Lauriesat in his mother’s room, in a patch of pale winter sunlight.Itwas Tuesday afternoon on the fifth day after Clara’s disappearance.John Kucharski had told Laurie that in missing children cases, thiswas the critical time.Kids who’d wandered off by accident normallyturned up after three or so days, alive or dead.Kidnappers tendedto issue ransom demands before the fourth—long enough, Kucharskihad said, for the parents to build up a good head of terror.To beonly too willing to pay.
No onehad called in their price for his sister.Kucharski and the otherswere becoming puzzled and alarmed.Children not found or ransomedin five days tended never to be found at all.Kucharski had saidall this gently to Laurie, at the end of a conversation in whichLaurie, too, had set out his store of certainties.
Lauriewould walk the streets to find Clara.He would post leaflets,canvas half of London, set up a Web site to get to the other halfand the rest of the world.He would tell Interpol absolutelyeverything he knew about his whole family and acquaintance.But hewould not answer any further questions regarding Alexandru Petrica,because Alexandru—his Sasha—had nothing to do with this.Never had,never would, and if Kucharski wanted to pursue his inquiries aboutdrugs, weapons, and human trafficking, he would have to do it onhis own time and quit using Laurie as some kind of human crowbar toget into his case.
Kucharski had not appeared offended by this declaration.Hehad looked at Laurie quite serenely and continued packing up hiscomputers and files.There was nothing further he could do at thehouse, he had said, and he gave Laurie his contact numbers and thedetails of the room in Scotland Yard from which the investigationwould now proceed.
Inanother conversation, concluded the night before, Laurie had toldhis father that his game of cat’s-paw was all over too.Laurieunderstood now.Sir William loved his children, but the falloutfrom that love was lethal.Indifference would have been better—oroutright hate.His outraged love for Clara had given him the reasonhe craved to smash at the foreigners he so despised, to try andcrush the boy with whom Laurie had violated his sacred Englishwalls.To crush Laurie while he was at it—or those elements of hisson’s nature he could not bear.
Lauriehad told him all of this, and Sir William’s reaction had not beenas calm as Kucharski’s.Bruised and humiliated from his encounterwith Gunari as he was—deflated, too, by PC Foster’s assurance thateven the board of commissioners could not obstruct justice or dealout their own as they pleased, that he would in fact face chargesfor the death of Mama Luna—the old man still had strength to growland rage.
“You’re nothing without me, boy.I changed my will when Ifound out you were buggering your little rent boy.I don’t changeit back, you’re a pauper.”And Laurie, whoonce had feared poverty, had experienced nothing but a kind ofsoaring, transcendent relief.“You mightas well leave it.You don’t have a son anymore.”
Hismother stirred in the bed.Laurie, who was sitting on the end ofit, turned to look at her.She was of a piece with her delicatewhite bedclothes, barely disturbing their outline in her littlechiffon gown.He braced himself to talk to her.He had been doingso, between long hours on the streets, over the last three days.Normally it did not cost him too much.She seemed less grieved thandetached, on the run inside herself.
He couldeasily become the calm and supportive young man who was notinwardly dying himself of terror and grief.Who was not subject toflashing images of all the fates that could have befallen thelittle girl who had been more his than Sir William’s since the dayshe came home and he had fiercely assumed to himself the duties ofbrotherhood, knowing how much she would need them, loving on sightthe little creature mewling in her fancy, uncomfortablecradle.
Yes,Laurie could do it.It was just that, at present, he could notdecide if his feet or his heart were hurting him worse.He wasexhausted.He thought that every pillar, caryatid, and lamppost inMayfair now bore Clara’s image.And, when not assailed by visionsof her discarded body, all he could think about was Birchwood campand firelit dark and everything he had ever wanted disappearinglike a ghost into the night.Sasha, whom he’d betrayed and wouldnever see again.
Did notdeserve to see again, because even now, when the house becamequiet, his treacherous logical mind would insist on trying to clicktwo and two together: to place Sasha, innocent though passion’svoice declared him to be, somewhere on the scene of Clara’sdisappearance.Oh, against his will—coerced, at the end of hisfather’s long reach, but there, playing a part,involved…
LadyFitzroy moaned and fell back into drug-assisted sleep.Laurie letgo a shuddering breath and buried his head in his hands.Areprieve, then, for half an hour or so.He should probably stretchout on the striped satin sofa and try to get some sleep.He hadmade it, after all, to one of the East Hill rehearsals, whichJacobs had put off until the evening to give him a chance.Therewould be another tonight.
