Behind Closed Doors

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Behind Closed Doors Page 20

by Michael Donovan


  ‘What kind of threat?’

  ‘I can’t give you the details,’ I said – Truth was my middle name this morning – ‘but the threat involved abduction.’

  Wendy McCabe’s expression turned to fear. ‘Are you saying that our children might be at risk?’

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ I said, ‘but we’re trying to cover all possibilities. The people behind this are targeting wealthy families with children. One of the conspirators may be involved in the London property market. Hence the possible connection with your husband. ‘

  ‘Do the police know about this?’

  I shook my head. ‘We’re still trying to understand the threat,’ I told her. ‘It would be difficult to prove risk to any other families. But if we see clear evidence of a threat we’ll call the police in.’

  ‘But if you think someone is planning to abduct a child you need to call them in now.’

  ‘We just don’t have enough,’ I said. ‘Nothing that the police could act on . And the chance of your family being involved is a million-to-one.’

  A number a little different to my real estimate of fifty-fifty. Don’t ask me for racing tips.

  ‘So what do you want from us, Mr Flynn?’

  ‘I need to know whether you or your husband know the men involved.’

  So far, Wendy McCabe was coming up blank. She’d shown no reaction to my talk of abduction, at least nothing beyond the obvious – nothing to suggest that one of their own children had already been taken. My theory of what was happening to Rebecca Townsend pointed to the McCabes having already gone through the same thing: if the Royal Trafalgar was part of it then John McCabe was running six months ahead of Larry Slater. But either Wendy McCabe was an impeccable actress or my hunch was wrong. If my hunch was wrong then it was possible that the Royal Trafalgar might not be relevant. Worst case scenario - McAllister had nothing to do with Rebecca Townsend and we were back to square one.

  ‘Has your family ever been threatened?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely not.’ No hesitation. Just annoyance. The thought of her children in danger had Wendy McCabe ready to blame the messenger.

  ‘You heard of a guy named Paul McAllister?’

  She looked blank.

  ‘James Roker?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe your husband might know them through his business contacts?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Wendy McCabe said. She walked over and picked up the phone.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I’d like to speak with you husband.’ In for a penny. John McCabe might or might not know McAllister and Roker but he could certainly answer some questions about Brighton.

  Wendy hit speed dial and passed a curt message. A few seconds later her husband came on the line. She told him what was happening, asked if he knew what it was about. She repeated my name twice then listened.

  I could hear McCabe’s voice crackling on the other end. It didn’t sound like endearments. His wife turned to me: ‘Can you go to Kingston right now?’

  I said I could be there in thirty minutes. She passed on the message and replaced the phone. Handed me a business card with McCabe’s address, a location in the centre of Kingston. I thanked her and repeated my assurances that all was well, but she kept her face set as she walked me to the door. Messenger or not, Wendy McCabe never wanted to see me again. Mothers are like that when their family is threatened. I’d begun to wonder if her torn peace of mind had been worth it.

  Maybe her husband would tell me.

  CHAPTER thirty-two

  John McCabe was a surprise. Partly because his refined manner didn’t shout ex-builder. But mostly because he didn’t leap up from behind his desk to get his hands around my throat.

  He ran his business from a modest office in a three-storey block a stone’s throw from the river. McCabe Enterprises comprised a reception and a few small rooms on the top floor. It looked like McCabe concentrated on the nuts and bolts of money-making rather than the prestige side. His office was unpretentious. The only thing it boasted was a view of the Thames if you looked at an angle.

  He shook my hand and sat me down. I repeated my spiel about the threatened clients, possible connections between known criminals and wealthy families. Got no sign of recognition. John McCabe heard me out then asked for my ID.

  I handed him my card. He scrutinised it.

  ‘I appreciate that you’re acting with the best intentions,’ he said, ‘but you should know that my wife was somewhat upset by your visit.’

  I opened my hands.

  ‘Frightening your wife was the last thing I wanted. But I need to know if these people are targeting anyone other than our clients.’

