The Siren's Sting

by Miranda Darling

  Vaughan Krok had apparently been on board the Hercules and enjoying a clay-pigeon shooting contest. A small bore cartridge had been slipped in instead of the twelve bore, so the gun had not fired. Krok had inserted another cartridge, fired, and the gun had exploded in his face. Many hunters had died exactly the same way. Krok had survived the accident, rather miraculously, and been flown to a clinic in London. The article did not know whether Krok would recover but he was alive at time of press.

  Stevie looked up at her grandmother. ‘Another accident.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe the guests on the Hercules could be so clumsy. Perhaps the ship is cursed.’ She folded the paper. ‘I imagine Clémence will welcome the temporary respite from her husband.’

  They dined on vegetable soup, bread and cheese under Didi’s grapevine in the garden. The first drops of warm rain hit as they were finishing and they hurriedly cleared the table and went inside.

  As the rain poured down the window panes and the forest grew black around them, Didi lit the lamp and cut two slices of Apfelkuchen. ‘Are you sure you want to go home tonight?’ she asked Stevie. ‘You can sleep in the attic room. Peter would love to have you, I’m sure.’ Peter was Didi’s cat—well, the cat that Stevie had rescued one day in Zurich, hairless and hungry, and brought to live with her grandmother. His fur had grown back but he had never left. Life was comfortable and good with Didi and he had grown to love her, and she him.

  At the mention of his name, Peter leapt heavily into Stevie’s lap. He had put on a considerable amount of weight since his rescue. Steve fondled his ears and accepted a glass of plum schnapps. ‘I’ll be fine, Didi. I’m only down the road. It’ll be nice to sleep in my own bed again after everything.’

  She only hoped her sleep would be undisturbed. Stevie still suffered from nightmares about her parents’ murder—they recurred as some kind of psycho-physical response to stress or extreme fatigue.

  In the end, though, when she tumbled into the soft white featherbed in her little flat, her sleep was deep and dreamless, lulled perhaps by the sweet smell of the fresh forest that came through the open window.

  At dawn, she rose and put on her tracksuit. The air was still cool from the evening’s rain but the sun was up and shining at a low angle through the trees. She set off on her vitaparcours—exercise course—through the woods. It felt good to run in the cool crisp air, under the dark green light. She needed to clear her head and release the tension she had been carrying since Venice, and before. She ran along the narrow track, crossed a tiny footbridge and swung on the parallel bars, feeling her core taut and strong, the muscles in her arms working hard. Her body took over from her mind, and she let it happen.

  When she got back to the flat, she had a shower and ate a bowl of muesli. She would head off to see David as soon as the hour was decent.

  At the hospital, there was no change in David’s condition and the relief Stevie had found in the evening spent with her grandmother evaporated as she entered and saw her boss still attached to all the tubes. What would she do if he didn’t make it? It was not a possibility her heart could entertain and yet her mind knew she had to. Along with Didi, David was her rock in a drifting world. What was this world she was in, this violent orbit that threatened to take those around her? David had warned her it was not a white world when she had asked to join Hazard. She had taken that risk on for herself but she hadn’t thought about how she would feel when those close to her were threatened. She wasn’t sure she would handle it well.

  Stevie stepped out onto the balcony, hoping the fresh air would restore her. There seemed no point to anything, no point to all the work she did when she could not even protect the people closest to her. A gloom filled her and she felt heavy; her neck ached and her head throbbed. Was this the end of the road? She could give it up, do something else, something very different. She had no idea what . . . perhaps gardens. Yes, something to do with gardens, where there were no people, only plants and quiet. She would hide there from the world. Enough was enough.

  Her tiny phone rang, making her start. She didn’t recognise the number . . .

  ‘Stevie? It’s Issa Farmishan, from Liscia.’ Stevie was startled. The hotel owner from Sardinia had never called her before.

  ‘Buon giorno, Issa.’ She tried to force some cheer into her voice but failed.

  ‘Stevie, I’m sorry to call you like this, but Sauro suggested it. You must help us. I don’t know what to do.’

