Frost tapped the matchbox. "Have we confirmed that this is Bobby Kirby's finger and not the dead boy's… or even some other boy we don't know about yet?"

  "I've sent someone over to the mother's house to get prints from Bobby's room," said Harding. "We're also checking with the prints of the dead boy in the morgue."

  "For Pete's sake don't tell the mother about the ransom demand," said Frost.

  "Of course not," said Harding.

  Frost spun his chair round and looked at the wall map which charted the progress of the search parties. "Call off the search."

  "We haven't checked this is the boy's finger yet," protested Cassidy. "It could be some medical student's hoax."

  "A hoax? We should be so bloody lucky," said Frost. "It's genuine, I promise you." He waved a finger at Arthur Hanlon. "Call it off, Arthur." Back to Cassidy. "What about the letter he's sent to Sir Richard Cordwell?"

  "I've been on to Savalot's main office. They're going through all their post now. I've also spoken to his private secretary. She's going through the personal mail."

  The internal phone buzzed. Sandy Lane from the Denton Echo was here.

  Bill Wells ushered him in. Lane was carrying a padded envelope, identical to the one in front of Frost. He handed it over. It had been opened.

  "We asked you not to open it," said Cassidy.

  "I didn't get the message until I'd just slit the flap," lied Sandy.

  "Did it photostat all right?" Frost asked.

  "Perfectly," grinned the reporter. The postmark was the same. The envelope was addressed to "The Chief Crime Reporter, Denton Echo'.

  "Chief Crime Reporter?" queried Frost.

  "That's me, Jack Chief Crime Reporter, Chief Sports Reporter, Jumble Sales and Church Fetes."

  "I expect your bleeding fingerprints are all over it," said Frost, letting Harding extract the contents and slip them into transparent folders. There were two letters and a cassette tape. The first letter read:

  To The Chief Crime Reporter.

  I have the boy Bobby Kirby. The police will confirm this. I require 250,000 from Sir Richard Cordwell, Managing Director of Savalot supermarkets. His company can well afford this sum. If he refuses to pay, the boy will die and I am sure it will make an interesting story for your newspaper.

  Let the police have the tape after you have listened to it. Copy of my letter to the police enclosed.

  "I suppose you've played the tape as well?" said Frost.

  "I might have accidentally listened to it," affirmed Sandy.

  Burton took the tape and poked it into a cassette player. Everyone quietened down.

  For a second or so, nothing, just the hiss of raw tape and the rumble of the recorder motor, then a boy's voice. There were lots of pauses and clicks. The recorder had been switched on and off a few times while the man obviously told the boy what to say. Bobby was clearly distressed and it made harrowing listening.

  "My name is Bobby Kirby. I'm tied up and blindfolded. The man says if you do what he tells you, he will let me go home. He says you know what will happen if you don't do what he says. I want to go home. Please… I want to go home…" A click and the sound of raw tape without the recorder motor noise. Burton switched the machine off.

  Harding leant across and fast-forwarded the rest of the tape on cue and review. There was nothing else on it. He removed the cassette and carefully examined it. "I think that was the first recording on a brand-new tape, but I'll get it checked in case we can pick anything else up."

  "Any idea what sort of machine it was recorded on?" asked Cassidy.

  "Judging by the sound quality certainly not a state of the art hi-fi. I'd guess at a cheap portable model with a built-in microphone that's why it's picking up the sound of the motor."

  "Are they rare?" asked Frost.

  "There's millions of them," said Harding.

  "What about the cassette? Could we trace the shop where he bought it?"

  Again Harding shook his head. "One of the commonest types… sold in their thousands. I'll replay it back at the lab and boost up the background. It might give us a clue as to where it was recorded."

  "Get a copy made," said Cassidy, 'and take it to the mother see if she can identify the voice."

  "No!" said Frost. "Why upset the poor cow? If the fingerprint matches, we'll know it's genuine."

  Cassidy scowled. He resented being contradicted in front of everyone. He resented even more the fact that Frost was right on this occasion.

  "What's this about the boy losing another finger?" asked Sandy.

