Tarrant answered it and said, ‘9984.’
Drabble said, ‘Is Mr Harper there?’
‘You want to speak to him?’
‘Naturally; would you put him on the line?’
Harper took the phone out of Tarrant’s hand. ‘I’m listening,’ he said, ‘what do you want?’
‘Yesterday, a Mini travelling east along the A 170, was blown up by a bomb. According to the papers, the police seem to think the IRA had a hand in it…’
Harper said, ‘The line must be bad, you keep fading away. Would you start again?’ By needling Drabble and prolonging the conversation, Harper was trying to give the GPO enough time to trace the call. On STD that would not be easy.
Drabble said, ‘That’s the last time you’ll interrupt me unless you want the boy to suffer. If you miss anything, you can always play it back.’
‘Why should you think this conversation is being taped?’
‘Because you would be incompetent if it wasn’t. Those two men in the car—I want you to know that we killed them with fifty pounds of plastic explosive moulded into the frame of both front seats which we detonated by transmitting a command signal by radio. Think about that while you wait for me to call again.’
Harper started to say something and then realised that Drabble had ended the conversation. He looked at Wray and said, ‘What do you think?’
‘He’s trying to frighten us, and I don’t believe he killed those two men, but I have to admit that if he gave us their names, I’d be forced to revise my opinion.’
Tarrant said, ‘We’re frightened enough already; you seem to forget that he has our son.’
It was but a gentle rebuke, but it went home, and it fell to the duty policeman to break the embarrassed silence. He cleared his throat and said, ‘I’m afraid the GPO didn’t have time to trace the call, sir. They think it came from somewhere in the Northampton area.’
No one took him up on it but the inference was plain. They would have to do better when Drabble contacted them again.
The phone rang at 8:25 pm and Harper answered it.
Drabble said, ‘We want five hundred thousand pounds. Tarrant doesn’t have that kind of money and his father-in-law would be pushed to raise half that amount, but you can, Harper, you can raise it easily.’
Harper said, ‘Just a minute—you’re not the same man I spoke to a quarter of an hour ago.’
The laughter came over clearly and then the voice said, ‘There’s more than one Drabble, Harper.’
There were two of them, and they spoke alternately and at irregular intervals and they defeated every attempt Harper made to hold the line open.
At 8:37 pm, Drabble said, ‘We want the money in uncut diamonds. You will purchase them from Rand and Goodbody and you will obtain a bill of sale.’
At 8:40 pm, the message continued, ‘I will contact you again tomorrow at this number at 7:15 pm to instruct you where to send the bill of sale.’
At 9:18 pm, ‘Keep the Press out of this, they will only complicate matters—play down any idea that David Tarrant has been kidnapped and think up a cover story to explain the reappearance of the Stroud boy.’
The final message was timed at 9:31 pm. Drabble said, ‘You may think we are bluffing; perhaps this recording will help to dispel that illusion.’
The tape hissed, and then David said edgily, ‘I could make that plane do almost anything, really I could, Mr Drabble.’
‘What sort of plane was it, David?’
‘You’re not really interested.’
‘Oh, but I am.’
‘It was a Spitf … a-a-a-a-a-a-ah.’
The scream was going to live with Tarrant for the rest of his life and he thought he was going to be sick.
Drabble said, ‘We burnt his neck with a cigarette end, and we’ll keep on burning him until we get what we want.’ There was a dull clunk as he hung up.
Harper slowly replaced the receiver and said nothing. There was nothing he could say. His eyes were on Alex Tarrant and he could see that she was shaking like a leaf, and then she started to retch and her hand flew to her mouth to hold back the vomit in her throat. She struggled to her feet and ran out of the room; Tarrant looked questioningly at Harper and then followed her.
Wray said, ‘Someone seems to know the size of your budget, Cedric.’
‘Someone seems to know a damn sight too much about me,’ Harper snapped. ‘I don’t think there is any point staying here any longer. Can you give me a lift to Waterloo?’
‘Will you see Tarrant before you leave?’
