by Peter Helton
‘The one you said you’d set in motion.’
‘Oh that. Well, I think it’s best I demonstrate. Let’s go tunnelling,’ he said, picking up a small black leather bag that contained his gear.
I had brought a zip-up canvas bag myself to carry away whatever we found in the safe. This time I’d also brought decent leather gloves. I slipped them on and followed Tim and Annis through the autumnal hedge.
‘You guys take cover down there where the security lights won’t catch you,’ Tim instructed us. ‘Keep an eye on the goon’s favourite pond. I’ll go and trigger the lights.’
‘Bigwood knows best,’ I murmured to myself and squeezed with Annis into the soot-black shadow of a trio of not-so-dwarf conifers. Moments later the acid glare of the security lights flooded the upper part of the garden and Tim came skidding down the grass in a hurry to join us. We each found a gap in the vegetation to peer through. It was a short wait. The same big guy we had seen at our last visit pushed open the verandah doors and practically fell through them. He carried a pool cue like a club. His gait appeared more than a little uncertain as he negotiated the steps, down one level where he paused for a shuffle to steady himself, then another level to the pond where his vodka bottle was hidden. He was talking to himself in a happy slurring voice but being much further away this time I couldn’t make out the words.
‘The guy is three sheets to the wind,’ I concluded.
‘More than that,’ Tim corrected me confidently. ‘I’d say at least four sheets. I know someone at the chemistry department up at the uni. He’s working on a new drug in his spare time. Strictly recreational, you understand, and he let me have a small sample, which I dropped into this bozo’s bottle of booze since he seems to reward himself with a drink each time he has to investigate why the security lights come on. He’s had a good swig already. The next one should finish him off.’
‘Finish him off how?’ I said in alarm. The bozo in question was kneeling by the pond’s edge, leaning heavily on his cue and fishing around for his bottle in the murky water. ‘What effect does the drug have?’
‘You get extremely blissed out and it creates the impression that you know everything there is to know in the world.’
The goon had found the bottle, cackled and straightened up.
‘Taken at the right dosage it makes you feel as though any second now you’ll understand all the secrets of the universe.’
The goon took a swig from the bottle, corked it and keeled over on to the grass like a felled tree.
‘Unfortunately it abruptly sends you to sleep just before you do,’ Tim said in a normal voice and got up. ‘Needs more work.’
While we carried the limp and heavy body up two flights of stone steps and through the verandah door the goon began to snore. We deposited him on the nearest sofa. There were three of those in the spacious and dimly lit room, arranged around a freestanding faux fireplace with an excessive amount of wrought iron, hammered copper and snowy sheepskins around its base. In one corner a bar with four stools sported enough optics to start a pub. Dotted all over the place were imitation coconut palms in large pots, complete with plastic coconuts, and on one wall hung a TV screen so enormous it took a while to walk past it.
I’d brought the pool cue. ‘Let’s make sure he’s not got a game going with some mates, shall we?’ I suggested in a low voice. I crossed the room, passed the broad sweep of the open-sided staircase, into a wide area with several doors off and a wall of glass bricks at the end beyond which I suspected lay the entrance hall. One door on the left was ajar and showed light. I listened but didn’t hear a sound. I pushed the door open with the cue: a games room, dominated by a pool table. Half the balls were scattered on the immaculate green baize but the black appeared to be missing. Acigarette still smouldered in an ashtray on a side table that also supported an open backgammon set. I put the cigarette out and returned the cue to the rack which already held half a dozen others.
Tim and Annis had quickly inspected the other rooms on this floor: dining room, kitchen and a bathroom. The safe had to be on the next floor. Just as we began padding up the stairs the imitation grandfather clock round the corner chimed: ten o’clock. Upstairs a hall with more plastic palms had five doors leading off it. One was ajar and turned out to be another bathroom. I tried the next one; a sparsely furnished bedroom with a very large window. It reminded me of a hospital room. Annis had opened the door opposite. ‘Bingo,’ she announced softly. Tim and I were both moving towards it when a door at the end of the hall opened a few inches and a female voice shouted: ‘Darren? Bring me another drink, will you? And go easy on the tonic, no matter what my husband told you, all right? Dar-ren?’
