Allegro 17

Rated PG

Characters belong to Lloyd, Moore, DC and others.

Dominic and Johnson waited while Evey went into her closet to get her luggage. Dominic programmed his new phone, Johnson walked around the suite, detective eyes on everything, glancing through the curtains at the street outside. The two French policemen stood on either side of the door.

Dominic leaned heavily against the wall as the first scream pierced his head. The two policemen rushed past him into the hotel room and Johnson moved quickly to pick up the baby. Dominic lurched toward the closet, nearly blind from the pain. The sounds of Evey's screams were palpable behind his eyes. He reached the closet and clutched the door frame as articles of clothing whipped past his face. Coats flew into the air, skirts and blouses fluttered to the ground, shoes whisked by him like an explosion in a boutique, and still the shrill shrieks assaulted his ears and pounded him like fists.

"Evey," he breathed, knowing she could hear nothing. The two policemen looked at each other, then one of them picked up his mobile and moved into the hall. Dominic glanced at Johnson, who held the baby over his shoulder, one hand on Edmond's bottom; the other on the baby's back as though he knew what he was doing. Then he looked to the hallway where hotel staff had already responded to the noise. Edmond's cries joined the din. Dominic told himself to breathe. He told his knees to stay strong, his eyes to stay open. The screaming stopped suddenly and everyone in the room froze; their eyes on the closet door as Evey emerged… staggering, her eyes stricken. She looked first at Johnson, then turned those haunted eyes on Dominic.

"It's gone…" she choked out. "He's gone."

"What is gone?" He asked gently.

She looked away. "V."

Dominic thought a moment before repeating his question. "Tell me what is gone, Evey."

"My satchel. It's gone. It's gone." She looked up at him just before she began to lean to the side, her eyelids fluttering. He caught her in his arms before she could hit the carpet and carried her to the bed and laid her out. Her eyes were open, staring straight up at the ceiling and she began to hyperventilate. One of the Policemen spoke to him in English.

"I have called a doctor."

Johnson stepped closer to the bed and looked down at Evey. "She looks like she is going to pass out, Mr. Stone."

Dominic sat beside her on the bed and took her hand in his. She blinked several times, her pupils constricted to pinpoints. "Eve. Tell me what was in the satchel."

Her mouth moved. "V." Tears well out of the corners of her eyes and dripped past her ears.

Dominic sighed, then he turned to the French police. "A piece of Mrs. Abernathy's luggage has been stolen. I suggest that you confiscate the appropriate security camera logs and collect the staff for questioning." He stared hard at the police until both of them left the room. "Johnson. Put the baby down. I need you to follow up with this…make sure you get the staff schedule for the past week and intercept the doctor. Mrs. Abernathy doesn't need a doctor and I don't want one in here. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Detective. Do you want me to call Paris?" Johnson lay Edmond down on the bed beside Evey.

"No. We do not know if the theft is a coincidence or something more ominous. We won't know until she tells me what was in it." Johnson nodded once then went out the door, closing it behind him. The only sounds were Edmond's tiny whimpers and the rough sound of Evey's rapid breathing. Dominic leaned over her again. "Eve. Tell me exactly what was in the satchel. Item by item."

She squeezed a few more tears out of her eyes. Dominic rubbed her hand in both of his and asked her again. "What was in the satchel?"

"His… mask." She breathed in and out with little gasps.

"And?"

"His wig… his gloves."

There was a long silence. Dominic prompted her to continue. "Was that all?"

Her voice was rough. "And his... letters. All of them. All gone."

Dominic tried again. "Is that everything, Eve? No Jewelry? Cash? Papers? Legal documents? Are you certain that is all?"

"Evey?" He reached over her and took her chin in his hand and turned her face to him. "Was there nothing valuable inside?"

That elicited a heated response. "There was nothing in there that was worth anything to anyone, but it was worth the world to me," she snapped.

There has to have been something else in that satchel. "Evey. What else? Who knew the satchel was here?"

She stared at him, her eyes hard. "You will get it back? You will, won't you? Tell me you will." She reached a hand out and grabbed his shirt. "Get it for me."

He pried her little fist from his clothes. "I will. But first you have to tell me everything."

"What? I will tell you anything you need to know."

"You have to calm yourself if you are going to remember. Please try."

He waited, watching her pull herself together. "Now. Who knew the satchel was here?"

She mumbled, "The staff, I guess."

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"And all that was in it were V's personal effects…and his letters?" Evey took a deep shuddering breath. Dominic prompted her again. "Go through each part of the satchel in your mind and tell me everything."

He saw her face change. Her eyes widened as she said, "The comlink."

He frowned. "The what?"

"The comlink was in it too."

"Is that like a flash drive or something?"

"Yes. A portable control for the Shadow Gallery's computers."

"God, Eve. That's what they wanted. Who knew it was there?"

