Behind Closed Doors (22 page)

When Child had gone McAllister relaxed on the sofa with the gun across his lap where he could swing it up if need arose. I calculated how long Child would be gone. An hour into central London. Twenty minutes at the office. An hour back. We had two hours plus to kill.

‘Let's see if my assumptions are right,' I said. ‘You've just extorted half a mill' from the Slaters.'

McAllister lit a cigarette but wasn't talking. Most villains can't shut up. It's the criminal ego, the urge to air their special philosophy on life, as if talking their delusions through makes them true. Villains never see their own uselessness. They paper over the question of worth with a code of respect. If they are respected it must mean they're worthwhile. They never figure that it just means that everyone's scared of them.

McAllister wasn't the delusional type. He was the worse breed, the one driven by meanness rather than ego. McAllister just enjoyed doing bad things. It was the taking that was important. McAllister wouldn't have earned his bread legitimately if it could have pulled in ten times the dosh. Villains like McAllister didn't want your respect. They wanted the raw thing - fear.

To McAllister I was a fly in the ointment and he needed me out. The reason he wasn't talking to me was that he didn't give a damn.

‘I'm guessing three quarters of a million,' I persisted. ‘That's a good take-home for a few days work.'

McAllister watched smoke clouds eddying under the ceiling but I knew he was listening.

‘We've got three families in our files,' I said. ‘We've got Alpha Security and the blackmail thing, the ties to Tina Brown. And the trail is backed up in our online servers no matter what Child comes back with. He isn't going to wipe the slate clean in half an hour, Paul.'

McAllister sucked hard on the cigarette. Finally opened up.

‘Who do you think I am, Flynn?' he said. He was still watching the ceiling. ‘Some kind of amateur? Do you think your two-bit outfit frightens me?' He didn't look frightened. ‘Let me explain something,' he said.

So even McAllister couldn't resist a little yackity. It was probably the boredom.

‘I don't give a damn what's in your computers,' he said. ‘I actually assume there's nothing there. Everything you've got will be squirrelled away in the paper file the hobgoblin's gone to fetch. There won't be enough left at your agency for the filth to even send me a birthday card.'

Hobgoblin! I wondered how Ray would like that one. Maybe I could work it into the conversation when Child got back, stir up a fight whilst I dived through the window.

‘So what's the big deal?' I said. ‘How come you and your goblin are waving your sticks at everyone?'

‘You were rocking the boat, Flynn,' McAllister said. ‘Becoming a dangerous bastard. Our business depends on discretion. Peace and quiet. When Ray gets back we'll take that walk into the woods and then I'll get my peace and quiet again.'

I thought about that.

‘Let's see if I have it figured out,' I said. ‘You stake out wealthy families. Not so rich that they have minders or the money to come after you, but rich enough to get their hands on upwards of a million inside a week or two. Then you fete the man of the house at a five-star hotel with a five-star hooker thrown in. That's the bit that stumped me at first. Was it just a phoney business deal to feel the guys out before you went for the kids? That didn't make sense. You already knew that the families were sitting ducks. I was intrigued that you booked the hotel suite for three nights when your guest was only staying one. The extra nights had to be to set things up. Cameras and things. So we're looking at a honeytrap blackmail. But this thing's supposed to be about taking the kids.'

I watched McAllister. He blew a long stream of smoke and watched it rise to the ceiling.

‘Finally I got it,' I said. ‘The thing with the hooker actually is blackmail. You set up a phoney business meeting that's not intended to come to anything, but you throw in a night on the town for your guest anyway, with your girl as an irresistible extra. If the guy falls into the trap then you've got your blackmail ammo. Only the blackmail's not for money. Sex-blackmail isn't going to bring in half a mill'. Kidnapping the kids brings in the money. The blackmail kicks in afterwards.'

McAllister was still watching the ceiling. I couldn't tell whether he was pleased that someone had worked out his caper or didn't give a damn. Guessed the latter. I went on anyway. I always talk when I'm nervous.

‘The whole thing's about repeat business,' I said. ‘The ideal kidnap and ransom scheme is one you can repeat - one that the cops never hear about. The thing never gets out because you've got the father by the balls. The family pays the ransom and the kid is sent home with the usual threats that you'll come looking for them if they blow the whistle. The threats are enough to make them think twice but not enough to keep them quiet for long. So that's where you enlist the help of the man of the house. You show him the movies of his weekend away and persuade him that it's his job to make sure his wife and kid clam up permanently. He's your Trojan horse, working for you inside the family. His wife is screaming for the cops but the husband stands his ground, persuades her that the cops won't be able to protect them. Persuades her that it's better to cut their losses. What he doesn't tell his wife is what he's really afraid of - those movies. The ones of him in bed with the villains' hooker. What's his wife going to say when she hears it was his bit of fun that gave the crooks the opportunity to target their children in the first place?'

