Deadly Serious

by Jean Chapman

  There was not going to be time to argue and as Hoskins gasped, ‘Your mother’s free,’ Cannon realized that the only way any of them was going to get out of this was if he, the strongest, was in the cockpit and able to pull the others up after him.

  ‘Move up as far as you can and hold on,’ Cannon ordered.

  ‘Mam,’ Danny cried out.

  ‘I’m coming, Danny.’

  Cannon felt the two of them reach each other, and unceremoniously pushed them out of the cabin space. ‘Go on, climb! Climb!’

  He urged then on, found hand-holds on cupboards and towel rails, then went ahead, climbing his way into the cockpit which after the complete darkness inside seemed quite light.

  He pulled Carol up alongside himself first, then Danny – recovering fast – followed without much help.

  ‘Get over into the boat alongside,’ he ordered, aware that Hoskins had not followed. Danny stepped over to join his mother and as he left it, the cruiser made a serious downward movement. In one movement Cannon slipped the rope and pushed mother and son clear. ‘Hold her off, if you can,’ he said before forcing his way back into the galley, against the water boiling in to finally claim the boat for its own.

  He located Hoskins half-way along the galley, head just above water, just.

  ‘Foot caught,’ he gasped as Cannon gripped his hand. Cannon took a deep breath before going underwater, to find Hoskins’s foot was trapped by a cupboard door that had twisted on one hinge and clamped the old man’s foot as tight as any trap.

  He felt the boot, well laced. He could fiddle about with that for ages, drown them both. He rose to the surface, took a great gulp of air then went down again. He concentrated on the door, used brute force tactics once more, braced his feet either side of the skewed door and Hoskins’s trapped foot, pulled and twisted against the remaining hinge, with the desperation of a man who would drown himself rather than leave Hoskins trapped.

  At the third attempt – his lungs bursting, his brain questioning how strong a screw you needed to keep a cupboard door in place, for God’s sake – it gave. There was one more obstacle, the doorway out into the air. He was beneath Hoskins and aimed him for the lighter square like a missile, swimming against the final pull as the little cruiser found its resting place, to be resurrected every low tide, but not with its intended victims.

  He realized that young Danny had the engine going on the borrowed boat and was laying-off some metres away, but as soon as he saw them rise to the surface he edged the boat back their way. They swam to meet it. Cannon held on to one side while Danny helped Hoskins aboard over the other, then both balanced the boat while Cannon climbed in.

  ‘I owe you,’ Hoskins said to Cannon, who in return nodded towards the other two. ‘We’re even,’ he said, then bending close asked, ‘Maddern?’

  ‘Not on that boat.’ Hoskins shook his head.

  ‘No.’ Cannon confirmed what he had thought – it would not have been possible to hide a man of that size.

  Hoskins moved to sit next to Danny, but when the boy went to relinquish his post Hoskins said, ‘Carry on for now, you’re doing OK. Near slack water now.’

  The sea finally reached its peak, had obliterated all the river’s mud-banks with several feet of water and now paused before the waters began their return trip to the ocean.

  It was a moment of relief even though they were all wet through and shivering, but some things could not wait.

  ‘Sergeant Maddern?’ Cannon questioned. ‘He was with you in the car.’

  ‘He struggled and fought,’ Danny said, ‘he wouldn’t stop … fell out the car once.’

  To drop his mobile phone, Cannon thought.

  ‘He was trying to take attention from you and me, Danny,’ Carol said, ‘making a nuisance of himself … so Sean would leave me alone.’

  ‘Sean knocked him out with his gun,’ Danny burst in. ‘They left him in the car when they took us on that boat.’

  Cannon pulled his phone from his pocket only to confirm what he feared, that it had drowned. ‘We must get back.’

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Danny asked, then in the same breath. ‘What will they do to him?’

  No one answered.

  Chapter 16

  As they pushed the boat to maximum speed back towards the bungalow, Cannon knew he had to contact Austin to put him in the picture, but by the time Hoskins hung the keys on a hook in the boathouse and there was no sign of life anywhere, the urgency to get warmth for his passengers became paramount. He packed everyone in the jeep, found a car-rug for Carol and Danny, put the heater on full and drove back to The Trap at speed.

