Penumbra (36 page)

‘Tell me, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind my asking, how long have you been with the force?’

She smiled, pleased at the change of subject. ‘Almost eight years now. Most of the time working with street children. I was promoted to Homicide a few weeks ago.’

‘Homicide . . . Isn’t that Vishwanath’s department now?’

‘Do you know him?’

‘We’ve worked together in the past. I rate Vishwanath very highly, Lieutenant.’

‘I’m enjoying working with him.’

This time when she finished her coffee she placed a hand above the cup. ‘I’m afraid I must be getting on, Mr Klien. Thank you again.’

‘Not at all. I’ll show you out.’

He rose and escorted her from the lounge and into the hall. The door swung open automatically. He placed a hand on her elbow as she stepped through the door. ‘Good night, and take care, Sita.’

She stopped, her stomach lurching. She turned and stared at him. ‘What did you say?’

He was smiling, as if mystified. ‘I’m so sorry? It was Sita, wasn’t it? Or Rita?’

‘Rana,’ she murmured, ‘Rana Rao.’

‘Of course - Rana. Well, good night, Rana.’

He stepped back, still smiling, and the door swung shut after him.

Rana made her way slowly away from the house, trying to regain her composure. She had been sure, for a second, that his slip had been deliberate. He had intentionally said her old name, to see how she might react. But how was that possible? How might he know of her old identity? He was head of security at the port, though. Perhaps, when she ran away all those years ago, he had worked for her father? But how did he know now, having never met her, that she was the person once known as Sita Mackendrick? She told herself that she was being paranoid. There was a very simple explanation. He had misheard her name, as he claimed. He had made a genuine mistake, thought she had said Sita. It was a common enough name, after all.

She made her way to the main road and caught a taxi home.

Back at her apartment, she considered her meeting with Klien. After expecting so much to come from her investigations, she felt disappointed. At least, she told herself, there was the lead of the silver-haired man to follow up. She would tell Vishwanath, when she started her shift at twelve tomorrow, that her interviews had elicited descriptions of a silver-haired man in the vicinity of the murder scene last night.

She went to bed but could not sleep. She tried to work out how Klien might have recognised her, and known her true identity, after all those years.

At dawn she got up, tired and frustrated, her mind still racing. She made herself a strong pot of coffee and sat by the window overlooking the park, huddling around the cup and taking the occasional sip.

The knock on the door startled her; she jumped, spilling coffee over her bare knees. All visitors should have buzzed her from the outer door; how had they entered without being let in? She wondered if it was one of her neighbours. Or maybe the security sergeant with her softscreen, entering at the same time as one of her early-rising neighbours left for work.

Pulling her wrap more tightly around her, she crossed the lounge and opened the door. She stared, surprised, and stepped back.

A thin-faced, silver-haired man stood on the threshold. He gave her a smile of disarming charm.

‘What do you want?’ The question sounded more brusque than she had intended.

He stepped past her, entering uninvited, and strode across the lounge to the window. He stood with his back to her, staring out.

‘How can I help you?’ Her voice faltered.

He turned, still smiling. She was suddenly aware of her nakedness beneath the wrap, and folded her arms across her chest.

‘How did you get in?’

‘That need not concern you,’ he said.

Rana started. She recognised the voice, the soft, cultured tones. It was the voice of Ezekiel Klien - but how was that possible?

‘What do you want?’ she asked again. She knew that she must have presented a frightened sight, cowering with her arms crossed protectively over her chest.

‘It’s a very delicate business. You see, I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.’

Rana felt a sudden heat rise through her chest. She wanted to throw up. Something was happening here that she did not understand, and ignorance fuelled her fear.

‘Consider the irony. For years I have been, on and off, scouring Calcutta for you. Of course, you might have been dead, but I had a hunch ... a hunch that you were still alive—’

‘Klien,’ she said, before she could stop herself.

The man smiled. ‘Very clever of you, Sita. The voice, of course.’ He gave a quick, mocking bow. ‘I am Ezekiel Klien.’

She closed her eyes, fear flooding through her. She had known, just as soon as she said his name, that she had made a mistake. He was the crucifix killer, disguised, and he would kill her just as he had killed all his other victims.

‘How . . . ?’ she said, staring at his face. ‘How did you . . . ?’

He smiled. ‘A simple capillary net,’ he said.

‘I . . . I didn’t know ... I didn’t think it was possible . . .’ She had heard that capillary nets were still at the prototype stage of development, still undergoing tests.

He ignored her. ‘Thirteen years ago,’ he was saying, ‘I was a private investigator hired by your mother to find you.’

Rana recalled the man she had seen with her mother in the restaurant, all those years ago.

