Case of the Kidnapped Heiress

Lisette Ruisseau

the Case of the Kidnapped Heiress

Brian Sands

Dark Knight

Chapter Four Diplomatic Bag

The first thought that entered Lisette’s mind when she woke was to retrace her steps of the night before in the park. She reasoned that the kidnappers may have left a clue no matter how efficient they were at their job. The tyre marks of the van, for instance, might help identify it for the police and lead eventually to where the girl was being held.

Lisette ate a quick breakfast of coffee, fruit juice, toast and jam, taking small tentative bites. Her jaws were painfully stiff from being gagged for most of the previous day and she could not open her mouth without a twinge of discomfort. She dressed quickly in panties, bra and hose, pulled on a pair of jeans followed by a light pullover, a small silk neck square at her throat, and one of her overcoats. She remembered Bryce la Plage’s warm coat and for a moment debated whether to ask him to accompany her. Instead, she tried to phone Don and Roger again, but without response, and could only leave a summary of her experiences on their message bank. Looks as though I’m on my own for the time being, she thought, but I’ve done that before. As she stepped into a cab, she tried to remember where she had left her car. Oh yes, the hotel. But she directed the cabbie to Hyde Park. That had to come first if there were any clues for the finding.

Lisette located the drinking fountain without much difficulty. It was close to the park’s entrance and, a little further on, she identified the tree under which she had been placed the night before. The two men had not carried her far before dumping her. So where had they parked the van? Almost directly opposite the tree, a side gate led onto the footpath and roadside. She stepped through and studied the curbing where the van might have stood. Other vehicles now filled the parking bays and the road’s surface allowed no imprints from tyres. She had drawn a blank, and was beginning to attract one or two puzzled stares from pedestrians who no doubt wondered why this pretty woman was so interested in the guttering. Had she lost something?

In some embarrassment, Lisette acted out that scenario, bending and searching along the gutter with the intention to move on as quickly as possible, when she saw the dull white of a small piece of cardboard. She stooped and picked it up. It was a business card for a vehicle hire company. Lisette’s heart skipped a beat. Against all probability, she may have found a lead.

Back at her apartment, Lisette found the company’s address in the telephone book. She then traced its layout on an internet map of the city and in fact discovered the organisation’s home page. “Executive vehicles for all occasions,” the accompanying blurb read. The company, Toffs ‘N Wheels, supplied stretch limousines and embassy cars as well as offering a range of more economical vehicles for hire. The selection included vans. Their home page even showed an aerial photograph of the building and a map inset.

Lisette thought that a clandestine visit would be the best way to go. She had always admired Roger’s ability as a cat burglar. Take a few simple precautions and it should be plain sailing. She remembered how going into such places openly had worked against her in the past. But those buildings always had good security. Maybe I can slip in as a visitor and hide until they close for the day, then check out their files on the van, she thought. It was not likely that the company itself was a criminal organisation. Company records on the van would show who hired it, and she could then follow up, using the information. Asking for it would be risky because it was always possible that a company employee was a member of the gang. She reminded herself that it seemed to be only two men, Stringy and Big Bear, but there might well be others. No, an open, frontal approach was not feasible.

On this premise, Lisette made her preparations. First, she caught a taxi to the hotel and took possession of her car. Then, once again back at her apartment, she changed into a cat suit of soft suede, in colour light blue-grey with short sleeves and a plunging scoop neckline. The tapering legs allowed plenty of movement if she had to run. To conceal this costume, she donned her overcoat and tied a filmy grey silk scarf around her throat. Her hair was taken up into a neat chignon. She wore heels that would add a flash of fashion for the eyes of an onlooker.

It was now mid-afternoon. She drove to the area and parked her car near a children’s playground.

Entering the gateway to the company, Lisette followed a sign that read “Visitors Report to Reception,” walking confidently towards the main doors. This was the tricky part. She paused, consulted her watch. There appeared to be no one around, but there would be someone at the reception desk that she guessed was just inside the building. To one side, another sign indicated “Public Rest Rooms.” Lisette veered off, found the door marked “Ladies,” and entered.

