Текст книги "Deviance"

Автор книги: J. F. Penn

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Chapter 27

Jamie saw the menace in their eyes, but she didn't believe they would be able to touch the protestors. They were relying on brute intimidation, waiting for the crowd to crack. And it looked like it was beginning to work.

One middle-aged man stepped away from the fence, raising his hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry, O," he called out as he walked away. "I didn't sign up for this."

His defection caused a wave in the group and more began to drop away, heads down against the rain as they retreated. But a core group remained, clustering in front of the main gate, their resolve hardening.

The foreman's phone rang. He answered it and smiled.

He signaled to the head of security and Jamie didn't like what she saw in his eyes. They couldn't touch the protestors – unless someone was protecting them, unless someone would be able to spin this story and stop the police from getting here or preventing charges. It had to be Dale Cameron.

The security men surged forward at the signal and pulled the protestors forcibly from the gates, dragging them kicking and screaming, pushing and shoving hard enough to hurt but not injure too much.

One woman ended up face down in the mud still clutching ribbons from the gate. A security guard stepped on her hand and she screamed. The man smiled and pressed his boot harder.

Jamie moved to help and the man turned to grab her, his meaty fist high. She ducked under and used a knife hand to jab into his throat. He gasped, clutching his neck, his eyes surprised at her retaliation.

Jamie bent to help the woman up, then turned to see two more of the security men walking towards her.

"Feisty little thing, aren't you," one of the men said.

"I'm a former police officer," Jamie snarled at them, standing her ground. "You're all in a lot of trouble for this."

The men laughed. They lunged at the same time and Jamie realized this was no time to fight. There was no way she could come out of this well. Not here, not against these men. She put up her hands and took a step back but the men were already fired up.

They bundled her to the floor, dragging her hands up behind her back, grinding her face into the muddy tarmac.

"Now you stay down," the man whispered, forcing her hands up higher until Jamie felt her shoulders crunch. She let out a whimper and the man relaxed his grip, clearly delighted by her acquiescence.

A roar came from one of the bulldozers. It began to move towards the gates, revving its engine to scare the last protestors out of the way.

It was moving too fast for such a small area, but the man driving was encouraged by the cheers of his co-workers. The rain obscured his vision, hammering down on his windshield as he drove inexorably towards the gates.

Suddenly, Jamie saw O twist out of the grip of one of the security guards and run towards the gates. Magda turned too late to grab her and for a split second, Jamie saw O standing in front of the bulldozer, her body the final obstacle. But the bulldozer didn't stop.

The crunch of metal against gates.

The thud of the vehicle against a body.

Magda's scream.

It all came at once.

The man holding Jamie down released her and she sprang up, running towards the front of the bulldozer. The other workmen were shouting now and the vehicle reversed away. Jamie caught a glimpse of the driver's stricken face. This had all gone too far.

"Call an ambulance," the foreman shouted.

A little group gathered around a fallen figure. O lay against the gate, hands clutched at her belly, eyelids fluttering over a startled gaze. Magda wept by her side, her arms cradling her lover.

"Olivia," she whispered. "Stay with me."

As the rain spattered the ground around them, Jamie heard sirens coming closer. O had stopped the developers today, but at what cost?

***

Jamie leaned her head back against the wall behind her.

Somehow, she had been spared again. In the midst of death and destruction, she walked unharmed. Even though she had begged whatever god there might be to take her instead of her daughter. Even though she had been in the burning caves and near the explosion at the Tate. Did she have some kind of gift like Blake? Or could it be called a curse to watch those you love hurt while you continued to breathe?

Magda sat in silence next to her, staring ahead, her hands clasped so tightly together that her knuckles were white. This waiting was driving them both crazy.

"I'll get us some more coffee," Jamie said. Magda nodded without meeting her eyes.

Jamie walked through the corridors to the hospital coffee shop, navigating by the multicolored department signs. Sterile white walls with the occasional poster encouraging hand sanitation could have been any hospital anywhere. London's complexity disappeared within these walls, individuals reduced to injured body parts.

O lay in surgery with multiple internal injuries from the crush of the bulldozer. The expression on the doctor's face when they had taken her in made Magda weep afresh.

