Darren Shan - Procession of the dead

It wasn't possible. There had to be information somewhere, perhaps tucked away in files on one of the higher, restricted floors. But I couldn't get in there, so I had no option other than to resign myself to his bureaucratic nonbeing.

Then I recalled my encounter on the stairs. Was the woman in black involved in this? Strangers didn't wander into Party Central as and when they pleased. Getting an operative in here would require tremendous influence. The same sort it would need to eradicate a person's files. She could be a link to Adrian. It looked like I'd have to investigate my mystery girl sooner than planned, only not for the romantic purposes I'd initially envisaged. It would be difficult but I'd hunt her down. For Adrian's sake if not my own.

I called Adrian's agency and spoke to the manager, John D'Affraino, whom I'd met a couple of times. He remembered me and was all smiles over the phone. "John, do you have an Adrian Arne on your books?" I asked after a while.

"Let's see." I heard him tapping the name into his computer. "Is that with or without an e? With? No, no Arne. We've got an Adrian Arnold."

"Could you describe him?"

"Six-two, black, thirties, bushy beard."

"No. Do you have a record of my drivers for the last month or two?"

"Sure. Just a minute… here we go. You've got Thomas at the moment. He's one of our best. Before him you had Pat Burke. Gregg Hapes before that."

"Could you get Pat or Gregg on the phone?"

"Sure. Hold on a sec."

Pat Burke was off duty but Gregg Hapes was there. I asked if he remembered driving me. "Of course," he said cheerfully. "I'm due to take you out again next week for a couple of nights, I think."

"Do you recall the last time you took me out?"

"I think so," he said. "Last Thursday, wasn't it? Or was it Friday?"

"One of those, yeah. Do you remember my date, a tall lady in a green dress?"

A slight pause, one I'd have missed if I hadn't been expecting it. "Sure," he said, cheerful as before. "A nice lady."

"She lost an earring, we think maybe in the car. You come up with anything like that lately?"

"No, Mr. Raimi. And I cleaned it out just yesterday."

"If you do, will you send it on?"

"Absolutely. I think I remember them. Green, right, like the dress?"

"Yeah. Like the dress." I hung up and took a few seconds to collect myself. I thanked the receptionist for the use of her phone, went to the toilet, came down in an elevator and set off to see Cafran Reed.

They'd even gotten to the chauffeurs. Why go to such lengths? Deleting his files, securing the silence of those who knew him, covering every track he'd ever made. What justification could there be for the cost, time and effort that must have involved? And if they'd gone that far, bought out his building supervisor and workmates, his own sister… if they'd solicited everyone who knew him and warned them to deny Adrian's very existence… why hadn't they come after me?

Y Tse called as I was on my way to Cafran Reed's restaurant. "Hi, kid," he boomed. "How's tricks?"

"Fine," I said. This was the first time he'd called. He hated phones. I guessed somebody had been talking.

"You sure of that? Someone told me you've been acting a bit strange today. What's up?"

"Who was it?" I asked. "Sonja?"

"Well, tarnation's titties, Capac, how many other dames have you been freaking the living shit out of? She was sobbing, called you a heartless prick, threatened to cancel your contract. She'd been drinking and that's not like Sonja."

"And she's blaming me? Fuck her!" I yelled. "She won't acknowledge Adrian. Her own brother, and the bitch sat there and told me she was an orphan! Can you believe that shit? Then I go to Party Central and someone's wiped his files. I call his agency and they say he never worked there-not only that, but they've drawn up an imaginary list of drivers for me. And there's some-"

"Whoa," he laughed over the line. "Get a grip, Capac. Are you high?"

"Y Tse," I shouted, "Sonja has a brother! Adrian has been my driver and best friend since I started working here. A couple of days ago he didn't turn up for work and now it's like I dreamed him up. Nobody admits they knew him, there's nothing to prove he was ever alive. How the fuck am I expected to react?"

"Listen, Capac-no, no anchovies-," he said to somebody on the other end of the line. "-Let's talk this through calmly. I don't know Sonja very well but a few years ago I had an all-night session with her and Leonora. We got to talking about our lives and inner selves, all the shit you only discuss at five in the morning. She said she'd never had a family, would have loved a brother or sister. She got quite emotional about it."

"But I saw him! Every fucking day, Y Tse! Are you saying I imagined him?"

"No. All I'm saying is a few years ago, before anyone had ever heard of Capac Raimi, Sonja Arne told me she didn't have a brother. That means whatever you've stumbled into predates you. There are three possibilities as I see it. One, Sonja was lying all those years ago and really does have a brother. I don't think that's the case. Why should she lie back then if it was? Two, you're going mad. Not a pretty thought, but the mind screws up on us sometimes. I don't think it's likely but we can't dismiss the possibility. Three, there never was an Adrian Arne, only a pretender."

"But she introduced us. She told me he was her brother."

"She was lying."

His simple assertion threw me. It was so obvious. Immediately I knew it must be the truth and cursed myself for not having seen it already.

"She wanted you to believe she had a brother," Y Tse went on, "so she fed you a lie. He was in on it too. It's an easy deception to pull off-you had no reason to suspect something foul. Now they want the deception to end. So they stop lying. No trick to it. Who's going to notice the disappearance of a guy who was never real in the first place?"

"Why go to all that trouble?" I asked. "What difference can it make whether I think Sonja has a brother or not? It serves no purpose. Why would they pretend?"

"That's something for you to unearth if you decide to follow it up. But I'll tell you, whoever's behind this, I doubt it's Sonja. I guess somebody else is involved, someone who likes to play meaningless games for reasons sometimes unknown even to himself."

"The Cardinal?"

"It's got his crazy stamp all over it. You checked in Party Central's files and drew a blank? Well, ignoring the fact that if he's not her brother, his name wouldn't be Arne"- Fuck! -"who's got the power to tamper with those files? A handful of people, and every one of them's on the shortest of The Cardinal's many leashes. Nothing like that could be done without his knowledge."

"There was…" I paused. Should I tell him of my encounter on the stairs? I trusted Y Tse but… no. I trusted him and that was that. I needed at least one person to believe in. "There was a woman last night. I met her going up the stairs of Party Central. I don't know what she was up to, but it wasn't legitimate. She was dressed like a burglar and-"

"A burglar?" he snorted. "Get real. Couldn't happen."

"But it did. She got in somehow. She was coming down from a higher floor when I-"

"I'm telling you," he interrupted, "Party Central has the tightest security on the face of the planet. Apart from the Troops camped around it, there are sensor beams on every floor, remote-operated machine guns set behind the walls, canisters of gas in the ceilings, hidden cameras, secret traps, all manner of-"

"Hidden cameras?" My heart raced as I thought of The Cardinal sitting down before a TV set with his lunch, watching my bony ass going through the motions.

"Loads of them."

"On the stairs too?"

"Of course."

Fuck. Another problem I'd have to cope with. This was one week I wanted to take back and start over again. "So you think The Cardinal's behind this? That he set Adrian up to fool me, or made him vanish like those others you told me about, Harry Gilmer and the rest?"