by M. D. Archer
“Uh, no... and yes... I mean, it was a normal evening,” Carolyn paused and bit her lip.
“Nothing happened?” Paige prompted.
“No.” She nodded, but looked down.
“When did you realise she was gone?”
“It wasn’t until around seven the next evening. We realised it was possible Polly hadn’t come home the previous night.”
“Why?”
“There were signs. Her bed was still made when we checked on Thursday night. The cleaner comes on Wednesday afternoons,” Carolyn explained. “And Polly doesn’t generally take the time to make her bed... she’s a teenage girl, you know.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know... she normally takes her satchel to university and that was still here, suggesting she hadn’t gone in, but her laptop and phone and wallet were gone... I don’t know. It’s possible she just used a different bag, but neither Tyrone nor I heard her come in, so we agreed it seemed like she hadn’t come home.”
“I see. And her car? Is that missing too?”
“Polly doesn’t have a car.”
“Really?” The Dixons seemed like exactly the kind of people who would give their only daughter a car for her sixteenth birthday. Something nifty.
“Carbon footprint, you know.” Carolyn sighed. “She’s dedicated to saving the environment and has been since she was about thirteen.” She shook her head. “The police say she’s probably just off somewhere being nineteen, but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t feel right. She would know we’d be worried, and I just can’t imagine her not letting us know where she was.” Carolyn’s eyes were filling up.
“She’s never taken off before?”
“Well...” Carolyn’s eyes flitted around. “Yes, but only for a couple of days. She’s hot-headed you know, but it wasn’t like this.” The colour was draining out of her face.
“But didn’t she text you?”
Carolyn hesitated before answering. “Yesterday she replied to my text saying, “don’t worry I’m fine”. But it doesn’t feel right,” she repeated. “Anyone could have written that.” Her voice wobbled.
“Mrs Dixon, if you hire us, we will find Polly.”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“Trust your gut, Mrs Dixon,” Paige added. “If you think something is wrong—”
“What’s going on out here?” Tyrone Dixon appeared around the corner, looking for the first time since Paige and Sophie had arrived, annoyed.
“This young woman is from an investigative agency. She thought she might be able to help us.”
“No, honey, we’re letting the police handle this.”
Sophie appeared behind him and mouthed sorry to Paige.
“But they aren’t handling it. They won’t do anything, they said they can’t—”
“Caro, honey... we talked about this,” he said. “The police were here once already; do you really want to call them again? How would it look? And not just for us, for Polly too.”
“Yes, well.” Carolyn cast her eyes out toward the street.
“If we change our mind, I promise we’ll call,” Tyrone said to Sophie.
Carolyn, ever the host, walked them out. “Well,” she said then paused, seeming to be at a loss as to the appropriate way to send off two strangers who had barged into her house trying to drum up business on a Sunday afternoon.
On the doorstep Paige drew herself up taller. Sophie tensed, preparing herself for a scene.
“If you do change your mind.” Paige handed her a card and turned to follow Sophie, who was already edging her way down the path. When Paige reached the car she turned back and saw Carolyn waving so she waited, but she was not waving at them.
“Wendy, hello,” Carolyn called to an elderly woman at the letterbox directly across the road.
“I forgot to check Jason’s mail yesterday,” the woman said, as if somebody had asked her what she was doing.
Carolyn nodded absentmindedly and shut the door.
“Dammit.” Paige turned the ignition.
“Did you really expect to get the case?” Sophie said. “Just like that?”
“I don’t know. I thought he might take one look at you and hire us just for the hell of it,” Paige admitted.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Well, proof in point. We don’t have the case.” Sophie’s brow furrowed. She hated it when Paige said stuff like that.
Paige felt bad.
“You aren’t mad at me, are you?” Paige said, after a period of prolonged, tension-filled silence, made worse by the confines of the car and Sunday traffic. Most of the time she didn’t care whether people liked her, were mad at her, or even talked to her. But Sophie was different. “Please don’t be mad at me...”
