Fragile Lives

by Jane A. Adams

  Cameras atop the gateposts scrutinized their car as they approached, swivelling to get a better look as Tim got out and pressed the speaker button inset in the right-hand post.

  ‘Rina Martin and Tim Brandon to see Mr Randall,’ he said.

  The gate clicked and cracked and then began to move. Tim scooted back into the car and eased it forward. ‘He likes his privacy.’

  Rina nodded, her earlier apprehension returning and building. ‘He’s either a man with a lot to hide or a great deal to defend.’

  ‘Or both. Oh well, deep breath and on with the performance.’

  Beside him, Rina nodded grimly wondering just how this next act was going to be played.

  Two men greeted them in the hallway. Airport-style scanners had been installed, recessed into the oak panels on either side of the door. Rina handed her bag over, glad, for some reason, that she had left the postcard in the car. Tim set off the scanner twice. Car keys and a nest of little cups tucked into the pocket of his jacket, this second discovery causing raised eyebrows and puzzled looks. Rina decided she wasn’t going to explain but she was interested that Tim had obviously decided on the fly to use hotel equipment for his performance. She approved; using props that were not his further misdirected his audience and just added to the sense of mystery. It showed he was thinking about the context and not just the magic.

  Both of Randall’s men were armed, she was sure of that. Their tailor could have been better, she thought. All this money around and second-rate jackets; that seemed unnecessarily sloppy.

  Randall diminished in her estimation.

  Diminishing him made her feel ever so slightly better, though no less wary.

  ‘Come along in,’ a voice invited from a half-open door just off the wide hallway. ‘Sorry for all the fuss, but these days you never know.’

  ‘Mr Randall, I presume.’

  ‘The same.’

  Randall’s suit was better cut, she decided she’d allow him that. He was a slender man, a few inches taller than Rina and with dark hair that she was certain had been dyed. Carefully done and expertly cut, but if the intent was to make him look less than his years then she regarded it as having failed. She placed him in his sixties, but trying his best to remain at forty-five. She found herself comparing him to James Duggan. Their suits and haircuts probably cost the same, though she guessed Duggan was the younger of the two – and he didn’t try to conceal his age. But, whereas Duggan would always look like a well-dressed grifter who’d never quite shed the poverty of his ancestral roots, Randall exuded wealth and education. Though not class, she thought. No, class was something else again.

  ‘Some set-up you have here,’ Tim said and Rina pulled her attention away from the man and scanned the room. A bank of CCTV cameras filled one wall, computer equipment using up a fair complement of a second. Large, square bay windows, complete with their original shutters folded back into a recess, gave a view of what was now a walled garden but which Rina guessed had originally faced out across open countryside. But it was the final wall that drew Rina’s gaze.

  ‘Take a look,’ Randall invited.

  Rina looked. A large-scale map of the UK was scattered with red pins. Some of those pins had threads linking them, others had threads leading off on to the cork board that completely covered this fourth wall. Pictures and handwritten details sat next to computer printouts which sidled up to references and file names that, Rina guessed, referred to folders on the computer system. The odd press clipping added texture to the display and the whole gave the impression of being an art installation in one of the posh London galleries Rina took pleasure in misunderstanding whenever she took a trip to the capital.

  Rina counted the red pins. Seventeen. She examined the dates and names noting that some names occurred more than once. She squinted hard at the photographs, some looked like family snapshots, some clipped from magazines, a few looked like the kind of formal picture still beloved of school photographers. At last she turned to Randall.

  ‘Are you certain about all of this?’

  He shook his head. ‘A half-dozen cases are still unverified because the families deny anything happened. They’re afraid of what they might be threatened with if they come out in the open. But, as certain as I can be there have been at least a dozen abductions, maybe more.’

  Rina frowned, looking again at the names and dates, the implications sinking in. ‘Some families were targeted twice. Is that right, or am I misreading?’

