Limitless (14 page)

“Maybe he came for the insults,” I said. “Let’s not rule that out. He could just be a glutton for punishment.” I looked him up and down. “Because he’s clearly already a glutton of the garden variety.”

“I’ve got something for you,” Dylan said with a sour look, “though I wouldn’t say no to a cuppa. Ours in Hounslow tastes like someone’s been pissing in the kettle again.”

“Was it you?” I asked. “Be honest. Quicker than hauling your fat ass to the toilet, I’d guess—”

“Will you piss off already?” Dylan said, raising his voice so loud that it brought a hush over the bullpen. My mission of irritation accomplished, I dialed back a little in order to let the bastard speak. The look that Webbo shot me only contributed a little to it.

Oh, the fun I was going to have with that nickname later.

“What is it?” Webster asked, leaning over his desk. Dylan had brought a manila folder with him, something a few centimeters thick.

“Maybe nuffink,” he said, just like that, like “nuffink” was a real word. “Maybe something.” He opened the file with a flourish to reveal a murder scene in photos. It was messy. Really messy.

“That’s a bit sprayed with blood,” Webster said, looking up.

“Killer used a knife. Shallow gashes. Forensics said it was a short blade,” Dylan said, not looking up from the photos. He seemed kind of stuck on them, his head trapped in the pictures. His face didn’t paint him as a very happy guy; more like he’d been seeing these pictures for a while in his sleep.

“Preliminary said something similar about Maxwell Llewelyn,” Webster said, gesturing to his computer. He looked back to Dylan. “Still, short-blade knife isn’t much to go on. That might not be any link at all.”

“This lad’s practically flayed,” Dylan said. “I mean, look at this, then look at what you had. You telling me you run across this sort of mess every day? I mean, we deal with a lot of shit, but people missing the balance of their epidermis is not the normal run-of-the-mill murder.”

I gave him points for use of the word “epidermis” in a sentence. “Is that true?” I asked Webster. “Is it unusual for you to see this sort of… mess?”

“It’s uncommon,” Webster admitted after a moment. “In spite of what you see on the telly, there truly aren’t that many serial killers out there. Most of the time, motives for killings are a hell of a lot more mundane, which means they’re not going to take the time to completely skin the victim.”

“That’s rage you don’t see very often,” Dylan agreed, a cringe on his pudgy face. “Maybe this was personal, maybe it wasn’t, but whoever did it had a bloody madness creeping through their brain.”

“Who was he?” I asked, looking at the body in the pictures. It was barely recognizable as a he.

“Elijah Collins,” Dylan said, looking down. “Poor bastard worked for the government.”

I blinked. “What did he do?”

“Something technical,” Dylan said, pushing pictures out of the way in the file to get to a piece of paper. “Something to do with integration of surveillance camera systems in the Greater London area.”

I felt a little chill creep down my spine and turned to face Webster. He looked back at me, alarm growing in his eyes. “Doesn’t London have like a bajillion surveillance cameras?”

“They’re not all linked together,” Webster said, stricken with uncertainty. “A lot of them are private and all—”

“Did you ever pull the footage from the ones around Angus’s house?” I asked. “Or the Russian’s apartment?”

“They were out,” Webster said, reaching for his desk phone and dialing numbers furiously. “Dammit. I need to speak with the commissioner immediately.” He pulled the mouthpiece away from his face and covered it. “This is not a department we’ll be able to have access to without help. Pray the commissioner is in—” He stopped midsentence as I heard a voice break onto the line. “Out of the office? Out of the office where?” He paused. “No, I haven’t heard—”

He listened for a moment as his eyes widened, and then he slammed down the phone and looked straight at me.

“What?” I got out before he managed to say anything.

“Three people just stormed the Hartsford Gallery,” he said. “They took hostages, but a few people were able to escape.”

“Another day in lovely London,” Dylan said. “Think I’ll flee back to Hounslow.”