  Frost filled him in. "But I don't want it reported. We've got to keep that up our sleeve. In fact, I don't want any of this reported until we've got the boy back safe."

  "Bloody hell, Jack," the reporter protested, 'it's the biggest scoop I've ever had. I could make a bomb selling it to the London papers."

  "It'll still be a scoop when we get the boy back. You can have it as an exclusive."

  Sandy sighed. "All right. I'll make do with that."

  "How do you know you can trust him?" asked Cassidy when Lane had left.

  "I can trust him," said Frost firmly. He read through the letters again. "The bastard's on to a winner here. Kidnap someone anyone. It doesn't matter if the parents have got any money because you then blackmail some large corporation into coughing up the cash, knowing the public will think them shit if they refuse and let the kid die." He groaned inwardly as Mullett came bustling in. He could do without another dose of Horn-rim Harry this morning.

  "I've just come from your office, Frost," said Mullett. "There's a terrible smell in there."

  "You don't have to apologize, super," said Frost, pretending to misunderstand. "We all have the odd accident." Mullett glared and Frost snapped his fingers. "Oh sorry. You mean the stuff we fished from the canal. It's the loot from the Stanfield robbery. I'm getting the insurance assessor over to have a look at it."

  "I understand there's been a ransom demand?" said Mullett, trying not to show his irritation at the suppressed giggles from some of the others in the room.

  Frost pushed the letter across, then showed Mullett the contents of the matchbox. Mullett's face creased with concern which grew as he listened to the tape. He took his glasses off and pinched his nose. "I do hope Savalot agree to co-operate."

  "They'll co-operate," said Frost. "They daren't risk the bad publicity."

  "Bad publicity?"

  "When the papers print the story that they've refused to come up with money they can well afford and the kid dies."

  "It's blackmail," said Mullett.

  "All ransom demands are blackmail," retorted Frost.

  Burton, the phone pressed to his ear, called him over. "Savalot. Sir Richard Cordwell's private secretary. She's been through all his private post nothing. The main office has opened up all the general mail and there's nothing there either."

  "It's got to be!" frowned Frost. "It's bloody well got to be." He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to think… "Wait a minute. He must have sent it to Cordwell's house. Get the number."

  The number was ex-directory which the secretary refused to pass on, but she did condescend to phone the house herself and was back within two minutes. The letter, marked "Strictly Personal and Confidential', was waiting for Cordwell who was still in bed.

  "Tell him not to touch it we're on our way over," said Frost. She started to suggest he made an appointment, but Frost had slammed the phone down.

  The internal phone rang. "There's a Mr. Hicks here to see you," said Bill Wells.

  "Send the sod away," said Frost. "We're too busy."

  "He says you asked him to come," insisted Wells. "He's the claims assessor from Cityrock Insurers."

  Frost snatched his mind away from the kidnapping and on to the furs and jewels dredged from the canal. "Send him to my office. Tell him to follow his nose he can't miss it."

  Hicks, a jolly little man wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses, beamed as Frost tipped out the contents of the plastic bag. He held the furs at arm's length, his nose screwing up at the smell, nodded, then let them drop to the ground, more interested in the jewellery. His smile widened as he compared each item with his typewritten list. "Looks as if it is all here, inspector."

  "Is it worth what they're claiming?"

  A firm shake of the head. "They're claiming 75,000. I'd put it at 35/40,000 top whack."

  "An insurance fiddle?"

  Hicks pursed his lips. "Not a very clever one if it was. We'd have knocked the claim down to something nearer 35,000 which is what the items are worth. They could have sold them for that and there'd have been no need to chuck them in a canal." He zipped up his briefcase. "As far as my company is concerned, the stolen items have been recovered and we don't have to pay out. Mr. Stanfield can carry on paying the premiums for his own inflated valuation, but should they be "stolen" again, we'll settle on the basis of my own figure."

  "What about the money he claims he handed over to get his daughter returned?"

  Hicks shrugged. "If he was insured for such a loss then it wasn't with my company, but I don't think any insurers give cover for money held in a bank."

