Terry’s French accent wasn’t bad. Charlie was impressed. `Meaning?’ he asked the lad for Ivan’s benefit.
` “Darling, it’s me. Last night was the best night of my life. I adore you,” ‘ obliged Terry. `But he didn’t sound as if he was a proper Frenchman. It started off like a bit of a piss-take.’
`And finished up?’
`The je Cadore bit sounded serious. As if he was embarrassed to come right out and say how much he liked her.’
Charlie nodded.
Rebecca was the same age as his daughter. Was this the kind of thing Claire got up to now she was living away from home?
Ivan brought him back to the matter in hand. `See? I bet the girl’s disappearance has got nothing to do with our fellow. This Rebecca obviously puts it about a bit. Maybe she’s just run off with the new boyfriend. He pitches up at Greenhills in his fancy car and in she hops.’
Charlie shook his head. `She wouldn’t leave the horse in a field. She could take it back in five minutes and then be on her way.’
But Ivan was not deterred. `OK. She’s not as keen on the new bloke as he is on her. He finds her out riding, she tells him to get lost and then he gets shirty. Whichever way you dice it, I bet this is just a young lovers’ argy-bargy and she’ll reappear in a day or two.’
Charlie hoped he was right - though he doubted it. However, all avenues had to be explored.
`We’d better find this boyfriend, then. I presume Mrs Mason gave you some kind of description?’
He jotted down the details as Terry once more consulted his notebook.
Keith put his foot down as he drove the wagon back to the kennels. He had two dead ewes in the back from a farm ten miles off and he was in a hurry. He’d got the girl safely secured but he’d feel better once he was home.
On the drive back the previous evening after he’d snatched her, he’d planned how he would arrange things. There was a small shed that had once been used as a kennel, before the pack got bigger and the new pens had been built. He’d kept his Rottweilers in there when he’d first taken the job - until that arsehole Jellicoe had objected and made Keith give them away. The chain leads he’d used on Rocky and Rusty were still in place, so that was handy.
The first thing he’d done, before he’d even opened the boot and got her out, was go in the house and find his Balaclava. He’d decided to wear it all the time when he was with her so she couldn’t identify him later. It was either that or keep her blindfolded, but he couldn’t risk her dislodging it. It would be awkward enough keeping her gagged during the day when he was off, like now, picking up dead stock, and when there was the chance of other people showing up - like Fred and Jeff, who were due later on to help him exercise the hounds.
When he’d moved her into the shed last night, all the resistance had gone out of her. She’d moaned and complained about her legs hurting, and he’d had to drag her out the back, past the pens, with the hounds jumping up and down and going bananas at the late-night excitement. She’d said a lot of stuff, asking him why he was doing this to her and begging and generally bleating on. He’d ignored it while he chained her up, then he’d belted her on the leg good and hard, told her to shut the fuck up or he’d fix it so she’d never walk again.
After that he’d been able to sort things in peace, though he’d hardly slept. He’d lain awake half the night, listening out for her. He’d warned her there was no point in her shouting or screaming because no one would hear, apart from the dogs. They were fighting dogs, he’d said, and if she made a noise he’d set them on her.
He’d not been sure whether she’d taken it in - she looked pretty much out of it - and he’d not heard a sound from her through the night. This morning she’d been lying curled up. He’d had to shake her awake so she could drink the tea he’d made her and use the bucket he’d supplied as a toilet. She’d not even raised much of a protest when he’d taped up her mouth.
As he parked in the yard he looked round anxiously for Fred’s bike - sometimes the old twerp turned up early - but it wasn’t in its spot by the back door. The place was just as he had left it.
He picked the bundle of newspapers off the passenger seat and headed indoors. He’d had a quick shufti at the news. The girl’s disappearance was already making waves. HAS BERNIE STRUCK AGAIN? was the headline in the Echo. He read it with interest. Bernie the Bolt, eh? So he had a nickname. He supposed he should be flattered.
There was also a picture of Louise Fowler, saying how this Rebecca was her best friend.
