Page 84 of King’s Ransom

The Grandmaster had evidently used this particular anaesthetic because he needed his victims to be immobile when he bound them and placed them in their precarious positions—dangling upside-down from elevators; attached to the exteriors of windows; seated inside helicopters.

But it seemed that he’d also wanted to wake up his victims so they could see their lethal predicaments.

To suffer.

By the third day, December 24th, things started to die down.

Other events began to seep into the news.

The world moved on.

I kept going to the hospital.

According to the nice nurse—her name, I’d discovered, was Narelle Wyvill and the doctor was Dr Brian Shepherd—Audrey was still in a coma but her vitals were stabilising and Dr Shepherd anticipated bringing her out of her coma in a few days.

After making sure I was okay with it, Heidi left the motel to stay with a friend in the West Village down by the Meatpacking District. She would stay there for Christmas and remain till New Year’s Eve.

‘If you need anything, little man, you just call me, you hear,’ she said.

I said I would.

Similarly, since there was nothing more he could do here, Bill decided to return to Houston to spend Christmas with his daughter and grandkids, and to manage our existing clients and cases back there.

The FBI didn’t provide a private jet to fly him home, so Bill flew Southwest back to Houston.

That afternoon, I received a phone call I wasn’t expecting.

It was Merritt Garrett.

‘Sam,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to check in on your lady. Is she okay?’

I told him Audrey’s prognosis.

‘Hey, listen,’ he added, ‘I’d hoped to call you earlier, but I’ve been run off my feet with all this media. At first, I said yes to a few interviews, but before I knew what was happening Hooper and the FBI organised a whole bunch more for me to do. I tried to mention you and the other detectives, but those interviewers, I mean, they just—’

‘It’s cool. I get it,’ I said.

And I did. The media loved the idea of the brave lone hero.

‘I’ve been there myself actually,’ I added.

‘Thanks for understanding,’ Garrett said. ‘I didn’t want you or the other detectives thinking I was out there trying to hog the credit like some kind of douchebag show pony.’

‘It’s all fine,’ I said. ‘And thanks for checking in on Audrey. I appreciate it.’

Later, I went out to get some lunch and found a second-hand bookstore where I bought a scuffed-up paperback of Hyperion by Dan Simmons for two bucks.

(As I mentioned earlier, I had a copy of it back home in Houston, but I hadn’t read it in a long time. It’s a very imaginative book—‘hard’ sci-fi—although in my opinion its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, is better. I figured if I was in for a lengthy wait, having something to read might help pass the time.)

I also went to a nearby Walmart.

I’d only brought my backpack with me when I’d rushed to New York from Houston on the 21st and I needed a change of clothes.

I bought some underwear, socks, jeans, a long-sleeve thermal t-shirt, a scarf and a grey fleece Patagonia jacket with a zippered chest pocket—into which my notebook fitted perfectly—and a slim pocket on the left shoulder for my pen.

(I loved those pockets, even if I didn’t think, fashion-wise, Darla would have approved of the jacket. But, hey, it was cold here and it was warmer than my brown Levi’s jacket and you only have so many choices at Walmart.)

24–25 December