  Left early in the evening to cope, Liz was on the doorstep the moment she heard the jeep. She took in the state of Cannon’s passengers and seemed to step straight into her mother’s role as a nurse in Accident and Emergency, as Cannon went through to use the bar’s mobile.

  Austin listened without interruption, until Cannon said, ‘I have a theory about Jones.’

  ‘In a nutshell then,’ Austin demanded, ‘we have a development just outside Bristol, one of the Faima motorbike sections arriving in force.’

  ‘I think Jones used a police patrol car to take Thompson’s body from the lay-by to the coast, Cannon told him, ‘where Jones’s wife then conveniently “found” it in time to divert attention from their activities inland.’

  ‘Right,’ Austin said briskly, ‘I’ll arrange for the car Jones had use of to be picked up for servicing, then get forensics secretly on to it. In the meantime, Maddern…?’

  ‘No, nothing. I’m going to see if either Carol Smithson or Danny can remember anything else, otherwise it’s finding his car that might give us a lead.’

  ‘Quite.’ Austin’s voice took on the clipped note of his barrister father, but then he was interrupted at his end. ‘Right,’ he said and as the call ended Cannon was unsure who the “right” was for.

  Cannon started as Liz spread a fleecy throw over his shoulders. ‘Didn’t see you coming,’ he said, adding, ‘that was Austin.’

  ‘I heard,’ she said. ‘Would Margaret and their daughters know about any of this?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Poor woman,’ she breathed, ‘poor girls.’

  ‘I must talk to Carol and Danny….’

  ‘They’re upstairs, putting on dry clothes,’ she said. ‘What is going to happen to them?’

  ‘Austin’s arranging for them to be picked up and taken to a safe house well out of the area.’

  ‘Pity they can’t just stay here,’ Liz said, ‘at least they know us.’

  ‘Too near Jones’s home.’

  ‘There’s the dog?’ she remembered.

  ‘Didn’t mention it, I’ve watched Hoskins with it, I think he’d like to keep it.’ He paused as he heard Carol and Danny coming downstairs and would have led the way back to the kitchen, but Liz stopped him.

  ‘No,’ she said, pushing her arm under the fleece and around his waist to feel his clothes, ‘it’ll take you five minutes to get out of these. Go on!’

  ‘What about Hoskins?’

  ‘He knows how to look after himself – he stripped off in the porch straightaway. He’s in your jogging clothes and he’s in charge of preparing food and drink – not sure what.’ Then both instinctively lifted their heads to take in the homely smell of grilling bacon – Hoskins’s staple food.

  ‘Hope you’ve not let him free with my bottle of brandy,’ Cannon said as he climbed the stairs, prior to throwing his clothes into a heap on the bedroom floor, pulling on dry underwear, a tracksuit and sheepskin slippers. For a second, he revelled in the boon of dry warm clothes before running back downstairs.

  In the kitchen Liz had taken over the grill-pan. Hoskins sat down and Cannon poured him a generous brandy and said, ‘I’ll run you and the dog home later.’

  ‘And my bike,’ Hoskins added.

  ‘And your bike,’ Cannon confirmed, sitting next to him and across the table from Carol
and her son. ‘I am desperately worried about Sergeant Maddern,’ he said, ‘I wondered if you could go through exactly what happened when you were stopped and taken by the Jakeses. There might just be some tiny clue about what they intended to do with the sergeant, or where they might have taken him.’

  Danny instinctively moved closer to his mother as they thought back and Carol took his hand, holding it tight between her own.

  ‘Mr Hoskins found the sergeant’s mobile just past a sharp bend,’ he told them.

  ‘Ooh!’ Danny exclaimed. ‘I wondered what he was doing. He suddenly started fighting like a mad thing when they pulled him out of the driving seat, knocked two of them flying.’

  ‘I thought he was doing it because Sean was hurting me as much as he could when he dragged me out,’ Carol said, ‘spiteful sod.’

  ‘Like his great-grandfather, then,’ Hoskins said, ‘he was always thrashing somebody.’

