Souls At Zero (A Dark Psychological Thriller) (7 page)

After Edger informed Rankin about the kidnapping, Rankin wondered once more what kind of secrets Edger was hiding. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach and he couldn't help fretting slightly that he was going to live to regret employing the man. Still, if Edger was in trouble, Rankin would try not to let him down, for he knew Edger would unhesitatingly do the same for him.

So when Edger finally walked into the office on Donegal Square, Rankin gave him his full attention as Edger went to the window that overlooked the city hall and lit a cigarette. Normally he would have admonished Edger for smoking in the office, but he let it go this time. Rankin lifted a pen of his desk and took a notepad from out of one of the drawers, which he placed on the desk, then he turned in his chair to look at Edger, who seemed even more haunted than usual. "Tell me what happened," Rankin said.

Edger took a long pull on his hand rolled cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window, the wind sucking the smoke out like a vacuum. Then he proceeded to tell Rankin everything that happened in the cafe that morning. Rankin listened intently, taking notes as he did so. When Edger finished recounting his story, Rankin sat in silence for a moment while Edger rolled himself another cigarette. "What aren't you telling me, Harry?" Rankin asked eventually. "People are kidnapped for a reason. You know that as well as anyone. Normally, it's money, but as you have none—that I know off anyway—it has to be something else, like a personal vendetta."

"I think whoever did it has been watching me for a while," Edger said, tapping ash out the window.

"Well, they would have been. They would have tracked your movements beforehand. They expected you to be in that cafe. You never saw anyone before today?"

"No. I just had a feeling I was being watched. I could never see anyone though, which means they were good, whoever they were."

"Well, they took Kaitlin out from under you," Rankin said, causing Edger to flash him a look of anger. "Relax. I'm just saying, whoever that guy was, he knew what he was doing. He's probably a pro, an operator of some kind."

"He is. I don't doubt that."

"So why, Harry? I can't help you unless you tell me why you think they did it. You must have made an enemy somewhere in the world."

"I've thought about that. I've done a lot of missions in my time. You know the score, John. This could be related to any one of them."

Rankin shook his head. "It doesn't feel that way to me, Harry. This feels personal to me."

Edger stared out the window in silence for a minute, his face conflicted like he was deciding whether or not to disclose something to Rankin.

"Whatever it is, Harry, tell me. You want Kaitlin back, I need full disclosure from you."

Edger took a last drag from his cigarette and tossed the butt out the window. "Something happened to me when I was kid," he said quietly.

I knew there was something.

"Go on." Rankin put his pen down and listened.

"I had a brother named Declan. He was a year older than me."

"Yes," Rankin said. "It's in your records. Your brother went missing and was declared dead seven years later, having never been found."

"That's right. The records don't show what really happened though."

"So what did happen?"

"The two of us were walking home one night from the boxing gym where Declan trained. I liked to go and watch him train, and he usually took time at the end to show me some stuff. He taught me how to punch, how to defend, how to work the bag and the mitts. He was always asking me to join full time, but I just liked watching him train. He was talented. Never lost a fight."

Edger lapsed into silence for a moment as he gazed out the rain spotted window. Then he continued. "Anyway, we were walking up the Springfield Road towards home. We were messing about, throwing punches at one another, having a laugh. Then this van screeches up beside us. An old Ford van, black. I'll never forget it. Before we even knew what was happening, the side door of the van was flung open, and these two men in balaclavas jumped out and tried to grab us. I think we both thought it was loyalist paramilitaries, because the Troubles were in full swing and there was people getting lifted all the time.

"But Declan, he manages to hit one of them as they jumped out of the van, and the guy goes flying back on to the road, but he gets straight back up again. By this time, the driver of the van is out as well, and while the other guy wrestles Declan into the back of the van, the driver smacks me in the face, nearly knocks me out."

Another silence, longer this time.

"So I'm lying there on the pavement, and they have Declan in the back of the van, and he's screaming at them, but they must have hit with something, because he just went silent all of a sudden. Then they closed the side door, and the next thing I knew, the van was speeding away down the road, with my brother lying in the back of it. That was last time I ever saw him."

"Why didn't they take you as well?" Rankin asked.

Edger shrugged, continued staring out the window. "I don't know."

"So who was it that took him?"

"No one knows. The cops said it was probably Republican paramilitaries. They said Declan must have done something to get their attention."

"And did he?"

"No," Edger said, looking straight at Rankin this time. "Declan did fuck all to deserve what happened to him. He wasn't a hood, he wasn't a joyrider. He was just someone who loved boxing. He kept his head down. We both did."

"So he was never heard from again?"

Edger shook his head. "He ended up classed as one of the missing, even though no paramilitary group ever took responsibility for the abduction. The cops said there wasn't much they could do. Declan was declared dead seven years later."

Rankin exhaled a long breath. "I'm sorry, Harry. That must have been hard for you. Do you think it really was paramilitaries who took him?"

"Who else would it have been?"

Rankin thought for a moment. "I don't know. It certainly had all the hallmarks of a paramilitary style abduction. Are you telling me this because you think there might be a connection between your brother's abduction and Kaitlin's?"

Edger walked away from the window and began to pace by Rankin's desk. "What do you think, John?"

Rankin shook his head. "I'd be very surprised if there was a connection. The two incidents seem unrelated to me, to be honest. Kaitlin's abduction feels a lot more personal."

"I agree. I just thought you should know about my brother, that's all."

