Witness X: ‘Silence of the Lambs meets Blade Runner’ Stephen Baxter

by SE Moorhead

  ‘I’ll drive you home,’ said Tom. ‘You can collect the car tomorrow.’

  ‘No. Give me five minutes and I’ll be fine,’ she insisted.

  Tom indicated to the guards and they came in to collect their prisoner. They woke him roughly. He shuffled off the bed and moved towards the door, urged on by the guards.

  ‘Who did you see at the Scrambles, Lomax?’ asked Tom.

  ‘The man you hit,’ Kyra added.

  He grinned at her sleepily. ‘I told you, I saw the woman. No one else.’

  Tom glanced at Kyra. He believed her, didn’t he?

  ‘So, then, when do I get out?’ Lomax asked sleepily, as the guards rearranged his bindings.

  ‘It’s going to take more than that,’ Tom said. ‘We didn’t find out what we needed.’

  If Lomax was disappointed by this, he didn’t show it. ‘Oh well, I had a nice sleep and woke up with a hard-on. Win-win, I say.’

  Danielsson manhandled him towards the door; the female guard gave the lab a once over and then followed.

  As Lomax shuffled out he gave Kyra a lecherous grin.

  ‘See you in my dreams, Doc!’ he said cheerfully and whistled down the corridor in time to the chains on his ankles jangling.

  Back in her flat, behind the locked door, Lomax’s last words swam around her head as Kyra fell into a fitful sleep.

  See you in my dreams, Doc.

  At some point in the dead of night she was disturbed by a loud thud. She opened her eyes and lay listening in the darkness. Was there someone in the flat, or was she dreaming?

  She reached out for her Commset.

  A shuffling sound coming from behind the bedroom door – something being dragged across the tiled floor?

  The hairs on her skin shot upright; her breathing was shallow. Her mind rifled through the items in the bedroom for something that could be used as a weapon.

  A man’s voice. ‘You stupid bitch!’

  Her eyes widened in the darkness, a loud rush of blood pulsating in her ears. Her stomach clenched. Oh God, someone was in there! She heard a dull thud and a groan of pain. What the hell was going on?

  She crept along to the door, the floor gave a loud creak and she froze. The noise in the living room stopped dead.

  ‘I’m going to kill you!’ she heard a man yell.

  Oh God, Lomax has sent someone to kill me!

  She moved towards the window in a panic but stopped when she heard a woman’s feeble cry.

  ‘Please, don’t! Help me! Help me!’

  Kyra hurried back to the door and put her ear against it. What was going on in there? Who was out there?

  There was a loud crash and a bang on the other side, the tremors rumbled through her skull. She jumped away, stumbling back onto the floor, unable to suppress a cry as she fell.

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ she heard the woman crying. ‘Please don’t do this!’

  Kyra pulled herself up, flung open the door and, holding up her Commset like a weapon, shouted, ‘I’ve dialled the police! They’ll be here any minute!’

  But the light from her Commset illuminated an empty living room.

  She moved the light around, doubting her eyes, then threw all the doors open, flicked on every switch in the flat and checked the front door was locked. Finally, she leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, her legs weak with adrenaline.

  Had she had some kind of waking dream? Was it another phantom, more vivid than ever before? These residual memories were getting stronger and were beginning to threaten her mental balance.

  Whatever was happening, Kyra knew that she had to find the killer fast, or she was going to lose her mind altogether.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2035

  9.45 a.m.

  The memory of the stranger’s T-shirt had come back to Kyra during the vivid re-living of Lomax’s memories that had haunted her when she finally managed to sleep. Again, she had been late into the Hub and had to wait until she could get Tom on his own; when the discussions were over and the team had moved on to their tasks. He was walking towards the door as she approached him.

  ‘The man I saw – the one in Lomax’s memory, I remember now, he was wearing a T-shirt with a medical logo on it,’ she said quietly. She brushed her fringe aside, self-conscious under Tom’s scrutiny. He indicated she should follow him.

