by J F Straker
He had chosen gambling.
With no wife and no family to support he had resigned from his job with a mail order trading company and had made a full-time occupation of a hobby that had grown into an obsession. But now he had to win in order to live, and a run of bad luck taught him that to survive another losing streak he would need capital. It was then he turned to crime. In the betting shops and in the casinos and on the race tracks he had come to know many of the shadier characters, and he learned quickly. Soon he was organising his own jobs, first small, then big; and as success followed success and his capital grew his passion for gambling began to wane. It was the excitement of gambling that had captivated him in the first place; now he had the greater excitement of crime. With gambling he had risked only money, with crime he was staking his freedom. He continued to gamble, but it was no longer an obsession. He could take it or leave it.
Crime had paid. He picked his jobs with care, planning them meticulously and choosing his accomplices from those members of the criminal fraternity who, so far as he knew, had never been in conflict with the Law. Not that he saw them as accomplices. He was the boss, they were his employees, and although he listened to their suggestions and advice it was he who made the decisions.
Driving home in the early hours of that Sunday morning, with a following wind causing the dark trees to bow obsequiously before him, Collier was in a jubilant mood. The job had gone according to plan, and although the haul had been less than anticipated there should be well over a hundred grand in the three suitcases in the boot of the Rover. And all in used currency notes. Only under exceptional circumstances had he ever taken anything that required the services of a middleman for disposal. Jewellery, bonds, unused currency notes and the like could be traced, and from a fence he could expect to receive only a fraction of their true value. That wasn’t for him. Had he aspired to a crest, ‘What I take I hold’ could well have been the motto.
Dawn was still some way off when he reached Hickworth. Except for a couple of late night revellers hurrying home, their heads bowed against the wind, the village street was deserted, although as he swung the car left at the crossroads his headlights picked out the shadowy figure of a man lurking in the doorway of Miss Caraway’s Corner Store. Collier smiled to himself as he imagined the man’s purpose; in the early hours of a Sunday morning it was more likely than not to be unlawful. In which case the poor bastard is luckier than he knows, Collier thought. Were I the law-abiding citizen that Hickworth supposes me to be I would now be hastening to alert the police. As it is—well, he and I belong to the same union. From what Gail tells me he won’t find much in Norma Caraway’s till. But as far as I’m concerned he’s welcome to what there is.
Pinewood House lay a bare mile south of the village, and as he turned into the macadamized drive and saw it bathed in the beam from his headlights he experienced, as he had on similar occasions, a warm sensation of well-being. Here he could relax. And he needed to relax, to unwind. Gambling had demanded almost constant and feverish involvement, and because he had then been younger and fitter he had stood the pace reasonably well. He couldn’t do it now; not in advanced middle age. But with his changed way of life it was no longer necessary. Crime was demanding too, but the mechanics were different. Just one or two jobs a year that took weeks or even months to prepare and culminated in a pay-off that far outstripped anything he had achieved as a gambler. And between jobs he had time to relax. Here, with Gail.
The house was not large, but it had style. Built of local stone, it stood in two acres of ground, part woodland and part lawn and flowerbeds, with an open-air swimming pool at the back and a semi-circular drive that swept up through the trees to the pillared porch and then back to the lane. Gail had liked it the moment she saw it. That’s for us, Henry, she had said, clasping her hands together the way she did when excited. Please! You can afford it, can’t you?
He could afford it and he had bought it. That was nearly three years ago, eight months after he had first met her. She had been a hostess in one of the gambling clubs he still frequented. He had visited the club one evening after an absence of several weeks, and there she was: blonde and petite, a Dresden china figure in her pink and white daintiness. She was unlike any of the girls he had seen there in the past, and he had asked Manetti about her. She may look fragile and virginal, Manetti had said, but don’t let that fool you. She has her wits about her, has Gail. She knows her way around. You would have to get up damned early to put one over on that young lady.
He had found Manetti’s assessment to be an exaggeration, but like all exaggerations it had to be based on truth. It was a month before she agreed to meet him outside the club, two months before she went to bed with him. By then he was totally captivated. As Manetti had said, she knew her way around, and that he liked; it kept him on his toes, made her an exciting and challenging companion. She had style and poise; she also had a ribald wit, and a biting invective when roused. That she was avaricious, that it might be his money rather than his personality or his appearance that attracted her, did not greatly bother him. The end result was the same.
He would have married her had he been free. But his wife refused to divorce him, and when Gail gave up her job at the club and came to live with him she took his name by deed poll, so that when they took up residence in Hickworth their neighbours assumed them to be man and wife. Some of the men envied Collier his young and beautiful bride, a few made passes at her; but experience had taught her how to handle such situations, and there had been no scandal and very little friction. He had no doubt that sometimes she was attracted to her admirers. He would have been surprised if she were not, for she was practically half his age and had never professed love for him. But like all gamblers he was an optimist. She was fond of him, he knew that, and few of the younger men she met could compete with him financially. She might have an affair on the side, but she would never leave him. He was sure of that.
