The God Hunter

by Tim Lees

  That much, at least, of Shailer’s long and stirring public speech was right.

  The rest was bullshit. Not “spin,” not “propaganda,” not even just “slanting the truth.” Bullshit, nothing more.

  A phrase came to my mind: “The man who lies convincingly can rule the world.” Did I read that somewhere? Hear it in a play or some political commentary?

  It’s what I thought of when I thought of Shailer. From the youthful idiot I’d once known, I saw the seeds of something truly frightening, a self-­belief able to shift and change and volte-­face just as its audience required, to switch sides in a moment and not so much as blink at any contradiction.

  So I said yes.

  I told him I’d do anything he asked, meanwhile resolving to do nothing of the kind and, what’s more, having paid lip ser­vice, to stay as far away from Adam Shailer as I could and pray I never had the misery of falling any further under his unpleasant sway.

  That should have ended it. But Shailer wouldn’t leave. Near dawn, he got very, very friendly, talked a lot about himself, and how his parents never loved him, and how his family never cared, and how he’d had to prove himself, and work for every step he’d ever gained . . .

  And if I hadn’t been so tired, I think that I could cheerfully have murdered him.

  CHAPTER 12

  GANZ

  The Budapest police have an attractive modern building for their central offices, a glass tower both at odds with, and peculiarly complementary to, the beauty of the old city. It’s known as “Police Palace,” and, according to rumor, the lifestyle of the higher-­ranking officers within is truly royal.

  But that wasn’t where I went.

  I’d been given an address up on the fourth floor of a big apartment block, one of those old buildings as solid and as sturdy as a basalt outcrop. The stairwell on its own was wider than my London flat. It was also dark. I thumped the light switch a few times without success, then felt my way up through a deep brown fug, like wading through an antique oil painting.

  The brass plaque by the door had lettering that matched the letters on my card. So I knocked, then turned the large brass knob and went inside. A cupboard-­sized reception room held two chairs and a wall hatch closed with a wooden shutter. An old-­fashioned brass bell stood on the countertop before it, so I dinged on this a few times, caught a faint buzz of activity from the other side, then nothing for a fair while longer.

  I checked my calling card; I was supposed to see a Detective A. Ganz, a person with whom Shailer claimed some sort of contact. In Hungary, A is almost always short for Attila, accent on the first syllable; one man’s barbarian being another’s national hero, after all. He was their Boudicca, their William Wallace. One day I would have to read up on the history.

  With a ripping sound, the shutter suddenly slid back. A young woman regarded me through black-­rimmed glasses. There was a large mole on her upper lip. Behind, I glimpsed an office of old filing cabinets, monumental wooden desks, and two middle-­aged men earnestly discussing something over coffee and cigarettes. A younger man went by, carrying a stack of files. I said the name on the card. The girl took the card, repeated the name, and somehow made its one syllable sound altogether different from the way I’d said it. There was discussion with the two guys at the back, and the shutter slid closed. A door opened. I was invited in. The middle-­aged guys, either one of whom I had expected to be Ganz, gave no more than a glance at me. The girl took me across the room, down a corridor, pointed to one of the doors, then motioned me to knock. I hesitated. Again she made a fist, mimed tapping. Then she went away.

  I knocked. Heard something, though it might have been a cough. And I went in.

  The walls were stacked with shelves. The shelves were stacked with files and papers. A woman in a skirt-­suit perched upon a small stool, arms weighed down with documents, struggling to place them in their rightful spots. I muttered a hello, said, in English, “I’m looking for Detective Ganz . . . ?” and then, seeing her trouble, stepped forward and held my hands up for the bundle of loose papers she was carrying. She stared at me a moment, frowned beneath a blonde-­dyed bob, then dropped the pile into my hands. I held it while she picked through items and, at manic speed, stuffed them into folders, sometimes holding one set in her teeth while she placed the next.

  “I’ve an appointment,” I was saying. “Adam Shailer at the Registry—­he set it up. He wanted me to meet Detective Ganz, if he’s around . . . ? I’m sorry. Do you speak English?”

