Beggars Banquet

Principles of Accounts

It began as a hobby.

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!’

In Castle Lane police station, Chief Superintendent Tom Lancaster was about to get some sleep. He’d phoned his wife to explain that he wouldn’t be home. He kept a fresh suit, shirt, and tie in the office anyway, and now there was a camp bed there too, with an army-quality sleeping bag. Nothing to the comforts of home, but it would have to do. Tomorrow might be even busier than today. He was comforted to know that the press weren’t going home either. Some had crawled off to hotels and boarding houses, but others were camping out in cars and vans outside the station.

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.

It was nearly midday when Mrs Angelo heard the bell tinkling at the front desk.

‘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.’

He threw the papers on to the floor beside the single bed. The mattress was softer than he liked, but the room was clean and fresh. It worried him that there were other reporters here. He didn’t want them asking him questions. He unzipped the holdall, taking his Gillian Webster case notes from it. Included in the file was a packet of black and white photographs he’d taken during the weeks leading up to the snatch. He looked through them again.

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.

The local radio station had set up a van in the police station car park, with a tall antenna flexing from its roof. It looked as though the journalists had been made to move into the car park. Probably their cars had been holding up traffic in Castle Lane. As he arrived, they were milling around, drinking beakers of tea, talking into portable phones, reading from sheets of paper.

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.

A small engineering works on a purpose-built estate.

A helpful sign at the site entrance told him he was looking for Unit 32, Cooke Engineering Ltd. He drove his rented Fiesta slowly through the narrow winding roads, giving way to lorries and delivery vans. Half a dozen cars were parked outside Unit 32 in tightly marked bays. The building was grey corrugated steel, shared by two companies. Unit 31 manufactured frozen foods. Driving past it, he sized up Unit 32. There was a door which would lead to the reception area or offices, and a loading-bay door near it. Both were closed. Parked in the loading bay was a sporty Ford Sierra, one of the custom jobs. In the driver’s seat, a man was talking on a car phone. In the back seat were two more large pasty-faced men. They looked like reporters. Well, if a dolt like Duniec knew about Cooke, the professionals would know too. And though Cooke himself wasn’t here, though he was sweating and dog-tired in one of Castle Lane’s interview rooms, a team had been sent to stake the place out.

He gnawed at his bottom lip, and decided to take a calculated risk. He drove to the next lot of units, parked, and walked back towards Cooke Engineering. The door he was approaching, having ignored the carful of staring eyes, had OFFICE printed on it. He knocked and entered, closing the door behind him. He’d expected noise: after all, only a partition wall separated this part of the unit from the actual production line. But there was silence, punctuated by the slow clack of fingers on a computer keyboard.

‘Can I help you?’ She sat behind a desk, but also behind huge red-rimmed spectacles, which magnified her already large eyes. Her tone was hardly welcoming.

‘Mr Cooke?’ He said nervously. ‘Wondered if I could have a-’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, well I…’

‘Are you a reporter?’ She examined him, hunched over as he was, shuffling and twitching and awkward. ‘You don’t look like one.’ She sighed. ‘No cold calling, reps by appointment only. I take it you are a rep?’

‘Well, as it happens I-’

‘Sorry,’ she said, seeming to take pity on this particularly pitiful example of an unlovely breed. ‘Mr Cooke’s not here anyway.’

He looked around. ‘Place looks dead.’

‘Dead about sums it up.’

‘Business bad.’

‘Let’s just say you shouldn’t look for too many orders.’

‘Ah…’ He seemed to think of something. ‘But the cars outside…?’

‘We let the guys from the frozen-food place park their excess cars there.’

‘Oh dear.’ He nodded towards where he assumed the production line would be, just through the wall. ‘Then you’re not…?’

‘We’re not producing. So unless you’re selling jobs in the light engineering sector, I shouldn’t bother.’

He smiled. ‘But you’re still here.’

‘Only till the weekend. No pay by Friday, I’m off.’ She went back to her typing, her fingers hammering the keys.

He turned to leave, his back and shoulders more hunched than ever. Then he stopped and half turned. ‘What made you think I was a reporter?’

‘You’ll read about it.’

