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

flooded into the darkened room as the door beside him opened again. Arkadian turned and saw Liv squeeze in behind him. She stared resolutely at the monitors to avoid making eye contact. He thought about asking her to leave, but decided he’d prefer to keep her close.

      He dug out his phone and scrolled through the caller log until he found the call Reis had made when the fire alarm had gone off. Nine-fourteen. One of the screens was now filled with the feed from the camera he’d spotted in the corner of the cold store. ‘Can you wind it back to o-nine-fourteen, and play it from there?’

      The guard pulled down the menu and tapped in the time. The picture jumped and a man appeared in the middle of the previously empty room, manoeuvring an empty trolley towards one of the lockers.

      ‘Who’s that?’ Arkadian asked.

      The security guard peered at the screen. The man stopped and looked around, registering the shrill sound of the alarm.

      ‘Don’t know his name, but he works here,’ the security guard said. ‘I think he’s one of the lab techs.’

      The recording continued in three-second jerks until the man vanished, moving like a badly animated marionette.

      ‘Look at the sheet.’ Liv pointed at the screen. ‘Neatly folded on top of the trolley. When we got there it was all bunched up.’

      ‘Can you speed it up a little?’ Arkadian asked.

      The guard hit a key a couple of times and the numbers jumped forward in five second units, then ten. When the clock flipped to o-nine-seventeen another figure stepped into the frame.

      ‘Hold it,’ Arkadian said.

      The guard resumed its three-second default.

      The newcomer was tall, black hair, black clothes. They couldn’t see his face. He kept his back to the camera the whole time. He moved past the trolley and stopped in front of the drawer Arkadian had opened. He reached for the handle with a gloved hand and pulled. Liv felt her heart pound against her ribcage. She saw the outline of a body-bag.

      The man unzipped it. Despite the poor quality of the image, Liv recognized the bearded face immediately and felt tears pricking her eyes. A moment later the interloper shifted his position and obscured Samuel’s face with his body. He seemed to be searching for something in his jacket pocket. He struggled against the material for a few moments then removed the glove from his right hand and recommenced his search, quickly finding whatever it was he was looking for. He leaned across the open drawer with whatever he had retrieved from the pocket, then whipped his head round towards the door, clearly disturbed by something. He had kept his face tilted down, wary of the camera, but Liv still saw enough to recognize him.

      ‘Gabriel …’ she breathed. ‘He picked me up at the airport last night.’

      Arkadian grabbed the desk phone, his eyes never leaving the screen as the man zipped up the body-bag, slid the drawer back into place, climbed on to the trolley and pulled up the plastic sheet.

      ‘This is Inspector Davud Arkadian. We’ve just had a break-in at the morgue; I want all units on the lookout for a suspect. A white male. Slender build. Maybe six-one, six-two. Black clothes –’

      Two new figures dressed as paramedics appeared, pushing a trolley between them. The taller one glanced up at the camera but it was impossible to see his face. Both wore surgical masks, caps, lab coats and Nitrile gloves. Arkadian watched them move straight to Sam’s locker. They checked inside the body-bag, hoisted it on to the trolley, closed the drawer and wheeled the earthly remains of Samuel Newton out of frame. The whole operation had taken less than fifteen seconds.

      Gabriel rose like something out of a horror film and followed them, leaving the plastic sheet how they had discovered it.

      Arkadian covered the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘Is there a camera in the delivery bay?’

      The cold-storage chamber was replaced by a raised concrete platform with an ambulance on one side and a set of overlapping plastic doors on the other. Liv thought it looked like the entrance to a meat-processing factory.

      After a few seconds the doors buckled and a trolley crashed through them. The two paramedics practically threw it into the back of the ambulance.

      Arkadian removed his hand from the mouthpiece. ‘We have a new priority. I want an urgent BOLO for an ambulance outbound from the city morgue, heading towards Hallelujah Crescent. Licence plate unknown. Suspects are two Caucasian males, medium-heavy build, one maybe six-three, the other around five-ten, both dressed as paramedics. Be advised the suspects are wanted for break-in and unlawful seizure and are fleeing the crime scene. A photo of the secondary suspect will be circulated immediately.’

      He slammed down the phone. ‘Can you lift images of the suspects from the footage and email it to central dispatch?’ It wasn’t a request.

      Arkadian didn’t wait for the guard’s reply. He needed to talk to Reis.

      65

      Gabriel slipped into the deserted dispatch room and ducked under the central counter, still covered with the morning’s post and packages, abandoned as soon as the alarm had sounded. He retrieved his bag and bike helmet from where he’d stashed them and grabbed a medium-sized padded envelope as he heard voices in the hallway.

      ‘You OK there?’ A middle-aged woman had appeared at the door, regarding him with flinty suspicion from behind thick designer frames.

      ‘Yeah … got a package here for …’ Gabriel glanced at the label. ‘A Dr … Makin?’ He treated her to a 500-watt smile.

      After about a second in its beam her hand fluttered up to her chest and her eyes softened. ‘You mean Dr Meachin,’ she said. ‘Need me to sign for it?’

      ‘No, that’s OK,’ Gabriel said. ‘Guy who pointed me here already signed for it.’

      He slipped back into the hallway. The place was filled with people. He heard someone shouting in the reception area behind him. He pressed on to the delivery bay. The back of the building was deserted. At the far end of the alley he saw an ambulance easing into the morning traffic on Hallelujah Crescent.

      He jumped down from the concrete platform and sprinted to where he’d left his bike behind a large refuse bin. With two hard kicks on the starter pedal he gunned it up the alley then braked hard. Hallelujah Crescent was a one-way street, always crammed at this time of the morning. Gabriel looked left. He couldn’t see the ambulance. He began threading his way in and out of the cars, scanning the traffic ahead. The road uncoiled before him, bit by frustrating bit, until it reached the junction with the southern boulevard and split in two – right towards the outskirts and left towards the Citadel. His money was on left, but he eased the bike into the central line for the time being, ready to turn in either direction the moment he spotted his target.

      He stamped his heel on the brake, locking the back wheel. A horn blared and a van steered around him, its driver shouting angrily from the safety of his cab. Gabriel didn’t even notice. He was looking up the boulevard, checking both ways, confirming that somewhere between the alley and this junction the ambulance had simply vanished.

      66

      Reis was scanning a sheet of paper when Arkadian walked into his office.

      ‘Anything missing?’

      ‘Nope.’ Reis remained at his desk. ‘I thought they may have taken this – the lab report I told you about – but I guess they didn’t know what it was. It’s … extraordinary.’

      He glanced over the Inspector’s shoulder and his face registered surprise. Liv stood in the doorway behind him.

      Arkadian sighed. ‘Reis, this is Liv Adamsen. She’s related to … She’s the monk’s sister.’

      ‘Yeah, I … er … Hi …’