Sophie waved her hand. “Okay,” she conceded. “But it sounds as if Polly has just gone off somewhere after a fight with her mother. Is she even missing?”
POLLY DIXON’S LIMBS were like lead, her head throbbed, and her stomach was churning with slow but insistent regularity.
She couldn’t remember ever feeling worse.
Prising her eyes open she swallowed, cleared her throat and winced. By summoning all her energy she was able to lift her head from the pillow. The room, new to her until only recently but now familiar, came into focus.
God this furniture was ugly.
What time is it, she wondered. It was dark, but something in Polly’s brain told her it was daytime. She thought about sitting up—but only for a moment. Instead she reached a shaky hand out to the bottle of water on the bedside table, drank a little to soothe her gritty throat, and went back to sleep.
4
Sophie eyed the Twitter page with doubt.
What was she supposed to write? What witticism or truth would inspire people to follow S & S Investigations, to hang on their every digital utterance, and to use their services? She sat back with a sigh. She was the one who had suggested they should have some sort of social media presence, thinking Paige would do it because Paige operated under the (partly) delusional belief that she said interesting things. But Paige had insisted Sophie, knowing more about personality and human behaviour, would be the better choice.
“Paige?”
“Just write something. Or better yet, take a photo of yourself doing something investigatory and Instagram it, then link it back to Twitter.”
“Investigatory? What would that look like?”
“I don’t know, sit at the computer and look intelligent and tenacious, and take a photo.”
Sophie eyed her phone warily, but then dutifully picked it up and aimed it at herself, making sure her computer—on a split-screen with their blank Twitter page on one side and her incomplete ASOS order on the other—wasn’t quite visible. She took a few shots from a couple of different angles, keeping her face half-turned to the laptop, trying to look, as Paige said, tenacious. But all the photos demonstrated was that Paige was right about Sophie’s constipated thinking face. She would not be putting up a photo that looked like a “before” ad for laxatives.
Sophie abandoned her phone and picked up her mug of peppermint tea, cradling it against her chest as she tried to think. She had major doubts about her ability to be an investigator, despite what Paige thought, but she wanted to contribute. She wanted to help get this business running. When it came to getting new business she was too shy to do much in a face to face situation—as had been proven yesterday—so she needed to come up with something for their website and their social media platform.
What would she want to see on a website or twitter feed, Sophie continued to muse. Maybe some interesting crime facts? Sophie sat up, the idea injecting a bit of enthusiasm into her veins. She could research interesting crime-related facts and post them. She could definitely do that. Oh! Sophie sat up even straighter. And psychological facts. They were a psychological investigations agency after all. People loved t
itbits about human psychology. Especially weird or self-indulgent ones. And yes—personality! People loved to think about their personality and what it might mean. Her colleagues had always been amazed at how many volunteers she used to get for her research experiments. The trick was to use the word personality in the study description. Bung in a quick personality test, and people got interested pretty fast. Everyone had at least a hint of narcissism.
Sophie set down her tea with a bang and opened up a search engine.
Paige looked over at the sound of this rush of activity and smiled. She’d known Sophie would get there. She didn’t even need to know what angle she was taking; she knew it would turn out great. Sophie was smart and creative, and determined in her own way, with an ability to focus Paige could only dream about.
Paige’s mobile phone rang. It was a landline number she didn’t recognise but she answered it anyway.
“Hello?” a woman shouted. “Paige Garnet? It’s Mary Burmeister.”
Paige held the phone away from her ear and winced. “Yes, yes. Mrs Burmeister, this is Paige.”
“Penny told me to call you... if... and now... I got a note... this morning.” Mary’s voice cracked and Paige couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “He has Mr Minx.”
“Okay. I’ll be right over,” Paige said. “What’s your address?”
Paige shoved a notepad and a pen into her bag and signalled to Sophie, who was now wearing headphones.
“Hey, I’m going to see Mary Burmeister. She got the ransom note.”
