NATIONAL TREASURE

by Barry Faulkner

  Could there be a connection between James Randall and Janie’s disappearance? Probably not; he was in her life a long while ago. I thought about taking a trip to Janie’s flat but decided to wait until Gold was with me. She was more likely to pick up anything out of the ordinary in a girl’s flat than I was. So I took a long hot shower and settled back to watch The Irishman on Netflix for the second time. Seeing Pesci and De Niro’s large pictures on Harry Cohen’s wall had reminded me of it. I love that film.

  CHAPTER 2

  210666 worked fine. The alarm box in the hall of Janie Johnson’s flat beeped twice and the red LED went green.

  I’d met Gold at the office and we took a cab to the address on the key fob Marcia had given me. Turned out to be a nice house in a small street off the Fulham Palace Road. One day I’ll visit the Palace itself and wander round the museum. I’m sure tourists visit more of the interesting places in London than Londoners ever do – strange that. The house had been converted into ground and upper floor flats; Janie’s was the upper. She’d kept it nice – four good-sized rooms, front lounge, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

  Gold pulled pairs of paper overshoes and gloves from her shoulder bag and we put them on. Maybe we’d find a body, and I didn’t want any crime scene contaminated by my size elevens.

  ‘Right, I’ll take the kitchen, you take the bedroom and bathroom. Meet in the lounge.’

  The kitchen was spotless. Janie was obviously house-proud; no crockery left in the sink to be washed and the washing machine was empty, as was the waste bin. I stooped level with the granite worktops and looked along them; a very light covering of dust, enough to show nobody had wiped them for a few days. I checked all the drawers and cupboards; everything was in its rightful place. I moved into the lounge. A sofa covered with scatter cushions, two armchairs, a coffee table and a desk. Minimalistic. I checked down the back of the sofa cushions; a twenty pence piece, a toffee wrapper, and a few crumbs. I’ve had better. Gold came in.

  ‘Anything?’ I asked.

  ‘No, the bed is made and everything tidy and in its place.’

  ‘Okay.’ I went over to a desk by the front windows and opened the drawers. They were obviously Janie’s office; papers arranged in folders, all very neat. I pulled them out and spread them on the coffee table. We started going through them. Janie had kept her bills in order, just the usual utilities.

  ‘She might have a cleaner.’ Gold passed me a paper. West London Cleaning Company, Commercial and Residential Cleaning. It was a flyer advertising their services.

  ‘Three hundred a month for a quick flit with a duster and washing up?’

  Gold waved my remark away. ‘Never mind that, we need to find out if she uses them and when they came in last. Give them a call.’

  Gold was covering all the bases; if Janie had cancelled the cleaner then she obviously knew she was going away and was probably sunning herself on some hot beach in the Mediterranean. If she hadn’t cancelled, then that made her disappearance suspicious.

  ************************************

  West London Cleaning Company were closed down. I gave them a ring from the office the next morning but the phone was dead, so nothing worthwhile there.

  What was bugging me was that Janie disappeared so soon after her father’s death. Was there a connection, and if so what?

  Gold came into the office but she hadn’t turned up anything interesting. ‘They never got a divorce, the BMD has still got them registered as married. Can you believe that all those years separated and Marcia never got a divorce?’

  ‘That’s strange. Perhaps she didn’t want to go through all the publicity – she was a major star at the time.’ I walked over to the front window and looked down on Borough High street, ‘I can’t help thinking James Randall has something to do with this Janie disappearance.’

  ‘He’s dead, and Harry Cohen said he’d been out of Janie’s life for twenty years.’

  ‘Yes, but only recently dead. What if Janie was in touch with him?’

  ‘And not telling her mum?’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time that daughters did things behind their mother’s backs.’

  ‘I find it more suspicious that Marcia hasn’t called in the police. I would think that’s the first thing a mother would do in these circumstances.’

  I went back to the desk and sat down. ‘So why wouldn’t she?

