Sanctus

Chapter 72

Kathryn Mann pointed to a spot on the dusty concrete floor of the warehouse and the forklift pirouetted gracefully and lowered one of the master pallets from the C-123 right on to it. She was trying to arrange things so that the next shipment due out, an agricultural supplies drop to one of their projects in Uganda, didn’t end up buried somewhere in the stack. Each master pallet had a thin aluminium skin round it and was the size of two large refrigerators. It was like a massive three-dimensional puzzle, but it beat sitting in the office watching the news with Oscar and waiting for Gabriel to call.

The truck eased its forks from beneath the pallet and peeled back out to the transport plane. Most of the fertilizer would be flying straight back out again in a few days, with a bit of luck.

A loud rapping caused Kathryn to look up. Through the narrow avenue of crates she could see Oscar standing at the window, gesturing for her to come over. His expression was grim.

Kathryn handed Becky her list. ‘Could you make sure these ones stay at the front?’

‘Look,’ Oscar said, the moment she walked into the office. He pointed the remote at the TV on the wall and edged up the volume.

‘The investigation into the death of the monk,’ the newsreader announced in a tone usually reserved for massacres and declarations of war, ‘has taken a turn for the macabre this morning.

Sources close to the investigation believe that his body has disappeared from the city morgue. .’

The picture cut to an unsteady image of a bedraggled woman being led to a car.

‘Are you connected with the disappearance of the monk?’ the reporter’s voice shouted. ‘Are you under arrest?’

The woman looked up briefly, staring directly into the lens before dropping her head and disappearing behind a curtain of dirty-looking hair.

‘That must be the girl,’ Oscar said.

But Kathryn didn’t hear him. She was transfixed by the sight of the plainclothes police officer at Liv’s side. She watched him bundle her roughly into the back seat. Saw the camera tilt up towards his face. Saw him hold up his freckled hand to push it away.

Then he got in the car and drove her away.