by Tim Roux
“I cannot remember a thing.”
“You are lucky, then.”
“Now what?”
“I can’t say, but my guess is that it will not stop there. Planty knows who you are, and it’s a matter of ‘onour for ‘im. ‘e didn’t get where ‘e is by being kind to ‘is enemies. I’d skip the country with your wife and family if I were you my old pal.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Then get yourself insured, big time, and ‘ire some people with shooters. Do you know anybody in the London mob down there?”
“No, I have never had that sort of life down here.”
“Pity.”
“So how about you guys? How are you doing?”
“Well, the scam is all over of course, because we ain’t got any bugger to pick up the cash now that Kenny ‘as twigged. Still, we pocketed a decent amount before’and like, so we ain’t skint. Kathy and Fran are talking about going to live in Leeds or some’at, just to get away in case Planty comes after ‘em again. The Royals are keeping their ‘eads down now that Planty is back. We ‘anded everything back to ‘em without a fight, with interest, so we are mostly living off dole money now.”
“So there was no talk of avenging Harry then?”
“Was there ‘eck as like. ‘arry was always going to be the fall guy. ‘e just fell even ‘arder, and from a greater ‘eight, and into a wetter place too. No bugger even talks about ‘im any more – gone and unlamented. Sorry.”
“Well, Mike, I have promised to help you guys out, especially Kathy and Fran and Tommy, so I will. Can you help me?”
“’ow’s’at exactly?”
“Could you hide Chrissie and the children for a while?”
“Oh yeah, we could do that. Take a ‘oliday, like? We could even come and stay with you, if you like. It’s a bit lively around ‘ere at the moment. Do you ‘ave any spare rooms?”
Apart from anything else, I could not see how I could ever sell the idea to Chrissie. “Mike, if you were Planty, would you strike now or later?”
“Later. I’d let you sweat for a while. Besides, Planty likes people to sweat.”
“That is what I was thinking. I don’t think he’ll come after me just yet. I think he’ll play with me first, and then try and grab Chrissie and the kids, or maybe just one of the kids, in about three or four months’ time.”
“I think you’re right, ‘arry, Keith I mean.”
“So let’s plan your holidays for then.”
“But it’ll be November.”
“I was thinking of getting you all well away.”
“Australia? I’ve always fancied going to Australia.”
“It could well be.”
“Count me in, ‘arry. I am definitely on for that!”
* * *
Chapter 17
It is infinitely worse to have those you know and love being threatened than it is to face almost any risk to yourself alone. All you can do is to watch, and to hope, and to take what inadequate precautions you can. How can you guard free agents, which you want your children to be, from a predatory hazard that could strike from any direction at any time without a moment’s notice, and with catastrophic consequences? I cannot lock my family into a sealed vault until all danger is passed. It could take years to outlast the danger. I cannot, in all conscience, hold their lives in suspension for a fraction of that.
I know I said to Mike (and to everybody else) that Planty would probably not strike immediately, but the other half of me tells me that Planty likes to surprise, and that he might even turn up today. So, we banned Ella and Mark from going to school while we made some arrangements. Chrissie has taken the day off, and has spent most of it following up leads to track down private detectives. Her firm hires corporate investigators to identify and expose marine insurance scams, and while these people cannot help us directly, they know a few men, and even a few women, who can.
Both Chrissie and I immediately liked the idea of hiring female private detectives – less conspicuous, and more trustworthy. Our guess is that they will stick to the job whatever it takes, while who knows what a male one will get up to? However, it appears that a lot of other people prefer female private detectives too, so most of them are booked through into next year. Perversely, we became extremely suspicious of the quality of the few who remained available, and there were several Chrissie turned down peremptorily based on their telephone manner. Nevertheless, late this afternoon, Chrissie discovered Nadya (no surname), a woman who claims to have worked as a private detective in Russia for over fifteen years before moving to Britain. She gave Chrissie the impression that she was tough and resourceful and would protect our children at most costs for £550 a day, plus expenses, which wasn’t that expensive either. Chrissie told her she would phone her back, and Nadya did not play any hard-sell tricks by saying that she might not be free later, which impressed Chrissie the more.
“What do you think?” Chrissie asks me.
I shrug. “I don’t know a thing about private detectives. I never thought in a million years I would get to hire one. I haven’t a clue what we should be looking for. You hire them at work, so you must at least have a few ideas.”
“I don’t hire them personally. Shall we see her?”
She seems keen to try her, so I say “Yes, why not?”
Nadya turns up with a small, round, worn motherly face, quite pretty for a woman of around fifty, a soft Russian accent, and an air of calm resilience. We take her into the sitting room and motion her to a chair, where she sits demurely and attentively.
“Nadya,” Chrissie starts, “we are new to this, so I hope that you will excuse us if we appear naïve.”
“That’s no problem, Mrs. McGuire,” she replies. “Most of my clients are new to this. I am the experienced one.” Her speech is viscously coated with additional ‘h’s’ and ‘n’s’.
