Forty-Three
The call came from a mobile number Malcolm McDougall did not recognise.
So what was he thinking? He was stupid, simple as that, because his first thought was that it was a scam or spam call of one sort or another – some low-life offering him a phone upgrade or a new boiler or compensation for an accident he’d never had – but his curiosity got the better of him, so he answered the bloody thing.
He would spend the entirety of the subsequent conversation and the rest of the day wishing he hadn’t.
‘Hey, Malky … how’s tricks?’
They had certainly been a damn sight better before Wayne Cutler had rung for a chinwag, but McDougall felt like he was more than capable of bluffing it out. ‘Oh, tricks are good, mate. How’re they with you?’
‘Couldn’t be better, pal.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘Yeah, kicked the day off with eggs benedict and fresh orange juice for breakfast, and after a nice lie-down and maybe a jacuzzi I think I might take a lovely long walk. Or maybe catch a film, I haven’t quite decided.’
‘OK …’
‘I’m kidding, obviously, Malky.’
‘Yeah, I got that.’
‘Because I’m in prison, aren’t I?’
‘Glad to hear you’ve not lost your sense of humour, Wayne.’
‘You need one in here,’ Cutler said. ‘You’ve got to make the best of things, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, aye, definitely.’
‘Play the hand you’ve been dealt. Even if the person dealing the cards wasn’t exactly playing fair and square.’
There were several more meaningless and entirely insincere pleasantries, but throughout the exchange McDougall was thinking about the phone Wayne Cutler was talking into.
It would be one of those ridiculously small ones that someone had smuggled in for him and Cutler would be tucked into a corner somewhere whispering into it.
Smuggled in.
McDougall knew how that worked.
Fine, so these days one or two got delivered via drone or inside a dead pigeon which somebody lobbed over the wall, but the vast majority were smuggled using the most obvious bodily orifice.
The ‘prison wallet’.
McDougall could not help wondering how that age-old system had worked when handsets were …
not quite so teeny. Not so very long ago they were the size of house bricks.
He could only presume that anyone desperate to talk to friends or family at the time must have required the services of someone with a seriously capacious back passage.
‘So, anyway, that’s what I was hoping, Malky.’
‘Sorry, Wayne … you cut out a bit there.’ McDougall tried to focus, and unsee the picture now firmly lodged in his head. ‘What were you hoping?’
‘That you would tell me everything Jax isn’t telling me.’
‘Such as what, Wayne?’
‘Well, the ransom for a kick-off. How much do these low-lifes want before they send my boy home?’
‘As it happens, it’s not money they’re after.’
When McDougall had finished telling Cutler exactly what the kidnappers did want, there was a fair old pause. ‘It’s a stupid idea.’
‘Well, it’s original, at least.’
‘Not their idea,’ Cutler said. ‘Taking all our merchandise is brilliant – you know, if they’re looking to inflict some proper damage to the business. I’m saying that giving them anything at all is stupid.’
‘Because they’ll only come back for something else and next time it will be money,’ McDougall said. ‘That’s what I told Mrs Cutler.’
‘Well, tell her again.’
‘I’ll try, but you know what she’s like.’
‘Oh yeah, I certainly do.’
McDougall knew exactly which words Cutler would have in mind at this point.
None of them were pleasant, but it was fine as long as Cutler kept them to himself.
If he was to start slagging Jacqui off, McDougall would find it hard to stay civil.
So he just said, ‘Aye, well, we’re on the same page, at least.’
‘So, what’s the latest?’ Cutler asked.
‘Well, as of yesterday they thought they’d found your boy – where he was being held, at any rate. But by the time they got there, everyone had made themselves scarce. The kidnapper had moved on and taken Justin with him.’
‘And you know all this because … ?’
‘Miller sent a message.’
‘Oh, he did, did he?’
‘I suppose he wanted Jacqui to know what was happening.’
‘You’re talking about that soldier’s place, right? Where they were holding him?’
‘How did you know that?’ McDougall asked.
‘Because it’s all over social media, pal. There were kids filming the raid and that, whacking the footage up on Insta and TikTok. It’s not hard to keep up with things, even in here.’
‘It’s not him, though,’ McDougall said. ‘The soldier.’
‘Cheshire, right?’
‘He wasn’t the one who snatched Justin.’
‘Are we sure about that?’
‘Miller told Jacqui. Wanted her to know so that he wouldn’t be in any danger. From us … from you.’
‘So who is it, then?’
‘Not a clue, Wayne.’ McDougall listened to the distant yells and clangs, the soundtrack of the prison, hoping that he might suddenly hear the shouts of a prison officer.
The yelps and curses as Wayne Cutler was pressed against the wall of his cell, his illegal phone confiscated until such time as it would be used as evidence against him. A few more years on his sentence.
Instead, Cutler just coughed and spat something out. ‘Here’s something strange,’ he said, eventually. ‘That house, the one they raided. It’s the same house where there was a murder a couple of weeks back, isn’t it? Some bloke got knifed, don’t you remember?’
McDougall said nothing.
‘I know you do, Malky. And I know you know why they -haven’t fingered anyone for that as yet.’
‘It’s definitely a headscratcher,’ McDougall said.
‘So, here’s the thing. I’m well aware you did everything you could to make sure that anyone adjacent to that murder forgot anything they knew, anything they might have seen. But I can just as easily help them to remember. I’m just saying, Malky.’
‘Just saying what, Wayne?’
‘That I’d be grateful if you’d keep me informed. If we stay on that same page you were talking about.’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ McDougall said.
‘That’s good to hear. So, you know … anything you think I need to be told about. Anything my lovely wife is up to on the business front. On any other front, come to that.’
McDougall began to bristle and he knew that if Cutler said too much more his blood would be up. Same as it was that night with the ex-soldier who turned out not to be an ex-soldier.
‘Just making sure you know which side your bread’s buttered.’ Cutler laughed. ‘Maybe in your case that should be shortbread.’
‘That would be neither side.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Nobody puts butter on shortbread.’ He turned his head from the mouthpiece and muttered, ‘You massive numpty.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Oh, hang on, I think I’m losing you, Wayne, the signal’s …
’ McDougall hung up and sat there swearing to himself for a minute or more.
For several minutes after that, he imagined that one blessed day he might be given the chance to jam something rather less compact and streamlined than a miniature mobile phone into Wayne Cutler’s ‘prison wallet’.