by Alex Carver
Worried that with every footstep she was going to encounter a squeaky floorboard, which might alert her kidnappers to the fact that she was moving around, she crossed to the bucket. It was shiny red, obviously new, and empty; her examination of it left her with no more idea of its purpose than she had before.
Leaving the bucket, she was sure she would find out what it was for sooner or later, even if she didn’t like it, she crossed to the door. When she reached it, she discovered that not only had the handle been removed, but the lock on her side of the door was blocked up. She ran her fingers around the edge of the door, trying to find some way to get it open, to no avail. She gave up on that after a fruitless couple of minutes, and made her way over to the board nailed to the wall opposite; she was sure it covered a window, a possible means of escape for her, and after examining it she thought she might be able to uncover it.
She was forced to abandon her efforts to pry the board away from the wall after she sliced her palm open, drove a splinter under one nail, and nearly tore another nail off. She might have continued, despite the injuries, if there had been any sign that she was getting anywhere in removing the board, but she wasn’t.
Frustrated, and depressed by her lack of success, Alice sank to the floor beneath the window. Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped to her blouse as she hugged her knees to her chest and sucked at the bloody wound on the palm of her right hand.
21
Burke was already at the Keating house when Stone got there. They had split up after briefing their team at the station and assigning duties; Burke had returned to Griffin Games to collect a list of personnel dismissed from the company within the past two years, while Stone had gone home to let his wife know he would be working overnight, and to collect a change of clothes.
Stone found his partner in the kitchen. “I see you’re making the most of the situation, Stephen,” he remarked, nodding at the plate of chicken, covered in a sauce of some kind, new potatoes, peas, carrots and cauliflower.
“I have a plate for you as well, inspector, if you’re hungry,” Mrs Wembley said, getting to her feet. “And there’s fresh coffee in the pot.”
That was music to Stone’s ears. “Thanks.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and accepted the offered meal gratefully – he hadn’t wanted to take the time to stop for a meal at home. “Justin picked up Jerry Logan earlier,” he told his partner as he cut himself a forkful of chicken and lifted it to his mouth.
“Where’d he find him? Burke asked after washing down the last mouthful of his dinner with a sip of coffee.
“David Ashford’s, apparently,” Stone answered. “He went there to check on Ben’s alibi, and found his brother there, playing a game and drinking beer. It seems Ashford got a bit aggro when he was questioned about Ben’s alibi, so Justin ended up bringing both of them in so they can sober up before he questions them again.”
“Did he have any problems?”
“He said Ashford got a bit aggro, but that’s all. Why do you ask?”
Burke smiled. “I looked up Ashford’s file while you were with the chief – he’s six-five and seventeen stone of muscle, and he was a boxer in his youth. I wouldn’t have put it past Justin to say the wrong thing and get himself knocked out.”
“He’s not likely to have said anything to me if that had happened. If he did get himself thumped, I’m sure we’ll know about it sooner or later,” Stone smiled at the thought of his subordinate getting hit, though he knew it wasn’t very nice of him to do so.
His expression as neutral as he could make it, Burke changed the subject. “Have you been told that the tech expert from Scotland Yard is here?”
Stone hadn’t, and said so. “Where is he?” he asked.
“The library,” Burke told him. “He and his assistant/partner arrived about twenty minutes before I did, apparently, and started setting up straight away. I haven’t introduced myself yet, I thought it best to leave them to it and wait till you got here.”
“Evening, Inspector Evans I take it,” Stone said upon entering the library. “I’m Detective Inspector Stone, I’m in charge of this investigation,” he introduced himself with an outstretched hand, which was shaken by his fellow inspector.
“Terry Evans, and this is Sergeant Hunt, Dana,” the inspector provided his half of the introductions.
“You’re the tech experts who are going to help us catch these kidnappers,” Stone said. “How exactly are you going to do that?” he asked. Even after several courses he struggled with computers and the more technical side of investigations – he was a bit of a luddite, and not afraid to admit it.
“Well, the kidnappers could get in touch in one of a few ways: by email, by calling the landline, by calling or texting a mobile belonging to either one of the family or a member of staff.” Evans paused to wet his lips from a glass of water and then continued, “They might even use an instant messaging program, or one of any number of other communication programs, like Skype.” He smiled at the look on his Stone’s face. “There’s no need to feel daunted or overwhelmed; by the time we’re finished, we’ll be able to track any communications in or out of here, no matter where they come from.
“This isn’t going to be easy, I don’t want to give the impression it will be. There are ways the kidnappers can make it difficult to trace their communications, ways they can find from the internet with a bit of searching, but all they can do is slow us down. Even if they use a mobile phone and a wireless internet access point, or something similar, we’ll track them down.”
Stone liked his confidence, he just hoped it wasn’t misplaced.
22
Lisa was fed up of arguing with her friend; the argument was bad enough, but it was made all the worse by the need for them to keep their voices low to avoid being overheard by her parents.
“I told you, I’m not going to the police.”