He was thinking of her with pleasurable anticipation as he garaged the car and let himself in at the front door. When she knew he was going to be late she never waited up for him, and right now she would be asleep, her tiny body curled into a ball in the centre of the huge brass bedstead that dominated the room. She had never queried the source of his wealth, and if she suspected it was not entirely derived from gambling she kept her suspicions to herself. That suited Collier, although he doubted whether the truth would have shocked her. Gail was not easily shocked.
He took the suitcases into the sitting-room and poured himself a whisky. With surprise he noticed that the curtains had not been drawn across the French windows that led on to the terrace. Gail was usually fussy about that, she disliked the possibility of being watched. He had pointed out that this was an unlikely contingency, since trees screened the house from the fields beyond the garden. But she still insisted on drawing the curtains as soon as the lights were switched on.
He was moving to draw them now when the telephone rang. He stared at the instrument in surprise, and then at his watch. Two-twenty. Who the devil would be ringing at that hour of the morning.
He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Collier?’ a male voice queried. ‘Henry Collier?’
‘Yes.’ He did not recognise the voice, but it sounded cultured. ‘Who’s speaking?’
‘Never mind about that. We have more important matters to discuss. You won’t have missed your wife yet, of course, because you haven’t been upstairs. But—’
‘What the hell is this?’ Collier was slow to lose his temper. Crime and gambling had taught him the value of keeping his cool. But he was losing it now. ‘Who are you, dammit? What has my wife got to do with you?’
‘We’ve snatched her, Collier,’ the voice said. ‘Snatched her this evening while you were away replenishing the family coffers.’ There was a slight chuckle. ‘So you see, crime doesn’t always pay, does it? Not for you. Not this time, anyway.’
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Yet
even the vague possibility made him shudder.
‘Is this some sort of a joke, damn you? Because if it is—’
‘No joke, I’m afraid. This is for real. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me. Only don’t hang about. Just confirm that she isn’t in that big brass bedstead of yours. That should convince you. If you want to take a quick look round the rest of the house, okay. But make it snappy. I’m not waiting indefinitely.’
His heart thumped wildly as he raced up the stairs, stumbling and falling in his haste. The reference to the brass bedstead suggested that this was indeed no joke, and it was with dismay rather than surprise that he saw that the bed was empty. The rumpled bedding, the dented pillow, told him that she had been there. But she wasn’t there now, and he ran through the rest of the house calling her name, his voice echoing his anguish.
There was no reply.
‘What have you done with her, damn you?’ he shouted into the mouthpiece, anger wrestling with fear. ‘Where is she? Let me speak to her.’
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘No can do. But don’t distress yourself. She is perfectly all right. And provided you do as you’re told she’ll stay that way.’
‘What do you want?’ Collier demanded.
‘Well, naturally we haven’t gone to all this trouble just for peanuts. It’s going to cost you, I’m afraid.’
‘How much, damn you?’
‘A hundred grand was what we had in mind. It’s a nice round figure.’
‘A hundred—!’ Collier was stunned. ‘Good God, man! Where am I supposed to find that sort of money?’
‘In the three suitcases you brought back from Westonbury,’ the man said. ‘However, to save you the trouble of counting I’ll take them as they are. Unopened. If the money is short—well, that’ll be just too bad. But like you I’m not averse to a gamble. Fair enough?’
Collier stared blankly at the suitcases. How could the kidnapper know they were there, what they contained? Only the three other members of the firm could know that, and it wasn’t one of them. The voice was wrong. Besides, they couldn’t have taken Gail, they had been with him in Westonbury. So who…?
‘What makes you think I’ve been to Westonbury, or that the suitcases contain money?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t think, I know. Inside information, you might say. So let’s get on with it, shall we? Do you hand over the money, or do we hang on to your wife? She’s not my type, but the others seem to fancy her. They talked of taking turn about, but I managed to dissuade them. Fair’s fair, I said; the money or the girl, you can’t have both. Naturally they would prefer the money. But if it’s not forthcoming—well, they deserve some reward for their pains, wouldn’t you say? A man is worthy of his hire, and all that. However, it’s your decision, Collier. Don’t let me pressure you.’
Collier shuddered. The thought of his beautiful, beloved Gail being handled by God knew how many lecherous villains, her fragile body stripped and subjected to a gang rape, was too horrible to contemplate. Maybe the threat wasn’t real, maybe it was just a frightener, but that was one gamble he dared not take. Handing over the Westonbury haul would mean real trouble with the others, for without it he hadn’t a hope in hell of finding their cut. And they wouldn’t be satisfied with a down payment, they’d want the lot; they were hard men, not given to sympathy. And yet…
‘Well?’ the man said. ‘Do we have a deal?’
‘Yes.’ He felt ashamed that he should even have hesitated. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Go out via the French windows and put the three cases on the seat by the pool. Then come back and report to me. I’ll hang on. We’re unlikely to be cut off at this hour, but if we are I’ll ring back in a few minutes. Understood?’
