The Ultimate Truth Read online

  She didn’t reply. Didn’t even look at me. She just carried on thumping away at the punchbag – thump, thump, thump.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, raising my voice a little.

  She skipped to her right and started hitting the bag even harder – thump, thump, THUMP – still totally ignoring me. It was really annoying. I knew I shouldn’t let it get to me, and I tried telling myself that it simply wasn’t worth getting annoyed about. It was up to her if she wanted to act like a spoiled little kid. But for some reason I didn’t seem to want to listen to myself. Instead, I just stood there for a while, watching her batter the punchbag, and then I said quite calmly, ‘You need to work on your uppercut.’

  That got a reaction.

  ‘You what?’ she snapped, stopping suddenly and glaring at me.

  ‘Your left uppercut,’ I said. ‘You need to dip your shoulder a bit more.’

  ‘Yeah?’ she sneered.

  ‘Your elbow needs to be nearer your hip.’

  ‘You think I don’t know how to throw an uppercut?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  ‘I’m only trying to help,’ she said, mocking me.

  I didn’t rise to her bait, I just stared at her.

  She said, ‘What do you know about boxing anyway?’

  ‘I’ve been boxing since I was a kid.’

  ‘Not here, you haven’t.’

  ‘I go to BBA,’ I told her.

  She grinned. ‘Barton Boxing Academy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Got a rich mummy and daddy, have you?’

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I was too angry to speak. I just gritted my teeth and stared coldly at her. I think she realised she’d said something she shouldn’t have – I could see the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes – and although she didn’t take it back or anything, she at least had the decency to change the subject.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t need your help, OK? I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘I didn’t say you didn’t.’

  ‘Just because I’m a girl—’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  She hesitated for a moment, slightly taken aback. ‘I can fight.’

  ‘I know you can.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘I could kick your ass.’

  I didn’t mean to laugh, it just came out – a quick snort of laughter. I wasn’t laughing at her, I was laughing at the absurdity of the situation. But, of course, she didn’t take it like that. She took it as an insult. And I could tell from the way she was looking at me that I was about to pay for it. She was looking at me in the same way she looked at the punchbag.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ I said, holding up my hands, ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You reckon you could take me?’

  I shook my head. ‘I was just—’

  ‘Well, why don’t we find out, eh?’ She glanced over her shoulder at the nearest boxing ring, saw that it was empty, then turned back to me. ‘What size gloves do you wear?’

  ‘I’m not going to fight you.’

  ‘Why not?’ she sneered. ‘Scared of getting beaten up by a girl?’

  ‘No. I just . . .’

  ‘You just what?’

  I sighed. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘Come on, tough guy,’ she said with a mocking smile. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got. Show me how it should be done.’

  I was aware that people were watching us now. The gym had gone quiet, and a dozen or so faces were turned our way, looking on with amused curiosity.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ the girl said. ‘You get in the ring with me, and if I don’t put you on the floor, I’ll answer your questions. How’s that?’

  I looked at her, staring into her eyes, and I knew there was only one thing to do. Fighting her was out of the question. It didn’t serve any purpose at all. It was pointless, childish, utterly stupid. So what if she – or anyone else – thought I was scared? I didn’t have anything to prove. All I had to do was turn around and walk away. That was the only sensible thing to do. Just turn around, right now, and walk away.

  ‘All right,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘You want a fight? Let’s fight.’

  12

  By the time someone had found me a pair of boxing gloves, a head guard, and a gum shield, and I’d got myself ready and climbed into the ring, I was already regretting my decision. I should have listened to myself. Fighting her was pointless. It was childish and utterly stupid. And I had no idea at all why I’d agreed to it.

  But it was too late to change my mind now.

  We were facing each other in the middle of the ring. Everyone in the gym had stopped what they were doing and had gathered round to watch us, including Mr Ruddy. Some of the younger kids were making the most of it – whooping and laughing, whistling and clapping, cheering on the girl: COME ON, EVIE! PUT HIM DOWN, GIRL! EE-VIE! EE-VIE! EE-VIE!

  At least I knew her name now.

  Evie.

  It was a nice name.

  ‘You ready?’ she said, looking into my eyes.

  ‘How’s this going to work?’ I said.

  She grinned. ‘I’m going to hit you, and you’re going to fall down. That’s how it’s going to work.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I said. ‘How many rounds are we fighting? How long is each round? Who’s going to—?’

  ‘Are you going to fight or just stand there yapping?’

  I stared at her.

  Without taking her eyes off mine, she raised her gloves, dropped into her stance, and started skipping and dancing on the spot. I watched her for a moment, keeping my hands at my side, and then I grudgingly raised my gloves.

  ‘Ready?’ she said.

  I adjusted my feet and got myself balanced. ‘OK, let’s go.’

  She moved so fast that I didn’t have a chance to react. A quick dip of her left shoulder, a half-step towards me, and she hammered her fist into my ribs. The punch knocked all the air out of me, and I sank to one knee, gasping for breath. As I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe, trying to ignore the pain, I was vaguely aware of people cheering and calling out, but it seemed as if they were a long way away. I steadied myself, sucking in a lungful of air, and looked up at Evie.

