Lost Souls

by Seth Patrick

  ‘Seen what, Mary?’

  ‘I don’t know what he meant. I told him so. He didn’t believe me. He said someone’s name. Winterton. Had I told anyone about Winterton? I didn’t answer. Winterton’s a firm in New York that was trying to headhunt me. I’d been talking about it earlier with a friend and this guy must have overheard. I said it was none of his business. He leaned close and snarled that it was exactly his business, that if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut he’d shut it for me. I told him to go to hell. His eyes were so damn cold. I saw my friend, hurried to her. I was about to tell her about the creep but he’d already gone. She could see something was up and asked if I was OK but I brushed her off, told her that I was just tired, that I was going. I crept out a back exit, didn’t want him to see me go. I walked fast. I was stupid to walk home, but you do that. You try and act normal to show yourself it was nothing. I kept thinking he was following, but I couldn’t see him. And then I—’

  She stopped. Twenty seconds ticked by before Jonah spoke. ‘Mary?’

  ‘Ask her what route she took home,’ said Bob. ‘See if we can establish that before we ask about the alley.’

  ‘Mary,’ said Jonah, but he was cut off as Mary’s emotions went crazy, a sudden rush of impossible terror. It filled Jonah, too, and he shot a panicked look to Never. He could see that Never understood something was wrong.

  Mary’s hand began to tremble again, more forcefully than before, the gurney wheels rattling hard as the vibration spread, the jaw of the corpse extending unnaturally wide, the tongue quivering. The whole upper torso shook, risking the body shifting in position, possibly falling.

  Jonah stood from his chair and held Mary’s shoulder with his left hand, trying to keep the body secure. The others hurried over, keeping a wary distance.

  ‘Can we do anything?’ asked Never.

  ‘I don’t know. Brace the body, maybe it’ll pass again.’ Stepping forward, Never leaned across the body’s waist and held on, the look on his face one of bewilderment: after years of experience, he suddenly found himself uncertain how to proceed. Jonah felt exactly the same way. Bob and Ray held down her legs.

  The lungs filled with air as the rapid shivering increased. Mary Connart screamed again, the vocal chords deteriorating audibly, the tone of her cry deepening, turning it into a guttural howl.

  Jonah looked at Bob; the detective’s face was grey, eyes horrorstruck. ‘If this doesn’t stop,’ said Jonah, ‘I’m going to have to let her go.’

  The detective looked at him, then back to the body, but said nothing.

  The lungs had emptied but the vibration didn’t let up. Without a pause the lungs refilled and the screaming continued.

  The terror within Mary Connart was absolute, flooding Jonah and leaving him barely able to think. He didn’t understand what was happening but he couldn’t see how he could do anything useful now. ‘I have to, Bob,’ he called over the screaming. ‘I have to let her go.’ He wanted Bob’s permission; years of training, years of routine, always needing the official in charge to give the go-ahead to end it. Bob was just staring at the body, lost.

  ‘Please, Bob. I have to let her go.’

  Abruptly the screaming stopped. The body sagged.

  Jonah held on to her as the others stood back. Mary was still present, but only just. The amount of effort expended in that fit of screaming had left her with almost nothing in reserve. She had only moments left.

  ‘Mary?’ he said.

  Her mouth moved, fractionally. With no air left in her lungs there was no sound, but Jonah could hear it in his mind. Hear what she told him, just before she faded completely.

  ‘The shadow,’ said Mary Connart. ‘The shadow has teeth.’

  18

  Jonah stood still, breathless and lost, staring at Mary Connart’s face.

  He let go of her hand and stepped back, bumping into the chair, pushing it away from himself with a shout of frustration and fear. The chair tipped on its castors and fell into one of the camera tripods, knocking it down.

  He heard Never approach and right the tripod, then felt Never’s hand on his shoulder. Nothing was said.

