The Maggie Bainbridge Box Set

by Rob Wyllie

  Jimmy was already at his adopted desk, pouring over an inch-thick document, addressed to his brother, that had landed earlier that day. Literally so, because although he could have had it delivered electronically, Frank liked to work with a hard copy, the ones that were professionally printed and bound at the government print works over in Elephant& Castle.

  'Oh, hi guys,' Jimmy said brightly. 'Hope you don't mind Frank, it's the final forensic report on the Danny Black case. I've just given it a quick skim. It makes interesting reading, that's for sure.'

  'No problem bruv, you just keep on reading.' He looked at the document with satisfaction. Yes, it had been the right decision ordering that hard copy. With a hard copy you could scribble notes, draw a ring round passages that interested you, turn down the corner of the pages you wanted to go back to again and again. And you could take it with you when you went to the bog, something you really didn't want to do with your police-issue laptop. He wouldn't have minded getting stuck into it himself, but in less than ninety minutes he was due to be sitting opposite Jill Smart over at Paddington Green for his monthly meeting. He was expected to have produced an advance briefing paper, centre stage of which would be the report on the proposed visit to Leiden, but with one thing or another, somehow he hadn't quite got round to it.

  'Look, I've got to sort a few things out before I nip over to see Jill. Why don't you two do some work on the report, see if you find anything? And obviously, let me know if anything turns up. And then I'll see you back here at three-ish.'

  Maggie winked at Jimmy. 'Don't worry Frank, we're not going to hide anything from you. So just leave us in peace and we'll get onto it. And yep, we'll see you at three or thereabouts.' Frank gave a distracted thumbs-up and scuttled towards the door.

  'Ok then boss, where do we start?' Jimmy asked.

  Maggie shrugged. 'From the beginning, I suppose.'

  Scanning the frontispiece, they saw it was a Doctor Ashley Stone who had put this one together. Obviously neither of them had ever met this Dr Stone, didn't even know if it was a woman or a man, but a few pages in, it wasn't hard to recognise it as a great piece of work. Meticulous but concise, with summary tables laying out the facts of Black's murder and comparing them with those of the earlier killings. Clear photographs of the scene and of the body as it lay in the morgue, the impact point of the head trauma which had killed him clearly labelled, but without aimless speculation about the murder weapon, which had not yet been found. As they thumbed through it page-by-page, enthralled, their attention was drawn to a sidebar captioned Issues and Concerns. Half a dozen bullet points, some pretty trivial. But not the one at the top of the list, helpfully underlined and picked out in bold type.

  Jimmy looked at Maggie with an amazed expression. 'Are you reading what I'm reading?'

  She nodded. 'I think so. The top line of that table...'

  '... where it says the method used to sever the hand in the Black case...'

  '...in the balance of probability, was not the same as that of the earlier murders. Frank is going to have a complete heart attack when he hears this.'

  'So if I understand this right,' Jimmy said, 'in the first two murders, the cut which removed the hand was neat and precise...'

  '... probably done by an electric saw, I think I saw that earlier in the report,' Maggie agreed.

  'Aye, that's right. Whereas in Black's case, it was much less precise. Dr Stone thinks it was probably done by hand using a large hacksaw, and would have taken at least ten minutes...'

  '...as opposed to just a couple of minutes with the powered saw. This is dynamite, isn't it?' Looking up, she was surprised to see Jimmy trying hard to suppress a laugh. And failing.

  'What? What's so funny?'

  'I know, it's no laughing matter, but you know what this means, don't you? It means that Frank's best pal Colin Barker was right all along. It looks very much like this one was a copy-cat killing. You can't believe how much I'd love to be there when Frank has to tell him. He might even have to say sorry. I mean, can you imagine how hard that's going to be?'

  Maggie giggled. 'Whatever happened to brotherly love, Mr Stewart?'

  'No, you know I'm only kidding. It is a bit of a bitch for him. Seriously, we'll need to break it to him gently. And soon. Maybe you should call him, do you think?'

