Innocent Hostage (2 page)

“Of course I remember you,” he said grimly. “What are you talking about?”

“As if you don’t know! At first I thought it was a case of neglect caused by overwork. Cops! They’re all the same—lousy parents. But you just don’t care, do you? You dumped Kit on your ex-wife and that abusive sonofabitch, and stood back and let it get to this. Poor little Kit.”

Christ, his conscience and Ms. Rowland were hand-in-hand.

To Breck’s horror, the woman’s hazel eyes filled with tears that she blinked away, scowling. She didn’t like showing weakness. Okay, he understood that. It didn’t make him feel any better.

He opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Finally he managed, “If you were a man, I’d thrash you for that.”

“No doubt,” she rasped. “That’s all cops understand. Violence.”

“Don’t come at that crap, lady. I was way past those accusations years ago. Tania used to lay it on thick—”

“Tania!” Ingrid Rowland spat the name as if it were a curse.

Breck stared at her. What
was
the woman trying to say? On their two prior meetings she had at least seemed reasonable. He’d made sure he registered Kit himself and paid over a semester’s tuition in advance in order to bypass the Tania money pit.

At first glance he’d thought her very pleasant and charming. An understatement. If he’d had the time and the wherewithal to pursue a relationship, Ingrid Rowlandson would be his pick. But she was no doubt already in a relationship. She had a sort of fragile shine to her that made him want to bask in her approval. She looked as if she belonged in a fairytale, not a preschool. It made a man want to shield her from the world. Huh. Looks could be deceiving.

The second time he’d seen Ms. Rowland he’d been too rushed to do more than wave a thank-you as he hustled Kit out the door. It hadn’t been his regular custody day—those were few and far between—but it had been one of those rare days when Tania had phoned him out of the blue and told him, “We don’t have time today to run around after your son. You’ll have to collect him from preschool at four o’clock.”

Breck had been on his way to a debriefing and had no recourse but to take Kit with him. The poor kid had cooled his heels for two hours in the watch-house. That incident had underscored how ill equipped Breck was to look after his son. Tania was quite right.

He stared at Ingrid Rowland now, puzzled. “I don’t understand. What have you got against Tania?”

****

Ingrid Rowland looked into the clear grey eyes and wondered how this guy got by in the world. He was a dream to look at, and from what little she’d managed to glean, he was excellent at his job. But as a father and husband he was an unmitigated disaster. Or so Tania Kerr said. Ingrid had not encouraged Tania to enlarge on that. Gossiping with adversarial parents was not professional behavior and could only lead to disaster. Also, she knew Tania of old. ‘Untrustworthy’ was Tania’s middle name.

But Ingrid wanted to help Kit, one of the loneliest, nicest little boys she had ever met. She was determined to fight on his behalf, even if Breck Marchant took a chunk out of her.

“Tania is probably a good mother to Pixie and Bobby, Mr. Marchant. But haven’t you read
any
of the notes I sent you about Kit? I was just about to deliver another one this morning when—” She shrugged, indicating the police presence.

Ingrid glowered. Was the man as obtuse as he sounded? Then she told herself to cut him some slack. Only a hundred yards away his son’s volatile stepfather was holding the little boy captive. Marchant was probably finding it hard to concentrate. She reached out a hand and touched his arm, then snatched it back. The man’s forearm was hard as a rock, but she’d felt the telltale tremors in his muscles. And he wouldn’t want her to know about that.

She looked at his face, creased with lines of despair and her heart softened. “You don’t know anything about the notes, do you? I
did
wonder. That’s why I waited till Kit said your next custody visitation was due. I was going to telephone you this weekend.”

Brechon Marchant snorted derisively and glared at her.

Now
what had she said that was so wrong?

“Next custody visitation,” he mimicked in a sing song voice. “Did Kit tell you just how many ‘custody visitations’ I’ve had this year, Ms. Rowland? Did he?” he snarled. “Two. That’s all I’ve been allowed.”

She gasped. “Oh, dear. You see, Kit told me all about those visits. He told me what you do and where you go. Last month, he told me about going dolphin watching and to the Easter Show and…” She trailed off, looking at Breck Marchant’s face. “It’s all make believe, isn’t it?” she finished weakly. “Kit lied to me.”

