by Clare Kauter
James exhaled. “What do you think?” he asked. “Is it more likely that someone is threatening you or that this has to do with Gracie?”
Biting my inner lip, I thought for a moment. “Ordinarily I’d say me, seeing as the signs are kind of pointing that way and, like you said, I do have a tendency to piss people off. But I don’t know that Jeremy or Volkov would bother with the balloon. If they were out of prison or had someone working for them, I think I’d already be dead.”
“Is there anyone else it could be?”
I shrugged. “Only everyone who’s ever met me. I don’t know. My gut says it has something to do with Gracie.”
“Mine too,” James said. “But that would mean the note was meant for Tim, right?”
“Right.”
“Which means it must be someone in his past. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’ We should look into Tim’s cases.”
“That’s what Adam’s doing. I could too, but I’d have to head back to the office to access his records.”
“You said he put away Mickey Mouse?”
“Yeah, but apparently he’s just a low level drug dealer. They don’t think he’s a major threat.”
“He might not be, but I’ll bet his bosses are.”
I was impressed. “Wow. Maybe you shouldn’t give up your day job. And I mean that as a compliment.”
We bagged up the bow in an old chip packet I found in my handbag (woo, forensics!) and got in the car.
“We should have a quick drive around here before we go and question Mickey,” James said.
“What are you expecting to find?”
“Locals. We can ask them if they’ve seen Gracie or anyone in the park today. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
There weren’t a lot of people out on the street and we didn’t have time to go door to door, so we decided to visit a corner shop near the park, figuring the shop keeper was most likely to have seen or heard something first hand or from a customer. As soon as we walked in, we spotted a stand of hair ties like the one we’d seen in the park. James and I made eye contact and then proceeded to the front counter.
“Morning!” said the lady manning the till. She was middle aged and rake thin, her skin hanging off her like a loose-fitting leather jacket. “How can I help?”
James took his badge out of his pocket and showed the lady. Her eyebrows flew to the sky.
“No need to be alarmed, ma’am. Just a couple of questions. Have you heard about the missing child?”
“Y-yes,” said the lady. “The little girl? I heard it on the radio this morning.”
“Yes, the little girl. Now, we have reason to believe she or her kidnappers might have been in this area earlier today.”
“Kidnappers? Jesus, I thought she’d just wandered off. They didn’t mention kidnappers on the news. My god, the poor kid.”
“We just wanted to ask if you’d seen anyone suspicious in the area today. Perhaps in the park?”
The lady shook her head slowly. “I – I can’t think of anyone. Sorry, my mind’s gone completely blank. Um…”
“Did anyone buy any of these bows today?” I asked, gesturing at the stand by the door.
“Yes,” said the shopkeeper. “A man in a suit bought one for his daughter.”
“Was his daughter with him?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe her to us?”
“Oh, um… I wasn’t really paying attention, but I can try. She had blonde hair, shoulder length I guess. Looked like she was young. Primary school age.”
James and I looked at each other. Not the best description, but it could be a fit. I took out my mobile and scrolled through to a couple of silly pictures I’d taken with Gracie while she was babysitting me.
“Is this the girl you saw?”
“Oh god.” The lady’s hand flew to her mouth. “Is that her? The little girl? I can’t say for sure, but that could be the girl I saw this morning. She was quiet, but I had no idea there was anything wrong…”
“Can you describe the man she was with?”
“Um, I don’t know. He was white, wearing a suit, dark hair. He didn’t really say much.”
“You didn’t notice if he had an accent?”
She shook her head. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure if he actually spoke.” Right. So no telling if this was the same guy who had called for the flowers. “Just looked like he was on his way to the office, you know?”
“How tall?” James asked. “My height?”
“Shorter I think, but I couldn’t really say. I didn’t exactly take notes.” She paused. “I can show you the security footage if you’d like. I don’t know if it’ll help you much, though.”
I frowned. She seemed weirdly unenthusiastic at the prospect. Considering how helpful she’d been so far, I would have expected more excitement from her at the idea of assisting the investigation further.
“That would be great,” James said quickly.
She gestured for us to join her behind the counter, still looking kind of unhappy.
“No thanks,” I said, holding my hands up. She was not going to get me behind the counter. “I have an aversion to retail. Been there, done that.”
“Charlie, she’s not asking you to work. There’s a monitor back here.”
“Oh, right.”
I followed them behind the counter. The lady was squatting down in front of an old TV monitor with a built in VCR, rewinding the security tape. When she hit play, I understood why she hadn’t been all that excited about being able to show us the footage.
“I didn’t realise there was a lower resolution than 144p,” I whispered to James. “His face is just one giant pixel.”
James looked as disappointed as I felt. “Not the most helpful footage,” he agreed.
The lady shrugged forlornly. “I wish I could be more help.”
James thanked her and we left. Outside the store, we stopped and looked around for a moment.
“Why would someone choose this location?” I asked.
“There’s no one around,” James said. “No one to see them place the call. Plus there’s the general creepy aesthetic. The dilapidated playground is a particularly nice touch.”
