When he didn’t answer, I moved so I was standing directly over him.
“You were watching for Catherine; you knew she was coming that night, or, anyway, some night soon. You saw the killer put the man’s body into the water. Who put him there?”
“Nothing, I seeing nothing.”
“Did you help kill him? Is that why you’re hiding?”
“No and no and no, and now-oh, where is Catterine? Only she-” He broke off and looked at his knees again. “I am a girl, crying, hiding behind another girl, I am a baby and a girl.”
He lapsed into a mortified silence. I frowned, trying to force my tired brain into some useful line of questioning that would get him to tell me who he was-and what he had seen on Sunday. Finally, I went to the leather-topped desk to look at the books: one of them might be his, one of them might have his name in it. I needed more light than the moon provided. Hoping this wasn’t one of Geraldine Graham’s wakeful times, I switched on my headlamp and picked up the open book.
I had never seen anything as beautiful as the coral reef. It stretched away for miles and was soft to the touch, like velvet. Stupidly I forgot the dangers that lay all around as I watched the many bright-colored fishes swim through the red reef. Suddenly I felt a pain in my left leg so sharp I tried to scream, forgetting in my fear I was underwater. I took in a mouthful of water around my breathing tube. I looked down in terror. A giant clam had grabbed my leg!
I flipped to the title page. Eric Nielsen on the Great Barrier Reef, published in 1920. “Calvin Bayard, His Book,” was printed underneath the title in a child’s drunken hand. There were two other Eric Nielsen adventures, along with Treasure Island and an old Tom Swift. Catherine Bayard must have raided her grandfather’s library for books she thought might appeal to a boy trying to learn English.
The other books were in Arabic, along with an English-Arabic dictionary. I looked again at the boy, light dawning.
“You’re Benjamin Sadawi, aren’t you? Catherine is hiding you from the FBI.”
He jumped up in terror and started down the stairs, then came back and
snatched up one of the Arabic books from the desk. I seized his arm, but he broke free and tore pell-mell down the stairs. I followed closely but didn’t try to grab him-I didn’t want to hurtle us both down on our heads.
We landed in the great front hall. Two wings led behind us and Benjamin darted down one, only to find himself in a closet. When he turned back, I wrapped my arms around his torso. His heart was beating wildly. I dragged him back to the stairs and sat him down. He was still clutching the book he’d snatched from the desk upstairs.
“Listen to me, you young fool. I am not giving you to the FBI or the police. But I am going to take you away from this house. It isn’t safe here anymore, and it isn’t healthy, anyway: cold house, no heat, no company.”
He struggled in my arms. “You must not hold me, you woman.”
“True enough, I’m a woman. With zero interest in your body: I’m old enough to be your mother.”
A thought no less depressing for being true, but I took my arms from his shoulders. He edged away from me on the bottom step but didn’t try to run again.
Glass panels framing the great oak doors let in just enough light that I didn’t need my headlamp to see him, although I couldn’t make out the details of his expression. I also couldn’t see the different blocks in the tessellated marble floor, the one that had taken Italian workers eight months to install, but I knew the marble was there: it was bleeding cold through the soles of my running shoes.
“Come on.” I stood up. “We have a bit of a hike to my car, and then we’ll get you someplace where you can sleep and be warm and not worry about whether someone’s coming into the house.”
“You have the key for door?” he asked. “Alarm goes to police if you opening with no key.”
I switched on my lamp and knelt to inspect the lock. Another depressing truth: the alarm was set on both sides of the door. I couldn’t just open the door-I needed a key, and, of course, I didn’t have my picklocks with me. We could go up to the third floor and climb down the way I’d come up, but I didn’t want to do that if I didn’t absolutely have to-the body of a woman old enough to have a teenage son was not happy after a night of pond diving, wall climbing and stair chasing.
The house had at least two other entrances-the one on the back terrace that Catherine had been using, and one out through the kitchen. There was probably also a basement exit that might be easier to use.
“I’m going to explore the other doors. You wait here for me, okay?” When he didn’t respond, I put my hands on his shoulders-woman though I was. “Okay?”