Only after he’d gone did she pause in her work. She’d seen them all in her time, all the types of rep you could imagine. But she’d never come across one who didn’t even bother to bring samples with him…

Across from the industrial estate was a recently built pub, doubtless put there by a canny brewing concern who knew there would be plenty of clients from an estate of eighty-odd units.

‘That was the idea anyway,’ the barman admitted, pouring a pint of beer, ‘before times got hard. What gets me is that none of these financial projections ’ – he said the words with distaste – ‘ever projected hard times ahead. And let me tell you, there’s no money-back guarantee with these things.’ He had handed over the drink, received a five-pound note, and now pressed a key on the till.

‘Accountants aren’t all bad,’ said the customer.

As the barman handed over the change, the customer asked a question.

‘Does a man called Bernard Cooke drink in here?’

There was a snort from further down the bar, where a man on a stool was doing the crossword in the local paper.

‘Why do you ask?’ asked the barman.

‘I was supposed to be seeing him today. Drove all the way down from bloody Lancaster.’ The barman didn’t seem about to doubt his north-west accent. ‘Only there’s no bugger about except some right rough types in a car parked outside.’

‘Reporters,’ said the crossword solver.

‘Oh aye?’

‘You won’t be seeing Cooke for a while.’ The crossword solver tipped back the dregs of a half-pint.

‘We don’t know that,’ snapped the barman. ‘Don’t go jumping to bloody conclusions, Arthur.’

Arthur merely shrugged in compliance, staring down at his paper.

‘He’s in trouble, is he?’ asked the traveller.

‘Maybe.’

‘Bang goes my bloody contract.’

‘You’re lucky, then,’ said Arthur.’

‘How do you mean?’ He nodded towards the empty glass. ’Get you another?’

‘Thanks, I will.’

The barman refilled the glass, but wouldn’t take one himself. Arthur sipped and swallowed. ‘I mean,’ he said at last, ‘Bernie’s been in trouble for yonks, money trouble. Chances are, if you were buying from him, you wouldn’t have got what you ordered, and if you were selling, you wouldn’t have seen the money.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘I’ve known for months he was in trouble. Used to be, he’d nip in here Friday lunchtime for something to eat and a couple of brandies. Then it got to be twice a week and four brandies, and three times a week and six. Somebody drinks like that, it’s not because they’re flush, it’s that they’re worried.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘All I know,’ chipped in the barman, ‘is that he always paid… and that’s more than some.’

Arthur winked at Beattie. ‘That’s a dig at me.’

Beattie finished his drink and eased himself off the bar stool.

‘Back to Lancaster?’

He shook his head. ‘Couple more calls first.’

After he’d gone, the bar was silent a few moments, then Arthur cleared his throat.

‘What do you think?’

‘Well,’ said the barman, ‘he wasn’t a reporter. I’m not even sure he’s in business.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘No expense account – didn’t ask for a receipt for the drinks.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t need receipts, Sherlock.’

‘Maybe.’ The barman lifted away the empty glass and washed it, placing it on the rack to dry. Then he wiped the bartop where the man had been sitting, and put down a fresh beermat. Now there was no sign anyone had ever been there.

‘Just be a second,’ the barman told Arthur. Then he disappeared into the alcove where the telephone was kept.

At three-forty, the journalists slouched out of the press room carrying the latest news release. They were talkative, if they weren’t too busy drawing in cigarette smoke. Some were making calls on their telephones, or going off to their cars to make calls. They squeezed from the police station’s double doors and fanned out across the car park. A camera unit had been readied for the TV reporter called Martin Brockman, who was now checking his script while a make-up girl tried to get his hair to stop flying into a vertical peak every time a gust blew.

Stefan Duniec walked slowly across the car park, not heading towards his car – he did not have a car – but just keeping moving, so he looked as busy and important as the other reporters. He was staring down at his notebook and didn’t notice the figure blocking his way until he’d practically bumped into it.

‘Hello, Mr Beattie, you missed the conference.’

‘Couldn’t be helped, Stef. Anything to report?’

‘I got you a copy of the press release.’

‘Good lad.’ Beattie started to read from the two stapled sheets. Gillian Webster, he read, had now given a description of the room she’d been kept in during her ‘ten-day ordeal’. Not so much a room, more a cupboard, kept in darkness. She could hear distant traffic, as though heavy lorries were passing outside. But she was tied up, mouth taped shut, and couldn’t cry out.

