The Maggie Bainbridge Box Set

by Rob Wyllie

  'How are you feeling?' he asked quietly.

  She smiled weakly. 'Rather shit, if you must know. But you've got to get me out of here Jimmy. We've got to look for Ollie.'

  'Aye, you said that last night. Over and over again, as I recall.'

  The young uniformed WPC had been hovering discretely in the background. Now she pulled out the chair next to Jimmy's and sat down.

  'Miss Bainbridge, DI Peter Burnside has taken personal charge of the investigation. I think you know him. He's a very experienced detective and he will be pulling out all the stops to find your son. You're in good hands.' It sounded exactly like what it was. Classic platitudes from the victim support handbook.

  'Is there any actual news?' Jimmy asked, looking at her.

  She shook her head. 'They'll be doing more door to doors this morning and there's an update meeting at noon over at Paddington Green.' In other words, no.

  Maggie tried to push herself up against her pillows, without success. 'Find me my clothes Jimmy, please I need to get out of here.'

  He gave her a sceptical look. 'I don't think so Maggie. You're in no fit state...'

  'They can't keep me here. I'll go crazy with worry. I've got to do something.'

  ◆◆◆

  He knew she was right, she would go crazy, but really, what could he do? Maybe they would give her something to help with the stress and anxiety, something to help her rest until she got strong again. That's what they had done with the worst cases out in Helmand. Pump them full of morphine so that they even forgot their own name. For their own good, that's what the medics said, and they had meant it too. And at that moment, that's what he wished for Maggie, more than anything in the world. He would squeeze her hand tightly as she drifted into a deep sleep, and only waken her when they had found Ollie safe and well. However long that took. But that was fantasy, not reality and he had to deal with the real world.

  'Look Maggie, I need to talk to Dr Blackman. She'll know what's best for you.' But he already knew what she would tell him. There was no way she was going to agree to her discharge, you only had to look at her battered face to tell how stupid that would be. And he already knew what Maggie would say when he reported Blackman's advice back to her. Short of tying her to the bed, he wasn't going to be able to stop her. Which left him with one last option.

  'Ok, promise me this. If the doctor says you will definitely die if you discharge yourself, you will agree to stay right here. If she says it would be incredibly dumb, foolish and stupid, and that you will need to sign fifty forms indemnifying the hospital from all responsibility in the matter, but you probably will not die, at least not right away, then you can leave with me.'

  She did not reply but he took her silence as a yes.

  ◆◆◆

  Barely one hour later, they were outside in the cool air, a welcome relief after the stuffy hospital ward. Jimmy was pushing the wheelchair which the discharge team insisted must be used for the journey to the car-park, Maggie wrapped in a blanket and clutching an outsized paper bag containing her medication. She had protested, but Jimmy had told her it was at least a mile to where he'd left his old Vectra and he wasn't carrying her, no way. Especially since the car was up on the seventh floor of the multi-storey and he'd noticed when he arrived that to save energy they didn't switched the lift on until eight o'clock. He cursed inwardly as he propelled her up the steep accessibility ramp that wound its way up around the edge of the building. On another day he would have joked that she was putting on a bit of timber, but today wasn't that day. A few minutes later, and breathless, they were pushing open the double doors signed with a seven. The floor was now almost deserted of vehicles and so he had no trouble locating his own car. He blipped the remote and wheeled her up to the door.

  'Right then, let's get you in,' he said, grimacing as he once again caught a glimpse of her bruised features, 'and if I were you, I wouldn't bother with the vanity mirror. I just need to go and pay for this ticket.'

  She smiled weakly. 'I won't. Are we going straight to the scene? I hope that's the plan.'

  'Straight there,' he shouted back to her, though what the hell they were going to do when they got there, he hadn't the faintest clue.

  They slipped through the barrier out onto Pond Street and a minute later they were on Haverstock Hill, the road quiet as they headed northwards against the flow of the early-morning commuters.

  'Heath Crescent, wasn't it?' Jimmy asked. 'I think I spotted that on the map. Shouldn't be more than ten minutes.'

