Slipping her messenger bag across her body, Eulalie went up the side of the building like a child on a climbing frame. When she reached the third-floor balcony, she stopped and assessed the situation. The apartment was dark and quiet. She only had Jimmy’s word for it that the girlfriend would be at work at this time of day, but there was no sign of activity. She slipped in through the living room window.
This place was definitely above Pietro’s pay grade. There was actual furniture in here, and signs of a regular life. As she listened, she became aware of sounds coming from the bedroom. They weren’t exactly snores, but the deep breathing of someone heavily asleep.
Eulalie crept into the room. Pietro was on the bed, alone and fast asleep. She pulled a balaclava over her face and kneeled next to his sleeping head, with her pistol in her hand.
She pulled back the slide of her Smith & Wesson so that Pietro woke up to the noise every criminal dreads – the sound of a round being chambered right next to his head.
His body twitched on the bed and his eyes snapped open.
“What?” he gasped. “What?”
“Sshh,” she soothed. “Listen carefully.” She treated him to another sound he was sure to recognize – the click of a safety catch being removed.
“I’m not in a good mood, Pietro,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It would give me very great pleasure to splatter your brains all over this floral-pattern duvet cover. And that’s exactly what will happen if you don’t answer my questions quickly and truthfully. Do you understand?”
She pushed the barrel of the pistol against his temple hard enough to draw a bleat of protest.
“I understand,” he said. “Don’t hurt me.” His eyes flicked sideways to her covered face, and jumped away again. She kept her body at the head of the bed, out of his reach so he wouldn’t be tempted to try anything stupid. Despite what she’d told him, she had a very urgent desire not to shoot him or anyone else.
Although he deserved it, the weasel.
“Last week you were going door to door at Majestic Towers looking for someone to guide you into the forest to snatch a kid. Antoine agreed to help you, but now he’s in the wind. Five days ago, the kid was snatched and hasn’t been seen since. I think you did the job, you and Antoine together.
A squeak of protest emerged from the bed, so she gave him another ungentle tap with the barrel of the gun.
“I’m still talking. You’ll get your chance in a moment. Like I say, I think you and Antoine did the job together and stashed the kid somewhere. I want to know where.”
There was silence from the bed. Eulalie tapped his head with the barrel. “Your turn to talk, weasel.”
“I didn’t do the job, okay? It wasn’t me. That was never part of the arrangement. All I was supposed to do was find an ex-villager who could identify the kid and lead someone into the forest to snatch him. That was the whole job. That’s what I got paid for. But I never snatched the kid, I swear.”
Eulalie stood still, trying to sense whether he was telling the truth or not.
“If not you then who?”
“I don’t know!” He winced as the barrel nicked the skin of his temple open. “You’re right that Antoine agreed to do the job, but I was never going to be his partner. Never. That wasn’t the arrangement. I guessed he would have a partner, because that’s not the kind of job you can do alone, you know what I mean? I just didn’t know who it was. I assumed it would be a man. The forest isn’t a fun place, and getting a kid out of there alive is not a fun job. Although, look who I’m talking to. You know all about the forest, don’t you?”
Eulalie bared her teeth in a smile. “If you have figured out who I am, you know I’m not kidding about decorating this bedspread with your brains. You said you presumed it would be a man. Why wouldn’t it be a man? Was there a woman involved in this?”
A suspicion was forming in Eulalie’s mind. It would be interesting to have it confirmed.
A ghost of a laugh came from the bed. “So, you don’t know everything. The person who hired me was a woman. She wanted me to find her an ex-villager who wouldn’t baulk at kidnapping. But I don’t know why or who else was involved.”
“Who was she? What was her name?”
He hesitated for a moment, so she helped him along with another jab of her pistol into the raw skin of his temple.
“Ow! Okay her name was Eliza something. I’m trying to remember her surname.” His legs drummed on the bed in frustration. “Blackman. That’s right. Eliza Blackman. She works in town. I can give you the address if you like.”
“Never mind. I’ve got it.”
Taking the pistol in a two-handed grip, Eulalie edged around the bed. The muzzle never wavered from his face. “You are going to stay exactly where you are for ten minutes. After that, you can scream for help or call the cops, or whatever you like. If you so much as twitch before then, my Smith & Wesson and I will be back.” She backed out the door and headed for the balcony.
She figured she had about thirty seconds before he hit an alarm or started trying to call for help.
“I know who you are!” he yelled from the bedroom. “You’re that crazy bitch, Eulalie Park.”
She laughed. “Prove it.”
Then she was out the window and climbing down the bricks before he had a chance to answer.
Eliza Blackman.
Eulalie could have kicked herself for believing her story about her desperation in the face of gambling debts and how she would never dream of stooping to criminal activity otherwise. She must be rotten to the core. How else did an ordinary working mother bring herself to organize the abduction of a child?
Eulalie’s first impulse was to go down to the Horseracing Authority and shake the truth out of her. Then she remembered her promise to keep Chief Macgregor in the loop.
