The Eye of the Moon (29 page)

‘Well then, maybe you’ll start being more cooperative,’ De La Cruz suggested. ‘This is for your benefit as much as ours, okay?’

‘Sure.’

‘So – you said there were two things you never wanted to see, right? What’s the other thing?’

‘How meat pies are made.’

De La Cruz shoved Sanchez in the back of the head. ‘Useless prick.’

‘Can I kill him?’ Hunter asked.

‘It’s tempting. But we’ve got bigger problems. There’s been an incident.’

‘An incident?’

‘Yeah. You know the Dr Moland’s Mental Hospital on the edge of town? The one where Igor and Pedro snatched the Bourbon Kid’s brother?’

‘Yeah.’

Sanchez butted in. ‘The Bourbon Kid has a brother? You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me! Who is he?’

‘None of your goddamn business,’ snapped Hunter.

Sanchez wasn’t finished with his own line of questioning. ‘He the guy you an’ the werewolves killed last night after drinkin’ his blood from the Holy Grail?’

The two officers stared at him.

‘How the fuck do you know about that?’ asked Hunter.

‘I don’t. It’s just a rumour. In fact, it’s a rumour I haven’t even heard yet. Forget I said anythin’.’

‘You know what?’ said Hunter. ‘That wagging tongue of yours is gonna land you in some trouble you can’t weasel out of one day.’

‘Least my tongue knows what whiskey tastes like.’

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

De La Cruz had heard enough bickering. ‘Will you two shut up a goddamn minute?’ he barked. ‘You wanna hear about what happened at the hospital, or what?’

‘Sure. Sorry. Go on,’ said Hunter.

‘The hospital burned to the ground last night.’

‘
What?
’

‘Burned to the ground. Fire Department found a hundred and twenty-five dead bodies inside.’

‘Fuck,’ Hunter shook his head. ‘Those crazy werewolves. They set the place on fire?’

‘Nope,’ De La Cruz wagged a dismissive finger. ‘It wasn’t them. The place was still right as rain when they left. This fire happened in the early hours of this morning. Long after they’d gone.’

‘So it was an accident? Or what?’

‘Nope. This was no accident.’

‘Many survivors?’

‘None.’

‘None at all?’

‘None at all.’

Sanchez remained sandwiched between the two officers, listening intently. First-hand gossip – a rarity indeed. And De La Cruz looked like he had a whole lot more information to pass on.

‘Not one single survivor. Wanna know why?’

‘All the fire escapes were blocked?’ Hunter ventured.

‘Nope.’

‘So you’re tellin’ me all one hundred and twenty-five people that were in the hospital when it went up in flames were burned alive? Not one fuckin’ person managed to get out?’

De La Cruz shook his head. ‘Nope. No one burned alive. This was a cremation.’

‘Huh? I don’t get it.’

‘All one hundred and twenty-five victims were dead before the fire started.’

Hunter recoiled in his seat and arched his shoulders back. ‘What the fuck? How come?’

‘Take a guess.’

The thin-haired South African detective frowned for a few seconds before coming up with an answer. ‘Gas leak?’

‘You ever heard of a gas leak gouging out people’s
eyes? Decapitating them? Blowing off kneecaps, ripping out throats?’

‘Say again?’

‘You heard me.’

Hunter’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re sayin’ that someone killed all these people first?
Then
set fire to the place?’

To get the attention of the two officers Sanchez cleared his throat and pointed at the picture of his paperboy on the computer screen. ‘Well, it won’t be him,’ he said.

De La Cruz slapped him across the back of the head again and turned back to the other detective.

‘Hunter, it’s gonna be the Bourbon Kid. That’s who’s done this.’

‘Yeah, but why? None of the people in that hospital did anythin’ to him. Except maybe any security guards who let Igor and Pedro through. That’s just a motiveless killing of a hundred and twenty-five innocent people. What the fuck’s the point in that?’

De La Cruz shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Who knows why that guy does anything?’

‘I do,’ Sanchez offered.

‘What?’ asked De La Cruz.

‘I know why he killed all those people. And why he did it so brutally and mercilessly, too.’

‘This guy’s a fuckin’ clown,’ said Hunter. ‘Come on, Sanchez, crack your funny joke and get out. Why’s the Bourbon Kid killed all these people this time? C’mon – what’s the punchline?’

‘There’s no punchline,’ said Sanchez soberly. ‘This is for real. You wanna know why he killed all these innocent people, and made each of them suffer horribly in many different ways before they died? Or not?’

‘Go on,’ De La Cruz was taking more interest than Hunter. For once he was right to, because for once Sanchez wasn’t kidding around.

The bartender stood up and picked his dirt-brown suede jacket from the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. He
started to put it on as the two officers waited for his response. Having slipped his arms into the sleeves, ready to leave, he finally answered.

‘He killed these people to make a point. And that point, my detective friends, is this: the biggest mass murderer in livin’ history doesn’t need a motive to kill people. He does it for fun. But you guys – well, you killed his brother and gave him a motive. I reckon the point he’s making is that you guys are gonna suffer way worse than those hundred and twenty-five folks that never did
anythin
‘ to piss him off.’ Sanchez squeezed round De La Cruz on his way to the door. ‘I gotta head outta town an’ do some shoppin’,’ he smiled.

‘Hold on a goddamn minute!’ Hunter shouted from his seat behind the desk. ‘How come he never kills you, huh? You’ve encountered this guy twice and survived both times. What are you? Friends with him, or somethin’?’

Sanchez stopped, reflecting on what Hunter had asked him. Both officers waited for him to offer up an explanation.