  ‘Maddern would be doing both,’ Cannon said, ‘giving us a clue and …’

  ‘The other one smashed him over the head with a gun for his pains,’ Carol said, shuddering, ‘knocked him out cold.’

  ‘So you were all dragged out of Maddern’s car?’

  ‘Yes, but not Sarge, he was lying on the ground.’

  ‘What I need you to try to remember is if anything was said, anything at all, about what they intended to do with him or where they were going? Anything at all you can remember. It might not seem important, but it could give us a clue, could save the sergeant’s life.’ He felt he had indulged in a little moral blackmail as he saw Danny straighten up in his chair and scowl in an effort of remembering.

  ‘I can’t …’ Carol began, ‘they were on edge, angry, but not about us. It sounded as if someone had torn them off a strip for taking somebody and leaving them in the wrong place. Sean said he wouldn’t put up with “that smarmy bastard” telling him what to do for much longer.’

  ‘And the other one said, it wouldn’t be for much longer,’ Danny added, ‘and they both made noises like yeah, they’d both see to that.’

  ‘I think they must have put Sergeant Maddern back into his own car,’ Carol said, ‘and the third man drove that.’

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ Cannon encouraged. ‘Just keep thinking back. What happened next?’

  ‘It seemed like …’ Carol struggled on, ‘kind of, all prearranged what they were going to do with us. They put tape over our mouths and hands, made us lie down in the back of their car….’

  ‘Covered us with a blanket, then they drove,’ Danny said, ‘and when we stopped it was like nowhere. There was nothing, no lights, only water and bog, and—’

  ‘The boat, they put us on …’

  ‘And left us to …’ Danny said. His young voice wavered but he gritted his teeth, fought back tears and added, ‘and left us to drown, wanted us to die. They mustn’t kill Sarge! I don’t want him to die. I—’

  Cannon felt the boy was about to say he loved him. With so few people beyond his mother who had cared for and about him in his life, it was quite possible that he had – in his mind – formed that kind of relationship with the police sergeant whose newspaper he delivered and who’d taken time to talk to the boy.

  ‘We’ll do everything in our power to stop that happening,’ Cannon assured him, ‘and remembering everything as you are doing could really help.’

  ‘Sean muttered something when the other car drove off, but they were tying us up and the only word I thought I heard …’ She paused as if the word was too stupid to repeat but when she looked up, she found all eyes on her and added, ‘was “rabbits”, then the other laughed.’

  ‘Rabbits?’ It was Hoskins who took up this word.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ It was Liz who asked, but the old man did not reply, or did not say exactly what he was thinking.

  Hoskins was evasive as he said, ‘I know where there are plenty of rabbit warrens, but …’ he scowled like a child hiding the truth, ‘only in my own area.’

  It was only as Cannon drove Hoskins, the dog and his bike home that he admitted that what he was thinking was that rabbits lived underground and rabbit warrens usually made easy digging.

  ‘Glad you didn’t say that in front of the boy,’ Cannon said, but the strange word still kept popping in and out of his mind as morning came and, true to his word, Austin rang to say two plain-clothes policewomen would be calling to pick up Carol and Danny in the next hour.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Danny wanted to know.

  ‘Somewhere safe,’ Liz said, going over to him. Putting an arm around his shoulders, she gave him a hug and a kiss on his cheek. ‘We won’t lose sight of you. When this is over we’ll get in touch.’ Danny looked up at her, and she asked, ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, trying to frown away the emotion that an unexpected tenderness brought, and nearly managing it.

  ‘Where they’re taking us, will we hear what happens?’ Carol asked.

  ‘You will,’ Cannon said with certainty, and his mind ran the gamut of evidence and court cases. They both had a way to go yet.

  Danny was somewhat mollified when the car that arrived to pick them up could not have looked less like anything official. As it pulled in close to the back door, they would see it was a bright-green, soft-topped sports-car, with rugs and pillows in the back. No time was lost. The women were kind but correct – and the pub, the kitchen, was suddenly empty and quiet.

  ‘Another kind of closing time,’ Cannon said.

