by Simon Toyne
‘OK,’ she said, satisfied that she wasn’t about to be kidnapped again. ‘Let’s go, Sulley.’ She swept the newspaper from the table and followed him out.
The reception area was humming as they made their way through it. Two uniformed officers were standing guard by the entrance, checking everyone in and out. Beyond them, Liv saw a news crew, lights on, camera rolling, the reporter standing with her back to the building as she taped her report; or maybe it was live. Liv drifted behind the Sub-Inspector into a hushed hallway leading to the rear of the building. Another uniformed officer stood by a pair of overlapping plastic doors. He nodded as they approached.
‘After you . . .’ Sulley stood aside.
The plastic buckled slightly before delivering Liv into what she momentarily mistook for the blinding sunshine.
Then a woman shouted: ‘Are you connected with the disappearance of the monk?’
Liv spun round to head back into the safety of the building but the Sub-Inspector grabbed her arm and hustled her towards an unmarked police car a little way down the alley. She dropped her head so her hair fell over her face.
‘Are you under arrest?’ the reporter yelled.
A flashgun exploded to her right and a man’s voice joined the questioning.
‘What is your connection with the missing man?’
‘Was the theft an inside job?’
The Sub-Inspector pulled open the rear door of the car, pushed Liv firmly into the back seat and slammed it behind her.
Liv glanced up just as the interior flooded with light from a camera pressed against the window. She wrenched her head away.
The car bounced on its springs as Sulley dropped into the driver’s seat.
‘Sorry about that.’ He caught her eye in the rear-view mirror as he fired up the engine. ‘It’s amazing how quickly the press catch on to these things.’
He popped the handbrake and eased away from the pack. The last thing Liv saw as she glanced out of the rear window was the dead-eyed stare of a camera lens looking right back at her.
Chapter 72
Kathryn Mann pointed to a spot on the dusty concrete floor of the warehouse and the forklift pirouetted gracefully and lowered one of the master pallets from the C-123 right on to it. She was trying to arrange things so that the next shipment due out, an agricultural supplies drop to one of their projects in Uganda, didn’t end up buried somewhere in the stack. Each master pallet had a thin aluminium skin round it and was the size of two large refrigerators. It was like a massive three-dimensional puzzle, but it beat sitting in the office watching the news with Oscar and waiting for Gabriel to call.
The truck eased its forks from beneath the pallet and peeled back out to the transport plane. Most of the fertilizer would be flying straight back out again in a few days, with a bit of luck.
A loud rapping caused Kathryn to look up. Through the narrow avenue of crates she could see Oscar standing at the window, gesturing for her to come over. His expression was grim.
Kathryn handed Becky her list. ‘Could you make sure these ones stay at the front?’
‘Look,’ Oscar said, the moment she walked into the office. He pointed the remote at the TV on the wall and edged up the volume.
‘The investigation into the death of the monk,’ the newsreader announced in a tone usually reserved for massacres and declarations of war, ‘has taken a turn for the macabre this morning.
Sources close to the investigation believe that his body has disappeared from the city morgue . . .’
The picture cut to an unsteady image of a bedraggled woman being led to a car.
‘Are you connected with the disappearance of the monk?’ the reporter’s voice shouted. ‘Are you under arrest?’
The woman looked up briefly, staring directly into the lens before dropping her head and disappearing behind a curtain of dirty-looking hair.
‘That must be the girl,’ Oscar said.
But Kathryn didn’t hear him. She was transfixed by the sight of the plainclothes police officer at Liv’s side. She watched him bundle her roughly into the back seat. Saw the camera tilt up towards his face. Saw him hold up his freckled hand to push it away.
Then he got in the car and drove her away.
Chapter 73
Athanasius was in a daze as he walked to the private chapel for prayers. He was still sweating from the exertion of dragging each inert body through the complex series of tunnels leading to the medieval caverns in the eastern section. He was back in the main part of the Citadel now, but the ordeal still clung to him, along with the faint chemical tang of the body-bags. No matter how hard he had scrubbed his hands in the rainwater sinks of the laundry, he couldn’t seem to get rid of that smell.
