by John Macken
He knows this one will be different. Away from the usual area. No point in dumping her in the Thames. Besides, it will keep those CID boys and girls busy. This is far too early in the evening to be driving around. And the plush upholstery could do without the blood. Just do it here. She will understand.
She approaches. Tired and relieved. A heavy black case with her. Fishing in her coat pocket for her car keys. Pushing the button, a flash of indicators on the four by four. Smaller than the one he drives, he notes, stepping out, staying in the shadows, skirting round. She pulls open the rear passenger door and slides her case across the seat. And he is there. Behind her. Gloved hands around her neck. Doesn’t even have time to cry out. Babbling incoherent words through her crushed windpipe. He allows her to rotate a little, to see him. The shock in her eyes. But she is a doctor. Surely she knows about these things, and what to expect? With one hand pulverizing her trachea, he uses the other to lift his balaclava. Face to face. Red cheeks, eyes frozen wide, mouth in a silent scream. Still alive. Just. He knows she will be thinking three minutes. Two words burned into her suspended consciousness. Three minutes of oxygen starvation before permanent brain damage.
He has a quick glance around. No one. He senses the rising panic in her movements. The tensing, then the thrashing, stiff and flailing, unnatural jolting of the limbs, jerky actions through suddenly engorged muscles. He rips her coat off her. ‘Look at me now and tell me I’m impotent,’ he grunts. Her terror is turning him on. She knows that three minutes is not a long period of time. He pulls the balaclava back down, and unzips his trousers. ‘Call this erectile dysfunction?’ The condom is already on. He lets her see it, allows her to make the leap, to understand what is going to happen to her. He thinks he detects it in her face. Revulsion amid the shock and the horror.
He squeezes harder, the soft cartilage of her neck yielding, windpipe and blood vessels closing. She is showing the first signs. Her three minutes are almost up. He pushes her into the back seat, so she is lying partially down. As he waits for it to end, patiently watching the colour ebb, the life slip away, he realizes that although it started out random, now there almost feels to be a pattern. He wonders whether it is always like that. Just like life. You drift into things, follow them where they take you, end up going in directions you had never thought about.
He releases his grip. The doctor, with her mocking manner and unsympathetic words, doesn’t move. He opens her legs, knowing that after this one, the next is already sorted.
A female from GeneCrime, the forensics unit in Euston.
And not just any female.
2
Moray eased the car to a halt in the parking bay of the Children’s Hospital. A large sign read ‘No Waiting’. Reuben, stiffening up after the prison van impact, rubbed his neck and glanced up at the building. It was modern and new, all glass and steel, guaranteed to look awful in fifteen years’ time. Moray killed the engine and swivelled in his seat to face him.
‘You sure?’ he asked. ‘You’ve only just broken out.’
‘And now I’m breaking in.’
Moray pulled a pair of bolt cutters from the side compartment of his door. ‘Here, let me see those things.’
Reuben placed his hands on the steering wheel, which was still damp from Moray’s grip. He knew the risk his partner had just taken on his behalf.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘I haven’t got them off yet.’
‘I mean for the rescue.’
‘Ach, it was wild. Wouldn’t have missed it.’
Moray continued to work on Reuben’s handcuffs, testing successive regions of the metal for hardness and ease of access, squeezing the handles of the bolt cutters together and then relaxing them again. Reuben watched him as he battled. He seemed to be getting fatter, if anything, and if Reuben didn’t know better, he would have mistaken him for a lazy slob. But lazy slobs didn’t rush out and hire commercial vehicles at short notice and slam them into prison vans, let alone steal cars and secrete them at pre-determined points. He had asked a lot of Moray – too much, in fact, for most – but he had planned it all and carried it off in less than two hours. Truly, despite his size, there was even more to Moray than met the eye.
Between grunts of effort, Moray said, ‘As tactics go, this isn’t the best.’
‘It’ll be fine. They won’t think of looking here yet.’