  ‘Yes, and you know what,’ Liz said, ‘Alamat has slept through all of it. He put the glasses through the sterilizer last thing and went to bed.’

  ‘Perhaps he needn’t know,’ he said, ‘the fewer people who do the better.’

  ‘And we should go to bed. There’s no more you can do. You can hardly call Austin and say Carol Smithson thought she heard the word rabbits.’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘Don’t, John, you’re whacked, I’m whacked, we’ll think clearer after a few hours’ sleep, and the police will have been looking for Maddern ever since you first spoke to Austin. What more can you do, and actually …’ she came behind him as he sat at the table put her nose deep into his neck, ‘you smell a bit duck-pondy. A shower and a sleep and you’ll be a new man.’

  He had both, but woke at first light shouting, ‘Rabbits!’

  ‘For goodness sake,’ Liz exclaimed, ‘you frightened me to death.’

  Cannon lay, his own heart pounding.

  ‘No one else can shout rabbits and make it sound like – well – torpedo, or something fatal,’ she said, flopping back onto her pillow.

  ‘Yes, well.’ He sounded and felt morose.

  She turned towards him and he lifted an arm so she might snuggle under it and lay her head on his chest. He lay very still, but as she heard his heart slowing, she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m not too sure. It’s just … “rabbits” … rabbits!’ She felt his arm tighten round her. ‘Oh my God! Rabbits. Rabbits!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It’s what they say when they want to pretend to be talking, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Or is that rhubarb?’ She proceeded to say the word over and over at different pitches and different speeds.

  ‘No, Liz,’ he stopped her, ‘Maddern had a collection of Beatrix Potter figures, all smashed – there were a lot of rabbits. Why didn’t I think of that before? Come on!’

  ‘Come on?’ she questioned as he pulled his arm free.

  ‘He could be lying there, they could have just abandoned him in his own home.’ He flung out a violent arm towards the window, the outside world, and exclaimed bitterly, ‘Isn’t that just the sort of perverted humour these people have, certainly Sean Jakes has. We’ve time to go now. It’ll be quiet, here and there. I’ll tell Alamat we have to go over to Maddern’s bungalow for a look-see. We can explain later.’

  ‘My car, then,’ she said, her reluctance to lose the comfort of his presence and leave the warmth of thei
r bed dispelled by his vehemence – and she knew he was right. Many criminals did seem to have a high opinion of their own perverted cleverness and humour. Their cruel tricks could have an MO as distinctive as the way they committed murder.

  Maddern came to consciousness aware of a searing hot pain across the side of his skull, a feeling of extreme nausea and the knowledge that he was bound, his eyes and mouth taped.

  He forced himself to swallow, not to think of choking to death on his own vomit, and took stock. His wrists were taped behind his back and his arms roped tight above the elbows. His ankles were taped, his legs roped together just above his knees. Someone had done a very thorough job.

  He felt sure he was in the back of his own estate car. He slowly pushed out his feet and felt the netted compartment in the side where he kept his car-clearing kit. Then there was a smell, cologne or perfume, he had noticed it when loading Katie’s bags, as strong as if she had broken a bottle in a bag as she threw them into the back. Katie’s friend had been murdered because she had recognized and gone after one of the Jakeses, so what were they now doing to young Danny and his mother? Why was he trussed up so securely? Where were they taking him? Why hadn’t they just…?

  The next moment he was flung hard up against the back seats, then over toward the door as the car slewed. He heard the driver muttering as he fought the wheel for control and did all the wrong things to control a skid. Maddern drew in great angry breaths – they’d scattered his family, trashed his house and now it was the turn of his car. Somehow, in spite of turning a full circle, they hit nothing and stayed on the road.

  They travelled a little slower after this, though disregarding any great need for safety along the winding route. Then there was another alarming veer to the left and the car stopped abruptly. He heard the driver get out, the back door of the estate was lifted up, and cool air rushed in. He braced himself but the man walked away. So was he being abandoned, or was there worse to follow? Was it the end? Would the man fire the vehicle? He sniffed the air, only the smell of the sea was stronger.