Rebecca. He’d got used to the idea of her now. When it came down to it, what did it matter which girl he had?
For all his planning, the kidnap had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, but now he could see it was exactly the right thing to do. Better than another blow for vengeance. They wouldn’t be able to ignore him now, would they? Not now he had Rebecca.
Louise had tried to keep herself busy all morning, which wasn’t hard. She rode out with the first two lots, despite protests from Chris, who looked as exhausted as she felt. When she got back to the office, Helen, the secretary, gave her a list of callers. Her heart sank when she saw the name at the top - Justin Delancy.
`He wouldn’t tell me what it was about,’ said Helen, but Louise could guess.
Delancy could wait for the moment. She dialled the second name on the list.
She was put straight through to Charlie Lynch. He came to the point at once.
`Did Rebecca say anything to you yesterday about what she’d been up to on Wednesday evening?’
`No.’
‘Has she got a boyfriend?’
`There’s Leo. She’s been out with him a few times.’ `Can you tell me what he looks like?’
Louise was puzzled but complied. `Short spiky blond hair, about five eight, round face, slim. A puff of wind would blow him over.’ She could tell at once that it wasn’t the information Charlie was after.
`According to Rebecca’s landlady, a young man took her out on Wednesday and stayed in her flat until five-thirty yesterday morning.
He’s six foot tall, with thick dark hair that falls over his face and, in Mrs Mason’s opinion, very handsome. She says he thinks he’d God’s gift to women.’
Louise was dumbfounded. It could only be one person.
`He also drives a red convertible with an S and a W in the registration.’
That settled it.
`That’s Kit, Leo’s friend.’ She thought for a moment. `His full name’s Christian Curtis.’
`Do you know him well?’
Evidently she didn’t know him at all. Not like Becky did, it seemed. `No. Becky and I met Leo and Kit in a pub one night. After that I spoke to him on the phone once. I didn’t know that he and Becky were-‘ What exactly? Lovers, of course, dummy. `-all that friendly.’ She made an effort to keep the shock out of her voice as she answered more questions. She didn’t have Kit’s number, but the police had taken charge of Becky’s bag and it might be in her address book. Leo’s certainly would be - Leo Mackay, he lived near Wellington.
She put the phone down in a daze. It came back to her vividly how Becky had looked at her yesterday when she’d interrupted her meeting with Chris. She’d wanted to talk, hadn’t she? She could guess now what Becky had wanted to talk about.
Louise stepped out of the office, away from Helen’s curious gaze, and found herself looking into Skellig’s box. The little grey nuzzled her happily.
Was she jealous?
Yes, a bit. In fact, more than a bit.
Did this make any difference to how she felt about Becky? No.
In these circumstances, her feelings of jealousy were nothing. Just self-indulgence. And Mrs Mason was right - Kit did think he was God’s gift to women.
Skellig licked her cheek. She patted the horse’s smooth neck and stared into her translucent eyes. If only Skellig could talk.
Louise didn’t care what Becky had done. She just wanted her back. Rebecca lay on the straw, listening to the protests of her pai
n-racked body. The abrasions round her neck from the cord stung like fire, and a steady throb licked through the swollen tissue of her left knee. But it was the deep-seated ache at the base of her spine that really consumed her. Inside the ache was a saw-toothed agony that seemed to shriek through her bones whenever she tried to move her legs. He - the hulk who’d taken her - had done some serious injury to her when they’d fought, crushing her with all his weight and breaking something deep inside. The pain robbed her of breath.
But pain was good. She liked it. It blotted out the worse stuff - the fear that gripped her. She was in hell. And she knew what she’d done to deserve it.
She had dared to believe in happiness. Dared to glimpse a blissful future. Dared to expect.
It was hard to imagine that the day before she’d woken in the arms of a loving man, safe and warm. Now all her certainties had been stolen from her. She lay chained in an outbuilding, on a bed of straw, like the dogs she could hear in other buildings near by. There was a bucket in the corner for her to pee into and a chipped mug of water for her to drink. And somewhere not too far away was the man who’d snatched her away from her life.
