The Toff and the Kidnapped Child

by John Creasey

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Rollison said, “but I want you to get one of Bill Ebbutt’s men to stand in for you, and you must see Dr Welling first thing in the morning.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Fine,” said Rollison. “Now sit back, and try to sleep.”

  “The usual overnight case is packed, sir, except for the toilet bag.”

  “Fine,” Rollison said again. “Good night.”

  “Good night, sir. And good luck.”

  Rollison stepped into his own room, found the overnight case with slippers, a change of shoes, pyjamas, a clean shirt, everything he might need in an emergency. He went into the bathroom and collected the oddments he wanted, and then went out. There was a dim yellow light on the landing above the stone steps, which cast grey shadows. He hurried down. The house was silent, and when he stepped into Gresham Terrace, that was also silent but better lit, and there were lights at some of the windows. He turned right, and hurried towards the mews where he kept his car. As he turned the corner, a policeman approached, recognised him, and spoke as if it were a happy chance to meet him.

  “Hallo, Mr Rollison. Off out?”

  “For a ride in the country,” Rollison said. “A friend of mine is ill.”

  “I’m sorry about that, sir.”

  “Sure you are,” said Rollison. “Good night.” He went on, hurrying, feeling a great sense of urgency. The mews was in darkness, and he shone a pencil torch on the sliding doors of his garage, then switched on the light. A pearl-grey Rolls-Bentley Continental gleamed beneath it. Little more than five minutes after leaving the flat, he was parked outside, watching his wing mirror, sure that Eve Kane would not be long. Soon, a car turned the corner; a Sunbeam Alpine. It drew up behind the Rolls-Bentley and Rollison, already getting out, reached it before the door opened. He opened it and helped Eve out. The light showed how bright her eyes were, as if they were aglint with fear. He had met her for the first time three hours ago, but there was no sense of strangeness; he pressed her arm, to try to give some reassurance.

  “We’ll be there in less than two hours,” he said, and took her to his car. “Did you bring a case?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll be able to fix you up at the school,” he said. Soon he was sitting beside her, and the engine was turning and the car sliding towards the end of the street, Piccadilly, and the north-west. “I’ll go out Edgware Road way, and then work across the suburbs,” he said. “I know the road.” They swung into Piccadilly smoothly, and in spite of the urgency kept down to thirty-five miles an hour. There was little traffic, and only here and there a policeman, but the Circus was ablaze with light which reflected on Eve’s pale face and put lurid colours into her eyes. “What time did it happen?”

  “Apparently, about ten o’clock,” she answered, and told him exactly what the headmistress of the school had told her, so that he knew as many details as she. In a hopeless kind of voice, she went on: “I can hardly believe this of Ralph. I know that may sound absurd, but I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “She idolised him, but—” There was a moment’s pause. “Although he was fond of her, I can’t believe that he would want to be responsible for her. It doesn’t seem to make sense.”

  “I see,” said Rollison.

  He was beginning to wonder what kind of shadow was really looming over this woman. She had jumped to the obvious and probably the right conclusion, and yet she rebelled against it because of what she knew of the character of her husband; and from what she had told Rollison, she was remarkably objective about him. On the other hand, she would not want to believe that her husband was going to leave her for another woman, and wanted to have the child with him.

  Once they were in the Edgware Road, he put on speed whenever he could. The car made little more than a humming sound, and Eve sat in silence, as if she could not bring herself to talk about the fresh disaster; probably because she felt that she had already said everything that needed saying.

  Suddenly Rollison said: “Gould Caroline have run away?”

  “I don’t think it would even enter her head.”

  “If your husband hasn’t taken her with him, have you any idea what might have happened?” He meant: ‘Have you any other, deeper cause for fear?’

  “No,” she answered. “I’ve been trying to imagine anyone who might want to harm me, or Ralph, or Caroline. I can’t think of anyone. Except—”

  Rollison did not prompt her. “There was a girl who—who threatened him.”

  “Because he’d let her down?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She telephoned the house two or three times, and I had to talk to Ralph about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He—laughed.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “About six months,” Eve said, and added almost wearily: “I thought what a bad start it was to the New Year. Caroline was in Switzerland with a party of school friends. She’s crazy about skiing.”

  “Who was the woman?”

  “I only know that her name was Leah.”

  “Leah,” echoed Rollison, and told himself that if it ever became necessary to search for this woman, the name was unusual enough for people to remember its owner more easily than a more commonplace name. “Did she threaten you or Caroline?”

  “Oh, no.”

  Rollison asked: “Is there anyone else?”

  “No,” Eve said firmly. “No, I’ve never heard that anyone else made trouble at all. Mr Rollison—”

  “Eve,” Rollison interrupted, “we’re going to work very closely together for the next few days, we’ll probably see a lot of each other, and we might just as well make it Eve and Richard – or, if you prefer it, Rolly.”

  After a pause, she said: “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Supposing Caroline wasn’t taken away by my husband, how—how can you set about trying to find her?”

