The Pillars of Abraham

by Ian Young

  He places the phone back in his pocket and stares ahead. Mason slows down. Hanzel realises the Englishman’s waiting for directions.

  ‘Straight on,’ he says, indicating the left lane.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘That was Karel, the camera operator. He confirmed the worst: the police have traced the car to me and a warrant has been issued for my arrest. There are cops at my apartment waiting for me.’

  Chapter 31

  Alabama’s jaw almost bruises her own chest it drops so far. ‘She’s in the fucking trunk!’

  Rushing across the square to the Octavia would be suicide. Already a cop has drawn his gun and is about to blow some guy away.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she says to Tom. ‘It’s like we’re in a fucking movie!’

  Tom is standing behind her, resting his hands on Alabama’s shoulders. And she doesn’t actually mind. Some guy in jeans and a T-shirt has disarmed the cop and is standing over him pointing the gun back at him. Alabama wants to run after the Octavia as it screeches away on the cobbled road.

  ‘Shit, here comes the other cop. This is gonna get fucked up.’ Alabama’s right hand twitches. But this isn’t the US and she doesn’t have her gun. The guy is shouting – he’s English. It’s got to be Mason. She wants to shout out to him but knows how bone-headed that would be. If only she had her gun – and what? Shoot the cop?

  Alabama leans her head back towards Tom, but doesn’t take her eyes of the impending carnage. ‘Get the car, quick.’

  Tom scarpers like a kid stealing sweets from a shop. Alabama prays he hasn’t parked far away; she really doesn’t want to be here when Mason gets filled with Czech lead. He’s shouting again. No, not a shout, an order: ‘put the gun down, do it now.’

  Who’s the guy in the car? He could be some poor local Mason’s coerced into helping him, judging by the way he’s ordering him around. ‘Get in the driver’s seat.’ Shit, the cop isn’t backing down. Mason’s just edging back towards the cop on the ground when Tom slides to a halt next to the café. Alabama jumps in and Tom drives away from the standoff without drawing attention. They approach the soldiers, who stop them and glare through the windows, four eyes and two gun barrels scrutinizing her and Tom. It only takes a second but maybe it gives Mason a little more time to get away.

  At the bottom of the street they have to choose left or right. The road sweeps right, making it the easier option and therefore the more likely choice. But Tom hesitates.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Alabama.

  ‘It’s fifty-fifty,’ he says. ‘But I have a better idea.’

  Tom turns left and heads north. ‘We have no chance of finding them by driving around the city. My faculty is up here, perhaps we can hack into the CCTV.’

  ‘Brilliant, soldier, way to go.’ Alabama thumps Tom’s arm.

  ‘Will you stop hitting me!’

  ‘Don’t wet yourself, you’ll know when I hit you … Hey!’ Alabama twists in her seat and faces Tom.

  ‘What? I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘CCTV, you guys got any watching the river?’

  Tom grins and looks across. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Scully.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Her face reddens; it’s like warning sign, like a scorpion raising its tail.

  ‘X-Files,’ says Tom. You’re like—’

  ‘Say it again, I dare you!’

  ‘But Scully was hot!’

  Alabama looks away, her face still burning, but for a different reason now. She grins out of the window while Tom finds a parking space in front of the faculty building. Once out of the car, Alabama stares around at the square like she’s just stepped out of a time machine. A white, colonnaded building forms one side of the square and a similar structure, with cupolas on top, forms another side. The architecture gives her eye plenty to gaze at. It is, considers Alabama, like she’s in a fairy tale scene, one of those old Grimm tales from deepest Europe.

  ‘This way,’ says Tom.

  Inside the university they sit alone in an office while Tom hacks in to the city’s CCTV network. Alabama fidgets in her seat; surely someone can trace the hack back to the university and to the network Tom just logged on to? Is he risking his education, his freedom, for her? But this is life and death; Tom could argue that, surely.

  ‘Yes!’ says Tom, giving the air a little punch with his fist. ‘We’re in.’

