by Peter May
‘Two guys in the car,’ one of them shouted. ‘But they’re gone.’
But MacNeil could still see someone moving. He took off his coat and threw it over his head and ran at the car. The heat was intense. He could smell it burning his coat. He daren’t breathe, or he knew he would damage his lungs. He wrapped his hand in the folds of the coat sleeve, felt for the door handle, found it and pulled. The door almost fell off. He could feel his trousers burning, his shoes, his hair. The figure behind the wheel half fell towards him, and he grasped the arm and pulled, dragging the man’s dead weight free of the vehicle.
He could smell burned flesh now, and didn’t know if it was his own. He fell in the roadway and rolled away from the choking, burning smoke, gasping for air, an agonising pain searing his hands and forearms. Two soldiers ran past him and dragged the other man clear of the blaze. ‘Oh, Jesus!’ he heard one of them gasp. ‘Look at the state of this guy.’
Someone else threw a heavy coat over MacNeil and rolled him over several times, clouds of smoke rising from singeing clothes. Then he heard Dr Castelli, her voice full of urgency and concern. She was leaning over him, checking his face and arms and hands. ‘You’re mad, Mr MacNeil. Quite insane. And very lucky you only have first-degree burns.’ She looked up and shouted, ‘I need water fast. And clean dressings.’ And then she said to MacNeil, ‘How bad is it?’
‘My hands,’ he gasped. ‘Hurt like hell.’
‘Be thankful.’ The little doctor grinned at him almost fondly. ‘If it hurts it’s not so bad.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
‘The gentleman you pulled from the car, on the other hand, probably feels no pain.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Not yet. But he will be. All that heroism, I’m afraid, Mr MacNeil, gone to waste.’
A soldier arrived with water in a jerry can, and a green first aid box. He looked at the doctor warily from behind his mask, and then moved away. MacNeil sat upright as the doctor poured water over his outstretched hands. There was instant relief from pain. But it returned again as soon as she stopped.
‘More water!’ she shouted. And then turned back to MacNeil. ‘We really need to get these under running water to stop the burns doing any more damage.’
He glanced down at his hands. They were bright red. Then he looked across the road. Great clouds of white foam smothered the car as two soldiers blasted it with fire extinguishers. Several others were helping the man he had pulled from it to his feet. They half carried, half dragged him to the back of one of the trucks. A radio crackled somewhere in the night, a voice calling for an ambulance.
Dr Castelli was wrapping his forearms and hands in soft dry lint. ‘Just to keep the burns infection-free,’ she said. ‘But you should have them treated properly.’ She looked at his face by the flickering light of the almost burned-out car and shook her head. ‘You even singed your eyelashes. You could have cooked, like your friend.’
MacNeil got to his feet. Shock was setting in now, and he felt his legs shaking. ‘Let’s take a look at him,’ he said, and they crossed to the back of the truck.
Pinkie was lying on a canvas stretcher, bulbous eyes staring up at the roof, his breath rattling and gurgling in airways damaged beyond repair by the heat of the fire. The smell of burned meat, like a barbecue gone wrong, was almost overpowering. He presented such a grotesque vision MacNeil could barely bring himself to look. Much of his clothing had burned away, what was left sticking to charred flesh oozing red and amber fluids. The backs of his trousers and parts of his jacket remained, where they had been protected by the seat of the car. There were still portions of his shoes and socks visible in amongst the soot of burned flesh. The remnants of a collar clung to his neck.
His face was horrific, ears burned to shrivelled nubs, his nose, too, a dried, charred nubbin, the nasal ala pulled back like a bizarre parody of Michael Jackson in his last days. The eyelids were gone, simply burned away, and his eyes wept. His mouth and cheeks were dreadfully distorted, lips contracted around his teeth towards the gums in a hellish grimace, almost as if he were smiling. His hair was reduced to a short, ginger stubble.
MacNeil felt sick. Perhaps it would have been kinder to have left him to die in the car. ‘Can he see?’ he asked the doctor.