Moray released the left-hand manacle, and using the same technique on the other, quickly broke through. ‘There you go.’ He took the various pieces of metal and glanced up at the front of the building. ‘I managed to get hold of her, finally. She should be inside main reception, waiting for you.’
‘Thanks,’ Reuben said again, rubbing his wrists. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll wipe the car clean and ditch it. Meet you by the entrance.’
Reuben smiled gratefully at Moray and climbed quickly out of the car. This was no time to be congratulating each other. He walked briskly to the rotating doors, a bitter wind rushing straight through his jumper. Hot air churned out to meet him as he entered. He was wary, glancing about, taking in the two security guards behind the front desk, the profusion of fake plants and vending machines, the concerned parents pacing about, the general air of sad and efficient ill health.
DCI Sarah Hirst was sitting on a plastic chair reading a magazine. She stood up as she spotted Reuben and walked straight over. Against the paleness of her blouse, Reuben sensed a flush of anger in her face.
‘This isn’t good,’ she said, up close. ‘On so many levels, this isn’t good.’
‘It’s a fuck of a lot better than where I was before.’
‘I mean, what the hell were you thinking?’
‘That I was going to spend the rest of my days being buggered in Wormwood Scrubs.’
‘But I could have got you out.’
‘It was taking too long.’
‘I thought I explained. I was making progress. Gently pulling strings. It would have happened in a couple of days, max.’
There was something in Sarah’s eyes that suggested she didn’t wholeheartedly believe what she was saying.
‘By which time I would have been in a different prison.’
‘But still—’
‘Look, Sarah, my son is ill and getting iller. Plus, someone’s smashed up my lab, and I need to know who. I’m not blaming you for the difficulties involved in getting a disgraced ex-copper out of a prison he wasn’t officially in, it’s just that time is of the essence.’
‘This isn’t good,’ Sarah repeated, almost to herself. ‘Come on, let’s walk and talk.’
She guided Reuben through a set of double doors and up two flights of stairs. The corridors, like Pentonville’s, like GeneCrime’s, were low-ceilinged and strip-lit, with neutral colours and little warmth. Sarah turned to Reuben as she walked, her shoulders relaxing a touch, her face gaining a small degree of compassion.
‘So, how was it?’ she asked.
‘Every bit as good as you might imagine.’
‘And Michael Brawn?’
‘Nailed. I guess this is where things start making sense.’
‘Yeah.’ Sarah gave him a once-over with her pale blue eyes and long dark lashes. ‘Jeez, you look rough. And you could have smartened yourself up a bit.’
‘I’ll be fine. The plainclothes look.’ Reuben glanced doubtfully down at his trousers and trainers. ‘Besides, you think you can spot the difference between a con and a cop just by their clothes?’
‘Generally, yes,’ Sarah answered with a smile. ‘Here we are.’
They came to a halt outside a door marked ‘Acute Ward 4’. Sarah reached forward and pressed the intercom button. Reuben suddenly felt nervous. Until this moment, he had barely stopped. From his cell, into the van, into Moray’s car and through the hospital. Now, standing still and picturing what he was about to see, Reuben inhaled a cold, deep breath, which seemed to drop like liquid nitrogen into the pit of his stomach.
Sar
ah pushed her mouth up to the speaker of the intercom and pressed the button again.
‘Hello? This is Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Hirst. I called earlier.’
The door clicked, electromagnetic contacts moving apart. Sarah and Reuben pushed through. Inside, the ward was decked out in luminous colours. It had been Disneyfied, with approximately drawn cartoon characters having fun across the walls. Within a few paces, they were met by a nurse. Filipino, Reuben guessed, or possibly Malaysian.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
Sarah swiftly pulled her warrant card out of the front pocket of her trousers, as if she was about to start shooting. ‘DCI Sarah Hirst,’ she said. ‘And this is DI’ – Sarah glanced unsurely at Reuben, and then at the wall they were facing – ‘Michael Mouse.’
Reuben nodded, his eyes wide at the name.
‘The father of your patient Joshua Maitland has recently escaped from prison,’ Sarah continued. ‘We’re concerned he might try to get access to his son. Myself and DI Mouse would like to have a look around, if that’s OK. Maybe talk to one or two staff?’