  ‘Which bridge did we come over from the airport, the one just after the tunnel?’ asks Alabama, stretching out a paper map on her lap.

  ‘Um … this one.’ Tom strokes the map along the words Štefánikův most.

  ‘So, Kendrick was found along this stretch of river.’ Alabama points at the area between Štefánikův Bridge and Čechův Bridge to the east. ‘Which way does the river flow along here?’

  ‘That way,’ says Tom, sliding his finger left to right across the map.

  ‘So let’s search from here to the east. I saw the police vehicles about here, close to this bridge. Remember?’ Alabama taps the map next to Čechův Bridge.

  ‘Sure.’ Tom taps away on the keyboard. ‘How long was he missing for?’

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘Bože. We can’t check three months back, it’d take days. I have a paper to write by Friday.’

  ‘I’ll ignore your sense of priority. But you’re right, we need to narrow this down.’

  Alabama reaches for her cell phone and calls the last number dialled. ‘It’s me. Find out how long Kendrick was thought to be in the water for. Can you do it now?’

  She waits about a minute in silence but it seems like an hour. ‘OK, thanks.’ She hangs up without waiting for the argument that was inevitable.

  ‘Less than a week,’ she says, ‘according to the state of the body.’

  ‘I’d say less than that. There’s no way it can stay hidden for long, the Vltava’s just too busy along that stretch.’

  ‘So why didn’t you say before I made the call? Jerk!’

  ‘You didn’t ask … Scully.’

  Alabama digs him in the ribs. ‘Just find the images.’

  They trawl the recordings from the last week in silence. Alabama thinks she saw a trace of a smile across Tom’s face; there’s certainly one on hers.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ says Alabama, ‘is, if they killed him, why dump him in such a busy stretch? He wasn’t even weighted down.’

  ‘Madness,’ says Tom, straining at the monitor.

  ‘Or humanity.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘They wanted him to be found.’

  ‘So why not just dump him by the road?’

  Alabama huffs. ‘How do I know? I’m not a murderer.’

  ‘Suicide, then.’

  ‘I just don’t buy—’

  ‘Shit!’ Tom rewinds the video and peers closer to the monitor. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘There,’ says Tom, jabbing the screen with this finger. ‘See it?’

  ‘God damn.’

  Chapter 32

  Hanzel insisted that Mason stopped the car. He had to hand himself in, explain everything before the whole mess got dragged out like the Prague ring road. How many people had been buried in those foundations? Maybe Andreia was already encased in cement somewhere.

  Mason agreed to abandon the car; clearly the chase was impossible. With no CCTV images to help them, finding the Octavia in Prague is as likely as finding a straight politician. They parked up and Mason took him to a bar.

  Mason places the coffees down on the table by the window and pushes one over to Hanzel.

  ‘Yesterday, I was a respected officer in the BIS, with a decorated career in the police service behind me. Today, I’m a fugitive.’

&
nbsp; Mason nods. ‘Yesterday I lived with a beautiful and courageous woman, and had a great job. Today, well … shit happens, my friend.’

  ‘It gets worse. I’m sat in an Irish pub and it was a fucking Irishman that started all this off.’

  ‘You’re swearing in English is impressive.’ Mason holds up his coffee cup in salute.

  Hanzel stares at the Englishman, trying to understand more about him. Would his father’s old tricks work on Mason? Could he draw out the truth like he did every day in his former life as an intelligence officer?

  ‘So what are you studying at university?’ Hanzel tries a different tactic: conversation.

  ‘History and philosophy.’ Mason sniffs his coffee before taking a sip.

  ‘I guess you won’t be graduating this year.’

  ‘I could, I just need to finish my dissertation, shouldn’t take long. Then Little Miss Superior will have nothing on me.’ Mason pulls a wry smile then clams up, looking into his glass of coffee.

  Hanzel has no idea what Mason’s talking about, but judging by his mood, it must have something to do with Dr Menendes. Suddenly Mason looks up and sighs at his coffee.

