Fifth Victim tcfs-9

by Zoe Sharp

  I’d been unable to offer this kind of sisterly comfort to Dina, and I doubted it was what she wanted of me. My instinct had been to tell her to pull herself together. She hadn’t been physically injured, wasn’t sick, so why hide herself away like an invalid?

  But I hadn’t voiced such thoughts. I could still remember a time when all I’d wanted to do was burrow long and deep. And hope, when I finally surfaced, the world as I knew it had simply gone away. It hadn’t worked.

  Behind me, Orlando was saying how they didn’t want to tire her, that they’d just stopped by to see how Dina was doing. She gave her hands another quick squeeze and stood up.

  ‘Get some rest, honey,’ Manda said, picking up her jacket. They kissed her cheek, headed for the door. I followed them out, collecting the silent bodyguard, and led the little party through the lower levels of the house. Manda and Orlando talked critically about how shaky Dina had looked, as if it never occurred to them that I might repeat their comments to her.

  We emerged through the garages to the driveway where a big silver BMW sat at a rakish angle on the gravel, the driver still behind the wheel. He hopped out when he saw us approaching and opened the rear doors. The engine was already running to maintain the climate control – either for his passengers’ benefit or his own.

  ‘How did you hear about Torquil?’ I asked before they could climb inside.

  Orlando froze in the middle of digging in her handbag for her sunglasses, glanced at Manda. ‘His father called, asked if I knew where he was. He called all of us, I think,’ she said carelessly, and Manda nodded in agreement.

  I tilted my head to take in the pair of them. ‘Is Torquil playing some kind of game with his father?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Orlando demanded, flipping the designer shades in place. They were huge and very dark, with such ornate side arms it must have been like walking around in blinkers.

  ‘It’s not a difficult question,’ I said coolly, moving sideways so she’d have to step round me to get into the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bodyguard shift his position, caught the way Manda gave a tiny shake of her head to prevent him intervening, then asked with reluctance, as if she didn’t really want to know the answer, ‘What kinda game?’

  ‘The kind that might get taken too far.’

  ‘You don’t think—?’ Manda began, stopped and tried again. ‘You think he had something to do with his own kidnapping? That’s crazy.’

  ‘Maybe it is.’ I shrugged. ‘But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t someone close to him.’

  ‘But … why?’

  There was something just a little off about her responses, but I couldn’t entirely put my finger on what exactly. Maybe it was just down to the fact that we’d never had the kind of relationship that involved exchanged views or confidences, and it was proving an awkward fit now.

  Orlando gave a heavy sigh, tipping the glasses up onto the top of her head so she could confront me with a naked gaze.

  ‘Look, Charlie, Tor’s a weird kid. Life is just one big game to him,’ she snapped. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘But you do know, of course,’ I said carefully, ‘that he likes to record what goes on aboard his father’s yacht?’

  That got a reaction I wasn’t quite expecting. Orlando turned white then flushed scarlet. Her eyes darted sideways, as if looking for a viable escape route, or maybe just hoping for intervention from her friend. It wasn’t forthcoming.

  Orlando didn’t quite scramble her way into the Bee-Em’s rear seat, but it was as close as you could get without entirely abandoning her composure. Heedless of the danger to her manicured and painted nails, she grabbed at the interior door handle and yanked the door shut. If I’d been any nearer, I would have lost fingers.

  The bodyguard with the broken nose didn’t say anything, but made it clear that opening the door to speak to her further was not an option. I glanced at Manda. She shrugged and calmly walked around to the other side. The bodyguard waited a moment longer, just to make sure I got the hands-off message, then took the front passenger seat.

  I stepped back as the car pulled away faster than it needed to, leaving little divots in the gravel. I watched the brake lights flare briefly before it turned out onto the street, then it was gone.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I murmured. ‘You know about that all right, don’t you, Orlando?’

  ‘Hey, Charlie!’

  I turned. McGregor was standing in the open garage doorway, one hand on the frame and his cellphone open in his hand. ‘It’s the boss,’ he said. ‘He wants you back at the office, a-sap.’

