by Danny Miller
The demand is for £70,000 in cash. To be delivered to a location you will be informed of soon. Somewhere you will know, somewhere you have been. There will be no need for hysterics, this is a business transaction. Do not call the police, or you know what will happen: her real head will be cut off. WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY.
On looking at the severed doll’s head, its macabre aspect, all Frost could think about was the carnage in the caravan and in the bedroom in Norwood. The use of ‘we’ in the note went along with what he suspected, that there were at least two abductors. One driving the car, ready to pull away at speed, and one doing the actual snatch. Gail in her statement thought she had heard the car engine running whilst Ruby was being taken, and the tyres screeching almost as soon as the door slammed shut.
‘Does your husband know that you’ve called us?’ asked Susan Clarke.
Gail Hanson shook her head. ‘I thought we should. He thought we should just do as they say. Pay them and get Ruby back.’
‘That’s a lot of money,’ said Frost.
‘Richard assured me he could get it, borrow against the house, the business, whatever it took. Nothing else matters, nothing.’
‘You made the right decision calling us,’ said Clarke.
Gail Hanson squeezed her eyes shut and gave a quick shake of her head. ‘He’ll go mad, Richard, when he finds out. We argued about it all night, but he was insistent. Kept saying we couldn’t rely on you, we just had to pay.’ She looked up at them. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be saying this.’
‘We understand. We understand how you’re both feeling,’ assured Clarke.
‘Now you need to call Richard,’ said Frost. ‘We need to make sure we’re working together to get Ruby back. There’s no need for who’s responsible for taking Ruby to know that we know about this. Nothing else matters to us either, just getting your daughter back safely, that’s the priority. Then we’ll worry about the culprits. We’ve been in this situation before, we know how to handle it. OK?’
Mrs Hanson managed a small smile, like all her questions had been answered. ‘That’s what I said, we can’t afford any mistakes … you have to know.’
Frost returned her smile with some encouragement on top. Then with his gloved hand Frost picked up the doll’s head. Funny-looking thing, he thought, nothing like Tiny Tears, that’s what all the girls had when he was at school. He never did work out how you filled them up. Did the head come off, like the top of a bottle? He glanced around to see Gail padding into the hallway to make the call.
‘Gail, can you tell us where you got this doll from?’
‘Richard got it for her.’
‘Actually, don’t call him. I’ll go and see him. I have his work address.’
Clarke turned away from Gail Hanson and gave Frost a quizzical look.
DC Arthur Hanlon held the Hornby model of the Flying Scotsman with the reverence of an archaeologist who has just dug up a perfect and priceless Etruscan pot.
‘Breaks my heart, it does, John, breaks my bloody heart.’
‘What does?’
‘The day I sold my train set. Had it set up in the spare room. Made un-spare by the arrival of Arthur Jnr.’
‘You make him sound like an unwanted guest.’
‘No, love him to bits, most of the time. Should have seen it, John, full steam ahead, it was magic. I had the OO gauge, all the scenery, the sidings, crossings, trees, bushes, the backs of houses – not just a train set, the whole world …’
‘I had Subbuteo as a kid, I get it. Twelve teams, including Ajax for European nights. Had the Jules Rimet trophy. Had the stands, the floodlights, even had the little St John Ambulance men on the sidelines.’
Waters saw that Hanlon wasn’t listening, as his gaze drifted into the middle distance, and the memories rolled back, like the wagons on his OO gauge.
Waters and Hanlon were in Chamleys & Co., Denton’s premier toyshop on the high street. It had been there almost as long as the high street itself, and for a toyshop it had a sombre feel about it. With its dark wood and glass cabinets, it was very much from the Victorian era, and still sold wind-up Schuco tinplate toys and spooky-looking bisque dolls, as well as the more modern fare of My Little Pony, Atari, Fisher Price Ghetto Blasters, Light Sabers, Scalextric and the ubiquitous Cabbage Patch dolls.
‘Here we are, gentlemen.’
