by Simon Toyne
After about a second in its beam her hand fluttered up to her chest and her eyes softened. ‘You mean Dr Meachin,’ she said. ‘Need me to sign for it?’
‘No, that’s OK,’ Gabriel said. ‘Guy who pointed me here already signed for it.’
He slipped back into the hallway. The place was filled with people. He heard someone shouting in the reception area behind him. He pressed on to the delivery bay. The back of the building was deserted. At the far end of the alley he saw an ambulance easing into the morning traffic on Hallelujah Crescent.
He jumped down from the concrete platform and sprinted to where he’d left his bike behind a large refuse bin. With two hard kicks on the starter pedal he gunned it up the alley then braked hard. Hallelujah Crescent was a one-way street, always crammed at this time of the morning. Gabriel looked left. He couldn’t see the ambulance. He began threading his way in and out of the cars, scanning the traffic ahead. The road uncoiled before him, bit by frustrating bit, until it reached the junction with the southern boulevard and split in two — right towards the outskirts and left towards the Citadel. His money was on left, but he eased the bike into the central line for the time being, ready to turn in either direction the moment he spotted his target.
He stamped his heel on the brake, locking the back wheel. A horn blared and a van steered around him, its driver shouting angrily from the safety of his cab. Gabriel didn’t even notice. He was looking up the boulevard, checking both ways, confirming that somewhere between the alley and this junction the ambulance had simply vanished.
Chapter 66
Reis was scanning a sheet of paper when Arkadian walked into his office.
‘Anything missing?’
‘Nope.’ Reis remained at his desk. ‘I thought they may have taken this — the lab report I told you about — but I guess they didn’t know what it was. It’s. . extraordinary.’
He glanced over the Inspector’s shoulder and his face registered surprise. Liv stood in the doorway behind him.
Arkadian sighed. ‘Reis, this is Liv Adamsen. She’s related to. . She’s the monk’s sister.’
‘Yeah, I. . er. . Hi. .’ A nervous smile tweaked the edges of Reis’s mouth. ‘Sorry about the, er. .’ He trailed off as his mind tottered through a minefield of inappropriate responses to what had just happened.
‘Sorry about losing my brother’s body?’ Liv suggested.
‘Yeah. . I guess. .’ he said. ‘First time it’s ever happened.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring.’
Reis blushed, ruining his well-cultivated pallor, and dropped his gaze. ‘No, I suppose. . er. . no. .’ He shut up before he could dig himself deeper.
Arkadian pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Miss Adamsen. .’ He fixed her with what he hoped was a look of suitable authority. ‘I know you’re angry, and you have a right to be, but I’ve got every uniform out there looking for that ambulance. We’ll get your brother back. I shouldn’t have let you down here in the first place, and now it’s a crime scene you can’t be here. I need you to go back up to reception and wait until we’ve secured this area.’
Liv held his gaze. ‘No.’
‘It wasn’t a request.’
Very deliberately, Liv stepped into the office and sat down opposite Reis. ‘Let me explain why I’m staying. In the last twenty-four hours I’ve discovered that my brother, who I thought was already dead, has died, for real. I’ve flown thousands of miles on uncomfortable planes to come and identify him. I’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and then — just when I thought I would finally be re-united with him — you lost him.’
She let the words sink in.
‘I know how to behave at a crime scene. I can’t contaminate this one further because I’ve already been in it. So you might as well keep me here and keep me happy. Because,’ she held up the crumpled newspaper, ‘if you try and pack me off, the first thing I’ll do is call my editor. Think he might hold the front page?’
Reis flicked between Arkadian and the girl as they stared each other out, until Arkadian finally blinked.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Stay. But if anything does leak to the press, anything at all, I’m going to assume it came from you and charge you with obstruction of an ongoing investigation. Are we clear?’
‘Perfectly.’ She turned, the ice in her green eyes instantly thawing. ‘So — Reis, isn’t it. .?’
