The Best of British Crime omnibus (37 page)

‘If we're going to switch selling agents in Holland on the date we agreed, the Freight Department really has to know by the end of the month,' Hughie McFee was saying.

‘We gave Dermot the credit clearance on that two weeks ago,' said Closter-Bennet sharply, shaking his head. ‘We haven't had any contracts for signing.'

‘Haven't we fired the existing agents?' asked Mary Ricini who wasn't directly involved, but interested.

‘Yes, we have. So if we don't act fast we'll be left with no Dutch agent at all. Probably Dermot's got it in hand,' Larden scowled from his seat at the head of the oblong table, thinking there ought to be more people to accept delegated authority. Closter Drug had existed for long enough on this slim nucleus of working directors with little back-up, except in the Research Department, and with each member covering really unacceptably large areas of responsibility. The system had generated profit all right, but the strain was telling. He was about to say something on this subject when his secretary's head appeared around the door. ‘Any news on Mr Hackle, Doris?' he asked.

‘Yes, Mr Larden. I just spoke to Mrs Hackle. She says he had to go to Nottingham after lunch yesterday. On unexpected business. He rang from there to say he had to stay overnight. He was planning to drive straight here this morning.'

‘Where was he staying?'

‘I asked Mrs Hackle. He hadn't said.'

The likelihood of Hackle needing to go to Nottingham on unexpected business on a Sunday, and then having to stay the night without saying where, was silently but not very solemnly debated by all those present. At least one wondered at the naïvety of a wife who accepted such a flimsy story from a husband whose faithfulness wasn't exactly legendary.

‘Thanks, Doris.' Larden shuffled the papers in front of him. ‘We'll leave the Dutch situation till Dermot gets here. Traffic's bad on the M1 probably.' He cleared his throat.

‘There's been a big accident near Luton,' Stuart Bodlin put in quietly. ‘It was on the LBC news as I was arriving. There's a big tailback they said.'

‘That's it then, I expect. And you can never get through on a carphone when there's a hold-up,' said Larden shaking his head. ‘Let's move on to these draft budgets, shall we? I think we should— ' He stopped speaking, his eyes on the doorway. His secretary had appeared there again. ‘Yes, Doris?' he said, a touch impatiently.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Larden. There's someone on the phone who wants to talk to you about Mr Hackle. He says it's urgent. He won't give me his name. He sounds Irish.'

Larden glanced at the others, shrugged, then got up and moved over to his desk wearing a stony expression. ‘Put him through.' He leaned across the desk for the telephone, and waited a moment while Doris switched the call. ‘Hello, Larden here?'

‘Would that be Mr
Robert
Larden?'

‘Yes. Who's this?'

‘Do you have the other directors with you, Mr Larden?'

‘Yes I do. I understand you have an urgent message for me from Mr Hackle?' Doris was right, the accent was definitely Southern Irish. The voice was high-pitched but not excited.

‘Well now, the message concerns all the directors. D'you think you could turn on the amplifier I'm told you've got there? So everyone can hear?'

‘Now look— '

‘So everyone can hear what Mr Hackle has to say,' the caller interrupted, the voice sharpening. ‘He's right beside me ready to speak. He's very anxious to tell you something.'

Puzzled, irritated, but beginning also to be alarmed, Larden pushed the conference button on the base of the instrument. ‘The amplifier's on,' he snapped.

‘Right you are then. Here's Mr Hackle.'

There was a pause, then came: ‘Bob, it's me, Dermot.' The voice emitting from the loudspeaker was faint, strained but unmistakable. ‘Can everyone hear me?'

Larden glanced round at the others catching their nods. ‘We can hear you, Dermot. Only just though. Speak up, can you? Are you all right? Who's that with you?'

‘Look, it's serious, I'm afraid. You see, I've been kidnapped.' The tone was a little louder now, the words well spaced. ‘There's … they've got a knife at my throat, Bob. No kidding. They're going to kill me unless you do what they say. I think they mean it.'

It was an hour later when Dr Ricini rang the front doorbell of the twin gabled suburban villa in the West Ealing cul-de-sac. Then she stepped back a little, willing herself to exude calmness. She had rehearsed what she had to say several times in the car during the twelve-minute drive from the factory.