Beattie read it again. Well, it was true he’d kept her mouth taped shut occasionally, but everything else was a fabrication, another false account.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Are they still questioning Cooke?’ Duniec nodded. ‘And I suppose they’ll be giving his factory the once-over?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Stands to reason, Stef. This cupboard could be in Cooke’s factory. I’ve just come from there. He’s been laying off staff. The only person left is a secretary, and I doubt she goes anywhere near the shop floor – she might get her hands mucky.’ He glanced again at the paper. ‘Lorries going past… sounds just like an industrial estate.’

‘I suppose it does,’ Duniec said quietly.

‘And if he’s been laying off men, what does that tell you?’

‘His company’s in trouble.’

‘Dead right. So tell me, young Stef, is Cooke wealthy or skint?’

‘Skint, I suppose.’

‘And desperate.’

‘So he kidnaps someone he knows… How could he hope to get away with it?’

‘All we know is that he knew the parents; we don’t know Gillian knew him.’

‘But he let her see him,’ Duniec protested. ‘He must’ve known she’d give a description – that her father would see it…’

Beattie nodded. Precisely. That was just one of the flaws. Would Cooke really have kept her in his factory, with someone else on the premises all day? How could he feed Gillian without the secretary becoming suspicious? Gillian’s story was badly flawed. But Beattie wondered if the police would see that. He could see what Gillian Webster was doing, and how she was doing it. He just couldn’t account for the why. But he had an idea now, a good idea. He only needed to study the photographs again.

Meantime, Stefan had obviously been considering all the flaws too.

‘Like you say, he must have been desperate.’

‘He was desperate all right, he just wasn’t very bright.’ He tapped Duniec’s shoulder with the rolled-up press release. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He winked. ‘Remember the byline.’

‘And the seven-fifty words!’ Duniec called after him. ‘I’ve already made a start!’

Without looking back, Beattie gave a raised thumbs-up. Duniec watched till he was out of sight, then turned back towards the reporters’ cars. Three men were in a huddle next to a red Porsche.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting them. One man, the one with a proprietorial hand resting on the Porsche’s roof, spoke for all of them.

‘What is it?’

‘You’re Terry Greig, aren’t you?’

Greig puffed out his chest. Of course he was Terry Greig, king of the tabloid newsroom, scourge of copy-takers. And here was another tyro looking to make his acquaintance.

‘What can I do for you, lad?’

Duniec didn’t like that ‘lad’, but like Beattie’s ‘Stef ’ he let it lie. ‘Did you see that man I was talking to?’ he asked instead. ‘In the sheepskin jacket?’

Greig nodded. Little escaped him. ‘I saw him earlier,’ he confirmed.

‘Right,’ said Duniec. ‘And have you seen him before? I mean, do you know who he is?’

‘Don’t know him from Adam. Football manager, is he? Third Division? They’re the only buggers would wear a coat like that.’

‘Except for Brockman,’ added one of the other reporters.

‘Except for old Brockie,’ Greig agreed. Then they all laughed, all except Stefan Duniec. When the laughter had died and they were waiting for him to leave, he turned his gaze once more to Greig.

‘He wrote up the Ripper case for the Telegraph.’

‘No he didn’t, not unless he meant the Belfast Telegraph.’ They all laughed again. Even Duniec’s lips were bent slightly in what might have passed for a smile.

‘What’s it all about, lad?’ asked Greig.

‘Could we step inside the station, sir?’ Duniec said. To anyone standing within earshot, it didn’t sound much like a question…

The man who called himself Des Beattie was packing his bag.

He tore the ring-pull from another can of McEwan’s and gulped from the can. The photographs were lying on the bed. He paused in his packing and studied the photos again. Cooke with Duncan Webster. Cooke with Mrs Webster. Cooke looking very comfortable with Mrs Webster. Cooke looking extremely uncomfortable with Duncan Webster, looking like maybe he owed the man money, money he couldn’t hope to repay. But that wasn’t Cooke’s problem. No, Cooke’s problem was the wife. Look at the two of them: touching, kissing. With Mr Webster, Cooke looked more like a business acquaintance than anything; but with Mrs Webster he looked like a very close friend indeed.

