The Stealers (12 page)

Crane made a backwards motion with his head towards the barn, ‘That Mustang over there, it's mine. It was stolen from me in England; that's why I'm here. I want it back.'

Girard looked past Crane's shoulder and said with admiration, ‘It's a very beautiful car and quite rare in this part of the world.'

The sound of an approaching vehicle made them turn. Girard bridged a hand across his brow and looking through a gap in some bushes said, ‘It's Ryan. I don't like him, I'm going.' With that he ignored the gun trained on him and walked off in the direction of one of the other barns. Crane wasn't going to argue and he lowered the gun and walked back to the house, with the certainty that neither of them had been seen by the occupant of the approaching car.

Back in the kitchen Crane found the coffee pot still hot to the touch and he poured out another helping of the hot drink. The sound of heavy boots clumped into the house and stomped their way towards the kitchen. A look of shock spread across Ryan's face when he saw Crane standing with a mug of coffee in one hand and a gun in the other. The shocked look soon disappeared and a smile spread across his face as he said, ‘I see you're still playing with toy guns Crane.'

Crane returned the smile and said, ‘Not this time. Where's Bradley?'

Ryan took a step forward. At the same time his left hand eased back his jacket and exposed the butt of a Glock semi-automatic. His right hand inched towards it and Crane fired the twenty-two calibre pistol at Ryan's foot. In the confines of a small room, the noise was much louder than it would have sounded out in the open. Ryan yelped and hopped and Crane rasped, ‘Take that gun out slowly and put it on the table or the next one goes in between your eyes.' Ryan did as he was told.

‘Where's Bradley?'

‘I'm not sure, he's gone to meet someone.'

Crane took aim at Ryan's other foot.

‘It's the truth!' he screamed.

Crane lowered the gun and said, ‘Where's the little girl?'

‘Upstairs,' he said in a panic, ‘she's in one of the rooms upstairs.'

‘What were you going to do with her?'

There was a silence for a moment and Crane raised the gun, ‘Well? You'd better tell me.'

‘Okay, okay. Bradley has a sort of arrangement with someone he knows, childless couples like, they pay him for kids.'

Crane's face hardened, ‘And what about Penny's sister, Jean; where is she?'

‘I don't know, I've never ever seen her.'

With his free hand, Crane picked up Ryan's Glock semi-automatic from the table, hefted it, felt its balance and remarked casually, ‘A nine mil,' and pocketing the small handgun, drew back the slide, remarking, ‘this'll do a bit more damage, although not as much as a forty-five. Maybe two or three bullets in your leg would make up for that. The IRA called it knee-capping; I understand it's very painful and the damage is permanent.'

Ryan was sweating profusely. His eyes were awash with fear as words stumbled out from between dry lips, ‘I think… she's… been… sold.'

‘To whom, when and where?'

Tears began to mingle with sweat and stream down Ryan's face as he bleated, ‘I swear I don't know. Bradley takes care of that end of things.'

Crane lowered the gun and said, ‘Henri Girard didn't want to use the grenade you gave him. If you and Bradley think you can get rid of me like your friend Davy, you'd better think again.'

This revelation about Davy was another shock for Ryan, ‘Davy, Davy Porter? What about Davy?'

‘Didn't Bradley tell you? He stuck him with a long kitchen knife; pinned him to the driver's seat in that transporter of his.'

‘What!' Ryan gasped. ‘I knew nothing about that. He was supposed to be a friend of Bradley.'

Crane grimaced, ‘If he's lucky, maybe he'll live, but then I don't really know, but I know one thing; I wouldn't put too much trust in Bradley if I were you, he could be the death of you. Right, get moving, it's off to the cellar.'

‘My foot,' Ryan moaned.

‘You've still got it,' Crane quipped as he grabbed hold of a roll of kitchen towel and tossing it towards and said, ‘here take this with you.'