“I feel like there’s something we’re missing.”
“Apart from Grace?”
I ignored him. “It’s kind of out of the way. How did they know the phone booth was here?”
“Could have googled it,” he said. “They’re easy to look up online.”
“I guess. It’s just… It’s just a feeling, but it seems likely to me that they scoped this place out. It’s so perfect – so sinister. You wouldn’t be able to get that off a map. You wouldn’t know that the park was abandoned unless you’d been here before.”
“Maybe they looked at a few locations.”
“Or maybe they’re familiar with this park for some reason,” I said.
James nodded. “We should ask Tim about it. Maybe he knows more than he’s telling us.”
Like someone else I could think of.
I sent Adam another message – this time a photo of the park. Tim didn’t recognise it.
James and I headed back to the car and slowly began driving around the streets. There wasn’t a whole lot here – some old redbrick apartments, the corner shop, a fenced vacant lot. Not a lot of people lived out here. We were right near the edge of town, and it wasn’t the nicest area.
“Any ideas?” James said.
“I don’t know…”
“What are you thinking?”
I shook my head. “This place is so out of the way. Do you think she could be in one of the buildings? There aren’t many people around here to see or hear a little girl who’s being held hostage.”
“Unlikely. Seems too risky. These buildings are way too close to the payphone. Surely they’d know people would come looking. Maybe the location of the phone was arbitrary.”
What he was saying made sense, but I didn’t agree with him. The choice of
location seemed so deliberate. There was something we were missing.
All at once the buildings disappeared and we were no longer in Gerongate.
“Oops,” said James. “I didn’t realise we were that far on the outskirts.”
He slowed and looked around as if calculating whether he could make a U-turn. I didn’t like his chances – the road was pretty narrow and it wasn’t exactly a compact car. We hit a bump and the car scraped along the road for what seemed like 10 full seconds. James winced and slowed the car even more.
“OK, maybe I should just reverse back into town.”
“Wait,” I said. “Just keep driving down here for a bit. We might see something.”
He didn’t look impressed at that idea. “It seems like a bit of a stretch.”
I knew it was a stretch. Everything was a stretch. When it came to solving mysteries, I was a master yogi.
“Just for a little bit.”
“OK,” he said finally. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything, though.”
I wasn’t really listening. A thought had just occurred to me: perhaps our kidnapper had a place out of town where they were holding Grace. If that was the case, they’d drive past that park every time they came into town. They’d be familiar with the location but wouldn’t live so close to it that it would be risky placing the call from there. It made sense, though it seemed like kind of a long shot.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been out this way before,” said James. “What’s out here? Farms and stuff?”
“Just peasants doing menial labour while you stay perched on the throne in your castle,” I answered. “Nothing to concern yourself with, Your Majesty.”
He rolled his eyes. “So you don’t know what’s out here either?”
I shrugged. I had a feeling I’d heard something about a factory farm out here that had been closed recently, but I couldn’t remember many details. Neighbours had complained so much about the smell that it had been shut down and sold off. What they were farming I couldn’t remember, but I wasn’t exactly upset that it had closed. I thought it was a sad state of affairs that they’d shut the farm down because of the smell, though, and not because they were growing hundreds of animals inside an overcrowded and probably disease-ridden shed. It kind of reminded me of that guy who had to draw penises over potholes to get the council to do something about them. (He’s known as Wanksy, if you’re curious – look him up. Or don’t. Maybe you don’t want that in your search history.)
I looked out the windscreen and squinted as I caught sight of something moving in the long grass by the side of the road up ahead. “Slow down,” I said.
James did as he was told. “What’s up?”
“There’s something hiding in the grass up there. Pull over.”
He stopped the car and I stepped out slowly, heart pounding in my chest. “Stay here,” I ordered James, not wanting to spook whoever was in the bushes by having two of us creep up on them. I hadn’t been able to see much, but whoever it was had to be small. Could it be Gracie? If she’d escaped from her captors it made sense that she’d be scared and hiding, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. It could just be a wallaby or echidna or teenage boy looking at his secret porn stash or something. (Did kids do that anymore? Out here I was guessing they did – the kids who lived on farms wouldn’t have a decent enough internet connection to get onto PornHub. Say what you will about Play Boy magazine, at least it doesn’t need to buffer.)
As I crept along the side of the road, careful not to startle who or whatever was lurking in the long grass, my breathing picked up pace. I hoped and prayed to the only god (well, goddess) I knew, Aphrodite, that it was Gracie hiding up ahead. Please, Goddess of Love and Beauty, can you put in a good word for me with whatever god could actually help me out in this situation?
The grass trembled as the hidden figure moved and I caught a flash of pink. Gracie? I wondered briefly, but then I saw a hoof. Right. Not Gracie. I walked back to the car as quickly and quietly as I could.
“Do you have any food in here?”
“Uh, I have an apple and a banana. What’s going on? Do you want me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “Hand me them both.”
