by Simon Toyne
‘This water is exported all over the world, has been since Roman times when the emperors first found out about it. You think they shipped it all the way back to Rome ’cause it tasted nice? They wanted what every man has always wanted, and kings more than most: they wanted more life. Even today a person can expect to live on average seven years longer in Ruin than in any other major capital city and people still come here in their thousands and get cured of all sorts of things. These things are not rumour. These things are fact. Still think there’s nothing there?’
Liv dropped her eyes down to the ashtray. Her ten-year nicotine addiction did seem to have vanished since arriving in Ruin. Miriam was right, there had to be something there. Samuel would not have dragged her into all this if there was no point to it; and he wouldn’t have scratched those letters on the seeds unless they pointed to something. The question was, what?
She turned to the page in her notebook where she’d copied the letters. Looked at them again. And like the sun breaking through clouds, she recognized something new in them.
Chapter 94
Cornelius stood in the glare of the afternoon sun surveying the heaving throngs of coach parties and other tourists that flooded the wide embankment: people posing for pictures; people congregating around tour guides; people just staring up at the Citadel, lost in their own thoughts. There were plenty of young women; any one of them could be the girl. He stroked the puckered skin on his cheek, picturing his enemy. As he’d laid in the hospital, recovering from the skin grafts in a blur of morphine, he’d thought about her often. He kept seeing her stepping out from nowhere, holding out the bundle of rags, her body shrouded in a burkha that hid all but her eyes and her hands. Sometimes it was a parcel of newspaper she held, like the parcel his mother had wrapped him in before leaving him by the orphanage door and walking in front of an express train to Liverpool. He’d never known her face either. But he didn’t need to know their faces to know what they were. Betrayers all.
Behind him, Kutlar’s ragged breathing and halting footsteps announced his arrival like a leper shuffling from a cave. Cornelius slipped his hand into his pocket and curled it round the grip of his Glock.
‘Which one is she?’ he said.
Liv stared at the letters she had copied from the seeds in their original pairings:
T a M + k
? s A a l
Then compared them to the card she had found in amongst the flowers:
T
MALA
MARTYR
She took her pen and wrote the word ‘Mala’ in her notebook, crossing out the letters to see what she was left with.
Assuming the ‘T’ was the Tau, it left just three letters – s, k and A, and two symbols – ‘+’ and ‘?’. She stared at them, wrote down one final word and the last two symbols, then read what she had written.
T + ?
Ask Mala
The positioning of the underlined symbols made it look right. So did the capital letters at the beginning of each word. Was this the message her brother had sent her? It made some sense. The T was the Tau, the symbol of the Sacrament, and the plus sign could be a cross. The question mark symbolized the mystery of its identity, leaving the remaining two words reading like an instruction – ‘Ask Mala’. She looked up at the Ruinologist.
‘Who are the Mala?’ she asked.
Miriam looked up from the notebook where she had read the words as Liv had written them. ‘I told you that, in the beginning, there were two tribes of men,’ she said. ‘One of them was the Yahweh, the men of the mountain. The other was the outcast tribe who believed the Yahweh had stolen the Sacrament and, by imprisoning it, had usurped the natural order of things. They believed the Sacrament should be discovered and set free – this tribe were called the Mala. They were persecuted by the Yahweh, their people hunted and killed for the beliefs they held. But they kept their faith alive and a secret church grew, even in the shadow of the mountain’s ascendancy. By the time the Yahweh did their deal with the Romans to ‘rebrand’ state religion, they had bled their poisonous hate of the tribe into the language – in Latin ‘mala’ means ‘evils’. But even though the Citadel demonized these people, and burned their chapels and confiscated and destroyed their sacred texts, they could not destroy their spirit.’
Liv felt her skin tighten. ‘Do they still exist?’ she asked.
Miriam opened her mouth to answer but her eyes shifted suddenly upwards. Liv twisted round, saw a large man appear behind her, silhouetted against the bright sky. Her eyes adjusted to the glare and his features began to take form within the darkness of his outline, eyes first – pale, and blue, and staring straight into Liv’s. A nervous tremor fluttered in her chest as she realized who it was.
‘Yes,’ Gabriel said. ‘Yes, we do.’
Chapter 95
From where Kutlar stood he could see the whole of the embankment curling around the base of the mountain to a row of stone buildings in the distance promising all kinds of spa treatments to heal and revive.
‘She’s not here,’ he said.
Cornelius let go of the gun in his pocket. Kutlar was stalling, he was sure of it. He opened the notebook and looked at the wire-frame map of the embankment. The two arrows almost overlapped at the centre, pointing directly to where they now stood. ‘She is here,’ he said, removing his phone from his pocket and quickly copying in Liv’s number from the search box.
He stepped forward and pressed the call button, dropping the phone down so he could listen for the sound of a phone ringing. He walked closer to the shrine, filtering out the murmur of the crowd, and heard something in front of him.
