Hard Time (21 page)

Holly had known early on not to expect help from her adoptive mother. At thirteen, she’d threatened to tell Satan’s wife. He’d laughed in her face. Said
his wife had known from the beginning. It was her idea; didn’t want him bothering their own daughter. Bothering? Holly had spat in his face.

After that, Satan started to bring other men, other perverts, to Holly’s room.

Satan told her she was lucky she wasn’t in a kids’ home. They’d only adopted her because they thought they couldn’t have children. She’d cast her mind back to
when Amy was born, how the bitch had doted on the new baby, how the abuse had begun not long after.

Now a few months off her sixteenth birthday, Holly had started to notice how Satan looked at his daughter, how he stood too close, touched too much. Amy was only six. Holly would try and
leave her out of the reckoning but Satan’s bitch was definitely included.

She lay back on the bed, running the plan through her mind for the umpteenth time. Everything was almost in place. The fire was a last-minute inspiration. But as soon as the idea struck, she
realised how appropriate it would be. He’d been Satan to her for so long. She pictured him burning until he was no longer distinguishable from the flames.

“Oh joy,” Bev drawled. “Another brick wall. Let me beat my head again.”

Bev and Mac Tyler were drawing blanks. They’d been mopping up house-to-house inquiries in Windsor Avenue, one of the streets near Daniel Page’s school. Bev had shoved notes through
several doors, asking the occupiers to get in touch. Then they’d driven round the corner and were now outside Stephen Cross’s place. Several birds – one stone – same
story.

“Put another card through, sarge. We know he’s around. He’ll get back to us.”

She wasn’t convinced, wasn’t even sure re-interviewing the guy was worth it, but what the hell. The call came as they headed back to the car, arguing the toss over the best place to
grab a late-lunch sandwich.

“They’ve made contact.” Byford’s effort to sound casual had the opposite effect. Bev froze, mid-pavement, heart racing. He told her a telecom officer monitoring the
Pages’ incoming calls had picked it up: a mobile phone in the Kings Norton area. And the signal was on the move. Covert squad cars were out there now, guided by data from comms.

“Where d’you want us, guv?” she asked. Mac had registered the urgency in her voice. The motor was already running as she slipped in beside him.

“With the parents,” Byford said.

“’Kay.” It was a tad reluctant; being in on the action had a lot more going for it.

Maybe the big man caught the inflection. “I haven’t heard the tape, Bev. But from what I gather, they need all the support they can get.”

The voice was distorted, metallic, menacing; the message chillingly clear:
Dan-Dan thinks his mummy’s dead.
A click on the tape, then a little boy crying his heart
out. It would have shattered stone; it was tearing Jenny Page apart. The woman had only been home from hospital a few hours when the call had come. She was now under sedation upstairs, Richard at
her bedside. Bev had spoken briefly to them both; unsurprisingly, neither had recognised the caller’s voice.

She and Mac sat uneasily round the kitchen table with Colin Henfield, the family liaison, and the telecom officer Pete Marr who’d monitored the call and issued the alert. Wheels were in
motion. Literally. The signal from the caller’s mobile was still coming in loud and clear from Kings Norton; comms were still passing information to officers on the ground. After three
days’ silence from the kidnappers, the police activity would be frenetic, adrenalin levels stratospheric. They weren’t the only reasons Bev would rather be out there. Rather be
anywhere.

Dark thoughts filled the sunlit room as Marr replayed the tape. Daniel’s gut-wrenching sobs were completely at odds with the bright surroundings. The fridge door was covered in gaudy
pictures, all in a child’s hand: a house with smoking chimney, a grinning fat cat, Mummy and Daddy, Batman, Daleks, daisies. A huge yellow sun appeared in every one. Bev shivered; saw them
all through a gauze of tears. Her fists were tight balls as she tried to imagine the little boy’s anguish, what she itched to do to his tormentors.

The cries stopped abruptly. Excited laughter drifted in from next-door’s garden. It sounded as if the neighbours’ kids were splashing round in a paddling pool. The heat was
stultifying. Bev rose, closed every window.

Marr leaned forward, hit rewind. “What they’ve done is record the boy, then play the tape down the phone. There’s a distinct click after the voice, then the quality drops
off.” He made to play it again. Bev laid a hand on his arm, shook her head. Enough already, they’d heard it four times. Voices, screams, sounds stay in the brain as long as visual
images. Like forever.

