Chapter 34 : A Messy Apartment

 

As it happened she was wrong. It took me longer than I thought to finish up. The traffic was lousy. I was feeling guilty about how late it had got. It was almost nine o’clock.

 

When I got back to the flat the front door was ajar. “Naughty Tricia,” I thought, “anyone could get in.” It didn’t take me a moment to realise that someone had, I hadn’t seen anything as bad since Tricia trashed the bedroom during our practice burglary. It looked a similarly messy job, done to impress. Well I was impressed. What was worse Tricia wasn’t there.

 

Something told me that calling the police wasn’t a great idea but even so I was pretty wary about looking around. It didn’t take too long to work out what had happened. You didn’t need a degree in forensic science to work it out.

 

It looked like whoever had made this mess had snatched Tricia when she arrived and had hung onto her waiting for me to turn up. Then they’d got bored or worried and gone, taking her with them. One of the dining chairs had been dragged into the bedroom. There was the remains of duct tape strips around the bottom of each of the front legs of the chair, she’d obviously been taped to the chair at some point, one of her shoes lay beneath it. A screwed up wad of cloth and some strips of tape were the remains of a gag that I guessed had been changed before they took her away. A spent hypodermic lay in the rubbish from the upended waste basket. A heap of tissues soaked in blood suggested that someone hadn’t had it to easy. I liked to think it was whoever had snatched her. The core of a roll of duck tape under the chair suggested that in spite of that they’d got their own way. Her handbag had been upended on the bed, its contents spread around.

 

I phoned Harry. “I need some help, I said as calmly as I could. “Can you get over here?”

 

To say that Harry wasn’t happy when he saw the shambles would be putting it mildly. Certainly his exclamations as he rummaged through the muddle left me feeling sympathetic towards anyone that he linked to the events. He was even less amused when he heard about Cora and the events in Kushtia. “So you fucking knew you were at risk? And you let Tricia walk in here without warning her?”

 

“Well, I’d only just told Clegg about it and .. “

 

“Fucking great. One of my team is sitting fuck knows fucking where and all because you hadn’t got round to cosying up with her and letting her know just what you’d been fucking about at in the mountains.”

 

“Harry, it’s not like that.”

 

“In just what fucking way do you think it’s not fucking like that?”

 

“Harry, it’s not going to help us, is it? I’m as keen as you are to see her back.”

 

He seemed to calm down a bit. “Yeah, well, OK sure. Look, who knew you were in Kushtia?”

 

“I dunno, a few people around the business. I hadn’t made a secret about it around here. I’ve been trying to let people know how well this stuff has been going you know. Nobody outside the business apart from the Kushtians, though, as far as I know.”

 

“So how did this Cora know to turn up to meet you in Kolin?”

 

“I guess the Kalinin spoke to the Ambassador or the Trade Minister asked for her.” I told him the story of my first meeting with Cora at the hotel and the subsequent meeting with the Trade Minister

 

“But he didn’t need a translator did he? So why would he have bothered? Although he obviously had the hots for her already.”

 

“But he didn’t need to invite her along to the meeting to set her up did he?”

 

“No, no, I guess not.”

 

“I’ll see what I can find out. My suggestion would be to stay out of the way for a while. Go find somewhere quiet where no one from this world is likely to find you. Check your mobile message box but do it from a landline. I’ll get Freddie to leave you a message when it’s safe to come out.”

 

“I’d like to help to get Tricia back.”

 

“Yeah well. I don’t think that’s a great idea unless there’s no alternative. I mean, I know you’ve come on a bit but this could all get a bit messy and if there’s going to be any mess with one of my team then I’ll sort it out. Just lose yourself, right?”

 

“Hang on. Look, if they’ve snatched her to get at me, they’re going to turn up with some sort of demand aren’t they? I need to be around for that. If they can’t reach me what will they do to Tricia?”

 

“Well, I dunno.” Harry was considering my remarks when Freddie walked into the chaos.

 

“This is a mess, Harry,” he said. I didn’t think he meant my flat.

 

“Yeah, I’m going to fix it,” said Harry.

 

“Larry,” Freddie said, seeing my discomfort, “I think you need to let Harry handle this.”

 

We were debating the point when my mobile beeped to say I had a new text message. It was from Tricia’s number. “Larry,” it said, “if you’ve been to the flat you’ll know what this is about. Keep H & F out of it. TXT U L8R. T.”

 

I showed it to Harry & Freddie. “Guess I can’t really stay out of this.”

