Prosper rubbed his forehead and hurried over to what turned out to be nothing more than a shadowed depression. Although he failed to spot any apparent bloodstains, he couldn’t relax.
Jill perused her notes until she found Gideon Robinson’s address, then she hurried towards his front door and rang the bell. When nobody answered, she stepped back and looked up at the terraced property for any sign of movement. Not seeing anyone, she stepped forwards and rang the bell again. About to walk away, the door suddenly opened.
“Oh it’s you. What do you want?” Robinson asked as he leaned out, looking up and down the street before pulling his head back inside the house like a tortoise into its shell.
“I need to ask you a few questions about the night you thought you saw Mack Taylor being assaulted.”
“Thought I saw! There’s no thought about it. I know exactly what I saw. What are you here for, to accuse me of being a liar again?”
“I’m sorry about that, sir, but I’d just like to go over what you saw once more.”
Robinson wormed his tongue around between his teeth and lips. After a moment, he said, “You’d better come in.”
Jill followed him inside and shut the door behind her. She found herself in a virtually empty room with a few cardboard boxes and bare floorboards. Robinson walked through a door on the far side and led the way to the lounge where he plonked himself down on the tatty blue couch. A sparkling plasma screen television took pride of place, and it looked way too big for the size of the room.
He picked up a mug of tea from a table next to where he sat and stared at her over the brim as he took a sip. When he lowered the mug, he said, “So what do you want to know?”
Jill sat down in a chair opposite and took out her notepad and pen. “I’d like to go over what you said the other day.”
“Why, nothing’s changed.”
“I’d just like to clarify a few things. Firstly, you said you’d been drinking in The Hanging Man, and when you returned home, you saw someone that looked like my superior, Prosper Snow, attack Mack Taylor.”
Robinson nodded. “He didn’t look like him, it was him. Either that or he has a twin brother.”
“First, what time did you leave the pub?”
Robinson shrugged. “When they threw me out at closing time I guess.”
“So it’s fair to say you’d had a few drinks by then.”
“I like to drink, so I’d had one or two, yeah.”
She tapped the pen against the pad. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how drunk would you say you were?”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just trying to ascertain how reliable a witness you might be,” she said, keeping a steady gaze on him.
“Well I wasn’t sober, but I wasn’t paralytic either. I know what I bloody saw.”
“So on the scale of one to ten, how drunk?”
Robinson scratched his chin. “I’d say about seven.”
Jill made a few notes. “That’s quite drunk then.”
“I still know what I saw.”
“Okay, talk me through it. What exactly did you see?” She looked up at him again.
“I was coming home along the alley at the back of the houses, and when I opened the door to the passage to get through to the front, there were these two men there, one of which was your copper friend.”
“Two men. What did the other one look like?”
Robinson frowned, deep in thought. “He had long black hair in a ponytail.”
“Anything else you remember about him?”
“Not really.” He shrugged.
“Okay, what were these two men doing?”
“They were just standing there, looking out the gate. Then the one with long black hair said something, and they pulled balaclavas on and went out into the alley. That’s when I saw them attack Mack Taylor. I recognised him after from his picture in the paper.”
“So these two men attacked Taylor.”
“No, there were more of them. Four I think.”
“Four! So where did the other two appear from?” Jill looked up quickly at Robinson, pen hovering over the page of notes.
“How should I know?”
Jill looked down again and made a few more notes. She didn’t know what to believe, but Robinson seemed as though he believed what he was saying.
“And would you be able to recognise these men again if you saw them?”
“I already have, that copper friend of yours.”
Jill tapped the pen against her teeth. “Aside from the one who looked like my partner, would you be able to recognise the others?”
“Well, the other two already had balaclavas on so I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they looked like, but the one with your partner, yeah, I guess so.”
“And would you be willing to stand up in court if it came down to it?”
Robinson tugged at his earlobe. “I don’t know. I don’t want any trouble. I don’t know why I came forward really. Now I know it’s a copper, well, I mean if they could do that to Taylor, what would they do to me?” He looked suddenly pensive. “I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. You’re one of them.”
“One of them?”
“A bleedin’ copper. You’ll all stick up for each other.”
“I can assure you that’s not the case at all. You’re perfectly safe. No one’s going to do anything to you.”
“I bet Taylor thought the same thing too.”
“Sir, we need all the help we can get. This is a murder investigation. Anything you can think of, anything at all, will help.”
Robinson rubbed his cheeks. “Well there is one thing. The man with the ponytail, he used a couple of names when he was speaking to the other bloke.”
Jill sat up straight. “Names? Whose names?”
Robinson shrugged. “Perhaps their two buddies. How should I know?”
“So what were the names?” She sat with the pen poised over the pad.
“This was weeks ago. I can’t remember exactly, but I think one was something to do with a capital city, something like that, but I can’t remember what it was. The other was something like Try.” He shrugged. “That’s all I remember.”
Jill scribbled a few notes. “Thank you Mr. Robinson.” She passed him a card. “If you think of anything else, anything at all, call me.”
