‘Look. I’m happy to help, really. But I don’t have time for this right now, I’m needed outside. I thought this would be a quick conversation. Obviously, I was mistaken.’
‘No problem. We’ll come and see you at your office tomorrow then,’ Voronov says, tucking his notebook back away. He smiles. ‘Or you’re welcome to come and see us at the station tomorrow instead?’ He takes out a small card and holds it out to Soares. ‘In the meantime, if you think of anything else, please contact us. Any information is appreciated.’
Isabel pushes away from the door. ‘Thank you for your time, Professor.’ Then she opens the door and stands back to let Voronov go through. When she glances back at the professor, he’s staring down at the card. ‘Have a good night.’
She follows Voronov out of the room and as they emerge back out into the corridor, the door they’d used earlier to gain entry into the corridor opens again, letting in two people and the swell of noise and thoughts that had been sealed behind it.
The blast of thoughts makes Isabel wince and she touches her fingers to her temple reflexively. She doesn’t hear anything specific, but what had only been a distant thrumming when she’d walked in earlier is now a growing rumble. The pill is beginning to wear off. Merda.
‘Oh.’
The new, unfamiliar voice makes Isabel refocus. She stops next to Voronov and takes in the man who has just joined them in the corridor. He is in his early thirties perhaps. His voice is pretty deep. Next to him, holding on to his arm, is Luisa Delgado, the witness who had left her bag on the train.
Luisa’s hair is a little straighter and she’s swapped out the yellow dress for a formal bronze gown that hints at her ample curves. Her make-up exaggerates her doe eyes and makes her look even more spooked.
Isabel blinks at her. Not someone she’d expected to see here.
Luisa is staring at Isabel and Voronov, eyes flicking from one of them to the other.
The man with Luisa speaks. ‘Professor, they’re looking for you.’
Isabel looks over her shoulder to see that Julio has followed them out. He still has Voronov’s card in his hand.
‘Yes, yes. I’m coming back now, thank you, Gabriel.’ Soares looks back over at Isabel and Voronov. If anything, he looks even more apprehensive now. ‘Rest assured, I’ll be in touch.’
Voronov smiles again. ‘We’ll be waiting.’
Isabel heads back into the hall, braced this time, Voronov right behind her. As they pass Luisa Delgado and her date for the night, Isabel nods at her. ‘Good to see you again, Miss Delgado, we hope you enjoy your evening.’
Everyone is clapping and there are a couple of wolf-whistles here and there. There are four people standing on the stage, all impeccably dressed and laughing and clapping too. It takes Isabel a moment to realise that people are bidding on them. She rolls her eyes.
‘Would be nice if we can make it out of here with all our toes intact,’ she calls over the noise.
‘Walk faster, then,’ Voronov says.
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
They reach the exit and Isabel hears someone announce Professor Soares, who is apparently joining the auction. When she looks over at the stage again, Professor Soares has a smile plastered over his face.
Voronov motions her ahead of him. ‘Let’s grab something to eat,’ he says, ‘I’m starving.’
That’s something Isabel will gladly get behind. ‘I’m up for that. Did you see the way Luisa Delgado looked when she saw us there? I think she thought we were stalking her. Poor woman.’
She’s stepped out of the room when she feels it. The imprint of a warm hand on the back of her neck once more, fingers pressing into her skin with gentle force.
Isabel stops and spins around, eyes scanning.
‘Reis?’
Everyone is facing the front, riveted by the lively auction, laughter and cheers swelling in the room. Julio is joking, his voice booming thanks into the mic in his hand.
‘Reis?’ Voronov grasps her shoulder.
Shit.
Shit.
Chapter 17
‘I’ve never been so glad to get out of a place,’ Isabel mutters.
‘I can’t say I disagree,’ Voronov says, unlocking the car.
People are still arriving for the function, more cars pulling in and circling around looking for an empty spot. Isabel’s phone is buzzing in her pocket. The screen lights up the interior of the car when she pulls it out. Her brother’s name shows on the screen. It continues to vibrate in the palm of her hand.