The anguish on Breck Marchant’s face was almost unbearable.

“We talked about doing those things,” he whispered, “but Tania and Marty had other plans for him. I didn’t dare rock the boat—”

“Breck?”

Damn the interruption. Exasperated, Ingrid turned away. She wanted to hear his story. There was a lot more here than met the eye. She’d been sure he was yet another cop who was so busy looking after business, he neglected his own. Like her father. But now she wasn’t so sure.

****

Breck turned quickly to meet Baz. “Here.” Baz was holding out a ballistics vest. Breck shrugged out of his jacket and tugged the vest on over his shirt. He closed his mind to his conversation with Ingrid Rowland. The important thing right now was to do whatever it took to get his son out of this situation. “Has Kit asked for me?” he asked Baz.

Baz shook his head. “No. Kerr wants to speak to you.”

“Oh, hell.” Breck’s heart plummeted. Even though Kit must be frightened and desperate, he still hadn’t wanted his father. Or perhaps Kerr wouldn’t let him talk to anyone.

“Follow me. The PNT want to speak to you.” Baz meant the Police Negotiation Team attached to the squad. “You’re not talking to that bastard until we’ve figured out a way to get Kit away from him. Kerr asked if you were on the call-out team and I told him you were sent home because of your personal involvement. The principal negotiator told him he’d have you brought back to the scene.”

Breck followed Baz into the mobile HQ van, a huge bus furnished with enough electronic equipment to back up the national grid.

“Marchant, sit beside me and tell me everything you know about Kerr.” The principal negotiator was all dark edges and angles. He signaled to Breck to take a seat in front of the screens curving across the front of the interior of the bus. Breck could see several close-ups of Marty Kerr sitting on his front lawn cradling a .308 across his knees. Kit was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Kit?” Breck jumped back up again. “What’s going on?”

“Sit down!” the PN barked like a drill sergeant.

Breck sat. He knew he’d better shut up or they’d work out a way to cut him out of the picture. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Your boy is inside,” the negotiator said in a quieter tone. “I’m Jack Tanner, by the way.” He stretched his arm out in the cramped quarters and shook Breck’s hand, then returned his attention to the screens. “Kerr sent the boy inside to fetch him a beer. I guess it’s hot sitting out there in the full sun.”

“But Kit’s only four! He won’t know what to do.”

“Oh, yes he does. He’s done it before, I’d say.” Jack Tanner nodded towards the far screen.

And there came Breck’s little Kit trotting out of the front door of the house, carefully carrying a can of Steinlager for his stepfather. The operator zoomed in for a closer look and everyone could see the pinched, closed look on Kit’s face.

“Poor little devil.” The dog handler who’d come in behind them stared at the screen.

“Oh, Christ,” Breck whispered, unable to take his eyes off the screen. “What is going on in that household?” He hated what he was seeing, but he couldn’t look away.

Jack Tanner shuffled his chair back to beside Breck’s and began questioning him. There was a team of five inside the bus including the camera operator, Baz, Jack and the dog handler whose dog was chained to a bar across the doorway. But Breck heard nobody except Tanner. The man was relentless in digging out every last detail Breck could recall about the Kerrs. He finished by asking, “Why does Kerr want you out there, facing him? What have you done to him?”

“Nothing yet,” Breck growled.

“Look, Marchant, you’ve pissed this guy off somehow. There must be
something
in your history together to set this off.”

“You don’t understand, Tanner.” Breck realized a second too late he should have called him ‘sir.’ “Kerr doesn’t need anything to set him off. He has a hair trigger.”

“I don’t suppose he has a firearms license for that weapon.”

Breck allowed himself a small, bitter smile. “I doubt it.”

“Someone check the arms register,” Tanner ordered. Then he added, “So you don’t know what you’ve done to annoy him, and you don’t know why he’s using your son as a shield. What a crock, Marchant.”

Breck kept his eyes down as Tanner hammered away at him. He knew the way the game was played, but Tanner had it all wrong.

“There has to be something,” Tanner persisted, “because from what I can see, he’s set this whole thing up to get at you. And where the hell is Tania Kerr?”

Breck raised his head and watched Marty on the screen as the man screwed around, looking back over his shoulder to check on Kit.

