Astounded by the address given to me, I ran out of the back door, through the garden and, throwing myself into the driver’s seat, gunned the engine and tore onto the road. McCallen was being held prisoner two or three streets from where I lived. I could hardly take it in.
Doubling back and cutting onto an adjacent road, I slung the car illegally near Suffolk Court and grabbed the bag. As soon as I stepped out, I heard the sound of fire engines and frantic human activity. Across towards Montpellier, dozens of blue lights flashed into the night sky. Bomb or natural disaster, or, more likely, an accident of some kind? Perplexed, I killed the idea of a connection to McCallen, and veered towards a long, narrow service street with cars parked nose to tail. On one side was a sprawl of broken-down student flats and serviced apartments. On the other, a scramble of houses, some more dilapidated than others. Further down, at the more salubrious end, were family homes and a popular pub, The Beehive. Beyond, classy Montpellier Terrace.
Under sporadic illumination from Victorian lamp posts I slipped from one pool of darkness to another and past a house subject to a recent brothel bust, a garage with folding doors, and a pair of wooden gates with steps beyond that led down to a basement. This was not my destination.
Following China’s precise directions, I clocked an iron gate with no spikes on top; three metres of brick wall and a parking area; and a couple of painted and locked doors. Here, I was to cross over to the right-hand ‘student’ side and a row of tatty buildings that looked as bad by night as they did by day. Flashing the torch around, I picked up a grey four-storey edifice with an entire wall of sash windows with frames that were chipped and broken down and in imminent danger of collapse. Next to this was an open space of rough ground piled high with bricks and rubble, old tyres and an ancient washing line. Plastic garden chairs lay upended, legs pointing aimlessly at the stars. Journey’s end.
Slipping out the Glock, I negotiated an obstacle course of detritus, my boots squelching on rotting garden cuttings and general crap until I came to a set of stone steps, the metal railings broken and twisted out of shape. At the bottom was a heavy wooden door, which was padlocked.
I took out the bolt cutters and cut through without making a sound. Swinging open the door, I slid inside and ran my fingers along the damp brick walls for a light switch and came up empty. Stepping further in, pitch darkness enveloped me, closing off my escape route. I stood for a moment, blood drumming through my temples, ears pricked, eyes adjusting, trying to get my bearings.
My gun hand stretched ahead, I inched forward and plotted a slow route through what I believed was the centre of the room, from one wall to another. As I hit brick, I felt around again, my fingers connecting with metal. It was another door. To my surprise, this cranked open. Immediately there was an odour of stale, damp air laced with mould and a more pungent smell of urine and excrement. Again, I felt around for a light switch and, this time, struck lucky.
A brick wall faced me. To my right, a staircase descended. Instinct has served me well and I followed it and entered another dark, all-consuming space. Here, the heady atmosphere was charged with silence, the type you encounter when someone is there but doesn’t want you to know it. Instantly, I was transported to another time, another place, with tunnels and caverns and bad men desperate to kill me. I thought of Billy Squeeze and his evil plans and how everything had gone rotten since then.
I put down the bag and clung to the shadows. If China’s men struck, I knew I’d cross the line and fire back.
Noise, faint at first, no more than a breath. If I opened my mouth, I’d give my position away and it would be their cue to turn their guns on me first and then her. Unless …
‘McCallen, is that you?’
A sound of rattling chains, then: ‘Go away. Leave me alone. Fuck off.’
I hardly recognised the voice. It sounded scratchy and old, but the bite in it confirmed it was my girl. ‘Are you alone?’
Silence.
I tried to work it out. Was she sending me a coded message? Was she telling me to get lost because she had company? Had someone rigged her so that, as soon I drew near, we’d both be blown to hell?
Suddenly, screams shattered the silence.
I jumped into the unknown and in six long strides collided with a body. She paused for breath, whispered urgently in my ear. ‘Light switch at the bottom of the stairs on the far wall, audio device on the underside of the table.’
‘Video capability?’
‘No.’
She screamed again, providing cover, and I backtracked to the staircase, found and hit the switch. Light careered through the basement and, momentarily, I stood blinking like a newborn, the sight before me scored into my brain. In chains, held fast to the wall, her head sunk low on her chest, McCallen looked like an ancient victim of medieval torture. She had two black eyes, one so badly swollen the green shone out of a slit. There were cuts and grazes to her face, some fresh, some healing. Her hair was dirty and matted. The rest of her was in poor shape too. Shivering and barefoot, blood oozed from her wrists and ankles where she’d tried to wrench herself free of the restraints. She wore a sweater, but the bottom half of her was naked apart from a pair of torn knickers. Her legs were covered in cigarette burns. When she raised her head and smiled, I believed my heart would shatter. The emotion was fleeting, swept away in a torrent of rage.
I advanced towards a table littered with cigarette butts, empty plastic bottles, sandwich cartons, and uneaten and rotting food. Just as McCallen said, a cheap transmitter, held in place by magnet, clung to the underside. It explained how her screams had been relayed to me. I ripped it off and crushed it into the concrete.
‘I knew you’d come,’ she blurted out, her voice stronger now that she could speak freely.
I touched her face, smoothed the hair from out of her eyes. ‘Are you hurt?’ Of course she was. I wondered how she would fare mentally later, wondered if her spirit would fall apart and shatter.
She looked at me with soulful eyes. ‘Nothing broken.’
I kissed the top of her head and grabbed the bag.
She eyed the bolt cutters. ‘You came prepared.’
‘Always.’ I took out an energy drink, peeled back the ring-pull from the can and pressed the opening to her cracked lips. ‘Not too fast,’ I warned as she gulped it down. ‘Here, take this, it’s a painkiller.’ I broke one in half and pressed it into her mouth, letting her wash it down with another swallow. ‘You do realise, don’t you, that you now owe me dinner?’
She pulled away. Drink dribbled down her chin and she forced a smile. ‘Let’s hope I brush up okay.’ Her voice shook and a tear ran down her cheek. I wanted to put my arms around her, tell her that nobody would hurt her ever, that I’d got her back and I’d never lose her again. Instead I got to work with the bolt cutters. Throughout, and ever the spook, she kept up a running commentary.
‘I was stupid,’ she said with feeling. ‘I made the classic mistake of working a lead alone. I thought I was following him when all the time he was following me.’
‘Him?’
‘Dieter Benz.’ The heavy way she said it confused me.
‘He did this?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, meeting my eye.
Zara’s words tumbled through my head. Fucked like a bull.