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  ‘Like you rebuffing Coates’s proposals,’ said Marshall, now understanding why Eloise had been so adamant that the statue represented her arrival in his life.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ concluded Chambers, removing the lid from his pen again to scribble the name of the next statue on the list. ‘Moving on then: Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss.’

  Eyes lowered to the floor, hair left to its own devices in a non-descript style, even the modest bunch of flowers in his hand an insipid collection of muted hues, Robert Coates roamed the halls of Queen Elizabeth Hospital unnoticed. The rucksack he carried was far heavier than he’d been expecting. Pulling it back up onto his shoulder, he watched with interest as two sleep-starved orderlies approached, their conversation building to a crescendo as they passed him:

  ‘… already late. Seriously, if I miss this train, she’s going to kill me. Would you mind dropping these off with …’

  Coates turned back the way he came to follow them, the talkative man already slipping his white tunic off in anticipation of leaving. He paused to read a noticeboard when they reached a door labelled Staff Only, watching them key in a four-digit code before disappearing inside …

  Catching the heavy door before it could click shut, he waited for the voices to fade and then entered the changing rooms, their conversation audible once again as he stalked them through the maze of lockers:

  ‘Worst … striptease … ever!’ laughed a new voice as a pair of trousers landed in a heap on the floor. ‘Go! Go! Hurry!’

  The slap of bare feet against the tiles gave way to the hiss of the shower bursting to life.

  Placing the rucksack down, Coates continued to the end of the next row, hovering just out of sight, the man mere inches away, flashes of skin teasing from round the corner as he hung his clothes up in a locker.

  ‘Shit!’

  The clatter of something dropping to the tiles echoed around the room.

  Sensing that this was his opportunity, Coates stepped out into the open, the man on his knees oblivious as he groped beneath a bench covered in clothing.

  Silently, he started to approach …

  ‘The story goes that once upon a time, in a great city that’s name has long been lost to time, there were three princesses, the youngest of which was named Psyche, whose beauty was said to rival that of Venus herself, a compliment that the goddess did not take well. In jealous retribution, Venus sent her son, Cupid, to shoot the princess with one of his arrows in a devious plan to make her fall in love with some hideous beast; however, Cupid accidently scratches himself in the process, causing him to fall madly in love with the very first thing he lays eyes on, which, of course, was Psyche.

  ‘Yada. Yada. Yada. Something about a helpful ant, golden sheep and invisible lover hostage-type situation. It all gets a bit weird in the middle until we reach the scene depicted in the sculpture, where Venus demands that Psyche venture into the Underworld with a flask to retrieve a scrap of beauty from Proserpina.

  ‘Successfully carrying out her task, Psyche returns to the earth but is overcome with burning curiosity. Ignoring all of the warnings bestowed upon her, she lifts the lid and peeks inside – the flask filled not with beauty but with The Night of Styx, which sends her into a deep and lasting sleep, where she remains until discovered by Cupid, who takes her in his arms and revives her with a single prick of his arrow.

  ‘With Venus’s hold on her finally broken, Psyche is granted immortality so that she and Cupid may be wed and spend the rest of eternity together.’

  Pulling his towel around him, the late-running orderly emerged from the showers just in time to see his colleague reclaim a can of deodorant from under the benches.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ he said, squeezing past to reach his crumpled pile of clothes, but immediately noticing that he was one item short. With a puzzled expression, he turned back to his friend: ‘Hey, have you seen my uniform?’

  The ceramic cups rattled on their saucers as though the decrepit refreshments trolley were enduring an earthquake rather than rolling across a smooth floor. Dressed in a white tunic and dark trousers, Robert Coates pushed the cart through the doors of the recovery ward without a single person batting an eyelash, helped by the whir of a powerful floor fan which had made him invisible once more. Surveying the ward like a sentinel, it billowed cold air out in all directions as he parked up beside the nurses’ station and plugged the kettle into one of the available sockets. Distracted and harassed, several people hurried past, but none paid him the slightest bit of attention as he calmly flicked the switch and headed back out.

