Snatched

by Gillian Jackson

  Richard made to grab the letter, but DI Radford pulled it away, dropping it into an evidence bag which DS Best was holding open.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but we need to preserve it for forensics.’ Radford then spoke to the two new officers, instructing them to find the paperboy and question him as to how he came to deliver the letter. They left immediately.

  ‘Isn’t this good news? At least we know Danny’s alive?’ Richard asked. Martha gasped in pain; had he already been assuming that their son was dead?

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Radford attempted a smile which sat rather awkwardly on his face. He then excused himself and went into the kitchen to make a phone call.

  DS Best followed his boss while Suni stayed with Martha and Richard. She asked if they’d slept at all, to which they both shook their heads. It was hardly a situation for making small talk and the three lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Martha leaned her head back onto the sofa and closed her eyes; she knew she wouldn’t sleep but her eyes felt heavy and gritty.

  Every minute seemed like an hour and by eight-thirty am it seemed that the day had already been interminably long. Radford was again on the phone and when he ended the call, he sat down to address the Stones.

  ‘That was the officer who’s visiting the school. He’s with the head teacher now and they’ve got Danny’s rucksack. Someone found it and took it back to the school at about six pm last evening.’

  ‘Where was it found?’ Richard asked anxiously.

  ‘Not far from the school apparently, under a bush in someone’s front garden. It gives us an approximate location to begin looking for any witnesses who might have seen what happened, but unfortunately Danny’s phone is in the bag.’

  Martha’s tears began again. She’d desperately hoped that Danny might be able to make a call from his phone, but that slim hope suddenly evaporated with this news. Richard took his wife’s hand but continued to talk to DI Radford.

  ‘What did the letter say? I can understand why we couldn’t handle it but all you’ve told us is that they want three hundred thousand pounds. Did they give any instructions for us to follow, a time and place to hand it over?’

  ‘No, they just stated what they wanted so we can expect to hear from them again and probably quite soon.’ Radford wasn’t very forthcoming.

  ‘We can get the money together,’ Martha spoke up. ‘Then give it to them and get Danny home. You can track them down after he’s safely home, surely?’ It seemed obvious to Martha and she knew the money wasn’t an issue, even if they didn’t get it back it was a small price to pay for their son’s life. But as she spoke, she realised it was too simplistic.

  ‘It’s not that straightforward, Martha.’ DI Radford spoke softly. ‘If they get the money too easily they may demand more and your son’s safety isn’t guaranteed even then. But if you can get the money together we can begin a dialogue with the kidnappers. Obviously we’ll need proof that Danny is safe before we hand it over.’

  Martha groaned and turned away from the detective, her arms across her chest as if holding a child who wasn’t there.

  ‘It’ll take time to get the money together,’ Richard said.

  Martha flashed him an angry look. ‘No it won’t! Surely with our savings and Danny’s university money, we can soon raise it! The bank will help too, I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Martha.’

  ‘Then you’d better start working on it! Mortgage the house or something if you have to, but surely we can get that much together?’

  ‘I’ll go up to the study and make a few phone calls.’ Richard left the room.

  DI Radford and DS Best left the house shortly afterwards, assuring Martha that they’d keep them updated on how the investigation was going.

  ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ Suni asked.

  ‘Not for me, I’m going upstairs.’ Martha wanted to speak to her husband, without Suni listening to their conversation, so she headed for his study. ‘Why did you say that about the money? We can easily raise three hundred thousand pounds, surely?’ Martha confronted him.

  ‘I don’t want them to know all our business, Martha, and we don’t exactly have that much sitting in an account doing nothing. I’ve invested some of our savings and can’t readily get the money back.’

  ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of any investments — how much have you tied up?’

  ‘I don’t know offhand.’

  ‘Well, where is it invested?’

  ‘A company which Jamie recommended to me.’

  ‘Jamie, from chambers? Since when did you start taking financial advice from your clerk?’

  ‘It was a few months back, an opportunity to invest came his way and he mentioned it to me as well.’ Martha could tell Richard was being evasive.

  ‘Right, well I’ll leave you to make your calls but we need to get this together fast. I can’t bear the thought of Danny being in the hands of kidnappers any longer than necessary.’

  Martha moved wearily back downstairs, feeling very alone. Arguing with Richard was the last thing she wanted to do, but she couldn’t understand his attitude to the money. Surely a call to the bank was all that was necessary? She was confident that they would waive any notice which usually applied in the circumstances.

  Suni was reading a text on her phone.

  ‘It’s from the PC who’s chasing up the rucksack,’ she told Martha. ‘He’s spoken to the lady who found it but she saw nothing. It was lying half covered by a shrub in her garden in Green Street. They’re organising a house-to-house in the immediate vicinity, to see if anyone saw anything unusual.’

  It wasn’t the best news Martha could have heard, but it was another avenue to pursue — although if someone had seen her son being taken, surely they would have reported it to the police? She thanked Suni then sat down with her eyes closed again, but the image of a distressed Danny was still there, with or without her eyes open, and she felt so powerless to help.

