The woman told viewers that police had not come up with any new leads, but the kidnapping of seven-year-old Kelly had moved forward with a computer image of the man seen leaving with her. She gave my height, build, and hair color.
There wasn't room to pour any more coffee or juice, and the tray was overflowing with food. But I didn't dare move. It felt as if every pair of eyes in the room was fixed on me. I put a bagel into the toaster and waited, drinking coffee, not looking up or around. I felt I was in a cocoon of silence, apart from the voice of the newscaster. I prayed for her to turn to a new subject. The bagel popped up. Shit. I put some spread on it. I knew people were looking at me; they had to be.
I'd run out of things to do. I took a deep breath, picked up my tray, and turned around. The noise of the room came back.
No one was looking. They were too busy eating, talking, and reading the papers.
Kelly was still asleep. Good. I put her food on the side and started to munch on my Cheerios. I switched the TV on, muted it, and flicked through the channels, looking for local news. There was nothing more about the situation on Hunting Bear Path.
I attacked the newspaper. We were famous well, sort of.
A small piece on page five. No pictures. A police spokesman was reported as saying that they were reluctant to come up with any theories until they had more concrete evidence, but yes, the murders were being treated as drug-related. Luther and his bunch would be pleased about that. Otherwise, there were no new leads. I wasn't the only one in the dark.
I had to try to cut all the conjecture from my mind because it was getting far too confusing. As the policeman said, without information it was pointless spending time and effort trying to think of different scenarios. I determined to focus all my effort into: one, protecting Kelly and myself; two, keeping the video on target to discover if there was a connection between PIRA and Kev's death; three, getting some money from Pat so I could arrange my return to the UK; and four, getting hold ofEuan for help in dealing with Simmonds, or, if I had nothing for him, to help me negotiate with him.
I looked over at Kelly. She was on her back with her arms out in a star shape, dreaming she was Katherine, the pink ranger. I felt sorry for her. She hadn't a clue what had happened to her family. Some poor bastard was going to have to tell her one day, and after that someone would have to look after her. I just hoped it was someone nice; maybe her grand parents, wherever they might be.
At least she was alive. Those boys must be sweating now.
They'd have to assume that Kelly had given me their descriptions and that she'd overheard what all the shouting was about. They had to be desperate to get their hands on us.
I started to wonder how I could get more information out of her but gave up on that one. I was no psychologist; if any thing, I was a candidate for seeing one.
I picked up a bike magazine and by the end had changed loyalties from Ducati to BMW. Then I read in a fishing magazinc how wonderful Lake Tahoe was for men with waders. I was lost in a whole new world of hook sizes and rod materials when all of a sudden there was a knock on the door.
No time to think. I pulled the Sig, checked chamber, and looked at Kelly. I thought: We both might be dead soon.
I put my hand over her mouth and gave her a shake. She woke up scared. I put my fingers to my mouth. It wasn't in a nice manner it was saying: "Shut the fuck up. Don't say a fucking thing."
I called out, "One minute, one minute!" I went through and turned the shower on, came back out, then went up to the door, sounding disorganized.
"Hello, who is it?"
A pause.
"Housekeeping."
I looked through the peephole and saw a woman, black, mid-fifties; she had a cleaning uniform on and a cart be hind her.
I couldn't see anything else, but then, if she had the police or Luther's boys on either side of her, they weren't going to be showing their faces.
I looked at her and tried to interpret what was going on from her eyes. They would soon tell me if there were ten policemen around the corner bristling with body armor and firepower.
I said, "It's OK, not today, thank you, we're sleeping."
I saw her look down and heard, "Sorry, sir, you didn't have your sign out."
"Oh, OK."
"Would you like some towels?"
"Hang on, I'm just coming out of the shower. I'll get some clothes on."
It would be natural to be wanting towels.
I put the weapon in my left hand, undid the lock, and opened the door just a fraction. The weapon was pointing through the door on the left side; if any fucker pushed her to get in, it would be the last thing he did.
I opened the door a little more, held it with my leg, and put my head in the gap. I smiled, "Ah, hiya," the gun pointing at her behind the door. I didn't put my hand out to get the towels; I didn't want someone grabbing it. I said, "I just need two big towels, that'll be fine and have you got some more shampoo?"
She gave me what I wanted. I said, "Thank you," and she smiled back. I closed the door.
Kelly was lying on the bed openmouthed, watching my every move.
I shrugged.
"Don't you just hate it when people do that?" She started laughing. So did I. "They nearly had us that time!" I said.
Her expression changed, and she slowly shook her head.
"I
know you won't ever let them get me."
It was 10:30: another twenty minutes to go before I went up and changed the tapes. I picked up the one we'd been watching the night before, slapped it back into the player, and rewound it for the next session.
This time I only had to smile at her and she jumped up and went to the door, ready to drop the latch.
"While I'm out I want you to take a shower. Will you do that?"
She shrugged.
"Whatever. I get all the good jobs."
I went upstairs to the roof.
The weather was still shitty.
There was still an hour to go before the noon call. We sat down together to watch the latest footage.
I said, "It's really important; we might see somebody we know. Then we can give the tape to Daddy and he can find out who was shouting at him. Anybody you think you might know, like Melissa's dad or the man at the grocery store, or even the men who came to see Daddy, tell me and we can have a closer look, OK?"
I started to fast-forward, stopping the tape whenever there was traffic. I logged what they looked like: male, female, black, white, Asian; and what they were wearing: black on blue, red on blue.
The game wasn't as much fun for Kelly the second time around.
"What about him?" I enthused.
"No."
"That lady?"
"No."
"You sure you've never seen this man?"
"Never!"
At last she spotted somebody she knew. I rewound the tape.
"Who is he?"
"Mr. Mooner on Fox Kids."
"OK, I'll write that down."
Another guy started to walk up the stairs. I stopped the tape and rewound. I said, "Do you know him?"
She shook her head.
I said, "Well, I know somebody who looks exactly like him. A man I used to work with who could never remember where he left things, and one day we hid his false teeth and he had to eat soup all week!" She had a little laugh; it kept her going a bit longer.
At 11:45 we were still going through the tape and logging.
I stopped at two men who were going in together.
"Do you know either of them? Because I don't. I can't think of anybody who even looks like them." I was racking my brains trying to think of another story to keep her interested.
"No, I've never seen them before."
"Oh, all right then. Just a couple more, then we'll do some thing else." I started to fast-forward, saw a figure coming out of the building, rewound, and played it.