‘She’s discovered that her poor son was missing,’ said Umi to Roscoe, in case he wasn’t following.
Roscoe nodded in Marika’s direction. ‘You go straight to the house, the boarded-up door has been forced open, you go inside and Emily comes down the stairs?’
‘Yes,’ said Marika.
‘So whoever broke in and took Brayden had to force the door, race upstairs, grab him, run back down and be clear of the garden in less than ninety seconds. Otherwise you would have seen them?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘Well, unless our kidnapper was Usain Bolt,’ said Roscoe, ‘that boy was already gone.’
CHAPTER 23
ROSCOE LIFTED HIS arm and stretched his shoulder as he walked with his beloved Aunt Jessie across the lawns of London’s Tribeca Luxury Hotel.
‘Beautiful,’ she said to her adopted son as she absorbed the spectacle of the illuminated gardens: every tree decorated with different-coloured lights to create a night-time spectacular.
An afternoon spent assembling his daughters’ new slide followed by chasing them around their grandparents’ garden had left him looking forward to a quiet late-evening supper at the hotel.
As they walked inside and through the decked hallways, Jessie turned to him. ‘Now, tell me, what have you done to that shoulder of yours? You haven’t stopped stretching it since you collected me from Alvin’s.’
‘A bit of a tear – nothing to worry about,’ said Roscoe, unconsciously stretching it out again.
‘Doesn’t look like nothing to me.’ Aunt Jessie linked her arm through his. ‘Promise me you will have it looked at.’
‘I promise,’ said Roscoe, pulling her close to him.
Turning into the hallway outside the restaurant, the last person he wanted to see was Matteo Ginevra.
‘How sweet,’ said Matteo as he stumbled down the hall towards Roscoe and Aunt Jessie. ‘Taking the old folk out at Christmas.’ Lurching forward, he tried to slap Roscoe on the back.
‘You’re drunk,’ said Roscoe tersely.
‘It’s Christmas!’ replied Matteo. ‘A time for celebrating.’
‘You’ve got nothing to celebrate. You’re a fool if you think I’ve gone away.’
‘You’ve got me all wrong, Jon,’ said Matteo, grinning broadly. ‘And anyway, it’s not me who’s celebrating, it was good old Jerry Davis.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Roscoe.
‘Jerry Davis. You remember him, always such a straight-up guy? Gave his evidence to the court, headed down to his new home in Florida to celebrate.’
‘And?’
‘And he’s had a tragic accident. He had a new life, and a beautiful new home on the fourteenth floor of a luxury block. But he celebrated a little too much. The police found him earlier today. You don’t need me to tell you a fall from such a height would be impossible to survive. And on Christmas Day. Just tragic.’
‘You bastard,’ said Roscoe. He pushed Matteo away from him.
‘Have a happy Christmas,’ said Matteo, falling forwards again.
Roscoe snapped. He slammed Ginevra against the wall, holding him by the throat, crushing his windpipe. Unable to breathe, Matteo’s face rapidly turned puce.
It was the moment Roscoe had waited for. Revenge.
He increased the pressure and Matteo collapsed to his knees.
Anger boiling inside him, he forced Matteo to the ground. His fingers tightened around his throat until Ginevra had no breath left to take.
CHAPTER 24
‘JON, NO!’ SCREAMED Aunt Jessie.
Snapped from his stupor, Roscoe released his grip and tossed Matteo aside.
‘Stay away from me,’ he said, standing over the Italian. ‘Next time one of the old folk might not be around to save you.’
Stepping around Matteo, he took hold of Aunt Jessie’s arm and led her into the restaurant. ‘I’ve a table reserved for four,’ he told a waiter.
‘Please follow me, sir – your other guests have already arrived,’ the waiter replied, leading them to where Anna and Martin were already seated.
‘I’m sorry,’ Roscoe said to Aunt Jessie as they crossed the room.
‘I’m sure he deserved it,’ she replied, then stopped and took Roscoe’s hand. ‘My only worry is, Jon, one day I won’t be there to stop you.’
