by Danny Miller
‘Afraid not. No number plates, not even sure of the make of the van.’
‘That’s the beauty of white vans, no one takes any notice of them. No sign of Parker?’
Hanlon shook his head.
‘Where is the mother, Sally Fielding?’
Hanlon flicked through his notebook. ‘She was in London today, she had a day’s work with an advertising agency, and was staying on to meet up for a drink with some friends. We managed to contact her at the agency and she’s on her way, should be home any time soon.’
‘Guv?’
Frost shot a questioning look at Simms.
‘First thing this morning we checked a white transit van, found it pulled over on the Rimmington road. The driver said he was looking for work with Jarrett’s, clearing the woods. Said he was a carpenter. Said he stayed the night in the van, he felt ill. The story sounded like it stacked up. Driver’s licence checked out. Seemed genuine, and he did look ill, I remember – flu.’
‘There’s a lot of it about,’ offered Arthur Hanlon.
‘Thank you, Dr Kildare. Did you get a name?’
Now it was Simms’s turn to check his notebook. As he flicked through it they stepped deeper into the lobby until they were at the lift. Frost pressed the button, even though the Fieldings’ apartment was only on the second floor.
‘Thomas Phelps. Got the registration, too.’
‘Good, go run a check on it and find the driver. See if it was the same white van the teacher saw. Show her a photo of the model, see if it jogs her memory.’
Simms trotted back out to the Metro to radio through, and Frost and Hanlon rode the lift up to Sally’s flat where Vanessa Fielding was anxiously waiting. WPC Hannah Begbie was with her.
It was a cosy purpose-built flat. There was a red corduroy three-piece suite, the floor was covered in modern Habitat rugs, and there were lush rubber and spider plants in cheerful pots. And lots of art on the walls, bright splashes of primary colours, by the looks of them mainly the work of young Ella Fielding.
Vanessa Fielding was dressed in a black roll-neck sweater, black slacks and black patent-leather shoes with a silver buckle. She looked elegant and sophisticated as ever, in what Frost took to be her usual tasteful attire, and not sombre widow’s weeds. She was on the couch, her back straight, her hands clasped together, looking stoic and ready to answer any question with a clear head. But before she had the chance, and within minutes of the detectives being there, Sally Fielding arrived.
She had been met at Denton train station by two officers who had blue-lighted her home. The siren hastened their journey through the clogged-up one-way traffic system. But as fast as they went, it was still probably the longest journey Sally Fielding had ever made.
Frost stood back as WPC Begbie and Vanessa attempted to calm Sally down. Once that had been achieved, Frost filled her in on the details of what they knew so far. He then stood by the hearth, arms clasped behind his back like he was taking advantage of the electric fire. He wasn’t, it wasn’t even on. The central heating was doing a good enough job of warming the neat little flat. He just wanted to get some distance from the mother and daughter sat on the couch. To observe them, catch minor details, read any body language that flowed between them, to see if they were lying.
Frost reached into his bomber jacket, pulled out the photo he had taken off the Hansons’ fridge and handed it to Sally Fielding. She wasn’t crying now. In fact, dressed in her smart navy-blue trouser suit, she looked efficient and capable of answering any questions he put to her.
‘Yes, it’s the netball team.’
‘Ruby Hanson and her mother. You and Ella. What struck me is how similar you all look.’
Sally Fielding stared at the picture; it was clear from her expression just how uncanny she found the likeness too, once it had been pointed out. ‘Ruby is still missing … and now Ella.’ She no longer looked composed.
Vanessa, who had her arm around Sally on the three-seater couch, intensified her grip and tried to prevent any more tears with her words: ‘I know, darling, I know, but we must hear what the inspector has to say.’
Sally took a deep breath and gestured for the detective to continue.
Frost counted to three to himself, knowing that what he was about to say would make things sound a hell of a lot worse for Ella. ‘I believe that the abduction of Ruby Hanson was a case of mistaken identity, and who they were really after was Ella.’
Sally took another deep breath, absorbing the information. ‘Is this anything to do with … to do with my father and his past?’