We’d all frozen as soon as we heard the voice but playing dead in the middle of the hall was clearly not going to work. We crept quietly into the office Annis had found. I left the door open a tiny crack so I could see what, if anything, was happening outside. Only seconds passed before a woman swished past. The unexpected Mrs Telfer brought with her a cloud of flowery perfume. Her head was a black helmet of shoulder-length lifeless hair and she wore a dressing gown that shimmered lime green in the twilight. She called the goon’s name again from the top before slip-pering downstairs.
‘Is the safe in here?’ I asked.
Tim snapped on his tiny torch. ‘Fifty quid says it’s behind that yucky painting.’ The yucky painting was a Renoir print of a garden scene in a gold frame, hung at an awkward height that just screamed wall safe.
‘Then get to it, I’ll keep an eye out for the thirsty lady.’ I tiptoed into the hall and stood at the top of the stairs. From here I could see Darren the goon still comatose on the sofa. Clinking of glass was followed by the swish of silk. Mrs Telfer appeared carrying a fresh drink and stood beside the blissed-out sleeper. ‘I can’t believe you managed to get ratarsed so quickly.’ His limbs were splayed wide, one leg resting on the floor. She gave it a half-hearted prod with a slippered foot. ‘You better get your act together by the time Barry comes back. He’ll expect me drunk but he’ll expect you sober.’
I withdrew sharpish as she turned towards the stairs. I closed the office door behind me and hushed Tim, who froze. When I heard the bedroom door close at the end of the hall I signalled to him to continue. As my eyes got accustomed to the dark again I could make out Annis leaning against a filing cabinet, her arms crossed in front of her. The Renoir print had indeed swung back on hidden hinges like a door. Behind it was a disappointingly small grey door with one combination dial and one handle. Tim had the safe wired up with electronic gadgets like a patient having his physical. He was wearing headphones, listening to the innards of the mechanism. One gadget showed a glimmer of red numbers in the dark. Tim spun the dial this way and that, then stowed all his gear in his bag before laying a hand on the handle. If there were unexpected alarm bells to go off then this was the moment. I could hear him take a short breath and hold it. Then he pulled. With a satisfying little click the door opened. I was by his side with my Maglite torch in my mouth. There was no time to sort through the content. Take everything, the voice had said. I emptied it into my bag: a fat, gaping envelope stuffed with fifties; a heavy box file; some slim plastic folders; a lady’s mink fur hat and a small, blue jewellery box. I checked there was nothing left in the darkest recess, then zipped up my bag while Tim closed the safe and swung the painting back into place. The rest was easy. We tiptoed out of the place like comic strip burglars, past the sleeping Darren and down to the pond where Tim took the time to empty and rinse the vodka bottle, leaving it floating in the pond. There was every chance Darren might be found queuing at the Jobcentre tomorrow.
We parted company on the other side of the hedge.
‘I’ll go back in Tim’s car, if you don’t mind,’ Annis said. ‘For purely olfactory reasons of course.’
Okay, I’d definitely have to do something about the smell in my car. While Annis and Tim, who had parked in a side street off Lansdown hill, walked up I walked down through the tufty gras
s, climbed the by now familiar fence, crossed the little plantation of trees without the aid of a torch and slithered into Charlcombe Lane only a few yards from where the DS was parked. Not bad for a cloudy, moonless night, I told myself.
