Echoes of Lies (13 page)

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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Echoes of Lies
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“Enough to find me, anyway.”
Brodie looked at Daniel in concern. All the colour had gone from his face again. He looked as if the draught from an opening door would knock him off the sofa.
Ibbotsen wouldn't look at him. “Once we had you, I thought we'd have Sophie within hours. But the hours turned into days - and then I was told it was all a mistake, you didn't know anything after all.”
“So you decided to kill him?” snarled Brodie.
“I had no choice,” said Ibbotsen, almost plaintively. “The people you hire for jobs like that, they make the rules. He wouldn't leave you alive. He said his own security depended on it.”
“But it wasn't him who shot me. Was it?”
“Mr Hood,” the old man said, finally meeting Daniel's eyes, “there is nothing in the whole of our association that I don't regret bitterly. Shooting you? - yes, certainly; and what was done to you before. But most of all, I regret that you weren't the man I took you for. If you had been, my granddaughter would be safe now.”
It may have been luck, it may have been instinct, but honesty was a weapon against which Daniel had no defence. It was the one thing guaranteed to earn his respect.
He bit his lip to still it. The shakes had returned with a vengeance. “Mr Ibbotsen, I don't know how I feel about you. I hate everything you've done, and not just to me. I hate the kind of advice you buy, and the way that, having bought it, you feel you have to follow it. I hate the way you make big, important decisions with your wallet.
“If I could hate you too, maybe I could pick up your phone and call the police. You hurt me, Mr Ibbotsen. You spent two days
hurting me, and then you left me to die in a rubbish skip. I really want to hate you for that, and if I thought you'd done it to save yourself some money I would. All that's stopping me is the possibility that you genuinely believed Sophie would be safer if you refused to communicate with her kidnappers.”
“I did,” said Ibbotsen simply.
“What if you did?” demanded Brodie roughly. “What difference does it make? You tortured a man to get information he didn't even have, but when you had the chance to buy the child's safety you turned it down. That's the bottom line, and nothing you thought then or say now will alter it.”
But Daniel was shaking his head. “What if his experts were right? What if Sophie's alive now because her kidnappers haven't got what they want? It
does
alter it, Brodie. Just because I couldn't do the same thing, just because you couldn't, doesn't mean he was wrong. If Sophie's alive because his experts gave good advice and he had the strength to follow it, doesn't that justify what he did?”
“To you?” Brodie's voice soared.
“Nothing
justifies what he did to you. And we don't know if his experts were right. All I know from the bottom of my heart is that
he
was wrong. He gambled with a child's life, and he did it to save himself half a million pounds.”
She couldn't get past the money. She couldn't forgive Ibbotsen for having the means to finish this and not doing. To Brodie the issue was not what the kidnappers did but what Ibbotsen had done.
But Daniel was a mathematician, he had to accommodate all the factors. He couldn't ignore an inconvenient one because it spoiled a neat equation, and he couldn't get past the possibility that if Sophie Ibbotsen had been his child or Brodie's she'd be dead now but because she was David Ibbotsen's she might still be alive. If she was then her grandfather had made the right decision.
Daniel wiped a dew of sweat from his upper lip. “I'm sorry: I can't give either of you what you want from me. You” - he looked at Brodie - “want justice, but a justice that's a hair's breadth from vengeance and I daren't go down that road. If I started thinking these people could pay for what they did to me, I think it would cost me my soul. I didn't leave here with much: I don't want to end up
with even less. And you” - his gaze switched to Ibbotsen - “want absolution, and I can't do that either. Time will tell if you were right. If you were, you don't need my forgiveness; if you weren't it won't help.
“All I can do is keep my promise. I said I wouldn't go to the police till this was finished, and I won't. But there is a price.”
Ibbotsen was staring so hard he forgot to blink until his eyes started to burn. He nodded. “How much?”
Daniel shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them he was very faintly smiling. “You keep doing that, don't you? Trying to buy us off. First Mrs Farrell, now me. The only people you won't give money to are the only ones who actually want it.”
A tic thumped above Lance Ibbotsen's cheekbone. “Think what you like of me. It doesn't matter: all I care is that you keep your silence. So let's agree that I'm stupid and obsessed with money, then tell me what it is you want.”
“I want what you want. I want to see Sophie safe home, and I don't trust you to get that done. What's happening right now? Have the kidnappers been in touch again?”
“They tried. The calls are being screened - neither David nor I talk to them.”
“Who does?”
“A professional negotiator. All my calls are going through him.
Daniel licked his lips. “What about … ?”
Brodie knew what he wanted to know and couldn't bring himself to ask. She asked for him. “And your … interrogator? Is he still on the payroll?”
