Beggars Banquet (9 page)

But then quite quickly the hobby became a career, and now he was a professional, taking a professional’s care in the details of his craft. True, something had been lost; that was the trouble when a hobby became mere business. But at least he had the consolation of knowing that business was good. He saw himself as a value assessor. He assessed the value of an item, then collected on it, the money being insurance against loss. He had always been good at accounts, economics, business studies. He loved those subjects at school, hardly believing the sheer thrill of balancing books. The sums
always came out the same
, either side of the thick vertical centre line. He used similar skills now when assessing each item: value of item balanced against risk involved.

Not that he ever damaged an item. It hadn’t been necessary so far. But he was very good at pretending he would damage them. He could reduce tough fathers to pleas and weeping, and all via the telephone. The telephone was his friend - not any one particular telephone, but
all
phones, spread across the country in a matrix of elegantly anonymous paybooths. He made a point of spending not more than a minute in each phone box he used, timing each call. Single-mindedness was his real strength. Determination of purpose. The sixty-second calls had become his trademark. People knew when they were dealing with the Minute Man.

The media, who had coined the nickname, they too were his friends, stirring up fear, building him into a figure of terror. He rewarded them with increased circulation and viewing figures, while the police held increasingly ineffectual press conferences requesting information, playing tapes they’d made of his voices.

He used several voices, none his own. He hadn’t spoken more than six words to any of his four young items, and even then had disguised his voice. Actually, he’d used more than six words with the last one, the one whose value now sat before him on the table. She had been a talker, a good talker, too. She’d recited stories and anecdotes - even when she couldn’t be sure he was there. Occasionally he’d asked a question, something to help him get the story straight in his mind. She had given him her stories, and now her father had given him all this money.

Tonight, with an open bottle of cheapish Australian Chardonnay on the floor beside his chair, with his belly full from the meal he’d eaten at the Indian on the High Street, tonight was for reflection. At the top of the hour, he hit the remote to catch the Channel 4 news and saw with some pride that he was the main story. Or rather, the item was.

She blinked a lot. Nervousness, or perhaps the glare of the lights and flashguns. Her hair had been washed, but she wore no make-up, and her face looked pale. She had lost a little weight, her own fault for not eating everything he’d given her.

She’d worked out pretty quickly - they usually did - that the food was laced with tranqs, crushed-up sleeping pills. But like the others, she’d given in and eaten anyway. Sensible, when the only other alternative was force-feeding by rubber tube and plastic funnel.

She stayed on screen only half a minute, refusing to answer the yelled questions. Now she was replaced by a policeman. A caption appeared along the bottom of the screen: Ch. Supt. Thomas Lancaster. Ah yes, Tom Lancaster. He raised his glass, toasting his adversary, even though the police’s inefficiency was a constant source of irritation to him.

‘. . . and I must praise Miss Webster’s calm and her bravery,’ Lancaster was saying. ‘After her release, she was able to help us compile this composite photograph of her kidnapper.’

He put down his glass. The photo was onscreen now.

‘The man we’re looking for is five feet seven or eight, stocky, with blue eyes. As you can see, he has a round face, full lips, and thick, slightly curly hair, either black or very dark brown.’

He whooped. He got up and danced. She’d never set eyes on him! He never allowed his items the luxury. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was six feet tall, certainly not stocky. He had brown eyes, short, straight, light-brown hair. Full lips? No. Round face? No. She’d given the police a wholly fictitious account. Tomorrow the photo would be in every newspaper, pinned up outside every police station. This was better than he could ever have imagined . . .

But why had she done it? What was she playing at? He didn’t like puzzles, didn’t like it when the accounts failed to balance at the bottom. He switched off the TV and put aside his wine. One thing was obvious: she didn’t want him caught. Only two people could be certain her description was a fiction: the item, and the Minute Man. He was still deep in thought when ten o’clock came round. He switched on the TV news again, and was thrown into fresh confusion.

‘There has been an arrest tonight after the latest Minute Man kidnap victim was released.’

Sitting up, he kicked over the wine bottle. It poured out its contents unchecked.

‘A man, believed to be a business acquaintance of Gillian Webster’s father, has been taken to Castle Lane police station for questioning. We now go over live to Castle Lane, where Martin Brockman is waiting to speak to us. Martin, any more details?’

