The God Hunter (7 page)

 

CHAPTER 13

THE DEATH BRINGER

D
etective Ganz talked on. From time to time she raised a hand and pushed her hair back from her face; a nervous gesture, as it seemed to me. She was a handsome woman, with strong, pointed features, a straight nose, tapered chin, and large, pale blue eyes. Yet she seemed harassed, her eyes offset by shadows of fatigue, her lips inclined to press together; now and then she'd chew the lower one. She smoked a string of strong-­smelling cigarettes until the room grew gray. Smoking was a habit I had not so far acquired, but if I ever cared to start, I was certainly getting in some practice.

“Two years ago,” she said.

She clicked another picture. It showed a hotel room: anonymous, a bit old-­fashioned; familiar-­looking, but then, hotels often are.

“He died in bed.”

I was looking at a puppet. A dried-­up, broken-­looking puppet. It had been carefully arranged upon the bed, one elbow crooked at a peculiar angle, the sheets creased and furled around it like a nest. It had been dressed up in pajamas. From the collar, the head protruded like a wrinkled turnip. There'd been some crude attempt to shape it into human form, the sharp ridges of cheekbones, the radiator grill of teeth fixed grinning where the mouth should have been. Objects like yellow peas sat in the orbits of the eyes, which were deep and shadowed. Gray hair splayed across the pillow. It looked wrong, like something put together out of sticks and rags, and it lay there, lit up stark and bleak by the photographer's flash.

She told me, “He was forty-­four years old.”

I stared down at the desktop.

“Dealer in jewelry and quality watches. Making good life in new Hungary. Wife, children. Probably mistress, too. Underworld connections, not one doubt; you cannot run such business otherwise. But he himself, no misdemeanor.”

I said, “You're sure that's the man?”

“Sure one hundred percent.”

“But what makes you think—­like, how can this be murder? Surely, it's more, more . . .”

She flicked through screens. Here was a body lying on a tiled floor, mercifully covered by a sheet.

“Woman, unidentified. Probable vagrant. Only case, so far, out of city.”

I didn't want to ask. I really did not want to ask. But I said, “Where?”

“Esztergom,” she said.

I felt myself go rigid for a moment; then I shrugged, as if I'd never heard of it.

“This, five months later. Three months after that, another killing, back in city. Intervals go down each time. Last night was seventh.”

“All in the same hotel . . . ?”

“Close, at first. Then wider. Two in street. Two in apartments; no signs of forced entry. One in parked car. This last: kitchen worker, restaurant, left alone to clean up. His turn for dish duty.”

“Lucky him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” I glanced warily at the scene on the screen. It was like a puzzle picture; a jumble of unpleasant, ugly shapes that made no sense at all till you looked closely, and even then, they didn't make a lot.

I sat back, shook my head to clear it. “These aren't murders,” I said. “These are—­I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But these are—­it's an illness of some kind. Some kind of plague or something. It's public health, not a police matter—­”

She simply looked at me, expressionless.

I waved my arms. “It's like—­I don't know, maybe it's some kind of fast-­acting AIDS, or Ebola, something like that. Or a new drug. Like crack, or, or . . . You can't murder someone so they look like this. It isn't possible.”

“We have good pathologist, Mr. Copeland. We are not backwards.”

“I wasn't trying to suggest that. Seriously, though . . .”

“I agree, yes. Is very serious. And we are promised help from Registry, with special expertise. Is this too serious? Too difficult? Do we look elsewhere?”

Time to pick a fight and leave. Tell Shailer I did what I could, the Hungarians were unco-­operative, blah blah blah. But I hesitated just a bit too long, and Detective Ganz took it for assent.

“There is evidence of sexual assault in five of seven bodies. Perpetrator has no preference for gender; anus and vagina both penetrated. Lack of genetic material suggests perhaps implement was used. Or man wears condom. Interesting, if so. He is frightened of infection? Who knows? Puncture wounds to abdomen, torso, and limbs; occasionally head. You will see these if you watch more closely.” She paused a moment, sounding like one of my old-­school teachers. Aside from the subject matter, anyway. “At some point, close to end, liquids are drained from body. In three cases, this is very thorough; even the colon appears dried and shriveled. Our ‘Bloodsucker' is misnomer, but we let it stand. No vampire, Mr. Copeland. No superstition. Flesh is dried out, drained. Bone is weakened.

