Bring Him Back (6 page)

‘Aagh! I don’t know!’

The howl of the siren was drawing close. Ben took his eyes off his captive for an instant and saw the swirling blue halo and the blaze of headlights at the end of the street. Time to leave. He let the guy slide down the wall and slump bleeding to the pavement. Picked up his bag and slipped away round the side of the building just as the police car came tearing into sight. There was a little fenced yard at the back, a screen of conifers between it and the neighbouring property. Ben tossed the knife, vaulted over the fence. Without a sound, he merged into the shadows and was gone.

8

BACK IN HIS digs across town, Ben threw open the window, leaned out and lit a Gauloise. He washed the first deep draw of smoke down with a sip from his whisky flask to quell the last of the adrenaline rush still pumping around his system. There was a small shard of glass in his hair. He picked it carefully out and laid it on the windowsill, gazing thoughtfully at it and trying to understand what the hell was going on.

The anomalies were stacking up. There were more questions than answers, but one thing was for sure: this case was about more than just a kidnapping. If Drew Hunter had sent in a bunch of heavies to take Ben down, it could only be for one reason: to stop him from finding out too much about whatever business Hunter had had with the private detective. But what, and why?

Ben was as expert at following people as he was at telling when he was being followed himself – and he was certain he hadn’t been. Yet somehow, Hunter had known where to find him. The man was full of surprises. Was he also behind Paul Finley’s death? It was a worrying thought. If Hunter was a killer as well as an abductor, then Carl might be in more danger than anyone, even Ben, had anticipated.

More certain than ever that the files of Finley & Reynolds held an important key to all this, he resolved not to leave Dover until he knew more. And when he returned there the following night he’d be ready for the unexpected.

Ben awoke the next morning knowing that today was going to be a waiting game. He gulped down breakfast and then spent a while in his room, going over his case notes in an attempt to make sense of them. Around lunchtime, he returned to the beach, biding his time, quietly smoking, watching the tide. Waiting was a skill he’d perfected in the SAS. He’d learned how to remain still for long periods, outwardly so calm that an observer might think he was in a trance – while mentally he was ultra-alert, aware of everything around him and analysing a thousand details at once.

It was afternoon when his phone rang. It was Jessica, sounding in a high state of agitation. ‘Where are you?’

‘Still in Dover,’ he replied. ‘Something came up.’

Strange that she didn’t seem interested to ask what, he thought. In the next moment, he understood why.

‘We heard from Carl.’

Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean, heard from him? When?’

‘He phoned us. Just half an ago.’

‘You talked to him?’

‘No,’ she groaned. ‘We weren’t here. We were only gone twenty minutes, to get some shopping because there wasn’t a scrap of food left in the house. When we got back, there was a message on the answer machine. We’d only just missed him. We tried calling the number back but it didn’t come up. It sounded like a mobile.’

‘He didn’t say where he was calling from?’

‘He wasn’t on the line long enough. We called the police right away. They’re working on tracing the call. Ben, you’ve got to get back here.’

This changed everything.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

‘The police just left a few minutes ago,’ Jessica told him when he arrived at the house just over three hours later. He wasn’t entirely sorry to hear that he’d missed them. Cops were as uneasy in his presence as he felt in theirs. It wasn’t a harmonious relationship he had with them, never had been, never would be.

‘There have been developments since I called you,’ she said. Jumpy with contained excitement, she led him into a huge, plush living room where a phone sat on a low table. Moments later, Mike joined them. ‘Ben, thank Christ you’re here. Sorry we had to call you back from Dover so urgently, but under the circumstances . . .’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Since we called you earlier, lots. The mobile number turned out to be a foreign one. Interpol are involved now. They’ve traced the phone’s owner. It’s registered to a man called Barberini. Gianni Barberini. Apparently, he’s a doctor in Turin.’

‘A dermatologist,’ Jessica corrected him.

‘What do the police make of it?’ Ben asked.

‘They seem as baffled by it as we are,’ Mike replied. ‘Last we heard, they were still trying to track down this Dr Barberini’s whereabouts. He’s not at home. They said he was away at some conference, or something. We’ve been waiting for more. And hoping you could make sense of this.’

