The Price of Failure

by Jeffrey Ashford

  When she entered, she was wearing a blouse and skirt, had tied her hair into a ponytail, and hardly looked old enough to have left the convent school. ‘What would you like – gin, whisky, brandy, sherry, Cinzano?’

  ‘Would you have a lager?’

  ‘I’ll try and find the kind that reaches all the parts.’ She left.

  She wouldn’t have realized that what she’d said was capable of a double meaning, he decided.

  She returned with a tray on which were a filled glass, an empty glass tumbler, and an unopened can. She handed him the tumbler and the can, crossed to the second armchair, sat.

  He pulled off the tab, poured out the lager. ‘I wanted you to know as soon as possible that I’m reasonably confident I’ve identified the telephone pest who’s been bothering you.’

  ‘You must be a miracle worker.’

  ‘Just lucky. The Post Office traced the call you heard earlier and it came from a private address. I’ve seen the people who live there and to cut a long story short, they have been having trouble with their telephone and an engineer went along to put things right and he was in the house, unobserved, at the time of the call.’

  ‘And he admits it was him?’

  ‘I haven’t questioned him yet and won’t until I have confirmation from BT that he was the engineer who fixed your phone as well. Not that I’ve any doubts really. Just as you did, the housekeeper described him as unctuous, oily, and no painting. So with any luck, you won’t be bothered again.’

  ‘I think you’re wonderful!’

  He grinned. ‘I wish my boss agreed with that.’

  ‘He doesn’t?’

  ‘He’d criticize an archangel.’ He finished the lager with practised ease, stood. ‘Sorry to rush, but I’m aiming to nip into the hospital to see my wife for a few minutes.’

  ‘She’s ill?’

  ‘Unfortunately, a very difficult pregnancy which means she has to be under constant skilled care to head off trouble.’

  ‘I do hope everything goes all right for her.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to take the time to call in to tell me the news. I’ll sleep a lot more easily tonight.’

  If he were around, she wouldn’t get much sleep … Since he would be seeing Gloria in a few minutes, it was just as well that wives didn’t have the ability to wander around inside their husbands’ recent thoughts.

  8

  Morrell had intended to take the train down to London, but he was absurdly superstitious and when the second black cat crossed his path from right to left, he knew that disaster was waiting for him and hurriedly returned to the house in south Bishops Retton. There, he did indeed find disaster. Nick was in bed with another man in what polite society called a close embrace. Far from showing any sense of shame at this betrayal, Nick jeeringly told him to take a walk round the block so that the two of them could finish in peace. Normally a man who eschewed violence, Morrell grabbed an empty beer bottle that was on the floor, intending to smash it on the head of the newcomer. But he was inherently slow and clumsy and before he could deliver the blow, Nick had rolled off the bed and dug the blade of a flick knife into his stomach.

  Initially, he was convinced he was going to die, despite the hospital’s assurance that he was not, but after a while he began to take heart. He considered what had happened and came to the conclusion that the painful course events had taken had largely been his fault because he had allowed his immediate emotions to overwhelm his common sense. He’d always known Nick was promiscuous, but since he had never previously had to face the reality of this promiscuity, he had relegated the knowledge to that part of his mind where unwanted truths were concealed; Nick’s wanderings had always been of a temporary nature, searching for novelty, not stable relationships, and therefore everything would once more be all right provided his prickly pride was assuaged. Morrell wrote a letter of apology that would not have disgraced the pen of Uriah Heep. Two days later, a scrubber who looked as if she’d started to draw the old age pension arrived at his bedside and said that Nick had given her a tenner to come and pleasure him when the nurses weren’t looking. The insult was so brutal, it made him cry.

  It was sheer good fortune that the detective constable from K division arrived at the hospital before Morrell’s tears had finally dried.

  ‘Had any second thoughts?’ demanded the DC roughly, not bothering with any form of greeting. If one man could epitomize the macho culture of all police forces, it was he.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Morrell mumbled.

  ‘D’you still want to claim the knife wound in your guts came from slipping and falling on a toothbrush?’

  ‘It was a piece of wood that was sharp, like.’ Morrell struggled to overcome his grief. ‘Honest, that’s the way it was. You’ve got to believe me.’

  ‘Believe you? I’d as soon believe a politician. But I don’t give a tinker’s toss. It’s my guv’nor who’s a bit soft in the Ted and reckons you ought to be given the chance to name the knifer so as he can be hauled before the courts on a charge of cruelty to animals.’

  ‘I slipped and fell.’

  ‘So next time don’t wear such high heels.’ The DC turned away.

  Morrell took a deep breath. ‘Inspector.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard that they’ve made me detective chief superintendent?’

  ‘I could tell you something interesting.’

  The DC turned back. ‘How interesting?’ His tone was now crisp, not contemptuous.

  ‘Like finding who did the Arkwright job.’

  He tried to hide his sudden excitement under the cover of overt scepticism. ‘You think I’m that soft I’ll believe a mob that heavy would let you near their shadows?’