The pathologist nodded. Feisty women frightened him at the best of times. He also found them incredibly attractive. This one was off the scale.
‘You were saying something about a lab report?’
Reis glanced at Arkadian, who just shrugged.
‘OK. Er. . lab reports are a normal part of the clinical procedure. . as you probably know. Here we always run a standard batch of tissue tests and tox routines to establish certain things and rule out others, such as whether the subject may have taken, or been given, something that could have contributed to their death. One of these measures the extent of necrosis in the liver, which often helps establish time of death. We didn’t really need to in this case because of all the witnesses, but procedure is procedure. These are the results — ’ He gestured at a red note stapled to the top sheet.
‘It came back with a contamination query. They think the sample must have been incorrectly labelled. There was no sign of any necrosis; in fact, quite the opposite. The cells appear to be. . regenerating. Liver cells do regenerate, of course, but only if the host is alive. .’
Arkadian wondered — too late — if it had been the smartest move to let Liv hear this.
‘I checked it out thoroughly. The sample they got was definitely from the monk. So going purely on these results, and ignoring the fact that I performed the post-mortem myself. .’ He hesitated. ‘I’d say he was on the mend. .’
Chapter 67
A third of the way along Hallelujah Crescent, in a tall, elegant building that had been hollowed out, reinforced and turned into an extortionately expensive car park, a metal screen rolled up and a plain white transit van edged its way into the traffic.
Gabriel watched from across the street, his face obscured by his visor. He glanced down at a handheld PDA device, like a motorcycle courier checking the details of a delivery. Towards the top of the screen a small white dot pulsed gently while a street map scrolled up around it. The movement of the dot corresponded exactly with that of the van, or, more precisely, the movement of Samuel’s body as the transponder he’d inserted in his throat transmitted his location.
He slipped the PDA into his jacket pocket and kick-started the bike. The van reached the end of the crescent and turned left towards the heart of the old town. Gabriel followed a few cars back.
Just short of the northern boulevard the van peeled off down a slip road past a large sign welcoming visitors to the Umbrasian Quarter.
For as long as Ruin had existed, the Umbrasian or Shadow Quarter had been the least popular and therefore least populated part of the city. Tucked below the northern side of the Citadel, the streets here remained permanently shrouded in the shadow of the mountain, even at the height of summer. In the modern era its cheap land prices made it the perfect location for the vast car parks needed to cater for the armies of tourists swarming to the city. It was into this valley of cold, grey concrete that the van now drove.
Once they left the anonymity of the ring road, Gabriel dropped further back and slid in behind a shuttle bus. The van turned sharp right, down a narrow alleyway between two huge multi-storey monstrosities.
Gabriel continued on past, pulled a fast U-turn, mounted the pavement, killed the engine and tilted the bike against its foot-rest. He slid off the detachable side-mirror and sprinted to the corner of the building, flipping up his visor as he went. He squatted against the wall, held the mirror low to the ground, angled down the alley, which ended at a sheer rock face that rose to the old town wall. He watched as the van came to a standstill. A man with long dark hair and a beard leaned out of the driver’s window and swiped a card t
hrough an entry machine then glanced back in his direction.
Gabriel froze.
With no sunlight to reflect off the mirror the only thing that would give him away was movement.
He studied the driver. The man looked more like a rock star or a movie actor than a hired thug. After a few moments the van eased forward and disappeared into the side of the building.
Gabriel pulled the PDA from his pocket. The pulsing white dot moved across the top of the screen, where the rear of the garage met the side of the mountain. He stuffed the mirror in his pocket and stood up. Hundreds of pairs of headlights peeped over a low wall that stretched away to his left, like convicts contemplating freedom. Gabriel vaulted the wall and hurried inside.
The place was cold and damp and smelt of oil and petrol fumes and urine. Aware that he was probably on CCTV he moved towards a distant Audi, made like he was about to get in it, then knelt as if for a fumbled key and stole another long look at the PDA.
