Jade made a bit of a show of turning to Trix, then Mark, then me.
‘Here’s what we can do,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s three hundred thousand between you. Dollars, not pounds.’
Brad gave a little giggle. ‘That’s a lot of party money.’ ‘
And all you’ve got to do is keep quiet. It’ll be the easiest money you’ve ever earned.’
‘It’ll be the only money we’ve ever earned,’ said George.
‘Deal?’ asked Jade, holding out her hand.
Eagerly George, then Brad, shook their sister’s hand.
As I say, not exactly razor sharp. They went back to their rooms to get dressed.
‘Cool work, Jade,’ said Mark.
‘You did brilliantly,’ I said.
There was a disapproving sniff from Trix’s direction. ‘I’m shocked,’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘All those lies. It’s a slippery slope once you start offering money to people. But at least we’re still standing.’ A smile broke out on her face. ‘All thanks to the Jadester.’
HOLLY
Early next morning, I received a call from Wiki.
‘We need your help,’ he said in that surprisingly confident tone of his.
‘Now there’s a change,’ I said.
‘Yesterday Trix sent her mother a text saying she was safe. Is there any way you could check whether she received it?’
‘Wiki, how am I going to do that without giving the whole thing away?’
‘Maybe that has to happen. The important thing is that Trix hasn’t upset her mum.’
I sighed and was about to object but the new tough-guy Wiki was too quick for me.
‘Do it for Trix,’ he said, and hung up.
EVA JOHANSSON
You know that saying ‘The show must go on’? It is very wise and true.
The morning after my appearance at the press conference, it was my face that appeared on the front page of many of the newspapers. ‘MOTHER COURAGE’ was the way one headline read. In one of the articles about the case I was described as Eva Johansson, the brave and glamorous mother of Tragic Trixie. It was almost embarrassing how much the newspapers loved me.
Late that night Eddison Vogel confirmed that I was to be crowned Share Celebrity Mother of the Year at the Grosvenor House Hotel at Sunday night’s awards ceremony. I felt profoundly humbled.
‘This is not about me,’ I told Eddison. ‘It’s all about my darling Trixie. We must make that point.’
‘Sure it is, babe,’ he said.
I decided to wear a black Armani dress which had never been seen in public before.
EDDISON VOGEL
It was going to be a moving occasion. I had visualized it all. Eva making the speech about Trixie my people had written for her. The camera paning around the tables. A tear in Madonna’s eye. Tom Cruise’s bottom lip trembling. The member of the royal family (we’re hoping it’s Prince William) reaching for his handkerchief and wiping his nose in a moved but masculine way. Famous? Sure. Rich? Probably. But, deep down, celebrities and ordinary people are the same. We’re human, and right now we’re grieving for Tragic Trixie.
Eva would have one of the top tables where the TV cameras are trained throughout the evening.
But we wouldn’t have celebrities. We would have good ordinary people from Trixie’s life. The teacher from her school, her little friend Holly and Detective Inspector Barry Cartwright. We’d probably have to get the drunken dad along too, as long as we keep an eye on his glass.
It was going to be a beautiful occasion.
HOLLY
Here we go again. The other four were out there on some mad adventure and it was me – ever-dependable Holly – who was alone in the enemy camp, having to lie every time I spoke. It was the story of my life – others get the fun, I get the responsibility.
And now I had been given the job of finding out whether Eva Johansson, a woman I hardly knew, had received a text, and then reassure her that her darling Trix was safe – all without blowing the whole plan wide open.
I was trying to work out how I was going to get to Eva when Eddison Vogel rang me on my mobile.
EDDISON VOGEL
‘Holly, love,’ I said, ‘cancel your plans for tomorrow night. You’ve been invited to join an international celebrity audience for the live, televised Share Awards. You can bring your mother with you if you want.’
‘But why – ?’
I laughed lightly. I really was rather too busy to deal with questions from a schoolgirl.
‘I can’t explain now,’ I said. ‘Suffice to say, this is all for Trixie. We need to publicize the case. And there will be a small award for her mother. All very confidential, of course. Now, Holly, you can help me. Which teachers from Cathcart College should be invited?’
‘Miss Fothergill, I guess. And maybe the headmaster, Mr Griffiths.’
‘Great, great. And what about Trixie’s friend Jade Hart? Where would I find her?’
HOLLY
Ah. Maybe I should have seen that one coming. Vogel was asking for Jade’s number. Panicking, I made one up. Then, taking a deep breath, I said, ‘Is Eva there?’
‘She’s a very busy woman, Holly.’
‘And this is very important,’ I said.
Trix’s mum came on the line. ‘Holly?’ She spoke with a croaky, suffering-mum voice, which seemed to come and go. ‘How are you, love?’
‘I’m fine, thank you. I was wondering whether you received a text yesterday.’
‘Text?’ The voice sounded faint.
