Darkwalker

CHAPTER 10

Lenoir was still stewing when they arrived in Berryvine. He could not afford to let his anger get in the way of the investigation, however, so when Kody cleared his throat uncertainly, Lenoir said, “Speak, Sergeant.”

“Will we be checking in with the constabulary, sir?”

“Naturally. Crears might have information we need. Why—is there a problem?”

“No, sir, of course not. I only ask because we don’t usually involve the constables.”

“And why should we? Most of them are incompetent fools. Crears is different.”

“I have nothing but respect for Constable Crears, sir,” Kody said stiffly.

“As well you should. He is the best officer I have ever worked with, present company included.”

Kody held his tongue.

They found Crears just outside his office, apparently organizing a search party. There were about twenty people gathered, most of them wearing uniforms. The constable was handing out maps and giving instructions. When he spotted Lenoir, he paused as though slightly taken aback. Then he cocked his head toward the hitching post in a gesture that said, I’ll be with you in a minute.

Crears was a small man with flaming red hair and keen blue eyes. He had aged since Lenoir had seen him last; gray had started to overtake his beard, and his face was lined and worn. But he remained fit as ever, striding toward them with the lively gait of a man half his age.

“Inspector,” he said, shaking Lenoir’s hand. He and Kody exchanged handshakes as well, Crears seeming almost as a child next to the burly sergeant.

“Surprised to see you two. Wouldn’t have thought a case like this would earn a visit from the Metropolitan Police. Not yet, anyway.”

Not until the child turned up dead, was what he meant.

“Normally not, perhaps,” admitted Lenoir, “but there are two boys missing in this village, it would seem.” When Crears raised his eyebrows, Lenoir said, “Another boy was taken from the poor district of Kennian last night, an orphan called Zach.”

The astonishment on Kody’s face brought Lenoir’s anger to a boil again, but he put a lid on it. “According to the coachman I questioned this morning, Zach was brought here last night, in a green and gold carriage. Has anyone mentioned it?”

Crears shook his head. “But I haven’t been asking. Maybe someone saw a carriage like that. I can have some watchmen ask around if you like.”

“If you can spare the men.” Lenoir glanced around at the small crowd. “And it seems as though you can. How many watchmen do you have working for you?”

“A little less than fifty.”

Kody whistled softly, impressed. “How do you afford it?”

“They’re volunteers, mostly, although they get a small stipend. Trained them myself. Semiprofessional, I guess you’d call it.”

Innovative, Lenoir thought approvingly. But he would not have expected any less from Crears; it was that sort of creativity and good sense that had landed him the plum constabulary in the Five Villages. Crears would have made inspector if he had stayed in Kennian, but he preferred Berryvine. Lenoir did not blame him. Berryvine was the second largest of the Five Villages, and like Kennian, it was a “village” by tradition only, having long since outgrown the name. Berryvine was a proper town, and out here, Crears was lord of his own fief. If he acquitted himself well, he could be chief of the Metropolitan Police one day—if he wanted it. Lenoir was not sure he would.

“In any case,” said Lenoir, “it is worth looking into the carriage. We can assume that both boys were taken by the same person, so whatever helps me to find Zach should also turn up your boy.”

Crears looked over his shoulder and waved, summoning a wiry youth, who came trotting over. The constable said something quiet to him, and the young man nodded and loped off again. Then Crears said, “I questioned the boy’s parents yesterday, but since you’re here, Inspector, maybe you’d like to have a go as well. Good chance of turning up something I missed.”

Lenoir and Kody followed Crears across town to a row of handsome stone town houses just off the main street. The buildings were neat and orderly, each one built right up against the next such that there was no space between them. Stone steps led up from street level to wrought-iron fringed landings in front of elaborately carved doors.

“Granne is a merchant,” Crears told them. “Dyes, mainly, from the berry farms. He trades them for all kinds of things—cloth, cattle, coin. He does well, as you can see. I assume his boy is being held for ransom.”

“A reasonable assumption,” said Lenoir, “but in this case I am doubtful.”

“Oh?” The constable’s clear blue eyes searched Lenoir as he gestured toward a set of stone steps.

“Whoever took Zach obviously was not interested in money, since the boy has no family.”

“And you’re sure it’s the same person who took the Granne boy?”

“It would seem a strange coincidence, particularly since the boys are the same age.”

“Zach is nine?” Kody cut in excitedly. “I knew it!” When Crears looked at him quizzically, Kody added, “Someone has been stealing the corpses of nine-year-old boys. I haven’t—that is, we haven’t—been able to figure out why. And now this.”

They had reached the doorstep of the town house, for which Lenoir was eminently grateful. He could not decide what was worse—that the sergeant had every reason to gloat, or that he was not doing so.

A girl of about fifteen answered the door. At the sight of Crears, her expression lit up with hope. “Did you find him, sir? Did you find our Mik?”

Her face fell as Crears shook his head. “Not yet. But we will.”

The girl ushered them inside and bade them sit, then went to fetch her father. The three officers sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts, until Granne returned with his daughter and his wife.

“This is Inspector Lenoir and Sergeant Kody of the Metropolitan Police,” said Crears. “I wanted them to talk to you, see if they could turn up anything I didn’t.” Lenoir noticed that Crears did not mention what brought them to Berryvine. He supposed the constable did not want word to spread that they might have a serial offender on their hands. Besides, these people would not want to hear that their son was not Lenoir’s only concern.