“Do you need me to come? I’m happy to stay here and keep working on the social media stuff... I was thinking, rather than both going everywhere together, we could probably use our time more efficiently by working on different aspects of the case, or the business in general... unless you need me, of course, I think there will be times when we’re both needed, right?” Sophie faltered, suddenly worried she was being bossy.
“No, you’re totally right.” Paige smiled. “Good thinking. Hey, since you’re already online... do you want to see what you can get from Polly’s Facebook or whatever other platforms she’s on? There has to be something there, right?”
“But the Dixons didn’t hire us.”
“I know, but I say, let’s not let that stop us. Let’s just go for it. If we find her they might pay us, or at the very least, we’ll get publicity and some real clients.”
Sophie shrugged. It wasn’t as if they had heaps of other options.
Paige grabbed her bag and moved toward the door. “Shall I bring back lunch? Sushi?”
Sophie hesitated. She’d read, only yesterday, a story about how white rice had a high glycaemic index, and she’d downloaded a paper on the damage of repeatedly spiking insulin levels. Not just because of its effects on mood, blood-sugar levels, and all that stuff, but because it made you put on weight. The weekend had been a sugar-fest for Sophie, who had found herself unexpectedly at a couple’s dinner, sitting across from a guy who was clearly meant to be her date. This particular guy’s attempts at chatting her up had her cringing for most of the meal and she ended up excusing herself before dessert, pleading a stomach-ache.
“Uh... not sure I feel like sushi.”
“We can sort it out later.”
As Paige left the office Sophie allowed herself to re-live, in a blush-inducing, cringe-worthy memory, the worst bit of the whole night. Her date had followed her out of the restaurant—unbeknownst to Sophie—to check she was okay, and had caught her coming out of a nearby KiwiMart with her arms full of decadent treats for the pity-party she was throwing for herself when she got home. Sophie shook her head as she turned back to the computer—she needn’t worry about fielding any follow-up phone calls from him.
PAIGE MADE HER WAY down Symonds Street, a mishmash of vacant and refurbished offices, liquor stores, rundown eateries, $2 shops offering crap at cheap prices, and a handful of good restaurants and cafés, and retrieved her car from a pay-and-display spot. There was a bus that went straight down New North Road, virtually a door-to-door service from home to office, but most days Paige couldn’t face taking the bus. Plus, she needed a car to run errands like this, she reasoned. For the good of the business.
Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at her destination—Clonburn Road—a pretty, leafy street in the heart of Remuera. She parked on the street and got out, wondering whether the Pet Napper lived near here or whether they had chosen Remuera because of the people who lived here—rich and likely to pay for the safe return of precious pets. Hard to tell with so little to go on. She knocked on the beautiful wooden door and waited.
“Yes, dear? Can I help you?” Mary Burmeister was small and anxious looking with large grey eyes.
“I’m Paige Garnet,” Paige said with a smile.
Mary Burmeister looked perplexed.
“I’m here about Mr Minx? From the detective agency.”
“Oh yes, of course, sorry... I’m not sure what I was expecting.”
After a pause Mary abruptly thrust a piece of paper at Paige, folded up into a square, and raised an already sodden handkerchief to stem a tide of imminent tears. “It was in the letterbox this morning.”
Paige opened the note.
I’m in the business of borrowing, so no need for alarm, your treasured pet will be returned to you without harm. As long as you follow my instructions. Don’t tell anyone about this, and do not get the police involved or you will never see your cat again. Place $5,000 in unmarked bills into a nondescript sports bag and wait for instructions regarding the drop-off.
Yours, Billy the Borrower
“Why don’t we go inside and sit down so we can talk properly,” Paige said.
Mrs Burmeister nodded, composing herself. “This way.” She led Paige into an over-decorated and overheated room.
“I’ll make us some tea,” Mrs Burmeister said.
“Jeeves off today, is he?” Paige blurted. Mrs Burmeister seemed like exactly the kind of person who would have a butler.
“Pardon, my dear?”
“Nothing.” Paige bit her lip. Mocking your first and only paying client was a dumb move.