The nurse remained impassive. ‘He’s over there – bed six.’
She turned and pointed towards a curtained-off section where the ward opened out, a new profusion of cartoon characters desperately trying to bring a sense of fun to acute childhood illness. Reuben walked slowly towards the veiled area of beds, excitement and nervousness fighting in his stomach.
‘Mouse?’ he whispered tersely to Sarah.
‘It’s all I could think of at short notice. And you’re lucky it wasn’t Donald fucking Duck.’ She stopped, keeping her distance. ‘You go in, I’ll chat to the staff. But you’ve only got a few moments.’
Reuben steadied himself, swaying slightly on his feet, his eyes closed. Helplessness, fear, worry, love and sadness surged through him in consecutive waves. He listened for a moment to see if Lucy was there, then pulled back the curtain and stepped inside.
Joshua was sleeping on his front, his light brown hair ruffled, a tube intruding into his nose. Eighteen months old and beginning to lengthen, his arms and legs seemingly longer already than the last time. Reuben realized with shock that he was losing weight. Toddlers should be chubby and rounded, all puppy fat and soft, bowed limbs. Joshua, however, was getting thin. He must never have noticed it before, but here, naked except for a nappy, his sheets wriggled out of, there were sharp angles and prominent ribs. He bent down and kissed his hair, running his fingers over Joshua’s skin, fighting his emotions, trying not to cry.
‘You hang on in there, little fella,’ he whispered, pulling the yellow sheets over Joshua and composing himself. ‘Your daddy’s going to do everything he can.’
Reuben reached over to the far side of the bed and grabbed the metal clipboard hanging there. He scanned Joshua’s medical notes, flicking through the four pages of blood results, sodium levels, fluid pHs, white cell counts, temperatures and case notes. Seven words in large black capitals dominated the final page: ‘Acute Lymphocytic Leukaemia. Scheduled chemo. Donor negative’.
Reuben screwed his eyes up. ‘Just give me another day and a half,’ he muttered, stroking Joshua’s hair. ‘Daddy’s got to sort some nasty people out. And then I’ll be back, and no one will be able to touch us.’
Joshua remained still, his breathing slow and regular, immersed in the dead sleep of children. Reuben replaced the notes and kissed his son again, this time on the shoulder. His skin was hot and smelled of the pure, innocent, undiluted love that cuts right through you and stops you breathing for a second. Truly, he thought, his face bent over Joshua’s skin, the scent of a woman was a weak sensation in comparison. He stood up slowly, lingering in the close presence of his son.
‘And then we’ll be together,’ he whispered. ‘You and me. Fit and well. Happy ever after.’
The curtain was pulled back and Sarah poked her head through.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but it’s time to go. I’ll get my car, see you at the front.’
Reuben hesitated a long couple of minutes, burning the image of Joshua into his retinas, before reluctantly walking out. He returned the curtain to its position of privacy and headed sadly away, through the ward, along the hospital corridors and into the biting cold, silence hanging over him like a premonition.
3
The traffic was sparse, and Sarah carved through what little there was with her customary confidence. Reuben remained quiet, thinking things through, trying to catch up with the events of the last eight hours. The implications of his actions were starting to make themselves clear to him, and when Sarah began to talk, she merely voiced his misgivings.
‘You’re going to be high priority,’ she said, taking a roundabout at speed.
‘I can see that,’ he responded, sliding around the back seat, Moray blocking most of his view through the windscreen.
‘For all the force knows, you’re a dangerous criminal who has murdered his wife, escaped prison, and is now on the run.’
‘But you can sort it?’
‘Wrong. I can influence specific officers here and there, but I can’t protect you from a manhunt.’
‘You can put the word out, though?’
‘Look, even if I do break cover and tell my commanding officers what has happened, they’re still going to want to see you brought to account. Since you and Brains here’ – she jerked her thumb dismissively in Moray’s direction – ‘decided to smash up a prison van and injure its guards.’
