by Nigel Cooper
‘Ok,’ he said, picking up the cordless phone to make the call. The Kramers had been given a direct line to the CID Major Crime Unit who were dealing with the case. The initial police reaction to John’s phone call was one of frustration. The Detective who took John’s call had to bite his tongue when John told him about the ransom demand and the fact that he’d paid up and still not got his boys back. However, this frustration was quickly moved aside in order to focus fully on this new information.
Just over thirty minutes later DI Carver, DS Rhodes and one of the appointed FLOs, DC Aria Dubois, arrived at the Kramers family home in Abbotsley to gather up as much information as possible. Carver was hoping upon hope that the resulting information from the imminent interview with the Kramers would throw some fresh light onto the case, give them a lead perhaps because so far they were drawing blanks and hitting one brick wall after another. They were gradually making headway with the CCTV footage, but nothing had come to fruition on that front. Door-to-doors continued, further afield this time, missing persons posters had gone up not only in St Neots, but the surrounding villages and further still to take in Huntingdon, Cambridge and Bedford. The Assistant Chief Constable, Ian Hunter, had thus far carried out his second televised press conference, the second time having a very tearful Helen Kramer and her solemn looking husband, John, next to her. Helen’s tear streaked face coupled with the cutaway picture of the beautiful blonde twins couldn’t fail to tug very hard at the heartstrings of the general public, making them more vigilant, alert and watchful. The usual Crimestoppers telephone number came up on screen for members of the public to call if they saw, or see, anything that could be connected to the missing Kramer boys’ case. But so far the word ‘kidnapped’ had not been mentioned, but the words ‘possible abduction’ had been.
‘Mr Kramer, I want you to start from the very beginning,’ said DI Carver.
‘We got a phone call yesterday, Helen answered, they said they wanted to speak to me,’ said John.
‘What time was this, exactly?’ said Carver, DS Rhodes sitting on an armchair a few feet away from him, observing and taking notes, while the FLO, DC Dubois, sat next to the Kramers on the long sofa.
John told the DI the exact time of the call, that it was their landline and that the man was whispering.
‘Ok, it’s very important that you tell me everything the man said, exactly,’ said Carver.
‘The first thing he said was “I have your children” and then he told me that he’d cut off their thumbs if I didn’t pay him £200,000 in cash.’ John told the DI everything he could remember about that initial telephone conversation.
‘What about an accent? Did he sound local?’ said Carver.
‘I don’t know, it was impossible to tell because he was whispering.’
‘What about background noise, anything?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Factory machinery, car horns, anything like that?’
‘No, I don’t think so, he could have been outside.’
Carver continued with his line of questioning for another ten minutes, then he turned to the cash, more importantly, the amount.
‘£200,000 … have you any idea why they would have asked you for that amount?’
‘No, well, not really,’ said John, thinking, turning to look at his wife.
‘Well, you obviously had the money, or didn’t have any problem drawing it out of your bank account. I’m sorry to ask, but it’s important, was the £200,000 you withdrew savings?’
‘Not exactly, I recently inherited it, my mother passed away not long ago.’
‘How long ago, exactly?’ interrupted DS Rhodes, pen in hand.
‘Erm, not long, about four months ago.’
‘And when did you receive the inheritance money?’ asked Rhodes.
‘About two weeks ago.’
Bingo! ‘Mr Kramer, can I ask, how much, exactly, was your inheritance?’ said Rhodes. DI Carver was happy to allow his new DS to continue down this road, it would give him an opportunity to evaluate Rhodes interviewing skills, how he goes about drawing information from the interviewee.
‘£220,000, well, I think it was something like £220,114, something like that.’
Rhodes looked across at Carver before looking back to Mr Kramer, who in turn looked at his wife, knowing that he’d previously suggested to her that the amount the kidnappers had asked for was suspicious. As for Carver and Rhodes, their glance to each other was worth a thousand words. Between them, Carver and Rhodes continued to extract as much useful information out of both John and Helen as possible. It didn’t need saying, but it was becoming blatantly obvious that the kidnappers either knew the Kramers, or knew that John Kramer had come into that inheritance money.
