Behind Closed Doors

by Michael Donovan

  ‘That’s not the same,’ Shaughnessy said.

  ‘Not the same?’

  ‘They’re solicitors,’ he explained. ‘We’re private investigators. They do what they want.’

  ‘Not everything,’ I said. ‘We’re still here.’

  ‘The crazy relative in the attic,’ Shaughnessy leered. ‘That’s the bit we’ve got over them. They don’t know what you’re likely to do next. Keeps them on their toes.’

  He stayed put in the door.

  ‘So, was your car struck by lightning? Or is someone trying to tell you something?’

  ‘Off the record, the fire brigade say it was torched.’

  ‘Someone is giving you a message.’

  ‘A rag in the petrol filler. I guess that’s a kind of message.’

  ‘Let’s hear it for the modern car,’ Shaughnessy said. ‘Locking petrol caps.’

  ‘If the cap was locked they’d just have broken a window and started the fire inside.’

  ‘There’s that,’ Shaughnessy agreed. ‘You saved on glass.’

  I looked at him. ‘The windows all blew.’

  Shaughnessy grimaced. ‘Not even a crumb of comfort. You make too many enemies, Eddie.’

  ‘That’s business,’ I said. ‘Only I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s business we’re talking about.’

  ‘McAllister.’

  ‘Him or someone near and dear.’

  ‘He must think you didn’t hear him the other day.’

  ‘That’s what I’m sensing,’ I said.

  I went through to make coffee. I fed the filter machine and threw the switch. The light stayed off but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working. Sometimes you got lucky.

  Shaughnessy unlocked his office, sorted some stuff then came back out and dropped himself onto the sofa. The coffee machine let out a couple of coughs and spat hot water into the filter. The aroma of Buckaroo filled the place. We looked at each other. The day was picking up already.

  ‘Are we moving like we planned?’ Shaughnessy asked.

  I told him that we were. ‘I just want to hear what the Hanlons have to say,’ I said, ‘then we’ll hit the Slaters.’

  ‘What we have is still circumstantial,’ Shaughnessy pointed out. ‘The Slaters may still say the girl’s not missing.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But this time we spook Larry with his misdemeanours. That should loosen his tongue.’

  ‘So what do we have for certain?’

  ‘What we have for certain,’ I said, ‘are too many connections.’

  The coffee was drizzling steadily into the pot. I pulled out the mugs and opened a tin of Marvel.

  ‘Three families,’ I said, ‘three husbands connected to Alpha Security, to Brighton and to a classy hooker. Alpha Security operating on behalf of a known criminal, Paul McAllister. The hooker Tina Brown, a crony of his, currently lying low. Two of the three families known to have freed up capital in a hurry – a half-million plus each time. One of those families currently missing a daughter. The connections look solid.’

  ‘The puzzle,’ said Shaughnessy, ‘is what the connections mean. It looks like we’ve got two things going on. A blackmail scam with the dirty photos. And a kidnap racket.’

  ‘I don’t see how they fit either,’ I agreed, ‘but they’re part of the same thing.’

  ‘How about the Hanlons for simple blackmail?’ Shaughnessy asked. ‘The Slaters too, but for some reason the stakes were upped and they took the girl.’

  I shook my head. ‘The Hanlons’ estate cottage raised too much cash for a simple sex-blackmail. I’d put blackmail down for twenty grand, not half a million. I want to find out what the house sale was for.

  ‘You think the Hanlons will tell you?’

  I poured coffee. ‘I’m not holding my breath,’ I told him. ‘Something’s kept them quiet for a long time. But if I can just get a sense that something did happen to one of their kids then it will show we’re on the right track.’

  I handed Shaughnessy his coffee. Treacle-thick. Black. His first and last of the day. I spooned Marvel and three sugars into mine.

  ‘That’s my plan,’ I said. ‘How does it sound?’

  Shaughnessy smiled his lop-sided smile.

  ‘It sounds like the only one we’ve got.’

  My motor insurance didn’t run to courtesy cars so it was either rent cheap or walk. I looked up the local rent-a-wreck in Yellow Pages. They agreed to have something within my tenner-a-day budget by nine thirty.

