The Remnant Keeper (Tombs Rising Book 1)

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “I don’t suppose she took a picture?”

  “No. She only caught the back of him. Definitely male, about six-foot-tall, wearing dark clothes. Blond, brownish hair.”

  “Could it have been Jack Winston?”

  “From that description it could have been many people.”

  “That’s not helpful,” Edward said softly.

  “Sorry.”

  Markers had been positioned at various spots around the room. Edward’s attention was focused on the dark stain in the middle of the rug. A bloody stain that stretched for several inches. “Where’s the other one?” he asked, pointing at the remains of the eye.

  Chloe walked over to the window, careful not to disturb any markers and Edward noticed she was careful to avoid looking at the body. “It’s not here. He’s taken it.”

  “Why? Why was she important to him?”

  Chloe pulled out her own datapad. “She was the Feed Manager at Fuse Media. She was Keeley Winston’s boss.”

  Edward frowned. Nothing to do with the Wei’s then. All the attention so far had been on the Wei’s eyes. That made some kind of sense to him in that Leech wanted to protect some information. But to take this woman’s eyes who had nothing to do with that case...

  “How did Fuse handle the reporting of the Wei’s deaths?” he asked.

  Chloe swiped through her feeds. “Nothing unusual that I can see. On face value, they treated it the same as other murders.”

  “Was much made of the fact that Nikoli Wei was a government worker?”

  “They didn’t mention he was DRT. I guess the department blocked that information.”

  “And nothing about the eyes going to remnant keepers?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Most people would assume that, but there wasn’t anything in the report. They ran the story twice, then killed it.” Chloe looked away, realising her choice of words had been bad.

  “And what do we think about Frazier Growden?”

  “His DNA isn’t here. It wasn’t him.”

  “But he could have arranged it. Maybe we’re not getting the full story from Jack Winston. He said that Growden went to Honey Brown’s apartment, and he’d fought with Leech. What if he’s the orchestrator?”

  Chloe pondered this and chewed her bottom lip. “I’m not sure. Growden’s not all there, but this doesn’t fit his MO.”

  It had been on his mind since Winston had recounted the events from Honey’s apartment. There was an obvious connection of the ATL connecting Leech and Growden. A shared dislike of telepaths then. But following this line of reasoning meant Growden was behind the deaths of the Weis and there wasn’t anything to suggest his motive for that crime.

  “Have you found out when the next ATL meeting is?”

  Chloe shook her head. “From what we can see, the group is keeping an unusually low profile. Feeds have been quiet. No one’s talking about the next meet up. I reckon Winston’s interruption at the last meeting has got them all rattled. There are other groups in the other districts. Growden must have links with them. We could widen the search.”

  “Do it. I want Frazier Growden in an interview room.”

  Chloe raised an eyebrow. “You know we’ve been warned off him?”

  “Dammit, Chloe. What are we meant to do? He’s tied into an ongoing murder investigation. We can’t just ignore him.”

  “We’re still looking. As soon as we find him, we’ll bring him in.”

  Edward nodded. “Good.”

  “I’ve got some of Ella’s history up here,” she paused, reading the biography. “She’s been Keeley Winston’s manager for three years. But they’ve been friends for longer than that. Oh—”

  “What?”

  Chloe took a moment to reread the information. “Seems she was in a relationship with Jack Winston before Jack married Keeley. They’d been living together for six months.”

  Something twisted in Edward’s stomach. That uncomfortable feeling of being right. Had they been wrong to take Winston’s testimony at face value? How much could he have faked? What if he was involved with Growden in some way? Winston mentioned that Growden had paid for a telepath to monitor the guests at the ATL meetings. If Growden paid for telepaths, could Jack Winston be another of those on the books? Was this all an employment dispute gone wrong?

  “There’s another thing, Ed. Winston was talking to Ella in the hour before she died. I’ve got her HALO records on screen.”

  “Where was he during the call?”

  Chloe worked quickly on the datapad. HALO records were fair game to the police and finding out location information was straight forward.

  Her shoulders slumped. “He was at his home.”

  Still, he could have got the records faked. For someone working at OsMiTech, that wouldn’t be difficult. Besides, he only lived fifteen minutes away. He could have made it after the call in time to kill Ella.

  “Send a car and bring him round. Arrest him if you have to.”

  *

  An hour later, a car pulled up and Jack stepped out. As soon as he took in the full measure of the police presence, he sprinted for the house. Edward intercepted him, grabbing him by the shoulders, blocking his path.

  “Woah,” Edward called, as he worked against the struggling teep. “You don’t want to go in there. Not yet.”

  But, Jack wasn’t giving in. He was larger than Edward and fuelled by what his imagination was telling him he’d find inside. Edward didn’t want to imagine what the car journey would have been like for him—a police officer taking him to the home of the woman he’d once been involved with.

  “What’s happened?” he yelled. “Where is she?” The man’s face was tight with anger, eyes wide and cheeks reddened.

  “Easy,” Edward said, grappling with Jack. Other officers finally noticed the commotion and dashed to the detective’s aid. Realising that he didn’t have the strength to beat his way past three men, Jack eased up. Burnfield stood back and the other men did the same, watching the telepath for signs he might make a break for the house again. Jack didn’t. The fight had gone from him; colour drained from his face leaving him a sickly complexion.

