We Are Death

by Douglas Lindsay

  Most of the diplomatic problems were still to come. For the moment there was the matter of the clean-up job, and they were keen to get on with it quickly. The SWAT team had been over the premises. They had confirmed that there were no more active combatants, and they had gone, leaving the stage to the body baggers and CSI.

  Jericho, Haynes and Badstuber had been attended to at the scene, and being the only ones left alive, they had had plenty of paramedics between them. Badstuber had then been whisked off to hospital, while Jericho and Haynes were still there an hour later, in amongst the slowly clearing carnage.

  They were in a downstairs reception room, now both sitting on comfortable chairs. Waiting to speak to Torsveg before heading off to hospital. The lights were on and bright, the expensive art on the walls looked modern and brash, uninteresting, and anything but expensive.

  Medical staff were coming and going, but the bodies were being collected and bagged in a room on the other side of the hall, and there was little else for them to do with the living. There was a drinks cabinet in the room, but neither Haynes nor Jericho felt much like drinking.

  Jericho, it seemed, didn’t feel much like anything. He had barely spoken, other than to enquire a couple of times after Haynes’s wellbeing. Those were the only words he’d had.

  Before them, on the coffee table, lay the book. The ancient parchments, placed within leather sheets, held together with an old cord. Or perhaps Geyerson had been telling the truth, and this was nothing but a copy. Amanda had said it was worthless. But was it because she’d known it was a copy, or because she knew that even the original was worthless?

  Neither of them had opened it up to take a look. What would there be to see, anyway? Haynes wasn’t even sure what language it would be written in, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be able to understand it.

  He had contemplated making an attempt to hide it away, try to get it out of there without anybody else noticing. Or perhaps just brazenly claiming it was his, because who was there to dispute it? However, apart from extracting it from the mess, and bringing it into this quiet room, with bright lights and bad art, Haynes had no interest in it. He didn’t know what was going to happen. Perhaps he and Jericho would walk out of here with the book because no one else wanted it.

  Was it cursed? The question appeared in his head, having a conversation with himself, as Jericho seemed incapable of talking. And no, it really wasn’t, he immediately answered. Just because people were unbelievably stupid, didn’t mean anything was cursed. It just meant they were stupid.

  The main thing he was thinking about, of course, was going to see Leighton. She would be worried, unquestionably, and the longer he took to get there, the more worried she’d be. He’d asked several times about Torsveg, and he had asked several times if he could leave, and each time they had said no. He didn’t want to just walk out into the Norwegian night, but he wasn’t far from doing it.

  Jericho sat still, his eyes resting on the book. But it didn’t seem that he was staring at it. It was just something in his line of vision.

  Haynes’s rising frustration was finally brought to an end by the arrival of Torsveg, who walked unhappily into the room, looking tired and stressed.

  ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting,’ he said, his voice heavy.

  He directed his comment at Jericho, but Jericho’s eyes did not move, so Torsveg switched his look to Haynes, although he didn’t add anything further. He approached them and stood over the coffee table, looking down at the book, his lips closed tightly, grim foreboding on his rubbery face.

  He put his hands in his pockets and stood in silence. Haynes felt his frustration immediately start to return. The least the man could do was get on with it!

  ‘One of the many things I don’t understand,’ said Torsveg, ‘is who was the last person killed. And who killed them? Because, if my understanding is right, you didn’t kill anyone and the Chief Inspector never even had a gun?’

  Haynes nodded, as Torsveg looked up. They held the stare for a short while.

  ‘So, who killed the last man?’

  Haynes nodded again, as he prepared to spin the insignificant lie he had decided to tell. It wasn’t as though Jericho was going to contradict him. In fact, it might well have been that Jericho would be completely unable to contradict him. Haynes was not going to be surprised if it turned out that Jericho couldn’t recall anything of the evening.

  ‘He came into the room where we were. He was firing. He killed Geyerson, he shot the Inspector, and then he was taken out by a shooter outside the room.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  Haynes nodded. That part wasn’t even a lie.

  ‘And did you see this shooter?’

  Haynes shook his head.

  ‘You told me over the phone, within a minute of the last gunshot, that all the shooters were dead.’

  ‘I heard a slump outside the room,’ said Haynes. ‘I took it that one of the guards had fired at the shooter, killing him with his last act, then collapsed. When you called, I was standing in the corridor and identified the one I thought had made the final shot, confirming he was dead.’

  Torsveg held his gaze throughout, reading his eyes, reading every word of the lie. Eventually he shook his head, then finally removed his hands from his pockets.

  ‘If I get the chance to interview Inspector Badstuber later before you’ve talked to her, will she tell me the same thing?’

  Haynes didn’t reply. He wasn’t going to worry about that. In fact, it would be quite a relief if any of them got to speak to Badstuber.

  ‘I don’t believe you, Sergeant,’ Torsveg added.

  Haynes glanced at Jericho, to see if the conversation had awoken him from his shock and stupor, but there was still nothing. He looked older than usual, already ageing beneath the strain of a bloody, awful evening.

  ‘Right,’ said Torsveg, ‘you two ought to go to hospital. And this...’ and he looked at the book, then reached down and lifted it up.