The building work had stopped after the accident, but Jamie knew that it would start again. If not tomorrow, then perhaps the next day or the next. The leaders of the community had been taken out and the rest would now weaken and give up. It was inevitable. The last few days had been about breaking them so they would give up without a fight. Or at least only a pitiful one.

Jamie bought two double shot coffees, some chocolate bars and bananas and headed back to Magda.

"Here you go," Jamie said when she arrived back to find her friend in exactly the same position. "She'll likely be hours yet, so you need to keep your strength up."

"I can't lose her," Magda whispered, turning to Jamie with haunted eyes. "It took me so many years to find someone who accepts all of me."

Jamie took her hand.

"She's not going to die." Jamie put all her hope into her voice, claiming the words as truth as if somehow it would protect O. "She didn't die at the hands of the skin collector, she made it through that and she will live now."

Magda nodded. "Yes, you're right. She's a survivor."

"And we have to think positive," Jamie said. "Send her your strength."

Magda took a sip of her coffee.

"The company that wants to develop Cross Bones," she said. "They'll try again, won't they?"

Jamie nodded.

"They have the permits. It's only a matter of time." She paused, thinking of Vera Causa and how entwined they were with the property market in Southwark. Perhaps there was a way. "I do have an inkling of who might be behind it all, though. Perhaps I might be able to find evidence against them. It might help us keep the protest going, get some media attention at least."

"They've taken so much in the last few days, Jamie. If you can find out anything, it might help us keep the community together."

Jamie nodded. She looked at her watch. It was after nine p.m.

"I'll go now. I have a few leads to follow up. Text me or call if you hear anything."

Jamie headed out into the evening, her mind made up.

She had the address of the Vera Causa offices from the research she had done in the last few days. It was time to go to the source and see what she could find.

Getting onto her bike, she rode through the familiar streets, considering what she was about to do. Breaking and entering wasn't new to her – she had broken into a Hoxton studio during the Neville investigation, but Vera Causa was cloaked with secrets. Would she rouse a more powerful force by entering their domain?

She drove along the street where the office was situated. The area was split between residential buildings and new office space. The Vera Causa address was nothing special and there was no sign on the door, no way to know whether this was really the right place. But at least the lights were off.

Jamie parked a little way from the building and then walked back, hands in her pockets. She passed a pub at the head of the street. A couple of smokers stood outside with pints, engrossed in a political argument. The office was at the quieter end, so Jamie walked straight up to the door. Deliberate action was less obvious than hesitancy. Confidence inspired confidence, she thought, echoes of her police training resonating even in this less-than-legal situation.

The door had a numeric keypad, so she wasn't getting in this way without specialist equipment.

Jamie walked around the back of the building. There was a fire escape staircase leading up to the second floor. Stepping lightly, she mounted the stairs, examining the windows and doors on each level as she ascended. They were all locked and alarmed.

She turned to look out over the nearby buildings. The Shard towered above, a beacon of blue light announcing its majestic presence. It was beautiful, Jamie thought. A testament to the power of human creativity and drive. If it can be imagined, it can be created. That's what she used to tell Polly about the world. Everything around us first existed as an idea in someone's mind, she would say. Then they made it happen.

Of course, that was just as true for destruction as for creation. Someone's mind was set against the community of Southwark and Jamie felt a renewed desire to seek them out.

She turned and looked at the upper-level windows. They were all locked. Her eyes scanned upwards onto the roof. There was a skylight built into the tiles and it looked as if it might be open an inch. Jamie glanced down. It was a long way to fall.

She began to climb, pushing herself up with her legs and pulling on the tiles above. Don't look down, don't look down. The words a mantra in her mind as she inched her way to the skylight.

It was open a little and she slipped her fingers under, pulling it up slowly. It pivoted and opened with only a tiny creak. It didn't look like it was alarmed.

Jamie turned her body, dropping feet first into an attic space. She stood for a moment, breathing quietly, letting her heart rate return to normal as she listened to the building. It was still, silent, and she sensed it was empty, at least for now. But she didn't want to stay too long.

She clicked on her pen torch.

The attic space was cluttered with piles of boxes. Jamie opened one to find stacked rental agreements from the surrounding area. Another was full of sales receipts from a shop with a local address. With so many boxes and not much time, she couldn't hope to find anything up here.

Jamie walked down the stairs, pausing as one creaked underfoot. Her heart raced, but there was no sound of anyone else here. She continued on.

