He thinks of his children and their schools, and their friends with pools. A shard of metal slices through his jacket and cuts his arm. He swears, and slips, and falls. Blood starts to seep through as he makes his way back up the pile. The stinking mass of everyone else’s lives. Somewhere in this pile is the box. Somewhere in this pile, his salvation.
He is seeing Hanif at two, at an airport hotel next to Gatwick. Hanif has asked him to bring the box, and has said that if Mitch isn’t there, he will find him and kill him.
But Mitch is not going to die today. Not after everything he has been through. After the life he has made for himself – from the home he grew up in, to the home his children enjoy. He wishes it hadn’t been heroin that had brought him such success, but he wasn’t from a place that gave him a great deal of choice. It was what he grew up with, what he was good at.
But, after this, if he finds the box, when he finds the box, that’s it. Luca is dead, and the Afghans won’t trust him any more. Time to diversify. He’s been talking to the English sparkling wine people. There’s a plot of land in Sussex, in Ditchling, south-facing slope, chalky soil, the works. Mitch will buy it, they’ll run it, a real business.
And if he doesn’t find the box? Well, then, a change of plan. He will still go to Gatwick, but instead of heading to the piano bar at the Radisson he will head straight to check-in and he’ll be on the three p.m. flight to Paraguay before you know it. He knows people out there.
His wife and kids flew out this morning. Kellie has been around long enough to know that if Mitch tells her to pack a suitcase and get the kids out of the country, he’ll have a good reason. She texted him as they were about to take off. The Afghans won’t catch him in Paraguay, that’s for sure. They’d have to get through the Colombians, and they won’t have the heart for it.
Mitch continues to clamber up the slope of rubbish, arm bleeding, clothes soaking, legs bruised and aching. He’d gone straight to the tip after leaving Joyce’s flat, but they don’t let you climb the rubbish piles. So a couple of calls and a contact in Kent County Council have bought him ninety minutes in which to search today. A group of men in hi-vis jackets are sheltering in a Portakabin with tea-steamed windows, wondering what the Scouser in the padded jacket is up to. One of the more enterprising ones even offered to help, but Mitch wants to do this alone. None of them recalled seeing a small terracotta box coming in on a Kent refuse truck.
Mitch steps on a doll that says ‘Love me’ in the deep, slow voice of a toy with low batteries. The wind blows a KFC box into his face. He bats it aside and keeps climbing. He is nearly at the top now, the wind howling around him, carrying the smells of everything that has been left behind, everything that has been discarded. Still no box. Mitch knows he is not going to find it. He knows he is going to have to flee. To take his wife from her job, his kids from their friends, to start anew, somewhere unfamiliar. He breathes in the stench and welcomes it. For a moment his heart skips as he sees a box. He digs down, through nappies and toasters, clearing a line of sight. He imagines, for a bright moment, some kind of glory, but, as he dislodges a spaghetti of coat hangers, he sees that this box is simply an old orange crate. Of course it is. Mitch starts to laugh.
Up and up he climbs, no longer really looking, just anxious to reach the top. Why? Who knows? We all want to reach the top, don’t we?
Mitch crawls onto a fridge freezer, green with slime. This is it. The very top, nowhere left to climb. Gingerly he pushes himself up to standing. A broken, bleeding, soaking man at the top of the world. He looks out at the view. Nothing. Just grey cloud, grey rain and grey mist.
It will be sunnier in Paraguay, and he will find work. Build a business. Something wholesome. Fruit or something. If any of the Colombians want to come and say hello, then that’s fine. He’ll tell them he’s out of the game. They can keep their cocaine, and he’ll keep his bananas. If they grow bananas in Paraguay.
Mitch wipes a brown smear from his Rolex. One p.m. Time to head to Gatwick. He rests his hands on his knees for a moment, recovering from the exertions of his climb, and preparing for his descent. With decent traffic he can –
A pain shoots through Mitch Maxwell’s left arm. He clutches it. He feels the rain pouring down his face, before realizing that it is no longer raining. Mitch slumps onto his knees, then his knees slip from under him on the slime of the freezer. There he lies for a few moments longer, before Mitch Maxwell, at the top of the pile, heart on fire, gasping in pain, filth and greyness all around him, shuts his eyes for the final time.
86
Ibrahim leans his elbow on the roof of the squad car, and listens to the traffic thunder by in the distance.
Chris and Donna arrived with SIO Jill Regan about fifteen minutes after Joyce and Elizabeth left. Ron just had time to sneak in his full English breakfast, and Ibrahim has rarely seen him look so happy. He is currently on the other side of the car, contentedly patting his stomach through his new jumper, which is actually a wonderful colour on him.
‘What are we calling that? Cerise?’ says Ibrahim.
‘Red,’ says Ron.
The three officers are listening to the recording in the back of their squad car. One by one they emerge. Jill holds up the phone.
‘The other voice on this recording?’ Jill begins. ‘It’s Garth?’
‘It’s unmistakable,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Where is he?’ Chris asks.
‘He got away,’ says Ron. ‘Couldn’t stop him, big lad.’
‘You told us to be here at three,’ says Jill. ‘And this phone starts recording at just before two.’
‘Not my area,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You’d need to talk to Elizabeth.’
‘And where is Elizabeth?’ asks Chris.
‘Back at Coopers Chase,’ says Ibrahim. ‘As far as I know. We’re trying to give her a bit of space at the moment.’
Elizabeth and Joyce are currently being driven home by Mark from Robertsbridge Taxis. It was explained to Mark that the job was fairly time sensitive, and he wouldn’t be able to join Ron for the full English breakfast. He had looked crestfallen, but, at heart, he is a professional.
‘So you and Ron organized this whole thing yourselves?’ says Chris.
‘We are capable men,’ says Ibrahim, as Ron lets out a small belch, and apologizes.
‘To be clear,’ says Jill. ‘You told us to be here at three p.m., and that you’d deliver Nina Mishra, Garth and the box to us. I see Mishra, but I don’t see Garth or the box? You told us to trust you?’
‘I would say this,’ says Ibrahim. ‘In our defence. We have already delivered the heroin to you. And we are now delivering the murderer of Kuldesh Sharma and Samantha Barnes.’
‘Murderess,’ says Ron.
‘It’s just “murderer” these days, Ron,’ says Ibrahim.
‘But the man who probably murdered Luca Buttaci has mysteriously vanished. Maybe murdered Dom Holt too,’ says Jill. ‘And where is the box?’
Ron shrugs.
‘I promise you it’s quicker just to accept it, ma’am,’ says Donna. ‘It honestly saves so much time.’
‘The box will surface, I’m sure,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And, as for Garth, justice will catch up with him one day. But I suspect your superiors will be delighted that two murders have been cleared up and their heroin has been recovered. I suppose you have tested it by now?’