by Tim Roux
And she does.
* * *
We stayed over at the Menzies Mickleover Court, and gave ourselves two-and-a-half hours to get to Hull for our eleven o’clock appointment with the Chief Constable. We parked in Princes Quay and I had enough time to quickly show Chrissie where Brenda Starbright’s office, Queen Victoria and the massive BBC screen were, before heading across to the Police Station in Queen’s Gardens. We were immediately ushered in to meet the Chief Constable who was indeed with DI Martin, as I had predicted.
What I hadn’t anticipated was how short both men would be and, indeed, how short Harry Walker must have been too. As Harry Walker, I had faced DI Martin eye-to-eye. As myself, I towered over him. Both men greeted us with generous civility and an air of anticipation.
“Please sit down, Mrs. McGuire, Mr. McGuire. Can we offer you some coffee or some tea?”
We were all four perched in rounded back chairs clustered around a coffee table.
“I understand that you have some concerns you would like to raise with us about one of our local residents.”
“That is correct,” I replied.
“Please carry on, Mr. McGuire.”
“A week ago, I received an extremely abusive phone call from a man who called himself Trevor Plant.”
The Chief Constable raised his eyebrows, and DI Martin shuffled in his chair and chuckled slightly. “We are well acquainted with Mr. Plant,” he replied. “Aren’t we, Richard?”
“We sure are.”
“Nor is it any surprise that he should be abusive. In fact, it would be something of a surprise if he were anything else.”
“I am relieved that you know him,” I continued. “He was very frightening. He basically said that he was going to do us great harm as a family.”
“That is interesting, Mr. McGuire. Do you have any idea why he should want to harm your family?”
“None whatsoever. He must have picked our name initially out of the phone book, or something. What he did say was that it was he who was responsible for hanging that man outside my wife’s office in London. You may have seen it on the news.”
“Harry Walker,” they declared in unison.
“Yes, that was his name,” Chrissie confirmed, “according to news reports, anyway. I had to do a lot of explaining to my senior partner in respect of that incident even though I had no explanation whatsoever. It was a totally freak, random event as far as I could tell.”
I was impressed by how fluently Chrissie could lie. I had never had the chance to observe her doing that before.
“And what do you do for a living, Mrs. McGuire?”
“I am a lawyer – a partner in a London solicitors’ firm specialising in maritime law.”
“Interesting.” The Chief Constable was considering something. “I suppose that you get involved in cases of marine fraud.”
“Yes, I do. Not that frequently personally, but I do.”
The Chief Constable turned to DI Martin. “But even that doesn’t really sound like Plant’s line of business, does it?”
“He could well be responsible for fencing the proceeds, if the fraud related to missing cargo.”
“Yes, Richard, you are right. Have you been involved in a case where a ship lost some cargo in Hull, on the off-chance, Mrs. McGuire?”
“I cannot remember anything like that. I have been involved in a couple of cases which related to incidents in the Port of Hull for sure. One was a dispute over ownership, and one was where some illegal immigrants were smuggled into Hull on board a ship carrying wheat.”
“Now that could be Plant,” declared DI Martin. “People trafficking – right down Plant’s street.”
“Were the immigrants caught?”
“Yes, that is why we were involved. The ship was being prosecuted for carrying refugees and allowing them to enter the country illegally. We were representing the ship owners.”
“Still,” said the Chief Constable, “there is no immediately obvious connection between that case and Mr. Plant, although I could fully understand if he were involved.”
“No,” Chrissie replied. “I cannot see any conceivable link either. We are both at a total loss. The man just simply seems to be off his head and he has decided, for I don’t know what reason, to pick us out and to torment us. I suppose sooner or later he is going to demand money. But still, why us? We have some money, but there are a lot of people richer than us.” Chrissie reached into her handbag, and withdrew the doctored photos. She placed two each in front of the Chief Constable and DI Martin. “As soon as we were threatened, we hired a private detective to watch the area around the school, although we have actually kept the children back at home until today. The private investigator noticed two people loitering suspiciously around the school. Do these people mean anything to you?”
