CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Canny dropped Alice at the house in Leeds. “How do you feel?” he said, as she got out of the car.

“Better,” she assured him. “Much more relaxed than I did this time yesterday. Like a cow with bloat whose belly’s just been punctured by the vet’s giant hypodermic.”

“That’s a truly repulsive analogy.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about going on at you so much—it was just more bloat, more hot air. I’m okay now. I’ll see you back in Cockayne.”

“Sure,” he said. “Take care.”

“I always do, she assured him.

It only required a further twenty minutes to drive back to Cockayne. Bentley had the usual stack of telephone messages for him, and the mail that had accumulated over the previous few days was unusually prolific—a further effect of his father’s death.

“I’m afraid some of it’s urgent,” the butler said.

“I can see that,” Canny told him. “I’ll do what I can before lunch. Will Mummy be in?”

“No, sir. Lady Credesdale is out until dinner.”

Canny took time out to shower and change his clothes before he started work on the mail, but that only took him twenty minutes. When he did sit down he set aside all the items that Bentley had opened and sorted for him, directing his immediate attention to one item that stood out from all the rest: a package marked with instructions CONFIDENTIAL—TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY and EXTREMELY URGENT.

This legend was handwritten with a marker pen. Bentley told him that it had been delivered earlier that morning by a courier service.

“You could have opened it,” Canny said.

“I could not,” the butler contradicted him, severely. “Even if the labeling is a mere publicity ploy, concealing some ludicrous commercial special offer, I am bound to take it seriously.

“Well,” Canny said, “if it’s a bomb, I’m never going to forgive you for not taking the blast.” He tore open the package.

It wasn’t a bomb. It was a mobile phone.

Canny’s first thought was that Bentley had been right, and that it was some kind of promotional offer—an impression heightened rather than dispelled by the fact that there was nothing accompanying the handset but a single piece of paper containing a handwritten instruction to call a number that obviously belonged to another mobile phone.

Canny was inclined to drop the phone, the instruction and the packaging into the bin, but he hesitated. There was an electrical sensation in the air, and a certain fugitive darkness. He didn’t know whether he was being warned to ring the number, or to avoid ringing it, and his conversation with Alice about nEurophysiological disorders was still all-too-fresh in his mind, but he still believed in the reality of the Kilcannon luck.

In the end, he thumbed the number into the keypad.

“Lord Credesdale,” said a male voice that contrived to be flat, businesslike and menacing at the same time. “We had hoped to hear from you sooner.” The voice was slightly accented, but Canny had no idea what kind of accent it was. He had to presume that it was Eastern European, but if he hadn’t been pointed towards that conclusion in advance he wouldn’t have been able to draw it with any confidence.

“I’ve just got back from London,” Canny said. “What do you want?”

“We want a million Euros, Lord Credesdale, by five o’clock this evening—and your silence, of course.”

Canny felt his body react to the words—or to the muted streak that came with them. The shock was dull, and only subtly nauseating, but he had no idea whether its half-hearted quality was a consequence of the diminution of his ability or the relatively low level of the danger with which he was faced.

“And what do I get in return?” Canny asked, trying to keep his voice level. His eyes, meanwhile, met Bentley’s inquisitive gaze.

The voice that replied to that inquiry wasn’t the same one. It was easily recognizable, in spite of its strained tone, as Stevie Larkin’s.

“Canny? Is that you?”

“It’s me,” Canny confirmed. “What is this, Stevie?” The question was necessary, even though he knew perfectly well what it was. He needed confirmation.

“I’ve been kidnapped, Canny. I was in the country for secret talks. I took an opportunity that came up to go home to see the family. They boxed the car in, shot out the rear window to show me they meant business. God only knows why they contacted you—I told them to ring my agent. I can get the money, Canny—but they insist that you have to raise it for me. I’m truly sorry.”

“It’s okay, Stevie,” Canny said. “I understand why. It’s me they’re after, not you. They won’t hurt you, if I do what they say. I’ll get you out, Stevie—depend on that.”

“They say they’ll do my knee, Canny,” Stevie told him, plaintively. “That’s all—but it’d mean that I’d never play again. They know what it’s worth to me. The club’s insured, but that’s not the point. Do you understand, Canny? If I have to pay a million Euros to keep my knee, I’ll do it, no matter how hard it is to get the money together. I’m good for it, Canny. Just do as they say, and I’ll see you right. Can you get the money?”

“I don’t know, Stevie,” Canny said. “I hope so. I’ll certainly try, as hard as I can.”

The other voice came back. “You can get the money, Lord Credesdale. Five o’clock. Ring back, and we’ll give you further instructions. Don’t involve the police. If anything goes wrong, Mr Larkin’s career is over—and it won’t end there. You do understand that, don’t you, Lord Credesdale? This is business, not war—but you were the one who raised the stakes.” The accent was still indecipherable, but Canny couldn’t believe that any member of the Uzbekistani mafia would be quite that polished. He was dealing with authentic Europeans, not displaced tartars, more likely Magyars or Czechs than Bulgars or Chechens—not that it mattered.

