“That’s based on me reading between the lines, I could be entirely wrong, but I don’t think I am.”
Stone raised an eyebrow at that but had no opportunity to respond to what Evans had said; the argument in the reception hall ended abruptly and the library door flew open as Keating strode through. He paused for a moment, his hand on the door, to take several deep breaths and calm himself, and then he closed the door behind him.
“Inspector,” he approached Stone, “was it the ransom note that your constable found?”
Stone nodded. “Yes, I’ve sent it to the lab to be checked for fingerprints and DNA.”
“What did it say?” Keating asked, searching the inspector’s face for some clue.
“Not much,” Stone said, thinking that if nothing else, the argument with his son had returned some of the colour and animation to Keating’s face – he no longer looked as if he had just had an encounter of the spectral kind. “It didn’t say anything about where or when the ransom is to be paid, all it said it is,” he took the copy he had made out and opened it, “they want three and a half million Euros, in five hundred Euro notes.” He paused to look up at Keating and asked, “Are you able to get hold of that much?”
Keating considered the question for a few moments before he nodded sharply. “Yes, I can get it,” he said. “I’m not sure how long it will take the bank to arrange the money, though, a couple of days at least, I’d guess, especially since they want Euros not pounds. Why do you think they asked for Euros?”
Stone had thought about that when he first read the ransom note so he was able to answer straight away. “Most likely because they can ask for higher denomination notes, which means the money will take up less space and be easier for them to transport.”
“I guess that makes sense. I’ll have to speak to the manager when I go to the bank in the morning. I just hope they can organise the money before the kidnappers want it.”
Standing on the other side of the door to the library, Ryan Keating listened as his father accepted the price of his daughter’s freedom with no sign of being unwilling to pay the money. He had known his father would be able to afford the ransom, when the demand was received, but hearing him accept it with barely any thought, when he protested every request for money from him, angered Ryan. He forced himself to resist the urge to kick open the door and confront his father, knowing that it would accomplish nothing.
He turned away from the library and stomped upstairs, where he made his way into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
26
Stiff from having slept awkwardly and intermittently in one of the library’s reading chairs, Stone woke to a flurry of fresh information: Brian Jacobs had regained consciousness, though he was now asleep; Julia Harris had come out of her shock – she too was currently sleeping, but had taken a cup of tea and a few biscuits and was, according to the doctor who had checked her over, fit to be questioned when she woke next; the van used by the kidnappers had been located, and finally – and best of all in Stone’s opinion – another ransom note, this one giving more details about what the kidnappers wanted, had been received.
“Friday,” Stone said, reading the ransom note for a second time. “That only gives the bank a day to get the money together, do you think they’ll be able to manage it?” he asked of Keating, who was with him in the study.
Keating shrugged uncertainly. “I hope so.” Setting down the mug of coffee he had been cradling, but not drinking, he checked his watch. “I’ll call Tom, Tom Andrews, the manager of my bank,” he clarified, “as soon as he gets in; the bank opens in an hour, hopefully he’ll be there when it does. Do you think you’ll be able to get anything from this ransom note?” he asked, gesturing to the plastic-encased sheet of paper that sat on his desk.
Stone studied the ransom note, and the stamped and addressed envelope that sat next to it in its own evidence bag, for a moment before he answered. “I haven’t heard back from the lab about the other ransom note yet, so it’s hard to say what might be found on these. We’ll need Mr Chambers’ fingerprints, and a DNA sample from him, so they can be eliminated from anything found, and we’ll need to track down the postie who delivered the mail this morning so he can be eliminated as well.” Stone shook his head uncertainly. “We have the best forensics people available working the case, so if there is anything to find, they’ll find it – they have the van to go through as well, so there’s every chance they’ll come up with something from somewhere.”
“Why do you think they’re only giving us the information a bit at a time?” Keating wanted to know.
“To make things more difficult for us. The more time we have to plan and make arrangements, the more likely we are to catch them; they want to avoid that, and the best way for them to do so is to keep us in the dark as much as possible.”
27
As she had every step of the way there, Lisa protested and resisted. “We’re going to be late for school,” she said as her friend started up the steps to the police station. “If we go in there we’ll end up in trouble with our parents about Sunday, and late for school, which will get us into even more trouble, is that what you want?”
Megan paused to look back at her friend. “You do what you want, Lisa, but I’m going in, and I’m gonna tell them what we saw. If I’m late to school and get in trouble, I can live with that.” With that she turned and finished her ascent of the steps, pushing open the door when she got to it so she could enter the police station.
She waited patiently for the officer to pay attention to her when she reached the counter. As she did, she wondered what her friend was going to do; she didn’t have to wait long to find out, the door opened and then closed noisily after a short while, announcing that Lisa had decided to join her.
“Good morning, girls,” Sergeant Wells greeted the two schoolgirls in front of him. “How can I help you?” It wasn’t often that he had schoolgirls entering the station voluntarily, and never so early in the day, which made him think that they were there to report something potentially important; he soon learned that he was right.
