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

by SE Moorhead

  He studied her face. ‘You look like shit.’

  She released her grip. ‘Thanks. Please, come for a coffee with me?’

  She saw the reluctance in his face.

  Finally he said, ‘You’re paying.’

  Relief washed over her but she couldn’t manage a smile. ‘Sure.’

  They went into a nearby cafe, ordered coffee, synthetic this time, and sat observing each other.

  ‘Are you well?’ He was guarded but he was here, wasn’t he?

  ‘Just tired.’

  ‘You know what I mean. How are you after the transference?’ He said the last word quietly, even though there wasn’t anyone sitting near to them, only a man in work overalls in the corner, engrossed in his food.

  The two little children under the bed had been on her mind all night. She tried to focus on Jimmy’s face to distract herself from thinking of the terror in their eyes. Lomax had seemed to disappear as soon as she had closed the bedroom door, but the children … they had been different. She had lain on the floor of the bedroom for some time, staring at them as they soundlessly stared back at her. She had managed to get rid of the phantom eventually. She was on top of this – wasn’t she? Why the hell was she seeing children? Whose children were they?

  ‘The actual transference went well. I don’t know if I’m getting better at it, or if it depends on the person that

  I’m reading, but I feel like I’m seeing things clearer, getting to the memory faster.’

  ‘That’s good then?’ he said, uncertainly.

  ‘I couldn’t see anything in Lomax’s memories that suggested he was in any way involved in the murders. Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. I’m still not sure to what degree people can block their memories in a transference. I don’t know if it’s possible.’

  ‘We could set up some kind of control test for that,’ he said and then grimaced again. Didn’t he want to help?

  ‘The only thing is, I saw some pretty horrible things in his head.’

  Jimmy folded his arms and knitted his brow. ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Hardcore porn, violence against women …’

  ‘Surely that means he can’t control what he shows you in his memories? I mean, wouldn’t he block those memories from you if it was possible?’

  ‘He’s an animal, Jim. I think he enjoyed letting me see those things. If there was a memory in his mind that he wanted to hide, he might have tried to cover them with shocking images deliberately to put me off.’

  ‘Did you see anything else? Residual memories, I mean. Phantoms.’

  She hadn’t intended to tell him, to tell anyone. Jimmy had warned her that it was going to be bad. How could it not have been, the sort of mind she had gone into? She hadn’t planned on putting herself in Jimmy’s ‘I told you so’ firing line. But who else could she tell? Not Tom, not Carter, not her mum, not Molly. But Jimmy was her lab partner. These were legitimate concerns that she had about this technology. These things were going to have to be faced. The phantoms were scary, but she could control them.

  Couldn’t she?

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, it was only a side effect, you know … what we expected really.’ She couldn’t face him.

  ‘Kyra, I can tell that there’s something else.’ He leaned over to her, his dark blue eyes full of concern.

  She had been trying to muster all her mental strength, as difficult as that was after the depletion of going into Lomax’s mind, and tell herself this was all imaginary.

  But the faces of those children …

  ‘The images from the transference are getting stronger, but the phantoms are also getting stronger.’

  ‘Go on.’ He was clearly deeply concerned now.

  ‘Last night, I think I saw Lomax.’

  Immediately, Kyra saw his expression change and she hated herself for being so weak, putting herself under scrutiny.

  ‘At yours?’

  ‘I was staying at my mum’s.’

  Exhaustion swept over her and she found herself crumbling, head in hands.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I saw him … but this time … he knew I was there …’

  ‘This time?’ Jimmy said, appalled. ‘You mean you’ve seen him before?’

  ‘It was as though he was aware of me … and I ran upstairs to get away from him.’ Her face was burning. ‘I know he wasn’t real, but it felt real and I tried to hide … And under the bed …’ Her mouth dried up. She sipped at her cup, her hands shaking.

  ‘Go on,’ Jim said, his face deadly serious, his eyes wide.

