Doctor Who_ The Death of Art Part 8

Chapter 8.

The morgue of the Caserne de la Cite, the main building of Paris's Prefecture of Police, smelt of sawdust and blood.

Antiseptics were not wasted on the dead. It made Jarre think of grave-robbers. Indeed, the abnormally tall Dr Tardieu and his squat a.s.sistant seemed like something from a Gothic tale as they methodically examined the body.

Dr Tardieu eased himself up from his work and pa.s.sed his knives to the other doctor. Tardieu was semi-retired now, no longer the proud imperious figure who had presided over the most celebrated cases of the past thirty years. His posture was curved and bent from too many close examinations. His eyes however were bright and clear and, Jarre thought, the intellect behind them was equally undimmed. He still deserved his reputation as the finest forensic surgeon in France. Inspector Jarre thought that the other doctor watched his movements like someone watching G.o.d.

'Well, I think we can be reasonably certain that these injuries were inflicted after death with the purpose of disguis-ing the body,' Tardieu said.

Jarre sucked at his teeth. 'I thought as much. That explains the disturbance that the neighbours heard.'

'Indeed. Now, as to the cause and time of death, I feel that these marks on the tibia and fibula are most suggestive. If the splinters of the compound fractures are exposed thus . . . ' Dr Tardieu thrust his hands into the shattered meat of the body's right leg and, hooking his fingers under the bones, pulled them into sight; white mosaics among the red. 'We can see a 97 pattern of breakages consistent with the impact of a large semicircular blunt object.'

'A horseshoe!' Jarre said bitterly. "The man was run down in the street.'

'That would be my conjecture, yes. There is only one thing inconsistent with the hypothesis that death was caused by the blows of a horse's hoofs: the peculiar damage to the frontal lobes.'

Jarre looked hard at Tardieu. 'Surely the deliberate attempt to obliterate the face would have caused considerable injury to the brain?'

'Yes, and that surface contusion of the lobes is present, and would doubtless have caused death in itself if the body had not already ceased to function. However, in addition to that the surface of the brain is riddled with fine holes only visible when the tissue is examined through one of the most modern microscopes. I can suggest nothing that might account for it, except that some part of the brain has actually been removed.'

Jarre considered. The Shadow Directory had records of many strange occurrences, from the Woodwicke Calamity of the previous century onwards, but he could not recall anything recorded in the Black Files that would account for the injuries discovered by Dr Tardieu. He began to feel really interested. This was the kind of case the Directory existed to investigate. Bon Dieu, it felt good.

'Could the damage have been caused by something forced into the skull after death, piercing down into the brain?'

Some alien vampire, he thought gleefully.

'In such a case, I would expect the brain to show evidence of compression of the tissues, and ruptures spreading outwards from the site at which each object entered the lobes.

My examination shows no such damage, only an absence of material as if some matter had been physically removed from the brain. I am at a loss to account for it.'

The other doctor cleared his throat. 'Well, gentlemen, I hate to interrupt but if nothing going into the brain could have made those injuries, then it seems to me that there's only one possibility left.'

98.'And what pray is that?' Jarre said, irritated.

'They were left by something making its own way out.'

Later. Much later. Another mission. A vital one for the Adjudicator Secular. A big juke-baron was spending freely, too freely, thumbing his credits into the accounts of citiblock administrators, local n.o.bility, anyone with two blind eyes.

Something was going down on the streets. Informants were as nervous as domestic pets in a Tetrap restaurant. Roz did some b.u.t.ton-pus.h.i.+ng. It did not take her long to find the right b.u.t.tons.

The juke-baron was going to thumbprint an agreement right across the Level Seventy-Five crime families, from the IT Triads to the Apaches. Apaches? That was a new one, Roz mused. Probably a corruption of apparatchiks. Retrogade style victims hyped up on Juke and Znikov Cola.

