‘We need to get back to the station,’ Isabel says.
Voronov shuts the journal and frowns down at it. ‘I think it’ll be a good idea to have Dr Alves weigh in on this.’ He looks grim. ‘But if we’ve understood even half of that then . . .’
Isabel’s thoughts exactly.
When they reach the precinct, they make a quick trip to the café for a bite to eat. They’ve been on their feet too long and without a decent break; her shields are waning.
‘Looks like we have a no-witness situation this time around,’ she says as they walk in. She keeps quiet, just nodding hello to the regulars on her way to the counter. She calls out to old man Días, asking for that day’s specials, Voronov trailing behind her.
They end up with squid stew, sitting in the small, cramped area around the side set up on the uneven cobbles that trap the chair and table legs whenever they move. It has a small heater and a canopy to buffer the tables from the wind. It’s a cosy little section despite the fact that it’s winter. Not many people come out here at this time of year and Isabel always takes advantage of that. It’s cold, but not cold enough to cancel out the effect of the heater. Especially with a bowl of stew in front of her, curls of steam peeling away from it and into the crisp air, and over that the smell of lemon from the carioca de limão she ordered too. It’s always a comforting drink for her.
Isabel takes in the smell of the food appreciatively before digging in. She almost burns her tongue off. The flavour explodes in her mouth, tomato and that saltiness that only comes with a seafood dish. She starts to feel warmer before she’s even swallowed.
Voronov makes a sound of approval after his first spoonful as well and for a while they eat in silence. They’re halfway through when Voronov eases back from his food, pops open his water and looks her right in the eye.
‘What are the pills for?’
Isabel keeps eating, only flicking him a quick glance. She takes another forkful and then sits back, chewing on her mouthful, watching him. She takes a napkin and dabs at her mouth, then picks up a small packet of sugar and rips off the corner. She pours it into the tiny cup of hot water. The lemon peels sit at the bottom of the cup and she watches as they’re buried under the white granules of sugar. She stirs it in. It’s only when she has the cup nestled in the palms of her hand, heat burning through it to the skin of her palms, that she starts to speak.
‘Does it matter?’ she asks, and her tone hides the fact that she’s suddenly hyper-aware of the beat of her heart, which feels too heavy. She sips at the lemon sweetness and sets the cup back down before returning to her food.
‘It’s not the first time you’ve taken them,’ he continues, digging into his food as if Isabel hadn’t just attempted to shut him down.
She sets her fork back down and stares him down. ‘You going somewhere with this? Because if not, how about we drop this conversation and finish our food? We’ve still got things to do.’
Isabel’s phone vibrates on the table between them, and she thanks God for the distraction. She picks it up to see a message from Jacinta.
‘We need to go,’ she says. ‘Turns out they’ve got something from the camera outside the lab.’
‘What about the journal?’
Isabel sighs, rubs at her temple and winces when that makes the headache shoot a little deeper. She shakes her head. ‘I think we should talk it over with the team and the Chief. The repercussions of what was in that journal coming out aren’t good ones. It’s better if we get a handle on it as fast as possible.’
It would be worse than Colombo. If the public ever suspected that there was someone walking around, unknown to them and with the capability to command both telepathy and telekinesis – well— Isabel wouldn’t put it past people to go on a rampage.
‘We’ll need to tread carefully. It explains Armindas’ and Julio’s vagueness when talking to us. This— what they were doing is . . .’ She finishes her carioca de limão. ‘Fuck. Let’s go.’
Chapter 39
This time they’re not so lucky.
The news of Julio Soares’ death is being reported all over the evening news. That Professor Soares, son of Bento Soares, was murdered in the early hours of Thursday morning and that the case is currently being investigated by the same two inspectors who are working on Gil dos Santos’ case, leading to speculations of a link between the two.
The only saving grace is that they haven’t connected either Isabel or Voronov’s names to the case yet and the word Gifted isn’t mentioned once. But Isabel doubts it’ll be long before it gets to that point.