Who knew what he intended to do with her? She had a vivid imagination - what woman didn’t have in these circumstances?
So she concentrated on her pain. That was tangible. Understandable. And when it gripped her, sucking the air from her lungs and sending an electric jolt through her brain, it blocked out everything else. Like the thought of what might happen to her next.
Julia rang Phil when she heard about the missing girl. He’d taken a bang on the knee so he was at home, resting up ahead of the next day’s meeting at Haydock.
His voice was flat, a depressed monotone so unlike the real Phil. She heard it a lot these days as, after his confession, he no longer tried to hide how he was feeling. In her less kind moments she thought he could have made more of an effort.
For the moment, though, Phil’s troubles were not uppermost in her mind as they discussed the latest disaster to strike Greenhills.
`It makes me mad,’ said Phil, suddenly animated. `I’m also going crazy stuck in here with my knee up.’
`Do you want me to come home?’
`It’s OK, sweetheart. Anyhow, you’ve got your work cut out with your other old warhorse, haven’t you?’
That was true enough. Callisto was making a comeback at Kempton Park the next day.
`I’ll be back as soon as I can. Perhaps Rebecca will have turned up by then.’
`There’s a chance.’
But she knew from the tone of his voice that he wasn’t holding his breath.
It seemed to Hugh Pimlott that he had been working non-stop for days on end. He’d left the office the past couple of nights just in time to grab a takeaway and fall into bed. The ramifications of the Bernie story and the demands of Duncan Frame - which amounted to the same thing - had monopolised his time. Since he’d been the only staffer in on the drama from the beginning, Frame had insisted that Hugh write the whole article, and he’d personally scrutinised it line by line. The editor wasn’t the easiest man to please, especially when he was in a mood - and he’d been in a mood ever since the Western Echo had broken the Bernie story.
Hugh had tried to get hold of Louise but without luck. Her mother and the Greenhills secretary were screening her calls, and neither would believe him when he said his interest was purely personal. He guessed all press callers were being treated with suspicion. And since he’d been stuck in the office, churning out copy, he’d not had the opportunity to see her face to face.
He wondered how she was managing now Rebecca had disappeared. He hoped she was holding up. He would have liked to have offered her a shoulder to cry on and an ear to bend. That was what friends were supposed to do in a crisis, wasn’t it? He’d keep trying.
Right now he was on the phone to Phil Nicholas. Frame had issued another edict. Instead of Phil’s Saturday column being the usual mixture of stable gossip and the jockey’s forthcoming fancies, something different was required.
`We can’t ignore what’s going on,’ Hugh said to Phil, paraphrasing the editor. `We think an open letter to this man from someone of your stature in the game might get his attention.’
Phil’s response was typically forthright. `I’d like to get his attention,
all right. I’d like to horsewhip him round Aintree for what he’s done.’ `I don’t think you can say that. You’ve got to appeal to his better nature.’
`He’s got one, has he?’
`The editor’s keen on the idea.’
`That’s just because he thinks it’ll make the paper look good, not because it will have any effect.’
`You’re a cynical bugger, aren’t you, Phil?’ `I know how you lot operate.’
Hugh couldn’t blame him for thinking that way. On the other hand, he had his orders. He tried another tack. `To be fair to Duncan, he’s been talking to the police about a direct pitch to the kidnapper. They’re all in favour.’
That made a difference, he could tell. He pressed on. `Why don’t you talk to the guy in charge?’
So that was how they left it. Hugh promised to get Inspector Lynch to ring and, as a fall-back, set about writing Phil’s column himself - just in case.
Phil was surprised how quickly the policeman got in touch. Twenty minutes after talking to Hugh, Charlie Lynch was on the phone.
`I’m very grateful you’ve agreed to help us, Mr Nicholas.’
Had he? Phil didn’t recall committing himself. He wasn’t keen to take part in some newspaper stunt. But, as the detective outlined his plans, Phil was impressed.
