by Jane Isaac
“Dave? It’s Will. Will Jackman.”
The former police sergeant seemed pleased to hear from Jackman and talked at length about life after retirement. The long days taken up with the gym and the golf course. Jackman politely let him ramble for a few minutes before he interjected. “Actually I was wondering whether you might be able to help me?”
By the time Jackman had given him a brief rundown on the case he could almost feel Benton puffing out his chest at the other end of the line as it filled with a sense of self-importance. “You were seconded to the Hong Kong police for a couple of years before China took them back, weren’t you?” he continued. “I just wondered whether you still had any contacts out there and could do a bit of digging for me? You know the sort of thing. Background stuff on the Cheung family. Any previous dealings with the police. Doesn’t have to be strictly on the record.”
Benton’s tone became imbued with a sense of excitement, as if this was the first interesting thing to happen to him outside of the golf club in the last year. He said he would see what he could do. Jackman ended the call suitably satisfied that his old friend would be back in touch with him soon, at the very least before the Embassy.
He cast his phone aside, opened his drawer, pulled out his policy log and began to record their findings from the morning’s briefing, outlining his current strategies and priorities. Almost an hour passed before the door of his room suddenly opened and Davies burst in catching her breath.
She slipped her phone into her pocket. The dimple was fixed hard in her left cheek, “That was Gray,” she said. “They’ve ID’d the guy who sat at the computer when the ransom email was sent.”
Jackman felt a rush of adrenalin. “What do we know about him?”
Davies waved her pad in the air like a winning ticket. “Forty-eight-year-old British divorcee by the name of Richard Whittaker. Currently unemployed. He’s got previous. Petty stuff: handling stolen goods; a couple of counts of shoplifting. Gray said their intelligence suggests he’s a small-time cannabis supplier. His name’s come up a few times from informants, but it seems he’s very careful, skulks around avoiding being seen with the wrong people.”
“Any links to China?”
“Nothing we know of.”
Jackman frowned. “Kidnapping seems a far leap.”
“That’s what Gray thought. But we have him on camera, and the techies have confirmed that he was using the PC that sent the ransom email. Nobody else used it within ten minutes either side. In fact he was in there for less than five minutes although he paid for a full half an hour.”
“What about associates?”
“Not much to go on there. Gray’s going to check with some of the local officers. But he did give me an address!”
Jackman’s phone buzzed again. He glanced at the screen, sighed inwardly as Reilly’s name appeared, then looked up at Davies, “Well done. Give me two minutes.”
It took less than thirty seconds for Jackman to update Reilly. He finished up, “I think we should consider putting some observations on Whittaker. We know he’s involved. The kids are still missing. If we watch him, there’s a fair chance he could lead us to them.”
Reilly was silent a moment. “Pick him up now. Bring him straight here. We’ve enough to make an arrest, the rest we can drag out of him in interview.”
Jackman took a deep breath to soothe his frayed patience. “Our first priority is to preserve life. We could lose any chance of finding the victims, dead or alive, if he refuses to cooperate.”
“Not necessarily. We’ll search his house. That could give us what we’re looking for.”
“You heard the intelligence. He’s a small-time petty thief. It’s possible he’s not working alone. If we follow him he could lead us to them.”
“What we need is an arrest. I’m sure your team can get the rest out of him in questioning.”
Jackman chucked his phone across the desk and cursed as the line went dead. Reilly had absolutely no idea. He reached out, hovered over the phone. For a split second he considered going over his head, until he remembered Davies’ comment in Birmingham about Reilly and the new chief constable on the golf course together. And cursed again.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jackman craned his neck as they turned off the Hagley Road into Richardson Street. Two rows of plain brick terraces faced each other across a road lined with cars parked nose to tail on each side. It seemed most of the residents were home this Saturday morning. Davies slowed to a crawl as they reached number eighteen. Cream net curtains that looked in dire need of a wash veiled the windows. She continued on, took the next left and parked curbside.
As soon as Jackman was out of the car he saw the rotund figure of DS Gray climbing gingerly out of a green Volvo two cars up. He was followed by three uniformed officers, two of them carrying thick gloves and helmets.
Gray beamed a greeting as Davies and Jackman wandered up to meet him, and introduced the other officers standing nearby. He placed his hands on his hips and looked around. “I know this area pretty well. Covered it for a while as a beat officer in my early years. Many of the properties have been converted to bedsits and flats. Whittaker’s is still a house, which is better for us because it means one point of access at the front. I’ve put a plain clothes officer on the corner of both ends of his street in case he is out, spots us on his way back and does a runner. That lane there,” he indicated diagonally opposite, “provides rear access to the back of the properties. We’ll cover that. Otherwise, unless he climbs over neighbours’ gardens, we’ve got him.”
“We think he’s home?” Davies asked.
“Can’t be sure, but,” he patted the battering ram that his colleague was holding, “Doris is going in whatever.”
“Okay, I say we break straight in,” Jackman said. “There’s still a possibility that the victims are housed in there somewhere. We don’t want to give him a chance to injure them. What’s the layout of the property?”
