Caught In the Light

by Robert Goddard

  ‘He’s taken her, Faith. You know it; I know it. Nyman’s taken our daughter. And we have to get her back before––’ I broke off, unable to frame the thought in words.

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Never mind. Just stay where you are.’

  Faith didn’t know the kind of man we were dealing with. The charmer had been revealed to her as a liar and a manipulator. But he was worse than that. I just wasn’t sure I had the heart to tell her how much worse.

  It took us nearly an hour to reach Castelnau through the early evening traffic. By then Faith had phoned every last friend of Amy’s with the same result, several of them for a second time. She’d also phoned Derringfold Place, as well as Nyman’s Barbican flat and his Docklands office. But he wasn’t at any of them. And nor was Amy.

  ‘Why didn’t you warn me he might do something like this?’ she demanded.

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ reasoned Daphne. ‘He was probably already on his way here while we were talking about him at your office.’

  ‘But what does he hope to accomplish? Amy will soon realize he isn’t taking her to meet me. He can’t keep her against her will.’ She looked from one to the other of us, hoping, I suppose, that we’d agree. ‘Can he?’

  ‘There’s nothing to suggest he’s personally capable of physical violence,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Is that supposed to reassure me?’

  ‘Listen, Faith,’ I began. ‘We need to stay calm.’

  ‘This is all your fault.’ She rounded on me, sounding anything but calm. ‘If you hadn’t leapt into bed with that tart in Vienna—’

  ‘He’d have found some other way to get at me. At us. You still don’t seem to understand.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I do or don’t understand. I want Amy back.’

  ‘So do I. But shouting at each other isn’t going to get us anywhere.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ She waved her hand at me, then walked to the window and back, twice, breathing deeply, searching for some kind of mental balance. ‘Should we phone the police?’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Daphne. ‘There’s no proof Amy’s with Nyman. She’s fourteen years old. The police won’t take her absence seriously until tomorrow. By then Nyman may have made contact.’

  ‘So we just wait?’

  ‘I think that might be best.’

  ‘But she’s not your daughter, is she?’

  ‘No, I realize—’

  ‘I don’t think you do. I don’t think you have any idea. Come to that, how can I be sure you’re really trying to help? For all I know you could still be working for Nyman.’

  ‘You have to trust me, Faith. Nyman promised me no-one would get hurt. I had no reason to expect he’d do anything like this.’

  ‘Where’s he taken her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not his confidante. He’s deceived me as well as you.’

  ‘Derringfold Place, perhaps. The maid said he hadn’t been there all day, but maybe she’d been instructed to say that.’

  ‘I doubt it. It would be too obvious.’

  ‘Somewhere else, then.’

  ‘Yes. Somewhere only he knows about. Somewhere he’s prepared for just this contingency.’

  ‘Prepared? You think he’s been planning this for some time?’

  ‘Maybe. Like I told you, I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Faith repeated dully. ‘He doesn’t know,’ she added, her voice cracking as she pointed at me. She was on the verge of tears now, but anger, with me, with Daphne, with herself, was holding them back. ‘None of us—’

  The telephone was ringing. It was as if it had been ringing for several minutes without anyone noticing. But now it was loud and clear in our ears. For a second, we stood stock still, staring at each other. Then Faith ran past me into the hall and grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Amy?’ It was more a hope than a question. And the hope died in the dull silence that followed. When Faith spoke again, she sounded sullen, almost resentful. ‘Yes. All right. Hold on.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked as she walked back into the room.

  ‘Tim.’

  ‘Tim?’

  ‘Yes. He wants to speak to you.’

  ‘How did he know I was here?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Just get rid of him. And don’t tell him anything. OK?’

  ‘OK.’ I went out into the hall and picked up the telephone. ‘Tim?’

  ‘I have to see you right away, Ian.’

  ‘I really don’t think I can—’

  ‘Get over here, will you? There’s something you have to … Just get over here.’ And with that he put the phone down.

  I stared at the dead receiver, wondering if I should call him back. But Tim was the most phlegmatic of people. He never made a fuss. He never exaggerated. He always meant what he said. And what he’d said I couldn’t ignore. Already, I was certain it had something to do with Amy.

  ‘I have to go over to Parsons Green,’ I said, returning to the lounge. ‘Can I, er, borrow the car, Faith?’

  ‘You … what?’

  ‘It’s urgent.’

  ‘Amy’s missing. Possibly kidnapped. Isn’t that urgent?’

  ‘Of course it is. But Tim will think it odd if I don’t go. We don’t want him to realize there’s something wrong.’

  ‘What can possibly be so urgent? Tim’s life runs like clockwork. He has nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Look, it won’t take long. I’ll be back within the hour.’

  I caught a suspicious glance from Daphne. But Faith was too distracted to be suspicious. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she snapped, marching out to fetch the car key.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Daphne in an undertone.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘It’s Nyman, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe. If so, it’s best I go alone, don’t you think?’

  But the only answer Daphne could give me was an assenting nod as Faith rejoined us.

  ‘Here,’ she said icily, handing me the key. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry about this.’