  I started to walk back towards the house. ‘Fine. What’s the rush?’

  ‘Apparently Mr Eisenberg’s en route to the office. He wants to talk to you and Mr Armstrong,’ McGregor said, handing me the phone. ‘The kidnappers made contact.’

  It was nearly 10.30 a.m. The kidnapping was almost exactly twenty-five hours old.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Brandon Eisenberg swept into Parker’s office three-quarters of an hour after his appointed time, with an entourage in double figures.

  This included an icy blond woman in a lace-edged cream designer suit that seemed to emphasise all her hard edges rather than soften them. I had to look twice to recognise her as Nicola Eisenberg from the video clip Parker had siphoned off Torquil’s PDA. It was tempting to mention the fact she looked different with her clothes on, just to see if the barb would penetrate that cool facade. Somehow, I doubted it.

  Of the others, I noted the red-haired Gleason, still standing protectively close to her principal, but wearing a slightly less possessive face than she had done the night of the charity auction, when Eisenberg’s wife was not in attendance.

  Nicola Eisenberg had come with her own personal bodyguard, too. A solid-looking older guy who, I guessed, Eisenberg had selected as much for his middle-age and bland looks as for his experience.

  The remainder of the party were assistants, and assistants to the assistants, and extremely high-priced legal people in handmade shoes. The latter were easy to spot by the way they mentally priced up the fittings through narrowed eyes as soon as they came in.

  Leaving McGregor on guard with Dina, I’d travelled into Manhattan from Long Island by the fastest means possible after Parker’s summons. That meant I’d used the Buell. Fortunately, it was a house rule to keep a spare business suit at the office, so while I couldn’t remotely compete with the power couture on show as they all trooped in, I was at least no longer in my bug-splattered bike leathers.

  Parker rose to greet them, urbane and radiating competent composure. Brief, forgettable introductions were made and he gestured the Eisenbergs to the low client chairs, clustered around a coffee table in the centre of the room.

  There was seating for six in comfort, and hierarchy was quickly established by who got a seat and who was forced to stand. Eisenberg seemed slightly bored by the jockeying for position, as if people behaved like this around him all the time and he’d learnt simply to let them get on with it.

  Nicola Eisenberg pretended not to notice. I understood she’d just flown in from Nassau, no doubt utilising the Lear 85 Torquil had mentioned so artlessly that day at the riding club. Maybe she was just suffering from executive-jet lag.

  ‘So,’ Parker said once the dust had settled. ‘You wanna read us in?’

  To my surprise, it was Eisenberg himself who took a long inward breath. He glanced momentarily towards the most senior-looking of the lawyers, sitting bald-headed and gaunt-featured to his left. The man stared back, inscrutable, which didn’t seem to afford much by way of sound legal advice.

  ‘I trust I can speak frankly and in complete confidence, Mr Armstrong?’ Eisenberg said then.

  Parker’s eyebrow twitched at the implied slur to his reputation, that the man opposite had felt the need to ask. ‘Of course,’ was all he said, voice neutral.

  ‘As you are no doubt aware, it seems that our son, Torquil, was kidnapped yesterday morning from a b
each on Long Island.’

  ‘“It seems”?’ Parker repeated. ‘An interesting choice of words, sir, considering one of my people witnessed the abduction.’

  The lawyers frowned collectively. Eisenberg ducked his head a little. ‘Relax, Mr Armstrong. I was not doubting that Miss Fox saw what she says she did, nor was I insinuating that the kidnap did not take place.’

  His gaze swept over me, standing behind Parker’s desk where the light from the nearest window fell over my shoulder into the room. ‘I’m sure Miss Fox is aware of how highly I … value her skills,’ he added, and there was a tinge of regret and reproof in his tone, as if all this could have been avoided if only I’d accepted his job offer.

  ‘You think he arranged his own abduction as some kind of prank,’ I said, just to watch the lawyers squirm. They didn’t disappoint me. Nicola Eisenberg continued to look detached from the whole experience.

  Eisenberg pursed his lips. ‘I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind at first.’

