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

by SE Moorhead

  ‘Ray, I can’t begin to thank you,’ said Kyra.

  But he shook his head. ‘No, I should be thanking you. I feel like a man who’s had a second chance. If there is something I can do to get that information out …’ He closed his eyes tight for a moment. ‘Then I will do it.’

  ‘Ray, I’m going to be honest with you. This isn’t going to be easy,’ Kyra said. ‘We’ll have to revisit a very difficult experience that you have had. It will be traumatic. I can’t promise that this technology won’t have its effects. We’ll have to look at those memories.’ What sort of phantoms and physical symptoms might she have to deal with after she had been in Ray’s mind?

  ‘Whatever it takes,’ Ray said.

  Kyra took courage from the old man. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘whatever it takes.’

  After they arranged a meeting, the screen went black and Alex stood looking at Kyra.

  ‘So, are you going to explain that to me?’ she asked, her arms crossed.

  Kyra took a deep breath. She could trust Alex, couldn’t she? She would have to now she no longer had Jimmy’s support. She couldn’t do this on her own.

  ‘We’ve got until tomorrow midnight, judging by the pattern, to save Isabel. We have no witnesses and no leads. Neither the pub nor the hospital has anything we can work with. The house search has turned up nothing so far. Head Injury Man was really our last option and there seems to be no one else coming forward.’

  ‘Head Injury came in to the station late last night,’ Alex said but her expression was one of disappointment. ‘Saw news reports and realised it was him. Came in with his dad and his dad’s lawyer. He was terrified we were going to think he was Lomax’s accomplice.’

  A rush of dizziness overwhelmed her. ‘Who was he? Anyone to worry about? Did he tell you anything useful?’

  ‘No, not really. Matthew Halsall, a second-year university student. Doesn’t recall anything. His flatmate came to look for him when he hadn’t returned home an hour after calling to say he was on his way with their tea from the takeaway. He said he found him half a mile away from the Farmers’ Arms slumped against a wall.’

  ‘But no one called an ambulance?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ Alex bit her lip and said, ‘Going back to Ray – his testimony was confused and inaccurate at best. We were looking for information about Jennifer Bosanquet who had been abducted on the eighth of February, but Ray was convinced he had seen the woman on the first of February, so it didn’t make sense what he was saying. Surely Ray Clarke can’t tell us anything?’

  ‘No, that’s the point, he can’t tell us anything,’ agreed Kyra, ‘but we can find out, if we go into his memories.’ She wasn’t surprised Alex looked confused. ‘I’ve been developing a new technology designed to read memories from the brain directly. Recently, it has become obvious that this would be highly valuable in police investigations.’

  ‘But how can we access those memories if he can’t?’

  ‘The human brain can see and remember things, even if the person is not conscious of what they have seen. Trauma, in particular, can mess up the memory to the extent that we can start to imagine things we saw, making stuff up, if you like. We are hardwired for narrative.’ Alex’s expression changed into one of disbelief, but she pressed on. ‘The human brain needs to see a pattern, a story, so it tries to explain what it saw, even if what it saw was disjointed, incomplete – it puts ideas together to try to make logic of things that are often illogical. On the other hand, instead of adding things that aren’t there, the brain also filters things out. But those things that were seen and logged by the brain are still there in the memory. We just have to access them.’

  ‘People see and remember things, even though they don’t know they’ve remembered those things?’

  ‘Yes, and we can see what they saw, see what they have forgotten they saw. We can access Ray Clarke’s memories and get a more accurate picture. It might give us some more leads.’

  ‘You know of course that this won’t be admissible in court? He’ll be no more a useful witness to us in court than he was fifteen years ago.’

  ‘We don’t need him to be a credible witness in court,’ Kyra replied. ‘It’s intelligence, not evidence. No more than a secret informant. Ray can’t tell us even if he wanted to. He’s lost the pathway to that memory. But this technology, it could get us right into those memories, we’d be able to see what he saw. Sixteen years since the first victims died and where the hell are we? This could help us solve this case and get him, once and for all. You never know, you might get a promotion off the back of it.’

