Alarm Call

by Jardine, Quintin

  ‘You’re saying that he’d taken Tom?’

  ‘Of course,’ she shouted, suddenly. ‘Do you think I’d be this torn up about the fucking money? He stole my son, Oz. That bastard Paul Wallinger stole my son!’ The crying began again, in earnest.

  I left Susie to deal with that and went back through to the kitchen to mix Prim another drink, a real one this time. When I got back, she was sitting in her wicker chair, her shoulders hunched, rocking very slightly, backwards and forwards, as if that gave her comfort. ‘Here,’ I murmured, handing her the fresh Bacardi. She took it from me without even looking up, and drank half of it in a single swallow.

  ‘What did you do about it?’ I asked her.

  ‘For a couple of hours I just sat there, trying to comprehend what had happened. I used my imagination as best I could, to see if I could come up with a logical explanation. But I couldn’t and it just left me all the more scared. Finally, I called the police and told them that I wanted to report a child abduction. They responded quickly enough, two uniforms, then a couple of CID, but when I told them what had happened I could see them glaze over. They told me that since Paul’s Tom’s father, there had been no crime, and that, well, basically, ma’am, you’re just wasting our bleedin’ time. So I asked them if I could report them missing, and they said no, because, ma’am, he isn’t bloody missing. He’s packed and he’s gone: Mr Wallinger knows where he is all right, and where his son is. His son, remember. He just doesn’t want you to bloody know, does he? So then I said what about my baby, and they asked me if I had any reason to believe that Paul would harm Tom, and I had to say no, and they said, well, there you bloody are, then. They told me to sit tight, be patient and wait for the phone to ring and then they buggered off.’

  ‘And did you? Sit tight, I mean?’

  ‘What else could I do? I was terrified, I’d had a couple of drinks by that time, no, more than a couple, and even if I’d wanted to get out I couldn’t, could I, in case Paul phoned to tell me where he was? I sat tight, all right . . . tight as a tick most of the time. I sat there for three days, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and into Tuesday, drinking a lot, eating very little and barely sleeping a wink. Finally, I made myself believe what had happened and believe that there wasn’t going to be a phone call. So I got myself sober, had a bath, and made myself take a few hours’ kip. When I woke up, on the Wednesday morning, I made some calls. The first was to a lawyer I’d used when I bought the flat. I told him what had happened and asked what I could do. He told me to sit tight again ... advice that I did not thank him for . . . while he hired a detective to make some preliminary enquiries.’

  ‘I thought that would have been your first call,’ I said, ‘given that you and I were in that business together.’

  ‘I told you, my mind was fucked up, or I would have. No matter, a man came to see me within two hours: his name was Gary Anderson, and he said that he was an ex-cop. He interviewed me, I gave him all the detail I could, and he said that he’d get on with it. He was very good, better than you and I ever were, or much quicker, anyway. He came back to see me at four o’clock next day, Thursday. He told me that Mr Paul Wallinger had flown from London Gatwick to Minneapolis on the previous Saturday afternoon, on a Northwest flight. His infant son Tom was with him and they had travelled club class.’

  ‘Minneapolis is a hub airport,’ I told her. ‘Did he have an onward booking?’

  ‘No, he didn’t: Anderson checked that. I asked him how he’d been able to get Tom on the plane without a passport. He told me that he’d been to the US Embassy and put him on his own, as an American citizen, which he is, just as much as he’s British.’

  ‘He was well prepared,’ said Susie.

  ‘He’d had two fucking years to prepare,’ Prim shot back bitterly. ‘Anderson checked his business background, at least the details I’d given him. Everything was phoney: the company he said he worked for didn’t exist. You probably think that makes me an idiot, living with someone for that long and knowing so little about what he did during the day. But honestly, it isn’t so daft. I’d never visited Paul at his office, or had any reason to: he told me that his wasn’t always a desk job, and that he spent most of his time out looking at the businesses he was interested in. That figured, for he’d often be away for a couple of days at a time, even when I was nearly due, and even when Tom was just an infant. As for a business phone number, he said that he didn’t have a direct line and that he always used a mobile. “So what’s he been living on?” I asked Anderson, but I didn’t have to: I knew. He’d been living on me. When I checked, all the household costs had come either out of my Visa account . . . I’d given him a card of his own, hadn’t I? ... or out of a joint account he’d set up for us, but never put anything into himself. Do you know, I even paid for his fucking flight to America, the one he left me on?’