I took the fruit and crept back over to the spot where the creature was trembling in the bushes. I laid down the apple and backed off. After a minute or so of waiting, the creature began to make its way out from its grassy nest. Its snout appeared first, followed by its squat little body, and my suspicions were confirmed: it was a piglet. It was mostly pink with a couple of big black splotches on its back, covered all over in coarse white hair, and it had thick, long eyelashes that made me slightly jealous. This animal was adorable. It was quiet except for its snuffles as it made its way over to the apple cautiously, keeping an eye on me the entire time. After a brief pause, it hungrily munched up the apple.
I peeled the banana and backed up a little, luring the piglet along with the promise of the tasty treat. The poor little guy seemed pretty hungry, and his desire for the banana overtook his common sense. While he was distracted by the banana, he let me pick him up and carry him back to the car. I guess he was young enough that his mother hadn’t taught him about ‘stranger danger’ yet.
“Charlie…” said James as I opened the door. “I don’t know if –”
“James, we are bringing him and that’s final.”
“But –”
“He might be a clue.”
James gave me a look that made it very clear he knew even I didn’t believe that, but then he looked at the piglet and sighed. “Fine. What are we going to do with him?”
“His name’s Arnold,” I said, doing up my seatbelt. “Like the pig in Pulp Fiction.”
“The pig in…” He trailed off. “Wait, you mean the bit when they’re talking about bacon?”
“James!” I exclaimed, covering Arnold’s ears.
“Right, sorry,” said James, watching me pat Arnold and scratch him under the chin. “Uh, Charlie?”
“Yes?”
“I think Arnold is a girl.”
“Oh.” I paused. “I’m still calling her Arnold.”
“Yeah, we don’t need to try and enforce traditional gender norms on a piglet.”
“Exactly.”
“So what now? As interesting as this ‘clue’ is, I’m not entirely sure what it means. You got any ideas?”
I thought for a moment. What were we meant to do with Arnold now? We couldn’t exactly take her back to headquarters – I didn’t know if Adam would react too well to my impromptu ‘bring your pet to work day’, especially since I had just found Arnold on the side of the road. Not to mention that I wasn’t meant to have left the office at all.
“Well, we’ve only really got one more lead to follow before we question Ellie and Tim.”
James nodded. “Right. I might go home and change cars, then we can head down to the dodgy part of town.”
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t know how I feel about taking a piglet to question a drug dealer,” James said. “Usually I’d advise taking a pitbull instead.”
“Well luckily your feelings don’t matter seeing as I’m her legal guardian,” I said. “We can’t just leave her in the car.”
“No, but we could take her back to your house. Set her up with some snacks and toys, you know.”
I frowned. He had a point, I guess, but I wasn’t ready to leave her by herself yet. We hadn’t had a chance to bond. “Maybe we can do that later, but for now she seems too scared to be on her own. Look how she’s snuggling into me.”
James smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Fine, but only because the two of you look adorable.”
We were parked in an alley off Slade Street, sitting in the Tesla. It wasn’t quite as conspicuous as the Ferrari, sure, but it didn’t exactly blend in either.
“Aren’t you worried someone will steal your car?”
James shrugged. “We won’t be long. Besides, Baxter & Co
. has a GPS trace on it, so even if it did go missing we’d be able to find it.”
“I didn’t know B-Co did security for cars.”
James raised his eyebrows. “Wow, good thing you manage the phone and front desk seeing as you’re so knowledgeable about the services your company provides. Or maybe they overlooked that due to your sunny disposition.”
I rolled my eyes. Whenever I spent too much time with McKenzie I got eye cramps from all the rolling.
“Fine. If you don’t mind leaving your car here, then, I guess we should try and find Mickey.”
James nodded. “Let’s go.”
We stepped out of the car and I followed James, hugging Arnold to my chest. She had remained surprisingly calm despite having finished her banana. I guess she was just very trusting by nature. I continued stroking her gently as I trailed behind James.
Clearly Tim wasn’t the only one who’d busted Mickey before – James knew exactly where to find him. I spotted Mickey from across the road before James even pointed him out to me. Judging by his giant trench coat and generally shifty behaviour, he hadn’t learned a whole heap from his time in prison. James and I stopped across the road and watched him as he opened up his jacket, trying to make a sale to everyone who walked past. No one seemed particularly interested.
“He’s really bad at this,” I said.
James nodded. “Yep. Looks like he’s moved on from drugs to Rolexes. Maybe his bosses ditched him.”
“Yeah, I doubt he was hitting sales targets. He’s terrible.” I paused. “Are we sure he’s selling stuff? Maybe he’s decided to become a flasher.”
James smiled. “Better avert your gaze when we get close just in case, then.”
“Pfft. I can handle a little penis.” Oh god. Why? Why had I said that? “Or a big one.” Why was I still going? Shut up, Charlie! “I mean – uh – I know my way around a penis.”
Oh good. Glad I saved that one.
James looked way too amused at my obvious discomfort. “That’s all well and good, but I wouldn’t advise handling his penis in any capacity. You don’t know where it’s been.”
