Everything to Lose Page 3

  Maverack pressed the intercom button on his desk phone and leaned toward the microphone.

  "Janice, find out what assets we have in Hampshire, England. And track down Hopper. He's in Eastern Europe somewhere."

  "Yo mean Joe T Hopkine? I doan like him. He's trouble."

  "JANICE shut-up. Just get him. Patch him through," he replied and his tone told her he was in no mood for her normal chitchat. But Janice was a strong-minded woman.

  "AM JUSS SAYIN. He's one bad ass son-of-a-bitch. Aah mean wee'ze talkin super-size can of worms here y'know," she said as she typed on her keyboard.

  "I'm sick of this army game shit. It's time these SOB's were put in their place. Hopper is the right man to split open this whole POINT-K crap."

  "Yo'll regret it. Mark ma words."

  "ENOUGH already."

  He picked up a framed picture from his desk and stared at it. It was a picture of him standing shoulder-to-shoulder and shaking hands with the President.

  Mr President it has come to my attention that senior members of the military are withholding secrets and it's my duty to inform you... he imagined himself in the Oval Office in private conversation with the President.

  5

  Southsea, Hampshire, England

  Laraine McSwann lay out on the sofa in her living room, staring at the television screen, not really taking in the scenes or the dialogue. Russell Crowe was giving a powerful performance as Cal McCaffrey in the movie 'State of Play' but Laraine couldn't keep her mind on the plot.

  She wore a low neck, sleeveless beige cotton top with tapered hemline and skinny jeans. Always trying to keep her youth she looked like a teenager but didn't sound like a teenager. Well it's tricky when you get past thirty. Her two bedroom terraced house in Stansted Road was cluttered, muddled, unloved but clean in essential places. It was just after nine p.m. and the rain outside was falling in sheets. She plucked and fidgeted with the neckband of her top.

  Upstairs Laraine's six-year old daughter Jessica was supposed to be asleep but she heard a car draw up outside their house. She jumped up and ran to her window. It's daddy she thought as she grabbed her pink fluffy dressing gown and threw it around her pink bird print and check pyjamas. But the two men getting out of the car were strangers. She started to turn away from the window when she saw one of the men look up at her bedroom window. She saw his face.

  "Mum. Mauumm!" Jess shouted in a voice that's every mother's nightmare.

  "What?" Laraine called back and leapt up from the sofa.

  "The men in the red car," Jess shouted from the top of the stairs.

  Laraine rushed to the front door. Pushed the lock bolt and slammed her back against the door. Keep calm, they'll go away, they won't stand in that rain she thought. Her breathing picked up pace, her heart raced and her hands trembled.

  "Mum call the police."

  "Go to your room. Close the door. Now!"

  She hadn't told Jess the landline phone had been disconnected. Her mobile was on the charger in her bedroom upstairs.

  The banging on the front door stopped after two minutes. She heard angry kicking of her refuge bins around the back of the house. Harder banging started on the glass panel of the back door.

  She darted to the connecting door between the hall and the kitchen. She grabbed a bath towel from the hall radiator and wedged it under the door. She didn't really expect it to keep the door closed. Panic kept her from thinking clearly.

  Yordan kicked the back door in the kitchen so hard she heard a loud crack from the frame. He was inside. His hair and jacket dripping wet onto the kitchen floor. One strong shove and he was through the connecting door into the hall. Laraine stood on the first two steps of the stair. She hesitated. Run to Jess's bedroom and barricade the door or stand and fight. Laraine squealed and tried to lash out at him as he walked past her to the front door.

  Yordan hit her with a vicious backhander to the side of her head and she collapsed onto the stairs. The second man Ivan was waiting outside in the rain. Yordan let him inside and he closed the door. Ivan shrugged the rainwater off his coat. He wiped his head with his hand and flicked the surplus water onto the floor. He removed a scarf from his neck.

  Ivan S Fillipovar was mid forties, five foot ten, bald, tanned, with thick eyebrows. He wore a dark grey collarless 'grandad' shirt, black soft leather three quarter length coat and black trousers.

