Ли Чайлд - Belfast Noir

“She’s been kidnapped. Honest, they cut off her finger!”

“Did they now? Who did?”

“Eh . . . you? That’s what they think.”

“And what do you think, son?”

“I don’t know.”

“Smart lad. You only know what you don’t know, is that right?”

“Eh . . . please, Mr. Nasher. I need to go to the docks. It’s where they have her.”

“In a minute.”

Soon the cab was stopping, but not at Harland and Wolff like I’d asked for. “This is your pub! I need to get to Rosie!”

“Never you worry about Miss Grant. I’d worry about yourself more.”

Then someone was opening the door and stuffing a black bin bag over my head and I was dragged out. There were steps. I know because I fell down them. There was a door, a metal one, which my head banged off. “Ow!”

“Shut your trap, son.”

When the bag was ripped off, I was tied to a chair in a concrete basement. I tried shuffling but my hands were bound up. In the room were Nasher and two other men, both in black with balaclavas on. Nasher was smoking a cigarette and sitting on a table. He had on a Celtic top and grey tracksuit bottoms.

On the other chair was someone else with a bin bag round their head. I could see their mouth sucking in and out panicky breaths. Bin bags are actually porous, but they probably wouldn’t find that too comforting. One of the gorillas ripped the bag off, but by that stage I’d already clocked the red Converse and I knew it was Gavin before I saw his face, white and scared.

“Al! What’s going on?”

“Calm down, Gav,” I said. I hoped I sounded it. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

Nasher tapped his fag. “I wouldn’t call it that. You boys have been following me. First you sneak round my pub, then your wee pal here’s nosing in my bank accounts.”

I gave Gavin a disappointed look. “You promised!”

“I was trying to help, Al! I thought he might have rented somewhere to keep Rosie.”

“You eejit, Gav. Look, Mr., eh . . . Nasher. I’m afraid my associate doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s like Dustin Hoffman. You know, in that old film. Rain Man .”

“Didn’t he play a fruit once?”

“I don’t know, sir. That’s not the point. It’s really not Gavin’s fault.”

Nasher moved off the table and I saw two things on it. One was the pink suitcase—open. Empty. The other looked like a bolt cutter.

Nasher ambled over to me. The cigarette dangled close to my left eye. With my right I glanced at the bolt cutter, which the second gorilla was weighing in his hands. “You better start talking, son.”

I looked at the glowing end one inch from my eye and the bolt cutter and Gavin starting to wheeze and shake. So I told the whole story, about Mrs. Grant and John Joe and the finger in the box—“The money’s to ransom her, see”—and how it looked like Nasher had been set up.

“Set up?”

“I think so, sir. Clearly you know nothing about it, but it’s been made to resemble your, eh, trademark skills.”

“I did used to do a lovely kidnap,” he said nostalgically. I tried to move my face away from the flame. “So if you went with this case to the docks, you’d maybe find John Joe?”

“Um . . . definitely. Almost for sure.”

“All right then.” He moved, and quick as a flash the first goon cut my ropes. He cut me too, a bit.

“And Gavin?”

“He stays till you find John Joe.”

“Can I take the money?”

“I said take the case, son. Not the contents.”

“But how will I get her back without the ransom?”

“I’m sure you can improvise, smart boy like you.” He tossed the car keys. “Take the taxi. On the house, son.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t smoke,” I ventured. “Gavin’s asthmatic, you see.” I could hear them laughing and Gavin wheezing as they shoved me out the door.

* * *

I can’t drive. Not even a bit. All I know is from playing on the Wii with Gavin. But I kept my eyes straight ahead, and ignoring the many, many beeps of other cars (“Hurry up, you fecking arsehole!”), I somehow found my way to the shipyards. The pink case was beside me on the seat of the black hack. I heard its wheels squeak behind me as I parked and walked away, then it was just me in the dark. A salty wind blew in from the lough, the lights of the city glittering all round me, like little winking eyes.

I ducked under the security barrier and found the gates of the shipyard unlocked. No one stopped me. I was walking amid a city of shipping containers, rusted and hulking. The key that had come with the finger had a number on it: 341 . I found this after a lot of wandering about in the dark. It was a bottom one. Green metal. I listened but heard nothing except the wind.

I put the key in the padlock. It turned, rusty, and I pushed the door open. “Eh . . . hello?”

No answer. I switched on the torch I always keep in my jacket, like any good PI should. The space was maybe eight metres long. In the pool of light from my torch was a chair, and a girl was tied onto it. Her head slumped forward, and in the light I could make out that her hair was that shade of red people like to call strawberry blonde.

“Rosie,” I whispered. The torch beam was no match for the inky shadows in the place. I needed to add double-A batteries to Ma’s shopping list. “Are you okay? I’m the PI. Your parents sent me.”

She groaned. “Please . . . help . . .”

“Stop.”

I moved the torch and saw coming out of the darkest corner a massive fella like the proverbial shithouse made of brick, pointing a knife at me. “John Joe Magee!”

He seemed confused, then put his menacing expression back on. “Yeah, so? You stay back.”

“Eh . . . I’ve got your money.”

“Oh. Well, put it down over there.”

I parked the case, handle sticking up. “What happens now?”

“Em . . . you give me the money and you fuck off.” His knife cast long glinting shadows.

“And Rosie?” Her head twitched.

“Eh . . . she can go with you?” John Joe sounded like he was asking a question.

“Is she all right? How’s her hand?”

“Hand?”

“You cut off her finger. That wasn’t very nice of you.” I was trying to look at her hands, see if she had polish on them, but they were tied behind her.

He paused. “Look, stop talking, yeah? Give me the cash and fuck off.” He raised a hand to scratch his face and I saw it was wrapped in some kind of fabric. The idea I’d had took shape in my head. In my pocket I felt for my phone, trying to count. How many names did I have saved? Where would S be on the contacts list? One, two, ten . . . I pressed the button, hoping it was the right one.

“Untie Rosie, and then you can have the money.”

He moved over to the girl. Her eyes fluttered and she moaned something. John Joe suddenly straightened up, as if a thought had entered his brain and was clanging around in the empty space it found there. “Here, I need to count the money first.”

Oh feck. “Um . . . it’s all there. I think. Half a million. The ransom you wanted for Rosie Grant .”

He went to it, tucking the knife under his arm. He seemed to struggle with the zip, fumbling. I was about three seconds from a good stabbing. I realised several things in that moment that saved my bacon. A good PI is 80 percent planning, 20 percent reaction, you see. 10 percent luck maybe. Is that more than 100?

I saw Rosie move in the corner of my eye, and just as John Joe was saying, “There’s fecking nothing in here!” and letting the knife fall clumsily from under his arm, I threw myself into the shadows behind him and discreetly grabbed it. At the same time I chucked my phone into the darkest corner, its screen still lit up to show it was transmitting. I hoped to God the right person was listening.