Snatch Crop Read online

  ‘I don’t think I should talk about it,’ he said.

  ‘Why not? You’ve discussed your cases with me in the past.’

  He put down his fork and looked at me. ‘Those were cases in which you were already involved,’ he said. ‘Or else they concerned folk you didn’t know and weren’t likely to meet. This time, you know the people. If they care to tell you all about it, that’s their business. But can’t you see that it would be wrong for me to tell you their secrets? Please?’

  I couldn’t; but I could see that it would be wrong for me to add to his worries. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll screw it out of Sir Peter when I see him again.’

  I saw him relax. ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘You know, I’ve been dreading the day when I’d have to break it to you that I can’t always discuss things openly. But it didn’t hurt very much, did it? I’ll tell you this much and no more, and don’t you go quoting me. It’s possible that something terrible may have happened. But, on the balance of probabilities, I think not. And if what’s happened is what I think happened, it may even turn out to be for the best, one way or the other.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ I said.

  We both breathed more easily. I still felt cheated, but a crisis had gone past.

  He finished his meal and went to the phone. He must have called Mrs Thrower at her home. ‘I’ll have to go out,’ he told me. ‘I may not be very long.’

  ‘You’ll probably be all night,’ I said.

  ‘No. If there’s no word by morning, that’ll be time enough to start the emergency routine.’

  He gave me a hug and left. I used the blank evening to dash around the flat – like a chicken with its head cut off, as I had said to Ian – catching up with all the neglected housework and trying to prepare meals for the next day or two.

  He came back at ten. ‘Nothing to worry about yet,’ he said. He refused to tell me any more and I refused to be more than a little bit hurt by his secretiveness. If policemen told their wives everything, I assured myself, there would soon be no secrets left. We went to bed early and I let him see that he was forgiven and that my earlier threat had been an idle one. It did not take him long to get my message.

  In the morning, he was on the phone before I had even started to make breakfast. I could have overheard whatever he said, but he said nothing except for his own name. The remainder of his end of the conversation consisted of grunts and a quick goodbye. When he came to the table he was looking thoughtful.

  ‘Nothing?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘We should hear soon. If we don’t, I’ll start to get really worried.’

  ‘If you want volunteers for search-parties,’ I began.

  Again the headshake. ‘Too early for that,’ he said. ‘But I’ll set enquiries going.’

  *

  To my surprise Mrs Thrower, who was not usually among our more punctual arrivals, was already in the office when I reached the factory. She looked drawn but had herself under control.

  ‘If you’d rather be at home, I’ll understand,’ I said.

  ‘I’d just as soon keep occupied,’ she said.

  ‘All right. But if there’s anything I can do . . .?’

  She looked at me with her eyebrows up. ‘What on earth could you do?’ she asked. Before I had time to take offence she went on. ‘Only the lawyers can do anything now.’

  ‘Lawyers?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘My husband,’ she said patiently. ‘He’s the one who’ll have taken her. I’m sure of it.’

  She spoke as if I were dim-witted, as she often did. This time, I suppose, she was correct. The lack of a general panic was explained. ‘I didn’t think of that,’ I said weakly. I felt myself relax and only then realised that I had been living through the horrors of abduction, abuse and murder with the absent Delia. Once, when I was a child, I had been carried off as a hostage against Dad’s interference in a criminal matter. I had almost forgotten the incident, but it must still have been looming somewhere in my subconscious mind.

  ‘Your husband didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said indignantly. ‘It would be quite wrong for him to discuss confidential matters with me.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ she said, ‘as far as it goes. I was thinking the same thing myself.’ She put her head down over the typewriter. If she had not been Sir Peter’s choice for the post I would have fired her on the spot, Delia or no Delia. She looked up again after typing a few lines. ‘If the bastard thinks he can force me to give him a better deal in the divorce, he can think again.’

  ‘He may just want custody of Delia,’ I said.

