Captives

own property, clubs, gambling places. You own people. I'm right, aren't I? The one with most money stays in control.'

    'Yeah,' Plummer said slowly.

    'Ralph Connelly is about to receive a shipment.'

    'Of what?'

    'Cocaine.'

    'That's bollocks. Connelly doesn't deal in drugs. He makes all his cash by laundering other people's money. He does some of mine, for fuck's sake. I knew you were full of shit. Get off the fucking line…'

    'Cocaine worth twenty million pounds. The shipment's coming in six days from now.'

    Plummer hesitated.

    Twenty million.

    'Why should I believe you?' he asked.

    'Don't. It makes no odds to me but twenty million, you'll agree, is a lot of money. By my reckoning that should make Connelly top dog.'

    'How did you find out about this cocaine?'

    'That's my business.'

    'Then why make it mine too?'

    'Just call it personal reasons.'

    'You want a cut,' Plummer said, smiling thinly.

    'I said it was personal.'

    'Look, any arsehole could ring me and tell me something like this. There's still no reason why I should believe you.'

    'Connelly bought a warehouse in Tilbury about a week ago, didn't he?'

    Plummer paused for a moment.

    'Yeah, he did.'

    'What would he want with a fucking warehouse? Like you said, laundering is his business.'

    'And business is good. Why would he want to start up with drugs?'

    'Like I said, twenty million is a lot of money. Would you turn it down? He was offered the shipment by some people in France.'

    Plummer stroked his chin thoughtfully.

    'How do you know all this?' he asked, even his anger receding now.

    'That's not important. What I do need to know is, are you interested in the cocaine?'

    'Yeah, I am. Twenty million…'

    The caller cut him short.

    'I'll be in touch soon.'

    He hung up.

    'Wait,' snarled Plummer. Then, hearing the buzz of a dead line, he slammed the receiver down. 'Cunt,' he hissed. Watched by Carol he clambered out of bed and padded through into the sitting room to pour himself another drink. Who the fuck had called him? he wondered. His interest had been aroused. Twenty million notes. Jesus. That was interesting. He smiled.

    He might not have smiled so broadly had he realised his flat was being watched.

NINETEEN

    Scott replaced the receiver and sat staring at it for a moment.

    He would ring again in five or ten minutes.

    Outside, the wind had dropped slightly but the rain had intensified. It slapped against his window, the constant spattering like a thousand birds pecking at the glass.

    Try again now.

    He reached towards the phone.

    No. Leave it.

    Instead he hauled himself out of bed, angry that he'd been denied the welcome oblivion of sleep. He crossed the small bedroom to the dressing table, which bore a motley selection of after-shave bottles and deodorant cans, some empty. There were wage slips, too, piled up in order and weighed down with an ashtray still full of dog-ends.

    There was a framed photo of himself and Carol.

    He picked it up and ran his glance over it, his eyes pausing every so often to look at her face.

    The picture had been taken about eight months earlier. They had managed to get out of London one night and spent two days in Brighton. The weather had been good and the picture showed Carol in a bikini, her arm around his shoulder. He'd asked some bloke sitting near them to take the picture, relieved when it had come out so well.

    Christ, she was lovely.

    He touched the photo with one index finger, as if to feel the smoothness of her skin. The warmth of that day seemed a million years ago as he stood listening to the rain hammering against the windows. He put the photo back and wandered through into the kitchen, where he retrieved a bottle of vodka from one of the kitchen cupboards. He took a glass from the draining board, then returned to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and poured himself a large measure.

    He used to give his father a drink. After the first stroke, a couple of shots seemed to put the old bastard in a better frame of mind. After the second one, dropping him in a vat of the stuff wouldn't have helped.

    Fuck him. Forget about him.

    He'd tried, but it had proved surprisingly difficult. When he remembered his father it wasn't as the wasted, comatose figure he'd watched over in hospital or the cantankerous sod he'd been forced to put up with for ten months. He remembered him as the sometimes abrupt, sometimes lonely but often funny man he'd shared his flat with for two years and eight months before the first stroke. Prior to that the old boy had lived in a flat of his own in Muswell Hill. He'd been forced to move out when it had been taken over by a new landlord.

    Why the fuck had this particular spectre returned to haunt him, he wondered? Why was he thinking about his old man when the only person he truly cared for was Carol?

    Perhaps it was the loneliness that made him think.

    He felt lonely now, sitting on the edge of his bed, the drink cradled in his hand, listening to the rain. He thought how his father had once confided to him what he felt. And it was fear of that feeling which remained firmly embedded in his mind. Scott needed someone. No, not someone; he needed Carol.

    He reached for the phone and jabbed out the digits of her number, just as he'd been doing for the past half-hour.

    He just wanted to hear her voice.

    The phone went on ringing.

    Just let me hear her.

    Perhaps she'd pulled the connection from the socket so she wouldn't be disturbed.

    Pick it up.

    Maybe she'd put the phone under a stack of pillows to muffle the ringing so it didn't wake her up.

    Come on. Come on.

    The ringing continued until he slammed the receiver down in frustration.

    Perhaps she was ill.

    Perhaps she wasn't there. She might have been hurt on her way home. She could be in hospital now.

    What if…?

    He downed what was left in the glass and poured himself another, gulping half of it down in one swallow.