by Sean Black
‘I need a favour.’
On the other end of the line, Carrie sounded bleary. ‘Ryan?’
‘You know how I said I’d think about giving you an interview . . .’
He could see her sitting up, reaching over for the pad and pen that lived on the left bedside table.
‘You’ll do it?’
‘No.’
‘You woke me up to tell me that?’
‘No, I called to make you an even better offer.’
Frisk’s voice echoed so loud against the tiled walls of the mortuary that one of the orderlies actually asked him to keep it down.
Lock wasn’t entirely sure what decibel level had to be reached to wake the dead, but between Frisk’s outburst and the retina-busting strip lights, the headache he’d been feeling since discharge was about to go nuclear.
‘Are you out of your mind? Whackjobs like this love this kind of attention,’ Frisk shouted, poking a finger into Lock’s face.
Lock didn’t react. ‘It’s already out there in the public domain.’
‘So you want to put him on national TV?’
‘International. I’m sure other countries will pick it up.’
‘And what if this pushes the kidnappers over the edge?’
‘If they were going to kill him, if that was the plan, they’d have done it by now.’
‘And what if they haven’t?’
‘Someone has to have seen something. Someone must know where he is. At the very least we’ll get their attention.’
‘You say that like it’s a good thing.’
‘So what’s the alternative? Sit back and wait for a break?’
‘You’re interfering in a federal investigation.’
‘So arrest me.’
‘Don’t be too sure I won’t,’ said Frisk, heading back through to check on Richard Hulme.
As the freezer cabinet clanged shut on the body, Richard shivered involuntarily. ‘I can’t tell.’
Even with the work that had been done to piece together what remained of Natalya’s face, the hollow-point bullet and the river had done their work. It might be Natalya. Likely it was. But he couldn’t be certain.
Frisk put an arm on his shoulder. He was used to this type of uncertainty with witnesses, less so at the morgue. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Hulme, we can do a match with the DNA we picked up back at your place. It’ll take a little longer, but that’s OK.’
*
Outside, Lock paced the corridor. If he’d been a smoker he’d have been breaking open his third pack of the day by this point. He thought about the body laid out a few feet away and tried to reconcile it with the photograph in Natalya’s room. He thought too about her parents and the phone call they’d be getting. Your daughter, the child whose nose you wiped and tears you dried, the one who grew up into a beautiful young woman, the one who had her chance of a new life in America . . . she’s been murdered.
Lock took in a lungful of air. He knew he had to pack away such thoughts. He couldn’t afford them right now. There’d be plenty of time for all that later. Too much time. Now he had to focus on the living.
He was still sure that Natalya, even in death, was the key. Perhaps even more so in death. If she had no significance, why take the trouble of killing her? Natalya was the last person seen with Josh. Natalya had led him into the car. Active accomplice, or unwitting rube, Natalya’s story was the story of this abduction. He was sure of it.
The door down the corridor clicked open, and Richard emerged alone. He saw Lock and shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell. She’d been . . .’ His knees folded under him, and he sank to the floor.
Lock wished some of the animal rights people were here to witness this, given how ready they’d been in the past to caricature men like Hulme as heartless vivisectionists who got a kick from inflicting suffering on helpless animals.
Richard looked up at Lock, his skin dishwater grey. ‘They shot her in the face.’
Lock helped him back to his feet. ‘Listen to me, you have to believe that Josh is still alive. If someone had wanted him dead, they wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.’
‘But say something went wrong? Like they tried to escape and that’s how it happened? Josh can be pretty wilful at times.’
‘In a situation like this, wilful’s not necessarily a bad thing. Wilful might just keep him alive.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely,’ Lock lied.
Fifteen
The room was white and smelled of fresh paint. The door was grey and so heavy that the driver had struggled to open it when they’d arrived. Josh had heard him grunting with the effort, although he couldn’t see him. He’d put a hat over Josh’s head and pulled it down over his eyes for the last part of the journey.
The floor was grey as well. It always felt cold when he stepped on it. There was a bed. It was longer than the one he had at home but not much wider. There was no window, but there was a light. It was a clear plastic dome and was mounted on the ceiling at the farthest end of the room from the door. It never went off. Next to it was a camera, like the kind he had seen in stores sometimes. There was a television, which was hooked up to a DVD player and a selection of DVDs. All stuff for little kids. Stuff he would have watched when he was maybe six.
There was a toilet and a sink. Both of these were silver and shiny. The toilet was directly under the camera so he didn’t think anyone could watch him pee. That was something at least.
And that was it. The entire contents of his room. Apart from him of course. And his clothes. And the photo album. But he didn’t like to think about the album. He didn’t even like to touch it.
It had been there when he arrived. Next to the DVDs. It didn’t look like anything, just an album with a grey cover and a red spine. No title on the front or anything saying who wrote it. He’d made the mistake of opening it. Every time he’d gone to sleep since then he’d had nightmares about the pictures in it. Horrible pictures of horrible things. Now he was afraid to go to sleep.
