by Jo Bannister
Brodie’s eyes grew stalks. “Three years? She hasn’t visited her daughter in three years?”
“Don’t look at me like that, it’s perfectly legal,” growled Ibbotsen. “The court agreed she wasn’t capable of caring for a child. It said she could visit Sophie once a month but wasn’t to take her out of this house unless accompanied by my son. In fact she never came. Perhaps she felt it was better to make a clean break.”
Brodie had to make a conscious effort to blink. For a moment she was entirely lost for words. Then she said slowly, in wonder, “Men. Stupid, ignorant, arrogant bloody men. For twelve days you’ve been worried that Sophie was kidnapped by strangers, for ransom. You’ve avoided the police; you’ve spent big sums of money on experts in something that hasn’t happened; you perpetrated atrocities on someone who never did you any harm and finally you damn near committed murder. Because you thought David’s ex-wife wanted a clean break from her daughter!”
Her venom had knocked all the expression off their faces. Ibbotsen was the first to recover. He said carefully, “I take it you think that’s unlikely.”
“Unlikely,” echoed Brodie. “That the mother of a five-year-old child, denied the right to raise her by an addiction plainly induced by living with you two, should decide to write off this daughter and hope for better luck next time? Should go back to the land of her birth and never hop on a EuroStar to visit her little girl? Should go through the trauma of detox and never ask herself if she was now fit to look after her again? Oh yes, Mr Ibbotsen, I’d say that’s pretty unlikely, wouldn’t you?”
“When you put it like that,” said Ibbotsen, tight-lipped. “I just never considered it. Marie? She never asked to reopen the custody issue.”
“She wouldn’t have succeeded, would she, not against you. But she would have alerted you to how she was thinking, and the possibility that she might take more extreme measures.”
“Like kidnapping her own daughter?”
“Exactly like that! Mr Ibbotsen, it’s not that rare. And this is a classic case. The estranged parent is a foreign national who’s returned to her native land. There’s a history of mental instability and a sense of grievance. She thought she had only to get Sophie back to France and they could disappear. All she had to do was stop you calling the police for a few hours.
“And she knew how to do that. She knows the pair of you pretty well, after all. She knew you wouldn’t risk Sophie’s life. But she also knew you wouldn’t pay good cash money without a fight. She guessed you’d stall for time and mount a counter-attack. She wanted time too. A few hours would see her safely across the Channel; a few days would let her disappear so completely she’d be safe even when you realised who you were looking for. A few phonecalls and some lurid threats kept you thinking this was a hostage situation while she hid Sophie away.
“Finally she pretended to lose patience and sent you the box of hair. Hell, maybe she’s in the mood by now. Maybe she thinks she can have Sophie and your money as well. Maybe she thinks she’s earned it.”
“This is crazy,” moaned David. “Crazy! It’s nothing to do with Marie. We know what it’s about: half a million pounds. Dad, I’m begging you, please don’t listen to this. I don’t doubt Mrs Farrell knows what she’s talking about, and I’m sure she’s trying to help, but she’s wrong. If you let her persuade you that Marie has Sophie so there’s time to sort this out without paying the ransom, God knows what’s going to happen.
“My little girl’s with people who look at her and just see a pile of money. They’ve had her for nearly a fortnight - she hasn’t seen a friendly face or heard a kind word for a fortnight. She must be scared out of her mind. She’s only five years old: she has no idea what we’re doing, doesn’t realise that these things take time - she must think we’ve abandoned her.
“And maybe that’s pretty much what they think too - the kidnappers. We know they’re tired of waiting. They cut off her hair; but they won’t stop at that if we do nothing. Please, Dad, don’t change your mind again. Pay them, and let’s get her home.”
He was almost in tears. But Ibbotsen looked at him not with compassion but irritation. Then he looked back at Brodie. “It wasn’t Marie on the phone.”
Brodie shrugged. “She hired some help. You can get someone to do anything for enough money; as you know. What about the video?”