  “Where’s Ella?”

  Edward rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Jack. She’s dead,” Edward answered wearily.

  Jack held his hands up and out before him, shaking his head at the news he’d already guessed. “No.”

  It looked like the man might faint, and Edward wanted to get him sat down quickly. He guided him by the elbow to the car where they both leant against the side of the vehicle looking up at the house.

  “I’m sorry, Jack. I wish we could have caught him.”

  Jack sniffed. His eyes were red, but there were no tears, just fury trapped inside. “I’ve given you his name. Told you what he looks like. All you have to do is find him.”

  “He doesn’t have a record. There aren’t any Alexander Leech’s in this district. We’ve worked with the other forces and they’ve investigated people with his name. It isn’t any of them. He lied to you.”

  “He wasn’t lying.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A feeling,” Jack replied.

  “You scanned him?”

  “No. Not properly. But he touched me when he attempted to remove Lavinia’s eye. He wasn’t hiding anything.”

  “It’s not enough. But, we’re still working through the security footage at the habitat block. If we get an image of him, we can make more progress.”

  “What about Growden? Leech was at the ATL meeting. Growden was going to kill me. You’re going to tell me you don’t know how to find him; a man like that must have a record.”

  “He’s been dealt with,” Edward shifted against the side of the car. “But not by my team. If he’s involved, it will come out and he’ll be charged.”

  It hurt to tell Jack this. To admit that a whole line of enquiry was off limits while the other team said so. Things couldn’t go on like this. He swore to himself that if Leech wasn
’t in custody in the next twenty-four hours, he was going to go to the exec panel and demand Growden’s arrest. He was the only other living witness at the scene of Honey Brown’s murder and the police were tracking him, but wouldn’t bring him in. It stunk.

  “Yeah. Of course,” Jack answered robotically.

  Edward felt like the case was supported on rotten planks above a pit of knives. It had become a manhunt, pure and simple, yet they were still far enough away from him that he could still kill confidently in the middle of the day when there were people close by. Security drones weren’t that active in this area. There’d been none in the vicinity at the times they needed. Leech was once again ahead of them.

  “If you’re up for it, I’d like you to take a look at the scene.”

  “I can’t.”

  “She’s not in there. The coroner’s moved her.”

  “I still can’t.”

  Edward clenched his fist and forced himself to relax. Baby steps. “How long did you live together?”

  Jack looked up and then quickly back down at his shoes. “Six months. That’s all we had.”

  “And then you met Keeley?”

  Jack shot him a look of surprise, but rather than deny anything he nodded. “We’d known each other all the time I was together with Ella, but nothing ever happened between us. We agreed that I had to break things off with Ella before we could get more serious.”

  “Have you any idea why Leech might have come after her? Did he say or do—”

  But Jack was already shaking his head. “No. I thought he just wanted the Weis’ eyes. What is this? A vendetta?”

  “But why’s he not come back after you? I see you stayed at your house last night, against our advice.”

  “I’ve nowhere else to go.” Jack looked down at his shoe and pulled down on his shirt to straighten it. As he did, Edward got the distinct impression Jack was keeping something back.

  “Are you OK? Has anything happened?”

  Jack didn’t look at him but shook his head. “Got little sleep, that’s all. First time back in my own bed.”

  That could be it, but Edward sensed there was more to it than that. He filed it away for later and stepped away from the car, turning to face the telepath as he did. “Leech has killed a lot of people. He killed three people just yesterday in an effort to get the eye in your head. And yet there it is, still with you.” Edward nodded at Lavinia’s eye. “You still think he wants to be caught? Where is he then?”

  Jack’s expression said all that needed saying. His taut features, hard and uncompromising. “What’s inside that you want me to look at?”

  Edward led the way past the policeman at the door and into the back room where Ella had been discovered. Jack stiffened as he entered and hung back, leaning against the door frame.

  “It’s OK,” Edward said uselessly.

  Jack’s attention was drawn to the dark smudge on the carpet.

  Chloe came in from the kitchen. She smiled thinly at the sight of Jack and asked whether she could get him a glass of water. He declined.

  “Leech took both her eyes?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” Chloe replied. “Although, so far we’ve only found the remains on one of them.” She gestured to the stain on the carpet. “We think he took the other with him.”

  “You still think he’s a telepath don’t you?”

  “Why else take the eyes? Far easier to destroy the evidence than remove them and leave a trail. I don’t suppose you can do anything with that?” She pointed at the eye remains.

  Jack folded his arms and when he spoke there was an ugly twist to his mouth. “You’re being serious? An eye needs to be intact. It needs to be sustained in a solution of Nanosalve. It needs containing within a memory box and the optic nerve needs to be preserved and fitted with an adaptor. That—” he pointed at the blood on the carpet, “is a bloody mess.”

  Chloe glared at him. None of this was doing him any good in her eyes. Her distrust of telepaths was only being strengthened by an attitude like this.

  “You were talking to Ella right before she was killed. What was that conversation about?” Edward asked, eager to change the mood of the room.

