 
# FENG  
SHUI  
ASSASSIN

## BY

### ADRIAN S. HALL
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Cover art by Wen-Xi Chen (Acid Lullaby)

ISBN 978-0-9559726-3-8
Cheers, babe
_Ch 'i._

_The invisible force that moves all around us. Ch 'i is the universal energy that resonates through every living creature and permeates throughout the universe. Ch'i is everywhere. Flowing through the environment, indoors and out, on land, in water, over the mountains and through cities._

_Ch 'i. It is the spiritual energy that is a part of every thing that exists. It runs like water and blows like the wind and is the essential energy that powers the earth. The life of the universe. Cosmic breath._

_With knowledge and wisdom ch 'i can be used for beneficial and fortuitous practice. Ancient teachings describe how ch'i can be channelled to create an area of auspicious good fortune. To direct the flow of ch'i to enrich a family home or to promote well being and harmony. Harnessing the positive energy to make one's life better, make a success of one's career and perhaps influence one's love life._

_But there are some for whom ch 'i is used for a darker purpose ..._

# Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

# Chapter One

Harvey Barker thumbed the yin-yang pendant around his neck and stared out across the silhouette of the Docklands in the low winter sun.

He stood in the office of Donald Grace, Stockbroker, situated on the fifteenth floor of Capricorn House. The whole of one wall was a solid glass window with sliding partitions. Standing at the window allowed for a daunting view of the trendy docklands business area and the river Thames. Towering, blue frame office blocks with dark glass windows stood like a mountain range across the cityscape, seagulls wheeling the uppermost peaks.

Far below, wide pedestrian paths led from Canary Wharf, the grandfather of the surrounding concrete spires, to the artificial harbour and the rows of riverside apartments. Colourful awnings indicated popular eateries amongst stylish hairdressers and must-have gadget shops.

Tiny dots of people speckled the pavement like ink, spraying out of the tube station and gathering at white striped crossings, eager to throw themselves between the gaps of slow moving cars. Among them was the soon-to-be-dead Donald Grace.

Harvey turned back to the room. Grace's office was luxurious and spacious. Antique walnut and stained teak furniture gave the impression of a galleon captain's quarters rather than a stockbroker's office. Gilt-framed oils hung on dark wood walls, a marble statuette and brass figurines placed on slender tables around the room. A large mahogany desk faced the door, dominating the office and the attention of anyone entering. A suitable wheel behind which a captain of industry would helm his business.

Harvey also watched the steady flow of chi move through the office.

The current was strong. Pouring in through the doorway and expanding out into the room, it navigated the central desk like an obstinate boulder in the path of a river, splitting around the obstacle to continue its cycle. Harvey marvelled at the cascade of moving energy and he waded to the middle of the flow. He spread his hands out wide so that the currents of chi eddied in small swirling patterns around his fingers.

Harvey walked along the river of chi, carefully looking at areas where the flow faltered. He paused near the desk and waved a hand back and forth. In the corner of the room, pinned between a table and the window, a small tributary split from the main flow and curled about itself, stagnating in a small, static pool. A large oil painting hung above the inert chi.

This was potential weakness he could exploit.

Reaching up, Harvey twisted the painting so it hung at a crooked angle on the wall.

The painting, a leafy vision of two golfers on the thirteenth hole, darkened in slowly spreading damp patches of negative chi. It gathered around the edges of the frame, dark and oily, and seeped into the canvas. The picture misted over as the slick chi expanded, translucent grey circles meeting and merging with each other, draining colour and light and warmth from the painting. Filming over with negative energy.

Harvey paced along the window and placed a blue wire litter bin at an angle to the painting. A weak thread of chi stretched out from the painting to the bin, establishing an anchor hold.

At the front of the desk, Harvey trailed a finger along the dust free surface, flicking the pens into disarray in the pen tidy, tipping a stapler onto its side, turning the calculator face down, shifting the desk diary slightly off centre. Negative karma grew from the irregular angles, darkening the desk surface with patches of polluted chi.

The painting was now completely filmed over with black chi. Small lumps appeared on the canvas, something moving beneath the surface like larvae in a dead bird. One or two bulges at first, then multiplying in a frenzy, growing and expanding and threatening to bubble over the frame.

Raised voices sounded from the reception area outside the office and ripples disrupted the easy flow of chi from the doorway. A woman's voice explained of a pest controller in the office. A male voice barked gruffly, cutting off the woman. Harvey walked away from the desk and stood casually next to the bookcase.

The door opened and Donald Grace entered his office.

Harvey's gaze bore into the man, scorching his image onto his retinas. His features, his attire, his every nuance and posture and shift in movement. He wanted to remember everything, drink in every aspect of the man before him.

Grace blustered past Harvey with barely a glance. He threw a market report onto his desk, seated himself down and started up his computer. If he had taken the time to register Harvey, he may have wondered why a pest control worker wasn't in overalls, but instead wore casual attire more appropriate to a boardroom. If he had been more observant, he may have been aware of the way Harvey stared at him. The cold eyes that followed him to the desk, watching him with an intense malice, as a cat would watch a sparrow as it hopped from one branch to another.

As Grace hunched over his computer, clicking the mouse impatiently, Harvey relaxed, breaking eye contact, and like a movie jump-cut, suddenly smiled pleasantly.

'Won't be long, sir,' Harvey said.

'Yes, yes-I heard about the infestation. Cockroaches indeed. Heard little else from the babble in the office. You have a timescale? I need you out of the office as soon as possible.' Donald snapped, clipping the end of his words.

'You do have a pest control problem.' Harvey said, making a show of checking behind a leather-bound book. 'An infestation of cockroaches in the building. The last thing you need is a rush job. Eggs from the European cockroach can lay dormant for months before hatching, incredibly difficult to neutralise once they have taken hold.'

'Just get on with it. I have a number of important calls to be made and need you out of my office.'

The area around Grace's desk was now clouded with inauspicious karma. Vines of chi spread to the desk from the painting and wrapped around the legs and the chair. The air buzzed with mites of depression and the floor degraded into a swampmire of chi. Patches of malignant energy encompassed the trader.

'Everything should be over soon,' Harvey said. 'Real soon.'

'Be sure it is,' Grace grunted, determined to have the last word.

Harvey walked around the edge of the room, the pretence of pest control forgotten as the target's attention was now distracted with a thousand minor irritations. Results from the subtle influence of negative karma.

'Cockroaches are cunning, devious insects. Eat anything, even their own,' Harvey said. 'The heavy rainfall over the past few days has driven roaches up and into the offices here on the fifteenth floor. Have to catch them early before they get out of hand.'

'What is wrong with this computer? Does nothing work in this goddamn office?'

It was starting. The effects of negative karma were taking effect. Already a creeping black cloud fogged around the stockbroker's head and shoulders.

'Tricky vermin, the cockroach. They scuttle higher and higher to get out of harm's way. Feed off anything, and very difficult to exterminate once they've taken hold.'

The negative karma was growing in strength. Anyone within the area would slowly succumb to the depressive atmosphere. At first they would become irritable, snappy and defensive, until slowly but surely the crushing weight of inauspicious energy would take its toll.

Grace sighed heavily and reshuffled the papers on his desk. He couldn't concentrate, he couldn't focus. Instead, he spread paper around the desktop, flicked back to the computer screen and clicked on email receipts. He groaned as every new email seemed full of accusation and urgency. He pulled away and sifted through his in-tray, scattering his pen tidy in the process. Scanning one report after another, he felt the heavy knots of stress with every successive file. Is this what he worked for? Was there no escape from all the paperwork? The mountain of problems seemed insurmountable and it was all he could do to keep himself from pounding the desk in frustration.

Grace loosened his tie in an effort to cool down. Damp sweat patches spread on his crisp white shirt, veins throbbing down the length of his neck. Impotent tension built up as despair took hold and slowly squeezed.

The oil painting bulged with a black misshapen abscess of evil chi. Shapes moved on the other side of the canvas, pushing against the membrane, stretching it thin in places, probing, attempting to break through. The outline of a blunt claw scraped down the distended painting, then another. And another. Malignant spirits seeking a way into the world.

Harvey sat in an uncomfortable ornate chair between a potted plant and a three foot statue of the Duke of Wellington on horseback. He stretched out and took a newspaper from his pocket, thumbing through the pages until he opened them at the horoscope section.

'Do you read the stars?' Harvey asked. From the corner of his eye he saw slurry geysers of karma pop within the fetid swamp. They were small, but Harvey knew that they would grow. He flicked his eyes towards the suffering Grace and allowed himself a smile.

'What?' Snapped the broker, his fingers clicking uselessly at mouse and keyboard.

'Your horoscope. Do. You. Follow your horoscope?' Harvey said.

'I - I read the ...' Grace's voice trailed away.

'I'm guessing the Financial papers. No horoscopes in the F.T. huh. Any suduko? Nevermind.' Harvey watched the man cower behind his desk, succumbing to the karma. 'You're a Capricorn, right?'

An audible pop caught Harvey's attention. The abscess on the oil painting had burst, an infected wound into the world, and dozens of imp-like spirits from some other place tumbled from the picture, falling to the floor. One of the spirits, quicker or smarter than its brethren, bounced on the heads of the entangled pile and bounded onto Grace's desk. It stood on its hind legs like a demonic meerkat. Grey, with white shards of bone protruding from its joints, it shook globs of karma from its body and sniffed the air delicately. More spirits fell from the picture and recovered on the floor, scrabbling over each other to climb the desk and follow the scent of depression.

Grace held his head in his hands, shoulders slumped. He was drenched in a rancid karma that dripped from him like sweat. Karma that crushed his will, destroyed his self-respect and created turmoil amongst the emotions.

The phone rang but wasn't answered.

'What is happening with this computer?' Grace screamed, smashing the mouse in frustration.

The first spirit sprang onto Grace's shoulder and bit into the side of his head. He groaned from the invisible wound, scratching at the place where the teeth sank into his skull. Other spirits clambered across the desk and leapt at him, biting and clawing and raking his flesh.

'It's a hobby of mine,' Harvey continued. 'I can tell a star sign within minutes of meeting a person. You, for example, you are determined, focused. A businessman. You like certainties in life. Practical and concrete. Capricorn, through and through. You wouldn't waste time with a new age idea, or abstract fuzzy thinking. You would have to touch it to understand it. Am I right?'

Donald Grace groaned, trying to focus on Harvey through bleary, raw eyes. Depression has a subjective nature, people responding to pressures of life in various ways. Grace was sickened from the emails that he'd read and the stack of uncommented reports awaiting action. Work had suddenly become too much and he couldn't see any escape. He slumped under the crushing, all-consuming hopelessness.

'I have the paper right here,' said Harvey. 'Local paper, but still has a few cartoons and the star strip. See, your stars for today aren't good. _" How strong is your connection to your inner truth? It's time to ask yourself what really matters in your life, and push everything else to the side. Don't let the small things in your life build up and overpower you. Don't succumb to that feeling of helplessness. A change in direction may be the breath of fresh air you need."_'

Grace wasn't listening-his world had collapsed and all he could hear was a loud rushing in his ears and the pounding of his own heart. Like a rapid-fire death knell. 'Please go away,' he said to no one in particular, 'and who keeps ringing? Can't they tell I'm busy? If I haven't answered by the fifth ring, then I'm too bloody busy to talk to anyone.'

'I hear you,' Harvey smiled.

From the turgid swamp of karma movement distorted the carpet. A lump of grey flesh punched up into the room and uncurled into a large clawed hand. The hand braced itself against the desk and levered the rest of its grotesque body up into the office. A hippo-sized abomination dragged itself from the surface of the floor, huffing and puffing with the effort of pulling itself free from the swamp. The abomination rose slowly into the office, its huge head swinging from side to side. Giant and huge bellied, grey and black and green, it squatted on thick, stubby legs next to the desk, its head almost scraping the ceiling. Pinprick silver eyes regarded Grace with a hunger unknown on this earth and it moved sluggishly toward him.

Harvey stood up, neatly folded the paper and headed for the door. He didn't need to see the result of his work.

A scraping noise distracted him and he turned to watch the mayhem behind him. The behemoth slapped at Donald, knocking him toward the window. Imp spirits clung to the staggering man as he rose from his chair and sought escape. Grace leant his forehead against the glass, momentarily feeling relief against the hot, biting inflammation in his head. Imps scampered around, sliding the window open and playfully leading him to the cool fresh air.

Harvey walked from the office and closed the door firmly behind him.

'Did you find any more cockroaches in Mr Grace's office?' the personal assistant asked, flicking from a solitaire game on her screen to an accounts spreadsheet.

'Just one. A big critter and he put up quite a fight.' Harvey smiled brightly. 'But I think that is the last of them.'

He fished the admittance tag from his pocket and dropped it into the glass bowl on her desk. 'I'll, er, escort you out, if you like?' The assistant half rose from her chair when the buzzer intercom from Grace's office sounded. She tutted to herself and grabbed a pad of paper and pen.

'No problem. I'll just ride the elevator to the lobby. I think I can find my way.' Harvey said, the charm in his smile never faltering.

The assistant watched Harvey disappear into the lift, sighed, then entered Grace's office.

Harvey exited the lift at the lobby area and checked his watch. A soft breeze brought the smell of the nearby waterways as he stepped from the office block. The sound of gulls was drowned out by the metallic screech of an approaching tube train running on tracks close-by.

After a few steps he heard screams, far off, whipped away by the wind. Moments later he felt a wet thud reverberate through the pavement under his feet as the body of Donald Grace impacted on the ground behind him.

# Chapter Two

Christmas. It was in the air. The feeling of anticipation and excitement that gripped people those few weeks before Christmas Day. Smiles that crept onto faces as stranger nodded amiably to stranger. People became overly polite to others who carried bags obviously crammed with gifts. A sheepish grin would be the unsaid thank you in return for opening a door or vacating a seat. The mood of people reflected the mood of the season.

Amanda Morgan despised it. She snarled as a passer-by winked at her, his arms full of shopping bags, a rouge of either cold or alcohol colouring his cheeks. The contrived jolliness of the season only served to make her surly, ensuring that she didn't return any faux smiles and certainly did not return any cries of Happy Christmas.

One person that was not going to see Christmas was the high-rise office jumper she had been called in to report. That morning a stockbroker had decided to make her day by ending his. Perhaps it was the thought of another rerun of Christmas specials on TV, Amanda mused as she crossed the road to Capricorn House.

She stepped gingerly around the white canvas tent that surrounded the remains of the late Donald Grace, nodded to one of the scene of crime officers who was zipping up the tent flap, walked through the black marble lobby and took the lift to the 15th floor. A musical reindeer greeted her with a tinny Christmas tune.

'Oh great,' Amanda muttered.

She took a deep breath and remembered that, despite this being her fifth sudden death report this month, it was always traumatic for those affected. She centred herself and walked through to the reception area of Donald Grace Stockbrokers.

She was met by a tearful receptionist, the faint watermark of mascara on her cheeks where she had washed her face, but not well enough.

'Good morning. My name is DC Morgan.' Amanda held up her warrant card. It seemed that popular TV shows demanded it. 'I'm here to see Rachel Ware.'

'That's me. Thank you for coming.' Rachel sniffed into a handkerchief, her eyes brimming with tears. 'I'll show you where his office is.'

'Just point me in the right direction, I need to take a look at the office and it won't take long. But first, I would like to ask you a few questions. And please, call me Amanda.'

Rachel shook her head wistfully, padding her eyes and balling up the tissue. 'This is just so incredible, you know? You wake up in the morning, and it's just another dreary day. The ride to work, staring out of the tube train window. I must have taken that journey a thousand times, but I can't remember any of it from the minute I close my front door to the moment I have that first cup of coffee in my hands. But now? You can bet I'll remember every face on my way home.'

'Shock affects us in many ways,' Amanda said, 'Probably best if you left early today, get yourself home and drink plenty of sweet tea.'

'Yes,' Rachel said. 'We are closing the office early. Out of respect.'

'That's good.'

Amanda glanced around the reception. Fine art and sleek furniture projected the image of a successful firm. City broker suicides were usually financially motivated, and Amanda wanted to assess Donald Grace's state of mind. What would make a successful stockbroker kill himself?

She moved to the front of the reception desk, placing a notepad down and leaning casually forward.

'Now, if I could just ask you a few delicate questions about Mr Grace. Did he seem agitated to you in any way? Did he talk to you about anything that was upsetting him?'

'He didn't seem depressed, if that's what you mean.' Rachel said, 'He was angry about the disruption-he needed to make some very important phone calls and was annoyed at the interruption. But he always seemed to be annoyed about one thing or another. He was that kind of person, really.'

'So he didn't mention anything out of the ordinary?' Amanda asked. 'Not just today, but perhaps over the past few weeks?'

'No, he was quite a bullish character, nothing seemed to get him down. Certainly nothing he ever talked to me about.'

'And what about the interruption?'

'Mr Grace was irritated that the pest exterminator was in his office. He had those calls to make and he doesn't like any fuss going on in the background whilst he's on the phone. On top of that the end of year accounts are almost due.'

'Were there any other meetings due for today? Anyone Mr Grace was expecting to see?'

'No. We have a clear diary on the run up to Christmas. Mr Grace had plans for the Christmas holidays and he didn't like any interruptions to his schedule.'

Amanda noted these facts onto her notepad, 'Perhaps you could tell me what happened?'

'Well, like I say, Donald buzzed the intercom and I grabbed my bits and pieces and went in. He was stood at the window, and I didn't realise it at first but I suppose he must have been crying. His shoulders heaved and he was making this funny sound. I asked him if everything was OK, and he said he wanted some water.'

'When I returned with a glass, he'd opened the window and was standing on the ledge outside, holding onto the frame and looking at me. I was so scared for him then, I could hardly speak. I rushed over, but he let go of the window and fell backwards.' Rachel reached for another box of tissues and wiped delicately under each eye.

'Thank you,' Amanda said. 'You've been very brave. I know how hard it must be, but I've a few more questions.' A nod permitted her to continue. 'Can you tell me about this pest controller?'

'I called him first thing this morning. His business card was pinned up on the notice board, which was handy. It was so disgusting, seeing those things crawling around in the kitchen. I was making my usual kick-start coffee and found a cockroach burrowing in the sugar bowl. My screams brought the rest of the office running and we called a local exterminator.'

'Cockroaches?' Amanda imagined the scuttling needle legs and looked about herself. 'You have a cockroach problem? This looks like a well-kept office, how did you get to have cockroaches on the 15th floor?'

'Something about heavy rainfall last night drove the things up from the basement. He did the job though, because we had them running all around the kitchen this morning, and we've not seen a single one since ... since ...' Rachel lapsed into silence.

'And the pest exterminator met Mr Grace?' Amanda enquired.

'Briefly. He was working in his office for half an hour. I did tell him he should be out before Donald started work. And he was, I think. Or at least they overlapped by only a few minutes.'

Amanda circled a name in her pad. Who knew what chemicals they used for pest control nowadays? Some of the detergents under her sink at home were pretty powerful, so perhaps an industrial strength insecticide could have side effects.

'I need the number for this pest exterminator. He may have been using sprays or other substances to deal with the problem. It may have influenced Mr Graces' state of mind.'

'Curious thing, he didn't fumigate the office, like I thought they do. Just browsed around the kitchen and spent some time in Donald's office.' Rachel fished into her side draw, fanning papers and sweets to one side. 'I do have his card somewhere, I'm sure I do.'

'That's good. If you could find it for me while I take a look at Mr Grace's office, it would be much appreciated.'

'Fine. Just head through those doors,' Rachael pointed with a sodden tissue between two fingers. 'Would you like me to come with you?'

'No need. I'll be a few minutes and then you can be on your way home.'

Amanda entered the office and closed the doors behind her.

The large office was brightly lit with a combination of fluorescent and natural light. Papers were strewn over the office floor in front of the desk, blown by the wind from the open window, Amanda assumed. The window was closed now, but nothing else had been disturbed. No crime. No scene. No need for a scene of crime investigation. Amanda was here to assess if there had been any external influences on Donald Grace's decision to take flight from his office window. If there was evidence of blackmail or another source of crime, then she would call it in. And hopefully get to see more action than the past few months follow-up duty had allowed.

Unseen by Amanda, a remnant mist of negative karma still hung around the office, clinging to the desk and painting. Wisps of dark chi desperately wound itself around legs of the chair, seeking purchase though fading slowly away.

Amanda paced around the office, moving through the last wafts of negative karma, and stood at the window. The view was spectacular. Far off patches of green merged with browns and greys of housing estates. An impressionist's vision of modern living that somehow, from this vantage point, lost the grim and despair and was elevated to a thing of beauty and hope.

Glancing down to the street below, she saw the tent that covered the body, a long black van pulled up beside it to remove the remains. Everything looked so toy-like from this distance, as if looking down on a child's play mat. Just reach down and push the passing cars around, screech through traffic lights and swerve past pedestrians.

She felt herself drawn to the plummeting drop, a small voice inside urging her to step out. To spread her arms wide and lean forward. To see what it would feel like, those few moments in the air between life and death. Her hand involuntarily touched the window handle as, unseen, two spirits tugged weakly at her sleeve. The influence of karma was fading, and one of the spirits lost its grip and fell to the floor, disappearing in a splash of smoke.

'Get a grip, girl,' Amanda said to herself, half laughing at the ridiculous notion of jumping.

She turned to face the office, studying the layout. Very much a masculine setup, bronze statues of old generals, paintings of war and sport on the walls. She sat at the desk and fired up the PC.

The quagmire beneath the desk still bubbled, but the activity was subsiding. Dark drifts still appeared infrequently, thin wafts that curled towards Amanda.

Oblivious to any danger, Amanda turned her attention to the computer. She clicked through various folders on the desktop, opening the email and browsing through the sent items. Amanda was looking for any evidence that the death might be more than just a city worker suicide.

There was no last plea or suicide note, which in itself was unusual. Her basic training of sudden death profiling stated that a suicidal person often left notes or messages of explanation to loved ones. Trying, in one last gesture, to relieve the guilt of those they would leave behind. Grace had no family members to bid farewell too, though he could have had friends or lovers that meant something to him.

There was no sign of any threatening email or security protected folder in which sensitive blackmail material could be kept. Amanda sighed. Her one encouraging hope when called to these mop-up operations on suicides was that she may find evidence of foul play and be on the task force of a criminal investigation. _Anything that may lead to something other than the endless report writing of dead end tasks,_ she thought. _Pun intended._

Her thoughts drifted to the situation she currently found herself. Not for the first time that day she cursed her poor taste in men. Sleeping with a work colleague was never recommended whatever job you were in. But as a Detective Constable in the Metropolitan Police the very nature of the working environment meant there were no secrets. Policemen and women were the worst of gossips, and nothing could stay a secret for long. Drunken fumbling on a night out had led to the illicit dating of a married man. Even now Amanda fumed at the memory. It had taken just four weeks to realise what an asshole he was-and to think she was risking a career for him.

After a month she wanted out with the minimum of fuss and had asked him round to her apartment for a meal and an explanation. He, of course, had anticipated the end of the relationship by some weird man-radar for such things, and had planned a cruel and vicious joke at her expense, letting the whole station know that it was him that had finished with her.

Even now, four months after the event, some joker kept pinning up a photocopy of the 'lonely hearts-wanted ad' on the notice board. At first she tore them down whenever she saw them. Then she moved on to doodling sarcastic replies of her own on the adverts. Now she just ignored them.

And so it was that she was assigned low end work and bottom of the barrel jobs. Burglary follow-ups, shoplifting statistics, suicides. Her requests for transfer to another station were taking their own sweet time, but there was no running from a bad reputation in the job. A bad name had a way of following you wherever you ended up. All this because she slept with a work colleague. And to make matters worse she had slept with her boss, Detective Inspector Phillips.

With a shudder and a shake of her head, Amanda returned to the job in hand. She pulled open cabinet drawers on the right of the desk. Each contained client portfolios in alphabetic order. Quickly scanning each for a loose leaf letter or anything that may have slipped into the files by accident, she noticed that the yearly reports ended in a lot of red. It seemed that most clients were losing money, but none that seemed to be for huge amounts. Each annual breakdown was followed by a lengthy letter from Grace explaining the position and requesting the client stay with the firm.

That may have been a reason for Grace's suicidal state, but somehow Amanda doubted it. The sketchy impression she had put together of Donald Grace was of a thick skinned businessman. Brusque, bull headed and self confident. There had been worst financial years yet Grace survived them all.

Amanda leaned back into the leather chair, stretching the kinks out of her bones. Grace seemed like the kind of man she would despise. A bully, who delighted in belittling employees and screaming down the phone at junior staff. Probably a bully his whole life.

Amanda caught her reflection in the pale blue background of the computer screen and wistfully tucked a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. A childhood habit. As she thought of her youth an unbidden memory sprang uppermost in her thoughts, the last influences of fading chi.

_She was nine years old, standing in the cold playground surrounded by a ring of older girls. They were singing a made up rhyme, with nasty words replacing the repetitive chorus. She knew they were nasty words because her father used the same words when he was drunk. But it wasn 't Amanda who they taunted with the casual callousness of schoolchildren. Her best friend, Danielle, stood next to her, and it was her that they mocked._

_Amanda tried to grab her friend 's hand and push through the circle of grey uniforms, but her friend pulled away and fell to the ground. The other girls closed around Danielle, singing and poking fingers into her shoulders and back. Amanda was calling out to her, trying to reach out to her, but she couldn't break through the closed circle._

A knock at the door pulled Amanda from her melancholy memories. She was surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears and pulled her sleeve up to wipe her face.

'Hello?' Amanda called out.

The door opened a sliver and Rachel peered through. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

'That would be lovely. I'll be through in a moment.'

'Ok,' Rachel replied. 'The kitchen is just down the hall on the left.' Amanda heard the door close quietly.

Taking deep breaths, Amanda shook off the wisps of depression that seemed to have come from nowhere, switched Donald's machine off and placed the chair flush with the desk. The office now seemed grey and lifeless, despite the cloudless day reflecting through the windows.

Rachel stood in the kitchen, drumming her fingers on the laminate side as she stared at the kettle, waiting for it to boil.

'A watched pot,' Amanda said as she entered the kitchen.

'Sorry?' Rachael was startled from her thoughts.

'Never boils. You're watching that pot so intently; it'll never deliver the goods.'

'Just like my boyfriend.' Rachel shrugged. 'Sugar? milk?'

'Milk please.' Amanda leant against the wall, looking around the kitchen. She eyed the sugarbowl suspiciously. 'But no sugar. So you have man problems?'

'Yeah. Same old story. Can't commit, won't commit.'

'Cockroaches, ain't they all!' Amanda said. Rachel half gasped, then chuckled.

'The pest controller was a bit of all right.' Rachel admitted, pouring milk into the cups. 'Dreamy. Dark eyes, dark suit, bit of an American accent. Just my type. Quite a stylish dresser for someone who exterminates bugs.'

Taking her coffee, Amanda listened to the receptionist's fantasies of finding a man who was in one a respectable man she could take home to her mother but who would also fire the jealousies of her friends. The monologue was drifting into Brad Pitt territories when movement caught Amanda's attention. From between the gap of the swing lid of the chrome bin in the corner of the kitchen a thin black antennae swayed.

Controlling her revulsion, she approached the bin and dipped the swing lid open. A cockroach navigated the lip of the bin and fell to the floor. Amanda stepped on the skittering insect before it could fully recover, crunching it beneath the thick soles of her size five's.

'Trust a man to do half a job.' The receptionist said having moved to the doorway, ready to make her escape.

Amanda carefully removed the lid of the silver bin and placed it on the floor. The inside was empty but for three cockroaches, antennae waving aimlessly, and a plastic bag from a Chinese Restaurant. Unclipping her baton, Amanda flicked her wrist and the dull metal truncheon extended three foot, extending quickly in sections and locking in place.

She slowly poked the plastic bag, found a handle and hooked it over the end of the baton. She lifted it out of the bin, shaking it once to let an obstinate roach drop from the underside of the bag back into the bin. Smaller roaches crawled within the thin white plastic, and Amanda recognised the name of the take away restaurant, written in red stylised Cantonese English. The Imperial Dragon.

'I'm going to need the number of that pest exterminator,' she said. 'And a full description.'

# Chapter Three

Steam rose from the latte in Harvey's hands, causing the window to steam and obscure his view of the front of Capricorn House. The coffee shop overlooked the tent covering the remains of Donald Grace, an ideal location to watch the police activity in front of the office block. A few non-uniforms had entered. A few had left.

He stirred his coffee slowly, watching as the body bag was discreetly removed from the tent and placed into an unmarked van. The bag held some semblance of human form, but inside the body would be packed and bent together to fit it into the rigid bag. Impact remains from such a height never kept their shape, more resembling a pat of butter hammered by a fist than a human being with skeleton intact.

The coffee was doing nothing for his nerves, and for the third time in as many minutes he reached for the cigarette packet and withdrew one. This time he lit the cigarette and tentatively inhaled. The initial lungful made him nauseous, but he persevered and swam along with the numbing elation.

'Excuse me,' a nearby customer smiled at the cigarette in Harvey's hand. 'But you aren't allowed to smoke here. You have to go outside.' Harvey nodded and stood to leave. He grabbed his coffee and angled a spoon on the table. Small daggers of chi aimed themselves at the helpful customer. He would have one hell of a headache for the rest of day.

Harvey huddled in the doorway outside, sipping the coffee as he let the cigarette burn into a slim grey stack of ash. His path was set now. His future determined as surely as if it was written. The first was dead. The others would follow.

Officers in overalls packed the tent away, bundled into the grey van and drove off. The only evidence of Donald Grace's final landing place was the acid-cleaned markings on the pavement.

The final plain clothed detective exited the building and made her way across the street. She carried a heavy box in her arms, which she placed into the passenger side of a car before slipping into the driver side.

Harvey's throat seized up and he bit into the styrofoam cup. Why would she remove anything from the office? Could she suspect that the suicide wasn't a natural phenomenon?

He noted her scowl as she swerved to miss a man overladen with gifts directly in front of the cafe. She was attractive, in an ice-queen pouty sort-of-way. She glanced towards the cafe and they locked eyes. For a moment she reached out and stole his breath away with her frost blue eyes. Then she was gone, speeding away in her car and lost in the flow of traffic.

Harvey took a moment, then pulled out the paper and flicked to the horoscopes. She was an Aries, that much was clear. He read her star sign for the day and relaxed. She wasn't having a good day. And from the monthly forecast, it looked like she wasn't about to have any good fortune for the foreseeable future.

• • •

Amanda dumped the cardboard box onto her desk and slid all other paperwork into a hastily opened drawer, which she closed with a snap. She unpacked the files from Donald Grace's office and stacked them on either side of her desk. With a fresh pad in front of her, she wrote the heading 'suicide or murder?' and underlined it twice.

Tapping the pen to her lips, she leant back in her chair and allowed her attention to drift outside. From the window next to her desk she had a clear view of the courtyard and busy main road beyond. The courtyard was a grey concrete square with red brick flower beds that had once contained flowers but was now hard packed dirt with cigarette packs and beer cans for decoration. In the centre stood a large oak tree that, despite the lack of care, flourished. It was obstinate and unmovable.

Amanda often stared out at the tree as she ran through her paperwork, prepared statements for court or circled jobs in the local papers. Jobs she would never apply for, of course, but it kept her sane. She watched the tree flow through the seasons. Bursting into fresh, eager buds, mellowing into a darker, relaxed green, settling into the yellow and brown before shedding all leaves in late autumn to recuperate in winter before it started all over again. At the moment it was grey and leafless and restful.

Looking out at the tree often gave her inspiration. Or maybe it was a welcome distraction.

Pulling the first file from the stack, she laid it open and prepared to make notes on anything that may raise a suspicion. She poured over file after file hoping that something would leap out at her, but it soon became obvious that she didn't know what she was looking for, if indeed evidence existed in the financial reports of the dozens of stock holdings.

Each report listed reams of numbers beside innocuous titles. Most of the figures ended in brackets. Negative amounts, she discovered. The portfolios were losing money, but not a huge amount, and compared to the size of the investments, hardly a worry. The summary at the beginning of each report, signed by Grace, explained short term difficulties and the strength of the Asian Tiger and Russian Bear. Soft-soaping blurb to make the portfolio owners relax about the state of their financial affairs.

Reaching for the box, she examined the rest of the items claimed from Grace's drawer. Used post-it notes with names and numbers and a scrapbook. The receptionist had been helpful with the removal of property, looking over Amanda as she went through Grace's effects, signing her name as witness to the box-full of papers. A thorough investigation may unearth reasons for murder. A warrant for the search of his home, or seizure of the computers so that they could be ripped apart by the tech department. But Amanda would need to prove that there was reason for the man-hours and resources to be committed. If she could not convince her immediate superior, Detective Sergeant Kirkwood, that Grace had been murdered, then she had no chance of requisitioning tech to further her hazy theory.

Unfortunately, nothing seemed to make sense. There were no connections to be made. Not even wild leaps of intuition that could be supported. It seemed Grace was a business orientated man, as his desk drawer held little personal effects. He was not married, no dependants, no social life to speak of, and his out of office hours seemed to involve dining with clients or time spent alone at home.

A notebook at the back of the drawer, beneath sachets of sugar and parking tickets, had the name 'Valentine Trust' scored deeply in the pages, as if Grace was frustrated or angry, and gripped the pen hard whilst he wrote the name. Amanda noted the name and circled it with an arrow towards the label 'Financial Crimes Unit'.

The only unusual item Amanda found odd was a flyer for a Conservative MP by-election from 2002. A council member called Peter Masters was running for a Cambridgeshire borough with a manifesto that pitched him as a male equivalent of Margaret Thatcher. That the flyer would be kept all these years was a wonder. The manifesto photograph had been disfigured with devil horns and a trident beard doodled onto his face, with scars and an arrow through his head drawn in with different coloured pens. Perhaps he had known Peter Masters. School friend?

Taking a fresh approach, Amanda scribbled ideas and thoughts in a free form pattern on a new piece of paper. Drawing bubbles around major ideas, lines with stylised arrows looping around the page, linking idea to idea. She had the vague notion of something, an inkling that tugged away at her thoughts, but she needed to make sense of it before she pitched the concept to Kirkwood.

The vague jigsaw of events seemed unrelated, but she suspected there was more to the suicide than Monday morning blues. There was something that kept niggling at her. She looked out at the tree and let her mind walk through imaginary scenarios. She lay the reports to one side, ripped out the sheet of ideas and placed it on top of the pile. Then she turned on the computer and began to write up her report.

Detectives drifted in and out of the open plan offices as shifts changed. The noise levels dipped and peaked, but Amanda tuned out any distractions. At one point the serial killer task force rushed from the offices, grabbing coats as they bundled through the door. Amanda glanced up, watching the men and women rush from the office, and then returned to her work.

Officers passed by her desk, someone even shouted out her name, but she was concentrating so hard that the world did not exist beyond the sixteen inch pale screen before her.

She stretched out after what seemed like hours at the keyboard and reached for her coffee. The last mouthfuls were cold and sweet, but she gulped them down anyway. An idea was taking shape. If only she could grasp that elusive thread that seemed to weave itself through the events. If only--

A podgy hand slammed down hard on the desk, pinning a familiar leaflet beneath sausage fingers. DC Moore beamed down at her, his hand placed on a photocopy of the infamous lonely hearts advert.

'Are you trawling for more dates amongst that lot?' Moore laughed, peering round the disinterested office for appreciation to his finely honed wit.

'Very good, Mo-mo. The donuts are over there. Now if you don't mind, I'm a little busy.'

'Busy. Yeah, so I heard. On the trail of the teenage shoplifter? What next-the mystery of the lollipop sign thief?'

Amanda, more annoyed at the break in her concentration than any attempt to humiliate her, turned to Moore.

'The "Hot Date wanted" adverts were a real scream about, oh, four months ago. If you're so keen on disturbing a woman go and jack off on some webcam. Just leave me in peace.'

'You got a smart mouth,' Moore snarled, mouthing the word 'bitch'.

'Look, we can do this one of two ways. You can stand there and look dumb, or you can go and play catch-up with the Yardie troubles. Just leave me be, huh.'

Moore rose up slowly, scratched at his belly and opened his mouth as if to speak. Instead, he yawned loudly, turned and left. Amanda scowled, returning to her report when another shadow passed by her desk.

'Oh for crying out loud,' she muttered. But instead of Moore, DS Kirkwood crabbed along the aisle and sat at the desk opposite.

'Someone giving you hassle?' he asked, flicking open a newspaper and settling into the chair.

'No,' Amanda said.

'You have anything for me there?' Kirkwood asked, nodding towards the box of files.

'Scotch mist, perhaps,' Amanda replied. 'But there may be something here I'll want to run past you.'

'Fine, come to me when you're ready.' Kirkwood nodded and turned back to his paper.

Amanda continued her research into the death of Donald Grace, dissecting his life from the scant documents in the cardboard box. She made three separate mind maps to bring her theories together, and before she knew it the offices were deserted and it was dark outside, the gnarled branches of the oak tree barely visible in the courtyard.

• • •

'Are you out of your mind?' DS Kirkwood yelled at Amanda in the privacy of his office.

The two of them were alone in the department and were sat in a small glass-fronted office in the corner of the open plan room. He threw the ten page report onto the desk with a force that caused the venetian blinds to rattle.

Amanda braced herself for the defence of her theory. She had slept on the random facts floating through her mind until they began to make a warped kind of logic. She had awoke early and leapt out of bed, ready to propose that she initiate a murder investigation into the death of Donald Grace.

'Let me explain,' she said. 'Someone was in his office just minutes before he was killed. The pest controller.'

Kirkwood glanced at the ceiling, breathing in long and deep before letting the tremors in his chest subside.

'He committed suicide. Middle-aged stockbroker takes a tumble in light of poor investments. You have it right there in your box.' Kirkwood nodded at the brown cardboard container on the floor. 'The same box, I hope, that you will be taking back to the stockbroker's offices this morning with a heartfelt apology for your enthusiasm.'

'The pest controller has yet to be found, let alone interviewed,' said Amanda. 'Those offices weren't infected by cockroaches, they were brought in on purpose. I found cockroaches in the kitchen and when I checked out the restaurant, it had been closed down for hygiene. I think the cockroaches were planted in the offices and the pest controller used chemicals to make Grace delirious, perhaps suicidal.'

'Or,' Kirkwood's voice pitched low. 'One of the cleaners had a Chinese and threw the rubbish in the kitchen, cockroaches were attracted to the smell. And the bug guy did a lousy job.'

'His card is missing. I think he stole it back when he left the offices.'

'Stole it back? It was his card.' Kirkwood rocked back in his chair and shook his head incredulously. 'And no one else has been throwing themselves from his office window due to gas poisoning. Lemmings anonymous have not been queuing up to make their final leap, despite numerous people walking through the offices. You included, I might add.'

'There are questions unanswered. I still believe his death wasn't natural.'

'No, it wasn't natural. It was suicide. Pavement pizza. And I am not going to approve further resources on your wild stabs at criminal intentions. No matter how nicely you've done those flowchart timelines. It just ain't happening.'

'There is more to this than meets the eye. There are witnesses unaccounted for. That makes it a suspicious death. Jigsaw pieces of this particular puzzle that just don't fit.'

Kirkwood relaxed into his chair and glanced about the office through the blinds. 'Do you want to talk to me about the real reason for all this?' His tone softened, as much as a forty-pack-a-day voice could.

'The reason?'

