Read Online Bombproof by Michael Robotham - Free Book Online Page B

stories like this all the time, thinks Sami, but it doesn’t stop him spilling his guts. His whole life story comes tumbling out - how his father was a Scottish merchant seaman and his mother a French Algerian refugee when they met in Montpellier and eloped.
    She was a Moslem but didn’t wear the veil. She never mentioned her family. Didn’t call them. Didn’t write. It was as though when she married she ceased to have a history or a bloodline.
    Sami’s father quit the boats and worked in an abattoir in Glasgow, while running an SP operation on the side. He did everything at a hundred miles an hour, full bore - drinking, singing, fighting and fucking. Women loved him.
    Sami’s mother could tolerate his drinking and turn a blind eye to the bookmaking, but she hated the ‘whores’, as she called them.
    ‘What happened to your father?’ asks Ms Wallace.
    ‘He drowned.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘He was drunk.’
    The parole officer is watching him intently, but whatever she’s really thinking is hovering around the edges of her sentences.
    ‘I’m not going back inside,’ Sami tells her, his voice shaking. ‘I just want to find Nadia. Make sure she’s OK. I’ll get a job, I promise. I’ll pay the rent. It’s not the whole future but it’s a plan.’
    ‘Who was the last person to see Nadia?’ she asks.
    ‘A tossbag called Toby Streak.’
    ‘You’ve talked to him?’
    Sami grimaces slightly. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Did he know anything?’
    ‘He mentioned an arrangement with Tony Murphy.’
    ‘Do you know this Murphy?’
    ‘I never met him until today.’
    ‘What does he do?’
    ‘He owns a restaurant, clubs … stuff like that.’
    ‘Nightclubs.’
    ‘Strip clubs.’
    ‘Under the terms of your parole I’m sure you are aware that you’re not supposed to be mixing with criminals or their associates.’
    ‘I know, I know, but it’s about Nadia.’
    ‘If you have concerns for her safety you should take them to the police.’
    ‘I’ve been to the police. They don’t care.’
    Ms Wallace seems conflicted. She’s caught between her professional duty and her innate sense of concern.
    ‘What did this Mr Murphy have to say?’ she asks.
    ‘He said he didn’t know where Nadia was.’
    ‘But you don’t believe him.’
    Sami shrugs. He’s not going to tell her about Murphy’s offer. He’s said too much already.
    Ms Wallace lets her gaze shift over Sami and her fingertips drum on the blotter. Sami can see in her eyes that she’s already made assumptions about him. He’s just another low-life fuck-up, who’ll be back inside within a year.
    Sami stands to leave. ‘Will that be all?’
    ‘Do you have somewhere else to be?’ she asks.
    ‘I have to find my sister.’
    ‘Do you have a photograph of her?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I might know someone who could help you.’
    Sami reaches into his pocket and pulls out a weathered Polaroid taken at Nadia’s sixteenth birthday party. She’s wearing a party hat and draping streamers over Sami’s head.
    Ms Wallace studies the image and then writes a phone number on a piece of paper.
    ‘If you don’t hear from your sister you should give this man a call. His name is Vincent Ruiz and he owes me a big favour.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I was married to him for three years.’

    12
    Friday afternoon. Quarter to six. Ruiz presses the doorbell. Watches Miranda appear behind the frosted glass.
    The door opens. She smiles. Kisses both his cheeks.
    ‘I brought flowers,’ he says.
    ‘So I can see. Are the neighbours missing any?’
    ‘That’s cruel.’
    Miranda leads him down the hall to the kitchen. Ruiz walks four paces behind. She looks great. She always does. Not just for a woman of her age but for any woman. Any age.
    She fills a vase and arranges the flowers. Her cargo pants hang loose on her hips and her blouse is cut just low enough to show him what he used to have access to and is now off-limits. Another downside of divorce.
    Miranda is a probation officer.