  He weighed it in his hands for a moment, staring at it with what Haynes thought was the first look of light in his eyes since he’d walked into the room, then pressed it against his chest, like a student carrying their books from class.

  ‘This needs to go back to where it belongs.’

  Haynes read something into the look and the words. He recognised that Torsveg’s actions were more than just those of a police chief taking a significant piece of evidence under his control. Yet he didn’t care. Not at that moment. And neither was he surprised. If Torsveg had suddenly produced a giant sword and proclaimed himself grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, before cleaving his way out of the house, leaving death and blood in his wake, it would hardly have been the most outlandish nor unlikely thing Haynes had witnessed in the past week.

  Instead, the old man nodded at them, then turned and walked from the room, making a small gesture to a paramedic as he departed.

  Haynes acknowledged the look from the medical man, and tapped Jericho on the knee.

  ‘Come on, sir,’ he said, ‘time to go to hospital.’

  Although there was somewhere else that he had to go first.

  *

  He stood on the doorstep of the restaurant, then stepped forward, letting the door close behind him. She had already seen him, of course. She’d been watching the door for the previous two hours, her heart going every time it opened, the worry and the fear growing with every disappointment.

  And then finally, there he was. A bandage around his midriff, another around his shoulder, his arm in a sling. But alive, and standing there before her.

  At first she couldn’t move, the relief coursing through her body. She had to think to move, and she couldn’t think. Tears came into her eyes, her face started to break, and then finally she found the will to get up, the strength in her legs, and she dashed forward, the jacket she’d worn all this time to cover her torn top flapping open, and she briefly saw the concern on Haynes’s face, and then she was in his arms and they we
re embracing, their arms tightly wrapped around each other, the sling pushed aside, and they had no words.

  55

  It was a beautiful September afternoon on the Mendips, the low hills above Wells. Jericho had driven up past the carpark for Ebor Gorge and had stopped at the top of the rise to walk through the fields of sheep and sit on the grass, looking down over the Somerset Levels. Ten minutes away from his office, and it felt like it was a hundred miles away.

  Not that he had much to escape from. He was in his last week, and there was little going on. Any new cases were being taken up by one of the others, and he was spending his final days handing over work and clearing his desk. At some point he should have been going through his e-mails, but every time he thought about turning on his computer the thought went unnoticed. He would leave his password, and if there was anything on there that needed to be actioned, Haynes or one of the others could take care of it.

  He lay back on the grass for a moment, looking up at the sky, the circling of the gulls, but he rarely felt comfortable lying outdoors like that, and so he quickly sat up again, picking a piece of grass and absent-mindedly taking it apart.

  It had been fifteen days since the night in Oslo. He had been debriefed at length. He had happily told everyone everything they needed to know. All except the one thing, of course. The one thing he couldn’t square away in his head.

  She was still alive.

  Neither he nor Haynes had mentioned it, and for the record he had told the same story as Haynes had told Torsveg. Back in the UK, away from the house and the scene of the carnage, it had sounded slightly more believable. No one, in any case, would have had any reason to assume they were lying.

  He hadn’t been in touch with Badstuber since that evening to know what story she was telling. Perhaps Badstuber, downed by Morlock’s bullet, had no story to tell anyway.

  He had seen her in hospital later, but she had been asleep or unconscious, he wasn’t sure. By the following day her husband had arrived, and Jericho had not gone back to see her.

  He wondered about her, now, two weeks later, but had not called. He knew that Haynes had asked after her, and that she was at home, in Interlaken, recuperating. But a call to her home was out of the question. He would speak to her husband, and her husband would know. He would know why Jericho was calling, would know that Jericho had saved his wife’s life. He would want to thank him, and he would be wary of him at the same time. Maybe even frightened of him.

  It was likely he would never see Badstuber again, and that was for the best and just how it had to be.

  He was so removed from his surroundings, so wrapped up in an internal monologue that seemed largely based on denial and avoidance, that he didn’t notice Haynes until he was sitting down beside him, resting a small, transparent Tesco bag on the grass.

  ‘Afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘I brought lunch.’

  Jericho looked at the bag, and then at Haynes.

  ‘How’d you know where I was?’

  ‘I’m a detective,’ said Haynes, smiling. ‘Lovely day. There’s a hoisin duck wrap and a BLT on brown. Water and a couple of bags of Kettle Chips. And two apples.’

  ‘You brought fruit?’

  Haynes shrugged. Jericho didn’t bother pursuing it. That was what happened when you started seeing someone new. Your evenings filled up, you shaved more often and you started eating fruit.

  ‘Did you get your two weeks approved?’ asked Jericho.

  ‘With some enthusiasm, it was said.’

  ‘What? Who was enthusiastic?’

  ‘The new boss. He wants me to have a break before I get back and get started, heading up the new investigative division.’

  ‘Good, you deserve it. Where are you going?’

  ‘Looking at a couple of places. Not sure yet. Toss-up between Vietnam and the Seychelles. Different kinds of holiday, obviously. We’ll make a decision at the weekend.’

  Jericho nodded his approval. A romantic holiday for two. Those days for him were far, far in the past.

