Free Stealing People by Robert Wilson Page B

‘almost’. They talked about lots of hard things: Mercy’s relationships with her family, her difficult daughter, Boxer, Isabel, even Isabel’s daughter and ex-husband. Marcus Alleyne had an incredible appetite for people and their difficulties. It was as if he had an empathy muscle that needed a daily workout.
    The one thing they couldn’t talk about was Alleyne’s … occupation.
    He was a fence: receiving stolen goods and selling them on. It was how they’d met. In Amy’s horror phase she’d brought a suitcase of cigarettes over from the Canary Islands with a group of girls and Alleyne had met her at Gatwick airport. One of the rooms in Alleyne’s Railton Road flat was given over to flat-screen TV s, tablet computers, coffee machines, high-end trainers, cigarettes and other contraband. Even Boxer’s mother was wearing a pair of trainers from ‘Santa’s Den’, as Alleyne referred to the room.
    This was more than awkward for a detective inspector with the Kidnap and Special Investigation Unit. It meant that they lived their relationship in a bubble. Mercy couldn’t afford to introduce Alleyne to her family and friends and especially not to any of her colleagues, and she certainly didn’t want to meet any of Alleyne’s acquaintances, who ranged from small-time crooks, rap artists and twerk specialists to debt collectors, gun dealers and well-known gangsters.
    How much longer could they live in this bubble before it burst? She’d already asked Alleyne if he could go straight, but had no idea how he would be able to make £50,000 a year (after tax) going legit. Especially as £20,000 of that money made its way back to Trinidad as his contribution to the family’s investment in a tourist development.
    Mercy had asked Boxer’s advice and he’d been bleak about her options. If Alleyne couldn’t quit being a fence, she would have to quit the kidnap unit, quit the relationship or, as she had done over the last two years, ignore it and hope for the best. She took the third option every time.
    And now it occurred to her for the first time that maybe they’d found out about her relationship with Alleyne and this was why DCS Oscar Hines was demanding her presence in his office tomorrow morning. Her eyes widened at the possibility. How could she have been so slow?
    And where was Marcus anyway?
    That was when her phone rang. ‘Marcus’ came up on the screen, but not his voice into her ear.
    ‘Mercy Danquah?’
    ‘Who is this?’
    ‘Just answer the question,’ said the voice, London accent.
    ‘Yes, this is Mercy Danquah,’ she said, keeping it bored and predictable.
    ‘We’re holding your friend Marcus …’
    ‘Above your head?’ she said, not taking it seriously. ‘I’m not impressed.’
    ‘He said you’d be a cool customer.’
    ‘Let me speak to him,’ she said, instantly annoyed, not liking the idea of Marcus taking the piss out of her profession with his dubious mates.
    ‘He’s indisposed,’ said the voice. ‘I think that’s how you’d put it.’
    ‘Don’t give me that crap,’ she said. ‘We’re supposed to be in the restaurant in less than half an hour.’
    ‘I’d change your reservation to a table for one if I was you.’
    ‘Not funny. You hear that?’ said Mercy, giving him a beat of silence. ‘I’m not laughing. Put Marcus on the line … now!’
    ‘I’m sorry, but he won’t be able to make it to the phone,’ said the voice, very polite. ‘We’ve had to soften him up a little.’
    Silence. Things sinking in. Her professional mode smacked down the fluttering fear in her stomach.
    ‘So far all I know is that you’ve got his mobile phone,’ said Mercy.
    ‘In that case you don’t know him very well,’ said the voice.
    Silence. She’d told Marcus not to carry her number in any of his phones.
    ‘Right. Now you’re thinking, aren’t you, Mercy?’
    ‘There’ll be no progress without proof of life.’
    ‘That’s more like it. Very professional. Glad to hear