The Redeemer(85)

'You don't like lifts,' Jon said.

Harry eyed him in surprise. 'Is it obvious?'

Jon smiled. 'My father doesn't, either. Come on. Let's take the stairs.'

They set off and some way up Harry heard the lift door open beneath them.

They let themselves into the flat and Harry stood by the door while Jon went to the bathroom and fetched a toilet bag.

'Strange,' Jon said with a frown. 'It's as if someone has been here.'

Jon slipped into the bedroom and returned with a bag.

'It smells funny,' he said.

Harry had a look around. There were two glasses on the sink, but no milk or other visible signs of liquid on the rims that would reveal anything. No wet marks left by melted snow on the floor, just a few splinters of light wood in front of the desk which must have come from one of the drawers. One drawer front looked as if it had split.

'Let's get moving,' Harry said.

'Why's my vac there?' Jon asked, pointing. 'Have your people been using it?'

Harry knew SOC procedures and none of them involved using the vacuum cleaner at the scene of the crime.

'Does anyone else have a key to this flat?' Harry asked.

Jon hesitated. 'Thea, my girlfriend. But she would never have used the vac here of her own accord.'

Harry studied the splinters of wood in front of the desk which would have been the first thing a vacuum cleaner would have swallowed. Then he went over to the machine. The attachment had been removed from the plastic shaft attached to the end of the hose. Cold shivers ran down his spine. He lifted the hose and peered down it. Ran a finger around the circular black edge and looked at his fingertip.

'What's that?' Jon asked.

'Blood,' Harry said. 'Check the door's locked.'

Harry already knew. He was standing on the threshold to the room he hated and yet still never managed to keep away from. He removed the plastic lid in the middle of the machine. Loosened the yellow dust bag and lifted it out while thinking that this was in fact the house of pain. The place where he was always forced to use his ability to empathise with evil. An ability which more and more often he thought he had overdeveloped.

'What are you doing?' Jon asked.

The bag was so full it bulged. Harry grabbed the soft, thick paper and ripped it open. The bag split and a fine cloud of black dust rose like a spirit from a lamp. It ascended weightlessly towards the ceiling as Jon and Harry examined the contents on the parquet floor.

'Mercy,' Jon whispered.





18

Thursday, 18 December. The Chute.



'MY GOD,' JON GROANED, GROPING FOR A CHAIR. 'WHAT'S happened here? That's an . . . that's an . . .'

'Yes,' Harry said, crouching beside the vacuum cleaner and concentrating on maintaining even breathing. 'It's an eye.'

The eyeball looked like a blood-streaked, stranded jellyfish. Dust was stuck to the white surface. On the blood-soaked reverse Harry could make out the base of muscles and the thicker, wormlike peg that was the optical nerve. 'What I'm wondering is how it got through the filter unscathed and into the bag. If it was sucked in that is.'

'I took out the filter,' Jon said in a tremulous voice. 'It sucks better.'

Harry produced a pen from his jacket pocket and used it to turn the eye with great care. The consistency felt soft, but there was a hard centre. He shifted position so that the light from the lamp in the ceiling fell on the pupil, which was large, black, with blurred edges now that the eye muscles no longer kept it round. The light, almost turquoise iris encircling the pupil shone like the centre of a matt marble. Harry heard Jon's quick breaths behind him.

'Unusually light blue iris,' Harry said. 'Anyone you know?'

'No, I . . . I don't know.'

'Listen, Jon,' Harry said, without turning round. 'I don't know how much practice you've had at lying, but you're not very good at it. I can't force you to tell me spicy details about your brother, but with this . . .' Harry pointed to the bloodstained eyeball. '. . . I can force you to tell me who it is.'

He swung round. Jon was sitting on one of the two kitchen chairs with his head bowed.

'I . . . she . . .' His voice was thick with emotion.

'A she then,' Harry helped.

Jon gave a firm nod of his bowed head. 'Her name's Ragnhild Gilstrup. No one else has eyes like her.'

'And how did her eye end up here?'

'I have no idea. She . . . we . . . used to meet here. She had a key. What have I done, Harry? Why has this happened?'

'I don't know, Jon. But I have a job to do here, and we have to find you a place to go first.'

'I can go back to Gørbitz gate.'

'No!' Harry shouted. 'Have you got keys to Thea's flat?'

Jon nodded.

'OK, go there. Keep the door locked and don't open up for anyone except me.'

Jon walked towards the front door, then paused. 'Harry?'

'Yes?'

'Does it have to come out, about Ragnhild and me? I stopped meeting her when Thea and I got together.'

'Then it's not a problem.'