Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller. James Nally
angst sucks the last bead of self-belief out of me. The door slams shut with a fatalistic thud.
‘Actually, there is one last thing,’ he says, passing me a note through the open window.
It’s Met-police-headed paper; the word ‘Disclaimer’ screams out from the bold, underlined first sentence.
‘They just handed this to me,’ he says, leaning down to my level, eyes sizing mine for a reaction. ‘It’s to show we haven’t put you under any undue duress if, well, anything goes awry.’
‘Undue duress?’
‘You know what it’s like these days, Donal,’ he smiles lamely. ‘All about protecting the brand.’
By the second line of legal gymnastics, I’m sufficiently bamboozled to quit reading, get signing and hand it back.
‘I expect this is going to be tortuous, Donal, but you must try to concentrate at all times. Be prepared for a last-second change. A sudden contact. You must be ready for anything and everything. But follow his instructions to the letter.
‘Absolutely no heroics. Remember, he may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong. It doesn’t matter if the money or the man slip away tonight. It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.’
He passes the sports bag slowly, almost reverentially, through the car window, as if handing over her very fate.
‘We’re counting on you, Donal. Because one mistake, and we’ve all got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.’
East Croydon, South London
Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 20.50
At 9.40am the previous Tuesday, Julie Draper left her office on Church Road, Croydon to show a client around a four-bedroom house. She didn’t come back. Her colleague, Tom Reynolds, checked out the house, found her car on the driveway, her house keys on the landing. No Julie.
He checked out her client. John West’s phone number doesn’t exist. The address he’d provided doesn’t exist. The kidnap squad baulks at the name.
Seven years ago, estate agent Suzy Fairclough vanished in West London. Neither her body nor her abductor have ever been found. Also aged twenty-four and a brunette, Suzy had arranged to meet a client called ‘Mr Kipper’.
‘John West Kippers’ are a British supermarket staple.
Has he struck again? Or is it some sort of twisted copycat attack? The kidnapper’s methodology has convinced senior officers that their fishiest nemesis is back.
The meticulous, almost obsessive attention to detail is the crowning Kipper hallmark. His demand, for example, that the ransom cash be wrapped in polythene twelve microns thick is a direct steal from the Fairclough abduction. Tech wizards have figured out why; through plastic that thin any bugs we might hide in the cash can be detected by a bog-standard, shop-bought metal detector.
Yesterday morning’s proof-of-life phone call had also been classic Kipper. He rang Julie’s office from a public phone box and played a tape recording of her reading headlines from that day’s Daily Mirror newspaper. He made the call from a non-digital exchange, which takes longer to trace. But trace it we did, to Worthing on the south coast.
In another parallel with the Suzy Fairclough abductor, the ransom letter had been typed on generic WH Smith stationery using an old Olivetti, the typewriter equivalent of a Model T Ford – so, impossible to trace. Once again, he’d been careful not to lick the envelope or stamp, or to leave prints, fibres or hairs.
Without a solid lead, detectives agreed to pay the ransom. To my surprise, there is no secret police slush fund to meet this kind of shakedown. Crown Estates had to raise the cash. Now it’s my job to hand it over.
East Croydon train station finally looms into view, just as Crossley’s forlorn prophecies perform another club-footed cancan across my aching crown. Change his plan at any second … ready for anything and everything … one mistake and we’ve got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.
I park up and brace myself for the kidnapper’s first instruction; stand by the open car boot for 30 seconds. Presumably, he or his associates want to ensure I’m not harbouring a crack team of SAS midgets between the golf clubs and the jerry can.
Getting out unleashes a Grand National of competing terrors. They’re led at the first by the very real fear he’ll realise I’m not Tom Reynolds. What then? I yank down my baseball cap’s stiff peak until it fringes my vision. I take the holdall of cash and my identifying ‘Crown Estates’ clipboard from the back seat, walk to the car boot, open it and start to count. I feel exposed, helpless, JFK in Dealey Plaza. I make it all the way to seven before cracking. Boot still open, I set off pacing and weaving through people outside the station, taking sudden, wild turns like a coursed hare. If he’s planning a head shot, he’ll need to be Robin fucking Hood.
I rush to thirty, shut the boot and hotfoot into the station foyer. To my left, I spot the metallic-blue Mercury public phone he’s selected for our cosy chat. It’s framed by a glass hood, open at the front, New York-style. I wonder why he’s selected such an exposed phone, and hover there twitchily, head scoping in case of ambush. Through the frosted glass of a nearby waiting room, a frowning man peers out. Kidnapper or cop? Who can tell? Opposite me, two scruffy men in their twenties loiter outside the ticket office. One of them clocks my clipboard and approaches. I stiffen.
‘Are you doing a survey?’ he asks brightly.
‘No, I’m waiting for a phone call.’
He raises his arm. I flinch. Calmly, he reaches past me, lifts the receiver, checks for a dialling tone and replaces it. ‘Well it’s working,’ he says chirpily and returns to his pal. Kidnapper? Undercover cop? Mercury Communications telephone angel? Who knows.
A thunderous rumble grows inside the station. I step out from my glass arch to see an army of knackered, dead-eyed commuters march up a walkway towards me, looking set to sack the city. As they storm the ticket barriers, I scan their addled, timetable-enslaved faces.
Ready for anything and everything …
He could be one of them, ready to pluck the bag from my grasp and sprint to a getaway car.
No one stops. No one even looks. All hopes of a swift exchange evaporate.
I sag and step back, my back raging hot against the phone’s cold metal. The money bag’s strap burns a timely reminder into my left shoulder blade; I’m standing here alone with everything he wants. What if he’s watching me, planning to pounce? Who would save me?
I scan again. Those surveillance officers are either very good or very not here. The phone’s shrill ring lifts me six inches off the floor. I pick up, killing the ring and every other sound in the world, as if it has ceased spinning. I picture birds tumbling out of the sky, landing with a thud on Croydon concrete.
Cold hard plastic cools my scorching right ear. ‘Yes,’ I croak.
‘Tom Reynolds?’
‘That’s me.’
‘What’s your car reg?’ demands the Geoff Boycott sounda- like.
My addled mind empties like a toppled glass. I can’t even remember my own licence plate!
I whimper. He barks: ‘Make, model, colour?’
‘Nissan Bluebird. Maroon.’
I hear a muffled rustle. ‘Parked outside the station,’ I hear him say, faintly, as if to someone else. He’s got watchers!
‘Get back into your car,’ he demands, tetchily. ‘Follow signs for