Remote Control, page 6
All the time the pistol was pointing forward, ready to take on any threat.
Moving slowly towards the boxes, I said, ‘Oh well, since you’re not here I’ll go. But I think I’ll have one more look and I bet you’re hiding in the Disneyland place. I’ll just have a look … I bet you’re in there …’
There was a pile of large boxes. One had contained a fridge freezer, another a washing machine. Kev had made a sort of cave with them under the staircase and kept a few toys there.
I eased the pistol down my waistband. I didn’t want her to see a gun. She’d probably seen and heard enough already.
I put my mouth against a little gap between the boxes. ‘Kelly, it’s me, Nick. Don’t be scared. I’m going to crawl towards you. You’ll see my head in a minute and I want to see a big smile …’
I got down on my hands and knees and carried on talking gently as I moved boxes and squeezed through the gap, inching towards the back wall. I wanted to do it nice and slowly. I didn’t know how she was going to react.
‘I’m going to put my head round the corner now, Kelly.’
I took a deep breath and moved my head round the back of the box, smiling away but ready for the worst.
She was there, facing me, eyes wide with terror, sitting curled up in a foetal position, rocking her body backwards and forwards, holding her hands over her ears.
‘Hello, Kelly,’ I said very softly.
She must have recognized me, but didn’t reply. She just carried on rocking, staring at me with wide, scared dark eyes.
‘Mummy and Daddy can’t come and get you out at the moment, but you can come with me. Daddy told me it would be OK. Are you going to come with me, Kelly?’
Still no reply. I crawled right into the cave until I was curled up beside her. She’d been crying and strands of light-brown hair were stuck to her face. I tried to move them away from her mouth. Her eyes were red and swollen.
‘You’re in a bit of a mess there,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to clean you up? Come on, let’s go and get you sorted out, shall we?’ I got hold of her hand and gently guided her out into the garage.
She was dressed in jeans, jean shirt, trainers and a blue nylon puffer jacket. Her hair was straight and just above her shoulders, a bit shorter than I remembered it, and she was quite lanky for a seven-year-old, with long, skinny legs. I picked her up in my arms and held her tight as I carried her into the kitchen. I knew the other doors were closed, so she wouldn’t see her dad.
I sat her down on a chair at the table. ‘Mummy and Daddy said they had to go away for a while, but asked me to look after you until they come back, OK?’
She was trembling so much I couldn’t tell if her head was nodding or shaking.
I went to the fridge and opened it, hoping to find some comfort food. Two large, half-eaten Easter eggs were on the shelf. ‘Mmm, yum – do you want some chocolate?’
I’d had a good relationship with Kelly. I thought she was a great kid, and that wasn’t just because she was my mate’s daughter. I smiled warmly, but she stared at the table.
I broke off a few pieces and put them on one of the side plates that she’d probably been setting earlier with Aida. I found the off switch on the radio; I’d had enough relaxing soft rock for one day.
As I looked at her again I suddenly realized I’d fucked up. What was I going to do with her? I couldn’t just leave her here; her family were lying dead all over the house. But, more importantly, she knew me. When the police arrived she’d be able to say, ‘Nick Stone was here.’ They’d soon find out that Nick Stone was one of Daddy’s mates and the house was full of photographs with me in them. And, if they did arrest the grinning drunk in the barbecue shots, they’d find that, for some strange reason, he wasn’t Nick Stone at all, he was Mrs Stamford’s little boy. As they used to say in the Harp commercial, time to make a sharp exit.
Kev’s jacket was hanging over one of the chairs. I said, ‘Let’s wrap you up in your dad’s coat; that’ll keep you nice and warm.’ At least she’d have something of her dad’s; with luck it would cheer her up.
There was just a little bit of whimpering in reply. She was almost in rigor mortis with shock, though at least she had turned her head to look at me now. This was where normally I would have let Marsha take over, because a child’s mind was far too complicated for me to work out. But I couldn’t do that today.