  She was standing over me, smiling.

  ‘How’s that for a left uppercut?’ she said. ‘Do you think I dipped my shoulder enough?’

  I took another deep breath, heaved myself back to my feet, and squared up to her.

  ‘You sure you want to go on?’ she said, still smiling.

  I flicked a left jab at her head. It wasn’t much of a punch, and she leaned back just in time to take most of the sting out of it, but it was enough to wipe the smile off her face. She glared at me for a second, then lunged forward and swung a right hook at me. I parried it with my left hand and skipped away to my right. She tried again, this time feinting to throw another left uppercut and then switching to a straight right at the last second. It wasn’t a bad move, but I read it a mile off, and just as she was shifting her weight to throw the straight right, I flicked out another left jab. It caught her smack in the face, knocking her off balance. She retaliated instantly, lunging forward with a swinging right hand, but I’d already skipped away from her again, and her punch missed my head by a long way.

  For the next few minutes, the fight continued along the same lines. Evie kept barrelling forward, throwing punch after punch at me, and I kept bobbing and weaving, dancing out of her way. Every now and then I’d catch her with a well-aimed jab to the head. Each time I hit her, she’d back off slightly for a while, trying to control her aggression. But as soon as she started punching again, all the aggression came back. It was like fighting a Tasmanian devil. Although most of her punches missed, she did manage to catch me with a couple of good ones, and while I’d been hit harder before, I hadn’t been hit much harder. I mean, she could really punch. There was no do
ubt she was a pretty good fighter. In fact, she was probably a better fighter than me. But I was the better boxer. Evie might have been bigger and stronger than me, and she was definitely more aggressive, but there’s a lot more to boxing than power and aggression.

  I could see that she was getting tired now. Throwing punches takes a lot out of you, especially if you’ve already been pounding away on a heavy punchbag for hours. And when you get tired, you get sloppy. As Evie lunged towards me again and tried to throw a big right hook, I could see that she wasn’t balanced properly. Her stance was all wrong, her feet out of position. I knew this was my chance to end the fight. Instead of skipping away from her this time, I stood my ground. I let her get close, letting her put all her weight into the punch, and just as she threw the big right hook, I quickly leaned back. Her right hand just missed my chin, and as the weight of her punch swung her off balance, and she stumbled awkwardly to my left, I twisted round and hit her with a short right cross to the side of her head.

  I didn’t mean to knock her out or anything, and I didn’t actually hit her that hard, but because she was already off balance, and she just happened to turn her head into the punch, it caught her in just the right spot – or the wrong spot, from her point of view – and she dropped to the canvas like a sack of bricks.

  Suddenly the gym went very quiet.

  I looked down at Evie, breathing hard, and for a second or two I feared the worst. She wasn’t moving. She was just lying there, face down, her hands at her sides. I quickly crouched down next to her, and was just reaching out to remove her gum shield, when all of a sudden she pushed herself up off the canvas and sat up straight.

  ‘Whew!’ she gasped quietly, blinking her eyes and shaking her head. ‘What happened there?’

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘’Course I’m OK. I tripped over, that’s all. You got lucky.’

  I smiled, relieved that she was all right. I held out my hand. She hesitated a second, then took hold of it and let me help her up.

  ‘We’ll call that one a draw, OK?’ she said.

  I nodded.

  She grinned. ‘But I’m not going to go so easy on you in the next round.’

  ‘The next round?’

  ‘What’s the matter? You had enough?’

  As I stared at her, dumbfounded, Mr Ruddy climbed into the ring and came up to us. ‘I think you’ve both had enough for now,’ he said.

  Evie glared at him. ‘But we’ve only just started.’

  He gave her a stern look. ‘I said, that’s enough.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Don’t push it, Evie,’ he said firmly. ‘All right?’

  She sighed.

  ‘Now shake hands,’ he said to both of us.

  I held out my gloves. Evie paused for a second, then reluctantly lifted her hands and tapped my gloves.

  ‘You’re a hell of a fighter,’ I told her.

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

  ‘I just got lucky,’ I said, smiling.

  She smiled back. ‘You want to get a Coke or something?’

  13

  I assumed we’d be getting a Coke or something from a drinks machine, but instead Evie led me over to a locker room, opened one of the lockers, and took out a rucksack. She pulled a two-litre bottle of Tesco’s Value Cola from the rucksack, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink, then passed the bottle to me.

  ‘You want to sit down?’ she said, indicating a long wooden bench against the wall.

  I sat down and took a drink from the bottle.

  ‘What was your name again?’ she said, dropping her rucksack on the floor and sitting down next to me.

  ‘Travis Delaney.’

  ‘I’m Evie Johnson.’

