Chasing the Dark

by Sam Hepburn

  Bailey got straight on to it and started checking out all the South London post codes for districts starting with C or G. SW6 was Fulham, so that wasn’t it. SE5 covered Denmark Hill, Peckham and Camberwell which got us excited for a bit but it was too long and didn’t end with a D. SW5 was Earls Court, SE6 was places I’d never heard of – Bellingham, Hither Green and Catford. I watched the smudges swim beneath the glass, beginning to doubt what I was seeing.

  ‘That’s got to be right. It’s the only possible match.’ I said.

  ‘So now we know he posted a tie-clip in Catford a week ago.’ Bailey said. ‘It’s not much to go on.’

  ‘It’s one step ahead of Viktor Kozek,’ I said.

  The Professor was due back from the Edinburgh and all that day I kept phoning and texting him, desperate to know if the copies of the files had arrived from the archive. He was always on voice mail and it was gone ten that night when his name flashed up on my phone.

  ‘Hey, Professor,’ I said. ‘Any news?’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling. I just got back to find a package from Kiev.’

  His attempt to sound breezy wasn’t working, and as for me, my mouth had gone so dry I could hardly speak. ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The breeziness disappeared and his voice sank to a croak ‘When it came to opening it, I just couldn’t do it. Not on my own. I couldn’t face what I might find. I thought . . . well, I thought we could open it together. Could you scrape together the fare and come over tomorrow? I’ll reimburse you the minute you get here.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll borrow some money off a mate. I’ll get the first train.’

  ‘Fine. I’m an early riser, and anyway, I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep.’

  We’ll open the package, then we’ll take the files round to a Russian-speaking colleague of mine. I’m sure he’ll give us the gist of what’s in them.’

  ‘I’ve got some news I’ll tell you tomorrow but while you’re there can you remember Ivo ever mentioning anyone called Lizzie?’

  He thought for a minute. ‘Not off the top of my head. Sorry.’

  ‘No worries. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  The Professor wasn’t the only one who had trouble sleeping that night. By five next morning I was on the train to Cambridge, watching the sky lighten over London and imagining my fingers ripping open that package and finding out who had ordered Mum’s death.

  CHAPTER 15

  Bailey had given me every penny he had – thirty quid – so I splashed out on a cab from the station and sprinted to St Saviour’s. The main gates were still locked so I went into the porters’ lodge. Albert Brewster, the head porter, peered over his mug of tea, recognised me and nodded. ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘I’m having breakfast with Professor Lincoln.’

  ‘So he told me.’ He threw a glance at Oz. ‘Make sure that dog behaves himself. Can you remember the way?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  He waved me into the misty quiet of the courtyard. All the windows were dark and the only sounds were my footsteps and Oz’s raspy breath as we pounded across the flagstones and swerved through the deserted corridors and covered walkways. Speeding round a corner I nearly ploughed into a bunch of burly blokes in singlets getting marched towards the river by a bossy-looking girl, about half their size, with ‘Cox’ written on her cap. This place was truly weird.

  I dodged past them and raced towards the Professor’s staircase. The little wooden in/out sign at the bottom of the stairs was flicked to out. I took no notice, guessing he’d been tired when he got back and forgotten to change it. Bounding upstairs, I took the last half-dozen steps in one leap and pulled up short on the landing, surprised by the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging on his door.

  There was an old wooden bench under the window and I’d just sat down on it, wondering what to do, when I heard raised voices from inside. I jumped up and rapped hard on the door. Instead of a cheery call to come in, or the sound of locks and doorknobs turning, the shouting just carried on, as if whoever was doing it hadn’t even noticed the knocking. Reckoning the Professor had the radio on too loud to hear me I pressed my ear to the panelling. Close up the voices didn’t sound much like they were coming from the breakfast news, not unless they were doing a report on grunting and stomping around.

