by Jo Bannister
“I talked to the manufacturers. I talked to the military attachés of the end-user countries. The issue wasn’t how the pirates got hold of the shipments but how they got hold of the information about where the shipments would be. That had to be happening within a fairly narrow band of informed personnel. I talked—”
“No. Gabriel.” She caught his eye and held it. “What happened?”
In the urgent desire to protect innocent lives he’d made the oldest mistake in the book: he let it get personal. In his determination to move the inquiry forward he raised his head above the parapet. All the time he was gathering information about them, that well-armed, well-informed, entirely ruthless private army was gathering information about Ash. And they made a positive ID before he did.
“I never thought”—his voice cracked—“not for a moment, that I was putting myself in danger. I wasn’t on the front line: I worked in an office, for God’s sake—I drove a computer! And you see, there was no warning. At least nothing I recognized as a warning—nothing I associated with the case. There was an e-mail.…” The words petered out.
“An e-mail?” Hazel prompted gently. This seemed to be her role for the moment, to inject a little impetus when Ash ground to a halt. “What did it say?”
“Stop,” he said, and the memory turned his deep eyes bottomless. “Stop now.”
“Just that?”
“Just that.”
“I wouldn’t have known what it meant, either.”
He gave a broken sigh. “But maybe you should have done. If you’d thought about nothing else for nine months, and you knew you were getting close, and you knew the men you were getting close to had already killed people, then maybe you should have recognized it as a warning. As the only warning you were going to get. And not dismissed it”—guilt colored his pale cheeks—“as an office joke.”
That was understandable, too. The coming of the IT age, which had delivered such wonders of mass communication, had also put a powerful toy in the hands of many people who, intelligent and highly educated as they were, routinely behaved like ten-year-olds. The joke e-mail was the twenty-first-century heir to the photocopied posterior as the height of office wit.
Hazel Best could see how it happened as clearly as if she’d been there. He’d got the e-mail. He’d opened it and read it. He’d read it again, trying to see the joke. But this was Gabriel Ash, and he probably didn’t have much of a sense of humor even before he lost his family. He’d be used to not getting the joke. He probably glanced around the office in case anyone was visibly giggling, then, failing to identify the author, deleted it without another thought. And only thought of it again after it was too late.
She whispered, a third time, “What happened?”
Ash shrugged, the awkward movement of a bird with a broken wing. “I don’t know. I got home one evening and no one was there. There were no messages. There was no sign of a forced entry or a struggle. The car was in the drive. Cathy had taken her handbag but nothing else, for herself or the boys. None of their toys was missing. It was as if she’d popped out for milk and never come back.
“At first I thought that was what had happened.” Hazel could tell from the odd flatness of his voice that he wasn’t just reporting these events; he was reliving them. The need to bridle the surging panic still held his emotions in an iron fist. “She’d run out of something, walked to the shops, maybe got talking to someone. After an hour I was getting a bit uneasy, so I walked down to meet her. But they hadn’t seen her in any of the shops. So maybe she’d met someone and they’d gone for coffee and lost track of time. After another hour I started phoning her friends, but still no one had seen her. At ten o’clock that night I called the police.
“Their first thought was she’d gone off with someone. A man—someone she was having an affair with. I didn’t believe it, not for a moment. But it was only after I called my boss and he talked to an assistant commissioner or something that they started taking it seriously. I mean, really seriously. Put who I was, what I’d been doing, together with what had happened, and realized this was payback time.”
CHAPTER 13
AMONG THE EXPERTS suddenly surrounding him was a trained negotiator. He’d taken Ash to a quiet room and explained that, sooner rather than later, he’d receive a ransom demand. Not for money, of course. What they wanted from Ash would be quite different.
“The negotiator warned me they’d do anything to protect their business. Anything. They could demand my life in return for Cathy and the boys. I said, if it came to that … But he said it wouldn’t, that it was a negotiating ploy. All they needed was to get me off their backs and throw the investigation into disarray. But Alan—the negotiator—wanted me to be ready for something like that. I think he was afraid they might get past him—that I might get the demand without him knowing and act on it before he could offer an alternative.”
So they sat by the phones. Hour after hour, day after day. But neither the pirates nor anyone representing their interests ever rang. Ash kept the laptop close, too, in case the approach came by e-mail again, but there was nothing.
“Alan said it was deliberate. Leave me to stew, so when they finally got in touch, I’d jump at whatever they suggested. In the meantime there were things we could do to show I wanted to cooperate. We replied to the e-mail, of course, but it bounced back—the account had been closed. He put out a press release—nothing dramatic, just enough that the papers would carry it and someone looking out for it would see it. An unnamed government security adviser had been sent on compassionate leave following an incident in Covent Garden. That was where we lived—Covent Garden. It was worded so most people reading it would assume I’d got drunk and shared state secrets with the flower traders. But whoever had my family would know what it meant. That I wouldn’t be going into the office anymore.”
Hazel heard a quiver run through Ash’s voice, as if even the iron fist might not be enough to hold his emotions in check much longer. The dog heard it, too, lifted her head to gaze inquiringly at him. His arm tightened around her slim, strong shoulders. He sucked in a deep, steadying breath and continued.