“I explained our situation over the phone. We are frightened that one of our children, or both of them, could be kidnapped.”
“You said that a man wanted to do you harm. Excuse me, why do you think he wants to attack your children?”
“That is what we have been told he will do.”
“Who told you this?”
“A friend of my husband’s, Keith’s.”
Nadya turns to me. “Why do you think that this man wants to kidnap your children?”
“That is a long story,” I reply.
She awaits my explanation, smiling encouragingly.
“That is what he does,” I add. “He kidnaps children.”
“What sort of children?”
“He is a gangster, up in Hull, if you know where that is.”
“Yes, I know Hull. There is a lot of trade between Hull and Russia. Quite a few of my clients travelled to Hull quite often. But why does he kidnap children? I have known many gangsters, and some have kidnapped children, and some have not. Why does he kidnap children?”
“I suppose to terrorise us.”
“What does he do with these children?”
“He drugs them, and he demands a ransom for them.”
“And what if he asks for a ransom from you – will you pay him?”
“We are trying very hard to make sure that it never gets that far.”
“I understand, Mr. McGuire, but if it does, will you pay a ransom?”
“If necessary, yes.”
“How much?”
“He hasn’t kidnapped them yet, so we don’t know what he will demand. Whatever we can afford, I suppose, and probably a bit more.”
“£100,000, £200,000, £500,000, a million?”
I suspect that she is setting her fee, sizing the potential budget for this operation. “Three months – four months,” she is probably calculating.
“It is not easy to borrow money at the moment, as you know. It would be whatever extra money we could raise on the mortgage.”
“And would you be willing to have this man killed?”
Chrissie and I both fre
eze.
“The easiest thing would be for you to kill him. That would be a lot cheaper, and a lot less worry.”
“Nadya, we don’t kill people,” Chrissie objects. “I am a lawyer.”
“Where I come from, lawyers often kill people. Many ex-KGB men pretend to be lawyers.”
“Maybe,” Chrissie concedes, “but not here.”
Nadya clucks her teeth. “The differences are not so great. So, you are not prepared to kill him. Is he prepared to kill you?”
“Oh yes,” I say, “almost certainly.”
“And your children?”
“That I don’t know. Possibly, if he makes a hash of things.”
“Then I must be armed. I am afraid that will cost you a lot extra. Being caught carrying a gun is a very serious thing, even if the police accept that you are protecting people, even if you are protecting small children.”
“Nadya, we will pay you what is necessary,” Chrissie assures her.
“In cash? I will need to be paid cash in advance.”
“Well, we haven’t got it here now, but yes, we will get you cash in advance. I will draw it from the bank on Monday.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“We cannot keep the children at home for long,” I explain. “They will soon have to go back to school, and we have to make sure that Planty and his gang don’t grab them there.”
“How many are there in his gang?”
“Quite a lot of people – 10, 20, and he sometimes draws on the local teenage gangs as well – but I don’t think he would bring more than two or three people with him to London.”
“Planty? That is his name is it?”
“Yes.”
“How well do you know this Planty?”
“Not very well, but I have a sense of him.”
“How do you know him?”
I smile ruefully. “That is something I cannot explain.”
“Try, Mr. McGuire.”
“Well, I have this friend, well more of an acquaintance, called Harry Walker who lived in Hull, and who has told me a lot about him.”
“Where is this friend now? Can he help us?”
“He is dead. Planty killed him.”
“So you want to avenge your friend’s death too?”
“I want to protect Harry’s family.”
“And where are they?”
“Up in Hull.”
“And do they have any children?”
“Yes, there is a small boy, Tommy, who is seven years old.”
“So if this Mr. Planty wants to get at you, he could kidnap this small boy instead.”
“He could, but I think he is more likely to come after our children.”
“But the other boy is much closer.”
“Yes.”
“But you do not want to protect this other boy too?”
“I would like to protect him, but I am not sure I even can. As I said, there are lots of teenage gangs in Hull. Planty would have no difficulty lifting Tommy any time he wanted to using one of these kids, so I just have to hope that Trevor overlooks him for the time-being.”
“I am sure we could protect Tommy if you wanted us to. We could use the gangs on our side too. We have often done that. If you show them some motherly interest and give them some money they are normally extremely helpful. I am very hopeful that we can keep Tommy safe, perhaps safer than your own children.”
I glance across to Chrissie who gives me no lead. “We’ll think about it, Nadya. You make a good point, but we do not have unlimited money to spend, so we have to make choices.”
“It would not cost you so much. Maybe £2,000. You don’t have to pay the kids’ gangs so much. They like the idea of earning money acting as a gang. That is enough for them, and they would not even be breaking the law.”
How can I refuse to spend £2,000 on Tommy? I feel heartless and insincere in my commitment to him, and Nadya knows it. She is a shrewd business woman, as somehow you expect Russians to be. She has probably been a prostitute at one time or another. She has the air of someone who will do anything to survive, and we need that level of determination on our side right now. I like her. She makes me feel safe.