The first floor had an open-plan office space and a conference room with glass walls. The decor was magnolia and shades of blue, a relaxing professional place. She walked around the desks and checked the computers, but all were password protected or logged off. There were some papers on the desks, all evidence of a real estate management company. Nothing untoward. Jamie's heart sank as she looked around. Clearly Vera Causa was very good at navigating the right side of the law, even if their ethics could be questioned.

At the back of the open-plan area was a separate office area, the size of the space indicating it was for senior management. Jamie pushed open the door and glanced around. It was immaculate, chrome surfaces gleaming. It looked to be entirely paperless, no filing cabinets, no documents left out.

Then she saw something glint in the torchlight. Something that could make all the difference.

Chapter 28

It was only a fountain pen, but Jamie recognized it as belonging to Dale Cameron. Its distinctive silver fox-head cap was rare and she remembered him using it to sign paperwork back when she was in the police. It had also been in his top pocket when the news of the Mayoralty was announced. Now, the pen lay on the desk, perpendicular to a clean A4 pad of paper.

With her sleeve over her hand, Jamie picked up the pen, wrapped it in a sheet of paper and put it in her jacket pocket. The pen was useless to her, but perhaps Blake would be able to read something from it that would help.

Jamie walked quickly back up to the attic and climbed out of the skylight, making sure to leave it at the same angle it had been when she'd entered. She slipped down the roof tiles onto the fire escape and then quietly walked away from the office building. The pen seemed to burn in her pocket and she saw Dale Cameron's face in her mind. Like a puppet master, he controlled so much behind the scenes, and she wondered how far his influence stretched. How much further he could go as Mayor.

She roared away on the bike, heading towards Bloomsbury.

***

Blake stood in the kitchen holding an empty tequila bottle. It was the last of the batch and there was no other alcohol in the flat.

Perhaps he would go to the corner store and get a small bottle of vodka. That's all he needed to take the edge off. Or he could go down to Bar-Barian and buy his way into oblivion. In many ways that would be preferable, because right now he didn't know what else to do.

The choice his uncle had offered was a gold chalice laced with poison. He wanted to know about his gift, he wanted to meet his extended family, yet he had seen what they did in the forests of the north in a vision of blood and madness. He should forget the Galdrabók and embrace his life here.

But what life? he thought.

He and Jamie skirted the edges of something but were they both too damaged to take it any further? Without her, there was only casual sex, and with his job under threat, would he even have the choice to stay?

Blake clenched the bottle in his hand, knuckles white. Perhaps he shouldn't fight the addiction anymore. Perhaps it was time to just let it play out. He put the bottle next to the bin, picked up his keys, and grabbed his jacket.

The doorbell rang.

Blake frowned. He wasn't expecting anyone, certainly not this late. He clicked the intercom button.

"Hello," he said.

"It's Jamie." Her voice was soft. Blake's heart leapt in his chest. He put down his jacket and pressed the open button.

"Come up," he said.

Blake pulled open the door, listening to her footsteps climb the stairs, and then she was there, looking up at him from the stairwell. Her dark hair was tied back and there were shadows under her eyes.

"I'm sorry for coming this late," she said.

"It's fine." Blake smiled. "Are you OK?"

Jamie walked up the last few stairs. "It's been a hell of a day, to be honest."

Blake saw the vulnerability in her eyes and pulled her into his arms, hugging her close. She was stiff for a second and then she relaxed, exhaling as she returned his embrace.

She explained what had happened at Cross Bones, about O, the Kitchen, her eviction and the threat to the community.

"That really is a hell of a day," Blake said. "Coffee?"

She stepped away. "Yes please, and then I need your help with something."

He saw the question in her eyes.

"No, I haven't been drinking." He smiled again, this time with an edge of embarrassment. "Although if you'd come ten minutes later, things might have been different."

He wanted to tell her of his uncle's visit, of the possibilities of his gift. But she needed his focus on her now, not on his own dilemma.

Blake put the kettle on and made fresh coffee, carrying the mugs back into the main room. Jamie stood at his window looking out over the rooftops, her eyes fixed on the horizon like she wanted to fly out into the night.

She turned and placed a silver fountain pen wrapped in a piece of paper on his desk.

"I need you to read this," she said. "I don't know what else to do. I'm hoping that you'll see something that could help."

