Baby Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  By the following morning they’d had two breakthroughs that would help seal the fate of Jimmy Bond. The mobile number had been traced to a pay-as-you-go handset registered in his name some months previously, and the two PCs sent back to do a more thorough search of his house had come across the computer game Urban Warrior, which included a character called Zion. Alongside it were numerous CSI DVDs, among them one that featured a kidnapping for ransom. It was circumstantial evidence and by no means conclusive, but it was a start, and Mariner had one more trick up his sleeve for Jimmy Bond.

  Inside the interview room Mariner put two tapes into the machine and set the scene.

  ‘Where is she?’ Mariner demanded.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ After his overnight stay, Bond was looking less relaxed, and fear was making him belligerent and defensive.

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Mariner. ‘It’s in all the papers. Only we think you know more than they’re reporting. What have you been up to the last few days, apart from shagging your receptionist?’

  ‘All sorts of things, I’m a busy man.’

  Mariner had the phone log in front of him. ‘Let me refresh your memory. Yesterday morning at eleven fifteen you made a phone call to this station, demanding money in exchange for the safe return of Jessica.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand euros to be precise.’

  ‘What are you on about? Two hundred and fifty thousand euros. You’re yanking my chain.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mariner allowing himself a brief smile of satisfaction. ‘The call was traced to a mobile that’s registered to you.’ Mariner recited the number. ‘Recognise it?’

  ‘I lost that phone ages ago.’ Bond was dismissive.

  ‘When exactly?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Couple of months or so.’

  The bad news for Mariner was that the phone hadn’t yet been found. The probability was that Bond had ditched it. But Mariner didn’t really care, because in the last minute or so Jimmy Bond had as good as sentenced himself. The tape machine gave off a high-pitched whine and clunked loudly. His brow furrowing, Mariner reached out, removed one of the tapes and examined it. ‘Faulty tape,’ he concluded. ‘I’ll get a replacement. And we’ll take a break for a while.’

  ‘But you’ve only just—’ Bond’s solicitor started to protest.

  ‘I’m a busy man too,’ said Mariner. Informing the remaining tape of what was going on he suspended the interview and stepped outside, where Tony Knox was waiting with a second tape. Mariner exchanged it for the ‘broken’ one. ‘Get this to the forensic service,’ he told Knox. ‘And let me know as soon as we have some results.’

  Later that morning Mariner was able to return to the interview room armed with two sheets of A4. Switching on the tape, he slapped the two computer printouts on the table in front of Jimmy Bond. The rows of coloured, jagged lines were, to the naked eye, identical. ‘Know what these are, Jimmy?’ he asked pleasantly, not expecting a reply. ‘They’re voice analysis printouts. We’ve got a man in our lab who’s an expert in voice prints.’ He indicated the sheet on the right. ‘This one is what your voice looks like. It’s the sample taken from the recording we made in here this morning. Pretty isn’t it?’ said Mariner. ‘Here, for instance, is what your voice looks like when you say the words two hundred and fifty thousand. It’s different from the way anyone else’s voice looks when it says those words. You might say it’s unique. And yet here,’ he tapped the left-hand page, ‘are the words two hundred and fifty thousand as spoken by Zion, the person who made the ransom demand in exchange for the safe return of baby Jessica. Can you spot any differences? No, you can’t because they’re exactly the same, and they prove that you made those calls. And the best part is, they’re admissible in court. Jimmy Bond, I’m charging you with the abduction of Jessica Klinnemann, and if you want to make it easy on yourself you’d better start off by telling us where she—’

  ‘No, no!’ Bond cut in, his face pure panic now. ‘I admit. I did make the phone call. But I haven’t got the baby. I swear. That’s nothing to do with me. I just saw an . . . opportunity.’

  ‘Opportunity?’ Anger boiled up inside Mariner.

  Bond shrugged, as if it was the kind of decision he made every day. ‘I needed the money. And no one else was asking for it. I thought I might as well.’