'I know you've been handed these crappy jobs. I'm trying to get you assigned something with more bite. There's a "with menaces" case in the pipeline. Perhaps even room on the DIY serial killer task force.

'You're not happy here, but it will pass. They can be a bunch of assholes, but coppers have a short attention span and it'll be someone else's turn soon enough. Pack mentality. They'll turn on an easier target soon enough. But you can't create a case if it's not there. Especially something as flimsy as this murder-not-suicide fantasy.'

Amanda withdrew. Her theory, under scrutiny from a detached third party, could not hold up. And though she felt there was more to Grace's death than suicide, she could not gather enough evidence to even begin an investigation. What was worse, Kirkwood thought this grasp at a murder enquiry was a flight of fancy brought on by her desire to transfer to another station. She studied his wide, blunt face. He was earnest in his appeal.

'I know I have something here, Sarge. And I appreciate you listening it over. I'll get the belongings back and thanks for looking out for me. Maybe I am getting stir crazy - and any chance of attachment to the DIY killer case would be good. Even a "with menaces" case would help break the monotony. Anything more interesting than interviewing another tic-tac popping methadone abuser would be a relief.'

Kirkwood studied Amanda. He knew she was playing him, but he didn't care. 'Get some breakfast. The cafeteria opens in five minutes. It's another glorious day on the job.'

'Will do,' Amanda sighed. She took hold of her report and left the office. Making her way to the top floor cafeteria, she waited whilst the cook and serving staff completed their pre-opening ritual, banging cutlery and clanging dishes until the shutters were pulled open.

Amanda ordered a light breakfast, sat at a window and stared out onto the early morning traffic. What had possessed her? A ridiculous situation where she had let her imagination get the better of her, letting fly with a fanciful murder investigation worthy of a Miss Marple novel. Kirkwood was mostly right. She did want out. She wanted to escape, and perhaps that was why she let her imagination run. Created a theory and tried to force them into a shape of murderous intent.

Amanda finished her breakfast and returned to her desk. The office was filling up with detectives and she settled into her chair, switching on the computer and grabbing the first internal envelope on top of the tray.

The envelope, from the administration department, contained the results of an email yesterday, requesting a breakdown of the numerous parking fines that were listed under Donald Grace. Each fine had the initials 'VT' circled on the corner and were incurred every three months in or around Threadneedle Street, the heart of the finance sector within the City of London.

They were all paid for by a 'Duvalier & Rose', a law firm within the city's financial district.

# Chapter Four

The windowless room was decorated in mute autumnal colours of gentle brown and yellow pastel. Ceiling lights and tall, skinny palms alternated around the edge of the room. A fireplace on one long wall had a display of roses as centre-piece, each bloom tight and pert, bought fresh that morning. Bookcases, one either end of the room, were filled with leather-bound books buffed to a shine.

A large table dominated the room, covered in a red velvet tablecloth that draped to the floor at either end. Seven high backed chairs surrounded the table, six place settings with an ornately folded napkin and an empty glass before each one, a decanter of water within easy reach. The place setting before the seventh chair was empty, the chair itself tilted against the table.

The door opened and a heavy-set man entered the room. Bishop Reginald White. He wore a scarlet red shirt beneath a black jacket, a red dog collar with white flash at the throat, status of his office as Bishop. A jewelled gold cross swung around his midrift from a long gold chain slung around his neck. He hesitated at the empty place setting, a fleeting look of puzzlement, then continued round the table, sitting heavily into a chair accustomed to his weight, and lay his hands on his generous stomach, rubbing the gold cross with his thumbs.

A second man entered the room. David Masters. Tall and imposing, he strode into the room as if walking to a platform before an audience. He stopped at an empty place setting, brushed an imaginary crumb from the ornate napkin, and pulled the chair noisily from the table. The two regarded each other silently.

Two more men entered, the hushed conversation between them ending abruptly as they realised they were not alone. Saul Anderson and Daniel MacDonald. They sat at the table in places they had sat many times before. Anderson reached for a nearby decanter of water and poured a careful measure, placing the glass directly in front of him.

The four men sat in silence, each deep in thought. They fidgeted, they hummed, they tapped fingertips on the table.

'What's the meaning of that?' asked MacDonald, nodding toward the empty place setting. Close cropped salt and pepper hair with subtle scars and dents on his face and hands marked a military past. He unbuttoned his jacket and hooked a thumb into his beige waistcoat.

'Probably why we've been called to order at this short notice, Daniel,' White snorted.

'Do you think?' MacDonald replied coldly, pulling out a silver lighter from his waistcoat pocket and snapping it open between thick, calloused fingers.

'No smoking here,' Anderson said, peering at MacDonald through heavy lidded eyes. Puffy, purple sags of flesh under each eye gave the impression that the man had not slept in weeks.

'Do you see a cigarette, Saul?' MacDonald continued to flick the lighter open and shut.

'Just a friendly reminder.'

'Friendly, my hairy arse,' MacDonald muttered, coughing into a clenched fist.

'Is this likely to take long?' The deep, enunciated voice of Masters spoke in an utterly bored tone, 'I have more pressing matters to attend to.'

'I was called to the meeting, along with the rest of you, I'm sure.' Saul replied.

'I thought you had given up politics anyway,' White said. 'Or is that _the Right Honourable David Masters_. No more rallies or meetings for you. Isn't that what you said?'

'Doesn't mean I don't have better places to be,' Masters said.

'Yes and we all know what better places they may be,' MacDonald sneered.

'erm,' White raised a finger. 'What better places are those?

'None of your business, Reginald. In fact, it's no one's business.' Masters said, looking up and away at the ceiling.

'Your public life is at an end, David,' Anderson said, 'No need to be defensive.'

'Well, maybe you need to - just a little,' MacDonald said. 'The tabloids would be mighty interested in your private life and some of the parties you throw.'

'I take it,' Masters cut the line of conversation, 'from the personal verbal attacks from you amateurs that no one is aware of the real reasons we have been called here.'

'Amateurs?' MacDonald started, but Anderson's incisive tone cut through his response. 'I can't speak for the rest of the board, but I, for one, do not know why we have been called.'

The door snapped open and a sharply dressed woman entered the room, walking to the last place setting on the side of the table. Natalie Kelly. She was followed by a black man in a dull grey suit and thick black glasses. Peter Duvalier. He walked to the head of the table and placed a briefcase in front of him. The front of the briefcase was embossed in gold lettering, 'P. D. Duvalier'.

'Good afternoon, boys,' Kelly said, seating herself at the far end of the table. No one around the table replied.

'Lady, Gentlemen, thank you for convening at such short notice,' Duvalier addressed the table. 'I have had to call this extraordinary meeting of the board of trustees, to which I note there is full attendance.' He stood behind a chair as he talked to those seated. 'I understand that you are all busy people and I won't keep you long. I am afraid that I have some very sad news. Donald Grace, one of your fellow trustees, died yesterday.'

Duvalier removed five sealed envelopes from the briefcase and walked around the table, placing one before each of the trustees. 'I have therefore called this meeting to sign over his responsibilities and to ratify a number of issues from the past few months.'

'Donald is dead? How can that be?' the bishop asked. 'How did he die?'

'As far as we know, the Police are treating the death as suicide,' Duvalier replied, 'He was discovered on the pavement outside his Docklands office, where he was believed to have fallen to his death from his office floor window.'

'Suicide? He didn't seem to be a man prone to depression.' Anderson reached for his glass of water, sipping through thin lips. 'Was he ill, do you think?'

'These matters are best left to the Police to evaluate.' Duvalier pushed his black-rimmed glasses up the ridge of his nose, 'They are best placed to make the judgement.'

'Well, if he was pushed then there may have been witnesses. Perhaps the gossip hound has the scoop? What do you say, Natalie?' Masters, shot a glance at the woman at the end of the table.

'I've read the Police report,' Kelly admitted, taking hold of a glass of water and drinking it with two oval pills. 'His secretary was bringing him some water and saw him open the window, stand on the ledge and take the leap of faith. No sign of foul play.'

Anderson sighed. 'Must you suspect foul play in every little thing?'

'I'm a journalist. I'm always looking for the dark side of a story,' Kelly said.

A snort of laughter erupted from further down the table as MacDonald slapped his palm against the wood, 'You don't call that glossy tat you own journalism, do you? It's full of gossip, tripe and soap reviews. If a celebrity picks their nose, you have the scoop, in all its lurid finger-full.' He shook his head, continuing to flick his lighter open and closed.

'I didn't know Donald socially,' Anderson remained talking about their late colleague, sensing the tension spike between the two trustees. 'But he didn't seem the depressive type. Did he leave a note? Any clue as to why he should take his own life?'

'None,' Kelly glowered, refusing to rise to the barbed comments. 'Which in itself is very strange. Most people do want to leave some explanation, or message. And Donald? He had so much.'

'He will be answering for his deeds now,' the bishop added quietly.

'Very droll,' Masters picked up a pen and squeezed the thick envelope in front of him.

Each of the trustees removed the documents from their envelope and reviewed them. The next few minutes were spent in silence, watched on by the grey suited lawyer.

'And then there were five.' MacDonald coughed into his hand, sliding his completed documents into the centre of the table.

'What is the meaning of that?' White frowned.

'The meaning, if I have to spell it out to you, is that there is now a shift in the voting rights of the trust. Old alliances died along with dear old Donald, and the way is open for a little boardroom manoeuvring.'

The bishop gasped as the realisation dawned. 'I demand the Beijing Resolution be reconsidered and put to the directors of the board immediately.' Spittle gathered at the edges of his mouth, his face reddening as he spoke.

'Unfortunately, that is not possible.' Duvalier smoothed the papers into his briefcase. 'As you know, that resolution was put to the board and a decision reached. You will have to redraft the resolution though the normal channels.'

'But that will take months.' White shook in his chair, 'If I act quickly I can still make the investment cut-off date.'

'Reginald, old boy, I think you will find that that resolution will still not get board approval, considering that the board sits at this table. Old alliances may indeed be shifting, but you are not about to squander over one hundred million of trust funds on an ingratiating gesture to the Vatican.' Masters slowly shook his head, watching the bishop from below gorsebush brows.

'But ... but ...' White cast around the table, imploring each of the trustees, only to be met with a derisive stare or downcast gaze. 'This would have benefited the trust. I absolutely proved it. The portfolio is foolproof.'

'Try to see it from the board's point of view,' Anderson said. 'We are all paid a ridiculously large stipend to sit on the board as Directors. And your proposed resolution smacked a little too much of, how can I say ...'

'... of ass kissing in the first order,' MacDonald completed the sentence. 'You can't expect us to sit back and watch you squander a portion of the trust.'

'No?' Natalie arched an eyebrow. 'Not when there are small wars to be funded around the world, hey Daniel.'

'That was a legitimate request for military aid and intervention.' MacDonald's heckles rose at the slight. 'And more valid than the drip feed we've plugged into your failing media empire.'

'Enough, please.' Anderson raised his hands in placation. 'We have all used the trusts resources to better ourselves and fund certain interests.'

'Now hold on,' said White, raising his head from where it lay slumped moments before, 'You can't suggest that I have attained my position in the church through the Trust? I am here through the grace of my family responsibilities, and any funds I have withdrawn from the trust have been for purely unselfish reasons!'

'Do not play the pious,' Masters felt a bite and played out the line. 'You make some well-placed donations and suddenly your favour in the church goes heavenward.'

'What utter contempt you have of my regard in the eyes of the church.'

'And what irony,' Masters said. 'If the Vatican knew how the trust was founded, perhaps they would not be so eager to accept the generosity. But let's not fool ourselves. We have all used the trust to our own ends.'

'Why else do we have these hereditary Trustee positions if not to use and abuse the position,' he continued. 'After all, I'm very pleased with my position. Saul has a shiny new science lab where he can blind as many bunnies as he likes.'

'Leave me out of this.'

'... a magazine doesn't come cheap and old Sergeant Slaughter here can buy his private Army any time he has a nasty little insurgence.'

'So why did Donald throw himself off of a ledge?' Kelly asked. 'An attack of conscience?'

'Oh, who cares? We've come around for another signing session, learnt of the passing of a dear, old, mostly hated colleague,' MacDonald said. 'Now if we have all finished with our mutual appreciation of the passing of the stockbroker, I'm just about done.'

• • •

Amanda raced down the busy London street, navigating the early morning traffic like a rally driver, half tempted to thumb the sirens into life.

Duvalier & Rose dominated one corner of a block of offices in a hidden tree-lined square. Amanda left the car parked on a red flagged parking meter and ran to the front doors of the Law firm offices.

Buzzing the intercom for attention, she cupped her hands against the smoky glass doors to get a better view. Blurred figures moved inside and Amanda tried the door. Locked. She pressed the buzzer again, leaving her finger on longer than was polite.

'Do you have an appointment?' A plumy voice crackled from the intercom.

'My name is Detective Constable Morgan. I'd like to have a chat with the office manager.'

'We do not provide divorce lawyers. Perhaps you can try Callow & Sturges along the road.'

Amanda stared at the intercom in disbelief.

'That's no problem. I'm sure this discrepancy can be cleared up with a court injunction - once all your clients have been contacted and escorted to their local Police Station.'

A few moments of silence and the door beeped gently. Amanda opened the door and walked through, cursing herself for responding the way she did. If her bluff had been called, she would have faced a tough time from Kirkwood and would have lost what little respect she had at the station.

The reception area was just as Amanda had expected. West Wing meets Ally McBeal but without the charm and even less of the character. A severely undernourished receptionist glared at her from behind a tall desk.

'Mr Duvalier will be down to see you shortly,' the receptionist said.

'Thank you,' Amanda replied.

The next few minutes were spent in arctic silence. Amanda walked along a wall with photographs of a calm and confident man in black-rimmed glasses meeting with various heads of state. Most were African or South American settings, but some clearly of the new Europe and Asian countries. A few of the photographs were signed, but most were official magazine style shots. In each, the glasses wearer had an austere pose whilst his counterpart was more relaxed.

A soft cough behind her caught her attention and she half jumped. The man from the photographs stood a few feet away from her. An ageless face with deep etched lines and a dull-yellow smile. He extended a hand.

'Good afternoon, officer. My name is Mr. Duvalier. How may I help you?' His voice was slow and steady, like a metronome.

'My name is DC Morgan. I'm here due to a number of parking ticket fines that have been paid by this law firm and I wanted to talk to someone about them.'

'What seems to be the problem?'

'The tickets in question,' Amanda referred to the print out clutched in her hand, 'were written up against a vehicle owned by a Mr Donald Grace. I'm sorry to say Mr Grace has passed away yesterday, but I'm interested as to why these tickets would have been paid for by your firm?'

'I have heard about Mr Grace's passing. A terrible turn of events. But I'm afraid I cannot divulge the concerns of Mr Grace's affairs with the firm. Client confidentiality, I'm sure you will understand.'

'So he was a client here?' Amanda left the question hanging in the air, luring an answer.

Mr Duvalier smiled. 'It was necessary for the law firm to take care of Mr Grace's outstanding parking tickets. He was a little careless in his parking and forgetful over the subsequent fines.'

'From what little I've discovered of Donald Grace, he didn't seem the forgetful type.' Amanda retaliated with a smile of her own. 'In fact, it seems to me it would be in keeping with his nature to make you pay for anything he could get away with. Even something as petty as a handful of parking tickets. Now, if you could explain what connection Mr Grace has with the law firm, I can wrap up some loose ends over his death.'

The warmth of Duvalier's smile dropped a few hundred degrees.

'I think our conversation has come to an end, Detective Constable Morgan. I will not stand by whilst the Metropolitan Police insults the good name of Mr Grace,' he said, glancing at the receptionist, who buzzed the door.

Duvalier held the glass door open, a wintry breeze whipping through the opening. Amanda didn't move, considering her options carefully. There was much more to this situation than Duvalier was admitting. And as much power as Amanda had at her disposal, the resources of the entire Metropolitan Police force, she would be in it up to her neck if she pushed this any further.

Amanda walked out into the cold street.

# Chapter Five

Harvey watched cars pull into the grounds of David Masters' Manor House from a hillside overlooking the country residence. Headlights snaked through the winding road in the clear night, sometimes partially obscured by the tree cover, until they lit up the dull, grey mansion. The cars parked in a makeshift car park, a tennis court in the warmer months, and the occupants strolled to the entrance of the house. Harvey swapped to the infra-red scope to watch the warm bodies make their way from the cars to the house. Dull green ghosts in the viewfinder. A pale haze flared as they approached the building. Harvey totted another two to his estimate of the number of people invited to this exclusive party.

Forty-six guests. Plus a guesstimate of six hired staff and the main man himself. Masters.

Harvey watched the roads for another half an hour, breath steaming in the winter air, stamping his feet against the cold, until he was satisfied that all intended partygoers were inside the mansion. He walked back to the stolen car and placed the binoculars in the boot.

Sitting in the driver's seat Harvey checked the identification he had lifted from the one invited guest that had an unlucky accident earlier that day, care of a well-placed alignment of ill fortune. The embossed invitation should get him inside the mansion house without a problem. The assassination would be more impromptu.

Placing the papers into his jacket pocket, he placed his hands on the steering wheel and stared out into the clear night sky. He took an ageing photograph from the passenger seat and studied it under the dim light. A shy seventeen-year-old girl stared back. Curls of brown hair under a woollen hat, the zipper of her coat pulled up self-consciously, and wide hazel eyes that implored secrecy. The same hazel eyes Harvey saw every time he looked in the mirror. He placed the photo back onto the seat, fired up the ignition, reversed from the outcrop and sped out into the night.

Harvey drove down the hillside road that swept into the valley and pulled into the private entrance of Masters' residence. He crept along the uneven lane, headlights casting random shadows amongst the pale grey trees. The mansion loomed from the darkness, a drab square of a building, pitted eyes for windows, a yellow glow from the single black tooth in front of a porch opening. Ivy ran from ground to second floor lintel like a fracture wound.

A figure mulled around the entrance, startled by the light of the late arrival. Harvey parked alongside a long bonnet car in the converted tennis court and walked to the house along a gravel path. Heavy black out curtains succeeded in smothering any light that may have been blazing inside the house, the only illumination a dull yellow light above the porch.

Santa Claus stood outside the porch, smoking a roll-up cigarette between cupped hands. He discreetly blew smoke from the side of his mouth and tucked one hand behind his back as Harvey emerged from the gloom.

'Ho, ho, ho', Santa said, slapping his stomach with his other hand. 'Welcome to the Masters' Annual Christmas Party. Please make your way inside and help yourself to a drink. If you've been here before, you'll know what it's all about. If this is your first time, then you'll soon get into the swing of things.'

Santa stepped back and allowed Harvey to enter the porchway leading to the black front door. A security camera tracked him to the door, the anonymous lens tightening as it focused on his features.

A raven-haired woman in a scarlet dress, the cut slashed to her hip, opened the door. A black mask in the style of a crow hid her features, but not her emerald green eyes.

'Good evening,' she said behind the mask.

'Hope I'm not too late, I had some difficulty finding the place.'

'First timer? Don't worry, you won't have missed much, this party goes on all night.' She beckoned him into a small enclosed room, with coats hung up on a rail to one side and a table with a variety of cameras and phones to the other.

'There are a few house rules, which I'm sure you will understand. The first is no electronic devices. So if you wouldn't mind placing any phones, mobiles, mp3 players on the table please. Discretion is paramount, as I'm sure you are aware.' She placed an immaculate nail on his lapel. 'So absolutely no photographic or recording devices of any kind.'

Harvey placed a stolen phone on the table and removed his lambskin overcoat, hanging it up on the opposite wall. He was dressed in a dinner suit, sharp white shirt and collars contrasting against the deep black jacket and trousers.

The hostess opened up a box with a selection of masks.

'Tonight is a general night, no dress requirements, only that you keep your mask on at all times. They are lightweight and quite comfortable, but if you feel the need to remove them then please do so in one of the dark rooms.'

Harvey smiled. 'But you've seen me,' he said, taking a mask from the box and fitting it over his face. He deftly tied the ribbon behind his head and turned to a mirror. A grinning red fox stared back at him.

'But you haven't seen me.' She said. 'Now, if there are no more questions you can walk through and play it by ear.'

She opened the door and ushered Harvey through. The large open hallway was decorated for Christmas with thick green garlands strung along the ceiling. Rich red drapes and gold baubles hung from the walls and a large pine tree stood in the corner of the open hall, thick strands of silver and gold tinsel interwoven between the lush branches, small gifts dangled from the tree and from within fairy lights twinkled with an alternating rhythm.

A scream sounded from an open door halfway down the hall and Harvey gripped a nearby ornament, ready for a descending mob that had determined his invitation was false. Instead, a naked blonde woman with a grey rabbit mask ran from the doorway, followed a few feet behind by two naked masked men, older by twenty years, chasing her with leather shackles in their hands. She darted upstairs, shouting obscenities at her pursuers, who huffed and puffed behind her.

Harvey tread softly through the hall, peering into open doorways as he went. Rooms were poorly lit, but there was the undeniable presence of people. Shapes glistened and stretched and sighed and shuddered. In the gloom it was difficult to tell where one body ended and the other began.

People in various states of undress moved through the rooms and into or out of the hall, animal masks worn to obscure their identity. A woman in a deer mask, heavyset and in her forties, ran past Harvey, chasing after a muscular young man, also naked, shrieking and threatening him with a leather paddle that she thwacked on her own body.

Harvey hesitated, unsure of where to start, or even where to look. Masters hosted this party, but where would the host most likely be? In the thick of the action-or on the fringes?

He headed into a large room with a two-metre fireplace and a low, squat Christmas tree to one side. Three men sat in wingback leather chairs, smoking cigars, each cupping a brandy glass and talking in low tones to each other. They wore identical dog masks. Two women sat on a stool before a grand piano at the far end. They played a festive melody whilst kissing each other, their heads angled to prevent their masks clashing.

Harvey sniffed carefully. The smell of pine mixed curiously with other scents in the house, pungent cigar smoke, the wet wood smell of cannabis and the sharp scent of oils. He glanced at movement under the low branches of the Christmas tree and a copper-haired wolf hound looked mournfully up at him.

He made his way into each of the downstairs rooms, vigilantly looking for his prey while keeping an inane grin on his face. A sombre man would look out of place in this Gomorrah.

In the library room a huddle of people stood with their backs to Harvey. He couldn't see what kept their attention, but guessed it was an improvised show from the soft moans and grunts. He couldn't see the distinctive broad shoulders of Masters either, so he picked up a cocktail glass from the tray of a nearby blindfolded waiter and continued his search.

Moving into the kitchen, past a table where three bodies writhed amidst broken egg shells and flour, Harvey recognised the tall frame and oiled grey hair of David Masters. Of course, the host of a party can always be found in the kitchen.

He stood at a butchers block in a pig mask, chopping at a rack of lamb, separating the ribs as he chatted to a woman by his side. They spoke about the necessity to tenderise meat before cooking. The woman, in a bird mask, spoke with a thick East European accent, perhaps Hungarian.

Harvey studied the man. The confident strike of cleaver into dead meat. The dominating stance he took when talking directly to the woman. The interruption of her sentence so he could hear the sound of his own voice yet again.

Harvey looked about at the array of sharp knives hanging from the walls. How easy it would be to pick one up and plunge it into his back. But that was not his way.

'Quite a party you're throwing,' Harvey stepped between the two, purposely standing uncomfortably close to the large man.

'Ahem, yes it is, isn't it,' Masters said. 'I'm sorry, do I know you?'

'No. You don't know me,' Harvey let the pause stretch, keeping the inane grin fixed whilst he looked through the man. 'You know of me though. Big investor in your construction campaigns when you were a back seat MP. Lined up a hotel and golf course in Sussex. You creamed a little off the top, remember?'

'Ha, no, I don't remember. But sounds like something I would do. Did we make a killing?'

'Of sorts.' Harvey almost lost it. Almost reached up to break his neck and watch him flop around the kitchen floor like a freshly snapped hen. But he remained in control, letting the hatred burn through his unfocused eyes and endless smile. 'There were a few protestors, but we rolled right over them. It was sweet as murder.'

Masters stepped back. 'A strange expression,' he said, concentrating on Harvey for the first time since the conversation began.

'Old family saying. Nothing so sweet as the murder you get away with.' Harvey sensed the uneasy sway in Masters. Despite the party atmosphere or the meat cleaver he gripped in his hand, he began to look about for a friendlier mask.

'I do hope you enjoy yourself,' Masters dismissed him with the phrase. 'Please explore the house and all its play rooms. Perhaps Anya here could show you around?' He resumed pounding the cleaver into the ribs of meat. Harvey hovered at the block, ensuring his presence remained unwelcome for a few moments, then turned and left the kitchen.

Harvey forced himself to relax in the hallway. The party was in full flow and he needed a plan. Confronting Masters was always the idea, but now he had to get rid of everyone so he could lay down his revenge. Glancing upwards, he decided to start at the top and work his way down.

He made his way up the stairs, zigzagging past small clusters of people up to the first floor. He was almost at the top of the stairs when a lady in a white dress and red fur stole intercepted him with ease born of a professional dilettante.

'Well, hello.' She tinkled her own glass against Harvey's undrunk cocktail. Her eyes blazed behind her white doe mask. 'How come you haven't been ravished?'

'I'm one of David's associates,' Harvey replied. 'More of a watcher, after the accident.' He nodded down to his crotch.

'Accident?' She leant back, trying to look him up and down whilst keeping her arm tucked in the crook of his. 'Oh please don't say.'

'I'm afraid so,' Harvey shrugged. 'Angola. Land mine.'

'Oh dear, you poor thing,' she feigned sympathy, 'So, are you having a good time?'

'Absolutely terrific. This is my first time, and I enjoy the spectacle of it all. I mean, just look at the size of this house, it's a rambling warren of a place.'

'Hmmm, yes. By the way, my name is Mandy. I am so going to have to provide you with some entertainment. How do you know the host? Through his political machinations or as an unwilling devotee to the arts?'

'Neither, I'm afraid,' Harvey lied. 'Quite boring really, old school buddy. Rugby, don't you know.'

'Well-bred and well-pickled? Just the sort daddy warned me of.'

'But whoever listened to their daddy? Now, why don't you show me around?' Harvey smiled and led her down the hallway.

Mandy played dutiful hostess, chatting Harvey through the rest of the house. Most of the rooms were empty, with just a few dedicated to particular perversions. Harvey recognised the blonde in the rabbit mask, shackled to a large bed whilst her two elderly captors knelt over her. A dwarf knelt in the ensuite bathroom; he wore a sign around his neck and begged anyone within listening distance to urinate on him.

'The south wing holds two guestrooms and a billiards room. Now wait until you see the size of that place.' Mandy opened up a set of double doors and walked into a large games room, a billiard table set in the middle allowed for plenty of elbow room. Two men were playing at the table, one chalking his cue as they entered. Two women in cocktail dresses lounged on a club sofa, smoking cigarettes beneath their masks. Mandy knew the men and, disengaging from Harvey, drifted between the two of them, chatting animatedly.

Harvey retreated to a club chair and sank into the worn leather. He watched as Mandy leant into one man, then the other, kissing them both. She looked over to Harvey and winked.

Harvey surreptitiously checked his watch. Almost midnight. He idly played around with a statue on a nearby bookshelf, twisting it into alignment with the pool table. A puddle of grey karma formed around Mandy and the two men.

The impromptu orgy did not last long, as Mandy grew frustrated with the arousal problems of the two men. Of course, they didn't see the pale slugs trailing over the area, emerging from the dire karma, induced to dampen ardour.

With an exaggerated sigh Mandy slipped the straps of her dress back onto her shoulders. 'Who's for a refill?' she said, knocking her drink back in one long gulp. The two men quietly dressed and left the room, dutifully trailed by the two women who had been reclining on the sofa.

'See ya around, sweetie.' Mandy waved her empty glass at Harvey and closed the door behind her. Finally, Harvey sat alone in the billiard room.

'Yeah, sure,' Harvey said to himself. He paced around the snooker table, studying the flow of chi.

From his inside pocket he removed a flat box, the size and shape of a cigar case. Sliding open the lid revealed a small compass with fine lines etched into black wood. A razor thin needle waivered lazily in the central pool of liquid. The heaven pool. The outer ring of the compass was dissected into 34 trigrams, surrounded by eight concentric rings. The bevelled edges were worn and smooth to the touch.

The needle drifted from one trigram to another as Harvey turned the compass around the room.

This was a Pa Kua compass. The divining tool of the feng shui practitioner. It measured the location, direction and power of chi.

As Harvey positioned himself next to the pool table, already blighted with karma, the needle swam between two blemished trigrams. Well, he thought, this is as good a place as any.

And so to work.

He edged a bookshelf from the wall until it aligned with a murky patch of stagnant karma in the alcove. He twisted ornaments and figurines until secret arrows of misfortune shot throughout the room in a laser show of grey chi. All the while consulting the Pa Kua to ensure precise measurement, aligning furniture and shifting objects in an arrangement predicted to cause dire effect.

Harvey completed the billiards room within minutes. At the doorway he turned to see the rancid web of negative karma throughout the room.

Harvey then moved around the top floor of the house, priming other rooms with bad feng shui. First the empty ones, where he could move freely, then the occupied ones, where he would drive the occupants out with feelings of doubt, inadequacy and unfulfillment.

Some rooms he could afford to be more adventurous, loading the misfortune so that he could taste it in the air. Like an abscess at the back of the throat. The bondage room took extra work, where people fed on the negative feelings of worthlessness. Instead, he briefly empowered them with inspiration and resolve, then moved them out with motivation.

He built on the feng shui carefully, subtly, so that no one piece drew attention, but so the sum of the parts interlaced together to create a threatening, encompassing whole.

Moving to the ground floor, Harvey carefully spaced the feng shui between activities of people. But already the negative karma upstairs was having the desired effect. People were leaving the party, finding David Masters and giving their thanks, or just slipping out quietly. The woman in red smiled as each left, the consummate hostess, whilst Harvey stalked through the rooms like a ghost, priming the rooms with karma traps and snares.

Black webs of chi gathered in the corners of each room, slowly spreading under the influence of shui.

In the hallway he rearranged some of the decorations on the pine tree whilst three old men stumped out their cigars and complained about the bitter cold. Harvey could often work undisturbed.

The dour effects of stagnant karma were having the desired influence. People were deserting the partying in their herds, leaving the mansion for the sharp, chill night.

Masters stood in the hallway, wrapped in a pink bath towel, trying to hold onto the reluctant hand of the Hungarian girl as she pulled a fur coat about her shoulders. Harvey excused himself along with the last half dozen revellers, hesitant as they were to leave once free of the influence of the house and refreshed by the fresh night breeze. But the party atmosphere was broken and even the staff were preparing to depart. Harvey counted all the staff in the background, as well as any hangers on, diehards from the party that may have been willing to continue despite the black karma. No one was in the party mood. A small crowd gathered on the steps of the porch, making idle chit chat and avoiding the disapproving gaze of Masters.

Three taxis pulled up to the house and Harvey slipped away to his car as the revellers stumbled around. He pulled out of the driveway between the two lead cabs and turned left as they turned right. He drove along the deserted road and up to the hillside behind the mansion, parking at the same layby as he had when watching the guests arrive. The promise of snow held in the cold air though the sky was cloudless and pinprick bright.

• • •

Feng shui is responsible for most of the good fortune in an individual's life. Whether by accident or design; promotion in the workplace, accumulation of minor wealth, even the fortunate happenstance of meeting and keeping the perfect partner. Having a successful life is often the result of well-aligned feng shui.

The opposite is also true. Feng shui causes accidents. It creates disaster, sparks destruction, forms despair. It will destroy property. Blight love. Take a life.

Harvey had forty minutes to wait before the result of his work took effect. There were any number of potential results - it was just a matter of time.

Moments before the explosion, Masters strode into his bedroom, disrobed and stretched, cracking bones down his back. He sighed and walked into his ensuite bathroom, peering into the wall mirror, pulling at each lower eyelid and examining his eye whites. Scratching himself, he flipped up the seat of his toilet and relieved himself dead centre in the bowl, shaking three times and flushing without further thought.

It's bad luck to leave the toilet seat up whilst flushing.

Inauspicious energy rushed into the area. Resultant negative karma built quickly into a cyclone, growing larger and faster and darker. The vortex expanded, turbulent and relentless, until it touched another primed powderkeg of karma. The room exploded in chi.

Negative energy blasted into the upper hall, disgorging into each room like a biblical flood. The wave crashed down the stairwell, smashed through the chequered hallway and into the kitchen.

Black karma drenched the entire Manor in ill fortune. So much bad luck centred on this one building meant that whatever could go wrong, would go wrong. Any one of a dozen accidents were happening throughout the mansion. The one that caused the most damage triggered from the kitchen.

An overloaded mains adapter spat and fizzed. A spark arced across the wall and reached the outer edges of a clumsy gas leak.

Fire burst from the kitchen windows in long jets of flame. The building whoomped, sucking in one final breath, before blasting apart in a deafening firestorm. The manor ripped at the seams, decimating the thick walls and old timber, the hellish blaze spewing out in all directions. Fire engulfed the remaining shell and clung to anything that fed it life.

Even at that distance, Harvey could feel the waft of heat on his face. He watched the raging inferno until sirens flickered in the distance.

# Chapter Six

Harvey meandered through London's Chinatown, taking in every familiar sight and sound as if it were only yesterday. Chinatown was a colourful and lively part of the city and had an aroma like no other. He stood next to a chestnut seller, the sweet smells of roasted nuts and the quickfire jabber of passer-bys merged with his own memories of the street from fifteen years ago. He leant on the wall and studied the building opposite.

The Wing Loo Emporium was nestled between an amusement arcade and a red brick restaurant. The small pane windows were dark and dusty; nothing visible beyond the meagre display of golden Buddha's and paper dragons.

The door to the emporium opened slightly and a wispy-haired old man looked out, directly at Harvey. A moment of recognition, then he smiled and beckoned Harvey to him.

Harvey took a deep breath. He wasn't sure if he should have made himself known, but matters were being taken out of his hands and he would now have to confront his old teacher. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and crossed the street to the dusty little shop.

The shop interior was cramped and Harvey had to side-step between a narrow table and an overstuffed bookcase to make his way to the glass counter at the back of the Emporium. Wing Loo stood in a doorway behind the counter, holding back a bead curtain. 'You want to come in the back for a cup of tea? Nice and hot.'

'Thank you.' Harvey inclined his head and followed him to a small room off the corridor. A kettle was steaming and the old man hustled over to a rickety table and poured the hot water into a white teapot. Harvey sat on a chair closest to the exit and waited patiently. His mentor prepared a tray with the teapot and two small white cups and placed them on the table, taking a seat.

'So,' the old man said.

'So,' Harvey replied.

With a smile, Wing Loo poured two half full cups of green tea, small clippings of leaf floating on the top. He tapped the table with his fingertips, barely able to suppress his eagerness, eyes wide like an excited child. Harvey watched the scene he had watched many times before. The elder waited for a few moments more, then clasped the cup and drank the hot tea with obvious delight.

Wing Loo looked up. 'My only vice,' he said.

'So you have given up smoking?' Harvey said.

'Smoking? That is no vice. Twenty a day keeps me limber. But I smell the delicious aroma of nicotine on you.' He inspected Harvey's fingers. 'But then, you're back in the UK. After swearing never to return.'

'Forthright as ever. Aren't you supposed to be enigmatic? Speak in vague riddles?'

'Ahhh, little Salmon, life is too short for such games. I enjoyed those TV shows with the monk walking the earth, solving people's worries. But all those open ended riddles? My, my, my. Not for me. I need answers right now. Instant gratification, that's me. So. You are back in Britain and looking for revenge.'

'I'm not looking for it. I'm here to dish it out.'

'Do you know what you risk?' the old man tutted. 'What do I say, of course you know. You, above all my students, know the consequences of the pursuit of revenge.'

'I am prepared.'

'Ah, Salmon, there are some consequences that you cannot prepare for.' Wing Loo shook his head. 'You think you help her by seeking revenge?'

'It helps me. I can't walk around knowing that they breathe the same air. That they live and she's gone.'

'And the price you pay. The price for murder? You condemn yourself, salmon. Condemned.' Wing Loo's voice grew louder, the anger in his voice unmistakable.

Harvey glanced at his watch. 'I have to go, I'm late.'

'Whatever inner demons you have you must confront them. But take a life, whatever your justification, and you risk losing something greater than your liberty. If not careful you will become a vessel of hatred and bitterness upon which your inner demons will feast. Never to know peace!'

Harvey was stunned at the outburst. Master Loo had rarely used such emotive terms. He looked out through the doorway into the shop, hoping to hide the colour risen in his cheeks.

'Little salmon. Always swimming upstream, always fighting the current. Did you never want to relax and go with the flow?' Wing loo's features soften, a sad smile touching his lips.

Harvey stared into those earnest eyes. 'Always.'

'Come back to visit me again. Soon. And no hesitation next time.' The old man mirrored the surprised expression on Harvey's face. 'Oh yes, I follow your horoscope too. With much interest.'

'Yes, Master Loo, I promise I shall.'

'Ha. Is this a promise you are likely to keep?' the old man asked, then waved his hand before he could lie again. 'Take this small token.' He picked a small bag of herbs from a nearby shelf. 'These herbs will make the most refreshing tea. Prepared by my own hands.' He pressed the bag into Harvey's hands and clasped them tightly. 'Your path is set. I see that now. But not everything in life is defined. There is always chance.'

Harvey tucked the bag of tea herbs into his pocket. He smiled grimly at his former tutor and left the toasty warm shop interior for the cold London streets.

• • •

The funeral service was brief. The eulogy, intoned by the vicar as if he were reading a shopping list, was attended by half a dozen people sprinkled around the large church hall. Wreaths and sombre flower displays layered the walls and the floor before the cloth-covered coffin, but they held no cards of notice or condolences. All were prepaid as a condition of the will by David Masters in a presumptuous letter of wishes drawn up one lonely, drunken night. The rich scent of freshly cut flowers and juniper were overpowering in the enclosed hall.

The vicar completed a brief history of the deceased to the audience, folded the script and placed it neatly between the pages of his bible. He nodded to the organ player and a willowy chord signalled for the congregation to stand. An upbeat tune played as the curtains closed and the coffin trundled along rollers toward a hatchway at the rear wall. Even before the curtains were fully closed the sparse attendees prepared to leave the chapel.

The first to emerge from the gloom of the chapel was Daniel MacDonald, tapping a cigarette from a packet and lighting it with a flick, click of his lighter. He inhaled the smoke and blew out hard. He paced around the paved entrance of the chapel, squinting as he looked out at the gravestones. The sun was bright but the day was cold, fresh snow clung to ridges against a bitter wind that sought to brush it from the ground.

'I'm a little upset that he specifically noted in his will that I wasn't to take the service.' White said as he walked out of the church and stood next to MacDonald. 'I think I would have made a much better job of it.'

'Not exactly a crowd puller,' Daniel said. 'A quiet funeral for such a big man.'

'I suppose so. Perhaps it would have been a waste of my sermon talents with so few people turning up. Still, to specifically state that I was not to say even a few words at his funeral. Right there in his will. Especially in my capacity as a leader in the church. Rude to the end, some would say.'

'Some would,' MacDonald coughed into his glove.

'What do you think of that?' Anderson made his presence known, stepping from the chapel and pulling a coat around his bony shoulders.

'I think it's a crock, is what I think.' MacDonald turned into the sharp wind, sucking hard on the cigarette so that the end glowed, despite the breeze.

