Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

They stopped for lunch in Grantham. Dick tried to give the little boy a balanced diet, but today, buoyed by the notes bursting the seams of his wallet, he said: “Today you can have just anything you want, Captain.”

They found a side-street cafe that looked cosy. Malcolm chose chicken nuggets and chips, and Dick had the day’s special: roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. The cafe’s owner cooed over Malcolm, but knew better than to ask where his Mummy was: All too often you got a sad tale of marriage breakup. Men alone with children these days usually meant they were using quality time graciously allowed them by the Child Support Agency. Malcolm had a slice of chocolate gateau for afters, and Dick cleaned him up in the lavatories before going up to the counter, buying some sandwiches and buns for their evening meal, and settling up for everything. When they emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight he felt like a million dollars.

The little jeweller’s shop was nearly opposite the cafe.

“Do you know, Malcolm, I feel it’s my lucky day,” said Dick.

He led the child by the hand the hundred or so yards down the street to where his car was parked. He opened the boot and began to rummage in the canvas bag. Malcolm, standing beside him on the pavement, regarded him wide-eyed: The bag, for him, was beginning to assume the mystic standing of a cornucopia, source of endless goodies.

“Have you got something the man will want?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Dick, finally selecting a rather showy diamond ring. “Now, I’ll only be five minutes or so, Captain, and then we can be on our way. So you can just sit in your car seat and watch the world go by.”

He strapped him in and walked whistling back down the street, the ring wrapped in tissue paper in his trouser pocket. The door of the jeweller’s shop opened with an old-fashioned ring.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

The words were old-fashioned and welcoming, the face less so. There was a suspicion of midnight shadow over the jowls, the eyes were calculating, the mouth mean. Dick nearly turned round there and then, but he had no desire to draw attention to himself needlessly. There seemed to be no alternative but to plunge in.

“I wondered whether you’d be interested in this.”

He drew from his pocket the little package and unwrapped it. The central diamond sparkled dangerously, and the rubies of the surround smouldered. The ring was already beginning to seem ill-omened in his eyes. The man behind the counter took it noncommittally.

“Hmm. A rather assertive piece. Not really Grantham. However, I do have one customer who might... and there’s a dealer I do business with who sometimes takes this sort of thing...” The tone seemed to Dick professionally disparaging. “I’ll just take it into the back, sir, with your permission, and get a better look at the stones.”

Dick nodded. The man disappeared through the glass door behind the counter and Dick saw him go behind a little booth in the back room, where he imagined a microscope was set up. He waited, glancing nonchalantly at the rings and pendants on the trays under the counter, and the jewelled clocks and ornaments on the glassed-in shelves behind it.

Suddenly the jeweller’s head appeared above the walls of the booth. Dick forced himself to seem to be looking at something else. The man had a telephone at his ear, and he was looking at Dick. When his head disappeared down into the booth again, Dick turned and wrenched open the door.

The shop bell rang.

He began running. In seconds, he was wrenching open the driver’s door, had his key in the ignition, and was scorching off down the street. In his mirror he could see the jeweller in the door of his shop. This was probably the most exciting thing to happen in his mean little life for years, Dick thought. Not too fast. Don’t draw attention. Get onto the motorway and then open up.

“Didn’t he want what you had for him?” Malcolm asked.

“Oh, he wanted it,” said Dick. “I’m driving fast because I’m excited and pleased.”

That night they spent one of their rare nights in the car. Dick had put about a hundred and fifty miles between him and the Grantham police, then had gone off the motorway and cruised around some little Southern English towns and villages. Somehow he felt all shaken up, and he blamed himself bitterly. He would never indulge in childish superstition again. My lucky day, my foot! Like some toothless old granny reading her horoscope! He hadn’t had a worse one since the day he snatched Malcolm. He just couldn’t face the lies and the performance he always put on at bed-and-breakfast places, nor going back onto the motorway to find a Merry Cook with rooms attached. There was also the matter of organising new number-plates for the car. He didn’t think the man could have seen his — themselves acquired from an abandoned car in Gateshead — but he wasn’t taking any risks.