She snapped her notebook shut. Something smelled decidedly corrupt about this investigation.
Prosper looked at his watch, lips pursed. What was keeping Jill so long? He turned to go and look for her when he saw someone peering at him from a window in one of the terraced houses. As he stared back, the person ducked out of sight, leaving him with a residual image of a nose and a pair of eyes, the rest of the face lost in shadow.
Prosper sighed and walked out of the alley. Perhaps he hadn’t seen anyone at all. His nerves were in tatters.
He couldn’t see Jill anywhere, so he assumed she was in one of the houses, perhaps taking a statement from the man that had shouted for them to be quiet when they ambushed Hatchet Man.
There was nothing he could do about it now. The dice were cast. He could only sit back and let them roll.
Five minutes later a door opened down the street and Jill stepped out. He saw her lean back towards the house. A hand snaked out of the doorway, brusquely accepted Jill’s, shook it and then disappeared.
Jill walked towards Prosper, expression deadpan.
Prosper didn’t think his heart could sink any further, but if a spiritual Marianas Trench existed, he was in it, three miles down in a bathysphere buckling under pressure.
“Well?” she asked.
“I didn’t find anything. You?”
Jill shook her head and pocketed her notebook, then she stared towards the alley as though about to suggest another look when Prosper’s mobile phone rang. He accepted the call, thankful for the distraction, and headed towards the car before Jill could ask further questions.
&n
bsp; CHAPTER 31
Prosper looked at the words he had typed on the computer screen:
Jerel’s dead. The Oracle’s killed him. Don’t ask me how he found him because I don’t know. I can only assume that it’s got something to do with what we’ve done, so I think we’re all in danger. Just act normal for now, but be on your guards. Don’t take risks and don’t talk to anyone.
They would know soon enough that Jerel was dead, because the reporters would be over it like a rash and Jerel’s face would be tomorrow’s fish and chip paper. It was a sad epitaph.
But he wasn’t sure about the last bit of his message. If he mentioned they were in danger, one of them might go to the police and confess everything, or if, as ridiculous as it seemed, one of them was the Oracle, he might speed up his agenda and kill them all before they had the chance. One of his friends couldn’t be the Oracle though, it was stupid to even think it, but who else could it be? Who else knew what they’d done?
He considered the meaning of the word oracle: the power of prophesy, the power to predict the future. What if the killer really did have second sight? What if the killer had seen what he and his friends did? Although he knew it was ludicrous, a cold shiver ran up his spine.
Unless ... unless one of them had told someone else.
Jesus, that was it. One of them blabbed and by some act of sheer fluke, the real Oracle had either overheard or someone had told him.
The obvious choice for blabbing would be Ty. He loved to make up stories, so he would have a field day with something like this. His whole life was a sham, a fairy tale. The truth hidden behind a wall of lies, each lie another brick in the wall until he probably couldn’t see the truth anymore. He probably thought of himself as some sort of Charles Bronson, a vigilante fighting the good fight. Jesus Christ, he should have realised sooner that Ty wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut, not with something as juicy as this.
With acid indigestion making his stomach grumble, Prosper pressed send. He only hoped none of his friends did anything rash before he spoke to them, like tell the truth.
Once the message was sent, he turned the computer off and walked downstairs.
“Have you seen the boning knife?” Natasha asked as he entered the kitchen.
Prosper shook his head.
“Well you had it last, the other Sunday.”
“It’ll be in the drawer then.”
“It’s not.”
“Well add it to the list of other things that have disappeared, like my jacket,” he snapped.
Natasha pursed her lips. “Anyway, you’ve been up there a long time,” she said. “I’m starting to wonder whether you’re having a virtual affair.”
Although her expression said she was joking, Prosper knew she probably suspected there might be a little truth to her statement. “Don’t be bloody stupid,” he said.
She chopped vigorously at a carrot. “Well what are you up to then?”
Legs too weak to remain upright, he collapsed into a chair at the table. “I should have told you sooner.”
Natasha stared at him, looking worried. “Told me what?”
“Do you remember me mentioning my friend, Jerel, you know, the one that was in the army?”
Natasha nodded.
“Well he’s dead.”
Natasha’s worry lines dissolved and she dropped the knife. “Oh, I’m sorry. How did it happen?”
Prosper stroked his chin, feeling a couple of days worth of stubble. “He was murdered.”
Her eyes went wide and she clamped her hand across her mouth. “Jesus. That’s awful,” she mumbled.
“Not just murdered. Butchered.”
“Do you know who did it?”
Prosper swallowed, and then forced the words out. “Yes, it was the Oracle.”
Natasha stared at him, her mouth and eyes opening wide. “You mean the man you’re hunting. No.” She shook her head. “I mean, how, why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s unbelievable. Someone you know. Jesus. You don’t think …”
“What?”
“You don’t think it’s got something to do with you, you know, hunting him?”
