Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
TURNED OUT MY meltdown chased the nightmares away. Maybe I should try it more often? When I woke, dark storm clouds still raged in my mind, but this time there was something else. A chink of sunlight. While it hadn’t chased the shadows away, it had lightened the gloom in places, and with that glow came a newfound positivity. I’d spent the last three months running away from things. Now, the time had come to fight.
But before that, I had to speak to Nick. Embarrassed couldn’t begin to describe how I felt. That girl last night, the one overflowing with tears, dramas, emotions—that wasn’t me. How was I supposed to face him?
I lay in bed pondering this as the door clicked open. With all the mess last night, I’d forgotten to lock it.
Nick peered around the edge. “Is it safe?”
I inhaled deeply as the rich aroma of coffee floated over to me.
“Don’t worry, I’m awake.”
He stepped into the room and perched on the edge of my bed, his battered jeans a contrast to Bradley’s choice of plum velvet throw. My eyes alighted on the cup in his hands. Please, say that was for me?
“I brought you coffee,” he said.
Hallelujah. “Did I ever tell you how fantastic you are?”
“Many times, each of them when I was carrying something hot and steamy.”
I took a sip—black and strong, just the way I liked it. My ecstasy, however, was short lived when I realised Nick wasn’t leaving.
“Look, about last night, I’m so sorr—” I began, but he interrupted me.
“Nothing to be sorry for. It was about time you let go of all that rubbish stored up inside. You need an outlet before it poisons you.”
He was right; of course he was right. I did need an outlet. Or, I should say, a new outlet. I’d always unloaded on my husband, and he’d known what to say or do to make the pain go away. Talking to Nick was different, but his stepping in had been a blessing.
“I know I do.”
“I’m always here, baby. Talk to me, don’t bottle it up. Please.”
If Nick was offering to be my sounding board, I had to accept. Nobody left could do the job better. Did he understand what he was letting himself in for? The black parts of my mind scared even me.
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Nicky.”
“No need for thanks. I’ll do anything for you; you know that. And remember, it’s always darkest before dawn.”
“I hope that’s true.”
Surely something had to give? If not my sanity, then something on the case. The longer the kidnapper held onto Tia, the greater the chance of something going wrong.
“Another ransom demand’s gonna come in soon,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Agreed. Are you planning to lead the team at the drop?”
“I was hoping you would. Luke may well have to go too, and it’s not good for me to be around him. This situation’s stressful enough without adding the atmosphere between the pair of us into the mix.”
Nick shrugged. “Guess I’m with you there. I’ll get a team together this morning. What are you planning to do?”
“Get my head back in the game, firstly.” I’d been wandering around in a daze, but at last, the fog was lifting. “I’ll start with a visit to JJ’s.”
JJ’s gym belonged to James James. Yes, his parents really did that to him, but everyone called him Jimmy. Over a beer I wasn’t supposed to be drinking, he’d once confessed the endless taunts he’d received as a child were what drove him to become so good with his fists.
I’d stayed fit while I was living with Luke, but nothing compared to a good fight, and I hadn’t been in one for months. If I wanted to get back in top form, I had to pay Jimmy a visit.
“It’ll be good to have you back at a hundred percent,” Nick said, leaning over to give me a hug. “We’ve all missed you, even Nate, no matter how much he pretends otherwise. You go do your thing.”
Once he’d left, I got dressed in running tights and a sports bra then zipped a hoodie over the top. It was still only six thirty. JJ’s was in East London, just off the Mile End Road, and I’d use the six-mile run as a warm up.
When I arrived forty minutes later, I found Jimmy next to one of the boxing rings, watching a pair of welterweight fighters go at each other. He always had been an early riser.
I crept up behind him. “Boo.”
He spun around, and when he saw it was me, he crushed me to his massive chest. “Amanda! You should have said you were gonna stop by.”
Jimmy had once been a super heavyweight fighter, and to say he was big was like saying the Empire State Building was a little on the tall side. He topped out at six foot six and had the width to match. Beside him, I felt all dainty, like a Barbie doll. Luckily, he let go before he cracked any of my ribs.
“Didn’t really plan this trip, Jimmy. I just woke up and decided I could do with a session. Are you busy?”
