by Danny Miller
Parker pushed his plate to one side, the toast abandoned. ‘I know that in 1967 something of great value was taken from a private bank vault—’
‘In Bond Street.’
‘I see you’ve done your research, Mr Banes.’
‘I’m not an educated man, but I like to read up on things that interest me.’
‘Tell me, do you really believe the paintings hold the secret to where it’s buried?’
‘Yes. I have it on good authority. From a trusted source.’
‘The man who stole the other painting?’
‘Let’s not hold that against him, Dr Parker. I don’t think any of us involved in this … undertaking want the police involved.’
‘Quite.’
‘That policeman leaving your office in a hurry, what does he know?’
‘Inspector Frost. Yes, he looks like a bit of a scruffy yobbo, but he’s sharp, clever. In a household full of valuable things, the only thing taken was Conrad’s contribution. For a detective of his stripe, it’s just the kind of anomaly you look for. It would have been better if your … “trusted source” had also stolen some other things, to cover his tracks.’
‘Unlike your detective, he’s not sharp or clever. But in all fairness, he was only taking his mentor’s advice. Get what you came for, then get out.’
‘Still, with my Echo advertisement, well, I rather fear I may have alerted him to the possibilities of the painting having greater meaning. But we’re not the only ones after it, you know that?’
Banes nodded. ‘I read about him in the local paper. Jimmy McVale. And, of course, he’s a dangerous man. Him being in Denton would be a bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, it would. But don’t you see, Mr Banes, it adds validity to our shared beliefs.’ Parker’s eyes shone, he was excited now. ‘It’s just another piece of the puzzle all coming together. Maybe that’s why Conrad painted three pictures, because it was safer that way. You don’t see the bigger picture until you get all three of them in front of you, and then the mystery—’
Parker broke off. He cursed himself inwardly. Like a true academic, he was prone to getting carried away and expounding his theories through thesis and antithesis. You could do that with students, but not with men like Banes.
‘… You didn’t know about the third painting … did you?’
Banes smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter, Stephen. Now we really are on the same page.’
Thursday (3)
‘I heard a car pulling up behind us. There was a skidding sound. Not an emergency stop, but just like they’d spotted a parking space. I was going to turn around, take a look, like you do. Then Ruby started telling me about … about her Cabbage Patch dolls … how she enjoys looking after them … but how she feels that she loves Miss Lucy most of all … and how sad that makes the others …’
The sheer torturous strain of recalling her child’s abduction was finally proving too much, and Gail Hanson’s valiant efforts in giving as detailed an account as possible faltered. She buried her face in the wad of Kleenex that was already in her hand.
Frost was with DC Clarke in the Hansons’ home. It was a modern home, aggressively so, with a split-level bunker-style design, made of glass and concrete in equal measure. It reminded Frost of the campus he’d just left. Inside was all very minimal, too, with blond wooden floors, two Italian steel-framed black leather sofas either side of a vast smoked-glass coffee table, and some impenetrable modern art on the walls. But for all its sophisticated design, given the Care Bears on the floor, and three Cabbage Patch dolls propped up on one of the sofas, it couldn’t quite disguise the fact that there was an eight-year-old living here.
An eight-year-old who had just been snatched from the arms of her mother.
Gail Hanson had some grazes on her forehead and some bruising on her arms and back where the assailant, or assailants, had rushed her from behind and forced her face down on to the pavement. They’d grabbed little Ruby Hanson, still clutching her mother’s hand, and pulled her into a car. When uniforms tried to put Gail into an ambulance to take her to A&E to get her checked over, the distraught mother had become insistent that she needed to be at home for when Ruby came back.
She was a slim attractive woman in her early thirties, with dark straight shiny hair worn in a pageboy style. She matches the house, thought Frost: expensive-looking, modern, sophisticated. But she can’t hide the fact that right now her heart is breaking.
Frost gave DC Clarke the nod to resume the questioning when she thought it appropriate.
