Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 33 страниц)
I shuddered. Maybe I should just wait. After all, Mad Max couldn’t leave me here like this . . .
Just as I was thinking the sonofabitch might be crazy enough to do exactly that, a tentative knock sounded on the door.
I froze.
My phone rang, the ringtone coming from the short corridor outside the bathroom. As it went to voicemail the door clicked open. I braced myself, pulse racing, wondering if they were friend or foe.
The door clicked shut.
Chapter Eleven
A figure moved slowly into the room, tall, dressed in black leathers, hair pulled back in a sleek blonde ponytail, phone in one hand, half-a-dozen bags in the other.
Katie. I almost cried with thankfulness.
‘Genny?’ She stopped, shock rounding her eyes.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, forcing a rueful tone into my voice. ‘Practical joke that went a bit far.’
‘Your face is all beat up,’ she whispered, horrified. ‘Shall I phone for an ambulance?’
‘No.’ I sighed. ‘I doubt it’s as bad as it looks.’ Not that I knew how I looked, but– ‘Don’t suppose you could untie me, hon?’
‘Oh my gosh, of course.’ She dropped the bags, and rushed to me, tugged at the knots, then resorted to nail scissors to cut me free. Never had I been so grateful for the girlie contents of Katie’s huge designer handbag.
As she snipped away freeing my wrists, I gave her a short, highly edited version of the night’s events. I’d had a problem with my magic, a ‘friend’ had helped me, and to stop me hurting myself or anyone else they’d had to tie me up. I hadn’t been too happy about it, which was where my injuries had come from. Only the ‘friend’ had a crazy sense of humour, and hadn’t untied me when they’d left. None of which was a lie; something I physically can’t do.
‘Frigging frenemy, you mean, leaving you like this,’ she growled when I’d finished. ‘They need a taste of their own medicine.’
‘Already with you,’ I muttered, as she started work on my ankles. I sat up carefully, mindful of the cracked ribs and the aching stiffness in my shoulders. Not to mention my head and face which felt tight and swollen, like my skin was about to burst like a rotten plum. Crap, the mad sucker had really done a number on me. I’d heal, and way quicker than a human, but quicker wasn’t instant. How the hell was I supposed to work like this?
My gaze fell on a glass on the desk. It was full of dark red-brownish liquid.
Suddenly hopeful, I asked Katie to get it for me.
The glass had one of the hotel’s cardboard hygiene-covers on it. Scrawled across it, in what looked like blood, was: ‘Drink Me! :)’
‘Is it another joke?’ she asked.
‘Better not be.’ I took the cover off and sniffed. Sour apples tinged with copper. Definitely Mad Max’s blood. I knew it had healing properties, almost on a par with Malik’s blood, having been injured once before (also Mad Max’s fault, albeit indirectly) and healed by his blood. I looked for a catch but couldn’t think of one, mainly because I regularly gave my donated blood to Mad Max’s faeling grandkid, Freya, my whatever-number-removed cousin (since she’s only eight, it’s easier to call her my ‘niece’).
Thanks to Freya’s mixed-up genetics (vamp/sidhe/fae/human), she’s ended up with a vamp’s need for blood along with the more usual need for solid food in order to survive. With Ana (Freya’s mum and Mad Max’s daughter) pregnant, I’d stepped in as Freya’s blood donor instead. Mad Max knew that and, despite his seeming lack of family values, I could probably stake my life on his never doing anything to harm Freya.
Plus it was like the crazy sonofabitch to leave me a way to heal the damage. After all, he’d enjoyed watching me suffer through bouts of painful arousal, while at the same time making a spell to rid me of it . . . or so he’d said.
I put the blood down. No way was I drinking it unless the spell had worked. I explained briefly to Katie, then before her worried eyes, slowly peeled the sludgy towel away.
Once it was gone I waited for the agonising throb to start up. It didn’t. Relieved, I let out the breath I’d been holding. I was okay. Mad Max had been telling me the truth about the spell. Another thought struck me.