Laurieknew he had to go, all other possible duties discharged here.Hehad been given this week, out of trust and generosity, but afterthat—well, after that Laurie was nothing more or less than a manwith a job, who had to hold that job down, like untold millions ofothers, no matter what crises were erupting around him.Half anhour would give him time to stretch out and cry for his losses,pick up his sanity afterward, and go out to work.
But theplace in him where tears came from was hot and dry.Everything hehad cried for in his life—everything, he knew, including thishorror over Clara—burned to ashes in the face of losing Sash.Therewere no tears for it.He could not even feel his way around itsedges.He knew that, when he had time to take it in, it wouldconsume him.
Thebedside phone rang.Two tones: an outside line.Laurie made a divefor it.Gibson was on the alert downstairs to intercept calls, butshe was moving slowly these days, grief putting years on her,dragging her down.He snatched the receiver and answered quietly,hoping his mother might still sleep through.He was expecting—what?John Kucharski, with news of the investigation?Clara’s abductor atlast, with a ransom demand?
Insteadit was his father’s secretary.Laurie knew her well.A nice woman,patient and efficient.Laurie listened for a few seconds.Unusually, he was having trouble understanding her.Her normallycrisp Cambridge accent was broken up, choppy.“Ruth,” he said, assoftly as he could.“What on earth’s the matter?”
“Laurie.I’m so sorry, dear…to tell you like this—”
Hervoice dissolved once more.Slowly Laurie understood she was crying.He eased the receiver under his chin and looked out through the bigsash window of his mother’s room.It opened onto the little squarethat lay behind the house.In summer it was leafy and pleasant.Even now, on what Laurie belatedly worked out must be ChristmasEve, the branches of the trees made elegant patterns on the sky.Hewatched them, sitting on the edge of the bed, running a hand intohis hair.It was possible, he supposed, that news concerning Clarahad gone to his father in the office.That the old man had been—oh,Christ—too distraught to speak to him, had got Ruth tocall.
“Sorry.To…to tell me what?”
“Your father.It was a massive heart attack.They need next ofkin at the hospital straightaway, or I’d have come around and… Oh,God, Laurie.He was dead before the ambulance got here.He justwent down.”
Laurie watched the trees.Their infinite fractal branchingsseemed a message to him now, one he could interpret if he just letgo.The bigger they come, the harder theyfall.Drifting from his flesh, Laurielistened to himself take over and conclude the telephone call.Hewas sensible and calm.He got the information he needed—the name ofthe hospital—and he reassured poor Ruth that calling him had beenokay, that yes, she’d had to call.Yes, he was all right.He’d tellhis mother.He would go as soon as he could to the RoyalHospital.
He wouldtell his mother.Gently Laurie set the receiver down.Yes, he’dtell his mother that, out of her family of four, only two of themwere left.That—impossibly; Laurie did not believe it himself—SirWilliam was dead.He turned very slowly on the bed.He’d have towake her first.
No.She was wide-awake already.Shewas bolt upright against the headboard, knees drawn up, clutchingthe fine lacy coverlet in both hands.Laurie, who had not seen orfelt her move, stared at her.For once, she held and returned theeye contact.She said, “Laurie.What’s happened?”
He toldher.Somehow it was possible, while she was looking at him likethat.It had been easy for Laurie to forget his mother was anadult.She had, over the years, abdicated more and more adultresponsibilities, turning over to Gibson and Laurie the care of herdaughter, becoming daily more like the porcelain French doll sheresembled, tiny and exquisite and dead.She slept in her own roomat the far end of the house from her husband’s.Sir William,presumably, discharged his sexual appetites elsewhere.Laurie couldnot tell what had now caused her to emerge from her cloud ofsedation and gaze at him like this.As if she had remembered shewas his mother.
She putout a frail hand, weighted down by its diamonds, and took his.“Oh,my Laurence.What an awful thing for you to have had to break tome.”
“It’s all right, Ma.Are…are you all right?”
“Yes.He’s dead, then?Quite dead?It’s certain?”
Laurieshook his head, bemused.The dreadful thing was that he wanted tolaugh.He said unsteadily, “It…sounds that way, yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”Lady Fitzroy clasped together her hands in aCatholic gesture of absolute devotion.“Que le bon Dieu soit remercié.Thankyou, thank you, God.”
Pityshook Laurie.How she must have hated him!All those endless daysand nights alone with him, in a marriage that had turned into alife sentence around her.She was rocking herself a little to therhythm of her prayers.He reached out.“Sorry,” he whispered.“I’mso sorry.I didn’t know.”
