The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (39 page)

"Report hourly."

He ended the call. So here it was. He knew that this was significant.

He reasoned that he could afford an hour of sleep before taking personal command on the ground. He closed his eyes.

A thought, unbidden and unwelcome, brought him to wakefulness. The date. What was the date? He had lost track, but it didn't take him long to work out that it was the twenty-first. The alarm clock by his head — the only illumination in the entire house — told him that it was two forty-five.

It was an absurd time to phone, but he knew that there would be no problem. If he didn't phone now, he would probably not get the chance again and that would be unforgivable.

He rose, left the apartment without being seen, then found a call box. From it he made his annual call to wish his mother a happy birthday and let her know that she was not yet alone.

*

In the morning, Beverley was woken from a dream of company and light by the phone. She was alone, of course; her whole life was coloured by that bitter, recurrent observation. Company in the evening, solitude in the morning.

"Yes?"

"Beverley? It's John Eisenmenger. We're in Carlisle, on our way to Scotland. I thought you'd better know."

She looked at the time. Seven-twenty. God, they must have started early. "Why? Is it Carlos?"

"I think he's gone to ground on Rouna, where the lab was."

"Why there?"

But he didn't answer. "If I'm wrong, it'll be up to you. We'll be out of it."

Don't
be
wrong
,
then
.

"Is it wise?"

"Look, I can't explain why, I just think it might be the place he'd go to."

She had respect for John Eisenmenger's sometimes-unearthly reasoning. She didn't argue.

"If I hear anything, I'll let you know," she said.

"Likewise."

*

It proved to be a long and tedious journey. Even though they had made relatively good time to Carlisle, thereafter the roads became narrower and they were caught by the rush-hour traffic through and around Glasgow. Thereafter, although there were fewer cars, the roads became steadily more twisting and dual carriageways a thing of a delightful, distant memory. It wasn't summer but the highlands seemed to attract caravanners as much as it did midges. The weather, too, decided that the illusion of vacation should be difficult. First it became overcast, then it began to drizzle steadily and then, as they bypassed Fort William, Gaia gave full vent to her malevolence.

They reached Ullapool at eight in the evening. Helena had had the foresight to find the number of the only local hotel that was open, and book a room. They didn't bother with an evening meal.

*

Rosenthal guessed where they were going when the report came in that they were north of Glasgow. His own contacts had failed to find any trace of Arias-Stella; he had nothing to lose by following their line, plenty to gain by getting there first. He wasn't interested in whether they were right or not. If they were wrong, he had wasted nothing.

He rang three numbers, arranging a helicopter, but the arrangements would take several hours and the weather forecast was bad. He didn't bother allowing anger into his thoughts. Time was not the limiting factor, not once they had found their way onto a remote island off north-western Scotland, where there was no easy way to escape.

He smiled.

They would wait, perhaps feeling safe. Once they were on Rouna, whether or not Arias-Stella was there, he could solve at least some of his problems.

*

Apart perhaps from the Grim Reaper, Lambert was the last person Beverley wanted to hear from.

"You're unwell, I understand."

"That's right, sir. Flu. There's a lot of it about."

Over the phone he sounded of an even more distantly related species. "Flu."

Flow did he do it? How did he turn one monosyllable into a complete diatribe of disbelief?

"That's right."

A pause, but one that intimated more menace, more scepticism. He didn't actually pronounce the phrase,
Oh
,
yes
? but it rang through the space in their dialogue like a distant but discordant parakeet. "Are you recovering?"

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the allusion.

"Yes, I think so, sir."

"And you'll be back, when?"

She was wondering that herself. The departure of John and the Snow Queen had found her feeling slightly spare, whether or not they were right. She might just as well wait for news at work, under the foetid dragon's breath of Lambert, as at home.

"Probably tomorrow, sir."

If he tossed his hat into the air, he did so without a sound that she could hear over the admittedly less than perfect phone-line.

"Good," he announced, the word ending with a dying fall.

Their communication was terminated.

"Well, fuck you," she said tersely. Which was odd, because he was one of the few people she knew that fell neither into the category of those she wanted to fuck, nor into the one of those she felt it would be useful to fuck. She stood, anger making her shake rather more than she would have liked to admit.
Bastard
!
Bastard
!
Bastard
!