I looked up at Katie. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I got a text from you. The keycard was left in an envelope at reception.’
Mad Max was evidently Mr Organised.
I sighed. It was either drink his blood or send Katie out for an expensive, and not so quick, healing spell from the Witches’ Market.
I couldn’t afford to show up anywhere looking like a victim of domestic abuse. Even without the embarrassment it would cause my clients, all it would take was one paparazzo and my battered face would be splashed across the front pages.
Decision made I picked up the glass and slugged the sour-tasting blood down. My stomach clenched as it hit, then I grunted as it spread through my body like battery acid, burning me from the inside out.
‘Okay, that’s just . . . gross.’ Katie’s quiet mutter made me look at her.
‘What?’
‘Your face,’ she said, quickly dropping her gaze back to the sheet she was cutting. ‘It’s moving like there’s something running around under your skin.’
Nice! ‘It doesn’t feel too good either,’ I mumbled around what felt like a mouthful of tiny crab apples. Not to mention my rippling skin was making me nauseous, or maybe that was Mad Max’s blood. I started picking at the sheet round my right ankle, hoping I wasn’t going to puke.
Katie cleared her throat, the sound nervous, then keeping her gaze fixed on her scissors, said, ‘Did anyone get back to you about last night? The Carnival or the police?’
Inwardly I cursed myself. Of course she’d be worried about the flasher, whereas I’d totally forgotten about it. Some friend I was. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t had chance to check my messages.’
Katie jumped up and retrieved my backpack. Fishing out my phone she checked, then looked up disappointed. ‘Nothing.’
‘I’ll call a bit later and ask,’ I said, hoping I’d get some sort of answer that would reassure her.
She gave a small nod. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s nothing to worry about. The police said they’d had reports of flashers in the park before, so it was just really bad luck we were there. It’s horrible, but there’s nothing personal in it.’
‘Yeah, I know. I talked to Mum about it last night. But then when I went over it in my head I realised I’d seen something else.’
Had she seen a vamp? Worry pricked goosebumps on my arms. ‘Something else?’
‘Yeah.’ She stopped snipping and fixed me with an odd expression, half excited, half anxious. ‘Remember I said the man sort of collapsed, and then I saw that weird animal? Well, I think, instead of the man looking for the animal, I think they’re the same. I think the man turned into the animal.’
I stared at her. ‘You think he was a shapeshifter?’
‘Yes!’ She leaned forward. ‘Is it possible?’
Hmm. I hadn’t seen the naked man, or vamp as I’d thought he was. I hadn’t seen any weird animal. All I’d seen was an odd shadow of movement, and even that might have been my imagination. And the only pings I’d got on my inner radar had been the old man and his dog, who, when I mentioned them to the police, had confirmed the man was a local, and kosher . . .
Except, what if the male had been a vamp, and had turned into an animal. It was possible and it would explain how he had vanished so fast, and why my Spidey senses hadn’t pinged him. After all, Mad Max turned into an Irish wolfhound, and when he did I couldn’t tell he wasn’t anything other than the dog he seemed. Not to mention if someone wasspying on me, Mad Max was the obvious candidate.
Only Katie had said the man in the park was dark-haired. Mad Max was blond. But the Autarch was dark-haired, and he’d given Mad Max the gift. Vamp powers ran through the bloodlines, so it was possible that the Autarch could turn into some sort of animal. Plus, I’d asked Malik if the Autarch could go out in daylight if he stayed in the shade and he’d never answered my question. Just told me the Autarch wasn’t the Emperor. Crap. Maybe my paranoia was spot on and the Autarch had been spying on me last night.
‘I looked up shapeshifters,’ Katie said, interrupting my worrying thoughts. ‘Did you know the only non-fae shapeshifters are werewolves? There used to be other animal/human-shifters but they were all hunted to extinction.’
I blinked at her, surprised. ‘You think it was a werewolf last night?’