  Frost drummed the desk with his fingers. He still wasn't convinced this was a genuine robbery and abduction. If it was genuine, why steal stuff then dump it? He thanked Hicks, and steered him in the direction of the street.

  Back in the incident room Burton was on the phone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece as Frost entered. "Forensic were on. The prints check. The finger is from Bobby Kirby."

  Frost grunted his acknowledgement.

  "And I've got PC Ridley on the phone. He wants to know what we should do with all the stuff we pulled out of the canal."

  "He shouldn't have to ask," replied Frost. "There's a Keep Britain Tidy campaign in force this week. Tell him to chuck it back in the canal."

  Burton relayed the message and hung up. "All search parties stood down," he reported.

  Frost nodded and walked over to study the photographs of the two boys. "He intended Dean to be the kidnap victim. He chloroformed him, but the kid died. This didn't put the bastard off, he just looked for someone else and he found Bobby."

  "What made him pick Dean Anderson in the first place?"

  Frost took a deep drag at his cigarette then pushed out smoke. "Any kid would have done that's the clever part. The money is coming from a rich supermarket chain pay up or your customers will know you let a kid die. This bloke is a clever bastard and he's on to a flaming winner." He dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his foot. "Come on, son, let's find out how the rich people live. We're off to see the Supermarket King."

  Mullett stopped them on their way out. He had been told the result of the fingerprinting, but not by Frost as he should have expected.

  "Can't stop, super," grunted Frost, edging past. "We're on our way to see tricky Dicky."

  A concerned frown from Mullett. With someone as important as Sir Rirchard Cordwell involved, he was wondering if the uncouth Frost was the right person to handle the interview. "He's a very influential man, Frost, and I understand he can be quite nasty when he likes, so handle him with kid gloves."

  "Don't worry, super," said Frost, sidling past him towards the door to the car-park. "I shall treat him with my usual tact."

  Mullett's smile tightened to vanishing point. This was exactly what he feared. "I think I'd better come with you," he said.

  The Manor House was an imposing edifice, solidly Victorian, forests of chimney pots, standing in extensive grounds and enclosed by a high stone wall thickly coated with ivy. The black, cast-iron gates were firmly closed and a video security camera scrutinized them closely as Burton announced who they were into a microphone. Their credentials established, the gates swung back, closing again immediately they were inside. They coasted up to the main entrance behind a gleaming, pearl grey Rolls-Royce. Frost checked its tax disc and seemed disappointed to find it was current. Up stone steps to the front door where a female secretary hovered and led them directly to Cordwell's study, a large, high-ceilinged room with tall french windows opening out on to a billiard table lawn, a rose garden, and a large fish pool with a weathered stone fountain in the shape of a boy with a dolphin.

  CordweU, a thickset, coarse-featured man in his early fifties, was at an antique mahogany desk, its green leather top scarred with cigarette burns. As they entered he was bawling down a white and gold phone and didn't give them a second glance. "If he's not measuring up, then chuck him out you can find a reason. I'm not carrying bloody passengers." He banged the phone down, grabbed an enormous cigar from a silver box and lit up with a lighter fashioned from a genuine flintlock pistol, then flapped a hand for Frost and Mullett to sit. Cordwell had started business selling broken biscuits from a barrow in street markets and, by cheating, scheming and doing down his associates, had worked his way up to owning one of the largest cut-price grocery chains in Britain. A grunt and a snap of his fingers signalled the hovering secretary to place a folder in front of him. He slid it across to the two policemen. "The letter."

  Frost opened the folder. The envelope had been slit open and the letter was fastened to it with a paper clip.

  "We asked you not to open it," he said.

  Cordwell gave him a sweet smile. "Nobody tells me what to do."

  While Frost read the letter, Cordwell was back on the phone tearing some other poor devil off a strip. "Cancel the bloody order!" he barked. "I don't care if they have got a binding agreement there's bound to be a bloody loophole somewhere, so cancel it." As he slammed the phone down he shouted across to his secretary. "What's that prat's name?" She told him. He scribbled the name on his pad. "Next lot of redundancies, he's got pole position."

