She glanced at her watch. Ten past four already. Ashan came in to say tea was served in the dining room. They always had high tea, with sandwiches, biscuits and cake, and she usually enjoyed it with Conor. She took the dogs out to the garden and left them there to run around while she kept an eye out for Conor in the street. He must have gone further than she had expected because there was no sign of him. She wasn’t unduly worried. As a child, she’d spent hours outside on her bike alone. She went back inside and, giving it another fifteen minutes before checking again, she decided to start tea without him. She poured and then drank a cup of already lukewarm tea and ate a cucumber sandwich. After tea she called the dogs indoors, put a lead on Tommy and took him out with her while she went to look for Conor again. It was now four thirty-five.
She walked down her street, turning off at intervals into the various alleys. To begin with there was no sign of him, but eventually she spotted a child’s bicycle poking out from behind some crates outside the vegetable shop. She pulled the bike out and recognized it as Conor’s. Had he gone into the shop for some reason? She went inside and asked the Sinhalese owner whether he’d seen a small boy with dark curly hair. The owner thought for a moment.
‘I saw him cycling down the street when I went out to bring in a crate of bananas.’
‘You didn’t speak to him?’
‘No.’
She felt a flicker of anxiety. She was probably being silly. He must have left the bike and decided to walk, maybe to the beach. She went to check the beach, but he wasn’t there either, and gazing at the limitless ocean she felt the numb well of anxiety slowly deepen. Surely Conor wouldn’t have gone into the water on his own? She went back to the maze of streets and walked around for more than an hour, but there was still no sign of him. She returned for the bike and decided to speak to the shopkeeper again.
‘I remembered something,’ the man said. ‘When I went out to get a second box, that one was packed with rambutans, I saw the child again.’
‘What was he doing? Still cycling?’
‘No. He was standing astride his bike talking to a man in an old green car. The car caught my eye, because I usually know all the ones from around here.’
‘And that one wasn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Then what happened?’
He shook his head. ‘I was busy taking the fruit through. Maybe the man was asking for directions?’
‘Thank you,’ Louisa said.
She asked in a few other shops but without learning anything further, and then wheeled the bike home with one hand while hanging on to Tommy’s lead with the other. Where could the child have got to?
She accepted there was nothing for it. She would have to phone Leo. She’d written his new number in her address book and flicked through to find it, trying to tell herself it would all be fine. Conor would turn up soon, looking shamefaced and full of apologies.
She dialled the number hoping Leo was in. It was a quarter to six, so with nightfall not far off and a bit of luck, he might already be home. It was Kamu who answered but he told her Leo was there. She waited and when Leo came on the line her breath faltered.
‘Leo,’ she said, and, swallowing hard, fought to keep the tell-tale catch out of her voice. ‘I … I can’t find Conor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. He’s been missing for nearly two hours and I’ve been out looking for him. I’ve found his bike but not him.’
‘Stay put in case he turns up. I’ll come straight over on the motorbike.’
‘I’ll be here.’
Louisa hadn’t seen Leo since her curt dismissal of him on Sunday evening, and when he arrived she noticed the stubble on his jawline and a tired look around his eyes. She wanted to be frosty with him but knew she had to put her feelings aside if they were to work together to find Conor.
‘I’ll never forgive myself if …’ she said, and paused, still struggling to suppress her anxiety.
‘Let’s not allow our imaginations to run away with us,’ he said. ‘Let’s just get on with finding him. Have you thought he might be at your father’s house?’
She gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘Of course, I didn’t think! We’ll go straight round there now.’
They walked in silence to Jonathan’s house and while she rang the bell he looked at his feet before glancing up at her. ‘Look, Louisa, I wanted to –’
But he was interrupted by her father’s butler answering the door. While they waited for her father in the hall she spoke. ‘What did you want to say?’
She looked into his dark intelligent eyes.
He shook his head. ‘It can wait.’
A moment later Jonathan came in, wiping his hands on a towel. ‘Just finishing off a spot of gardening while the light held,’ he said.
‘Dad, is Conor with you?’
He frowned. ‘I haven’t seen him at all today. Why?’
‘We can’t find him. I’ve looked everywhere I can think of.’
‘What about Flag Rock?’
‘He wouldn’t jump into the sea from there. He’s far too small.’
‘I doubt he’d jump, but he might have gone to watch those who do.’
Leo was already heading for the door. ‘I’ll go. Louisa, it’s best if you wait at home in case he turns up.’
‘I’ll wait with you, sweetheart. Don’t worry, we’ll find him, won’t we, Leo?’
‘Absolutely.’ And with that Leo opened the door and left.
As they walked back, she told her father what the shopkeeper had mentioned about seeing Conor talking to a man in a car.
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ he said.
‘He could have just been giving the man directions.’
‘Maybe.’
When they arrived at the house Louisa asked Ashan to pour her father a whisky.
‘What about you?’ Jonathan asked as he sat down on the sofa.