  She could hardly bring herself to speak the words. ‘Under the bed, I saw two little children. Hiding.’ She held her breath, terrified of his reaction – of what it might mean.

  ‘Children?’ asked Jimmy, incredulous.

  ‘A boy and a girl. The boy was maybe seven years old. The girl was two or three.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She could see he was struggling to make sense out of what she was saying, was disturbed by her words.

  ‘When I shut the door, it was as though Lomax just disappeared.’ The heavy footfall getting closer up the stairs had stopped abruptly. ‘But the children … they stayed there …’

  ‘What happened then?’ Jimmy spoke quietly, but was that horror in his eyes? ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I said loudly: This is not real! and then they vanished.’

  There was a bubble of stillness between them, the clashing of crockery and chatter from gathering breakfast customers not able to break through.

  ‘Does your mum know you’re having—’

  ‘No,’ Kyra said quickly. ‘She doesn’t know I’m involved with the case again.’

  ‘Unless the receptors haven’t left your bloodstream. I mean, it’s highly unlikely they would work without the kit—’

  ‘Or without the subject being nearby …’ added Kyra. ‘I’ve thought of that. Maybe they are residuals and I’m seeing Lomax’s other memories somehow, things that I’m not picking up on the headset? Things that happened at another time.’

  ‘What if the receptors pick up much more information than we realised, more memories, but we can’t read it all at the same time? Then your brain might show you those things at a different time. That might cause it.’ He ran his hand through his dark curls. ‘It still doesn’t explain …’ He stood up. ‘We should scan you. We’ll go to the lab before Carter gets in.’

  ‘No,’ she said, making a swiping movement with her hand. ‘I’m fine. It’s only side effects. Or else the tech is stimulating my imagination …’

  This is only a psychological reaction to everything I’ve been through, she tried to persuade herself. I’m not mad! I’m suffering from stress. That’s all, isn’t it? But she knew there was more to it than that.

  Distress suddenly overwhelmed her. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me.’ Tears spilled from her eyes. ‘I heard him beating a woman in the kitchen. I could hear her screaming and then he came out and followed me up the stairs …’

  ‘Kyra, this isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. I mean to some degree, I would expect the psychosomatic asthma, going into someone else’s memory would leave you feeling close to that person, would bring an empathetic response, but … this isn’t good. When you saw the soldier – Brownrigg – that made some sense. You met him, you saw his experience and then you dreamed about the soldiers he fought with. You were still seeing his memories from his perspective. What you experienced last night goes beyond reaction to stimulus. Do you even know if Lomax battered a woman?’

  ‘I heard it at the police station. There were complaints against him for domestic violence.’

  Jimmy’s shoulders relaxed a little but his face was still strained. ‘That might explain it. If you heard about it then it might be the power of suggestion.’ His eyes travelled to the floor for a moment and then back to her. ‘What I don’t understand is why yo
u are seeing Lomax. You should be able to see things that you have experienced within Lomax’s memories, from his point of view. I would expect that. But you shouldn’t be able to see Lomax himself. We couldn’t have predicted this. You should be seeing out of his eyes, from his perspective, not seeing him.’

  ‘What if they are Lomax’s kids – and I’m picking up a residual memory, one that my conscious brain wasn’t aware of in the transference, but it’s in here somehow?’ She tapped the side of her head.

  ‘Does Lomax have kids?’ Jimmy asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. Maybe I’m picking up on stuff in his subconscious. This could really take our tech up to the next level.’ Even she knew now that she was clutching at straws, trying to find a silver lining in this mess.

  ‘Jesus, Kyra,’ his voice was louder now, with anxiety, ‘What do you think you are? Some kind of oracle? We called the machine CASNDRA to be ironic, not because we’re psychic!’

  ‘You should tell Carter – so he doesn’t sell it to the MOD! Imagine what could happen to a soldier who performed a transference with a terrorist.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Jimmy said, then put his hand to his mouth. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you when you were upset, but the deal’s been done.’

