NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 122
Cedric Roderro could feel the vultures circling overhead.
If not the monarchists who delighted in taking an overly violent approach to property development, then surely it was the large group of men and women who had invested a huge portion of their respective assets into acquiring land in Church Walk in the hopes of redeveloping the district and making off like bandits.
His attempts to bribe Robert Van Gervan were a tremendous failure. Not only did his envoys refuse to follow the terms of the deal, but they also added insult to injury by stealing the first deposit they intended to use to show they were being serious about it. That was what he got for trusting a lowly criminal to show his good sense.
He was so full of piss and vinegar when he came up with that one, and now it had blown up in his face. Robert Van Gervan scorned him, and now he was forced to face down his angry investors with the bad news. Their patience was starting to run out. They could choose to sell their property and eat the loss whenever they felt like it.
Part of him wanted to cancel the meeting and deal with the fallout later. Cedric stewed in a sense of helplessness in his work office for several hours that day, from the early morning to the late afternoon. He spent most of it trying to summon forth good excuses to explain why the development plan wasn’t moving forward.
The walk to the meeting room felt like a march to the gallows. They would have loved to see him with a rope noose tied around his neck. He held no small resentment for them. Cedric was a firm believer that everyone in the nobility hated one another as much as he hated them. It was warfare without weapons.
A large group of around forty people assembled in the meeting room at his city-based office. The air in the room was sucked out all at once. Was it out of respect for his frustration, or apprehension at the risk to their wealth? At the head of the table with him was Sebtland Burton and Concetta Van Walser.
Cedric was not in the mood for the ceremony. He sat in his seat and clapped his hands together.
“Let us not belabour the point of this meeting today. I appreciate you all finding the time out of your busy schedules to be here.”
He scanned the room and took in the forlorn faces of his fellow nobles, his fellow passengers on the sinking ship now entitled the Church Walk Project. He recognized most of them, though Muwah Abdah was skulking by the window with a young lad who looked much the same as he did. Cedric had never seen him before.
“Mister Blackford – would you like to start us off?”
Emerson Blackford was one of the key members of the scheme. His construction company was the largest on the East side of Walser. They were lined up to handle the demanding task of demolishing the old Church Walk and building the new in its place.
“I take it that by your ceding the floor to me, there’s been no progress on obtaining the rest of the properties?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You told me that these protest groups wouldn’t be a problem. What changed since then?”
Cedric rolled out his pre-vetted lie; “I said that under a mistaken belief that they would remain unorganized and incongruent. But it seems that some of the intelligentsia have rallied around the cause, and are now pushing the city council to protect the historic buildings in Church Walk.”
“Historic? Those buildings can barely stand on themselves! Where was this outpouring of concern when the city was allowing the entire district to fall into a state of squalor? Make no mistake Cedric, their only goal is to frustrate the betterment of this city at the hands of the nobility. It cuts against their ideology.”
“I know that very well. There is also the developing issue of the violence in the area. It has created a large amount of uncertainty about when the police will get it under control. I think we can all agree that the police should spare no effort in catching those responsible.”
There was a quiet murmur of agreement from the gathered investors.
“I’ve continued to pursue a wide-reaching acquisition effort even in the face of these challenges.”
Blackford tugged on the cuff of his jacket, an odd habit of his.
“Have you considered using alternate methods to convince them to sell?”
Cedric smiled; “We’ve tried a lot of things. Of course, we’re all law-abiding nobles here – and we’d never dream of using underhanded or illegal methods to deprive these people of their property.”
“Naturally,” Blackford agreed. Both he and Cedric knew that they were talking complete rubbish. Blackford was as ruthless as they came in the industry. He coerced, he threatened, and he used high-pressure tactics to get what he wanted. The ends always justified the means.
“Putting aside protests to the council, the number one concern in my mind are those individuals who feel that selling is simply not an option. Either due to their long history in the area, or their connection to the factories nearby, we have to do what we can to show them that we’re offering them a life-changing deal. A chance to get away from an extremely deprived area and start fresh somewhere new.”
