JUNK

Chapter Three

"Billy's gone," said Doyle. "Luther's gone. Now Angela's gone, and her things are gone. Billy's car is gone. The day is nearly gone."

Cowley's office had no more window than the meanest interrogation room but they'd arrived in twilight.

"My mind is gone," groaned Bodie. "I need a holiday."

"Angela was last seen in Islington. We know where. I mean Jax knows where."

"Luther was last seen right bloody here," Bodie reminded him, and was ignored.

Cowley said, "When you gentlemen finish apportioning blame, perhaps you'd like to have a look at this." He handed Bodie a sheaf of papers with two photos paper-clipped to it. Bodie, slouching back in the little metal chair, absently moved the clip aside and with his thumb brushed at the indentation it left on the glossy photo paper, then started, sitting bolt upright.

"It's her," he said.

"Her who?" asked Doyle, but Cowley said nothing. Bodie's hands shook as he flipped through the documents; Doyle read them over his shoulder, or tried to, but the print was small.

"Her," repeated Bodie. "The woman in the white Jag. I knew it. I knew it!"

"Knew what?" Doyle was impatient now.

"She's Senegalese." He handed the whole package to Doyle and stood up, leaning in to Cowley across his desk. "Where did you get this, sir?" Susan, standing in the background nodded and shrugged, and Bodie nodded back to her. The cast was off her arm now but she was still on desk duty after sustaining injury apprehending (alone) three armed suspects in another case. No one knew why she was known by her given name while other operatives, men and women alike, were generally known by their surnames (Benny being a notable exception). Certainly no lack of respect was involved. Her research skills aside, the slender woman was absolutely revered for her physical prowess and had once, on a dare, tossed both Doyle and Bodie across a gymnasium.

"Maimouna Mbake," read Doyle, his impeccable pronunciation lost on Bodie. "Born Dakar, 1953. Was graduated from Oxford... theoretical physics?" He whistled.

"Never you mind," said Cowley. "Suffice it to say I found it. Now what are you going to do about it?"

"What's the connection, sir, between Doctor Mbake..."

"Doctor Mbake?" Bodie leapt to his feet and snatched the file back from Doyle.

"... and Marcus Finnegan?"

"None that we know," answered Cowley, "save the car which, in combination with Doctor Mbake herself, inspired in Bodie such lustful motivations, is registered to that gentleman. We checked him out before. If there is a connection between him and the dead child..."

"Marcia Bowers," said Bodie, grimly. "Her name was Marcia Bowers."

"I know damned well what her name was," said Cowley, just as grimly, and with more than a touch of ire. "I knew the girl, damn it. I know her father. You watch whom you correct, young man, or you may find yourself corrected."

"Yes, sir."

"If there is a connection between Mister Finnegan and young Marcia Bowers, we have not yet found it and are not likely to do so sitting on our duffs, now, are we?" Doyle opened his mouth to protest but Cowley went on. "Mister Finnegan claimed never to have heard of any African beauty, never to have loaned his car to anyone at any time, in fact. We had to believe him because we could not come up with a name for said beauty. We've come up with her name now, and we can run it by him. We also have an address on the woman, and that can be checked. You do all that, Bodie."

"Yes, sir." His heart raced somewhat at the thought of meeting the woman he'd been starting to think he'd dreamt up.

"And before I forget," added Cowley, "the M.E. says the little girl from this morning has been dead at least twenty-four hours."

Doyle's eyes gleamed. "So he didn't do that one." Bodie was silent.

"Correct. Now while Susan is continuing her research and Bodie is off dallying with Doctor Mbake, Doyle, I..." The phone rang. "Cowley." Bodie and Doyle stood almost at attention during the short pause that followed, not looking at one another, each for his own reason, nor either looking at the file on Dr. Maimouna Mbake. "Well don't you lose him, man! I'll have Doyle contact you momentarily." Doyle raised an eyebrow but still didn't look at his partner. Cowley hung up without so much as a grunt of goodbye. "Doyle, whatever I was about to say, forget that."

Doyle, amused, said, "It's forgotten, sir."

"Murphy has picked up the trail you two gentlemen so ineptly lost on young Luther Allbright." Bodie's eyes glinted, then, more than they had at the thought of the woman, and he opened his mouth, but Cowley shut it for him: "Not a chance, Bodie. This one is Doyle's, for now."

