Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

“Yeah, but lobbyists are already working on their behalf in Washington and London, aren’t they?”

She nods. “Which is why this trip’s so important. You know the hoops I had to jump through to get the commissioner to sign off on it.”

I smile. “Jumping hoops… Were you in full-dress uniform?”

Her eyes burn into mine. “Behave yourself,” she says primly. “You’re right, Matt. There are people in Congress under Woodbridge’s thumb. American jobs are at stake and you know how important they are, given the state of the global economy.”

“I don’t suppose it’s impossible that they’ve got friends in the Justice Department and the FBI, too.”

“True. But I think Levon Creamer is solid enough.”

“Crazy name,” I say, accepting a food tray from the stewardess.

“Yes, but he’s head of Financial Crime at the Bureau. He’s the one who got me the meeting with the politicians.”

I’m unable to stifle a yawn. That gets me another nudge.

“Sorry if I’m boring you.” She concentrates on unwrapping her scone. “Of course, your business in Washington is much more important.”

I spread clotted cream on the jam I’ve already smothered over my scone. “Oh, no, it’s just a minor project-international crime during the Cold War, illegalities at the highest levels of government, assassinations, regime change…”

“Quite,” she says. “Of course, there isn’t any hard evidence.”

I raise a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. Joe Greenbaum is an expert in the field.”

“And he’s going to open his files to you, free of charge?”

I shrug. “Well, I can offer him a small consideration. And some information of my own in exchange.”

Her gaze locks with mine. “I hope you haven’t sneaked a look at my Burdett files.”

I shake my head. “Certainly not. But I’d advise you against leaving them open in my flat. The cleaner might be an undercover agent.”

She stares at me. “You haven’t got a cleaner.”

“What do you mean? I clean every Tuesday afternoon-” I gasp. “Ow, that hurt.”

She laughs. “Serves you right.”

I’m laughing, too.

But I still can’t remember her name…

“Matt! Matt!”

I moved my head and almost threw up. Opening my eyes wasn’t any more enjoyable. My vision was blurred.

“Matt? Are you all right?”

Mary Upson’s face swam into view to my left, blood on her forehead.

“Yeah,” I said, pushing myself up from the steering wheel. “What happened?”

“Never mind that. Let’s get you out.” She put her arm round me and pulled me out of the pickup. I slumped down on the bumper in the vehicle’s headlights. “Let’s have a look.” Her fingers were on my face. “Your forehead’s bruised, but the skin isn’t broken.” She raised a hand to her temple. “Unlike mine.”

“We might both be concussed,” I mumbled.

She nodded. “Have you got pain anywhere else? Ribs? Chest?”

I touched myself gingerly. “No, I think I’m in one piece.”

Mary sat down beside me. “You were lucky. Do you remember anything?”

“Not much.” I was thinking about the blonde woman on the plane. Where was she now?

“It was like you had a fit,” Mary said. “You started shaking and your eyes were rolling. You’re not epileptic, are you?”

I shook my head, which was a bad idea. Then I had a vision of the camp. Had I really been tied to a stake to face a firing squad? The woman I’d remembered-Jesus, had she been imprisoned, too?

“Matt?”

I glanced at Mary, my mouth slack. They’d put me under a machine; they’d messed with my brain. Had anything I remembered really happened? Or was it just the tip of a very large iceberg?

“What is it, Matt?” Mary shook my arm.

They messed with my brain, I told myself again. They screwed up my mind. But I was fighting it. I wasn’t going to let them drag me down.

“Matt!”

I shuddered and then got a grip on myself. The blonde woman on the plane, my lover, the senior police officer-the one who’d disappeared in the Shenandoah Valley. She had meetings in Washington. The answers had to be there.

“Is the pickup okay?” I asked, getting to my feet unsteadily.

“The nearside front tire hit a rock. That was what made our heads whip forward. It’s flat. The spare’s in good shape. You stay here.”

By the time she’d finished, I already felt better.

“I’m driving,” Mary said, in a tone that didn’t invite contradiction.

I waited while she started the engine, then I gave the pickup a shove. The rear tires gripped on the gravel and we were back in business.

“There’s a small town about ten miles ahead,” Mary said.

As we drove on, a gray light began to spread from the east. The tips of the trees took on a brighter hue of green and birds flew across the road. The trees began to thin and we ran down toward a narrow lake. The road took a sharp turn to the right before the shoreline.

The state trooper had set his roadblock about thirty yards after the bend. By the time Mary braked, we were almost on top of it. I didn’t have any time to duck down, let alone slip out of the pickup.

All I could do was rack the slide of my Glock and prepare for action.

“You boys want to tell me just what the hell is going on in this city?” Chief Rodney Owen said, looking around the top-floor room where early-morning sunlight was glinting through the windows and Abraham Singer’s body lay still.

Detective Simmons glanced at his partner. Gerard Pinker wasn’t showing much interest in replying. Two CSIs were working on different parts of the room, doing their best to appear cloth-eared.

“Well, sir,” Simmons said, “the indications are that this murder is linked to the previous two.”

“The indications being the piece of paper with the boxes drawn on it,” Owen said.

Simmons nodded. “And the M.O.”

The three men looked at the paper that had been attached to the victim’s back with carpentry nails.

“It looks like the paper and ink will match the previous sheets,” Pinker said. “The squares and rectangles are not in the same pattern, just as with the first and second ones, but they’re broadly similar.”

The chief nodded. “Go on.”

“Then there’s the M.O. This vic was killed by the insertion of wooden-handled skewers into each eye. The skewers match the Loki and Monsieur Hexie murders.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Owen said, shaking his head. “What does it mean, Clem?”

“We’re working on that.”

“Meaning, you’re hoping the Bureau’s experts come up with something.”

Simmons raised his shoulders. “They’ve got the ‘database.’” He recalled the first view he’d had of the old professor. He was lying on his front, the familiar transparent plastic file containing the piece of paper pinned to his back. Observing Marion Gilbert and her assistant as they turned the body over had not been pleasant.

“Any witnesses?” Chief Owen asked. “Who found the body?”

Pinker tugged on his cuffs and opened his notebook. “Another professor, name of Albert Rudenstein. He saw the vic’s lights still on and came up. That was just after midnight. Rudenstein had been at a faculty dinner. No witnesses to an intruder so far. Apparently Professor Singer was often the last to leave. Apart from him, there was only a graduate student called Lawrence Jones in the building after seven last night, and he was gone by eight. He didn’t notice anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”

Rodney Owen was examining at the dark stains on the floorboards. “What does the M.E. think about time of death?”