In The Presence Of The Enemy (17 page)

James looked up. Backed by the darkness of the corridor, Deborah stood watching him.

“Coming to bed?” she asked. “You were up awfully late last night. Are you staying up late again?”

He set the magnifying glass on top of the plastic jacket in which lay the kidnapping note sent to Dennis Luxford. He straightened on the stool and winced at the cramping of muscles held too long in one position. Deborah frowned as he reached to massage his neck.

She came to him and gently shooed his hands away. She brushed aside his overlong hair, dropped a loving kiss on the back of his neck, and took over the massaging herself. He leaned back and let her minister to him.

“Lilies,” he murmured as the muscles she was working on began to warm.

“What about them?”

“Your scent. I like it.”

“That’s good, especially if it can manage to lure you to bed at a decent hour.”

He kissed her palm. “It can manage that, and at any hour.”

“We could do this more easily in the bedroom anyway.”

“We could do many things more easily in the bedroom,” he replied. “Shall I suggest a few?”

She laughed. She moved closer to him and slipped her arms round his waist, holding him snugly against her, back to front. She said,

“What are you working on? You were so quiet all through dinner. Dad asked afterwards if you’d taken a sudden dislike to his duck
à
l’orange
. I told him that so long as he continues to make duck
à l’orange
with chicken, it should never present a problem. Ducks and rabbits, you know, I told him. Simon will never put his teeth to a duck or a rabbit. Or a deer.

Dad doesn’t quite understand that. But then he’s never had your partiality for Donald, Thumper, and Bambi.”

“Too much Walt Disney as a child.”

“Hmm. Yes. I’m still trying to recover from the death of Bambi’s mother myself.”

He chuckled. “Don’t remind me. I had to carry you sobbing from the cinema. Even an ice cream did no good. Had you stayed until the conclusion of the film, you would have seen that it does have a happy ending.”

“But it did strike rather close to home, my love. At the time.”

“Of course, I realised that later. Less than a year after your mother died…What had happened to my brains? But at the time I thought,

‘I shall take little Deborah to see this nice fi lm for her birthday. I saw it myself when I was her age and I enjoyed it thoroughly.’ I thought your father would have my head in a basket when I explained to him why you were so upset.”

“He’s quite forgiven you. As have I. But you always did have the strangest ideas of what we ought to do to celebrate my birthday. Looking at mummies. The Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s. Watching Bambi’s mother get shot.”

“So much for my capacity to deal with children,” he said. “Perhaps it’s just as well that we haven’t—” He stopped himself. He dropped his hands to hers and held her where she was before she could withdraw. “Sorry,” he said.

When she didn’t respond at once, he turned on the stool so that he faced her. She looked as if she was mentally chewing over his words, testing them for their flavour as well as for their gist. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Did you mean it?”

“No. I was just talking aimlessly. I was talking without thinking. I let my guard down.”

“I don’t
want
you to be on guard with me.”

She took a step away from him. Her hands—

so recently warming his body—twisted the ties of her dressing gown’s belt. “I want you to be who you are. I want you to say what you think. Why won’t you stop trying to protect me from that?”

He thought about her question. Why did people guard their thoughts from others? Why did they veil their language? What did they fear? Loss, of course. Which was what everyone feared, although everyone tended to survive loss when it occurred in their lives.

Deborah knew that better than anyone.

He reached for her. He felt her resistance.

He said, “Deborah. Please,” and she came to him. “I want what you want. But unlike you, I don’t want it more than anything in the world.

What I want more than anything in the world is you. Each time you lost a baby, I lost part of you. I didn’t want to go on in that way because I knew where it would end. And while I could cope with losing part of you, I knew I couldn’t cope with losing you altogether. And that, my love, is the unguarded truth. You want children at any price. I don’t. For me, some prices are far too high.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and he thought with despair of descending the quick downward spiral of yet another painful discussion with his wife, a discussion that might well last till dawn, reach no resolution, bring neither of them peace, and trigger another lengthy depression in her. But she surprised him, as she frequently did.

“Thank you,” she whispered. She used the sleeve of her dressing gown to wipe at her eyes.

“You really are the most remarkable man.”