She was aware of how inarticulate she was in such profane repetition, but aware too that she had nothing else. Lambert had presented no weakness to her that she could use; no sign that he desired her, no hint that he possessed those traits that were so useful once discovered. Her one chance was that she could somehow uncover — and prove (never forget the need for proof) — what PEP had been up to.

The phone rang again. Surely it wasn't Lambert back to taunt her?

"Yes?"

It was Frank Cowper. In a voice totally devoid of everything but puzzlement he told her that he had just learned that Mark Hartmann had hanged himself. He had thought that Beverley ought to know. She thanked him, slightly distracted in tone, then she sat back and wondered. To do with her? Was she in some way to blame?

Suddenly she felt dirty. It was just after noon, but she had yet to dress. She decided she needed a shower, aware that the desire for ablution — perhaps absolution? — was becoming habitual following intercourse. Washing away sin? She doubted that it was that straightforward because she knew from experience that nothing, without exception, was straightforward.

Under the water, as hot as she could stand (the pain, perhaps, another sign of guilt-punishment cycling) she washed, relaxed and enjoyed feeling the stigmata of Lambert dissolve away from her. She just stood under the water, hands on the tiled wall, mouth open, breathing steadily.

Her thoughts turned to Eisenmenger.

Was he right? He had the habit of being right, she knew; it had cost her dear once. But Rouna? Why in God's name did he think that Carlos would go back there to hide? Surely he would stand out on such a place, easily spotted if PEP had decided to station spies.

Yet, why should they? What was there for anyone to return to? It wasn't as if the laboratory still functioned, or even existed as anything more than a burnt ruin.

Still, whether right or wrong, she couldn't lose this time. If they were right, the agreement was that she would be their sole police contact; Carlos would make his statement to her and her alone. If they were wrong, there was still a good chance that the ears and eyes that Luke had deployed for her would find Carlos; she wouldn't need Eisenmenger and his little tartlet at all.

Even if the worst case happened — Carlos dead whether because of Proteus or because of Rosenthal's attentions — she hadn't actually done anything that could be traced back to her.

At least she hoped not.

She turned off the shower, banishing such negativity, stepping out and drying herself with a pale pink bath sheet, enjoying the feeling of the material on her skin. She admired herself in the mirror. Not bad, not bad at all. In fact, fucking good.

A small voice, mocking and spiteful, whispered,
Good
fucking
,
too
.

The telephone rang again.

"Bev?" It was Luke.

"Yes?"

"We've got a bite."

The man who owned the fishing smack was enjoying himself. Eisenmenger wasn't. Far from it. His stomach muscles were telling him to stop vomiting, his throat was wondering why all the traffic was suddenly going the wrong way, and his brain had decided that hell was a concoction of ozone, diesel oil, darkness, water and fish. He stood huddled at the back of the small, paint-flaking cabin, trying to ignore the lack of attention so assiduously applied by Helena and their captain.

Helena, whose only inconvenience was unsteadiness of her feet in the rolling sea, looked back, caught his eye, and came to join him. The cabin was poorly lit, and perhaps that was why she didn't try to hide her grin, but Eisenmenger had the suspicion there was more to it than that.

"Are you feeling better?"

He tried to give her a confident smile but somewhere between his cerebral cortex and his facial musculature, the nerve impulses went astray. Any movement of his skin seemed stiff, while any movement of his head produced vertigo. In the end, he satisfied himself with a necessarily curt, "What do you think?"

The grin didn't diminish, despite the fact that the boat hit a particularly solid wave, causing her to stagger slightly. Behind her their captain was peering into spray-filled night.

"Who'd have thought it?" she asked of no one and everyone. "That you should suffer from seasickness."

"Amazing," he agreed.

They had arrived at Ullapool only four hours before. Their plan had been to spend the night at the hotel, then cross to Morrister, the only town on Rouna, the following day. There was a regular ferry service, but it was more likely that they would have to find private passage. As soon as they had arrived it became clear that they could not afford to wait, however. The low pressure that had been with them over the second half of their journey had abated slightly, but a storm was coming. If they did not cross that night, the forecast suggested that they would not reach Rouna for at least two days.

