Echoes of Lies (14 page)

Read Echoes of Lies Online

Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Echoes of Lies
2.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Brodie nodded. “All we can do is wait. And pray, if you've a mind to.”
Daniel shook his head. “I'm a mathematician. I believe that two and two always make four. They can't make five however much someone wants them to.”
Finished with the potatoes, she leaned back against the counter. “So mathematics is the death of wonder?”
He did his heart-stopping smile. Brodie had known professional charmers, men who could gauge to the split second when to turn it on and how long to leave it running; and though like any woman with twenty-twenty vision she could appreciate a goodlooking man she had never been much impressed by expensive orthodontics.
Daniel Hood was different. He wasn't a professional, the smile was his own. And he had no idea how affecting it was, how it got under her guard. It would have been captivating on anyone at any time. On someone who'd come through what he had, it was devastating.
“On the contrary, mathematics is the perfect tool for exploring wonders,” he said. “No man has been further than the moon - on the universal scale that's like moving up the sofa. But we know about the chemical processes in the hearts of stars on the far side of the galaxy, and mathematics is how. We know about other galaxies on the far side of the universe. We're able to understand things whose physical structure is so bizarre we couldn't describe them in any language except mathematics.
“Do you know about Spin Half?” Brodie shook her head. “The
universe is made up of some particles that look different depending on which way you look at them, and others that don't. In the same way that a sphere always looks the same from every angle, and a bow-tie would look the same upside down, but you'd have to walk right round a person to get the same view. With me so far? Particles like that are responsible for the forces operating in the universe: they're described as having spin nought, one and two.
“Particles of matter are described as having spin half. Turning a particle like that through three hundred and sixty degrees isn't enough to make it look the same. You have do it twice.”
“That isn't possible,” said Brodie with conviction.
Daniel beamed. “It is; but we can only confront the idea through mathematics. Paul Dirac cracked it in 1928 in the first theory that was consistent with both quantum mechanics and special relativity.”
Brodie was at once puzzled and amused. Every time she thought she was getting a handle on him, understanding who he was and how he thought, he did this to her; changed the basic perameters of their relationship. She talked to him as if he were a child; and quite without resentment, possibly without noticing, he replied in terms that would have stretched a Nobel physicist. It wasn't a put-down: it was just that, behind the ordinary face and the mundane job, he was very, very clever. She wasn't sure he'd noticed that either.
She changed the subject. “Talking of confrontations. How do you feel after yours?”
The pleasure that had animated his face stilled. He thought about it. “Weird. But - better.”
“I thought you were crazy wanting to talk to that man,” said Brodie. “But you were right: it was what you needed.”
“I've never been brave,” confided Daniel. “Violence frightens me, even when I'm not the target. You know the seven-stone weakling in the chest-expander ads? - that's me. All my instincts are to kick sand in my own face to save bigger guys the trouble.
“But you miss a lot by going through life like that. You back away more and more, quicker and quicker. You start by avoiding thugs on the beach, you end up staying indoors on sunny days. Once you start to run, somehow there's no stopping.
“But you can make yourself stand still and face what's coming. It's hard at first, but it gets easier every time you think you're going to die and don't. Facing your fears doesn't mean you never get hurt, but at least you learn who poses a genuine threat and who doesn't. You still get sand in your face sometimes, but not every time someone walks past. And you do get to go on the beach.”
Brodie shook her head, her regard for him growing. “You're a strange human being, Daniel Hood. But I'll say this for you. You know what you want, and you have the guts to go for it. That makes you braver than nearly everyone I know.”
 
 
First thing on Monday morning she drove him to the hospital to get his dressings checked. “Call me when you're done and I'll pick you up.”
“I'll get a taxi.”
“Call me.”
The doctor was still offended at him discharging himself. But when pressed he admitted that Daniel had come to no harm, that his injuries were healing, that more of the clingfilm could be dispensed with.
Daniel came out of the treatment room, tender and pink under his shirt, to find Detective Inspector Deacon waiting for him. Surprise froze him momentarily in his tracks.
“Daniel,” said the policeman non-committally. “You're looking better.”
In the couple of seconds it took to detach his feet from the linoleum Daniel had made two decisions. He wasn't going to tell Deacon about the Ibbotsens, and he wasn't going to lie. If need be he'd stand there all day trying to reconcile the two. “I'm a lot better,” he said.
