3 of a Kind (7 page)

Darkus and Tilly looked to Uncle Bill who had turned a fiery red colour and unconsciously crumpled his homburg hat in his immense, squidgy hands. Darkus feared steam, or even cigar smoke, could erupt from the Scotsman’s ears at any moment.

‘What’s the name of the person she went on a date with?’ Darkus asked delicately.

‘I’m afraid that would be a breach of our client confidentiality rules. All our members’ personal details are kept safe and sound in the file room …’ She gestured through the wall in the direction of the corridor.

‘Why, tha’ ba’-heid – !’ Bill lurched to his feet, until Darkus and Tilly forceably pushed him into his seat again.

‘Calm down, Dad,’ counselled Darkus.

‘He’s very passionate …’ Tilly explained. ‘Ever since Mum passed away, things haven’t been easy for us.’

Darkus flinched at his stepsister’s commitment to the cover story: this small detail was so close to home that it must have cut her to the bone, but she didn’t show it a bit.

‘I see,’ said the matchmaker sympathetically.

‘Perhaps it would be better if Tracy and I stretched our legs?’ said Darkus. ‘Right, Pa?’

‘Aye,’ whimpered Bill, then pulled out a hankie and blew his nose with the force of a Category Five hurricane.

Moments later, Darkus and Tilly had exited the matchmaker’s office and were making their way up the corridor, in the direction of the file room. They smiled innocently at a young male assistant sitting at a computer, attempting to match lonely hearts’ profiles on his desktop.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked in an Eastern European accent.

‘We’re just giving Dad some space,’ replied Tilly.

‘Of course. The fridge is up the corridor if you want some snack.’

Tilly followed Darkus as he glanced at the doors to the kitchen and toilet, before arriving at an unmarked door with a mortice lock. Darkus slipped on his gloves and opened his set of lock picks, but Tilly simply pushed the door open, finding it unlocked. Darkus shrugged and followed her inside.

‘We’re in,’ Darkus spoke into a small flesh-coloured earpiece, wirelessly connected to his secure phone.

His father’s voice returned through the earpiece: ‘Good.’

The file room was extensive and well organised. Darkus and Tilly converged on the heavy metal filing cabinet marked ‘K’. Tilly reached out eagerly with her unprotected fingers, until Darkus stopped her with a gloved hand.

‘Prints,’ he whispered and slowly opened the drawer. She might have been a partner in the family business, but she still had a few things to learn.

Darkus and Tilly stood on tiptoe to peer inside. Darkus leafed through the files until he reached ‘Theo K’.

‘Bingo,’ he muttered, removing the file and confirming the image of the handsome, moustachioed man in the profile picture.

Darkus began speed-reading the contents while Tilly photographed them with her smartphone. Then Darkus stopped.

‘The suspect’s name is Theodore Kojak,’ he whispered into his earpiece.

‘What?’ Knightley crackled back.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Tilly.

‘It’s clearly an assumed name,’ Darkus explained. ‘Theodore Kojak is the name of a fictional TV detective
with a penchant for lollipops, made famous by the actor Telly Savalas.’

‘Correct.’ Knightley sounded even more concerned. ‘It’s
so
obviously an assumed name that it’s either the work of a complete amateur …’

‘Or it’s part of the game. A trap,’ concluded Tilly.

‘In which case, the Combination is alive and well,’ declared Knightley.

‘Even though Underwood is locked in a self-imposed hypnotic state in the secure ward of Broadmoor Hospital?’ argued Darkus.

‘Then perhaps there’s a new player in charge,’ his father replied.

Darkus and Tilly waved goodbye to the matchmaker, who handed Bill another wodge of tissues and gave him a hug before ushering him out of the lobby. Darkus hailed a black cab and Knightley’s Fairway taxi pulled straight up to collect them. Once inside, Knightley pressed the intercom to speak to them from the driver’s seat.

‘What’ve we got?’ His voice entered the cabin.

‘Mah heart feels like it’s been flushed right doon the cludgie,’ said Bill, wiping his nose.

Tilly didn’t look up from her smartphone. ‘I just ran a check on the suspect’s address. It doesn’t exist.’

‘So his name’s fake and his address is fake,’ moaned Knightley.

‘And so is his pose,’ said Darkus, examining the photo closely. ‘I don’t know how I could’ve missed this the first time – I must be getting long in the tooth. There’s something about this photograph, the warm lighting, the soft focus, the careful use of Photoshop, that makes me think he’s a professional.’