'Exactly what I was saying,' White chirped. 'To name me specifically. What kind of eulogy would he think I would prepare? I really don't know.'

'Two trustees dead inside a week?' MacDonald ignored the Bishop. 'Wheels are turning and I don't like not knowing.'

Tic tac heels walked from the chapel to the huddle of hunched shoulders. 'Well boys,' Kelly checked her mobile phone for missed calls or new messages. She lingered over the picture on the screen, then slipped the phone back into her pocket.

'Well?' Anderson asked.

'First Grace,' Kelly said. 'Now Masters. Is it just me or are there too many circumstances circling our intrepid little gang?'

'It's not just you.' MacDonald pinched the end of the cigarette and flicked it, end over end, into a bed of purple chipped stones next to the entrance to the Garden of Remembrance.

'Coincidences do occur. And their deaths do seem wildly dissimilar,' Anderson said.

'Mark of a pro,' MacDonald said, 'Made his first mistake, though. Should have taken me out first. Now I'll be ready for him. Calling in some very serious friends of mine-have this bastard hunted down and nailed before Christmas.'

'Do you really think someone is out there? With a telescopic sight and our names on a list?' White looked about the bleak hillside of gravestones, suspicion drawing his eye to any movement. Two figures drifted along the skyline between distant graves. An old woman, hat pulled tight over her head, walked from the Garden of Remembrance. The vicar lurked at the open doors of the chapel, stared at the group, then slunk back into the shadows. White moved closer to the gathering.

'Whoever he, she or they is-they are professional,' MacDonald said. 'Which leads us to the question-professionals get hired, so which of you three are doing the hiring?'

'I wondered when paranoia would start pointing its finger,' Kelly said. 'You really can't suspect anyone here?'

'Why not. Who has anything to gain from our deaths? Only the remaining trustees. Until one is left and they don't have to split the gains with anyone.'

'But there is plenty for everyone. The trust stipulates, quite categorically, annual payments. We are all well provided for and all have enough to supplement our careers and live successful lives,' Anderson said.

'Naive thinking, professor. There is never enough. Just ask Reginald what he is prepared to do to for the Beijing Resolution. Or you, Saul, for your next project-what was that you were going on about last year? Genome Dictionary? One trustee means total control. No arguments around the board table, no gainsaying voices or petty politics.'

'So you suspect one of us?' White eyed a lady in black walking by their parked cars at the gates.

'No,' MacDonald said. 'I suspect all of you.'

'Very charitable,' Anderson laughed. 'But you have a point. The only ones who seem to gain are the four of us. But what happens if we are all dead? Who controls the trust then?'

'I suspect it would be chewed up by expensive lawyers' fees for a very, very long time,' Kelly said. 'Not to mention what the rightful beneficiaries of the trust may initiate, if word ever got out.'

MacDonald pulled a handkerchief from an inside pocket as another coughing attack rendered him momentarily speechless.

'I don't know,' said Anderson, shivering against the wind. He realised that he was facing the cold blast as the others had positioned themselves at an angle against the elements. 'Aren't you over-reacting? A suicide and an accident. Surely just a coincidence?'

MacDonald stared at the handkerchief in his hand. A fleck of blood blemished the white linen. 'I expected more from you, Saul. You think coincidences happen? Where money is concerned, there are no coincidences. Only opportunities and excuses. Now if you don't mind, I've some calls to make.'

MacDonald turned and walked away from the group. The other three glanced from one to the other in silence.

'Does he have a point?' White asked. Kelly wasn't listening. She was watching MacDonald walk down the grey Church road. A woman had intercepted MacDonald at the wrought iron gates, he had stopped momentarily, then waved her away as he leapt into his Jaguar. The woman watched him leave, scribbled something onto a pad and turned to walk up the hill towards them.

Kelly shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets. 'His perspective is one of violence and treachery.' She nodded at the departed trustee. 'And, if it is paranoia, perhaps it is with reason. If that is the case, I shall have to take my own steps to protect myself, because if he is right, and it is not him, then it must be one of you two. Though I truly hope it's neither of you, because I have enough dirt to make your lives very uncomfortable, and on word of my death my editors have instructions to hold the press and print up the prepared articles I have had written. They don't make for pleasant reading.'

The woman in black approached the three, 'Excuse me, may I talk to someone who may have known David Masters?'

'And who might you be?' Kelly rounded on the woman, annoyed at the break in the flow of her threats. She was not used to being talked over.

'Detective Constable Morgan.' Amanda flashed her warrant card. 'I would like to ask a few questions about the late Mr Masters. Did any of you know him?'

The three fidgeted uncomfortably in the face of the direct question.

'I have to go, I'm afraid, Detective,' Kelly broke the silence. 'I have nothing to say to you or feel the need to explain my presence at this funeral. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask these two. Goodbye gentlemen.' She turned and stalked down the hill to the carpark.

Amanda turned to the remaining two. They both took a step back.

'Could any of you two gentlemen help me with answering a few questions? Perhaps you know of the 'Duvalier & Rose' law firm?' Amanda asked. 'Does the term Valentine Trust mean anything to either of you?'

Silence.

'Or have you all turned up to a stranger's funeral? For the buffet, perhaps?' Amanda interposed herself between the two men and the road to the gate and the carpark beyond.

'I'm very sorry but I have nothing to say,' Anderson said, walking one side of Amanda. White, flustered, wrapped his heavy coat around himself, to cover his dog collar as much as protection against the bitter wind, and walked briskly around the other side. Amanda glowered at the three figures, the two men half running down the hill.

'Nothing suspicious?' she muttered. 'That is anything but.' She pulled out her notebook and scribbled another name on her pad. _Duvalier & Rose_ followed by three question marks.

• • •

Harvey watched the trustees emerge from the Chapel and brace themselves against the cold. They huddled together, a ragged gathering of black hearted crows. Full of suspicion and accusation. They talked in low tones, until one parted and the others watched him leave.

He was stunned to see the woman detective arrive at the cemetery and talk to the trustees. Her arrival scattered the remaining three like a gunshot. She remained, watching them leave.

She meandered around the graves, referring often to her notebook. After one slow circuit of the church grounds she made her way back to a car. Harvey was mesmerised by her. Petite, wrapped up in a long, dark coat, wisps of blonde hair blowing from beneath her hood. What was she doing here? Was she looking for him?

Harvey played the events of the assassinations over in his mind. Had he slipped up? Had someone identified the poisonous karma and was even now building a case against him?

No. He thought back to the woman detective carrying out a box of possessions from Grace's office. She may have traced Grace back to the Trust, perhaps connected Masters to the Trust. But nothing was tying him to the murders. Nothing substantial, at least.

After she left, Harvey rose from his vantage point and walked along the wall of the Garden of Remembrance where rows of brass plaques indicated the last farewells to the departed.

He tracked along the small plaques of remembrance, following the dates and names. The names were random, flitting from family to family, whilst the dates slowly increased. 2004. 2005. 2006. 2007. 2008. He hovered at the beginning of the year, his throat suddenly dry and his eyes refusing to read further when a familiar name leapt from the wall. A polished brass oblong with an inscription to Helen Barker. Beloved daughter of Andrew and Catherine (both deceased).

No mention of other family. No Husband, children.

Not even him, her brother.

At the sight of her name memories engulfed him. Images and impressions and random moments of a shared childhood. Helen running in the surf, swinging from a tree, screaming and yelling and throwing herself into the long grass. Snippets of home made movies running through his mind, of he and his sister playing together in their family home next to the sea.

It must have hurt the family when he left, all those years ago. The circumstances of his departure would have caused so much pain.

The plaque made no mention of her passing, and Harvey scrabbled in his pocket for the paper clipping of her newspaper obituary. The clipping mentioned her love of life and her passionate attempts at conservation. Her involvement with 'Friends of the Earth' as an active protestor in many rallies in London and throughout the UK. How it was the passion of her beliefs that led to the accidental death.

A protest that had gone horribly wrong. Resulting in the tragic accident that ended her life.

_Tragic accident._ Harvey stared at the words in the newspaper clipping.

Once Harvey had discovered his sister had died, he was consumed with further research into her passing. The words _accidental death_ waved before him like a red flag.

His research brought to light further details of the accident. The coroner's enquiry detailed the circumstances that led to the night that she had died.

The newspapers reported that Helen Barker had been caught up in an argument with the demolition crew and had chained herself to a tree. That night a storm had swept through lower England. The ancient tree to which Helen had chained herself had been struck by lightning, the bark shattering like a grenade, bursting into deadly shrapnel.

From the autopsy report it was determined that Helen had survived the lightning strike, suffering from third degree burns on her arms and back, but had died of multiple cuts inflicted by the explosion of the tree. She had bled to death before fellow supporters or the demolition crew arrived the next morning.

Harvey did not believe in accidents. His was the trade of the secretive murder. A death to look like an accident, or natural cause, or a suicide.

And so he began an investigation from afar. The internet and his own underground contacts the initial resources. When he had a name, then he flew from America to England and began his investigation proper. The Valentine Trust had been the driving force behind the levelling of that particular part of Sussex to make way for a luxury hotel and golf course. And it was the Valentine Trust that he held ultimately responsible for his sister's death.

Touching the plaque, Harvey leant in close and whispered, 'This will have to do, Helen. Revenge is all I have to offer.'

He wedged the newspaper clipping between the plaque and the brick wall and walked from the cemetery.

Harvey didn't notice the two figures behind him. They watched intently as he leant in against the wall, the directional mic one of them held caught his whisper, recorded to digital tape. They shadowed him as he walked away from the Garden. One of the men, in a camouflage jacket with a hood pulled tight, reached for the scrap of newspaper tucked behind the plaque. His hand and arm was a mess of scar tissue. Long gnarly lines of white scar tissue tracing over his fingers and hand like a two tone Jackson Pollack painting in flesh.

'Should I follow him further?' the other man asked.

The scarred man shook his head. He tucked the paper into his jacket and turned back the way they had come.

# Chapter Seven

'I knew you would come,' Daniel MacDonald raised a glass of whiskey in mock salute as Harvey stepped into the room.

Shadows flickered around the study. A large open fire crackled and spat, nestled in the wall between two wing back leather chairs. A chess game was in play on a marble board between the two chairs. Dark wood and ivory African tribes battled each other one square at a time.

MacDonald relaxed in the far chair, beckoning Harvey to sit opposite him. He poured a healthy measure of whiskey into a spare glass and propelled it along the reading table by his side. Harvey grabbed the glass before it toppled from the table, slopping pungent whiskey over the chess board.

'Sit, sit. Enjoy the spectacle, that's why you're here, after all.' MacDonald leaned back and forced a smile at the assassin.

Harvey held the whiskey in his hands but did not drink. He remained silent and settled into the chair, studying the features of the old soldier before him.

Daniel MacDonald was a military man. Twelve years in the Parachute regiment then a mercenary for eight years working in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. There was other freelance work. Bodyguard positions for Arabian oil negotiators and opportunistic schemes within emerging markets. MacDonald funded his lifestyle with earnings from profits of his mercenary work and invested in colleagues' plans. That he was a multi-millionaire from the Trust distributions allowed him to be generous to his friends. He had accrued an impressive list of influence that ranged from heads of state to government agencies.

MacDonald was the first name Harvey came across in his investigations into the Valentine Trust. Black-flagged on a list of CIA third party operatives, MacDonald's name was cross referenced to failed coups and a number of botched kidnap retrievals in Central America. His operations often ended poorly for his employer, yet the man himself walked away virtually unscathed. Only his reputation suffered. But in a limited market he could always find another desperate victim's family or a greedy colonel with aspirations to usurp.

MacDonald downed the whiskey in his hand and refilled his glass from a decanter by his side.

'My doctor would be horrified to see me drink this fine whiskey. On the medication I'm taking, it'll cause one hell of a hangover. But then, I don't expect to see the dawn, and I'm damned if my last night is going to be a sober one.'

MacDonald chuckled. 'Though I don't think he would care too much. Last time we met I punched him, gave him a bloody nose. Guess I couldn't handle the bad news.

'This cancer, y'see, is very aggressive. Incredibly so. Three weeks ago I had a clean bill of health, now I've got a life expectancy of days. Corrupted cells in my body are multiplying like rabbits on viagra. In my lungs, my head. My organs look shot to pieces. They showed me the X-rays because I just didn't believe the quacks. Huge shadows clinging around the outlines of my internals.'

He paused, the fire crackling in the quiet. Harvey had broken into the house to confront an old warrior. Now it seemed he might hear the final confession.

'I remember standing in front of the lightbox, staring at the blueprint of my own death, thinking "I've seen this before". It looked like an aerial photograph after the result of a bombing raid. Huge craters picked out as shadows on my lungs, pitted scars across my liver and kidneys. Specialists were called in to view my x-rays. They remained quiet in the background and all I could do was stare at my impending death.

'It didn't take long for me to accept the inevitable. My body was dying. Timebomb cancers had exploded inside me like deadly, beautiful blossoms. And now that I've seen the images I can feel the thing inside me. Growing. Moving. Like an alien parasite that is killing us both. Or perhaps it will survive. Take my form and shamble around like ...

'Of course, the doctors had no explanation. Some rare form of cancer that spread quickly to multiple areas. No doubt carried through the old temple via the bloodstream, depositing deadly little kernels all over the place. I stood there. This can't be happening, I thought. The quack's voice droning on in the background. Of course he didn't know what was going on. I was a dead man. Only a matter of a couple of very short days. But I've lived with death all my life. And there are a few things I wanted to do before taking my last breath.

'One of them is to confront my killer,' MacDonald's eyes, after flitting around the darkness whilst he summed up his death, finally settled on Harvey.

Harvey returned his gaze. The old soldier was tired and drunk, but with a malicious glint in his eye.

'I was pleased with the apparent suicide of that oaf Donald Grace. He was a pompous poof and I relished the thought of him screaming as he flew through the air, impacting nicely on the pavement. Oh, never to face him over the boardroom table again. Tell you the truth, I don't like any of the trustees, and have thought of arranging the death of one of them a few times myself.

'But the second death? That was too coincidental for me. I knew something was up and I was all ready to go to war, metaphorically and biblically, you understand, to protect me and mine. Unfortunately, a speck of blood on a handkerchief changed all that.

'That's when I knew you had done for me. This cancer is not a natural occurrence. I know agents and killers that use poisons and chemicals to murder their victims. It's been a specialised form of death since the very first disagreement between men. Some poisons are obvious, traceable and easily administered. Others can mimic heart conditions and other subtle ailments that would fool a cursory post mortem. In my time in the field I've also heard stories. Rumours and conjecture. Of specialist killers that made the innocuous and accidental into a murderous artform.'

Harvey remained still.

'I've been killed. I know it as surely as if you had walked up to me and plunged a knife into my belly. It's OK. But you have to do something for me. You have to give me closure.

'How did you do it?' MacDonald asked, clenching his fist. 'Cancer is such a cruel way to go, but I need to know how you did it. I need to. Did you introduce the poison into my food? I'm usually very particular about my eating habits? I've made enough enemies so I'm careful about where I eat.'

Harvey shook his head. 'It's nothing to do with your food.'

There was relief in MacDonald's face when Harvey spoke. Thankful of a reply.

'Was it my drink? I do like a tipple of a night time. Did you poison the wine? God forbid you poisoned the whiskey. Perhaps a slow acting poison in the ice cubes?'

Harvey placed his glass of whiskey, untouched, on the chess set. 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you,' he said.

MacDonald grinned through the haze of alcohol. 'Look, I'm going to die. I'm resigned to that fact. But you and I are both professionals, so give me this one courtesy, between colleagues. How did you kill me?'

Harvey levelled his gaze at the dying trustee. 'You smoke.'

'Yeah, I smoke. I roll my own cigarettes from tobacco bought at random shops throughout London and the South East. Papers too. You telling me you doused my tobacco in poisonous chemicals? That's ridiculous.'

'No, not in what you smoke. But where you smoke,' Harvey said.

'I smoke where I like. Everywhere but the house. Never liked the stale stench in my own house. And I don't really have time for the cryptic guessing games, as you well know. I'm drinking myself to death tonight. Before the disease you murdered me with destroys my body.'

'You smoke. And not in your house. But you do stand at the rear porch and smoke. Five or six a night, one or two in the morning. The sand bucket fills up with a couple of packets before its emptied. So I arranged for the rear porch to be ... infested.'

'I never smelled a thing.' MacDonald slumped back. Caught by his addiction.

'No, you wouldn't. It wasn't a poison.'

'What is it then?' MacDonald swilled another mouthful of whiskey, the sharp taste long since dulled.

'Karma.'

MacDonald snorted. 'Don't tell me then. I didn't expect you to tell me - but then, I didn't really know what to expect.'

'You are exactly what I expected.'

'How I wish you dead,' MacDonald stared into the fire. 'More than any other man or woman I have killed, I would suffer the torments of hell to see you dead.'

Harvey shook his head and stood up. 'Sorry to disappoint you, but I've done what I came here to do.'

'I have this all wrong,' the old soldier said, his eyes narrowing. 'I knew you were coming to face me before I died. I've read the police reports of Donald Grace's suicide. You were there moments before his death, to look him in the eye. I suspect you were there at that buffoon Masters' party. Perhaps chatted to him over a cocktail and picking prawns from the bellybutton of a blonde nymph. I thought I knew your type. Met a few of them in my time, as you do in my line of work. Always men, too. Women don't have the same connection with death. Vicious yes, and wouldn't turn my back on 'em for a minute. But only a man wants to get close. To face the man he's killing.'

Harvey hesitated beside the chair, letting the dying man unburden himself.

'Knew a fellow, he got so close to them he killed that he sucked the last breath out of the body as he twisted the knife this way and that,' MacDonald said. 'I caught him kissing a man once, as he plunged his dagger into the other fella's chest. Denied it, of course. But I saw. Mouth locked on mouth, eyes wide as he got his jollies. Dead now, of course. Shot to death in Zambia.'

MacDonald sipped at his whiskey. 'Anyway, thought you were a man who needed to get a taste of his victim. Steal something of him. But that's not the case, is it? You're here because it's ... what? Personal? I thought one of the other trustees had hired you.'

'No one has hired me, and you needn't be concerned with the remnants of the Valentine Trust,' Harvey said.

'They all going to get it, are they? Murder by design? So why us? You must be working for someone. Have the beneficiaries finally discovered?'

Harvey remained quiet. MacDonald tried to rise but closed his eyes as a wave of nausea lurched from his stomach. He reached for a brown bottle at his side and tapped out a small handful of yellow capsules. He dropped them into the whiskey, where they bobbed around on the surface, before he slugged the glass empty.

'You're an assassin,' MacDonald said. 'I've made a career out of truth and lies. And you, my friend, are a misguided fool. I believe you're taking pay, or manipulated for some pro rata work. I don't trust any of the others and for all I know they've all hired you to kill me. You're a killer. A common bagman with a fancy gun and a wallet full of blood money. You're scum. You hear me? Scum. You haven't the guts to face me properly, you need to poison me with cancer. Cancer. You bastard.' The old soldier was rambling now, spitting his words as if they were the very poison that ravaged his body.

Harvey walked toward the doorway.

'Wait,' MacDonald cried. 'You can't just walk out. You owe me, goddamn it. You owe me.' Harvey hesitated, his dark hazel eyes caught by the firelight, then turned and leant against the chair.

'Karma,' Harvey said. 'Yin Yang. For every action there is a reaction. Consequence.'

MacDonald shook his head. 'What mumbo jumbo bollocks is that? You killing me because of some one thing I've done in my life? What about _everything_ I've done in my life! I've slaughtered villages. Killed women and children. I should have been strung up by the balls and lashed a thousand times for what I've done. And now you come in here, into my house, spouting all this drivel about payback and karma. Payback's a bitch and all that. So why? Why me, why now?'

Harvey felt a slow fuse of anger light within him and he gripped the back of the chair. If MacDonald's intention was to bait him, he had succeeded. 'It's for a name you would never know. A person you never met. But six signatures put into motion the actions that killed someone who had no right to die. No right to have been killed so carelessly. And so you are paying for a signature you gave no thought to.'

'Well, if it's something the trust has done, then it can be reversed.' MacDonald looked perplexed, 'Look, we just sit in the boardroom and squabble over who can't get their hands on what. We can't be expected to be responsible for everything that passes through the board.'

'Not responsible?' Harvey felt heat rise to his face. 'It's about time you became responsible. You killed my sister and now you are paying for your actions. Karma returns in many forms. And I am your consequence.'

The tension crackled between the two men, echoed by the spit and snap of the fire. Suddenly the room flooded with bright light as halogen headlights spilled into the room through the open curtains. Two cars screeched up the driveway, skidding to a halt, chippings pinging against the side of the house.

MacDonald chuckled softly. 'Looks like I am going to get that dying wish after all. Called up some of my troop as soon as the silent alarm triggered when you entered. Quite a weakness you have there. You just couldn't resist raging over the injustice of it all and how it is all so unfair. So what if your sister's in a morgue? You're about to join her.'

Harvey glanced out of the window and saw figures moving in the darkness. Both cars had doors flung open, barely visible past the glare of the headlights trained on the windows.

'I guess I get to have my dying wish granted after all. This is where you start to earn your money, assassin.' MacDonald smiled. 'Start running.'

Harvey moved quickly. He reached over to the chessboard, rearranged a number of pieces on the board and picked up a black pawn, tossing it to MacDonald, who caught it with his spare hand. Harvey dashed from the room.

MacDonald chuckled, amused at the irony of pawns moving about the chessboard. He held the carved piece in his shaking hand. The painkillers were wearing thin and he dropped another couple of yellow pills into his glass. He relaxed in his chair and concentrated on reaching for his glass of single malt.

# Chapter Eight

Harvey skidded into the hallway, desperately looking for alignments.

There was potential, but there was precious little time. Beyond the main door there was the thunk of car doors closing and feet crunching on chippings. Instead of wasting time with potential shui traps, Harvey pulled a heavy glock pistol from a holster slung low on his back, checked the magazine and thumbed the safety catch. He couldn't remember the last time he had practiced with the weapon.

'Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run.' MacDonald tunelessly sang a childhood ditty, punctuating it with a raucous laugh.

Harvey felt his heart hammering. Curse his stupidity.

He slid the deadbolt on the main door and looked through the peephole. Six figures gathered around two parked cars, a muffled word or two between them and they moved toward the front door. Size and distance was distorted through the fish eye lens, but Harvey had no doubt at the professionalism of the figures outside. They ran in teams of two, smoothly covering each other. A stocky man rang the doorbell and stood back. MacDonald was shouting something but not loud enough to be heard outside. Harvey decided to take the initiative.

The heavy-set man moved in front of the door, his shadow blocking out the headlights. Harvey levelled the Glock through the letterbox and fired twice. The bullets punched into the other man's stomach and he was flung back onto the driveway.

A voice screamed. Bullets whined at the door like angry wasps. Glass shattered at the impact and wood splintered around the edges. But the door held.

'Solid workmanship,' MacDonald shouted. 'But it won't stop my boys for long.'

Harvey backed away from the doorway, pulling at a table in the hallway, rearranging a tribal mask hanging on the wall and quickly angling an umbrella stand. Weak karma formed slowly in the hallway, a sluggish oil slick of misfortune. Harvey hesitated at the kitchen doorway, wanting to stay and perfect the alignments, but two booming shots blew holes in the door hinges and figures smashed the door flat and rushed through the opening, crabbing sideways with pistols aimed.

The house blinked into darkness as every light in the house was extinguished.

Ducking through a doorway, Harvey disappeared into the kitchen before the mercenary team spotted him. He recognised the uniocular goggles the soldiers wore. Starlight glasses that would allow lowlight vision and would enable them to view everything with the barest of light.

'Hallway clear,' a bearded mercenary yelled, training a rifle on the kitchen doorway.

'Keep it tight, boys,' a suited mercenary said in a calm tone. 'We have one man down, lets nail this maggot before he slots another.'

A palm jab gesture toward the open study door and two mercenaries stalked through, weapons raised before them. The sound of laughing drifted through the house and the two mercenaries nodded to one another.

They spun into the study, quickly training their weapons on the solitary seated figure. They tensed, the ghost-green image of MacDonald blurred in their starlight sites. A haze of chi created by an alignment of pieces on the chessboard arced to the black pawn in MacDonald's hand. MacDonald raised his glass to the two, a whiskey-fuelled chortle on his lips.

They fired simultaneously, reacting to the perceived threat of a grenade. The sharp cracks of semi automatic assault rifle fire reverberated through the house, MacDonald jerking with each shot.

The two soldiers looked at each other, then moved into the room. The suited mercenary walked in after them, pulling off leather gloves. 'Whoa, whoa, whooooaaa,' he said, staring at the bullet-chewed carcass of Daniel MacDonald. He tutted.

'Ok lads, nothing left to lose,' the suited mercenary said. 'We have an assassin on the premises. Poor old Daniel is dead, so let's put this fella in the same grave. We know he's armed, but we have firepower. Let's take this place apart and him with it, Grozny style.'

Harvey had heard enough. Standing from his hiding place behind the leather chair on which MacDonald's corpse lay slumped, he took quick aim at the suited mercenary and fired twice. The others reacted as the target was flung against the wall, firing at the chair. Bullets peppered the area, leaving an unrecognisable mulch of flesh and bone where MacDonald had sat.

During a brief pause, as the air clogged with gun smoke, Harvey fled through the door behind the chair, flinching as random bullets slammed into the wall beside him. The sharp thuds of round after round in the other room signalled an escalation of violence, the noise as thunder to the deadly lead lightning that tore at the walls and splintered the door into a useless scrap of wood.

The mercenaries gathered together in the study.

'Take it apart,' yelled a bearded soldier, ripping the Starlight goggles from his head as the blaze of light from his rifle muzzle lit up the room. The remains of the door shattered and fell away, and the two figures appeared through the smoke and gloom, continuing to fire a stream of bullets. As the two clicked empty almost simultaneously, they jettisoned the magazines and the other two soldiers stepped forward to continue the deadly torrent.

Harvey twisted furniture in the kitchen, trying to create an area of inauspicious karma. But the hastily prepared feng shui traps were blasted away by the constant rage of automatic fire. He scrabbled from the kitchen into the hallway as the other two soldiers reloaded and the place became a deadly storm of bullets.

'There he is!' A shout amidst the semi-automatic cracks of gunfire.

Harvey ran down the hallway as the kitchen door was blasted into pieces behind him and the angry buzzing rounds pinged into plaster around him. He darted up the staircase in the hall, followed moments later by a searching stream of gunfire, tearing away the banisters and peppering the opposite wall.

'Upstairs.' Another shout. Without pause the soldiers advanced to the foot of the stairs, two of them constantly firing at flickering movement or open areas. One of the men screamed and laughed, he too had removed his goggles so that he could enjoy the lightshow.

Harvey dashed down one corridor, then the next and into the master bedroom. A double bed on a raised platform against the far wall, a walk-in mirror wardrobe to the left and a well-stocked drinks cabinet against the other wall. The staccato crack of bullet after bullet thundered into the upper hallway behind him as the soldiers moved slowly up the stairs, confident that the rat they were hunting was cornered.

The soldiers paired off at the intersection, two stalking down one corridor whilst the other two moved to the master bedroom. Harvey pinched away the catch on the wardrobe mirror door and angled a TV remote from the floor to the hinges on the door. He could see the weak thread of chi reach out, and he hoped that it would be strong enough. But he had no time to reconsider as a line of bullets tore away at the back wall. Torchlight swung through the doorway and shone throughout the room.

Harvey grabbed a sheet from the bed and opened the French windows leading out to a low balcony. The cupboard that partially obscured him splintered under concentrated fire and Harvey half fell, half jumped from the balcony, bullets tearing at the air around him.

He crashed heavily onto a wheelbarrow full of clay pots at the side of the rear porch and his head snapped back against the barrow rim. The sheet floated gently to the side. A rush of nausea threatened to envelop him and an intense throb pounded at the base of his neck. At that moment the glass from the broken window rained down and he half turned to protect his face.

In the master bedroom a young mercenary stood next to the window, checking the outside area and reloading his assault rifle. Behind him, the hinges on the wardrobe door finally succumbed to the chi and tightened. The door clicked and swung open. Jumping at the noise, he turned to see his own reflection in the dark, obscured by cordite smoke. He slammed a magazine in place and raised his weapon, shouting a warning to his partner who barrelled out of the walk-in wardrobe. The first few rounds splintered the mirror glass and door; the next few caught the other soldier in the head, neck and shoulders. Chunks of flesh and skull flew against the wall and the soldier fell to the floor.

In a sudden rush of guilt and fear that had nothing to do with negative karma, the young mercenary realised he had killed his best friend. He upended his rifle against his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Harvey saw the brief burst of light from his position in the wheelbarrow. Streaks of light framed against the night sky. They merged with the celestial beauty of the stars and, for a moment, Harvey wondered where he was. Then the night rushed at him with images of Daniel MacDonald drinking whiskey, strobe lighting effect of multiple gunfire and the brief fall from the bedroom window to the wheelbarrow. With an effort, Harvey lurched from the barrow and stumbled into the sparse wood, crunching on the light snow.

The bearded soldier entered the master bedroom, swinging his assault rifle from side to side. He noted the two fallen comrades, but didn't hesitate as he heard footsteps outside the bedroom window.

'The bastard is in the woods.' He muttered, taking aim at the fading figure and firing a short burst. The figure flinched, but didn't fall, and the soldier rested the barrel on the balcony railing.

'Into the night, then.' His partner, a short, stocky man wearing a zebra-stripe beret said, leaning against the window frame.

The two soldiers took their time moving back through the house and into the crisp night. They made their way through the rear door and below the Master bedroom window.

'Took a hard fall,' the short soldier said, poking at the rubble of crushed clay pots in the wheelbarrow. 'May be disorientated too, there's blood and hair on the edge of the wheelbarrow here.'

'Righto. Let's hunt this wanker down,' The bearded man pulled the starlight goggles back over his eyes. The world shone in luminescent green.

They took up position, one fifteen feet behind the other, as they entered the sparse woods. The bearded soldier took point, creeping along in a half crouch, treading heel toe in the thin snow, watching the breaks in the trees for the telltale bright green image of their prey. He glanced at the snow-covered ground every few yards, catching the dark smudge of footprints that tracked where the quarry led.

Scuffs in the prints indicated the man favoured his right, so he was wounded, but no blood spotted the white ground, so a crushing wound, internal break in the upper body? He had landed heavily on the wheelbarrow. The bearded soldier raised a fist and the squat soldier halted, lowering himself on his haunches, his rifle at the ready.

He moved forward, tracking his prey with slow, sure steps. The tracks meandered into the short distance, as if the walker was drunk. He bumped into a number of trees, and the scuffed prints were becoming leaden. The prey was slowing.

Just past a shallow rise on the path the prints turned sharply to the right. The toe impressions were deep and the heel barely brushing the snow. The prey was running. And he was taking an arcing path back toward the house. That didn't make sense. Backtracking would have taken him barely forty feet from the route they had taken. Surely they would have seen him?

The bearded soldier spun around. 'He's doubled back,' he whispered hoarsely. The dull green outline signalled his understanding and made his way forward. Something wasn't right. A glimpse of a green arm shone along the path they had just walked down. The arm seemed to disappear into a small rise in the ground. No, not a rise, but a sheet, crumpled to look like part of the landscape.

Signalling to the shorter soldier, he raised his rifle and crabbed towards the mound. He took aim and fired a short burst into the lump, which jerked and shifted under the sheet.

'Got him, the sneaky bastard. He was hiding under this sheet,' He walked past the shorter man and scraped the white sheet away with his foot.

The figure under the sheet was dressed in army fatigues, lying at a crooked angle, a zebra pattern beret still wedged onto what was left of his head.

The figure behind him straightened. The bearded man realised his error a moment before the burst of semi automatic rounds tore into his back.

Harvey dropped the rifle to the ground and clutched at his head, the pain a consuming throb at his temples. He retched, but kept his lips closed tight and swallowed the vomit that filled his mouth. He stumbled along the wood path, bracing himself against the trees, thankful that he was still alive.

He managed to open the car door on the third attempt and navigated his way back to the hotel. Along a narrow street he caught the edge of a parked car, removing a wing mirror and triggering an alarm, but otherwise the streets of London were quiet. He staggered unseen into the hotel and collapsed onto bed.

# Chapter Nine

The man gasped for air under the rough cloth hood that covered his head. His breath was hot against his sweat soaked skin and he tried to steady the shaking in his arms and legs, fighting to control the rapid thumping of his heart.

Muffled voices talked to each other outside the confines of the hood, then a hand gripped the top, catching strands of his hair, and pulled the hood up and away from his head.

Two bright lights obscured the room and the features of the two other men. One sat at a table behind a laptop, the other leaned against the table, arms crossed, clutching the cloth hood in one hand.

'You two fellah's are in some serious trouble,' the bound man said. 'You have any idea who I am? Who you think you have trussed up here, like some pig?'

The bound man grinned into the glare, revealing a mouthful of gold, intricate wire work around the gums and a solitary ruby in one incisor. That smile had helped intimidate many people in his rise from South London foot-soldier to the head of his own criminal organisation.

'Hello Julian.' The man behind the laptop continued to tap away at the keyboard. 'We know all about you and your infamous career. Most impressive.'

'Then you know what you can expect. I walk out of here and only you two get ended. Otherwise, your family, your friends and the first girlfriend you ever had gets their throats cut.'

'Hmmm. Not particularly inventive,' the man behind the laptop said. 'Finn, a DNA sample, if you please.'

The other man stood up and walked into the light. Heavily scarred over his face and arms, he looked like someone had scribbled over his skin with a razor.

'You touch me, whiteboy, and you'll lose a mngh, mmmph.' The last words were lost as powerful fingers pinched open his mouth. The other mans hands were as strong as a Rottweiler's jaw.

Finn peered into Julian's mouth and carefully scraped the inside of his cheek with a wooden swab. He released his grip and walked back to the table, where he placed the swab onto a metal plate. The laptop began to hum.

Julian seethed as he watched the two men hover around the laptop. He let his imagination play through fantasies of revenge as he vowed to hunt these two abductors down.

The other man moved around the table and into the fringes of the light. He was old, his face creased with age, but there was something familiar about the black-rimmed glasses. The man stepped into clearer light and Julian stared in shock.

'You recognise me, do you?' Duvalier said.

Julian nodded. 'My gran'daddy had photographs of you from when he was in Haiti. Said you were the evilest man alive. "Papa Doc" Duvalier.'

'Papa Doc. Now that is a name I have not heard in a long time. Brings back memories. Your Grandfather became a refugee and escaped Haiti. Lucky for him. Unlucky for you.'

'But - he said you was dead.'

'I am Hougan. Vodou. Bokor Sorcerer. Death does not easily find me. Tell me, what do you know of my army, the Tonton Macoute?'

'Stories my grandfather told me.' Julian's throat was painfully dry and he realised he was feeling fear for the first time in his life. 'I based my gangland reputation on their terror tactics. Some evil stories.'

Duvalier dipped his hand into a pocket and pulled out a paper sachet.

'And how do you feel about joining the Macoute?' Duvalier said.

'Me? There is no way I'll join the Macoute.'

Duvalier smiled. 'That's what they all say.' He opened the sachet and blew red dust into Julian's face.

Julian coughed and spluttered, hacking at the burning sensation in his throat and eyes. He pulled at the restraints, stretching his powerful neck upwards.

'The poison and venom concoction will quickly soak into your blood stream snuffing out that part of your soul that makes you you. Once the _ti bonanj_ is withered and dead, this makes room for something else to take up residence.'

Duvalier looked about the room. Already dark figures crowded around the bound man. Demonic creatures, red cast and sallow, waiting for the first flakes of the dust to reach the heart and snuff out the soul.

Julian screamed, his body shaking and spasming as the last spark of his _ti bonanj_ flickered out. One of the creatures slipped into him, like a scaly hand into a glove.

'How did it go?' Duvalier questioned Finn, who sat in front of the laptop.

'Results are coming through now. It's looking good. About ninety one percent confirmation.'

'So close,' Duvalier whispered as he stared into the red-veined eyes of the husk of Julian. The Tonton Macoute stared back at him and grinned.

• • •

Placing a series of three by five cards out on her bed, Amanda considered the circumstances of the victims' deaths and their connections with each other. Each card had a photo clipped to the edge, along with a brief description of death and social position, and bulleted points highlighting anything unusual that Amanda had noticed.

Donald Grace and David Masters were both dead. A suicide and an accident. Both members of the Valentine Trust. Amanda clipped a pink ribbon connecting the two cards.

Grace committed suicide by leaping from the fifteenth floor of an office block. No suicide note was left. No motivation for taking of his own life.

Masters was victim of an explosion at his country residence. No explosive residue or evidence of any accelerant was found. There had been a party that night, but no one had come forward to give a statement.

Then there was the stone-walling, jackass lawyer, Duvalier. Amanda placed his card between the two dead trustees. Perhaps a connection or perhaps wild coincidence. Another card held the registration plates of the people at the funeral. Untalkative attendees at Masters' funeral. She had submitted the registrations into the Police National Computer and would have their names waiting for her in the morning. Along with a list of traffic violations and points on licences.

A meow forewarned Amanda of the approaching menace and, on cue, a white cat leapt onto the bed. Jasper, her white furball-of-fun, padded over the cards and settled herself against Amanda's lap. Amanda stroked her under the chin and the cat purred, stretched, leaned against her leg and purred some more.

Amanda closed her eyes, lying back on the bed. She felt weary, but couldn't stop the flicker of images cascading through her mind. She thought on how the men could be connected in death as closely as they were connected in life.

The ringing phone stirred her from sleep. She was still dressed and lying on the bed, Jasper flexing her claws beside her. The alarm clock blinked four thirty. She answered the phone with a croaky hello.

'Glad you're awake. Get your ass out of bed. I'll be outside your place in two minutes to pick you up and head into Walthamstow,' Kirkwood growled on the other end of the phone.

'What's happening?'

'Something I think you'll find of great interest. It involves one of those bods you have a conspiracy on. But you haven't much time, so stop flapping your gums and get dressed. Outside. Two minutes.'

Amanda hung up and rolled into the bathroom, scattering the cards as she did so. After splashing her face with cold water and checking that she looked at least half decent, she grabbed a thick coat and was out of her flat a minute after the phone call.

• • •

'I called you as soon as I was sure,' Kirkwood said as he drove along the sodium-lit London roads. 'I got a call this morning of a gangland massacre in the East End. Walthamstow. Plenty of gunfire and no witnesses. First uniform on the scene starts gabbling on the radio about a bloodbath, bodies and drugs everywhere. Patrol cars are despatched and the uniform is told to call in the registrations of the cars on the scene. More to keep the young lad occupied and out of trouble than anything. Anyway, I'm woken by a nervous call from the radio operator talking the newbie through the car checks. Most of the cars have been reported stolen in the past day, day and a half. All except one. Seems that car belonged to the owner of the little mansion tucked into private grounds. But that car was flagged with a recent interest too. It's one of yours.'

'Which one?' Amanda asked.

'Daniel MacDonald. Owns a nice little motor and a fifteen mill piece of property.'

'Yes. He's one of the trustees,' Amanda said. 'He's dead? But why call you? Why not contact me directly?'

'CYA. Cover your arse. He's called me as I'm your direct line of report. But there's also the Military and Intelligence been called in. Seems your man Daniel is on a few other 'most wanted' databases.'