  “It was private.” Jack unfolded his arms.

  “Jack, you’re not helping here.”

  “What do you want me to say? It was a private conversation. Ella had some things of Keeley’s. She wanted to drop them off.”

  “And that’s all? What else did you talk about?”

  “Nothing. That was all.”

  Edward looked at Chloe and she nodded slowly back. She’d already requested the audio from their HALO conversation and assuming the exec panel didn’t have a problem with that, he’d be able to hear the conversation first hand in a few hours. If only Jack would be more forthcoming, it was time they could save.

  “She was sad,” Jack said unexpectedly. “Grieving. She’d been friends with Keeley longer than I’d known her. Talking to me was her trying to connect with her friend. She was lonely.”

  “I’m sorry. But, this all helps. We need a picture of what’s going on. Stuff you think is inconsequential is helping us focus on the important things.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. Can I go now?”

  “Chloe, sort him out with a lift.” And then to Jack, “Thank you.”

  In the hallway, Jack stopped when he saw the cardboard box of Keeley’s belongings. He bent to pick them up. “Can I take these?”

  Edward was still staring at the murder scene, trying desperately to imagine what Leech would have wanted with Ella. “Yeah, of course,” he said absently.

  3:54 PM

  The front door closed and Dennis followed the noises through to the kitchen at the back of the house. Alex had returned.

  Anger surged. His heart thumped and that familiar light-headiness returned—the same dizzying sensation that accompanied confrontations with Alex. Talking to the man about anything was always a trigger for headaches and hours of worry that the man was slowly taking over his life. When he’d advertised for a lodger this wasn’t what he’d expected. There was meant to be extra money, and it would have been nice to have someone to talk to. Dennis had far too few of those. But, there never seemed to be any extra money and Alex was not his idea of a friend.

  Plus, of course, there was the matter of the blood-stained clothes in the bathtub. He hadn’t even made any effort to hide them. Dennis had taken them and put them in bin bags and hidden them in the small loft space behind the stuff he couldn’t bear to throw out of his mother’s. A normal person might have worried about something so disturbing suddenly going missing, but Alex hadn’t mentioned it.

  And now he came to think about it, he realised he didn’t even know what Alex did for a living, or whether he had any friends of his own. He spent most of his time away from the house and often came back in at ridiculous hours. Thankfully, the neighbours hadn’t come round again to moan about the loud music from the previous night. Especially, after what he’d found in the bathtub, he couldn’t risk the police appearing and asking questions.

  He found Alex in the kitchen pouring out the water from the kettle before refilling it.

  “Why are you doing that?” Dennis asked.

  “You should always use fresh water to make tea. Re-boiling reduces the CO2 in the water and decreases the acidity. Do you want a cup?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Alex put the kettle down and plugged it in, but made no move to get any cups from the cupboard. “What’s up?”

  How could he not guess what this was about? How come it wasn’t eating away at his every waking thought like it was with Dennis? Twice he’d been called into his manager’s office for not paying enough attention at work. But if only they knew what was going on inside his head, they’d give him more slack.

  “It’s about the rent isn’t it? I’m sorry, but I’m just running a little short this month. I’ll make it up to you.” Alex turned like that was the end of the conversation and flicked
the kettle off. “I’ll be in my room.” He walked towards Dennis and Dennis felt that repulsive instinct to recoil as the man approached—his skin tingled and his mouth went dry. But, Dennis had had enough. Today would be the end of it. He stepped in front of his lodger, barring his exit from the kitchen.

  Alex stopped, and for a terrifying moment Dennis thought he’d gone too far. What would a man like Alex do if he felt threatened? Would it be Dennis’s blood in the bathtub next?

  “It’s not just the rent.” He heard the wavering in his voice and hated himself for it. Alex grinned and shook his head. He had a smell of day’s old body odour and being so close to him made Dennis want to hold his breath.

  “You’ve got yourself something on your mind. Care to share?” Alex stepped back and leant against the fridge, cocking his head and smirking.

  OK, so the man wasn’t going to hit him, and he could so easily have done that. Dennis sighed gently, hoping that his lodger wouldn’t notice his relief at not being assaulted. “Whatever you’re into, it’s got to stop.”

  Alex rolled his eyes.

  Undaunted, now that the first words were out of his mouth, things seemed easier. Dennis continued, “You’ve never mentioned the clothes in the bath. What were they from?”

  “I never mentioned them because it doesn’t concern you.”

  “It’s my bath. It concerns me.” Dennis heard how petty he’d made something so serious sound and tried to correct himself. “I mean, it’s not important about the bath. Why did you have blood all over your clothes?”

  “Not all over. Splashes. The water made it seem worse.”

  “But, where did the blood come from? Was it yours?”

  Alex shook his head slowly.

  “Then where did it come from?”

  “If you mean to ask, ‘whose blood is it?’ you should probably just ask that question.”

  The image of his bloodied hands came to mind, and Dennis shivered. “You hurt someone.”

  Alex nodded. “It was unfortunate, but they had something I needed.”

  Dennis wanted to ask how badly hurt the other party was, but his brain seized on the question and buried it. “Is that what you do for money?”