“And the money?”
“The money is not the sticking point. If they’re not willing to accept our generous offer now, then there must be other factors that are keeping them from moving away.”
At the other end of the room, Maxwell was whispering to Muwah.
“Is this how all of these meetings go?”
“I told you it wouldn’t be exciting.”
“No, I knew it’d be boring. I mean does Cedric always get piled on by all of the investors? How long has this been going on for?”
“A few weeks now. Some of them are less patient than others because they have mortgages on those buildings. Every day that goes by without development work means they have to pay the interest on them.”
“But Cedric is the one in charge of the project.”
“They don’t trust him to hold the deeds for them. They coordinated to buy it all up, but they want to keep the keys until they’re sure they can make a profit. He warned them about that before we started.”
Max shook his head. This was the guy trying to kill his own nephew? Muwah stressed that these problems were normal for any large-scale project, but Maxwell didn’t buy it. The violence that had started occurring in the area was almost too coincidental for him to ignore. The last thing he wanted was for his brother to get entangled in Cedric’s criminality.
But convincing him to divest from Cedric’s plan was going to be tough without revealing a lot of what he learned from Maria. He wasn’t going to take him at his word without a good reason, brothers or not.
The next investor to speak was not so reserved with their criticism.
“Why are you troubling yourself with the meaningless words of the rabble? Let us simply proceed with the planned construction and make it clear to all that we intend to rejuvenate this area of the city, with or without them. They’ll change their minds about selling on soon enough!”
“Mister Greene, I insist...”
...Maxwell finished recollecting what he saw at the meeting to us.
I whistled, “They weren’t happy with Cedric.”
“They were not. Tempers flared even more when he revealed that his attempts to solve the gang problem were fruitless. He claimed that he wanted to see a diplomatic solution, but they refused to listen to what his envoys said.”
“The longer they sit on the land they own, the more they have to pay in taxes and interest, and the more entrenched the opposition to the scheme becomes. There may be a tipping point where the potential risk outweighs the profit they will make. An exodus of investors like that would kill the project on the spot.”
Adrian was holding his head in his hands, “How is that supposed to help us get to the bottom of whether he leaked that information to the monarchists?”
“Cedric seemingly asked for help from someone. I can’t say for certain that it is the monarchists at the moment, but if we’re able to draw a connection between the strange goings-on in Church Walk, the monarchists, and his business venture there, then it will be a compelling case for his involvement in the prior incident.”
“What type of help?” Max inquired.
“They have mercenaries wandering the area and killing any criminals they can find, preferably in large groups when they gather for one reason or another. There have been two attacks in the past week alone.”
“I didn’t expect him to resort to murder,” Max mumbled.
“He might not have a choice in the matter. He made an unwise bargain with someone who has no qualms about using violence directly. I believe that the violence in itself is their payment for helping the development plan.”
Adrian wasn’t happy about any of this, but when was he ever? We sat there and stewed on our new information for some time. I tried to break the ice by moving on to a new subject.
“How organized are these historical groups anyway? I heard some talk about them – but haven’t seen any evidence of them campaigning yet.”
“They have some businessmen and nobles backing them up, though they were on the backfoot because they only got together recently in response to the development plans.”
“Typical.”
“What the investor said about them getting in the way, do you agree with them?”
“In part. People never care about preserving things until they’re under threat, but those buildings do have important historical value. They’d regret destroying them in the end. Imagine if they’re around for two hundred more years. People would visit this city just to see them.”
Even the heyday of organized religion was starting to approach a state where nobody had experience with it. Only the oldest people in the world could truthfully recall a time when the churches held sway over such a huge number of Walser’s population. Those chapels were already historic, and they would continue to be long into the future.
They could also contain hidden artefacts - or buried bodies that were chosen to rest in holy ground. A treasure trove of valuable information that future historians would kill to get their hands on. Even the architecture they used was unique and unseen in any modern developments.
