Chapter Forty-Seven

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The satisfied sounds from Burke, who was next to him at the kitchen table, made Stone reflect that as unpleasant as Alice Keating's kidnapping was, it did have its up-side. His cup was filled with a coffee that was good enough to delight his partner, and the plate before him held a fried breakfast which pleased his nose as much as it did his stomach.

He was halfway through his breakfast when the post arrived. Out the corner of his eye, he watched Mr Chambers as he sorted it, separating it into piles for the various family members; he turned all his attention on the house-manager as Chambers set before him an envelope with Owen Keating's name and address written on it in the same hand as that used on the envelope of the ransom demand received yesterday.

"Have you told Mr Keating it's here?" he asked, making no effort to touch the envelope, let alone open it; he saw no reason to do so until he had finished his food.

"I'm just on my way to do so," Mr Chambers said. With brisk movements, he turned and left the kitchen, his footsteps sounding in the passage outside before he started up the wide staircase.

Stone finished his fried breakfast just before Owen Keating arrived in the kitchen, and was sipping at his rich coffee when the multi-millionaire joined him. He immediately set aside his mug and reached into his pocket for a pair of latex gloves; pulling the gloves on, he took up the envelope and sliced it open so he could take out the single sheet of paper that was inside.

He unfolded the ransom note and laid it on the kitchen table so all three of them – Owen Keating, Burke and himself – could read it. The latest ransom note was as short and to the point as the previous two, and once again it lacked the final details of what Keating had to do to exchange the three and a half million Euros of the ransom for his daughter. The lack frustrated Stone as much as, if not more than, it did Owen Keating.

"So," Stone began when they were in the library with Inspector Evans and his partner, both of whom had breakfasted on cereal since they didn't want to be away from their equipment for any longer than was necessary. "How difficult is it going to be to put together a surveillance operation to cover St George's Park?" he asked of the assembled group.

Evans didn't need to be the focus of his fellow inspector's attention to know that he was the one expected to provide an answer. Before he did so, he turned his attention to his laptop; in just a few moments he had Google maps focused on Branton, and with a few more clicks he had the map zoomed in until St George's Park filled the screen, he then spent a short time examining it.

"It won't be easy," he said finally. "The place is too big - there's too much ground to cover. If we knew where in the park the drop's supposed to take place, we could maybe come up with something, but we can't even take a guess at where they're thinking of doing this; there's four roads into the park and several footpaths, they could be planning on using any one of them to get in or out. It'd be impossible for us to cover it all, especially without being noticed, and far too easy for them to slip away.

"We could try and put teams to watch each of the roads, and as many of the footpaths as possible, but we'd be stretching ourselves thin, which might be what they're after. Our best chance of catching them is by bugging the money, and even that's not going to be as easy as I thought."

"Why's that?" Stone wanted to know. He had had his doubts about their chances of getting a result from the tech experts, but Evans had spoken confidently about what his equipment could do, so Stone was disappointed to now hear him express doubts.

"Because there's a limit to the range of whatever bug we use, which means we've got to be within a certain distance of it to pick up the signal," Evans told him. "If the money is handed over in the centre of the park, then we're going to have to be within the park to be able to follow the bug, and that means the chances of us being spotted go up." He was just as unhappy about the situation as he could see Stone was. "I think the best we can do, at the moment, is prepare a non-descript vehicle for the surveillance operation, and plan to put it near to the main entrance of the park. I may be able to rig up something so that we can have multiple people able to pick up the signal from the bug; if I can do that then we can position them, one on each side of the park, and increase our chances of being able to follow the money. Time is against us, though."

"What about using the pavilion in the middle of the park as a base of operations?" Burke asked, pointing to the screen on the laptop to show the building he was referring to. "It's fairly centrally located by the looks of it, so it should give us a better chance of receiving and following the signal from the bug than hoping we can find a spot on the perimeter close enough to where the drop is going to happen."

Evans thought about that for a moment as he examined the map on his laptop, finally he nodded. "That might work. Of course, it'll depend on where the drop is to actually take place, but I think it's the best idea we've got. We're still going to need all the officers we can get; how many do you think your superior will give us?"

Stone grimaced. "Not enough, not nearly enough."

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