Lisa gave her friend a significant look.
Megan took the hint. “We’d like to speak to someone about the hit-and-run on Sunday night, the one that’s been on the news and in the papers.”
“Do you know something about it?” Wells asked, wondering what they could possibly know about it, given the time the incident had occurred. When he received a curt nod in answer to his question, he picked up the phone and called through to CID. “What’s your names?” he asked of the girls halfway through the call.
“I’m Megan, and this is Lisa,” Megan told him, not thinking to provide their last names.
Wells repeated what he had just been told.
“Someone will be down to speak to you shortly,” Wells told the girls once he had finished on the phone.
“Hello, I’m Detective Constable Grey,” he introduced himself. “You’re Megan and Lisa?” He received nods from both teens. “Good. I understand you want to speak to someone about the hit-and-run that occurred on Sunday night.”
With more eagerness than she had shown up to that point, now that she saw the young detective they were to deal with, Lisa nodded. “That’s right. We think we know who did it,” she said importantly.
Grey put the two teens in an interview room and then went to find a WPC to sit in on the interview with him. “Lisa, Megan, this is WPC Unsworth,” he informed the girls. “Now, I realise you both need to get to school, so why don’t we get started. You say you have information about Sunday night’s hit-and-run, that you know who did it, is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Lisa said.
“No, we don’t know,” Megan disagreed quickly. “But we think we saw who ran that old man down.”
“You saw Mr Bollard get knocked down?” Grey asked in surprise. Given when the incident occurred, he hadn’t expected to find a witness, let alone that that witness would be a pair of schoo
lgirls.
Megan shook her head. “No, but we were almost knocked down not far from where he was. We were crossing the road and a car almost ran us down.”
“Why don’t you tell us where you were, what you were doing, and what happened,” Grey suggested.
Lisa answered before her friend could, wanting to give a good impression to the young detective. “We’d been to the festival that afternoon, we stayed there ‘til about eleven, then we got a lift back with some friends; we stayed at their place for a while, drinking and listening to music. Then we left to go back to Megan’s. We told our parents we were staying at each other’s houses, so they wouldn’t know where we were. Meg’s parents were away for the night, so they didn’t know what time we got there.” An embarrassed, almost apologetic, look crossed her face as she said that. “We were on our way there when a car came out of nowhere and almost ran us down, we were lucky it missed us. I was so scared, I thought they were going to kill us.”
Megan nodded her agreement. “One moment the road was empty, the next the car was there. Where it came from, I don’t know. Lisa was on the pavement but I was still on the road. I had to jump out of the way – ruined my favourite jeans.”
Grey quickly concealed a smile. “What time did this happen?” he asked. Hearing that they had been drinking, he worried that their information might have to be discounted – might be useless for securing a prosecution.
Megan had to think about that for a few moments. “We left our friends’ place at just after two, so it was a bit after that, quarter past, twenty past, something like that.”
“Are you sure?”
Megan nodded. “I remember seeing the time and telling Lisa we needed to get home and get some sleep, or we’d end up missing school. We almost did anyway, and I thought I was going to fall asleep during all my morning classes.”
“Did you see the car that almost ran you down?” Both girls nodded. “Can you describe it for me?” Grey asked.
“It was a Vauxhall, an Astra I think,” Megan said. “Dark blue.”
“What about the license number? Did you see that?”
“No.” Megan shook her head. “By the time I got to my feet the car was gone, disappeared round the corner.”
“How about you?” Grey turned to Lisa. “Did you see the license number?”
“Yes.” Lisa nodded, though it was a few seconds before she said anything more; her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember what she had seen. “It was T248 GUU,” she said finally.
“Are you sure about that?” Grey asked.
Lisa nodded. “Uh huh. I’ve got a thing for numbers, once I see one I can’t forget it.”
“Good, now, where were you when this happened?”
“Dawson Street,” Lisa said quickly. “It’s only a street and a bit away from where the old man was hit.”
Grey accepted that for the moment, and made a mental note to check the distance between the two locations on a map. If the information was right, then there was little reason to doubt that the Vauxhall Astra that had almost run the girls down was responsible for Mr Bollard’s coma.
“Did either of you see the driver?” he asked.
“Not clearly.”
“But you did see him,” Grey pressed Lisa. He ignored Megan for the moment since her answer had been a shake of the head. “Can you describe what you saw of him?” Having a description of the car, including the license number, was useful, but since the car was almost certainly stolen, he thought a description of the driver, even a partial one, would be of more help in securing a conviction.
“He wasn’t young,” Lisa said, her brow furrowed. “But he wasn’t old either. In his thirties, maybe; he was older than you, but not by much.”
Grey jotted that on the notepad he had taken out. When she had been silent for a few moments he prompted her. “What about his hair, did you see what colour it was?”
“Light brown, or maybe it was dirty blond, I’m not sure.”
“How about the length? Could you see that? Was it long or short?”
“Medium, maybe more short. It was scruffy,” Lisa said that decisively. “It was all over the place; I remember thinking he needed to do something with it, and he needed a shave.”
