by Sean Black
He suppressed a shudder at the thought of a place he never wished to revisit, not even in his mind’s eye, as Richard Hulme stood there waiting for an answer.
‘OK,’ Lock said finally. ‘Finish your story. Maybe I’ll catch something that the FBI missed. But if I don’t, will you leave me alone?’
Richard nodded.
They left the bar and walked to Richard’s car, a late-model Volvo station wagon. The windows fogged as the heater worked overtime to keep them from freezing.
‘So you get home, and no one’s there.’
‘Yeah. I tried to reach Natalya on her cell but it must have been switched off.’
Lock made a mental note. The only way for a cell phone not to be traced was for it to be completely off, otherwise the authorities could triangulate its position from the masts in the area.
‘Go on.’
‘I thought maybe Natalya had forgotten her phone. I didn’t like intruding on her privacy, but under the circumstances . . . So I searched her room, gave it an extra hour, then called the police. They called in the FBI.’
Lock knew this was standard procedure in these cases, when someone of what the Feds euphemistically called ‘tender years’, meaning a minor aged twelve or under, went missing. Over twelve and there had to be some suggestion of the person crossing state lines before they’d step in.
‘Last time they were seen?’
‘A few of the other au pairs at the party said they saw Natalya pick him up. They got into a car, and that was it.’
‘What kind of car?’
‘A grey Lincoln town car.’
‘That usually how Natalya and Josh got around?’
‘Natalya has the number of a town car service I have an account with in case the weather’s really bad during the school run.’ Richard sighed and rubbed at his eyes. ‘But they had no record of Natalya requesting a car in the past week.’
‘Did the FBI talk to their drivers?’
‘At length. They were all accounted for when Josh went missing.’
‘But he was definitely seen getting into the car with Natalya?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Was there any sign of a struggle? Of him being forced into the car?’
Richard shook his head.
‘And you’re still sure Natalya’s not involved?’
‘I know how it looks. Maybe she thought she’d ordered a car and forgot.’
Lock sensed that Richard was clutching at straws, refusing to accept the inevitable: that a woman he’d hired was responsible for the kidnap of his only child.
‘Did she come into the country on a visa or was she already here?’
Richard bristled slightly. ‘I used an agency. I wouldn’t employ someone illegally.’
‘So they would have done a background check.’
‘They assured me they’d checked her out thoroughly.’
‘Have you had any previous threats?’
‘Of course. Everyone at Meditech gets those.’
‘No, I mean stuff that came directly to your home. Letters? Phone calls?’
‘One or two crank calls, just before I resigned. And some emails.’
‘Was that why you decided to leave Meditech?’
‘One factor, yes.’
‘The other factors?’
‘All laid out in my letter of resignation.’
Lock was starting to get irritated. ‘Help’s a two-way street, Richard.’
Richard shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘I disagreed with the animal testing, but more on scientific grounds than ethical.’
‘But you were involved with it?’
‘For most of my career, yes.’
‘Was the pressure starting to get to you?’
‘It was a decision that I arrived at after a lot of consideration. I wouldn’t have resigned if I didn’t think it was bad science.’
Lock had heard enough about the debate around animal testing over the past few months, and certainly didn’t want another lecture like the one he’d endured from Janice. He moved on. ‘And were there any threats after that?’
‘Not that I made my resignation public, but no.’
‘And since Josh disappeared, what contact has there been?’
Richard’s gaze fell to the floor. ‘That’s just it. There hasn’t been any.’
Lock was disbelieving. ‘No ransom demand? No demands of any kind?’
‘Nothing.’
Scenario two could be crossed off the list. Beyond a parent or step parent snatching a child, three per cent of abductions fell into the category of kidnap for ransom. Due to the prohibitive sentences handed down by the judiciary since the Lindbergh kidnapping, only dumb or hardcore felons in the US viewed kidnap for ransom as any kind of business opportunity. Elsewhere, however, it was one of the big growth areas of criminal enterprise, up there with counterfeiting, internet fraud and trafficking. In these cases, where profit was the motive, the ransom demand swiftly followed the abduction, usually accompanied by dire warnings that the victim’s family should not, under any circumstances, contact the authorities.
Lock chewed his bottom lip. What lurked behind the door of scenario number three didn’t bear thinking about. The animal rights activists were people who didn’t mind digging up an old lady and dumping her remains in the middle of Times Square to make a point.
Richard looked at Lock, his pupils wide with fear. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
Lock took a moment before answering. ‘Yes, it’s bad.’
Thirteen
Half of the 19th Precinct must be on guard duty, thought Lock, as he and Richard stepped from the elevator and walked towards Richard’s front door.
The patrol officer reacted with a mixture of alarm and relief as he saw them. ‘You’re not supposed to leave without letting us know,’ he said to Richard.
Richard blanched, like a kid caught breaking curfew. ‘I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t get you into trouble.’
As Richard ushered Lock into the apartment, the cop was already on his radio, letting his superiors know that he was back – with a guest.
