5:45 am, May 10. The bank of the River Mersey, Liverpool.
The streets of the city were silent at this hour. Deliveries were not expected until 6am or so.
The sky was clear, with a brightening in the east, over towards the Cathedral, to indicate the impending dawn. The weather report promised a bright, sunny day.
Near Pier Head, in the shadow of the imposing Tate Gallery and Albert Dock, a black van drove slowly, cautiously up towards the riverbank. It got as far as it could, and the side door opened. Three men emerged, carrying between them a large, heavy object draped in black cloth. The men wore black, and their heads were concealed beneath balaclavas.
One of them glanced nervously towards some nearby CCTVs hanging from one corner; one of his conspirators tapped him on the shoulder, drew a gloved index finger across his throat to indicate that Big Brother was on their side this morning.
The men carried and manhandled the object around the back, towards the whitewashed safety railings overlooking the river. With a soft grunt of effort, the three men pushed the heavy object over the railings as one of the men clutched at a corner of the black cover, which came away and flapped in the rising breeze coming in from the river.
There was a splash.
The men took the black cover and ran like hell back to the van.
7:30 am, May 10.
The telephone rang in the hallway. Zeiss was already stumbling towards the telephone: he caught it after the second ring.
"Yes, I know," were his first words. "Liverpool. Now."
There was a pause. Charlady's voice, when she began to speak, was puzzled. "How did you ...?"
"A little messenger told me," Zeiss replied. "Just a few minutes ago."
"How?"
"In my dreams," said Zeiss. "The newspaper told me."
"In ... your dreams," Charlady said, dubious.
"Yes, I know it's them," Zeiss said. "I cannot read when I am dreaming ... except when I'm Getting The Message."
"Bloody Hell," said Charlady. "When can I swing by and pick you up?"
"Twenty minutes," Zeiss said. "Any sooner, and you're going to be driving a naked man to Liverpool in the back of your van." He groaned, stretched. "Have you given you - know - who a ring?"
"Not yet," Charlady said. "I'll ring him just before I head off to pick you up, all right?"
"Cool," Zeiss replied, running his fingers through his hair. He put the phone down, turned, stared blearily at the dawn sunlight coming in through the stained glass of the front door.
He suddenly realised that he'd just come downstairs, he was naked, and there were three pretty female students staring at him.
"I haven't got up yet," he said to them. "I'm still sleepwalking." He closed his eyes, held out his arms stiffly in front of him, pinwheeled towards the stairs and trudged back up them towards his flat, grateful for the fact that he'd remembered to leave the door on the latch because he'd left his keys in his jeans pocket ...
7:50 am, May 10.
The little van drove up to the front gate of Zeiss' student accommodation, kept its engine running, proceeded to let off two short beeps of the horn.
Zeiss, now almost fully dressed, emerged into the daylight struggling to pull a black sweater over his head one handed, his other hand clutching his laptop case. He straightened his clothing, clambered into the passenger's seat of the little van, sat down. He pulled out his glasses case, put his glasses on, slid the van door shut. Then he turned to look at Charlady.
Charlady's expression was sombre.
"What is it?" Zeiss asked.
"I couldn't raise Libra on the phone," Charlady said.
"Surely not," Zeiss replied. "You know what he's like. He gets up so early that he beats the early bird to the worms. He rings me up at half six to talk about the hunt the night before."
Charlady laughed slightly. "This is serious," she said. "I want to swing by his place and check it out, if that's all right by you."
"Yeah, of course," Zeiss replied.
"Did he give you a spare key?" Charlady asked Zeiss, as they looked at the car in Greg's drive.
"Yeah, I think so," Zeiss replied fishing in his jeans pocket. He took out his keys, a bunch of them on a keychain fastened to a belt loop. "Here we are," he said, selecting a key with the Judgment symbol on it. It slid into the lock. Zeiss opened the door.
There was a beeping from the alarm system. Zeiss stepped forwards, opened the little alarm box, fed it the deactivation code. The house fell silent.
"Greg?" Charlady called. "Are you there?" Silence.