There was a metal flap at the bottom of the door. It would open and food would be pushed through. Mostly cereal, sandwiches, or potato chips, with juice. If he got down on his knees he could see a man’s hand push it through. He thought it might be the driver’s hand but he couldn’t be sure because the person never said anything.
The worst part of it was being alone. He wondered if people were looking for him. His dad must be. He tried to imagine the door opening and him walking in. He’d close his eyes and think of him scooping him up in his arms and cuddling him. Like Natalya used to do.
Then his mind would flash on to what happened to Natalya in the boat. Or worse, a picture from the album. Then he’d have to open his eyes again. And when he opened his eyes his dad would be gone, but the album would still be there. Then he’d start to cry again.
Sixteen
It was close to four in the morning by the time Lock got back to his own apartment, a studio in Morningside Heights, within spitting distance of Columbia University. There was nothing more that could be done now anyway. The lab was busy running the match to the body they thought was Natalya. From what Frisk had said, it was almost certain to come back positive. NBC were already trailing Carrie’s exclusive with Richard Hulme, which was due to air later in the day. And everyone else with a job to do in the morning was asleep. Lock decided to join them, crashing out on top of his bed, fully clothed.
Less than four hours later he was awoken by a sliver of low winter sun creeping across the room. It took almost as much resolve not to throw a pillow over his head and go back to sleep as it had to storm the sniper position opposite the Meditech building. In the bathroom, he realized that limited time meant the choice was shave or shower. He wouldn’t have time for both. Prioritizing body odour over smooth skin, he undressed quickly and climbed under the blast of hot water.
Standing with a towel around his waist, he rifled through his wardrobe. He wasn’t short on dark colours, but suspected that blackout gear and
a ski mask wouldn’t be considered appropriate attire for a funeral. In the end, he compromised with black trousers, white shirt left open at the collar and a black parka jacket bulky enough to cover a multitude of sins, and his gun – returned to him last night after another heated exchange with Frisk.
As he dressed, he opened his fridge, only to be met by a mouldy and festering collection of food items worthy of a Gordon Ramsay smack-down. Grabbing a black garbage bag, he dumped most of the contents. Breakfast would have to wait.
The buzzer went. Lock pressed the intercom button. ‘State your business.’
‘It’s Ty.’
Lock cracked the door open and went into the bedroom. When he came back out, Ty was standing in the kitchen, rifling the cabinets. Ty was almost always hungry but no matter how much Lock watched him eat it didn’t appear to make a difference to his lanky six foot four basketball player’s frame.
‘You don’t even keep cereal in this dump?’ Ty asked him.
‘I’m never here.’
Ty turned, stopped and stared at Lock. ‘Wow, man. Just . . . wow.’
‘I look like shit?’
‘No, more like . . .’ Ty paused, ferreting out the word. ‘Roadkill.’
Lock scratched at his stubble. ‘Late night.’
‘Dude, I’ve seen guys who’ve spent ten years on the pipe that look better than you. Anyway, shouldn’t you be resting up?’
‘I should be.’
‘So why ain’t you?’
‘They found Josh Hulme’s au pair.’
‘Good. What she have to say for herself?’
‘Not too much. She’d been shot in the face and dumped in the East River.’
‘Harsh,’ said Ty, his expression unchanging. He studied Lock’s apparel. ‘That why you’re all duded up like Walker, Texas Ranger?’
‘You saying I look like Chuck Norris?’
‘Chuck on a bad day. Look, Ryan, you do remember me telling you that we’re not getting involved.’
‘We’re not. I am.’
‘Ryan, you’re an employee of Meditech, same as me.’
‘And while I’m convalescing, I thought I’d do some pro bono work.’
Lock grabbed a towel, walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
Ty shifted some stale underwear from a chair and sat down as Lock disappeared into the bathroom. He smiled to himself. It had to be said, this was classic Lock. The guy had never found a lost cause he didn’t like.
It was how Lock had been ever since they’d first hooked up in Iraq, Ty in the Marines and Lock, bizarrely, in the Close Protection Unit of the British Royal Military Police. Lock had become a source of instant fascination to Ty. Although he walked, talked, even chewed gum like an American, here he was working with the limeys, having flown to England to enlist straight out of college. The decision, Lock later explained, came courtesy of a Scottish émigré father who’d served in the same unit but had fallen in love and married a girl from California – in the days before the Beach Boys let the rest of the world in on the secret.
Post-Iraq, and both finally out of uniform, Ty had hooked Lock up with the Meditech gig. He wasn’t even fazed when he found out that he’d be working as Lock’s second-in-command. Putting aside his own ego, he knew that when it came to close protection work the RMP Close Protection Unit was as good as it got. No bravado. No special forces heroics. They simply got the job done with the minimum of fuss.
Lock emerged from the bathroom. Ty resolved to give it one more shot.
‘This isn’t a good idea, brother. Brand’s after your job.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
Both Lock and Ty knew Brand had been looking to step into Lock’s shoes ever since his appointment.
‘And he’s been whispering in Stafford Van Straten’s ear. Saying how you were grandstanding when it all went down at headquarters,’ Ty said.
‘Pot. Kettle.’