Annis’s absence in the car allowed me to play a tape of Turkish pop music, which she detested, at nosebleed volume. It was small compensation though and an acidic stab of jealousy marred the satisfaction I should have felt at having the wherewithal to free Louis in a holdall on the seat next to me. I could hardly curb my curiosity as to what on earth, besides the money, could have been so important but sensibly drove off immediately. The money would come to about six grand, I guessed, not an amount to commit kidnap and risk life imprisonment for. The real reason had to lie in the files, unless the little jewellery box contained a very rare bauble indeed. My hand crept towards the bag but headlights appeared over the rise ahead and passing in this narrow lane took some negotiating. I dipped my headlights and slowed, looking for a passing place. The other car’s headlights remained on full beam and it zoomed close so fast I had no choice but to stop completely. Smelling a rat I quickly locked my driver door but by the time I reached over to the passenger door it was being yanked open. Even if the guy in the balaclava hadn’t brandished a nail-studded baseball bat there was little I could have done to stop him snatching the bag, it happened so fast. He slammed the door shut and vanished into the dark. Having all my doors locked would probably only have resulted in having all my windows smashed, since another guy, also dressed in combat jacket, jeans and balaclava and identically armed, appeared between the lights and my car. I checked behind me. Another vehicle with only sidelights showing lurked not far behind. The second guy swung his baseball bat at my near-side front wheel, puncturing it with a nail, then took out my last remaining headlight with an almost casual swipe of the bat. The whole operation was over in seconds. The car in front reversed at speed until it slew around where the lane briefly widened. With the headlights facing away at last I had the fleeting impression of a dark blue car, a Golf or one of its rival clones. The one behind me seemed to have vanished into the night.
For a while I just sat, muttered short and useful words and thumped the steering wheel. What had the voice said? ‘When you’ve pulled it off, we’ll know. We’ll be in touch.’ They’d just been in touch and I had done the one thing I had promised Jill not to do: let the ransom go without seeing her boy safely back first. How was I going to explain this? I was glad now that Annis hadn’t been with me since she might have tried to put herself between the bag and the baseball bat.
When my heart finally stopped hammering against my rib cage I got out and inspected the damage. One very deflated tyre. I dug out my torch and went looking for the car jack and the spare in the boot. There was no car jack. I vaguely remembered using it to prise open a chained-up door a while back . . . My breakdown service had recently sent me a polite letter suggesting I invest in a new car, better servicing or try someone else entirely next time since I had relied rather heavily on their assistance recently. There was only one thing to do: I called Jake. After he had roundly cursed and insulted me and my piece of effing French junk he promised to pick me and the DS up asap. Then I called Tim’s mobile. He answered on the second ring.
‘What’s up, Honeypot? Where are you? We just got in.’
I told him.
‘You’re shitting me. Sorry, obviously not. Are you all right? Did they say anything? Sure they didn’t leave the kid somewhere in the lane?’
‘Not where I can see but then that doesn’t mean much since there’s no street lighting up here. If they had meant to hand over the boy they wouldn’t have snatched the loot armed with clubs but you never can tell. I’ll check the lane while I’m waiting to be picked up.’
‘Perhaps they just wanted to make sure we didn’t have time to study the stuff too closely. Perhaps they’ll just let him go now.’
‘Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ll never hear from them again and Louis never comes back. Because he’s dead already.’
‘But why would they kill him?’
‘Because they don’t want to be identified? Because the kid saw their faces? Because kidnap and murder carry the same penalty anyway? Because they’re arseholes? How would I know?’ There was silence at the other end. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I’ll have a recce up here while I wait for Jake to pick up this wreck. It’ll give me time to think about how I’ll explain this to Jill.’
‘Do you want us to call her?’ Tim offered.
‘No. No, I’ll go round there myself later.’
‘Oh, okay.’ I could hear the relief in Tim’s voice, which made me appreciate his offer even more. I terminated the call and walked up the lane. My little torch that seemed so appropriate in the confines of a room to be burgled sent only a feeble glow into the vast darkness of the night. I walked as far as the row of little white cottages, then walked all the way back past my car and as far as the next house a few hundred yards along. I was half hoping, half fearing to find the boy, tied up and gagged, perhaps, and waiting to be found and released, but there was nobody, there was nothing. When I could hear the big diesel engine of Jake’s truck I jogged back. Jake was the long-suffering mechanic who had kept the DS running all these years. He worked out of what used to be a small farm between Bath and Chippenham and specialized in restoring classic cars – classic British cars, as he never stopped reminding me – and without him the old Citroën would long have gone to the scrapheap.