‘Well, they exist, so it’s possible, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ I said slowly. Possible didn’t mean probable. ‘I suppose so. There aren’t any werewolves in Britain, though.’
‘Not living here, no,’ Katie agreed, dipping her head so her ponytail fell to hide her face, then went on to tell me werewolves had been hunted to extinction in Britain sometime in the 1700s, as had real wolves which was around the same time the rest of the world’s therianthropes or wereshifters had been killed off. However, werewolves – lycanthropes – had managed to escape total extinction when they were given ‘full human rights’ status in Russia by Empress Anna Ivanovna, who used them as part of her security police force. Apparently, there were only about hundred packs left worldwide, which amounted to just under a thousand lycans in total, the majority of those were in Russia. As usual, Katie’s research was thorough and gave more detail than I wanted or probably needed to know.
‘It also said that once they get the scent of a virgin,’ Katie finished, ‘they hunt them down so they can Change them.’ She stopped cutting, scissors poised above my foot. ‘I’m still a virgin, Genny.’
Well, your mother will be pleased to hear that!Not that I’d thought any different. But I’d heard the hitch in Katie’s voice. She was worried some imaginary werewolf was going to come looking for her. I knew it wouldn’t happen.
‘That’s just an old wives’ tale,’ I said, trying to reassure her. ‘Far as I remember, new werewolves get recruited from long-serving members of the military or police. I’m pretty sure they’re all volunteers, and I doubt any of them are virgins. You know Wikipedia isn’t always right, don’t you, Katie?’
She snorted and jabbed the tiny scissors back into the knotted sheet hard enough to make me flinch. ‘I didn’t get this from Wikipedia, but from the witch archives in the British Library.’
‘They’re password protected,’ I said, wondering how the hell she’d got access.
‘Tavish gave me one.’
Crap. ‘Tavish has a lot to answer for,’ I muttered. I wasn’t surprised he’d hacked the archives, just that he’d given Katie the password.
‘So do werewolves hunt virgins?’
I sighed. ‘Told you, it’s an old myth, and even if it were true, I doubt the male was close enough to you for it to be a problem.’
‘Genny! I know you told that policeman something last night, that you didn’t tell me.’
Damn. Sometimes Katie was too observant for her own good. I picked at the knot I was working on for a moment, then sighed; if she was going to worry about something, it might as well be the truth. ‘I think the male you saw was a vamp who was following me. One that can shapechange. Only I won’t know for sure until I get some answers. When I do, I’ll let you know. And I’ll make sure that you’re not in any danger this time.’ Whatever I have to do. ‘Okay?’
She stayed quiet for a long moment, head down, blonde hair covering her face. ‘A vampire?’ She glanced up, a mix of anger and fear flashing in her grey eyes, just as I felt the skin of my face twitching like it had popcorn jumping beneath it. She grimaced and looked down again. ‘Okay. Actually that’s less worrying than thinking he was a werewolf.’
I blinked. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I know you’re sort of half vamp, and I know they’re not all bad. And I know you can deal with the bad ones anyway.’
What was I supposed to say to that? It was good she had confidence in me, but I wasn’t sure I could live up to it. Only if I said that, it might only make her anxious again.
‘And I’ve got these.’ She grabbed her huge designer bag and upended it on the bed between us. In amongst the make-up, hair products, glossy mag and other girlie stuff were half-a-dozen bulbs of garlic, three tubes of minced garlic paste, one of chilli paste and a bag of red chillies, the tiny super-hot ones, and a thin bundle of what looked like brass chopsticks.
She’d got her very own vamp-repelling kit. Eating the garlic and chilli wouldn’t put them off, but the paste smeared on skin would stop them biting; charred lips are a quick, easy way to kill a vamp’s appetite.
She waved the chopsticks. ‘Tavish says one of these in the heart will paralyse a vamp. He said I’d probably never need to use it, just wave it around to get their attention and remind them to behave.’ She leaned forwards and hooked her heart-shaped pendant from inside her top. ‘He also added some spells to this; one that stops the vamps using their mind-lock on me, and another that makes me smell like a faeling. He said all the fae and faelings in London are under the Oligarch’s protection, thanks to you, so none of them will even come near me so long as I wear this.’
