Sean Black: Lockdown

Richard swallowed hard. ‘Josh’s mother passed away three years ago. Cancer.’

Lock said nothing. This was a time for analysis, not platitudes. Josh’s mother being dead eliminated scenario one. Something like ninety-five per cent of child abductions were the result of some misguided power play by so-called adults.

‘Your au pair, Natalya, she Eastern European?’

‘Russian to be precise. St Petersburg, I think.’

‘How long’s she been with you?’

‘About four months or so. You don’t think. .?’

‘It’s possible. Take it from me, the part of the world Natalya’s from, kidnapping is right up there with alcoholism and wife beating when it comes to ways to pass the long winter nights, so I wouldn’t rule it out. The good news is the Russian Mafia doesn’t believe in killing their victims. It tends to damage repeat business.’

‘There’s no way Natalya would be involved.’

‘There never is. Until it happens.’

‘Josh adored her, and it was mutual.’

‘You’re not going to like me for asking you this, but. .’

The way Richard almost flinched, Lock could tell he knew what was coming.

‘I wasn’t fooling around with Natalya. That’s what you were going to ask me, right?’

‘Listen, no one’s going to judge you if you were. Specially not with your wife having passed away.’

‘The FBI asked me the same thing.’

That caused Lock to raise his hand, palm facing Richard. ‘If the FBI are involved, why are you so keen to talk to me? Why not leave it to them?’ It was the question that had been niggling away at him ever since he’d met Richard.

‘They’re getting nowhere fast. I’m prepared to deal with whoever I can.’ He paused.

‘If there’s something you need to say to me, spit it out.’

‘With Meg gone, Josh is all I have. I need someone who’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘And you thought that would be me?’

‘Yes.’

Lock got up.

‘Where are you going?’ Richard said, getting up too.

‘The FBI are the experts here,’ Lock said, hating himself for offering such a transparent platitude. ‘Let them do their job.’

Richard grabbed at the lapel of his jacket. Lock stared at his hand until he withdrew it.

‘I’m sorry for your loss. I truly am.’

‘You’re speaking like he’s dead already.’

Lock stayed silent.

‘So that’s it? The company won’t help me and neither will you?’

‘What did they say when you spoke to them?’

‘That I wasn’t their problem any more. Neither was Josh. Not quite in those words, but I could tell that’s what they meant.’

‘You want me to talk to them for you?’

Lock noticed Richard’s nails digging into his palms.

‘What I want is to find my son. I don’t care how it gets done.’

‘I can make a few phone calls for you. But beyond that I can’t go. I’m sorry.’

Richard’s face sank. ‘A few phone calls? That’s it? I come and ask for your help and you’ll make a few calls ?’

‘Listen, Dr Hulme, I work for Meditech — y’know, the people who don’t want to help you. What makes you think this is my job?’

Richard rubbed at his face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because risking your life to save that protestor in the wheelchair wasn’t your job either, I thought. .’

‘Like I said, I’m sorry.’

Richard’s hand trembled as he jabbed an index finger in Lock’s face. ‘You know how this’ll end, and so do I,’ he shouted, drawing looks from the smattering of patrons dotted around the place. Lock pulled him to the door. ‘My son’s going to be sacrificed to those lunatics and all you and Meditech can do is feed me some corporate bullshit.’

Lock dropped his voice to a whisper, hoping that what he was about to say might calm Richard sufficiently that his comments about Meditech were restricted to people in a four-block radius rather than the entire five boroughs. ‘If I thought I was the best person to help you, Dr Hulme, believe me I would. But the fact remains I’m not.’

Richard took a deep breath. ‘You found Greer Price.’

Lock puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly, his breath misting in the cold. Richard Hulme had obviously done some digging of his own. ‘Haven’t heard that name in a long time,’ he said.

Greer Price was a four-year-old who had gone missing in a supermarket adjacent to a British military base in Osnabruck, Germany. Despite the fact that there had been at least two dozen shoppers and store employees there at the time, and that Greer’s mother had turned her back for a matter of seconds, there had been no witnesses to the little girl’s disappearance. Lock was a rookie with the Royal Military Police and the trail had been stone cold a full year before he was given it. Richard was right, Lock had solved the case, but he’d never counted it as a career highlight.

‘Greer was dead by the time I found her.’

‘You still found her, though.’

‘For all the good it did.’

‘You brought someone to justice.’

‘I brought someone before the courts, where they were convicted and sentenced. Justice didn’t enter into it.’

For a second, Lock found himself back in the attic of a small insignificant house, owned by an apparently even more insignificant old man. A former accountant, given to ordering everything, even the unimaginable. Lock had spent two days in that attic, searching through box after box filled with clear plastic Ziploc bags. Each bag contained mementoes of an abused child, the bags marked in black ink with the date of their abuse. Greer had been discovered a few days later, buried in the back garden.

He suppressed a shudder at the thought of a place he never wished to revisit, not even in his mind’s eye, as Richard Hulme stood there waiting for an answer.

‘OK,’ Lock said finally. ‘Finish your story. Maybe I’ll catch something that the FBI missed. But if I don’t, will you leave me alone?’

Richard nodded.

They left the bar and walked to Richard’s car, a late-model Volvo station wagon. The windows fogged as the heater worked overtime to keep them from freezing.

‘So you get home, and no one’s there.’

‘Yeah. I tried to reach Natalya on her cell but it must have been switched off.’

Lock made a mental note. The only way for a cell phone not to be traced was for it to be completely off, otherwise the authorities could triangulate its position from the masts in the area.

‘Go on.’

‘I thought maybe Natalya had forgotten her phone. I didn’t like intruding on her privacy, but under the circumstances. . So I searched her room, gave it an extra hour, then called the police. They called in the FBI.’

Lock knew this was standard procedure in these cases, when someone of what the Feds euphemistically called ‘tender years’, meaning a minor aged twelve or under, went missing. Over twelve and there had to be some suggestion of the person crossing state lines before they’d step in.

‘Last time they were seen?’

‘A few of the other au pairs at the party said they saw Natalya pick him up. They got into a car, and that was it.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘A grey Lincoln town car.’

‘That usually how Natalya and Josh got around?’

‘Natalya has the number of a town car service I have an account with in case the weather’s really bad during the school run.’ Richard sighed and rubbed at his eyes. ‘But they had no record of Natalya requesting a car in the past week.’

‘Did the FBI talk to their drivers?’

‘At length. They were all accounted for when Josh went missing.’

‘But he was definitely seen getting into the car with Natalya?’

‘That’s right.’