Smyth - Blood for Blood

Wanna be a millionaire? Then dont work for a living. Fifty years of that crack and before you know it some jokers digging a hole and lowering you into it. Oh, he was such a nice man. Hell be sorely missed. A load of bollocks. Take my advice: he who works last lasts longer.

Aye, well, its all right for you, I hear you say. But how do we make a million? Fair question. You could try kidnapping, but I wouldnt advise it. Ive never seen one yet that hadnt got something wrong with it. Grabbing the victims easy enough; collecting your wages is the hard part. Either the victim calls attention to himself by being unreasonable and trying to escape or theres a lot of extra coming and going where youre hiding the bastard, and the next thing you know the TVs running it and some nosy neighbours saying to herself, Here, hang on a minute, lifting the phone and its, Fuck me, the cops are surrounding the place.

Nah, the only way to kidnap somebody is to get rid of them as soon as you grab them. No nosy neighbours, no hideout, no coming and going, nothing to worry about. These days it pays to be streamlined.

So I told Charlie Swags that as soon as the baby was snatched, it was to be taken out of the city. (The last thing you want is some squealy kid knocking about the place.)

Then I sent its mother a note; the usual stuff NO COPS, BRING CASH (in this case a hundred grand) and the following morning gave her a call. She had to be sitting with her hand on the phone if the speed of her was anything to go by.

Here she was: Yes? Yes? Hello? Hello?

She mustve thought I was deaf. I could just imagine the lads there with her whispering, For fucks sake, missus, will you give us a chance to get the trace going?

Mrs Winters?

Yes, this is Mrs Winters.

You want your baby back, you bring the money to Kilreed today at two oclock. Wait in the phone box outside the post office. And come alone.

Its hard to tell from a few words, but I got the distinct impression she was suffering with her nerves. Maybe she wasnt sleeping well.

Of course youre saying to yourself by now: hows he gonna collect the money if hes no baby to hand over? Simple: only kidnap when you want to drive the victims loved ones round the twist. As a diversionary tactic never for money.

Not that she had any. Not on her husbands wages. She was probably driving him nuts with the I want my baby routine. Yknow what women are like. He was probably wishing they were like tape recorders and came with a pause button.

She wasnt a bad-looking woman though: late twenties, popcorn hairstyle. Brave pair of tits on her too Ive seen smaller arses. Not that I fancied her. In women, I wear a size ten; she had to be a fourteen at least. My only interest in her was that her husband had got in Charlie Swagss way, and I needed him to get in somebody elses.

So at two that afternoon I was in the attic office of a hotel, binoculars in hand, looking down at Mary Winters as she went into the phone box in the village of Kilreed to take my call. She was looking very red around the eyes probably something to do with the wallpaper paste Swagss men had squirted into them when shed stepped out of the lift of an underground car park and had junior snatched out of its carrycot. Theyd mixed citric acid with the paste, by the way. They tell me Optrex is good for getting rid of it, but you need gallons of the stuff. A hospitals better.

Turn left at the corner, I told her, then left again at a sign that says Whites. Follow the lane till you come to a farmhouse.

I watched her arrive. Whites farmhouse was less than half a mile from where I was. Shed be bugged of course, and the law wouldnt be far away, waiting to pounce when I handed over the baby. Thats how theyd be seeing it. They have training for this sort of carry-on, so they can get their man.

She got out of her car, yknow, looking around the farmyard to see what the story was no doubt expecting me to pop out from behind the barn or whatever and heard what I wanted her to hear the sound of her baby roaring and crying in the farmhouse, then the phone ringing just inside the open front door. I was giving her another little call to see how she was getting on.