You Will Never Find Me by Robert Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t.
    â€˜Sugar?’ he asked, coming back into the sitting room, two lumps in the light palm of his hand. ‘You know, Inspector Danquah—’
    â€˜Mercy. For God’s sake, call me Mercy.’
    â€˜I only met your daughter for, like, a few minutes.’
    â€˜Then how did you know who to meet off the plane from Tenerife?’
    â€˜We had a coffee before. She came with her friend Karen. We introduced ourselves, clocked each other. That was it. I always get the coloured girls.’
    â€˜And apart from the Gatwick meet you never saw her again?’ Alleyne shook his head, sipped his coffee.
    â€˜Karen said she was sleeping with Glider. Do you know him?’
    â€˜You think she ran off with G?’ he said, shaking his head at the unlikely combination.
    â€˜That’s not an answer.’
    â€˜I can put my ear to the ground if you like.’
    â€˜Is that how you’re still communicating in Brixton?’
    â€˜You’re a funny lady, you know that?’
    â€˜Why don’t you tell me where I can find G?’
    â€˜That would not win me any friends, Mercy. You hear what I’m saying?’
    â€˜I’m not interested in petty crime. I’m a mother trying to find her daughter.’
    â€˜Well, I can tell you that G, he don’t like . . . intrusions, even if they don‘t come with a blue flashing light attached,’ said Alleyne. ‘And if he heard that it . . . emanated from me . . . ’
    â€˜O.K., let’s see if we can narrow it down,’ said Mercy. ‘Is he London based?’
    â€˜Sometimes.’
    â€˜North or south London?’
    Alleyne demurred. Mercy got annoyed.
    â€˜All right, Marcus. I told you I wasn’t interested in any of your petty crimes, but that’s only until you clam up on me. Then I start calling the men in blue about this fence I know in Railton Road, etcetera, etcetera. So let’s have it. We’re talking about my
daughter
.’
    â€˜Has she been kidnapped?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜So, like you said, she ran away of her own accord. There’s no need to threaten me because your daughter doesn’t want to go to school any more.’
    â€˜What do you know about that?’ said Mercy, mouth snapping like a dog.
    â€˜Whoa!’ said Alleyne, arms up. ‘Just a turn of phrase, Mercy. No need to take my hand off.’
    â€˜She’s only seventeen years old,’ said Mercy.
    â€˜Thinks she know everything, right?’ said Alleyne.
    A huge racking sob came up from Mercy’s chest. The membrane had split, just when she’d taken her eye off it, loosened her grip. She coughed against it, but it was too late. The dam had burst. Alleyne went down on his haunches in front of her, held her knees. She fell forward, buried her face in his neck.
    â€˜Hey, Mercy,’ he said, patting her back, amazed to find himself in this position. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’
    â€˜Hold me tight,’ she whispered. ‘Tight!’
    â€˜You’re on the edge, Mercy,’ said Alleyne, wrapping his arms around her, drawing her up to his height, gripping her trembling ribs, holding her to him. ‘Can’t have you falling off.’
    But she wanted to fall.
    Â 
    Boxer paced up and down outside Isabel Marks’s house in Kensington. He hadn’t called to say he was coming. He was struggling against a resistance in himself at appearing weak at the beginning of their relationship. Then again, she’d revealed everything of herself to him during the kidnap. He’d been her rock then, and she’d clung to him. But he didn’t like it the other way round. Never been in this position before: needing someone.
    That wasn’t quite true. He’d needed someone when his father had run away, absconded from . . . well, not justice—it hadn’t got that far.