by John Macken
Reuben patted his jacket pocket for the envelope Moray had given him earlier. He examined it closely for a couple of seconds, turning it over and inspecting both sides. The PO box address was typed and printed, screaming anonymity a little too loudly. He ripped it open and retrieved a note from within. It was a slim strip of good-quality paper which may at one point have been part of a larger sheet. He read the printed words out loud to himself.
‘The truth to your sacking from GeneCrime lies in Michael Brawn’s identity.’
Reuben glanced again at the nondescript envelope, re-read the words of the note and put both in his pocket. When you mess with forensic scientists, he thought, it’s best to do it cleanly and unidentifiably.
The taxi slowed and stopped, and Reuben looked up. They had arrived. The Lamb and Flag was buried deep in East Ham, the kind of establishment that had proudly watched the changing faces of a million men and women walking through its doors over hundreds of years. Reuben pushed through the front door as his taxi pulled away to find another occupant to transport around the capital. The bar was rough, vainly aspiring towards spit and sawdust, its drinkers raw and edgy, and overwhelmingly male. The air was sour with drink. Almost immediately, a figure who had been leaning against the wall interrupted Reuben’s path. He was late twenties, medium height and very tattooed.
‘You Stevo?’ Reuben asked.
‘Only if you’re Reuben,’ the man replied.
Reuben stepped further into the pub and offered his hand. It was taken by Stevo’s, which was so tattooed that it shone blue in contrast with Reuben’s white offering.
‘Thanks for meeting me.’
‘Any friend of Kieran Hobbs is a friend of mine.’
Reuben grimaced, and hoped it didn’t show too badly. ‘Not a friend, exactly. I sometimes do some work for him.’
‘Either way. He told me to look after you.’
‘How do you know Kieran?’ Reuben asked.
‘Done some stuff for him. Mainly through Nathan, who’s an old mate.’
‘What kind of stuff ?’
Stevo smiled. ‘Friends of Kieran shouldn’t ask that sort of question.’
‘So where’s it happening?’
‘Follow me.’
Reuben followed Stevo through the pub and out into the rear yard. It was concreted, and two powerful floodlights hung in opposing corners. Thirty or forty people were milling around, a jittery excitement in the air, their voices clipped, their movements quick and twitchy. Reuben and Stevo pushed their way through until they could see what was going on. At the centre was a crude square marked out on the floor.
‘You watch. The old pros, the ones who usually win, will be sober as judges. It’s the young lads, they’ve had a few – call it a bit of Dutch or whatever – and they’re vulnerable. Bravado higher, reflexes slower – walking targets to a geezer who knows what he’s up to.’
Two men appeared from opposite sides of the crowd. Both were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. They walked over and shook hands, eyes not meeting, scanning the people surrounding them, sensing the intensity. The crowd fell silent.
‘What are the rules?’
‘No rules,’ Stevo answered, ‘except when one of you’s had enough the other has to stop.’
Each man took three paces back, facing the other. A whistle blew. They rushed forward, and within seconds were kicking, tearing and punching each other with a ferocity that took Reuben aback.
‘Smaller guy will win,’ Stevo said.
‘How do you know?’
‘Wants it more. Plus, you’ve got to have balls to be a small guy and get into this ring.’
Both men were soon bleeding, the fluid black under the artificial lighting. Sickening blows continued to be traded. The crowd shouted and cheered. The larger man suddenly doubled up, bent over, spitting blood and teeth.
‘Jesus,’ Reuben whispered.
‘You never see the punch coming. Even with practice. Believe me.’
‘No?’
‘No. What you do see is the body shape. You see the cunt shaping up to put one on you. You get to know when he’s about to swing. And that’s when you have an instant to make that decision.’
‘Which decision?’
‘Do I get out of the way, or do I get to him first? And this geezer just made the wrong call.’