Deacon nodded. “Good. Now let's see if your memory's improved too.”
“There never was anything wrong with my memory,” Daniel said quietly. “I told you everything I knew. I don't know why you didn't believe me.”
“Well, I'll tell you,” said Deacon expansively. “It's because when
people are telling the truth, it adds up and makes a kind of sense. When it doesn't add up and it doesn't make any sense at all, nine times out of ten somebody's telling porkies.”
“I haven't lied to you. I just didn't know the answers to your questions.”
“That's right,” remembered the detective. “You don't like liars, do you? ‘Tell the truth and shame the devil' - it's a good epitaph. I'll have it inscribed on your tombstone.”
Daniel felt his skin crawl. “What do you mean?”
“I'm only being realistic.” Deacon put an arm around his shoulder and, if he noticed the younger man wince, pretended he hadn't. “The people who chucked you in the skip thought you were dead. I lied - sorry about that, I know you won't approve - I lied to the press to keep them thinking that. And now here you are, walking around in public and staying with a woman they also know about. Whoever they are, whatever it was all about, they must know by now that they left the job unfinished. It can't be long before they decide to rectify that.”
He cocked his head, waiting for Daniel to reply. But Daniel said nothing. Deacon smiled his crocodile smile. “I have to hand it to you, Danny, you're a braver man than me. That's a good quality in a teacher, though it's not the first thing that springs to mind. You think of teachers and you think cardigans, long holidays, pay disputes and whingeing on about not getting the respect they're entitled to. You don't immediately think of people brave enough to stand in front of a loaded gun just to prove that they can.”
Daniel knew he was being goaded and dared not respond. “Inspector - what is it you want from me?”
“I want to know what you know,” Deacon said forcibly. “I want to know why all at once you feel safe wandering round a public building where a week ago I had you hidden away under a false name with a guard on the door. Something's changed. Something's happened, or you've remembered something, but anyway you know something now that you didn't then. Tell me what it is.”
“I can't tell you anything,” insisted Daniel. “All I can do is repeat what I said before: I got tired of hiding. It's not bravery, or stupidity - I think the danger's passed. Maybe it's time you called
The Sentinel
and put the record straight. It'll come out sooner or later - when I go back to school if not before. It would be better coming from you than someone else.”
Deacon regarded him speculatively. “Daniel, do you hate me?”
Daniel stared. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you trying to sabotage my career? What I did to protect you I will get away with, just, if I can make an arrest. Without that I'm just another fascist pig with no respect for the public, lying to cover my own failure. I went out on a limb for you. I knew it could break: I
didn't
expect to turn round and find you sawing like crazy behind me.”
“I'm not! Inspector Deacon, I'm grateful for everything you've done. But I still can't answer your questions.”
“Can't? Or won't?”
Daniel Hood lost his temper. He didn't shout or throw punches when he was angry, but his eyes crackled like embers. “The last people who thought I was lying to them burned me with cigarettes. After two days I still couldn't help them. I can't help you either, and I don't know what you think you can do that'll be more persuasive than what they came up with.”
Jack Deacon had seen most things in his time on the force. He'd seen things done to the human body that made Daniel Hood's injuries pale into insignificance. And he'd been at the centre of a staring crowd more often than he could remember. He wasn't easy to shock, impossible to embarrass. And everything Daniel did and said reinforced the conviction in his gut that the young man knew things that he wasn't sharing.
“I know what was done to you,” he said wearily. “I saw it when it was worse than it is now, when I thought you were going to die. And when I thought you were an innocent victim. Now I think you're in this up to your eyeballs. I think you could tell me the whole story if you wanted to.
“But if you don't want the people who hurt you to pay for it, damned if I know why I should. Sort it out between you. You think you don't need my help any more? Well, if they kill you next time we'll know you were wrong.”
He turned on his heel, left Daniel standing flushed in the middle of Reception and almost walked over Brodie Farrell. “I should have known you'd be here,” he said nastily. “When you've got Superman, can Lois Lane be far behind?” He stalked out through the swinging doors into the car-park.
