Smoked Havoc

by Rupert Harker

  ‘Dear Mr Hunt.

  Please find attached the results of your client’s paternity test. The test indicates that there is less than a 0.01% chance of a father-son relationship between the two parties. For legal purposes, this excludes your client from being the father of the second party.

  I acknowledge that your client does not consent to any additional interpretation of the results.

  Thank you for choosing Utterly Legal Genetic Services.

  Yours faithfully.’

  “Where is the report itself?” I asked.

  “The Duke would not allow me a copy. On this point he was most particular.”

  “Did he offer any explanation?”

  “None at all.”

  I returned the letter to Mr Weathers. “Then surely the matter is settled?”

  “No, Sir,” he replied angrily, “it is not!”

  “May I interject?” asked Urban-Smith. “What is your opinion on the cause of the Duke’s change of heart in relation to this matter?”

  “I would like to believe that the loss of his beloved brother brought about a renewed appreciation of the importance of family bonds, but sadly, I do not. I believe that during his time in Austria, the Duke was introduced to a method by which he could manipulate the results of the paternity test.”

  “Cheat a DNA test? Impossible!” I could not lend the idea credit.

  Urban-Smith was similarly unconvinced. “You do realise that the most reasonable explanation is simply that you are not the heir to the Dukeship?”

  “From any perspective other than mine, I would be forced to agree, but my mother was an honourable woman. She would not deceive me.”

  “In your mother’s line of work, is it not possible that there may be other candidates for the honour of being your father?”

  “My mother began her career as an exotic dancer. She did not diversify into moving pictures until I was past infancy.”

  “What do you hope to achieve from pursuing this matter?” asked Urban-Smith. “Surely the Duke has informed you that a son born out of wedlock has no claim upon their father’s title or estate.”

  A thunderous look came upon Mr Weather’s face and a crimson hue broke out upon his cheeks and nose.

  “It is a matter of honour, Sir; my mother’s honour. I shall not allow the Duke, nor any man, to sully her integrity.”

  Urban-Smith steepled his fingers. “I see.” He thought for a few seconds. “I shall take the case, Mr Weathers. Should it transpire that the Duke has indeed been engaged in a treacherous deception, I shall waive my usual fee. Should he have no case to answer, however, I shall insist upon recompense for my time and efforts.”

  “Agreed!” said he, and thus was the meeting terminated.

  Following Weathers’ departure, Urban-Smith and I sat in quiet contemplation. After several minutes my companion rose from his chair in order to pace.

  “If what Mr Drake Weathers has proposed is indeed possible, that a man can indeed obscure the nature of his genetic material, then the ramifications are appalling indeed. Think of the consequences in both our lines of work if we can no longer rely upon the inviolability of DNA evidence. For the majority of felons, it is the fear of implication and retribution that moderates their actions. Should the criminal element seize upon some method to obfuscate the evidential process, the nefarious and the malevolent would wreak anarchy and murder upon every street of England.”

  He paced to the window and stood, gazing out upon the tranquillity of Chuffnell Mews. A young child played in the road with a hoop and stick, chasing around and around in an ardent fervour of exhilaration.

  “This is pungent Cheddar indeed, Rupert,” lamented Urban-Smith. His reflection in the glass was grim, but resolute. “We must not allow it to ripen further.”

  *

  4. A Pair of Muntjacs

  Wednesday the 24th

  In my capacity as forensic pathologist, there is little need for me to present myself in formal attire unless, as is not infrequently the case, I am called upon to give evidence at Crown or Coroner’s court. Despite this, I do insist on commencing each day with a shower and shave, and this Wednesday morning was no exception. I rose at seven, and was poised, cutlery in hand, at the breakfast table by half past. Mrs Denford, our perennial housekeeper, was busying herself at the stove, preparing eggs and bacon. Gonzáles, her Bichon Frisé, sat rapt with attention beside her, as was his way when there was the possibility of a stray morsel finding its way onto the kitchen floor.

