Whispers of the Dead - Страница 42

We’d arrived at the hotel. Jacobsen found a parking space near the entrance. As she pulled in I saw her glance in the rearview mirror, checking the cars behind us.

‘I’ll see you up to your room,’ she said, reaching into the back seat for the manila envelope that Gardner had given her.

‘There’s no need.’

But she was already climbing out of the car. There was a new alertness about her as we went inside. Her eyes were constantly moving, flicking over the faces around us, checking for potential threats, and I saw how she walked with her right hand held close to where her gun was concealed under her jacket. Part of me felt unable to take any of this seriously.

Then I remembered what had been left on my windscreen.

An elderly woman gave us a twinkling smile as she stepped out of the lift, and I could guess what she was thinking. Just another young couple, on their way to bed after a day in the city. It was so far removed from the truth it was almost funny.

Jacobsen and I stood side by side in the lift. We were the only passengers, and the tension between us seemed to increase with every floor. Our shoulders brushed lightly at one point, causing a quiet snap of static. She swayed away, just far enough to break the contact. When the doors opened she stepped out first, her hand slipping under her jacket to rest on the gun at her hip as she checked that the corridor was empty. My room was at the far end. I swiped my key card through the slot and opened the door.

‘Thanks for escorting me.’

I was smiling as I said it, but she was all efficiency now. The barriers that had briefly come down in the car had gone back up.

‘May I take a look in your room?’

I was going to tell her again there was no need, but I could see I’d be wasting my time. I stepped aside to let her in.

‘Feel free.’

I stood by the bed while she searched. It wasn’t a big room, so it didn’t take her long to satisfy herself that York wasn’t hiding in it. She was still carrying the manila envelope from Gardner, and when she’d finished she brought it over to where I waited. She stopped a few feet away, her face a perfect mask.

‘One more thing. Dan wanted me to show you these.’ She busied herself opening the envelope. ‘There was a security camera over the road from the hospital payphone. We pulled the footage from the time the call was made to Dr Lieberman.’

She handed me a thin sheaf of photographs. They were stills from a CCTV camera: low quality and grainy, with the date and time printed at the bottom. I recognized the stretch of road where the phone booth was situated. One or two cars and the boxy white shape of an ambulance were partially visible in the foreground, blurred and out of focus.

But I was more concerned with the dark figure that was caught turning away from the payphone. The image quality was so poor it was impossible to make out its features. The head was bowed, the face no more than a white crescent that was all but hidden by a dark, peaked cap.

The other photographs showed more of the same, the figure hurrying across the road, shoulders hunched and head down. If anything it was even less clear in those.

‘The lab’s trying to clean up the images,’ Jacobsen told me. ‘We can’t say for sure that it’s York, but the height and build look about right.’

‘You aren’t just showing me these out of courtesy, are you?’

‘No.’ She looked at me unflinchingly. ‘If you’re York’s next target Dan felt you ought to know what he might do to try to get near you. The dark clothes and cap could be some kind of uniform. And if you look on his hip there’s something that looks like a flashlight. It’s possible he tries to pass himself off as a police officer or some other authority figure who—Dr Hunter? What is it?’

I was staring at the photograph as the memory fell loose. Flashlight…

‘A security guard,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry?’

I told her about being stopped in the car park a few nights earlier. ‘It’s probably nothing. He just wanted to know what I was doing there.’

Jacobsen was frowning. ‘When was this?’

I had to think back. ‘The night before Irving was abducted.’

‘Did you get a good look at him?’

‘He kept the torch pointed at my face. I couldn’t see him at all.’

‘What about anything else? His mannerisms or voice?’

I shook my head, still trying to recall. ‘Not really. Except… well, his voice sounded… odd, somehow. Gruff.’

‘Like he was disguising it?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘And you didn’t mention this to anyone?’

‘I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Look, it probably was just a security guard. If it was York why did he let me go?’

‘You said yourself it was the night before Professor Irving disappeared. Maybe he had other plans.’