Chapter 9
Dean’s mobile rang. He took it out of his pocket, looked at the screen and then looked across the living room at Snowy briefly before answering it.
‘Hello,’ he said, knowing exactly who it was.
‘Do you ‘ave my money?’
‘Yeah,’ said Dean.
‘Do you ‘ave it wid you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good, I’ll be over to get it later.’
‘What time later?’
‘Whenever I fucking well feel like it, just be in arsehole,’ said the man on the phone before hanging up.
‘Was that him?’ said Snowy.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘What did he say?’
‘What the fuck do you care, man, this isn’t your problem … he’s coming around later to get it.’
‘Hey, man, don’t take it out on me, you dug this hole yourself.’
‘How exactly?’
‘By borrowing money off Stitch, that’s how. You must be crazy, what were you thinking?’
‘I needed money to fix my car, recon gearboxes aren’t cheap.’
‘Well maybe you should just drive a Ford like everyone else instead of choosing big expensive old German cars all the time.’
‘Yeah well, I don’t have it anymore do I?’
‘No, you gave it to Stitch.’
‘Hey, man, I didn’t have any choice, he took it from me,’ said Dean, his voice raising now.
‘So you borrow money off that fucking psychopath to fix your car, he charges you an obscene amount of interest – on a daily basis – and then when you go to pay him back you find that you owe him two grand more than you thought you did and you had to give him your car so you could pay your debt to him on a loan you took out to fix the car to start with. I don’t know whether that’s fucked up or just plain funny.’
‘I had to, he would have cut my fuckin’ hands off if I didn’t. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, I have his money – end of.’
‘Well, I hope so…’
‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing…’
‘Just spit it out, Snowy.’
‘Well, just look at his track record. He’s a ruthless drug dealer, who not only deals in drugs but lord knows what else and on top of that his mind took a walk off the map a long time ago, they don’t call him “Mad Stitch” for nothing and you know as well as I do why everyone calls him “Stitch”. And what kind of white dude grows dreads and talks like a yardie anyway?’
Stitch, or Mad Stitch, was so-called because if you crossed him, didn’t pay up for your drugs or didn’t pay him back – with obscene amounts of interest any money that he loaned you – he’d ‘stitch’ you up, big time. Usually, those who crossed him, or tried to have one over on him, ended up in A&E requiring stitches, a lot of stitches, hence the nickname. But other times he’d stitch you up in all manor of cruel, brutal and unusual ways, none of which were pleasant.
‘So what, you don’t think he’s gonna be happy when he comes to get his money?’ said Dean.
‘Oh yeah, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled…’
‘Look, I have his fuckin’ money ok, everythin
g’s gonna be fine.’
‘I’m just saying, that’s all.’
‘Saying what exactly, you haven’t said anything yet, you’re talking in riddles.’
‘Look, you asked him to loan you two and a half grand to fix your car, he agreed, so long as you paid him back three grand within a month, then when you went to pay him he told you you owed him five.’
‘Yeah, well, that was just a misunderstanding.’
‘Misunderstanding my arse, it’s what he does and I bet you anything it’s what he’ll do again when he comes over tonight to collect it. That’s a damn shame, man.’
‘What’s a damn shame?’
‘All that money, what a fuckin’ waste, and for what, a fuckin’ psychopath, you can’t trust arseholes like that. Sixty grand, how the fuck did it get up to sixty fucking grand, man.’
‘Interest, he charges interest,’ said Dean, seriously angry now, partly with himself.
‘Hell, man, even the most ruthless loan sharks don’t charge crazy amounts like that. Two and a half grand turns into five in the space of three weeks, then he takes your car and sells it for a grand, a fucking grand man, it was worth five times that, then you still owe him four grand and two months later it’s sixty? … SIXTY?’
