The Hostage Heart

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  That thought gave her pause. If she hadn’t run off upstairs in a huff, or whatever she had run off in, she would not have stumbled on the kidnappers. She would not have been here now, but home safe in bed. But Poppy would be here alone, terrified, at the mercy of whatever the kidnappers chose to do to her. Well, to be honest, she was not much safer with Emma there, but at least she was infinitely less frightened. Emma would not have had her face this alone for anything, not even for her own life. Her leaving Gavin as she did had served its purpose.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to keep back the tears. He would have come to the same conclusion. And he loved Poppy like a father. He must be frantic with worry, raging with helpless frustration. Had he been lying sleepless, thinking of them – of her? Was that why she had woken saying his name?

  If only she could get a message to him; if only she could get a message out of the house, that someone might find and take to him. Could she perhaps break the window and throw something out? But she had no paper, in any case, and no pencil. She had nothing in the world but a handkerchief and a pair of scissors …

  The idea came to her, and she rejected it at first, but then came back to it with reluctance. She looked at Poppy, and saw that she was still sleeping peacefully, and then got up carefully, so as not to disturb her, and went over to the window where the light was better. She sat down on the chair and took the handkerchief and scissors out of her pocket. She looked at the point of the blades, and at her hands, and finally at the torn and bruised places on her wrists. With a shuddering sigh she picked up the scissors and gritted her teeth.

  It was hopeless. After an agonising few minutes she had to admit it was hopeless. Had she had paper, it might have worked, but on the cotton of the handkerchief her blood just spread in blodges and smears. It was impossible to write a legible word. She shook her aching wrist and bit her lip, trying not to cry. She had the ridiculous feeling that Gavin was out there somewhere near at hand, and that if she didn’t get a message to him he would walk past and never know she was there.

  She looked again at the scissors and the now brown-spotted handkerchief; and after a moment her expression lightened. She dug the point of the blade into the cloth and began to cut carefully. It was difficult, more difficult than she had expected. She had to make the letters large to make them recognisable one from another, and that meant she could not make many of them. But by the time the sun came round into the room she had cut the words HELP POPPY out of the handkerchief. When it was crumpled up nothing was visible, but spread it out on a flat surface and the letters were shaky but legible. She rolled the frayed scraps together and thrust them, with the handkerchief, into her pocket. She still had to think of a way to break the window.

  Gavin had a restless night, and finally fell asleep at about three o’clock, to be woken, feeling heavily unrested, by the dawn chorus. At once his mind began to churn over the problem all over again. Yesterday had been a full and tiring day; but at least his father was on his way home, and should be arriving this morning. Gavin would be glad to have someone to share the burden. Jean Henderson did all she could, but she was not family, the responsibility could not be hers. Lady Susan was useless, of course. The very thought of intruders in her house threw her into hysteria, and though she was enough of a mother to be worried about Poppy, her anxieties, it transpired, were far more centred on the twins. The one time she had appeared downstairs yesterday had been to beg the Superintendent with tears and a voice almost off the scale to put an armed guard on the boys’ school, in case the kidnappers decided one was not enough. Moss had taken it very calmly, and assured her that he had already thought of that, and that a plain-clothes man and a uniformed patrol were even then setting up operations around Jack and Harry. Lady Susan had taken a great deal of reassuring. One minute she had begged Gavin to go and fetch the boys home, the next she had wanted them shipped off to Scotland to her father’s shooting estate; and she could hardly be satisfied without an open telephone line to the school with a constant running commentary on the boys’ safety.

  Yes, it had been an emotionally full day, he thought wearily, turning over in search of a rest that eluded him. Particularly stimulating had been the conversation he had had with Superintendent Moss on the subject of Emma. How much did Gavin know about her? How had she been recruited to the household? Had her references been taken up? Who were her friends? Had she had any visitors since she’d been here, or been seeing anyone regularly? Had she written any letters, made any phone calls, and who to?

