Free You Will Never Find Me by Robert Wilson

the bottom drawer and she sorted through some papers.
    â€˜This is where Amy slept when she came to stay,’ said Esme.
    â€˜You think she went through your stuff?’
    â€˜She’s that kind of girl. I was the same. Incurably curious. Had to know everything,’ said Esme. ‘I’d go out for dinner and come back to find Amy waiting for me with a bunch of questions which could only have come from nosing around.’
    She pulled out a small sheet of paper ripped from a notepad, handed it to him.
    The note was short and written in his father’s handwriting but an extremely erratic version of it, as if he was hurried and stressed. ‘
I’ve had to leave. Don’t come looking for me, Esme, because you will never find me.
’

6

9:30 A.M., M ONDAY 19 TH M ARCH 2012
South Lambeth Road, London SW8
    M ercy dropped her bag on her desk in the offices of Specialist Crime Directorate 7, Kidnap and Special Investigations Team, and went straight into see her boss, DCS Peter Makepeace, who was in his early fifties but looked ten years younger even with his almost white hair cut en brosse. He glanced up from the documents on his desk, fixed her with his grey eyes.
    â€˜I’ve heard about Amy,’ said Makepeace before she could get a word out. He nodded her into a chair. ‘I’m sorry, Mercy.’
    Her eyes dropped from his face to the papers on his desk, not used to this kind of emotional interaction. She knew he was an understanding man from her colleagues who’d been in to see him after difficult cases. She wondered how he’d react if she told him of the strange state of intent that had developed in her when she’d looked at the photo of Marcus Alleyne with her daughter and found herself incomprehensibly attracted to the much younger man. How she’d gone round there, burst into tears, ended up on his sofa, in his bed, smoking a joint, eating cheese on toast and gulping down wine and then walking away from the towering evidence of his illegal trade.
    â€˜Don’t be hard on yourself, Mercy.’
    â€˜Sorry, sir?’ she said, crossing her legs at the thought of Alleyne’s young, hard body.
    â€˜I can see it. You’re working yourself over. It’s the most natural thing in the world to blame yourself. Don’t. It won’t help you to think clearly, and that’s what you’ve got to try and do now. How do you think I know about Amy?’
    She wiped last night from her mind and blinked her way through the possibilities until she focused once more.
    â€˜The UK Border Agency.’
    â€˜That’s right. We’ve just heard back from them this morning. Amy left on a flight to Madrid from Terminal 1 at Heathrow last night. Her arrival at Barajas Airport passport control has been confirmed. The police in Madrid have been informed.’
    Â 
    â€˜What you want?’ asked the guy, hood up, hands in pockets around his flat stomach, knackered jeans, trainers. He was leaning against the handrail halfway up the stairway in Perth House on the Bemerton Estate, a spit from the Cally Road. He was looking at Boxer in his knee-length black wool coat, jeans and brown leather boots and knew just from the man’s haircut and health that he wasn’t from the estate.
    â€˜I’ve come to see Glider,’ said Boxer, breathing in some calm, which he ordinarily had to do after his visits to Esme. He started up the steps.
    The guy pushed himself off the handrail and barred Boxer’s way, hands still in pockets.
    â€˜You police or what?
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You look like police.’
    â€˜Well, I’m not,’ said Boxer. ‘I just want to talk to Glider.’
    â€˜What about?’
    â€˜He knows my daughter.’
    â€˜He’s not in. Gone away,’ said the guy, confident now.
    â€˜So you know him,’ said Boxer. ‘Why don’t you take me to his flat so I can see for myself.’
    â€˜You