"Please, Clare. Tell me where the money is." It was almost certainly too late. Wherever it was, the kidnapper would have picked it up by now.
"Not till Bruce is safe. I've already told her." Mrs Wilson looked at Erica. "I'm not saying anything till my baby's back." She glanced at her watch. "Five minutes. Wait five minutes. He'll be here then."
"That's great," I said. "Maybe while we're waiting, you could tell me what happened. Les was worried."
"Les doesn't care."
"I think you're wrong. I've spent quite a bit of time with him and he's very upset."
"About me, maybe. But he doesn't care about Bruce. That hasn't changed."
I looked at Erica.
"Would you all leave me alone, please," Mrs Wilson said. "Just for a few minutes. I don't want you all standing here scaring Bruce."
Mrs Lennox said to no one in particular, "I'll be inside," and headed back to the school. Bet she was relieved to get away from the insanity.
"Want to wait in the car?" I asked Erica.
28.
I told Erica about the talk I'd had with Dr Snow.
"You shouldn't have let Clare pay the ransom."
I shrugged. "Not my choice to make."
"Next time, Bruce won't come back."
"You sure he'll come back this time?"
"There's no doubt in that poor woman's mind." Erica tapped the side of her head with a couple of fingers. "So I'm certain Bruce will walk round that corner any minute."
She was right.
Bruce arrived a few minutes later.
I saw Mrs Wilson run down the nearly empty street.
I saw her stop abruptly, fling her arms around thin air and hoist her invisible child off the ground.
"Something else, isn't it?" I said.
"That's love," Erica said. "Blind, screwed-up, mad as a bag of squirrels. But it's love. Do you love your children like that?"
"I don't need to," I said. "My kids are alive."
"Ain't you the lucky one." She picked up her radio handset. "What's Dr Snow's number?"
29.
"I got a message telling me there was a change of plan," Mrs Wilson said later.
What was left of the day's sunlight crept through the sitting room's bay window, drew a line across the floorboards and came to a stop just short of her feet.
Before we'd driven her home, she'd shown us where she'd dropped off the money. It was a dead-end close only five minutes round the corner from the school. The kidnapper had told her to stuff the bag behind a couple of red trade waste bins. That was about an hour before we got there, and by the time we arrived, the money was gone. Of course. We'd left some officers checking the area in case anyone had seen it being picked up.
"What kind of message was it?" I asked. "Another note? Phone call? Text message? Email?"
I'd spoken to my uncle about ten minutes ago, expected him to say it was finally time he spoke to Mrs Wilson himself. But he said he trusted me. Said that I knew the mother, she was happy to talk to me, so there was no point in him trying to establish a relationship with her when I'd done that already.
I was doing fine, he said. And Erica was there now to hold my hand.
He wasn't sure about the shrink, though.
Dr Snow had come right away. And my uncle was wrong. She'd already been of help by taking Bruce to his room to play, clumping up the stairs with her walking stick, Les a couple of steps behind her. Mrs Wilson was terrified of letting Bruce out of her sight, but it was the only way we could talk freely. Bruce's kidnapper hadn't hurt him, she said, which was something, at least.
Mrs Wilson finally answered my question. "It was a phone call."
"On your landline?"
She nodded.
"Has anybody called since?"
"I don't know."
I'd called Les, but I had his mobile number from when he'd rung me and I'd used that. It was a long shot, but worth a try. We could get Mrs Wilson's phone records, but it would take a while.
"Erica, would you mind checking?" I asked. "See when the last call came in and if there's a number?"
"The phone's by the window," Mrs Wilson said.
Erica moved off to see what she could find.
"Carry on," I said to Mrs Wilson.
"The man told me I had to sneak away. Deliver the money this afternoon. And if I told anyone, or anyone followed me …" She cleared her throat. "He said there would be a real finger arriving in the post."
"Was it your own idea to ditch your car?"
"No, he told me to. Said you'd be looking for it."
"Tell me about his voice," I said.
"From around here," she said. "Middle-aged." She shrugged. "Nothing that stood out."
Erica came back.
"Any luck?" I asked.
"Public phone," she said. "Might be CCTV coverage."
Somehow, I doubted it. This guy was too smart.
Mrs Wilson agreed. "You're not going to catch him, are you?" she said.
30.
I couldn't believe I was doing this.
It was Mrs Wilson's idea. And of course it made sense to her.
She'd sent Erica upstairs to fetch Bruce. Erica came back with Dr Snow and Les.
The shrink came up to me, walking stick hardly touching the ground. She grabbed my elbow and dragged me over to the corner of the room.
"This is a terrible idea," she said. Erica must have told her what Mrs Wilson was planning. "You have to stop her."
"How?" I waited a second or two but she didn't say anything. "You're the expert. Show me."
Dr Snow clumped over to Mrs Wilson. I followed, stood close by so I could hear what they were saying.
"Bruce has been through an ordeal," Dr Snow was saying. "I don't think he wants to talk about it."
"You don't think it might help him?"
