Stranger Child Read online

  Stupid, stupid. Of course the battery would be flat after all this time. She sifted through the odds and ends that had been stuffed into the box. Somewhere, there had to be a charger. If they wanted money – she would get it. Pride wasn’t going to stand in her way now. She just hoped and prayed that he had kept the same mobile number.

  24

  Tom’s mobile was ringing when he returned from the early-afternoon briefing session. It hadn’t been a particularly productive meeting. They had chased every loose end they could find to trace who the dead girl was and were still absolutely nowhere. The DNA analysis from Amy Davidson had come back negative, so whoever the dead child was, it wasn’t Amy. She was still missing, and Tom had requested an increase in the size of the team. Somebody had to know who this child was. How could a girl so young not be missed?

  He picked up his phone.

  ‘Tom Douglas.’

  ‘Tom, it’s Leo. I hope it’s okay to disturb you, but I wanted to have a word with you about that account of Jack’s. I was looking at the list again this morning, and I’m fairly certain that quite a few of the names were also on the client list I was looking through the other night. Do you want me to pop round to your house and compare the two?’

  Tom was silent. He had already made the connection himself but wasn’t prepared to share this with Leo yet, if ever. The other thing he knew was that the transaction dates of the money in the Swiss account all pre-dated the contract dates of the matching clients.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You enjoy your day and I’ll have a quick look when I get home.’

  ‘Did you have any joy with the bank?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. They’re going to call me back. They’ve warned me that if it turns out the account really is Jack’s then unless I am specifically named in the account records as the beneficiary of his will, I won’t be able to access the funds. Not that I want them, but at least they could go to charity or something. They’re going to check and see what the instructions are.’

  ‘And one other question, then I’ll let you go. This girl that’s come back from oblivion – she’s Natasha Joseph. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes it is. Why?’

  ‘Her dad’s David Joseph – the owner of Joseph & Son in Manchester?’

  ‘The very same. David’s the son, but I think his dad’s been dead for some years – why are you asking?’

  ‘He seems to have been one of Jack’s clients and he’s on both lists. An initial deposit of ten thousand pounds into the Swiss account. But I remembered his name from looking at the client list the other night because of the story of his daughter.’

  Tom was about to respond when his phone buzzed.

  ‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to talk to you about that another time. I’ve got a call waiting, and it looks like a foreign number so I’d better take it. See you this evening.’

  Tom hung up on Leo and picked up his mobile. It was a number he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Tom Douglas,’ he said.

  A voice began to whisper down the line, almost too low for Tom to hear.

  ‘Please don’t speak. I haven’t got much time and I don’t know how long the credit will hold out on this phone. It’s Emma. Jack’s Emma. I know it’s been a long time, Tom – but I really need your help.’

  *

  ‘Okay, Tom, you know the drill. Nothing on open computers, no public phone conversations. Pick your covert team and let me know who you’ve got. But before you start the ball rolling, tell me quickly how you know Emma Joseph and any background you have.’

  Tom had been relieved to find Philippa Stanley in her office after he had put the phone down to Emma. The ‘no police’ directive meant this had to be handled by a specialist team, and while he was glad that Becky could be included, he would need support from his superintendent to pull the right people together.

  He leaned forwards in his chair, his forearms resting on his thighs, still reeling from the shock of hearing from Emma after all this time and discovering that she was Natasha Joseph’s stepmother. He felt he should have known that. He had only been thinking about her the night before when he was talking to Leo about Jack.

  ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to Emma for years. She was my brother Jack’s fiancée and they were good together. I don’t know what happened to them. Everything seemed fine, and then all of a sudden Emma was dumped and Jack wouldn’t tell me why. Emma ran off to Australia to stay with her dad.’

  ‘And then Jack died, is that right?’

