“You think I should pay?” Timothy asked, his tone not confirming which way he thought he should go.
“It would keep the dialogue open, even if we’re only playing along. We want to ensure every opportunity is maximised to bring your daughter home safely,” Broadfoot explained. “Can you raise that much?”
“Easily. One call to the bank should do it but the money won’t be accessible from Natalie’s account, by the end of today.”
“He’ll know that,” Caslin said. “He’s just trying to impart a sense of urgency into proceedings. The money may show as uncleared funds, as long as the bank plays ball.”
“Should do, we all share the same bank. You keep saying “he”, do you think it’s just the one?” Timothy questioned.
“That we don’t know. Kidnappers often imply there’s more than one, even when they act alone but at this stage it’s only a turn of phrase.”
Timothy accepted that, “I’ll call the bank.”
“Could you make the call from a mobile?” Inglis asked. “We need to keep the land line free.”
“I will,” Timothy said, leaving the room. Catherine stood in the doorway, her husband touching her forearm lightly as he passed. She fixed Caslin with a stare. When he returned it, she looked away, moving back in the direction of the drawing room.
After a few minutes, Caslin excused himself and went in search of her. He found her outside, having left the house via the utility room. She stood in the access passage, linking the front garden to the rear, beneath a canopy of foliage. Leaning with her back against the wall, she took a steep draw on a cigarette. He came alongside and leant against the wall also.
“Do you have a spare?” he asked.
She looked at him with a sideways glance, “You have the look of a smoker.”
He smiled, “I used to be but now, let’s say, it’s only on the odd occasion.”
She took out a pack and offered it to him, he accepted. A lighter was tucked inside and sparking up, the first drag tasted good, the second, not so much but he persisted. They stood in silence for a moment before Catherine spoke.
“You don’t think this has anything to do with my father-in-law, do you?”
Caslin inclined his head slightly, “That remains to be seen but I keep an open mind. You, on the other hand, are absolutely certain it isn’t, aren’t you?”
She lowered her smoking hand and turned to face him, “Is it that obvious?”
Caslin breathed out, blowing smoke away from them, “Only to one Who’s looking. Why are you so sure it’s nothing to do with Sebastian? Tim’s positive.”
“Everything is about his bloody father,” she said, demonstrating a frustration at an apparent constant in her husband’s life. “The man can do nothing right in his eyes.”
“But you disagree?” Caslin asked. Catherine didn’t answer but her body language suggested so. She took another drag, speaking as she exhaled.
“The man has his uses.”
“Are you going to fill me in or do I have to guess?” Caslin had the sense that she was holding something back and it was apparently significant. From the first moment they had met, she had been less vocal than her husband. Now away from him, Caslin saw she was not as submissive as he had figured. There was a reserved strength within her. “Catherine, is it prescient to Natalie’s disappearance?”
She threw her cigarette down to the ground, grinding it into the gravel with the ball of her foot, “Tim will be furious that I’m smoking again.”
“You’re hardly going out of your way to hide it.”
“True enough,” Catherine said, fixing him with a stare. “I’m usually far subtler but right now, I just don’t care. Oh, what the hell, you’ll probably find out at some point, regardless.”
“Go on,” Caslin encouraged.
“We all have a past, Inspector, and sometimes, no matter how hard you try to leave it behind…you just can’t,” her eyes began to water but tears didn’t fall. Her expression was one of cold resignation, “Do you know what I mean by that?”
“I do,” Caslin said solemnly. He wasn’t humouring her.
“It seems a lifetime ago now but…,” she swore under her breath, almost struggling to articulate her thoughts. “I’m not from a wealthy family, Inspector Caslin. We were young when my father left us, God knows where he is now, and my mother did her best. She rode us hard, as kids. I think she wanted us to make something of ourselves so we wouldn’t be reliant others.”
“Unlike her?” Caslin asked.
“Exactly,” Catherine said. “He left her with nothing and it was a real struggle. Me, two sisters and no family to fall back on. When I look back at it now, she had it rough, working all hours. Often, we would look after each other because mum was flitting between jobs. We did alright, though, somehow. Not saying that we’ve all made it but we turned out okay, as human beings, I mean. I was the only one to make it to university. One of my sisters got married, pretty much as soon as she left school and the other joined the navy.”
“Does she still serve?”
“Yes, she’s doing well. Not that we see much of one another. It’s usually birthday cards and a phone call at Christmas.”
Caslin’s thoughts passed momentarily to Stefan. He could relate. “I have a brother like that.”
She looked at him with searching eyes, assessing his integrity. She must have liked what she saw. “University was hard for me, Inspector. Not the studying, I enjoyed that. But I was a long way from home and even on a full grant, if you can remember those days, the money didn’t go far? It was hard to make the numbers add up.”
He sensed where this was going. “You had to work?”
“I did,” she nodded. “For the first year or so, I had three jobs on the go but the hours were sporadic. In the second, I got into some difficulty with rent and…well, I was at the end of the line. I had repeated warnings from my landlord and my grades were slipping. For a time, I thought I was on my way out.”