Coffee was being served at the end of Roscoe’s meal when Oscar Miller entered the restaurant. Approaching his table, Miller simply said to his security chief, ‘I told you this had to stop.’
‘Matteo been telling tales?’ said Roscoe, getting to his feet to face Miller but wondering if this time he had gone too far.
‘The Ginevra family are irreplaceable associates of Tribeca Luxury Hotels. Our businesses work hand in hand and our success is entwined with theirs. I will not have my global head of security threatening that relationship in any way. Do you understand me?’
‘Jerry Davis is dead, sir.’
Miller looked quizzically at Roscoe. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Jerry Davis, the witness from Chicago.’
‘Roscoe, I told you to leave Chicago alone. I couldn’t care less about Jerry Davis, Sammy Davis or Geena Davis. I want you to listen to me. One more incident like this and your time with Tribeca is over.’
Roscoe seethed with fury but remained silent.
‘I’m glad you understand,’ said Miller. ‘To draw a line under this, I want you to go upstairs, apologise to Enzo and tell him you’ll leave him, his son and his family alone.’
Staring at Miller, Roscoe swallowed hard. ‘Matteo Ginevra was responsible for the death of two construction workers and I now believe he is responsible for the death of Jerry Davis.’
‘The twenty-eighth floor,’ said Miller. ‘Now.’
Roscoe stood with Aunt Jessie beside the magnificent Christmas tree that extended up through the marbled lobby of the Tribeca Luxury Hotel. Holding her close, he wished her goodnight. The woman who had raised him since he was only four years old remained a force for good in his life. He was indebted to her in a way it was impossible for him to ever repay.
As she and Martin climbed into a black cab, Roscoe stood at the entrance to the hotel and watched them disappear down the driveway. As soon as they were gone, he walked across the foyer and hit the call button for the express elevator.
Racing up through the building, he tried to convince himself he had to move on. Scum like Matteo Ginevra weren’t worth it. And he wasn’t worth the career Roscoe had built at Tribeca. He loved working for the hotel group and all of the challenges it brought him. He wasn’t about to let that go.
He had to step back from the brink.
Reaching the twenty-eighth floor, he walked quickly down the hallway and pushed the bell outside Enzo Ginevra’s suite. There was no reply. He pressed again and was about to leave when he heard footsteps approach from within.
Still the door didn’t open, so Roscoe knocked gently. He heard the lock being turned and the door slowly opened.
Standing in front of him was Cal Ginevra, her hands and arms smothered with blood.
PART 4
26 December
CHAPTER 25
ROSCOE LOOKED AT Cal Ginevra standing in the doorway of her father’s suite. She held her palms open in front of her; her hands and arms were wet with blood.
‘Cal?’ he said softly, realising she was rigid with shock. ‘Cal, you need to step inside and let me in.’
She took one step back from the door and collapsed against the wall. As she dropped to the floor, Roscoe leant forward to catch her. Feeling her bloodied hands slide down his back, she fell lifelessly to the ground.
‘Tell me what’s happened,’ he said. ‘Has somebody tried to hurt you?’
Mute, Cal curled into the wall, wrapping herself up tightly. Holding her head in her hands, she smeared the red blood through her white-blonde hair.
Crouching beside her, Roscoe tried to see her face. She turned away.
‘
Cal, who else is here?’ he asked. ‘Who else is in the suite?’
She pulled her body tighter into itself.
Roscoe got to his feet and stared into the living room. A single brass banker’s lamp lit the room. In the dim glow, he could see blood traced across the oak floor.
Hesitantly, he moved forward through the living room and towards the main bedroom. The door was closed but Roscoe could follow the trail of blood coming from the room.
Slowly he edged the door open.
Inside he could hear the steady drip of blood onto the polished floor. Stepping into the room, he saw the glint of a shining silver blade protruding from the chest of a body lying prone across the bed.
Roscoe inched forward.
He stopped at the side of the bed. The victim’s eyes stared up at him, still fixed in terror.
Lying on the king-sized bed, the white Egyptian cotton sheets turned red with blood, was Enzo Ginevra.