That silenced me. Jacobsen put the photographs back in the envelope.

‘We’ll check with hospital security, see if it was one of their people. In the meantime, keep your door locked when I’ve gone. Someone’ll be in touch tomorrow morning.’

‘So I’ve got to just wait here until I hear from you?’

She was all stone again now. ‘It’s in your own interests. Until we know how we’re going to play this.’

I wondered what she meant by that, but let it go. Any decision would come from Gardner or above, not her. ‘Do you want a drink before you go? I don’t know how well stocked the minibar is, but I could order coffee or—’

‘No.’ Her vehemence seemed to surprise both of us. ‘Thanks, but I need to get back to Dan,’ she went on more calmly. But the flush spreading from the base of her throat told another story.

She was already heading for the door. With one last reminder for me to keep it locked, she was gone. What was that about? I wondered if she could have read too much into my offer of a drink, but I was too tired to worry about it for long.

I sank down on the edge of the bed. It seemed impossible that it was only that morning I’d heard of Tom’s death. I’d intended to call Mary again, but it was too late now. I put my head in my hands. Christ, what a mess. Sometimes it seemed I was dogged by ill luck and disaster. I wondered if events would have followed the same track if I’d never come out here. But I could almost hear what Tom would say to that: Stop beating yourself up, David. This would have happened no matter what. You want to blame someone, blame York. He’s the one responsible.

But Tom was dead. And York was still out there.

I stood up and went to the window. My breath fogged the cool glass, reducing the world outside to indistinct yellow smudges in the darkness. When I wiped my fist across the pane, it reappeared with a squeak of skin on glass. The street below was a bright neon strip, car headlights creeping along in a silent ballet. All those lives, busily going about their own concerns, all indifferent to each other. Watching them made me acutely aware of how far from home I was, how much I didn’t belong.

Whether you belong or not, you’re here. Get on with it.

It occurred to me that I still hadn’t eaten. Turning away from the window, I reached for the room service menu. I opened it but only glanced at the gushing descriptions of fast food before tossing it aside. All at once I couldn’t stand to be in the room any longer. York or no York, I wasn’t going to hide away until Gardner decided what to do with me. Snatching up my jacket, I took the lift back down to the lobby. I only intended to go to the hotel’s late-night bar to see if they were still serving food, but I found myself walking straight past. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to be somewhere else.

Outside, the rain had stopped, but the air was still freshened by its recent fall. The pavement was slick and shiny. My shoes raised small splashes as I set off down the street. The skin between my shoulder blades twitched, but I resisted the impulse to look behind me. Come on then, York. You want me? Here I am!

But my bravado soon burned itself out. When I came to a diner that was still open I went inside. The menu was mainly burgers and fried chicken, but I didn’t care. I ordered at random and handed the menu back to the waitress.

‘Anythin’ to drink?’

‘Just a beer, please. No, wait—Do you have any bourbon? Blanton’s?’

‘We got bourbon, but just Jim or Jack.’

I ordered a Jim Beam with ice. When it arrived I took a slow drink. The bourbon traced a gentle fire down my throat, easing away the lump that had formed there. Here’s to you, Tom. We’ll get the bastard soon, I promise.

For a while I almost believed it myself.

The straps and cogs gleam in the lamplight. You polish them after every time, waxing the leather until it’s soft and supple and the tooled steel gleams. There’s no real need. It’s an affectation, you know that. But you enjoy the ritual. Sometimes you think you can almost smell the warm beeswax scent of the saddle polish; probably just a faint trace memory, but it soothes you all the same. And there’s something about the sense of preparation, of ceremony, that appeals. Reminds you that what you’re doing has a purpose; that the next time might be the one. And this time it will be.

You can feel it.

You tell yourself not to get your hopes up as you lovingly burnish the leather, but you can’t deny the tingle of anticipation. You always feel it beforehand, when everything is possible and disappointment is still in the future. But this time it seems different. More portentous.