  Within the hour Richard came downstairs, wearing his coat. Martha looked expectantly at him.

  ‘I’m going to the bank and then to my parents,’ he told her. ‘They should hear this from me and not through the media. Perhaps you should ring your mother too?’ He kissed her briefly and left. Martha knew he was right and she again went upstairs where Suni couldn’t hear, this time to call her mother.

  Unsurprisingly it was an emotional conversation. Martha’s mother lived in Carlisle, so there was no easier way to tell her than by telephone and she lived alone; her husband had died over twenty years ago while Martha was still at university. Elaine offered to come and stay with her daughter, but Martha dissuaded her, trying to sound hopeful as she said that they were expecting the situation to be ended swiftly. She felt bad, but having her mother to consider wouldn’t help the stress levels in the house — Elaine and Richard simply did not get on. The call ended with promises of updates as soon as they happened and Martha put the phone down.

  There was little else for Martha to do. She considered ringing a few close friends, but why upset them when she was sure that Danny would be back with them soon? She also didn’t think she could cope with their sympathy. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Martha felt not the slightest desire to ring the office and find out how they were coping without her. Last night she’d fired off a quick email to Janice, her PA, to explain that she wouldn’t be in for the next couple of days, citing only a ‘family emergency’ as the reason. The staff would cope and there was nothing in the next few days which required her presence.

  Martha’s head was filled with thoughts about Danny, not work, and she became restless. Unused to inactivity, or this terrible feeling of helplessness; she wanted, and needed, to do something. Not knowing how Richard would fare at the bank, Martha began to apply herself to the financial problem.

  Richard’s study was adjacent to their bedroom while Martha used the box room, next to Danny’s bedroom, as her study when she occasionally w
orked from home. As she switched on her laptop and waited for it to warm up, Martha grabbed a notepad and pen to list the couple’s assets but before she could begin, the telephone rang. She stared at it for what seemed like ages, not daring to pick it up. The police would be listening in and if it was the kidnappers she’d been told to keep them talking for as long as possible. Martha picked up the phone but her voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.

  ‘Martha, it’s Janice here. Are you all right?’

  ‘Um, yes ... no, not really. What do you want?’ Martha was somewhat brusque; she wanted to get off the phone as quickly as possible.

  ‘Well, it’s just that a policeman’s been here asking about you. He wanted to know what time you left the office yesterday. Is everything okay?’

  ‘No, Janice, it’s not... Danny’s been taken.’

  ‘Taken? As in kidnapped?’

  ‘Yes. I think it’ll be in the papers later today. Look, I’ll not be in the office for a while, I can’t tell you how long. Will you be able to keep things running smoothly?’

  ‘Of course, no problem! I’m so sorry, Martha, and if there’s anything I can do just let me know.’

  After putting the phone down, Martha’s thoughts remained only briefly on work, although it was embarrassing to have the police check up on her, she remembered them saying that they would confirm her movements with the office. It would be the same for Richard; the police would get in touch with chambers to confirm that he was there, as he’d said. Martha rubbed her eyes; they still felt heavy and gritty, but there was work to do and she turned her attention back to the money issue.

  Martha’s recruitment agency rarely held large amounts of cash idling in the bank and as they’d recently refurbished their offices, there was even less than usual, although several payments from clients were due shortly. The money would almost certainly come in, but probably not until the end of the month, which was still a couple of weeks away. Even her regular clients waited until the last minute before paying off their accounts, leaving the agency with an occasional cash flow problem.

  Martha tapped the keyboard with a trembling hand. What if Richard was right and they couldn’t raise the money immediately. Would the kidnappers wait? It was a chilling thought but one which focussed her mind on what could be done. The company’s business account currently held a little over fifty thousand pounds which could be accessed almost immediately. There were bills to be paid, but they would have to wait. She jotted the figure down with ‘business current account’ beside it. A few more clicks on the keyboard and the company’s depreciation account was in front of her with a balance of only ten thousand pounds. The recent refurbishment had of course depleted this account but they could still access the balance, so she jotted that down too.

  Next Martha looked at their personal accounts. Richard always took care of the household finances, but she knew there was a healthy joint account at the bank, ISA’s in both of their names and a savings account for Danny’s university fund. A joint building society account which probably held the bulk of their savings could be added to the equation.

  Accessing the bank accounts Martha was surprised to see only a fraction of what she expected in the current account. It showed a balance of just below fifteen thousand pounds, a figure Martha felt certain must be incorrect. Both she and Richard used a debit card on this account, to cover everyday expenses, groceries, meals out, shopping and such like. But it was her husband who checked all the statements and she’d never even considered that the account would be so low.

  It then occurred to her that Richard could already have been to the bank and withdrawn the amount she’d expected to be in there. Perhaps the bank manager made a special arrangement when Richard explained the situation and the money was already deducted from the balance. If she looked in her husband’s desk for the most recent statements, this could be confirmed. Although he preferred to do his banking online, he still received a written statement each month. The various ISA accounts they held amounted to ninety-five thousand pounds which she noted on her list before going in search of further details.