“All three of the hostage takers were wearing masks,” Webster continued, undeterred, “and one of them was carrying—and using—two knives.” He wore a look of grim satisfaction. “One of the witnesses who escaped said she hit one of the gallery patrons so hard that they flew across a twenty-foot room like they’d been struck by a car.”

Chapter 31

Philip watched Liliana make a messy example of a man— a tourist, probably—who was a little slow to pay heed to her shouts. It was a long flight for the gent and came to an abrupt stop against a far wall. She had the knives out, now. There didn’t seem to be much doubt that she would use them, and the screams of the patrons signaled a certain amount of submission.

“Your attention, please,” Philip announced in a voice loud enough to gain, well, their attention. There were screams, but they died as Liliana circled with her blades, like a shark in the waters. She cut off the exit of the balance of the gallery patrons, and stood there, pink mask screaming against the deep crimson walls. It was an odd choice, in Philip’s mind, but apparently the original owners of the Hartsford Gallery had decided it was majestic or some such silliness. Now it was surely tradition, and thus forever rooted in the stale air of this place.

“Your attention,” Philip called again. “I am your captor today. In order to make our stay as brief and as bloodless as possible, I’ll need your cooperation on a few things.” He held up a hand as if to calm them. He very much doubted it had any such effect. “First of all, get down on your knees and place your heads against the floor. Keep your hands flush against that lovely hardwood. Yes, thank you.” The compliance was nearly immediate, prompted by a poke to the back for the slowest mover in the room. This was from Liliana, and she even held back, keeping from penetrating the skin on the poor bastard.

“We have a very specific objective today,” Philip said. “Keep your hands to yourselves and your heads on the ground, and you won’t be harmed. This is a robbery; it’s not meant to be a mass homicide. Every single painting in this gallery is insured, and the owners will be financially compensated by the company who takes their money for just such a possibility as this. Should you oppose us, there will be no one to make your family whole. Your death will be bloody and will come at the edge of a knife. Do not be foolish; you have no reason to try any heroics. In twenty minutes we will leave, and you will have the rest of your life to live. Or, alternatively, you can die now, and spend the last moments screaming as you bleed to death over a piece of canvas covered in oils that doesn’t even belong to you.” He scanned the small crowd, saw not a single head looking up at him, and smiled. “All right, then, let’s begin.”

Chapter 32

“You’re thinking metas?” I asked as we rolled up on a vacant lot that the police had commandeered into a command post.

“It’s a possibility,” he said. “But we’re just observers in all this, keeping an eye out unless asked for more.”

I could see the Hartsford Gallery from where I stood as I got out of the car. It was a pretty tall building, constructed in that London style with the columns and stonework. The roof was sloped, and the building was practically a whole block unto itself. A short, triangular block, right at the joining point of five different roads, but still. I could see an alley leading down the back of the building from here, but it looked narrow.

The front of the building faced us; we were at the point of its triangle, staring across the street at the glorious grand entrance, with its massive steps and impressive arches leading to the main door.

There were buildings of a similar height across the alley, to the left of the building, and also beyond to the right. The avenue on that side was covered with tall trees that looked like they’d been growing for a few centuries. Immediately across the street to my right, past the blockades the police were setting up, was a massive white church with a bell tower that stretched into the air higher than the gallery.

“Snipers already positioned,” Webster said, leaning against the open door of his car. He wasn’t exactly springing into action or heading for the command post. “Armed response team ready, probably about to storm in before the terrorists get too comfortable.”

“You assume they’re terrorists?” I asked.

“They’re causing terror, that’s for sure,” he said, still not moving.

“What are we doing here?” I asked. I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“Staring straight ahead and watching what happens,” he said and gave me a significant look. “It’s not like I’m far enough up the ladder to be involved, but they like to have as many of us on scene as they can for these sorts of things.”

“Because staring at the exterior of an art gallery is a productive use of your time, Detective Inspector?” I wasn’t razzing him, really. Just probing.

“It’s the department’s time,” he said, just a little tense. “I do what they tell me when I’m on it.”

“I could help,” I suggested, sending him a sidelong glance.