  ‘Really?’ She stared at me. ‘I don’t understand you any more, Ian, you know that? I don’t understand a single thing about you. Amy needs you, not Tim. If you had a shred of decency …’ She shook her head in weary condemnation.

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice.’ She paused, weighing her words. ‘It’s just that you always choose wrong.’

  Tim must have been looking out for me. He opened the front door as I ran up the path and slammed it shut behind me.

  ‘Amy’s missing, isn’t she?’ he asked in the flat tone of one who already knew the answer.

  ‘Yes. We think Nyman has her.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He told me. Over the telephone, about half an hour ago.’

  ‘He rang you?’

  ‘Yes. Because he had a message for you and you alone and reckoned I could get it to you.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘You can hear for yourself. He told me to ring off and switch on the answerphone, so he could call again and record a message.’ Tim led the way into the lounge and over to the telephone as he spoke. ‘Ready?’

  I nodded and he switched the machine on. There was an electronic bleep, then Nyman’s voice, echoing faintly on the tape so that it sounded almost disembodied.

  I hope you’re listening to this, Jarrett, because it represents your only chance of seeing Amy alive again. She’s here with me now, safe and secure. But she can’t move and she can’t speak. And she’ll never speak again if you don’t find us before dawn tomorrow. It’s not long, I know, but it’s long enough for someone as sharp-witted as you. Oh, I nearly forgot. You don’t know where we are, do you? You’ll need a clue. Well, here it is. I first came here with Isobel, a long time ago. In fact, it was the very last time we were all together. Be seeing you, Jarrett. Or not. As
the case may be.

  Tim switched the tape off and looked at me questioningly. ‘Do you think he means it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I. When I spoke to him I had the impression, the very distinct impression, that he meant every word.’

  ‘It’s been leading up to this all along. An eye for an eye. I don’t have a sister. But I do have a daughter.’

  ‘A sister?’

  ‘Nyman is Isobel Courtney’s brother.’

  ‘Flesh and blood.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Find them. By dawn tomorrow.’

  ‘How? Did that … “clue” … mean something to you?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe. Play it again.’

  Tim rewound the tape and stood watching me as I listened to Nyman’s sneering voice, in which there was also some bubbling undercurrent of desperation. ‘I first came here with Isobel, a long time ago.’ But where? Where had they gone? ‘In fact, it was the very last time we were all together.’ He wanted me to work it out. He needed me to solve the puzzle. And he reckoned I could.

  ‘Again, Tim. Once more.’

  ‘I hope you’re listening to this, Jarrett …’ Oh, I was listening. I was listening so hard I could almost see the pictures in his head, the pictures of what had been and what was yet to come. ‘Be seeing you, Jarrett. Or not. As the case may be.’

  ‘That’s it.’ I snapped my fingers. ‘Photographs.’ I looked across at Tim. ‘Will you do me a favour?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I’ve got to go now. Give me an hour’s start, then take this tape to Faith. Tell her to do as she thinks best. Contact the police, whatever. I doubt it’ll make any difference, but … she has to know.’

  ‘Know what, exactly?’

  ‘That I’m doing the only thing I can to save Amy.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Just what Nyman wants me to do.’

  FOURTEEN

  IT WAS GONE ten o’clock when I reached Chichester. The night was mild and windless and Chichester itself seemed eerily empty. There were no lights showing at the Pipe Rack. If Sam Courtney was still up, I reckoned he’d be in the small sitting room behind the shop, with Isobel’s photographically preserved smile waiting for him whenever he happened to glance up at the mantelpiece. Not that I much cared. I was sure he’d be at home and that was all that mattered. I’d break the door down if I had to.

  But I didn’t have to. I added a few thumps on the woodwork to my slams at the knocker and soon saw a wedge of lamplight towards the rear of the shop, then made out a stooped figure slowly rounding the counter.

  ‘Who’s there?’ the old man ventured when he was closer.

  ‘Ian Jarrett,’ I shouted. ‘I have to speak to you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jarrett. You remember, Mr Courtney. I was here Monday afternoon.’

  He hesitated so long you’d have thought Monday was a distant memory. Then he said, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s urgent, Mr Courtney. A matter of life and death. Please open the door.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

  ‘I think you have.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘It concerns your son.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard, Mr Courtney. Your son. Robert. Middle name—’

  He reached up and slipped the top bolt. It snapped back explosively, silencing me. I waited as he released the bottom bolt, turned the key in the lock and edged open the door. Amber light from the nearest street lamp shimmered on the thick lenses of his glasses. His eyes, blurred and magnified behind them, gaped at me in alarm. ‘I’ve got no son,’ he muttered, as if repeating a mantra. ‘Isobel was our only child.’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about it inside?’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘Then why did you open the door?’ I stepped in slowly and he moved back, letting me enter with a shrug that was two parts submission to one of stubbornness. ‘The “friend” Isobel was visiting in Barnet the night she died was her psychotherapist, Daphne Sanger.’ I pushed the door gently shut behind me. ‘Her psychotherapist and … something more.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. It’s why you denied all knowledge of her when I mentioned her name on Monday. You’re pretty good at closing your mind to things you don’t want to think about, aren’t you?’

