Uprising

Chapter Fifty-Two

‘Remember me?’ he’d said on the phone earlier that afternoon.

‘The belligerent police inspector,’ she’d replied. ‘Funny, I was just thinking about you.’

‘Can we meet? I need to talk to you.’

‘Can you come to London?’

‘I’m kind of at a loose end for a while. I can go anywhere.’

‘I live in Canary Wharf. Take down this address.’

That was how, just after three in the afternoon, Joel came to be standing inside the luxurious glass lift in his motorcycle leathers, heading for the top floor of the expensive apartment building overlooking the river.

What kind of journalist must this Alex Bishop be, he wondered to himself. You’d have to be rolling in money to live in a place like this. His own meagre police salary wouldn’t buy him a broom cupboard here.

The lift doors glided open and he stepped out into an airy landing filled with exotic plants and the scent of flowers. In one hand he was carrying his crash helmet, in the other the holdall that he’d hurriedly packed full of clothes before escaping from his place in Jericho. He had no idea when he’d be able to return there.

The sweeping view across London was breathtaking. He paused for a moment, gazing out through the tall windows. Rays of late autumn sunlight shone brightly through the glass roof.

‘Hello again,’ said her voice behind him. He turned to see her leaning casually in her doorway. She was wearing faded jeans and a chunky roll-neck kimono-style woollen jumper. Her auburn hair caught the sunlight.

A few seconds went by before he realised he was staring at her.

‘What’s the holdall for?’ she asked with a smile, noticing the bag at his feet.

‘Going somewhere?’

‘Right now, I have no idea where I’m going,’ he said. ‘A lot of it depends on you.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘You said you could help me. Here I am.’

‘Then you’d better come in.’

The penthouse apartment was even bigger than he’d imagined. Joel’s place could have fitted inside it four or five times over. He felt self-conscious as he trudged across her plush carpet in his heavy bike boots, worried about setting down the holdall in case it had road dirt on it after being strapped to the back of the bike. But she didn’t seem to mind. While she disappeared into the kitchen to get them drinks, he settled nervously in a creamy leather armchair and looked around him at the pictures on the walls. Taste and style were commodities that Alex Bishop seemed to have in abundance, alongside the money to enjoy them.

She returned with a tray, laid two heavy cups filled with foamy cappuccino on a glass-topped table, and curled up in the armchair facing him.

Joel took a sip of the coffee. It was the best he’d ever tasted.

‘I’m glad to see you again, Inspector,’ she said.

‘It’s Joel. And I wasn’t kidding. I really do need your help.’

‘This has something to do with the boy in the hospital?’

He nodded.

‘I thought so. How is he?’

‘He’s fine. But there’s more. A lot more.’

‘Are we talking about vampires, Joel?’

He hesitated before saying, ‘Yes, we are.’

‘There’s something I have to tell you, Joel. Before we go any further. I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning there are things about me I’ve been hiding from you. I’m not really a journalist.’

‘I didn’t think so, seeing this place.’

‘I’m kind of an investigator,’ she went on.

‘Private detective?’

She laughed. ‘Put it this way. It’s not humans I investigate. My interest is in the paranormal.’

‘Ghosts and spirits?’

‘Vampires, Joel.’

‘You believe in them.’

‘I ought to. Let me tell you a story. Eight years ago, my elder sister fell very ill.

The doctors were baffled. Pernicious anaemia, they thought. She had all the tests, but they couldn’t find anything. But I noticed something strange. Something nobody seemed to take seriously.’

‘The bite marks?’

She nodded. ‘I knew what was happening. I hid in my sister’s room one night. I saw him visit her. Drinking her blood. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. The next day, I told my family. They thought I was crazy.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Joel said. ‘What happened to your sister?’

‘She died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And then she came back. As one of them.’ Alex paused, and sorrow misted her eyes for a moment before she continued. ‘I finished her. Ever since that day, I’ve dedicated myself to researching everything I could find out about these creatures.’

Joel didn’t speak. Couldn’t say a word. Sitting there in this luxurious environment, he was suddenly transported back to that dark place.

She was watching him keenly. ‘You’ve had a similar experience,’ she said. ‘I can tell from the look in your eyes. That’s why you were so quick to believe the boy’s story.’

Joel met her steady gaze. ‘It’s all true,’ he said. ‘Dec Maddon saw vampires. And I know where they are. When I find what I’m looking for, I’m going to go back there and destroy them all. That’s where you come in. I think I need your help to find it.’

Alex sipped her coffee. ‘What is it you’re looking for?’

Joel didn’t reply right away. He stood up, went over to his holdall, unzipped a side pocket and took out his grandfather’s notebook.

‘The thing I’m looking for is described in here. It’s called the cross of Ardaich.’

With a sudden crash, the coffee cup fell from Alex’s fingers and landed on the table in front of her.

The glass top shattered with the impact. Jagged shards and spattering coffee rained down onto the carpet. Alex’s eyes had opened wide and she was suddenly pale; then she quickly regained her composure. ‘Shit, look what I’ve done.’ She dropped down to her knees and started picking up the pieces of glass.

‘Let me help,’ Joel said. He quickly stuffed the notebook in his pocket and crouched down beside her.

‘I have a dustpan and brush in the kitchen,’ Alex said. She hurried away to fetch them while Joel carried on gathering up the bits of glass, fishing out the long, pointed shards first before moving on to the small slivers that glistened everywhere on the carpet.

As Alex returned from the kitchen, he glanced up at her. For a moment he found himself thinking how good she looked — and that moment’s lapse of concentration was enough for him to gash his finger on a razor edge of broken glass. He drew his hand away. The blood was oozing out rapidly. ‘Damn. I’m dripping on your carpet. Where’s the bathroom?’

She didn’t reply for a moment, and he noticed the way she was gazing fixedly at his bleeding finger, a peculiar look in her eyes. Maybe she was squeamish, he thought.

‘Oh…yes, sorry,’ she said, collecting herself. ‘Through there. Are you okay?’

‘It’s just a nick,’ he replied as he walked to the bathroom door, cupping his other hand under the cut finger to avoid leaving a trail of red splashes across the floor.

He cursed himself for his stupidity as he washed away the blood at the washbasin in her plush bathroom. As he wrapped his finger up with his handkerchief, he couldn’t resist glancing round the room. In his experience, women’s bathrooms, however big, always seemed to be cluttered with an extensive and mysterious arsenal of beauty products, soaps and gels, shampoos and hair accessories, and to reek of perfumes and lotions. But Alex Bishop’s bathroom looked as though it had never been used. He shrugged. In a place this size, she probably had her own en suite.

When he rejoined her in the living room, she’d finished gathering up the glass and was mopping up the coffee stains from the carpet.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I managed to do that. The cup just slipped.’

He wagged his bandaged finger. ‘We’re both clumsy, then.’ His grandfather’s notebook was lying on the armchair he’d been sitting on. He picked it up and slipped it in his pocket.

‘Let’s go outside. I fancy a breath of air, don’t you?’ She led him through the sliding door that led out onto the balcony, where a table and two chairs overlooked the view of the river.

‘Anyway, about the cross…’ he said tentatively.

Alex’s face tensed a little at the mention of it. ‘How did you hear about that?’

‘Is it true? It really exists?’

She nodded solemnly. ‘But it was supposed to have been lost, a long time ago.’

‘That’s what my grandfather said, too.’

‘Your grandfather?’

‘Let me start at the beginning,’ he said.