by Maynard Sims
The black shape behind Czerwinski billowed into the air, then folded in on itself, sinking into the ground where it soaked away like a black pool.
Czerwinski shook his head sadly. Then he opened his arms wide, stepped out onto the ledge, and called the breathers home as he launched himself into the air.
Pike excused himself and moved to the pavement to be alone. Jacek Czerwinski’s tears were heartfelt and deep. It was only polite to let him grieve in peace. No one wanted an audience at such times.
When Pike sat again he said, “And Julia?”
Jacek looked at him, rubbing his eyes. “We held the funeral. Arrangements were made for people to come back to Tomas’s house. We came, she did not. I have not seen her since. I’ve since learned that the boyfriend who lent her the car that day to collect Tomas from the prison was Wladyslaw Kaminski. A name I’ve become very familiar with over the past few years.”
Chapter Eighteen
King’s College Hospital, London, England
Crozier considered Jane to be one of the department’s greatest assets. She’d earned a master’s degree in psychology at Cambridge and possessed an astute and incisive mind. Intellectually, Jane could wipe the floor with the majority of the department—in fact, with most of the people Crozier knew, himself included.
Crozier’s only reservation about her had been her tendency to let domesticity come between herself and her work. He’d known David, her husband, for years, and was indirectly responsible for bringing the two of them together, but he had grown to feel that David was the worst thing that could have happened to her. Being with David had softened her and dampened much of the fire that had previously enlivened her work.
So, much against his better judgment, he had been pleased when David left Jane and she in turn took up with Carter. Much as Crozier despised Carter, he somehow thought the two of them as a couple would enhance their work for the department.
Jane held on to Carter’s hand. “Well, say something.”
The pain he had felt when he was brought into hospital was immense, but it was physical. The pain that followed Jane’s words was far deeper. He was going to lose her again. “When did you see him?”
“You know I see him. We’ve got the girls.” Surely she didn’t need to explain to him how it tore her apart seeing her daughters so upset that Mummy and Daddy didn’t live together anymore.
Gemma and Amy did their best to put on a brave face when they were with David, but both he and Jane could see how hard it was for them. Neither of the girls wanted to take sides; they didn’t see it as different sides. In their young way, they thought they must have done something wrong if their parents didn’t want to be with them.
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. What about David’s girlfriend?”
Jane looked out the dusty window. That gesture told Carter all he needed to know. “She was never really a girlfriend. Just a fling.”
Jane’s mother had blamed her, of course. She had come to stay for a few weeks while Jane coped on her own. Brenda never missed an opportunity to let Jane know it was her fault her husband had left her. She would sympathize but in a what a disappointment you are tone of voice. Jane had heard that same tone so many times in her life it almost didn’t affect her anymore. Almost, she told herself, almost.
“A fling? We know about those don’t we, Jane?”
She hadn’t thought David knew about her affair, but of course people always do know.
She had changed during and since, to the extent that he must have suspected something was happening. It wasn’t planned; these things rarely were. Jane and Carter worked together. They saw each other, on and off, for a few months in London. Whenever they were in the capital together—a movie, sightseeing. Flirting, stolen kisses, but never stepping over the line; not until Paris.
An assignment in Europe that appeared on the face of it to concern the department. The trip concluded in Paris and a drunken meal in their hotel ended with only one of their rooms being used that night. In the morning, expecting embarrassment, she opened her eyes and was surprised to find Robert already awake. They made love again in the glistening dawn and found themselves speaking of feelings deeper than a mere work-trip coupling.
Jane found Carter to be far more sensitive than she expected, and her own emotions hoodwinked her as she told him things about herself and her life that she didn’t even believe she had told her husband.
They had three more days and two more glorious nights in Paris. Room service in this romantic city didn’t blink an eye as they delivered to one room one night and the other the next. It was on the last afternoon, as they talked about how they could continue when they returned home that Jane saw the darker side of Robert Carter.
In retrospect, as she settled back into some kind of normality with her husband and children, she told herself Carter was just being sensible, was even being a gentleman in allowing her to escape back to reality without any baggage. It hurt all the same.
That afternoon, with bags packed and clothes scattered around them, he told her he cared for her but they should end it now. He didn’t use the clichés of not wanting to hurt her or it being for the best. He was economical with his words, careful but decisive. Apart from working assignments, Jane hadn’t seen him since.
Until they were assigned to a case concerning ley lines and a Scottish island. Working together on Kulsay Island, they found the power of what they felt too great. That it coincided with David leaving was the catalyst.
Carter realized now that it was David leaving that had been the spur that enabled Jane to start up a relationship with him again. If David hadn’t left, would he and Jane have got together again?
“Robert,” she said. “Is that what you think we’re doing? Having a fling?”
“Aren’t we?”
“Paris was a fling. Those kisses on the London Eye were a fling. Surely the last few months have meant more than a quick…”
“Quick what?”
“Fuck, a quick fuck and move on. Is that what you think?”
