Lost

15

The Professor lives in Primrose Hill, at the poor end of a leafy street where every house is worth seven figures and every car is covered in bird shit. The perverse symmetry appeals to me.

Joe answers the door on the second ring, dressed in corduroy trousers and an open-neck shirt.

“You look awful.”

“Tell me about it! People keep wanting to shoot me.”

Julianne appears behind him, looking like a woman plucked off a film poster. High cheekbones, blue eyes, perfect skin . . . In a soft voice, she announces, “You look terrible.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

She kisses me on the cheek and I follow her down the hall toward the kitchen. A toddler sits in a high chair, holding a spoon. Pureed apple is stuck to her cheeks and forehead. Charlie, aged eleven, is home from school and in charge of feeding.

“I'm sorry,” I whisper to Julianne, suddenly embarrassed to barge in. “I didn't realize . . . you're all here.”

“Yes, we have children remember?”

Joe wants to ask me what happened but he holds off for the sake of Charlie, who has a fascination with police stories—the more gruesome the better.

“Have you arrested anyone today?” she asks me.

“Why? Have you done something wrong?”

She looks horrified. “No!”

“Keep it that way.”

Julianne hands me coffee. She notices my missing finger. “I guess it's official then—you're not the marrying kind.”

Charlie is equally fascinated, leaning closer to examine the blunt stump where pink skin has puckered at the join.

“What happened?”

“I ate a hamburger too quickly.”

“That's gross.”

“I didn't taste a thing.”

Julianne admonishes me. “Shush, you'll give her nightmares. Come on, Charlie, you have homework.”

“But it's Friday. You said you'd take me shopping for new boots.”

“We'll go tomorrow.”

Her spirits soar. “Can I get heels?”

“Only if they're this high.” She holds her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

“Sick.”

Charlie lifts the baby onto her hip, dips her head and tosses the bangs out of her eyes. Christ she looks like her mother!

Joe suggests we go to his study. I follow him up the stairs into a small room, overlooking the garden. A desk takes up most of the available space, squeezed between bookshelves and a filing cabinet. To the right on the wall is a corkboard, covered in notes, postcards and family photographs.

This is Joe's bolt-hole. If I lived with three women I'd want one, too, although mine would come with a bar fridge and a TV.

Joe scoops files off a chair and tidies his desk. I get the impression he's not so organized anymore. Maybe it's the Parkinson's.

“You've stopped using the walking stick,” he observes.

“I broke it.”

“I can lend you another one.”

“That's OK. My leg is getting stronger.”

For the next hour we pick over the wreckage of my day. I tell him about Sir Douglas and the attack outside Kirsten's flat. His face gives nothing away. It's like a blank page on one of his notepads. He once told me about something called a Parkinson's mask. Maybe this is it.

Joe begins drawing lines on the pad. “I've been thinking about the ransom.”

“And what did you come up with?”

“There must have been an initial letter or an e-mail or a phone call. You mentioned DNA tests.”

“On strands of hair.”

“That first contact must have come as a tremendous shock. We have a dead girl, a man in prison for her murder, then suddenly a ransom demand arrives. What did you think?”

“I can't remember.”

“But you can imagine. You can put yourself in the same position. What are you going to think when the ransom letter arrives?”

“It's a hoax.”

“You've never been convinced of Howard's guilt.”

“It still smells like a hoax.”

“What would change your mind?”

“Proof of life.”

“The letter contains strands of hair.”

“I have it tested.”

“What else?”

“I have everything analyzed—the ink, the handwriting, the paper—”

“Who does that?”

“The Forensic Science Service.”

“But your boss refuses to believe you? He tells you to leave the case alone.”

“He's wrong!”

“Nobody believes the letter except you and the girl's mother. Why do you believe?”

“It can't just be the hair. I need more proof.”

“Like what?”

“A photograph or better still a video. And it has to include something time sensitive like the front page of a newspaper.”

“Anything else?”

“Blood or skin tissue—something that can't be three years old.”

“If there's no such proof, do you still go ahead with the ransom drop?”

“I don't know. It's too far-fetched.”

“Maybe you want to catch the hoaxers.”