What was interesting about the interior of the otherwise spare and functional washroom was a door at the far end highlighted by a huge padlock. After ascertaining that no one was using a cubicle, Lisette walked to the door and, with a set of keys and picks that she carried in a pouch fastened to her belt, she set to work on the lock. It came apart on the seventh attempt. The young women stepped through and found her self in the bottom of a stair well, apparently a fire escape that was no longer in use. She sucked in a deep breath and steadied her nerves. It was a stroke of amazing luck. She did not think that she had been seen and, if she could enter deeper into the building via the stairs, it remained to find somewhere to hide until the building closed for the night. In a corridor on the next flight up, Lisette located a broom closet that was roomy enough, and there she settled down to wait.

Lisette Ruisseau looked at her watch. After waiting patiently through several hours, she felt justifiable pride, imagining that Roger Iggotson, Le Rôdeur, would do just that: lurk immobile until it was time to act. It was now ten o’clock. Standing, Lisette took off her overcoat and folded it carefully into a small bundle, packing it away in a shoulder bag. She removed the scarf at her neck – it had become warm in the closet – and stuffed it into the bag as well. Finally, she slipped off her high heels, placed them in the bag, and pulled on a pair of flat pumps with ankle straps and soft rubber soles.

With the bag over her shoulder, the pretty cat burglar left the security of the closet and made her way along the corridor to the office area. Everything was silent aside from the distant hum of computers and the faint crackle of a faulty ceiling lamp. At the head of a flight of stairs, she heard the slow measured tread of a security officer on his or her rounds. She waited, holding her breath. The footsteps, however, did not ascend towards the floor where she stood but instead faded into another part of the building on the ground floor.

Knowing that there was no time to lose, Lisette entered what was evidently the main office area and found a workstation that looked promising. Before considering the computer, however, she investigated a three-drawer wood veneer filing cabinet. Records were often kept in hard copy as well as in electronic form. She found a set of folders marked sequentially from one to eight, each folder containing information about the hire vehicles, three limos, two standard vehicles and three vans. However, the folders held no useful information. In fact, if the material was to be believed, no vans had been used the previous night. I’ve drawn a blank, Lisette thought in disappointment.

The young woman was about to leave by the way she had entered when she saw at the far end of the workstation area a closed executive door. Perhaps there would be helpful information there. She had to use the picks again before the small lock snapped open. She stepped in, treading a soft plush carpet. The room had an art deco ambience dominated by a huge glass topped desk with a bank of phones, metal framed easy chairs around a glass topped coffee table, a gleaming black filing cabinet in one corner, a small safe on the floor in another corner. On the desk lay a black briefcase, the only object on the desktop aside from the phones.

Lisette drew closer and carefully examined the briefcase. A small but unmistakable embassy seal was stamped upon the lid. Why was a diplomatic bag in a hire car company’s executive office? Perhaps it had been forgotten. If it was important, why was it not locked away, in the safe? She took the case in both hands and turned it around on the desk so that the lock was facing her. She tried the clasps. They were locked, as she expected. What can be inside that’s so important? The only way to find out was to look. Was there time to do that before the security guard made the next round, perhaps on this floor?

The mechanism appeared to be the usual sort, one that was easy to pick open. She wondered whether the combination lock was set, perhaps not. The office, not to mention the building, was secure, from the point of view of its staff. No other personnel aside from members of the company used it. She tested the locks. Yes, she needed either the combination or she had to pick the lock. The latter was the obvious solution.

Carefully, Lisette inserted a narrow pick into the lock and turned it gently. There was a faint click and the two latches snapped open. She let out the long breath that she had been holding and looked back over her shoulder. She had left the office door open in order to hear better if someone approached. But there was no sound from the corridor outside. The guard must still be away from this part of the building. She turned back to the briefcase, picked it up, and lowered it to the floor. Crouched there, she would be out of the line of sight if someone came to the door, screened by the office desk. Let’s see whether this contains any useful evidence. She raised the lid of the briefcase.

There was a faint hiss. A puff of vapour struck her in the face. The room reeled about her. Lisette’s last thought as she fell helplessly onto her side was, a trick of some kind … Next the carpet rushed up against her face and everything went dark.

The first thing Lisette became aware of when she regained consciousness was a throbbing headache that seemed to spread around her temples. The second discovery was that she was lying on her side, her arms behind her, and someone was tying her wrists together with thin cord. She might have cried out in pain as the knot was jerked savagely tight and doubled, but she was still dazed and not yet fully conscious. The next moment, her ability to deliver any sort of cry was removed. She was rolled onto her back and a wide piece of tape of some kind was strapped over her mouth, sealing her lips together. A cloth bound over her eyes ensured further helplessness.

