by Tim Ellis
The lights went off and they sat and watched the recording of the séance on the television screen as if it was a family-viewing of Mary Poppins.
Ruth glanced at Duffy and said, 'Where did she go?'
'That's exactly what me and Harry are trying to find out,' Duffy answered her.
'Tell me again who this Harry is.' Quigg said. 'Do I need to be concerned?'
She smiled. 'He has ginger hair and freckles.'
'That's all right then. Anyway, going back to the movie, I'm thinking that we should let Perkins take a look at this tape.'
'Why?'
'He's an alien aficionado and from what I saw on that film, I wouldn't rule out alien abduction. Not only that, if he thinks it could be an alien abduction caught on tape, he'll be salivating at the mouth and he'll analyse the tape for you free of charge.'
'I like the sound of that.'
'Me making that telephone call comes with strings attached though.'
'Oh! What strings?'
'I think you know what strings, Duffy. How long has it been now?'
'Did you have a vasectomy when I wasn't looking, Sir?'
'No strings, no telephone call.'
'I make him wear a condom,' Lucy said. 'If you're on the pill as well, you should be all right.'
Duffy said, 'No condom, no strings?'
Quigg nodded and offered his hand. 'Deal.'
Duffy shook it.
He took out his phone and called Perkins.
'What's wrong, Sir?'
'There's nothing wrong, Perkins.'
'Then why are you calling me during my free time?'
'How would you feel about an alien abduction and missing time caught on tape?'
'I'd feel lightheaded, Sir.'
'Duffy is investigating the disappearance of a woman from a séance, and it looks to me like she was abducted by aliens. Do you want Duffy to send you the tape, so that you can take a look at it?'
'You mean you want me to analyse it for free?'
'So you don't want it then?'
'Tell her to send it to me.'
'Are you sure, Perkins? I don't want you to feel as though I'm backing you into a corner. Or that you've been short-changed, taken to the cleaners, fleeced?'
'I'm sure.'
He ended the call and said to Duffy, 'Send him a copy of the recording.'
'That's great.' She leaned over, kissed him on the lips, stuck her tongue in his mouth and squeezed the inside of his thigh.
'I hope there's more to come, Duffy?'
'There's lots more where that came from, Sir. I've been storing it all up.'
He glanced at Ruth. 'I have a spare condom, if you're interested?'
'All right.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'Really?'
'Yes, really.'
'What about you, birthday girl?' he said to Lucy. 'I have a surprise present for you.'
'Thanks for the offer, but I'm busy. And before you start mingling fluids with those two hoochies, I need to show you something.'
He licked his lips. 'Oh?'
Lucy collected up her cards, unopened presents and said, 'While they're taking a shower and slipping into something more comfortable, you can follow me.'
He followed her along the interconnecting corridor and into her room.
***
'Someone's trying to frame you, Quigg,' Lucy said. 'Your fingerprints and DNA are all over the crime scene.'
'Frame me for what? I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. And anyway, what crime scene are you referring to?'
'I haven't worked that out yet, but look . . .' She pointed to a multi-coloured network of string and map pins bursting forth from his name, which was printed in large letters in the middle of her wall. At the end of each piece of coloured string were pictures; post-it notes; hyperlinks; tweets; Facebook posts; Instagram photos and videos; profiles from dating sites; blogs; avatars; YouTube videos; WhatsApp messages; Messenger chatbots; Reddit questions, links, images and forums . . . It resembled something from a playschool project. 'Here, take a look at the comments you've made all over the internet.' There were dozens of paper cut-outs purportedly of derogatory comments he'd made on a mishmash of internet sites.
'I haven't made any comments about anything to anyone anywhere.'
'And don't get me started on Pinterest. Your tentacles have been spreading all over the internet like a virus. The evidence is all here, Quigg. What counter-arguments have you got that proves this isn't you?'
'My word is my bond.'
