Age of Aztec (11 page)

“How? The mask distorts it.”

“Not so much the voice itself – the speech patterns, the syntax, the choice of words. Some one-on-one time with him, that’s all it’ll take. Me and him in a room together. I’ll know.”

“How many would there be on this shortlist?”

“I don’t know, sir. A dozen. Two dozen. A hundred. Depends on what my researches turn up. Why?”

“Why do you think?” Kellaway smoothed a hand compulsively through his thinning hair. So few strands left, all the more important to keep them in line. “The commissioner’s leaning even more heavily on me. Wants results, and now. The news people have been asked to go easy on reporting the Conquistador’s exploits, play it down, not sensationalise, and mostly they’re falling into line. But you can’t avoid the bare facts getting out there. Skew them how you will, they spread, the public takes note, and the Conquistador gets the attention he craves. My theory is that’s what’s behind the murder of Priest Marquand. Someone’s been reading the headlines and decided to get in on the action. And we can’t have that, Vaughn. We can’t have Conquistador wannabes. One’s bad enough. And now these Mayans... If this should turn into some kind of contagion, which is what the commissioner’s afraid of, then where will we be?”

“How about instituting a blanket ban on all media coverage of the Conquistador? High Priest Whitaker could issue a formal decree. That might help limit the, as you put it, contagion.”

“The commissioner and I discussed the possibility. Partly the trouble is, we’re too late. The cat is well out of the bag. If the Conquistador suddenly vanished from the airwaves and the front pages, it would smack of government interference. And above all else the freedom of the press is sacrosanct.”

“The illusion of the freedom of the press, don’t you mean?”

“Yes, well.” Kellaway waved airily:
same difference
. “His Very Holiness would have no problem with the idea of depriving the Conquistador of the oxygen of publicity, but all said and done, he’d rather deprive him of oxygen full stop. In fact, as I understand it from the commissioner, the only thing that’ll make the High Priest truly happy is the Conquistador’s head on a railing spike outside Westminster. Which brings us back to you.”

Mal nodded sombrely. “Yes, it does.”

“The one surefire means of undoing everything the Conquistador’s done, rectifying the damage he’s caused, is capturing him and making an example of him. All the very worst punishments available have to be visited on him, and his suffering has to be photographed and written about and filmed and broadcast, every minute of it, every single excruciating second. So that people know. So that they won’t forget. So that they’ll be discouraged from trying anything like it, ever again. I like this shortlist idea of yours, chief inspector. It shows I was right to give you the job. You’ve got flair and imagination, something all your predecessors lacked, including that plodder Nyman.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You have
carte blanche
to carry on the investigation in whatever way you see fit. You have an unlimited budget at your disposal. What you don’t have is time. Get cracking. We need resolution on this. We need a result. For the good of the nation, find the fucking Conquistador!”

“Y
OU.
Y
OU.
A
ND
you. You as well. And you, the one trying to hide – yes, you.”

Mal swept through the department, pulling junior officers from their desks.

“Drop what you’re doing. Whatever it is, it’s not important right now. As of this moment, you’re on my detail. You answer to me. And if you want to whinge about it, take it up with the chief super. Then watch him wrench off some vital part of your anatomy along with your badge.”

She commandeered a situation room, and addressed her small task force of new recruits.

“Here’s how it is,” she said. “By tonight I want you to have compiled a list of potential Conquistadors. We don’t have a lot to go on, but we do know this about him. He’s male. About six one, solidly built, thirteen, fourteen stone, something like that. In his late twenties, early thirties. Military background. I know, I know, that could describe thousands of people, but we can whittle it down further. He’s local, that’s almost certain. Almost all of his attacks have occurred in and around the capital. It’d be reasonable to assume he’s a Londoner. Also, he has a fair bit of dosh. Not rich, necessarily, but he abandoned a suit of armour the other day and turned up in another one yesterday evening. Those things must cost a bob or two, so we can assume he’s not penniless. Finally, he’s nursing some sort of deep-felt grudge against the Empire. Don’t know what, don’t know why, but it’ll flag itself up when combined with all the other criteria. Questions?”

There was a way of asking “Questions?” that indicated you weren’t actually interested in hearing any. Mal used it.