‘A professional what?’ asked Tilly.

‘A professional
actor
,’ replied Darkus. ‘This is a “headshot”, commonly used by actors for the procurement of work. Judging by the theatricality of his appearance, the absurdity of his assumed name – not to mention his moustache – I’d hazard a guess he’s a star of stage and perhaps the small screen. I refer of course to TV.’

‘Sound reasoning, Doc,’ said his father through the intercom.

‘Tilly, I suggest you compare that photo against every acting agency database in London,’ Darkus went on. ‘I suspect we’ll have our man sooner than you think. Only this time he’ll be auditioning for the role of kidnapper.’

Tilly nodded, quietly impressed, before continuing the search on her smartphone.

‘Chalk that one up to old-fashioned detective work,’ Darkus added.

‘We haven’t found her yet …’ she reminded him.

*

By noon, Tilly had a photo match for the suspect, whose real name was Humphrey Sturgess, a character actor from Kent who had appeared in a handful of TV detective dramas, and more recently played the villain in a local pantomime. The waxed walrus moustache was apparently his trademark.

By 1 p.m. the team had arrived to interview Sturgess’s representatives, Scene Stealers, a little known talent agency located on the top floor of a seedy tenement in London’s Soho district. Uncle Bill examined the tall staircase and decided his time was better served watching the car, and keeping an eye on the parade of colourful characters entering and leaving the building.

Reaching the cramped office at the summit of the building, Darkus wasted no breath on small talk. Regardless of who was behind this, the first forty-eight hours of any missing persons investigation were the most critical; and this missing person was someone very close to their hearts. ‘We believe your client, one Humphrey Sturgess, is a person of interest in a kidnapping,’ Darkus began.

The pasty, middle-aged man with a comb-over and a cheap blue suit (who was the managing director and sole employee of Scene Stealers) made no attempt to evade the question.

‘Ah, I thought it was all a bit too good to be true,’ the man admitted. ‘When it came to regular acting jobs, Humphrey couldn’t get arrested – if you’ll excuse the pun.’

‘Excused,’ said Darkus.

‘For a leading man, Humph didn’t have that
je ne sais quoi
. And then there was the moustache.’ The agent frowned and shook his head. ‘Anyway, a few weeks ago I got a call from a production company I’d never heard of, called Clorr Entertainment. They said they were looking for someone to play a part in a reality show. The job involved pretending to be a client on an internet dating site. Humphrey had to play a Pole. His accent was OK and he could turn on the charm, for a price. He had to play along, go on a date with a female contestant, and the film crew would all be there in secret – behind mirrors, in vans, that kind of thing. Then he was meant to woo the woman in question, and take her on a trip to America.’

‘America?’ Tilly snapped.

‘Yes, America,’ the man repeated.

Darkus looked to his father in surprise, then returned his steely gaze to the agent. ‘Proceed.’

‘Well, the company offered to pay for the flights, room and board, even a mid-sized rental car with comprehensive insurance. Now I’d call that star treatment. All
Humph had to do was make sure the contestant reached America in one piece. On top of the dough, they also promised him a big audition for the lead in a Hollywood movie, when he got there. As you can imagine, the whole thing was too good to turn down.’

Darkus cut in. ‘So I assume they were planning to fly to Los Angeles, California, home of the movie business?’

‘Exact-a-mundo. Funny thing was though – they were one-way flights, not returns.’ The agent shrugged, baffled.

The detectives looked at each other, more concerned than ever.

‘When were the flights booked for?’ demanded Knightley.

‘They would’ve departed from Heathrow yesterday afternoon,’ the man answered, re-combing his hair. ‘Around 3 p.m.’

Both Knightleys unconsciously checked their wristwatches in unison, calculating the relative time zones (British Summer Time vs Pacific Time), before looking up, equally perplexed.

‘That means they’ve already landed in the US,’ said Tilly, beating them to it.

‘We’ve lost them …’ Knightley groaned.

‘Not necessarily.’ Darkus drummed his fingers on the agent’s desk. ‘I need to see all correspondence between
you and Clorr Entertainment. I want numbers, emails, anything you’ve got. I warn you this is now an official police matter, and your reputation in the entertainment industry – which I fear is not stellar – is currently at stake.’