‘The car, Gail, I know you said that you didn’t see it approaching, it was behind you, but when you got up, what did you see?’
‘Nothing … It was too late by then. By the time I got up the road was empty, I didn’t see any cars … not even the sound of an engine.’
‘How long were you on the ground?’
‘I don’t know … I just froze … I didn’t know Ruby was gone. I thought they’d taken my bag … you know, just mugged me. So I just lay there, waiting for them to go … I didn’t think for a minute they’d take Ruby. I squeezed her hand … muttered, it’ll be OK … It will be OK …’
Little Ruby looked just like her mother. A mop of dark hair, hazel eyes, small doll-like features. DC Arthur Hanlon was organizing the door-to-door. Uniforms were showing copies of the Hansons’ photos of Ruby. Hanlon, knowing that time was of the essence, hadn’t bothered going back to Eagle Lane – he knew a photocopying place that was much closer. For a big man, Arthur Hanlon could move quickly when necessary (three kids of his own, he said, was all the incentive he needed).
‘OK, Gail, you’re doing great. We just need to be clear on what you saw, no matter how seemingly small.’
Gail Hanson gave an energetic nod of her head, and pulled herself together for the umpteenth time. Frost threw her encouraging looks.
‘Of course … It was when I tried to squeeze Ruby’s hand that I realized she was gone. I got up, there was the van … A green van with some writing on the side. A furniture van? I don’t know, it was parked there, it blocked my view …’
Frost had made a note of the van earlier. The abduction had taken place on Penfield Road in West Denton. Tree-lined, well lit, nice detached houses. He knew it was a removal van. When he’d first arrived at the scene it struck him as being very conveniently parked for the abductors, almost as if they’d timed it to perfection. The van obscured the view from the other side of the street, and the high walls and well-kept hedges obscured the view from the houses on this side. It was the perfect place to strike.
‘… By the time I got past the green van, the car was gone. I assumed it had turned into the next road … I can’t remember the name—’
‘Chesterfield Avenue.’
She looked up at Frost, surprised. He’d introduced himself but it was the first time he’d spoken since. She saw that he had a cigarette in his hand. Unlit. Rotating it in his nicotine-stained fingers, like a prop or some worry beads.
‘Yes. Thank you. I think I might have seen the car otherwise. It’s a long straight road, I’d have seen it.’
Frost smiled. ‘You say a car. Are you sure of that? Not a van or … sounds silly, but a minibus?’
Gail Hanson tilted her head to the side as though the suggestion offered a new perspective. ‘I know what you mean. I assumed it was a car because it just sounded like a car. But I can’t be sure.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Frost. ‘We have officers covering the whole area, going door to door. They always find something out, someone has always seen something.’
She drew a deep breath that indicated she derived some comfort from that. She then turned her attention back to DC Clarke, but Frost wasn’t finished yet.
‘Can I ask you something else, Gail?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you smell anything?’
‘Sorry?’
Frost said, ‘You said this person pushed you down, so they were on top of you, or certainly
close to you, right?’ She nodded. ‘Did you smell anything … a scent, aftershave, perfume, something distinctive or everyday, cigarette smoke, BO, anything?’
Mrs Hanson closed her eyes, as if shutting off her senses, all apart from one, as she relived the moment. If Gail had seen her assailant she would have obviously known the gender. If pressed now, she would have probably said it was a man. Because even without the statistics in front of them, Frost and the team knew it was a crime that was committed more often by men than women. And that lazy assumption could be the difference between finding a victim in twenty-four hours rather than forty-eight, between life and death. But sensory recall could sometimes be just as potent. The smell, the weight, the feel, that too could lead to something beyond probabilities and statistics, to something more like the truth.
Her eyes opened suddenly, big and round, as a fresh memory spiked. ‘I could smell smoke like cigarette smoke – no, no, stronger than that. More like cigars. My father smoked cigars. My mother hated them but I always liked the smell.’
