Hard Time Page 6

  His Jaguar was in the far corner, the only car on this level. He fumbled with the key, caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Two hooded figures. Edensor presumed they’d been hiding behind one of the concrete pillars: muggers or druggies. He put a protective hand on his wallet but the swaggering bastards weren’t interested. He lashed out but they were younger, quicker, stronger. His muscles screamed in mute agony as one of them twisted his arms behind him. The pain was so intense he barely felt the needle enter his chest.

  Supporting his body between theirs, his assailants mounted the stairs. Edensor was barely conscious when they emerged at roof level.

  He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Where to locate the camera had been a difficult decision. A top-shot would have captured the body’s flight. But the long lens would show the crash landing. The shadowy figure at the end of the street gave a satisfied smile, whispered, “Cut.” The choice had been a good call.

  Dark thoughts about Daniel Page’s kidnap were keeping Byford awake. When the phone rang in the early hours, his heart sank. He expected the worst when he reached for the receiver. It was Highgate control and it took a while for the news to sink in. Two traffic officers had found Doug Edensor’s body smashed almost beyond recognition in a street in Northfield.

  “It looks like suicide,” the duty inspector said. “We thought you’d want to know.”

  Dougie had been a good friend before he left the police. “Of course,” Byford said. “Thanks for telling me.” Deep in thought, he ended the call, swung his legs out of bed, headed for the kitchen.

  Two minutes later, he lay back in a recliner, a crystal glass of single malt in his hand as he gazed through the window at the city skyline. The view usually helped put his troubled thoughts into some sort of perspective but tonight all he could see was Dougie. Byford found it difficult to imagine his ex-colleague dead, impossible to picture him taking his own life.

  He sipped the Laphroaig, saw another figure jostling for attention in his mind’s eye. The unease he’d felt since Robbie Crawford’s hit-and-run accident was no longer faint. If there was the merest sniff of suspicion about Doug’s death... He shook his head. SOCOs were still out there; he’d study the reports first thing before jumping to conclusions. He laid his head back, closed his eyes. The view’s customary magic wasn’t working; neither was the malt’s.

  In less than a week, two senior police officers – both old friends – had died. And Byford didn’t do coincidence.

  January 1994

  Holly wasn’t scared the first night the bedroom door was inched open – she was excited. The little girl shivered under the duvet, hardly daring to look. From an early age she’d fantasised about it: Mummy finding her, telling her it had all been a terrible mistake and now it was time to come home. Not for one second had she doubted her mother would return.

  So that first night, she wasn’t scared. Not really. Hardly at all. In her child’s head, she’d worked it all out. Obviously Mummy would have to steal her back. The people who’d adopted Holly wouldn’t let Mummy anywhere near her, would they? They hated it when Holly asked questions; she wasn’t even allowed to talk about her.

  Her mummy could be a princess or a movie star. It didn’t matter. She was Holly’s Mummy and she loved her. And Mummy loved Holly. The little girl knew something awful must’ve forced her mother to let her go. But none of that mattered. One day she’d return. The little girl just knew her mother followed her every move, would have watched over Holly from afar – until the moment was right.

  So the first time a shadowy figure crept into Holly’s room in the middle of the night, the little girl was excited as could be. Even when that figure slipped into bed beside her, Holly wasn’t frightened. Mummy would want to catch up on all those cuddles she’d missed. Mummy would want to hold her darling girl as tightly as could be.

  Wouldn’t she?

  SATURDAY

  11

  Oz’s smell lingered on the pillow, and other places, but he was gone when Bev woke. Better that way. She lay still, eyes closed, savouring the moment – a morning when she felt good, fighting fit. Will Browne was not the last man inside her. She and Oz had made gentle tender love and she’d clung and cried and confided and confessed. Ironic or what? She’d let him close at last and now he’d buggered off. She laughed, not really concerned. He was going to the Met, not the dark side of the moon. What was it her dad used to say? Que sera sera. What’ll pan out’ll pan out.

  She flung off the duvet, headed for the loo and a shower. Frankie was clearly on galley duties. Bacon odours and Bizet wafted up from below. Frankie was bellowing out a number from Carmen. Girl must be in a good mood.