Mystified as she was, Brodie refrained from comment until she'd ushered Daniel away from the fascinated gaze of the packed waiting room. Then she said, “What was that about?”
“Mr Deacon still thinks I'm holding something back.”
“Well - you are, aren't you?”
Daniel nodded mournfully.
“Now
I am. I wasn't last time I talked to him.”
She hadn't much sympathy for him. Most of what he'd suffered had been someone else's fault but this he'd brought on himself. She'd tried to warn him what finding his enemies would mean, and about joining their conspiracy of silence. He hadn't understood that keeping secrets mostly means telling lies.
“Well, you've got two choices - you do what Deacon wants or what Ibbotsen wants. You can't do both. It may be, in the end, you won't be able to do either.”
“I gave my word,” murmured Daniel.
“I don't think Jack Deacon's a man you want to annoy.”
He stared. “Meaning that Lance Ibbotsen is?”
Brodie breathed heavily. It was getting just a little irksome the way he used his pain as a kind of trump card, an answer to every argument. “Meaning,” she said, getting into the car, “that you'd better pick a side and stick to it. And if it isn't Ibbotsen's, we'll go round to the police station right now and tell Deacon everything.”
Daniel's expression was stubborn. “I gave him my word. I won't go back on it.”
“Then get in the car. They want us up at
Chandlers.”
Misgivings clouded his face. “What's happened?”
“I don't know,” Brodie said tersely. “I got a phonecall from David Ibbotsen ten minutes ago. He wants to see us right away. He wouldn' t say why.”
Fear bloomed in Daniel's eyes and his voice was hollow. “Oh no.”
As Brodie turned off the Shore Road towards
Chandlers,
suddenly Daniel stiffened beside her. “Stop the car.”
She pulled in quickly. “What is it?” But he was already bailing out, stumbling across the verge and throwing up in a hedge.
She said nothing, simply waited until he came back, white and shame-faced. “Sorry.”
“Daniel - why are you doing this to yourself? Let's go home. I'll ring them and say we're not coming.”
He shook his head. “I told them to call if there was anything I could do. They called. I can't just go home.”
“Of course you can. Just because an Ibbotsen yanks our chain doesn't mean we have to jump. We owe them nothing. And any help they need they can buy.”
“They know that too. They must think there's something we can do for them that the experts can't.”
With no answer to his logic, Brodie appealed to common sense. “But we're getting in deeper and deeper. That family's problems are not our concern. You've already helped more than they had any right to expect. I don't like the way you've been manoeuvred into lying to - all right, misleading - the police. You don't want Detective Inspector Deacon as an enemy.”
“I don't want
any
enemies,” protested Daniel. “But a choice between irritating one person and letting another get hurt, or maybe killed, makes itself. What did he say when he called you? Has something happened?”
Brodie looked away. “I don't know. He was upset, he wasn't making a lot of sense. He said something about the post.”
Daniel jolted visibly. “He's got something from the kidnappers. Something to stir him into action. But if Sophie was dead he wouldn't have called us, he'd have called the police. He must think we can do something. We have to find out what.”
“No,” she said forcibly, “we don't. He shouldn't be asking, and
we shouldn't consider it. Daniel, listen to me. If the child is already dead, then it's a tragedy but there's nothing for us to reproach ourselves about. If we get drawn into Ibbotsen's machinations and she dies tomorrow, that may not still be the case.”
His eyes were as clear as ice. But ice is deceptive. It only looks fragile: actually it's hard, and it burns. “What if there's some way we can help and we're too scared to try? We're not going to reproach ourselves about that? You know how I feel about cowardice - it terrifies me.”
Brodie looked at him, troubled, and saw the tiny smile. It would have been easy to give in to him. But there was too much at stake. “Daniel, if this is what you want, I'll do it. Not for David Ibbotsen, or even his daughter, but for you. I owe it to you. But I believe it's a mistake.
“I was afraid that if we found these people it would be the end of everything. Well, we found them; and now I'm afraid this is just the start. We're going to get so mired in this whole sorry business there'll be no escaping the consequences. We'll be powerless to prevent what's going to happen but too close to avoid the fall-out. The Ibbotsens can't keep the police at bay forever. When Deacon finds out that a child was kidnapped and nobody told him, and that we knew about it, he's going to come after us with a meat-cleaver.”