  Heath Crescent had a distinctly genteel appearance, leafy and lined with twenties semis like so many more in the capital, although the average house price here was close to double the city's average. Maggie screwed up her eyes and scanned left and right as Jimmy slowed the car to a crawl.

  'I think it was on the left, just along here a bit. Yeah, right here. This is it.' Following her instruction, he pulled up and jerked on the handbrake.

  'Ok then,' he said slowly, 'right. I guess we should get out and take a look, what do you think?'

  Yes, but look at what? Twenty-four hours ago, the place would have been swarming with SOCOs, working round the clock under the harsh glare of their portable floodlights. The fact that they had been and gone meant that their work here was done, the scene presumably having yielded all the evidence it was likely to yield. What were they going to find that the team of highly-trained and professionally-equipped experts had missed? But they had to do something, he knew that, for Maggie's sake. They couldn't just sit around and wait. That would be a killer.

  He helped her out, taking her arm to steady her, the hospital blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. Softly he said, 'Do you remember anything?'

  She shook her head. 'No more than I told Burnside.'

  They stood on the pavement for several minutes, brows furrowed in concentration, hoping for inspiration, but none came. How could it? It wasn't as if they were suddenly going to magic up the solution out of thin air.

  'Look, maybe we could try going door to door, if you're up to it,' he said. 'There's always a chance that someone will give up some information to you as the mum that they wouldn't give to the police.'

  She gave the slightest nod of assent, but already he could see the hope was being drained from her. And of course it was hopeless. He knew he had to keep going for her sake, but after two hours, all they heard was the same story. It was so awful what happened, but I'm really sorry, I didn't see or hear anything. He glanced at his watch.

  'Maggie, it's nearly twelve o'clock and you need to take your medication. I think we'd better get you home, get you a coffee and a bite to eat.'

  'Yes Jimmy, I'd like that,' she said, her reply barely audible. Her house was only a half a mile away, and a couple of minutes later he was pulling up the Vectra outside her front door.

  He'd forgotten that Marta would be there. As soon as she heard the key in the door, the young nanny rushed to comfort Maggie.

  'I'm so so sorry, I don't know what to say. Ollie will be ok, I know he will. I have prayed to God and I know it will be ok.' He could see Maggie's eyes moisten as the young woman locked her in an embrace, desperate for anything that would provide a momentary relief from their agony.

  'Marta, could you make us some coffee please?' Jimmy asked. 'And maybe a sandwich.' He took Maggie by the hand and led her through to the sitting room, settling her comfortably into the plump settee, tucking the blanket around her. Now all they could do was sit and wait. Wait for the phone call that said he'd been found, that he was perfectly safe and well and none the worse for his ordeal. Or wait for the phone call from the police liaison officer, the call that told her that her life would never be the same again. And he feared for her, if that was the outcome, after all she had been through. If anything happened to Ollie, he just couldn't see how she could carry on. He looked over at her, and to his relief, saw she was drifting off to sleep.

  He slipped out of the room as quietly as he could and re-joined Marta in the kitc
hen. She had prepared a pile of cheese sandwiches that would have fed them for a week, but like her, his appetite had gone. She had been crying, her eyes black-ringed through lack of sleep and the tracks of her tears visible against her pale skin. 'Oh Jimmy, please tell me it will be all right,' she pleaded, but he couldn't comfort her, any more than he could Maggie.

  'I hope so Marta. And I hope your prayer is answered, I really do.' He half-smiled and returned to the sitting-room, flopping down in the floral-patterned armchair that occupied the bay window recess. And soon he too was asleep.

  He was awakened by a loud blast of Feels Like Teen Spirit, the strident opening of the Nirvana classic perfect as a ring tone but less than ideal as a wake-up call. It was Frank.

  'Hey mate, how is she? Sorry I didn't call earlier but there's been some developments in the Danny Black case and that tied me up all day.'

  'She's not good Frank. What time is it?'

  'Nearly eleven o clock. At night.'