She phoned the police station and was told that the chief would be attending the autopsy of Henri Popov all afternoon. She shot him a quick text to bring him up to date and let him know that she would be talking to Eliza Blackman herself. She couldn’t afford to wait.
The two murder investigations were important and time-sensitive, but nothing was as time-sensitive as a little boy locked up for days without food or water. She might not have dreamed about him again, but every time she closed her eyes she could see him sitting there in the dark, trying to survive, wondering if anyone would ever come for him.
She phoned the Horseracing Authority and was told that Eliza Blackman had gone out for lunch. The receptionist had no idea where she might be, but said she would be back by two.
It was at that point that Eulalie realized how hungry she was, and decided to pop in at Sweet as Flowers for lunch.
Fleur was not looking her usual perky self.
“The cops were in here again looking at my knives. What’s going on, Eulalie? I thought I was off the hook.”
“They found another body last night.”
“I saw that. I read online that the two murders are connected.”
“Not just connected - the second body was arranged to look exactly like Marcel Faberge’s. Someone is trying to send us a message.”
“You mean, even down to the knife in the chest?”
“Yes, and it was also a kitchen knife, possibly taken from the victim’s home or else brought in by the perpetrator. It definitely wasn’t one of yours. I checked. I guess they wanted to see what other knives you have around here.”
There was an interruption as Fleur helped Jethro take a lunch order out to a big table. When she came back from the kitchen, it was with a grilled cheese sandwich and salad for Eulalie.
Eulalie made happy noises. “You are the best. You know I love your grilled cheese sandwiches. This is exactly what I felt like.”
“Okay, but you have to eat the salad as well.”
“Yes, Mom.”
She ate in silence as Fleur helped with the lunchtime service. When the rush had died down, she called her friend over.
“Look, don’t panic abo
ut what the police are up to. They have to cover their bases. They won’t find anything here because there’s nothing to find. And anyway, it’s starting to look as though my two cases are connected.”
“The murder and the kidnapping?”
“Yes. The person who fiddled the blood tests so that Legs Alone would not show up as having been doped is the same person who hired the kidnappers.”
“He sounds like some kind of criminal mastermind.”
“She, and I don’t think she is, although she’s a lot more rotten than I ever suspected. But I think she was acting for somebody in the kidnapping case, just as she was in the blood testing case. Possibly even the same person, but I’m keeping an open mind about that.”
“I hope you crack it soon. I can’t stand living like this. I keep waiting for the next bit of bad news to strike.”
Eliza Blackman was expected back at the office at two, so Eulalie made sure she was waiting outside her building by ten to two. Eliza struck her as a clock-watcher. She wasn’t the kind of employee who would come back from lunch early to get a head start on the afternoon’s work.
At exactly one minute to two, Eliza Blackman came walking down the road. As she was about to turn into her building, Eulalie stepped out of the shadows and took a firm grip on her elbow.
“Ms. Blackman.” She steered her towards a coffeeshop. “Just the person I wanted to see. I have more questions for you. But if you’d rather do this at the police station with Detective Wright present, that can also be arranged.”
The woman stared at her with her mouth slightly ajar. She made protesting noises as Eulalie ushered her to a table in the coffeeshop. Then she took a look at the expression on Eulalie’s face and subsided.
“What do you want from me? I have to get back to work.”
“I’ve been following the trail of a little boy from my village who was kidnapped five days ago. What I’ve discovered is that he was kidnapped by a man called Antoine working in conjunction with someone else. Antoine was recruited by another man called Pietro. I’ve just been speaking to Pietro. He tells me you were the person who hired him. Now, I don’t happen to think that you are the mastermind behind this whole scheme, but I’m willing to be corrected. Unless you can convince me otherwise, you will be facing charges of kidnapping. And if the child dies before he can be found, those charges will include murder.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She decided to bluster her way out of it. “Just because some … some guy called Pietro says I was the one who hired him to kidnap a child, doesn’t make it true.”
“The money trail doesn’t lie. It’s all there, stored electronically. We can trace the payments you received for facilitating this, and we can trace the payments you made to the other service providers down the line.” Eulalie didn’t know if this was true, but thought it probably was. The one area in which criminals regularly slipped up was in leaving a financial trail that led directly to them.
Eliza began to look uneasy.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Law enforcement software doesn’t bluff. The only way you can get out ahead of this is by telling me who hired you and why.”
There was a long silence while she considered her options.
Then she said, “I think you already know who it was.”
Chapter 22
Eulalie had suspected this, but struggled to make sense of it.
“Are you telling me Marcel Faberge ordered the kidnapping of a nine-year-old child from the village in the forest?”
Eliza shifted in her seat and glanced over her shoulder.
“This might sound weird, but … he is dead, isn’t he?”
“Who, Faberge?”
“Yes. I mean, you saw his body, right? There’s no chance this whole thing is fake?”
“I saw his body. He is definitely dead, and not coming back to haunt you. Now, please answer my question. Was it Marcel Faberge who wanted the kid snatched?”