  ‘That’s my kit! My tech! We built that.’ A sudden rush of anger. ‘Has the machine gone already?’

  ‘No, not yet, why?’

  Two elderly women came into the cafe and made a big deal of where they were sitting and taking their coats off. Kyra immediately resented them. They made loud, cheerful conversation with the waitress and she had to resist the strong impulse to tell them to shut up.

  ‘Jimmy, please, listen. I need to do one more transference. Please help me to do it just one more—’

  ‘Jesus, you’ve only just finished telling me how this has been messing with your head! And now you’re asking me …’

  ‘Please, this will be the last time, I promise.’

  ‘No, there’s no way.’ He folded his arms.

  Why was he being so stubborn?

  ‘It’s my fucking tech!’ Kyra said loudly and the women stopped their chatter and gawped at her. She scowled back. ‘There’s one more witness,’ she told Jimmy, more quietly. ‘Ray Clarke. He can’t tell us what he saw because he can’t remember … he was drinking … and …’

  ‘No chance,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re my friend, Kyra. I don’t really understand what you’ve got yourself into, but I’m not going to let you destroy yourself.’

  ‘It’s going to destroy me if I don’t find out the truth!’ Kyra yelled, banging her fist against the table, some of the coffee sloshing out of her mug onto the table top.

  The other customers gawped at her now.

  ‘What?’ she said, scowling at them.

  Jimmy stood up. ‘I’m sorry. But enough’s enough.’

  Kyra watched him leave the cafe and thought: I don’t need you anyway.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2035

  9.32 a.m.

  There was less than forty hours to go before the killer completed his pattern and the mood in the Hub was grim. It was compounded by a cloud of suspicion – who had betrayed the team and blabbed to the press? Kyra was the outsider, the obvious choice, and Harry and a few of the other officers had made their feelings clear.

  ‘Alex, do you know if we can get in touch with Ray Clarke somehow?’ Kyra had approached Alex when she was on her own, not wanting the others to overhear.

  Alex regarded her quizzically. ‘I think his son’s contact details are on the system. Although he might not want to talk to us. He made a complaint back at the time about the way his father was treated.’

  Kyra remembered. But it was worth a shot.

  ‘Why do you want to talk to him again? He told us everything he knew back then. I can’t imagine his memory has got any better.’

  ‘We’ve got to try every avenue, right?’ Kyra knew that wouldn’t convince her. Alex was smart, intuitive, trained up, and determined. She would see what Kyra was trying to achieve. If anyone could understand the importance of her tech, it would be Alex. What if one day the police even bought the tech? She was exactly the sort of officer that would make the most of it.

  Should she tell Alex? They had a bond, didn’t they?

  Alex called up the number on a nearby screen and raised her eyebrows as Kyra typed it into her Commset.

  ‘Listen … don’t tell Tom about this …’ Kyra began.

  ‘Jesus, Kyra!’ Alex hissed, her blue eyes wide. ‘Are you trying to get me into trouble with the boss?’

  But then there was a hint of a conspiratorial smile.

  Kyra smiled back.

  Ray Clarke’s son, Marcus, wore an expression of irritation, as though he had been interrupted in the middle of something very important. He appeared to be of a similar age to Kyra and might have been attractive if his face hadn’t been twisted in fury. Kyra and Alex had gone to one of the viewing rooms for some privacy when they called him, hoping Tom didn’t find out.

  ‘Look, I told you lot fifteen years ago to leave him alone.’ He peered down at Alex and Kyra from the screen on the wall. ‘I knew this would come up when I saw that bloody news report about the Mizpah killer!’ he exploded, no less belligerent than he had been back during the original case. ‘No, you can’t speak to him. You upset the whole family last time. He went on a bender after all that, just made everything worse. We don’t want to talk to you. Dad’s very upset again.’