He cocked his head to one side and his eyes caught a tiny movement as the sound came again. It was down on the ground, in amongst the flowers, buzzing like a large trapped bee. Cornelius squatted down and shoved his hand into the soft petals. His hand closed around the hard plastic case of a phone. It vibrated once more as he pulled it out, leaving a crater in the surface of the flowers. From his own phone he heard a robotic voice asking him to leave a message. He cut the call and scrolled through the menu of Liv’s phone, checking the call logs, the address book, the text messages. They were all empty.
Someone had reset the phone and abandoned it.
Miriam watched the bearded man walk quickly away from the shrine. She saw him stop by the far wall, talk to another man, and look down at something that appeared to be a small laptop. Gabriel was right. They had been tracking the girl’s phone signal.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her own phone. She headed off, towards the row of health spas and away from the men with the laptop. She switched her phone off, thought about dropping it into one of the bins that lined the moat wall, but slipped it back into her pocket and decided to leave town for a few days instead. She could always get rid of it later – depending on how things panned out. At least the girl was safe now. That was the main thing.
The motorbike rumbled down the narrow cobbled streets weaving between the tourists and the food stalls. Liv wore no helmet and the wind whipped her hair across her face as she clung to Gabriel. She could feel the hardness of his body beneath his clothes, and her legs clamped involuntarily against him each time the bike bucked and slipped on the uneven street. The scent she had noticed so powerfully when they’d met less than twenty-four hours previously now wrapped itself round her again, washing over her in a slipstream of warm afternoon air. She realized now, as her head hovered level with his broad shoulders, and she resisted the urge to rest it there, that it wasn’t cologne as she had first thought, it was the smell of him, and it was delicious.
She had no idea where they were headed, nor how she could contact anyone now she had no phone, nor anything about the man she now clung to. Nevertheless she felt strangely secure for the first time in days. There was something about his urgency that had compelled her to go with him. He made her feel as if everything he was asking her to do was for her, not for him. Like her safety was his only concern. A
nd he belonged to the Mala. And if what she’d just discovered with the Ruinologist was true, the least she could do was take a leap of faith and go in the direction her brother had pointed her.
Besides, she thought as the bike passed through the western gate and filtered into the traffic creeping round the inner ring road and heading out of the city, what else would I do?
Chapter 96
Arkadian was sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked patrol car, staring at a line of stationary traffic when the switchboard picked up.
‘Ruin Police Division.’
‘Yeah, could you put me through to Sub-Inspector Sulley Mantus,’ he said.
‘Who’s calling, please?’
‘Inspector Arkadian.’
The line cut out and a tinny version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons counted away the seconds. The traffic had managed to move forward a whole car length by the time the operator returned.
‘Sorry, that line isn’t answering.’
‘OK, could you patch me through to his mobile?’
The line cut out again. This time it went straight to answer-phone. Where the hell had he got to? ‘This is Arkadian,’ he said, his voice flat and annoyed. ‘Call me back immediately.’
He hung up and stared out at the traffic-choked street. He’d called Sulley the moment he found out about the news-crew ambush at the morgue. He’d watched it on TV, Sulley practically dragging Liv past the cameras then shoving her into a police car like she was a suspect. He was going to tear him a new asshole when he got hold of him. Maybe Sulley suspected as much and that’s why he wasn’t returning his calls. The phone chirruped in his hand and he snapped it open. ‘Sulley?’
‘No, it’s Reis. I’ve got some news for you.’
Arkadian blew out his frustration at the windscreen in a long stream of air. ‘Is it good news?’
‘It’s . . . intriguing. I just sneaked into the lab and had a peek at the DNA fingerprint to see how things were shaping up. I’ve lined up the girl’s buccal sample with one from the monk. It’s about halfway through the electrophoresis, but I fluorized it anyway to see how the strands were separating.’
‘I don’t know what any of that means. Just tell me: do they match?’
‘They’ve still got a way to go before they’re fully extruded, but the way it’s looking now I’d say they’re more than just a match, they’re identical. Which is odd.’
‘Why? It backs up her story.’
‘Yeah, it does. But I was kind of expecting the results to prove the girl wasn’t the monk’s sister.’
‘How come?’
‘Because in the entire recorded history of conjoined twins there has never been a single case where they were different sexes. Genetically they have to be the same gender because they’re effectively one person.’
‘So it’s not possible?’
Reis paused. ‘Medically speaking, it’s extremely unlikely.’
‘But not impossible?’
‘No. There’re plenty of recorded cases of dual sex characteristics in individuals – hermaphrodites and such; and considering the religious slant on this whole case, I guess if you believe in a virgin birth it leaves the door wide open for the possibility of all sorts of . . .’
‘Miracle?’
‘I was going to say “unexplained phenomena”.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
Reis said nothing.
‘So, based on the evidence, you think the girl’s telling the truth?’
Reis paused again, weighed down with the natural scepticism of the scientist. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘I think she is. I didn’t until I saw the results of the DNA match, but you can’t fake that.’
Arkadian smiled, pleased that the trust he’d put in the girl had not been misplaced. He was now convinced more than ever that she was the key to the whole thing. ‘Do me a favour, would you?’ he asked. ‘Could you add all this to the case file and I’ll go through it when I get back to the office.’