  ‘No, you’re not misreading. In the case of three families, different family members were taken. Each was returned, each time the price demanded was increased. You see, the abductors are clever. They might terrify or even injure, but, provided the families cooperate, pay up, stay silent, they get their child or their mother or their sister or brother. Whoever, and the pattern is, shall we say, eclectic, they get them back, more or less intact. And if a spell in “therapy”, as our American cousins would call it, is required, well there’s generally still enough in the family coffers to pay for that. So far, no one has been bankrupted, though in one case it’s come close.’

  The family that Duggan had mentioned that had trouble paying, Rina thought. ‘Was that you, Mr Randall?’

  He scowled. ‘I’d hit a tight patch,’ he said. ‘But I’m over that now.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Rina said, ‘that it wouldn’t be in the interests of the kidnappers to completely bankrupt anyone. Not if they want to keep everything as quiet as possible. A wealthy family that suddenly loses its wealth will attract attention. A loss, even a substantial one, can be covered up, blamed on a blip in the stock market or a bad deal, but one that turns up its toes completely is likely to be investigated somewhere along the line. These people are clever. They take as much as their targets can stand to lose and still remain viable and, in some cases at least, the fact that they are still financially healthy means they can be targeted again. How long has this been going on? James Duggan made a guess at two years, but an operation this large; it has to have been longer than that.’

  Randall nodded. ‘My estimate is closer to three,’ he said. ‘My own child was targeted eighteen months ago. I tried to call their bluff. To encourage full cooperation, they removed a finger, sent it to me recorded delivery. I had to sign for my son’s finger.

  ‘After I got him back, I sent my wife and child away and threw everything I could into tracking these bastards down. It has consumed me, Mrs Martin. Utterly.’

  ‘And how far have you got with it? Do you know who’s behind it?’ Tim was still taking in the scale of proceedings. ‘Have the demands escalated over time? What sort of failure rate have they had?’

  ‘One question at a time,’ Rina told him. She looked expectantly at Randall.

  ‘Sit down, please.’ He directed them to a sofa set in the window bay, took a number of files from a nearby cabinet and handed them to Rina before pulling up a chair.

  ‘The main man, I have come to believe, is Travis Haines. This is only one of his many names and one of his equally numerous occupations. Mercenary, arms dealer, trader in blood diamonds which is how, incidentally, I first ran across him. I freely admit I’m no innocent, Mrs Martin,’ he pointed out. ‘No one on that list is clean, that’s what makes them such excellent targets. For one reason or another, they all have something to hide; something that makes them want to keep the authorities at arm’s length, additional to the simple desire to keep their loved ones alive.’

  Rina flipped open the folder. She was beginning to feel as though she’d slipped back into the role as Lydia Marchant, television sleuth.

  ‘That’s Travis Haines.’ The picture, Rina thought, had the look of something taken with a long lens. A candid shot with little depth of field. As though reading her thoughts Randall continued, ‘He’s notoriously camera shy. In fact the only other pictures I could track down were taken by the security forces in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Then he did a stint in the Gulf, first time round and also in the early
stages of this war.’

  ‘Selling arms?’ Rina asked.

  ‘I believe so. Arms and information. Things seem to have become a little hot for him and he came back home, looked for a new opening. It’s my belief that the idea for the abductions must have come to him while he was in the Middle East. Kidnapping for profit is practically a business in Iraq, just as it was in Beirut in the bad old days.’

  ‘I had an uncle in Beirut,’ Tim mused. He took the sheets Rina had already examined and skimmed through. They elaborated slightly on what Randall had just told them.

  ‘The second folder contains what we know about his team. One face will be familiar, but of course, he’s now dead.’

  ‘Edward Parker,’ Rina said, glancing at the photographs and brief biographies. She recognized a second face, but said nothing and hoped Tim would follow her silent lead. So, blond-haired man’s name was Coran, was it? Rina and Tim had only encountered him briefly, there on the cliff top when Edward Parker had brought George to them, intending to trade his daughter’s life for that of his son. Rina and Tim had both done their stint with the police artist; Coran was not in the system.