  I found ValuDrive in a portacabin behind a body shop off Camden High Street. I reached them by squeezing between a couple of cars that were going to be a challenge to even the most skilled of the body shop’s mechanics. The portacabin’s office was the size of a broom closet, floored in cracked linoleum and smelling of Calor gas and mould. At nine thirty in the morning the place was dank. A woman wrapped in an anorak fit for Annapurna stood behind a counter littered with grease-stained contracts. She asked for my licence and credit card. I waited whilst she transcribed the details onto a contract form with a biro that kept smearing. She filled out a million details in triplicate then mashed my card twice through her machine. Once for the rental. Once for the deposit. Wrote the charges and asked me to sign. The rental was cheap but the deposit stung. If I wrecked their vehicle my card was going to finance a new City office for ValuDrive.

  I signed a contract that had text too small to read but would have significance if something went wrong. The woman gave me my copy with a scribbled telephone number for the breakdown service. The number was also unreadable. She lifted the flap and came out. The whole time I’d been there she’d said nothing other than the essential. Rent-a-wreck, with service to match.

  Outside, she took me to check a damage sheet against a lime green Citroen ZX that turned out to be one of the cars I’d pushed past on the way in. The checks went over my head while I made an adjustment to my understanding of the term rent-a-wreck. The wreck might actually be wrecked. Valu’s offerings were everything you could wish for in this respect. The Citroen looked like the runner-up in a nursery school drawing competition. It had an engine barely bigger than the Frogeye’s to haul a car twice the weight, and the bodywork had enough things bent or hanging off to make the damage report sheet an insane doodle. The rear suspension was so far down it looked like the car was parked on a slope. All this for seven ninety-nine a day. Maybe I got air miles. I was suddenly regretting not getting the woman to write the breakdown number more clearly.

  I signed the damage report on the basis that it covered the car so comprehensively that if I had a smash they’d never be able to prove it. Then the woman handed me the keys and walked away. The Citroen started on the seventh attempt. Either the petrol gauge wasn’t working or they’d run it so low that even the vapour wasn’t registering. A more talkative clerk might have told me to push the thing to the nearest filling station. Zero style, zero fuel. The private investigator on the road.

  I coasted on fumes to a BP station, keeping my foot light to conserve petrol and minimise the racket of the blowing exhaust. I pumped fifty-six litres of unleaded but the needle stayed on empty. The car was telling me something. I fired up again and headed south across the river and out towards Chevening.

  The Hanlons’ driveway was still barred by the electric gates but today when I pressed the bell the metalwork swung silently open. Easy!

  A hundred yards brought me to an oval forecourt fronting a three-storey Queen Anne. Converted stables to one side provided garage space for a fleet of vehicles but two cars were parked side by side up against the entrance steps. One was a silver Bentley Continental Coupe and the other a Merc sports. The guy in the expensive suit waiting at the top of the steps was David Hanlon.

  He watched as I swung the Citroen round to park by his Bentley, said nothing as I climbed the steps. When I held out my hand he held his own
up to stop me. Kiss-off number fifty. I’d batted my half century.

  Hanlon was a fit fifty-something. Lean, with streaked silver hair and a bespoke wool suit. The no-nonsense stance of a company MD.

  He watched me with cold eyes and asked for ID.

  I gave him Eagle Eye’s card and held up my driver’s licence for good measure. He scrutinised them. Held on to the card.

  ‘You’ve got five minutes, Mr Flynn,’ he told me.

  He tilted his head and we went in. I heard dogs barking in the back. Hanlon directed me into a lounge overlooking the forecourt. There was no sign of his wife but my senses told me that she was close by. It looked like both of them had taken the morning off to see me. Hanlon didn’t ask me to sit.

  ‘If I get the gist of your note,’ he said, ‘then I conclude that you are interfering in our private affairs. Would you care to tell me what this is about?’

  I scanned the walls, impressed. The room had more expensive artwork than the Tate.

