Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy: Sanctus, The Key, The Tower

For as long as Ruin had existed, the Umbrasian or Shadow Quarter had been the least popular and therefore least populated part of the city. Tucked below the northern side of the Citadel, the streets here remained permanently shrouded in the shadow of the mountain, even at the height of summer. In the modern era its cheap land prices made it the perfect location for the vast car parks needed to cater for the armies of tourists swarming to the city. It was into this valley of cold, grey concrete that the van now drove.

Once they left the anonymity of the ring road, Gabriel dropped further back and slid in behind a shuttle bus. The van turned sharp right, down a narrow alleyway between two huge multi-storey monstrosities.

Gabriel continued on past, pulled a fast U-turn, mounted the pavement, killed the engine and tilted the bike against its foot-rest. He slid off the detachable side-mirror and sprinted to the corner of the building, flipping up his visor as he went. He squatted against the wall, held the mirror low to the ground, angled down the alley, which ended at a sheer rock face that rose to the old town wall. He watched as the van came to a standstill. A man with long dark hair and a beard leaned out of the driver’s window and swiped a card through an entry machine then glanced back in his direction.

Gabriel froze.

With no sunlight to reflect off the mirror the only thing that would give him away was movement.

He studied the driver. The man looked more like a rock star or a movie actor than a hired thug. After a few moments the van eased forward and disappeared into the side of the building.

Gabriel pulled the PDA from his pocket. The pulsing white dot moved across the top of the screen, where the rear of the garage met the side of the mountain. He stuffed the mirror in his pocket and stood up. Hundreds of pairs of headlights peeped over a low wall that stretched away to his left, like convicts contemplating freedom. Gabriel vaulted the wall and hurried inside.

The place was cold and damp and smelt of oil and petrol fumes and urine. Aware that he was probably on CCTV he moved towards a distant Audi, made like he was about to get in it, then knelt as if for a fumbled key and stole another long look at the PDA.

The white dot was no longer within the confines of the car park, but passing through the bedrock beyond. He watched it cut across the streets and buildings of the old city, aiming straight for the Citadel. When it was two-thirds of the way there, it froze, blinked and disappeared.

Gabriel moved over to the cold concrete of the back wall and held the PDA directly against it to boost the signal. The dot flashed on again, closer still to the Citadel.

Almost at the boundary of the old moat, it flickered out completely.

68

Kutlar sat up front, staring into the jagged darkness of the tunnel. The rumble of tyres across the uneven floor and the hammering of the diesel engine combined to produce a singularly mournful sound. The vibrations rattled the plastic dashboard and plucked at the stitches in Kutlar’s leg. He relished the pain – it kept him focused and proved he was still alive.

His head was fuzzy from the pills he’d taken. He realized he’d have to watch that. He’d have to stay sharp if he wanted to think his way out of this one. It had all come clear when Cornelius and Johann helped him out of the clinic and into the van.

‘You need to tell us what happened,’ Cornelius had said, like he was just offering friendly advice. ‘You need to tell us how the girl managed to escape. And, most importantly,’ he’d added, so close that the whiskers of his beard brushed against Kutlar’s ear, ‘you need to tell us what she looks like.’

That was why he was still breathing. They only had her name, but he had seen her face. As long as they were still looking for her, he was more useful to them alive.

The passage rose suddenly and emerged into a cavernous chamber. Johann swung the wheel and the headlights flashed across a steel door before they crunched to a stop. Johann killed the engine and he and Cornelius slipped out of the cab. Kutlar didn’t move. He watched them in the side mirrors. The chassis shifted slightly as the back doors opened and Kutlar heard the ripple of heavy plastic as the first of the stiffs was lifted out.

He’d been shocked when they popped the two paramedics. The doc’s death had been more acceptable somehow; no one would be that surprised when his body was eventually found slumped in the chair where they’d left him. He’d stepped across the line long ago when he got hooked on junk and started treating gunshot wounds. The medics, though – they were just civilians.

Glowing red in the brake lights, the monks reappeared from behind the van with the first body-bag and laid it by the steel door. When they’d twice repeated the process, Johann took out his swipe card and the door sprung inwards. Seconds later it clicked back into place, sealing the bodies inside.

