The Turin Shroud Secret (43 page)

Weinstock drifts towards where the cops are sitting. Mitzi creaks her way up from the hard chair that’s rendered most of her
body numb.

‘Robert Weinstock.’ He offers a well-manicured hand and
smells of fresh cologne. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I was at a charity dinner with the Mayor.’

‘Lieutenant Fallon. Do you know why my friend and I are here?’ She nods to di Matteo. ‘Have you any idea what this guy has
done?’

‘I know enough.’ He treats her to a smile as rich as his suit. ‘And I promise I will be as prompt as professionalism will
allow.’

‘Doctor.’ Mitzi can’t help herself. Despite all her instincts, she can’t hold back. ‘I have to tell you something. We just
found out details, facts about his childhood that you really should know.’

LAX, LOS ANGELES

Ephrem makes a final check.

He puts two fingers to the scientist’s neck and searches patiently for a pulse. There is nothing. Broussard is dead. His job
is done. He repositions the corpse on the seat in the cubicle where he dragged him and pulls the garrotte wire from a deep
cut around the target’s neck. He wipes it free of flesh and blood, threads it back into a soft leather braceletlike holder
and refastens it around his wrist.

The monk stands on the toilet and looks over the stalls.
They’re empty. He pulls himself up and over the partition, slips down the other side, opens the cubicle door and walks out
of the restroom.

The hall is still full of tired passengers standing impatiently in lines. He walks slowly and confidently to the short US
residents line. It had been amusing to him to see Karakandez working the plane, checking names against the manifest, not noticing
him as he disappeared down one aisle while the cop went up the other.

There are only five people ahead of him. The guard is methodical and efficient, moving people swiftly on but taking long,
hard looks at their faces.

Ephrem reaches the head of the line. He takes the passport from his pocket and waits to be called forward. Five minutes from
now, he knows he’ll be free.

Nic shows his badge to the guard working the last Homeland booth and the official calls airport security.

Across the glass cubicles word spreads quickly. One by one the border officers shut their windows and walk from the gates.
No one’s getting through until the cop’s reunited with his travelling companion. Passengers in the queues start to complain.
It’s late. They’re tired. A delay of any kind, let alone a big security sweep, is the last thing they want.

Nic and the guard walk the lines. Broussard isn’t in them.

Where the hell is the guy?

He sees a restroom to the left and remembers how pale the Frenchman had looked. He doubles his pace and strides over there,
towing the border guard behind him. As they go inside the guard unholsters his gun. Nic shows his badge to a couple of guys
stood at the latrines. ‘LAPD, finish up and stand back against the far wall.’

‘Do as he says.’ The guard raises the gun.

‘Keep them there while I check the stalls.’ Nic looks down the line of doors and pushes the first. It swings wide and reveals
an empty cubicle. He does the same with door two. Empty.

So are the next three.

Door six is locked. He steps inside the fifth cubicle and climbs on the toilet. Over the panel he sees a body slumped forward,
head against the partition.

‘Édouard
…’

Nic vaults the partition and drops into the stall.

He pulls the scientist upright.

Broussard’s shirt is soaked in blood. There’s a gaping wound in his neck.

Nic lets the body slump and steps out of the cubicle feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. Édouard’s murderer is gone.

The only question is – how far has he got?

Ephrem stands at the front of the line.

The whole area is in lockdown and he’s only a step from getting away with murder. He looks at the empty space beckoning to
him from beyond the booths. Freedom. He knows his false passport will survive extra scrutiny. Knows he can tough out
any
questions the border police throw at him. But Karakandez is different. A wild card. He looks for him. There are two hundred,
maybe two hundred and fifty people, still standing in the roped lines. More coming from the arrival gates. And it’s hot. The
aircon must be out. He watches the cops and guards slowly working the lines, inspecting passports, visas and asking questions.

Way over at the back, he sees paramedics pushing a blanket-covered emergency trolley out of the restrooms.

The scientist.

Now he sees Karakandez. He’s walking away from the rest, moving quickly, scanning every face. Running on instinct not logic.
Ephrem turns away. A border guard is at the front of his line, asking questions. ‘Can I see your documents, sir?’

He hands over the passport without speaking.