"For now." Bodie took some comfort in that. He had never thought about which he enjoyed more, sexual conquest or defeating an enemy. There were so many women in the world, and so many enemies... Still, he did not like to leave either matter unattended for long. He knew he would die before he had got to them all. Had he thought about it, he might've joked that he wasn't sure, either, which activity would prove to be the death of him.

"Doyle, you give Murphy about a half an hour and then you call him on the R.T. and find out where to meet him. I don't want him alone on this. Wherever he is led, you find him, you find the lad, and you bring them home. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Doyle dared a glance at Bodie and was relieved to see the taller man smiling, though if he'd asked Bodie why he was smiling not only would he have been unable to say why, he would've been surprised to learn that he was.

Murphy was not at all close behind his prey but he knew where his prey had gone. He'd been spotted at a train station, disguised as a woman but recognized by an elderly station staff member (with too much time on his hands) who'd caught on while attempting to hand the "lass" up from the platform. Murphy knew what train he and his American companions had boarded and, according to their tickets, anyway, their destination. He even knew their companions' names. He was feeling very pleased with himself indeed, despite the fact that every moment he waited for Doyle meant another mile, of many, between him and Luther Allbright.

"Bude," he pronounced gleefully, handing Doyle his ticket. "I took the liberty."

"I brought the car," said Doyle, expressionless, handing the ticket back. Murphy's face fell. "Now look, man, we'd be hours behind them; this is the only way we have a chance to catch up."

"Of course," muttered Murphy, wondering whether he'd have to eat the cost of the tickets, which were nonrefundable.

"Take your mum on holiday," suggested Doyle, leading his unhappy companion out of Victoria.

My mum your ass," muttered Murphy, who in fact didn't have a girlfriend at the moment and was already thinking of changing the tickets for weekend ones for Brighton - or perhaps she'd like to be taken to Southampton to see her sister, Aunt Meg, who was older, and ill...

"What name, then?" Doyle hated Victoria, hated the station, hated the neighborhood, hated the tourists who walked around slack-jawed and oblivious, getting their pockets picked and missing their trains. He'd had to park some distance away from the station and he strode so briskly toward where the Escort waited that Murphy, who was young and fit, had a little trouble keeping up with him. Annoyed, Doyle turned back to goad him a bit and to catch the answer to his question, but to his surprise instead, by lamplight, caught a glimpse of the woman in the photograph, Dr. Mbake. He stopped so abruptly that Murphy, who after all hadn't been so very far behind, walked right into him. Several passersby actually turned and laughed aloud. Doyle didn't feel comical at all. He pushed Murphy roughly aside and ran back toward the station, but it was no use; she was gone.

"Stephen Whatley," said Murphy, wonderingly. "Party of four."

Now tripling back on themselves, the two agents were aghast when, upon finally reaching the car, they discovered that its tyres had been slashed. Doyle slammed his right fist down on the hood and sprained his wrist. He barely felt it; his cry was one of rage.

Murphy held the tickets out. His mum would have to wait for her holiday after all. Doyle ignored him; with his left hand he unlocked the Escort and reached into the glove box. He snatched out a small first-aid kit and thrust it at Murphy, who almost dropped the tickets to accept it. Then back to Victoria Station they steamed, Murphy silently following the fuming Doyle.

At Exeter, where the rain came down with a vengeance, Sam, ravishing in blue, was trying to hide behind the even more ravishing Rose, in olive, who was flirting shamelessly with two uniformed students on the protected platform.

Their connection would not be arriving for 90 minutes, and Steve and Madeline were sitting on a bench, watching their "daughters" in combined amusement and dismay. One of the students was, by unspoken agreement, interested in or obligated to simulate interest in Sam; hence Sam's retreat, which Rose gleefully blocked.

"She's enjoying this too much," said Steve.

"Let her," said Madeline. "Maybe she'll decide to stay."

"I don't know, Madeline. What if this isn't right? I'd hate to be stuck overseas, far from my friends, lonely and miserable..."

"The whole idea," said Madeline, "is to get her away from her friends. Her so-called friends! You're the one who claims to know them so well. This was your idea. I don't understand why you're being so wishy-washy about it now..."

They watched Sam cringing from the student's advances.

"What about this boy, now, Steve? You don't think he's done anything really bad, do you?"

"No... oh, no, no, he's all right. If anything, he's making it all up about the drugs and everything."

"I don't think so. I saw tracks on his arms."

"Still... I don't think he has harm in him. It's good to see Rose taking an interest in someone else's welfare, even if her interest takes a rather bizarre shape. I think it's the first time she's ever thought about anyone but herself."

