Chapter Forty-Seven
David escorted Andy’s car with a thoughtful gaze. The two ambulances also drove off. One by one the onlookers stopped making videos with their phones and went on with their lives.
The detective took out his phone and called his office.
“Hello, Cohran Detective Services.”
“Hi, Maldiva.”
“Oh, Mister Cohran?”
“Yes, look, Maldiva. Is there anyone in the office?”
“Why no, it’s just me, Sir.”
“Good, good. Now listen,” Dave tried to sound nonchalant, “you must leave the office right now.”
A pause.
“But why?”
“Let’s say, let’s just say it’s a potentially dangerous situation, Maldiva. Leave right now, and take a vacation. Paid of course. I’ll call you when the coast is clear.”
“Er, all right, er, Mister Cohran, I...”
“Do it now, please. Do it right now, at this very moment—there may be danger.”
“All right Mister Cohran, and thank you,” the surprise had gone out of the secretary’s voice—she was brisk and businesslike again. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will. Thank you. Bye, Maldiva.”
Dave started his car and began the torturous journey back to his office. What now? He made sure that Maldiva was safe, now he must concentrate on the case at hand.
These were special times. He had to download all the info into his memory stick. Ethics be damned. His hands strained at the steering wheel as if they wanted to bend it.
He commanded himself to breathe calmly and concentrate on scanning the other cars for signs of trouble.
Don’t want to suddenly have a nasty accident now, do we?
Dave approached the office door and unlocked it. Nothing exploded. The air still smelled of Maldiva’s perfume. Breathing heavily he locked the door behind him and ran to his room. He switched the computer on. Suddenly, the minute needed for warming up seemed like an eternity.
Dave went to the window, looked cautiously through the drapes, and retreated.
Everything happened too fast today. There certainly was a force working against them.
Against him now. The damn Eysencks, probably.
The way they had done it...no direct interference at all. Just a combination of events—siccing the nomies on them, and that truck crash. This all reminded him of something. It reminded him of the last thing he wanted to be reminded of—the list of the deceased detectives who worked at the Season Girls case.
He dialed Fartham’s number. “This number cannot be...”
Damn. What if something happened to him? Dave dialed Fortham’s stationary number at his desk in the precinct. It rang. It rang. No one picked it up.
Dave hung up and thought. His computer lit up. He pressed his palm and typed in the password. Wrong password. He tried to control his mounting hysteria and typed it in again, slowly and carefully.
He was in.
The welcome message appeared on the screen.
He plugged in the memory stick. Thank God he always left his folders on the desktop. No need to rummage through obscure drive locations to find them. He directly caught the relevant batch of folders with the mouse and put them into the memory stick.
One minute and twenty-three seconds until copying is complete. One minute and twenty seconds until copying is complete. Damn camera footage must be the reason for the slow speed.
He folded and pocketed the city map originals lying on the desk and dialed the precinct number again. It rang. It rang some more. It was picked up.
“Andy, he almost shouted.
“Who is this?” a voice asked.
“What? This is detective Cohran, is Andy Fortham there?”
“No. I know you. You’re Dave. I’ve seen you with Andy. My name is Sam.”
“Er...”
“Andy’s dead, Dave.”
“What? When? How?”
“An hour ago. Someone found him in the toilet here. Looks like heart attack. We’ll know for sure later.”
“Jesus. Jesus—”
“Yeah. Can I help you with anything?”
“What? Oh, no. No, thank you, Sam. Jesus. Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
David looked at his phone with disbelief, as is somehow the phone itself was responsible for the news he had just received. He sagged in his chair, the power suddenly drained out of him.
“No, no,” he said aloud. Suddenly his mind accepted that what he should be engaged in was not planning how to bring criminals to justice, but rather how to save his bacon.
His eyes jerked wide at the thought, he jumped up, whipped out the memory stick from the computer, pulled its cable instead of bothering to shut it down, and ran out of the office.
As he walked out he scanned the street carefully. Nothing seemed out of place. He felt a thousand eyes following his every move. He jogged to his car and stopped. What if it was rigged? What if there was a bomb there already?
He backed away. Dozens of different thoughts tried to get his attention. What to do now? He breathed heavily, leaning his back on a building’s wall.
Right, point one: get as much money as possible from an ATM, to have ready cash and not be traceable by later withdrawals.
Point two: go home, get his essentials and scuttle away to some seedy quiet hotel and lie low, to get some breathing space and figure out what to do.
No, no, no hotels. Stop living in the past—you have to show your real ID everywhere now. You can’t just register as Mister Smith like in the old movies.
He clenched his fists. Damn. Damnitty damn-damn.
He walked to the nearest ATM machine and waited his turn behind a fat lady in a yellow raincoat.
People walked past them. A car stopped nearby. He turned to look. A respectable looking man in a suit got nimbly out of the car and held the door for an equally respectable looking woman. His wife, most likely.
The fat lady in the yellow raincoat took her money, took her card, darted a look at Dave, and walked away.
Dave put his card into the slot.
The screen said: “Choose Language: —English—Hànyu—Español—Русский—”
He pressed ‘English’. The insides of the machine hummed and clanked. A menu screen appeared.
He pressed ‘Withdrawal’.
A space for the PIN number appeared. He typed in the PIN number. Wrong PIN number.
Cursing silently, Dave took a deep breath and slowly punched in the PIN number again. It worked.
Some more humming from the machine. Another clank. A warning disclaimer appeared inside a red box: “This card has been disabled. Please contact the bank for details.”
Dave looked around with a wild gaze. Still no one stalked him but they had already locked the card. They move so fast...and maybe they were on the way to this ATM even as he stood there.
Dave backed away, turned around, and ran. He took a corner and hailed a cab. He would just have to hope that they hadn’t got to his home yet. He had some cash stashed away there, in the desk.
* * * *
His heart sank as they neared his home. Two fire engines were parked beside his apartment block, as well as an ambulance and a police car. Flames were coming out the window of one apartment.
His apartment, naturally.
Dave paid the driver, got out of the car and walked with deliberate slowness into the direction of another apartment block. After circumnavigating it carefully, he went through a batch of thin young poplars, and reached the boulevard.
Suddenly, after seeing his home up in flames, he had become completely calm. All emotions had hidden themselves. At least for now.
He looked around, took out his cell phone, propped a foot on a fire hydrant, balanced his notebook on his knee, copied down a few numbers from the phone. He was certain that the phone would be bugged and perhaps used to home in on him.
It burst into three big pieces and a dozen smaller ones as he smashed it forcefully into the pavement. People coughed, stepped away, and avoided eye contact.
He walked tiredly to the bus stop and looked what lines were available. In three minutes, he caught the nine-four.
After putting five miles behind him, he got off and found a derelict but working street pay phone, which accepted coins. He dialed Anton’s number.
“Yes.”
“Hi, Tony, it’s me, Dave.”
“Hi. What’s this number?”
“It’s a street phone, I’m calling from a street phone. Listen, I hate to ask you this, but can I crash at your place for one night?”
“Er, of course, come right over. What’s wrong?”
“Everything, man, everything is wrong. Someone’s out to get me. I’ll tell you when I get to you.”
“All right, I’m going home immediately. Remember the code, it’s seven-eight, eight-seven, seven-eight, oh-nine.
“Yeah, seven-eight, eight-seven, seven-eight, oh-nine, thanks man, I’ll be over in thirty.”
Dave hung up and began walking energetically, throwing furtive glances into every direction. He controlled the impulse to make a run for it.
The last thing he needed now was draw attention to himself.