Bring Him Back

6

‘Finley and Reynolds Investigations.’

‘Can I speak to Mr Finley, please?’ Ben said to the agency receptionist as he drove. He was heading back to Jessica’s place, to give her the hair sample as he’d promised. The detective’s card lay next to him on the passenger seat.

There was a pause on the line. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ she replied. Ben noticed the edgy tone in her voice.

‘This is very important. When will he be available?’

‘He won’t. I’m afraid Mr Finley is no longer with us.’

‘I see. Do you have a number for him?’

‘He’s dead.’

Now it was Ben’s turn to pause at the unexpected news.

‘May I ask who’s calling?’ the receptionist asked.

‘My name’s Ben Hope. I was calling on behalf of a mutual client. Was Mr Finley ill?’

Her swallow was audible on the line. ‘Mr Finley was murdered.’

‘I’m extremely sorry to hear that. What happened?’

‘He was on his way back from London,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘Waiting for a train. These two thugs attacked him. Took his wallet, but obviously that wasn’t enough for them. It never is these days, is it?’ She sighed. ‘They stabbed him, twice in the chest. He was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. Poor Mr Finley.’

‘Did they catch the killers?’

She snorted. ‘Do they ever?’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Nearly three weeks ago. It was late afternoon. Broad daylight. Can you believe it?’

‘What date?’ Ben asked, narrowing his eyes.

‘May third,’ she said. ‘Monday. Why?’

The day before Drew had withdrawn all his money from the bank, Ben thought. Four days before the kidnapping.

‘Perhaps I could speak to Mr Reynolds instead?’ he said. ‘It’s about our mutual client.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr, uh, Hope. There’s no way Mr Reynolds or anyone else at the agency is going to discuss clients’ affairs without prior written consent. Which I take it you don’t have.’

Ben ended the call without saying anything more.

This time, as Jessica Hunter led Ben into the kitchen, he accepted a coffee from her. What he really wanted was some of the single malt whisky in his flask and a cigarette to go with it, but smoking and drinking weren’t quite the thing inside a client’s house. He sat at the breakfast bar and sipped the espresso she made him. Strong, black, no sugar. Coffee with a bit of welly to it, the way he liked. He took out the evidence bag containing the hair sample and laid it in front of her.

‘This is for the police. A little something they missed, and I would have, too, except by chance. Like I said, ten to one they’ll come back saying it’s Drew’s. In which case they have to start mounting a whole new search, if it’s not already too late.’

Jessica picked the sample up and stared at it in horrified fascination. Just then, Mike walked into the room looking weary and drawn, and came to sit at the breakfast bar. ‘Back again so soon,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve only been on the case a few hours and already there’s progress.’

‘Let’s take this one step at a time,’ Ben said. ‘I have a question. Does either of you know of any reason why Drew might have hired a private investigator?’

Jessica was startled. ‘A what?’

‘His name was Paul Finley,’ Ben said. ‘Based in Dover.’

‘What on earth would Drew have wanted with a detective?’

‘There could’ve been a few reasons,’ Ben said. ‘The most obvious being to watch you. It’s not unknown for disgruntled ex-spouses to want to get the dirty on their former partners, especially when there are child custody issues involved.’

‘Get the dirty?’ Mike said, frowning.

‘Incriminating information that might have enabled him to accuse you of neglect, as a way of getting custody himself. Did you two ever go out in the evening, restaurants, nightclubs, and leave Carl on his own?’

Jessica bristled. ‘Absolutely not. I really resent the suggestion. And I’m frankly appalled that this man has been watching us like a couple of criminals.’

‘You won’t have to worry about him any more,’ Ben said. ‘He was stabbed to death in London before the kidnapping took place.’

‘That’s awful,’ Mike said.

‘It happens,’ Ben said.

‘Anyway, we have nothing to hide,’ Jessica said angrily. ‘There’s no question of Carl being neglected or abused in any way. How dare Drew make those allegations? He’s my son. I love him. I’m not the one who’s falling about the place too drunk to take care of themselves.’

‘It doesn’t matter what Drew told the detective,’ Ben said. ‘What matters is that they were in touch in the first place. After Finley died, it’s possible that someone else at the agency took over where he left off. That could mean that Drew was in contact with them right up until he took Carl, and maybe even since. It could help lead us to him.’

‘Did you say they were based in Dover?’ Jessica asked. ‘Will you go?’

‘Can’t hurt to check it out,’ Ben said.

‘What if they won’t talk to you?’

‘I’m sure I can find a way,’ he replied. ‘I won’t be gone for long. In the meantime, the police may have some work to do.’

‘You’re talking about this?’ Mike asked, pointing at the sample bag containing the short, clipped lengths of hair.

Ben nodded. ‘Forget the description you gave to the cops. It’s leading us off the trail. I’m almost certain that we should be looking for a man with much shorter hair, black or close to it. And that’s not all. If I’m right, the police should also change their suspect description from an overweight guy to one of slim-to-medium build. In other words, Drew has radically altered his appearance.’

‘Hold on, we saw him that night,’ Jessica said. ‘Nobody can lose weight that fast. It’s impossible.’

‘That’s true,’ Ben said. ‘But it’s not impossible to fake being fat in the first place. In fact, it’s pretty easily done.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You said that you hadn’t seen Drew for some time before the kidnapping. Not since the episode of the car accident.’

Jessica nodded. ‘That’s right. He was already getting out of shape then.’

‘But between then and the day of the kidnapping, he had plenty of time to lose the pounds. Someone who’s serious could get into good shape in that time.’

‘What are you basing all this on?’ Mike asked, looking doubtful.