  ‘Is that not for the police to decide?’

  ‘As I told you wife, we don’t have enough evidence to take to them.’

  ‘And what evidence do you expect to get from my family?’

  ‘Any information you may have about these people. Any suspicious approaches by them.’

  ‘Do you believe that my family may have been targeted?’

  ‘Has it?’

  McCabe’s eyes locked onto mine. His mouth set. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Otherwise we would have informed the police.’

  ‘The people involved appear to exert pressure to keep the police out.’

  ‘What kind of pressure?’

  ‘If they’re snatching children then that would be pretty clear.’

  McCabe continued to look at me.

  ‘Mr Flynn, I’m happy to say that there has been no abduction in my family. We’ve had no contact with any criminal parties. I’m afraid you’re at a dead end in our case. Unless,’ he said, ‘you’re keeping something back. Have you some specific evidence that my family is at risk?’

  I told him we had none. I was still watching him for signs.

  McCabe shook his head and turned to look out of the window.

  ‘I don’t know what to believe here,’ he said. ‘Someone walks into my house and suggests that we may be under threat from a criminal group, asks if any of my kids have been abducted. Then remains vague on just what evidence is behind this. I understand why my wife is scared. I’m thinking maybe I should call the police myself.’ He held up my business card between thumb and index finger. ‘Do you mind if I keep this?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘We’re a legitimate agency. The Metropolitan Police know us.’

  They knew us, all right.

  ‘Have you anything else?’ He was looking at his watch.

  ‘A couple of the men involved,’ I said. ‘Maybe you’ve come across them.’

  I gave him their names. His stare didn’t waver. Just a curt shake of the head. Either McCabe and his wife were good enough to be on the stage or they’d never come across McAllister, Child or Roker. Time to throw up a stronger candidate.

  ‘How about the Royal Trafalgar Hotel?’ I said. ‘In Brighton.’

  That got a hit but not exactly a bullseye. McCabe looked surprised for a couple of seconds but that was it. He pursed his lips and gave me a noncommittal nod. So he knew the place. I asked what the connection was but he shrugged it off as business and refused to say more.

  I wasn’t getting even a hint of being warm with McCabe. Persisted anyway.

  ‘May I ask whom you met in Brighton?’ I said.

  McCabe shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, no,’ he said. He still looked puzzled though. I pulled out a photo.

  ‘Was this woman one of them?’

  I watched his face as he looked at Tina Brown’s photo.

  Another hit. McCabe’s eyebrows raised and he looked at me. But it was still a look of mild puzzlement, not much else. Nothing you’d mistake for guilt or fear. He handed the photo back.

  ‘Do you mind telling me exactly,’ he said, ‘what this is all about?’

  ‘You do r
ecognise the woman?’

  ‘That’s still none of your business, Mr Flynn,’ he said. ‘Please answer my question.’

  I thought for a moment. Decided that answering McCabe’s questions would not be productive. I’d got the spark of recognition over both hotel and woman but there was something off. I’d expected a firecracker. Got a damp squib. Another piece of the jig-saw that didn’t connect. If I told McCabe that Tina Brown was linked to my criminals that might push him the last step towards the police. A complication I could do without.

  I tucked the photo away. Thanked McCabe for his time and stood to leave.

  McCabe stood himself and started to say something but I gave him a cheery nod and was already out of the door.

  Quick exits were becoming my speciality.

  I’d just taken another soaking sprinting back to the Frogeye when my mobile rang.

  ‘What’s the news?’ Samantha Vincent’s voice. ‘I’ve called Tina ten times since we spoke. And I sent a text saying you were looking for her. But she’s just not answering.’

  ‘Just hang in there,’ I said. ‘We’re getting some good leads. I think we’re close to finding out what’s happening.’

  ‘You told me you’d find her in two days,’ Sammy said. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Nothing I can give you,’ I said, ‘but trust me, Sammy. Just hold off a while longer. I’ll call you the moment there’s news.’

