by Simon Hall
‘Not a thing. Our background checks didn’t throw up any favourite places or family or friends’ houses he’d visit. We’ve checked the places Karen Reece tells us he went on outings with her and Nicola, but found nothing. Gibson didn’t seem to have any real friends. The people he knew and his neighbours haven’t been able to help us with anything. They said he kept himself to himself and didn’t really talk to them. The search of his flat gave us nothing. He doesn’t have a mobile that we know of, so we can’t trace it. If you’re interested, I’ll give you my hunch, though.’
A few replies of ‘Yes’ rose from the room.
‘I don’t think he’s gone far. I say that because of both the statistics and my feeling about the man. Experience shows us most abductors don’t take their victims far at all. And he seems to be motivated by attacking Greater Wessex Police. That’s you, me, all of us he’s having a laugh with. So I reckon he’s still in our patch, and perhaps not even that far from Plymouth.’
‘What about the references to the places up north in his letter, sir?’ she asked.
‘A team of detectives has been sent to each and they’re working with the local police,’ said Adam, pointing to one of the postcard notes. ‘But they’ve found nothing so far. There’s nothing to indicate it’s anything but a red herring, although we will still check it, of course. But that leads me on to an introduction I’ve got to make.’
Adam gestured to a man and a woman standing at the side of the room. ‘This is Eleanor Yabsley and Michael Hunter. They’ve come down from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency to help us with the letters Gibson sent. They’re code specialists. Gibson says there are clues in his letters about where Nicola is being kept, but so far we haven’t managed to find anything. Eleanor and Michael will be working specifically on that today. Give them all the help they need.’
‘Any news on last night’s media appeal, sir?’ asked a uniformed policeman at the front of the room.
‘Nothing yet,’ said Adam, ‘but I do have to check with Crimestoppers and Wessex Tonight as to whether they’ve heard anything.’
‘What about Gibson’s background?’ asked the man again. ‘Is there anything in there?’
‘You’ve all got the summary of his life?’ asked Adam. There was a rumble of ‘Yes’ from around the room. ‘You can see his reason for hating the police in there. It appears he went off the rails after his military service in Bosnia, and seemed to focus on his dog as his only friend. And, as you know, we killed the dog.’
There were a couple of murmurs and shaking of heads. ‘Whatever you may think of it, that looks like the reason,’ continued Adam. ‘And let it be a warning to you. He’s not exactly in a normal frame of mind. He’s unpredictable and I fear he could do anything – to one of us, if we corner him … and to Nicola.’
The MIR quietened again, heads nodding silently. Adam pointed to Gibson’s photo, the calm eyes staring out at them.
‘Bear in mind that he’s ex-army. He knows how to fight. Also, it’s not beyond him to be living rough somewhere with Nicola. He indicates in the letters we only have a very limited time to find her. So he wouldn’t have to keep her in comfortable conditions if he had some grand gesture in mind to end all this. What will that gesture be? And why so quickly?’
The room stayed quiet as the detectives thought about it. ‘So, as you can see,’ continued Adam. ‘We haven’t got much to go on. As ever, it’s down to us.’ Adam paused, looked round the room, eye contact for every officer.
‘Saving Nicola is down to us. So get out there and worry away at whatever leads you’re assigned to. Gibson’s taking the mickey out of us. He’s playing a game. He thinks he’s smarter than us and he’s taking the mick. We’re not going to let him. Good police work will get this guy. One of you needs to spot the tiny little detail that’ll lead us to him. And, as we all know, however careful our criminal, there’s always one there. He’s been giving us the surprises. Let’s work up a big one for him when the handcuffs click on his arms. Go find him team. Go find him and save Nicola.’
Adam stood back and watched as the officers clustered quickly around the boards to be given details of their tasks. He could sense the energy and determination. His little speech had done its work.
His mobile rang and he fumbled in his jacket. ‘Hi Dan. That’s good timing. I was about to call you. Has anything come in overnight from Gibson? What? Whiting’s done what?! Hell, I haven’t got time for this …’
Adam flung open the door. It crashed against the wall and juddered. He stalked into Whiting’s office.