It was a pre-war house, quite large, but the grey, pebble dash walls were as sombre as the faded if spotlessly clean curtains in the bay windows on either side of the doorway. The white paintwork was badly in need of renewal, and some of the woodwork was plainly decayed. An estate agent would have described the place as desirable but in need of repair – which is exactly how Dermot Hackle had described it to his colleagues at Closter Drug when he'd bought it on a long mortgage five years before. It seemed nothing had altered since that time.

The small front garden was well enough tended. There was an area of recently mown grass, with a sundial on a stone pedestal in the middle. A flower border skirted the path up to the door and also the loose gravelled drive that ran from the gateway to the concrete garage on the right. Both halves of the dilapidated wooden street gate were propped open at drunken angles, looking as if they had been in that state for some time – possibly for years. There were red tulips in bloom in the border, some dead-headed daffodils folded back with elastic bands, and a row of pruned roses showing plenty of bud as well as leaf. Dr Ricini enjoyed gardening. She had a garden of her own in Windsor – and wished she was in it now, or anywhere but here.

She rang the bell again, debating what she should do if there was no one in. The door was opened almost immediately afterwards.

A breathless Rosemary Hackle stood behind the threshold in a dowdy blue dress. She used the back of the hand holding the yellow duster to push away a thick strand of unruly hair that was hanging over one eye. ‘Mary, it's you. Sorry I kept you. Is it about the migraine test? I— ' she began, then stopped, with fright in her eyes. ‘It isn't that is it? Oh God, something's happened to Dermot?' A hand had gone to her mouth, and she had paled.

‘No, Dermot's all right. Honestly. There's nothing to worry about.' Mary stepped quickly into the hallway, closing the door herself, then she took Rosemary firmly by the arm. It was quite dark inside. ‘Where shall we go? In the kitchen?' She'd never been to the house before. ‘Along here is it? I think we'd better have some tea. Not now. In a minute. Let's sit down first. There's something I have to tell you. Are the children at school?'

‘Yes. They both are. I was cleaning the bedrooms.' Rosemary followed Mary's example and took a seat opposite her at the plastic-topped table in the centre of the room. She still looked frightened. ‘Tell me what's happened, Mary. Something has, hasn't it?'

Except for the newish paint on the walls and doors, it was a kitchen that hadn't been refurbished since before the time when built-in units became fashionable. But it was almost excessively tidy, and if the unmatched cupboards, the elderly Aga cooker, and the rest of the contents had seen better days, they were all as well burnished as the worn lino on the floor. There was an open, half-glazed door leading outside into the back garden. A large black cat was sitting on the step there, half asleep in the sunshine.

Mary leaned forward. ‘Dermot's not hurt. But he's been abducted. Kidnapped. But don't worry, we're going to get him back safe.' She wanted to add how fervently she'd been praying for the past hour that that could be true.

Rosemary had let out a little whimper. ‘Dermot kidnapped? Why? Who's kidnapped him?'

‘We think it's the SAE. The Stop Animal Experiments lot, remember? But they haven't said so yet. They rang us, just after Bob Larden's secretary rang you. They let Dermot speak. We all heard his voice. He was very cheerful. He said he was being well treated.' She didn't mention the knife at his throat. It was bad enough that she had been made to suffer that and the other brutal disclosures herself without betraying her true devastated feelings to the men present at the time.

‘The police? Mary, have you told the police yet?'

‘Not yet. And we don't think we should. Not unless you say so.'

‘Why not?'

‘The kidnappers said we mustn't tell anyone. Not the police or Mark Treasure or Grenwood, Phipps. Not anyone, except you and the wives of other directors. If we do tell the police, the kidnappers say they'll know and … and then they'll hurt Dermot.'

‘Kill him?' The whimper came again, only louder.

‘Certainly not.' Her own stomach had jerked on the other woman's words. ‘They're not going to kill him. He's much too valuable for their purpose.' She gave a reassuring smile – while forcing herself to believe her own words.