Frost nodded. ‘I don’t think this is a random abduction, I don’t think the motive is … is sexual or to cause her physical harm.’
Sally Fielding squeezed her eyes shut at this, like it was the worst thing in the world she’d ever heard. But also, for now, maybe the best.
‘I don’t think they have any interest in Ella other than financial gain. It’s you they’re interested in.’ Frost’s eyes moved from Vanessa to Sally and back. ‘They want information, information from you.’
‘What the hell do we have …? We have no money, Daddy spent it all, lost it all, drank it all away … They can have what they want in the house, they can have the bloody house and everything in it, if it brings Ella back.’
Frost now focused his gaze on Vanessa and didn’t let go. Sally followed it.
‘Mum, what’s happening?’
Frost said, ‘You’re right, it’s all about your father’s past. In 1967 your father was involved in a robbery—’
‘That’s not true!’ protested Vanessa.
The detective’s tone changed, he went in hard this time. ‘Are you still trying to protect Ivan’s reputation? I’d worry about getting your granddaughter back if I was you.’
Sally broke free of her mother’s grip, then grabbed Vanessa by the shoulders and shook her violently. ‘Come on, tell me!’
Frost made a calming gesture, and WPC Hannah Begbie, standing in the doorway, looked ready to move in and separate them. Sally quickly realized what she was doing, wrung her hands, apologized; her gaze swivelled between Frost and her mother repeatedly, her expression confused, angry, demanding.
Frost knew that time had caught up with Vanessa Fielding. She now had two inquisitors against her, two accusers staring at her, and she wasn’t going to get off the hook with a protracted tale of innocence. The swinging ’60s dolly bird, the arm candy, the trophy wife, the dumb blonde. She was none of those things. The soirées, the salons, the parties, the happenings, the Chelsea set: she was integral to them, she was the one with the connections. Ivan may have been the brains, but she was the glamour, the honeypot that drew them in. And maybe that’s why she had stayed as long as she did. But the past and its secrets were no longer trapped in old photographs. It was written all over her daughter’s face, and even more uncannily all over her granddaughter’s face, too.
‘Mother, please, what’s going on?’
Vanessa ignored her daughter and looked straight at Frost, again stoic and businesslike. ‘Once Conrad sent those awful paintings to Ivan – one for me, one for him, and one for Sally – I knew it was a curse. Conrad probably thought he was giving us the golden ticket to some fabulous prize. Split three ways, so we could all share in it. But I knew all about it, I wasn’t stupid. I just turned a blind eye to Ivan … and Conrad’s activities because it suited me. And yes, I played my part, too. But they didn’t want me to know about this, they wanted to protect me. But I knew what went on, I made it my business to know so I could protect my family, and of course it was in all the papers, and the rumours swirled around about what had been taken. Then when I read that Jimmy McVale was in Denton …’
‘I read about him,’ said Sally, eager to join the fray. ‘Do you think he has the girls?’
‘At this stage, I think there’s a strong possibility. We’ve been trying to find McVale, but we can’t. He’s disappeared,’ Frost answered.
‘He’s a killer, isn’t he
?’ Frost gave a bleak nod to this. ‘And what is he after?’
Frost told her.
‘You can’t kill her … you just can’t.’
‘She’s left me no choice.’
Harry Baskin was on his feet and moving, moving fast. The fastest anyone would have seen him move in quite some time. Because now Harry Baskin was up to speed on what had happened with Ruby Hanson. Granted, Baskin was only pacing around the kitchen table in his cottage, wringing his meaty and by now sweaty hands, but his mind was racing, at light speed, because he knew he didn’t have long to talk Jimmy McVale out of doing what he fully intended doing.
The sound of a sneeze broke Baskin’s morose thoughts. It was so loud that he could still hear it all the way from the Roller that was now parked outside. Bad Manners Bob could be seen through the plastic-sheet windows stuffing his face between bouts of sneezing and scratching. He’d been sent to fetch the Corniche. Baskin had earlier parked it in the lay-by beside the little hut that sold piping-hot tea the colour, consistency and taste of stewed rust. With what was about to happen – unless Harry could talk him out of it – Baskin wanted his distinctive wheels off the road and out of sight. There was only one other person in Denton, as far as he was aware, who had a Roller, and that was the mayor. And it seemed unlikely he would be complicit in murder.