She shook her head. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I’ll call the police. Let them know he’s missing.’ He got up and went into the hall to use the phone.
Louisa couldn’t settle. She walked back and forth and then went to gaze out of the window.
Her father came back in. ‘They’ll keep an eye out for him. They have a man looking now.’
‘Could he have climbed the ramparts and fallen off? Maybe he’s lying somewhere with a broken ankle? It’ll be too dark soon to see anything, won’t it?’
‘Try not to think too much.’
After a few moments they heard the front door open and close.
‘Leo’s back,’ she said, but it was Ashan who came into the room with a solemn expression on his face.
‘A child just delivered this envelope.’
She tore it open and then read the note inside. Her hand flew to her mouth.
‘What is it?’
She passed the note to her father who read it and then gazed at her. ‘Dear God!’
‘Yes,’ she said, and almost choked on her words.
‘They want thirty thousand rupees. Twice what you told me Himal found under the floorboards. That’s a fortune: it would buy a few decent houses.’
‘Read the rest, Dad.’
‘Don’t involve the police. Wait for us to get in touch.’
She sat down with her head in her hands and rocked back and forth.
‘Madam,’ Ashan said. ‘How can I help?’
Unable to speak, Louisa just shook her head and Ashan left the room.
When Leo arrived back to tell them he had seen no sign of Conor, Louisa glanced up at her father. ‘Show him the note.’
Leo read it and a look of horror passed over his face. ‘Sweet Jesus. Just let me get my hands on them!’
‘We need to think,’ Jonathan said.
‘There’s nothing to think about,’ Leo snapped. ‘We have to get out and find them.’
Louisa looked at them both as heat began to spread through her. She felt her heart thum
ping, her eyes burning. ‘But we don’t know where to look. What if they hurt him? I can’t bear …’
Jonathan was striding up and down the sitting room. ‘They won’t hurt him while he’s worth money. I think we should speak to Chief Inspector Roberts.’
‘They say no police,’ Leo said.
Louisa’s tears began to fall. ‘I should never have let him out on his own. It’s my fault.’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Leo said and he looked as if he was about to come over to her.
Instead, Jonathan came across to Louisa and opened his arms to her. She got to her feet and he held her close.
‘I think you’re right, Dad,’ Louisa said, pulling away, ‘we have to involve the police, but they must understand it has to be on the quiet.’
After Jonathan had called Roberts, they sat drinking whisky and waiting for the policeman to arrive. They’d told him to slip in by the garden gate just in case anyone was watching the main street entrance.
When Roberts arrived, it was getting late.
First of all, he called Ashan to the room to ask him about who had delivered the note.
‘It was a child, just a boy,’ Ashan said, his eyes darkening in alarm. ‘I asked who it was from, but he said a man had given him a rupee to deliver it.’
‘Did he know who the man was?’
Ashan shook his head. ‘I did not get that impression. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.’
‘Thank you, Ashan,’ Roberts said, running his hand through his thatch of wiry hair. ‘You can go.’
‘So, what now?’ Leo asked.
‘Well, we have no clues as to the child’s whereabouts, but we know who must be behind this.’
‘De Vos or Cooper. Or both,’ Louisa said, and her heart sank.
‘It does seem likely. They didn’t believe they’d get their hands on the money any other way, so now one of them has resorted to this.’
Roberts had been holding his hat in his hands; now he put it on. ‘I’d better be off. Call my private number at home if you hear anything more tonight. Otherwise we’ll talk tomorrow, but I won’t come round in daylight hours. We don’t want them to know I’m involved.’
‘So, what do we do?’
‘Try to get some sleep. That’s all I can suggest.’
Jonathan made a move too. ‘You go out the back, Inspector. I’ll go out through the front door. He’s right, Louisa, try to get some sleep.’
After Roberts and Jonathan had left, Louisa stared at Leo. There was an awkward silence between them.
‘Louisa,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I was wrong about Irene.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to give Conor what he needed, and it just seemed like a solution. But now with all this …’ He spread his hands out wide. ‘Well, we have to get him back and I promise, when we do, I will never let him go.’
She swallowed rapidly. ‘Will we get him back?’
He came across to her. ‘Of course.’ Then he wrapped his arms around her.
When they parted, he told her he’d sleep in one of the guest rooms.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I need you near me.’
They went upstairs together and lay on the bed fully dressed. ‘Please just hold me,’ she said as the night stilled around them. ‘I’m not going to be able to sleep.’
After that she stared into the airless darkness, listening to the sounds of the ocean and the waves breaking on the shore, with fear swallowing her every breath. Even with Leo beside her and feeling the warmth of his body, it was an empty, lonely night.
47.
Louisa stared out of the window and watched the pale dawn turn into a glorious morning with a gorgeous blue sky and the sea shimmering turquoise and silver. She felt relieved. It would be easier to look for Conor if it wasn’t raining.