Voronov pauses before starting the engine. ‘You’re not answering?’
Isabel gives him a look.
She sighs and shrugs off her jacket, tosses it into the back seat and rolls up her sleeves.
Her phone buzzes again, but it’s with a message this time.
Isabel, don’t forget to call me about the dinner, okay? Rita xxx
‘Did you think he was lying to us?’ Voronov asks.
‘I don’t think he was telling us the whole story, no.’
Voronov relaxes into his seat, dropping his hand from the keys. He turns to her. Half of his face is cloaked in the dark of the car and the other is thrown into sharp relief by the streetlights. The blue of his eyes is swallowed by the shadows.
‘I saw the exchange between Julio and Armindas. She went past me when she was storming off.’ He thinks about it. ‘She noticed me when I greeted her, she wasn’t pleased. I’d say she looked scared.’
‘Of Julio?’
‘Of me.’
Voronov leans back against the car door, shifts around as he tries – and fails – to stretch his legs in the cramped space. She can hear the sound of his fingers scratching over the growth of stubble on his face. ‘Or,’ he says after thinking about it a bit more, ‘of my presence there.’
‘Did you manage to hear what they were arguing about?’
Voronov shakes his head. ‘Though I do think it was probably about our case. From her reaction and the way Julio was when we spoke to him,’ he shrugs, ‘there’s no way to know unless we get it out of one of them.’
The rumble of the engine fills the silence while Isabel thinks. She decides to go ahead. ‘There’s something else,’ she says.
Voronov doesn’t say anything, but she knows she has his attention, can feel his eyes on her.
‘Soares didn’t notice.’
‘What do you mean?’
Isabel shifts in her seat, bringing one leg up and under her, her knee digging into the stick shift. ‘I showed him my ID. He didn’t even blink at it.’
‘Should he have?’
‘Given that his father hates Gifted and apples don’t generally fall far from the tree? The whole family has been out on campaigns with him. Him spotting the classification on my ID should’ve generated some kind of a response.’
Voronov remains quiet, taking in what she’s saying. ‘So was he distracted or was he already informed about it?’
Isabel watches as a woman in a brilliant gold dress sweeps out of the car in front of them and takes her time making sure there isn’t one thing out of place before placing her hand on her partner’s arm and allowing him to lead her inside.
‘They were arguing about something,’ Isabel says. ‘I didn’t get near enough in time to hear what it was about, but she looked pretty pissed off with Julio. Didn’t appreciate it when he grabbed her.’
‘And then . . .’ Isabel reaches up and touches the back of her neck. Unease settles over her. The remembered sensation makes her feel like gravity has disappeared and her stomach doesn’t know how to adjust. ‘I felt something. Like a touch on the back of my neck. Twice. When I turned around, there was no one there. Which is . . .’
His eyes narrow on her. ‘You think there was a Gifted there. A telekinetic? But using their power to touch someone without consent – that’s grounds for arrest.’
Isabel leans her head back against the seat. ‘It is. Or my mind was playing tricks on me.’
‘Or maybe the person we were looking for was in that room. But to draw attention to themselves that way? To taunt? And why you?’
That would have other implications. Voronov’s suggestion implies that if Gil dos Santos’ killer was in that hall, then they had known who Isabel was and what they were there for.
‘Maybe we should go and pay Armindas another visit tomorrow, see if we can get out of her what happened in there this evening. We might get something useful.’ Voronov sighs.
‘We can hope. Something’s not right.’ Isabel lifts her hand and rubs it over the back of her neck again. She can still feel that phantom touch, making her skin crawl. ‘I want a copy of tonight’s guest list,’ she says. ‘I’ll ask Carla to find out the—’
Her phone starts ringing. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she says and takes the call. ‘Was just talking about you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘This function that Julio Soares is at right now; I need you to contact whoever organised it. We need a copy of the guest list.’
