Innocent Blood

She smiled at him, still stroking his hair. ‘I lost my innocence.’

‘You lost your innocence? Who took it?’

‘The world is full of thieves, Frank, and they don’t only take wallets. They take everything and anything that’s worth having. Beauty, joy, innocence. They don’t really want it for themselves, they just don’t want anybody else to have it.’

‘Tell me,’ said Frank.

‘No. You’re not in any fit state. You need a sedative and you need some sleep.’

‘Sleep? No thanks. I’ll only have nightmares.’

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Astrid went to answer it, and it was Nevile. He was immaculately dressed in a black shirt and black pants, as if he had been playing Well-Groomed Vampire #2 in the same movie as Astrid, and he smelled of Burberry aftershave.

‘Oh,’ he said in his tensile British accent. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

‘Of course not,’ said Frank. ‘Come on in. This is Astrid, by the way. Astrid, this is Nevile – Nevile Strange, the world-famous psychic detective.’

‘Well, well,’ said Astrid. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you at last. Frank and I were just talking about you.’

‘I wondered why my ears were burning,’ said Nevile. He held out his hand but Astrid smiled and turned away as if she preferred not to make any physical contact.

Frank said, ‘We’ve been trying to work out why Dar Tariki Tariqat would want to blow up Pigs. Listen, how about a drink? There’s a bottle of dry white wine in the fridge.’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks. The police told me all about the bombing and I just called by to make sure that you were all right.’

‘I’m covered in so many bruises I look like a patchwork quilt, and a trolley car keeps ringing in my ears. But they took me to Mount Sinai for a check-up and otherwise I’m all in one piece.’

Nevile came over and peered into his bloodshot eyes. ‘You were damned lucky you weren’t in the office with the others. I’m so sorry about your friends; it’s absolutely tragic.’

Frank lifted both hands. ‘I feel, mentally, like I’ve had my arms torn off. Can you understand that?’ He suddenly found it difficult to speak. ‘I mean, we wrote that series together every working day for three and a half years and it was like we were . . .’

‘I know. I don’t know what to say.’

Frank cleared his throat. ‘I need to talk to you, as a matter of fact.’

‘I’m rather pushed for time, I’m afraid. Perhaps we can make it tomorrow.’

‘The cops told you that it was a pizza delivery boy?’

Nevile nodded.

‘Well, a couple of minutes before that pizza delivery boy showed up, Daphne took a phone message for me. She said it was a woman. Somebody wanted to meet me in the parking lot, urgently. I looked out of the window and I swear to you, I could see Danny standing out there. He was in shadow, I could only see a silhouette, but I swear it was him. That’s why I left the office in such a hurry, thank God.’

Nevile raised one eyebrow. ‘Was Danny still there when you got outside?’

‘No, he wasn’t, and nobody else had seen him, either. I was still looking for him when it suddenly hit me that none of us had ordered pizza. I mean, the delivery boy had asked me which was our office – Bell, Cohen and Fries – but none of us had ordered pizza. I could see Mo up at the window, and I tried to warn him. You know, I waved, and I shouted . . .’ Frank became silent for a moment at the memory of it. ‘I guess he thought I was joking. Mo was incapable of taking anything seriously. Even a bomb warning.’

Nevile looked thoughtful. ‘Seeing Danny in the parking lot could have been some kind of premonition, I suppose. Sometimes we see things that warn us of coming events. Birds, animals, certain vehicles like ambulances or hearses. But in this case, I’m not so sure. What makes this really unusual is that your secretary received an actual phone call, saying that you were needed outside.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Either a real woman was ringing you, to warn you, or else you were receiving a warning from a very powerful psychic source – so powerful that it could make your phone ring. It’s been known before, spirit voices being heard over the telephone. A woman in Wales used to hear her mother talking, even though she had died of cancer more than five years before. Electrical circuits are highly sensitive to spirit messages, like the automatic writing I picked up on my computer.’

‘Any way of telling whether this was a real message or a spirit message?’

‘We should meet tomorrow, and try another seance. Meanwhile, I really have to go. Lieutenant Chessman called me and I’m on my way to Century City right now. They want to see if I can pick up any vibrations from the bomber’s shoes – although they’re pretty sure that they know his name already.’

‘Really?’

‘He was carrying a photograph of his mother. His foster-mother, anyhow. There was a street sign in the background and they were able to trace her from that.’

‘You know what really gets to me?’ said Frank. ‘He’s blown himself up, too, and that means that I’ll never get the chance to kill him myself.’

Nevile took out a leather-bound notebook. ‘His remains haven’t been formally identified yet, but he was a house painter from Culver City called Alexander Sutter, twenty-four years old. His foster parents were Mr and Mrs John Happel, of MacManus Park. Apparently he was put into foster care when he was eleven years old, after persistent sexual and physical abuse from his natural father.’

‘Another abuse victim? It looks like your theory could be right.’

‘After this, yes, I’m pretty sure of it.’

‘All the same, it’s hard to think of abuse victims getting themselves together and planning something like this. The only ones I’ve ever met – they’re usually so withdrawn, you know? So downtrodden.’

‘I agree with you,’ said Nevile. ‘But it looks as if somebody managed to get them together and inspire them to take some action. These bombings have taken some very careful organization. Dar Tariki Tariqat use a different type of explosive each time, and a different method of delivery, so it’s very difficult to trace them back. Somebody’s doing their planning for them, that’s my opinion. Somebody clever, and very well financed.’

‘What do the cops think?’

‘They still believe that there’s some kind of Arab influence at work here – even if they have used child-abuse victims to do their dirty work for them.’

‘What’s your opinion?’

‘Well, I was talking to an FBI psychologist this afternoon and she agrees that child-abuse victims probably wouldn’t have focused their resentment into a terrorist campaign unless somebody had focused it for them. And who wants to see Hollywood destroyed more than Islamic extremists?’

‘You think she’s right?’

‘I don’t know. She certainly has a point. But I think it’s too easy to blame the Arabs. I have a very strong feeling that there’s another dimension to this. I wish I could work out what it is.’

Frank showed him to the door. ‘I’ll give you a call around nine tomorrow, how’s that?’

‘Fine,’ said Nevile. He was about to leave but then he looked over Frank’s shoulder at Astrid and asked, ‘Who is that?’

‘She’s the girl I was telling you about, the girl I met after the bombing at The Cedars.’

‘She’s very pretty, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she is. And I must say that she’s really helped me to get over Danny.’

Nevile continued to stare at her. ‘She wouldn’t take my hand, did you notice that?’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Not necessarily.’ He sniffed. ‘I think I can smell something, too. But I’m always oversensitive. Look . . . I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?’

On the nine P.M. news, Commissioner Campbell read out a statement that he had received during the afternoon from Dar Tariki Tariqat. He looked very gray, and tired, and his voice trembled as he spoke.

‘After today’s act of retribution against Twentieth Century Fox, Dar Tariki Tariqat hopes that the entertainment industry will now realize that we mean what we say, and that they will immediately withdraw all of