Fallen Angel (18 page)

It was early evening, and Christina Eliot had not moved from the lounge all day. David was still upstairs in bed, sleeping off yet another drinking session. As she sat curled upon the sofa, she was unable to get the image of Daniel lying in the morgue out of her mind. The scars on his face had made him look like a grotesque caricature. He didn't look at peace, and it was obvious that he had suffered right up until the very end.

Ever since then she had been numb. Unable to work, unable to eat, unable to do anything at all apart from cry, she had become little more than a zombie. The news about the second child being kidnapped had come as a terrible shock. More than anyone in the world she knew what his parents would be going through. Though a part of her wanted to reach out to them, she couldn't. She was still grieving for her own son.

Her attention was suddenly drawn to the background noise of the television, which had been tuned to Sky News ever since Daniel's body had been found.

‘We now go live to Scotland Yard,' said the reporter, ‘where police are to release the identity of the child kidnapped yesterday. This will be followed by an appeal by the parents.'

Christina turned her head to the screen just as the
familiar face of DCI Colin Blackwell appeared; he was walking into a press room with a middle-aged couple following behind.

She sat bolt upright, staring with disbelief at the face of the man who sat down beside Blackwell. ‘It can't be,' she whispered to herself. ‘Jesus, no, it can't be.'

She grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume as her stomach began to churn and her palms became slippery with sweat. She then reached for the phone.

They had waited longer than he had expected before going public with the name.

He could only barely contain his excitement as he sat in front of the television watching the start of the press conference. It was plain for all to see just how much the parents were suffering. That was good. It was just as it should be. He allowed a smile to cross his lips as the camera focused on the father, who began his statement with tears in his eyes, choking on every word.

‘Whoever you are, I want you to know that Michael is a good boy. A very good boy. He has a family that loves him, a family that will do anything you want in order to see him returned safely. Please don't hurt our little Michael. We'll give you the money, we'll do whatever you want. There will be no tricks, no games. We just want our little boy back home safe.' His voice cracked as he tried to repeat the line: ‘We just want our little Michael back safe …'

The man collapsed in a flood of tears, his words no longer audible. The police officer beside him took over, talking about the need for the public to remain alert and report anything unusual or suspicious.

It was obvious that the police didn't have a clue who he was and that they had made no progress at all in their investigation.

Everything was going according to plan. He was going to get the money. All £3 million of it. He had the rest of the evening to review his plans for the drop-off. Upstairs in the back room he had built a scale model of the place where the money was to be left. Every detail had been faithfully re-created, including the location of CCTV cameras, strategic view points, transport links and potential sniper positions.

The model was filled with dozens of figures representing the police and members of the public. He had gone through the scenario many times and allowed for every possible eventuality. Although he would be greatly outnumbered, he had no doubt in his mind that he would be able to pull it off.

‘Stacey, it's Christina. Daniel's mother.' There was a note of panic in her voice.

‘Hello, Christina,' said Collins. She tried to sound as sympathetic as possible.

Christina sounded upset, devastated. The news of the second kidnap seemed to have brought the worst of her own trauma back to her. Collins found herself emphasizing just how hard it must be to know that, whatever was happening to this new victim, her own son had already been through it.

‘What can I do for you?'

Collins sensed she needed a shoulder to cry on, but this was a bad time. She was in the midst of the enquiry with no leads and less than twenty-four hours to find Michael Dawney. On top of that, her daughter had gone missing. She had told Christina that she could call her whenever she needed to, but this was the worst possible time for a comfort chat.

‘I've just been watching the press conference,' Christina said softly. She was keeping her voice low, as if she didn't want anyone around her to hear.

‘It must be upsetting for you,' said Collins, who needed to get her to speak with the family liaison officer. ‘Have you tried talking to –'

‘Something has come up; I need to tell you something.' Christina interrupted.

Her tone instantly told Collins that this was related to the enquiry. And that it was important.

‘What is it, Christina?'

‘I was watching the press conference and … I couldn't believe it. The father. When he was talking …' She was crying now. ‘It's the father.'

‘What about the father? What about him?'

‘I couldn't believe it,' she said again. ‘I know him.'

‘What do you mean you know him?'

‘I mean I know Peter Dawney.'

‘How?'

Christina let out something midway between a sob and a wail as the pain of the memory rose to the top of her consciousness. ‘I used to work for him.' Her voice went into a whisper. ‘But there's something else. It was almost ten years ago.' Christina hesitated. ‘It was a stupid mistake.'

‘What was?'

‘We had an affair just before Alice became pregnant.'

Christina didn't say anything for a long time. Collins let the silence grow, waiting for her to speak again.

‘You see, Stacey, I ended it when I found out I was
pregnant as well. With Daniel. David doesn't know. Peter never knew. I never told anyone.'

‘What are you saying?'

‘I'm saying that Peter Dawney is Daniel's father.'

The kitchen was bursting with a range of wonderful aromas. He was standing over the stove placing fresh scallops wrapped in pancetta on the hot griddle pan. They would take only a few minutes to cook. He liked to have a break between each course to better savour the flavours of the dishes he had prepared. A buzzer sounded to tell him that now was the right time to place the Beef Wellington that he had prepared earlier into the oven.

He was a good chef when he wanted to be, time and practice having honed his skills. He didn't always go to so much trouble, but this was a special occasion. He would be using the special china and the sterling silver cutlery. On the table a decanted bottle of Château Pétrus 1981, Pomerol, and a single crystal glass. Tonight was a celebration.

Once everything was prepared and the Beef Wellington was simmering in the oven, he went through his usual ritual of cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom and changing his clothes before congratulating himself and taking his first mouthful.

It took more than two hours before the lavish meal was completed, nicely rounded off by a rich crème brûlée and freshly ground coffee. He glanced up at the kitchen clock. Nine thirty. The clock wasn't moving fast enough for his liking. There was still so much time to go before his final plan went into action. His head was heavy from the wine, but he knew he wouldn't sleep tonight.

He had felt exactly the same way when he was a little boy, the night before Christmas or his birthday. There was so much excitement
in the air you could almost feel it. It was like that again now, he could feel it all around him. It made his pulse race.

It had taken so long for this day to finally arrive. All that was left of his work for this evening was to make the final preparations for tomorrow.

He went down to the basement and checked the replacement number plates, copied from an identical vehicle a few weeks earlier. He took his leather bag from the shelf and packed them away, along with everything else he needed: cotton wool, surgical knife, a cloth for a blindfold, gaffer tape and a bottle of chloroform. There were two items remaining, one of them too big for the bag. He took a long rope curled round a hook on the wall and placed it on the floor. The other item was in a chest of drawers opposite the rope. He opened the second drawer down and removed a small parcel wrapped in thick brown paper.

As soon as everything was prepared, he felt much better. Perhaps tonight he would sleep after all. That would be a good thing.

Tomorrow there was much to do.

Alice Dawney had taken a sleeping pill and gone to bed. Peter, sitting alone in the living room of his comfortable home, was starting to realize just how little everything in his life would mean if he did not have his son. Horrific thoughts were running wild through his mind about what the kidnapper might be doing at that very moment.

The human hand that had arrived through the post. At first it had seemed to provide absolute proof that Michael had been mutilated, but that had turned out to be a sick ploy on behalf of whoever had taken his boy. For a brief moment all hope had been lost, but now it had been restored.

The final £1.2 million had been donated by a very wealthy businessman following the press conference. That meant Peter could give the kidnapper exactly what he had asked for. More than anything he wanted the kidnapper to call. He wanted to tell him that he had the money ready and that he need not do anything to his son.

The doorbell rang, but Peter did not move, knowing that one of the family liaison officers would answer it. He heard footsteps coming towards him and turned as the living-room door was opened. He found himself face to face with an elegant woman in her mid thirties in a smart but casual outfit of blue jeans, black linen blouse and black trainers.

‘Good evening, Mr Dawney, sorry to disturb you so late. My name is Detective Inspector Stacey Collins. I need to have a word with you in private.' The family liaison officer heard her request and quietly shut the door, leaving the two of them alone.

Collins sat down beside Peter on the sofa, keeping her eyes focused on his the whole time.

‘I need to ask you a question. It's very sensitive and personal. I understand what you're going through and how hard this question will be to answer right now, but it's imperative that you answer truthfully.'

Peter frowned slightly, unsure of where the detective would be going with her questions. ‘Okay,' he said hesitantly.

‘Who knew about your affair with Christina Eliot?'

‘I don't know a Christina Eliot.'

‘She's the mother of Daniel Eliot, the boy killed by the same man who has your son.'

Peter stood up and began to pace around the room. Collins followed him with her eyes as she remained on the sofa. ‘Her maiden name was Christina Rogers.'

Peter's voice suddenly became hostile: ‘What the fuck does my personal life have to do with you?'

‘For God's sake, we don't have time to mess about here. Michael's life is at stake. Listen. I wish there was a more sensitive way for me to tell you this, but the reason why Christina ended your affair was because she fell pregnant. She never told you. She knew you would never leave your wife and child. That's why she left the company.'

Peter collapsed into a nearby armchair with the realization of what he was being told. His mouth fell open in shock as he tried to absorb the news.

‘You mean …'

‘Yes, Daniel Eliot was your son.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I had Forensics run a DNA test from the hand that you were sent, and it confirms that the two boys share a single bloodline.'

Peter shut his eyes and recalled the image of the child's hand lying on the floor and the words that had been written on the palm. ‘Behold the hand of your son,' Collins heard him whisper. He turned to her. ‘Once we found out the hand didn't belong to Michael, I thought he'd just been trying to scare us. Oh, my God.'

Collins got up and moved to the other side of the room, crouching down beside Peter and placing her hand on his knee as a small gesture of comfort. ‘I know this is a lot to take in, but you need to think. Who knew about your affair?'

‘No one. No one knew about it. We worked hard to keep it quiet. My wife still doesn't know about it.' He was suddenly struck with the thought of the effect this revelation would have on his wife.

‘You're not going to tell her, are you? After what's happened to Michael, it would destroy her.'

‘I'm not here to make judgements about your personal life. I'm trying to find a killer. Someone must have known about the affair.'

‘What about Christina's husband?'

‘He was our first thought as well, but we've already eliminated him from our enquiries. He never knew about the affair and still believes Daniel was his son.'

Peter buried his head in his hands. ‘Jesus Christ, who would do this to me?'

‘Please. You need to focus. Who could possibly have known about your having a child that you didn't know about yourself?'

‘No one. I'm sure of it. No one.'

‘Someone you've sacked? Someone you've hurt? Have you ever been threatened?'

‘No,' he gasped. ‘Never.'

Collins desperately tried to think through the various possibilities. She had to try to block the fact that Sophie had gone missing from her mind. If she let herself dwell on it, even for a moment, she simply wouldn't be able to do her job.

‘Then who holds a grudge against you, against your children?' she continued.

‘No one. There's nothing like that.'

‘The lines of Scripture that he quoted: they refer to the sins of the father. Could it be something your father did, something that happened when you were a child?'

‘My father died six years ago. He worked for the railways all his life. I don't think he had an enemy in the world.'

‘There's nothing you can recall that happened when you were younger, perhaps something he told you about? Anything. Anything at all. Please, I know it's hard after what I've told you, but there must be something.'

‘There isn't. Nothing.'

Peter suddenly paused as a distant memory formed itself in his mind. ‘Unless …'

Collins leaned forward, willing him to go on. ‘What? What were you going to say?'

Peter sat back in his chair and shook his head. ‘It can't be. This is crazy. This is totally crazy.'

‘What, what?'

He leaned forward to within a few inches of her face. ‘When I was at primary school, there was a kid in my class.' He slapped his palm gently against his forehead. ‘Can't remember his name. His mother taught Sunday School somewhere, I remember that much. We're talking back when I was seven or eight, something like that. There was an accident. I can't even remember what happened, but there was some kind of accident and this kid ended up getting hurt. I remember his hand being burned. Acid or something. But that was thirty years ago. Surely you don't think …'

His voice faded away as he ran through the images in his mind. Suddenly he got up out of his chair. ‘Wait here,' he told Collins, and rushed out the door.

Peter returned with a dusty cardboard box and began to remove envelopes full of old school reports and photographs. He pulled out a long cardboard folder from his days at primary school and opened it, searching through until he found what he was looking for.

‘Here,' he said. Collins leaned forward and saw that Peter was holding a large black-and-white photograph. It showed three neat lines of young boys and girls wearing white shirts and ties over grey shorts or skirts, sitting on tiered benches and smiling at the camera. At the far left
of the group a woman in her early forties stood in a below-the-knee skirt and cardigan that beamed brightly.

Peter's fingers traced along the photograph. ‘That was the teacher. Miss … Miss Riding. That was it. I don't know the rest.' His finger moved along the bottom row of children and stopped underneath a boy who bore a strong resemblance to Michael Dawney. ‘That's me.' His finger moved a fraction to the right. ‘And that's him, next to me. We were best friends. This must be before the accident, because he stopped coming to school soon afterwards.'

‘But you don't remember his name?'

Peter shut his eyes, and Collins could see lines of concentration forming on his face. ‘No. But Miss Riding probably does. If you can find her.'

‘What was the name of the school?'

Peter shut the folder and handed it to Collins, who read out the name beneath the crest on the front. ‘Dulwich Park School.'