  ‘Yes – in a speedboat accident in the Adriatic. I tried to contact Emma – basically to give her some of Jack’s money because, in my view, by rights it was hers anyway – but she wouldn’t touch it. I never heard from her again. I’ve never met David Joseph – Natasha Joseph is Becky’s case – so I had no idea his wife was Jack’s Emma.’

  ‘Well, on one level that’s good news. Although you once knew her, it seems that you’re not closely connected. If you can assure me that she is a distant connection, and she trusts you – which is the vital point – you can continue leading the investigation.’

  Tom scratched the side of his head, doing his best to avoid the question.

  ‘Emma didn’t contact me because I’m a policeman. She phoned me because she’s assuming there’s going to be a demand for money and she wanted to know if I’d pay the ransom, which I’d be more than happy to do. But there’s been no demand, and when I explained that – as a policeman – I had to report this, she went ballistic. I calmed her down, but she hasn’t entirely bought into police involvement, so we need to tread carefully. And she hasn’t told her husband she’s been in touch with me – at least not yet.’

  Tom would ideally prefer to get the whole family to somewhere safe – out of their own home. A ransom negotiation would be far more likely to succeed under police control, no matter what the Josephs had been told.

  Tom was certain that this wasn’t about a simple payoff, though. There were people with far more money than David Joseph not a million miles from Manchester, so why choose him?

  ‘What do you think’s going on, Tom? What’s your famous gut telling you?’ Philippa gave a half smile. Tom knew she had no time for instinct over evidence, but she understood that for Tom, talking about his hunches often resulted in some lateral thinking that produced results – although she would never attribute it to ‘gut’.

  Tom explained his doubts about this being a kidnap for ransom, and Philippa nodded her agreement.

  ‘I could be wrong,’ he said, ‘and I haven’t even hinted at this to Emma, but it has all the hallmarks of a classic tiger kidnap and my gut says that David Joseph is going to be asked to commit a crime on behalf of this gang. Natasha has to stay to see it through because if we turned up to interview her and she was missing, the plot – whatever it is – would fall apart.’

  Philippa leaned back, folding her arms, as if suddenly it all made sense.

  ‘Now we know why Natasha said she didn’t want them to call the police. That must have rattled a few cages. But it seems that whoever took her trained her well. From the little Mrs Joseph was able to tell you, it sounds as if the kid’s as cold as ice. What are we doing about keeping in touch with Emma?’

  Tom had decided to involve Gil Tennant, the technician he trusted the most. Nobody would suspect for a moment that he was a policeman. He looked as if a strong puff of wind would blow him over, and if he dressed true to form he would probably be wearing pink trainers with a matching fleece.

  ‘Gil’s going to find out how to add credit to Emma’s phone from the Australian telecoms company, and I want him to go out to the Josephs’ house and check if there are any bugs. I’m praying there wasn’t one in Emma’s bathroom. She’s obviously watched too many movies, though, because she’d taken the phone into their en suite, switched on the taps and spoken from the shower cubicle, so I’m fairly confident she wasn’t overheard.’

  ‘And her husband doesn’t know she contacted you?’
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  Tom shook his head, thinking of Emma’s comment. ‘He’s already suffered the pain of losing one child, so I think he’ll want to do whatever they say rather than risk anything happening to Ollie.’

  Philippa raised her eyebrows. ‘Can Emma Joseph handle this?’

  ‘She’s going to have to. If we’re going to get her son back, she hasn’t got much choice.’

  25

  The edges of Emma’s vision were obscured by a grey mist which seemed to be slowly thickening so that only one object was still visible in full iridescent colour: the resolute, impassive face of her stepdaughter.

  Natasha was sitting facing Emma across the table, seemingly indifferent to the torture she was putting them through. David marched from one end of the kitchen to the other, running a hand through his fine hair.

  ‘Why have you done this?’ Emma hissed between clenched teeth, her throat raw with tears. David looked anxiously at his wife.

