from her the identity of her kidnappers, then he would be that much closer to finding the softscreen. If, of course, she was still alive. For the first few weeks he had told Naheed Mackendrick to expect a ransom demand, but when no demand was made and Naheed came to him distraught at the thought that her daughter was dead, he had comforted her with the idea that perhaps she might have escaped.
“In that case, why hasn’t she returned home?” she’d asked him.
He had wondered how to phrase it diplomatically. “Was your daughter happy at home?”
Her silence, her avoidance of his gaze, had told Klien more than enough.
Klien had taken to the streets then, making enquiries, talking to people who had contact with street-kids, befriending the kids himself. At the same time he had scoured second-hand electrical stores and auction houses. In itself, the screen was not that valuable; perhaps the kidnappers had sold the softscreen, or even discarded it. All the while he had kept himself alert for news that an exploration company was heading for a hitherto uncharted planet out on the Rim, prompted by the discovery of an intriguing softscreen recording. No news had been forthcoming, and as the months progressed he convinced himself that the screen had been discarded or lost.
A year after the kidnapping of her daughter, Naheed Mackendrick had succumbed to leukaemia, so Klien’s monthly stipend was curtailed. To earn a living and to keep abreast of developments in space, he had applied for a job as a security guard at the spaceport. His rise since then had been, as they say, meteoric. He had even accustomed himself to the squalor and poverty of Calcutta. He had become, without really realising it, one of the rich who deigned not to notice the poor.
But all the time, down all those years, he had not relented in his search for Sita Mackendrick. It had occurred to him, as he considered the many possibilities that surrounded the case, that she had not been kidnapped at all. He knew it was a wish-fulfilment fantasy, but what if it had been Sita Mackendrick herself who had stolen the contents of her father’s safe and run away from home? What if she had the screen in her possession, after all these years?
He stared at the pix of the pretty young woman, wondering where she was now, wondering if the truth might ever be known.
He realised that his search had become an obsession, and he wondered what his reaction might be when, if, he finally did locate the girl. If she did indeed possess the screen, or knew of its whereabouts, and his search came to an end, then perhaps he would be unable to stop himself, and he would kill her as he had killed all his other victims over the years.
He reached out and drew, over the image of her face, the sign of the cross.
15
Rana was woken early by the chime of the doorbell. She fumbled her way out of bed, pulled on her wrap and moved to the speaker by the inner door of her new, spacious apartment.
“Who is it?”
“Security, Lieutenant Rao. Investigator Vishwanath sent me.”
“Oh… yes. Of course. Come on up.”
A minute later a spry Tamil sergeant stepped into the lounge carrying a case of equipment and a com-board. “A small matter—I’ll be no more than ten minutes,” he said. “First I’ll install an alarm pad in case of emergencies.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Emergencies?”
The Tamil bobbed his head from side to side. “Standard procedure,” he said. “We’ve got to protect our officers. I’ll make a sweep for bugs and other electronic surveillance apparatus.”
He set to work installing the alarm. “I’ll put it in here, behind this picture,” he said, in case of emergencies, all you need to do is press it lightly. This will activate alarms at the local station.”
Rana sat on the arm of a chair, watching him attach the small, flat rectangle to the wall behind the picture, a Chinese landscape inherited from the apartment’s previous occupant.
He replaced the painting and looked around the room. “Now I’ll sweep the apartment for electronic listening devices and suchlike.”
He opened his case and took out an instrument like a communicator, switched it on and turned in a circle, directing the device at the walls.
He examined the screen and frowned. “I’m getting something.”
Rana rubbed her tired face. “You mean the place is bugged?” She was unconvinced.
“No, not bugged. There’s a homing device in the apartment, a very crude affair. It’s…” Like a diviner seeking water, he moved the device back and forth. “It’s in that drawer,” he said, pointing to her desk.
Her only possession worth locking away was the soft-screen. She unlocked the drawer and lifted it out. Wafer thin, perhaps half a metre square, it was blank until pressed. Then it showed a fictional narrative set on some colony world, a drama featuring intrepid explorers battling through mountainous terrain.
“Do you mean this?”
The sergeant nodded. “Can I examine it?”
Rana passed him the softscreen. He turned it over, minutely examining the weave of the fabric. “It’s very old,” he said. “Perhaps a hundred years old?”
She nodded. “It’s an antique. It was… my father gave it to me when I was young.”
She could hardly tell him the truth, that she had taken the softscreen from her father’s safe, along with a few hundred rupees, all those years ago.
The sergeant was frowning. “It’s implanted with a primitive homing device. Did your father put it there, to trace it in case it was ever stolen?”
Rana shrugged. “I don’t know.”
But her father could not have known about the homing device, or he would have used it to trace her when she ran away from home…
The sergeant looked up. “Can I take it back to the lab, Lieutenant? I’d like to examine it more closely. The homing device is embedded very skilfully into the fabric of the screen. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’ll issue you with a receipt.”
“You’ll bring it back when you’ve finished with it?” she asked.
“I’ll bring it back in a week, Lieutenant.” He folded the softscreen into his case and wrote out a receipt.
“The rest of the apartment is clean?”
He smiled. “You’ve no need to worry, Lieutenant. I’ll be back in a few months to run another check.”
The sergeant packed his case and saluted as he left. Rana closed the door behind him, then made herself a cup of coffee and drank it slowly, sitting by the window and staring across the mist-shrouded Nehru park.
A week had passed since Rana had reported to Vishwanath about the Man in the Black Suit, and the killer from Madrigal whose computer-generated image was now with every police station in the city. She had expected, in her naivety, to hear about the apprehension of the suspect within days, but there had been no progress at all on the case of the crucifix killer. Vishwanath had counselled confidence, and told her to try another lead. He had praised her initiative so far, but told her that in all likelihood the black suit had been just another one of those lines of enquiry that resulted in a dead end. Homicide work, he said, was full of them.
Rana had worked on other cases, murders she had had no real involvement in, and therefore could not feel as enthusiastic about. She knew they had to be solved, and she worked hard on them, but they would never have the appeal of her first investigation.
The chime of an incoming call sounded in her ear. She clicked her jaw to activate the communication. “Rao here.”
“This is Lieutenant Nazeem.” His voice sounded loud in her ear. “Vishwanath wants you quick sharp.”
“What is it?”
“The crucifix case you’re working on.” He emphasised the “you’re’, as Vishwanath had reassigned him shortly after Rana’s arrival in the department. “Something’s happened.”
“What? Have they caught—”
But Naz had cut the connection.