Mr Chamley, fourth generation, emerged from the back room to rest a large red ledger on the counter. With his white hair and a white Laughing Cavalier beard, he had, appropriately enough, more than a touch of the Kris Kringle about him, though he was lacking the girth.
‘Special edition, Cabbage Patch Kid, Little Miss Lucy. We were the only store in Denton that stocked them, not even Woolworths or Aster’s could get their hands on them. We had five of them, we sold five of them. It does annoy me, they’re no more special than any of the others, but they advertise them as such to drive up interest. Instils the collecting bug. That’s what all the best toys do, make you want to collect them. Not even play with them, just collect.’
‘Tell me about it,’ murmured Hanlon, still lovingly holding the model train.
‘That’s quite some record you have there,’ said Waters, looking down at the neat entries. The hypnotically slanting writing looked like it was done with a calligraphy pen.
‘We do all our own accounting, so it’s best to keep it neat.’ Mr Chamley ran a finger down a column and stopped abruptly about halfway down. ‘We sold three for cash, and two on credit cards.’
‘Do you have the names of the card holders?’
‘Yes, I do. And I also have the names and addresses of the cash purchasers.’
Waters looked impressed, and took out his notebook to write down the details.
Mr Chamley became distracted by Hanlon fiddling with the locomotive he was holding, opening its doors, running it along his arm to test the wheels.
‘Excuse me, officer, are you buying that locomotive?’
Arthur Hanlon looked at the model train in his hand like he would never put it down. ‘The missus will kill me.’
Waters winked. ‘Go on, Casey Jones, treat yourself.’
‘Yes, yes, I bloody well will. I’m gonna start over again.’
‘Were you ever going to tell us?’
Richard Hanson was angered to see Frost, and angered that his wife had gone against his strict instructions and called the police. The DI was on his own; he’d left Clarke with Gail Hanson, partly to monitor any phone calls and see if the ‘alleged’ abductor made any further contact. But also to make sure she didn’t call her husband. Foretold is forewarned.
‘Yes. Once Ruby was home. Then you could do as you pleased.’
‘As I explained to your wife, we’ve done this before, Mr Hanson, and we will get her back. But for that to happen we need to work together, we need your complete cooperation.’
‘I know what your job is, Mr Frost, and no offence, but you’re not bloody Scotland Yard.’
‘No, we’re not, I think our clear-up rate per capita is far better. And it’s Inspector Frost.’
Sometimes they need reminding, and this is one of those times, thought Frost, as he stood with Richard Hanson in the open-plan office of Hanson & Partners Architects. It was located on the ground floor of a building in Denton’s plush new business park. The empty office was similar to Hanson’s home, all polished minimalist chic, and steel-tubed black leather seating. On one of the walls something rather non-architectural caught Frost’s eye. It was a huge black-framed poster of a striking Japanese girl in a weird-looking white dress, like some sort of parachute, and black shoes with corrugated platform soles that were so high that if she fell off them, she’d need the parachute to land safely. All made the more precarious because she already stood on a concrete block, like a plinth. Inscribed on the plinth was: ‘Comme des Garçons Spring 1985’.
Frost didn’t like trendy shit, and this stank of trendy shit. In the reception area, as well as all the usual architectural magazines there
were copies of The Face, Creative Review and i-D. It made him wonder what the hell Hanson was planning for the new development in Denton Woods. Turning the beautiful ancient woodland into some concrete wasteland with smoked glass, steel and black everywhere to house designer-stubbled, Paul Smith-suited, Audi-driving, Bang & Olufsen-playing, Sade-listening, Filofax-carrying, Rolex-wearing yuppies. Still, back to the business in hand.
Hanson had stopped pacing up and down on the polished concrete floor, and was now slumped on a black leather sofa that had expelled a whoosh of air as he sat down. Frost placed himself opposite, careful not to expel a similar whoosh.
‘What have you done so far, in terms of getting the money?’
‘Called the bank manager. Luckily, he was in this Saturday. I have some money in my accounts, I can secure a loan. I can get it and I will get it, I must.’