Centcomp confirmed the danger. Today Level Seventy-Five, tomorrow Seventy-Four. The Adjudicator Secular put on the black silk cap. Roz struggled to remember the importance of the ritual. It just looked stupid. She kept her face resolutely immobile as the orders were handed down. It was to be a pre-emptive. The juke-baron was to be burnt down in mid-meeting. Centcomp predicted the mutual hostility among the crime lords would lead to several resultant vendet-tas and a consequent increase in arrestable offences. She drew a smart-gun from Stores. Once out of the building she thumbclicked it to ' d i m ' . There was nothing worse than a gabby hand-gun.

It mumbled in her shoulder-holster. She caught the words 'lasers in the j u n g l e ' , and left it to its cyber-soap-opera dreams. Smart weapons, bah. Give her smart adjudicators any day.

Later still. An influx of heavy-duty enforcers and bodyguards swished through the Seventy-Fifth Level corridors like meat-animals with gunbelts. Genefreaks and multi-steroid secreters, all highly illegal. Roz was already holed up in a con-apt on Level Seventy-Six.

She had the meeting suite wired for sound and vision. Odd 99 how that phrase had persisted in the language when no one had used 'wire' in centuries. The computers sorting out the data could locate someone precisely in the room on heartbeat differences alone if necessary. From here she could burn down diagonally and fry the juke-baron's brain.

She watched the bodyguards come and go, and planned her escape. Some were needlemen, cyberized a.s.sa.s.sins who were brought to Earth by the Morok Nostra and abandoned when the Morok Empire was overthrown as a result of Earth-funded insurgents. Some were Ogrons. They were too stupid to matter. Except, and this was something that sprang at once to Roz's trained attention, the needlemen weren't carrying their characteristic monofilament weapons but long loaves of bread, and the Ogrons were wearing little flat black hats. Berets, she thought they were called.

Some sort of illusion screen, or hallucinogenic gas? No matter. She knew where her duty lay. Wait until the signal lined up and then fire. No need to think at all.

A cough from the doorway drew Jarre's attention from the operating table. A dark, saturnine man wearing a drab yellow greatcoat stood there. 'Doctor Tardieu, Monsieur Inspector, Monsieur Doctor. I am sorry to have to ask you to put your theories to one side, but this body is now the property of French Military Intelligence.

'Inspector Jarre, I am sure the Surete Generale has other tasks on which your skills could be honed. Doctor Tardieu I will expect a written report detailing your findings by noon tomorrow. You may omit all non-germane material about your microscopic examination of the brain. Undoubtedly the poor victim was simply suffering from a peculiar physical lesion. As you yourself said, the microscope used to observe these features is new, consequently we cannot know how many brains may exhibit them. Your a.s.sociate can, I trust, hold his tongue.'

Dr Tardieu sniffed disdainfully. 'I stand corrected in my business, sir. May I enquire just who in French Military Intelligence I have the honour to be instructed b y ? '

100.The dark man smiled. 'But of course, how remiss of me.

My name is Major Hubert Joseph Henri, I am in charge of state security at the Ministry of War. For the purposes of all matters relating to this investigation you may regard me as speaking for the President of France.'

Doctor Tardieu bowed, blood-stained hands clasped tightly across his white-ap.r.o.ned lap. 'You will excuse me, gentlemen. I suddenly find myself with no stomach for this examination.

Perhaps Major Henri would care to get his hands dirty.' The surgeon walked out of the examination room, back held dead straight. Jarre knew how much the gesture must have hurt him.

The a.s.sisting doctor scuttled out after him, abashed.

Henri picked up one of the chairs that lined the room, left over from the training of Tardieu's students and, turning it round, sat astride it. 'So Jarre, how are you finding the police?'

Jarre smiled. 'I just moved a stone and there they were.

Fat, glistening and useless. Paid up, and paid off.'

'That's a very harsh judgement for someone who has barely set foot in the Prefecture building since his appointment started. You've just not given them time, Anton.'