  They caught him just as he was pulling into the car park, Maggie leading the call and Jimmy listening in on the speaker-phone. His reaction, as was predicted, was not positive.

  'Aw for god's sake, that's all we need. Shit, shit shit.' They imagined him banging the steering wheel in frustration before reaching for the figurative hip-flask. 'Everyone in the force has been pissing themselves laughing at Barker's copy-cat thing, but unknown even to the twat himself, it turns out he's been right all along. Shit and double shit.'

  ◆◆◆

  The news from Maggie and Jimmy had kicked Frank's brain into overdrive and now he struggled to process this fresh and vital information. So whoever had killed Danny Black, it now seemed if the evidence was to be believed it wasn't the same person who had killed Allegra Ross and Benjamin Fox. And more than that, there was something else that differentiated the killings, something obvious. The first and second ones spoke of preparation and knowledge, specifically a knowledge of how difficult it was to sever a limb and therefore how important it was to have the right tools for the job. A professional killing, carried out by someone with prior experience. The third one seemed quite the opposite, an amateur job, almost certainly. But amateur or not, it didn't make the case any easier. Having one killer on the loose was bad enough, but now that there were two, the complexity of the case had risen exponentially. Bugger.

  He was still trying to figure it all out as he walked through the front door of Atlee House. And then another thought struck him. Apart from the media who had been at that shit-show of a press conference with Barker, nobody outside the immediate investigation team knew the detailed MO of the earlier killings, and certainly not the Leonardo bit which was the signature-mark of the earlier crimes.

  Yeah, apart from the media. There had been nearly fifty journos at that Paddington Green do, and what was the chances that each of them had kept schtum as instructed? Precisely no chance at all, that was the answer to that question. Keeping their mouths shut just wasn't in their DNA and they only needed to tell a couple of mates, and then they in turn told a couple of theirs, and well, the maths was beyond him, but it was a lot. As the depression enveloped him like a Victorian pea-souper, there remained only one possible course of action. Once again, and breaking every rule in the book, he found himself fumbling in his jacket pocket for the hip-flask. And then one restorative swig later, it came to him. For there was one other individual who most assuredly knew the MO of the murders.

  The individual who had formally confirmed the identity of Benjamin Fox.

  Chapter 21

  It had been quite a relaxing flight, all in all. The Met's travel team had done him a huge favour by booking him on British Airways from Heathrow rather than shunting him out to Luton or Stanstead on one of those ghastly low-cost jobs. The departure time was a civilised six-thirty in the evening and by good fortune he had been allocated an extra leg-room seat, and on the aisle too so he didn't have to clamber over a stranger to get to the loo. The food wasn't much to write home about, the main course being some sort of warmed up cheese and tomato croissant, but it filled a hole and importantly, there was a complimentary bar service, unusual in this day and age. The only thing that stopped the journey being perfect was that the traveller next to him was one of these guys who liked to talk, and the talk had continued without a break from the moment Frank had sat down beside him until the flight attendant was welcoming them to the Netherlands and reminding them to set their watches forward an hour. Not that he was by nature antisocial, far from it, but there was only so much interest you could squeeze from the subject of interlocking flooring systems, apparently the specialisation of his companion. Still, he had managed
to anesthetise himself from the worst of it with a couple of double gin and tonics, and his spirits were un-dampened as he now scanned the small group of people milling around the arrivals area. At last he saw him, a tall figure of around forty years of age, crop-haired and wearing a vivid orange sports jacket, green open-necked shirt and blue chinos. Inspector Marco Boegenkamp was holding up a small whiteboard on which had been scribbled 'Mr Stewart,' sensible insurance in case they didn't recognise each other from their pictures.

  Frank walked over to him and gave a broad smile. 'I'm guessing you must be Marco,' he said, extending his hand. 'I'm Frank. It's good to meet you at last.'