  Ex-army and, Randall suspected, according to the notes he had made, Special Forces, probably, given the circles in which his boss, Travis Haines, moved. Rina scanned what was known about his background and family but it wasn’t much, taking up only a couple of lines and amounting to the fact that he had no close kin and his only close associates were ex-services. She wondered how high up in Haines’s organization he was.

  Over the page were another half-dozen pictures and potted bios. They could, Rina thought, almost have been interchangeable and split into roughly two groups. Those whose background was security and those for whom it had been crime. At the bottom of the page was a bald man with pale-grey eyes. He had to be the man George had seen with Coran. She read his entry, mentally noting his name, age and background and then set the folder aside. Tim, noting that she had not handed it to him, made no move to pick it up. Rina breathed a sigh of thanks that he could take a hint.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘where does all this lead? What are you doing about it?’

  Randall hesitated. It didn’t seem to be a question he had expected. He had expected pure adulation for what he’d achieved, Rina guessed, not questions. Not doubt.

  Abruptly, he got to his feet and took the folders back to the cabinet. ‘There have been rumours,’ he said sharply, ‘recent developments.’ He took a picture from the top of the cabinet and handed it to Rina.

  He hadn’t intended on showing us this, she thought. He’s looking for praise. Odd, she thought, just how many control freaks and megalomaniacs needed praise for nourishment. She studied the picture of the two little girls. A school photo. The pair were in uniform and she took careful note of the badge on their blazers. They were twins, seven or eight years old and very much alike, separated only by an additional dimple and a slightly lighter shade of blue in one pair of smiling eyes.

  ‘When were they taken?’

  ‘We believe about a week ago. The parents are in denial, say they’re staying with relatives but we know the school was told they were both sick. The parents have barely left the house. They’re waiting for the call. So far, it hasn’t come. But that’s what Haines does. He waits. He builds the tension almost to breaking and then he offers a deal. By then, most people would do or give anything.’

  Most people, Rina thought. Randall had tried to hold out. Had he really sent his wife and child away, she wondered, or had she taken the boy away from him? Rina knew she would be in the category of a parent ready to do any kind of deal, no hesitation or question; what sort of man tried to bargain? What sort of man would think he could bluff? What had happened in this quiet, structured, security-ridden house on the day his son’s finger had arrived with the morning post?

  And that begged another question. ‘Mr Randall, how did they get your son? I mean, this house is practically a fortress.’

  He took the picture from her. ‘It wasn’t always like this,’ he said. ‘We bought this place so he had room to play, space to ride that damned pony she insisted he needed. To throw balls for the bloody dog. Space, that was what she said a kid needed and I went along with it. I married late, she was younger, wanted children and I thought, all right, my child will have whatever it needs. So we bought this place, thinking it would be safe. Safe! I wish I’d never set eyes on it.’

  ‘And yet you stay?’

  Randall’s eyes narrowed. ‘And yet I stay.’ He seemed to come to a decision then. He grabbed a notepad from the top of the filing cabinet and scribbled something down, then handed it to Rina. ‘Duggan seemed to think you might be useful,’ he said. ‘Frankly, I doubt it, but there’s the name and address of the twins’ parents. See if you can talk sense into them. I need all the families to talk to me, tell me all the little bits and scraps of information they don’t even know they know. Then, maybe, we can track him down and nail the bastard.’

  Rina took the paper without looking at it and slipped it into her bag. ‘You stay,’ she said, ‘because everything points to Haines being based down here. Because you’ve had the most sightings of him and his team in this area. Because with a fast boat he could be anywhere along the coast or even across the channel in a matter of hours. It makes sense for him to be here so you stay and wait for him to make a mistake.’

  ‘Maybe I do,’ he acknowledged.

  One of his men had appeared in the doorway and they took it this was their cue to leave. Silently, Tim swung the car around and headed back towards the gate. He didn’t speak until they’d reached the main road and then when he opened his mouth to say something, Rina gestured silence, finger planted firmly on her lip.