  ‘You stupid, self-serving bastard.’ It took all of Mariner’s willpower to stop himself from lunging at Bond and squeezing the life out of him. ‘Do you know what you’ve done, wasting valuable time when we could have been out looking for that baby? If anything happens to her you’ll have to live with it being your fault.’ Mariner wanted to smash Bond’s gormless face against the wall. Instead he just pushed back his chair, with such force that it toppled with a crash, and walked out.

  ‘What do you want us to do with him?’ The duty sergeant asked.

  ‘Charge him with wasting police time. He hasn’t got Jessica. He hasn’t got the balls or the brains for it.’ Mariner hesitated. ‘It’ll be a CPS decision, but with a bit of luck we can have him for perverting the course of justice, and he’ll end up with a custodial sentence.’

  Mariner told Knox what had happened.

  ‘Did you have to drop Christie in it?’ he asked.

  Mariner shook his head. ‘No need. The voiceprint gave us a way in and he confessed to making the calls. We’re charging him but we’ll have to let him go for now. You might want to let Christie know.’

  ‘I already have. But I’ll have a little chat with Bond before he leaves us.’

  Bond was in custody signing for his belongings when Knox caught up with him.

  ‘I’ll see Mr Bond out,’ he told the duty sergeant.

  Following at a discreet distance Knox waited until Bond was almost at the exit door before darting past him and blocking the way. Stepping forward he put his face up so close to Bond’s that he could feel his breath. ‘I know about you,’ he said. ‘And I know what you do to your girlfriend. If she’s got any sense she’ll have gone by the time you get back, but if I find out that you’ve so much as touched her again, your life won’t be worth living.’

  * * *

  With Bond out of the frame the enquiry had ground once again to a halt. It had been three days now. Three days for the abductor to get Jessica far away. Three days for another adult to form a relationship with the child. Every day lessened the chances of finding her safe.

  Mariner had to keep Emma O’Brien and Peter Klinnemann up to speed with the latest developments. When he got to the hotel, there was a young woman with them.

  ‘This is my daughter, Lisbet,’ said Klinnemann.

  With white blonde hair and eyes the colour of cornflowers, Lisbet Klinnemann had a model’s good looks and spoke with the kind of precise diction that could only be bought with an expensive private education. ‘You have some news?’

  ‘Not the best, I’m afraid,’ said Mariner. ‘We’ll be charging a man with wasting police time. He made the ransom demands but we’ve no reason to think that he’s connected to the abduction. He just saw it as a money-making opportunity.’

  Emma O’Brien was disgusted. ‘That’s sick,’ she said. She was pale and shaking.

  ‘Yes, it is. I’m sorry. It goes without saying that we’re continuing to follow up other leads, and if we get anything new . . .’ He left it at that.

  Lisbet Klinnemann walked Mariner out. ‘Dad asked me to bring this,’ she passed him an envelope. When Mariner looked inside he found several fine blonde hairs. ‘I hope you don’t need it.’

  ‘So do I.’ He didn’t like to say that the chances were becoming greater by the hour. ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’ he asked her.

  She smiled. ‘No. She’d be annoyed. But what am I supposed to do? Don’t misunderstand me, I’m mad about what Dad has done to us, to Mum and to our family, but he’s still my dad, and right now he needs some support. I know he’d do the same fo
r any of us if we needed it. He’s done something foolish but that doesn’t make him a bad man. And it’s not entirely his fault.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The last few years Mum has put him under incredible pressure about his job.’

  ‘Concerned for his and your safety, I suppose.’

  ‘As if Dad didn’t care?’ she said. ‘Dad knew — has known for years — that there’s always a risk from animal rights fanatics, but his is important work and it would be ethically wrong to give in to these people. Mum just doesn’t get it.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for you.’

  ‘The atmosphere in the house was sometimes awful. By the time Emma came along, Mum and Dad were virtually leading separate lives anyway. But it was still a shock when it all happened. And Jessica — I mean, it was bad enough to find out that Dad was seeing someone else, but a baby makes everything so much more explicit, don’t you think?’