  ‘We’re investigating a professional criminal,’ I told him, ‘and we’ve picked up a connection with your family. I mentioned the guy’s name in my note.’ That was the note I’d dropped into their post box yesterday. Either it was third time lucky or the note had produced the desired effect. Hanlon might be playing uppity but he and his wife had both stayed home to see me.

  Hanlon shook his head.

  ‘I’m afraid the name means nothing to either of us,’ he said. ‘Your note said that you had information related to the safety of my family. Is this some kind of game, Mr Flynn.?’

  I quit my tour round his artwork and looked at Hanlon again. ‘It’s no game, Mr Hanlon,’ I said. ‘We’re looking into a serious criminal operation. And we do have a very clear link to you.’

  Hanlon shook his head again. ‘You’re mistaken,’ he said. ‘I’ve already told you that I don’t know this person McAllister. Why don’t you stop running in circles, Mr Flynn. Just tell me what you actually have.’

  Hanlon’s bluster seemed forced but it was possible that he really didn’t know McAllister’s name. The McCabes hadn’t. If the name meant nothing then it must have been the mention of the Brighton Royal Trafalgar in my note that had given Hanlon the incentive to stay home. I switched to this track and asked him about his stay at the hotel.

  ‘I run a company,’ Hanlon said. ‘I stay in hotels all over the country.’

  I lifted my eyebrows. ‘And that includes eight-hundred-a-night hospitality?’ I asked. ‘I must be in the wrong job.’

  Hanlon looked out of the window at the Citroen.

  ‘You are,’ he said.

  Good point. If the shit-heap was sold it wouldn’t buy a set of wiper blades for Hanlon’s Bentley. But I wasn’t swallowing his line about eight-hundred-quid suites being normal business in the IT trade. When you see that kind of extravagance proffered for free you know that business is not normal.

  ‘Those must have been very generous business associates,’ I suggested.

  ‘None of your business, Mr Flynn.’

  I looked at him. ‘Mr Hanlon, it’s become my business. Maybe you didn’t know it but your Brighton holiday was financed by a professional criminal. These people do things for a reason. Especially five-star hospitality.’

  ‘I’ve already told you – I don’t know this man McAllister.’

  ‘So bear with me. What business took you to Brighton?’

  ‘Nothing I’d talk to you about,’ Hanlon said. ‘Understand this, Mr Flynn, I’ve stayed home to find out what your note was about, not to be interrogated.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Your five minutes is almost up.’

  ‘Just a couple more questions,’ I said. ‘From what you say you wouldn’t be concerned if the Brighton thing came under the scrutiny of the authorities? You’d stick to your line about normal business?’

  ‘Whatever I did, it would have nothing to do with you.’

  I changed track. ‘I understand that you sold the gatehouse last year. How much did you lose on the deal? Would I be right saying half a million? What I’ve been asking myself is why a wealthy guy has to rush into a loss-making deal when he can probably raise the same kind of money economically if he waits a few weeks. Unless he’s looking to raise cash in a very short time with minimum visibility. What else did you sell? Is your garage emptier than it was?’

  Hanlon shook his head. ‘You’re talking nonsense, Flynn.’

  That had never stopped me before.

  ‘The thing has been puzzling me,’ I said. ‘Why does someone need to raise cash so fast? To be honest I can’t help thinking about dodgy business deals. Payoffs. Has your company been getting into something it shouldn’t?’

  Hanlon shook his head like a mastiff shaking fleas. ‘Let’s stop messing around, Mr Flynn,’ he said. ‘If you have something to tell me then spit it out. Otherwise I’m going to end our discussion. I’m a busy man.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘The option I’m actually looking at is that someone was threatening your family. You’ve got a girl and a boy. Was one of them a target? Was either of them taken?’

  Hanlon forced a laugh. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘Wild guesses. Illegal business deals. Kidnappings! I don’t know what the hell your Mr McAllister is up to but you’re barking up the wrong tree. The man has absolutely no connection with my family. Never has had. And now we’re through.’

  ‘What did you say about children being taken?’

  Faye Hanlon had walked into the room a few seconds before. Her husband turned rapidly.