Wow. Tavish hadbeen busy, but in a good way.
Katie gave me a lopsided smile. ‘So, thanks for telling me, Genny. I know you didn’t ’cause you didn’t want to worry me, but I’d rather know. And I know vamps can’t get me if I stay safe behind a threshold and don’t invite them in. That doesn’t apply to werewolves.’
She had a point. The counselling must’ve done more good than I thought, making her look at things in a practical, proactive way and not just panicking. A lesson I could do with, particularly when it came to dealing with the Autarch.
‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘I didn’t want to worry you. Sorry. I’ll tell it like it is next time.’
‘Good.’ She nodded, packed her stuff away and worked on in silence for a few minutes, then gave a final flourish with her scissors to set me free.
I waggled my foot in relief and she peered at me, grey eyes glinting with mischief. ‘Your face looks better now. Less like you’ve got beetles tunnelling under your skin and more like you’re hungover.’
‘Nice image.’ I snorted, jumping up to peer in the overdesk mirror. Hungover was about right, but even as I looked, the dark circles were fading. I prodded my ribs, no pain. Mad Max’s blood had done the business. In fact, I was pretty sure another ten minutes would see me healed of everything other than Malik’s rose-coloured bruises. What I needed now was something to eat and a shower. Not necessarily in that order. Spying the room service menu, I asked Katie to order us some breakfast, then headed for the bathroom.
I stood under the hot shower, easing the kinks in my muscles and mulling over Mad Max.
Never mind the mystery of why he’d helped me, the real question was: what was he doing sniffing round me like a hound following a scent? Either he was spying on me, or Malik . . . or hell, maybe Malik had asked him to watch out for me? He’d obviously asked someone to buy me new clothes. And that someone might have been Mad Max.
So, if Malik hadasked Mad Max to keep an eye on me, that would explain why he’d helped me. Even if his help was the reallytough-love type. But really, why would Malik trust Mad Max? He knew I didn’t. And aside from the fact he was a crazy sonofabitch, Mad Max owed his Oath to the Autarch.
Then again, the Autarch might be Mad Max’s liege and master, but maybe crazy Max wasn’t so insane after all, since he appeared to hate and fear the psychotic sadist as much as I did.
Of course, there was a third option. Mad Max was keeping an eye on me for the sidhe side of the family. Which was almost as worrying an idea as him spying on me for the Autarch.
Shivering despite the steam, I wrapped a towel tightly around myself and grabbed the hotel hairdryer.
The only way I was going to get any solid answers was to do what I’d planned to do before the fertility magic and Mad Max had hijacked my night– speak to Malik in the Dreamscape. I gave my hair a hurried blast of heat, checked my phone and gauged I had just enough time before work to try now. A plus being that Katie could watch over my sleeping body while she was eating breakfast.
Decision made, I touched Malik’s rose-shaped bruises on my left wrist, releasing the bracelet hidden there. It appeared with its usual chinking of charms—
Malik’s ring was gone.
My mind skidded to a shocked halt. Malik had to have taken the ring, but why?
Unless it was Mad Max? He’d had enough opportunity, and could do magic, though his ability still left suspicion pricking down my spine. But if it had been him, that still the question of why. Damn it. Speculating was pointless. All that mattered was the ring was gone and I couldn’t contact Malik that way. I was going to have to speak to him the non-magical way.
And go on the date.
Of course, going on the date could bring me face to face with the Autarch. Something that made me want to run far, far away, and hide.
But I’d already done that once. And I was older now, so maybe, like Katie, it was time for me to deal with my Autarch phobia, instead of letting my terror rule my life. After all, I might not carry a vamp-repelling kit, but I had something way better– the sword Ascalon.