She half-listened as Marr ran them through the intricacies of tracking: it was techno-babble to her. She had a vague idea how it worked anyway, didn’t give a stuff about coordinates and
triangulation, DSM and GPS. All she cared about was the end result – whether Daniel Page would be there. And in what state.

But then Marr’s words finally made more sense. Or she thought they did. She frowned, tuned in properly. “Say again, mate.”

“The guys at base reckon the signal’s still moving.” Marr stretched back in the chair, hands behind his head. “Whoever they are, they’ll be in a car.” He said
it like it was a done deal.

“How accurate’s all this stuff?” she asked.

“We can track to within fifty metres.”

She nodded, thought so. “Long as the phone’s switched on?” And the battery didn’t die. And it hadn’t been nicked. And there wasn’t an r in the month. But
assuming the best, why make the trace easy? The kidnappers weren’t stupid. It didn’t make sense.

“What’ve we got on the phone?” she asked. Every Sim card sends a unique IMSI number, an International Mobile Subscriber Identity. In theory, the police – working with the
service provider – should be able to establish who bought the phone almost immediately.

“They’re checking now,” Marr said. “We’ll have a name any time. And the billing address.”

She nodded, wished she shared his confidence. The way their luck was going, the purchaser would be Ms Madonna, or if the kidnappers were really imaginative, Mr Mouse. She rose, paced the room,
mobile frustration. Everyone was out there doing things and she was sodding baby-sit... She stopped the train of thought.

Colin offered tea; refusals all round. The atmosphere was tense, sombre, claustrophobic. It was like waiting for Godot. At Christmas. The hands of a huge station clock ticked in the silence. It
was three-fifteen. Bev did the math: five days, sixty hours, since Daniel’s disappearance. Why was he still being held? Why no mention of the half-million quid? What the hell were the
kidnappers playing at?

Even Marr jumped when a mobile cheeped. Bev took it from her pocket, held it to her ear. It was comms with an update. She listened, made the right noises. A grim smile tugged her lips as she
shook her head. Fucking unbelievable. She’d been well wrong about the name.

According to the data, the cash buyer of the pay-as-you-go phone was a real person and alive, if not particularly well. She was upstairs now – at the billing address – and despite
what Daniel had been told, his mother wasn’t dead. She just looked it.

“Talk about taking the piss...” Bev took a swig of shandy, ran the back of her hand over her mouth. It was getting on for seven pm. The Prince was providing a
late-lunch-early-dinner. After the events of the last few hours, it felt more like the last supper. But it was actually a quick pit stop; there was still a bunch of stuff to check back at the
nick.

“Pass the vinegar, Mac.”

Tyler shoved the Sarson’s across the scarred tabletop. A vigorous shake on to a basket of pallid chips, then Bev said, “Can you believe they used her name? Bastards.” And that
wasn’t the half of it.

Mac, munching pasty, shook his head in rapid response. Bev bit on a chip, glanced across at Byford who was running his index finger round the rim of a pint glass. Distracted or what? She’d
bet a pound to a penny she knew what was going on in his head. She’d heard most of it at the evening brief. The kidnappers had run rings round the covert operation in Kings Norton. Literally.
It had taken four hours for the circular tracking pattern to emerge. It was spotted eventually by a sharp-eyed operator on the ground who put two and two together and came up with seventy-eight.
The number of the double-decker that was taking the mobile – and the cops – for a long ride round the leafy suburbs.

The phone had been shoved down a gap at the side of the bus’s back seat. It was with forensics now but if there were prints, Bev’d take a vow of silence. And celibacy.

“They’re making us look like prats.” Byford could’ve been talking to himself.

Bev took another chip. Couldn’t argue with that. “They’ll cock up sooner or later, guv.”

“Great. Perhaps they’ll be kind enough to let us know when.” He raised his glass, sank a mouthful of bitter. A guy who didn’t drink on the job and didn’t do
sarcasm.