  Alex’s eyes were wide. The corners of her mouth turned up.

  ‘And you’ll find out for sure who killed your sister,’ Alex replied.

  They were locked in a conspiracy now. There was no way they could tell Tom, he would be furious they had gone against his orders.

  ‘Ray is more than willing to go through with the procedure,’ Kyra added. ‘It’s not only about a face, seeing who did the crime, it’s about the other things, the details that will lead to the criminal. There are things in Ray’s mind that will have remained untouched for fifteen years. ‘

  Alex said excitedly, ‘It’s the perfect crime scene.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2035

  4.37 p.m.

  Kyra hated the expression Time is a great healer. It was never any easier, Emma’s anniversary. It was just different. Different because Molly was so grown up now, because her own father was no longer there, because she herself was getting older. Nothing seemed healed at all, only more fragmented.

  Cremation was compulsory, although particularly religious and wealthy Londoners would have their loved ones remains shipped out overseas – mainly Jerusalem and Mecca – if they wanted a burial. Land was too precious and too expensive here now and the government had ended the protests against interments only for those who could afford it with a blanket ban.

  Kyra liked the minimalism of the Necroplex; the columns of small, shiny, grey engraved boxes that lined the white walls, four rows high, gave a calm, pleasing symmetry. There was room for a small candle and a posy of flowers next to each plot. Delicate strands of light from the abstract stained-glass windows hit the white in spots of colour, echoing the flowers of the orangery through the glass doors at the far end of the hall.

  The orangery was a beautiful verdant garden replete with images of the deceased, memorial benches, water features and ‘in memoriam’ plants. Families passed each other in quiet sadness with brief, empathetic nods. Kyra watched her mother borrow secateurs from a basket by the door, make her way to Emma’s rose bush and clip a few curling leaves.

  Molly reached out and touched the photograph of her mother next to her plot. Emma eternally youthful, that heart-breaking smile, the dimples. Kyra couldn’t help but smile back, albeit briefly.

  Molly leaned her head onto her aunt’s shoulder. Kyra remembered the promises she had made at Emma’s funeral to do everything she could to protect Molly, to nurture her and steer her onto a stable grounding. She wasn’t sure how successful she had been so far.

  ‘I know I don’t really remember having her around, but I miss her,’ said Molly. ‘Does that sound weird?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  After a few moments, Molly lifted her head and asked, ‘Why did you argue with Mum last time you saw her? What did you row about?’

  Kyra had never made a secret of the fact that her mother had left the cafe angry after they had had words, dragging Molly with her. She had played it down, of course, but her niece had always known. Kyra had always avoided answering this question honestly, brushing it off, saying it had been trivial.

  Molly’s golden eyes locked onto hers.

  Kyra shrugged, ‘Nothing important, something stupid … I can’t remember.’

  ‘Please tell me. I know there’s more to it than that. You can tell me now I’m an adult.’

  How could she tell her niece that
the argument with her mother had been about the most important thing in the world – about Molly herself?

  Kyra was distracted by a man who came in through the orangery door and stood there motionless for a moment. He was too far away for her to be able to see his face, and the hood of his jacket pulled up. There was something odd about him, out of place.

  ‘Tell me,’ insisted Molly. She wasn’t going to let it go. Kyra would have to give her something to satisfy her curiosity.

  ‘We’d been sitting in the cafe for over an hour …’ Kyra began. ‘It was not long after your third birthday. You kept looking for your mum out of the cafe window and asking for her. You drew shapes on the misty glass.’

  Kyra remembered how furious she’d been. They’d been there for nearly an hour. She’d had more important things to do than sit around waiting for Emma to show up whenever. She had a proper job to get on with, not some ridiculous eco-mission with a bunch of misfits.

  ‘Why was Mum late?’

  ‘She’d been on an eco-protest, a high-profile one.’