`One of my problems,’ the policeman began, `is that we’ve no line of communication with this fellow. He writes letters to the Beacon and makes demands. So far that’s it. But if you were to address him directly, that might spark something off.’
`You mean if I offered to be a kind of go-between?’ `Yes. You’ve got to phrase it right, though.’
`I’ll say whatever you want me to say.’ So, he had committed himself after all.
`It’s got to be in your own words, you understand.’ `I’ll do my best, Inspector.’
`Good man. Have you got a pen? You’ll need to make a few notes.’ Phil found a notepad and did as he was told. At least he now had something to do.
Either Christian Curtis - Kit - was a bloody good actor or he was one of the few people in the West Country unaware of the missing-person drama on the front pages. Terry’s instant impression was that he lived in a world of his own fabulousness, unaware of other lives being lived around him. So when they caught up with him - working in a music shop in Wellington at a gap-year temp job - Terry believed the incredulity that stole across Kit’s face. The news of Rebecca’s disappearance seemed to come as a complete surprise.
`This is a wind-up, isn’t it?’ Kit said as they took their seats in a greasy spoon next to the shop. Ivan reached for an abandoned copy of the Western Echo lying on the next seat and laid it face up on the table.
The self-confidence seemed to drain out of Kit as he read the story. `Oh, shit,’ he said, repeating it several times as he fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes.
Terry offered him a light, noting that he smoked the same brand as had been found in Rebecca’s bedroom. Of course he did - Kit didn’t deny his involvement.
He confirmed he’d been out with Rebecca on Wednesday. He told them he’d spent the night at her flat and had got up early the next morning to go to work. Later, he’d left the message in French on her phone.
`I wondered why she hadn’t called back,’ he said tonelessly. `I thought maybe she’d, you know…’
His voice tailed off.
`Maybe she’d what?’Terry prompted.
Kit shrugged. He was now looking very sorry for himself. `Regretted letting me stay the night, I suppose. Girls don’t like things to go too fast, do they?’
Terry left Ivan to answer that. Female responses were his department. But Ivan didn’t wan
t to play.
`Mr Curtis, can you account for your movements between three and six o’clock yesterday afternoon?’
`I was in the shop - you can ask Ian. Why?’ The penny took a moment to drop. `Oh, Jesus, you don’t think I’ve got anything to do with this, do you?’
As a matter of fact, they didn’t. Terry could see from Ivan’s expression
that he’d gone off the idea now he’d met Kit in person. This was a spoilt little rich kid. As soft as shit.
`Like they say in the movies,’ Terry said, `wed like to eliminate you from our enquiries.’
Kit didn’t appear to have heard. His hand shook as he lit another cigarette from the butt of his previous one. `Do you think she’ll be OK?’ he asked. Then, to Terry’s astonishment, he began to cry.
Ivan rolled his eyes. `I’ll just have a word with this Ian,’ he murmured as he got to his feet.
Terry watched enviously as his partner walked to the door, leaving him alone with the snivelling Kit.
Julia put her foot down as she drove back to the cottage.
Shed been delayed by a call from a farmer whose hunter was hopping lame. A neighbour had recommended her and the man had sounded so desperate she’d not been able to put him off. She’d been glad that she hadn’t as she’d been able to cut into the sole of the animal’s near forefoot and release pus from a corn. The result had been rare and satisfying, as the dull glaze of pain vanished instantly from the horse’s eyes. It didn’t often work out like that.
She applied a poultice and made a fuss of her patient, who nuzzled her gratefully.
`He’s a bit overweight,’ she’d said to the farmer.
`That’s my kids,’ he’d replied, feeding the horse a Polo mint, `they spoil him rotten.’
She’d also spent more time than she’d planned with Callisto, talking to the old champion about Kempton the next day. She was confident about his physical condition - the muscle imbalance had responded well to her treatment and he was now back to a racing weight - but she had no idea how he would respond to the atmosphere and excitement of a racecourse.
Actually, looking at his great white-starred head, she did have a shrewd idea.
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