‘Let me hear the message,’ Ben said.

Mike replayed it from the answerphone. The line was a bad one, with an echo and lots of background noise.
‘Mum? It’s me,’
said a boy’s voice.

‘That’s definitely him?’ Ben asked Jessica, and she gave a quick, certain nod.

‘Mum, I’m …I’m okay,’
Carl blurted, speaking in hesitant snatches over the background noise, which sounded to Ben like voices, as if the boy had been calling from the middle of a crowd of people. But there was another noise too, distorted and hard to identify. A kind of screech, followed by what sounded like a muffled bang. Ben couldn’t make it out at all.

‘I just wanted to say …I love you, mum. I—’
Carl’s voice was lost for a second amid some kind of commotion.
‘I’ve got to go,’
he said suddenly. And there the message ended.

Jessica was looking fraught and gnawing at her thumb. ‘That’s all there is,’ Mike said anxiously. ‘What do you make of it, Ben?’

‘It’s definitely some kind of public place,’ Ben said. ‘Indoors, and crowded. A bar, maybe, or a café. But that other sound …let me hear it again.’

Mike replayed the message. Ben closed his eyes, concentrating hard on the strange noises in the background. They seemed to be coming from further away, which meant they must have been pretty loud. ‘What is that?’ he muttered to himself.

‘The police think it might be fireworks,’ Jessica said. ‘The high-pitched screech, then the loud bang. What else makes a sound like that?’

‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘But in the middle of the day?’

‘They have technicians working on it,’ Mike said. ‘Apparently they can separate out the frequencies or something, and use filters to clean them up.’

Ben looked at his watch. It was getting late, but there was still time if he hurried. He pulled out his car key.

‘Where are you going?’ Mike asked.

‘Italy,’ Ben said.

9

IT WAS GETTING towards midnight by the time Ben’s flight touched down at the Aeroporto di Torino in the middle of a rainstorm. As he was leaving the airport, Jessica called again.

‘They found Barberini,’ she said, and for a second Ben thought she was going to tell him that he was dead, too. ‘Found him?’ he asked.

‘I mean, they have him. He turned up at his home in Turin at eight o’clock this evening, and the Italian police were waiting for him there. They took him for questioning. As far as we can tell, they’re still talking to him.’

‘Any feedback yet?’ Ben asked as he spotted the car rental place across the way and began heading for it, head down through the lashing rain.

‘They’re keeping us updated. I don’t think he’s been charged with anything. It’s been confirmed he was on the list of delegates at that conference, and his alibi checks out. He totally denies any involvement in the abduction. Says he’s never heard of Drew or Carl, and doesn’t know anyone from Jersey. But listen to this.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘They found fingerprints on his phone. The police faxed Interpol a set of Carl’s taken from his room, and we had a call twenty minutes ago saying they’re a match. So Barberini’s lying. He was involved.’

‘Or else Carl just used his phone to make the call,’ Ben said. ‘With any luck, we’ll soon find out. I’m in Turin now.’

‘Turin?’ Jessica said, sounding perplexed. ‘But I thought Drew had taken Carl to Milan. That’s where the call was from, wasn’t it?’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Ben said, and cut her off.

At nearly twelve-thirty a.m., a very resentful and sullen Dottore Gianni Barberini was finally released from police questioning, demanding to be taken home in an unmarked car so that his nosy neighbours wouldn’t take him for some kind of a damned criminal. The pouring rain just pissed him off all the more. All the way from the Posto di Polizia to his villa in one of the more affluent neighbourhoods of the city, he grumbled sourly at the plain-clothes driver, who was just as irritable as he was for having to ferry this arrogant prick home, and made no reply.

It was ten to one by the time Barberini climbed wearily out of the car and tramped up his long, curving driveway, cursing the rain and glancing up at the master bedroom windows to ensure that Germana hadn’t stayed up waiting for him. The lights were all off – thank God. His wife could be a terrible bitch if she was disturbed late at night. In fact, he reflected sourly as he approached the house, she’d been a terrible bitch for most of the miserable thirty-two years he’d been married to her.

