I grabbed the crowbar from the front seat and then took them in one by one, Gaishe first. He was scared. Out of his depth. He didn’t weigh anything, and he didn’t fight me. I secured him inside, then came back for Wellis. Popping the boot, I stepped back, expecting him to kick out. But he didn’t. The sunlight was strong, angling right into the BMW, and as he moved a hand to his face, shielding his eyes, I grabbed him by his arms and dragged him out, dumping him on the concrete.
He lay there on the floor, looking up.
‘Get to your feet,’ I said, pushing the boot closed.
He didn’t respond. Didn’t even move. He just stared up at me, unable to find me at first. Then he pulled into focus and spotted me about two feet away.
‘Get up, you piece of shit.’
He clumsily got to his feet, saying nothing. But at the entrance, as I followed him in, he looked back over his shoulder, eyes feral and aggressive.
Inside was a space about one hundred and eighty feet long. The sun drifted in through the gaps in the windows and brickwork, glinting in the smashed glass scattered across the floor. It stank like a toilet. To my right was an old office area, looking out over the warehouse. There was still some furniture in it: a couple of heavy oak desks and four chairs, picked apart and broken, but still basically usable. Gaishe was tied to one of them with duct tape – wrists to the arms of the chair, ankles to the legs. He looked up as we approached, an odd mixture of fear and relief in his face: fear of what was coming, relief that Wellis was here with him, to share in whatever was planned.
Wellis got to one of the chairs and then looked back at me. ‘You don’t know what the fuck you just stepped into here, Ben. You know that, right?’
I threw him the duct tape. ‘Tie your ankles to the legs of the chair.’
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Tie your ankles to the chair.’
The same expression as before: hostile, his rage barely contained. Then he turned, tiny fragments of glass crunching beneath his bare feet, and dropped into the seat. Once his ankles were secure, I got him to tape one of his wrists down, then I did the other.
‘Let’s start with Sam Wren.’
I perched myself on the edge of one of the desks and put the crowbar down next to me. No response from either of them.
‘Eric?’
Gaishe looked at me.
‘Do you want to tell me about Sam Wren?’
He glanced at Wellis again, but Wellis hadn’t moved an inch. He was just staring at me, the corners of his mouth turned up in the merest hint of a smile.
‘What’s so funny?’
Wellis shrugged.
‘This is all a joke to you?’
He shrugged again. I stepped in closer to him and, as I did, he tried to come at me – teeth bared, fists clenched – forgetting he was tied down. The chair rocked from side to side, teetered on one leg for a second and then toppled over and hit the floor. His head smashed hard against the ground, chips of glass cutting into the dome of his skull, and the coat we’d dressed him in came open. Next to him, Gaishe gasped and pushed back and away, the wheels of the chair carrying him off for about five feet. I dropped to my haunches next to Wellis and looked at him. He was gazing up, blood on his face. I’d get nowhere with him. Threats, torture, none of it would work. A man who lived in the shadows already knew too much about its consequences.
I moved to Gaishe, grabbed his chair and pushed it across the room, away from Wellis. Glass crunched beneath the wheels as we moved. We hit the far wall of the room and I held him there, facing the bricks, unable to see Wellis. ‘What’s going on?’ Gaishe said, a tremor in his voice. I turned back to Wellis. He’d shifted position on the ground and was looking at us. He didn’t have any real affection for Gaishe, nothing with any meaning, and probably didn’t care what happened to him – except Gaishe knew things.
Important things.
I leaned in to Gaishe. ‘Here’s how it’s going to play out, Eric: you’re going to tell me how you know Sam Wren, how he got involved with you two, what happened when he did and how it all ended. You’re going to tell me all that. And when we’re done with that, you’re going to tell me about the girl. The girl you killed.’
Panic in his face, and then a stark realization about what he’d done. After that, his smell hit me: sweat and dirt and cigarette smoke.
I glanced at Wellis.
There was a different expression on his face now. He couldn’t hear what I was saying to Gaishe, couldn’t see Gaishe’s face either. He had no control any more. He couldn’t order Gaishe around. He couldn’t tell him what to say. He couldn’t influence him, or threaten him, or manipulate him. He was helpless.
‘How do you two know Sam Wren, Eric?’
Gaishe glanced at me, wide-eyed and terrified. He looked like he was about to say something, but his eyes strayed to Wellis and he stopped himself. ‘I … I can’t …’
‘You can’t what?’
‘Ade will …’
‘Ade’s tied up on the other side of the room,’ I said. ‘Ade’s not in control here any more. I am.’
Gaishe swallowed. ‘I, uh …’
‘What do you want to know?’
A voice from behind me. I turned and looked back at Wellis. It was just how I’d imagined it going: by stepping in, he could control what information was revealed. Gaishe would give me everything he knew – but everything Gaishe knew wasn’t everything Wellis knew. So it was a trade-off: Gaishe would be easier to pick apart, but Wellis was the man who’d give me Sam Wren.
‘What do you want to know?’ Wellis repeated.
I left Gaishe facing the wall.
‘Start at the beginning.’
‘I went to see him.’
‘About what?’
He eyed me for a second, a natural defence mechanism kicking in. He never told his business to anyone. ‘I had some money – I thought the stock market might be a good place to start. So I went along and asked him to invest it for me.’
I smiled. ‘You’re an investor – that’s what you’re telling me?’
‘It’s true.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Wellis.’
‘The cops were sniffing around my business,’ he said, his voice even, ‘and if they ever kicked down my door, I needed to look legit. I needed a legitimate source of income. So I went to see Wren.’
‘Why him?’
‘Someone I knew told me about him. This guy said Wren was in finance.’
‘Who was the guy?’
‘Just a guy who I do some business with.’
I looked at him.
He shrugged. ‘Believe what you want to believe.’
‘So what’s your business?’
‘Transportation.’
‘You mean trafficking?’
He shrugged again. ‘Call it whatever you like.’
‘Is that how that woman ended up in your loft? A little present to yourself?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘It doesn’t bother you?’ I asked him.
‘What?’
‘The lives you’re ruining?’
‘I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it,’ he said, his face a blank. He wasn’t even trying to coax a reaction out of me. It was just a statement of fact. ‘You can’t call up an escort agency and ask for a thirteen-year-old. There’s not a number for that in the Yellow Pages. So I run a service for people.’
‘You’re talking about paedophiles.’
He could see the disgust in my face. ‘I make sure we vet them first, if that makes you feel any better. First time someone new gets in touch, we take a look at them, we get their name, just in case there’s any blowback.’ He glanced across to where Gaishe was still sitting, facing the wall. ‘The girl was for Eric, anyway. She got off the boat from Romania, or Bulgaria, or wherever the fuck she was from, and started earning straight away. She was a right goer. Tight little body. We had a few boys who liked her. Eric was one of them.’