The Mortality Principle (3 page)

“When was this?”

“A little before three.”

“And where were you when you heard this altercation?”

She pointed in the direction of her hotel room, and her window, which didn't really overlook the street by more than a few degrees, the laws of physics explaining why she hadn't been able to see anything. The expression on his face changed. She couldn't read him. He looked tired, and the stubble on his chin suggested a long night on duty was about to turn into an even longer day on duty. He made a note of her name and the room number, and offered cursory thanks as he moved on to the next face in the crowd, repeating his questions.

A man tried to enter the alleyway, but the policeman stopped him. The newcomer wouldn't be deterred. He was determined to cut through the narrow passageway, and no dead body was going to stop him. The officer prodded him in the chest with a stubby finger. He might as well have hit the man with a Taser gun; the effect was just about the same. Annja turned toward the hotel and walked away as the disgruntled man started threatening to have the policeman's badge. At least, that was what she chose to imagine his rant entailed. He could have been asking for alternative directions or if the good officer fancied a nice game of global thermonuclear war, for all she knew.

Annja still had no appetite.

She made her way into the dining room for breakfast, though she wasn't sure she could face much more than a cup of strong black coffee. The stronger, the better, given it was going to have to mask the taste of death that had been cloying at the back of her throat since she stood in the alleyway.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked as she topped up her cup with a third refill in half an hour.

“I'm good, thanks,” Annja replied, picking up the cup without even thinking about it. She was no stranger to death, which wasn't something she would have ever thought she'd find herself thinking a few years ago, but things had changed since Roux and Garin had walked into her life. What should have been the most horrific thing imaginable had almost become a fact of life, and of course there were those harrowing times when it had been her doing, a matter of kill or be killed.

But this was different.

She couldn't shift the guilt. She
could
have done something. She'd heard it happening, had known instinctively something was wrong, but hadn't gone down to check it out. She'd simply lain there telling herself
there was nothing she could do. And even now, knowing that she was right—at least academically—emotionally she couldn't banish the self-loathing that came with not even trying.

Someone had torn that vagrant open.

“Is something wrong?” the waitress whispered, her voice so quiet that none of the other diners would be able to hear what she said.

“Nothing that another cup of coffee won't put right if I know you,” a familiar voice said, the man joining her at the table.

Annja didn't need to look up to know who her visitor was.

“Garin,” she said. “I'm not even going to ask how you found me.”

“Shall I get another cup?” the waitress asked, smiling at Garin.

“That would be great.” Garin Braden tilted his head and offered a killer smile. “And I think maybe eggs Benedict.”

“Of course.”

At times it almost felt like he was stalking her. Wherever she was, he had the unnerving ability to find her without calling first.

“I really need to change my cell phone number,” she said.

“Wouldn't help, I've had you tagged.” Garin grinned, and she wasn't entirely sure he was joking.

“What do you want?”

“Why so hostile?”

“I'm not, I'm just exhausted,” Annja said, which was partially true.

Garin nodded. “To be honest, I was just bored, and I
hate being bored. I thought about taking a trip, but you know how it is. The thrill of white-water rafting and wing suits and bungee jumping and all that just pales into insignificance against everything else we do, so I thought, ‘I know, I'll go see Annja. She's normally up to her neck in
something
.' And here I am. I took the liberty of checking into the room next to yours. No adjoining door, alas.”

“I don't have time to amuse you, Garin. I'm working.”

“Actually, you're having a cup of coffee.”

It had been a long time since Annja had worried about hurting his feelings; as far as she could tell he had no feelings to hurt. It didn't stop him pulling a face as if she had mortally wounded him.

“I'd hate to have come all this way and not be able to at least share breakfast with my favorite television star.”

“Stop it, Garin. I'm not in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?”

“You.”

“Harsh, woman. Harsh.”

“The world doesn't revolve around you. Hard to believe, I know, but someone's got to tell you the truth.”

“And that, my dear, is why I love you most.”

“Shut up.”

Garin grinned.

“Anyway, I'm not sure I can sit around wasting more time today. I've already lost an hour this morning thanks to the police.”

“Oh, see, now I knew you'd be up to your neck in something interesting. The police? Do tell.” Garin leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop, all smiles and full of interest.

She knew that he was only sucking her in, a spider smiling at a vain fly, but she couldn't help herself. It wasn't that she was fooled by his easy charm; that only worked for so long. She needed to talk. If she didn't, the guilt would only fester. She knew that. She knew herself. The sooner she gave voice to her thoughts, the sooner she would be able to leave it behind. It wouldn't be the first time Garin had played Father Confessor to her. “There was a murder,” she said.

“Next time we sit down for breakfast I suggest you starting with that. ‘Hello, Garin, there was a murder.' That's so much more interesting than ‘What do you want?' Did you see it?”

“No, but I am ninety-nine percent sure I
heard
it. I just didn't realize that's what it was at the time. I went out for a run this morning, and found people gathered around the body. I gave a statement to a policeman, but I'm pretty sure he was just humoring me by then. After all, it was just some homeless guy,” she said bitterly. “It's not like the cops will lose sleep over it.”

“Oh, so cynical for one so young,” Garin said, with no hint of laughter even though his smile was still firmly in place, predatory now. “Sadly I think you're right. The system doesn't care about the poor bastards who slip between the cracks.”

“I care,” Annja said.

“I'm sure you do. So, what have you got?”

“Nothing, really. Time of death. That's it. At 3:00 a.m.”

“I once heard that more people die at three in the morning than at any other time of day.”

“Not really very helpful.”

“No, but interesting. So, an argument over shelter? Or a bottle?”

She didn't have time to answer him. The waitress returned and placed a cup in front of Garin, filling it with rich black coffee. Annja pushed the cream in his direction, but he waved it away. “Watching my figure,” he said.