The door to the case room is closed tight and they’ve drawn the blinds down for good measure. The room is stuffy and they’ve had to crack open a window to let some freshness in.
The Chief sits at the back, arms crossed, cup of coffee in front of her as she waits along with the rest of the team.
Isabel stands with Voronov at the front of the room.
‘We found this journal at Julio’s place.’ She slides the journal across the table to the Chief. ‘We’re still going through it, but it’s significant. It seems as if Gil, Célia and Julio were working on an unnamed subject. From the looks of it, it doesn’t seem to be above board. It mentions that Gil had become concerned about the subject’s instability. Julio notes he and Armindas were not as convinced as he was.’ Isabel takes a deep breath and drops the bomb. ‘It also states that the subject in question has tested as having dual categories for their abilities.’
Daniel leans forward. ‘Sorry, what? What does that mean?’
Carla’s mouth gapes open. ‘But that’s impossible. Right?’
‘We can’t say for sure,’ Isabel says, answering Daniel, ‘but we think it’s referring to a Gifted’s affinity. Mine and Carla’s, for example, are telepathy. Célia’s is telekinetic. We think this is talking about someone who has both.’ Following that no one says anything else.
The Chief is flicking through the journal, stopping in some places before continuing and then stopping again, all the while tapping her free hand on the edge of the table.
Isabel leans back against the wall behind her. ‘Like I said, we didn’t have a chance to go through the whole thing but it might prove significant. And if nothing else, it shows that these three are involved in something that is clearly not above board. Julio makes it clear that they are keeping this from Monitoring.’
The Chief rubs at her eyes, then sighs with her whole body. ‘Okay. I want this kept between this team. Not a peep outside of this room. Everyone understand that?’
There’s a chorus of assent.
‘Bento Soares is riding us hard. His son is dead. So now we need to move even faster. It’s only going to get worse because he will take this over our heads to the higher-ups and there will only be so much I can do if he does. I need something to give them when that happens. So what do you have?’
‘At the moment we don’t have enough. Célia Armindas is the only one of a high enough level to have been able to move a person and at the moment, we don’t have her at either scene.’ And with the reported disagreements between her and Gil, the argument Isabel and Voronov had witnessed at the function and now, the contents of that journal, things aren’t looking great for her. But they might have another problem on their hands. ‘But we have to consider that two of her colleagues are dead and they’ve all been doing something they shouldn’t have.’ Isabel looks at the Chief. ‘Maybe it might be good to just have someone keep an eye on her.’
The Chief gives her a jerk of her chin. ‘All right. Anything else?’
‘Viewing the recording from outside the labs today.’
‘The internet café’s finally got back to us with their CCTV as well,’ Carla chimes in. ‘We’ll see if there’s anything of note on there. Hopefully it’ll have captured whoever was in there the morning of Gil’s murder.’
They give her a brief run-through of the rest. There are still the car park logs and visitors’ lists from the university, and the w
oman who’s all but a vegetable lying in a hospital in Coimbra. They have no idea how she fits into this investigation. Maybe she doesn’t and it’ll just be another dead end for them. And there’s still Luisa and what the hell Gil was doing calling her.
A lot of roads and one of them has to lead to something.
The Chief stands. ‘I want an update before you wrap up for the day.’
‘Yes, Chief.’
Chapter 40
Isabel hands over Voronov’s coffee and takes a seat on the table behind him, cradling her own, eyes zooming in on the large monitor in front of them.
Once everyone is sitting down, Carla nods to herself and turns to the computer.
‘Okay, first things first,’ she says, and clicks on the little remote in her hand.
A webpage from the Registry comes up. It has a picture of an older woman with stern features, staring unsmiling out of the photo. She has short-cropped grey hair and red lipstick. Lines bracket the corners of her mouth and her forehead.