  The man with the hooded jacket began to walk slowly up the hall. He stopped at one of the memorial plaques and reached out to touch a flower in the nearby vase. There was something oddly stilted about the way he moved.

  ‘You were playing teacups with your dolly.’ She remembered Molly with a cake-smeared face, kneeling up on the chair, chattering away to herself, rearranging the cups and spoons, pouring her doll a pretend cup of tea, smiling up at a man who walked past her and patted her head as her mother arrived. ‘You’ve always loved cake.’

  Molly smiled, but sadness washed over Kyra. She had been angry with Emma and, when she finally arrived, she had let it get the better of her: If you think going on eco-protests with people with stupid nicknames like Mick Tree and Rivergirl is more important than spending time with your daughter … Oh, by the way, living in the shithole is affecting Molly’s health, she’s been coughing all day and … have you been drinking alcohol? You smell like …

  ‘Your mum was a bit late meeting us. She was never much good at time-keeping … she was late because …’

  The man moved slowly closer along the hall. He seemed to be going to each of the memorials. What was he looking for? He stood next to a couple who were comforting each other, disturbing their grief. They looked over at him, confused, until he moved away.

  ‘What was she talking about the last time you saw her?’

  I only had one or two beers on the train on the way back … I know how to look after my kid … I didn’t take her on the protest, did I? I thought you two would enjoy spending time together … Do you know how hard it is to be a single parent and be on duty all the time … never having any fun … give me a break … you have no idea what it’s like to be a parent.

  Oh right, because I don’t have kids I don’t understand!

  At least I didn’t leave Mols with the other squatters, at least I left her with someone I could trust … Don’t worry, Molly, Mummy and Aunty Kyra are just chatting.

  When are you going to grow up and take some responsibility?

  At least I’m fighting for a decent world for my kid to grow up in!

  ‘You, always you. You were the centre of her world.’ Kyra bit her lip.

  She remembered many of the customers had observed

  the debacle, and the man who had patted Molly had

  shot the two sisters a glance moments before he had left the cafe, his expression … disappointed.

  And Kyra’s final parting shot: You shouldn’t have gotten pregnant so young! Are you even sober enough to look after that child … You’re a terrible mother!

  How could she tell Molly any of this? She had always tried so hard to protect Emma’s memory. But also, she didn’t want to show her niece what a terrible person she herself was; how irritable, stubborn, judgemental. So different from the usual memories she told Molly about – when she would put Emma to bed and stroke her hair until she fell asleep.

  She watched the biggest regret, the biggest sorrow, of her life unfold on the screen of her mind’s eye – Emma standing up, knocking the table, crockery clattering, Kyra’s body glued with stubbornness and resentment to the rickety wooden chair beneath her. Emma wrestling with her bag strap as it caught over the backrest. Molly’s pet lip as she was torn away from her cake and her cups of pretend tea.

  Her last vision of her beloved Emma had been her hand, holding Molly’s much smaller one, disappearing out of the cafe door, back out into the cold night air.

  And then, worse still – the thing she wished more than anything that she could change – she had sat there, at the table, stirring her cold coffee, feeling anger and resentment until she had suddenly come to her senses and rushed out of the door, the word ‘sorry’ on her lips.

  But Emma and Molly had disappeared.

  Kyra had run to the nearest corner, and found Molly standing alone in a side street, crying on the pavement, and at the far end of the Tarmac, hardly visible – the tail lights of a car.

  A little chubby hand pointing, a tear-stained face, ‘Mummy in car.’

  Kyra never saw Emma alive again.

  She came back from her memories, Molly’s eyes urging her.

  ‘Go on, Ky. Was she saying nice things about me?’

  The man had come closer to them, was only a few metres away now. He stood looking at one of the memorials, hands in his pockets. Kyra could only see the side of his hood from here. He was probably someone in grief – was that why his behaviour seemed somehow strange? Bereavement affected people differently. He didn’t look particularly big or threatening, but the bees begin to buzz again in her chest-hive, tiny stings all along her nerves. Molly, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice him, too interested in the information she was trying to glean.

