The Genesis Secret: (25 page)

For two more days Rob did nothing but agonize. Isobel stopped calling. Steve stopped calling so much. The silence was unendurable. He tried to drink tea and he tried to reassure Sally and he went to the supermarket to buy some vodka; then he got back home and went straight to his laptop, yet again. He was doing it by rote, now: expecting nothing.

But this time there was the little symbol of an envelope on his screen. A new email had arrived, and the new email was from…
Cloncurry.

Rob opened up the message, his teeth gritted with tension.

The email was empty: apart from a link to a video. Rob clicked the videolink: the screen fizzed and cleared, and then Rob saw Christine and his daughter in a bare room, again tied to chairs. The room was a little different, smaller than the last one. The prisoners’ clothes had changed. Obviously Christine and Lizzie had been moved.

But it wasn’t any of this that caused Rob to shiver, with a harsh new fear, and a deeper anguish: it was the fact the two hostages were
hooded.
Someone had put thick black hoods over the heads of the girls.

Rob grimaced. He remembered his own terror in that foul black hood in Lalesh.
Staring at the darkness.

These new, chilling scenes on the video-of Lizzie
and Christine, silent, hooded, and lashed to the chairs-lasted a long three minutes. After then Cloncurry appeared, talking directly to the webcam.

Rob stared at the lean and handsome face.

‘Hello, Rob! As you can see we’ve moved to more exciting accommodation. The girls have got hoods on because we want to frighten the living fuck out of them. So.
Do
tell me about the Black Book. Are you really on to it? I need to know. I need to be kept fully informed. Please don’t keep secrets. I don’t like secrets. Family secrets are such terrible things, don’t you think? So tell me. If you still want a family, if you don’t want your family dead, tell me. Tell me soon. Don’t make me do what I don’t want to do.’

Cloncurry turned away. He seemed to be talking to someone behind the webcam. Murmuring. Rob could hear laughter from somewhere off-cam. Then Cloncurry faced the camera again. ‘I mean, let’s get down to basics, Rob. You know what I like to do, you know my metier. It’s sacrifice, isn’t it? Human sacrifice. But the trouble is I am spoiled for choice. I mean: how
shall
I kill your daughter? And Christine? Because there are so many methods of sacrifice, aren’t there? What are your favourites, Rob? I rather like the Viking ones. Don’t you? The blood eagling, for example. The professor was quite alarmed I believe, when we took out his lungs. Alarmed and somewhat impressed, if I say so myself. But we could have been so much…
crueller.
’ Cloncurry smiled.

Rob sat in his flat, sweating.

Cloncurry edged nearer the camera. ‘For instance, there is a delightful rite the Celts had. They would impale their victims. Especially young women. First they would strip them naked, then they would carry them to a field, lift them up on top of a sharp wooden stake, and pull their legs apart, and then-well then just kind of yank them down, onto the stick. Impaling them. Through the vagina. Or the anus maybe.’ Cloncurry yawned, then continued, ’I really don’t want to do that to your lovely girlfriend, Rob. I mean, if I did shove a pike up her snatch she would just bleed all over the rug. And then we’ll have to buy a big carpet cleaner. A needless expense!’ He smiled again. ‘So just give me the fucking Black Book. The Tom Whaley shit. Stuff you found in Lalesh. Give it over. Now.’

The webcam wobbled slightly. Cloncurry reached out and steadied it. Then he said, direct to camera, ‘And as for
child
sacrifice, with little Lizzie over here. Well now…’

He got up and walked over to Lizzie’s chair. With a magician’s flourish, Cloncurry whipped off the hood-and there was Lizzie. Staring, terrified, at the camera, the leather gag tight around her mouth.

Cloncurry stroked the girl’s hair. ‘So many methods, just the one little girl. Which one shall we choose? The Incans would take children up mountains and just kill them by exposure. But that’s rather slow, I feel. Rather…
boring.
But how about one of the more refined Aztec methods?
You may, for instance, have heard of the god Tlaloc?’