  ‘He never gave a damn about her. Delia adored him, but that didn’t matter to him.’ She was going to say more but she bit it off and went back to her typing.

  Later in the morning, she went out to do a thousand and one business errands in the town. Gathering up her gloves and handbag, she paused at my desk. ‘If there are any messages for me, take a note of them,’ she said.

  Ten minutes later, while I was still seething at her calm assumption that I was her secretary (instead of vice versa), Sir Peter arrived looking for her.

  ‘She’s out,’ I told him. ‘You could try the bank or the post office. Or you could wait. I’ll make coffee.’

  ‘Don’t bother with that,’ he said absently. But he dropped into the visitor’s chair. ‘When she comes back, would you tell her that we’ve sent messages through her husband’s solicitors and through the bank that’s been transmitting money to her.’

  It was unfair to blame Sir Peter for another example of role reversal but my expression must have shown irritation. ‘You don’t get on with her, do you, my dear?’ he said.

  ‘She has the knack of putting my back up,’ I admitted.

  ‘I can see how she might.’ He studied me solemnly for a moment. ‘When I give you the word, you can get rid of her as fast as you like. But for the moment I’d be grateful if you’d put up with her.’

  ‘You can be just as annoying,’ I said. ‘You read my mind. I wasn’t going to fire her while this was hanging over her head. After that . . .’

  ‘After that, she may not be around these parts anyway. Until then, I’d be grateful if you’d just keep an eye on her.’

  It was as quiet in the office as it could be with the preparation-room staff working and chattering a few yards away. ‘Keep an eye in what sense?’ I asked. ‘Protective or nosy?’

  ‘The one you do best.’

  ‘Protective?’

  He half smiled. ‘Nosy.’

  ‘You’d better tell me what the hell is going on,’ I said.

  He made a small gesture of helpless apology. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘The whole matter’s as confidential as . . . as next year’s budget. For the moment, I can only tell you that we’re very anxious to get in touch with Mr Thrower – if he’s still alive.’

  ‘He must be alive,’ I said. ‘Or he couldn’t have taken Delia. Surely?’

  Sir Peter started to say something, checked himself and began again. The plucking machine had started up next door and he had to raise his voice to be heard. ‘The police rather favoured the theory that he’d been knocked on the head. I suppose that their minds learn to work that way. Mine follows more fiscally oriented lines. There’s been more than a little financial hocus-pocus going on. Mr Thrower may or may not have been involved, but the way he walked out of his job at Sempylene, if it was voluntary, plus the fact that he’s still managing to send money to his family, makes it look bad for him. And we can’t be sure that Mrs Thrower isn’t in it with him. That’s all I can say and even that may be too much. We’ve managed to keep it under wraps so far and it’s got to stay that way.’

  ‘I shan’t spread it around,’ I promised him.

  ‘You never were a chatterbox. Not, at least, since you first entered your teens and had some secrets of your own to keep.’

  Without my even thinking
about the matter, a nasty suspicion popped into my head. ‘This business with Delia,’ I said. ‘It isn’t a put-up job?’

  He blinked at me. ‘What made you think of that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It occurred to me that you wanted him to come out into the open and that this might be the one certain way to make him show himself. Or his solicitors might not be willing to cough up his address over a civil matter, but a kidnapping would be something different. And I just wondered. You tycoons can play rough.’

  ‘This is more likely to drive him deeper underground. All the same, I wish I’d thought of it myself. I’m almost flattered to be thought of as a tycoon and a devious mastermind,’ he said. He got up. ‘Please give her my message. And if you notice anything out of key, especially if you’ve any reason to believe that she’s in touch with him, give me a ring. Or tell that husband of yours.’

  I hesitated. I disliked Mrs Thrower, but not enough to spy on her. On the other hand, if two out of my three favourite men wanted to know what was going on . . .

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  He nodded gratefully and pottered out, looking vague. He always looked vague. It was the camouflage behind which he hid a very sharp mind.