“We have to,” Megan told her. “You saw the news, the old guy’s still in hospital, still in a coma, and we saw who did it. We have to tell the police.”
“We’ve been over this,” Lisa said in a hoarse whisper, her ears pricked as she listened for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “We didn’t see who knocked the old guy down, so there’s nothing for us to tell the police.”
Megan couldn’t believe the way her friend was acting. “They nearly ran us down, you know that, and the old guy was knocked down just a couple of streets away; do you really think it could have been someone else, the streets were empty apart from them.” She could see her friend was about to speak and hurried on, “I know why you don’t want to go to the police…you’re worried your parents will find out we weren’t where we said we were going to be.”
“You’re bloody right I am; you know what my dad’ll do if he finds out where we were.” Lisa’s eyes darted to the door, as if she expected to find it standing open and her dad in the doorway, ready to punish her for her lies.
“You think things will be any different for me?” Megan knew she would be in just as much trouble as her friend, and hoped she could avoid it, but was prepared to face it if she had to. “What’s more important, though, staying out of trouble or doing the right thing?”
23
Mason sipped at his almost cold coffee while his partner got the recorder set up, and once that was done he got straight down to business. “Where were you between one-thirty and three on Sunday night?”
“I already answered that question before,” Ben Logan said without even looking at his solicitor. “Don’t you guys talk to one another. Try asking Stone, he’s the one in charge of the case ain’t he.”
Mason gave a small smile. “Not anymore. Detective Inspector Stone has had to take over another investigation; I am now in charge of this case. I have spoken to the inspector, as it happens; I’ve also looked into the alibi you provided earlier.”
“Well then, why’re you asking the same questions he did?”
“Because, Mr Logan, I don’t believe your alibi,” Mason told
him. “Your friend, Mr Ashford, gave the same as you, but the only part of it we’ve been able to confirm is that you, your brother, and Mr Ashford were in the Horse and Jockey until it closed at midnight. After that we ran into a few problems; none of the staff at the takeaway you say you went to; Nando’s according to Mr Ashford, remember serving the three of you, and you don’t appear on the shop’s CCTV footage from Sunday night.” He paused for several moments to see if either Ben or his solicitor were going to respond to that, when they didn’t, he continued, “Nor do any of you appear on any of the CCTV footage recorded on the cameras to be found between the Horse and Jockey and Mr Ashford’s home – my team and I have spent the last few hours going through the footage.” Still Ben said nothing, though his solicitor did look at him questioningly. “Why don’t you tell me where you really were between one-thirty and three on Sunday morning.”
Ben finally responded by leaning over to hold a whispered conversation with his solicitor; it lasted for about a minute and then he said, “Guess we got unlucky and didn’t walk by any of the cameras you checked.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal and nothing to worry about.
Mason smiled. “I don’t see how that’s possible; there is no route you could have taken to get from the Horse and Jockey to Mr Ashford’s house without passing at least one of the cameras. If you include the stop at Nando’s for food, which can’t be proved, then you would have passed, and been visible on, two or more cameras. Now, I’ll ask you again, Mr Logan, where were you on Sunday morning between one-thirty and three?”
“I was at Ash’s place from about one, with Ash and my brother, we was there for the rest of the night,” Ben said.
Mason studied Ben Logan without speaking for almost a minute – as much as Ben tried to project confidence and innocence, Mason could see in his eyes that he was troubled by the ease with which his alibi had been punctured. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, maybe Mr Ashford will, or your brother; yes, Mr Logan, we found Jerry, he was at Mr Ashford’s and is now in custody. We’ll be questioning both of them once they sober up.”
24
Constable Robin Hanks stifled a yawn as he slouched a little lower on the chair he occupied outside the hospital room which held Julia Harris and Brian Jacobs. He had an easy assignment that was putting him to sleep, but he was startled into full wakefulness by a sudden burst of music.
He shot to his feet as though scalded, and looked around a little wildly for the source of the music. It took him a moment to realise that the music was coming from the room he had been ordered to guard. Pushing open the door he entered the room. It was dark, the only illumination came from the corridor behind him, and the machines monitoring the two patients, but Hanks had no difficulty figuring out where the music was coming from; it’s source was a plastic bag on a chair in the corner of the room. The bag held Brian Jacobs’ clothes, and in the inside pocket of the chauffeur’s jacket he found the man’s mobile phone, which chose that moment to stop ringing.
A quick check of the phone revealed that the missed call came from someone called Penny. Hanks slipped the phone back into the pocket, since the call had no bearing on his duty at that time, though he made a mental note to let DI Stone know about it at the first opportunity. Of more immediate interest to him was the envelope he found in the same pocket, an envelope addressed not to Brian Jacobs but to Owen Keating.
*****
“This it?” Stone asked, indicating the envelope and sheet of paper which sat on the table at the end of Brian Jacobs’ bed.
