Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan

Author:Glen Duncan [Duncan, Glen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780857862327
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2012-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

33

Thirty feet across from me a doorway opened into the next room. Walker appeared in it, beckoned me to come ahead. The second room was bigger than the first. Daylight pencilled through several large holes in the brickwork. A precarious stone staircase ran along one wall to the upper floors. Konstantinov, Hudd and Carney were up there, going room by room. The soccer-shirted goon lay dead in the open front doorway. A second body lay by the stairs, and a third was visible, lying face-down in the adjoining chamber.

‘Through here,’ Walker said.

I followed him into what might once have been the house’s kitchen, where Pavlov stood guard at a doorway from which more stone stairs led down to a basement.

‘We wait for the upstairs clearance,’ Walker said.

It was a peculiar few minutes. There was nothing to say. The house, since it had no choice, started offering us its ruined details: a sunlit patch of yellowy green lichen; bits of rotten wood; gothic cobwebs; the smells of damp stone and cat piss and mould. As with strangers waiting for an elevator every second increased the absurdity. Then Konstantinov came through the doorway, followed by Carney and Hudd. The rooms upstairs were empty.

‘Okay, so what I’m thinking here is—’

Konstantinov wasn’t waiting. He went past Walker without a word and started down the stairs.

‘Pav, take point here,’ Walker said, then followed Konstantinov into the gloom. I went after him, with Hudd and Carney on my heels.

Cold air came up. The stairs were narrow, steep, mossed and damp, but the two men ahead and Hudd behind lit the way with torches. Fourteen steps. Buckling heat and an adrenal stink from the four human bodies. Wulf swelled and jabbed in the liminal zone under my skin. Memories of the kills popped and bloomed: the French widower’s cock on the floor like a king prawn in a puddle of blood; the Mexican pimp’s bare leg kicking, repeatedly, despite my arm rummaging elbow-deep under his ribs. Something was struggling to come forward in my mind, had been trying to form while we’d waited by the door at the top of the stairs.

‘Mikhail!’ Walker hissed. ‘Jesus, slow down.’

Konstantinov had moved quickly away from the steps and was opening the darkness section by section with his torch. The space underground appeared to occupy half the house’s footprint. Undressed stone walls and floor, what looked like the remnants of broken crates and bottles, rusted oil cans, shelves hanging, more fantastic cobwebs.

‘Okay, check it,’ Walker said. ‘Easy does it, gentlemen. Miss D, stay close. Pavlov, you good up there?’

‘Good,’ Pavlov answered. ‘Take your time.’

The team moved around the cellar’s perimeter, guns and torches trained. Konstantinov’s silent furious energies were palpable through the darkness. The rest of us had dropped away for him: he was alone in the inscrutable universe.

For as long as it took to cover the ground we kept up a token suspension of judgement, but no one was really in any doubt: there was nothing down here.

Konstantinov was on all-fours searching the floor – for a trapdoor or hidden way to a lower level.

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