“What?”
“The video of the kidnapping. It was a woman who took Sophie away, wasn’t it? Could that have been Marie?”
David shook his head miserably. “It was nothing like her.”
But Ibbotsen turned on the television and the VCR. The tape was already loaded: of course, no one in this house had been watching anything else. “I never thought of Marie,” he said by way of explanation. “I didn’t recognise the woman, but perhaps if I’d been thinking of Marie …” They watched the children play, the traffic pass.
A car pulled up beside the railings: a big, smart, dark car for people who thought limousines a tad flash. When David Ibbotsen told Miss Scotney it was family transport she would have believed him.
There were two people in the car. The camera showed nothing of the driver, only picked up the passenger as she walked to the school gate. She was wearing a dark suit with a calf-length skirt, high heels and a brimmed hat. She never looked at the camera, either because she didn’t know it was there or because she did. The face of Daniel Hood, fiddling with his telescope on top of the monument five hundred metres away, could be enlarged and enhanced until there was a recognisable image, but the kidnapper the camera was there to capture remained resolutely anonymous.
“I’m telling you, that isn’t Marie,” insisted David.
Ibbotsen nodded in reluctant agreement. “No, I don’t think it is.” He went to turn the television off.
Brodie hadn’t seen the tape before. Its existence was responsible for her involvement in these events, and for Daniel’s. They’d been able to infer what it must show, but this was the first time she’d seen it. “Let it run,” she said, and Ibbotsen stood back.
The woman entered the playground and made for a knot of little girls dressed in identical claret uniforms and playing some kind of clapping game. There was no soundtrack.
She knew which of the children she wanted, dismissed the others. Long fair hair spilling down her back identified the girl as Sophie Ibbotsen. For a couple of seconds she and the woman seemed to speak. Then the woman took her wrist, led her to the car and got into the back seat with her, and the car drove away. The whole episode had taken less than a minute.
Brodie took the remote and wound the tape back; looking for something.
Daniel frowned. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I imagined it. Let’s run it again.”
“What am I looking for?” But she wouldn’t tell him.
She restarted the tape as the woman led the child towards the car. She played it for a few seconds before stopping it again. “There. Did you see?”
Daniel nodded. “Yes.”
Ibbotsen, who hadn’t, grew impatient. “What? What did you see?”
Brodie played it again. “Sophie doesn’t want to go with this woman. Either she doesn’t know her or she doesn’t like her. She’s hanging back so the woman’s practically dragging her.
“Now look. Sophie reaches the point where she can see inside the car, and now she isn’t reluctant any more. She moves towards the open door. Would Sophie recognise her mother?”
David Ibbotsen was watching the tape closely. “No. She was only two when Marie left.”
The old man disagreed. “Of course she would. Marie never sends her a birthday card or a Christmas card or anything else without enclosing a photograph of herself. She doesn’t know her mother but yes, I think she’d recognise her.”
“And want to go with her?”
Ibbotsen thought about it. “I imagine most children with only one parent would want to meet the other.”
Brodie nodded. “I think so too. Put your mo
ney back in the bank, Mr Ibbotsen, it won’t bring Sophie back. What you need now are a French private detective and a specialist in French law.”
Daniel said softly, “You’re saying she’s been safe all along?”
For a moment Brodie couldn’t bring herself to answer. If she was right he’d suffered for nothing. But lying wouldn’t alter that, only devalue the pain. “I think so. I think she’s been enjoying a jolly holiday travelling with her mother through the French countryside. I think if Mr Ibbotsen paid the ransom, what he’d get in return would be a happy snap of the two of them together.
“I think France is a big country, and it’s full of people whose first loyalty is to other French people rather than their English ex-husbands. I think Sophie’s fine, but it could be a long time before she’s back in England. Possibly not until she’s old enough to buy her own ticket.”
There was silence in the room, each of them coccooned in private thoughts.
Brodie thought she’d solved the mystery, and if it wasn’t the ideal solution there was at least a certain natural justice to it.