"I understand, Harry. Thanks for telling me."

Just then, Edger's phone rang. Both men looked at each other as Edger took the phone from out of his jacket pocket. "Unknown number," he said to Rankin before putting the phone to his ear. "Who is this?"

Rankin saw Edger's eyes widen for a second, then he pointed at the phone, put it on speaker and held it out so Rankin could hear who was on the other end of the line.

"I have your daughter," the person on the phone said, their voice obviously filtered through a voice changer. "If you ever want to see her alive again, you will do exactly as I say."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Edger's whole body went stiff as he held the phone out in front of him, gripping it tightly in his left hand. Rankin sat across from him at his desk, intently listening to the distorted voice coming out of the phone speaker, the kidnapper obviously using a voice modulator. Edger couldn't help himself. "Put my daughter on the phone," he demanded. "I need to know she's alright before we go any further here."

"You are not in a position to make demands, Harrison," the voice said, which despite the distortion, was obviously male. Edger flinched slightly when he heard his full name being said. He couldn't remember the last time someone had called him Harrison. Only his parents ever used his full name, and they were both dead. "You will do as I say first, then you will hear from your daughter."

"What the hell do you want?" Edger asked, glancing briefly at Rankin, who was writing something on a notepad.

"You will find out soon enough," the voice on the phone said. "For now, you should know that you had this coming, Harrison."

Edger frowned. He had no idea what the kidnapper was talking about. "What have I ever done to you?"

"More than you know at this point. But don't worry, you will find out soon enough."

Rankin held up the notepad he was writing on for Edger to see. On it, he had written the word: RANSOM?

"Is this about money?" Edger asked, although he knew it wasn't. This was personal, for reasons he had yet to understand.

"This has nothing to do with money, I can assure you," the kidnapper said. "You will find an envelope waiting for you at your apartment. Inside will be a burner phone. That's how I will contact you from now on. I will call the phone in exactly thirty minutes. If I don't get an answer, I start cutting bits of off your daughter. Understand?"

Christ.

"I understand."

"Good. You had better get moving then."

There was a click and the line went dead.

Edger and Rankin looked at each other for a moment, both of them slightly stunned by the situation. Then Rankin asked, "Any clue as to who that was?"

Edger shook his head. "None."

"Well, whoever it was, they think you've wronged them somehow."

"No shit," Edger snapped, jamming his phone back in his coat pocket.

"I'm just saying, Harry. Think hard about who that might be and we might be able to get ahead of the bastard."

Edger nodded. "I have to go."

"I'll go with you."

"No. I'll do this myself."

Rankin stood up. "Come on, Harry. You can't sort this out by yourself. You'll need help. You'll also need to inform the cops of the situation."

Edger was hardly listening as he went to walk out of the office. "I need to find out what the kidnapper wants first. I'm not putting my daughter in any danger by involving the cops."

"She's already in danger, Harry," Rankin shouted after him, but Edger was already out the door and sprinting down the hallway to the stairs. He had less than thirty minutes to get home to his apartment. Depending on traffic, he could be there in ten, fifteen at the most. As he bolted down the stairs of the office building, all he could think about was Kaitlin, and whether or not he was ever going to see her alive again.

Saturday afternoon traffic was heavier than he would have liked as he sped his way towards the south of the city where his apartment was located. The kidnapper's countdown had started at 1:15 p.m. and it was almost 1:40 p.m. by the time he made it to the Stranmillis Road, and then the Lockview Road where the apartment block was. He sat impatiently tapping the steering wheel, continually glancing at the clock on the dashboard as he waited on the security gates opening that would give him access to the private car park on the side of the apartment block. When the gates finally opened wide enough, he sped through and screeched the car to a halt in the first free space he found, then he jumped out of the car, slammed the door behind him without bothering to lock it and bounded inside the apartment building, heading up the stairs to the top floor and his apartment.

When he got inside, there was an envelope on the floor by the front door, just as the kidnapper said there would be. It unnerved Edger that the kidnapper obviously knew everything about him, and for the umpteenth time since Kaitlin was abducted that morning, Edger berated himself for not acting on his instincts when he first got an inkling that he was being watched a while ago. If he was being honest, he deliberately played down the feelings he had, telling himself that he was just being overcautious, a leftover state of being from his time spent in war zones, a state of mind he had no need to carry around with him now that he was out of the soldiering game. Obviously, he was wrong about that. It seemed that somehow, something in his past had caught up with him, but he still had no idea what. He was hoping the envelope he now held in his hands would provide some answers.

Edger carried the A4 envelope to the leather sofa and sat down. He carefully examined the envelope first, just in case it was booby trapped in some way. The last thing he needed was an explosion, or cloud of poisoned dust in his face. After checking, the envelope seemed safe, so he carefully opened it and looked inside. It held a pre-paid phone and also a large photograph of a man in his sixties that Edger vaguely recognised from somewhere, but couldn't think where from. He placed the phone and the photograph on the white coffee table in front of him, then he looked at his watch. It was 1:44 p.m.

As he waited on the kidnappers call, Edger focused himself by controlling his breathing, something that had been drummed into him during his training with the Legion years ago. His adrenal system was fired up, and a familiar sense of calm focus came over him, a default state gained from being in countless high risk, high pressure situations over the years. His instincts were taking over, and he felt suddenly grateful for the training and skills he had acquired in his lifetime. Something told him he was going to need them all if he wanted to get Kaitlin back alive.