by Rod Reynolds
She scribbled Please call me urgently on a business card and posted it through the letterbox, then tried the bell for 65a. She looked at the time – twenty past six. A toss-up whether it was worth hanging around to see if the people in the adjoining flat might be arriving home from work soon.
She went through the neighbouring gate, finding the same front door arrangement there. She could see kids playing through the window of 67a so she rang the bell and waited on the doorstep.
An Asian woman in a hijab opened up, a toddler on her hip. She looked at Lydia. A boy and a girl came up the hallway behind her, hiding behind her legs to see what was going on.
‘Sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for Paulina Dobriska, she lives next door?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you know her at all?’
‘Yeah, little bit. Why?’ The woman had a north-London accent.
‘Have you seen her the last few days?’
She looked to one side. ‘I don’t think so.’
The boy tugged on the woman’s leggings. ‘Mummy…’ She cupped her hand around his head to draw him closer.
Lydia passed her a business card. ‘I should explain, I’m a reporter with the Examiner—’
The woman started shaking her head. ‘Oh no. Won’t touch that rag. Racists.’
Lydia grimaced, nodding. ‘I’m with the website, not the paper.’
‘So? Split you up into racists and not-racists do they?’
‘I’m not … I’m just trying to make sure she’s okay.’
‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘She hasn’t shown up for work for a few days.’
‘What’s that got to do with you?’
‘Look, thanks for your time.’ Lydia turned to go.
‘Well give it to us, then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your card. If I see her, I’ll tell her.’
She handed it over and waved goodbye to the boy and girl, who smiled but hid their faces behind their mum’s legs. She was already set on calling it quits. She’d had a missed call from her mum, no doubt spurred by receiving the message about her losing her phone, retirement in Devon leaving her with too much time on her hands. That meant a chat to reassure her everything was alright, which meant forty minutes at least once her mum got talking. If she started back for the flat now, she’d be able to get it done and still have something of the evening left for herself.
‘Excuse me.’
She turned around to see an older man coming across the street towards her.
‘Excuse me, I saw you ringing the bell.’ He pointed to Paulina Dobriska’s door.
‘Yes. Do you know the woman that lives there?’
‘Blonde lass. She’s lived there a while but I don’t know her name. Pleasant enough.’
‘Have you seen her today? Or yesterday?’
‘No. She’s run off I think. Are you from the police?’
‘I’m a journalist.’ She passed a card to him. ‘Why do you say police?’
He took it, holding it at arm’s length to read the writing. ‘Because I phoned them about it. There were two lads watching her door. I didn’t expect them to send a panda car or anything, but I thought they’d look into it.’
She turned to face him fully. ‘What do you mean “watching”?’
‘They were sat in the car just there.’ He pointed a short way down the road. ‘I saw them ring her doorbell. The Paki woman didn’t tell you, did she? They don’t, do they, their culture?’
Lydia winced. ‘You’re saying someone was looking for the woman who lives there?’
‘Yes. Burly lads, looked like footballers. We try to keep the neighbourhood watch going on the street but there’s just too many don’t want to know nowadays. I asked the lass to join ages ago but she told me she couldn’t. And the Paki was a waste of time.’
‘Sir, could you stop saying that word, please.’
‘What word?’
‘“Paki”.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s offensive.’
‘What am I supposed to call them then? It’s always bloody changing. The Indian girl.’
She closed her eyes and took a breath to keep her focus. ‘When did you see the men in the car?’
‘Saturday. Again on Saturday night. That’s when I rang the police. I was going to challenge them but the lass on the phone told me not to. I took down their number plate if you want it?’
She rummaged into her bag for a pen. ‘Please.’
He took a notebook from his shirt pocket and started to read it out.
She scribbled it on her pad as he spoke. She looked up when he’d finished. ‘You said the men looked like footballers?’
‘Yes, you know how they have that hair.’ He ran his fingers along the side of his head. ‘Nothing here, long on top. Looks like they’ve had a bath in Brylcreem.’
The two attackers in the video had crew cuts; no easy answers there. ‘What age would you say they were?’
‘It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Twenties or early thirties.’
The phantom brother? ‘They couldn’t be family or something like that?’
‘God knows. But I’ve never seen them before if they are. Are you going to write about it then?’
‘Maybe. It depends.’
‘I don’t take your paper usually but I’ll look out for it. Henry Siddons – you can quote me.’
She thanked him and moved off, glancing at the number plate she’d written down. She pinged a message to Tammy: No one home, no sign of her for days. Then she started back towards the station, writing a text to Sam Waterhouse.
CHAPTER 18
Stringer kept a second flat in Finsbury Park. He’d owned it for four years, choosing that specific one because it met all his criteria: a one-bedroom on the third floor of a ten-year-old block that comprised eighty units in total – the definition of unremarkable. The building had two entrances: one on the street – a main road that was always busy; and one at the back that meant he could pull up right outside the door. The residents were mainly young professionals or Chinese students, so the turnover was huge and no one knew their neighbours – meaning no one paid attention to a new face in the lifts or the corridors. And with the advent of Air BnB, flat 307 was just one of dozens that seemingly changed occupier every week.