Daniel was feeling guilty because he’d felt better when he thought Sophie’s life was in danger.
Ibbotsen was trying to decide how he felt, because he didn’t want to lose either his granddaughter or his money but he really didn’t want to be robbed of both.
David Ibbotsen alone was unequivocal in his feelings. Any match between his father’s money and his daughter’s safety was a no-contest. This alternative scenario suddenly produced like a rabbit from a hat by a woman who had only the most peripheral involvement with the family, who didn’t know either Sophie or Marie, who’d been picked out of a phonebook to serve a particular function and should have subsided into anonymity again once her task was done - it wasn’t so much that he doubted her, more that he knew she was wrong. He knew it was about money. He knew Sophie couldn’t come home until the money was paid.
He looked at Brodie with deep resentment. “For ten days we had one of the best hostage negotiators in the business on the case. He didn’t think he was talking to Sophie’s mother.”
“He probably wasn’t. We know there was another woman involved - he was probably talking to her. Marie would be pretty crazy to phone you herself. She involved a friend and let her do the talking.”
Ibbotsen was nodding slowly, remembering. “He did say - our negotiator - there was no rush. That Sophie wasn’t in any immediate danger. That the woman he talked to wasn’t panicking to get her off her hands.”
“Of course he said that,” snarled David, “he was being paid by the day! These people are professionals too, they can afford to take the long view. What they can’t afford to do is waste time on people who’ve made it clear they’re never going to pay up. That box of hair that no one else is taking seriously: that’s a warning. They’re running out of patience. If we don’t deal with them now, today, they’ll hurt her; and after that they’ll kill her. You’re going to let them kill Sophie for less money than it takes to antifoul an oil-tanker!”
“Sonny,” growled Ibbotsen, “you have no idea what it costs to antifoul an oil-tanker. I have. That’s the difference between us, and that’s why it’s my money they’re after, not yours.”
In despair David turned to Brodie. “He trusts you. You gave him value for money. Tell him you could be wrong.”
Brodie squirmed in the urgency of his gaze. “Of course I could be wrong. Anyone can be wrong. I gave you my honest opinion, based on a certain amount of experience. It’s still my opinion. But yes, I could be wrong.”
“Now tell him that if you’re wrong my little girl’s going to die!” The emotion was packed so tightly into David Ibbotsen’s voice that it vibrated.
Brodie couldn’t deny it. She was good at what she did, she trusted her instincts, but she’d never had to gamble a life on her judgement before. Would she have been so confident the missing child was safe, that the money could be retained without penalty, if it had been Paddy they were talking about? Just asking herself the question was enough to stifle the answer in her throat.
Daniel leaned forward, the scant bulk of his body coming between David and Brodie as if to protect her from something more physical than the truth. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was that iron note in it that made people sit up long after they were old enough to ignore him. “Mr Ibbotsen, we’re here because you asked us to come. You asked Mrs Farrell for her professional opinion and you’ve had it. If you don’t like it, if you think she’s wrong, fine, we’ll go. But don’t blame her for this. She wouldn’t be involved if you hadn’t involved her. Neither of us would. We’ll help if we can, but we won’t be your scapegoats.”
David stared at him as if something unexpected had happened: as if one of the staff, or even one of the fire-dogs, had answered him back. Then he blinked rapidly, and passed a hand in front of his face and exhaled. “I’m sorry. You’re right: I’m behaving badly. I’m just … so worried. I’m so scared we’re going to get this wrong.
“An hour ago, when I called, I was scared then too but I thought we were on the last lap. They’d told us what to do, the only thing we could do that was acceptable to them, and my father and I had agreed we were all out of options. I thought all we had to do was follow instructions. They wanted a woman to bring them their money? - OK, we could do that. We could do it today, this morning, and just maybe have Sophie home for lunch.