  Frost shut his ears to this as he and Mullett skimmed through the letter. Similar to the others, it read:

  Dear Sir Richard Cordwell:

  I have the boy Bobby Kirby. The police will confirm this is genuine. For his safe return I require from your company the sum of 250,000 in used notes… no marked money or the boy dies. Be near the public telephone kiosks in the shopping mall outside your Denton store at 8 o'clock tonight with the money and I will phone you with instructions for the han dover Just you no police I'll be checking to make sure. If you do not comply, the boy will die. The press have been informed and the public will know the consequences.

  "We'll keep this," said Frost, closing the folder and daring Cordwell to refuse, but this was agreed to with a wave of the hand.

  "Is it genuine?"

  "We believe so," said Mullett.

  "Believe so? I'm not sodding about with it if it's a try-on."

  "It's genuine," said Frost. "He sent us a tape of the boy."

  Cordwell flicked a long cylinder of ash from his cigar on to the carpet. "And you reckon he'll carry out his threat to kill him?"

  "Yes," said Frost.

  Cordwell beamed. "Good. You got a photograph of the kid?" Frosj slid one across the desk. Cordwell studied it through a fog of cigar smoke and nodded his approval. "Nice-looking kid I was afraid he'd be an ugly little bastard with a squint and bad teeth." He flipped the switch on his intercom. "Roberts come in!"

  A tap on the door and Roberts entered. A lean, mean-looking man in a sharp silver-grey suit. Cordwell showed him the photograph. "The kidnapped kid," he grunted.

  Roberts looked at it and nodded. "Nice-looking kid… and a good photograph. Should come up well in half-tone… I think we should go ahead."

  "So do I," said Cordwell. "This is what I want you to do." He barked his orders. "Check with the parents and see if there are any more photographs the kid as a baby would be nice. Then a press release for tomorrow to all the London dailies Supermarket Chief To The Rescue, you know the sort of thing. And get me some television interviews me and the boy." He dismissed Roberts then turned back to Frost. "If you give a press conference you can quote me as saying that to save the boy I'm giving the police my unstinted, wholehearted co-operation."

  "You're too good for this world," said Frost. "Can you get the money together in time?"

  "No problem."

  "How soon can you get it over to us?"

  Cordwell frowned. "Why should I let you have it?"

  "We've got to mark the notes and record as many of the numbers as we can. We also need to put a small radio transmitter inside the case."

  "No!" Mullett winced as Cordwell's fist thumped down on his desk top making the silver cigar case rattle. "The object of the exercise is to save the kid, so no tricks, no marked notes and no transmitters." He reached over and clicked on the intercom again. "Roberts! You can add this to the press release. "The police wanted the notes to be marked, but supermarket chief, Sir Richard Cord well, said no. Even though the ransom money is being paid by Sir Richard, his first and only consideration is for the safe return of the boy." He clicked Roberts off in mid-acknowledgement.

  "Now, listen to me began Frost.

  "No!" snapped Cordwell. "You listen to me. I'm not doing this for the love of humanity. This bastard has grabbed a kid and is on my back for the money. He thinks he's blackmailing me, but he's not I'm doing this of my own volition, because it suits me to do so."

  "Hardly," smirked Mullett. "What would the public say if you refused?"

  "Sod the public. They wouldn't desert Savalot. Knock tuppence off a tin of baked beans and they'd be fighting to come in whether the kid's dead or not. I don't usually give in to blackmail, but I can get some publicity out of this. For a lousy two hundred and fifty thousand quid I can get a million quid's worth of publicity and that's the sort of bargain I like. So you either do it my way, or I'm out!"

  "All right," said Frost reluctantly. "We do it your way."

  "No police involvement in any shape or form until the kid is safely returned?"

  "No police involvement," agreed Frost.

  "Do I have your word?"

  "You have my word."

  Cordwell jabbed a stubby finger at Frost. "Cross me and I'll crucify you do you read me, buster?"

  Frost put on his hurt look. "I've given you my word," he said.

  They were curtly dismissed and ushered out to the car by the secretary. As Frost settled himself down in the seat, Mullett turned to him angrily. "You had no business giving him your word, Frost."

 

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