  ‘It must have been a tough time,’ said Mariner. ‘I understand your mother didn’t take the separation very well.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve been checking up on her.’

  ‘We talked to colleagues in the area.’

  ‘Mum was devastated. Who wouldn’t be? She hadn’t a clue what was going on until Dad blurted out that Emma was pregnant and he was the father.’

  ‘You knew Emma?’

  ‘She was one of his research assistants. We’d met her once or twice, but none of us had a clue. Mum reacted badly, that’s all. She was angry.’

  ‘How does she feel now?’

  ‘You mean, would she do something like this? Of course not. She’s a mother too. She knows how cruel it would be.’

  ‘Even to Emma?’

  ‘Even to Emma.’

  ‘How do you get on with your . . .?’

  ‘My father’s bit on the side?’ Her smile was wry. ‘I have to work hard at being civil towards her, if you must know. But it’s not entirely her fault either, is it? It was hardly an immaculate conception.’

  ‘And what about your brother?’

  ‘Paul’s taken it much harder than me. He really wanted to kill Dad. It’s exacerbated his problems.’

  ‘His drug problems?’

  ‘Oh, you know about that. Paul had been getting clean but he went back to heroin when it all happened.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘He has it under control again.’ She said it with absolute confidence.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago. He was home for the vacation. He’s doing well.’

  ‘Does he still want to kill your father?’

  ‘Metaphorically, maybe. He sees what effect it’s had on Mum on a daily basis. He has to live with her.’

  ‘And do you know where Paul is now?’

  ‘No, he’s not answering his phone. But that isn’t unusual,’ she added hastily. ‘Paul’s what you might call a free spirit. It’s my guess that he knows nothing about all this.’

  Mariner wasn’t so sure and the conversation prompted him to phone Ruth Tunstall in Cambridge as soon as he got back to the station. ‘Has Paul Klinnemann turned up yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘His sister describes him as a free spirit.’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Tunstall. ‘I’ve had officers speaking to his close friends — the ones we can track down — but no one seems to have seen him since last Thursday evening.’ The day before Jessica went missing.

  ‘How about the animal rights sympathisers?’

  ‘We’ve done a series of raids, but of the likely contenders we’ve picked up, so far they all either have sound alibis or can be placed away from the scene at the time of Jessica’s abduction,’ she told him. ‘However, three of our repeat offenders are unaccounted for, two men and a woman. Again, they haven’t been seen since the end of the week. We’re trying to establish their whereabouts. I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything.’

  ‘Could you send us through their mugshots that we can run by our witnesses?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘I’ll fax them through.’ Finally they might have the glimmer of a lead.

  Mariner took this news with him back to the incident room, where there was a message waiting for him from Stuart Croghan.

  ‘News regarding the infant remains,’ said Croghan. ‘It’s a male, two to four weeks old. I’d say he died from a non-accidental injury. The skull appears to have been crushed, as if he was dropped from a height or banged against a hard surface.’ The thought made Mariner feel sick. So now they had an infanticide on their hands too. ‘Oh, and something else that might help with identification; the baby had a cleft palate.’

  ‘How long had the body been there?’

  ‘It’s hard to be precise, but my first guess was pretty close to the mark. The entomology and decay would indicate anything from nine to about fourteen months.’

  So it was old news, but Mariner passed it to the press office, regardless. In the furore stirred up by the abduction the discovery of the remains would be reported and they needed to hear from anyone who may have seen anything suspicious at around that time, or from anyone who knew of a four-week-old baby who’d disappeared between September and December last year. Chances were the mother would turn out to be some teenage kid who’d gone through it all on her own.

