by Sean Black
‘Yeah. It was scary for a while there.’
‘It was,’ Lock agreed. The only people who claimed not to be scared in a violent situation were liars and psychopaths. Fear was hard-wired.
‘So how’s my hero?’
‘I’m your hero?’
‘Ryan, let’s not-’
He put up his hand in apology. ‘You’re right. So, let’s see, how am I?’ He took a sip, reflected. ‘I’m sore. If I’d seen it coming. .’
‘It wouldn’t have been sore?’
Lock wasn’t sure he had the energy to explain. Long ago he’d formed the theory that if you knew you were going to be hurt, if you expected it, the brain could send a signal of anticipation to the body which meant that when pain came it arrived with less of a jolt. Since then, every time he’d gone into a situation the first thing he told himself was,this is going to hurt. Bad. And somehow when he did that and the pain came he was able to manoeuvre beyond it and come out on top.
The shotgun rig had been a sucker punch. But then the world these days was all sucker punches.
‘Ryan? Are you OK?’
‘Sorry.’ He ran his hand across his scalp. ‘I was miles away.’
‘Evidently. Nice hairdo, by the way.’
He smiled. One of the many things he loved about Carrie was her ability to pull him out of what she chose to call his ‘tortured soul’ moments. ‘You like it?’ he asked.
‘ “Like” might be too strong a word. It’s certainly. . different. Let me get you a drink.’
‘Drinks are on me.’
He flagged down the bartender and ordered Carrie a Stoli rocks with a twist of lime.
‘Nice to see you remembered.’
The way she met his gaze as she said it held more than a hint of promise for later. In his current state, Lock couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand he couldn’t think of anything he’d like better than spending the night with Carrie, but on the other he doubted Carrie would be that impressed if he blacked out on top of her.
That, and it was complicated. They’d first gotten involved vowing that their relationship was only a bit of fun, then quickly realized after he’d stayed over at her place every night for two weeks that maybe it was shaping up to be more. Finally, they reached a mutual conclusion: right person, wrong time. No big argument. No recriminations. Just a slow realization that it wasn’t going to work out. Lock ached, then threw himself even deeper into his job.
The bartender brought Lock another beer and Carrie her Stoli rocks with a twist. Carrie’s finger circled the rim of her glass. She was thinking about something, Lock could tell.
‘Got some pretty good footage of you saving that girl in the wheelchair.’
‘No.’
‘I haven’t asked you a question yet.’
‘I know what it is, and my answer’s still no.’
Carrie sat back, smiling. ‘Will you give me an interview?’
‘You know what I think about media bullshit. Present company excepted. And you know what I think about guys doing the job who big-time it.’
‘But you saved her life.’
‘It’s what I’m trained to do. It wasn’t bravery, it was reflex. Listen, my job is to be the-’
‘Grey man. I know.’
Carrie had made the mistake of curling up on the couch with Lock one evening to watch the Academy Awards. She’d been treated to a stream of invective about the shortcomings of the various ‘bodyguards’ accompanying the cream of Hollywood up the red carpet. It was also the first time Carrie had heard the expression, presumably picked up from his former British colleagues, ‘thick-necked twats’.
‘Then you knew what I’d say.’
‘Can’t fault a girl for trying, can you?’ She drained her Stoli. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere else?’
Lock closed his eyes, tasting the moment.
‘You OK?’
‘Better than OK. You got some place in mind?’
‘Maybe.’
Over Carrie’s right shoulder, Lock watched a man in his early forties come into the bar. He wore a long raincoat buttoned all the way up but the hair matted to his head indicated that he hadn’t had the additional foresight to carry an umbrella. He scanned the bar quickly, clearly seeking someone out, but his manner was off, too much uncertainty around the edges.
The man stopped at the bar, leaning over to speak briefly to the barman, who nodded in Lock’s direction. As the man headed towards them, Lock edged his chair back a few inches, giving himself the room to be quickly up and on his feet should the need arise.
‘What’s wrong?’ Carrie asked, looking behind her.
The man got within a few feet of them and stopped.
Lock’s focus remained on the man’s hands, waiting for them to move inside his coat. But they didn’t, and when he finally spoke it was with a slightly affected WASPy accent, the words clipped and decisive. ‘Mr Lock?’
Another reporter, no doubt. Lock glared up at the man from his beer. ‘Sorry, but NBC already have me tied up.’
‘You should be so lucky,’ Carrie muttered.
Lock opened his mouth to tell the guy that they were leaving, then stopped as he saw his face up close. He had scaly black bags under his eyes and looked like he was about to burst into tears.
The man’s gaze flitted briefly to Carrie, then back to Lock. ‘Mr Lock,’ he said, his voice breaking, ‘I’m not a reporter. My name’s Richard Hulme. I’m Josh Hulme’s father.’
Twelve
‘How did you find me?’ Lock asked Richard Hulme.
‘One of your friends at Meditech. Tyrone. He gave me a list of places you might be. I think he feels bad about Meditech not being prepared to help out.’
They were alone in a corner booth, Carrie having agreed to catch up with Lock later.
‘You want to tell me what happened?’ Lock asked.
Richard launched into his story, his voice contained and even. What many would have taken as a lack of emotion, Lock recognized as a father doing his best not to unravel; not through any overweening macho pride, but because stoicism on his part might help get his son back in one piece. Lock had been here before, and like anyone who’d dealt with a child abduction the memory had never abated.