  As much to see if I could get a reaction out of his wife as anything else, I said, ‘What possible reason could he have for doing that?’

  ‘I get my thrills from corporate finance, Miss Fox. Torquil? He’s hooked on thrills, period. Like I say, at first I thought this might be his idea of another one.’

  Well, that explained their lack of urgency or action so far. ‘What’s happened to make you change your mind now?’

  ‘We received a package earlier today,’ he said, reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket and bringing out a clear case containing a recordable CD or DVD. He held it up over his shoulder and there was an unseemly scuffle behind him as two of the assistants hurried forwards to whisk it from his outstretched hand. The most senior – or the one with the sharpest elbows – took possession and carried the prize round the desk to Parker.

  My boss eyed the unbagged evidence with concern, making no immediate moves to touch it. ‘How many people have handled this?’

  ‘My security people have already checked it out thoroughly for prints, trace elements, biological or digital viruses – just about every damn thing you could think of, and a few more besides,’ Eisenberg said gravely, flicking his gaze briefly to Gleason. ‘They tell me it’s clean. An ordinary DVD-R, the kind you can get at any office supply store across the state.’

  Parker nodded, and didn’t ask the obvious question. If we wanted to know what was on the disk, clearly we were going to have to see for ourselves. He moved back around his desk and slotted the DVD into his laptop, his movements economical and precise.

  It took a moment to load, then went straight into a video clip like the one from Torquil’s PDA I’d watched the day before, but this was no sexual adventure. Not unless you were catering for a very specific and twisted audience.

  I only recognised Torquil because that’s who I was expecting to see. He was sitting on a steel-framed chair, ankles tightly bound to the front legs with wire. By the awkward hunch of his shoulders, his arms were secured behind him. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been taken in, now as torn and bloodied as their owner.

  Someone with a professional interest in the job had worked him over very thoroughly indeed, I saw, falling back on detached clinical judgement to avoid a connection with the victim I could not afford to feel.

  It took me back too easily to a time when I’d been the one taking punishment and, although they hadn’t tied me down, in the end they hadn’t needed to.

  I swallowed, kept my face dispassionate, glanced across at Parker and found he was doing the same.

  They’d paid particular attention to Torquil’s face, probably knowing that would prove the most effective emotional lever against his parents. His nose had been broken and possibly a cheekbone, but it was hard to tell under all the discoloured swelling. One eye was puffed shut, the other open a mere slit. His hair was matted with blood. From the rigid way he held himself, the rapid shallow breaths, I guessed at busted ribs, too.

  I looked up abruptly, found Eisenberg watching me as if in condemnation. Because I hadn’t taken on the job of protecting his son, or hadn’t stepped in yesterday, regardless of formal contract? It was hard to tell.

  After maybe thirty seconds of silence, Torquil’s head lifted slightly at some off-camera prompt. He swallowed with effort, running his tongue carefully over split lips before he spoke. Even with the volume cranked up, it was hard to catch his mumbled words clearly.

  ‘Mom … Dad, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m … real sorry. For everything, I guess. I—’ He broke off, cowered as if subjected to a sudden additional threat.

  I glanced at the clock high on the far wall. It was now reading a few minutes after 12.30. Torquil was twenty-seven hours gone. For this recording to have been made and delivered by this morning, they’d worked on him hard and fast. It was a measure of what had been done that wasn’t visible, that they’d broken him so utterly in so short a space of time. It must have been relentless.

  On screen, Torquil hung his head, unable to continue for a moment. I strained to see past his battered figure into the room itself, but they’d spotlit the chair brightly. Beyond him were only dark shadows. Maybe Bill Rendelson, who’d become Parker’s electronic surveillance expert, could finesse more detail from the background …

  And that led to a rapid cascade of other thoughts and realisations, not least of which was why we were being shown this footage in the first place. My gaze flicked to Parker again, filled with questions I didn’t need to ask aloud. He shifted the cursor to pause the clip, straightened.

  ‘Mr Eisenberg—?’ he began, but Eisenberg was ready for him.