“I have no idea, sir. I haven’t seen any of them for three weeks,” Breck explained. “Last weekend I was supposed to collect Kit and take him to the zoo, but Tania phoned the day before and said Kit was feeling off-color.” He shrugged. “I don’t know whether it was true or not. I advised them to take him to the doctor, and I drove past and dropped a check off in their letterbox that evening. Just in case he had to go to a specialist.”

“When you were there, did you see anything unusual?”

Breck shook his head. “It didn’t look as though anyone was home. I’d been on afternoon shift and it was full dark by the time I got there. There were no lights on in the house. I phoned next morning to check on Kit, but nobody answered. That doesn’t mean much though. They’ve got caller ID so they may have decided not to answer. So you see, if there’s anyone with a grievance here, it’s me.”

“Do that a lot, do they?” Jack inquired. “Brush you off, I mean.”

“Sometimes.” Breck had no intention of telling the negotiator how bloody frustrating it was to phone up day after day asking to speak to his son and end up talking to an answer phone. At other times Tania would stonewall him. She’d say that Kit wasn’t available—that he was playing in the park with his stepsister or had gone to the shops with Marty.

And he had done nothing to upset the equilibrium because he knew he wasn’t worthy of being a father. Tania was a far better parent, much better for Kit than he’d ever be. Instead of insisting on his parental rights, he’d usually gone and worked out at the gym or joined the others at the Flagpole for a few beers. Over the years he’d got quite good at shoving down hard at the despair eating away inside him.

Tanner looked at him for a moment, chewing over what Breck had said. “Okay,” he said at last. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

One by one Tanner outlined all the likely scenarios, and then together they planned responses for each possibility.

The meticulous way the man worked eased the vise around Breck’s heart. They were by no means out of the woods, but with Tanner around, Kit stood a better chance of getting away from Marty.
But would he escape unharmed?
Yes, of course he would. He would be okay. Breck refused to contemplate the alternative.

Various members of No. 4 Unit crossed back and forth in front of the cameras and every single one of them gave Breck the thumbs-up. The tightness around his chest eased. They were all behind him. Nobody in the unit had ever been in a situation like this before. Breck sat back in his chair. He could help best now by shutting up and letting Tanner do his job. A hushed quiet settled in the van, interrupted only by soft electronic beeps as Tanner input data into a laptop.

Breck kept his eyes glued to the screen and saw Kit sit down obediently beside Kerr again. The kid tried to lift the tab on the can, but Kerr laid his rifle down and impatiently ripped the top off while at the same time aiming a slap in Kit’s general direction. As if it were an ingrained habit, Kit dodged the blow and sat a short distance away from Kerr, his face impassive. Marty’s arm snaked out and yanked him closer. Kit’s shoulders huddled and his head bowed.

Breck ground his teeth.

Tanner looked up. “The most important thing, Marchant,” he said, “is to let Kerr think
he
is calling the shots. We respond to him, and we only initiate communication if it looks as though Kit is in—well, if he’s in real trouble.”

“He’s in real trouble right now.” Tight-lipped, Breck glared at Tanner.

“Actually, mate, I think it’s
you
who’s in real trouble. Kerr is using young Kit as a means to an end.”

“He’s already done so to the tune of about $30,000 over the past couple of years,” Breck muttered. “I knew I was a cash cow for them, but I did it for Kit. It looks as though the only money that was used for Kit was the preschool fee. Probably to get him out of the house. Preschool!” Breck said suddenly, standing up. “Where’s that preschool teacher?”

Jack Tanner stared at him. “Huh?”

“Here,” said a voice from the doorway.

Everyone turned.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tanner demanded. “Get rid of her,” he snapped at a cop talking to the dog handler.

“She’s got clearance,” the cop said. He nodded towards Baz who was hunkered down a few yards away, talking to some of the members of Unit Four.

“This lady knows Kit well,” Breck explained.

“She’s in the way,” Tanner objected. “You know your kid better than anyone else, Breck. He—”

“No I don’t,” Breck ground out. “Miss Rowland sees him nearly every day.”

A beat of silence, then Jack Tanner recovered. “Gotcha. This changes things. If we can divert Kerr, will Kit run to you or Ms. uh…Rowland?”