'It's the same guy who killed Snowy,' says
Lucas, who has now reached the top of the stairs.
He's right. So, the killer Ferrie described as the Vampire isn't dead, after all.
I don't say anything. The room with the light on is beckoning me like a beacon, and I walk towards the half-open door, moving with slow, silent steps.
'Careful, Tyler,' Lucas whispers, and I turn and face him. He hasn't moved, and in his dark clothing and balaclava, he's almost invisible in the gloom. 'These guys haven't been dead long. Someone could still be here.'
It's a fact I'm brutally aware of. I listen for anything out of place before pushing the door fully open with one hand and lifting my unloaded gun with the other.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I look inside.
He's been strapped with masking tape to a chair facing the door, his head slumped forward so that I can't pick out his features. The chair belongs to a dressing table covered in bottles of perfume and other feminine accoutrements, all of which appear to be untouched. There are no signs of a struggle. He's dressed in pale linen trousers and a peach-coloured, short-sleeved
shirt that's heavily bloodstained. On his feet are the kind of expensive tasselled loafers so beloved of certain middle-aged men who always seem to wear them without socks, as this man is doing. He has thick-set, hairy arms, a fat belly, and thinning hair. Straight away, I know this is Eddie Cosick. And there is little doubt that he too is dead.
I'm too late again. It seems that wherever I turn, I run into brick walls. Cosick is the end of the trail for me. I have nowhere else to go.
I step inside and see that this is the master bedroom, a huge room done out tastefully in various pastel shades. A pine-coloured stereo unit sitting on top of an antique chest of drawers was the source of Huey Lewis's greatest hits.
I stop in front of the body and lift the head up by the hair. The shock hits me hard. Someone has really gone to town on Eddie Cosick. The top half of his right ear is missing where it's been sliced away - and the hair surrounding it is sticky with congealing blood. But this pales into insignificance when compared to the sight of his right eyeball, still attached to a thick thread of muscle tissue, which hangs down
bulbous and glassy over his cheek. I'm reminded of my own situation in the brothel only a few hours earlier, and know full well that this could have been me.
But it's not that which is keeping me frozen to the spot as I stare down at the ravaged face. It's the fact that I recognize him.
It's been a long time, and in the intervening period he's lost some of his hair and added a fair amount of weight, but even after what's been done to his face, there's no mistake. This is the man I used to know as Colonel Stanic back in Bosnia, a commander of the local Serb militia based near us in the east of the country. I only ever came face to face with him twice, while accompanying our senior officers to meetings with him and his people, and we never spoke. Occasionally I saw him pass in a convoy of open-top jeeps while I was out on patrol, and I remember that even though his forces were meant to be hostile to our presence, he had this habit of standing up in his vehicle and saluting us, as if he had to prove that he was a proper soldier.
His presence here is no coincidence, I'm sure of that. Yet I still don't know what it's got to do
with me. I was just one of several hundred troops who operated in his little fiefdom many years ago. He wouldn't remember me from Adam.
It looks like methodical work, so whoever was torturing him wanted information, and was prepared to take him apart step by step in the pursuit of answers. There's a deep cut about three-quarters of an inch long just beneath his left eye, where it appears his torturer was about to make an effort to gouge out this one too. Finger-like tears of blood have run down from the wound and stained his cheek. I wonder if this is about the briefcase. Was someone trying to get him to reveal its location? Incredibly, the evidence suggests he was holding out even after they'd taken out his eye.
I let go of his head and take a step back, focusing my attention on the peach-coloured shirt. A long, thin blood trail runs down its side from a darker spot further up. Cause of death is a single stab wound to the heart. Blood is still bubbling from the spot, which means that the fatal blow was delivered recently. Very recently.
I can hear movement behind me. Lucas is coming into the room.
And in that one split second everything comes together and I realize that I've been set up again. Whoever killed these three men was expecting me to come here. And only two people in the world could possibly have known I was coming. One was Alannah. The other was Lucas.