"Yes," mused Madeline. "Yes, you're right, and we must humor her in this. Still, she might do him some harm, don't you think?"

"What kind of harm? Talk him to death? Embarrass him?"

"I don't know, Steve. I don't know. I just feel somehow that she'll be all right here now, but that the boy, whoever he is and wherever he comes from, is in some terrible danger. I can feel it."

"I trust your feelings," said Steve, giving his wife a serious look, "especially when you can't explain them. Maybe we should hide him."

"Maybe we should take him back home with us," said Madeline, thoughtfully. "How does one go about obtaining a false passport?"

"I was thinking," said Steve, not exactly ignoring Madeline but on another track. "Let's not go to Tintagel right now. It's pouring rain. We won't see a damned thing. Let's go up to Aberdeen first, get that oil thing out of the way. We can sleep on the train. Instead of arriving at night we'll arrive in daylight. Much better."

"Throw them off the scent," said Madeline, wisely.

Halfway to Pimlico Bodie realized that he wasn't going to believe a word Marcus Finnegan said to him. He wondered why he was about to bother, and some bother it was; he didn't like the familiar feeling of those streets even with most of the year behind him (the weather was wretchedly similar, though), and he was frankly afraid of more visions. None of his visions had been pleasant so far.

He parked the Capri in a driveway in front of the impressive old house, not quite in the shoddy neighborhood where Marcia Bowers had died, walked up to the antique wooden door and rang the bell. Upon his first visit he hadn't been the least bit surprised to be shown in by an extremely well built butler, although the house was not very large and its furnishings bespoke more taste than richesse. The same butler now took his jacket and hung it once more in quite an ordinary hall closet right there by the door. Then Grayson, as he was called, led Bodie past a cheery kitchen into a cozy sitting room, where an actual fire blazed. Angry at himself for being won over (had he been won over the last time? he couldn't recall...) Bodie sat on the very edge of the overstuffed sofa and tensed himself for battle. He didn't want to be comfortable; he'd be damned if he'd be comfortable.

Marcus Finnegan had aged since March. Then he'd been a loud, energetic man of late middle years, with a killer handshake, a startling shock of white hair and intense blue eyes that revealed nothing except their very intensity. He was still loud and he still offered Bodie (who rose) a firm hand, but there was a good deal of worry behind his eyes now, and the lateness of his middle years was more pronounced. His energy was also tempered by worry, and his hair seemed somehow dimmed. You might well worry, thought Bodie, if you've been killing these children. Well you might indeed.

"Hallo again," boomed Finnegan, letting go Bodie's hand, waving him back down onto the sofa and sitting down next to him. He did not sit on the edge, as Bodie did, but leaned easily back into the stuffing. "Grayson's bringing coffee. Pardon that. Can't abide tea."

"Not a problem," said Bodie.

"So what can I do you for this time?"

"Mbake." Bodie was eager for a reaction. "Doctor Mbake."

"Don't know him."

"Her."

"Her, then. What about her? Is she that woman, then, the one you were asking about before?"

"Yes, she's the one. She was driving your car."

"Well," said Finnegan, slowly, staring at Bodie, "that car was stolen from me, you know."

"What, when?"

"Then. February, March."

"That's crap," snarled Bodie, standing up just to escape the man and his stare. "That's crap. That car was parked right in your drive. You mentioned it yourself. You never said it was stolen; you went out of your way to let me know it had never left your possession." He was practically shouting now, and would have gone on shouting, because Finnegan was actually smiling now, but Grayson appeared with two immense coffee cups, not mugs but real outsized cups on saucers, such as those from which the French sip their au lait. This little affectation, innocent as it might have been, infuriated Bodie to the point that he frightened himself into silence. He made an attempt to contain himself, if only for the sake of the crockery "That's crap," he repeated, less loudly, when Grayson had gone.

"You're right," smiled Finnegan, maddeningly. "Of course you're right. My error. It was the Daimler that got itself lost. You can check that out. Both white, you know. I had them done up the same. Almost can't tell them apart."

"The Daimler." Bodie took several deep breaths. He knew that he would be checking police records and coming up with something to support Finnegan's new story, regardless of whatever the truth was. He knew there was nothing he could do about it. He knew that the triumph had at least momentarily replaced worry behind the smiling challenge of Finnegan's eyes. "So you never did recover the Daimler." He knew what was coming but Cowley would have his hide if every page of the book were not covered. "I suppose your assurance company paid handsomely for that."

