Free The Locker by Adrian Magson

missing cell phone battery was found in the nanny’s bedroom. She would also be familiar with Hardman’s timing at the gym, which seems to have been crucial for her finding the kidnap note.”
    â€œWhy do you say dead?” Claas’s Dutch accent was noticeable but slight, with a faint American intonation.
    â€œBecause in my experience, people like her don’t survive long. Insiders are bought or coerced, which means they never really fit in. This makes them weak links. Liabilities. If they can be turned once, they can be turned again. Here or New York, it makes no difference.” He spoke with conviction, his background one of the reasons he had been taken on by Cruxys.
    Claas looked faintly doubtful but said nothing. Aston kept his thoughts to himself, experienced enough to know that things rarely if ever turned out quite the way they first seemed.
    â€œWhat bothers me,” Ruth put in, “is the why and how. Why did Hardman take out a contract with Cruxys? He’s a freelance charity worker; you don’t get a more unlikely target for kidnapping than that—so the snatch can’t have been for ransom.”
    Aston nodded. “Agreed. And the how?”
    â€œHow could he afford it? We’re not exactly cheap and the last time I looked we weren’t doing discounts. His wife says they don’t have private money, so we’re currently trying to find out what makes them a target.”
    Claas waved a hand, cutting in on his fellow board member. “Surely, how our clients fund their contracts with us is hardly your concern, Miss Gonzales.” He spoke reasonably but fixed Ruth with a dead-eyed stare that challenged any argument. “As long as they pay, that is all we need to know, don’t you think?”
    Ruth ignored the look; she was accustomed to having her say and throwing questions into the air like this was a way of getting the thinking process going. All the same, she was puzzled by his apparent opposition. Was profit his sole motive here?
    â€œIt’s of concern,” she said, “if it has some bearing on the kidnap of his daughter. And that’s our main consideration at the moment, surely.” At his blank expression and the faint flush that came to his cheeks, she added quickly, “I should explain: if he’s got dirty money we could be looking at a nest of trouble. And Slik and I could be right in the middle of it. As could Gina Fraser—again.”
    â€œFraser is fine,” Claas responded. “I reviewed her file when I arrived here. What happened to her was unforeseeable, and I approved her return to duties. Do you have a problem with that?” The challenge was more obvious this time, his stare unyielding, and Ruth realised she was facing a boardroom bully who didn’t like giving way.
    She kept her reply calm but firm. “Actually, she’s not fully recovered—everybody knows that. What concerns me is that if there’s a problem she could be vulnerable.” As might the rest of us, she wanted to add, but didn’t. If Claas didn’t understand that, telling him here and now wasn’t going to make him any friendlier towards her.
    There was a lengthy silence, and she wondered if she’d overstepped the mark. But Aston intervened by flicking open a folder in front of him. “I asked for a payments summary of the Hardman file. He opened the contract and paid for three years up front, with future premiums to be paid by direct debit through a London bank. All pretty standard stuff.”
    â€œSo nothing unusual, then,” said Claas. He was staring at Ruth like a dog studying a bone he desperately wanted to bite.
    â€œIndeed. Beyond that we don’t know where his money comes from.” He looked at Ruth. “You might want to check with accounts for a copy of the original contract, see if there’s anything in the margins.” He was referring to jotting and notations