But Alannah didn't know I had Eddie Cosick's address.
Which leaves my best friend. The man whose life I saved. Who served with me in Bosnia, and who also came into contact with the man who changed his name to Eddie Cosick. Who knows all about the scars on my back. Who seems to have plenty of money for a lowly PI dealing with divorce cases and the occasional missing person. Who wasn't expecting my visit this afternoon. Who had no choice but to pretend to help me when I turned up out of the blue, but who has in fact provided me with very little that I can usefully use. I knew about Iain Ferrie anyway, and it was only a matter of time before I got his full name. And the finger . . . The finger could so easily have been a plant to throw me off the scent.
I feel an ominous sense of dread as I realize
that Lucas has now supplied me with a gun containing no ammunition, while his is almost certainly loaded.
There's movement behind my back and I swing round fast as a fresh injection of adrenalin courses through me.
Lucas is standing in the doorway, his Walther PPK pointed straight at me.
He stares at me for what feels like an eternity, then his gun arm wobbles and the PPK drops to the floor, hitting the thick carpet with barely a noise. His mouth opens, but only blood comes out, a thick rivulet that runs down his chin. He stumbles, and I see that he's clutching his side with one hand, and that his shirt's wet.
'Oh Jesus.'
He bangs into the wall, bounces off it, and falls to his knees. Horrified, I watch as my friend of close to twenty years rolls over onto his side and begins to convulse. His right foot lashes out like a whip and hits the door with a bang.
This is the moment the spell's broken and the
realization finally hits me that the Vampire is here right now, possibly only feet away. He has a knife, I have an unloaded gun. He's extremely proficient with his weapon, mine is useful only as a blunt instrument.
But I'm not going to stand here waiting to die.
Turning the Browning round in my hand so that I can use it as a bludgeon, I run forward, jumping over Lucas, and do a diving roll onto the balcony, sliding along the carpet on my back, weapon held ready to throw, until the banister stops my momentum.
There's no-one here. Not in front or behind. The balcony's empty.
I remember Ferrie's words.
He's invisible, like something out of a nightmare
.
I jump up, trying to ignore the sight of Lucas's twitching, and kick open the adjacent door. I count to two and do another rolling dive inside, hurtling along the carpet before jumping up again, the gun held in my right hand like a tomahawk. I know I'm taking a huge risk, but rage and frustration drive me on. This is my last chance to confront the bastard who's eluded me all day.
The room, though, is dark and empty. An
unmade bed faces an open bay window that lets in the faint sounds of normality from the outside world: the low hum of traffic; the sound of a piano playing in the jazz concert in the park. Such a huge contrast to the nightmarish charnelhouse I'm in now.
I retrace my steps, coming back out onto the balcony. Lucas is barely moving. I run over to the door on the other side of the room to where Eddie Cosick still sits. The killer must have been behind one of these two doors. There is no other way he would have been able to ambush Lucas, not in the few seconds he had. Lucas was good, too. A bit out of practice, but still not the kind of guy to have been surprised easily.
I kick open the door. Another darkened room, the window open at the far end.
Then I stop dead. Something is playing a tune in my pocket. It's not the phone Lucas gave me earlier; that's now on vibrate. I suddenly realize that I'm still carrying the mobile my blackmailer gave me, and I haven't turned the damn thing off. I rummage around in my front right pocket, pull out the phone, and the tinny noise of the 'Funeral March' fills the silence. The screen says 'Anonymous Call'. I almost don't
answer, but in the end my curiosity's too great.
'Yeah?' I say, my eyes darting round the emptiness of the room.
'You're looking in the wrong place,' states the robotic voice. The tone is calm and mocking.
I stride back onto the balcony. 'Where the fuck are you?'
'Somewhere you're never going to find me. Give up, Tyler. I've got the briefcase. It's over.'
Anger surges through me as I think about what this bastard's done.
'I'm going to get you for this.'