  Stevie recognised too well the tone of despair in the voice. She felt a chill come over her and prayed she was wrong.

  ‘What is it, Issa?’ she asked.

  ‘Farouk,’ he said, his voice breaking as he spoke his son’s name. ‘They’ve taken Farouk.’

  At certain times in life there is no choice; sometimes there is only one possible course of action and everything else recedes. This was such a time. For Stevie, all thoughts of gloom and depression were swept away, horror flared then was replaced by a determination. By the afternoon, she had organised for Josie to come out and sit with Rice, grill the doctors, and take care of anything that needed attention; she was on a plane to Olbia.

  Farouk was six years old and she couldn’t get his face out of her mind—the limpid brown eyes, the happy smile, his father’s pride. A rage was boiling inside her. She was so angry—angry that there were people who did this, people who took children, who had no sense of morality or empathy or of law; people who thought they were above and beyond that, people who could come crashing into a stranger’s life and destroy it. What right did they have? By what right did they do this?

  Stevie was angry that people could take the lives of others for their own gratification and greed, angry that there were men and women who thought that the laws of humanity and the cosmos did not apply to them and that everyone was either an asset to be squeezed, or a liability to be crushed. They killed as an afterthought. These people who fostered pressure systems of destruction all over the world and were rarely brought to justice. She clenched the armrest and politely refused a glass of Orangina and a salami panino from the siren of a stewardess, all tanned limbs, shapely curves and large brown eyes.

  Twenty-four hours after Farouk went missing, Issa received a telephone call—an Italian voice, local dialect—telling him they were holding his son. The kidnappers made no specific demand at the time but told him they would call back with a ransom amount and instructions. Issa tried to warn the voice that he was not a rich man; the call was terminated. All Issa could do now was wait for the next phone call. The poor father told Stevie this as she emerged from the terminal at Olbia airport. The heat and oleander-scented air felt poisonous to her that afternoon; the crowds of holidaymakers had thinned and it was mostly sailors bearing large canvas bags, arriving for the regattas of September. Issa’s face was pale and drawn, at odds with all the tanned and relaxed faces drinking caffè and spremuta, a glass of prosecco, while they waited for the next flight from Milan or Rome.

  ‘Issa, tell me everything, from the beginning,’ she whispered as they walked quickly and purposefully out of the terminal and headed to his white truck.

  ‘He was playing in the garden, down by the water. I never worry because he is already such a good swimmer—it was the first thought that crossed my mind when he didn’t come back. I was out till darkness searching the coast, the water, in my boat.’

  Stevie felt a shudder of horror at what Issa must have been feeling in those awful uncertain hours.

  ‘And then they called.’ He started his truck and pulled out. They sped past the low granite hills and dry grasslands dotted with sheep and olive trees. The sun was glowing red, low on the horizon, turning the odd small cloud purple with its dying rays. The roads were quiet.

  Good, thought Stevie. It would be easier to spot a tail that way. So far, they appeared to be unaccompanied.

  Issa continued his story: ‘The next day, they called again. This time it was a woman, also local, I think. She said she knew I had been offered fif
teen million euros for my land and that I should accept at once, hand the money over, and then my boy would be returned.’ Issa’s face had taken on an unearthly glow in the sunset; he kept his eyes on the road. ‘That’s how it works here. The rumours move so quickly they are better than any newspaper—people hear things . . . I thought the days of the banditi were over, but I guess not. I only wonder why they went for me and not one of the rich people with holiday villas and Ferraris.’ He shook his head in weary sorrow.

  ‘I tried to contact the man who had made me the offer,’ Issa continued, ‘to accept—but the number he had given me went to voicemail. I left so many messages, but no one has called back.’ He turned a panicked face to Stevie. ‘That’s when I called you. I didn’t know what else to do. Sauro told me you do this sort of thing in your work. Please. Please help me.’

  Stevie’s eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away, her gaze on the horizon. She had to appear totally strong for Issa. It would give him strength in turn. ‘Of course I will help,’ she said softly. ‘My work is usually on the other end of things. I organise protection to stop this sort of thing from happening. But I do know the process and there are people I can call who will help us.’ She paused before asking, ‘Did they tell you not to go to the police?’ asked Stevie.

