For Your Sins: previously published as Joseph's Mansions

by Richard Pitman

  She put her hand out for his, and he lifted his right arm toward her and placed his hand in hers, and she felt it as heavy as though he’d been dead. ‘Come into the tack room,’ she said softly, ‘it’s too cold in those boxes.’

  The tack room was small and had an old-fashioned gas stove. Maggie lit it and switched on the single striplight. Graham sat on a long bench he had bought from a school that had closed; it was heavy and shiny with dark brown varnish and had been in the school’s gym for generations. Graham liked things that had a bit of history about them. She sat beside him on the bench, in front of the stove and beneath the racks of saddles and bridles and pictures of their horses and a couple of sponsors’ horse blankets for races they’d won. Maggie took one of those off the wall; it was red with big silver lettering. She sat down and laid it across their knees and put her arm around her husband.

  He hung his head and they sat in silence for a minute. He said dejectedly, ‘We’d best go in. He might call.’

  ‘Let him call,’ she said, moving her hand to stroke his neck. ‘We’ve waited long enough for him. He can wait for us.’

  He was silent again for a while then said quietly, not looking at her, ‘I want you to know and I want the kids to know how sad I’ll be to lose Gabby.’

  He sounded close to tears and it caught Maggie out. She’d thought he’d keep all this inside. ‘I know,’ she said, still stroking him gently. ‘And for all Jane’s histrionics the other night, she’ll know how much Gabby means to you. Billy does too. They’ve grown up feeding on your dreams, for goodness sake. They’ll know.’

  ‘I just don’t want them to think that because I try and take what life deals out, try to just get on with it, that I don’t care and that I wouldn’t fight if I could.’

  She sensed there was more to come and stayed silent.

  ‘If there was some way of getting to this guy, some way of meeting him face to face…’

  ‘There is,’ she said. ‘We could pay the ransom.’

  He looked at her. ‘No. We’ve been through all that.’

  ‘You’re right, we’ve been through it but it’s always been from my point of view and that’s been ultra-selfish of me.’

  And she saw the look in his eyes change and she knew he agreed with at least some of what she’d said.

  But he said, ‘Nonsense. You did what you thought was best, was reasonable. And you were right. Or should I say we were right.’

  ‘Should you say we?’

  She saw that look in his eyes again. He said, ‘All things considered, yes.’

  ‘All things considered meaning that you thought you didn’t really have any say, because the money was coming to me and not you or to us?’

  ‘Maggie, I was the one who said no to him on the phone last week, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You said no because you thought you had no right to bargain with money, with a cheque that had my name on it rather than yours, or ours. Isn’t that right?’

  He wouldn’t answer, looked away again at the stove. Maggie said, ‘Answer me one question, honestly. Just one and I won’t ask any more. OK?’ Staring at the floor now, he nodded. ‘If you had half a million in the bank, your own money with no call on it for anything else, would you pay the ransom?’ He kept staring at the floor. ‘Would you?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  She lifted her arm from his shoulder, pushed the blanket aside and moved to the floor in front of him on one knee, and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘Come on. We’ve got a kidnapper to make pick-up arrangements with.’

  ‘You can’t, Maggie, not just because of me.’

  ‘Who else matters?’

  He shook his head slowly. She touched his chin, pushed his head up. ‘Who else matters?’ she asked again, very softly, tenderly. And he put his arms around her and kissed her and pulled her close, holding her there for what seemed a long time. She shifted on her knees on the wooden floorboards and said, ‘Graham, we need to go and we need to go now! ‘

  He pulled her closer. ‘Why now?’ he whispered.

  ‘Because my bum is burning! ‘

  As far as Monroe was concerned, the phone call was to be a formality. There was no way the Cassidys were going to pay, and when they said they would, he had laughed. When he found out they were serious, he told them he’d call back to arrange for the pick-up and the delivery of the horse. And now, as he straddled his bike by the call box in the Berkshire countryside, he knew he was facing the true test of his criminal brain. He prided himself on being a sharp thinker and now he had to prove it. If he did he’d be half a million pounds richer. If he failed, he’d be spending a long time inside.