  The skin down my spine felt suddenly tighter. I tried the handle. It was locked from the inside and wouldn’t budge. I tied Oz to the bench, edged back down the stairs, and ran through a stone archway and on to the bridge across the river, hoping to get a glimpse into the Professor’s rooms from the opposite bank. They windows were too high up. All I could see was a gleam of light flickering through the diamond-shaped panes. I started checking for another way in. There were just five arched windows in the whole of that long stone wall – one smallish one that belonged to the landing outside the Prof’s door, then a space with a rusty drainpipe running down the middle of it, followed by the three big windows that belonged to the Prof’s sitting room. Underneath them was a sheer drop of about twenty feet going straight into the river. Above them was a steep sloping roof.

  A shadowy movement in the Professor’s room got me imagining all sorts but I’d look a right idiot if I got the porter to unlock the door and we burst in on him with a personal trainer or worse still a girlfriend. Neither seemed very likely but I’ve been wrong before. I headed back, all ready to knock again and I’d just reached the top of the stairs when a crash shook the door, shattering any doubt that the Professor was in trouble. Pulling off my rucksack I jumped over Oz, climbed on to the bench, yanked open the window and hoisted myself on to the sill. Oz tried to scrabble up after me.

  ‘Shh, get down,’ I whispered. ‘I’m just going to take a look.’

  I shoved my top half through the gap, swung my right leg out, leant over, grabbed the drainpipe with my right hand and, by practically doing the splits managed to keep my left knee hooked over the windowsill while I pressed my right foot against one of the brackets holding up the drainpipe. Trying to ignore the twenty-foot drop, the murky, fast-flowing water and the agony in my legs. I got both hands round the pipe and craned my neck back as far as I could. But there was still no way I could see into the Professor’s room, let alone make it across the wall to his window. So there I was, splayed out like a split chicken, wondering how I was going to get back to the landing, when a cry from the Prof’s room jolted my mind off my problems and back on to his. I let go with my right hand, fumbled for my phone and tried to dial 999. That was plan A, and it might have worked if there’d been a signal. But there wasn’t. I went for plan B. Selecting video, I leant back, held the phone out towards the Prof’s window and pressed zoom. My left arm was popping its socket and the drainpipe was definitely shifting, but I screwed up my eyes and counted to fifteen, slow as I could, before I pulled my arm back and pressed review. The blurry images playing on that little screen blanked out everything, even the pain. Two big blokes in ski masks had got the Professor tied to a chair and from the way they were punching him and shouting it looked like they were interrogating him.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The voice was screechy, snotty and angry.

  I looked down. The burly blokes in singlets were right underneath me, packed into a row boat, sweat glistening off their muscles, with that bossy girl cox perched up one end, glaring up at me like I was the devil in trainers. Words usually come easy to me but right then I was stumped for something snappy enough to cut through the way things looked and get them on side before the Prof got killed.

  ‘Hey, catch this.’ I said and dropped the phone straight down towards the boat.

  The cox’s responses were pretty quick. She leant forward and snatched it out of the air.

  ‘They’ve got Professor Lincoln,’ I shouted. ‘Play the video.’

  She jabbed the buttons, squinted at the screen and without even looking up started hollering at the rowers who jumped to it without a murmur and started rowing
like maniacs. I was coming round to this girl. Within seconds she’d got all eight of those massive blokes scrabbling up the side of the bridge and heading into the college.

  Next thing I knew the Professor’s window flew open and a meaty hand attached to a bloke in a ski mask reached out, clamped itself round my right arm and started to haul me inside. My left leg was losing hold of the windowsill and my left hand was scrabbling at the wall when I heard a shout and two more pairs of hands reached out of the landing window and grabbed my ankle. For a few excruciating minutes I hung there, stretched out like a human tug-of-war, then the sky suddenly swung away, the river hurtled towards me and my head bounced off the wall, practically knocking me out. At least it numbed the pain of my face being scraped up the stonework by the two rowers who were dragging me up to the landing and dumping me on to the floor.

  Oz pawed at my bruised chest, and in a sick daze I watched the cox barking orders at the rowers. Four on each side, she’d got them lifting the bench and ramming it against the door, moving to the steady beat she was shouting. The thick slab of oak put up a tough fight but gave way in the end with a splintering thud.