  ‘And why would Harry Cohen advise her not to?

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, bad publicity?’

  ‘Who, for Marcia? Her career’s basically over – might even give her name a boost in the public’s eyes.’

  ‘So why don’t people call in the police then?’

  ‘Fear.’

  ‘Fear?’

  ‘Marcia’s been told not to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Could be Janie’s a hostage.’

  ‘A hostage?’ Where was Gold going with this?

  ‘She could have got mixed up in something to do with Randall and it’s gone pear-shaped.’

  ‘And Marcia knows?’

  ‘Yes, and she’s confided in Cohen who wants to keep the police out of it for some reason, and so he calls you.’

  I opened the desk drawer and took out the piece of paper with Marcia Johnson’s address and phone number on and looked at it.

  ‘Fancy a trip to Hampstead?’

  ‘You drive, I’m not driving across London. It’s starting to rain and the traffic will pile up.’

  ‘Nor am I.’ I called an Uber.

  CHAPTER 3

  Marcia Johnson’s house in Hampstead reflected a career earning top dollar. A large fake Tudor-style 1940s build set behind gates, and surrounded by well-kept gardens. She looked pleased to see me, even though I was unannounced. I told her I didn’t have any good news and just wanted some more information. I introduced Gold and we followed her through a large open hall with a winding wide staircase leading up from it to the upper storey, through into a rear lounge which had French doors that would open onto a well-maintained garden in better weather. A late middle-aged man was standing looking out of them. By his work clothes I took him to be the gardener.

  Marcia introduced us. ‘This is Mr Layton, he looks after the gardens for me and keeps the house in decent repair. Houses are a bit like people, aren’t they? The older they get, the more maintenance they need. George, this is Mr Nevis and Miss Gold. I told you about how he is helping me find Janie.’

  George Layton held out a hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Gold – and you, Mr Nevis.’

  Gold gave him a perfunctory nod as I took his hand. ‘It’s Ben.’

  Layton raised his eyebrows. ‘Ben Nevis, is that for real?’

  ‘Yes, and it’s a long story before you ask.’

  ‘I already explained your name to George, Mr Nevis, just as Harry explained it to me. Do sit down.’ She waved us towards a sofa and armchairs – four of them, which I thought was overdoing it a bit, but it was a large room. We took the sofa. ‘Tea, coffee, cake?’

  ‘Just eaten thank you, Mrs Johnson.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’ George opened one of the French doors. ‘Looks like the rain has eased off so I’ll carry on with the garden. Nice to meet you both.’ He gave a nod and stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

  ‘Well then, how can I help you?’ Marcia gave a false smile and perched on one of the armchairs opposite us, very prim and straight-backed, hands clasped in lap; straight out of the RADA handbook.

  I started slowly with a soft smile. ‘We’ve been to your daughter’s flat and there’s nothing there out of the ordinary, nothing out of place – nothing to suggest she’d been taken against her will.’

  When we were in Harry Cohen’s large office Marcia Johnson hadn’t said anything about going to her daughter’s flat herself, but she had no doubt been there – of course she had, first place you’d go if you were worried about your daughter and hadn’t heard from her for a while. I passed the
keys across to her, having had a copy set made at Timpson’s when I’d left Cohen’s. ‘One thing that worries me, Mrs Johnson, is why you didn’t call the police?’

  ‘I was going to, but Harry thought it was too early to call them in. Janie could walk in at any time, and I’d look foolish and have wasted their time.’

  ‘It had been a fortnight. No contact for a fortnight? I find it strange he would advise that.’

  She sat motionless. Something told me I had hit pay dirt, so I continued. ‘I think we should call them now, get Janie’s description out.’

  Marcia Johnson took a deep breath and sat for a moment; tears were filling her eyes. She shook her head slowly from side to side.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can’t? You can’t what, call the police?’’

  ‘Yes.’ She rose from her chair and fetched an envelope from the drawer of a side table and offered it to me.