He pressed the lift button. Most of his guests weren’t public figures; he’d had politicians and even a cabinet minister once, sequestered while he cleaned up whatever shit they’d gotten themselves into, but usually it was the people on the other side of the coin: the politician’s mistress who needed hiding from the press until the story came out on whoever’s terms was paying him; the battered wife of the CEO who needed space to plan a clean break; the lawyer who had to disappear until Stringer could broker a deal with his former clients. He’d put Angie Cross up there when she’d first crashed into his life, until she decided it was too isolating and left, saying she wanted to sort something out for herself.
The lift opened onto an empty corridor. The lights flickered on as he stepped out, the motion sensors kicking in – supposedly an energy-saving measure that never seemed to make a dent in the service charges the management company billed him for.
He came to the door and knocked. He had keys in his pocket but he’d decided on day one that he wouldn’t use them while she was here.
He heard footsteps inside, a pause. The spy hole darkened and cleared. Then the sound of the lock turning.
Alicia Tan opened the door.
‘Can I come in?’
She stepped back to open up fully, holding her arm out but not looking at him.
His shoes clacked on the wooden floor down the hallway. He went straight through to the living room and stood by the window. He heard her locking the door. The view looked south, towards the City, the Arsenal stadium rising like a monolith in the foreground.
‘Kidnapped anyone today?’ She was standing across the living room, staring at him.
&
nbsp; ‘Not yet. Mind if I make coffee?’
‘Be my guest.’
She’d hardened again since his last visit, understandable with what she was going through. She’d shown admirable poise when he’d first taken her here two days before. The lies he’d told her then weighed on his conscience: that Jamie Tan had paid him to stash her away in the event of something happening to him. It was the only way he could think to gain her trust while he figured out where the threat was coming from – and if it extended to her as well.
He went into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. ‘Do you want one? Tea?’
She came and stood in the doorway behind him. ‘How long are you going to keep me here?’
He spread his hands on the counter. ‘We’ve been through this. You can leave any time you want.’
‘Yes, so you said. But I gave that some thought, and telling me my life’s in danger isn’t much different to telling me you’ll kill me if I try to go.’
‘You walk out that door, you’ll never see me again. If that’s what you want.’
‘And I’m expected to just believe that?’
He dropped a teabag into a mug and opened the fridge. ‘Milk?’
‘Did you come here to play tea boy?’
‘I came to check you’re coping.’
She folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
He stirred the tea and turned to give it to her. She shook her head so he reached across her and put it on the counter by her side.
‘You lied to me, but now—’
‘To get you here,’ he said. ‘I lied to get you safe.’ One more in the mountain of lies he built his life on.
‘If Jamie hired you why didn’t he tell me? You never answered that.’
He went back into the living room and she followed him with her gaze. He took a sip of his coffee, too hot to taste the flavour.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘He must have told you something…’
‘It’s not a conversation anyone wants to have. Darling, I’ve made arrangements to keep you safe in case something happens to me…’
Her face changed and he stopped himself. She’d had eyes like glass up to then, enough to make him forget and slip into talking like an asshole.
She looked away and rubbed her cheek with the heel of her hand, a sharp movement that made him realise she was more angry that he’d fractured her composure. ‘Stop saying “something”. I’m under no illusions what’s happened. For all I know it was you that killed him.’
‘You suspected something was wrong, you told me as much.’ The worst part of his lies: that they’d worked too well. In the midst of her anguish over her husband, she’d started confiding in him.
‘And so he hired me a bodyguard without telling me.’
‘That’s not what I am.’
She waved him off. ‘Whatever you fucking call yourself.’
‘I’m a fixer. That’s it.’
She lowered herself onto the edge of a chair. ‘How long am I supposed to stay here? According to this plan no one deigned to clue me in on?’
He studied her – a red mark on her cheek where she’d rubbed it, the one frailty in an expression as hard as porcelain. He shook his head to say he didn’t know, finally making his mind up about the video as he did. ‘I want to show you something, but it’s going to be hard for you to see. It’s your call.’
‘What?’
‘There’s a video surfaced of Jamie the night he disappeared. It’s not good.’
‘Show me.’
‘You’re sure? You can change your mind at any time…’
‘For Christ’s sake, show me.’
He placed his phone on the coffee table and pressed play.
She twitched when she recognised Tan on the train and snatched up the phone to get a better look. ‘What’s…?’
He said nothing, letting it play on. She started when the punch came, her breathing fast and light. Then the duct tape and his convulsions. She didn’t blink, didn’t make a sound, and he could see she was steeling herself to show no reaction, the effort making her head tremble. ‘Oh, Jesus – Jamie…’
The video played out and she held the phone, staring past it, her eyes filming with tears. She was silent for more than a minute. Then she swallowed and focused on him. ‘Is that all of it?’