‘Which is where this thing belongs, Chris,’ he reminded me as he attached the cable to the front under the unkind glare of a massive light fixed to the cab of his truck. ‘It’s a wreck, a disgrace. You think this has street cred? It had ten years ago perhaps when you could still recognize it as a motor vehicle. If you were hoping for the Withnail-and-I look I’m afraid I have to tell you: the missing headlight’s a nice touch but otherwise you really overdid it. Now it’s just junk.’ He engaged the winch and the DS creaked slowly up the ramps.
I really didn’t want to deal with this but it served as a welcome distraction from the other monumental failure of the day. ‘It’s only a flat tyre,’ I whined.
‘Nonsense,’ he contradicted. ‘It’s everything. You don’t think you could drive around in daylight with this, do you? The police would have you pulled over in no time.’
‘Can’t you straighten that out? It’s just cosmetic, really . . .’
He put the chocks in place and tightened the straps that secured the DS on the flat bed of the truck. ‘Cosmetic? I would need to use embalming fluid. The bodywork was nine-tenths filler anyway. I can’t go on giving you dodgy MOTs because someone’s going to die in this if it stays on the road.’
If the car restoration business was ever a bit slack he could always try clairvoyance. He pulled his baseball cap off, baring his bald head in mock reverence. ‘It’s had it, Chris. You couldn’t afford to have this restored and I don’t want to restore it. Start thinking about a replacement. Come on, I’ll drop you off at your place.’ He slapped the cap back on his head.
I climbed into the messy cab strewn with pork pie wrappers and empty fag packets and wedged myself into the corner like a sulking kid. The fact that I had just messed up the handover of the ransom sat so heavily on me I could not bring myself to grieve much over the final demise of my DS21. I would have to use the Norton for a cold and windy while and unless I could lay my hands on a useful amount of money soon it might be rather a long while, too. Roofers had to be paid. I owed half of my troubles to one stormy day.
And the other half? There was a hollow where my stomach should be and somewhere in that hollow sat a hard ball of fear, the size of a child’s fist. There couldn’t be even the slightest pretence now that I was still in control of the situation. A woman whose son’s life depended on me was waiting to hear my explanation of how I intended to get him back with nothing to bargain with; the roofs of my house and studio had large plastic-covered holes in them; I had a show coming up and no paint
ings to enter and a love relationship, the triangular nature of which seemed to be shifting and distorting. To top it all off I just had my means of transport declared as unfit for use as I appeared to be myself.
Jake hustled the big truck along the deserted lane, flaying the hedgerows in the process. ‘And how’s things, apart from car trouble?’
Chapter Twelve
As the hours drained away like molasses from a leaky tin the atmosphere at Mill House became stifled, stale and desperate. No phone call, no message. I gave myself until the morning to abdicate from detective work for ever.
Annis and I had delivered the bad news to Jill at her place in Harley Street in person. There were no tears and no recrimination, just hollow-eyed quiet fear.
She remained implacably opposed to calling the police. ‘I’m too scared. But I’ll call my sister now.’
Back at Mill House nobody slept much. Tim dozed in one corner of the sofa, I haunted the other while Annis stayed curled up in the big blue armchair, the one my father had killed himself in. Ashtrays were full and the sour taste of too much coffee and cigarettes complemented the grinding headache behind my forehead. All night the blustery wind had thrown rain against the blind windows like handfuls of grit. When dawn finally came it was barely an improvement. Dirty clouds rolled low over the valley and the light was feeble. I started the morning rituals of breakfast for form’s sake. It helped me mark the end of the night, the end, I hoped, of our helpless waiting around. Decisions would be made today – one way or another – and we would be released from limbo. Handing round tea and toast felt like the first positive thing I’d done for a long time. It was acknowledged by grunts and mumbled thanks and restored some life into the deadly tableau of the last few hours, yet nobody found anything new to say. A few remarks about the dreadfulness of the weather soon dried up. Everything else had been discussed to death.
It was nine o’clock exactly when the cordless phone that had been lying in the middle of the coffee table like a dead thing gave its electronic warble. All three of us jumped and made some kind of involuntary sound. I grabbed the handset, took a deep breath and answered.