  “English,” she nodded.

  I nodded. I smiled. She didn’t smile back.

  “I speak English, Mr. Copeland. There is no need to speak slowly. I understand quite well, I think.”

  She stepped down from the stool, took another scattering of papers from the desk, gave them a quick once-­over, and then, as if they’d done her some kind of personal affront, stapled them brutally together and threw them in a drawer.

  “I am Detective Anna Ganz.”

  I started to apologize, but she held her hand to block me.

  “This is matter of importance to you, I am sure. We discuss when I am finished doing housework. Yes?”

  There’s a quality to the Hungarian accent—­I’m told it’s due to the way the stresses fall in the original language—­that makes their English stern, formal, and always just a bit exasperated, as if everyone around them is quite obviously a fool.

  Even her “thank you” when we cleared away the filing didn’t seem to help. Nor did my apologies.

  She sat herself behind the big oak desk. Its surface had been scratched and dented by the wear of many years’ bureaucracy; the Communists had sat here, and perhaps the Nazis, too. A big old computer lay upon it, monitor on top, big as a ’50s television set.

  She said, “Let me be clear, please. I do not ask for Mr. Shailer’s ‘help’ or yours. But you are here. Please tell me what you think that you can do for me, Mr. Copeland.”

  “I—­well.” I shuffled, trying to look competent. “Mr. Shailer said that you’d explain. He told me there was some kind of a problem, something he thinks the Registry might deal with, possibly, and . . .”

  I was improvising. Shailer had been only half coherent by the time he’d got around to explanations, and I’d been only half awake.

  The main thing he’d impressed on me was to keep quiet about what happened on our last visit. And to act magnanimous; a disinterested party, offering its help.

  I told her, “We’ve got specialist knowledge and equipment. We don’t usually act with the police, but we’ve been called upon to do so several times, both at home in England, where I’m from, and in the US. I don’t want to intrude or waste your time, but Adam—­Mr. Shailer—­thought that we could offer some assistance. I gather you’ve a case with some unusual aspects, which you’ll explain to me. Mr. Shailer was discreet about their nature, so if you could assume that I know very little about this . . . ?”

  I waited. She lit a cigarette. She watched me, weighing me up. I did my best to meet her gaze.

  “Mr. Copeland.”

  “Chris,” I said. “Please call me Chris.”

  “This is—­I am frank with you—­this is case without clues and leads. If you have information, information will be welcome. You say Mr. Shailer is discreet, and I am hoping this extends to you, too. Please assure me you will speak to no one, yes? There are prurient elements. There are elements we try to hide from public to distinguish the . . .” She paused, looking for words. “Phone callers? ­People who admit to crimes they do not do.”

  “Crank calls.”

  “Yes. Big problem with free press, is free to everyone and everything. Nothing is kept out. When I was young, before I work here, very different. Freedom of press was then great cause, everyone wants. We march for it, we sign petition. Now . . . it makes job harder, not easier.”

  She clicked her mouse,
then clicked again.

  “You read, Mr. Copeland? Newspaper?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “But not Hungarian press, I think. Or television. You know we have bogeyman here? ‘Budapest Bloodsucker’? That is name you know?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know Budapest that well. Or Hungary . . .”

  “In this case, you are lucky, I think. Though that,” and for the first time, there was just the flicker of a smile, “will change.”

  She swung the monitor around so we could both see it. The screen showed thumbnails; another click, and I was looking at a large, impressive building façade; the beautiful Budapest buildings, dressed in soot. Little windows and a rainy sky. A big sign: Hollywood Hotel.

  “You know this place, Mr. Copeland? You have seen, perhaps?”

  I think I’m good at hiding my feelings; a natural poker player. Not good in relationships, but good at times like this. Even so, she watched me just a little bit too long, I felt.

  I said, “It looks familiar. I might have passed it sometime. I don’t know.”

  “Not luxury hotel, but good enough, I think. Above the budget of Hungarians. Of ordinary ­people. Of you and me.”