 

Freddie looked at the phone and agreed reluctantly. “Well, it looks as if you’re in it if we like it or not.” Harry snorted. “I guess you’ll just have to pick up the messages and play it as it seems.” Suddenly he seemed to be loosing interest. “No point in us complicating things. We’ll only fall over one another. Maybe we’ll be able to help.” Harry tried to interrupt. “No, Harry, I think we’ll back off on this one. Leave it to Larry. It’s his problem. We’ve got enough to do.”

 

I wasn’t happy with that and Harry didn’t look happy either but Freddie was insistent. I didn’t see why Freddie was washing his hands of it. I had wanted to be involved with helping to get Tricia back but now it looked like I was on my own. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was going to do. I’d have to play it by ear.

 

“Now,” said Clegg, changing the subject, “have you been able to do anything about that request from Steve Glennis? I wouldn’t want us to fall down on that one.”

 

I glowered at him. “Freddie, I’ve got other things on my mind.”

 

“Sure, sure,” he said “but you need to keep busy. You can’t do anything about this for a while – see what you can do for Steve. Got to look after the customers.”

 

Chapter 35 : Tracking Tricia

 

I hated to admit it but Freddie was right. There wasn’t much else I could do after I had put the flat back together again so I went in to the office as usual. I reckoned the kidnappers would find me if they had something to say.

 

I tried to do some work on the Glennis request. I’m not a big fan of desk research, it’s pretty dull to start with, but sometimes it’s the only way to find out what you need to know. Normally I do this stuff to analyse markets; this time it was to look for a potential target but the principles are the same. You aim to gather up the right sources and then work through them looking for clues, linking things together. Since Freddie had OK’d my thoughts on including a focus on British middle and upper class targets as one of our market niches, I’d been building up a library of stuff that might help us understand the market better. I’d got a pile of back numbers of ‘Country Life’ and ‘Horse and Hound’ and a copy of “Debrett’s Peerage & Baronettage”. For this project I added a few copies of Carriage Horse – the magazine for the British Horse Driving Trials Association. After that it was a matter of flogging through them. Looking at Carriage Horse for accounts of event winners and championship holders; checking out the “Lady This” or “Honourable That” in Debrett’s and rooting through the other magazines for pictures that might give some clue as to whether they passed the Steve Glennis “can I tell if this is a woman or a horse?” test.

 

At the end of it all I had four possible candidates. The favourite, mainly on looks – not in the least bit horsy, I thought - was Lady Angela Marchmont. I dashed off an email to Research to do me a full profile of her and the other three. It worried me a bit. I’d worked all morning and I’d hardly thought about Tricia at all.

 

Rick phoned to give me an update on Rachel. They’d had quite a few “assisted conversations” as he termed it. He reckoned they had quite a good fix on what had gone on as a result. Turns out she’d studied psychology at college – they’d done a module on some of the brain washing techniques used in the cold war. It was primitive stuff then but apparently we’d used the ideas as the basis for our initial preparation. Apparently Rachel was a big fan of the Ipcress File – a book by Len Deighton and a movie in the sixties with Michael Caine. In the movie, Caine’s character distracts himself from the brainwashing by using pain – he drives a nail into the palm of his hand during the brainwashing sessions. Rachel had been using the same approach, but without leaving any marks. She’d retreated into the pain and humiliation of her rapes, counting them off inside her head. They’d got her to vocalise it under sedatives. Rick said he’d play me the tapes. He thought that now he could fix her. It was good news, I guessed, but I was still thinking about my own problems. Getting the writer back on stream wasn’t very high up the list.

 

My mobile bleeped again later that evening. It was Tricia’s number again, another text. “Dont 4get the shopping. We need some wine.” I guessed that this was setting up some sort of a meeting and the local supermarket seemed as safe as anywhere as far as I was concerned. I needed some food anyway.

 

I took a trolley at the door and started making my way up and down the aisles. I got as far as the wine. I’d picked up a couple of bottles of Californian wine when a woman turned into the same aisle. As I went to move along the aisle she pushed her trolley across mine blocking it in. She smiled at me. “You look like you’re looking for something,” she said.

 

“I’m told supermarkets are a great place to pick up women,” I said, “would you know anything about that?”

 

“Tricia said you had a sense of humour.” She peered at the bottles in my trolley. “You’d be better off going for a Chilean or South African,” she said, “you’re really paying for the label with those.”

 

“I don’t drink enough wine to bother with cheap bottles,” I said.

 

She ignored me. “Are there any of Harry’s team around?” she asked.

