Redlaw - 01 (16 page)

“Yeah, but only because there’d got to be too many of them and the people in those countries were fed up and were doing something about it.”

“Is it wrong to flee from violence and seek asylum elsewhere?”

“Asylum? Don’t make me laugh. That’s for genuine refugees, victims of ethnic cleansing and torture and what have you. Not for bloodsucking monsters. That accent of yours, that’s French, innit? I’m surprised to hear you sticking up for vamps. Your government had exactly the right idea. Round them up and put them on a train back where they came from, and keep doing that ’til they finally get the message. Don’t see Paris going all to hell like this, do you? No, you do not.”

Illyria was going to argue further, but Redlaw stilled her with a shake of his head.
Not worth it
, his look said.
Let him prattle on
.

Eventually, circuitously, the taxi got them to Ealing.

“That’ll be forty-five,” the driver said. “Bit steep, I know, but I had to go all round the houses, didn’t I, and then there’s night rates, and a bit extra for the added risk...”

Redlaw paid up grudgingly, then said, “How would you feel if I told you you’d just had a Sunless in the back of your cab?”

The cabbie studied him for a moment, then barked a laugh. “Nice one. I like your sense of humour. Sunless in a cab. As if. Besides,” he added, tapping his rearview mirror, “you both showed up in this. Vamps don’t do reflections, do they?”

He drove away, still chuckling to himself.

“I thought everyone knew the thing about mirrors was untrue,” said Illyria.

“Myths die hard,” said Redlaw. He stuck his key in the lock. “And now, ‘
mademoiselle
,’ let’s get inside.”

“French!” said Illyria with disdain, and followed Redlaw in.

The first thing Redlaw did was gulp down four ibuprofen tablets from the bathroom cabinet. Next, he went to the bedroom and delved into the wardrobe where his emergency spare set of weapons was stashed. The Cindermaker was one he claimed he’d lost while pursuing a Sunless along the Regent’s Canal. The gun had dropped into the water, allegedly, during a hand-to-hand tussle on the towpath. Redlaw had been concerned that replacing it would be a headache, but the armourer at HQ had authorised the issuing of a new one with barely a murmur. “Normally I’d be obliged to report this upstairs and there’d be a ton of paperwork,” the armourer had said, “but as it’s you, Captain Redlaw, I think we can just nod this one through.” Redlaw had felt almost guilty, as though he were abusing the trust of others, but now, as he loaded the Cindermaker, he knew the deception had been a necessary one, and forgivable.

“Better?” Illyria said as he entered the living room with the gun strapped prominently to his waist. “Feel safer?”

“Much.”

“I really have no intention of harming you, you know.”

“I’d rather I had some say in the matter, instead of just having to take your word for it.”

“Are you this mistrustful of everyone?”

“Only ’Lesses,” said Redlaw. “But you’re in my flat, so that must tell you something.”

“I should feel honoured? Oh, then I am.” Illyria cast an eye around the room—white walls, basic furniture, no carpet nor even a rug, nothing fancy anywhere. “Such a charmingly uncluttered and...
simple
living space. Tell me, do you have an aversion to décor of any kind?”

“There’s that.” Redlaw pointed to a plain oak cross that hung above the fireplace. “Only décor I need. Maybe you’d prefer it if I bashed some holes in the plasterwork, tore up a couple of floorboards, smeared excrement everywhere. Then you’d feel more at home.”

“So material comforts aren’t important to either of us,” Illyria said. “It seems we have that in common, we just show it in different ways. Having said that, the state of the accommodation in the SRAs was never that palatial to begin with.”

“No reason to make it worse, though.”

“Redlaw, must we bicker all bally night long? I get it—you have no great affection for me, it aggrieves you to be in my company. The point’s made. Let’s set that aside and get down to brass tacks.”

