We Are Death

by Douglas Lindsay

  Jericho walked back, looked down on them both.

  ‘Time to go. Harrow just took a bullet in the head in Geyerson’s hotel room.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Haynes, getting to his feet.

  ‘Was Geyerson present?’ asked Badstuber. ‘Is he a suspect?’

  ‘He was present, but the bullet came from outside. Harrow was standing at the window on the twenty-fourth floor.’

  They started to move off, then Jericho stopped and held up his hand.

  ‘Sorry, Stuart. It’s already going to be crawling with police up there. We don’t want to turn up too heavy-handed, like we don’t trust them to do the job.’

  Haynes nodded, the frustration and the anger rising inside him again.

  ‘Yep, fine,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll hang on to the cards, try to make something of them.’

  Jericho surprised him by squeezing the top of his arm, and then he was off, Badstuber a pace behind, to view the latest murder.

  *

  Develin was sitting at a booth in a small bar at the bottom end of Hausmanns Gate when Morlock slid into the seat opposite, placing his drink on the table as he sat down. Develin was drinking a Ringnes, Morlock still spring water.

  ‘Nice job,’ said Develin.

  He had a small bowl of cashew nuts at his right hand, which were almost done. He knew there was no point in offering them to Morlock.

  Morlock nodded, took a sip of water.

  ‘Are we done?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet. You can leave after tonight, if you want, although it might be better for you to wait a day or two. Tonight they’re going to be watching the airports and the stations.’

  Shouldn’t you have people watching the airports and the stations, Morlock thought, but it wasn’t for him to say. Usually they had people watching everything.

  ‘What happens tonight?’

  ‘Everybody dies.’

  Morlock took another sip of water. He enjoyed it when everybody died.

  ‘You’re going to be more specific?’ he asked.

  Develin placed a tiny memory stick on the tabletop. Morlock lifted it, quite sure that no one was watching them, and fitted it into the side of his phone.

  ‘The train to Bergen is nice this time of year,’ said Develin.

  Morlock nodded, lifted his drink and drained the remainder of the glass, then he brought up the file on his phone and quickly flicked through it.

  Geyerson. The Russian. The Chinese. The American. The Israeli. The Indian. The Brazilian. Jericho. Haynes. Badstuber.

  He looked up at Develin as he slipped the phone into his pocket.

  ‘There’s no mention of bodyguards,’ said Morlock.

  ‘You will likely have to kill many of them too,’ said Develin. ‘You will be paid your usual rate.’

  ‘Will they all be in one place at the same time?’

  ‘All the details are there. You’re likely to have to improvise.’

  Morlock nodded and got to his feet.

  ‘I’ll send my bill from the train,’ he said.

  Morlock walked from the bar in his usual measured way. He had been given his list of targets, the job would be done, and perhaps then it would be time for a break.

  *

  Jericho and Badstuber stood at the window of Geyerson’s hotel room, looking down below, trying to work out where the shooter might have been. They could see three teams of armed police officers working in the general area, trying to establish the same thing.

  ‘This assassin is a perfect illustration of how a good, well-organised killer can carry out his business,’ said Jericho. ‘Unless you have CCTV on every corner, and someone watching every one of those cameras every minute of the day, a professional is going to be able to act almost with impunity.’

  Badstuber indicated a building across the other side of the street, not the highest in the vicinity, but one of several with a clear view.

  ‘The angle suggests that one,’ she said. ‘And not necessarily the top floor.’

  None of the three teams was currently looking at the building, and when they did, they would undoubtedly start at the top. If the killer had left any trail it was going colder as they stood and watched.

  There was little chance, they thought, that he had left one in any case.

  They lurched into a silence that was more comfortable than it would have been a few days previously. Both of them out of their jurisdiction, both of them observers, just waiting to see how everything was going to play out. Neither of them able to do what they normally would in this situation: take charge, throw themselves into the crime.