‘I take it you’d like a word,’ said Whiting calmly, looking up from some papers he was reading. ‘Most people knock.’
‘Damn right I want a word. You’ve suspended Claire Reynolds.’
‘Yes, I thought I’d be seeing you fairly soon, Chief Inspector. I know she’s a favourite of yours.’
‘What I think of her is not the point,’ growled Adam, slamming the door behind him and striding right up to the desk. ‘But since you ask, she’s a very talented, dedicated and utterly reliable officer. That’s utterly reliable, Whiting.’
‘In a way that I’m not?’ he replied, still sitting, his voice deceptively soft. ‘You mean that I have a habit of victimising good officers? Is that what you mean? Is that what this is really about, Chief Inspector? Is it about the past?’
‘No, it’s not about the bloody past, but since you’ve brought it up, I have never and will never forgive you for what you did with Chris. You hounded a bloody good man out of his job. A good man and a damn good detective.’
Whiting slowly stood up to face Adam and leaned forwards across his desk. Their faces were inches apart.
‘What I did, Chief Inspector,’ he hissed slowly, ‘was to investigate a police officer for perverting the course of justice. I merely did my duty. I was called on to investigate and I did. In the course of the inquiry I discovered evidence of illegality. I then took the appropriate action. If anyone was responsible for his downfall, it was himself. I did not hound him, I simply did my duty. Can you not understand that Chief Inspector, a man in your position?’
Adam’s fist slammed into the desk, making the keyboard rattle and upsetting the pile of coins. Whiting didn’t flinch, his face set in that strange half smile.
‘Don’t give me the duty spiel, Whiting. You wouldn’t know what it means. Duty is about catching criminals. It’s about getting out there, busting a gut and risking your life trying to catch the real nasties. Not sitting in a nice warm office, sipping tea in perfect safety and calmly passing judgement on brave police officers who were simply doing their job.’
Whiting nodded slowly. ‘You really need to move on, Chief Inspector. Move on and realise there’s more to the world than the narrow tunnel of a police officer’s view.’
Adam went to snap a retort, heard footsteps in the corridor outside, controlled himself with an effort.
‘That … is the past Whiting. I don’t have time to argue with you about it. I’m trying to find a young girl and I don’t have time for this. This is about Claire. She is an utterly reliable, dedicated and loyal officer.’
‘I have my doubts I’m afraid,’ he hissed. ‘You’ve seen this morning’s news reports about the inquiry, I take it?’ He pushed the papers towards Adam.
‘I’ve heard about them.’ Adam, looked down, saw Crouch’s face staring at him. ‘What makes you think this is in any way down to Claire?’
‘I have heard about her …’ he waited to find the word, ‘… unwise associations. They make her the prime suspect. And this is something I cannot allow.’
‘She didn’t do it.’
‘What?’
For the first time that unfeeling smile faltered and the hissing voice became almost normal.
‘She didn’t do it. She didn’t leak his name.’
Whiting recovered fast, asked smoothly, ‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because, like any good cop, I have contacts. I know the pho
tographer who took the shot. He’s made trouble for us in the past. He got the picture in the time-honoured paparazzi way of staking out the police station. He knew Crouch would have to come here at some point.’
‘And you’re sure of this, are you?’
‘Quite sure.’
Whiting studied him, sat back down. ‘My decision stands,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m afraid until I have hard evidence, Claire Reynolds remains suspended pending investigation.’
The cold smile slipped back onto his face and the hiss returned to his voice. ‘As you’ll appreciate, Chief Inspector, it would take someone of much higher rank than yourself to force her reinstatement.’
‘Yes, Whiting, I thought you’d say that,’ said Adam, for once glad the man he knew hadn’t changed. ‘That’s why I had a word with the Assistant Chief Constable before I came here. He agrees with me. As there’s no evidence against her whatsoever, Claire is being reinstated. But she will not be coming back to work with you. She’s joining me on the Nicola case, where she’s needed for real police work. She’s an excellent officer and I’ll be very glad to have her.’