  Mrs Thrower phoned later from the bank. She had asked for a statement and their version of the balance did not agree with ours. I read her some figures over the phone. She thought that the bank had credited a cheque to somebody else’s account. My guess was that she had entered an incoming cheque twice, but I left her to find out for herself. She was staying to go over the figures with one of the cashiers and I preferred the factory without her.

  Mr Thrower, I decided, had to be alive. Otherwise, I thought, why would anyone want to kidnap Delia? There did not seem to be any money for a ransom and personally I wouldn’t have had her as a gift (or ‘in a lucky bag’, as Mum would have said). Unless her father had been deep in the ‘financial hocus-pocus’ and somebody else wanted to screw it out of his widow. Or unless there was a rapist-murderer on the loose after all.

  Madge Foullis, the preparation-room chargehand, claimed my attention before I could think myself into a case of nerves. The weather had been damp but unseasonably warm, there had not been enough overnight frost to knock off the insects and some of my last purchase of pheasants had been badly stored by the estate and were slightly flyblown. I made a note to give the keeper a stern warning and showed Madge how to deal with eggs, but I told her to keep the batch separate and that any sign of maggots was to be referred to me, when the whole lot would be returned and the cheque stopped.

  A man had come in and was standing by the office door. From his aggressive stance I took him for a meat inspector and my heart missed a beat. Wallace and Dad were both away and Janet, Wallace’s wife, had charge of the shop. She had disliked Sam ever since he had raided her shopping basket about ten years earlier and she refused to have him in the shop with her. So Sam was under my desk and the last time the meat inspector had caught him there he had raised the roof. But this man was too neatly dressed.

  ‘I’m looking for my wife,’ he said when I approached him. ‘I’m Bernard Thrower.’

  ‘She’s out for the moment,’ I said. I looked at him with some curiosity. It took me a few seconds to pin down the discrepancy between his looks and his manner. Then it came to me that he moved and spoke as if under a strain, which was hardly surprising. Take away the hunted look and the anger and the cast of his features would have suggested somebody both amicable and calm. Dad operated on the theory that any two people who look alike will probably behave alike, and several men of my acquaintance with the same tall build, long head and wide-set eyes had been placid by temperament.

  There was another contradiction. His fair colouring and pale eyelashes suggested that he was the genetic source of Delia’s blonde hair, but he had removed his tweed hat in a belated gesture of politeness and his hair was almost too black to be true. It was also growing out fair at the parting, I noticed.

  ‘My lawyers phoned me. They said that Delia’s disappeared? Is it true?’

  ‘All I know is that her mother expected her to come here after school yesterday and she didn’t turn up,’ I said. ‘As far as I know, she hasn’t turned up yet.’

  He glared at me as though it were all my fault. ‘What’s being done about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. You needn’t take it out on me,’ I added. ‘I’m the original innocent bystander. I think they were going to start a search if she hadn’t been heard of today. The most widely accepted theory seemed to be that you’d got her.’

  Some of the anger went out of him, to be replaced by anxiety. ‘Tell me honestly. This isn’t a trick?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ I said. ‘Bear in mind that I don’t have a tenth of the facts. But your wife seemed genuinely horrified when Delia didn’t show up here last night. The police seem to be concerned. So does Sir Peter Hay, who seems to be involved somehow. I got the impression that the only reason they weren’t all in a state of panic was that they were fairly sure that you’d got her.’

  He was studying my face as I spoke. I must have passed some sort of test, because he nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I believe you. Tell them that they can start to panic now. The message to my lawyers suggested that I might have taken her. I wish to God that I had! As soon as it reached me, I set off to come here and tell my wife that I had damn-all to do with it. You can tell her that with my compliments.’ He paused and his manner became almost pleading. ‘I want to have Delia with me, but not that way. And, if anybody’s interested, you can tell them that I dropped out to start a new life with Elaine. Whatever went on at Sempylene, I didn’t touch a penny; and I’ll sue anybody who says different.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to say so yourself?’ I asked him. ‘Sir Peter Hay’s been trying to get in touch with you.’

  ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain to you, but it’s quite impossible. I’m as innocent a bystander as you are, caught up in something I can’t control.’

  I could feel panic rising in me, on Delia’s behalf. ‘What do you think has happened to her?’ I asked.

  ‘I wish I knew for sure.’ His eyes altered focus, looking through me towards some hell beyond. ‘Poor kid! Please God they haven’t hurt her. I’m only guessing, but I think – I hope – that she may have been taken to put pressure on me. In which case she should be all right . . . if I don’t hang around here.’

  ‘Then you’d better get going,’ I said. I felt suddenly sorry for him. ‘I hope it works out for all of you. If there’s anything I can do, this side of lawbreaking . . .’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said gruffly. He looked hard into my face again. ‘You really mean that, don’t you? Yes, there is one thing. If – when – they get Delia back safe, they’ll send a message through my solicitors. Then I’ll come and talk to the police. That should end the danger to Delia and I can look after myself. But I don’t want to be tricked.’ He took a pencil and a blank invoice off my desk and wrote down the phone number of his solicitors. ‘When you, yourself, see Delia safe and well, phone them. I’ll know it’s genuine if you say that the message comes from . . . what’s your Christian name?’

  ‘Deborah,’ I told him.

  ‘You’ll do that? And no tricks?’

  ‘I promise,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sorry if I—’ He broke off and returned to the hectoring manner that seemed to sit so uncomfortably on him. ‘You just pass those messages on. Tell them to find her. And tell that bloody woman that I hold her responsible. I thought that I could at least trust her to look after Delia. Now I must go. The worst thing for Delia would be if I were to talk to the police. Good day to you!’

  He hurried the few yards to the door and slammed it behind him. The factory was little more than a box with rooflights and no windows. I opened the door in time to see his car leave the yard.

  Sir Peter was the only person who had asked me to keep him posted. I rang his home but he ha
d left for a meeting in Edinburgh. I could have phoned Mrs Thrower at the bank, but she had only asked me to take messages and I was feeling bloody-minded.

  Mr Thrower had not seemed to care whether or not I told the police about his visit. I phoned Ian. He listened to about ten words of my report and said that he was coming round immediately. When Ian says ‘immediately’, he means it. He was at the factory before I had finished checking that the packing-room was putting the right birds into the right bags. He brought with him a beardless youth in constable’s uniform. His sergeant, I had heard over the factory grapevine, was conducting enquiries between the school and the factory.

  We settled down in the office. Ian was very formal and official and quite unlike a husband. He produced a studio photograph in a plastic envelope. ‘Is this the man?’

  ‘That looks like him,’ I said. ‘The moustache had gone and his hair’s black now.’

  Ian nodded. ‘Tell it all from the beginning,’ he said. He gave the constable a second nod, which I guessed meant that the lad was to take notes.

  I repeated Mr Thrower’s words in as much detail as I could remember, withholding only his suggestion of my name as a password. ‘He also flatly denied taking any money,’ I finished. I remembered a name that both Sir Peter and Mr Thrower had let slip. ‘I suppose he was referring to Sempylene.’

  He looked at me sharply. ‘What do you know about Sempylene?’ he demanded.

  ‘Sir Peter was in here just before Mr Thrower came,’ I said. That may have suggested that I knew more than I did, but it remained true. I have my fair share of curiosity or, according to Dad, rather more than my fair share; and it was high time that Ian learned that he need not expect to keep secrets from his wife for more than a day, if that.

  Ian seemed to accept that he could speak more freely. ‘In the circumstances, Thrower said pretty much what you’d expect him to say, whether or not he was in on the fiddles. You can stop taking notes,’ he added to the constable. ‘I’m thinking aloud. The question is, did he really have nothing to do with Delia’s disappearance?’