Amanda stared out at the translucent white streets, the inch of snow already turning to slush and thinning out. Her mind spun with so many questions, none of them she asked because Kirkwood had no answers. She would have to get to the scene to start putting pieces of the puzzle into place. Or create more confusion.

Kirkwood drove into Walthamstow and turned along a private road. They both listened to the radio intently.

A policewoman was tying the end of a 'police caution' roll on a lamppost as Kirkwood pulled the car into a space opposite. They both jumped out of the car and headed toward the activity at the end of the road. Even in the dark, Amanda could see that all colour had left the young policewoman's face and flecks of vomit decorated her tunic.

Kirkwood pulled his I.D. and flicked it at the policewoman. She pointed towards an open gateway and the lights beyond. Kirkwood strode up the drive, Amanda following closely behind.

The mansion was lit by the headlights of two patrol cars, a third angled as a barricade on the drive. All three cars had the revolving blue emergency lights, hypnotising in a three pattern effect. To the side of the house Amanda recognised the flash and whir of pathology photographers recording the scene.

'Kirkwood, you old reprobate,' a voice called out from beyond the lights. 'You smell this trouble all the way from Romford?'

'It was you I was smelling, Codger.' Kirkwood walked past the cars and up to the man who had greeted him. 'Codger' Mason wore a donkey jacket like a boxer wears a robe, head down, all shoulders. He approached Kirkwood and they shook hands.

'Are you looking for an angle into the case or just a tourist, here to catch a few sights?' Codger asked.

'Amanda here met the owner of this place a few days ago. She may have some insight or at least identify anyone she recognises.'

'You can view the remains,' Codger shrugged. 'But the owner is in no condition to be identified.'

Amanda followed the two detectives into the house. A black tape outline of a man reclined on the steps, feet sprawled. The left hand door had been removed, the right hand door pitted with holes.

'Welcome to Beirut, East End style,' Codger stepped through the ruined entrance.

'Looks like they've had quite the little war,' Kirkwood said. The hallway and stairway was a ruin of wood and plaster. Large and small holes pockmarked the walls and splinters of hardwood were all that remained of the banisters.

'I'll give you the full tour before the army boys arrive and stop all our fun,' Codger pulled at a piece of plaster flaking from the side.

'The Army? What would they want?' Amanda asked.

'This has military stamped all over it. It wasn't a random drugs bust up or even gangland retaliations. This was big boy's games. A small incursion team came into the house and systematically tore through each room,' Codger walked into the study. 'Now, I know you ain't squeamish. But this room contains MacDonald. Or at least most of him.'

With curious fascination Amanda followed Kirkwood into the drawing room. The remains of Daniel MacDonald lay sprawled in a high back chair. Dried blood was evident on the walls, over a chessboard and as a pool spread beneath the chair. Amanda forced herself to view the body, though body was a poor description of what sat collected in the chair before her. No one piece of bodypart was identifiable except part of his face that clung crookedly to the back of the chair.

'This sorry mess is MacDonald. Looks like they stood here for a good minute just pumping round after round into him. Must have enough lead in him to tile a church roof.' Codger turned through the room and stood over another body in the room. This one partly hidden by a curtain torn from its railings.

'Looks like this bloke was part of the group that assaulted the place,' Kirkwood observed. 'Mr Snappy dresser. Along with Mr No Neck outside, makes two. How many bodies have you found?'

'There are another four bodies. Two upstairs, two in the woods out back,' Codger said.

'Any identification found? Any idea who these people were?'

'That, my old mucker, remains a mystery. Military. Mercenary. Well organised. But all dead,' Codger said. 'I got a call five minutes ago said, the Military Police were inbound and that nothing was to be removed. Assholes. So we're photographing as much as of the scene as we can before the soldier boys come in and put a stop to our fun.'

Amanda stood at the door where the killers would have stood as they shot MacDonald and tried to imagine the length of time it would take to turn a human being into the pitiful remains before her. Not long, she guessed. Modern day weapons were capable of an enormous rate of fire.

She moved around the chessboard and closer to the remains of Daniel MacDonald. A wave of nausea caught at the back of her throat as she passed, unknowingly, through the focus of negative energy caused by the playing pieces. She moved back, her eyes swimming.

'So what happened next?' Kirkwood asked.

'Doesn't make much sense in the timeline. There was Mr. No-Neck on the steps of the house. I think he was the first dead, shot through the letterbox, catching him just below his body armour. The rest of the troop move to the doors and blow the hinges away whilst he cools in the night. Professional and cold, leaving a comrade dead where he lay. So they have a job to do. People to kill who are shooting back.'

Codger walked around the drawing room, standing behind the chair with the remains of MacDonald and facing the large frame of Kirkwood. 'Noise is starting to happen. That concurs with the reports early this morning. But Daniel is sat here like he was oblivious to World War Three out in the hall.'

'They've come in to the drawing room, all 'hut-hut-hut'.'

'When MacDonald shoots one of them. Pow,' Codger mimicked a gunslinger and finger shot at Kirkwood. 'Then the others walk in and play dot to dot with MacDonald's body.'

Amanda suppressed the urge to run. The sickly sweet stench hung heavy in the room, a palpable taste of death.

'But here's where it gets interesting,' Codger remained oblivious to the dead bodies. 'I don't think that MacDonald was alone. Because these boys start walking through the house laying waste to all before them.'

Codger walked through to the kitchen, holding the door open with his foot as he pointed in one direction, then another.

The kitchen was in the same state as the drawing room and hallway. It looked as if someone had taken a chainsaw to every surface. Chairs and part of the table were splintered firewood on the floor, the other half of the table riddled with holes. The sideboards shattered, doors hanging from the units. The sink taps were missing and a fine spray of water arced onto work surfaces and the floor.

'I've been on as many weapons courses as I could, and room clearing has very standard operating procedures. First there, then there. Buddy buddy as you cover each likely danger spot in a number of seconds.' He clicked his fingers for effect. 'But these boys aren't on a budget. They absolutely let rip. Automatic weapons can lay down some serious cover, but they run dry quickly if you don't control your expenditure with short bursts. These guys didn't seem to bother. They tore into everything, but no amateurs these. These guys knew what they were doing, they just weren't taking any chances. Not one.'

Amanda picked her way through the broken china and kitchen debris, following the path that Harvey had taken, chased by the bullets.

Through the kitchen into the hallway and up the stairs, Codger led Kirkwood and Amanda to the master bedroom, pointing out his version of events to explain the two soldiers lying dead on the bedroom floor. He stood at the window where hours before Harvey had collapsed and stumbled to escape through the window.

'I'll take you to the two final fellas, found them after a short hike into the woods.' They retraced their steps down through the house and outside into the cold day.

'Christmas is a-coming,' Codger said idly. 'The kids will get a kick out of the snow if it lasts.'

'If it lasts,' Amanda said absently as she wandered around the bottom of the bedroom window. The ground was hard and cold and scuffed up wedges of dirt marked the white snow. Clay pots lay smashed in and around a wheelbarrow at the base of the wall. The barrow leant at an angle, one of the struts had buckled and pieces of clay lay around.

Amanda leant down and sifted a gloved hand amongst the pieces. A scrap of paper and a small black oblong piece caught her eye and she picked both items up. The stone was a short piece of dark marble, tapering to a blunt point on either side. A Chinese symbol was engraved in on one side. The paper had a partial address which she recognised as a street in China town. The paper smelt faintly of tea.

'Did you see many Far Eastern interests in the Manor?' she asked.

'This MacDonald bloke seemed to have travelled extensively. Lots of stuff on his walls,' Codger wandered over.

'I guess,' Amanda thumbed the shiny surface of the tablet.

'Here they come.' Kirkwood looked up to the night sky. Three glimmers of light indicated helicopters approaching the manor house. Amanda stilled her breath and tilted her head to the sky. A faint thwop thwop drifted across the treetops.

'Police cover?' Amanda asked.

Codger shook his head. 'Army.'

'Have you seen everything you want to?' Kirkwood asked Amanda.

Amanda glanced to the trees. 'Can you show me where the other bodies are?'

Codger glanced toward the road, as if judging the time it would take for the grounds to be overrun with military, then nodded. 'Follow me.'

Their radios crackled with speech. Commander Phillips garbled commands to anyone who was listening. He was enroute to the manor and all personnel should remain where they were until he was at the scene. They could hear the siren through the radio and the screech of tyres as the driver raced through early morning traffic, so desperate was he to arrive before the military presence.

'Hoping to hand over the reigns to the green suits. Make sure he's in line for the media and any commendations that may float up out of this mess.' Kirkwood remarked as he trudged up the gloomy path behind Codger.

'Wanker,' Amanda and Codger muttered together.

Codger stopped besides two dark lumps in the snow. The last of the bodies.

'Not much to see,' Codger said. 'I'm not much for the fieldcraft, but it looks as if there were two walking up, a scuffle between first two of them, then another two. Two figures lie here, one hiding under this sheet, and the winner has run off through the woods. I followed those tracks as far as I could. Leads to a gate in the ground walls, where it comes out onto a street and into an estate about half a mile from here.'

Amanda walked a few paces along the edge of the escapee's footprints. She turned toward Kirkwood, and noticed strange dark patches in the air above where the bodies lay. She held her breath, wondering if she was watching a natural phenomenon, a woodland version of dust devils. But the swirling patterns didn't seem to have any substance to them. They drifted off the bodies like the last flickers of a fire and were gone.

'You OK?' Kirkwood asked, concern apparent on his broad face. 'You fazed out there for a moment.'

'I'm fine, Sarge,' Amanda said, shivering in the cold night.

'So, does this match up with any of your theories?' Kirkwood asked as they walked back to the manor.

'No,' Amanda replied, 'Which is par for the course. None of the deaths match a theory. But three people are dead inside a week of each other. All of whom sit on a board of Trustees.'

'How many trustees are left?'

'I don't know. I have three other names on my rapidly shrinking list and a law office which needs a shake up.'

'I think we can officially escalate your investigation.' Kirkwood scuffed snow into a pile. 'Tread carefully, because Commander Phillips will have his orders. Last thing Intelligence will want is a curious copper showing them up.'

# Chapter Ten

Amanda drove through the quiet village of Fenhaven in the heart of the Cambridgeshire countryside. She followed the signs towards Saul Anderson's laboratory, turning at the village square.

Two old men hobbled toward a thatch roof public house. They stopped at the noise of her approaching car and turned to watch her drive past. She glanced at the two men in her rear view mirror. They made it to the pub door and tottered through before Amanda lost sight of them in the curves of the road. That's the kind of retirement I want, she said to herself.

The news that morning was in a frenzy over the incident at MacDonald's manor house. Too late for the national newspapers, the TV news channels had been quick to saturate the story with as much coverage as they could squeeze into half hourly bulletins. Commander Phillips' grim but concerned face was on every channel that morning. Primed with a story from the Army's media machine, they had led with an implausible story of a terrorist showdown in the heart of the East End. Phillips explained the situation to the cluster of microphones in front of him, with scant details of the crime and a plea for witnesses to come forward.

Phillips relished the attention and Amanda seethed every time she caught another soundbite on the car radio. He would milk the situation for all he could. His solemn, earnest voice like a cheese grater on Amanda's patience.

But whilst he was busy preparing for his next live update and grooming his career plans, Amanda had the go ahead from Sergeant Kirkwood to investigate the remaining trustees. As expected, any investigation into the Walthamstow slaughter was prohibited, now the domain of British Central Intelligence and stone-faced men in dark suits and Tag Hauser sunglasses. However, Amanda's investigation circumvented any direct orders and any connection between her questioning further trustees and MacDonald's death would be purely coincidental. Officially, at least, until further sense could be made of the link between the trustees and their respective deaths.

Her first avenue of questioning was met by a wall of legal silence. The law firm refused to cooperate with any police queries and Amanda had to request a court order for the firm to divulge even the most basic information of the trust. Even then there were privacy obligations placed upon the trust and the court order was likely to be turned down because there was no case, as such, to investigate.

A five minute telephone conversation with the financial crime unit that morning answered all the questions she would care to have asked regarding trusts. Secretive and secure, there was no public record of a trust. So there was no accessible record of the board and who controlled a trust. It was a legal document, usually kept at a law firm, wherein trustees would manage the trust on behalf of beneficiaries. There was no way of identifying which law firm held the trust or who the trustees were without access to the trust document. In other words, unless you had full cooperation from the administrators of the trust, you had nothing. Nada. Diddly squat.

Her leads to the trustees existed in the fact that she had taken the registration numbers of the gathering of mourners at Masters' funeral. It seemed that they had plenty to say to each other, and nothing to say to the Metropolitan Police.

Amanda's frustration that morning cranked up a few notches when trying to contact the trustee names she did have.

Bishop Reginald White was unavailable for interview. He was due for dinner that night at a diocese inauguration, a meal to welcome newly ordained bishops. She left a message for him to call her when he was available. She remembered his flustered departure at the funeral, where the trustees had gathered outside the chapel. He had nothing to say to her then. Perhaps the tune would be different on news of this third death.

Natalie Kelly was on a trans-atlantic trip to New York. Her flight wasn't due to touchdown for another three hours. Amanda had left instructions with her secretary that she was to contact her immediately. Preferably by phone, but by email otherwise.

However, she had success with her final call. Professor Saul Anderson had agreed to meet with and discuss the situation. He was available immediately and though was not due in the city for a number of days, she was more than welcome to visit him at the Ordo Laboratories in Cambridgeshire.

Amanda sped along the narrow, deserted roads, enjoying the seclusion and drive through the countryside. The road gradually widened until she saw the turnoff for the laboratory, half hidden by a large hedgerow. She eased the patrol car down the lane, carefully navigating the random holes and rucks in the road.

A twelve-foot-high fence along one side of the track was decorated with red diamond plates interspersed between every pole warning of _Private Property_ and _Electrification_. The grounds beyond the fence lay wild, spiky grass and swathes of flowerless heather.

In front of the entrance of the laboratory a rag-tag group of protestors warmed themselves around an oil drum fire. As Amanda approached in the car, the group grabbed placards and propped them to attention, sullenly watching as she drove up to the security guard hut.

'Drive on through.' The guard waved Amanda on as the first gate opened. She stopped and waited until one gate closed behind her and the second opened in front.

The roads within the compound were in better repair, and Amanda sped up, heading to the cluster of low buildings half a mile away. She parked in the empty visitor's area and entered the reception lobby.

'DC Morgan?' The receptionist greeted her with a sunshine smile.

'Yes. I'm here to see Professor Anderson,' Amanda said.

'We are expecting you, detective,' the receptionist handed a yellow visitor card to Amanda. 'Please follow me, Professor Anderson is waiting in his office.'

Amanda followed the receptionist through long white corridors with blue doors spaced evenly along each wall. A pinboard at the end of one corridor was pinned with the usual adverts, notices and social gatherings. Amanda found this unsettling, wondering what a pub quiz team of animal scientists would call themselves. _' Viv's Sectionists?'_

_' Half a beagle?'_

'Here we are,' the receptionist said perkily, knocking quickly on a door that was identical to all the others they had passed, and opened it into Anderson's office.

Amanda was ushered into a small, functional office. Two-tone grey decor with a bookcase along one wall, a wide desk and a computer pushed into one corner. Anderson sat behind his desk. He stood and reached out a long stick thin arm, his white hair giving the impression he was older than his late forties suggested. She shook his hand, barely touching the fish cold skin, having to resist the urge to wipe the warmth back into her hand.

Professor Anderson thanked the receptionist with a nod and asked if Amanda would like refreshments. Amanda declined.

'So,' Anderson studied Amanda with watery, heavy-lidded eyes, the purple rings under his eyes puffed out. 'What can I do for the Metropolitan Police?'

'Professor Anderson, thank you for meeting me at short notice,' Amanda said.

'No problem at all.'

Amanda decided to be forthright with the man. 'Professor, I believe that you may be in danger and that if you can fully cooperate with me we may be able to help.'

Anderson was momentarily taken back, then smiled slowly, uneven teeth revealing themselves between his lips. 'The direct approach, detective. My my, haven't you been watching the TV shows? You're supposed to tease some facts out of me first-before warning me of my impending doom.'

Unflustered, Amanda continued. 'Have you received any threats or silent calls, Sir? Seen any suspicious people around your home or the laboratory?'

'Not that I can say, no. Of course, I am always aware of the protestors at the gates, or animal rights activists that may be meaning me harm.'

'Are you one of the trustees on the board of The Valentine Trust?'

'Yes, I am. Although I am under no obligation to share that information with you.'

'Were you aware that a number of board members have met with tragic, violent and -' Amanda paused. 'Unusual deaths.'

'My lawyers have made me aware of the unfortunate deaths my fellow trustees have met. Tragic, yes. Violent, regrettably so, and often brought about by the paths they led or decisions they made. But unusual?' Anderson left the question open, inviting Amanda to nibble at the question mark. Amanda spotted the technique, and she suddenly became aware that the Professor was not so much a rabbit, but a predator, baiting her to reveal more than she may have been willing.

'Three deaths, all connected through a trust. I would call that unusual.'

'But hardly time to call in the troops, detective,' Saul quipped.

'Can you tell me what the Valentine Trust does?' Amanda changed tack in the conversation.

Anderson paused, templing his fingers before him. 'I am not able to give you that information. Numerous confidentiality clauses that I, and my fellow trustees, have signed, prohibit any discussion of the trust's affairs outside the boardroom. Trust, you see, it's all in the title. And you have no lawful right to ask without a warrant.'

Amanda narrowed her eyes. 'I have a judicial right to investigate crime. And you have the moral obligation to answer if you know anything that can prevent further deaths.'

'Detective, you are under some impression that the deaths are anything but accidents, or as a result of the lives these people led. I am unable to empathise with you as I honestly do not see how these deaths could have been prevented. At least without a little prior common sense, stable mental condition or better choice of associates.'

Amanda allowed a pause in the flow of the conversation-a beat as Anderson relaxed.

'Why are you being evasive, Professor?' She asked, relaxing a little in the chair. 'Aren't you concerned at the deaths of your fellow trustees?'

'Detective, let me be perfectly clear about this. I accepted your request for a meeting. Indeed, I invited you to my laboratory in good faith. I am here to help in any legal way I can. But I also have responsibilities. Responsibilities I take seriously.'

Amanda sat back in the chair, a slow rage building within her, knowing that the man in front of her was toying with her. Playing a cat and mouse game. He knew more than he was willing to share.

'Professor Anderson, thank you for the invitation, but you said you were willing to cooperate fully. So what do you have to tell me?' Amanda said.

'That there is no threat to my life! I am sorry that I cannot encourage your neurotic investigations, but I am a man of reason. If you have any evidence, perhaps, other than the happenstance accidents? Do you have any evidence?'

'Many questions are being raised through our investigations of the crime scenes.' Amanda didn't want to reveal any lack of real evidence, especially with someone she was quickly developing a suspicion about. The dour yet friendly Professor Anderson may well turn into suspect Number One. Amanda sighed, glanced up at a wall chart, and decided to change tack. 'Could you tell me a little about what you do here?'

'We are placing our very own bookmark in the Genome project.' Professor Anderson said.

'The Genome project? Isn't that something to do with the study of DNA?'

'Oh, you know something about our studies?' Professor Anderson preened. 'Yes, DNA sequencing and sequence analysis. Very interesting. All life is unique, and the genome of any given individual is also unique. We are contributing to the world-wide studies and furthering humanity's understanding of ourselves, and the root of ourselves.'

'You're getting away from me here, Professor.' Amanda leant forward, encouraging Dr Anderson's growing excitement.

'We have identified many evolutionary relationships within DNA,' he said. 'We have an artificial environment for our fruit fly world and have been able to track detrimental mutations - and even introduced beneficial ones into their evolution. Fascinating stuff, of course, but we are also delving deeper than most.'

'Delving deeper? What could be deeper than understanding the building blocks of life? Identifying the DNA sequence of a person?' Amanda repeated phrases back to the Professor as a question, drawing him further into the explanation.

'Firstly, you have to understand our objectives here,' Anderson said, becoming excited at the prospect of an eager audience. 'Not only do we map an individual's DNA makeup, but we intend to understand why that person is who he or she is - tracking the blueprint of their Genome through their parents, and their parent's parents, back through their ancestral history. The sum of the partnerships going back through the generations. Can you imagine the possibilities, to identify the very source of a disease tracked through the ancestral line?'

Amanda paused for effect, allowing the doctor to see the understanding dawn on her face. She was pleased that he was talking so freely as his studies here may have some connection to her investigation.

'Tracking DNA through the family tree?'

'Marvellous, isn't it. We have a computer model to replicate the whole process. It also accounts for a little side study we are completing. Looking into "Junk DNA."'

'Junk DNA? Sounds an ominous term?' Amanda said.

'A throwaway term, I assure you. Junk DNA is the label given to approximately eighty two percent of DNA for which there is no function. The clutter around the proper DNA strands. However, there does seem to be some value to junk DNA that is quite surprising. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that the nature of some of the junk DNA was revealed. The supposed potential of the litter DNA that seems quite extraordinary. And yet, there it is. Right there in front of us the whole time. The eternal answer to science and religion and the very ...'

A rapid knock on the door and the secretary burst into the room, flustered but sharp, eyes piercing Amanda. 'Professor, your next appointment is awaiting you in the laboratory.'

'Oh, really?' Anderson said.

'Perhaps you could offer me a tour of the building?' Amanda asked before the Professor could dismiss her.

'That is impractical, I'm afraid. Besides, it is not set up for casual viewing. You would not, I fear, find a room full of fruit fly an appealing spectacle. And indeed, most of our work is kept securely within computers.'

'Ah, and I was so hoping to discover the secret of the fidelity gene in men.' Amanda smiled, stood and replaced her notebook and pen in her coat. 'You've been very helpful, Professor, and I am sure you're right. There may be no connection in the deaths of the trustees of the Valentine Trust. I am but a humble policewoman, just doing her job.' Amanda made to leave.

'Thank you for coming all this way. On a wild goose chase, it would seem.'

'Yes. So it would seem.' Amanda thanked the Professor, quickly shaking his hand before she closed the door behind her and followed the receptionist through the grey labyrinth.

'Thank you for your time.' Amanda nodded to the receptionist and walked to her car. She noted that there were no other cars in the car park. Another appointment indeed?

The Professor was getting quite chatty before the interruption and Amanda wondered how she would be able to corner Professor Anderson again. Away from his laboratories and watchful eyes.

She waved at the receptionist as she circled round the empty car park, floored the accelerator and zipped towards the perimeter gates.

• • •

Anderson whistled tunelessly as he watched the police car drive away. He turned to his computer and double clicked the only program icon on the screen. World Two. A ream of hyperlinks listed different options, and Anderson clicked merrily through a combination until he brought up one profile. Amanda Morgan.

A concealed door in the corner of the room opened and the well-groomed figure of Duvalier walked to his desk.

'What a charming young lady, don't you think?' Anderson barely glanced at Duvalier as he tabbed through various options on the screen.

'What do you think you were doing?' Duvalier asked, planting his fists onto the desk, looming close to Anderson's face.

'What do you mean? I thought I handled the detective quite well. I brushed off her accusations and ridiculed her murder theory. Even she started to realise the ridiculous statements in the end.'

'She was playing you like a fish, and you couldn't jump on that hook quick enough.' Duvalier stared into the balding scientist. 'But I suppose we should expect one or two ripples in the plan. And we can't account for your eagerness in the presence of the opposite sex.'

'She had a genuine interest for our studies here, and she seemed to have a cursory knowledge which I found ... touching. I saw no harm in indulging her curiosity.'

'No harm? She's a bloodhound on the trail of the murder of the trustees. She shouldn't have gotten this far. Is she profiled in the program?'

'Yes, yes she is. We already have most of Europe and the Americas born since 1850. Here she is.' Anderson leant back and both men looked over the information on screen.

'We are only days away from liquidating the estate of the trust,' said Duvalier. 'She is too close to you, to the remaining trustees, and to the suspicion that there was foul play involved. And that concerns me.'

'Can we arrange for our rogue assassin to take care of her?'

'Unfortunately not. His path was years in the forming. Motivation was everything on his particular chart and he's not something we can point and click. Damn it, he's not even supposed to be connected to us.'

'Are you thinking about using your ... people?' Anderson hesitated over the last word.

'My people? Perhaps. But why use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut? Have Dominique prepare a chart and bring it to my chambers. I wish to read this police woman's horoscope for myself.'

# Chapter Eleven

Amanda swung out of the Ordo Laboratory compound and past the eclectic mix of protestors standing at the gates. They parted grudgingly as she inched past them. A large man in a duffle coat. A woman in a free flowing kaftan, barefoot despite the cold. A pale young man with the sharpest, bluest eyes Amanda had ever seen, boring into her as she drove past.

She drove from the lab through the twisting fen roads until she reached a large roundabout that branched onto a motorway back to London.

The interview had been brief and Professor Anderson was non-communicative. What did he have to hide? Amanda considered this as she flashed through the traffic, drifting between lanes to pass either side of the lazy flow of traffic. The Professor was a smart, articulate man. He was also evasive and careful in what he did or did not give away. Not a good sign when three of his fellow trustees were dead. Either he took his position on the board very seriously, did not think there was a connection between the deaths, or he was the connection and he was laying down a smoke-screen.

As the city limits approached, Amanda again called the Bishop Reginald White on her hands free. Still no answer. Natalie Kelly, the magazine owner, would not be touching down for another few hours and Amanda was at a loss until then, when she would be able to arrange a video conferencing interview.

A court order was required to approach the law firm again and the Financial Crimes people chuckled down the phone when she wanted the order for that morning. Late afternoon, they reckoned, and only if they could get hold of an amenable Judge.

Kirkwood would not be impressed with further supposition and guesswork. He had allowed Amanda free reign to chase down the leads she suspected on the suspicious deaths. But if she didn't come back with a few hard results, the goodwill would disappear as quickly as morning mist.

Blue road signs warned motorway drivers of the M25 looming ahead. Amanda settled into a lane and fished inside her pocket for a roll of mints. Her fingers touched a hard, cold nugget and she brought it up to the wheel to examine it.

With a cringe of guilt, Amanda realised that she had placed the stone found in the wheelbarrow at the Walthamstow manor into her pocket and not logged it with other scene of crime evidence.

The stone was black, hard and very heavy, almost like lead, with some sort of Chinese symbol engraved on the surface. The engraving wasn't ornate, but chiselled and roughly finished.

Her fingers traced the rough edges of the stone. There was something beautiful in the crude, jagged outline and as she turned it slightly she imagined the unshaven jaw line of a man. Squinting, there was the hint of a nose and eyelashes on the profile, hair raked back along the skull.

Black, sickly karma ebbed from the stone. Unseen but influential.

Suddenly, Amanda felt so alone. A huge gulf of abandonment and emptiness opened up in front of her and she could see no escape from the fact that she would be alone for the rest of her life.

Unwanted and unbidden, memories of rejection and mistrust swam to her uppermost thoughts. Failed relationship after failed relationship paraded through her mind and she could not help but focus on her own faults and the reasons why each man she had felt close to had walked away.

Her circle of friends was getting smaller. Not that it was so big in the first place. After moving to London she had found it difficult to make any deep relationships, missing the childhood friends of her home town. Missing the casual, incredibly strong bond that came with going through the school days with a friend.

And then there was Danielle. Her best friend since primary school. A quiet, withdrawn girl who suffered from cruel and casual playground bullying. Victim of a nasty group of older girls who bullied her with spite. She was barely a passing amusement to them. Yet it consumed Danielle.

Every day was torture for Danielle and every play time a potential nightmare. She flinched at loud noises, grew quieter as the terms went on. Until one Saturday morning Amanda had dashed around to her house, plans to explore the wooded corner of the local park, only to be met by tearful adults. Danielle's father explained to her on the doorstep that Danielle had gone to heaven. He shut the door and she walked back home in a daze.

Danielle had taken her own life. No one was ever blamed for the suicide, but the repercussions were immediate. The school clamped down on bullying groups after that, teachers patrolling the schoolyards and ensuring there were no large groups of children. Complaints and worries were listened to instead of ignored.

The indistinct memory of Danielle's face blurred even more as tears rolled down Amanda's cheeks. She took a heaving gulp of air and-\- the blare of a lorry horn jolted Amanda from her memories and she gripped the wheel tightly, bringing the car off the hard shoulder where it was trailing, and onto the motorway. The lorry trundled past her and she was thankful for the momentary privacy the massive wheels and side panels of the passing truck gave her. She wiped her face dry and placed the stone onto the passenger seat.

Drawing in deep breaths to settle herself, she concentrated on driving for the next few miles. The bleak sky over the city threatened more snow, but for the moment it was dry.

What was happening to her? She tapped a rhythm back into her fingers, aware that the stone seemed to have sucked the heat from them. The memories of long gone friends faded and Amanda turned the radio up as the latest catchy Christmas song blared from the speakers.

Amanda pondered the availability of the stone, where you might buy something like this. It was definitely an ideogram symbol of some sort, and this stone was carried by either one of the mercenaries or the person they were hunting and who ultimately escaped. Perhaps it was a good luck charm, or that it was rare and valuable. And if it belonged to one of the attackers, and not Daniel MacDonald, then whoever sold the stone may remember details of the buyer.

The scrap of paper was found close to the stone. Herbal tea from Chinatown. If it didn't belong to the dead Trustee, then perhaps that would be worth an enquiry. Hell, she was at a dead-end with the trustees and law firm, so perhaps she could burn a few hours and see if the store remembers selling herbal tea to any strange characters recently.

Swinging the patrol car across the lanes Amanda took the next turning and headed into the West End of London. Guess work only went so far, and if she wanted to find out about this stone and the scrap of paper, she would ask at the source.

Parking on double yellow lines on a busy through road outside Chinatown, Amanda walked under the red arch that greeted tourists to the 'street and a half' of China in London. She slowed her pace, sauntering past the colourful shop fronts, restaurants with red tissue balls hanging over the doorway and small arcades busy with old men at gambling machines.

She pulled her coat close around her as the cold wind gusted down the street. A shop window caught her eye, the interior display had multiple golden Buddha's in various poses, yellow honeycombed candles ranging from pencil slim to elephant foot thick, red banners with Chinese writing down their length and Chinese New Year animals in different poses.

Holding the scrap of paper, she compared the characters above the address to the shop front sign along the street. She found the shop near to the end of the street. The red sign writing on the window was identical to the paper she held in her hand. Without hesitation, Amanda entered the shop.

A musty smell greeted her as she walked through the doorway. Carefully navigating her way around the display cases and tables, she looked at the figurines and touristy objects. She stopped at a glass cabinet which had line after line of red cord chains, some entwined with coins, others with hoops and rings or knotted in intricate clusters. She spent over twenty minutes browsing through the shop, hoping to recognise a carving similar to that on the stone.

'May I help you?' An old Chinese man rustled long beads hanging across the doorway behind the counter. He wore a white cotton top and black trousers, thin and wiry like an aged Bruce Lee.

'Perhaps,' Amanda answered. 'I'm looking for another one of these.' She held the stone between thumb and forefinger.

The old man's smile didn't waiver. 'We have plenty,' he said, barely glancing at the stone in his eagerness. 'What do you want? You want to bring romance into your life? We also sell the crane figurine. Very good for attracting a man into your life. Please, you try this charm. Green onyx frog with little red eyes. Carry this in your purse and the right man will be at your side, no problems.'

Amanda took the green frog and held it beside the stone. They were not even wildly similar. She narrowed her eyes at the grinning shop assistant.

'There is nothing wrong with my love life and I am definitely not looking for a man.' She placed the frog on the glass top.

'Is that so?' The old man smiled. 'That is not what your aura is telling me. It is saying that you would find fulfilment with a man, if only you could shed the baggage of a doomed relationship. Tell me, was it a recent relationship?'

At that moment the door bell chimed and someone entered the shop. Amanda glowered at the shop owner and stepped back slightly, allowing him to use his winning sales patter on the next customer. The old man seemed to recognise the newcomer and a flicker of regret registered on his face.

'Salmon,' the shop keeper addressed the newcomer as if he knew him. 'You look like you have gone ten rounds with a 800 lb gorilla.'

The newcomer, a Johnny Cash fan by the way he dressed all in black, said abruptly, 'I need a trigram mirror. An eight or a nine should do.'

The shop owner ducked under the counter and placed a hexagonal mirror on the glass. Amanda continued browsing through the shop, looking for anything that resembled the cold stone nestled in the palm of her hands.

'Anything else?'

'Do you have anything for bruises?'

'Just the thing for you,' the old man said, 'Soak in a bandage and apply to the area. Fix you right up, big fella.'

The customer paid and left the store. Amanda turned round to see the old man facing her, his hands clasped together and an expectant smile on his face.

'Do you believe in fate?' he said.

Amanda sighed and laid her warrant card on the glass top. 'I'm not here to buy anything. I want some information about this stone.' She placed the stone on top of her photograph embedded in the card.

'Oh.' The old man looked crestfallen. He picked up the warrant card and held it close up, then he brightened. 'Is this for an important case? You need my help to solve a crime of some sort? Like, I would be helping smash a drugs ring or solve a murder? I watch CSI all the time. CSI Miami not so much. But all the rest, oh yes.'

He flipped her warrant card back onto the counter and picked up the stone, deftly flipping it end over end. Suddenly his face darkened and he peered closer at the engraving.

'Where did you find this?' he asked, the playful accent replaced by a serious tone.

'I'm afraid I can't tell you anything specific,' Amanda said. 'It was outside a house. I think it belongs to a man I want to question, and I thought if it was a charm or souvenir you may be able to tell me where it can be purchased.'

'Your path is uncertain, so I will explain some few details. This is not a charm. This stone is a bagua tablet. Normally they are used in Chinese rituals and practices. They are talismans for luck and fortune. Attach them over doorways, protect your home from mischievous spirits. But this has a bad sign engraved. Very bad luck.'

'Would it be difficult to come by?'

'This? Very difficult. Even the correct bagua tablets are a specialised item. Often sought by feng shui practitioners who wish to bring harmony to a home.' He hesitated, looking at Amanda carefully, then said, 'Come into the back for some tea. Nice tea, good tea.'

'I really don't know if I have time.' Amanda spoke to the back of the old man as he darted to the front door and slid a bolt. He flipped a Cantonese sign over and hurried back to the counter. He beckoned Amanda with a bony finger and she reluctantly followed him past the bead curtain into a small room off the corridor.

'Sit,' he said, pushing a chair with his foot whilst he filled a kettle with water.

Amanda pulled the chair around and sat at a small wooden table. Bookmaker's receipts were piled under a small Buddha statue and a folded TV guide had been used to mop up a recent spill.

Amanda thanked the old man as he handed her a cup of green tea, light brown herbs still circling the spoon's momentum. She remained quiet as he poured himself a cup and settled into a chair opposite.

'This is nice, huh,' he said, cupping the tea in walnut hands.

'Yes. I can't really sit here all day though. But thanks for the tea.' She took a tentative sip.

'So. My name is Wing Loo. As in Wing Loo's Emporium. Has a nice ring about it, do you not think?' Wing said.

'It certainly gives the right ... image,' Amanda said.

'And do you have a boyfriend? Someone in your life to rub your feet on these cold nights, hmmm?'

Amanda sipped her tea again, giving this friendly old man a puzzled look. 'No, I don't have a boyfriend. And the comfort of my feet is of no concern to you.'

'Ah. You are either a lesbian or work controls your life. Which one, I wonder?'

'You can wonder all you like. Are you going to tell me about this bagua tablet?'

'The thing you have found, the bagua tablet, it is not something you should carry around. It has a power.'

'A power?'

'Have you been having any nightmares? Remember things that are hurtful, perhaps some things that have been dragged from long forgotten memories? Hurtful memories?'

'Not that I can think of,' Amanda lied.

'Hmmm. Well, it doesn't matter.' Wing settled into his chair. 'The bagua tablet can be used in the practice of feng shui.'

'Feng shui?' Amanda said disappointed. 'So it's not real then.'

'Not real? Not real!' The old man's eyes blazed. 'This is more real than you think. Thirty years ago acupuncture was not considered real, now it is used by western hospitals. Alternative medicine is just that, alternative. Try and leave your prejudices outside the door next time you wipe your feet. Just because you do not understand chi, you think ten thousand years of belief and philosophy is just mumbo jumbo. Ha!'

'Not exactly admissible in court though,' Amanda mused idly. The old man was certainly passionate about his beliefs.

'Maybe not in England,' He glowered. 'But feng shui is a most respected force in the East. Companies regularly have feng shui diviners to ensure their businesses are profitable. Whole buildings have been demolished on the grounds of inauspicious feng shui. The power of chi has rocked economies and brought down governments, I tell you.'

'Yes, I can believe that people believe it has power,' Amanda said.

'Not only believe. It is a fact. Why, even my shop is built with feng shui in mind.'

A soft chirp sounded from Amanda's pocket and she withdrew her mobile phone. Three messages, all from the station. She slid the phone back into her pocket.

'Well, thank you for your time,' Amanda said laying her hand open for the bagua tablet.

'Not so fast, young lady,' he said, placing the tablet into her hand. 'You must be very careful if you catch up with the owner of this particular stone. As I said, it is a very bad sign. Used correctly, it can bring much misfortune. This is like when you take something good and beautiful, like the Christian Cross, and you reverse it, make it into a joke or a sin of opposites. Either someone is playing a nasty joke, or the previous owner of the tablet is a great believer in the harm that feng shui can inflict.'

'Thank you for your time,' Amanda said. 'And I really do appreciate your help.'

'Open your mind, young lady. And be prepared to trust the untrustworthy.' She waved at him and walked from the shop. Wing remained seated. 'Because he needs all the help he can get.' He finished the conversation, idly staring at the leaves settling at the bottom of his cup.

# Chapter Twelve

Professor Anderson stared at the retreating back of Duvalier and refocused on the closed door after it was slammed shut. He wondered again how he had allowed the situation to develop like this, how the thread of his rich tapestry led him to be standing on the verge of scientific greatness and to the deaths of his fellow trustees.

He spun on his chair to gaze out of the window and to the overcast winter skies. There would be snow for Christmas.

It reminded him of that fateful day all those years ago. A different Saul in a different world. His twenty-fifth birthday when the grey envelope had landed on his desk in the university research lab. He was tired after a night's work, the latest research project taking up so much of his time. He wasn't expecting a birthday card. His family long since dead and his work colleagues not the sort to waste money or effort on a trivial show of faux affection. So he opened it up before starting on writing the research notes up from the night before.

The envelope contained an embossed invitation to an inheritance meeting at a city law firm, date and address on the reverse. Saul checked the spelling of the invite, then the envelope address. It was addressed to him. But there was obviously a clerical error. He had no living family and no possible way he was in line for any inheritance.

He arrived at the law offices and met Duvalier for the first time. His strange accent, a French-Caribbean mix, was thicker all those years back, not watered down as he sounded today. His easy smile and firm handshake placed Saul at ease. The meeting was short but informative. Saul had inherited a trusteeship on the board of the Valentine Trust. His father, having died shortly after World War Two, was a hereditary trustee on a secretive trust that looked after an enormous wealth. Duvalier had sketched out the benefits of being a trustee, the freedom and the generous income, and Saul had quit his research position with the university that afternoon.

Forty years later he was in the difficult position of plotting to kill off his fellow trustees and take all the trust funds for his own needs. With the guiding help of Duvalier, their trusted lawyer, he planned to remove any objections from the board and pass a resolution to invest all funds into his research. The developments into the area of expertise, namely tracking DNA back through the ages of man. The potential for knowledge and science was astounding and extraordinary-and not a little unsettling.