  ‘I hope you cancelled the card,’ said Susie indignantly.

  ‘Too right I did.’

  ‘Did you keep the last statements?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably. Why?’

  ‘They could come in handy,’ I said, casually, but noting how off the ball she was, in that she didn’t follow me. Task number one, Blackstone: get her off the drink so that her brain can work properly again. ‘So, what about the money?’ I knew that this was going to be bad: the guy was a con-man, and she’d let him take over her financial management. ‘What have you got left?’

  ‘I’ve got half a million, invested in an annuity that doesn’t mature till I’m fifty-five and that I can’t touch before then. I’ve got two hundred and fifty thousand in a Swiss account that, fortunately, I forgot to tell him about, and I’ve got the flat. Everything else is gone, sold or cashed up in the month before he left.’

  It was my turn for the heavy frown. While Prim and I were together we’d amassed a right few quid, some jointly, some from the generous points arrangement on my first movie, and a hell of a lot from my shareholding in the GWA, after it went public. When we split up, so did the money, more or less straight down the middle: on the figures she’d quoted me, allowing for even modest capital growth, the guy had fleeced her, and how.

  ‘He took around two and a half million?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but that’s not the point: he’s got Tom, Oz, he’s got Tom.’

  I got up, fetched myself another beer from the fridge, and walked towards the open doorway to the garden. I stood there thinking, letting the evening breeze cool me. After a while, I turned back to face the girls. ‘Okay,’ I said: that was all.

  ‘What are you going to do, Oz?’ asked Susie.

  I looked at her, smiled, then shrugged my shoulders, just like Nicolas Cage in one of my favourite movies, and stole his best line. ‘What am I going to do?’ I replied. ‘I’m going to save the fucking day, that’s what I’m going to do.’

  Chapter 9

  The trouble with the grand statement was that I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. I knew one thing for sure, though: I wanted to meet Paul Wallinger. Arguably, the guy had a right to his own kid, but the money that he’d stolen from Prim had once been mine too, and I took a seriously dim view of that.

  Actually, the financial side of it begged a lot of questions, but I decided to put them on hold for a while. Prim was strung out, no doubt about that, but she was also drinking way too much. When we were a couple, we’d been what I’d call normal thirty-something users of alcohol. We took it socially, and while often enough it would end the day, it never, ever began it; it worried me that my former wife had turned into someone who looked as if she put Bacardi on her corn flakes.

  When I glanced at my watch and said that I’d fix dinner, Susie read my mind. She took Prim off to her room and talked her into sleeping off her latest cargo for a couple of hours.

  I was in Ready, Steady, Cook mode, so I didn’t spend too much time in the kitchen. I chopped some Chinese leaves into strips and mixed them with feta cheese, olives and red chillies, seeded, as a salad starter, then blended tomatoes an
d some coconut cream, and added a few mushrooms, baby corn, and whatever spices my hand fell upon, to create Oz Blackstone’s celebrated impromptu pasta sauce. I set it simmering, cut some monkfish and salmon fillets into cubes, to be added later, and went back to the office. No, I did one other thing before that. I checked that we had plenty of bottled water, still and sparkling, in the fridge: there was going to be no more booze on offer that evening.

  Back at my desk, I switched on my computer. Right at the top of my box was an e-mail from Roscoe, reporting progress on my three deals. I sent him an instant message asking if he was available for a face to face; a few seconds later a box popped up on my screen inviting me to switch on my web-cam.

  It’s my favourite means of communicating with my agent, other than across the desk: with both of us on high-speed broadband, the quality of both sound and vision is pretty good. I could see from the view through the window behind Roscoe that the LA weather was as usual. He was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, and in the background I could hear the sound of air-conditioning at full hum.