Caslin waited while she formed the words in her head, he guessed that speaking openly about this put her far from her comfort zone, “Take your time,” he said reassuringly.
“It just came about, I hadn’t planned it…but he said we could work it out.”
“I see,” Caslin said, trying to fill the awkward vacuum that followed the revelation. Catherine stayed silent for a further minute. She didn’t come over as particularly distressed. Caslin perceived it more that she had come to terms with her past and now faced it with a steely resolve.
“I found it easier as time went on…and when the other work dried up…,” she looked at him, her eyes being the window to her soul. “Please don’t judge me, Inspector. I’m not proud of what I used to be-”
“You should be,” he interrupted her. “You made a success of your life, despite what you had to do. None of us can change who we were or what we did, no matter how much we may want to.”
Catherine smiled weakly, apparently relieved at his response, “Thank you.”
“Does Tim know?” he asked. She shook her head and looked downwards.
“No, but I guess he will, soon enough.”
“How does this tie in with Natalie?” Caslin asked.
“It doesn’t, at least not directly,” Catherine said. “But a while back, a little over a year ago, I was contacted. Someone had found out…about my past, I’ve no idea how.”
“Blackmail?” Caslin asked.
“Yes, they were threatening to go to the papers with it, unless I gave them money.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
Caslin mentally acknowledged that that was a similar figure to the ransom demand, “You paid?”
“I would’ve, believe me but I couldn’t, not without Tim finding out. I don’t have money of my own. Not that he controls the finances, you understand, it’s just all in jointly-held accounts. He would’ve noticed.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I had two options
, the way I saw it,” she went on. “I either had to come clean with my husband, risking everything, or…”
“Or?” Caslin pushed.
“Or I find another way of raising the money.”
“You chose the latter,” Caslin stated, rather than asked. Catherine nodded. “Let me guess, Sebastian?”
“I figured that he wouldn’t want the scandal any more than I did and he had the means to pay. Twenty-five thousand is nothing to him.”
“And did he stump up the money?”
“He did,” she said, “and he handled the whole thing surprisingly well. He was far more dignified than I expected, or probably deserved. Not to say that he was happy but…he came through. Perhaps it was more for Natalie’s sake, than mine.”
“You think this is all related?”
Catherine shrugged with an accompanying shake of the head, “It could be a coincidence.”
Caslin took a final draw on his cigarette before discarding it to the stones at his feet. There was a saying that he often adopted when coming across a coincidence. In his line of work, they usually took a great deal of planning.
Chapter 11
“Where is it we’re going?” Hunter asked.
“To see Sebastian Bermond,” Caslin replied. Hunter glared at him. The sound of a car horn, accompanied by his shouting returned her attention to the road. “Jesus, Sarah! Watch the road, yeah.”
“I thought Broadfoot didn’t want us talking to him,” Hunter replied, open-mouthed.
Caslin kept quiet. She was almost correct, in that Broadfoot didn’t sanction an approach to the serving MP but likewise, hadn’t specifically dismissed the suggestion. Although Caslin knew that was only a technicality. He was on thin ice and would need to tread lightly.
“He’ll be right,” Caslin murmured.
“Do at least tell me you called ahead, please?” Caslin didn’t respond. He was already formulating his strategy. Hunter swore.
“You’ll not make DI if you keep up that language, young lady,” Caslin said playfully. Sarah Hunter was only six years his junior.
“I’ll not make DI if I spend much more time working with you, that’s for bloody certain,” she bit back. Caslin dropped the conversation, deciding to let her stew for a while.
The afternoon traffic grew heavier as they approached the outskirts of York, slowing their progress. Despite the surprising twist provided by Catherine, Caslin still felt uneasy about this entire affair. The kidnapping scenario wasn’t sitting well with him. Besides that, there was definitely something strange going on within this family. Nothing and no-one was quite what they appeared to be. Taking out his phone, he called Terry Holt. The DC picked up within a few rings.
“Hello, Sir.”
“Terry, I want you to run the name Marco Handanovic through the system, see what pops up. That’s Marco with a ‘c’.”
“Yes, Sir. Who is he?” Holt asked.
“That’s what I hope you’ll find out.”
“Okay, leave it with me. Bad news, Sir,” Holt began.
“There usually is, Terry. What’s up?”
“SOCO found nothing suspect at Summerbee’s house and his lawyer was going bananas. DCI Stephens said we had to release him.”
“Alright, Terry. Don’t worry,” Caslin said nonchalantly, inwardly seething. “What about his good lady wife?”
“She was in Bridport for two days, provided me with the name of the hotel and it checks out. I called them directly and they confirmed payment by card. It was definitely her. She stays there several times a year. They’ve offered us CCTV if we want it.”
“Yes, I want it. Let’s make sure. How did she take to her old man having a visitor?”
“Didn’t bat an eye, Sir,” Holt said. “I get the impression they have an arrangement. Either that or she’s one cool customer. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, I tell you.”
“Okay, keep digging,” Caslin said.
“Will do.”
