Dead of Winter (12 page)

‘Please,’ her eyes filled with tears.

‘Bed or boot, take your pick. You might just survive the night out there now that you’ve eaten something, though in this weather …’

‘Please, Badger,’ she flinched, ‘I mean Steve. Please, I don’t feel well. I hurt all over; all I want to do is sleep.’

‘And so you can,’ she looked at him hopefully, ‘in due course.’

‘Please, no,’ it was little more than a whisper but then, ‘NO!’

‘Shut up!’ He rammed a tea towel down her throat so hard she fell off the chair and hit her head on the table. ‘You should be grateful you little bitch. My brother’s dead, fucking dead, and it’s your fault. I rescued you! The least you can do is show a little thanks.’

He bent down and picked her up with one arm, grabbing the brandy with his free hand. The dishes could wait until morning, breaking another house rule but probably not the most egregious disobedience of the night.

Early the next morning he woke with a cheap brandy hangover and tried to focus on the bedside clock; five-twenty-two.

‘Urgh, I feel terrible,’ he mumbled and reached out a hand to his wife’s side of the bed. There she was, fat lump of lard, snoring away … except that she wasn’t fat or snoring. ‘What the …?’

Mariner sat up in bed so fast the pain behind his eyeballs nearly made him sick. Fumbling for the switch the first thing he saw as the light lanced into his eyes was the bottle to blame for his hangover. He stared at it accusingly, then rolled over to see who he had persuaded back to his marital bed while the wife was away. He screamed and the girl woke up. She started choking almost
immediately so he removed the gag, which he noticed was one of his best socks. Why was she was tied up?

‘What the …?’ he said again.

The girl stared up at him, flinching when he raised his fingers to wipe away dried blood from around her nose.

‘Dear God.’ He rolled onto his back and shut his eyes.

The headache was terrible but his fear and shame were worse. As he lay there trying to think, fragments of the plan from the previous evening came back to him but everything now seemed impossible. What had he been thinking of? He buried his head in his pillow, breathing deeply, inhaling the scent of sweat and sex.

He had messed up the bed. The wife would go nuts. He rolled the girl off onto the carpet and replaced the gag. Then he went and had a shower. It sobered him up but did nothing for his headache so he took some painkillers with water from the tooth mug.

He let her use the bathroom, insisting that she kept the door open, and then carried her downstairs and tied her up while he changed the bed, threw the linen in the washing machine on hot; put the old clothes she’d been wearing plus his bloody trousers and jacket in a black bin liner to take to the tip; placed the mugs, glasses and dinner things in the dishwasher. He turned on the radio just in case the neighbours were listening in and she tried something, then made fresh mugs of tea and sat down to work out what to do. First things first, he had to stop the damned girl from staring at him. He wrapped her up in the anorak and thrust her unceremoniously into the car boot, ignoring her grunts of protest.

There were two thermos flasks in the kitchen where they always were, one for coffee and the other for soup. His wife was precise in her domestic responsibilities, though not because she cared for him. Oh no; he knew that she looked after him out of duty, not affection, and it showed every time the bread in his sandwiches was a bit dry, or the end of the cake in his lunch box was starting to go stale.

There were plenty of tins in the store cupboard and an opener hanging on the rack. He chose tomato soup and heated it in the microwave while he made more toast. Fifteen minutes later, another
can opened and warming for one thermos and coffee on the go for the other, he slipped upstairs and started packing his suitcase.

Now that he was leaving his movements were furtive, like a thief’s, but then he reasoned he
was
stealing. He was taking back something that had once belonged to him: his life.

The idea of asking for money came to him as he was looking for the savings tin. Every week his wife put in twenty-five pounds and once a quarter she added three hundred pounds to the building society account in her sole name. He never knew whether the money eventually went on clothes, or presents for her family, or was being saved up against the day she’d leave him, but he suspected the latter. It was the third month of the quarter, so there should be a tidy sum there, enough for a cheap ferry ticket so that there would be no trace of him using his credit card. He was quite pleased with himself for remembering that the police could find you that way and furious with her when he found the tin empty.

