“Well, thank you—both of you—for coming so quickly,” she said. Her eyes flicked back to me. “I wasn’t sure, when you rang, if I’d said enough, but that dreadful woman was listening in and I couldn’t say more—”
“You said enough,” Sean assured her.
“Yes,” she said faintly. We were all silent. Then she took a breath and said, “I know I should prosecute them, for what they did, but I … can’t. Besides anything else, we don’t know what that might do to Richard’s situation.”
“Did they say anything to you at all—about why they were here?” I asked. “Or what this is all about?”
She shook her head, frowning. “Not really,” she said. “I knew something was wrong, of course, but until you told me, I’d no idea it was … as bad as you say.” She looked up suddenly, hope growing on her face. “But he can come home now, can’t he? That would solve things.”
“Not yet,” I said, feeling mean for dashing her back down again. “I’m sorry. He was still in jail when we left.”
“You said he’d been arrested in a b—brothel,” she said bravely, wincing either at the sound or the very thought of the word. “What on earth was he doing there?”
I felt my mouth start to open while I scrambled to cobble together a believable lie, but my brain refused to do anything other than replay the memory tape of us barging into that room and finding my father well on the way to a compromising position with the naked, painfully young Asian girl. It was an image I didn’t think I’d ever fully erase.
“He was most likely coerced,” Sean said coolly, stepping in. “Charlie saw him picked up from his hotel and taken there, and he didn’t exactly look willing. They were probably holding the threat of your safety over him.” He glanced at me. “It would explain why they didn’t need to stay with him to make sure he … played his part.”
He’d been putting a little too much realism into that particular piece of acting for my taste, but I didn’t voice the opinion.
“I see.” She was silent for a moment. “But what I don’t understand—about any of this—is why? Why pick on us to … torment in this way?”
“We were rather hoping,” I said, “that you might be able to tell us that.”
“I can’t!” she said, voice climbing towards shrill. She stopped, took a breath, and continued in a lower register. “What I mean is, I have no idea why those … people turned up on my doorstep. Richard never mentioned anything before he left.”
“Are you sure?” I said, adding quickly, “I’m not suggesting you’re going senile, Mother. But with hindsight, has he seemed distracted, or worried about anything lately?”
“Well, he certainly hasn’t been himself since he last returned from America,” she admitted, sliding me a reproachful little look over the rim of her cup.
I don’t remember much about the four days immediately following my near-fatal shooting, which was probably just as well. But when I was finally allowed to wake in that hospital in Maine, my father’s unfriendly face was the first thing that greeted me. He’d made his displeasure at my situation pretty clear without, it seemed to me, managing to express much concern for my welfare. I’d taken what comfort I could from the fact that he was there at all but, afterward I’d wondered if he’d been lured across the Atlantic mainly by a professional interest in the intricacies of the surgery I’d undergone.
“What about this doctor friend of his they mentioned on the news?” Sean asked, cutting into my gloomy thoughts. “Jeremy Lee. They were dropping hints that your husband might have had something to do with his death.”
“He most certainly did not,” my mother said stoutly. The speed of her response had a knee-jerk quality to it, but the words were underwritten by a tremor of doubt. She rushed to cover it. “Richard believes life is absolutely sacrosanct. He’s dedicated his career—his life—to its preservation,” she said, more firmly now. And, just to prove she was feeling more like her old self, she added, “Something you might have difficulty understanding.”
Sean was hard to read at the best of times, and now he gave no indication that he took offense at her remark. Whether he did or not was immaterial. I took offense enough for both of us.
Instead, he rose and nodded to her, expressionless. “I’d better go and check that our guests are still sitting uncomfortably. If you’ll excuse me?” he said with excruciating politeness. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Foxcroft.”
He walked out and, a few moments later, I heard the front door slam behind him.
My mother, as if only just realizing what she’d done, showed her distress in the flutter of a hand to her throat, the tremulous mouth and doe eyes.
I rose, too, unmoved by the tricks I’d seen her use too many times before. At least it was a sign she was almost back to normal.
Didn’t take her long after a four-day ordeal, though, did it?
“Pack some things,” I said, abrupt. “If we can’t bring my father to you, we’ll have to take you to him, and try to get to the bottom of this. Make sure you’ve got your passport.”
I gathered Sean’s and my empty crockery and took them to the sink to rinse out. When I was done, I turned back to find my mother had risen but not approached, as if she wasn’t sure of her reception if she got closer.
“Charlotte, I’m sorry,” she said, sounding convincingly wretched. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, you probably didn’t,” I said tiredly. “But just bear this in mind, Mother, before you’re so quick to condemn Sean. If he wasn’t the way he is—if we both weren’t, come to that—you’d still be stuck here listening to Don’s plans for a funfilled evening by the fire.”
CHAPTER 10
“Okay, people, we’re faced with a bit of a dilemma,” I said cheerfully. “What do we do with you two?”
I glanced from a subdued Don to his sullen companion and smiled. They were both lying on their sides on the cold painted floor of the garage, well away from my father’s dark green Jaguar XK8 and the dust cover that hid my laid-up Fire-Blade, tucked away behind it.
Sean had bound them efficiently, so their wrists and ankles were bent back behind them and taped together. I’d been tied like that during Resistance to Interrogation exercises during Selection and I knew it was bloody uncomfortable for anything longer than a few minutes at a time. I reckoned they’d probably been like that now for more than an hour.
Sean had also added a nasty refinement. Several bands of the reinforced tape went from their feet and looped up round their necks, so if they relaxed they ran the risk of asphyxiating themselves. Blondie seemed to be coping with this better than Don, who had clearly chosen muscle bulk over flexibility and was starting to suffer for it.
He hadn’t been looking too good to start with. I don’t know what methods Sean had employed in his attempts to get information out of the pair of them, but Don’s skin had now taken on the color and texture of a melted candle.
Sean had also used Steri-Strips to put Blondie’s nose back together, and had affixed a dressing to the wound in her leg using more duct tape around her thigh, but I daresay he hadn’t been particularly gentle with any of it.
“You’re obviously aware that we can’t let you loose,” I said. “Just as you know we’re not going to turn you over to the police. So, what choices do we have?”
I crouched and made eye contact with Blondie. Of the two of them, she seemed to be the leader and I knew that if she folded Don would follow.
“From here, we’re about forty-five minutes from a place called Saddleworth Moor,” I said, still conversational. “Out in the Pennine hills. It’s very … isolated.” I let my voice harden. “During the 1960s, a couple called Ian Brady and Myra Hindley abducted a number of young children, raped and murdered them, then buried the bodies out on the moor. Some of those bodies,” I continued placidly, “have never been found.”