Ibbotsen shook his head. “No. That was - a mistake. I didn't know what would be involved. I went along with it because I was desperate, and I kept thinking it would be over soon. I thought that for two days, then I was told we'd got it wrong - there was no information to be had, and because of that …”The horror of those two days was still keen after a week. It was a physical effort to control his breathing. “I did what I thought was necessary. But I couldn't have done it again, not even for Sophie. I paid him and he left.”
Daniel could only cope with this by focusing on the core issue. “Are you
any
nearer to getting Sophie back?”
Ibbotsen's glance was haunted. “I don't know. He doesn't talk to me - the negotiator. That was what I wanted, that was the deal - everything would go through him. The family would not be involved: if at some point he advised us that paying the ransom would bring her home we'd do it but not until he was sure. So far he must think she's safer if we do nothing.”
“You don't
know
?” Daniel's voice cracked. Brodie thought his heart had too. “You're not even talking to him?”
Ibbotsen stared him down. “If I knew what was going on, what was being said, I'd take over. And I'm too close, too involved - we both know my judgement isn't reliable right now. I have to stay out of it, for Sophie's sake. I've bought the best help I could find: I have to trust that whatever can be done will be done.”
Daniel blinked and then nodded. “I see that. So all I can do to help is keep quiet.” Brodie heard regret in his tone, as if he'd hoped otherwise. As if helping save Sophie might ease the memory of what her abduction had cost him.
Lance Ibbotsen seemed to understand. There was an unlikely gentleness in the gravel of his voice. “I don't believe so. But it is the most important thing. If the police become involved, whatever's been achieved so far will go for nothing. I have no right to ask you for favours. But if I had, that would be the one.”
Daniel managed a tired smile. “You have it. Until it's over: then I'll have to talk to Inspector Deacon.”
“I understand that.”
“You'll keep me informed? Do you have my number?”
Ibbotsen winced and his voice was so low as to be barely audible. “Yes.”
But there was no point him phoning Daniel's number when Daniel couldn't go home. Brodie said briskly, “Daniel will be staying with me for a few days. You have my number as well.” She stood up. “I don't think there's any more we can do here.” She headed for the door, Daniel in her wake.
On top of the back steps, though, she paused and looked at Ibbotsen once more. “Good luck. Whatever's happened … between us … there's still a little girl out there who needs to be with her family.
She doesn't deserve what's happened to her. Actually, neither do you.”
Astonishingly, Ibbotsen's eyes filled. “Thank you. And - I'm sorry.”
“Let us know when there's some news.”
“I will.”
He went inside then. Brodie started the car.
But before she even had it in gear he was back, hurrying down the steps faster than was sensible for a man of his age, his face livid with fury. “You said you hadn't called them. You said you
wouldn't
call them!”
Daniel and Brodie exchanged a puzzled glance. “What? Who?”
“The police!” snarled Ibbotsen. “You promised you'd keep silent until Sophie was safe.”
Brodie shrugged and Daniel answered. “We haven't called the police?”
“Then how come there's a detective inspector at my gates right now?”
Detective Inspector Deacon was not a quitter. In his own way he was as stubborn a man as Daniel. It was a long shot, but where the PNC had failed his policeman's memory had dredged up a possibility. He knew of someone who had a daughter called Sophie, and the money to do something if she went missing, and the kind of morals to use someone who could help him find her as Daniel Hood was used.
Driving up the gravel avenue onto the Firestone Cliffs, Deacon reflected sourly that the possession of conspicuous wealth was no guarantee of civilised behaviour. He wondered how many of these modern manor houses with their manicured demesnes had been built with blood-money by men who should be behind bars.
Another thing about wealthy people was that they didn't put numbers on their gates. Deacon drove along, searching, until he was stopped by wrought-iron. He thumbed the button on an intercom, announced himself and said who he was looking for.
A woman's voice directed him along an elegant sweep of gravel drive to a porticoed front door and a flight of steps Scarlett O'Hara would have killed for. Deacon trudged up them stolidly, giving his shoes every opportunity to shed any mud they might have collected on the way.
The housekeeper answered his knock and showed Deacon into the library to wait. Sophie's father was at home, then; which made the minutes that passed more than a little galling. Wealthy people always thought they had the right, if not the duty, to keep a public servant waiting. At the end of town he was more familiar with Deacon would have twiddled his thumbs for thirty seconds and then gone looking. But though he believed in one law for rich and poor alike, he couldn't ignore the reality that behaviour which was grudgingly tolerated on the Wellington estate might, if duplicated here, reach the ears of the Chief Constable. He ground his teeth and glared at the Channel.