  ‘So …’ started Chambers, looking perplexed. ‘We’re thinking you’re Psyche in this?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Eloise.

  ‘And this relates to that time you popped out to the Underworld to pick something up?’

  ‘It’s my accident,’ she responded sadly. ‘It was autumn and had gone dark a good hour before I’d even left work. I was riding my bike home as usual on my favourite route through Greenwich Park when …’ she took a breath, ‘I was hit by a car.’ She paused, as if she still couldn’t quite believe what happened next. ‘I heard them stop … only for a moment … and then drive away. They just left me there.

  ‘Both the bike and I had gone over a ridge. No one knew I was down there, lying helpless, barely conscious and badly hurt.’ But then she raised her head and smiled: ‘He found me. When I didn’t come home, Robert spent the entire night searching for me. I can still remember the feeling of him picking me up and putting me in the back of his car.’

  ‘Which part of the park?’ asked Marshall, pen poised to add it to the list of significant places.

  ‘Right by the Royal Observatory,’ Eloise told her. ‘That was how I broke my arm. And he painted a masterpiece across my cast with just a children’s novelty art set he’d found in the hospital shop … He never left my side.’

  Chambers and Marshall shared a significant look:

  ‘Which hospital?’ they chimed in unison.

  DO NOT ENTER

  DEEP CLEAN IN

  PROGRESS

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked a porter, on being confronted with the sealed set of doors and scattering of yellow cones that fortified the entrance to the ward.

  ‘Highly infectious patient,’ replied Coates, sounding bored as he loitered out in the corridor.

  The man pulled a face: ‘Did they say how long?’ He looked down at the elderly man in the wheelchair he was pushing, as if considering fly-tipping him somewhere.

  ‘Half an hour … Forty-five minutes,’ he shrugged. ‘But I’d probably give it longer,’ Coates advised with a knowing nod, exploiting the loyalty among the lower ranks. ‘Let the others know too, yeah?’

  ‘Will do. Thanks,’ said the man, needing no further information to start spreading conspiracy theories that the ‘higher-ups’ wouldn’t want them knowing about. ‘Let’s get you back to the waiting room then, Des!’ he bellowed down at his patient, who appeared to be able to hear perfectly well.

  Coates watched them wheel away just as the five-minute timer on his digital watch reached zero.

  Crossing his own barricade, he ensured that no one was watching and then slid inside, stopping to pull an oxygen mask over his face and open up the cylinder to a sharp hiss of air. Picking it up by the handle, he strolled down the short connecting corridor and through the set of double doors at the end.

  The bustling ward was now completely still, bar the pivoting floor fan still breathing tainted air over the collection of people sprawled across the floors and desks. Stepping over a stocky staff nurse attempting to crawl on all fours, he walked over to the refreshments trolley, switched off the kettle and then opened up the storage compartment beneath to retrieve his rucksack.

  Following the felt-marker guest list scribbled behind the nurses’ station, he made his way into one of the six-bay rooms. After a disdainful glance at the frail woman asleep in the bed to his left, he continued past
three empty bays to reach the two people at the far end of the room – both unconscious, both pathetically helpless, both entrusting their lives to banks of outdated machinery – one of the beige boxes literally held together with tape.

  He approached the woman in the bed beside the window and, without hesitation, switched off her screens one by one, silencing the various warnings and alarms. In fascination, he watched as the bag squeezing air into her lungs simply ceased to do so, the warm blood being pumped back into her body growing viscous and slow.

  Moving to the bed opposite, he stared down at the man – peaceful in his medicated sleep despite the fresh bandages to the contrary. Closing his eyes, he realised that he had matched his breathing to the wheeze of the ventilator, finding it strangely soothing in the otherwise hushed ward. He was almost loath to turn it off.