“Or you could sit right here and stay out of trouble,” he said. It wasn’t an argument, really. I wasn’t in charge here and neither was he.

I stared at the gallery across the way. He was right, the British equivalent of a SWAT team was moving into position up the steps. There was really nothing else for us to do but watch.

Chapter 33

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” Philip asked. The air smelled of richness, of culture, of a history and tradition that he had always found so appealing. And, of course, it smelled of fear.

Liliana was running one of her blades in a broad stroke down some of the shorter canvases that lingered near face level. The room they had occupied was a large one, an enormous… well, gallery… that reached two stories at least. Paintings filled the room from floor to ceiling over the deep crimson walls. Paintings that were hundreds of years old, representative of the crowning achievements in the art of western civilization…

And Liliana… that savage, silly little bitch… was slashing them one by one.

“I’m striking out against the bourgeois tastes of the thieves who have taken so much of the world’s wealth for themselves,” she said, running her blade down a landscape of a lake done in bold colors.

“Stop immediately,” he said, flushed. Philip could feel his hands shake. “That is priceless cultural heritage, regardless of who owns it.”

“These should be in a public museum for all the people to see,” Liliana said with a flash of crimson rage. “Not here in a place where only those who are willing to pay can come in.” She spat on one of the shredded canvases, and Philip felt a twitch at the corner of his eye as he contemplated killing her right there. He’d killed for less.

But she had other work to do, work he couldn’t take her away from.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asked, barely restraining his rage. She was truly a vicious piece of work, a product of her upbringing. She needed to be reined in, kept on a tight leash.

He caught a flash of anger in her eyes that faded quickly, and she nodded once in acknowledgment. She slunk toward the open archway that led into the main entrance to the gallery.

Once she had gone, Philip felt his hand unclench. That Philistine had torn eight paintings before he’d gotten her back in line. He ran a hand over his mask, straightening it, and looked up at Antonio, who was still on a ladder they’d retrieved from the storage room, working on freeing a painting from the wall. “Are you nearly done?”

“Nearly,” Antonio answered.

Philip ran his fingers over his masked face. This job could not be over quickly enough for his tastes. But once it was, then he could get back to the business of breaking the old man. Accomplish that, and he’d have no need for any more of these foolish errands, or the pests that pulled him into them. It would be a happy day, that one. And that day could not come swiftly enough for his tastes.

Chapter 34

I could see the SWAT team making their way up the grey steps, their black uniforms dark and stark against the plain background. The gallery was an impressive piece of architecture that commanded attention, centered as it was in the middle of the thoroughfare. I wondered if that was a statement about the place itself, like a cry for some sort of attention through the building’s placement and manner of construction.

There was a dull smell in the city air: the stink of car exhaust. Birds cawed somewhere in the distance, and I could taste the breakfast I’d had still lingering on my tongue. I wanted coffee, and lots of it, but the likelihood I’d find a Starbucks anywhere nearby was low, I figured.

“Are we still on the sitting and watching?” I asked. “Because that’s boring. And also a misuse of my talents.”

“You can go if you want,” Webster said, tense. “Perhaps apply your talents for mayhem somewhere else while I sit and wait.” He didn’t look any happier to be here than I was. He was just standing there, leaning against his door. He hadn’t even checked in with whoever was in charge of the scene, so I guessed his presence was minimally important.

Besides, he looked good in that pose. Commanding. Even though he wasn’t really commanding anything.

“You think I could get a cup of coffee anywhere around here?” I asked. “No mayhem needed.”

“Sure,” he said and pointed to his left without looking away from the SWAT team, which was now at the top of the steps and stacked up outside the main entrance to the gallery. I could have given them some pointers, maybe, because I’d been in that situation more times than I could count. “There’s a Starbucks just up that road,” Webster said, drawing my attention back to him.

“Wow, they really are everywhere.” I considered it for just a moment and then paused, remembering that I didn't have any money. I sighed, taking a breath of the exhaust that filled the air. I realized several of the police cars were still running. “What are they doing to control the scene?”