'No,' says the voice, with complete confidence, 'you're not. Goodbye, Tyler.'
'Who are you?' I shout as my frustration finally boils over. 'Who the fuck are you?'
But the connection's broken. I'm venting my rage at nothing.
Slowly, still shocked, I replace the phone in my pocket, knowing that, possibly for the first time in my life, I am completely out of my league. Then I remember Lucas.
The gun's no use to me - not that it ever was - and I throw it down on the carpet and run back to where he fell. He's on his back now. Choking noises come from deep within his
throat, and I can see that his blood is everywhere.
'You're going to be all right, mate,' I whisper, turning him onto his side.
He coughs weakly. I put my hand in his mouth to clear the airway, and pull out a lump of thick red drool. He shivers, and his eyes roll back in his head.
'Come on, Lucas,' I hiss, feeling for a pulse, 'don't die on me.'
It takes me a couple of seconds to locate one, and when I do, it's faint and very slow. His blood pressure is falling and his heart is beginning to shut down. My hand moves across to the spot where the knife was shoved into him. The blade went between two of the upper ribs and has almost certainly pierced the heart. He's dying. My friend, Lucas, is dying.
I shove my fingers into the wound to try to stem the flow of the blood, and talk in his ear. But I know it's all over, and I feel sick in the knowledge that I'm the one who dragged him into this. Worse still, in those final moments I doubted his motives, believing him to be part of the conspiracy that's been targeting me.
I know I have to do something. On the
battlefield, a soldier is expected to do everything he can to evacuate a wounded comrade, even if his injuries are such that it looks like he may not make it. I'm in no position to administer first aid, so if there is a chance of saving Lucas, I have to call an ambulance. I owe it to him. But I can't stay here. Not in a house full of corpses; not after everything else that's happened today. Now more than ever, I need to find the bastard behind this.
Lucas coughs again. More blood runs from the corner of his mouth and drips onto the carpet. He has only minutes to live, maybe not even that. I remove my fingers from the wound and grab a pillow from the double bed. I pull off the cover and push the material into the wound, trying to block the flow of blood. It's basic, but it'll have to do. I reach into my pocket for one of the mobiles, then realize that it's not a good idea to give the police something to trace. I recall seeing a telephone handset on a table in the entrance hall near the front door, so I get to my feet, run downstairs, and race over to it, dialling 999.
When it's picked up at the other end, I shout 'Ambulance!', trying to disguise my voice,
knowing that they record all incoming calls. I'm immediately reconnected, and I shout it again, giving Cosick's address and stating that a man's been severely injured. The female operator starts to ask me about the injuries, so I lay the handset down on the table, knowing I've done enough to get them to send someone here urgently.
I can hear her saying 'Hello? Hello?' repeatedly as I take another look up at the balcony where Lucas lies bleeding. I don't want to leave him, I really don't, because I know he wouldn't leave me. Whatever it cost him.
So, knowing I'm being a total fool, I run back up the stairs and across the balcony to where he lies. But as I lean down, I can see that his sapphire-blue eyes are wide open and he's no longer breathing. It's too late. My friend is dead, and I don't even have time to mourn him.
'I'm sorry, mate,' I whisper. 'I really am.'
I touch his forehead, then slowly and very carefully I close his eyes, unable to meet their still, dead gaze.
I can't believe he's gone. This morning I lost my lover. Now I've lost my best friend. I am utterly alone in the world, standing in a silent
house of corpses. Yet I know that if I've got any hope of avenging them, I have to move.
I wrench myself away from Lucas and, ignoring the aching in my legs, run down the stairs a second time, then through the house and onto the patio with its empty table and half-full bottle of wine. I spot a wheelbarrow next to a flower bed a few yards further up the garden path, and I use it as a springboard to jump to the top of the wall. Hauling myself up and over, I land on the pavement and walk swiftly away, keeping in the shadows of the cypress trees, and trying to look as natural and inconspicuous as possible.