Free You Will Never Find Me by Robert Wilson Page A

don’t believe me?’ said the guy, his face gone dead, eyes threatening.
    Boxer grabbed the handrail on either side of him, hopped up and flicked his boot out and caught the guy on the inside of the knee. He went down with a shout, slipped down some steps, holding on to his leg.
    â€˜Fa-a-a-ck!’
    â€˜Which floor’s he on?’
    Boxer tore back the guy’s hood, twisted it so that the neck tightened around his throat and banged the guy’s head, first into the wall and then onto the step as if he was no more than a rag doll. An eyebrow split, blood trickled down his face.
    â€˜Tell me,’ said Boxer. ‘I’m not feeling very patient.’
    â€˜Up the stairs, third floor, flat 306.’
    â€˜Introduce me,’ said Boxer, pulling the guy to his feet by his hood, throwing him up the stairs.
    The guy hobbled up the dark stairs on all fours like a chimp, with Boxer following him at a measured pace. They reached the third floor and went down the covered walkway to Glider’s flat. The guy knocked on the door, Boxer stood back. The door opened and he pushed the hoody forward, charged in behind him.
    â€˜What the fuck?’
    Boxer bundled the two guys down the short hallway and they came out in a heated living room with dark blue walls and red furniture that looked better than the rest of the flat. A thickset brutal-looking shaven-headed thug sat on the sofa in a white vest, jeans, no shoes, with his hand resting on the bare thigh of a young black girl in tight black shorts. His nose looked as if it had been broken a few times and his eyes were set wide apart over its shattered bridge. This was Glider, Boxer could tell from the heavily muscled arms, which were black, blue, green and red with tattoos, while his hands didn’t have a mark on them. It made him look incongruously gloved. Boxer’s imagination failed him as he tried to picture Glider with his daughter.
    â€˜Says he’s not police . . . just wants to talk to you about his daughter,’ said the hoody, leaning against the wall rubbing his knee, while the other guy, arms held out, biceps tensed, pecs twitching, was looking for a way in to Boxer.
    â€˜Don’t bleed on the fucking carpet,’ said Glider, pointing a vicious finger. ‘Fuck off back downstairs, both o’ you. Useless wankers.’
    He flicked a thumb at the girl, who got up and took her shorts, straining over her large behind, into another room. The hoody and his friend limped out; a door closed elsewhere in the flat. Glider supported himself with his hands on the sofa arms as if he might split them away from the seat. There was a large glass ashtray filled with butts on the seat next to him and, on the coffee table in front, a carton of Marlboros and a Zippo.
    â€˜You don’t look like the kind of bloke whose daughter I’d know,’ he said.
    â€˜You went to Tenerife ten days ago with a bunch of girls to bring back cigarettes.’
    â€˜How do you know it was me?’
    â€˜Your name came up as the gang leader.’
    â€˜None of those girls knows where I live.’
    â€˜It didn’t take me long.’
    â€˜Ten days?’ said Glider, smirking.
    Boxer dead-eyed him. Glider frowned, trying to work out what this was about: an angry father, that was clear, but about what and why now?
    â€˜Let’s start with your daughter’s name,’ he said.
    â€˜Amy.’
    â€˜Oh yeah,’ he said, holding eye contact. ‘The coloured girl.’
    â€˜I can see you’ve got a taste for them,’ said Boxer.
    â€˜You and me both, I’d say.’
    Glider’s hand slipped off the arm of the sofa and came to rest on the glass ashtray. Boxer didn’t miss a thing, kept his eyes on Glider’s.
    â€˜As I remember, there were four girls, all friends of Karen’s,’ said Glider. ‘We met up in Tenerife. Had ourselves a nice weekend.’
    â€˜Smuggling