I wrapped the coat around her and said, ‘Here you are, get this around you. Look, it’s your dad’s! Don’t tell him, eh, ha ha ha!’ I felt something solid in one of the pockets and checked. ‘Oh good, look, we can phone him up later.’
I looked out of the window – no movement. I picked up the bin liner, grabbed Kelly’s hand, then realized that, to reach the front door, I’d have to come out of the kitchen and into the hallway.
‘Just sit there a second,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to do something.’
I had a quick check to make sure the doors were closed. I thought again about fingerprints but, if I’d missed a set, there was nothing I could do about it now. My only thought was to get out of the area and keep Kelly away from the police until I’d sorted things out.
I went back and got her and checked the front of the house again for movement. She seemed to be finding it hard to walk. I had to grip Kev’s coat by the collar and half drag her towards the car.
I put her in the front passenger seat and smiled, ‘There you go, that’s nice and warm. Better look after your dad’s coat for him. Keep it nice for when you see him.’
Then I threw the bin liner in the back, settled into the driver’s seat, put my seat belt on and turned the ignition. We drove off at a really sensible pace, nothing outrageous, nothing likely to be noticed.
We’d only gone a few hundred yards when I thought of something; I looked across at her and said, ‘Kelly, put your seat belt on. Do you know how to do that?’
She didn’t move, didn’t even look at me. I had to do it for her.
*
I tried to make small talk. ‘It’s a nice day today, isn’t it? Yep, you’ll stay with me a while; we’ll get everything sorted out.’
Silence.
My mind switched back to the matter in hand. What was I going to do? Whatever I decided, I knew it was no good where we were at the moment; we needed to lose ourselves in a crowd. I headed for Tyson’s Corner.
I turned to Kelly and smiled, trying to be happy-go-lucky Uncle Nick, but it just wasn’t happening. She was staring anxiously out of the window, as if she thought she was being wrenched away from all her familiar landmarks and seeing them for the last time.
‘It’s OK, Kelly.’ I tried to stroke her hair.
She jerked her head away.
Fuck it, just let her get on with it; with luck I’d be able to offload her before too long.
I turned my thoughts to Kev. He’d said he had some information about my ‘friends over the water’. Could it have been PIRA who’d killed him? What the hell for? It was highly unlikely that they’d start messing about like that, not in America. They were too switched on to bite the hand that was feeding them.
Other things weren’t adding up. Why wasn’t there a struggle? Both Marsha and Kev knew where the weapons were. Why weren’t they used? Why was the front door ajar? There was no way that would have happened. People didn’t just wander in off the street into Kev’s house, they had to be invited in.
I felt a rush of anger. If the family had been killed in a car crash, fair one. If the killers had come in and maybe shot them, I’d be upset, but, at the end of the day, if you live by the sword, you must be prepared to die by the sword. But not this way. They’d been hacked about for no reason that I could see.
I forced myself to think rationally. There was no way I could phone the police and explain my version. Although I’d been lifted off, I was still operating in another country without its consent. It goes on in the UK, too, but getting caught would be a big no-no. The operation here would be seen as a sign of betrayal and would create distrust between the two security communities. There was no way SIS would back me up; that would defeat the whole purpose of deniable ops. I was on my own.
Looking at my passenger I knew I had a problem. As we drove towards Tyson’s Corner I realized what I had to do. I saw a Best Western hotel on the left and an open-plan mall on the right. I had to dump the car because, if I’d been seen, that was one of the connections between me and the house. I needed somewhere to leave it that wasn’t isolated, somewhere without video cameras. As well as the shopping mall and its massive car parks, satelliting it was a drive-thru Burger King with its own parking.
It’s all very well abandoning a vehicle in the middle of hundreds of others in a car park during shopping hours, but at night it might be the only car left there; it‘s going to stick out, and will be checked over by police patrols. What I was after was an area that was really busy, day and night. Multi-storey car parks were out, because nine times out of ten they have video cameras to stop muggings and car theft. Many multi-storey car parks have a camera that takes a picture of the number plate and driver as you drive in. At any major junction and along most major thoroughfares, there are traffic video cameras. If my car had been pinged outside Kev’s house, the first thing they’d do was study the traffic videos and carpark photography.
