Sparky was right, and I could see why. A rational person wouldn't normally communicate by cutting letters out of a newspaper and sticking them together again. But if he did, if he was just, say, halfway rational, then he'd probably use letters that were all approximately the same size. There are plenty to choose from in any paper. If he wanted a Q he might have to look for a little one somewhere in the text, but he should have no problems finding a decent-sized E or S. But our man wasn't even halfway rational. The note was comprised of letters that covered the full range of sizes available. Some out of the headlines, some from the smallest text. Four words in, to, her and cash were complete, cut directly from the little print. The overall effect was a sinister look that went far beyond the meaning of the message.
Or maybe I underestimated the author: maybe he was rational; maybe he knew exactly what he was doing.
I propped my copy of the note against the telephone and stared at it for several minutes, pencil hovering over a blank foolscap pad. The biggest letters were unusual. I'd studied lettering at art college, in my Age of Innocence, and could see that the proportions were wrong.
They were in the style of the Roman, or Trajan, alphabet, but the vertical lines were much too broad when compared to the classical proportions of the original. It would be reasonably simple to find which newspaper used a typeface like that. I copied them on to the virgin pad:
E M O N Y
An anagram of MONEY. That wasn't too difficult. Several other letters were in the same style, but slightly smaller. I wrote them down. They were:
RSEXSE
The X should be a giveaway. I said it to myself over and over again: X … XX… X… How about EXPRESS? I wrote it on the pad.
It worked, but express had a surplus P. I carefully traced my pencil across the photo of the note. There was no P in it. The writer had no need for that letter. He'd obviously carved up the headings MONEY and EXPRESS before he'd set to work with the paste pot.
I looked through the window of my little room to see who was in the general office. Nigel was busy at his desk. I waved my arms above my head to attract his attention, but he stayed resolutely engrossed in whatever he was doing. Picking up the telephone to speak to someone fifteen feet away represented the triumph of technology over humanity, and I was damned if I was going to be a party to it. I hurled my pencil at the pane of glass that separated us and he looked up.
'You rang, boss?' he said as he came through the door.
'Yes. Does anyone in the office take the Daily Express, do you know?'
'Well, yes. Everyone, I expect.'
'Everyone?' I echoed.
'I'm not sure. Nearly everyone.'
'Jesus,' I sighed, sliding my notes and the photo across to him.
After he'd studied them for a few seconds, enlightenment flickered across his face. I said: 'It looks as if he carved up those two words to make his note. If we put them back together and see what's printed on the back, we should be able to pin down the edition he used.'
Nigel nodded his approval.
'Which information,' I continued, 'will be about as illuminating as a cement lightbulb.' It wasn't exactly a piece of the jigsaw; more like just one of the broken-off joining bits. Blue, out of the sky.
I rang Professor Van Rees and told him what we'd found. After he'd finished his other tests he would fax the back of the words to the Express and see what they came up with. He was pessimistic about his findings so far. The envelope and address label were self-adhesive; nobody had licked them. There were no fingerprints. It looked as if our man had worn a space suit when he made the note. I mentally moved astronauts further up the list of suspects.
Van Rees came back to me next day, which was quicker than I'd expected.
He hadn't done any DNA analyses because there was nothing to analyse.
The note was healthier than a bridegroom's armpit. The only good news was that the Express had identified the issue. The kidnapper had cut the letters from a Sunday Express dated early April, six weeks before the kidnapping. The self-sealing envelope and the glue came from Woolworth's, and there was nothing distinctive about the scissors he'd used.
'I'm sorry I haven't more to tell you, Mr. Priest,' Van Rees said.
'The man you're looking for has been painstakingly careful. I wish I could be more helpful.'
'I'm sure you've done all you can, Professor,' I replied. 'And maybe you've told us more than you realise.'
'I'm afraid I don't follow.'
'Well, maybe he's so cautious because he has to be. He might be known to us. Perhaps he's right under our noses.'
Some evidence would have been useful, though.
We didn't need the big conference room for our meetings any more. Four of us sat in the small incident room we had been allocated, together with the civilian computer operator. The first team consisted of myself, DS Newley, DC Mad Maggie Madison, Dave Sparkington and Luke, our wizard of the keyboard. His terminal was linked to HOLMES, the national major enquiry computer. He had at his fingertips just about everything we knew about anyone. Ask him for information about, say, thefts of ladies' knickers from washing lines, in Dorset, in the last five years, and he'd have a print-out for you in minutes. We had a mountain of them to prove it.
'So he wrote the letter nearly three months before he posted it,' said Maggie.
'And two months before he did the kidnapping,' added Nigel.
'Yes. Unless he used an old newspaper from the pile under the sink. If you were making a note like this one, Dave, would you use any old paper or would you go out and buy one specially for the job.'
'He bought it specially, together with a packet of envelopes, some blank paper and a stick of glue. No doubt about it.'
'OK,' I said. 'In that case, did he have anyone specific in mind when he wrote the note?'
'Yes,' replied Sparky. The other two nodded in agreement.
'Because of the her in the note?'
More nods.
'And the half-million,' added Sparky. 'I'd guess that's about what Dewhurst could raise.'
'What's happening about the money, boss?' asked Maggie.
'Barclay's are holding it for us and it's being marked. It should be ready in good time.'
We'd had one reconstruction of Georgina's last walk across the bus station, and talked about the possibility of another. None of us was optimistic.
'C'mon, Luke,' I said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into the team.
'What does Sherlock say? Why not just ask it 'Who did it?'
He grinned. He was about half my age, and light years from all of us in style. When he first came to us Sparky asked him if he bought his clothes from a Punch and Judy man. He was good with the computer, though, and had a pleasant personality.
'Did any of you see the late film last night?' he asked. None of us had. 'It was brilliant,' he went on. 'There was this FBI agent who was descended from Sioux Indians. When he had this difficult murder to solve he went out and listened to the wind, and the answer came to him.'
'Thank you for that contribution, Luke,' said Sparky. 'It's about as useful as anything else we've got so far.'
'That's true, I'm afraid,' I agreed. 'So what are we all doing for the rest of the day?' I looked at Nigel first.
He had some files from other forces that he wanted to look at again.
They were about kidnappings that had gone unsolved and kidnappers who were back on the streets. Not too many of them, though it's not a British crime.
Maggie was our liaison with the family. Miles Dewhurst was burying himself in his work, but she tried to see him every day, or at least talk to him on the phone. She saw more of Mrs. Eaglin, Georgina's grandma, and was
