Skypoint (12 page)

‘I’ll see you in the lift some time,’ Owen told him, and meant it to sound a little like a threat. He wanted Lucca to get the message. Whether or not he did, Owen couldn’t tell. He didn’t wait, just guided Toshiko across the room and whispered to her, ‘What in the name of god are you playing at?’

FIFTEEN

Things didn’t go well for Owen and Toshiko after he escorted her away from Besnik Lucca. She hadn’t reacted well to his half-whispered, half-snarled question and as the two of them adopted the positions that couples did when they started arguing at parties – with the minimum of animation and volume, like a couple of wooden figures on a German clock – Owen could still see they were drawing attention from their new neighbours. It crossed his mind that they probably made a pretty convincing married couple – but if they were newlyweds, they probably wouldn’t last long.

In the end they made their excuses and took the argument out into the passageway.

‘So tell me, what was all that about?’ he demanded.

‘What?’

‘You and Lucca.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Tosh.’

And she looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise – and delight. ‘You’re jealous.’

He ignored her. ‘The man is dangerous.’ He was jealous, and she liked it.

‘Maybe I’m attracted to dangerous men,’ she said. After all, Owen had always been kind of dangerous. Maybe not the same way as Besnik Lucca, but he had never been a saint. It shocked her a little to think that may have been what got her on to him in the first place.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you’d met him before?’

She’d had something like a smile on her face. Owen’s obvious jealousy had delighted her. Now his question wiped it off her face as surely as if he’d slapped her. She considered struggling out of his suspicions, faking complete bemusement, telling him he was imagining things. The trouble was, she was a little scared by the fact she had said nothing to him.

‘He found me in the basement earlier.’

‘Jesus Christ, Tosh!’

‘It’s all right. I told him I was looking for somewhere to smoke. I lied. He seemed to believe me.’

‘And you didn’t think it was worth telling me.’

‘We’re here to find an alien that can move through walls, not an Eastern European crime lord. He’s irrelevant.’

‘We don’t know that. For all we know, he could be what we’re looking for.’

Toshiko shook her head. ‘No. According to the police profile, Lucca has been living in the UK since 1998. If he was really something that had come through the Rift there’s no way he would have stayed off the Torchwood radar this long.’

Owen conceded that she had a point: if he had come through the Rift, Lucca wouldn’t be the first with a murderous track record, but he would be the first to set about building a crime empire, never mind a multi-million-pound property portfolio.

All the same, Owen couldn’t help worrying about her and, perhaps, for himself. He felt awkward, but he couldn’t stop the question slipping out. ‘You don’t fancy him, do you, Tosh?’

Toshiko glanced aside. She didn’t want to look at him when she lied, but the truth was there was something magnetic about Lucca. Something that was unquestionably dark but undeniably sexually exciting. She didn’t want to lie, and she found that she didn’t need to – she saw the door to their apartment was standing slightly open, and that took over in the priority stakes.

‘Owen, look.’

He turned towards the door and she was glad to see that he had brought his gun with him. He pulled it from the small of his back and motioned her to stand back as he pressed himself against the wall of the passageway and edged closer to the open door of their apartment.

There were no sounds from beyond the door, and the only light was the faint orange glow of the Bay lights below.

Owen readied his nerves and bunched his muscles, and sprang through the door, swinging the gun from left to right across the dimly lit apartment. There was no movement, only the wreckage of an inexpert and destructive search.

Toshiko came in behind him, and turned on the lights. The apartment was a mess, someone had gone through it like a tornado that had up-ended furniture, torn out drawers and spread their contents across the floor and, in the bedroom, slashed the mattress.

‘So much for SkyPoint security,’ breathed Toshiko.

But she knew this was no burglary. This was a warning.

‘I’d say someone was on to us,’ Owen observed casually as he put straight an up-lighter. ‘

I’ll give you three guesses.’ Toshiko went into the dressing room. She had hidden her gun and the hand-held computer module on top of one of the wardrobe units. But whoever had turned over the flat had been as thorough as they had disorderly.

