can’t, I’m still grounded,” Jools grumbled, and sat up. “Because of you, I might add.”
“So? Just sneak out, like you did last time. Your mum’ll never know, she’s always on the phone anyway.”
That was true enough. Even when she wasn’t at the magazine, Valery was usually on the phone with to her assistant Holly, or tapping away ferociously at her laptop, responding to emails. She wouldn’t miss her daughter for a half hour or so.
“Okay. Pick me up on the corner in five minutes.”
“Nat,” Rhys said as he came in the bedroom late Sunday afternoon and handed her mobile over, “it’s for you. It’s Gemma.”
His wife Natalie, propped up in bed with masses of pillows and an assortment of baby catalogues and magazines, looked up in surprise. After Gemma and Dominic’s splashy Christmas wedding in Scotland, the pair had disappeared off the public radar; in the interim, she and Gemma had lost touch.
It wasn’t surprising, really, she reflected; Dom and Gem were newlyweds, after all. And with her own baby on the way, Natalie’s days were filled with pre-natal appointments and shopping, and reading books about childbirth, and training herself to eat Brussels sprouts a bit more and Dairy Milks a bit less.
“It must have to do with that singer, Christa,” Nat murmured as she took the phone. “The tabs say she’s taken off on Dominic’s private jet – with Dominic.”
“Yes, and Gemma’s furious,” Rhys confirmed. “She took her wedding ring off at the office Friday and told me they’re through.” He sat on the bed next to her. “That’s the first sensible thing she’s done since she married the little twit.”
“Gemma,” Nat said cautiously into the phone, “hi, it’s me. What’s going on?”
“We’ve separated, Nat,” Gemma bleated, and burst into a series of hiccupping sobs. “Not even married six months yet, and Dom’s run off with another woman! And not just any woman – he’s run off with a bloody pop star!”
Natalie made soothing, shushing noises until Gemma’s sobs and hiccups subsided somewhat.
“I don’t believe it,” she told Gemma firmly. “Dominic loves you, Gem. After all those other women, he married you. He’d never do something like this unless he had a very good reason.”
“Do you…do you really think so, Nat?” she asked doubtfully, and blew her nose.
“I do. Trust me – there’s more to this story than meets the eye.”
“So what’s fenugreek?” Jools asked as she climbed into Desh’s second-hand Skoda and settled in next to him.
“It’s a spice.” He shifted gears, and with a wheeze and a puff of exhaust, they were off. “Mum uses it a lot in her cooking. So… you’re grounded, then? Because of me.” There was an edge to his voice.
“Not because of you, exactly,” Jools hedged. “It’s not a race thing. It’s because of the ‘sneaking out without asking’ thing.”
He slanted an amused glance at her. “You mean like you’re doing right now?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
He parked in front of Deepa’s house a short time later, and Jools glanced around uneasily. The east end of London was thirty minutes and a lifetime away from Maida Vale. Immigrants, many of them Bangladeshi, lived cheek by jowl with halal grocers, balti houses, crowded markets, tower blocks and council estate housing. Gang graffiti was sprayed on the brick wall across the street. The light faded as they stepped out of the car.
Deepa’s house was narrow and dark. “Are you sure she’s home?” Jools asked Adesh uncertainly.
“No,” he said, unconcerned, “but even if she isn’t, we can wait for a few minutes. She might be in the kitchen, making jaangiri. If she is, you’re in luck.”
“What’s jaangiri?”
Adesh paused on the pavement to thrust his wallet into his back pocket. “It’s cake. It’s really good.”
“If you say so.” Personally, Jools had her doubts. She glanced down the street, and her uneasiness returned. She saw a couple of men on the corner, talking in low voices and smoking. They eyed her in the gathering dusk, then looked away.
“Come on, then.” Adesh held out his hand.
She took it and followed him up the short path to his aunt’s front door, and waited as he knocked. There was no answer.
“She’s not home,” Jools said after a moment, secretly relieved. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on, she’s probably round back in the kitchen. Give it another minute or two.”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “I really can’t hang around long, Desh. I’ve got homework yet to finish, and if mum catches me out, I’ll be grounded until next year. Come on, let’s go.”
Jools released Desh’s hand and turned to head back to the Skoda to wait. Halfway down the path, the darkness in front of her suddenly gathered itself into a solid mass as two shapes loomed up before her. She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand immediately darted out to cut off the sound, and she smelled the scent of Turkish tobacco and tasted grease and the salty tang of sweat on her assailant’s skin as he pulled her back hard against him.
She struggled frantically to free herself from his grip, and cried out as he yanked her arm up and back. The pain made her sick to her stomach. But no one could hear her; in the darkness, no one could see, either, as she and Adesh were dragged, twisting and kicking, to the corner, and shoved into a white van.
Once inside, someone grabbed Jools’s hair and pulled her head back. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes. A scarf – smelling incongruously of Chanel No. 5 and motor oil – was tied roughly around her eyes. She was thrust forward and landed on her knees in a corner, where she huddled, blind and terrified. Jools heard the scrape of the van door shutting, felt the rumble of the engine, and the van lurched forward.
“Thank you, gentlemen.” Jack Hawkins shook Generalissimo Scala’s hand, and each of his lieutenants in turn. The abandoned airplane hangar they stood in was dim but cool. “It’s been a real pleasure doing business with you.”
“And with you, Signore.” Scala reached into his uniform pocket – decorated with dozens of ribbons – and withdrew a cigar. He cut off the end and offered it to Jack. “To celebrate our new alliance, eh?”
Jack took it. It was Cuban, of course, and a Cohiba to boot. “Only the best for you, eh, mate?” he said, inwardly wincing as he drew it under his nose to inhale the scent.
Cigars. He fucking hated the things. “Thanks. Got a light?”
“Of course.” Scala duly cut and lit their cigars, handing one over to Jack after rotating the tip near the flame until it glowed. The two
