Ensnared
Page 3
Reese looked intently at her. “Who did she steal from?”
“Uxor. Larsha is taking money and precious items. There are many big disagreements. They are not happy.”
Nick exchanged glances with his companions – he didn’t know whether or not it would prove to be relevant but this certainly put a new perspective on the case.
Chapter Six
HAVING LEARNT all they could from the family, the detectives made their way back through the maze of colourful corridors to the ship to discuss what they had learnt and Keith and Tanya joined them.
“What if this wasn’t a kidnapping at all?” Reese suggested as they sat down in the control room in the centre of The Prince, which seemed sparse and dull after the psychedelic opulence of the station, although it was made more homely by the robot cat that purred loudly from the far corner of the room. “What if Larsha and her father had one more argument and she ran away? He could have made up the kidnapping story for his wife’s sake.”
“All ships that departed after the kidnapping were searched,” Keith said. He, Poppy and the captain had their own chairs and computers in here, personalised by holo-photos and knick-knacks, while Reese and Nick, who didn’t have jobs here, turned comfies into extra chairs. “The station owner made sure Larsha wasn’t on any of them. Whether she’s hiding or kidnapped, she’s still here somewhere.”
“What’s a zib?” Nick checked with Reese.
He asked his translator before saying, “A period of just over three hours.”
“And a multi-zib?”
“Two years and about four months.”
“Huh.” Nick frowned. “Then there’s been trouble brewing between Larsha and her family for a long time, according to Kedos at least.”
“Disagreements don’t necessarily mean that they don’t love her and want her back,” Keith said and Poppy shot the man a sour look, lips pursed. Reese wondered what she and Nick had against him, as he’d noticed friction between them before.
“True,” he agreed.
“We’ll need to test the unknown forensic samples against the people on the station,” Poppy said to Tanya. “Will the owner be able to arrange that?”
Tanya grimaced. “Unfortunately, his hands are tied by laws about this kind of station. I’m sure he’ll be happy to get his crew to let us scan them – he said he wants to do all he can to help – but nothing can be demanded from the guests. We can’t take samples, unless they agree, or search any of their rooms or even ask them questions unless they give their consent.”
“And if there is a kidnapper, he or she or it is hardly likely to help us,” Poppy concluded. Despite what had happened, she seemed more comfortable talking to Tanya than she had been with Prince. His arrogance hadn’t made the former captain an easy person to have a conversation with but at least he’d been straightforward. Reese didn’t trust Tanya.
“There are security cameras all over the station,” Keith said. “I’m not allowed to access ones in guest rooms but I can check the footage from the public rooms.”
“Go ahead,” Poppy told him in a slightly dismissive way.
“Could we make some kind of announcement through speakers that anyone with information about Larsha should come and talk to us right away?” Nick suggested.
“Good idea,” Reese said.
“Yes. Do that,” Tanya agreed, her attitude at least more easy-going than her husband’s had been. “Let me know what you find out.”
She and Keith stayed on the ship as the rest of them headed out onto the station again. Reese slipped his shades out of one of the pockets in his jacket and put them on. “Show location of command centre for this station and how to get there,” he instructed and a series of arrows appeared on the tiny screen in front of his eyes.
“You will get to your destination in a few minutes,” his glasses told him.
“This way,” he said to Nick and Poppy and they reacted to him in their usual way: Nick with a warm smile and Poppy with a raised eyebrow. As he led them through one corridor after another, their colours muted by his glasses, he asked, “So what’s the issue between the two of you and Keith?”
“Sycophant Two?” Nick said. “He’s just...” He glanced at his sister.
“Useless,” she said. “Fawning. He spends – spent – almost all his time with Prince so he never did much work.”
“I thought he actually loved the captain, though.” Nick put his hands in his pockets as they walked along. “The fact that he’s trying so hard to get Tanya’s approval just makes me think even less of him.”
“To be fair, he might be scared of being sacked or killed,” Reese said, nodding to a semi-translucent alien they passed. “I was. I still am.”
“Why should you be?” Poppy either wanted him to spell it out or she genuinely didn’t get it.
“Because I was sleeping with her husband.”
She snorted. “Who wasn’t? Besides, I never saw the slightest sign of affection between them. They avoided each other – probably didn’t speak for months at a time. Tanya mostly stayed in her room. I wondered sometimes what she got up to in there but now I figure that she was playing at politics and waiting for the perfect moment to off Prince. Good for her.”
“So murderers should be arrested unless they’re members of the crew?” Nick asked her. He was still clearly not happy over Prince’s death, which Reese saw as more evidence that he was a good person with a conscience, who couldn’t have been involved in Baltid Athens’ death.
“It was the captain,” Poppy said, as if that made it all right. “Who hasn’t wanted him dead? He certainly never made any effort to protect us from danger. Besides, he stole Tanya’s company from her.”
Reese looked round sharply. “What do you mean?”
“The money all belonged to Tanya’s family. I don’t know exactly what happened – Tanya and I have never been buddies – but he ended up taking control of everything, including the detective agency.”