  ‘What were you looking at?’ asked Jericho.

  She caught his eye in the reflection in the window.

  ‘In Morocco?’ he said. ‘You got up in the middle of the night, and looked up into the stars.’

  ‘The ISS,’ she said.

  Jericho shrugged the question.

  ‘International Space Station.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you could see it,’ he said. ‘I mean, I think I saw what you were looking at, but I didn’t realise that’s what it was.’

  ‘Third brightest object in the night sky,’ she said.

  ‘How do...’ began Jericho, then he just let the sentence go. Didn’t want to sound as ignorant as he felt.

  ‘There’s a web page, lets you know where and when you’ll be able to see the station overhead, anywhere in the world.’

  Jericho nodded. Caught her eye again, then looked back at the search teams across the road.

  ‘My cousin is on the space station,’ said Badstuber. ‘So far away, so isolated. I think the least I can do is look up when I can and say hello.’

  ‘Your cousin’s an astronaut?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  Jericho found himself looking skyward, up at the grey day and the clouds. There was nothing like space to make you feel small, he thought. Or rather, he suddenly felt small, without thinking about the reason for it.

  ‘Has he followed you to Oslo?’ asked Badstuber, the words out of the blue, the conversation quickly changing tack, as though the discussion of her cousin had really been about her, and she didn’t want to talk about herself anymore.

  Jericho stared down at the building across the road, the one Badstuber had indicated. Mind on the job. He could try anyway.

  He didn’t answer immediately, but he knew, of course, to whom she was referring.

  ‘Can I take your silence as a yes?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Jericho. ‘I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him. He was...’

  The sentence ran out, aware that he was about to start opening up.

  ‘You’ve seen him since Morocco though?’ she asked.

  He caught her eye in the reflection in the window. Behind, he could see the Norwegian CSI officers, and had the thought that it was about time they went to speak to Geyerson. Again. For all the good it would do them.

  ‘He was at the station last night. Late, when everyone else had gone home.’

  When she finally said what she needed to say, when the words that had been on her lips since Morocco finally emerged, they came quickly and abruptly.

  ‘It’s not really Durrant, though, is it? You know it’s not Durrant.’

  ‘My fellow officers in crime,’ said a voice behind.

  They turned quickly, Jericho torn from the moment. A young man, blond, sunglasses in his hair, jeans and an open-necked shirt not tucked in at the waist.

  ‘Inspector Markussen.’

  He held out his hand, first to Badstuber then Jericho.

  ‘This is very international,’ he said. ‘I take it we’ll be carrying out our discussions in the language of the Empire?’

  He smiled at Jericho who, as ever at the arrival of youth, found himself slightly nonplussed, and he immediately wished he’d brought Haynes along.

  ‘I’m afraid my Norwegian needs something of a brush-up,’ said Badstuber.

  ‘German?’ said Markussen.

&nb
sp; ‘English will be fine,’ said Badstuber, before any attention was turned on Jericho’s lack of linguistic skills.

  ‘Cool.’

  Markussen came up beside them and stood at the window. Only one of the teams across the road was currently visible, and they watched them at work for a moment.

  ‘Your men are looking in the wrong place, Inspector,’ said Badstuber.

  ‘You think we should be looking in that building there,’ said Markussen, indicating the one that Badstuber had first pointed out to Jericho. ‘We did that one first, before you got here. We’ll go back, for sure, but this man is a ghost. No one saw a thing. And this is his fourth time, yes?’

  Jericho nodded.

  ‘The fourth in connection to the current investigation,’ said Badstuber.

  Markussen smiled, head shaking.

  ‘As a police officer, with this kind of hit, you have to think two things. Firstly, it’s really good work. I mean, this man has skills. Secondly, you hope he leaves town and you never hear from him again.’

  He glanced back and forth between them, smiling, looking for some agreement from his fellow officers.