'Ah Major, I do not think we are on first-name terms. Call me a stickler for formality if you wish, but we have not been introduced by a third party, nor I think are we likely to be friends.'

Henri laughed harshly in his throat. 'I am supremely uninterested in your friends.h.i.+p, inspector. But I want you to bear in mind that your subversive activities are not un.o.b-served. There can be only one loyalty in France, and it is not your obsolete loyalty to the principles of a revolution dead and rotting a hundred years ago. Do I make myself clear?'

'Perfectly. May I ask why the death of an unknown man apparently trampled by a horse is now of interest to Military Intelligence? Are there no leaked doc.u.ments to pursue, no Jews to ruin? Or is it simply that if I investigated someone stealing candy from a baby, you would still feel this jealous need to grab the case for yourself?'

Henri smiled. 'If you will persist in the delusion that all 101 our efforts to stamp out corruption have as their target you and your friends, then it must be hard to see that the preservation of law and order might be one of our interests.

It's no concern of yours, but I have reason to believe that this man left a notorious house on the quai St-Bernard just before bis death. If I mention the name Margaretha Macleod, I am sure you will make the connection. He may have been meeting one of the girls there, or eavesdropping on the foolish men in high places who flock to such dens of ill-repute. Personally I suspect he was killed in mistake for a courier or agent of a foreign power. You will concede that such a possibility makes it our business?'

Jarre gritted his teeth. 'Yes sir. May I go now sir?'

Henry clapped his hands ironically. 'Yes, get about your duties. There must be some crimes in Paris that have no political or military implications. Try to stick to investigating those, and remember if I keep finding you underfoot, I'll have no compunction about bringing my boot down on your face.'

Jarre went out into the cold corridor, his hands clenched white in his pockets. Supercilious b.a.s.t.a.r.d, who did Henri think he was; seizing the body, trying to pa.s.s off that rubbish as a theory? Jarre had heard of the infamous Margaretha Geertruida Zella who had abandoned her marriage to a Dutch army officer called Macleod to become a courtesan and oriental dancer in Paris. There were rumours she was in contact with the Germans, but Jarre doubted that anyone with so flamboyant a nom de theatre nom de theatre as Mata Hari would survive long in the field of espionage. He was more worried about how Henri had learnt so quickly about the body. It had only been reported by the concierge early that morning and only he, Armand and Gerard had known of the report. Could Gerard have betrayed him? Or Armand? Armand had a better opportunity, he could have used the telephone in the house where the body had been found to contact the Ministry of War. as Mata Hari would survive long in the field of espionage. He was more worried about how Henri had learnt so quickly about the body. It had only been reported by the concierge early that morning and only he, Armand and Gerard had known of the report. Could Gerard have betrayed him? Or Armand? Armand had a better opportunity, he could have used the telephone in the house where the body had been found to contact the Ministry of War.

Gerard had only left Jarre's side when he had proved too squeamish to remain in the mortuary while Tardieu had 102 102 begun the dissection. Surely there had not been time for him or any of Dr Tardieu's staff to alert the Major? Jarre cursed inwardly. It looked as if there was no alternative. Armand was a spy for the Ministry of War. He was part of the conspiracy determined to break the Shadow Directory in France. A conspiracy that was prepared to lie, to cheat, to ruin careers and to kill.

In the gallery of the sewer Roz looked down but saw only a computer-interpreted location map of the juke-baron's hide-out. She tightened her finger on the trigger of her rifle. Under Mirakle's command, one part of her mind helpfully supplied another with the feel of a smart-gun's contact control.

Her finger twitched.

The rifle cracked and twisted in her hands. Conditioned to expecting a recoilless blast, the impact in her shoulder knocked her sideways. The bullet flew wild. Something screamed like an alien or a clone in the night. The pain in her shoulder coupled with the harsh smell of cordite. Adjudication weapons killed or paralysed. They lacked this immediate brutality. In the moment of shock, the blue-white fluores-cence of the con-apt walls split into droplets of light that spat away into the humid air.