"No one! I never told anyone! No one ever searched the bag! I was the only one who carried it!"

Dominic covered his eyes with his hand, thinking. Someone came into her room. Not looking for money or jewels. Took the whole satchel, not just the comlink. No. Someone had to know the comlink was there. "Eve. Someone knew it was there. Who did you tell?"

"I swear, I told no one. No one."

"In the cottage. Massey asked you for the codes, didn't he?"

"What?" she snapped, "Do you think I told him?" She bared her teeth at him.

Dominic continued delicately "Interrogators gather information in more ways than one. You did tell him. Let me ask you, Evey, and I want you to think hard before you answer. When he asked you for the codes, and told you he was looking for a flash drive or a comlink, how did you feel?"

She glared at him for a long moment. He saw her remembering, then her face softened and paled. "Ah!" Evey looked like she had been struck.

Dominic closed his eyes. "He saw it in your face, Eve. You didn't have to say a word. Then all he had to do was bribe an employee of the hotel. A year's salary will buy just about anything. Massey has your satchel." Now to find Massey.

He took his new phone out of his vest pocket, dialed Johnson. "Massey has the satchel, Johnson. He probably had it by late Sunday night. We need to get the plate number off the wrecked car and trace it. Find out any other addresses of where any of Massey's men were staying in Marseilles. Do that, and then come get me at my flat. I'm taking Evey home, then we have work to do."

Dominic called Perry. The little mobile was pressed against one ear while the ice pack rested above his other one. The migraine was gone, but his head ached continually. Johnson was out following leads on the satchel. Dominic was confident he would be successful. There was no reason for Massey to hang on to Evey's letters or V's bits of costume. He would have taken the comlink and gone to London. I will track him down later. Now I must find the placenta.

"Perry."

"Mr. Perry. This is Detective Sergeant Stone."

"Stone. Any luck?"

"Not yet. I believe both Drs. Marveaux and Sevier have left the country. The ransom is to be paid to a bank in Geneva, no?"

"That is correct. Akroyd and the Queen are working on collecting the money. They are having trouble as many foreign banks have frozen British asserts and the British banks are insolvent."

"And the Inspector?" Dominic squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself.

"No change, Detective. His is in serious condition. His kidneys are damaged. We have him on a machine. His liver is failing. He needs those stem cells, as do all of the patients."

"InterPol has ten men on the placenta case, searching all the labs in Europe where it might be stored. There are a fair amount of labs. The new popularity of cloning and genetic selection has created a great many places where the placenta could be housed."

"How is Mrs. Abernathy?"

"She is fine, thank you."

"And the baby?

"Also doing very well."

"You know, Mr., Stone. The baby's blood most likely carries a signature that we can use to analyze the virus and perhaps…"

"Absolutely not, Perry. Put that thought out of your mind."

"We wouldn't need a lot, Stone. A vial. That is all."

Dominic hung up the phone, tapped the table. Evey coughed from the doorway to let him know she was there. She had been listening from his bedroom.

"They want Edmond, don't they." She crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm not giving them your baby, Evey."

"No, you're not."

"No. I won't give them your baby. Why won't you believe me?"

"I don't believe anyone anymore." She turned and went back into the bedroom.

Dominic breathed in and out, waiting for the pain in his head to subside. The doctors said it would be like that for as long as a month while he healed. He cursed Tandy again as he tucked two more tablets into his mouth and swallowed them with a mouthful of decaf tea. And they said no caffeine for that month; he eyed his tea kettle. That hurts worse.

The Inspector. Dominic slumped over his table, waiting for the tablets to kick in. Always before, I could help him when he needed it. I mowed his garden when he broke his ankle that time jumping out of a moving omnibus. I took Paul to football practice and brought home groceries for Cynthia. I fixed the brakes on his car when he threw his back out on the Hennessey case. Dominic pushed at the paper on his table. But I can't do anything for him now. Like I couldn't do anything for him when Cyn and Paul died. Another wave made him attempt to stagger blindly in the general direction of the fridge. Maybe one of the ice packs. He tripped on the leg of the table knocking reports to the floor as he stood up. His chair fell over with a bang. He did not make it as far as the freezer before small hands on his waist were leading him away from the kitchen. Cool fingers pressed an ice pack to the back of his head.

"Time to take a break, Detective," she said in a soft voice as she took him into the bedroom.

"They want ten million pounds for the placenta," he told her.

She pulled the blankets back and sat him down on the bed. "I have ten million pounds…I think."

He lay down on the pillow and adjusted the ice pack on his forehead. "God, Eve. I had no idea."

"Do you want me to call my banker? He will tell me."

"When Massey takes the comlink to London they will open up the Shadow Gallery and gut it." Dominic closed his eyes. "That's where they will get the money. I warned the Nose he was coming. They will crack the Gallery and loot it."

Evey covered him with the blanket and sat down beside him. "We can save both the art and the people if I can get to V's money."

