Missing, Believed Crazy Read online

  But at least no one else had read it. That was a good thing. I deleted it, then tried to go back to sleep.

  Two restless hours later, I drifted off. When I awoke, Jason had already left for work.

  My heart thumping, I picked up the cellphone and checked for messages. There was nothing.

  Perhaps I had dreamed it. Yes, that was it. It must have been a terrible dream, caused by the stress of my situation.

  And you don’t tell people about dreams, do you?

  EDDISON VOGEL

  In the news-management game, balance is important. The police were going to announce that the kidnapper had sent the T-shirt of Little Trixie to the Show Us You Care fund. I had told Barry Cartwright that he should suggest this was a breakthrough in the case.

  ‘Is it?’ he asked me, fiddling nervously with his dark glasses.

  ‘Yes, it is, Barry. Forensics, the way it was packed, handwriting, blah-blah-blah. Come on, you’re a policeman. You know how to make things up.’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Barry muttered. Then he added, ‘But leave it with me.’

  So the public would think that the net was closing. But still we needed to get people involved. That night, the news bulletins would lead with the story that the family of Tragic Trixie (I started using the word ‘tragic’ in my interviews; the journalists picked it up like well-trained pooches hearing a dog-whistle) were hiring a specialist detective agency and an international scientific team to help in the search.

  The Show Us You Care fund was in more desperate need of funds than ever.

  Finally, there was Eva, my star player. That afternoon she would make a heartbreaking public appeal. People love a heartbreaking public appeal. After that, her spot on the Share Awards would be assured.

  Mix the positive with the negative. Keep the news moving. That’s the way to play it.

  THE SMILER

  Me, I won’t have a word said against the police. They have a tough job and they try their very best.

  Sometimes they’re even quite efficient. A mere two days after it had been stolen, they rang to tell me that my car had been found in a place called Kington.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness, officer,’ I said in my most polite telephone voice. ‘I’ve been worried sick about it. It was stolen on Tuesday.’

  The copper asked me a few questions about how it had disappeared. I had called in at the village shop, I told him, had left the keys in the ignition (‘I’m a very trusting person, officer’) and when I came out it was gone.

  I put down the phone. Ten minutes later, my neighbour David, a silly old man who’s so scared of me I can ask him to do anything, was driving me towards Swindon police station.

  When I walked in, I was prepared for trouble. There are very few police computers on which the name Charles Prendergast doesn’t light up in red and send off alarm signals, but they looked at my vehicle-registration documents, took a statement and gave me the keys.

  ‘Have you any idea who might have done this terrible thing, officer?’ I asked the uniformed cop at the desk.

  ‘To tell the truth, Mr Prendergast, we’re so busy these days that car theft is low on our list of priorities. We have to concentrate our efforts on serious crime.’

  ‘I understand, officer,’ I said, picking up the keys.

  Serious crime, eh? The boys in blue were about to discover just how serious crime could get.

  PETE

  I spent the morning online, reading press articles about the life and times of my ex-wife Eva Johansson.

  Who would hate a semi-famous actress with an ego the size of the Empire State Building? Quite a lot of people, it turned out, but none of them would be crazy enough to kidnap her daughter for revenge.

  I thought back to my conversation with the Grey Fox. What were his words when I had said goodbye to him? ‘At least you know how it feels now.’

  ‘Of course.’ I whispered the words. What a fool I had been.

  It wasn’t Eva the kidnapper was trying to hurt. It was me. We awoke mid-morning and had breakfast in silence. The text had been sent. Now it was just a question of waiting until Trix, our mighty leader, decided on the next move.

  More because there was nothing else to do than anything else, we began to put my brothers’ flat in order.

  The last thing we needed was to be thrown out on to the street by the Brothers Grim.

  THE SMILER

  I drove the Discovery back to the village where it had been found. It was time for the Smiler to turn detective.

  The village of Kington was one of those dozy little two-horse towns where people come to die.

  I knocked on a door. An old lady opened it. Something about my face seemed to scare her.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to bother you,’ I said, ‘but my car was stolen two days ago and left here.’

  ‘No.’ The old bird looked as if she were about to faint clean away. ‘I don’t see anything ever. I believe in minding my own business. So sorry.’

  She closed the door in my face, the silly old trout.

  There was no answer at the cottage next door. I crossed a lane and rang the bell of a little cottage with loads of roses around the front door.

  An officer-type – moustache, half-moon glasses, the works – opened the door.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  It turned out that he could.

  MAJOR GRAHAM BARTON

  It is very rare in life that one’s efforts to fight crime are rewarded, but this was one of them.

  The chap at my door, a rather rough-looking type, turned out to be the victim of the youths I had seen on the green.

  ‘So my instinct was right,’ I said, having invited him into the snug. ‘I sensed that those youths were up to no good.’

  ‘You were very, very right, sir,’ said the gentleman, whose name he had said was Mr Smiley. ‘Do you happen to remember what they looked like?’

