The Price of Failure (7 page)

That he had dangerously absurd views on some subjects did not prevent his regarding others intelligently. Normally, only a brief watch needed to be kept on an intended mark because normally that was sufficient. But when playing for maximum stakes, it was only sensible to take maximum precautions and he had given orders that from the beginning Inchmoor House should be kept under close surveillance. An incipient mutiny – most criminals were averse to regular, boring work – was quelled and watch was maintained either from the crown of the small hill that lay in front of the huge mid-Victorian mock castle, or from the woods to the side.

At ten-thirty on the 11th December, Rathbone, cursing the light drizzle which had started half an hour before, saw a light van turn into the quarter-mile-long drive lined with elms which had escaped the disease that had killed so many trees over the past years. He pulled the binoculars from their case and cursed again as a sudden swirl of wind splattered drizzle over the lenses, distorting images. By the time he had cleaned away the damp, the van was parked in front of the fifteen-foot-high porch. He could just make out the lettering on the side. Security experts. Two men unloaded the van and carried several boxes of varying sizes into the house.

A small white saloon car came up the drive and parked alongside the van. A man in uniform climbed out, adjusted his peak cap, crossed to the front door. He was admitted into the house.

Time passed. A Volvo estate arrived and after it stopped a woman and two girls left it and crossed to the front door. The woman was wearing a very short skirt and he kept the binoculars trained on her. She could move into his daydreams any time.

*   *   *

Trent drove down to the coast and parked on the broad sea wall – stone-faced on the sea side, grass on the top and shore side – that ran for several miles. He left the car and walked into the westerly wind which plucked at his hair and at the lapels of the leather bomber jacket, carrying with it the salty smell of the sea. A couple of seagulls, squabbling over something, reluctantly rose as he neared them and let the wind take them up and away. He reached a moth-eaten tennis ball, abandoned by some summer visitor, and repeatedly kicked this ahead until he sliced it over the edge of the wall and into the grey, sullen sea that was at high tide.

He came to a stop and stared out to sea. On the horizon, blurred because of poor visibility, was a supertanker, bound westwards; nearer inshore, a coaster was scending surprisingly heavily in what appeared to be only a very moderate sea and swell. He was thankful not to be aboard her; he was one of the world's worst sailors. He jammed his hands into the pockets of the jacket to keep them warm.

The evidence strongly suggested that security at Inchmoor House was being stepped up from a previously already high level. Why? Had the police been called in to advise because the owner realized how at risk his family were? If so, it was mere coincidence that this was the target house. Coincidences occurred almost as frequently as non-coincidences. But it could prove fatal to assume it was coincidence because such an assumption was so much more acceptable. The police might for once have pulled out their fingers and drawn up a list of all the families in the country who were most at risk and were now advising them to take the extra measures necessary to protect themselves. The family in Inchmoor House would certainly figure in any such list. Or had the police somehow learned that this was the target for the second kidnapping…?

He resumed walking, finding in movement a help to thought. How to determine if the police had, against all the odds, had a tip-off? He put himself in their place. His advice would be first to add to the defences of the house with the most sophisticated devices that money could buy, secondly, to recognize that the intended kidnapping might well take place somewhere other than in or around the house. The two daughters were taken to, and brought back from, school each day either in the Rolls with the personalized numberplate or the Volvo. The Middle East had in the past shown that if well organized, a kidnapping from a car was relatively easy. So it would be common sense to employ a couple of bodyguards. Then the appearance of bodyguards would surely prove, as clearly as was likely to be possible, that there had been a leak … He came to a stop, his expression savage, his fists clenched. If there proved to have been a nark, he'd use piano wire to throttle the bastard so slowly that he made the trip to the fires of hell a dozen times before he died.

*   *   *

On the 12th December, two men accompanied the mother and daughters in the Rolls and another two followed in a Mondeo. If you were seriously rich, you could buy yourself a private army.

