Penumbra

18

Rana Rao stood for a long time beneath the cedar tree across the road from the luminously white, scaled-down copy of Sydney Opera House. It rose between a grand representation of the White House and a half-sized imitation of the Feynman dome on Mars. The street was lined with similar kitsch examples of architectural folly, a parade of tasteless ostentation Rana found sickening.

She moved from the shadow of the tree and into the glow of the street lighting. She found it hard to believe that she was, perhaps, just metres away from the man responsible for the crucifix killings. Soon he would become a real person, with a real identity: name, profession, perhaps even a family who loved him.

She stepped from the pavement and crossed the road, her hand straying involuntarily to the polished butt of the pistol beneath her jacket. The opera house was set in a couple of acres of landscaped lawn. As soon as she stepped on to the wide gravel path, spotlights activated to light her way.

She paused before the door and took a breath, then reached out and touched the door-chime. The soft notes of Beethoven’s Fifth sounded from inside—appropriate, given the design of the house. She waited, conscious of the staring eye of a security camera positioned above the door.

A voice issued from a grille, rich and urbane. “Good evening? May I help you?”

“Lieutenant Rao. I’m from the Calcutta police force.”

“One moment, please.”

Seconds later the door swung open automatically and standing perhaps two metres away, arms folded across an ample chest, stood a man who bore not the slightest resemblance, apart from being male and Caucasian, to Ahmed’s description of the killer. He was not thin-faced and silver-haired, but had a well-fed face and a dark head of curls.

He gestured for her to enter and walked ahead of her. Rana followed, swallowing a sense of despair, and wondered how she should proceed.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said, surprising her. He was crossing a large, circular lounge fitted with sunken sofas, throw cushions and discreet lighting. A soprano’s voice quavered on a high C.

Rana blinked. “You have?”

He reached out to the wall and the aria modulated. “Please, take a seat.” He indicated one of the below-floor sofas.

Rana descended three steps and seated herself, feeling at a distinct disadvantage.

The man loomed over her, holding a com-board. “I have the file here,” he said, “but I’ll fix you a drink first. Coffee, or something stronger?”

“Ah…” She was about to say that she thought there had been some mistake, but the man misinterpreted her hesitation.

“Of course. I’m sorry, I should have realised. You’re on duty. Coffee it is, then.” He murmured into a wall-speaker. “Two coffees, Raisa.”

Within seconds a maid entered the room bearing a silver tray and two small bone china coffee cups, a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. She stepped into the sunken bunker and placed the tray on a small table in the centre.

“Thank you, Raisa.” The man joined Rana in the bunker, sitting across from her and pouring the coffees. “White, sugar?”

“White, no sugar.” She could only watch the man in silence, wondering how to proceed.

“I was rather hoping that Commissioner Singh might have called for the report personally,” he was saying. “We have a lot to discuss on the security front which I’m sure you’ll understand I cannot broach with his staff.”

“As a matter of fact,” Rana began, “I am not here to collect the report. You see, I am calling on residents in the area as a matter of routine.”

The man looked surprised, but made a sophisticated show of apologising. “But my dear, I am so sorry. You see, I was expecting the commissioner or one of his staff. But allow me to introduce myself. I am Ezekiel Klien, chief of security at Calcutta spaceport. And you are?”

Rana swallowed. “Lieutenant Rana Rao, Homicide Division, Calcutta police force.”

“Homicide? And how might I be of assistance?”

“It’s just…” she began, falteringly. “I’m making a series of routine door-to-door enquiries. Last night there was a murder committed a kilometre from here. The killer was seen leaving the scene of the crime.”

“How appalling. If I can be of any assistance, any at all…”

Rana took a breath to steady her nerves. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that there had indeed been some misunderstanding. Ahmed must have lied about seeing the killer enter this house, or mistaken the house itself.

“I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions, Mr Klien? Routine things I’ve been asking everyone in the neighbourhood.”

“Of course. By all means.” He sat back and sipped his coffee.

Rana took a gulp of her own coffee to moisten her dry mouth. Her hand shook, setting up a nervous rattle of cup on saucer. She would have to drastically revise her questions. She had planned to ask him if he knew the identities of victims of the crucifix killer, and if he could account for his whereabouts on certain dates, but such a line of interrogation would hardly be appropriate in the circumstances.

“We have reports that a man was seen in the area last night.” She went on to describe the man Ahmed had seen enter this very house.