  ‘Doesn’t Andrew Harper, Isabel’s boyfriend, work at the hospital?’ she asked as they made their way up the stairs towards his office.

  ‘Yes, that’s where she met him. Ambulance driver. We interviewed him yesterday morning.’

  ‘What did you make of him?’ she asked.

  ‘Isabel’s friends say he’s a control freak. He said they’d had a row about moving in together. He seemed harmless enough.’ She followed him into his office. ‘The Mizpah necklace Isabel was wearing tells us who took her.’

  ‘And bio-testing?’

  ‘None of his DNA on Caylee – only Lomax’s.’ He sat at his desk, but Kyra remained standing.

  It occurred to Kyra that an ambulance was the ideal way of transporting a body. She opened her mouth but, at the same moment, Tom called up an image of Harper on the screen, taken from his interview.

  ‘Is this the man you saw in Lomax’s memory?’

  Andrew Harper had auburn hair, a strong jawline and dark eyes. He was distinctive looking, almost handsome, but he didn’t resemble the man at the Scrambles.

  Then again, his face had been covered with blood.

  ‘I don’t think so. How tall is he?’

  ‘183 centimetres.’

  ‘No, no. It’s not the man I saw. He was only 170, 173 at most. Any luck trying to find Martin Coombes?’

  ‘Are you going to sit?’ He indicated the chair.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No luck yet. We have CCTV images of him visiting Lomax back in the day.’ His eyes travelled up to the screens. ‘Martin Coombes,’ he said aloud. Immediately a number of images appeared showing the young man from various angles. ‘Does this look like the man?’

  Kyra studied the face. He looked the right height, same sort of build as the man Lomax had hit.

  ‘That could be him, you know. I mean … I’m not sure. It was dark, but …’ She switched her attention back to Tom. ‘It’s very possible.’

  ‘We haven’t found Coombes yet. After his last known residence, back in 2021, it became confusing as to where he moved next. His neighbours seemed to think he had moved out of London altogether. He’s been estranged from his parents for years. It’s possible if this is Lomax’s accomplice then he might have gone underground and be keeping a low profile. He might even be hiding with Isabel. We’re working on it.’

  ‘We’re running out of time, Tom,’ Kyra urged. ‘Head injury man is nowhere to be seen and we can’t find the only visitor Lomax has had who might fit the bill.’

  ‘You think I don’t know this?’ His jaw tensed.

  ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t have done more in the transference, found more—’

  ‘You tried,’ he said, but didn’t look at her.

  She looked down to the Hub. The women on the murder board called to her, names, places, dates, their eyes, staring at her, pleading for justice.

  A single witness.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go back to Ray Clarke. He’s the only witness we have. I know he had … problems, but don’t you think we should at least try to find him?’

  ‘Come on, Kyra! Ray’s memory was messed up fifteen years ago. It’s not exactly going to be any clearer now, is it?’

  ‘We might be able to find something he didn’t remember,’ she insisted. ‘I mean, we’ve never tried to read the mind of someone affected by alcohol. But we could give it a go.’

  Tom sighed and rubbed his forehead. ‘Not much of a bloody witness, is he? A mashed-up memory of something he thought he saw but then he says he can’t remember where he saw it.’

  ‘How many days h
ave we got until the next woman dies? Two? We know the killer’s pattern. We need to do whatever we can. I think if the Mizpah Murderer has ever made a mistake it would have been early on, before he evolved into what he is now – an efficient, wily predator, skilled at cleaning up after himself. He won’t always have been like that. It’s worth going back and having a look. We could see things that he didn’t remember, key pieces of information …’

  Kyra was clutching at straws. She didn’t even know if Ray was still alive. He hadn’t been in great shape after the last time they had seen him and that had been some time ago. Even his son, Marcus, hadn’t been certain of Ray’s whereabouts after that disastrous interview. Marcus had been furious about the way the police had treated his father and put in an official complaint.

  ‘I don’t want you putting too much pressure on yourself. You look exhausted after the Lomax trip. I think this is too much for you. You need to take it easy now.’ But Tom’s tone wasn’t one of empathy.