‘Okay. I’ll get on that. I’ve got something for you guys.’
‘Hang on.’ Isabel puts her on speaker. ‘All right, go ahead.’
‘So, it turns out that Gil’s personal laptop wasn’t on him that morning. It’s not in his office and not at home. Mrs dos Santos says he takes it everywhere. It’s smaller than his work one.’
Voronov looks thoughtful. ‘Could’ve been stolen. But then why not take everything else too? Would’ve been easy to do in the middle of all that commotion. Is there any way to track it?’
‘Not the laptop no, but since Gil’s cloud can be accessed from any of his devices, Daniel has managed to log into that.’
Isabel leans forward. ‘And?’
‘It was accessed for the last time the same morning he was killed. Log-off time was eleven thirty-four a.m.’
‘Long after Gil is dead,’ Isabel says.
‘Exactly. Good news is we have an IP address for that last log-in and we’ve been able to track down the location.’
‘Okay, so Gil’s laptop is gone, and someone logged in to one of his devices after he died.’ Isabel looks at Voronov. ‘You good to check this out tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right, Carla, send it to us. We’re done here, so we’ll go check it out. See what we can find.’
‘Okay, sending it now. And one more thing, I contacted Monitoring to ask if they could send someone over to answer a couple of questions about the technicalities of the crime. They’re sending someone to us tomorrow. They made sure to tell us we’re lucky. Apparently, this woman is one of the best.’
‘Maybe I’ll actually feel lucky if she helps us get somewhere. Thanks, Carla, we’ll keep you guys posted.’
The location Carla sent turns out to be a café in Estoril, close to the church by the Memorial Park, fifteen miles away in Greater Lisbon.
Voronov parks the car and as soon as they step a foot outside of it, the wind tries to flatten them.
‘Jesus,’ Isabel mutters, turning her collar up to shield her throat. She left her scarf at the station and she’s hating herself for it right now.
Isabel looks around; despite the reason for them being there, she lets herself enjoy the charm of the lit-up city around her. Estoril and Cascais have always been beautiful places. Of course, she’s considered riff-raff around these parts, but she can ignore that long enough to enjoy the polished surroundings.
‘You good?’ Voronov asks.
‘Yes. Let’s go.’
She falls into step beside him as they follow the directions that Voronov’s phone is giving them in its robotic female voice.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve come this way,’ Voronov says, doing what Isabel had been doing a few seconds ago and taking in the view.
‘Same,’ Isabel says, hunching her shoulders against the wind. ‘Don’t have much reason to come down here.’
Voronov glances at her. ‘My sister lives around these parts.’
‘Oh?’ She glances at her watch. 7.26 p.m. ‘There probably won’t be much for us to do after this. I can go back on my own if you want to stick around for a bit.’
The smile he’d had on his face disappears. ‘It’s all right. Another time maybe.’
Isabel glances at him, surprised by the abrupt change. Had she hit a nerve? ‘Sure.’
They make the rest of their way in silence. Isabel wonders if she’s overstepped; but she hadn’t been the one to volunteer the information. She watches him, curious, but doesn’t say anything else.
The place Carla has sent them to is, surprisingly, still open. It looks like an internet café.
Isabel peers through the window. There is a food display and counter at the front, with mostly empty trays of sweet pastries at the top and savoury finger food on the lower shelves; pataniscas, little triangles of xamuças, pasteis de bacalhau and more, all laid out on beds of lettuce and tomato, plus metal tubs of sandwich fillings. Just looking makes Isabel’s mouth water and reminds her that she hasn’t had anything to eat yet this evening.
The rest of the space is taken up by small round tables. Most of the occupants have their laptops open, earphones in. Further back, she can make out a row of computer desks along the back wall, some of which are occupied too.
‘Smart,’ Isabel says. ‘This is why Carla didn’t mention an IP address.’
Voronov pushes the door to the café open and motions for her to go ahead.