  He sped back to Lambourn, to the abattoir he worked in. His own little house in the village held no appeal for him now. It just reminded him he had never made it as a jockey, never got to the top in racing, and as he rode along the wet roads in his leathers he wondered exactly what sort of house half a million pounds would buy. He knew that property up north was much cheaper and was aware that if he suddenly bought a big place questions would be asked.

  Yet he wanted to stay close to Lambourn, wanted the bastards to see that he had made it. Trouble was that half a million wasn’t enough to prove anything these days, and that was why he had the backup, the main plan. Once he had some serious money, he’d make sure nobody could touch him. They could ask all the questions they liked but he’d have answers. Answers for everything; for the big house and the Merc and the maid and the swimming pool and the tennis court and the long, long holidays. Barbados was the place, he thought. That was where all these rich racing bastards went to be with their own kind. Sunny Barbados where pond life like him couldn’t afford to go. Barbados, the Newmarket of the Caribbean. Well, he’d be there and he’d outbuy them all. He’d let them see what it was to be able to spend!

  And why not take this half a million to get him off to a decent start? He’d figure something out to make the pick-up safe. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? It wasn’t as though he had to bring the bloody horse along! He’d call them the next day and tonight he’d decide exactly how he was going to do this. To hell with the abattoir, he spent enough time there as it was. Anyway, the pubs would be buzzing in the village with New Year’s Eve parties. He’d go there, have a few beers, make his plans for collecting the dosh then find some bird to bring in the New Year with, a new bird, none of the old slappers he normally ended up with. A new one for the New Year.

  28

  When the police heard that the Cassidys intended to pay the ransom, they pulled Burnham off the case and sent two new officers to speak to them. They went through all the warnings - by paying up they’d simply be encouraging the kidnapper to choose another victim, and handing over the ransom did not guarantee the safe return of their horse. But Maggie and Graham stuck to their guns, and were pleased that Frankie stood by them. He knew he should have taken the professional stance and sided with the police, but he preferred to support his friends.

  The CID brought with them a much more sophisticated monitoring kit to record the phone call. When it finally came, the recorder silently switched itself on automatically.

  ‘Still want your horse back?’ Monroe asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham.

  ‘And you’re still willing to pay?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well the price has just gone up. A million.’

  Graham clenched his jaw and looked suddenly very angry.

  Monroe laughed. ‘Only kidding! I’m a man of my word, Mister Cassidy. Got a pen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Got the money?’

  ‘We’ll have it for when you want.’

  ‘You’ve got forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Fine. We can do that.’

  ‘Good. Listen. Half a million pounds in used notes. I want you to go to the Charnock Richard services on the M6 at six p.m. on Thursday. You should park in the last row of the bays before the final exit for the petrol station. In t
hat row, you will see a black Volvo 740 with a French registration plate. It is a left-hand-drive car. The door will be unlocked. Then get in the driver’s seat; the keys will be underneath it. The car has a satellite navigation system and your destination will be pre-programmed. You’ll hear audio directions as well as see them on the screen on the dashboard. The car also has special electronic equipment which detects mobile phone, police radio and radar output. I will be monitoring every sound. If you make any calls to the police or anyone else, you’ll be collecting a dead horse. Tell the police that if they track you in any way, by road or helicopter or by fixing a bug to anywhere, tell them you’ll be suing them for half a million. If you do everything right and reach the satnav destination without anything going wrong, you’ll get your next set of instructions. Got all that? Graham was scribbling. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Call it back to me. I don’t want you blaming me if anything goes wrong.’

  Graham read it back.

  ‘Right… Good. One final thing; you need to remember this code word… Barbados. It’s the one you will recognize me by. When you hear it, you’ll hand over the money. What is it?’

  ‘Barbados.’