He needed Duvalier for his little Trust coup. Duvalier had contacts and knowledge and an unnerving insight into personality. He also had a small army of people to do his bidding. More like a cult, Anderson mused, as they came from many walks of life, but obeyed Duvalier with a mindless devotion that he found unnerving and comforting in equal measure. Most of them were pretending to be animal rights protestors at the front gates. Keeping up appearances at the laboratory and ensuring real protestors didn't get too close and inquisitive.

The timing for investment was crucial. Events that had taken years to prepare were rapidly approaching fruition and the excitement could barely be restrained from his hand as he clicked through the prototype software on his computer.

World Two was a software application that recreated the world in all its glorious history and geography. Using graphical representations of people, the program duplicated every living person of this world within its silicon world.

Each computer person had an icon floating above its head. Like a computer game, only this gave access to the most intimate of information. Every individual's genome code.

Anderson glanced at the notice board and saw a pie chart on the wall. He snapped from his daydreaming when he realised he had to request a chart of the policewoman and take it to Duvalier.

That would have to stop. Duvalier was treating him like one of those thugs he has chasing after him. Once the funds were liquidated from the trust and the purchases were being made, he would have a quiet word with Duvalier. Demand a little more respect.

Anderson left his offices and walked through the warren of corridors that was his laboratory. He passed familiar doors that were now unknown to him. Doors where he had once entered but had not done so in years. He had seen members of Duvalier's thugs close the doors behind them, with a respect bordering on reverence, and he had once asked about the nature of the experiments that still may have continued behind the closed doors. He had been politely dissuaded from asking such questions. Anderson suspected it was gathering further information about junk DNA, a subject which Duvalier had insisted be on the research agenda, but which he did not see much value in. Indeed, Anderson had left them to it, happy to continue his own research station into the book of life. Such flights of fancy regarding junk DNA were beneath him.

He assumed the mantle of responsibility and had carried on with his own work.

He passed the makeshift sleeping quarters of Duvalier's followers. Some of them filed past him, returning from protestor duties at the front gate. The immediate threat of the policewoman had passed and so they retreated to the warmth of their bunks.

'Hey, pencilneck,' a voice called out. 'Come here.'

Anderson turned to another room where a number of the followers were relaxing. He recognised them from the few meetings that he had attended. Finn, a grotesquely scarred ex-soldier who was Duvalier's right hand man and issued the orders to the rest of the rabble. Karen, an enchantingly beautiful woman, who dressed in a kaftan and went barefoot around the grounds, sat in a lotus position on a mat in the corner. Mullen, an enormous craggy-faced man, sketched at a pad, the slim pencil held deftly between his thick fingers.

Duncan, a slim man with a curtain of hair that often draped across his face as he talked, looked up at Saul with a sarcastic grin. He folded a napkin over and over in his hands, fashioning a feathered dart like an origami artist.

'Can I help you?' Anderson asked, affronted by the comment but prepared to take back the initiative.

'Oh, hey, sorry professor,' Duncan said as he finished one paper feathered arrow, a perfect replica of a pub dart, and continued to make another, 'Didn't mean to cause offence. Come in and say hello.'

'I really can't stop,' Anderson said. 'I have a report to request for Mr Duvalier.'

'Ah,' Duncan said, combing his hair back with his fingers. 'Mr. Duvalier is it now. Not 'Papa Doc' like the rest of us call him.'

'Tell me, Prof,' Mullen looked up from his drawing. 'I don't see you out on the gate in the freezing cold. Why's that then?'

Before Anderson could reply, a musical tune warbled in the room and Finn snapped open a phone. He listened and nodded to the other end. Everyone else in the room was silent.

Duncan tossed his paper darts into a nearby table. The darts plunged an inch into the wood, quivering for a moment as they did so. 'Well,' Anderson stammered, 'I don't think that would be appropriate. I mean, I own the laboratory. Why would I protest my own experiments?'

'Only pullin' your leg, Prof.' Mullen returned his attention to his drawing. 'You're the important one here, we all know that.'

'Okay, knock it off you lot.' Finn stood up and holstered the pistol he had been cleaning. 'Its fine, Professor, these jokers are getting a little tetchy before the big event.' The man smiled as he approached Anderson. The criss-cross of scars made his face resemble a discarded paper bag stretched over his skull. 'I'll accompany you to see Dominique and then Mr Duvalier. Let's take a walk.'

Anderson felt relieved as the room quietened and he was escorted out by Finn. The followers resumed their activities after the brief entertainment.

The two men walked down the corridor in silence, passing doors sealed off with yellow tape and red signs. Anderson looked quizzically at the doors, unable to remember when that had been done, or whether he had been consulted.

'Here we are, Professor.' Finn knocked twice on a laboratory door and entered without notice. Anderson followed him into the dark room, lit only by the glare of computer terminals and pin lights to one side. A map of the universe stretched along the length of the wall. Zodiac figures were picked out on the map, helping to illuminate the room in faint glowing lines.

'er, Dominique?' Anderson called out.

A spiky-haired woman appeared bleary-eyed from behind a monitor. The glow of the computer bleached her already pale features. 'What?' she snapped.

'Sorry to disturb you, but I have a profile request for you. I have the details here.' Anderson handed over a notebook with Amanda Morgan's profile description from World Two. Date, time, location of her birth and a colour coded chart of her dominant DNA strands.

Dominique glanced at Finn, who nodded imperceptibly. 'Fine,' she said. 'I'll crunch the numbers and have her astrology reading ready in a few hours.'

'Umm,' Anderson said. 'I have to take it to Duvalier. He was kind of expecting it straight away.'

Dominique stared incredulously at the Professor. 'Ok, I'll do it now. Just shut up and don't touch anything.'

Finn sat at a nearby terminal whilst Anderson hovered behind Dominique, watching her nimble fingers tap away at the terminal. Symbols and sigils popped up on the screen as her fingers blurred. She tutted to herself, banging on a combination of keys, then continued casting the horoscope for the policewoman.

Twenty minutes later Dominique printed out a three-page report which contained graphs, a bar chart and a lengthy horoscope detailing the most likely prediction for DC Amanda Morgan for the next two days. She glanced at it briefly then handed it to Anderson.

'Thank you,' Anderson said. He started to read the report in the gloom, until he felt the weighty stare from Finn. He smiled nervously and folded it away. Finn rose smoothly from the chair and opened the door. They both walked down the corridors heading toward Duvalier's chambers.

The double doors to Duvalier's rooms were ajar, a sweet smell emanating from the chambers. Finn knocked on the doors and waited.

'Come,' Duvalier said.

Finn entered the rooms first, bowing his head slightly as he walked in. Anderson followed him, clutching the report in his hand.

Duvalier stood from the wide desk where he had been writing in a large book. His pen was fashioned from a cockerel feather that left dark pools of ink soaking into the pages.

Duvalier held out his hand and Anderson handed him the report. He smiled at the Professor and returned to an easy chair. He angled a table lamp to illuminate the pages and read the report carefully.

Anderson edged closer, eager to know the results of the horoscope. But Duvalier was motionless as he read the report, flicking the pages over, his eyes sliding from side to side.

Eventually Duvalier let out a soft sigh. 'We have a problem,' he said, creasing the horoscope in two. 'It seems that our capable bloodhound of a copper will be crossing the assassin's path two or three times.'

'Oh? Are you sure?' Anderson said. The two men ignored him.

'What do you want me to do?' Finn asked.

'We are absurdly close to the endgame. We cannot afford our assets being frozen by the Financial Crimes Unit if there was any reason to investigate the Trust. So we will have to deal with matters ourselves.'

Duvalier stood and paced the room. 'The feng shui assassin has outlived his usefulness.'

'Do you want me to muster the Tonton Macoute?' Finn said.

'Yes. Choose a couple to deal with the assassin. Prepare for a quick strike on each of the remaining trustees. Accidental death would be preferable, but if that cannot be done, then violent with much circumstantial evidence. Let us have a few days to work. I'll need a little time for the program to process once the rituals begin.'

'And the policewoman?' Finn asked. Anderson fidgeted nervously beside him, the careful plan was unravelling and he felt control was slipping through his fingers.

'Are you suggesting that we murder the woman detective?' Anderson interrupted the two men.

Duvalier stared at Anderson, and Anderson suddenly felt what it must be like to be examined under a microscope, Duvalier's eyes dissecting him like a pinned fruit fly.

'My dear Professor,' Duvalier patted Anderson on the shoulder, leading the man to the door. 'We must do everything needed to protect our interests. Surely you understand that. Do not worry, we will take care of everything. As we have done so far.'

Anderson felt the balance of power shift beneath him. If he had truly had any power in the first place. 'Ok. Ok. You are quite correct. I shall return to my studies, prepare for the investments.'

'You do that.' Duvalier's tombstone teeth flashed a smile as he ushered the Professor from the room and closed the door, leaving Anderson standing in the corridor.

Duvalier strode back into the room. 'That man is becoming a liability.'

Finn shrugged. 'Anderson is the easiest problem we have.' He made a quick twisting movement with his two hands. An invisible cockerel's head twisted, broken and removed.

'Ah no,' Duvalier shook his head. 'I wish to make a sacrifice for the success of the project. And the Professor will make a fine lamb, seeped in the blood of innocents as he is.'

# Chapter Thirteen

Earlier that same day Harvey awoke with a start, disorientated and groggy, his chest pounding and eyes blinking at the tumbling sensation of the room. The hotel stared back at him, and the previous night's events sluiced into his thoughts. Battered. Bruised. But alive. _He was alive._

Harvey rose from the bed and groaned, stiff with pain from the damage his body earned from the night before. He cursed his stupidity in every language he knew.

He shambled to the bathroom and checked the results of the firefight in the mirror. His face was grazed in places, a long, deep scratch running from cheek to chin. Vague memories of a splinter of wood catching his cheek and drawing the blood red line down to his chin. He touched the edges of his wounds carefully, looking for signs of infection.

He had slept in his clothes, having collapsed into bed after the harrowing drive home, and only now removed his dirty jacket and shirt to inspect his body for further damage.

The delicate shade of a lotus petal spread over his chest and left shoulder. Purple at the centre with a fringe of blue. Deep score marks over his stomach, two angry red welts where a bullet had grazed across his ribs and a deep scorch line along the length of his arm.

His hair was matted with dried blood and a lump at the base of his head was tender to the touch. He remembered the sickening crack of his head against the metal rim of the wheelbarrow. Two inches further down his body and it would have snapped his neck. _Lucky. Stupid._

Harvey removed the rest of his clothes and stood under a scalding shower for twenty minutes, hands braced against the wall, head hung low. He emerged gasping but refreshed. He dried himself gingerly, swearing aloud as he caught the towel on an unseen cut that opened afresh, leaking blood. He held a cloth to the open wound and kept it in place whilst he dried his hair, walking through the hotel room and checking out of the window.

No one was spying on him from the street or twitching a curtain in the opposite hotel. No lurking police vans or unmarked cars. He glanced at the blue and pitted white skies.

Harvey heaved a suitcase from the wardrobe to the bed and clicked open the latches. He aired a black shirt and a pair of trousers and sprayed the smell of death off him with deodorant.

He dressed quickly, blotting dry any seeping blood from the various cuts around his body with a cloth and threw it in the sink.

He checked his watch. Just enough time to visit Chinatown and talk to Master Wing Loo. Explain a few things. Reasons behind the decision to walk the path he had chosen.

Before dealing with the next Trustee.

Harvey placed the 'do not disturb' sign on the door handle, left the hotel and walked out onto the streets.

He made his way along back roads and dirty lanes of inner London, past small squares and statues of forgotten heroes. The wind picked up, carrying along with it a sharp cold that the bright winter sun could not warm.

Harvey cramped on one side as he turned a corner, the twist of his body causing an anonymous ache to intensify. He grimaced at the pain and recollected the events of the previous night.

Having doubled back in the woods, he had camouflaged himself under the white sheet, blending with the snowy ground. The two remaining mercenaries had walked a scant few yards past him-if they had worn infrared goggles they would have spotted his heat signature and riddled him with bullets. Instead, they stalked along the route left by his footprints, splitting up, one to cover the other.

He rose behind the last man as he walked past and hammered the back of his neck, clutching hold of a bagua stone. The stone tablet had split open and the out pouring energy had whomped into the soldier, knocking him unconscious.

Strapping the downed mercenary's goggles to his head meant that the other mercenary barely gave him a cursory glance. The deception worked. The bearded mercenary, eager to kill and be finished with his quarry, had rushed past to shoot at the slumped figure under the sheet. Harvey had taken his time and the mercenary joined his dead friend on the ground.

He'd escaped over the ivy-covered walls of the Manor grounds and made it to the hire car, driving at high speed to the Landsmark hotel in the heart of London. He vomited twice, the concussion from his fall having seriously affected him, abandoned the car in a side street and made it to the hotel room before passing out.

Luck was something he used, not something he relied on. And he knew, better than most, that luck came in two flavours. Good and bad. Drawn into conversation with MacDonald had almost been his downfall. The need to stand in front of the Trustees was dangerous enough, but to get caught up in a righteous confrontation was misplaced and idiotic. A lesson that Harvey almost paid for with his life.

Tottenham Court Road was busy with tourists and students. Everyone wrapped up against the cold. Harvey cut through a side street and down toward the main entrance to Chinatown. He kept his head down and shoulders hunched, pulling his collars up to hide the grazes on his face. He entered the Wing Loo Emporium and up to the counter.

Master Loo was serving someone, but spotted Harvey walking up the aisle. A forlorn look cast over his face, his eyebrows gathering like snowy clouds.

'Ahh, Salmon,' Loo said, shaking his head, 'You look like you have gone ten rounds with a 800 lb gorilla.'

And then Harvey recognised the other customer. The female detective from Grace's suicide and Master's funeral. Time seemed to shunt to a stand-still. Harvey became acutely aware of every empty doorway and potential hiding place within the shop. He expected to be charged down by half a dozen serious crime unit officers in full combat gear. He braced himself for the shouts and chaos of a well executed trap.

But there was nothing. No black and blue riot squad. No sirens. No arrest.

Harvey recovered, aware that the old man was staring at him. The detective seemed to be browsing the shelves at the other end of the counter.

'I need a trigram mirror. An eight or a nine should do.' Harvey said, staring into the mischievous eyes of Master Loo.

Harvey concentrated on his senses, reaching out with them as if they were physical parts of his body, trying to feel any other presence. Sensitive to any peripheral noise, flicker of movement or whisper of scent that might indicate gun metal sliding from leather holster or stealthy crunch of heavy boot.

Nothing registered. No blip on the radar, no glimmer of warning in the old man's face.

Master Loo retrieved a mirror and placed it on the counter. 'Anything else?' he said as he pushed the red and black mirror to Harvey.

'Anything for bruises?' Harvey said, narrowing his eyes, trying to discern if there was any secret message Master Loo may be trying to tell him.

'Just the thing for you.' He poured some ground elderberry herbs into a sachet and handed it to Harvey, 'Soak in a bandage and apply to the area. Fix you right up, big fellah.' Master Loo winked at Harvey and shooed him away with his hand. Harvey slid money onto the counter and left the shop, watching for any kind of surveillance. There was none.

Was he being followed? He couldn't be sure. If the Emporium was a trap the policewoman would not have been in such a vulnerable position. And if a trap - then it would have been sprung within the contained and controllable area of the shop. Not out in the busy pre-Christmas bustle.

Harvey walked through the streets, his awareness a razor as he watched for a face in the crowd that would look at him for a moment too long, or talk into a sleeve. Or one of any number of surveillance errors. He turned from the main road and darted down an alley beside a theatre, threading his way through the crowd.

Harvey glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes before the next Trustee would cross his path. He slid between a couple of parked cars and entered the Starbucks coffee shop where the Trustee would make his final order. He grabbed a coffee, sat at a chrome table in the middle of the cafe and gazed out at the last minute shoppers and late afternoon traffic.

There was nobody following him. No surveillance operation and heavy handed sting in operation. But what was the detective doing at the Emporium? Following a lead? Something he had dropped on one of the missions? The world was getting complicated when revenge was supposed to be the simplest of tasks.

Harvey stirred his coffee with the plastic stick, his thoughts caught up in the circular pattern of creme.

The news of his sister's death had been devastating. Although he had not seen her for years, there was no mistaking her photograph in the magazine. He had discovered her death by chance. An article in a magazine that he flicked through whilst at Newark airport waiting for a connecting flight. He recognised her picture immediately. Long fringe and dour complexion. A grown up copy of the serious and intense twelve year old he had known in his youth.

He missed the flight, absorbed by the article on Helen's death. His next job, assisting a small cartel of Reno hotel owners resist the machinations of the local mafia was forgotten as he read the article over and over.

Killed by a bizarre accident, Helen Barker, 28, was one of many protesting against the development of a spa and country club complex in a woodland retreat in Sussex. After months of peaceful protest, the eco-campaigners had been close to declaring victory, and a few hardcore protestors were to take their petition to the court of appeal for a protection order to return the grounds back into a nature reserve.

However, on the eve of the petition to the courts, a freak storm had ravaged Southern England. High winds decimated much of the countryside, rain caused flooding and mudslides throughout the affected counties and heavy thunder and lightning resulted in mayhem.

The protestors had abandoned their makeshift camp and returned to the relative comforts of a hotel in a nearby village. All of them, apart from Helen, who had split from the main party and returned to the campsite to collect some valuables. None of the other protestors had missed her presence when they retired to their beds, sleeping through the worst of the storm.

Helen's body was found the next day. Details were unclear, but it seemed that she had tied herself to the biggest, oldest tree in the woods. Perhaps she became disorientated in the dark and, to weather out the storm until morning, had strapped herself to what was the symbol of their fight against the developers.

Whatever Helen's reasons, the decision had been a fatal one. During the night a lightning bolt had struck the grand old tree, survivor of four hundred years of English history. The resultant charge had shot through the tree and exploded the trunk, shattering the bark like a grenade. Wood splinters shot out in a circumference around the old tree.

The coroner's report had declared accidental death. Local media attention ensured that the restraining order against the developers was accepted and the secluded beauty spot was once more under the protection of the National Trust. Hundreds of people attended Helen's funeral, hundreds more sent cards and flowers and condolences.

Harvey had read and reread the article, unable to believe his eyes, a cold fury building up inside him. _There were no accidents._

Using contacts within state departments and calling in favours from influential past employers, Harvey gathered all the evidence he could find surrounding Helen's death. The coroner reports, press releases, first hand witness statements and even the notebooks of police and ambulance crew.

Reports from those first on the scene differed wildly with the resultant articles and death reports. The shaky handwriting detailed the look of terror on Helen's face, a mask frozen in the moments of her death. The knots in the rope had been tied on the side of the tree, a full arms length away from Helen, making it impossible for her to have tied the rope herself.

The coroner's reports indicated broken fingernails full of mud and loam where she had clawed at the ground at her sides. Her body and face also had many razor thin cuts, too fine for any of the bark shards that were retrieved from the scene to have made. The coroner had written a strange word in the margin of the initial report, obviously considering options as he or she reread a printed version. He had written 'papercuts?' in pencil.

It seemed to Harvey that political influence had been involved. The story quickly controlled and managed and the outcome packaged up as tragic accident.

Harvey rechecked the notes and statements. The original petition was never found, and paper at the site was assumed to be the remains of the four thousand signed petition destroyed as a result of the lightning.

Within days of reading the article in Newark airport, Harvey was walking through the heart of the Sussex countryside. He paced around the woods, inspecting trees and the ground, circling the area a number of times before coming to a stop before a brass plaque on the base of the blasted tree to which Helen had been lashed.

The grim anger that had consumed him whilst reading the reports and statements almost stopped his heart when he stood in the spot where she died. It was at that moment he had decided to kill the people responsible for her death.

The construction of the complex had gone ahead anyway, land zoning had situated the hotel and golf course a few miles further south. A number of discreet enquiries and Harvey had the answers he needed. The construction was funded by a leisure company which itself was owned by a London based Trust. The Valentine Trust, upon which six board members sat and made life-changing decisions with a stroke of a pen.

It was these six people that Harvey knew were ultimately responsible, and it was through them that he may find other answers as to the real cause of her death.

So he gathered information on the Trustees, built up a profile and prepared to use his skills to kill each and every one of them.

Access to the Trustees was difficult. Having only seen them by their colour eight by ten's. The stills and thumbnail character sketch of name, address, likes and dislikes. But he knew nothing about the person behind the dossier.

Harvey felt the urge to confront each of these anonymous killers before ensuring their death. He needed to face each one before they died. To look them in the eyes and make it personal. Everything was personal now.

That phrase echoed through his thoughts as he searched the tables for another sachet of sugar for his coffee. He retrieved one from the counter, tutted at the lack of counter staff in attendance and sat back at the table. Something niggled at him as he settled into the same position at the table. Something about the cafe. The lack of customers? The lack of sugar? But the faces of the three remaining trustees floated back onto the surface of his coffee and he stirred them away. Three more to go. And then would it be over? Would it bring back his sister? Of course not. But this was the one thing left he had to offer. The only thing he ever had.

Lost in thought, Harvey was aware of people leaving and entering the cafe by the noise of the door. He glanced at his watch, then at the door, then resumed contemplating the half drunk coffee.

Yet the quiet, insistent voice in his mind grew louder. A meek child tugging at his coat, determined to be heard. And then it struck him. There were no objects on the tables. All around him were bare surfaces. Chairs were bolted to the floor and pictures screwed in place on the walls.

There was nothing to move, nothing to manipulate, nothing to align. No feng to shui.

The door opened with a jingle and moments later bare feet were by his side. His eyes tracked from the polished toenails, along the arch of perfectly formed feet, up freckled legs to the faded blue cut-off jeans. An orange fringe on a crisp white kaftan, sun worshipper tan with simple, hand-made jewellery, a stone necklace spelt out the name 'Karen', unkempt blonde hair tied back into a long ponytail. Beautiful smile and crystal green eyes. Harvey didn't know the woman that stood before him, but he recognised what she was. Yoga Warrior.

'Make peace with whatever Demons you cavort with, because today you die, _Fung Shway_ Assassin.' Karen drifted closer, her kaftan wafting in an unfelt breeze.

Harvey gritted his teeth. ' _Feng Shui_. It's _Feng Shui_ Assass-'

And then she hit him.

# Chapter Fourteen

Karen stepped from the tube train onto the cold, sticky underground platform. Her bare feet miraculously avoided lumps of phlegm and hardened chewing gum that marked the pre-war tile floor. The bustling, agitated crowd crushed toward the exit archways, moving past Karen but never bumping or touching her. Indeed, no one came within arm's length. She walked on as if encased in an invisible bubble.

The screech of metal from the parallel platform indicated the arrival of another train and a dry, warm wind blew through the tunnel. She wrinkled her nose at the foul breeze, repeating a mantra under her breath that kept the wind-riding spirits from causing her harm.

The throng of commuters heaved through the narrow tunnels, rushing to get to the exit above ground, and she let herself move with the tide.

She glided through the ticket booth, smiling benignly at the ticket collector on the open gate. He glanced up from his collection of stubs and looked into her eyes. He gasped. The air was punched from his lungs and his skin prickled white hot, her radiance enveloping him in one moment of exquisite enlightenment, until the light of her smile moved on and he was left with the loss of her. His groan was lost in the melee of noise and activity as he slipped into madness, the pure joy he had momentarily felt now ripped away leaving only the absence of that beauty, more terrible than any darkness.

Karen walked out onto the street, glanced up at the blue winter sky, petals of white cloud drifting past the skyline, then continued on her way to meet with the assassin at the Starbucks cafe nearby.

• • •

With a takeout coffee in one hand and the Financial Times in the other, Duncan leaned against a doorway, waiting for the estate agent to show him around the ridiculously over-priced inner city office suite. He sipped at the coffee and admired his reflection in a car window. The suit was sharp, button down collar shirts were the season's darling and his long fringe and shoulder length hair gave him a moody yet deep quality. Just the look he was going for.

A couple of young women walked by and Duncan smiled at them whilst flicking the hair out of his eyes. They giggled, hand over mouths, as they passed. His stare bore into the back of their heads, willing them to turn round as they headed down the street, his smile fixed in place. But they didn't turn round and the smile turned to a sneer. He turned to the reflection in the nearby car, dark fantasies playing in his mind.

Traffic kept the streets noisy with rumbling wheels, squealing brakes and infrequent horn blasts. Unlike most of the other Tonton Macoute, he enjoyed the city. The tang of exhaust fumes and the greasy feel to the skin. The anonymous presence and close-knit strangers. Many times he had followed a random woman through the streets, watching her shop and eat and idle along in her own world. Sometimes he would follow her home. He was rarely noticed or confronted. Once he knew where they lived he would find a shadowy corner and watch the lights in the house blink on and, some hours later, blink off. If opportunity allowed, he sometimes broke into the house and entertained himself.

The estate agent half ran down the street, skipping between parked cars, unbuttoned jacket flapping behind him. He was unkempt and fifteen minutes late, just as Dominique had forecast.

'You must be Mr Leven, here to see the offices for rent?' The estate agent used the name Duncan had given over the telephone.

'That's right,' Duncan said, slurping noisily on his coffee.

'Sorry I'm late, I've been running behind schedule since this morning. Crazy, crazy timetable. Everyone wants the prime spots overlooking the river. Let me take you up and show you around this little baby.' He inverted commas with his fingers whilst promising this little baby. Duncan smiled.

The stairwell to the third floor was narrow and smelled faintly of urine and mould. Large blotches on the wall and sticky carpets did not make a good first impression. The door to the second floor offices stuck and Duncan stood back whilst the estate agent opened it on the third attempt.

'This first room is well-placed and attractive with full window frontage looking over the city. Ideal, I think you will agree, for a meeting room or personal assistant's office.' The estate agent paced to the end of the room and beamed brightly.

'It's cramped,' Duncan said, peering out of the window to the busy road below.

'Economic,' the agent said. 'And with careful use of furniture you can create an effective illusion of space. The natural light brightens up the area and really promotes the feel good factor of this room.'

Duncan shook his head and the estate agent could feel a commission slipping away. He continued his patter with the adept skill of a fly fisher. 'And the location is just so convenient. Minutes from the nearest tube station. Victoria Station a few streets away. Why, there's even a Starbucks across the street. Great for those late night projects.'

Duncan watched the flurry of figures within Starbucks. He could make out Karen and the assassin facing each other. His trained eye watching the colourful fireworks. 'Can I have a look at the specifications again?'

'Certainly.' The fight ebbed from his fish and the estate agent considered which closing strategy he was going to use to reel him in. He handed the specification sheets to Duncan and talked about the additional options available with this particular commercial site.

Duncan straightened the creases out of the sales sheet, smoothing it flat against the wall. He then folded a triangle into the paper, scoring a fingernail down the fold to create a sharp edge. His hands moved rapidly, turning the paper over and over, folding this way and that, creasing and tucking and bending and straightening. Slowly, the paper took origami shape.

The estate agent continued to talk in the background, wandering from the tiny kitchen to another hallway. He returned through the original doorway when he realised Duncan was not following him. 'Do you have any questions?' the agent asked, a note of irritation in his tone.

'Only one. When is your next appointment?'

'As it happens, I have a showing in the Docklands in ten minutes. But if you were interested in this space I can rearrange.'

Instead of answering, Duncan brandished the paper model he had finished making. A perfect copy of a twelve inch Bowie knife.

'I never told you what I intend to use the offices for, did I?' Duncan said.

'Not exactly, no,' the agent seemed embarrassed to admit he didn't take any interest in whatever the office space would be used for. He was young and hungry for sales. 'Something to do with paper models? I must say you do have a talent for it, that's really good. You even have the serrations running down the back of the blade. It looks sharp enough to cut.'

Duncan leant forward and drew the origami blade across the young estate agent's throat. The agent jerked back in surprise, hands clasping at his severed neck. Blood pumped between his fingers and bubbled as he tried to speak. He sank back against the wall and slid to the floor, eyes glazed, the last thing he saw was the fading vision of the city skyline.

Duncan knelt next to the window and laid the Financial Times out flat on the floor. He thumbed through a number of pages until, satisfied, he threw the remainder to one side and folded the pages lengthways. He scored and creased, tore and folded the pink pages, rolling a long slim tube and twisting over and over the news section. In minutes he had five separate origami models before him. He inspected each piece before slotting and fitting each together.

Two minutes later he held a snipers rifle made from the distinctive pink pages in his hands, complete with telescopic sight. He smiled to himself, judging the craftsmanship at arms length. He hoisted the rifle into his shoulder and slid the breach back and forth, working the action to ensure it was free of kinks or tears.

Duncan placed the rifle carefully against the window frame and turned to the remaining pages. He tore at the city analysis section of the newspaper, tubing and folding and creasing a four inch bullet out of the pages. Three words could be made out along the length of the bullet. The typeset letters of the words were uneven and disjointed. A patch work line, like a ransom note.

Feng Shui Assassin.

Duncan loaded the bullet into the rifle and settled at the window, watching the events across the street unfold.

• • •

Jenson heard the roar of the vehicle and explosion of glass and plastic. He caught the startled reactions of the ChinaTown shoppers around him in his peripheral vision. The explosion was loud enough to turn heads and the crowd stared off in the direction of the Starbucks cafe three streets away, hidden from sight as it was by buildings and one large theatre. But Jenson kept his vision on the mouth watering prey a scant 47 yards from him.

She smelled wonderful. Perspiration and deodorant and a hint of perfume. Pleasure. Her recent visit to the dingy old shop had left the uppermost trace of dust and stale spices clinging to her clothes. But otherwise, she was divinity inhaled.

The policewoman was walking to her car when she heard the explosion and reacted as everyone else had. She patted her pockets, perhaps looking for the police radio that she left in her unmarked police car around the corner. Jenson strolled at an angle to the policewoman, correctly predicting that she would run to the car to radio in her presence close to the scene.

She moved with a natural grace, honed by regular exercise. She favoured her right side as she ran through the crowd, angling her body to squeeze past an opportunistic gap. Jenson wondered what kind of past injury she may have to cause the favour. Perhaps she had a scar. His hands became moist as he watched her flight and he licked his thin lips wet.

Jenson didn't like the activity of so many people around him when he was in this heightened state of anticipation. The murder should be sweet and savoured, not rushed and immediate, as this would be.

He decided, despite the specific instructions of Papa Doc, that he would kill the policewoman his way. After all, that was where his talents lay, and Papa Doc would not have chosen him for this particular task if he had not realised that.

So Jensen watched Amanda speed off in her car, accompanied by the blare of horns from a taxi driver she had swerved in front of, and savoured the anticipation of her murder. He had already decided what items he would need to acquire from the hardware store. The newspapers had dubbed him the DIY killer. Little did they know that this was a phase he was going through. He shifted through different forms of murder depending on the particular motivation he felt.

The lady Detective matched this motivational profile perfectly. Petite, blond, position of power.

After she disappeared around the corner Jenson walked to Piccadilly Circus and caught a bus heading in the direction of Amanda Morgan's apartment. He ticked off the items he would need from the Hardware store in his head. Later, she would have a surprise waiting for her.

• • •

Papa Doc Duvalier stood behind Dominique as she furiously input data into the horoscope forecast programme. He rested a hand on her shoulder and could feel the fear in her trembling form.

'It's not your fault,' Papa Doc said, his tone calm and low. 'The best people for the job were sent.'

'But why Jensen can't follow orders, I don't know. It was supposed to happen in the car,' she said, slamming the mouse on the table.

'Jensen is not a predictable man, which is exactly why he is so dangerous. His passions are measured on a different scale to the rest of us, and he is not one to follow orders to the letter,' Papa Doc said. 'But he will get the job done, and done his way. Which, as we both know, is a way that is best not dwelled upon.'

Dominique shuddered, then continued to tap at the computer keyboard.

'Let us turn this to our advantage,' said Papa Doc. 'I wish to know exactly how she has set on the trail of our puppet assassin, and who else she may have told.' Papa Doc squeezed her shoulder. 'There are other horoscopes I wish you to calculate. And, of course, two more trustees of the board that are to meet untimely ends.'

# Chapter Fifteen

'Wake up, Harvey. You have to roll over.' The small voice whispered to him. His sister? Perhaps it was Christmas morning and she had crept in to his bedroom, full of excitement.

There was a stampede close by. Growling and bellowing and the constant rumbling of large creatures charging along the road. The screech of brake, the blare of a horn. Traffic. Nearby.

Harvey snapped awake. Move!

The napa beads smashed into the tiles where his head had lay moments before. Harvey fought down the punch-drunk nausea and rolled under a table, scrabbling on the floor and stood up on the far side of the cafe.

People quickened past the wide windows, head down, and intent on their journey. Nobody looked into the cafe. The low sun angled into the Starbucks coffee shop, casting intermittent shadows from the passing vehicles.

Harvey locked eyes with the yoga warrior, trying to pin her into inaction whilst his memory rewound his time within the cafe, desperately searching for anything that he may be able to use to create chi.

'Surprised?' Karen muttered sweetly. 'Nothing about me in your horoscope?'

The shock must have registered on Harvey's face, because Karen laughed aloud. 'Such a predictable nature. Such a sorry excuse for a man.'

'Man enough for this job.'

The yoga warrior sighed, swinging napa beads in a circle at her side. 'Such bravado. I'll have fun breaking you.'

She tread slowly between the tables, the beads entwined around her fingers, faster and faster until they were a blur. She eyed him carefully as she moved closer, step by bare step.

She struck suddenly, stepping forward and releasing a handful of beads at Harvey, cobra quick. The end bead caught him on the shoulder and knocked him into a glass pane. The window, like the bones in his shoulder, splintered but did not break.

Harvey dipped a hand into his pocket and flung three bagua tablets, wedged between his knuckles. They shot toward Karen and pinged from the spinning beads as she held it like a shield. Three more, then another three. The tablets bounced off in erratic directions.

'Don't you have anything else up your sleeve, Harvey?' Karen swung the beads like a lightweight morning star.

'Glock point four five,' Harvey said, pulling the automatic pistol from his jacket and shooting two rounds off at Karen. The bullets missed and she brought the whirring napa beads down on the gun, hammering a dent in the barrel and knocking it clean from Harvey's grip.

Harvey darted forward, moving in close to the Yoga Warrior and punching her hard in the face. Her head snapped back and she stumbled against a table. Harvey pressed his advantage and stabbed his fingers into her throat. She wheeled around and blocked the attack with her open palm. She spun on her heel and smashed her elbow into Harvey's nose, which split open and sprayed them both with blood.

Harvey grabbed her by the hair, pulling her forward and bringing his knee into her stomach. He held her down, his knee driving into her body like a piston. Karen lifted him up onto her shoulders and threw him across the room. Harvey turned in the air, protecting his crushed shoulder as he landed heavily onto a table.

'Some fight left in you yet.' Karen slapped her hands together and brought the fingertips up to her nose. She grinned at Harvey, a trickle of blood on her upper lip and unkempt hair loose and wild.

She struck a yogic pose, arms stretched out like the hands of a clock, and brought one leg up to prop against the other. A soft light formed around her midrift and in one swift movement Karen thrust her hands forward. Chakra energy shot out at Harvey and blasted the table that he stood behind.

'Hatha and Tantra combined to bring a perfect balance of mind, body and soul.' Karen spoke softly as she struck another pose. The warrior asana. Chakra flared in her chest and shot out like a beam. Harvey scrambled along the floor as the light scorched the rear wall, tracking him like a searchlight.

The beam stopped and Harvey could hear the Yoga Warrior giggling. He raised his head and saw her beckoning him with her hand.

'Let's make this quick,' she said. 'Have one last attempt and then let's get this over with.'

Harvey pulled himself up and felt around in his pockets. He placed the last bagua tablet on a nearby table, sliding it into a convenient pool of spilt vanilla latte. A weak thread of chi weaved out at the yoga warrior.

'You are going to have to come up with something a little more potent.'

Harvey was desperate. Without any major chi influences around the yoga warrior had the upper hand. Open or closed. It was a well made trap and he was powerless. He had nothing, and the warrior was tougher, stronger and more efficient than he was. And she meant to kill him.

He clunked against a table and felt the Bagua mirror in his jacket. A terrible idea struck him, an idea that was liable to kill them both.

Harvey pulled the octagonal mirror from his jacket, gripped it with both hands and cracked the glass against the edge of a table. The area instantly festered with karma, buzzing like a cloud of plague flies, centred on the broken mirror.

At last, the smile slipped from Karen's face.

Rancid chi poured from the cracks in the mirror, it ran across the reflective surface and gathered at the rim and dripped onto the floor in a torrent of foul smelling karma.

The glass exploded and an enormous black claw hooked up and out of the mirror. A scaly hand quickly followed, digging into a nearby table and pulling itself from the tiny portal from its world into this.

'Have you gone mad?' Karen screamed, recognising the danger immediately.

Harvey held the mirror with both hands, shaking with the effort as the nether creature squeezed through. It scrabbled for purchase amongst the tables, dragging its huge form into the cafe, belching filthy smoke with the effort.

The demon shambled blindly around the floor, dragging behind it a hind paw that was still tethered to the mirror, and to Harvey, who desperately turned the thing towards the yoga warrior. The demon's snout swayed toward Karen and it groaned in hunger. Saliva dripped from its enormous, slack jaw.

Karen backed away to the counter, took a deep breath, half closed her eyes, and struck the sun worshipper asana. She intoned a low chant and colours began to spiral from her midriff, colliding into one another and spinning outwards, like a kaleidoscopic rainbow.

The beast slowly turned to the pulsing chakra and reared up, its head scraping the ceiling. It breathed softly, corrosive wisps steaming from between its teeth, leaning closely to the revolving colours. The demon hesitated, then moved to the source, opening its maw wide, its fetid, acidic breath spoiling the colours and shrivelling Karen's hair to short black, twigs.

Karen concentrated on the mantra, the left side of her face sizzling on contact with the cloud of acid, squeezing her eyes shut. She whirled from the demon, pulled a large Om symbol from her kaftan, and struck through the colourful display of Chakra. The Om symbol sliced through the air, the chakra and the fabric of the air before her.

A small, square rift flapped open in the air between the demon and Karen. A tear curling over on itself like a dog-eared page.

Harvey struggled with the broken mirror, keeping a tight hold in case the demon turned its attention onto him. The yoga warrior wasn't so lucky. The skin on the left side of her face and shoulder was blackened crisp, ravaged by the demon's caustic breath.

Movement rippled around the rift in the air and a blunt spike of ivory protruded through the tear, pushing the edges back as a massive tusk slid into view. There was a moment's pause, the demon teetering on one hind leg, tentatively sniffing at the tusk, when the rift ripped wider apart and an enormous elephant head squeezed itself through the gap, followed by a muscular human torso.

The entire being was bright blue, standing waist deep in the rift. It shook its elephant head, ears flapping and trunk snorting like a beast breaking the surface of a river and needing to orientate itself.

'Ganesha, my Lord.' Karen kneeled before the huge elephant headed figure. 'Save me,' she pleaded.

Ganesha squinted, thick blue skin creasing around black orb eyes. He said something, the words tumbling from his thick lips, falling to the floor like weights. He turned to the demon, grappling it in his mighty arms and fastening powerful fingers around its neck. With omnipotent strength, Ganesha dragged the demon toward the rift.

The demon, yelping and squealing like an injured puppy, clawed at the tables in a desperate attempt to wrestle itself free. Chairs tore away from their fixings and tables bent at the stem. But it was useless. Ganesha pulled the demon into the tear, which stretched to accept them both, then snapped shut, leaving a severed talon and a curl of black smoke.