‘Shall we get a burger and some shakes?’ I suggested. ‘Do you like milk shakes? I tell you what, I’ll park up and maybe we’ll even go shopping.’
Again it would be no good driving into the Burger King car park, stepping out and then walking a few hundred metres to the shopping mall – that isn’t normal behaviour. It might register in people’s minds and be triggered off at a later date, so I wanted to make the two of us look as natural as possible.
‘Strawberry or vanilla – which one do you want?’
No reply.
‘Chocolate? Go on, I’m going to have a chocolate.’
Nothing.
I parked up. The place was pretty full. I cupped my hand under her chin and gently turned her face so that she was looking at my big smile. ‘Milk shake?’
There was a faint movement of her head, or maybe it was a nod of appreciation. Not much, but at least it was a reaction.
I carried on with the bullshit. ‘You just sit here, then. I’ll get out, I’ll lock the car and go and get the milk shakes. And then, I tell you what, we’ll go into the shopping mall. How about that?’
She looked away.
I carried on as if she’d given me a positive response. I got out of the car and locked her in. I still had the pistol tucked into my waistband, concealed by Kev’s jacket.
I went into the Burger King, got two different-flavoured milk shakes, and came straight back to the car.
‘Here we go, then, chocolate or vanilla?’
She kept her hands by her sides. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll have the vanilla; I know you like chocolate.’
I put the shake in her lap. It was too cold for her legs and, as soon as she lifted it up, I said, ‘Come on, then, let’s go to the shops. You can bring that with you.’
I got her out, closed the door and locked up. I did nothing about our fingerprints; no matter how hard I tried I’d never get rid of them all, so what was the point? I opened the boot, pulled out the bag with the bits and pieces I’d bought at Shannon, and threw in the bin liner full of bloodstained clothing.
It looked like rain. We walked towards the shopping mall and I kept on talking to her because the situation felt so awkward. What else do you do, walking along with a kid who doesn’t belong to you and doesn’t want to be with you?
I tried to hold her hand, but she refused. I couldn’t make an issue of it with people around, so I gripped the shoulder of the jacket again.
There was everything in the shopping centre, from a computer discount warehouse to an army surplus store, all housed in long, one-storey, purpose-built units that were like islands in a sea of car park.
We went into a clothes store and I bought myself some jeans and another shirt. I’d change as soon as I’d had a shower and got Aida’s blood off my back and legs.
At an ATM I drew out $300, the maximum allowed on my credit card.
We came back out to the car park, but didn’t return to the car. I kept a firm grip on her as we walked towards the hotel across the road.
6
AS WE GOT nearer I could see that the Best Western was in fact separated from the main drag by a row of single-storey office buildings. Our view was of the rear of the hotel.
Looking each way, it was obvious that the junctions that would lead us round to the front of the hotel were miles away. I decided to take a short cut. The traffic was busy and the road system hadn’t been designed for people on foot. With the number of lanes and volume of traffic, it was like crossing a motorway in the UK, but at least there were traffic lights slowing the vehicles and creating gaps. I gripped Kelly’s hand as we dodged to the central reservation and waited for another gap. I looked up at the sky; it was very overcast; rain couldn’t be far away.
Drivers, who had probably never seen pedestrians before, hooted furiously, but we made it to the other side and scrambled over small railings onto the sidewalk. More or less directly in front of us was a gap between two office buildings. We went through and crossed a short stretch of waste ground that brought us into the hotel car park. As we walked past the lines of vehicles I memorized the sequence of letters and numbers for a Virginia plate.