Heart thudding, I took a deep breath and left a message with Malik’s answering service to say I was accepting his invitation, and I was free any night this week. The woman at Sanguine Lifestyles politely and efficiently said she’d pass the message on to Mr al-Khan, and rang off.
I stood for a couple of minutes waiting for my pulse to calm, then finished dressing, ate the bacon butty Katie had ordered, paid the hefty hotel bill Mad Max had stuck me with (including two porn pay-per-view films – Bitch of the Baskervillesand The Brides of Cujo,images from which made me want to bleach my brain – and which I mentally added to all the ‘debts’ he owed me. I was sogoing to take my pound of flesh using a very large, very blunt blade) and we headed for Spellcrackers.
Halfway there, my phone rang: Detective Inspector Hugh Munro.
‘Morning, Hugh. Social or business call?’
‘Official business, I’m afraid, Genny,’ he rumbled in his gravelly voice. ‘A woman and her son have disappeared, possibly kidnapped, and there appears to be some sort of strange magic involved. I’d like your help, please.’
Crap. ‘Of course. Where?’
‘London Zoo.’
‘On my way.’
Chapter Twelve
Forty minutes later my taxi dropped me off in the small car park opposite the main entrance to the zoo. I checked the other vehicles: three of the police vans designed for trolls (to be expected), about six other parked cars (again, probably usual) and two long limousines with blacked-out windows (definitely not usual). Both limos were backed into the shade of the scrubby line of trees screening the car park from the rest of the zoo, which butted against Regent’s Park beyond. Two chauffeurs were leaning against the furthest limo, caps tipped back and smoke curling up between them from their cigarettes. The limos’ licence plates both started the same: 112 D 2. The rest of the number was hidden behind the guys’ legs. Diplomatic plates. The words ‘International Incident’ flashed in my head.
That didn’t bode well for the victims.
I crossed to the zoo’s main entrance.
The shutters were down on the two outside sections between the entrance columns – the zoo didn’t open to the public for a good couple of hours yet – but the middle shutter was drawn up to about my shoulder height. The uniformed WPC – the W standing for both witch and woman – standing guard was one I didn’t recognise. She greeted me perfunctorily and waved to a zoo employee sitting slumped over the steering wheel of an open-topped utility cart, ready to take me to the crime scene.
The zoo employee – his name badge stated ‘David O’Reilly’ – straightened, tossed me a brooding look from red-rimmed eyes and told me to, ‘Hop in.’
I hopped in and caught a whiff of something rank. Glancing over my shoulder, I eyed the tarp covering the cart’s flatbed. Whatever was piled beneath it was lumpy and stunk worse than a swamp dragon’s cave . . . Crap!Bad pun aside, it suddenly clicked that I was getting a ride on the shit wagon.
The cart jerked forward and I grabbed the metal side-bar as the vehicle’s electric motor whirred loudly in seeming complaint. We took a left between the reptile house and the Gorilla Kingdom, judging by the signs. David stared straight ahead, broad shoulders hunched inside his green polo shirt like he was cold, a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel despite the cart trundling along at not much more than a fast walking pace after its initial leap.
Odd smells drifted on the wind and mixed with the shit stink, making my stomach heave. Damn it. I hadn’t known a zoo would reek so.
‘Does it always smell like this?’ I asked.
David shrugged. I took that as a yes and tried to take shallow breaths as I looked around. I’d never been to a zoo before; growing up with the vamp side of my family had, by necessity, nixed most of the normal childhood-type ‘day’ outings for more than one reason – but wherever the animals were at this time in the morning, it wasn’t anywhere I could see from the path we were on. It made the place feel oddly desolate and empty even with the miasma of smells assaulting me.
I opened my sight, looking for spells. After all, that was why I was here: whatever had happened had some sort of magical element to it. But other than a few stray bits of wild magic, there was nothing. And as we drove past a sign saying ‘African Bird Safari’, I realised something else: the place was eerily quiet.
‘I thought a zoo would be noisier?’ I raised my voice in question.
David shot me a glance as if he’d forgotten I was there. ‘What?’