By now, he’d heard the recording of the phone call. The tape had been played to a squad already reeling at being given the run-around and with its collective adrenalin rush long gone. If
the mood had been rock bottom before, Daniel’s cries had hit previously unheard emotional depths. The contrast between the little boy smiling down from the posters and the pitiful wailing
emanating from the tape had made not just uncomfortable but painful listening. Officers had shifted uneasily in their seats, shock etched on stone faces. Bev had sensed more than compassion: there
was white fury too. And an absolute determination to get a conviction.

“I’ve been thinking about the timing.” Mac dabbed at the crumbs on his plate, licked his fingers.

“And?” Bev asked.

“We wait, what, three days for any contact. And the minute the mother sets foot in the house...”

Bev nodded. “Almost as if they knew, as if they were waiting.”

“And no mention of the ransom,” Byford said. “They were demanding half a million at one stage.”

“Unless...” She pushed the bowl away. Sick? Or a stir of excitement?

Mac picked desultorily at the leftovers. “What?”

“What if...?” Christ, she could do with a baccy; it always helped the old brain cells. Should never have told the guv she’d quit. She frowned as she thought it through: Richard
Page frequently left the house on his own, ostensibly searching for his son; Jenny had been isolated in a private room at the hospital...

Byford was there already. “One or both of them’s dealing direct?”

She leaned forward, elbows avoiding spillages on the table. “It’s possible, isn’t it?” The blue eyes sparkled as she expounded. “Richard Page is never around.
He’s either looking after the missus or in his study. As for Jenny... how do we know what she was up to, tucked away in the Priory?”

“Has she had any visitors?” Byford asked.

“Leave it with me.” She grabbed a biro from Mac’s shirt pocket, made a note on a beer mat.

“Come on, sarge. She was away with the fairies last time we were there.”

“Was she, Mac?” Bev tucked the beer mat away. “Was she
really?
How do we know?”

“The point is,” Byford said, “they’ve both been in a position where it’s a possibility.”

“’Xactly.” Bev folded her arms. “The Pages could be keeping their distance in case...”

“One of them gives the game away.” Mac was finishing sentences now.

“Makes sense,” Byford said. “Everyone knows we never give in to ransom demands. If they think paying out’s the only way they’ll see...”

“I’d do it.” She registered the men’s shocked looks. “I would.” A tad defensive? “Any parent would.”

“Reckon they could both be in on it?” Mac asked.

She shrugged. “Dunno.” Was it possible Jenny’s hysterics were part of an elaborate charade?

“What about the hair and the tape?” he pushed.

“Could’ve been a lot worse,” Byford murmured. “Think about it...”

Of course it could. Body parts: bits that don’t grow back. “Could be window-dressing, then?” she asked. Cooked up with the kidnappers to convince the cops there was nothing
going on behind the scenes?

Byford sighed. “Anything’s possible.”

She sank back; suddenly deflated. It was all sodding ifs and maybes. And the scariest bit of all: whether the Pages paid or not, covertly or not, there was absolutely no guarantee they’d
get their son back.

The evening sky was a flawless blue, more Mykonos than Moseley. High-spirited drinkers had spilled out of the Prince, and were now propping up the walls watching the world, or
the female half, go by. Bev sighed. Several hours’ graft still lay ahead for her.

“Need a lift?” Byford cocked an eyebrow as he chucked his keys in the air.

Yeah, but not in a motor
. “No, ta, guv,” she said virtuously. “Fancy the exercise.”

“Where you going?” Deadpan. “Worcester?”

She gave him an insincere ear-to-ear smile. Highgate was a five-minute walk. If that. Mac was joining her soon as he’d powdered his nose.

“I’d better be off,” Byford said. “I need to catch Mike before he goes.”

“How is he? Haven’t seen him since first thing.”

“He’s been better.”

She nodded. Not surprised. There’d been zilch progress on Operation Hawk. The DI’s teams had been at Paradise Row all day. Daz and Pembers had been going round schools with the dead
boy’s photograph.

“Bit of movement on the Phoenix inquiry would help,” Byford added. “Mike’s not said anything about the arson attack, but...”

“What about the CCTV stuff?” She already knew several cameras had captured youths hanging around the Friars Road area; knew the faces were hidden under hoodies. So why ask? Then it
hit her. He looked so damn tasty. If she had the bottle, she’d ask him for a date.

Byford was oblivious. “By the way,” he said as he put the key in the lock. “There’s a collection going round Highgate for Simon.”