Department 18 [04] A Plague of Echoes

by Maynard Sims

  “I didn’t think you’d be able to resist,” Bailey said.

  Carter swore at him again and hung up.

  Along the corridor Bailey could see Maria Bridge giving instructions to a young houseman. He was nodding enthusiastically, his whole body animated. He reminded Bailey of an excitable terrier anxious to receive praise from its owner. Bridge was obviously highly regarded at the hospital. At the end of their conversation Bridge turned and looked in Bailey’s direction, smiled, sketched a wave and started to walk towards him.

  What happened next seemed, to Bailey, to happen in slow motion. One moment Bridge was walking towards him, the next she was lifted bodily off her feet and thrown the entire length of the corridor. She smashed into the wall at the far end and crumpled into a heap. For an instant Bailey was frozen into immobility, and then he was running, his leather-soled shoes hitting the linoleum floor with a frenzied series of slaps.

  Bridge wasn’t breathing. Her neck was twisted at an impossible angle and her green eyes gazed sightlessly into his. “Maria!” He gasped her name, but there was no response. In the corridor there was absolute silence and stillness. All Bailey could hear was the rush of his own blood pounding in his ears.

  And then someone spoke.

  A soft mellifluous voice sounded behind him.

  “As easy as that, Harry. I can take everything from you. As easy as that.” There was a click, like the snapping of fingers.

  “Harry? Harry.”

  He was on his feet, standing just outside Crozier’s room, Bridge standing just a foot away from him, staring at him, a look of concern on her face.

  “Harry, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” he lied.

  “You don’t look it. You seemed miles away.”

  “It’s been a long day?”

  “I have just the cure,” Bridge said. “Dinner at my place, a bottle of Pinot Noir. Soft lights, soft music…” She left it unsaid, but there was a mischievous light dancing in her eyes.

  Bailey stared down at the floor to avoid looking at her directly. “Perhaps another time,” he said. “I told you it’s been a long day.”

  She said, “Oh,” in a way that broke his heart, but he had to end this and end it now. It had just been graphically demonstrated how much danger she’d be in if he continued this relationship. He couldn’t take the risk.

  Not with her.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  She said, “Oh,” again, but this time the disappointment was tinged with confusion. “Harry, if I’ve done something wrong, I’d like to know.”

  Bailey shook his head. “It’s not…”

  “If you give me the it’s not you, it’s me line, I swear I’ll give you a bruise on your lip to match the one on your forehead.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said again.

  She took a step backwards. “Right. Okay.” Abruptly she turned and walked back down the corridor. He watched her go, a lump forming in his throat. He coughed to clear it, mentally shook himself and took the elevator to the ground floor.

  A thin drizzle was falling from the sky. He glared up at the cloud-heavy sky, pulled up the collar of his raincoat and trudged back to his car.

  Carter poured himself a coffee from the pot in the kitchen and took it through to the lounge. The conversation with Bailey was still running through his mind, as was the prospect of what he had to do in the morning. This latest investigation was passing him by. He felt like a spectator, watching from the sidelines as the others did all the work. Much of this was to do with Jane and her situation, and his feelings of guilt that, despite what he’d promised her, he still hadn’t called her.

  When she walked into the conference room earlier he’d barely recognized her. The haircut, the makeup, even the clothes, were not Jane…at least not the Jane he knew and loved. And the radical difference bothered him. It was as if she were going through some kind of metamorphosis—the butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. He wondered if he was going to gel with Butterfly Jane in the same way he connected with the old one. Commonsense told him that, fundamentally, she hadn’t changed but doubt was niggling away at the back of his mind. He wanted to call her but something was stopping him.

  The decision was taken away as Jane called him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I was about to call you,” he lied.

  “Really?”

  “How are you? How are the girls?”

  “The girls are watching a DVD, and I’m just about drunk.”

  “Apart from that how are you?”

  “Fine. Listen, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should get inside Simon’s head; see if there are any buried memories there. They must have tried to kill him for a reason. Perhaps he knows something, buried deep in his consciousness somewhere.”

  “And that’s what you’ve been thinking about?”

  “Yes…since my second glass of Chardonnay anyway. What do you think?”

  “Harry came up with the same idea. It’s happening tomorrow morning at the hospital.”

  “Ouch!” she said. “Not such an original idea then. Bloody Chardonnay! Bloody wine! I shouldn’t drink. It doesn’t agree with me.” She was slurring her words slightly.

  “Would you like me to come over?”

  “Yes, I would. It’s weird here without David. But you mustn’t come over. How would I explain you to Gemma and Amy? Who are you going to be anyway? Uncle Robert? Hi, girls, this is Uncle Robert. Why is he in Mummy’s bed? Oh he’s just keeping Mummy company while Daddy’s away, and he was tired and needed to sleep. No, I don’t think that would play, do you? Even they would see through that.”

  “You haven’t told them then, about you and David?”

  “Too soon. Much too soon. Listen, I won’t see you tomorrow. I’m taking the girls to the zoo. I need some time with them. I would come to the hospital with you to hold Simon’s hand while you go trampling through his mind. But I’ve promised them now.” A bitter edge was creeping into her voice. “Take someone with you though. It could be traumatic for him.”