The old dungeons held potent reminders of the church’s violent past: rusted shackles and fearsome-looking pincers the colour of dried blood. He’d known the Citadel’s history, of course, the crusades and persecutions of more brutal times when a strong belief in God and the teachings of the Church had been forged through fear; but he’d thought those times were gone. Now the spectre of that violent past was clawing at the present, like the smell of ancient death that had risen from the oubliette as he’d tipped the bodies into it, one by one. When he heard the brittle crack of them landing on a bed of forgotten bones, he felt something break inside him, too, as if his actions and his beliefs had been pulled so far apart they had finally snapped. As he shivered alone in the cold mountain, the two phrases he’d glimpsed in the Heretic Bible shone in his mind like fresh truths through the darkness.
He paused outside the private chapel, afraid to enter because of the shame he carried with him. He rubbed his hand distractedly over his scalp and smelt again the antiseptic taint of the body-bag on his sleeve.
He needed to pray. What other hope did he have? He took a deep breath and ducked through the entrance.
The chapel was lit by small votive candles flickering around the T-shaped cross on the far wall. There were no seats, only mats and thin cushions to protect bony old knees from the stone floor. He hadn’t noticed a candle burning outside the chapel, but as he entered now he saw it already contained a worshipper. He nearly wept in relief when he saw who it was.
‘Dear brother . . .’ Father Thomas stood and put an arm around the trembling figure of his friend. ‘What troubles you so?’
Athanasius took deep breaths, fighting to regain control of himself. It took a few minutes before his heart rate and breathing steadied. He glanced back at the doorway, then into the concerned face of his friend. In his mind, Athanasius debated whether to confide in him or tell him nothing, for his own safety. It was like standing at the edge of a precipice, knowing that if he stepped forward he could never step back.
He looked deeply into his friend’s eyes, clouded with curiosity and concern, and started to talk. He told him about the visit to the forbidden vault, about the Heretic Bible and the chilling phrases he had glimpsed as the Abbot leafed through it. He told him about the Prophecy the book contained, and then confessed to the terrible task he had just performed. He told him everything.
When he finished, the two men sat in silence for a long time. Athanasius knew that what he had just shared had endangered them both. Father Thomas looked up. Glanced quickly at the door. Leaned in closer. ‘What were the phrases you saw in the forbidden book?’ His voice barely rose above a whisper.
Athanasius felt a wave of relief sweep through him. ‘The first was “The light of God, sealed up in darkness”,’ he whispered. ‘The second: “Not a mountain sanctified, but a prison cursed.”’
He leaned back as Thomas’s intelligent eyes flitted back and forth across the darkened room in time with the fevered workings of his mind.
‘I have, increasingly of late, felt there was something . . . wrong . . . about this place . . .’ He picked his words carefully. ‘All this accumulated learning, the product of mankind’s finest minds, hidden away in the darkness of the library, illuminating nobody. I undertook my work he
re for the protection of knowledge, for its preservation, not for its imprisonment.
‘When I’d finished my improvements to the library, and seen how well they worked, I petitioned the Prelate to publish the blueprints so that other great libraries could benefit from the systems we now use here. He refused. He said books, and the knowledge they contain, are dangerous weapons in the hands of the unenlightened. He said if they faded and crumbled to dust in the libraries beyond these walls, so much the better.’ He looked up at Athanasius, his face registering the private pain and disappointment he had kept buried until now. ‘It appears I have built a system that benefits no one but those who seek to imprison that most divine of gifts – knowledge.’
‘“The light of God, sealed up in darkness,”’ Athanasius quoted softly.
‘“Not a mountain sanctified, but a prison cursed,”’ Father Thomas replied.
They lapsed into silence again.
‘It is both frustrating and ironic,’ Athanasius said at length, ‘that your ingenious security system prevents us from discovering what else that forbidden book contains.’ He dropped his gaze to the flickering flame of a votive candle.