The white dot was no longer within the confines of the car park, but passing through the bedrock beyond. He watched it cut across the streets and buildings of the old city, aiming straight for the Citadel. When it was two-thirds of the way there, it froze, blinked and disappeared.
Gabriel moved over to the cold concrete of the back wall and held the PDA directly against it to boost the signal. The dot flashed on again, closer still to the Citadel.
Almost at the boundary of the old moat, it flickered out completely.
Chapter 68
Kutlar sat up front, staring into the jagged darkness of the tunnel. The rumble of tyres across the uneven floor and the hammering of the diesel engine combined to produce a singularly mournful sound. The vibrations rattled the plastic dashboard and plucked at the stitches in Kutlar’s leg. He relished the pain — it kept him focused and proved he was still alive.
His head was fuzzy from the pills he’d taken. He realized he’d have to watch that. He’d have to stay sharp if he wanted to think his way out of this one. It had all come clear when Cornelius and Johann helped him out of the clinic and into the van.
‘You need to tell us what happened,’ Cornelius had said, like he was just offering friendly advice. ‘You need to tell us how the girl managed to escape. And, most importantly,’ he’d added, so close that the whiskers of his beard brushed against Kutlar’s ear, ‘you need to tell us what she looks like.’
That was why he was still breathing. They only had her name, but he had seen her face. As long as they were still looking for her, he was more useful to them alive.
The passage rose suddenly and emerged into a cavernous chamber. Johann swung the wheel and the headlights flashed across a steel door before they crunched to a stop. Johann killed the engine and he and Cornelius slipped out of the cab. Kutlar didn’t move. He watched them in the side mirrors. The chassis shifted slightly as the back doors opened and Kutlar heard the ripple of heavy plastic as the first of the stiffs was lifted out.
He’d been shocked when they popped the two paramedics. The doc’s death had been more acceptable somehow; no one would be that surprised when his body was eventually found slumped in the chair where they’d left him. He’d stepped across the line long ago when he got hooked on junk and started treating gunshot wounds. The medics, though — they were just civilians.
Glowing red in the brake lights, the monks reappeared from behind the van with the first body-bag and laid it by the steel door. When they’d twice repeated the process, Johann took out his swipe card and the door sprung inwards. Seconds later it clicked back into place, sealing the bodies inside.
Cornelius and Johann climbed back into the van.
‘I can help you find her,’ Kutlar said.
Cornelius turned to him, lip curled. ‘How?’
‘Get us out of here and I’ll show you.’ Kutlar tried to conjure up a smile but only managed a grimace. ‘I need to make a call.’ He shrugged theatrically. ‘But there’s no signal down here.’
Cornelius said nothing for a moment, just looked at the thin film of sweat bathing Kutlar’s skin despite the chill of their surroundings. ‘Sure,’ he said finally.
Johann twisted the ignition key.
The engine throbbed into life, the sound suddenly overwhelming in the confined space. Kutlar glanced at the wing mirror and watched the red glow fade from the cave as they drove away.
The three body-bags lay in the black silence of the mountain while torches were being lit in the maze of tunnels above by those coming to collect them. A little over twenty-four hours after escaping from the Citadel, Brother Samuel had returned.
IV
Chapter 69
As crime scenes go, the cold-storage chamber of the city morgue was about as good as it got. Highly restricted access had prevented the usual build up of partial prints, hair follicles and other assorted trace evidence that clouded most investigations. All the surfaces were clinically clean. And there was a complete CCTV record showing where the suspects had been and what they had touched.
‘There,’ Arkadian said, pointing at the edge of the bunched-up green plastic sheet on the trolley. ‘The first suspect touched it as he pulled it over himself.’
Petersen smiled. The only thing easier to lift prints off was glass.
