“We did it!”
“The fucking Conquistador!”
“We’ll get medals for this!”
“Promotion!”
“A commendation from the Great Speaker!”
“Fuck yeah!”
In the event, they were to be disappointed. None of the above would happen. But their moment of triumph, while it lasted, was sweet.
Jaguar warriors took charge in the plaza, restoring calm and arranging an orderly evacuation. The streets emptied. People filed homeward, dazed and disturbed. The plaza was designated an official crime scene. The death toll was totted up. The remains of the ruined temple were combed through.
What the Jaguar Warriors unearthed among the debris was not, as they’d hoped, a mangled corpse in a suit of armour. They found armour all right. Portions of it were strewn across the apex of the ziggurat, here a gauntlet, there the morion helmet with comb crest and cheek guards. But no body. Nor was any of the armour pieces spattered with blood, as might have been expected.
The armour, it was obvious, had been discarded. The Conquistador, under cover of the obscuring haze of smoke and dust, had undressed himself and…
Disappeared.
But where to? Where had he gone?
Into the crowd? But he wouldn’t have had time to unbuckle his armour and get down to the plaza.
Where, then?
A couple of hours after the blood rite came to its premature end, a flatbed truck arrived at the plaza to cart away the bodies of the sacrificial victims.
The Jaguar Warriors refused it access, and the workmen in the truck said that that was no problem with them, but… A pyre was already alight over at the burning grounds in Leamouth, building up heat. The clock was ticking. In this weather, the corpses would soon start to putrefy. Swift removal and immolation was standard procedure, as mandated by tradition. If the Jaguar Warriors wished that not to happen, then fine. But they would have to explain to the High Priest himself why they had interfered with proper religious observance. Good luck with that.
The Jaguar Warriors saw sense and allowed the truck through. Parking behind the ziggurat, the workmen donned filter masks and rubber gloves and aprons. Then they got busy scooping up the corpses in the enclosure and stacking them onto the back of the truck. They’d been expecting a hundred bodies but, in the event, it was a couple of dozen. Still, never mind. They were on a flat rate. Less work, same pay, and it meant a single trip from Leamouth and back rather than three or four.
The truck trundled out of the plaza with its gory load. The corpses in the back jogged and jiggled with every sharp turn and pothole.
The drivers were blithely oblivious when, while the truck stood stationary at traffic lights, one of the corpses got up, shinned over the tailgate, and sprinted off down a nearby alleyway.
TWO
5 Eagle 1 Monkey 1 House
(Monday 26th November 2012)
The last thing Mal wanted to hear when she reported for work at Scotland Yard that morning was the first thing her DS, Aaronson, said to her.
“Kellaway’s looking for you.”
The groan inside Mal was so loud it was almost a shout. Outwardly she confined herself to a soft oath.
“Where is he? His office?”
Aaronson glanced down the corridor. “If he was, you’d be able to hear him.”
“On the warpath?”
“Seriously. It’s been stamping and ranting ever since he got in. I know he usually has a tarantula up his arse but never one this big. He could teach Tezcatlipoca himself a thing or two about anger.”
“Well, wherever he is, he can wait a few more minutes. Here.” She handed Aaronson one of the two paper cups she was carrying.
Her DS frowned at the logo on the side. “Koka Klub? I thought you hated the big chains. You said they water it down too much.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“What about the street stand outside Victoria Station? You usually get your — ” Aaronson’s expression turned sly. “Ah. We didn’t come in that way today, did we? We weren’t home last night, were we?”
“You’ll make an inspector yet, Aaronson.”
“Come on, who was it?”
“No one.”
“That means he was young.”
“I can’t even remember his name, to be honest.”
“Bad girl! Bet he was handsome.”
“Gorgeous,” Mal said with feeling.
“Where did you find him?”
“The pub, lunchtime. We played a few games of patillo. I let him win the first. Wiped the floor with him for the rest.”
“Would I have liked him?”
“If he swung your way, definitely.”
“They all swing my way,” said Aaronson. “When persuaded.”
The two of them uncapped their cups, blew off the steam, and took a sip. The coca-leaf tea hit the spot simultaneously.
“You hear about the blood rite yesterday?” Aaronson asked. He was lisping slightly, his tongue coca- numbed.
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I have?”
“I don’t know, because you were having rampant monkey sex with a casual pickup maybe?”
“I caught the newspaper headlines on the way here.”
“Conquistador made us look like a bunch of fucking idiots.”
“Which’ll be the reason for the chief super’s mood,” said Mal. “What I want to know is why’s he after me?” She had a hunch she knew the answer. She prayed she was wrong. She took another slug of her tea. “Better go find him, I suppose. Face the music.”
“Good luck, boss. I’ll bring flowers to your funeral.”
“Detective Sergeant Aaronson, sincerely, fuck off.”
She tracked down Kellaway in the central quadrangle.
Normally you could count on there being a scratch game of tlachtli under way here, off-duty personnel running around, jostling to put the ball through the wall-mounted hoop with a shoulder nudge or thigh kick. Now, however, the quadrangle was deserted, except for the chief superintendent, two constables, and a man Mal recognised as Chief Inspector Stephen Nyman.
From everyone’s body language she could tell exactly what the situation was and what was about to occur. She started to backtrack out of the quadrangle, but too late. Kellaway spotted her.
“Inspector Vaughn. Just in time. Come on over.”
The chief superintendent was calm, no longer raging. Punishment was about to be doled out. He had
