“Hmm…” Mike was confused, having thought how his story would sound to police officers. Indeed, like a child, he had been frightened by some actors and dummies and imagined devil knows what without any proof… pure nonsense!
But Jane had really disappeared!
“Wait for me,” he told the scared woman. “I’ll come in a few minutes and we’ll go together to the police.”
Since Mrs. Trenton’s divorce nine years ago, her opinion of men hadn’t undergone any noticeable improvement. And though she reconciled, as with an inevitable evil, with the fact that her daughter had a boyfriend, Mike in her company always felt himself under suspicion, like a recidivist thief who looks for a bank security guard job. But now she was subdued by his resolute tone and look and met him as a savior who definitely knew what to do in order to find her daughter safe and sound in the shortest time.
However, the resolute spirit of the young man apparently made no impression on Sgt. Hopkins. The sergeant looked tired and unfriendly, as though all his years of serving law and order weighed as a heavy burden on his shoulders this evening. Having listened at first to Mrs. Trenton who, naturally, couldn’t report anything certain, he asked her to wait behind the door and invited Mike to his desk.
“You should hear yourself,” Hopkins muttered after listening to the story till the end. “Read too many comics? Are you saying some gang abducts and kills people in a carnival, right before the very eyes of hundreds of visitors?”
“First, not of hundreds,” the young man objected. “I’ve said, most people don’t even guess this building is there. And second, that’s just the point—nobody would ever think that such things can really happen!”
“What you described indeed can’t be real. You know what the term ‘fatal injuries’ means?”
“Of course. What we saw is certainly a fake. But Jane thought that we didn’t see everything. Cars can go by different routes. There may be some special rooms… for special clients… you know, the perverts for whom movies with real murders and rapes are made. There could be something like that! And while we’re wasting time here talking…”
“I’ve heard only your fantasies so far. This carnival has all its proper licenses. All their rides have the corresponding certificates of safety…”
“It is possible to kill and torture even with quite safe objects! Not to mention that documents may mean one thing, while actually something else…”
“Who told you that anyone was killed or tortured there?”
“But Jane went there and disappeared!”
“For now she is only late in returning home. Formally I don’t have sufficient grounds to declare her missing. Informally… yes, when a girl for the first time in her life doesn’t come home on time, and not only her mother and female friends, but also her boyfriend knows nothing about it—most often it does mean something. And, alas, frequently it means something bad. But even if so—there are no grounds to conclude that it’s connected with the carnival. You said yourself that she promised not to go there again?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what? It’s eighteen minutes past midnight now. The carnival is already closed. Give me the slightest reason to enter and search private property without a warrant.”
“The guy,” Mike said. “With long black hair. About twenty five years old. Looked a bit like an Indian. Is he registered as missing? We saw him ride into the ‘cave,’ but what returned was only an empty car splashed by something red.”
“No, he’s not”, Hopkins immediately answered.
“Are you sure? You didn’t even check any records.”
“Mike, don’t teach me to do my work. Our town isn’t very big. Any disappearance here is a rare event.”
“So what—during the time when the carnival is here, nobody disappeared in the town? Except for Jane.”
“I am not obliged to discuss confidential information with you .”
“So someone is missing! Sergeant, I’m just trying to help!”
Hopkins skeptically looked at Mike for some seconds. Then unwillingly muttered:
“Don’t even think of repeating this. If the press kicks up dust, it can spoil the case. Yes, we are investigating one disappearance, but it doesn’t fit your description. It’s a child.”
“A boy of eleven?”
“How did you know?”
“Is his name Cyril Parker?”
“No.”
“Is he black?”
“No, white. So you guessed right only the age.”
“When did he disappear?”
“No more, that’s enough! I told you more than I should as it is. Go home and go to bed. Maybe your girlfriend will show up in the morning. She could even be at home right now.”
“And if she isn’t?!”
“Then in the morning I’ll visit the carnival as soon as it opens and I’ll check out what this ‘cave’ of yours looks like, though I’m absolutely sure that it’s a false trail. Are you happy?”
Mike brought the weeping Mrs. Trenton home (her house, of course, was still dark and empty), but didn’t intend at all to go to bed himself. He drove back home only to take the auto repair shop keys. In the shop he also didn’t stay long and left it with tin snips and impressive-looking sledge hammer. His father had a pistol, but, alas, it was in the locked safe. Having told himself once again that this idiotic heroism was either nonsense if his suspicions were foolish or suicide if they were justified, Mike threw the tools on the right seat and drove to the suburb, to the infamous grounds where the carnival was now settled.
Having exited from the highway, he parked the car on the empty lot in front of the closed gate. The light of a lonely lamp which remained behind still reached here, but the carnival was sunk in the darkness of a moonless night; all multicolored illumination which brightly shone here in the evening was off, and behind the chain link fence, the silhouettes of motionless attractions only vaguely loomed. Symbolizing careless fun in the afternoon, now they caused an uncomfortable feeling of something hostile and ominous. All these metal bars and arms of swings and whirligigs resembled either huge spider legs or monsters’ tentacles spread waiting for a victim.
Mike stood for some time in front of the gate, allowing his eyes to get used to darkness. He had a small flashlight in the pocket of his jeans jacket, but he wasn’t going to turn it on without an urgency in order not to betray himself. From the darkness behind the gate not a single sound reached; the carnival seemed completely died out. Did the workers live in their trailers or pay for rooms in a local motel? Mike remembered that he saw standing trailers near the “cave”…
He didn’t try to cleave through the locked entrance. If there was any alarm or surveillance system, it was for certain exactly here. On the other hand, by cutting the metal fence from the side of the “cave” he would risk drawing attention by noise; moreover, it would be hard to reach the fence in that place, as everything was overgrown with bushes there both inside and outside… so the best option was to break into the carnival somewhere in the middle of the fence. With this thought, carrying the tin snips in one hand and the hammer in another, he went along the fence, trying to step through dry grass as quietly as possible.
Having turned a corner, he started moving away from the road. After passing several dozen yards he stopped. No light reached here, and Mike suddenly felt himself shivering. It would be the simplest to write it off to a cool night, but Mike didn’t try to lie to himself—he understood that he was scared… actually, damned scared to meddle here, especially alone and with so imperfect weapons. But if Jane was indeed there and those police goofs weren’t going to get off their asses…