She blew a raspberry. 'A fat lot of good that will do you. How much time have you spent in a court of law?'
'Lots.'
'Have you ever known a judge or jury to believe a person's word in the face of overwhelming evidence?'
'No.'
She picked up her laptop. 'Take a look at this.'
As he watched a muscled man pleasuring two nubile young women, he moved behind her, put his hand inside her t-shirt and began caressing her breasts. 'I didn't know you liked porn, Lucy.'
'Leave my tits alone,' she said, shrugging him off. 'Look at the videos more closely.'
He leaned over her shoulder. 'Hey! Do you think he looks like me?'
'It is you, Quigg. Except his custard launcher is much bigger than your custard launcher.'
'I dispute that in the strongest possible terms. I'd like a re-count.'
'So, when did you make these pornographic videos?'
'I wouldn't have minded showing people my acting abilities, but no one ever asked me.'
'And I should take your word for that?'
'Exactly.'
'The proof is in the humping, Quigg. You're there, for all to see, fornicating with two women as if you were getting paid for it. And so far, I've found over thirty videos of you re-populating the earth with names like: A Taste of the Real Truncheon; Last Tango in Hammersmith; The Sex Chronicles of a Copper; The Juice of the Fruit . . . If I didn't know they'd been doctored, I'd be really impressed.'
'So, the proof isn't in the humping?'
'Oh, it is. When it comes to your custard launcher I'm an expert, but the jury won't be. And to be honest, if these videos get out, you'll be hung, drawn and quartered by the press. If I'm not mistaken, this is conduct unbecoming, isn't it?'
'It would be if I'd done it.'
'By the time they find out you didn't shag all these women on film to supplement your meagre police income, your career will be over. They say there's no smoke without fire. The powers that be might also want to look into how you can afford to live with three women, a hundred children, employ two nannies, a housekeeper, security guards when required . . . You're living a celebrity lifestyle, Quigg.'
'I wish.'
'And there are these . . .' She pointed to cut-out posts from a Twitter feed. 'It seems you have far-right political views on everything from neo-fascism, Neo-Nazism, white nationalism . . . And I didn't know you were a full member of the hate groups Britain First and National Action.'
'I'm not.'
'Somebody has spent a lot of time and effort creating a deviant identity of you, Quigg. Everybody else has their identities stolen, but you get given a second one. Behind the odd-looking murder detective we all know and feel sorry for, lurks a person you wouldn't want to meet in a dark whorehouse. Sooner or later, and I'm guessing sooner rather than later, your alter ego is going to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Your reputation, for what it is, will be trashed beyond recovery.'
'Hang on,' he said, tapping a name on the wall. 'Who's Thomas Kraft?'
'Your alter ego.'
He looked at the person identified at the end of each piece of coloured string. 'Hey! None of them are me, they're all Thomas Kraft. Why have you written my name in the middle if Thomas Kraft is to blame?'
'I found a line of code behind each instance of Thomas Kraft. That line of code links back to an autorun script file on a thousand host servers located all over the world. At a specified date and time, which I don't know, the scr
ipt file will automatically run, activate those lines of code and every instance of Thomas Kraft will change to Quigg. Your sordid life will flood the internet. You'll become famous for all of fifteen minutes.'
'But . . .'
'You have a question?'
'I didn't do any of it.'
'Do you think your pathetic protestations will mean anything to anyone, Quigg?'
'They should. I'm innocent.'
'Everybody's innocent until they're proven guilty, so they say. But in your case, you're guilty without any chance of redemption.'
'Do you know who's trying to frame me?'
'Nope.'
'But you're going to find out, aren't you?'
'Maybe I will, maybe I won't.'
He gave a nervous laugh. 'I know you'll save me, Lucy. I have every confidence in you.'
'Don't you have some shagging to do?'
His face lit up. 'You're right, I do. You could still come with me and unwrap your special present?'
'As I said, I'm busy. But don't worry, I'll unwrap my present all in good time.'