  I crawled forward and peered through the rowers’ legs. The Professor’s sitting room was in chaos. Papers everywhere, furniture kicked around, lamps smashed and in the middle of the mess, the Prof, tied to a chair, unconscious, blood spattered and alone.

  I pushed through the mass of sweaty bodies and ran towards him, tearing at the ropes round his hands and shouting his name. A blur of cops, ambulance men and porters came rushing in. Someone pulled me away and I caught the flash of an oxygen mask before a ring of green uniforms blotted the Professor from view. A small window high up on the other side of the room was swinging open on its hinges. I stared out at the slope of tiles leading up to an easy escape route across the rooftops of Cambridge. Two paramedics carried the Professor off on a stretcher. Another one pushed me on to a chair and started dabbing at the cut on my forehead with some sharp-smelling stuff that stung a lot while the cops peered at the footage on my phone, talked into their radios and questioned the rowers. Then I saw it, sticking up through the mess on the desk: a large brown envelope with a foreign stamp on the front.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off it, not even when the cop in charge was taking my statement. What with the letter from the archive lying inches away and the bash I’d just got on the head, I was worried I’d be too fuddled to get my story straight. But it was OK. As far as the cops were concerned the Professor had been helping me deal with Mum’s death and I’d saved him from ruthless burglars who were probably after his priceless coin collection. That was fine by me. No way was I telling them the real reason for my visit or my suspicions that the blokes in ski masks were working for a Russian crime boss.

  My eyes swivelled back to the envelope. ‘Can I go now, officer? I want to go and see how the Professor’s doing.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ll need to contact you again, Joe. What’s your address?’

  That threw me for a minute. I gulped and gave them Doreen’s.

  He called out to one of the WPCs. ‘Give him a lift will you, Tracey? He wants to go to the hospital.’

  I’d got my move all planned out. Lifting Oz up so he hung forward and tried to wriggle free I pushed through the squash of people and as I got to the Prof’s desk I let him go. In the confusion of scrabbling paws and flying paper I managed to grab the envelope and slip it under my hoodie.

  ‘You can’t take that dog in the hospital, you know.’

  I looked up. It was Albert the head porter

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said, gruffly. “You take your time. I’ll find him something to eat and we’ll have him in the lodge.’

  ‘Thanks, Albert,’ I said.

  ‘Give the Prof my best.’ He tutted and shook his head. ‘After all he’s been through. He doesn’t deserve this, he really doesn’t.’

  The scrape and whoosh of the swing doors and the hospital smell tipped me straight back into the night Mum died. The nightmare, siren-screaming ride in the back of the police car. Sitting with Eddy and WPC Lauren Burnett on those grey plastic waiting-room chairs. Praying for a miracle. Knowing it wasn’t going to happen. Knowing Mum was beyond help by the time they got her to the operating theatre. Knowing that if Eddy didn’t shut up I was going to ram my Styrofoam coffee cup right down his whingeing, whining throat.

  ‘I’ve come to see Professor Lincoln.’

  ‘Are you family?’

  I could have told the truth and said, no, I’ve only met him three times. Instead I said ‘Um . . .yes.’ And it didn’t feel like a lie.

  The receptionist pointed me to intensive care where a short bossy nurse ordered me to sterilise my hands before grudgingly letting me through to the unit. The Professor was in a partitioned-off area, one of about six overlooked by an open-plan nurses’ station. I could see a young dark-haired woman sitting beside the bed with her head in her hands. I went over to her. She looked up.

  ‘I’m Joe Slattery,’ I said.

  She stumbled towards me, hair tangled, eyes floating in two sunken saucers of shock and her cardigan buttoned up the wrong way. I recognised her from the photos on the Prof’s mantelpiece but only just. It was his daughter, Bitsy. She didn’t say a word, just opened her arms and hugged me. I didn’t even know her and I was hugging her back as if letting go would make us both disappear.

  We sat down beside the bed and I looked at the Prof lying there covered in tubes, all wizened and grey like a captured alien in a sci-fi movie.