Zeiss went into the kitchen. As always, Greg had cleared his plates and set the table for supper. There was a casserole in a slow cooker on the worksurface in the far corner; it had only been recently prepared.
"He likes to prepare his supper well in advance," Zeiss said. "Saves him having to cook later on, I suppose, when he gets back from work."
"He's looking thin these days, though, don't you think?" Charlady said, idly flicking through a pile of mail she'd picked up from the mat. The second post.
"Yeah," replied Zeiss. "But he wouldn't walk to work. I know Greg well enough by now to know he'd never choose to go by train these days, especially not to Liverpool Central or Lime Street."
"Not if he could help it," Charlady replied.
"Definitely something weird going on here," Zeiss said. "Let me do a bit of peeking, see what's going on." He took out his laptop, laid it down on the table, opened it, called up the screen saver he normally used to enter his past - viewing trance.
Charlady watched as Zeiss stood upright, looked around the kitchen for a bit, peered at the kitchen clock. Then he turned, followed an invisible being out the door, into the hallway, out the front door. Charlady kept pace with Zeiss as he followed Libra all the way to his car. Suddenly, Zeiss turned, stared at the entrance to the drive.
There followed a moment during which Zeiss seemed to be staring at two, maybe three people, eavesdropping in on a conversation.
Finally, he snapped out of it, turned to Charlady with a sharp expression, and took out his mobile. He speed dialled a number, paused a second or two.
"Hi there. Yeah, I think you need to go and pay a visit to the Chester nick. No, not me, your other client. Yeah, Greg." Pause. Nod. Nod. Pause. "Yeah, that's it. I think he's only just been taken down to answer enquiries, but ... no, I think he definitely needs you." Pause. Nod. Nod. "Just what are we paying you for? Go. Now."
Zeiss hung up, looked at Charlady. "That was the Herald Recruitments company brief," he said. "I think Greg's just been arrested."
"On what charge?"
"I think it's something to do with Vestal's disappearance," Zeiss replied, grimly. "They've found a body."
7:50 am, May 10. Liverpool.
Mike Frost, unemployed ex - Cammell Laird worker, loved the smell of the Mersey in the morning. Having spent more than ten years working in the shipyards across the river, he'd grown addicted to the river's unique smell: a pungent aroma which had done more for the cause of appetite suppression than a million courses of diet pills.
He'd let Fluffy off his lead for a few minutes, and he was walking calmly along the river bank as he'd started to do since a few weeks after they'd laid him off. "Frosty" knew that he had to do something, even though at 48 nobody else would ever give him a job any more.
So he was spending his days cvarefully eking out his redundancy cheque and walking Fluffy aling the riverbank. It was better than staying down the local and pissing all his money up against the wall, like most of his fellow ex - dockers.
Besides, he had two little mouths to feed.
Mike's attention was sharply drawn to Fluffy, who'd raced up ahead, out of his usual zone of control of about twenty paces. This was not right; Fluffy never strayed too far away from Mike. His missus, Sarah; that was a different matter altogether. Fluffy never came within twenty paces of the wife, which was why Frosty had to do the walking and the poop scooping in the house.
Mike whistled. Fluffy ignored him. Mike noticed that the dog, a boxer, was leaning over the parapet some distance away, barking and whining and looking down at the water. Mike whistled again. Fluffy looked up, then again back down to the river and continued barking.
"Fucking dog," Mike said, starting forward, getting the lead ready to tie back onto the dog again. "Come on, Fluffy, there's a good boy." Another whistle. "Come back here, you mangy fucking mutt! What's the matter with you? C'mere!"
The boxer paid Mike no attention: its gaze was focused at a point way down. As Mike approached, he found himself unable to resist peeking over the side.
"What've you spotted there, Fluffy?" he said. He saw the hand first. Then he saw a flash of bright paisley. Next, he saw the silver hair, and it was finally dawning on him that these strange things floating in the water were all connected somehow.
A moment later, and the disparate images fused into Mike's brain, followed by recognition. Mike went pale. "Oh, shit," he said. It was the second corpse he'd ever seen.
By: Fiat Knox
Copyright © Fiat Knox, 2001