“Then you arrive and instead of doing what we ask you rake over it again. Putting it in a different light. Offering new alternatives. Putting the whole thing back in the melting-pot. It’s been going on for twelve days, and I’m cracking up with the fear, and now you tell me she’s never coming back?”
Brodie felt the pang of his fear like a small knife under her ribs. She was no longer convinced it was warranted, but she believed he thought it was which made it just as real. “David -”
But he didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want anyone to listen to her talking down the risk. He hurried on. “If I believed you it would be difficult. I’d have to get used to the idea that it could be months, even years, before I saw Sophie again. But at least I’d know she was safe - that when we finally got it sorted out, she’d come home safe and well.
“But I don’t believe you. I’m sorry, Mrs Farrell, I know you’re doing your best, I’m sure what you say makes sense. But you don’t know Marie and I do, and I’m convinced that you’re wrong. And that means my little girl is still in deadly danger, and I can’t get any of you to understand! I’m sorry if I upset you. But you’re a mother: you know how you’d feel in my position. With the greatest respect, Mr Hood, you don’t.”
Daniel breathed lightly. “You’re mistaken. I know exactly how much your daughter means to you. You were willing to kill for her; perhaps you’d be willing to die for her. But maybe what she needs from you most is that you keep your nerve.”
David regarded him with a dislike that, in the circumstances, had a certain nobility about it. But his voice was level. “You offered to leave now. I’d take that as a kindness.”
From the depths of his chair Lance Ibbotsen growled like a bear. “This is my house, David, if anyone’s to be thrown out I’ll have the pleasure of doing it. If you can’t deal with this rationally, go for a walk and leave it to me. I happen to think Mrs Farrell’s contribution has been profoundly helpful. Or perhaps you reckon I don’t care enough about Sophie to have an opinion either.”
“I think you care about your money more!”
A more hurtful riposte could hardly be imagined. There may have been some justice in it; whether or not, the man could be forgiven for the tattered state of his emotions. But either way it threw a monkey-wrench into the discussion. There was no ignoring it and no getting past. Lance Ibbotsen rose slowly to his full height.
“Care about money?” he rumbled. “Damn right I do! I started with nothing, I’ve worked for every penny I have. First I did it for me, then I did it for you, now I do it for Sophie. Half a million? - c
hicken-feed! I’d set fire to the whole damn lot if I thought it would bring Sophie home. To start with I didn’t pay up because I was afraid it might get her killed. Now I’m not paying up because I think Mrs Farrell’s right: that box of hair isn’t the act of someone who’s prepared to hurt her. But whether I pay or don’t pay, sonny, it’s my money and my decision.
“I’ll take the blame too if I have to, but if there are mistakes to be paid for they’ll be my mistakes, not yours. My judgement is good. I’ve had to gamble everything on my wits before this; you never have. Everything you’ve ever had was served to you on a plate. I don’t begrudge you that, but don’t think it qualifies you for an equal say in business matters. You haven’t the talent, the skill or the experience. Half a million pounds won’t break me, but it does put this into the big league. And you’re not a big league player, David, and you never will be.”
David was on his feet too. But there was nothing he could say to change the brute reality that he hadn’t the means to defy his father even in this most personal of crises. His eyes filled and his lip trembled, and he turned and stumbled out of the room without a word.
Chapter 17
Ibbotsen made no effort to follow his son. He lowered himself back into his chair like a pteradactyl folding its wings.
Brodie regarded him with disbelief. “How can you claim to love someone else’s child so much and show so little respect for your own?” She left the room in David’s wake.
She expected to find him in the hall, possibly kicking an effigy of his father kept specifically for the purpose. But the hall was empty, and there were six doors and a sweeping staircase he could have used. She scowled. She couldn’t search the house for him, and doubted he’d answer if she called.
A faint fairy tinkling drew her eye to French windows leading from the rear of the hall to a terrace overlooking the sea. They were shut, but a wind-chime of tiny bells was shivering gently, stirred by a recent draught of air. She let herself out onto the terrace.