Both combatants looked at each other, each visibly worn and tired, panting to catch breath. Karen tenderly touched at the burnt side of her face, fingers tracing her stubble skull where her hair had been, moving over her wasted ear and down where the acid had melted her skin. She held onto the counter for support. Shaking her head she moved toward Harvey, pulling her napa beads taught like a garrotte.

She didn't say a word as she moved around the fallen tables. A murderous glint in her one bright eye.

Harvey wiped a trail of blood from his upper lip, gripped the mirror hard and felt around his body for another weapon. There was none. Karen leapt on him, wrapped the beads around his neck and pulled them tight.

Harvey grasped at the beads, but couldn't prise his fingers beneath the cord. He wrenched at Karen's fingers, tried to pry them away as the beads choked him, but her hands were like iron, unmoveable. Try as he might, there was no give in her grip. He clutched at her, ripping at her kaftan, but she laughed quietly in his ear, oblivious to his attempts to break free.

The beads choked him and he coughed, trying to draw breath but unable to force any air into his lungs from the pressure on his throat. He gouged his fingers into her face, aiming for her eyes or to hook into her mouth, but she jerked back and tightened her grip on the garrotte. Dark speckles floated before his eyes and the pain around his throat mixed with the elated calmness of oxygen starvation.

His vision failing, he reached for the cracked octagon mirror that lay on a table. He feebly smashed the mirror against Karen's grip. The hands flexed tighter still and the beads drew the final moments of life from Harvey. The darkness of pre-death was kept at bay by the eclipsed sunlight shining directly into his eyes. The sun dipping between the buildings at the end of the road.

A thin trail of negative chi, grey and wavering, created from a cup in spilled coffee, led along the sun's path, out of the shop and along the length of the junction.

Harvey angled the mirror in his hands, moments from finally sinking into blackness, and caught the dying rays of the sun, reflecting them back into the road and the oncoming traffic.

The Eddie Stobart lorry sailed through the green light. Larry Cook, the driver, blipped the accelerator, taking advantage of a two-car space in traffic. The dazzling reflection from the broken mirror in the Starbucks cafe caught Larry just after a bout of sneezes, and, already disorientated, he brought his hand up to shield his eyes, shifting the wheel slightly with his other hand. The slight shift brought the lorry tracking along the weak trail of chi from the cafe, and with the reflection still catching his eyes, Larry sped up to get past the momentary distraction. The chi acted like a runway to the lorry, and with no awareness of the impending building, Larry Cook drove straight through the broad windows of Starbucks.

Harvey saw the HGV bearing down on the cafe, saw the driver was blinded and realised that this was the end. With one almighty heave he spun around, the Yoga Warrior spinning with him, hanging tightly onto the strangling necklace, until it slackened at the sound of twelve tonnes of lorry smashing through the windows at forty miles an hour.

Karen was caught on the grill of the vehicle, whipped away from Harvey in an instant and crushed against the far wall. Harvey bounced from the side door, caught by the wing mirror and was thrown across the cafe floor.

At first he thought his throat had been crushed beyond repair, lying on the floor under a table, partially protected as the ceiling collapsed in stages around him. But then a sweet trickle of air filled his lungs and he breathed deep. A strip light smashed next to his head and Harvey huddled closer to the central table leg, watching the coffee shop collapse around him, debris from the initial crash settling as the shock wave destabilised the building. The windows suddenly blew inwards as the roof sagged, chunks of glass shrapnel tearing at everything within.

People ran to the scene of destruction, screaming, yelling, and gawping as they approached. Braver souls entered the area, calling out for survivors, but wary of the unstable ceiling, nervous with every creak.

Harvey called out, a weak croak from his damaged throat. Two office workers ventured far enough into the shop to find Harvey and help him out of the danger area.

Being helped from the coffee shop, through the empty window spaces, Harvey wondered where the Yoga Warrior had come from? What did this mean?

He sat on the central reservation, all traffic now at a halt. People leant close to him, asking questions and offering reassurance. He took an offered cigarette, lit the end and watched the grey column replace the white.

At that moment, from the open office window where he had a perfect view of the entire fight, Duncan tracked Harvey through the scope of his origami sniper rifle. He settled on a spot between the assassin's shoulder blades and squeezed the trigger.

Bang.

Harvey was knocked back by the blow of the bullet and collapsed on the glass-strewn street.

# Chapter Sixteen

Harvey floated up from a deep pool of sleep, gasping for breath as he broke the surface. His throat was paper dry, and he craned a bruised neck to see that he lay in a hospital bed in a small room. Cold metal hung around his wrists, and when he tried to lift himself up he found that he was hand-cuffed to the railings at the side of the bed.

Starch pale sheets and beige walls reflected an early morning sun clipping through the windows. The door was wedged open and the clinks and laboured breaths of hospital-bound patients drifted in from a nearby ward-faint sounds of busy people; sterile aroma of disinfectant; distant chatter of a TV show.

Harvey shunted himself up the bed, leaning against the pillows. He felt groggy and disorientated and very, very sore. His body was one large bruise. Bandages wrapped across his chest where a stain of blood seeped from a wound on the left side. His other injuries had been redressed and the dull itchy ache was a reassuring sign of healing.

'Hello Sweetie.' A large nurse bustled into the room. The nametag 'Yvonne' on one voluminous breast, a silver watch chain on the other. She stood close to the bed, leaning on his arm as she inspected the bandaging, clucking with approval as she did.

'Where am I?' Harvey rasped. His throat was just getting used to taking in air again. Speaking clearly would take a little longer.

'Sacred Heart Hospital.' Yvonne replied, tapping at a monitor on the wall and checking her own watch. 'You were caught up in a terrible accident in the West End. Looks like you were the only survivor.'

'Oh,' Harvey said. 'And I'm handcuffed to the bed.'

'The Police are here to talk to you. They seem to think you're a dangerous criminal or some such. They're in the hallway just waiting for you to wake up. Those restraints are to make sure you stay and listen to them. Now, what is that smell?' she said, wrinkling her nose.

Harvey slumped back into the pillow. 'Tiger balm,' he said.

'Oh, that sounds like one of those ointments gentlemen use for "strengthening the rod"'. She jabbed him in the ribs and winked like a vaudeville entertainer. 'Eastern medicines and all that nonsense. I saw a programme on it once.'

The nurse's voice faded away and Harvey suppressed a wave of nausea that threatened to have him throwing up. Black dots and translucent worms fought a battle beneath his eyelids. He slowed his breathing. Flashes of the fight in Starbucks replayed themselves in his mind. The tight feeling of strangulation and the honey-sweet breath of the yoga warrior as she whispered hatred in his ear. The deafening roar of Ganesha blurred into the crashing articulated truck that smashed through the cafe window and whipped the warrior away and into the wall. He remembered stumbling from the debris, sparks of electricity from broken strip lighting, then a sharp pain in his back.

'Could I have a drink of water?' he asked.

'Sure sweetie.' Yvonne had stopped talking, looking down on Harvey with concern. She poured water into a cup from a nearby jug and raised it to his lips. He let the water flow down his throat.

'Now, if you're well enough to chat to me,' the nurse said. 'You will be well enough to talk to the Police. They have a few questions they want to ask you, see what you remember about the accident. I suppose you can't remember much, but try your best.'

The nurse smiled, patted him on the leg, and left the room closing the door behind her.

Muted voices sounded on the other side of the door. Harvey considered his options. He was bound to the bed, so most likely a suspect in the carnage of the Starbucks accident. But they couldn't suspect him of anything else, so perhaps he could bluff ignorance or feign incoherence until they went away. Once alone he would be able to work on a way to free himself from the bed and make his escape.

Muddy memories of the yoga warrior's taunts returned. Had she followed him from Chinatown? Did she work for an organisation that was connected? Was she using him to remove the Trustees, or was she there to protect them?

The cafe was a location where his abilities would be of little use. No feng shui capable amongst the fixed furnishings. Thus, a perfect place to lay a trap. The yoga warrior had walked into the place and knew Harvey would be there. She was prepped and ready to kill him. So was she the end of it, or was she a contractor hired and the real enemy was still out there? And if so, which on the remaining Valentine Trust had hired her?

A cold dread overcame the constant ache in his body. The pain in his body faded, eclipsed by the fear running through his system, cold and heavy, plummeting into his stomach and settling there. His skin prickled with heat and he looked around for someone to help him breathe. The Trust was on to him. Would he be prevented from inflicting the vengeance on behalf of his sister?

The door opened and he knew he was in trouble. The policewoman he had seen at the scene of Grace's suicide, the cemetery and most recently at Master Loo's shop came walking through the doorway, followed by a large bulldog of a man.

The police woman hung her coat on the back of a chair and smiled at Harvey as she sat down, smoothing her skirt as she did so. The man leaned against the back wall of the room, crossed his arms and glared at Harvey.

Pretty cop ugly cop, Harvey thought.

'How are you feeling?' the woman asked, leaning forward on her elbows, her face full of concern for the apparent injuries on Harvey. He shrugged, then winced as stitches in his chest pinged open. The itching became unbearable and he flexed his arms against the restraints.

The police woman drew a slim tape recorder from her bag and placed it on the side table.

'My name is Detective Constable Amanda Morgan. We are conducting an interview on the premises of the Sacred Heart hospital ward seven. Present is Detective Sergeant Kirkwood. Also present is Harvey Barker, of no fixed abode. This interview is being recorded and the time is ten forty ay em.'

Harvey glanced at the recorder then levelled his gaze at Amanda.

'Could you undo these restraints?' he asked.

'And why would I do that? Let my prime suspect have a chance of skipping out of here?'

'Prime suspect?' Harvey said, tilting his head in a quizzical manner. 'What could I be a suspect of?'

'You tell me. The murder of three people, for starters. Perhaps you were responsible for the woman's death in the cafe too. So make it four.'

Harvey narrowed his eyes. The other policeman shifted his stance and downcast his eyes, seemingly on the verge of interrupting.

Harvey took advantage and played the "innocent bystander" card. 'I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about.'

'I think you know exactly what I am talking about. I think you are a professional killer and know enough to keep the red tape tangled. Do you want a solicitor present before we continue? You can either elect to call your own or I can call the duty solicitor.'

Harvey shook his head, a wry smile on his face. 'I've lost enough blood already. Besides, I don't want the interview to end because I'm amused by this fanciful story.'

'The Serious Crime Unit will be here once your records are circulated through the hospital admittance system,' said Amanda. 'Your name will kick up some flag on some dirt-bag computer and you'll be whisked away quicker than you can flash a smug grin. So I'm getting this on record before that happens.'

'Do you recognise the weapon in this photograph?' Kirkwood finally interrupted, producing a photograph from his pocket and pulling Harvey's attention away. He lay the photograph of Harvey's pistol on the hospital bed. 'This weapon was found at the scene of the Starbucks cafe. The clip empty of seven rounds.'

Harvey remained quiet but glanced back at Amanda. On one level he was aware that she was building a case on him, in a direct and confrontational way. On another level he wanted her to continue. To stay in the room and continue talking to him.

'Does the name Daniel MacDonald mean anything to you?'

'Should it?'

'Daniel MacDonald's house was the scene of a mass slaughter. What the papers are calling "the Walthamstow Warground". Seven men died and one man walked away. A variety of weapons were used in that house, and I think a ballistics comparison will match the weapon found at the Starbucks was also a weapon used at that house.

'All the blood samples from that scene of crime have been matched with the dead mercenaries found on the scene, as well as a very dead Daniel MacDonald. All the blood samples, that is, bar one. Blood samples and traces of scalp hair on the rim of a wheelbarrow. A small cut and a large bruise would be the result,' Amanda referred to the hospital report. 'And it looks as if you have a nasty bruise and contusion on the back of your head, the swelling and colouration conducive with a day old injury.'

At the mention of his injury, Harvey felt the throb at the back of his head. Despite his whole body aching, he watched her intensely. A curl of blonde hair trailed around her neck and shoulders, contrasting with the dark suit. Her blue eyes flashed dangerously.

'Does the name Donald Grace mean anything to you?'

Harvey again shook his head.

'For the record,' Kirkwood said, 'the client indicated negative with a movement of his head.'

'Your description matches that of a pest control worker, the last person to see Mr Grace alive before he tragically committed suicide,' said Amanda. 'The description, right down to the yin yang pendant, came from the secretary who will be able to identify you in a lineout.'

'You say he committed suicide. How can that be murder?'

'You used some kind of gas or other type of poison to affect the balance of his mind. What was it? Some kind of hallucinagen?'

Harvey remained silent.

'Would it surprise you to know that these men were both trustees that sat on the board of a foundation called The Valentine Trust? And that the members of that trust were slowly shrinking? Each one of them being killed off in highly dramatic, violent and unusual ways. A suicide, a tragic explosion, caught up in a shootout. Each one killed in a manner as to not draw the suspicion of a casual investigation, but certainly sending a message to the rest of the trustees.'

Harvey was amazed. Here was this police detective piecing together crimes committed through feng shui. Only a very limited selection of people were aware that such things were possible, let alone identify when it was used. Yet this woman doggedly pursued evidence contrary to the concrete laws of procedural investigation. If she had gotten this far tracking him down, perhaps her uncanny skills had led her to whoever was trying to kill him? Would she be able to help him?

'And if you are in such a non-committal mood, perhaps you can tell me what this is?' Amanda held up a bagua tablet. 'This was found at the Walthamstow scene. And these, 'Amanda held up two more, 'Were amongst the debris of the Starbucks cafe.'

Harvey stared into her eyes. What more do you know, he thought. What else have you discovered about the Trust?

'Perhaps, then, you can explain to me why I've been dragging up these awful memories whenever I hold them for too long?' She threw the tablets onto the hospital bed and pulled her hand back as if she had stuck it in a fire.

'Shall we take a break?' Kirkwood said, gathering the tablets from the bed covers and placing them into an evidence bag.

'No,' Amanda said, shaking her head. 'I'm okay. I want to continue.'

'Fine,' Kirkwood looked dubious, but returned to the far wall.

'Yesterday, you were caught up in an accident in which an articulated lorry ploughed into a city centre Starbucks,' Amanda said. 'You were the only survivor, stumbling from the rubble, until you were struck down by a piece of debris. I was the first officer on the scene, helping any of the injured and making sure you were kept alive. I've seen a few bullet wounds, and knew you had just been shot minutes before. Only the doctors didn't find any bullet, just a wad of bloodied newspaper.

'I know you killed these men. I know what connected them to each other. What I don't know is why you killed them-perhaps I can guess at that-but also, _how_ you killed them. I mean, each one looks like a tragic freak of violence, an accident, a pointless suicide. Yet you were there on each and every occasion. Like a ghoul attracted to death. And now someone is out to end you too. Desperate enough to drive an artic lorry into a cafe where you drink and take pot shots as you emerge?'

Amanda gripped hold of the bed sheets, curling them under her fists.

'Interview ending for a ten minute break.' Kirkwood spoke at the microphone of the recorder, 'Time is now ten-fifty-five.' He clicked the pause button and stood back.

Amanda jerked up, taking a deep breath. She walked from the bedside and Kirkwood joined her by the window.

'Interesting interview technique.' Kirkwood said in a low tone. 'A little unorthodox, usually we like to tease a confession out of the suspect, let them sweat out the guilt. But like you said, you have no time.'

'When is the military arriving?' Amanda asked.

'I would have thought they would be here by now. You may have earned a ride along with Serious Crimes, but the Army will just sweep everything up and stonewall any cooperation from us.' A ping sounded from Kirkwood's jacket and he removed his Blackberry. 'Won't be a minute,' he said, walking from the room while frowning at the miniature screen.

'Can I have a cigarette?' Harvey said.

'No smoking, mate. Or whatever you call yourself.'

Harvey glanced at the bedside table and the paused tape recorder. 'Harvey,' he said. 'Harvey Barker.'

Amanda smiled. She walked to the end of the room and held up the clear plastic bag with the tablets within. She weighed them thoughtfully in her hand.

'What is it with these things?' Amanda asked Harvey, holding up the bag of tablets. 'I get very weird feelings whenever I touch them.'

'What kind of weird feelings?' Harvey asked.

Amanda hesitated, unsure of whether she should continue the conversation. She glanced at the closed door and moved closer to the bed.

'Well,' she said, 'They make me feel blue and kind of depressed. At first, at least. And then I start remembering things from my past. Things I thought I had forgotten, about friends, about family. Always sad memories too.'

'I guess the answer would be not to hold them,' Harvey offered, his voice touched with concern. He knew the effect the bagua tablets would have, the ability to blacken a mood, create inauspicious luck, lace emotions with poison. Whatever the situation between himself and the police, he did not want the detective to suffer needlessly.

'That would be the smart answer, wouldn't it,' Amanda said. 'But I never could leave well alone. It seemed to revolve around one memory in particular. A friend at school. I couldn't believe how vivid the memory was, after all this time. And I haven't thought of her in over ten years.'

'Perhaps you could get back in touch with this old friend. Friends reunited search or something.'

'She's dead,' Amanda said.

Harvey remained quiet. He knew she wanted to talk, so he left a vacuum in the conversation for her to fill.

'And it's not so much the impact of her death that's hurting me, but the guilt I felt years later. She was bullied at school and I was her best friend. I can remember her huddled in a corner, the other girls circled around her like vultures in their brown uniforms, pecking at her with rulers. At the time I thought it was cruel, but just something that would pass. Something to endure and get on with, like maths or the annual end-of-term concert.

'Funnily enough, there weren't many times that Danielle was happy. But she used to love our weekly story time with Mrs Lamborn, who read a chapter of Pilgrim's Progress to the class every month. We would draw the story together as it was read aloud, just us two in the back of the class. Her pictures of Pilgrim were really good and she would draw everyone that Pilgrim met. I guess she saw herself in Pilgrim, and her progress was school.

'Mrs Lamborn stopped reading the story after Danielle died. I think she saw how much Danielle enjoyed the story and she stopped. Out of respect. Or whatever.

'Danielle took her own life. A wonderful girl, the best friend I could have wished for, and she ended her life. It wasn't until years later, after her mother left her father, that her mother came to me with a small pink envelope. Danielle had written me a letter before she died, and the mother was too upset to pass it to me at the time.

'I kept hold of that letter, unopened, for over two months. I was fifteen. Small for my age, sporty but awkward. And all I could see was a finger pointing at me from a dead Danielle, accusing me of all the things I never did, but should have.

'If I could have gone back and stopped those bullies I would. At least confront them, do something. Anything. But instead I stood on the sidelines, waiting for it to be over so I could walk home with her.'

Amanda leant against the windowsill, the sun warming the back of her neck. She didn't feel inhibited about talking about her past to a stranger. It wasn't him she was talking to - it was herself. A therapy session that needed the words to be said, to be out there.

'The guilt almost tore me apart too. I came very close to doing something very stupid. But I didn't, and I sat down one night, opened the envelope and read the letter and cried the hardest I have ever cried in all my life.

'Her words were beautiful to me. Her last thoughts were to hope that I had a good birthday and that she would miss me.

Amanda felt the tears well up and turned to the winter sun.

'I didn't quickly forget Danielle, but I did eventually. The life of a teenager is a heady whirlwind of stuff and nonsense. Unimportant things seem life changing and I grew into me. But something remained. A strength that I've rarely needed but always known is there.'

There was a brisk knock on the door and Kirkwood entered the room.

'Bad news,' he said not looking up from the Blackberry in his hand. 'The Military Police are on the way. Be here in ten minutes and don't want anyone talking to the suspect. Emailed me over a copy of the court order. Court order by email, go figure.'

'I knew it,' Amanda said. 'Well, we had him first. So the least they can do is keep us in the loop.'

There was another knock on the door and the nurse walked in balancing a tray covered with a towel in one hand, deftly closing the door behind her with the other.

'Excuse me,' Amanda said. 'We need to have a little privacy when conducting the interview.'

'This won't take a moment, sweetie,' the nurse said as she placed the tray on a cabinet and removed the towel. Two syringes lay on the silver tray and she took hold of one in her meaty hand. She moved quickly, gripping Kirkwood by the head and firmly plunging the needle into the side of his beef slab neck.

Kirkwood jerked away from the nurse, about to speak, but instead grabbed at his chest. His face squeezed tight in agony.

'Watch,' the nurse said. 'This is my favourite part.'

# Chapter Seventeen

Yvonne sat at a table in the supply room, a finger holding an earpiece to one ear. She could clearly hear the conversation in the hospital room containing the assassin and the two detectives. She doodled on a pad whilst eavesdropping. A large flower dominated the page with random words and small animals dotted around the main sketch. She traced cloud patterns around the words, connecting them to each other around the page, linking together her random words heard from the room.

_' This weapon was found at the scene of the Starbucks cafe. The clip empty of seven rounds.'_ Yvonne listened to the interview in the assassin's room through a listening device she left in a half-open draw. Papa Doc was also listening to the conversation from an adaptor lead plugged in to her mobile phone. If she concentrated she could hear his deep, steady breathing.

She missed the rest of the Tonton Macoute. Having left the laboratory over three weeks ago with instructions to take a position in the Sacred Heart hospital. Papa Doc had assured her that it would only be for a short while, but that if she was going to be needed then she would play a very important role. She was the one best suited for the mission. Her background in medical training, and her special talents.

Prior to her indoctrination with Papa Doc and the Macoute she had been a nurse in the 'Ecole de Medecine' Health Clinic in Haiti. With a ready smile and friendly attitude, never too busy to empty bedpans, prepare patients for surgery and listen with a sympathetic ear. Being able to listen to the pains and agonies of the patients was never a problem for Yvonne. She would smile, eyes brim full of sympathy, absorbing the hurt of these people. Inside, she fed on the misery of the patients, sucking on their experiences like an empathic leech, enjoying the discomfort, the pain and the fear.

Her medical knowledge was uniquely applied to the hygiene of hospitals. The cases of Legionnaire's disease, MRSA and a few other nasty viruses were going to rise in the next few years, thanks to Yvonne's careful replacement of medical supplies and sterile equipment around the supply rooms in the hospital. This was her talent. The creation and nurture of deadly diseases within such places of healing.

The interrogation was interesting. The woman detective revealed fact after fact about each of the trustees, of their untimely deaths and the tenuous connection of the assassin. The woman had doggedly pursued the line of trustee's deaths, stumbling from one to the other, until she sat before the accused in a secured hospital room and had to build a case in minutes to somehow connect the assassin to the deaths. Other governmental agencies were interested in the assassin and she knew that her time on the case was limited. She probably didn't suspect how limited.

Yvonne wanted to kill the police officers and the assassin immediately upon arrival, but Papa Doc had wanted reassurance that the policewoman had acted alone and that the investigation would halt with her death. So Yvonne sat in the supply room, Papa Doc listening in to the interrogation, to assure himself that the detective knew nothing and that they were stumbling around grasping at smoke.

_' I kept hold of that letter, unopened, for over two months.'_ the woman detective was speaking in a low tone. Not tearful, but heartfelt. Yvonne felt pleased that she didn't resort to self pity. The pain in her voice was genuine and palpable and a succulent treat to the eavesdropper. The detective wasn't spinning for sympathy to get more information out of the assassin. This was just the story of a defining moment in her childhood.

'I think I have heard enough,' Papa Doc's voice broke through the transmission. 'Please kill all three. The two detectives you can kill in your own fashion. Rapid disease, MRSA, heart attacks-I don't care so long as it is fatal. By the time the serious crimes unit sort out the scene and unravel the mystery enough to get an investigation along in the right direction, it will be too late. We are accelerating the plan, despite my reservations. Once the remaining trustees are dead and the board resumes the next sitting in two days, there will only be Professor Anderson left. Once the monies start moving from the bank accounts it will cause a huge amount of interest so we have to be prepared and free from distraction.'

'So I can kill the coppers my way?' Yvonne warmed to the instruction.

'Yes. Quick, mind. But the assassin must be dealt with specific consequences required.'

'Specific consequences?'

'The package that was couriered to you this morning-I want you to open it now.'

Yvonne checked for the DHL pouch on the shelf behind her. She ripped open the seal and removed a water canister wrapped in cloth. A white and red cross patch was stitched on one side.

'The bottle contains corrupted Ganges water,' Papa Doc said, 'Handle it very carefully.'

Yvonne gingerly placed the bottle on the table, checking her hand for moisture. There was no leakage. 'Report back to the laboratory when complete.' Papa Doc ended transmission.

Yvonne removed her earpiece and busied herself amongst the shelves. She prepared a tray with two syringes and carefully slipped the Ganges water cask into her coat pocket. She straightened her white hat in the mirror on the door before walking out into the corridor, balancing the tray in one hand like a restaurant waiter.

She opened the door to the private room and both the assassin and the female detective noticed her entrance. The male detective remained absorbed in the electronic device in his hands. The female detective looked especially annoyed, her face flushed and her eyes sparked dangerously. She spoke, but Yvonne was busy and only half heard what she said.

'This won't take a moment, sweetie,' Yvonne said as she took hold of a syringe, gripping it like a dagger and placing her thumb over the plunger. She yanked the male detective's head to one side and stabbed the needle into his carotid artery. The black juice flooded into his system and she stepped back, almost clapping her hands together in the excitement of anticipation.

'Watch,' she said. 'This is my favourite part.'

• • •

Amanda leapt toward Kirkwood, screaming at the nurse to move away. But the nurse swung round on her, levelling the syringe like a knife fighter and blocking her path to the downed Sergeant.

'Sit down,' Yvonne said, all trace of the jovial and caring nightingale now gone. It was a strange sight. The nurse hunched low, the syringe held level before her, guarding any route that Amanda may take. She kept glancing behind her at the spasming policeman, torn between savouring the spectacle and guarding against interference.

'Have you gone mad? We are police detectives and you are ...' Amanda was cut off by the nurse.

'More in this world than your investigation or dead friend's suicide.' Yvonne said. 'Boo hoo for me. Hoo hoo. Now shut up while I enjoy the death here, your turn soon enough.'

'Don't trust her,' Harvey yelled from the bed, thrashing from side to side, pulling helplessly at the handcuffs. 'Run. Get out of here.'

This was crazy, Amanda thought. The world gone mad. But Sergeant Kirkwood was hurt and whatever had been injected into him was surely killing him. Amanda had to act fast.

Wrapping a hand around the coat on the back of her chair, Amanda lunged forward suddenly, flailing the tail of the coat around the hand that held the syringe, wrapping it up in the heavy material.

Harvey shouted again, but neither woman heard, each was intent on the other.

'Your turn now, Miss Police Lady.' Yvonne gripped hold of the coat and yanked hard, pulling Amanda off her feet. Amanda flew into the nurse with the force of the pull, but instead of stumbling, used the momentum to hammer a palm fist into her opponent's body. It was like punching a hay bale. The nurse, barely flinching from the onslaught, smiled widely and swung a fist at Amanda's head. She ducked, but not quickly enough and the fist glanced off her skull, reeling back as she let go of the long coat.

'I drink a little something every day,' the nurse started to dance side to side, unravelling the syringe and throwing the coat to the floor. 'Helps the immune system and makes me a tough old bird.' She kept glancing at the ball of agony that was Kirkwood, his knees brought up to his chest, his hands reaching out but quickly clenching back to his face.

Harvey yelled and screamed, rattling the bars on his bed as he struggled to free himself.

If he shouted an accusation or a warning, Amanda couldn't tell. The nurse in front of her seemed to be enjoying herself. A manic smile and wide, glazed eyes. Amanda patted her skirt, felt the reassuring length of telescopic steel, and slowly withdrew her truncheon from her side pocket. With a flick of her wrist the truncheon expanded two feet.

'You expect to hurt me with that?' Yvonne said, dipping her shoulders as she balanced on the balls of her feet.

'Just a little.' Amanda flicked the truncheon toward the nurse, testing for range. The nurse leant back, then rushed forward. She kicked at Amanda, who side stepped and brought the metal rod down hard on the outreached leg. Amanda expected Yvonne to collapse, the shin struck hard enough to splinter and any normal person would be in agony. Instead, she stepped back out of reach.

'My, but you're a quick one, said the nurse. 'But that's OK. I know something you don't know.' Yvonne readied the syringe in her hand.

'That what, you're a walking advert for Bupa?'

'Your death is forecast. It's read in the stars. You're going to die and I am going to end the assassin.'

'You're as crazy as a bag of cats.' Amanda closed the distance and lashed out toward her face with the truncheon. Yvonne braced against the impact, but the truncheon didn't connect. Instead it sailed past and caught the syringe in her hand. The glass casing shattered and the black liquid sprayed across the wall.

'Noooo!' Yvonne screamed. 'I wanted to watch. I wanted to watch. You bitch!' Her face contorted in rage, spittle flying from her lips as her cheeks flushed purple. She rushed forward, hands held high. Amanda raised the truncheon between the nurse's outstretched arms, spun on her toes as the woman's momentum brushed past her and levered the truncheon to pin the one arm against the other. As the nurse crashed into the wall, Amanda locked the joints of the arm into an agonising swan neck position. Yvonne was held against the wall by the arm lock.

Amanda placed her knee in the small of the nurse's back, holding her truncheon firm.

'You have the right to remain silent, bitch. And if you make a move, I'm going to break your arm.'

'This is not the way it happens,' the nurse seethed through clenched teeth, trying to turn her head to glance at the doorway or the window.

Amanda took out her handcuffs. 'Sergeant Kirkwood?' she shouted behind her. 'Are you there?'

'You should hurry,' Harvey said from his unkempt bed, the covers thrown off from wild thrashing. 'He's over this side of the room. He's moving, but he is in pain.'

Amanda snapped the handcuffs onto one of the nurse's hands. But as she reached for the other, Yvonne stood up, throwing Amanda back across the room, snapping her own arm against the arm lock. The truncheon spun into the wall opposite. She turned round, her face and neck corded with rage, her left arm hanging at an obscene angle at her side. Her eyes were glazed and she was mumbling to herself.

Amanda crawled backwards, appalled at the sight of the woman and the damage she had self-inflicted. She felt the cold steel truncheon beneath her fingers and gripped it tightly.

At that moment Kirkwood cried out, another seizure tearing at his insides and he started to pull himself up the bed. Amanda reached out for him, but he couldn't sense her. He was shaking, his body tense as his heart knotted and twisted within his chest.

Kirkwood knelt at the bed, knuckles white, neck strained as the last of his arterial chambers ruptured. Harvey pulled at the restraints, helpless, as the dying detective stared up at him from the side of his bed.

Yvonne, her face a nightmarish mask, held up a red striped water bottle. 'Make enough for everyone, my Ma used to say.' She uncorked the flask with her teeth and splashed the contents at Amanda.

Amanda flinched as the brackish hit her arm and shoulder. She stared at the nurse, unsure of what she was going to do next.

Amanda was perplexed. The nurse, clearly deranged, had injected Sergeant Kirkwood with some drug and was dying in front of her. The suspect killer was yelling as the nurse attacked her. And now she had splashed her with liquid, like some childish game of water tag.

Then the water sizzled.

• • •

Harvey watched with horror as Amanda was splashed. He recognised the corrupted source water, and knew that the contents of the bottle would have been reserved for use on him. Nothing happened for the first few moments. Amanda stood up, truncheon in hand, and edged toward Kirkwood who had collapsed on the bed.

Then the corrupted Ganges water took effect-and Amanda screamed.

Her arm crumpled. Like a paper bag being roughly scrunched up, the flesh and bones folded in on itself. Amanda collapsed to one side, but the strange effects spread to her limbs and torso.

Her body bent and snapped sideways, creasing on itself in no shape humanly possible. Amanda's body collapsed like a two dimensional paper doll, paper folds of flesh and bone, laying over and over again as her mass was reduced. She desperately reached out with one hand, grasping at the bed railings, staring in horror at Harvey with what remained of her face.

Her screams abruptly ended as her head lay neatly flat against her shoulder, her legs doubling up against her back, and with one final, sickening snap, Amanda folded out of existence.

Harvey fought against the restraints, willing himself to rip the bed frame apart to reach her. The nurse cackled with laughter in the corner of the room, wheezing at the extent of her joy. Harvey yanked one last time at the handcuffs.

'Now that was fun.' The nurse straightened up, swinging the water bottle from side to side. The contents of the bottle sloshing against the inside. 'Are you ready for your enema?' She giggled, placing the bottle on the side and reaching for a transparent tube.

The huge figure of Kirkwood rose up, his face bleached and pale. He gripped Harvey by the hand, slipping a cold metal object into his fingers. 'Help her,' he mumbled, and stood up on shaky legs. With deathly effort, he charged toward the nurse, grabbing her by the waist and barrelling her backwards.

The nurse laughed, 'Still have some fight in you yet, big boy?' But her laugh turned to a scream as Kirkwood lifted her up and smashed through the window, launching them both into the cold air. They plummeted to the ground seven floors below.

Harvey swore. In the palm of his hand lay a handcuff key, courtesy of Kirkwood. He picked the key up with his mouth and unlocked one cuff and then the other. He rose from the bed and peered through the window. The two figures lay in a broken heap on the ground below, white-clothed figures running to the spot from a nearby entrance to the hospital.

He knew what had happened to Amanda, and knew she would soon be dead. The brackish Ganges water, suitably cursed, would send a person into the Umbra. And he had to act soon before he forgot her.

Ganges water also went by another name-potion of Never. The water had not only sent Amanda to a hellish dimension, but also removed the memory of her from every person she had ever met. Friends, relatives, lovers. Anyone who had any contact with her would forget she had ever existed, filling in the blanks of their memories with detritus of their lives. As if she had never been born.

Already the memory of her was blurring. If he didn't do something quickly, he wouldn't remember to care.

# Chapter Eighteen

Bishop Reginald White stared at the crackling fire, his thick thumbs nervously polishing the jewels on the gold cross slung around his neck. So much had happened in the past twenty four hours, his life had been turned upside down and he wondered if it would ever return to normal.

The previous night, as he sat at home enjoying a glass of brandy and a cigar, he was disturbed by a knock at the door. More disturbing still was the man on his doorstep. Olive-skinned, slick black hair in a grey suit, he introduced himself with a flick of a business card. Martyn Puliga, Vatican Envoy.

He spoke with a soft Italian accent, his voice barely above a whisper but with a sense of urgency that White couldn't ignore. 'Bishop, collect yourself a small bag of belongings for a few nights stay. You are coming with us.'

'Us?' White said. 'Stay?'

'Please, sir. There is little time. I have confirmation, from the very highest order, and I am assured that you must come with us for your safety.' The envoy removed a padded envelope from his jacket and handed it to the bishop. He opened it and pulled out a wax tablet. The papal seal. White's throat dried as his fingers traced the indentations. He snapped open the thin wax and removed the paper within. Written in Latin and signed by the pope himself, it gave orders for Bishop Reginald White to follow the implicit instructions of the bearer.

White gathered a few essentials-clothes, cigar case, shaving kit-and threw them in an overnight bag. Envoy Puliga followed him around the house, hovering close to windows and doorways as the Bishop flustered around his three bedrooms.

'Can you at least tell me what this is all about?' White asked, hurriedly searching through drawers.

'No questions, please. Senor Garcia will explain all things.'

'Who is Senor Garcia?' White said, struggling along the landing with his case.

'Please, no questions. Hurry.'

With that, White completed packing and followed Puliga out of the house and to a large black Lexus that was parked across the street. A blocky, grimfaced man emerged from the rear door and held it open. White was ushered into the back seat where another large, grimfaced man sat. White squeezed into the rear of the car and was hemmed in between the two. Puliga sat in the driver's seat and started the engine.

'Everything OK?' the man in the passenger seat asked.

'Fine. Everything is fine,' Puliga replied.

White was uncomfortably crushed between two men in the dark rear seat of the car but decided to keep quiet for the moment. Blue road signs flashed by outside, highlighted momentarily by the car's halogen beams. They were heading onto the motorway.

'Can I ask what is going on now?' White asked eventually. There was a moment's silence as the two men in the front glanced at each other.

'You will have to forgive me. My name is Alessandro Garcia, and I am the Vatican representative sent for your protection.'

'The Vatican wants to protect me? From what?'

'From a witch, of course. Why else would they send a witch finder?' Garcia said. 'We understand it is a low level threat. You are being escorted to a safe location for the foreseeable future, until the threat level turns out to be insubstantial or further instructions are received.'

White remained quiet for the rest of the journey. He was stunned by the reply but too nervous to ask further questions. The men in the car were determined, of a single purpose, and were going to deliver him somewhere. If they made up stories to get him there-then further questions would only bring more ridiculous answers.

They drove through the night, reaching the border of Scotland and beyond. They left the main roads and headed into the hills, stopping at a small, squat castle. In earlier years it would have been a hunting lodge, and if not owned by the church would surely have been remodelled as a hotel for quiet weekend breaks.

The Lexus pulled up to the front doors and more men came out to greet them and unpack the car. All were serious and intent on their task. The bishop was ushered to a state room and instructed to rest. Exhausted by the car journey and the stress of the situation he was asleep within minutes.

He woke to find Puliga at his side with a simple breakfast. 'Time to rise,' he said. 'You are requested downstairs.'

White finished his breakfast in silence and made his way downstairs to a huge reception room, adorned with stag heads on the walls and wildlife oil paintings. Garcia sat in a leather chair before a fire in the grand fireplace and stood as the Bishop entered.

'Thank you for your patience,' Garcia said, beckoning White to sit opposite him.

'Can you explain what is going on?' White pleaded, settling into a chair.

'I'm afraid I have very little to share,' Garcia said, 'Only to say that my mission is to ensure your safety.'

White remembered the warnings uttered by MacDonald at the funeral. _If only he could see me now,_ he thought, _with bodyguards of my own._ 'What is it you're protecting me from? Has it anything to do with the Valentine Trust?'

'If the Vatican had wanted me to know any further details, they would have told me. All I know is that we will be here for a few days, perhaps over Christmas, and we will be informed when the danger is past.'

'It's a little awkward for me, I'm afraid. I have plans over the holidays.'

'Cancelled,' Garcia said. 'We have taken the liberty of informing your secretary of your absence.'

White slumped back into the chair. He was too tired to complain, and events had moved so fast that they left him confused. He reached for a nearby glass of milk.

'Please - do not touch,' said Garcia, shaking his head. 'The milk is not for drinking.'

Bishop White sniffed at the glass and wrinkled his nose. 'This milk is sour anyway.'

Garcia leaned forward and inspected the glass. Chunks of curdled milk appeared within. Small chips of congealed milk at first, then larger lumps, swelling and pushing against the walls of the glass.

Garcia leapt to his feet and grabbed the glass. He shook the contents, which was now a solid lump of curdled milk, the powerful stench ripe in the air. All within a matter of seconds.

'Attencione!' Garcia shouted, throwing the glass to the floor and sprinting to the doorway. He disappeared from the room, slamming the door behind him.

White flinched at the noise of the door and stared at the milky sludge settling into the rich carpet. He wondered what would be so important about a glass of milk that had caused the envoy to react in such a way.

A sharp staccato of noise rebounded from the hallway. Gunfire.

White started at the sound, his heart thudding as fast as the gun shots. He considered calling for help, or perhaps offering assistance, but then he noticed the fire. The flames, previously flickers of yellow with a heart of red and orange, were now a pure, brilliant, vibrant blue. The fireplace shone with a luminescent light, bathing the room in an unearthly glow, and making White's eyes water.

A scream sounded somewhere in the lodge. More screams, then yells and footsteps pounding down a stairway. Silence once more. White found himself moving to the edge of the room, away from the cobalt flame, willing himself to shrink into the darkest corner.