Isabel resists rolling her eyes, telling herself that he’s being polite, not that he thinks she can’t open doors on her own.
The guy at the counter, who’d been on his phone as they walked in, glances up, startled. Isabel examines the ceiling. With this much valuable equipment around, there should be a certain level of surveillance. If they’re lucky, this place does well enough for the owner to have put in proper security, though it’s not unusual for businesses to go for the bare minimum. Times are tough for everyone.
‘Boa noite,’ the guy says.
Voronov walks over to the counter. ‘Hey.’ He turns so his back is to the rest of the café and shows the guy his badge. The guy puts his phone away like they’re about to bust him for playing Candy Crush while on shift. ‘We just needed to have a look around, maybe ask some questions. Is your manager here?’
‘No. I’m the only one on shift now, the manager’s in again in the morning,’ he says, looking from Voronov to Isabel, fidgety all of a sudden. ‘What’s this about?’
Isabel points to the ceiling and whirls her finger around. ‘You have any cameras here?’
He nods, looking like he’s forgotten how his tongue works. ‘Y-yeah, we do.’
‘How long does the footage run?’
‘A-about a week.’
‘Okay,’ Voronov says. ‘We’re going to need a copy of it.’
‘Uh, I can’t authorise that?’
‘Then I suggest you call someone who can,’ Isabel says, ‘and we’ll need to know who was on shift Thursday morning too.’
The guy glances back down at the badge Voronov still has resting on the counter and gives them a jerky nod, before abandoning his phone and turning away to get them what they’re asking for.
Chapter 18
The Gifted Registry is notoriously difficult to get information out of, even when it comes to investigations. And with good reason. They hold the records of all the Gifted in the country – date of birth, location, power levels, next of kin, names of their Guides and Monitors if applicable – anyone with a Gift above a level 7 requires monitoring.
They know there was at least one Gifted person present at the function last night. Running the list of guests through the Gifted Registry’s database would be the way to ferret them out.
The database holds the kind of information that would be dangerous in the wrong hands. So, it makes sense that the amount of paperwork Isabel and Voronov had to go through in order to file a vetting request makes Isabel want to put her head through a wall.
Having to do this at all leaves a bad taste in her mouth and it doesn’t help that she has a foreboding feeling in regard to this whole case. With society’s current distrust of Gifted, an investigation like theirs could very well tip the state of affairs into something that the Gifted community won’t be able to recover from easily. Hunting one of her own—well. Isabel’s been trying not to examine it too closely.
They’d queued up for close to an hour in the frosty early morning to get their hands on the forms – queues being another highlight of Portuguese bureaucracy – and spent hours filling them out. With the request granted, they’d be able to identify anyone Gifted they might want to talk to. But there would be a long wait before they got the results.
In the meantime, Isabel and Voronov start poring over the guest list. ‘You really think the person involved attended?’ Voronov says.
Isabel sets the paper down on the desk and then eases back, folding her arms. The heating in the room has gasped its last breath and their section is freezing. She has her scarf wrapped around her neck and her fingers are chilled. They’ve been waiting since the previous day for the facilities staff to turn up and take a look.
‘I told you about the feeling I had yesterday, like someone had touched my neck when we were leaving?’
‘Yes.’ Voronov rests his arms on the desk, blue eyes intent on her.
‘It happened at the beginning too, just after we arrived. I thought it was my imagination the first time,’ she says, rubbing her hand over the spot. If she focuses hard enough, she feels as if the hand is still there, the sensation lingering. ‘But then it happened again, when we were leaving. Both of those times, there was no one there when I looked.’
‘Are you thinking someone of a significant level?’
‘For the touch to feel that real? I’d say yes. Unless I’m imagining things.’
‘Which you’re not.’
She pauses, then nods slowly. Voronov hadn’t questioned what she’d relayed to him yesterday but despite that, she’d still expected scepticism. But there was none of that. Not that she could sense; and her Gift aside, Isabel considers herself to be a good people-reader.
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