Maxwell’s Reunion (28 page)

‘Lloyds TSB. My branch is in the High Street.’

‘How do we play that, Jacquie?’ Maxwell asked.

She looked at her watch. ‘Tomorrow morning, at nine-thirty, Cissie and I will go to the bank and see the manager. I’ll get whatever authorization they need.’

‘What if he rings?’ Cissie asked. ‘The bastard who’s got Richard?’

‘He has to give you time to get the money, Cissie,’ Jacquie explained as gently as she could. ‘He didn’t contact you until after the close of business today. Anyway, Max’ll be here.’

‘And it’s me he wants,’ Maxwell told the shaking woman. ‘I’ll have to talk to him sooner or later.’

DS Rackham was just coming back with a tray of teacups when the phone rang, shattering the tension that filled the house. Maxwell felt Cissie jump. Jacquie was on her feet, motioning for Rackham to keep still. The sergeant froze like a rabbit in the headlights. And it was Jacquie who picked up the phone before motioning Cissie over. The women stood cheek by cheek, like partners in an insane fandango, listening at the earpiece. Jacquie nodded and Cissie spoke. ‘Yes?’

‘Is he there yet?’ a disembodied voice said.

‘Where’s Richard?’ Cissie asked.

‘Maxwell.’ The voice ignored her, sounding rather peeved to have to repeat itself. ‘Is he there?’

Again, Jacquie nodded.

‘Yes,’ said Cissie, trying to keep her voice strong. ‘Yes, he is.’

‘Put him on.’

Maxwell was motioned across. Rackham had put his tray down and was timing the call with his electronic watch. ‘Peter Maxwell,’ Maxwell said.

There was a pause. ‘Is that Maxwell?’ the voice asked.

‘Yes,’ Maxwell said. ‘Where’s Richard?’

Jacquie’s cheek was pressed against his now as they played this one together, literally by ear.

‘Safe,’ the voice snapped back. ‘For now. Have you got the money?’

‘No,’ said Maxwell at Jacquie’s silent prompting. ‘No, the banks are closed. You must give us until tomorrow.’ ‘Don’t waste my time, you shit!’ the voice snarled.

‘Look …’ Maxwell didn’t find it easy, being conciliatory with a maniac who’d grabbed an old friend and probably killed two more. ‘You’ve got to be reasonable about this. Mrs Alphedge can get the money, but it will take time.’

‘Tomorrow,’ the voice grated. ‘You’ve got until tomorrow.’ And the line went dead.

‘Damn!’ Maxwell turned away, furious with the world. ‘I really fucked that up.’

‘No, Max.’ It was Cissie’s turn to comfort, patting his arm, calming him down. ‘What else could you do?’

‘Cissie.’ Jacquie looked at Graham Rackham, who was already handing out the teas. ‘We’ve got to tap this phone. With a trace, we’ll know where he’s ringing from.’

‘No.’ Cissie was shaking her head again. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’

‘Max.’ Jacquie sat down to talk to him. ‘Did you recognize the voice? Did it sound familiar?’

Maxwell blew his cheeks out. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Cissie, you’ve heard it … what? Twice now? Did you detect an accent there? A slight Scots, was it? Sort of Robbie Coltrane?’

‘I don’t know, Max.’ Cissie tried to hold her trembling cup. ‘I can’t really focus on things like that.’

‘Any background sounds?’ Rackham asked. ‘Clock ticking? Dog barking? Anything like that?’

‘Nothing.’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘Just the voice.’

‘All right.’ Jacquie took charge, despite Rackham’s rank. ‘I don’t reckon we’ll hear anything else tonight. Graham, you happy about watches?’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘I’ll take one,’ Maxwell volunteered.

‘You’re a civilian,’ Rackham reminded him.

‘I’m also going to be bagman on this little operation,’ Maxwell reminded him. ‘I am involved, Sergeant, whether you and your DCI like it or not.’

Rackham beamed. ‘Oh, rest assured, Mr Maxwell. We don’t.’

‘I can’t sleep anyway,’ Cissie said. ‘I’ll take a watch.’

‘No, Cissie,’ Maxwell insisted. ‘We need you fresh for the morning. Got any sleeping tablets?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Jacquie?’ Maxwell put his arms around his friend’s wife again. ‘Cissie,’ he said, looking her in the face, ‘I know it’s a trite and overused phrase, but try not to worry. Alphie will be fine. Trust me, lady, I’m a Head of Sixth Form.’

She buried her face into his neck and sobbed there quietly. He held her for a moment, then eased her gently away. Jacquie took over from there, leading her towards the hall and the stairs beyond. ‘I’ve got something here, Cissie,’ she said, ‘that’ll help you sleep. And don’t worry, I’ll be with you all night. There’s a phone by your bed, isn’t there?’

