Stealing People

by Wilson, Robert

‘All right. Because you took so long, we have already drawn lots. The hostage who will be killed is Sophie Railton-Bass.’

  ‘I did what you asked. I found out what happened. You told me—’

  ‘Keep your hair on, Ryder. We won’t follow through with the threat if you do two things. The first is to remove all the tracking devices right now.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘We’ll tell you once you’ve confirmed the devices have been removed. You’ve got ten minutes.’

  The phone went dead. Ryder called Hines and Sutherland. A tech team was sent under police escort to where the truck was parked and all the devices were removed. It took twenty-seven minutes. Forsyth confirmed the removal by email.

  The kidnappers called him back.

  ‘The second thing is that the CIA must agree to a press conference in which they fully reveal the extent of their manipulation of the weapons of mass destruction data in co-operation with the demands of the Bush administration, which resulted in going to war with Iraq. They also have to name who was responsible.’

  Silence from Ryder.

  ‘You still there, mate?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m here. But you know that’s impossible. Nobody’s going to agree to that.’

  ‘Then tell them that Sophie Railton-Bass will be executed in fifteen minutes,’ said the voice. ‘In the meantime, we’ll get the truck on the move again.’

  Forsyth shouted down to Ken Bass and made another conference call, told them the news.

  Ken Bass immediately called the vice president of the United States. Hines disappeared from the camera and told the communications centre to alert all units to report any sightings but under no circumstances to follow the vehicle.

  The truck reversed out into Upper Thames Street. The driver followed instructions. They took him on the same circuit over Blackfriars Bridge, south of the river and then back over Tower Bridge, but this time they sent him east on the Highway towards Limehouse.

  ‘That sounds like it’s going to be very difficult to achieve in the time frame given,’ said the vice president.

  ‘Remember they only have to agree to give a press conference. They don’t actually have to do it,’ said Bass.

  ‘It’s a complicated issue, the politicisation of intelligence data. It’s not something easily condensed for a short press conference. It was the subject of the Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence in 2004 and 2007. I mean, what exactly are they looking for?’ said the vice president. ‘And what happens if this is an extended scenario? Your daughter will still be in danger …’

  ‘But she won’t be executed in fifteen minutes’ time,’ said Bass. ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said the VP.

  Bass called Sutherland on his secure line, told him about the naming of names. There was a long silence.

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘I’m going to have to talk to Clifford Chase first,’ said Sutherland, and hung up.

  The truck descended into the tunnel of the Limehouse Link. As the driver reached the halfway point, he was told to slow down and stop with his warning lights switched on.

  DCS Hines was given a report that the truck had gone into the tunnel but hadn’t come out.

  ‘Get me a CCTV feed from the Limehouse Link,’ he said. ‘Inside and all exit routes. Fast.’

  Three minutes eased past.

  ‘Do you think they’re unloading in there?’ asked one of the constables.

  ‘It’s high enough.’

  The CCTV came up on a monitor. They searched through the cameras and found the truck stopped with warning lights deployed and all the money still on board. As they watched, it started moving again.

  ‘I think that was a test,’ said Hines, ‘just to make sure we weren’t following.’

  The truck took the Westferry Road exit and joined the West India Dock Road. One of the plain-clothes teams spotted it cutting across the busy Commercial Road heading north.

  Ten minutes had passed since Ken Bass’s conversation with the vice president and Ray Sutherland. Bass was pacing the floor of the smaller living room downstairs, couldn’t bear any company. He hadn’t told Emma anything about the tracking devices or the negotiations. Since the revelation about her affair with Conrad Jensen, they’d reverted to their pre-separation state of not speaking, not making eye contact. Finally the vice president called him back.

  ‘Well I’ve gotten an agreement from the CIA that, under the circumstances, they are prepared to give a fifteen-minute press conference on this subject. I’ve primed a journalist from the Washington Post, who’s mystified and wants to know the bigger picture.’

  ‘There’s a media blackout at the moment. We can’t say anything,’ said Bass. ‘What about the naming of names?’

  ‘It’s not as clear-cut as that, but they’ve come up with four names that won’t stretch credibility. Two of them are dead, one is in a home with pre-senile dementia and the fourth has disappeared in South America.’

  Bass went upstairs and rejoined the video conference call, gave his news.

  ‘Can we have an email to that effect?’ asked Ryder.

  Sutherland, still connected through the conference call, glanced at his computer.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had confirmation. I’ll forward it.’

  As Forsyth sent the email to the kidnappers, the truck crossed the Mile End Road and continued north. Beyond the street lights to the west was the darkness of parkland leading down to the Regent’s Canal. The squally wind, sometimes full of rain, was thrashing through the trees.

  Hines was summoning unmarked cars from other parts of the city and stationing them along the route the truck appeared to be taking. He had a sighting from a car on Roman Road. Another, parked just down from the Crown pub, saw the truck cross the roundabout, maintaining its northerly direction on a road that bisected Victoria Park.

  It was a couple of officers in the crowded Royal Inn on the Park who reported the truck heading into the western section of Victoria Park.

