Where There's A Will

Chapter Thirty-One

Stone sipped at his coffee for a few moments while he waited for the briefing room to quiet down. Once it did he got started; it had been almost a day since Alice Keating was snatched, and he knew the more time that passed, the smaller their chances of finding her or her kidnappers became – the ransom drop would provide an opportunity for them to try and catch the kidnappers, or to get evidence that would lead to their capture, but he didn't want to wait until then, or to have to rely on a possibility rising from a situation that hadn't yet occurred.

"For those of you who haven't heard about it yet, a second ransom note was received this morning, this one was posted to the Keating residence and delivered by Royal Mail. The note is currently in the hands of the forensics boys, and we hope to have their report by this evening, if not sooner; for now, what matters is that we now know the ransom drop is to take place tomorrow. We don't yet know where or exactly when, but based on how things have gone so far, I think we can expect another note, either later today or first thing tomorrow, which will give us the final details." He saw DCI Collins enter the room quietly and take up a position against the wall at the side of the room. "Following that, Owen Keating was escorted to the bank this morning, where he made arrangements for the three and a half million Euros demanded in the ransom note found in Brian Jacobs' jacket last night by Constable Day.

"According to Mr Keating, the bank manager has promised to have the ransom money ready by noon tomorrow at the latest – it might even be ready by first thing, he can't say for sure yet; we can only hope that noon tomorrow is soon enough, and that the kidnappers don't expect the drop to be made before then. Once the manager calls to say the money is ready, DS Burke, along with a couple of uniforms, will take Mr Keating to the bank and escort him home with the ransom. I'm told the sum requested will fit into an ordinary briefcase, which will make transportation of it easier, but will also make it more difficult for us to keep track of."

"Won't those Scotland Yard tech guys put some kind of tracking device on the money?"

Stone didn't see who asked the question, but from the direction of the other officers' looks, he figured out the enquiry's source. "Yes," he answered Constable Ramirez. "Inspector Evans will be putting a tracking device in the briefcase with the money but, apparently, there are ways in which the kidnappers can disable or negate whatever device is used, if they know what they're doing. Since that's the case, I want at least two pairs of eyes on the money from the moment it's collected.

"Now, I understand house-to-house enquiries in the street adjoining the school, and where Alice Keating was kidnapped, have finished, and the reports are waiting on my desk; would anyone care to summarise the findings?" He looked around questioningly, his focus shifting between Sergeant Reynolds and Detective Constable Hill, who had led the two teams of questioners.

It was Detective Hill who got to her feet to answer the question. "We've not had much success," she admitted. "No-one in the street by the school saw anything in the week prior to the kidnapping. White vans were seen, but none that stopped or hung around or acted suspiciously in any way, and no unusual vehicles of any description. Two people did see the van used in the kidnapping on the day, but thought nothing of it, and they weren't able to provide any details about the kidnappers. Only one person was seen, the driver, and the description we got of him is no more useful than that given at the scene."

When Hill finished speaking and sat, Sergeant Reynolds got to his feet. "It was the same for my team," he reported. "No-one we questioned was able to add anything to the witness statements we got yesterday. We were able to follow the van's progress for a couple of streets after the kidnapping, thanks to eye-witnesses and CCTV footage – a couple of the officers on his team had strained their eyes watching the footage – but we lost it after that.

"Now we know where they ditched the van, I've asked DS Burke to put a request in for all traffic and CCTV footage from that area so we can try and find them on it and see if we can get anything useful, like the vehicle they switched to, or where they went."

It took almost an hour for Stone to go through the relatively small amount of evidence that had been gathered by the various branches of the investigation. Although there was more than a dozen officers working on the case, and the forensics department were giving it top priority, they had little in the way of useful evidence so far: a few smudged fingerprints, which were useless for identification purposes, some DNA traces that did not appear, as yet, to match anyone in the national database; they had also discovered that the license number on the van used in the kidnapping belonged to a Renault Clio, not a Ford van, white or any other colour.

"Anyone else got anything to report?" Stone asked of the assembled officers.

It was DC Reid who answered. "I've finished the background checks on the Keatings' household staff, sir."

"What did you find out?" Stone asked. He was pleased that the job had been finished, but he had expected to hear about the maid and the gardener before then, since he had asked Reid to check them first.

"Most of the staff came back clean," Reid reported. "Barely a parking ticket between them; two have records, though: Ken Williams, one of the gardeners, has a juvenile record for petty theft, public order offences, joy-riding – the usual stuff – and he's been cautioned twice for drug possession since hitting eighteen. Both those times it was for small amounts of pot, personal use amounts, not dealing."

Stone nodded at that, it was what he had expected would be discovered in the gardener's background check; based on how he had looked and acted the previous day, he suspected that the two cautions had done little to persuade him to give up his habit.

"More interesting," Reid said in a satisfied tone, "is the maid, Gabby Johnson, who has a very relevant record." Getting to his feet, he approached the large screen that dominated the left side of the briefing room's main wall so he could bring up the information from his terminal. "As you can see, four years ago she received an eighteen-month sentence, suspended for a year, for her part in the kidnapping of a young boy; her partner in the kidnapping, who was also her boyfriend, received an eight-year sentence, later reduced to four years on appeal. He served twenty-nine months before being released on license. His license expires in three months and, according to probation records, he still lives with Gabby Johnson."

"Have you got anything else on them?" Stone asked, hoping that this would turn out to be a major lead. Gabby Johnson had been at the Keating residence when the kidnapping took place, and the three kidnappers were male, but Stone knew that the maid could still have been involved; she could have provided information to her boyfriend, and whoever he was working with, assuming they were the ones behind Alice Keating's abduction.

"Not yet, sir; I'm trying to get the records of the case to see if there's something in there, but so far I've found nothing about any known accomplices who might be the other kidnappers. I'm also looking into people Rowan Manning was in prison with. It's going to take some time to get it all together and go through it, though," Reid apologised.

"What about the former employees from Griffin Games' headquarters?" Stone asked. "Have you had any luck with them?"

"Nothing so far," Reid admitted. "None of them have records, at least nothing worth mentioning; I'm still trying to trace them all, though, to be sure of their whereabouts at the time of the kidnapping. Of the seventeen names on the list, physical descriptions eliminate six of them; another five are eliminated because they're female, that leaves six to be checked out. I've got two constables working on that right now; they've been able to confirm the whereabouts of three of them, they're no longer potential suspects.

"Once I've heard back about the last three, sir, I'll get my report on your desk."

"Good work, Art."