"Wasn't insured, old boy. Stupid mistake. Let the payments lapse. Been kicking myself all year for that."

As eager as Bodie had been mere minutes ago to play by the book, that is how compelling his next, quite unbookish step proved to be. He could no more help picking the lock of Dr. Mbake's front door than he could've helped ogling her had she been there. The point was, she hadn't been there. He'd been a good boy, visited Finnegan first, then rushed straight to the Islington - Islington! - abode of Dr. Maimouna Mbake, hoping he'd given her time to get home from wherever she'd been spotted, yet unable to do other than fly there in anticipation of... of... in wholesale anticipation that made Bodie feel like a teenager in love, a mercenary in crisis and a hunter closing in on his most exotic prey, all at once.

Said abode was none other than the Islington flat in front of which Jax had been laid low. It had occurred to Bodie, even before leaving Cowley's office, that he should enlist Jax's aid on this, and with this thought he had hastened from Cowley's office before it could occur to Cowley too. Bodie had nothing against Jax - liked Jax, in fact. Jax had helped Doyle bring to justice the British-brewed Klansmen Bodie himself had got himself stabbed, and nearly killed, trying less hard to corral. Racism, of which (to Doyle's great shock) Bodie had been a snide purveyor, was even so not something he would tolerate in others. One heard a lot of words, picked up a lot of attitudes, in Africa, especially as a gunrunner, spy and hired assassin. That didn't make it all right for Londoners to have firebombs pitched through their windows, no matter what color they were. Still, Bodie hadn't tried hard. For his lack of effort he'd almost lost his life. For what came out of his mouth before and especially after, he'd almost lost the respect (though not the love, never the love) of his partner, perhaps the only person in the world whose opinion truly mattered to him. This, now, was different. This had nothing to do with race. This had to do with the murder of children. Lust aside - and lust, for Bodie, was never far to the side - Bodie didn't care whether Dr. Mbake were purple, green or blue.

If she were innocent (in the matter of the children) he would woo her (and, he did not doubt, win her), and if she were guilty, he would make her pay. Guilty or innocent, absent is what she most glaringly was, and he blithely broke and entered.

"How's that, then?" Murphy finished clipping the bandage around Doyle's right wrist and hand.

"Fine," said Doyle, meekly. It wasn't Murphy's fault they were on a slow train to Exeter instead of racing along past all trains, beating the Whatleys-plus-one to Bodmin and then Bude and surprising them there. Now they would have to follow a trail, perhaps a cold one, perhaps a deceptive one, and perhaps to no purpose at all. "Thank you."

"No problem," said Murphy, somehow resisting the urge to call Doyle "sir." He wasn't much younger than the injured agent, and they had worked together before without much rank's being pulled. Somehow this was different and he felt he should defer. This annoyed him and he made up his mind to go out of his way to be as casual and taunting as ever Bodie could be. "So you think this is the sicko that did the kids, then?"

"No," said Doyle, surprising both of them.

"Wha... then why are we chasing him all over England, might I ask?"

"Because," said Doyle, looking out the rain-streaked window, "he knows something. I don't know what it is, but it's something. Maybe he knows where Billy is, or maybe he knows who really did the kids, or maybe he knows what's got up Bodie's nose. Whatever it is, I want to know it too."

"Bodie's usually got something up his nose, hasn't he?"

Doyle turned to look at the younger agent. "You're getting up mine, you know that?"

"So sorry," said Murphy, insolently, putting his long legs up on the seat across from him, right next to Doyle. Doyle pushed his legs aside. Murphy put them right back. Doyle laughed then and put his legs up next to Murphy, who swatted them back down to the carriage floor. Doyle put his legs in Murphy's lap,. He wasn't a tall man but his legs were also long and they poked Murphy in the stomach. Murphy closed up the first-aid kit and balanced it on Doyle's feet. Doyle closed his eyes. "Oh," said Murphy, pushing kit, legs and all off of him and taking his own legs down.

Had they been looking out the window to note the train passing them full speed in the opposite direction, they still would have had no way of knowing their prey was doubling back on them.

Bodie got what he wanted - well, the part he knew he wanted - not long after entering Dr. Mbake's apartment. He switched on the hall light and walked right into a kitchen not unlike the one he'd glimpsed in Pimlico. Since there were papers spread all over the kitchen table, he went directly to it and sat down without at first placing his hands on the table or touching the papers. They were, at a glance, relevant. Most of them were newspaper clippings about missing children. A few of them were letters addressed to "Dear Dr. Mbake," Dear Madame Mbake" and "My Dear Maimouna." On these Bodie laid hands, and after glancing through them, he pocketed them all. Surely Susan would be able to make something of them. (As an afterthought he took some of the clippings as well, but these he scraped off the table with a nearby form and wrapped in paper towel he found on a roller by the sink. Then he snooped on into the hallway and stopped between the living room and the two bedrooms.