The smaller man paced around his fallen opponent and kicked him smartly in the head, snapping his neck up. The larger man keeled over on to his side, and the smaller man walked up and kicked him in the head again. The man on the floor raised a bloody hand before he lost any more teeth. A whistle blew from deep within the crowd. The smaller man stopped, then turned round and bowed to the crowd. A low cheer went up, echoing around the enclosed yard.
‘You seen enough?’ Stevo asked. ‘Plenty more where that came from.’
‘I think I get the idea.’
‘Right then. Maybe you’re ready.’
Reuben managed a half smile. He had the sudden need for a drink.
Staying one step ahead. That had been his rationale for this. Sensing that things could turn nasty at any moment, and suspecting that learning how to fight might be a useful skill. He was increasingly putting himself on the line, and no longer able to call for automatic police back-up. A sixth sense had recently started gnawing away at him, telling him to be prepared for anything. And that was exactly what he now planned to do.
18
‘Ah, DI Baker, I’ve been meaning to speak with you.’
‘Sir?’
Commander Robert Abner closed the door to the Gents behind him and paced over to the urinal. Charlie Baker half turned, unsure how to react.
‘I guess this place is as good as any,’ Commander Abner commented as he unzipped his flies, noisy and exaggerated in his movements.
As he did so, he turned his avian eyes on the man standing next to him, appraising him one final time. DI Charlie Baker was bearded and sharp, with small dark eyes and a paleness which spoke of too many hours under the strip lights of GeneCrime. Commander Abner knew he worked hard, and was reasonably unpopular, with no obvious allegiances in GeneCrime. People didn’t trust him, or want to share their space with him. The closest thing to a loner that the interreliant police unit held. But Commander Abner considered this to be a good thing. A man with ostensibly few friends was unlikely to have fostered strong alliances. For this reason, Robert Abner considered him low risk. Not that that was any guarantee, but what could you do? he asked himself. You had to start somewhere. He had pulled his file, cross-checked with a couple of old colleagues, watched him closely. There was no substitute for the copper’s instinct. Especially when you were policing the police.
‘What I’m about to say is in confidence, and I expect it to stay that way. You understand?’
Charlie Baker nodded, acutely uncomfortable. He had barely needed the toilet, but had decided to stretch his legs nonetheless. Now here he was, standing shoulder to shoulder with six foot four of area commander, his bladder suddenly closed off, and not knowing where to look or what to say for the best. ‘I understand,’ he answered quietly, looking down at the dry porcelain, empty except for a couple of blue toilet cubes.
‘Good.’ Robert Abner began to piss, a powerful hissing jet which filled the silences. ‘Look, Baker, we need to sort this division out. We’re doing OK, the situation is better than it was, but still I hear things.’
Charlie stared mournfully into his section of the elongated urinal as Abner’s yellow stream flowed past him on its way to the drain. ‘What kind of things?’
‘Rumours, inside and out. Impropriety. Surely I don’t need to say it, man?’
Charlie grunted noncommittally.
‘I want you to keep an ear to the ground. No one must know. Someone in this unit isn’t playing fair. Trouble is, I can’t have an open audit. It’s all too vague, too easy to walk away from. Unless, that is, we catch them at it.’
‘And, specifically, what is “it”, sir?’
‘That’s my business. But I recently had an idea, a way to sort things out. Someone who could help us.’
Charlie remained distinctly unnerved, barely listening to the unit commander. He had spoken to him maybe two or three times since he had taken over the jurisdiction of GeneCrime. He wasn’t a boss who interacted with his staff unless he really had to. Charlie had always imagined his inaccessibility was a strategy for maintaining discipline, the unapproachable head who unsettled his staff and kept them firmly on their toes. And now this. Standing next to him, scared to death, unable to piss. The warning hanging in the sharp damp air of the toilets. Someone not playing fair. Catch them at it.
‘Who have you asked to help?’ he asked.