  Yordan I Letchikova was two inches shorter with broad shoulders and he was in his thirties. He wore an oversized leather jacket that made his body look obese, a black shirt and dark trousers. His brown hair was close cropped and looked as though he had put oil or cream on it to make it lay flat.

  Laraine stayed down with her body lying across the first four steps of the stairs. Ivan walked past and went into her living room. Still shaking water from his coat. Yordan grabbed Laraine's hair and forced her to follow.

  "Sit down," Ivan said.

  They were the same two foreign men who turned up at Jess's school yesterday asking confusing questions in fragmented English. When she tried to get away from them they tried to drag her and Jess into their red Ford estate car. Jess's piercing scream brought the school lollipop man and two parents to their rescue.

  Laraine thought they had the wrong person because she didn't understand what they wanted. They were Eastern European and she didn't understand their truncated English. Yordan pulled Laraine into her living room and pushed her into the armchair nearest the door. He stood behind her.

  Ivan walked casually into her kitchen. He dried his hands on a kitchen towel then returned with a long kitchen knife. He handed Yordan a towel to dry his head. He stood in front of the armchair and ran the knife through the palm of his left hand. The knife-edge was blunt and barely left a mark on his palm.

  She stared at her kitchen knife. First time she had ever seen someone handle a knife in a threatening way. He stepped closer to her and she moved her feet apart while trying to keep her knees together.

  He pointed the sharp end of the knife at her chest. She moved her eyes away from the knife and focused on his hand. His fingers were puffy and his nails long and dirty.

  Laraine tried to move her body in the chair. Ivan eased the knife slowly toward her sternum. He pressed the knife into her skin just above the neckband of her top and she felt the hard cold metal. A fraction more would break her skin.

  She moved her gaze to his face, now not more than two feet from hers. His tanned face and baldhead were wet as if he was sweating but it was rainwater. The strain in her legs became unbearable. She moved her feet and knees to a more relaxed position. The knife pressed harder against her chest. Her pain intensified and terrified anguish defined her face. He knew he was hurting her. A little push further and the tip would slip into her chest.

  She agitated her hands as if she was going to grab his arm to make him stop. Yordan grabbed her head from behind. She clawed the arms of the armchair. Clamped her eyes shut expecting the knife to penetrate.

  Ivan moved the knife to her face and set the tip on her top lip under her nose. He turned the knife so it was perpendicular to her nose.

  He levered the knife upwards against her nose. She opened her eyes and their eyes met. She arched her back up in the armchair. She was frightened, sweating and panting. Her eyes glared and Ivan decided she was ready to talk. Ivan turned rapidly and threw the knife into a sideboard on the opposite side of the room. He stepped back from the armchair.

  "Oliver Mansole. Where is he?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Laraine said with surprise.

  "She lies. I kill her. I take her girl," Yordan threatened.

  "You're his woman," Ivan said.

  "No I'm not. He's my friend that's all."

  "You were with him at judo night. Where is he now?"

  "No-one's seen him since that night. I don't know where he is."

  Ivan stood at the sideboard. He looked at the knife stuck in the door. He looked at a display of photos of Laraine and her family. He turn
ed back and showed her a silver foil blister pack containing sealed vials of amber liquid.

  "He leave more of this here?" Ivan asked.

  "He didn't leave anything here."

  "Tell truth or I ask child."

  "He didn't leave anything here. I swear on my daughter's life."

  "I find him. If he says my gear is here. I rip your house to pieces. I take your child."

  He pointed to the room upstairs where he'd seen Jess through the window. He saw the reaction on Laraine's face.

  "If I had anything, I'd give it to you."

  The two men looked at each other and decided she was too frightened to hide anything. Ivan knew it was a long shot but others said she and Oliver were involved so he had to check her out. As they sat in their car waiting for a pause in traffic, Yordan reverted to his native Bulgarian tongue.