“All right.” Redlaw took a seat. The ibuprofen had begun to dull the edge of the pain. From being unbearably sickening, it was now bearably sickening. “The BovPlas blood—it’s contaminated in some way. Is that what you’ve found?”

“As far as I can discern, it is just cattle blood, but if it was contaminated, it would be hard to tell by taste alone.”

“Why?”

“Blood from cows has a strong, coarse flavour, unlike human blood, which is more delicate and subtle. If I cast my mind back to my wine-drinking days, it’s the difference between some cheap, rough table wine and, say, a Château Margaux or some other top-notch Bordeaux. You drink the one because it’s there and the other because you want to, and if you had a choice in the matter, you would never touch the table wine and you’d take the Margaux every time. There really is nothing to compare with the stuff that runs through human veins. Anything else comes a poor second.”

“So you’re saying if it were human blood and it had been tampered with in some way, you’d know.”

“Almost certainly. It doesn’t take much to upset the balance of flavours in human blood. Vampires are sensitive to that. Alcohol, sugar, milk—they all have an effect on its acidity and sweetness. Garlic is the worst. This, I think, is the real reason the French have been so successful in expelling vampires from their borders. Their diet.”

“You’re kidding.”

“A little. But garlic undoubtedly sours blood, and of course, in its purest form it is repugnant to vampires—so yes, maybe we’re less willing to sup from French veins than we are from those of other nationalities.”

Redlaw gave a low whistle. “I’ve learned something new today.”

“I’m just surprised that you seem to have no problem discussing a subject that most of your kind find deeply disagreeable.”

“I’ve been in the Sunless-handling business a while now. I’m pretty much immune to the nastier aspects. The taste of cattle blood, then, could be masking something else, some added ingredient?”

“It’s perfectly possible. Something which sparks aggression in those who drink it.”

“Does it make
you
aggressive?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. But then I am not your average vampire.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I do not need to drink blood in any great quantity. I’m able to survive on far less than other vampires. I’m more... fuel-efficient. So if BovPlas blood has any ill effects, I wouldn’t be in the best position to judge. Besides, having asked Grigori—”

“Your little round minion.”

“—Grigori about what happens when the blood arrives, it seems that it isn’t so much the blood itself that triggers a riot as the eagerness to get to the blood. If the pouches aren’t distributed quickly enough, or someone shoves someone else aside or snatches a pouch out of another’s hands, then frenzy can result. Vampires are a touchy, undisciplined breed. They can be stirred to anger by the slightest of provocations.”

“And that coupled with blood that is somehow more potent or intoxicating than usual,” said Redlaw, “would lead to every delivery becoming a potential flashpoint. Additives combined with mob psychology. Someone’s manipulating the Sunless, deliberately messing with them in order to cause mayhem.”

“It seems that way. But who? And why?”

“Those are both valid questions, but before we begin trying to answer them we need proof, something that’ll confirm that this isn’t all pie-in-the-sky conjecture.”

“We need a pouch of BovPlas blood.”

“We do. And I know where we can get one. It’s only a couple of miles from here, in fact.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

They travelled from Redlaw’s flat to Park Royal on foot. Redlaw now had a spare overcoat on, his second best, and Illyria had ditched the doctor-wear. A scarf, looped around her mouth and chin, fulfilled the same function as the surgical mask.

The atmosphere in the city was still febrile. The whiff of burning hung everywhere, and distant columns of smoke, rising like immense trees, shed an ochre haze across the moon. Detours were unavoidable. Wherever crowds had gathered, Redlaw switched to an alternative route, in case a disturbance was brewing. He led Illyria in a dogleg over Hanger Lane and across the broad sweep of Western Avenue via a footbridge. Soon they were closing in on the BovPlas depot.

Once there, Redlaw ascertained that his plan—march into the depot, requisition a blood pouch on some official-sounding pretext, march out again—was not going to work. There was a substantial SHADE presence on the premises. SHADE, it appeared, was providing an escort for every truck that went out to make a delivery; one patrol car per truck, four uniformed officers in each car.