  “It won’t be that bad,” he said.

  “Won’t it? He hates you, Rob. How would you like it if someone you hated went trawling through your most private thoughts…knowing that they will always know stuff about you that you wanted to keep private? I’d hate it…hate it!” A bitter edge was creeping into her voice.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

  “Jane? Jane?”

  “Yeah… I’ll be fine. I’ve just opened another bottle. Chardonnay will be my friend and ally today.” She giggled. “Mr. Wine and I will be just fine. Just fine with Mr. Wine. See you soon, Rob.”

  “Jane?”

  There was a click as she disconnected. With a sigh he replaced the receiver in its cradle. “Shit!” he said and went to pour himself a vodka.

  From the cover of a bus shelter, Sultan watched Bailey walk across the car park. There was a thin smile playing on Sultan’s lips. Schroeder had ordered a watching brief on Bailey and that was what Sultan had delivered. He may have stretched the parameters of that instruction, but he was allowed certain latitude, and if taking Bailey out of the game completely wasn’t an option, it would do no harm to clip his wings a little.

  Pieter Schroeder had given him special gifts, psychic strengths, and , Sultan had found it easy to infiltrate Bailey’s mind and plant the images of Maria Bridge’s “accident”. Every time he explored the psychic powers passed on to him Leon Sultan grew in confidence and he wondered if Schroeder had any idea what a mistake he had made.

  Originally there were twelve members in Schroeder’s cartel. Apparently twelve was the magic number. By killing Richard Bennington Sultan had reduced that number to eleven. There was now a vacant seat at the table and Sulta
n could not see a reason why he should not step up and take that place.

  Immortality, eternal life. Yes, he could have a piece of that, no problem. From his humble beginnings in an orphanage in North London Sultan had hauled himself up the hard way. Petty crime as a teenager leading to more audacious and violent criminal acts as he hit his twenties. By the age of thirty Sultan was a respected and feared member of London’s underworld, an enforcer for the Cellinis, Anglo-Italian siblings who had London’s East End criminal fraternity under their control.

  As Sultan entered his forties the Cellinis were slipping from their perch. A rival gang of Maltese criminals was making inroads into the Cellinis’s territory. Whether it was complacency or old age that made the brothers such easy targets Sultan didn’t know and didn’t much care. When they were gunned down on a busy street in Hackney Sultan decided it was time to strike out on his own.

  Taking up Schroeder’s offer to help him, be his eyes and ears on the street, was a no brainer. He had almost total autonomy and almost limitless funds to indulge his favorite pastimes, horses, women and hurting people.

  Now, approaching his fifties, he was still a major player in London, but being Schroeder’s trusted aide was his priority. He felt he had earned the right to sit at Schroeder’s table and enjoy the benefits the great man was about to bestow on the cartel. Now the only problem was to get Schroeder to agree with him but, with what he’d learned from Deayton, he now had a lever. The old man hadn’t given up his secrets easily but extracting information was one of Sultan’s many talents. He could have probed Deayton’s mind to get the information, but torture was quicker, more reliable and much more fun. Eventually the old man cracked, as Sultan knew he would, and what he revealed was pure gold, and Sultan’s ticket into the cartel.

  In the car park he waited until Bailey had driven away and then went back to his Audi and settled in behind the wheel. There were two more days before Schroeder gathered his cartel together and put his plan into operation. Two more days to persuade Schroeder to make space at his table.

  It could be done. No. It would be done.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Are you comfortable, Mr. Crozier?” the nurse asked, reaching across to plump up Crozier’s pillows.

  “I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” he said. “Now go away and leave me alone.”

  “Woken up with the grumps, have we?” the nurse said brightly. She was a plump, moon-faced girl with startling blue eyes, a smattering of freckles on her pale face and an Irish lilt to her voice. Her coal-black hair was pulled severely back from her face and held in a tidy bun at the back of her head. Crozier had found that no matter how abrupt he was with her, no matter how rude, the nurse didn’t stop smiling. He envied her the apparent sunny disposition and her Pollyanna approach to life. She might be living in a fool’s paradise but it didn’t appear to be doing her any harm.

  She leaned over him again, determined to have her way with the pillows.

  “For pity’s sake!” he said exasperatedly, swatting her away. “I said I was fine.”

  She retreated, still smiling. “Well, if there’s anything at all you need, just call.”

  “Thank you, Mary, I will.”

  What he really needed was good night’s sleep and he very much doubted Mary would be able to provide him with that. The night had been long and arduous, lying there listening to the coming and goings of ambulances, moans and cries from the always busy A & E unit a couple of floors below and the general hubbub of a busy city hospital. But it was not the noise and general activity that was preventing him from sleeping. It was his mind.

