Ch.84Request Log #010 – The Missing Children (1)

“Ah, yes, I’m calling to hire you! I just agreed to receive some inside information from the police, and it seems to be related to missing children…”

“This damn city never fails to be lovely. Tell me everything you know. Unless I’m the culprit, I can’t give you any useful information just from that.”

After making a sarcastic remark out of habit, I pulled the gun from my desk and slid it into my holster. I stopped wasting time trying to remember how I made it home yesterday.

Ignoring the client outside the door, I held onto the phone, but unlike most clients, this one wasn’t leaving easily and kept knocking on the door. They must be desperate in their own way.

“Well, um, I don’t know much yet… I’ve only heard that children from poor neighborhoods are disappearing. But I’ll be meeting someone today to get more information…”

So they don’t know anything right now. I can’t turn away a client standing in front of me for information a journalist doesn’t even have. I’ll just put this on hold and deal with the clients waiting.

“If that’s all you know after already making contact, then the police probably don’t know much either. Be specific. Did you call to ask me to publish an article, or to help find the children?”

Usually when police officers contact journalists they know, introducing themselves as anonymous police sources and asking for articles, they bring entire case files.

“It’s closer to asking for help finding them. But you can still help, can’t you?”

Finding missing persons was something I was familiar with, so I could help, but being familiar with it also meant I knew how troublesome it could be.

Adults who disappeared of their own accord were easier to find. To disappear, they had to spend money somewhere, and spending money always left witnesses.

If you established connections near train stations or ports where such people frequently went, sometimes you could find them surprisingly quickly.

But children were different. If a child was simply lost, they would cry and throw tantrums even to a passing angel to get back home. If that wasn’t the case, it meant someone had kidnapped them.

And honestly, catching a kidnapper who doesn’t send ransom notes was nearly impossible. Only the God-President would know, but He wouldn’t tell.

“Call me when you get the information. If you have no leads, no knowledge, nothing at all, you’ll just end up paying expenses on top of the $20 per day.”

“Oh, yes! I’ll call you back once I receive it. Even if it’s later, your help would be valuable! Goodbye.”

Rose Clichy hung up the phone. Later, she says. If a kidnapper takes children and doesn’t even send ransom notes, it means they have ways to make more money than what they could extort.

And if they’re taking children from poor neighborhoods, they’re probably kidnapping them for some other purpose. Even with child disappearances, knowing the age range would make it easier to figure out what they planned to do with them.

“Is anyone in there? This is really urgent, truly!”

Now the client outside was getting impatient. Right, time to get back to work. I straightened my clothes and positioned myself to draw my gun at any moment.

Half the people who spent this much time waiting for a detective who wouldn’t answer were desperate clients, but the other half were enemies who would pull out guns as soon as the door opened. I kept my distance as I opened the door.

Fortunately, outside stood only a human man in an oil-stained shirt and an elf woman who looked like she might collapse at any moment.

I slowly looked them over from top to bottom. They were a married couple. Both wore the same style of ring on their ring fingers. Not expensive ones. I could see where some of the plating had worn off.

They weren’t wealthy people. The rings were cheap, and judging by the oil stains on his clothes, he was probably a factory worker. I stepped aside and let them in.

“I apologize. I was taking a case over the phone. I don’t usually take two jobs at once, but I turned that one down anyway, so don’t worry. Please come in.”

Seeing my face, the two looked as if they’d found salvation and entered the office to sit down. I closed the door, went in, and sat across from them. The husband spoke first.

“Our child was kidnapped. But the police just told us to keep quiet and said they’d find the child themselves. We have money! Our baby isn’t even a year old yet, so I don’t know what condition…”

It was good that he mentioned having money first. I always enjoy dealing with people who know how to show sincerity to a detective.

“Did you receive any ransom note? Something like, ‘Give us this much money and we’ll return your child.'”

Either way, I’d end up taking the same job. My work always offers an abundance of choices. But parents would likely have more information than a journalist.

More importantly, the parents were the first to tell me that the missing child was an infant less than a year old. As I said, to understand the purpose of a kidnapping, you need to know the age.

“No, we haven’t received anything… We don’t even look like people who could raise a large sum of money. I don’t understand why they took our child…”

So no ransom. What could they do with an infant? Selling it for adoption would be the extent of it. Looking at the couple, the child would be mixed-race, and human-elf mixed children typically had quite beautiful faces.

There was no better mixed-race for selling into adoption. I’d need to check the adoption agencies first. They called themselves adoption agencies, but they were no different from importers bringing orphans from Europe.

“Even from the kidnapper’s perspective, a dead child is useless. They’ll try to keep the child alive as long as possible, and as healthy as possible. Once we find the child, you won’t need to worry.”

It was better to be vague rather than jump to conclusions about their motives and risk looking like a detective barking up the wrong tree. They frowned slightly.

No parent would appreciate their child being treated like an object. I was being too harsh, so I apologized. I needed to be polite to clients.

“Though I was thinking from the kidnapper’s perspective, that wasn’t something I should say to the child’s parents. I apologize. By the way, how can I contact you? I’m sure you’ll want to know how the investigation is progressing.”

When I naturally changed the subject, they didn’t maintain their displeased expressions for long. After they left their phone number in my notebook, I nodded briefly. I should ask Yehoel about this too.

He certainly wouldn’t refuse if I asked for another favor, especially since I let him take credit for catching the Hanger of New York last time. Our dealings were always flexible.

The husband who gave me his phone number bit his lip, then took out his wallet and counted out twenty wrinkled $5 bills before handing them to me. The money smelled dusty, as if it had been stored in a glass jar.

“This is an advance payment. When you find our child, this advance…”

His eyes trembled slightly. He was probably handing me almost two months’ worth of wages, and it wasn’t easy for a factory worker to readily offer this much money.