‘Probably, although his vision will be impaired. He might only see black and white.’
‘But he doesn’t feel any pain?’
‘No.’
‘How’s that possible?’ MacNeil said. ‘My hands are still hurting like hell.’
Dr Castelli made a sad little shake of her head. ‘Because he’s been burned right down to the subcuticular fat,’ she said. ‘That’s the layer of fat under the skin. Which is deeper than the pain receptors, which are located in the dermis – the layer just under the top layer. So he feels no pain. That golden amber colour you see, charred in crispy highlights like . . . like a crème brulée . . .’
‘Jesus, doctor . . .’
‘That’s the exposed fat. And you can see those red rims around some of the less burned areas. That’s the blood in the remaining skin getting pushed up by the drying out process. If they do anything at all, the surgeons will need to cut through some of the top burned layers to allow circulation in the deep tissues underneath. When the skin or the remnants cool and dry, they contract and choke off the underlying circulation. So the surgeons’ll make deep, lengthwise cuts to allow the tissue to split open and relieve the pressure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Debriding the burned areas is barbaric,’ she said. ‘The poor guy’ll be unconscious, but the doctors get huge carving knives, and with a few assistants with electro-cautery at the ready, will literally carve off large patches of the burned tissue, down deep until they get to a layer of tissue that is healthy and bleeding. Then the assistants jump in and cauterise off the bleeding vessels. I had to assist in that once in med school.’
‘But you said he wouldn’t survive.’
‘Not a chance. His body’s losing fluid constantly. Let’s face it, there’s no skin left to regulate fluid loss through the pores. I mean, look at him. He’s leaking serum all over the place.’
‘So how long has he got?’
‘With treatment, if he’s lucky – or unlucky, depends how you look at it – maybe a day. Without, he’ll be dead in a couple of hours.’
They walked slowly back towards their car. The blaze was over, the BMW a charred, burned-out skeleton. The remains of its second occupant could be seen, curled up foetally between the front seats. The Thames flowed calmly beneath their feet, reflecting the lights of the deserted city. The tide had turned, and was pushing upriver from the estuary.
‘We need to get those burns of yours treated,’ the doctor said.
‘I’m not going to a hospital,’ MacNeil told her. ‘You never know what you might catch.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Drive me back to the police station. It’s only a few minutes away. We’ve got first aid stuff there.’
IV.
Pinkie lay in the back of the truck, every word the doctor had spoken reverberating around his head. Why did doctors always talk about you in your presence as if you weren’t there? Perhaps she had simply dismissed him as dead already. But she was right. He felt no pain. Although she was wrong about his vision. He saw quite well. It just felt strange not being able to blink.
In fact, all things considered, he felt not too bad. His breathing was the worst thing. That was difficult, and painful. He tried moving his arms and legs in turn, and found that they responded quite well. He had to fight against the stiffness caused by muscles contracted in the heat. But he could do it. He had no intention of letting the surgeons – what was it the doctor had called it? – debride his burns. The idea of them wielding large knives to slice away his flesh was more than he could contemplate.
And, besides, he had not yet finished what he had
started.
The soldier at the back of the truck who had radioed for the ambulance came forward to see how he was. The young man crouched over him, and Pinkie was glad that his mask hid his horror. He reached up towards the soldier and the trooper reflexively recoiled. Pinkie gurgled and whispered, trying to form words that the boy could hear. The soldier leaned forward, trying to catch what he said, and Pinkie found enough flexibility in his fingers to slip the knife from the sheath strapped to the young man’s belt.
He gurgled again, and the soldier leaned in closer, and Pinkie enjoyed the way the shock and surprise registered in the boy’s eyes as his own blade slid neatly between his ribs.
When his comrades in arms returned to the truck they would find him dead, his SA80 rifle missing, and Pinkie gone without a trace, except for a few charred footprints on the road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I.