Moray shrugged, unconcerned. ‘Omelettes and eggs, Sarah. Omelettes and eggs.’
‘No, your best bet is to lie very low. Let me do what I can do.’
‘Where have I heard that before?’
Sarah’s features hardened, her concentration fixed on the road. ‘Fuck off, Reuben. You think it’s easy, in the middle of a serial killer investigation, to be running round helping you out?’
Reuben stared forlornly through the rear passenger window, thoughts of Joshua darting in and out of his head. The words acute lymphocytic leukaemia played themselves over and over, bringing images of irregular white blood cells slowly dying in veins, arteries and capillaries and not being replaced.
‘I guess not,’ he said.
‘The papers will be swarming all over you by now.’
‘Yeah, I guess they will. Look, we’re here. Take the next left and pull over.’
Sarah glanced in the rear-view, maybe to check on traffic, maybe to check on her passenger. She screeched across a junction and pulled smartly up. With the engine idling, she swivelled in her seat to look at Reuben.
‘You sure about this?’
‘You can’t lie much lower than here.’
‘How long’s it been since you saw him?’
‘Year or so.’
Reuben pulled out his mobile phone and dialled a number. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Aaron? It’s me. I’m here. Right.’ He flipped the phone shut, sad and slow in his movements, a resignation weighing him down. ‘Said he’ll be straight out,’ he muttered.
Reuben monitored the street. Victorian terraces with white frontages. Cars parked nose to tail on both sides. The occasional tree, leafless and shivering in the cold. Streetlamps with their heads bowed in defeat. An OK place to live if you couldn’t afford anything better.
Out of an alleyway between two blocks of houses a man dressed in baggy clothes appeared.
‘We’re on,’ Reuben said.
Moray pointed at the man. ‘That him? Jeez, he’s the spitting image.’
‘You know many twins who aren’t?’ Reuben asked.
‘It’s still uncanny,’ Sarah said. ‘Apart from the long blond ponytail, of course. What’s he up to these days?’
‘I dread to think,’ Reuben answered, climbing out of the back seat. ‘And I probably shouldn’t say in front of a serving officer. I’ll see you both later. And, Sarah?’
‘What?’
‘You know.’
Sarah raised her eyebrows at him. ‘I know.’
Reuben shut the car door, then Sarah revved the engine and pulled away at speed.
Reuben ran his eyes around his brother’s front room. He had often pictured what Aaron’s squat would be like, and he could see now that he had been wildly inaccurate. Apart from the scruffiness of the furniture, and the slowly dying carpet, the room was like most of the country’s living rooms: more cluttered than it might be, less clean than it should be, and with almost everything pointing in the direction of the television. A wooden table in the knocked-through dining room supported a mass of books and CDs, and looked never to have been used for its intended purpose. A couple of plants were forlornly wilting in the dry central heating. Full ashtrays and empty cans colonized any remaining surfaces. As squats went, though, this was fairly comfortable.
Aaron was silent, sitting on the sofa, rolling a joint. Reuben knew that too many things had happened for them to be entirely comfortable in each other’s company. He saw his arrest file in the governor of Pentonville’s office; he’d been stopped with over fifty grams of cocaine in Aaron’s car, and taken the blame for his brother to save him breaking his parole. Reuben realized he still hadn’t truly forgiven Aaron. And there were other factors. The way they had ruthlessly explored opposing sides of the law; Aaron’s decision to stay at home while Reuben went to university; the death of their father, a habitual and petty criminal whom Reuben had begun to distance himself from during his early years in CID. All in all, the family had fallen apart, Reuben and his mother on one side, Aaron and his father on the other. Legal and illegal, law making and law breaking.
Aaron lit the joint. After several deep drags, he offered it over. Reuben took it from him and pulled on it, stale air rushing through the papery structure, bitter smoke filling his mouth and entering his lungs. He held his breath for a couple of seconds, and as he exhaled, he said, ‘You hear about Jeremy Accoutey?’
‘Who didn’t?’
‘I kind of got involved in it, just before everything went pear-shaped.’