  When Bev entered the kitchen ten minutes later, her friend whirled round, raven curls flying, mouth a perfect O. Bev frowned. “Wind changes, you could catch flies for a living, mate.”

  Frankie Perlagio missed nothing. “Did we have a little company last night, my friend?”

  Trying to keep a straight face wasn’t going to happen. “This the Italian inquisition?”

  “Drawer there.” Frankie pointed. “Pass the thumbscrews.”

  Bev flapped a hand, took a seat at the table. Frankie tilted her head. “Are you going in today?”

  “Doh.” Flexi-hours Frankie didn’t know what full time meant. If she wasn’t giving her dad a hand in the family restaurant, she busked it as a session singer. A kind of Katie-Melua-Nigella-Lawson hybrid. Her current incredulity wasn’t down to the fact it was a Saturday.

  “But you’re...” She pointed to Bev’s legs. “And you’re...” Wearing make-up.

  “Yeah, yeah.” So she hadn’t forgotten how to put on slap and a skirt. Bev’s main concern was the angle of the plates in her friend’s hands. “Shall we eat or are you just gonna drop them?” For a half-Italian, Frankie cooked a mean full English. And she had the nous not to talk with her mouth full.

  Early brief. Highgate. Nineteen hours since Daniel Page was seen being led away from The Manor prep school by an unknown woman. Any of the thirty-plus officers present who doubted what was at stake only had to look at the posters pinned on every wall in the kidnap room. Little people didn’t figure large in Bev’s life but she’d never seen a more angelic-looking child. Only the halo was missing. Halo. Wings. Afterlife. That train of thought made her shudder.

  The guv gave her a glance but didn’t break verbal stride. There’d been nothing earth-shattering overnight, not even a minuscule flicker on the Richter scale. Hardly surprising, given a news blackout was operating. How could the public call if it didn’t know about the kidnap? Cops depended to a large extent on witness information. The case wasn’t so much hamstrung as straitjacketed.

  “On the plus side.” The guv was key-jangling, a sign he was keen to get on. “Obs are in place near the Page house. And comms are on the case.” Observation officers had set up in a property over the road. And telecommunications officers were ready to monitor, record and trace every conversation. “Covert surveillance teams are cruising the immediate area plus the key locations we’re aware of so far.” The school and the ad agency. “And Colin reckons he’s establishing pretty good rapport with the couple.” Colin Henfield, family liaison, pivotal role in a kidnap. Pembers lobbed in a question about FLOs and the boy’s grandparents but Bev was distracted, another issue playing on her mind.

  Culpable or not, the Pages were crucial to the case. The fact she’d made herself persona non grata with the mother was giving Bev grief. On reflection, her behaviour hadn’t just been insensitive; it was unprofessional. She was paid to help women like Jenny Page; they didn’t have to be best buddies. She waited for a lull, then lifted a hand. “Can I have another shot at the Pages, guv?”

  “Revolver or Kalashnikov?” Powell muttered.

  Bev glared, then turned in mute appeal to the guv. Getting people to open up had always been one of her strengths. The guv knew that, probably why he gave it some thought. “No.”

  Shoulders slump
ed. “Aw, go on, guv.”

  “We need to keep the Pages sweet, sergeant.”

  “I can do sweet.” The smile was a kind of sickly-simper. It didn’t work. She sat up straight, cut the crap. “Seriously, sir, my manner with the mother was entirely inappropriate. I’d welcome the opportunity to rectify the situation and develop a more constructive future relationship with Mr and Mrs Page.”

  “At ease, sergeant.”

  She fixed him with blue bayonets. “Another chance, guv? I’d really appreciate it.”

  The plea was real, the voice told him that. He told her to leave it with him, then turned to the troops. He tasked a couple of DCs to check if the Pages were known to social services, child protection. Not looking the type meant zilch. Child abusers don’t have it tattooed on their forehead.