'It'll be waiting for you.'
'Oh, by the way.'
'Yes.'
'I employed another nanny to help Amanda with your rugrats.'
'Another nanny?'
'That you asked me to employ.'
'Oh yes. It's all coming back to me now.'
'Her name is Jessie Doll.'
'Mmmm! An unusual name.'
'And remember, before I introduce you to her, you're absolutely forbidden from having sex with the hired help.'
'I know that. Is she attractive?'
'Whether she is, or she isn't, is not relevant. You can either have an excellent nanny to take care of your myriad offspring, or a sex doll, but you can't have one that's interchangeable.'
'You're my sex doll, Lucy.'
'Make sure it stays that way, because if the new nanny becomes your sex doll, you won't have to worry about getting a vasectomy anymore, because I'll cut off your penis and feed it to next door's dogs.'
'That's a bit harsh.'
'Harsh, but fair, Quigg. Harsh, but fair.'
***
Tuesday, December 3
He was lying wedged between Ruth and Duffy like a meat filling in a sandwich when his phone vibrated.
Oh God! He felt as though he'd been pushed through a mangle head first, and hoped it was a wrong number and not the Chief telling him to get his arse to the scene of another murder. Didn't he have enough bodies already?
Duffy stretched her arm backwards to reach his phone on the bedside table and nearly broke his nose when she dropped it on him.
The display indicated it was two forty-five and the call was from an unknown number.
'Quigg,' he whispered.
'Is that you, Quigg?'
He jerked upright.
'Mum! Is that you?'
'Yes, it's me.'
'Where are you, Mum?'
'Lying in bed breastfeeding your new sister.'
'That's too much information, Mum.'
Ruth and Duffy pushed him out of the bottom of the bed with their feet.
He walked through into the living room naked and sat on the sofa to take the rest of the call.
'I've called her Yuzana, it means orange jasmine.'
'Yuzana Quigg?'
His mother cackled. 'Of course she's half of me, but she's not a Quigg, Quigg. They don't have last names in Myanmar culture.'
'Which hospital are you in?'
'No hospital here, Quigg. I live in a bamboo hut that's raised off the ground. It has straw on the roof and I have oxen, pigs, sheep and chickens living underneath the hut. I work in the rice fields from morning until night with your sister strapped to my back.'
'That's terrible! What about the baby's father?'
'No father. One morning I woke up and he was gone.'
'What about the English cafe?'
'No cafe. We had to leave that behind in Bago when we came here. I live in a small village now, which is called Bambwe next to the river Eikhaya. It's in the middle of the rainforest and almost impossible to find or reach.'
'And where's Maggie Crenshaw? Is she there with you?'
'No Maggie Crenshaw. Some friend she turned out to be. I think she ran off with my husband.'
'Oh God! I'll try and get you back as quick as I can, Mum.'
'Get me back! Are you crazy, Quigg? I love it here. I feel half my age. This is the only place I want to be.'
'I'm still having problems selling your house.'
'Sell it, burn it, or eat it. I don't care about the house.'
'Do you want me to send you some money to tide you over?'
'No need for money here, Quigg. We live a simple life and that's just how I like it.'
'Maybe I should come out there, Mum?'
'No roads or trains here. I only called to let you know that I was still alive, that you had a sister called Yuzana and that this was the last call you'll ever receive from me.'
'The last call?'
'No phones or electricity here, Quigg. The phone I'm using now belongs to a visitor who is just passing through. The first visitor for eighteen months apparently. Goodbye, Quigg.'
The line died.
He stared at his phone. His mother had deserted him. He was an orphan. Maybe she was being coerced. Maybe he should fly out to Myanmar and rescue her. But she sounded really happy. And he had a sister called Yuzana. Not a Quigg, but still a half-sister. Maybe one day they'd meet. Maybe . . .
