“The auction house people. I don’t know how exactly...”
“How can you be sure it is the same necklace?” the inspector asked.
“I am sure,” the boy said.
“It does appear to be the same necklace the woman is wearing in this photograph,” Billie said, handing the small, creased image to the inspector.
“Where did you get this?”
“It belongs to the boy,” was all Billie said, looking away, not happy to answer questions about its acquisition.
The inspector narrowed his eyes but said nothing to her. For now. “I’d like to keep this, thank you,” he said to the Browns, and they nodded their assent.
“I looked up the auction house and contacted them to find out where they got it,” Adin said, his memory becoming clearer, the words now tumbling out. “The owner wouldn’t speak with me, andthey wouldn’t let me in the place. But I had to talk with him. Everyone knows Georges Boucher frequents The Dancers, so I tried to talk to him there. I figured I could walk straight up to him and confront him. Then he’dhaveto listen to me.”
“And did you speak with him?” the inspector asked.
“No.” Adin frowned. “I was thrown out before I could, and then before I knew it someone had grabbed me.”
“Were there any witnesses to this?” Cooper asked.
“No,” he said. Then he pulled his brows further together. “Actually, one of the doormen. I’d spoken to him earlier. He saw what happened, I think.”
Con Zervos. He saw the boy abducted.
“You were alone when this happened? Not with friends?” the inspector asked, noting everything down.
The boy nodded.
“I thought it was the doormen at first. It’s a high-class place. But then they were playing real rough. I think I... I think I blacked out. I was taken somewhere, and...” His breathing sped up, the blood draining from his face. “They...” Billie noticed his hands begin to shake.
“Take it easy, kid. You’re all right now,” the inspector said. “Just breathe. That’s it...” Slowly, the boy calmed and his chest began to move again at a more normal rate. “Would you recognize any of the people who attacked you?”
“Oh yes... I would, I think. They didn’t hide from me at all. They...” He trailed off again, sweat appearing suddenly on his pale brow where the bandages did not cover him. He balled his hands into fists, and pressed them to his temples. He cried out, startling Billie and the others in the room.
In no time the door opened and a nurse appeared, the constable looking over her shoulder from outside. The cry had been heard. “That’s enough for now,” the woman said, pushing Adin gently back down into his bed. “You must rest.”
The nurse ushered all of them out of the room, even Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and as they assembled in the hallway outside, the inspector protested.
“The patient must rest. You’ve got your orders and I’ve got mine. That is enough for one day.” Even in the face of Cooper’s authority, the steely nurse wouldn’t back down.
Billie walked away from the small room in a near trance, head swirling with thoughts, barely aware of the inspector trailing behind her. She could see it clearly now—the boy beaten nearly to death, then doused with alcohol and left for dead on the train tracks. An accident, end of story. The train would explain the injuries sustained by his beatings—if there had been much of a body left to examine at all.
They let him see them, Billie thought. They expected it wouldn’t matter, because they expected him to be dead.
Twenty-eight
It was nearing five o’clockwhen Billie made it back to her roadster and put the top up against a gale that had begun in the late afternoon, a summer wind whipping up from the valley. In the far distance a smoky haze rose into the sky, silhouetting Katoomba in ombré tones from blue to charcoal. A faint scent of cinders carried across the miles. Hot, windy days were a bushfire hazard in these parts. It was perhaps too much to hope for rain, she decided, noticing the clouds were white and moving fast across an otherwise blue sky. The grass beside the road was dry, waiting to ignite. Things had moved so fast the day before, she’d barely noticed.
Detective Inspector Cooper crossed the road, having finished his discussions with the hospital staff, and she noted the length of his stride and his military bearing. His motorcar was parked just behind hers and he joined her, helping her fasten the roadster’s roof.
“Thank you for assisting with our inquiries,” the inspector said, speaking first. He slid his hands into his trench coat pockets.
It had been a long but profitable day for his active investigation and her closed one, puzzle pieces coming together thanks to the boy’s gradual recovery and efforts to recall what had happened to him. The auction house had not been a red herring, after all. But where had he been taken? To what end and by whom? Moretti himself? It was clear Adin’s captors had not expected him to live, and it was a stroke of luck that hikers saw him before he perished of his wounds or exposure. The inscrutable inspector knew more than he was telling her, Billie was sure of it, and she watched him with a mind to unlocking that invisible wall of his, the wall that seemed to come up at the slightest nudge.
“I think I’ll have some refreshments before the long drive back,” she said casually, holding her tilt hat against the rising summer wind. “Would you care to join me, Inspector?”
He took a step forward, as if he might lean past her and open her door for her, perhaps, or, she thought fleetingly, kiss her. She didn’t move. They locked eyes, she tilting her head up slightly to match his gaze. Billie’s green-blue eyes were steady, his hazel eyes warm and liquid for a moment, then unreadable again.