He moved around Lizzie’s chair. ‘The god Tlaloc was a bit of a cunt, to be perfectly frank, Rob. He wanted his thirst slaked with human tears. So the Aztec priests had to make the children cry. So they did this by tearing off the childrens’ fingernails. Very slowly. One by one.’

Cloncurry was unstrapping one of Lizzie’s hands now; Rob saw that his daughter’s hand was shaking with fear. ‘Yes, Rob, they would rip out the nails, then cut off little fingers like these.’ He caressed her fingers. ‘And that made the children cry, of course. Having their fingernails ripped away. And then as they tore off the nails the Aztecs would capture the tears of the sobbing children, and give the liquid to Tlaloc. Then the kids were decapitated.’

Cloncurry smiled. Then, brusquely, he tied Lizzie’s hand to the arm of the chair again. ‘So that’s what I may do, Rob, I may follow the old Aztec method. But I really think you should try and dissuade me. Don’t make me rip off her nails, slice off her fingers, and then chop her head off. But if I am forced by your obstinacy to do any of that, I shall be sure to send her tears to you in a little plastic pot. So get cracking, get moving, get working.’ He smiled. ‘Chop chop!’

The killer leaned forward, looking for a switch. The video paused; the clip was frozen.

Rob stared at the silent computer for ten minutes afterwards. At the final frozen image of Cloncurry’s
half smile. His high cheekbones; his glittering green eyes; his dark hair. Sitting in the room behind him were Rob’s daughter and Rob’s girlfriend, tied to chairs, waiting to be impaled, to be mutilated and killed. Rob had no doubt that Cloncurry would do these things. He’d read the report of De Savary’s murder.

The following day Rob spent with Sally. And then he got another email. With another video. And this one was so grotesque that Rob vomited as he watched.

As soon as he’d got the new email with the new video Rob went to Scotland Yard, to Forrester’s office. He didn’t even ring first, he didn’t text or email, he wiped the puke from his mouth and washed his face with cold water, and hailed a cab.

On the way to Victoria he looked at all the happy people. Shopping; walking; climbing on and off buses; staring in shop windows. It was hard to reconcile the ordinariness of the street scene with the obscenity of what Rob had just witnessed in the video.

He tried not to think about it. He had to control his anger. They could still save his daughter; even if it was too late for Christine. Rob sat in the back of the taxi and felt like punching out the cab window, but he wasn’t going to lose control. Not yet, anyway. What he would do, if he ever got the chance, was slaughter Cloncurry. And not just slaughter him with a knife or a hatchet: Rob
was going to take a poker to Cloncurry’s head, smash the back of his skull until brain came ejaculating out of his eyes. No, worse than that, he would burn Cloncurry slowly with acid, rotting away that handsome face. Anything. Anything anything anything ANYTHING ANYTHING.

Rob wanted payback for what he’d just seen Cloncurry do to Christine in the video. He wanted homicidal revenge.
Now.

The taxi pulled up at the glass and steel atrium of New Scotland Yard and Rob paid the taxi driver with a fierce grunt and went in through the glass doors. The girls on reception tried to stop him but he glared at them so angrily they didn’t know what to do; then Boijer spotted him in the lobby.

‘There’s something you need to see,’ said Rob.

The friendly-faced Finn offered a smile but Rob didn’t smile back. The Finn’s expression darkened; Rob scowled in return.

The lift journey was quiet. They paced to Forrester’s corridor. Boijer knocked on his superior’s door but Rob shoved right in. Forrester was sipping from a mug of tea and staring at folders and he jumped, startled, as Rob burst into the office and sat down in the chair besides Forrester’s. Rob said, bluntly, ‘Check this webmail. Email from Cloncurry.’

‘But why didn’t you call us we could have—’

‘Look at it.’

With a worried glance at Boijer, Forrester leaned forward to his screen and opened up a
search engine. He went to Rob’s email; Rob gave him the password.