Klien nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes. At perhaps ten last night someone did come to the door. It was a man very much fitting your description. He was lost, had no money, and asked if he might call his wife to pick him up. I was busy with the report at the time, so I gave him ten rupees and directed him to a public com-screen kiosk. He left and I thought no more about it. You don’t think… ?”

Rana shrugged. “We’d like to question the individual to eliminate him from our enquiries,” she said. “I wonder if you’d allow a computer artist to come round and take your impressions of the man?”

Klien gestured, the very epitome of accommodation. “By all means. I’m in most evenings after eight.”

Rana finished her coffee. “Thank you for your time and the coffee, Mr Klien. I hope I haven’t disturbed you.”

“Of course not. I’m delighted to have been of some assistance. I only wish that I could help you further.”

Before Rana could protest that she really must be going, he leaned over and poured her another cup of coffee. He poured himself a second cup and sipped delicately.

“Tell me, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind my asking, how long have you been with the force?”

She smiled, pleased at the change of subject. “Almost eight years now. Most of the time working with street children. I was promoted to Homicide a few weeks ago.”

“Homicide… Isn’t that Vishwanath’s department now?”

“Do you know him?”

“We’ve worked together in the past. I rate Vishwanath very highly, Lieutenant.”

“I’m enjoying working with him.”

This time when she finished her coffee she placed a hand above the cup. “I’m afraid I must be getting on, Mr Klien. Thank you again.”

“Not at all. I’ll show you out.”

He rose and escorted her from the lounge and into the hall. The door swung open automatically. He placed a hand on her elbow as she stepped through the door. “Good night, and take care, Sita.”

She stopped, her stomach lurching. She turned and stared at him. “What did you say?”

He was smiling, as if mystified. “I’m so sorry? It was Sita, wasn’t it? Or Rita?”

“Rana,” she murmured, “Rana Rao.”

“Of course—Rana. Well, good night, Rana.”

He stepped back, still smiling, and the door swung shut after him.

Rana made her way slowly away from the house, trying to regain her composure. She had been sure, for a second, that his slip had been deliberate. He had intentionally said her old name, to see how she might react. But how was that possible? How might he know of her old identity? He was head of security at the port, though. Perhaps, when she ran away all those years ago, he had worked for her father? But how did he know now, having never met her, that she was the person once known as Sita Mackendrick? She told herself that she was being paranoid. There was a very simple explanation. He had misheard her name, as he claimed. He had made a genuine mistake, thought she had said Sita. It was a common enough name, after all.

She made her way to the main road and caught a taxi home.

Back at her apartment, she considered her meeting with Klien. After expecting so much to come from her investigations, she felt disappointed. At least, she told herself, there was the lead of the silver-haired man to follow up. She would tell Vishwanath, when she started her shift at twelve tomorrow, that her interviews had elicited descriptions of a silver-haired man in the vicinity of the murder scene last night.

She went to bed but could not sleep. She tried to work out how Klien might have recognised her, and known her true identity, after all those years.

At dawn she got up, tired and frustrated, her mind still racing. She made herself a strong pot of coffee and sat by the window overlooking the park, huddling around the cup and taking the occasional sip.

The knock on the door startled her; she jumped, spilling coffee over her bare knees. All visitors should have buzzed her from the outer door; how had they entered without being let in? She wondered if it was one of her neighbours. Or maybe the security sergeant with her softscreen, entering at the same time as one of her early-rising neighbours left for work.

Pulling her wrap more tightly around her, she crossed the lounge and opened the door. She stared, surprised, and stepped back.

A thin-faced, silver-haired man stood on the threshold. He gave her a smile of disarming charm.

“What do you want?” The question sounded more brusque than she had intended.

He stepped past her, entering uninvited, and strode across the lounge to the window. He stood with his back to her, staring out.

“How can I help you?” Her voice faltered.

He turned, still smiling. She was suddenly aware of her nakedness beneath the wrap, and folded her arms across her chest.

“How did you get in?”

“That need not concern you,” he said.

Rana started. She recognised the voice, the soft, cultured tones. It was the voice of Ezekiel Klien—but how was that possible?

“What do you want?” she asked again. She knew that she must have presented a frightened sight, cowering with her arms crossed protectively over her chest.

“It’s a very delicate business. You see, I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”

Rana felt a sudden heat rise through her chest. She wanted to throw up. Something was happening here that she did not understand, and ignorance fuelled her fear.

“Consider the irony. For years I have been, on and off, scouring Calcutta for you. Of course, you might have been dead, but I had a hunch… a hunch that you were still alive—”

“Klien,” she said, before she could stop herself.

