Well
, he thought,
to hell with that.
He gunned the engine. The rules had changed. If the documents Julie had given him were correct, he wasn’t a prince at all. The blood burning in his veins and arteries wasn’t royal; it wasn’t anything. He’d been decanted from a test tube at the Céleste facility, and implanted into his mother’s womb: not his father’s son at all, but a forgery with no real claim to the throne.
He gave a small, bitter laugh. Loss of power also meant loss of obligation and responsibility. If Doctor Nguyen confirmed the veracity of those documents then, for the first time in his life, Merovech would be out from under. No more stifling receptions; no more public appearances. He would be free. Whatever he did next would be his decision, and his alone.
His eye caught the teardrop gleam of a star in the sky, and the smile died on his lips, swept away by the sudden memory of standing with his father at an open palace door, looking out across the gardens. How old had he been then? Three or four years old, maybe? He remembered the gentle smell of lavender, and the way his father’s hand wrapped his.
Looking out at the night, he’d asked what the stars were made of, and his father had smiled down at him.
“Big fires in the sky, a long, long way away.”
Merovech’s young eyes had widened. He’d known what fires were, and he loved the smell of the gardeners’ bonfires. Only stars didn’t crackle the way twigs and leaves crackled. And when he took a long breath in through his nose, he couldn’t smell their smoke; only his father’s cologne and the earthy scents of the sleeping garden.
That had been one of his earliest memories. Thinking about it now, his throat went tight. His eyes swam and his nose prickled, and a ragged, anguished sigh pushed its way from his lips.
Julie looked at him, startled.
“What is it?”
“I’ve lost my father.”
“He is dead?”
“No.” He didn’t know how to explain the upwelling of grief and loneliness that burned inside him; he simply didn’t have the words.
I’ve lost everything
, he thought. Everything that matters. If his father had never really been his father, then none of those memories mattered. They had all been lies.
He swallowed hard, fighting back tears like a little boy abandoned at boarding school: upset, betrayed—angry with his parents, yet desperate for them.
Julie put her hand on his shoulder.
“What can I do?”
He shook his head. What could anyone do? His life had been snatched away.
“Get off.” He twitched his shoulder, and Julie pulled her hand back.
“I am sorry, I—”
“Why are you still here?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here. You should have left.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Everyone’s looking for me. The police, the secret service. If you stay with me, you’re going to be in trouble.”
“And you want to know why I haven’t cut and run?”
“Yes.” Everybody else had left him, why not her?
Julie ran a hand through her purple hair. She turned her face to look out the window. Orange lights slid across her cheek.
“I’m surprised you have to ask.” She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit up. The lighter flared yellow in her cupped hands.
Merovech wrinkled his nose.
“I thought you’d quit?”
Julie blew smoke at the glass. She put her feet up on the dashboard.
“You are not my father.” She took another tight drag, pinching the cigarette between finger and thumb. The tip flared orange. He saw it reflected on the windscreen.
They passed through a village. He caught a glimpse of stone houses and a mediaeval church spire. A cafe’s yellow lights. The illuminated green cross of a pharmacy. Then they were out among the fields again, the old van’s left front wheel hugging the road’s central white lines.
He sniffed wetly.
Funny, he thought. Even after a hundred years of unification, the French still drove on the right and the English still drove on the left.
Some things would never change.
He looked across at Julie. Her elbows were resting on her knees. She stared forward, over the points of her boot toes, and wouldn’t meet his eye.
He’d watched her earlier, as they prepared to leave the house. She’d been fixing her lipstick in the kitchen, leaning across the sink to the mirror, one foot slightly raised; holding back her hair, twisting her face to the light. She’d seemed so alien, and yet so familiar, and he’d wanted to hold her, to feel the warmth of her curves against him; to trace each dip and shadow of her clothing; to smell her hair and skin, and taste her blueberry-painted lips.
As he watched her now, she scratched her lower lip with a purple thumbnail.
“
Tu es complètement débile.