 

“How would I know?” I said. “You’d be more likely to spot them than I am. He’s pretty pissed about this. So is Freddie. But I haven’t seen anything of them for a while.”

 

“No,” she said, not even bothering to look around. “They seem to have left you to swing. Do you want to see Tricia free?”

 

“Sure but I’m guessing that might be hazardous to my health. I’d like to be a hero but I find it a bit of a challenge.”

 

“All right,” she said, “here’s the deal. Your lady is sitting someplace where she won’t come to any harm. We go for a ride in my car and talk to someone. You get to see her.”

 

“Talk?”

 

“Talk.”

 

“That still sounds hazardous to my health. Why don’t they just give me a phone call? You’ve got my number.” Another woman turned into the aisle pushing a trolley that held enough shopping to feed a small army for a month.

 

“Excuse me,” she said pushing between us and picking up a twelve pack of beer before walking on.

 

I watched as she disappeared around the end of the aisle. The woman I was talking to just smiled. “And the alternative?“ I said.

 

“Alternative?” the woman looked puzzled.

 

“Usually there’s an alternative. You do this or we’ll do that?”

 

“Oh, yes, sorry. Well, if you put it like that. I guess my contact can take out their disappointment on her. That might not be pleasant.”

 

I was beginning to feel backed into a corner, which I supposed was the idea, but I didn’t want to take more chances than I needed to. “You won’t mind if I just check whether or not you’re carrying a weapon? It’s just that I’ve had a number of unpleasant experiences with women in recent times.”

 

“Help yourself,” she said. “I’m sure that it’s not uncommon for two people meeting like this to become entangled in an intimate embrace.”

 

She was right, of course. This wasn’t the place for a conventional frisk down but there were other ways to achieve the same result. I pushed her back against the rack of wine bottles in a reasonable simulation of a passionate grapple. I ran my hands down her body and across her tits. She pushed back against me, helping out and no doubt looking for just the sort of things I was looking for. I groped beneath her skirt, running my hands up the inside of her thighs. She gave a surprised start and pressed her lips against mine. I pushed my tongue between her lips. She kissed me back enthusiastically. Satisfied that she was carrying nothing that might cause me any problems, apart from a well built chest. I backed away.

 

“Satisfied?” she asked. “Only I thought you might have found something in my fillings, the way your tongue was going.”

 

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s fine.” I looked up to see two old ladies peering disapprovingly at us from the other end of the aisle. “Maybe we’d better go for that ride. I’m feeling more heroic by the minute.” I turned my trolley towards the check out. “Where are we going then?”

 

“I shouldn’t bother with the wine,” she said. “There’s plenty there if you fancy a drink.” We both left our trolleys and headed out to the car park. “Now I think we were going for a drive.” She gestured towards a dark saloon car. I followed her to it. She opened the door to the back. “My friend here will keep you company on the drive.” A smartly dressed woman beckoned me inside with a smile that held no warmth at all. I slid onto the bench seat alongside her with considerable trepidation. The car pulled away.

 

The woman beside me in the back seat handed a scarf to me. “I wonder if you’d mind wearing this” she said, passing me a scarf.

 

“Around my neck?” I asked ingenuously.

 

“A blindfold,” she said. “If you don’t mind.” I didn’t see how it was likely to make things worse so I did as she asked. “Thank you,” she said, politely. “That’s most helpful.”

 

We drove for an hour or more, I guessed. There wasn’t any conversation. Then the car stopped. My back seat companion pulled off the blindfold. We were already inside a garage. I heard the door sliding shut behind us. The woman from the supermarket opened the door of the car and we both got out. She pointed to a door at the end of the garage. “Through there,” she said. I opened it and went through into a darkened room. I wasn’t really surprised when the door shut behind me with the disturbing clunk of a lock closing. It was pitch black.

 

It became brighter slowly as two red lamps in the ceiling began to glow. As the lights went up it became obvious that I was in a well equipped dungeon. The walls were lined with padded red leather, racks to one side held a selection of whips, tawses and floggers while pegs on the end wall held hanks of rope in various thicknesses and colours. I heard a quiet groan from above and behind me.

 

Swinging close to the ceiling, out of my reach, was a ball shaped steel cage. The cage was locked shut with a huge padlock. Inside, naked, shackled and ring gagged, struggled a helpless and indignant Tricia. She became more animated as she saw me but I couldn’t make any sense of her distorted speech. Wires ran from clamps on her nipples and labia to a small pedestal beside a door. I was angered by what I saw but it was obvious I wouldn’t get anywhere without a key to the padlock. I was staring up at her as I heard a door opening behind me. I turned around.