  I chuckled. ‘I can do better than that.’ I walked to my desk and picked up a print of the photograph I had snapped of the yobs on the green. I handed it to Mr Smiley.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, holding it in his hand. ‘You did excellent work, Mr Barton. I expect you handed this to the police, did you?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘I was rather assuming they might contact me.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Mr Smiley, ‘I’m working closely with the car-crime unit in this case. Would it be all right if I handed this evidence to them myself?’

  Of course, I agreed, putting my name and telephone number on the back of the print.

  THE SMILER

  Four kids. One bloke. My Discovery. And a Porsche. The number plate was as clear as daylight:

  I have friends everywhere. It was time to call my contact in the vehicle-registration office.

  The Smiler was back in business.

  PETE BELL

  Like the Grey Fox, I don’t like dwelling on the past, but now I had research to do. Who hated me enough to want to harm my daughter? I climbed a ladder in the attic, where in three large boxes I kept the newspaper cuttings from the days when I was a crime reporter. I heaved them down the ladder and started reading.

  The articles, once so proudly cut out, were now dusty and yellowing. They reminded me uncomfortably of a time when I still mattered.

  After two hours I had the names of three people who could say that, if it hadn’t been for one nosy journalist, they would still be free.

  There was Trevor Jones, the Grey Fox. I knew he was in the clear. A nasty piece of work called Colin Parker was capable of almost anything, but he was still serving time for murder, manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and a few lesser crimes of violence. Finally there was Charles Prendergast, better known as ‘The Smiler’.

  I switched on the computer and did some Googling. It took no more than five minutes to find the latest cutting of a small item from a local newspaper in South London.

  BANK ROBBER RELEASED

  Charles Prendergast, who became notorious during th
e mid-1990s for a series of violent robberies, was released from prison this week, having served an eight-year sentence. Prendergast, who was nicknamed ‘The Smiler’ as a result of a scar to the face, told reporters that he planned to start a new life in Wales.

  It was a far cry from the glory days when the Smiler’s ugly face was on the front pages of every newspaper, but it told me what I wanted to know.

  All that the police told me about the slashed T-shirt was that it had been sent from Wales. I picked up my telephone and dialled Barry Cartwright. He was busy talking to the press as usual.

  EVA JOHANSSON

  It was a tough call, that press conference, when I had to sit beside Barry Cartwright as he talked about the T-shirt to the world’s press. I managed to hold back the tears until the very last sentence of my statement. There was a moment when the detective realized that here was a mother in agony. He put his arm around my shoulders in a strange and comforting way. It was the photograph that would appear on most of the front pages the next day.

  EDDISON VOGEL

  Little Trixie was suddenly Tragic Trixie. The press went crazy. Money poured in from the public – the Show Us You Care fund had hit the million mark by lunchtime. During a House of Commons debate that afternoon, the Prime Minister referred to ‘the young idealist Trixie Johansson-Bell, who is in our minds today and who is at the mercy of a profound evil’.

  Tragic Trixie. Innocence betrayed. The young idealist pitted against profound evil. Her fate involved all of us. She represented all that was good: generosity, courage, childhood. Her fate made every adult feel guilty, involved.

  The news bulletins over the next twenty-four hours would ignore everything else.

  GEORGE HART

  There’s a downtime. It’s between when I wake, usually about six o’clock in the evening, and when my bro and I go out clubbing, which is usually around eleven.

  I fix breakfast – toast and beer – maybe take in a film on the movie channel. Sometimes I play online poker. It can be a bummer, that downtime. Five long hours of sitting around waiting for the action to begin.

  But that particular evening was just fine. I awoke and wandered, still half-asleep in my jockey shorts, into the kitchen. It was kind of tidy. It smelt different – almost, I dunno, clean. There were voices in the lounge. The kids were there. They were doing the whole housework thing. One was tidying the CDs, another collecting up clothes. The little guy in shades – Tim – was actually wiping down the insides of the window, which had become kind of nicotined up since we had been there.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey.’ I walked over to Tim and took the cloth from him. ‘House rule, man. No guy carries a duster in this apartment. We get chick cleaners in to do a clean-up. Or my little sister.’

  And Tim took the cloth back from me, cool as you like.

  ‘I like it,’ he said in this strange, strangled voice.

  Weird guy.

  MARK

  When Trix is angry, she doesn’t go red like most people. She goes deathly white, as if her rage has made her physically ill.

  That’s how she went then, grabbing the cloth from Jade’s older brother and turning to go back to work.

  I could tell that George was annoyed, but was too sleepy or maybe just not bright enough to know how to deal with the situation. Scratching himself and yawning, he flopped on to the soda.

  ‘Don’t knock yourself out, guys.’ Ignoring Jade, he directed his words to us. ‘My sis loves doing this stuff. It makes her feel like she’s got a family. She can be Mom. Ain’t that right, babe?’