What the h.e.l.l was happening? She clamped down hard, and began basic reorientation checks. She was not in a contractual apartment. She was in a gallery of steel and tile above a dark underground river. A good sniper position. One level up from the targets and no maintenance ladders between them and her. Excellent. Provided the targets could not scale sheer wet tiles and brick.

Seeing the targets and smelling the stink of them on the eddies of wind, Roz did not feel sure of that. Below her, on the tiled banks of the sewer, the hosts of h.e.l.l were spread, stirred up like maggots in a kicked corpse. She tried to get a good look at the creatures, to dispel the irrational fear that had welled up when the walls of the illusionary thirtieth century had broken down. A tiny doubting voice mocked at the back of her mind. What if this was not real either? The 103 things below made her hope it was not. In the shadows, a man made of mouths opened and closed his flesh mindlessly.

Another, the one she had shot, a grey ma.s.s apparently composed of tendrils tipped with knives, chuckled thickly with no mouth at all. Its scream had been one of surprise or amus.e.m.e.nt. Others more humanoid were more horrible still.

Under the dark overarching brickwork of the great sewer, the man she had aimed at stood on a low mound and harangued the d.a.m.ned, his voice an insectoid buzzing. A part of her mind she didn't control told her his name was Montague, and he was her enemy. Beneath his sandalled feet, the lithe flesh of the mound writhed as his most intimate acolytes made themselves more comfortable.

One of the figures behind the mound turned a great luminous eye in her direction. She had seen virtuals like this in the Church of the Adjudication Black Museum; CyberDores, and Hieronymus Bosch 3000s, a Millennium in NeoSodom; all the slickly wrapped perversions of technology. She had arrested a few of the makers in her time. Tax evasion, mostly. She was not about to try to arrest these. Not without an armoured-up force of Adjudication Bug-Hunt Specialists or the Doctor behind her.

This looked like the kind of thing even the Doctor might issue guns for.

She knew without looking that the handbag and the alien gun had been taken from her. Only the clumsy rifle remained.

She inspected it as she ran, by the light falling through the iron gratings in the ceiling.

Projectile weapons weren't really her forte, but she'd got some practice in on the TARDIS archery range, and in a big room below the West Arboretum which the Doctor called the Dunkirk Suite, where the floor was dried hard with the mud of old army boots and tank tracks. T h e rifle was bulky. Some sort of high-powered hunting rifle, she thought. Did the French hunt elephants in their colonies? Roz hoped so.

The walkway was narrowing up ahead. Part of the sewer looked as if it was under repair or construction. Under the early afternoon sun, iron rungs caught the light. Bands pointing to the upper air. If only she could reach them before 104 the things from the sewer below could scale the walls.

A humming thing rose up from below the level of the walkway. Roz caught a lightning glimpse of a naked humanoid with wings developed from incredibly enlarged finger joints. Its chest bulged out like the prow of a s.h.i.+p. It had hardly any flesh and Roz guessed that its bones must have been hollow, perhaps even naturally pocketed with hydrogen or helium. Its wings were tipped with bone spurs. Roz's hand shook slightly as she raised the rifle. If its tissues were suffused with hydrogen it might explode if she shot it. If she did not shoot it, it might slow her down. Already she could hear scrabbling at the smooth walls below the gallery and she suspected that if she looked down she would see the nimblest of the creatures crawling towards her over a pile of its bleeding and injured fellows.

The rifle barked in her hands, and a bullet tore through the creature's membranous wing. It made a noise like a mad hummingbird as it spiralled back into the dark. She saw a spark of flame in the membrane of its torn wing burning up towards the bone as it fell. Roz ran on, feet skidding on the slick tiles of the gallery, and threw herself towards the iron rungs.