“Two up, two down really, plus bathroom and kitchen,” Gray said. “There’ll be loft space, of course, but none of these houses have cellars. Back garden is laid to paving. No shed.”
“Do we know anything more about him?” Jackman asked.
Gray shook his head. “Intel is all petty stuff. Local officers say he rubs shoulders with the big guys but never a sniff of firearms or anything like that.” He looked around the team. “I think we’re good to go as we are.”
Jackman nodded and set the team into motion. He sent Gray and another officer around the back. The two with helmets followed him and Davies to the front. He felt a rush of excitement as they moved into position.
Jackman issued the command. The officers rushed forward. Two loud cracks later and the door swung open. The uniformed officers charged into the house. One rushed upstairs, the other through the ground floor.
Jackman and Davies followed. The front door opened directly into a living room. A brown sofa with frayed arms faced a flat-screen television on an old table in the corner. A huge open space occupied the other end of the room. A dirty oval mirror hung over the fireplace. Jackman moved towards it and, as he lifted the photo that sat on the mantel beneath, he dislodged a hairbrush full of matted wisps of dark hair tucked behind. It fell to the floor. He bent down to pick it up and stared at the photo. It was a young boy, around seven he guessed, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. He was grinning broadly, showing off a wide gap in his front teeth.
Jackman replaced the photo and wandered over the grey carpet. It was threadbare in places, exposing bobbly underfelt that scrunched beneath his feet. He looked around him. Apart from that single photo and the clock in the corner, there were no pictures on the walls, no ornaments on the side. No cupboards or bookshelves for storage.
As he pushed the door open into the kitchen the rancid odour of chip fat and nicotine greeted him. He stopped beside a pile of dirty clothes that sat in front of the washing machine and pulled out a drawer that contained knives, forks and spoons.
Another was filled with hand towels and tea towels. Another with used receipts, a water bill, a mobile phone bill, and a couple of store loyalty cards. He pulled them out, made a mental note to get them bagged up and worked his way through the cupboards until he felt a presence beside him.
“Nothing upstairs, sir.” Davies grimaced. “Although his bedding could do with a bloody good wash. Looks like it hasn’t been done in months. The guys are just checking the loft.”
Jackman felt a sense of disquiet as he stood and glanced out of the window at the bare paving below. No sign of any motorcycle gear so far, nor any clues regarding the victims.
Suddenly he became aware of a commotion in the distance. Raised voices, one edged with anger. He followed the sound to the front door where the two officers in helmets were holding back a dark-haired man dressed in a green t-shirt and denims. His face was tomato-red. The plastic carrier bag in his hand slid to the floor as he looked up at Jackman, eyes burning. “Who are you?”
Richard Whittaker was a small bony man with a thick head of wiry dark hair. He hadn’t said anything on the drive back to Rother Street station and had only answered what was absolutely necessary as he was fingerprinted and prepared for interview. Even when they’d arrested him for the kidnapping, he remained silent.
Jackman dragged the chair out from under the table and took a seat. “Give me an account of your movements on Thursday afternoon,” he said.
Whittaker flashed the briefest glance at his solicitor before he spoke. “I was walking down the Hagley Road on Thursday. When I passed JJ’s internet cafe on the corner of Dover Street a man stopped me and asked if I wanted to make some quick cash. I thought he was gonna offer me something at first. You know, maybe drugs.” He paused, looked momentarily affronted, before he continued, “But then he said if I sent an email for him he’d give me fifty quid. All I had to do was to log in to a Hotmail account, retrieve an email from the drafts folder, press send and logout. I wasn’t sure at first, but he waved the notes in front of me. So I thought, what have I got to lose?” Whittaker sat back and rested his hands in his lap.
Jackman watched him for a moment. The only sound was the gentle scratch of Keane’s pen on the pad beside him. “What did the email say?” he eventually asked.
“Don’t know. It was in a foreign language. Chinese or Japanese. Something like that.”
“Can you describe the man who asked you to send it?”
“White, about five foot ten. Wore dark trousers and a black hoody. Couldn’t see his face.”
Jackman retrieved two photos from the brown envelope file in front of him and placed them on the table. He watched closely as Whittaker’s eyes worked from one to another, then back up at him.
“Have you ever seen these people before?”
Whittaker shook his head.
“For the purposes of the tape I am showing the suspect photos of Min Li and Lonny Cheung. Can you confirm your answer, please?”
Whittaker leant in closer, appeared to examine Lonny’s photo again. “My answer is no. I haven’t seen them before.”
Jackman continued to ask him about his movements on Monday and Tuesday. Whittaker claimed he was at home alone. He went through a list of dates – when Lonny’s ransom request was sent and the money was collected for both kidnappings. Each time Whittaker claimed to be at home, the belligerence in his tone increasing with each answer.
Jackman pulled a photo of Qiang Li out of the envelope. It squeaked between his fingers as he placed it on the table in front of him. “What about him?”
Whittaker leant over the photo and hesitated a moment, as if deep in thought. Finally he drew back. “No.”
“Are you sure? Take another look,” Jackman said. He tapped the corner of the photo twice. “He has a distinctive scar down the left side of his face. His left earlobe is missing.”