At the top of the steps to the cellar, Ryan flicked a nervous glance behind, expecting the same treatment that he gave to Crane – a hefty foot in the back – but this didn't happen. The three men already incarcerated in the cellar had hopes of release when the door suddenly opened. They shielded their eyes from the shaft of light that emanated from the door as it opened, but their hopes were quickly shattered when they saw Ryan limp towards them down the narrow staircase and heard the door slam shut firmly behind him.

After a quick rummage around in one of the front rooms, Crane found a box of car keys. He delved into it and soon found the set he was looking for. It was clearly labelled, ‘
Mustang.'
He swiftly pocketed them. The feelings of elation returned as he bounded upstairs and came across a room with the key dangling outside. As he opened it he called out, ‘Are you in there, Sammy? It's me, Jack.'

Upon seeing Crane the little girl's face lit up and she ran forward to greet him, hugging him tightly around the waist. Crane gave her a huge grin, picked her up and said, ‘Come on let's get you out of here.'

Crane and Sammy stepped outside savouring the relief of freedom. As he expected, there was no sign of Henri Girard. Together, the pair headed for the outbuildings and, while Sammy waited patiently by a barn door, Crane started up his Mustang. He drove it out of the barn and stopped for the excited Sammy to get into the front passenger seat. They drove up to the redundant Rover, where Crane paused briefly to transfer his possessions. Then they took the bumpy farm track and headed towards the main road.

When Crane turned the Mustang onto the 940 coast road, Sammy's face presented an expression of relief and she became more vocal. ‘Before you came to my room I heard lots of noise like furniture being knocked over; what was that?'

‘Oh… I had to make sure the erm… the bad guys were sort of, taken care of.'

‘Did you kill them?'

Crane was unused to being interrogated by an inquisitive child and he grinned hugely at her directness, ‘No, no nothing like that, I sort of got the better of them and managed to lock them up out of the way.'

‘Oh.' She sounded disappointed and added, ‘I think they were horrid.'

Sammy was quiet for a moment and suddenly she became animated once more, ‘Why did they want to take me away from my mummy and daddy?'

‘They are very bad people, Sammy. Do you remember how they took you?'

‘Yes, I was walking back from the sweet shop on the corner – that's what I call it – and a van pulled up and a man opened the door asked me the way to St Andrew's.'

‘St Andrew's?' Crane interrupted.

‘It's our church; there was a fete there or something. When I got near the van he grabbed me and stuck a long pin in my arm. I don't remember anything after that. I woke up with my hands tied and horrid black sticky stuff over my mouth. I tried to get up; I kept falling down and then I saw you in your car. Where are we?'

‘France, Sammy, we're in France; I'm taking you back home.'

Sammy looked around the interior of the Mustang and said, ‘Jack, does the top come down on this car?'

‘Yes it does.'

‘Can we have the top down then?'

‘If I do that it'll mean stopping and I think it best we get to England first and then I'll lower it.'

Sammy was satisfied with Crane's reply. After a few kilometres, as they neared Calais, a bright red Mini Cooper flashed past going in the opposite direction. Crane's attention was mainly on the road, but Sammy turning her head and looking back, confirmed what he had only just glimpsed, ‘Hey, I just saw the nice lady, erm Penny with her little boy in that red car going the other way.'

Penny was driving her Mini to the limit. She had no idea that she had passed Crane on the opposite side of the road. Crane gripped the steering wheel and swung the car round, on a handbrake turn, in an effort to catch up with the Mini. It was then he remembered the mobile phone and said, ‘Sammy, can you look in that compartment and take out the mobile phone. You'll find a battery charger in there too.'

Sammy found the phone and charger in the glovebox and following Crane's instructions, she plugged it into the dashboard. It took a few minutes for the phone's flat battery to come back to life and Crane thumbed in Penny's number but there was no response. Crane reasoned that there was no option but to try and catch her up and find out the reason why she had returned.