  I nodded, pursed my lips, and tried not to incriminate myself in any way.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE DEATH BRINGER

  Detective Ganz talked on. From time to time she raised a hand and pushed her hair back from her face; a nervous gesture, as it seemed to me. She was a handsome woman, with strong, pointed features, a straight nose, tapered chin, and large, pale blue eyes. Yet she seemed harassed, her eyes offset by shadows of fatigue, her lips inclined to press together; now and then she’d chew the lower one. She smoked a string of strong-­smelling cigarettes until the room grew gray. Smoking was a habit I had not so far acquired, but if I ever cared to start, I was certainly getting in some practice.

  “Two years ago,” she said.

  She clicked another picture. It showed a hotel room: anonymous, a bit old-­fashioned; familiar-­looking, but then, hotels often are.

  “He died in bed.”

  I was looking at a puppet. A dried-­up, broken-­looking puppet. It had been carefully arranged upon the bed, one elbow crooked at a peculiar angle, the sheets creased and furled around it like a nest. It had been dressed up in pajamas. From the collar, the head protruded like a wrinkled turnip. There’d been some crude attempt to shape it into human form, the sharp ridges of cheekbones, the radiator grill of teeth fixed grinning where the mouth should have been. Objects like yellow peas sat in the orbits of the eyes, which were deep and shadowed. Gray hair splayed across the pillow. It looked wrong, like something put together out of sticks and rags, and it lay there, lit up stark and bleak by the photographer’s flash.

  She told me, “He was forty-­four years old.”

  I stared down at the desktop.

  “Dealer in jewelry and quality watches. Making good life in new Hungary. Wife, children. Probably mistress, too. Underworld connections, not one doubt; you cannot run such business otherwise. But he himself, no misdemeanor.”

  I said, “You’re sure that’s the man?”

  “Sure one hundred percent.”

  “But what makes you think—­like, how can this be murder? Surely, it’s more, more . . .”

  She flicked through screens. Here was a body lying on a tiled floor, mercifully covered by a sheet.

  “Woman, unidentified. Probable vagrant. Only case, so far, out of city.”

  I didn’t want to ask. I really did not want to ask. But I said, “Where?”

  “Esztergom,” she said.

  I felt myself go rigid for a moment; then I shrugged, as if I’d never heard of it.

  “This, five months later. Three months after that, another killing, back in city. Intervals go down each time. Last night was seventh.”

  “All in the same hotel . . . ?”

  “Close, at first. Then wider. Two in street. Two in apartments; no signs of forced entry. One in parked car. This last: kitchen worker, restaurant, left alone to clean up. His turn for dish duty.”

  “Lucky him.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.” I glanced warily at the scene on the screen. It was like a puzzle picture; a jumble of unpleasant, ugly shapes that made no sense at all till you looked closely, and even then, they didn’t make a lot.

  I sat back, shook my head to clear it. “These aren’t murders,” I said. “These are—­I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. But these are—­it’s an illness of some kind. Some kind of plague or something. It’s public health, not a police matter—­”

  She simply looked at me, expressionless.

  I waved my arms. “It’s like—­I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of fast-­acting AIDS, or Ebola, something like that. Or a new drug. Like crack, or, or . . . You can’t murder someone so they look like this. It isn’t possible.”

  “We have good pathologist, Mr. Copeland. We are not backwards.”

  “I wasn’t trying to suggest that. Seriously, though . . .”

  “I agree, yes. Is very serious. And we are promised help from Registry, with special expertise. Is this too serious? Too difficult? Do we look elsewhere?”

  Time to pick a fight and leave. Tell Shailer I did what I could, the Hungarians were unco-­operative, blah blah blah. But I hesitated just a bit too long, and Detective Ganz took it for assent.

  “There is evidence of sexual assault in five of seven bodies. Perpetrator has no preference for gender; anus and vagina both penetrated. Lack of genetic material suggests perhaps implement was used. Or man wears condom. Interesting, if so. He is frightened of infection? Who knows? Puncture wounds to abdomen, torso, and limbs; occasionally head. You will see these if you watch more closely.” She paused a moment, sounding like one of my old-­school teachers. Aside from the subject matter, anyway. “At some point, close to end, liquids are drained from body. In three cases, this is very thorough; even the colon appears dried and shriveled. Our ‘Bloodsucker’ is misnomer, but we let it stand. No vampire, Mr. Copeland. No superstition. Flesh is dried out, drained. Bone is weakened.

