The Abduction of Monica 4: The Psychic Detective
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from The Abduction of Monica 3: The Prisoners)
We were all in a state of shock by the time Paul Bowden arrived. We had all viewed the email attachment and some of the girls were fighting back tears as we sat with Paul around the table on the back verandah. He had not spoken since he had watched the video, and had now assembled us to no doubt give us the benefit of his experience and wisdom in such cases as these. However, somehow I could not imagine that he would have had too many cases of this nature. Not since the last time he was here, anyway - after a murder that had shocked the Brisbane B&D scene, but that was another story (See Monica’s Justice)...
He sat at the head of the table as Emma served coffee and cookies. Trish and Jill sat on his left, while I sat with Emma and Leila opposite them. Paul stared at his hands for a few seconds, then spoke.
“Before we talk about the video, let me just tell you that we have a team on this case already, and I’ve spoken to Sydney about the Russian angle. They have been following this pair for some time. There are connections with Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, and we have been working with the Russian police on this one. The Russians had previously sent a special detective to Sydney to work with our people there. Apparently a bit unorthodox, but has been getting results. Was supposed to fly up here this morning – that was why I was late. Something happened with communications and we missed each other at the airport. Some problem with the mobile phone. I’m sure they’ll turn up in due course.” He looked apologetically around the table.
“Now, this video – this email... I suppose we now have our explanation, if not our motive. This is where I need input from you guys. I have my own observations, but I want your knowledge. There’ll be stuff that you people will pick up, that our guys will overlook – I know that. I want you to put aside your emotions for just a few minutes and do a little free association – just let your thoughts flow. Any starters?”
This was just a little unusual, I reckoned, but perhaps it might work.
“Bondage expert,” said Trish. “Really good gear – expensive stuff.”
“Not the sort of stuff you buy at ‘Naughty but Nice’,” Jill added.
“Which means it had to be ordered from the States,” I said, “and it would have taken time to get here. Which means it was in no way spontaneous, but was planned. I guess the whole video thing confirms that.”
“He’s a real Dom,” said Leila. “The whole submissive, kneeling position. Not just B&D but Dominant/submissive.”
“He wants to make Monica and Mary slaves,” Emma said.
“But it’s more than that,” I put in. “It’s tied in with our past. He knows us, knows Monica and Mary. His use of bilboes. That’s a dig at us, for sure. And another thing – you don’t just buy bilboes on the web that easily. I reckon he had them made specially.”
“Like the chastity belt, and that set-up that Mary was on,” Trish offered. “All long term restraint. Very long term. There’s no escape from that sort of bondage. I think he’s very serious about what the video implied.”
Her words killed the outflow for a moment, bringing us back to the reality facing us and facing our missing friends.
“An observation,” Paul ventured. “You all talk about ‘he’. The email was signed ‘Nemesis -The Goddess of Retribution and Vengeance’.Couldn’t this be a ‘she’?”
“You’re right,” Emma said, then paused, thinking. “Whatever happened to Portia Tang? We never found her body on Shark Island.” Her proposition left us stunned. Paul, who had been involved in the messy clean-up that had followed that adventure, looked interested.
“Is there any other female who might get up to this sort of activity?”
None of us could think of a candidate.
“But this Portia Tang could?”
“Hell yeah,” Trish said. “Especially if she still had access to Jade Wong’s money and contacts.”
“And she’d be busting to get revenge.”
The sudden possibility that Portia Tang might still be alive, rather than buried under rubble or swept out into a shark infested sea during a cyclone left us stunned, for Jade and Portia had indeed been Monica’s Nemesis over a number of years. Each time we had clashed, Bilboes had managed to come out on top, but it had been touch and go in some cases.
Conversation was about to go down that road when the front doorbell rang. I frowned.
“Did anybody hear the gate buzzer?” The others shook their heads. I stood up and padded down the hallway to the front door. Normally nobody could get this far without buzzing from the driveway gate and requesting that somebody open the gate remotely.
I saw the outline of a figure beyond the opaque glass of the front door.
I opened the front door and found myself facing a slim young woman in dark grey slacks, sneakers and a short sleeved white blouse. She was in her late twenties – maybe thirty – with an open face surrounded by a cascade of blonde tresses that fell in a barely-controlled mass down past her shoulders. She carried a small backpack and a handbag and looked confident that she was in the right place, which was more than I was.
She met my gaze and smiled, her grey-green eyes and face seeming to light up, as though seeing a long lost friend. I saw she wore no make-up and no jewellery. As she held out her hand, I forced a smile but I did not feel at all in the mood for joyful greetings in the circumstances.
“Sofiya Volkonskaya,” she said, her voice cheerful with a slight accent.
“Steven Reynolds.”
“I am very happy to meet you, Steven.”
“You’re Russian?” It was a dumb question but I couldn’t think of what else to say. “You’re the detective?”
“Of course. What did you expect?”
“I... I didn’t expect anything. How did you get through the gate?”
“I was trying to phone Paul Bowden on mobile phone, but it doesn’t seem to be working properly.” She pulled it from her handbag and looked at it as if it was a mysterious object she had never seen before. “Then the gate just sort of... opened, when I was dialling.”
