Eyes of the Innocent

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 30

  Valdieri had a brief discussion with Lauren in the kitchen and came back to say they had to go out, and might be some time. When they'd gone, Matt gave Zoé a hug, feeling triumphant. "You're brilliant, Zoé. We kept thinking we were onto something, but until now nothing made sense."

  Zoé smiled. "Maybe we should try and contact Wendell again. It will be better if we have his help."

  Matt look at her in surprise. "Wendell? I presume you're joking."

  "Matt, we have known each other for a long time now. Of course I am joking."

  "But you sounded so serious."

  Zoé sighed. "I am sorry. I think I must be picking up the habits that are bad from you."

  "Bad habits."

  "Yes, Matt, your bad habits. Now, please can we take this seriously before my tablets stop working?"

  "Let's say you did really see Wendell when we went to Washington. He could have been anywhere when he kept phoning us with his so-called leads. And now, surprise, surprise, he won't pick up his phone anymore."

  Zoé nodded. "The police would be able to check his phone records and maybe trace where he was each time."

  "Would they? We've tried their patience too much. They see us as a nuisance, stopping them getting on with their own enquiries while the hostage situation is eating up their resources. Wendell Harris is mixed up in this."

  "I thought I saw him at Penn Street Station, and again at Union Station in Washington."

  "And then you thought you saw him when we were leaving Alexandria on our way to Senator Harding's place with the police. Why was he there?"

  "He was coming from the direction of the house of Senator Harding, so he had been there to warn Mrs. Harding that we were coming."

  "How would he know that?"

  "Matt, he used to be a cop. He had to leave the police, but me, I am sure he would have friends still working there. I am not suggesting that all police are crooked, but someone could have fed him the information."

  "He could have warned Mrs. Harding by phone. Much safer."

  Zoé shook her head. "Not if he had to help Mrs. Harding borrow a baby for the morning. He probably had to collect it from a friend. Oui? I told you it was not my imagination. I am taking medicine for my depression, but it does not make me see things."

  "I'm with you there, Zoé. No wonder Wendell was so keen to get us chasing the wild goose, as you put it, in all the wrong places."

  Zoé sat down on the couch, her head in her hands. "Please do not deceive me, Matt. Do you really think Jack is with Mrs. Harding? I did not see Jack there. Just the older baby. I was hoping to hear Jack crying somewhere in the house, but we went into every room."

  He was about to say, You wouldn't have heard him if he's dead, but he kept that thought to himself. Jack was dead, and he'd been buried in a fancy white casket in the Senator's garden. "Let's go to Alexandria and see Pete. We can start by taking some aerial pictures."

  "But the coffin, it will be buried."

  "Almost certainly. But at least we'll be able to see where the grave is."

  Zoé shook her head. "The police, they will not go back. They think we have imagined it all. Well, they think I have imagined it all. They think I am a mother who is crazy."

  "You can take it from me you're not crazy. We're parents who've had a precious baby kidnapped. The aerial photographs will show us where the grave is. And then I'm going back at night to dig up the coffin. Casket."

  "But they have high security. I saw some of it when I went there with the police. There are big floodlights. You will get caught."

  "Just as long as I can dig up the casket, I don't care how many lights there are. If there's a dog in the casket, I'll probably be arrested for trespassing. But at least we'll know that we can stop looking for Jack in Washington."

  "I do not like to think of it, Matt, but what do we do if baby Jack is in there? They will catch us and perhaps kill us to keep us quiet."

  "They won't catch you, Zoé. You're going to be with your phone sitting in a rental car half a mile away on the way back to Alexandria. I'll dig up the coffin and tell you what's in it, hopefully before I'm caught. You phone 9-1-1, explain what's happened, and wait for help to arrive."

  "I want to be by the house. Why do I have to be half a mile away?"

  "Because I don't want you getting caught as well. One of us needs to be free to tell the story. Okay? If Wendell Harris is mixed up in this, and he snatched Jack from me in Central Park, he could be a nasty piece of work."

  "You are wrong," Zoé said. "If he is the person who snatched Jack, then he is a nasty piece of work. Pour sûr."

  "Right, let's phone Pete at the model shop and see if he still has that plane and camera."

  "And we must tell Steve what we are going to do. He went out. I hope he is back soon. Find out where he and Lauren went, Matt."

  It seemed that no one knew, but Vicky said she'd seen them going off in a cab. She thought they might be visiting friends out of state, and be staying with them overnight.

  "Clever move," Matt said. "Now Stephen can swear on the Bible he doesn't know where we are."