  Martha rarely went into Richard’s study. He liked to think of it as his own personal space and she was happy to grant him the privacy. It was a very masculine room with a large, heavy wooden desk and a matching swivel chair. One wall was covered with bookshelves, full to capacity with mainly legal books for reference and a large bay window which gave plenty of natural light.

  A couple of trays on top of the desk were probably a good place to start and Martha sat down behind Richard’s desk. A bulldog clip held together a wad of receipts which she moved aside and began to flick through the papers beneath. They were mainly related to their household expenditure; bills from the garage for servicing their cars, insurance quotes for house contents — mundane trivia which she was generally happy to let her husband attend to.

  After sifting through the papers and not finding the statement she wanted, Martha began to look through the desk drawers. Various stationery items filled the top drawer and the second was full of envelopes and printer paper. The third drawer was locked, which didn’t strike her as unusual; they employed a cleaner and Richard would want to keep personal financial details out of sight. She looked around for a key, trying to think where she would put one if this was her study. It was in the second place she looked, a wooden box, ostensibly holding pens and pencils. The box had a small drawer at the bottom and several keys were inside. Perhaps it wasn’t a brilliant hiding place, but she couldn’t see their cleaner rooting through boxes to find the desk key and presumably Richard thought likewise.

  Soon the drawer was open and, as she’d expected, their bank statements and building society books were there. Martha began to scrutinise the paperwork. The bank statements were neatly collated and secured with a paper clip, typical of Richard’s organised mind, but as she looked at each one in turn, she felt the colour draining from her face. The money going into the accounts (mainly their salaries) was as she expected, but several recent, large withdrawals which she couldn’t account for surprised her. The balance on the most recent statement was just short of fifteen thousand, which corresponded to the figure on the online statement.

  Something was seriously off here, such a small balance couldn’t be right. It was the same in their building society book; the two hundred thousand or more Martha expected to see was gone and the account held less than twenty thousand! The money, which she would readily hand over to secure Danny’s release, was missing and a cold fear gripped her heart. What ‘investments’ could Richard have made to deplete their accounts to this extent?

  For an instant she wondered if he was gambling and afraid to admit it. It was either that, or the investments he claimed to have made had eaten into their finances, which was a gamble in itself. It concerned her that her husband seemed to have committed so much to a venture which could be risky and hadn’t even bothered to discuss it with her. When he came home Martha would insist on him telling her what it was all about.

  Chapter 4

  It proved to be a difficult visit for Richard, not least because of the guilt he felt at not visiting his parents often enough. Thomas and Thelma Stone lived comfortably in a modest retirement bungalow. They were not materialistic people and Richard knew that much of their income was given away to various charities. It irked him that they gave so much to animal rescue shelters, and in recent years they’d taken their philanthropy a step further, acquiring two kittens and regularly feeding several more feral cats. Richard discovered a previously unknown allergy to cats which made visits to his parents’ home uncomfortable, his eyes streaming almost as soon as he walked through the door.

  Thomas Stone was a tall man, the same height as Richard, but stooped now with age; his rounded shoulders making him appear the shorter of the two. Periwinkle eyes, once bright but now dulled with the passing of time, were set in a round, ruddy face. Martha always said tha
t her father-in-law would make an excellent Father Christmas, particularly when he laughed, but the news of Danny’s kidnapping brought nothing to laugh about. Thelma was the opposite of her husband in stature; a small, bird of a woman, all angular and bony. Her hollow cheeks gave the appearance of being much older than her sixty-seven years but she was still sprightly and lived life to the full.

  Delight at seeing Richard had lit up his parents’ faces until the news he’d come to impart struck them like a physical blow. His parents visibly shrank before his eyes, tears flowing freely as they asked the questions he could not answer.

  The fact that they doted on Danny made the news of his kidnapping all the harder to bear and Richard’s guilt was compounded by the knowledge that he should have brought Danny to see his grandparents with a greater regularity. Please God this could still be remedied.

  He didn’t wish to witness their distress, as it served to highlight what he increasingly recognised as his own failures as a parent and his shortcomings as a son. Richard had perhaps never fully appreciated his parents and now he feared that if Danny was not safely restored to them he would never be able to remedy his previous neglect.

  By the time Richard left he was tired and frustrated, his thoughts constantly returning to Danny and the pain of not knowing where or how he was was almost unbearable. As he drove away from his parents his mother was in tears and his father was doing his best to comfort her. There was no easy way to tell someone that their only, much loved, grandson had been kidnapped. There was little else he could say really, he knew of no details himself and neither did the police.

  Richard thought about the letter from the kidnappers. He would have liked to have seen it for himself, not that he didn’t believe DI Radford, but you can tell so much from a person’s handwriting; their education for a start and their class in society. Even the paper they used would help to build some kind of picture, but it was denied to him and that added to his frustrations.