‘Poison-ivy rash, hay fever in January? Not too good out in nature, is he?’ said Jimmy McVale with an amused but sour expression.
‘Bob? No. Not too good in the boxing ring, either.’
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t believe you in the first place, Harry. It was obvious you were spying on me. I must say, though, you’ve got some nerve running around in that get-up. You look like you’re bollock-naked.’
Harry Baskin stopped pacing nervously around the room, maybe feeling the ridiculousness of his outfit. He sat down at the pine table, as if to cover his manhood.
‘The two chaps who left earlier – they didn’t look well.’
‘They don’t have the stomach for the work.’
‘No one does, Jimmy. Not this kind of work.’
‘Funny thing was, they came to me. Obviously, they knew I was out. But they’d monitored the situation, shall we say.’
‘They were on the old firm, right? They were two of the famed “Bond Street Burrowers”?’
Keep him talking, thought Baskin, until I’ve had time to work something out. Play for time. He was playing not only for the little girl’s life, but for his and Bad Manners Bob’s lives, too. There was an old saying and rule to live by in the underworld: three can keep a secret – if two are dead.
‘They were good in their day, Eddie and Tony,’ said Jimmy McVale, ‘but I was the one who got nicked for the lawyer’s murder.’
‘A murder you committed?’
‘Course I fuckin’ well did.’
Baskin gave a nod of acceptance at this. Not at the fact of the murder, that was always a given. But at the sheer menace in McVale’s voice. All pretence of a changed, educated and enlightened man was gone now. Normal service has been resumed, thought Harry.
‘And you didn’t grass, Jimmy. You could have got a reduced sentence, but you stayed staunch. Lot of people were impressed with that. I know Nice One was.’
‘How about you, Harry, is your nose in the trough? Just how friendly are you with Detective Inspector Jack Frost?’
Baskin considered the DI for a moment. The information Frost had given him was obviously wrong. It was unlike Frost to get something so badly wrong. ‘I throw him a bone every now and again. You know how it is, never a bad thing to cultivate a copper. I tried to get him on the firm, a thick brown envelope every week to turn a blind eye, maybe feed me information. No go. He may look like the type who would, scruffy so-and-so who doesn’t give a shit, but he wouldn’t take the money. Said if I tried it again he’d be all over me like one of the cheap suits he occasionally wears.’
‘He doesn’t know about me being here, does he?’
‘I said I throw him a bone every now and again, not the sirloin steak with all the trimmings. And if he did, he’d be here by now, wouldn’t he?’
Jimmy McVale raised his elbow and plucked back the sleeve of his navy cashmere jumper to commune with his wristwatch. The steel and gold square-faced Cartier Santos told him time was moving on, and things needed to get done now.
‘So it’s just us, Harry.’
‘And Ruby.’
‘No. She’s gone. Whatever was going to happen to her, as far as I’m concerned, it’s already happened. My mind’s made up, it’s done. It’s you and Mr Sneezy and Scratchy out there that bother me now.’
Baskin cocked an ear: he could indeed hear Bad Manners Bob sneezing, and even thought he could hear him scratching. But it was a momentary distraction, as Baskin focused back on the man opposite. The luxurious cashmere couldn’t soften him. He was granite.
‘Listen, Jimmy, you’ve got options. For the safe return of their daughter, I’m sure I could get you a deal.’
‘And your pal Jack Frost?’
‘He’s a reasonable man, we could work something out.’
‘Forget it. There’s powers that be who want me put away. Because I know the secrets. I know what was in the bank vault.’
Baskin’s eyes widened, his mouth opened, he could feel drool pooling in the gully of his bottom lip. He’d forgotten about the ‘treasure’, caught up as he was in the fate of little Ruby Hanson. A thought struck him: maybe this was a moral and ethical breakthrough for him. It wasn’t all about money. It wasn’t even all about criminal intrigue.