CHAPTER 26
ROSCOE LOOKED DOWN on the ravaged body. It was clear to him a frenzied and ruthless attack had just taken place and that Enzo Ginevra had been repeatedly stabbed in his chest and neck with the silver Tribeca Luxury Hotels carving knife that now jutted from his heart.
Still standing beside the bed, he heard sobs coming from the living room. He walked out of the bedroom and back to the entrance to the suite, where Enzo’s daughter Cal remained crouched against the wall.
For a moment he stood in silence, watching Cal rock herself back and forth. What had taken place in Enzo’s bedroom was an attack the savagery of which Roscoe had rarely seen. It was as if a fury had been released from within the killer, held deep for many years. Cal was a girl of no more than eighteen. What could have driven her to such an act?
‘Tell me what happened,’ he repeated.
She continued to rock herself, backwards and forwards.
Roscoe knelt down, placing a hand upon her shoulder. He felt her movement stop and she rested herself back against the wall.
‘Is anyone else hurt?’
She slowly shook her head.
‘Kellie and Harper?’
Again she shook her head.
‘Where are they?’ asked Roscoe.
She looked down at her hands, still wet with blood, and ran her fingers across her palms.
‘Cal, I need to know where they are.’
‘Asleep,’ said Cal. ‘In my suite. I knew this was my chance.’
‘You did this?’ said Roscoe, already knowing the answer to his question.
‘I was waiting for him.’
‘Why?’
Cal shook her head.
Roscoe got to his feet. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me before I call the police?’
She started to rock once more.
Roscoe dropped again to his knees. ‘Look at me,’ he said urgently. ‘Why have you done this?’
Cal lifted her head. A single tear ran down her bloodstained face.
‘Tell me why you did this, Cal. Why?’ Roscoe repeated, his voice rising in frustration.
She looked directly at Roscoe. ‘Harper is not my sister,’ she whispered. ‘She’s my daughter.’
CHAPTER 27
A PHYSICAL BLOW could not have rocked Roscoe with any greater force.
‘Harper’s your daughter?’
Cal stared back at the floor and nodded.
‘I was thirteen,’ she began. ‘We lived in an old Italian house with marble floors and heavy wooden doors. Even now when I lie awake at night I can hear the creak of the handle as the door was cracked open and he let himself into my room.
‘I think I was seven or eight when it first started. My mother was ill, hardly ever left her room. We often had different people visit the house, all kinds of people coming and going. I never really understood how sick my mother was, I just wanted her to be well again.
‘Each time he came I wished so hard she would come and save me. Months and then years went by. I saw my mother less and less. All she could do was lie in her bed. She was so very weak.
‘More and more he came to my room. Each time I closed my eyes and pretended I was asleep. He didn’t care.
‘And then one day … one day I knew, there was a baby coming.’
Roscoe could only imagine the agony Cal had carried with her for so many years. His urge was to hold her, to take her into his arms and tell her he would make everything all right. But he knew he couldn’t. He knew nothing would ever be all right for her again.
She looked up at him, her face streaked with blood and tears. ‘My father sent me away. He had another house, hidden away in the hills. I promised him I’d be good but he still sent me away. My mother was dead and he was marrying Kellie. He told her I’d been stupid with a boy from school. My baby was born and two days later my father took her away from me. I cried and cried for my little girl. I wanted her so badly.
‘He sent me away to school in America. I never saw Harper again. Until now. I told him I couldn’t live without her any longer. He told me to forget about her, that she would never be mine. I couldn’t do that. I had to have her, to protect her from the very same thing that happened to me.’
Cal paused.
‘I was ready for him.’
CHAPTER 28
IN THE DARKNESS of the early hours of the morning, Roscoe stood in the foyer of the Tribeca Luxury Hotel. With Anna at his side, he watched as first Cal was led away by the Metropolitan Police and then the body of Enzo Ginevra was carried from the hotel.
‘You think she planned it?’ asked Anna.
