by Maynard Sims
“Can we find out who he is?” Carter said.
“I’ve sent an image of him to Impey,” Bailey said. “If he’s on any of the usual databases, he should get a match.” He got to his feet. “Why take the body though? It doesn’t make any sense. If he’s an enemy of Schroeder, why not just kill it and be done with it.”
“We think that was Schroeder’s original body then?” McKinley said.
“Oh yes,” Bailey said. “Alvar Liscombe knew it was here but, according to Everett Deayton, did nothing about it, but knowing its location made Deayton and, in turn, Simon, a threat to be eliminated.”
“And yet someone calmly walks in here and snatches it out from under Schroeder’s nose,” Carter said. “I think there’s more to this game than we first thought.”
“Let’s head back,” Bailey said. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
Carter drove and Bailey sat in the front passenger seat. “Is Jane coming back tomorrow?” he asked.
Carter shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to her today.”
“Don’t you think you should?” There was an implied criticism in the question.
Carter looked at him sharply.
“I know, I know, it’s none of my business. But we need her back on the team. She brings a cohesion that we lack without her.”
“She’s not having an easy time at the moment. David’s moved out and her daughters are giving her a hard time about it. She’s taken them to the zoo today to get some quality time with them.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“How are you fitting into to this domestic maelstrom?”
“She doesn’t want me around at the moment.”
“Understandable. But you’re going to make a go of it together?”
“It’s what I want,” Carter said. “And her too… I think.”
“It’ll work out,” Bailey said. “It just needs a little time. She’s probably raw just now.”
“Are you turning into Jerry Springer all of a sudden?”
“You’re my team…and my friends. I want what’s best for you both on an emotional level.”
“And you need us focused on the job in hand.”
“That too. I think Pieter Schroeder is a terrible threat that needs to be neutralized and I think it’s going to take all our skills…and our powers…to achieve that.”
“I’ll call her when I get in,” Carter said.
Bailey nodded his head slowly and said nothing more.
“I could crush you like a bug,” Schroeder said to Sultan.
Sultan smiled. “Of course you could,” he said. “But in doing so you’d kill yourself…and I don’t think you want that, do you?”
There was silence between them for a full ten seconds.
“What’s your angle, Leon? If this is a power play, it’s a very misguided one. Haven’t I treated you well since you joined my company?” Schroeder’s tone was conciliatory.
“I’ve no complaints on that score,” Sultan said. “You’ve always been more than fair, more than generous. I’m very grateful.”
“Then you have a very strange way of showing it.” Something flickered in the old man’s eyes and Sultan took a step backwards, sensing an attack.
“I wouldn’t, old man. I really wouldn’t.”
“The hell I won’t,” Schroeder said, but before he could open his mouth again Sultan said, “Stonegate.”
Schroeder shrank back in his seat as if he had been struck. There was indecision in his eyes, and something else. Fear.
“What do you know about Stonegate?”
“An interesting property, with some interesting inhabitants. All dead now of course, except for one, and he’s now in my care.”
“What have you done?” Schroeder said. There was a tremor to his voice.
Sultan’s smile widened. “Guaranteed myself a seat at dinner tomorrow, I think. My colleagues are looking after him now. And they’ll look after him well…as long as I keep checking in with them. Of course if I don’t check in with them, if I’m unable to, then they’ll kill him and burn his body. I should imagine that’s the last thing you want.”
Schroeder sagged in his seat and exhaled in a long and steady stream. “Checkmate,” he said.
Sultan barked a short, sharp laugh. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I thought. Tomorrow night I will take the twelfth seat at the table, and enjoy all the benefits that brings.”
Schroeder glared at him but said nothing.
“Then that’s agreed. I won’t keep you anymore tonight. I’m sure you have enough to do.” He crossed to the door. “Well, of course you do. You have a dinner party to plan.”
Sultan walked from the study and pulled the door shut behind him.
Schroeder stared at the closed door and fought down the anger and frustration that was threatening to overwhelm him. How could he have been so blind as not to see Leon Sultan’s treachery coming? It was a stupid and dangerous oversight, and now he found himself in the position he had always dreaded. Throughout the years he had protected his original body tenaciously, moving it from location to location, keeping it safe, always guarded, protected. And now, at the most crucial time in his life, it had slipped through his fingers and was being held to ransom by a man, a bloody lackey, who had taken all the gifts Schroeder had offered him and was using them against him. Leon Sultan would be made to pay for his treachery in ways that he could not begin to imagine.
Schroeder hauled himself out of his chair and made his way to bed. There was one last card he could play—a desperate and dangerous option. One that, if it succeeded, would neutralize the threat but, if it failed could bring everything he had been building for the past few decades crashing down around his ears, destroying him in the process. But it was a card he had to play. He had no choice.
Carter listened to the phone ringing at the other end of the line for what seemed an age.
Jane finally answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Carter said.
“I was asleep.”
“Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m awake now. Are you coming over?”
“I thought it would make it awkward with the girls if I turned up.”
“They know all about you now. Gemma cornered me in the reptile house today and asked me straight out what’s going on. She wanted to know where her daddy had gone.”
“And you told her?”
“Thirteen going on thirty that one. I had to tell her.”
“And?”
“She went off with Amy for half an hour or so. When they came back it was obvious they’d been analyzing what I’d said. All Gemma said to me was, ‘Don’t get hurt, Mum.’ And then she and Amy gave me a hug and moved on to talking about chimpanzees. I think they approve. On the way home Amy said that my haircut made me look younger and prettier. I cried like a baby.”
“That’s great news.”
“So you’ll come over?”
“I’d love to but no, not this evening. It’s been a very long day. Getting into Crozier’s mind reamed me out. I don’t think I’d be particularly good company. Are you coming back to work tomorrow?”
“Katy next door is having the girls for the rest of the holiday so I’ll be in. What exactly happened today?”
He told her briefly, painting the narrative with broad strokes and not going into too much detail.
“So what happens next?”
“We all get a good night’s sleep and tackle it again tomorrow. If our source is to be believed that’s when it’s all going to kick off. Harry and John want to get to Schroeder’s place by midafternoon at the latest, before the cartel is fully assembled.”
“And then?”
“We’ll see. It’s not a predictable situation—even less so after the events of the day
. We’re going to have to wing it.”
“I want to come along,” Jane said.
Carter said, “I think it could get messy. But Harry wants you to come. He thinks we’re stronger with you than without you.”
“I’m flattered.”
“He meant it and I agree with him. I want you to reconsider handing in your notice.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’ve made my decision, Rob,” she said at last.
“And I respect that. I’m not sure Harry will be such a pushover.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Jane said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There was every chance Pieter Schroeder would die tonight.
As he lay in his bed a tear dribbled from his eye and dripped onto his pillow. It was not a tear of sadness or even regret but one of sheer, unadulterated rage. Fury at himself that he had allowed Leon Sultan to force him into taking this course of action, and fury at Sultan himself for his betrayal.
On his way to bed he had stopped off at Gabrielle’s bedroom. He’d edged open the door but Gabrielle, his beloved Poppy, was asleep, her thumb just touching her bottom lip, her breath rhythmic and gentle. He stood in the doorway and watched her for a minute and then closed the door gently and made his way to his own room, resigned to the fact that he might not get the chance to say goodbye to her. In the morning she would rise early and leave the house for her rehearsal in Limehouse, unaware that her grandfather could be dead in his bed.
So be it, he thought. What will be, will be. He closed his eyes, deepening his concentration, making the connection with the emaciated and frail body lying in stasis in a gloomy house just inside the Cambridgeshire borders.
Gradually Schroeder’s breathing slowed until it was nothing more than a whisper. He grew colder and colder as his life force slipped out of his body, taking up residence in the emaciated husk.
This was a strange new world to him now; a world he hadn’t visited in a number of centuries. He let his breathing settle and let the life force thread its way through muscle and sinew, through nerves and synapses. The body was weak, almost paralyzed, but the longer he lay there the more strength he imbued into the wasted flesh. He heard the door open and footsteps approaching the bed.
“It needs another injection.” Sultan’s voice.
“I don’t know. It’s only an hour since the last one.”
“So you’re a doctor now, Karl?” Sultan said. “Another injection and then take the first watch. Donald and I will be in the lounge. If there’s any change, come and fetch me at once.”
Schroeder heard the door close and the sound of footfalls descending the stairs. His arm was pulled roughly from the bed and something sharp was jabbed into it.
For a moment he felt nothing and then his arm started burning at the puncture wound. The burning sensation spread through his body. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was as if whatever drug they had given him was coursing through his veins, sweeping the lethargy from them. He was starting to feel nearly human again.
Karl Offler dropped the hypodermic into a stainless steel kidney bowl, pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his pocket and took a seat opposite the bed. He turned to the back pages and started scanning the racing results. He hated babysitting duties. The thing on the bed wasn’t going anywhere, not in that condition. He had to admit he had never seen a body quite like this one. It was like something pulled from a tomb: the desiccated, translucent skin, the sunken, corpselike features. Just looking at it made his skin crawl. He wasn’t privy to what Sultan needed it for and he knew better than to ask. He was being paid well on this job, better than he had ever been paid before, so it wouldn’t serve him to rock the boat, but he had questions.
After a couple of minutes scanning the paper he rolled it up and placed it back in his pocket. He looked towards the bed, suppressed a shudder, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. A second later he opened them again. He’d heard something, a kind of dry rustling.
The figure on the bed was moving. Its head was turning towards him. And then it flicked open its eyes.
“What the fu…” Offler leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at the body and immediately wished he hadn’t as the eyes blinked and his head was filled with a searing pain that took his breath away. He reeled backwards in his seat, toppled over and hit the floor, cracking his skull on the bare boards of the floor.