  Haynes lifted the sandwiches out the bag, offered them to Jericho, who took the BLT.

  They lurched into silence. They hadn’t talked about Amanda at all since Oslo, the agreement between them not to mention her one of silent acknowledgement. It was coming, though, Jericho knew it, and here, on a hillside away from the office, beneath the blue sky and the feathered clouds and the circling gulls, was the right place.

  ‘I’m going to go and look for her,’ he said suddenly.

  Haynes, midway through a bite, continued chewing, giving Jericho a brief glance. Jericho swallowed some water, opened up his sandwich.

  ‘Well...’ began Haynes, but then he realised he wasn’t sure what else to say. Part of him was surprised his boss was even prepared to admit she had been there.

  ‘I’m... I’ve been screwed up since January. Just... what have I been doing? Paperwork. Processing. Barely had my brain in gear. I don’t know what the police were doing letting me back. They were probably worried I’d sue them if they didn’t. Can’t even say I’ve been firefighting, because there weren’t any fires. Not until Carter was killed out there.’ He cast a casual hand out towards the Levels. ‘She tried to talk to me, and I couldn’t even see her. Too fucked up. Didn’t want to see her. Didn’t even hear what she said. How could she have been alive all this time? Jesus... What has she been doing? A phone call, a letter... I don’t know, something. She couldn’t let me know?’

  He let the words go, but the frustration stayed on, draped over him, in his demeanour, the look on his face.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be better looking under the auspices of the police?’ asked Haynes.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. And thank you, by the way. I know you haven’t said anything. We should be re-opening the investigation into her disappearance, but I don’t want to, I don’t want someone else taking it up, and I appreciate your silence. But no, no police. I’m going to go off and do this on my own. Who can we trust, anyway? You saw that guy, Torsveg. You think he was taking the book away to use it as evidence in the police enquiry, or do you think that’s the last any of us will ever see of it? That, as we speak, it’s being dispatched to the furthest reaches of space, or dumped at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? That guy, Torsveg, was as much part of it as, I don’t know, the guy who kidnapped the professor.’

  ‘Or maybe Geyerson was telling the truth, and it wasn’t the real thing anyway.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Where would you even start looking?’ asked Haynes.

  Jericho shook his head.

  ‘I’m not thinking about it. Not yet. I need to get this week out of the way, and then, I don’t know, maybe take a couple of weeks off, then we can get to it. You never know, this might be it. It might be over. She might be gone. Perhaps I missed my chance. But she’s out there, somewhere, and it’s pretty obvious she’s fighting against this Pavilion, whoever they are. Maybe she escaped from them last summer, that might have been it, then she came to see me. And there I was...’

  He grunts, waves away the thought. There was nothing to be done about it.

  ‘I won’t bug you,’ he continued, ‘but maybe occasionally you might do me a favour, if I need police records checking, that kind of thing.’

  Haynes nodded. Dylan, were she still here, would be going mental if she heard this conversation.

  Jericho lifted the packet, using it as a prop, and said, ‘So, we’ve got a secret society, a mysterious book that was the original source of their power, but which Amanda said is now worthless, we’ve got my wife running as a rogue agent against them, and...’

  ‘And they appear to condone, if not out and out pay for, acts of mass murder, in order to keep their secret.’

  Jericho nodded, as he pulled out the first sandwich. He took a bite, looked out over the green landscape, running away to the Quantocks and the Bristol Channel in the far distance.

  ‘Suppose I should show you something,’ he said, his voice sounding heavy
. ‘Didn’t really help keeping it a secret last time.’

  Haynes gave him a sideways glance, then looked away. Immediately had the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. He kept the expletive to himself, stared at the grass, waited for it.

  Knew what was coming. Hadn’t they almost been expecting this?

  Jericho reached into the pocket of his jacket, which was lying on the grass beside him, lifted out a small card, and laid it on the grass in front of them. Similar size and design to those that had been sent to him previously. The design had moved on from the Death card and the Hanged Man.

  This one showed the Fool, dancing serenely with a flute and a happy skip in his feet. He held a cane in his right hand, which he rested on his shoulder, with a bundle tied to its end. In the corner of the card, the sun was shining, in the distance the green hills.

  ‘Aw, crap,’ muttered Haynes.

  There was no depiction of death; there was no mockery. Just a colourful card, and at its centre the Fool, staring back at them – the sun refusing to glint off the matt surface of the card – far wiser than the two detectives.

  ###

  Also by Douglas Lindsay

  The Barney Thomson Novels

  #1 The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson

  #2 The Barber Surgeon’s Hairshirt

  #3 Murderers Anonymous

  #4 The Resurrection Of Barney Thomson

  #5 The Last Fish Supper

  #6 The Haunting of Barney Thomson

  #7 The Final Cut

  Other Novels

  Lost in Juarez

  The Unburied Dead (DS Thomas Hutton #1)

  A Plague Of Crows (DS Thomas Hutton #2)

  The Blood That Stains Your Hands (DS Thomas Hutton #3)

  Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

  A Room With No Natural Light

  Barney Thomson Novellas

  The End of Days

  The Face Of Death

  Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer