As much to see if I could get a reaction out of his wife as anything else, I said, ‘What possible reason could he have for doing that?’
‘I get my thrills from corporate finance, Miss Fox. Torquil? He’s hooked on thrills, period. Like I say, at first I thought this might be his idea of another one.’
Well, that explained their lack of urgency or action so far. ‘What’s happened to make you change your mind now?’
‘We received a package earlier today,’ he said, reaching into an inside pocket of his jacket and bringing out a clear case containing a recordable CD or DVD. He held it up over his shoulder and there was an unseemly scuffle behind him as two of the assistants hurried forwards to whisk it from his outstretched hand. The most senior – or the one with the sharpest elbows – took possession and carried the prize round the desk to Parker.
My boss eyed the unbagged evidence with concern, making no immediate moves to touch it. ‘How many people have handled this?’
‘My security people have already checked it out thoroughly for prints, trace elements, biological or digital viruses – just about every damn thing you could think of, and a few more besides,’ Eisenberg said gravely, flicking his gaze briefly to Gleason. ‘They tell me it’s clean. An ordinary DVD-R, the kind you can get at any office supply store across the state.’
Parker nodded, and didn’t ask the obvious question. If we wanted to know what was on the disk, clearly we were going to have to see for ourselves. He moved back around his desk and slotted the DVD into his laptop, his movements economical and precise.
It took a moment to load, then went straight into a video clip like the one from Torquil’s PDA I’d watched the day before, but this was no sexual adventure. Not unless you were catering for a very specific and twisted audience.
I only recognised Torquil because that’s who I was expecting to see. He was sitting on a steel-framed chair, ankles tightly bound to the front legs with wire. By the awkward hunch of his shoulders, his arms were secured behind him. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been taken in, now as torn and bloodied as their owner.
Someone with a professional interest in the job had worked him over very thoroughly indeed, I saw, falling back on detached clinical judgement to avoid a connection with the victim I could not afford to feel.
It took me back too easily to a time when I’d been the one taking punishment and, although they hadn’t tied me down, in the end they hadn’t needed to.
I swallowed, kept my face dispassionate, glanced across at Parker and found he was doing the same.
They’d paid particular attention to Torquil’s face, probably knowing that would prove the most effective emotional lever against his parents. His nose had been broken and possibly a cheekbone, but it was hard to tell under all the discoloured swelling. One eye was puffed shut, the other open a mere slit. His hair was matted with blood. From the rigid way he held himself, the rapid shallow breaths, I guessed at busted ribs, too.
I looked up abruptly, found Eisenberg watching me as if in condemnation. Because I hadn’t taken on the job of protecting his son, or hadn’t stepped in yesterday, regardless of formal contract? It was hard to tell.
After maybe thirty seconds of silence, Torquil’s head lifted slightly at some off-camera prompt. He swallowed with effort, running his tongue carefully over split lips before he spoke. Even with the volume cranked up, it was hard to catch his mumbled words clearly.
‘Mom … Dad, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m … real sorry. For everything, I guess. I—’ He broke off, cowered as if subjected to a sudden additional threat.
I glanced at the clock high on the far wall. It was now reading a few minutes after 12.30. Torquil was twenty-seven hours gone. For this recording to have been made and delivered by this morning, they’d worked on him hard and fast. It was a measure of what had been done that
On screen, Torquil hung his head, unable to continue for a moment. I strained to see past his battered figure into the room itself, but they’d spotlit the chair brightly. Beyond him were only dark shadows. Maybe Bill Rendelson, who’d become Parker’s electronic surveillance expert, could finesse more detail from the background …
And that led to a rapid cascade of other thoughts and realisations, not least of which was why we were being shown this footage in the first place. My gaze flicked to Parker again, filled with questions I didn’t need to ask aloud. He shifted the cursor to pause the clip, straightened.
‘Mr Eisenberg—?’ he began, but Eisenberg was ready for him.
‘Just watch the damn tape,’ he said quietly. ‘Watch it and then you’ll know.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Parker didn’t immediately respond to that, just stared at Eisenberg across the expanse of desk and office. It was an interesting silent confrontation.
Here were two men, both with power and minutely aware of its extent, but Eisenberg’s authority seemed wholly exterior by comparison to my boss. Parker was a natural leader, an intangible quality that came from something inside himself. Eisenberg, on the other hand, seemed to need the constant presence of his retinue as reassurance of his potency. I scanned their bland expressions and wondered if he knew how quickly they would desert him, should his fortunes ever wane.
We would have followed Parker anywhere without hesitation, but Eisenberg had to buy such loyalty. I hoped he kept the receipts.
At last, Parker lowered his gaze and clicked the mouse to resume the playback. Torquil’s desperate gasps and murmurs filled the room again, eclipsing all other considerations.
‘They say … you go to the cops … they kill me. You call in the FBI … they kill me. You delay … or try to double-cross them … or don’t do
For the first time, I thought I saw Nicola Eisenberg close her eyes briefly.
The picture faded out to black, and the sound of Torquil’s laboured breathing died away, replaced by an electronically synthesised voice.
‘Listen very carefully, Mr Eisenberg. The price for returning your son intact is that fancy string of beads your wife flashes in public every chance she gets, to be delivered to a location of our choosing. You have until six-thirty tomorrow morning to make the arrangements. If you fail to comply, or involve the cops, you will start receiving body parts in the mail. There will be no negotiation and no second chances.’ There was a pause, then the cold mechanical voice added with a distinct sneer, ‘Oh, and one more thing – tell the Willners’ little bitch of a bodyguard she makes the ransom drop. Nobody else. We’ll be in touch.’
I let out a long breath, slowly enough for it not to be audible. Nevertheless, Parker shot me a fast glance.
The clip had ended with the usual invitation from the software for a replay. We would replay it, I knew, over and over, looking for anything to suggest identity or location, but I didn’t think any of us were ready for that quite yet.
‘OK.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll make the drop.’
Eisenberg’s chief lawyer brightened at the prospect of a third party to shed some blame onto. Parker held up a hand that cut him off more successfully than any high court judge.
‘Mr Eisenberg, just so’s we’re clear on this, what exactly is it you expect from us?’
Eisenberg made a gesture of tempered impatience. It was, no doubt, a question he himself would have asked, if the positions had been reversed. ‘It’s simple – all we want is for Miss Fox to deliver the ransom.’ He gave us both a bleak stare. ‘I’ll pay her what I have to, naturally.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,’ Parker said quickly, before I could chuck that one back in Eisenberg’s face. ‘How do you intend to handle this demand? Do you mean to negotiate?’
That got our first reaction from Nicola Eisenberg. She gave an explosive snort and threw up her hands, glaring at the entourage as if they’d forcibly gagged her up to that point.
‘Negotiate?’ she demanded. ‘You saw what was on that disk! You heard! You tell me, Mr Armstrong, if it was