Whether Webster knew or not, he couldn’t tell. But the daughter had known. Gillian Webster had found out about Cooke and her mother, about their affair. Christ, and she was Daddy’s little daughter, wasn’t she? When she’d spoken to him of her home life, hoping to ingratiate herself, hoping he wouldn’t harm someone he knew as a real person rather than an item (yes, she’d been clever all right), when she had done this, she had spoken always of her father first, her mother second. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy: it had always been Daddy. While Mother had remained just that: ‘Mother’.

All those hours she’d been alone, those hours with little to do but struggle against her bonds, little to think about but… but how to turn this little adventure to her own advantage. She would set up Bernard Cooke. She must have known his company was in trouble, giving him the motive. Who would suspect she’d lie about something like this? No one, no one would know except three people: Cooke himself, the mother, and the real kidnapper. Cooke would protest his innocence, but it was his word against Gillian’s. Mrs Webster… what could she say without revealing the extent of her ties to Cooke? And as for the kidnapper… well, was he going to come forward to help Cooke? Of course not!

It was true, wasn’t it? He wasn’t going to do anything. He was going to leave this town and never return. With Cooke inside, the heat would be off, the police would stop checking airports and seaports. Yes, a foreign holiday, somewhere sunny and dry, not like this cold miserable island where he worked. He could stop by a travel agent’s tomorrow. On the plane out, he’d order champagne and drink to poor Bernard Cooke.

That was that.

He opened another can and picked up the photo, the one of Cooke and Mrs Webster kissing. The more he looked at it, the more he saw that he could be wrong. What if it was just a friendly kiss? These types, types like Mrs Webster, they could get overfamiliar. What if it had nothing to do with the mother? What if… what if it had to do with Gillian instead? She’d told him, ‘Daddy doesn’t like it when I bring home older men.’ Could there have been something between Gillian and Bernard Cooke? Maybe he’d broken it off and she was out for his blood…

Wait, think a bit. If Cooke was single, it wouldn’t work. It only worked if he was married and had to hide the relationship. His head began spinning, and he tried to stand up. How could he be sure? How could he be sure that Cooke and Mrs Webster or Cooke and Gillian had been an item?

He caught that word ‘item’ and smiled. If they’d been an item, people would have seen them together, somewhere they felt safe from Mr Webster. Maybe that was why Cooke started using the pub across from the estate more often; nothing to do with his financial troubles. It should be easy enough to check. He’d go there now, on his way out of town. He thought of Stefan Duniec. Stefan, who probably wasn’t fit to report on a flower show, never mind a police inquiry. There were some real thick bastards in the world, when you thought about it.

Jesus, weren’t there just.

It was five o’clock when he walked into the bar. As he’d hoped, the shift had changed. The barman was new. What’s more, Arthur had moved on. Good: they’d have thought it more than a little off, the Lancastrian returning to ask questions about Cooke and some woman.

The beer he’d drunk in his room had given him a taste, so he ordered a double Armagnac with a half of lager to chase it down. Fuel for the long drive ahead. The bar was medium-busy with workers on their way home from the estate. He sat on the same stool as earlier, and made a show of checking his watch and keeping an eye on the door.

‘Waiting on someone?’ the new barman dutifully asked.

‘Bernard Cooke. I thought we arranged to meet at five.’

The barman tried the name. ‘Don’t think I know him.’

‘He’s a lunchtime regular.’

‘I never do lunchtime.’

He nodded miserably and finished the Armagnac. It burned him all the way down. One last time then: ‘He usually has a woman with him, a bit of posh.’

The barman shrugged and went back to wiping glasses.

‘Thanks anyway.’ He finished the lager and had another idea. It was a bit late, but worth a try. As he pushed open the door to the outside world, he met resistance. It was Arthur, coming in. Arthur looked surprised. Beattie switched to a north-west accent.

‘Hello, Arthur.’

‘Thought you were off to the wide blue yonder.’

‘Just heading back now. I’ve been hearing Cooke has a fancy piece.’ He winked. ‘That’s an expensive hobby, no wonder he’s gone broke.’

Arthur just stared, as though listening to a ghost. There was almost… it wasn’t shock, it was more like fear in his eyes.

Beattie persisted. ‘Nice looker, by the sound of her.’

‘Eh?’

‘They used to come in here.’

‘Did they?’

Was the man pissed? Maybe those crosswords had addled his brain. Beattie felt good and mellow.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘See you around.’