  "Her girl is perfect."

  "Do you mean replacement for Galina?"

  "She's a strong girl, good age."

  "Maybe."

  "I want to take her now."

  "Not now Yordan, wait. We have to find this pig Oliver Mansole before we can deal with our own business. You tell Margarita you have found her a new daughter. She will have her soon."

  Yordan's ten-year-old niece Galina disappeared as she walked home from school along the outskirts of Yuzhen Park, south of Sofia, six weeks ago. His sister Margarita was relentlessly melancholic over the gap in her family.

  Galina was snatched by a children traffic gang and started her new life as a street beggar in Amsterdam. Yordan decided that Jess would fill the gap left by Galina. Jess wouldn't work the streets begging but she would work long hard hours in the house as second slave to Margarita's large, ungracious and violent family.

  In Yordan's circle the fundamental law, an eye for an eye, means; if someone steals your child, you steal someone else's child. Two hundred and fifty thousand children disappear in Europe every year. Around five percent are abducted by strangers.

  Jess and Laraine sat at the top of the stairs cuddling each other. Why is the world shitting on me? Laraine screamed in her thoughts.

  "Mummy I'm scared."

  "Shush darling they've gone."

  "What did they want?"

  "I don't know darling."

  "I want daddy. When is daddy coming back?"

  "I don't know sweetheart," Laraine said and her voice quivered.

  "If I promise to be really good. Will daddy come back?"

  "He knows we love him. He just needs time to think about things."

  "He doesn't need to think. I'll be a good girl, tell him, please, I'll be good," Jess said and she got up and ran to her room in a flood of tears.

  "It's not your fault sweetheart," Laraine called after Jess.

  "It's not your fault," she repeated quietly.

  Jess lay on her bed, hugging her pillow, sobbing painfully. She missed her dad. Laraine stared through the front door at the bottom of the stairs. She felt a near death moment with everything seeming to flash past.

  She remembered her wedding day so happy and wonderful. The proud day her husband Bob came back to tell her about his new job as a personal trainer. The special day her child Jessica was born. That day was wonderful and everyone was so happy and relieved that Jess was born healthy.

  They were comfortable and the house was proud in those days. Bob was happy in his job. Money was good. Love was strong for them both. Seven wonderful years then without warning it started to change when Jess was almost four. Life just turned upside down.

  His parents seemed to know what was happening to Jess. At first they offered understanding and advice on specialist treatment. Then they insisted. Bob supported Laraine when she refused the treatment they suggested. Then his parents demanded, as if they knew best, as if they had the right to make a decision for Jess.

  That's when the thundering arguments started. His parents forced him into an impossible choice; them or her. He was torn between his wife and his parents over what was best for Jess. Her in-laws became outlaws. In fact she grew to hate them.

  She felt betrayed and abandoned. It was nine months since Bob left her. Nine long months without one word from him. Nine painful months without his salary to pay the bills. She had no idea where he was or what happened to him.

  He left her on her own to look after Jess; to face his parents who blamed her for his disappearance. He left her to run a home and put food on the table with no income. He left her alone to cope with Jess's curse. He left her a bank mortgage, credit card debt and a car loan to deal with. Eviction and all the ensuing pain were around the corner and making their way straight to her door.

  Laraine's elderly mum helped although she was living near the borderline on a meagre pension. Laraine knew her mum was doing without food and heat to help her and Jess. The thought made Laraine feel sick with worry but she swallowed her pride to put on a face for Jess. She was still to tell her mum about the impending eviction. She was still to ask if she and Jess could move into her mum's small pensioner flat. It would mean breaking the council's tenancy agreement. Her mum will panic. It will stress the three of them.

  Even her friendship with Oliver Mansole had turned sour. He had always been a good friend. He had access to a van and offered to do the removal when the time came to give up the house. Now even he had abandoned her and she had to deal with the thugs looking for him and his drugs.