‘There,’ said Rob. ‘It’s just a video link. Open it.’

Forrester clicked and the video fizzed into life, showing the same scene as before. Christine and Lizzie tied to a chair. Same clothes, same hoods, a room as nondescript as the last. Hard to tell.

‘I’ve seen this,’ said Forrester, gently. ‘We’re working on it, Rob. We think he’s hooding them so they can’t blink at you and send messages, some people can do that-send signals by blinking. Anyway there’s something I wanted to mention—’

‘Detective.’

‘I’ve been researching the Cloncurrys and the Whaleys, their ancestry, it’s a new angle and—

‘
Detective
!’ Rob was full of righteous anger. And grief. ‘I want you to shut up.
Just watch the clip.
’

The two policemen swapped another anxious glance. Boijer stepped round so he could look at the screen. The three men stared at the computer as the little video clip rolled into action.

A figure emerged from the left of the screen. It was Cloncurry. He was carrying a big saucepan-a huge, grey metal saucepan, full of steaming water. He set the saucepan down, then disappeared off-screen again. Christine and Lizzie sat there in their vile black hoods, presumably oblivious. Not sensing what Cloncurry was doing.

Now Cloncurry was back. With a kind of metal tripod, and a camping gas stove-already
emitting an eager blue flame. He set up the tripod in front of Christine and put the burning gas stove between the legs of the metal stand; then he picked up the steaming tureen of water, and placed it on top. With the blazing flame directly beneath it, the water started to bubble, and to boil.

Apparently satisfied, Cloncurry turned to the camera. ‘Those Swedes are an odd bunch, aren’t they, Rob? I mean, look at their cooking. Open sandwiches. Gravadlax. All that stuff with herrings. And now this! Anyway, we’re all set. I hope you appreciate the expense we’ve gone to, Robert. This saucepan cost fifty quid. I may take it back afterwards, swap it for a toast rack.’ He looked away from the camera. ‘OK. So. Guys. Has someone got the knife?’ He was looking offscreen. ‘Hell-o? Big knife for cutting up people? Yes. That’s it. Thank you so much.’

Taking the blade from an unseen assistant, Cloncurry tilted the knife in his hand, and ran a thumb down the edge. ‘Perfect.’

Now he was staring at the camera again. ‘Of course I’m not talking about modern Sweden, Rob. No. I don’t mean Ikea dining chairs. Or Volvos and Saabs and indoor tennis centres.’ Cloncurry laughed. ‘I mean Sweden before they went all gay on us. Real Sweden. Medieval Sweden. The long-haired barbarians who really knew how to deal with victims, who know how to sacrifice…to Odin. And Thor.
You know.
‘Cause that’s what we’re going to do, in a very special way. We’re going all Swedish this morning. Old time Swedish sacrifice. The Boiling of the Innards.’ The knife flashed in the air. ‘We’re going to cut open one of your girls and boil her lights and vitals, alive, in this big old pot here. But which one shall we sacrifice? Which one do you fancy?’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Which one? The little girl or the big girl? Mmm? I think maybe we should save the best to last, don’t you? And much as you love pretty Christine here with that adorable birthmark near her nipple-yes, that one-I imagine you are more attached to your daughter. So I think we should spare your daughter for a different ritual, later on, maybe tomorrow, and instead we should slice open the Frenchwoman. She has such a nice tummy, after all. Shall we cut your friend open? Yes I think so.’

The killer leaned towards Christine’s hooded figure. She was straining and arching against her bonds, pointlessly. Rob could see the hood inflating and deflating as Christine panted with fear under her shroud.

Cloncurry lifted up her jumper a couple of inches and Christine jerked away from his touch.

‘Goodness. She doesn’t seem very keen, does she? All I’m going to do is carve out her intestines and her stomach and maybe her bladder and boil them slowly in this pot so she dies over thirty minutes or more. Anyone would think she
was at the dentist. What’s wrong with that, Christine?’

In the fetid tension of the office, Forrester leaned to turn the video off.

