Simon Toyne - Sanctus

Alone in the white-tiled changing room, Liv blotted her reddened skin with the thin, scratchy towel. She could hear someone doing laps in the pool beyond the shower block.

The small pile of white and blue gym clothes the Sub-Inspector had given her positively sparkled next to her old blouse and jeans. She slipped into the tracksuit bottoms and pulled the white T-shirt over her head. ‘POLIS’ was printed on the front and back in large black letters. She went through her pockets, transferred the few dollars and change and wiped the mud-caked phone clean. She jogged the on button and the screen flashed on. It shivered gently in her hand; a new text message. She didn’t recognize the number.

She opened it and felt the chill return.

DO NOT TRUST THE POLICE

The capitals couldn’t have been more emphatic.

CALL ME AND I’LL EXPLAIN

She thought of the warning she had received last night, before the crash and the gunfire.

Liv stood stock still. She could hear the trickle of shower water, the splash of whoever was in the pool and the hum of air conditioning overhead, but nothing else. No approaching footsteps. No muffled conversations in the corridor. But she suddenly had the feeling that someone was in the room with her, standing behind the wall that divided the changing area from the main door, listening to her movements.

She slipped the phone in her pocket and pulled on a pair of white gym socks.

I think it’s best that you stay under our protection. .

Arkadian had said that before packing her off with her chaperone.

Police protection. Her brother hadn’t benefited too well from it, had he?

She laced her grubby trainers over the pristine socks. The dark blue sweat-top swamped her slender frame. It too had POLICE emblazoned across it. She glanced once more towards the door then scooped up her ink-stained newspaper and headed in the other direction, past the still-dripping showers towards the pool.

The air in the pool enclosure was warm and damp and scraped the back of Liv’s throat with chlorine fingers as she made her way around its edge towards the fire exit. A slash of morning sunlight had somehow found its way through the crush of surrounding buildings and sparkled on the surface of the pale blue water.

Liv pushed down on the horizontal locking bar. A high-pitched siren echoed through the building. She pushed it closed behind her, killing the alarm as suddenly as it had started. The swimmer didn’t look up, just carried on doing steady lengths, sending glittering reflections across the white painted walls.

Sulley was on the phone to a news producer. The warning only sounded for a few seconds but it snapped him to attention.

‘Listen,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll have to call you back.’

He approached the entrance to the ladies’ locker room, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the shiny vinyl floor. Women. Jesus. She’d been in there for a lifetime. He listened for the sound of the shower. Heard nothing. Knocked gently.

‘Miss Adamsen?’ He pushed the door open far enough to poke his head through.

No reply. There was a partition just inside, so he couldn’t see a thing.

‘Miss Adamsen?’ A little louder this time. ‘You OK in there?’ Still nothing.

He peered around the corner. Apart from a small pile of dirty clothes and a wet towel, the place was empty. Sulley felt a hot flush rising under his shirt, turning his pale flesh pink. ‘Miss Adamsen?’

He looked left. All four toilet cubicle doors were wide open.

He whipped back round to the showers.

Empty.

Moving on through, he found himself in the brightly lit chemical fug of the pool area. He squinted at the swimmer, hoping it was her; saw the short black hair and police issue swimsuit he hadn’t given her, knew it was not. He spotted the fire exit and felt his throat go dry. He jogged towards it. The moment he pushed it open and the alarm sounded he realized what had happened.

Outside, the street was teeming in both directions; people in suits, tourists in casual leisurewear. He searched amongst them for a dark blue, police-issue sweat-top. He saw nothing. The door swung shut behind him and the alarm stopped shrieking. His phone started vibrating in his hand and he glanced down at it, anxious in case it was Arkadian calling for an update. The number was withheld.

‘Hello?’

A white transit pulled up beside him.

‘Hello,’ the driver replied.

Liv threaded her way through the crowds. She had no idea where she was heading but knew she had to stay out of sight and put as much distance between herself and the district building as possible while she got her head together. She pulled the hood of her new sweat-top over her wet hair and fell in step with a group of women, staying close enough for it to look like she was with them. At this time of day most people on the streets were tourists. Her clothes would have stood out a mile bobbing along in a river of suits and she hadn’t seen many blonde locals.

Street sellers energetically offered their wares to the passing trade, mostly ethnic copper trinkets and rolled-up rugs, and ahead of her a newsstand rose up in the middle of the pavement, parting the flow of people like an island in a stream. Liv glanced at the front pages as she drifted past; every one carried a picture of her brother. She felt the emotion rise up inside her again, but not grief now — more anger. There were too many question marks surrounding his death to waste any more time trying to solve word puzzles. She felt partly responsible for setting her brother on his tragic course, but something else had driven him to take his own life, and she owed it to him to find out what.

She looked up and saw the Citadel soaring above the bobbing heads of the tourists, everyone moving slowly towards it, pulled by its gravity like leaves towards a whirlpool. She felt drawn too, for entirely different reasons, but for now it would have to wait. It cost twenty lira to enter the old town, she’d read it in the guidebook, and at the moment all she had was a few dollars to her name.

She took her cell phone from her pocket, opened her last text message and punched call-back.

The van eased its way down the street. Sulley sat by the door, next to the guy who was sweating like it was mid-summer. The big guy with the patchy beard drove. All three watched the street in silence.

Sulley hadn’t wanted to get in with them. Selling information was one thing, being directly involved in what was obviously going to be a kidnapping was way off the scale. He couldn’t be doing this. It was criminal, for God’s sake. It was jeopardizing everything. But the big man with the melted face had been insistent. And because Sulley didn’t want to stand outside the district building having a lengthy conversation, he’d got in.

He looked out of the window scanning the crowds for a flash of the girl’s blonde hair or the white lettering on the dark blue sweat-top, hoping he wouldn’t see either. Back at the station he’d catch heat for losing her, but that kind of heat he could handle. It would be a whole lot better than finding her with these guys.

‘Got her!’ The sweaty guy in the middle of the bench seat angled the screen of the finder towards the driver. He studied it for a beat then looked ahead to where the road curved left and a wide paved area stretched beyond a barrier of concrete bollards; a no-car zone where the antiquated buildings had been hollowed out and turned into chain stores. It was packed with people. ‘She’s in there,’ he said.

Sulley scanned the area as the van drew nearer. Saw a group of tourists walking away from them. One was wearing a dark blue sweat-top. The crowd parted slightly just before they disappeared behind a newsstand and he glimpsed POLICE printed on the back of it. The driver saw it too. ‘We’ll drive round to the other end, where it rejoins the road.’ He stopped by the kerb. ‘Go get her.’