by Shaun Hutson
‘If they were Jews who’d run away from Germany that’s probably not surprising. They’d have been terrified of persecution wherever they were.’
‘But they’d have had to register their names somewhere,’ Hadley said. ‘With the local council, with the police. The whole country was paranoid about foreign immigrants then and Voronov’s grandfather registered, didn’t he?’
‘Perhaps the other man had something to hide, whoever he was.’
Hadley could only shrug.
‘No name, no details, no description?’ Jess mused.
‘Nothing. It’s like he was a ghost.’
‘Maybe he was.’
‘Well, Voronov’s grandfather was from Eastern Europe wasn’t he so maybe the other man was a fucking werewolf or vampire or something. Perhaps I’d better check to see if there were any Transylvanian counts staying with him.’ Hadley looked blankly at Jess for a moment then back at the computer screen.
Jess merely sucked on her cigarette.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she murmured.
‘Join the club,’ Hadley echoed.
‘“As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who wasn’t there,”’ Jess intoned quietly.
‘What’s that?’ Hadley wanted to know.
‘A quote,’ she told him. ‘“He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish he’d go away.”’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s what we’re trying to do, find a man who wasn’t there.’
‘Thanks for the poetry interlude but it’s not helping.’
‘Nothing’s helping, Alex. Do the words needle and haystack come to mind?’
‘Perhaps the other man was killed in the fire,’ Hadley offered. ‘The one that destroyed the shop.’
‘It would have been in the police reports, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not if they found no trace of the body. It could have been incinerated. After all, forensics wasn’t exactly an infallible art in those days, was it?’
It was Jess’s turn to shrug.
‘Whoever the other man was it doesn’t tell me anything more about Voronov and the Crystal Tower. It doesn’t explain why so many people have died or been injured building the bloody thing. And don’t you say it’s co-incidence or bad luck or you’ll be joining the victims in the morgue.’
Hadley smiled.
‘What the hell is that?’ Jess said suddenly, her eyes drawn to the picture that was displayed on the computer screen. She moved closer. The picture was in black and white, grainy and much darker than it should have been but it was still possible to make out the content.
The picture showed a stretch of the Thames, the water lapping against the bank. There were boats passing by in the background but it wasn’t those that had caught Jess’s eye. Her gaze was fixed on the shape in the foreground. It was about ten feet from the water’s edge, half submerged in the dark waters of the river.
‘Alex, expand that,’ she said to Hadley who did as she asked.
They were both peering intently at the image now.
Hadley hit the zoom icon and the image grew larger if not clearer.
It was a figure. Tall and incredibly broad but its features were almost indistinguishable and yet there was something strangely familiar about it to Jess.
She reached for her Leica camera and scrolled through the photographs on the digital display until she came to the pictures she had taken inside Voronov’s penthouse earlier that day.
‘That’s what I saw in his apartment,’ she said, pointing to the figure in the black and white picture. ‘I swear to God it is. That’s the statue I saw in Voronov’s apartment.’
‘Are you sure?’ Hadley said, wearily.
‘Yes, look.’ She held up the phone. ‘It’s the same figure I’m certain of it.’
Hadley frowned, pointing at the computer screen and when he spoke his voice was low. ‘That picture was taken in 1933.’
FIFTY-FIVE
The plane was a Boeing 787 VIP.
Painted black from nose to tail it taxied across the runway at Heathrow at an unhurried speed, the landing lights glinting on its fuselage.
From nose to tail the aircraft was one hundred and eighty seven feet long and had a wing span of one hundred and ninety seven feet and could comfortably have seated one hundred people in normal circumstances but these weren’t normal circumstances and this plane was the property not of an airline but of one man.
Where one hundred might have sat in comfort, nine travelled in luxury barely dreamed of.
Inside the plane were a dining room, office, meeting room and one huge and exquisite state room with a bed large enough to comfortably accommodate four people (should the need arise). It was opulent beyond belief, the preserve of only those who count their wealth in billions. A monument to the absurdity and obscenity that is incalculable riches.
Passengers in other planes glanced from their own windows in wonder at the black jet as it continued its stately movement across the tarmac. Few had seen a private jet of that size and many were intrigued not just by who might own such an incredible prize but also by the emblem that adorned the tail fins and cabin sides of the craft. This decal was not the often spied livery of some well recognised commercial line but further evidence that the 787 was the preserve of one person and not of a corporation.
Those who saw the black craft could only begin to imagine the identity of the owner, scratching their heads at the thought someone had so much money they could enjoy travel in this way. Some thought it might belong to an Arab sheik, some to a film star or pop star but they didn’t know and guess was all they could do.
Even if any of those who now watched the plane had known the identity of its owner they may still have been curious. The name wasn’t well known among the general public, especially in the Western World. Those who moved in the same business would know it. Some who knew might even fear it.