She stared at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She told herself not to panic. There was, after all, a simple solution to the situation. She clicked her jaw, opening communications with Control. Now they would hear her every word, discern that something was amiss. She waited for the voice of the duty officer to sound in her ear.

Klien was smiling at her, something almost playful in his expression. He smiled, and clicked his jaw in an arrogant, mocking gesture, and said, ‘You didn’t think for one second, did you, that I would let you get away with that?’

From the breast pocket of his suit he produced a compact silver oval, the size of a cigarette case. A scrambler.

‘Nice try, Sita,’ he said.

Rana had never felt more naked or vulnerable. This man, of all the people on the planet, knew her secret. He was in a position of inestimable power, and it was not knowing quite how he intended to use this power that was terrifying.

She glanced across the room at the Chinese print, behind which was the alarm. She would make her way very casually towards it, then lean against the print, and with luck security would arrive before he killed her.

‘I know that you are Sita Mackendrick.’

He moved from the window and perched on the arm of a chair, something proprietorial and arrogant in his posture. He was a metre away from the picture. There was no way she might reach it, now, without arousing his suspicion.

He smiled at her. ‘As I said, consider the irony. For so long I have been looking for you, and last night you actually found me. Remarkable ... I could hardly believe my fortune.’

‘How . . .’ she began. The words, the admission of her true identity after so many years of denial, had to be forced out. ‘How did you know . . . ?’

‘Your mother made available a few pix of you, of course. Over the years I’ve had them updated, computer-aged. I knew who I was looking for . . . if, that is, you were still alive. It did occur to me that the people who robbed your father’s safe might have killed you, but I hoped not. I assumed there might be a ransom demand, but when none came I began to worry. Perhaps they had killed you, after all. You saw them entering your house, you could identify them, and so you had to die. But I kept up my search. The consequences were too important not to.’

His smug expression, his assumption of superiority, was sickening.

‘What . . . what do you want?’ she managed.

Klien stood, moved away from the picture on the wall and strolled around the room. Rana’s heart began a laboured pounding. This was her chance. She moved towards the Chinese print.

Klien stared at her. ‘I want to know who they were, Sita,’ he said.

‘Don’t call me that!’ she cried.

She reached the wall, folding her arms protectively across her chest, and leaned back. She felt the picture give beneath her shoulder blades and at the same time experienced a terrible sense of anti-climax. She prayed that the alarm would be sounding loud and clear at the local police station.

‘But Sita is your name, isn’t it?’ Klien paused, licked his lips. How he was enjoying this, his moment of victory after years of disappointment. ‘I want to know the identities of the people who kidnapped you.’

She stared at him. Her one satisfaction, amid all her fear, was the knowledge that he was so wrong. She would play along with his little game.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know who they were. They took me and locked me up. I managed to escape.’

Klien was shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense, Sita. Why would they take you from the house and simply lock you up? They would either demand a ransom, which they didn’t, or kill you, which they didn’t. So . . . are you going to tell me the truth, Sita?’

‘I don’t know what you want from me.’

‘Shall I tell you what I think happened?’ he asked. ‘I think they took you, locked you up as you said, and were going to demand a ransom, but something happened?’

She shook her head. ‘What?’

‘I think that, while they held you, a certain rapport developed. It often happens between kidnappers and hostages. You grew close to them, and they perhaps to you. They took you away with them, perhaps you even worked for them at, what? Thieving? Prostitution? For whatever reasons, you never returned home. Either they kept you captive for years, or you actually enjoyed the life you were leading.’ He shook his head. ‘But that is irrelevant. What matters is that you know the identity of the people who took you, and I want to know who they are.’

He was no longer smiling, and the sudden transformation, from condescending affability to controlled but obvious rage, filled her with fear. She stared at him, shaking her head, ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

He stood, and in one fluid menacing movement slipped a hand inside his jacket and produced a laser pistol. He held it almost casually at his hip, directed at her chest.

‘Who were they? Where are they now? Tell me.’

‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.’

He nodded with a show of reasonableness. ‘Very well, I’ll explain. They took something from your father’s safe, something that is very important to me. It is called a softscreen, and it contains information that I need. Now do you understand, Sita? I need to know who kidnapped you so that I can trace them and locate the softscreen. Now, are you going to tell me, or should I resort to more than mere verbal persuasion?’

The softscreen . . . She wondered what information the softscreen might contain that was so vital to him.

‘Now, Sita, tell me: who were they?’

The very fact that he wanted information from her, she realised, might prove to be her salvation. He would hardly kill her if he thought she might be able to lead him to the screen. She decided, then, to tell him the truth. She would tell him what he wanted to know, play for time, and hope that the security team would arrive before she had finished her explanation of the screen’s whereabouts.

‘Who were they?’ he asked again, raising the laser.