The man smiled. “Very clever of you, Sita. The voice, of course.” He gave a quick, mocking bow. “I am Ezekiel Klien.”

She closed her eyes, fear flooding through her. She had known, just as soon as she said his name, that she had made a mistake. He was the crucifix killer, disguised, and he would kill her just as he had killed all his other victims.

“How… ?” she said, staring at his face. “How did you… ?”

He smiled. “A simple capillary net,” he said.

“I… I didn’t know… I didn’t think it was possible…” She had heard that capillary nets were still at the prototype stage of development, still undergoing tests.

He ignored her. “Thirteen years ago,” he was saying, “I was a private investigator hired by your mother to find you.”

Rana recalled the man she had seen with her mother in the restaurant, all those years ago.

She stared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She told herself not to panic. There was, after all, a simple solution to the situation. She clicked her jaw, opening communications with Control. Now they would hear her every word, discern that something was amiss. She waited for the voice of the duty officer to sound in her ear.

Klien was smiling at her, something almost playful in his expression. He smiled, and clicked his jaw in an arrogant, mocking gesture, and said, “You didn’t think for one second, did you, that I would let you get away with that?”

From the breast pocket of his suit he produced a compact silver oval, the size of a cigarette case. A scrambler.

“Nice try, Sita,” he said.

Rana had never felt more naked or vulnerable. This man, of all the people on the planet, knew her secret. He was in a position of inestimable power, and it was not knowing quite how he intended to use this power that was terrifying.

She glanced across the room at the Chinese print, behind which was the alarm. She would make her way very casually towards it, then lean against the print, and with luck security would arrive before he killed her.

“I know that you are Sita Mackendrick.”

He moved from the window and perched on the arm of a chair, something proprietorial and arrogant in his posture. He was a metre away from the picture. There was no way she might reach it, now, without arousing his suspicion.

He smiled at her. “As I said, consider the irony. For so long I have been looking for you, and last night you actually found me. Remarkable… I could hardly believe my fortune.”

“How…” she began. The words, the admission of her true identity after so many years of denial, had to be forced out. “How did you know… ?”

“Your mother made available a few pix of you, of course. Over the years I’ve had them updated, computer-aged. I knew who I was looking for… if, that is, you were still alive. It did occur to me that the people who robbed your father’s safe might have killed you, but I hoped not. I assumed there might be a ransom demand, but when none came I began to worry. Perhaps they had killed you, after all. You saw them entering your house, you could identify them, and so you had to die. But I kept up my search. The consequences were too important not to.”

His smug expression, his assumption of superiority, was sickening.

“What… what do you want?” she managed.

Klien stood, moved away from the picture on the wall and strolled around the room. Rana’s heart began a laboured pounding. This was her chance. She moved towards the Chinese print.

Klien stared at her. “I want to know who they were, Sita,” he said.

“Don’t call me that!” she cried.

She reached the wall, folding her arms protectively across her chest, and leaned back. She felt the picture give beneath her shoulder blades and at the same time experienced a terrible sense of anti-climax. She prayed that the alarm would be sounding loud and clear at the local police station.

“But Sita is your name, isn’t it?” Klien paused, licked his lips. How he was enjoying this, his moment of victory after years of disappointment. “I want to know the identities of the people who kidnapped you.”

She stared at him. Her one satisfaction, amid all her fear, was the knowledge that he was so wrong. She would play along with his little game.

She shook her head. “I don’t know who they were. They took me and locked me up. I managed to escape.”

Klien was shaking his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Sita. Why would they take you from the house and simply lock you up? They would either demand a ransom, which they didn’t, or kill you, which they didn’t. So… are you going to tell me the truth, Sita?”

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Shall I tell you what I think happened?” he asked. “I think they took you, locked you up as you said, and were going to demand a ransom, but something happened?”

She shook her head. “What?”

“I think that, while they held you, a certain rapport developed. It often happens between kidnappers and hostages. You grew close to them, and they perhaps to you. They took you away with them, perhaps you even worked for them at, what? Thieving? Prostitution? For whatever reasons, you never returned home. Either they kept you captive for years, or you actually enjoyed the life you were leading.” He shook his head. “But that is irrelevant. What matters is that you know the identity of the people who took you, and I want to know who they are.”

He was no longer smiling, and the sudden transformation, from condescending affability to controlled but obvious rage, filled her with fear. She stared at him, shaking her head, “I… I don’t know.”

He stood, and in one fluid menacing movement slipped a hand inside his jacket and produced a laser pistol. He held it almost casually at his hip, directed at her chest.