  ‘It’s like I know someone who’s in with ’em ’cause he’s tops in his job.’

  ‘You’re full of shit.’

  ‘We had a relationship.’

  He sat on the next bed, which was empty.

  ‘A real deep friendship.’

  ‘Sounds cosy.’

  ‘Only I got home to find him … With another relationship.’

  ‘Leave out the amusing bits.’

  ‘I’m only trying to explain.’

  The DC remembered the need for subtlety. ‘You go right ahead and explain.’

  ‘It’s when things were still all right. Before the … We’d been out on the bottle and when we got home we had some more. He was talking big and said he’d soon be travelling around in a Lamborghini. I laughed. That got him shouting, on account of us both having had a skinful. You know how it goes.’

  ‘I’ve been told.’

  ‘He swore he was in on another job and this time it was going to make millions because the family’d do exactly as they was told on account of being so shit-scared after what had happened to the Arkwright woman.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘I ain’t saying. I ain’t no snout. It’s only on account of me feeling sick over what happened to that young bit. I wouldn’t want to see that happen to anyone else.’

  ‘The feeling does you real credit.’ Normally, the DC thought, Morrell wouldn’t give a damn if a dozen young women were raped and infected, so what was his real motive for talking? Revenge? What better way of gaining that than by shopping his former companion? But to do so directly would identify himself as the informer and if he did survive such an identification, it would only be as a permanent cripple. So do everything indirectly. Provide information that would harm his late lover, but in circumstances that did not incriminate him. And if this meant that the rest of the mob might also be netted, tough … Quite suddenly, this had grown far too big for him to handle. The detective inspector should take over. But instinct suggested that very recently something more had happened to scramble Morrell’s emotions to such an extent that temporarily he had only the one thought in his mind, to get his own back on the man who had betrayed him. If now there were any pause – which there must be if the DI were to be calle
d to the hospital – there had to be a good chance that in that time Morrell’s emotions would calm sufficiently for him to think clearly, in which case he must refuse to say anything more … The DC decided to gamble and not to call the DI, knowing that while he might be putting any future promotion on the line, he might stand the chance of helping to prevent another woman from suffering a hideous ordeal. ‘Your friend was in on the Arkwright job, then?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Who heads the mob?’

  ‘He’s never told.’

  ‘No nicknames?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘When’s this next job?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Couldn’t say.’

  ‘Who’s the victim?’

  ‘He ain’t never given a name.’

  ‘There could be real money for solid information.’

  ‘I swear I’ve told you all I know.’

  The DC paused to consider the situation. Morrell must know that he had to give more information if the police were to have anything to go on. So why was he withholding this? Because he wanted to have it forced out of him so that he could not blame himself for giving it? To accept that was to take another gamble, since threats might frighten him into silence rather than provoking him into speech … Another gamble that had to be taken. ‘You’re saying too much and too little.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Too much for us to ignore it, too little to give us anything to work on. Frustrating. Know how some coppers react when they get frustrated?’

  Morrell ran his tongue along his fleshy lips.

  ‘I’ll tell it straight. They get real impatient, especially those with kids. Like as not, they start playing it rough.’

  ‘They ain’t allowed to touch me.’

  ‘If they all stick to the same story, the judge will believe ’em when they say you fell over a chair. Reminds me of the bastard who claimed he’d no idea who’d shaken his little kid’s head so violently, her brains had scrambled. He broke both arms and a leg falling over a chair.’

  Morrell moved uneasily and gasped as pain sliced through his stomach. The DC stood. ‘Play it your way, then.’

  ‘He…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘He did say something more.’

  ‘So name it.’

  ‘This new job was a cert for millions on account of the father being a pop star who’d give anything to get his kids back.’

  ‘Kid or kids?’

  ‘He said, kids.’

  ‘Where do they live?’

  ‘He never said. You won’t tell no one I’ve talked, will you?’

  Given his way, the DC would have shouted the news from the rooftops.

  9

  Every police force in the country was asked to identify any highly successful pop star who lived in their territory and who had two or more daughters, probably in their teens.

  It became apparent that self-styled successful pop stars littered the countryside, but the qualifications eliminated almost all of them; only a handful were truly successful and only three of them chose to live with the daughters they had fathered.

  The police visited each of the three and explained that his daughters might be at risk and advised how best to meet that threat. One had an immediate nervous breakdown, terrified that in any kidnapping he might suffer serious injury.

  * * *

  Trent was a criminal by choice, not through circumstances. A rebel from childhood he had grown up to despise conformity, to view every civilized barrier as something to be breached, and to believe that his rejection of every standard that enabled people to live together in harmony to be a sign of his superiority. He approved of Nietzsche.

  That he had dangerously absurd views on some subjects did not prevent his regarding others intelligently. Normally, only a brief watch needed to be kept on an intended mark because normally that was sufficient. But when playing for maximum stakes, it was only sensible to take maximum precautions and he had given orders that from the beginning Inchmoor House should be kept under close surveillance. An incipient mutiny – most criminals were averse to regular, boring work – was quelled and watch was maintained either from the crown of the small hill that lay in front of the huge mid-Victorian mock castle, or from the woods to the side.