‘My gun has gone,’ she told him. ‘And my monitor.’

Owen tossed her the phone from beside the bed. ‘Did he give you his number? Maybe you could ask for them back.’ Toshiko threw the phone onto the bed, angry.

‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ she said. ‘We’re not the police, we’re not interested in Besnik Lucca.’

‘But he doesn’t know that. All he knows is that we’re after something.’

‘
I hope you find what you’re looking for
.’

‘Exactly.’

‘The bastard.’

‘Now we’re making progress.’

Owen had put his gun down on the bed. Toshiko grabbed it, checked it, and shoved it in the waistband of her skirt. She didn’t care if it ruined the line of her blouse now.

Owen got to his feet. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

‘He’s got my equipment. I want it back.’

‘No, Tosh. Give me the gun.’

Toshiko glared at him. ‘I’ve held my own against all kinds of aliens, what makes you think I can’t handle Besnik Lucca?’

Owen regarded her carefully. ‘He’s a man.’

Toshiko felt anger course like electricity through her, setting every nerve in her body alight. ‘Screw you, Owen.’

She turned and left the bedroom, headed for the front door.

Owen cursed himself, and went after her. ‘Tosh! I’m sorry — wait!’

But she was already going through the door. She slammed it shut without even looking back.

Owen shook his head, frustrated and angry with himself. The second time today he had acted like a prick. Nothing new there, he’d done it pretty much all of his life. Difference was, this time it was sending Toshiko into big trouble.

Still, he’d catch her before she got to the lift.

He reached for the door handle. It wouldn’t turn.

What?

It wasn’t that it was locked. If it had been locked, the handle would have turned, but the bolt wouldn’t move. But the handle was jammed solid.

He yelled her name, and tugged on the door – but if she heard him she didn’t reply and the door didn’t move. Like the door handle, it was jammed unnaturally solid.

Owen backed away from the door. Instinctively, he knew that something was wrong here –
very wrong
.

And the thing that melted out of the wall and came for him proved it.

SIXTEEN

Toshiko rode the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor with the gun in her hand. She decided there was no point in a pantomime; Lucca knew that she and Owen were not what they claimed to be, and he knew that they had weapons. The fact that she still carried a gun, despite his goons’ search-and-retrieve operation in their apartment, might help limit the discussion and get her what she wanted – and out of there again – faster.

She had gone back to the Lloyds’ party first, looking for Lucca and ready to coax him out of there and confront him. Lucca had already gone. But Toshiko was in no mood to let him get away. She didn’t stop to think about Owen’s concerns for her; she was still running on the pulse energy of anger. She was angry with Owen, and just as angry with herself. There was something to prove here – damn it, there was a
lot
to prove here. To herself, as much as Owen.

Was she really so pathetic that she could face off against horrible things from far-off galaxies, but she just couldn’t hack it when it came to men? With her scientist’s head in gear she had to admit that the empirical data was not in her favour.

Screw that!

This was where things changed.

She felt the elevator settle on the twenty-fifth floor. She waited for the doors to open. They didn’t. Instead she heard Besnik Lucca’s voice. She almost jumped, it sounded as if he was in there with her.

‘Toshiko. I knew you would come. But, please, put your weapon on the floor.’

Toshiko scanned the elevator cabin. There was a camera. There had to be. She saw her own reflection in one of the mirrors, the gun looked big and heavy in her hand.

‘Please,’ Lucca coaxed. ‘Then we can talk.’

‘We’re not police,’ she called out. ‘We’re not interested in you, Lucca. We’re no threat to you.’

‘My angel, anyone who carries a gun to my door is a threat. Put it on the floor.’

Toshiko did as she was told.

‘Now step back against the wall, and stay there.’

She took a step backwards and felt the cold glass of the mirror on her back through the thin silk that she wore.

The elevator doors parted, revealing two men who looked part-gorilla. One held a gun on her, the other collected the weapon on the floor, then gestured for her to step out.