The problem was that he had already used up the limit on his cash card. Again his mind slipped gear and he started to panic. He had a vision of living rough in the forest somewhere and spent ten minutes filling the back seat of the car with everything he thought he might need. It was as he was moving the girl’s bag from the front passenger seat, thinking it should be hidden, that he had the inspiration to look inside for money.

Sure enough, she had sixty quid in new twenty-pound notes, together with a mobile phone but no cash card. It was typical that she’d have money. She probably had more free cash a month than he did despite his forty hours at the school breaking his back. Thinking of the school with its snooty, over-privileged kids made his blood boil. She was as bad as the rest of them, spoilt rotten by parents with more money than sense.

More money than sense.
The phrase lodged in his mind, circling round and around. It drove him back to the kitchen, to another cup of tea with two sugars. As he sipped, the idea came: his albatross was a valuable bird.

He shook his head, too aware of his own limitations. There’s no
way someone as sophisticated as Lord William Saxby would fall for an attempt to squeeze money out of him for the return of his daughter. But the idea wouldn’t go away. As he made patterns in the damp ring left by the mug on the pine table the idea changed from fantasy to reality.

If he didn’t at least try to con some money out of Saxby he would never know whether he could have succeeded and the unknown would drive him mad, like having a lottery ticket but not checking the numbers. All he needed to do was make one call. There it was, by the fridge; a beige wall-mounted phone that he had used countless times without thinking. What was to stop him picking up the receiver and dialling? All he had to do was ask. Couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

He clenched and unclenched his fists, the blood in the vein of his throat pumping hard, his breathing rapid. One call; one simple phone call, that’s all he had to do. That wasn’t beyond him, was it? He wasn’t such loser that he couldn’t manage one call, was he? Anger at himself propelled him back to the garage. He unlocked the boot and roused the girl who seemed to be half asleep.

‘Your dad’s number,’ he shouted at her, then remembered the neighbours might now be awake and repeated quietly, ‘Your dad’s phone number; what is it?’

Confusion, then hope flared in her eyes.

Issie recited a number. ‘That’s his personal line, he always answers it.’

The idea that he might have had to talk to someone other than her father hadn’t occurred to Mariner but he realised he couldn’t remember the number.

‘Wait!’ he shut the boot and went back inside.

There was a Post-it pad stuck to the wall by the phone. He pulled it off and found a pencil in a drawer beneath. When he opened the boot again she was waiting for him.

She repeated the sequence slowly so that he had time to write it down. ‘And please, can I have some more clothes or a blanket? It’s so cold.’

He found a sleeping bag he had thrown on the back seat from when he was planning sleeping rough, thrust it at her and watched as she tried to wriggle under it, clumsy within the cords, so he tucked it around her and made to replace the gag.

‘Please; it gets so stuffy,’ she begged.

‘One minute you’re cold the next it’s too bleeding stuffy.’ He slammed the boot shut with unnecessary force.

In the kitchen he picked up the phone but put it back immediately. Maybe Saxby had the technology to trace calls; he was powerful enough. He rummaged in Issie’s bag, found her mobile and dialled at once before his nerve failed. The receiver was picked up within two rings and a voice uncannily like his own shouted ‘
Issie, where are you?
’ He had expected patrician cool and was momentarily struck dumb.

‘Issie? Who’s there? Answer me, damn you.’

‘Money,’ was all he could say. ‘Money; for your daughter.’

The silence that greeted his words made him feel stronger and he took a deep breath.

‘I’ve got her and if you want her it’ll cost.’

‘How much?’

The question surprised him.

‘Fifty thousand pounds, in used notes.’ Where had that come from?

‘How much?’ The voice sounded incredulous; had he asked for too much?

He didn’t care, the sum had taken root in his brain and all he could do was repeat it.

‘Fifty thou’ and don’t tell the police.’

‘But how do I—?’

‘The money; if you want to see her again, get the money. No police or she dies. I’ll call back with more instructions.’

He rang off, bathed with sweat; breathless but exhilarated. He had done it! He had actually done it. In the privacy of the kitchen he danced a jig around the table.

The exhilaration of the call took him through packing up his belongings, and when he drove away, locking the back door for the last time, he was whistling.

