Eyes of the Innocent

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 26

  They waited a couple of minutes. No sound came through the brown front door that, like the steps, had collected more than its fair share of dust.

  "Ring it again," Matt said.

  Lauren stood still, probably petrified by the thought of what they were about to do. Matt reached past her and pressed the bell again, a longer press this time. It definitely worked, because he could hear it ringing somewhere in the house.

  There was the sound of a bolt being withdrawn, and the door swung open. A small man, probably in his early sixties, stood somewhat defiantly in the doorway. "This is a private residence," he said. "We do not buy at the door."

  Lauren stayed petrified, and Matt decided that if someone was going to tell lies, it ought to be him. He did it for a living, and surely recovering their baby was justification enough.

  "Is this the Children of Celestial Light?" He felt a bit stupid asking, because the sign above the doorway clearly said it was. "If it is, the three of us are interested in joining. I'm Peter. This is my wife, Anna, and Anna's Aunt Lauren."

  Fortunately, Zoé didn't correct him.

  The man stood his ground. "Why are you interested in us?"

  Matt forced a smile. "We've had enough of organized religion. The three of us."

  The man tapped his foot impatiently. "We are very organized here at the Children of Celestial Light."

  Lauren suddenly came to life. "We mean the organized Christian religion."

  "Ah, that's different."

  It seemed to Matt that this man clearly had something against Christians. He would need to play on that to get this man's sympathy. "Definitely against it," he said.

  The man still didn't look convinced. "How did you hear about us? It's usual for people to come here sponsored by someone. The ability to support oneself and contribute to the running of the Children of Celestial Light is important."

  Zoé stood forward. "There is an elderly couple who live here. We met them in a coffee shop and they told us a lot about the Children of Celestial Light."

  "That sounds like Proteus and Cressida. We use the names of celestial bodies here. No one uses their worldly name."

  Zoé nodded. "They didn't give us their names. But they recommended that we give it a go."

  The man frowned. "Give it a go? Are you French?"

  "French Canadian."

  Matt wanted to congratulate Zoé for such quick thinking, but it would have to keep.

  "I'll need to see your passport, Anna. And yours as well, Peter. You sound English."

  Matt was unable to think of a quick retort, but Zoé seemed to be well fired up. "Of course," she said, "but first we would like to look around and learn more. Do you have a brochure?"

  The man seemed to crumble. Maybe he fancied Zoé -- or even Lauren. Matt was just glad to get inside.

  "Before I could consider admitting you here as Children of Celestial Light, we would need to have a long talk and a trial period. Everyone here would need to be convinced that you are not simply here for healing. Being a Child of Celestial Light is a lifelong commitment."

  "Of course," Matt said. "Lifelong. Now you've mentioned healing, the elderly couple mentioned a room of crystals. It sounded intriguing."

  The man looked enthusiastic. "The Star Room of Healing, yes. Stardust and crystals that did not originate on Earth. Mysteries that have traveled here over eons and have been found in many places in the world. However, as I said, healing must not be the main reason for coming here. Are any of you seriously ill?"

  They all shook their heads. Vigorously. The man seemed satisfied, but Zoé turned to Matt and clutched his arm. "Healing." She didn't need to add anything. Matt understood.

  The hallway was dark, and certainly there was no Celestial Light here. But the place looked clean as far as he could see in the gloom.

  "I've noticed the wedding bands," the man said looking from Matt to Zoé. "I assume you're both married."

  "Married to each other," Matt said with a smile. He noticed that Lauren had removed her engagement ring before they entered the house, and presumed she wanted to look unattached. Pretty clever.

  Zoé was certainly on the ball. "Aunty Lauren is getting over a broken engagement," she said. She took Lauren's left hand and showed it to the man. "You can see where the ring was. Her fiancé was a Christian fanatic. She has had enough of him controlling her."

  Lauren blushed, but kept up the pretence. "A terrible man. I'm glad to be free of him. Would he be able to trace us here?"

  "If I let you join?"

  Lauren put a hand to her mouth. "Oh yes, of course, that's what I mean. As ... Anna said, we would like you to show us around. This place could be our future. We do have money to support ourselves, and could certainly help generously with your everyday expenses."

  The mention of money seemed to work wonders. "Everyone is in the dining room at present. It's important that the people here get on with each other. For this reason it's vital they see you and you see them before we can make any sort of decision about a trial period. Follow me."

  Matt caught Zoé's eye. Meeting everyone in the dining room was the perfect way to check for baby Jack. He took her by the arm and they followed the man along the dingy hallway to where they could hear voices behind a large brown door. Everything here seemed to be brown. Maybe the Celestial Light shone upstairs.

  The man clapped his hands inside the doorway. "Children," he called out, "we have three visitors. I would like you to meet them, and if they and we agree that they might be suitable to become members of our family, we can get to know them better before we make any sort of decision on a trial. This is Anna, Peter and Lauren. Lauren is..."

  "My aunt," Zoé said, presumably guessing the reason for the hesitation.