He nodded. ‘Do you recognise the other two men?’
‘No.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes, certain. Where did you get this?’
‘It came into the possession of a journalist. I don’t know where the original came from.’
‘Have the police seen it?’
‘Not from me.’
She looked around at him. ‘Why not?’
He took the phone from her gently and set it face down on the table. ‘What were you afraid of, Alicia?’
She held his look, no attempt to hide her disdain. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t know me.’
‘You told me that. I’m repeating your words from the other night.’
‘I was in shock. That doesn’t give you the right to ask me now.’
‘Whatever Jamie was into, it went bad. I didn’t want to get him or you into trouble.’
She looked around the room, the cheap IKEA prints the only colour on the white walls. ‘This place … I must be out of my mind staying here…’ She stood up.
‘The danger’s real, isn’t it? That’s why you stayed.’
‘Did Jamie tell you something you’re hinting at? Because if you know something I don’t, I’d rather you just said it out loud.’
His lies, their lies…
Her lies?
‘Like what?’ he said.
‘Oh come on. He asks you to look after me, but you didn’t have any questions at all about why? How long for? What to bloody do with me if he disappears?’
‘Paid.’
‘What?’
‘He didn’t ask me, he paid. That takes care of my curiosity.’
She picked up his phone again. His instinct was to snatch it off her, thinking she was about to rifle it for more information he didn’t have, but he held back when he saw her looking at the video again. A woman that projected so much composure, it was easy to forget she was as much a victim in this. She screwed her eyes closed, shuddering as she stifled a sob. She looked again, attached the video to a message, then sent it to a number he didn’t know – her own, judging by the beep that came straight after. Then she got up silently and walked to the front door and opened it, staring him down with red eyes.
He watched her a moment, then nodded an acceptance to himself. He walked over to her, scrabbling for a reassurance to offer. When none came, he continued out of the door.
‘Must be so proud of the life you live,’ she said.
CHAPTER 19
Her mum was ten minutes into an update about a cousin in Australia Lydia had never met.
She was using her free hand to scroll through a Google search for the registration plate Paulina Dobriska’s neighbour had given her. The results weren’t much help. Various sites carried the basic details: it belonged to a black 2016 Audi Q7, first registered in London. It’d changed hands once, in April 2017. Estimated mileage, estimated value; nothing that could help her locate the current owner.
‘Anyway I’d better go,’ her mum said. ‘I want to put the dishwasher on before I go to bed. You’re sure you’re okay though?’
‘Yep, promise. Just one of those things.’
‘And you’re alright for money?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Yeah. Thank you.’
‘Well you know where I am. Love you.’
‘Love you, Mum.’
She ended the call and put her mobile on the desk next to her laptop, a screen full of Audi Q7s staring back at her. The cheapest one was listed at £45,000, and the search said there were 173 of that specific model within ten miles of her postcode. It
seemed impossible, even in London, that so many people had that much money to spend on a car. In the real world it was a deposit for a flat.
‘Hiya.’
Lydia snapped her head around.
Chloe had poked her face through the doorway. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.’
Lydia flashed an embarrassed smile. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Thought I’d say hello; feels like I haven’t seen you in ages.’
‘I know. These hours are a nightmare at work. You okay?’
‘Yeah, just knackered – long day. Was that your mum?’
She nodded.
‘How is she?’
Lydia heard her phone buzz with a notification but didn’t look over. ‘Same old. “Your dad’s driving me mad. When are you coming to visit”? She sees the headlines about knife epidemics in London too; they don’t help.’
‘I got your DM about the new number – did you tell her about your phone?’
‘Only that I lost it. She’d freak out if she knew.’
Chloe smiled. ‘My mum thinks it’s a miracle I’ve survived this long in the warzone. As if Peterborough is some kind of hamlet.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I’m making a decaf tea if you want one?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘Thanks.’
‘You working? I’ll let you crack on.’ She started to back out.
‘Actually, Chlo?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I meant to ask, did you use my laptop for anything yesterday?’
‘No, why?’
‘It’s … don’t worry, it must be me.’
‘No, go on.’
‘I thought I left it closed, that’s all. It was open when I came home last night.’
Chloe cracked the door wider. ‘Definitely wasn’t me. Promise.’
Lydia pulled a dizzy look. ‘I must be losing it.’
Chloe shifted her weight onto the other foot, leaning on the doorknob. ‘Sure it wasn’t Mr Mysterious in the suit?’
‘Stephen?’
‘Is that what he’s called?’
‘He wasn’t here. Was he?’
‘Nah, I’m only winding you up. Got his name out of you, though.’ Chloe threw her hands to her mouth, smiling. ‘Hang on, it’s not Stephen from work, is it?’
