Frankie (21 page)

The policewoman nodded sympathetically. ‘If you're sure,' she said. ‘It will take us an hour or so to finish up downstairs. Victim support will come round and talk to you in the next few days. If you need anything in the meantime, you can call me or talk to the officer outside.' She removed her notepad from her top pocket, wrote down the station number and handed it to June.

‘I will. Thank you for all your help.'

The two officers left, leaving June in her kitchen, alone, shaken and still very frightened. Her only comfort was the officer waiting outside until the glaziers arrived.

The ugly, seventies frontage of Bath police station seemed less severe in the half-light of dawn, the harsh concrete lines, which were supposed to mingle gently with the ashlar facades of the period buildings around, were softened slightly by the sunrise. The road outside was practically empty, and the stillness of the fading night was interrupted only by the dawn chorus, almost deafeningly loud and strangely beautiful in the middle of the city.

In the basement, Rob Elliott was looking forward to the end of another night shift. He looked at his watch – a quarter to six. Fifteen minutes and he'd be out of here, and not before time. It had been a particularly slow shift. He picked up a green file – a scene of crime officer's report that had been dropped in an hour or so ago – and pulled out a sheet of fingerprint markings. The system in front of him was logged on to the NAFIS – the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It contained a database of nearly six million prints, and Rob felt as if he'd seen practically every single one of them since he started in the job a couple of months ago. If the computer came up with a match, he'd inform the SOCOs involved and they would pass it on to the officer in charge; and that would be that as far as he was concerned. His friends teased him that he was a budding Sherlock Holmes; if only they knew the monotonous truth. The title of Fingerprint Officer might sound grand, but the reality was hours on end stuck in the basement feeding
bits of paper into machines. Rob inserted the sheet into the slot and waited for it to do its business. Get this one done, he thought, and I'll go home.

Suddenly the computer beeped. Rob furrowed his brow and looked at it – normally it didn't make a sound. A small window had appeared on the screen. He grabbed his glasses from the table and studied it:
CLASSIFIED FINGERPRINT MATCH
. The words flashed slowly on the screen, and below was an instruction to call a London number immediately. Rob had never seen anything like this before – not that he necessarily should have done – and for a moment he considered calling the duty sergeant down, just to double-check what he should do. Then he looked at his watch again. Ten to. Get any of that lot upstairs involved and he could be here all morning. He picked up the phone and dialled the number.

There was a ringing tone at the other end; it stopped for a moment, and then the tone started up again, slightly different this time as if the call had been diverted to another number. It took a while for it to be answered; when it was, the voice at the other end was curt and unfriendly.

‘Yes?'

‘This is Rob Elliott at Bath Police Station. I've just fed some fingerprints into the NAFIS database and I got a message to call this number.'

The voice at the other end softened slightly. ‘Thanks for calling, Rob. This is a branch of Scotland Yard. Can you give me the details of the case?' Rob didn't bother to ask which branch, knowing the number to be secure as it was already on the database.

‘Just a minute.' Rob opened the file and scanned
through the scene of crime report. ‘Break-in at a commercial premises in Bath.' He read out the address.

‘What time did the incident take place?'

‘It was phoned in at 01:08. Officers attended the scene ten minutes later, but there was no sign of the suspects. Owner was still there – she lives in a flat above the shop.'

‘Does the file give any indication of whether the fingerprints are likely to be the suspects'?'

Rob took another look at the file. ‘I'm sorry, I can't tell. I've never had to do this before.' He sounded a bit flustered.

‘Don't worry,' the voice said soothingly. ‘Take your time.'

He read the report again, more slowly this time. ‘The scene of crime officers seem to think so.' He carried on reading. ‘But they were found all over the shop. They don't match those of the owner, but it seems a bit unlikely to me that the burglars would have left such a trail.'

The voice at the other end of the phone ignored Rob's suppositions. ‘Is there anything else?'

‘Hang on.' He read a bit further. ‘Yeah, apparently there's a girl who helps out sometimes in the shop, but we haven't identified her prints yet.'

‘Do you have a name?'

