Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

38) Interrogation

The news spread faster than anything ever seen before. By the time of the arrival of the car that would take Dastardious and the Shadow back to the Plaza, the whole of Manhattan was starting to talk about it. Someone had alerted the news and the front entrance was crowded with reporters and cameramen eager to have the story printed all over the front page of their paper. Questions were fired, camera lights flashed, and shutters flickered as Dastardious did his best to ignore them and lead Alice into the building.

Senses tingled in the back of his mind, as Alice would pull to a sudden stop to pose for the camera and fire off a quick reply that told him that he should not trust her. She had been far too willing to come along, and she hadn't even tried to deny his accusation. Indeed, he hadn't even needed to say it for her to know that he suspected her. It was far too easy in the end, after all that time for it to just fold in like this. A lot more was to come, he was sure of that. There were all those hours sitting in stuffy rooms as lawyers bickered back and forth, eyeing the evidence he had, and trying to decide whether Alice really was the Shadow. There was no way that they would be able to dispute the video evidence he had, which he had ordered to be locked up in his safe at home.

As soon as they had been on their way in the car, Dastardious had called Dutch. The man had immediately demanded to know where he was, and why he had not been answering his phone.

'Never mind about that, what do you want?' he asked in reply.

Quickly Dutch relayed to him the events of the evening in an excited tone. 'We've taken the video footage of the player; it's sitting on the table in front of us now. What do you want us to do with it?'

'You're going to take it straight to my apartment and lock it in the red box. Move things out of it if you have to. Now what else have you to tell me?'

'It's about Mulligan, he and his team have the body.'

'How did they get there so soon?' demanded Dastardious amazed.

'I don't know. I just got out of the water from bring the boat to shore when I saw them heading my way. I didn't stick around to claim the boat, sorry, but you know what it would have looked like. Right? Anyway, he disappeared shortly after I got back to the van, a car came and picked him up and I haven't seen him since. Where do you think he went?'

'That's not important,' replied Dastardious, gazing over at Alice sitting beside him. He had a faint idea of where Mulligan had gone. If he knew almost as soon as Dutch that the body had been placed then he must have also had the knowledge of who put it there. Not that it would do him any good.

'They can have the body if they want,' he continued. 'They can have all the bodies they want, but he won't get anywhere without Miss Aforethought.'

'Yeah, sure, the same as us! We don't know where she is and even if we did, you're the only one that can arrest her. Mulligan might even have her already.'

Dastardious laughed, causing Alice to lean over and whisper in his ear, 'What's so amusing?'

Covering the speaker, Dastardious said, 'They think Mulligan might have you.'

Laughing in return, Alice placed her cuffed hands on Dastardious's leg and whispered; 'Only one man can have me, Detective.'

'Who's that?' demanded Dutch on the other end of the line.

'Just Miss Aforethought,' Dastardious replied, giving Alice a hard look that made her remove her hands. 'She seems to find it amusing as well that you think Teddy could grab her before me.'

'... You're with Aforethought now?' Dutch asked after a long, shocked pause.

'It's a long story. Listen, I'm almost at the Plaza, do me a favour and stay away from here for the moment. I'm going to be busy and Ted won't be happy when he finds out I've beaten him. So I want you to head to my apartment with the video and stay there. Got it?'