Dead if You Don’t

61

Sunday 13 August

03.00–04.00

Seconds later, Grace received it.

He showed it to everyone. ‘Do you know anything about this, Aleksander?’ he asked.

‘Two and a half million?’ the boy said, looking totally confused. ‘This was not our plan. No. No, I—’ He began to cry again.

‘Can you get cell-site analysis on this, Glenn?’ Grace asked.

‘We’re on it.’

He stared at the text.

Yet another spelling error, he observed.

‘Aleksander, tell them what you know, for God’s sake, tell them!’ his mother implored.

The teenager stared blankly at her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, lamely. ‘I don’t know. This is — this is not — I — this is not our plan.’

‘Tell them the truth!’

‘I am. I am telling the truth.’

Grace stepped out of earshot and updated Branson on the latest development at his end. ‘What does Kipp Brown say? If absolutely needed, could he stump up this ransom — even just for a few hours?’

‘He’s just told me he’s close to bankruptcy,’ Branson replied. ‘He’s had a disastrous gambling run in the past few months and is virtually broke. He was going to be hard pushed to come up with the original 250 grand. Let alone this.’

‘Yes, he implied that to me.’

‘Everyone thinks Kipp Brown is richer than God,’ Branson said. ‘He flies clients around in private jets, lives in a fuck-off house, child in private education. And he dotes on his son. I believed him when he told me he doesn’t have that kind of money. What are we going to do? Don’t the National Crime Agency have funds for these kinds of situations?’

‘Two and a half million? You are joking — they used to have a small amount but I don’t even know if they have that any more.’ Grace thought quickly. ‘OK, we know from Aleksander Dervishi the kidnap was a set-up by a very devious couple of lads, to screw some money from Kipp Brown. I don’t know what this new demand is about. The kid’s vanished. Is it real this time or another part of their dumb plan? What the hell are we dealing with here?’

‘I don’t know, boss. Any ideas? Hypotheses?’

‘I’m all out of them. And I’m just about to have our one suspect, Jorgji Dervishi, de-arrested.’

‘There’ll be people here working on this all night. You sound shattered, get some sleep. Let’s wait for the next demand. Maybe bring in another SIO to take over from you for a few hours?’

‘I’ll be OK,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll go back and kip in the office.’

‘Look after yourself, boss. You won’t be any good to anyone if you’re shattered.’

‘I don’t feel I’m much good to anyone right now.’