“What’s that thing for?” she asked, looking at a strange metal object on the table. It seemed to have a lens in it – she wondered if it was something that could be used on a video camera.
He looked a bit perplexed for a moment, then, following her sightline, reached for a small black square that opened into a box with three sides. “This? It’s a loupe, you know? So many of the things I build have little parts.” He passed it to her, then gestured her to look behind where she sat, at the reel-to-reel. “For instance, do you think you could get these screws in or out without aid?”
The screws on the magnetic head assembly were almost as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen. She took the loupe from him and looked down into the machine. The screwheads seemed almost manageable through the magnifier. “I guess not.”
“Try it.” He passed her a screwdriver with the screw already magnetized to it. She held the loupe to her glasses and manoeuvred the screwdriver over the head assembly and put it in.
“It is easier.”
“Even with that thing, I feel like my eyeballs are going to start bleeding.”
Hazel nodded. It was hard to tell where things were going here. Bellocque was too friendly for it not to mean something, unless, of course, it meant nothing. What if he was just a nice guy? Policework inclined you to think about what people might be capable of, rather than what they’re actually doing. It was a good habit for work, but it failed you everywhere else. She couldn’t help but think of what happened in just about every cop flick she’d ever seen: there was always some nice-seeming guy with a hobby who turned out to be a lunatic. If Bellocque was a lunatic, she didn’t want it coming as a surprise. She laid the small screwdriver down on its side. “So,” she said, nonchalantly, “how did you manage to get Ms. Paritas to fish exactly where you wanted her to?”
“Ms. Paritas doesn’t do anything Ms. Paritas doesn’t want to do, trust me. Not only that, but she’s skilled at making it appear as if you’ve chosen to do something she wants you to do. But I like that about her.” He smiled at Hazel. “I like anyone who can think for herself.”
“I don’t think you heard my question.”
He leaned forward a little, his massive forearms on his thighs. “I’m sorry. I thought we were talking about relationships.”
“How is it that Ms. Paritas found that mannequin in ten metres of water, Mr. Bellocque? Someone must have known it was there.”
“Ah,” he said, and he leaned back. “Gil warned me you might ask some pointed questions. So, you want to know how, after hiding it there, I directed my girlfriend – or whatever you want to call her – to the exact spot and got her to fish it up, seemingly at random?”
“Sure. I’d be curious to know that.”
He tilted his head toward the ceiling, searching it with half-lidded eyes. Finally he looked at her again. “Psychokinesis?” When she didn’t respond to that, he said, “It might have been post-hypnotic suggestion. I lose track of all my nefarious plots.”
“Do you have a basement in this place?”
“You mean where I keep the bodies of my victims?”
“Mr. Bellocque -”
“Look,” he said, “if there’s something you really want to know, why don’t you just come out and ask it? I’ll answer anything you put to me honestly. Just stop trying to catch me out. I’ve nothing to hide.”
So this was it, she thought. Her last chance to establish a link between the people connected to this mannequin and the video of the captive man. But Bellocque wasn’t the man in those images, neither the man in the chair nor the man with the knife. But that might mean nothing. “Is there anyone else in this house?” she asked.
“Apart from us?”
“Apart from us.”
“No.”
“So, you’re not holding a man captive in your basement?”
He threw his head back and roared with laughter, but when he looked at her again, he could see she was serious. “Honestly?” he said.
“You told me to be direct.”
“All right then,” he said, and he stood. “Will you come with me, Detective?” He rummaged through the mess on his dining room table and found a flashlight, then gestured with it to the back of the room. There was an open doorway she hadn’t seen behind the bookcase; it led to a set of stairs that went down to a door. So there was a basement. He led the way, shaking the flashlight as he went to get it to function properly. Only a feeble beam came from it, and when he opened the door to the basement, it cast a small orangey glow. “Watch your step here,” he said, “it goes down again.”
“Can you turn on a light?” she asked. Normally she would have carried her Pelican, but she hadn’t worked a night shift in almost a year and it seemed pointless to carry the extra weight on her belt. Now she wished she had it. “I can’t see a thing.”
“The switch at the door doesn’t work. You have to pull the string,” he said. “It’s just a few steps this way. Careful, though.”
She went through the door, her hand on her metal baton. He went to the right, and she couldn’t see him, although she heard what she thought was the flashlight rattling again, and suddenly she felt scared. Then she felt him beside her, his hand brushing near her, and then she knew something was wrong, he wasn’t standing where he should have been, he was getting himself into position. She braced herself for the blow and tried to step away, but then he was behind her, reaching around her head, and she instinctively tucked her chin down. The light from his flashlight slid along the floor at her feet. “Bellocque -” she began to say, and there was a blinding flash; she covered her eyes with a forearm, stumbling away and falling backwards over something. She cried out as she struck the ground, a flare of pain shooting down into her leg.
He was standing over her, blocking the light now, his huge face in darkness, his eyes shining darkly as marble, and she pushed back along the floor, striking objects with her elbows and legs. In her mind’s eye, she saw the little backflipping man and his head popping off. He loomed down and said, “You find what you’re looking for?” and the light played over the surface of his teeth like sparks were coming from inside his mouth. She flicked the baton out in the air beside her to extend it, but before she could swing it, he had that arm tightly in his grip and he was pulling her up.
“Hey -” she shouted.
He brushed the dust off her arm. “You okay?” he said. “I told you to watch your step.”
She had the baton cocked, but she held it still. The bare bulb hanging from the ceiling was almost as bright as a headlight. She could see his face now, as friendly as it had been at his front door. “I’m fine,” she said, “I landed on something soft.”
“It has its benefits, doesn’t it?”
She blinked at him, breathing heavily, still unable to chase the feeling that she was in danger. But she wasn’t: her imagination had run away with her, and Bellocque was just standing there, his hands in his pockets. They were in the midst of the rich vein of garbage from which Bellocque had mined the main floor’s disorder. Bike wheels, boxes of equipment, reels of wire, flattened cardboard boxes, and many piles of vaguely related things, such as a pile of metal pipe and ductwork arranged into something like a tower. Her lower back was throbbing, but there was no pain in her leg. She’d been lucky.
“If you can find a man down here, I suppose he’ll be grateful to be freed from this chaos. I could probably build you a robot if you’re desperate, but maybe you’d better conduct your search first.”
“That’s fine,” she said, pushing the end of the baton against her knee to collapse it.
“I’m guessing now there’s more on your mind than a drowned mannequin.”
“You could say that.”
“Well, you have my attention. If there’s anything I can do to help, any other details from our afternoon on the lake that might help…”