When her ankles were pulled roughly side by side and tied together, she could not prevent a faint groan from escaping through her sealed lips. The knowledge that she was coming-to further galvanised her captor, who in jerky movements began winding more rope around her legs above the knees. The person worked in haste, hauling the cords tight, then pulling on them some more to make certain that they became embedded in Lisette’s thighs, cutting into her skin through the thin material of her cat suit. The same was quickly done to her elbows so that they were pressed together into her back.

Lisette groaned once more and tried to raise her head. The result was that her captor tightened the blindfold then added more tape to her mouth, this time passing the broad sticky band around the back of her neck and wrapping it twice more, massaging the stuff smoothly across her cheeks and jaw lines. The tape was pulled tightly with each turn so that her lips were pressed painfully against her teeth. She tried to move her lips. She could not. She tried to moisten them with her tongue. They were pressed and pursed too tightly together for that to be possible.

Panicking, the young woman arched her back and began to struggle feebly. Her captor grunted in exasperation, revealing that it was a woman, and the next moment Lisette felt more cords being wound around her body: two loops below her breasts, pulled tight; one loop above her breasts also made tight and cinched between her arms and her body. Being unable to breathe through her mouth, and with her arms cramping and quickly going numb, threw Lisette into momentary hysteria. She bucked and flopped like a fish, mewing piteously through her taped mouth, a sound that must scarcely travel far even in the room. For her pains, her legs were pulled back at a right angle behind her and bound with another piece of cord to the cinch between her elbows.

All her struggling ceased. The hog tie prevented Lisette’s fish impressions and she could only lie still, breathing heavily through her nose, her body quivering with the pain in her arms and legs. The palms of her hands tingled. Her fingers were already numb. She could not believe how strangely she had been captured. The diplomatic bag was booby-trapped, and I’m the booby who fell into it! She tugged tentatively at her wrist bonds but the agonising shaft of pain that ran through her arms to her shoulders made her stop immediately.

The security guard was speaking on a phone.

“Madame Y, I have to report an attempted break-in … No, it’s not an ordinary thief. It’s a young woman dressed in a cat suit ... She was looking at a briefcase in your office when I caught her on the internal monitor … Aha, yes, when I found her she was out like a light … No, she’s no trouble. She’s trussed up good and tight … That’s right, Madame, we have to get her out of this building before the regular workers arrive tomorrow morning … I agree, it has to look like nothing’s happened … Right, will do.”

Lisette heard the click as the phone was replaced in its cradle. She was seized roughly under the arms and pulled up side-saddle on the carpet.

“Come on, little lady. You’ve heard about going for a ride, like in the gangster movies? Yeah, well … you’re going for a ride … one-way ticket.”

Bound hand and foot with thin cord, trussed tightly with her arms pressed against her back, face swathed in tape that sealed her lips tightly together, blindfolded and with the numbness creeping through her hands into her arms, Lisette Ruisseau had never felt more helpless and miserable in her life. She was hauled to her knees – the hog tie making it impossible to stand on her feet – and slung over the security guard’s shoulder, from which position, her legs raised indecorously to the air and her head hanging down, hair swaying in a wave towards the floor, she rocked from side to side as she was carried down the corridors. The heavy tread of the woman’s feet echoed on cement steps. She must be big and very strong, to carry me this way. Lisette deduced that they were descending the stair well that she had used to enter the building.

Think, my girl, think! Lisette chided herself. At least concentrate and try to remember the patterns of movement so I might have some idea where they’re taking me. The mental exercise helped her to push the pain and discomfort into the back of her mind, but with only partial success. Lisette felt that the breath was being driven out of her body with each step taken by her captor, and the effort to inhale and exhale through her nose made her giddy and light-headed.

A pause, turn, continued descent. Another landing. Had they progressed deeper, beyond the landing to the rest room? Another pause, another descent, and then Lisette’s carrier appeared to be walking on a flat surface again, the footfalls echoing. They were in a car park. The woman came to a halt. Lisette was laid upon a cold, hard cement floor. She heard the faint beep of an electronic lock, followed a moment later by a click and the sound of rusty hinges. Once again she was picked up, carried this time as one might a sleeping child, and lowered upon what felt like a thick blanket. Her body was arranged onto her side. Her head was lifted and something soft placed beneath it. From the subtle perfume in the fabric, Lisette recognised that the pillow was her own overcoat rolled up. Next came a rush of air and a whump followed by silence. Another car boot! They really are convenient for conveying heroines, she thought dubiously

Next …