“I’m not feeling particularly remarkable tonight.”

“No, I can see that. You’ve had something on your mind ever since you got home, haven’t you? What is it?”

“A growing sense of unease.”

“Charlotte Bowen?”

He told her of his conversation with the little girl’s mother. He told her of the threat to Charlotte’s life. He saw concern growing upon her as one of her hands rose to her lips.

“I’m caught,” he explained. “If the child’s to be found, it’s up to me.”

“Should we phone Tommy?”

“Useless. From her level at the Home Offi ce, Eve Bowen can stonewall a police investigation into eternity. And she gave me little doubt that she’d do it.”

“Then what can we do?”

“Hope Bowen’s right and soldier on.”

“But you don’t think that she’s right?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Oh, Simon,” she said. “Oh, God. I’ve done this to you, haven’t I?”

St. James could not deny that he’d become involved because of her request, but he knew there was little to be gained and much to be lost by pointing the finger of blame either at Deborah or at himself. So he said, “Rationally, I should see that we’ve made some progress. We know the route Charlotte took to get home from school or from her music lesson.

We know the shops she stopped in. We’ve tracked down one of her companions and we have a good lead on the other. But I’m uneasy about where we’re heading.”

“Is that why you’re studying the notes again?”

“I’m studying the notes again because I can’t think what else to do at this point. And I like that fact even less than I like feeling uneasy about what I’ve been doing all day in the first place.” He leaned past her and switched off the two high-intensity lamps that were blazing brightly on the laboratory table, leaving the ceiling lights to shine with a softer glow.

“That must be how Tommy feels all the time when he’s in the midst of an enquiry,”

Deborah noted.

“Well and good for him because he’s a police detective. He has the patience required to gather the facts, to piece them together, and to allow the evidence to fall into place. I haven’t that patience. And I doubt I’m going to be able to develop it at this late date.” St. James gathered up the plastic jackets and the other handwriting sample. He returned them to the top of a filing cabinet next to the door. “And if this is a bonafide kidnapping and not what Eve Bowen’s determined to believe it is—a hoax perpetrated by Dennis Luxford to hurt the Government and to benefi t his newspaper—then there’s a real urgency to get to the bottom of everything that no one seems to feel but me.”

“Dennis Luxford seemed to feel it.”

“But he’s as adamant as she about how the case is handled.” He returned to the laboratory table, to her. “That’s what bothers me about this whole mess. And I don’t like to be bothered. I don’t like the distraction. It keeps muddying the waters for me. Which I don’t like in the least because my waters are generally as clear as Swiss air.”

“Because bullets and hairs and fi ngerprints can’t argue with you,” she pointed out. “They have no point of view that they need to express.”

“I’m used to dealing with things, not with people. Things cooperate by lying inertly beneath the microscope or inside the chro-matograph. People won’t do that.”

“But the way seems obvious at this point, doesn’t it?”

“The way?”

“To proceed. We’ve got the Shenkling school to look into. And those squats on George Street.”

“Squats? What squats?”

“Helen and I told you about them this afternoon, Simon. At the pub. Don’t you remember?”

He did, then. A row of abandoned buildings not far from either St. Bernadette’s School

or Damien Chambers’ house. Helen and Deborah had both waxed enthusiastic about them over tea. They were close to the possible point of abduction, convenient in location to the child’s home, and at the same time they were too decayed and forbidding in appearance for the casual passerby to want to explore them.

But for someone looking for a hiding place, they were perfect as a potential element in the puzzle of Charlotte’s disappearance. They hadn’t been part of this day’s agenda, so Helen and Deborah had left them for tomorrow when blue jeans, plimsolls, sweat-shirts, and torches would make their exploration easier.

St. James sighed with disgust at the realisation that he’d forgotten about the buildings.

“Another reason I couldn’t possibly hope to have success as a private detective,” he said.

“So we have a direction to head in.”

“I don’t feel any better for the knowledge.”

She reached for his hand. “I have confidence in you.”

But her voice betrayed the anxiety she felt with another day coming and a child’s life on the line.