  Issa shook his head and Stevie frowned. That was odd; perhaps the kidnappers were amateurs, nervous themselves, and they had forgotten to add the standard warning. Amateurs worried Stevie: they were more inclined to go off half-cocked, to get scared and panic; the victim was more likely to get hurt—or worse. This thought she kept to herself.

  ‘The carabinieri came to find me though,’ Issa said. ‘They already knew Farouk was missing. I don’t know how—the rumour mill again . . . I just shook my head—I didn’t want to talk to them. I thought it might be dangerous for Farouk if anyone found out.’

  Stevie thought a moment. ‘I might just go and pay a visit to the carabinieri.’ When Issa looked alarmed, she explained, ‘It’s important in a situation like this to try to get the best possible picture of what has happened—any information at all is helpful. Even if we just discover how the carabinieri found out. Someone might have seen something. The more we know about who has taken Farouk, the stronger our position when we negotiate his release: we will know better how to handle the kidnappers, how far to push them, what buttons to press and so on.’ Then she asked, ‘Have you got a photo of Farouk?’

  Issa reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of the boy, grinning, a bottom tooth missing.

  Stevie put it carefully in her bag and laid a hand lightly on Issa’s arm. ‘You can drop me on the other side of Porto Cervo,’ she said. ‘It will be okay,’ she added with a confidence she did not feel.

  He stopped the car at a bus stop hidden from the road by a massive pink oleander bush, and Stevie jumped out.

  She ducked into one of the covered passageways that led down to the piazza, turned abruptly at the bottom and went straight into the nearest shop. It was a luxury boutique that sold furs. Stevie pretended to browse among the massive pelts, keeping one eye out for anyone coming down the same passageway. She was clear.

  A tightly wound saleslady with a bleached beehive that channelled Ivana Trump was keeping a suspicious eye on Stevie. She now approached, proffering a hideous purple fur that fell to the floor. Stevie smiled icily and allowed the woman to place it over her shoulders; the air-conditioning was freezing but Stevie still wondered whether anyone actually bought the creations, let alone in the peak of summer. Her question was answered by the door opening to admit a large man in a lime green suit and Panama hat, and two pneumatic-breasted women in little more than Swarovski crystals. The saleslady immediately switched her attention to the trio, accurately sensing better opportunities for commission; Stevie silently exited.

  She mingled with the crowds on the piazza, then made her way down towards the wooden bridge and across to the old port. The carabinieri station was just up the hill. Stevie smiled at the young officer on duty and explained that she needed to see the chief immediately. This was not, apparently, possible. Stevie smiled and repeated her request, adding that she was a concerned family friend who might be able to help with an investigation dear to the chief. She added another, hopefully winning, smile and tilted her head to one side to show she was harmless. The young officer caved and led the way down the hall. The carabinieri always looked so immaculate, she marvelled, in their navy trousers with red stripe and navy jackets with silver buttons. The officer knocked on a door; a voice shouted, ‘Entra.’ The officer smiled at Stevie again and showed her in, closing the door behind her.

  The chief was a handsome man with black hair combed off his forehead. He smiled and spread his hands. ‘Excuse me, Signora, for not standing, but . . .’

  Stevie realised why: the chief was in his underwear, boxer shorts and a singlet. His jacket and trousers were hanging neatly behind his chair so that they would not crease. The generally unflappable Stevie was, for the briefest of moments, discombobulated. She recovered quickly and smiled, extending her hand. ‘I quite understand,’ she said. ‘The heat . . . I’m Stevie Duveen.’

  ‘How can I help you, Signora Duveen?’ He gestured to a chair in front of his desk. ‘Caffè?’ Stevie nodded.

  ‘It is a delicate matter,’ she began, sitting on the edge of the chair, staying close to the chief. She found persuasion was more effective with physical proximity, for all sorts of reasons. ‘A young boy, a family friend, has gone missing. His name is Farouk Farm–ishan. You know this already, I believe.’