Someone ran down the hallway outside, yelled an incomprehensible curse and crashed through the door. Puliga. He was badly injured, his right arm held to his chest, dripping blood. He grimaced; bloody teeth bared, and pulled out a knife with three blades. One blade was dull grey iron, one silver and the last a blade of sharpened wood. He was mumbling, and if he saw the Bishop, he did not register him. He walked a few paces into the room and turned, waiting as the door smashed open, splintering at the hinges and falling flat on the floor.

A man, stepped fresh from a horror movie, walked through the wreckage of the doorway. It appeared as if someone had poured thirty pints of blood over his head that covered his body. Part of his face, his right shoulder and half his chest were the only places clean of blood. Beneath the blood he was naked, but he was not unmarked. It was scratched and scored throughout with lines of scars, as if a net of scar tissue had been thrown over him and pulled tight against his flesh.

'Just you and I left, pricker,' the scarred man said.

'I'll not suffer you to live, witch,' Puliga said, swiping the distance between them with his three bladed dagger.

'Funny you say that. That's what your superior said just moments before I pulled his entrails out and strangled him with them.'

'You ... you monster.'

'Enough talk. The trustee has to die. If you are foolish enough to stand in our way, then suffer the consequences.' He lunged forward with a blade that was hidden from sight. Puliga scuttled back out of reach, readying his own weapon. But the scarred man thrust again, reaching low and long with a strike that held perfect form.

Puliga leapt back again, readying his three pronged blade, but suddenly found that he couldn't move that arm. Neither could he move the other. He stared down at his chest and at the growing stain of red that soaked his shirt.

'You have done for me.'

'Wilt away, pricker.' The scarred man carried on through the room to Bishop White, who huddled in the corner.

'I don't know your background, Trustee, or why you are worthy. But you are not worth the death of my fellow witches who have fallen under the blades and bullets of the Vatican Witch Hunters.'

'Please. Don't. I ... I can give you anything.'

'I only need one thing from you.' The scarred man said, 'This won't hurt -' He slashed his knife into the side of White's chest, piercing his heart and killing him instantly, '\- did it.'

He caught the Bishop as he fell forward and laid him gently on the floor. He glanced at the blue flame fireplace, tutted, then walked to the telephone.

The number he dialled rang twice then was answered.

'It's done,' he said.

Pause. 'Everyone else.' He nodded then replaced the receiver and left the lodge, dripping blood along the way.

• • •

The phone rang twice. Papa Doc snapped the receiver to his ear. 'Speak.'

'How many of our witches died?' He listened to the grave news then said, 'Come home.'

He depressed the receiver and dialled an international number. It rang fifteen times until, satisfied that it was not going to be answered by the intended recipient, he hung up.

• • •

Natalie Kelly sat in the business class section of the trans-atlantic flight, her laptop on her knee, earphones slung around her neck. She delved around in her bag for her medicine bottle, but gave up after five minutes of frustrated searching.

The laptop pinged and Kelly deleted yet another email sent by her assistant at the London office. The subject line read like the other two deleted a few hours ago- _Urgent. Detective needs to talk to you as soon as you touch down_. The first email gave a telephone number, contact name and sketchy details of what the police, a Detective Morgan, wanted to discuss.

Kelly suspected the urgent nature of the email was connected with the very reason she was on the trans-atlantic flight to New York in the first place.

She was in the London office, enjoying a morning croissant and juice, when the overnight news report hit her desk. She was horrified with the name associated with the 'Walthamstow Warground' headline leader. The victim was Daniel MacDonald, one of the fellow trustees on the board of the Valentine Trust, and already the newsfeeds were hot digging up his past.

Fear ruled her actions. With MacDonald's death, she knew that someone or something was killing off the trustees. It was a fight-or-flight response and she looked to escape London until it had all cleared over.

She told the office she was off to research an article, basing herself in the tiny New York office whilst she was out here. A pretence that was treated with mock surprise. They thought her trip a flimsy excuse for a last minute Christmas shopping trip. In reality, she was scared and wanted to escape the Valentine Trust, London and England. Escape to another country to lie low and wait until whatever was happening to the other trustees led its course. Until it was all over.

The seatbelt lights blinked and Kelly prepared herself for the landing. Seat belt buckled. Vodka downed. Tray in the upright position.

The plane landed at JFK and taxied to a standstill. Kelly filed out of the plane along with the rest of business class.

The line for passport control was long and slow, even in the express line of the privileged. Every person was being questioned in depth, and the queue was agitated even as Kelly joined its end.

She looked about her and stared at a man who walked down the hall behind her. She barely caught his eyes as he looked away. It was not the shy downcast eyes of a flirty glance, but the furtive actions of someone who does not want to be caught. Kelly whipped around and stared straight ahead, her breath quickening and a cold line of sweat pricking her skin. Was she being followed? Had the troubles of London followed her to America? Her heartbeat quickened and her palms moistened and she prayed for this line to quicken and allow her to escape her follower.

She raked her eyes left and right. Were there others following her? Were there murderers creeping up on her to stab her in the back? Kill her in some gruesome way?

Nervously, her heart palpitating and pounding hard within her chest, she stepped into the gap before her as the line shortened. She looked around again, unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched.

• • •

What Kelly did not notice were the hidden security cameras locked on to her nervous attitude. Warning signals were sent to security guards on the main arrivals floor.

It just so happened that each of the airport security personnel were having a particularly bad day too. The spouse of one had walked out on him that afternoon. Another, after studying her horoscope that morning, realised that she would not meet her soul mate the following year. Yet another was bracing himself for a poor decision he was due to make that day, and worried that he shouldn't have eaten that third subway meat platter. Already his stomach was churning.

Security personnel moved furtively through the large hall, picking their way between lines of eager tourists. Someone mentioned the word terrorist through the earpiece. Everyone tensed.

One of the security men unbuckled his sidearm. Another waved him down, recognising that the danger may not be terrorist driven and that panic would be a headline grabber. He loosened his M-26 Taser from its holster. This gun, capable of delivering 40 thousand volts, would stop a charging rhino. It should be more than effective on a lone terrorist disguised as a business woman.

The three security personnel closed in on the woman, slowly spreading to cover the angles so as to keep the business woman in sight at all times. The target was acting furtively. Nervous? Ready to trigger a bomb? Dwight Knowles had been ready for this moment all his life. His wife was bound to return to him if he was a hero of airport security, he fantasised, while flexing his grip on the Taser.

• • •

Kelly started as a faint buzz vibrated in her Prada bag. With a yelp she dropped the bag, scattering the contents among the feet of the waiting passengers. She knelt down, scrabbling for her phone.

Dwight took that moment to shout a warning, which went unheard amidst the clatter of lipsticks and mirrors on the tiled floor.

Kelly turned her back and crouched down, her heart spasming wildly as she realised she hadn't taken her heart pills that morning. The phone rang and, through instinct born of a media junkie, she was desperate to answer.

The line of people were scrambling away now, ripples of panic moving away from Kelly.

Dwight took aim and fired.

Two small prongs of metal stabbed into her back, followed instantly by 40 thousand volts. Natalie Kelly's weak heart wrenched with the shock. Her heart collapsed and she died in the waiting line at the JFK airport, inches away from the mobile phone that rang for fifteen times before ceasing.

# Chapter Nineteen

'Tell me he's dead.' Papa Doc spoke calmly into the phone, keeping the anger from his voice. There was hesitation on the other end.

'The woman is gone.'

'The woman was a buzzing fly. An annoyance. Of course she has gone. But what of the assassin? What of him?' Papa Doc paced along the carpeted hallway in the law firm.

'He is not in the hospital. I think he escaped.'

'You _think_ he escaped?' Papa Doc held one hand over the receiver while he swore in Haitian. He paused and caught his reflection in a mirror. 'Ok,' he said. 'Come to the Duvalier & Rose offices. Arrangements are to be brought forward.'

'Also ...' the voice cracked.

'What?' Papa Doc squeezed the receiver against his ear, prepared, in that moment, to smash it against the wall.

'Yvonne is dead. There are police and secret service everywhere. Was this forecast?'

'Yes,' the lie slipped easily through gritted teeth, 'Come to the offices.' The phone snapped shut.

He stared at the mirror, looking at the shadows gathering in the background behind him. He cast a sign and the dark figures wavered, but refused to disappear. He knew he did not have much time.

Papa Doc flipped open the phone and punched in a quickdial. 'Finn?' he said, before the other end could speak. 'Ready the Macoute. We begin the rituals tonight as soon as the monies are transferred.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And Finn.' Silence on the other end of the phone. 'Don't you let me down too.'

'No sir.'

Papa Doc walked down the corridor and into his office. He sat behind the desk and flipped open the laptop. He opened his email account and proceeded to send the email orders to each of the twenty or so contacts on his list.

Each was a purchase order. Each of the suppliers had been contacted and specifications hammered out to an exacting degree. Each of the suppliers were the absolute expert in their field and commanded the resources to supply the requested orders.

Computer hardware, software, knowledge base and personnel were all ordered with the click of a button. No order was below one hundred million. And with those sort of figures the response would be immediate.

Papa Doc waved distractedly at a shadow in the reflection of the laptop screen. The constant reminder of the terrors that awaited him when he died. The multitude of demons waiting to seek their revenge.

• • •

Professor Saul Anderson knocked timidly on the meeting room door and walked through. The boardroom was dark, with the only illumination the pale glow of a laptop screen at the far end of the table. The figure slumped in front of the glow turned to him.

'Welcome, Professor.' Duvalier beckoned him into the room. Anderson sat at his usual place setting, looking blankly around at the empty chairs. In the semi darkness he could almost believe the shadows of the dead trustees sat at their places, accusing him with hollow stares.

'What do I need to do?' Anderson asked, his voice cracking with nerves.

'Everything is in hand. As it has always been.' Duvalier turned the laptop toward Anderson. 'Enter the necessary codes into the account access sites, if you please.'

Professor Anderson stared at the screen and tapped in an eight digit number. He pressed enter and watched the screen flicker and roll onto the Trust accounts page.

Papa Doc reclaimed the laptop and drifted through the accounts tabs, clicking and tapping at the keyboard. Anderson watched him for half an hour. Papa Doc worked in silence, hunched over the laptop like a vulture, his black eyes hungry.

'What happens now?' Anderson asked.

'Now?' Papa Doc glanced from his work, eyes wide and face shiny. 'Now, we reap what we sew. Decades of preparation building up to this one glorious moment. This is the moment that the buttons are pressed and the world ends. Or at least my world begins.'

'You mean that disease ends. The end to all suffering. A cure to the ills of the world.'

'Ah, yes,' Duvalier resumed tapping at the laptop. 'That.'

'We are investing in the Genome project and the technical access that it provides, aren't we?' Anderson asked. 'I signed the final documents as sole representative to the Trust. I have a responsibility to know that these things are being done.'

'Charting the ancestral stepping stones for the Book of Life?' said Papa Doc. 'Yes, yes. It is all going forward as planned. The workforce in Karachi is now under our employ, dedicated to serving up the remaining gaps in our knowledge tree. We will have the entire population of the world accounted for by tomorrow morning. And then the fun begins.'

'The fun?' Anderson said. 'You mean the analysis. Tomorrow our work starts. Identifying every disease and disorder, every malfunction and illness. All mapped out to every individual in the world. The glory I will receive when we reveal the one true map of life to the scientific community, and the world.'

'Your glory?' Papa Doc smiled. 'Ah yes, _your_ glory.' He paused. 'I am going to die in a few day's time. Natural causes, if you are interested. No cards necessary. A gift to your favourite charity in lieu of flowers, thank you.'

'Die?' Anderson said, his train of thought derailed by the admission.

'I have extended my life for as long as I can. Through the death of innocents. Many pacts with the Devil, you might say. But there is only so much this earthly frame can withstand. And my time is nearing.'

'I ... I'm sorry to hear that,' Anderson said.

'Sorry? I think not.' Papa Doc cracked his knuckles and smiled. 'But then, I have secured my future in the afterlife, Professor. Bought myself the ability to withstand the tides of hatred that awaits my death.'

'Does this have anything to do with your junk DNA project? Do you have an answer?'

'An answer, yes. And one that may well surprise you!' Papa Doc removed a purple kerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. 'You see, I know the secrets of the so-called junk DNA.

'The evidence has been all around for your scientific community - alas, too aloof to hold much credence in alternate medicines, eastern practices or new age theories.

'As the genome project is mapping the known DNA and calling it the Book of Life - we are currently mapping the junk DNA and calling it the Book of the Soul.

'As we can determine the DNA sequences for the physical in an individual, so we can identify the DNA sequences of his soul. His spirit. His very being. We can look into the very heart of a man's soul.'

Duvalier gritted his teeth as he spoke, a glimmer of madness in his eyes.

'And once I know it, I can own it.'

Professor Anderson stood in shocked silence. 'This really is ridiculous. You can't measure a man's soul. Let alone manipulate it or ... or own it.'

'Just cannot let go of that empirical thinking, can you Professor. But what if the soul can be measured? And weighed, and considered and, even, dissected. This little project of ours will account for every living person's junk DNA. The Genome project mapped the useful DNA - we will be mapping the rest. Every blood sample ever taken, logged and scanned and traced through the population of the world.'

'And you think that will show you what a man's soul looks like?' Anderson could barely keep the mocking scoff from his voice, 'I would dearly like to see that.'

Duvalier clapped his hands together. 'Well. You are in luck, Professor, because I can show you exactly what a man's soul looks like.'

Papa Doc snapped the laptop shut and walked to the door. He turned and waited impatiently until Anderson followed him. They strode through the quiet corridors to the lifts, where Papa Doc punched the button for the top floor.

They travelled to the top floor in silence. The doors swished open and they walked into a glass-roofed office. Anderson had never visited this top level and he gazed above him at the stars, pale yellow moon and the black outline of clouds that scudded gently across the night sky.

A glass top dome amplified the star-light within the large room, and Anderson appreciated the architecture of the construction. It gave the impression of the interior of a cathedral, albeit open to the skies.

'Very impressive.' Anderson said, turning to Duvalier. But he was nowhere to be seen. It was then he took in the rest of the room. It certainly had no place in the modern city office.

A strange stone idol dominated the far end, hewn from red and grey clay, with spots of shiny wetness around the edges. It resembled some ethnic fertility god with teeth. There was also the acrid aroma of poultry close by.

A hand clamped Anderson's head to one side and a sharp pinprick jabbed into his neck. His body buzzed and became like runny dough and he was lowered to the floor by unseen hands. Papa Doc loomed out of nowhere and leaned in close to him, smiling his bleached white, tombstone smile.

'Not long now, Professor. Then all will be revealed and you will finally, truly understand.'

• • •

'Do you believe in the soul, Professor? That spark of life that makes me me and you you?' Papa Doc's voice drifted from the darkness.

A cowled figure walked around the glass-domed office, inspecting the chalk lines of a pentagram marked on the floor. He folded a sheet of paper in his hands as he walked.

Another figure knelt at a line of candles, lighting each with a taper. His wrists and hands covered in scars.

Anderson tried to rise up, but couldn't move. His body was paralysed, outstretched inside the pentagram so that each of his limbs pointed to four of the five points of the star. His head pointed to the fifth. The injected drug in his system numbed his body but not his senses. He could feel everything. The cold tile floor beneath him, the waft of ventilated air. And as he watched the figures move around him, he wanted to scream and shout. But he couldn't. He was helpless.

'I have the means to create a soul-bound servant on Earth.' Duvalier said. 'It was my stock in trade when I was in power. Haiti was the perfect place to practice my art. The Tonton Macoute were my army, dedicated to me.

'A mix of narcotic powders and spirit calling rituals and I could create a multitude of soulless, demon-possessed followers. The voodoo paraphernalia is all for show, of course. Well, mostly for show. But with their dying whisper I would have their power on this earth. I thought I was invulnerable - no-one could touch me.

'I was a powerful man, my power measured in the many enemies I made. But the enemies I had on Earth were nothing compared to the enemies waiting for me in the afterlife. Such things would not occur to a young man in the prime of his life.

'My eyes were opened during a failed coup and an attempt on my life. Although the traitorous rebels failed to kill me, they did murder my mistress and our son.

'I witnessed the torment and torture they underwent as they were dragged into the pits of Hell. And later communes, through trance dancing and sacrifice, told me of their suffering because of their connection to me. And of the fate that awaited me once my soul was delivered to them.

'No matter how powerful my Macoute were on Earth I would be spending an eternity in torment.

'This did not suit my purposes. I was not about to become a pauper in the hells after living the life of a prince on Earth. So what to do?

'I realised that I would be able to extend my life only so far. And my Macoute were of limited help in protecting me in the Umbra, or the Hells. So small in number, and tied as they are to the person they inhabit.

'I can add to my Army of Macoute, but the process is slow and I am wary of the constant danger of discovery. What I needed was an Army of Macoute to protect me in the afterlife. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions!

'The answer soon became obvious, but it would require huge backing. The measly embezzlement from Haiti would hardly be enough. So I took a position on the infamous Valentine Trust, and bided my time before corrupting a Trustee and manipulating the demise of the rest of the board.

'After the publication of the Genome project, and the scientific community's dismissal and utter ignorance over the so-called junk DNA, I set in place a number of contracts for research and development.

'The general interest in the DNA registration of the population and the ancestral tracking meant that you were the ideal candidate, Professor Anderson. And you were as blind to the potential and the consequences of junk DNA as the rest of the white coats.

'Within the junk DNA, amongst the strings of letters, reside a person's soul. Their petit bon ange, the _ti bonanj_ , is used to create my Earth bound Macoute Tonton. But it is the gros bon ange that I am interested in. The _gwo bonanj_. That part that moves on.

'I have yours on the screen, Professor Anderson. Here it is - a string of letters - scrolling past my eyes quicker than I can read them. But it is all here. Your soul. And with those string of letters comes the translation in a language so old it would make you blush. This is the name of your _gwo bonanj_. The name of your soul.

'On your death I will have your _gwo bonanj_ possessed and under my control. You will be the first of my Macoute army in Hell.

'And with the database of every living person on Earth, I have the power to ensure that each person who dies has their _gwo bonanj_ possessed and corrupted and inducted into my army.

'Ah, at last I see understanding light behind those dull, empirical eyes. You learned scientists have worked so hard to register everybody living. Allowing me to posses them upon their death!'

Finn lifted the hood to his robes so that the dim moonlight caught only his nose and chin in stark relief. He motioned to the shadows and, one by one, Tonton Macoute walked forward, taking their place around the Pentagram.

Finn walked to the bank of computers on the far wall and stroked his hands along the plastic panels. He sat at the central PC and tapped at the keyboard. He mouse clicked the single icon on his own computer monitor and pressed run. The machine whirred into life and lights popped up around the bank of machines.

'Professor Anderson's profile is set,' said Finn.

'And now to call upon dark assistance to look favourably upon the venture.'

Anderson's eyes snapped up as Duvalier loomed into view. He took a dull bladed knife in one hand and, speaking quietly and in mixed languages, pulled up a black cockerel from behind him. He cut the cockerel's throat in one practiced swipe and dangled the flapping body over Professor Anderson. A bright red rain showered over him.

Papa Doc threw the cockerel to one side, gripped the knife in both hands and plunged it into Anderson's chest.

A powerful heat flared inside Anderson, bright like a collapsing sun, and then he died.

The body became a red fountain as blood pumped up through the hollow hilt of the knife, the last few beats of the heart spurting the blood high into the air. The room was filled with a fine mist as the blood rained down into the pentagram, the chanting rising higher and higher.

Duvalier stood next to Finn, watching the screens blur with backlit text. He glanced down at his palms. Normally dry and steady, they were now moist and shaking. This was the culmination of over thirty years of planning and murder. If this didn't work? Papa Doc wiped the thought from his mind and concentrated on the central screen.

The text stopped abruptly. A name floated on the screen.

'It's complete,' Finn said. 'And it worked. Your army begins.'

Papa Doc relaxed his grip on the chair. 'Good. I have a number of phone calls to make. You stay here and--'Duvalier whipped round and stared at the empty doorway.

'Is somebody there?' he said.

# Chapter Twenty

Amanda stumbled backward against the hospital wall after Yvonne the nurse threw the brackish water at her. She remembered thinking that the liquid may have been acid, but it didn't burn on contact. And then her world folded in on itself, quite literally.

Snatches of crazy images played over in her mind and at one point she felt her head crack hard against a surface and she lost consciousness for a moment. Then she was on her feet, bracing herself against the anticipated assault. But the onslaught never happened and Amanda stepped forward, snarling as the pain kicked up her aggression levels. Then she halted as she took notice of the changed world around her.

A grey sepia tint drained colour from the world.

It was the same room, the same bed, the same view from the window. But everything was without life and vitality and in some way that made her queasy, without definition. Smudged by the deft touch of an artist's eraser, the suggestion of dimension and relief lay in the dark and light shading.

A blurry figure moved in front of her and she recognised the heavyset nurse. Her features and clothes were grey, her face a charcoal sketch. But within her skin, wearing her body like a baggy jumpsuit, was a hollow eyed creature, more bone than flesh. It was looking away from her, staring at the prisoner. Pinprick yellow eyes bore into the figure on the bed.

Amanda rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. She couldn't move, couldn't react. The situation was skewed, chaotic, and things seemed to be happening fast.

She looked about desperately, trying to make sense of the situation. _It must be a result of the knock to the head,_ she thought, _I have to move. To get some help. Perhaps Kirkwood can -_

Amanda looked over to where Kirkwood lay slumped on the bed-and caught the scream in her throat.

A grotesque, brightly coloured _creature_ sat on top of Kirkwood's body, chewing on one of his fingers. The thing regarded Amanda with cobalt cold eyes. Its skin was the painful scarlet colour of a fresh wound, flashes of brilliant white that were its long nails and teeth, and eyes of purest blue.

It looked so _real_. Squatting on Kirkwood's faded figure like a demon from a horror movie. It reminded Amanda of a demonic imp from a wonderful religious painting she had stood in front of on a school Museum trip. The stark bright colours. The ungainly posture. The impossible reality inhabiting the real world.

Kirkwood lurched to his feet and leant over the prisoner. The demon flopped from him and landed on the floor with a squeal. Kirkwood mumbled something then stumbled toward the nurse. He picked up speed and grabbed her around the waist, his head tucked to one side in a classic Rugby tackle. Both were momentarily indistinct sepia silhouettes against the daylight, until his momentum carried them both forward and through the window.

There was no sound of breaking glass, just the picture of Kirkwood and the nurse flailing through the window and disappearing from site.

Amanda rushed to the window, but the ground below was an oilslick grey of movement. She couldn't make out if Kirkwood had survived the fall, or whether the nurse was still alive.

'Officer Morgan, are you there?' A whisper.

The demon remained still, hunched on the bedside cabinet. It stared at her.

Again, the hushed voice called out. 'Officer Morgan, can you hear me?'

Amanda turned slowly, not wanting to lose sight of the creature. Afraid that if she didn't keep it in her vision it would scurry up at her. The blurred figure of the prisoner was closeby, she could see the shadow of his mouth open and close.

'Yes, I can hear you,' she said. 'I've hurt my head and everything's strange.'

'You have to remain calm.' The voice was muffled and badly lip-synched. She massaged her ears to feel any sensitivity or pain. There was none.

'What was that liquid the nurse threw at me?' Amanda asked. 'Was it poison? Am I drugged?'

'It was a something to send you to another place. Now please, do not make too much noise. Do not draw any undue attention to yourself. I have to consider what to do next.'

Amanda reached out to touch the prisoner. Make some connection with something solid and human. Her hand grabbed at his wrist, but failed. It felt as if she were sinking her hand into custard, then it passed through his arm. She whipped her hand back, staring at it. She reached out again, this time to his chest. There was slight resistance, and then her hand sank into his body.

'Have I gone insane?' she said aloud.

'What?' The prisoner said, unconcerned that her hand has midway in his chest. 'Insane? Yes. Why not. You're mad and have withdrawn into a fantasy world. You're on some monstrous acid trip.'

Amanda withdrew her hand. 'No. I'm not. I would know insanity. This is not it. I've had bad reactions to a pill or two - and they just leave you feeling sick and demented and not a little paranoid. This is something far wackier-and anyway, you know what's going on, don't you. You knew to call for me and you knew what that muck was that the nurse threw at me. So, what exactly has happened to me?'

'Ok. Brace yourself, because what I am about to explain may be hard to accept.'

'Hard to accept?' She said, eyeing the creature by the door. _There are not many things I would find hard to accept at this point._

'You are between our world and one of seven hells. Trapped there by the liquid thrown at you by the nurse.'

'You see, that's not so hard to take in. Nurse, water, and now I'm in a hell.' The demon chewed on a nearby cable and continued to watch Amanda. She narrowed her eyes at it.

'I didn't mean to scare you. It's not a _hell_ as such, no. More of a midway point between the real world and another, darker place. A penumbra between your world and the next.'

'That crazy old coot,' Amanda said, half laughing. She warmed to the memory of the conversation with Mr Loo in his China town emporium. 'He warned me not to risk upsetting the devils.'

'It's important that you don't draw attention to yourself. It is very dangerous where you are.'

'Dangerous?' The creature shifted its weight on the cabinet, stretching bandy legs.

A pause. Harvey whirred around. 'Is there anything with us in the room?'

'Some _thing_ is sitting on the cabinet. It was attached to Kirkwood when I first saw it, treating him like a buffet table. How is Sergeant Kirkwood? The other detective?'

'He's dead, I'm afraid. He freed me and took the nurse through the window.'

'Dead,' Amanda mumbled. She wanted to cry, but couldn't feel anything in her stomach. She couldn't feel the sadness she knew was there.

The demon let out a hiss. Its mouth curved up and it looked as if it was smiling.

'The thing is creeping me out,' she said.

'Keep away from it. I'm going to see someone in Chinatown that may be able to help. I may be some time. But I will return. It is very important that you stay here and do not draw attention to yourself.'

The sepia prisoner left the room and Amanda stared at the colour-splashed demon.

A flicker of movement caught Amanda's eye. Another creature was in the room. This one resembled a shadowy newt running across the top of the wall. Crystalline black skin with pinpoint ruby eyes. The thing ran in an 'S' motion along the edge of the ceiling.

Amanda wasn't the only one who had been attracted to the motion. The other demon watched the newt's passage with the interest of a cat.

'You are one ugly, evil little critter.' Amanda edged around the bed, keeping herself as far away from either creature as she could. Unfortunately, moving was a mistake. The larger demon rose slowly onto its haunches, scratched its belly and regarded her with renewed interest.

'Down boy,' Amanda said, backing against the wall.

The demon hopped onto the bed and walked, like a bowlegged clown, down the length of the bed toward her. Biting down on the bile of panic, her hand reflexively gripped the truncheon still in her hand. The reassuring touch of a telescopic steel baton.

The demon stood at the end of the bed and risked a claw, swiping it at the air in front of her. Amanda gripped the baton, and felt a tingle through her hand and down her arm. The baton illuminated with a soft blue. The demon's eyes widened and its head followed the strip of light, hypnotised by the glow.

With a quick step, Amanda whipped the baton against its head. The creature screamed as it snapped to the side, a smoking crack running over its skull. It reared up and hissed and Amanda struck it again, bringing the baton down solidly on the crown of its head. It slumped onto the bed, lifeless.

The smaller, black carapace newt scuttled from the wall and leapt onto the bed next to the creature. It opened jaws impossibly big for its tiny frame and gnawed its fill.

Amanda panted, long drawn out breaths filling her lungs to painful capacity before exhaling slowly. Whatever the things are that inhabit this place, whether this place is a figment of an insane mind or indeed the next step to hell. At least they could be hurt. This gave her courage. Allowed her to focus on more than the weirdness of the room and her dead colleague. More than the prisoner with a promise to help.

With a growing confidence, Amanda opened the room door. The corridor was empty, but with distant sounds of movement. Amanda stepped out of the room and walked through the grey passages of the hospital. Where there should have been sharp antiseptic smells there was only a stale earthy smell, barely susceptible. Hardly recognisable as Christmas decorations, garlands of dark tinsel were strung throughout the halls.

It was as she remembered from the morning's visit - but with no colour or vibrancy. The place accentuated shadow and dark corners and even the strip lights running along the centre of the hallways were cloudy dim.

The hospital had lost any life and vitality, draped as it was in grey shrouds, darkening in odd blotches throughout. The shapes of sepia people were all around too, either passing her in the corridors or slumped on beds within wards. Everyone shuffled or moped or plodded, seemingly as sapped of energy as they were of colour.

Amanda walked along the halls, looking around in sad amazement. Many of the people had brightly coloured demons clinging to their backs, or their heads, or dangling from various parts of the body. These creatures chattered to each other as their hosts passed in the corridor. They swung playfully from hair, digging claws deep into the flesh to ensure their purchase on their host was secure.

She moved closer to a particularly large demon who clung to the back of a doctor. It's green, warty carapace shone with greasy yellow boils, and its large blood-drip eyes regarded her with contempt. The doctor, whom the demon was sitting on, bent over and gobbled some pills from her pocket. The demon seemed to preen and squeal with delight, scratching at the doctor's neck and chest. Amanda edged closer, curious at the horror of what was happening. Suddenly, it hissed a mouthful of razor teeth at her, spitting and snarling. Amanda leapt back, slamming into the opposite wall. The thing on the doctors back continued to hiss as the doctor staggered on her way into a children's ward. Amanda's last glimpse was of the thing glaring at her, defying her to approach again.

The hospital waiting area was gloomy and dark. Huddled people sat in uncomfortable chairs. Most of them had a colourful glittering demon clutching to them. Amanda walked by and out through the open doors, careful not to approach too close to any of the demons, who were obviously unsettled by her presence.

The streets of London were as drab as ever. The grey landscape bleaching what little colour the city had. A clotted sky diffused any shadows with an overcast light so that far away objects and buildings seemed to merge together and it was difficult to perceive any sense of depth or distance.

The people too seemed to merge together. Like a grey mercury stream that softened features and individualism and allowed a blending into the greater mass. Some individuals managed to break free of the clinging form, to slouch briefly in the lank streets, only to be pulled once more back into the mass as a flow caught them up and moved in the same direction.

A leaden figure, a small girl from the height and indistinct clothes, stumbled in front of Amanda, and she instinctively reached out to help her. A hissing claw narrowly missed her arm as an imp, clinging to the girl, scratched out. Another imp, a twin to the first and perched on the same child, joined its kin, furiously clawing at the air inches from Amanda. The small figure regained her balance, half pulled to her feet by a matronly woman leading her by the hand, a fat, sparkling blue demon riding atop the woman's shoulders.

'Why does she have two of those things?' Amanda said out loud. No one answered her.

She watched the young girl, her feet dragging, as she was led down the street. The two demons sank their claws deep into the girls back and shoulders.

Unbidden, Amanda followed.

The girl and her ward stopped outside an imposing building. Thick black threads clung to it like vines, dark cracks running up the walls and windows. It was a bank, a hunched and crooked doorway leading into an inky interior.

The little girl with the twin demons was dragged inside and swallowed up by the gloom. Biting hard on her lip, Amanda walked up to the bank and followed into the foreboding darkness.

# Chapter Twenty-One

The area lightened as Amanda walked into the bank. A dank marbled hall and a domed ceiling with diffused lighting cast a ghostly pallor about the place. Sepia people mulled throughout the hall, shuffling in queues. Most of the people within the bank had a creature clinging to them, brilliant beacons of colour in the wash of grey.

Movement from the shadows made Amanda glance behind the tellers screen.

Sitting behind the ranks of tellers, high up within a huge alcove where foggy light filtered through a semi circle of windows, was an enormous demon. Razor-thin, spindly, elongated arms draped across the ledges running against the wall, splayed legs hooked up and over the partition between staff and customer, it surveyed the bank with polished gold eyes. It immediately snapped onto Amanda, sounds tumbling from its split mouth like the rustling of paper. Amanda eyed the demon, but ignored its hisses and continued to move through the crowd.

Amanda caught sight of the little girl, standing next to a small desk whilst her mother argued with a bank clerk. The two demons scratched at her scalp and leered about the hall. One of the things caught Amanda staring and, with malice in mind, raked its claw along the shoulders of the girl.

She didn't know where this rush of redemption came from. Perhaps this was a world of her own making, a dreamworld, and she was currently in a hospital bed wired up to a life support machine that drip fed her nutrients as she lay in a vegetative coma. But things were so easy in this world. So easy to see the badness. The evil. The wrongness. And so easy to respond to it - the only way Amanda could respond to the leering, taunting bullies that sat atop people.

Amanda strode over to where the girl slumped, withdrew her baton, flicked, and swung at the sneering bright yellow face of the demon. She caught it squarely on the cheek, shattering bone and cartilage, and the thing dropped from the girl, screaming. The other demon responded, joining its twin in a duet of rage, until Amanda reversed the whip truncheon and swiped the thing from the girl's shoulders.

The twin demons squealed about the floor, yelping, snapping at each other, fighting like a couple of bear cubs, then stilled themselves as a howl echoed through the hall. Within moments, a sleek demon, pouncing along on all fours, leapt through the doorway and towards the imps. The two screamed in unison, clinging to each other as this predatory demon scooped them up in an oversized maw and crunched them to silence.

The hall hushed. Whilst the people continued to slouch through their actions, every brightly-coloured demon in the bank stared toward the commotion. Amanda gripped the truncheon and backed from the creature warily. She recognised its newtish features from the hospital wall, though it had grown fivefold and considerably more dangerous looking.

The enormous demon behind the counters shifted forward. It looked first at Amanda, then the sleek newcomer, then back at Amanda.

'Well,' Amanda said. 'We can do this one of two ways.'

The horde of demons stared at her, enraptured. The enormous fiend leaned over, stretching his drainpipe arms to brace itself on the money counter. People in line shrank back from the tellers, unconsciously reacting to the menace and rage building up within the bank, waves of anger emanating from the thing behind the teller screen.

Amanda gripped the truncheon and swung it about her in large wide arc. The blue glow at the tip of the length of metal trailing like the tail of a comet. She edged toward the door, the sea of sparkling demons crowding toward her, their hosts shuffling together in some other world.

A crystal-green imp riding the jowls of a portly man reached out a claw, catching Amanda on the shoulder, tearing a razor slice in her jacket. A thin line of blood welled from the cut and Amanda felt a burning pain in her arm. Instinctively, she hit out at the bloated thing, smacking it from its perch. The imp screamed, hanging on to the clothes of its host, swinging wildly inches from the floor.

In a blur of black fur and white teeth, the sleek newt-demon tore the swinging imp from its purchase and snapped bones with a crunch of its jaws. The bank full of unholy fiends screamed in rage, clubbing their hosts with taloned fists. The sea of hatred washed over Amanda in palpable waves.

The large spindly demon lurched from its place behind the counter, a glistening crystal streak across the shadows of the bank. Huge talons raked at the crowd in the other world, causing people to flinch, as he jumped in front of Amanda. The fiend spread its arms out wide, almost touching each side of the bank's walls with its talons, and shoved its head close to Amanda's. A fetid stink rolled from its maw.

Amanda whirled to her left, narrowly dodging the enormous claw behind her. She barrelled into the blurred figure of a banker, her skin crawling at the sensation of passing through the disembodied figure. She broke through the queue of people who had hesitated in the doorway, their piggyback demons reacting to the presence of an enraged Duke of Hell.

She stumbled into the street and turned to face the bank entrance, truncheon held high and ready to attack. The enormous demon shoved its head from the archway, alien sounds pouring from its open mouth.

Amanda backed away slowly. The thing remained in the doorway, watching her intently. Once she knew that the demon wasn't going to leave the bank Amanda continued along the street, following the patterns of movement of people in another world.

The creatures were everywhere. They clung to people who themselves were unaware of their presence. Amanda started to recognise different types of the squatter imps, by colour, by features. She was able to inspect them close up, unafraid of their claws. She even struck out at a few of them, sometimes smashing them from their host and kicking them away.

It was some time before she realised she was half a mile from her apartment. She couldn't remember crossing over half of northern London, but the streets and lanes, albeit clogged with dark threads, were unmistakably her neighbourhood.

As she headed down her road, she almost walked into a vibrant red cord that ran from somewhere ahead back past her and into the city centre. It was as thin as a piece of string, shiny wet and pulled taught.

Amanda reached up to the cord, then hesitated. Was it moving? Ebbing slightly, as if something passed within its interior?

Amanda walked along the pavement following the red line. She was surprised to see it curve round a corner and head directly into her front door. The cord passed through the wood and disappeared within.

Steeling herself, Amanda pushed against the door and moved sluggishly through it. The red cord led through her landing and turned into her kitchen. A soft scratching sound emanated from close by.

Amanda held the truncheon behind her arm, hidden from view but ready to strike with a flick of the wrist. She edged carefully into the kitchen.

Sitting on the work surface, legs dangling, was a demon-human hybrid. It was the same double exposure effect as the psychotic nurse in the hospital. A creature housed within person.

The outer features she recognised from the Cambridge laboratory. In the real world his clear blue eyes were startling. In this umbra he was grey faded like everyone else. But beneath his grey façade, a red and bone white creature stretched and distorted his skin. The red cord led straight to his chest.

The creature within saw her first and the parody human-shape it wore swivelled round seconds later. He raised his hand, a sliver of metal appearing in his palm and he lurched forward. The demon screamed, the sinews on its neck expanding and threatening to burst apart, its body flexing and testing the fragile limitations of the human skin it inhabited.

Amanda leant back as a silver streak narrowly missed her throat. She responded by whipping her truncheon up, cracking the jaw of both human and demon. It staggered back, smoke dripping from the wound like blood, then charged at her.

Amanda sidestepped, spinning on her heel like a matador. The demon-hybrid rushed past her and crashed into the kitchen wall. With recent memories of the struggle with the nurse in the hospital, Amanda was acutely aware of how tough the fight might get. From her vantage point, she clubbed the thing once, twice, three times, catching the back and side of its head.

It swaggered from side to side, punch drunk, and Amanda stepped quickly inside its guard and delivered a coup de gras, swiping the tip of the truncheon against its forehead. Man and demon crunched to the kitchen floor, smoky ichor leaking from the skulls.

Amanda stared at the monstrosity, wondering what could create such a match. The demon clearly nestled within the gel of flesh. She shuddered.

On the kitchen table, close to where the thing had idly waited, was a black and decker nail gun. The packing was ripped open and discarded on the floor, and two packs of nails were lying next to it. _Was this the DIY serial killer?_ Amanda did not want to consider what purpose the thing may have had planned for that.

She crept stealthily through to her bedroom, wondering what the intruder may have kept as a token. The room looked untouched. Amanda peered into her bedside mirror though she couldn't see herself in the greyed out surface.

As she stood to leave she noticed a ragged piece of material hung on the back of the door. Out of place, she moved close to inspect the cloth but froze, realising what the material was.

Her cat, Jasper, white fur scuffed and torn, pinned to the bedroom door with four nails.

Amanda examined the dead cat. She knew that she should be heartbroken, but none of the familiar waves of emotion engulfed her. She was sad for the cat, and annoyed at the intruder who, obvious now he was waiting to kill her, but why kill her cat as well?

But then, the intruder wasn't truly human. He was a human crossed with a demon and some kind of crimson cord stretching out from his body.

Amanda walked back into the kitchen and nudged the intruder with her foot. The red line shifted an inch, stretching out of her flat, down the corridor and away into the distance. Back towards London city centre.