Though the room’s main light blazed overhead, neither the chauffeur nor Julia Harris showed any sign of being aware of it – they were equally oblivious to the small group that was taking up all the space in the room. Brian Jacobs was still unconscious, and Julia Harris remained in shock.
“Yes, sir,” Hanks said with a nod. “I found it in the inside pocket of his jacket when his phone rang.”
Stone slipped on a pair of latex gloves, to avoid contaminating any fingerprints or DNA evidence there might be, and then picked up the envelope and ransom note in turn. There was little for him to see - the envelope looked no different to millions of others, and the ransom note, a brief thing printed in black ink, was on a very ordinary sheet of white paper. The paper and the envelope might be ordinary, which would make it hard for the forensics team to get anything from them, but Stone had confidence that they would discover something, whether it was some minute trace of DNA or a fingerprint.
“At least we know what they want now,” Stone remarked to Burke, who was standing at his shoulder. “It’s not much.” He was caught out by a yawn, which reminded him that he had been on his feet for almost fifteen hours, and it was likely to be a while longer before he could get any sleep. “But it’s something.” Carefully, he slipped both the envelope and the ransom note into the clear plastic bag his partner held for him. “Take it to the station, would you, Stephen, and tell the lab boys I want it gone over ASAP, this is top priority, ahead of anything else they might be doing.”
“Sure, Nate.” Without another word Burke turned and left the room with the plastic evidence bag. Before he headed to the police station, however, he found himself a vending machine, from which he got a cup of black, heavily sweetened, vile-tasting coffee.
25
“…how would me being here have made any difference? It’s not like she was kidnapped here.”
Stone entered the Keating house to find an argument in progress between Owen Keating and a young man, whose resemblance to Keating led Stone to assume he was the as yet unseen son, Ryan. What had caused the argument, he couldn’t guess, and he doubted it had any bearing on his investigation, or his efforts to rescue Alice Keating from those who had taken her.
Not wanting to get in the way of arguing family members, Stone skirted the foyer and made his way into the library. As important as the ransom note was, he didn’t think just then was the moment to bring it up.
“I know that, but I’ve been trying to get hold of you all afternoon and evening. Where have you been?”
“I was out, having fun. What does it matter?”
“You’re always out having fun,” Owen snapped at his son. “You should have been here; your mother needed your support, she needs it now. You can’t tell me you didn’t get the message I left on your answerphone, but you’re too selfish to think of others. Alice would have been here if the situation was reversed.”
“Why’m I not surprised you’re comparing me to her, to your precious Alice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Owen wanted to know.
“Why don’t you just come out and say it; you wish it was me that was kidnapped instead of Alice. She’s your perfect little girl, and I’m just the screw-up you’d be happy to be rid of.”
Though he was in the library, and had closed the door behind him, Stone could still hear the argument going on between father and son. He tensed involuntarily at the telling silence from Owen Keating, which stretched on uncomfortably for several long moments.
“Go on, father, admit it, we both know it’s the truth,” Ryan urged his father. “You wish I’d been kidnapped, not your perfect little Alice.”
“What do you want me to say?” Keating asked of his son, a weary note in his voice, audible to those in the library, though they tried not to listen.
“The truth!” Ryan told him.
“Yes!” Owen Keating snapped. “I wish it was you they’d kidnapped. You’ve been nothing but trouble since Alice was born, and you just keep getting worse. It doesn’t seem to matter what your mother and I say or do, you go out and do whatever the hell you want, and you don’t give a damn who gets hurt, or how much I have to pay to keep you out of jail.” His voice rose as his anger grew, and it became clear he was voicing things he had been holding in for some time. “Do you have any idea how much it’s cost me this year alone?”
“A fraction of what you’re going to pay to get your precious Alice back, I’m sure.”
“I don’t yet know how much her kidnappers want for her release.”
“You’ll pay it, no matter how much it is. You wouldn’t pay a penny for me, though, would you.” Bitterness filled Ryan Keating’s voice. “You’ve had no time for me since Alice arrived. You just shoved me off to one boarding school after another, and the further away the better. The only time you pay attention to me is when I get in trouble, and even then, you’re more concerned with limiting the bad press and protecting your business than you are with me.
“Hell, even when I got my degree you were more concerned about me getting drunk the night before the ceremony and crashing my car.”
“How long has that been going on?” Stone asked of Evans, who was doing something on the laptop that controlled the equipment he and his assistant had set up. Stone was sure he wasn’t actually doing anything, and was merely pretending, so it wouldn’t be obvious he was listening to the argument.
“Ten, fifteen minutes,” Evans answered. “It started the moment Ryan Keating got here. I’m not even sure how it started, though I’m sure the son’s been drinking and that contributed to it. As far as I can tell,” he said, revealing that he had been paying more attention than appearances suggested, “it’s a continuation of something that’s been going on for a while. It seems Ryan Keating is a bit of a selfish bugger,” Evans kept his voice low so he wouldn’t be overheard by the arguing father and son, “who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, and he’s on the verge of losing his allowance and being written out of the will because of it.