  The only thing helping her to keep it together was the fact that Tom Douglas now knew what was happening. Somebody outside these four walls, other than the bastards who were holding her son, knew the torment she was suffering. Tom was going to help. She had nearly screamed when he had said he was going to have to make it official, but now she was relieved. It no longer felt as if it was her sole responsibility to get her son back. David, of course, wanted him back every bit as much as she did, but his pain had a different dimension – confused as it was by the horrific actions of his daughter.

  It had been a struggle to resist sitting by the phone in case Tom called her back, but she had hidden it in Ollie’s room – somewhere she doubted Natasha would look – and switched off both sound and vibrate. Tom had come good, as she had been certain he would. First a text to say that she now had plenty of credit on the phone, and then a second text to ask her about their alarm company: would David know when they last came to do some maintenance?

  An hour or so later when the front doorbell had rung, she had only just prevented David from answering it, certain that he would turn away whoever was calling. A dapper little man had stood on the doorstep with a clipboard and a bag of equipment and said he would only be fifteen minutes doing a routine check on all of the alarm equipment. He had asked them all to leave the kitchen while he tested the infrared detectors, and Emma had seen David’s look of incredulity that she had allowed this to happen, now of all times. But she had shrugged and dropped her head as if to say, ‘I’m not thinking straight.’ David had reached out to hug her and a momentary warmth had filled the cold cavity in her chest.

  The engineer had left, and since then they had once more been locked in emotional combat.

  ‘Natasha, I asked you a question. Why have you done this?’ Emma said again, this time opening her mouth wide and letting the emotion flow from her and settle around Natasha.

  ‘Your precious baby will be home soon if you do what you’re told. And then I’ll be out of your hair. Now shut the fuck up, will you?’

  David stopped his pacing. ‘Natasha,’ he said with such a note of horror that, under any other circumstances, Emma would have smiled. How could he be shocked at nothing more than an arrangement of four letters of the alphabet from a girl who had abducted his son?

  ‘I’m going upstairs,’ Emma said. ‘I’m going to sit in Ollie’s room for a while. Please don’t follow me. I don’t want to speak to you – either of you.’

  She sensed rather than saw David’s look of hurt. But unless she made him feel unwelcome he would want to be with her to try to offer her comfort, while at the same time trying to find excuses for Natasha’s behaviour. She didn’t want to listen to any meagre defence that David might construct in order to justify his daughter’s actions, and she couldn’t have him there if anything arrived from Tom.

  She hoped and prayed it would.

  *

  Less than a mile from Blue Meadow House, the Joseph family home, Tom sat in his car in a lay-by, waiting for Becky. He had sent her to check all the lanes in the vicinity of the house for any unusual activity before he got too close. He needed to find somewhere that Emma could reach on foot, as he was certain Natasha would have been instructed to stop them using their cars.

  Gil had called to say he found bugs in the kitchen, sitting room and in David and Emma’s bedroom. Tom hadn’t wanted the bugs removed; they had to be left in place, as if everything was going to plan.

  According to Gil, they were GPS bugs, activated by sound. In theory the police should be able to monitor signals from the house to the receiver, allowing them to trace where the receiving equipment was. But these were no amateurs and they would be bound to be employing counter-surveillance techniques of their own.

  He needed to know if the outside of the house was under surveillance. Although the fields around Blue Meadow House didn’t offer too many places for a watcher to hide, Tom knew only too well that on a job like this some guy might lie for hours in a cornfield to keep eyes on a property, so he’d organised a chopper with infrared detectors to circle the area. The news was good. Nobody was concealed in the fields.

  Becky’s black Golf slid into the lay-by behind Tom’s five-year-old navy-blue BMW – a car he reserved for work – and she hurried to his passenger door and jumped in.

  ‘Bloody freezing out there. Rather Emma than me, walking to meet you. Are you going to wait in your car?’

  ‘No such luck,’ Tom said. ‘If she’s seen getting into a car, that would be game over. I’m going to meet her in the wood down the road from them.’

  ‘It’s getting dark out there. She’s brave, isn’t she, going into a murky wood on her own?’