Five fifty-five and the school was pitch-dark apart from lights in the IT block where the police team had assembled ready for the 6 a.m. briefing. Fenwick had been waiting an hour. Unable to sleep he had left home early with an overnight bag well before five. The drive to the school had been slow but once there he made himself some coffee and read the reports he hadn’t managed the day before. He had been involved less than a day but the case had already taken control of his life and he knew its outcome would somehow shape his future.

Fenwick couldn’t shake a sense of discomfort about this investigation. Normally he was a realistic optimist; confident in the abilities of his team and the scientific and computing support at their disposal. But this time … this time his instinct told him something was wrong, that he was being sucked into a dark journey at the end of which there would be a death, maybe more than one. On his own in the chilly classroom he had shivered and drunk coffee, finding it bitter even when fresh, but as the team drifted in none of his misgivings showed.

Fenwick had read a copy of Issie’s diary from cover to cover, the original having been sent to the forensic lab already. There was no
explanation of who Badger might be nor a hint of his real name. When he saw a cryptic reference to ‘
losing it
’ he had a horrible feeling that he knew what ‘
it
’ was. These girls; these stupid, clever girls, with brains and more money than was good for them but no common sense … He stopped the thought. They were young and Issie was a victim, no matter how privileged she was. The inverted snobbery he knew still lurked in him – a lasting influence from his childhood – could hamper his objectivity if he didn’t silence it.

The most important fact to hold on to was that Issie had an assignation on the night she disappeared and that meant she might still be alive. Bernstein had had a team working through the night following up with friends, family and school staff, asking about ‘Badger’, without success. Nevertheless, there was an air of heightened expectation in the conference room as the team assembled.

Bernstein looked angry about something and was deep in conversation with Sergeant Willie Cobb, breaking it to ask Bazza to kick off. He reported that he had sent Issie’s bedding straight to the toxicology team at the lab who had run presumptive tests and found traces of alcohol, marijuana and nicotine, nothing stronger.

‘Even so,’ Bazza reasoned, ‘she must have had a supplier. It’s a start and I reckon her so-called friends will talk now you’ve softened them up, sir. That Octavia’s a piece of work.’

There were assorted mumbles about the girl and her family that Fenwick didn’t think were helpful but Bernstein let the chat run, perhaps glad to feel the atmosphere lightening for the first time. When it died she took the opportunity to round on Cobb.

‘Tell them your news, Sergeant.’ She didn’t bother to disguise her scowl.

‘Rod Saxby’s still missing. We almost got him but he slipped through our fingers.’

‘How did that happen?’ Fenwick’s voice was mild but Cobb squirmed as Bernstein sent him a killer look.

‘He came back to his house and picked up his car, sir.’

‘And the officer waiting for him to do just that …?’

‘Cobb was taking a leak; has a weak bladder, apparently,’ Bernstein interjected.

‘Bit of a hazard in our line of work, wouldn’t you say?’

Fenwick was too irritated to appreciate his own sarcasm but there was a nervous giggle and someone somewhere muttered ‘piss artist’ in what was meant to be a whisper but which carried in the silence that followed.

‘It’s an infection, ma’am,’ Cobb protested.

‘Then get yourself sorted and keep to desk duties until your bladder’s back under control.’

‘Presumably RPU are already on the lookout for him?’ Fenwick asked.

‘Obviously; I called road policing immediately.’

‘Then there’s nothing more we can do. The question is: is Saxby junior the Badger Issie met on Monday night?’

‘We don’t know. No one has ever heard of a “Badger”,’ Bernstein explained. ‘Rodney Saxby never had the nickname, which means that it’s a priority to find the person Issie arranged to meet.’

She handed out copies of the relevant diary entries.

‘So why Badger? What sort of nickname is that?’ she asked.

‘Someone fat and hairy?’ Jake suggested.

‘You’re in the frame, for starters,’ Bazza retaliated but Bernstein went to the whiteboard and wrote up: ‘
Fat? Hairy?
’

‘A girl her age wouldn’t go for fat, but hairy, maybe. What else?’

‘An older man,’ one of the women constables suggested. Fenwick thought her name was something like Anderson. ‘It’s a comfortable, wise name, like in
Wind in the Willows.
Could be a father figure.’

‘Interesting,’ Fenwick chipped in, ‘there was a copy of the book in her bedroom at home; we should pick it up in case she wrote in it.’