”
“But—”
“Oh, shut up. You know why I am here, okay? We both know. Do I have to spell it out?”
The road unwound before them. The silence stretched. Merovech didn’t know what to say, so he concentrated on nursing the rattling old van, coaxing as much speed as he could from the aged engine.
Minutes passed. Julie finished her cigarette and popped it out of the window. In the rear view mirror, Merovech saw a burst of red sparks as it hit the tarmac.
“I am not some floozy, okay? Despite what Frank thinks, I am not here for the money or the fame, or any of that shit. I am not doing this because of who you are, okay? I am doing it because of who
you
are.” She twisted her forefinger in her hair. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
Merovech felt his cheeks redden in the darkness. He opened his mouth to say something foolish but, before he could, a wild monkey screech came from the interior of the van. His foot hit the brake and the tyres squealed. They slithered to a stop.
“Turn on the radio!”
“What?”
Ack-Ack Macaque leapt from the darkness in the back of the van, SincPad in one hand, the other pointed at the dial on the dash.
“Turn it on!”
Julie reached out and pressed a button. Music tumbled into the cab.
“Find the BBC.”
She clicked a couple of presets. On the third, they heard the measured tones of a newsreader.
“
...resting comfortably. The Prince collapsed following a reception at the Turkish embassy last night. In a statement, the Palace attributes his collapse to exhaustion brought about by worry for his ailing father, who remains in a critical condition a year after being attacked by Republican terrorists on the Champs-Elysées.
“The statement also denounces as a hoax Internet footage apparently showing the Prince involved in a raid on a research laboratory.
“The footage, taken using a life-logger pendant, claimed to show the Prince helping members of an extremist digital rights group gain access to the laboratories. However, all trace of the footage has been removed from the group’s website, and nobody from the organisation has been available for comment.
“In other news, tensions continue to grow in the South China Sea as Royal Navy warships—
”
Julie turned it off. She opened her mouth to speak, but the monkey got there first.
“Okay, my boy. Time to talk.” Hard primate fingers dug into Merovech’s shoulder. He tried to shake them off.
“What do you mean?”
The pressure increased.
“You heard the man. They have Prince Merovech safely in hospital.” Merovech felt fetid breath hot against his neck and ear. “And if that’s true, then I’ve got to ask: who the hell are you?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CASSIUS BERG
T
HE
T
ERESHKOVA
’S BRIG
comprised a small cell with a bunk, a porthole the size of a grapefruit, and a door made of thick, soundproof glass. The Smiling Man paced back and forth. His coat, hat and shoes had been confiscated, leaving him in an open-necked shirt and a pair of Levis jeans, both black. Without the hat, Victoria saw that he was balder than her. His head perched on the end of a scrawny neck, giving him the appearance of a caged vulture.
With her arms wrapped tightly across the butterflies in her chest, Victoria watched him move back and forth, his weight always on the balls of his feet as if waiting for a chance to pounce; his smile still in place, his eyes devoid of expression.
Beside her, the Commodore said, “He won’t talk. He won’t even tell us his name.”
“No clues at all?”
Victoria ached all over. Hacking the safety restrictions in her gelware had been a dangerous thing to do. Her muscles hurt from being asked to move so quickly, and with such force.
The Commodore smoothed his white moustache with a gnarled forefinger.
“No. Only one. A tattoo on his wrist. A Greek letter.”
“Which one?”
“Omega.”
“Any idea what it means?”
The old man shook his head. “It could be anything.” He looked across at her. “Or nothing. Are you sure you are up to this?”
Victoria brushed a strand of artificial hair from her eyes. The wig he had given her itched, but it covered the mess at the back of her head. The staples were tiny hard rivets in a mass of bruised flesh. The hair would grow back around them, but she’d be left with a grisly scar. Another disfiguring memento to match the one on her temple, from the helicopter crash.
“I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then.” He reached out and tapped a six-digit code into the numerical keypad beside the glass door. Bolts slid back into the frame with a series of soft clunks, and the door hinged open.