“We haven't done anything wrong! Helping a man get his daughter back isn't a crime.”
“Withholding evidence is. I don't know what Deacon can do to you - maybe in the circumstances he'd feel pretty silly trying to arrest you. But he'll drop on me like a ton of bricks. He doesn't even have charge me with anything: he can put me out of business just by deciding to. I don't work for crooks - at least, not knowingly - but I do work for a lot of people who rely on my discretion. If Deacon starts taking an interest in what I do, half my clientele will vanish overnight.
“David Ibbotsen isn't the only one with a child to think about. I have a four-year-old daughter. I don't want to raise her on Family Credit.”
Daniel's gaze was compassionate. “I don't want you to do anything
you're uncomfortable with. You may have owed me something a week ago but not any more. Go home, I'll walk from here.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“You could have done it yesterday. Today it'll be easier: you know now nobody wants me dead.”
But death wasn't the only conceivable disaster. Brodie steeled herself. “I know what you're thinking, Daniel. That bringing that little girl home will change how you feel about what happened. Replace terrible memories with something better. But what if she doesn't come home? What if it all goes wrong? Can you face the possibility that Sophie Ibbotsen is going to die because of some decision you'll be a party to?”
She saw him think about that, the idea carving at his heart. “I don't know. But if I walk away, if I refuse to help and Sophie dies, I know how I'll feel then. I'm twenty-six years old. I don't want to spend the next fifty years wondering if she'd be alive if I hadn't been too scared to go up there today.
“Sometimes trying to cover all the angles is just too difficult. You have to do what you think is right and hope for the best.”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” said Brodie.
“No. The road to hell is paved with fear. With the echoes of lies, and the ghosts of good deeds stillborn because people were afraid of the consequences.”
Brodie had no more arguments to offer. She started the car again. “Then let's do it.”
 
 
Lance Ibbotsen met them at the back door. “David's in the sitting room.” His voice was so low as to be barely audible, his face stiff and grey.
Brodie needed to know what to expect. “What's happened? I couldn't follow what he was saying.”
“No. He was upset. I offered to call, but we weren't sure you'd come for me.”
“Something came in the post. Is that right?”
“The kidnappers must have decided things were taking too long. They sent us a go-faster message.”
There was a box on the coffee table, the sort designed for posting flowers. It had been opened but it was closed now. Surreptitiously Brodie checked the bottom corners. At least it wasn't leaking.
David Ibbotsen dragged his eyes away from it long enough to offer her a thin smile. It was the first time they'd met. “Thanks for coming. I couldn't think who else to call.”
She nodded at the box. “What's in it?”
David Ibbotsen jerked one hand in unsteady invitation. Like Daniel, he seemed to be clinging to the edge of the abyss by his finger-nails. The only difference was that every day brought Daniel a little healing. Every day was another mountain between this man and his child, another nail in the crucifixion of his hopes. Every minute that passed could be the last before he learned of Sophie's death. If the phone rang, if the doorbell chimed … Brodie imagined herself in his position and found it too painful to continue. Every second that she didn't know where Paddy was or if she was safe would be like vitriol on raw flesh.
The man needed help. Daniel was right: whatever he'd been a part of, they couldn't leave him to suffer. Brodie set her teeth and reached for the box.
Lance Ibbotsen saved her that at least. He lifted the lid. “It's her hair.”
As golden as sunshine, as fine as spring rain, it filled the box in tumbling profusion. As if a phoenix had been lining a nest for the chick it would never see.
Brodie breathed in and out for half a minute, letting her heartbeat steady. Then she said, “What does your negotiator make of this?”
David looked quickly at his father. He wasn't the least bit like him, or even as he must have been at thirty-five. The bones were thicker, neither so long nor so angular, and better covered. He was a good-looking man, or would have been when his cheeks were not sunken nor his eyes red with rubbing. He looked as if he hadn't slept since this began and was at the end of his strength. “Tell them.”
Ibbotsen nodded, once, crisply. “He's gone. The kidnappers refused to deal with him any more. I don't know why - they must
have thought he was spinning things out, that we'd settle quicker with him out of the picture. They said they wouldn't talk to him again, that if we couldn't talk direct they wouldn't waste any more time. They said they'd kill Sophie and disappear, and it would be our fault.”