  ‘Your dad’s still around?’ Kyra didn’t manage to keep the surprise out of her voice. He must have been lying about not knowing Ray’s whereabouts. Had he been trying to protect his father? It was understandable.

  Marcus’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you bothering us? You weren’t interested in what he had to say back then.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra saw Alex turn towards her.

  ‘I’m not a police officer. I’m a neuropsychologist and I’m consulting on this case. I understand that your father was confused, but I think I might be able to help.’

  Marcus studied her face for a moment. ‘I don’t think my father needs your help, miss …’

  ‘Doctor Sullivan. Marcus, please listen to me,’ Kyra could hear the desperation in her own voice. ‘As a psychologist, I know that being unable to help can make a person feel frustrated, guilty, even.’ She wished she could tell Marcus that she knew this from personal experience. Alex’s eyes bored into her. ‘I think I can help him move past that. Do you think I could talk to him, ask him if he might talk to us?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Kyra steeled herself for another barrage of angry complaints. Tom was going to kill her.

  But then Ray appeared on the screen.

  Kyra was momentarily lost for words.

  ‘I’m decrepit, but I’m not dead,’ he told Kyra with a smile that lit up his startling blue eyes. She was surprised how warm she felt towards him immediately. Had he been listening to the whole conversation?

  ‘The drink took its toll, but I can make my own decisions,’ he said seriously, ‘I just don’t like to advertise that fact in front of my son. He can be very …’ he searched for the word, ‘over-protective.’

  ‘Ray, you look well,’ Kyra said, hardly able to keep the surprise and excitement out of her voice.

  ‘A lot better than the last time you saw me, I’ll bet. I could have gone either way but I decided to get help, dry out … I’ve been sober for over ten years. I stopped drinking because, after I saw what happened to that poor woman, I realised how precious life was. I couldn’t turn back the clock. I couldn’t undo all the damage I’d done through alcohol. My poor son had been through enough.’ She watched as he turned his wedding ring round on his finger. ‘But I decided I could change. It wasn’t easy, of course. The Chemaddict treatment was rough, but effective. I guess it’s all a matter of how much you want it.’

  ‘I guess it must be,’ Kyra said.

>   ‘I must admit, it’s shaken me up seeing the news. Brought it all back.’ He moved his lower jaw up and down, lips closed, as if chewing. ‘After the woman at the garage I didn’t want to go on.’ He paused. ‘I wish I could go back and try harder to save her, told the police more. I don’t think many people think about what it must be like to be a witness to a crime. Do you?’

  ‘I suppose many people don’t, no.’

  Poor Molly seeing her mother taken.

  ‘It stays with you. I still have flashbacks, sort of, only the vaguest images, nothing that could help to solve it. I often think if I could go back I would do this, or that, but then the realisation is that it is what it is, and I can’t do anything. I’ll have to live with the fact that I saw such terrible things and there’s nothing I can do to change it.’ His voice broke. ‘That poor girl. I often think about her.’

  She studied the craggy face.

  ‘But you say I might be able to help somehow?’

  Kyra felt a growing excitement. ‘Please, yes. I’ve developed a technology that allows us to access memories, straight from the brain. It’s painless, accurate and might help to find out exactly what you saw that night.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex’s gaze locked in her direction. She kept her focus on the screen.

  ‘Well, I didn’t expect to hear that.’ Ray smiled, bemused.

  ‘You’re the only witness that we have. And I think, deep down, somewhere in that brain of yours, there is a memory, a clue, that’s going to help us to get to the truth of the matter.’

  She watched as he mulled this over for a moment. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out an old photograph and held it up to the screen. Kyra studied the image of the young woman in her wedding dress, holding a small posy of hydrangeas, her red curly hair covered in a veil of gypsophila. A brilliant smile. ‘My beautiful girl, Annette. She was the only woman for me,’ he said, turning the photograph back and gazing at the image. ‘I was lost without her, totally lost for a while.’ He looked up. ‘She would be disappointed in me if I didn’t try to help.’