Tasker nodded, no surprise. Most local Ministry offices were in place to contain what trouble already existed. State secrets. Monsters. They weren’t homicide detectives, and hadn’t signed on to tackle mass murderers or corrupt companies. Likewise, they weren’t necessarily the most professional or trustworthy colleagues he could hope for. Not everyone had the training and experience of an international agent, that was simple fact.
Tasker checked the photos again. He realised none of the pictures of Parris showed any injury beside that wrecked arm and the splattered blood. In fact, going by Parris’s pose, and the shower curtain hanging neat, it didn’t look like he had struggled. Might’ve been drugged. No, the method and the mess didn’t add up to a message. Tasker said, “Let’s assume the attacker was interrupted. But not by someone looking to help Parris. Was anything taken?”
“Apparently not,” Ward said. “His laptop was left behind, his phone too. Duvcorp’s lawyers are already on us to hand them over. It’s all strange, isn’t it?”
Her tone was hopeful, because strange might mean the big bad corporation weren’t in control. Yet.
As for Parris’s devices, well. Tasker had got his hands on electronic devices that promised untold secrets before. Between corporate encryptions, lawyers and Ministry bureaucracy, there was often nothing to be gained from them. Still, he said, “You have the devices, but haven’t accessed the laptop?”
“We’d risk a lawsuit.”
“If Duvcorp found out about it.”
Ward cleared her throat uncomfortably, but without looking at him gave a slight nod. Enough to say yes, they might sneak a peek. Good, she got it. Considering how dirty this whole situation was, they’d get nowhere playing by the rules. An entire village wiped out, a man with some clue as to why, and his killer driven off by an unfriendly third party. He couldn’t let the Ministry itself get in the way. Tasker said, “Presumably you have some idea of how I can be of use?”
“Right now, I thought you’d appreciate the chance to freshen up in the hotel, get some rest,” Ward said. “But I’ve set up a meeting with Parris’s manager for this afternoon.”
Tasker nodded appreciation. She got it alright. Thrown into a situation like this, you brought in a man like him and let him do what was necessary, even if it was just grilling office workers. He’d at least help her look tough while Duvcorp flat denied everything.
The motorway slanted up, to a raised ring-road that gave a view towards Ordshaw Central’s skyline. An expanding, prosperous city a world apart from the isolated hovel of death Tasker had visited last night. Exactly the sort of place to harbour people who could get away with the murder of distant foreigners. At the least, Tasker could look them in the eye.
Left alone in his room, Tasker took a long, hot shower, trying to ignore reality whispering at him that this was already over. The more time he took, the more doubts crept back in. He’d posture and make them look good, sure, but Ward’s meeting would be a bust and might mark them as future targets themselves. Duvcorp’s connections to something terrible would go unproved, and next time it might be Ordshaw with a score of savage murders. Hell, why not Bracknell. Helen would be expecting a call later, and what would he say? Hey, I’ve made it back to the UK, but guess what? I failed to stop these bastards, so keep the doors locked.
Or. Or he could end the Duvcorp meeting with his gun. Storm the offices, up to the top floor where he’d take Hank Duvalier by the lapels, fuck the rules and evidence, throw him off the roof. His son, too, if Tycho was around. Two lives for eighteen fishermen, that was a start. Assuming Duvalier himself ever touched this city with a barge pole. He was off on some American ranch or in a New York penthouse, wasn’t he?
Tasker came out the shower and stared at himself in the mirror, plush white towel around his waist, darkness dragging his eyes down and a taint of grey misery misting his chest. He had time to hit the hotel gym before the meeting. That was something he could control. He put his glasses back on and scratched his stubble, knowing he would be neither shooting up offices nor relaxing on beaches. He’d do everything he could for Ward and Laukstad over two or three days, finally return to Bracknell and spend three days off unable to explain to Helen exactly what he was worried about, then take guidance from London as to what pointless stepping stone to take next. Smugglers dealing in monster parts in rainy Eastern Europe or weird lights in the sky outside a sewage plant or something.
He exited the bathroom with a gust of steam and stiffened. His eyes shot from his pistol, holstered on the desk, back to the woman standing in front of it.
“I ordered room service,” she said, brightly. “You want something for yourself?”
She had a gun of her own, and blood all over her clothes and face.
5
Bare feet padded against hard-packed ground, a warning beat as she reached the village. “Help! Someone!” Charlene shouted outside her neighbours’ huts. Why weren’t they answering? They couldn’t have all disappeared too . . .
A door opened – Ade! Big-chested, bearded Ade, strongest in Igota. He wore the same confusion at the stillness, and her shouts further flustered him. Charlene told him, “Quick, Ade – to the crossing – I was walking with Marie –”
“Slow down,” Ade said, moving into the open, watching the other huts. As troubled by the quiet as by Charlene’s fear. Where were the boys? The talking, the laughter? Had more people disappeared? “What’s happened?”
“Here?” Charlene swallowed.
The outsiders were responsible. It had all begun the night before they arrived. Men missing in the night, and now this. Everyone else. She listened, and finally heard goats, braying fearfully. Snapped out of it, she locked on Ade again. “Marie – she’s been attacked. Richard – I don’t know what came over him. Please hurry!”
She started away, but after a few steps skidded to a stop. Ade almost bumped into her. Both looked to the side, between shacks. There were the children. Ade said, loudly, “What are you doing, boys? You didn’t answer this woman shouting!”
They said nothing.
Charlene moved closer to Ade. He stepped towards the skinny boys, half-naked in the afternoon sun. They stood still as stalks. “This is some kind of game? Ezra, come here right now!”
“Ade –” Charlene warned. He was a stride away, already, and the children pounced. Their shrill cries were met by noises from every hut.
Reece imagined a composition. It started super simple, two perfect D fifths an octave apart – maybe two octaves – and a five-step descent. Repeat. Again. You keep doing it, until you break free and go wild – chase the sound up, weave around inside the fifth . . . but keep coming back to that bold refrain. It wasn’t jazz, he had a sense of that. A march? Another new Cutjaw sound. Creeping in his mind – he couldn’t wait to test it out in Stilt Town, where the instruments were stashed. But this wasn’t trumpet material. Wanted a piano at least. Might work on their little pipe organ, if Gray’s people let him touch it.
Either way it had him happy. Had to keep happy, not thinking about all them people they hurt. Remember what it was for. Freedom of expression, freedom from oppression. That’s what the tunes would speak of, without words. Different ways to get themselves heard and seen. He ran a hand through his hair, rocking on a little wooden chair on the porch while the others slept. That was another way to be seen, damn smeared green hair that hadn’t come out in a wash like he intended. Then, they should’ve been back in Stilt Town already, where he had other dyes or bleach to deal with it. Instead of here, where none of them had imagined sleeping, as much Reece’s fault as Stomatt’s. The back roads seemed a good idea at the time – it was a wild ride that’d brought them here.