  Urban-Smith was sat before his laptop.

  “Here Rupert, I have found the obituary on the Daily Chromatic online.

  “Henry Muntjac Obituary.

  (There is a photograph, captioned, Henry Muntjac (right) with his elder brother, the 11th Duke of Krill.)

  Henry James Muntjac (younger brother to Edgar Muntjac, the 11th Duke of Krill), who died while holidaying with his elder brother and sister in law in the Austrian Alps, was a renowned and respected wildlife photographer.

  From an early age, Muntjac had a keen fascination for animals and nature. He received his first camera on his seventh birthday, and he honed his craft within the expansive grounds of his childhood home, Muntjac Hall, before being enrolled into Eton School for Boys at the age of eleven.

  He continued to cultivate his interest in the subject, and upon leaving school, was accepted into Flannel Art College, Oxford, where he studied photography, graduating with honours in 1986.

  He published several volumes of photography, and his pictures were featured in many publications, including Stumbling Upon Nature, Best of British Country Views and National Digital Animal Almanac.

  He is survived by his brother.

  Henry Muntjac, photographer and younger brother to the Duke of Krill, born 12th May 1965, died 10th November 2006.”

  “May I see that photo?” I came to stand behind him and gazed over his shoulder at the screen. There was a picture of two men in their thirties or early forties. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of a window, dressed in black formal jackets and ties.

  That they were kin was immediately apparent from the set of the eyes and the fullness of the lips, yet it was a simple matter to tell them apart. The Duke of Krill, on the left hand aspect of the picture, was a severe looking man with wild black hair, and a dense black beard. He scowled out from the screen with a palpable air of disdain.

  His younger brother, on the right hand aspect, was clean-shaven, with a warm and genuine smile. There was a glint at his right ear, where the camera flash caught his earring, and his dark hair was spiked into points, bleached at the ends, as if he had walked beneath a low, painted ceiling.

  “Frosted tips maketh the man,” I observed wryly.

  “What is your opinion of the photograph, Rupert?”

  “I should not like to encounter the Duke in a darkened alley. His younger brother certainly appears the more amiable of the two.”

  “Agreed. Any thoughts on the surroundings?”

  “There is not much to report of the room. The wall has been decorated with flock wallpaper that brings a tear to the eye. The picture window opens onto a garden. It appears to be late Autumn, as the trees are nearly bare, so obviously sometime between late September and early November. Beyond that, I can say no more.”

  “Nor can I at present, other than the clock appears to be running an hour or two fast?”

  I squinted at the picture. “I see no clock.”

  “If you look closely, you will see the reflection in the window.”

  I squinted a little more. “Oh, yes, I see it now. I cannot make out the design, but I see the hands. The reflection shows half past four, so the time would be half past seven.”

  “You will observe that it is just on the cusp of becoming dusky. Between late September and late October, that puts the time between five forty-five and six forty-five; were the clock correct, it would be too dark to see through the window at all.”

  “What if the picture were taken in the
morning?” I asked.

  Urban-Smith snorted derisively, “I think it highly improbable that a member of the British aristocracy would deign to wear his dinner jacket before lunchtime. It is far more likely that the clock is incorrect, is it not?”

  “Of course, Fairfax. What on Earth was I thinking?”

  There was a brief pause in the conversation as Mrs Denford distributed the B&E.

  “I have spent a little time online,” reported Urban-Smith, “and it appears that there are ways in which one can cheat a DNA test, if one is allowed to take one’s own saliva sample. The simplest thing is to take a sample from a second party and present that in one’s place.”

  “That then is the answer,” I concurred, cutting the crusts from my toast and surreptitiously passing them to Gonzáles whilst Mrs Denford’s back was turned.

  “Sadly not.” Urban-Smith paused to enjoy a delicious mouthful of fried pig’s flesh and chicken ovulations. “When a paternity test is performed for legal purposes, the specimen is either collected by a qualified doctor or nurse (usually the subject’s general practitioner), or by trained staff at the DNA testing laboratory itself. This makes it far more difficult to tamper with the sample.”