The waitress laughed, no doubt another willing victim of Garin's charms should he decide to stick around. And judging by his appreciative expression as he watched her retreat toward the kitchen, he'd decided to do just that.

“You know what else is interesting? I read about a dead vagrant in this morning's newspaper.”

“Not a chance. There's no way it was in the morning paper. They only found the body an hour ago.”

“I didn't say
your
dead vagrant.”

“There have been others?”

“Oh, Annja,” Garin said patronizingly. “You really ought to take more of an interest in the here and now and pay a little less attention to what happened centuries ago. Dusty old books have nothing on television or the internet, you know. Not when it comes to living in the real world.”

“Don't be a jerk. Just tell me what you know.”

“You take all the fun out of life, Annja Creed, but you know that, don't you?”

“Share or shut up.”

Garin smiled, clearly enjoying the moment and determined to make the most of it.

That stupid grin was really beginning to grate on Annja's nerves, but she wasn't about to let him know that, so she smiled right back, sweetly.

“Okay,” he said at last, raising his hands in surrender. He'd had his fun. “There have been three deaths in as
many weeks. Four now. One every week for a month. All of them have been street people. If the papers are right, the police are clueless. No one seems to know if this is a case of the city's homeless fighting among themselves or if they're looking for a lunatic who's taken it upon himself to try to clean up the streets.”

“Clean up the streets? Surely no one in their right mind could think that they could kill every homeless person?”

“I did say lunatic, didn't I?”

Annja shook her head. “There must be thousands of people living on the streets. It's a capital city.”

“To clean up the streets you don't need to kill all of them. You just have to make the ones left behind so afraid they gather up their few possessions and head out of town.”

“But they've got nowhere to go. They're not on the streets for fun.”

Garin shrugged. “Right, but then they're someone else's problem.”

Annja knew he was right. “My enemy's enemy is my friend, sort of thing,” Annja agreed. “And you think that's what's happening here?”

“I have no idea. Maybe. Hell, I'm sure Jack the Ripper thought that he was doing something positive about the number of prostitutes in London.”

Annja was doubtful. There were plenty of sick people in the world who would do something like this for kicks. She said as much. She wasn't sure which was worse—someone killing out of some crazy idea that they were doing good or a calculating killer doing it for the simple pleasure of killing.

“Maybe the police are right,” Garin offered. “Maybe
it really is just a case of the homeless fighting among themselves.”

His eggs arrived while she was thinking about the possibility.

One thing was sure—she didn't feel any better about the fact that she hadn't intervened, even if it had only been to call the police when she heard the scuffle. The time between the act and the discovery of the act only made it more difficult for justice to catch up with the killer.

She needed to get out of there.

Her head wasn't in the right place. There was no way she was going to come up with something clever to say in front of the camera, at least not today. She made a call while Garin was eating and gave Lars, her cameraman, the day off. He wanted to know if she was okay. She assured him she was.

“So you're going to have some free time, after all,” Garin said, wiping his lips as she ended the call. He'd made short work of polishing off his breakfast and was already signaling for a top-up to his coffee. He flashed the waitress that smile again, earning one right back.

“I've got things to do,” Annja said, dropping her napkin on the table. “I'm sure you've got enough here to entertain yourself.” She looked meaningfully toward the waitress, who in turn was pretending to look busy.

“I'm sure I can keep myself entertained for a few hours. After all, we're in a hotel. Lots of bedrooms.”

“Just spare me the gory details.”

Annja was itching to get out and about, to do something, see something, anything that would take her mind off the nagging guilt.

She picked up the research on the golem, skimming it without finding any inspiration in the dry text.

She needed an angle.

That was what made stories work.

A human element. Something…different. Fresh. Something that would make the whole thing a little more interesting. If she couldn't do that, maybe there was a second story from Prague she could stitch together to make something that might work.

The rack at the back of the desk held a well-thumbed collection of tourist brochures with dull photographs of landmarks and sites to visit in and around the city. Some of those brochures probably dated back to the Charter 77 revolution. A few of the landmarks were too obvious. They offered the shots of buildings that appeared in every holiday brochure and website about the city. They offered little of real interest to her. She didn't want to simply retread the footsteps of well-known history, especially with the added pressure on this segment from the suits. To be perfectly honest, it was bad
enough that the golem was so ingrained in the psyche of the city that she couldn't find anything to say that hadn't already been said. It was the kind of myth that pushed all the other folk tales to one side. There was only room for one fantastic beast here. But surely that in itself should have helped her? It made the less well-known legends more appealing, didn't it?

Maybe.

If she could find one worth telling.

And with that thought it was as if something had clicked inside her head.

She had found something to search for even if she had no idea what it was.

This might be the golem's city, but there had to be a more fascinating story beneath it, something better, in a city as old as Prague. She'd come across an epigram in her notes:
Your problem, city, is that you have no soul.
She couldn't recall where she'd come across it, but she liked it.

Annja pondered the notion of going out to Sedlec, in the Kutná Hora suburb, to check out the ossuary. There was a building with a story to tell—a church dating back eight hundred years, with upward of seventy thousand corpses exhumed, their bones used to decorate the chapels. Chandeliers of bones, garlands of skulls, an altar consisting of every single bone from the human body, monstrances fashioned from childlike skeletons and the Schwarzenberg coat of arms, also executed in bone. It was like nowhere else on Earth. That a half-blind monk had done the exhumation five hundred years ago was the stuff of macabre fairy tale, rather like the bone sculptures of the carpenter František Rint, who was behind the decor. Could she somehow marry that
in with the stories of the golem? A made man against a backdrop of a quite literally man-made chapel? It would provide an incredible visual for the live broadcast, she realized. It was a possibility.