‘Maybe so, but Stafford’s been at his old man to dump you entirely. Listen, you’re on their payroll and they don’t want to get involved with this kidnapping.’
‘Richard Hulme worked for them long enough. They owe him this much.’
‘Not how they see it. Tell me to butt out if you want, but leave this alone.’
‘They send you?’
‘Hell, no. They don’t know anything about this.’
‘So what they don’t know can’t hurt ’em.’
Ty’s face split into a grin. If that was how Lock saw things, then hell, he might as well go along for the ride.
Seventeen
Carrie looked straight down the barrel of camera two. ‘It’s every parent’s nightmare. A crime which grips the public like no other. Your son or daughter snatched, by a person or persons unknown. Who can possibly imagine the torment felt by a loving father’ – they cut from Carrie to a close-up of an uncomfortable-looking Richard Hulme as he straightened his tie for the umpteenth time – ‘for whom that nightmare is reality? In a few moments we talk to Dr Richard Hulme. His seven-year-old son Josh disappeared after leaving a Christmas Eve party on the city’s Upper East Side. A body believed to be that of Josh’s au pair, Russian-born Natalya Verovsky, was found yesterday. But, as of this hour, there is no sign of little Josh. Tonight his father speaks about his son’s disappearance, and the role his work as chief research scientist for controversial company Meditech may have played in his abduction. That’s coming up, right after these messages.’
The teaser finished, and they cut to commercial. Carrie turned to Richard who was sitting beside her, ashen-faced.
‘I never agreed to speak about Meditech.’
‘Then just don’t answer those questions,’ she replied, a hint of steel in her voice.
‘But then I’ll look like someone who has something to hide.’
‘Well, do you?’ she challenged.
Richard looked away.
Carrie leaned in closer to him. ‘I’m here to help you find your son. But I also plan on getting to the bottom of this story. With or without you.’
Back from the commercial break, Carrie set about laying out the timeline of Josh’s disappearance, aware that as she did so Richard was doing his best not to break down, his face caught in a slowly creeping zoom. ‘Every morning I wake up and it’s like being underwater,’ he said, his voice cracking. Carrie nodded sympathetically. After the next break she planned on making her move, changing up a gear and moving on to Meditech and the animal rights people. Lock had given her a couple of questions that he wanted out there, like why had Meditech cut Richard loose? They both knew that Richard wouldn’t have the answers but by putting them out in the public domain they could rely on the rest of the media to broaden the focus.
As Carrie segued to the next break, she could hear her producer, Gail Reindl, in her ear: ‘I need to talk to you before we come back live. I’m on my way down.’
Carrie made sure that a production assistant refilled Richard’s glass of water as she headed to the back of the studio to meet Gail.
Gail pulled Carrie into a corner. ‘Lose the Meditech questions.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘This is total BS,’ Carrie said, breaking away. ‘I know, don’t tell me: one of their publicity people has been on the phone hollering about pulling their ads from the network. Damn flacks.’
Gail ignored the comment. ‘Listen, the emotional stuff is dynamite. We won’t be losing anything by not asking him about it.’
‘Apart from the truth, you mean?’
Gail snorted derisively. ‘You’re coming off like some first-year journalism grad student at Columbia.’
Carrie bristled. ‘No, I’m going after the story. How can we not mention that he worked for a company outside whose headquarters several people were just killed? It’ll make us look like idiots.’
‘OK, ref it when you come back, but move straight on.’
‘To what?’
‘You’ll think of something.’
And with that Gail was gone, in a swish of black cashmere and a trail of Chanel No. 5. Carrie had to speed-walk across the floor to make it back to her position in time.
The eyes of the nation back on her, Carrie didn’t miss a beat. ‘Richard, until a few weeks ago you used to work for the Meditech Corporation.’
‘Yes, yes I did.’
‘And how long did you work for them?’
‘In total, approximately six years.’
‘And what did your work involve?’
‘I was involved in a number of areas.’
‘Which involved testing on animals?’
Richard didn’t hesitate. ‘That’s correct. I believed that the benefits to mankind outweighed any suffering caused to the animals.’
‘But recently you left Meditech’s employ?’
‘A few weeks before Josh went missing, yes.’
She could hear Gail, out of breath from having run all the way back to the booth, in her earpiece: ‘OK, now back to the kid.’
‘What was the nature of the work you did for Meditech?’
‘That I can’t discuss in any detail. There are confidentiality issues.’
Gail again: ‘Back the hell off, Carrie.’
Carrie smiled evenly across at Richard, her next comments directed right back at Gail, and whatever asshole in a suit had decided to try to do her job for her. ‘I understand, and your loyalty is commendable, particularly in light of the fact that your previous employer won’t assist you in finding your son – isn’t that correct?’
Richard hesitated this time. ‘Yes . . . that’s correct.’
As they went to the next break, Gail was back by Carrie’s side. Carrie braced herself for the onslaught. Gail Reindl in attack mode was a sight to behold.
Instead she studied the studio floor and said, ‘Wrap it up with Hulme.’
‘But we still have ten minutes.’
‘I do realize that, but we have a call. I want you to take it live on air.’
Carrie’s heart quickened. ‘We have a lead already?’