  Teeth, Jonah thought, looking at the rough surfaces of exposed bone on Mary’s body. Her own fear, her own confusion, had been so extreme. Her words meant nothing, surely.

  He shuddered.

  He turned to Bob. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jonah. He felt desolate and realized he was close to tears. ‘I don’t know what happened. She was terrified and confused. After everything you’d been hoping for . . . I’m sorry.’

  Bob shook his head. He looked as stunned as Jonah felt. ‘Don’t be. It’s something. We have to trace the man she spoke about. What was it he said to her? Somebody’s name?’

  ‘Winterton,’ said Jonah. ‘A company that was trying to headhunt her.’

  ‘He clearly thought she knew something she shouldn’t,’ said Ray. ‘There was explicit threat in what he said to her.’

  ‘The encounter Mary had with the man didn’t come up when we spoke to any of her friends,’ said Bob, looking to Ray for confirmation.

  ‘No,’ said Ray. ‘One told us she’d seemed upset, but didn’t know why. Somebody must have seen it, though. It was a big party. The client companies invited had been allowed to bring up to seven people each. The organizers don’t know exactly who was present, and there could have been over two hundred guests in all. We’ve spoken to thirty at most. Our focus has been on those who were outside at the time, trying to find someone who witnessed her leave.’

  ‘Well,’ said Bob, ‘this guy’s our best lead so we’ve got a reason to look harder. Jonah, you said Mary was confused. Are you sure we can trust that part of her testimony?’

  Jonah nodded. ‘Her memory of that was clear. She only became confused later.’ When she started to remember what had happened to her in that alley.

  He stood to the side as Never took down the equipment. He remembered the envelope Bob had given him, the note from Mary’s sister. Inadequate as the words were, he’d not even been able to offer Mary that comfort. There was a wastepaper bin in the corner of the room. He pulled the note from his pocket, crumpled it and dropped it in. Guilt was coursing through him. He couldn’t pretend that what he’d done had been to Mary’s benefit.

  He looked at her, thinking about the rough screams that had poured from that corpse, now silent and motionless in the centre of the room.

  Thinking about the words she’d whispered at the end, and one word in particular.

  Shadow.

  *

  Jonah and Never made the drive back to Richmond in silence, Never only speaking as they pulled up outside Jonah’s apartment building. ‘What the hell was that?’

  Jonah shook his head. ‘She had a bad death. More than that I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ve seen footage of shit like that, but you kind of hope you won’t witness it. Are you going to be OK? I’m off for the rest of the day, if you want the company?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Well you look terrible.’

  ‘It was a tough revival, that’s all.’

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ said Never, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘There’s nothing,’ said Jonah. ‘Really. I just wish we’d got more for them to work with. I’d hoped we’d find out what happened to her.’

  Jonah went up to his apartment, knowing that Never didn’t believe him. But it was the truth, wasn’t it? He simply wanted to know what had happened, there was nothing else worth mentioning.

  Shadow.

  Well, he thought, there was that.

  It wasn’t just a desire not to worry Never with unjustified paranoia. It was a desire not to even think about it, to fuel it.

  His head started to pound. It was probably a combination of the stress of the revival and a side effect of his medication. He knew he’d better eat something, but he was far from hungry. Marmite crawled out of a pile of unwashed laundry in the corner and sat by his dish, expecta
nt. The fishy stench from the pouch Jonah opened almost made him gag, chasing away any thought of food.

  ‘How the hell you eat that shit is beyond me,’ he said, ruffling the cat’s fur as Marmite chowed down.

  He remembered the email from Annabel and decided to have a closer look at what she’d sent.

  The first attachment was a site plan for Winnerden Flats, the Nevada research facility that Andreas Biotech was renovating. Also attached was a document detailing some of the widely varying investments that the company was engaging in. The sums were eye-watering, and the investment areas appeared almost random. Cryogenics was the only one that seemed to fit Andreas’s old passions; the rest included specialists in communication infrastructure and processor fabrication, about as far from the company’s biotech roots as it was possible to get. Annabel had commented to the same effect, saying that it reflected two things: first, that Andreas’s business had huge sums of money to invest; second, that the company seemed to be diversifying so much that it smacked of flailing around – panicking almost, now that they lacked any real vision. Andreas Biotech had no grand plan. Not any more.