The resemblance to the first floor of Finnegan's place had ended. These rooms were mean, and laid out less for comfort than for utility. Bodie had, in the line of duty, smirked or bullied his way past alarmed wives and impotent staff, into the living rooms and even bedrooms of many doctors, and none had lived like this. What did he know about physicists, though? About as much as he wanted to know, he decided, except that he wanted to know rather an exceptional lot about this particular physicist, if indeed that's what she was. The living room was covered - couch, floor and metal folding chairs - with file folders and more loose paperwork. Bodie sighed. He would have to examine that mess, and the longer it took the more likely he was to be caught. A part of him wanted to be caught - as long as the catcher was Dr. Mbake herself. He turned his attention to he first bedroom but found it quite unrevealing. Only Bodie's potent imagination could transform it into an inviting place, and his imagination was severely tested by the nature of the second bedroom - for it was quite evidently a child's playroom, and it was quite evidently a room that saw plenty of use.

The bunk beds (two units, four beds) were humble, mismatched, well scratched. Some of the dolls were missing limbs. The stuffed animals hadn't been washed for a while. A framed jigsaw puzzle on one of the walls featured sad gaps. Still, this did not seem to be a torture room. A child, or children, had played here, slept here, even flung beverages, Bodie noted, as far as the unreachable and thus unwashable ceiling, here. A shabby chest of drawers hid nothing more shocking than pajamas, tee-shirts, shorts and underwear sized for smaller children. A couple of little dresses and a jacket or two hung in the closet. On impulse, Bodie checked the bathroom at the end of the hall: no razors, no electric shavers or after shave but, yes, brand new toothbrushes, still in wrappers, little toothbrushes for impermanent little teeth. Plasters. Antiseptic sprays. A step stool in front of the sink. A rubber ducky in the dry tub. No-tears shampoo.

Bodie didn't know what to make of all this. He didn't want to know what to make of all this. He turned his back on all the kid stuff, stumbled, rather, into the living room and carelessly shoved some papers to the side so he could sit on the sofa. He had to think. There was no doubt about it; Dr. Mbake was clearly involved. The trouble was, involved with what? Was this a way station for children on the way to the grave? If so, what was the point in keeping them clothed and happy, in making sure their teeth were clean and their booboos attended? On the other hand, if it were a halfway house for abused children who had escaped the grave, why was there never any news of such children being returned to their grateful families?

Bodie had no illusions that physical beauty and spiritual goodness (grace, Doyle might have said) were necessarily, or even often, housed in the same person. He wasn't even smitten enough, or in the right way, that he had an emotional stake in Dr. Mbake's innocence. He wanted to see her again, whichever way it turned out, to mete out justice or to come on to her, whichever was appropriate. Even more, he wanted to know. He needed to know. He would never again sleep until he knew. He would never again see a child without his heart's rising into his mouth, until he knew.

Without moving much he reached out one hand and randomly picked up some papers. He riffled through legal stuff, more clippings, letters, immigration-related forms, lots of stuff in a language he knew had to be Senegalese, although he didn't read it, himself, and also some documents and letters in French, which he could read but in which he had no especial interest just now. He put the papers back down on the sofa, stood up and mussed the papers back over where he'd been sitting. As an afterthought he collected a random sampling and pocketed it along with what he had already taken. He went back into the bathroom where he had seen a hamper. He hadn't even realized he'd seen it, yet it was bothering him. He sat on the edge of the tub, opened the hamper and fished out a filmy nightgown, the kind that ordinarily would have made Bodie's mouth and eyes water. He flung it aside and pulled out more feminine attire, towels, and at last a child's dress. He examined the dress, literally inside and out, but found nothing telling. He pulled out another dress. It was likewise ordinary but seemed to be of a different size. Then he picked up one of the towels. One corner of it was smeared with a greasy reddish substance. Bodie didn't even stand up; he turned to one side and vomited into Dr. Mbake's toilet. When he was finished he stood up, flushed, rinsed his mouth out in the sink, returned the laundry to the hamper and left as quickly as he could, forgetting to turn off the kitchen light and later, realizing this, not caring.