The Child Taker (2009)

by Conrad Jones

  “How do you know that, Jack?”

  “He was staying in my caravan, and he brought them here, I didn’t know anything about them until he turned up with them.”

  “When did you see them, Jack?”

  “Two hours ago, that’s why he attacked me, because I saw them.”

  “Are the children still there, Jack?”

  “No, he took them in the car I think, I was kicked unconscious, so I can’t be certain,” Jack spluttered and pain racked his body. The injured testicle throbbed white-hot pain, and sweat ran down his face into his eyes.

  “Do you have any idea where he’s taken them, Jack?” the police operator was trying to grasp as much information as he could from the injured man. He had no idea how badly hurt he was, and there was no way of knowing if he’d still be alive when the ambulance arrived.

  “I don’t know,” Jack grinned in the blackness, and he had to cover the receiver to stop the operator from hearing him chuckle. The movement triggered a bolt of pain, which sliced upward from his groin to his brain. He moaned in agony.

  “Are you okay, Jack?”

  “No, please hurry,” Jack pressed the red button and ended the call. He curled up into a foetal position and tried to block out the pain while he waited for the emergency services to arrive. The accusations that he had made on the phone would bring an army of armed police officers down on the small caravan. The transit van had been expertly cleaned of any evidence and DNA. All traces of the children had been bleached away from his van, which would leave only the evidence in the bedroom to prove that they’d ever been there at all. Alfie would walk right into their clutches, and he wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was too late. Jack knew from experience how the police treated paedophiles, and he chuckled again through the pain, as he imagined the look on Alfie’s face.

  Chapter eighteen

  Tank

  Tank sat in the front passenger seat of the taskforce chopper. He had issued a code red search order, which stipulated that every police division across the nearest six counties, within three hours drive had to send up their helicopters. They were tasked with searching for a white transit van, which was being used to tow a white four berth Lunar caravan. Grace and the evidence team had searched through police records for hours, and the same description of Jack Howarth’s living quarters kept coming up. They had to assume that he was still driving the same vehicle and still living in the same model caravan. They had predicted that he would be parked somewhere remote, and so the remit across four police forces was to use heat-imaging scanners to search for the twins and their abductor by scanning any mobile homes that they found. Tank commandeered the taskforce chopper in the slim hope that they might stumble across something. The odds on finding them were slim and becoming slimmer with every hour that past. So far, everyone had drawn a blank, until the radio began to buzz with emergency services’ communications from the Cheshire division.

  “Cheshire police have had a call concerning the twins,” the pilot turned to Tank as the information came through.

  “Tune into their band, I want to hear what’s going on,” Tank ordered.

  “Roger that, an ambulance and an armed response unit have been despatched to a caravan parked up on Chester Road, on the outskirts of Warrington,” the pilot relayed the communications as they unfolded.

  “How far away are we?” Tank checked his watch.

  “We are twenty five minutes away at least.”

  “Did the caller say that the twins are there?”

  “Negative, he said they were there, but that they’d been taken somewhere else. The caller is Jack Howarth. ”

  Tank patched the coms unit through to his helmet, so that he could listen to real time coms. The ambulance and the armed response unit were arriving on the scene. The ambulance crew were told to wait at a safe distance from the caravan until the police had cleared the area. The armed police were outside the caravan. Tank followed their progress.

  “Unit one, check the van,” the team leader ordered.

  “Roger that,” there was silence for a moment. “The vehicle is locked, driver’s cab is clear.”

  “Unit two, enter the caravan.”

  “The door is locked, sir.”

  “Roger that, force it.”

  The coms went silent as the armed police unit carried out their business quickly and efficiently.

  “How long?” Tank asked the pilot.

  “Five minutes, not far now,” the pilot replied. Tank could see the lights of Warrington twinkling yellow to the right. They seemed to go on forever as they blended into the mass of lights that was Greater Manchester in the distance. There were golf courses and acres of farmland on the left hand side. To the left the ground below them was inky black, broken only by the odd cluster of electric lights here and there. The coms crackled into life again.

  “We’re inside the caravan, sir, and the area’s clear. There’s one casualty. He’s tachycardic. Better get the ambulance guys in here sharp,” the response team leader reported to his superior officer.

  “Roger that,” the reply came. “Give the ambulance team a green light.”

  Tank could see flashing blue lights in the near distance as they approached the scene.

  “Get me as close as you can,” Tank ordered.

  The pilot took the chopper over the site and then banked sharply onto the fairway of Walton golf club. Leaves and bunker sand were blasted skyward by the downdraft. Tank opened the passenger door and jumped out. He ducked and jogged toward the flashing lights.

  “Who the fuck is in the helicopter?” a police voice came over the coms.

  “It’s not ours, sir,” a confused reply came back.