  Raising his thumb to the machine, he paused to take a final look down at one of the few people on this living Hell of a planet he could actually relate to …

  He deserved more – a more beautiful end.

  Taking his hand away from the switch, he set the oxygen cylinder down to unzip the rucksack, revealing the metal shapes and bulging plastic bag inside before pulling the curtain across the end of the room.

  For he still had much to do.

  CHAPTER 25

  ‘Wait in the car!’ barked Chambers, skidding to a stop outside the entrance of the hospital, joining three other police vehicles abandoned in the road. He, Marshall and Winter all went to climb out: ‘I said: wait in the car!’

  ‘Sorry. I thought you were talking to …’ started Winter, but they were already out of earshot, running through the crowd of journalists being held at bay outside the wide glass doors. ‘Yeah, you don’t care.’ Feeling a little embarrassed, he got back in beside Eloise, giving her a ‘what can you do?’ shrug.

  She pulled on the handle and climbed out.

  ‘Hey!’ he called after her as she hurried inside after them. ‘… Hey!’

  Identifying themselves to a man on the door, they made their way through the chaotic ward. With maintenance staff ruling out a gas leak before removing the suspect kettle, the unflappable nurses had opened all of the windows and were now carrying out their duties as normal around their recovering colleagues and the crime scene in the adjacent room. Rounding the corner, Chambers hadn’t had time to compose himself, the scene awaiting them stealing his breath like a physical blow.

  Surreal … Elegant … Brutal.

  ‘Oh my God,’ gasped Marshall at his side, not having made it any further into the room than he had.

  Standing equidistant between the two bays at the far end of the room, a set of fanned white wings looked to have burst from the spine of a kneeling man. Reaching for the ceiling, they eclipsed the light pouring in through the windows, casting long shadows that both detectives instinctively stepped out of.

  ‘Chambers?’ whispered Marshall. ‘… Chambers?’

  ‘I need a minute,’ he admitted.

  She nodded understandingly and then went to intercept their colleagues before they could notice him standing there.

  ‘Marshall,’ she introduced herself to a uniformed officer, who looked at an utter loss at where to begin. ‘I work with Detective Chambers.’

  ‘Oh! Literally never been happier to see anyone!’ he told her before turning back to the winged abomination beside them: ‘I mean, seriously, what the fuck?!’

  She looked down at the two bodies – one male, one female, realising that what had resembled a careless heap from across the room was, in fact, an all too familiar and carefully staged pose. Completely nude, the male victim’s weight was supported by his outstretched right leg as he held the woman’s lifeless body in his arms.

  Marshall stepped around the bodies towards the windows, the tiny strings that held the wings in place catching in the sunlight, and was revolted to discover that the angelic appendages were actually protruding from the male victim’s body, a ring of dark blood still oozing from the wounds.

  ‘Swans … I think,’ commented the officer.

  She nodded, crouching down to inspect the intricate metal framework that looked to have grown up out of the floor, curving and clasping at various points to hold the two ‘subjects’ in position.

  ‘He didn’t make this here,’ said Chambers, startling Marshall, who clearly hadn’t heard him approaching. He pulled on a pair of gloves and reached out to touch the end of one of the metal shapes, remoulding it with only moderate force. ‘Malleable though. Some sort of aluminium? Any obvious brand names or symbols on the quiver?’ he asked.

  ‘Quiver?’ replied Marshall. She hadn’t even got to that yet.

  ‘There were these as well,’ mentioned the officer, pointing to the floor.

  ‘The arrow he used to wake her and the flask containing The Night of Styx,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Errrr … I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Marshall told the officer. ‘When were they found?’

  ‘About thirty minutes ago, when one of the cleaning staff walked in to discover everyone passed out on the floor.’

  ‘Passed out or awake but unable to move?’ she asked him. ‘There’s a difference.’

  ‘Errm. I’ll check. Nobody seems to remember seeing anyone coming in or out. It’s like they were invisible or something.’