Market economics had come into play. After following the advice of the hotel staff, they had gone to one of the local bars, thence directed to what was termed a restaurant, was in reality more of a cafe. In this place of grimy wooden panelling, dimness and dilapidation they found their man; their man if they paid him three hundred, one-way. More than slightly shocked by this demand, made without shame or even guile, Helena and Eisenmenger had hesitated but, as was pointed out to them, nobody else would go out that night, not for any money. It was only the fact that Helena had thought to visit a cash dispenser in Carlisle that meant they were in any position to take advantage of this generous offer. Thus they employed one Frankie Munro, owner and operator of the
Ocean
Beauty
— a description that might once have been accurate but which was now merely wishful — and thus they found themselves in the middle of heaving blackness, cold and wet, and, in Eisenmenger's case, ill.

Helena tried conversation. "It's odd. I'd never realized I wasn't seasick."

Eisenmenger had decided that pressing his head back against the wood of the cabin wall, almost trying to meld with it, might alleviate the malaise. He also decided that not speaking would help.

"He says it won't be too much longer."

In Eisenmenger's universe, where by some strange relativistic effect each second stretched and curled lazily into days, this did not elicit much acclaim. He managed a groaned, "Good," more out of politeness than joy. Munro glanced back and even if Eisenmenger had not seen the smile the very movement was contemptuous.

Helena gave Eisenmenger a sympathetic smile and moved back carefully to the front of the cabin, next to Munro. She asked, "Do you make the trip to Rouna often?"

Munro was only slightly taller than Helena, but his physique was compact, his forearms appearing muscular beneath the tatty green sweater he was wearing. He had a slight squint around which there had formed a deep scowl. He said nothing for a while then, in an accent that was peculiarly soft, "Why would I want to go there?"

Which was a question that was probably not impossible to answer, but proved beyond Helena.

"But there must be times, like this, when someone needs to get there quickly."

He might have been considering this, but he might also have been calculating pi to a thousand places. Finally, "Sometimes."

"Recently?"

He looked at her at last, long and hard. "No."

"Not a man, travelling on his own? A day or so ago?"

He had turned back to the view through the glass. The lights of the boat formed a soft, ill-defined cocoon in which they seemed only to move endlessly up and down; there was no impression of forward progress at all.

"I told you. No."

Well
,
it
was
worth
a
try
.

She turned away, and he said, "He caught the ferry."

Startled by this concession to civility and helpfulness, she asked, "Really?"

He gave her a look as if such small talk were for imbeciles, then resumed his perusal of the sea. Helena glanced back at Eisenmenger who despite occupying the pits of despair, had a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.

*

Rosenthal's rendezvous was in a field on the Wiltshire-Hampshire border at midnight. He was dropped from the car in a deserted lay-by of the A303 at eleven-fifty, not even looking back as the driver took it away, accelerating to sixty miles an hour, taking care not to exceed the speed limit. Within three seconds he had vanished from the roadside, climbed over a stock fence and was running to the meeting point.

He arrived just as the helicopter touched down, so that he didn't even have to break stride or accelerate, it was on the ground less than five seconds. Inside was a pilot and, behind him, was Bochdalek.

Rosenthal had not had the chance to choose his companion, time had been too short, and the presence of Bochdalek would have to be endured, but he was far from the perfect choice.

Technically proficient but, in Rosenthal's opinion, flawed, for Bochdalek enjoyed killing. Blood was to Bochdalek a sign of success, a thing to be savoured. Rosenthal's position was not one of ethics but of practicality; while Bochdalek was indulging in some psychopathic revelry he was vulnerable, which made his comrades vulnerable.

None of this showed as he nodded at Bochdalek, strapped himself in, put on the headset and tried not to show that he hated flying.

Bochdalek asked, "What's this about?" His east European accent and slightly high, whining tone gave Rosenthal memories of conflicts he'd rather bury. He shook his head, indicating the pilot in front of them. Bochdalek made a face but said no more.

*

Stirling
. Arias-Stella had withdrawn one hundred and forty pounds — destroying his bank balance — from a cash dispenser in Stirling on Tuesday. You didn't need a degree in geography to work out where he had been heading.

Eisenmenger had been right. Arias-Stella had gone back to Rouna.

Beverley went to the bedroom and began to pack a bag.

Lambert would have to wait for her return; she felt a relapse coming on.

*

Eisenmenger had hoped that returning to dry land would bring an immediate end to his torment but he was desperately disappointed in this optimism. As he stood on the quayside of Morrister in the darkness, his head continued to tell him that he was still being tossed erratically around and this sensation was actually worse than the real thing.