“Yes, okay, it was him. He wanted that child in particular. He had heard something about him. I don’t know what. He said he couldn’t be seen to be involved so he got me to contact Pietro, who was supposed to get hold of some ex-villagers living in town and find one who was willing to act as a guide into the forest. The one who agreed was called …”
“Antoine,” Eulalie finished for her. “Yes, I know. But what about the second man? Antoine didn’t do the job alone.”
Eliza’s mouth twisted. “I see you’ve already forgotten what I told you about Marcel.”
“That he believed in handling jobs himself. I haven’t forgotten, but I need you to confirm it. Did Marcel Faberge participate in the kidnapping?”
“Of course he did. He would never trust someone else with such an important job. The man called Antoine was his guide, but he snatched the child himself.”
“You sound almost admiring.”
The smile Eliza gave her chilled Eulalie to the bone. “You have to admit he had initiative.”
“Depending on how you answer my next question, you will either spend most of your adult life in jail, or have a chance to watch your children grow up. Where did Marcel Faberge put the child?”
Eliza looked disappointed. “But I don’t know. He never told me. Can’t you ask me a different question?”
“Did it never occur to you that the child has been locked up somewhere all this time ever since Faberge died? Whatever Faberge was planning to do with him was cut short when he got himself killed. Did you never think that it might be an idea to tip the police off that the man who had taken the child was now dead?”
Eliza gave her an angry look. “I didn’t think about that. For all I knew, he could have released the child back into the forest.”
“Only if you live under a rock. The media has been full of information about the missing boy.”
“It’s not my problem, is it? If I’d gone to the police, they would have wanted to know what my involvement was. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it.”
“You’re a mother, Eliza. Does it never bother you to know that there was a nine-year-old child locked up somewhere with nobody coming to get him?”
She shrugged. “Does it never bother you to know that there are children starving in India? It’s not my problem.”
“Even though you helped to put him there?”
Eliza subsided into resentful silence. Eulalie realized that she had allowed her anger to betray her into making a mistake. You should never try to shame a suspect into giving you information. They became defensive and shut down in the face of your questioning. She tried to retrieve the situation.
“You’re right,” she said. “Of course, you’re right. The only person who did something wrong was Marcel Faberge. He’s the one to blame. But it would really help if you could give us an idea of where he might be keeping the child. We suspect he put him in a storage unit near the docks. Does that make any sense to you?”
Eliza shook her head. Eulalie could tell she wasn’t even trying to think about it.
“And what about Antoine? Did you see him at all after the abduction? He might know where Faberge put the child.”
“I’ve only seen that man once, when he was recruited. I have no idea where he is or what he did with the child.”
Eulalie stood up. “Okay, you can go back to work now. I have a child to find.”
“But what will happen to me? You said I could get out ahead of this. Surely my co-operation counts for something?”
“If you had been able to point us towards the child it might have been a different story. As it is, you haven’t told us anything we didn’t already know.”
Panic swept over her face. “But I really don’t know anything.”
“You probably know more than you think. I suggest you give it some thought. Maybe something will come to you. If you don’t still have my card, here’s another one.”
It was a relief when Chief Macgregor finally phoned Eulalie to tell her that the autopsy was finished
, and they could meet. He offered to come to her office. She fired up her coffee machine in anticipation.
“Marcel Faberge ordered the kidnapping of Bibi,” she said as soon as he walked through the door. “More than that, he participated in it. He and Antoine were the two men who snatched the child and stowed him somewhere.”
Chief Macgregor walked into her office and sat down. Eulalie could see the stillness in his face that meant his busy brain was making connections.
“The lasagna,” he said. “It was intended for Bibi. He meant to take food to the child sometime in the course of the evening, presumably before his wife got back from the charity dinner.”
“Unless she was in on it too and they were going to take the food to Bibi together.”
“Why would a woman like Stella Faberge support her husband in a kidnapping?”
“Even if she didn’t actively support him, perhaps she would have assisted him in keeping the child fed and watered after the fact.”
Chief Macgregor accepted the cup of coffee she was holding out to him. “Perhaps.”
“I don’t buy it either.” Eulalie sat down opposite him. “When I saw her, Stella Faberge was genuinely mystified by that little pack of lasagna all wrapped up in a napkin. It irritated her that she didn’t know what it was for. I got the impression that she didn’t like her husband having pockets of his life that she knew nothing about.”
“I agree. And if she knew about the child, wouldn’t she have been feeding him all this while? Or wouldn’t she have released him, or tipped us off anonymously about where he was being held? She’s a mother herself.”
Eulalie snorted. “I’m starting to realize that doesn’t mean much. Eliza Blackman is a mother too and that didn’t stop her from organizing the kidnapping of a child almost exactly the same age as her own son. She had no twinges of conscience either. It’s not her problem, so she’s not going to think about it. Being a mother means nothing to her.”
Chief Macgregor’s face was stonier than usual. “Perhaps not. So, the child has been alone for five days because the person who kidnapped him was killed the next day. Do you think Antoine knows where he is?”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 20