by Lee Wood
“No, detective. There’s nothing. I’m not saying I’m squeaky clean but I really don’t know of anyone who would do this. Our business is long established and works on us having a good reputation. I can assure you there are no skeletons in the cupboard that I am aware of.”
“If you’re sure about that.”
“Yes, I am.”
“We have to cover all the bases. So I will need you to compile a complete list of the people you come into contact with. Other members of your family, friends and people you work with or anyone who has worked for you in the past and might have left under, shall we say, unfavourable terms. I will need a full list of anyone who comes into the house on a regular basis. I imagine with a house of this size you have a lady who comes in to help with cleaning, maybe a gardener, even a window cleaner? Is there anyone you can think of?”
“No, I’ve gone over things in my mind and I can’t think of anyone.”
“How about at work. Any ex-members of staff with a grudge?”
“We haven’t had anyone leave our company in, let me think, it must be nearly a year, other than Brenda in accounts, but she left to have a baby. Oh, and Elwin Masters. But he moved up north to be nearer to an elderly member of his family.”
“Have you had anyone in the house in the last few months, other than close family members? Things like building or repair work? Tradespeople, delivery people, cold callers or anyone you’ve seen hanging around?”
“No, not since last year. We held a party in the garden to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our company, but nothing since then.”
“How many people attended?”
“About 120.”
“That many? I don’t suppose you have a list?”
“I have a guest list somewhere on my computer. Do you think it could be one of them?”
“This has been a long time in the planning. Someone has gone to a great deal of time and trouble to arrange this. We need to check every avenue, even if it means contacting all 120 guests. We might step on a few toes as we go but I’m sure you want us to do everything we can?”
“I assume with that number of guests you had outside caterers and used other services as well? I will also need a list of those, please.”
“Yes. Yes of course. Whatever it takes.”
Tracy is in the kitchen with Diane.
“So, Mrs Mitten, it sounds like someone is trying to get back at you or your family. They didn’t mention money. That’s unusual. This sounds more about revenge. Let me be frank. I’ve been a police officer for a long time. I’m not here to judge anyone. Everyone has secrets. It is human nature and not something to be ashamed of. Given the current situation, you need to tell me if there is anything. No matter how insignificant you think it is. I’ve seen it many times. A small detail that is overlooked then becomes the key to everything. Do you have any idea who might be involved?”
“We don’t associate with the types of people who would do this, as far as I am aware. No disrespect but we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. We’re not really social people. The occasional party but that’s about it.”
“Diane, I really need to press home to you the importance of this. Do you know of anyone who would be involved in this? I have to ask you about your marriage. Is everything alright in your relationship?”
“Yes it’s fine. And as far as secrets are concerned, I’m just an ordinary housewife. I don’t have any secrets and I’m not having an affair. My family is everything to me. If I had the slightest idea of anyone, of course I would tell you.”
Tracy is a good detective who can tell when people are lying and she is not entirely convinced what she is hearing is the whole truth.
Why would someone hold something back when their daughters’ lives are at stake?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Until the kidnapping, Diane Mitten couldn’t have been happier. She had the perfect life, almost. She is married to a wonderful man who loves her and he is in the enviable position of being able to provide for his family extremely well.
Their home is exquisite, a stunning detached house with the gardens well-kept by a gardener/handyman who comes in three days a week. She has three wonderful children who each have a bright future in front of them.
Her twin daughters are stunningly beautiful and have brains as well. They could have the pick of any man they want. Yes, life is perfect, except for two small things. First, her twenty-five-year-old son Gordon has moved out of family home after a row with his father.
She had high hopes he would come back after a few days but it had been nearly a year now and she didn’t know where he was, although they kept in touch via text and the occasional phone call.
Then out of the blue, three months ago he got in contact and asked for money. Since then she had been sending regular amounts to him every two weeks. So far, she has paid him over £8,000. Her husband knows nothing about this arrangement.
She is sure that one day Gordon will ‘get over things’ and come back to follow his father into the family business. Then everything will be perfect again. However, at the moment, she’s a little concerned about what Gordon’s been getting himself into.
He is always short of money and hard work doesn’t seem to agree with him. But surely… No, she doesn’t even want to go there.
Her other secret goes far deeper. Long before she met Francis she got in with a bad crowd, met a boy and fell deeply in love, or so she had thought at the time. Then she found out she was pregnant. Diane was only fourteen. She gave birth to a son on her fifteenth birthday and called him David. He was taken away for adoption five days later. She never knew what happened to him.
As soon as the boy’s father, Tommy Pearce knew she was pregnant he disappeared.
She never saw Tommy again and later heard he was killed in a motorbike accident.
But she never told anyone about the baby. He would be thirty-six. Every year on her birthday she thinks about him. His adopted family would probably have changed his name but to her, he would always be David.