None of this information had been in the files Reese had read about the crew. “So Tanya’s family owned the agency first but he gave his name to it?”
“I guess so.”
The corridor split in two but his glasses pointed to the right-hand one. As he took it, he caught a glimpse of what looked like two human-sized teddy bears in the other corridor but he assumed they must have been aliens and shrugged off the bizarre sight. He thought instead about the murdered pilot he was here to privately investigate, not wanting to lose this chance to get useful information. “Prince brought people he knew and liked aboard to be crew members?”
“Some of them,” Nick joined in. “Aae, Bee, Cee and Dee see the ship as their home as they built it on their planet. They hated Prince but they felt they had to stay with the ship.”
“And I doubt Siglinde was ever friends with him.”
Reese laughed at this idea, remembering Siglinde punching the captain for being, in her word, disrespectful. “No. But Keith and Lyn, the pilot, were?”
“Friends. Lovers. Whatever.” Poppy didn’t sound as if she cared.
“No, Lyn joined later,” Nick corrected her as they walked past five maintenance bots that varied in size, with the tallest in front and the others each getting smaller and smaller. “She had only been aboard The Prince for a few months when we joined the crew.”
“So the man who died was an old friend of Prince’s?”
“Baltid Athens?” Nick checked. “I don’t know. They argued sometimes as Baltid could be quite outspoken but they generally got on well. They sometimes hung out together, although I’m sure they weren’t lovers, except...”
“What?” Reese prompted, hoping to learn something that might give him a clue as to the reason for Athens’ murder.
“Nothing. It’s just that Baltid didn’t spend many nights in the room he shared with me, so I think he must have had a lover...”
“We’re here,” Poppy interrupted as they reached a door with the words ‘Command Centre’ showing on a
screen that gave the name in a variety of human and alien languages. She opened it to reveal a large room full of equipment and people, that had windows all down one side with a view of the star-filled blackness of space. Despite its formal purpose, it was painted a bright peach colour and the furniture was blue with a peach stripe across it, the same colours as the uniforms everyone was wearing. There were chairs moulded into a dozen different shapes and sizes to suit the requirements of a variety of humans and aliens.
Reese silently cursed the timing of their arrival. He couldn’t keep mentioning Athens without it seeming suspicious and now he had lost this chance without it doing him any real good. What had Nick been going to say? Just that Prince probably wasn’t Athens’ mysterious lover or that he didn’t have any idea who was? Well, there were only a limited number of options and, if Reese could discover the person, they might be able to tell him a lot more. Some of the aliens onboard might not even be capable of having sex with a human, which would reduce the possibilities even further. He would have to research it or ask Jolly. Yes, conversations with his boss about sex were always entertaining, he thought with a smile; he would do that.
Poppy and Nick had crossed the room ahead of him and were talking with Paul Ninety. With his multi-coloured hair and hooked nose, the station owner reminded Reese of a bird with bright plumage. Ninety’s body language was jittery – he was probably just worried about his station being blamed for the kidnapping but Reese made a mental note to check his background as he walked over and joined them.
“Yes, of course,” Ninety was saying to Poppy and gestured to an intercom. “Go ahead.”
She switched it on and when she spoke her voice was duplicated, echoing from the speakers in the room and out in the corridor. “This is a public transmission from Poppy Thomson, head investigator from the detective agency that is here to look into the disappearance of Larsha, daughter of Uxor and Yanfi, the night before last. If anyone has any information about what might have happened to Larsha, please contact me or my associates immediately. Our ship – The Prince – is docked in bay nineteen on the second floor and we’ll be on the station until Larsha is found. Thank you.”
Without being allowed to conduct a full search of the station, there was not much more they could do and Reese hoped that Larsha wasn’t in danger or injured, wherever she was.
Chapter Seven
THREE HOURS later, they discovered that the owner of the last forensic evidence sample from Larsha’s room was one of the station’s cleaners. This not only led them to a dead end but also meant that DNA from any attacker could have been destroyed when the room was cleaned yesterday.
Poppy had recruited the new soldiers and Prince’s bodyguards to help her search all the public areas of the station but Nick didn’t have much hope of this getting them anywhere. There had already been a thorough search when Larsha first went missing and it was massively unlikely that a kidnapper would hide her somewhere she could easily be found. The only thing they might discover was Larsha’s dead body and Nick really hoped that that wouldn’t be the case.
He and Reese were knocking on doors, starting with those closest to Uxor’s family, trying to see inside private rooms and asking questions about who had seen Larsha. At their tap, one door opened to reveal a room containing seven naked humans and a robot. The robot had a feather boa wrapped round its neck and one of the humans was sitting in its lap. The middle-aged woman with smudged red lipstick, who had opened the door, looked them over with interest and invited them in.
“We’re detectives,” Nick said quickly, in case they were expecting him to start undressing. Reese shot him a grin, as if hearing the nervousness in his voice. “Sorry to, um, interrupt you but could you tell us if you know this woman?”