  A maelstrom of thoughts that poked and prodded him and kept him awake. Since he’d started working at Department 18 he had studied hard and learned from the best. He now knew how to guard his thoughts; setting up barrier after barrier, making the journey through to his subconscious almost impenetrable. It had been a very steep learning curve and had taken him a number of years. And now here he was, his mind virtually invulnerable, being asked to drop all carefully constructed walls and to open his thoughts to a man he despised. It was very difficult for him to contemplate. The thought of it made him feel ill. He could ask Carter to exercise discretion but didn’t believe for one minute that he would. It felt like he was about to be raped and no matter how logically he thought it through the conclusion was always the same: he was powerless to stop it.

  By the time Carter arrived Crozier had resigned himself to the inevitable.

  “How are you feeling?” Carter said as he entered the room.

  “I’m fine. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” Crozier said bypassing the small talk.

  McKinley entered the room, clutching a coffee in a paper cup. He set it down on the nightstand.

  “Does this need the two of you?” Crozier said.

  “John’s here to pull me out if things get…messy,” Carter said, slipping out of his coat and hanging it on the hook on the back of the door.

  “I told the nurse that we’re not to be disturbed for an hour,” McKinley said, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the bedside.

  Carter pulled up utilitarian armchair to the edge of the bed and sat. “Are you ready?” he said to Crozier.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Right. Lie back and close your eyes, and try to relax.”

  Crozier glared at him. “Fat chance,” he said, then closed his eyes and settled back on the pillows. “And don’t try the ‘this will hurt you more than it will me’ nonsense.”

  Abraham Stern’s room at the very back of the Stoke Newington Synagogue was mostly a Spartan affair:—a varnished pine desk with two matching chairs, an oak filing cabinet that looked as if it had served in World War II, and a large but very distressed pine bookcase, cluttered with books and pamphlets.

  Stern sat at the desk on one of the pine chairs, the cheeks of his buttocks overhanging the seat. When Bailey rapped on the door Stern shouted, “Come in!” but didn’t look up from the book he was engrossed in. “Sit down, Harry,” he said. “Give me a few minutes. I just need to finish this chapter.”

  “Have you found something?”

  “Uh-huh,” Stern said, nodding his head.

  Bailey crossed his legs and settled in to wait.

  Ten minutes later Stern closed the book and looked up, a smile on his face. “Sorry about that but I only picked the book up this morning and it was vital I read it.”

  “Vital to the Schroeder case?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve done nothing else since I saw you yesterday but research the case. And fascinating stuff it is too.”

  “So what can you tell us?”

  “Well, the first and most important part is that you’re way out of your depth with this one.”

  “Just me or the whole Department?”

  “One and the same. You could throw one body at it, you could throw ten; it wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome: the dybbuk will always win.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it has been around for centuries and has learnt over the years how to survive. We see the outward presentation of it in Pieter Schroeder, but that is only a small part of the whole.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a dybbuk.”

  “In the accepted sense it isn’t. It’s not content with inhabiting one body for a single purpose. This is an entity that has leapfrogged from one host to another over the course of time, taking what it needs from each, building its strength, putting it in a position where an ordinary exorcism won’t touch it, in fact nothing that any of the established religions have to offer can come close to stopping it.”

  “What’s its end game?”

  “Proliferation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it intends to divide itself, inhabiting a number of bodies at the same time. Using those bodies to fulfill its greater purpos
e.”

  “Which is?”

  Stern shifted uncomfortably on his chair. “Ah,” he said.

  “You mean you don’t know.”

  “No. But I know that whatever is it won’t be for the benefit of mankind.”

  “How can you say that for sure?”

  “Because this dybbuk is inherently evil. It places no value on human life.” He picked up the book from the desk. “This was written in 1929 by an American Jew called Jacob Aaronson. He was a scholar and philosopher. He wrote many books in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century detailing his lifelong searches into Jewish mythology and folklore. The dybbuk, or Über-dybbuk as he chose to call it, is a theme he revisits again and again, never more so than in this book. Aaronson was convinced that Über-dybbuks have existed throughout history and have been the cause of many of the horrors mankind has suffered over the years. He lists people he suspects are vessels for Über-dybbuks. It doesn’t make for comfortable reading. People who have risen to prominence, who have shaped the world as we know it. Men…and women…who have been responsible for wars, genocide and atrocities that beggar belief.”

  “And you’re adding Pieter Schroeder to that list?”

  “Potentially yes. He’s a man of great wealth and enormous influence in the business world. Imagine if the dybbuk inside him becomes the controlling influence on the minds of the big decision makers. It could be catastrophic.”

  “And yet you say there’s no way to stop him.”

  “No. I’m saying that established religions have tried and failed in the past. There’s always hope, if the proliferation is halted before it’s begun.”

  “So what are you saying? We take Schroeder out?”

  “He has to be stopped before it’s too late.”

  “Will you help us?”

  “Of course, in whatever way I can.”

  “Will you come in to Whitehall and meet the team?”

  Stern nodded his head slowly. “We’ll find a way,” he said.

  The boy on the swing looked up as Robert Carter entered the garden. The swing was suspended from a thick bough of a huge cedar tree that dominated the garden. At the bottom of the cedar was a circle of yellow and purple crocuses; through the crocuses daffodils pointed their golden bonnets at the sun that hung low in a crisp blue sky.