On the table lay a lot of bubble wrap and a big envelope. In the middle of it was some cotton wool, and on that was, as she’d said, a finger. It had on pink nail varnish and a gold ring. It was, I’d guess, the middle finger. “Rosie’s?”
“It’s her ring,” said her father, gripping the glass. “Her eighteenth birthday present.”
“Please,” sobbed the wife. “They want money. Half a million, look!”
It was a typed note, which unfortunately had got a bit stained with red. They’d been touching it, the eejits, but I was careful not to. I saw it was all spelled right. “Is there a name?”
“No. It’s that Magee family, I’ll bet. Bunch of ne’er-do-wells and not above kidnap.”
That was true, but I wasn’t sure Nasher could spell a word like imminently.
“Why do you think it’s them, sir?”
“He rang here once, that dreadful man. Said he wasn’t having his nephew going round with a stuck-up Prod. They must have taken her.”
“Did you call the PSNI?”
Mrs. Grant panicked. “No! We can’t do that. They said they’d kill her if we called the police.”
“Gurriers,” growled Mr. Grant. “I’ll take my shotgun to them.”
“Oh don’t, Harry!” she cried even harder. “Just give them the money.”
“It’s negotiating with terrorists, Marjorie!”
“It’s our daughter!”
In the corner of my eye I saw the other girl—the sister, she must be—had crept in. She was pretty under all the goth makeup. Same hair as Rosie. She was staring at the finger.
“Madeleine!” snapped her father. “I told you not to come in here.”
“Is that Rosie’s?”
“No, no, it’s just—a Halloween toy.”
“It’s February.”
“Maddy, will you please go away!”
“All right, whatever.” She went.
“Look here,” said the father. “There’s a time and a place given for the ransom. We want you to take it to them. There’s a key to a shipping container, in the docks.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You’re involved now. They said they’d give Rosie back if we send the money. Here.” He went behind the sofa and pushed out a pink wheeled suitcase, like the type girls take on planes.
“Are you telling me there’s half a million pounds in there?”
“Of course. I don’t like it but she is, as my wife says, our daughter. Now take it down to the docks and do the swap. Call us as soon as you have her.”
“But . . . wouldn’t you be better with the police?”
“No, it has to be you. I’d go myself but I’m a very important man. Thousands of people depend on me for their livelihood.”
“But, but—”
“Mr. Carson, if you don’t do this, our daughter’s blood will be on your hands.”
Their daughter’s blood was on their coffee table but I didn’t say this. “Can I go to the toilet first at least?” I needed time. Not knowing what to do, I took the case with me.
I heard Mrs. Grant call, “Would you take your shoes off if you’re going upstairs?”
I pretended not to hear.
On the stairs I found Maddy, painting her nails black. That gave me an idea. “Was your sister wearing polish when she went missing?”
“Doubt it. We’re not allowed at school. They make you clean it off.”
“Can I see if it’s in her room?”
She shrugged and we went upstairs. Rosie’s room made me dizzy, all posters and perfume and underwear hanging over chairs. Gav would have an asthma attack. I tried to focus. There was a whole drawer of varnishes, but no pink. Interesting.
“Do you think it’s her finger?” Maddy pretended to blow on her nails.
“You don’t seem bothered if it is.”
“It’s Rosie.”
“Meaning?”
“She never gets in trouble. She’s smart, you know. Like really, really smart. And mean. When I was ten my hamster bit her, so she drowned it, then told Mammy he’d escaped. I was never allowed another pet.”
I looked at her. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she said. “Why, how old are you?”
“Eighteen. Well, nearly.”
“Can you drive?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve got a bike.”
“Huh.”
“Look,” I said, “I’ve got an idea. I need to go to the docks and check things out. Only I can’t ride my bike with a case.”
“Get a cab. There’s money in there, right?” She unzipped it before I could stop her. “Wow.” We blinked at the piles of crisp notes. “They’d hardly miss a tenner for a taxi.”