  ‘I slept badly last night.’ She sounded almost insulted. ‘Ray Clarke could be the key to the whole case, Tom! Don’t you see? He’s the only witness that we have any chance of getting anywhere with—’

  ‘Jimmy said no more, Kyra.’

  ‘It’s not Jimmy’s decision!’ she almost yelled. ‘It’s my kit!’

  He pursed his lips and looked at her for a moment too long. ‘I think Ray Clarke told us everything he could at the time. God knows, with the state he was in, that was useless. Imagine what he would be like now? Seriously? Why don’t you pull out the old footage of the interview, and see if we missed anything? Transfer the file to your own computer, I’ll tell the desk sergeant you have my permission. Take it home, look over it in your own time.’

  Was he getting rid of her? Getting her out of the way?

  ‘There’s no point in trying to find Ray Clarke,’ Tom insisted.

  But Kyra had already decided.

  10.36 a.m.

  ISABEL

  The light hurts her eyes. Whatever he injected her with is starting to wear off. She feels as though she is lying on a shoreline, waves occasionally washing over her as a tide of fear comes in. Her brain anticipates a moment coming soon in which she will suddenly remember how afraid she is, and terror will hold her veins taut, like the strings of a puppet.

  ‘You’re a good girl.’ She can see his mouth moving beneath the semi-opaque plastic, but the moulded curves shroud his real features.

  ‘I know you’re a good girl. You tried to help that man. It was a test.’

  ‘Man?’ Her voice is croaky. ‘Test?’ she says in a haze.

  ‘Yes, the man on the ground outside the pub.’

  Things start to come back to her slowly. Ruby, her mouth wide and red as she laughed a little too hard at a joke Liv had made. What had that been? A heaviness comes down on her brain, she wants to sleep again.

  He prods her hard on her cheek. Her eyes spring open, her breathing is laboured.

  ‘Remember?’

  She does remember. She can see him now in her mind’s eye – a young man lying face down on the pavement right next to the brick wall of the pub, one leg bent, one arm outstretched, his dark hair matted with blood.

  ‘You see, I knew you were a good girl when I saw you were at the hospital. Kindness, compassion …’

  ‘Who are you …’ she begins to say, but the words melt in her mouth. She can’t focus her eyes.

  Her arms are underneath the sheet, beneath a buckled strap. She wriggles her fingers and toes, trying to bring back some feeling. The fug is starting to lift slightly from her brain.

  She can see a smile behind the mask but she doesn’t understand. Her survival instinct tries to decipher it.

  He reaches out a hand and strokes her hair. He smells of lemon and soap.

  ‘I was so right about my choice, Isabel.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ She can feel tears pricking her eyes.

  ‘I’ve been following you.’

  She tries to get her mind to focus, thinking back to normal life, back to home, her dad, the hospital, walking around the shops, going to visit her friends. A chasm of grief and longing opens up and she feels as though she is falling.

  ‘I picked you because you care about people, you know how to look after them. You have a good heart. I saw you with that man outside the pub. You didn’t have to help him. But you did.’

  ‘Was he okay?’ Isabel has seen drugs used on patients many times. She knows that drugs can make you sleepy, or talkative. She knows drugs can make you feel no pain, or drugs can kill you. Maybe if she didn’t have drugs in her system now she would scream and scream. Instead, she feels as though she is having a chat with someone on a park bench on a sunny day.

  ‘Did you leave him there?’ she asked. ‘He was hurt …’

  ‘I know. I put him there. How else was I going to get to you?’

  ‘You hurt him?’ The thought are you going to hurt me? comes into her mind, but she is too afraid to ask. It seems easier to ask about someone else. ‘But how? How did you know we were there? This doesn’t make any sense. None at all.

  ‘I’ve been watching you, Isabel. Waiting until you came to me. It’s all meant to be.’