‘From Trix. Saying that she was all right – that you shouldn’t worry about her?’
There was a long, long silence. When she spoke her voice was quiet and hard.
‘Tell me about this on Monday morning,’ she said. ‘Let’s deal with these awards first.’
For a moment I was unable to understand what she was telling me. Then I did.
Vogel was back on the line. ‘All right, Holly? My assistant will ring with the details of tomorrow night later, hm?’
And he was gone.
EDDISON VOGEL
I could tell something was up. Eva had gone deathly white.
‘Eddison,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a teeny-weeny confession to make.’
EVA JOHANSSON
I have a motto. It is: Honesty is the best policy. So now I spilt the beans, big time. I told Eddison about the text in the middle of the night, which I had thought was maybe a dream, but now I realized perhaps wasn’t. I even mentioned the business about having had a secret cosmetic procedure done to the lower half of my body.
He frowned and glanced downwards and sideways at my figure.
‘You had a buttock lift, babe?’
I nodded guiltily.
He glanced down. ‘Good job,’ he said. ‘You must give me the name of your surgeon when this is all over.’
‘What about the Share Awards? If Trix is out there, sending me texts about my bottom, it won’t look good at the Share Awards, will it?
‘Not great,’ he said. He thought for a moment, then said, ‘You were right. We’ll deal with this on Monday.’
I smiled with relief. ‘And we keep silent about my procedure?’
‘As the grave, babe.’ Eddison winked. ‘As the grave.’
THE SMILER
Now we were cooking with gas. I had discovered that the great kidnap had never happened. It was just a bunch of kids on same crazy stunt of their own. Somehow they had managed to fool the police, their parents – the whole world, in fact, except for one person.
Unfortunately for them, that person was the Smiler.
I was one happy bunny. The kids had done my work for me. Now all I had to do was take possession of the merchandise and hold out for a big, fat ransom.
It took less than twelve hours for my good friend at the Vehicle-Licensing Authority to discover the details of the Porsche, registration number GR8 HARTS.
It was owned by a Mr George Hart of Lexington House, Curzon Street, London.
I grabbed my keys and jumped in the Discovery.
Watch out, Tragic Trixie. The Smiler is on his way.
WIKI
I took the call from Holly. We kept it short for security reasons. When I had hung up, I went to see Trix, who was in the kitchen with Mark.
‘The good news is your mum got the message,’ I said. ‘Holly’s spoken to her. She knows you’re safe.’
‘And the bad?’
‘There’s this big celebrity event tomorrow night. Your mother’s going to be given some kind of award. She told Holly she didn’t want to know anything until Monday morning.’
It seemed to take a moment for Trix to process this news. Then she began to nod thoughtfully.
‘This is good,’ she said. ‘We know where we stand. Now we just have to decide how to use the information.’
It was Mark who expressed the thought that was on both our minds.
‘But, Trixter, your mum is putting this celebrity thing before you. Isn’t that rather weird?’
Trix smiled sadly. ‘You know what one of my mother’s favourite phrases is? “Hey, that’s showbiz.”’
She stood up, as if she had suddenly thought of something she had to do in her room.
Mark and I looked at one another. ‘What a family,’ he murmured.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR BARRY CARTWRIGHT
Policing is all about teamwork. As the operation to find Trixie Bell proceeded, the officers involved in the investigation took on different roles. I was the frontman, dealing with the press (and even a film producer who seemed to think that yours truly had the makings of a film star!), while others did the all-important legwork.
So when Mr Bell came up with what he called ‘a lead’, involving a criminal he had allegedly exposed in the past and who very allegedly might have a grudge against him, I handed it over to one of my younger colleagues, Detective Constable Julie Summers. Like many women police officers, she was very good at dealing with members of the public who were finding the pressure of police investigations all a bit too much.
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE JULIE SUMMERS
To me, what Pete Bell said made sense. I checked on the national crime records. Charles Prendergast had been questioned in connection with post-office raids across Wales over the past nine months, but no charge had stuck.
However, there was a report from a few days before that struck me as odd. His car had been found miles away from where he lived.
I rang Swindon nick and talked to the officer who had been on the desk. Funnily enough, he said, they had been talking about the case that very morning. A gentleman from the village had rung to see how the investigation was going. Investigation? they had said. Yes, said the gentleman, surely the man with the scar had told them. There had been teenagers in the big car. It was late at night. There was something strange about it.
A man with a scar? That had to be our man.
Within half an hour we had put out an alert for the Discovery and for its owner, Mr ‘Smiler’ Prendergast.
WIKI
There was a strange atmosphere in the flat that afternoon. Ever since it had become clear that her mother was playing some strange celebrity game which only she fully understood, Trix had been in her room.
When she finally emerged, it was early evening and the three of us were waiting for the news to come on TV.
She slumped down beside Jade and for a moment stared blankly at the screen.