She had held his hands and arms under running water for nearly fifteen minutes, breaking every five minutes to ask how he felt, and whether or not his hands were numb. ‘We don’t want you going numb,’ she said, ‘because that can damage the surrounding tissue.’ The pain had eased considerably, to a level MacNeil felt he could bear without being constantly distracted by it.
Now Dr Castelli carefully bandaged his forearm with a fresh dressing, and wrapped fine lint around individual fingers so that he would still have the use of them. ‘A pair of gloves to protect the dressing,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be right as rain.’
His gloved hands felt thick and clumsy, but at least now he no longer felt incapacitated by the burns. From his locker he retrieved jeans and a donkey jacket that he kept for undercover work, and a pair of Doc Martens. Dr Castelli looked at him appraisingly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you were going to a fancy dress party as an undercover cop, you’d probably win first prize.’ Which made him smile, in spite of everything.
DS Dawson said, ‘A fine way to spend your last night, Jack. Were you trying to get yourself killed?’
‘Just thought I’d save them the trouble of paying out on my police pension,’ MacNeil said. Then, ‘See if you can find out who it was I pulled from that car, Ruf. Just out of interest. The army must have to make some kind of report on it.’
‘Sure.’ He picked up a phone, then paused. ‘By the way, that property in Routh Road. It’s owned by a company called Omega 8. The letting agents are based at Clapham. They say they are not currently letting the property. The owners told them it was being used to accommodate company employees.’
‘Omega 8,’ Dr Castelli said. ‘Wasn’t that the name on those letterheads at the house?’
‘You’ve been at the house?’ Dawson said, surprised.
‘You didn’t hear that, Rufus,’ MacNeil told him.
‘Been meaning to get my ears syringed for weeks,’ Dawson said, and he started dialling.
The detectives’ office was almost empty. A couple of clerks were chattering away on keyboards at the far end. The overhead strip lights had been turned off, and desk lamps cast pools of bright white light only at desks where people were still working. A feeble orange glow cast itself across the office from the street lights outside.
‘Have you a computer I could use?’ the doctor asked.
‘Sure.’
‘I can probably find out who Omega 8 are.’
‘Help yourself.’ He waved his hand vaguely towards any of half a dozen terminals, and she sat herself down at the nearest.
MacNeil retrieved the strip of photographs from his fire-damaged jacket. The plastic of the evidence bag had shrivelled from the heat, but the photographs were still intact. He carefully drew them out and laid the strip on his desk, under the glare of his desk lamp. Choy stared back at him through her heavy-rimmed glasses, a strained half-smile betraying her unease. His eyes were drawn to her mouth. Why hadn’t her adoptive parents done something about it? He was certain that in this day and age plastic surgery could have done much to improve it. He felt inestimably saddened by her wistful gaze, almost as if she were appealing for help. Someone, somewhere, someday, surely, would see this picture and know that she needed rescuing. And it had fallen to MacNeil to see it. But it was already too late.
He was about to put the photographs away in a drawer, when something caught his eye and he looked again. It was the first in the series of pictures, the one where she was looking towards someone off-camera. Asking a question, maybe. Or replying to one. In the curve of the lenses was the reflection of that someone. One in each lens. Silhouetted against the light behind it.
MacNeil held the photograph up to the light to try to get a better look. But the image was just too small. He glanced around. ‘Anyone got a magnifying glass?’ he called. No one had.
Dawson hung up and came across. ‘No report filed by the army yet,’ he said. ‘What do you want a magnifying glass for?’
MacNeil showed him the picture. ‘Shit,’ Dawson said. ‘Is that the little girl you found in the park?’
MacNeil nodded. ‘See how there’s someone reflected in the lens of her glasses?’ he said. ‘That could be our Mr Smith. Could be our killer.’
Dawson looked at the photograph thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t we scan it into the computer? We’ve got some pretty sophisticated photographic software in there. We could blow it up, enhance it.’
‘You know how to use that stuff?’
‘Sure.’