I nodded a reluctant acknowledgement to McAllister's scheme. ‘You've got the ideal caper,' I said. ‘You've got the family while you're holding their child, then when you release the kid you get the husband to lock their front door. He makes sure that the thing never gets out.'

‘For a two-bit private eye,' McAllister said, ‘you're pretty smart, Flynn. The sooner we take that walk into the woods the better.'

‘So how many have you done?' I said. ‘How many repeats? Five? Ten? Or were you just getting started? I know the McCabe family is lined up. Were they next?'

‘Not the McCabes,' McAllister said. ‘They were our little failure. Tina had the guy drooling over his dinner jacket but the retentive bastard sent her packing at the last minute. You win some, you lose some,' he said. ‘No dirty movies so no snatch. But we've got others lined up.'

‘Was Tina Brown part of your scheme? Did she babysit the kids? Or was she only the bait? I'm still trying to figure why you buried her up there in the woods.'

McAllister looked at me. Raised the Mossberg and pointed it my way, kind of playfully.

‘Ask her yourself,' he said. ‘You'll soon be friends.'

‘I'm saying she wasn't in on it,' I said. ‘All she knew was that she was hired to supply a little corporate hospitality. You killed Tina because she found out.'

McAllister lit up another cigarette and lapsed into silence again. No longer interested.

‘You had Tina's phone,' I deduced, ‘and you picked up Sammy's message about Eagle Eye searching for her. I guess that spooked you. Enough to entice me to your farm.'

McAllister pursed his girlish lips and opened up again with a weary sigh. ‘To be honest,' he said, ‘sending you that text today was a long shot. That was the goblin's brainwave. I told him that not even you would be stupid enough to walk into a trap like that. I stand duly corrected.'

Not that it seemed to matter to him.

‘How long did you think you could keep your scheme quiet?' I said. ‘Once or twice I could buy. But when you keep going back, no matter how tight your operation is, there's going to be a crack sooner or later. Maybe a family that isn't intimidated. A wife who won't be kept quiet by her husband. A husband who's been caught before, doesn't see your dirty pictures as such a big threat.'

‘You're wrong,' McAllister said. ‘We do our homework. Our husbands are all kosher. Clean peckers, the lot of them – at least as far as anyone knows, which is what counts. These are gentlemen of standing in the community. They all have very good reasons to avoid bad publicity. And our Tina could tempt a saint. She was truly wonderful at her art.' He shook his head in wonder. ‘I've got pictures that would shock you.'

‘Alpha Security organised that side of it,' I said. ‘A full-service operation.'

McAllister talked to the ceiling again. ‘Roker thinks we're just scamming the husbands for fifty thou'. The real game's just between me and Ray.'

He still hadn't told me why they'd buried Tina Brown.

‘There's no foolproof caper,' I said. ‘Sooner or later your racket is going to come unravelled.'

‘Not the way we work,' McAllister said. ‘We take very great care. The thing isn't going to come out. Ever.'

‘Maybe it won't be the families,' I suggested. ‘Maybe the thing will be brought down from the outside. You're looking at proof of that right now.'

‘I'm looking at bad luck. Unlikely to recur. And now that the Slater girl is back and telling her mates that nothing happened do you think anyone will keep stirring?'

‘Eagle Eye will keep stirring,' I promised, ‘until you and the hobgoblin are hatching your schemes behind bars.'

‘I tremble,' McAllister said. ‘Truly I do.'

‘Why keep going back?' I asked. ‘You must have made a stash already. Whatever you say about the thing being tight you know it must crack sooner or later. Are you just greedy, Paul?'

McAllister thought that one through. He pursed his lips and gazed into space and for a while I thought he wasn't going to answer. But then he looked at me and gave me his conclusion: ‘The fact is,' he said, ‘I enjoy it. I like to see those families pee their pants. I like to see Daddy's face when we show him the pictures, when he realises that he's responsible for his kid being targeted.' He gestured around the room. ‘I like it when the kids are here. Spoiled brats seeing the world in a new light. The Hanlon girl was a treat. She got it into her head that we were sex fiends, out to rape and murder her. She wet her pants on the bed upstairs. It wasn't difficult to get her to put on a convincing tone when she called her parents. It was wonderful stuff.'

