Skypoint

SIXTEEN

Toshiko rode the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor with the gun in her hand. She decided there was no point in a pantomime; Lucca knew that she and Owen were not what they claimed to be, and he knew that they had weapons. The fact that she still carried a gun, despite his goons’ search-and-retrieve operation in their apartment, might help limit the discussion and get her what she wanted – and out of there again – faster.

She had gone back to the Lloyds’ party first, looking for Lucca and ready to coax him out of there and confront him. Lucca had already gone. But Toshiko was in no mood to let him get away. She didn’t stop to think about Owen’s concerns for her; she was still running on the pulse energy of anger. She was angry with Owen, and just as angry with herself. There was something to prove here – damn it, there was a lot to prove here. To herself, as much as Owen.

Was she really so pathetic that she could face off against horrible things from far-off galaxies, but she just couldn’t hack it when it came to men? With her scientist’s head in gear she had to admit that the empirical data was not in her favour.

Screw that!

This was where things changed.

She felt the elevator settle on the twenty-fifth floor. She waited for the doors to open. They didn’t. Instead she heard Besnik Lucca’s voice. She almost jumped, it sounded as if he was in there with her.

‘Toshiko. I knew you would come. But, please, put your weapon on the floor.’

Toshiko scanned the elevator cabin. There was a camera. There had to be. She saw her own reflection in one of the mirrors, the gun looked big and heavy in her hand.

‘Please,’ Lucca coaxed. ‘Then we can talk.’

‘We’re not police,’ she called out. ‘We’re not interested in you, Lucca. We’re no threat to you.’

‘My angel, anyone who carries a gun to my door is a threat. Put it on the floor.’

Toshiko did as she was told.

‘Now step back against the wall, and stay there.’

She took a step backwards and felt the cold glass of the mirror on her back through the thin silk that she wore.

The elevator doors parted, revealing two men who looked part-gorilla. One held a gun on her, the other collected the weapon on the floor, then gestured for her to step out.

The apartment was huge, tastefully furnished and decorated with artwork that she knew was both expensive and original.

The two goons left her to wander across its white carpet unhindered. She followed the slight breeze that moved through the apartment and found Lucca standing in the roof garden waiting for her.

It was a warm September night, and he had lost the jacket to his black suit. He stood on the terrace watching her approach, and he was smoking one of the same foreign cigarettes she had seen him with before.

The garden was lit with subtle lighting, and he had been quite right: even at night, it was breathtaking.

He stood next to a table that was lit by lights in the floor. There was a champagne bottle cooling and a couple of glasses. She got the sense that he had known she was coming, maybe before even she had.

‘I see that you chose not to bring your husband,’ he said.

‘You know he’s not my husband.’

‘Which simplifies matters a great deal,’ he said, and poured the champagne.

‘I didn’t come here to drink champagne with you.’

‘That’s a shame. We had seemed to be getting along so well.’ He sipped from one of the glasses. ‘And the champagne is at the perfect temperature.’

He held a glass out to her. Toshiko ignored it.

‘We’re not interested in you,’ she told him again.

‘We?’ he asked, placing the glass back on the table. ‘And just who are we?’

‘Torchwood.’

He looked at her blankly. ‘I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.’

‘There is something in this building, Mr Lucca, that is killing people.’

Lucca laughed, and threw himself carelessly into one of the big chairs out on the terrace. ‘I take it that you mean, apart from me.’

‘We know all about you, Lucca. But we’re not interested. You’re not the kind of scum we have the licence for. Or the stomach.’

He leaned forward, intent. ‘So what exactly is it that we’re talking about? A life form of some kind that can pass through walls and takes people with it, just sucks them back out through the wall, as if they had never been there?’

Toshiko felt her body charge with nervous excitement. ‘Yes. Exactly. Have you seen it?’

Lucca smiled a little. ‘I see everything.’

He had a remote control in his hand. He pressed a button and a panel in the garden lit up. Lucca had a TV in his garden, as well as in his shower.

The garden TV didn’t particularly shock Toshiko. Anyone who lived half a mile up in the sky and still needed a lawn sprinkler was going to be a little on the flash side. What shocked her was what she saw on the screen.

‘I think you missed a bit, just there,’ he said, pointing to the back of his own neck.

On screen, Toshiko was showering.

‘You pervert,’ she growled.

Lucca chuckled. ‘A little perversion, a little paranoia… I built this place as my fortress. I have a great many enemies. But up here no one can reach me. From here, if I need to, I can control the elevators, the fire doors, the air-con. Everything. And I see everything.’

He toggled the remote and the image on the screen changed: it was Owen crossing the apartment earlier that night with the towel wrapped around his waist. Lucca froze the frame. The hole in Owen’s chest was clearly visible.

‘I see everything,’ he said. ‘I just don’t pretend to understand it all.’

‘All we want to do is to stop this thing killing people. You’re in as much danger as anyone. Let us deal with it.’

Lucca looked at her for a long time, as if he were considering, or perhaps just playing games.

In the end he said, ‘No.’

And the two men that had been waiting for her outside the elevator grabbed Toshiko from behind.