I would be having words with the gate people after this, I thought. It was like driving down a street with a remote garage door opener, seeing which garages opened up when you pushed the button. But opening the gate with a mobile phone? This was a bit rich. So much for security.
“Can we go inside?”
I led the way, past Monica’s study and along the hall, then became conscious of the fact that I was not being followed. I turned to see Sofiya standing by the small unobtrusive door under the stairs, that led down to the basement dungeons. She was frowning, then looked up and smiled at me when she realised I was watching her.
“This house has interesting history... Many people come here – I sense much pleasure, much pain...”
I shrugged. This was one detective out of left field, I thought. Why did it seem that this was not going to help with our problem?
She caught up with me and we passed through the kitchen to where the others sat around the verandah table.
Whatever conversation was taking place stopped at the sight of Sofiya.
“Uh... this is Sofiya Vol...” I had forgotten her surname but in my defence it was hardly Smith or Jones out of the White Pages.
“Volkonskaya,” she finished helpfully.
“I assume you know Paul?” I asked, but in fact I wasn’t really sure of this. Paul had not mentioned that the “special detective” was female. I would have remembered.
“Nearly. We leave phone and text messages for each other. I am not very good with technology, I’m afraid. Phones do not like me.”
That must be useful in your job, I thought, somewhat unkindly.
Sofiya shook hands with Paul and I introduced Trish, Jillian, Leila and Emma.
As Emma went for a further coffee, Sofiya sat down and Paul spoke.
“I understand Sofiya has been tracking our Russian friends for several months, since they came to Sydney and began to set up operations there. Is that right, Sofiya?” She nodded.
“I have followed them from Vladivostok,” she said simply.
“You knew they were in Brisbane?” I asked.
“No, I have been in hospital for a few days – my lung collapsed – and they dropped out of sight in that time.”
“Didn’t you have anyone else to cover for you?”
She gave a slight smile.
“There is nobody else who does what I do.”
“And what is that?”
“I find people. I can sense where they are.” She sat back in her chair, still with the same slightly amused expression that no doubt came with such statements as she waited to see what reaction it would bring. I looked at Paul for some sort of explanation. He seemed a little embarrassed.
“I gather Sofiya does some sort of...er... psychic work for the Sydney police...” he said.
“Psychic?” echoed Trish. “Seriously?” There was disbelief in her voice. I was glad she said it instead of me. “What sort of psychic... I mean, how?”
“I... channel energy – or it channels through me. I am an empath. It is gift, I guess. I do not really know how it works. I have had gift since I was small girl.”
I looked at Paul. He shrugged and avoided my gaze.
“Sofiya was asked to come here to help us find the two Russians, and to bring with her the knowledge of them that she has.”
“Then why can’t she help find Monica and Mary?” Leila blurted.
Oh please, I thought. This is just what we don’t want - some left-field pseudo-medium casting words of hope before desperate people.
“Well, we hadn’t received the email when I talked to Sydney…” Paul said, as though reluctant to go down that road himself. I sensed that he was like me. Male, logical, down to earth – all the supposed deficiencies in life that females constantly throw at us. “We have a number of other leads to follow, of course. More so, now that this email has come our way. I want to get inside the minds of these Russians – see if they’ve been involved in anything like this before. I’ll have to sit with Sofiya for a while to get a better picture of what these two could be involved with”.
“And just so that you know, we are of course looking for Monica’s car and the BMW the Russians drove here in. We’ve talked to people at the Grand Heritage Hotel but there was no record of anyone staying there that matched the description. Unfortunately there was no CCTV coverage of the car park under the hotel, assuming that’s where Monica and Mary would have gone. We’re currently checking other cameras in the vicinity but it doesn’t look hopeful. I think our friends selected the meeting place with some care. Naturally we’ll be looking at the email source and the film itself to see what we can glean.”
“So what can we do?” I asked, suddenly exasperated. Yesterday I had been holding out a hope that the whole thing would turn out to be some sort of stupid mis-understanding, and Monica and Mary would turn up with Monica clutching a fat cheque and extolling an outrageous deal that she had pulled off. The champagne would be opened and she would be chastised then forgiven.
Now that awful email had turned up and our world had gone down the toilet with a monumental flush. Not only were Monica and Mary being tortured in some Godforsaken prison, but we would be forced to become vicarious participants, obliged to watch each and every video in case there was a message, or perhaps a clue as to who was behind this, and where our friends might be.
Paul looked at me, and then at the rest of us.
“I hate to say this, but the answer is to watch the video again. You guys are into this stuff. Anything you see might help us. Those collars for example. If you can identify where they came from, we may be able to track down their records. Surely there can’t be too many out there?”
I had to agree that he was right, and that line just might lead somewhere, but I wasn’t holding out for much. The thought of Monica and Mary trapped in those steel bonds made me fume. I stood and left the gathering, before they started to go down the psychic road. I hadn’t realised we were that desperate, and I hadn’t realised I was that distraught.
* * *
14.05.09
story continues in The Abduction of Monica 5: The Importance of Being Monica
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