  'Is it? We must have been out for hours.' He looked over to her, checking she was still asleep. Lowering his voice to a whisper he asked, 'Has Pete Burnside and his team made any progress?'

  Frank sighed audibly. 'No, and there's bugger-all to work on. We know it's ninety-nine percent certain that it's the same gang that took those other kids but that's it. We've got Eleanor and her Dutch mate trying to do that phrase-matching thing and we've got old Mrs what's-her-name with her Henry, and Maggie with her dad guy and thinking she might have seen him somewhere before. That's the sum total of concrete facts and it's two thirds of bugger-all.'

  'That's not what I wanted to hear bruv,' Jimmy said.

  'Aye, you're right but at least it's something. Oh by the way, Jill Smart's given me the ok to work on Ollie's case, not that I wouldn't have irrespective of what she said. I'm just going over to Paddington Green now to do some digging on father and son operations.'

  'What, at this time of night?'

  'Aye, I know. It's a long shot, but the fact is, I need to do something to take my mind off it. Anyway, must push on, just wanted to know how she was. Over and out.'

  Maggie was now beginning to wake, yawning as she stretched an arm in the air. She saw Jimmy and smiled. 'What time is it?'

  'Eleven. You've had a great sleep, you must have needed it. Fancy a cup of tea?'

  'I'd rather have a whisky if it's that time. A large one please. There's a bottle of Glenfiddich in the cupboard over there. And some glasses.'

  He fetched the bottle and glasses and placed them on the coffee table.

  'Two inches?'

  'Yes please. Has there been any news?'

  'Frank's moved himself onto the case,' Jimmy said. 'He's over at the station right now following up some leads on your dad thing. Looking at father and son teams as he called them. It sounds quite hopeful.' It hadn't sounded the least bit hopeful, more like clutching at straws, but he had to say something.

  She picked up her glass and gulped a large measure and then another. The combination of sleep and the single malt seemed to have stiffened her resolve, because now she closed her eyes and laid her head back on the thick cushion. 'I need to think, I need to think! She spat out the words, directed as much at herself as Jimmy. 'Where did I see that face before? Where! Come on, think!'

  He could see that she did not need a response from him, did not want him to break her fierce concentration. But if she could force herself into the zone, why the hell couldn't he? Because for some reason, he was thinking about photographs. That photograph of Fox and the kid that he'd found in the diary that Allegra Ross kept hidden under her mattress, set in those picture-perfect gardens, gardens he was sure he had seen before. And of the celebrity magazine shots that Maggie had shown him of the Grants and the Lawrences and the van Durens, the glossy airbrushed images capturing the perfect family life.

  And at that instant, he had worked it all out.

  ◆◆◆

  Over at Paddington Green, Frank too was fortifying himself with a whisky, his a smoky Islay malt that he swigged straight from his hip-flask. Normally he turned to it when things were going badly, but tonight it was the exact opposite. Tonight things couldn't be going better. This was a celebration, albeit perhaps a premature one. What the hell.

  It was the call from Eleanor and Dr Jansen that had done it. We've found a match. A suspect’s statement from three years ago, a routine investigation into a robbery at a warehouse just off the Bath Road, an investigation that had gone nowhere because they couldn't place the accused at the scene of the crime.

  I'm not joking you when I says it, I've never been near the place in my whole life.

  He punched a few keys on his laptop and pulled up that interview report from the Jamie Grant case. Old Mrs what's-her-name was eighty-four, half-blind and a bit hard of hearing. Yes, he thought he had read it correctly before. 'He called out a name,' she had told the interviewing officer. 'What was it again? Began with an 'H' I think. 'enry, that's what it was.'

  'But it wasn't Henry, was it my love?' Frank said, smiling to himself. 'It was Harry, wasn't it?' The same Harry who'd never been near the place in his whole life. He took his ruler and carefully underlined a name on his list. 'And we know who you are, don't we Harry mate? You and Vince, that son of yours.'