However, as Richard began to lay out the sequence of events, as methodically as one might expect from a scientist, Lock became more unsettled. This wasn’t like any other kidnap case he had either been involved in or even heard of.
‘I didn’t even know he was gone until the next morning. I should explain. I was at a conference out of town. I’d called from my hotel but I just assumed that because Josh was in bed. .’
‘Your wife had turned the phone off?’
Richard swallowed hard. ‘Josh’s mother passed away three years ago. Cancer.’
Lock said nothing. This was a time for analysis, not platitudes. Josh’s mother being dead eliminated scenario one. Something like ninety-five per cent of child abductions were the result of some misguided power play by so-called adults.
‘Your au pair, Natalya, she Eastern European?’
‘Russian to be precise. St Petersburg, I think.’
‘How long’s she been with you?’
‘About four months or so. You don’t think. .?’
‘It’s possible. Take it from me, the part of the world Natalya’s from, kidnapping is right up there with alcoholism and wife beating when it comes to ways to pass the long winter nights, so I wouldn’t rule it out. The good news is the Russian Mafia doesn’t believe in killing their victims. It tends to damage repeat business.’
‘There’s no way Natalya would be involved.’
‘There never is. Until it happens.’
‘Josh adored her, and it was mutual.’
‘You’re not going to like me for asking you this, but. .’
The way Richard almost flinched, Lock could tell he knew what was coming.
‘I wasn’t fooling around with Natalya. That
’s what you were going to ask me, right?’
‘Listen, no one’s going to judge you if you were. Specially not with your wife having passed away.’
‘The FBI asked me the same thing.’
That caused Lock to raise his hand, palm facing Richard. ‘If the FBI are involved, why are you so keen to talk to me? Why not leave it to them?’ It was the question that had been niggling away at him ever since he’d met Richard.
‘They’re getting nowhere fast. I’m prepared to deal with whoever I can.’ He paused.
‘If there’s something you need to say to me, spit it out.’
‘With Meg gone, Josh is all I have. I need someone who’ll do whatever it takes.’
‘And you thought that would be me?’
‘Yes.’
Lock got up.
‘Where are you going?’ Richard said, getting up too.
‘The FBI are the experts here,’ Lock said, hating himself for offering such a transparent platitude. ‘Let them do their job.’
Richard grabbed at the lapel of his jacket. Lock stared at his hand until he withdrew it.
‘I’m sorry for your loss. I truly am.’
‘You’re speaking like he’s dead already.’
Lock stayed silent.
‘So that’s it? The company won’t help me and neither will you?’
‘What did they say when you spoke to them?’
‘That I wasn’t their problem any more. Neither was Josh. Not quite in those words, but I could tell that’s what they meant.’
‘You want me to talk to them for you?’
Lock noticed Richard’s nails digging into his palms.
‘What I want is to find my son. I don’t care how it gets done.’
‘I can make a few phone calls for you. But beyond that I can’t go. I’m sorry.’
Richard’s face sank. ‘A few phone calls? That’s it? I come and ask for your help and you’ll make a few calls?’
‘Listen, Dr Hulme, I work for Meditech — y’know, the people who don’t want to help you. What makes you think this is my job?’
Richard rubbed at his face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because risking your life to save that protestor in the wheelchair wasn’t your job either, I thought. .’
‘Like I said, I’m sorry.’
Richard’s hand trembled as he jabbed an index finger in Lock’s face. ‘You know how this’ll end, and so do I,’ he shouted, drawing looks from the smattering of patrons dotted around the place. Lock pulled him to the door. ‘My son’s going to be sacrificed to those lunatics and all you and Meditech can do is feed me some corporate bullshit.’
Lock dropped his voice to a whisper, hoping that what he was about to say might calm Richard sufficiently that his comments about Meditech were restricted to people in a four-block radius rather than the entire five boroughs. ‘If I thought I was the best person to help you, Dr Hulme, believe me I would. But the fact remains I’m not.’
Richard took a deep breath. ‘You found Greer Price.’
Lock puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the cold. Richard Hulme had obviously done some digging of his own. ‘Haven’t heard that name in a long time,’ he said.
Greer Price was a four-year-old who had gone missing in a supermarket adjacent to a British military base in Osnabruck, Germany. Despite the fact that there had been at least two dozen shoppers and store employees there at the time, and that Greer’s mother had turned her back for a matter of seconds, there had been no witnesses to the little girl’s disappearance. Lock was a rookie with the Royal Military Police and the trail had been stone cold a full year before he was given it. Richard was right, Lock had solved the case, but he’d never counted it as a career highlight.
‘Greer was dead by the time I found her.’
‘You still found her, though.’
‘For all the good it did.’
‘You brought someone to justice.’
‘I brought someone before the courts, where they were convicted and sentenced. Justice didn’t enter into it.’
For a second, Lock found himself back in the attic of a small insignificant house, owned by an apparently even more insignificant old man. A former accountant, given to ordering everything, even the unimaginable. Lock had spent two days in that attic, searching through box after box filled with clear plastic Ziploc bags. Each bag contained mementoes of an abused child, the bags marked in black ink with the date of their abuse. Greer had been discovered a few days later, buried in the back garden.
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.’
Richa
rd 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.