‘Certainly.’
‘And?’
‘And I’ll tell him that the Department will furnish a bill of sale. If we have to, we’ll even put up the money.’
*
It was a warm muggy night and the rumble of thunder in the distance heralded the approaching storm. Scattered raindrops splashed against the windscreen of Wray’s car as they drove in silence. They had reached Victoria Street before Harper voiced his thoughts.
He said, ‘If I was going to kidnap a child, I’d make sure the parents could pay the ransom.’
Wray said, ‘I’d go along with that.’
‘And yet they deliberately chose David Tarrant and named me to put up the money.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, Jesus Christ, Stanley, you don’t think they got my name out of the Yellow Pages, do you?’
‘What are you leading up to?’
‘I want you to put Tarrant under close surveillance as soon as possible.’
Tuesday
THIRD DAY
4
ACRICK IN THE NECK, WHERE HIS HEAD HAD BEEN LYING AWKWARDLY ACROSS the arm of the sofa, woke Tarrant up just as it was getting light. He shifted into a more comfortable position and tried to go back to sleep, but the duty policeman, who occupied a camp-bed just inside the door, was snoring loudly and the noise kept him awake. It would have been more convenient if Tarrant had slept in David’s room, but for some inexplicable reason he felt that that would be wrong, and, in the circumstances, he could hardly share a bed with Alex. It was his second night on the couch and the lack of sleep was slowly having its effect.
A milk float whirred along the road and stopped outside the flat, urgent feet took the steps two at a time, milk bottles clinked one against the other, and then, whistling cheerfully, the milkman returned to the float and drove off. Five minutes later, a bicycle scraped against the kerb, the letter-box clattered and the newspaper plopped on to the mat in the hall. He lay there for a while and then reluctantly came to the conclusion that his brain was now too active to allow him any further rest.
He slid off the couch, padded across the room and, carefully avoiding the recumbent figure on the camp-bed, opened the door and stepped out into the hall. He collected the paper and then went through to the kitchen to make the early morning tea. He smoked a couple of cigarettes while he read the Daily Telegraph from cover to cover. There was a small paragraph on page four describing how James Stroud had been discovered wandering along the old railway line between Barnard Castle and Darlington and which ended with the observation that the search was still continuing for the other missing boy.
At eight, he woke Alex with a cup of tea and then went into the lounge to draw the curtains, only to find that the job had been done for him. He opened a side window and he could smell the freshess of the rain-washed grass in the park across the road. He paid little attention to the man sitting in the Vauxhall Viva outside the park gates.
The car was there for a definite purpose, and it mattered little whether Tarrant appreciated its significance or not. In the circumstances, it would be routine procedure to keep the street under surveillance in case the opposition were also watching the flat to see how the Tarrants were reacting, but in this instance, the police were more intersted in Tarrant than they were in anyone else.
*
The man from Special Branch parked his car in the basement garage of the tower block off Thessaly Roa
d and then took the lift up to the eighth floor. He walked boldly along the corridor and, using a piece of mica, opened the door of Tarrant’s flat and slipped inside the hall. Even if he had met anyone in the corridor, his presence inside the building would not have been questioned; he was dressed in the uniform of the South-Eastern Electricity Board, and the casual observer would presume that he had come to read the meters.
Chief Superintendent Wray’s briefing had been necessarily vague, but Chesterman was an experienced agent who had worked on the Lonsdale case, and he knew what to look for. He went through the flat with a fine toothcomb, starting with the bedroom where he rifled through the clothes hanging up in the wardrobe and turning over the contents of the chest of drawers. Before leaving the room, he sounded the walls, but despite his systematic and painstaking approach, he could find no trace of a cavity. He repeated the process with the small dining-room, kitchen, sitting-room and bathroom with equally negative results. He also checked the cistern and the hot-water tanks with the same thoroughness.