‘The owner says her name is Frankie Gibbs.'

‘Right. Let me just check I have that address written down correctly, and I'll need the crime number,' he said. Rob read it out again. ‘OK, good,' said the voice. ‘Thank you for calling us so promptly.'

There was a click at the other end of the line as the voice hung up.

Morgan Tunney's Belgravia house was grand but anonymous. A black metal railing protected the pavement from the sheer drop leading down to the basement – passers-by could never help glancing down to ogle the ultra-modern kitchen it housed, which was a stark difference to the Georgian elegance of the building itself. The square in which it stood was quiet, off the rat run of the London rush hour that would soon start up, and the leafy gardens at the centre were peaceful and empty.

On the roof opposite Tunney's house a blond-haired man was lying down in the sniper position, looking through the lens of an SSG-3000 high-powered sniper rifle. It was resting on its tripod, with the front of the attached long-barrelled silencer barely visible through the parapet of the Georgian building.

Andreas had been there since dawn. He knew Tunney's schedule, and he knew that he often left early in the morning. Today was different, for some reason: he was late. Andreas didn't know why, but he didn't let it bother him. Tunney was in there, he was sure of that. He'd be out soon enough, and when he was …

He massaged his right shoulder slightly: he didn't want to become stiff when the time came. Military training and years of experience had taught him that. It was a light enough weapon, although the reflex-sight attachment added to its weight, but the whole thing had started to
feel heavy after over an hour of being pointed in the direction of the front door. It was worth it, though: the fibre-optic device created a red dot in the middle of the scope, visible only to the shooter and not to the target. Andreas seldom missed, but it was good to have this insurance. Attached to his ear was a Bluetooth mobile phone attachment; but the phone had been switched to silent mode since he arrived, and his attention remained firmly focused on the house.

There had been movement inside for a while now. He had seen the lights switch on and curtains pulled open; and a wodge of letters that a postman had left half sticking out of the letter box had been pulled inside. It was only a matter of time before Tunney's car arrived and he stepped out of the house. Andreas was already going to have to eliminate the driver, and he hoped that there would not be any unfortunate pedestrians wallking along in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Andreas didn't like Tunney. He was a greedy little man out of his depth, with little respect for the blond man's professionalism. Of course he would never let his personal likes and dislikes get in the way of his work, but under different circumstances he would have been happy to eliminate the fat little banker and his unpleasant attitude. As it happened, though, he thought this was a mistake. Why bring attention to the situation by leaving a dead body on the streets of central London? There was no way Tunney was going to squeal – he didn't have the guts. Andreas knew his type.

But this wasn't his call. He had his orders, and deep down he knew everyone was being jumpy with good reason: they had failed to find the girl.

Andreas clocked the black Bentley as it pulled into the square and parked outside the house. The heavy red front door opened, and Andreas trained his sights on it. He wanted to wait until the door was shut and his target was on the street before he fired – that way he would have a few extra moments to make his escape before the wife realized what had happened. Two figures appeared at the door: Mr and Mrs Tunney, kissing each other goodbye in a scene that was no doubt being replayed across the whole country. The front door swung shut and Tunney walked down the steps to the pavement, oblivious to the fact that a small red dot was trained expertly on his forehead.

And then Andreas's phone rang – not a ring tone, but a vibration in his jacket pocket. He cursed under his breath in a foreign language, slipped his hand into his pocket and pressed a button, keeping his gun firmly directed at Tunney's head as he waited impatiently for his driver to get out of the car and open the door for him. Andreas wanted to wait until the two men were next to each other before he fired. ‘Yes?' he whispered under his breath.

‘The girl Francesca Mills. We've found her.'

Andreas blinked heavily. The two men were together now. If he was going to take them out, this was the time. Tunney was just starting to duck down in order to climb into the car. His finger twitched on the trigger.

And then he let the gun down.

He watched in silence as the two men got into the car and drove slowly away. He hadn't noticed it, but a thin film of sweat had collected on his upper lip.

‘Andreas, are you there?'