The apartment was huge, tastefully furnished and decorated with artwork that she knew was both expensive and original.

The two goons left her to wander across its white carpet unhindered. She followed the slight breeze that moved through the apartment and found Lucca standing in the roof garden waiting for her.

It was a warm September night, and he had lost the jacket to his black suit. He stood on the terrace watching her approach, and he was smoking one of the same foreign cigarettes she had seen him with before.

The garden was lit with subtle lighting, and he had been quite right: even at night, it was breathtaking.

He stood next to a table that was lit by lights in the floor. There was a champagne bottle cooling and a couple of glasses. She got the sense that he had known she was coming, maybe before even she had.

‘I see that you chose not to bring your husband,’ he said.

‘You know he’s not my husband.’

‘Which simplifies matters a great deal,’ he said, and poured the champagne.

‘I didn’t come here to drink champagne with you.’

‘That’s a shame. We had seemed to be getting along so well.’ He sipped from one of the glasses. ‘And the champagne is at the perfect temperature.’

He held a glass out to her. Toshiko ignored it.

‘We’re not interested in you,’ she told him again.

‘We?’ he asked, placing the glass back on the table. ‘And just who are
we
?’

‘Torchwood.’

He looked at her blankly. ‘I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.’

‘There is something in this building, Mr Lucca, that is killing people.’

Lucca laughed, and threw himself carelessly into one of the big chairs out on the terrace. ‘I take it that you mean, apart from me.’

‘We know all about you, Lucca. But we’re not interested. You’re not the kind of scum we have the licence for. Or the stomach.’

He leaned forward, intent. ‘So what exactly is it that we’re talking about? A life form of some kind that can pass through walls and takes people with it, just sucks them back out through the wall, as if they had never been there?’

Toshiko felt her body charge with nervous excitement. ‘Yes. Exactly. Have you seen it?’

Lucca smiled a little. ‘I see everything.’

He had a remote control in his hand. He pressed a button and a panel in the garden lit up. Lucca had a TV in his garden, as well as in his shower.

The garden TV didn’t particularly shock Toshiko. Anyone who lived half a mile up in the sky and still needed a lawn sprinkler was going to be a little on the flash side. What shocked her was what she saw on the screen.

‘I think you missed a bit, just there,’ he said, pointing to the back of his own neck.

On screen, Toshiko was showering.

‘You pervert,’ she growled.

Lucca chuckled. ‘A little perversion, a little paranoia… I built this place as my fortress. I have a great many enemies. But up here no one can reach me. From here, if I need to, I can control the elevators, the fire doors, the air-con. Everything. And I see everything.’

He toggled the remote and the image on the screen changed: it was Owen crossing the apartment earlier that night with the towel wrapped around his waist. Lucca froze the frame. The hole in Owen’s chest was clearly visible.

‘I see everything,’ he said. ‘I just don’t pretend to understand it all.’

‘All we want to do is to stop this thing killing people. You’re in as much danger as anyone. Let us deal with it.’

Lucca looked at her for a long time, as if he were considering, or perhaps just playing games.

In the end he said, ‘No.’

And the two men that had been waiting for her outside the elevator grabbed Toshiko from behind.

SEVENTEEN

Owen was surrounded by darkness. It was complete and total, and he knew that it was Death.

He had been here before. He remembered it the way that young babies must remember the womb.

There was a strange sensation of suspension. Like floating in the densely salted water of a relaxation chamber. Except that there was little that was relaxing about Death. It was cold, and every nerve in his body was screaming with tension. Because although this was Death, and this was the end, with no afterlife, with no hope of resurrection or salvation, he knew – as all the dead knew – they were not alone here.

There was something in the darkness.

And, whatever it was, it would find him defenceless because he could not move, he could not run and there was nowhere to hide. The darkness may have been total but instinctively he knew that
it
could see him.

Owen!

And sooner or later it would come for him.

Owen!