Prosper’s tongue felt like a balloon expanding within his mouth. No, he thought, it’s not because I’m hunting him, it’s because I’m trying to goddamn frame him. “It’s probably just pure coincidence.”
“That’s one hell of a coincidence. I hope to God you’re right, otherwise, what about me and Leon? We could be in danger.” Her eyes widened in fright.
“No, you’re not,” Prosper said. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“Well what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not bloody wrong. It’s one of those ironic coincidences, that’s all.”
Natasha didn’t look convinced.
“Look, I’ve assigned someone to keep an eye on you both though. Make sure you’re safe. That should make you feel better.”
“Make me feel better! Jesus Prosper. Anyone would think you didn’t care about us.”
“Of course I bloody care about you.” He stood up and walked out of the room with tears in his eyes. In reality, he didn’t know what he felt about anything anymore.
CHAPTER 32
Wolfe lived in a strange, slanted structure. The roof stood higher at one end than the other, and the property went up in levels, lowest at the front, much like a Mesopotamian ziggurat, a temple; the only difference that this one wasn’t intended as a shrine to Gods, but to art. Designed to make the most of the natural light available, the buildings many windows reflected the crescent moon. The entrance to the building also had a sloped roof, but it sloped the opposite way to the main roof, making it seem as though something was wrong, a fault in the design that drew the eyes. A subtle, but not unpleasant imperfection in the symmetry.
Wolfe once explained to him that it was designed in the rule of thirds artists used to draw the eye to specific points: three floors, each encompassing a third of the structure, entrance one third of the way along, windows one third in, one third up. Everything about the building had been meticulously planned. Nothing was random.
Even the landscaped garden used the rule of thirds, a living canvas on which horticulturists worked their own magic.
When he reached the entrance, Prosper rang the bell and waited patiently. When no one answered, he rang it again. Still not receiving a response, he grimaced, jabbing his finger at the bell to ring it a third time and finally a light came on in the building. He couldn’t help feeling Wolfe had waited for three rings, his artistry not just applied to the appearance of the house, but to its function as well.
Footsteps echoed along a hall and then a light came on in the entrance, making Prosper rub his eyes. Damn, it was bright. He felt like a specimen under a microscope.
The door opened, and Prosper blinked to clear his vision when someone grabbed him and pulled him into the house.
“What the—”
“What are you doing here?” Wolfe barked.
Prosper rubbed his eyes and saw Wolfe standing in front of him in a grey T-shirt splattered with paint and dust. His tied back hair accentuated his chiselled facial structure.
“That’s one hell of a welcome,” Prosper said as he straightened his shirt.
“What if someone saw you?”
“Who’s going to see me? You live in the middle of nowhere,” Prosper grumbled.
“Exactly, that makes it even more suspicious.”
“I’m visiting an old friend. Is there something wrong with that?”
“After just reading your e-mail, I think there is. Jesus, is Jerel really dead? It’s incredible. What if the Oracle followed you here?”
“I don’t think he’d have to follow me to find out where you live. If he’s as clever as he appears, then he’ll already know.”
Wolfe shrugged. “How was he killed?”
“Like with the other victims, we haven’t got a body, but when you’ve seen a picture of someone
with their throat cut and their tongue pulled through, and with their stomach ripped open, I think we can assume that he’s not going to be kicking his heels up and doing a jig, don’t you.”
Wolfe shook his head, his ponytail flicking from side-to-side. “You’d better come through.”
Although he had feared that one of his friends was the Oracle, Prosper had to trust them. They were the only people he could talk to, and they were in this together, so they might all be in danger. He owed them the benefit of the doubt, but if any of them gave him the slightest reason to mistrust them …
He followed Wolfe along the corridor and into the studio where numerous statues gathered in silent contemplation; they looked almost funereal, as though they should be sitting on top of graves, their features angelic. Some were life-size, others smaller. Chiselled from pale rock, they appeared anaemic, lacking the blood that would bring them to life. Glimpsed from the corner of his eye, he could almost believe some of the statues moved, their limbs in motion, their expressions slightly different, the wink of an eye, the corners of a mouth rising in mirth.
Prosper shivered.
The statue Wolfe was presently working on stood in the middle of the room, starting to take shape, almost as if it wasn’t being made, but being freed from the rock. As if it was already there, and Wolfe only helped it out.
A multitude of chisels and mallets decorated the ground, each one covered in a thin layer of dust. As Prosper looked at them, he noticed specks of blood on the ground.
“What happened there?” He pointed at the blood.
Wolfe shrugged. “I misjudged a hit with the hammer. Anyway, forget that, what the hell’s going on?”
“The Oracle, that’s what. Somehow, he must have found out it was us that implicated him in a murder he didn’t commit.”
Wolfe pinched his lower lip between his fingers. “I was afraid of this.”
“What?” Prosper gaped. He didn’t think Wolfe was afraid of anything.
“The Oracle’s like an artist. We attempted a pale imitation of his work, and now he’s pissed. We were students that thought they could impersonate the master. I should have realised.”
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