‘Where you from, Mr Blake?’

‘New York.’

The official’s eyes flick from the photo to Alvin Corri Blake. ‘Which part?’

‘Brooklyn. Out near the Navy Yard.’ He looks the official straight in the eyes. The jerk is trying to guess his ethnicity
– struggling to pigeonhole him as Hispanic, African-American – maybe Arabic and therefore by default a Muslim terrorist. ‘Case
you’re wondering, I get my perma-tan from my Christian Lebanese mom and my youthful good looks from my Catholic longshoreman
dad.’

‘Is that so?’ The guard shakes his head and hands the passport back. There’s always a smart-ass in the lines. ‘Enjoy your
stay in LA.’

‘Thanks.’ Ephrem returns the passport to his jacket and the guard moves on. He notices Karakandez with another cop. He’s close
now, just a few yards away. For a split second their eyes catch. He looks away. The face of a fat woman to his right is beaded
with sweat and she looks ready to faint. He pretends to help her. So does a female cop.

Nic peels away and discreetly shows his shield to the guard who checked Ephrem’s credentials. ‘Where was that last guy from?’

‘New York, out Brooklyn. Caught me eyeballing his skin colour, says his old man is American but mom is Lebanese or something.’

‘Lebanese,
that’s what I thought he said.’

The fat lady falls like a big round pine tree and brings gasps from the passenger lines. She goes down face first. A lady
cop stoops to see if she’s all right.

Ephrem goes to help too. Help himself to the gun on the officer’s belt.

CENTURY HOSPITAL, INGLEWOOD

Just before midnight Robert Weinstock emerges from the secure side ward and Mitzi tries unsuccessfully to read his face as
he steps toward her and di Matteo. Sister Dawson predictably flutters from her station to his side.

‘Hello, Lieutenant. Again my apologies for keeping you waiting.’ He turns to the sister. ‘Do you have somewhere more private
that I may talk to the officers?’

‘My office. Please follow me.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll stay here.’ Di Matteo gestures at the Creeper’s room.

The three of them make the brief trek from the open area around the corner into a small ten by ten office.

‘Thank you, Sister. That will be all.’ Weinstock shuts the door after her. ‘Okay, please sit down.’

Mitzi looks depressed. ‘Am I going to need to?’

‘I think you are.’

Mitzi takes another bum-numbing plastic chair and he pulls up one opposite her.

‘You know what the M’Naghten Rules are?’

Her heart sinks. ‘Not guilty by reason of insanity, right? Gift from the good old British to our wonderful mess of a judicial
system.’

‘You’re right. And according to those rules, the man I just saw
is
mentally ill. There is no question about that. He is lucid enough to know his own name, address, age and job, but his spontaneous
lapses into Latin, his intermittent dialogue with God and his profound and persistent self-mutilation are clear signs of extreme
mental instability. I have little option but to begin the process that will admit him into institutionalised medical care.’

Mitzi covers her face with her hands. Carter is going to be suicidal when he hears this.

‘I have only done a preliminary examination tonight, but it’s already sufficient to determine that he is delusional and would
easily meet the M’Naghten criteria of temporary mental impairment. Put simply, at moments when he kills, Mr James doesn’t
believe it is wrong to do it. He is a danger to both society and himself.’

‘What about the “Policeman at the Elbow” test? This guy crept into women’s houses and killed them in their sleep. Would he
have taken their lives if there’d been a police officer in the room?’

Weinstock forces out a thin sympathetic smile. ‘Maybe. But Mr James’s case isn’t as simple as I’ve made out.’

Mitzi flinches. ‘Nothing I’ve heard sounds simple. So something in his brain, in his genes, in his upbringing drove
him to do it – anything except the fact that he just
wanted
to.’

‘Lieutenant, please. I understand your frustration, but this won’t help.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Mr James is completely aware of what he has done. He understands why you are here and that I intend to have him admitted
into psychiatric care. Nevertheless, he has asked to see you.’

LAX

Nic isn’t distracted by the woman’s fall. His eyes never leave the lithe-looking guy at her side, bundling into the cop and
going for her gun.

Ephrem turns and lets off a shot into the roof of the hall before anyone closes on him.