Cornelius and Johann climbed back into the van.

‘I can help you find her,’ Kutlar said.

Cornelius turned to him, lip curled. ‘How?’

‘Get us out of here and I’ll show you.’ Kutlar tried to conjure up a smile but only managed a grimace. ‘I need to make a call.’ He shrugged theatrically. ‘But there’s no signal down here.’

Cornelius said nothing for a moment, just looked at the thin film of sweat bathing Kutlar’s skin despite the chill of their surroundings. ‘Sure,’ he said finally.

Johann twisted the ignition key.

The engine throbbed into life, the sound suddenly overwhelming in the confined space. Kutlar glanced at the wing mirror and watched the red glow fade from the cave as they drove away.

The three body-bags lay in the black silence of the mountain while torches were being lit in the maze of tunnels above by those coming to collect them. A little over twenty-four hours after escaping from the Citadel, Brother Samuel had returned.

IV

In the beginning was the World,

And the World was God, and the World was good.

Fragment from the Heretic Bible

69

As crime scenes go, the cold-storage chamber of the city morgue was about as good as it got. Highly restricted access had prevented the usual build up of partial prints, hair follicles and other assorted trace evidence that clouded most investigations. All the surfaces were clinically clean. And there was a complete CCTV record showing where the suspects had been and what they had touched.

‘There,’ Arkadian said, pointing at the edge of the bunched-up green plastic sheet on the trolley. ‘The first suspect touched it as he pulled it over himself.’

Petersen smiled. The only thing easier to lift prints off was glass.

‘He also touched that drawer.’ Arkadian pointed to locker number eight. ‘Let me know as soon as you find anything.’ He left Petersen laying out his brushes and unscrewing a tub of fine aluminium powder.

A uniformed officer was stationed by the door, ensuring no one else came in or out. Reis paced the corridor outside his office. He held up a specimen jar as Arkadian approached.

Arkadian took it without breaking his stride. ‘Where is she?’

‘First-floor staff room,’ Reis called after him.

The statement detailed everything that had happened to her from walking into the morgue to identifying the mystery man on the CCTV footage. Liv was preparing to sign it when Arkadian appeared. She still wondered what Gabriel’s game was and why he was playing it. She hadn’t described him as ‘the man who tried to kidnap me’. The most he had done was to impersonate an officer and offer her a lift into the city. He wasn’t the one who’d stuck a gun in her face. He hadn’t snatched her brother’s body either, although she still wasn’t sure what he’d been doing in the cold-storage room. In the end she’d settled for ‘the man who met me at the airport and claimed he was my police escort’. It wasn’t elegant, but it was accurate. She scribbled the date next to her name.

The uniformed officer checked her signature then scraped his chair back from the narrow table. Arkadian closed the door behind him.

Liv dragged a depressed-looking geranium across the table towards her and started deadheading it, pinching the shrivelled flowers from the choked stems and crumbling them into the pot. ‘Found him yet?’

Arkadian looked down into the street. It would have been the perfect moment for a police van to screech to a halt in front of the building with all three suspects cuffed in the back, but it didn’t happen.

‘Not yet,’ he said. A diesel rainbow was smeared across the wet road where the fire-trucks had parked. ‘We’re working on it.’ He turned back to the crumpled newspaper on the table between them, the front page now a kaleidoscope of letters and crossings out. ‘Had any luck with that?’

‘Haven’t had much time to focus on it, to be honest. Been kind of distracted.’

Arkadian said nothing, hoping the silence would soften her.

‘Do you really believe this is why they took him?’ She examined the scrawled symbols and letters once more.

‘Maybe. As soon as we catch them, we’ll ask. Until then, I’d like to ask you something.’ He laid the package Reis had given him down on the table-top.

Liv’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a buccal swabbing kit.’

Arkadian nodded. ‘Given what Reis got back from the lab, it would be very helpful for us to compare your DNA with your brother’s. It would also establish your biological kinship beyond any doubt.’ He slid the kit towards her.