‘What did this person say?’ Tremayne said on seeing Mavis.
‘It was a muffled voice. One million pounds, or else they’d return Rachel to us in a box.’
‘Archie Garrett?’ Tremayne asked.
‘We don’t know.’
‘You’ve found the car,’ Tremayne said. ‘Any sign of violence?’
‘Not that we could see. It appeared that she had pulled off the road.’
‘Jim Hughes is checking the car for fingerprints,’ Clare said.
‘We’ll assume they find nothing. Coming back to the phone call, Mavis. What else was said?’
‘Only that we were to ensure the money was available by six this evening and to wait for further instructions.’
‘You realise that you are not to pay this. If you do, they’ll want more money.’
‘They can have it all. I want Rachel back.’
‘Very well. Why did you call the police, if you’ll not take my advice?’ Why didn’t you phone us instead of Bemerton Road?’
‘I was panicking. Your phone wasn’t working, and I couldn’t get through to Clare.’
‘My phone was fine,’ Clare said.
‘I tried once or twice, and then I phoned the police station.’
‘The person on the phone told you not to contact the police?’
‘I didn’t want to, but with Alan dead, I thought the person on the phone may be his killer as well. Do you think Rachel is dead?’
‘We don’t know,’ Tremayne said. ‘Next time they phone, let me talk to them.’
‘With respect, guv. It would be better if I spoke to them,’ Clare said.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Mavis said.
‘If they intend to harm Rachel, they will, regardless of police involvement. They’ll respond better to me than DI Tremayne.’
‘You’re right,’ Tremayne conceded. He knew that Yarwood was more diplomatic than him, and she had a calming voice, not like his, the effect of too many cigarettes.
Jim Hughes phoned. ‘We’ve checked the car, no fingerprints other than Rachel Winters’. We have hers on record. Also, three cars at the site. Rachel Winters’ car, the Bentley, we know it from the tyres, and another vehicle. The tyres are worn.’
‘Any idea as to the make of car?’
‘From a tyre print? Not a chance. The best we can tell you is that it’s not a new car, small in size.’
‘How?’
‘The size of the tyres, as well as some oil that it dripped. We’re assuming the Bentley doesn’t drip oil.’
‘If there’s no more you can tell us, thanks.’
***
The next phone call was scheduled for four in the afternoon, almost a three-hour wait. Neither of the police officers wanted to relocate back to the police station. The cook, an eager woman from a nearby village, prepared lunch for everyone. Stan was sitting in one corner of the main room, anxious for action, wanting to grab hold of the person or persons responsible. Gerry Winters was also agitated. Dean Winters was worried that his wife was involved.
Mavis Winters spent her time talking to Clare. Tremayne rested in a comfortable chair, picked up a newspaper, and started to read it. Clare could see that it was a pretence.
At six o’clock, Mavis’s phone rang. Only three people remained in the room: Clare, Tremayne, and Mavis. It did not need outbursts of anger or glaring eyes if Mavis and Clare were to deal with the call.
‘I want to talk to Rachel,’ Mavis said.
‘She’s fine,’ a muffled voice replied.
‘Male or female?’ Tremayne mouthed.
‘Male,’ Mavis mouthed back. The phone was on speaker. Tremayne had heard the voice as well, but he needed confirmation from the two women.
‘Do you have the money?’
‘I do.’
‘Very well. We will phone again.’
‘My daughter?’
The phone line went dead. ‘What are we to do?’ Mavis said.
‘He’ll phone back within an hour. Whoever he is, he’s not very experienced,’ Tremayne said.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He’s too quick to demand the money; you’re too quick to agree.’
Fifty-eight minutes, another phone call. ‘The price is now two million.’ No more was said before the call cut off.
‘See what I told you,’ Tremayne said.
‘What about Rachel? The money’s not important,’ Mavis said.
‘Stall them this time, ask to talk to Rachel. Unless you have proof that she’s fine and well, then no deal.’
Another phone call, another attempt at tracing the location. ‘They’re moving around,’ Clare whispered to Tremayne.
Mavis looked at the two police officers to be quiet. On the other end of her phone, the voice spoke. ‘Have you informed the police?’
Mavis did not answer the question. ‘I want to talk to my daughter.’
‘That’s not possible.’
‘If you’ve harmed her?’
‘We have not. The price is two million.’ Yet again the phone line went dead.
Clare briefly went into the other room where the other members of the family were waiting, Bertie included. Cyril had also arrived.
Tremayne, frustrated with the kidnapper’s procrastination, walked around the room; Clare remained impassive, sitting alongside Mavis. Clare’s phone rang; it was a Skype call. Clare answered; on the other end, a nervous woman. ‘They know you’re there,’ Rachel said. ‘Tell Mum that I’m fine. They’ve not harmed me.’ Another voice took over. ‘We told her mother not to contact the police. We cannot deal with dishonest people.’ The Skype call ended.
‘It was Rachel,’ Clare said. ‘They know we’re here.’ Tremayne came over close to her; Mavis put her face in her hands in relief.
‘How?’ Tremayne said.
‘If it’s Archie Garrett, he would have assumed that we’d be somewhere around.’
‘That’s unlikely.’
‘It’s either Dean, or they’ve driven past the house in the last few hours.’
Clare left the room, went and found Dean. He was sitting with the other brothers and Bertie. ‘Has anyone made a phone call recently? she said, not directing her comment at anyone in particular.
‘No one in here, Gerry said.’
‘Dean?’
‘Not me. My phone’s in the other room.’
‘Whoever it is, knows I’m here with Tremayne.’
‘Rachel?’ Stan Winters asked.
‘I’ve spoken to her briefly.’
‘Is she fine?’
‘It was brief, and she sounded nervous, but she was coherent, a good sign.’
Clare had no intention of indulging in idle conversation with those not directly involved. She returned to Mavis and Tremayne. The cook had prepared sandwiches. Clare brought them back to the negotiating team.
Superintendent Moulton phoned; Tremayne’s phone was on silent. He excused himself and went out through the back door of the house, lighting a cigarette.
‘Yarwood’s spoken to Rachel Winters,’ Tremayne said.
‘Do you need assistance?’ Moulton asked.
‘We don’t know what we’re looking for. It appears that they are in the area and they may have driven past the Winters’ house. Apart from that, we’ve no idea what car they are driving. Random searches are not going to help.’
‘Is the woman in danger?’
‘Not sure. We know that Archie Garrett, if he’s not angry, is not violent. That’s the hope. Yarwood is with the mother. They’ll deal with the negotiating, and now it’s two million pounds.’
‘Do you have the money?’
‘One million. The other one will be here soon.’
‘Get the woman back. The money’s expendable.’
‘We know that.’
Tremayne returned to Clare and Mavis. ‘Any more?’
‘Not yet,’ Mavis said. ‘She’s going to be fine, isn’t she?’
Tremayne could see that the wom
an wanted reassurance. ‘Yes, she’ll be fine,’ he said, knowing that statistically Rachel’s well-being was far from certain.
All three ate the sandwiches, supplemented with freshly-brewed coffee. It wasn’t Tremayne’s first hostage situation. Last time it had been an angry father denied visitation rights to his children. He had barricaded himself in his former wife’s house, along with their two children. It had ended badly.
Chapter 24
Rachel sat in the back room of the old farmhouse. It was cold, and she was shivering. Her hands were tied together in front of her and secured to a wooden beam by a length of rope. She knew she could not escape. She also knew that she should be frightened, yet she remained remarkably calm. Rachel assumed it was delayed shock, or maybe it was her training in hostile situations, the dealing with grief, part of her work at Salisbury Hospital.
She had met the man once before when she was a lot younger. It had been at the wedding of her Uncle Dean. She vaguely remembered that he had not spoken much. The woman with him she knew well. Barbara Winters had given her some food and drink. ‘Sorry about this, Rachel,’ she had said.
Rachel could tell that she was not sorry for her, only for herself. Rachel knew some of the stories about what had happened to her uncle, yet had not been able to accept it fully. Although now, in that farmhouse, the two people, the brother and the sister, had a look about them that concerned her. The situation seemed unreal, the sort of thing that happened in the movies, not in real life. She had stopped her car when she had seen Barbara waving from the side of the road. At the time Barbara had been apologetic about what her brother had done to Dean. A trusting soul, Rachel had got out of her car, walked around and on to the pavement by Barbara’s car. Unbeknown to her, Archie had been hiding in it. He had appeared behind Rachel, thrust a hessian sack over her head and tossed her into the back of the car, securing her hands with a cable tie.
Once inside, as the vehicle hurtled down the road, almost turning over at one stage, Barbara had spoken to her. ‘Sorry for my brother. We’re desperate, and you are our only hope.’
At the time, the woman had been conciliatory, but Rachel saw afterwards that the brother and sister vacillated between caring and malevolent. They had hit her once, would again if she tried to reason with them.
Rachel could tell that the relationship between the couple was unnatural, almost as if they were husband and wife. Archie, the elder of the siblings, caring for his sister’s well-being, promising her that things would be better, they could go overseas, start their lives anew, just the two of them.
‘Once your mother pays we will let you go,’ Barbara said.
Archie Garrett busied himself in another room, Rachel could hear him. Whenever he approached her, she was careful about what she said. The man was unstable, spouting about the Lord’s work, and what the two million pounds would do for them.
During her time at Salisbury Hospital Rachel had experienced her fair share of frightening people, but the two who held her captive took the biscuit.
She knew she was in serious trouble. A police car had moved fast down the road not more than a hundred yards away, its siren sounding. She had felt a quickening of the pulse, assuming it to be coming to her rescue, but it had passed by.
Archie came into the room where Rachel was held. He knelt down close to her. ‘They’ve agreed. You’ll soon be going home,’ he said.
Rachel did not trust him. The man’s expression revealed insincerity. ‘Good,’ she said, not wanting to say more, not knowing his reaction. She had remembered that the family had wanted to love Uncle Dean’s wife, but it had not been able to. Even though she had been young, she could remember the woman’s manner, her disparaging comments about her mother, Mavis. And then the years when her uncle had kept away, although he was only a thirty-minute drive away, and then it was her father, newly rich, who had made contact, taken his Ferrari around to show off to his brother.
The meeting had been acrimonious from her aunt’s side, friendly from her uncle’s, and then within less than twenty-four hours the car was totalled, written off in an accident with a lamppost, and now the wife was trying to be agreeable, almost obsequious. Rachel wanted to ask her why the change of heart.
Rachel looked around the room. It lacked any charm, just a basic farm cottage; the only acknowledgement of the twenty-first century was a solitary light bulb hanging up high, suspended from the ceiling by its electrical cable. It was night outside; the stars could be seen high in the sky. The sound of cars was not far away, the rustling of trees. From the other room came the voices of two people talking. She wanted to listen, to know what they planned to do with her, whether they intended to free her. Or would the two of them kill her, the same as they had killed her father? Was she to be secured to a sacred stone somewhere, offered up in a ceremony? How would it feel to have a knife thrust into her? Would it be painful, or would there be a shock? She realised that the situation was getting to her. She thought of happy times: her mother and her, not so much of her father or her brother.
And then the door in the other room slammed, and she heard the sound of her captors outside the farmhouse. She knew she had to seize the opportunity. Grabbing hold of the rope tied to the beam she pulled hard, the first time with no success, but at the second attempt it fell free. She moved over to a drawer, pulled it open. Her hands were still tied, no longer with cable ties but with rope. In the drawer, a knife. She wedged it in the top of the drawer, its serrated blade pointing upwards. Using her body to push the drawer in to clamp the knife, she secured it firmly enough. She began a sawing action, listening for those outside. They were now distant from the farmhouse, she was sure.
The rope sufficiently cut through, it released its grip on her wrists. She was free; she knew she had to make a run for it.
Opening the door on the other side of the room, she was quickly out of the cottage. She was running, the cars in the distance, their lights blazing, getting closer. She reached the gate to the road; she was shouting for one of the vehicles to stop, they were ignoring her. As she opened the gate to rush out into the road, a voice came from behind. ‘No, you don’t.’
She remembered the man grabbing her in a bearlike grip and dragging her back to the cottage. The rope, doubled up, cutting into her wrists, restricting the circulation to her hands. Expecting the man to laugh, and then seeing the belt.
‘Don’t. She’s our hostage. If she’s harmed, they’ll not pay,’ Barbara said.
And then the man’s voice. She remembered that before the pain started. The belt cut her hard across the face, and then her buttocks, her breasts, her legs.
It was some time before she regained consciousness. She was lying on a bed, her feet secured to the metal frame, her hands tied in front of her, this time with a cable tie. Not that it mattered. She was in agony, initially unable to move. Barbara sat on one side of the bed, with a bowl of warm water. There was the smell of disinfectant. ‘You shouldn’t have got him angry,’ she said.
‘Do you intend to kill me?’ Rachel asked.
‘Of course not, but Archie’s under a lot of pressure,’ Barbara said. Rachel, weakened as she was, unable to move other than with care, could tell that the woman had had a lifetime of abuse and brainwashing.
Managing to lift herself from her prostrate position, putting two pillows behind her, Rachel sat up. She could see that the room, in comparison to where she had been before, was pleasant. The sheets on her bed were clean, and there were flowers in a vase on the dresser close to the window.
‘Has this been your life?’
‘With our father, and then with Archie.’
‘And Dean?’
‘I loved him. He treated me well, and we were happy.’
‘You hated my family.’
‘I came from hate, yet I loved Dean.’
‘Do you still hate me?’
‘Not you, but you are different. Please, you cannot understand. If I could be back with Dean, I would treat him differently.’
‘Would you?’
‘I would try.’
Rachel could see a dim spark of humanity in the woman. The door to the bedroom swung open, the face of Archie Garrett appeared. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You should not have tried to escape. We will have the money soon, and you will be free. Barbara will stay with you and make sure that you heal.’ The door closed and the man left.
‘He is like my father. We hated him, but he has left his legacy. Archie could kill in his anger, remember that. Don’t try to escape again.’
It was clear to Rachel that she would not be capable of escape for several days, maybe for weeks. She ran her hands over her legs and arms, pushed in on her body. There appeared to be no broken bones.
‘I’ll get you some soup,’ Barbara said. She left the room; Rachel leant back and fell asleep.
***
There was only one concern for Tremayne and Clare: the safe return of Rachel Winters. It had been nine days of on-again, off-again negotiations with her captors. A voiceprint comparison of the muffled voice and Archie Garrett’s voice messaging on his mobile had confirmed the two people to be one and the same.
The money was ready, an agreement had been struck. Clare had been nominated as the person to deal with the handover of the ransom, a retrieval location for Rachel not yet determined.
Tremayne sensed a hesitancy in Archie Garrett, who knew full well that once Rachel had been handed over, then the full weight of the police forces across southern England would be mobilised. Dean paced through the house in Quidhampton, his primary concern for his wife. Mavis thought that there was no hope for him. Gerry disagreed, as he had been spending time with the man. Cyril was staying in Quidhampton for the time being, although Stan had transferred back to prison the day after the kidnapping.
Superintendent Moulton had tried his best, Tremayne knew that, but Stan Winters was a prisoner serving a jail sentence, and his continued freedom did not assist in his niece’s rescue. Tremayne agreed to keep him updated on a daily basis.
Analysis of the phone calls from Archie Garrett had picked up the sound of a road close by, but none of the noises associated with a city location. It was agreed that it was somewhere in the country, although the birds chirping in the background had revealed nothing significant.
The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set Page 69