Vampire "Unleashed" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 3) (4 page)

Cornel leaned against the wall holding the documents. What had she been doing behind his back? He’d watched her, he knew her, she was a simple girl incapable of buying a home like this. Swiss lawyers? Ildico Popescu having a Swiss lawyer? Impossible.

There was only one name he could think of to do this, but it couldn’t be. It was absurd.

Would he buy her a house? Could he?

McGovern had a thing for Popescu, more than a thing, he had an obsession with her. When his hideout was discovered in London they’d found her name all over his written notes. There was even circumstantial evidence he’d tattooed himself in her honour… but it couldn’t be him because he was hiding, he lived like a rat in London, squatting in a derelict house. Paul McGovern couldn’t do this… could he?

Worse.

Paul McGovern couldn’t be allowed to do this. Not to Ildico. She was supposed to suffer.

“But what if it is him?” Cornel whispered. “What if he bought this home for her?” He looked back at the paperwork knowing that in his hand, for the first time in years, he held a lead. It was tentative. There was every chance of it being wrong. There was every chance that Popescu had gained her new home by some other means… but he knew. Instinctively, he knew this was a break.

----- X -----

Grey clouds were gathered across the police station and light rainfall was punctuated by the rumbles of distant thunder. It was late in the day and darkness was falling. Cornel was hovering by the car park watching the two entrances to the station. The rain was light but persistent and it had pasted his hair to his head and soaked through the shoulders of his jacket.

Ion Lupescu emerged from the police station and crossed towards the parked cars. Cornel was quick, his feet splashing through puddles. “Ion… Ion, hold up, it’s me, Cornel.”

Lupescu at one time had been his boss. He was also the man most responsible for forcing him into early retirement. Lupescu mouthed something like, “Oh, Jesus,” and made a shake of his head. “Hi Cornel, how are you?”

Cornel held a hand out to shake. Lupescu took it with a grimace, making no disguise as to his wish to be anywhere else. Fuck him. This was too important. “I emailed you, Ion, twice. I didn’t get a response so I wanted to come and make sure you received what I had.” Cornel pulled a manila envelope from inside his coat. “I’ve been doing some work on…”

“Yes. I got your emails,” Lupescu interrupted.

“And…”

The deputy chief of police sighed. He looked to the sky and made a show of wiping rainwater from his brow and flicking it away. He smoothed his moustache between thumb and forefinger. He looked at his watch then pointed to a coffee shop on the edge of the car park. “I can give you five minutes.”

They went to the store.

“Let me show you what I have,” Cornel opened the envelope and pulled documents onto the table top. Bills of sale, transfers of money, rights of ownership, land registry. “Okay, this is a law firm in Zurich, it’s run by a guy called Johann Burkhalter who, on the surface, is an immigration lawyer. I think that’s a cover. What he really does is hide money for rich Russians. He’s a tax evasion specialist.”

“I’ll have a black coffee, put it in a paper cup please, to go.” Lupescu ordered his beverage, paying little attention to what Cornel was showing.

“So Burkhalter transferred funds out of Switzerland…”

“Cornel… Cornel! Stop… I know what you’re showing me. I’ve read your emails.”

“You didn’t respond.”

Lupescu sighed. “That’s right. I didn’t… I didn’t because you’re not a detective anymore. You’re a civilian and I can’t talk to you about an investigation.”

Cornel smiled, a mild taste of victory. “So you are investigating.”

Lupescu sighed again and shook his head. “Look, Cornel. Let me be as honest with you as I can be… This, this what you’ve turned up is interesting. More than that, it’s compelling. In fact, I think it’s worth pursuing. I think your hunch that Paul McGovern bought property here is strong and worth following.”

“Good,” Cornel said.

“In fact, what I will tell you, that I shouldn’t, is it has been followed up.”

“Even better,” Cornel replied.

“And it’s been dropped.”

The conversation went silent. The waitress placed Lupescu’s drink on the table top. “Black coffee,” she said, “to take away.”