Brodie frowned. It seemed the sort of thing that would be said at some stage in every hostage negotiation. “And because of that your negotiator left?”
Ibbotsen sniffed. “Not exactly. He said they were just trying to up the stakes. He said we shouldn't fall for it. He also said, of course, that the final decision was ours.”
“And you gave him his marching orders.” The one thing they'd done right they hadn't been strong enough to abide by.
“Call me a cynic,” growled the old man. “But he had less than us to lose and more to gain by making it last. We weren't getting anywhere. I paid him off.”
“You're wrong,” said Brodie. “He had his reputation to lose, and that may have meant almost as much to him as Sophie does to you. If he loses a hostage he may never get another client. He makes a lot of money doing this, but only because he's successful. You lost an ally.”
Lance and his son traded a quick glance. “We didn't think of it that way,” mumbled David. “I'm not sure it would have mattered if we had. They threatened to kill her. Sophie: my daughter. They threatened to
kill
her! You can't call a bluff like that.”
“You
couldn't,” said Brodie. “A professional negotiator could.” Still, the deed was done. The negotiation was compromised, he wouldn't come back on board now if they asked him. “When did the box arrive?”
“Forty minutes ago, just before I called you.” David passed a hand across his mouth. “One of the neighbours brought it round. It had been left on his doorstep by mistake.”
“That wasn't a mistake,” said Brodie. “They knew they couldn't get to your front door without being spotted. Your neighbour: does he have a security camera?” These were all valuable properties, serious security would be the order of the day.
“No, he has Rottweilers.” Which might have been even more of a deterrent but wouldn't be able to give a description.
“Was there a note or are we still waiting for them to call?”
“There's a message in the box.”
A sheet of computer listing paper nestled in the golden hair.
This is between us. It can only be resolved between us. Do as we say and you'll have the rest of your granddaughter back inside twenty-four hours.
We won't tolerate any more delays. Buy the child's life or we'll return her dead body free of charge. Find a go-between to bring us the money and return with the child. We'll call tonight and tell her where to go.
“Her?” Brodie's voice was ribbed with presentiment.
Ibbotsen shrugged. “Obviously they'd rather deal with a woman. If that's what they want, that's how we'll do it. I'm not fighting them any more. They can have everything they want, including the money. Will you take it to them?”
Disturbed as she was at the idea, the glance she cast Daniel carried a certain wry humour. So it wasn't his help they needed, it was hers. He didn't return the look, or even seem to notice it. All his attention was on David Ibbotsen. Of course, it wasn't the first time they'd met.
“Will you?” asked David. “Please. We'll pay you …”
“My God, you're at it again!” exclaimed Brodie. “I never knew a family with such rotten judgement when it comes to money! Yes, I'll help. And no, I don't want paying. And so help me, if either one of you flashes his chequebook at me again, I'll deck him!”
Having gained their full attention, she took a seat. “Now. If you'd kept your negotiator on the payroll he'd have told you that the contents of that box change everything.”
“I don't need him to tell me that,” growled Ibbotsen. “I don't need
you
to tell me that.”
“I think you do. You seem to think Sophie's in more danger today that she was a week ago. Well, I'm not convinced she's in danger at all. Not today or for the immediate future.”
The three men stared at her as if she'd thrown off her clothes and
commenced a fan dance on the coffee table. She found their interest gratifying, was in no hurry to move on.
Finally, more or less in concert, Daniel said, “Are you sure?” and David said in anguish, “That's my daughter's
hair
!” and Ibbotsen growled, “You want to explain?”
She answered them all. “Yes, I'm pretty sure. I don't think Sophie's in danger because that box contains the one bit of her that came off without hurting and will grow back in a few months. It could have been her ear, or a finger, or any one of a dozen body parts that can be removed without endangering a little girl's life by anyone brute enough to do it. But it was her hair. Not a drop of blood, not a tear, was spilt. Ask yourselves why.”

Other books

6 Fantasy Stories by Robert T. Jeschonek
My Stubborn Heart by Becky Wade
Blink by Violet Williams
Risky Business by Nicole O'Dell
Rum Punch Regrets by Anne Kemp
Matadero Cinco by Kurt Vonnegut