Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy: Sanctus, The Key, The Tower. Simon Toyne

it with the quilted one. The loaded clips went into the pocket. The SIG went back into the pancake shoulder holster, less bulky without the silencer. He picked up the bag, stashed it in the locker then unzipped it and pulled out Liv’s holdall. He hesitated, his innate courtesy preventing him from prying into a woman’s personal property, then opened it anyway.

      He found clothes, toiletries, a phone charger, all the things you’d stuff in a bag if you were heading someplace in a hurry. There was also a small laptop in a case, a wallet, credit cards, a press ID card and a Starbucks loyalty card that was nearly full. A side pocket produced a passport, a set of house keys and a paper 1-Hour Foto wallet. Inside were a dozen or so glossy prints of Liv and a young man on a daytrip to New York. She was a few years younger in the photos than the girl he had met at the airport – early twenties maybe. The young man was clearly her brother. He had the same dark blonde hair, the same softly rounded, attractive face – handsome in him, pretty in her – the same bright green eyes shone with the joy of shared laughter from both faces.

      The last image dated the trip to pre-2001. The young man stood alone between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, his arms pushing outward, his face twisted in a caricature of extreme effort. With his long hair and hint of a beard he looked like Samson in the temple of the Philistines. It was an ominous image, laden with tragedy, not only because of what happened to the towers, but because the image of the happy young man with his arms outstretched aped the pose he would ultimately take in the final hours before he fell.

      Gabriel slid the photos back into the wallet. His practical instinct was to leave the bag in the locker, but he slung it over his shoulder, slammed the door and headed to the exit. Keeping it close would act as a talisman for him, a good luck charm, a lens through which to focus his determination and purpose so that when he found the girl and got her to safety he could give it back to her.

      In his mind her security had become his personal mission. He couldn’t say exactly why or when he had decided that this was so. Maybe when he’d watched her scampering across the rain-slicked car park, fuelled by a fear partly caused by him. Maybe even earlier – when he’d first seen her startling green eyes searching for the truth in his own. He could take the fear away from her at least, if he got the chance.

      He emerged from the gloom of the left-luggage office back into the bright glare of the main concourse. The arched glass ceiling, a hundred feet high at its apex, seemed to gather every sound and reflect it back. It was so loud that he felt rather than heard his phone ringing in his pocket.

      ‘The girl’s been taken to the Central District,’ Kathryn said. ‘She’s in an interview room on the fourth floor giving a statement about what happened last night.’

      ‘How old’s the information?’

      ‘Just got it. But we think the person who gave it to us is also feeding the Sancti.’

      It made sense. It also meant the people who’d tried to snatch Liv the previous night would be close by, biding their time until they got another chance.

      ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said, and hung up.

      He slipped on his helmet as he arrived at the bike and contemplated his next move. He figured she was safe so long as she was in the interview room – but she wouldn’t stay there forever and the Central District building was vast. Finding her inside it without drawing attention to himself would be almost impossible. He kick-started the engine and glanced across at a newsstand selling the morning edition of the local paper. A new picture of the monk filled the front page, closer this time, obviously taken on a very long lens. The headline above it read THE FALL OF MAN.

      He dropped the bike in gear and eased it into the slow-moving morning traffic.

      He knew exactly where she’d be going next.

      62

      Arkadian pushed through the large glass door of the Central District building and held it open. Liv emerged, squinting in the bright morning sun. A small group of uniformed cops and white-collar admin workers congregated around an ashtray rising from the pavement, a shrine to their shared addiction. Liv headed over to join the service.

      ‘Don’t suppose I could steal one of those?’ she asked someone in a white shirt and blue tie. The admin guys were usually a softer touch than the uniforms. He looked up and recoiled slightly at her bedraggled appearance.

      ‘It’s OK, she’s with me,’ Arkadian said.

      He produced a soft pack of Marlboro Lights.

      ‘Thanks,’ Liv said, plucking one and tapping it on the back of her hand. ‘’Preciate it.’

      The admin guy held out a light and Liv dipped her head to meet it. She sucked in the dry smoke, hungry for the nicotine hit. It tasted just as bad as the ones she’d had in the interview room. She shot the admin guy a smile anyway and turned to follow Arkadian down the street.

      ‘So when was the last time you saw your brother?’ Arkadian asked as she caught up.

      Liv took another drag of the cigarette, hoping the familiar bliss would descend upon her soon.

      ‘Eight years ago,’ she said, blowing out the acrid smoke. ‘Right before he vanished.’

      ‘Any idea why he took off?’

      Liv screwed up her face at the aftertaste. What was it with these foreign smokes? They all tasted like burnt tyres. ‘Long story.’

      ‘Well then, let’s walk slowly. The morgue’s only a couple of streets away.’

      Liv took one more cautious drag on the cigarette then dropped it down a storm drain as discreetly as she could manage, hoping the nice man who’d given it to her wasn’t watching. ‘I suppose it started back when Dad died. I don’t know how much you know about it …’

      Arkadian thought back to the file he’d compiled on the dead monk’s past and the article outlining the tragic car accident in the frozen ravine. ‘I know the details.’

      ‘Did you know my brother held himself totally responsible? “Survivor Syndrome”, that’s what the doctors called it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been the cause of everything and so didn’t deserve to be still living. He spent a long time in therapy, trying to come to terms with it. In the end he turned to religion instead. I suppose it happens a lot. You start looking for answers. If you can’t find them in the here and now, you look elsewhere.’

      She replayed the events of eight years ago in her mind: her trip to West Virginia; the sound of the crickets on Nurse Kintner’s porch as she told Liv what she knew; the clarity and sense it had all made to her; then the darkness that quickly clouded it again when she shared her discoveries with Samuel. ‘I should never have told him.’

      ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Arkadian said. ‘When Samuel blamed himself for your father’s death, did you feel the same way?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘And did you tell him it wasn’t his fault?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Well, I’m telling you now: Samuel’s death wasn’t your fault. Whatever you said to him, whatever you think you did to drive him away, he was already on his own path. There was nothing you could have done, one way or another, to change it.’

      ‘How can you be so sure?’

      ‘Because if he’d harboured some lasting grudge against you, or held you responsible for any of it, why would he go to such great lengths to make sure we found you?’

      Liv shrugged. ‘Maybe to punish me.’

      Arkadian shook his head. ‘But that’s not the way it works. You must have reported on kidnapping cases, abductions, missing persons.’

      ‘Some.’

      ‘And what’s the worst thing about them? For the relatives, I mean.’