She was right, so I went outside. Part of me had been hoping I wouldn’t get one, and I’d have to give up, but just my luck one was sitting right in front of the house, its light on. I got in, clutching the case to me like a baby. “The docks, please.”
“Hello, son,” said the driver, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
It was Nasher Magee.
* * *
This was bad. On a scale of one to bad, this went up to eleven—a joke Gavin would appreciate, but he wasn’t here, and even if he was, he’d have been too busy crying and wetting himself to laugh.
“Where’s my nephew?” Nasher was driving nice and slow through the evening traffic.
“I don’t know! I’m trying to find Rosie. Her family think you have her.”
“What would I want with some uppity Malone Road cow?”
“Money?” I was hugging the little pink case to me.
He laughed. Not in a nice way. “Son, I’ve more readies stashed than Mr. Golf Club could ever dream of. I just want my nephew away from the meddling little bitch. So where are they?”
“She’s been kidnapped. Honest, they cut off her finger!”
“Did they now? Who did?”
“Eh . . . you? That’s what they think.”
“And what do you think, son?”
“I don’t know.”
“Smart lad. You only know what you don’t know, is that right?”
“Eh . . . please, Mr. Nasher. I need to go to the docks. It’s where they have her.”
“In a minute.”
Soon the cab was stopping, but not at Harland and Wolff like I’d asked for. “This is your pub! I need to get to Rosie!”
“Never you worry about Miss Grant. I’d worry about yourself more.”
Then someone was opening the door and stuffing a black bin bag over my head and I was dragged out. There were steps. I know because I fell down them. There was a door, a metal one, which my head banged off. “Ow!”
“Shut your trap, son.”
When the bag was ripped off, I was tied to a chair in a concrete basement. I tried shuffling but my hands were bound up. In the room were Nasher and two other men, both in black with balaclavas on. Nasher was smoking a cigarette and sitting on a table. He had on a Celtic top and grey tracksuit bottoms.
On the other chair was someone else with a bin bag round their head. I could see their mouth sucking in and out panicky breaths. Bin bags are actually porous, but they probably wouldn’t find that too comforting. One of the gorillas ripped the bag off, but by that stage I’d already clocked the red Converse and I knew it was Gavin before I saw his face, white and scared.
“Al! What’s going on?”
“Calm down, Gav,” I said. I hoped I sounded it. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”
Nasher tapped his fag. “I wouldn’t call it that. You boys have been following me. First you sneak round my pub, then your wee pal here’s nosing in my bank accounts.”
I gave Gavin a disappointed look. “You promised!”
“I was trying to help, Al! I thought he might have rented somewhere to keep Rosie.”
“You eejit, Gav. Look, Mr., eh . . . Nasher. I’m afraid my associate doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s like Dustin Hoffman. You know,
in that old film. Rain Man.”
“Didn’t he play a fruit once?”
“I don’t know, sir. That’s not the point. It’s really not Gavin’s fault.”
Nasher moved off the table and I saw two things on it. One was the pink suitcase—open. Empty. The other looked like a bolt cutter.
Nasher ambled over to me. The cigarette dangled close to my left eye. With my right I glanced at the bolt cutter, which the second gorilla was weighing in his hands. “You better start talking, son.”
I looked at the glowing end one inch from my eye and the bolt cutter and Gavin starting to wheeze and shake. So I told the whole story, about Mrs. Grant and John Joe and the finger in the box—“The money’s to ransom her, see”—and how it looked like Nasher had been set up.
“Set up?”
“I think so, sir. Clearly you know nothing about it, but it’s been made to resemble your, eh, trademark skills.”
“I did used to do a lovely kidnap,” he said nostalgically. I tried to move my face away from the flame. “So if you went with this case to the docks, you’d maybe find John Joe?”
“Um . . . definitely. Almost for sure.”
“All right then.” He moved, and quick as a flash the first goon cut my ropes. He cut me too, a bit.
“And Gavin?”
“He stays till you find John Joe.”
“Can I take the money?”
“I said take the case, son. Not the contents.”
