James Nally - Games with the Dead - A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

Today is our last chance to find out. To collect the ransom, he has to break cover. As in any extortion case, this represents our best and, possibly, only chance of catching the culprit.

We return to New Scotland Yard, take the lift to tech support on the third floor and sign for receipt of a black Head sports bag with a transmitter sewn into the base. As per the ransom note instructions, we divide the cash into thirty-one equal units of 250 notes, wrapping each bundle in polythene no more than twelve microns thick. Crossley inserts the cash cards into one of the bricks, but trousers the piece of paper revealing their PIN codes.

‘A little insurance,’ he says. ‘No matter what happens today, he’ll have to get back to us for these.’

We stack the bundles together and gift-wrap them in brown paper. As per a diagram enclosed with the ransom note, Crossley uses nylon cord to secure the parcel, with a substantial loop on top. Why the kidnapper is insisting on certain specifics, we’ve yet to figure out. We place the loot carefully inside the sports bag so as not to disturb the transmitter, then head to the operational hub in East Croydon, just south of London.

As I get trussed up in a bulletproof vest, Crossley re-reads the kidnapper’s delivery brief.

‘At 9pm, the courier must await a call at the Mercury public phone in the foyer of East Croydon train station. He’ll be given instructions and a trail to follow, which will take him from phone box to phone box over quiet roads so that the presence of police surveillance vehicles or aircraft will be detected. Any publicity or apparent police action will result in no further communication.’ Crossley glances up: ‘Which means he’ll kill Julie Draper, and he’ll probably kill you.’

As I refuse to let that sink in, he gets back to the kidnapper’s instructions: ‘Once the courier gets to the drop-off point, the money will not be collected by me, but by a young male who parks up in a nearby lovers’ lane for a few hours every Wednesday night. His female companion will be held hostage while I direct the male to bring the cash to me via a two-way radio. Once I receive the cash, I will reveal Julie’s location via an anonymous call to a media outlet, using the code phrase “Is Kipper a red herring?”’

Crossley folds the paper precisely, as if securing it for posterity, then searches my eyes deeply. For weakness? For reassurance? I can’t tell, but it’s a real ransacking of the irises.

‘Okay Donal, in your car is a two-way radio linked to the controller here in the operations room. He, in turn, is in touch with surveillance teams in front and behind you. You know about the transmitter in the money bag, so keep it with you at all times.’

My mind lags behind, conducting a dry run, seeking out pitfalls. ‘He mentioned quiet roads. How close will these surveillance teams be? I don’t want them blowing my cover.’

‘They’re the best in the business, Donal, shadowed IRA terrorists, underworld hitmen, the lot. They’ll be in constant contact with a stealth chopper who’ll follow the suspect once he picks up the money. Look, if you remember just one instruction tonight, Donal, it’s that these surveillance teams need to know the kidnapper’s every move. Each time you get a fresh set of instructions, pass them on. You must get back into your car and repeat them over the radio, loud and clear, twice. You then wait five minutes before you drive on. Understood?’

I nod.

‘I just can’t wait to get it over with now, Guv,’ I say brightly, diving into my car before his unflagging angst sucks the last bead of self-belief out of me. The door slams shut with a fatalistic thud.

‘Actually, there is one last thing,’ he says, passing me a note through the open window.

It’s Met-police-headed paper; the word ‘Disclaimer’ screams out from the bold, underlined first sentence.

‘They just handed this to me,’ he says, leaning down to my level, eyes sizing mine for a reaction. ‘It’s to show we haven’t put you under any undue duress if, well, anything goes awry.’

‘Undue duress?’

‘You know what it’s like these days, Donal,’ he smiles lamely. ‘All about protecting the brand.’

By the second line of legal gymnastics, I’m sufficiently bamboozled to quit reading, get signing and hand it back.

‘I expect this is going to be tortuous, Donal, but you must try to concentrate at all times. Be prepared for a last-second change. A sudden contact. You must be ready for anything and everything. But follow his instructions to the letter.

‘Absolutely no heroics. Remember, he may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong. It doesn’t matter if the money or the man slip away tonight. It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.’

He passes the sports bag slowly, almost reverentially, through the car window, as if handing over her very fate.

‘We’re counting on you, Donal. Because one mistake, and we’ve all got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.’

East Croydon, South London

Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 20.50

At 9.40am the previous Tuesday, Julie Draper left her office on Church Road, Croydon to show a client around a four-bedroom house. She didn’t come back. Her colleague, Tom Reynolds, checked out the house, found her car on the driveway, her house keys on the landing. No Julie.

He checked out her client. John West’s phone number doesn’t exist. The address he’d provided doesn’t exist. The kidnap squad baulks at the name.

Seven years ago, estate agent Suzy Fairclough vanished in West London. Neither her body nor her abductor have ever been found. Also aged twenty-four and a brunette, Suzy had arranged to meet a client called ‘Mr Kipper’.

‘John West Kippers’ are a British supermarket staple.

Has he struck again? Or is it some sort of twisted copycat attack? The kidnapper’s methodology has convinced senior officers that their fishiest nemesis is back.

The meticulous, almost obsessive attention to detail is the crowning Kipper hallmark. His demand, for example, that the ransom cash be wrapped in polythene twelve microns thick is a direct steal from the Fairclough abduction. Tech wizards have figured out why; through plastic that thin any bugs we might hide in the cash can be detected by a bog-standard, shop-bought metal detector.

Yesterday morning’s proof-of-life phone call had also been classic Kipper. He rang Julie’s office from a public phone box and played a tape recording of her reading headlines from that day’s Daily Mirror newspaper. He made the call from a non-digital exchange, which takes longer to trace. But trace it we did, to Worthing on the south coast.

In another parallel with the Suzy Fairclough abductor, the ransom letter had been typed on generic WH Smith stationery using an old Olivetti, the typewriter equivalent of a Model T Ford – so, impossible to trace. Once again, he’d been careful not to lick the envelope or stamp, or to leave prints, fibres or hairs.

Without a solid lead, detectives agreed to pay the ransom. To my surprise, there is no secret police slush fund to meet this kind of shakedown. Crown Estates had to raise the cash. Now it’s my job to hand it over.

East Croydon train station finally looms into view, just as Crossley’s forlorn prophecies perform another club-footed cancan across my aching crown. Change his plan at any second … ready for anything and everything … one mistake and we’ve got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.

I park up and brace myself for the kidnapper’s first instruction; stand by the open car boot for 30 seconds. Presumably, he or his associates want to ensure I’m not harbouring a crack team of SAS midgets between the golf clubs and the jerry can.