Frost took the letter in its plastic evidence bag out of his jacket pocket and looked at it. ‘The letter says that you’re to deliver the money to “Somewhere you will know, somewhere you have been.” Now, that could be interpreted as you knowing the abductors. How else would they know you’ve been there?’
Hanson bristled at this, looked pantomime confused. ‘Or it could just mean that it will be in Denton. Which is obviously a place I know. What are you suggesting?’
Frost carried on reading: ‘“There will be no need for hysterics, this is a business transaction.” What do you think they mean by that?’
‘That … that if I stay calm … I’ll get my daughter back. What do you think it means?’
‘Of course. It’s an emotionally charged situation. Is there something we need to know, something you may think is none of our business, and may not have anything to do with your daughter?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Frost let out his own whoosh of exasperated air, from his mouth, not the cushion. ‘I think you do know, I’m talking about your private life, personal life, love life, to be frank. Any indiscretions we need to know about that may—’
‘What the hell is this?’
‘My colleague is asking your wife the same questions. We have to, it’s procedure. And the tone of the letter leads me to believe it’s a good idea. Because aspects of it, around the edges, sound personal. As we widen the search we also dig deeper – every aspect of your life will be inspected. We will be looking at your phone records, both at home and at work. It’s a hoary old cliché, but the truth will out. In cases like this, it always does. And for your daughter’s sake, sooner rather than later is the way to go.’
Richard Hanson didn’t flinch at this. Not even a blink. It looked to Frost like he’d been expecting it. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. If your colleagues are talking to Gail, I’m sure they’ll find out she had an affair three years ago. His name was Jamie Bucknell, he was a teacher at Ruby’s old school. We almost came to blows … Or, rather, I almost beat the crap out of him. The police were going to be called, but Bucknell certainly didn’t want to take it any further. So the whole thing was dropped.’
‘Nothing was reported to us. It’s not on our database. We checked if you had a record, of course. What happened?’
‘It was a bit of a scandal. I confronted him at the school. There were no kids around. I just … I pushed him over some desks. Like I said, someone saw me do it and reported it to the headmaster.’ He expelled a short sour laugh. ‘Just like school kids really, and someone told on me. Bucknell lost his job, they sacked him. Good job too. But it didn’t end there.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know how mothers like to gossip at the school gates. It became impossible to keep it secret, so we took Ruby out of that school in Rimmington, and moved her to Mountview.’ Richard Hanson, tearful now, sat forward on the sofa, elbows on knees, hands clenched, trying to hold it together, his voice laced with bitterness. ‘But hey, it wasn’t all Bucknell’s fault, was it? Takes two to tango, as they say. She didn’t love him or anything like that, said she didn’t, anyway. Christ, I felt like killing him, but I didn’t, obviously, just pushed him over a desk. He was … he was just a little guy, didn’t look like much at all. I know how this will sound, arrogant, egotistical, but I just couldn’t see what Gail saw in him. She said most of it was a cry for attention that just got out of hand, to punish me for neglecting her. The affair began about the same time I was starting out on my own, starting the business. I was working twenty-four seven, I was neglecting her, neglecting Ruby. She felt alone.’
‘You forgave her, but things have never quite been the same since?’
‘That’s about right. Have you been there, Inspector?’
Frost couldn’t quite remember, but he suspected that his late wife had, at one point, been seeing someone. He had no proof, just maybe some vague hope that she was. She probably deserved more than he’d been able to offer her at the time, wrapped up as he was in his job, like Hanson, twenty-four seven. He shook his head to answer him, not that Hanson was paying too much attention. He was too caught up in his own personal trauma.
Saturday (2)
Ruby took her ear away from the door and stepped back, careful not to tread on the creakiest of the floorboards. She was getting to know them by now. Some sounded like an alarm going off, and when she triggered it, the men in the next room would fall silent, like they knew she was listening. Sometimes the handle would turn and a head would pop around the door. A Ronald Reagan head. Ruby now remembered the name of the American President, and the TV show he was on, Spitting Image. He was funny on the TV, always forgetting things. Sometimes this Ronald Reagan here would ask if she needed anything. The voice was rough, but not unkind, there was no edge or threat of violence to it; in fact, it tried its best to sound nice and friendly.