Arthur seemed to perk up. ‘Oh, right you are. Take care now.’

‘I will, Arthur, I will.’

The secretary, having faithfully placed a dustcover over the computer, was putting on her coat when he arrived. She looked daggers at him, and he raised his hands in surrender.

‘I’ll only take a minute,’ he said. He hadn’t really expected her to still be here. How much paperwork could an empty factory produce? The reporters had vanished from outside, along with most of the cars on the estate.

‘You’re persistent,’ she said. ‘He’s not here.’

‘It was you I wanted to speak to.’

‘Oh?’

He stepped forward and produced the photo from his pocket, the one of Cooke and Mrs Webster kissing.

‘Is your boss married?’ he asked.

She smiled sourly. ‘I knew you weren’t a rep.’

‘Did I say I was? So what’s the answer? A simple yes or no.’

‘What business is it of yours?’

He gave a fumey sigh. ‘I can find out. It’s not difficult.’

‘Off you go then and find out.’

‘Did you know he was having an affair?’

‘It’s only an affair if the person’s married.’

‘Oh? So Cooke’s a bachelor then?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘Mrs Webster’s married though.’ He was seeking a reaction, any reaction. ‘Her daughter’s single.’

‘Get out.’ Her voice was colder than the lager he’d just consumed.

‘Let me guess,’ he persisted. ‘You had the hots for him yourself, maybe he was stringing you along…’

She picked up the receiver.

‘All right, I’m going.’ He put the photo back in his pocket. ‘But remember, you don’t owe him anything. It’s him that owes you. Just give me a yes or no: is he married?’

She started punching telephone buttons, so he left. She was breathing hard, but didn’t let it show. She stared at the door, willing it to stay closed. Then she was connected. ‘Police?’ she said. ‘I want to speak to Chief Superintendent Lancaster…’

Outside, he sat in his car, thinking about the man called Arthur, the secretary, and Stefan Duniec. Then he got out again and started looking for another car. Any car would do, so long as it had a car phone.

Lancaster put down the receiver and looked towards the two people sitting across the desk from him.

‘That was your secretary, Mr Cooke.’ Bernard Cooke nodded: he’d gathered as much already. ‘Our man has just turned up again, asking if you’re married and implying you’ve been having an affair with Mrs Webster.’ He looked at the young woman next to Cooke. ‘Or even with you, Gillian.’

Gillian Webster snorted. Lancaster was smiling.

‘Looks like it’s worked,’ he said. I hate puzzles. Those three words had set the whole game in motion. And the game was about to end: right result, right team. ‘He had a photo with him,’ he went on, turning back to Bernard Cooke. ‘You and Gillian’s mother on the veranda at her home.’

‘That Sunday drinks party,’ Cooke decided.

‘The Minute Man was watching.’

‘He thinks Cora and I are lovers?’

‘He’s putting two and two together and making five, luckily for us. If that photo had just shown the two of you talking, he might not have suspected anything.’

‘Whereas as it is…’

‘He thinks he knows why Gillian’s set you up. It couldn’t have worked out better.’

Gillian Webster turned to Cooke. ‘Kissing my mother on the veranda?’

Cooke tried a nervous smile. Lancaster shifted in his chair. He was nervous for all sorts of reasons. The Minute Man had to solve puzzles, even if that meant conjuring an answer out of the thinnest stuff. Lancaster had invented the conundrum, hoping his adversary would be irritated by it… and drawn towards it. Someone even suggested the Minute Man might pose as a reporter – a suitable disguise for showing interest in the case…

There was a knock at the door, and a young man came in. Lancaster introduced him.

‘I don’t think either of you has met Detective Constable Duniec.’ Duniec nodded a greeting, but Gillian’s mind was on the idea of Cooke and her mother. ‘Well, Stefan?’ Lancaster asked.

The look on Duniec’s face was bad news.

‘He paid his bill and left over an hour ago.’

Lancaster nodded. ‘He’s been back to the Forester’s, a regular called Arthur just phoned to tell me. And he paid another visit to the factory.’

‘We know his car, sir, red Fiesta, there’s a call out for it.’

‘All exit roads are covered, aren’t they?’

Duniec nodded.

‘Then all we can do is wait.’

