Darren Shan - Procession of the dead

"Sounds flaky, Raimi."

"How else do you explain it?"

"Maybe The Cardinal scours hospitals for amnesiacs," she said. "Buys or steals them, feeds them false identities and…" I raised an eyebrow. "It's as likely as your theory," she sniffed.

"We're probably way off base," I said. "The rest probably have perfect memories and we're just two screwups who came together by chance."

"You believe that?" she asked.

"I don't believe anything anymore," I told her.

We parted eventually, reluctantly, having said nothing about our feelings for each other or any future we might have together. There was no time. Not until this Ayuamarca business was out of the way. How could we think about a relationship when we didn't even know if our names were real?

We agreed to meet on the nineteenth floor of Party Central at ten the next night if we were both still alive. We kissed once and parted, no heroic or amorous last words. Ama returned to Cafran Reed on her scooter and I went back to the less fatherly Nathanael Mead. He was reading a paper when I arrived. He glanced up when the door opened, folded the paper and started the engine.

"A productive meeting?" he asked when we were on the road back to civilization.

"It was… different," I said.

"He's a dangerous man, The Cardinal," Mead said. "You wanna watch yourself. He'll chew you up if you don't."

"How come you know so much?" I asked.

"I'm a cabbie. Been one all my working life. You hear things. See things. If you want to. Most don't-they turn a blind eye and mind their own business. I'm not like that. I like to keep in touch."

"Speaking of blind eyes," I said. "You know anything about a gang of blind, religious nuts? They dress in robes and-"

"-Come out whenever there's a fog," he said, nodding. "Sure. I don't know much about them, except they've been around as long as I can remember."

"Have they got anything to do with The Cardinal?"

"No idea," he said.

When we returned to the heart of the metropolis I told him to stop. I paid the fare and gave him a hearty tip for his trouble.

"Not bad," he whistled appreciatively.

"If I ever need you again, can I call?"

"Sure." He gave me a grubby card. "My cell." He paused. "You're OK, Raimi. You need me, call. I'll come get you wherever you are."

"Thanks."

I waited around a while, then hailed another cab, directed the driver to Party Central, and gave him a tip up front to break a few speeding regulations. I had investigations to make.

capac

I stayed through the night. Secretaries and temps came and went in shifts but I remained, hooked to one terminal or another, eyes glued to screens or pages, fingers flicking over keys or through books, searching, absorbing, analyzing. The files were as detailed as Ama had claimed. Everything I'd done since coming to the city was listed. Bills, receipts, inventories. Transcripts of conversations with clients, friends and associates. Even the tennis scores from my day at the courts. The Cardinal must have spent a fortune compiling this.

But not a word about my past. I used the computers to cross-reference my name with everything they could muster, but it was like I'd asked them to find a ghost. As far as the records were concerned, before I'd come to this city I hadn't existed. In the face of such a lack of evidence, I could almost believe that I'd blinked into existence that day. Except I had memories. They were vague and I couldn't get a proper fix on them, but they were there. The face of the woman. My familiarity with old movies, songs and books that I liked.

It had to be amnesia. The Cardinal must have found me in a hospital as Ama had suggested, mind frayed, a wreck. He brought me here to serve one of his obscure purposes, fed me a false identity and set me loose. It was like something out of a sci-fi flick but I could buy it. Just about.

But what about Theo, Cafran Reed and Sonja Arne? They weren't amnesiacs. Maybe it was a big pretense but Theo had acted as if he truly thought I was his nephew. Cafran had studied Ama with a father's loving eyes. Sonja had doted on Adrian before she denied all knowledge of him. Easy to think they'd been bought, that they were playing The Cardinal's game, but I didn't think it was that simple. If I was any judge of character, they really believed that we were their relations.

I looked up Theo's files. He had two sisters, neither living in the city. I called both, my throat dry, not a hundred percent neither of them was my mother. I told them I was an old friend of Theo's, that I'd been away a long time and had just learned of his death. They were glad to talk about him. Neither recognized my voice. I probed gently, throwing innocent questions their way. One was divorced and childless, the other had six children, the eldest a mere seventeen years old. I thanked them for their time, promised to drop in if I was ever nearby, and severed my connections with my uncle once and for all. He wasn't my mother's brother. He'd probably never seen me before I arrived that dull and rainy day.

I searched for Y Tse Lapotaire and Adrian Arne. I figured they had to crop up somewhere. But not a whiff. I went back further. As Inti Maimi, Y Tse had been The Cardinal's right-hand man. There had to be files on him. You couldn't go through a period of your life as the second most powerful man in the city without leaving some trace. Even if his files had been pulled, there had to be mention of him in the records, photos of him in the press, like Ford Tasso, Sonja Arne and every other major mover.

Nothing.

My last throw of the dice was a copy of the register from Shankar's. It was a huge, gold-bound book. Every guest was invited to sign it when leaving the restaurant. Most didn't-it was there primarily for the occasional high-ranking visitor. Y Tse and I had signed it a few weeks back. We'd been drinking a bit more than usual. In our drunken state it had suddenly become vitally important to sign the big book, leaving our mark for future generations. Y Tse went first, taking up three lines with his scrawl. I followed less flamboyantly. We laughed, slapped each other's backs and stumbled out.

The copy in Party Central was updated a couple of times a week. They used a color photocopier so nothing was lost in the transfer. I flicked to the end and sought our names. There I was, Capac Raimi. And right above, three lines high- Samuel Griff.

I cast my mind back. Samuel Griff was one of my customers. I'd sold him a policy after a meeting in Shankar's. We hadn't been there that particular day of course, since I remembered being there with Y Tse then. But I knew Griff would say we had been if I called andasked.

It was hopeless. The Cardinal had covered every track. As far as history was concerned, Y Tse Lapotaire had never existed. Adrian Arne had never existed. Capac Raimi had, but not before coming to the city.

I spotted the first rays of morning through the window blinds. I'd spent the entire night following trails that led nowhere. I rubbed my tired eyes and leaned back, yawning, stretching my arms until my fingers seemed to touch the ceiling. At least I now knew where I stood. No avenue remained, apart from the one I was going to explore that night with Ama. I stood to lose everything but it no longer mattered. I'd been robbed of a past and that was something I couldn't live with. I had to find out who I was. Whatever the cost.

I logged out, switched off the light, called Thomas and told him to meet me at the bottom of the building. I headed back to the Skylight to grab a good day's sleep before the night raid. I'd need all my wits about me at ten.

I was half dozing in the back of the car when Thomas suddenly broke the protocol and addressed me. "Sir, I believe we're being followed."

"I don't think this is the first time," I said sourly, thinking about all those reports I'd read the night before. They couldn't have tracked me so easily if Thomas hadn't been helping them out.