Caslin returned the phone to his pocket and slipped into a train of thought. Peter Summerbee was still their best suspect. However, they needed to find the driver. Suzanne Brooke had insisted her daughter was always accompanied and the 999 call virtually confirmed that. Melissa didn’t know where she was, someone else must have taken her out to Skipwith. Even so, Summerbee bugged him, the man had form and he set Caslin’s radar off. Instinctively, he was disinclined to drop him so soon. It was altogether too convenient that another unidentified person was in place for him to point the finger at.
“Who’s Marco Handanovic, Sir?” Hunter asked, the hissy-fit apparently having subsided.
“Most likely a load of bollocks,” Caslin replied. He indicated the forthcoming turning, “This is us, next left.”
The reception to Sebastian Bermond’s constituency office was intimate. The front desk ran the full width of the room before them. Hunter and Caslin waited patiently on the padded benches, set in front of the expansive front window, overlooking the street. This wasn’t an MP who spent a great deal on opulent surroundings. Caslin found the décor reminiscent of a taxi office or an Indian takeaway. Initially denied a time slot, due to lack of availability, Caslin had pointedly asked the receptionist to double check with the man himself. Two appointments were thereby pushed back to accommodate them.
Half an hour after arrival, they were shown through. The office was as drab and characterless as the waiting area. Sebastian Bermond MP seemed to notice Caslin giving the place a sneering once over and commented on it.
“Not exactly what the Daily Mail would have you believe are the trappings of power, are they?”
“Quite true, Sir,” Caslin replied, taking the offered hand. He was a big man, far more fat than muscle and easily cleared six-three in height. That surprised Caslin. His son was nowhere near that tall and the MP never came across as such when appearing on the television news.
“Please, no need to stand on ceremony, call me Sebastian,” the MP said as he shook Hunter’s hand, in turn and offered them seats. Small plastic ones, similar to those Caslin remembered from school.
“Thank you for seeing us at such short notice, Sebastian,” Caslin said politely.
“No problem at all,” he replied. “I am being kept in the loop by your man…erm…what’s his name, Broadfoot, Kyle Broadfoot. He didn’t say anyone would be calling by today.”
Hunter cast him a sideways look but Caslin ignored her and the comment. “It has been a little frenetic today but it’s important for us to speak with you. It’s a delicate subject, so I hope you can forgive the intrusion.”
“Of course, Inspector. Anything that I can do, to help, I will. Whatever is it?”
“Catherine and her blackmailer,” Caslin said calmly. He thought for a second that he heard Hunter’s jaw hit the floor. Sebastian Bermond visibly flinched, then took a deep breath, looking first to the ceiling and then back to Caslin, exhaling slowly.
“Does Timothy know that you’re here?”
“Not yet, Sir.”
“I see,” the MP rubbed at his chin, as if there was something there to irritate him. “I suppose it was churlish to expect that affair to remain a secret forever. What is it you would like to know?”
“Have you received any communication from them, since last year’s event?” Caslin questioned. Hunter turned to him, all colour draining from her cheeks.
“I never had any then, or now. Do you think it’s connected?”
Caslin shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know, “We need to review all potential lines of investigation, under these circumstances, be them past or present. I hope you understand?”
“I thought that was all over with,” he sighed. “I always thought that strumpet wasn’t good enough for Timothy and I told him so, the very day he married her.”
Charming, Caslin thought, “And yet, you were okay with giving her twenty-five grand?” Again, Hunter glanced sideways, slapping her notebook down with force, a movement that Caslin judged as petulant
rather than a sign of frustration.
“I’ll do anything for my family, Inspector, within reason,” Sebastian added in as cold a manner as Caslin had ever seen. “Besides, I acted more for my granddaughter than for her mother and my wayward son.”
“She said similar.”
“Good. I told her in no uncertain terms that I was not impressed. That sort of thing casts a long shadow over everyone around you. I didn’t want Natalie to suffer such ignominy.”
“You weren’t bothered for yourself, then?” Caslin asked, not quite believing that to be the case.
“Tosh!” Sebastian stated. “I’m too long in the tooth for something like that to damage me. My record speaks for itself.
“You referred to Timothy as wayward?”
“Perhaps…more flighty…than wayward. The boy could never stick at anything.”
“He seems to be doing quite well, these days,” Hunter said.
Sebastian snorted as he burst into a broad grin, “Gambling with other peoples” money? Yes, I don’t doubt it. He was always quite adept with another’s wallet. But I dare say his surname helps grease the wheels with certain people.”
Caslin smiled, “Well thank you for clearing that up, Sir. Just to clarify, no-one has been in touch with you regarding Natalie?”
He shook his head emphatically, “No and if they do, I will be straight onto you.”
“You wouldn’t be tempted to go it alone, like last year?”
Sebastian fixed a stare on Caslin. Leaning forward he rested his elbows on the desk and formed a tent with his oversized fingers. “Inspector, my granddaughter means the world to me. I wouldn’t take the chance, there is far too much at stake. Last year’s escapade was entirely different. Reputations and not lives were at risk.”
Shortly afterwards they were walking back to the car. No conversation had taken place since they left the office. Caslin could however, feel Hunter’s eyes burning a hole in the back of his skull. Reaching the car, she unlocked it and went to open the door.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Caslin offered, leaning on the roof.
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