  ‘Mr Flynn has nothing,’ he said. ‘He’s on a fishing trip, looking for connections to some criminal he’s chasing. The whole thing is ridiculous.’

  Faye Hanlon was in her early forties but worry lines added a decade. Maybe the lines came with her job. Like her husband, she didn’t look like she took nonsense from anyone.

  ‘Why do you ask about children being taken?’ she demanded again. She tried to back up her husband’s bluster but there was a shakiness in her voice.

  ‘We’ve found a connection between your family and one we’re working with,’ I explained. ‘Ours has been targeted by a criminal gang in the kidnapping business.’

  Faye Hanlon’s eyes widened.

  ‘Has someone been abducted?’ she asked.

  I nodded. ‘A young girl. Her name is Rebecca Townsend. She’s been missing for over a week.’ I watched Faye’s face. ‘Right now we’re trying to find the people who have her.’

  Faye’s hand went to her mouth. David Hanlon moved to her side. He spoke softly.

  ‘The man is scaring us gratuitously,’ he said. ‘He’s absolutely no proof for anything he’s saying. Our children are under no threat.’ He gripped his wife’s shoulder. ‘Remember that!’

  He turned to me.

  ‘Mr Flynn, we’re through.’

  I smiled. Scaring people gratuitously. We should add it to our Yellow Pages listing. But Hanlon was right. I was through. I thanked them for their time and turned to walk out.

  At the door I turned back to Faye Hanlon. ‘Whom did they take?’ I asked. ‘Clarissa or Harry? Am I right thinking it was your daughter?’

  Faye’s hand shot to her mouth and Hanlon stepped between us, his face colouring.

  ‘That’s it, Flynn!’ he said. ‘I want you off my property right now!’

  I let him manhandle me to the door. I had what I’d come for. The McCabes’ denials yesterday had been puzzling because they smacked of truth. They had threatened to demolish my theory. The Hanlons’ denials smacked of desperation. Put me right on the mark. It was time to take this thing to the Slaters and force their hand.

  Hanlon opened the front door with an extravagant firmness but I stopped and held up a photo. A final shot.

  The picture poleaxed him like garlic bread on Dracula’s dinner plate. Hanlon’s jaw had dropped before he could co
ntrol it. He knew Tina Brown all right.

  ‘You probably don’t know her real name,’ I said, ‘but you remember the face. We have her at the Royal Trafalgar that night with you. She’s missing too. Any ideas?’

  Hanlon got himself back under control. Apart from his too-straight face you’d never know he was coming up for air.

  ‘Stir up trouble with me, Flynn,’ he growled, ‘and I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.’

  I nodded: ‘Sure. But if there’s something I should know sooner, rather than later, you have my card.’

  Hanlon said nothing as I trotted down the steps. I flicked him a salute as I climbed into the car. We’d be meeting again. We both knew it. I jabbed the key into the ignition. The engine clanked over but refused to start. I tried again, cranked it for twenty seconds while the battery drained to a dying chunter. I watched Hanlon through the chipped windscreen and kept my face straight. I relaxed the key and held off for a moment then pressed my foot delicately all the way to the floor. If the carb flooded that was it. I turned the key again. One last shot. The engine chuntered as woefully as before but then it caught and spluttered to life on three cylinders. The vehicle shook like a spin dryer with a brick inside but it was going. I found reverse and tried to look cool as I backed out, careful not to damage the Citroen’s bodywork on Hanlon’s Bentley.

  As I drove away I watched Hanlon in my rear-view crumpling Eagle Eye’s card in his fist and tossing it aside.

  I drove back to Paddington and parked in Gerry Lye’s unused spot next to the Frogeye. Gerry had a point about his space. The tarmac had bubbled alongside the burned out vehicle and the broken glass didn’t feel too good under the ZX’s wheels. Shaughnessy’s Yamaha stood on the far side of the Frogeye, clear of the debris.

  Lucy gave me a sympathetic look when I went in. I’d had the Frogeye when the two of us were together. The car had memories for her. I poured coffee and stirred in powder and sugar.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw it,’ Lucy said. ‘It looks like you’ve upset the wrong people again, Eddie.’