  ‘Perhaps they were,’ muttered Chambers despondently.

  The officer glanced at him, clearly unsure whether it had been a dig at his police work or if he genuinely believed in ghosts:

  ‘This is Robert Coates again, isn’t it?’ he asked them. ‘… The statues?’

  Chambers calmly turned to address him:

  ‘The press are already here. I trust I can rely on your discretion?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Great … Now, get out.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Through Cupid’s wings, he and Marshall looked at one another.

  ‘I’d seen the pictures,’ she said, dazed, as the officer’s footsteps retreated from the room. ‘I knew what to expect… . And yet, I wasn’t expecting this.’

  ‘Have you checked the flask yet?’ somebody asked from the doorway.

  Eloise was standing at the far end of the room, not a trace of fear or repulsion to be found on her face – only awe.

  Winter came bounding into the room after her, closely followed by the officer they’d managed to evade on their way in.

  ‘They’re with me,’ said Chambers, calling the constable off, before turning his attention back to the others: ‘I told you to stay in the car.’

  ‘I tried to stop her,’ wheezed Winter, not a trace of awe to be found on his face – only fear and repulsion.

  ‘You can’t be here,’ Chambers told them.

  ‘Have you checked the flask yet?’ Eloise asked again, as if she hadn’t heard him.

  ‘This is a crime scene!’

  ‘This is Robert!’ she bit back, edging towards the winged god and his princess, bright eyes drinking in every detail of the scene before her.

  With a look of intense displeasure, Chambers walked round to where the ceramic flask lay atop the bed sheet that spilled across the floor. He crouched down and grasped the lid, hesitating for a fleeting moment as stories of vindictive goddesses and curses from the Underworld raced through his mind.

  He gently removed the top … and peered inside.

  ‘What is it?’ Winter called from the safety of the corridor.

  ‘Leaves,’ replied Chambers, looking to Eloise in concern. ‘… Laurel leaves.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Chambers. He and Marshall had stepped outside for a coffee and breath of fresh air in a courtyard that the smokers among the staff had staked a claim to long ago.

  ‘She’s been invaluable to us so far.’

  ‘You saw her face in there. Not exactly subtle, is she? She’s getting off on this every bit as much as Coates is.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she’s involved,’ Marsh
all pointed out.

  ‘And helping us doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t.’

  She nodded, squinting as the November sunshine made a reappearance: ‘I agree it’s one possibility.’

  ‘And then,’ continued Chambers, ‘there’s the leaves he keeps dropping around the place for us to find for her like little love notes.’

  ‘Say you’re right – why would she be helping us?’

  ‘For the same reason he is. Why would Coates leave us your sketchbook?’

  ‘Like we said before: as a taunt,’ suggested Marshall. ‘A threat? … A cry for help?’

  Chambers shook his head: ‘I don’t think Robert Coates gives a damn about playing games. He could’ve gone to the press at any point, but he hasn’t. He’s not looking for notoriety and wouldn’t expect the world to understand anyway. He’s doing this for him.’

  ‘Then why do you think he left it?’

  ‘I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew. But whatever the reason, he left it for his benefit, not ours. And we’d do well to remember that.’ He checked his watch: ‘Wainwright will be here in a few minutes. I’ve got to explain why we’ve got another two corpses and an entire hospital ward drugged up on what sounds like his paralytic.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I can handle it. You should have a talk with Eloise, make up your mind whether we keep her around or not.’

  ‘You’re trusting me with that decision?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘I’ve got enough to do,’ he told her simply, heading back inside.

  ‘Who were they?’ asked DCI Wainwright, still watching the faux-god’s wings intently, as if expecting them to start flapping again at any moment.

  ‘Javier Ruiz and Audrey Fairchild.’

  ‘The ones from the news?!’ she asked urgently.

  Chambers looked down at his notes for help, realising that he hadn’t had time to pick up a paper or sit down in front of the television since this had all begun.