  Hines told them to pursue the truck in their car, but not into the park; they just had to maintain a visual. He called the officers who’d made the two earlier sightings and told them to proceed to Victoria Park. He wanted both sets on foot: one to approach from the Regent’s Canal side and the other from the north-west.

  ‘You don’t think they’re going to use the canal, do you, sir?’ asked a constable.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Hines. ‘It would be a slow process if they offloaded it on to a boat. There’s got to be ten locks between Victoria Park and Limehouse Basin.’

  The car pursuing the truck from outside the park called in to say they’d seen it heading towards the canal. Minutes later, the officers stationed on a bridge over the canal said that they could see the truck, but that it had left the tarmac path and was heading into the flat open parkland.

  It came to a halt after about a hundred metres.

  ‘Keep your distance,’ said Hines to the officers on the ground. ‘Just tell me what you can see. Don’t take any action.’

  ‘The driver has left the vehicle and seems to be preparing to unload the first package. Yes, that’s what he’s doing. He’s hooking the ropes up to the lifting gear. Now he’s off the vehicle and operating the crane. He’s lifted the first package off and he’s being very careful about its position.’

  ‘Is there anybody else in the park?’

  ‘Nobody. And there’s no light. He’s using spotlights on his vehicle to see what he’s doing. And it’s bloody windy out there. In fact, yes, I can see it now. There’s some kind of fluorescent tape marking the ground and he’s positioning the package within the frame.’

  ‘Get me a report from Battersea heliport,’ roared Hines.

  ‘We’ve already done that, sir. Nothing’s been allowe
d to take off for the last two hours due to the weather.’

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ said Hines, swearing savagely for the first time in his professional life.

  ‘The second package is down now. He’s starting on the third.’

  Hines stared at the map.

  ‘Right, I want two cars stationed on every road around Victoria Park. I want people on foot down by the Regent’s Canal. There’s a block of flats overlooking the park opposite the London Chest Hospital. Get some men on the roof looking down. I want constant reports on what they can see. Get a camera up there. There’s a boating lake in the park. Is there something on that? Tell me anything and everything.’

  ‘The third package is on the ground now, sir.’

  ‘If any vehicle approaches the park, you must allow it to enter,’ said Hines. ‘Do you hear me? Give any vehicle free access.’

  Minutes passed. The fourth package was offloaded. A report came from the roof of the block of flats where they were setting up a camera to give a feed into the communications centre.

  ‘There’s a frame of fluorescent tape on the ground about five yards by four, I’d say, and all the packages are being positioned within that space. That’s all we can see. There’s nothing else in the park. Nothing on the boating lake, not even a pedalo. The weather’s so horrible there aren’t even any joggers out.’

  ‘And on the canal?’

  ‘There are some narrowboats moored near the park. It’s clear there are people in them because they have lights on and smoke coming from the chimneys, but nothing unusual. I can see some of our officers down there and they’re not in the least bit concerned by any activity. The fifth package has just been landed. Last one to go.’

  The communications centre picked up the feed from the camera on the roof, which was focusing on the unfolding scene in the park, and relayed it to Hines’s screen. The driver hooked up the last package and jumped off the back. The crane took the weight and slowly lifted the package and positioned it in the final slot. The driver used the remote to fold the crane back into its park position. He listened to the mobile phone, went into the cab, came out with something in his hand and did something to the top of each of the packages. He got back into the cab, manoeuvred the truck, churning up the sodden ground, so that the spotlights were on the packages of money. He left the vehicle, walked out of the park.

  ‘We’ve got a van that’s gone into the park via the Gore Road entrance,’ said one of the officers. ‘It’s approaching the scene. It’s a … it’s Sky News.’

  ‘A BBC outside broadcast van has just gone in through the Grove Road entrance.’

  The men on the roof watched as the newsmen set up their cameras, while the presenters ran a test on their microphones.

  An email came through to Hines from the kidnappers.

  Are you ready?

  One of the constables in the communications centre turned the television on to Sky News. Kay Burley stared into the camera and announced that they were going live immediately to Sky reporter Rhiannon Mills for a special broadcast from London’s East End.

  ‘Here we are in Victoria Park, otherwise known as the People’s Park, on an extremely blustery night, for what we have been told is going to be one of the most spectacular events to take place in London since the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games,’ said Mills, with her blonde hair whipping across her face. ‘What we have been promised is one of the greatest disappearing acts in the history of illusions. Bigger than David Copperfield’s promise to make the moon vanish. We have been advised that at precisely six o’clock, what you see in the background will miraculously dematerialise. We do not know what is in these six packages that you can see spotlit behind me, but we have been told that it weighs nearly four tons and is valued at one hundred and fifty million pounds. Only as it stunningly transmogrifies will we be told what was contained in the packages, and we have been assured you will be utterly astounded by the feat. We are just fifteen seconds away from … Hold on a moment …’

  Mills put her finger to her ear.

  ‘It has just been leaked exclusively to Sky News that what is contained in the packages behind us is one hundred and fifty million pounds in cash. An extraordinary amount of money, which belongs to—’

  Mills ducked at the sound of a colossal explosion as all six packages were lifted more than forty feet into the air, spilling their contents into the gusting wind, which took the loose money high into the thermals and scattered it over the East End.