‘Sure. No sweat. Where are you now?’
Arkadian glanced up at the static traffic jammed into the narrow streets leading to the Garden District. ‘Still looking for the dead monk,’ he said. ‘Though a dead man could move faster than me at the moment. How’re things back there? The press got bored yet?’
‘Are you kidding, there’s hundreds of them out there now. Bet you can’t wait for the six o’clock news.’
‘Oh, sure,’ Arkadian replied, thinking of the inevitable MONK’S BODY SNATCHED FROM UNDER COPS’ NOSES headlines. ‘Goodbye, Reis,’ he said, and hung up before he could say anything more. He turned to the plain-clothes officer sitting silently next to him. ‘Think I might take a stroll,’ he said, slipping off his safety belt. ‘You’ve got the address, I’ll meet you there.’
He twisted out of the passenger seat before the driver had time to answer and started walking up the street, weaving between slow-moving cars, earning himself an extended lean on some-one’s horn and the finger from a van driver. Walking felt good. It shook loose some of his frustration. But Sulley’s continued silence bothered him. He scrolled through his calls received menu until he found Liv’s number, hit the call button and looked up. In the distance he could see Exegesis Street written on a street sign that wavered through the heat haze and rising fumes.
He walked towards it, listening to a robotic voice telling him the person he was trying to reach was unavailable. He frowned. The last time he’d called it had been Liv’s own voice telling him to leave a message. He redialled. Got the same robot operator. It was definitely her number – it just wasn’t her. He disconnected without leaving a message.
Exegesis Street was much wider than the street he had come from and was lined with once-grand houses that were now just a shabby collection of office buildings turned black by traffic and time. He walked down the shady side, counting down the houses until he found the number 38 carved deep into a stone pillar by a wide door. Beneath it a square of brass shone against the stone, spelling out the word Ortus above a logo of a four-petalled flower with the earth at its centre. He slipped the phone into his pocket and hopped up the three steps leading to the heavy glass doors, incongruously modern in the carved stone entrance. He pushed against them and went inside.
Chapter 97
Sulley came round slowly.
He felt as if he was rising gently from the depths of a dark, oily pool. He knew something was wrong even before he opened his eyes. Wherever he was smelt of damp and smoke and – darkness. He tried to open his eyes but they just rolled behind heavy lids that refused to budge. His head throbbed as if he’d been on a weekend bender, but he knew he hadn’t – not for a while. He took a deep breath, flooding his nose with more of the dank, dark smell then, grunting like a weight lifter, he put all his concentrated energy into opening his left eye. In the brief glimpse he got before his eyelid banged shut again he saw where he was. He was in some sort of cave.
He rested for a moment, exhausted from the effort, trying to clear his head and make sense of what he’d seen. He listened out for any sounds that might give him a clue. All he heard was the hiss of blood in his ears. It sounded like heavy waves breaking on a shingly beach. Its steady rhythm soothed him until his breathing deepened and he sank back down into the deep, drugged pool of his unconsciousness, his fogged mind still trying to work out how the hell he had ended up in a cave by the sea.
There was nothing gentle about the next time he rose from the black depths of sleep. This time it felt as though he was being yanked up by a spike hooked into the base of his skull. He tried to cry out but all that emerged was a strangled mew. He tried shifting his head away from the pain but it wouldn’t move. His heavy eyes struggled open, rolling sluggishly in their sockets as he sought the source of his agony. He caught glimpses of uneven stone walls illuminated by dancing firelight. Saw the outline of sinister-looking contraptions sketched against the darkness. He could not see the cause of his pain, and this, more than anything, lit up a fear insi
de him that brought him round quicker than iced water.
At last the pain began to subside, and a memory rose up from the fog. He remembered getting into the van, turning to grab his seat belt and feeling a sharp pain in his right leg. He recalled the shocking sight of the syringe, and how he’d reached for it with arms that would not respond. There was nothing else.
He looked down now at the spot where the needle had been, tried to touch it with his hand but his arms wouldn’t move. He tried to look down but his head wouldn’t move either. Instead his eyes rolled down as far as the sockets would allow. He could see his forearms strapped tightly to the arms of some kind of chair. He also saw something else, something utterly surprising and incongruous in the dank setting of the cave. By his right hand was a small table and sitting on it was a laptop with a mobile phone attached by a short cable. He thought for a moment he must be having a surreal dream, but the pain in his head and the trickle of something warm and wet down the back of his neck made it real enough. He tried to move his feet, but they too were bound tight to the chair he sat on. He struggled against his restraints, testing their strength until the sharp point of pain reappeared suddenly in the back of his neck, pressing forward with a terrible insinuation. He tried to arch away from it but the straps across his forehead and throat held him fast. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. It pressed on until the torture was so exquisite he thought his spine would snap. He was held there for a few moments, at the pinnacle of his pain, before it gently eased back bringing a tiny but welcome relief.
He heard the scuff of a foot on the floor behind him through the hiss of blood rushing in his head. ‘Who’s there?’ he croaked, failing to keep the crack of fear from his voice.