Screams break out and people hit the ground. He scoops up a young girl in a yellow dress, wraps his left arm tight around
her. The kid’s no more than four and for now she’s going to be his shield.

‘Stay away!’ His shout is aimed at two guards with drawn weapons ten metres away. ‘Drop the guns and stay back or I’ll shoot
her.’

Pistols clatter to the ground and Ephrem edges back
between the glass booths. They’ll come after him, he knows that. He has to slow them down. He snakes the gun around the terrified
girl and fires two shots into the huddle of petrified passengers. The first hits a teenager in the back. The second spurts
blood from the head of an old man in a wheelchair.

The monk bolts into the luggage area, still carrying the kid.

Nic is first after him; most of the cops and guards are sorting out the wounded and the mayhem. Someone will be on a radio
calling for back-up but it might be too late. Up ahead are unsuspecting customs guys. They’re lazily waiting to do final card
checks before passengers wriggle free of all the border bureaucracy and disappear into the main terminal.

‘He’s got a gun!’ shouts Nic. ‘The guy’s got a gun and a hostage!’

Too late. Shots bark. The guard to Nic’s left goes down. Then his buddy on the right.

More screams erupt from passengers. Nic grabs a Smith and Wesson from an injured guard and unclips the safety. He clears the
automatic doors. The arrivals hall is packed.

A wave of people crashes into him. The shooter is gone. Nic can’t see beyond the flotsam of white name cards held aloft by
waiting drivers. He spots a flash of black jacket slipping through one of the exits. It has to be the guy.

He pushes his way to the exit. Outside he turns right. The shooter is facing him.

In a blink Nic checks for the little girl. She’s not there. He sights his gun.

Too late.

A bullet tears into his left shoulder. Rocks him. Sends his senses racing.

Years of training kick in. He keeps focus. Breathes slow. Squeezes the trigger. Blood spurts in the distance. There’s a bang.
Like a clap of applause. He sees a hazy figure stagger. A second bullet rips into Nic. He never saw it coming. Never expected
this.

His legs buckle. No pain. Not yet – it’s still being trucked in, lorry loads of the stuff. He can’t breathe. Shock freezes
his lungs. He can’t get a whisper of air into his body. A wave of cold trauma drowns his nerves and brain. Nic
sees
his hands but he can’t move them. Can’t
feel
them. Blood puddles through his fingers.

He’s hit in the stomach. It’s a bad one. That much he knows. He’s caught a real bleeder.

CENTURY HOSPITAL, INGLEWOOD

Mitzi can’t believe how peaceful James looks. Despite the mass of crusting red crucifixes on his face and chest, there even
seems to be a smile lying smugly on the soft hammock of his lips as he rests against a pile of pillows.

Anyone who’s done what he’s done should never be
allowed to rest. Goddamn animal should be kept awake until his dying day and Mitzi hopes that’s sooner rather than later.

Weinstock closes the door behind them and the Creeper’s lids shutter.

Mitzi swallows hard. She doesn’t want her rage to show. Not yet. Not until the evil-crazy-psycho-nutjob has said whatever
it is he wants to say.

John James looks sleepily from the lieutenant to the psychiatrist as he fights the effect of the sedatives.

Mitzi pulls up a chair alongside the bed. ‘Mr Weinstock here says you want to talk to me.’

He nods slowly. ‘I do.’

She tries to take the hate out of her eyes, tries not to think of all the crime scene pictures she’s seen of women covered
in sheets, of holes left in people’s lives.

‘I know what I did, Detective.’ His voice is weak. He reaches for a glass of water on a bedside cabinet. ‘I took the lives
of other human beings. I need you to understand that they wanted to be taken.’

‘Sure they did.’

‘They did. All but Bass and Emma – my Emma.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He takes a sip of water. ‘I killed Bass because she and Harrison made Emma’s life hell. God didn’t tell me to. I just wanted
to. I would have killed Harrison too had she been there when I broke into her home.’

Seems to Mitzi that she was right about Jenny’s phone. ‘To be clear,’ she glances at Weinstock, making it understood that
he’s a witness to what’s being said, ‘you admit to the premeditated murder of Kim Bass and attempted murder of Jennifer Harrison?’