“But how will I get her back without the ransom?”
“I’m sure you can improvise, smart boy like you.” He tossed the car keys. “Take the taxi. On the house, son.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t smoke,” I ventured. “Gavin’s asthmatic, you see.” I could hear them laughing and Gavin wheezing as they shoved me out the door.
* * *
I can’t drive. Not even a bit. All I know is from playing on the Wii with Gavin. But I kept my eyes straight ahead, and ignoring the many, many beeps of other cars (“Hurry up, you fecking arsehole!”), I somehow found my way to the shipyards. The pink case was beside me on the seat of the black hack. I heard its wheels squeak behind me as I parked and walked away, then it was just me in the dark. A salty wind blew in from the lough, the lights of the city glittering all round me, like little winking eyes.
I ducked under the security barrier and found the gates of the shipyard unlocked. No one stopped me. I was walking amid a city of shipping containers, rusted and hulking. The key that had come with the finger had a number on it: 341. I found this after a lot of wandering about in the dark. It was a bottom one. Green metal. I listened but heard nothing except the wind.
I put the key in the padlock. It turned, rusty, and I pushed the door open. “Eh . . . hello?”
No answer. I switched on the torch I always keep in my jacket, like any good PI should. The space was maybe eight metres long. In the pool of light from my torch was a chair, and a girl was tied onto it. Her head slumped forward, and in the light I could make out that her hair was that shade of red people like to call strawberry blonde.
“Rosie,” I whispered. The torch beam was no match for the inky shadows in the place. I needed to add double-A batteries to Ma’s shopping list. “Are you okay? I’m the PI. Your parents sent me.”
She groaned. “Please . . . help . . .”
“Stop.”
I moved the torch and saw coming out of the darkest corner a massive fella like the proverbial shithouse made of brick, pointing a knife at me. “John Joe Magee!”
He seemed confused, then put his menacing expression back on. “Yeah, so? You stay back.”
“Eh . . . I’ve got your money.”
“Oh. Well, put it down over there.”
I parked the case, handle sticking up. “What happens now?”
“Em . . . you give me the money and you fuck off.” His knife cast long glinting shadows.
“And Rosie?” Her head twitched.
“Eh . . . she can go with you?” John Joe sounded like he was asking a question.
“Is she all right? How’s her hand?”
“Hand?”
“You cut off her finger. That wasn’t very nice of you.” I was trying to look at her hands, see if she had polish on them, but they were tied behind her.
He paused. “Look, stop talking, yeah? Give me the cash and fuck off.” He raised a hand to scratch his face and I saw it was wrapped in some kind of fabric. The idea I’d had took shape in my head. In my pocket I felt for my phone, trying to count. How many names did I have saved? Where would S be on the contacts list? One, two, ten . . . I pressed the button, hoping it was the right one.
“Untie Rosie, and then you can have the money.”
He moved over to the girl. Her eyes fluttered and she moaned something. John Joe suddenly straightened up, as if a thought had entered his brain and was clanging around in the empty space it found there. “Here, I need to count the money first.”
Oh feck. “Um . . . it’s all there. I think. Half a million. The ransom you wanted for Rosie Grant.”
He went to it, tucking the knife under his arm. He seemed to struggle with the zip, fumbling. I was about three seconds from a good stabbing. I realised several things in that moment that saved my bacon. A good PI is 80 percent planning, 20 percent reaction, you see. 10 percent luck maybe. Is that more than 100?
I saw Rosie move in the corner of my eye, and just as John Joe was saying, “There’s fecking nothing in here!” and letting the knife fall clumsily from under his arm, I threw myself into the shadows behind him and discreetly grabbed it. At the same time I chucked my phone into the darkest corner, its screen still lit up to show it was transmitting. I hoped to God the right person was listening.
Rosie stood up. The ropes had fallen off her and she was holding a gun. I saw clearly that all her fingers were exactly where they should have been—on her hands. I also saw that the reason for John Joe’s clumsiness was that his left hand was bandaged. I imagined if we looked there’d be a bottle of pink nail polish somewhere around the container.
