Chapter 86
Hannah Shapiro was dressed now.
Tight jeans tucked into knee-length chocolate-brown boots, a sweater, her hair tied back, make-up on. The transformation was amazing.
She was rubbing her right wrist, still red from the rough abrasion of the rope she had been tied with. Attention to detail. You have to admire that.
‘We know it was a set-up, Hannah. Tell us now what we need to know and it’ll go easier for you.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve made a mistake, Mister Carter.’
Mister Carter. Just like the mechanical voice had called me on the telephone. It had been her all along, laughing at us. Laughing at me.
I remembered the younger Hannah once more, sitting next to me on the flight over, discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald and teasing me. I realised the past wasn’t just another country, as another novelist once said. You can travel to another country but the past is a whole different life.
‘Where have they taken your father, Hannah?’ I asked.
She shrugged.
I felt like taking two steps forward and backhanding her across the face. My god-daughter had been hospitalised because of her. She’d had us dancing around like puppets while she jerked the strings and it made me angrier than I had felt for a long, long time.
She must have seen something in my eyes because she stepped back a pace.
Her eyes flickered nervously. There was still something wrong with the picture. But I couldn’t work out what.
‘You can talk to us, Hannah…’ I said. Her eyes flicked to Del Rio who was leaning against the wall and saying nothing.
He’d told me earlier that it was my play. He’d follow my lead. I didn’t think we’d need the good cop, bad cop routine. We had her cold and she knew it. Just a matter of time.
‘Or we can take you down to Paddington Green and you can talk to the cops,’ I continued.
‘He deserved it!’ she spat out finally.
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Hannah shouted back at me, incredulous. ‘Why do you think, you dumb prick!’
Her West Coast accent had come back strongly now. ‘He refused to pay the ransom and my mother died. She died, Mister Carter! But not before I was made to watch her being raped. And then they shot her.’
She broke down in tears and I regretted the urge to slap her. I felt more like putting my arms around her. She was right in some ways. Maybe Harlan Shapiro did deserve a bit of payback. But not this.
‘My god-daughter nearly died,’ I said instead.
‘She wasn’t meant to get hurt. She wasn’t even meant to be there.’
‘Who were the others, Hannah? We know about Laura, but who were the others who were there?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not going to tell you. I don’t care what you do. He deserved this. So he’s had a fright? Look what I had to go through.’
‘If anything happens to him, Hannah, you will be in a whole world more trouble than you’re in already.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to him,’ she said. But her eyes were darting around again and she was rubbing her scraped arm, unaware that she was doing it.
Hannah didn’t believe herself, either.
And that worried the hell out of me.
Chapter 87
Adrian Tuttle rewound the video clip again.
I got him to pause it and enhance the image. It was the first video they had sent and I had to admit that Hannah did a pretty good acting job. I got Adrian to split the screen and then played the second clip. I freeze- framed it. Zoomed in on her arm.
‘See that, Adrian?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. Like I said, he was good at spot-the-difference.
Wendy Lee was passing and leaned over. ‘Contusions on her arm in the second video. Not in the first.’
‘And what does that tell us?’
‘That she was faking being tied up the first time round and not the second.’
The memory of her rubbing her arm just a short while ago flicked into my mind. Her arm was definitely sore.
‘So what changed? What was it?’
‘Have you found the other girl yet?’
I shook my head. I had called Sam to meet me at the student accommodation block. Laura Skelton wasn’t there. Her wardrobe was empty, clothes hangers on the floor. Empty drawers left open. It looked as though she had packed a bag and left. Hurriedly. Sam was out trying to track her down. I didn’t hold out much hope.
I let the second tape play on.
Hannah looked at the camera, her voice trembling. ‘They want you to know,’ she said, ‘that this bomb I am wearing can be triggered remotely. Any attempt to do anything other than what you are instructed to do and it will be detonated. Likewise if you attempt to deliver fake diamonds. They will be examined and if they are not genuine the device will be detonated. If police are there again as they were this morning, the device will be detonated.’
She let the paper fall to the floor as tears welled in her large, terrified eyes.
‘Please help me,’ she added in a desperate whisper.
The screen faded to blackness again.
Hannah was begging for help – that was genuine. She believed that they had strapped explosives to her and would kill her if we didn’t comply with their instructions.
Something had happened between yesterday and today.
What?
My mobile phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and answered it.
‘What have you got for me, Suzy?’ I listened and nodded. ‘Sit on him,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right there.’
I clicked my phone shut and stood up, grabbing my jacket.
‘Something happening?’ asked Wendy Lee.
‘Laura Skelton just had a visitor. One of the rugby guys from Friday night.’
Adrian Tuttle stood up. ‘You want some backup?’ he said. He was being serious.
‘No, you’re all right,’ I answered. ‘Suzy and I should be able to handle it.’
‘What would you do if he turned nasty, Adrian?’ asked Wendy Lee. ‘Distract him with some origami?’
‘I’ve got some moves,’ he said. Striking a pose. He looked like an emaciated heron.
‘Just work the data,’ I said. ‘Something’s there. Something’s not right.’
Chapter 88
Detective Inspectors Kirsty Webb and Natalie James jumped out of their parked car and slammed the doors behind them.
An ambulance was pulled up outside the house that they had been about to call at and a couple of police cars were parked beside it. Lights flashing. Crime-scene tape about to cordon off the area.
Kirsty Webb felt a sinking feeling in her gut again as they hurried up to the door. She always seemed to be one step behind on this case. A couple of uniformed officers were standing outside. Kirsty and DI James showed