  ‘Mr Flynn,’ she said, ‘cut the bullshit. I know nothing about you or what you’re doing to find Tina. And I’m going to the police right now unless you give me something.’

  ‘Sammy,’ I said, ‘I won’t lie to you. We’ve not got near to Tina yet.’ I considered how to phase my next words: ‘But there’s a chance that Tina might not want the police involved.’

  It took a moment for that to sink in.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sammy asked, but I knew she’d got it.

  ‘It’s possible she’s involved in something that requires her to stay low for a while,’ I said. ‘Something she might not want the police to know about.’

  ‘You’re saying that Tina’s involved in something criminal? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Sammy, it’s a possibility,’ I repeated. ‘I can’t explain, but we need a little more time.’

  ‘Mr Flynn,’ Sammy said, ‘I’m more worried about Tina’s safety than the possibility that she’s mixed up in something she wants kept quiet.’

  ‘I understand, Sammy. But believe me, my agency is the fastest route to Tina. Give us another day. We’ll know what has happened to Tina within twenty-four hours. That’s a promise.’

  The line was silent while Sammy turned it over. Then she made up her mind. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

  The phone went dead.

  CHAPTER thirty-three

  As I drove back to Paddington the rain turned torrential again, threatened to punch right through the soft top. The wipers were working but I couldn’t see them. Springtime in London.

  I parked on a meter outside the building and sprinted inside. I was risking a ticket but what kind of attendant would be out in this storm? The dedicated kind, that’s what. If I parked round the back of the building I’d get a soaking. If I paid Westminster’s parking rates I’d be bled dry. Life’s extremes.

  Shaughnessy was in his office eating a smoked salmon baguette. A bottle of mineral water stood next to it. Next to the mineral water, Lucy’s bum was cluttering his desk. She was attacking something less low-calorie. I flopped into one of Shaughnessy’s chairs and dripped water on his carpet.

  Shaughnessy looked at me.

  ‘The McCabes know nothing,’ I told him.

  Shaughnessy’s eyebrows lifted. He’d been betting on the same horse as me: that whatever was going on with the Slaters had already happened to the McCabes.

  ‘Nothing,’ I repeated. ‘No threats, no funny goings-on, no missing kids.’ I was eyeing Lucy’s sandwich. I’d skipped breakfast and the rain had nixed the prospect of hopping up the road to Connie’s. I’d have to catch up later.

  I gave them the details of McCabe’s lacklustre responses on the subjects of the Royal Trafalgar and Tina Brown. The guy had stayed at the hotel and he recognised Tina, but none of it seemed to mean much to him. And he’d never heard of anyone called McAllister.

  ‘A photo of McAllister would have been a good memory jogger,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should have asked him to pose for a couple of snaps at the Algarve.’ I asked Shaughnessy what he’d picked up on the two guys.

  ‘Plenty,’ Shaughnessy said. He placed the baguette back on its paper and popped the top on his fizzy water.

  ‘We’re looking at career criminals. McAllister has a record going back to his eighteenth birthday. He celebrated the occasion by getting nicked for armed robbery on a convenience store. Sent down for eighteen months. Should have done it the day before and avoided the adult record. He was fingered again a few years later for armed robbery but the case fell through when a couple of witnesses changed their stories. Nothing since, but the Mets have him pegged for at least ten capers ranging from robbery and extortion to rigging horses.’

  ‘The sport of kings,’ I said. ‘Should be an Olympic event.’

  ‘McAllister learned his lesson early and got smart,’ Shaughnessy concluded. ‘The Mets haven’t come near to anything they could take to the CPS in thirty years. He runs a body shop in Brixton but the shop would have to be the busiest on the planet to make the dough he flashes.’

  ‘The guy’s a big spender?’ I asked.

  ‘Very big,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘He lives in a House in Bayswater valued at six-point-five million. Owns a three hundred acre farm in Kent. Rumoured to have three commercial properties on the Costa del Sol. Then there’s his hobby-horse.’