  “We would have to go to the police at once.”

  “At Hapley?”

  “Only to start with,” Rollison said. “And even if it was your husband who took her, if we’re to stop him from getting away with her, we will have to consult the police.”

  “Won’t it be too late?” asked Eve bitterly.

  “You mean, they could have left the country by now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Caroline have her passport with her?”

  “She had it at school,” Eve answered. “I shouldn’t think she would have had it with her when she went out tonight. She loved to look at the different continental stamps on it.” There was a catch in her voice again. “I think I ought to make one thing clear.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be guided by you. Do whatever you think best.”

  “That’s the way I like to work!” Rollison said, and glanced at her, smiling. “Headache?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the dashboard pocket in front of you you’ll find some aspirins, and fitted inside the door pocket a vacuum jug with water in it. If you’ll take three aspirins and close your eyes, you’ll get some rest.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Soon they were on the open road, and the car was moving almost without a sound at eighty miles an hour. Now and again a car approached them, headlights dipping, but for the most part the road was empty. They turned into a main road, had a few miles of driving with heavy trucks going both ways, then turned off.

  “You certainly know the way,” Eve remarked.

  “I’ve lived in London for a long time,” Rollison told her.

  When he glanced at her again, she was leaning back with
her eyes closed. It was good to think that she could relax even a little; better to know that he had managed to affect her like that. He had a strange feeling, almost of contentment. There was no apparent reason for it, but there it was; a kind of warmth, stealing over him. He had felt like this once or twice before, many years ago and he had forgotten it except in the moments of nostalgic remembering. The almost voluptuous feel of the car, the soft sound of Eve Kane’s breathing, the gentle touch of her arm against his because she was leaning slightly this way, were all part of the mood.

  He kept glancing in the mirror.

  Few cars could match this for speed. There was little danger of being followed, but that was a possibility which he could not neglect. His life had been one of fighting crimes of violence; of surviving because he had kept alert when other men, some clever, some brutal, some vicious and many deadly, had nodded for a moment. This might be a simple domestic matter – but Eve’s assessment of her husband’s character made it possible that much more was involved. If this were the case of the kidnapping of a child, there might be deep and secret motives, and deep and unknown dangers. So he watched the mirror, to make sure that no car followed. Everyone he overtook he studied carefully, so as to recognise it again later if he were forced to stop and the other car passed or stopped also. His was the trained mind, disciplined over the years to miss nothing that might later become significant. He had not told Eve, but if this were not simply a case of a father abducting his child, there might be danger for Eve as well as her daughter. If Caroline had been kidnapped from Hapley Station she must have been watched, and the family and school situation studied closely. If that were true of the daughter, it could be true of the mother.

  Eve said unexpectedly: “Rolly.” She gave it a long ‘o’, not short, as in Jolly, but as if it were spelt with only one ‘I’. “Why should anyone want to kidnap a child?”

  Rollison did not answer, and Eve went on: “They wouldn’t do it without a good reason. Why should anyone want to do it?”

  “There are only two possibilities,” Rollison said, and it did not occur to him to lie or to hedge; she would want to know exactly what he thought, would not want to be shielded from fears or dangers. “The first is that of revenge, as with this Leah. I wouldn’t rate it high unless there was much more than you knew about in his association with her. The other is to bring some kind of pressure to bear.”

  “Do you mean, ransom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t tell you this,” Eve said, and paused before declaring: “I am a wealthy woman – very wealthy, by most standards. I don’t care what it costs to get Caroline back.”

  “I don’t think we ought to start thinking of that, yet.” Rollison said, although in fact it was on the top of his mind. “I think—”

  He stopped, and grew tense, and knew that Eve looked at him, startled. He was staring a little way off the road, for the gleam of the great headlights had picked up a reflection from glass, presumably the windows of a car. Then, swiftly, a car swung out of a road just ahead of them, right in the great car’s path.

  4

  WARNING

  Rollison trod on the brake and the tyres squealed and he and Eve were thrown forward. She banged her head on the windscreen, and he heard her gasp. The car, vivid in the headlights, had turned in the direction that they were going, and seemed to be moving fast. It might be a lunatic of a driver; or it might have been done deliberately, to slow him down and to stop him.

  Brake lights went on.

  The nose of the Rolls-Bentley and the tail of the leading car were only two yards apart, now, but there was no danger of a heavy collision. The leading car was still slowing down, as if the driver were set on stopping them. Eve was sitting back with a hand at her head, as if she were dazed; too dazed, perhaps, to be frightened.

  Rollison swung his wheel, missed the bumper of the car ahead by a fraction of an inch, and roared past it. He saw the gargoyle-like face of the man at the driving seat, looking as if he had a hand on the door, ready to open it, but terrified that it should be smashed out of his grasp. Another face was staring from the far side of the car. Rollison said: “Sorry”, and swung the wheel again, so that he was in front and only a few yards ahead of the second car. He stopped, and said: “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, it’s made me a bit dizzy, that’s all.”