I thought it through. Gave him my conclusion.

‘McAllister,' I said, ‘you're a piece of shit.'

He nodded in agreement. Didn't care.

I nattered on but McAllister just smoked and ignored me. Time dragged. It was getting cold in the parlour. Luckily I was used to crashing at Eagle Eye. Two and a half hours had gone by and I was beginning to wonder whether Child had perhaps got involved in an accident or had had a stroke, or maybe got religion and wasn't coming back. Wishful thinking. At twenty to eleven I heard the Merc pull up outside.

When Child came in he had the Slater card file. He hadn't needed to search. Picked it straight off my rolltop. It couldn't have taken him more than five seconds to spot it, five minutes to check that the file was the only thing he needed. I made a note to be less tidy in future. Whatever future there was.

Child went through to the kitchen to crack a beer then came and sat on the sofa arm whilst McAllister flicked through the paperwork – the telephone numbers, addresses and hotel bills. Not so much, really. Nothing that looked irreparable to him.

He closed the file and looked up.

‘Is that it?' he said. ‘You were going to bust us with this?'

‘It's more than enough,' I said.

McAllister turned to Ray Child.

‘Any trouble?'

Child sneered.

‘None. Snoopy's partner stayed home. His lucky day.'

McAllister stood up.

‘That's good,' he said. ‘No mess at their place. Better that way.'

He gestured to me with the gun. The wavy stuff again. Up and down. Very casual. Like he was inviting the dog out for a piss before bed.

‘Second time lucky,' he said. ‘I think we can finalise things this time.' He looked at me. His eyebrows floated like cumulus clouds under his golden locks. ‘Unless you've any other little ruses to slow things down.'

I was out of ruses.

‘Good,' McAllister said. ‘So let's take a walk. And one funny move and I'll pop you. You understand, Flynn?'

I understood. McAllister tilted his head towards the door.

‘Go out, Ray,' he said. ‘Cover us.'

Child looked at me. ‘You're going to dig this time, Flynn,' he said. ‘Exercise is good for you.' He laughed and headed through the door.

Everyone's a comedian when they've got a gun.

Child went out first. McAllister followed behind me, out of reach and out of Child's line of fire in case I did something stupid.

I didn't think of anything stupid to do.

Once we were all outside Child pointed his flashlight at the ground and walked ahead of us to the gate. McAllister stayed two yards behind me, lighting our footsteps with his torch. Off we went. Back to the woods.

Heigh ho.

We didn't make it.

I'd got ten paces clear of the cottage when McAllister yelled fit to scare your granny's pants off. His flashlight dropped. I turned and saw him going down sideways as a silhouette pulled the shotgun out of his hands then stepped sideways out of the doorway's light. The gun snapped up, pointing at me. I hit the deck. Child turned by the gate but all he could see were shadows. A voice yelled at him to drop his weapon.

Child's answer was to loose off two shots like bombs going off. Shot fizzed over my head and smacked into the side of the cottage. The parlour window exploded. Child pumped the weapon to refill the chambers but he never pulled the triggers. The shadow rose from its crouch by the door and two booms shattered the night so close to my head that they nearly took my hair off. Child went backwards and down. By the doorway McAllister was rising up, ready to come back into the game, but whatever had hit him had hit hard. He moved too slowly. As he lurched in the Mossberg was lifted clear and its stock came down on the back of his neck with a force that nearly put him through the ground. He lay there face down, groaning. Out by the gate Child was face up and quiet.

I stood up, feeling to see which side my hair had parted. My ears were ringing like the bells at a vicarage orgy.

‘Am I late for the show?'

Shaughnessy's voice was faint through the cacophony.

He walked past me to Child.

‘Late?' I said. ‘You nearly missed the finale.'

McAllister was trying to get up but his heart wasn't in it. I walked across and put my foot on his back. Pressed hard. It was unlikely that he had another weapon but there was no point taking chances.

Shaughnessy retrieved Child's flashlight and checked the body. Came back. The way he ignored Child's gun saved me a question.

‘Looks like your pals were about to cut up rough,' Shaughnessy said.

‘They told me we were just going for a walk,' I explained.

Shaughnessy smirked.

‘They have a spot,' I said. ‘Up in the woods.'

McAllister was still squirming under my foot and I was still pressing. My leg was beginning to cramp but I'm tough. The pressure held.

‘Watch his jacket,' Shaughnessy said. ‘Linen's hell when you crease it.'