  ‘The Algarve Club,’ I said. ‘The way he dilutes the drinks must be costing him a fortune in water rates.’

  ‘My drinks were fine,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘I guess it’s hard to water down water.’

  I gave him Sam Sneer. ‘Where do you think the Algarve sourced your Buxton Mineral Water at four-fifty a shot?’

  ‘The tap,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘Where else?’

  Shaughnessy had talked to Zach Finch, our man at the Mets. Zach and I went back a long way. Zach had come within a whisker of taking early retirement himself when I got the boot but I talked him out of it. Painted a picture of him sat at home all day under the wife’s whip. He reconsidered and put the retirement on hold. We stayed in touch and helped each other out now and then.

  Zach’s ears had pricked up when Shaughnessy dropped McAllister’s name. I’d not come across the man myself but then the Mets’ Christmas card list is longer than their proverbial arm. Zach knew the guy well: McAllister had been one of the top dogs on his patch back in Zach’s uniform days and he’d stayed on the Mets’ untouchable list since then. Anything we could do to throw a banana skin under his feet, Zach was happy. Zach also had some info on Ray Child.

  ‘A.k.a. Merlin the Magician,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘Only you wouldn’t want to get invited to one of his parties. His speciality is disappearing tricks. The way Zach tells it Child is McAllister’s sanitation man. He’s the reason McAllister has stayed out of jail. No one ever comes forward with anything that could take McAllister down. When the Mets get halfway close any informants or witnesses clam up or disappear.’

  ‘Merlin the Magician,’ I said. ‘So we’re looking at career professionals.’ I looked at Shaughnessy. ‘These people look perfect for a kidnapping racket.’

  Shaughnessy slanted his lips. ‘They’ve got Rebecca.’

  That was my feeling too. It didn’t explain why McAllister had put Larry Slater up in five-star luxury though. The golden rule in ransom schemes is minimum contact. Strike fast, stay out of sight, grab the dosh, get out. The family never meets you, never sees you. No trail to lead back to you. The thing wit
h the Slater family was all off-kilter. I thought it over. Couldn’t make things fit.

  ‘Anything on Alpha?’ I asked Lucy.

  ‘I checked the grapevine,’ she said. ‘Roker is the kind of private investigator that gives the profession a bad smell.’

  ‘A true rarity,’ I said.

  ‘He runs the firm,’ said Shaughnessy. ‘Alpha covers the full spectrum: investigation, notice serving, debt collecting, minders. Specialise in the latter two. High turnover, low skill stuff. They’ve a reputation,’ he said, ‘for operating on the wrong side of the law. Basically they’re hired hands for anyone who doesn’t want his own fingers dirtied.’

  ‘So Alpha Security organises the Brighton thing for McAllister,’ I said. ‘The room and the hooker. The question is, what kind of business deal needs that sort of sweetener?’

  ‘A dirty deal,’ Lucy chipped in. She shoved the last of her baguette in her face.

  ‘What we’re missing is the tie in with Rebecca and her supposed abduction,’ I said. ‘This thing’s going round and round. Let’s stick with the certs and work from there. Rebecca is missing. Her stepfather is raising money fast and he’s involved with McAllister. Putting two and two together the money is going to McAllister.’

  ‘So why is Larry Slater chasing Tina Brown?’ Lucy asked. ‘I don’t see a connection between Slater’s dirty weekends and his stepdaughter’s abduction.’

  ‘Tina is the oddity,’ I agreed. ‘But Slater’s fixation on her right now says that there is a connection. Maybe Tina is involved in Rebecca’s disappearance. I’m wondering if Slater sees her as his route to Rebecca.’

  ‘Except that the lady is AWOL too,’ Shaughnessy said.

  ‘Just like Rebecca.’

  ‘Maybe even with Rebecca.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s where I’m finishing up. If they’ve got Rebecca hidden away then someone must be with her. We know where McAllister and Child were last night. So who was with the girl?’

  ‘If they’ve got Rebecca,’ Shaughnessy said, ‘we just need to figure where.’ He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

 

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