by Shaun Hutson
‘To do with work?’ her mother asked.
‘Yes, Mum, to do with work,’ Jess said, grateful for the respite. ‘It’s just something I’m working on.’
‘It sounds exciting.’
‘Well … not really,’ Jess forced a laugh. ‘Just a story. I’m going to be busy for the next few days though so I might not be in touch and I didn’t want you to worry.’
‘Alright, Jess,’ her mother said a little sadly.
There was a long uncomfortable silence finally broken by Jess.
‘Mum, I love you,’ she said.
‘I love you too, Jess.’
Jess could feel the tears welling up.
‘I just wanted to tell you,’ she said.
‘I’m glad you did,’ her mum chuckled.
‘I’d better go, Mum,’ Jess insisted. ‘I’ll speak to you soon.’
She ended the call and tucked the mobile into the pocket of her jeans, standing motionless in the middle of the sitting room. She didn’t even bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
EIGHTY-THREE
‘I learned from an early age that there is no pity in this world.’
Andrei Voronov stood motionless beside the window gazing out over the landscape of London.
‘No pity and no mercy and that is the way that it should be,’ he went on, his voice slow and even. ‘The meek will not inherit the earth. The strong will take everything. That is always how it has been and that is how it will continue. My family have always known this. Many years ago they were warriors, they fought for their homes, for their families. They did not hesitate to kill any who threatened what they had or who would take from them. They knew that what they did was right and just and they acted with strength and courage. The times might have changed but nothing else. Men still protect what they have. They still kill if they have to.’
He smiled to himself.
‘And that is how it should be,’ he went on, his tone darkening. ‘The strongest survive. The most powerful rule. It has been this way since time began and that is how it will always remain. My ancestors knew this, that was why they used the knowledge they were given. Knowledge that has been passed down from one generation to another, knowledge that so few have and even fewer would dare to use.’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘Well I dare to use that knowledge and that power. Just as they used it against the fools and cowards who persecuted them and it was their enemies who suffered.’
Voronov turned and looked across the room.
‘The lives of others mean nothing to me,’ he said, quietly. ‘Anyone who stands in my way I will destroy. No man can stop me. No man dare stand against me.’
He began walking slowly across the room, his eyes fixed on one single point ahead of him.
‘Not with the power I have,’ Voronov went on. ‘Power that only I know how to wield. Power that was passed to me by generations before me. Men who knew that the only quality a man needs to possess is strength. Strength of will, strength of purpose and a complete belief in what he does and that what he does is right. Men must remain unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality. Who invented these concepts? Holy Men. Men who would look to Gods for their salvation.’
He had crossed the room by now and he stood motionless, gazing raptly ahead, his eyes unblinking.
‘A man with my knowledge has no need for Gods,’ Voronov breathed. ‘No God has the power that I do. The power of life and death is mine. The power to destroy is mine, the power to bring life is mine. What has God to offer that I do not possess?’
The figure who he addressed the words to remained immobile.
The Golem stood before Voronov but did not move.
‘You are my creation,’ the billionaire went on. ‘Mine to command as I have before, as my father and my grandfather did.’
Voronov reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a tiny scroll of paper. He regarded the scroll silently for a moment then with great care and something approaching tenderness he pushed it into the mouth of the Golem.
‘The time has come once again,’ Voronov said quietly. ‘Do as I command. I give you life.’
The Golem took a step towards him.
EIGHTY-FOUR
As Jess climbed out of the taxi she could see Hadley sitting at one of the outside tables of the coffee shop. He was nursing a large coffee and was sipping at it in between glancing at a small notebook on the table before him.
He looked up as he heard her approach and he managed a smile that seemed to Jess to have taken more effort than it should.
‘I thought we were going to meet at your place,’ she said, sitting down opposite him.
‘To plan our attack?’ he said a little sharply.
Jess looked at him but Hadley barely met her gaze.
‘Are you ok, Alex?’ she asked.
He thought about mentioning his father but then decided against it. After all no one could do anything to help, least of all Jess and, he told himself, they had other matters to attend to.
‘Just thinking about things,’ he told her, taking another sip of his coffee.
‘Like what?’
A waiter arrived and took her order, disappearing back inside the café to fetch it.
‘Like how the hell we’re going to get out of this in one piece,’ Hadley told her. ‘Or even if we will.’
‘That detective said to ring the police as soon as we found something,’ Jess reminded him. ‘If we do that we’ll be fine.’
Hadley looked at her.
‘Maybe we’ve underestimated Voronov,’ he said. ‘Him and this thing, whatever the hell it is.’
‘The Golem?’
Hadley nodded.
‘Do you want to back out now?’ she asked.
‘No. I just want to make sure we know what we’re dealing with and how to stop it. If we can.’
‘So how do we stop it, you’re the expert,’ she smiled and took a sip of her coffee.
‘I don’t think there are any experts any more,’ Hadley told her. ‘I know what I told you before. About how the Golem is created, how it’s given its power. Once brought to life it can only be stopped by the man who created it or by destroying the words that gave it life.’