The Smiling Man stopped pacing. He stepped back against the porthole and watched as they entered.
Victoria’s stomach threatened to curdle with something that was neither anger nor fear, but comprised of both. The gelware took notice of her increased breathing and heart rate and she felt her head go deliciously light as it pumped a mild sedative into her bloodstream, calming her. Her arms unfolded and she stood, fists clenched and ready at her sides.
Across the cell, the Smiling Man regarded her, his gaze as blank as a statue.
“Victoria Valois, you are irritatingly hard to kill.”
Victoria swallowed down the last of her nerves. This was the first time she’d been able to study his thin face properly, and she could see that the skin had been pulled up and back across his skull, which had in turn pulled the corners of his mouth into the semblance of an unwavering grin. He couldn’t stop smiling, even if he wanted to.
Bad face lift, she thought. But the amusement died before it reached her lips.
“I’m very happy to disappoint you,” she said, flexing her fingers. “Now, how about you tell me who you are, and why you’re trying to kill me?”
The man looked from Victoria to the Commodore.
“I really think you should let me go.”
The Commodore raised an unkempt eyebrow. “Oh you do, do you?”
“I have powerful friends.”
The old man scowled. “Are you trying to threaten me,
dolbayed
?”
“I am.”
The Commodore’s hand went to the pommel of his cutlass.
“Be careful, comrade. You are not in England anymore. On this ship, I make the rules.”
They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds, then the Smiling Man let out a snort and turned away.
“My name is Cassius Trenton Berg.” He waved a hand airily. “Not that the information will do you any good. You will find no record of me in any data bank, anywhere in the world. I simply tell you because, when my friends come and burn your little airship out from under you, I want you to remember that I warned you. And as you die, I want my name to be the last one on your miserable lips.”
The Commodore’s fingers curled around the hilt of his sword.
“
Blyadski koze!
” His knuckles were white. “Nobody threatens my ship.”
Berg’s smile stayed fixed.
“I am not threatening, Commodore, I am simply stating a fact. If you do not release me, straight away, your ship will be destroyed.”
Victoria put a restraining hand on the Commodore’s arm.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why you tried to kill me. Why you killed Paul, and Malhotra.”
Berg raised an eyebrow.
“Malhotra?”
“The detective.”
“Ah.” Berg flicked his hand again. “He wasn’t important. He just happened to be in my way.”
“And how about Paul? We know he was on the team at Céleste with Lois Lapointe. We know about the King.” She looked for a reaction. “That’s it, isn’t it? Céleste stole the King’s soul-catcher, and now you’re covering it up. You’re killing them off one-by-one. But who are you working for? Céleste? Someone else?”
Berg wagged a long finger.
“Be careful, Victoria.”
“Careful?” She snatched the wig from her head. “Or what? You already tried to kill me. How much worse could it possibly get?”
Berg considered her bristled head without comment, then turned away.
“You have absolutely no idea.”
The Commodore swore in Russian.
“Then why don’t you enlighten us, comrade?”
Berg crossed his arms.
“You’ll get nothing from me.”
Victoria glared at him. She thought of him swooping at her in the hallway of Paul’s apartment, black coat billowing. The feel of his knife at the back of her head. The sound of his shotgun in the frosty graveyard. And she longed to wipe the smirk from his face.
Then she remembered the crime scene photograph Malhotra had shown her, and something clenched inside her, like a fist.
“Get some handcuffs, Commodore,” she said. “I have an idea.”
T
HE
T
ERESHKOVA
’S CENTRAL
cargo hold occupied a cavernous space aft of the main gondola, within the curve of the main hull’s outer shell. Each of the skyliner’s hulls held identical holds. The lower part of a helium bag formed a convex ceiling. The floor curved up at the edges, narrowing as it rose towards the rear, where a pair of clamshell doors gave access to a crane assembly mounted on the outer skin, used for raising and lowering shipping containers between hold and ground.