“I’ve got a guy in for training at eight thirty, but I’m all yours until then. Come to think of it, you can go in the cage with him. Keep him on his toes.”
Over the past few years, Jimmy had branched out from boxing into the world of MMA. The gym now sported a pair of cages as well as the more traditional boxing rings. Hespent the next hour drilling me through kicks, punches, blocks, and grapples. I needed to borrow a towel when we’d finished.
“Not bad, girl, but I can tell you’ve taken a few months off. You need to find a new partner and keep up with the training. Don’t want you going soft again.”
I paused to get my breath back. “Easier said than done.”
My husband had been the only person who’d put up with me apart from Alex, my ex-Spetsnaz trainer back in Virginia, and I didn’t feel up to facing him right now. I may have been depressed, but I wasn’t suicidal.
Jimmy chuckled and looked at his watch. “Too early for beer. Want a protein shake?”
“Why not?”
Jimmy’s shakes always tasted better than Toby’s, and I’d got my breath back by the time eight-thirty guy arrived.
Jimmy introduced us. “Amanda, this is Lee Belmont. Lee, meet Amanda.”
Lee looked me up and down, his eyes pausing a fraction too long on my chest. I put him in the lightweight class, which meant he had about ten kilos on me.
“She the new ring girl?”
Jimmy grinned wide. “Nope. She’s your new sparring partner.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Get on with it.”
For a second, I thought Lee was going to refuse, but then he shrugged and climbed into the ring. I hopped up behind him.
I’d never seen him at the gym before, and his strong northern accent suggested he was new to the area. I’d got a bit out of touch with who was who in the world of MMA, but I trusted Jimmy wouldn’t ask me to fight someone without a few decent matches under his belt.
I stuck my mouth guard in and waited for Lee to strip off his tracksuit. A small crowd gathered to watch, and cash began to change hands. One guy I recognised gave me a wink, and I suppressed a smile. How much money had he bet?
Jimmy rang the bell.
Quick off the mark, I almost got Lee with my first punch. He fell to his knees, but when I stepped back, he scrambled up, a new determination in his eyes. Guess I wasn’t going to be as easy to beat as he’d assumed.
And once he put in some effort, he wasn’t a bad fighter. We were halfway through the third round when he got me against the side of the cage with a couple of jabs. The small crowd gasped as he came at me again. In for the kill, or so he thought.I feinted with a high right hook. As my fist swung, his eyes cut to it, and I got him under the jaw with a left-handed uppercut. My ears relished the satisfying thump of leather on flesh.
That dropped them every time, and he’d left himself wide open.
“He’ll have a monster of a headache when he wakes up,” I said, stripping my gloves off.
“All part of the game, sweet pea,” Jimmy said.
He and another of the trainers tended to Lee, and once he started to come round, I headed off for a quick shower.
“Won fifty quid on that one, darlin’,” the guy who’d winked at me called as I headed upstairs to Jimmy’s flat.
I returned his thumbs-up. “Drinks are on you, then.”
I still kept a few clothes in a drawer there, and Jackie made me an egg-white omelette while I got dressed.
“You staying all day?” she asked.
“Can’t. Got things to do.”
“That missing girl?”
I nodded. “There’s no sign of her yet.”
“Poor child. Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”
I promised to stop by when I had more time then headed back downstairs to say goodbye to Jimmy. Lee had woken up by that point and was slumped on a bench, holding an ice pack to his face.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“This is my almost daughter,” Jimmy told him, and the pride in his voice made my breath hitch. I didn’t deserve his admiration right now.
“Wish I’d known that beforehand,” Lee said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “No hard feelings, eh?”
“She’s taken down far bigger men than you,” Jimmy said. “Just shows you have to train harder and lose some of that cockiness.”
I left Lee and Jimmy to it and began the jog home. My legs felt heavy after their workout, and I took it slow. Yes, I still had a way to go fitness-wise. I chose a different route back, backstreets rather than the main roads—it was always good to keep up with how the city was changing. I’d learned that the hard way on the night I met my husband, although it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Having settled into a steady rhythm, I took a right onto Laburnum Avenue. Why did that name sound familiar? I’d heard it somewhere recently. Half a minute later, it came back to me—Mack had mentioned this was where the owner of the stolen number plates lived.Was he back from his trip abroad yet? It wouldn’t hurt to check while I was in the vicinity, and it only took a second to call Nye and get the house number.