Father Thomas watched him for a moment then drew breath. ‘There may be a way,’ he said, his eyes now shining with conviction. ‘We must wait until after Vespers, when most of the brethren are dining or retiring to the dormitories; when the library is at its quietest.’
Chapter 74
Gabriel felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and checked the caller ID.
‘Mother.’
‘Where are you?’ Kathryn said.
‘Following the body snatchers. They took the monk back to the Citadel. Now two of them are in some kind of dive on the edge of the Lost Quarter. The other one’s minding their van.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘No idea, but I thought I should stick with them. I figure the girl’s safe enough – so long as she’s with Arkadian.’
‘That’s just it,’ Kathryn said. ‘She’s not safe. She’s not safe at all.’
Kutlar sat in the backroom of the junk-filled shop. Cornelius was to his left. Another man sat opposite, behind a desk cluttered with the guts of computers and mobile phones. Zilli was the ‘go to’ guy for under-the-counter technology. His chair squeaked every time he fed a bundle of money from a red plastic box into his counting machine. Long black hair spilled from a baseball cap advertising a tractor firm that no longer existed. Kutlar knew it hid a bald spot that no one was supposed to notice.
Zilli’s Hawaiian shirt was the brightest thing in what looked like any junk-and-repair joint in any down-at-heel neighbourhood, but also served as a front for everything from fencing stolen property to running guns, drugs and sometimes even people. It was Zilli who had recommended the Bitch Clinic to Kutlar as a good place for gunshot wounds.
Zilli watched the last of the notes clatter through the counter with the same gimlet gaze as an addict cooking up a shot. Then he reached under the desk, his eyes never leaving Cornelius. A small fan whirred in the silence, cooling the motherboard of an eviscerated computer.
Kutlar felt pain lance through his leg as Zilli pulled something dull and metallic into view and pointed it at Cornelius. Cornelius didn’t flinch.
‘Pleasure doing business,’ Zilli said, his face cracking into a lopsided smile that revealed surprisingly perfect teeth. ‘Any friend of Kutlar . . .’
He pushed the stacks of cash to one side, placed what looked like an electronic notebook in the centre of the desk and folded it open. The screen flashed into life, showing a map of the world with a blank column to its right beneath two search windows.
‘Chinese technology,’ Zilli said, as though he was selling them a watch. ‘Hacks seamlessly into any telecom network in the world. Just tap in a number and it’ll give you chapter and verse on all calls in and out: time, duration, even billing details and registered addresses.’
Cornelius regarded Zilli impassively for a moment then took out a piece of paper that had been tucked inside the Abbot’s envelope. There were two names and numbers on it. Liv’s was the first. He copied it into the search box and hit return. An hourglass icon appeared on the screen and the app started trawling for a match. After a few seconds a new number appeared in the column below the search window.
‘It’s found the network,’ Zilli said. ‘That’s the only call logged in or out in the last twelve hours. Twelve is the default setting. You can change it in the preference menu, if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You just wind up with every pizza delivery outfit on the planet and all sorts of other shit. But here – watch this . . .’
He parked the cursor over the new number. A dialog box popped up next to it listing a voicemail service. It also gave a postal address in Palo Alto, California.
‘That’ll be the service provider. If the number had belonged to a person, you’d now know where they live.’
Cornelius continued to watch it chattering through the mobile phone networks trying to lock on to Liv’s phone. Kutlar glanced at Zilli, willing him to look in his direction. But he didn’t. He just kept looking at the screen. A new dialog box finally appeared: NUMBER NOT DETECTED.
Cornelius looked at Zilli.
‘OK . . . now the thing is . . .’ Zilli’s chair screeched as he sat back. ‘It only works when the device you’re looking for is switched on. Mobiles send a signal every few minutes to check in with the nearest phone mast. No power, no signal, no trace. Type in a number you know is active. You’ll see what I mean.’