  ‘This latte looks more like a Cornetto,’ he says, tapping the top with the back of his spoon.

  Hanzel shrugs. ‘A Cornetto?’

  ‘A type of ice cream. Look, the milk is meant to be foamed so you can rest the spoon on the surface, even a plastic spoon would sink through this froth.’

  Hanzel laughs. ‘I guess we’re still learning.’ He frowns and removes his hand from his own coffee cup. ‘Why didn’t they weigh Kendrick’s body down?’

  ‘Because they’re too powerful to give a shit if the body washes up.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Hanzel’s phone chirps and he jumps. ‘Prosím?’

  Hanzel flicks his eyes up to Mason and mouths ‘Karel’. When the call ends moments later he places the phone down on the table besides the coffee cup.

  ‘That was Karel again. There’s a rumour going round the police station that Kendrick drowned. Nothing official, just rumours.’

  ‘So they held him under until he stopped kicking, or they did weigh him down, only the bonds worked free?’

  ‘Maybe. But the rumour going around is that there was no sign of injury or struggle.’

  ‘So why are scientists killing themselves in your city?’

  ‘Perhaps he was drunk after all.’ Hanzel sips his coffee then licks the foam from his lip.

  Mason grins. ‘Or met a stunning Czech girl and fancied a spot of skinny dipping.’

  The pub has started to fill up with early evening revellers, mostly British guys wasting no time in celebrating the impending shackling of themselves to an unfortunate girl. Unfortunate, that is, if their behaviour is anything to go by. Mason looks around with an impassive glare, as though he might get up at any moment and throw someone out. Perhaps Hanzel wasn’t surprised that the first place Mason sought refuge in was the pub he once worked in. Mason said the police weren’t looking for him, they were looking for a Czech spook; an Irish pub was an unlikely place to find him.

  Suddenly Mason is on his feet, striding across to the bar, but he doesn’t grab some kid behaving badly; he picks up a newspaper and rushes back to the table. Hanzel’s seen this paper before; you couldn’t miss the bold red type across the top.

  ‘Look at this!’ whispers Mason as though talking about someone nearby. He positions the newspaper so they can both see it. ‘Scientist found dead.’

  Mason silently reads the first few paragraphs then stares at Hanzel.

  ‘What?’ Hanzel frowns hoping for some explanation.’

  ‘Listen.’ Mason begins reading the story. ‘“Professor Peter Richards, 67, who gained notoriety for his bestselling books on evolution and atheism, was found dead in his home in Oxford early yesterday by Mrs Edith Martin, 48. Mrs Martin, the housekeeper for eight years, is being cared for by specially trained police officers. The police, meanwhile, have stressed that no one else is thought to be involved in what they are calling an apparent suicide.”’

  Mason looks up. ‘Coincidence?’

  ‘If he had killed himself in Prague I would say no coincidence, but it is in England, yes?’

  ‘Since I met Andreia I’ve come to take a dim view of coincidence.’

  ‘But come on, this doesn’t have to be connected. There could be any number—’

  ‘You have to be kidding!’ Mason glares at the newspaper, his lips twitching as he reads. ‘“Professor Richards had recently returned from a trip to Prague where it is believed he had gone to interview religious leaders as part of his research for his new book.”’

  Chapter 33

  ‘Can I put the news on to see if they’re reporting my kidnap?’ I don’t wait for the American to answer. I just reach up, switch the television on and flick through the channels. I got through at least twenty channels without sign of CNN or Mason’s holier-than-thou BBC, and I’m about to give up when I come across euronews in French. It would have to do. If my captor is pissed off by me flicking through the channels, he doesn’t show it. Whatever he’s doing on his phone seems to be consuming his mind.

  We have euronews in the apartment. It’s a bit like CNN. Still, better than nothing. It’ll pass some time, and maybe it might piss the American off if he doesn’t speak French. I look at him again, feeling a need to goad him, to press him into conversation, even if it’s just an argument.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me your name, are you?’