  ‘Just watch the damn tape,’ he said quietly. ‘Watch it and then you’ll know.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Parker didn’t immediately respond to that, just stared at Eisenberg across the expanse of desk and office. It was an interesting silent confrontation.

  Here were two men, both with power and minutely aware of its extent, but Eisenberg’s authority seemed wholly exterior by comparison to my boss. Parker was a natural leader, an intangible quality that came from something inside himself. Eisenberg, on the other hand, seemed to need the constant presence of his retinue as reassurance of his potency. I scanned their bland expressions and wondered if he knew how quickly they would desert him, should his fortunes ever wane.

  We would have followed Parker anywhere without hesitation, but Eisenberg had to buy such loyalty. I hoped he kept the receipts.

  At last, Parker lowered his gaze and clicked the mouse to resume the playback. Torquil’s desperate gasps and murmurs filled the room again, eclipsing all other considerations.

  ‘They say … you go to the cops … they kill me. You call in the FBI … they kill me. You delay … or try to double-cross them … or don’t do exactly as they say … they kill me, and you won’t never find my b-body. Please – Mom … Dad – I’m sorry. I … just do what they want, OK?’

  For the first time, I thought I saw Nicola Eisenberg close her eyes briefly.

  The picture faded out to black, and the sound of Torquil’s laboured breathing died away, replaced by an electronically synthesised voice.

  ‘Listen very carefully, Mr Eisenberg. The price for returning your son intact is that fancy string of beads your wife flashes in public every chance she gets, to be delivered to a location of our choosing. You have until six-thirty tomorrow morning to make the arrangements. If you fail to comply, or involve the cops, you will start receiving body parts in the mail. There will be no negotiation and no second chances.’ There was a pause, then the cold mechanical voice added with a distinct sneer, ‘Oh, and one more thing – tell the Willners’ little bitch of a bodyguard she makes the ransom drop. Nobody else. We’ll be in touch.’

  I let out a long breath, slowly enough for it not to be audible. Nevertheless, Parker shot me a fast glance.

  No!

  What other options are there?

  The clip had ended with the usual invitation from the
software for a replay. We would replay it, I knew, over and over, looking for anything to suggest identity or location, but I didn’t think any of us were ready for that quite yet.

  ‘OK.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll make the drop.’

  Eisenberg’s chief lawyer brightened at the prospect of a third party to shed some blame onto. Parker held up a hand that cut him off more successfully than any high court judge.

  ‘Mr Eisenberg, just so’s we’re clear on this, what exactly is it you expect from us?’

  Eisenberg made a gesture of tempered impatience. It was, no doubt, a question he himself would have asked, if the positions had been reversed. ‘It’s simple – all we want is for Miss Fox to deliver the ransom.’ He gave us both a bleak stare. ‘I’ll pay her what I have to, naturally.’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,’ Parker said quickly, before I could chuck that one back in Eisenberg’s face. ‘How do you intend to handle this demand? Do you mean to negotiate?’

  That got our first reaction from Nicola Eisenberg. She gave an explosive snort and threw up her hands, glaring at the entourage as if they’d forcibly gagged her up to that point.

  ‘Negotiate?’ she demanded. ‘You saw what was on that disk! You heard! You tell me, Mr Armstrong, if it was your son, how exactly would you plan to negotiate?’

  Parker paused, as if making sure she was finished. ‘You rush into this, ma’am, and you’ll surely regret it,’ he said. ‘But, you let them control things from the get-go, and you’ll regret that all the more. In this kind of situation, paying up too fast can be as dangerous for the hostage as dragging your feet. How much is the Eisenberg Rainbow worth?’

  ‘As a piece, it’s priceless,’ Eisenberg said without modesty. ‘And too renowned to sell as a whole. But, if they broke it down into the individual stones they’d probably realise about five million on the black market.’

  I watched the slight wince as he spoke about the necklace being stripped for its parts. Interesting that the kidnappers had asked for something more than money, I thought. They’d picked something it would hurt him to give up, and that could not easily be replaced – like the boy himself.