To Snatch a Thief

CHAPTER FIFTEEN



‘The curtain finally comes down for good tonight on Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, now in its 138th year, with a gala performance at St. Martin’s Theatre, London. The occasion will be marked by the return appearance of Xavier Pitt who has taken the lead role in no less than four hundred and thirty two performances of the record breaking show, making the role of Detective Sergeant Trotter his own. A sparkling celebrity guest list, including stars of stage and screen and prominent public figures, will be attending the show plus after-performance party ensuring the night will be one to remember. Ah, I believe that’s the President’s car arriving now. Yes, it is, and as they step out onto the red carpet, we see the president’s wife looking charming in an emerald Avoca Gamone ensemble…’

Skye, comfortable in baggy track pants and the faded tee-shirt she habitually slept in, scooped a spoon into the carton of chocolate chip ice cream she’d found in the fridge section of the dispenser, swung one leg over the arm of the chair she was lounging in, and watched the screen through narrowed eyes. She’d been hearing the chitchat all day at work: rumours, gossip. Hell, the guys in Forensics had opened a book. Odds were shortening fast. Apparently nobody’d had anything better to do, once Sergeant Newman let it slip that Hunter would be attending the event, than to speculate on who would be hanging on his arm. Not that she cared one way or the other, Skye told herself, but as the screen was on she might as well watch it. See who’d done their money if nothing else.

Down the short passageway she could hear Lexie’s soft snoring and the rustle of bedclothes as he tossed in his sleep. She sucked the spoon, turning it over in her mouth as she studied the police cordon around the theatre trying to see if she recognised any of the uniforms holding back the crowds. The camera switched to an inside view of the seating; panned across the glittering audience.

The spoon slipped out of her fingers, bounced once and spread a sticky trail of melting ice cream on the carpet. And because her stomach felt suddenly too full, Skye put the carton on the table without taking her eyes off the screen. The camera had stopped at the flower-decked centre curve of the front circle where the President and his wife were just settling into their seats. Enthralled, Skye watched the leader of the nation lean over to kiss the cheek of the dazzling woman already seated on his left. Dressed in a stunning, off the shoulder, midnight-blue dress with tear-drop diamonds dripping from her ears and more tiny jewels scattered like stars through her coiffed hair, Narelle acknowledged her brother and sister-in-law with a faint smile, then turned her attention to her suave male companion. Hunter’s face stayed emotionless as he bent his head to hear whatever Narelle whispered in his ear. Black suited him, Skye decided, her eyes drinking in the scene. From the well-cut jacket and black silk shirt, to the sweep of tightly braided black hair, Hunter looked like a sleek, muscled cat – a panther, aloof, beautiful, dangerous.

‘Guess that settles it.’ Skye muttered to the empty room, and was relieved when the camera moved on. ‘Screen off.’

‘Skye.’

She jumped, her head whipping around at the unexpected sound. ‘Lexie, what are you doing out of bed?’

‘There’s a monster under the bed.’ Tears glimmered in his heavy-lidded eyes.

Sighing, Skye took his hand and led him back to his room. ‘I bet you can scare it away with your Astral Deadshot Blaster. If you keep it under your pillow, all the monsters will know it’s there and not risk you blasting them into a zillion trillion pieces.’

‘You cross with me?’ Lexie stuffed the toy laser gun Skye handed him under his pillow, then snuggled under the covers.

‘Cross? No, why should I be?’ She smoothed his tousled hair back from his forehead, then bent to kiss it.

‘Your face looks grumpy.’

‘Does it?’ Yeah she guessed it probably did. Mentally adding a star-spangled evening at the theatre to her lengthening wish list, her thoughts flitted briefly to Hunter, then were dismissed as she laughed at herself. ‘I’m fine. Go back to sleep. And how about, on Saturday, we go to the park and feed the ducks?’

‘Can we have soy-dogs?’

‘Yeah, why not. We’ll eat soy-dogs ‘till we’re sick.’

Barefoot, she sat on the edge of the bed guarding her brother from monsters until his sleepy eyes closed.

All in all, Skye thought, ducks were pretty neat operators. All they had to do was bob around looking cute, make honking sounds and wait for the stupid humans crowding the water’s edge, to throw more food than a whole bunch of them could eat in any one sitting. They must have antifreeze in their feet too, she concluded, blowing on her cupped hands as a cold wind ruffled her hair. For a moment she stared at the water wondering what it would feel like to drown. As the water closed over your face, as you struggled to prevent water pouring into your lungs… Irritated with herself, she shook off the image. Today she wasn’t going to worry about anything. Nevertheless, she kept a weather eye on the nearest bystanders grouped around the small pond which held the People’s Martyr statue in its centre, and tightened her hold on Lexie’s shoulder.

‘Make this one last, Lex,’ she advised, noting it was the last slice in her bag. ‘Tear it into little pieces.’ She handed him the bread, glad they’d made the effort to come. There were plenty of others enjoying the fresh air: dog walkers – poop scoopers at the ready; father’s kicking footballs with their sons; red-faced joggers in the rainbow-coloured skin suits which unfortunately, in Skye’s opinion, seemed to be all the rage this winter; families with pushchairs; vagrants hogging benches before the park patrol booted them out for the night, and a pair of baggy-jeaned blade boarders, pushing their luck with the park attendants by riding fast through a public place.