Adam didn’t give Whiting a chance to reply, turned, walked out and slammed the door behind him. Time to get on with the search for Nicola. That was by far more important than sparring with Whiting. He shouldn’t have let the man rile him into a row. He took his mobile from his pocket.
‘Claire? DCI Breen. I haven’t got time for a chat but you’re back with us. Not with Whiting you’ll be glad to hear. You’re joining me on the Nicola case. Get yourself back in now. I need every officer I can get.’
He listened as the voice buzzed at the other end of the phone.
‘Look, I hear you. It’s great you’ve got a lead. But Crouch is not the priority, right? Just get in here. We’ve got to find Nicola. I’ll talk to you about Crouch when we get a chance. We won’t bother Whiting with it. If it comes to something, we’ll make it a little surprise for him. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that.’
Dan kept his head below his computer monitor to avoid the prowling Lizzie and checked the emails in the Wessex Tonight inbox. There were plenty of comments on some of the stories they’d run last night, most of them favourable. There were also quite a few adverts for sex aids and naughty schoolgirls who needed discipline. Fascinating and tempting though they might be, this wasn’t the time to read them.
He typed out a quick email to the Information Technology department to mention he thought the spam filter should be improved. He wouldn’t normally have bothered, but his throbbing ankle and Claire’s call had left him in a toxic mood. It was cathartic, lancing a little of his venom on the faceless technicals behind the computer system. Dan checked the inbox twice, but there was nothing that might have come from Gibson.
He hobbled down to the post room, taking the stairs gently. Old Jack was in there and had finished sorting the mail; he greeted him cheerily with the rasping voice of the professional pipe smoker. Jack had been at Wessex Tonight since the early days of the programme in the 1960s, always in the post room although he’d now diversified into looking after the studios’ garden too.
He should have retired years ago but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving. He was a bachelor and TV was his life, however remote he was from the real action. Dan collected his letters, made an excuse about having a deadline to beat and left. If Jack got talking about the old times you could rule at least an hour out of your day.
He had an invitation to a Police Authority meeting, which he binned, and a hand-written letter asking him to be the guest speaker at a Women’s Institute lunch. He’d agreed to cover for a colleague several years ago at a similar event and now got invitations roughly every month from the various parts of the region. He did a couple a year to keep the women happy and to tick the “community relations” box on his annual appraisal. He usually got an excellent home-made cake as a thank-you gift too.
There was a press release for the launch of a fisheries project, and another to combat alien weeds – both relics from his days in the environment – but that was it. No hint of anything from Gibson. He hobbled back up to the newsroom to find Ali beckoning.
‘It’s OK,’ Dan soothed, thinking he was about to be sent to a doctor. He tried to walk without limping. ‘Really, it is. That bandage has made it a whole lot better.’
‘No, no, it’s not your stupid ankle,’ she trilled in her Scottish lilt. ‘There’s a message for you on the answer machine.’
He quickly limped over. It had never occurred to Dan that in this age of email and mobiles that Gibson could have left a message on the office answer machine. But then, why not? The newsroom wasn’t staffed between midnight and four in the morning, so he could dictate a message without having to talk to anyone. And he could withhold the number of the phone he was using.
He pressed play, heard the familiar voice. “My Dear Dan…”
Chapter Sixteen
THE CASETTE SPINDLES TURNED, pulling Gibson’s voice from the thin metallic ribbon and out to the speaker. How did he sound? thought Dan, as he stared at the cassette. Not triumphant, as he’d expected. Not gloating, not even as though he were enjoying himself. Just flat, normal, everyday. His voice was singsong in a way that made it obvious he was reading from a script.
Four of them crowded around the tape machine in the CID office. Adam stood, hands on hips, glaring at it. Eleanor sat, eyes closed as though deep in thought. Michael looked down at his notepad, scribbled the odd sentence, offered an occasional nervous smile around the room. There was silence apart from Gibson’s voice, thin and tinny from the telephone line.
