had received two new messages. The first was from someone he’d occasionally done business with, requesting the same information he had just sold. The second was from his contact in the Citadel, offering to pay handsomely for his ongoing loyalty and regular updates. It was proving to be a very lucrative morning indeed. Nevertheless he did feel slightly uneasy taking money for ‘ongoing loyalty’ when here he was, in plain view of the Citadel, about to give the same information to somebody else.
He glanced up from his paper and waved at the waiter to bring him his bill. It was odd that this case in particular was proving of such interest to so many. It wasn’t a murder or a sex case, both of which were traditionally his best earners. The waiter swept past, leaving a small round plate on the table with the bill trapped beneath a mint at its centre. He’d only had a coffee but he pulled out his wallet, selected a particular credit card and exchanged it for the mint, which he popped in his mouth. He laid his paper on the white linen tablecloth and smoothed it down, feeling the slight lump inside it. He leaned back in his chair and looked away, just another tourist enjoying the weather, as the waiter scooped up the newspaper and the plate without breaking his stride.
The sun continued to creep across the sky and the man pushed his chair further back. It had to be sex. He’d had a peek through the file himself the first time he’d swiped it and there was definitely something kinky going on, judging by all those scars. His guess was something weird that the holy folks were trying to cover up.
He also knew that the other party he was hawking the information to had no love for the Citadel, or the people inside it. The information he’d fed them before proved that. He’d given them the case file relating to the paedophile priest scandal a few years back, and another time he’d provided names and numbers of key witnesses when a bunch of charities affiliated to the Church were being investigated for fraud. He figured this must be the same kind of deal. They were probably trying to find out as much as possible so they could fan the flames of any breaking scandal and embarrass the hell out of the holier-than-thous up on the hill. All of which was good news for him. A nice juicy sex scandal with a religious angle would play out nicely in the tabloids — and they were the best payers of all.
He looked back up at the mountain and smirked. If they wanted to give him a bonus for his loyalty then more fool them. Maybe that kind of thinking worked up there where people believed in the great hereafter, but in the real world the only thing that mattered was the here and now. He wasn’t going to give them an update anytime soon either. Getting large files to them was such a pain. He didn’t mind forwarding bullet-points via the new text number they’d given him; at least that was a step in the right direction. But he’d already trekked up the holy hill once today with a flash drive in his hand; the update could wait until tomorrow. They still paid him either way.
The waiter drifted past again, placing the dish back on the table with the credit card tucked under the receipt. The man picked it up and put it back in his wallet. He didn’t need to sign anything or punch in his PIN number, his coffee was already paid for and his account had just been credited with over a thousand dollars. He buttoned his jacket and with a final nervous glance up at the cloudless sky, he put on his cap and slipped away from the cafe and back into the crowd.
Kathryn Mann sat four tables behind him in the depths of the awning’s shadow. She watched the informant shuffle away through the foot traffic on the great eastern boulevard, his baseball cap and raincoat incongruous in the bright sunlight. The waiter appeared by her side and placed her bill on the table along with the newspaper. She tucked it into her bag, feeling the bulge of the envelope inside it. Then she paid her bill in cash, making sure she left an extravagant tip, and headed off in the opposite direction.
Chapter 37
Liv sat in the big steel-and-glass box of Newark Liberty Airport — Terminal C — sipping what was practically a bucket of black coffee. She stared up at the departure board. Her flight still wasn’t boarding.
As soon as her phone had died she’d raced home as fast as the so-called ‘rush-hour’ traffic had allowed and booked herself on the next flight to Europe. The first leg of her journey was due to take off at ten-twenty, which gave her just enough time to stuff a few things into a holdall, grab her work cell phone and charger and jump into a cab.
She’d switched the SIM card from her private one on the way and discovered that Arkadian had left her a long message trying once again to dissuade her from coming. He’d given his direct line and cell number and asked her to call him back. She saved the message and stared out of the window all the way to the airport. She would call him back. She’d call him when she was staring out of the window of a Turkish taxi and heading to his office.
It was only when she’d finally checked in that the adrenalin ran out and exhaustion took over. She knew she’d be able to sleep as soon as she got on the flight, or at least grab as many z’s as premium economy would allow, but first she had to stay awake long enough to get on the plane, hence the industrial-sized coffee.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it from her jacket and checked the caller ID. The number was withheld. She should have turned it off. Now she was going to have the Inspector asking more questions or trying to persuade her to stay away. She exhaled wearily, suddenly craving a cigarette, and pressed the green answer button to stop the infernal buzzing.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ a deep voice replied.
It was not the Inspector.
‘Who is this please?’
There was the slightest pause, one that even in her sleep-starved, coffee-frazzled state put her immediately on her guard. In her experience the only people who hesitated when you asked their name were people who didn’t want to tell you.
‘I’m a colleague of Inspector Arkadian,’ the voice rumbled. The English was accented like Arkadian’s, but he sounded older, more authoritative.
‘Are you his boss?’ she asked.
‘I’m a colleague. Has he contacted you?’
Liv frowned. Why was one cop checking up on another via a witness? That wasn’t the way things worked. They talked to each other, not to outsiders.
‘Why don’t you ask him?’ she said.
‘He hasn’t been in the office for a few hours,’ the voice replied. ‘So I thought I’d give you a try. I assume you have spoken with him.’
‘We spoke.’
‘Of what did you speak?’
Her antennae continued to bristle. This new guy just didn’t sound like a cop, at least not any she knew. Maybe they bred them differently over there.
A loud announcement echoed through the terminal, calling her flight. She squinted up at the departures board. Her flight was now boarding at gate 78, about as far away as it was possible to get without leaving the state.
‘Listen,’ she said, heaving herself wearily to her feet and grabbing her holdall, ‘I’ve had virtually no sleep, I’ve drunk about a gallon of coffee, and I’ve just had some really bad news, so I’m really not in the most sociable of moods. If you want to be briefed on my earlier conversation, ask Arkadian. I’m sure his memory is every bit as good as mine, probably a damn sight better right at this moment.’
She hung up and hit the ‘off’ button before it had a chance to ring again.
Chapter 38
As soon as Liv hung up, the Abbot ordered Athanasius to fetch Brother Samuel’s personal file from the library. He’d also asked him to bring the files of each current member of the Carmina as a plan formed in his mind.
It wasn’t possible. No one could enter the Citadel if they had any living relatives. The absence of family ties