Cissie nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there is.’

‘Well, that’s fine.’ Jacquie took her away, glancing at Rackham as she did so. ‘We’ll sort everything out in the morning – you’ll see.’

When he was sure they’d gone, Rackham flicked out his mobile and started punching numbers. ‘Buzzword?’ he said, down the line. ‘DS Rackham, at the Alphedge place. I want a trace put on the line. Landline number …’ But before he could finish the sentence the phone had been snatched from his hand and Peter Maxwell dropped it heavily on the carpet, before grinding the plastic to pieces under his heel.

‘You stupid bastard!’ Rackham snapped.

‘No,’ Maxwell growled. ‘You’re the stupid bastard if you think I’m playing games with the life of an old friend.’

‘Playing games?’ Rackham hissed ‘I’m trying to save the bugger’s life. We are on the same side, Maxwell. When he rings again, if we’ve tapped the line, we can find out where he’s ringing from, close the net.’

‘Cissie made it perfectly clear,’ Maxwell said. ‘She didn’t want that kind of interference.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Rackham was making for the Alphedges’ phone. ‘If we listened to the wishes of everybody in a kidnap situation, we wouldn’t get any of ’em back.’ And he picked up the receiver.

Maxwell was about to stop him again, when Jacquie arrived at his elbow. ‘Max.’ She stopped him in his stride, looking deep into his dark eyes, which were flashing fire. ‘Max, we’ve got to do this.’

‘Cissie …’

‘Cissie is in no position to make rational decisions,’ Jacquie told him. ‘What I’ve given her would put an elephant out. She won’t stir for the next twelve hours and that gives us time to get everything in position.’

‘Jacquie,’ Maxwell said, holding her shoulders with both hands. ‘We’re not trying to outwit Cissie, we’re trying to outwit the psycho who’s got Richard.’

‘If he has.’

‘What?’ Maxwell blinked.

‘If he hasn’t killed him already. If he ever had him and all this isn’t just a bluff.’

Maxwell was shaking his head. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.

She sat him down. Rackham waited until this particular little domestic was cleared up. ‘Max,’ she said. ‘You’re new to this game. We’re not. Did Cissie talk to Richard? The first phone call, I mean?’

‘No,’ Maxwell said. ‘She didn’t say so.’

‘Right. And without that, we have no idea whether he’s alive or dead. Or whether this isn’t just some kind of con. Richard Alphedge is a celeb, you know.’

‘What, you mean some kind of stalker?’ Maxwell was incredulous, but Jacquie nodded. ‘Come on, Jacquie. This is me, Max. Are you seriously telling me that Quent and Cret were killed, ostensibly by the same hand, and then somebody just ups and kidnaps an old friend of theirs, just for jolly?’

‘For half a million quid,’ Rackham reminded him.

Maxwell looked at them both. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Why the change of direction? Our man murders Quent with something poetic in mind, making some kind of statement. He murders Cret because Cret is on to him. Never mind what happened to me; that’s a red herring. Now, he’s kidnapped Alphie and is demanding ransom money. It doesn’t make sense. He’s working from another blueprint.’

Jacquie nodded. ‘Precisely. And that’s exactly why we need the gear and expertise of the local force. He can keep us dangling for days, weeks on this, Max. All we need is approximately one and a half minutes of airtime with a trace and we’ve got him. We can pin him down to a room in a house.’

‘What they call precision bombing?’ Maxwell asked.

Jacquie nodded.

‘You’d better believe it,’ Rackham weighed in.

‘Except that I don’t,’ Maxwell told them. ‘Precision bombing is as much bollocks now as it was in the Gulf War. It doesn’t work. Are you sure you’re not confusing this with friendly fire?’

The lights twinkled out over the Surrey countryside as Jacquie snuggled against her man.

‘Was I wrong?’ he asked her. It was nearly four o’clock, but the wrong time of year for dawn to creep stealthily over the windowpanes of morning. It remained as black as a witch’s hat in the gardens of leafy suburbia.

‘Morally, no,’ she murmured, her eyes closed, her brain tired. ‘Operationally, yes. You owe Graham Rackham for a new phone, by the way.’

‘Let him take it out of my threshold payment.’ Maxwell stretched and yawned.

‘I didn’t think you were going for that.’ She frowned, her eyes still closed.

Maxwell shrugged. ‘Well, there you go.’

She chuckled.

‘What’s your best guess, Jacquie?’ he asked her. ‘Chummie, I mean.’

‘Do you want the textbook explanation or my own experience?’

