Free The Babylon Rite by Tom Knox Page B

a silence comprised of tension, and absence. But maybe it was simply the tension: they were, after all, in someone else’s flat, which they had entered with illicit use of a stolen key.
    ‘So, what now, Nina? I don’t quite see why we’re
here.
If the notebooks are gone then we might as well quit. Get out. No?’ He searched for her reaction. He was happy to continue but he didn’t want to take pointless risks.
    Her gaze was narrowed by contempt, or something close to it. ‘Ach. Hell with that. We search! There may still be something? Clues!’
    She was already unzipping her large blue quilted anorak; as she dropped the hood, her hair loosened, and shimmered. He gazed, unwittingly recording the details: he couldn’t help it, all those years of journalistic training made him do it – this was the stuff that made an article come alive. Details. Description. Details. With her very twenty-first-century anorak now discarded, standing petite and slender in black jumper and grey jeans, she looked like a young and comely widow; yet she also looked as if she was dressed for a break-in. Dark clothes and raven-dark hair. Quite hard to see.
    ‘Let’s try the sitting room. And his study. Study first.’
    He followed her gesture.
    ‘Here. Dad’s study. They had one each.’
    The door opened; they entered the study. The light switch was dimmer style: Nina carefully calibrated the dial – finessing it so they had just enough light to search. Not strange blazing light at the windows, not at two a.m.
    The study was definitely the man’s private space in a shared apartment. The decor was austere. Scottish rugby paraphernalia – team photos and faded rosettes – adorned the walls. A medieval globe in a corner. A large photo of Nina stood proudly on the big wooden desk. A slightly smaller photo – Adam guessed it was the older sister, Hannah – was positioned beside it.
    Sitting next to the photos was a strange ceramic object, a piece of pottery; it looked old and exotic. Adam had once been to Mexico City, and this item definitely looked Aztec, or at least Mesoamerican.
    He picked it up, and turned it in his hand. Deciphering the painted image on the jar. It showed a man with no hands and feet praying at an altar. The image was so disquieting he almost dropped the pot.
    ‘What the hell?’
    She nodded. ‘Yes. It’s odd, isn’t it? He brought it back from South America last year.’
    ‘After his trip?’
    ‘Yeah. Creepy, huh? There’s a couple more in the kitchen. Just as sinister.’
    Adam replaced the pot on the desk, took out his phone camera and grabbed a couple of shots of the jar.
    ‘You think it’s relevant?’
    ‘No. Yes. Who knows? We need to hurry up—’
    ‘OK, I’ll do the desk.’
    Adam felt like a burglar, or an undercover cop. He got the distinct feeling he should have worn gloves.
Leave no prints.
If anyone caught them doing this it would be ghastly.
    He leaned towards a shelf. As he did, a car passed, very slowly, at the rear of the tenements. Was it parking? The blood ran a tiny bit colder in his veins. Adam stared at the far wall of the study: the wall was mainly glass and gave on to a kind of fire escape, and the darkness of chilly Edinburgh beyond. But the car passed on.
    Slowly, he sorted along the shelves, turning over books, and peering in a box of cufflinks, fruitlessly.
    Leaning down, he pulled at a drawer. For several minutes he rummaged, but there was nothing here. Just files of paperwork. A cancelled mortgage. A cheque book stub. Then floppy disks, and old cassette tapes with handwritten labels.
Arwad. Damascus. Aleppo. A
brief history of technology in one drawer, and little else. He’d had enough: he didn’t even know
what
he was looking for. ‘Nina. This is pointless. How about the living room? Let’s look at it laterally, different kinds of clues?’
    She stared in the half-light. Then she nodded; together they prowled out of the study, and walked along the hallway. The door to the