The Best Western was a large, four-storey rectangle, the architecture very 1980s. Every elevation was concrete and painted a sickly off-yellow. As we walked up to the reception area I tried to look inside. I didn’t want them to see us coming from the direction of the car park, because it would be odd to walk all that way without first checking that they could take us, and then unloading our bags. I hoped Kelly would stay silent when we were inside; I just wanted to do the business and walk out again as if we were going to see Mummy back in the car.
Inside the lobby I got hold of her and whispered, ‘You just sit there. I’m going to get us a room.’ I gave her a tourist freebie that was lying on one of the chairs, but she ignored it.
In one corner, by the coffee percolator and cream, was a large TV. A football game was on. I went over to the receptionist, a woman in her mid-forties who thought she was still twenty-four, who was watching the screen and probably fancying her chances with one of the quarterbacks.
All smiles, I said, ‘I need a family room just for one night, please.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ she said, a graduate with honours from Best Western’s charm school. ‘If you’d like to fill out this card.’
As I started to scribble I said, ‘How much is a room anyway?’
‘That’s sixty-four dollars, plus tax.’
I raised an eyebrow to make it look as if that was a lot of money to a family man like myself.
‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
She took my credit card to swipe and I filled in the form with crap. I’d been doing this for donkey’s years, lying on hotel forms, looking relaxed as I wrote, but in fact scanning about four questions ahead. I filled in a car reg, too, and, for number of occupants, put two adults and a child.
She handed back my card. ‘There you are, Mr Stamford, it’s room 224. Where’s your car?’
‘Just around the corner.’ I pointed vaguely to the rear of the hotel.
‘OK, if you park by the stairs where you see the Coke and ice machines, turn left at the top of the stairs and you’ll see room 224 on the left-hand side. You have a nice day now!’
I could have described the room even before I ran the key card through the lock and opened the door – a TV, two double beds, a couple of chairs and the typical American hotel designer’s obsession with dark wood veneers.
I wanted to get Kelly settled quickly so I could use the phone. I pressed the remote and flicked through the channels, hoping to find Nickelodeon. Eventually I found some cartoons. ‘I remember this one, it’s good – shall we watch it?’
She sat on the bed, staring at me. The expression on her face said she didn’t like this outing too much and I could understand that.
‘Kelly,’ I said, ‘I’m going to leave you for just a couple of minutes because I’ve got to make a phone call. I’ll get a drink while I’m out. What would you like? Coke? Mountain Dew? Or do you want some candy?’
There was no reaction, so I just carried on. ‘I’m going to lock the door and you’re not to answer it to anybody. Nobody at all, OK? I’ll use the key to get back in again. You sit there and enjoy yourself and I’ll just be about five minutes, OK?’
Still there was no reaction. I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, made sure I had the door swipe card and left.
I was heading for a call box I’d seen in the street because I didn’t want her to hear the telephone conversation I was about to have. I didn’t know much about kids, but I knew that when I was seven nothing had gone unnoticed in my house. On the off-chance that it wasn’t PIN-protected, I took Kev’s mobile from his jacket pocket. I pressed the power button and it demanded a PIN number. I tried two basic ones – the usual factory default, four zeros, and then 1 2 3 4. Nothing. I couldn’t try any more; with some phones you can only try the wrong PIN three times and then it automatically cuts out and you need to go back to the dealer to get it rectified. I turned off the power and put it back in my pocket. I’d ask Kelly about it later.
I turned left via the car park and headed for the call boxes out on the road. I spent a few moments sorting out in my mind what I wanted to say, and then I dialled London.
In veiled speech I said, ‘I’ve just finished work and I’m in Washington to visit an old friend. I used to work with him ten years ago. He’s now working here for the US government.’ I outlined the problem and said that Kelly and I both needed help.
Veiled speech is not some magical code; all you’re trying to do is intimate what is going on, yet at the same time put off a casual listener. You’re not going to fool any professional eavesdroppers – that’s what codes and one-time pads and all the rest of it are for. But all London needed to know was that I was in the shit, I had Kev’s child and needed sorting out. Quick-time.
