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

Liv nodded and held out her own hand.

      ‘I’m Ahla,’ the vision said, taking it, shaking it, then handing it back like a punched ticket. ‘I’m office manager.’ Her voice was surprisingly deep and guttural, quite at odds with her china-doll looks. ‘I’m just getting OK for your cash float,’ she added, turning and leading the way across the office.

      ‘Oh,’ Liv said, the mention of money snapping her to attention. ‘There’s a taxi downstairs holding my phone to ransom. Could someone rescue it for me? I have absolutely no cash.’

      The perfect lips pursed. ‘Not a problem,’ she said, in a way that left Liv in no doubt that it was. ‘For today, you use this,’ she flourished a manicured hand in the direction of an unoccupied desk. ‘But if you need any longer, you’ll have to share. Everyone’s in town for the Citadel story. You also?’

      ‘Er, no,’ Liv said. ‘I’m writing a … travel piece.’

      ‘Oh! OK, well here’s what you asked for. I bring cash as soon as I get someone to sign. I’ll … go and pay taxi.’ She swivelled on an elegant heel. ‘Oh, and your boss asked you to call him,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Dial nine for outside line.’

      Liv watched her march away, all energy and purpose. In a movie she would be played by a youngish Katharine Hepburn.

      She gave the borrowed desk the once-over. Took in the standard-issue beige computer and multi-line desk-phone, a cactus that was being tortured to death by over watering, and a framed photo of a man in his mid-thirties leaning over a woman who hugged a squirming three-year-old boy on her knee. The kid was a miniature version of the man. Liv wondered which of them the desk belonged to: the man, probably. He looked kind of anal. Whoever usually lived here was suspiciously tidy for a journalist.

      But maybe she was just jealous.

      She looked at the frozen tableau of joyous family life. Saw the blaze of emotions that shone from the photograph, binding the three people together with invisible but unbreakable bonds. It felt like flicking through the brochure of an amazing holiday destination she would probably never visit.

      She pulled her eyes away from the photograph and grabbed a notebook, one of the old-fashioned pads with a big spring on the top. She flipped it open and wrote the date and her location at the top of the first page. In the normal course of things she went through so many of these things it was vital to be able to match their contents to a time and a place.

      Next she drew the outline of a human body and traced from memory the pattern of scars she’d seen in the post-mortem photos. When she’d finished, she gazed at the image, each stroke a record of her brother’s suffering.

      She turned the page and copied the original pairings of seed letters and symbols from her newspaper as well as every word she’d so far managed to extract from them. Studying the results, she found herself honing in repeatedly on two in particular: ‘Sam’, for obvious reasons; and ‘Ask’, because it stood out. It was one of the few verbs and it read like a command.

      Her college professor had told her that all journalism boiled down to this one word. He’d said the difference between a good reporter and a bad one was simply the ability to pose the right question. He’d also told her if she ever got bogged down in a story, to ask the five ‘W’ questions and focus on the gaps.

      Liv flipped to a new page and wrote down:

      Who – Samuel

      What – Committed suicide

      When – Yesterday morning at about 8.30 local time

      Where – At the Citadel, in the city of Ruin

      Why –

      The empty line stretched away from the final question. Why had he done it? Ordinarily she would seek out and interview anyone who had spoken to the victim in the run-up to their death, but Arkadian had said that was impossible. The Citadel spoke to no one. It was the silence at the centre of everything.

      ‘There,’ the office manager said, suddenly reappearing with Liv’s phone and a bulging envelope. ‘I took twenty lira to pay taxi. Receipt is inside. Sign please …’ She held out a receipt ledger with blue carbon paper separating the pages.

      Liv signed and plugged the phone charger into the wall. The screen lit up and the charging symbol appeared. ‘Say, who should I talk to round here to get some background on the Citadel?’

      ‘Dr Anata. But she very busy with monk story. Maybe too busy to talk about – travel piece …’

      Liv took a deep breath and forced a smile. ‘Well, why don’t you give me her number anyway?’ she said, wishing she’d picked a cover story with a bit more kudos. ‘The least I can do is give her a try.’

      86

      Rodriguez watched his old life sliding past the cab window. Freshly scrubbed new builds on patches of former wasteland and sandblasted brownstone tenements for people who couldn’t afford Manhattan, or even Brooklyn, so had to settle for the South Bronx. The closer they got to the 16th District, it all started looking more familiar. New money still hadn’t reached these parts yet, leastways not the sort that showed up on tax returns, and by the time the cab reached Hunts Point, it was like he’d never been away.

      The driver pulled over on Garrison Avenue and twisted in his seat. ‘Far as I go, my friend,’ he said from behind his pitted Perspex cage. They were still three blocks from the address JJ had given him. Rodriguez said nothing, just paid the guy, got out and started to walk.

      The ’hood may have stayed the same, but in the years he’d been away Rodriguez had become something else. Last time he’d been here his life had been shadowed by fear and suspicion. Now he stood in the warmth of God’s light. He could feel it on his back as he strode down the polluted streets. Others sensed it too; he saw it in the way they looked at him. Even the dealers on the corners and the crack-whores didn’t hassle him. He’d become like the guys he used to cross the street to avoid. A man with a purpose. Confident. Fearless. Dangerous.

      He passed a stripped-out car parked on cinder blocks and a store with scorch marks blackening the fringes of its steel-shuttered windows. He remembered torching the place himself when he’d lived here. It had been a pizza joint back then. He’d stuffed rags through a cracked window, set light to them and watched from the shadows until a group of guys showed up and doused it. He’d always loved to see stuff burn. Now he’d found a flame that never went out. He could feel its purity inside him, lighting his way in this place of permanent darkness.

      The house looked empty, so did the whole street, but he could feel eyes upon him as he walked up the steps. The door opened before he reached it. A kid in a G Star hoodie ducked outside, scoped the street and checked him out. He made no move to let him in. From somewhere behind him, Rodriguez could hear the sound of gunfire.

      ‘JJ in?’ he said.

      ‘Let the man pass,’ a voice hollered through the explosions. The kid blinked slowly then stood aside.

      Inside it was a different house. The short hallway opened into a room stuffed with brand-new furniture and electronics. A huge aquarium filled one wall and a flat-screen TV the size of a double bed dominated the other. A high-def surround-sound combat game was in full flow. Two guys were welded to the screen, thumbs jabbing away at handsets, triggering CG weapons while their real guns rested alongside an ashtray and a crack pipe. One of them glanced up fleetingly then returned his attention to the virtual warzone.

      ‘Gilly Rodriguez!’ he shouted through the carnage. ‘Look at you, mon, all beardy. Look like Jesus in a parka.’ He laughed at his own joke.

      Rodriguez just smiled, sizing up his old friend and seeing a shadow of what he might have become. JJ had lost about thirty pounds since he’d last seen him and his skin had the same greyness his momma’s had when she was too deep in the life and too far gone to care. He had