Simon Toyne - Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy - Sanctus, The Key, The Tower

‘How old is … was this man?’

‘Late twenties, possibly early thirties.’

Definitely not her professor.

‘The body does have some distinguishing marks.’

‘What sort of marks?’

‘Well …’ The voice faltered, as if weighing up whether or not it should divulge anything further.

Liv knew from experience how reluctant cops were to give out information.

‘You said this was a suicide, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘Well then, it’s not like a murder where you need to hold back information to weed out false confessions, is it?’

Another pause. ‘No.’

‘So why don’t you just tell me what sort of distinguishing marks you found and I’ll tell you if I know who it is?’

‘You seem very well informed about how these things work, Miss …?’

It was Liv’s turn to falter. So far she’d managed to give nothing away while the caller had revealed his name, his profession and the purpose of his call. The crackle of the long-distance line punctuated the silence. ‘Where are you calling from, Inspector?’

‘I’m calling from the city of Ruin, in southern Turkey.’ That explained the crackly line and the accent. ‘You’re in the United States, aren’t you? New Jersey. At least, that’s where your number is registered.’

‘They clearly didn’t make you an inspector for nothing.’

‘New Jersey’s the Garden State, isn’t it?’

‘That’s the one.’

The crackle returned to the line. Arkadian’s attempt to loosen her up with small talk clearly wasn’t working. ‘OK,’ he said, trying a fresh tack. ‘I’ll do you a deal. You tell me who you are, then I’ll tell you what distinguishing marks we found on the body.’

Liv chewed on her bottom lip, weighing her options. She didn’t really want to give up her name, but she was intrigued and she really wanted to know who had been walking around with her very private phone number and was now lying on a mortuary slab. A beep sounded in her ear. She glanced at the grey display screen. A triangle with an exclamation mark flashed above the words LOW BATTERY. She normally had about a minute between this and total shut down, sometimes even less.

‘My name’s Liv Adamsen,’ she blurted. ‘Tell me about the body.’

She heard a faint and infuriatingly slow tapping as her name was fed into a computer.

‘Scars –’ the voice said finally.

She was about to ask another question when the floor gave way beneath her.

Late twenties, early thirties …

Her left hand moved involuntarily to her side. ‘Did the body … does he have a scar on his right side, about six inches long … like a cross laid on its side?’

‘Yes,’ the voice replied with the softness of rehearsed condolence. ‘Yes, he does.’

Liv stared straight ahead. Gone were the I-95 and the morning traffic crawling into Newark. Instead she saw the face of a scruffily handsome boy with dirty blonde hair grown long, standing on Bow Bridge in Central Park.

‘Sam,’ she said softly. ‘His name’s Sam. Samuel Newton. He’s my brother.’

Another image filled her mind: Sam back-lit by a low spring sun casting long shadows across the tarmac of Newark International Airport. He’d stopped at the top of the steps leading up to the plane that would take him to the mountain ranges of Europe. Shifted the bag on his shoulder containing all his worldly goods and turned to wave. It was the last time she had seen him.

‘How did he die?’ she whispered.

‘He fell.’

She nodded to herself as the image of the golden boy faded and was replaced by the shimmering red river of the Interstate. It was what she always thought had happened. Then she remembered something else the Inspector had said.

‘You said it was suicide?’

‘Yes.’

More memories surfaced. Troubled memories that made her soul feel heavy and brought fresh tears to her eyes. ‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’

There was a brief pause before Arkadian answered. ‘It happened this morning … local time.’

This morning? He’d been alive all that time …

‘If you want, I can call your local police department,’ Arkadian said, ‘send some photos over and get someone to bring you in to formally identify the body.’

‘No!’ Liv said sharply.

‘I’m afraid we need someone to identify him.’

‘I mean it won’t be necessary to send photos. I can be there in … maybe twelve hours …’

‘Honestly, you don’t need to come here to identify the body.’

‘I’m in the car now. I can head straight to the airport.’

‘It really isn’t necessary.’

‘Yes it is,’ she said. ‘It is necessary. My brother disappeared eight years ago. Now you’re telling me that, until a few hours ago, he was still alive. I’ve got to come … I need to know what the hell he’s been doing all these –’

Then her battery ran out.

The man with the freckled hands sat at the café pretending to read the sports pages. The place was busy, and he’d only just managed to grab a table right at the edge of the cool shadow cast by the awning that stretched over the pavement. He watched the sun creep slowly across the white linen tablecloth towards him and shuffled back in his chair.

From where he was sitting he could see the Citadel rising up in the middle distance, almost as if it were watching him. The sight of it made him uneasy. His paranoia was not entirely groundless. Almost as soon as he had finished paying the traveller’s cheques into an account at the First Bank of Ruin that no one but he knew about, he had received two new messages. The first was from someone he’d occasionally done business with, requesting the same information he had just sold. The second was from his contact in the Citadel, offering to pay handsomely for his ongoing loyalty and regular updates. It was proving to be a very lucrative morning indeed. Nevertheless he did feel slightly uneasy taking money for ‘ongoing loyalty’ when here he was, in plain view of the Citadel, about to give the same information to somebody else.

He glanced up from his paper and waved at the waiter to bring him his bill. It was odd that this case in particular was proving of such interest to so many. It wasn’t a murder or a sex case, both of which were traditionally his best earners. The waiter swept past, leaving a small round plate on the table with the bill trapped beneath a mint at its centre. He’d only had a coffee but he pulled out his wallet, selected a particular credit card and exchanged it for the mint, which he popped in his mouth. He laid his paper on the white linen tablecloth and smoothed it down, feeling the slight lump inside it. He leaned back in his chair and looked away, just another tourist enjoying the weather, as the waiter scooped up the newspaper and the plate without breaking his stride.

The sun continued to creep across the sky and the man pushed his chair further back. It had to be sex. He’d had a peek through the file himself the first time he’d swiped it and there was definitely something kinky going on, judging by all those scars. His guess was something weird that the holy folks were trying to cover up.

He also knew that the other party he was hawking the information to had no love for the Citadel, or the people inside it. The information he’d fed them before proved that. He’d given them the case file relating to the paedophile priest scandal a few years back, and another time he’d provided names and numbers of key witnesses when a bunch of charities affiliated to the Church were being investigated for fraud. He figured this must be the same kind of deal. They were probably trying to find out as much as possible so they could fan the flames of any breaking scandal and embarrass the hell out of the holier-than-thous up on the hill. All of which was good news for him. A nice juicy sex scandal with a religious angle would play out nicely in the tabloids – and they were the best payers of all.