LITMIR.BIZ

      52

      Dawn was beginning to filter through the canopy as Gabriel slid the car to a stop twenty feet short of the quarry edge and killed the engine. The old stoneworks were cut into the rim of mountains to the north of the city, at the end of what had been a major thoroughfare linking up with Ruin’s great northern boulevard. More than a hundred ox carts a day had once rumbled along it, laden with stone for the city.

      Most of the masonry for the public chapel in the centre of Ruin had come from here, so had large portions of the north and west walls. Nowadays the road lay buried beneath thick, scrubby trees and hundreds of years of accumulated leaf mulch, the occasional broken slab jutting like a shattered bone, the only reminder that it was there at all. It was two and a half kilometres off any kind of beaten track and no longer marked on modern maps; almost impossible to find, even in full daylight, unless you knew it was there.

      Gabriel walked to the edge, breathing in the thick primordial smells unlocked by the previous night’s deluge, and looked over. Eighty feet down was a carpet of green algae slicking the surface of a pool whose depth it was impossible to gauge. It was undoubtedly pretty deep. Stone quarries collected water like giant rain butts. He listened for the sound of engines, or dogs, or chainsaws, or anything that would indicate the presence of other people in the area. All he heard was the plop of a few stones falling into the green water far below.

      Satisfied that he was alone, he headed to the back of the car and popped the boot. Staring up at him were the pale, unseeing eyes of the dead man. On his chest a large pink bloom surrounded a small dark hole. He picked up the dead man’s gun; a Glock 22 – weapon of choice for drug dealers, gang-bangers and half the police forces of the Western world. It held fifteen rounds in the clip and another in the chamber. Gabriel racked the breach and ejected a soft-nosed .40 S&W with a light charge. The S and W stood for Smith and Wesson, although its detractors claimed it stood for ‘Short and Wimpy’ as the light gunpowder load meant the slug travelled relatively slowly. But there was also no sonic boom, so much less noise – not necessarily a bad thing if you didn’t want to draw too much attention to yourself. But the dead man had not managed to get off a single shot, and now he never would.

      Gabriel reached over the body and hauled two black canvas bags from the back of the boot. He laid them on the ground and unzipped the first. Inside were two large plastic bottles of bleach. He tipped the entire contents of one over the body, making sure to douse all the areas he had touched to destroy any trace of his own DNA. The second bottle was destined for the car’s interior. He wrenched open the rear passenger door.

      Lying in the footwell, partially buried under the driver’s seat, was the bag Liv had been carrying when he’d picked her up. He lifted it out and dropped it on the ground before pouring bleach over anything she might have touched. Then he turned the key in the ignition and hit the window buttons. Three slid down all the way. One was already blown out. He poured the remainder of the bottle over the steering wheel, the gear stick and the driver’s seat, then dropped the empty bottle back into the boot. He took his silenced SIG P228 from his shoulder holster and put a 9mm round through the floor of the boot, then closed the lid and put another round through that.

      He scanned the forest floor for a branch, snapped it in half and brought it over to the Renault. He depressed the clutch and slipped it into first gear, then pushed the stick against the throttle pedal until the engine was revving gently. He jammed the other end against the seat, making sure the steering wheel was centred and pointing straight ahead, then released the handbrake in a single fluid motion and stepped away.

      His weight shifted from the clutch, the car dropped into gear. The front wheels started spinning on the soft ground. For a moment the car remained stationary, until each tyre caught hold of the stone beneath the mat of rotten mulch and it lurched forward. Gabriel watched it pick up speed. The wheels found air and the Renault tipped from view. He heard it strike the quarry wall then there was a slap as it hit the water, silen-cing the whining engine for ever.

      Gabriel walked over to the edge and looked down. The car was on its back, drifting towards the centre of the pool and sinking as air escaped from the open windows and perforated boot. He watched until it disappeared beneath the surface of the water, leaving nothing behind but a weakening stream of bubbles and a small patch of oil. He cocked his head to one side like a bird of prey.

      In the silence he could hear ripples slapping against the walls below him, getting softer as the memory of what caused them began to fade. It was finally so quiet that the phone ringing in his back pocket sounded like a siren. He snatched it out and flipped it open before it could do so a second time, glan-cing at the caller ID.

      ‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.

      ‘Gabriel,’ said Kathryn Mann. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you were.’

      ‘There was a problem at the airport.’ He glanced down again at the green water. ‘After the girl arrived, someone else showed up. I’ve had to do a bit of housekeeping.’

      There was a pause as she took in the information.

      ‘Is she with you?’

      ‘No. But she’s not with them either.’

      ‘So where is she?’

      ‘Safe. She’ll be with the police by now. I’ll be back in Ruin in about twenty minutes. I’ll find her again.’

      ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

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