MONOLITH (21 page)

‘Why have you been keeping this information to yourself?’ Jess said. ‘You knew I was checking on Voronov. You could have told me sooner.’

‘And how would that have helped?’ Hadley challenged. ‘You’re convinced that these accidents have some kind of pattern to them, you were so caught up with that bullshit you never asked anything about Voronov’s past.’

‘Bullshit? Do you still think it’s bullshit after what we saw today?’

‘And what did we see today, Jess? Another accident, that’s it.’

‘Why are you so resistant to my ideas, Alex?’

‘Which idea would that be, Jess? That the whole fucking building is jinxed? That Voronov has somehow overseen the construction of a place that wantonly causes the deaths of people who enter it? He’s not going to target his own workforce is he? Maybe someone is trying to drive him out.’

Jess shook her head.

‘I’m not resistant to your ideas, I just want more facts,’ Hadley said.

‘So that’s why you kept this information about Voronov to yourself?’

‘I’m sharing it now aren’t I?’

She regarded him angrily for a moment then reached into her pocket and pulled out her cigarettes. She lit one and drew on it, blowing the smoke in Hadley’s direction.

‘So tell me about Voronov’s grandfather,’ she said finally. ‘How do you know someone tried to kill him?’

‘His shop was attacked,’ Hadley informed her. ‘A mob of people the police reports of the time say but they don’t say why.’

‘Anti-semitic feeling?’ Jess offered. ‘Some of the Jew baiting was worse in other countries before it got bad in Germany? I read somewhere that Austrian Jews were being persecuted long before Hitler got going and there was Oswald Moseley and his cronies here in England.’

‘That’s true, but I don’t think the attacks on Voronov’s grandfather were racially motivated. His shop was attacked four times before someone finally torched it though. Whoever was behind it really wanted him out.’

‘Where was the shop?’

Hadley hit a couple of keys on the laptop and brought up a map that bore a large red circle enveloping one small part of the diagram. Jess leaned forward and looked more closely at it, her eyes widening as she saw the address.

‘The building where Voronov’s grandfather lived was on the same site as the Crystal Tower,’ she said, quietly. ‘Do you think that’s why Voronov wanted it built there? As some kind of monument or memorial?’

Hadley merely shrugged.

‘There’s something else strange about that location,’ he said. ‘And Voronov must have known about it, the surveys and ground inspections would have revealed it.’

Again Jess looked more closely at the laptop as Hadley hit more keys.

‘The building where his grandfather lived and now the Crystal Tower itself is built over one of London’s plague pits,’ he announced.

‘I wonder how many of the residents and businesses that are moving into the Crystal Tower know that,’ Jess mused. ‘Not exactly a big selling point is it?’

Hadley smiled.

‘The pits themselves are harmless,’ he said. ‘There was talk for years that the plague that killed the people buried in them might somehow seep out but that’s bullshit. The spores that carried the plague have been dormant for centuries.’

‘Dormant or dead? Could it be reactivated under the right circumstances?’

‘No,’ Hadley said flatly. ‘I’m no expert but everything I’ve ever read on that subject confirms that the bubonic plague is not a threat to the health of those living above those pits. Christ, Jess, they’re all over London, and they found another one in Farringdon not too long ago. The city’s riddled with them, if people were that frightened and there was even half a chance of an infection starting again half of London would have to be evacuated.’

‘Do you think Voronov does know that the Crystal Tower is built over one?’

‘He must do. Like I said the surveys and inspections would have revealed that long ago. But I checked the land records, the land has stayed in his family’s name even after all these years. They owned chunks of land on both sides of the Thames including the area where Voronov wants to build that hotel complex that’s subject to planning permission now.’

Jess took another drag on her cigarette, her eyes still fixed on the computer screen.

‘Do you think Voronov deliberately had the Crystal Tower built where it was because it was on the same location as the shop his grandfather used to own?’

Hadley shrugged.

‘Maybe he wanted to get back somehow at the city that drove his grandfather away,’ Jess mused.

‘Building a luxury tower block with exclusive apartments isn’t really “getting back” at anyone is it, Jess?’ Hadley smiled.

‘But just having the building there would be like a monument to his relative, wouldn’t it?’

Again Hadley shrugged.

‘A man like Voronov never does anything without a good reason,’ he observed. ‘You could be right.’

‘You still haven’t told me why his grandfather’s shop was burned down,’ Jess reminded him. ‘Were the police at the time sure it was deliberate?’

‘All the reports said arson.’

‘I wonder why? What could Voronov’s grandfather have done to make people want to kill him?’

‘It might have been an anti-Semitic thing but I don’t think so. It’s not like he was the only Jew living in London in the thirties.’

‘People didn’t like him for some reason?’

‘It’s not that they didn’t like him, from what I can gather, reading some of the witness statements from that time, they were scared of him. Or more to the point they were scared of the other man who lived there with him.’

Brian Dunham scanned the letter once more and shook his head gently.

‘What should I tell them, Mr Dunham?’ his secretary asked, watching as he smiled thinly, his gaze still fixed on the paper.

‘It’s impossible,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to tell his office that there hasn’t been sufficient time or notice given. We can’t drop all our other engagements, duties and commitments just to speak to him.’

‘There were a number of e-mails too …’

‘I read them,’ Dunham interrupted. ‘Could you take care of those too and just re-iterate that our schedules are full.’

The secretary nodded and was about to leave the office when Dunham got to his feet.

‘If anyone from his office or his organisation calls tell them I’m in a meeting will you?’ he said. ‘Whenever they call I’m unavailable.’