"No, they will loot the art no matter what," he sighed. "There is no one to speak for the National Gallery or the British Museum. This is what Chaos does to Civilization. He didn't think about that, did he."

"Yes, he did." Evey looked down at her hands in her lap. "He was bitter. And he was terribly terribly angry. There were two sides to him, Dominic. He wasn't perfect. One part loved humanity and one part despised us all. That's why the art is down there in the first place. He knew he would be making the rubble bounce, so he tried to save what he could. It's my fault this happened. I was supposed to stay there and take care of the Gallery. That's why he took me in and kept me there. But I ran away. I let him down."

Dominic lifted the ice pack from his forehead so he could see her. She wrung her hands. He touched her arm. "I will get your satchel back for you, Eve."

She kept her face impassive. "Let's get the placenta first. Let me call my banker."

"Call him."

Dominic was sleeping; the powerful drugs Johnson had picked up at the chemist's seemed to work extraordinarily well. He dreamed about bloody placentas and canvas satchels filled with posts. He dreamed of tea and fancy cakes with colorful frosted tops and little crunchy toffees. Then he dreamed of bangers and mash and boiled puddings and the Black and Tans he loved to drink at the Fox and Hound. Then Finch came, dragging a trolley full of reports. The Inspector gave him a pen with most of the ink gone and a broken nib and told him he wanted them all done by tomorrow morning, collated and filed in triplicate. Dominic sat on the floor and picked up the first report. The words swam together as he struggled to read it: "The Case of the Missing Satchel." He lifted the pen and tried to write, but the nib merely scratched the paper. "Hurry, Detective," Finch said, "you have a deadline." The Chief pointed at the Twenty-Year watch on his wrist. Dominic got up from the floor, grabbed the watch from Finch's arm and threw it. It landed on a map of Europe. The Chief retrieved it, "Penalty for using your hands, you silly git. What kind of football are you playing?" Dominic hung his head in shame, went to sit in the penalty box. Hockey players loomed over him, grinning gap-toothed smiles. One of them handed him a satchel with letters and a placenta inside. "Take this to Evey, Mr. Postman, she is staying with that bloke Stone in Marseilles." Dominic took the heavy satchel and left the ice rink. He carried it for miles, across a bridge over a river, down a muddy ravine, through a blood-spattered cottage until finally he found himself staring at a building. He looked up, three stories high. A sign on the front of the building read, "MUSEE DE LA BANQUE NATIONALE DE BELGIQUE". A hand waved at him from a window at the very top, and then Dominic saw the Chief Inspector lean out the window and beckon to him.

Dominic sat up in the bed, his eyes wide, staring straight ahead at nothing. Evey was at his side in an instant. "Dominic! What is it? What's wrong? What's wrong?" She bounced the bed as she climbed in beside him and put her hands on his face, peering into his eyes like she might see him in there.

"They are in Brussels!" He blinked, wondering how he could be so certain.

"How do you know?" She echoed his thought.

He moved his eyes to look at her. "I don't know. It's just a feeling. Hand me my phone."

Two hours later they sat next to each other on a train to Belgium. Dominic had his laptop on his knees, typing the Ambassador's report on the dead Englishmen. Evey watched him absently as she patted Edmond as he lay over her shoulder. Dominic used all the fingers of his left hand to type, but only his index and middle finger of his right. The other two fingers pointed stiff and useless across the compartment at the empty seats in front of them. Evey turned away to look at the dark window. She didn't need any more reminders of V tonight. The missing satchel made an empty feeling by her leg. She moved her foot. It's gone. She bounced the baby a little harder until he burped, loud and hearty like a longshoreman.

Dominic looked up from the keyboard, "You sure you aren't feeding him Stout?"

"No." She said shortly. She wouldn't look at him. His eyes had burned her when he woke up in his flat, breathing hard and asking for his phone. He has a face, he has eyes. Not like V. Dominic's dark eyes had looked at her. He loves me. She saw it now every time she looked at him. But he is not allowed to love me. It made her angry to think of it. Stop loving me and get me my satchel.

By the time the train rolled into Brussels the report was finished and sent to Paris. He packed up his briefcase and tried to help her out of the compartment. She shrugged off his hands. "I can walk."

"I'm sorry, Evey."

She wouldn't look at his sad eyes. "Call Johnson," she told him as they walked beside the tracks.

"I did already. He has three addresses to search tomorrow, Eve. He will get your satchel. He will find it."

He tried to help her into a cab. This time she let him hold Edmond until she was seated. They rode in silence to the hotel. He signed them in, reserving one room, two doubles for the three of them. Evey thought about complaining, and nearly spoke up to insist on having her own room, but deep inside she felt safer with him so close. She hated herself for it.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" she asked as they rode the elevator to the third floor.

"Saving Britain." He turned those eyes on her again. She hated him for it.