‘Agreed,’ Bernstein took over. ‘We also need to talk to her parents again to see if anything new occurs to them. Bazza, you go and do that as soon as we’re done; with sensitivity, please.’

‘
Older man. Wise.’
joined ‘
Fat? Hairy?
’ on the board.

‘How about some grey hair?’ Fenwick suggested, ‘That’s a badger’s colouring.’

‘It fits with the other images; anything else?’ There was silence. ‘OK; unless there are any further ideas, we should keep our minds open that we could be looking for an older man.’

‘Or a regular boyfriend with a naff pet name,’ Bazza suggested.

‘There is that,’ Bernstein agreed. ‘If that’s all on Badger – Andrew, why don’t you tell them about Issie’s art.’

He stood up.

‘We need to investigate the possibility that Issie might have been sexually abused. Cobb, if it doesn’t strain the wrong muscles, could you pass those paintings over?’

He showed the goat-man first and there was a ‘so what’ moment, but when he revealed what he thought of as the rape scene there were murmurs of disgust.

‘Issie’s work, taken and hidden by Lulu Bullock.’

‘Damn woman,’ Bernstein spat.

‘The paintings were a secret project. Bullock discovered the canvasses after Issie disappeared and I think she was still trying to work out what to do with them. The girl could be a self-portrait, which might suggest Issie was the victim of an assault and this is her way of dealing with it. Does the goat-man remind you of anyone?’

No one volunteered any suggestions.

‘Me neither. The medallion is distinctive, though. We need photos of it to check whether any member of school staff, friends or her family has one like it. Add that to your list for the Saxbys, Bazza,’ Fenwick suggested, ‘and take – er … Anderson, isn’t it? – with you.’

‘Henderson, sir,’ the woman corrected and Fenwick was surprised that he had the wrong name as his memory was usually reliable.

There were a few smirks around the room but he ignored them until the reason for his mistake flooded his mind, bringing a rush of colour to his cheeks. His subconscious had noted the woman’s
generous chest and substituted the wrong name. The reason for his slip of the tongue hadn’t only occurred to him, and a few of the redder-blooded males in the room were having difficulty keeping their faces straight. He looked down and coughed.

The team dispersed. Bernstein assumed the challenge of locating Rod Saxby. She asked Fenwick if he could meet with the outer search team and brief them. He was happy to oblige, relieved to have something concrete to do.

He drove out to Bryden Hill, half a mile from the school, where the team was using a YMCA hostel as a base. They had worked long into the night until heavy snow towards dawn had made it impossible to see. As visibility promised to return, so too did the searchers, volunteers mixing with police as determination slowly replaced hope.

His feet crunched frozen snow as he made his way to the wooden building, his breath misting around his face and freezing as it settled on his exposed skin. Occasional barks carried through the still air as dogs jumped out of vans, eager to start. Inside the hostel Inspector Steve Watson looked up as Fenwick walked in. A man in his mid forties with sleep-deprived eyes, his face relaxed into a brief smile of welcome when he realised the identity of his visitor.

‘Thanks for coming over,’ he said simply. ‘Coffee? The stuff in that thermos is so strong any leftovers will have to go to Sellafield, but it’s all we’ve got.’

Fenwick poured himself an espresso-sized measure and hid a grimace as the grainy liquid filled his mouth. If Watson and team were living on it he wasn’t about to complain.

‘Anything?’

‘Nada. Her trail disappears at the road. Frankly she could be anywhere and after two nights like this …’ Watson rubbed his eyes, pulling the skin down at the edges to reveal bright red rims. ‘The only thing you might be interested in are these.’

He pointed to a pile of CCTV tapes and photographs.

‘The volunteers?’ Fenwick asked. It was routine to record them
as experience proved time and again that the perpetrator would be compelled to join the hunt for their victim.

‘Yes; over sixty yesterday, though there are less going out now, inevitably.’

‘Could you have someone go through and pick out all the men and divide them into two piles, under and over thirty; and then sort those with grey or greying hair to the top? There’s a chance she might still be alive.’ He told him about the reference to a meeting with someone called Badger and their theories as to what the nickname might signify.