‘Are you all right there?’ Jade asked.
Trix sighed. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘There’s no way out of this.’
‘We gave it our best shot,’ said Mark.
‘Yup.’ Trix sighed and, surprisingly, smiled. ‘But least we can go out in style, right?’
We switched off the TV and Trix told us her plan.
THE SMILER
There it was. The Porsche. GR8 HARTS. Parked in Curzon Street. Trouble was, Lexington House turned out to be a big fancy block of flats with a doorkeeper in the lobby. I settled to wait and to watch. I had the time.
The moment of revenge was coming. It was so close that I could almost taste it.
MARK
One other thing happened that evening. Jade’s brother George tumbled out of his room soon after seven, scratching himself and yawning. When he saw us, he grinned.
‘The gang,’ he said, remembering the conversation we had had earlier. ‘So when are Brad and I going to get that little jackpot you promised?’
‘We’ve just been discussing that,’ said Trix. ‘The sting is on Sunday night.’
‘The sting, I love it.’ George stretched, then reached into his back pocket and took out a fifty-pound note. He ambled over to where Jade was sitting and tossed the money in her direction. ‘Go get us a takeaway, sis,’ he said. ‘I’m starved.’
Jade was just about to stand up when Wiki spoke.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Hm?’ The American looked down, frowning. ‘You talking to me, schoolboy?’
‘We’ve told you. She’s your sister, not a slave,’ said Wiki.
‘Maybe you should get your own dinner,’ said Trix. ‘You’re not pushing Jade around any more. Not while we’re here.’
I stood up, my heart thumping. George and Brad may have spent their lives clubbing and sleeping, but they were big and strong. Wiki stood beside me, his hand on the catapult in his pocket.
‘Hey, Brad,’ George called over his shoulder. We stood in silence for a moment. The door to Brad’s room opened.
‘How ya goin’?’ Brad croaked sleepily.
George turned towards his brother. We held our breath.
‘Looks like we’re eating out tonight,’ he said and, with one last sneer in our direction, he left the room.
Five minutes later they were gone, and we began to relax.
‘I’ve never seen anyone do that to my brothers,’ Jade said quietly.
She looked at each of us and for the briefest moment it seemed as if she might be about to thank us. But she gave a little laugh. ‘We’re the weirdest gang on the planet.’
Wiki had taken the catapult from his pocket and was turning it over in his hand. ‘I really wanted to use this too,’ he said.
Jade laughed. ‘Schoolboy,’ she said.
THE SMILER
You can tell a lot from the way a man walks. How strong he is. If he’ll give grief in a barney. Whether he’s got heart.
The boys who made their way from Lexington House to the Porsche were built all right, but their walk gave them away. It was a sort of rich-kid roll, like you might see on a tennis court or a golf course.
They were going to be easy.
MISS FOTHERGILL
The evening that I received a call from Eva Johansson, I believed, briefly, that she had good news of Trix.
But no, it was some grand dinner with film stars, celebrity chefs and TV newscasters. I was reluctant. I feel out of my depth on these occasions. Besides, it seemed somehow inappropriate to be having a party while poor Trix was missing.
‘But, Miss Fothergill, that is the point,’ said Trix’s mother. ‘This is all to help my daughter. The police believe that publicity will help bring her back to us.’
Then she started crying.
Reluctantly, I agreed.
MR ‘GRIFFO’ GRIFFITHS
As headteacher of Cathcart College, I have a duty of care for all Cathcartians. It was important to show the world that our school is not just good at exams and sport. We are a concerned institution. Under these circumstances, I accepted the invitation on behalf of Mrs Griffiths and myself to attend the Share Awards.
BRAD HART
George seemed kind of glum that evening. We took in a pizza and he told me about what had happened earlier.
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ve been kinda rough on old Jade. She is our sister, after all.’
‘And she’s about to earn us three hundred grand,’ I said.
Then we started talking about the clubs we were going to hit that night
.
THE SMILER
The Porsche went up west. I followed. I’d get my chance some time that night. You know the old saying? Good things come to those who wait.
I sat outside a pizza house. Then they drove to a club. An hour later, they were out again. Another club. The streets were full of people. I found a parking bay. It was for the disabled. That made me laugh. There was going to be some disabling done that night, that was for sure.
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE JULIE SUMMERS
The traffic unit called in that night. Prendergast’s vehicle had been identified, parked illegally in central London.
The task force moved into action.
GEORGE HART
By the high standards of the Hart brothers, we were having a quiet night. We took in Amnesia. It was dead. We moved on to the Rigmarole. It was hot and heaving, wall-to-wall babe.
They knew us there. We slipped a waiter a tip and he gave us a table near the dance floor. We were soon sharing a bottle of champagne or three with a couple of chicks. Sorry, can’t remember their names.
Missing, Believed Crazy Page 16