  Laraine lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. The rain was still beating against the window. A series of TV commercials running through the movie had pleaded for help to support the homeless. She remembered a year ago when she saw the same commercial and thought it must be really horrible to be homeless.

  If someone had told her then that she would soon be homeless she would have laughed in their face. Never in her life did she think it could happen to her, never. The pitiful images in the commercial replayed in her mind and filled her with anxiety. A dreadful feeling of panic writhed in her throat. The beginning of a scream surged from the pit of her lungs but she smothered it and it came out as a loud gasp.

  6

  University of Kinmalcolm, Central Scotland

  The annual October start of the academic year is a time for infectious fun and excitement. Many new student faces appear on the horizon, keen as mustard, exhilarated with thoughts that they have somehow found a new freedom.

  Despite the rising tide of fresher fun the mood in the Enzyme Technology Research Group was tense. More tense than normal as they walked along the corridors of the Alexander Fleming building from their lab to the small seminar room in the next building. It was almost five p.m., break time for some, going home time for others. It was not untypical of Gavin Shawlens to call a meeting at the end of the day.

  Dr Frank Morrus led the way followed by Sharon, Ike and Yee, the postdoctoral researchers then Bethany, Erin, Michael and Wincy, the postgraduate research students. All of them except Frank wore white lab coats. He wore a dark green polo shirt and neatly pressed beige coloured slacks with moccasin-type casual shoes. His hair an uncombed brown mess.

  They met a crowd of students spilling out of a large lecture room. The corridor filled with noisy students hurrying to catch buses, trains, and lifts home. It was raining heavily outside so lots of umbrellas were drawn like swords from their scabbards. Frank knew it was safer to stand against the wall in a single file and let the hoard push past.

  Dr Gavin Shawlens had called the meeting at short notice and they all knew it was not a seminar or a Group catch-up meeting. They chatted and voiced their guesses on what Gavin Shawlens was going to say.

  The rumour mill was red hot with suspicions that either the University was clawing back space so the lab would have to close, or Shawlens had run out of funding, or Shawlens was giving up research because of his recent stomach transplant. Some were panicking that they would be made redundant. Sharon Bonny was the only one unconcerned as her rich New York family paid all her costs.

  Gavin Shawlens and his research techn
ician Christine Willsening walked from his office to the seminar room. He spoke to her in a grovelling apologetic tone and she was holding back a pot of simmering anger.

  "I'm sorry Christine. I just didn't think."

  "What? That I should have a boyfriend."

  "No not that. Okay Christine I shouldn't have turned up at your door. I was worried."

  "So I'm not allowed a life outside your lab."

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it won't happen again. If you want I'll apologise to John."

  "No."

  "Let me speak to him. I'll explain. I'll apologise."

  "Forget it Gavin. He won't speak to you."

  "You can still go. God knows you've plenty of holiday leave outstanding."

  "It's done now, forget it. Leave it alone now. Please."

  "Good news about your brother Simon. Eh?" Gavin said but she didn't answer.

  A few days ago Christine had done something completely out of character. She phoned the HR office and told them she was sick and would be off for a few weeks. Christine is never sick and never takes time off work so Gavin Shawlens went straight over to her flat.

  He found her and her new boyfriend John preparing for a secret romantic holiday to the Lake District in England. There was a blazing argument on the doorstep. Gavin Shawlens instantly disliked John. Thought he was too creepy and too sleekit. Christine saw his disapproval and reacted angrily.

  Gavin was worried she was ill and Christine felt guilty at being found out. Her boyfriend John was furious that his planned romantic holiday had been discovered. The following day, today, Christine reported for work.

  Her secret holiday was off and boyfriend John went on holiday by himself. He and Christine argued for most of the night then split. John was livid with Christine for not making sure their tryst could not be broken.

  Gavin tried to mend the bridge by mentioning Christine's older brother Simon Willsening who had just been promoted to Deputy Editor of the Scottish daily newspaper the Glasgow Herald. He was ten years older, permanently busy and they only really saw each other at family reunions for births, weddings and deaths.