  ‘He likely killed a man who was sitting across a table from us,’ said Badstuber. ‘I don’t find myself filled with much admiration.’

  Markussen shrugged.

  ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s going to alter the dynamic slightly.’

  ‘And I don’t know that you’re going to get your wish,’ said Jericho.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Markussen, still smiling. ‘If it’s the one about me and the three women behind the bar at the Starbucks around the corner from the station, you’re probably right.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s appropriate,’ said Badstuber.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Markussen. ‘I have filter problems. You were saying, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Geyerson has been travelling around,’ said Jericho.

  ‘The guy who didn’t get shot?’

  ‘Yes. The four who were killed were all on a climbing expedition with him. Since then Geyerson’s been on the move, but everywhere he’s gone has been for climbing. Scratching the itch. Harrow, too, has been on the move. As far as we can make out, their paths never crossed over the summer. Geyerson was climbing, Harrow was doing something else altogether. My guess, at this point, is that he was selling something on behalf of Geyerson, or on behalf of everyone from that expedition.’

  He stopped for a moment, as though the effort of speaking was getting too much for him, like a consumptive struggling for his last words. Except, of course, that Jericho’s breathing was fine and words only struggled to emerge because he did not like to give up too many of them. As though there was only a finite supply in his head.

  He was still watching the team across the road, his eyes never so much as meeting the others’ in the reflection.

  ‘And now they’re in the same place,’ said Badstuber, taking up the story on Jericho’s behalf, ‘and they’re meeting in a hotel room. This is clearly coming to some sort of climax, because why else would they start killing people now, when they could have done it months ago? Geyerson took something off that mountain that someone did not want him to take. Our information suggests that it is an organisation known as The Pavilion. They waited to see how it would play out, and when it started to go a way that they did not like, people started dying.’

  At last Jericho looked round at Markussen.

  ‘Something’s happening here, Inspector, and I would put money on it happening tonight. We believe a lot of people are going to be killed.’

  Markussen held his gaze for a moment, seemingly drawn in by the seriousness of the situation, then he smiled broadly and touched both of them on the arm.

  ‘Awesome sauce,’ he said.

  His attitude was so different from the air of melancholy and earnestness that had marked the working relationship of Jericho and Badstuber up to that point that neither of them really knew what to do with it. How to handle a young officer who seemed genuinely pleased to be in the middle of a case of mass murder.

  ‘You have Mr Geyerson?’ asked Badstuber.

  Markussen shook his head.

  ‘We spoke to him, but he left. Didn’t exactly have cause to take him into custody, although as the one survivor of his climbing team, I suppose it’s always possible he’s a suspect. You guys consider that?’

  ‘We’ve considered everything,’ said Jericho, annoyance flooding into his voice. ‘Do you have someone trailing Geyerson? We need to know wh–’

  ‘Better than that,’ said Markussen, still resolutely cheerful, despite Jericho’s frustration. ‘Managed to slip a tracking device into his jacket pocket, so we’ve got him covered. As long as, you know, he doesn’t leave his jacket in a taxi.’

  ‘You know where he is now?’ asked Jericho.

  ‘Sure beans.’

  Jericho glanced at Badstuber, his eyebrow slightly raised at the awfulness of working with youth, and then turned back to Markussen.

  ‘Can we go?’

  Markussen smiled again.

  ‘Follow me!’

  46

  Haynes had gone down to the waterfront. Maybe it was where people always went when they didn’t live by the sea. Maybe it was where they went anyway. You could stand and look at the sea in a way you couldn’t stand and look at the other side of the street, or even across a park.

  Not that the sea was particularly expansive at this point, the other side of the fjord being little more than three miles away.

  He felt helpless, felt as though he wasn’t doing a particularly good job. Too wrapped up in the disappearance of Leighton to fully apply himself to this case. But then, what was the case? All they were doing was trailing around in the wake of a killer. They were no nearer discovering his identity, and their investigation amounted to them being little more than murder tourists.