  Zoé's phone rang in her purse, and she eventually found it and looked at the screen. "It is my parents," she said. "I gave them the number in case they needed to contact me urgently."

  Matt had a horrible feeling he knew why they were phoning.

  "Oui, Maman. Non, c'est n'est pas possible."

  Matt spoke French well, and although he was only able to hear one side of the conversation it was clear that Zoé's parents were planning to come over from France. She was even giving them the name and street number of the hotel they used when Jack went missing. He shook his head frantically, but Zoé merely gave a Gallic shrug.

  She finished the conversation and turned to Matt. He continued to shake his head. "No, Zoé, you mustn't let them."

  "They were phoning from Paris Charles de Gaulle. They are waiting to book in at the airline desk. They did not tell me before because they wanted it to be a surprise. I cannot stop them now."

  "I can't think of anything worse than your parents turning up here and making my life miserable for losing Jack."

  Zoé shrugged again. "Unfortunately, that is not the worst thing."

  "Must be."

  "I am sorry, Matt. They do not speak English well and they have never been to America before."

  Matt breathed a sigh of relief. "With a bit of luck they'll get stopped at immigration. The Americans have never been too keen on the French."

  "Matt, they have someone with them who speaks the very good English."

  He knew straight away who it was. "I am not, and I repeat not, speaking to Florian Lefarge about our personal business. Most definitely not. How could your parents possibly think it's a good idea to bring your ex-fiancé?"

  "Ah, so you have guessed correctly. But now you and I are leaving to go to Washington."

  "Then I suggest we stay in Washington and don't tell them where." He noticed the look in Zoé's eyes, a mix of excitement and annoyance. Well, they were her parents. It was the thought of Florian muscling in on the trip that really annoyed him.

  "Please, Matt, do not hate me for it. I promise I did not ask them to come. And you know I have finished with Florian."

  "I know you've finished with Florian, but has Florian finished with you? He came over to England from France pretty smartly when he got the idea into his head that I'm a bad husband."

  "Matt, we are married now. I love you. It was my parents who tried to get me to marry Florian. He has a job well-paid selling the expensive cars."

  Matt gave her a hug, a genuine hug of love. "Zoé, don't worry about it. We'll just avoid them as much as we can." He pulled a business card from the back pocket of his jeans. "I'm going to phone Pete at the Alexandria model shop."

  Fortunately, Pete sounded excited by the thought of having a go at Senator Harding, but he wouldn't be free to do anything until the morning.

  "We'll be with you by
ten tomorrow," Matt said.

  An enthusiastic Pete said he'd tried the plane with the camera on some open fields and it worked just great. He'd make sure he had everything ready, but they were not to be earlier than ten.

  Matt finished the call. "We now have to find a way to get to Washington without being stopped by the police."

  Zoé looked worried. "I think we should tell them about our suspicions. If we do it now they may take us seriously. If we get arrested, then they will not listen to us. Oui?"

  "Call me cynical, Zoé, and you do, but they won't listen to us even if we show them where the casket is buried in the Senator's garden and it has Jack's name on it. We'll get the train to Philadelphia. They can't trace my card, because they don't know the number."

  "Why Philadelphia? Why not Washington?"

  "We can pick up a hire car, rental car, in Philadelphia. If our names have been given to the Washington rental agencies, I'm guessing they won't be flagged up immediately in Philadelphia. We'll fill our backpacks with what we need for the night, and risk the subway to Herald Square Station on West 34th Street as though we specially want to see the Empire State Building. That will make it harder for anyone who tries to follow us. And don't forget to pack your medicine. We need to look like a couple of New York tourists in case we're being watched. We can walk to Penn Station from there."

  "You think Wendell Harris is keeping an eye on us?"

  "I wouldn't put it past him. Come on, let's pack some stuff and get a cab. We need to leave quickly, just in case Stephen and Lauren return. If Stephen knows what we're doing, he may feel morally obliged to stop us."

  A short walk took them to the nearest convenient subway station for West 34th Street, and after a lengthy ride on the subway they emerged in the street. Zoé looked around. "I thought the Empire State Building was here," she said, frowning.

  "It is. Look up."

  "That is not the Empire State Building," Zoé insisted. "It is not tall enough. The Empire State Building is one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. I think it goes up into the clouds, and I really want to see it."

  "That's it, according to the map. You probably have to go back a bit to see it properly."

  They walked towards Macy's and turned round, and could clearly see the Empire State Building rising high into the sky. "Look at it," Matt said. "We'll take Jack to the top before we take him back to England."

