16
Z ayn
“What time is it?” I stretch and prise my eyes open.
Leila answers from across the apartment. “Nearly one o’clock.”
“Fuck. You should have woken me.” I sit upright and fling my legs over the side of the mattress. “We have a briefing at two.”
“What briefing? You never told me.”
It’s true, I didn’t. And telepathy is not among her many talents. “Sorry, but it’s fine. It’s only downstairs. I need a shower…” I pad across the carpet towards the wet room but detour to drop a swift kiss on her mouth. “Care to join me?”
“You need your back washing?”
“Not my first choice of where to rub the soap, but if that’s what’s on offer?” I lean over to look at what she was doing seated at the table surrounded by piles of notes. “Cramming for that exam?”
“Yeah. It just seems to go in one side and out the other.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“Hours. I just think I need?—”
“A break. Shower. Now. That’s an order.”
She takes my hand and trails after me to the wet room. She was only wearing a knee-length robe and drops it outside the door.
“I don’t want to get it wet.”
“Excellent plan. It pays to be cautious.” I tug her inside and hit the switch to set the hot water streaming over the pair of us.
I grab the shampoo and dump a handful of it on her head, then start to massage it into the long locks.
“I can do that.”
“So can I. Keep still.”
A few moments pass, then, “This reminds me of when I was little. My mum used to wash my hair then.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, mostly. Unless the soap got in my eyes.”
“I’ll be careful. Tip your head this way.” I suspect it’s been a long time since anyone actually looked after her. I find it’s just what I want to do.
I finish washing her hair, then direct the spray over her head to rinse it. She smiles up at me. “My turn.”
I relinquish the spray but do my own shampooing while she smooths body wash all over her torso.
“Your breasts need more attention,” I suggest. “Let me help.”
I take infinite care and plenty of time to thoroughly wash her gorgeous body. I swear, I hear her purring. Maybe we just have enough time to?—
“Fuck!” The expletive is out almost before her knees hit the glistening white floor tiles.
She gazes up at me, her expressive dark eyes mischievous. “Maybe later. For now… I’ve been wanting to do this for over two years.”
Her lips wrap around my cock. Her teeth scrape the crown as she takes me deeper. Her slender, slick fingers cup my balls and squeeze lightly, and she bobs her head forward. Fuck me, the suction is mind-blowing.
“Have you been practicing this?” I growl. My fingers are in her hair, grasping the wet strands to hold her head still for a moment, just long enough for me to collect myself and exercise some attempt at self-control.
I succeed, after a fashion, but she’s already found her rhythm and is using her talented mouth in ways I could only dream of. I’ve had some decent blow jobs in my time, but this beats all. She works my cock, most of the length, into the inside of her cheek and caresses me with her tongue before withdrawing a little so she can get the tip of her tongue around the underside of my crown. She licks and tastes and plays, and all I can do is lean back against the tiles and groan.
Fuck, fuck, fuck ! I can’t hold out for long. My balls are close to boiling, and I swear any moment my knees will give up the ghost. My fingers curl into fists in her hair. Thus far, I’ve let her set the pace, but I’m fast getting beyond that. I tighten my grip and start to thrust.
“Sorry, babe,” I murmur, but her fingers digging into my buttocks urge me on. With one final, vicious thrust from me and a powerful suck from her, I spill my load into her gorgeous mouth.
I take a moment to get my breath back, then withdraw and bend to kiss her. My cum is dribbling from her lips. Her tongue slips out to lick it away.
Holy, holy fuck! I drop to my haunches and kiss her again, properly this time. The warm water cascades over our shoulders, and I decide I might, very probably, love this woman.
I make it to the games lounge just a couple of minutes late, in time to disturb Ethan lining up a black to the middle pocket. His gaze flicks to me as I try to sidle in unnoticed, then back to the matter in hand. The ball drops into the pocket with a resounding clunk, and he follows it with two more reds, a yellow, and a pink before carelessly snookering himself behind the green.
“Fuck,” he mutters and stands back from the table to survey the damage.
Left with not much in the way of options, he delivers a foul, leaving Tony an easy shot on a red. More muttered expletives follow when Tony whips round the table demolishing our noble leader’s advantage and winning the game by seventy-three points to seventy-one.