“Constable Crears tells me your son disappeared two days ago,” said Lenoir, “sometime in the afternoon.” Granne only nodded mutely, so Lenoir continued. “When was the last time you saw him?”

It was the mother who answered. “At the midday meal. He went out to play after. Said he was going to find his friend Bean.” She smiled wanly, her hands twisting unconsciously in her lap. “That’s not his real name—Bean—but Mika has always called him that. I don’t suppose I know what his real name is, actually. . . .” She trailed off, her gaze dropping to the floor.

“The friend didn’t see him,” Crears put in quietly. “Says Mika never showed up.”

“No one saw him come out of the house?” Lenoir asked. Crears shook his head.

Kody cleared his throat discreetly. Lenoir gave him leave with a wave of his hand, and Kody asked, “Did Mika ever mention feeling like he was being watched? Or maybe you noticed someone hanging around the house?” Again, heads shook.

This was not going anywhere. Lenoir rose, his fellow officers following suit. “Thank you for your time, and I am very sorry for your troubles. We will do our best to find your son.”

Outside, Crears asked, “What next, Inspector?”

Lenoir gazed down the length of the street. They were in the merchant district near the heart of the town, yet still very close to where the farmlands began. This unusual layout owed to the particular history of Berryvine, which, as its name suggested, revolved entirely around berry farming. No one wanted his business too far away from his customers, and thus, in spite of its size and prosperity, the town of Berryvine was built more or less in a long, straight line, several miles north to south, but less than two miles east to west.

“Where does the friend live?” Lenoir asked Crears.

“Bean? That way.” The constable pointed west down the length of the street. It ended only a few hundred paces away, emptying into a nearby field.

“So the boy would presumably have been taken somewhere en route.”

“If he was taken at all,” Crears said. “It’s possible he just ran away.”

“No,” said Lenoir firmly, starting up the street. “He was taken.”

They made their way toward the field in silence. Lenoir scanned the rows of town houses as they went, searching for an alleyway or some other hidden route by which a kidnapped boy might be secreted away without being seen by passersby. It was a quiet street; only the muted trill of pigeons accompanied their footsteps. From behind them the fading babble of the main avenue sounded like a distant creek. Ahead, a wagon trail ran perpendicular to the street, and beyond it the field opened out before them, revealing the long, ordered rows of a raspberry farm.

“Does this wagon road run the length of town?” Lenoir asked.

“More or less,” said Crears. They had reached the edge of the field now, and they turned their backs to the rows of raspberry bushes. The breeze sweeping across the field was cold on the back of Lenoir’s neck; winter was coming.

“And the gardens of this last row of houses overlook the length of it?”

“They do.”

Lenoir knelt, scrutinizing the wagon road. The grass grew long between the wheel ruts, and the earth was packed hard where the weight of the fruit-laden wagons came to bear. Lenoir despaired of finding any trace of what he was looking for, but then he got lucky. As he moved a little southward along the road, he spied a scar on the edge of one of the wagon ruts, as though a horse crossing over the road had tripped when its hoof failed to clear the hump of grass between the deep ruts. Lenoir tried to suppress the flutter in his stomach. It was too early to get excited. Far too early . . .

Crears had seen it now too. He turned ninety degrees to his right, following the line of the hoof marks toward the field. Sure enough, there was evidence here too, even more plain than the track on the road. The spaces between the raspberry rows were only just wide enough to permit a man to comfortably pick the fruit. A horse could pass through, but not without damaging the bushes. The trail could not have been more obvious: the dark soil was littered with sprigs of heart-shaped raspberry leaves, some trodden beneath the crescent moon of a horseshoe.

“But wait,” Kody said as Crears and Lenoir started into the field. “How do we know this is our kidnapper? That could be anyone’s trail!”

Lenoir bit back a harsh reply. He did not have time to explain every little thing to Kody, and anyway, was it not obvious? But he could not afford to alienate the sergeant any more today. He needed Kody to be sharp, not brooding after yet another row. So instead he answered, as patiently as possible, “It could be someone else’s trail, yes. But probably not. Think about it, Sergeant. You are a kidnapper. You have just seized a child in broad daylight, in his own neighborhood where everyone knows him. Now you must make your escape. Where do you go? The street has no alleyways, no hidden routes to take between the town houses. You can either go east, back to the main avenue full of people, or west, out to the fields. Of course you go west, and now you are on the wagon road. Do you take it, in full view of every back garden on the west side of town? Or do you take the boy into the fields where no one can see you?”

“Folks around here don’t take kindly to people riding through the berry fields,” Crears added. “More than likely this is our man. But even if it isn’t, we’ll still be headed in the right direction.”

They moved single file through the canyon of foliage, their footsteps muted by the closeness of their surroundings. It was the ideal getaway route, Lenoir realized. The bushes were thriving here, growing so densely that very little light filtered between the leaves. And they were high, almost to the top of Lenoir’s head. They would not completely conceal a man on horseback, but if he hunched over, no one would be able to tell who he was or what he was carrying. He would not even have to stain his clothing, for the fruit had long since been picked.

Lenoir called ahead to Crears, “Do you know whose farm this is?”

“Can’t remember his name, but yeah, I know him. He’s got kids of his own. Can’t imagine he’d have anything to do with it.”

“How much land has he got?”

“Not that much. A couple of hides, maybe.”

“And then someone else’s land.”

“Right, and then it gets to—”

Crears stopped so suddenly that Lenoir walked into him. “What is it?” Kody called from behind.

Crears turned around, his expression set. “Let’s go back for the horses, Inspector. I know where we’re going.”