  Exactly the kind of reassurance he needed right now.

  There was also a schematic of equipment he couldn’t quite work out at first. Then he realized there was a place within it for someone to lie down, and the rest began to make sense. It was tapered, almost wedge-shaped, narrowing from the end with the head to that with the feet, with an array of small windows by the head. He looked at Annabel’s notes to see what the hell it was: their latest whole-body cryogenic unit. An image came to him of row upon row of these things, all filled with the paying dead, their faces staring out of cold glass. It made him shiver, and he laughed at himself. Christ, he thought, if anyone should be immune to finding that kind of thing creepy, it’s me.

  All the scanned documents were marked with prominent ‘confidential’ declarations, of course. Sensitive company information, all of it. He wondered if they were aware that it had been stolen. He wondered how the hell Annabel had managed to get hold of it.

  Jonah sat staring blankly at the screen and wondered what Annabel was doing right at that moment. He closed the email and spent the next few hours watching random junk on television, but the day had taken it out of him. He was in bed asleep by nine.

  *

  The night brought its own terrors. The face of Mary Connart, twisting in fear, screams deepening until they became the growling of dogs. The dream shifted, and again he saw the vast shadow, striding across a city that, this time, looked very much like Richmond, burning all that it touched.

  And in his dream, Jonah looked at the ground at the creature’s feet and saw it stirring, boiling with movement, as uncountable shadows ran over the terrain underneath their master.

  The disciples of the beast. Its servants. Its acolytes.

  And their touch was just as corrosive.

  He woke from the dream, shaking.

  *

  In the morning he was restless enough to contact Bob Crenner.

  ‘Nothing to report yet, Jonah,’ said Bob. ‘Me and Ray are going over witnesses from the party to see if we can identify the man. We’ve also got a few feelers out for the name Mary mentioned. She assumed he meant Winterton, the New York firm that wanted to hire her, but it might be coincidence. It might have meant something very different to him, especially given the strength of his reaction.’

  Winterton. Jonah swore aloud. When he’d heard it from Mary before, her voice had been so clear in his head that it was absolutely precise. Winterton. Hearing it from Bob Crenner now, the word was less distinct, allowing him to make a connection he’d missed. A crazy thought, just fuelling the paranoia already inflamed by the word shadow, and by his dreams.

  ‘Jonah?’ said Bob.

  ‘The PR company that arranged the party,’ he said. ‘Mary’s employers. How many client companies did they have at the event?’

  ‘We’ve not gotten around to checking with them all, if that’s what you mean. Why do you ask?’

  ‘See if there are any Andreas Biotech affiliates, Bob.’ Please, don’t find anything, he thought.

  ‘Andreas?’

  ‘Just check. It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘OK,’ said Bob, after a pause. ‘We’ve secured an extra four detectives for the investigation. I’ll get one of them to look into it.’

  Jonah was about to hang up, but he came to a sudden decision. ‘Bob,’ he said, ‘I want a favour. In return for the revival.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Once you find this guy . . . I want to be there when you talk to him.’

  After he hung up, Jonah realized he was shaking a little. He opened Annabel’s email again, and looked at the attached site plan for the Andreas Biotech research facility in Nevada.

  He looked at the name of the site, and told himself it was just coincidence.

  ‘Winterton,’ he said aloud.

  It was nothing like it, really.

  Nothing like Winnerden. Nothing like Winnerden Flats.

  19

  Jonah got another call from Bob in the early afternoon. By 4 p.m., he was back inside the Third District Police Station.