  ‘You saved him,’ Bitsy said. ‘If it hadn’t been for you . . . he’d be dead for sure. Why, Joe? Why would anyone do this to him?’

  ‘No idea.’

  It was another lie. Ivo requested those KGB files and he ends up dead. The Prof requested them and he ends up in intensive care. I glanced nervously through the blinds. All that was stopping the Vulture’s people walking in to finish him off was a handful of nurses.

  ‘Can we get him police protection?’ I said.

  ‘They don’t do that for burglary victims.’

  ‘Yeah, but s’posing the attackers had some other motive?’

  She gave me a funny look. ‘Like what?’

  I shrugged. I wasn’t going to tell her and put her in danger too.

  A sob broke through her lips. ‘No one in their right mind would want to hurt Dad.’

  ‘He’ll be all right.’

  ‘They’re not holding out much hope. It’s not just the concussion, it’s his heart . . . and after the shock of Ivo . . .’ She rammed a soggy tissue into her eyes. ‘How could they do this to him?’

  I stole another look at the Prof’s battered body. The guilt eating me up was tinged with terror that he’d told them everything about our investigation. Who could blame him if he had? If a couple of thugs were beating me to a pulp I’d probably tell them anything they wanted to know.

  I bit back a surge of fear and fury. Fear of what the Vulture was capable of and fury that he thought he could get away with it.

  ‘I’ll fetch us some coffee,’ I said.

  I left her sitting there, ran for the nearest toilet, locked myself in one of the stalls and took out the package from the archive. This was it. These documents were going to prove that Greville Clairmont was the Vulture and reveal why he’d ordered Mum’s death. And now I’d got them I was going to make him pay for what he’d done to Mum, Lincoln, Yuri and now the Professor. I ripped open the envelope. Inside was a thick glossy guide to the museums of Kiev and a single sheet of paper.

  Dear Professor Lincoln,

  I regret to inform you that the numbered files you requested do not correspond to any material in our archive.

  Please let me know if I can assist you in any other matter.

  Regards

  Boris Kulichenko, Curator

  Liar! Did Clairmont pay you to destroy them? Did you get a big fat bonus for tipping him off that the Professor wanted copies? It felt like he had people everywhere, bribing, b
ullying, torturing to protect his secret. And he was on to me, I was sure of that. The creep who’d nicked Ivo’s laptop and spied on me in the churchyard had to be one of his thugs. It felt like I had nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide and now I was beginning to understand what it was like to be Yuri.

  *

  I got a couple of coffees from the machine in the corridor, hating the familiar feel of the Styrofoam cup and took them back to Bitsy. I found her curled in the chair, all twisted and trembling, tears pouring down her face. I swung round and checked the monitor. The beeping line of green was still crawling along in slow unsteady peaks.

  I put down the coffees. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘His tests came back. The doctor just told me they’ve got to operate . . . it’s his only chance.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Straight away.’ Her face crumpled, dragging her lips sideways. ‘There’s a fifty-fifty chance he won’t make it. I can’t face it, Joe. The waiting, the not knowing, just sitting here helpless. I can’t bear it. Not after Ivo.’

  I couldn’t bear it either. Not after Mum. I wanted to run out of there and get as far away from that hospital smell and those bleeping monitors as I could.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

  CHAPTER 16

  I sat with Bitsy in the waiting area, squeezed in beside the rest of the grim-faced people waiting for news from the operating suite. We didn’t say much, just sat there staring helplessly at the red lino floor. After a while Bitsy dropped off into a hunched jerky sleep. I envied her. My eyes were itchy with tiredness but the one time I nodded off, the black 4x4 came screeching out of the darkness, morphed into a shrieking vulture and swooped towards me, Yuri and the Professor, getting closer and closer till the whoosh of wings, the slash of talons and a gasp of Tell Joe and Lizzie woke me up. Now I knew why Yuri shouted in his sleep and I was truly gutted that it was me who’d made his hunted, hellish existence a million times worse. I jumped up. There might be nothing I could do for the Professor but there was still a chance I could find Yuri before the Vulture got him.