‘She definitely planned it,’ replied Roscoe. ‘She put Harper to sleep in her own bed, sent Kellie in to sleep with her and then let herself into Enzo’s suite. Half drunk, he had drifted off to sleep and she was waiting for him.’ He shivered. ‘Years of rage poured out of her. I’ve never seen an attack so frenetic.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘I’m sure she’ll be charged. My old boss, Fran Walker, is heading up the case, but whatever happens, this was a most violent and premeditated attack,’ he sighed. ‘And I should have seen it coming.’
Anna put her hand on his arm. ‘Nobody could have seen this coming.’
‘But she was desperate for help. If I’d pushed her harder, made her tell me what was going on in her head, understood her desperation to protect her daughter, I could have prevented this. But I didn’t. I was distracted, so determined to get Matteo that I didn’t see what was right in front of me.’ He stretched his shoulder and remembered the sight of Cal running across the snow-covered road only three days before. ‘I knew there was evil in that family.’
Oscar Miller walked into the foyer.
‘Please, Jon, don’t do anything stupid,’ said Anna.
‘I won’t,’ he said, turning towards his boss. ‘Are you happy now, Mr Miller?’
Oscar Miller stopped and faced Roscoe. He looked exhausted, overrun by stress and fear. ‘What did you say?’ he said.
‘I told you the Ginevra family was evil. What do you think drove Cal to do what she did?’
‘This is a tragedy but it changes nothing,’ said Miller. ‘That girl was mentally unwell. Enzo did everything he possibly could for her. She’s been held in a secure school for the past four years and he was desperate for her to be part of the family again. The doctors advised against it but he was determined to have all his family together this Christmas. The tragedy is he paid with his life.’
Roscoe took a step back. Could he have been so wrong about Cal? Is that why she never truly confided in him?
‘Mr Miller,’ he said with a slight hesitation, ‘the Cal I met wasn’t disturbed or from a special school. She was a girl crying out for help.’
‘I imagine you hardly spoke more than a few words to her,’ said Miller, putting his hand on Roscoe’s arm. ‘It happens to us all, Jon. She’s beautiful and you were drawn in by her, but that doesn’t stop her being a fantasist.’
Roscoe took a deep breath. He wanted to shout at Miller t
hat he had got it all wrong. But then he thought of the way she had acted towards him. And how he had convinced himself she needed saving.
And how he was the one to save her.
‘Enzo made sure she had the very best treatment money could buy,’ continued Miller. ‘No one could have foreseen the tragedy that followed.’
‘What about her child?’ asked Roscoe, just as Matteo Ginevra walked into the foyer.
But Oscar Miller was already walking away from him. For a second Roscoe saw him hesitate, and then he embraced Matteo.
Roscoe watched as the two men headed out the front of the hotel, Miller’s arm around Matteo’s shoulder.
Cal had been desperate for his help, he told himself. She had needed him and he’d failed her.
So why would Oscar Miller lie to him?
CHAPTER 29
SITTING IN HOLIDAY traffic as he drove west across London, Roscoe rubbed his eyes. Five years earlier, when serving as an inspector in London’s Metropolitan Police, three hours’ sleep would have comfortably carried him through the next day. Now, thinking of his judgement of the Ginevra family, he felt anxious and exhausted. He would be thirty-seven early in the new year. Perhaps age was starting to catch up with him.
Greeted by the picturesque scene in the village of St Barnham, its Christmas tree lights still shining, its winding pathways turned white by the frost, he let his mind drift and thought of the secrets the village kept hidden beneath its charming facade.
At the gate to the front garden of his in-laws’ home, Roscoe stopped for a moment. Lauren and Aimee were joyously chasing each other around their new slide, climbing up it, sweeping down, and then doing it all over again. Marika sat on the edge of a wooden bench beneath a giant frost-covered fir tree, a steaming-hot cup of coffee clasped between her hands. Laughter filled the air and Roscoe cherished the moment which was in such contrast to the horrors he had witnessed in the hours before. Seeing his daughters lifted his spirits but also reminded him how much he missed them.
Kidnapped: BookShots (A Jon Roscoe Thriller) Page 6