Number forty-three turned out to be the bottom half of a Victorian, once a modest family home and now converted into two flats. The door looked freshly painted, a contrast with that of forty-three-A’s, which was peeling at the edges.
A small, dark-skinned man opened the door with a frown. “Are you selling something?”
“No, I’m not.” I stuck to the same story as the original team and explained the number plates had been used in a burglary.
He broke into a smile. “Oh, come in, come in. My sister said somebody called, but she was not sure who. Her English is not so good. I wondered if you would return.”
“Thanks. Are you Gabir Hassani, then?” I asked, although the fact he shook with his left hand rather than his right and walked with a slight limp was a bit of a giveaway.
“Yes, I am. Would you like some tea?” His English was careful, precise.
“I’d love a cup.”
Lesson number one, build rapport.
If he was surprised by a slightly sweaty woman showing up on his doorstep, he didn’t show it as he bustled around the kitchen with teabags and sugar.
“Could you tell me more about the missing plates?” I asked as he handed me a mug. “When you noticed they were gone, whether you saw anyone suspicious hanging around, anything like that?”
“I noticed straight away they had been taken. They were there in the morning, and in the evening when I went to get in my van, they were gone. And just to be certain I was not wrong, I checked on my CCTV. The man stole them at precisely seventeen minutes past six.”
CCTV? He had CCTV? How on earth had we missed that?
“You mean you actually have the person who stole them on video?”
“Oh, yes. My brother owns a company that sells security cameras, and he says I cannot be too careful on my own in the shop at night. He installed me an excellent system. I told the police this, but they did not seem interested. They said they would send somebody to look at the film, but nobody came.”
“Do you have a copy of the footage I can watch?”
“Certainly, but it is in my shop in Clapham. That is where the van is kept. My delivery driver uses it. We will have to go there.”
Forget the cup of tea. I hailed a passing cab while Gabir locked up.As he hunted for his jacket, I called Dan and asked her to meet me in Clapham.
“Put the incident room on standby as well, would you?”
“You think this might be a break?”
“Keep everything crossed. Fingers, toes, the lot.”
“Eyes?”
“If you think it’ll help.”
We were halfway there when my phone pinged again. Nye was calling.
“We’ve just had the new ransom demand.”
About time. “How much?”
“A million plus the software.”
“Where’s the drop?” If the guy had picked the woods again, I was going and so was my gun. Who cared about the legality?
“A shopping centre in East London at six this evening. I’ve sent a team to check the place over.”
A shopping centre? If anything, that was worse than the previous location. We’d have to be careful with the public around. I dialled Nick to get an update on Luke.
“How is he?”
“Just about holding it together. But if this goes on much longer, he’ll give himself an aneurysm.”
I gave Nick a brief outline of where I was heading.
“Shall I fill Luke in?” he asked.
“No. I want him to concentrate on what he has to do this evening, and besides, I don’t want to get his hopes up.”
I couldn’t say much more with Gabir sitting beside me, but I promised to call Nick back once I got out of the range of unwanted ears.
The cab pulled up outside a small supermarket called, imaginatively enough, Gabir’s Supermarket, and we both hopped out.As I followed Gabir into the store, he proudly pointed out the ridiculous number of cameras in the completely over-the-top security system his brother had installed. I fell a little bit in love with the second Mr. Hassani at that point.
In the cupboard-like office at the back of the store, Gabir cued up the footage. The picture was crystal clear. I held my breath as a man walked into shot, head down, and unscrewed the plate from the front of the van. He crossed to a different camera and did the same at the rear. The guy was the same size and build as the man I’d chased through the woods, but due to the hood pulled low over his eyes, I couldn’t see his face.
I said as much to Gabir, who stared off into space for a second, pondering.
“This man, I could not be sure, but I think I saw him before. His jacket is very unusual.”
The black hoodie had YOLO graffitied in white across the back and the front—quite distinctive. You Only Live Once . I hoped to change his philosophy to YODO . Can you guess what the D stood for?