Grey could almost imagine the teen shouting at the guy to clean himself up, and probably to learn how to drive as well. “Do you remember anything else about him? Anything distinctive that might help us identify him?”
“No.” Lisa shook her head, and then immediately nodded. “Yes, there was something. He had a mark on his neck; I don’t know what it was, a burn, a birthmark maybe, but it was pretty big.”
Grey forced himself to control his excitement and asked, “Could it have been a tattoo? An eagle maybe?” He found himself holding his breath as he waited for an answer, and had to resist the urge to let it out in an exultant explosion when she nodded.
“Yes, it could have been.”
Containing his excitement as best he could, Grey asked his next question, “Was there anyone else in the car?”
28
Stone was on his way home for a quick shower and a change of clothes, before he headed to where the van used in Alice Keating’s kidnapping had been found, when his mobile rang. He answered it, though he knew it was against the law to use a mobile phone while driving; he didn’t suppose he was going to get in any trouble for it.
“Sir, it’s Grey.”
“What’s up?” Stone asked of the young detective.
“We’ve got a lead on the hit-and-run, sir,” Grey told him. “A couple of schoolgirls came in first thing; according to their story, they were almost hit by a blue Vauxhall Astra just a couple of streets away from where Mr Bollard was knocked down. They were able to give a partial description of the driver – it matches Jerry Logan.”
Though the news pleased him, Stone couldn’t help wondering why he was being told, since he was no longer in charge of the case. “Why aren’t you telling Justin this?” he asked. “The case is his now.”
“I know, sir, but I can’t find him. He’s not made it into the office, he’s not answering his mobile, and his wife doesn’t know where he is,” Grey answered, doing his best to hide his concern. “Since I can’t find the sergeant, I thought it best if I told you about the development.”
“You did the right thing,” Stone said encouragingly after a moment. “Put an alert out for the vehicle - do you have a license number for it?”
“Yes, sir, it’s T248 GUU.”
Stone was surprised, and pleased, by that piece of news. “Good. Run the plate through the system; it’s probably been stolen, but we might get lucky. Is there anything else?”
*****
Grey got a shock when the door to the house the car used in the hit-and-run, and most likely the festival robbery as well, was registered to opened. He found himself faced, not with a hardened criminal who was prepared to threaten people with a sawn-off shotgun, but with a wheelchair-bound man in his mid-thirties. Behind the man, in what he guessed was the doorway of the living room, Grey saw a woman of about fifty, whom he assumed was the mother of the man in the wheelchair.
“Can I help you?”
“Hello, yes, are you Mr Quilty, Mr Paul Quilty?”
“Who wants to know?”
Grey took that for a yes. “I’m Detective Constable Grey, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said once he had recovered from the surprise of discovering that his suspect was physically incapable of committing the crimes he was there to question him about. It was a bitter blow – Paul Quilty had a criminal record for robbery with violence, and assault, was a known accomplice of Ben and Jerry Logan, and was the registered owner of the car used in the hit-and-run; Grey had been certain Quilty was one of the men he was looking for. Now he wasn’t sure what to do.
“May I come in?”
Paul Quilty looked stubbornly unwilling to move from the doorway, or to grant permission for Grey to enter, until his mother moved forward. “Of course y
ou can come in, detective,” she said, resting a hand on her son’s tensed shoulder. “Paul has done nothing wrong.”
Though he looked angrily over his shoulder at his mother, clearly unhappy that she had extended an invitation he didn’t wish to, Quilty manoeuvred his wheelchair back from the door. He turned around in the narrow confines of the passage and made for the living room, without waiting to see if either his mother or Detective Grey were following him.
“So, what is it you want?” Quilty asked in a voice that was a mixture of anger, irritation and mistrust. “You here to give me shit about that fight the other night? ‘cause my probation bitch has already given me enough grief about it.”
“Paul,” his mother remonstrated. “You should at least wait until he tells you why he’s here before you get angry.” She turned to Grey. “How can we help you, detective?”
“I know nothing about any fight, Mr Quilty,” Grey said. “I’m here about your car; according to the DVLA, you are the registered owner of a blue Vauxhall Astra, license number T248 GUU, is that correct?”
Quilty shook his head. “No, not anymore.”
Grey was momentarily stymied. “What did you do with it?” he asked when he recovered.
“I sold it after I got out of hospital. Since I can’t drive anymore, there’s no point in me having a car.”
“Who did you sell it to?”
“No idea,” Quilty shrugged. “He paid cash. I filled out my bit of the form to transfer title, he said he was going to fill out his bit and send it straight off when he got home.”
“If that’s the case, why is the car still registered to you?” Grey asked suspiciously; he wondered if Quilty was lying about having sold the car, and instead had allowed it to be used by his friends and former accomplices for the robbery.
“How the hell should I know? Maybe he forgot to send it in, or maybe he did what he said he was going to do and the DVLA is dragging its ass about updating their records. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Why are you interested in my son’s old car?” Marsha Quilty wanted to know.