Canny didn’t bother to complain that he wasn’t the player who had raised the stakes, let alone the one who had started the game in the first place. He wasn’t the one who was setting the rules, either—and he had no idea how far his luck could now be trusted, if at all. He was fairly certain, though, that the threat was serious. If he were callous enough to refuse to help Stevie out, they’d not only cripple the footballer but go after someone else until they struck the right nerve. They’d be ripping open a hornets’ nest if they went after Lissa Lo’s face, but they probably didn’t even know about her. If Stevie’s knee didn’t do the trick, they’d turn their attention to the village.

“I’ll try to get the money,” Canny said, as calmly as he could. “You don’t have anything against Stevie—there’s no need to hurt him. I’ll try as hard as I can to get you what you want.”

“That’s good,” the voice said, grimly. “If you deliver, and keep quiet, no one will get hurt. A million Euros in notes—Euros, sterling or US dollars are acceptable, but nothing else. Ring us as soon as you’ve got it together, not before. When we have it, Mr. Larkin will be released. It’s a simple business transaction, nothing more.”

Canny had to figure that the kidnapper was almost certainly lying—he didn’t need any kind of gift to work that out—but the game still had to be played out.

When Canny had put the phone down he still had to answer Bentley’s inquisitorial stare, but that was the easy part. “Trouble,” He said. “Bad trouble. I need to raise a lot of money very quickly. Utmost discretion required. No police—and Mummy mustn’t suspect a thing. You’ll have to cover for me if anyone asks. I need you to do that, Bentley—but the less you actually know, the better. Okay?”

“Yes sir,” Bentley said, dutifully.

“Good,” Canny said. He picked up the mobile phone and put it into his left-hand jacket pocket—his own phone was in the right-hand pocket—before moving to the land-line and phoning Maurice Rawtenstall at the mill.

He didn’t have time for diplomatic niceties. “It’s Lord Credesdale, Maurice,” he said. “I need the slush fund—all of it. Pounds, dollars and Euros. I’ll try to get to back to you within the week. No questions—and if anyone else asks, no answers.”

“Of course, Lord Credesdale,” was the answer he got, after a few seconds hesitation. “How would you like the money delivered?”

Canny made sure that his sigh of relief was inaudible. For a moment or two, the politeness and sheer matter-of-factness of Rawtenstall’s reply seemed utterly bizarre—but he was Lord Credesdale now, and it probably wasn’t the first time that a Lord Credesdale had telephoned the mill to demand a large sum of cash, with no questions asked.

“I’ll collect it in an hour or so,” Canny said. “How much is there?”

“I don’t know the exact sum,” Rawtenstall said. “About a hundred and fifty thousand.”

That would be pounds, Canny knew. He had a further fifty thousand in his own safe. Given that a million Euros was currently equivalent to seven hundred thousand pounds, that would leave him with a further half million sterling to raise.

He phoned the first of the three Leeds banks with which the family had accounts and asked to talk to the senior manager. “This is Lord Credesdale,” he said, again. “We met last week. I need to raise a considerable sum in cash by five o’clock this afternoon. Sterling, dollars and Euros are all acceptable. How much can you let me have?”

The manager didn’t bother to query his use of the term “considerable sum”, or quibble about practicalities. “I can probably let you have a hundred thousand immediately,” the manager said. “I ought to be able to raise a quarter of a million by five, although it might be a close-run thing.”

“Would that involve obtaining cash from other banks in the city?” Canny wanted to know.

“Yes it would.”

“I’ll have to go to Lloyd’s and HSBC myself. If you can obtain cash from other parts of your own organization, that would be more convenient. I know there’s no time to transfer notes from London or Birmingham, but Manchester’s not so far away.”

“I might be able to raise two hundred thousand without troubling the other institutions you mention,” the manager said. “I might, however, have to draw on other sources to which they would have recourse in their turn, reducing their own capacity to help you. How much do you need?”

“Too much. Start raising what you can. I’ll get on to them directly, and I’ll come back to you if it looks as if there might not be enough. This has to be handled with the utmost discretion, though.”

“Of course, sir. Will you be collecting the money in person?”

“Yes. I’ll be in touch.”

By the time Canny had made two further phone calls, the entire half million had been promised. He was astonished, and slightly appalled, by how easy it had been.

“I always thought the title was so much meaningless gibberish,” he said to Bentley. “This is the twenty-first century, for Heaven’s sake.”

“Yours is a name that commands a great deal of authority, sir,” Bentley told him. “The country is doubtless replete with aristocrats whose credit rating is derisory, but the Earls of Credesdale have a reputation that stretches back further than anyone can remember—and their dealings, though always profitable in the long run, haven’t always been orthodox.”

It wasn’t just Henri Meurdon who had a powerful computer and a healthy measure of curiosity, Canny realized. He was, indeed, living in the twenty-first century. Seven hundred thousand pounds wasn’t that big a deal, and he wasn’t short of collateral—but the real point at issue was that all four of the men he’d called had heard abundant rumors of the Kilcannon luck, and had the means to investigate its arithmetic. One thing they didn’t know, of course, was that his luck was supposed to be at a low ebb just now—but he didn’t know himself how crucial the rules, or how reliable the superstitious fears, might really be.