But he took a deep breath with an expression as determined as prosecutors who had received assassination warrants. He had thrown away everything else he could do with that money on the mental scale and resolved to find his child.

“I’ll pay you three times this amount. If that’s not enough, I can dig to the bottom of my savings and pay four times as much. Money can be earned again, but…”

Then this story would eventually evaporate instead of remaining as a lifelong wound. They would buy back their child for four hundred dollars plus their desires as a premium.

“Money can be earned again, and a lost child can be found again. Rest assured. You have the will to spend every last cent from your bank and soul to buy back your child, and I have at least as much professional conscience as the scraps at the bottom of a soup pot. That should be enough.”

I accepted the crumpled hundred dollars. Their expressions mixed with anxiety and relief, but they nodded as if deciding to trust me. With this, I had accepted the job.

“First, do you know the circumstances when the child disappeared? Please tell me anything you know.”

The elf woman trembled violently. It was the face of someone who felt guilty for not being able to stop an intruder who entered their home and took their child, which was what I expected.

The husband stepped in front of his wife. He began to comfort her as if to say she didn’t need to recall memories she didn’t want to remember. They seemed to have a good relationship, unlike what you might expect from a couple who had lost their child.

“Sophie, can you… can you talk about it? I could speak for you…”

“No, it’s fine. You only know what I told you. It’s better if I speak.”

The elf woman, who looked like she might faint at any moment, clenched her fists tightly. With her fists trembling and her skin turning white from how tightly she was gripping, she began to speak.

“It was a week ago, in the afternoon. Before my husband came home from work, I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when I heard the baby crying. So I went to the baby’s room, and…”

She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, as if imagining the terrifying intruder, while also trying to remember as much as possible. She was doing her best.

“The window was open, and there was someone wearing a coat despite how warm it’s gotten. I only saw their back, but… they were a bit taller than you, detective, and they wore their hat pulled down low so I couldn’t see their face, but there was definitely a fishy smell. Not the smell that orcs often have, but a fish smell.”

Better to be spotted by hunting dogs than by elves. Hunting dogs might have poor eyesight, but elves had excellent vision too.

Not many races gave off a fishy smell. It was likely lizardmen who ate fish as their staple food, or the mermaid hybrids from Little Eire. I made a note of it.

“When I told them to get away from my child, they immediately took the baby and escaped through the window. There was a car waiting outside the alley. They got into the car with my baby and disappeared. It took about five minutes for the police to arrive, so they probably got away within that time… but I’m not a detective.”

This was organized. It must be an adoption agency. I’d heard they usually bought orphans from Europe… Was there a special order? Or were they just short on inventory?

I had no intention of criticizing what they did in Europe. The Great War created many misfortunes. And those misfortunes continued to eat away at Europe.

It was about helping people who wanted children to live in this golden age of jazz rather than befriending ruins and misery in such places. It could be considered a good deed.

Good doesn’t cancel out bad, but bad doesn’t cancel out good either. Whether they were good guys or whatever, if they were the culprits, I just needed to find them and retrieve the child. I nodded.

“I have some idea now. Could I see the child’s name and face? It would be good if you had a photograph.”

They pulled out a photo of a child wearing an infant outfit with plenty of lace, showing signs that they wanted to dress their child in the best clothes. I should be able to distinguish the face.

The child’s name was written on the back of the photo. Eleanor Williams, the parents would have called her Nora. I put the photo in my pocket.

“I think I’ve received all the information I can get on the first day. Now I need to make some phone calls and do some legwork. I’ll report back to you this evening, whether I find anything or not. Well then.”

The couple barely managed to get up and left the office leaning on each other. I went out with them, put up an “Out of Office” sign, came back in, and immediately called Yehoel.

Since it wasn’t patrol time, he would answer soon, and the call connected without much delay. It sounded busy in the background.

“It’s Husband. Sounds noisy there. Do you have time to help?”

“Ah, my good, good civilian helper. What do you need? I mean… I can probably help you with anything except what you actually need.”

So he does know something. If it was truly something he couldn’t tell me, he wouldn’t have even mentioned what I needed. Is he connected to higher-ups somewhere? This might not be just about adoption agencies.

“You can’t tell me about infant kidnappings, is that it?”

A static-filled snicker came through the phone line. Thankfully, he’s someone who fears gratitude but has no police conscience.

“That’s right. It’s all classified. The information came to human police instead of angels, so I can’t even search the information repository. Oh, and I’m not supposed to tell you that several city councilmen have been in and out of the police station because of this. It’s also a secret that victims were told to keep quiet. What a shame, you can’t learn anything.”

I snickered back. We were both smiling pleasantly.

“Right, I got absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll buy you a drink at Two Face next time.”

“Why don’t you buy it at Eden? I’ll write you an invitation. I’ve practically given you my liver and gallbladder here.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. That’s practically telling me to spend all my advance payment there. Anyway, thanks for the information. Hanging up now.”

I hung up before Yehoel could respond. Then I took out Inspector Jonathan Pace’s police notebook from my pocket and began checking the contents. If this had started before his death, there would certainly be information.

He was clearly more capable than my police connections. He had neatly organized information even about that nationalist woman I had turned into a sieve with a submachine gun, and his other investigation records were clean.

Seeing that there was no mention of infant kidnappings in his notebook, which recorded even the illegal immigrant cases, the kidnappings must have started after that. It might be related to that immigrant woman.

I would need to check how many children were among the 500 people that woman killed, and I would have to visit each adoption agency one by one. For the Irish gangs in Little Eire, I could get help from The Morrígan.

I would find them using whatever connections necessary. Children should be allowed to live as children. At the very least, words like “suspect,” “perpetrator,” or “victim” didn’t suit children under fourteen.