Free Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) by Graham Masterton

her hand and mouthed to Katie, ‘ It’s him! ’
    The young technician held up a pair of earphones and Katie plugged one of them into her left ear. She heard a man’s voice with a slurry accent say, ‘Hello there, Shelagh. What’s the craic?’
    She was sure that the caller would be using a stealth phone, or what was called a ‘burner,’ a throwaway phone that would make it impossible to trace his number. But the software would allow the technician to work out roughly where he was by triangulating between the radio towers that were carrying the call, and then use the signal strength to narrow down his location even further.
    Detective Horgan was listening on earphones, too. He looked across at Katie and she thought she had never seen him so grim-faced. Usually he was cracking jokes and pulling faces, but she wondered if the job was beginning to get to him. She was always careful to watch her team for the first signs of stress – and herself, too.
    Shelagh Hagerty said, ‘I have the money. The two hundred and fifty thousand you asked for.’
    ‘You have it? That’s grand. It looks like you’ll be seeing your precious Derek again, then, doesn’t it?’
    ‘It was very hard to raise it,’ said Shelagh. ‘I had to sell almost everything we own. I had to borrow some, too, and that wasn’t easy, because I couldn’t tell anybody what I wanted the money for.’
    ‘Listen, Shelagh, I don’t give a shite how hard it was to raise it. The only thing that matters is that you have it. All we have to do now is arrange for you to hand it over.’
    ‘I need to see my Derek first. Or at least to talk to him on the phone. I have to know that he’s still alive before I give you all this money.’
    ‘Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to trust me, because he isn’t here with me now. But I can tell you for sure that he’s still living and breathing, and that as soon as I get the money he’ll be free to go.’
    Shelagh Hagerty didn’t know what to say next, but Katie gave her a thumbs up and mouthed ‘okay’.
    ‘All right, then,’ said Shelagh. ‘Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.’
    ‘You haven’t been in touch with the shades, have you?’
    ‘What do you think? My Derek’s life is at stake.’
    ‘Very sensible of you. Well, then, here’s what to do. The money should all be in two-hundred and one-hundred-euro notes, just about half and half, all used, with non-sequential numbers.’
    ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ said Shelagh Hagerty. ‘Let me write that down.’
    ‘Come on, Shelagh, lively now, I don’t have all day. Wrap up the money in five bundles of fifty thousand euros each in cling film. You understand me, the ordinary cling film like you use in the kitchen. Put the bundles into the back of your car and park it on the second level of the Merchants Quay car park at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Leave the car unlocked with the keys and the parking ticket in the glove box and take a taxi back home. We’ll call you when we’ve checked that you’ve given us everything we asked you for.’
    ‘But what about Derek?’
    ‘When we call you, we’ll let you know where you can find your car, and we’ll also let you know where you can find your husband.’
    ‘He is alive, isn’t he? You took out some of his teeth, didn’t you, but you haven’t hurt him any more than that, have you?’
    Shelagh Hagerty was breathing hard, and Katie could tell that she was boiling to tell this man how angry she was, and how much she hated him, and what a monster he had been to pull out so many of Derek’s teeth, but she managed to keep her anger under control.
    ‘Have you traced his location yet?’ Katie asked the technician.
    The technician nodded. ‘I’m getting there. He’s calling from somewhere between the phone towers on the North Ring Road and Mayfield Industrial Estate, but he’s much closer to Mayfield. I’m just checking the signal strength to narrow it down a bit.’
    ‘I shall