by Maynard Sims
“Won’t you come in?” she said with clipped enunciation, although Jason could detect a fragility in her voice that seemed at odds with her appearance.
She led them inside and along a luxuriously carpeted hall, bringing them to a halt in a room that looked as if it had been lifted from the pages of Good Housekeeping magazine.
“Please take a seat. George will join us shortly. He’s just taking a shower.”
George was evidently her husband, judging from the framed photograph that hung on the wall above the fireplace. A group shot, printed onto canvas, of Stephanie, a serious-looking but mildly handsome man in his forties and, lounging at their feet, a very pretty teenager with blonde hair cloaking her shoulders, vibrant blue eyes and a smile to melt the hardest of hearts. Flanking them was a young man, about the same age as Alice. As good-looking as the rest of the family, but his looks marred by a slightly sneering expression that he wore on his face like a badge of honor.
“Alice?” Harry said, indicating the family portrait.
“Yes.” Stephanie nodded. “My husband, George, and Tim, our son. Alice’s brother. Taken in happier times,” she added wistfully. “Please take a seat. Coffee?”
“Tea for me, if it’s no trouble,” Jason said. “Three sugars.”
Stephanie’s eyebrows rose a few millimeters but she said, “Yes, of course. No trouble at all.”
“Coffee for me,” Harry said. “Black. No sugar.”
As she came back a little while later, George Logan followed her into the room and introduced himself. Stephanie laid the tray of tea and coffee down onto a low glass-topped table and began to pour coffee from a glass-and-chrome cafetière.
Harry found his eyes drifting to the photograph once more. How a family’s life could be turned on its head. He felt a growing anger towards Erik Strasser.
“Happier times,” George said. He too was staring at the photo.
“Yes, your wife said. It’s a lovely portrait. Alice is a very pretty girl.”
“And so happy…” Stephanie said. “At least she was. When she came back to us recently, she was a mere shadow of the girl there. We really do appreciate you helping us with this. The police are bloody useless; no help at all. As far as they’re concerned, she’s above the age of consent, and if she chooses to go off and live with someone, that’s up to her. They say there’s not a lot they can do about it. Bastards!” she added, her voice rising.
“Stephanie.” George reached across and squeezed her knee. “Don’t upset yourself.”
“Don’t patronize me,” she snapped at her husband. “If you’d been more a father to her instead of wanting to be her best friend, shown her a little more discipline, none of this might have happened.”
George’s mouth opened to protest, but nothing came out. He seemed to sink into himself and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders heaved once and he took his hands away from his face. “Growing up, she was a good girl. Never gave us any trouble. She got good grades at school. Even made it through to Oxford on sheer hard work. We were so proud of her.”
He was cut off by the sound of the front door opening and crashing shut.
Stephanie glanced round. “Tim? Is that you?”
A young man lurched into the lounge, dressed in biker’s leathers and carrying a crash helmet. He flopped down into an armchair and put his feet up on the coffee table, which earned him a stern look from his father.
“As I was saying,” George continued. “Alice never gave us any trouble. Quiet and studious, but bright and vivacious when she wanted to be, she was doing well at university. Glowing testimonials from her tutors. She was heavily tipped to get an honors degree. From then it would be forward onto her doctorate.”
“What was she reading?” Jason asked, his eyes fixed on Alice’s brother, who was wearing the same slightly sneering expression he’d perfected for the family portrait. He was staring down at his knees as if he’d heard all this before and wasn’t interested in the slightest.
“Classical studies, specializing in both ancient Greece and Greek mythology. It was her passion. I suppose that’s why she was so good at it.”
Tim Logan reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He took one out and placed it between his lips.
“Not in the house!” Stephanie snapped before he could reach for a lighter. Tim swore under his breath, took the cigarette from his mouth and got to his feet. “I’ll smoke it in the garden. Any objection to me polluting the air outside?” he said and walked out of the room.
Stephanie shook her head sadly but said nothing as she watched him walk away.
Jason got to his feet and took his own cigarettes from his pocket. “I’ll keep him company,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
George shook his head; Stephanie sniffed disdainfully. Harry avoided Jason’s eyes.
When he’d left the room, Harry said, “When did you notice a change in Alice’s behavior?”
“When she came back for the Easter break,” Stephanie said. “I knew immediately something was wrong.”
Tim Logan glanced around when Jason stepped out into the garden. His cigarette was already lit and he was puffing at it furiously. “You’re not a worshipper then?”
“Sorry?” Jason said. He lit his own cigarette and blew smoke up at the night sky.
“Kneeling at the altar of Saint Alice of Hitchin. It’s the new religion around here.”
Jason smiled. “Is that how you see her? Saint Alice?”
“It’s how they see her. If they only knew.”
Jason walked across to an ornamental fishpond with a low, rough-stone wall. A rather ugly statue of Dionysus stood in the center of the pond, water dribbling over the bunch of grapes he held aloft in his right hand.
“He had the right idea,” Tim said, coming up behind him. “Get pissed and stay pissed. The only way to live.”
“Did you get on well with Alice?”
“Well enough, considering the age gap.”
