Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

Stegs was heading away from the crowded, clogged-up roads of Greater London, making his way to quieter, more isolated pastures, where he could release Judy without her being immediately discovered and the alarm being raised. Timing was all-important at this juncture. If her old man was alerted to her freedom too early, then it would fuck up everything.

The M3 takes traffic to Southampton and the towns of the south coast of England, and gives the driver glimpses of the countryside that used to cover that part of the world before it was completely overrun with people and business parks. Stegs had come this way on holiday as a kid. While other kids had headed to France, Spain, the Greek islands and beyond, his family had always favoured the New Forest as a holiday destination. A sizeable national park containing hundreds of acres of unspoilt ancient woodland between Southampton and Bournemouth, it was definitely a nice place, but probably not the best of laughs for a ten-year-old boy. After all, there wasn’t exactly a lot to do, other than stroll through trees, and what self-respecting kid wants to do that? Stegs had been an only child, his mum having miscarried twice after him before giving up the idea of a second one as a pointless exercise, and his happy childhood memories were limited where holidays were concerned. If they weren’t in the New Forest, they’d be visiting affordable Second World War sites of interest in honour of his old man’s obsessions, which basically meant Normandy, and once, for a special treat, Dresden.

It was nine o’clock on a beautiful sunny morning, the sort that makes you feel glad to be alive, when Stegs pulled off the M27 at the turning to Bolderwood, in the heart of the New Forest. Driving through the thick walls of pine, he had to admit that the place did have a certain serenity about it; he even found himself contemplating bringing the missus and baby Luke down here for a long weekend at some point. He hadn’t treated the missus well of late, and it was about time to make a concerted effort to get into her good books. She’d be happy enough soon, when he let her know that they could afford that holiday in France. He might have to be a bit careful about telling her how he’d got hold of the money, but the point was that from now on they were at least not going to have to worry about the Jenner finances quite so much.

He slowed down as he came to a turning off the road he remembered from years back. It was little more than a dirt track which he knew led deeper into the woods. He turned up it and drove for about four hundred yards before parking up and making a cursory check that there was nobody about. Then he opened up the glove compartment and removed a balaclava and a pair of handcuffs he’d bought in a joke shop for a fancy-dress party he and the missus had attended years earlier. The party had had a ‘Cowboys and Indians’ theme; he’d gone as Sheriff Wyatt Earp, while the missus had dressed up as a Wild West good-time girl, complete with frilly dress, black hold-up stockings and a lady’s six-shooter. Them were the days, thought Stegs ruefully. The handcuffs weren’t that sturdy, but he was confident they’d hold a girl in Judy’s state, and he knew they’d never be traced back to him, even if her old man did decide to risk his career and liberty by making an issue out of it.

He put the balaclava on, then went round to the boot and opened it up. Judy was still in the same position she’d got into when he’d put her in there earlier, and it looked like she’d been asleep. As the wooded half-light seeped into the interior she groaned and turned her face in his direction, Tino’s Tweety Pie sock still in place.

‘God, where are we?’ she said, her voice croaking.

‘Your dad’ll be coming to collect you soon,’ growled Stegs, ‘but you’re going to have to come with me first.’

‘Where’s Tino?’ she asked.

‘He’s not here.’

‘Did you hurt him?’

‘Course I didn’t. He’s fine.’

‘Who are you? And what do you want with me?’

‘Enough questions.’

‘Tino said he loved me.’

‘Eh?’

‘He said he loved me. He-’

‘All right, all right, that’s enough.’

Christ, this was all he needed. She was meant to have been unconscious for the past two days, not conducting some sort of Patti Hearst-style love affair with a small-time porn star. Stegs wondered what on earth else she’d been discussing with Tino. And also, more importantly, how he was going to limit the damage.

He pulled her out of the boot and held her upright, pushing the gun against her chest so she’d know it wasn’t worth resisting, then led her slowly into the trees. He could hear her sobbing and he felt duty-bound to tell her it was all going to be OK. Once again, she asked what he wanted with her. He knew he should have just kept quiet, that it wasn’t worth getting involved in a dialogue, but he could hear her crying gently against him as they walked and he could tell that she thought this was it, she was going to die, which was too much to expect any person to bear, particularly a young girl whose only crimes were that she liked a shag and had an arsehole for a dad.

‘It’s not you we want,’ Stegs told her, making only a minimal effort at a growl. ‘It’s some information from your dad. He’s given it to us now, so you can go free. I’ve got to leave you here for a while, but I’m going to phone your dad and tell him where you are, and then he can come and collect you.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yeah, honestly.’

She seemed to believe him, and Stegs felt better as he stopped by an oak tree, sat her down and placed one of the handcuffs round a low branch, the other round her wrist, and locked them both. Her arm was stretched, so he put the gun in his pocket and pushed her back against the tree to make it more comfortable. Then he dropped a small bottle of Evian into her lap, stepped to one side, and removed the sock.

Judy blinked rapidly and tried to focus, but Stegs was already turning away, keen to get out of her field of vision before she remembered too many things about him. After all, one thing her old man was going to be doing was trying to work out who’d done this to his daughter, even if he couldn’t do much about it, and Stegs didn’t want to provide him with any obvious clues, particularly as he was already under some suspicion.

She called out after him, asking when her dad was going to be there, but he ignored her and kept walking the fifty yards or so back to the car, at the same time punching a number into his mobile phone.

As soon as the Panner interview was wound up, and Panner himself returned to the cells, I headed back to the incident room with Malik.

‘What do you think about his story, John?’ he asked as we walked along. ‘All this stuff about hiring a gun, firing it, then replacing the bullet. I’ve heard more likely tales from Jeffrey Archer. I’m actually wondering whether he had anything to do with the whole thing at all.’

I could see his point, but tried not to think that this entire lead might be a waste of time. ‘Roy Catherwood said it was a ninety-nine per cent probability that it was one and the same gun. At the moment, that’s good enough for me.’

‘Well, then Panner’s lying to us.’

‘I’ll at least check what he’s saying,’ I said, thinking that his story was so bizarre I wasn’t sure he could have made it up. ‘See if there’s anything in it. I know it doesn’t sound likely, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.’

Malik raised his eyebrows. ‘Not many.’

And then, ten seconds later, as we stepped inside the incident room, our conversation suddenly became irrelevant. The whole place was a frenzy of activity and it seemed like everyone in there was in the midst of pulling on their jackets, their faces alive with excitement.