“What’s next?” Gristhorpe asked.
“Well, Martin Armitage told me that when he asked to speak to Luke, the kidnapper wouldn’t let him, said Luke was somewhere else.”
“So?” said DC Templeton. “That’s perfectly likely, isn’t it?”
“But he was calling from Luke’s mobile,” Annie pointed out.
“I still don’t see your point,” said Templeton. “Mobiles are mobile. You can take them anywhere. That’s what they’re for.”
Annie sighed. “Think about it, Kev. If Luke’s being kept somewhere where there isn’t a phone, then the kidnapper might have to go to a phone box, and he’d be unlikely to take Luke with him. But the kidnapper was using Luke’s mobile, so why isn’t he with Luke?”
“Could be where they’re keeping the lad is out of cell range,” suggested DC Rickerd.
“Possible,” Annie agreed, remembering her time out of range. “But isn’t it usual for kidnappers to let the people they want the money from speak to their loved ones? Isn’t it an incentive to pay? Proof of life?”
“Good point, Annie,” said Gristhorpe. “So we’ve got two unusual variations on the formula. First, the time delay, and second, no proof of life. Anything else?”
“Yes,” said Annie. “The ransom demand.”
“What about it?” asked Gristhorpe.
“It’s nowhere near enough.”
“But the Armitages aren’t as rich as people think they are,” argued Templeton.
“My point exactly, Kev. So they’re struggling to maintain Swainsdale Hall and whatever lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to. We know that now, since I talked to them, but it wasn’t common knowledge. As police, we’re privy to a lot of inside information. It’s our lifeblood. But if you kidnapped the son of a famous ex-model and a famous ex-footballer, living in a place like Swainsdale Hall, how much would you think they were worth? How much would you ask them for the life of their son? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? Fifty? I’d go to a hundred, myself, or maybe a quarter of a million. Let them negotiate down a few thousand from there. I certainly wouldn’t start at ten.”
“So maybe the kidnapper knew they were on their uppers?” Templeton suggested. “Maybe it’s someone who knows the family?”
“Then why kidnap Luke at all? Why not go for someone who had more money?”
“Maybe that’s all they needed. Maybe it’s enough.”
“You’re clutching at straws, Kev.”
Templeton smiled. “Just playing devil’s advocate, ma’m, that’s all. But if you’re right, then perhaps they don’t have quite the intelligence we’re crediting them with.”
“Okay. Point taken.” Annie looked at Gristhorpe. “But don’t you think it’s all a bit puzzling when you add it up, sir?”
Gristhorpe paused and made a steeple of his thick fingers on the desk before answering. “I do,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve had to deal with many kidnappings over the course of my career – and for that I thank the Lord, because it’s a cowardly crime – but I’ve dealt with a few, and none of them have been as riddled with anomalies as this one. What are your conclusions, Annie?”
“Either it’s an amateur job,” Annie answered. “Very amateur, like some junkie who saw the chance to get enough money for his next few fixes and now he’s too scared to go through with it.”
“Or?”
“Or it’s something else entirely. A setup, a diversion, the ransom demand merely to deflect us, confuse us, and something else is going on.”
“Like what?” Gristhorpe asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Annie answered. “All I know is that in either scenario the outcome looks bad for Luke.”
It wasn’t fair, thought Andrew Naylor, the man from the Ministry, as he drove his government Range Rover over the disinfectant pad at the entrance to the unfenced road above Gratly. He had nothing to do with foot-and-mouth control, yet in the eyes of the locals, all government employees were tarred with the same brush. Everyone knew him in the area, and before the outbreak no one had paid him much mind. Now, though, he was getting sick of the resentful looks he got when he walked into a shop or a pub, the way conversations stopped and whispers began, and the way people sometimes even expressed their anger to his face. In one pub, they had been so hostile toward him he thought they were going to beat him up.
It didn’t do the slightest bit of good to tell them that he worked for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, in the Water and Land Directorate, and that his job was water, because that only made them think of Yorkshire Water – of droughts, leakages, shortages and restrictions on washing their bloody cars and watering their lawns – and then they got even angrier.
It was part of Andrew’s job to collect water samples from local lakes, ponds, tarns and reservoirs, and these were later tested for contaminants at the Central Science Laboratory. Because some of these bodies of water were surrounded by open country, Andrew was one of the few with a special dispensation to visit them, after taking all the proper precautions, of course.
That day, his last call was Hallam Tarn, a godforsaken, hollowed-out bowl of water on the very top of the moor, beyond Tetchley Fell. Legend had it that the place used to be a village once, but the villagers took to Satanic practices, so God smote them with his fist and the tarn was created in place of the village. It was said that on certain days of the year you could see the old houses and streets beneath the water’s surface and hear the cries of the villagers. Sometimes, when the light was right and the curlew’s cry piped across the desolate moor, Andrew could almost believe it.
Today, though, the sun was shining, and the honeyed air was still and sweet. Summer seemed to have arrived at last, and Andrew couldn’t imagine any hint of evil taking place.
The deepest part of the tarn ran closest to the road, and a tall, solid drystone wall separated it from children and drunks and anyone else foolish enough to wander around up there in the dark. To get access to the water, you had to drive a few yards farther on, cross the stile and take a footpath that led to its shallow shore. In the days before the government restrictions, it had been a popular spot for ramblers and picnickers, but these days it was off-limits, except to people such as Andrew. A government poster nailed to the stile warned people to stay out on penalty of a steep fine.
Before heading out with his dinghy and his sample jar, Andrew sprayed his Wellington boots with disinfectant and donned his plastic outerwear. He felt like a spaceman preparing for a walk on the moon. He also felt hot inside the protective clothing, and all he wanted to do was get this over with as soon as possible, then head home for a nice long bath and an evening out in Northallerton with Nancy, maybe the pictures, a spot of dinner and a drink after.
Feeling the sweat drip down the back of his neck, he walked along the narrow dirt path the hundred yards or so to the edge of the tarn and squatted by the waterside to fill his sample jar. It was so quiet up there, he could imagine himself the only man left in the world. Because he had to take samples from various depths, he got in the small dinghy and began to row. The tarn wasn’t much bigger than a large pond, maybe a couple of hundred yards long and a hundred wide, but it was quite deep in places. Andrew felt a little disquiet at being out there all alone, not another soul in sight, and whenever he looked down into the water he fancied he could see a roof or a street below. It was an optical illusion, of course, most likely caused by the sun on the water, but it unnerved him nonetheless.
When he neared the wall, he noticed some dark material snagged on the roots of an old tree. The tree was gone, but gnarled roots still jutted out of the bank like arms reaching out of a grave, and there was something about their arched, sinewy shapes that upset Andrew even more. Curious about the material, however, he put his fears aside and rowed closer. Legends and myths couldn’t harm him.