‘Yes,' the blond man replied quietly. ‘I'm here. Are you
sure it's her?' He was already dismantling his gun and packing it into a metal case by his side, ready for the next time.

‘Definite. We have a positive fingerprint match.'

Andreas stood up and walked down the fire escape. ‘Good,' he said. His bleak face did not indicate that he was pleased. ‘Where is she?'

Keith put his key in the front door and was surprised to find it unlocked. He shook his head and chastised himself slightly – he must have forgotten to lock it that morning. Hardly surprising, he supposed. He'd slept badly, what with Frankie and Jasper being away for the first time since his son had been born. He'd been worrying about them. Frankie had told him on the phone last night not to be silly, that they were fine, but it was a father's prerogative to worry about his family, and he'd told her so, saying it as a joke but in fact he was perfectly serious. Keith was looking forward to having her back.

And then there was June. She had called this morning to tell him about the break-in, and although she was doing her best to be calm, to play it down, he could recognize the note of stress as she spoke. She had insisted that she was OK, that the police had looked after her well and that someone had come to repair the damaged window, and Keith had promised that he would bring Frankie round the moment she got back. ‘Don't worry about it,' she had told him, but Keith was adamant. Truth be told, he was a bit frustrated that he wouldn't be able to spend the evening alone with his family, but he knew that Frankie would insist on going round when she heard the news. Maybe they would argue about it, maybe they wouldn't.
So with everything going on in his head, it was no wonder that he was distracted enough to forget about locking the door.

He walked into the house and put his keys on the table in the hall as he always did, then went into the kitchen. He had scrawled a note to himself on a piece of paper on the kitchen table: ‘J/F, collect 6.55.' He looked at his watch. Twenty-five past six. Frankie's train was due into the station in thirty minutes, so there was time for him to have a quick shower and to get into some clean clothes. He walked up the stairs, undoing his tie as he did so.

Moments later he was dropping his clothes onto the bedroom floor. It made Frankie mad when he did that – she was almost obsessively tidy – and he smiled slightly at the image of her picking up his clothes with a silence that said more than any argument could hope to. He walked naked down the hallway to the bathroom, where he switched on the shower and waited for the hot water to come through before getting in and soaping himself down.

Once he had finished, he grabbed a towel and started to dry his hair as he tottered, dripping wet, along the hallway and back into the bedroom, leaving a trail of damp footprints on the carpet behind him. He stepped into the bedroom, dried himself and walked over to the other side of the bed to collect his clothes.

Then he heard the door shut softly behind him.

He jumped at the unexpected noise and turned round, his skin tingling with the momentary shock. Standing at the door was a tanned, thickset man with blond hair and blue eyes. He was holding a small black gun, and it was pointed directly at Keith. ‘Are you familiar with this gun?' he asked in a steady, threatening voice.

Keith froze, too shocked even to shake his head.

‘It's a .44 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world. If I shoot you now, the bullet will pass straight through your body and into the wall behind you.' He smiled a humourless smile. ‘It goes without saying, then, that you will do precisely what I say. If you try anything foolish, I will kill you without a second thought. Do you understand?'

‘What do you want?' Keith demanded, suddenly shaking from cold and fear in equal measure. The man opened the door and stepped backwards. He stood at the top of the stairs and gestured with a flick of his gun that Keith should walk down. ‘I need to get dressed,' he told him – the words came out jabbering and indistinct. The blond man shook his head and flicked his gun again impatiently.

Keith walked reluctantly to the door and headed down the stairs. ‘Go into the kitchen,' he heard him say firmly. Despite the fact that there was a man with a gun behind him, he still felt embarrassed by his situation and held his hands modestly over himself to hide his nakedness as he turned left at the bottom of the stairs and went into the kitchen. It wasn't a big room, but there was enough space for a small dining table and chairs.

‘Pull out a chair and sit in the middle of the room,' the man said.

Keith did as he was told. The blond man pulled a roll of gaffer tape from his pocket and wrapped it in thick swathes over Keith's midriff and round the back of the chair. Keith struggled, but his arms were taped to his sides and he couldn't move them. The chair rattled a little as he jerked his body around, so the man took his gun
and rapped him fiercely around the side of the face. Keith shouted in pain, then sat still while his legs were taped to the chair.