  At ten-thirty on the 11th December, Rathbone, cursing the light drizzle which had started half an hour before, saw a light van turn into the quarter-mile-long drive lined with elms which had escaped the disease that had killed so many trees over the past years. He pulled the binoculars from their case and cursed again as a sudden swirl of wind splattered drizzle over the lenses, distorting images. By the time he had cleaned away the damp, the van was parked in front of the fifteen-foot-high porch. He could just make out the lettering on the side. Security experts. Two men unloaded the van and carried several boxes of varying sizes into the house.

  A small white saloon car came up the drive and parked alongside the van. A man in uniform climbed out, adjusted his peak cap, crossed to the front door. He was admitted into the house.

  Time passed. A Volvo estate arrived and after it stopped a woman and two girls left it and crossed to the front door. The woman was wearing a very short skirt and he kept the binoculars trained on her. She could move into his daydreams any time.

  * * *

  Trent drove down to the coast and parked on the broad sea wall – stone-faced on the sea side, grass on the top and shore side – that ran for several miles. He left the car and walked into the westerly wind which plucked at his hair and at the lapels of the leather bomber jacket, carrying with it the salty smell of the sea. A couple of seagulls, squabbling over something, reluctantly rose as he neared them and let the wind take them up and away. He reached a moth-eaten tennis ball, abandoned by some summer visitor, and repeatedly kicked this ahead until he sliced it over the edge of the wall and into the grey, sullen sea that was at high tide.

  He came to a stop and stared out to sea. On the horizon, blurred because of poor visibility, was a supertanker, bound westwards; nearer inshore, a coaster was scending surprisingly heavily in what appeared to be only a very moderate sea and swell. He was thankful not to be aboard her; he was one of the world’s worst sailors. He jammed his hands into the pockets of the jacket to keep them warm.

  The evidence strongly suggested that security at Inchmoor House was being stepped up from a previously already high level. Why? Had the police been called in to advise because the owner realized how at risk his family were? If so, it was mere coincidence that this was the target house. Coincidences occurred almost as frequently as non-coincidences. But it could prove fatal to assume it was coincidence because such an assumption was so much more acceptable. The police might for once have pulled out their fingers and drawn up a list of all the families in the country who were most at risk and were now advising them to take the extra measures necessary to protect themselves. The family in Inchmoor House would certainly figure in any such list. Or had the police somehow learned that this was the target for the second kidnapping…?

  He resumed walking, finding in movement a help to thought. How to determine if the police had, against all the odds, had a tip-off? He put himself in their place. His advice would be first to add to the defences of the house with the most sophisticated devices that money could buy, secondly, to recognize that the intended kidnapping might well take place somewhere other than in or around the house. The two daughters were taken to, and brought back from, school each day either in the Rolls with the personalized numberplate or the Volvo. The Middle East had in the past shown that if well organized, a kidnapping from a car was relatively easy. So it would be common sense to employ a couple of bodyguards. Then the appearance of bodyguards would surely prove, as clearly as was likely to be possible, that there had been a leak … He came to a stop, his expression savage, his fists clenched. If there proved to have been a nark, he’d use piano wire to throttle the bastard so s
lowly that he made the trip to the fires of hell a dozen times before he died.

  * * *

  On the 12th December, two men accompanied the mother and daughters in the Rolls and another two followed in a Mondeo. If you were seriously rich, you could buy yourself a private army.

  Trent accepted that only a halfwit would now go ahead with the kidnapping, yet he suffered the urge to do so, not only because he hated losing, but also because if successful he would prove himself so much cleverer than they. In the end, common sense prevailed.

  The kidnapping of Victoria Arkwright and setting up the second kidnapping had cost big money; now that the latter had to be aborted, finances were in danger of becoming decidedly unhealthy. In addition, the team were becoming restive, unsettled and beginning to wonder if he were not quite the winner they’d believed. Good reasons for quickly finding a new target. But a nark would betray their next target, as he had betrayed this one …

  Was there a nark? Previously, he’d argued that there must be because the family would only have employed bodyguards if told that they were the intended target. But clearly it was possible that having been warned, his family, along with others, must consider themselves a possible target, the father had on his own account hired bodyguards …

  As intended, the Arkwright kidnapping had shocked the country; it was this sense of shock that was designed to secure success without a hitch for the second kidnapping. But time, in an age when television screens were filled with tragedies every day, quickly dimmed even the most horrific event. So he had to move quickly. But he had to know the truth before he moved. How to discover what that truth was?

  10

  Even the most convoluted problem had a solution; the only problem was discovering what that was.

  Frustration of a non-sexual nature always had the ironic effect of increasing Trent’s libido; it was as if failure in one sphere led him to turn to another where he could dominate. After hours spent in trying and failing to decide conclusively whether his plans had been betrayed by an informer, he decided he needed a woman. Yvette, who reduced events to their primary nature? Yet whatever he’d promised himself previously, it was Genevieve who could offer him the illusion …