ‘We’re absolutely certain she didn’t come back. I’m afraid it’s not unusual in this city.’

  ‘So what do you do when people don’t come back to their rooms—with their belongings, I mean? The bill?’

  ‘She paid the bill in cash on arrival. Two nights. One hundred and eighty-six euros.’

  ‘So how did she make the booking?’

  ‘Online.’

  ‘With a credit card?’

  ‘Of course. That’s how we take the booking from the website she used and then they pay however they want to on arrival or when they leave.’

  ‘In whose name was the credit card?’

  The manageress scrolled through the computer. ‘Mercy Danquah.’

  ‘That’s her mother,’ said Boxer. ‘What about her things?’

  ‘She paid for two nights, so we just cleaned the room on Sunday morning. We didn’t need the room on Monday, but today we have a conference so we put her things into storage and changed the room.’

  ‘Was there anything in the safe? Her passport?’

  ‘I don’t know; I’ll call housekeeping,’ said the manageress.

  ‘The passport,’ said the receptionist. ‘I remember now. She picked it up from the front desk on her way out. It was a busy time when she arrived so she left it with us so that we could take the photocopy and fill in the registration details. When she came down she signed the registration document and picked up the passport. I remember she put it in a little pocket on the inside of her jacket. It had a small button. She had to fiddle with it. You know the jacket? It was very short. It only came to here.’

  The receptionist chopped himself on the ribs not far below his armpits.

  ‘A bolero jacket?’ said Boxer. He didn’t know the jacket, had never seen it.

  ‘Yes, like the horsemen wear in the feria in Sevilla,’ said the receptionist. ‘It’s just that I would have expected her to put the passport in her handbag.’

  ‘Maybe it felt safer to have it close to her in her jacket.’

  ‘She was going dancing,’ said the receptionist. ‘You don’t wear a jacket for very long when you go dancing.’

  ‘If I’d been her I’d have left it in reception,’ said the manageress.

  ‘How do you know she was going dancing?’

  ‘She asked the concierge for some good places to go.’

  ‘Is the same concierge on duty now?’

  ‘Until midnight.’

  ‘Can I have a look at her things?’

  Boxer shook hands with the manageress. The receptionist took him to the storage room behind the reception area, which he unlocked.

  ‘Everything in the room we put in her rucksack,’ he said, pulling it down from a shelf. ‘Apart from that jacket hanging there.’

  ‘Can I take a look at her stuff in here?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be on the front desk if you need anything. Let me know when you’ve finished and I’ll lock u
p.’

  Boxer started with the jacket, checked all the pockets. He knew this coat—she’d had it since last winter, more than a year. In the inside pocket was a note to Amy from her class tutor at Streatham and Clapham High School. It was a nothing note about a change of time for a rehearsal, but it somehow made Amy’s presence in the city come alive. He smelled the coat’s lining and his eyeballs pricked and he had to blink back the emotion.

  He opened the rucksack: jeans, pants, T-shirts, tights, a jumper and her favourite Converse trainers. Nothing unusual. He checked the jean pockets and found a bill from French Connection at Terminal 1 Heathrow for a Calling Apollo Dress £150, a mini Adventurers jacket £92, and Tiarella ankle-strap courts £120. Nearly four hundred quid on clothes, paid in cash. This was a new side to Amy—maybe just an expression of freedom. She didn’t have to ask for anything any more.

  The rucksack sagged, his daughter’s life reduced to this. He checked the side pockets, found a bikini he recognised from last summer. A pair of cheap earrings he’d bought for her in Brazil and been surprised that she liked so much. On the other side was a book. The Footprint Handbook to Morocco. He flicked through it. Places had been marked and there were scribbles in Amy’s handwriting. A slight weakness entered his arms. The book felt heavy. He dropped it, pushed his hands through his hair. Something had gone wrong. He’d tried to ignore it up to this point, but this book with its determination for onward travel confirmed it to him. Something had stopped her in Madrid. He breathed in, trying to keep positive, she could have just fallen in with some people.