"No, I think it'll make it harder for him."
"Bruce says he's fine." Mrs Wilson's cupped hand drew an arc in the air next to her. Around shoulder height. "Somebody needs a haircut, I think." She was smiling as she looked up again. "He doesn't mind."
"But I don't think—"
"Bruce is doing it, Dr Snow. It doesn't matter what you think."
Dr Snow nodded, hunched her shoulders, then moved off to take a seat on the corner of the settee.
31.
"What do you want to ask him?" Mrs Wilson said to me.
I wasn't sure where to look. I slowly became aware that I was scratching an eyebrow repeatedly. And it wasn't even itchy.
"Shouldn't you get your notebook out?"
I did as Mrs Wilson suggested. At least it gave me something to do with my hands.
"Could you ask Bruce if he can describe the kidnapper?" I asked.
Mrs Wilson turned her head and whispered something. Then she said to us, "Bruce was wearing a blindfold. He didn't see the man."
We were quiet for a while.
"What else?" Mrs Wilson said.
"What about at the school? Didn't Bruce see him then?"
She whispered again.
"He was tall," she said.
"What was he wearing?" Erica asked.
Again, Mrs Wilson leaned down. "A suit."
"What colour?" I asked.
"Grey."
"How old was he?"
"Bruce says he was older than Mummy."
The questions went on for about ten minutes. Ten very long minutes.
"That's great," Erica said at last. "But I think we need to get back to the station now."
32.
In the car, Erica said, "I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
33.
When I sat down at my desk in the CID office, I noticed the drawer was open.
"Some arsehole's been fiddling with my stuff," I said to Erica.
I spotted something inside that I didn't recognise. A piece of purple cardboard. I tugged the drawer out.
I pulled out the cardboard. Inside was a Halloween-style severed finger. Or there would have been,
if the plastic hadn't been torn open and the finger removed.
Erica reached into the desk and picked up a magazine. It was a magazine I'd never seen before. A sailing magazine. She flipped through it. Some pages fell out. Words missing from the headlines. Some scraps landed on the desk. Random words with one or two letters cut out.
"Shit," she said. "What else have you got in there?" She stuck her hand back in the drawer.
"It's Dutton," I said. "Up to his usual. Thinks this is funny."
"That's not usual." Erica held up a brick of cash. A tight little bundle of crisp new fifties. "How in the name of Christ did you get this, Collins?"
When I looked around the room, I saw that all my colleagues were watching me, looking for an answer.
I swallowed. My throat hurt.
34.
They put me in a holding cell downstairs. Not because of what was in my desk, but because I kicked the shit out of Sergeant Dutton.
I'd sprinted to his office, flung open the door and laid into him. He couldn't run away. There wasn't enough room. I pinned him to the wall and flung punch after punch at his fucking moustache.
They'd taken me down here to calm down.
I'd had some time to think. I don't how long because they took my watch. Felt like a couple of hours since the door closed. I thought at least Erica would have come down to see me, but no, nobody came. It was just me and a shitty toilet and a bed.
I sat on the thin rectangle of foam in its blue, wipe-clean plastic cover and rubbed my bruised knuckles. I tried to figure out why Dutton had framed me. All this because he blamed me for his wife leaving him?
I looked up when I heard a key in the lock. After a second or two, the door opened.
"Erica," I said. "Get me out of here."
"How could you do this?" She stepped right up to me. "Holly's gutted. And your kids, how do you think it's going to be for them now?"
I didn't believe I was hearing this. "Erica, what the hell are you talking about?" I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Get the fuck off me!" She raised her fist.
"What's wrong?" I put my hands in the air as if she was holding a gun. "It's Dutton. He set me up."
"I always thought you were a piece of shit, you know that?"
"Listen to me," I said.
"Fuck you." She turned around, slammed the door shut behind her.
I walked over to the door and leaned my head against it. I stayed there for quite a while.
35.
I was back on the bed, probably half an hour later, when I heard footsteps in the corridor outside. The key scraped in the lock again and my uncle stepped into the cell.
"Thank Christ," I said.
"You sure you don't want to see a Police Federation representative?" he asked.
"For beating up Dutton? Everybody knows he asked for it."
"Come with me," he said.
I didn't need to be asked twice.
36.
Interview room 2. I knew it well. But I'd never sat on this side of the desk before. The room looked different when you were facing the door.
They'd left me there with a uniform standing guard, under orders not to speak to me. That was fine. I didn't feel much like talking.
My uncle walked in carrying a briefcase. A grey briefcase.
"Recognise this?" He dumped it on the desk.
I checked to make sure and, yes, the name of Mrs Wilson's bank was there in gold letters on the front. "Where did you find it?" I said. "Was the money –?"
"I asked you if you recognise this!" he shouted.
What the hell had got into him? "Yes," I said. "I do."
The door opened and Erica came in. She was carrying a large evidence bag filled with cash. Bundles of it. As she got closer, I saw that the notes were fifties, and they were all banded into bricks.
"Jesus," I said. "You did find it! Is it all there?"