“I don’t get it. Why would they sit and wait until Cedric starts throwing his weight around?”
“There are a lot of reasons. Some might believe that there is no threat to the area’s existence, or that it doesn’t need regular care, others might see it as an opportunity to raise their profile or spurn the nobility. There is little value in trying to guess in the dark about their motivations though, what’s important is what they intend to do.”
Adrian had his say soon after.
“Cedric wants to erase all of the work that other people put into Church Walk. He wants to wipe it all clean and leave his own scar in its place. That’s all he cares about, having his name put into the history books.”
“If he thinks that people will look back kindly on him for damaging the character of the city in pursuit of profit, he is sorely mistaken.”
“He cares. He really cares. He thinks that being seen as a great person, a kind person, is the best way to cement his legacy. Look at what his kindness is behind all the bluster. Stepping on toes. More blood spilt over into the nearest gutter.”
The mood around the table turned dark. Even Maxwell was starting to look a little perturbed by the direction of the conversation as it was. There was clearly more to his involvement in this than I first assumed. Adrian slammed the table and jumped to his feet.
“It pisses me off! What the hell is he thinking? That arsehole’s been giving my Father these tales about how torn up he is that Mum died, but now he’s out here making some fresh tragedy for everyone else! It was all a bunch of bloody lies, wasn’t it?”
I stood to meet his level and tried to cool his head, “If you ask him, I’m sure that he will insist that he’s done nothing of the sort. He will find a way to dismiss his own hypocrisy and rationalize what you confront him with. We always make special exceptions for ourselves whilst condemning others for the same conduct.”
“I bet he did it. I bet he bloody did it. There’s no way he wanted to pass up the opportunity. He’s been trying to hint at buying the businesses from under me this whole time, but he can’t make an offer with his money tied up by this. He wanted me to die to those cultists, that’s why he leaked what the watch does to the monarchists.”
If that was how he felt about the situation, then he had a difficult choice to make.
“Adrian, I can increase the pressure and target him directly if that’s what you want, but you have to be ready for the consequences. This is not going to be resolved cleanly. Someone is going to end up in prison, or dead.”
Adrian, who was still angry about everything, responded with his callousness on display; “Better him than me.”
Max stood up to join us, “Hey! Don’t say stuff like that so happily. Are you seriously going to do this because you think he’s involved? You’ll regret it in the end. He’s family.”
“Family?” Adrian scoffed, “He doesn’t give that benefit to me! He’ll happily plot and scheme behind the curtain, try to kill me off so he can be in charge. Some bloody family he is! Why the hell would I give him the same treatment?”
I shook my head at Max and told him that it wasn’t an argument worth enduring. Adrian had made up his mind. He was being driven into a paranoid fit, as he was right to, by the repeated attempts from Cedric to kill him or steal the businesses from under his nose. There was no debating him at a time like this.
“Would your uncle do something so foul?”
I cut in, “It’s hard to accept – but there are some people who don’t value family in the slightest. There’s a price attached to that kind of loyalty, and Cedric’s threshold has been cleared.”
Max couldn’t understand it. His face twisted into a sour glare. He must have had a pretty good life at the estate if the mere thought of a family member stabbing him in the back caused such consternation.
“So what? You unleash... Maria onto him and hope it turns out alright?”
I crossed my arms and looked to Adrian for his response. Perhaps he expected me to become offended by Maxwell describing me like some type of rabid dog because he was looking to see my reaction as well.
“What would you do?” he asked.
“I’m not a hired killer.”
Not anymore at least.
“If you ask me what the best course of action is, I would still persist that finding evidence about his plot is the most tolerable outcome. You need not worry about the guilt of killing the man, it’s better for everyone if the courts have their day and the full story is investigated in detail.”
Adrian pulled back on his anger for a moment, “All I’m saying is that he’s already stepped over the line. I’m not going to die because I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Let’s stop wasting time and take this seriously.”