‘Would you say it was a man?’
‘Didn’t I already?’
‘No.’
‘It was a man, I’m sure of that.’
Frost pressed her. ‘A big man, heavy man, small man? Take your time …’
She sat forward, head in hands. As she thought, Frost glanced over at the tape recorder on the coffee table to make sure it was still rolling. When possible, he always insisted they tape these interviews. The victims of a crime were usually a bundle of jangling nerves, talking nineteen to the dozen, and it was easy to miss clues buried within clues, whilst every little detail mattered at this stage. Frost liked to have the tapes transcribed, then play them again with a red pen in his hand – listening for the inflections, the trembles, the assertions and the false notes.
Gail lowered her hands and looked at the detective. ‘My legs went first, like in a rugby tackle, I guess. My husband plays rugby, I go to watch him sometimes. Don’t know why I said that. Maybe because I always cringe when he gets tackled. It felt like that. Then he pushed my head down. He had big hands, I could feel them all around the back of my head. He didn’t lie on top of me, but from his hands … and just the way he felt, his presence … does that makes sense?’ Frost gestured that it did. ‘So yes, I would say he was a big man.’
‘How tall are you, Mrs Hanson?’
‘Me? Quite tall, five foot eight.’
There was the sound of a key scraping in the lock of the front door, some fast footfalls in the hallway and Richard Hanson entered the room. He looked in pain. Gail rushed over to her husband and folded herself into his arms. Frost recognized him from the framed photos on the side table. He was a big fella, around six two. You would know if you’d been rugby tackled by him, thought Frost. A handsome-looking man with thick dark brown hair swept back, a lantern jaw sprinkled with designer stubble, and a slender nose with a crook in it. He was fashionably dressed all in black, with a long raglan-sleeved coat that almost reached the floor. Like a cloak, it gave him a dramatic sweep.
Frost couldn’t imagine what the perfect couple looked like, doubted there even was one, but against the backdrop of the designer house – he an architect, she a homemaker – they wouldn’t have seemed out of place in one of those glossy magazines that Sue Clarke was always flicking through. It just showed: no matter how perfect someone’s life appeared, they couldn’t insulate themselves from the world’s imperfections, the failures and sickness of others.
The drive here must have been hellish, and fast. Richard Hanson’s face looked like he had had the blood drained from it. He peppered his wife’s face with kisses, a face that was now damp with tears.
Through thick breaths he asked, ‘What’s happening? Are you going to find her?’
Frost confidently said yes, then added, ‘You’re an architect, Mr Hanson, is that in Denton?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’
‘Is that where you’ve come from now?’
He shook his head, looking like he was trying to work out the reason for the question.
‘We need to know where everyone was at the time of the abduction, and that means everyone. Eliminating everyone we can from our enquiries. You understand?’
‘Yes, of course. I was in Wilsmere today, seeing a client.’
Frost carried on staring at him with an unrelenting and questioning gaze – he wanted more.
‘I was there from about midday … until I got the call from Tony, one of my partners, then I drove straight here.’
‘Wilsmere. Where have I seen that?’ Frost stuck the unlit cigarette in his mouth.
‘It’s a small town near—’
‘I know where it is, Mr Hanson, but I want to know why it’s ringing bells.’
‘Jarrett & Sons have their head office there. Wilsmere is mentioned on all their billboards. They’re still a local family firm, very proud of it, employ most of the town in one capacity or another …’ Richard Hanson must have read Frost’s face. ‘… You don’t think this has got anything to do with …?’
Frost ignored the unwritten but obvious house rule and did what he’d been threatening to do since he’d got there: he lit his cigarette. No one protested. Sated, he thought to himself, Let’s hope so, let’s bloody well hope so.
Thursday (4)
As Banes approached the caravan, he could see the light was on. He wondered whether Kevin Wheaton was reading the paper. One of the nationals, the red tops, not that little rag that Denton put out, which was only concerned with what was happening in its immediate environs. Although Banes had to admit, there did seem to be a lot happening in Denton since he’d arrived.