"There's 120 grand." He took the bag from Erica. Set it on top of the briefcase. "With the five we found in your desk, that's exactly half of Mrs Wilson's missing money. Where's the rest?"
"How would I know?" I asked.
"There's no point carrying on this game any longer, Collins," Erica said, and folded her arms.
"Look, for the tenth time." I folded my arms too. "Dutton's the man you want. He set me up."
"I'll grant you," my uncle said, "he might have been able to put that funny finger and those magazines in your desk. He might have put a stray five grand in your desk too. But do you think Dutton's the kind of guy who'd stick 120 grand in the boot of your wife's car?"
The words struck my kneecaps like hammers. I lowered my head, placed my hands on the desk.
"Holly found it and called me." Erica leaned over and I felt her breath on my ear. "You make me puke," she said.
I stared at the bag of cash. "I have no idea how the money ended up in Holly's car." My mouth was dry. I licked my lips but it didn't help. "Dutton must have put it there."
"Here's the thing," my uncle said. "DS Dutton was in court yesterday, giving evidence. He didn't leave until three o'clock. The money was gone by then. He couldn't have lifted it. Would have been fucking impossible."
"It wasn't me." I wanted to stand up but I didn't think I'd be able to. "If I'd stolen the money, I'd have put it somewhere safe."
"Where?" my uncle asked. "We're still missing half of it. Tell us where it is. If we don't recover all the money, you're well fucked, sunshine."
I waited a while.
"Well?"
"Better get me that Police Federation representative," I said.
37.
Back in the holding cell, just me and the mustard-coloured walls.
I was a detective. I could work this out.
I'd been set up, I just needed to prove that I was innocent.
Easiest way to do that was with an alibi.
The finger. Where was I when the finger was posted through Mrs Wilson's letterbox? Holly had gone to bed and the kids were out …
I'd gone for a drive.
Okay, that was no help.
The ransom money. I couldn't have picked up the money because … shit, I was asleep in my car.
God's sake. I couldn't prove a thing. I had to admit, if I was investigating this case, I'd look pretty guilty.
I needed to find out who had set me up. Whoever it was had access to the CID office. Which meant that one of those bastards I worked with had framed me.
All I knew for certain was that it wasn't Dutton.
There wasn't much to go on, but I did have a number of suspects.
I put a list together in my head. Everyone I could think of. And I started going through them, one by one.
After all, I had nothing else to do for a while.
THREE DAYS LATER
38.
Detective Inspector James Fleck didn't often take his wife out for dinner. And even though it was the old bag's birthday, the look she gave him, when he told her she'd have to dress up tonight because they were going out somewhere posh, was one of complete surprise.
He had to admit, he liked that look.
He picked up the remains of his fourth or fifth pint and downed it. Gave the waiter a nod and held up the empty glass. Good. Another one on the way.
Sarah looked at him, eyes narrowed. Her 'you've-had-too-many' look.
"Last one," he said. "Then an early night?"
Once upon a time, he'd fancied the arse off her. Still did, after a few pints. And his back was fine today, the new treatment making a difference already. You got what you paid for.
Before he'd left for work that morning, he'd given her a card and a clothes voucher for ten quid. For a laugh.
She'd opened it and tried to look happy. She pecked Fleck on the check and said, "Wish you could do something for Frank. That'd be a great present."
And Fleck had said he was doing all he could, but told her it looked bad. Their poor nephew had been caught red-handed and should just admit it.
What he di
dn't tell her was that Frank seemed to be cracking up, which was a nice wee bonus. Jumped-up little toss-pot couldn't stop his own wife from shagging another bird, so he'd taken it out on Dutton. Made Dutton's wife leave him.
There was no call for that.
The lad had no moral core. Deserved what was coming to him. Every sweaty inch of it.
Anyway, that morning as Fleck's wife was starting to close the front door behind him, he'd turned back and said, "Oh, almost forgot." And told her they'd be eating out for dinner.
But that wasn't the end of the surprises. He had one more to give her now. Maybe it would help him get his leg over later.
He tucked his hand inside his jacket pocket. Pulled out an envelope.
Sarah dabbed her mouth with her napkin, watching him.
He handed the envelope to her. "Happy birthday."
"But you've already given – "
"Shut up and open it."
She didn't need any more encouragement. She tore open the envelope and took out the tickets. "Oh, my good God, James!" She put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, good God."
Something she'd always wanted. Fuck, it might even be fun. He'd always liked the sea. Missed having a boat. Saddest day of his life having to sell her. Worse than having to sell one of your own kids.
"But can we afford this?" she asked. "Where did the money come from?"
He turned his empty pint glass around, then said, "You won't like it if I tell you."
"You've been gambling!"
"How many times …?" He gazed across at her. "I don't gamble." He paused. "But maybe I did have a wee bet."
"One of those value bets?"
"Exactly. Saw odds I liked. Took the risk." He shrugged. "And it paid off."
"You always said it would. Over time."
Bye Bye Baby Page 5