  The chief looked at her hard for a moment, assessing how much to tell this stranger. He took in the slight frame, the long neck decorated with pearls, the blonde hair, the large green eyes lined in imploring black, and relaxed. ‘We are aware of the situation.’ He nodded. ‘We contacted his father but he was not . . .’ the chief spread manicured fingers, ‘willing to cooperate. We cannot do much in such an eventuality.’

  ‘Perhaps he is afraid,’ Stevie suggested gently. ‘And,’ she added, looking the chief in the eye, ‘the sight of the carabinieri can also be very . . . intimidating for some people.’

  The chief visibly swelled with self-importance. He leant in. ‘Perhaps you are right, Signora. Perhaps I did not take this possibility into account. One tends to forget . . .’

  Stevie smiled. ‘Quite,’ she replied.

  There was a knock on the door and the young officer appeared with a tray and two cups of espresso and some sugar. He put the tray down on the desk and left. The chief stirred three sugars into his coffee; Stevie accepted hers plain.

  ‘Do you have some information you wish to share?’ he said, after taking a sip of his coffee.

  Stevie sighed. ‘I was rather hoping you might be able to help me. I want the boy’s father to cooperate with the authorities. I believe you and your men are the best chance we have.’ The chief was nodding in agreement. Stevie continued, ‘But his father is afraid. He asks me how the carabinieri can know things so quickly; he is worried about informants. He doesn’t have quite the same faith in your force as I do, I’m afraid.’ Stevie smiled again and was pleased to see the chief do the same. She leant in a little. ‘If I could only tell him how you found out about his son—and any other details you can share that might reassure him—I might have some success.’

  The chief thought it over and made up his mind. ‘It was a guest of a neighbour of his, actually, who rang the station.’

  ‘He reported the disappearance?’

  ‘Not quite. He called because he was afraid for the safety of his own son. He said the boy next door had been kidnapped but he was certain it was a case of mistaken identity.’

  The blood rushed to Stevie’s face and she hoped the chief had not noticed. ‘Really?’ she whispered, widening her eyes. ‘Does his son look like Farouk?’

  The chief swivelled in his chair and reached for a slim file. He opened it and handed Stevie a photograph. She knew, even before she saw th
e young face, that it was a picture of Emile Krok.

  Clémence’s son did indeed look a lot like Farouk—she wondered that she had never noticed the similarity before—only Emile wasn’t smiling in the picture. ‘How remarkable,’ she said vaguely and handed the photo back. ‘Do you believe it was a case of mistaken identity?’ she asked, treading as lightly as she could.

  The chief downed his coffee and nodded, lighting a cigarette. ‘This is the line we are following at present. It makes more sense. The neighbour, Vaughan Krok, is a very wealthy man, a holidaymaker, a man who would attract the notice of others. Issa Farmishan is a local, a man of little interest to anyone around here. And, as you noted, the boys look very similar. It would be an easy mistake to make.’

  Stevie’s mind raced. Was the chief right? Had Farouk been taken by mistake? It was possible . . . Stevie accepted a cigarette, giving herself a moment longer to think.

  Maybe Vaughan had been right about the threat to his son. Maybe he had known things that he had not shared with his wife. And there had been the strange phone calls on board the Hercules . . .

  Stevie exhaled slowly and turned to the chief. ‘An easy mistake, as you say,’ she said as mildly as she could. ‘But then why did the kidnappers ring Issa Farmishan and not Vaughan Krok?’

  The chief stared at her suspiciously and took a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘The ways of the criminal, like the snake, are often circuitous, Signora,’ he said, speaking as a man who has had long experience in the ways of the underworld.

  Stevie nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘After all,’ added the chief, ‘as Mr Krok pointed out, Farouk’s father doesn’t have fifteen million euros . . .’

  The sum hung in the air and it was the last piece of evidence Stevie needed. She thanked the chief quietly and accepted his card. ‘Call me anytime, Signora. We are here to serve. This is my mobile number—day or night.’ She thanked him again and let herself out.