  Gold was ahead of the game and stayed my hand with hers. ‘Wait.’ She opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a pair of paper gloves and gave them to me. I put them on, took the envelope, opened it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. It was the same West London Cleaners flyer that was in Janie’s drawer at the flat, only this one had a message written on the back:

  YOU GET HER BACK WHEN WE GET OURS BACK

  Marcia Johnson sat down again. ‘That was on the kitchen table when I went round to Janie’s flat.’

  ‘What does it mean, do you know?’ I asked her.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head in despair. ‘I’ve no idea – if I did then whatever it is they want I’d give it to them.’

  ‘Did you show this to Harry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So, a distraught mother, a ‘national treasure’ and an old friend had gone to Harry Cohen with a ransom note for the return of her daughter, and Harry had called a private eye. He hadn’t called the police, and more to the point he hadn’t told me about the note. Why was he so intent on keeping the police out of it? I thought Harry Cohen deserved another visit.

  ‘May I keep this?’ I asked, holding up the envelope and paper.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll get it tested for fingerprints.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Have you had any more thoughts as to why Janie has disappeared? Anything she did out of the ordinary? Any people she mentioned that she’d seen or was going to see?

  ‘No, none.’ The tears were beginning fall slowly down her face. ‘I feel so useless, Mr Nevis, so damn useless.’

  ‘Well don’t feel like that, Mrs Johnson, you’re not in any way useless. I need you here as a sort of base. If your daughter has been kidnapped, then the kidnapper or kidnappers will send their demands to you. That message was left at Janie’s flat for you to find. When they realise that you have no idea what they are talking about, I would think they’ll come back and make it plain. In the meantime, Gold and I will start our enquiries.’ That sounded all very professional and comforting, but my enquiry methods can be far from professional or comforting, as Harry Cohen would find out soon enough.

  We stood and made our way to the front door.

  ‘You’re the first private investigator I’ve met, Mr Nevis.’

  ‘You’re lucky, Mrs Johnson, the other ones aren’t so good-looking.’

  I brought a smile to her face. We took our leave.

  CHAPTER 4

  The silence in the Uber that took us to Harry Cohen’s was shattering.

  I know the way Gold works and she was sitting in the back, deep in thought and Googling on her iPhone. Any interruption would have been met with total silence and ignored. At Cohen’s we stood outside in Wardour Street; thankfully the rain had stopped.

  ‘Well?’ I asked. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that whoever has Janie obviously thinks her mother knows exactly what they want in exchange for her safe return. But I don’t think Marcia does know – her body language was despair, not understanding. She’s no idea what this is all about, and the words ‘ours’ in the note indicates it’s a group who have her. Why wouldn’t they ask for money? If it was a straight kidnap for ransom they would. Whatever it is they want has a bigger value than money, or it’s part of something that needs to be got back. Marcia Johnson doesn’t, as far as we know, associate with people who do kidnaps.’ She stopped and looked me straight in the eye with her eyebrows raised, waiting for my input.

  ‘But James Randall did.’ I could see where Gold was going with this.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Killed by police marksmen six months ago after picking up a consignment of drugs in Epping Forest.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I nodded.

  ‘Nothing in any of the news reports that I’ve researched say anything about the drugs being seized by the police. No mention as to how big a shipment Randall was collecting. Nothing about him having an accomplice with him, and if he did was he shot too, or did he get away with the drugs?’

  I was catching up to speed on Gold’s thoughts. ‘Randall shifted tons of cocaine – he wouldn’t have had a plane drop a load in Epping Forest if it wasn’t a worthwhile amount, and he definitely wouldn’t go alone.’

  ‘Quite, so where is it? Is it that load that our kidnappers think Marcia knows the whereabouts of? And what relationship did they have with Randall?’