“We thought it would be enough. That they’d wait until they were sure I wasn’t still running the case at arm’s length, then come up with the reward—send my family home. At least…” He swallowed. “Alan thought they might keep one of the boys to ensure my continued cooperation. He said if that happened I should take what I was given and get out of London, go somewhere far away, and not even send a postcard to the office. He thought if I did that, eventually they’d return the last hostage as well. After a month, maybe three. Six months after that I could probably go back to work, as long as I worked on something else. My boss said he’d get people with no dependents to take over my files.”
But they didn’t come home. None of them. Not after a week, not after a month. They didn’t come home and there was no contact from the kidnappers. No demands, no threats—nothing.
“Alan said I should leave London anyway. Sever all ties—break contact with everyone I’d worked with, everyone I knew. I took a cottage in the Orkneys. It was November by now, so taking a cottage in the Orkneys was a bit like stepping off the globe. There was no phone line. I changed my mobile and gave the number only to Alan. We thought if I was unreachable, they’d know I wasn’t still working on the sly. I stayed there all winter, going slowly crazy. It achieved nothing. I never heard from them again. I never heard from Cathy again. To this day, I don’t know if my sons are alive or dead.”
He looked at Hazel then, his face twisting in a torment of uncertainty. “I’m not stupid. I know the chances are they’re dead. I know the chances are they’d been killed before I realized they were missing. But you see, I don’t know. Maybe the pirates kept them alive for leverage. At least the boys. They were only little. They could have been farmed out to someone, and after six months they wouldn’t have remembered who they were. If they were dead—if they were all dead—there was nothing left to
threaten me with. Nothing to stop me coming after them.
“Or maybe they are dead. All of them.” He was able to say it without breaking up only because he’d lived with the possibility day and night for four years; and if he’d never become reconciled to the idea, he had at least become familiar with it, with the shape it made inside him. “Maybe that’s why the bodies never turned up. Because as long as there’s that doubt in my mind, I can’t fight back. If I’d seen their bodies, there’d be nothing to stop me. The tiny chance that they’re alive, that one of them is still alive somewhere, is enough to neutralize me. It’s worked for four years; it’ll go on working. I can’t take the risk that my wife or one of my sons is still alive and could be hurt if I anger these people again.”
Hazel had, quite literally, no idea what to say to him. What words could she possibly say that wouldn’t sound banal to a man who’d lost everything? And yet, there’s comfort in the most inadequate of human voices that is not there in silence. “Oh Gabriel,” she whispered.
“I thought about killing myself,” he told her honestly. “Not out of despair. I was desperate, but not that kind of desperate. I thought if they knew I was dead, there’d be no point holding on to my family. If they were still alive, they might be set free. If I’d known they were alive, I’d have done it. If I’d thought I could buy their safety that way, I’d have done it.”
“I believe you,” said Hazel softly.
“I could have done it anyway, on the off chance. But it seemed … like throwing away my last card, the last thing I could bargain with. And then, you see, I’d never have known.” He looked to see if she understood. “What became of them. If they were dead. If the men who took them hurt them first. I’d never have known. I chose to go on living for the tiny possibility that one day I’ll find out what happened. Who was responsible.
“Because, if I knew Cathy and the boys were safe—one way or the other—I’d finish the job. I could do it, I know I could. I was getting close—given another chance, I’d nail them. If I’d no one else to worry about, I’d find the men who did this to us and kill as many as I could before they got me.”
He said it without any drama, without even much passion, a simple statement of fact. Another idea he’d spent four years getting used to. Hazel let a few moments pass, as much for herself as for Ash, so that when she spoke again she’d have some mastery over what she said and how she said it. She didn’t want to break up in front of him—not because it was unprofessional, although it was, but because his own courage was strung together by gossamer. A breeze could break it now.
She took a slow breath. “Nye Jackson obviously knows at least some of this. How?”
Ash let his head rock back, staring blindly at the ceiling. “I said I went crazy on Orkney. That wasn’t a figure of speech. Finally I headed back to London—hitching: I’d no car and no money—and showed up at my office in wellies with the soles worn-out and clothes I hadn’t changed for a month, demanding access to the files.”
Of course everyone who knew him was shocked at the state he was in. They’d pictured him sitting by a turf fire, smoking a pipe and reading Rabbie Burns. They tried to be kind. They explained that reappearing like this really wasn’t a good idea, and tried to get him off the premises before anybody noticed.
“I wouldn’t go quietly. I’d convinced myself that they’d given up. That no one was looking for my family anymore, that they could be found if only someone would try hard enough. It was desperately unfair to the people I’d worked with, but I told you, I was pretty crazy. When my boss tried to take me back to his place in a taxi, I decked him in the street.”
If a Whitehall mandarin gets punched in broad daylight in Parliament Street, it’s going to be noticed. It’s going to be photographed, and the photograph is going to go global. Ash’s department had about an hour to decide what to do next, and whether the priority was the man or his family.