‘Well I have it now and tonight I’ll pay him and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘Well, I hope for your sake it is because if he’s suddenly decided to add a shit load more interest I’m fucked if it’s coming out of my half,’ said Snowy, which reminds me, we need to divide it up.’
‘Later, I’ve got something I need to take care of first,’ said Dean, getting up and putting his jacket on.
‘Later, what do you mean, later? Where you going, man?’
‘Out, I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go doing anything stupid like going out for cigarettes or anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? Two reasons, firstly you’ve got plenty of cigarettes right there,’ said Dean, pointing to the freshly opened pouch of Benson & Hedges Silver rolling tobacco on the messy coffee table, ‘and second, there’s a rucksack containing £200,000 cash under my bed. One of us has got to be here at all times from now on, until we figure out what we’re gonna do and where we’re gonna keep it, ok?’
‘You mean keep what’s left after Stitch stitches you up again later you mean. He’s gonna fuck you again, man, I’m telling you.’
‘He won’t, just fuckin’ stay here and keep the doors locked.’
‘Ok, chill, man, I’m right here.’
The door slammed as Dean left.
* * *
Dean was true to his word, a trifle over an hour later he returned to his shared accommodation on Histon Road. Unfortunately for Dean, Snowy hadn’t been true to his word, he was not at home.
‘Snowy,’ shouted Dean having headed into the living room and found it vacant. ‘Snowy,’ he shouted again, kicking the bathroom door open, nothing. ‘Snowy,’ more anxious now as he headed into Snowy’s bedroom. ‘Fuckin’ idiot,’ he said, heading to the kitchen to grab a drink from the fridge. But then, he paused in the corridor and looked back over his shoulder towards his own bedroom door, it was ajar. He ran to his room and burst through the door and dove to the ground to check the money under his bed. He dragged the Slazenger rucksack out; it felt light, too light. ‘No, no, no,’ he said, unzipping the top; ‘NOOOOOO’ – it was empty.
‘SNOWY!’
* * *
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ said Dean, looking out the window to see who’d just rung his doorbell, but he knew damn well who it was. Stitch, all six foot two of the dangerous psychopathic mental fucker.
‘Open the fuckin’ door, arsehole, I can see you,’ shouted Stitch.
‘Stitch, hey.’
‘Don’t fuckin’ ’ey me, where’s my money?’ he said, barging past him and into and the living room.
‘Look, Stitch, I have it, just not here.’
Stitch lunged forward and grabbed Dean by his throat and pinned him hard up against the wall. ‘Don’t fuck wid me, you said it was ’ere,’ said Stitch, in his best Jamaican Rastafarian English accent. Anyone would have thought that Stitch had modelled himself – proudly – on Gary Oldman’s character, Drexl Spivey, in the 1993 movie True Romance, the dreadlocks, the accent, the attitude, the violence, everything. Only Stitch didn’t have the facial scar and was nowhere near as cool.
Dean spluttered, but could not breathe on account of his Adams apple being crushed. Stitch loosened his grip, just enough to allow Dean to speak.
‘It was, I swear to god it was here, under my bed in a rucksack, cash, all of it.’
‘So where is it now?’ said Stitch, some of his spittle landing on Dean's face, Dean tried to ignore the sensation and resisted reaching up to wipe it off. Stitch’s face was just a few inches from Dean’s, so close he was bordering on being out of focus, the red, gold and green beads dangling from one of the dreads in front of his face was just a multi-coloured blur. Dean could feel his warm breath against his face, the smell of recently smoked ganja.
‘Snowy took it.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, he just took off with it, I don’t know where he went, man, I swear.’
‘Well you’d better find dat little ball ‘ead and get me my money back. I’m fast losing patience wid you, Fairhead. Do I need to tell you what’ll ’appen if you don’t get me my money?’
‘N– no.’