  I nodded, passing her the bottle. She screwed the cap back on, put the bottle on the floor, then leaned back and scratched her head with both hands. She wore her hair in short spiky dreadlocks, and in the fluorescent light of the locker room the blackish-brown locks glistened with beads of sweat.

  ‘So, Travis Delaney,’ she said, ‘how come you’re so interested in Bashir Kamal?’

  I kept my explanation as brief as possible. I didn’t really want to tell her about Mum and Dad, but I couldn’t see how to avoid it. So I told her they were private investigators, and I told her they’d been looking into Bashir’s disappearance, and then I told her they’d both been killed in a car crash.

  ‘They’re both dead?’ she said, staring wide-eyed at me. ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘God,’ she whispered, putting her hand on my arm. ‘I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have put you through all this crap if I’d known—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters.’ She shook her head. ‘How can you even talk to me after what I said about having a rich mummy and daddy?’

  ‘You weren’t to know, were you?’

  She sighed. ‘I’m really sorry, Travis.’

  She stared silently at the floor for a while.

  I rubbed tentatively at my ribs. They still ached.

  ‘I didn’t really know Bashir very well,’ Evie said thoughtfully. ‘He was pretty quiet, you know? Never really said much to anyone.’

  ‘Did you ever talk to him about anything?’

  ‘Not really. I mean, we always said hello to each other, and he gave me a few words of advice about boxing now and then. You know, little tips about footwork and training, stuff like that. But we never talked about anything personal.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual about him before he disappeared?’

  She looked at me. ‘Well, there was something . . . I mean, I don’t if it’s “unusual” or not, but I remember thinking it was kind of odd at the time.’

  ‘What was it?’

  She rubbed her face, thinking about it. ‘It was the Friday before he went missing. I’d spent most of the evening in here, and I’d seen Bash working out earlier on. He was doing a lot of sparring at the time, getting ready for his big fight. By the time I’d finished my training, I noticed that he wasn’t in the gym any more. Which was a bit strange, because he was usually the last to leave. But I guessed he was talking to Mr Ruddy about something, going over his tactics maybe, or they might have gone to see a fight together somewhere . . .’ Evie shrugged. ‘I didn’t really give it much thought, to be honest. It was only later, when I was on my way home, and I saw Bash sitting in a parked car with a couple of guys in suits, that I began to wonder what he was doing.’

  ‘He was in a car?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘In the passenger seat.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘Colehouse Avenue. It’s a little side street just off Slade Lane. It’s a dead-end road, you know, a cul-de-sac. So nobody uses it much, apart from the people who live there. I was visiting a cousin. She’s got a place at the end of the street. I passed the car on the way to her house.’

  ‘And it was definitely Bashir you saw?’

  ‘Definitely. Like I said, he was in the passenger seat. There was a guy in the driver’s seat and another one in the back.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just talking.’

  ‘Did you recognise the two men?’

  ‘Never seen them before.’

  I took out my mobile and showed her the picture of the man from the funeral. ‘Was he one of them?’

  She studied the photograph. ‘No.’

  I showed her the printout of the other men. ‘What about them?’

  She had a good look, then shook her head. ‘They kind of looked similar, you know, the same type of men. But that’s probably just because they’re all wearing suits.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you know what kind of car it was, do you?’

  ‘I’m just a girl,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘I don’t know anything about cars.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  She laughed. ‘It was a silver Aud
i S6. Do you want the registration number?’

  I couldn’t help looking surprised. ‘You remember the number?’

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and reeled off the number. ‘Do you want me to write it down for you?’ she asked. ‘Hold on . . .’ She reached into her rucksack, pulled out a pen, then took hold of my hand and wrote the number on my palm.

  ‘How come you remember it?’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘I’m good at remembering stuff.’

  I looked at her, frowning.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘No . . . I mean, yeah, of course I believe you. It’s just . . . well, you know. It’s pretty unusual to be able to remember something like that.’

  ‘It’s just a few numbers and letters.’

  ‘But you only saw it once, and that was quite a while ago.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s just something I can do, OK? I have a freakishly good memory. It’s no big deal.’

  I was intrigued, and I wanted to ask her more about it, but I got the feeling that she’d rather I didn’t.

  ‘Did you tell my dad about any of this?’ I asked her.

  ‘I never saw him.’

  ‘Mr Ruddy said he talked to everyone here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About three weeks ago.’

  ‘That was probably when I was sick. I had a really bad stomach bug for three or four days. I was off training for a week.’

  ‘So you haven’t told anyone about seeing Bashir in the car?’

  ‘No one’s asked me about him.’ She looked at me. ‘What do you think’s happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t know. His parents are saying he’s in Pakistan.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I heard.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Just around, you know – rumours, gossip. Is it true?’

  I glanced at my watch and stood up. ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  She got to her feet. ‘Why are you bothering? I mean, you don’t know Bashir, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what does it matter to you where he is?’

  ‘It was my mum and dad’s last case. It might have something to do with what happened to them.’ I sighed. ‘I don’t know . . . it just feels like something I’ve got to do.’