  “Look here,” Gavin had said at last, “I know what you’re suggesting, but it’s ludicrous. Emma Ruskin is a good, kind, sensible, honest person. She loves Poppy and Poppy loves her.”

  Moss regarded him steadily. “I’m glad to have your opinion on that, sir,” he said, and Gavin felt riled.

  “Look, I know her and you don’t!”

  “You’ve known her for – how many weeks? Not quite a month yet, is it?”

  “Some people you know in a very short time. I tell you she has nothing to do with this! In any case, they’ve taken her too, don’t forget!”

  “Yes, well that would be what you’d expect, if she was involved. Otherwise she might end up with some difficult questions to answer,” said Moss reasonably. “You must admit, it’s funny that this happens just after she joins your household—”

  “Coincidence, that’s all.”

  “Maybe. But we’re pretty certain there was an inside connection somewhere. The kidnappers knew the layout of the house, knew that the party would be going on—”

  “Good God, half the County knew the party would be going on!”

  “Quite. But the timing, the route, the stealing of the catering van, taking them out down the backstairs – it all smells of an inside job to me. And your Miss Ruskin’s got all the information needed, she’s new, and she’s never been a governess before, so you said. Funny a school teacher should suddenly give that up for a live-in job, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s funny at all,” Gavin said angrily.

  Moss nodded sympathetically – or was it pityingly? Got it bad, his expression said. “Well, maybe you’re right. But I think we’ll have a little look into Miss Emma Ruskin’s background anyway, see what we can find out. Ruskin – is that an Irish name?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Gavin said. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Kidnappers sometimes want other things than money,” Moss said non-committally.

  For the rest of the day, the news had only been negative. No reports of the smallholder’s missing car being seen. No reports of it filling up anywhere, or of anyone within the radius buying petrol in a can. Nothing of any use discovered by the forensic team from the dumped catering van. No idea of who the kidnappers might be. No contact yet by letter or phone with a ransom demand. It was horribly frustrating.

  Gavin abandoned the attempt to go back to sleep, and sat up. He had left his curtains open last night, and the early light streamed in, and the birdsong was fading now to daytime levels. He went to the window and threw it open, and smelled the marvellous freshness of damp earth and grass and clean morning air. Where were they? Were they all right? Would he ever see them again? The sweetness of the morning should have restored him, but all he could think was how Emma was a town girl, and whether he would ever have the chance to teach her to love the countryside.

  For the prisoners, the day passed slowly. Nothing broke their solitude but the visits of Andy with food – and dull food it was, nothing hot except mugs of tea. There was bread and butter and slices of Spam for breakfast, bread and butter and corned beef for lunch. Emma asked for some fruit, and got a blank look and a shrug from Andy. If they had to stay here long, Emma thought, they would get spots.

  In between they were left alone with their thoughts, their fears, and the tedium. The boredom was hard to bear. There was nothing to do; and Poppy was at the age when children are full of physical energy which needs burning off by running about a
nd romping. Being shut up in this tiny room with no space to stretch her legs was torture to her. Emma did her best to devise ways of passing the time. She did lessons with Poppy from memory; they played ‘I Spy’ and ‘Twenty Questions’ and ‘Nebuchadnezzar’, sang songs and recited what poetry they could remember by heart. But still the hours dragged, and they grew more and more tense, waiting for news, waiting for danger.

  For Emma the worst thing in this time of waiting was the lack of toilet facilities. They were not allowed outside the room: Andy brought in a bucket with a lid. It was dreadful to Emma to have to use it there in the room with Poppy gallantly turning her back and humming loudly to give Emma what privacy was possible. It didn’t bother Poppy, but Emma was not a country girl, and had no history of ‘going behind a hedge’. She found the whole thing distressing and humiliating, and begged their guard to let her go to the WC, offering every safeguard she could think of, but he would not let her out.