  ‘Or maybe Randall hadn’t paid for it and somebody wants their money.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Okay, change of plan. You go back to the office and hassle your newspaper contacts and see if we can’t get more info on the Epping Forest thing. I’m going to have a chat with an old mate of mine at Organised Crime and get the police side of the story. See you back at the office when I’m done. Get a cab, looks like more rain coming.’

  Gold hailed a cab as I checked the phone book on my mobile and pressed Dick Clancy’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

  ‘Clancy.’

  ‘Is that Clancy of the Yard?’

  ‘What do you want, Nevis?’ He sounded pissed off at me before I’d even asked a favour.

  ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Not if you’re coming over, no.’

  ‘Ten minutes of your time could rescue a maiden in distress.’

  ‘If she’s mixed up with you, Nevis, she’s definitely in distress.’

  ‘Fourth floor West End Central?’

  ‘Yes, and ten minutes maximum. I’ll put your name at the door.’

  Click.

  Dick Clancy had worked with me in my time in the London Organised Crime Squad. The office is on the fourth floor of West End Central Police Station in Savile Row. I decided to walk there as the rain hadn’t materialised; didn’t take long from Wardour street and pretty soon I was negotiating the anti-terrorist car bomb concrete bollards shielding the front entrance, to be patted down and told to sign the visitor’s book and show some ID. My driving licence in my wallet did the trick. I took the stairs to the fourth floor – more interesting than the inside of a steel lift; you could be nosy and see inside the open plan offices on each floor, check out the mug shots pinned on the case progress boards, see if mine and Gold’s were there – I’m joking! Didn’t seem to be a lot going on; lots of empty desks, probably all out trying to keep a lid on the muggers and street corner dealers that populate the West End these days. No chance of winning that battle, unless you trebled the number of officers on the streets.

  DCS Clancy was sitting at his desk. His door was open and I gave it a knock as I went in.

  ‘It says knock and wait.’

  ‘Yeah, but I know how you can’t wait to see me.’

  ‘Whatever you want make it quick.’

  I pulled the envelope with the ransom note inside from my pocket and placed it in front of him. ‘I’d like the note inside to be checked for prints, and any prints run through the system.’

  ‘Why? And who’s the maiden in distress you mentioned on the phone?’

  I sat on one of two empty chairs in fr
ont of his desk and ran through the whole case so far. When I’d finished, Clancy sat back and took a deep breath. ‘If you are getting involved in the circles James Randall moved in you need to be very careful, Ben – very careful indeed.’

  He doesn’t usually call me Ben, so I must have hit on a raw nerve. I pressed further. ‘What happened to the drugs he was picking up?’

  He shrugged. ‘You tell me, the official story is that his accomplice got away with them.’

  ‘Nothing about an accomplice in the news media reports.’

  ‘Randall wouldn’t have done a job like that on his own – he always had backup. In the level of dealing he was in, Ben, you needed it – threat level high was how I’d describe his life.’

  ‘Okay, so what happened – did the other guy get away with the load? Come on, Dick, a specialist AR marksmen unit wouldn’t let anybody get away.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘If there was an accomplice with Randall he was let go on purpose, with or without the load.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was the one who gave the OC a heads-up on the drop time and place.’

  ‘And the load went with him?’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe not. It went with somebody.’

  ‘Careful, Ben.’ Clancy could see where I was going with this.

  ‘I know, I know, but Randall wouldn’t generally pick up a load himself, would he? So this one must have been special – a very big one, maybe? We know he moved a large quantity of charlie every week through his dealers, so perhaps this was a special one-off. Think about it, Dick, he wouldn’t have a plane come in and take a chance to drop just a couple of bricks, current price twenty-three grand a kilo, so if the drop was, say, fifty bricks, that’s a million plus – that’s a lot of dosh split four ways. Three is the usual number of marksmen in an OC Marksman Unit isn’t it, Dick? Plus the grass makes four?’

  Clancy bristled. ‘Careful, Ben – if you start throwing those kind of accusations around, you could be in serious trouble. How does this fit in with the missing girl?’