Collier’s mind was busy. The man’s readiness to take a gamble on how much the cases contained and to accept them unopened seemed to leave a small loophole. He was reckoning on a hundred grand; but that was only a guess, as Collier had had to guess. There could be less, more likely there was more. So how much could safely be extracted without endangering Gail? Twenty grand? Thirty?
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand. But how about my wife? When will she be released?’
‘We’ll discuss that later, after you’ve handed over the cash,’ the man said. ‘So get a move on, eh? But a word of warning. We have a man in the garden who is watching you through the French windows.’ Instinctively Collier looked at them, half expecting to see a face pressed against the glass. He saw only darkness. ‘He knows your every move. So don’t try milking the cases. Don’t even open them. Not if you value your wife’s safety. Understood?’
‘Yes,’ Collier said bleakly. So much for the loophole.
‘Right. Now move it.’
He went out to the terrace, a suitcase in each hand and another tucked under an arm. The night was dark, but across the lawn a glimmer of light shimmered on the surface of the pool. He walked slowly towards it, the cases twisting and turning in his grip as the wind caught them; his gaze searched the darkness, but he saw no sign of a watcher. That did not surprise him; the man would be in the shrubbery or among the trees. As he placed the cases on the seat and realised that he was saying goodbye to a fortune, that all the careful planning and the risk involved in acquiring it had come to nothing, anger seized him and he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth in a paroxysm of uncustomary rage, the muscles of his body tensing. Then he remembered Gail, and he turned and hurried back to the telephone.
‘All right,’ he said, trying to keep his voice under control. ‘The money’s there. Now tell me where I can find my wife.’
‘Not so fast,’ the man said. ‘First we have to check the cash. For all I know those cases could be empty.’
‘They’re not. Anyway, you said you’d take them as they are.’
‘Within reason, yes. But not to worry, you’ll get her back. I imagine I don’t have to warn you not to contact the police; not quite your scene, are they? But just in case you feel tempted—don’t. It could be disastrous. You get my meaning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Well, goodbye for now. I’ll be in touch.’
The telephone went dead. Collier replaced the receiver, making sure it was properly on its cradle, and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette to steady his nerves. He dropped the lighter twice before it finally sparked; then he put cigarettes and lighter beside the telephone and sat drumming the fingers of one hand on the table. His head ached and his stomach felt sick, and although his body was cold there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
He felt lost, uncertain, afraid—emotions that were strange to him. He was accustomed to being the boss, to making decisions. Now, with just about all he had to lose at stake, he must wait on the decisions of others. Desperately he tried to visualise the man on the telephone. He had spoken crisply, as if he too were used to making decisions. Did that make him the boss? And his voice was cultured. But did culture preclude violence? Was he just a villain? Or was he, as the Law would put it, a ‘right’ villain: vicious and brutal, without sympathy for his victims? Collier had always eschewed violence, nor did he permit it in those who worked for or with him. Violence was degrading, and unnecessary in any job that was properly planned and executed. But he had also been aware that, given sufficient provocation, he was capable of violence, and he knew that if anything happened to Gail the only pleasure left him would be to tear the perpetrators apart limb by limb, to carve them up and gloat to see the blood flow.
The telephone remained silent. Presently he got up and hurried down to the pool. The cases had gone, and he went back to the sitting-room and drank the whisky he had poured before the kidnapper rang. Then he poured another whisky and sat down to wait.
Waiting was agony. It gave him time to think, and his thoughts were black. Was Gail all right? She must have been in bed when the men came; had there been a struggle, had they hurt her? Where and how were they holding her, when would they release her? Or would they never release her? He recall
ed what he had read about other kidnappings. Too often the victim had been murdered, either before or after the ransom was paid, because the kidnappers feared that release might result in their eventual identification. Could that happen to Gail? Had it happened already? As he dwelt on the possibility it became a probability, and his hands shook as he drank the whisky and poured another and drank that too. He considered calling the police, and to hell with the consequences when they discovered, as inevitably they must, that he had engineered the bank job. But to involve the police could make probability a certainty, as it had in other kidnappings, and he racked his brain for someone to whom he might turn, for solace if not for help. There was no one. He had acquaintances but no real friends. Friends did not fit into his way of life, they could be an embarrassment. Nor, since meeting Gail, had he felt their lack. Crime was his business, gambling his hobby, Gail his love and Pinewood his relaxation. Between them they supplied his every need.
He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another, and stared at the telephone, willing it to ring.
4
‘You took your time,’ Luke said as he let in the clutch. ‘What kept you?’
‘I wanted to watch Collier’s reaction,’ Andrew said.
‘And how was it?’
‘Well, he stayed by the telephone for a while—hoping you’d ring back, I suppose. Then he took a quick trip down to the pool to see if the cases had gone. Which they had, of course. Last I saw of him he was back with the telephone, drinking whisky and smoking like a bloody furnace.’ Andrew lit a cigarette himself. ‘He must be feeling pretty desperate, poor devil. You don’t think he’ll ring the police, do you?’