DI Martin was almost bouncing up and down in his chair. “Nobby Bridgnorth and Archie Windballs. They are part of Plant’s Inbie gang all right.”
“So Plant is as good as his word,” commented the Chief Constable. “They must be planning a kidnap. Very strange, though. Plant never struck me as a player on the national stage. I had assumed that his theatre of operations was exclusively local, not stretching much beyond Leeds. You must have accidentally really got his goat over something.”
“So these two people are definitely associated with Trevor Plant, are they?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” replied DI Martin, “no doubt about it. What we can do about it, though, is a different matter. Being seen walking near a school, even two hundred miles away from where you live, is not exactly a criminal offence, but at least it confirms what we are dealing with.”
“We need to set up a project liaison with the Met on this one,” the Chief Constable stated decisively, “without delay. Can you handle that for me, Richard?”
“No problems, Boss. I will get straight onto them.”
“Firstly, Mr. and Mrs. McGuire, we are extremely sorry that you have been troubled in this way by one of our less law abiding citizens. It must be causing you immense distress. Secondly, we will do whatever we can to help you, in co-ordination with the Met. Thirdly, though, we cannot act directly against Mr. Plant and his associates at this minute because we lack sufficient evidence to make any kind of arrest. Any case has to be absolutely watertight against the likes of Mr. Plant. We recently arrested him and several members of his gang for a clear case of kidnapping, but we had to release him again because we could not absolutely prove that he was involved in the incident, even though we discovered the boy bound and drugged in his own house. You may have seen the case on the news, about a Leeds boy who was kidnapped.”
We confirmed that we had seen something about it.
“Thank you so much for coming directly to us,” the Chief Constable continued. “I think that your next step should be to contact the Metropolitan Police and to see what they can do for you, unless you have already done so.”
“Actually,” I corrected him, “Chrissie works in London, but we live in Wokingham.”
“My apologies. In that case, we need to liaise with the Berkshire police. Wokingham is in Berkshire, isn’t it? Good. Change of plan, Richard, please liaise with the Berkshire Police instead.”
“Will do, Boss.”
We emerged into Queen’s Gardens feeling a sense of elation that our plan was working. Two months ago, we could not have dreamt that we would ever need such a plan, but now everything seemed normal and as it should be. I had attended a hypnotherapy session. I had woken up to find myself to be Harry Walker. I had committed unconsciable acts as Harry Walker. Harry Walker had been gruesomely tortured and murdered, and then his killer had come after us at our home in Wokingham. Objectively, this sequence of events was patently absurd, but experientially it was increasingly mundane, a pressing problem to be solved.
We were just turning the corner into George Street, when we almost bumped into Planty himself, accompanied by Nobby and the thuggish guy who had tormented Tommy in the market place.
I was holding Chrissie’s hand, and I forced her to a stop.
“What is it?” she asked instinctively.
Planty glanced across at us.
“I think I must have left my keys in the car.” I willed Chrissie not to question this. Planty looked away and carried on talking to Nobby and his pal. Chrissie and I kept walking. We turned towards the big screen. “Phew,” I said. “That was close.”
“What was all that about?”
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that they were not following us. “That was Planty and two of his mates,” I said.
“It was?”
“It was.”
“Do you think he knows what we look like?”
“He might well.”
Chrissie jerked forward. “I think we had better get out of here. Fast!”
On the road out of Hull we debated whether we should contact Fran and/or Mike. We were passing the Humber Crown Hotel. “Let’s call them,” I said. “We have an apology to make.”
Fran answered.
“Fran, this is Keith McGuire. Are you free?”
“Yes, why?”
“Could you get a taxi to the Humber Crown Hotel? We’ll pay the fare.”
“When?”
“Immediately.”
“Should I bring Mike or Kathy?”
“No, come now and alone, please.”
“I’ll be about thirty minutes. Is Chrissie with you?”
“Yes.”
“Thirty minutes, then.”