‘Well I’m gonna spell it out for you anyway. You’ve got 48 hours to find dat little bumba clot and pray he still ’as dat money. If you don’t, everyting definitely not gonna be irie for you, you know wha’ I’m sayin’. I’m gonna make an anonymous phone call to the Babylon ya know, tell dem dat it was ‘Elen Kramer’s own bruva dat kidnap her lickle boys, but not before capping both your knees and knocking out all your teet, dat way you’ll be able to give better ‘ead to whoever make you ’is bitch in prison, man. Me a go now, lickle more, seen.’ With that, Stitch slammed Dean’s head back against the wall and left, leaving Dean with a whole shitload to worry about, as well as a pounding headache.
Chapter 10
6 months later
‘Mrs Kramer, I’m truly sorry, I really am, I know how you feel,’ said DI Carver.
‘Really? You know how I feel, Detective?’ said Helen. ‘When was the last time your children were kidnapped? Do you even have any children? How could you possibly have the first idea what I’m going through? Do you even have the faintest idea how it feels not knowing where your children are or if they’re even alive?’ Tears started to well up as she pondered on her last four words.
She was right, of course. DI Carver couldn’t possibly comprehend, not even for a second, what Helen and John Kramer were going through.
‘Mrs Kramer, I want to assure you that we’re still doing everything we can,’ he said. But there was a hint of lameness in his voice; even he knew he sounded unconvincing.
Helen studied him for a moment. ‘You’re not going to find them are you?’ she said.
Carver made the mistake of glancing at his shoes ever so briefly before answering, but it was long enough to trigger an emotional meltdown in Helen. Carver tried to convince her that it was still possible that they would find them and that the police hadn’t given up hope, but his words fell on deaf ears. Helen was a wretched sobbing mess. John tried to comfort his wife, but she was inconsolable. The acting FLO, DC Aria Dubois, also tried to give Helen and John hope, but even with all her Family Liaison Officer training it was proving futile.
Carver, Rhodes, Dubois and pretty much everyone on the force who was working on the case now feared the worse – that Jamie and Edward Kramer were dead and that their bodies may never be found. The fact is, the trail had run cold a month after their abduction, not that there was much of a trail to start with, the kidnappers had been careful. They’d left no trace evidence in the woods, nothing on the balloons or lying around on the ground in the vicinity. Every second of CCTV footage
had been scrutinised, with no hint of anything out of the ordinary. Nobody had really expected anything to come of the CCTV footage anyway as the closest cameras to the abduction point were almost a mile away and there were no cameras on most of the routes north, east or west out of St Neots. If the kidnappers had headed across to Cambridge there was not a single CCTV camera or ANPR camera anywhere around the north east route out of St Neots, past Loves Farm, or along the A428. There were no CCTV cameras until Cambridge; even then they were mostly in and around the city centre.
DI Carver didn’t mention this to the Kramers, but most of the resources had now being pulled back and there was just a token skeleton crew still working on the case, but even they were just waiting for a phone call to come in with a new lead. Apart from that, there was not much that could be done now and the case had all but run its course. The police had exhausted everything and had no more leads, it had come to a natural conclusion and at some point in the not-too-distant future the missing Kramer twins case would be filed away with all the other historical cold cases.
The Kramers had campaigned and appealed to the public on television on more than one occasion, as well as in the press and on the radio. Jeremy Vine had even covered the case on his BBC Radio Two show and Helen and John had huge support and sympathy from the public. They had continued to put up posters and every week Helen would go around and check that they were still up on the various trees around Priory Park, taped to lampposts and put up in various places along the high street of St Neots. Any posters that were missing or looking weathered were replaced with fresh ones. Helen was on a mission and she would never stop, never give up hope.
But even with all the media coverage – which had dropped off into the background over time – nobody had seen the Kramer twins or heard anything. It was like they’d vanished off the face of the planet without a trace.
Chapter 11
Present day