  ‘Desperate, I think. I doubt she’ll notice the dark or the cold. Anyway, what did you find?’

  ‘Nothing. The only cars around seemed to be going about their normal business and there weren’t many of them. I’ve got the numbers of all of them. I’m about to run a check on them now. But no parked cars, nothing ringing any alarm bells. They’re obviously trusting technology and Natasha to keep control.’

  Becky glanced at Tom and he could see concern written all over her face.

  ‘Are you okay with this, Tom? It’s bad enough when we don’t know the victims, but this must be difficult for you. What’s Emma like?’

  Tom gazed out of the side window, away from Becky.

  ‘She was a totally steadying influence on my rather bonkers brother. And then he dumped her.’

  Tom didn’t add how supportive Emma had been to him when his own marriage to Kate had failed a few months before Emma split with Jack, or how, over the years she’d spent with his brother, Emma had begun to feel like the sister he’d never had.

  ‘She’s a giver, if that makes sense. Always willing to help others, but she finds it very difficult to accept anything from people. I’m sorry we lost touch – especially now.’

  ‘This time she’s reached out to you, though, hasn’t she? I’m worried that you can’t be dispassionate about this case, Tom. Does Philippa know how close you were?’

  Tom turned back to Becky and narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not close to her. She’s somebody I used to know, which is why she was able to make contact with me. I’ve no personal interest in this case, other than making sure a baby boy is returned to his mother. Are we on the same page here, Becky?’

  ‘Got it,’ Becky said. ‘But if you have to have that conversation with anybody else, you need to be a whole lot more convincing.’

  26

  The comfort of the chair in Ollie’s room was doing nothing to soothe Emma. She pulled the phone out from the folds of the blanket she was clutching – a safe hiding place should anybody decide to follow her in here. The screen was blank. But then it was probably only about ten seconds since she had last checked.

  She stared at her son’s empty cot. She should have been giving him his bottle now, feeling his warm body snuggle against her as he looked up at her with his big eyes, just showing the first hint of sleepiness. Who was looking after him? They wouldn�
��t know that he hates apples but loves pears, would they? Would he be warm enough? Had David put his coat on before Tasha took him out?

  Her hand seemed to be set to automatic, dragging the phone from under the blanket every few seconds, then pushing it back. Out it came again – and this time the screen lit up. Emma felt a leap in her chest.

  There’s a small wood about half a mile from your house on the road that leads to Willow Farm. Get away from the house and meet me there when you can. You might need a torch. I’ll wait for as long as it takes. Your house is bugged. Careful what you say. Tom.

  Thank God.

  And thank God she had taken what had seemed the ridiculous precaution of speaking to Tom from the shower.

  How was she going to get out of the house, though? She knew Natasha would have something to say on the subject, as David probably would. She had to make a stand and stick to it. The thought of somebody listening to her every word, every nuance, terrified her. Even if she could convince her husband and stepdaughter, would she convince the listeners? But this was for Ollie. She had to make it work.

  Emma switched the phone off and buried it right at the bottom of Ollie’s toy box, trying not to look at all his favourite toys.

  She pulled herself upright using the side of his cot as support, and took a deep, steadying breath.

  ‘Right. Let’s do it.’

  She marched determinedly downstairs, grabbing her coat from the rack in the cloakroom.

  Her resolve weakened when she pushed open the kitchen door. David was on his knees next to Natasha’s chair.

  ‘Natasha, please, darling. Tell us where he is. We’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble. I love you, Tasha – I’ve always loved you. I lost my little girl once and it was as if my heart had been cut out. Please don’t make me lose you again, and Ollie too. Please, darling.’

  Emma looked at Natasha’s face, and for a moment she saw something there. A flicker of uncertainty, just for a second. Tempted as she was to rush over and join in the begging, she knew it wouldn’t work. To Natasha she was nothing, so her only choice was to play bad cop.