Munro had radioed ahead for the harbour master to help them, clearly being of the opinion that neither Eisenmenger nor Helena was going to be of much use. Even though the harbour was protected from the worst of the swell, Helena had been impressed by the considerable seamanship that Munro had shown in coming alongside safely and without damaging the boat, but this was short-lived because he turned to her at once and said, "Journey's over. I want you off. Now."

She opened her mouth to reply but Eisenmenger, who had risked disengaging himself from the woodwork and come to stand behind her, said in her ear, “He's worried about the weather. He's got to get back."

She swallowed her words and they took their meagre luggage out into the rain and wind. The harbour master helped them ashore and the
Ocean
Beauty
cast off without further acknowledgement from Munro. The rain increased, the wind likewise, and they had then the first sense of what they had done, where they had come.

It wasn't a particularly happy feeling.

The harbour master looked at them, his attitude suggesting that he, too, was wondering what on earth he had before him. He was wearing a long, thick, waterproof jacket, the hood pulled tightly around his bearded face, whereas Helena was bareheaded (but at least in something reasonably waterproof) and Eisenmenger's wardrobe had yielded only a scruffy wax jacket.

"Is there somewhere to stay?"

The harbour master closed his eyes, perhaps against the water dripping into them, perhaps because he could not quite believe that they had come all this way, in this weather, at this time of night, with nowhere arranged to sleep.

"There's a tavern. Marble's place."

He pointed behind them, then began to walk in that direction, leaving them to pick up their bags and follow.

*

Carlos dug his fork into the can of tinned fruit. Grapefruit. He hated grapefruit; had done since childhood, when his father, insisting on the medicinal properties of citrus fruits, had made each member of his family eat a whole one every morning. He shivered at the flavour, the sharpness and acid turning his mucous membrane to cloth. Jesus, he was hungry, had to have been to eat the muck, but tins of grapefruit were his only resource; the freezer and cool box had been empty.

He finished the tin and threw it inaccurately at the waste bin; it bounced off the top and clattered to the flagstones. With night coming, the temperature was dropping, a fact that his fingers and toes were increasingly vociferous in proclaiming. Soon he would begin shivering, his nose would run and he would feel wetness run down numbing lips, a salty dessert to the meal. Now that the oil had run out, life was not going to be good. He looked through the window at the dusk. The wind was blowing hard and increasing; soon it would be gale force. He remembered only too well that on Rouna there was never calm, that the locals, when they had talked to them at all, took great delight in warning them how it sometimes drove incomers mad. Rain smacked the windowpanes. Rain on Rouna tended to coruscate rather than caress.

He considered his options again. This exercise he performed approximately every twenty minutes, as if repetition would increase both their quantity and their quality, but he had only two and neither was top-notch. Stay here or carry on trying to find Stein's house. Staying here had the advantage of not inviting attention but the irksome disadvantage of no decent food and no heating. Moving on meant that he would find Stein more quickly (and the more he thought about it, the more desperate he was to locate the old man), but the weather looked as if it were as hungry as he. It might find him a tasty offering. He went into the sitting room, unsure of what to do. He perched himself on the sofa. Had it been necessary to run? Wasn't he just panicking?

In truth he didn't know, but he thought he had been wise not to wait for certainty.
Certainty
in
this
life
is
one
of
the
few
luxuries
we
will
never
have
. One of his father's aphorisms. When the old boy had been alive, he had come out with them all the time, and it had been a sort of family joke. Annoying, too, especially when school friends or girlfriends were there. Yet now they came to him more and more often and, although his father's face was no longer perfectly drawn in his memory, the voice and these quanta of reason were completely realized to him.

After the fire, after the arguments and recriminations, and after they had come to realize the monstrous trick that had been played on them, he and the others had drawn a pact of sorts. Nothing dramatic — no cut thumbs and signatures in blood, no oaths in the name of the elder daemons — but an understanding. That they would keep loose contact with each other, an awareness of where they all were and what they were doing, just in case PEP lost faith in its confidentiality agreements and decided that there was too much to lose if they should talk.

It hadn't worked, though. PEP had come like some sort of silent avenger, taking them all, one by one. No chance to warn anyone.

Except for Millie.

Millie had died of cancer.

What, he wondered, were the chances of one in six dying of cancer at the age of twenty-two? Fairly small, he knew. And she had apparently died quickly; an unexpected death.

Could it have been Proteus?

But she had tested negative. They had seen the results — all of them were clear of contamination following the accident.

So …

So the results were wrong.

And if the results were wrong for Millie, perhaps they were also wrong for him.