‘I guess I just expected to hear the animals more, you know, like bird calls, or a lion roaring, or grunting.’ I waved at the sign on the next exhibit that said ‘Bearded Pigs’, getting a whiff of something earthy and ripe that in no way smelled like bacon.
He frowned, his hands twisting round the steering wheel. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to answer, I made a mental note to ask someone else.
Some minutes later, a stomp on the brakes by David brought us to a halt about ten feet away from the crime scene tape stretched across the path. Beyond the tape the path carried on to an area surrounded by leafy, whip-thin trees. Their canopy shaded a round fountain, its water trickling out from beneath a sculptured bronze little girl, kneeling and offering a bird up to the summer sky and freedom: an ironic sort of statue for a place which kept animals in captivity. Behind the fountain, framed by more greenery, I could see a large colourful sign depicting life-sized lions and tigers: the big cat enclosure.
To the left was a picnic spot with slides, climbing frames and swings, and to the right there was an expanse of grass marked as a ‘Display Lawn’.
The ‘lawn’ was crowded, not with animals, but with a good number of London’s Metropolitan Magic and Murder Squad; about a dozen uniformed trolls and near enough two coven’s worth of WPCs. With that many milling about, whatever had happened was big . . . but then with the two diplomatic limos parked outside that was a given.
The lack of press hanging around the zoo was an oddity, though, until I jumped out the cart and saw Detective Sergeant Mary Martin striding up to the police tape. Pale yellow-coloured magic drifted from her like seeds blown from a ripe dandelion head, lifting high into the air over the zoo. A police Media-blackout spell – and the reason for the lack of journos.
Mary gave me a professional once-over out of pretty brown eyes, before smiling a welcome with a mouth that looked like she’d just been kissed. I knew she hadn’t, since she claimed she was concentrating on her career, having recently been promoted to Detective Sergeant for going ‘above and beyond’ in the Tower of London Abduction case. Mary had gone undercover as my doppelgänger in an attempt to break the case, which was how we’d met.
She waved at my new outfit. ‘Nice. Not your usual colour, but it looks good.’
‘Thanks.’ I twitched at the lilac jacket’s hem. ‘Colour’s a bit impractical.’
‘It’d never survive a go-round with the gremlins,’ she agreed, laughing, then grimaced. ‘Oh, and talking about surviving, you missed last week’s poker game.’
The ToLA case was also how Mary had met my flatmates, Sylvia and Ricou. During the follow-up investigation, we’d all become poker pals and friends. Though I’d been wondering recently if ‘friends’ was all Mary was interested in. Not with me, but with the pregnant pair.
I grinned. ‘Sylvia fleeced you again, didn’t she?’
‘Yep.’
‘You shouldn’t let Ricou deal.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ A smile flitted across Mary’s face as she lifted the crime tape for me to duck under. ‘But they’re so cute together when she catches him cheating.’
Cute?Sylvia could do cute, but Ricou? He looked like a stunt double for The Creature from the Black Lagoon, all blue scales, bony fins and sharp claws. Unless he was wearing one of his many Glamour spells.
Looked like my wonderings about Mary’s interests were on the right track. I prodded. ‘So, which of his Johnny Depp Glamours was Ricou sporting last night, then?’
‘Oh, the gypsy one from Chocolat.’ A hint of a blush coloured her cheeks as she headed off at a fast clip, calling over her shoulder, ‘Come on, the DI’s this way.’
Hmm, the gypsy wasn’t one of Sylvia’s favourites but Ricou wouldn’t have worn it without her agreement. Seemed Mary’s interest in being more than friends with the pair might be reciprocated. Not that it was any of my business, nor did I have an issue with it . . . so long as everyone was aware and happy . . . Unless Mary’s attraction was to do with the leaking Fertility pendant? Something to check out. Later.
I hurried to keep up as we crunched along the slightly rough path and crossed over a small wooden bridge spanning an overgrown ditch. I scanned round, looking, checking out the area for any magical clues. But unlike my trip through the zoo and the few floating strands of wild magic I’d seen, there was nothing here at all. Which made me wonder exactly why Hugh had called me.
