She closed the door behind him. Pressed her back against it. Where was Duff? Where was he last night? And what did she wish for him? The hell he had to be in or the redemption he didn’t deserve?
Lennox stared through the rain pouring down the windscreen. The refracted light made the red traffic lights blur and distort. God, how he longed to get these hours, this shift, this night over and done with. God, how he longed to relax in his sitting room, pour himself a glass of whisky and inject some brew. He wasn’t addicted. Not to the extent that it was a problem anyway. He was a user, not a misuser; he was in control, not the dope. One of the lucky few who could take drugs and still function in a demanding job as well as be a father and a husband. Yes, dope did actually help him to function. Without the breaks at work he wasn’t sure he would have managed. Balancing everything, watching his step. Making compromises where he had to, eating shit with a smile, not rocking the boat, understanding who was in charge, bending with the wind. But one day it would probably be his turn to take charge. And if it wasn’t, other things were more important. His family — that was who he was working for. So that he and Sheila could have a spacious house in a safe neighbourhood in the west of town, send their three lovely kids to a good school with healthy values, take a well-deserved Mediterranean holiday once a year, cover the health insurance, dentist and all that kind of thing. God, how he loved his family. Sometimes he would put down the newspaper and just look at them sitting in the lounge, all of them busy, and then he would think, This is a gift I never thought I would have the good fortune to receive. The love of others. He, the one they called Albert Albino, was beaten up in every school break until he got a doctor’s note saying he couldn’t tolerate daylight and had to stay in the classroom alone during breaks. White, small and delicate he may have been, but he had a big mouth on him. That was how he had got Sheila — he talked loudly and volubly for both of them. And even more when he had tried cocaine for the first time. It was coke that had made him a better version of himself, energetic, dogged and unafraid. At least for a while. Later it had become a necessity so that he wouldn’t become a bad version of himself. Then he had changed drug in the hope that there was another way other than the dead-end street that cocaine was. Maximum one shot a day. No more. Some needed five. The dysfunctional. He was a long way from that. His father was wrong, he did have a spine. He had control.
‘Everything under control?’
Lennox started. ‘Eh?’
‘Your list,’ Seyton said from the back seat. ‘What’s left?’
Lennox yawned. ‘HQ. That’s the last stop.’
‘Police HQ’s massive.’
‘Yes, but according to the caretaker Duff has only three keys. One for Narco and one for Homicide.’
‘And the third?’
‘The Forensics garage. But I hardly think he’d want to catch pneumonia in the cellar if he can hide under a table in a warm dry office.’
The police radio crackled, and a nasal voice informed them that all the rooms at the Obelisk, including the penthouse suite, had been searched without success.
The caretaker stood waiting for them with a big bunch of keys outside the staff entrance to HQ. It took Lennox, Seyton and eight officers less than twenty minutes to search the Narco rooms. Less to trawl through Homicide. And they had even checked behind the ceiling boards and the pipes in the ventilation system.
‘That’s that then.’ Lennox yawned. ‘That’s it, folks. Grab a few hours’ sleep. We’ll continue tomorrow.’
‘The garage,’ Seyton said.
‘As I said—’
‘The garage.’
Lennox shrugged. ‘You’re right. Won’t take long. Lads, you go home, and Seyton, Olafson and I will check the garage.’
The three of them took the lift down to the basement floor with the caretaker, who let them in and switched on the lights.
In the silence as the electricity worked to get the phosphates in the neon tubes to fluoresce Lennox heard something.
‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ the caretaker said. ‘But it’ll be rats if it’s anything.’
Lennox had his doubts. It hadn’t been a rattling or a scurrying, it had been a creak. As if from shoes.
‘A plague,’ the caretaker sighed. ‘Can’t get rid of ’em, not down here.’
The large cellar room was empty apart from a trolley carrying various tools and Banquo’s Volvo covered with a tarpaulin by the garage door. Ranged along the wall there were five closed doors.
‘If you want to get rid of rats,’ Seyton said, releasing the safety catch on his machine gun, ‘just contact me. Olafson, let’s start from the left.’
Lennox watched as the bald man moved quickly and nimbly across the room with Olafson hard on his heels. They took the doors one by one as if in a precisely choreographed and practised dance. Seyton opened, Olafson went in with his gun to his shoulder, sank to his knees while Seyton followed and passed him. Lennox counted the minutes. It was getting late for his shot, he could feel. There, the final room at last. Seyton pressed the handle.
‘Locked!’ he shouted.
‘Oh yes, the darkroom is always locked,’ the caretaker said. ‘Photos are considered evidence. Duff hasn’t got a key for this room. At least, he didn’t get it from me.’
‘Let’s go then,’ Lennox said.
Seyton and Olafson came towards them with the short barrels of their machine guns lowered as the caretaker held the door open.
At last.
Seyton held out his hand. ‘The key.’
‘What?’
‘To the darkroom.’
The caretaker hesitated, glanced at Lennox, who sighed and nodded. The caretaker removed a key from his bunch and gave it to Seyton.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked the caretaker as they watched Seyton and Olafson walk past the Volvo to the darkroom door.
‘His job,’ growled Lennox.
‘I mean with his nose. Looks like he’s sniffing, like an animal.’
Lennox nodded. Thinking he wasn’t alone in noticing that Seyton could assume the shape of a... he didn’t know what. Something that wasn’t human anyway.
Seyton could smell him now. That smell. The same as the one in the house in Fife and Caithness’s flat. Either he was here or he had been here recently. Seyton unlocked the door and opened it. Olafson went in and sank to his knees. When the caretaker turned on the switch at the front door all the lights in the garage and the side rooms had come on as well, but in here it was still dark. Of course. A darkroom.
Seyton went in. The stench of chemicals drowned the smell of the prey, of Duff. He found the light switch on the inside of the door, twisted it on, but still no light came. Maybe the fuse had gone during the power cut. Or someone had removed the bulb. Seyton switched on his torch. The wall above the table was covered with big photos hanging from a line. Seyton shone his torch across them. They showed a dagger with a bloodstained blade and handle. Duff had been here. Seyton was absolutely sure.
‘Hey! What’s going on?’ It was Lennox. The little albino wimp wanted to go home. He was sweating and yawning. The bloody old woman.
‘Coming,’ Seyton shouted, switching off the torch. ‘Come on, Olafson.’
Seyton let Olafson pass. Shut the door hard after him and stood inside the door. Listened in the darkness. Until Duff thought the coast was clear and relaxed. Seyton lifted his gun to the photos. Pressed the trigger. The weapon shook in his hands, the sound reverberated against his eardrums. He drew a cross with the burst. Then he switched on his torch again, walked over to the perforated photos and pulled them aside.
Stared at the bullet holes in the wall behind.