*

Henri Girard strode around the barn where the remainder of the American cars were stored. His imagination began to run riot. He wanted a vehicle to replace the Audi convertible that had been inadvertently blown up, but he soon discovered that there were no ignition keys belonging to any of these parked cars, so he decided to look in the house.

As Girard entered the house muffled shouts drew him to the cellar door. He paused for a moment before sliding back the heavy bolt. Ryan was the first to limp out and red faced he screamed at the Frenchman, ‘About bloody time you turned up. Where's that guy, Crane?'

Girard shrugged nonchalantly as Ryan shouldered roughly past and limped towards the bathroom for the first aid kit. The other three men lumbered slowly up the cellar staircase and, glancing sheepishly at Girard as he drifted into the hall, headed for the kitchen. Girard stood to one side while they filed past and he suddenly found himself full of admiration for Crane. It would, he knew, have been no mean feat to overpower those four men.

*

In the distance, Crane was just in time to see Penny's Mini disappear off the main road and then turn back into the farm track from where they all had just escaped. He checked his watch; it was two pm. He had been away from the farmhouse for no more than thirty minutes, but he knew a lot can happen in that time. He decided against charging down the track with Sammy in the car. Instead he stopped across the entrance.

‘Aren't you going to drive back to the house Jack?'

‘I don't think that would be a very wise thing to do just yet, Sammy. I need to find out if the bad guys are still there.'

Crane looked around and pointing to a clump of dense evergreen said, ‘Sammy, see those bushes over there? Could you be a very brave girl and hide in them while I go and see if I can find out what Penny is doing?'

‘Yes of course I can, but you won't be very long, will you?'

‘I hope not. Don't come out until you see me or Penny, okay?'

Sammy nodded enthusiastically and said, ‘I'm getting a bit hungry now?'

‘I'll try and bring back something to eat, Sammy.'

As soon as Crane was sure that the child was safely tucked out of sight he gunned the Mustang down the track towards the farmhouse. Penny's red Mini Cooper was parked close to the front door. Crane brought the car to a halt at a safe distance and checked the newly-acquired weapons; the Glock semi-automatic had a full clip of eighteen rounds and the small twenty-two calibre pistol had five cartridges remaining. That would be more than enough firepower.

He left the car and, with the Glock firmly gripped in his right hand, slowly approached the house. All was quiet. A constant flurry of wind sent swirls of dust and dirt peppering excitedly around the entrance. The front door was ajar, idly swinging and moving freely on its well-oiled hinges. Crane flattened himself against the wall, before he crouched down, and looked inside. He gradually straightened up but then froze when he heard a voice from behind saying, ‘Put the gun down carefully on the ground and step back.'

He did as he was told and turned to face one of the three men whose breakfast he had so abruptly disturbed. The tall wiry man was holding a shotgun and he was aiming it at Crane's head. The sound of heavy limping feet made Crane half turn and he saw Ryan, his foot bandaged, holding a mobile phone and stooping down to retrieve the Glock. As he picked it up an evil grin spread across his face, ‘Didn't expect to see you so soon, Crane.'

‘I'm surprised to find you lot still here,' Crane replied. ‘The game's up. I thought the gendarmes would have been here before now. I must have beaten them to it. Probably loading their machine guns; they use them a lot in this country you know.'

A worried look spread across Ryan's face, ‘You're lying.'

‘Why would I lie? Do you think I'm stupid enough to have come back here for nothing? Car theft and kidnapping doesn't go down too well in France. It used to be the guillotine or Devil's Island a few years ago for that kind of caper.'

‘Where's the girl?' Ryan spat.

‘Where do you think? In the safe custody of the police.'

The man with the shotgun lowered it and looked at Ryan for guidance. Ryan tried to put on a brave face, but he was finding it hard. He had been caught out by Crane's deceptions before and the third time, he reminded himself, when he called his bluff, it had cost him a bullet in the foot. The unmistakable sound of a vehicle, approaching from the other side of the hill, was timely and gave Crane some impetus as he said, ‘At last, better late than never eh?'