  The greeting was returned with obvious warmth. 'Yes, and I'm Marco of course. Welcome to the Netherlands. Good flight?'

  Frank laughed 'Yep, on time and smooth, what more can you ask for?' Well, not to be seated next to a crashing bore would have been nice, but he didn't share that thought with his new friend.

  Twenty minutes later they were threading their way south in Boegenkamp's Audi, the busy motorway still thick with rush-hour congestion.

  'It's always like this I'm afraid. I could put on the blue lights of course,' he laughed, 'but we are a very orderly society here in Holland and it wouldn't be right since we are only going to a little meeting in Leiden. But don't worry, the traffic usually thins out in a few kilometres and then we should be there in about an hour.'

  Given the primary reason for his visit, Frank wasn't really in any hurry.

  'What state are they in, the van Durens?' he asked. 'Pretty bad I'd imagine.'

  'Yes very bad,' Boegenkamp agreed. 'Professor van Duren of course blames his wife for everything and he is finding it difficult to deal with his anger.'

  'Not surprising. But they're still adamant they want to pay the ransom?'

  'Yes, I'm afraid so. That's one of the main reasons I wanted them to meet you. So they can hear directly from you what happened in the other two cases.'

  Leiden police headquarters was located in a nondescript low-rise office block located on a nondescript business park about three kilometres outside the old town. Boegenkamp led Frank through a warren of corridors to a small stuffy meeting room, windowless but ventilated by a noisy air conditioning unit. The room was sparsely furnished with a table and a half-a-dozen plastic chairs and seemed to have been purposely designed for maximum discomfort. The van Durens were already there, accompanied by a detective sergeant introduced as Johann.

  'This is Inspector Frank Stewart from London,' Boegenkamp said, his tone serious. 'He is here to help us with our case.'

  Professor van Duren was of medium height and slim with a shock of thick greying hair swept back from his forehead. His wife was small and petite and strikingly attractive, although the effect was diminished somewhat by the dark rings that circled her eyes, no surprise given what she had been through. From his opening remarks, it was evident the Professor was a man very much used to being in control.

  'We've had the advice from the police here in Leiden,' he said briskly, 'but of course we do not intend to follow it. We must have our child back and therefore we have no option but to trust the abductors will return him as they have said they would. We wish to pay the ransom.'

  'Well that would be a mistake sir,' Frank said, making no attempt to sugar-coat the message he was about to deliver. 'Look, I don't want to trash your faith in human nature, but criminals aren't wired the same as you and me. I don't know if you have the saying over here about no honour amongst thieves, well it's true. Professional criminals like these guys are driven by greed, pure and simple. They'll take your money all right, but they won't give you back your child.'

  Mrs van Duren began to sob, drawing a look of cold disdain from her husband. The poor woman had been destroyed by one stupid mistake and it was clear he wasn't going to let her forget it. Ever.

  'Shut up Rachel. This isn't doing anyone any good. So Inspector Stewart, what do you suggest we do?'

  Frank knew the question was coming and he hadn't been looking forward to it one bit. Boegenkamp would have already told them about what had happened in the Grant and Lawrence cases, but it seemed they were in denial, so they would have to hear the unpalatable truth again from him. But luckily he had an idea, a stupid, crazy idea. An idea that might give them hope where there ought to be none.

  'If you simply hand over the ransom money, then it's odds-on they won't return your child. I'm sorry to be blunt, but that's the fact of the matter. You see, from their point of view, doing a handover just introduces unnecessary risk and complication into the whole thing. So why bother if we still get the money, that's the way they look at it.'

  'I'm sorry,' van Duren spat at Boegenkamp, 'but I don't see how he's helping the situation.'

  And the guy was right of course, he wasn't helping much. Because nothing would help until they tracked down the scum responsible for this, and any prospect of that was a long way off right now. Which left only his crazy idea.

  'Look, I said it was greed that drives these people. So there is one thing we could try.'

  'What?' Rachel van Duren cried desperately, 'please tell us.'