  ‘One of the offers we turned down,’ I began, ‘was from the Global Wrestling Alliance. Right?’

  ‘Yes, it was, but the money was insufficient and there was no guarantee of distribution. They need you more than you need them, I’d say. It wouldn’t have advanced your career, Oz.’

  ‘Would it do it any harm, though?’

  ‘The script itself read pretty well, and I rate Santiago Temple, the director. Liam Matthews has done well in the Skinner movies he’s made with you. It would be okay if all other things were equal, but to be honest, they’re offering way below your market value, and they don’t have the financial flexibility to meet it.’

  ‘I’m not worried about the money, Roscoe; Everett Davis is a very good friend; you must know that.’

  ‘I do, but sometimes part of my job is to protect you from your friends.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but I owe him, and this time I feel I have to do it. He wants me in Vegas in ten days. I’d like you to get back to him, cut the nicest deal you can without screwing him financially, but make it work.’

  I could see him think. ‘How would it be,’ he said slowly, ‘if we did it for no fee but a sizeable percentage of the gross, say five points? With your name on the marquee, Mr Davis will be guaranteed a distribution deal, so you wouldn’t be robbing him.’

  ‘Whatever it takes, make it happen for me, and tell him I want the top suite in the Bellagio.’

  He grinned. ‘They tell me New York New York is pretty good.’

  ‘I prefer the real version. See you.’ I closed the program and he disappeared.

  I opened my contacts file and began to scroll down; I stopped at ‘K’ and dialled a number.

  There’s this guy I know called Mark Kravitz. I met him a few years ago through Miles Grayson, who hired him as my ‘personal assistant’ on my first movie project. Actually he was my bodyguard, but that’s another story. I don’t know exactly where he comes from, or what his background is, but I’ve made some guesses that I reckon are close to the mark. Whatever he was in the past, he’s heavy duty now, and has connections all over the place; I don’t use him as a minder any more, I use him to find them. He recruited Jay Yuille for me, then helped Jay find Conrad and Audrey and, in each case, did a damn fine job. He provides other services, though.

  He was at home when I called. ‘Hi, boss!’ (He still calls me that sometimes.) ‘What’s up? Nothing’s gone wrong with Connie and his missus, I hope.’

  ‘No, they’re great. But something’s happened and it’s just a bit outside Conrad’s job description. There’s an American guy by the name of Paul Wallinger . . .’ I spelled it out for him. ‘. . . who’s in my bad books.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  I gave him a quick rundown.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything there is; whether he’s got any previous form for openers. I’d like to know whether the FBI might want to speak to him. I’d like to know whether he’s still in the Minneapolis area. I’d like to know whether Wallinger’s his real name.’

  ‘I’d bet that it is.’

  ‘Why so sure?’

  ‘Work it out: he went to Grosvenor Square to have the child added to his passport; he’d hardly have done that if it was a phoney. That probably tells you that he isn’t on anyone’s wanted list either. But leave it with me: someone who pulls a con like this is not a beginner, believe me. I’ll get something on him.’

  ‘Soonest?’

  ‘Soon as I can. What are you planning to do?’

  ‘I’m planning to help Prim get her money back, and her kid, if I can.’

  ‘By any means necessary?’

  ‘What does that imply?’

  ‘This guy’s outside the law, Oz. He’s hardly in a position to complain to the police if, let’s say, someone used basic methods to persuade him to cough up the child and the cash.’

  ‘Much as I would like to give him a going-over, Mark, I can’t go anywhere near there. I’ve got my reputation to take care of, and my family’s well-being.’

  He laughed. ‘Since when did you get cautious?’

  ‘It comes with age, kids and money.’

  ‘I can’t knock that. Wallinger probably wouldn’t be too easy to crack, anyway. From what you’re saying to me, he’s been working on this for three years. He probably targeted your ex; that meeting in Gleneagles wasn’t spur-of-the-moment, no chance of that.’