Chesterman worked unhurriedly, secure in the knowledge that he would not be disturbed, because the man in the Vauxhall Viva would take care of that problem. If Tarrant left his wife’s flat in Chiswick, Chesterman would be warned in minutes by telephone. He left the writing desk until last, but even here, he found nothing untoward. From the bills, bank statements, old letters and snapshots, Chesterman formed the impression that they were dealing with a very ordinary man who, apparently, had little to hide. He noted that Tarrant possessed a Japanese ‘Hit Parade’ tape recorder and a number of cassettes embracing a wide range of taste in music from Tchaikovsky to Kenny Ball. There was also an old, rather battered Empire Aristocrat portable typewriter.
He found a sheet of foolscap in the bottom drawer of the desk, fed it into the machine and then, four-finger, two-thumb style, typed, ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.’ He moved the line space lever, typed the phrase again, removed the foolscap, folded it in half and half again and then placed it inside his wallet. As a final gesture, he picked up the telephone, removed the base-plate, looked inside and found a metal surface to which the magnetised bug would adhere. He then reassembled the phone and left the flat.
Chesterman took the lift back down to the basement garage and, walking across to his car, opened the boot and took out a grip. He carried it with him into the lavatories and found a vacant cubicle where he changed his clothes. Ten minutes later he reappeared dressed in a dark mohair suit, got into the car and drove up to street level. He followed a circular route which took in Battersea Park Road, Nine Elms Lane and South Lambeth Road before returning to the tower block, where he found a vacant parking space in the forecourt facing the main entrance. He locked the car, crossed the pavement, went through the swing doors and sought out the caretaker in his office.
Chesterman took an instant dislike to the man. The caretaker was suspicious, belligerent, ingratiating and co-operative in turn: suspicious on meeting a stranger, belligerent when Chesterman informed him that he was making enquiries on behalf of a firm of solicitors, ingratiating when he saw a pound note waving under his nose and co-operative when he got his hands on the money, in the hope that there would be more where that came from.
Chesterman said, ‘This client of ours is anxious to divorce his wife and although we’ve got the name of one co-respondent, we’d like a few more.’ Chesterman winked. ‘This client,’ he said, ‘hasn’t exactly been a monk himself and he’s anxious not to pay any more maintenance than he has to. We’ve heard his wife has been playing around with a Major Tarrant.’
‘Bloke on the eighth floor?’
‘Yes; know anything about him?’
‘Keeps himself pretty much to himself, mister.’
Chesterman showed him another pound note. ‘But not always?’ he suggested.
‘Once he had a bird stay the night.’
‘Oh?’
‘Almost five months ago—must have been New Year’s Day— she was still wearing this evening dress when I seen them get out of the lift—it would be about half past eight in the morning because I’d just clocked in.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Good-looking tart, about thirty, a redhead.’ He leered into Chesterman’s face. ‘I wouldn’t have minded her touching me up, mate,’ he said.
Chesterman managed to hide his repugnance. ‘Did he mention her name?’
‘Huh?’
‘Well, you know—did he say something like, I’ll see you again Alice?’
‘It wasn’t Alice—he called her Barbara—said he’d see her at lunch as usual.’
Chesterman tucked the note into the caretaker’s shirt pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘buy yourself a drink; better still, go out and get stoned, you deserve it.’
*
Even though the job description put it differently, Calvert was essentially a travelling man. He covered the Home Counties for Anglican Breweries and his movements were entirely predictable to the extent that McKee knew just where to find him. Tuesdays were set aside for East Kent, and Calvert always lunched at The Falconer on the Canterbury Road. He was drinking in the lounge bar when McKee telephoned and he took the call in the public box in the hall.
McKee said guardedly, ‘I’d like you to pick up an order for me this afternoon if you would.’
‘I’ll try, but it will depend on whether or not I have to go out of my way.’
‘It’ll entail a small detour. The address is Silk’s Off Licence, 178 London Road, Bagshot—you’re expected.’
Calvert said, ‘When do you want to take delivery?’
‘Today at Hillglade Farm—any time before seven. Get yourself a map and make sure you don’t get lost. I don’t want you asking the way to Melton Basset.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘You’d better,’ said McKee.