Isabel squints at the image. ‘Is that the hospital patient that Gil was visiting? Mila Ferreira?’
‘That’s right. Daniel found her. She used to be a Guide. This is actually a cache page, basically a snapshot of the original webpage that has been stored in case the page becomes unavailable, so we can see what was actually on her profile.’
‘Meaning her page was taken down by the Registry? Is there a connection with the case?’ Isabel asks.
Daniel nods. ‘I checked with the Registry. It’s not much but Mila Ferreira was actually a specific type of Guide. She wasn’t allocated to the government-mandated cohorts. She worked directly with NTI.’
‘Doing what?’ Isabel asks.
‘She worked exclusively for the special cases that were overseen by them.’
‘Like what? They have that kind of say?’ Jacinta asks.
Daniel tucks his hands into his pockets and looks back at Ferreira’s image on the monitor. ‘Yeah. This is where it gets a little . . . grey. The only Gifted that the NTI would oversee directly after they’ve been tested are Gifted who are level eights and up. Maybe sevens depending on the situation. This would be in addition to their Monitor.’
Isabel takes in the face of the woman on the screen. She remembers Rosario’s kind smile and patience. She wonders if Rosario’s still working, still guiding young Gifted through their abilities with kindness.
This woman seems a million miles away from that type of Guide. ‘So, not your regular Guide then,’ Isabel says.
‘No.’
‘Do we know what happened to her?’
Daniel shakes his head. ‘No one knows. She was found out cold on her living room floor. We’re waiting for the higher-ups to give us clearance to dig deeper with the hospital. She doesn’t have any known family that we can go to.’
Isabel sighs. Yeah. That seems to be their luck right now. ‘All right. Let’s get details of her previous address’ – she rubs at the bridge of her nose, pinches it between her fingers to try to ease the tension there – ‘we’ll go have a look around there. Speak to the neighbours. See if they know anything of value. What’s next?’
Carla heads over to the laptop. ‘So, CCTV for the day of Julio’s death. We’ve combed through most of it’ – she blows out a long loud breath and looks at them – ‘it isn’t pretty.’ She taps at the keyboard and the image on the screen begins to move.
The quality could be better, Isabel thinks. The image is grainy but it’s clear enough that they can see into Professor Soares’ lab. One of the double doors is still in place, the other is propped open. Through it, Soares is visible standing at his desk, the whiteboard large behind him. He’s bent over something on the desk. He lifts his head. Even with the grainy image it’s clear that his mouth is moving.
Anticipation curls in Isabel’s stomach and she sits up, leaning closer to the monitor. In front of her Voronov is still, like her, probably not wanting to miss anything.
On the screen, Soares stands. The movement is abrupt and sends his chair rolling back. It bounces off the wall and wheels closer to the classroom door. Soares is yelling – or that’s what it looks like, hand in front of him, finger pointing – and then he’s airborne.
It’s like an invisible hand picks him up and slams him back against the board. He slams against it, once, face cracking against the white. Red cuts across the board in a splatter. He’s yanked back, toes dragging over the floor, whole body flopping like a rag doll, then slammed against it again. And again. And again.
He drops and is still.
Isabel stares. ‘Jesus.’
The time on the top-right corner of the screen continues to tick away. The attack took less than a minute. For another full minute they sit in silence in the big room, the clock behind them ticking away, loud and mocking.
‘There,’ Voronov says.
Movement just behind the still-closed door of the lab.
A head, hooded, behind the square window of the door, then the person’s foot as they make to come out. The killer stops, head turning but still low as if to look through the window. The image distorts, lines cutting across the screen, the whole thing flickering before the image goes black.
For a moment, no one in the room speaks.
Isabel grits her teeth. ‘There’s nothing. Not one thing that we can pick out for identification.’ She glances at Carla. ‘Carla, have you looked through the rest of the footage for that day?’
Carla nods and leans back in her seat. ‘Yes. I don’t know who that person is, can’t pinpoint where they even get into the classroom.’