  The guy looks up from his phone and seems to be thinking about it. ‘Sure. Call me Dave.’

  ‘Dave? Why not?’ I shrug. That, too, is better than nothing. ‘David’s a biblical name, right?’

  ‘Sure. Jewish.’ Dave smiles as though with a little pride, or that’s how I interpret it.

  I don’t want to seem judgemental (or even racist) but my impression of American Jews is that they are proud of their heritage. Even if he wants to hide his Jewish – what should I say, Jewishness? – from me, he probably wouldn’t. Dave is Jewish. It might even be his real name.

  I mull this over, trying to understand the significance of him being Jewish and connected to Unsworth – and the awful significance of his revealing this much of his identity to me. And then a news item catches my ear. The news guy is talking about a scientist who was found dead in his apartment after taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. I might suppose he’d been found cheating on his wife, or some other immoral behaviour that made it impossible to go on with life, but then the newsreader starts to discuss the dead guy’s canon of anti-religious books. He was an outspoken opponent of religion in all its forms: debating, lecturing and crusading to end what he called the intellectual slavery of mankind. Hang on, I’ve heard of this guy, Louis Chaubert, lived in Paris. I’ve even read one of his books.

  I look at Dave, who seems oblivious to the news. ‘Did your lot kill him?’

  Dave looks up at me then at the TV. ‘My lot? Who is he, anyways?’

  ‘Louis Chaubert, doesn’t believe in God.’

  ‘Who goes around killing people because they don’t believe in God?’ Dave goes back to gawping at his cell phone.

  ‘Well, let’s see. Your buddy Unsworth, for starters.’

  ‘Unsworth?’ Dave lets out a laugh but doesn’t look up from his phone. ‘Couldn’t kill time, that guy.’

  ‘Tell that to Howard Dyer. And not to mention the attempt on my life.’

  Dave looks up and watches me for a moment. ‘Don’t take it so personally. It was nothing to do with your lack of faith. Anyways, as I say, they got bigger plans for you now.’

  Chapter 34

  Tom replays the recording several times, and each time Alabama leans closer to the monitor, desperate for a clearer view. But there is no mis
taking the image of a man jumping from Čechův Bridge into the river. He had stood for a minute, quite alone, then leaped from the rail, splashed into the water and didn’t resurface. If the jumper could swim, he didn’t appear to have made an effort. There’s no doubting that whoever jumped from the bridge intended to kill himself. Apart from the certainty it was a man, Alabama couldn’t say with any certainty at all if it was Kendrick.

  ‘Can we find out if anyone else has been found in the river recently, or if anyone is missing?’

  ‘I’d say there were lots of people missing,’ says Tom, ‘but I can do a search for bodies in the river.’

  He pulls his phone out and taps on the Seznam app. Within a few seconds a whole set of search results appears, describing the cases of bodies being found in the Vltava. But nothing recent, other than Kendrick’s.

  ‘It’s got to be him,’ says Tom. ‘He jumped upstream of where they found your friend, and it was a couple of nights ago.’

  ‘There’s no way Kendrick would have killed himself.’ Alabama shakes her head.

  ‘Unless he was being tortured,’ suggests Tom.

  ‘Christ, I can’t think about that.’

  ‘Then why else?’

  ‘They wouldn’t torture him. He had some kind of artefact of, let’s say, scientific interest. They’ve already taken it, and I don’t see why he would refuse to extract data from it. He was desperate to know more about it. It makes no sense to torture him.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t like what he discovered.’ Tom sits back in the chair and wedges his hands behind his head.

  Alabama follows his outstretched legs upwards from the feet in front of her to Tom’s crotch. It isn’t intentional, but when she flicks her gaze up to Tom’s face, he’s watching her. A hot sparkle flushes her skin and she looks away quickly. Say something!

  ‘Hey, do me a favour,’ she says, slapping his leg playfully. ‘Have a look on Google and see what they’re saying about Kendrick back in the US.’