Like most of the rest of the building, the apartment lay in near darkness. It was close to midnight, and in this part of town the streets were quiet. Lock figured that the kind of money that had to be generated in order to afford a place in this neighbourhood required most of its residents to favour early nights over bar hopping.
Richard flipped on a light switch to reveal a narrow hallway, off which were three bedrooms and a bathroom. Beyond that it opened out into a large open-plan living area.
‘How long you lived here?’ asked Lock.
‘Since before I got married. It was Meg’s place from when she was a graduate student.’
‘Pretty swanky part of town for a grad student.’
‘Rent controlled. An aunt of hers died,’ said Richard as he went to turn on the main light.
‘You may want to close the drapes first.’
‘I forget sometimes. Plus, with Josh gone, I’m not sure I care any more.’
Like every other Meditech employee above a certain level, Richard would have gone through a security awareness programme and review. Lock knew that he would have been advised to alter his daily routine as much as possible, and to watch out for the absence of the normal, like a doorman missing from the front of the building. Ditto the presence of the abnormal, like a doorman suddenly appearing in a building which didn’t have one. All of the advice boiled down to remaining vigilant and employing simple common sense.
Lock wandered over to a tiny kitchen area at the far end of the room. Two couches. No TV. Built-in shelving ran along one wall, crammed with books and papers. A family portrait. Richard, Josh and a strikingly attractive blonde woman that he wouldn’t have put with Richard in a million years.
‘Meg,’ Richard said, saving Lock an awkward question about his dead wife. ‘There’s been no one since we lost her. I didn’t feel it would have been fair on Josh. Actually, that’s not st
rictly true.’
Lock said nothing. Let him continue.
‘There’s been my work. Maybe I’ve used that as my way of not confronting things,’ Richard added, before rubbing again at his eyes.
Lock was starting to feel Richard coming off a little too noble. ‘You mind if I look around the rest of the place?’
Richard shrugged his agreement.
Lock headed back down the corridor, the walls blank either side of him. He couldn’t help feeling that the place resembled more of a college dorm than a family home.
The first bedroom was similarly utilitarian, although the lack of personal touches was more easily forgiven here. Natalya clearly hadn’t brought much with her when she’d moved. A portable CD player lay on the bed, an already ancient relic. On the bedside table there was a picture of an older man and woman, presumably her parents. What Lock assumed to be her brother stood in front of and to one side of his father, edging him by a good foot in height, even though he couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Natalya stood next to her mother, long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, her eyes and smile bright and confident. No pictures of a boyfriend, nor anyone else for that matter.
An attractive young Russian girl, and, by her standards, a wealthy widower not past his prime. Lock wondered how truthful Richard had been when he’d claimed that there was nothing going on between him and Natalya. From the look of Josh’s mother, Richard could attract good-looking women. Perhaps he’d not wanted to complicate things for the sake of his son. Either that or he was lying.
Although the FBI would have been all over the place with a fine-toothed comb, Lock made a quick search of his own, coming up with nothing that seemed significant. He stepped back into the corridor and pushed open the door of Josh’s bedroom.
In contrast to the neat, almost antiseptic feel of the rest of the place, Josh’s room was a mess of toys, sporting equipment and comic books. A single sleigh bed was backed against one wall. Atop the duvet sat an FAO Schwartz teddy bear, the only concession to his tender years. A catcher’s mitt had been placed on its head at a rakish angle.
Lock’s mind flashed back to Osnabruck. He’d never been able to let go of the sense of failure he’d felt after the Greer Price case. Even though he’d known when he was handed the investigation that Greer was almost certainly long dead, it still gnawed away at him.
It was the loneliness of her death that had got to him more than anything. The feeling of abandonment she must have experienced in her last moments had left him hollowed out. Even at the end of the rope there was no act of vengeance that came close to balancing the murder of a child; if there had been, he would have put a bullet through the skull of Greer’s killer himself.
He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and walked out of Josh’s room.
In a corner of Richard’s room, a twirling strand of DNA bounced around a twenty-inch flatscreen computer display, which sat atop a desk. Lock moved the mouse and it disappeared, defaulting to a log-in screen.
‘The FBI have already been through everything on there,’ said Richard, framed in the doorway. ‘But if you think they might have missed anything . . .’
‘You mean, in case you’re involved?’
The notion seemed ludicrous but Lock knew he couldn’t dismiss it out of hand. It wouldn’t have been the first time a perpetrator had brought about his own discovery by trying to employ a private investigator as a smokescreen to bolster his appearance of innocence.
Richard looked shocked. ‘No, don’t be ridiculous. I mean, maybe there’s an email, something that might be a clue.’
It couldn’t hurt to look.
Richard pulled up Firefox. ‘I burned all my work emails to disk before I left.’
‘You have a copy?’
‘Here,’ Richard said, pulling a DVD from a carousel next to the computer.
‘Any other email account?’
‘Hotmail, but I hardly use it.’
‘Did the FBI look at your Hotmail account?’
‘Why would they? I didn’t get any threats through it.’
‘You mind if I do?’
‘Go right ahead.’