“No link apparent between victims, though all alone at time of death. Opportunist, we suppose. No clues. Like they are murdered by a ghost, Mr. Copeland. I am being humorous here, you understand. But not fully. There are no fingerprints, no traces. Like movie film
Invisible Man
. Here is invisible man. He comes, he enters without violence, commits murder no one sees or hears, and goes again.” She folded one hand on the other. “Is this the sort of thing you deal with, Mr. Copeland? I would be very happy if it were. Very happy. If you tell me, ‘He is one point seven meters tall, has blonde hair and a scar upon his face,' perhaps? That would be very much appreciated. Can you do this, Mr. Copeland? Can you? I would welcome it a great deal.”

She held me with a long gaze. Then she sighed and lit another cigarette.

I said, “I don't see why I'm here, to be honest. I'm not a detective or a medical man. I'll offer any help I can, of course, but, really . . .”

“You are here,” she said, emitting a long trail of smoke, “because Mr. Shailer gives much money to my boss that I accept your help. So, Mr. Copeland: will you help me? I ask as courtesy, you understand. If you say no, is good by me. Yes? No? OK?”

 

CHAPTER 14

PHONE

I
t was a warm day. There was a hint of something chemical in the air, a smell like nail polish remover. Ganz went off to fetch a car, and I keyed Shailer's number in my cell phone.

I remembered him that first night, answering his phone every ­couple of minutes. Now it rang and rang.

The answerphone kicked in. I rang off, dialed again.

On the fifth attempt, he finally decided to reply.

A click. An open line, muffled background noise; a crowd, a sauna maybe, or a meeting room.

“Chris,” he said. “Be quick. Can't talk now, old buddy . . .”

“Shailer. What the fuck is going on?”

“Shouldn't be talking here, Chris. I'm just about to board. What's the problem?”

“You know what the fucking problem is! You dropped it on me! Where are you, anyway?”

“I'm at the airport, Chris. You know? Where you left me, after Esztergom?”

Not a trace of last night's bonhomie; the voice was dead, drained of expression. And it wasn't just a coke hangover, I was damn sure.

“Chris,” he said, “I'm going to Berlin now, Chris. Next leg of the tour. I have a speech to make. Now, I left you a job to deal with, and I'm expecting you to deal with it, OK? I'm trusting your discretion. You need to be discreet. I'm emphasizing that. You need—­ah. One minute.”

Blurred words, rapid conversation. Silence. When he spoke again, his voice was low. I pictured him hunched in a corner, shielding his mouth with his hand.

“You filed a report, Chris. You filed a report stating specifically that you'd had an equipment failure, and that you claimed you fixed it. You claimed you solved the problem, Chris. At no point does this report make any mention about me. Only you, Chris. Only you. Hear that? And it doesn't matter who you talked to, way back then. So sort it out, will you? Get it dealt with. Or I'm not sure I can save you from the consequences. Understand?”

 

CHAPTER 15

THE DEAD ROOM

I
sat low in the passenger seat of Ganz's car. I didn't speak. I didn't look at her. She might have thought that I was sulking, but that's because I was.

Since when did I do work for O&D? Since when did I turn into Adam Shailer's fix-­it man? The little shit had shafted me. Again. After all these years, I was still picking up his mess for him. This wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

Worse than that, I'd only got myself to blame. I'd thought that I was so damn smart, playing the game, swallowing my anger, doing it the way the big boys do it, all those years ago; going with the company politics. I should have put in a complaint right then and there. I'd wanted to. But ­people had told me no, don't try it that way, best forget, move on. And I'd followed their advice; I'd toed the party line. And now I got my just reward. No good deed goes unpunished . . .

“You have your meter.”

Only some faint, conditioned fear of seeming rude made me reply. I tapped the pouch at my side.

“Reader,” I said. “We call it a reader.”

Outside, the streets of Budapest flicked by, the beautiful old buildings black with soot, just as I remembered them; dirt and grime, the dirt of history, but not a speck of litter on the streets. It was a city full of contradictions, that way. I could remember ­people waiting for the lights to change before they crossed the road. There were no cars in sight, but nobody would budge an inch until they got the go-­ahead. And there was porn at almost every newsstand, stuff on view you'd never get away with back in London. Yet I'd seen pretty girls in scanty summer clothes stroll down the street with not even a glance, much less the kind of lewd remarks they'd probably endure at home.

A patrol car stood at the roadside. We pulled up behind. On the pavement, a large, fleshy man with a shaved head was quibbling with a lone cop set to guard the door. The cop looked bored. Ganz nodded to him, and he waved us through. We walked into the restaurant. The fact that we could do this, and the bald man couldn't, seemed to throw him into further rage. He yelled and shook his fist and made noises I had seldom heard outside a zoo. The cop began to shout back. It had a kiddies' playground air to it: “Oh yes you are!” “Oh no I'm not!”

“He is restaurant owner,” explained Ganz, as we slipped between the tables. The shouting clipped abruptly as the door swung shut behind us.

“Ah.” I followed her into the kitchen. “What'll happen? Is he insured? Is there, you know, some sort of compensation . . . ?”

“Oh, it will not take long. He will pay someone. Restaurant will open, ­people come in, eat. Is why we must hurry.”

I didn't take this in at first, it was said so casually.

“Bribe,” she said, in explanation. “It is business, after all.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You do not approve? You tell me in UK that this is never done? In America? No?”

“I'm just surprised you're so—­up-­front about it, I suppose.”

“Perhaps, if you were Hungarian, I would not be. But you should know the way things work, Mr. Copeland. After all, is what they say: we have best police money can buy. Is that not right?” She picked her way between gigantic steel tureens. “Do you know how much policeman earns, Mr. Copeland? His wage? ‘Cop on beat,' perhaps? Man outside? Or me?”

She didn't wait for a reply. She shook her head. “No. No, you don't.” Then, “This is it.”

A ­couple of big metal cabinets had been shoved back to make room for all those underpaid police. Some utensils had been scattered on the tiled floor. There was nobody around, and thankfully the body had been moved. Some things I didn't need to see. There was a blobby chalk outline, too vague and shapeless to be obvious as having marked a corpse.

“I didn't know you really did this. Police, I mean. The chalk, and that. Seen it on TV, but . . .”

“We are Hungarians. You think we cannot draw chalk line?”

I was ready with another apology when I realized she was smiling at me. So I smiled, too.

She said, “Meter, please. Reader. Meter reader. This is what you came to do.”

I unbuttoned the belt pouch, removed the little device, and set it down atop one of the metal counters. It was scarcely bigger than a phone. I checked it over, paused . . . And in doing so—­the moment's quiet—­it felt like something suddenly went out of me, or out of the occasion. I looked at the bare, bleak walls, the dull gleam of the steel . . . There was a deadness to it. A kind of emptiness, like the air was too thin, or like I was the one dying here, me, and not the victim.

“Yes?” she said.

I shook my head. “I'm fine . . .”

“No. I feel it, too. Worse last night. But yes, I feel it.”

I held the reader. It's a little box, a simple thing. When I didn't get the reading I expected, I switched it off and tried again.

“It's a busy kitchen?” I said. “Normally?”

“I think.”

“Lots of coming and going? Hard work? Short tempers? All that kind of thing?”

“Kitchen, yes.”

“ 'Cause there's almost nothing on the reader. This whole place, it's like no one's been here, not in years.”

“This is common? Normal?”

I shook my head. “There's always something. Ambient. Something . . .”

I looked around. But for the chalk mark on the floor, there was no sign anything had happened here. An ordinary place, quite unexceptional: too small, too cluttered—­like every other kitchen I had ever seen. But normal. Normal . . .

That didn't explain why I felt my guts sink just from looking at it.

Or why the reader told me they were right to do so.

I moved towards the door. Detective Ganz came with me.

On the street, the quarrel was still going on. The bald man stamped his feet. He raised his face towards the sky, as if imploring some indifferent deity to look down on his efforts.

He hadn't yet reached for his wallet.

He was waiting until Ganz cleared off, or else he'd have to pay them both. And her rank, I'd bet, would fetch a lot more than some beat cop's.

Maybe I'd ask Shailer what the going rate was.

I climbed into the car. My chest felt like a piece of dead wood. She got the engine going. I said, “Fuck it. Can we just stop at a bar? Away from here, yeah? Drop me if you want. Or join me. Either way.”

One look at her face, I knew which one she'd choose.

Her skin had turned the color of her cigarette ash.

As we moved off, I glanced back, saw the bald guy reach into his pocket.

Business as usual.