‘Y’know,’ said Sanchez, after considering his answer for a moment, ‘the reason I’m still alive is ’cos I don’t overstep the mark with that guy.’

Hunter waved a dismissive hand across his face. ‘Bullshit! “Overstep the mark?”’ he sneered. ‘You don’t even know what it means.’

‘I know where the Bourbon Kid’s mark is,’ the bartender said quietly.

‘Yeah? An’ where’s that?’

‘Take a look behind you.’

Elijah Simmonds was not exactly Bertram Cromwell’s favourite employee, but he was exceptionally good at his job. He was the Operations Manager at the museum, and where Cromwell was a man of the people, Simmonds was all about profit margins, and how to increase them. The two of them had been sitting in Cromwell’s office going through the museum’s accounts for over two hours, and what Simmonds had made abundantly clear to the Professor was that cuts were going to have to be made or profits were going to be severely hit.

Cromwell had sat in his vast leather chair looking through the profit-and-loss columns in the accounts as Simmonds, who was seated on the other side of the desk, regularly leaned over to explain some minor detail to him. Simmonds was a highflyer in his late twenties. Young as he was, he already had an eye on one day having Cromwell’s job overseeing the whole museum. He had no love for the art and historical artefacts held within the museum, but he did love earning money, and he was addicted to power.

Cromwell was well aware of his Operations Manager’s ambitions, and wasn’t fooled by his fake enthusiasm for the pieces in the museum. But he respected the fact that, for reasons he didn’t quite understand, the younger employees seemed to like Simmonds. Maybe it was his trendy hairstyle and cheap but flashy dress sense? Personally, Cromwell thought a man in a suit sporting bleached blond hair tied back into a ponytail looked a little slimy, but he kept his opinions to himself. In his view, judging people by their appearances was foolish, and if it had been a rule he lived by it would have prevented him
from meeting some truly wonderful people over the years.

‘So this is the sixth consecutive month that profits have fallen, then?’ Cromwell asked, peering over his glasses at the younger man as he looked up from the book on his desk.

Simmonds was in a smart blue suit over a white shirt that had the top two buttons undone. He wore no tie, something that Cromwell would never consider. And he was scratching his balls a lot when he spoke to the Professor, something he did regularly but to which he appeared to be oblivious.

‘Yep, six months straight,’ Simmonds confirmed. ‘Since the initial burst of interest we had after the theft of the mummy, things have just gotten steadily worse.’

Cromwell took off his glasses and put them down on the desk. All this staring at numbers had made his eyes tired. ‘It’s hardly surprising is it? The Egyptian Tomb was our centrepiece, after all. We’re going to need to find something particularly special to replace it I suppose. Thing is, a genuine Egyptian mummy is a pretty tough act to follow.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Simmonds agreed as he continued to tug at his crotch. ‘But in the meantime we’re going to have to cut costs.’

Cromwell shifted uncomfortably in his massive leather chair. His expensive grey made-to-measure suit from John Phillips in London could withstand all manner of fidgeting without ever creasing, unlike Simmonds’s cheap off-the-rack number.

‘I take it you have something in mind already?’ Cromwell ventured.

‘Yessir,’ said Simmonds, sitting up straight and placing his hands on the desk where Cromwell could see them. Which was a relief to him. ‘We can afford to lose at least one member of staff, as a start.’

‘Really? Are you sure? Because the last time I checked we were already pretty thin on the ground.’

‘True, Professor, true. But we can afford to get rid of one of the under-performers.’

‘We have under-performers?’ The older man laughed gently. ‘How did this happen?’

‘Well, actually there’s only one, sir. I’m afraid your track record for picking employees isn’t the best.’

Cromwell was taken aback. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m not showing off or anything,’ Simmonds replied, ‘but all the staff I take on are impeccably behaved and work extremely hard. The last few people
you’ve
employed, largely as an act of charity, haven’t exactly fitted in well here, have they? Remember that guy Dante Vittori?’

‘The one who smashed a priceless vase over your head?’

‘Yes, him. He was useless.’

‘Nice guy, though.’

‘Come on, Professor, he was an idiot!’ Simmonds protested.

‘Granted, but calling him an idiot while he was holding a priceless antique vase above your head was hardly
your
finest hour, was it?’

Simmonds sat back in his seat again and began fidgeting with his crotch as the cheap suit crowded his nether regions once more.

‘You should have let me press charges and send that loser to jail. He might finally have learnt something. Anyway, you get my point. I’m suggesting we fire your other charity-case employee.’

‘The only other person I’ve employed is Beth Lansbury.’

‘That’s who I mean.’

‘Why on earth would you want to fire her? She’s a delightful young woman.’

‘She doesn’t mix well with others. Eats lunch on her own in the canteen. And, of course, she has a criminal record.’

‘I’m well aware of her criminal record, thank you, Elijah. That girl had a very tough time of it as a child. I believe she deserves a break. That’s why I employed her. And her father, God rest his soul, was a friend of mine many years ago.’

‘Wasn’t Dante Vittori’s father a friend of yours too.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then.’

‘Well then what?’

‘Well then, that’s not a great reason for employing people, is it? I mean, don’t get me wrong, sir, I think it’s very noble of you to employ kids of your old friends, but it’s not good business sense. You know the rest of the staff are frightened of her? They call her “Mental Beth”. No matter how you dress it up, tough childhood and all that, she still murdered someone in cold blood, and that scares people. More work gets done when she’s not around. When she’s here it puts everyone else on edge. And what about that horrible scar across her face? Ugh! You must have noticed the reactions of many visitors when they see her. See? She’s even scaring off paying customers. Trust me, getting her off the payroll and out of this building can only be good for business.’