  Lauren simply nodded, but she seemed to be running out of steam. Well, being engaged to an ex-archbishop probably made this sort of deception difficult. Matt wasn't bothered. He and Zoé still had plenty of steam left in them.

  The man started to introduce the people who had looked up from their meals with interest. There were probably thirty adults in the room. Most of them were young, and there were several children.

  The man pointed to two couples at the first table, with four children aged eight or ten. "This is Carina and Themis with their children Triton and Aurora. And Belinda and Rigel, with Celeste and Cressida."

  Matt leaned towards Zoé and whispered, "Belinda?" Was Belinda a celestial body? She didn't match up to his idea of one.

  Zoé whispered to him to shut up.

  No one offered to shake hands, but nodded with what seemed to be genuine smiles. Matt suddenly realized that Zoé was no longer with him. She was running across the room, in and out of the tables, to where a couple sat with a baby in a small crib by their side. He knew at once what was happening. The man looked tall and he had a moustache. The woman was wearing the orange and black sweatshirt. They were the couple in the photograph.

  The man who had let them in hadn't introduced himself by name, but might be Pluto for all Matt knew. He called out to Zoé to stop as he ran towards her. But Zoé was too quick. "You have stolen my baby," she shouted, as she bent down to lift a small bundle from the crib. "This is----"

  Matt knew immediately it wasn't Jack. Somehow they had to talk their way out of this. People were already standing, and Pluto had caught Zoé by the arm. "You must leave immediately or I'm calling the cops. I don't know what you're doing here, but you are not harming any of my children."

  The tall man with the large moustache stood up and pointed at Zoé, then at Matt. "It's those two," he shouted. "I recognise them from the television. They killed their baby and now they're trying to take one of ours."

  Matt shook his head. So they did have television here after all. He held up his hands. "Please, you must excuse us. We're desperate to find our baby. He was kidnapped in Central Park."

  Pluto was trying to calm everyone down. "Children, please stay seated. I know who you mean. I saw the
m too. I thought they looked familiar when they came to the door, but they gave false names." He turned to Matt and Lauren who stood by the doorway. "I can assure you that there is only one small baby here and you've seen him. Leave immediately, or I definitely will call the police. We cannot have the Children of Celestial Light invaded in this way by outsiders who have entered by deception."

  Matt became aware of Lauren pinching his arm. He looked at her and frowned. She was pointing almost imperceptibly up the staircase. Matt listened. He could hear a baby crying upstairs, but even as he became aware of the cry, it stopped.

  "And there are definitely no other babies here?" Lauren called out.

  Before Pluto could answer, Matt was in the hall and racing up the wide staircase. For a moment he heard the cry again. It was coming from one floor up. He was aware of Zoé and Lauren trying to block the doorway from the dining room. He had to find the room first go.

  He stood for a moment on the next floor, as a mass stampede thundered up the old staircase. There, he heard it again. Just a momentary cry of a baby. The door to the room where the sound came from was slightly open. He pushed it wide. A large black woman with huge breasts sat on a chair feeding a baby. The woman had huge lungs to match her breasts, judging by the lengthy piercing scream, and probably not doing a very good job of breastfeeding judging by the crying he'd heard from downstairs. Mother and baby were both black. The woman took another deep breath and continued to scream loudly.

  Matt turned in surrender to face the angry mob from the Children of Celestial Light who didn't look at all heavenly at that moment.

  "Call the cops," the tall man with a moustache shouted. "They tried to take my baby. Listen, my wife is going hysterical downstairs. I'd do anything to protect our baby. And that goes for every other father here. "

  Pluto had his cell phone to his ear and already seemed to be phoning for help. Lauren stood dejectedly in the middle of the angry crowd -- presumably having thought that Matt was onto something good.

  "You are stupid, Matt," Zoé called. "Why did you run up the stairs like that? I could have told you that it was not Jack crying. And now you have got us into the trouble most serious."

  The man with the moustache, sounding angry enough to be called Taurus, stood blocking the top of the staircase, but Matt had lost all incentive to run. They'd made fools of themselves, or rather Wendell Harris had let them make fools of themselves. That man had a lot to answer for. If Zoé thought she could tell the difference between a white and a black baby crying, maybe she was onto something with Washington.

  The sound of a siren outside heralded the arrival of the police. Pluto had already made his way down the stairs to let them in. Matt could hear the man shouting angrily in the hallway, followed by the sound of heavy feet coming up the stone staircase. A thought flitted through Matt's mind that this must have once been the house of a relatively wealthy owner. As Lauren had said, professional people were still living here, so maybe there had often been well-off people in this house from the time it was built.

  Matt shook his head. Thoughts like this were not going to help them now. After several minutes of hopeless explanation, and wild accusations that they were stealing a child, Matt, Zoé and Lauren were handcuffed and led outside. No amount of pleading to search the whole house for Jack helped, although the police did seem interested in the identity of the black woman upstairs. No wonder Pluto hadn't mentioned her.