“They all think I’m putting it into some crooked deal, don’t they?” Canny said. “They think it’s all slush fund.”

“I’m sure they don’t know what to think,” Bentley told him. “But they know better than to make difficulties. They have confidence in you, sir—as have I.”

“Even though you know it’s simple blackmail?”

“Simple, sir?” the butler replied, cocking an eyebrow. “I turned a conscientiously deaf ear to everything you said, of course—and the exact nature of your relationship with Mr. Larkin is none of my business—but I can’t quite believe that it’s simple. If I were permitted to speculate, I’d hazard a guess that this has something to do with the other sum of money you recently lost, and I’d feel obliged to ask whether you might be in danger of losing more than mere money.”

“They already had to fall back on Plan B,” Canny said. “Obviously, that was just a stopgap. The rap on the knuckles they got from the Union Corse didn’t put them off—quite the reverse, in fact. But things will work out. Maybe matters have taken a slight turn for the worse, but they’ll improve. They always do, don’t they? I’m a Credesdale, after all. One of Fortune’s favorites.”

“Luck sometimes runs out, sir,” Bentley said, baldly—not because he knew anything about the rules, but because he was no more immune to the seductions of proverbial wisdom than anyone else.

“Yes it does,” Canny agreed. “Even the longest lucky streak in the world has to run out eventually, no matter how carefully you consult the oracles or how often you pass along the road to Damascus. But you can’t live your life with that expectation, can you? You have to play the cards as they’re dealt, the best way you can. And there’s a certain comfort in knowing that the world has so many people in it who are willing to hand over every currency note they have because you, your father, and your grandfather before you, have never let them down.”

“It might have been exactly that knowledge,” the butler pointed out, “that attracted the wrong kind of people—people, that is, who are selective in paying attention to the many aspects of your family’s reputation.”

“I have to go to the library now, Bentley,” Canny said. “Then I have to drive to the mill, and then into Leeds. Could you possibly unpack my suitcase for me—it’s on the bed.”

“Would you like me to come with you, sir?”

“No,” Canny said. “They’re not going to put up with that, are they? And no, I don’t want a gun. I just want to hand over the money, and get Stevie Larkin out. He says he’ll pay me back, and he means it. With luck, I’ll come out of this without suffering any loss at all—and he’ll still have five more years at the top of his game. It’s just business. There’s no need for any heroics.”

Bentley nodded, not bothering to issue any further warnings or pleas. By the time Canny had emptied the safe in the inner sanctum, the suitcase on his bed was empty. Canny carefully compared the space he filled with the space that still remained, and figured that he ought to be able to fit the money into the suitcase easily enough, provided that the bills were of sufficiently large denomination.

It wasn’t until he had cleaned out the safe at the mill and started to drive into Leeds that the silver Toyota settled in behind him. For a few minutes he worried that it might be the police, or someone else that Bentley had altered to his plight, but he put the thought aside. It had to be one of the kidnappers, making certain that he was on schedule.

Gathering the cash proved to be no trouble at all. Its suppliers looked at him inquisitively, but not one of them asked him whether anything was wrong, or when they might expect to get their money back. They were all men for whom discretion was not merely a habit but a necessity; not one of them gave the slightest indication that there was anything particularly unusual about handing over six-figure sums in cash at a couple of hours notice. Perhaps, he thought, it really was the kind of thing they were likely to do twice or three times a month. If so, the black economy must be a great deal larger than he had ever dared to imagine.

When he had accumulated the whole million, he wasted no time phoning the number again, while the Bentley was still sitting in the employees’ car park underneath the bank.

“I’ve got it,” He said.

“Of course. Take the A58. When you get to Collingham, ring again for further instructions. Are you being followed?”

Canny didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he said. “A silver Toyota. Nothing to do with me. Do you want me to lose it?”

“No. It’s ours.” The line went dead.

The rush hour traffic was just beginning to build up, but Canny got on to the A58 without any difficulty. He didn’t see the silver Toyota again until the Roundhay roundabout, but after that it stuck to his tail like glue as he went past Scarcroft and through Bardsey. Its windscreen was slightly shadowed but he had a clear enough view in his rear-view mirror to see that it only had one occupant: a tall person wearing a baseball cap.

He rang the number again as soon as he reached Collingham, before getting to the junction with the A659. There would, he knew, be three main routes to choose from at that point—one leading west to Harewood, one east to Boston Spa and the third north to Wetherby.

He was ordered to take the western route, but only as far as the golf course, where there was a second turn-off to Wetherby. Once on that road he was directed to turn left towards Sicklinghall. Between Sicklinghall and Harrogate, he knew, there was a great deal of open country, all relatively low-lying.

At least, he thought, the kidnappers had been polite enough to stash Stevie in Yorkshire, instead of making him drive all the way to Nelson or Clitheroe.