because people usually need a little bit of convincing, however much they love you.”
“Why me?” asked Susie, even though, of course, the answer was glaringly obvious. From up front was silence. “It’s because of Emma, isn’t it?” said Susie.
“It ain’t because of Emma. Well, not directly. It’s more to do with your husband and his mates taking a sledgehammer to our business. You think he could just walk away from that? Not in our world. Your husband can count himself lucky that he’s so minted or he’d find himself having an appointment with the Skinsman. Who knows, when all this is done, maybe he still will. He’s pissed a lot of people off, has your old man.”
“The Skinsman? Who’s that?”
Once more Karen twisted around in her seat. When she smiled, Susie saw that one of her top teeth was crooked, giving her a predatory look. “A bloke in your operation called Johnson, you know him?”
Susie nodded slowly.
“He met the Skinsman. The Skinsman took several hours making his acquaintance. Trust me, you don’t wanna know any more about that.”
She turned back, started fiddling with her phone. Texting, probably. For a moment or so silence reigned, and the streets blurred past, life viewed as if from the inside of a goldfish bowl.
Susie swallowed. “Did Emma meet the Skinsman?”
Karen’s fingers had been moving on the phone with all the speed of the most addicted teenager, but now they stopped. “Your daughter killed herself. Her killing herself is the reason for all this shit.”
“She really did, did she? We—”
“Hoped it was the other way?” finished Karen with a nasty chortle.
Susie looked away. “No, not hoped—of course not. I couldn’t hope she was murdered. But I can’t bear thinking of her being so unhappy . . . so unhappy that she’d want to kill herself. I just wanted to know the truth.”
Karen sniggered. “Well, the truth is that she was a junkie who was in over her head. A fat cat’s daughter reduced to getting her kit off for pervy old men online. She couldn’t take it anymore so she topped herself. How does that feel, Mom?”
Feels like you’re a bitch. “As long as it’s the truth.”
“Oh yes, it’s the truth,” said Karen.
But Susie noticed something. She noticed that Karen looked around the car at the faces of her men as she said it. As if saying it for their benefit, too.
Shortly after, they arrived at what Susie thought was some kind of car service center. She was dragged inside. The injured man slumped into a seat in reception.
“Sofia, ring the doctor,” commanded Karen, and then Susie was taken through the office area, through the workshop, and to a room at the back barred with a chain, with a sign on the door saying “Machine Shop.”
She was imprisoned in that room. Along one wall was a camp bed, beside it an old cabinet that had seen better days, topped with a bedside lamp. A portable DVD and TV combo had been set up on a child’s school desk and chair, and beside it a DVD: Dirty Dancing. Lastly, and most incongruously, a deck chair had been set up against the far wall.
“What do you think?” said one of the men who had been detailed to take her to her new quarters. “A home from home, yes?”
“How long will I be here?” she asked.
“Who knows?” shrugged the guy. He told her that somebody would visit her soon with something to eat and drink and in the meantime to make herself comfortable. He retired, leaving her alone.
Something caught her eye. In a corner of the room was a scrap of brown packing tape and a little strip of clear plastic, about the size of an envelope.
It was splattered with blood.
CHAPTER 45
“KAREN?” SAID SHELLEY, staring hard at the screen. “That’s her name? Karen?”
“Yes,” replied Claridge. “That’s Karen.”
And now Lucy was looking at the MI5 man with great interest. “Okay, so why do I get the impression that there’s something about this Karen that you’re dying to tell us?”
“Ah, well,” said Claridge, “she’s a bit of a one is our Karen . . .”
“ ‘Our Karen,’” parroted Lucy.
“We tend to think of her as one of ours, yes. Something of a throwback really. She’s the granddaughter of Dexter Regan. Do you know the name?”
“It rings a bell,” said Shelley.
“Well, Dexter Regan was reputed to be one of the masterminds of the Great Train Robbery, died in Strangeways in 1997, where he was serving out a sentence for aggravated assault.
“While he was inside his son Malcolm Regan