Ethan strolls over to me while Tony pours himself a celebratory diet cola. “I suppose I could blame you. You distracted me.”
“Sorry boss.”
“You were late.”
“I know. I was?—”
“I can guess what you were doing, and it’s just too much information, thanks. Forget that. I need a word.”
“With me?” I’m genuinely surprised. Ethan Savage is always friendly enough, but I don’t consider myself one of his inner sanctum quite yet. “Is something wrong?”
I follow him to the bar where we help ourselves to a hit of caffeine. I rarely drink alcohol anyway, and the rest of us don’t tend to during the day when there’s work to be done. During the night, too, for that matter.
We join Tony on a leather L-shaped sofa. Ethan comes straight to the point.
“Do you remember Bilal Malik?”
I blink. That name is a blast from the past, but I’ve never forgotten the feisty little lad unfortunate enough to be the offspring of my previous employer, Abid Malik, child sex trafficker of this parish. Last I heard, Abid was about halfway through a twenty-year stretch. For one awful moment I imagine he might somehow have conned the authorities into letting him out.
“Abid isn’t?—?”
Ethan shakes his head. “Still tucked up nice and cosy in Barlinnie. I checked. Apparently, he’s not been a model prisoner, exactly, so no early release for him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, Bilal…?”
“He phoned me. Yesterday.”
I blink again. “He phoned you. But…how?—”
“I gave him my number, that day we…visited. I liked the boy.”
“Well, yes. So did I. He’s a good lad, or he was. How old will he be now? Fourteen, fifteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“Fuck. Where did the time go? Is he okay?”
“No, I don’t think he is, or he wouldn’t be in touch with me. Listen to this.”
He passes me his mobile and hits a key to play back a voicemail message. The voice on the phone is not that of a nine-year-old kid.
“ Mr Savage? I’m sorry to bother you. It’s me, Bilal Malik, from Edinburgh. You…you helped us before, so I thought, maybe… I have to go. ” The message cuts out there.
“Is that it?” I demand. “What did he ring for? What’s happened?”
“That’s all I have.” Ethan pockets the device. “I want you to go and see him, find out what prompted that call and is there anything he needs from me? Or us?”
“Do we know where he phoned from? They went to Birmingham, didn’t they?”
“I have Frankie working on that. Bilal used a burner phone, so not easy to trace. Quite possibly the same one I gave him back then.”
“He might phone back,” I suggest. “It sounded as though he was interrupted.”
“True. There again, he might not. Which is where you come in. The boy knows you, and as I recall, he seemed to like you.”
“We got on,” I concede. “I was working mostly, but we had a bit of quality time.”
“Rome drove them to Birmingham, so he’ll go with you, back to where he left them. You can ask around, do what you can to locate Bilal, Shahida, or… what was the little girl called?”
“Sarah. She’ll be about ten by now. You know, they probably don’t even use the same names anymore.”
“I realise that, though Bilal did use his old name on the phone. You have Frankie on standby for the digital searches. Might be a good idea to have two or three more men go with you, as backup.”
“I’ll go, boss.” Tony has been listening with interest. “Is it possible to get any further calls from Bilal’s burner transferred to us as well?”
Ethan nods. “Good idea. I’ll sort that. Anything else?”
“Do we have any pictures of any of them?” I ask, already knowing the answer. “The more recent the better.”
Ethan and Tony shake their heads.
“No matter, we can get Frankie on that as well. With an image we can get an ID easily enough.”
Ethan claps me between the shoulder blades. “I knew you were the man for the job. Thanks, both of you. How soon can you get away?”
Tony checks his watch. “About an hour all right, boss?”
Ethan gets to his feet. “Keep me informed. Good luck.”
“I need to leave.” I march into my apartment and start digging in drawers for a couple of changes of clothes. Not much is where I left it, now that she’s moved in and shifted my stuff around to make room for hers.
Leila sets aside her pen and watches my efforts for a moment or two. “Leave? Where are you going?”
“Birmingham, at least to start with. It’s a job for Ethan. Where are my black jeans?”
“In the bottom of the wardrobe, I moved them. Why are you going to Birmingham? Can I come?”