MacNeil looked at him. ‘You see, that’s why you’ll never make DI, Rufus. You’re far too smart.’
The scanner hummed, bright light seeped out from around the edges of its lid, and then a jpeg file appeared on the computer screen. Dawson flicked his mouse towards the applications folder and opened up the photographic software. When the programme had booted, he pulled down the File menu and opened up the jpeg on the desktop.
Suddenly the photograph of Choy’s sad little face filled most of the screen. It had scanned at full resolution, and was remarkably sharp. Dawson manipulated the cursor to make a box of flashing dots around the right-hand lens of her glasses, and hit the return key. Now it was just the lens that filled the screen. The definition was seriously reduced, but the image of the man leaning in towards little Choy was hugely enlarged. It was not, however, clear enough to identify his features. Dawson selected just his image, and enlarged it again. Now they had the shape of his head. But the pixels were so large and spaced that it was just a blur. Dawson reduced the brightness and increased the contrast, and features began to emerge. They could see now that he was also wearing glasses. His hair seemed blond, or silver, and was cropped very short.
Dawson pulled down another menu and selected the ‘enhance’ option. Now the software filled in the gaps by cloning the nearest pixels, and suddenly there was a face looking back at them. The face that Choy had seen in that very moment, on the day they had her passport photographs taken. The man looked to be in his forties. He had large, dark eyes, beneath thick black eyebrows. His blond hair was crew-cut, and his spectacles had silver-rimmed oval lenses. MacNeil looked at him with a jarring sense of recognition. And yet he had no idea who he was.
‘Look familiar to you?’ Dawson asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Me, too. Don’t know where from, though.’
‘Me neither.’
Both men stared at it. Dawson said, ‘Damn, I know that face.’
‘You should. It’s been on television every other day.’ Both men were startled by Dr Castelli’s unexpected intervention. She stood behind them, and between them, looking at the screen. ‘Although the mask was a convenient way of keeping it relatively anonymous.’
‘Who is it?’ MacNeil said.
‘Dr Roger Blume. He heads up Stein-Francks’ FluKill Pandemic Task Force.’
MacNeil looked at the face again and cursed softly. That’s why it was so familiar. He had watched him speak at that televised press conferenc
e just yesterday morning. He turned back to Dr Castelli. ‘You know him?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve met him a few times over the years. Very smooth, very charming, and a real little shit. He comes about second in the pecking order at Stein-Francks.’
MacNeil sat trying to come to terms with the implications. Blume was Mr Smith. Blume was Choy’s adoptive father. Blume was a senior executive of a pharmaceutical company which stood to make billions from the pandemic. ‘Oh, my God,’ he whispered.
‘It gets worse,’ said Dr Castelli. ‘Or better. Depends how you look at it. Omega 8 is a small pharmaceutical services laboratory in Sussex. It was privately owned until last year when it was bought over by Stein-Francks.’
MacNeil stood up and said to Dawson, ‘Can you print me off a copy of that?’ He flicked a thumb at the image of Blume on the screen.
‘As many as you like, Jack.’
‘If we can get the neighbour at Routh Road to make a positive ID . . .’ He turned to Dr Castelli. ‘And if you’re prepared to go before a magistrate and tell him you think Choy is the source of the pandemic, then we can get a warrant to tear that house apart stone by stone.’
II.
Amy turned left at the roundabout at Lambeth Palace, into Lambeth Road. She could see that there was activity on the bridge. Military vehicles and a gathering of soldiers next to what looked like a burned-out car half up on the parapet. There was an ambulance, medics standing around idly, and an orange light flashing on a camouflaged jeep.
But she was preoccupied. Still focused on her troubled night, random thoughts rattling around inside her head: the genetically modified virus that Zoe had found in the bone marrow; Sam’s sudden abandonment of their online conversation; the intruder who had cut the hair on Lyn’s head; the call from Tom, his strange insistence that she bring head and skull back to the lab. And MacNeil. Where was he? Why had he not answered her call?