“My boss, mumbling through broken teeth, and Alan, the Home Office negotiator, decided the most important thing was to make it clear that I wasn’t back at work—that I wasn’t fit to be working. They had me sectioned—carted off under sedation. And Alan drew up another press release explaining some of the background.” He caught her look and shook his head. “Hazel, they were right. It was the only way of putting right the damage I’d done. If my family were still alive, we had to show that there was nothing to be gained by hurting them. I was no longer relevant. I only thought I was.
“I was in hospital for nine weeks while they sorted my head out. After that I was discharged on the basis that I’d stay out of London and see a therapist. I came back here. I still owned my mother’s house. Luckily enough it was between tenants, and it was easier than going somewhere new. I see Laura Fry once a week. Life goes on.”
Hazel swallowed. “And you’ve still no idea…”
“None,” he agreed distantly. “No word from Cathy. No word about her or the boys. No sign of them, alive or dead. I never heard if my performance in Parliament Street did any harm. They must have seen the pictures. But either they accepted Alan’s explanation, that I’d left the reservation but wouldn’t be allowed out alone again, or it was too late to do anything more to them. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I got them killed. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ever going to know.”
“So what…” She had to moisten her lips and try again. “What will you do?”
“Nothing,” he said simply. “This. Wait.”
* * *
After a moment she gave a little breath of understanding. “Ah.”
Ash blinked. “What?”
“You thought it was them. The pirates.” She felt silly saying it, but it was what they were. “When the car lifted you off the street, you thought it was the men who had your family. That’s why you wanted to go with them.”
He looked at her sideways. “Stupid or what?”
“Not stupid,” said Hazel firmly. “Just desperate.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “If I’d had longer to think about it, I’d have known it wouldn’t happen like that. I just couldn’t think who else might want to see me enough to force me into a car.” He frowned. “Actually, I still can’t. Tell me again—who’s Mickey Argyle?”
Hazel tried to remember what she’d been told. “He’s a drug dealer. I mean, a big drug dealer—he employs the ones who work the street corners and nightclubs. He’s about the last survivor of organized crime in this town, the one trophy Mr. Fountain hasn’t been able to bag. Yet,” she added loyally.
“Why would Norbold’s last drug baron want to see me?”
“It has to be about what happened to Jerome Cardy. I mean”—there was no tactful way of putting this—“you haven’t done anything else since you came back to Norbold.”
“I didn’t do anything much that night, either.” Ash was still full of self-recrimination.
“You were the last person to be alone with that boy, except for the man who killed him. If Jerome was in a position to compromise Argyle, you were the only one he could have told.”
“He didn’t, though, did he?” growled Ash, bitter at his want of understanding. “He just wittered on about some dog he never owned.”
“He told you he was in danger. He told you to remember that he knew he was in danger.”
“He didn’t say who he was in danger from.”
“No. I wonder why not.”
“Perhaps he did. Othello. I don’t suppose it’s Mickey Argyle’s nickname or anything?”
Hazel gave a despairing little chuckle. “I wouldn’t have thought so. I could ask, but…” She tried to think her way back to basics. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. We should ask Robert Barclay why he killed Jerome.”
Ash knew the answer to that one. “Because Barclay’s a rabid racist. Because, after he was arrested for attacking the war memorial, he’d have dearly loved to knock seven bells out of you and your colleagues, but he wasn’t able to; but he was able to knock seven bells out of
the black kid he found hiding under his blanket.”
“Yes,” agreed Hazel. “Why did he attack the war memorial in the first place?”
Ash shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“Me, neither. Can you think of any reason why anybody would attack a war memorial?”
“As a political statement? Against military action in Afghanistan, perhaps?”
Hazel raised a sceptical eyebrow. “This is Barking Mad Barclay we’re talking about. I don’t see him as a political activist. And if he was, he’d be with the National Front, not defending the rights of Islamic extremists to cut bits off one another.”
Perhaps she had a point. But … “You don’t think the clue’s in the name?”
“Barking Mad?” She grinned. “You’re a fine one to talk!”
He didn’t understand. “Me? Why?”
“You know.” The grin was becoming a little fixed. “Rambles?”
Still nothing. “Rambles?”
He doesn’t know, Hazel realized, far too late. He doesn’t know what all Meadowvale and half of Norbold calls him. What do I do now? Tell him? He might think it’s funny. He might think it’s deeply offensive. He just might retreat into his post-traumatic stress disorder, pull the psychosis up over his head, and never come out again.
She had to do something. He was waiting expectantly. She took a deep breath. “Most men,” she said carefully, “would be flattered to remind people of a film star.”
“What film star?”
“Kevin Costner.”
He didn’t look flattered, just puzzled. “I remind people of Kevin Costner?”
Hazel understood his confusion. If she’d looked in his mirror every morning and seen the pale skin and unkempt hair and battered clothes, she’d have struggled to see the likeness, too. “Sort of.” She nodded. “You remember Dances with Wolves?”
“Ye-es.” Suspicion made two syllables of it.
“People—not everybody but a few people—well, probably quite a lot of people, actually—I don’t think they mean it unkindly … Gabriel, they call you Rambles With Dogs.”