  Other interviews had already been assigned; officers in pairs would continue questioning intimates and acquaintances of the family. Byford ran through the strategies: what they were after, what they should listen and look for. Discrepancies, especially: conflicting statements, information that didn’t tally. Until they’d gathered the facts there was little to go on. And as most officers in the room knew, even if few acknowledged, it was piss in the wind.

  Byford voiced everyone’s thoughts. “We need whoever’s holding the boy to make contact again.” His gaze was fixed on one of the posters. It showed a bright beautiful child with his mother’s jade eyes. “Till then, like Daniel, we’re in the hands of the kidnappers.”

  Daniel didn’t know what time it was. He could tell the time, of course, but he seemed to have lost his watch. Aunty – as he was calling the nice lady – said they could get another one if he liked. He asked if they could go and buy one today but he didn’t think Aunty had heard. He supposed it didn’t matter. Not if Daddy was coming soon.

  Mummy was still in hospital. Aunty hadn’t said anything but Daniel could tell by the way her face sort of crumpled that Mummy was very sick. Aunty had told him not to worry, in that voice grown-ups use when they don’t want to talk about something.

  Daniel had been watching a Harry Potter DVD but could barely keep his eyes open. Maybe it was later than he thought. He turned his head when the door opened.

  “Here you go, Dan-Dan.”

  “Thank you, Aunty.” The little boy smiled politely, then drank his milk.

  12

  Post-brief, Byford perched on the corner of his desk staring at a sepia news cutting. He’d retrieved it from the back of a drawer where it had been gathering dust and Hobnob crumbs. Photographs, even press pictures, were something he rarely junked. The attic at home was crammed with shoeboxes spilling out happy snaps. The Byfords at play: Margaret and the boys at every age and virtually every angle. He never looked through them; the potent memories of a shared history would make his present solitary life seem even lonelier. His wife had died seven years earlier. And though Chris and Rich were on the end of a phone, he missed that daily contact with someone who cared.

  “Guv! Can you get the door?” Bev calling. Byford frowned. Why couldn’t she let herself in? He laid the cutting on the desk and wandered across. He could just about see her face.

  “Got my hands full, guv.” With the biggest cactus he’d ever clapped eyes on. It could star in a western movie; John Wayne could live in it. She’d had to drive in with the sunroof down.

  It was his sergeant’s first horticultural peace offering for months. She’d said sorry with cacti so many times his windowsill used to resemble a succulents’ superstore. It had dried up since the attack.

  “What’s brought this on?” he asked.

  “Gift horse? Mouth?” she admonished. The bloody thing wouldn’t fit on the ledge. “It’s a simple token of my appreciation.”

  He laughed, recalled her words at the briefing a few moments ago. The cactus was in the way of a bribe, as well as an apology. “You won’t get round me with that.”

  “Won’t get round anything with this,” she groaned.

  He watched as she struggled to position the monster growth on the floor in the corner, waited until he had her full attention. “I’ll give it some thought, but no promises.”

  Her eyes shone. “Ta, guv.”

  It was a look he’d not seen in a while. He nodded at the cactus. “Where did you lay your hands on that at this time in the morning?”

  “Had it ages, saving it for a rainy day.”

  It was early July. The sun had already turned the guv’s office into a greenhouse. He made no comment. Her glance fell on the news cutting as she passed his desk. The picture showed a group of people on the steps of the city’s old law courts in the mid-eighties. The briefs stood out in wigs and gowns but there were plain-clothes lawmen as well.

  Byford resumed his preferred perch on the windowsill. “Are you off to the ad agency now?” She’d not heard or wasn’t listening. “Bev?” She’d obviously spotted a face in the crowd and was now taking a closer look.

  “Hey, guv, you never said...” There was mischief in her eyes.

  Despite himself he asked. “What?”

  “You and George Clooney.” Crossed fingers added sign language. “Peas in a pod, back then.” She grinned.

  “I’m taller than him,” Byford mumbled.

  “This just after you joined the force?”

  He opened his mouth to say not long, but her focus was back on the picture, another face. She frowned. “Is that...?”

  Her index finger hovered over a smiling man on the guv’s right. “Robbie Crawford,” Byford supplied. “DC then. I was sergeant.”

  She nodded, still studying the line-up. “Big case, guv?”

