She couldn’t do much but perhaps she could confuse the issue.
“I’m Mrs. Frazer Knight. Why do you want to know?” Sheila demanded.
“Because your loving husband will pay me a lot of money to get you back, won’t he, darling? Even if I don’t have him as well, you’ll do, sweetheart, you’ll do!”
“That’s not Rosemary Frazer Knight,” Montgomery Speers interrupted, driven by fear and a self-centred concern for his own safety. His only thought was to keep on his enemy’s right side. “That’s Sheila Doherty, the model! Don’t you recognise her?”
“What!” The leader’s scream of rage echoed from the raftered ceiling. “So who’s this lady, then?”
He bent over and seized Mrs. Frazer Knight by one arm, waving his gun threateningly in her face. “Tell me who you are!”
Mrs. Frazer Knight came slowly back to consciousness. Almost automatically she answered the question. “Rosemary Frazer Knight.”
O’Brien stood up. The mask hid what Sheila was sure must have been a grin of triumph but they could hear it in his voice and see it in his newly confident stance.
“Okay,” he said softly. “One out of three ain’t bad.”
“Yes it is,” Sheila longed to say. “It’s not even a pass mark!” But common sense kept her quiet.
“Now, my dear,” said the leader. “I wonder how much your doting husband will pay for you? Not as much as if it was for this little darling, I daresay, but still, plenty! Plenty.”
Sheila hated him for the unnecessary cruelty of his jibe.
“What I want from you, Mrs. Frazer Knight,” said O’Brien, his tone soft but full of menace, “is your full co-operation. I’m sure you’ll see the need for it. Your husband needs to be convinced that if he doesn’t pay up, you’ll suffer. And suffer again. Until the money comes. It won’t give me any pleasure to hurt you, my dear.”He laughed unpleasantly. Sheila, listening to that laugh, knew that she didn’t believe him. This man would enjoy hurting for its own sake. “We’ll have to think of some way to persuade him to act quickly, won’t we? And then we can get going!”
Chapter Fifty-Five
John prowled quietly around the house, looking for a way in.
He knew he should probably leave it to the police and he had dutifully phoned them the moment he could, when he was sure the cars had definitely reached their destination. Keeping far enough away from the farmhouse to make sure no-one there could possibly hear him, he had given them details as exact as he could make them of the farmhouse’s location.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them to get here in record time and do everything possible to free the hostages without risk. Well, he seriously hoped that was what would happen.
But nevertheless he felt an overwhelming pressure to act himself, to get inside the building, to rescue Sheila before any more awfulness happened to her.
For several years now he had been telling himself that Sheila Doherty meant nothing to him.
All at once, at the second when he had heard her voice coming scornful and unafraid from the hideous black plastic bag, he had suddenly known what a stupid lie that had been.
He loved Sheila, whatever she was.
The idea of something dreadful happening to her – he couldn’t even name the possibilities to himself – was unbearable.
The farmhouse was a square, two storey building, typical of the older buildings of the region, stone overlaid with plaster, painted white and roofed in slate. There were windows on either side of the narrow front door and a further row above.
John moved cautiously, treading as warily as a lion stalking an antelope, round the sides of the building towards the back. Here he found himself in a yard, surrounded on the other three sides by a series of outbuildings. A stone outside stairway ran from ground level to a door on the next floor. John examined it from his position at the corner of the house, wondering if it would make a good entrance point.
As he watched, the door was pushed open and a dim figure emerged quietly. It was one of the three men, for he was still wearing his mask, black tights pulled down over his head and face, flattening and disguising his features beyond recognition.
In his hands John, peering closely, could see a sub-machine gun. As he watched, the man set the gun down and dug one hand into the pocket of his dark jeans, presently producing a packet of cigarettes. Then he thrust his other hand into his other pocket and a moment later brought it out holding a lighter.
He took a cigarette from the packet in his hand, clicked on his lighter, then gave an exclamation of disgust as it dawned on him that his mask was in the way. With an impatient movement of the hand which held the cigarette, he thrust up the tights, put the end of the cigarette in his mouth and held the lighter to it.
Immediately, far from being an unrecognisable stranger, he was someone whose face was lit up and revealed in the flame of the lighter. A very familiar face to John, in spite of the swollen nose from a recent head butt. John exclaimed aloud and ran forward.
“Charlie! Charlie Flanagan!”
Charlie choked, almost swallowing his cigarette, and made a grab for the gun which was just inside the open door.
But before he could reach it, he recognised John and the double shock, the voice from the darkness and now the sudden appearance of his former friend, threw him completely and he forgot the need to keep control of the situation.
John reached the top of the stone staircase, and leapt. He had always been able to beat Charlie in their school day fights. He had no trouble now, adrenalin pumping through him at the thought of Sheila’s danger, in bearing him down, seizing his arms, clenching his knees round Charlie’s bony torso. His left hand over Charlie’s mouth, he used his right hand to hold Charlie’s wrists together.
“Quiet!” he whispered grimly. “If you don’t want me to break your arm!”
Charlie whimpered softly. Remembering previous encounters with John, who now seemed twice as big and strong as Charlie’s memory of him, he had already given up the struggle.