“My dear Dan,
“Hello again. I trust I find you well, although rather busy, I suspect. And all for me too! I’m flattered, and I thank you. You’re helping my little plan to go exactly as I wished.
“I watched you on Wessex Tonight …”
‘Yes!’ interrupted Adam, raising a fist, then hitting the pause button. ‘That’s his first mistake and our first real clue about where he is. He’s in your broadcast area somewhere. He’s in Devon or Cornwall. I knew it. I knew he wouldn’t have gone far.’
‘How can you tell that?’ asked Dan. ‘Wessex Tonight is broadcast on the internet. You could see it anywhere in the world.’
‘That’s what I was up to yesterday evening with your technical people. I asked them not to put it on the web until this morning. But Gibson won’t have known that. So he’s given us a clue and while it’s not a big one, it’s a start.’
Adam straightened his tie, pressed play again.
“A very fine report I would say, and a touching appeal,” continued Gibson’s voice. “But I’m afraid I can’t just let Nicola go, or our dance won’t be complete. So you will have to solve the riddle I’ve set you. How can you be so clueless so soon? You’ve hardly had time to study my letters. And I expect some effort here, Dan. You managed plenty with the Death Pictures riddle, and I expect the same, at the very least. Because this time the prize is much more important, isn’t it?”
Dan felt another involuntary shudder run across his shoulders, had that twitching urge to again spin around, to see who was behind him, watching. His imagination flashed up another vivid picture of Nicola, bound and gagged, face stained with tears, cold and terrified, her time running out because he couldn’t solve the riddle. She was begging, imploring him to try harder. He blinked hard to shift it from his mind but he knew it was there, just on the periphery, waiting, ready to attack again, any time he felt he was failing her.
“Time is the key here, isn’t it?” continued Gibson’s disembodied voice. “You only have limited time, so I imagine you want to know as much as possible as quickly as you can. Very well then, as I’m a fair man I’ll oblige you with another clue. But before that, there are a couple of other things I’d like to mention.
“Firstly, Nicola is quite safe. She’s warm, well fed and comfortable. I wouldn’t say she’s happy, but she’s not panicked and she doesn’t seem particularly frightened. I
think that’s because she knows me so well, and trusts me. I’ve told her we’re playing a game, which is quite true of course, isn’t it? She’s accepted that and she’s calm. And rest assured, if you play your part, she will remain safe and be returned home to her mother. I thought her appeal very moving by the way, and a clever idea. One of yours I take it Adam? But I’m afraid I can’t let her go just yet. I have a point to make first.”
Adam let out a low growl and glared at the tape machine.
“You’ll have all my personal details by now, Dan. If you’re the man I think you are, you’ll be wondering about the contradictions in me. What can I say? Have your psychologists examined the letters and my background? Have they concluded I’m a sociopath? A psychopath? I wouldn’t blame them. It’s something I’ve wondered about myself, although I’ve never felt the need to visit a doctor to discuss it. I’m comfortable with what I’m doing. Someone needs to stand up for the little man who always gets trampled on, and this seems to me the only way. Anyway, I digress. Let me give you my explanation, for what it’s worth.
“I won’t try to do the Freud stuff, but I had a happy childhood. No one stepped on my favourite toy train when I was five. I can’t point to any eternally echoing moment like that, which made me what I am. I didn’t see my father a great deal – he was in the army as you know, and quite senior– but I was an only child and close to my mother. I did well at school. I was content.
“I think the trouble began when I came to consider a career. The problem was I simply didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t driven or sure of my direction, unlike many of my fellows. Nothing particularly appealed and it worried me. That was when my father began to bring his influence to bear.
“It started off subtly – ‘there are fine careers in the forces you know’ – that sort of thing. But the problem with being a military man is that subtlety is a concept long beaten out of you. It doesn’t exactly equate with barking out orders to shoot to kill, does it? The pressure became more overt, and so when I was working on my A levels and still without a desire for a direction, I agreed to be sponsored at University by the army. It was the easy way out of the arguments.