  ‘I think I need a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘And a sit down and a good think.’

  Tim nodded. ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘You think he’s right about the twins?’ He looked at her: was this a safe subject?

  ‘Poor little buggers,’ Rina said. She nodded. It would seem strange if they stayed off the subject altogether.

  ‘And what do you think of Randall?’

  Rina smiled. ‘He’s a man used to getting his own way,’ she said. ‘And I do wonder as to the truth of things when he says he sent his wife and child away. I think she left him. Took the little boy and went. Can you imagine trying to raise a child in a place like that?’ She reached forward and turned the radio on, playing with the channels until finding something Tim thought must be Bach. He winced as she increased the volume, laughed out loud as he noticed the look of mischief on her face.

  ‘You think he bugged my car, don’t you?’ Tim stated as she unlocked the door at Peverill Lodge.

  ‘The postcard. Karen’s postcard. It had been moved and our friend Randall does seem to have a penchant for things electronic.’

  ‘How are we going to find out for sure?’

  ‘That,’ Rina told him, ‘is why we have a pet policeman.’

  Thirteen

  At nine o’clock it was fully dark but the night was clear and filled with stars. Simeon sat in the attic window looking out to sea. He loved this room; it had been turned into a playroom for the two boys when they had still been very small, long before Simeon’s accident. It had been left just as it was, the decor and contents added to through the years as their interest waxed and waned and changed. Andrew had begun to use it for his homework and then his writing projects while, for a long time, Simeon still played with their toys and childhood games.

  Andrew had once commented that sometimes, as he climbed the stairs, he felt that if he trod silently and carefully enough and then opened the door really fast, he might see the tiny Andrew and slightly bigger Simeon playing as they used to play. Might almost catch sight of the way they had been before …

  Andrew didn’t know that Simeon had heard him say that. Simeon sort of understood that Andrew would never say something like that to him for fear of hurting his feelings or causing upset, but something in the strang
e way that Simeon’s brain now worked – connecting one complex notion, unable to deal with a different simple one – had taken that idea into itself. Had enjoyed it, played with it, turned it this way and that until Simeon now looked for the ghostly shapes of their former selves whenever he came up here.

  And he came here very often.

  Tonight, as most nights, he was watching the ocean, waiting for the lights. Starry nights were best for this because he knew the constellations and could line up the shoreside landmarks with the stars far out in the night landscape and make patterns that stuck more firmly in his head than simple words. Andrew had a telescope. He had acquired it when he was twelve years old, just at the time when Simeon was starting to make sentences again. Andrew had moved the telescope into Simeon’s room and sat for hours, training it on this far distant star or that much closer planet. He’d told Simeon stories about the constellations and talked to him about the stars and how far away they were and somehow this had infiltrated into Simeon’s slowly rebuilding brain, making connections the doctors had never believed possible.

  Simeon still could not tie his laces, but he knew Orion and Cassiopeia and could picture Pegasus flying through the night sky and Draco breathing fire. When he had first met Rina Martin he had told her all about his stars and the way he watched for the lights and she had wanted to know all about the things he saw.

  Now, he sent her lists and she read them and wrote him notes about them and she never laughed when he found it hard to tie his laces.

  And so he watched tonight, looking for a boat in a stupid place and lights where no lights ought to be.

  And suddenly there they were. The big boat moving in towards the shore and the little boat detaching itself from it, the lamp on the bow bobbing and playing hide-and-seek as it dipped and rose and dipped again and then disappeared from view as the headland blocked it.

  He ran downstairs, shouting to his brother, telling Andrew that he had to use the phone. Simeon found it hard to do that, the disembodied voice and lack of visual cues so terribly upsetting. So, Andrew called Rina for him and told her in detail what Simeon had seen and when he put down the phone Andrew told him to get his coat. They would meet Rina on the cliff top near the hotel and see if they could see anything from there.