“Multsumesk,” he replied. Thank you. The waitress moved away. Cornel wanted to say something, wanted to spit words but Lupescu had his hand in the air, palm forward, before any question came. “It’s Switzerland, Cornel. They have a banking system that works in the shadows, they have a legal profession locked behind force fields. They won’t issue warrants for information without clear evidence of a crime and if it was McGovern, even if it was him, the fact that he bought a house in Romania doesn’t constitute a crime in Switzerland. I’ve checked. I thought this was worth following up. I did. I read your email and had the same questions you did. But the attorney recommendation is we would spend years fighting for the information and probably wouldn’t get it. Whoever bought that home for Ildico Popescu did it in a way that is as hidden as can be.”

Lupescu stood up, he sipped his coffee.

“You can’t just let this go,” Cornel pleaded.

“No,” Lupescu interjected. “It’s you who can’t just let this go. It’s over Cornel. Paul McGovern has gone. Thankfully. We don’t want him back. Look at yourself. You’re chasing a ghost, obsessing over who bought which house. You’re not a detective anymore, remember that, You’re retired and the investigation is finished.”

“It’s not finished,” Cornel said.

“It’s finished for me,” Lupescu responded.

Cornel jumped from his chair and hissed, “Well it isn’t fucking finished for me. Look at my face. Look!” The moment he said it Lupescu looked away. His scars made him look like a picture of Frankenstein’s Monster drawn by a child. “You cannot let a serial killer roam free. He must be found.... I can’t let it go because he cut off my face and cost me my job.”

“No, you cost you your job… He’s gone and this meeting is over.” Lupescu grabbed his coffee and turned his back. “Good to see you, Cornel. Let’s do it again in ten years… And you can pay for my coffee.”

The fat man was through the door a moment later. Cornel didn’t follow. He stood watching Lupescu as he walked back to his car and threw his coffee into a rubbish bin.

“Fuck you,” Cornel whispered. “He needs to be found. If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”

----- X -----

SIX MONTHS LATER

Cornel touched his feet to a cold floor, sweeping them left and right to find the slippers beside his bed. He shuffled to the double framed windows and scraped at the fine layer of ice that had formed on the inside. The heating was off again and the condensation had frozen on the glass.

Three trucks emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo and decked out in Christmas lights stopped at the traffic lights nine floors below. He scraped away more of the frost to watch the garish, rolling advertisement. Music came from the trucks. ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’

“What fucking holidays start this early?” he grumbled. “Jackass Coca Cola mother fuckers.”

He’d slept in sweatpants, T-shirt and thick socks and now out of bed he wrapped himself in a bathrobe and pulled on a woollen hat. He should have had gas central heating installed by now. He could afford it, he just couldn’t be bothered. He couldn’t be bothered with anything.

He made coffee. He added whisky, then ignored the coffee and guzzled the raw alcohol straight from the bottle.

“Fucking Coca Cola… Fucking Christmas!”

The clock said it was seven in the morning.

He sat alone in his kitchen under a single bare bulb. The plaster walls were last painted a decade ago, the light switch, fittings and furniture were all from communist times. There was no carpet. The sink was full with dirty crockery that had been there at least a year.

The coffee was getting cold. He finished what was left in the whisky bottle before starting on the wake-up juice.

Every day the same.

Not like Ildico Popescu in her fucking mansion. It was bought for her by Paul McGovern, he was sure of it, he just couldn’t prove it. In six months of investigation he’d gotten nowhere other than to learn that as well as her apartment, she also enjoyed a bottomless bank account. He watched her, he stalked her, he tallied her purchases and watched deliveries come to her home.

The song went through his head again, ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’ With the tune Cornel felt something break. It was almost imperceptible, like a fine twig stepped on in a forest, but he felt a surge of emotions wash through him. ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’

He stood and paced, somehow aware that he had to move from the kitchen, to move his body, to do something. He went to the bathroom to piss and caught sight of his reflection in the big mirror that ran along the wall of the bathtub. It was an odd, non-luxurious luxury that was in place since he’d moved in. The bathroom had a concrete floor and bare walls, but across the whole back wall above the bathtub was an enormous mirror. It showed his reflection as he pissed. Someone, at some time had thought it was a good idea.

“Look at you… Look at your fucking face!”

He stopped pissing. He wobbled from the pre-breakfast alcohol.

Ildico Popescu was a beautiful young girl with a beautiful home. Did she have a decorated tree? Did she have presents in shiny paper? Was it warm in her luxury apartment?

‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’

“I’ll give you a fucking holiday.”

