Inger Wolfe - The Taken

“You starting to think he’s tied to a chair in his own basement?”

“Can’t rule it out,” said Hazel. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of guy a lot of people would miss.”

“Well, the mannequin came up on Friday,” said Wingate, “which means whoever put that video on the net had it ready to go from that point, and that’s the day Eldwin went to Toronto.”

“Hmm,” said Hazel. “Where’s the loose thread here, Wingate? What about Jellinek? Do we know where he is?”

“We can find out.” He opened his notebook and flipped a couple of pages, then picked up the phone on her desk and dialled. “Is this Cal Jellinek?” He listened for a moment, then cupped the phone. “Do you want me to ask him if he’s currently being held in a basement and/or being threatened with a knife?”

“Ask him if Pat Barlow is there.”

Wingate did, and then passed Hazel the phone when she gestured for it. “Ms. Barlow?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know where that mannequin was?”

Wingate creased his eyes at her. “What?” said Barlow.

“You must have known exactly where it was if you drove your customers right to it.”

“Jesus Christ! Are you kidding me?”

“Well?”

“It’s bad enough the lake is full of fry this year, Detective Inspector. You really think I make up for bad fishing with jokes?”

“So you just happened upon that thing.”

There was a pause. “I had no idea what was down there,” Barlow said slowly. “I’m not lying.”

“If you were, that’s what you’d say anyway.”

“If you want to arrest me for something, do it,” said Barlow angrily. “But if you just want to blow smoke up my ass, leave a message next time.” She slammed the phone down and Hazel pulled her head back smartly. Wingate was looking at her with an unimpressed look on his face.

“It was worth a try,” she said.

“Was it?”

“Look, something has to give here! Someone is waving their hand in front of our face: hey! look here, look here! But what are we supposed to be doing?”

“What can we do?” he asked. “We can’t inspect every basement in the county.”

“It would be better than sitting on our rear ends.”

“I’m frustrated too,” he said.

She held up the last folder she’d been reading. “I’m starting to think I’ve got a better chance of clearing the Darjeeling Caper than making heads or tails of what turned up in Gannon Lake. Maybe there’s a next move, but I don’t know what it is. All I can think of is Eldwin now. You keep on his wife and try to nail down where her husband is.”

“Will do,” said Wingate.

She closed the files that were in front of her and pushed them to him across the desk. “I’m done with these.”

Wingate was about to leave the paperwork when there was a knock at the door, and Cartwright pushed it open partway. “Busy?”

“I was just leaving,” said Wingate, and he slipped past her in the doorway. Cartwright came in with a coffee and a giant chocolate muffin, both of which she put down on Hazel’s desk.

“Early birthday present,” she said.

Wingate bent back into the doorway. “Your birthday?”

“Thursday,” said Hazel. “I’m going to be thirty-nine again.” He looked blankly at her. No one had got her Jack Benny joke in ten years. It was sad how things kept changing.

She was aware of the shadows of her personnel sliding by in the frosted window in the door, but for almost an hour, no one had disturbed her. She watched numbly the endless attack on the unknown victim unspooling on her laptop. It was like a song she couldn’t get out of her head, a song without lyrics, although the more she watched the sequence, the more she became aware of the dreadful music in it. The Percocet she’d taken before leaving the house had peaked and was wearing off: it made the footage seem more raw to her, it hurt more to watch it, and she thought of the other pill, the one wrapped in tinfoil, in her pants pocket, which she wasn’t going to touch unless she really needed it. She’d taken the morning pill as a precaution, although if she were being entirely honest with herself she’d admit she’d taken it because she wanted to. In general, she could feel various aches reasserting themselves at various times, but the truth was she was beginning to feel certain that she could get through the day on her own. She could keep the bottle of pills – and the one in her pocket – as a promise of comfort if she needed it. Needed it, she told herself.

She got out a scrap of paper from a drawer and wrote down in point form some of the things she thought she should bring up with Willan tomorrow morning. She’d try at first to focus on what they were actually doing in Port Dundas before he trotted out his ratios and his per-capitas. She wanted him to hear what they were dealing with, especially now, and how important the police department was in the community. Willan was going to use the word catchment and talk about efficiencies. He was going to tell her Port Dundas would take on the mantle of county HQ, and she’d be in charge of more people than she was now: it was going to be a challenge and he knew she could rise to it. And when she told him it would mean lost jobs and fewer services and maybe not being able to solve crimes like the one they were working on right now , he was going to shrug and tell her redistribution of employees would amount to a couple of lucrative early retirements, a couple of redeployments, no one was getting fired, and all they’d have to do after the rearranging would be to stay on top of their game… just like they are now! She’d never met this man – apart from the letter that had been sent around to her beat cops, she didn’t know a thing about him – and already she didn’t like him.

She let Melanie bring her a late lunch of a club sandwich and a Diet Coke, and stayed at her desk writing out facts and figures as they pertained to Port Dundas. While she wrote, she kept the laptop screen tilted discreetly away so as not to be distracted by it. But she saw the loop repeat and repeat in the corner of her eye.

She saw their detachment’s case clearly, but she knew he’d only hear her trying to save their own bacon. What did OPSC know about Westmuir? When did those clowns ever leave their desks and come and see the policing realities up here? Anything north of Central was a pin on one of their maps, a line on a graph. She hoped she wouldn’t be reduced to shouting.

Melanie knocked again about half an hour later, and Hazel didn’t look up from her notes, just told her she was done lunch and thanks, but Melanie was standing in the doorway. “What is it?”

“Surprise!” she said.

Hazel put down her pen. Cartwright was holding up a large box wrapped in bright paper. It seemed half the detachment was standing in the hallway behind her. “Come on, now,” said Hazel. “You guys are too much.”

Cartwright pushed the door fully open and came in to put the box down on her desk. Windemere, Bail, Wilton, Wingate, and Forbes followed her in with big grins on their faces. It was one of those department-store wrapping jobs: hospital corners, ribbon, and a rosette. “This better not be another cellphone,” she said, and they all laughed. She turned it around. “You all tossed five bucks into a hat, but you couldn’t manage a card?”

Cartwright turned on the officers and gave them an exasperated look. “You guys raised by wolves, or what?” “Hey, don’t look at me,” said Forbes.

“Never mind,” said Hazel, and she began to tear at the paper. Within was a child’s toy, a game called Mouse Trap. Everyone laughed and clapped, and someone said it was a very clever gift. Hazel remembered the game from Martha’s childhood: you won by building a Rube Goldberg machine that dropped a plastic net on top of a mouse. She looked up grinning at the officers. “Absolutely fitting,” she said. “Whose idea was this?”