Isabel thinks back to the room, remembers the fire exit at the back, which would have been locked. ‘He looked fine until he started yelling. He probably knew this person. It’s possible that they could have come in through the fire exit at the back.’
Voronov shrugs and nods but doesn’t say anything.
‘I checked with the site manager and the tech team. No one gets in or out without a key fob, and they’re religious about signing in visitors. Doesn’t mean someone hasn’t slipped through the net though. The car park is operated by key fobs too and the emergency exits lead down to that, but I don’t know how they could open the gates undetected,’ Isabel says.
‘They could’ve waited and snuck out behind another car, or maybe parked outside and gone in on foot,’ Voronov points out.
‘True.’ Isabel drinks her coffee. ‘We still need to go through the log of who was in the building that day. If we get lucky we might get some more witnesses who haven’t felt particularly comfortable about coming forward.’ She shrugs off her jacket and pulls up the broken chair she’d ignored when she’d come into the room earlier. Straddling it, she scoots closer to the monitor and rolls right up to Voronov. ‘All right, let’s take it all the way back to the night before,’ she says with a sigh.
‘Don’t think you brought enough coffee for this,’ Voronov says.
Isabel resists the urge to flip him off and settles in for what’s going to be an eye-watering night.
Chapter 41
Isabel is in their investigations room, ass on the table and one foot on a chair. She stares at the board they have up. Her eyes are still gritty from all the footage they’ve spent the majority of the evening viewing.
All of their evidence and dates neatly written in, connections made and names jumping up at her. She stares at Ferreira’s name on the board, trying to figure out how she connects to any of this – if at all. Gil had visited her regularly and yet the closest people to him had no knowledge of these visits. Célia, the only Gifted individual in this case capable of the kind of power necessary to commit the crime, nowhere near the scene.
And Luisa, a level 3 telekinetic trying to stay as out of their way as possible. That’s bothering Isabel.
How the hell does this woman fit into all of this and why does she keep popping up?
The journal? Is that what it all comes down to?
Isabel’s head feels too full and she
knows she needs to get it together. She can’t afford to let herself slip right now. The department is just about keeping Soares at bay, but that won’t last long and when he lashes out, it’s going to hurt.
Someone raps on the investigation room’s door. Isabel snaps her head up.
Carla pops her head round. ‘Isabel, sorry to interrupt. Gabriel Bernardo is here to see you.’
Isabel twists around to face her fully, eyebrows climbing high. At this time? ‘Sure. Has he said what it’s about?’
Carla grimaces. ‘He asked for you specifically.’
Isabel pauses. ‘Okay.’ She shoves her sleeves back past her elbows and pushes her hair back from her face. ‘Get Voronov, he’s in with Jacinta. I want someone observing, just in case. Take Bernardo to the interview room, I’ll be there in a minute.’ She glances out the door but the blinds are down and she can’t see past them. They probably have him waiting downstairs anyway.
Carla nods and backs out of the room.
Isabel downs the rest of her coffee and takes a breath. Fuck, she’s tired.
Gabriel is already in the room when she reaches it. Carla’s sat him down and he’s got something to drink. He looks up when Isabel walks in.
‘Inspector,’ Gabriel says, half rising out of his chair, hand out for her to shake. The corners of his mouth draw back in an attempt at a smile, but it falls short.
‘Mr Bernardo—’
‘Gabriel.’
‘All right. Gabriel. It’s quite late, what can I help you with?’ She sits.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help,’ Gabriel says.
Huh. Not what she’d been expecting. ‘Why? Do you think you could do more?’
For a moment, he’s silent. He watches her quietly, eyes mapping her face, slowly.
Isabel settles more comfortably into her chair, staring right back, and waits. From him she feels curiosity, spreading edged in a pale pink. And apprehension. That same emotion that was present when she and Voronov visited him in his apartment.
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