  ‘Good, now say hello to the nice policemen for me and to the Jockey Club guys.’

  Graham said, ‘When do we get the horse back?’

  ‘As soon as I’ve counted that half a million. So make sure you don’t get it all in fivers, won’t you?’ He hung up.

  The younger of the CID men moved toward the tape recorder and started rewinding it. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s start making plans.’

  The abattoir wasn’t due to reopen until the 6th of January, and Monroe knew he could safely take the rifle he always used as long as he returned it before then. He bound the weapon in thick black bin bags and strapped it to his bike using leather from an old bridle, although he had to reposition it a few times to make it fit comfortably under his right leg.

  He’d been nervous making that phone call, but everything now looked fine and his confidence was high; the plan was a brilliant one and it bolstered his belief that he was set for the big time. He was sure it would work; certain he’d now get the money with the absolute minimum of danger to himself. What he did realize, as he put the final touches to the rifle strapping, was that with this 303 weapon that could kill a man at a mile, he was raising the stakes beyond the point of return. It was a calculated gamble; he reckoned that if they caught him he’d get ten years for the kidnapping alone, and ten years was as good as a lifetime for him. He’d be over forty when he got out, well past the age when he could hope to make his mark.

  Carrying a gun would get him another five years at least, but for what he planned to do, he decided it was easily worth the risk. Research on the internet into past kidnap cases told him that a high percentage of people were caught at the pick-up point. He’d studied the various ways kidnappers had used to try and get clean away and some of them had seemed quite ingenious. Everything he’d learnt in those hours trawling through news archives had, he thought, served him well. He’d soon find out if he was right. Then they’d add his story to the archives - only he’d be one of the rare few who got away.

  When Maggie Cassidy had made the bold decision to pay the money, she hadn’t reckoned with the practicalities of getting the cash in forty-eight hours. The police had been unable and unwilling to help, and after much racking of brains, Frankie had volunteered to call his millionaire friend, Bobby Cranfield. Maggie had thanked him but said she may as well try her agent first. He was going to have to give a letter of guarantee anyway that the half a million was coming her way. Maggie knew he had some influential friends in the City and thought she should ask him if he could actually help get the cash.

  The money was delivered next day by security courier. It was in a much smaller package than Maggie had imagined, but it was all in fifty-pound notes so she supposed it would be right. She spent an hour with Graham and Frankie counting it in the kitchen. After two attempts, they got it right and laughed nervously as the tension continued to build.

  After dinner, Frankie called the CID. He returned to the table as Maggie lit a cigarette. ‘Any news?’ she asked.

  Frankie said, ‘They’re still trying to get a result from the French police on Volvo 740s but they reckon they have things pretty much as they want them at the service station.’

  ‘And there’s no black Volvo in place at Charnock Richard right now?’

  ‘Not as far as they can see.’

  Graham shook his head. ‘How the hell is this guy planning to do this?’

  Frankie shrugged. Maggie drew on her cigarette and shook her head slowly. Graham said, ‘He sounded so confident, didn’t he? Surely he can be the only one who’s dropping this car off? If this navigation programme is set from the service station, then who else could set it? Who else could take the car there?’

  ‘He could get somebody to do it for him,’ Maggie suggested, ‘somebody who wouldn’t necessarily be involved, He could simply pay an accomplice to do it, tell him what to put on the system when he leaves it and that’s it. If the police picked the guy up we’d be no further forward and we’d have lost the horse.’

  Frankie said, ‘Don’t worry. Whoever drops the car off won’t even know the police are there.

  They’ve got all sorts of thermal-imaging equipment and infrared cameras. They’ll make sure they get some good video of him and if it’s safe to track him, they’ll try and do it.’

  ‘What if it’s not safe?’ asked Graham. Frankie could see that now the commitment to pay had been made, Graham had grown much more animated, much edgier.

  ‘They’ve promised not to do anything to jeopardize the horse’s life,’ Frankie said.