  Tank jogged across the manicured fairway until he reached a copse of trees. A narrow path ran through them to the perimeter fence. He leapt a wooden gate, which accessed the main road, and headed toward the control vehicle. It was parked two hundred yards from the caravan. A senior uniformed officer stood open mouthed as he approached. He was wearing a pristine police uniform and a flat officers peaked cap. Tank recognised him as an officer that he’d had some dealings with previously. Their previous encounters had never been polite or pleasant, and from the expression on his face, Tank had no reason to believe that this encounter would be any different.

  “What the bloody hell brings you here?” the officer asked.

  “I need to know everything that you know about Jack Howarth’s condition,” Tank replied guiding the officer away from his colleagues.

  “The taskforce has no jurisdiction here, and you know it,” the officer protested.

  “You and I both know that I can take over this scene with one phone call,” Tank kept his voice low, so as not to attract too much attention. The counter terrorist units were always given priority access over traditional law enforcement departments, much to the annoyance of the uniformed divisions.

  “Why would you be interested in this?”

  “Let’s just say that we need to speak to Howarth urgently,” as Tank finished his sentence the ambulance sped off toward the town’s general hospital, sirens blaring and blue lights flashing.

  “He’s in the back of that,” the officer pointed after the speeding ambulance. He grinned sarcastically.

  “What can you tell me about the call that he made?”

  “Why, Agent Tankersley?” the officer walked back toward his men, tiring of the interference from the counter terrorist agent.

  “Forget it,” Tank took out his cell phone and dialled. “I’ll have control of this scene in thirty seconds.”

  “Okay,” the police officer waved his hands. He didn’t want his crime scene taken from him. This was a high profile case and he wanted to keep hold of it as long as he could. Careers were made and broken on cases like this one. He turned and walked toward the caravan, waving to his men as he went. The uniformed men began to move away from the scene in a well-rehearsed series of actions. The police vehicles that were at the scene were driven
away, and hidden from view.

  “What’s going on?” Tank asked.

  “Jack Howarth called us and reported a serious assault,” the officer began. He guided Tank toward the rear of the scene behind the transit van. There were six armed police officers in full black body armour ready and waiting for something. Tank wasn’t sure what though.

  “What’s with all the hardware?”

  “Howarth gave us the name of his attacker, and he told us that he was on his way back to finish him off,” the officer continued.

  “You think that he’s coming back?”Tank asked.

  “Well that all depends on whether or not he’s been scared away by your fucking helicopter or not,” the police officer growled at him.

  “Why would he return to an assault?” Tank ignored the obvious dig at him.

  “Howarth accused his attacker of taking the Kelly twins, that’s why he attacked him. He must have been panicked into moving them, and now he’s coming back to finish off the only witness,” the officer explained his theory.

  “I don’t buy it,” Tank said, more to himself than to anyone else. He knew that Howarth’s DNA had been found at the campsite, but he couldn’t tell the police that he knew that. Not yet anyway.

  “Look, Agent Tankersley,” the police officer hissed. “I don’t give a toss what you buy and what you don’t. I still haven’t got a clue what you’re doing here, but while you are here you will not interfere with my crime scene.”

  “Who has Howarth fingered?” Tank knew that there were some shenanigans going on.

  “The name he gave us was, Alfie Lesner,” the officer didn’t give away anymore than he had to.

  “Have you run him through your records?” Tank pushed.

  “You know that never crossed my mind, perhaps we should do that when we get back to the station,” the officer shook his head in disbelief. “Of course we have, what do you take us for, fucking amateurs?”

  “Look, I’m not trying to rain on your parade. I need to know what you know and then you can have your precious crime scene to yourself,” Tank tried to appease the offence that he’d caused.

  “He’s a small time drug dealer from Liverpool, previous for assault, fraud, and possession with intent to supply. We don’t know who he works for, but we do know it’s not one of the Liverpool based gangs,” the officer kept his voice low.

  “Doesn’t sound like your typical child kidnapper to me,” Tank commented cynically. The uniformed officer was about to bite back when the coms unit hissed.

  “Vehicle approaching,” a voice whispered.

  “Do you have visual?”

  “Affirmative, it’s a navy blue Mercedes. You’ll have an eyeball in twenty seconds or so,” the coms hissed again.

  A vehicle turned a long bend and its headlights swept across the stationary vehicles. It was travelling at speed as it approached the scene. The driver brought the Mercedes to a screeching halt outside the caravan, dirt and grit sprayed the area. The driver’s door opened and Tank heard footsteps running toward the caravan. The door opened and he heard a Liverpool accent.

  “Jack,” the driver stepped into the caravan.

  “Armed police!” a shout came from the officers who were positioned inside the caravan. Several officers shouted it as they swooped on the confused driver.

  Tank and the police officer moved out of the shadows and walked around the caravan to the scene of the arrest.

  “What’s your name,” the senior officer asked the man as he was bundled down the caravan steps, and handcuffed.

  “Alfie Lesner,” he replied. He looked shocked and weary, and didn’t put up much resistance at all.

  “Where are the Kelly twins?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The five year old twins that you kidnapped from the Lake District?” the officer snarled into his face.