Now the reporter was on the screen, looking cold against a damp night-time street, headlamps flashing past him. He wore a sheepskin coat and had one hand pressed to his ear, holding in place the earphone. He began to speak.

‘All police will say is that a man is being questioned in connection with the kidnapping of Gillian Webster, who was released unharmed this morning. There’s no word yet of whether or not the man will be asked to take part in an identity parade, but rumour has it that the man police are questioning is actually
known
to Miss Webster’s father, the millionaire Duncan Webster, and that it was Mr Webster himself who first noticed the resemblance between the photofit and the man police are currently questioning.’

‘Let’s get this right, Martin, you’re saying Mr Webster
identified
his daughter’s kidnapper?’

‘I don’t think we can go that far just yet, but . . .’

But he had switched off the television.

‘What’s your game, little Gillian?’ he said quietly. ‘Your game . . . or your father’s?’ He felt dizzy, confused. There had to be a reason for all of this. The wine was thumping in his head.

‘I hate puzzles!’ he yelled at the blank TV screen. ‘I hate puzzles!’

Lancaster slipped off his clothes and into the chilled sleeping bag. He wriggled for a few seconds, getting warm, then reached to the floor, where several bulging files lay. The transcript of Gillian Webster’s conversations with the Minute Man had been typed up. He read through them again. It was one-way traffic. The Minute Man had said only a couple of dozen words, mostly in the form of abrupt questions.

His second victim, Elaine Chatham, had managed a longer utterance from him. She’d asked if she could have a book of crosswords to pass the time. She’d kept on asking until she’d forced from him a gruff confession (in his Geordie accent this time). Three important little words. Tom Lancaster whispered them to himself.

‘ “I hate puzzles”.’

Then, smiling, he reached for the anglepoise and turned off the light.

‘Coming!’ she called, trying to sound calm. Her husband Tony should have been helping her, but he had the flu and was upstairs asleep. It was his third bout of flu this year; he never wanted the doctor called in. The man standing at the desk carried a sports holdall and a sheaf of the morning papers. He wore a new-smelling sheepskin jacket and a harassed grin.

‘I’d like a room, please,’ he announced.

‘Just the one night, is it?’

‘Well . . .’

‘You’re a journalist,’ Mrs Angelo stated. ‘You’re reporting on that kidnapping, and you don’t know how long you’ll need the room. Am I right?’

‘You could write our astrology column.’

She checked the rack of room keys on the wall. ‘Number six has a wash basin, or there’s number eleven, but it doesn’t. Those are the only two I’ve got.’ She turned to him. ‘We’re busy all of a sudden.’

‘You’ve already got reporters staying?’

‘One’s been here all the way through, the others moved in yesterday. And I’ve a very nice cameraman and sound-man from the BBC, only they complain because
their
reporter is in some posh hotel. I told them, posh just means expensive. Number six or number eleven?’

‘Six, please.’

‘Only the best, eh? I dare say you’re on expenses.’ She unhooked the key, then swivelled the register around for him to sign. ‘So which paper are you from?’

He didn’t look up from his writing. ‘I’m freelance. A few magazines are interested, so I thought I’d . . . you know.’

She swivelled the register back towards her. ‘Well, Mr Beattie, let’s hope you get your story, eh?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, taking the key from her warm, damp fingers. ‘Let’s hope.’

The Websters lived in a large detached house set in a few acres of rambling grounds. He’d gone out there one Sunday with his camera. He’d been out that way several times before in his car, stopping once with engine trouble near the house. About a hundred yards from the house there was a clump of bushes and saplings, big enough for him to hide in. On that particular Sunday, he’d taken his very best zoom lenses for the Canon camera. Then he went strolling with camera and binoculars and a bird identification book.

What he hadn’t expected was that Gillian Webster would not be home. He also had not expected the Websters to be entertaining. They’d invited a dozen or so people for late-afternoon drinks. He was lucky the weather was cool: nobody seemed inclined to wander down into the garden towards where he was hiding. But a veranda ran the length of the back of the house, and some of the guests wandered out on to it; so, occasionally, did the host and hostess. He shot off a single roll of film, concentrating on Webster and his wife. She was younger than her husband by at least ten years; even so, she was showing her age. The skin sagged from her face and neck, and her short blonde hair looked brittle.