Whittaker shook his head.
“For the purposes of the tape, the suspect indicated he has never seen Qiang Li, also known as Peng Wu, before.”
If Jackman had blinked he would have missed it. But it was definitely there. As soon as he mentioned the name, Peng Wu, a muscle flexed in Whittaker’s jawline.
He stared at Whittaker a moment. His skinny frame was swamped in the navy police-issue jogging suit he’d been given when they’d asked him to remove his clothes for forensic examination.
“You see I’ve got a problem with that,” Jackman said. “While you were at home alone, these two students disappeared.” He pointed to Min and Lonny. “Less than twelve hours later, emails were sent to their parents requesting a ransom for their safe release. We know you sent the second email. We have you on camera. Yet you claim not to know who they are.”
Whittaker stared back, unruffled.
“Are you a parent?”
Whittaker shrugged a single shoulder, nodded. “I have a son. His mother and I are separated. She doesn’t let me see him.”
“Is that why you kidnapped somebody else’s?” Jackman didn’t pause for him to answer. “Is that why you sent the ransom demands? So that you could raise some cash, impress your ex so that she’d let you see your kid?”
“It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Really? Do you make a habit of sending strange emails?”
Whittaker looked away, didn’t answer.
Jackman leant forward. “Who asked you to send that email?”
Whittaker stretched his neck back before he answered. “I told you. I don’t know.”
Jackman pointed to the photo of Min Li. “This student has been missing since Monday evening. Every minute she is out there could mean a minute closer to death. Or maybe she is dead already?”
Whittaker’s gaze brushed back over the photos. Jackman could see a flash of fear in his eyes.
“You really need to start talking, Richard,” Jackman continued. “Because we will find them and, dead or alive, the footage means that you are clearly implicated in their disappearance.” Jackman gathered up the photos and put them back in the envelope. “One more question,” he said. “When was the last time you rode a motorcycle?”
Chapter Fifty
As much as I tried, I couldn’t ignore Lonny’s banging and clattering in the background. He was wrestling with the grate, jiggling it about, this way and that. And every movement, every clang juddered right through me. I held my head, willing the noise to go away, until I could bear it no more.
“Please, stop!”
“I can’t.” His voice was peppered with excitement. “I think it’s coming away.”
I heard the rattle of the chain in the distance, the jingle of metal.
“Look Min, it’s moving.”
I stood gingerly, just as he gave the grill one last loud heave and pushed it up sideways.
“I don’t think it’s locked properly.” Lonny was shaking with excitement now, his tendons visibly trembling. “Come on, if you get on my shoulders you could crawl through that gap.” He straightened his arms, cupped his hands together.
I looked at him a moment, still doubtful. “You go. You’re so much taller than me, you’d get up there easily without any help.”
“Not without you. Come on!”
I lifted my foot and pushed up on his hands, steadying myself by holding onto the shirt around his shoulders. I heard a rip, wobbled and grabbed a handful of skin.
“Owww!”
“Sorry.”
The weak, sickly feeling had dissolved, driven out by a rush of adrenalin. My mind focused on freedom. There was no room for anything else. I reached my hands through the gap and pushed back the wooden board at the top.
A surge of sunlight gushed down.
“Jesus!” Lonny cried from below. The weight in his body shunted to the side. I felt myself wobble as he steadied himself.
I tried to look up. After days of living in a soft grey, the incandescent light pierced my eyes. But I knew I didn’t have long. I needed to open them, focus. This could be our only chance. I grabbed at the ridge of concre
te, and began to haul myself up.
I was almost through when my hand slipped. My chin hit the metal. I screamed as a pain seared my jaw bone and kicked out, desperately trying to gain a foothold. My foot collided with Lonny.
“Arrgh!”
“You okay?” My voice was splintered, my energy divided between my pulling myself free and speech.
“My ankle!”
I scrambled forward and pulled myself through the narrow gap, my kneecaps scraping and burning against the concrete as I moved.
Out of the hole for the first time in days I paused, glanced about. I found myself in a battered old barn. Piles of rubble littered the floor. Daylight spilled in from a bare opening which must have at some point housed a door. The walls were a shoddy mixture of bricks and mortar. Wooden rafters hung precariously from above. Splinters of light slid in from a roof, which was in dire need of repair.
I crouched at the side and glanced back in. The pit looked strange from this angle, like peering into a different world. “Are you hurt?”
Lonny was sat in the corner rubbing his lower calf. “I think I pulled my ankle.”
“Do you think you’ll still be able to jump up?”
He stood carefully, but as soon as he put any weight on the leg he cried out. He looked up, face crumpled in pain. “I don’t think I can do it.”
A scratching noise jerked me back into the shadow of the corner. I pressed my body against the cold brickwork. The noise stopped almost immediately. After a few moments, I edged towards the exit and craned my neck around the side. A pile of rubble sat in front of me, intermingled with a grassy mound that had been growing over and consuming it for what looked like many years. Beyond was a patchwork of fields stretching down the hillside to what looked like a road at the bottom. The air smelt clean, fresh, free.