“Then what are you waiting for, ladies and gentlemen? Quetzalcoatl to return? Move your arses.”

I
T WAS A
long day, and it stretched well into the evening. Mal coaxed, chivvied and cajoled throughout, fuelled by the cups of coca Aaronson fetched for her, every hour, on the hour. Her team went through criminal records, military records, financial records, sifting, sorting, cross-referencing. When she saw their energy levels begin to wane, she pushed them to redouble their efforts. She led by example, refusing to show an ounce of the bone-deep tiredness she was feeling. The bruises left by the bolas balls ached. Just to hold her head up required superhuman stamina. But she could not flag, could not fail. There was so much at stake here, not least her own life. She was thirty-two. Not ready for Tamoanchan yet, or even the other place. And the chief super was depending on her, the commissioner too, the High Priest himself. She wasn’t going to let anyone down.

Finally, verging on midnight, she sent everyone home, Aaronson included. They’d all put in a good day’s work, and plenty of overtime, and between them they’d managed to rustle up a list of thirty-odd candidates each of whom fit the profile for the Conquistador.

Mal herself would gladly have gone home too. She was so exhausted she could barely see straight. Her coca buzz was fading and she knew that if she drank any more of the stuff she could pass out and maybe even end up in hospital with cardiac arrhythmia. It was down to just her now, her and her own inner resources.

She arranged the candidate dossiers on a table. Some had mugshots clipped to them, others not. She read through each one carefully. In many instances, the sum total of knowledge about the man amounted to no more than a few lines of text. With others, particularly those who had spent time being detained at His Very Holiness’s pleasure, there was a great deal of information, none of it painting them in a flattering light. Her gut instinct told her that the Conquistador wasn’t likely to be part of this parade of model citizens – stalkers, pub brawlers, wife beaters, flashers, kiddie fiddlers. They all of them used to be lower-ranked Eagle Warriors, non-coms, cannon fodder. Given his cunning and his articulacy, the Conquistador would have been higher up the pecking order, officer class.

By this process of elimination she was able to cut the number of suspects by half. That still left nigh-on twenty possibles, however, and no amount of filtering or compare-and-contrasting could seem to get that total any lower. Each man was as much Conquistador material as the next. The business executive? The blueblood? The publishing tycoon? The
tlachtli
team manager? Which?

There was nothing else for it. Mal jotted down the remaining candidates’ names on a sheet of paper, then left the building. She went out into Campbell-Bannerman Street, the broad thoroughfare formerly known as Victoria Street, renamed after the prime minister who signed the peace accord with the Empire, embraced the faith and became Britain’s first ever High Priest – all on the same day. A few blocks down from the Yard, there was a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. Mal approached the counter and asked for a vision quest package. The pharmacist demanded to be shown ID. The sight of Mal’s Jaguar Warrior badge knocked some of the snootiness out of him.

“That seems to be in order, madam,” he said. “One has to be careful. One doesn’t sell vision quest packages to just anybody. The law prohibits... but then you already know what the law prohibits.” He was flustered.

“Don’t panic, I’m not here to bust you. Unless you’ve been selling drug tinctures to people who aren’t certified sane enough to use, which I’m sure you haven’t.”

“Indeed not! Never!”

“Then we’re fine. I really am here to buy a package, that’s all.”

“Then let me be of service. Any particular preference? What sort of vision are you hoping to achieve? Prognostication? Communion with the gods? Self-realisation? Recreation? We have tinctures to suit all sorts, all of them naturally sourced and prepared according to time-honoured recipes.”

“I’m looking for answers. I need to make a choice.”

“Any specific choice?”

“Between men.”

The pharmacist interpreted this in a certain way and raised an eyebrow. “You’re after a husband?”

“No, I’m not. And I hope you’re not volunteering.”

He wanted to snipe back at her, but couldn’t. It didn’t pay to get lippy with a Jaguar. “I misunderstood. I beg your pardon.”

“I’m just after... clarity, I suppose. Insight into a dilemma.”