Now, all these years later, she does not want to tell her husband. How could she explain to him that she had been hiding this secret for their entire married life? No, it has to remain a secret. Just like the money she has been sending to Gordon.
But right now, despite everything, Diane needs her son to come home. She picks up her mobile and rings his number. He answers on the fifth ring.
“Hi Mum, how…”
“Oh Gordon, something terrible has happened. Your sisters have been kidnapped, someone called and he says he going to kill one of them and…
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. What are you on about?”
Diane explains what has been happening.
“Please don’t upset yourself, Mum. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’m sure everything will be fine. We’ll figure this out and they will come home safe and sound. I promise.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Francis Mitten hasn’t had to go through the struggles most small business owners have to. His father had been very astute and every time the business moved he kept the old premises.
The two-acre site where the business is located in Barford is owned outright. Albert still owns some shares and they all take a good salary but nothing they cannot afford.
It means the company had a solid property portfolio and doesn’t have to pay rent. Albert Mitten had started the business in 1968 when property was cheap to buy but he’d seen many of his competitors run into problems over the years as rents and overheads had increased.
Francis had the advantage of attending the top private schools and then going on to Cambridge University.
Albert Mitten was a dedicated family man who loved his wife Beatrice and treated his son in a fair but firm way as he had been treated. Francis’s time at university opened his eyes to a lot of things. One of them being beautiful women. There seemed to be an endless supply and many were happy to let him jump into their bed for a night or two.
Upon
his return to Trentbridge and the family home at the age of twenty-one, he met and fell in love with Diane Hammond who was a year older than him. He was drawn to her maturity as well as her beauty and within a year he had proposed and they were married.
As a wedding present, Albert Mitten bought Francis and his new wife a beautiful detached house on the edge of Barford. It is still the family home.
Within two months, Diane was pregnant with their son, born on Tuesday the fourteenth January 1992 and the couple decided on the name Gordon after Diane’s father.
By accident, eight years later, Diane found she was pregnant and gave birth to identical twin girls who inherited their mother’s stunning beauty. Everyone thought they were adorable. With their blonde hair and blue eyes, they became the centre of attention for both their parents and their grandparents.
There were days when the nine-year-old Gordon wondered if he belonged to the same family. He looked on as everyone cooed about the newborn twins. It wasn’t their fault of course; they were just babies, but why wasn’t he the centre of attention anymore?
As the children were growing up, Diane, who had been working part-time in the business when Gordon was in school became a stay-at-home mother. She certainly had her hands full with twins.
After Gordon quit and moved out, things changed.
The closeness Francis and Diane had kept over the years faded a little. Their regular lovemaking sessions dwindled and it just seemed to Francis that some of the hot passion his wife had previously displayed towards him was no longer there.
In the summer of 2018, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the business, Francis arranged a party and invited their family and friends as well as many of the business associates and various suppliers they had worked with over the years.
Although the house was big enough to accommodate any occasion for the family and a few friends, it wasn't able to cope with over 120 people so a local company came in and erected a marquee in the garden to the rear of the house to cope with all the guests.
One of the people who joined the celebrations was forty-eight-year-old Harry Richardson, a local property developer who had helped Albert and Francis to develop and build the site in Barford. He brought along his wife Natalie, a slim blonde who looked much younger than her forty-five years, and their two sons, Barney aged twenty and eighteen-year-old Simon.
It didn’t take long before the two boys were drooling over Erica and Leona. However, they had a lot of competition. Barney tried everything he could to win over Erica but when it became clear she was not interested, he started to call her names at which point she pushed him into the outdoor swimming pool in front of some of his friends.
He left the party very wet and feeling humiliated while threatening he would get even with her “if it’s the last thing I do.”
His father Harry hadn’t seen the altercation and was deep in conversation with Albert Mitten, who despite his more mature age, shared Harry’s passion for golf.
Inside the house, Francis was chatting to Harry's wife Natalie and found they shared a love of tennis. She mentioned the Grantchester tennis club, a place Francis had been trying to join for several months, without success.
A week after the party, Francis received a call. One of the regular members who Natalie played a weekly tennis game with had to drop out at short notice due to an ongoing knee injury and she wondered if he was available?
After a successful game, in which he paired up with Natalie and they won their doubles sets Francis was asked if he would like to play again the following week.
Then Natalie’s original partner found out the injury was more serious than at first thought and would be unable to play for at least two months. So Francis stepped in on a weekly basis.
A month later, the couple decided to meet up for a coffee and ended up sharing a room for the afternoon at the Weathervane Hotel. From there it became a regular occurrence whereby the couple would drive off in different directions from the tennis club and park in separate places and meet up in the hotel room Francis had booked.