“Age gap? How big?”
“She’s three minutes older than me. I’m the younger brother, and I’ve been treated as such for as long as I can remember. We’re twins, but not identical. She got the brains, you see.”
“What did you get?”
“I got the leftovers. In their eyes I’ve always been the also ran.”
Jason gave him a sympathetic look. “It happens in families. Glad I was an only child.” He dipped the glowing end of his half-smoked cigarette in the pond and lit another, offering the pack to the boy. Tim Logan dropped his own stub to the ground and took a cigarette from Jason with a nod of thanks.
“But apart from that, you got on with her okay,” Jason said as he lit the boy’s cigarette with his Zippo.
Tim inhaled deeply and let the smoke dribble out through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “Ally was fun. Mad as a box of frogs, but fun. We had some good times before she went to uni.”
“Did she change when she went up to Oxford?”
“Not at first. I remember the first summer she came home. We caught a train to Cambridge together and went punting on the Cam. It was a blast. We stopped for lunch at a pub. Mum and Dad would have had a fit if they’d ever found out. They couldn’t get their heads around the fact that Alice might possibly like a drink and behave like a normal teenager.”
“But then it changed?”
“Radically. In her second year she started taking university, and herself, much more seriously.” He stared up at the statue of Dionysus. “Ugly bugger, isn’t he?”
“Your parents’ choice of statue?”
Tim shook his head. “Ally’s…well. He’s Greek, isn’t he?”
“The god of wine and winemakers. The Romans called him Bacchus.”
“I don’t think Ally gave a toss what the Romans called him. Greek mythology’s her
bag.”
“‘Mad as a box of frogs.’ What did you mean by that?”
Tim smiled and didn’t respond. “Mum said you and your friend are ghost hunters. Is that right?”
“Something like that.”
“Cool, but I don’t see how that’s going to help you find her. My darling sister is very much alive.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I’d know if she wasn’t,” Tim said.
“You met Erik Strasser when he came to the house to try to get Alice to go with him, didn’t you?”
Stephanie seemed to shudder at the question. After a long pause she nodded. “Yes, I met him.”
“And what did you think of him?”
“Handsome, urbane and utterly charming. He tried to tell me that he was aware of Alice’s problems and that he knew a doctor who could help her.”
“But you didn’t believe him?”
“Not at all. Oh, he was very persuasive, but—and I know this sounds a bit far-fetched—but I get a sense of people. I wouldn’t go as far as Violet and claim I can see auras, but I can usually see through it when people are lying to me.”
“And Alice? Does she have that kind of…what? Sixth sense?”
“I don’t know. We’ve never discussed it. But I think not. If she had it, she would never have allowed herself to be taken in by him.”
“I just thought he was a creep,” George said. “He was still here when I came home from work. I called the police on him to get him to leave. I swear I was inches away from—”
“Yes, George you would have, what was it you said? Beaten him to a pulp?” Stephanie said, an edge of sarcasm in her voice. “I’m sorry. You’re an accountant and you’ve never raised a finger in anger in your life. The most heated you get is if one of your clients is late with his tax returns.”
George bridled, and then, realizing his wife knew him better than anybody, he reined in his indignation and sank back in his seat. “Well, I wanted to,” he said. “That man took Alice away from us. My baby. I had such high hopes for her. Now I’m scared she’ll end up in a gutter somewhere, one injection away from an overdose.”
Harry leaned forward in his seat. “Let’s try to be optimistic, shall we? I’m tasking my best people with finding out where Alice is. If she’s with Strasser, we’ll get her back for you—”
“And take her back to Mayberry?” Stephanie said hopefully. “Lawrence O’Connell said it was the best place for her.”
“Yes, if that’s what you want. I was there today. Richard Frost who runs the clinic seems very capable.”
“Not capable enough to stop Alice walking out of there,” George said bitterly.
Harry was going to say something about extenuating circumstances, but he didn’t know what the Logans had been told, and he wasn’t really ready to travel down that particular road just yet, not until he had a more solid grip on this case. He changed the subject. “I’d like a recent photograph of her, if you have one.”
“George, where are those photos we took when we went to Rhodes last year?” Stephanie said. She turned to Harry. “Our last family holiday. We had a wonderful time.”
“Was it Alice’s idea, what with her interest in ancient Greece?’
“Good heavens no,” George said. “A work colleague of mine has a villa out there. He lets it out when he’s not using it. Not that Alice complained when I told her that was where we would be spending our summer break.”
“She was thrilled to be going. Excited for weeks beforehand,” Stephanie said.
“Those photos are on the computer,” George said. “It won’t take me long to find them and print one off for you.”
“Full face,” Harry said. “If you have one.”
Chapter Eight
The girl was young and pretty, with cropped, dyed-black hair and kohl-lined panda eyes. She was a Goth, but then so were most of the people at the club, and Fin Clusky had dressed accordingly. “Can I get you a drink?” he said to the girl.
“Sure,” she said. “Tia Maria and Coke.” She leaned against the bar, next to him, leaning over and giving him a close-up view of a creamy cleavage enhanced by the purple bustier she wore.
