Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
The man hovered on the edge of the dance floor. His elongated limbs and thinning hair made him stand out from the young lithe bodies. Sam Burnham watched him from the bar, nursing the same brandy he’d ordered an hour ago.
The track ended and the man shuffled his feet. He scanned the mirrored dance area before heading towards the bar.
Burnham ordered a second drink. He sensed the man in his periphery, and turned to face him. He placed his hand on the younger man’s arm, and looked him directly in the eyes.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he asked.
The man nodded, staring at Burnham. Twenty minutes later they left the club together.
‘What now?’ asked Burnham, pulling his jacket tight against his body. It was a late September evening in Bristol, and the temperature had dropped since he’d set out earlier that day.
‘Where are you staying?’ asked the man. His eyes darted in random directions, not once focusing on Burnham.
‘Hotel. You wouldn’t like it. Do you live near?’ Burnham knew exactly where he lived.
‘I’m not sure,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know you.’
Burnham touched the man’s arm again. It was the simplest of techniques, but highly effective.
The man relented. ‘It’s not far away. We can walk.’
The man lived in Southville, a small suburb of Bristol less than a mile from the centre. They walked in an awkward silence, peppered with the occasional question from the man.
The man stopped outside a block of flats. ‘I don’t mean to sound weird, but do I know you from somewhere?’
‘I don’t think so. I guess I must have one of those faces,’ said Burnham, following him inside.
The flat was hospital clean, the air fragranced artificially. The living area was an array of various gleaming surfaces: glass, chrome, marble. Burnham accepted a glass of brandy. The man’s hands trembled as he handed it over.
They moved to the living room sofa and the man made life easy for him. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, his voice faltering.
As soon as Burnham heard the bathroom door click shut, he removed the phial from his inside jacket pocket. He broke the seal and spilled the clear liquid into the man’s drink, stirring it with his left index finger.
It took five minutes for the man to take a drink. A further five minutes for the drug to take effect. Burnham dragged him to the bedroom, the man’s skeletal body insubstantial in his thick arms. He placed the man on the bed and made a phone call.
Burnham’s boss arrived at the flat two minutes later carrying a small leather case. Burnham watched in silence as he removed a surgical outfit, a set of scalpels, and a second phial filled with a different substance. ‘Wait in the car,’ he ordered.
It was three hours before his boss left the building. Burnham hurried from his seat and opened the back passenger door for him.
‘Do you need me to clean up?’ he asked.
‘No, not this time.’
Michael Lambert waited at the back of the coffee shop. To his right, a group of new mothers congregated around three wooden tables. Some held their tiny offspring; the others allowed their babies to sleep in the oversized prams which crowded the area. Two tables down, a pair of men dressed in identical suits stared at their iPads. Next to them, a young woman with braided hair read a paperback novel. All of them looked up as Simon Klatzky walked through the shop entrance and shouted over at him.
Lambert ignored the glances. He’d arrived thirty minutes earlier, out of habit checking and rechecking the clientele. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He stood and beckoned Klatzky over. He’d last seen him two years ago at the funeral. ‘Good to see you again, Simon,’ he said.
‘Mikey,’ said Klatzky. Like Lambert, Klatzky was thirty-eight. He’d lost weight since the last time they’d met. His face was gaunt, his eyeballs laced with thin shards of red. When he spoke, Lambert noticed a number of missing teeth. The rest were discoloured and black with cheap fillings. His face cracked into a smile. He stood grinning at Lambert. In his left hand he clutched an A4 manila envelope.
‘Sit down then. What do you want to drink?’ said Lambert.
Klatzky shrugged. ‘Coffee?’
Lambert ordered two black Americanos and returned to the table.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Klatzky.
Klatzky had called earlier that morning desperate to meet. He’d refused to tell Lambert the details over the phone but had insisted that it was urgent. From the smell of him, it hadn’t been important enough to stop him visiting a bar first.
Klatzky’s hands shook as he sipped the coffee. ‘I thought it best you see for yourself,’ he said, looking at the envelope still clutched tight in his hand.
Lambert sat straight in his chair, scratching a day’s growth of stubble on his face. It was genuinely good to see his old friend. He’d only agreed to meet him as he’d sounded so scared on the phone. Now he was here, Lambert regretted not seeing more of him in the last two years.
‘How have you been, Si?’
‘So-so. I’m sorry I haven’t called before.’ He hesitated. ‘And now, contacting you in these circumstances.’ He still had a strong grip on the envelope, his knuckles turning white with the effort.
‘I’m not working at the moment, Simon.’
‘I didn’t know who else to talk to.’ Klatzky produced a bottle of clear liquid from his grainy-black rain jacket and poured half the contents into his coffee cup.
Some things didn’t change. ‘Are you going to show me then?’ Lambert didn’t want to rush him, but he didn’t like surprises. He needed to know what Klatzky wanted.
Klatzky drank heavily from the alcohol-fused drink, momentarily confused.
‘The envelope, Si.’
Klatzky stared at the envelope as if it had just appeared in his hand. He handed it to Lambert, his body trembling.
Klatzky’s name and address were printed on the front. There was no stamp. ‘You received this today?’
‘It was there when I got back.’
‘Back from where?’
‘I was out last night. Got in early this morning.’ He looked at Lambert as if expecting a reprimand.
Lambert opened the envelope and pulled out a file of A4 papers. Each page had a colour photo of the same subject taken from a different angle. Lambert tapped the table with the knuckles of his left hand as he read through the file.
‘It’s him, Mike,’ said Klatzky.
The subject was the deceased figure of an emaciated man. The skin of the corpse was a dull yellow. Wisps of frazzled hair clung to the man’s cheek bones, matted together with a green-brown substance. The corpse’s mouth was wide open, caught forever