  'It's a risky play,' Frank said, catching Boegenkamp's eye, 'but if we make the reward worth their risk, there might just be a chance they'll go for it.'

  And then he explained his crazy idea, and in the light of day it sounded even more stupid than when he had dreamt it up on the journey down from Schipol. But there was no denying Professor van Duren had an aura about him, an aura that radiated dignity and importance. A man of honour. On that, everything depended. Well, not quite everything.

  'It depends on whether you can raise another half-million Euros,' Frank said.

  'We can raise that on the Connecticut beach house?' his wife said, pleading to her husband. 'Can't we?'

  And so it was arranged. Three-quarters of a million Euros would be paid in advance, with a further three-quarters of a million to be paid if the child was handed over unharmed. A deal that put the ball back in the court of the abductors. All they had to do was trust that Professor van Duren was a man of his word, a man who would keep his part of the bargain. In Frank's mind, the enticement of that three-quarters of a million gave it at least a fifty-fifty chance of success. And anyway, this was the only game in town.

  The proposal was pinged off to the mobile number they had been given, obscured behind a wall of encryption somewhere on the dark web. Six minutes later they received the terse reply.

  Deal.

  ◆◆◆

  It had always amused Frank that in the movies, ransom handovers were conducted in dark and dank abandoned warehouses in some moody and windswept riverside location. Of course it was great for creating the atmosphere of dangerous foreboding sought by the director, but it was hopelessly stupid in real life. No way of arriving un-observed for a start, and generally just one way out too. Dumb. Which is why he'd agreed with Boegenkamp the perfect location for this most high-risk of operations. Centraal Station Amsterdam, used by over a quarter of a million passengers every day, constantly teeming with arrivals and departures from all parts of the Netherlands and beyond.

  Half an hour earlier, the money had been electronically transferred as instructed, to be laundered through a network of shadow servers hosted in a quiet Moscow suburb, the mafia-funded provider charging a flat ten percent fee for their expertise and discretion. And now all they had to do was wait for the appointed time. Eight minutes past eight o'clock, bang in the middle of the morning rush hour. Send just the mother and no police. That was a joke and both parties knew it. The place was already swarming with dozens of Boegenkamp's plain-clothes team, melting with ease into the background amongst the throng of commuters. Hard to spot, but then that worked both ways. Frank stood with his Dutch counterpart about fifty metres from where Rachel van Duren was waiting, her face etched with worry, at the entrance barrier to platform twelve. Wait there, we'll bring him to you. Neither spoke, but each knew what the other was thinking. Fifty-fifty at best,
but please for once let the odds fall in our favour.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man in a conspicuously-branded puffer jacket kneeling down, talking to a child, pointing in the direction of the barrier. Was it his imagination, or did the child look scared? Frank touched Boegenkamp on the elbow, catching his attention and together they peered at his phone, studying Brandon van Duren's photograph. Was there a likeness? It was hard to tell from this distance. But then they saw Mrs van Duren had seen the pair too, and immediately they knew from her body language. False alarm.

  They watched as the huge digital clock, mounted high above the travellers on a steel column, ticked over to the handover time. Eight minute past eight. Earlier, they'd speculating on how the handover might be effected. Would the boy have been pushed onto a train in some outlying suburb, eliminating the possibility of his abductors being caught in the act? Or would he be dropped off in person, his chaperone melting seamlessly into the crowd? Less likely, given that they would know the police would be observing the scene. But right now, that was all academic, because nothing was happening. Above them, the clock clicked over once more. Then another minute. And another. Nothing.

  This was exactly what he feared the most, the raising of false hope only for it to be cruelly dashed. Never mind her marriage, he doubted if Rachel van Duren's sanity would survive this. But then a thought suddenly came to him. God, I've been so dumb. For the abductors, it was all about eliminating the risk of being caught, was it not? So why would they drop the kid exactly at the spot where every bloody cop in Amsterdam would be watching?