  ‘We got the lead just before midday,’ said Bob. ‘We have a team of fourteen now, talking to as many party attendees as possible. Finally got a witness who saw Mary talk with a man, then tell him to go to hell. They could only give a vague description, though.’

  ‘Meantime,’ said Ray, ‘I was checking out your suggestion. The only company at the party that had an Andreas Biotech connection is listed as ARI. That’s Andreas Research Investment, a DC-based daughter company. We got a list of attendees from them, only two of whom were male. I culled pictures from their Facebook pages and we showed them to our witness.’ He held up a printout of an image. ‘Positive ID. Blake Torrance, thirty-seven years old. He’s been with the company for eight years.’

  Bob turned to Jonah and asked the question that had probably been on his mind all day. ‘Why did you think there was a link to Andreas?’

  ‘The name she gave,’ said Jonah. ‘Winterton. There’s a facility Andreas Biotech is upgrading in Winnerden Flats, Nevada.’ Bob waited for more, his eyebrow raised. ‘It was just a shot in the dark. Given what happened at Reese-Farthing, Annabel takes an interest in things like that.’

  Bob didn’t look satisfied with the answer but he let it go.

  ‘I’d heard you and Annabel Harker had hooked up,’ said Ray. ‘Going well, I hope?’

  Jonah nodded with all the enthusiasm he could muster, which was very little. ‘When are you going to talk to Torrance?’

  ‘Soon,’ said Ray. ‘I’ve already been to his office. I asked him to come in to answer some questions. He obliged, so he’s sitting at the far end of the building as we speak. If he’d refused, I would probably have arrested him, and I think he knew that. Now, we just have to wait for his lawyer to get here.’

  *

  It was another fifty minutes before the lawyer showed. In the meantime, Jonah sat by Bob’s desk watching him put away more coffee than was surely safe for human consumption, Bob and Ray discussing what approach they would take in questioning.

  When the time came they showed Jonah to a one-way observation window looking into the cramped interview room. Two minutes later the detectives entered, followed by the lawyer, a dishevelled older man with bags under his eyes that looked like they were filled with overwork. Then came the man himself.

  Jonah looked him over. He was a young thirty-seven, handsome, cocky. And there was something else. Something wrong with him. Jonah couldn’t tell what, but he’d felt the hairs standing on his arms from the moment Torrance entered the room.

  Torrance sat, and as he did so, he placed his left hand on his right shoulder and scratched. He did it again a moment later, and Jonah found himself staring at where Torrance was scratching. He felt suddenly cold, his heart rate quickening. He had an urge to run but he didn’t understand why.

  The
n he saw it. Just for a moment. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, seeing nothing now. But he was sure he’d not imagined it.

  There had been something there.

  Something dark, crouching on Torrance’s shoulder.

  *

  Bob nodded to Ray, who was standing by a small control panel on the wall. A red light went green and Ray sat down. Recording had started.

  Bob made the introductions for the benefit of the cameras. Torrance acknowledged his name with a single ‘yes’ and a bored sigh.

  ‘Do you understand why you’re here?’ asked Bob.

  Torrance looked at his lawyer, who nodded for him to answer. ‘You believe I was one of the last people to speak to a woman who was murdered,’ Torrance said. ‘I agreed to come so we can handle this quickly and I can get back to my job.’

  ‘Well, Blake, if you give us full answers to our questions, this shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘So get started,’ said Torrance, not holding back on the disdain.

  ‘You work for Andreas Research Investment, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what does your job entail?’

  ‘Our remit is wide. Mainly, we have a team of analysts who look for promising companies or projects that might benefit Andreas Biotech. Start-ups, parts of larger companies. Recruitment of academics and graduates, too, sometimes.’

  ‘You’re one of these analysts?’

  Torrance laughed. ‘No. I’m one of the senior staff. I oversee funding and project coordination, among other duties. I practically run the place. That’s why I’m so busy, Officer.’

  ‘Detective,’ corrected Bob. ‘Not too busy to party, though?’