Trent accepted that only a halfwit would now go ahead with the kidnapping, yet he suffered the urge to do so, not only because he hated losing, but also because if successful he would prove himself so much cleverer than they. In the end, common sense prevailed.

The kidnapping of Victoria Arkwright and setting up the second kidnapping had cost big money; now that the latter had to be aborted, finances were in danger of becoming decidedly unhealthy. In addition, the team were becoming restive, unsettled and beginning to wonder if he were not quite the winner they'd believed. Good reasons for quickly finding a new target. But a nark would betray their next target, as he had betrayed this one …

Was there a nark? Previously, he'd argued that there must be because the family would only have employed bodyguards if told that they were the intended target. But clearly it was possible that having been warned, his family, along with others, must consider themselves a possible target, the father had on his own account hired bodyguards …

As intended, the Arkwright kidnapping had shocked the country; it was this sense of shock that was designed to secure success without a hitch for the second kidnapping. But time, in an age when television screens were filled with tragedies every day, quickly dimmed even the most horrific event. So he had to move quickly. But he had to know the truth before he moved. How to discover what that truth was?

10

Even the most convoluted problem had a solution; the only problem was discovering what that was.

Frustration of a non-sexual nature always had the ironic effect of increasing Trent's libido; it was as if failure in one sphere led him to turn to another where he could dominate. After hours spent in trying and failing to decide conclusively whether his plans had been betrayed by an informer, he decided he needed a woman. Yvette, who reduced events to their primary nature? Yet whatever he'd promised himself previously, it was Genevieve who could offer him the illusion …

Afterwards, they lay on the bed and relaxed. Genevieve never hurried her clients, knowing that this distinguished her from the average tart who begrudged every wasted moment.

She broke the silence. ‘Do you remember the last time you were here?'

He didn't bother to answer.

‘You'd no sooner gone than the detective called.'

‘After the Lord Mayor's coach…'

She moved until she could lie partly across him, breasts on his stomach. He had a hairy chest and she began to twirl hairs into spirals. ‘He told me he was almost certain he'd found out who was making the dirty calls; one of the telephone engineers. Only he hadn't spoken to the man yet, so he couldn't be absolutely certain.' She created another two spirals of hair. ‘I wonder what kind of satisfaction he gets?'

‘From being a copper?'

‘No, the telephone engineer. I feel sorry for him.'

‘Why?'

‘His wife's in hospital.'

‘He's got to get his satisfaction somehow.'

‘I'm talking about the detective. She's pregnant and something's wrong so she has to stay in hospital.'

He wasn't interested in other people's problems; he had more than enough of his own. And now that his passion was assuaged, at least temporarily, they came flooding back. How to make certain whether or not the police had been tipped off? Did he really have to find the answer? Could he skate round the problem by not disclosing to the others who their next target was until they actually set out to do the job?… Only if he was prepared for them to go in blind, not really knowing what defences they faced – there might be quicker ways of getting locked up in maximum security for a fifteen-year stretch, but he didn't know what those were …

‘Do you know Sirina?'

‘Screwed her wild a couple of days ago.'

She tugged a spiral of hair. ‘Silly! It's one of the Greek Islands.'

She talked about the Greek Islands so often he wondered if she saw herself as a modern-day Circe … Goddamnit, there had to be some way of being certain, so why couldn't he find it? The sense of frustration built up once more. He ran the fingers of his right hand down Genevieve's spine and she moved until she could kiss him as her own fingers became busy …

He sat up, careless that in doing so he had nearly jerked her off the bed.

‘What's up? Are you hurting?'

‘Shut up!' he snapped.

She lay back, her expression wary.

‘This split, what sort of age is he?'

‘Mid twenties.'

‘And his wife's likely to stay in hospital?'

‘Seems that way.'

‘Then he's been starving?'

‘Unless she's in a room on her own.'

‘And looking at you, he must have remembered how hungry he was?'