  Was he just another mourner? Or another phantom? Or was he more sinister than that? Had the MOD been following her after all? Were they a threat to her family? Hadn’t she promised Emma, so many times, in this very place, that she would protect Molly?

  ‘You okay, Ky?’ Molly asked, following her eyeline.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she smiled, putting her hand around her niece’s shoulder. She looked back to see where the man was. He reached over to a candle and snuffed it out between his finger and thumb. The hairs on her neck stood up.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and find your nan.’

  ‘But, Ky, you were telling me about—’

  ‘I’ll tell you more later.’ There was a brief resistance in Molly, and then she gave in. Kyra ignored her insistence to continue the story and turned to see the man step forward and run his finger down the photograph of Emma. She felt a rush of nausea and hurried to the orangery door, leaving the man looming next to her sister’s remains.

  6.32 p.m.

  When they got home, the three women followed the annual memorial ritual of settling down on the sofa in front of the screen to watch an old film, one of the classics that Emma had loved. Molly had chosen The Breakfast Club.

  By the time the bottle of wine was half empty, the takeaway had been delivered and dished out. Even though Kyra had only drunk one glass, the alcohol took the edge off her nerves. She would have to leave eventually to meet Ray at the Lab as they had agreed. She wouldn’t be too long, then she would come back here and finish the wine. It was comforting to be at her mum’s, away from all the stress of the investigation. After she had eaten, she lay across the armchair, legs over one arm, watching the screen. She tried to fight it, but weariness overcame her and she began drifting off; her eyelids became heavy, her breath slowed. Even with her eyes closed, she could hear the dialogue from the screen and feel the presence of the two women she loved the most in the world nearby. She briefly jolted awake and saw her mother and niece, leaning against each other on the sofa, engrossed in the film. She needed to stay awake, but the exhaustion, wine and cosiness were too strong a cocktail.

  Sometime later, Kyra slowly opened her eyes. The film was still on, and, at first, she
could not see clearly, her vision blurry with sleep. Was that Molly leaning over her?

  She rubbed her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  But as her sight cleared, her mind could not begin to take in what was in front of her – Emma, her face white-grey, her eyes staring, the duct tape pulled down, but still covering her mouth, naked, except for her lower half covered in black plastic and, where her heart should have been, there was a gaping, glistening wound.

  Kyra jumped up, clawing her way backwards over the armchair, startling her mum and niece.

  ‘Jesus, no!’ she cried as her sister’s dead eyes followed her every move.

  ‘What is it, love?’ asked her mother, standing up, alarmed.

  ‘Can’t you see?’ Kyra cried out, horrified, clambering off the chair and grabbing onto her mother, pointing to where the ghostly figure stood.

  ‘See what, Kyra?’

  Molly drew back, hugging herself in fear on the sofa like a little girl.

  Emma stood silent, a harrowing spectre. She slowly lifted her arm and at the end of her wrist. A bloody stump pointed towards Molly, a bone shard jutting out like a misplaced finger.

  ‘Mum! Mum!’ cried Kyra, unable to tear her eyes away from her sister.

  And then Emma was gone.

  Kyra collapsed onto the sofa, her heart thumping against her ribcage, cold sweat on her brow. What had it meant? A warning? A judgement?

  ‘Ky, what just happened?’ Molly asked, her voice trembling.

  When she saw her niece’s face, Kyra tried to pull herself together, be strong like she always had been for these women.

  ‘Molly, get my inhaler … in my bag …’

  Kyra knew why it was happening and, although she kept telling herself that it was all in her imagination, she felt a deep sense of unease. It was the first vision that she had seen when others had been present. Was she losing control over the phantoms? Did this mean she was going to have to live with these things? Should she ring Jimmy?

  No, she was on her own with this.

  Molly hurried into the hall and brought her bag in.