CHAPTER EIGHT
RAY GUN
HALF AN HOUR later, they were driving through the city streets in a rented black Mercedes. K8 had the wheel, Ack-Ack Macaque rode shotgun, and Victoria Valois and William Cole shared the back seat. As they negotiated their way through the early evening traffic, Victoria kept track of their progress using a map uploaded to her mind’s eye from the Tereshkova’s database. A small green dot marked their current position, a red one their destination.
In the front passenger seat, Ack-Ack Macaque wore dark glasses, a wide-brimmed fedora, and a long coat with the collar turned-up. He’d even wound a scarf across the lower half of his face. This was his idea of going incognito—never mind the fact that nothing could disguise his lumbering walk, or the way his tail poked out of the vent in the back of the coat.
Victoria watched the passing buildings. They were moving through the affluent suburb of Clifton, with its steep, tree-lined streets and three-storey Georgian town houses. She saw sturdy-looking churches; corner pubs with traditional signs and black railings; newsagents with handwritten headline boards; supermarkets with glittering holographic window displays; and beautiful old houses retrofitted as solicitors’ offices and estate agencies.
Despite being too young to hold a British driving licence, K8 handled the big Mercedes like a pro. She claimed to have been able to drive from the age of eleven, having been taught by joyriding classmates on the estate where she grew up. Right now, she was chewing gum and listening to punishingly loud techno on her earphones. As she turned the big wheel this way and that, her spiky ginger head bobbed in time to the music.
Victoria tapped her on the shoulder.
“Just down here, on the left.”
With a squeal of tires, they slithered to a halt in the middle of the road. Parked cars lined both sides of the street. Victoria nudged Cole, and they both climbed out. The air outside felt fresh in comparison to the heated comfort of the Mercedes, and Victoria was glad she had a fleece cap to keep her head warm. At the top of the street, between the buildings, she could see one of the towers of Brunel’s famous Suspension Bridge. Originally the fevered dream of an eighteenth century wine merchant, the bridge had been designed by the engineer in the stovepipe hat and completed after his death. It spanned the gorge almost three hundred feet above the muddy River Avon, and was a magnet for sightseers and suicides alike.
Ack-Ack Macaque emerged from the front passenger door, and the Mercedes drove off to park.
William Cole had dressed in a pair of black jeans, an old sweatshirt, and a worn-looking tweed jacket. His thinning, unruly grey hair still stuck up at odd angles, despite his frequent attempts to smooth it into place. “Which building is it?” he asked.
“This one.” Victoria walked to the front door of one of the houses. An intercom had been screwed to the wall beside the door, with a separate buzzer for each of the six flats within. She dug in her pocket and pulled out the keys she’d found in the dead man’s luggage. One had obviously been cut for an external door, the other for an internal lock. She tried the first, and it turned. The door was heavy and made of black-painted wood, and she had to shove to get it open.
Ack-Ack Macaque and William Cole followed her into an unlit hallway with a wide wooden staircase and black and white floor tiles.
“We want flat number three,” she said, looking at the numbers on the doors to either side of her. “My guess is that it’s on the next floor up.”
They trooped up the stairs, and found the right door on the upper landing. Inside, the little flat smelled faintly stale. Threadbare curtains hung across the windows. By the light of the orange streetlamps, she could see that the main room was a sparsely furnished studio flat, with a futon at one end, and a small kitchen area at the other. Another door led off into a cramped and damp-smelling bathroom, comprising no more than a shower stall, toilet and sink.
“This is it.” She reached out a hand and flicked the light switch. Beside her, Cole gasped. The walls were covered in photographs and handwritten notes; and most of the photographs seemed to be black and white surveillance photos of him. He stepped into the room, gawping around at the pictures, and Victoria followed. The glossy prints showed Cole shopping in his local supermarket, a basket in the crook of his arm; standing on the edge of a marina on a bright morning, holding a mobile phone to his ear; getting into a battered-looking blue Renault in an underground car park; browsing bookshop shelves; struggling back from the off-licence with carrier bags filled with bottles of whiskey and gin...
“These go back months,” Cole said. “How long was he watching me?”
In the doorway, Ack-Ack Macaque pulled the scarf from his face. He pocketed the dark glasses, and then fumbled around in his coat until he found the bag of banana and white chocolate cookies that K8 had baked, which he proceeded to eat.
“It looks as if you’ve got a stalker,” he said, spraying crumbs. “I had one of those for a while last year. One of those gamer nerds who couldn’t let go.”
This was news to Victoria. She raised an eyebrow.
“You did? What happened to him?”
The monkey grinned, exposing dirty yellow teeth.
“Poor guy broke both his legs.”
Victoria started to ask how, but then stopped and shook her head, deciding she’d be better off not knowing. Instead, she walked up to Cole, who was leaning close to the wall, reading the handwritten notes pinned beside each picture.
“Any clues?” To her, the scribbled words were just squiggles on paper, utterly indecipherable.
Cole tapped a picture of himself kneeling at a snowy graveside, a paper-wrapped bunch of daffodils clutched in his hand. “It seems I’ve been under scrutiny for some time. At least since last Christmas.”
“Any idea why?”
