“I never did,” she said.
On the table, her scarab was flashing. An inbound call. Lao, she thought numbly. I know that’s Lao. Her fingers itched.
There was a knock at the door. Neither of them moved. A second knock. Finally Linus went. Goran strolled into the room, a holdall and a brown paper bag in one hand, a mango in the other. He wore the usual dark blue suit, specially tailored to fit his heavy, muscular frame. His head had been recently shaved. It was pale and shiny.
“Hi AD,” he said. “Long time no see.”
His neat white teeth bit into the mango, skin and all.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” she hissed. “Get him out of here, Linus, I’m not even dressed.”
“It never seems to bother you anywhere else.” Linus extended his hand. Goran juggled mango and bags until he could press his wrist to Linus’s.
Adelaide yanked the cord of her kimono taut. She could not miss anything they might say.
“Never was too polite, was she?” commented Goran. He did not seem to care whether he received an answer. He ambled around the room, sucking gently on the flesh of the mango, touching things with his tattooed fingers. Perspiration collected on Adelaide’s scalp. Her own sweat felt unclean.
“Don’t touch that,” she said, as his fingers hovered over a photograph of the twins. Goran paused, as if he might obey, then picked it up.
“Interesting place.” He pulled back the red and orange curtain that hung from the mezzanine and peered into the space beneath. “Nice den. Guess I’ll be sleeping here.” He nudged the sofa with his leg. Adelaide froze.
Goran let the curtain drop and wandered towards the kitchen.
“Linus-” she said.
Her brother closed his briefcase and patted the left breast of his jacket. “What, Adelaide?”
“You can’t do this. That man-cannot stay in my apartment.” Linus shrugged and made for the hallway. She ran in front of the door. “You can’t leave him here! This is my home!”
“It’s Rechnov property, Adelaide.” Linus smiled. “And as you keep reminding us, you’ve got a different name now. Mystik, isn’t it?”
“You bastard.” Her voice shook. From the kitchen she heard the sounds of breaking glass and running water. “What the hell’s he doing?”
“Getting rid of your alcohol, I think. Move away from the door. Or shall I get Goran to remove you?”
Keep calm, Adelaide. She put her hands up. “Okay, okay. Joke’s over. Now let’s sit down and talk about this rationally.”
“Adelaide,” Linus hissed. “I have to things to do. Our father and I are attempting to clear up the enormous pile of shit you have landed us in. Now get out of my way.” He shouldered past her and wrenched open the door. She wrapped her fingers around the frame, only just removing them before he slammed it. A key turned in the lock. Her eyes darted to the bowl on the table. He had taken her scarab as well. The bowl was empty.
“Linus!” she screamed.
There was no answer. She pressed her ear to the door. Nothing.
“Linus!”
There was another smash. Her stomach lurched. For a second she thought she heard pots and pans clanging; it was not Goran in the kitchen, it was Axel.
It was Goran. He was emptying a crystal decanter of raqua down the sink. The warm amber fluid winked in the afternoon sunlight. Adelaide grabbed his arm. The smell of a dozen mingled alcohol fumes rose from the sink. Orange and blue liquids made rainbows with broken glass. Goran stopped pouring. With Adelaide clinging to his arm, he smashed the decanter quite deliberately against the sink. Crystal flew. The jagged edge glinted in his hand. She saw specks of his blood. Goran smiled at her.
“Don’t be naughty, now, AD. You know I can break you and it would be a real pleasure.”
He flung out his arm. She spun backwards and slammed against the wall. Her eyes watered with the impact.
“Did you kill my brother?”
“He didn’t need me for that, AD.”
“You’re evil.”
She staggered out of the kitchen. This was not happening, not to her. Her family were despots, but they were rational people.
Goran worked systematically through the apartment. He ripped the sheets off her bed and lifted the mattress. He rifled through her clothes, pulling dresses off hangers and trampling over them. He wrenched open the balcony door and chucked out the dragon teapot, a gift from Tyr. He emptied her sleeping pills down the sink.
Within half an hour, the apartment was strewn with her possessions. Satisfied, Goran reclined on the futon and put his feet up. He produced a bunch of grapes from the brown paper bag. One by one, the green ovals disappeared into the dark cavity of his mouth.
“Just you and me, AD,” he said conversationally. “Anything good on the o’vis?”
The shakes began in the centre of her head and they rippled to her muscles. Her legs, her arms, even her eyes twitched uncontrollably. She could not stop it, she could not think of anything but it. She became a living pulse.
The ceiling had grown a strange shape. It had wings and a segmented body. It was an insect, a fly, the colour of falling snow. It crawled inside the vault. It crawled on the collar of the man in the lift. Operation Whitefly lived upstairs; all along, it had lived in the facility upstairs.
They were not measuring the weather up there. They were watching for boats. Like the Siberian boat which had found the City, whose crew they had murdered, whose bones now rested on the ocean bed. And if a boat came, they would destroy it. This was her grandfather’s dark secret.
But it was too late for realizations. The gulls were descending. Their wings rustled sheerly. Her body and mind were riddled and the birds found hooks for their beaks, delved hard and deep. Their button eyes bore no pity. They were pulling her apart. She knew, when they had dismantled her completely, they would bear each piece of her in their mouths to some far flung corner of the ocean. The birds would feed her to their fledglings.
36 VIKRAM
He opened the door. They grabbed him roughly and threw him face-first against the wall. He heard the contact crack and thought for a moment they had broken his nose but the blood did not come, just quick splitting pain. Someone locked a pair of handcuffs on him. He heard the word arrest. He didn’t listen to the rest because he already knew why they were there. There could only be one reason. They had found out about the break-in.
“Get me a lawyer,” he said through gritted teeth pushed into the plaster, and a voice warmly close to his ear replied.
“Airlifts don’t warrant lawyers, Mr Bai.”
He kicked back at that, catching someone because there was a yelp of pain. They retaliated, knocking his legs out from underneath him. With his hands behind his back and nothing to stop his fall he smashed against the floor. This time his nose did break. The blood gushed from his nostrils and he floundered in it. A boot pushed into the small of his back.
“Especially those who resist arrest,” he heard. Laughter followed. He could not see a single face but he knew it was the skadi, not the civilian police force. He knew it by their taunts and their glee. Every gut instinct ached to respond. These were the bastards who had killed Mikkeli. Who had killed Eirik. The boot had him pinioned. All he could do was twitch and splutter. He heard the spark of a lighter and smelt cigarette smoke through his blood. Hot ash stung the back of his neck. Half his instinct said gurgle, start to drown, then they’ll have to take you to hospital. But it was only too easy to record an accidental death. Especially an airlift death.
The skadi were in no hurry. They joked over his head. After a minute the door opened and footsteps rapped the floorboards. A woman crouched at Vikram’s head. Vikram could not see her face, only her shiny black boots, heels just lifted from the floor, beneath a black and white photograph on a Surfboard. The image was grainy but what it contained was unmistakable.