Rob snapped. ‘No!
Watch it.
I want you to watch it. I had to fucking watch it. Watch it!’

Forrester sat back. Rob saw the glint of tears in the policeman’s eyes. Rob didn’t care. He’d had to watch it. Now
they
had to watch it.

They watched.

Cloncurry’s initial slicing movement was quick. With a professional ease, as if he was practised at butchery, Cloncurry stabbed the knife into Christine’s exposed stomach, and ripped the blade laterally. Blood seeped out, down the blade and onto Christine’s lap. A moan was distinctly audible, despite the gag and the hood, muffling Christine’s voice. The blood was seeping slowly, and the pink and red inner organs were beginning to ooze and poke out of the horizontal slash, like the smeared pink heads of weird babies.

‘Well lookie here,’ said Cloncurry, forcing open the huge wound to peer inside. ‘Who’s that pushing in front. Mrs Uterus? Come on gal, give someone else a chance.’

Dropping the knife, the murderer reached his hands, deep into the lateral gash in Christine’s stomach. Rob couldn’t help noticing how pale Christine’s stomach was. Her tan had faded from her imprisonment; her skin looked almost white.

But the whiteness was coloured by the slowly dripping blood. And the moans were escalating into whines of pain, as Cloncurry gently drew out Christine’s intestines: coils of pastel grey and greasy blue, like links of obscenely raw sausages.

Carefully Cloncurry extracted more of Christine’s organs, still attached to her body by veins, arteries and muscles, and grey-white ganglions; then he carried the great handful of innards to the pot, and he dropped the organs with a plop, into the steaming vat of water.

Christine writhed.

‘Now you see how clever those Swedes were. You can extract all the lower organs, but the victim lives on. Because she’s still attached to her major organs, so she’s still metabolizing. It’s just that she’s
also
being boiled to death.’ Cloncurry was smirking. ‘Hey. Shall we pop some pepper in? Make it spicy. A lovely hotpot of girlfriend.’

Christine’s muffled voice was a strange, sobbing, urgent moan of pain. Smothered by the gag and the hood, it was a noise Rob had never heard anyone make before.

Cloncurry had picked up a large wooden spoon from somewhere and was stirring Christine’s innards in the pot. The stirring went on for a few searing minutes, punctuated by the victim’s desperate groaning. Cloncurry sighed in frustration. ‘Jesus. She’s a bit of a moaner, isn’t she? She never moaned like this when I fucked her. Do you think she’s enjoying it? Hmm.’
He smiled. ‘I know, let’s cheer her up with a proper Swedish singsong!’ Cloncurry started humming, then burst into song. ‘Mamma Mia don’t you let me go, my my, how could I forget you! Yes, I was broken-hearted, blue since the day we parted, but now you’ve-put me in a pressure cooker!’

He stopped singing. The moaning became a low murmur, then virtually a whimper. Cloncurry gave the pot another stir. ‘Chin up, Christine, not long to go now. Think the gravy is thickening.’ He smiled. ‘Ah look, what’s this here? Look at this!
Mr Kidney.
’

Cloncurry turned to the camera and held up the wooden spoon. Balanced in the bowl of the spoon was one of Christine’s dark brown kidneys, draped with veins and arteries, like blood-red spaghetti.

Forrester stared down at the floor.

‘That’s it,’ said Rob. ‘The video ends around now. Christine slumps. She just…she just
dies.
’

Boijer leaned forward and shut down the email. Then he turned to Rob. He said nothing, but there was a definite wetness in his eyes.

For a while the men sat around the room. Barely able to speak. Rob shrugged, desolately, at the policemen; and he got up to go.

And then the phone rang.

Forrester took the call. His gaze met Rob’s across the room, as he spoke, low, on the phone. At last, the detective put the phone down. ‘It may
be too late for…for Christine. But we can still save your daughter.’

Rob stared at him, from the open door.

Forrester nodded, grimly. ‘That was the Gardai. In Ireland.
They’ve found the gang.
’