  Graham said nothing for a few moments, then, ‘Do you trust them, Frankie?’ It was a plea for reassurance.

  Frankie said, ‘It’s the first time I’ve worked with them. If we were stuck with Burnham, I’d be worried but these other two seem pretty slick. They have a final briefing meeting in an half an hour and they’ve asked me along so, if you don’t mind, I’ll leave you for a while.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Graham said. ‘You’ll be back for your usual nightcap, I hope?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’ Frankie smiled.

  Maggie and Graham sat together by the fire and talked of their plans if things went well next day, never entertaining the thought that they might not. Just before ten Graham got up. ‘Frankie’s getting dangerously close to missing his nightcap. I’ll just go and have a last look at the horses.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll pour us a drink.’

  In the barn, Graham was glad to see all was well. He spoke quietly to the horses as he stepped into each box to run his hand down a neck or a flank. He loved the warmth of them at night, the smell of them. ‘Your old mate Gabby will be back tomorrow, God willing.’

  Then he sensed someone behind him. At the same time, he felt cold metal digging into the back of his head. He froze; hand still on the half-shut door. Out of the side of his right eye, he could see the shadow of the gunman cast by the security lights. He held a rifle. He recognized the voice too when he heard him say, ‘Barbados.’

  29

  They told Billy about the theft of the money. Maggie decided they had no choice, with the place swarming with police and the endless interviews with them, but they thought it best not to tell Jane. They’d just agreed a one-week extension to her holiday in Ireland as Poppy was doing so well with Jane’s company, although Maggie was convinced that this lame duck she’d picked up, this Sean Gleeson, was more likely to be the reason Jane wanted to stay. Anyway, if she’d told Jane about the hold-up, about her father having a gun shoved in his face and the money gone, she’d have been rushing home to take over and comfort everybody. So they told her they were in negotiations with the kidnapper and that they were hopeful.

  By mid-afternoon, Maggie was alone in the house, although two policemen were stationed outside; the condition Graham insisted on before agreeing t
o go to the station to look through some mug shots - a pointless bloody exercise, he’d told the CID man. The thief, the kidnapper had been wearing a black mask covering everything but his eyes which had been a vivid blue. That was all he could tell them, but the straw-clutchers had insisted that the mug shots might trigger something in his mind.

  CID - Maggie shook her head slowly in disgust as she sipped coffee and lit her tenth cigarette of the day. At least they’d had the grace to be embarrassed at being so deeply taken in by all that French Volvo satellite navigation stuff. It proved to her that most policemen were no more well versed in handling kidnappings than she herself was. Apparently, Stonebanks, Frankie’s colleague, had told him the Met would never have believed all that stuff. It was these ‘country boys’, as he called them.

  And now Frankie was gone too, back to London to make his report.

  She thought of last night when the man came in with the gun to Graham’s head, her stomach lurching as she recalled it. Her first thought had been how glad she was that she had shown him some love these past couple of days, happy she’d agreed to pay the ransom even though it had ended in this trauma.

  Poor Graham. He’d been devastated. She knew it was worse for men. In Graham’s mind, he should have been able to offer protection, but he’d been as dumbstruck and afraid as she had been. And she knew what it had done to his dignity. Part of the reason, she thought, was that this whole thing had been panning out like some movie or novel and everybody knew what to do in movies.

  The bad guy came in with the gun. The hero overpowered him or outsmarted him, maybe killed him but at least locked him up until the cops arrived. But when the scene came to be played, the cold reality was that the instinct to stay alive favoured inaction, compliance, surrender. And that’s what they’d done, almost without a murmur. She realized it had affected Graham badly, that her presence had made his self-loathing more acute. She knew that worse was to come for Graham because of the guilt he felt about losing the money. If he hadn’t agreed to let her pay, last night would never have happened. Now, not only had they been terrorized, all the money had gone and they held out little hope of ever seeing the horse alive again. Everything lost in a few minutes.