  Time crawled by. They felt dirty, tired, restless; afraid when they were not bored, always helpless and frustrated. Emma had not thought of a way to break the window. It was too far behind the bars to reach, and the bars were too narrow even for Poppy’s arm to go through. She thought of trying to wrench a leg off the chair and break the glass with that, but it was too sturdily made and she hadn’t the physical strength. The hole in the wall did not prove a success. All she could see through it was a few feet of floorboards, and she did not dare start another further up for fear it would be noticed. Already she was in dread that Andy would see the first one, for she had no way of concealing it: if she had moved the bed, he would have been bound to want to know why.

  Mr Akroyd arrived home mid-morning, grey with exhaustion and worry. He clasped Gavin’s hand in a moment of silent sympathy and support.

  “This is the devil of a business,” he said. Gavin bowed his head.

  Lady Susan actually came downstairs to greet her husband, and clung to him, pouring out her fears and griefs. He bore with it patiently for a time, but then caught Mrs Henderson’s eye over her shoulder and gestured to her to take his wife away. Then he went to closet himself with the Superintendent to talk about the ransom demand which had arrived.

  “I’m ready to pay,” he said at once. “I want that understood. I don’t care what it costs, I want my little girl back.”

  “They’re asking for a million,” Moss said non-committally.

  Akroyd blanched a little, but swallowed and said, “It’ll take a bit of getting – I don’t keep money idle. But if that’s the only way—”

  “We’ll see,” Moss said. “There’s no harm in starting your arrangements, but we hope to get them both back without that.”

  “I don’t want any chances taken,” Mr Akroyd said sharply.

  “I quite understand your feelings, sir. Nobody wants any harm to come to the hostages, but we have a proper method for dealing with these things. You must leave it to us. If the time comes when we think the money should be paid, we’ll advise you accordingly, but for the moment we haven’t come to the end of our enquiries. If we can get them back, and nab the villains, without the money, I take it you’d be even better pleased?”

  “That goes without saying.” Mr Akroyd mopped his sweating upper lip with a handkerchief. “I worked hard for every penny I own, and I don’t fancy giving it away to some layabout who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life, I can tell you that.”

  When he had finished his interview with the Superintendent, Mr Akroyd went to find Gavin, who was poring over an ordnance survey map, as he did hour after hour.

  “What’s all this about that female?” Mr Akroyd demanded without preliminaries.

  “What female?” Gavin said warningly. “If you mean Emma Ruskin—”

  “This bloke Moss seems to think she’d got something to do with it. Is that right? If you and Jean between you have brought some criminal into my house and put my little girl in danger—”

  “She’s not a criminal.”

  “Oh, and how would you know, Mr Smartarse? I said all along Poppy should go to school. If she’d gone to school, none of this would have happened.”

  “She went to school and got ill – you know that, Dad. Emma’s got nothing to do with it. Don’t you realise she’s in danger too? Probably more danger than Poppy. If they’ve got any sense they won’t hurt Poppy, because they expect you to pay good money for her, but the same doesn’t apply to—” His voice broke and failed him, The thought of what they might do to Emma was his worst nightmare, and something he didn’t dare allow into his mind, or it would unfit him for anything.

  Mr Akroyd softened, and laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “There, lad,” he said gruffly. “She’ll be all right. I dare say you’re right, and she’s got nothing to do with it. It’s all fallen on you, this, hasn’t it?”

  “I feel so helpless,” Gavin said bleakly. “If only there was something I could do.”

  Mr Akroyd nodded sympathetically. “Aye, well, the police are onto it. We just have to let them do their job.”

  Superintendent Moss came in looking a little more cheerful. “Now we’re getting a fix on them! The post office says the ransom note was posted in Hockwold – that’s a little village about fifteen miles away on the edge of the fens—”

  “Yes, I know it,” Gavin said.

  “You do?”

  “I know the fens and the forest very well. I’ve ridden for miles all over the area,” he said shortly. There had been many, many days when he had needed to get away from the tensions and humiliations of home; and from horseback you saw the country – like your own problems – much more clearly.