Calvert hung up and left the booth. He had learned that it was unwise to argue with McKee, and he lunched quickly before telephoning his customers in Deal and Folkestone to explain why he wouldn’t be calling on them that afternoon. By one-thirty he was on the way to Bagshot and making good time in the Cortina estate.
Silk’s Off Licence was the end shop in the arcade, and Calvert ran his car into the delivery yard and then knocked on the back door. It was opened by a blonde in her early forties who was wearing a brief mini-skirt and skin-tight black boots which reached up to her plump thighs. Calvert wondered why it was always the women with the fattest legs who still clung to the shortest minis.
He said, ‘We haven’t met before; I’m Calvert. I think Mr Silk has an order ready for me to collect? It was no lie; until Sunday he hadn’t met Silk.
The woman said, ‘I’m Janet Silk, Reg is in the stock-room. You’d better come inside.’ She moved ahead, her large buttocks undulating beneath the skirt and the tights made a curious rasping sound as her thighs rubbed together.
She threw open the door to the stock-room and said, ‘There’s a Mr Calvert here to see you, Reg.’ Her voice was harsh and grating and, seeing them together for the first time, Calvert was not surprised that she was the taller of the two. Her manner also suggested that metaphorically she wore the trousers.
Silk pointed to a large cardboard box, and said, ‘Can you manage it on your own?’ The box was six feet in length, stood three feet high and was about two foot broad.
Calvert said, ‘Think I’ve got arms like an octopus, then? You take one end.’ It was not as heavy as he had expected but it was still an awkward load to get through the narrow entrance of the stock room and he skinned his knuckles on the door frame. Calvert wasn’t exactly in the best of tempers by the time they had stowed it away in the Cortina Estate and he could have used a cold beer, but despite a broad hint, Silk didn’t offer him one. The prospect of a longish drive up to Northamptonshire didn’t thrill him either.
Calvert had it easy enough on the M1 as far as Northampton but thereafter he ran into every kind of hazard on the narrow, twistin
g country roads. It seemed to him that just about every farmer in the county had decided that it was a good time to move livestock, and if it wasn’t a herd of cows that barred his way, it was some damned yokel ambling along on a tractor. Despite being forced to a crawl at times, he still made Hillglade Farm well before six.
He swung into the yard and parked the car opposite the rear porch. An Alsatian, lying in the shade of the stable block, rose up and advanced towards him snarling. Calvert decided it was safer to stay inside the Cortina until someone came to meet him. No one appeared from the stables or the barn to see what the noise was about, but above and behind him, a window opened and a voice called, ‘Don’t worry about the dog, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ The window closed with a bang, and shortly afterwards McKee appeared on the back porch with Ruth Burroughs, and Calvert judged it was then safe to leave the car.
McKee said, ‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened of that bloody dog?’
Calvert ignored the question. ‘I’ve got your order,’ he said, ‘where do you want it put?’
‘In the cellar. I’ll give you a hand with it.’
The cellar was cool and musty but it was getting a little crowded. The wine racks had been shoved together to make space for the bed, but even so, there was very little room to move about in. The boy, of course, wasn’t moving anywhere. He was lying spreadeagled on the bed, his legs and wrists chained to the bedposts. As McKee pointed out, they didn’t make beds like that any more and they had been lucky to pick it up in a sale. The boy’s appearance came as a shock to Calvert. He looked unkempt and his pallor seemed unhealthy. The gag wadded into his mouth was not only crude and effective but also added to his air of misery.
McKee caught him looking at the boy and said, ‘Don’t worry about him, he’ll live. If you’ve got a knife, we’ll see what Silk has sent us.’
Without a word, Calvert took out his clasp-knife, slashed the lid and ripped it open. Reaching inside the box, he brought out a Number 5 Lee Enfield rifle, a Mark II Sten machine carbine, two Colt.38 automatics and a Springfield.30 calibre carbine.
Seven Days to a Killing Page 4