  ‘But the man in the street – you couldn’t have known he would be there, that I would help him, that Liv would be sick …’

  ‘I’d like to say it was my scheme, my skills, my timing. But really it wasn’t me at all. I mean, yes, I put all those plans together, I even managed to put a little of what you had yesterday in your friend’s drink, remember, the stuff that made you vomit? But it wasn’t luck, or chance. I think Elise must have been watching over me, making everything work out so well. She must want you, Isabel. She knows you will look after her properly.’

  She lies for a moment in her haze, trying to understand what he meant. ‘Elise? I don’t understand—’

  ‘You were going to call for an ambulance, that’s when I had to step in. Your poor little face when you saw me! You smiled!’ She sees the hint of a smile behind the mask again. ‘You thought I was going to help. They always think that.’

  ‘They?’

  He turns away for a moment, and when he faces her again he is holding a syringe.

  ‘But that’s when I injected you. And then you ended up here.’

  She winces as the needle punctures her skin, but it doesn’t really hurt.

  ‘Don’t worry now, Isabel. It will all be over soon enough.’

  And with that, she closes her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MONDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2035

  8.23 p.m.

  Kyra looked over the footage of Ray Clarke for the fourth time that afternoon. She still felt expectant as if somehow the man on screen, his frayed blue checked shirt, his shoulders slumped and his red, craggy face, would give her some clue as to what had really happened on the night of Jennifer Bosanquet’s abduction in 2020.

  He had been confused and disoriented at the time of the crime, under the tyranny of alcoholism. When he had come into the station to offer information about a newspop he had seen about a murder Tom had been cynical, but Ray was the only witness, however muddled.

  Kyra rewound the data and listened again.

  ‘Booze helps keep the cold out this time of year. I sleep in the garages to stay warm and keep away from the young ones, the druggies.’

  Ray spat the last word as though the alcoholics were a better class of addict. Even on the screen Kyra could see his hooded eyelids, the slow movements of a man who had let something get the better of him.

  She knew his statement read that the row of empty garages he had been sleeping in was behind the shops off Ullswater Street, but then he changed his mind and said it was by an empty nightclub on the industrial estate behind the carpet factory. Both areas had been thoroughly searched back in the day, but no evidence had been found. Kyra remembered the disappointment when they realised that Ray’s story was a mangled mess of clashing memories, confused and inde
cipherable. There had been no train line by Ullswater Street, so he couldn’t have heard a train. They couldn’t find the garages Ray had described. The most confusing of all – Ray had said a woman had been taken, but the police knew that the victim was still at home on the day Ray said he had seen her. Then, when they wanted to clarify some of the information, Ray was nowhere to be found.

  ‘I saw a man there. He wasn’t a street-dweller. He had a car, red one with a bash in the side,’ Ray said quietly.

  ‘Do you know which make of car?’ Tom jotted down a note as Ray shook his head. ‘The noises woke me up from a deep sleep.’

  Asleep or drunk? thought Kyra.

  ‘What sort of noises?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Scraping, banging, screaming, but then it all went quiet. I’ve seen the working girls go there sometimes, but it wasn’t like that. That’s why I came. I don’t normally talk to coppers.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  Kyra had rewound this clip so many times during the original case she knew it by heart – Ray, agitated and distressed, Tom, leaning across the table, the muscles in his shoulders taut as they strained against his shirt. He reminded her of a sniffer dog; on to something as he said sometimes.

  ‘I saw him drag her to the car. He came out of the garage opposite, must have been about eleven-thirty as the train went past.’ Ray scratched his head slowly, the unlit cigarette in his hand trembling. ‘She’d stopped screaming. He put her in the car boot. I don’t know if she was drunk or if he had knocked her out. But she wasn’t moving.’

  ‘Could you describe the man, Mr Clarke?’ Tom’s voice was steady, but he pulled at his earlobe. Kyra knew him too well.

  ‘Didn’t see much. He was wearing dark clothes, a hood.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us, Mr Clarke?’

  He took his time thinking about this. ‘Later, when I came out of the garage, I found a necklace.’ He pointed to the floor. ‘It was silver.’

  ‘What did the necklace look like?’

  ‘A little silver heart.’ He held up his fingers as though he was still holding it.