She and Leo went down to breakfast together, though the toast stuck in her throat, and her stomach felt knotted. When she had drunk some coffee, she spoke to every member of her staff. Had they seen anything suspicious? Heard anything at all? Only the French girl, Camille, reddened when questioned.
A little later she found Camille crying in the garden.
‘What’s the matter?’ Louisa asked.
Camille shook her head and stared at the ground, her shoulders still heaving.
‘Come on. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.’
The girl looked up at her. ‘I am very sorry. Truly I am.’
‘Sorry for what?’
Camille hung her head.
‘Sorry for what?’ Louisa repeated.
‘They offered me money.’
‘Who offered you money?’
‘I needed it to save up the fare to go back home.’
A chill ran through Louisa. ‘What did you do?’
‘Once or twice I told a man when you would be out and where you were going.’
Louisa gasped. ‘But how did you know?’
‘I overheard. A servant hears everything, Madame. It is not so hard.’
‘When was this?’
‘Recently, and a little while ago too. I didn’t know anyone was going to take the child.’
‘How do you know it’s the same people?’
‘The same man as before asked me last week if the child was ever allowed to play outside alone. I didn’t think anything of it. He was just talking about children generally, like in a conversation.’
‘What man?’ She grabbed the girl by the shoulders. ‘What man?’
‘An Australian. I don’t know his name. Please don’t report me to the police. I didn’t realize it was so serious. I didn’t tell him anything. Just said Conor might be allowed to play outside sometimes, and I didn’t know for sure.’
‘Didn’t you think what that might mean?’
Camille shook her head.
Louisa felt like throttling her. ‘Dear God. So you are the one who has been revealing my movements to them. Has this been going on for months? Since the break-in?’
The girl shrank back from her. ‘What are you going to do?
She shook her head. ‘One thing is certain: the police will want to talk to you. You stupid, stupid girl. If anything happens to the child it will be your fault.’
After that Louisa and Leo went around every house and every shop in the town, asking if anyone had seen what had happened when Conor was taken. They left the ramparts to the police, who had a man surreptitiously checking the child hadn’t been hidden somewhere near the sea. Only one shopkeeper told them he had seen a green car with two men and a child in it heading for the Old Gate.
‘So, if that was them, they have him concealed somewhere out of town,’ Leo said.
‘But that could be anywhere! We don’t even know if they’ve headed west to Colombo or east.’
He sighed deeply. ‘Let’s go home. There’s nothing more we can do here.’
They had been home for about an hour, circling each other in shocked silence, picking up magazines but not knowing what they read, putting them down, asking for tea but not drinking it when it came, and then the piercing sound of the telephone broke into their thoughts. They heard Ashan answer the call. When Louisa glanced at Leo, he gave her a half-smile and they exchanged a look of hope. She cherished the moment of connection, the blessed preciousness of it. But then Ashan called Louisa to come through to the hall.
He was pale as she took the phone and listened.
‘I will only say this once.’ It was a heavily disguised voice. ‘At midday tomorrow come to the Sun Bastion with the thirty thousand rupees. Put them in a shoebox, and wrap it up in brown paper, like an ordinary parcel. There is a warehouse nearby, and the door will be open. Leave the package in there. Do you understand?’
She murmured that she did.
‘If you do as I say the child will be returned to you. Do not involve the police.’
With a click the line went dead.
As Leo came out she stood in the ha
ll, holding the receiver and shaking from head to foot. She felt a wave of heat followed by the kind of nausea you feel just before you faint. He took the phone from her, replaced it in the cradle and gently led her back into the sitting room.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You need to sit down.’
She told him what the man on the end of the line had said. ‘I need to tell my father too.’
‘Just sit for a minute until you’ve stopped shaking.’
She took a few deep breaths while he stroked her back and then she got to her feet.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
‘No, you stay here in case there are any more calls.’
‘I could go to Jonathan for you.’
‘I’d rather go myself.’
She glanced out of the window at the darkening sky. The weather had changed so she grabbed an umbrella and headed out of the front door to walk to her father’s house.
Though it wasn’t far, every step felt like a hundred miles, and by the time she reached the house her breath was coming in short gasps.
Jonathan took her into his study and gave her a glass of water. ‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘Drink slowly.’
She drank the water and then she told him about the phone call.
‘We have to give them the money,’ she said. ‘What if they hurt him, Dad? He’s such a little boy.’
Her father patted her hand. ‘And you care about him, I know.’
‘I never thought I would feel this way about Conor, but I’d do anything to have him back.’
‘It’s an awful lot of money, but I agree. You’ve still got what Himal found and I’ll try to raise the rest. It’ll be a stretch, but I can call in some favours. It’s a child’s life, after all.’
Soon after that, Leo turned up, saying he couldn’t just sit and wait.
‘I’ll get in touch with Roberts,’ Jonathan said, ‘let him know about the call.’
‘We will get him back, won’t we?’ she said.
The Sapphire Widow Page 32