  The new batch of Death cards – the batch! – were in his inside pocket. He’d enlarged one with the help of his iPad, although it had shown him little, and the image hadn’t been particularly clear. Once again his frustration had overtaken him. He’d grown restless after little more than a few minutes in his hotel room, and he’d had to walk outside again.

  They were slowly making the connections regarding The Pavilion and what it was that Geyerson might be up to, and therefore what was behind the killings, yet it all felt so abstract. The killer was so efficient, so clinical, so detached, that it was as though it was happening in a different realm. Another world.

  Hands in his pockets, staring out across the water, Akershus Fortress away to his right, his phone rang. Something to do, he thought, and hoped it wouldn’t be someone from his family on for a chat.

  He didn’t recognise the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Stuart!’

  Relief flooded over him at the sound of her voice. For a moment he felt weak, genuinely weak, like some absurd nineteenth century literary version of deliverance.

  ‘Jesus, where are you?’

  She was laughing, her feelings the same at managing to get hold of him.

  ‘Oslo,’ she said. ‘I mean, God, I’m in Oslo! I don’t even know why.’

  The relief disappeared from him, replaced by a strange anxiety, coupled with the delight at her being in the same city.

  ‘You’re in Oslo?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and she was still laughing. ‘Where are you? Are you in Wells?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re in Oslo too.’

  ‘What?’

  The laughter left her voice, replaced by the same concern.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

  ‘Jesus, this is weird,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

  There was a pause, and he could imagine her looking around, trying to get her bearings.

  ‘Not entirely sure,’ she said. ‘I just found myself at a phone shop, bought this old, cheap Nokia. But Oslo’s pretty small. Where are you?’

  ‘At the waterfront. D’y
ou know the new opera house?’

  ‘It was still under construction the last time I was here, but yes, I know where it is.’

  ‘I can be there in a couple of minutes. Can you find your way there?’

  ‘Sure. Might take me a bit longer, but I’ll be there.’

  ‘OK, good. See you shortly.’

  They hung up.

  And with the press of the button, Haynes immediately had a bad feeling. It was too easy, too strange. He’d spent the day worrying about her, wanting to see her, wanting to know she was all right. In all that, however, what he’d been looking for was a telephone call saying she was happy and safe in the UK somewhere, apologising for having run out on him. No matter how unlikely that had been, given her departure from the library with Develin. That she was here, now, in the same city, seemed sinister. Not for the first time, he felt like they were being played.

  If he and Leighton were about to meet, it was because The Pavilion wanted them to meet. And maybe they wouldn’t let them meet at all.

  He suddenly wished he’d got her to stay where she was, and that he could have gone searching for her. Instead, he would have to stand still, a spectator to the action, hoping that it unfolded the way he wanted it to.

  He stood for a moment, took the phone back out his pocket and returned the call. The phone did not ring.

  *

  There were four of them in the unmarked car. Jericho, Badstuber and Markussen, with a police driver. Markussen was in the front passenger seat. In his right hand he held a small device that showed the blinking pinpoint of Geyerson’s location.

  ‘This is such a cool piece of kit,’ he said. ‘Totally sick, man. And you don’t have to worry about the dude finding it or anything. It’s totally miniscule. I mean, like completely tiny, man. There really is a far greater chance he’d just forget his damn jacket somewhere than there is of him putting his hand in his pocket and thinking, like, what the fuck, man?’

  A talker, Jericho had thought as soon as they’d sat down, and Markussen had continued talking. Worse still. A talker in a confined space.

  ‘You guys got anything like this?’ he asked, waving the device.

  ‘Yes,’ said Badstuber.

  Jericho shook his head.

  ‘You poor bloody British suckers,’ said Markussen. ‘On the plus side, everyone speaks your language. On the downside, you’re broke and playing way out of your league. You’ll probably get these things when no one else is using them anymore and we’ve all moved on to something better.’