‘You mean that scroll that’s hidden somewhere on its body.’
Hadley nodded.
‘Or by killing Voronov himself?’ Jess added. ‘He was the one who made it, if he dies then Golem dies too right?’
‘Wiping out the word Aleph from the Golem’s head kills it too remember? We don’t have to kill Voronov too.’
‘Do you think he’d hesitate to kill us if he had to?’ she said, quietly.
‘You’re probably right but there’s one problem, we don’t even know for sure that he was the one who made this Golem.’
‘It’s a fair assumption, Alex. His grandfather built one didn’t he? Perhaps that’s where Voronov got his information from.’
Hadley nodded slowly.
‘Could it be the same one?’ Jess asked. ‘Could that thing that’s up there in Voronov’s penthouse now be the same one that his Grandfather built all those years ago? It’s possible isn’t it? I mean, the Golem wouldn’t die. He could have had it hidden somewhere for years, keeping it out of sight until he needed it.’
Hadley raised his eyebrows, considering the possibility.
‘I mean to say, what do you do with a Golem when you don’t need it any more?’ Jess went on.
‘You return it to the earth from which it was made,’ Hadley said, flatly. ‘Removing the scroll will extinguish its life force. From that point on it’s inactive. Dead if you like. If it’s made of clay as they usually are then take it to pieces again. Dump it. Return it to the Thames where it came from.’
They sat in silence for a moment then Jess looked at him.
‘So when do we go?’ she wanted to know.
Hadley took a sip of his coffee and put the cup down on the table again, his hand shaking slightly.
‘Tonigh
t,’ he told her. ‘We settle this one way or the other tonight.’
EIGHTY-FIVE
‘The residue was clay,’ said Detective Sergeant Raymond Powell. ‘It matched what we found at the scene of Adrian Murray’s death, Brian Dunham’s murder and what was left behind when his house was attacked.’
Detective Inspector Robert Johnson nodded and looked at the report that his companion had handed him.
‘Also, the blood inside Paxton’s place was his,’ Powell went on. ‘No sign of any other blood or any other DNA of any description inside his place. Whoever attacked him didn’t leave any traces.’
‘Which is just about impossible isn’t it?’ Johnson mused.
‘Nothing but that clay dust,’ Powell told him.
‘Any idea where the clay came from?’
‘Well it didn’t come from any builders yard as far as preliminary examination has shown.’
‘So where did it come from?’
‘Forensics say that it had a high concentration of water not like modelling clay or anything you’d find on a building site. And there were traces of some kind of algae too, lots of it. As if the clay had been made with earth mixed with river water. That’s what the lab said.’ He shrugged.
Johnson ran his eyes over the report once more but for all the sense it made it may as well have been written in a foreign language. He looked at the D.S. and exhaled wearily.
‘Two murders, a break-in and disappearance, an attack on a house all with the same physical evidence,’ he said, slowly. ‘And we’re no closer to knowing now what the fuck is going on than we were when we started.’ He shook his head.
‘One of the Tech boys went over the remains of Paxton’s phone to see who’d been calling him or what calls he made before he was attacked,’ Powell added.
‘And?’
‘He rang that journalist you were talking to. Jessica Anderson. It was a short call. Looks like he was interrupted and the time of the call must have been pretty close to when he was attacked.’ Powell pulled out the chair opposite Johnson and sat down. ‘Tell me to mind my own business, Bob but what is it with her? I saw her hanging around with Alex Hadley the other night too. You don’t think she might have something to do with Paxton’s disappearance do you?’
‘She was one of Paxton’s clients, she paid him for information. He was picking up emergency calls on that equipment of his and she was one of the people he sold the info to.’
‘Her and half the newspaper people in the fucking city,’ Powell said.
‘Some of our own guys leak information to the right people for the right price, Ray, you know that,’ Johnson reminded him.
Powell nodded.
‘So what’s she after?’ the D.S. asked.
‘Her and Hadley have got a stick up their arses about Andrei Voronov. They think he’s got something to do with the attacks on Dunham and Murray and now this one on Paxton.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think they could be right but it’s just speculation, there’s nothing we can use to link him to the attacks.’
‘Why would Voronov be involved?’
‘Dunham refused him planning permission for this new hotel he wants to build and don’t forget the bullshit we had when he was trying to get planning permission for the Crystal Tower. Hadley and this girl think that he used threats to get his own way with that and they think he’s at it again.’
‘They could be right.’
‘Even if they are we’ve got nothing to link him to what’s been going on.’
‘I still don’t see how they think he could have caused Dunham’s death.’
Johnson let out a weary breath.
‘You really want to know?’ he said, looking directly at his companion. ‘Well I can tell you but I’ll warn you now you’ll probably want to have me locked up by the time I’m finished.’
EIGHTY-SIX
Johnson sat before the computer keyboard for a second his fingers poised over the keys as if he was reluctant to touch them.