Crane looked at both of the men in front of him in turn and said, ‘If they see anyone with a gun there's no talking, it's open season, they start shooting; their rifles have telescopic sights, they can pick you off from half a mile away.'

The man with the shotgun had heard enough; he stood his weapon, with the safety catch on, against the wall by the front door and stepped away from it. Ryan glared at him, he was still uncertain about things; his jaw was set hard; elation at having Crane at his mercy was rapidly turning to disappointment and frustration.

Crane was acutely aware that any second now, whoever appeared over the hill would be calling his bluff and he would likely receive a bullet for his trouble. In a final attempt, Crane raised his hands high in the air commenting, ‘At least they can see I'm unarmed.'

Ryan finally snapped, with some effort, he stooped down and laid the glock beside his feet. As he straightened up and stretched his neck, he cursed Crane when he caught sight of Bradley's car bouncing over the hill. Unfortunately for Ryan, he was not quick enough in trying to recover the weapon he had so carefully laid on the ground. He paused half way down when he heard the chilling sound of Crane's casual sounding voice remark, ‘Do you want the other foot done now?'

His eyes shot up and stared uneasily at the barrel of the Jennings semi-automatic pistol held unwavering in Crane's hand.

Ryan gradually straightened and Crane was certain that whoever was in the car, bumping along the dusty track, would have seen them by now and he quickly scooped up the Glock, grabbed hold of the shotgun and said, ‘In the house the pair of you and make it quick.'

Ryan's other two companions were standing in the hall, uncertain what to do, until they saw Crane slide the safety catch off the shotgun and then they were all too willing to be herded back into the cellar.

Their incarceration was timely. Crane turned around at the sound of a car scraping to a halt on the gravel. He watched as Bradley stepped out of the driver's seat. There was a sound of hurried footsteps from behind as Penny dashed down from a room upstairs. ‘Jack, what on earth are you doing here, I thought… '

‘I was going to ask you the same question,' Crane interrupted without taking his eyes off Bradley.

At that point Bradley was leaning on his car and he called out, ‘This is like a reunion eh?'

Gun in hand, Crane stood by the door just inside the entrance hall. ‘I don't think so,' he called back, ‘I could drop you at any time, so don't try anything. Just hold your arms out where I can see them.'

Bradley smiled confidently and with closed hands, extended his arms, ‘Of course, but this little gizmo, I'm holding in my right hand, will detonate the necklace that my passenger is wearing, so if I were you I'd put the gun down.'

It was then that Crane noticed Sammy, slumped low down in the front passenger seat. Bradley appeared to be unarmed, Crane let his right arm drop down to his side, but his hand still held on to the Glock.

Bradley, his arms extended like a showman, was enjoying himself. ‘With your permission, perhaps a little demonstration would convince you of my sincerity.' He tossed a matchbox some metres away and his other hand held what appeared to be a remote control. Like a salesman with a great deal of panache, he held it aloft and pressed a button. There was a violent explosion. ‘That's button one,' he announced. ‘The other button is for… well, that's obvious isn't it?' The smile vanished. ‘Now the demonstration is over; put down the Mustang keys and drop the fucking gun.'

Crane loosened his grip, allowing the gun to drop to the ground by his side and after delving into his pocket, tossed the keys towards Bradley. The smile was back on Bradley's face. ‘Okay. Now what did you do with my bunch of bloody morons?'

‘They're in the cellar.'

‘Well they can stew there for a while.' Looking past Crane, Bradley called out, ‘Come on Penny, get in the car and we'll go and see your sister Jean… oh, and don't forget the boy.'

Penny hesitated for a moment, but this was interrupted by Andrew shuffling down the stairs, ‘I'm hungry Auntie.'

Penny gave Crane a nervous glance as she drifted past him and called out to Bradley, ‘The boy's not eaten, it's well past his lunch time.'

‘Should have thought of that before; bring him out, I've some chocolate in the car.'