 

A doorway on the other side of the dungeon swung open.

 

Standing in the door way was the figure of a woman clad in a suit of skin tight, black leather. The suit was criss-crossed with leather straps that emphasised her ample breasts. Over it she wore a waist-cinching corset. Her face was covered by a mask of the same black leather. From the back of her head erupted a pony tail wig of exaggerated blondness. She was carrying a heavy whip, wearing stilt heeled, knee length boots and stood with her hands on her hips confronting me. A strap on dildo rose with exaggerated tumescence from her crotch giving her the look of a female Priapus.

 

“You’ve caused me a lot of problems, Mr Ross,” she said in a gravelly, gruff, voice that suggested a lifetime’s use of cigarettes and whisky.

 

“Problems?” I said. “I can’t think how.”

 

“You activities for Mr Clegg,” she said, huskily. “Let us say, I don’t entirely approve of your approach to the market. It interferes with those of my own businesses. I am sure you understand that this is a world in which the status quo is so easily disrupted.”

 

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “There’s enough business to go around if I believe my research. The problem is supply not demand.”

 

The woman gave a grunt and ignored my remark. “I though that you should have the opportunity to see that your young lady is in good hands.” She gestured to the cage. “But her future well being depends a lot on your suggesting to Mr Clegg that he changes his approach to the market. We’d be much happier if he went back to something more traditional.”

 

“I don’t think Mr Clegg is very amenable to suggestions about his business from outsiders.”

 

“I’m sure but I’d like you to give him this,” the leather clad, masked woman passed a sealed envelop to me. “Now if you go back through that door, she gestured to the way I had come in.

 

”My girls will take you back.” She turned towards Tricia. “Say good-bye to Mr Ross, dear,” she growled, turning a knob on the pedestal beside her.

 

Tricia bleated in pain as an electric shock stabbed at her nipples and labia. I started towards the dominatrix. “Oh, no, Mr Ross,” she said huskily, pulling a pistol from a drawer in the pedestal. “Definitely not. Now do take that envelope to Freddie or it really will be goodbye to Tricia and not ‘au revoir’. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”

 

I looked down at the envelope and gave a last look at Tricia in the cage. She whimpered into her gag. Fuming I turned towards the door. My chaperone was waiting with the blindfold.

 

Chapter 36 : A Legacy or Trussed

 

Harry listened sympathetically to my account of my trip to the dungeon. He looked across at Freddie who was sitting back with his feet up on his desk, staring away and out through the window, apparently disinterested. The envelop and paper lay discarded on Clegg’s desk, ignored.  As I concluded he swung himself around to face me.

 

“Fine, fine,” he said.

 

“With respect, Freddie,” I responded, “it isn’t fine by my books. What are we going to do?”

 

“Do?” said Freddie. “Oh, I’m not sure we need to do anything. Well not about the dungeon anyway, not right now. I think I know what’s going on. If that letter was meant to irritate me, it has certainly done so. The only problem is that it also confirms what I suspected. I think we may know where young Tricia is. Harry done some research haven’t you?” Harry nodded with a grim smile. “And we have a little job set up.”

 

“I thought you were leaving me to get on with this?” I said.

 

“Larry, you don’t want to believe everything I say. I don’t even always believe me, myself. Now I am assuming you want to join in with this?”

 

Harry leant forward with a conspiratorial air. “You remember that first burglary you came out with Tricia and me on?” he said. I nodded. “Well, I think we need to go on another.”

 

“We’re going to rescue her?”

 

“No, not exactly,” said Freddie. “There’s some collateral I want to pick up first. Just in case of any problems.”

 

“Does this help Tricia?” I asked.

 

“We think so. Maybe. Certainly it’ll make me feel better about things,” Freddie said. They wouldn’t explain any more but I trusted their judgement. I certainly hadn’t come up with any ideas.

 

A day later, we ended up outside of an office in a run down building not far from our Whitechapel office. The dimpled glass panel on the door carried some old fashioned black and gold lettering. “Shuster, Siegel & Kent,” it said, “Solicitors & Commissioners for Oaths”.

 

I took one look at the threadbare carpet outside the door and the damp stain spreading from a corner of the window frame. “Super,” I said, “really super.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” said Freddie. “We’re only borrowing it. It’s just what we need for this job.”