“I wouldn't put Rachel in danger for that.”

“So you must believe it.”

“Yes.”

“None of your colleagues agree with you. Why?”

“Perhaps the proof of life isn't conclusive.”

Joe has turned his chair slightly away from me, so his gaze fixes me off center. Whenever I pause or falter, he finds a new question. It's like painting by numbers, working inward from the edges.

“Why would someone wait three years to post a ransom demand?”

“Maybe they didn't kidnap her for ransom—not at first.”

“Why kidnap her then?”

I'm struggling now. According to Rachel, until Mickey disappeared nobody in England knew that Aleksei was her father. Sir Douglas Carlyle obviously did, but if he kidnapped Mickey he's hardly likely to send a ransom demand.

“So someone else took Mickey and we go back to the same question: Why wait three years?” says Joe.

Again, I don't know the answer. I'm guessing. “Either they didn't have her or they wanted to keep her.”

“Why give her up now?”

I see where he's going now. The ransom makes no sense. What do I really imagine: that Mickey has been chained to a radiator for the past three years? It's not credible. She isn't sitting in a waiting room, rocking her legs beneath a chair, expecting to be rescued.

Joe is still talking. “There's another issue. If Mickey is still alive, we have to consider whether she wants to come home. Three years is a long time at the age of seven. She could have formed attachments, found a new family.”

“But she wrote a letter!”

“What letter?”

The realization is like a sharp gust of wind. I remember this! A postcard in a child's hand—written in capital letters! I can recite the text:

DEAR MUMMY,

I MISS YOU VERY MUCH AND I WANT TO COME HOME. I SAY MY PRAYERS EVERY NIGHT AND ASK FOR THE SAME THING. THEY SAY THEY WILL LET ME GO IF YOU SEND THEM SOMETHING. I THINK THEY WANT MONEY. I HAVE £25 AND SOME GOLD COINS IN MY MONEY BOX UNDER MY BED. PLEASE HURRY. I CAN SEE YOU AGAIN SOON BUT ONLY IF YOU DON'T CALL THE POLICE.

LOVE,

MICKEY

P.S. I HAVE BOTH MY FRONT TEETH NOW.

For a moment I feel like I might hug Joe. God, it's good to remember. It's better than morphine.

“What did you do with the postcard?” he asks.

“I had it analyzed.”

“Where?”

“A private lab.”

I can picture the postcard flattened under glass, being scanned by some sort of machine—a video spectral comparator. It can tell if any letters have been altered and what inks have been used.

“It looked like a child's handwriting.”

“You don't sound certain.”

“I'm not.”

I remember a handwriting expert explaining to me how most children tend to write “R”s with the extender coming down from the intersection of the vertical line and the loop. This didn't happen on the postcard. And children also draw the capital “E” with a center line the same length as the upper and lower lines. And they cross their capital “J”s, whereas adults drop the line.

But the main clue came from the lines. Children have difficulty writing on blank paper. They tend to slew their writing down to the lower right corner. And they have trouble judging how much space words will use so they run out of room on the right-hand margin.

The ransom letter was perfectly straight.

“So it wasn't written by a child?” asks Joe.

“No.”

My heart suddenly aches.

Joe tries to keep me focused. “What about the strands of hair?”

“There were six of them.”

“Any instructions for the ransom?”

“No.”

“So there must have been more letters . . . or phone calls.”

“That makes sense.”

Joe is still drawing on his pad, creating a spiral with a dark center. “The ransom packages were waterproof and designed to float. The orange plastic made them easier to see in the dark. Why were there four identical bundles?”

“I don't know. Maybe there were four kidnappers.”

“They could have divided the diamonds themselves.”

“You have a theory.”

“I think the packages had to fit into something . . . or float through something.”

“Like a drain.”

“Yes.”

I'm exhausted but exhilarated. It feels like my eyes have been partially opened and light is filtering inside.

“You can relax now,” he says. “You did very well.”

“I remembered the postcard.”

“Yes.”

“It mentioned Mickey's money box. It even gave a specific amount. Only someone very close to Mickey and Rachel would know something like that.”

“A verifiable detail.”

“It's not enough.”

“Give it time.”