Finally the door opened again and Deacon turned to see a face he
used to know framed by a collar he used to dream of feeling. He nodded, expressionless, flicked his gaze around the room. “Terry. You've done well for yourself.”
“Not bad,” said Terry Walsh with obvious content, “not bad. Mind you, Jack, neither have you. Chief Inspector, is it?”
“Inspector,” ground Deacon.
“Oh well,” said Walsh breezily, “that's Sheehy for you. You'll probably go straight to Superintendent.”
“You could help,” said Deacon. “You could confess to everything we both know you did to afford this house.”
Walsh laughed, the deep-bellied laugh of a man with either nothing to hide or the confidence that his secrets are safe. “I don't know where you got this idea that I'm a leading light of the criminal underworld. I make paper: you know that. You've seen the factory; damn it, I'll take you to Norway and show you the woods if you like!”
It was a genuine offer: Deacon knew that if he accepted Walsh would whisk him off by private plane for an away-day among the fjords to watch great stands of timber being harvested by equipment with the man's initials on it. It altered nothing. Jack Deacon knew Terry Walsh when they were boys in the East End of London, when his only use for paper was rolling reefers. The fact that Walsh had always managed to evade the long arm of the law didn't alter Deacon's conviction that his primary interest was still in drugs. All that had changed was the scale: he didn't sell reefers on dancefloors any more, he shipped cocaine wrapped in tons of newsprint.
“That's all right, Terry,” Deacon said bleakly, “it's not how you make your money I'm interested in today. It's how you spend it.”
Walsh not only had more money than Deacon, he also had more hair. It wasn't as black as Deacon remembered, but if anything it was curlier. It danced when he shook his head, apparently perplexed. “Sorry, Jack - spend it on what?”
Deacon sniffed. “Far as I remember it, the East End didn't produce many intellectuals. We mostly spent money on having a good time and looking after our families.” He raised an eyebrow, seemed to change the subject. “You still smoke, Terry?”
Walsh shook his head again, firmly. “Gave it up, Jack. Costs too much. And then I heard this rumour” - he looked round his library - “that you can't take it with you. So I want to put off going as long as I can, just in case.”
Deacon nodded, trying not to smile. Walsh had always had this effect on him. Even when you knew how he made it, even when you'd give your pension to see him banged up, it was hard not to like someone who so enjoyed the fruits of his labours. The neighbours must consider him deeply vulgar. But Deacon had a soft spot for honest-to-God vulgarity.
On top of which, he was already thinking he was on a fool's errand. Terry Walsh was too happy to see him. If he'd tortured a man, shot him and dumped him in a skip less than a week ago he'd be cagier than this. They didn't get together to chat about the old days so often that he would think that was why the policeman had come.
Still, he had to make sure. “What about the family? You've got a daughter, haven't you - Sophie?”
“And a son, Simon. Yourself?”
“Nah.” Deacon pursed his lips. “Tell you why I'm here, Terry. It's about your Sophie. She's all right, is she?”
In an instant Walsh's expansive face tightened in fear. “What's happened? Jack, tell me - for the love of God - !”
Deacon took pity on him. “It's all right. Nothing's happened - at least, nothing you don't know about. Somebody's Sophie is in trouble, but she has been for a week or more - if you've seen her recently it's not your daughter.”
The man looked slightly reassured. “You're sure? I can call her - she drove over to the stables where she keeps her horse an hour ago, I can get her on the mobile if there's any chance she's in trouble …”
“Call her if it'll make you happy,” said Deacon, “but there's nothing to worry about. At least, there is, but it's somebody else's problem. It involves someone called Sophie, a lot of money and a fair bit of brutality, so naturally I thought of you. Where were you last weekend?”
Walsh didn't have to think. “I was in Norway until Saturday; Sunday I played golf. You can check if you need to.”
Deacon nodded. He would, but he didn't expect to learn any different. “How about Sophie? Where was she last week?”
“Working. She's PA to the proprietor of an art gallery in Eastbourne - I'll give you his number so you can check that too.” He did. “Jack, whatever is this all about?”
“I'm barking up the wrong tree, I think. Something's going on, something that nobody's telling me about, and I thought maybe something had happened to your Sophie and you were on the warpath because of it.” Deacon sniffed. “I'm glad I was wrong.”
“You thought we were in trouble and you came to help? Jack, I'm touched.” Amazingly enough he seemed to mean it.
Deacon shrugged. “Partly that. And partly, I might have had some new charges to throw at you.”
Walsh laughed aloud. “Sorry to disappoint you.” A thought occurred to him. “Have you tried Ibbotsen at the end? His granddaughter's called Sophie, I think. Mind you, she's only a tot, I don't know how much trouble she can have got into.”