The explosion tore up the walkway behind her, and blew her down into the abyss.

'Honestly, Doctor, I don't know how you kept your temper with that jumped-up Major,' Tardieu said, cleaning his hands in the big metal sink. 'If I was an Immortal, I'd soon have sorted him out.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'The Academie Francaise does not have the influence it once had with the Senate and the Council of Deputies, let alone the President.' He dunked his hands briskly in the water. 'The Four Hundredth and First Chair is a purely honorary appointment, anyway. You might say that I ' m only an Immortal barring accident.'

Tardieu cackled with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Or politics eh, Doctor?'

He held out his hand. 'Still, it was a singular honour for me to work with a member of the Academie, even one travelling incognito.'

105.

The Doctor grasped the proffered hand firmly. 'To be candid, I was pleased to find someone who remembered my name. Most of my little monographs have long been forgotten. Although there was a book on fly-fis.h.i.+ng I penned under a pseudonym that turned out to be quite a money-spinner.'

In his work room, Brother Tomas stiffened and reached for a pair of secateurs. Holding them by the blade, he pa.s.sed them to Mirakle.

'It's failed. As we expected, Montague still lives. It's time for a retreat.' He leant forward and brushed his long hair forward from the nape of his neck. He glanced sideways.

Doctor Mirakle was holding the gardening shears as if they were poisoned. Tomas sighed. 'A fragment of tissue is enough, August, but take an ear if you must. I ' v e made greater sacrifices, and I cannot afford to wait.'

'Not even for half an ear, eh?' Mirakle said. Tomas saw that the conjuror's fat hands were shaking. He scowled.

'I can feel my loyalists changing sides, Anton. Montague will be upon us shortly. Do you think fingermen and courtesans are all that he has bred in the crypts under Montrouge?

I have no desire to be better acquainted with his torture drones and his internal examiners. We will let a decoy die in my place. It will not be the last time, I dare say.'

Mirakle put the edge of the scissors to the tip of Tomas's ear, and snipped.

Blood spurted onto his lace sleeve, and a fragment of flesh fell to the table.

Tomas took a black wood box from hi s pocket and put it down on the table next to the piece of his ear. 'You will find this instructive, Mirakle. The homunculi develop q u i c k l y '

The ear began to expand, put out feelers, grew into a skull.

106.

Chapter 9.

Roz shook her head to clear it. She was in a dark crevice off the main artery of the sewer. Her fall had been broken by the water. She was drenched. The rifle was nowhere to be seen.

Even if it had been near at hand she might not have noticed it.

The light from above had dimmed. The afternoon must be clouding over.

She wrung out the sodden material of her lower dress.

Nowhere to dry it in a sewer. G.o.ddess, it was too easy to start thinking of non-survival issues.

She tore the crumpled and befouled part of the dress off and wadded it into a ball. Throw it away, or keep it in case it was possible to lay a false scent? Did they hunt by scent? The flyer had looked as if it might have used sonar. Some of the others probably had her brainwaves dangling before them like a big luminous arrow pointing at her head.

She forced herself to concentrate. The situation was by no means hopeless. They had not found her while she was stunned. With luck they thought she was dead in the explosion. If they could be avoided for - how long had they been after her now? - an hour, maybe two? If they could be avoided that long, they could be escaped. Was it two hours?

She was starting to regret never having had a timepiece chipped into her retina, even though she had always smiled wryly at the goggle-eyed intensity of clock-watchers. It would not work right anyway. Not even a chipclock could cope with time-zones and time-travel.

Something snuffled out in the tunnel, low down, to her 107 right. Something on all fours. She debated sticking her head out into the light. A vision of a snake-necked thing striking just as her head popped around the corner dissuaded her.

The noise got louder. She thought of the shapes Montague had been preaching to, and gritted her teeth. Anything that snuffled, breathed. Anything that breathed could be throttled.

Roz's first law of unarmed combat.