As Sam finished his champagne, Billie pulled out the small photograph she’d pinched from the boy’s pocket. She’d almost forgotten she’d taken it. At a glance she’d thought it was an old image, a family portrait of some description, and on examination both impressions proved correct, the hairstyles indicating it had been taken in the late twenties or early thirties. The print was bent but still clear enough. It showed two adults—presumably a husband and wife—and three children, ranging in age from about one to eight. Every one of them, save the man, wore fur, in the form of either a stole or a small coat. This was of interest, naturally, but more startling was a shape on the woman’s chest. She stood looking impassively at the lens, backed by a portrait photographer’s drapery, wearing a dark dress with a corsageand an extraordinary necklace. It had a most distinctive shape—like a bat’s wings.
“Oh hell,” Billie exclaimed.
“Pardon? Billie, what is it?”
She sighed. “I’ve had a nice little celebration here, and you sure deserved a celebratory drink, but I think, well, I think I want to stick around,” she said, looking over her shoulder for the waiter. “I’ll drop you to a train, if you like.”
Her assistant looked aghast. “What are you talking about?” he replied.
“I’m really sorry. I’d drive you back, but I can’t afford the time. The train journey is quite pleasant, I’m told. I will make it up to you, Sam.”
“Stop right there,” he insisted. “What are you doing?”
“I played it safe at the hospital,” she told him. “But now Mrs. Brown knows we’ve found her son and is coming up with her husband, and, well, before too long word could get out that the boy is alive. I worry that... Well, I’ve been tailed, but I was tailed near their shop and I can’t be sure if it was me being followed or them...”Or both now.What if the parents were being watched? Or their phone was tapped? It took resources to do that, but it could be done for a price. Could what the boy was up to be so important? The stakes that high? She thought of the red marks on his wrists. He couldn’t have done that to himself, and it certainly wasn’t from some bar fight.
She pushed the photograph across the table. “And then there’s this portrait. See? It’s the necklace.” She took a deep breath. “I think this is the photograph that was missing from their office and I think the boy took it because he recognized that the necklace this woman is wearing was to be offered at the auction. If he was wrongand it was a coincidence, he’d have been thrown out on his ear, told he was mad and a troublemaker. But if he was right...”
Sam looked down at the image. “You think someone might still come for the boy,” he said.
“Look what happened to him,” she said. “Yes... I do think it’s possible.”
Twenty-three
The Veuve Clicquot had welland truly worn off as Billie parked outside the hospital in Katoomba, having driven there with some speed. Sam had hung on in the passenger seat uncomplainingly, having refused to return to Sydney and leave her to face potential danger alone.
By the time she sprang out of the roadster, Billie was feeling even more uneasy than when they’d departed the Hydro Majestic. She told herself the feeling could be illogical. Today had been a success. Her informed gamble about Adin Brown’s whereabouts, thanks to her conversation with Mr. Benny at the morgue, had paid off. She had found him alive, if not quite well, and that was not yet three hours ago. She should enjoy the success of another puzzle solved, another closed case. But the little woman in her stomach was not happy. There was an unmistakable cold dread there. The photograph, the auction, the doorman, the thugs. Those red marks on the boy’s wrists. It could be that she was conflating separate elements here, but the end result was fear for the boy, and she couldn’t shake it.
She hurried to the hospital building with Sam at her heels.
“I’m back,” she announced at the reception desk, slightly breathless and forcing a smile. The same helpful nurse was on duty. “My client is on her way,” Billie offered by way of explanation. “She should be here any moment, probably with her husband. Their name is Brown.”
The nurse looked confused. “Some friends of Mr. Brown arrived just a minute ago,” she said.
Either Nettie Brown drove a lot faster than Billie had imagined, or something else was going on. Her heart sped up. “Can we see him again now please?” she declared more than asked, and even as she said it she was running to the men’s ward where Adin Brown was laid up, the nurse striding quickly after her, clearly sensing something was wrong. Sam kept pace, and she saw his hand linger near his jacket, where his long-barreled revolver waited. He, too, knew what was at stake.
The scene in the ward as they entered was one of confusion. Adin Brown was not in his bed. He was on the hospital floor, or at least Billie thought that was him, as she could only see a blur of moving legs and arms. A man was crouched over the thrashing limbs. A patient several beds down began screaming. Others were staring and still others appeared sedated beyond consciousness, oblivious to the excitement. Billie felt eyes on her and looked up from the struggle on the floor to see one of the weedy thugs who had helped her tear her nice stocking in the alley behind the Georges Boucher Auction House.The same bloody thugs are here.Billie cursed in a decidedly improper manner and lunged toward the figure on the floor, who was still kicking out, fighting for life. The man crouched over Adin, for Billie could now see it was him, looked up and rolled away from theboy, then leaped to his feet. With his accomplice, he made for the door at the other end of the ward, hitting the nurse and nearly knocking her over in his rush to escape.