“The house with the gates? I went there looking for you. You want to put a number up sometime.”
“Jack - anyone I want to see knows where I live.”
Deacon squinted at him. “Ibbotsen the shipping guy? I doubt he'd fit the bill. I know he has money. But I'm looking for someone with dirty money, and the morals to go with it.”
Walsh grinned. “What do I have to do to convince you I'm not like that? I'm a businessman, that's all.”
Deacon smiled too; it looked like a crocodile smiling. “Terry, I've been a policeman over twenty years. I've known you since we were at school. I know when you're lying. Ask me how.”
“How, Jack?”
“Your lips move.”
 
 
Even after Detective Inspector Deacon was seen driving away up
the avenue, Ibbotsen wanted them to wait. “I can't risk you being seen leaving here.”
Brodie answered with a negligent shrug. It would have suited her very well for Deacon to see them leaving: she wanted this subterfuge to end. She believed the day would come when she'd regret keeping secrets from Deacon.
She gave Ibbotsen five minutes then started the car again. “I'm not moving in with you just to avoid being seen leaving.” But Deacon was long gone and no one else was interested.
Exhausted by the morning's revelations, Daniel fell asleep in the few minutes it took them to get home. Brodie couldn't throw him over her shoulder and carry him inside the way she did with Paddy: she tapped his arm. He started with a sharp intake of breath.
“Sorry. We're here.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after twelve.”
Upstairs Marta Szarabeijka had a pupil: one who thought a piano was like a bicycle, the harder you pedalled the better it went. The sound crashed through the window and splintered in the front garden.
Brodie opened her door. “I'll make some lunch.”
Daniel hesitated in the hallway. “You don't have to do this.”
“Make lunch?”
“Look after me. I can go home now. There's no one waiting for me - there's
going
to be no one waiting. Or I could go to an hotel.”
“Do you want to?”
“Not much,” he admitted.
“Then come inside and shut the door. It's no hardship putting you up for a few days. Now we know there'll be no repercussions Paddy can move in again. An extra place at the table: that's all the trouble you are. Go home when you're ready, stay till you are.”
He followed her into the kitchen, watched her peel potatoes. “How much longer can it go on?” he asked. “It's been ten days: how much longer before the kidnappers decide they're not going to get what they want and …”
“And what?” Brodie looked at him over her shoulder.
Daniel swallowed. “That was my next question. What will they do when they give up on the money?”
She peeled steadily. “If there'd been no contact for ten days I'd be afraid for that little girl's life. The kidnappers might have waited two or three days and tried again, but if they really couldn't make contact with the family they'd cut their losses. Either they'd leave her somewhere to be found, or they'd leave the body.
“But that isn't the situation. Ibbotsen's negotiator has been talking to them for a week. Since … well.”
“Since they decided they weren't going to find her through me,” supplied Daniel. When she looked at him the ghosts were quiet.
Brodie nodded. “That's quite a long time too, but if she's somewhere safe and they're somewhere safe maybe they're not too worried. Snatching her was risky; collecting the money will be risky; talking on the phone really isn't. Not if you know what you're doing.
“The first thing the negotiator would say is that the money is available - that it isn't the money but Sophie's safety which is the issue. So the kidnappers are thinking not if but when. They believe she's worth half a million pounds to them.
“What both sides have been doing for the last week is laying the foundations for a deal. It must seem a hell of a long time to both Sophie and her father, but actually the old man was right. It doesn't matter how long it takes if it ends in success.”
“All right,” said Daniel, “suppose they agree on how to do it, and where and when and all the safeguards. Will they keep their word? Or will Sophie come home in a box?”
“Employing a professional negotiator was a good move. He'll deal with more of these things in a year, working all over the world, than Scotland Yard does in five. He'll break it down into stages. You do
this,
we do that; you do
this,
we do the next thing. He'll try to ensure that they can't get away with the money until Sophie is safe. Of course, the kidnappers will be trying to ensure that the Ibbotsens can't get Sophie until they've paid for her. That's what takes the time. As long as nothing unexpected happens, they'll find a way.”
She looked at him sidelong, wondering how much truth he could
handle. What he'd been through had taken him to the limit, physically and mentally: if it turned out to be for nothing, she was afraid for him. The hope that Sophie Ibbotsen would come home safe was holding him together.
Daniel caught the look and frowned. “What?”
“The negotiator will make sure the kidnappers play fair. Who's going to make sure Ibbotsen does?”
“You think he'd risk her life?”
“No. But he might think he could do it without much risk.”
“I couldn't bear it if she died,” Daniel said softly.

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