“Who were they? Where are they now? Tell me.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

He nodded with a show of reasonableness. “Very well, I’ll explain. They took something from your father’s safe, something that is very important to me. It is called a softscreen, and it contains information that I need. Now do you understand, Sita? I need to know who kidnapped you so that I can trace them and locate the softscreen. Now, are you going to tell me, or should I resort to more than mere verbal persuasion?”

The softscreen… She wondered what information the softscreen might contain that was so vital to him.

“Now, Sita, tell me: who were they?”

The very fact that he wanted information from her, she realised, might prove to be her salvation. He would hardly kill her if he thought she might be able to lead him to the screen. She decided, then, to tell him the truth. She would tell him what he wanted to know, play for time, and hope that the security team would arrive before she had finished her explanation of the screen’s whereabouts.

“Who were they?” he asked again, raising the laser.

She imagined herself as his latest victim, one side of her face burned beyond recognition, the other scored with a bloody crucifix.

No, she told herself. He needs me alive.

“I’ve killed many people, Sita,” Klien told her matter-of-factly. “I would suffer no compunction at killing you, too.”

She wanted to call his bluff, then, tell him that if he killed her he would never know who kidnapped her. But something in his manner made her realise that this would be a mistake. He had lost his urbane charm, or arrogance, and he was close to breaking point. There was a light in his eyes that was almost maniacal.

She shook her head. “You’ve got it all very wrong, Mr Klien. You see, there were no kidnappers.” String it out, she told herself. Play for time…

He barked a laugh. “No? Then who robbed your father’s safe? Who took the softscreen?”

“I took the softscreen, Mr Klien. I ran away from home, but first opened the safe and took some money and the screen.” She shrugged. “People must have thought that I was taken by whoever stole the softscreen, but that wasn’t how it happened.”

That gave him pause to consider. He watched her, his mind ticking over.

He nodded slowly and licked his lips. “Very well.” His voice was no longer the sophisticated drawl. The words caught in his throat. He was so close, after all, to what he had sought for such a long time. “Very well, Sita. Now tell me, what did you do with the softscreen?”

She smiled. “I kept it, of course. I lived on the streets for five years and kept it with me. It was a source of great entertainment for me and my friends. We—”

He interrupted. “Where is it now, Sita?”

She hesitated. She imagined the security team, hurrying towards the apartment. Play for time…

“Tell me why you need it, and I’ll tell you where it is.”

His reaction scared her. He moved forward, jabbing the gun at her. “Tell me!”

“Ah-cha, ah-cha…”

She glanced through the window. Shiva! In the street below she saw an unmarked truck draw up, half a dozen plainclothes men jump out. She thought she might pass out with fear and dread.

“Sita, if you don’t tell me…”

“Ah-cha. It’s… I sold it. I sold it to…” She bit her lip, feigning concentration. She heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Who? Who did you sell it to, Sita?” He stared at her, something insane in his eyes. He raised his pistol and directed it at her chest.

She heard a movement in the doorway. The door swung back, smacking the wall. The first shot turned the window behind Klien’s head to molten, dripping slag. Rana saw a security marksman crouching in the doorway.

Klien ducked and swung his weapon, fired instantly. The marksman screamed and fell as the laser hit him in the head.

Rana watched with a sense of disbelief as Klien turned towards her. She could intuit his intentions from the look in his eyes. She began to plead with him, but, almost sadly, he shook his head. In the second before his finger pressed the trigger, she imagined that she saw something like pity in his eyes.

She screamed, and Klien fired.

The laser hit Rana in the chest and she fell back against the wall. She slid to the floor, staring at Klien in disbelief. The pain seemed to fill every cell of her body with agonising fire.

He fired again, this time at another security officer in the doorway. He dived across the room, sending a barrage of shots through the wall. He ran to the doorway and scanned the hall, firing all the time. Rana heard another cry.

He paused and looked back at her. His gaze fell to the hole burned in her chest. For a brief second she thought that he was about to fire again and finish her off, but instead he moved through the door and disappeared, and something in his confident dismissal of her fate frightened her even more than the thought of the coup de grâce.

Rana began to cry. She reached up and fingered the wound in her chest. The skin between her breasts was burned and blackened, and though the pain pulsed through her body in sickening waves, worse than the pain was the thought that she was dying.

It was this knowledge, that after such a short life, at just twenty-three, she was going to die so needlessly, that made her cry like a child.

Rana’s vision blurred. Nascent in her thoughts, but cut short, was the satisfaction that at least Klien had failed to find the softscreen.