I turn to regard her, hair still damp from the shower and wearing one of my spare shirts and nothing else as far as I can tell. No time to check, more’s the pity. My dick expresses its opinion with an unhelpful little twitch. “I wish you could, sweetheart, but this is business. Hopefully, it won’t be for long, just a day to two.”
“Days? Oh… As long as that?”
I grin. “You’ll miss me?”
“Maybe. A little bit. But I suppose I can get in with revising for toxicology. I might even be in with a chance of passing without all these…distractions.”
“There you go. Look on the bright side.” I cradle her face between my hands. “I’ll miss you, too, may-ri-jaan. And I bet you kill toxicology.”
We meet up outside the mansion exactly an hour later. Tony has conscripted Beck Maloney, a fairly new recruit to our ranks, to join us for the trip. Beck, or Beckett to give him his full title, seems to be a decent all-rounder, but his particular ‘super talent’ is martial arts. He grew up in one of the more upmarket suburbs in New York; his dad was a stockbroker, and his mother did the usual social rounds of tennis clubs, brunches, and organising raffles for worthy causes. Young Beckett didn’t care much for school, and the feeling was mutual, much to his parents’ disappointment, but he excelled at sports. He was a black belt in karate, kick boxing, and taekwondo by the time he was ten.
Arriving at the conclusion that he’d ‘done’ martial arts, he turned his attention to parkour, or as he prefers to call it, free running. This was a new one on me but apparently involves daredevil leaps from building to building, across rooftops and incorporating all manner of kicks and spins as he goes. Sounds like utter madness, a death wish on steroids, but it takes all sorts. Apart from anything else, though, he’s one seriously fit bastard.
Despite all his apparent advantages in life, he somehow ended up in young offenders for more or less killing a kid who tried to nick his phone. These days he’d agree that that he perhaps went a bit over the top, it was only a cheap Nokia. I suppose he’s mellowed in his old age, but his stint in kiddie jail was enough for him to develop a taste for life on the wrong side of the tracks.
Or maybe that was his parents’ doing.
Trading on his Irish heritage, he worked for Jed O’Neill initially as a doorman in the clubs and casinos, But in a country where everyone and his dog carries a gun, his special skills were somewhat superfluous. It was Ethan who spotted him in action on one of his trans-Atlantic trips to do business with his brother-in-law, thought he could be useful, and offered him a job with us. Beck’s been on board for a year now. I can’t say I know the guy well, but he seems okay.
If nothing else, he’s shit-hot in a fight.
We all sling our bags in the back of the SUV and pile in, Rome driving and Tony beside him. Beck and I take the rear seats and settle in for a long drive.
Tony is tapping away on his phone, and the rapid beeping suggests replies are coming through. Sure enough, he forwards a recent image of Bilal, now going by the name of Bilal Alahi and apparently a student at the College of Engineering in Birmingham.
“I guess they stayed in town, then,” I suggest. “Anything else come up under that name?”
“We have him at school, winning a prize for designing a deep-sea diving bell…” Tony informs us.
“A prize? That’s been done already,” Beck scoffs.
“This one converts into a hairdryer and can double as an electric kettle if you’re stuck.”
“Ah. I see. Useful.” Beck settles down again.
“What about the others? His mum, or Sarah?”
“Nothing yet, but the college article says he’s from Solihull,” Tony informs us.
“They must have moved out there. I dropped them at a house in Aston,” Rome puts in. “Are we starting there?”
“As good a place as any,” we all agree.
By the time we are cruising the salubrious streets of Aston in search of a street that looks familiar to Rome, we know that young Sarah attended a school in Aston but transferred to Tudor Gate primary in Solihull some three years previously.
“That’s probably when they moved house,” Tony observes, “and if she was still in primary school, the chances are they lived somewhere near. Kids don’t tend to travel that far at that age.”
“I think this is it,” Rome announces. “I remember that old cinema.”
The building in question is now a carpet warehouse, but Rome seems pretty certain, so he swings the car into the closest side street. “Yes. That place, there. With the dormer and the double garage.”
He pulls up outside the house, and we all peer at it hopefully.
“Who actually lived here then?” Beck wonders.
“Some friend of a cousin,” Rome replies. “She never told me his name. Or hers.”
There are plenty of pedestrians scurrying up and down the street, and not a white face among them. This decides the matter.