  “Right,” said Moss. “And we’ve found the stolen Rover dumped on the back road between Hockwold and Feltwell. We’ve also got a car reported stolen in Weeting, which is about the same distance from Hockwold, but on the other side.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?” Mr Akroyd asked impatiently.

  “Bear with me,” Moss said, and led them over to the table where Gavin’s map was spread out. “You see, I think they’ve realised they can’t get petrol for the Rover without giving themselves away, so Chummy, the driver, has been told to post the ransom letter, dump the Rover, and steal something else, but not all in the same place. Feltwell to Weeting is about seven miles by road or, say, five across country. Two hours on foot. He drives to Hockwold, posts the letter, drives on towards Feltwell until the petrol runs out, and then – this is the really cunning bit in his tiny mind – doubles back on himself before he steals the new motor. That way he thinks we’ll never connect the two.”

  Gavin stared. “Can he really be that stupid?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Moss said feelingly, “how stupid the average criminal is. Good thing too, or we’d never catch ’em.”

  “But if he’d stolen the new car before he posted the letter, he could have posted it a lot further away,” Gavin pointed out.

  “Well, evidently he didn’t think of that,” Moss said. “I wonder, though, what his boss is going to have to say about it.”

  “His boss?” Mr Akroyd queried sharply.

  “Chummy didn’t plan the thing – he’s too dim for that. I reckon he’s just the driver – the muscles. Someone with a bit more nous is behind it. And that someone’s not going to be too happy that Chummy posted the letter so close to home.”

  “Home?”

  “Feltwell is about twelve miles from Pratchett’s Wood where the Rover was stolen, and the Rover had very little petrol in it – only about ten miles’ worth, the owner says. Well, there’s always a bit more in the tank than you think, but not much. So the place where they’ve got the hostages stashed can’t be far from Pratchett’s Wood.”

  “But now they’ve got a new car,” Gavin said, “they can move them again. They could be anywhere by now.”

  “I don’t think so,” Moss said. “In my view, the plan would have been to hole up in some deserted place, an isolated house, hidden in a wood maybe. Th
e house would have to have been chosen and prepared beforehand, so I don’t think they’ll lightly abandon it. The more you drive your victims around the country the more likely you are to be spotted. No, I think they’ll stick as close to their original plan as possible. The place they’ve chosen must be well hidden, and they’ll be confident we won’t find it.”

  He sounded so smug that Mr Akroyd gave him a sharp look. “Are you on to something? If so, spit it out, man! Have you got something you haven’t told us yet?”

  Moss smiled triumphantly. “Yes, we’ve got a pretty good idea who we’re dealing with. As I said before, the driver of the car’s a stupid man, luckily for us. He’s also a heavy smoker. OK, every kid burglar these days knows enough to wear gloves, and there’ve been no fingerprints on the van or the dumped car – everything wiped clean. But on the floor of the Rover we found an empty cigarette pack and the cellophane wrapper from a new pack. The old pack is clean, but there’s a beautiful set of nice greasy fingermarks on the cellophane.” He positively grinned at Gavin, who, using his imagination, got the point at once.

  “He finished a pack,” Gavin said, “threw it down, tried to open a new pack, found he couldn’t get the wrapper off with gloves on—”

  “And took them off!” Mr Akroyd finished, getting there half a second behind.

  “Exactly,” Moss said. “We’ve run them through the computer and found they belong to an old chum of ours, Andrew Joseph Luckmeed. Got a record as long as your arm. The interesting thing about him is he’s not long out of Blundeston, finished a stretch there in February. And while he was inside, he was keeping very close company with one Henry Gordon James, a felon very well known to us for various kinds of criminal activity. Gentleman Jim, he’s known as, owing to his ability to put on a posh accent and mingle with the nobs on their own terms. And Harry James, alias Gentleman Jim, finished his last stretch in April – came out and promptly disappeared.”