Paige pulled off her scarf and looked around the room. Despite its size, it felt claustrophobic. Paige wondered if there was a Mr Burmeister, or if there ever had been. How did this small and somewhat vacant woman own a house like this in this part of town? Was it a rich husband, or rich parents? Or had she been some sort of ground-breaking pioneer, a single woman who had accumulated immense wealth all on her own, living life as a gleeful spinster. The rattle of a tray of tea brought Paige out of her speculations.
“Here we go,” Mrs Burmeister said, her birdlike arms trembling under the weight of a full teapot.
“Thank you, Mrs Burmeister.”
“Please, call me Mary.”
While Mary busied herself at the tea tray, Paige pulled out her black notepad—with a flip cover, just like the ones cops and detectives used—and her pen. One of the first things she’d purchased for the business was a few of these for her and Sophie. She found the mere presence of them thrilling beyond words.
Mary spooned an alarming amount of sugar into a cup and handed it to Paige.
“I remembered something about the day poor Mr Minx was taken,” she said, once she’d settled down with her own cup of tea.
“Good. I was just about to ask,” Paige said, pen poised.
“There was a man. I remembered seeing a young man walk past my garden,” she began. “I called out hello to him but he didn’t respond.” Mary’s wide eyes conveyed her surprise at this behaviour. “At the time I thought he was just a rude young man, but now I think about it, it was rather suspicious, because he increased his pace after I called out, until he was almost running away. And he had a coat bunched under his arm. It looked... unnatural.” Mary looked to Paige for confirmation that this was indeed significant.
“That is a good clue,” Paige nodded as she wrote it down. How on earth was this not the first thing she thought of? P
erhaps losing your cat was traumatic.
Paige tapped her pen against the notepad. It was very possible this was the guy, carting away the poor Mr Minx in his coat. And if it was him, maybe he wasn’t a local. A local would’ve known that people like Mary, who live in neighbourhoods like this, notice each other and say “hello”. It would also make such a brazen kidnapping a foolish move. What if a neighbour saw him, wanted to stop for a chat while he had a squirming, possibly meowing, bundle under his arm. How on earth would he explain that away? No, it was more likely he lived elsewhere, but perhaps not too far away.
“And what did he look like?” Paige asked.
“He has dark grey fur, round inquisitive eyes and a cheeky bottom—”
“Uh, no. The young man. Do you remember?”
“No. Not really. I do remember he was wearing a hat, one of those American-style baseball cap perhaps? And I think he had glasses. Not sunglasses, but prescription glasses. And I’m not certain, but I have the impression he was on the hefty side.”
“Hmm,” Paige said, writing this down too. She flicked her eyes over Mary, who must weigh 45 kgs at the most, and wondered whether she could trust this hefty description.
“How old do you think he was?”
“Oh goodness. I find it so hard to tell,” Mary squinted and looked at Paige. “Around your age perhaps?”
“How about a ten-year window from, let’s say, twenty-five to thirty-five—just to be safe?” Paige suggested.
“Perhaps that would be wise,” Mary agreed, taking a sip of her tea.
“Are you aware there have been two others? Two other pets taken?” Paige waited for a nod before continuing. “One of them was my mother’s cat, but I don’t know who the other pet owner was. I don’t suppose you have her name?”
“Oh, no, dear. I don’t.” Mary shook her head slowly. “But I may know someone who does. My friend Susan, she’s the one who told Penny about Mr Minx. I’m seeing her for lunch today so I could find out for you?”
“Yes, please. It’s very important.” Paige nodded and made a note to follow up with Mary this afternoon. “Unless there’s anything else, I’ll get right onto this.” Paige stood up abruptly and made to leave. “But please, be sure to contact me the moment you hear anything,” she added. Mary’s chin started wobbling. “I’m sure it’ll be okay, we’ll find him for you.” Paige eyed Mary with alarm. Waterworks were imminent and she wanted to get out of there. There was a reason she’d opted to work with digital representations of neural activity rather than the human creators of such activity.