eighteen

Gina was up and patrolling the house when Ruth got in from a short walk at eight the next morning. The former bodyguard met her at the back door, glancing hungrily at a bag of croissants Ruth had bought at the supermarket bakery.

“Yum. I could eat that lot myself.”

“Anything doing?” Ruth put the croissants in the microwave for a quick zap while Vaslik stirred and went off to do a visual check of the perimeter. Somehow instinct had allowed them all to snatch a few minutes with their heads down when they needed it, but none had had a full four hours.

“Not a peep. A few cars have come and gone but none that shouldn’t be here as far as I can tell.”

“Did Nancy wake up?” Ruth dusted off her hands and sniffed the air appreciatively. “Can I smell coffee?”

“Yes, you can and yes, she did. She’s in the shower. She was up and about in her room a couple of times, but in between I checked on her and she was spark-out.”

Ruth nodded. “I tried talking to her when she was up but she didn’t seem too interested. In the end I left her to it. Did she say anything to you about our talk last night?”

“Only that you’d got a bit personal. I told her we had to talk about this stuff because it might help find out who had an interest in Michael. Find who that is and we find Beth. She seemed OK after that.” Gina poured coffee all round and helped herself to a croissant, wolfing it down. “I’ve seen this up-down reaction before, though: I think she’s a little stir-crazy. Not surprising with her daughter missing, but she asked me for more pills. I said no and she called me a mean bitch.”

Ruth wasn’t surprised. Nancy had looked fragile enough yesterday; now Gina was withholding the sweeties she’d introduced her to, she was feeling resentful towards her.

“I’m going to call the company medic to check her over.” Cruxys had a consultant on tap for emergencies, and he would make sure she was holding up and prescribe pills if necessary. Whether Nancy would go along with it was something else, but they couldn’t allow her to fall apart without trying to do something to prevent it.

“Take her shopping.” Vaslik had returned without them hearing him. He picked up a croissant and sipped his coffee. When he saw them staring at him he explained, “The ones left behind are the most stressed in these situations. Looking at four walls while waiting for news is almost the worst thing they can do; it’s like their brains go into free-fall. We need to break the spell, allow her to breathe.” He gestured with his croissant at the large fridge in the corner. “She won’t agree to go, but I’m pretty sure there’s stuff she needs, anyway. It’ll do her good.”

Ruth agreed. “Good idea—if we can get her out. She won’t go willingly; she’ll be frightened of missing a call. Frightened of being a target herself, too.”

“Quite possibly.” He looked at her. “That’s why Gina should go with her and you should stay here. She trusts you more than us and to anybody watching, Gina looks more like a friend than a cop.”

“Gee, thanks. What will you be doing, hot shot?”

He gave a smile and swallowed the last of his croissant. “Me? I’ll be ghosting along in the background, watching for anybody taking too close an interest.”

Gina looked intrigued. “You think that’s likely?”

“I’d bet on it. Kidnappers never fail to watch for a reaction after the event. It’s part of what they do. No reaction and they’ve already lost the initiative. It means they’ve got to come out from cover to stir things up. They don’t like doing that.”

“Does that ever happen—where people don’t react?”

“I’ve seen it two or three times. A family isn’t that close or the victim’s colleagues don’t care enough to do anything—end of game. Admittedly, the people involved aren’t exactly normal, you understand, so that explains a lot.”

“And here?”

“They’re watching.” He nodded towards the front of the house. “Every time I go near the windows I get the feeling we’re under observation.”

“Have you seen anything?” Gina looked sceptical.

“No. But I’ve experienced it too many times to be imagining things. I can’t prove it but I’d like to give it a try.”

“You want to bring them out?” Ruth looked intrigued.

“Why not? It’s better than sitting here waiting for them to pull the strings, don’t you think? Stay local, though.”

Neither of them argued with that.

Ruth watched as Gina and Nancy left the house. It was just after eight. They had had a hard time convincing Nancy that it was OK to go out and that the fresh air would do her good. Most of all they had stressed that it was safe for her to be away from the house and leave Ruth behind to watch over things. They would only be a short distance and a phone call away if anything happened.

She finally gave in and put on her coat and shoes. The plan was simple: to go to the nearest supermarket, a large building where they could walk around without attracting attention but where Vaslik could keep an eye on them from a distance. If anybody did latch onto them, he would soon know it.

Ruth felt an instant loss of control as the two women walked away down the street and Vaslik exited via the rear gate. It was a familiar feeling from previous assignments, signalling a disconnection from the main players of an event while the pieces on the chessboard were moving into position. Gina was at the end of a phone, but it still meant the two women could be dangerously exposed and beyond her immediate reach. It was a feeling she would have to get used to.

She opened her laptop and called up a map of the area, then switched to Street Map so she could see the same picture that they would see. It wasn’t very up to date and the traffic and weather conditions wouldn’t be the same, but it gave her something on which to focus, as if she was moving along with them and sharing the route.

With the house empty, time seemed to pass grindingly slowly. She made coffee, resisted another croissant, did a tour of the rooms and constantly eyeballed the monitors. She resisted the temptation to call Slik for an update. If he had something, he’d call, she knew it.

There was a knock at the door.

She went to the front window, which gave a narrow view of visitors. It was a woman, dressed in jeans and a baggy jumper, hair scrunched out of sight beneath a gaudy yellow-and-mauve beanie cap. She wore heavy glasses balanced on her nose and she kept touching them with her forefinger and brushing her face. She was holding a couple of magazines in her other hand.

Neighbour, thought Ruth. Coffee and chat call? Somehow she couldn’t see Nancy in the chat or sugar-lending category.

She shrugged off her jacket and stepped into the kitchen, picking up a tea towel and a mug as props, then went to the front door and opened it.

“Hi, Nancy—” the woman began with a bright smile. Then her face changed when she saw Ruth. “Oh, sorry. I was expecting … Is Nancy in?” She had the faintest American intonation, Ruth noted, overlaid with something she couldn’t quite place. A displaced foreigner too long away from home, she guessed.

“Not right now. She’s just gone to the supermarket to get some cakes. I told her she shouldn’t bother but she said she needed some fresh air, too. Can I help?” She peered at the cup and rubbed it with the tea towel, then shrugged. “How do you get tea stains out? I hate yellow patches on crockery—it’s like nicotine fingers.”

“I don’t know.” The woman looked slightly perplexed. “Umm …I’m a neighbour—Clarisse—from up the street. No. 38. I haven’t seen Nancy for a couple of days so I thought it was time we caught up and did some girlie things. Are you local, too, uh … ?

“Ruth. No. I’m a friend from school. I finally decided it was time to come and say hello again. I think I might have interrupted her gym visits today. Not that she needs it, the slim-line bitch.” She waved a hand at the woman’s frown. “It’s OK—we talk about each other like that all the time; we’ve been friends too long to take offence.”

“Of course.” Clarisse gave a weak smile and moved away. “I’d better get back. Let her know I called, will you, and I’ll come round another day. We can do lunch, maybe.”

“I’ll do that.”

Ruth moved back into the front room and watched the woman walk along the street and turn into a house several doors up. She had the springy walk of an athlete, proving that gym visits worked for some people. But hell, Ruth thought sourly, don’t they have better things to do?

Moments later Clarisse appeared again, this time pulling on a coat. She walked along the street, head down and collar up, and turned the corner out of sight. She looked as if she was in a hurry to get somewhere, and Ruth wondered why.