‘I feel like a kid looking for porn,’ he said, wearily glancing at Powell who was standing beside him.
The D.S. smiled, watching as his companion brought up a search engine, the brightly coloured logo showing on the screen.
‘Is this what we’ve come to?’ Johnson said. ‘Great coppers we are. Trying to solve a crime on fucking Google.’
Powell chuckled.
‘Just type it in,’ he said. ‘It’s either that or trek off to the nearest library and we’re going to feel even bigger cunts doing that.’
Johnson typed Golem into the search engine and waited.
There were over thirteen million results. The two men glanced at them and Johnson pointed to some images that had been displayed.
‘It looks like something to do with a video game,’ he said, irritably. ‘It’s a fucking Pokémon.’ He laughed. ‘Perhaps we should raid the nearest Toys R Us.’
‘No, look, there’s stuff about it being an artificial being or something,’ Powell interjected. ‘Didn’t you say that was what Hadley said. That this thing had been built by Voronov and he was controlling it?’ Powell pointed at one of the results on the screen. ‘Click on that.’
Johnson did as he was asked and the two men began to read.
They were still reading thirty minutes later.
Johnson was gazing raptly at the screen, his eyes travelling across the words there as if he was hypnotised.
‘There’s another mention of it being created from earth and water,’ he said, clicking back to one of the five other websites the two men had been using. ‘Nearly everywhere says it’s made of clay.’
‘Clay is earth and water isn’t it?’ Powell interjected. ‘What were you thinking of, modelling clay?’
‘Maybe he built it out of Plasticine or fucking Play-Doh,’ Johnson offered, shaking his head.
‘Look there,’ Powell suddenly said, jabbing a finger at the screen and reading aloud. ‘The creator would mix earth and water together. Water taken from a nearby lake or river was thought to be best as this would imbue the Golem with the powerful forces of nature as well as those granted to it by its maker.’
Johnson looked up for a moment.
‘Didn’t that report say the clay they found at the scenes of these attacks contained algae or something? Like you’d find in river water?’ he offered.
Powell nodded.
The two men read more, checked back to the other websites, read and tried to digest what they were presented with. The ticking of the wall clock in Johnson’s office seemed thunderous as the detectives pored over the computer screen and the facts it was displaying.
‘River water,’ Johnson murmured again.
‘From the Thames?’ Powell offered.
‘Even if we prove that there is one of these things, a Golem, we’ve still got nothing to link it to Voronov other than Alex Hadley’s speculation,’ Johnson said. ‘It’s not like we can get a search warrant based on evidence like that. Nothing at all ties Voronov to any of these crimes let alone the fact that he might have made some kind of … creature out of mud and water from the Thames. We’ve got no witnesses. No motive. Nothing.’
‘What if Hadley and this girl do manage to get inside the Crystal Tower?’ Powell offered. ‘If they do they might find something that we can use. All we need is a reason to go in and search the place.’
‘If we need a reason to search the place, Ray then that means we’re admitting the existence of this Golem.’
‘“When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,”’ Powell intoned. ‘That’s what Sherlock Holmes said.’ The D.S. smiled.
‘So we’re using fictional detectives to help us as well are we?’ Johnson grinned.
‘Someone with incredible strength attacked Brian Dunham’s house, smashed his car up and killed him,’ Powell went on. ‘Somebody killed Adrian Murray then threw his body fifteen feet from his office into the street. Someo
ne who left behind residue in their footprints that resembled brick dust but which we now know was actually clay made from river water and mud. Clay that could have been used by someone with the right kind of knowledge to make a statue that they can bring to life and use for their own purposes and yes I know that sounds crazy but what else have we got?’
Johnson nodded.
‘Let’s figure out how we get that search warrant,’ he murmured.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
The Crystal Tower pointed heavenward like an accusatory finger, jabbing so high into the night sky it seemed to be tearing the clouds themselves.
The darkening sky was mottled with cloud and Jess was sure that she had felt spots of rain on more than one occasion as she and Alex Hadley had walked towards the massive edifice before them.
She felt cold and not just because of the chill breeze that was blowing through the streets and between the other tall buildings around them. Jess was not afraid to admit that she felt more than a little trepidation as she and Hadley walked on. But mixed with that fear was an excitement and exhilaration she had not experienced for a long time. She glanced at Hadley on more than one occasion wondering if he felt the same but almost reluctant to ask. His face was set in hard lines and his gaze was seemingly fixed on the Crystal Tower with the same kind of concentration one would normally see on the face of a sniper about to pull the trigger on his next target.
The two of them walked in silence, edging past others, dodging those coming the other way and moving relentlessly forward. Jess had a camera in each pocket but what exactly she was going to photograph she wasn’t sure?
The Golem? Voronov? Your own death?
She swallowed hard, considering again exactly how risky this undertaking could be but pushing the conclusions to the back of her mind. To contemplate them too intently would have meant she turned back, she knew that. Who in their right mind walked so calmly towards possible death?