  * * *

  In the early hours of the following morning Mariner gathered everyone together for a further briefing. The investigation was beginning to lose momentum and that was the last thing that he wanted. Scanning his co-workers’ faces he saw exhaustion written all over them but somehow he had to find it within himself to fire up their enthusiasm and confidence. ‘We need to make another appeal, but this time, if we can persuade her, I’d like Emma O’Brien to make a statement. Do you think she’s up to it?’

  His question was directed at Millie, who nodded thoughtfully. ‘She’s pretty fragile but she’ll pull herself together if it means getting Jessica back.’

  ‘We’re back to not knowing why Jessica’s been taken, but the animal rights angle is looking stronger. Cambridge police have three possible suspects who have gone AWOL, along with Paul Klinnemann. They’re faxing through photographs. Tony, we’ll need to get Christie to have a look.’

  There was a knock on the door. It was PC Mann, who was grinning like an idiot.

  ‘I’m really not in the mood for jokes,’ said Mariner.

  ‘You’ll like this one, sir,’ Mann said, with confidence. ‘There’s a guy from Lincolnshire police on the phone. A local vicar contacted them twenty minutes ago. He’s got baby Jessica, alive and well.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘What?’ The word echoed around the room, a perfectly synchronised chorus.

  ‘Apparently the vicar got a phone call a couple of hours ago to say that he should go and look in the church porch. He did as suggested and there she was. The description of her clothes, the car seat and everything matches and the vicar’s confirmed that she’s got a small port wine stain in the nape of her neck, just under the hairline. They’re saying she looks clean and well-cared-for. They’re faxing over a picture.’

  By the time the printout chugged through painfully slowly, to reveal a digital photograph of a bemused looking baby, everyone in the room had gathered around the fax machine, as if worshipping some strange electronic god. Mariner snatched the sheet the instant it stopped printing. It certainly looked pretty similar to the photograph of Jessica they’d been circulating. There were yelps of delight around the room which Mariner quashed immediately. ‘Let’s stay calm, folks, until we know this is really it. Don’t get carried away. Millie, call Ms O’Brien and Mr Klinnemann. Tell them we’ll pick them up in fifteen minutes to drive them over there. Say a baby has been found who may be Jessica. And remind the Lincolnshire plods to preserve the drop-off point as a crime scene. We’ll want to give it a going over.’

  Mariner had experienced tension many times before but rarely as thickly as that i
nside the car as they travelled the miles to Stamford. Emma O’Brien and Peter Klinnemann sat in the back seat, their hands gripped tightly between them, Emma intermittently tearful.

  ‘Do you have any connection with Stamford?’ Mariner asked as they drove.

  ‘None,’ said Peter Klinnemann.

  ‘Does your son drive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he has his own car?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t understand. What are you implying?’

  But now wasn’t the time and Mariner let it rest. He couldn’t help but think about the proximity of Stamford to Cambridge, though Klinnemann wouldn’t like that. If the baby had been snatched by someone with a connection in that area, the route back was via the A1 and A14, Cambridge, Birmingham and Stamford forming their own Bermuda triangle into which baby Jessica had temporarily vanished.

  It was an emotional reunion at the local police station where a crowd of local and national reporters and TV crews had gathered. Baby Jessica slept throughout, but there was no doubt from the reaction of her parents that this was their baby girl. Lifting her from the car seat, Emma O’Brien squeezed her so tight that Mariner thought she’d crush the child. The surge of relief, coupled with sheer exhaustion, brought him to the brink of tears himself. He wandered away to try and keep a manly lid on his emotions. It was such a change to have a happy ending. Peter Klinnemann and Emma O’Brien were full of gratitude, even though this outcome had very little to do with him. They’d been incredibly lucky, that was all. Either the abductor or someone close to her had been seized by conscience, or the purpose — to scare the living daylights out of Peter Klinnemann — had been served. They would still need to pursue it to find out who had instigated the abduction.

  ‘There was a note, sir.’ The officer passed Mariner the crumpled paper in the plastic sheath of an evidence bag. Take this as a warning, it said. But a warning for whom?