“Well, it commits us, doesn’t it?”
The girl nodded. “I think it does. The ironic thing about it is that an invention we added to the story for the sake of realism has now made it too damned real.” She clenched her hand. “Christ, of all the moments to pick to...”
Lanching completed the tailed-off sentence. “...to die?”
“I can just imagine,” Birdie said, “a policeman’s face when we explain that because a blue film scandal proved not to be scandalous after all we first fixed up a phony kidnapping and then made it look real by extorting fifteen thousand quid out of our employers, at which moment the supposed kidnappee happened to drop dead.”
Becket seized his chance. “I was trying to tell you...”
She glanced at him. “Sorry, Bob.”
“Heckington’s coming over. Probably by a night train. He’s bringing the money. Used notes. They thought that would be what was wanted.”
“Heckington?” echoed Lanching.
“The barrister,” Birdie reminded him. “Sir Arthur. I suppose Richardson imagines you’ve only to produce a British QC and criminals will say sorry and pack it in.”
“One thing’s sure,” Becket said. “He’ll be for telling the police right away. He’ll do it himself if we won’t.”
Birdie shook her head. “Sir Arthur will do precisely what he has always done—what he gets paid for. He will obey the instructions of Herald Newspapers Limited.” She paused. “Incidentally, does either of you know if Clive was being treated for heart trouble or anything? Did he ever say?”
“There were those white things he was always taking,” said Lanching. “Those capsules.”
“After meals, that was,” Becket added.
“Probably just antacid capsules, then,” said Birdie. “I remember he used to stuff them down fairly liberally. No, it’s just that I’d feel happier if I were sure that the police would have no possible grounds for thinking that we...you know, had sort of helped the poor sod’s exit.”
Both men stared at her.
“Why on earth should they think that?” Lanching asked.
“I should have thought it fairly obvious. They are not likely to be predisposed in our favour when they hear that the kidnapping was a fraud.”
“But it was Clive’s idea,” Becket said.
“And how do we prove that?” Birdie went back to the sideboard and replenished her drink. With a gesture she invited the others to offer their glasses. “The money part wasn’t his idea,” she said.
“We haven’t had any money yet,” said Becket. “We can tell Heckington to take it back.”
It was Lanching’s turn to make objection. “No. That would just be interpreted as panic. It wouldn’t alter the way things are going to seem to the police. I think Birdie’s right. Confessions are out.”
The telephone began ringing.
They looked at one another, startled as if by a development totally unexpected.
Lanching broke the tension. “Must be the kidnappers.”
Becket laughed.
Birdie put a finger to her lips, waited a few moments, then lifted the receiver.
It was Richardson. He sounded annoyed and bewildered. “I do think, Miss Clemenceaux, that you might do more to keep us informed at this end. It’s extremely...”
She interrupted him firmly. He talked on against her for some moments, but finally stalled and asked her with some show of concern to repeat something she had just said.
“I told you I had made contact with these people. Personal contact.”
There was a pause. “Go on,” he said.
“I got back only a couple of minutes before you rang. It was a man. I didn’t see him, of course. And there was nothing special about his voice. The appointment was made by phone and at such short notice—deliberately, I suppose—that I couldn’t have arranged to be followed. In any case, they’d repeated their threat about Mr Grail, so I wouldn’t have dared.”
“And where was the appointment? I don’t quite understand what you mean about not seeing this man.”
“If you must know, I was told to go to a ladies’ lavatory in an all-night car park in town—here in Flaxborough, that is.”
Becket and Lanching exchanged awed glances. Birdie, listening to Richardson with undisguised impatience, winked at them.
“Do you mean to say you met this man—by arrangement—in a ladies’ lavatory?” The managing editor sounded deeply shocked.
Birdie resisted the temptation to make a flippant retort. “He was standing outside apparently,” she said. “There’s a public path there. He spoke through a ventilator in the wall. I could hear him all right, but there was nothing about the voice that I should recognize again.”
“What had he to say concerning the money?”
“Only that it would have to be delivered by me and nobody else.”
“Delivered?”
“That’s the word he used.”
“Did he give you an address?”
Birdie directed a glance of despair at the ceiling. “It was scarcely likely that he would do that, Mr Richardson. I assume that I shall get further instructions over the phone.”
There was a grunt from Richardson. “Sir Arthur Heckington is bringing the money personally. He is on the night train, I understand. And Miss Clemenceaux...’
“Yes?”
“I wish you to leave the handling of this affair to him. He is more used to this sort of thing.”
“What, kidnapping?”
“I think,” said Richardson, crossly, “that you know what I mean. Negotiations. Handling criminals. The law is his business, after all.”
“Of course.” Birdie suppressed a yawn with difficulty. She was just beginning to realize how tired she was.
“That tape,” she said, after Richardson had rung off. “We ought to check it now, while we are still on our own.”
The emergence of Grail’s voice from the recorder’s little speaker had something of the heartless quality of clinical experiment. Grave-faced, all three, they listened to the words growing slower, more distorted by distress and pain.
Birdie shook her head. “Poor sod—I thought he was hamming it up.”
“I suppose,” said Lanching, hesitantly, “that we’re listening to him actually dying. It’s there—on record.”
Becket suddenly gave a start. “One good thing,” he said. “That tape does at least put us absolutely in the clear. I mean, if we had been to blame for old Clive’s death, it’s damn hard to believe that he’d have rung us up specially for us to get it on tape.”
They ran the tape through once again.