An elderly couple, strolling under the bare trees arm-in-arm, had her shaking her head. Would people never learn? The woman’s open bag, slung carelessly over her shoulder, would be an easy mark for nimble fingers. She watched, suspicious, as the blade boarders made a second, closer pass.

She’d noted the soy-dog stall by the main gates. Knowing bribery was the only way she’d get her brother away from the ducks without a fight, Skye played her trump card. ‘Fancy a soy-dog, Lex?’ And his face lit up.

Hand in hand they joined the meandering crowds, walking away from the water towards the smell of frying onions. Ahead was a family – mother, two older kids and a baby strapped on the father’s back in a harness. Cute, Skye thought, admiring the baby’s tiny fur boots shaped like paws. She was about to point them out to Lexie when the father suddenly shouted. ‘Hey, watch it!’ and the family parted like the Red Sea as the blade boarders shot through the middle of them.

One took Skye down, slamming into her so hard she had no time to think before the back of her head hit the concrete path with an audible crack, and all the lights went out.

There were voices and a persistent drumming in her ears. She tried to speak but her tongue seemed to get in the way. ‘L-L-L…’ Lights flashed behind her eyes. ‘Lexie? I-Is he hurt?’

‘Lie still, love. Help’s on its way.’

Her vision cleared enough to find a sea of faces staring down at her. Cursing the restraining hands, she shoved them aside, rolled onto her knees, wincing as a vicious pain stabbed her side, and stared around. ‘Where is he? Where’s my brother?’

A park attendant pushed through the crowd. ‘I’m a First Aider. Don’t try to get up.’

‘I don’t need a … Get off me!’ She couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see Lexie anywhere. Oh, God! Head and ribs screaming, Skye staggered to her feet.

‘I really don’t think you should…’

The attendant’s face blurred then came back into focus. Skye grabbed him by the lapels. Icy darts of fear numbing the worst of the pain. ‘Look, you stupid little man…’ She swayed into him as his features went fuzzy. ‘They took him.’ Her voice hitched. ‘Those frigging boarders took my Lexie.’

She set off like a greyhound out of a chute, barging through anyone who got in her way. Fighting to pull air into her lungs, Skye bore down on the pain in her head and side; swallowed the rising dread that she’d be too late, and forced her legs to run. She had to clear her head. They wouldn’t risk hurting him in a public place. They’d have to get him outside. There may still be time.

Swerving off the path, she took to the grass, dodging around trees and ignored the shouts of annoyance as she cannoned through a group of kids playing ball.

In the distance she saw the thicker crowd milling around the soy-dog stall; beyond it the main gates. Blotchy shapes floated in front of her eyes now. She blinked, refocussed and saw the tail-end of a board disappear around the massive trunk of an oak twenty metres ahead.

Running on pure adrenaline, Skye ate up the ground. The oak’s rough bark scraped her forearm as she grabbed hold of the trunk; swung around it, then skidded to a halt in a flurry of dead, wet, leaves.

‘You took your time. But then, you did go a real purler. Sorry ‘bout that.’ With his board under one arm, the skinny teenage boy lounged against the tree, smirking. He blew a large purple bubble and let it pop before sucking it back into his mouth.

He never got the chance to blow another. Skye rammed her elbow against his windpipe, pushed her knee into his groin and got in his face. ‘Tell me where he is, you slimy pile of shit, or you won’t be walking out of here under your own steam!’ Ignoring the shocked mutterings of pedestrians as they hurried their children past, she curled her lip. ‘You got one second.’

‘Okay, okay! Don’t go mental. Ease up on the knee will ya.’ Skye’s vision wavered, but she saw the boy’s popping eyes water. She increased the pressure with her knee. ‘Jeeze! He’s okay, the kid’s okay. Larry’s got him over there.’ He flicked his eyes to another tree a few metres away. ‘We were told to give you a message, that’s all.’

Skye’s gut quivered. ‘What message? Who from?’

‘Just some geezer in a posh car. Don’t ask me what he looked like, ‘cos I dunno. Honest, I don’t - it had those tinted windows and he only opened it a crack. He told us what you looked like and gave us twenty globals to shake you up a bit. Said it was a custody thing with the kid.’

She eased back a fraction. ‘If you’re lying and he’s hurt in any way, you’ll wish you were dead.’

The minute she relaxed, he was on his board and winging it. A moment later the second youth flew out from behind the tree his mate had pointed to, and they were out the gates and gone.

‘Damn it!’ The blotches were back. Don’t pass out, now. In a stumbling run she reached the oak, then her heart kick-started when she saw her brother sitting alone on a commemorative bench clasping his red woolly hat in his lap. Eyes lowered under the mass of unruly curls, he was studying his shoes which were dangling six inches above the ground. His chin trembled when she fell to her knees at his feet, and she watched those beautiful eyes swim. The next minute he flung himself against her and, although it felt like a red hot poker had been shoved into her side, Skye’s arms closed around him like a vice.

‘Lex,’ she said at length. ‘I’m a bit bashed up.’ An understatement seeing as a pneumatic drill was hammering the inside of her head. ‘I need a doctor. We’ll get a taxi. I want you to hold on to me and you’re not to let go whatever happens. Okay?’

Lexie studied her with his eyebrows drawn together. Drying tears stained his cheeks. He nodded. ‘Kay.’

When the taxi pulled into the curb outside the park gates, Skye flashed her trainee cadet ID card. ‘Police,’ she stated. ‘Ivy Street Charity Clinic. Make it fast.’