Before she could even finish brushing her teeth, Jaff was standing at the door. “You ready yet?”
“Coming,” Tracy said. “Coming.” She glanced desperately around the small bathroom for an escape hatch or a weapon of some sort. There was nothing. It would be no use, anyway, as Jaff hadn’t allowed her to lock, or even to close, the bathroom door. Resignedly she rinsed out her mouth and went back into the room. Jaff was just finishing off a line of coke, probably not his first of the day.
Everything went smoothly at checkout. There was a different girl at the desk this morning, a tanned brunette, but the smile was the same, the flirtatious body language. When he had finished, Jaff strode over to Tracy with that cocky, confident walk of his, hold-all still in his hand, and nodded toward the door. She left with him.
Tracy had expected that they would take a taxi to the garage, but Jaff clearly had other ideas. Taxis could be traced, he explained, when she asked, and taxi drivers could be questioned. Caution, or paranoia, seemed to be his natural state of mind now. They walked all the way to the Corn Exchange among the hordes of city workers dashing to their little hutches for the day. How Tracy wished she were one of them. Everything seemed so normal, yet so completely unreal. At one point Tracy realized that she wasn’t too far from Waterstone’s, where she worked, and she wondered if she should make a dash for it. Then she remembered the things Jaff had said, the threats of retribution he had made, and she believed them. She couldn’t live her life like that, always feeling scared, in fear, always looking over her shoulder. She had to go through with this right to the end. Whatever that end might be.
They caught a bus to Harehills and Jaff sat silently all the way, tapping his fingers on his knee and gazing out of the window. Soon they would be in a new car racing down to London, where Jaff would get his new identity, sell his wares, pack enough cash to start somewhere else, and disappear. Tracy didn’t believe he would sell her into slavery, and she still couldn’t believe that he would just kill her in cold blood, despite the evidence of his violence she had witnessed. With any luck, once he got where he was going and got what he wanted, he would simply lose interest in her, dump her and forget all about her. She hoped.
“Next stop,” said Jaff, and they walked to the front. She could see him scanning the faces of the other passengers, processing them. They got off at Roundhay Road and Harehills Lane, then turned a few corners. “It’s down here,” said Jaff finally, turning left.
The small garage was sandwiched between a sewing-machine repair shop and an Asian music imports emporium, from which some very odd sounds indeed were drifting out into the air. Tracy couldn’t even recognize what instruments were being played. Next to the music shop was a greasy spoon with plastic chairs and tables. Dead flies lay scattered on the inside window ledge, and the mingled smells of cumin and coriander wafted through the door. Tracy liked curry, but she didn’t fancy it for breakfast.
On the opposite side of the street stood a closed school, a late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century building, Tracy could tell, which was due for demolition. There were so many of them in Leeds, the old redbrick kind, darkened by years of industrial soot, like the houses around them, surrounded by high pointed metal railings embedded in a low concrete wall; weeds already growing through the cracked tarmac playground. Some of the windows were boarded up, others simply broken, and a liberal sprinkling of graffiti adorned both the boarding and the red brick. A faded sign read HAREHILLS PARK. Tracy couldn’t see any park. The place gave her the shivers. A few yards past the school was a redbrick mosque.
Tracy was so busy looking at the school and the mosque that at first she didn’t notice what had happened until she heard Jaff kicking at the garage door and yelling for someone to open up. Then she saw the GOING OUT OF THE BUSINESS sign half covered with pasted bills and graffiti.
“They’re gone, Jaff,” she said. “There’s nobody here.”
Jaff turned on her. “I can bloody well see that for myself. Why don’t you stop stating the obvious and contribute something here?”
“Like what?”
“Like some ideas.”
“You seem to be forgetting I’m not in this with you. I’m not here to help you. I’m your hostage.”
“Whatever we’re in, we’re in it together. Make no mistake about that. Your fate depends on mine. So a little contribution wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’ve already told you what I think. Let me go, and you take off alone. Then you’ll have a chance.”
Jaff shook his head. “No. No way I’m letting go of my greatest asset.”
“Oh, really? I thought that was your gun.”
“Guns are just tools. You’re a bargaining chip.” He paused. “Goddamn, that’s it!”
“What is?”
“You. I’ve been holding you in reserve all this time, and now it’s time to use you. Of course! What a bloody idiot I’ve been.”
“What do you mean? You’re scaring me.”
Jaff pulled out his mobile. “What’s your father’s number? His mobile, not the fucking police station.”
“My father-”
“His mobile number. Now!”
Numbly, Tracy told him. She could see his hand shaking as he keyed in the numbers and mumbled to himself, then he put the phone to his ear.
“ARE YOU ALONE?”
This wasn’t the usual opening of a telephone conversation, and it alerted Banks to possible danger. “Yes,” he lied, though he didn’t recognize the voice. He was actually in the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters with Gervaise, Winsome, Geraldine Masterson, Harry Potter and Stefan Nowak discussing the fate of Justin Peverell and his dead girlfriend, Martina Varakova.
Burgess had just reported from the Highgate house again, and Ciaran and Darren had finally been taken from their hotel in an ambulance under police guard. Ciaran had apparently broken his arm in two places while trying to escape police custody, as well as sustaining other minor cuts and bruises, including one groin injury that might impair his sexual performance for some years to come. Neither had given up The Farmer, but Banks planned on paying the bastard another visit soon, anyway, now he had a little more ammunition up his sleeve. And if they let Burgess into the interview room down south, anything could happen. Banks had never heard him sound so upset and enraged.
He excused himself from the conversation and went out into the corridor. “Right,” said the voice on the phone. “I’ve got a job for you.”
“And you are?”
“Never mind that. Here’s someone you might recognize.” There was a brief pause, during which Banks could have sworn he heard sitar music in the background, then a girl’s voice came on. “Dad, it’s me! Tracy. Please do what he says. If you don’t he’ll-”
“Tracy? Are you all right?”
But before she could reply, the other voice came back on again. Jaff’s voice, Banks now knew. “She’s fine,” he said. “And if you want her to stay that way, you’ll listen carefully to what I have to say. We’re in Leeds, in Harehills, outside a closed-down garage opposite a boarded-up school called Harehills Park. Got that?”
“Leeds. Harehills Park. Yes. If you so much as lay a finger on her-”
“I know. I know. You’ll kill me. How long will it take you to get here?”
“About an hour.”
“Bollocks,” said Jaff. “Forty, forty-five minutes max. But I’ll give you one hour. Not a minute more. We’ll be watching for you. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t even think of bringing a friend or arranging a welcome party. Believe me, if I see any signs of police activity in the area, your daughter gets it. Understand?”