 

Clegg knocked on the door. A voice from inside called, “It’s open. Turn the handle.” Freddie led the way. The girl sitting at the desk looked up, evidently surprised by the idea of customers. “Uhhuh?” she asked. I’d known women that were more articulate with a two inch rubber ball in their mouth.

 

Clegg persevered. “Good afternoon.”

 

The girl sat with her arms folded. “They’re not here. None of them. Mr Shuster’s out. Mr Siegel’s away and Mr Kent is not coming in this week.”

 

“Oh, dear,” said Freddie, at his most conciliatory, “I had hoped to be able to consult with one of your team. Is it really just yourself here?”

 

“Oh, what? Well. No. There’s her.”

 

“Her?”

 

“She’s their para – whatsit. Parallel?”

 

“Para-legal?”

 

“S’wot I said. Miss Lane, she is. But they don’t usually let her talk to anyone.”

 

“I’m sure she’ll be able to help,” Clegg said patiently, “Even if it’s just to suggest whether Mr Kent, Mr Siegel or Mr Shuster would be best able to help us with our problem. Perhaps you could show us through.”

 

“S’pose so. You’d better come through.” She got up and showed us past her desk, not towards either of the three large glass panelled doors behind her but to a solid wooden door between two enormous filing cupboards. Whereas each of the glass panelled doors proclaimed the identity of their occupants in gold lettering there was simply a card pinned to this door with the word “Lane” handwritten on it in felt tipped pen. The receptionist opened it without knocking. The office’s occupant didn’t seem surprised to be disturbed without warning. “Gentlemen for you,” said the receptionist.  

 

The smartly dressed girl behind the desk looked up with a smile. “Hullo,” she said. “How can I help?” The smile turned to a look of alarm as she watched Clegg pull a gun from his jacket. In the same moment Harry had one hand over the receptionist’s mouth and another around her waist, pulling her back against him and stifling her cries.

 

“We need to borrow your offices for a while,” Clegg said. “I do hope you won’t mind.” The girl’s hands flew to her mouth. The receptionist was kicking spiritedly against Harry’s hold. He swung her around and slammed her against a rack of files. File boxes fell to the floor with a crash. Her struggles subsided a bit.

 

I knew what to do. I took the reel of tape from my pocket, grabbed the girl in the chair by the wrists and taped them to the arms of her seat. A wad of sponge followed the tape from my pocket. I pushed it into her resisting mouth and taped over it. I taped each of her ankles over to the legs of the chair and did the same with her knees. It left her a bit exposed; she didn’t look happy with the way that Freddie was checking out her legs. 

 

Harry wrestled the receptionist to the floor. She was still struggling, squealing and kicking as he wrenched her wrists behind her to tape them together. He didn’t seem bothered by her efforts. He taped her ankles as he had done her wrists and then ran a short strip of tape between wrists and ankles bending her backwards in a vicious hog tie. He wound more tape around her arms and chest.

 

We finished the two of them off with pads over their eyes, wax ear plugs and tape to keep it all in place; there was no need to bother them with what we were up to. Not that I knew what was going on anyway. I still didn’t see how this was helping to get Tricia back.

 

It was a little while later when we’d installed ourselves in Shuster’s office that Clegg’s four guests arrived. Two of them were women in their mid-forties, two of them young girls. The two older ones looked rather similar; both carried themselves with the air of women that had gone through life without too many problems and seemed as if they felt that their future lives should continue in the same vein.

 

“Ah, excellent. Come in,” said Clegg, waving them through into Shuster’s office. “Come in.”

 

The taller of the two women peeled off her gloves. “I hope this isn’t going to take too long,” she said.

 

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Clegg responded. The two girls were nosing around the office, managing to combine an air of curiosity with a sense of utter boredom. “Do please sit down, though.” The two women did so. The two girls continued to prowl.

 

The taller of the two girls picked up a paperweight from the desk. “Don’t do that Beth,” the woman said to the girl. “I am sorry,” she said to Clegg. “Now what was it you wanted? Something about a legacy, you said.”

 

“Yes,” said Clegg. “I just must make sure that you are the individuals concerned. You have the necessary identification?”

 

“Oh yes,” the woman said, rummaging in her handbag. She pulled out four passports. “This is me, Alice,” she said passing one over. “My sister, Carol here and my two daughters, Beth and Ella.” Clegg smiled at the two girls. They both scowled back, evidently irritated at being dragged into some dusty office by their mother.

 

“Ah, good,” said Clegg examining the passports. “These are fine. And I can see they confirm the girls are of legal age – it makes everything so much simpler, you understand.”