  Back in Hampstead their individual moments of epiphany had emerged at the exact same moment, as if by some weird celestial decree. Simultaneously they had leapt to their feet, even Maggie in her condition, and screamed and shouted at the top of their voices, and when they shared their revelations and they turned out to be identical, they hugged joyously, as if they would never let go. Three minutes later they were back in the Vectra preparing to head south-west.

  Chapter 28

  He pretty much knew the way, but just to be sure he punched the address into Google maps, steering with his knees as they raced along the Dunston Road. Glancing at the phone, he saw the sat-nav was directing him up on to the North Circular rather than the shorter route across town. Good, he would be able to put his foot down along there, with three lanes to play with and hopefully not much traffic at this time of night. Plenty of traffic lights and speed cameras of course, but that would be a discussion he could have with the police after the fact. As long as they didn't get stopped on the way that is.

  Thirteen-point-six miles and thirty-five minutes, that's what it was saying, but he reckoned he could half that. He kept it in third, the engine screaming from the strain of operating right up at its rev limit. Ten minutes later, they were across Kew Bridge and skirting the high wall of the famous horticultural gardens, and only three red lights jumped on the way, his indiscretions no doubt caught on the traffic cameras. Nine points, three hundred quid fine, maybe a ban. But worth it.

  On the way he had got Maggie to message Frank with their destination postcode and a terse note. Get here fast and bring an armed response team. He knew that they shouldn't be doing this, that they should wait for the professionals, but this wasn't any ordinary situation. Ollie's life depended on them getting there fast and he wasn't going to wait for anyone.

  Now his mission head had kicked in and he was barking out instructions. 'Look Maggie, in your state you shouldn't be on this jamboree in the first place, but since against my better judgement you are, then it's role-reversal time for us. I'm in charge, I'm the officer, and you obey orders, understand? You do everything I say, without questions or arguments, and you don't do anything unless I tell you, ok?'

  She nodded silently.

  'So, I've got a bit of a half-arsed plan worked out. There's some stuff in my old hold-all in the back seat there. Could you drag it over and see if you can find the masks? We'll need them at some point so best to have them to hand.'

  'Masks?'

  'Aye, look, I'll explain later. Just dig them out and then put one round your neck so you've got it handy if we need it. And there's a wee back-pack in there too. Pull that out if you can.'

  She spun round, straining against the tension of her seat-belt to
reach the old canvas bag and drag it onto her lap. Pulling open the zip, she started to search inside, struggling to focus under the inadequate glow of the street lights shining through the windscreen. With both hands in the bag, he knew she was relying on feel rather than sight to find what she was looking for. And then he heard her gasp as she felt it. Cold, hard, metallic, the shape unmistakeable.

  'Jimmy, a gun? Is that a gun?'

  'Aye, it's a wee souvenir from my time in the army. Most of the boys kept one when they went back to civvy street.'

  'I'm scared Jimmy. If you think we need guns.'

  'I don't know if we do. But we've had four murders and Jamie and Kitty still haven't been found, dead or alive. These are dangerous people we are dealing with.' Which is why of course they should wait for the professionals. Except that the last thing they wanted here was some big Hollywood-style shit-storm. With these armed response guys, it was all battering rams and shouting and teams of trigger-happy hard men with automatics rampaging around the crime scene. He'd seen plenty of these operations in Helmand and the problem was, they had a nasty propensity to go arse over tit. Collateral damage, that's what they called it, but they couldn't afford collateral damage on this mission. No, what he had in mind was altogether more subtle. Employing stealth not strength. Well, sort-of, if you didn't count the smoke grenade.

  'The gun's just a precaution,' he soothed. 'We won't be shooting anyone, don't worry.' As long as nobody shoots at us first, he thought.

  He turned off the engine as they approached the house, coasting to a halt just alongside its perimeter wall. No more than six feet high, he estimated, not hard to get over and an easy drop on the other side. There would be security cameras of course, but he guessed they would be mainly focussed around the gates and driveway. There might be one mounted on a high mast or something, doing a sweep across the garden on a two or three-minute cycle, but they could time their entry to avoid that with little difficulty.