Thicker Than Water

‘It’s new,’ Cheadle assured her. ‘I picked it up from the cash-and-carry on the way here. Extra large. If it’s too big, it doesn’t matter. You can just roll the sleeves and the legs up.’

‘I’ll need somewhere private to change,’ Trudie said.

‘No, you won’t,’ Cheadle demurred. ‘You’ll do it right here. You can keep your underwear on, and it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. But no pockets, no hoods, no buttons or zips. That’s the deal, love. Take it or leave it.’

Gwillam nodded and Trudie stripped. You can say what you like about religious fanatics, but they show a dedication to the cause that’s nothing short of admirable. Some of them have very shapely bottoms, too, I couldn’t help but notice.

The contents of the rucksack turned out to be a baggy sky-blue tracksuit with a Nike swoosh on the front that was fooling nobody. Sweatshop chic. Trudie put it on without complaint, and then reached for one of her boots.

‘No shoes, neither,’ said Cheadle. ‘It’s a warm night, love. You’re not going to catch cold. Now let’s have a look at you.’

From a side pocket of the rucksack he took a hand-held electronic reader - to my untrained eye, it looked identical to the ones that the security guys at airports use - and played it over Trudie from head to foot while she stood there with her arms folded, staring at the ground. Her face was carefully blank: if she was feeling humiliated and resentful because of all of this, she wasn’t showing it.

‘Okay, said Cheadle, ‘you’re clean. Let’s go.’

‘I need to bring the boy down,’ I told him. ‘Bic. Did Nicky explain about that part?’

Cheadle shrugged, already turning his back on me. ‘I didn’t ask him to. He told me there was three of you, and to bring something for the kid to lie on. All I needed to know. You do what you have to do, I’ll get our lady friend set up in the back. Come on, love.’

He led Trudie round to the back of the van and threw the doors open. I went upstairs and collected Bic from his parents.

‘You’ll keep him safe,’ Jean said as I hefted him in my arms - her tone halfway between a plea and a warning.

‘Scout’s honour,’ I said. ‘Trust me, Jean. I’m not letting anyone hurt him.’ Or at least, it would be over my dead body - and probably a couple of others.

Bic weighed next to nothing: I could probably have carried him one-handed. But my ribs were reminding me of the hard time they’d had of it lately, and I had to pause and get my breath back when I got to the bottom of the eight flights and came out onto the concrete apron. Cheadle was waiting in the van, Gwillam’s stooges standing in a cluster looking tough because there was fuck-all else they could do.

Cheadle opened the back d»enewasoor of the van for me. I stopped dead, staring inside. Trudie was cross-legged on the floor, her arms handcuffed behind her back. He’d put something over her head that looked very like a bondage rig: a helmet with a rubber face mask attached, the whole thing secured under her chin and around her neck with two thick straps. There were no eyeholes in the mask.

‘Can she breathe?’ I asked.

‘Course she can breathe,’ Cheadle snapped. ‘She just can’t effing see, is all. The kid goes there.’

He pointed to a bare and maculate mattress thrown down diagonally across the floor of the van. I leaned forward and laid Bic down on it carefully. He was still twitching and muttering, but he never even came close to waking. I wished I’d remembered to bring a blanket. Cheadle was right, the night was warm enough to make blankets unnecessary: it would just have made this feel less like a kidnapping.

Cheadle slammed the door shut and I went round to the passenger side.

‘Trudie is in your safe keeping, Castor,’ Gwillam reminded me. ‘No less than the boy.’

I nodded, acknowledging the point. ‘We should be back inside of an hour,’ I said. ‘One way or another. Be ready for us. I want to get this over with. And Gwillam - if we’re followed, we stop. No second chances.’

I climbed into the passenger seat and there was a solid metallic chunking sound as Cheadle reached down to lock the doors from his side.

‘You got a mobile on you?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ I admitted.

‘Turn it off. They might not know your number, but if they do you might just as well be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Better put it in there, for the duration.’ He pointed down to a box at my feet. I’d taken it to be a toolbox but when I opened it, it proved to have thicker sides than that, the interior space small and cluttered. Cluttered with telecommunications gear, mainly: esoteric stuff whose purposes I didn’t know and didn’t care to guess: there were even some naked circuit boards.

‘Right,’ said Cheadle, ‘we’re off.’

He backed down the steps again, bumpity bumpity bump, and reversed out onto the road.

‘Is Trudie going to be okay back there?’ I asked.