  “I’ll go and see if I can make that driver dizzy,” Rollison said grimly.

  “No, please don’t! It will lose time.”

  “I won’t let it,” Rollison assured her, and opened the door and swung out on to the road. There was still a possibility that it was no accident, but a deliberate attempt to stop him. If so, he wanted to see the driver, a quick counter-attack now could save a lot of trouble later on. There was no need for Eve to know that he half expected danger – it would be bad enough if she had to know about it if it were true. If it were, he was a sitting bird; but he kept close to the side of the road, watching closely. There was no move from the car. When Rollison reached it, the driver was still sitting at the door, but the window was down.

  “What the hell are you playing at?” Rollison demanded.

  “S-s-sorry,” the driver muttered, and he still looked scared. “I thought you were further away.”

  “You could have killed us as well as yourself.”

  “Yes, I—I know. I’m sorry.”

  It was too natural to be acting; this had been just a piece of lunatic driving. The girl next to the driver looked scared, too; and they were both young.

  “You might remember that you’ve got just one life,” Rollison said. He felt pompous, and sounded it, partly because of the anti-climax. He realised that in his mind he had almost taken it for granted that the driver had deliberately set out to stop him. “Good night.”

  He was halfway back to his own car before the response from the couple in the car came. He got in next to Eve, who didn’t speak until he had started off again. Then she said: “Did you think they did that deliberately?”

  “I thought it just possible.” He put his foot down harder, and the needle spun round to the sixties. “In the kind of crime I’m used to working on, that sort of thing does happen often, and the wise thing is to assume that it was deliberate.” He still sounded pompous, and wished that he didn’t: he wanted to impress Eve Kane well. “It didn’t take a minute, did it?”

  “No.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “The bump started it aching again, but I’ll be all right. How long will it be before we reach the school?”

  “About half an hour.”

  “I’ll take your advice again, and close my eyes.”

  “Do that,” said Rollison.

  Eve seemed to settle back in the luxurious seat, and he stared at the winding road ahead of him, seeing the glow of lights in the sky from car headlamps. The little encounter had shaken him, because it had shown how easy it would be to do the wrong thing. Usually, he was quite sure of himself. Now, he felt doubts – and he knew that the chief reason for the doubt was anxiety not to fail this woman.

  He glanced at her. The faint light from the instrument panel shone on her profile; a very lovely profile. He pictured her as he had seen her when she had first entered his room, tall, easy moving, with those wide-set blue eyes and the outward calmness concealing the depth of her distress. He put his foot down harder, getting all the speed he could. Eve did not stir, and once he wondered if she had dropped off to sleep from sheer mental and emotional exhaustion; but she moved her position slightly, and in a way which told him that she was wide awake. She didn’t speak.

  Twenty minutes after they had started off again, she sat up.

  “That’s Old Castle,” she said. “It’s only a mile or two now. Do you know where the school is?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll direct you,”
she said. “When we get into the town, there’s a forked road, and we take the left, past the station.”

  “Thanks.” They reached the fork very soon, and as he turned left, she said: “It’s the third on the right. You’ll see a church on the left, and the drive to the main buildings and the headmistress’s house is just there.”

  Rollison sensed that she had regained her composure, as completely as she was likely to. Soon the church loomed up, the spire tall and graceful against the stars beyond.

  “Now slow down – it’s the second on the left. The drive goes straight to the headmistress’s house, and you can park just outside it. I expect someone will be waiting for us.” Eve was doing something to her hair, Rollison realised, and he smiled faintly, then slowed down when he saw two figures appearing in the headlights, so suddenly that they startled him; then he realised that they were two women in the entrance to the school drive. He slowed down.

  “There’s Miss Abbott!” Eve exclaimed.

  “The housemistress?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Abbott looked tall and lean and grey in the light; and she was nearer the car than the other, smaller woman. A man came limping from one side as Rollison stopped, and Eve leaned out of the window.

  “Is there any news, Miss Abbott?”

  “I’m terribly sorry, but there isn’t.”

  Eve said: “Oh,” and seemed to go tense. “Has Miss Ellerby told the police?”

  “Not since you specially asked that she shouldn’t,” Miss Abbott answered, “but she is anxious to, just in case it isn’t quite what it seems. She is waiting for you. You drive on, and I’ll follow. There’s no one else in the car park.”

  She did not ask who Rollison was, but he noticed that the smaller, dumpier woman who had not spoken was staring at him; so was the man. The gravel of the drive crackled beneath the wheels, and the starlight showed a great stretch of open land, of lawn, and a row of smaller houses and a large building, obviously the main school building. Lights were on at two of the houses, and streamed from the front door of one of them. Rollison pulled up outside this. As he switched off the engine, he heard the footsteps of Miss Abbott and the other woman, and footsteps coming from inside the house, too; a shadow was cast near the car, and rapidly touched and then climbed up it. A massive woman appeared as Rollison helped Eve out: her voice was gruff and mannish.