  Lauren now sounded surprisingly feisty. "You don't understand the situation," she said to the older officer, a sergeant. "Let me phone my fiancé. He's an archbishop in the Catholic Church."

  "Ma'am," said the sergeant who was clearly in charge, "I suppose you think I was born yesterday. I know for a fact Catholic priests aren't allowed to marry."

  Lauren shook her head. "I meant to say he was an archbishop. He was in Rome in the Vatican until eighteen months ago. He was personally responsible for the Holy Father's welfare. But he's left holy orders. He runs the Symbol of Hope Church now in Harlem."

  "Ma'am," the sergeant snapped, "just shut it."

  "I know the Symbol of Hope Church," one of the two young officers said. "My girlfriend took me there once. She said the guy in charge used to work in the Vatican."

  "And you shut it too," the sergeant snapped.

  "That's Stephen Valdieri," Lauren said, rather bravely Matt thought. The sergeant seemed in no mood for chitchat. "Steve Valdieri. He's my fiancé," she added. "Phone him and he'll explain why we're here. Here, take my phone. His number's on speed dial."

  The sergeant seemed to be melting slightly. "Okay, ma'am, let's sort this out at the precinct. We can make our calls when we get there and see what's what."

  "Are we under arrest?" Matt asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. "Not yet. I'm working on it though, so let's all take it calmly and go to the precinct. I've called for backup."

  "Do we look dangerous?" Lauren asked. She was clearly not prepared to be subdued. Stephen Valdieri had got himself one feisty woman.

  The sergeant raised his hands. "I said shut it, ma'am. We need another car to take you down to the precinct to sort out this mess. Missing baby indeed. Missing brains more likely. You three could be in serious trouble if that lot press charges. The Holy Father won't be able to get you out of this one, if I have my way."

  As it turned out, the Holy Father's help wasn't needed. Valdieri was still at the precinct and was just leaving when the two police cruisers drew up. Lauren, Matt and Zoé were hustled out of the leading one.

  Lauren turned out to be correct after all. Stephen Valdieri did have enough clout to give a satisfactory explanation, and after a bit of double-checking they were allowed to leave without anyone being charged -- on condition they never visited the Children of Celestial Light again. At least not without a police search warrant which was definitely not going to given. Ever.

  Wendell had managed to slip away before everything hit the fan. The remaining four were given a lift back to Valdieri's church in a police car, which brought a fake smile and cheery wave from the precinct sergeant as he saw them off.

  Lauren confessed to Steve that she'd said terrible things about him at the Children of Celestial Light, but assured him that they were absolutely not true. He wanted to know what she'd said, but all Lauren would say was that she'd only done it to help get them inside. She put a comforting arm around Zoé who was looking lost. "Honey," she said, "running to the mom with the baby was a mistake that any anxious mother could have made. You mustn't blame yourself for what happened."

  "The baby did look quite a bit like Jack," Matt said, joining in the hug with Lauren. "But both eyes were blue, and the hair hardly stuck out at all. And there was one other significant difference."

  "What was that?" Valdieri asked.

  "The baby was a girl."

  Nobody laughed, and Zoé tried to pull away.

  "I think Jack is still there." Zoé dabbed her eyes with a tissue and sniffed loudly. "Whoever took him thinks the healing room will help his eye. They might keep Jack in there all day and night if they think it will make him better. The police, they would not search any of the other rooms. If that black lady was there with the baby, how many other babies are there? They would not let me look. They simply would not let me look."

  Matt shook his head. "The only reason we went there, Zoé, was because of Wendell's photograph. Let's look at all the photos Wendell took." He turned to Valdieri. "Can I use your computer again?"

  Valdieri went to his desktop computer in his office and turned it on. As soon as it was running, Matt brought up the image file. He stared at it the list of images for a moment. "This is odd," he said. "These aren't all the photographs. Come and see."

  He flicked through the five photographs. "Three photos are missing, straight after the photograph with the couple we thought were holding Jack."

  "How can you tell?" Lauren asked.

  "Each photograph has an identification number. The camera puts it on automatically. If
it didn't, every photograph would have the same file reference, and that's impossible. Look, here's the picture we thought was Jack. It has a completely different reference number."

  "Why?" Zoé asked.

  Matt shook his head. "My guess is that he's used a photo program and done something to it."

  "Enhancing it to show more detail?"

  "Could be, Zoé." Matt zoomed in further and further on the baby's head until a mass of large pixels filled the screen. "I'm no expert, but look at the hair sticking forward. Something doesn't look right about the arrangement of the pixels. My bet is that Wendell has tricked us by adding the hair."

  "Even if you are right, Matt, something most suspicious is happening in that house," Zoé said.

  Valdieri came over to have a look. "I don't understand what's going on, but we can ask Wendell straight out for an explanation."

  Lauren looked at Zoé, "Girl," she said, "you look bushed. I suggest an early night. We'll have an early supper and you can both disappear upstairs for the night. There won't be any more excitement today."