Again the secretary turned to leave and once more Dunham stopped her, this time smiling in her direction.

‘I hope whoever replaces you can be relied upon as much as I rely on you, Theresa,’ he said.

‘You needn’t worry about that, Mr Dunham, I interviewed the candidates myself. I’m not leaving you in the hands of any old temp.’

Dunham smiled.

‘I know you wouldn’t do that,’ he smiled. ‘When is the happy event?’

Theresa Jameson touched her swollen belly gently.

‘Next month,’ she announced. ‘Unless she decides to put in an early appearance.’

‘You already know the sex then?’

‘My husband and I wanted to. So we could plan things.’

‘Like a blue or pink nursery?’

Theresa smiled and nodded.

‘Well I’m happy for you that it’s a girl,’ Dunham went on. ‘My wife and I have two daughters and they’re more precious to me than anything in the world. I never wanted a boy, I know most men do but I always wanted a girl. They’re more civilised.’ He smiled broadly.

‘Until they get to their teens,’ Theresa reminded him.

They both laughed.

‘That’s true, although my girls were never any trouble, thank goodness but I put that down to my wife’s parenting skills rather than my own. I wasn’t at home as much as I should have been when they were growing up. Work responsibilities and all that. I know it’s not much of an excuse but it’s just the way it was.’

Theresa cleared her throat.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, Mr Dunham,’ she said. ‘Did the police find out any more information about that attack on your home the other night?’

Dunham shook his head.

‘No one saw anything they told me,’ he said. ‘Nothing that was of any use in the investigation anyway.’

‘So what are they going to do?’

‘There’s nothing more they can do.’

‘Is your wife alright? It must have been terrible for both of you.’

‘I’m just relieved that our daughters weren’t there. You’ll find that once you become a mother, the only thing that matters is protecting your children and I wasn’t sure how I would have protected them the other night.’

Theresa nodded, hesitated a moment longer than turned towards the door once more.

Dunham looked down once more at the letter, signed in Voronov’s sweeping hand then he balled it up and threw it into the waste bin.

‘And who was that?’

Jess took another drag on her cigarette.

‘Who was the other man?’

‘That’s the weird thing, no one knows,’ Hadley told her. ‘No one knows the other person’s name or any details about them and Voronov’s grandfather was the only person ever registered as living there at that address.’

‘If they were Jews who’d run away from Germany that’s probably not surprising. They’d have been terrified of persecution wherever they were.’

‘But they’d have had to register their names somewhere,’ Hadley said. ‘With the local council, with the police. The whole country was paranoid about foreign immigrants then and Voronov’s grandfather registered, didn’t he?’

‘Perhaps the other man had something to hide, whoever he was.’

Hadley could only shrug.

‘No name, no details, no description?’ Jess mused.

‘Nothing. It’s like he was a ghost.’

‘Maybe he was.’

‘Well, Voronov’s grandfather was from Eastern Europe wasn’t he so maybe the other man was a fucking werewolf or vampire or something. Perhaps I’d better check to see if there were any Transylvanian counts staying with him.’ Hadley looked blankly at Jess for a moment then back at the computer screen.

Jess merely sucked on her cigarette.

‘I don’t understand it,’ she murmured.

‘Join the club,’ Hadley echoed.

‘“As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who wasn’t there,”’ Jess intoned quietly.

‘What’s that?’ Hadley wanted to know.

‘A quote,’ she told him. ‘“He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish he’d go away.”’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s what we’re trying to do, find a man who wasn’t there.’

‘Thanks for the poetry interlude but it’s not helping.’

‘Nothing’s helping, Alex. Do the words needle and haystack come to mind?’

‘Perhaps the other man was killed in the fire,’ Hadley offered. ‘The one that destroyed the shop.’

‘It would have been in the police reports, wouldn’t it?’

‘Not if they found no trace of the body. It could have been incinerated. After all, forensics wasn’t exactly an infallible art in those days, was it?’

It was Jess’s turn to shrug.

‘Whoever the other man was it doesn’t tell me anything more about Voronov and the Crystal Tower. It doesn’t explain why so many people have died or been injured building the bloody thing. And don’t you say it’s co-incidence or bad luck or you’ll be joining the victims in the morgue.’

Hadley smiled.

‘What the hell is that?’ Jess said suddenly, her eyes drawn to the picture that was displayed on the computer screen. She moved closer. The picture was in black and white, grainy and much darker than it should have been but it was still possible to make out the content.

The picture showed a stretch of the Thames, the water lapping against the bank. There were boats passing by in the background but it wasn’t those that had caught Jess’s eye. Her gaze was fixed on the shape in the foreground. It was about ten feet from the water’s edge, half submerged in the dark waters of the river.

‘Alex, expand that,’ she said to Hadley who did as she asked.

They were both peering intently at the image now.

Hadley hit the zoom icon and the image grew larger if not clearer.

It was a figure. Tall and incredibly broad but its features were almost indistinguishable and yet there was something strangely familiar about it to Jess.

She reached for her Leica camera and scrolled through the photographs on the digital display until she came to the pictures she had taken inside Voronov’s penthouse earlier that day.

‘That’s what I saw in his apartment,’ she said, pointing to the figure in the black and white picture. ‘I swear to God it is. That’s the statue I saw in Voronov’s apartment.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hadley said, wearily.

‘Yes, look.’ She held up the phone. ‘It’s the same figure I’m certain of it.’

Hadley frowned, pointing at the computer screen and when he spoke his voice was low. ‘That picture was taken in 1933.’