The Price of Failure (13 page)

‘I saw the manager and told him house prices might be static in some places, but they were going up around us and someone on our road had been offered five thousand more than it had been valued at a year ago; and if my place was worth an extra five thousand, that took it well clear of negative equity so surely he could lend me another three.'

‘I hadn't heard that prices were rising anywhere.'

‘The main thing is, he didn't argue. Maybe because I said how Gloria was getting worse all the time and I was desperate to move her to see if that would do any good. He was much more sympathetic than before. Even winked when he agreed.'

‘Maybe he's human, unlike the staff at my bank … When you say it was a busy day, what was the score?'

Carr breathed a silent sigh of relief. Wyatt had lost all interest in how he'd been able to afford to move Gloria to the nursing home.

*   *   *

He'd once read that repetition dulled conscience. That seemed to be true. When he'd phoned F division to ask if they'd fingered anyone on the job in West Road, he'd felt sick. About to make a second, similar call, his only real concern was to be very careful what he said.

‘Little Boy Blue?' The DC's voice was scornful. ‘Can't stand the row he makes.'

‘No more can I, but his name's cropped up and I'm wondering if there's anything there.'

‘Hang on.'

After a couple of minutes, a second man said: ‘Sergeant Grant. You're asking about MacClearey?'

‘That's right, Sarge.'

‘Why?'

‘One of my snouts was in a pub and heard a couple of villains talking about him. I wondered if there was anything there.'

‘What were they saying?'

‘My snout says he couldn't get close enough to hear more than the name. Maybe he needs bunging to refresh his memory; I'm not doing that until I know it could be worthwhile.'

‘Early in the month, we heard from a small-timer whose boyfriend had done the dirty on him that the mob who'd kidnapped and raped Victoria Arkwright were staking out their next victim. He couldn't identify who that was beyond the fact that the father was a mega-rich pop singer with two or more daughters … You must remember that all forces in the country were asked to list anyone who came into that category … Well, we narrowed the possibles down to three and one of 'em was MacClearey, who looked really promising since he's more millions than I've had hot dinners. So far, though, thank God, there's been no move against his daughters or the kids of the other two possibles.'

With a sense of sheer horror, Carr finally found the answers to the many questions he had asked himself.

‘Are you still there?'

‘Yes, Sarge.' His voice had become croaky.

‘If your snout knows anything, bung him until he thinks his second name is Rothschild.'

‘I'll do what I can, but he's not reliable.'

After the call was over, Carr crossed to the right-hand window and stared down at the slow-moving traffic. Even the police, who had to face the dark side of human nature every day, had been unable to understand how any man could be so viciously brutal as to rape a girl, subject her to further sexual torments, and deliberately infect her with the HIV virus. The men who had done that needed to be hunted down and in the regrettable absence of capital punishment, to be locked up in the toughest of prisons where the other inmates could be relied upon to make their lives hell. So he had to go to Hoskin and confess all that had happened …

There could only be one consequence of such action. He'd have to surrender all the remaining money which meant Gloria would have to be moved out of the nursing home and back to the hospital at the same time as she was forced to learn that her husband had been blackmailed into becoming a traitor through his adultery with a tart. One didn't need to be a doctor or a psychologist to know that her depression would return, in even deeper and more disastrous form … Once again, he was faced with choosing between two courses of action, neither of which he dare take …

He reconsidered the facts. He had no idea who the blackmailer was and had learned nothing that could identify the future victim who would replace – perhaps – the MacClearey daughters. So at this point, if he were to confess to what had happened, he would be sacrificing himself and Gloria to no practical purpose …

*   *   *

The phone rang on Tuesday night when Carr was in bed, reading. He hurried down to the hall.

‘So what's the news?'

No identification of the caller's number; he pressed the alert button. ‘The police warned MacClearey.'

‘Why?'

The blackmailer's tones were sharper, the mockery absent; he was sweating on the answers. ‘They had a whisper and told him he was one of three people whose daughters were at risk from the mob who'd kidnapped the Arkwright woman.'

‘Who's the grasser?'

‘It was anonymous, over the blower.'

‘Did he name the mob?'

‘No.'

The line went dead.

Carr found his hands were shaking. He could not begin to identify the blackmailer or do anything to prevent another brutal kidnapping. But if he were asked to give any further information that could, however remote the possibility, help to make that identification or put any girl at risk, then he would make his confession, whatever the consequences to Gloria and himself.

Malicious Calls rang to tell him that this last call had come from a call box in Cannon Street Station. The kidnapper was clearly a man of careful routine.

19

Trent walked the beach, his face dampened from the spray that was driven inshore by the wind. Who was the grasser? No one on the team; they were all solid. Yet no one outside the team could have known they were preparing to move on the MacCleareys unless he was so friendly with someone on it that confidences were exchanged … He mentally examined each man, searching for weaknesses, examining known friendships …

Nick! He came to a stop and turned to face the breaking waves. As gay as a night in Paris. Not long back, he'd been tied up with a slob called Pete Morrell. Then there'd been a row and they'd split up and Nick, as promiscuous as a barnyard rooster, had teamed up with another partner. That, so the story had gone, had left Morrell acting like he'd lost his family jewels. Nick wouldn't grass if he were offered the cast of
The Sleeping Beauty,
but he did like the booze too much and maybe sometime prior to the split he'd had a bellyful and talked, and after it, Morrell had decided to ease his hurt feelings by grassing on him …

Trent resumed walking. The facts fitted the possibilities, the possibilities, the facts, the more he thought about them. But to make certain, he'd have to have a chat with Morrell.