‘I can give you the textbook stuff,’ Maxwell said. ‘The term kidnapping originates in 1860s Britain to denote the selling of children to illegal slave markets on West Indian plantations. Ah, the good old days. I can think of a few I would like to shackle and ship out. The sort of situation we have here first occurred as a Mediterranean form of money-making; most spectacularly when Lord Muncaster and three tourist friends were captured by Greek brigands.’

‘What happened?’ Jacquie asked.

‘You don’t want to know,’ Maxwell told her.

‘I expect it ties in with my own experience,’ she said.

‘Muncaster and his mates were killed, because the ransom demands were not met.’

‘That’s not going to happen here, though, is it?’

He looked down at her. ‘In the sense that Cissie’s going to pay up, no. Your experience?’

‘Only one,’ Jacquie said, her voice suddenly as small as the hours in which they spoke. ‘I hoped I’d never have to go through it again.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was the year before I was transferred to Leighford. A little girl was taken from outside her playschool. Ransom notes were sent, not phone calls. The experts were called in and decided they were forgeries, hoaxes. We never heard from the real kidnappers … we found her body on some waste ground two months later. She’d died on the day she was taken. There was no ransom. No point. Every parent’s waking nightmare, Max; the passing prowler, the guy in the white van. I don’t want to go through that again.’

He held her close, scenting her hair as he kissed her and they watched the dawn creep from the east.

The next call came at a little after midday.

‘It’s him.’ A quivering Cissie was holding her hand over the receiver. Along the wires, the local CID’s switchgear clicked into operation. Maxwell knew, as did Jacquie and Rackham. Only Cissie was in the dark, frozen out on a need-not-to-know basis for the sake of her nerves. Rackham was in the kitchen on Jacquie’s mobile, liaising with the monitors in the unmarked van beyond the privet that screened the house.

‘Have you got it?’ a voice wanted to know.

‘Yes,’ Cissie said. ‘As you asked.’ She was looking at it now, a plain black suitcase on the coffee table, hers and Richard’s life savings and then some. ‘Unsequenced bills – hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens.’

‘Right. Put Maxwell on.’

She steadied herself, hating every moment when she was on the phone to him. Then she passed the receiver to Maxwell.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘You take the next train to Leamington. You will be in the phone box on Platform Three at five o’clock sharp. You will have the money with you. Miss that deadline, Maxwell, and Alphedge dies.’

‘Wait.’ Maxwell delayed the hang-up, playing for time. ‘What proof have I got that Alphedge is still alive?’ Out of the corner of his eye, Maxwell saw Cissie’s hand go to her mouth. He couldn’t help that now. He turned his back on her.

‘You haven’t,’ the voice told him.

‘Let me speak to him.’

‘Go fuck yerself.’

‘No Alphedge, no money,’ Maxwell snapped. He’d seen
Payback
. Maybe it was time to be Mel Gibson.

There was a pause. For a second, he expected the sound of the receiver being slammed down. In the kitchen, Rackham was pacing backwards and forwards, his palm sticky around the phone, his heart thumping. Jacquie stood with Cissie, holding her upright, stroking her shoulder hypnotically to calm them both down.

Maxwell heard a click and muffled words. Then clearly, ‘Max, is that you?’

‘Alphie?’

Cissie cried out, but Jacquie held her back.

‘Max.’ The voice sounded weak, flaky. ‘Max, have you got the money?’

‘Yes, yes, Alphie,’ he said. ‘How the hell are you?’

But the receiver was snatched away and chummie was back. ‘Five o’clock, Platform Three,’ he hissed. ‘And Maxwell – I’ll be watching. One whiff of a copper and your actor friend will be joining the Hall of Fame.’

The line went dead.

‘Jacquie?’ DS Rackham emerged from the kitchen a moment later, the mobile tucked away, looking as casual as he could.

Maxwell took over at Cissie’s side.

‘How did he sound, Max?’ The tears trickled down her cheeks, her eyes overflowing.

‘Fine, darling,’ Maxwell lied. ‘He sounded fine.’

In the kitchen, well away from the crying Cissie, Rackham filled Jacquie in. ‘He’s on a mobile. Warwick.’

‘Warwick?’

‘Isn’t that … ?’

Jacquie nodded. ‘Not a million miles from Halliards. Is that where he’s got him?’

‘You’ve been there,’ Rackham said. ‘What’s it like?’

‘Huge,’ Jacquie told him. ‘You could hide an army in there. Fields to the rear, river near by. You could land a helicopter on the First Eleven Square. Tell them what we think. I’ve got to get Max up there.’

‘By train,’ he told her again.

‘But, Max . . ,’

‘No buts, Woman Policeman. Chummie said “train” and train it is. If his threat is genuine and he can see me at the platform kiosk in Leamington, he can see me get off the train too. We’re not taking any chances on this, are we?’