  ‘Fat lot you know about it.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Courtney. I know all about it. Isobel and Daphne were lovers.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘And Conrad Nyman is your son.’

  ‘No. He isn’t.’

  ‘Yes, he is. Much as I wish he weren’t. He’s Isobel’s brother and he holds me to blame for her death.’

  ‘You are to blame.’

  ‘Yes. I am. But my daughter isn’t.’

  ‘Your daughter? What’s she got to do with it?’

  ‘Amy. Fourteen years old. Nine when Isobel died. Entirely blameless, wouldn’t you agree?’

  He frowned at me in confusion. ‘I never said she wasn’t.’

  ‘He’s kidnapped her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your son.’

  ‘I have no son.’

  ‘He’s kidnapped her and he’s threatening to kill her.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Got a cassette player?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A cassette player.’

  ‘Well … Yes, I’ve got one.’

  ‘I have a tape I’d like you to listen to.’ I slid the extra copy of the tape Tim had made for me out of my pocket and showed it to him. ‘Then I think you will believe me.’

  He stared at me for half a minute or so before leading the way, at a shuffling pace, back across the shop. It was hard to tell if he was trying to stall me or just short of breath. But eventually we reached the sitting room. News at Ten was playing with the sound turned down. The old man stooped to switch it off completely, then pointed to a bureau in the corner. A radio cassette player was stationed there, flanked by a bowl of wrinkled apples and an empty vase. ‘Isobel gave it to us a couple of Christmases before she died,’ he said. ‘Doris used to listen to her Val Doonican tapes on it, but I only bother with the radio. You’ll have to work it.’

  ‘All right.’ I moved to the bureau, switched on the machine and set the tape running. Sam Courtney listened in silence, his shoulders hunched, his jaws clenched so tightly the muscles created their own shadows on his sunken cheeks. Nyman’s voice filled the void between us, his words echoing in the loudspeaker – and in the room that had once been his home. Then he was done. I stopped the tape and rewound it. ‘Do you want to hear it again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is your son’s voice, isn’t it?’

  Sam looked at me and nodded dolefully in confirmation. Then, defeated by his own admission, he sat down slowly in the armchair.

  ‘We did our best for that boy,’ he murmured, as if to himself. ‘He wanted for nothing. He had a good upbringing. We taught him the difference between right and wrong. We were firm but fair. We treated him the same as Isobel. But he didn’t turn out the same. There was always something … evil in him.’

  ‘But he loved his sister.’

  ‘Oh yes. He loved her well enough. And she loved him. So much that she went on seeing him and writing to him after we’d …’ He shook his head despairingly.

  ‘After you’d disowned him.’

  ‘Well? I couldn’t stop him defying us. But I could stop him disgracing us.’

  ‘Have you seen him since he got out of prison?’

  ‘No. He knew better than to come here.’

  ‘But you were aware he’d turned himself into Conrad Nyman?’

  ‘Only when I saw his face in the county magazine, showing off that house of his over at Cuckfield.’

  ‘Too close for comfort?’

  ‘He ne
ver did concern himself with my comfort. I heard nothing from him when Doris died. Not a word.’

  ‘Nor did he from you when Isobel died.’

  Sam flushed slightly. His voice thickened. ‘I shouldn’t be in any hurry to side with him … now you know what he’s capable of.’

  ‘How far do you think he might go?’

  ‘As far as he wants. He’s never accepted any limit on what he does. The only person beside himself he’s ever cared about … is Isobel. If he’s got your daughter like he says …’ Sam swallowed. ‘She’s in danger of her life.’

  ‘Will you help me find them?’

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘“The very last time we were all together.” What does that mean?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Think, for God’s sake. “We” could be him and Isobel, but “we all” must be the family. You, your wife and your two children. Together. For the very last time.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘When would that have been?’

  ‘Well … I’m not sure. Before he … went to prison, I suppose, the first time. But he’d been keeping his distance from us for years. I mean, he lived under this roof, at least until he went away to university, but … you wouldn’t call that … being together.’

  ‘What would you, then?’

  ‘When we still did things together. Properly. As a family.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Holidays and such.’

  ‘What was the last holiday you took, then – all four of you?’

  ‘Oh, that would have been …’ He paused to think, his brow furrowing with the effort. ‘The Norfolk coast. Summer of seventy-three. Isobel was seventeen that year and Robbie was … fifteen.’

  ‘Where did you go – precisely?’

  ‘A caravan site. At a place called Wells-next-the-Sea. It was Isobel’s idea. She said she’d always wanted to photograph the area.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sam gave another of his vast and helpless shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You couldn’t question her about her photographs. She had her reasons and we went along with them. Made a change from Weston-super-Mare, I’ll say that, though the wind off the North Sea was as cold as charity. That caravan was all draughts. But Isobel didn’t care. She was out every day round the countryside with Robbie. They hired a couple of bikes to explore on.’