Rather than risk waking her and face all kinds of wrath and yet more goddamn inquisition that night, he made for the separate entrance to the suite of rooms he used for his private dermatology practice here at the villa. Above it was his little sanctuary, his personal den, where he often slept on the sofa bed after working late, or sometimes just to get away from Germana. He loved it in there, undisturbed, just him and his collection …He paused at the door, fumbling keys with one eye on her window, dreading that her bedroom light might come on at any moment. Where was the key? Ah – got it.

‘Gianni Barberini?’ said a voice behind him.

Barberini whirled around and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the stranger standing there. He hadn’t heard anyone sneak up behind him. The guy had moved like a ghost. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded indignantly.

‘Someone who’s going to ask you a few questions.’

Barberini glared at him. The blond-haired stranger didn’t look much like an Italian. Didn’t sound like one, either. He spoke the language fluently enough, but the accent was foreign. A Swiss, maybe? A Kraut? ‘What’s the matter with you people? I’ve just spent the last seven hours giving my statement over and over. That not enough for you bastard cops?’

‘I’m not a cop,’ Ben said. ‘But some people say I’m a bit of a bastard, so you’d best get talking to me before I start to get nasty.’

Barberini stared at Ben for a moment, the cocksure belligerence in his eyes turning to uncertainty.

‘Lead the way,’ Ben said, motioning towards the door.

Barberini hesitated, then did what he was told. They walked through a comfortable little waiting area into the consulting room, then through that to a nicely decorated office lined with medical certificates and books. At the far end of the office, an open-tread stairway led upwards to the floor above.

‘We can talk in here,’ Barberini said nervously as they emerged in his den.

Ben looked around him at the room. ‘Very cosy. So this is your little hobby room, is it?’

‘Look, whoever you are, I don’t know anything about a missing kid. I swear it. I’m telling the truth, just like I told the cops. I got the rail tickets to prove it. Hotel bill. Everything.’

‘You were in Milano for a conference?’

‘Yeah, for two days. A European Society for Pediatric Dermatology seminar. Top of the agenda was the latest research from Kiel University into infantile haemangiomas.’

‘You can spare me the jargon. I take it you weren’t one of the speakers?’

‘No, I was just attending it. First day was good. Afterwards I spent the evening with Davide Gagliardo, a medical colleague from Bologna. He’s already corroborated my story. Second day wasn’t so interesting, so I left for a while and went to a coffee bar for a break. I called my wife from there to tell her not to wait up for me tonight because I’d be home late. I didn’t think it would be
so
fucking late.’

‘Go on with the story,’ Ben said, with just enough menace in his voice to keep Barberini on edge.

‘Anyway, so that’s why I had my phone out, see? I’m sitting there finishing my coffee, then I see this guy at the next table eating a cannoncini alla crema – that’s a pastry.’

‘I know what it is,’ Ben said, eyeing him coldly. When people recounted their stories in this much elaborate detail, they were usually full of shit.

‘Right. I’m thinking how I’d like one of those myself. The waiter’s right across the room and I’m in a hurry, so I go over to the counter to order one. Left my stuff at the table. My back was turned maybe a minute, maybe two. When I come back, I notice how the phone isn’t where I left it, like someone had moved it. I thought maybe a waiter or someone had nudged it as they passed by.’

‘So you wouldn’t know if a twelve-year-old boy picked it up while your back was turned?’

‘Hey, listen. The place was full of people. I didn’t even see a kid, let alone speak to him or have anything to do with him, okay? That’s the whole truth, and I’ve got evidence to back up all of it. The first I heard about this kidnapping business is when I got home tonight and the police were waiting for me.’ Barberini’s face was flushed. ‘That’s it. You’ve heard all there is to hear. So now would you kindly leave my home, before I call the cops? Hey, be careful with that. It’s extremely valuable. Please, put it down.’

As Barberini had been talking, Ben had gone over to one of several trophy cabinets that lined the walls of the Italian’s little den. Except they weren’t filled with trophies. From the moment they’d come in, Ben had noticed the large collection of old motor racing memorabilia that cluttered the room. ‘What, this?’ he said innocently, holding the racing helmet he’d picked off a display unit.