The 787 slowed down as it headed towards its designated position, guided by the air traffic controller who had been in contact with it since it first signalled its presence over England just fifteen minutes earlier. The last leg of a journey that had taken just over two and a half hours, mainly because of some bad weather over France which had caused the 787 to divert slightly to miss a particularly malevolent band of thundery cloud. The pilot had requested permission to alter his flight path slightly to avoid this inconvenience. He knew that the man who owned the plane hated turbulence and anything else that might disturb him during a flight and he had sought evasive action to prevent any such disturbance.
It would be appreciated he knew. If it was even noticed.
The pilot brought the 787 to a halt and sought extra confirmation from the control tower that it was safe to disembark his passengers. There were only nine he re-iterated. Nine passengers and a crew of six, himself included.
The cabin crew would now be preparing the passengers to disembark, the pilot thought. He breathed a sigh of relief just as he did at the end of every journey no matter how far. It was almost a superstition for him, just as gently touching the silver crucifix he wore around his neck before he took off was a superstition. Before he took off he offered silent prayers that the flight would be a smooth one and when he landed he offered more silent prayers that the destination had been reached without incident. His co-pilot always smiled at the gestures, telling the captain how terrified the crew and occupants of the plane would be if they could see him praying but the pilot merely grinned and dismissed his companion’s concerns.
The crucifix had been given to him by his mother when he was just five years old and he had worn it every day since. It reminded him of her and he was grateful for the memories. He smiled thinly to himself. Now there had been a superstitious woman.
The two pilots had known each other for fifteen years, twelve of them in the service of the plane’s owner.
They worked solely for him. This was the only plane they ever flew. On the salary he paid them it was the only one they needed to fly.
The 787 seemed to
shudder as it finally came to a halt and the pilots slipped out of their seats.
Inside the main body of the aircraft those who needed to disembark were preparing themselves.
Those who would leave first checked their weapons.
FIFTY-SIX
‘I don’t care when that picture was taken, that’s the figure I saw. That’s the statue I saw in Voronov’s private penthouse.’
Jess looked at Hadley and then again at the screen.
‘It’s hard to even make out what the fucking thing looks like in the old picture, Jess,’ Hadley protested. ‘How the hell can you be so sure?’
‘I know, Alex. I just know.’
‘The same way you know that people are dying inside the Crystal Tower because of Voronov?’
‘Fuck you,’ Jess snapped. ‘Don’t patronise me, I’m not in the mood.’
‘Jess, I want to believe this as much as you do but for the hundredth time, where are the facts?’
‘And for the hundredth time, how many times do I have to say to you what happened to following up a hunch. Jesus Christ, Alex have you fucked up so badly you’ve even forgotten what that feels like? When you were good at your job you knew what it was like.’
Hadley looked away from her, glancing back at the screen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jess added quickly. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Yes, you did and you’re right,’ he said, quietly. ‘My dad used to have an expression for it.’ Hadley smiled wistfully. ‘When someone hadn’t got any guts left he used to say their arsehole had gone.’
‘I’m not saying that about you.’
‘You don’t have to say it, Jess, but it’s true. We both know that.’
Jess looked exasperatedly at him, a combination of anger and pity in her eyes but she felt that he needed neither at the moment.
‘There’s something going on, I know there is,’ she said finally.
‘Then maybe you need someone else to help you find out what it is. I just can’t do it any more, Jess.’
‘You used to tell me to believe in myself, believe in my hunches, my gut feelings. No matter what. Why can’t you do that now?’
‘It was easy for me then.’
‘You know what it feels like, Alex. You know that sense of excitement when something you feel in your gut comes true.’
‘Just because I don’t have the same gut feeling as you doesn’t mean you’re not right. I’m just trying to offer a voice of reason.’
‘Fuck reason.’
‘And fuck facts too?’
‘Just go with me on this, Alex. Believe what I believe. Help me.’
‘I thought I already had. You wouldn’t have got into the Crystal Tower earlier without me.’
‘So what are we doing now, scoring points? Thank you for your help, Alex. Do you want me owing you, is that the idea?’
‘Fuck off, Jess, you know it isn’t.’
‘I don’t know anything any more, Alex. Not when it comes to you.’
‘Then it’s just as well you’re writing about Voronov and the Crystal Tower and not me then, isn’t it?’
They looked at each in silence for a moment then Hadley shrugged.
‘Tell me what you want?’ he said, quietly.
‘I want the old Alex Hadley back again,’ she confessed.
‘Not going to happen.’
‘Then I’ll have to make do with what’s left.’ Jess smiled thinly. ‘Please, Alex.’
‘I’ll help you, you know I will. I have helped. But don’t expect too much from me, Jess. I haven’t got it to give any more.’
He looked down, his eyes heavy. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept for weeks and whose only desire was to crawl away into a dark corner and hide. He looked broken. Used up.
‘Besides,’ he said, wearily. ‘If I told you my theory you’d think I was insane.’
Jess looked at Hadley as if he was about to give the chemical equation for gold.
‘Tell me and we’ll see,’ she said, quietly.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Hadley looked straight at her, his eyes unblinking.
‘Have you ever heard of the Golem?’ he wanted to know.
‘That thing from Lord of the Rings?’
‘No, that was Gollum. I said the Golem. A creature made of clay, built to protect those who created it. There was one in a film called Dogma, it was made from shit in that,’ he chuckled.