“I’m happy to do that,” I responded, “And you’re right. Acting as if he is already confirmed as our opponent will speed up the process. I say we find out who he’s working with and ensure that the entire house of cards collapses at once. When murder is involved – one does not have to use a weapon to have blood on their hands.”
With that matter settled, for the time being, I started planning for the next operation. It was time to figure out who the killers were and what their purpose was. I already had a good idea of where to look next.
There was still a funeral to be held.
Another day, another meeting in Frankfort’s stuffy office. It smelt so strongly of paper that it reminded Veronica of a manufactory she visited for one of her other investigations. She’d been up to her ankles in trouble, dealing with the aftermath of the previous attack outside of the morgue.
Frankfort shuffled her papers and coughed into her palm.
Veronica was forced to ask first; “Did you look into what happened with the Horrcath’s body?”
Frankfort nodded, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but yes. Your assertion appears to be correct. Someone has been tampering with the body and violating the protective order that has been implemented to keep it away from prying eyes.”
“They sneak into the chamber with a... syringe and take what they can?”
Frankfort grimaced, “As silly as it sounds – that is exactly what happened. Multiple skin breaches were found where they drew blood samples from. A second assessment of the body concluded that a large quantity of internal fluid has been drained from the body. I thought they were too foolish to do something like this.”
“And that blood matches what was found in our dead suspect, and the one who got away after the morgue attack.”
Frankfort was furious. She rarely showed her feelings openly, but the looming stench of death made everyone at the facility stand up and pay attention. It was a serious breach of protocol which could carry heavy consequences for anyone found to have been a part of it. They were looking at a life sentence, and that was before they became accessories to murder through the actions of their experimental subjects.
Every single man and woman working the facility was rotated immediately and placed on administrative leave until they could figure out who was working with the enemy. It was meant to be under the military’s jurisdiction, but Frankfort found a sympathetic officer in the ranks who did not approve of rule breakers.
That – or they no longer needed the body and the blood it contained. It was a worrying series of developments.
“The only way this could have happened is if they had operatives working at that facility. They’re in on it.”
“They must think it’s in the national interest. A way to shore up our defences.”
“It may yet be,” Frankfort conceded, “But the outcome as it is now? They’re nothing more than a group of maniacs spreading hysteria on the streets. These are the kinds of crimes that WISA was founded to prevent.”
Frankfort would be damned to hell if she was going to let the army get one over on her. She hated them. They thought they owned the place and loved stepping on her toes just for the sake of asserting their position. A less professional group of men and women she could not name.
She had zero faith in their ability to ‘shape’ this project into a constructive one. The fact that they were now being used as a means to attack civilians, criminal or not, demonstrated a lack of better judgment that chilled her to the core. They were making a personal army and selling them to the highest bidder. Even worse, they may have been working in collaboration with partisan outsiders to advance their chosen political campaign.
Veronica shook her head; “This is too delicate. We have multiple arms of the government fighting with each other. If this goes public, it’ll be chaos.”
“It’s already chaos. We’ve got military ministers trying to concoct their own idiotic development programs, political opportunists using the results to kill people in broad daylight, agents disappearing into thin air after running interference, and spies pilfering blood from the body of a demon so they can inject some poor misguided souls with it!”
Veronica threw up her hands, “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Whatever it takes. I’m taking your leash off. I don’t care what it is, or where it leads you, I want some good answers as soon as possible. I’ll assign someone else to babysit the bloody morgue.”
“Of course. It would be helpful to have a copy of the report.”
Frankfort smiled and handed it over, “It’s yours. Tell them that I gave you access, and to come and complain to me if they have a problem with it.”
Nobody came to complain to Frankfort - she had a glare that could cut steel.
Veronica bowed her head and stepped out of the office to gather her thoughts. The building was alight with movement from agents in all departments. That was how she knew the situation was degrading faster than they could handle. It would take bold action to crack open the case and figure out who was responsible for the killings.
Luckily for Veronica, there was a perfect opportunity on the horizon to try and capture one of the criminals for interrogation. She only needed an extra pair of hands and some effective restraints.