He ordered her drink from the young barman dressed similarly to himself: skintight black jeans and a black tee-shirt, only Clusky’s had an elaborate white skull and ivy leaf motif covering the front. “And mine’s a Guinness,” he said. He turned to the girl. “What’s your name?” he asked her, leaning forward so he could hear her answer over the throbbing Evanescence track pounding from the club’s speaker system.
“Kerry. What’s yours? I’ve seen you here before.”
“I’m Fin.”
“Hello, Fin,” she said and smiled. Clusky smiled back. He liked clubs like this—so easy to score.
Kerry moved well on the dance floor, losing herself in the sinuous music, her eyes partly closed, her lips mouthing the lyrics to the song. “I know where there’s a party,” Fin shouted in her ear.
“Where?”
“Close by. Coming?”
The girl stopped dancing. “Okay.”
So easy, Clusky thought.
“Well?” Jason said as they headed back to the A1. “What did you make of them?”
Harry gripped the wheel, watching the road through the arcing of the wipers pushing aside the thin drizzle. “Average type of family,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed she was Vi’s sister if I didn’t know that she was. So different.”
“He was a bit of a wimp.”
“Not really his fault. He’s probably had all the fight knocked out of him.” Harry flashed his lights at an oncoming car driving only on sidelights. “Idiot! They’ll be pulling you out of a ditch one day,” he yelled at the car as it passed.
“You seem wound up,” Jason said.
“Yeah, I suppose I am. Just thinking about Alice and that bastard Strasser. The Logans might be a slightly dysfunctional family, but they don’t deserve to be living through this kind of nightmare.”
“And the boy? Tim?”
“Sick of living in his sister’s shadow, I expect.”
“Yeah, that’s what I got.”
“Sibling rivalry.”
“Not that simple,” Jason said. “I think he loves his sister, and he’s probably as worried about her as the parents. Damned if he’s going to show it though.”
Harry smiled. “I remember being his age. Full of piss and vinegar, me against the world. I expect you were the same.”
“I don’t deny it. His sister’s got a bee in her bonnet about ancient Greece, certainly. There’s a statue of Dionysus in the garden. She chose it. Do you think Strasser might have used her interest in Greek mythology to lure her away?”
“That, or something like it. If I were the Logans, I’d be heartbroken, investing all that love and parental care, only to have it thrown back in my face. They’re probably feeling as guilty as hell. Blaming themselves for letting their little girl slide off the rails.”
“Do you think we can get her back?”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m going to have a damned good try.”
The street outside the club was almost empty. A lone taxi made its solitary journey from end to end, a black shark searching for a late-night punter. Clusky had his arm around Kerry as they stepped out into the night. She had drunk too many Tia Marias and was leaning against him for support. Fifty yards along, a dark blue van was parked, engine idling.
“How’re we going to get there?” she said. “The party?”
“We’ll fly, baby. All the way.”
She didn’t even feel the needle as it punctured her neck. As the chloral hydrate flooded through her bloodstream, she sagged against him. He tightened his hold around her waist to stop her falling to the ground. The blue van pulled away from the curb and traveled t
he fifty yards, braking in front of them. The doors opened and two young men climbed out. The first came across to Clusky and helped him support the girl. The second opened the van’s side door. “Come on. Get her inside.”
Before the taxi could make its second pass, Kerry, Clusky and the second man were in the back of the van and its door was pulled shut. The first man climbed in behind the wheel, gunned the gas pedal and sped off into the night. Less than thirty seconds had passed since Clusky had helped Kerry from the club. The empty taxi glided past the club. The driver had seen nothing. It was a slow night and he was bored.
Kerry flicked open her eyes. She was lying on something cold and hard. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. She tried to turn her head to see where she was, but she couldn’t move it. Something tight seemed to be clamping it rigid, and when she turned it, something sharp dug into her temples. She wanted to reach up to feel what it was, but she couldn’t move her arms; they were strapped down at her sides. She swallowed, attempting to force saliva into her mouth. “Help,” she managed to call, but it came out as little more than a croak.
A face loomed over her. “She’s awake.” It was Fin, the guy from the club.
“Whadyadoin?” she mumbled.
Another face appeared in her line of sight. Older, good-looking, staring down at her with a slight sneer. “She’ll do. Let’s begin.”
She felt something—a knife—rip through the fabric of her bustier, and it came away, peeling back from her body, leaving her naked apart from a pair of black panties. Another two flicks of the knife and they too fell away from her. She opened her mouth to scream, but Fin was filling her vision again and he had the knife, jabbing it under her chin, the blade’s point piercing the skin. “Not a sound or I’ll cut you…badly.”
Tears pricked out from Kerry’s eyes and she began to softly whimper.
Harry dropped Jason off at Archway underground station and drove back to his flat in Maida Vale. He let himself in, picked up the mail lying on the doormat and carried on through to the lounge.
The light on his answering machine was flashing. He hit a button and a computerized female voice announced, “You have two new messages. Message received today at 7.45 p.m.” There was a bleep and Jane Talbot was talking to him.