“I think he came into the store,” Gabir continued. “Earlier in the day.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got that on film as well, have you?”
“Of course. I saved it all. I do watch CSI , you know.”
Thank goodness for that. What would we do without American crime drama?
Once again, Gabir clicked onto a file, and I watched the man walk around the store from sixteen different camera angles, picking up a roll of duct tape, two kinds of Pop-Tarts, and a couple of bottles of water. Was he making Tia eat Pop-Tarts? That was inhumane. When he reached the register, he added a pack of cigarettes, and thank heavens for nicotine. Because as he selected his brand, he stared straight into a camera he clearly didn’t realise was there, giving us a perfect head-on shot.
The second I saw his face, synapses fired in my brain, and I swear I almost squealed. I was about to call up Gabir’s brother and offer to have his babies.
Jiminy Cricket!
Five seconds later, my phone rang, and it was Dan.
“I’m ten minutes out.”
“Drive faster.”
I never thought I’d hear myself ask her to do that.
While I waited, Gabir copied both videos onto a USB stick. I clutched it as if it was the Rosetta stone.
“I hope I have been helpful?” he asked.
“More than you could ever know.”
His ever-present smile grew wider. “The USB stick is nine pounds ninety-nine. Is there anything else you need before you go?”
“A bottle of water and some gum would be good. Oh, and give me twenty quid’s worth of lottery scratch cards.”
The way my luck was changing today, I figured it couldn’t hurt.
Dan pulled up outside, and I thanked Gabir again before I left. On my way to the car, I passed a homeless man huddled under a blanket and dropped the scratch cards into his lap.
“Good luck, mate.”
He raised his hand in a silent thank you.
“How was JJ’s?” Dan asked as I climbed into the Aston.
She hadn’t been able to resist its lure, and I made a mental note to check the other side for scratches later.
“I knocked out my sparring partner again.”
“Who’d Jimmy put you up against this time?”
“Some dude called Lee Belmont.”
“As in Lee Belmont who just won the UK MMA title in the lightweight division?”
“Dunno, I didn’t ask. Probably. Jimmy seemed to think he needed taking down a peg or two.”
“Well, you sure did that if he ended up on the mat. Now, tell me, why have you got me over here? Not that I’m complaining or anything, because this car is freaking awesome.”
I pulled out my phone. Gabir had also emailed me some stills from the videos, and I got the clearest photo up on the screen.
“I want you to quickly look at a photo then tell me your first impressions.”
Dan gave me a quizzical glance. “Okay.”
I held the screen up for a few seconds, and her brows pinched together.
“Luke? What does a picture of Luke have to do with the kidnapper?”
“Look again.”
Dan chewed her lip as she took in the subtle differences between the two men—a slightly broader nose, a squarer jaw, a steeper slope to his forehead, and longer hair being the main ones.
“A brother? Cousin?”
“He told me he doesn’t have either. I don’t think he’d have tried to hide it—in the same conversation, he said he always wished he had a brother growing up.”
“Well, that guy looks so much like Luke, it’s hard to imagine he’s anything but.”
“And it would fit with his comment about Luke having taken his life. Maybe it’s not something Luke’s knowingly done at all. This guy wants what he sees as his birthright: Luke’s money, Luke’s job, Luke’s sister.”
“Luke’s girlfriend?” Dan suggested.
“If only. You have no idea how many times I’ve wished he took me instead of Tia.”
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall if he tried that.”
I winced as Dan started the engine. It had been ages since she drove me anywhere, and I hadn’t missed the experience.
“So, the possible brother—mother or father?” she continued as she pulled out into traffic, narrowly missing a cyclist.
“Luke looks nothing like his mother. It’s Tia who has her features. So, I’m gonna go with daddy dearest.”
Plus didn’t Tia tell us her father played around?
“Where do we find him?”
“Six feet under, unfortunately.”
“Recent?”
“Nope. He died years ago, and Luke’s been picking up the pieces ever since.”
“Maybe the mother knows something? The guy in the photo looks pretty close in age to Luke. Perhaps she suspected an affair?”
“Head to Lower Foxford,” I settled back in my seat. “Let’s see what the mother of the year’s take on all of this is.”
Had she even noticed Tia was missing yet?