 

“Quite,” said the woman.

 

“Now this legacy relates to an individual, her siblings and her immediate descendants. Can I confirm that is yourselves.”

 

“Yes, that’s right. This is my only sister and my only children.

 

“I see. Good, that seems to be in order. Well, as I explained the legacy is to the wife of the purchaser of this particular property, 64 Lisson Way. It’s a little curious, I will admit, for someone to leave money in this way but not unknown. Oh, you did keep this confidential, didn’t you? As I said, the will clearly states that the wife’s husband must not be informed. I think the individual concerned was particularly keen to see that women had a source of income completely independent of their husbands.”

 

“Of course. We didn’t wish to do anything to jeopardise the possibility of gaining the inheritance.” Alice said bluntly.

 

“Excellent,” said Clegg. “Well then it’s just a matter of providing proof of ownership of the property. Do you have the details?”

 

Alice passed across an envelope. Clegg opened it and pulled out some papers. “Fine,” he said, examining them, “that’s fine. And this property was acquired by your husband recently?”

 

“Yes, that’s right. Well, in fact I didn’t really know about it until you contacted me. I found the details in his desk. I can’t think why he was being so secretive.”

 

“Oh, I expect he was hoping to use it as an investment. Many of the properties in that area are bought and then rented out. Perhaps he wanted to surprise you?” Alice looked sceptical.

 

There was the sound of a heavy thump. It had obviously come from Ms Lane’s office. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “We’re having some alterations done. I had asked them to make sure we were not disturbed but, well, I am sure you know how it is…. I’ll just go and deal with it.”

 

Clegg smiled and I left them to it. As I suspected the noise had been caused by our other two guests attempting to escape. Ms Lane had managed to tip her chair over on its back which had evidently caused the noise that I had heard. She’d made no progress in freeing herself though and all she had to show for her efforts was a cut on the back of her head where she had fallen against the radiator that ran beneath the window behind her. She groaned as much in frustration as pain, I imagined, as I put her chair back on its four legs.  I checked that the receptionist was still helpless. The tape was still doing its job in her case too. I made my way back to join Clegg, Harry and their guests. “All fine,” I said. “Sorry about that.” The four women turned towards me. Freddie was evidently happy to take advantage of the distraction. When they looked back at Clegg they found themselves staring into the barrel of Clegg’s gun.

 

“I am afraid I’ve misled you ladies.” The four women gasped. Alice made to get to her feet but Clegg shook his head and waved her back into her seat with the barrel of his gun. “Would you be good enough to put these on please?” He tossed four pairs of handcuffs onto the desk. “Beth, Ella, perhaps you could help your mother and her sister,” Clegg said politely. The two girls stared at him, rigid with terror. “Do it, you stupid cunts!” he barked. “Hands behind your backs, you two,” he ordered Alice and Carol who were already whimpering with fear. With the two older women secured, he had Beth handcuff Ella before putting the cuffs on the last of the women himself. “Tape them up,” he said turning to Harry, “and we’ll be on our way. Do you want to bring the other two?”

 

“I’m not bothered,” said Harry, as he started to wrap tape across Carol’s mouth, “probably just a complication. Not worth it, I’d say.”

 

Freddie looked at me. “Any of your lot want them?” he asked. I shook my head; the more I did with account clients the less need I saw for random pick-ups. “OK, make a bit of a mess. Our hosts will think they’ve been turned over by ungrateful clients. Then let’s get going,” said Freddie, grabbing the two daughters by the arms and hustling them towards a back door that led out onto a fire escape. Harry followed with Carol. I turned over a few files and pulled some drawers out of the desks and cabinets. It’s surprising how much of a mess you can make quite quickly. I grabbed hold of Alice and pushed her along behind the others. Freddie led the way to one of our regular white vans and our captives were soon installed in the back. Clegg shut the doors.

 

“Aren’t you going to blindfold them?” I asked.

 

“No point,” he said, climbing in to the driving seat.

 

“Why,” I asked as Clegg passed Harry the envelope that Alice had given him. Harry waved it in acknowledgement and headed off to his own vehicle. The van pulled away with me in the front alongside Freddie, our cargo moaning quietly behind us. “Where’s Harry off to? Where are we going?”

 

“We’re taking them to their home,” said Clegg, mysteriously without explaining about Harry. I sat back and wondered just what it was Clegg was up to. Most of the kidnappings I had seen so far had involved taking the captive away from their homes not the other way around. And I still didn’t see how it was going to help Tricia.