John, unconcerned about any possible pain Charlie might suffer, rolled him and bumped him over to the half open door.
There, he used Charlie’s head as a prop to hold the door open.
Then, moving with a speed which ruled out any attempt by Charlie to struggle free, he dropped his grip on Charlie’s wrists and seized the gun. A second later he had it pointed at Charlie’s temple and was hissing in his ear.
“I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth now, Charlie boy. And if I hear even one little sound from you, believe me, I’ll shut you up with a bullet. Okay? Nod if you understand.”
Charlie’s frantic nodding would have done credit to a fluffy dog in the back window of a boy racer. It was a wonder his head didn’t fall off.
But John was too concentrated on his own immediate actions to laugh.
Taking his hand away from Charlie’s mouth, he sprang to his feet, the gun still pointed menacingly at his trembling captive.
“Now, Charlie boy,” whispered John, “you’re going to tell me just what the hell’s going on here? And very, very quietly, remember.”
Charlie shuddered.
“It wasn’t my idea, Johnny!” he stuttered. “I just got involved because O’Brien knows me from pushing the blow and gear for him, I never meant to get into anything like this, but O’Brien needed two fellas to help him, and he said if I didn’t come in on it he’d shop me to the filth, see what I mean?”
“O’Brien?” John repeated thoughtfully. “I’ve heard that name. One of the big drug dealers, right? Everybody knows it, but the police haven’t managed to get anything on him yet?”
“That’s right, Johnny!” said Charlie eagerly. “He made me and Danny come in with him with the guns, and he had two other guys who did the driving, I don’t know their names, but they’ll be round the front of the farm, O’Brien said they were to watch the front and I was to watch the back –”
“Great job you all did, too, Charlie. How
come I didn’t see any sign of these guys out front, then?”
“I think they both nipped in for a leak and a fag before they settled down on guard, Johnny, but I reckon they’d be back out there now, looking out for the filth turning up. Not that the filth’ll have any clue where we are, I should think –”
“Ah, well, now, that’s where you’re wrong, Charlie boy. But get on with it! What’s O’Brien’s big plan?”
“He meant to pick up that supermarket millionaire and his wife, see? Frazer Knight. And he’s going to make him transfer a big whack of money to O’Brien’s account in Geneva, see? He said he was sick of the small time, means to retire on this loot, but me and Danny’s getting a right good cut, he promised us –”
John looked thoughtfully at Charlie Flanagan. How someone could get involved in something so heartless, he was at a loss to understand. And how had they managed to take Sheila as well? Crooks were notoriously thick but how could they have been stupid enough to take the wrong woman? But it wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened, he realised. All through the troubles, there had been incident after incident of the wrong person being shot by mistake. John felt his anger boiling up.
“You disgust me, Charlie,” he said softly. “Okay, on your feet. Now you’re going to take me – still very, very quietly, right? – to this O’Brien guy. And just remember, if he hears any little sound to warn him we’re coming, you get it first!”
“But, Johnny, he’ll kill me!” Charlie whispered in terror. “You can’t do this to me, Johnny!”
“Oh, can’t I?” John said grimly. “I think, Charlie, that you’ll find that I can. On your feet! I won’t say it again.”
Charlie, tears and other liquid running messily down his cheeks and from his nose, scrambled awkwardly to his feet, clinging for support to the door frame.
John nudged him, not gently, with the gun. Then they both heard it. A piercing, terrified scream, coming from further inside the farmhouse building. And another.
Chapter Fifty-Six
In the room at the front of the farmhouse where the big man was talking to his prisoners, Sheila’s anger was also boiling up.
She looked round her desperately, searching with her eyes for some kind of weapon. She knew she couldn’t successfully attempt any form of attack on their captor bare-handed.
In one corner of the room she noticed a pile of the various objects, the contents of Montgomery Speers’ pockets which Danny had recently fetched and had dumped there.
She could see a mobile phone.
It must belong to Speers. Sheila, seized in the middle of the fashion show, had no handbag or any other property, only the dress she had been showing at the crucial moment.
She wondered briefly if it would be possible to get hold of the phone and get a message out, supposing they were left alone in the room even for a few moments.
Then she realised how unlikely that would be.
She might have had that opportunity while O’Brien and Danny were elsewhere questioning Speers, in the belief that he was Hugh Frazer Knight, if only the phone had been there at the time. But would the men go out again, forgetting it was there?
She looked quickly away again in case she was noticed.
But O’Brien had seen her sideways glance and understood that she was looking for some means of escape.
“Just stay where you are, sweetheart,” he said evilly. “Danny here has one of those itchy trigger fingers they talk about. I’d hate to see him get too edgy and spoil your beauty, darling.”
He strolled casually over to the pile of belongings.
On top was the mobile phone Sheila had noticed.
With a sickening feeling, she watched him slip it into his pocket.
Then he turned back to Rosemary Frazer Knight.
Sheila suddenly noticed the tiny pale blue evening bag in a shade which matched Rosemary Frazer Knight’s dress and light jacket which the woman was clutching in one hand.
Unbelievably, she had held on to it throughout all the events of the last hour.
