Lost

Inside we sit in the dining room and go through the ritual of stilted conversation served with jam and cream. The manager is wandering between the tables.

“Hello there! How lovely to see you. Isn't it nice to have your son here, Mrs. Ruiz? Maybe he'd like to come and hear Mr. Wilson's lecture on trekking in the Andes.”

I'd rather be strung up and dunked headfirst into a vat of cold porridge.

Daj announces in a loud voice, “Yanko was always the strongest baby. I needed both hands to pull him away from the bottle. He didn't want the breast.”

“Nobody wants to know that, Daj.”

Louder this time: “His father was a Nazi, you know. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger's father.” I feel my cheeks redden. She's on a roll. “I don't know if he looks like his father. There were so many of them. Maybe all their sperm got mixed up inside me.”

The manager almost chokes and quickly makes her excuses before escaping. Her parting look reminds me of those my teachers used to give me when Daj came to Open Day.

With the tea grown cold and a token scone left on the plate, I go back to Daj's room and collect the envelope. On my way out I drop into the manager's office and write a check.

“You must love your mother very much,” the secretary says.

I look at her impassively. “No. She's my mother.”

Back in the car I open the large padded envelope. Inside are copies of the original postcard and envelope, along with the DNA tests and analysis of the ink, stationery and hair samples.

There is another letter in a plain plastic sleeve. Slipping my hand inside, I withdraw the note, blowing it open with my breath.

Dear Mrs. Carlyle,Your daughter is alive. She will remain so if you cooperate. Any mistakes and she will die. Her life is in your hands.We require two million pounds worth of superior quality cut diamonds, with no stone smaller than a carat. You will separate these stones into four velvet pouches. Each pouch must be taped to a square of quarter-inch-thick polystyrene foam and then double sealed in fluorescent plastic. Each package must be no more than 6 inches long, 21⁄2 inches wide and 3⁄4 inch deep. They are to be placed inside a 20-inch pizza box.Three days from now you will place an advertisement in The Sunday Times travel classifieds seeking to rent a Tuscan cottage. This will contain a cell-phone number for further communications.You must always answer the phone, Mrs. Carlyle. Only you. Anyone else picks up and Michaela dies.No negotiation will be possible. No excuses are acceptable. If the police are involved, you know the outcome. YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE.

The letter is neatly typed and appears to have been laser printed. Although there is no attempt at childish handwriting this time, the emotional blackmail is just as great.

I placed the advertisement. I obtained the cell phone. I must have believed Mickey was still alive. Maybe it was the weight of evidence rather than conclusive proof that convinced me. We convicted Howard on circumstantial evidence and perhaps I resurrected Mickey on anecdotes and inferences.

“At least it's confirmation,” says Ali, reading the DNA report.

“But it doesn't change the story. Campbell won't reopen the investigation or admit mistakes were made. The forensic experts, lawyers, police witnesses and politicians aren't going to backtrack on Howard's conviction.”

“Do you blame them? Do you really want to set him free?”

“No.”

“Well, why are we doing this, Sir?”

“Because I don't believe the ransom was a hoax. I think she's alive! Why else would I have risked everything?”

I stare across the road at a bus shelter where a young girl, barely twelve, looks longingly down the street for the 11:15 that won't arrive until 11:35.

This isn't about Howard. I don't care about reasonable doubt or innocence or guilt. I just want to find Mickey.