*   *   *

Morrell and Hamilton, his new friend, had celebrated the New Year in fitting style with the consequence that neither of them moved until the late afternoon on the Friday. Then Hamilton, needing several hairs of the dog, went downstairs, only to find that the cupboard was bare. Cursing, he left the house and staggered along the road to the shop, run by a Pakistani family, that was open every day of the year. He bought a bottle of gin, a pack of Lucky Strike, and some chewing gum. On his return to the house, he was surprised to find that Morrell had disappeared and in the bedroom a chair had been knocked over and smashed and the mattress had been pulled off the bed. Surprise did not prevent his settling down and drinking.

*   *   *

They drove Morrell to an empty house in the country that was for sale. Asked if Nick had ever mentioned any details of the jobs in which he was engaged, he swore by all the saints in the calendar, and some that weren't, that Nick never, never talked business. And as for grassing to the splits … He'd rather have his tongue torn out than tell those bastards as much as the time. Desperation and fear had the effect, the opposite to normal, of making him sound convincing. The other two were convinced, Trent was not; he did not like to be proved wrong.

They dragged Morrell into the kitchen, tied his arms and legs together, lifted him up on to the right-hand draining board and held him so that his head was bending backwards as it hung over the sink, placing his neck under tension. Trent rammed an old cloth down his throat and poured water on this, causing him to suffer the growing agony of ‘slow drowning'. They stopped before he lost consciousness and gave him time to recover, then asked him again if he'd grassed to the splits. At his denial, they resumed the treatment and repeated it until he finally signalled that he was ready to change his story. After they'd hauled him upright and removed the cloth and he had finished gagging, coughing, and the worst of his whimpering, he admitted that he had mentioned one or two things to the split who'd questioned him in the hospital after Nick had all but cut him to death. He pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he had been shocked and that he had named no names so that no real damage had been done …

That last so infuriated Trent that instead of spending time killing the other, he brought the length of piano wire out of his coat pocket, wound it round Morrell's throat, and pulled it tight.

*   *   *

The handing over of the ransom money was almost always the most dangerous time for kidnappers. Recognizing this from the beginning, Trent had carefully worked out how to eliminate all danger.

After the coming kidnapping, there would be complete silence, maintained long enough for the parents to recall every last detail of the Victoria Arkwright case and in consequence become frantic. Then they would be ordered to say nothing to the police and to advise their bank to have five million pounds ready for collection on immediate advice. The next day, they would be told to instruct their bank to transmit the money electronically to another bank in Switzerland, giving them just half an hour to comply if they wanted their daughter to remain healthy. The moment the money was transferred, the Swiss bank was to be instructed to transmit it to a bank in the Cayman Islands … If the police had not been kept informed, everything must be simple. If they had been, in their attempt to follow the money they would come up against the Swiss laws concerning banking secrecy which demanded proof of criminal activity before any details of an account would be released. By the time such details were provided, the money would have vanished from the Cayman bank …

Now that he knew that Morrell had done no more than betray facts which had enabled the police to identify MacClearey the job could continue after a replacement victim had been identified. And as to that, the gods were obviously with him. In the morning's paper had been the photograph of an attractive eighteen-year-old whose birthday party the previous night had been named the social event of the winter. Her father was mega-rich, her mother was related to the throne. Wealth and royalty, a combination made for the headlines.

It would be the heist of the century. And the more he thought of the acclaim that the job would bring him, the more convinced he became that in naming a ransom of five million, he was seriously underestimating what the market would bear.

*   *   *

The estate agent had little hope of selling the property to the young couple; he doubted very much that they could afford the asking price. But business was so slack that not even a distant chance could be overlooked. ‘It's a big garden.'

They looked at the overgrown lawn, the weed-choked flower beds, the untrimmed hedge.

‘A large garden adds considerable value. If this were neat and tidy, the price would be at least another ten thousand. There's a bargain going here.'

‘Why's it been let go so?' asked the wife, wrapping the scarf more tightly around her neck to try to keep the keen easterly wind at bay.

‘The owner was very old when she died and I'm afraid old people don't look after things.'

‘Then the inside's in as terrible a state?'

‘A little decorating and it'll be like new.' What did they expect for ninety thousand – the Taj Mahal?

‘It's very isolated.'

‘No more than half a mile into the village and you can see the roof of the next house through the trees.'

He led the way up the gravel path, so thick with weeds that their shoes made no sound, to the front door. He unlocked the door, waved them through.

‘The hall's tiny,' she said.

He'd been about to ask them to move forward so that he could get far enough in to close the door, but decided not to do so and left the door ajar, despite the draught. ‘I always think of a large hall as an unnecessary and wasteful luxury – you don't do anything in it but pass through, do you? Much better a slightly restricted one if that means a really generous sitting room … If you'll go through the first doorway, you'll see that you can have a really large party in there and you won't find yourself reaching in the next person's pocket for your handkerchief.' They did not smile. A couple of erks, he thought. ‘If you would like to go through?'

She did not move. ‘There's a funny smell.'

‘Empty houses do sometimes have a slight scent.'

‘I'd call this a stink.'

‘My wife has a very keen sense of smell,' said the husband.

That was because she had such an enormous nose. ‘Would you go through, please?'

They went into the sitting room. ‘As you can see, it's a very light and airy room, possessing an air of gracious space. There are two radiators, with individual temperature controls, double glazing, and a TV point beyond the fireplace. The floorboards are in excellent condition and a quick coat of paint and perhaps fresh wallpaper will work a treat.'

‘It is nice in here,' agreed the husband.

‘It's the wrong shape,' she said.

It was always the wives, the estate agent thought; you could satisfy a starving crocodile before you could satisfy a woman.