“Not so far.” He turned to her. “But do you want to know something weird?” He pulled a note from the wall and held it out to her. “His handwriting is exactly the same as mine. Absolutely, spookily identical.” He shivered.
Victoria peered at the paper trembling before her.
“I’ll have to take your word for that.” She watched as he opened his shaking fingers and let the note fall, spiralling down to the floorboards. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Cole rubbed his beard. He seemed agitated.
“None of this brings us any closer to finding out who shot him.” He tapped his ribcage. “Or who’s been trying to kill me.”
“I think we can assume for now that the same people are responsible for both,” Victoria said.
The writer’s nose wrinkled. “Even if that’s the case, the question is: what am I going to do about it?” He glanced around at the walls, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Because poking around in this hovel isn’t getting us anywhere.”
Victoria felt her fists tighten at her sides. She licked her dry lips, and swallowed her irritation.
“Sit down,” she said quietly. She took a breath. “We won’t be here much longer. Have a rest.”
Cole glared at her, but he sat on the futon. She left him there, muttering to himself and stroking his hairy chin, and went to see what the monkey was fiddling with. He’d been rummaging in the kitchen drawers.
“What’s that you’ve got?”
He held it out to her.
“Another gun,” he said.
“Is it the same as the last one?”
“No, boss.” He tipped it into her outstretched hand, and she felt its weight. It was lighter then she’d been expecting. Also, it was like no gun she’d ever seen before. It looked like a pocket flashlight with a pistol grip fixed to the underside.
“What does it do?”
Ack-Ack Macaque reached out and took it back. He held it at arm’s length and aimed the ‘lens’ at the far wall.
He pulled the trigger. Nothing seemed to happen.
“Is it broken?”
The monkey shook his head, and pointed a leathery finger at the wall. Amongst the papers, a small spot of plaster smouldered, molten red. The notes around it were charred at the edges, the photos had curled and melted, as if shrinking away from a flame.
“Good, huh? It must be some kind of ray gun.”
Victoria scratched her chin. “Or an x-ray, perhaps?” She wished Paul were here, as she was sure he’d know. “Anyway, be careful where you point it.”
Ack-Ack Macaque gave a gleeful simian grin. “Yes, boss.”
She turned. “Hey, Cole. Have you ever seen anything like this?”
The writer looked up from wringing his hands. “What?” He stood upright, and shuffled over. “What is it?”
“A ray gun,” Ack-Ack Macaque said.
“Let me see.” Cole snatched the gun from the monkey’s hand, and glowered at it. He turned it over and over in his hands. His tongue poked into the side of his cheek as he inhaled a long breath. “Ray gun, indeed.” He stopped turning it and held it by the grip, forefinger resting on the trigger guard. He extended his arm, and closed his left eye, drawing a bead on the futon.
“Be careful,” Victoria said.
He turned to her. “I’m not an idiot.”
“I never said you were...” Victoria trailed off. It was quite obvious that Cole had stopped listening to her. His eyes were focussed on something she couldn’t see: a thousand yard stare into the middle distance. His lips were working soundlessly, opening and closing, forming words she couldn’t hear. The breath rasped in and out of his nostrils. “Uh, Cole?” He didn’t react, and gave no signs of having heard her. She put a hand to his shoulder, and he went rigid. She could see beads of sweat forming at his temples. “What’s happening? What’s the matter?” She turned to Ack-Ack Macaque. “Is he having a fit?”
“How the hell would I know?”
Cole let out a moan. Every limb shook, and she thought he would fall. Then whatever was holding him seemed to relax its grip, and he sagged instead.
“I have to go.” His voice was hoarse.
“Go? Go where?”
“Get away from me.” He shook her off angrily. “I’m not waiting around here to be killed. I’ve got to go. Got to get out.”
Holding the pistol at waist height, he blundered backwards until he stood in the open doorway.
Ack-Ack Macaque made to follow.
“Hey, Cole, wait.”
The writer brandished the strange pistol in the monkey’s face.
“Stay back!” His eyes were manic-looking slits. His lips were drawn back from his teeth. As Victoria watched, his knuckle whitened on the trigger. The shot drilled a smouldering hole through the top of Ack-Ack Macaque’s fedora. “Stay back, or I’ll kill you both!”
THEY LISTENED TO the American’s footsteps clump down the stairs.
Ack-Ack Macaque turned to Victoria. “Should I go after him?” He had his hat in his hand, one finger exploring the charred puncture. The beam had burned its way in at the front, and out at the back, singeing a few hairs on the top of the monkey’s head.
Victoria waved him on. “Yes, but be careful.” “What about you?” He flexed his leathery fingers, and drew one of the silver Colts from beneath his coat. “No offence, but I can probably move faster without you.”
Downstairs, they heard the front door bang.
Victoria didn’t have the energy for a chase. She couldn’t keep up with the monkey, and she knew it. “I’ll get a taxi back to the Tereshkova, and do some digging around. Find out if Cole had a twin, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, you and K8 find Cole and get him into the car. Call me when you’re on your way back.”
The monkey touched the barrel of the revolver to his brow. “Right-o.”
“And Ack-Ack?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Try not to blow anything up.”