No response.
‘You’re not coming through.’
Still nothing. Strange, he was definitely at home. I was along the road from his place. Maybe he was in the jacks. He wasn’t. He was in a huff.
‘Gratuitous and unnecessary treatment of helpless animals’ came back.
I was right – the bastard was an animal lover. Why would anybody give a fuck about a couple of farm animals? Fuck me, the things you have to put up with from serial killers. I ignored him.
‘Nothing gratuitous or unnecessary tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Two down, two to go.’
‘I think not.’
I think not? Jesus, don’t tell me his conscience was getting to him. ‘We have an agreement, Cornelius.’
‘Ah, my remuneration.’
I knew it. He’d refused to sketch Anne because he was sticking his arm in. I let on I didn’t understand. ‘What remuneration?’
‘My fee.’
‘Your fee? Me keeping my mouth shut about you’s your fee.’
‘We have gone beyond that juncture. Thus far I have assisted you in your endeavours. Were I to find myself apprehended, the authorities would investigate those who stand to benefit from the deceased. You.’
He was up to something.
‘Only one of two people, save my guest, whom you ignored, could possibly know my identity,’ he typed. He’d removed the camera I’d fixed to his laptop. It didn’t matter: text would be just as damning when the time came. ‘And one of them, Greg Swags, is in custody. Which leaves you.’
Yeah, but there’s no way you could know who I am.
‘Therefore,’ he typed on, ‘since it is in both our interests to keep silent about the other, and because it is likely that you are acting for monetary gain, am I unreasonable in wishing to share in your good fortune?’
Bit of a money-grabber that Picasso. I wouldn’t fancy standing at a bar with him – he’d let you buy all the drink.
‘What have you got in mind?’
‘Unless I am very much mistaken, you have in your possession evidence which could be used to compromise Gemma Small’s gentlemen friends, apropos their families, in return for payment?’
He was bound to have worked out that a blackmailing scam was on the go.
‘Go on.’
‘Since you are as yet unable to avail of what I surmise to be your “windfall” at the riding stables, I propose that you overcome the little matter of my advance fee by furnishing personal details and video recordings of two of Gemma’s clients.’
‘Why?’
‘I can then apprise them of my understanding of their current vulnerability.’
The bastard wanted to blackmail them. Smart lad, that Picasso, even if he was a bit pompous. The ‘windfall’ remark wasn’t important. He’d obviously been trying to make sense of what I was up to and had come up wrong. It didn’t matter. If giving him a few punters got me what I wanted, fuck it, who cares?
I played along. ‘I’ll send you one now, and one when you’ve earned it.’
‘One might prove risky. Two would reduce the possibility.’
‘Explain.’
‘I think not.’
Wonder what he had in mind?
‘OK, two.’
‘Appreciated. Naturally I shall require two who are of sufficient funds.’
‘Done.’
‘Following their receipt, I shall then await your instructions.’
I sent his laptop what he wanted so he could record it onto videotapes himself. It took a fair bit of time to transfer, but I could hardly deliver it by hand.
PICASSO
Having given the matter further consideration, I quickly came to the conclusion that my position was tenuous after all. Enhancing equipment might provide a better image but of whom? I would have no name, no address, merely film of an unknown man leaving the riding stables. Hardly proof of culpability with which to threaten him. Also, what if he did not attend the Donavans’ funeral. His identity would continue to remain a mystery.
In short: I had decided to prolong our association. I would have more time to, as it were, flush him out. And the longer I was of use, the longer it would be before his evidence against me would be handed over to the authorities.
Furthermore, I had sensed an opportunity – one which I was determined to exploit.
Blackmail: the ‘drop’ – the appointed place to which the blackmailee delivers payment – posed no obstacle. However, the ‘pickup’ – the point where the blackmailer takes possession – carried with it the risk of apprehension, the police closing in and so forth. I therefore undertook its execution with care and diligence.
Personal security, as you will no doubt appreciate, often resides in anonymity. Mine being precious to me for reasons other than this foray into extortion, I had to ensure that I did not become compromised. I circumvented this by insisting on footage of Gemma with not one but two of her clients, a Mr Agnew and a Mr Webb, as it transpired. Each was worth in excess of a half a million pounds. Ten per cent seemed a fair amount to request, plus expenses.
I then availed myself of a battered green free-standing municipal waste bin, which I had found against a hedge bordering a field on a narrow country road. In my cellar I cut off the lower part of the back of the bin, fitted hinges to it then screwed it back into its original position, effectively creating a flap door. In the bottom of the inside I placed a metal box with a split, self-closing lid (I had made this myself), attached to it a long length of thick catgut then returned the finished item to where I had found it. I removed enough of the bottom of the hedge to allow the box to pass from the bin through to the field and from there across the grass to where I would be waiting to take possession of its contents.
I then rang Mr Agnew to acquaint him with my proposal.
‘Mr Agnew?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Permit me to introduce myself. I am the man who forwarded you a copy of your good self with a young woman in the Top Towers Hotel.’
‘Just who do you think you are?’
Odd – I thought I had just informed him. ‘May one ask if you have