“I’ll go and have a chat with them.” I get out of the car and stroll round to the boot. A brief rummage and I produce a cardboard box full of jump leads. I tuck the lid down nice and neat, then stroll to the front door of the house Rome pointed out, with the parcel under my arm.
A kid of about fourteen answers my knock. He glares at me. “You’re not the Imam,” he accuses me in fluent Punjabi. “What do you want?”
“Amazon, mate,” I reply in my best Urdu, gesturing to the parcel. “Delivery for Shahida Malik.”
“Not here,” he spits. “Fuck off.”
My foot is in the door momentarily before it slams in my face. “I need a signature, mate.”
“I said, not here.”
I’m persistent, for an Amazon delivery man. “Do you live here? Do you know Shahida Malik?”
“Never fucking heard of her.” The charm offensive continues. “Do one, shithead.”
“What about your mum and dad? Are they in?”
“What is this? My life story? I told you, Shaz’s not here, not been here for years.”
“So, you do know her? I just want?—”
“Ask her at number seven,” he eventually concedes. “Give her the fucking parcel. What is it anyway?” He cranes his scrawny neck to get a better look.
“Thanks, mate. Most helpful.” I leave him on the doorstep.
Number seven is across the road a few doors along. I pause to update the others in the SUV then jog over there. This place is perhaps marginally less tatty than the previous door, but there’s not much in it. I knock again, and this time find myself facing an older lady of around sixty.
She tugs her headscarf more tightly over her face and peers at me with curiosity. “Do I know you, young man?” This is a more polite reception, certainly. I decide to ditch the Amazon thing and just ask straight out.
She spoke to me in Urdu, so I reply in kind. “I’m trying to find Shahida Malik. I was told you might be able to help?”
“Me? Who told you that?”
“The lad across the road.” I jerk my thumb in the general direction.
“Ah. Him. Bad lot, that one. You can’t believe a word he says. Drugged out of his head most times.” She leans out to inspect me more closely. “You didn’t give him any money, did you?”
“No. Should I have?”
“You don’t look like an idiot, but I suppose you never know.”
I consider for a moment and conclude she’s probably right. “But about Shahida? Shaz?”
“Ah, yes. Gone. Shahida went…”
“Where did she go?” I prompt.
“Down Solihull way. Got a job.”
My ears prick up. “What job? Where did she work?”
“Pretty girl, she was. Bright, too. Could have done anything, but she wanted the cash, she said. Needed to earn money for them kids of hers.”
“It’s hard, bringing up kids on your own…” I’m fishing, and she bites.
“She’d have been better off on her own if you ask me. That man of hers, nothing but bother. Them kids was better off here, but would she leave them with me? No, she wouldn’t, not even the chhokti larki .”
I note the reference to a little girl, but press on with my ore immediate concern. “What man? What was he called?”
She glares at me. “Who did you say you were again? And why are you asking?”
“I’m…I’m a friend of Shahida’s. I need to find her. I want to help her.”
“Aye, well, someone should. If I knew where she was, I’d tell you, but I never had her new address. Better like that, she said. She was going to be an actress, she said, earn good money and she’d not be back. She hasn’t been either, but I did see that lad of hers.”
“Bilal?”
“Aye, Bilal. Now, there’s a fine, strapping lad. Good thing, too. That Fred bastard won’t be raising his fists so much these days, I’ll be betting. I feel for the poor little girl, though.”
The conversation is not exactly easy to follow, but I’m gathering that Shahida got mixed up with another violent man—talk about reverting to type—and moved to Solihull with him in pursuit of a career in acting.
“Where did you see Bilal?” I persist. “Was it recent?”
She shuts her eyes while she thinks about this. “A few months back, it were, in the car park at Asda. He gave me a lift with all my bags. Nice lad, that one.”
“Did he tell you anything? About his mum, maybe?”
“No, not much. It were only five minutes. He said he was at college now, doing engineering. He wanted to design them racing cars you see on the telly.”
“Is that what he’s studying, then? Auto-engineering?”
“How would I know? You want to be asking in Solihull, lad, that’s all I can tell you. Look for where they do acting and suchlike.”
The door closes in front of me. I find myself staring at the green painted wood. I guess Mrs—what even was her name?—has told me all she’s going to. But it’s a fair bit to be going on with.
I jog back to the SUV for the debriefing.