I lifted my foot and stooped to take an arm. Shaughnessy stayed clear so that McAllister couldn't make a grab at him, but McAllister was not in a grabbing state. He managed some words but he let me haul him back into the cottage without resistance. Shaughnessy tossed me a pair of cuffs. Plastic. Strong as steel. The cuffs help occasionally with citizen's arrests. Our arrest technique was that I kicked his ankles out and Shaughnessy pressed on his head and he went down on his arse by the wall. I got his wrists in the cuffs and looped them around a central heating pipe. The pipe wouldn't stop a determined man, but I rooted around and cut the cable off a vacuum cleaner. Used it to bind his arms and ankles. Then I rooted again and snipped the TV cable, added more loops. Electric cabling has many uses. By the time I'd finished McAllister wasn't going anywhere, with or without the central heating.

Once he was trussed up I relieved him of my mobile phone whilst Shaughnessy dialled 999 and informed the operator we had a shooting incident. He had our location ready when the operator asked. The advantage of not riding in a car boot.

I satisfied myself that McAllister was trussed and weaponless. He'd kept quiet for a bit but as I finished he looked up.

‘I'm going to kill you, Flynn,' he snarled.

I guess he'd forgotten that that was what he was trying to do in the first place. I considered pointing it out. Decided against it. By the time McAllister was free to do any revenge killing he'd have to chase me with his Zimmer frame. I'd have a Zimmer too, but mine would have racing treads.

‘McAllister,' I said, ‘do you know the first thing they're going to do to you in jail?'

He looked at me.

‘They're going to cut your hair,' I said.

Petty, but it felt good.

We took a look around the cottage.

An upstairs bedroom had a metal bed with a sleeping bag on top. The floor was littered with food wrappers. A chamberpot was pushed into the corner. Alongside the sleeping bag was a metal chain and two large padlocks. The chain would have been secured to the iron bedstead. The other end was probably around Rebecca's neck. Five or six plastic fasteners were scattered on the mattress. Ties for Rebecca's hands when they left her. We looked in the second bedroom. Empty. Nothing to show that Tina Brown had been babysitting, which tied in with what I now knew - Rebecca had been on her own. Child probably called once a day to feed and water her.

‘How many have they had here?' Shaughnessy asked.

‘Probably just Rebecca and the Hanlon girl,' I told him. ‘But McAllister had long-term plans. My guess is he planned to run his scheme a couple of times a year. That's one to two million a year, tax-free. Not a bad earner.'

Shaughnessy pursed his lips. ‘All revolving around the fact that the families keep quiet afterwards.'

‘Repeat business,' I said. ‘McAllister thought he could keep it going forever. Why are the smartest criminals always the stupidest?'

Shaughnessy shrugged. ‘Did he say how they kept the families quiet?'

‘It's what we figured,' I told him. ‘Heavy threats backed up by photos of hubby misbehaving. Belt and braces. It almost worked.'

‘Photos starring our girl Tina Brown.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘But she wasn't in on the scheme. She just thought she was being hired to show business clients a good time. She knew nothing about the blackmail. Or the abduction.'

We went back downstairs.

‘Do we know where Tina is?'

‘Let's take a walk,' I said.

I checked McAllister again but the way I'd tied the knots he was going nowhere. I wasn't thrown out of the Boy Scouts for nothing.

We took the flashlights and went out through the garden, giving Child's body a wide berth. Crime scene contamination and all that.

We went back into the woods and I took Shaughnessy up the hill to the place where Child's spade was sticking out of the ground. I shone the light on the mound of earth beside it.

‘Poor woman,' Shaughnessy said. ‘What did she do to get in their way?'

‘She found out,' I said. ‘She was the thing McAllister is denying – the flaw in his perfect scheme.'

‘He's denying that his scheme's gone bust?'

‘He figures it's just bad luck,' I said. ‘Maybe it was. First he had bad luck with Tina Brown then he had bad luck with us.'

‘An unlucky kind of guy,' Shaughnessy said.

‘McAllister thought he had the whole thing covered,' I said. ‘Take the kid, take the money, then shackle the family by blackmailing the husband. A perfect tie-up. McAllister missed just the one flaw. He didn't keep Tina isolated. He wouldn't have made that mistake again.'

‘The question is how did Tina find out?' said Shaughnessy.

‘I need to talk to Larry Slater,' I said. ‘The police will get it anyway but I want to hear it from the man himself. Maybe Larry will talk when he realises that he got Tina killed.'

We gazed down at the grave, barely visible in the torch light.

The half-dug hole next to it was harder to look at. Shaughnessy didn't ask and I didn't say.