‘I’ll work with you any way I can,’ replied the agent. ‘And by the way, would either of you two youngsters be interested in doing commercials? I love your look. Especially the tweed.’

Events were moving rapidly and logic had to move at an equal pace. Darkus and Tilly had both been schooled in detective work by Knightley Senior: Darkus by reading his dad’s journals known as the Knowledge; Tilly with on-the-job training over the past several months. That schooling involved a variety of techniques, such as: always make a mental note of every person and/or object in a room, in case it becomes evidence; always sit at the back of any café, restaurant or place of business, in order to observe and cover all exits; always carry a magnifiying glass, a jeweller’s loupe, or a smartphone macro lens; and finally, and most significantly in this case –
always carry your passport
. Knightley Senior’s reasoning was that no matter where you are, you never know when immediate flight from the country, by plane, train or boat, might be necessary – or even vital – to a case. And besides, should some terrible accident (or worse) befall you, a
passport is the most reliable and widely accepted form of identification. For this reason, both Darkus and Tilly were in possession of their passports, as was Knightley. Uncle Bill, on the other hand, couldn’t remember where his was.

‘Ah think it’s in mah ski jacket, but I dinnae remember where ah put that,’ he complained from the back seat of the cab, sandwiched between Darkus and Tilly. ‘In any case, ah’ve booked ye three on the next flight tae Los Angeles departing at fifteen hundred hours on Virgin Atlantic. Yer tickets an’ travel papers are all arranged an’ ye’ll be fast-tracked through security, nae questions asked. Ah’ll follaw ye as soon as we get some background on this Clorr Entertainment and the results of the CCTV investigation. So far all we have is this …’ Bill looked like he’d bitten down on a lemon as he held up a tablet PC displaying Heathrow airport surveillance footage, time-stamped the previous day.

On the screen, Bogna could be seen wandering dreamily through airport security, escorted by the moustachioed Humphrey Sturgess. Both were dressed like holidaymakers: Sturgess in baggy harem trousers and Bogna in shorts, T-shirt and a large sun hat.

‘Looks like she might have been under the influence,’ observed Darkus.

‘The influence of what though …?’ said Tilly.

‘Alcohol or possibly a sleep agent,’ he replied.

Bill blew out his cheeks. ‘If ah get mah hands on that chanty wrassler …’

Knightley nodded soberly from the driver’s seat. ‘Try to remain calm, Bill. Look after Bessie for me.’

Darkus looked confused, until he realised his dad was referring to the car.

The black cab pulled up behind a row of taxis at the drop off area outside Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3. Darkus and Tilly stepped out with only a rucksack between them, and were immediately surrounded by travellers wheeling luggage and pushing heavy trolleys. Knightley handed the car keys to Uncle Bill who spontaneously grabbed his colleague in a crushing embrace.

‘Oh, Alan.’

‘We’ll find her,’ Knightley assured him. ‘You have my word.’

‘If anyone can, ye and Darkus can,’ Bill choked, then straightened up into a salute, fixing the homburg hat on to his head. He then pulled the two teenagers into his bulging midriff.

They said their goodbyes and Uncle Bill got behind the wheel of the cab, accidentally sounded the horn, activated the windscreen wipers, flicked on the orange
For Hire
sign, then screeched away from the kerb.

Darkus and Tilly followed Knightley as he strode through the automatic glass doors, then paused in front of the flashing departures board. Knightley’s ears seemed to lift and his eyes gazed off into the scatter of flight numbers. Darkus looked up at his father apprehensively.

‘You OK, Dad?’

‘I’m getting one of my feelings, Doc. The feeling that all is not right. Perhaps it’s part of the game …’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t look at the numbers for too long. You know what can happen …’ Darkus warned, remembering that his father could slip back into a narcoleptic trance given the slightest opportunity. Underwood’s hypnotic powers had left a lasting scar on his dad’s subconscious, but Darkus needed his father alert and responsive for this very personal and soon-to-be foreign investigation.

‘Alan?’ a female voice interrupted him. It was Miss Khan – Darkus and Tilly’s science teacher from Cranston School who now doubled as their technical adviser. She nodded respectfully, lowered her headscarf and flicked her jet-black ponytail over her shoulder. ‘I came as soon as I could.’

The Knightleys turned to Tilly, who shrugged. ‘I figured we’d need more than a few travel adapters on this job.’