He went to the bedroom and reached under his bed for a shoebox labelled as men’s brown shoes, size forty nine. He opened it to reveal his Carpati 7.65mm service pistol; the old issued handgun to the police. He loaded it, unsure why. Should he shoot himself? Suicide seemed kind of pointless There was no meaning to it, but it was better than just marking time until death. The only thing he knew was he had to keep moving. He had to move his body, get out of here, do something, do anything.

He took a fresh bottle of scotch and went to the car. “Let’s just... Fuck it all. Fuck this life.” He started the engine and spun the bottle cap until it fell off and got lost by his feet. He drank in big gulps. He pulled out of the courtyard and began his way towards Centrul Nou, chugging on the whisky as he went.

“Why, Ildico? Why would you care about scum like McGovern. He’s a fucking evil piece of shit. Do you even know what he’s like? Do you know how he killed Bogdan? He stabbed him from behind through both his kidneys. He left him to bleed out in an alleyway.”

Car headlights flew up ahead of him as he drifted out of the lane. His car mounted the curb then bounced back onto the road. Horns blared about him as other drivers, sober drivers, sounded their displeasure.

The snow fell heavier, his headlights cutting beams through the weather.

“I’m coming Ildico. I’m going to show you my face. I’ll put a gun to your child and you can explain yourself. You can explain how you got your home and your wealth before I fucking shoot you. Your precious Paul can read about it in the papers, he can…”

He hit the curb again and the wheel spun in his hand, the car lurched one way, he threw the wheel harshly the other to hold steady, sending the back end skidding ninety degrees in the road. His car idled, straddling both lanes. The open bottle of scotch fell on the passenger seat and was glug-glug-glug pouring its contents into the upholstery. He grabbed it and took another huge drink. Cars on either sides blared their horns. “Shut the fuck up, you mother fuckers.”

There was an alleyway ahead. Fortuitous that his car had pointed at an exit. “I’ll go this way. I don’t give a shit.” He powered forward, heading into the alley between two high buildings towards whatever lay behind. A courtyard perhaps, or a lesser road to lead him to…

The car stopped suddenly throwing him against the steering wheel, the bottle of scotch hit the dashboard and smashed in his grip, glass shards cutting into his palm. His momentum shifted, throwing him backwards into his seat.

“What the fuck just happened?” he slurred.

It took effort, but he made it out of the car and to the wall for support. He made it to the front of the car. He’d hit a concrete bollard. Plain as day to anyone sober, this alleyway was for pedestrians only.

“Oh, fuck this,” he mumbled. “Fuck this. Fuck all of this.” He looked at his hand, blood pouring profusely, stinging painfully from the alcohol smashed into the wound. He clenched it to a fist and stuffed it in his pocket and walked back out onto Calea Bucharest. He’d driven less than a thousand metres from home. He could still see his apartment block way down the road through the blizzard. He headed back leaning into the wind. “Fuck it all,” he said to himself. “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.” It became a mantra said with each footstep. Fuck… every… thing… fuck… every… body…

The walk was good. The cold was good. The pain in his bleeding hand was good. The sensation of having a gun in his right pocket was good. Perhaps this was what he needed. Some pain and discomfort. Some shake-up to feel alive again.

He kicked at the snow.

He swore on every step.

He made it back to the apartment.

His hand was still bleeding as he turned the key in the lock. He would need to dress the wound. There was a first aid kit in the bathroom. It was old, the contents had been there for decades.

He closed the door behind him and looked at his bloody fist. He noticed how, having kept his hand in his pocket, the blood had soaked across the whole left side of his coat. He took the gun from his right pocket and dropped the coat to the floor.

He walked to the bathroom.

Opened the door.

Turned on the light and saw his reflection.

Deep purple scars across his cheeks, his nose bent out of shape, his lips drooped on one side. “Fuck you!” he yelled raising the gun to his reflection. He didn’t aim, he didn’t even think. He just pulled the trigger without caring.

The pop of the gunshot wasn’t as loud as the protracted shrill of glass splintering and shattering into the bathtub. It came off the wall like it was spring loaded, bouncing forward in a shockwave, breaking into a symphony of cracked shards as it escaped the mounting, multiplying in volume as those shards fell into the bathtub and shattered further and further. It surely only took a second, but time expanded for Cornel. It seemed an age listening to the falling glass.