‘Maybe I’m not making myself clear.’ Commander Abner glared down at him. ‘Your job is not to question what I’m doing. Your job is merely to report anything out of the ordinary, anything new that happens which doesn’t sound right. I don’t want you ploughing through past cases. We’re too busy, and that’s something that, as I say, I’m trying to take care of.’
‘Right.’
The flow from Charlie’s left was easing, trickling down to virtually nothing. And still Charlie couldn’t go. He heard the commander shaking out the last drops. Amid his misery, Charlie felt a shot of apprehension. Abner poking about in the division could only be bad news. He wondered what he was really after, what had brought him to this course of action. This was a long way from standard operating procedures.
‘So I expect you to keep me up to speed. Anything unusual, or unorthodox, or doing the rounds – scandals, hints and insinuations – I want to hear about it. From now on, you are my ears on the inside of GeneCrime.’
With that, Commander Robert Abner hoisted his zip up as energetically as it had come down, turned and walked out of the toilets.
As Charlie stood at the urinal, partially humiliated, embarrassed and impotent, he pondered Abner’s words, and worked through the implications. Why was Abner sharing this with him? Was he being set up? What was the commander trying to achieve? And what had got him so spooked? But as he thought, he quickly saw that this could become a position of trust, reporting directly to the big man, a situation of safety, of protection, of immunity. As he relaxed, he began to piss. He whistled, steam rising from the porcelain. From now on, he would be burrowing his way into the centre of GeneCrime, listening, watching, and biding his time, his every move sanctioned by Abner.
19
The footwell of Moray’s ageing Saab was littered with piles of fingernails, which looked to Reuben like the bones of a tiny mammal. Some were long and femur-thick, others shorter and curved like ribs. It was clear that Moray chewed his nails as he drove, then flicked them towards the generally empty passenger side. As Reuben peered closer, he saw that the fibres of carpeting were entwined with the fragments, as if subsuming the bones into the nylon earth.
‘You don’t have many passengers, then?’ Reuben asked.
Moray continued to chew into the tip of his middle finger for a few seconds. ‘Not so many.’
‘Or manicurists?’
‘Mani-what-now?’
As they crossed Southwark Bridge, the Thames appeared choppy, and military grey in colour. Reuben shivered for a second, imagining being dredged from its muddy depths, the clay sediments in his hair, a mix of oil and algae coating his skin. And he wondered whether GeneCrime had successfully isolated DNA from what might be the first victim linked to DI Tamasine Ashcroft.
‘Did you explain the possible outcomes to him?’ he asked.
‘I did.’ Moray finally detached the remaining piece of nail. He plucked it from his mouth, glanced at Reuben, and flicked it out the window. ‘There,’ he groused. ‘Happy?’
‘Ecstatic.’
‘But you know at this rate we’re going to have to set up a fucking counselling service.’
‘Fancy it?’
‘Yeah, right. “Mr Accoutey, I’m afraid your wife is fucking the Arsenal team physio behind your back. Now, can I have the cash please?” Or, “Mr Bloggs, your actual father is the man you’ve been calling Uncle Pete all your life. Twenties will do, or fifties if you’re pushed.” Reckon you could do better?’
Reuben bit into his own nail, feeling the slight flexing, the reluctance of the hard, translucent substance to yield. ‘Paternity suits aren’t exactly my thing.’
Moray took a quick look sideways. ‘Could save you a lot of grief in the long run.’
‘I can’t do it. You know that, Moray. I just can’t. Call me a hypocrite. It’s just when it’s your own flesh and blood . . .’
‘Aye. Sorry.’
‘And this way, at least there’s still hope.’
‘It’s not the despair that kills you . . .’
‘I know. It’s the hope.’
Reuben rubbed his face, a slow, heavy movement of his hand dragging his features down. The other side of the Thames was equally as frantic as the one they had just left. For a second, Reuben saw the myriad of bridges which criss-crossed the river as slender and elongated escapes from the mayhem, calming moments over water, before it all began again. They stuttered and barged their way through the streets of cars, buses, taxis and cyclists. Reuben made a silent promise to himself that he would retire to the countryside. Somewhere static and silent where clocks seemed to run slow, the only sound the sighing of cows and the music of birds.