My back was against the container wall, cold and damp. “Now,” I said, speaking clearly, “there’s an explanation for this. There’s a reason we’re all here at the docks.”
“You stole the money, you little bastard.” Rosie waved the gun.
“No, no. It’s being looked after. By John Joe here’s uncle. While we’re here at the docks.”
“Uncle Nasher?” John Joe looked perplexed. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“He’s found us out, you moron,” said Rosie, starting to pace. “I told you he didn’t like me.”
It was true so I didn’t disagree.
She pointed the gun at me. “What’ll we do with this one?”
I held onto the knife tight. If John Joe’d had any sense he could have squashed me like a grape. Luckily he didn’t seem to. “Look, nice as it is here at the docks, I think we should—”
“We’ll have to go to plan B. Get rid of him, send his ear to my parents.”
They don’t do a lot but I’m fond of my ears all the same. “Now, look, I’m sure all of us here in container 341, at the docks, could do with calming down a bit.”
Rosie continued: “They’ll send someone who’s less of an eejit with more cash. We take it and scarper to the ferry as planned. Done. Or else we send your other finger to your uncle.”
“Aw, Rosie. It really hurt last time.”
“It worked, didn’t it? Bit of nail polish and my ring—they’re such eejits. I’m always right.”
I cleared my throat loudly. They both turned to look at me. “Now,” I said slowly, “why don’t we come up with a different plan? There’s not much we can do while we’re here in shipping container 341, is there? Your uncle has the money, John Joe. Why don’t we go and visit him?” Surely I could manage to get the gun off them in that time, and rescue Gavin, and get past Nasher’s henchmen, and . . . ah, feck.
Rosie hoicked up the gun. “I want that money,
” she said to me. “If we bump you off, it’ll look more convincing, won’t it? And we could send them any number of body parts off you.”
I panicked. “You could send them my shoe! That’d work just as well!” Oh bollocks. I whipped out the knife, hands shaking. “Now just stop right there.”
Rosie threw back her lovely head and laughed. “I’ve got a gun, you fecking eejit. Who’s going to stop me?”
“I reckon I could have a go.” A different voice, harsh as a hundred cigarettes a day.
I blinked in a new beam of light. Nasher was at the door, grabbing the gun from Rosie’s hands. “You didn’t even take the safety off, you daft little cow. Here she is, Sammy.” And there was his mate, DS Sammy Taylor, slapping cuffs on Rosie as another officer frisked John Joe.
“Sorry, Romeo and Juliet. Love’ll have to be across the prison wings now, never mind the barricades.” Taylor stopped in front of me.
I tried to drop the knife surreptitiously but it made a terrible clang. “Er, hello, DS Taylor.”
“So you did phone me after all, Magnum PI.”
“I felt the situation had . . . escalated.”
“Lucky I put that wee tracker on your phone then, eh?”
“What?”
“How do you think we got here so quickly? Though your chat was handy to find the right place. We’re here in container 341! Gas.” He laughed heartily.
“That’s, that’s . . . a violation of my human rights! I’ll be contacting the police ombudsman.”
The other officer was now in front of me, handcuffs dangling. “What about this one, sir?”
“Not him,” said Taylor, still laughing. “He’s an eejit, but sadly they’ve yet to make that a crime. Take him home, his mammy’s worried.”
* * *
Once everything was sorted out, Nasher gave the money back to Rosie’s parents, who hopefully saw it as some comfort. Far from being missing, they now knew exactly where their daughter was: in the women’s wing of Hydebank prison. DS Taylor got a promotion for catching the two extortionists, and I kept my mouth shut about the fact he was obviously in cahoots with Nasher. I spent my reward money on renting out some office space. There’s even a desk for Gavin, though he’s been strictly warned about hacking during work hours. I also took Ma out for dinner, so she didn’t have to cook at least one night. She said it was nice but she didn’t like to get too behind on Coronation Street.
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