We go back to the car. We are not going to get trapped in the hotel. If Fran brings Planty and his gang with her, we want to be in a position to make a high-speed getaway. I don’t think Fran would betray us. Chrissie is not sure. We agree to play it safe.
Fran arrives alone. We wait a minute or so to see if another car pulls in behind her, by which time she has paid the taxi off. It leaves.
“Fran!” I call.
“Keith?”
“You know Chrissie.”
“Hello, Chrissie.”
“We are sorry about last night.”
Fran smiles. “No need to apologise. I have done some ducking and diving many times with Harry in my life, I can tell you. I know the feeling.”
We go into the bar area.
“Will you have lunch?” I offer.
“That would be nice. Thanks.”
We explain our meeting with the Chief Constable and DI Martin, which is the main point of catching up with Fran. With a bit of luck, she will tell Mike, Mike will tell Fingers, and Fingers will tell Planty, unless Fran contacts Planty directly, that is.
“It’s unsettling to see you looking like this, Keith,” Fran confesses. “It is as if I know you and yet I have never met you in my life before.”
“In a strange way, I feel the same. Obviously you look the same, but everything else is completely different. How is Tommy, by the way?”
“Oh, he is fine, but he is desperate to see you. He really was disappointed about last night, although I did warn him that you might not be coming. He really wants to see you. He has been very badly hit by Harry’s death, and of course by all the trauma I went through around that time. It cannot be easy for a seven year old boy to lose his dad and then to watch his mum go off her head for a while.”
“You must come down and visit us when all this is over,” suggests Chrissie.
“We would love to. Thanks. When will it all be over?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “At the moment, we cannot imagine it ever being over. How do we stop him? He is a lunatic.”
“’e certainly is that,” a voice confirms from behind us. Chrissie and I turn round sharply. Planty is standing there with Nobby and the thug. Planty lays a settling hand on my shoulder. “No need to stand up. We’ll join yer, if we may.” Nobby and the thug pull over a chair each, leaving Planty the one that was already in place. We shuffle our chairs to make space.
Planty leans forward. “Nice to meet yer, Chrissie. Trevor Plant.” He gestures towards the others. “My friends Nobby and Sylvester.”
“Hullo,” they say.
“So what are yer two doing up ‘ere? I suddenly realised who yer were in the street there. Yer should ‘ave introduced yersens. Making a little call on Mr. Plod, were yer?”
I stare at him defiantly. “As it happens,” I almost spit. “Yes. We were trying to stop your stupid little games.” I can hear Nobby and Sylvester rustling.
“That’s strange,” Planty retorts. “That is exactly what I was planning on, stopping yer little games.”
“What have we ever done to you?”
“Apart from trying to stitch me up with the kidnapping and abuse of a small child? Even for yer, ‘arry, that was uglier than turds.”
“I am not ‘arry, whoever ‘arry is.” I emphasise the lack of the ‘h’. “I am Keith McGuire. I have never met you in my life before. I have only spoken to you once when you were abusive and threatening. So what is your game?”
“The fact that Fran is sitting ‘ere all conspiratorially tells me ye’re lying, ‘arry. Yer can’t fool me. I knew that even if I beat yer to pulp, knocked yer unconscious, and dropped yer in the Thames, bound and gagged, yer wouldn’t die. Nothing kills yer, ‘arry. Ye’re the Devil, and an evil, snivelling, whining, sneaky, disloyal, disrespectful, slimy, greasy, under’and, vicious, mean, creepy, malignant one at that. I knew that yer would crawl out of there some’ow, and that yer’d already set everything up for yersen as this Keith McGuire character – new woman, new life, new children. Then I did a bit of investigating like, and guess what I came up with. Of course, I said to mesen, that makes perfect sense now, don’t it? What were yer going to do, ‘arry, all set up together in London – yer, Fran, Tommy, Chrissie and yer kids? I don’t think so, ‘arry. Yer may be my kid brother, but ye’re dead, good and proper, this time.”
“’arry was your brother?”
“Yeah, yer my kid brother, as yer well know. I didn’t want anything to do with yer, but yer kept turning up. Yer still do.” He eyes me meaningfully.
