John Creasey - Send Superintendent West

“I haven’t come to talk,” Shawn said. “I’ve come for my son.”

“And you shall have your son, quite safe and unharmed,” Gissing said easily. “You needn’t be at all worried about him, Mr Shawn. But we needn’t stay here.”

He turned and led the way into the drawing-room. Shawn hesitated, glowering at his back, and then followed. Roger slipped out of the cupboard, closed the door softly, stepped across to the wall and crept towards the drawing-room. He opened the dining-room door next to it as a quick way of retreat.

“I told you I didn’t come to talk,” Shawn growled.

“I know, I know,” said Gissing, and the laughter still lurked, as if the giant amused him. Yet Shawn’s eyes must tell their story, and Shawn could crush him; if Gissing knew anything about Shawn, he would know that he was in acute danger. Judging from his voice, he didn’t give the possibility a thought. “We won’t waste words, Mr Shawn, but there are one or two details to be settled. What will you drink?”

Shawn said: “Where’s my son? If you don’t come across, I’ll break your neck. Where is he?”

Gissing actually laughed.

“If you break my neck, how are you going to find your son?” he asked. “Be sensible, Mr Shawn. Sit down. Whisky? Rye? Bourbon? There’s ice in the kitchen — just wait a moment, and I’ll go and get it.”

He was not a dozen feet away from Roger, and coming nearer.

10

BARGAINING

ROGER backed into the dining-room, but there was no time to close the door properly. Any movement would catch Gissing’s eye, he would look up involuntarily. He might not notice that the door was ajar if it were not moving. Roger saw his shadow, and dropped a hand to Marino’s gun.

Shawn said: “You stay right here.”

“Mr Shawn, don’t —”

Gissing looked as if he had suddenly been turned into a puppet pulled by its strings into a whirligig. The shadow of his arms, legs and head made crazy movements, then vanished. There was a thud, next a moment of silence before Shawn said thickly:

“I’ll break your neck after I’ve broken up the rest of you. Where’s my son?”

There was another moment of silence. Roger moved forward into the hall, taking a greater chance, and stood so that he could just see into the room; the door was wide open. He saw Gissing’s feet and legs, on the floor. Shawn stood with his back to the door, blocking the rest of the room from Roger’s sight.

“You don’t seem to understand,” Shawn said, and his voice seemed higher-pitched, as if he were fighting for words. “I’ve come here for Ricky, and if I don’t get him, I’ll kill you.”

Lissa had said that he had been hovering between sanity and insanity for a long time. No sane man would talk like this; no sane father would take such a chance with the man whom he knew or thought he knew had kidnapped his son. It could be a big bluff, of course, but was Shawn in a mood to bluff? He didn’t sound like it He sounded as if he thought that he could come here and find Ricky, and take him away; and if he didn’t, he would kill.

Gissing made no attempt to get up.

Into the silence, Shawn said thickly: “And a gun won’t stop me.”

So Gissing had drawn a gun. Roger couldn’t see it, could only see that neither of the men moved.

“If it comes to killing,” the Englishman said, “I’ll start Don’t be a fool, Shawn. I can tell you where to find Ricky, and I promise you he’s not hurt. I had a message about him two hours ago.”

“Where is he?”

“Back in the States.”

Shawn’s breath hissed. “Whereabouts in the States?”

“You needn’t know where he’s been, all you want is to make sure that he comes back. To you — not to England. It was a mistake to bring him over here, Shawn. It was a mistake to come here at all. Go back home and wait, and he will be sent to you. The only thing he won’t have is — this.”

Roger wished he could see, but dared not go farther towards the room. Shawn was standing quite still. Gissing’s legs moved, as if he were dragging himself along the carpet, farther from the giant. Then his feet disappeared, and a hand showed, palm upwards for a moment. The finger ends were covered with a thin adhesive tape; to guard against leaving fingerprints.

A scuffle of movement told of Gissing getting up.

“Catch,” he said.

“Shawn’s right hand moved, clutched in the air and closed round something which Gissing had thrown.

“That’s his,” said Gissing. “The gold identity tag his mother had made for him to wear round his neck. He was asleep when it was taken off, and he doesn’t know it’s missing. See the mark in the corner? Where it dropped the first day he had it and carried it round in his hand? Remember that?”

Shawn didn’t speak; Roger pictured his chest heaving.

“And I tell you he is perfectly all right,” insisted Gissing. “All you have to do is go home, and take his mother with you. Then Ricky will be sent to you. No one will get hurt, you and your wife will be happy again.”

“She’s happy right now,” Shawn said. The words came out in slow succession.

Gissing laughed; and as the sound came Roger knew that it was a mistake. Shawn’s shoulders heaved as he flung himself forward. It happened too swiftly for Roger to do a thing. He waited for the roar of the shot, and actually moved forward, gun in hand, in readiness for an attempt to stop Gissing shooting again.

No shot came. Almost in the same moment that Shawn staggered backwards, Roger side-stepped out of sight. He saw Shawn’s head on the ground, near the door, and pressed further back, but didn’t think that Gissing would come any nearer. Shawn was breathing like a man with asthma; his head vanished as he struggled to his feet.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Gissing said evenly. “But if you do that again, I will. Go and sit in that chair.”

There was silence.

“Go and sit down, you great hulking fool,” Gissing rapped out. “Sit down!”