  “Do you have a plan?” I enquired.

  “Of course, Rupert. I shall contact Utterly Legal this morning and arrange to inspect the facility forthwith. Care to accompany me?”

  “Sorry, Fairfax. I have to be at work all week.”

  “No matter, no matter. I shall make my enquiries and report back to you."

  *

  As I proceeded to my place of work, I hoped that Urban-Smith might find success in his day’s endeavours, for in the matter of the 4th Atman, his labours had thus far proved fruitless, the only clue to its whereabouts the dying words of an ex-Nazi, Sebastian Schwarzkröte; “I got soul.”

  The Atman was the captured soul of one of the million or so victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, and was the key to unlocking Hitler’s secret archive, The Apple of Eden, rumoured to contain, amongst other things, the locations of stockpiled Nazi gold and art treasures hidden throughout Europe; a prize of inestimable value.

  Despite (or perhaps because of) our best endeavours, the Apple of Eden had fallen into the possession of a shadowy Illuminati frachise, The Fervent Fist (FF), overseen by Sebastian’s nephew, Saxon Schwarzkröte.

  Urban-Smith was convinced that agents of both the FF and the FSB were watching us, both agencies being most eager to access the contents of the archive.

  “I know not which would be worse,” Urban-Smith had lamented. “For either party to gain access to the Apple’s core could prove disastrous.”

  Despite his misgivings, Urban-Smith had struck an uneasy alliance with the FSB via Colonel Smirnitsky, the Russian military attaché for London. The Colonel held strong motives for wishing to locate Saxon Schwarzkröte, whom he held responsible for the death of his close friend, the Russian Ambassador, and for the strained relations between London and Moscow following the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

  My ruminations ceased once I reached St Cliffords, for I had three customers in the mortuary that morning, two stabbing victims and a suicide. I carefully examined and photographed each one, documenting the location and extent of each and every injury, before rending each body asunder, slicing and examining their components, and then loosely reassembling them and sending them onwards to the Chapel of Rest. With this accomplished, I dictated each report, had a light lunch in the canteen, and retired to my office for the afternoon to catch up on paperwork.

  At around three o’clock, my mobile telephone began to vibrate, bleeding the opening bars of REO Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You across my desk, signalling an incoming call from my beloved Nell.

  Oh, sweet Nell. Small, lithe, sexually adventurous Nell, mortician student by day, exotic dancer at The Blue Belvoir Gentlemen’s Club by night, whom I had met through an internet dating service only a matter of weeks ago. Since then, our love had blossomed like a mushroom cloud across the barren wasteland of my former lonely existence.

  “Hello Nell.”

  “Hi Rupert. Are you okay?”

  “Jolly well, thank you. And yourself?”

  “I’m very excited. Me and Clara are dancing together this evening. Are you coming to see us?”

  “Rather,” I gushed. “I shall hardly know where to look.”

  “Oh, Rupert,” she giggled. “You are funny. Clara wants us to go round to her flat after the Blue Belvoir closes.”

  “Sounds like fun. I shall wear my sturdiest undergarments.”

  “So I’ll see you at the Club then?”

  “Absolutely. About nineish.”

  “See you then. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Nell.”

  Thus was the conversation terminated, and I attempted to return to my reports, but my thoughts meandered and deviated, returning time and time again to Nell and Clara writhing together beneath the hot stage lights of The Blue Belvoir, and then again between the sheets of Nell’s double bed until I could concentrate no more and was forced to scuttle away to the staff changing room for a cold shower.

  *

  I returned home to number sixteen, Chuffnell Mews a little after six o’clock. I was greeted by a markedly overstimulated Gonzáles, who had taken it upon himself to charge up and down the entire length of the house, barking and yapping at top volume while Mrs Denford shouted and flapped her arms at him, but to no avail.