He held up his hand-computer with an image of Larsha on it and they all approached to look at it. They were still naked. Very naked and getting very close to him. And it seemed as if he was the only person here who was bothered by that.
“No, sorry. We haven’t left this room much in the last six days,” one of the men said while Nick carefully kept his gaze at face height and tried not to think about what they’d been doing here for six days and nights. “We all joined in the search for the poor kid, though. I hope she’s okay.”
“So do we,” he agreed.
“I work for the station,” one of the women said. She was the one who had been sitting on the robot’s lap and he wondered if it was usual for the station staff to get so cosy with the guests. The whole place couldn’t have this kind of thing going on, could it? “The family had breakfast in the public restaurant while they were here and they didn’t seem to get along very well. I didn’t hear what the arguments were about but the dad and his daughter rowed all the time. The mother just ignored them and the other girl seemed embarrassed by it.”
“Did you see Larsha at any other time?” Reese asked her.
“I didn’t but I’ll ask the other employees.”
“Thank you.”
“Come back if you have some free time,” another woman suggested with a grin.
“Yes, do,” a man said and there were sounds of agreement.
Nick looked helplessly at Reese, who said, “That’s a lovely idea. If we get this case solved, I’ll certainly bear it in mind.”
They left the group to... whatever they were doing and Nick gave a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them.
“Orgies aren’t your thing?” Reese asked, his eyes dancing with amusement at whatever emotion was visible on Nick’s face. Probably wild panic.
“No. I’m very happy sticking to one person at a time. When I can. I mean, there aren’t always a lot of opportunities...” His hyper-phone rang and, glancing down at the caller as he answered it, he silently thanked his sister for getting him out of a conversation where he was about to have to admit that he hadn’t had sex in a depressingly long time. “Hello?”
“Come to Uxor’s room immediately,” Poppy said and rang off.
Nick passed on her words to Reese and, as they hurried down the corridor, Nick wondered what could have happened. The silence was broken by a strident musical sound from somewhere nearby. “What’s that noise?”
“Bagpipes,” Reese said began to walk faster, as if he wanted to escape the sound.
They crossed from the red corridor into a pink one Nick recognised. Kedos answered the door for them and, as they walked in, Poppy said, “There’s been a ransom demand.”
Uxor held a piece of paper out to them in two hefty claws.
“There are no fingerprints on the message or its envelope,” Poppy said. Of course there weren’t. This couldn’t be that easy.
Nick took the piece of paper and read it aloud. “Leave fifty millions galactic credits in Station Locker Seventy within the next five hours and lock it. Larsha will then be returned.”
“People can help themselves to keys to the empty lockers if they want to store something outside their rooms,” Poppy explained. “There’s no way of knowing who has the key for locker seventy.”
“If the kidnapper still has the key, how can Uxor lock it?”
“Paul Ninety has a master key he can use.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” a voice said and Nick turned to see the station owner in his navy uniform standing beside Yalfi and Kedos, dwarfed by their larger height and bulk.
“I make a decision,” Uxor said and they all looked round at him. “I am not paying ransom.”
Chapter Eight
“YOU MUST pay or Larsha is hurt,” Yalfi said to her husband, getting to his side in a motion so quick that it was just a blur to Reese. The movement made her necklace clink against the solid surface of her torso shell.
“No. She is bad Hom. I will not pay ransom.”
“She is our loved daughter. Nothing matters more than children.”
“I will not pay,” Uxor repeated and Kedos and Yalfi made keening noises of grief that were painful to human ears, like the siren of an ambulance-ship.
“Naturally it’s your decision,” Poppy said to him over the wailing, “but are you certain this is what you want to do? It could put Larsha’s life in jeopardy.”
“I will not pay. You find her.”
“We’ll do everything possible, but five hours isn’t much time.”
Nick and Reese made their own attempts to change his mind then, when it became obvious they were wasting the diminishing time remaining, they left him with Yalfi and Kedos, who took over the work of begging him to pay. The detectives paused in the pink corridor to decide what to do next, the bedroom door closing automatically after them.
“Heartless bastard,” Poppy muttered.
“I don’t think he believes she really was kidnapped,” Nick said and Reese stared at him. “Think about it. Kedos told us that Larsha had tried to steal from Uxor in the past and that they had a terrible relationship. I think he believes she’s behind all this.”
“Then perhaps she is,” Reese said. The idea made sense but it wouldn’t have occurred to him: Nick’s sharp mind was both impressive and sexy. He thought about the details of the case and found that they supported the theory. “Her room was untidy but she could have messed it up herself. There was no evidence of anyone having gone in there who might have taken her and no one has come forward to give any information about her spending time with anyone outside her family.”
“So it’s all just a con to get money from her dad?” Poppy said, sounding unconvinced.
“I didn’t say he was right.” Nick frowned. “This might be a con or a prank by Larsha but it might be exactly what it seems. Uxor is ridiculously wealthy so a person wouldn’t have to have a grudge against Larsha to have kidnapped her.”