  ‘Wee Tom wasn’t in his plans, surely.’

  ‘I don’t imagine so, but ...’

  I cut across him. ‘That’s what I don’t understand, Mark. Why did he take the kid?’

  ‘He’s his father; maybe he loves him and couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing him again.’

  ‘Yeah, and maybe I really did play cricket for England.’

  ‘In that case, there’s only one answer: he’s going to sell him.’

  ‘Sell him? On fucking e-Bay, you mean?’

  ‘It would probably be legal, in some states at least: he could offer him up for adoption and invite bids. But I wasn’t thinking of anything as downmarket as that. Remember who Tom is. He’s not just your ex’s son, he’s Miles Grayson’s nephew. Wallinger may have cleaned your wife out, but Miles is one of the richest blokes in Hollywood. Are you going to bet me that at some point, maybe quite soon, he doesn’t offer to return the kid to Primavera in return for, let’s say, the money he’s embezzled already, plus another couple of million sterling?’

  ‘That would be blackmail, man.’

  ‘Bollocks, boss. He’s the child’s father, and he has de facto custody. If Prim agreed to the deal and Miles put up the extra cash, it would all be above board . . . more or less. It strikes me, boss, that friend Paul’s been thinking on his feet. Are you sure you don’t want him taken out? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper.’ He chuckled, but I know Mark: he was being dead serious.

  ‘No, mate,’ I told him. ‘Potentially it would be a hell of a lot more costly, so let’s forget you ever asked me that.’

  ‘The answer’s no, then?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Fair enough; I like to be totally clear about things like that. I’ll get digging straight away and report as soon as I can.’

  I hung up, and walked through the house to the leisure wing, as we sometimes called it when we were being flash. Susie was there, feeding wee Jonathan . . . from a bottle: the real stuff had gone with the cutting of the teeth . . . and watching Janet as she played with a toy in the far corner, well away from the pool.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked her.

  She bridled at once. ‘I think it’s bloody disgraceful!’ she exclaimed. ‘When they get this, this ... this swine back, I hope they throw the whole bloody set of encyclopaedias at him, never mind the book. Theft, child kidnap, he’s got a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Not as much as you might think; for openers, in the absence of a court order against him,
a father can’t kidnap his own kid. As for the money ... Prim let him manage it, remember. It might not be as easy as you think to persuade an American court to extradite him.’

  I called across to my daughter. ‘Hey, Janet, want to come and help me finish making the grown-ups’ dinner?’ It was a rhetorical question; she came running.

  Actually there wasn’t much to do; Ethel would have raised hell if I’d let her get fish all over her hands so I gave her the kitchen scales, sat her on a stool and let her weigh out three portions of the gluten-free pasta that Susie and I prefer, a hundred grams each for the women and a hundred and fifty for Daddy, but don’t tell them, eh, wee Jan.

  She did it very carefully, picking up every piece she dropped on to the work surface and putting it back into the packet. I let her have a Coke for her trouble; when Ethel came to fetch her at bedtime she saw it and treated me to her best nanny glower, but what the hell? My dad let Ellie and me drink the stuff, and he’s a bloody dentist.

  When Prim came down for dinner, she seemed to be back on an even keel. She saw the fizzy water on the table, and smiled softly. ‘Very tactful, Oz,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want any more to drink for a while, so don’t let me put you two off having wine.’

  ‘All for one and one for all, d’Artagnan,’ I replied.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I must be Porthos; he was the piss artist among the Musketeers, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t worry about us,’ Susie assured her. ‘We give our livers a rest quite often.’ That was more tactful than true.

  Prim was impressed when she saw the salad, which I’d dressed with balsamic vinegar and chopped herbs. ‘Did you teach him to do this, Susie?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘My mother did; I made it for you several times. You must have been too blootered to remember.’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t drink that much in those days. What you saw this afternoon has only happened recently; since Paul and Tom disappeared, mostly I’ve hung around the flat, drinking and waiting for the phone to ring.’