Z. Rex (16 page)

Bateman ducked inside a narrow alleyway that led into a gloomy but well-tended courtyard, with ornamental urns ringing clean cobblestones. Adam watched the big man stride to his left, over to an old building studded with different shades of blackened brick, and climb the staircase to the door at the top.

Bateman knocked on the door. A petite black woman in gray trousers and a white roll-neck top opened up.

“Hey, Sammy,” Bateman drawled loudly, as she stood aside to let him through.

“
She’s
Sam Josephs?” Adam breathed, shrinking back into the cover of the alley. She looked so ordinary there on her doorstep, her straightened hair pulled back in a ponytail, holding a coffee mug in one hand. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice.
That’s how she gets away with doing what she does,
he supposed.
By not standing out.

He watched Josephs take a swig from her mug. “Is our business taken care of?” she asked in a clear English accent.

“Smooth as clockwork. . . .” Bateman’s gloating voice was bitten off by the slam of the door behind him.

Is it, now?
Adam turned and retreated back down the alleyway.
I’ll have to see what I can do about that.

He turned back onto the main street, his mind racing.
Whatever Dad said, I’ve got to go to the police,
he thought. But if he did, what evidence could he show them? He’d given all the files to Hayden; they could be anywhere. . . .

I’ll ask Zed,
Adam decided, heading back down the winding slope of The Mound.
If he could sniff out an apartment in New Mexico all the way from Utah, maybe he can sniff out those files—before someone else grabs them.

He broke into a run, feet slapping down hard on the pavement, arms like pistons jerking back and forth, hands karate-chopping the air. He cut a swathe through the armies of tourists, locals and festivalgoers who swarmed the city in search of amusement, barging people aside, ignoring the foul language thrown his way as he raced back to where he’d left his bike. There were plenty of people hanging out in the gothic shadow of the Scott Monument, and as he stopped for breath he couldn’t resist a final, longing look to be certain that Hayden wasn’t one of them, that he’d got the times wrong, that—

“Forget it,” he muttered, turning his back on the monument and racing up St. David Street. But his way was blocked by a small mob of onlookers, gawping at the turning onto Rose Street opposite. There was an ambulance and a cop car parked there, and a group of policemen were standing outside one of the front doors and keeping back the curious crowds.
Maybe it’s Hayden,
thought Adam, with a jolt.
He could have had an accident on his way here, or . . .

He pushed past the morbid onlookers to see a pale young woman in bloodstained clothes being brought out on a stretcher by paramedics and eased into the back of an ambulance.

“Is she all right?” an old woman wondered.

“Blood loss, they say,” a sharp-nosed man told her. “That and shock. Neighbor found her hiding under the bed, blood everywhere, babbling that she’d been attacked in the street and it was still after her.”

Adam felt a smack of alarm. There were huge gouge marks in the wall beside the door. Marks that could have been made by giant claws.

The old dear sighed. “These kids nowadays, with their knives—”

“Kids?” The man smirked. “The girl said it was a dragon!”

“What?” Adam demanded, pushing his way forward.

“That’s what she said,” the man insisted, glancing at Adam. “I heard the police radio their station. A dragon that turned
invisible,
if you please. . . .”

The woman was wide-eyed. “It must have been the wild animal that escaped, the same one that killed those poor horses. It was on the news last night—torn apart, they were.”

Adam turned and walked unsteadily back toward the bike racks in the square, a sick feeling building in his stomach as he remembered Zed’s feverish behavior the night before, the blood on his lips this morning. . . .

So much for my last hope
. Adam turned and ran back toward the square.

He wanted to keep running and never stop.

Zed’s been ill,
Adam reminded himself, pedaling hell for leather through the smart boxy terraces of Warriston on his bike.
He must have attacked that woman when he went out looking for water.
. . .

But a part of him wouldn’t believe it.
Couldn’t
believe it.

Maybe it was an accident,
Adam decided.
If he’d wanted to kill someone, he would have, just like he did at Fort Ponil
.
He was killing anything that moved millions of years before the first humans came along.

He thought of the huge gouge marks in the wall, gritted his teeth and pedaled harder, skimming past the traffic queuing to turn left onto the main road.

As he skidded to a halt on the stretch of weed-strewn concrete outside the warehouse, Adam braced himself for another confrontation. Zed had shown no sign of being violent that morning, but his mood swings seemed to be getting worse. Panting from his exertions, Adam approached the fire doors and pushed them open.