Once he was secured, the man seemed more relaxed. ‘You're making a mistake,' Keith breathed at him. ‘I don't know what you want, but you've got the wrong person.' He was too scared now to be embarrassed, aware that whoever this man was, he wouldn't hesitate to hurt him badly.

‘Shut up,' the man replied. He looked around the kitchen and opened a few drawers, rifling through the cooking implements before finding what he was looking for. He walked back to Keith holding a small, black, kitchen blowtorch. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, lit the blowtorch and held it close to Keith's face. ‘Where is she?' he asked directly.

‘I don't know what you're talking about.' Keith stared straight at him, hoping that the lie did not show in his eyes. Somehow it made sense that this man was after Frankie. Somehow the mystery seemed complete.

The blond man nodded his head slowly. He moved the blowtorch away from Keith's face, then pushed it hard against his shoulder. Keith screamed as the flame burned into his flesh. As the man pulled the blowtorch away, his victim started retching – from the fear, from the pain, and from the smell of his burning skin that had suddenly filled the room. It didn't seem to worry his torturer – he waited until the retching had stopped before punching the burn wound and then inflicting another one on the opposite shoulder. Keith shouted less loudly this time – he was unable to catch his breath enough to do so, and his voice sounded hoarse and strangulated. ‘Please …' he begged.

‘Let's try again,' the blond man insisted grimly. ‘Where is she?'

‘I told you, I don't know what you're talking about.'

Instantly the man placed the burning blowtorch against Keith's skin and listened impassively as he screamed again. Then he unlocked the safety catch and pointed his gun directly at Keith's forehead. ‘I will kill you if you don't tell me where Francesca Mills is.'

A huge sob escaped Keith's mouth and his head drooped onto his chest. ‘Gibbs,' he whispered. ‘Not Mills. You've got the wrong person.'

‘Where is she?' The blond man's voice was implacable.

‘She's not here.'

‘I didn't ask you where she's not. I asked you where she is.'

Briefly, involuntarily, Keith glanced at the piece of paper on the table with the train time written on it, then scrunched up his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. But with the skilled observation of the trained interrogator, the blond man noticed his subtle movement. He picked up the piece of paper, then nodded in satisfaction. ‘I suggest we wait for her,' he said blankly. ‘Where does the woman keep her jewellery?'

Keith gazed at him in shock. ‘Is that all you want?' Suddenly Andreas swiped him again across the side of his face with the butt of the gun. ‘I don't like repeating my questions. Where does she keep her jewellery?'

‘She doesn't have any,' Keith spat. ‘Not here. Look, if it's money you want, my wallet is upstairs. Take it …'

‘Shut up,' Andreas told him in a level voice. ‘Francesca Mills seems to have a habit of surrounding herself with tiresome people. The lady in the flower shop, for example.'

Keith looked daggers at him. ‘What have you done to June, you bastard?'

‘Nothing, yet. She has been lucky. I could have killed her when she refused to tell me where you live but, fortunately for her, her address book was close at hand. I promise you, though, that I will put a bullet in her skull if I don't get what I want, just like I will put one in yours. Now, you are lying about her jewellery. She has a silver engraved locket. Where is it?'

Keith looked at him in utter confusion. ‘She's wearing it. She always does. Why –'

But his question was interrupted by the sudden ringing of the phone. The two men stared at the cordless handset as it sat on the kitchen table, a little red light blinking in time with the ring. It sounded four or five times before Keith spoke. ‘Let me answer it,' he demanded through gritted teeth.

‘I don't think so,' the blond man replied almost to himself. ‘We'll let her think that you are out and make her own way here. It will be easier for us that way.'

Frankie hung up the phone. Where the hell was Keith? He had promised to pick her up. She tried his mobile number, but it rang out and went to voicemail. ‘Keith, it's me. Where are you? Jasper's tired. If you're not here soon I'll have to make my own way back.'