‘He also touched that drawer.’ Arkadian pointed to locker number eight. ‘Let me know as soon as you find anything.’ He left Petersen laying out his brushes and unscrewing a tub of fine aluminium powder.
A uniformed officer was stationed by the door, ensuring no one else came in or out. Reis paced the corridor outside his office. He held up a specimen jar as Arkadian approached.
Arkadian took it without breaking his stride. ‘Where is she?’
‘First-floor staff room,’ Reis called after him.
The statement detailed everything that had happened to her from walking into the morgue to identifying the mystery man on the CCTV footage. Liv was preparing to sign it when Arkadian appeared. She still wondered what Gabriel’s game was and why he was playing it. She hadn’t described him as ‘the man who tried to kidnap me’. The most he had done was to impersonate an officer and offer her a lift into the city. He wasn’t the one who’d stuck a gun in her face. He hadn’t snatched her brother’s body either, although she still wasn’t sure what he’d been doing in the cold-storage room. In the end she’d settled for ‘the man who met me at the airport and claimed he was my police escort’. It wasn’t elegant, but it was accurate. She scribbled the date next to her name.
The uniformed officer checked her signature then scraped his chair back from the narrow table. Arkadian closed the door behind him.
Liv dragged a depressed-looking geranium across the table towards her and started deadheading it, pinching the shrivelled flowers from the choked stems and crumbling them into the pot. ‘Found him yet?’
Arkadian looked down into the street. It would have been the perfect moment for a police van to screech to a halt in front of the building with all three suspects cuffed in the back, but it didn’t happen.
‘Not yet,’ he said. A diesel rainbow was smeared across the wet road where the fire-trucks had parked. ‘We’re working on it.’ He turned back to the crumpled newspaper on the table between them, the front page now a kaleidoscope of letters and crossings out. ‘Had any luck with that?’
‘Haven’t had much time to focus on it, to be honest. Been kind of distracted.’
Arkadian said nothing, hoping the silence would soften her.
‘Do you really believe this is why they took him?’ She examined the scrawled symbols and letters once more.
‘Maybe. As soon as we catch them, we’ll ask. Until then, I’d like to ask you something.’ He laid the package Reis had given him down on the table-top.
Liv’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a buccal swabbing kit.’
Arkadian nodded. ‘Given what Reis got back from the lab, it would be very helpful for us to compare your DNA with your brother’s. It would also establish your biological kinship
beyond any doubt.’ He slid the kit towards her.
Liv picked the last dead flower from the geranium and mulched it with the others. She rubbed her hands together then opened the specimen jar and wiped the cotton swab inside her cheek. She screwed down the lid and handed it back to him. The Citadel rose up behind the buildings across the street, stark and impassive against the sky. The sight of it made her shudder.
Arkadian followed her gaze. Saw a flash of movement from the street below. ‘Jesus,’ he said, springing from his chair. A TV news van had pulled up in front of the building.
‘I didn’t call them,’ she said. ‘I’m strictly print. We hate those guys.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Sorry, chief,’ Petersen said, ‘but I’ve lifted practically a whole set of latents from the sheet. You want me to send them for routine processing or fast track?’
‘Hang on a minute, I’ll come with you.’ He turned back to Liv. ‘I know you didn’t call that news crew, so don’t misread what I’m about to say. . I think we need to get you out of the building.’
Liv’s expression darkened.
‘This isn’t an attempt to get rid of you; I just think you’d be safer away from here. If the press know what’s happened, they’ll lay siege to the place. I don’t want the people who took your brother finding out on the six o’clock news that you’re here. But I think it’s best you stay under our protection. I’m going to arrange for someone to drive you back to Central so you can get a shower and a change of clothes. I’ll catch up with you later, OK?’
Liv looked down at her mud-encrusted outfit.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘But if you’re using this as an excuse to sideline me, then I’m going to walk straight back out and call a press conference.’
‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘Just stay away from the windows. I don’t want to see your face on the news.’