There was a sound of movement, and the creaking, as of the man’s bulk being lowered into a chair. Roger moved again so that he could just see inside the room. He saw Shawn’s legs and feet, and Gissing standing sideways to the door. Gissing wasn’t likely to look round, he was watching Shawn as he would a maddened tiger.

“I’ve told you how to get the boy back. I’ve made it easy for you. I’ve got two tickets for you on a jet leaving London Airport early tomorrow morning. You’re going on that “plane, Shawn. If you don’t —” He stopped.

Shawn didn’t speak, but the question must have been in his eyes. It seemed to Roger that Gissing revelled in this, relished the moment when he could hurt, by the pause, by the threat not yet shaped with words.

Still Shawn didn’t speak.

“If you don’t,” Gissing said, “I’ll give you tickets for another “plane, in four days’ time. The boy’s right ear will be in the same envelope.”

Roger heard a horrible retching sound, as if dredged up from the depths of Shawn’s heart

Gissing waited for seconds which seemed like minutes, then moved a little nearer his victim, still covering him with his gun. Roger was holding his breath, as if resisting the brutality in Gissing’s threat and the inevitability of what would happen if Shawn did not obey. This had been planned to the last detail, and there could be no way out while Gissing remained free to give his orders.

Then Gissing said briskly, coldly: “That’s all you have to do, Shawn. Leave now, tell no one where you’ve been or what you’re going to do. Take your wife to London Airport on time. Here are the tickets.” He drew an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on to Shawn’s lap.

As Shawn took it, his right hand appeared for an instant.

Gissing waited again; he used silence to twist the knife in the wound, to make the hurt lasting, unforgettable. Roger hadn’t seen him clearly, knew him more from the deceptive softness of his voice than from his appearance; and from what he had said and how he had said it. In his way Gissing was as much a giant as Shawn. Lacking the larger man’s physical strength, his was the strength of the utterly unscrupulous. This man mattered in the way that evil mattered. He knew exactly what he wanted, rode roughshod over everything to get it. Shawn might believe that once he was back in the States all would be well. Not likely. Any man but Shawn, any man not screwed up until his nerves screamed at him, would know that after the first demand would come the second; after the second, the third.

For the first time, Roger felt sorry for Shawn.

Watching the two men, Roger’s entire attention had gradually been riveted on what he was seeing, what he was hearing, moment by moment. All thought had been numbed — and thought was only just beginning to come back. What next? He could stop Gissing now; he could stop Shawn too. While they were unaware of his presence they would be easy victims. Ought he to stop Gissing? After the first demand, the second. There was no way of being sure that Gissing was the only man who mattered; that if Gissing were caught it would be easy to trace the boy. It might be harder. Gissing might lead to the boy; so Gissing could serve a purpose if he were free.

There was more. Behind the kidnapping and the need for finding the boy, there was the work that Shawn was doing.

Reason said that Gissing might be one of many; at least of several. So ought he to let Gissing go as a sprat to catch a mackerel which might not exist. He had plenty of time to leave the house, walk up the private road and give the waiting police a description of Gissing’s car. From the moment a warning went out, radio would trail him to his journey’s end. Gissing couldn’t escape the net once it was drawn around him. And there were only a hundred yards or so between Roger and the first pull at the net Police forces in Great Britain could be alerted in a matter of minutes. France, the Low Countries, Eire, Northern Ireland — they would all co-operate.

Roger could see Marino again, give him his report, and leave him to handle Shawn. That wasn’t his business, Shawn didn’t matter in his investigations except where he got in the way.

Gissing said at last: “You’d better have that drink.”

Once again Roger backed into the dining-room. Footsteps fell soft on the thick carpet. Gissing passed the door but didn’t appear to glance towards it. He was a yard or two away when warning shouted in Roger’s ear like a strident voice. Gissing wouldn’t leave Shawn alone, not now, not knowing what Shawn might do. Gissing must realize that the man wasn’t really sane; only in an emergency would he leave him and getting ice for a drink wasn’t an emergency. Roger backed further into the room, gun covering the door, left hand behind him, stretched out for the table.

He saw a swift-moving shadow; and the light went on.

Gissing, gun in one hand, the other hand on the light switch, stood in the doorway. In that split second, Roger saw the man vividly, recognized the pale face, the dark eyes, the narrow chin — described by the Cornish sergeant. In the same split second he squeezed the trigger, aiming at Gissing’s gun. The flash and the roar of the shot were simultaneous; he expected answering flame from Gissing’s gun, had time to know it didn’t come but none to see whether Gissing fell.

A weight crashed on to the back of his head. Pain first and then blackness swallowed him.

• • •

Pain and blackness were the first things Roger knew on waking, pain at the back of his head, and blackness, as if his eyes had been smeared with corrosive. He didn’t move, just lay where he was, not thinking of Gissing, of Shawn, of anyone; conscious only of the pain and the darkness. Neither eased, but gradually thoughts began to trickle into his mind; first a vague recollection of fear and danger and then of shooting, the fact that he had fired. Then he remembered Gissing, and that he had not seen Gissing shoot. It might have been a bullet that had hit him. No, the blow on the back of his head hadn’t been a bullet. Someone had been in the dining-room; someone had got in, while he had been listening to Shawn and Gissing, must have crept within a foot of him, and then waited.