  "But..." Zoé said.

  "We will, Zoé. We absolutely will. We're going to get our baby back. He's going to be healed, and we're going to take him to the top."

  Zoé started to laugh. She flung her arms around Matt with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Thank you, Matt. I love you. Yes, let us go get him, as they say here in America."

  They entered Macy's and wandered around the cosmetic department. Matt felt fairly certain they'd not been followed. Zoé showed little interest in the displays, so Matt led her through a few more departments on the ground floor, and they exited into the street using another door.

  "We have to get to Penn. Pennsylvania Station. On the way we'll stop from time to time and look at our map. If anyone's tailing us, and I'm almost certain they're not, that should make them think we're doing some sightseeing and staying in Manhattan for the day. Anyway, why would they expect us to be going back to Washington? As far as the police are concerned you saw the baby at Senator Harding's house, and we made fools of ourselves -- in their eyes -- and will have given up on that one now."

  At Penn Station they bought their tickets to Philadelphia from a machine, and Matt waited for several minutes to watch the machines and ticket booths from a distance. He could see no one asking questions. Everyone approaching the various windows only stayed long enough to buy a ticket.

  After a lengthy security search, the train journey to Philadelphia took little more than an hour. Matt considered getting out at an earlier station to confuse anyone who might be following them, but decided that Philadelphia was so far away from Washington that it was unlikely anyone would suspect where they were really going.

  They settled for a different car rental agency this time. Somewhere in the bowels of a computer system the original agency would have their names recorded. The link would be made, and they would be automatically recognized as existing customers. Matt took a deep breath. Who knew what sort of alarms that might trigger with the police.

  As usual, the agency tried to talk him into a larger car than they needed, but Matt wanted one that would blend into the scenery by being neither too large and flashy nor too small. A dark green Chrysler Neon seemed perfect.

  "Washington is a good four hours' drive from here," Matt said. "If we're going to be at Pete's by ten tomorrow we need to get at least halfway there today. We'll find a cheap motel on the way and carry on in the morning."

  "Not too far," Zoé said. "You, I think are too tired to drive a long way."

  "Just a couple of hours more and then we'll eat and find a place for the night." He selected drive and moved off. He wished Zoé hadn't mentioned anything about being tired. He let out a yawn. "Maybe just another hour before we find a motel."

  Once again he checked his phone. Good signal, good battery life remaining, and he had the charger with him to use at night. He was in a dilemma. If he and Zoé turned their phones off they couldn't be tracked by the police. But if the police managed to find baby Jack, how could they know?

  On balance, it was better to leave their phones on. The New York police had every reason to think they were still sightseeing in Manhattan, so were unlikely to be checking up on their movements just for the sake of it.

  The motel was clean and reasonably priced, and there were a couple of inexpensive eating places nearby. In spite of feeling so weary earlier, Matt just couldn't get to sleep when it came time for bed. It wasn't so much the noise of passing traffic on the freeway as his realization of what they were about to do. But he would do it again, and again, no matter what the risks if it meant finding Jack. Dead or alive. No, they had to find him alive.

  He wondered whether to pray silently, but he felt angry with God. Father Alban said prayer brought you closer to God. That didn't seem to be true. He realized that Zoé had got out of bed and was now kneeling beside it. Wow. He couldn't bring himself to join her, so he stayed put and said nothing.

  He must have dropped off at some stage in the night, because at six o'clock Zoé woke him and said they ought to be on their way in case the traffic was heavy around Washington. It was better to get to Pete's shop early and wait in the street than risk being late. Matt had to agree, and he crawled from the bed and staggered to the bathroom.

  "Hurry up, we need to get going," Zoé called out, sounding remarkably bright. "We will stop for breakfast and coffee on the way,"

  Matt splashed cold water on his face. Clearly Zoé was still taking her tablets, which was good. Maybe he needed to take a couple. He had to be fully alert for what lay ahead.

  "Ready?" Zoé asked. "I have already been to the bathroom, so let us get on the road."

  Matt agreed that he was as ready he ever would be, and they threw their backpacks into the trunk, which Matt knew that out of habit he would keep calling the boot. Third floor was second is floor, lifts were elevators, a queue was a line. There was a limit to how many adjustments he was prepared to make. Oh, and they would soon need petrol for the car, where a gallon wasn't a gallon. Petrol, not gas. Gas was what he cooked with on the hob at home. The Americans probably called the hob something else, but he wasn't going to go there.