  “Operation Rainbow.”

  Her blank look was no surprise. She’d have been in pigtails when Reg Maxwell was sent down. He gave her the top lines: Maxwell had been a Birmingham crime boss behind a huge porn and prostitution racket. Until he’d raped and murdered a ten-year-old boy.

  “This guy Reg?” Bev frowned. “He any relation to Harry Maxwell?” Every cop knew that name. Harry Maxwell’s crime empire extended far beyond the Midlands.

  “Was,” Byford said. “They were brothers. Past tense.” Reg Maxwell had served five years before a vicious beating by another prisoner put him on life support. “And when the plug was pulled –” Byford stared into the distance – “only Harry shed any tears.”

  A ringing phone brought him back to the present. His features sharpened as he grabbed a pen. She read the urgency in his voice – as well as the name and address he wrote. “Looks like we’ve got a witness,” Byford said. “A man says he saw a child being forced into a car.”

  She was on her feet before he replaced the receiver. “It’s on the way.”

  “Call in...” Her heels echoed in the corridor. He shook his head, then studied the cutting again. Maybe she’d never come across Doug Edensor, or she’d have picked his face out too.

  He reread the note that crime scenes had dropped off first thing. It was in way of a favour from one of the officers who’d attended Doug’s broken body. This was early stuff; a detailed report would follow, but the note appeared to confirm that ex-DCS Edensor had committed suicide. No evidence pointed to an accident, nothing suggested the fall was forced.

  Byford pinched the bridge of his nose. Two cops’ sudden deaths. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe there was no link. Even so, pending the follow-up report on Doug’s death, he’d have another look at Crawford’s hit-and-run, go through the police reports, re-read the statements and interviews.

  He’d already had a word with the DI in charge at Wake Green. The accident was still being treated as suspicious even though no one was in the frame. Byford knew everyone who’d been questioned. Harry Maxwell had been among the first.

  And Harry Maxwell had more reason than most to hate cops – not primarily because of Reg’s death in prison. Twelve years earlier, Harry’s only son had died instantly when the driver of a stolen BMW lost control and ploughed into Maxwell junior’s Mini. A police car had been chasin
g the stolen motor. Robbie Crawford had been one of the officers in the pursuit vehicle.

  It was the norm for witnesses to be nervy round police officers. Even Bev felt stressed if a traffic cop was on her tail. But Stephen Cross was totally unfazed: cucumber on ice. And not just cool, but aloof and condescending. He lived in a swanky show-off pad in Priory Rise, Edgbaston, the road parallel to Hampton Place where Daniel’s school was situated. Popular location this morning; hacks were already in the area, knocking on doors.

  Cross led Bev and Daz through to the kitchen as if they were there to clean the place. Like it needed cleaning. It resembled a theatre, operating not playhouse. Every latest gadget and bit of kit gleamed, probably all for show. Bev doubted if Cross had ever shelled an egg, let alone boiled one.

  “Can’t offer you anything, I’m afraid.” Most people would have concocted a polite excuse. “Can we get on with it?”

  Taking her time, Bev strolled to a bum-numbing chair round a glass-topped table. Daz took the other. Cross decided to pose against the stainless steel sink, maybe because it faced the mirrored wall. Tall and graceful, he moved like a dancer: ballroom, not ballet. Receding bland blond hair accentuated a high shiny dome. Hazel eyes bulged slightly; the nose was a real stonker. If it was Bev’s she’d have it taken in.

  She unbuttoned her blue linen jacket. “Tell us exactly what you saw, please, sir.”

  “I’ve alread...”

  “From the beginning.”

  He folded his arms, ankles already crossed. “I was on my run.” Four-mile circuit, three times a week. “I was waiting at the top of Hampton Place, checking for traffic, and saw a woman bundling a small child into a car. She had her hand on his head, and was forcing him into the back seat. The kid was kicking and screaming.”

  So why didn’t you do something? “Did you consider taking a closer look, sir?” Her smile was forced. He was admiring his in the mirror.

  “Have-a-go hero? You’re joking. Wouldn’t stick my nose in if you paid me.”