But the warehouse was dark and empty.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the gray light scattered through the filthy windows, he saw fresh markings on the wall. A chill plowed through him as he deciphered the letters gouged crudely into the old brickwork.

 

“
Oh, no. . . .” Adam rushed back to the fire doors, sent them crashing open. “Zed!” he screamed, staring wildly all around as the echoes cracked across the abandoned warehouse yard. “Zed, where are you? ZED!”

There was no sign of the dinosaur. No sign of any violence. Nothing. Adam sank to the ground, sweaty and exhausted from the mad ride over. Scared now half to death, his throat raw from shouting, he forced himself to calm down. “Reason it out,” Adam muttered fiercely, just the kind of thing his dad would’ve told him.

Why would Zed have left a message? Was it a kind of warning, a declaration of triumph? Who knew how Zed’s smashed-up mind worked?

“I’m not giving up on you, Dad,” Adam promised. “Not till I’ve found you.” The house in Lawnmarket had still been standing half an hour ago. But now . . . ?

Adam got up and retrieved his bike. He cycled away through the stiff breeze that was building, the bike’s wheels bumping over the cracked concrete. As he pulled out onto the shore road he almost ran into a huge white truck coming the other way.
Steady
, he thought.
No use killing yourself.

A shiver passed over him.
Not when there’s a deranged dinosaur on the loose who can do it for you.

The day passed for Adam in slow, exhausted confusion, wondering where Zed was, and what the message had meant. Most of all he wrestled with the question of what he was going to do now that Hayden had failed to show up.

He watched the Lawnmarket apartment for hours. Zed did not come calling, and no one else came or went. Adam even risked a trip to his own apartment. But nothing seemed to have changed since the last time he’d been there.

Midafternoon, in desperation, he cycled back to the BioQuarter and tried to get into Symtek.

“Mr. Hayden’s still out,” Megan informed him as soon as he came through the door.

“Could I wait for him in his office?” Adam asked hopefully.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Maybe you could try again tomorrow.”

Adam decided to try again right now. “I, er, think I left something there, see. I had some files with me. . . .”

“There’s nothing in the office. Mr. Hayden always clears his desk.”

“Well, did he ask you to do any photocopying yesterday?”

“No.”

Adam pressed his hands together. “Could I just check in there quickly? It’s so important. Honest. You can even come with me. I might need to show what’s in there to the police.”

Megan’s pretty face softened just a touch. “No exceptions, I’m afraid. We deal in highly sensitive data here—”

“I know. That’s why your boss could be in big trouble,” Adam told her, his frustration growing. “Look, if he doesn’t come to work tomorrow, if you can’t get hold of him, maybe you’ll believe me then.”

The hard mask came down again. “Would you go now, please?” Megan asked coldly.

“You don’t understand how important this is!” Adam could hear how ridiculous he must sound but he couldn’t help it. “First my dad went missing, now Mr. Hayden—”

“I don’t want to have to call security,” she interrupted, lifting the receiver.

“What if they’re missing too?” Adam challenged her. Then, realizing he was getting nowhere with this approach, he turned and stormed out.

He sat on a bench and tried to cool down. The wind made it easier; it was gusty and stupidly cold for August.

Almost out of ideas now, Adam decided to try Mr. Hayden’s address in St. Leonards. He checked it in his dad’s phone. Though he didn’t know anything about Hayden’s family life, he decided he might as well call in—if he couldn’t find the files, even if no one was home, he might at least find some clue as to what happened to him.

He cycled over, knowing this was about his final shot at getting something cast-iron to take to the police. Something they’d have to act on.

Hayden lived in a luxury town house on the edge of Holyrood Park. The barren sweep of the Salisbury Crags rose starkly from a steep slope of green, like fortified walls guarding Arthur’s Seat beyond.

Adam tried the door but there was no reply. The place was shut up as tight as a tomb. He tried reaching in through the mailbox to get to the latch, but found it was hopeless.

How about a window,
he thought. But a large metal casing high on the wall declared the place to be alarmed.

It was after nine o’clock by now, and the slow-falling night was painting the cliffs with ominous shadows. Sick of hanging around, Adam suddenly realized he’d eaten nothing all day. He spent the last of his money on a bag of chips from a convenience store, then cycled into a nearby park, carried his bike up a set of concrete steps and sat down in a quiet copse, chewing mechanically, trying to figure out his next move. There was no sound save for the wind rustling the leaves and distant dance music pumping from somewhere behind the tree line.