With growing curiosity, Amanda decided to retrace her steps and follow the red cord back into the city. She had found one end of it, the fish tethered to a line. Now to discover who, or what, held the rod at the other end.

She made her way along the familiar streets, winding back in to the busy city.

As the streets became canyons, high cliff buildings, grey and splintered with dark cracks rising either side, Amanda became more adventurous with the spitting imps and demons that rode on the backs of nearby pedestrians. With a casual swipe of her baton, she batted at a glittering yellow thing clinging to a teenage boy. It squealed and limped away, dragging a broken limb along the ground.

_If this is my madness,_ she thought, _then at least I 'll be the one to be feared._

The red line tracked through the streets of inner London, passing shops and hotels, landmarks and wartime statues, tube lines and bus routes, until it led through a familiar road. A gnawing suspicion and sense of inevitability confirmed itself as Amanda rounded a corner and saw that the red line led to the 'Duvalier & Rose' law firm.

_Of course. If this is my descent into madness, then my issues would only be tied to this tomb._ She chuckled and followed the cord through the streets, leading down to the familiar block of old buildings, the red line passing through the smoky glass doors of the Lawyers firm and into the dark interior.

A number of other red cords led out from the office doors, splitting away down various roads, umbilical lines attached to 'who knows what' at the end.

The building cast long shadows about it, ink-black blotches obscuring an alleyway and the corners of the firm. The darkness rippled intermittently like the surface of a deep pond.

Amanda paused. The foreboding atmosphere was certainly different to anything seen so far. Was this the root of her problem? Perhaps a sign from her subconscious that would need to be confronted?

She passed through the doorway and into the lobby. Quietly, she walked up the stairs. Each level seemed deserted but the red threads wound up the stairwell heading to the top floor.

At the top of the building a set of doors were propped open to reveal a scene reminiscent of her childhood. A group of people stood in a circle, hoods pulled up from their robes so that they looked like sharp beaked vultures, huddled over a victim. It reminded her of the faceless school gang that surrounded a bullied victim.

She recognised the man at the far end of the room talking in his slow, hypnotic tone. Duvalier. Around him, like a great cloak thrown about his shoulders, were dark forms crushing in and around him. Black shapes with distorted faces pressed into the space in the air surrounding him. Monstrous and menacing and dripping with evil. As Duvalier paced through the room, so did the demonic impressions behind him. Never touching but always reaching out.

Duvalier stopped next to a computer terminal, a soft glow catching his features, talking about his previous life. His words were clear and Amanda listened with a growing fear.

_' I have the means to create a soul-bound servant on Earth.'_ Duvalier said. _' It was my stock in trade when I was in power. Haiti was the perfect place to practice my art. The Tonton Macoute were my army, dedicated to me._

He talked about Tonton Macoute. About an army in the afterlife. About taking possession of a person's soul. About commanding someone like a robot made flesh. It was ridiculous. It was impossible.

And Amanda believed every word.

With a startling moment of clarity, she realised that this was no waking coma. No nightmare state. This wasn't even Hell. The dark creatures hovering over Duvalier, they were the real denizens of Hell and carried with them the promise of eternal torment.

Duvalier strode over to the figure spread-eagled on the floor, the pale grey features were barely recognisable as Professor Anderson. Duvalier took hold of a cockerel and sliced its throat, throwing the dying bird to one side and then plunging his knife into the form on the floor.

Amanda gasped, almost rushing forward to help Professor Anderson. Though she knew she couldn't affect him or even touch him. Instead, she continued to watch the horrific ritual.

Within the circle the shape of the body bulged and splintered. Light burst from the splinters, impossibly white and brilliant in the monotone background. A figure formed within the bulge, wrapping itself around it like a tight fitting shroud. Amanda recognised the figure of Professor Anderson, though it had no defining features or looked like the dead body beneath it.

The surrounding hooded watchers began to jerk and dance, pulling back hoods. They were all demon hybrids. The red and white creatures within each person staring intently on the circle.

The Anderson figure within the circle stood erect, his soul shining out. Duvalier spoke a word and suddenly the light flared, like the brief glare of a dying match, and then was gone. A shadow detached itself from around Duvalier and poured itself into the blank shape left behind and it turned a pitted black.

Duvalier turned to look in her direction.

Amanda was moving before she realised what she was doing. The truncheon in her hand a blue blaze as it struck through the skull of one of the watching demon hybrid's and slapped into the side of another. Amanda had a chance for more swipe, and she took it, smashing the weighted end firmly down onto the collarbone of a tall hybrid, snapping bone and gristle, before the room erupted in an air raid siren of shrieks and screams.

Amanda turned and ran.

A moment's glance saw Duvalier screaming and pointing at her. Reacting to his bidding, the group tore off their robes and raced after her.

Amanda knew that she was running for her life. She bounded down the stairs of the office building and ran through the lobby doors and out into the quiet street. Behind her the coven of hybrid demons chased after her, the demons within chittering and screaming, their human skins distorted as they raged within.

She ran through narrow streets, navigating the chase through the eerie streets of London. The creatures chased behind her, some splitting off to anticipate a turning left or right, others hounding her footsteps, baying for her blood.

Amanda hurled herself down the middle of a long road, pounding through familiar places twisted into a nightmare. She recognised a theatre as she ran by and tried not to stare at the creatures clinging to the building.

She veered toward the tourist places she had walked only a day before. Toward Chinatown and the memory that there may be someone there to help. At least, there may be if she believed the prisoner.

She made her way past shops and department stores until she recognised the pedestrian street of Chinatown. The howl of a hybrid demon sounded close. Amanda pumped her arms, running harder than she had ever run before, with the renewed adrenalin of the chased. Muscles in her legs felt like hot twisted cable, beyond pain, just searing heat. And she ran. Not knowing if the next step would be her last if a demon claw would catch her calf and she would fall, to be torn to pieces by a dozen of them.

The amorphous crowd parted and Amanda darted into the clearing, whipping past the occasional back riding glittering demon.

Someone appeared in front of her. A real colour frame in a black and white film. The suspect. The prisoner. Harvey Barker!

He was as real colour as she was, and yelling something, but her ears were beating the percussion of her heart and she couldn't hear through the noise. She reached for her baton, but it wasn't there. It was lying on the floor of the Law firm decorated with the brains of a demon.

And then she was on him, running full pelt into him, and he reached his arms around her and uttered a word.

They both fell to the ground, ripped from the umbra and back into the real world. They were thrown to the hard wet tarmac by the force of Amanda's run.

'Are-are you OK?' Harvey asked, his face inches away from hers. She could feel his hot breath on her cheek and her own body heaving in exhaustion pressed against him.

The cold wind created goose pimples on the back of her legs and she started at the sudden influx of noise of the crowd of shoppers. She was back in the real world. The wet and cold and noisy world, full of colour and no visible demon.

Amanda pushed herself up on her arms. The legs of busy shoppers flicked up spray from the wet road into her face. She felt no greater joy than to feel the freezing spray of rain. She looked at Harvey.

'We have to stop him.'

# Chapter Twenty-Two

Sucking in cold air, Amanda gasped with the shock of chill in her lungs, the sudden biting cold on her hands and knees. She gave a small prayer that she was still alive.

A tall, scruffy man stood at the edge of her vision. He was panting hard, his hands on his knees, and glaring at her. With a shock, Amanda also saw the creature within the man. It twisted about in its host's skin, seething with rage.

Dread and a churning nausea dropped through her stomach and Amanda bit down on the wave of revulsion.

_I can see them,_ Amanda realised. _I can see them for what they really are._

She rose up from the wet pavement, the ends of her hair spraying water, and grabbed at a nearby Christmas shopper. A big man with wrapping paper under one arm. She shoved the man hard and he stumbled into the scruffy demon-hybrid, and they both crumpled to the ground, yelling surprise and anger.

'Calm down,' Harvey said, grabbing Amanda by the shoulders. 'You're out of that place. You're safe now.'

'Safe?' Amanda writhed in his grasp. 'Can't you see him? Him there.' She pointed at the hybrid form. The terrors of the past few hours were nothing to the grip of near hysteria she now felt. Here, as she breathed in fresh, cold, Christmas air, a monster that she recognised was stalking her - and undoubtedly the others she saw would descend soon enough.

She grabbed Harvey's hand from her shoulder, twisting it into an armlock and pushed him, walking him backwards on his toes.

'Ow, ow, ow ...' Harvey rose higher to ease the tension in his arm.

'I know what I have to do,' Amanda said. 'But we have to get out of here. Get away from them.'

She released Harvey and nodded to where the scruffy man struggled to rise to his feet.

'What is your problem?' The scruffy man imitated in an irate voice. Shoppers stepped by him, unwilling to get involved. He glanced around, baleful eyes picking out any of its nearby comrades. There was another one, a creature within the frame of a woman, winding its way through the crowd. They spotted each other and both looked toward Amanda.

'We have to go,' Amanda insisted. She was on the verge of sprinting through the street when a familiar face loomed out of the crowd.

'Step this way.'

Amanda recognised the old Chinese gentleman from early today. Was it today? Or another lifetime? He seemed to know Harvey too, and she let herself be led away from the busy street and into the store.

'That was quick,' the old man said, locking the door and flipping the open sign closed. 'I am glad that you were able to find her. Was the compass of any use?'

'She found me.' Harvey handed a bag to the old man. 'I stepped into the umbra - and she ran in to me.'

Amanda backed into the shop and watched, horrified, as three of the demon-hybrid creatures at the window were joined by a fourth. One of them rattled at the door and knocked bony knuckles against the thin glass.

The old man waved away the people outside the shop window and huddled over to Amanda. 'How are you feeling? Do you feel sick? It was a traumatic experience, yes? Are you able to understand what happened?'

'I have to stop him,' Amanda said. 'Stop it from happening. And I need to get away from them.' She pointed towards the four people at the window. One of them had its face pressed against the glass, leaving streaks of spittle on the window pane. 'Is there a back way out of here?'

'Perhaps you are in shock,' the old man said, patting her hand gently. 'I can prepare a nice cup of tea and ...'

'Are you mad? Can't you see those creatures at the window? I have to get to the offices before they do it again. I can't let it happen.'

Harvey looked around at the people at the window. 'They may just be concerned for you. After you pushed that man in the street.'

The tapping at the window became louder, faces pressed against the window pane. The door handle rattled and the wood creaked.

'Yes, perhaps ... But maybe there is something else to our eager shoppers.' The old man hesitated, squinting at the front window. He dipped at his pocket and withdrew a pair of blue-tinted glasses and gasped as they settled into the crease of his nose.

'Out the back. Get out, now,' he said, pulling at them both and making his way down the shop.

'What's wrong?' Harvey said, rushing behind Amanda as she led the way to the back of the shop and into the small kitchen.

'They are _po_. Broken man. Ti-mon possessed. There are no visible scarring - so perhaps they are not banded.'

The tear of wood and plaster sounded from within the shop and the noise of the street intermingled with heavy footsteps that burst through the front door. The lights flickered and shadows flitted between the shelves, lengthening down the aisles.

The scruffy hybrid ran to the counter, a snub-nosed pistol clutched in his hand.

'What is the meaning of this?' Wing Loo growled, his voice loud, but level. And hard as iron.

The pistol rose up and fired, a dragon belching lead. Wing Loo moved swiftly, his hand reaching up, snatching, and settling down by his side in the moment it took for a bullet to leave the muzzle. His fingers gripped the cooling bullet.

Then his other hand rose up, a blurred version of a tai chi stance, stork spreads wing, and cracked the interloper in the chest, lifting him up and away. He crashed into a stack of shelves, limbs flailing.

The others charged through the counter, smashing the flimsy wood and glass, destroying the rear of the shop. Amanda readied herself for the onslaught but the old man stepped in front of her.

He struck each of the attackers squarely in the chest, all in quick succession with open palm slaps. A radial burst of chi cracked with each hit, flaring like a mini sun, as the attackers flew back into the shop, sprawling amongst the wrecked shelves.

'There is more to this than at first appears, little Salmon,' Wing Loo said. 'The Po are dangerous indeed, but they are working for someone.'

Harvey and Amanda bundled through the small kitchen and into a storage room.

'Weapons!' said Loo. 'Arm yourself in case there are more Po lurking.'

'There are more,' Amanda said.

Harvey turned and pulled a small leather pouch from a shelf. Amanda scanned about and caught sight of a 'slugger' baseball bat. She took hold of the bat and hefted it in her hands.

Wing Loo stood at the kitchen doorway, circling his arms in figure of eights. A blue haze drifted from the pattern, and the figures beyond clawed and scratched at the air, blunting human fingernails on the energy.

'You two had better be gone. Go now, Little Salmon. Take the detective to a safe place. She is your ward now.'

Amanda kicked open the back door and ran out into the alleyway. Unfortunately it was not deserted.

Large shadows that had crammed up against the opposite wall detached themselves and made their way to her. She saw the glint of their smiles before the moonlight caught their demon faces, fading into the sickly light and walking toward her. Harvey stepped next to her.

'These also Ti Mon?' he muttered.

'Yeah.'

'No escape for you now,' one of them said, her lips pulled back to the gums. 'You're both gonna feel the cut of the Macoute.'

Amanda wrapped her fists around the baseball bat, bracing herself for the onslaught. All fear had gone now, replaced with a murderous rage, cold and deep and unflinching. She eyed the monsters before her, waiting for a reaction or a step from their ranks.

A rapid mechanical coughing sound erupted from the group and a handsome man with a long fringe of hair stepped to the fore. Amanda saw the demon within, saliva dripping from its idiot grin. Stranger even than the crimson creature residing in the man was the curious chainsaw he held. The machine revved in his hands, clattering as the barbed chain whizzed around the main blade. The chainsaw looked as if it was made from magazines and newspaper. She recognised a timeout cover and the Big Issue.

'Well, well,' he said, gripping hold of the origami chainsaw. 'Not only do I get to off the bitch, but I get to finish the job on the assassin too.'

'Origami?' Harvey asked, nodding at the chainsaw.

'It's a damn sight more useful than feng shui,' Duncan said, raising the buzzing saw for effect.

Harvey dipped into the leather pouch he held, levelled a pistol at Duncan and fired. The bullet hit him in the chest and he crumpled to the cold floor, the chainsaw tore at the air for a moment then bit into the tarmac and ceased.

The others closed ranks and stood in silence, a crescent of macabre faces.

'You got many more bullets?' A voice called out from the group.

Before he could answer a flurry of figures rushed out from the darkness, briefly caught in the moonlight. These figures crashed into the Macoute, silver blades rising high in the air, slashing downwards and upwards again, trailing blood splatters. Suddenly the dark street was a jumble of people. Fighting, slashing, cutting. Attacking each other in voiceless slaughter, only the sounds of limbs flopping to the ground, or the soft pumping hiss of arteries spraying the trashcans and walls, indicated that anything was happening.

'Who the hell are these guys?' said Amanda, watching the carnage colour the street.

'China Town residents,' said Harvey. 'Mostly students, I think. Perhaps Master Loo has got word out to the neighbourhood.'

Harvey pulled Amanda back to the doorway as a meat cleaver spun through the air and thudded into the door beside them. A Macoute leapt from the darkness, her face distorted, the demon within pushing through the thin skin to snarl and spit. Amanda swung at the hybrid demon, smashing the baseball bat into his chest. He grunted and fell back and Harvey stepped up and shot him in the head.

Another figure loomed from the darkness. Harvey raised his gun, but lowered it as a stern looking man approached, one hand raised in supplication, a bloody fan in the other hand.

'Oh, it's you, little Salmon. We heard that you were back.'

'Hello. Hungry Bear.'

A number of people darted past, rushing into the stores and through to the emporium.

'Where is Master Loo?' said Hungry Bear.

'In the shop,' Harvey muttered. 'Thank you for your help.' Harvey cast about as more residents stepped from the darkness.

'This was no help for you, sparky,' he said. 'We responded to the Po. Broken men have no right to be here. And without permission. This was simply a territorial issue.'

Harvey looked around. In the background a wet thud was repeated over and over. The last of the Macoute being pounded into the pavement.

'We have to get to the Duvalier & Rose law firm,' Amanda said, staring up at the moon. 'We have to get there before it's too late.'

'What happened to you in the other place?' said Harvey, grabbing her arm. 'What did you see that makes you so certain we have to go to there?'

'I saw the end of the world.'

Amanda ran off into the darkness, in the direction of the river. Harvey looked about him, police sirens wailing closer in the distance, then set off after her.

# Chapter Twenty-Three

Amanda ran through the busy streets of London once more. This time she ran with the cold wind on her face and the chill city air numbing her cheeks and ears. Every breath was a freezing gulpful in her lungs. A coldness within her body that was at odds to the burning heat of her tired muscles. Her legs and arms were hot. But the fine lace of sweat beneath her shirt turned into beads of ice that numbed her limbs.

She looked around for a taxi, but there was none. Not even a police car which she might stop and persuade to give her a lift. Although what she could say to them when they asked her why she needed to get to a closed law firm? At almost midnight on Christmas Eve? With a baseball bat in her hands?

Harvey Barker ran alongside her. The two of them dashed between slow moving pedestrians, half in the road, making their way towards the Duvalier & Rose offices. He kept pace with her, effortlessly moving past people and skirting around larger groups. _It 's alright for him,_ Amanda thought, _I 've run this stretch already tonight. Ran through this very spot, perhaps through these very people._

Amanda slowed to a halt, a feeling of deja-vu overwhelming her. She looked about at the people around her, wrapped up and heads covered, making their way to tube stations or dashing to someplace or other. She remembered the creatures clinging to people in that other place. Foul, gem-skinned parasites that rode on the backs and sank their claws deep into shoulders. She noticed a young man close-by, barely out of his teens, hands in his jean pockets. He fidgeted as he walked, his lips moving silently. Did he have a creature on his shoulders? A glittering demon clinging to his head?

An older man and his daughter walked the opposite way. He was angry; she was pulling at his arm. Both seemed tired and upset. Did things ride upon them? Squealing and chattering and jabbering to each other.

'Are you Ok?' Harvey asked. He was at her side.

'Is it true?' Amanda said. 'Are there creatures all around us that we can't see? Things that ride around on us?'

'In the Umbra? Yes. I'm afraid so.'

'I saw so many of them. All around us. What are they?'

'Minor creatures of evil. Denizens that have slipped through the gates of one of the Hells and made their existence in the Umbra.'

'One of the Hells?' Amanda said. 'There's more than one?'

'There are as many Hells as there are religions that believe in them. The things that crawl around the Umbra are minor feeders. They prey on the shadowy forms of people. Feed on the negative emotions of their hosts. The stronger ones can create negative feelings in the host and nourish themselves for years.'

'So it's real,' Amanda said, staring about her at the crowd. 'It's all real.'

The reality of Harvey's words made her head itch, and she suddenly scratched at her hair, afraid that some creature in another world were tearing at her skull with hot claws. She imagined that welts had appeared on her head, angry and inflamed. She probed the places where the scratches may be, but couldn't find any tender area. _Oh please,_ she said to herself, _don 't let me slip into insanity._

She watched the passing crowd with renewed attention. Every flinch, every start, every involuntary wince from individuals hurrying by. What was real and what was caused by an Umbra denizen? And if such things really did exist, were there nastier creatures ready to abuse humanity.

I can do this, Amanda said to herself, I can stop this one bad thing from happening.

Amanda continued along the road, walking briskly and rubbing the warmth back into her arms. Her legs were shaking with the effort of the run, but she had to keep moving toward the direction of Duvalier's offices.

'And you, Harvey Barker, are you a killer? The assassin of the Trustees?' Amanda asked as they crossed into a deserted alleyway.

'Yes,' he replied.

'And how did you kill the trustees?'

'Feng Shui,' Harvey said. 'I influenced their fate through the manipulation of chi and karma.'

'Feng Shui?' Amanda shook her head. Her ears heard words that she couldn't quite understand but knew were a truth. A truth akin to the Umbra. 'So you are a part of all this. You're a part of the problem.'

'They killed my sister. The trustees, they murdered her.'

'And this is a revenge kick for you? Out for a bit of payback?'

'After I found out about her death, I needed to do something. I just couldn't function knowing they were still out there. All of them sat around a boardroom getting fat on the death of my sister.'

'And what about Duvalier?' Amanda rounded on Harvey, rooting him to the spot with her glare.

'I didn't know much about him. He's the administrator to the Trust, just a lawyer. He wasn't responsible for their actions.'

'He's the one controlling the Tonton Macoute. The one with plans to use the funds in the Trust now that all the trustees are dead.'

Harvey stared into her eyes. Clear blue even in this darkness.

'I've been following the deaths of the trustees,' Amanda said. 'The suicide, the accident, the slaughter in the Eastend, and Duvalier has been a shadow behind them all. Duvalier has been frustrating my efforts in the investigation and blocking access to the trustees.'

'But I killed the trustees. Or most of them, until I was ambushed.'

'Yeah,' Amanda said. 'You putting it together yet?'

Harvey felt the familiar rise of dread bubble in his chest. Clips of the last moments of the trustees played over in his mind. The fall from the tower building. The explosion tearing through the manor house. The bullets riddling into the high-back chair. He was doing what he felt was right. He was avenging his sister. After reading that article in the magazine. Even his horoscope led him along this path of revenge.

'I'm really sorry about your sister. But you have done some wicked, stupid things. Very stupid. And have done exactly what Duvalier has wanted.'

The horoscopes. They all led him to kill the trustees. Even gave him clues as to where they would be and when they could be vulnerable. The past few months clicked, tumblers of the lock dropping into place. His sister had been killed so that he would return to England and do what came naturally. She was bait and he had taken a big old bite. He felt sick. The flush of dread dropped low and heavy within him.

Amanda turned and continued to walk down the street. Harvey followed aimlessly.

'I ... I didn't think ...' Harvey said.

Amanda shook her head. 'Yeah? Well, you might wanna start,' she said, and started to jog through the streets of London.

• • •

The law firm loomed out of the darkness, blotting out the stars with its silhouette. Amanda repressed a shudder at the sight of the building, remembering the orgy of violence she had witnessed earlier that evening. She slowed to a fast walk, placing a hand to her stomach, pressing against the stitch in her side.

'Here we are. Again.' Amanda said.

'You Ok?' Harvey asked, eyeing her side where she half bent to relieve the ache.

'I'm fine,' Amanda straightened. She tapped the baseball bat against her leg. 'I can't tell you what we might expect inside there, and you don't have to come in. But I have to do something.'

'You could call in the cavalry?' Harvey said.

'That was my first reaction,' Amanda admitted. 'But what could I say? By the time I had explained the situation, and they let me out of the loony bin and pieced together any evidence left, then Duvalier's plan will have started and, who knows, perhaps finished. I really can't explain what Duvalier is up to. I find it difficult to believe it myself. But I do know that somebody has to do something to stop him. And there's no one else.'

Harvey raised an eyebrow. Amanda's inner chi spiked momentarily. A soft hue surrounded her chakras, each emitting their corresponding colours. He tried not to stare and instead turned his attention to the law firm.

A patch of light glowed from one of the windows on the ground floor.

'Looks like someone is in reception,' he said.

Amanda crept up the steps and carefully pressed her face against the darkened glass. The receptionist sat behind a computer terminal, the screen illuminating her human face and the face of the creature within.

'How are we going to get in?' Harvey whispered.

'Last time I was here I was buzzed in by the ice bitch in there.'

'Well,' Harvey said. 'Let's see if she's expecting any of the Macoute to return.'

He pressed his finger to the buzzer. There was a pause, then the door clicked open.

'Phew,' Amanda said. She pulled open the door and walked quickly inside, followed closely by Harvey. The receptionist glanced up, then back to her screen. Her head snapped back up, recognising the policewoman, and she opened her mouth to scream.

Harvey levelled his pistol. 'Not a muscle,' he said, bringing a finger to his lips.

The receptionist sneered and darted off to her left, sprinting to the stairs. Harvey cursed and swung the pistol round, trying to take aim. Amanda stepped forward and swung the baseball bat, catching the receptionist full in the face. A crunch sounded, like a boot stamping into deep snow, and the receptionist collapsed to the floor. Amanda knelt down, checked her eyes which had rolled back inside her head. She placed her fingers to her throat.

'Alive, but concussed,' she said.

Harvey pulled out his Lo Pan compass and checked for any gathering of alignments. There were none. He spun around, but the heaven pool remained dormant, the needle still. The building was nulled of any karma or influence.

'You Ok?' Amanda asked.

'Sure,' Harvey said, slipping the compass into his pocket. He stood at the base of the stairs. 'Where do we go from here?'

'Right to the top. But hang on, I want to check to see what the receptionist was working on.' Amanda sat at the receptionist's chair and took hold of the mouse. It looked as if she had been sending emails. A lot of emails. Clicking through the sent folder, Amanda read through a selection.

'It's a message of death,' Amanda muttered, a tremor of disbelief in her voice. 'A call to arms to every despot, every terrorist group, every corrupt leader of every unstable country that Duvalier has ever visited. He's emailing all these people with a promise of funds for their cause, whatever cause they happen to represent, and urging them to action.'

Harvey listened to Amanda as he looked around at the photographs hanging on the walls. Burundi, Somalia, Cameroon, Chad, Kyrgyzstan. All blacklisted countries. Duvalier shaking hands with country leaders and political representatives. Other photographs showed Duvalier with men, some in militia uniforms, some dressed in Saville Row suits. He recognised a couple of the faces as belonging to a member of the shining path and another to ETA. Terrorist organisations. He guessed the other photo's held members of similar organisations.

'And here's the clever bit,' Amanda continued. 'These emails aren't designed to create an immediate, all encompassing war. Rather they will nurture a smouldering fire of rage and hatred, drip feeding deaths in regular quantities.

'If Duvalier truly is building an army of Tonton Macoute, then he will have a steady supply of souls to recruit.'

Amanda checked the number of emails and the dates. Over four hundred sent that night. She selected all the emails with a quick movement of the mouse, pressed the forward button, and sent them to every email address she could remember. Colleagues in the Metropolitan Police, an old friend at a small-press magazine, even guessing at a number of national newspaper addresses.

The send bar edged along far too slowly for Amanda to wait. She watched for a few moments, biting at a nail until it reached quarterway, then decided that the emails would be sent and so couldn't wait any longer. She ran towards the stairs, cursed, ran back and grabbed the baseball bat.

'Will that do any good?' Harvey asked.

Amanda looked up the flight of stairs. 'Only time will tell. OK-let's do it,' she said.

# Chapter Twenty-Four

Amanda raced up the stairs of the law firm. She felt invigorated, a new lease of life washing over her. The cold forgotten and tired limbs renewed with a strength she hadn't realised she could summon. Harvey looked sluggish as he trailed behind her.

'He's on the top floor,' Amanda said. 'There was some kind of ceremony going on up there last time I was here and that's where Duvalier killed Professor Anderson.' She bounded up three steps at a time, 'I have to get there as soon as possible.'

Amanda reached the first floor and continued up the second flight. She leapt up the stairs, aware that there was a growing energy within her, a crackling tension like the onset of a summer storm building up within her. She should have been scared of this new feeling, or at least nervous. Instead, she embraced the sensation, revelling in the strength, allowing it to flood into her.

She reached the third floor, sprinting along the short hallway to the next level - when she smashed into a figure that stepped from the shadows.

'Geez, girl, you are a hard one to kill,' Finn said.

Amanda recovered quickly, bringing the baseball bat round in a wide arc, aiming for his chest. The man reached out a scar laced hand and, almost lazily, grabbed the bat and ripped it from her grip. He held it in both hands and snapped it in two, the centre splintering in a mass of toothpicks.

'I guess you're the guard dog,' Amanda said, eyeing the scarred man cautiously.

Finn didn't reply. Instead, he grabbed Amanda and swung her round, throwing her twenty yards down the hallway to slam into the far wall.

Amanda twisted in the air, protecting herself as she hit the wall and rolled when she landed on the floor.

'Am I going to have a problem with you?' Finn said, hands on hips, shaking his head in amusement.

Two loud gunshots sounded and Finn crumpled to the floor. Harvey stood at the top of the stairs, panting hard, the pistol shaking in his hand.

'Now that is what I call good timing,' Amanda said, running up to him.

Harvey marvelled at Amanda. He saw the colours ebb and flare within her. Her body glowed and her face shone. His body prickled at the power radiating from her.

'It's about time I did something right,' Harvey shrugged. He tried to keep his breathing steady and glanced up at the next level.

Amanda followed his gaze. 'Be careful,' she said, and sprinted ahead up the stairs to the fourth floor.

Harvey placed a hand on the banister, exhausted but ready to follow the policewoman. He took a step but stumbled forward, lurching as he was dragged downwards. He twisted round to see Finn holding onto his ankle.

'You are going to have to do better than that, boy,' Finn said as he rose to his feet.

Harvey aimed the pistol and fired point blank at the scarred man. There was one blast, then the repeated click click as he pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. He wished he had checked the magazine back at Master Loo's.

Through the flare and cordite smoke Finn glowered at him beneath bald eyebrows.

• • •

Amanda sped up the stairwell, taking three, four steps at a time. With every footstep she felt power surge through her body, a giddy, all knowing confidence coursed through her veins, driven by the pump of her heart.

She rounded the corner at the top floor and slowed. The double doors were flung open and an acrid, sweet-sour stench rolled from the room.

A soft glow at the far end of the room illuminated the sole figure of Papa Doc Duvalier.

Amanda tread carefully, wary of the deep shadows created by the backlit illumination. She flexed her fingers. Raw strength sparking down her limbs.

When she had stood in this place in the Umbra earlier that day, dark creatures flitted throughout. The Tonton Macoute gathered together, their inner creatures in a frenzy and the whole place was draped in grey.

The room now, in contrast, was full of colour. Professor Anderson's body lay in a bloody circle, scarlet splashes decorating the outskirts. Bright blue computer screens illuminated the room from the far wall. A grey and green and yellow monolith standing to one side, surrounded by white and brown feathers and streaks of red blood. Poultry carcasses lay in a sodden pile at the base.

Papa Doc Duvalier sat with his back to the terminal screens, his white robe open, the smile on his face wide and deep and slow.

'Welcome back, Police Officer Morgan,' Duvalier said.

Amanda halted in her tracks. What was she going to do? What was she prepared to do to stop this man? She had no idea.

Duvalier raised his arms and looked upwards towards the bank of screens on the wall above him. Strange words appeared on the screens, some letters looked vaguely familiar, others were completely alien.

'Do you know how to create a Zombie?' Duvalier asked. 'One of my infamous Tonton Macoute?'

Amanda remained still but her eyes flitted upwards, looking at the words appearing on the screen, some for only a moment, others for longer.

'After all the ritual, the dancing, the ju-ju powder, the incantations?' Duvalier said. 'In that final moment of the potential's life, the sound carried on their very last breath, is the name of their soul. Their "true name" given to them at the moment of their birth.

'There is great power in a name, Detective. Great power indeed. And once I know the true name of a person's soul - why - I have control over them.'

Amanda stared at the words that blinked on the screens. Long strings of strange letters that glowed white on the blue background.

'Written in the oldest of languages,' Duvalier said. 'I am able to read the name of the soul of anyone who dies from this moment on. Actually, from about 30 minutes ago. I am accruing my army within Hell. They pass on, I read, I know, I convert, they take on the rank and file. Most simple.'

Amanda didn't understand what Duvalier was referring to. She hadn't understood anything that had happened to her that day. But she did know that Duvalier was the source of the problems and that he was directly responsible for the death of Professor Anderson. There was only one thing she could do.

'Papa Doc Duvalier, you are under arrest,' Amanda strode toward Duvalier. 'You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.'

Duvalier's laugh boomed out long and loud. 'Are you serious? Are you really expecting to arrest me?'

Amanda stood in front of Duvalier, who hesitated and wrinkled his aging brow, as if seeing the policewoman for the first time.

'So,' he said. 'You have power within you. Something has awoken. But do not think you are strong enough to stop me, little girl.'

'Did you really not expect someone to fight back?' Amanda said. She made to grab Duvalier's wrist, but he pulled it away quicker than she could follow.

'You?' Duvalier spat the words out, 'You are cattle to be fed on, preyed on and finally used for the purpose of extending my eternal life.'

'You are wrong, Papa Doc Duvalier,' Amanda said. 'For every abuse you have taken there has been a revolt. Every innocent life that you have expunged to take as a Macoute, they have left their cry to echo. And that cry has been heard. I am here to bring you to justice.'

She reached out to grab Duvalier's arm again. He drew it back before she could grasp him and struck out, whipping his fist against her jaw and standing up, all in one fluid movement.

Amanda sailed back across the room, landing heavily against the floor. She lay on the cold surface a moment, dabbed a knuckle to her bloody lip, then sat up. Duvalier's easy smile faded as he caught sight of the darkness flickering around Amanda. His gaze slipped to her left, then her right, then followed the darkness around the room.

For the first time since Amanda had met him, Duvalier looked scared.

'My Macoute, they will protect me.'

'Your Macoute on this earth are dead. And I am here to stop your Macoute wherever else they may occur.'

Duvalier flinched as a shadow flickered in his peripheral vision. He turned quickly, batting out at the air before him, then whipped to the other side and flayed his hand around his head.

'My ...' Duvalier faltered, 'My Macoute will protect me.'

'No,' Amanda said. 'They won't.'

The air around Duvalier whined, black motes circling his head. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

'My Macoute ...'

'No they will not,' Amanda approached Duvalier. 'You are all alone and you are going to pay for your crimes.'

'They're coming for me,' he whispered. He replaced his glasses, his eyes wide and lips trembled. 'I can see them gathering. Feel their hunger.'

'It's not too late,' Amanda said, suddenly feeling for the old man's fear. 'Come with me into custody and we will -'

'Nooooo,' Duvalier screamed and launched himself at Amanda. She blocked his first blow, but his second was too quick and his fist glanced off her shoulder. He leapt forward, his age no hindrance, and grabbed at her throat.

She smashed her arms downwards, breaking Duvalier's grip before it could properly take hold. She brought her elbow up sharply and caught him squarely under the chin, knocking him backwards. A chip of tooth spat from Duvalier's mouth and pinged against the stone tiles.

He looked shocked, his pink tongue running along the edge of his teeth, stopping at the broken hole where a central incisor should have been.

'Look what you have done,' he said. 'I can't be harmed. That's impossible.' He reached up and probed his mouth, staring at the bloody tip of his finger.

Amanda took the opportunity of Duvalier's distraction to grab his arm, twisting it into an armlock, preparing to pin him to the desk.

'You are under arrest and are going to pay for your crimes.'

Duvalier shrugged and flung Amanda back against the bank of computers.

'I will pay for my crimes. Suffer at the hands of those I have wronged, and those I have bent to my will. But not in your courts. They gather, those peers of mine, they gather.'

Amanda rose from where she fell, but Duvalier was on her in an instant. His hands clawed at her throat and settled into an iron grip on her neck. She gasped as the flow of air to her lungs was cut off and fingers like a steel choker circled her throat.

Her nails raked at Duvalier's hands, desperately willing the grip on her throat to slacken. She kicked around and jerked her body, bucking like a bronco bull, violently thrashing around as her lungs ached for air.

'If I've lost every other Macoute, then I'm going to take you. You would be a mighty guardian. And it looks as if I'm going to have to zombie you the old fashion way. You hear me, detective? I am going to listen to the name of your soul with your very last breath.'

Duvalier loomed over Amanda so that he was all she could see. His blunt yellow teeth and trimmed nostrils. Lack of oxygen drained the strength from her limbs, dark speckles clouding the edge of her vision. Blood was thumping in her temples and she fought to keep consciousness.

An image floated beneath her eyelids. _Danielle_. She was reaching to her. Amanda was surrounded by tall shadows that pecked at her. The sound of their taunts were faint, but the meaning was clear.

Amanda reached out to Danielle. Instead of fingers her right hand grasped at the slippery mess of cables beneath a table. She reached around the wires and, more in frustration than anything, pulled with the last vestiges of might left in her body.

The screens on the wall flickered and went blank.

'No,' Duvalier screamed. He dragged Amanda away from the consoles and flung her against the monolith. Duvalier ducked under the table and inspected the damage. He quickly replaced the cables and the screens blinked back to life. Names continued to appear on the screens.

Amanda coughed and rolled to her side, willing herself to rise, her arms trembling.

'Looks like I am going to have to do this the Haitian way.' Duvalier chuckled and knelt at a chest next to his chair.

Amanda stood up, legs wobbling, panting for breath. She leaned against the table for support and watched Duvalier scrabbling at a wooden chest. She had to act fast.

'You are going to taste the devil dust. May make you sneeze, but it will all be over in-\- ' Duvalier whipped around from the chest, a sachet of powder unfolded on the palm of his hand.

Amanda slammed the laptop into Duvalier's face. He was hurled backwards, his hands clasping to the pain. Immediately, he jolted upright, his eyes wide in terror, his mouth and nose dusted with powder that was on his palms. He spluttered, hacking into his sleeve.

'What have you done?' he whispered, his voice already coarse from the inhaled poisons from his own hand. Amanda noticed the empty sachet of paper floating to the floor and looked into Duvalier's eyes.

His gaze told her everything. In the few precious moments before he was dead, his eyes were defiant, murderous and contemptuous. Also pleading and scared and, perhaps, sorry. He sat against a desk, drawing in a desperate lungful of air, his stare fixed on Amanda. His hand grabbed out in front of him, as if he were reaching for something, or someone, And then he went still.

A gasp rattled from his throat and air seeped through his dead lips. His head lolled to one side and he stared away with blank white eyes.

As the starlight filtered through the windows and the gloom, Amanda pulled at Duvalier's arm. The arm flopped, and she paused. Pulling him back into the chair she called out his name. No response. She checked his wrist. The cold skin was lifeless. No pulse.

A familiar looking sigil appeared on the screens. Amanda squinted at the word and recognised the name of Francois Duvalier.

She hit the delete button.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Amanda searched around the room and flicked the main room lights so that the whole glass dome lit up. Send them a beacon to aim for, she laughed to herself, then winced as her neck shot through with pain. She was afraid to imagine what colour the bruising would turn out.

Amanda closed the doors behind her and made her way downstairs.

There was no sign of Harvey, or the body of the scarred man. But there were blood stains on the carpet and faint footprints and a rail-track score in the blood. Someone had dragged a body through the hallway. She followed the two lines to an open doorway.

Inside the room Harvey hung spread-eagle from a metal frame, draped across the rails with hands and feet bound. His head hung low on his chest. He was alive, his breath drawn in ragged gasps, but his injuries were horrendous.

His left arm was red raw, a white sheaf of skin hanging from his shoulder. Someone had flayed the flesh from his hand and arm, and the tendons and muscle clung desperately to the bones of his arm.

A naked figure stood in front of Harvey. Amanda recognised him immediately. Impossibly scarred, like a patchwork doll owned by a malicious child, the white scar lines criss-crossed his back and arms. He turned to face Amanda. His torso splashed casually with blood that was unable to mask the scars that mapped his body. He smiled, his lips a zig-zag grin.

'Duvalier is dead. The Police are on their way,' Amanda said.

'Is there still time for me to steal the assassin's identity?' Finn held a knife up and played with the light.

'That's not going to happen.'

'Then what now?' Finn asked.

Amanda heard voices call out below. The thunderous noise of two dozen Territorial Support Group officers pounding up the levels of the law firm, batons in hand, shields ready. Amanda was filled with the euphoria of knowing that support was only moments away. She levelled her gaze at the scarred man.

'We can do this one of two ways ...'

The end
