Shooting Star

21

Barry Carson had a surprisingly modest office on the fourth floor of Carson House: two wood and leather chairs for visitors, old desk, desk chair just like the ones in the office outside, faded Persian rug on a parquet floor, a nondescript view of the building opposite. On the dull cream wall hung black and white photographs of bulldozer-gouged building sites, concrete pours, and tree-raising ceremonies on the windswept tops of buildings, construction workers and men in suits wearing hardhats and raising cans of beer. Only the construction workers’ hardhats fitted and only they looked as if they planned to drink the beer.

‘Two or three months with Katherine’s family in England,’ said Barry in his boyish voice. His hands were locked behind his head, he was being open, unguarded. ‘We all thought it was a good idea. Get away, somewhere different. But they’ve never come back.’

His phone rang.

‘Excuse me, Frank.’ He looked at me as he listened, studied me as he spoke into the old-fashioned handset. It wasn’t the unseeing look. He was looking at me.

‘Miranda, forgive me,’ he said, ‘I should have made more of this, made sure everyone understood.’ He had a gentle delivery. ‘All media inquiries about the float and the company go to Tom’s people.’ Pause. ‘Yes, I know some people may wish to talk to me or to other senior staff but this is a Tom affair. He has a regiment of unemployable ex-journalists waiting to handle it. Yes. Thank you, Miranda.’

He put the receiver down. ‘This couldn’t have come at a worse time for Tom,’ he said. ‘It’s taken all the shine off going public, emerging from my father’s shadow.’

I detected no sympathy in his voice. ‘It’s a long shadow,’ I said.

‘Yes, these generational changeovers should happen when you’re in your forties, I suppose. In some families, the children take over in their thirties, earlier. But.’

Not so much a smile as a lip signal of resignation and acceptance.

‘Alice,’ I said.

‘Yes. The kidnap shook us, changed our whole world. We’ve never been the same again. The whole family. We went from being pretty carefree to verging on the paranoid. My wife in particular. She seemed more disturbed than Alice. Visibly, that is. Alice was just quiet. Not that she’d ever been all that vocal.’ He looked away. ‘Well, perhaps I didn’t notice. Always busy, travelling a lot. Pretty standard confession that, I suppose. The absentee father.’

He brought his arms down and folded his hands on the desk, long-fingered hands, square-clipped nails. ‘Katherine almost took our son Pat to England too but the old man talked her out of it. Good at that kind of thing, the master manipulator. I think he had some premonition that Katherine was going for good.’

‘Can Alice talk about the subject?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never raised it with her, never wanted to. She may have talked to her mother about it, I don’t know. Katherine wouldn’t tell me if she did.’

I followed his eyes out of the window. We could see two men in an office in the building across the street, one seated, the other standing at a whiteboard. The seated one’s chair was quarter-turned away from the whiteboard; he didn’t want a lecture.

‘They’re in trouble,’ said Barry. ‘Someone’s been selling them down for weeks.’ He looked back at me. ‘I might as well say it. Katherine blames me for what happened. She never said it at the time but when I went to England to see them the first time, she spat it out.’

‘Blames you for the kidnapping?’

‘No. For calling in the police. She believes that if we’d waited for the ransom instructions and paid the money, Alice would have suffered less.’

‘She was assaulted?’

He looked away again. ‘Yes, but apparently not until the story broke in the media. It may be that that was when they decided to kill her. So I suppose the logic is that if we, I, hadn’t called in the police, we wouldn’t have had the media exposure, and the kidnappers wouldn’t have decided to kill Alice and wouldn’t have done anything to her.’

‘That’s pure conjecture,’ I said. ‘To kill her may always have been their intention. If it had happened, you would be blamed for not calling the police.’

Barry nodded, still looking out of the window. ‘I try to look at it that way. Katherine sees a reluctance to part with money as being involved. Nothing in my life has ever hurt me more than that accusation.’ He sniffed, a delicate intake, moved his head. ‘But there you are. It may be clearer now why we didn’t want the police this time.’

‘Yes. What does Alice do?’

He looked more cheerful now, making eye contact again. ‘She works with children, with autistic children. In a public clinic in London. She started as a volunteer, then they offered her a job. We give the clinic some money, which we earmark for salaries, an annual grant, quite generous. Alice doesn’t know about that and it doesn’t matter. She’s very good at what she does and the clinic values her.’

‘Will you ask her today if she’ll talk to me?’

‘Why?’

I felt uneasy, shrugged. ‘It’s remotely possible that the abductions are connected. Remotely.’

‘The same people? Seven years apart? What suggests that?’

‘Something the voice said on Saturday. About becoming less stupid, learning.’

‘Just a way of being threatening, I thought. Anyway, if the police couldn’t track them down then, what chance do you have now?’