We reached the big cat exhibit just as Hugh strode through the entrance, almost bumping into us.
‘There you are, Genny!’ Relief rumbled through his voice as he stopped me with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
At just under seven foot, Hugh’s short for a mountain troll, but I’m five four (short for a fae). Not wanting to be talking to the overhang of his chin, I stepped back and looked up.
He’d had his hair cut since I’d last seen him, a week ago, and the inch-high, straight-up black fuzz only just covered his headridge. (Unlike most trolls, Hugh isn’t bald; but then he once told me he’s got a smidge of human blood in him from way back.) The shorter hair somehow deepened the fine fissures lining his ruddy-coloured face, or maybe it was all the extra responsibility he’d taken on since the disappearance of his old boss, Detective Inspector Helen Crane.
DI Witch-bitch Helen Crane was my nemesis in more ways than one: she was the ex of the satyr I’d promised myself not to think about; had a real downer on me because I was sidhe; and she was the one who’d stolen (as a teenager) the sapphire pendant trapping the fae’s fertility. I’d taken it back from her during the ToLA case. She hated me; the feeling was mutual. But I’d felt vindicated in my loathing when she’d proved to be dirty. Her disappearance was good news, sort of, as while I’d rather she paid for her crimes I was still ecstatic she was out of my life for good.
And with the Witch-bitch gone, Hugh had been made up, sort of, and was now (acting) Detective Inspector. Personally, I thought he should have got his full stripe or whatever it was, but he was a troll. Trolls might have been coppers since Robert Peeler started the Met back in the early eighteen hundreds, but it was only recently (after the Indigenous Alien Equality Act) that they’d been given the opportunity to move up out of the grunt ranks.
‘We’ve got three people missing, believed abducted,’ Hugh rumbled quietly, after we’d dispensed with the usual brief pleasantries.
‘Three?’ I frowned. ‘You said two on the phone; a woman and her son?’
‘Initially we weren’t sure about the third.’ Hugh pulled his notebook from the pocket of his sharply pressed white shirt. Hugh and neatness have always gone together like a goblin and his bling, but since his (sort of) promotion, he’d adopted a whole new level of smartness. He flipped a couple of pages: ‘The woman is Mrs Bandevi Jangali, aged thirty-seven; her son, Dakkhin Jangali, is aged six. Mrs Jangali is an environmental activist.’ He glanced down at me. ‘She’s here taking part in a conservation conference about tigers. Both Mrs Jangali and her son were having a private tour before the conference started. The third person is Mr Jonathan Weir, aged twenty-nine; he’s the publicity director for the zoo, and was escorting them.’
My heart went out to the woman, her kid and the zoo guy, and I prayed whoever had taken them was treating them okay. Or at least as ‘okay’ as the situation allowed. I’d learned enough from Hugh to know that the first hour was the most dangerous for any kidnap victim. The kidnappers would be high on nerves and adrenalin, and if things went pear-shaped, they were likely to cut their losses – a not-so-cheerful euphemism for cutting their victims’ throats, or the equivalent.
The question that jumped into my mind was, ‘Why pick here to snatch her? I’d get it if she was working in a country where the situation is volatile, but this is London.’
Hugh bared his pink granite teeth in a grimace. ‘Mrs Jangali is also the wife of the ambassador from Bangladesh: Mr Balinder Bannerjee.’
The diplomatic limos in the car park fell into place. Only– ‘Surely, she and the kid weren’t taking the tour on their own? Didn’t they have any security with them?’
Hugh nodded. ‘They were accompanied by their personal bodyguards. Two males. They weren’t harmed.’
‘So they’re suspects?’
‘It is possible they could be involved in some way,’ Hugh agreed. ‘Especially given Mrs Jangali’s connections and the professional way the abduction was implemented. We’re not looking at something random here. The victims were targeted.’