‘But hurt him? Maim him? That's what kidnappers do isn't it? Oh God, help me!' Rosemary took a deep breath that was half a sob. ‘Is it a ransom they want? We've got no money. Everyone knows we're— '

‘They don't want anything from you. They want all the directors in the company to sell their shares in Closter Drug. Tomorrow. And not to try buying them back till next week.'

‘I don't understand?'

‘Neither do we really, but that's what they've said. If we obey, and don't tell anyone why, they'll let Dermot go.'

‘That's all?' Her hands were cupped around her face.

‘We're not to tell anyone at the Stock Exchange what we're doing. In other words, we mustn't admit we're being forced to sell shares. You see, if that were known, dealings in Closter shares could be stopped. The kidnappers know that.'

Rosemary seemed not to have comprehended the last point. ‘When will they let Dermot go?'

‘Quite soon.' Mary avoided giving a direct answer. ‘As soon as they know we've done as they've ordered.'

‘But how can we trust them? And how will they know what we've done?'

‘They say they have informants everywhere. In the police, on the Stock Exchange, in the company, even at Grenwood, Phipps. They could be bluffing, of course. Except … Well if they're the SAE they're not criminals. I mean, not in the ordinary sense. Not in the sense they're in this for personal gain. Which added to something else— '

‘There's no ransom?'

‘Exactly. It could mean we're dealing with an organised group of cranks. A chain of animal nutters with committed members in all the places they say. They don't need to be high-ups. Just ordinary employees who have to see or pass on information.'

‘Like secretaries?'

‘Exactly. Secretaries, clerks, switchboard operators— '

‘But why are they— '

‘They're people simply out to make Closter directors give up their gains. The gains from last week's flotation.'

Rosemary was nodding furiously. ‘But if it's the SAE— '

‘It fits. The man who spoke to us on the phone had an Irish accent. The man who Dermot hit during the demo was Irish. I heard him. It could have been the same man. The problem is, there is no SAE. Nothing that we can trace.'

‘But they broke up the meeting? There were photos?'

‘Kirsty Welling and followers broke up the meeting. They called themselves the SAE. There were no faces on the photographs. Not of the demonstrators. They were all hidden by the banners. We now believe that was on purpose. So they couldn't be identified. They all melted into thin air after, too. Last week, when the lawyers were deciding what to do about the demo, they tried tracing the SAE and failed. They told Bob Larden on Friday the SAE didn't exist – just like the magazine,
Natural World Tomorrow
.'

‘But the other animal protection groups— '

‘Say they've never heard of the SAE either. And the journalist unions don't have a Kirsty Welling in membership.'

‘So how could the SAE have kidnapped Dermot? I don't understand?'

‘Bob thinks it's a small group temporarily recruited from the regular animal protection groups. It's not meant to survive. Its job is to harass Closter Drug. The demo was to spoil the flotation. The kidnap is to hurt the directors.'

‘But why did they pick Dermot?'

‘Maybe he was the easiest target for some reason.'

‘Or because he hit the Irishman?'

‘It's possible. It could also be because they know Dermot has fewer shares than the rest of us. He'd have been more difficult to pressure for that reason if someone else had been the victim.'

The other woman nodded slowly. ‘But if they're not criminals, they're not going to harm him?' There was hope in the tone and in the eyes.

‘Not if we do as they say.' She repressed the comment that fanatics could be a lot more dangerous than common criminals.

‘So we must do as they say. Not tell the police or anyone. It'll be all right then. They'll let him go.'

‘That's right, Rosemary. We've just got to sit it out.' And God, let it be true, she inwardly beseeched, for the man both these women adored in their separate fashions.

‘Stuart Bodlin voted to sell. From the very first. No hesitation at all,' said Giles Closter-Bennet, frowning into the gin and tonic he was holding.

‘That man's too soft. His kind usually are,' his wife answered with feeling. ‘Pour me another, will you?' She pushed her empty tumbler across the low, glass-topped, raffia-bound table. She took an olive from the dish there.

It was 7.30. Closter-Bennet had arrived home later than usual. The two were sitting outside on the well sheltered, stone-flagged terrace of their eighteenth-century farmhouse. The place belonged to Barbara Closter-Bennet who had inherited it from her father: it was on the edge of the Thames-side village of Later Burnlow.