Sheila had heard that some women will do that but it was the first time she had seen it for herself.
O’Brien leaned forward and snatched the bag roughly from her fingers.
“Yours, I believe, ma’am?” he said mockingly, brandishing the handbag at Rosemary, who sat, stunned and frightened, unable to move or answer. His threats, and in particular the realisation that he would have no hesitation in hurting her, if it suited him, had left her completely demoralised.
“Yours?” he repeated angrily.
Dumbly she nodded her head.
O’Brien wrenched open the fragile evening bag, ripping one edge as he did so. The few contents scattered on to the floor. A tiny silver cased mirror, an eyeliner and a container of blusher, a slim purse and something else in a shinning blue holder which fell to the tiles with a tinkling noise.
Rosemary’s mobile phone.
Sheila caught her breath as it dawned on her what O’Brien must intend.
But had he in his clumsy rage broken the phone?
O’Brien wondered that too.
With a growl of fury, he leapt forward and seized the phone, extracting it at once from its delicate holder.
Apparently it was unharmed, for he breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he turned to Rosemary with an ironical bow.
“Your phone, Mrs. Frazer Knight.”
He held it out and Rosemary took it in a hand which shook.
“Now, I expect you can guess what I want you to do?”
She shook her head, genuinely unable to think from the shock and horror which filled her emotions, leaving no room for anything else.
O’Brien shook his head impatiently.
“I want you to phone your husband, Rosemary,” he said.
Then, as she stared at him, trying to understand, “I want you to be very careful what you say, my dear. Any hint which would help him to find you here, and Danny would shoot at once. Better to cut our losses, you see, and get away quickly before the police arrive on the doorstep. But of course we couldn’t afford to leave any witnesses, could we? So it would be goodbye to all of you, I’m afraid. Now, you do understand that, don’t you, Rosemary?”
Rosemary nodded faintly.
“Good.” O’Brien sighed. “I really hope you do. I don’t want all my work wasted, naturally. So when I give you the phone, I just want you to say, ‘It’s true, Hugh. This is Rosemary. Please do as he says or he’ll hurt me.’ Have you got that?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Frazer Knight managed to say.
“Okay. Now, I expect you have the old man’s number saved on this dinky little phone, yes?” Then, as she stared at him blankly, “Your husband’s number, I mean. You have it stored?”
“Under Hugh,” she told him.
“So I’ll ring him myself and have a little chat, and then I’ll pass the phone to you and you’ll say just what I told you, understand? Danny will have his gun pointed right at your face. Wouldn’t want it spoiled, would you? And as for you others,” he swung round ferociously on Sheila and on Montgomery Speers, “I don’t want a movement or a sound out of either of you, right? Otherwise, it’ll be bang bang, and KO for you!”
It was so very clear that he meant it. This was no bluff.
Sheila bit grimly down on her tongue, concentrating on neither crying nor screaming.
O’Brien turned on the phone.
It took him only a moment to find the number he wanted.
They listened in a strained silence as it rang.
“Rosemary?” asked a voice, a masculine voice which nevertheless
shook with some emotion. Perhaps fear.
“No,” said O’Brien. “I’m afraid this isn’t Rosemary. But you can speak to her presently, if you do as I tell you. Don’t attempt to bring the police in on this. I’m going to tell you now that if you want you wife back, mostly unharmed, you’d better do exactly as I say. When Rosemary’s finished speaking to you,
I’m going to give you a bank account reference, and you are to transfer £5 million pounds to that account at once, without telling anyone, get it? Otherwise your lovely wife suffers – badly.”
He handed the phone to Rosemary. “Here, sweetheart,” he said softly.
As Rosemary Frazer Knight took her mobile in a trembling hand, Sheila watched O’Brien take out a cigarette and light it. Was he going to take off his mask and smoke?
She hoped desperately that he wouldn’t do that. Once he had shown them his face, he wouldn’t let them go alive, she knew.
But O’Brien had other plans. He raised the tights from his lips, just enough to take a quick puff, enough to keep the cigarette alight, to turn its end red hot and glowing.
Then, as Rosemary Frazer Knight stammered hastily into the phone the words she had been ordered to speak, “It’s true, Hugh, it’s Rosemary. Please do what he says or he’ll hurt me,” O’Brien stepped nearer, reached out the hand with the cigarette and pressed it firmly and callously against her wrist.
Rosemary screamed, and screamed again.
O’Brien set the cigarette down and took the phone from her. “Convincing, right, Hugh? And there’s lots more where that came from. Now, get ready to make a note of that number ...”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
John heard the screams.
He thrust the machine gun savagely into Charlie’s face, knocking against a tooth.
“If that was Sheila, I’ll kill you all,” he promised violently. “Move, you animal!”
Charlie, blood adding itself to the other mess coming from eyes, nose and mouth, stumbled forward as John propelled him towards the noise.
It was dark in the narrow farmhouse corridor. O’Brien had made sure that no light had been turned on except in the room where the hostages were imprisoned.
But this single light was enough to show John which way to go, even without Charlie’s co-operation.
The screaming had stopped and was now being followed by faint moans.
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