Lancaster tried to look relaxed. Bernard Cooke had been doubtful of the plan at first, but as a friend of Gillian’s he’d gone along with it. After all, partly it had been her idea. She was looking pale again. She’d been ordered to rest by the doctors, but had insisted on sticking around. The phone rang again. Lancaster snatched the call.

‘Red Fiesta,’ he said afterwards. ‘Sighted heading for Lower Traherne.’ He fixed his eyes on Gillian. ‘Looks like he’s heading out to your home.’ Then he turned to Duniec. ‘Get on to it, Stefan.’ Duniec nodded and left the room.

This eventuality, too, had been covered. The Websters were in a local hotel, under plainclothes protection. A driver and unmarked car were waiting outside to take Gillian back there. The Minute Man was driving into a trap.

The phone rang yet again, and Lancaster picked it up, glad of something to do. He listened for a moment, a muscle going rigid in his jaw. When he spoke, it was in a dry voice. ‘Put him through, will you? And try to get a trace.’ He then pushed a button on the telephone and replaced the receiver. A small integral speaker crackled into life. A female voice said, ‘You’re through, caller.’ Lancaster swallowed and spoke.

‘Hello?’

‘Superintendent Lancaster?’

‘Speaking.’

Lancaster watched Gillian. She was staring at the telephone. What little colour she had vanished from her face.

‘Don’t bother with a trace, Tom. I won’t be on long, you know that.’

‘We get a dozen cranks a day saying they’re the Minute Man.’

‘You know who I am, Tom.’

‘Why are you phoning?’

‘Because you’ve got the wrong man.’

Lancaster looked to Gillian and Cooke. She looked ready to leap from her seat, while Cooke seemed pinned against the back of his as if by G-force.

‘Have we?’

‘Yes. She’s set him up.’

‘Who has?’

‘The girl.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘He’s having an affair with her mother. She wants revenge.’

Lancaster forced a laugh. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘I know. I know all of it now.’

The line went dead.

‘Christ,’ Cooke said. Lancaster checked with the switchboard, but the Minute Man hadn’t been on long enough to give them a chance. In fact, he’d been on the line for scarcely a minute…

Lancaster got to his feet. ‘I wonder if he still plans to visit Lower Traherne? One way to find out…’

‘I’m coming too,’ said Cooke, rising shakily to his feet. Gillian was still staring at the telephone. Neither man needed confirmation that she had recognised the voice. When Lancaster touched her shoulder she flinched.

‘Come on, Gillian,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel.’

They opened the back door of the car for her and she got in. The engine was running and the car moved off at once, through the car park, past the usual ruck of reporters and cameras, and out of the iron gates of Castle Lane police station. She didn’t want to go to the hotel, not really. She wanted to go home, to Lower Traherne. But she doubted the police driver could be persuaded to take her there. She noticed a walkie talkie on the floor by his feet. Or maybe it was a portable phone. Whatever happened at the house, she’d hear of it. He was looking at her in the rearview mirror. When she looked back, he gave her a reassuring smile. Then she noticed they’d passed the regular turning.

‘We should have gone left there.’

He was still smiling. The car was building up speed. Gillian felt a lump swell in her throat, the fear nearly choking her.

‘I know it all now,’ he said quietly. ‘The way Lancaster spoke, that confirmed it. Oh yes, that balanced both sides of the ledger quite nicely.’

She swallowed, shifting the blockage. ‘Where’s the driver?’

‘ I’m the driver.’

‘The policeman.’

‘You think he’s in the boot?’ He shook his head. ‘I told him his chief wanted him in the press room.’

She was relaxing a little. His voice was calm. It had been calm all the time she’d been his captive. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Lower Traherne.’

‘What?’

‘I’m taking you home, Gillian.’

‘But why?’

He shrugged. ‘Just to show them I can.’

She thought for a moment. While she was thinking, he spoke again.

‘It was good, very good, nearly had me fooled. Except for one scared bloke in a pub…’

She felt the words tumble from her mouth, like someone else was speaking. ‘They’ve got the exit roads covered, and there are police at the house, inside and outside. You’ll never-’

‘It’s all right, Gillian. You’ll see, both sides will balance.’

‘What do you mean, balance?’

So for the rest of the journey, the Minute Man tried to explain to her his own particular theories of the principles of accounts.