He held on to this image for several quiet minutes, until they pulled up outside a café bar. It was metallic, Italian, and looked expensive, its designer modernity clashing with Reuben’s daydreamed fields. Moray eyed the entrance intently.
‘You sure about this?’ he asked. ‘How do you mean?’
‘That you trust her one hundred per cent?’
‘One hundred’s a big number,’ Reuben said, loosening his seatbelt. ‘But I don’t see what she would have to gain from stringing me along.’
‘Yeah, well. Just be on your guard.’
Inside, DCI Sarah Hirst was sitting bolt upright at a polished aluminium table, in a polished aluminium chair, both of which struck Reuben as being wildly uncomfortable. As he walked up and pulled out a chair, he wondered if the furniture was simply too painful for slouching.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Thanks for meeting on my territory.’
Sarah looked tired, but her eyes were wide and busy, taking in everything around her. Reuben glanced at her large black coffee, a legal amphetamine, with little of the pleasure but all of the heart thumping.
‘So . . .’ he began. ‘So indeed.’
‘How’s things?’
‘Absolutely snowed under.’
‘You said on the phone you were trying to tie it to the latest killing.’
‘Ninety-five per cent. Sex post-death. It has to be.’
‘Any joy with the DNA?’
‘Mina Ali’s on it. But no luck as yet.’
‘There was one other thing. Tell her to try a preamplification step with random primers and low magnesium. That’s about all I can think of. And if that fails—’
‘I’ll pass it on. If we can get it sorted, you never know.’
‘What is it that you couldn’t say over the phone?’
Sarah drank deeply from her coffee. Reuben sensed that she was making him wait, preparing him for bad news. She used both her hands to replace the mug, which rattled against its saucer.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘You might want to look closely at this.’
Sarah pulled a thick brown file out of her slim leather case and slid it across the table. Reuben picked up Sarah’s coffee, took a swig and grimaced. The front of the file read ‘Michael Jeremy Brawn; GeneCrime CID’. Reuben opened it and began to leaf through its thin white and yellow pages. There were more photos of Brawn, distinguishing marks, witness statements and dates of arrest.
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘No one.’
‘You sure?’
Sarah sighed. She turned her coffee round to drink fr
om a different side to Reuben. ‘As you’re aware, you can’t be sure of anything in GeneCrime. You put that much ego under that much pressure and grant that many exceptional powers, you don’t expect things to be straightforward.’
Reuben paused, suddenly lost in something. He stared at the Final Evidence form, scanning left and right, up and down. An inventory of samples collected from Michael Brawn and results obtained. The last piece of paper before a laboratory investigation officially became a CID one. Figures and statistics and outcomes. And there, at the bottom, his own signature. Fuck. He looked again, blinking rapidly. His brow furrowed.
‘Is that what you mean?’ he asked, holding the document up.
‘Why don’t you show me?’
Reuben pulled out a pen and scrawled two words on another piece of paper from the file. Then he turned them both round and pushed them across the table towards Sarah.
‘You really do sign a shit autograph,’ she said, frowning and leaning her head forward, her light hair cascading towards the papers. ‘But my point was, either one of them was signed through a major hangover . . .’
‘Or?’
‘Or by someone else. It just struck me when I flicked through the file. That signature is different from others of yours.’
‘But who the fuck could have done that?’
Reuben stared at the two signatures. The more he thought about it the surer he was becoming. Dots were joining, actions linking themselves together. His sacking. The shift from the private to the public. A commander with deep-rooted suspicions about the very officers supposed to be solving crimes. A metastasis inside GeneCrime. Michael Brawn sitting in Pentonville with a false genetic identity. Someone faking Reuben’s signature on an evidence document to get Brawn put there.