Penny stepped outside with Andrew trailing behind and Bradley said, ‘You can follow me in your Mini.' He stood and watched whilst Penny strapped Andrew into the rear seat and when she climbed into the driver's seat, Bradley focused his attention back towards Crane; who stood framed in the doorway. Waving the remote control towards him, as a reminder of his callous intent, said, ‘Now you can open the cellar door.'

At that point the sound of heavy feet clumping on gravel seemed to put things on hold. Bradley turned his head towards the sound; it was Henri Girard lolloping towards them.

‘
Bonjour
' he said as he slowly lumbered past the gathering and headed towards the front door of the house with his haversack dangling from his broad shoulders.

Bradley looked askance – it was his first encounter with Girard. ‘
Parlez-vous Anglais?
'

Girard threw a glance over his shoulder and simply replied, ‘
Oui.
'

The semi-arrogant reply irritated Bradley and he said, ‘Well who the fuck
are you
then?'

‘
Je m'appelle
, erm, my name is Henri Girard.'

‘Where the fuck do you think you're going?'

Henri Girard looked at his watch and said, ‘In the chateau. It is past time for my lunch and I am hungry.'

His
laissez-faire
attitude did nothing to enhance Bradley's mood as he leant on the roof of his car and he said snappily, ‘Well, what the devil are you doing here?'

‘Mr Ryan is paying me to keep away intruders. I walk all around the borders of the estate, many kilometres – it takes a long time.'

At the mention of Ryan's name Bradley calmed down and said, ‘Right, okay, well pick up that gun and take that man, an intruder – the one you missed – inside, then release my men from the cellar and put him in it – is that clear?'

‘
Oui
– no problem.'

Bradley watched the two men enter the house before striding over to the spot where Crane had tossed the keys. He picked them up, returned to the BMW, and carried the comatose Sammy over to where the Mustang was parked and placed her inside. Signalling to Penny to follow, he climbed into the driver's seat and drove off with Penny following behind in her Mini.

To Crane's surprise, Girard ushered him past the cellar door and into the kitchen, motioning him to sit down. Girard set his bag on the table, dropped the Glock inside and took out a bottle of red wine. He turned and looked around. There were plenty of glasses in the sideboard and he plucked two from a dusty shelf, examined them before setting them on the table. The Frenchman then removed a couple of stick loafs from the cupboard, tossed them on the table and took a large platter of cheeses from the fridge. ‘'Elp yourself,' he proffered.

Between mouthfuls, Girard said, ‘You are erm,
sang froid
eh?'

‘You seem pretty cool yourself.' Crane replied cautiously.

‘I had to work on it. I am supposed to get a little excited once in a while because I am French, but no. So my friend, I am in no great hurry to get that Ryan out of the cellar. Why does the man who took your car want me to put you in the cellar?'

Crane explained the reason he was there, to retrieve his Mustang, and now hopefully to secure the release of the young girl, Sammy.

The Frenchman was very attentive and said, ‘I would steal a car; I would steal money if I had to, but I would never steal children.'

‘Your English is pretty good.'

‘I went to university in Paris; I studied English and Spanish. I wanted to be a linguist, but life always seems to play a different hand.'

‘How did you get mixed up with this lot?'

‘By accident I suppose. For nearly a year now, I am wanted throughout France for theft and murder, but it was self-defence – one of those ‘either him or me' things ya know, and I prefer it to be me, that is, the one that remains alive. Pierre Marcel, the man I killed was evil. He stole my girlfriend and turned her into a prostitute. When she realised what was happening, she ran back to me, but it was too late. I tried to help her, but the evil bastard tracked her down and killed her. He got off; the witnesses changed their minds, no doubt scared or bought off, so I confronted him, he pulled a gun, a semi-automatic, before he could pull back the slide, well we fought and I killed him with his own weapon; and now
I
am wanted for murder. Pierre Marcel's men may also be looking for me. They want to kill me for killing their boss.'