Desperate Measures: A Mystery by Jo Bannister Page B

he’s negotiating his life away over coffee and scones in a tearoom?”
    “No, I don’t,” said the DI levelly. “The café closed a year ago. But the building was owned by Ash’s mother—the team searching his house found the deeds in a bureau. The last tenancy agreement lapsed, so the building is probably empty. Not a bad option if you need to be undisturbed for a couple of days.”
    Hazel felt her heart quicken. “This building—is it in Norbold?”
    “Leamington Spa.”
    “Give me the address. I’ll meet you there in”—she did a quick calculation—“twenty minutes.”
    “Not legally you won’t!”
    “Dave, Gabriel Ash’s life depends on it. We’re not even talking about speed limits.”
    And of course he did as requested. If she hadn’t asked him to meet her in Leamington Spa, he’d have asked her. He wanted her there if they found Ash locked up in his mother’s little investment property with a computer and a double-barreled shotgun. Gorman didn’t expect the man to put the gun down and come quietly because he asked. He just might do if Hazel Best asked.
    Back in Balfour Street, Hazel was heading for the door, taking the car keys off the dresser as she went. The white dog stood in her way, gazing at her hopefully.
    Hazel shook her head impatiently. “No, we can’t go down the towpath, there isn’t time.” The scimitar tail waved. “No, you can’t come with me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” But actually, that was a pretty good reason not to leave even a well-behaved dog alone in Mrs. Poliakov’s house.
    Hazel took a steadying breath. “And I don’t know what I’m going to find.”
    Patience kept on regarding her with those calm toffee-colored eyes.
    There also wasn’t time for an argument. “Oh, all right, then,” Hazel growled, and the lurcher led the way out to the car.

 
    CHAPTER 11
    S TEPHEN GRAVES HAD LEFT THE COUNTRY eighteen hours earlier, openly on his own passport, flying from London to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, three hundred miles from the Somali border. Of course, three hundred miles in Africa is not like three hundred miles in England. It was probably as close as he could land to Somalia without risking the same fate as Cathy Ash.
    As she drove, Hazel tried to make sense of everything that had happened. Gabriel Ash had sworn to kill himself, live—she wished she could think of a better word—on the Internet, where the pirates could watch, as the price of freedom for his wife and sons. But he wasn’t going to do it until he knew they were safe. Stephen Graves, who’d been the pawn of the same pirates, had left for the Horn of Africa. Internal flights and a hired Land Rover would take him from Addis to any of a hundred points along the Somali border where an exchange could take place.
    What then? He’d speak to Ash, by phone or video call. “They’re here. I can see them. They seem fine. There are three machine guns aimed at them. There are two half-tracks and a helicopter, and maybe fifteen men. They have a laptop in one of the half-tracks, picking up your feed. What do you want me to do?”
    And Ash would say, “Exactly what I told you to do before you left. Ask to speak to Cathy. Have them bring her within earshot. Ask her if she’s all right. Ask if the boys are all right. Ask her if she’s been told they’re being freed.”
    A pause. Then: “She says they are, and that’s what the kidnappers told her. She wants to know why. Should I tell her?”
    “On no account.” Hazel could almost hear the steel in Ash’s voice. “She’ll find out soon enough. Keep her away from the Internet for as long as you can.”
    “What do I do now?”
    “Ask them to release Cathy to you as a show of goodwill. Point out that she was separated from her sons for four years, she’s not going to leave them behind now.”
    Then: “Cathy’s with me. They still have the boys on the other side of the checkpoint. We’re all within machine-gun range. They say no more