  “I didn’t kidnap anyone, fuck you!” Alfie spat and a globule of saliva hit the police officer on the lapel. It dribbled toward his chest. The officer raised his hand to strike him and then thought better of behaving in such a manner in front of his junior officers. The case was too big to jeopardise.

  “He’s carrying a weapon,” a uniformed armed response officer searched him and discovered the concealed pistol.

  “Read him his rights,” the officer ordered, and Alfie was dragged off toward a waiting police car. Tank watched as he was led away. He’d seen many men captured under these circumstances, and he’d learned to read the way that they reacted. Alfie had been surprised, that was obvious. He hadn’t expected the police to be waiting for him. Why would he? Who could have called them except Jack Howarth or him? Alfie had reacted violently when he was accused of taking the twins from the Lake District, and Tank could tell that it was genuine anger, not staged. When he’d said that he didn’t know anything about the twins he was lying, of that Tank was certain. He had to speak to Alfie before he was processed and lost in the legal system, and then he had to speak to Jack Howarth. First, he had to work out how he was going to get to them, and if the twins were being moved, he had to do it quickly.

  “I want to take a look inside the caravan,” Tank walked away from the uniformed officer.

  “Do not touch anything,” the officer muttered under his breath. Tank shook his head at the childish remark. Three ambulance men and at least three members of the armed response unit had entered the caravan. A defence lawyer could now challenge any evidence found in there as the integrity of the scene had been compromised. Tank had a feeling that Jack Howarth knew all about that, and that was part of the reason why he’d called the police.

  He reached the metal steps which led up to the caravan and looked at the shoeprints in the soil using a small pen sized Maglight. There were several sets of boot prints. Tank recognised deep ridges left by the moulded soles of combat boots worn by the armed response unit. There were other tracks too, including flat prints left by dress shoes. Alfie Lesner had been wearing a sharp suit and highly polished shoes. They could belong to him. The rest of the ground had been mashed by the emergency services, and there was nothing there that could help him.

  Tank stepped up into the narrow doorway and had to turn sideways to navigate his way in. He located the light switch and flicked it on using the end of the Maglight, so as not to smudge any latent prints that may have been left behind. The caravan was clean and tidy, apart from thick dark stains on the carpet; there wasn’t a thing out of place. There were splatter marks across the pale carpet and up the lower edges of the upholstery. Tank could tell that it was blood, and that it wasn’t from an open wound. It was too dark and too thick, which indicated that it had been vomited by the secretor, and not dripped from a cut. The bleeding was consistent with a sustained attack on a prone victim, broken ribs or a stomach rupture could have caused it. There were several blood stained swabs discarded in the sink, probably left by the ambulance men after they’d treated the victim in situ. Apart from that, the interior looked remarkably bland. There were no personal items, photographs, ornaments, books or magazines. Tank knew that was the classic sign of an intelligent predator, sexual or otherwise. Many of his terrorist adversaries had lived the same way, never leaving anything behind them that could be used to identify them later. He opened the kitchen cupboards, and then the fridge, empty.

  Tank stepped down the corridor toward the sleeping areas. The smell of a chemical toilet grew stronger as he neared the bedrooms. He opened the first door. It was a toilet closet the size of a small wardrobe. Tank could not have used the convenience without keeping the door open. The smell of deep blue camping disinfectant cloyed at the back of his throat. He closed the door and moved on.

  The next door was already ajar. Tank moved it with the end of the torch. He reached inside and flicked on the light. The room was empty apart from a narrow cot bed. There was a thin mattress and a grey woollen blanket covering it, the type that makes your skin itch. It looked like a prison cell from an old spaghetti western.
If Jack Howarth had slept in there recently then his DNA would be all over it. Tank stepped into the tiny room and studied the bed. There was a dark blue inflatable travel pillow under the blanket. Tank noted a human hair on it. One end was black, probably dyed, and the other was greyed by old age. It belonged to a man of Jack Howarth’s age, no doubt. He left the hair in place, as it couldn’t tell him anything that he didn’t already know. Tank backed out of the room, flicked off the light and left the door ajar as he’d found it.

  The main bedroom was next door, and its entrance was the end of the corridor. He opened it and repeated the process of illuminating it by flicking on the light using the end of the torch. The room was decorated in stark contrast to the rest of the caravan. The walls were pastel colours, pinks and blues, and a child’s mobile hung from the light fitting. On the bed was an empty sleeping bag. Tank remembered the mother’s evidence, and she stated that the twins had been taken in their sleeping bag. He leaned over the bed and studied the material. Sure enough, there was fine blond hair there. From the presence of the hair, he could guess that the twins had been kept in this room. He couldn’t make any sense of it. Maybe Alfie Lesner had been an accomplice in the abduction, and then the Child Takers had fallen out, resulting in Jack Howarth receiving a severe beating. There was only one way to find out, and that was to ask them. He needed to speak to both of them, tonight, and that would not be easy, especially now that they were both in police custody. Tank reached for his cell phone, it was time to apply some Terrorist Task Force priority.