Richard opened Firefox, which defaulted to Hotmail. He typed in his username and password, handed Lock the disk with his work emails, and left him to it.
Lock doubted that the email threats would yield anything. Or the letters, for that matter. Anyone who went to the trouble of mailing a death threat wasn’t likely to sign their name, either directly or by licking the envelope and leaving their DNA all over it. And the emails would have been sent from an internet café or via multiple proxy servers. One of the things he’d learned about the animal rights people who’d targeted Meditech was that they were savvy as well as motivated. Many of them were college-educated and as up on the science involved as anyone Meditech had to offer.
A half-hour later, Lock was no further forward. There were no specific threats to anyone by name, apart from Richard. Family was mentioned in a catch-all manner; there was no reference to a son, or even a wife, deceased or otherwise. As poison-pen correspondence went, it was all fairly insipid.
He switched back to the web browser. Idly, he clicked on the deleted emails folder and scrolled through the spam offering to enhance the recipient’s sexual performance or asking to use their bank account to rest millions of dollars.
Then he spotted it. Unopened, like most of the rest of the spam. No subject line. A Gmail address. It had arrived the day of the shooting, maybe an hour before Josh was last seen with Natalya. He clicked it open.
Now you will feel the pain you have inflicted on others.
Lone Wolf
When he walked back into the living room, Richard was standing by the window with the lights off. Lock considered asking him about the email. Richard had been pretty adamant that the threats had ceased once he’d stopped working for the company so he decided to let it go. It had made no reference to Josh or the kidnapping, and crucially it registered as unopened.
A car drew up directly opposite the apartment block and Lock watched as a man got out. As he darted across the street and passed under a streetlight, Lock’s gut instinct was confirmed. It was Frisk.
Lock met the FBI agent at the door.
‘Get the hell out of here, Lock,’ Frisk grunted, ‘we can handle this.’
Lock was still riled from their encounter back at the hospital. When Frisk had given him that bullshit speech about no charges being pressed as if he was doing Lock some kind of personal favour.
‘You seem to be doing a bang-up job so far, Agent Frisk,’ observed Lock.
‘It’s early on.’
Lock pulled the door closed, so Richard wouldn’t hear the rest of the exchange. A pissing contest meant some hard facts might come to light, and Lock wasn’t sure Richard was ready for them.
‘Early’s when you put it to bed. You know that and I know that. But seeing as you’re here, Hulme came looking for me, not the other way round.’
‘Fifteen minutes of fame not enough for you, huh?’ said Frisk aggressively.
‘OK, we can stand out here and compare dicks, or we can try and help each other out,’ Lock said, lowering his voice.
‘And what possible help are you going to be?’
‘Well, for a start, you might want to take another look at his computer.’
‘One of our tech guys already did a data dump from the hard drive.’
‘Which wouldn’t help you with a web-based email account. Check the spam folder. You’re looking for an email from someone calling themselves Lone Wolf. Arrived the day it all went down at Meditech.’
Frisk’s stony face reddened. Some tech was going to get his ass chewed when he got back to Federal Plaza, Lock could tell.
‘Anything else?’
Lock shrugged. ‘That’s it . . . for now.’
‘So what’s your take on all this? Come on, if you’ve got some dazzling insights, I’d love to hear them.’
‘Find the au pair and
you find the boy.’
‘Get with the programme, Lock. We already did. The harbour unit pulled her out of the East River a half-hour ago.’
Fourteen
A visit to the morgue was a grim affair at the best of times, and this was a long way from the best of times. The fact that there was still no sign of Josh, dead or alive, counted as good under the circumstances, although the river could have been waiting to offer up its misery in instalments. The bad news was that the task of identifying Natalya’s body had fallen to Richard Hulme. As if the poor bastard didn’t have enough to deal with, thought Lock, as he listened to Frisk make the request.
Richard had been stoical about it, agreeing without argument. Even if he hadn’t already offered to help, Lock figured it was the least he could do to tag along as a shoulder to cry on. That, and there might be something to glean from Natalya’s recovery. Something that might just help them to find Josh. If he was still alive.
It was hot in the corridor outside where the identification took place. Lock’s head was still pounding. He found a solitary chair, sat down and made the mistake of closing his eyes.
He came to as Richard was led in, eyes rimmed red, hands trembling, the heavy weight of realizing that very bad things could happen to good people bearing down on him. Things that a person might never wholly recover from. Lock had seen that look before, when he’d stood across from the family of Greer Price as her coffin was lowered into the ground. He’d hoped never to see it again, but now here he was, offering a silent prayer that history wasn’t about to repeat itself.
From what little Frisk had told him about the FBI’s investigation, Lock had gathered that they’d garnered the same amount of significant information Lock had managed to glean in his few hours talking to Richard. Almost nothing. So, Lock did something which went against every fibre of his professional being: he made a phone call to a member of the media. A phone call which he knew in all likelihood would get him fired, and might even ensure that he never worked private security again.
That said, he didn’t flinch from it. His approach when backed into a corner was always the same: fast, aggressive action with determination. Which didn’t have to mean using your fists.