“Ah. Might I recommend, then, a draught of psilocybin mixed with honey? It’s traditional, highly palatable, goes down a treat, and the effects are gentle but potent. I prepare it specially myself, from mushrooms grown by reputable wholesalers, and my customers report back that the results are always satisfactory and that – ahem – ‘bad trips’ are rare.”

“Okay. If that fits the bill. I’ll take one dose.”

“Might I enquire whether you’ve had experience with hallucinogens before, madam?”

“A little. I used to dabble. Nowadays, not so much.”

“Are you on any medication?”

“No.”

“Do you have any underlying chronic health problems?”

“No.”

“Any ailments or diseases you’re presently suffering from?”

“Only premature mortality syndrome,” Mal muttered under her breath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. No diseases.”

“Splendid. I’ve just mixed up a fresh batch of ‘magic honey,’ as it happens. It’s in the cold store. Back in a jiffy.”

M
AL TOOK THE
psilocybin-honey draught home. The pharmacist recommended using it in a familiar, comfortable environment. That would help anchor her, in the event of “problems” occurring. He also suggested she void bladder and bowels beforehand, wear a loose-fitting garment, keep the telephone to hand just in case, and light a single candle but place it well out of reach where it couldn’t be accidentally knocked over. He wished her luck on her vision quest and handed her a receipt so that she could claim back the cost of the trip on expenses.

Mal set everything up as suggested. She sat herself cross-legged on the floor in a cotton kimono. The candle flickered on the mantelshelf. She held up the little phial of amber-yellow liquid, studying it by the dim flame light. At last she unstoppered it, raised it to her lips, took a deep breath, then swigged the tincture down in one gulp.

This was it. No going back now.

She placed the sheet of paper with the suspects’ names on it in front of her, propping it up against a cushion. She ran her gaze over the list countless times until she had memorised them all. Then she closed her eyes.

The sickly-sweet taste of the tincture clogged the back of her throat. She listened to the sounds in the flat – the whir of the air conditioning in the bedroom, the churn of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the occasional moth’s wingbeat of the candle as it guttered. She listened to the city noises outside too, and the floorboard-creaking footfalls of the young couple in the flat above as they prepared for bed. She hoped they weren’t about to indulge in one of their marathon sex sessions. That could definitely mess with her trip, hearing the accelerating thudding of bedstead against wall and the rising moans and groans that seemed to last forever.

The names
, Mal told herself.
Fix your focus on the names, nothing else
.

She felt odd. She felt light-headed. It passed. Then it returned, and her consciousness seemed to narrow inside her brain, becoming attenuated, like a wisp of smoke. There was herself and another self. She was Mal Vaughn, the physical entity, and a separate Mal Vaughn, a traveller in her body, a driver, a woman at the wheel who was gradually taking her hands off the controls. The car was coasting to a halt. It was on a night road somewhere, at a clifftop, far above a crashing sea. The cliff was extraordinarily tall, so high she couldn’t hear the sea any more. There were only stars. She was up among constellations, where the gods flew. The stars were points of ice, not suns. They had no heat. If you touched them they could cut like diamonds. You could pluck them out of the earth, if you wished to, like a miner in a mine. With your rock hammer and chisel you could dig pure raw starstuff out of the ground, the elements of creation, brilliant glints in the darkness. Mal was down below and up above at once, at the same time, in a confined space and surrounded by infinite space. Two things simultaneously. Opposites. Oneness in duality.

Almost as if on instinct, she latched on to that. Oneness in duality. A basic tenet of faith. One of the fundamentals of the Aztec religion. But also the Conquistador. What was he but two people in one, one person acting as two? He was contradiction. He had his real face and his public face. He had the face he saw in the mirror every day and his other face, his masked face, his not-face, the one he was famed for. He was a known unknown. He was a presence who was an absence. He was a celebrity whose identity was a secret. His truth was a falsehood. His pretence was a fact. His existence was nonexistent.

Who are you?

The names cycled through Mal’s mind. The names had colours. No, the names
were
colours. Each came with its own particular shade, its own suite of emotions and resonances. Some were brighter, brasher than others. They flared and swirled. Some came to the fore, others retreated into the background. They were like a painting she could walk through. Some were hot to the touch, others cool. They formed arches, corridors, labyrinthine crystalline structures.