Halloran lifted the bag, switched off the torch. swung a leg over the sill. Once inside he quickly stepped away from the window, where moonlight had silhouetted his shape. He leaned back against the wall and waited, holding his breath, listening for sounds.
The room smelled musty, damp, unlined in. Light from outside revealed sparse furniture: an armchair, its cushions lumpy, arms threadbare, a nondescript cabinet, neither antique nor modern, against one wall, a curled rug, and nothing else. Apart from the small rug, the floorboards were bare. Halloran flicked on the penlight once more, the beam still broad, and waved it around the room. Wallpaper hung away in strips and black fungus grew in the corners and near the ceiling. There were ashes in the ancient iron fireplace, but they looked solid, as though they had set many years ago. There was an open door to the right.
Halloran listened for a while longer before allowing himself to breathe normally. He swept the light across the floor to make sure there were no obstacles in his path, them crossed the room to the door, unconcerned with the creaking of floorboards. Narrowing the torch beam, he peered out into the hallway, shining the light along its length. Moonlight glowed through the grime of the tiny windows above the backdoor. The hallway had a turn in it and he surmised that it straightened again and led towards the lodge's main door. The stairway would be in that direction too.
lie eased himself from the room, holding the torch away from his bode. Keeping close to the wall opposite the door he had just left. Halloran slowly walked towards the front of the building. fie passed another door on his right. but did not try the handle, guessing it would Dead to a cellar.
He reached the point where the hallway turned, and hesitated, listening intently far a few seconds. Only silence. But the smell of oldness was even stranger here.
Halloran noticed a lightswitch close to where he stood and he reaches Diut, pushing it down with one extended finger, the thin torch gripped with the others. Nothing happened, and he was not surprised.
Whoever lived in the lodge-house enjoyed the darkness.
He went on, rounding the bend. and pointed the torch at the front door. There were large baits, top and bottom, rusted fixtures that looked as if they hadn't been shifted for decades. Another door nn his left, the staircase rising above him on his right. Halloran made his way towards the door.
Slipping the straps of the bag over his left shoulder and changing the penlight to that hand, he used an elbow to push open the door. Its creaking was explosive in the silence of the house.
Before entering, he shone the torch through the crack by the hinges, satisfying himself that nobody lurked behind the door, and only then did he step into the room. It was empty, devoid of any furniture, its curtains colourless with age and filth. The mustiness prevailed and here the mould festered in thick clusters. Ceiling struts could be clearly seen where plaster had fallen away. Halloran left the room, leaving the door open wide.
The staircase loomed up before him.
And it was from there that the worst of the smell wafted down.
Halloran began to climb.
Mather parked directly outside Magma's main entrance, disregarding the double-yellows. As he limped around the bonnet of his car, he could not help but gaze up at the towering building, its glass and bronze facade brooding under a sky that was quickly filling with leaden clouds from the east. He felt a charge in the atmosphere, the coming of an electrical storm.
The two security men inside had noticed his arrival and one was crossing the concourse towards the closed entrance while his companion at the circular reception desk lifted a phone. Mather started forward again, an urgency in his stride.
The security guard had come to a smaller door beside the main entrance and had already opened it a fraction by the time the Shield Planner was outside.
'Mr Mather?' the guard enquired, and Mather opened his wallet to display his Shield identity. 'Sir Victor's waiting for you. I'll take you right up.' The guard said nothing as the lift swiftly ascended to the eighteenth floor, but he appeared tense, as much on edge as Mather himself. They trudged the thick-carpeted corridor to the chairman's outer office, passing through, waiting when the guard rapped on the inner door. The guard opened the door after a voice on the other side responded, then stood aside to allow the older man entry, still not uttering a single word. Mather heard the door close behind him.
Sir Victor did not rise from his seat. In front of him was a tumbler half-filled with Scotch.
'Good of you to get here so quickly.” the Magma chairman said, taking Mather forward.
Although on first glance Sir Victor appeared his usual immaculate self—grey, double-breasted suit, thin-striped shirt and now tie—there was an indefinable dishevelment about him. Perhaps it was the weariness in his eyes, the slight sagging of his jowls, a few lapse strands of silver hair hanging over his forehead that gave the impression, the Shield Planner mused. As well as the unexpected laxity in manners, far Mather had not been offered a sent, nor had Sir Victor risen when he had entered the office.
Hardly a return to Stone-age etiquette, but surely an indication of the stress this usually most civilised of men was under.
Now the chairman did rise, but not in deference to the other man. 'I want to show you something,' he said, 'after which we must discuss our course of action.' Curious. Mather followed the tall man back into the corridor, and then into another office which, like Sir Victor's, bore no title tan is door. They walked through an outer room where the chairman unlocked a further door into the main office itself.
Mather drew in a sharp breath when he saw the figure slumped forward across the glass and chrome desk. He hurriedly crossed the room to examine the body.
'Quinn-Reece?' he asked, already sure that it was.
'Security discovered the body earlier this evening,' the chairman replied grimly.
Mather moved around the desk and Leaned close to the prone man's face. He was prepared to feel for a pulse in Quinn-Reece's neck, but realised it was pointless. The blueness of the vicechairman“s lips, the yellowish tinge to his skin, his very stillness, told him all he needed to know.
'Heart failure?” be ventured.
°I believe so. But look at his face.' even mare puzzled, Mather slid an arm beneath QuinnReece;'s chest and pulled him backwards. He was stunned at what he saw.
' My God he looks as of he . . .'
'Died of fright?” Sir Victor finished for him. 'He was sitting upright like that when he was found. I ordered security to lay him on the desk. I couldn't bear the thought of him staring that way, his mouth locked open . . .' Mather frowned. 'I think you'd better tell me what's going on. I assume your people haven't yet called for a doctor or an ambulance?' The chairman's guilt was barely apparent. 'Our security guards are under strict instructions never to bring outsiders onto the premises unless someone in authority sanctions it. We regard anything that happens within the walls of Magma as company business, and only I or my executive officers may deem otherwise.'
'Good Lord, man, this has nothing to do with your business. It's possible that medical attention might have saved him.' Sir Victor was adamant. 'No, I can assure you he was quite dead. Nothing could have helped him, nothing at all.'
'Well I suggest you call for an ambulance now.'
'Yes, of course. But first we must talk. Please allow me a few minutes.'
'Is there good reason?' The chairman looked away from the corpse. 'I believe so,' he said quietly.
The stairboards groaned under his weight. He thought one or two might break altogether and quickly shifted his footing. It seemed a long climb to the bend in the stairs, as if time itself were being stretched, and at any second he expected someone to appear above him, so strong was the feeling of another's presence inside the lodge-house.