But the pain in his head was nothing compared with what followed.
He rolled over and tried to scramble to his feet but the figure on the bed blinked again and blood started seeping out of his pores. Within seconds his clothes were drenched and sticking to his body. His body began to swell as natural gas built up under his skin, and he heard the popping of the seams of his clothes as they split open and fell away, followed closely by the ripping of his skin as the gas started to pour from the small fissures opening up all over his body. The smell was appalling as methane leaked out into the room. It was choking him, suffocating him.
The pain was reaching a crescendo as his skin began to slough off, leaving only raw flesh behind. His skin was falling from his body in bloody pink sheets, gathering on the floorboards in wet folds.
He felt the skin split down the center of his nose and, millimeter by millimeter, his face was flayed. His body went into shock and stared to shake. He opened his mouth to scream but his tongue swelled to three times its size in as many seconds and filled his throat, blocking his airway, stifling any noise he tried to make.
Please let it end! Make it stop! His mind was screaming and, as if his prayers were being answered, with a deafening crack his skull imploded, crushing his brain and killing him instantly.
“Did you hear that?” Don Mason said.
“Hear what?” Sultan said. He was engrossed in a boxing match on the BBC.
“I thought I heard something from upstairs. A thump.”
Sultan couldn’t tear his attention away from the match. It was a well-publicized middleweight clash between two London fighters and Sultan had five thousand pounds riding on the result. “I didn’t hear anything…but if you’re worried, go and check it out.”
Mason sat back in his seat. “It’s probably nothing. Just Karl being his usual clumsy self.” He tried to concentrate on the fight but kept glancing towards the door. What they had brought back with them from Stonegate had freaked him out, a living corpse, like something out of a horror film. He kept glancing at the door anxiously, expecting that, at any moment, it would swing open and the horror from Stonegate would stagger into the room.
“For Christ’s sake, Donald!” Sultan said impatiently. “If it’s bothering you that much, go up and check it out. You’re twitching like a bloody whore with St. Vitus Dance.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Mason repeated but got to his feet and left the room.
He listened as he climbed the stairs but there was only silence. “Karl?” he called as he got halfway up. “Is everything okay up there?” He paused on the stairs, waiting Karl Offler’s reply. When it didn’t come he climbed another two stairs. “Karl?”
Still silence.
“Shit!” Mason muttered. He couldn’t suppress the feeling that something was creeping up on him, that something bad had happened, or was going to happen. He climbed the rest of the stairs, his hand clamped around the small Beretta he carried in his pocket.
When he reached the landing at the top of the stairs he called Karl’s name again but with the same result.
He took the Beretta from his pocket, flicked off the safety and then, keeping his breathing as shallow as possible, he crept along the landing to the front bedroom where they were keeping Pieter Schroeder’s original body.
The door was closed. He put his ear to it, listening hard, but heard nothing. Absolute silence.
He curled his fingers around the handle and gently pull
ed it down, pushing the door open a crack. He could see nothing through the gap. He couldn’t even see the bed.
Taking a lungful of air, he pushed the door open wide and let his first impressions of the room wash over him.
The bed was empty, the covers tumbling onto the floor. To the right of the bed was a bloody heap that had once been Karl Offler, and he only knew who it was because he recognized the denim jacket Offler habitually wore, and even then it looked different, darker. It took him a minute or two to realize the jacket was soaked in blood. When the realization dawned he raised his gun, only to have it yanked from his grasp by unseen hands and hurled across to the far side of the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor.
Defenseless and badly scared, Mason took in the rest of the room. From the darkened corner of the room, a nightmare emerged from the shadows. The emaciated body, the living corpse, he had brought here from Stonegate stepped out of the gloom.
It seemed to have grown taller and broader. The face had filled out slightly, seemed fleshier, and the hair, though still white, seemed thicker. But it was the eyes that terrified him and turned his bowels to water. They were glowing a bright, fierce red, and their gaze paralyzed him.
The thin, almost lipless mouth opened. “On your knees!” The voice that issued from the mouth was a whisper, with a croaking, liquid quality—a voice that hadn’t been used for centuries—but a voice that demanded obedience. Mason sank to his knees. Out of the corner of his eye he could still see the ripped and bloodied carcass that had once been Karl Offler. Please God, he thought. Not me too. But knew as soon as the words entered his head it was a forlorn hope.
The red eyes flashed and Mason pitched forward onto his face, smashing onto the hard wooden floor, driving his front teeth through his top lip. He struggled to get his hands underneath him, trying to push himself upright but, as he levered himself away from the boards, the bones of his forearms shattered and he fell forwards again with a cry of pain and fear. His legs were the next to go. With what sounded like a gunshot, his left femur cracked in half, followed a split second later by the right. His ribs were next, snapping like twigs caught under a heavy boot.