‘Something may have come back to Alice. It’s worth trying.’

Barry hesitated. ‘I’ll ask her. Have to catch her early. Do you want a video linkup?’

‘If possible.’

Barry nodded, sighed. ‘Her mother will come back and kill me if you upset Alice.’ Pause. ‘There’s something we should’ve said. Tom didn’t raise it and his presence made me reluctant. In his relentless pursuit of the deal, Mark’s been involved with some extremely dodgy people.’

I waited, nodded.

‘About three weeks ago, Tom had a call from Poland. A man with an American-accented voice, but not an American. He said Mark owed his syndicate two million dollars American and if he didn’t come up with the money, they would hold his family responsible for the debt.’

‘Responsible? What did Tom understand that to mean?’

‘Financially responsible. They expected us to pay Mark’s debt.’

‘What did Tom say?’

‘He says he told the man to take it up with our lawyers.’

‘And?’

‘The man said they didn’t deal with lawyers and the family should ensure that Mark paid up. He said a polite goodbye.’

‘What’s Mark say about that?’

‘We should’ve been more open about that too. Can’t get hold of Mark. That’s not unusual, let me say quickly. He’s got a secrecy mania, everything’s terribly hush-hush, he talks behind his hand.’

‘But not to you. I gather you won’t be in the same room with him.’

Barry put his right elbow on the desk, rested his chin on his palm, his index finger rubbing the side of his nose. ‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘From Christine.’

Barry closed his eyes. ‘Ah, from Christine.’ He opened them. ‘A singular woman, Christine, but not someone directly connected with reality.’ He was smiling without a trace of humour. ‘Or did you form a contrary view?’

‘Will you be in the same room with Mark?’

For a moment I thought I’d gone too far. Then Barry’s smile warmed and he laughed, the first time I’d heard him laugh, a pleasant sound.

‘Only if I have to,’ he said. ‘And then I keep as far away as possible. There’s something about Mark that chills me, always has.’

I smiled back. ‘And Tom’s heard nothing from the American-accented man since the phone call?’

He put his head to one side, smile gone, gave me a long look. ‘Not unless the Polish syndicate is using an electronic voice.’

The statement floated in the air between us as I sat there thinking that I was totally inadequate to the task I’d taken on. I gathered myself.

‘Does Tom think that?’

‘No. He thinks Mark would tell him about any threat to the family. Particularly to children.’

‘You could ask Interpol to look for Mark,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to mention Anne. Graham can go to the Chief Commissioner, tell him the family’s worried about Mark.’

Silence. Then Barry said, ‘I suppose we should. I’ll have to ask Tom. He won’t like the idea. Not with the float coming up. I can see it now: Interpol Hunt For Missing Carson Millionaire.’

‘Is he a millionaire?’

‘In reverse. Owes about that. Doesn’t have a cent more than Tom will give him. But to the media all Carsons are millionaires.’

‘Tell Graham to stress confidentiality. I think you’ve got the clout to have the inquiry kept secret.’

He snorted, a genteel snort. ‘Clout? I couldn’t keep my daughter’s kidnap out of the media. That’s clout.’

‘The police took the decision. This is just a person missing overseas. It’s different.’

‘I’ll see if I can get Tom to believe that. Leave your number with Belinda outside and she’ll call you about the video linkup arrangements. If Alice agrees, that is.’

I was getting up when he said, ‘You haven’t got anywhere, have you, Frank?’

‘All I’m doing is trying to rule out possibilities,’ I said. ‘For the real detectives to come.’

‘Tom seems to think I suggested you talk to Christine. Disabuse him of the notion if you get a chance, will you?’

‘Why would he think that?’

A shrug. ‘Tom’s got a paranoid streak. Not even his family are above suspicion. No, particularly his family.’

‘In the matter of my seeing Christine, what are you suspected of?’

‘Who knows? Encouraging you to go down fruitless avenues, I suppose.’

I didn’t understand. ‘What about Mark? Is he above suspicion?’

‘I think it’s crossed Tom’s mind that Anne’s kidnapping may be-how shall we put it-related to Mark’s activities.’

I wanted this spelled out. ‘Are you saying Tom thinks Anne’s kidnappers might be people Mark has had dealings with? But not the current deal?’

‘Not thinks that. Crossed his mind. And not the current deal, no.’

In the cold street, I hesitated, walked several blocks to the shoeshine stand and had my disreputable shoes polished. ‘Frank,’ said the Chilean, ‘you don have the right attitude to shoes. You got contempt for shoes.’

‘Contempt?’ I said. I was looking at four office workers out of their building for a smoke, all facing outwards, not dressed for the street, pulling at their cigarettes quickly, not talking, just addicts. ‘Contempt’s too strong, Ramon. I just don’t look down often enough.’