“So why are you going back to him?”
She picked up her bottle of water and drank some. She was careful to screw the cap back on. Carter couldn’t believe what was happening, but he knew he had to.
“He’s asked me. I haven’t said yes.”
“So what about the girlfriend?”
“She’s taken a job in New York. Moved on.”
“So he gets dumped and wants his wife back.”
“It’s not like that. It’s complicated. The girls really miss him.”
Carter took some of his water, spilling most down his front. “And you?”
“Me what?”
“Do you miss him?”
She burst into tears.
Carter rubbed her arm. There were goose bumps from her wrist to her elbow. Still sobbing, she flung herself onto him, ignoring the drips but managing to avoid them. He hugged her the best he could.
“I love you, Rob. I always have and I always will.”
“Don’t leave me.” There were tears in his eyes now.
Jane stiffened in his arms, and he released his hold slightly.
She rubbed her eyes as she sat upright. “I have to. Just for a while. Just while I sort out the girls. Gemma has her new school, and Amy…”
“Jane. I love you.”
The plastic chair made just a small clatter as it toppled over. Jane pushed away and ran from the room.
Chapter Nineteen
For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.
—Sanskrit Proverb
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Clutching a fresh bottle of Jameson’s Irish whiskey, Simon Crozier made his way up the tiled path to the Victorian ruin that was Harry Bailey’s house. The house had been in decline since the mid-1980s, and Harry had done nothing to arrest the gradual decay. Crozier tugged at the bellpull, half-expecting it to come off in his hand.
“Just a minute!” Harry’s voice
sounded from somewhere deep in the house.
A full two minutes passed before Crozier heard the bolt being pulled back. Another key turned and then the door opened with a sound like a pig being slaughtered.
Cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes wafted into the still Irish night, washing over Crozier and making him take a step back. “Jesus, Harry, you just wiped ten years off my life expectancy. There’s passive smoking and there’s passive smoking!”
“Shut your mouth, you miserable old sod.” Bailey swung his huge frame into the doorway, cigarette hanging defiantly from his grinning mouth, a glass of amber liquid clasped fiercely in his hand. “If you’re going to stay, you’ll keep your bloody health-conscious opinions to yourself.”
Crozier stood back, his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “Remarkable. You haven’t aged a jot. What’s your secret?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Bailey shrugged. “Cigarettes, alcohol, and sex.”
“The first two I get, but I thought you swore off women for life after your divorce.”
The grin widened. “I have a couple of young ladies who come to the house to do for me…and I don’t mean cleaning and making beds, though they sometimes perform those services as well.”
“You old rogue. I don’t believe a word of it.”
Bailey shrugged again, more expansively this time. “Suit your bloody self,” he said, then made a gap in the doorway. “Well, are you coming in, or are you going to stand there all night like an idiot?”
Crozier shook his head resignedly and followed Harry Bailey into the house.
“Have you eaten?” Bailey asked as he led Crozier through to the ramshackle lounge.
“On the plane.”
“That’s not food. I wouldn’t give a dog the garbage they serve up. A pitiful excuse for a meal, and they have the bloody cheek to charge for it. I’ve got a lamb casserole in the oven. Interested?”
Crozier could smell the mouth-watering aroma eddying out from the kitchen.
“I could be tempted.”
“Good,” Bailey said. “Let’s eat. Then you can tell me about your love life with the boys young enough to be your sons.”
Later, with a full belly and more than his usual quota of alcohol inside him, Crozier collapsed onto the overstuffed couch in the lounge and kicked off his shoes. “That was good,” he said. “When did you learn to cook like that?”
“I’ve had plenty of time on my hands since I left the department.” Bailey sat on one of the armchairs adjacent to the couch and poured whiskey from the near-empty bottle of Jameson’s. He offered the bottle to Crozier, who covered the top of his glass and shook his head.
“Lightweight,” Bailey said disparagingly.
“I’ve got to drive to Dunkerry in the morning to see Michael Dylan.”
“Dylan? He’s over here?”
“On leave.”
“Well he couldn’t have chosen a nicer spot. Dunkerry’s a quaint little village, typically Irish. It only needs its own leprechaun and it’d be perfect. Why are you making such an effort? I remember a time when you only had to snap your fingers and you’d have people falling over themselves to work with you.”
“Times change,” Crozier said. “A few of the recent operations have not worked out as intended. As a result, the department’s lost people for the first time in its history.”
“Kulsay?” Bailey asked.
Crozier looked startled. He was convinced that the department’s work, at least the more serious cases, were strictly private. “Where did you hear that?”
“Whispers, Simon. Even stuck over here I hear whispers. Are they true?”
Crozier recovered himself and smiled slightly. “That would depend on what you’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard enough. It would explain why you’re over here breaking into Michael Dylan’s leave. Is there anybody left in Whitehall?”