The two Ronald Reagans had been on the phone again, but there was no shouting this time, either from the Ronald Reagans or from the man on the other end of the line, who, even though he was on the other end of the line and not in the room, managed to sound louder than the two Ronald Reagans.
Ruby thought the men sounded like Darren Blake’s dad, who was fat and had tattoos and ran a garage, and always tried to talk to Mummy at the school gates. And she always tried to avoid talking to him, because he was fat and had tattoos and ran a garage. Mummy described him as ‘not really our kind’.
The men in the Reagan masks were funny. Sometimes they told each other jokes. Ruby didn’t always understand them. She thought they played cards a lot, and probably for money, not chocolate buttons or counters like she did. There seemed to be a lot of disputes and swearing during these games, and often one of the men would reprimand the other, saying, ‘Shut up, the kid will hear you!’
They smoked, a lot – cigars, she thought. She’d smelt cigars before. Granddad smoked them sometimes at Christmas and on his birthday only, otherwise Nanna would tell him off. The two Ronald Reagans were smoking them now. They seemed happy, like whatever problem they had, they’d sorted it out and come to some kind of agreement. Which made Ruby happy, or at least happier. She assumed that the dispute was about her. And she didn’t like it when grown-ups shouted. She always knew that’s when bad things happened.
She went over to the telly and turned it on. It was Button Moon, one of her favourite programmes. Even if she did feel she was too old for it now, it still made her laugh. She turned up the volume, as loud as it would go. Ruby then went over to the chest of drawers. It was empty and not very heavy, and she carefully pulled it away from the wall. She then removed the piece of carpet that was rotting and smelly and coming away from the floor. The floorboards were in similar condition to the carpet. The nails had rusted away, and the wood was rotten with damp.
Ruby had discovered all this yesterday, a day after they’d put her in the room. There was nothing else for her to do other than sit on the bed and cry, and by Friday she was sick of that, she’d done enough crying at home. So she searched every inch of the room for a possible escape route. The bed was too heavy and noisy to shift; it was set on
these squeaky old castors that barely moved anyway. But the chest of drawers was made of flimsy grey plywood.
She peered down into the hole in the floor and saw there were shafts of light. This told her that there were gaps in the outside wall, or maybe some kind of window in a cellar. She also saw that there was a big enough space for her to crawl along. She quickly put the floorboards back in place, and also the damp, smelly patch of carpet, and the cheap little chest of drawers. She knew that one of the Ronald Reagans would soon be bringing in her elevenses of banana Nesquik and cookies.
She sat on the bed, trying to control her breathing. The butterflies in her tummy fluttered away because it was exciting, it was scary – but it was also, strangely, fun. She’d never really been on an adventure before, not like this, and now she was on one. It was like some of her favourite films: the end bit of ET, most of Peter Pan, or 101 Dalmatians with Jasper and Horace now played by Ronald Reagans. And all of the Famous Five books she’d read. But this was real, and it was hers. Of course she was scared, but she also knew that if she wanted to get out of here, she would have to rely on her wits. The grown-ups weren’t going to save her, they never did, they were always a bit useless in these situations and never around, or when they were they just panicked and cried and made all the wrong decisions. It was the kids who worked it out, it was the kids who saved the day.
‘Ruby. It was all about Ruby. That’s why … that’s why I stopped the affair. It was nothing to do with Richard, no matter what he thinks.’
Gail Hanson took a sip of her coffee, and Sue Clarke did the same. They were both on the black leather sofas. The big shiny cafetière that sat on the smoked-glass coffee table was almost depleted.
‘Tell me about Jamie Bucknell.’
‘He was the opposite of Richard, in all ways. Maybe that was the attraction. He was modest, sensitive, attentive, and he listened. Of course, we met at Ruby’s school, but I used to see him in the park, and we got talking. We’d meet up for a coffee and a chat.’