The pain in Kutlar’s leg flared again as the fan moved up a gear.
Cornelius typed his own number into the second search window and hit return. Zilli folded his hands behind his head, tilting the brim of his cap low over his eyes. His face was a mask.
It took about ten seconds. The map which filled the main window was becoming more detailed, zooming in like a camera freefalling from space directly to the centre of Ruin. It slowed as the outline of buildings began to appear then stopped abruptly over a latticework of streets. An arrow pointed halfway along one called Trinity.
‘See!’ Zilli said, confident enough of the technology not to check the screen. ‘It has sat-nav capabilities too; it can triangulate an active signal to within five feet. It can also trace two numbers at a time and show you how far apart they are. Means you can track someone else’s phone relative to your own and the software will plot you a route straight to it. You just need them to switch their mobile on.’
Cornelius snapped the notebook shut. ‘Thank you for your help.’
‘Any time.’
Cornelius glanced at Kutlar, who got up and limped gratefully out of the door. Cornelius turned and followed him.
‘You need to take your lunchbox?’ Zilli called after him, nodding at the red plastic container on the desk.
‘Keep it,’ Cornelius said, without looking back.
Chapter 75
Liv stood under the fierce jet of the shower and turned it up as hot as she could bear. The pain was good. It felt cleansing. She watched the water turn from grey to clear as it sluiced off her body and spiralled down the drain, carrying away the grime of the night.
She ran her hand down her side, finding her cruciform scar, tracing its outline with the tips of her fingers, favouring the part of her that had once been physically connected to her brother. Her hand continued up her side and down her arm to where a cross-hatch of smaller scars corrugated her skin, scores of thin lines scratched during a childhood troubled by the lack of a mother and a sense she was a stranger in her own family.
The pain she felt now under the scalding water brought back the hot bite of the razor, which had focused her teenage mind somewhere other than the numbing chaos of her emotions. If only her father had told her back then what she had discovered for herself on that shady porch in Paradise, West Virginia. She understood now that when he had looked at her with sadness in his eyes it was not through disappointment in her. It was because he saw the
woman whose name she carried. He saw the love he had lost.
The hot water continued to beat down and her thoughts drifted now to her own losses: her mother, then her father, now her brother. She turned the tap all the way over until scalding rods of water drilled into her flesh and carried away the tears that leaked from her eyes. Feeling pain was better than feeling nothing at all.
Sub-Inspector Sulleiman Mantus paced the hallway. He had too much nervous energy to sit. But it was a good feeling: the sort an athlete feels in the middle of a game; the sort a hunter enjoys when he’s closing on his quarry.
Tipping the press off about the theft from the morgue was just the tip of the iceberg. He knew how these things worked. The division would try and play it down, because whichever way you looked at it they came out of it stinking worse than a jailhouse toilet; and the more they tried to lock it down, the more desperate the press would be for information. No one paid better than journos, and this story was front-page international and syndicated, so he was now pulling down big payments from a major news network as well as both original parties, neither of whose interest in the case appeared to be waning.
He glanced up the hallway. A couple of uniforms were standing by the doors, bitching about something or other. He could hear the murmur of their conversation but couldn’t make out what they were saying. He took out his phone, scrolled through the menu and dialled a number. ‘I have something you might be interested in,’ he said.
Chapter 76
Cornelius stood by the van watching Kutlar move painfully down the street towards him. If he got much worse they might have to reconsider his usefulness. Johann sat in the driver’s seat talking to the informant on the phone. He wrote down an address then hung up.
‘The girl’s here,’ he said.
Cornelius took the slip of paper and looked back down the street. Kutlar was the only one among them who had seen her, but he had his own image in his mind, and had done ever since the Abbot had outlined their mission. He stroked the puckered skin on his cheek where his beard wouldn’t grow, remembering a street on the outskirts of Kabul and the plaintive figure in the blue burkha holding out the bundle of rags that could have been a child, slowing their vehicle just long enough for the rocket propelled grenade to lock on to it.