‘Very tasteful,’ Jess said.
‘I’m just saying,’ Hadley went on.
Jess sat down, shaking her head slowly.
‘I thought you stopped drinking,’ she said, quietly.
Hadley managed a smile then continued.
‘It’s a legend,’ he said. ‘The first one, the most famous one, was built by Rabbi Loewin Prague in the sixteenth century. There have been others through the years, always built to protect people in danger.’
As Hadley spoke, Jess merely sat gazing blankly at him. As if he were a doctor giving her the prognosis on some malignant cancer they’d just found in one of her breasts. She heard the words but they weren’t quite registering.
‘It’s the Jewish equivalent of the Frankenstein story I suppose but instead of being built from body parts the Golem was made of clay,’ Hadley continued. ‘It was brought to life by someone with the power to control it. Either by symbols carved into its forehead or torso or by a small piece of parchment inserted into its mouth. Once activated it would do whatever its creator instructed. Everything from carrying water to killing.’ Hadley paused for a moment. ‘It was a statue, Jess. A statue that could be brought to life and made to do whatever the man who built it commanded. It was unstoppable. Indestructible. It had no feelings, no conscience, nothing. Just the strength given to it by its creator, the only man who could stop it once it had been activated.’
‘A walking statue?’ Jess said, quietly.
Hadley nodded.
‘Like that,’ he said, pointing at the computer screen. He picked up her phone and jabbed a finger in the direction of the figure she had photographed in Voronov’s apartment. ‘Or that.’
‘You’re saying the statue I saw is a Golem? You’re saying that Voronov’s grandfather built a Golem to protect himself in the 1930s and that now Voronov is using one to get what he wants? In twenty-first century London, a multi-millionaire businessman is using a figure made of clay to threaten or even kill anyone who stands against him?’
‘I told you you’d think I was insane.’
‘And you pissed on my idea that the deaths in the Crystal Tower might be mysterious?’ Jess grunted. ‘You asked why Voronov would kill his own workers.’
Hadley shrugged.
‘I could be as mad as you think I am, Jess,’ he said, finally.
‘A walking statue?’ she said. ‘Why would you even think that? A Golem? Why, Alex?’
‘Because I’ve heard of them before.’ He sucked in a deep breath as if the words he was speaking were difficult for him to believe too. ‘My dad was a paratrooper, at the end of the war he was captured by the Germans at Arnhem and stuck in some prisoner of war camp. He was only young, no more than a kid. It was his first real battle.’ He shrugged. ‘One of the guys he was locked up with was a Jewish doctor and my dad could never figure out why this guy hadn’t been sent to a concentration camp or just shot. I mean, the Germans were slaughtering Jews even faster as the end of the war got nearer but no one ever bothered this man or any of the guys in the same hut as him and my dad wondered why.’ Hadley exhaled. ‘The guards and even the fucking camp commandant seemed to be scared of him.’
‘Why?’ Jess wanted to know.
‘Because he built a Golem to protect himself and the men with him,’ Hadley explained. ‘My dad said he’d heard that at least three of the guards had been killed by it.’
Jess shook her head.
‘I know how crazy it sounds, Jess,’ Hadley went on. ‘I’m just telling you what my dad told me. Trust me, I didn’t believe it when I heard it.
I was as sceptical as you.’
‘Did your father see this thing, this Golem?’
‘They kept it under the floorboards of the hut, hidden away but he did see it. He said it looked like a statue with some letters carved into its forehead and side.’
‘The words of the spell to bring it to life?’
Hadley nodded.
‘And it looked like the thing in Voronov’s apartment?’ Jess asked.
‘As long as a Golem has the basic human shape it can be brought back to life, it doesn’t have to have features or be anatomically accurate to function. In Hebrew it means “shapeless mass.”’
‘What about the letters on it that bring it to life? What are they?’
‘Aleph, mem, tav, which is emet and means ‘truth’ To stop it you erase the word aleph which leaves mem and tav which is met, meaning “death.”’
‘As simple as that?’ Jess said, raising her eyebrows.
Hadley didn’t speak then he said:
‘I know what you’re thinking, Jess.’
‘I’m not sure you want to know what I’m thinking, Alex,’ she told him, flatly.
‘There could be a link between the statue you saw and the deaths in the Crystal Tower.’
‘But the people who died inside the tower died in accidents, they weren’t killed by a Golem and besides, even if that thing in Voronov’s apartment is a Golem who the hell made it? Voronov himself?’
Hadley sat in silence, his eyes turning towards the photo of the figure in the waters of the Thames.
Jess was about to speak again when her mobile rang.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Brian Dunham rubbed his eyes, surprised at how tired he was feeling and conscious of his increasing drowsiness as he drove.
It hadn’t been a particularly taxing day, he thought, trying to justify this sudden attack of tiredness but the weather wasn’t helping. It had been scorching hot all day and even now, with evening well and truly in command of the sky, the temperature was still uncomfortably high. Dunham pushed the air conditioning up another level hoping that would help. It didn’t.