  ‘Can it, George,’ said Jade quietly.

  ‘Hey, attitude, sis.’ George’s smile had gone. ‘Get us a beer from the fridge, will you?’

  Jade was moving towards the kitchen when something seemed to snap in Wiki.

  ‘No!’ It was like a bark.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Wik,’ said Jade.

  Wiki stood in front of her. He walked slowly to the fridge, and took out a can. He made his way to George and stood over him.

  ‘You don’t talk to your sister like that.’ Wiki spoke in a low voice. The last time I had seen that look in his eye, he had just brought down the intruder at Hill Farm with the help of his catapult. ‘She deserves politeness.’

  ‘Hey, butt out, kid.’ George sat up. ‘She’s my family, right? Not yours.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean she belongs to you.’ This was Trix. ‘She’s not your servant.’

  Brad emerged from his bedroom, barefoot in jeans. ‘Hi, kids,’ he said, yawning. He looked around, suddenly aware of the atmosphere. ‘Did I interrupt something?’

  BRAD HART

  So then I get this speech – I mean, literally, a speech – from this little black guy with glasses about how we should or should not treat our little sister.

  I glance at George. Like, am I dreaming all this?

  ‘So if you want something done while we’re here, ask Mark or me or Tim,’ goes the kid. ‘Just leave Jade alone.’

  ‘Hey,’ snapped George. ‘Here’s the way it goes around. It’s really, really simple. It’s my road or the high road. Tomorrow morning, you kids can take a hike.’

  JADE

  My heart was thumping. I couldn’t believe that Wiki, and then the other two, had stood up to my brothers.

  At last I managed to speak.

  ‘George, if you do that, I’ll have nowhere to go. I’ll tell Mom that you threw me out. And how you’re living your lives.’

  A mean, sulky look settled on my brother’s face. It was as if he were sixteen all over again.

  Shrugging, he picked up the remote control and pointed it at the big TV screen that covered most of one wall.

  Bad, bad timing. The early evening news had just started.

  WIKI

  You couldn’t call either of Jade’s brothers exactly razor sharp. Maybe their brains were never overactive. Maybe years of clubbing had killed off what few brain cells they had. Either way, as they stared at the TV that evening, it took a while for the information received by their ears or eyes to filter through to their brains.

  Trix was the headline story. The police had revealed that someone had sent a T-shirt. The Welsh police had been alerted. Cut to a press conference. Trix’s mother was there, weeping in front of the cameras.

  We looked at each other, the same question forming in our minds. Hadn’t she got the text?

  Some video footage of Trix was shown as the story switched to the police hunt in Wales. There was something about her case being mentioned by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. The Show Us You Care fund had passed the million mark. A poster showing Trix appeared on the screen.

  ‘Hey.’ Brad sat forward in his seat. ‘Hey, Tim’s on TV!’

  ‘Whoa –’ George shook his head and focused his eyes on the TV – ‘it can’t be Tim, dude. It’s a chick. But hey, it does look really like Tim.’

  Brad turned to Trix. ‘Are you a chick, Tim?’ he asked.

  To my surprise, Trix actually laughed. Looking over her Ray-Bans, she said, ‘I’m afraid so, guys. I’m a chick.’ ‘

  And now for the day’s other news,’ the newsreader was saying.

  George switched off the TV with the remote.

  ‘OK, everybody,’ he said. ‘I think the time has come for us to have a little talk.’

  MARK

  It was all over. I was sure of it. Jade’s brothers hated us anyway. Now they had the power to destroy the whole plan.

  I looked at the Trixter. She was good at thinking fast, but not this time. Wiki seemed to have found something really interesting to stare at on the floor.

  Then Jade wandered over to the sofa and sat beside her older brother.

  ‘We’ve got a proposal to make to you,’ she said.

  JADE

  We were seriously busted but, as the news was playing, I came up with an idea. It was last-throw-of-the-dice time.

  ‘That million pounds they were talking about on the news?’ I smiled at George. He nodded
suspiciously.

  ‘It’s going to be ours,’ I said.

  Interested now, Brad sat on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Yup,’ I said. ‘This is a heist, guys. In a few days’ time, we’re gonna be seriously loaded.’

  Trix widened her eyes, unable to believe what she was hearing. Somehow, almost for the first time in her life, she managed to keep her mouth shut.

  ‘It’s a heist?’ Brad smiled, almost like a little boy. ‘Like a gang thing?’

  WIKI

  Jade nodded slowly, the cunning smile of a master criminal on her face. She was a great actress, that was for sure.

  ‘Can’t give you all the details, guys.’ Jade dropped her voice. ‘But I can tell you this. If you let us stay here until –’ She actually winked at this point – ‘the sting, we’ll cut you in for three big ones.’

  ‘Each?’ asked George.

  ‘Pounds or dollars?’ asked Brad.