Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

12) A Shot in the Night Time

While the cat's away the mice will play. A popular saying, though in this case it was the other way around: while the mouse is asleep, the cat will play. Not that Dastardious thought of himself as a cat, or of Dutch as a mouse. After saying goodnight to Dutch, Dastardious had taken leave to brave the wilds of a rough town to do some late night shopping. Not all the shops were open late at night, but most of them were. If all of them closed down as soon as the sun went down then what would all the people do? It was, to Dastardious's mind, better to keep them occupied with late night bargains than let them retire to the comfort and quiet of home to plot and plan mischief.

He walked through Manhattan Mall, intent only on finishing his shopping so that he could return home to his own bed, not bothering to pay attention to things out of his way. That was the intent, anyway. As he rounded a corner of the giant store, he noticed a certain item that happened to be on sale. It caused him to stop so suddenly that the couple behind him pushing their trolley had no time to swerve and crashed into him. Sprawled out on the floor, Dastardious swore loudly as he ignored the outstretched hand offered to him.

'I'm so, so sorry,' the man was apologising hopping from one foot to the other, unsure of whether he should help dust Dastardious, who had just risen to his feet, off.

'You didn't give any warning, you just stopped so suddenly and my wife and I had our eyes elsewhere,' the man explained, moving forwards in a snap decision to help Dastardious.

Grabbing the man's hands Dastardious pushed him away and yelled, 'You're lucky I have things to do or I'd arrest your ass!'

'Wait a minute!' interjected the woman, moving up beside her husband. 'I know you, you were at our apartment earlier looking at our... our baby,' she choked.

As she said this, Dastardious took a proper look at the couple before him. His mind had been elsewhere and had not registered who had knocked him over, but now he recognised the Harrison's. Then, remembering what had caused him to pull to a stop; he grabbed John Harrison by the arm and roughly pulled him around and marched him up to the front window of the shop and pointed out the item on sale.

'That pram,' he said, 'looks to be an exact copy of the one your kid arrived in. Now I have two questions for you, why did your daughter show up in a pram? And what's the significance of it?'

'I, um, I'm not sure what you mean?' answered Mr Harrison, helpless in Dastardious's strong grip.

Releasing him, Dastardious walked into the store, and after only a short, hesitant second the Harrison's followed.

'Did you ever buy a pram from here, or even want one?' asked Dastardious, rising from his examination of the object in question.

'No, we never bought a pram from here,' Mrs Harrison answered him. 'But we did buy some baby gear. They had some very nice pink baby jump-suits on sale when we came in-'

'I don't care about jump-suits!' interjected Dastardious angrily. 'I want to know about the pram! So I will repeat, what is so special about it?'

'Um, well,' confused, Mr Harrison looked to his wife for support, but she just shrugged. 'When we came in here about two weeks back, almost a week before Mary was taken, we were looking to buy the pram. But the price was so high we just couldn't afford it.'

'What else happened while you were in here?' Dastardious asked eagerly. If he could find, say, two people besides the Harrison's who knew that the pram was special to them, then it would make it easier to establish a connection between people.

'While we were looking, a lady came up to talk to us. We don't know who she was; she just started randomly talking to us about the pram. She may have been an employee.'

'So you told her what you wanted but couldn't afford it?' Pulling a pad and pen from his pocket, Dastardious started to copy down everything they had told him so far.

Mrs Harrison nodded. 'She seemed very touched that we wanted the best for our little girl when we told her. She even offered to let us know if she ever found one on sale as she frequented the shops.'

'Did she take your address of how to contact you?'

'No, it was more one of those offers you make to be polite but don't really mean. Shortly after that she left. We never even got her name.'

'Right. What did she look like then?'

After a moment, brow creased in concentration, Mrs Harrison answered, 'She had red hair, actual dark, lush, red hair. A bit past shoulder length, I think, slightly wavy. She wore glasses, smart respectable ones. They were grey. She was medium height, too, but she was wearing heels. Possibly she was in her thirties, I can't image her being any older than mid-thirties.'

Looking at her husband, she asked, 'Anything else?'

'She was wearing a black skirt when we saw her, white blouse, very made up business look about her. Strong appearance, she certainly wasn't shy.'

'Attractive?' Dastardious asked, noticing the look Mr Harrison shot tentatively at his wife. Inside Dastardious groaned. 'Just tell me straight,' he ordered. 'Was she attractive?'

Harrison nodded, ignoring his wife's sharp look. 'I thought she was very attractive.' Finally not being able to ignore his wife's look anymore he quickly added, 'But not as beautiful as my wife!'

 'Who else knew you wanted a pram?'

'Most of our friends knew about it, I think, in fact one of them told us this place was selling them.'

'Can you give me his name?'

'Charles Worchster. That's W-O-R-C-H-S-T-E-R,' Mrs Harrison spelled out.

'Right,' noted Dastardious. 'I want you to make a list of every single person you remember talking about this pram with and I want you to send it to this e-mail pronto.' He handed them his e-mail address on a slip of paper as he added, 'That will be all. You can go now.'

Replacing his pad in his pocket he turned and made his way over to the only other person who had been in the shop with them, an employee that was closing up for the night.

The large man looked down at him, he had a big, busy, black bearded and wore a tight fitting, pink shirt with the words 'We Sell Baby Gear' on the front in blue letters.

'Can I help you?' he asked.

Flashing his badge, Dastardious said, 'Information. I need to know if you remember having a female customer in here about two weeks back -don't interrupt!' he snarled as the man, whose name badge read 'Chilly' was about to say something. Probably something about how they normally had females inside the store.

'She had dark red, shoulder length hair, business suit, matching glasses. Mid thirties, very attractive. She was talking to that couple who just left. They all seemed very interested in that pram over there.'

'I only vaguely remember the woman you're talking about,' Chilly told him. 'She didn't buy anything that day, but she did come by the next day and bough a pair of pink baby jumpsuits we had on sale. We still have some if you're interested, they come in blue if you've got a baby boy or know somebody who has.'

Gritting his teeth, Dastardious asked, 'Is it too much to ask for you to just give me her name and never mention jumpsuits again?'

'I'll just have a look at the records; see if we've got her name.' Moving behind the counter, the big man pulled up something on the computer. A few minutes later he said, 'Here it is. Bought two pairs of jump-suits-' he withered under Dastardious's gaze and carried on, swallowing nervously. 'Her name's Alice Aforethought.'

After writing down the name, Dastardious cast a look at his watch. He had almost half an hour to finish his shopping.

'Thank you for your help,' he muttered absently, his mind having switched tracks to what was on his shopping list as he retreated from the store. Arriving home late, thanks to traffic, Dastardious found his bed in the dark and was asleep instantly.