He went back into Duffy's bedroom, but the gap between the two women that he'd been wedged into had closed to nothing. He decided to go to his own bed, put the phone call he'd just received into perspective and think about what he was going to do next. He noticed that the light was still on under Lucy's door and he wondered if she might be in the mood for her surprise present. It was late though, and he had work in a couple of hours. Her surprise present would keep.
He'd decided to go to his own bed, yet somehow the knuckle of his index finger was tapping on Lucy's door and he had an erection like a totem pole. What the hell was happening? Where was his self-control? His willpower? His single-mindedness? It was just another example of how his brain was located between his legs. He was merely a wraith at the mercy of his sexual urges.
'Lucy?'
'Go away, Quigg.'
'I have your surprise present out here.'
'And that's exactly where it's going to stay. Go away.'
'I could warm you up.'
'I'm already hot as chilli sauce. Go away.'
He slunk along the corridor to his room and the loneliness of a cold empty bed.
Chapter Thirteen
She'd come back to her room after watching the séance movie, opened the envelopes containing the birthday cards, and then the bags and boxes holding the presents. Duffy had got her a chunky multicoloured woolly jumper to keep her warm during the winter. Ruth had bought her a pair of black leather Harley-Davidson Ingleside motorcycle boots to go with her newly-acquired Kawasaki Z650. Predictably, Quigg had given her a sexy red lace negligee that would have easily fitted into a matchbox and left enough room for a can of Iron Bru and a packet of pork scratchings. Inside the nine-inch square box that her father had given her was a black t-shirt with Beautiful Species in white lettering across the front. There was also a pneumatic gun with a thick needle attached that she'd seen used by body piercers, which had a Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) transponder encased in silicate glass that she could see through a clear plastic opening on top of the gun's stainless steel barrel. There was also a note on a torn scrap of paper from her father which read:
Insert the microchip into the skin between your thumb and forefinger. It'll self-activate on entry. If you do, I'll never lose you again. Jack.
A microchip! Some birthday present. She thought about the German-based Origin microchips delivered to GreyMatter Technologies and inserted into the higher echelons of the enterprise by Doctor Islam Al-Habsi at th
e Notting Hill Medical Clinic, and how her and Jack had removed the chips from the Gorgon sisters, Delilah Garrett and Victor Thackeray. And now her father had given her a chip for her birthday. Did she really want to become an automaton? A cyborg? Did she want Jack knowing where she was twenty-four-seven? Did she want a piece of technology inside her hand? What were the medical implications? Where was the line between biology and technology? Would she set off alarms and security scanners wherever she went? She imagined that there were a million questions that needed answers, but if it was good enough for members of the enterprise, then it was good enough for her.
She put the pneumatic gun against the skin between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand and pulled the trigger. It hurt like hell and left a bloody hole. She pressed a tissue to the wound and squeezed it until the bleeding stopped. She didn't feel any different – was she meant to? Was that all the microchip did – act as a locator chip? She looked in the box again, but it was empty. Where were the instructions? Maybe she should have waited a while, mulled it over, assessed the pros and cons, considered the consequences. What she didn't want was the enterprise tracking her like she'd tracked them. She shrugged. Well, it was too late now.
Next, she thought about the clue her father had given her concerning her mother – Lola from Devon. She sounded like a prostitute. Is that what she was? Jack had never said anything about her before. As far as she knew, her mother had just been a one-night drunken shag. He'd had no idea who she was. Now, he knew her first name and where she was from – what else did he know? What else was he keeping from her? When she had time, she'd do some digging around to see what she could find out about Lola from Devon.
But not now! Now the countdown clock was three minutes from fucking zero. God, she was excited! She went for a pee, then cracked open a can of coke from the fridge and took a swallow. When she put it down on the worktop, a little bit of the brown liquid frothed out of the opening, dribbled down the side of the can onto her father's note and revealed a partial web address below the message. Shit! More secrets! She didn't have time for it now. The fucking countdown clock was nearly at zero. She'd look at it later.