they first appeared. Could be they’re over here and on his side because they’re… well, fans.”
Kellaway rolled his eyes. “That’s just what we need — more of the buggers. Think we can root this lot out somehow? Check the immigration records, for instance?”
“I can have Aaronson look to see if a bunch of Anahuac nationals have passed through customs lately, but we get people arriving from there all the time, and if our guys are on tourist visas, as is likely, they won’t have to have specified a place of residence in Britain.”
“How about shaking a few cheap hotels, see what falls out?”
“Could do.”
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”
“With respect, sir, I think the Mayans are a red herring. A sideshow, not the main event. I should really be focusing on the Conquistador.”
“If you say so,” said Kellaway.
“I’m not against exploring other avenues, but it’s the Conquistador who’s at the centre of all this, and catching him might just lead us to the Mayans, too. If I could only figure out who he really is… I mean, he’s a civilian when he’s not playing sociopath dress-up. He has another, discrete existence. It shouldn’t be impossible, based on what we know about him, to narrow down a shortlist of suspects and interview all of them.”
“Interview as in ‘interview’?” The emphasis Kellaway placed on the word was unmistakable. What went on in the basement of Scotland Yard wasn’t pleasant, but it had been proven to work.
“It needn’t be that drastic,” said Mal. “Under duress or not, whichever one’s the Conquistador is bound to give himself away. There’s a vanity about the man. Up on that stage yesterday, he wouldn’t bloody shut up. We prey on that, goad him, prompt him, he’ll reveal his true colours soon enough. Plus, I’ll recognise his voice.”
“How? The mask distorts it.”
“Not so much the voice itself — the speech patterns, the syntax, the choice of words. Some one-on-one time with him, that’s all it’ll take. Me and him in a room together. I’ll know.”
“How many would there be on this shortlist?”
“I don’t know, sir. A dozen. Two dozen. A hundred. Depends on what my researches turn up. Why?”
“Why do you think?” Kellaway smoothed a hand compulsively through his thinning hair. So few strands left, all the more important to keep them in line. “The commissioner’s leaning even more heavily on me. Wants results, and now. The news people have been asked to go easy on reporting the Conquistador’s exploits, play it down, not sensationalise, and mostly they’re falling into line. But you can’t avoid the bare facts getting out there. Skew them how you will, they spread, the public takes note, and the Conquistador gets the attention he craves. My theory is that’s what’s behind the murder of Priest Marquand. Someone’s been reading the headlines and decided to get in on the action. And we can’t have that, Vaughn. We can’t have Conquistador wannabes. One’s bad enough. And now these Mayans… If this should turn into some kind of contagion, which is what the commissioner’s afraid of, then where will we be?”
“How about instituting a blanket ban on all media coverage of the Conquistador? High Priest Whitaker could issue a formal decree. That might help limit the, as you put it, contagion.”
“The commissioner and I discussed the possibility. Partly the trouble is, we’re too late. The cat is well out of the bag. If the Conquistador suddenly vanished from the airwaves and the front pages, it would smack of government interference. And above all else the freedom of the press is sacrosanct.”
“The illusion of the freedom of the press, don’t you mean?”
“Yes, well.” Kellaway waved airily: same difference. “His Very Holiness would have no problem with the idea of depriving the Conquistador of the oxygen of publicity, but all said and done, he’d rather deprive him of oxygen full stop. In fact, as I understand it from the commissioner, the only thing that’ll make the High Priest truly happy is the Conquistador’s head on a railing spike outside Westminster. Which brings us back to you.”
Mal nodded sombrely. “Yes, it does.”
“The one surefire means of undoing everything the Conquistador’s done, rectifying the damage he’s caused, is capturing him and making an example of him. All the very worst punishments available have to be visited on him, and his suffering has to be photographed and written about and filmed and broadcast, every minute of it, every single excruciating second. So that people know. So that they won’t forget. So that they’ll be discouraged from trying anything like it, ever again. I like this shortlist idea of yours, chief inspector. It shows I was right to give you the job. You’ve got flair and imagination, something all your predecessors lacked, including that plodder Nyman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You have carte blanche to carry on the investigation in whatever way you see fit. You have an unlimited budget at your disposal. What you don’t have is time. Get cracking. We need resolution on this. We need a result. For the good of the nation, find the fucking Conquistador!”
“You. You. And you. You as well. And you, the one trying to hide — yes, you.”
Mal swept through the department, pulling junior officers from their desks.
“Drop what you’re doing. Whatever it is, it’s not important right now. As of this moment, you’re on my detail. You answer to me. And if you want to whinge about it, take it up with the chief super. Then watch him wrench off some vital part of your anatomy along with your badge.”
She commandeered a situation room, and addressed her small task force of new recruits.
“Here’s how it is,” she said. “By tonight I want you to have compiled a list of potential Conquistadors. We don’t have a lot to go on, but we do know this about him. He’s male. About six one, solidly built, thirteen, fourteen stone, something like that. In his late twenties, early thirties. Military background. I know, I know, that could describe thousands of people, but we can whittle it down further. He’s local, that’s almost certain. Almost all of his attacks have occurred in and around the capital. It’d be reasonable to assume he’s a Londoner. Also, he has a fair bit of dosh. Not rich, necessarily, but he abandoned a suit of armour the other day and turned up in another one yesterday evening. Those things must cost a bob or two, so we can assume he’s not penniless. Finally, he’s nursing some sort of deep-felt grudge against the Empire. Don’t know what, don’t know why, but it’ll flag itself up when combined with all the other criteria. Questions?”
There was a way of asking “Questions?” that indicated you weren’t actually interested in hearing any. Mal used it.
“Then what are you waiting for, ladies and gentlemen? Quetzalcoatl to return? Move your arses.”
It was a long day, and it stretched well into the evening. Mal coaxed, chivvied and cajoled throughout, fuelled by the cups of coca Aaronson fetched for her, every hour, on the hour. Her team went through criminal records, military records, financial records, sifting, sorting, cross-referencing. When she saw their energy levels begin to wane, she pushed them to redouble their efforts. She led by example, refusing to show an ounce of the bone-deep tiredness she was feeling. The bruises left by the bolas balls ached. Just to hold her head up required superhuman stamina. But she could not flag, could not fail. There was so much at stake here, not least her own life. She was thirty-two. Not ready for Tamoanchan yet, or even the other place. And the chief super was depending on her, the commissioner too, the High Priest himself. She wasn’t going to let anyone down.
Finally, verging on midnight, she sent everyone home, Aaronson included. They’d all put in a good day’s work, and plenty of overtime, and between them they’d managed to rustle up a list of thirty-odd candidates each of whom fit the profile for the Conquistador.
Mal herself would gladly have gone home too. She was so exhausted she could barely see straight. Her coca buzz was fading and she knew that if she drank any more of the stuff she could pass out and maybe even end up in hospital with cardiac arrhythmia. It was down to just her now, her and her own inner resources.
She arranged the candidate dossiers on a table. Some had mugshots clipped to them, others not. She read through each one carefully. In many instances, the sum total of knowledge about the man amounted to no more than a few lines of text. With others, particularly those who had spent time being detained at His Very Holiness’s pleasure, there was a great deal of information, none of it painting them in a flattering light. Her gut instinct told her that the Conquistador wasn’t likely to be part of this parade of model citizens — stalkers, pub brawlers, wife beaters, flashers, kiddie fiddlers. They all of them used to be lower-ranked Eagle Warriors, non-coms, cannon fodder. Given his cunning and his articulacy, the Conquistador would have been higher up the pecking order, officer class.