Natalie was a more experienced lover than his wife and Francis became fascinated with her. The passion that had been missing from his marriage for the past couple of years he found in his liaison with Natalie.
As long as they kept their meetings to once a week and Natalie was home before her husband, she and Francis could continue the affair and no-one would be the wiser. After all, it was only about the sex. It wasn’t love and there was no talk of breaking up their respective marriages. As long as it continued to be fun and exciting, neither wished to stop.
Francis knew whatever the outcome of the kidnapping, he would still be married to Diane. So there was no need to reveal any of this to the police. It couldn’t possibly be relevant.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eight o’clock on Friday morning is the end of Daniel’s twelve-hour shift.
He’s been stuck at the removal company premises keeping an eye on things all through the night but nothing happened. Someone eventually turned up to take over.
Every so often he’s been checking via his phone connected to the camcorder, to see what has been going on at the old car showroom. So far everything is quiet.
Now he has a plan to rescue the girls. He is imagining how grateful they will be when he frees them from the kidnappers. But he doesn’t have much time.
He thought of his friend… well, more of an associate, Lagan, with his connections to certain people that normally Daniel wouldn’t want anything to do with.
When Daniel first arrived in Trentbridge, Lagan offered him work but not the sort he was interested in. But he could use his help again now. He never expected to speak with him again but Daniel knew Lagan could help.
“Hello Lagan. It’s Daniel. Daniel Zugravescu.”
There is a slight pause as if he doesn’t recognise the name.
“Oh yes, I remember you, my friend. How did it go with the girls? Did you meet them at The Alley Club?
“That’s not why I’m calling. I need to buy something.”
“Sure. Cocaine? Crack? Ecstasy?”
“No. No. Not drugs. I need to buy a gun.”
“And what makes you think I can help?”
“You know those sorts of people, right?”
“Is this a trap?”
“No. You have my word.”
“Look, I’m not sure on this. I’ll make to make a couple of calls.”
For the next hour, Daniel is pacing up and down, waiting for the return call. Suddenly his phone rings.
“Have you got two grand to spare?”
“What? That much?”
“If you want what you said. And pay me a ten per cent finder’s fee.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“And you’ll need to go to Bristol to collect it.”
“How far is that?”
“About three hours.”
“I need it fast.”
“That’s the best I can do. Take it or leave it.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take it. What do I need to do?”
“Bring the fee over to my place and I’ll give you the details.”
The car Daniel hired to visit the airport is due back this morning. He calls Perry’s car rental and pays to extend the hire for another twenty-four hours.
If he left now he could be in Bristol around lunchtime and then hopefully back by about 5 or 6pm.
He goes to his bank and draws out £2,500 in cash. He figures it might be wise to have some spare, just in case.
It is 10.30 when he sets off from Lagan’s apartment, following the route on his phone satnav down to Bristol.
The instructions Lagan gave him said to drive to a place called Loxton Square and call the mobile number Lagan texted to his phone.
At 1.45pm Daniel parks up on the square and calls the number. It goes to voicemail.
“Leave a message and I’ll return your call. Maybe.”
Daniel is starting to panic.
His phone rings.
The voice on the other end is deep. “Yeah.”
“My name is Daniel. I’m on Loxton Square as arranged.”
“Car?”
“A Kia Proceed, dark red.”
“Reg?”
“What?”
“The registration number of the car.”
Daniel gets out of the car and checks. “ZE19 FFE.”
“Okay. Wait where you are I’ll be in touch.”
Before Daniel can explain he is in a hurry, the call ends.
An hour later he is still waiting. He wants to call the number but it won’t do any good.
Another hour passes and he is about to pick up his phone to call when it buzzes.
“Hello.”
“You got the money?”
“Yes, yes, I have.”
The phone goes dead.
Suddenly a man jumps into the passenger seat.
“Hi, bruv.”
“Hello.” Daniel gasps.
“Drive.”
Daniel starts the engine.
“Drive round the corner. There’s a post office. You park outside. You go to the counter and say to the guy. I’ve come for the package my friend John left for me. Then you hand over the cash. He’ll give you a key. You go over to the opposite side of the shop to the mailboxes and find box 101. Your item will be in there. Leave the key in the lock. Got all that, bruv?”
“Yes, yes, I think so.”
“Good, ’cause I don’t go repeating it.”
Daniel pulls up next to the post office.
Daniel’s new friend gets out of the car and walks away without a word. Daniel gets out and locks it. The neighbourhood looks rough.
Daniel's inside jacket pocket contains the cash. He grips it closely to his body and walks into the post office and stands in the queue. There are two people in front of him. The first person finishes quickly. The second, an elderly lady, wants to buy a postal order. After the man behind the counter tells her the price, she takes a lot of time rooting around in her bag to find the money.