  “Oh, doctor,” she wailed at my approach. “It is the smell of my fish supper. It has driven him into a frenzy.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “Poor Gonzáles has led a sheltered existence, Mrs Denford. You can hardly blame him for reacting so vociferously to such a pungent aroma.” Indeed, the hallway was thick with the heady bouquet of battered teleost and deep-fried, sectioned potato, and I was positively salivating as I ascended the stairwell to change for dinner.

  By the time I took my place across from Urban-Smith at the stout oaken kitchen table, Gonzáles was in the living room, gnawing on a knot of rawhide whilst Mrs Denford huffed and puffed and clattered about the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to our meal.

  “What-ho, Rupert.”

  “Evening, Fairfax. How did you fare in Harlchester?”

  “Rupert, it is a beautiful town, a shining jewel nestling in the heart of the Sussex countryside. I think that I should care to retire there, should I survive long enough to do so.”

  “Pretty unlikely,” I added supportively.

  “Ha-ha! Thank you, Rupert.” We paused momentarily to accept our meals from Mrs Denford. “With regards to Utterly Legal Genetic Services,” he continued, “it is a charming and professional business, managed and owned by a Mr Dean Avery-Goode. He was kind enough to give me the grand tour, introduce me to his staff and explain the company’s working practices.

  “It seems that the collection process itself is mostly automated and largely infallible. In order to stupefy the test, one must tamper with or substitute the sample. For those tests performed for legal purposes, the sample is collected either by a registered doctor or nurse, or by the laboratory staff themselves, and is therefore far more difficult to interfere with.”

  “One could bribe the laboratory staff,” I suggested.

  “I proposed the same idea, but Mr Avery-Goode poo-pooed the suggestion. He will attest to the integrity of his employees.”

  “How do they collect the samples?”

  Urban-Smith paused awhile so as to vinegarise his chips.

  “They have largely eschewed the use of blood samples in favour of a swab which is inserted into the mouth, and rubbed against the inside of the cheek to collect cells.”

  “Interesting,” I muttered through a forkful of broken peas. “One would have thought blood more reliable.”

  “Does the name Doctor John Schneeberger mean anything to you, Rupert?”

  It did not.

  “It does not,” I said accordingly.

  �
��In 1992, Doctor Schneeberger found an ingenious way to cheat his DNA blood test, having been accused of sexual assault. He filled a rubber surgical drain with a mixture of blood and anticoagulants, then implanted the drain under the skin of his forearm. When the time came to collect the blood, he was able to manipulate the situation so that the blood was taken from the surgical drain rather than one of his own veins.”

  “The charlatan!” I spluttered through my mouthful of fish. “The rogue!”

  “Rogue indeed,” agreed Urban-Smith. “So you can see why the mouth swab is the preferred choice, even for legal matters.”

  Indeed I could.

  “Indeed I can, although I suppose one could place something against the cheek or inside the mouth. A surgical sponge infused with plasma or saliva from a third party.”

  “Again, I postulated the same, but apparently it would be impossible to prevent one’s own saliva from contaminating the sample. If there should be more than one strain of DNA present, the results would be uninterpretable. The mechanism was explained to me, but I could make neither hide nor hair of it.”

  I shrugged resignedly. “I am afraid that genetics has always been something of a mystery to me also, but a detailed knowledge is fortunately not required for most branches of medicine, including forensic pathology.” I shovelled a little more of Mrs Denford’s delicious supper into my mouth. “So where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves us needing to explore the cutting edge, the very fringe, of genetic science. We must discover whether an individual can manipulate their own genetic code, albeit temporarily. One man, and one man alone, holds the knowledge that we seek.”

  I inhaled a mouthful of fish, and Urban-Smith was forced to leap to my rescue, slapping me heartily on the back until I had regained my airway and composure. “Surely,” I spluttered, my eyes streaming and my face crimson, “you are not suggesting……” I left the sentence unfinished; it was too preposterous for words, or so I thought.