‘I wouldn't know.'

‘A woman always knows if she's giving a man the hots.'

‘How does it matter?'

‘Did you?' he demanded angrily.

She showed no fear, even though the vicious side of his nature was suddenly obvious. ‘He looked, that's all.'

‘No touching?'

‘No.'

‘But plenty eager?'

‘I suppose.'

‘So if you start giving signals … Let's have a drink.'

She said, surprised: ‘You're going to drink?'

‘We're celebrating.'

‘What?'

‘Our partnership.'

She climbed off the bed. He watched her cross the floor and disappear through the doorway. Every movement of her body was an invitation.

She returned with a tray on which were two flutes and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. She filled the glasses, handed him one, settled on the bed by his side. ‘What partnership?'

‘The one that makes you ten Ks.'

‘For doing what?'

He dipped his finger in the champagne, rubbed it on her right nipple. ‘For reminding a detective constable that he's still got balls.'

*   *   *

Her father had died when she was five and her mother had taken to the bottle in a big way, leaving her all but abandoned; she might have featured in a sentimental Victorian music-hall song. Her aunt, who'd run a high-class call-girl system for many years with both taste and tact, had removed her from her mother's care and virtually adopted her. Life had been lived in a spacious flat, attractively furnished because her aunt was a woman of considerable taste, and she had attended a school for young ladies, highly recommended by one of her aunt's regulars. On her fifteenth birthday, her aunt had given her a diamond and ruby brooch and then initiated a woman-to-woman talk. ‘You know I love you as a daughter and therefore I want the very best in life for you, so it's time to look to your future. When you've finished at school, you can go to university, but ever since they opened Oxford and Cambridge to the hoi polloi they no longer offer social advantages, only disadvantages. You can become a model, but as much as the idea may attract you, I have to say that you are not sufficiently bitchy to reach the top. We can find you a rich man to marry, but rich men are so uninteresting and mean … My dear, I have not the slightest doubt that your future lies in exploiting to the full your unique talent. You know what I mean, of course?'

‘I don't think I do.'

‘Your ability to look at one and the same time like an innocent virgin and a woman for whom sixty-nine is more than half of a hundred and thirty-eight. I've often wondered from whom you've inherited so priceless a gift. After all, my natural assets are unambiguous and my poor, dear sister cannot be said to have had any at all. There is, of course, no need to make up your mind yet. One should always be extremely wary of men who seek to go too far down the road of youth. Eighteen will be time enough.'

On her eighteenth birthday, her aunt had given her a diamond necklace and had introduced her to a stockbroker who had paid a thousand pounds for the pleasure. That evening, she had taken her aunt to dinner at the Ritz as a small thank you for all her kindnesses.

She had been nineteen and a half when a man so rich that even head waiters bowed and scraped had taken her for a month's cruise in the Mediterranean on his hundred and fifty-four foot yacht. One day, they'd anchored off the island of Sirina and she had discovered heaven …

She had instinctively liked Carr, admired his concern for his wife, and did not wish him any harm, but there was always a point at which emotions had to give way to practicalities. Trent had raised his offer to fifteen thousand. Fifteen thousand, when added to her savings, meant she would be able to return to heaven.

11

As Carr shaved, he miserably wondered if there was much that was crueller than seeing someone one loved suffer and being unable to do a bloody thing about it? He went downstairs and cooked breakfast, ate hurriedly, left the house and drove to the station because on a Sunday the bus service was poor. Pettit, night-duty officer, handed over in a rush. After he'd left, Carr checked the log book, the movements book, the DI's book, the current files, and the notice board, then went over to his desk. On it, placed there by Pettit, were divisional and county memoranda, a fax from B division requiring an answer, two requests for witness statements, a photograph calling for an identification of the man whose head was ringed, papers to be filed, and a form filled in by him the previous day and rejected by the DI because of four typing errors. Fussy bastard!