Adin was coughing and spluttering on the ward floor, his pillow next to him. They’d tried to smother him, Billie realized, and knew with certainty the men had not been sent as a warning; they’d been there to kill. There’d been no messing around. They’d outrun even the boy’s parents. Adin was out of breath but otherwise seemed to be relatively unscathed, and without delay Billie took off after the men, pushing past the nurse, who was calling for help.
“He needs medical attention!” Billie shouted, catching the woman’s wide eyes as she tore past. “And call the police!”
Sam was already ahead of her, pursuing the men and pulling the long-barreled revolver from his jacket.
“Call the police!” Billie shouted again as she ran toward the main entry doors, streaking past the administration desk.
Sam drew his gun as he reached the hospital entry and she heard two shots, coming from somewhere out of sight. Billie was hoping to get these two alive but was feeling rapidly less stuck on the idea. There was another shot, and Sam pulled himself back against the brick wall, part of which exploded with a small puff of white dust. He aimed his revolver and steadied it over his gloved hand. He pulled the trigger once, twice, the resulting noise so much louder than seemed possible. There was a cry as a shot made contact with one of the men. Billie, now beside Sam, saw the taller one grab at his leg, then continue across the street, dragging his injured limb. Still, he was moving. He was getting away.
“Careful!” Sam urged, and put an arm out as if to warn the hospital staff away from the under-fire main doors. Further shots wereexchanged, and then the firing halted as the men concentrated on their escape by car. The second man zigzagged across the road and the two threw themselves into a battered tan-and-brown two-door Oldsmobile Sloper coupe that looked like it had seen better days. The engine was loud but uneven and the car’s tapered backside gave the impression of a scared brown dog running away with its tail tucked between its legs. Billie broke away from the protection of the hospital entry and ran full tilt toward her roadster, not for one moment accepting that these two could slip from her grasp. Sam bounded forward on his long limbs and was by her side as she flung open her door.
“Let’s go,” she said a little breathlessly, and he was seated in a flash.
Billie fancied that she saw Mr. and Mrs. Brown talking beside their car, not far from the hospital, oblivious to what was happening, as she threw the roadster into gear, the engine coming to life with a roar. The mad timing of it all! The road curved like the trap of a sink drain between the hospital and the highway, and she confidently pointed the car along the curves with speed. They were only a few lengths behind the Oldsmobile, and she noticed with some pleasure the surprising amount of traffic traveling down the mountain ahead. Automobiles were backed up bumper to bumper, presumably as the result of a prang below, or a flood of traffic let out of the level crossing up the hill, and Billie thought,I have them, yes,before blinking as the tan-and-brown car failed to stop and instead careened across the two lanes of waiting vehicles, clipping the front of a passenger bus and resulting in much pantomimed rage by the occupants of the waiting cars. Horns honked. Bumper bars crunched. Bus passengers stared.What do they think they’re doing?Billie wondered for aninstant, but of course she knew. She knew they would do anything to escape and knew she had a chase on her hands as the driver took the Oldsmobile straight over the divider to the other side of the road and with a screech and a change of gears began roaring up the mountain.
“Hang on, Sam,” Billie said, a thrill in her veins. The traffic farther down the mountain had started to flow again, she could see, but automobiles on the nearest side of the road had not yet shifted, their outraged drivers too busy rubbernecking at the errant vehicle. Without hesitation, she took advantage of the brief opportunity to dart though the narrow path in the Oldsmobile’s wake, setting off another round of shouting she could barely hear above the roadster’s engine and the honking of horns. She made it through the gap expertly, not even scratching a corner of her beautiful motorcar, and soon the low divider went under them like a rock, and the black roadster was narrowly missed by speeding cars coming up the other side. Billie turned sharply with a deft spin of the wheel and joined the flow of traffic going up the mountain. She felt the stares—including Sam’s—but did not acknowledge them. She had other things to focus on. Billie shifted gears, put the pedal down, and set to catching up with the men who had made the grave mistake of first ripping her stocking in a crude alley brawl and now attempting to hurt—no, kill—her client’s injured son while he lay helpless in a hospital bed. For these men, evidently no bar was set too low, and this was an error in judgment they would keenly regret if Billie had anything to do with it.
Sam, evidently not as thrown by events as she had thought, had the presence of mind to reach into the glove box and pull out Billie’s leather driving gloves for her, which she managed to wriggle herhands into one at a time, not once taking her eyes off their target. Yes, she would need them.
“Good thinking, Sam,” she said, and used both hands again to weave around a bus full of schoolchildren, the leather providing an excellent grip on the wheel.