‘Fuck that, Jimmy! I don’t care about that. It’s the kid. You can’t kill her, and you’re not thinking straight.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that.’
‘Bit of luck I did turn up. You need to think, think fast. Your old firm …? Eddie and Tony? They didn’t have the stomach for it, and weren’t going to argue with you, right? How do you know they’re not at a service station right now, putting in an anonymous phone call to the Old Bill?’
McVale shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t grass.’
‘This goes beyond grassing, Jimmy. You’ve been away too long. Prison time’s different from the real world. They got kids, those two?’
McVale gave a slow thoughtful nod. He then got up from the chair, and did what Harry had done earlier, taking the exact same route as he paced the cottage.
Baskin chipped away at the granite. ‘Maybe … maybe I could reach out to Ruby’s father. He’s an architect, so I read. Has his own business. One thing I know about having your own business is that it costs money. Everyone has a price. We let it be known it was a mistake, how sorry we are, pay him off, whatever it takes …’
Jimmy McVale continued his figure of eights around the cottage, picking up pace.
‘… I find out what his price is and get it to him. He gets the kid back and a good few quid on top. And anyway, if it comes to the kid picking you out in a line-up, maybe she’ll get it wrong. It was dark, she was scared. Maybe she’d seen you in the paper, recognized your face, got confused – you’re a known figure. A good brief could take her story apart …’
McVale speeded up, punching his big left fist into the heel of his right hand. ‘That’s what Tony and Eddie said, but I’m the one in the dock, I’m the one they want to put away!’
‘But of course, you won’t be around, you won’t be in the dock. The kid gets delivered, you disappear. You must have your exit plan? You stashed some cash away just in case it all goes tits up … all good criminals do, right?’
McVale let out a plangent sigh. ‘The plan was to head down to Rio and see an old mate and colleague, then to Colombia, meet some new contacts. But I needed the money from the Bond Street job to make it happen.’
Harry Baskin chose his words carefully, knowing what would come next. ‘I’d like to help you out, Jimmy, honest I would.’
Jimmy McVale sat down opposite Harry, hands clasped in front of him on the table. His demeano
ur had changed. No longer the intransigent and unyielding block of cold granite, he was hunched forward, engaging, his broad smile beaming out at Baskin.
‘I like the sound of your plan. And it looks like the kid in there will be going home. But me going away is going to take money. Lots of money. I need what’s in your safe.’
‘My safe?’
‘Your safe.’
‘There’s nothing in my safe. Just the prize money for the darts … and Jocky Wilson’s gonna get most of it if he beats Keith.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Harry. You must have it too, your escape plan. You must have some readies stashed away, just in case things go pear-shaped for you, right?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Think again. Because right now I’ve got a gun aimed right at your orchestra stalls.’
Harry Baskin was so rapt at McVale’s malevolence – the pitiless slits for eyes; the whiter-than-white teeth that looked like they could bite your throat out; the malign words slipping between them – that he hadn’t noticed him unclasp his hands and move them off the table. He glanced down, trying to see over his belly, trying to see if the gun was in fact aimed at his ‘orchestra stalls’. He couldn’t see past his gut, but he didn’t need to. He heard the click of the hammer being cocked, for the second time that day, and for some reason this seemed far more painful than when the gun had been aimed at his head.
There was a creak, a whoosh, a blast of cold air.
‘I really need to get home, Harry, I’m not feeling too good—’
McVale raised the gun and shot Bad Manners Bob.
Monday (7)
‘Just thought you should know, guv.’
‘Go on, Simms,’ said Frost, trying to keep a lid on the mounting impatience in his voice. He was in the hallway of Sally Fielding’s flat, using her phone. The address book on the side table was one of those that replicated the dial of a phone. Fiddling about whilst waiting to get put through to Simms back at Eagle Lane, he’d managed to get his forefinger stuck in the DEFG hole.
‘The bloke we pulled over in the white transit van, Thomas Phelps. Well, his ID checked out, but on further inspection, two names came up with exactly the same name and date of birth.’