He’d discovered a path to get to the caravan without passing that awful hippie encampment, with its smelly protestors, how he loathed people like that. And he certainly didn’t want to be bumping into them tonight. He had a copy of the Daily Express tucked under his arm, just in case Kevin hadn’t read the papers. He suspected Kev was more interested in the stash of porno mags he’d glimpsed under his yellowing quilt.
But there was one story that would certainly interest him: a woman bludgeoned to death, with a ball-peen hammer most probably, in West Norwood. It had made the nationals. And, of course, they mentioned the demise of the cat. If it had been a dog, no doubt it would have made the front page.
Banes thought about the cat, that bloody cat. That untypical bloody cat. When he struck the first blow at the back of her head, the thing jumped up at him and clawed and chewed at his hand, as if it was trying to get the hammer out of it. He didn’t expect that kind of bravery and loyalty from a cat. That was usually the preserve of dogs. Cats, shallow, callous things, they just move on to the next person laying out the Kitekat for them, purring away and rubbing themselves flirtatiously against your ankles till the bowl is full. First sign of danger, they dart out of the way. But not this one. It certainly left its marks, sinking its sharp claws and little needle-like teeth into him. He’d always been allergic to cats, the fur-balled little fuckers, making his eyes run and his skin bubble up and itch. This one deserved everything it got.
Kevin would be a trickier proposition altogether.
He was a big lad, a right lump, a capable-looking unit, as they’d say on the prison landings when weighing up the competition. And he had, like himself, spent time in institutions. You learned not to turn your back on people. You were always aware of your space; it was precious, it was limited. It was yours. And if you wanted it to remain that way, you were wary of who was around you, eyes in the back of your head. That’s how Banes had survived the institutions, ever since he could remember, ever since he was a child.
He knocked on the caravan door.
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s me, Clive.’
The door opened. And there stood Kevin. King of his domain. A pair of Wrangler jeans undone at the waist, relying on a failing zip to keep them up. His beer gut flopping over the straining fabric like some malignant old tumour about to burst.
Thankfully, he was wearing his vest, a patchwork of unpleasant yellows and worrying browns covering his whiter-than-white skin. On his left forearm, a luminous blue prison tattoo advertised ‘Cristal Palas FC’. How could he get it so wrong? The tattoo on his right arm he’d managed to get right, the spelling at least. But with only three letters, and two the same, how could he go wrong? It was a dagger going through a heart, and in the heart bore the legend ‘MUM’.
Which brought Clive Banes to his point.
‘Can I come in, Kev?’
Wheaton shrugged. ‘I guess.’
Banes stepped in and closed the tinny little door behind him. He’d obviously disturbed Kevin catching up on some light reading. A copy of Razzle: Readers’ Wives Special Edition was prominently laid out on the blue Formica table. Kevin pulled out a couple of cans of Hofmeister from the fridge and sat down on a camping chair, which looked like its spindly aluminium frame would collapse at any minute.
The painting was propped against the wall under the window. It had a floral Brentford Nylons sheet over it, a polycotton blend, according to the label that was visible. Funny the things you notice, thought Banes: 20 per cent cotton, 80 per cent polyester. That would be all he would really remember about what he would do tonight. The rest would be blanked out; as with the painting, a sheet would be thrown over it, 20 per cent cotton, 80 per cent polyester …
‘How are you, Kevin?’
‘Worked it out yet?’ asked Wheaton, gesturing to the painting.
‘Getting warmer, Kev, getting warmer. I’ve discovered that the painting is part of a triptych.’
‘Trip what?’
‘One of three.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. You said you thought there were others. You know what I think?’
‘What?’
‘I reckon I made a big mistake.’
Banes sat on the corner of one of the fold-down beds. ‘How so?’
‘I took Conrad’s advice. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened this time.’
‘What advice was that?’