  “No link apparent between victims, though all alone at time of death. Opportunist, we suppose. No clues. Like they are murdered by a ghost, Mr. Copeland. I am being humorous here, you understand. But not fully. There are no fingerprints, no traces. Like movie film Invisible Man. Here is invisible man. He comes, he enters without violence, commits murder no one sees or hears, and goes again.” She folded one hand on the other. “Is this the sort of thing you deal with, Mr. Copeland? I would be very happy if it were. Very happy. If you tell me, ‘He is one point seven meters tall, has blonde hair and a scar upon his face,’ perhaps? That would be very much appreciated. Can you do this, Mr. Copeland? Can you? I would welcome it a great deal.”

  She held me with a long gaze. Then she sighed and lit another cigarette.

  I said, “I don’t see why I’m here, to be honest. I’m not a detective or a medical man. I’ll offer any help I can, of course, but, really . . .”

  “You are here,” she said, emitting a long trail of smoke, “because Mr. Shailer gives much money to my boss that I accept your help. So, Mr. Copeland: will you help me? I ask as courtesy, you understand. If you say no, is good by me. Yes? No? OK?”

  CHAPTER 14

  PHONE

  It was a warm day. There was a hint of something chemical in the air, a smell like nail polish remover. Ganz went off to fetch a car, and I keyed Shailer’s number in my cell phone.

  I remembered him that first night, answering his phone every ­couple of minutes. Now it rang and rang.

  The answerphone kicked in. I rang off, dialed again.

  On the fifth attempt, he finally decided to reply.

  A click. An open line, muffled background noise; a crowd, a sauna maybe, or a meeting
room.

  “Chris,” he said. “Be quick. Can’t talk now, old buddy . . .”

  “Shailer. What the fuck is going on?”

  “Shouldn’t be talking here, Chris. I’m just about to board. What’s the problem?”

  “You know what the fucking problem is! You dropped it on me! Where are you, anyway?”

  “I’m at the airport, Chris. You know? Where you left me, after Esztergom?”

  Not a trace of last night’s bonhomie; the voice was dead, drained of expression. And it wasn’t just a coke hangover, I was damn sure.

  “Chris,” he said, “I’m going to Berlin now, Chris. Next leg of the tour. I have a speech to make. Now, I left you a job to deal with, and I’m expecting you to deal with it, OK? I’m trusting your discretion. You need to be discreet. I’m emphasizing that. You need—­ah. One minute.”

  Blurred words, rapid conversation. Silence. When he spoke again, his voice was low. I pictured him hunched in a corner, shielding his mouth with his hand.

  “You filed a report, Chris. You filed a report stating specifically that you’d had an equipment failure, and that you claimed you fixed it. You claimed you solved the problem, Chris. At no point does this report make any mention about me. Only you, Chris. Only you. Hear that? And it doesn’t matter who you talked to, way back then. So sort it out, will you? Get it dealt with. Or I’m not sure I can save you from the consequences. Understand?”

  CHAPTER 15

  THE DEAD ROOM

  I sat low in the passenger seat of Ganz’s car. I didn’t speak. I didn’t look at her. She might have thought that I was sulking, but that’s because I was.

  Since when did I do work for O&D? Since when did I turn into Adam Shailer’s fix-­it man? The little shit had shafted me. Again. After all these years, I was still picking up his mess for him. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

  Worse than that, I’d only got myself to blame. I’d thought that I was so damn smart, playing the game, swallowing my anger, doing it the way the big boys do it, all those years ago; going with the company politics. I should have put in a complaint right then and there. I’d wanted to. But ­people had told me no, don’t try it that way, best forget, move on. And I’d followed their advice; I’d toed the party line. And now I got my just reward. No good deed goes unpunished . . .