  Mills snatched at the air above her and caught hold of a fifty-pound note, which she held up to the camera.

  ‘There it is. A fifty-pound note. The air is full of them.’

  The camera cut to the night sky, which was full of fluttering notes and the remnants of plastic sheeting towering and twisting, rolling and yawing in the gusting wind.

  27

  18.05, 17 January 2014

  Catford, London SE6

  Mercy had thought long and hard before she called in the two homicide teams to look at the crime scenes in Lewisham and Catford. She’d decided that an anonymous informer would have to be involved in the first crime scene. The explanation of the bodies’ positions wouldn’t work without another person having been there. The second scene was more demanding as it involved Alleyne and Amy, who she didn’t want anybody to know about. In her own mind she’d already approved of the idea of Louise Rylance disappearing. It was just explaining how Mercy herself had gained entry into the house, gone upstairs to witness Gav shooting Siobhan and then killed Gav in self-defence. This fiction was proving more difficult to frame into a believable story.

  In the end she decided that the informer would have to be used to gain entry. That the kidnapper was expecting a white male and Michael Rylance had given them the code phrase was the key. Gav had admitted the informer, who in turn had let her in. She’d been hoping to make an arrest and interview Siobhan. On gaining entry into the house she’d heard them in discussion upstairs and drawn the weapon she’d taken from Rylance. Suspecting a conspiracy with the informer, Gav had attempted to use him as a shield. The informer had tried to wrest the weapon from Gav’s hand and in the confusion it had gone off, killing Siobhan. Mercy had then shot Gav. It was messy, but that was the nature of these scenarios. It wouldn’t have been the first time that somebody was killed under the stress of a kidnap situation with weapons involved.

  She’d tried to call DCS Hines to give him a verbal report, but he was embroiled in the unfolding scene in Victoria Park and didn’t want to know. So when Arran Road was clear, she took everybody back to Lewisham. They stayed in the car while Mercy studied the scene and Louise cleared her limited possessions into a large suitcase. Mercy called the first homicide team to the Lewisham house only after she’d dropped them all at the railway station to get a taxi.

  The cab took them back to Streatham. Boxer called one of his doctor friends to come and look over Amy and Alleyne. They were both exhausted after days of living on the edge and went to lie down upstairs. Boxer sat with Louise, asked her if she knew how to disappear. She didn’t. He made a call and left a message.

  ‘He’ll call back,’ said Boxer.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to do this,’ she said.

  ‘Nobody’s ready to walk away from their own life,’ said Boxer. ‘It’s the alternative that makes you do it.’

  ‘It’s like a betrayal,’ she said. ‘It’s like I’m betraying Michael. Leaving him dead. Walking out on our life together as if he never existed.’

  ‘Did your husband have any family?’

  ‘He was an only child. His mother’s still alive but in a home in Sussex with dementia.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I’ve got a big family. Both parents and two grandparents alive, two sisters and a brother, nieces, nephews. Aunts and uncles. But they’re an alternative bunch. Most of them are vegans and live in the rural depths of Devon and Somerset, some are in Wales and there’s one in Patagonia. They never approved of me going int
o the army and they didn’t like Michael. They called him a mercenary.’

  ‘You won’t be able to contact them … ever.’

  She nodded.

  Boxer couldn’t speak. He’d been suddenly consumed by a sense of loss that had risen up from nowhere and was so acute he didn’t think he’d be able to contain it.

  ‘The first time I saw you, I thought you were a psycho, a hit man,’ said Louise. ‘You looked dead behind the eyes. Michael could see it too. I was afraid of you. I thought you were capable of anything and it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. And then on the way to that house in Catford you threw me by asking me … by being so human. Don’t take this badly, but you need help.’

  ‘Help?’ said Boxer, still struggling.

  ‘Psychological help.’

  ‘I’m beyond help,’ he said, looking away. ‘There’s no cure for what I’ve done.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Killing people,’ said Boxer. ‘Always bad people, but it’s still killing other human beings and that’s not so easy to admit to some shrink in Hampstead.’

  ‘I know a woman, professional and discreet, who used to be in the marines. She’s seen her fair share and helped a lot of post-traumatic stress guys,’ said Louise, writing a name and number down on a card. ‘Try her.’

  Boxer didn’t want to take the card.

  ‘It won’t get better on its own,’ she said. ‘You need someone objective who can trace it all back, find out where it went wrong, work out your … motivation.’

  ‘My motivation?’

  ‘Why you’ve ended up doing what you do,’ said Louise. ‘Maybe you’ve got a personality disorder. All too human one moment, psychopathic the next.’

  The doorbell rang. Boxer, still shaken, let the doctor in, took her upstairs. They’d met playing poker. She gambled on everything: cards, horses, sport, even the weather. She examined both patients, who’d been sleeping, and gave Boxer sedatives for them, but only if they developed anxiety or insomnia. She charged seven hundred pounds cash, which Boxer didn’t have, but she knew he was good for it.