Blake considered his uncle's words, how every time he read strengthened the link between him and his kin. How he opened his mind to the other realm each time and that the drip drip drip of darkness would inch into him. He shouldn't do it. But this was for Jamie.

"OK," he said. "But you know I can't promise anything."

She nodded. "Please try anyway."

Blake sat down and took his gloves off. He placed both hands over the pen and lowered his fingertips to the silver, letting the cool metal connect with his skin. He closed his eyes and let the swirling mists rise up in his mind.

He felt an initial resistance, but then he gave into the sensation and dipped through the veil.

The pen was dense with memory, the emotions imprinted upon it holding fast to the metal. Colors swirled about him as Blake began to assume the mantle of the man who owned it. He picked a thread and opened his eyes within the vision.

He looked out at a sea of cameras, of smiling faces, a moment of triumph captured against a backdrop of the City of London. It was the pinnacle of the man's life so far. Blake felt a surge of power, the man's heart pounding as he accepted the position of Mayor. But behind the triumph, there was something darker, a pulse of rotten black that Blake saw as a visible stain. The man gloated over those he looked down upon, for they didn't know his true face.

Blake plucked the darker strings, following them down into a hidden place, closing his eyes again.

He had rarely followed these deeper emotions, preferring to skim on the surface of vision. But this man – Blake's breath caught as he glimpsed a corrupt core under the gleaming surface. The power he wielded was greater than the police, greater than the Mayoralty. He believed he had the power of life and death, who would rise and who would fall in his city. The sense of arousal was strong and as much as he didn't want to, Blake followed that thread.

He opened his eyes within the vision again and saw the chains and hooks of the abattoir above him.

He smelled the metallic hint of blood and machinery.

His hands felt sticky.

Blake looked down through the eyes of the man to see a body that lay on the slab before him, the skinning knife in his hand. A dragon in shades of purple flew across the man's back but there was no life in him left, only his skin would outlast his mortality. The knife hand hovered above the body. For an instant, Blake wanted to pull away in revulsion and drop out of the vision. He stopped himself, controlling the nausea, testing his own limits to stay within.

The man began to cut around the edge of the tattoo, dipping down into the layers of flesh. There was precision in his work and Blake experienced deep concentration and pride. The compartments in the man's mind enabled him to separate his public and private selves. We all have these two sides, Blake thought, but some are more deeply separated than others. There was no sense that the man saw the body in front of him as a person, only as an artwork in progress. And a way to exercise power against those who cluttered the streets.

But none of this would help Jamie. They needed proof, a way to stop the man.

He let the veil close over the scene and reached lower into the man's emotions. There was a rich vein deeper still in consciousness, a hidden box within the layers the man cloaked his life with. Blake let himself sink into it, and opened his eyes again.

He was in the man's study.

A pair of brown leather wingback chairs sat at oblique angles to a large oak table. Bookshelves lined the walls with an eclectic mix of tomes, from first editions to the latest forensic journals. The man was secure here but there was also a latent excitement, an expectation that went beyond what this room offered.

The man reached for a book on the bookcase and typed in a code, pulling a hidden door open. His arousal was heady and Blake fought to keep himself separate from this man's dark psyche. He understood the temptation to vicariously experience – the visions could allow him that – but like ink into water, it would taint his soul.

The hidden room was a trophy cabinet, Blake could see that immediately. He saw the beaked mask of the Venetian plague doctor, the books of human skin and framed tattoos, skin stretched and pinned into place. The skinning knife, clean and shiny, its blade glittering.

The man opened a safe and pulled out some papers. Blake glimpsed stock certificates with the name Vera Causa on them. The man pushed them aside and reached for a box carved with obscenities. He opened it and pulled out a sheaf of photos. Blake caught sight of a child's face and felt a spike in the man's arousal. He pulled away quickly before the images imprinted themselves on his mind. He had seen enough.

Blake opened his eyes and lifted his hands from the pen. The room swam a little as he refocused on the present, anchoring himself again to the physical world he inhabited. He let his mind scan over his own body, sensing he was back and had separated from the tendrils of the evil he had briefly touched.

Jamie handed him some water silently.

Blake drank several big gulps, letting the cool liquid slide down his throat, latching onto physical sensation. He took a deep breath and turned to face Jamie.