The cramped and drably painted apartment was as starkly functional as one could imagine. Beside the basic kitchen utilities, a battered trid unit, and some bedding, there were but a few scraps of furniture. The only thing any of them had in common was that they all looked as if a pack of psychopathic and crazed felines had sharpened their claws on them, more or less continuously, for twenty years or so.
“I didn’t touch a thing, inspector,” the elf said dryly.
Almost despite himself, Geraint was beginning to warm to him a little. Suddenly he realized he didn’t even know his name.
“You can call me Streak,” the elf told him. “Now get your arse in ‘ere before someone else gets interested” He almost dragged them inside and shut the door carefully behind him. His dwarf fellow was standing guard within, a corn unit half-sticking out of his pocket, awaiting the obviously desired signal to get out.
“They’re here, Thumper,” the elf said needlessly “We can get our cred and blow soon. Show them the stiffs.”
“Thumper?” Michael couldn’t help but splutter.
“Named after some rabbit famous for its kicking,” the elf told him. “Kicked me in the bonce once over a minor disagreement. I had double vision for the best part of a week. Gave him some respect for that.”
Streak pushed at the corpse of his sometime leader just inside the doorway. “Here’s the first one. If you want to get the slash close up, you’ll have to turn him over.”
“I think we can dispense with that,” Michael said.
“We’re going to bag him and get him out,” Thumper said. “Can’t leave him here for the filth to find.”
Surprising that an ex-soldier should use such a term for the police, Michael thought, but said nothing of it. As the elf and dwarf sheathed the body in a resilient plastic body-bag, he could see the amazingly thin, smooth, deep cut in the man’s neck. There was less blood somehow than he’d expected, and the pale corpse face looked oddly peaceful. Not what one would have anticipated from the victim of such an attack.
“Your Mr. Seratini is in the bathroom,” Streak informed them. Geraint hardly needed telling; the flat was so small that it was the only place the as yet unseen stiff could be. He needed only a few seconds to take in the scene.
“How about that when you’re just about to have your annual bath?” Streak said. “Such a waste of that pine fragrance too. Costs a fortune, that Luxo stuff. Made from real trees, apparently. None of your chemical crap.”
“I’m afraid not,” Geraint told him, giving in to his cravings at last and lighting up, to the obvious disgust of the dwarf. “It contains three coloring agents, one of which is probably carcinogenic, at least to metahumans, and two rather noxious scent enhancers.”
“What are you, a scientist?” Streak enquired as he tugged at the zipper of the bag.
“I’m a director of the company that owns the people who make it.”
“Well, that’s the last time I sink myself in that crap then,” Streak said. “You want to give us a hand with this or you going to stand there like a plonker till lunchtime?”
“You’re taking him down in the goddamn elevator?” Michael said, surprised.
“Nah, you dumb git,” the elf said. “We’ll do what the locals do-chuck it out the window.”
For a moment Michael thought Streak was joking, but then the elf and dwarf dragged the bag to the window. They hefted the body into a sitting position, opened the window, and on a count of three jerked the black bag and its contents out into midair.
“I don’t believe this,” Michael said, turning away.
“It’ll hardly hurt him now,” Streak pointed out. “Look, our terms have just picked it up. No one saw. Much the fastest way. Thumper sent the signal.”
“How?” Michael was astounded. The dwarf had said nothing.
“Cybercom,” Thumper said. “Thought-to-sound unit. Wired to radio. Paired with the rigger.” Clearly, he didn’t want to waste any time on superfluities like connecting principles or verbs here. “Told him, special delivery. In the van now. That’s three hundred thou, mate.”
“I’m not carrying that much,” Geraint said, perfectly reasonably. “Come back to my apartment. You’ll have the cred in five minutes.”
“Fine by me,” Steak said. “But it will be going to his family.” The elf looked deadly serious for a moment. Behind the joking and facetiousness, and the seemingly awful fact that he barely seemed to care that a comrade had been killed in this place and his body treated like refuse, the elf had some honor remaining. He would see the man’s family right, at any rate.
They were just about to leave when Michael spotted the slightly out-of-place cushion and told them to Wait. Underneath the red wine-stained cover he found a small padded envelope stashed there, and pocketed it. He wondered whether to search the whole place, and then realized that apart from the wardrobe there was precious little to search. A quick check eliminated the wardrobe as an object of suspicion. Streak was beginning to get jumpy; the coast was clear and he wanted to get out now. Michael obliged and went down in the elevator.
“What did you get?” Geraint asked him.
“UPS package,” Michael said. “Non-standard packaging, but, they delivered it. The sticker with the ID is gone, but we could trace it easily enough.”
“So, come on, what’s in it?”
Michael fumbled with the packaging. It was, as courier deliveries usually are, rendered impossible to open without recourse to a sharp object of some kind. His nail-file didn’t quite come up to scratch. By the time Thumper had offered him a combat knife, the elevator doors were about to open.
Standing before them was a large clutch of Metropolitan policemen. They even had riot shields and were obviously expecting some serious trouble. The electric stun batons they carried were further evidence of that, if any were needed. The two at the front of the wedge were orks, and they looked as if the police had recently taken to recruiting from hospitals for the criminally insane. Or perhaps doing so more openly and with less pickiness than usual. Michael’s heart almost stopped dead and it was all he could do not to gasp aloud.
After twice catching Michael and company at the scene of a murder in a single night, the police weren’t going to look at them any too kindly. They wouldn’t get out of this again.
Michael and the others stared at the police, who stared back at them.
There was something horribly wrong.
“Rather fine gentlemen to be in a place like this,” one of the orks said in an obviously assumed semiposh accent. He was staring at Geraint and Michael.
“Well, officer,” Streak chimed in before either of the men could open their mouths, “that’s because they were kidnapped and brought here. I’m glad to say we’ve just now persuaded their ‘hosts’ to release them, without any due trouble. Ransom job. Quietly and efficiently dealt with. No harm done, nothing to frighten the horses.”
Geraint was amazed at his quick-wittedness. He was even more amazed at the response of the ork.
“I see, sir,” he said, continuing with his brave attempt to Sound like a BBC newscaster. “Well, then, we need not detain you any further.”
“I assume you have other business here, officer,” Streak said mischievously. The ork looked very uncomfortable. “Well, we won’t get in your way. These places,” be said, shaking his head, “such hot-beds of depravity and crime. Good to know London can rely on you brave fellows.” He led them out, past the shifty-looking uniformed squad, and into the safe anonymity of the night. When they were a safe distance away, and the police safely inside the building, the elf almost doubled up laughing.
“I don’t know how you got away with that,” Michael said, shaking his bead.
“Got away with it?” the elf hooted. “Police, my arse. They were local slints. Disguised as coppers. Gets them in the door and that’s half the battle when they’re out on a job, steaming a flat or thrashing some poor tosser senseless. There’s been a rash of it lately. Good outfits though. Not bad gear. Probably bought it as knock-off from some sub-station somewhere.”