“I’m not running the gauntlet of dozens of shadies all demanding to know what I’ve come for,” Redlaw said.

“You’re a captain, aren’t you?” Illyria said. “Can’t you just tell them to mind their own business?”

Redlaw squinted through the spiked railings of the depot’s perimeter fence. “I see at least two captains swanning about. Not so easy to play the ‘superior officer’ trump card with them. Plus, there’s no telling if Commodore Macarthur’s spread the word that I’m suspended yet. If any of them knows, then I’m not going to get anywhere.”

“Do we have a back-up plan?”

“Send you in to slaughter everyone, Illyria.”

“By Jove, tell me you’re not serious.”

“Of course I’m not serious! What do you take me for? The back-up plan is we waylay one of the trucks as it leaves.”

“What about the SHADE car with it?”

“The day I can’t browbeat a bunch of uniforms...”

Minutes later, Redlaw was flagging down a patrol car and the truck behind it, some two hundred metres from the depot gates. He showed his badge and his vest, so that the shadies could see at a glance that he was one of them but plainclothes.

The sergeant at the wheel braked and wound down his window.

“I take it you know who I am,” Redlaw said.

The sergeant nodded. “Is there a problem, Captain Redlaw?”

“None as such. So BovPlas are still making deliveries, in spite of everything?”

“Trying to. That’s why we’re along for the ride. Accompany the truck to its designated SRA, recce the situation, make a judgement call. If all’s quiet, go in. If not, abort the dropoff. It’s orders from the top. The policy is, better that some ’Lesses get their feed than none do. Going hungry might just make them worse behaved.”

Redlaw let that pass without comment. “I’d like to give the truck a once-over, if that’s all right with you.”

“Might I ask what for?”

“You might, sergeant, but I’m under no obligation to explain myself to you—any of you. I have my reasons, and I outrank you. Fair enough?”

The sergeant did not like being put in his place but was sufficiently seasoned to take it on the chin. “Can you at least tell us who
she
is?” he said, gesturing out of the window at Illyria. “Scarf-face over there.”

The other three in the car thought this a hoot. “Scarf-face!”
Guffaw, guffaw
.

“A colleague,” said Redlaw. “Got any further inane remarks, sergeant? How much more of my time are you going to waste?”

“None, sir,” the man said, both sharply and sullenly.

“Good.”

Redlaw turned and made his way to the truck. Sometimes it worked to his advantage that he was renowned as a tough-nut with limited social skills. He didn’t have to worry about winning people round when he could simply steamroller over them.

He knocked on the truck cab door and invited the two drivers to get out.

“SHADE business,” he said. “Open up the back, will you?”

Both men looked towards the patrol car for endorsement. The sergeant, who was standing out beside the car now, gave them the nod.

One of them pressed a lever on the dashboard and the rear doors opened automatically, releasing tendrils of chilly vapour. Redlaw stepped up into the truck’s fridge body. Blood pouches in their hundreds were stacked around him on pallets, looking somewhat like house bricks. He made a show of inspecting them, running a hand over their plastic skins, peering between and behind the stacks.

“What’re you looking for?” one of the drivers asked.

“Nothing. This is just routine, a precaution—things being as they are and all.”

“Don’t hassle him,” the other driver said to the first. “Whatever the shadies need to do is fine by me. You think I’d have even come in to work tonight if we hadn’t been promised they’d be helping?”

Redlaw squatted down at the far end of the fridge body with his back to the drivers. His overcoat billowed out around him in such a way that he was able to slide out a pouch, left-handed, unseen, and tuck it into one of the coat’s inner pockets.

Nice one, Redlaw. If all else fails, there’s always that career in shoplifting to fall back on
.

He stood up, wincing with discomfort. He was trying to avoid using his right arm, but almost anything he did seemed to involve that shoulder somehow or other.