“How would you protect the children in the school?” Chrissie asks.
“Mrs. McGuire, you have to understand that we cannot only protect your children. We must also deal with the source of the danger. We must identify the people who are working for this Planty. If we can take photographs of them near the school, and they know that we have photographs of them near the school, they cannot kidnap your children. They know that they cannot get away with it. In my country, they would probably kidnap them anyway because they would use their connections to fix things, but here that cannot happen, except if it is a political case involving your secret services. So our first job is to incriminate Planty and his gang. Then they will leave you alone. If we cannot do that, we have to protect the children, and that means being around the school to make sure they don’t rush in and grab them from the playground. We will have to walk up and down the street all day. As women, we can do that. We will arouse suspicion, but we can explain. As men, they would fear that we were paedophiles.”
“So we would need eight-hour surveillance.”
“Yes, you would need eight-hour surveillance, unless we could get the photographs. As an extra precaution, the other thing we can do is to take a photograph of Planty and change it to make it look as if it was taken near the school but, if he is not thinking about kidnapping your children, it would put ideas into his head.”
“It might help us to get them back faster though, might it not?” Chrissie suggests.
“Yes, it might do that, so we will do that as well and keep the photographs to ourselves.”
“What happens when the children go to play with friends?” I ask.
Nadya shrugs. “You need to protect them. We could do that too, but you would need to warn us to make sure that we have someone who is free.”
“So you do not work alone, Nadya.”
“No, Mr. McGuire, I can get as many women as I want. There are a lot of Russian women in this country who need the work, and we have learnt to look after ourselves from being small children. Russian women are very good at this type of work. I think that we are the best. We are tough, we have good eyes and ears, we are brave, and we are honest.”
She could have added “Sign here …..”
I look across to Chrissie. “Anything else?”
“We have a lot of details to discuss,” she responds.
“Nadya, could you give us five minutes to talk among ourselves? Would you mind walking around the garden for five minutes?”
Nadya stands up, and immediately heads towards the kitchen. “The entrance to the garden is through here, is it not?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I thought so. I know these types of houses.”
Watching Nadia calmly inspecting our garden, Chrissie and I immediately agree on hiring her although we are traumatised by the cost. £2,750 a week, plus overtime, plus gun money, and probably some expenses, that is a lot of money to spend week after week.
“I wonder how much it would cost to kill him?” Chrissie jokes, and quickly adds “I am not being serious, Keith.”
“It is tempting, though,” I add, “and he has tortured me and killed me once. It would not be on my conscious.”
“No, but it would be on your criminal record as you sat in prison ruing your decision.”
“Let’s go with Nadya,” I suggest, “but we need to find another way as well. I am not paying for Nadya and her team for months while Trevor laughs about how much money we are wasting, knowing that in a year’s time he can still kidnap them when we have run out. There has to be another way. Perhaps Mike and Kathy can help us after all. I might just go back up to Hull and see them, see if we can work out something.”
“What about your work?”
“Yes, I had better put that right first. Nadya is at least buying
us some time. I will go up to Hull in a few days, maybe see DI Martin and pick his brains, if I can find a credible explanation to give him as to why Planty wants to kidnap our children in the first place.”
“That is going to be difficult.”
“Everything is possible……”
“…if it is somebody else’s job.”
“Yes, but unfortunately this one is mine.”
So we hire Nadya for peace of mind while we worry our way through alternative solutions. She starts on Monday.
* * *
Chapter 18
Despite the exceptional security precautions we are having to impose on ourselves, it is still great to be home, with Ella and Mark playing around the house (even if they are restricted as to how much they can go outside), hugging Chrissie whenever I can and snuggling up to her at night. It is like a second honeymoon, with a nanny and children in tow, taken in a country where there is nonetheless an on-going risk of being mugged at gunpoint.
Agnes is still wary of me. She keeps eyeing me as if expecting me to take another turn for the worse, and she uses the expression “Mr. McGuire” incessantly, as if distancing herself from me. Did she call me “Mr. McGuire” quite that often before? She is the one tension from inside our home at the moment, and I almost want to get rid of her as she reminds me of what it was like in Hull. Some people live very stressed and complicated lives, and I do not want to be one of them. I do not wish to have Agnes’ suspicious glances flung all around me.
“Can’t we give Agnes some time off?” I propose to Chrissie.
She looks shocked. “Why would we want to do that?”
“She is bugging me. She keeps appraising me and it is beginning to grate.”
“Talk to her about it.”
“I am not sure that I want to, or that it would help.”
“Talk to her about it. There is no point talking to me. The problem is between you two.”
“What if she gets upset and walks out?”
“Then that is what she does. We don’t really need someone as high-powered as Agnes any more. We could just get a cleaner. A cleaner would cost less.”