The fatigue disappeared from Watson’s face as he listened and he excused himself to inform his search coordinators. A hard lead was exactly what they needed to boost flagging spirits. As soon as he had finished he returned to Fenwick.

‘We’ll go through the surveillance immediately. It will do us good.’

Fenwick was drinking coffee with the civilian clerk providing admin support when his mobile rang. He recognised the caller number and excused himself.

‘Bob, how are you? How’s Doris?’

‘Fine thank you, though I wouldn’t visit for a while if I were you, you’re not my Dot’s favourite person. There’s a half-finished ceiling in the spare bedroom needs urgent attention and I haven’t even started the walls.’

‘Sounds like I rescued you just in time.’

‘Well there is that, I grant you, but don’t tell her I said so. Look,’ his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘I’m at the Saxbys’ and they’re in a right state.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a ransom demand, five minutes ago; but don’t jump to conclusions. It may be a hoax. I was here and saw it happen. Saxby took the call, went white and I knew something was up straight away. Soon as he put the phone down I confronted him. He didn’t want to tell me but I pushed him and he admitted that the man who’d called said he had Issie and wanted fifty thousand pounds for her safe return.’

‘Fifty thousand – that’s nothing from a man like Saxby. Is that why you think it’s not real?’

‘Partly, but also Saxby said the caller sounded nervous, rushed his words, wasn’t coherent. And there’s the delay. Why wait?

‘Thing is, Saxby doesn’t want you lot to know. The caller said Issie would be killed if the police were involved. Some of your team turned up five minutes ago and that sent the Saxbys crazy. They made me promise not to say anything to them and ushered me away.’

‘And you’re breaking your promise, Bob?’

‘I said I wouldn’t tell the officers who’d arrived anything, but that didn’t extend to you.’

Fenwick was surprised at Bob’s subtlety; if asked he would have said the man was too straight to know how to bend.

‘You should come over, sir. I reckon you can make them admit what’s happened. The man’s going to call again with instructions for a drop-off.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Fenwick explained that there had been a development and said a hurried goodbye to Watson who passed him a fat bundle of photographs.

‘Here; this lot’s copies from when the search first started late on Tuesday and these are Wednesday’s volunteers. I’ll send over today’s later. Let me know if there’s anything more I can do.’

Fenwick pushed the pictures and copy tapes into his overcoat pocket and left, turning up his collar against the freezing air. On his way to Saxby Hall he tried to reach Bernstein but went straight through to her message service so he made a snap decision and called CC Norman, insisting he be pulled from whatever meeting he was in.

‘We have to treat this as a kidnap, Fenwick. That means by the book.’

Fenwick knew he was referring to the ‘official kidnap manual’ containing the procedures for abduction. Norman would appoint a Force Gold leader to handle the ransom drop and deployment.
Bernstein would be the obvious choice, but did Norman trust her enough? The team would include Silver and Bronzes to back up the Gold commander, handling the outside inquiry, intelligence, media risks and other investigations.

‘I’m going to assume control of this critical incident personally,’ Norman said. ‘I want you to proceed to the Hall and stay with the Saxbys while I mobilise a team here at HQ, separate from the one at the school. I’ll have Bernstein as Silver and you and Holland as Bronzes.’

Fenwick acknowledged his understanding, silently frustrated at the bronze role but relieved to be involved.

Holland’s car was parked by the faux Georgian pillars when Fenwick arrived at the Hall. There were raised voices from inside.

‘—bloody well cannot arrest me, you little turd!’ Rod Saxby had returned.

‘If you refuse to cooperate, sir, you leave me no alternative.’ Bazza’s voice was full of anger but under control.

‘Take the bastard and lock him up! He drove my baby away. Get him out of here.’ Jane Saxby sounded close to murder.

‘Your spoilt brat wasn’t driven away; she’s run off and you’re lucky the family silver’s not gone with her.’

Lord Saxby’s attempt to calm his brother down was lost in a shriek from his wife and the sounds of a scuffle. Constable Henderson was struggling to stop Jane Saxby from hitting her brother-in-law while her husband attempted to explain something to Bazza Holland. In the confusion Rod Saxby was edging towards the door. Fenwick put his six-foot-plus frame in the way and the man backed into him.