Charlotte swam up from sleep, the way she swam up to the boat in Fermain Bay when they went on holiday to Guernsey. But unlike a summer’s holiday on Guernsey, she swam into darkness.

Her mouth felt like cat’s fur. Her eyes felt like glue had been thumb-printed into their corners. Her head felt heavier than the bag of flour Mrs. Maguire dug into when she started her scones. And her hands were so weary that they could barely pluck at the smelly wool of the blanket in order to pull it closer to her shivering body. Feel crumpy, she thought, and she could almost hear her granny saying to her granddad, “Peter, come have a look at the child. I think she’s ailing.”

She’d got dizzy first. Then her legs had begun to quiver. She hadn’t wanted to sit on the brick fl oor, and she’d tried to fi nd her way back to the crates so she could sit on them.

But she’d got turned about somehow and she’d tripped over the blanket he’d left on the fl oor.

She’d forgotten all about the blanket. Its edges were soaked with the water she’d sloshed from the bucket when she’d decided to use the bucket as a loo.

At the thought of that water, Lottie tried to swallow. If she hadn’t dumped it out, she’d have something to drink. Now there was no telling when she would be given some water, some apple juice, or even some soup to make the cat’s fur in her mouth go away.

It was Breta’s fault. Lottie’s mind struggled to hold on to the thought rather than sink into the blackness again. It was all Breta’s fault.

Dumping out the water was just the sort of thing that Breta would do. It was something naughty; it was something unplanned.

She always thought she knew everything, Breta did. She always said, “You want me for your best friend, don’t you?” So when Breta said, “Do this, Lottie Bowen,” or “Do that right now,” Lottie obeyed. Because it was special to be someone’s best friend. Best friend meant an invitation to a birthday party, someone to play let’s pretend with, giggles in the night on a special sleep-over, postcards on holidays, and secrets shared. Lottie wanted a best friend more than anything in the world.

So she always did what it might take to gain one.

But perhaps Breta wouldn’t have dumped out the bucket of water at all. Perhaps she would have peed in front of him, peed into the octopus mouth that he’d set on the fl oor, peed and laughed in his face while she did it. Or perhaps she’d have taken the time to search for something to use once he’d gone away. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have worried about using anything at all. Perhaps she’d just have squatted by those wooden boxes and made a mess. If Lottie had done any of that, she’d have water to drink now. It might be dirty water. It might be brackish. But at least it would make the cat’s fur in her mouth go away.

“Cold,” she murmured. “Thirsty.”

Breta would demand why she was staying on the floor if she was cold and thirsty. Breta would say, This isn’t exactly a camping trip, Lottie. So why’re you acting like it is? Why’re you being so goody good
good?

Lottie knew what Breta would do. She would hop to her feet and explore the room.

She would find the door that he had entered by and left from. She would shout. She would scream. She would bang on that door. She would force someone to notice her.

Lottie felt her eyes close. They were too weary to fight against the black all round her.

There was nothing to see anyway. She’d heard the sounds that told her he’d locked her in.

There was no way out.

Which was, of course, something that Breta would never believe. She’d say, No way out?

What a twit! He came in. He went out. Find the door and break it down. Don’t just lie there whinging, Lottie.

Not whinging, Lottie thought.

To which Breta would say, You are. You are.

What a baby you are.

Lottie pulled the blanket closer to her. The damp spots from the spilled water made clammy patches against her legs. She pulled her legs up, pulled herself into a ball. She tucked her hands into fists and buried the fi sts beneath her chin. She pressed the fists against her throat so she wouldn’t have to feel how thirsty she was.

Baby, she could hear Breta mock her.

“Not a baby.”

No? Then prove it. Prove it, Lottie Bowen.

Prove it. That was how Breta always got what she wanted. Prove you’re not a baby, prove you want to be my friend, prove you like me better than anyone else, prove you can keep a secret. Prove, prove, prove, prove. Pour all of the bubble bath into the tub and let it run over so it looks like snow. Nick your mother’s best lipstick and wear it at school. Flush your knickers down the loo and run about the rest of the day without them. Pinch that Twix for me…no, pinch two. Because best friends do stuff like that for each other. That’s what being a best friend is. Don’t you want to be someone’s very best friend?