‘The clothes in his wardrobe,’ Ben said. ‘Every pair of trousers was a thirty-two waist. Shirts and T-shirts all medium size. Jackets all thirty-eight inch chest. Not whiplash thin, but hardly what you’d call porky either.’

‘Obviously, they were his old clothes,’ Jessica said impatiently. ‘I told you, he was quite slim and fit when we were first married. He wouldn’t have packed those things when he went on the run with Carl, if he couldn’t get into them any more.’

‘That was my thinking, too,’ Ben said. ‘That he’d have taken all his large-size clothes with him, especially if he wasn’t planning on coming back. I assumed he mustn’t have worn the other stuff for quite some time. But then, why keep it? It’s taking up a lot of wardrobe and drawer space. That interested me. Then I saw the way he’s been eating lately. All health food. A man can starve pretty fast on that stuff. No beer, no booze of any kind. He’d been cleaning himself up, even using herbs and homeopathic medicine to cleanse his liver and protect himself from the flood of stored toxins that can be released when people go on a crash diet after a prolonged unhealthy lifestyle. Looks like he was committed to it.’

‘But that’s just a theory,’ Mike said, still perplexed. ‘It doesn’t prove that he actually did lose weight.’

‘No, but it got me interested in finding out more. Not long before the kidnap, Drew took a blazer to be repaired at a little clothes alterations place in St Helier.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’ve just been to collect it.’ Ben opened up his bag, pulled out the blazer and showed them.

‘That was a birthday present for him, years ago, before all the troubles began,’ Jessica said.

Next, Ben took the police artist’s sketch from his pocket. ‘You agree there’s no way the man in this picture could get into that blazer?’

‘I doubt it,’ Jessica said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Right. Then how do we explain why he’d have a missing button and a ripped lining fixed on a jacket he couldn’t wear any more?’

Mike and Jessica looked at each other. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Simple explanation,’ Ben said. ‘He isn’t the man in the picture. He just wants us to think he is. The blazer repair tells us two things. One, he didn’t just fake his hair and beard when he came here for Carl. I think he was all padded up to make himself look overweight, to mislead the police. He could easily have disposed of the padding, the wig and the beard afterwards. Based on how carefully he’s gone about the whole thing, I’d say he burned them.’

‘And the second thing?’ Mike asked intently.

‘The blazer’s been ready for collection since two days after the abduction. The repair took about a week, which tells us Drew took it in about five days before snatching Carl: let’s say the second of May. Now, we also know that four days before snatching Carl, probably the day after taking the blazer in for repair, he withdrew all the money from the bank.’

‘That just indicates he was acting randomly, without logic. Like a crazy person,’ Mike said.

‘No, I think it indicates that the scheme to snatch Carl all came together quite suddenly,’ Ben replied. ‘Why would he have bothered with the clothes repair, if he’d known he wouldn’t be around for the collection date? That suggests he hadn’t been planning the kidnapping for very long. Something triggered him off, and we can narrow down the moment that happened to sometime between his taking the blazer for repair to the time of the cash withdrawal first thing on the fourth of May. That’s a pretty tight window. He was suddenly in a hurry.’

‘But you said he’d been working on losing the weight all this time,’ Jessica said, confused. Doesn’t that sound like he was planning it all long in advance?’

Ben nodded. ‘Like you said, weight loss doesn’t happen overnight. It’s been a medium-term goal for Drew. But I don’t think he was doing it as part of his kidnap plan. He was doing it for the same reason anyone else would. To become healthier, to get himself together, sober up, clean up his act and maybe, in time, be allowed to see his son again. Then something else happened. Something that made him take this sudden drastic action.’

‘But what?’ Jessica asked. Tears were forming in her eyes.

‘That I don’t know,’ Ben said.

‘This is all guesswork,’ Jessica burst out. ‘We’re just sitting here speculating over tiny details, when Drew is out there with Carl, God knows where, and getting further away every minute.’ She was glaring angrily at Ben.

‘They’re not tiny details, Jessica,’ Mike said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Ben has done some great work here. If this is right, and we can give a much more accurate description to the police, we stand a far better chance of finding them.’

‘I can’t take this any longer,’ Jessica said in a choking voice. Getting up abruptly from her stool, she excused herself and ran from the room, leaving Ben alone with Mike. A door slammed. They could hear the sound of her crying inconsolably from another room.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Mike said. ‘She’s under so much strain.’

‘I don’t blame her for a minute,’ Ben said.

‘I think your ideas make sense,’ Mike said. ‘And I’m also thinking I might know what triggered Drew. Don’t tell Jessica I said this, because it’s a sore subject and I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. But shortly before Carl was taken, I’d been trying to persuade her to sell up here and leave Jersey. Fresh start, you know? A new life, just her and me and Carl, leaving behind the past and all the painful memories. Not to mention that I wasn’t happy living in the house she’d shared with Drew. Sleeping in the same bed.’

‘I understand,’ Ben said.

‘It’s sensitive, you know? We argued a lot about it. Jessica didn’t want to leave, and thought I was trying to force her unfairly. Now, I’m thinking that what if Carl overheard us arguing? What if he’d mentioned it to his biological father? He could easily have called him behind our backs. Couldn’t that have prompted Drew to want to take him away sooner rather than later, before he lost touch entirely? Maybe it drove him into a panic.’

Ben thought about it, and nodded. ‘It’s possible.’

‘And if it’s true, then it means …it means I’m partly to blame. If I hadn’t put that pressure on her…’

‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ Ben said. ‘It was Drew who took him, remember.’

Mike looked relieved. ‘Thanks, Ben. Keep us posted, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Ben said, opening the door.

‘I really appreciate what you’re doing for us,’ Mike said. ‘I know you’re going to find him.’

Ben just nodded, and left.