“How could you do that to your brother?”
“Do what, ‘arry? Torture yer, reduce yer to flesh and cracked bones, try to drown yer? That I could do easily. It takes nowt to do that when yer’ve got yer to look at, ‘arry. Yer abused me, yer abused our sister, yer abused yer wife Fran ‘ere and yer kid. Ye’re muck, ‘arry, and yer pretending to be this Keith McGuire character, all posh and fancy, and outraged, don’t fool me. Yer never could. Yer never will. Yer’ve walked out on Fran, yer’ve walked out on Tommy, yer’ve walked out on Kathy, and where do I find yer, shacked up with my other sister, Chrissie, the one I didn’t know sod all about, but yer did. Yer sniffed her out like dead meat for a vulture’s breakfast. ‘ow do you do it, ‘arry? ‘ow do yer live with yersen?”
“What do you mean ‘sister’?” Chrissie demands indignantly. Nobby and Sylvester are looking slyly on.
“Yer my kid sister, Chrissie? Didn’t ‘arry tell you?”
“You’re mad!”
“Mebbe, Chrissie, but I’m not an idiot. Look it up on yer records. It’s all there. Mum ‘ad me. Mum then ‘ad ‘arry ‘ere, and gave ‘im up. Wisest thing she ever did. Then she ‘ad Kathy and gave ‘er up too. Then she up and left me with this Gordon character she was shacking up with at the time, married actually, and she went off and ‘ad yer, and then died. So, I was adopted by Gordon, which wasn’t too bad at all in fact, ‘arry and Kathy were dragged up in care in the Midlands, and yer were put into care in the South, where she died. Yer don’t know any of this?”
Chrissie is fighting for breath, gulping.
“Neah, I didn’t neither until the other day. I got ‘arry’s mate, Brains, to do a bit of digging while I was trying to work it all out, and when ‘e came back, it all made sense. ‘e knew ‘ull would get too ‘ot for him sooner or later, so ‘e leaves off from shagging Kathy and ‘e starts shagging ‘is other sister. Just like ‘arry, eh?”
“So how do you explain the fact
that I’ve known Keith from the age of ten, when he was twelve? If he was in care in the Midlands, how could he have been in care with me in the South? That doesn’t make any sense.”
That brings Planty up short. He has been so fired up with his imagination that he has missed a crucial point.
“Ye’re just saying that,” he protests.
“No,” said Chrissie. “We have been together ever since I was ten and he was twelve. There’s no way he could have been someone else.”
Planty recovers. “And these last few months, is there no way ‘e could ‘ave been some’at else then too?”
“That’s different. I knew he was someone else then.”
“So ‘e was ‘arry.”
“Yes, he was Harry. You got that part right.”
“So, given that strange metaphysical phenomenon, if yer’ll pardon all these long words, ‘ow do you know ‘e wasn’t ‘arry all along, as well as Keith. I tell yer, ‘arry is the Devil. Yer can’t put nowt past ‘arry.”
“Well he could have been, I suppose,” Chrissie concedes. “Is it true that I’m your sister?”
“Yeah, Chrissie, it’s God’s ‘onest truth. I’ve got all the evidence back ‘ome. I’ll show yer.” He takes a revolver out of his pocket and holds it where Chrissie, Fran and I can see it but the bar staff cannot. “Okay, guys, we’re going back to my place, all of us. If any of yer break for it, ‘arry ‘ere gets it. And believe me, it’ll be a pleasure. I might ‘ave to shoot ‘im several times, just to make sure like.” He hands a wadge of notes to Sylvester. “Off yer go, Sly. Earn yer keep and pay the barmaid there, and no chatting ‘er up. We’ve got some precious cargo ‘ere, an’ I want to get to the bottom of exactly what it is.”
* * *
Chapter 20
Planty takes Chrissie with him, while Nobby and Sylvester loom behind Fran and me from the back seat of my car.
“No funny business,” Sylvester warns me idiotically. The onerous job of paying the barmaid entrusted to him by Planty must have given him confidence.