Lying on the bed, he paused at one particular photograph. A man had been standing alone on the veranda, then had been joined by Mrs Webster. It looked as though she were greeting the man. They were kissing. The man, who was holding a champagne flute, held Mrs Webster’s arm with his free hand, drawing her towards him. The kiss was no perfunctory peck. Their lips met, were maybe even parted. The kiss had seemed to last quite a while. He searched through the other photos for a better one of the man. Yes, here he was with Mr Webster and another guest. They looked serious, as though discussing business. The man was caught face-on. He was shorter than Webster, heavily built, with dark wavy hair just covering his ears. Early on in the party, he had loosened his tie and his shirt collar. Did he merely look serious in this photo, or did he look worried? There were dark bags under his eyes . . .

He lifted a newspaper and stared at the photofit police had issued, the one made up from Gillian Webster’s description. It was the guest from the party. He was sure of that.

He looked around. One young man stood apart from the others. He looked shy and uncomfortable, and was wearing cheap clothes. There were spots around his mouth and on his neck, and he kept pushing slippery glasses back up his nose as he read from his own sheets of paper, glancing up from time to time to see what the other journalists were doing.

He was perfect.

‘Local are you, chief ?’

The young man looked up in surprise at the man with the south-east accent, the man wearing the expensive jacket.

‘Sorry?’

‘You look like the local press.’

The young man twitched. ‘I’m from the
Post
.’

‘Thought so.’ The sheets of paper were plucked from the young man’s hands. They detailed the morning’s media briefing. There would be a conference at three o’clock, and another at seven. Otherwise, the only news was that the man they’d been questioning was to be held for another twenty-four hours.

‘What do you think, chief?’ The young man looked dazed. ‘Come on, you can tell Uncle Des.’

‘There’s not much
to
think.’

He wrinkled his nose, folding the press release and shoving it into the young man’s anorak pocket. ‘Don’t give me that. That’s the
official
line, but this is between you and me. You’re
local
, my son, you’ve got the edge on all of us.’ He nodded towards the scattering of journalists, none of whom was taking any notice of this conversation.

‘Who are you?’

‘I thought I told you, Des Beattie.’

‘Beattie?’

‘How long you been in this game, son?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The Ripper case, I covered it for the
Telegraph
. Freelance now, of course. I can pick and choose my crime stories. A
certain magazine
has asked me to see if there’s an angle in all this.’ He looked the young man up and down. ‘You might be in for half the byline. Could be your ticket out of here, chief. We all had to start somewhere.’

‘Stefan’s my name, Stefan Duniec.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Stefan.’ They shook hands. ‘What’s that, Russian is it?’

‘Polish.’

‘Well, I’m Des Beattie and I’m from Walthamstow. Only I live in Docklands now.’ He winked. ‘Handy for the newspaper offices. So what’ve you got?’

‘Well . . .’ Duniec looked around. ‘It’s not really
my
idea . . .’ Beattie shrugged this aside. There was no copyright on news. ‘But I’ve heard that someone’s got a name.’

‘For the sod they’re questioning?’ Duniec nodded. Beattie seemed thoughtful. ‘Maybe it’ll tie in with my own ideas. What’s the name, Stefan?’

‘Bernard Cooke.’

Beattie nodded slowly. ‘Bernie Cooke. The businessman, right?’

Now Duniec nodded. ‘Does it tie in?’

Beattie puckered his mouth. ‘Might well do. I need to check a few facts first.’

‘I could help.’ The kid was keen all right. He didn’t want to wear that anorak for ever. Beattie patted his shoulder.

‘Stick around here, Stefan. Keep your ears open. I’ll go make a couple of calls.’ Duniec glanced down at the large pockets of Beattie’s sheepskin. Beattie grinned. ‘We can’t all afford cell phones. Meantime . . .’ He nodded towards the other reporters. ‘You might try writing this up. You know, something wry about the long wait. Eight hundred words, who knows, there’s always a market for filler. The Sundays are nothing but filler these days.’

‘Eight hundred?’

Beattie nodded, then reconsidered. ‘Seven-fifty,’ he said, heading out of the car park.