“McKinley’s still there, along with a few of the others, and the backroom staff of course. Carter’s bloody hospitalized. But you’re right. The department’s lacking in what I call the heavy artillery at the moment. I need to persuade Dylan to come back to work. Hence the trip to Dunkerry.”
“So, are you going to tell me what it’s all about?”
“All in good time,” Crozier said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t talk about it yet.”
“Bullshit! Of course you can. It’s me, remember? Harry Bailey. The best bloody psychic the department’s ever seen.”
“If you’re so bloody good, you should know what it’s all about,” Crozier said.
“Don’t get cute.” He closed his eyes and moved his hand in front of his face. “I’m seeing a name,” he said, with all the drama of a stage magician. “It begins with an H. Helsing…Humphrey…Holly!” He snapped his eyes open and grinned at Crozier.
Crozier’s face registered no surprise at all. He’d known Bailey too long to be impressed by his powers. He clapped his hands slowly. “Very good, Harry,” he said. “You could make a living at the end of a pier somewhere. All you need is a crystal ball and a turban.”
Bailey skewered Crozier with a look. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
“As I said, I can’t talk about it yet,” Crozier said. “I’m waiting for Martin Impey to send me some information. When I have more details I’ll tell you. In fact I’ll tell you when we get to Dunkerry and meet with Dylan. It’ll save me going through it twice.”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, when we get to Dunkerry?”
“I was thinking about it on the flight over. I could really use you on this one.”
Bailey said nothing for a moment. He dragged a fresh pack of cigarettes from his pocket, peeled it open, and popped a cigarette between his lips. As he flicked his Zippo, his eyes squinted and he stared down at the lighted end. “And what makes you think I’d be interested in taking on another case?” he said, blowing a thin trail of blue smoke at the ceiling and letting the rest trickle out through his nose.
“I can tell from the short time I’ve spent with you that you’re bored out of your skull. Cooking, for Christ’s sake!”
“I’m a good cook.”
Crozier nodded. “Yes, yes you are, but, as you said yourself, you’re also a bloody gifted sensitive and I think you miss the chase.”
Bailey inhaled again and couldn’t stop the smile spreading over his lips. “And you expect me to say yes, without giving me a clue what it’s all about?”
“You’ve had your clue. Holly.”
“Which tells me precisely nothing.”
“Listen, Harry, come with me to Dunkerry. We’ll meet with Dylan together. I’ll brief him and then you can decide whether you’re in or out. How’s that?”
Harry Bailey considered it for a moment. Then he said, “It’ll have to do.” He lifted the bottle again. “Nightcap?”
Crozier shook his head. “No, I’m off to my bed. I need a clear head for tomorrow. Michael Dylan can be a tricky bugger, full on Irish blarney a lot of the time, but a very deep thinker and very sharp. I need to be on top of my game to handle him.”
“Handle him?”
“Trying to pin him down is like wrestling with smoke, and I need him on this one, Harry.”
“Almost as much as you need me?”
“Almost.” Crozier swallowed the last of his whiskey and got to his feet. He swayed slightly and silently cursed Bailey’s overgenerous measures, then walked to the door. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, and headed toward the stairs, leaving Bailey alone with his thoughts and the rest of the Jameson’s.
Once in his room, Crozier pulled his PDA from his bag and checked for messages. Martin Impey hadn’t let him down. There were pages of new information to wade through. He undressed quickly and slipped between the sheets, settling down to read.
He surprised himself by first reading the updated report on Carter’s pro
gress.
Chapter Twenty
Krakow, Poland
Jacek Czerwinski sat at the table overlooking the square for a long time after Jason Pike had taken his leave. The story Pike had told made some kind of sense. It confirmed some of the theories that had been forming in his mind for the last year, that he was up against forces so powerful, so far reaching, that one man working alone could not hope to defeat them.
He stared out across the square, watching people going about their daily lives, oblivious to the fact that to Pike’s creatures they were nothing more than fodder.
“They’re parasites,” Pike told him. “Their continued existence is dependent on the human race. They need the human life force, your essence…your souls in order to survive. These creatures are the reality behind the myth of the vampire. Those who created and perpetuated that myth mistakenly believed it was human blood they thirsted for. And you can see why. Life blood, life force; it’s easy to confuse the two. Your investigations have brought you very close to the truth, Jacek—in fact, you are too close to the truth for some—and yet you’re finding it difficult to accept what I’m saying.”
“I’m listening, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but do you believe me?”
“I believe there’s a conspiracy. That the majority of the disappearances are linked in some way. I’m certain of that.”
Pike smiled. “And that’s why you can’t get anywhere with the police. You present them with your theories and they laugh in your face.”
“I know I’m right,” Jacek said, quietly, almost to himself.
“Yes, you are…to a degree. You also believe that those involved in this conspiracy are not only in the upper echelons of the police force, but also reaching higher, into government itself.”
Jacek nodded.
“Which is why your investigations have foundered, quashed before you can do any real damage to the conspirators?”
