‘I remember,’ he said, softly. ‘I woke up and remembered everything.’
‘What?’
‘Torchwood.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I remember Torchwood.’
For a moment Suzie froze, her eyes darting cautiously around the room for something to attack him with should he lunge at her, adrenalin surging through her still body, and the darkness forming a sudden cloud behind her eyes, but then he turned back to the window and drew in a long lungful of smoke.
‘You might want to sit down because this is going to sound crazy,’ he said. ‘They were a special unit. Dealt with aliens and alien technology. The first time my path crossed with theirs was in London. The details of the case don’t really matter, what matters is the whole thing messed me up. There was an alien inside a man – making him do things. I saw it. I’d been so keen to take him down and then when I saw what I did – impossible as it was – I couldn’t. Torchwood came and dealt with the alien, but they sure as shit weren’t as good with the human fallout. I had to manage that. I screwed up my career over it. Couldn’t let an innocent man go to prison, no matter what they said. I said I’d planted evidence and the judge threw the case out.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus.’
Torchwood One. Suzie felt her panic ease slightly. It was Torchwood One he was talking about. If she was careful she might be OK here. She needed to react like a normal person would. Like she’d seen so many times in the old days. ‘Aliens?’ she said, softly. ‘You mean like illegal ones from other countries?’
‘No.’ He laughed a little. ‘I mean like the real deal. Outer space. Bloody Torchwood. I got transferred down here after that, my glittering career over. And then along came the opera murders. Until tonight,’ he gazed down at the glowing end of his cigarette, ‘that whole case was in my memory exactly like it was reported in the papers. One man gone mad. Practising on others and then murdering his wife to pay off their debts. But it wasn’t like that at all. Not really. I remember standing out in the rain when we found the first body all opened up in the church and with its voicebox missing, and then, lo and behold, they turned up again. A different team, but Torchwood all the same. Captain Jack Harkness and that pretty little ex-copper and the Welsh coffee lover. I knew as soon as they stepped out of that SUV that it was going to be all the weird shit all over again and I was going to end up more screwed up than I had been the first time round. And I was right. We got the alien, though. That time it worked out all OK. They were good people, those three. When it was over, we went to a bar, I had a beer with Jack and then,’ his eyes narrowed slightly, ‘nothing. Everything was forgotten.’
‘Aliens?’ she coughed out a small laugh. ‘In Cardiff? Did someone put something in your champagne?’
‘No,’ Cutler said, softly. ‘But Captain Jack Harkness put something in my beer I think.’ He smiled at her. ‘Come here.’
Suzie stood between his legs and he pulled her down so that she too was seated on the edge of the armchair with him behind her. He wrapped one arm around her waist and even in this cautious situation she couldn’t fight that it felt good. She belonged with him. This sudden revelation, unsettling as it was, confirmed it to her. They’d both been messed up by Torchwood and Captain Jack Harkness. If they were damaged souls, then it was that immortal man’s fault. She leaned her head back on Cutler shoulder. ‘Nothing as exciting as aliens comes to Wales.’
‘Look up there.’ Cutler pointed one finger up to the night sky. His breath was warm against her neck and she wanted to smile. Here with him, she was as close to happy as she’d ever been. Maybe she could persuade him to come with her. Maybe if she could just explain… the thought drifted away. How could she possibly explain what she’d done?
‘What?’ she said, her voice light.
‘Somewhere up there in space is a rift. Some kind of cut in space or something, and all manner of shit comes through it. Including aliens.’
‘Over Cardiff?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where are these people now?’ she asked. ‘This Torchwood?’
‘I don’t know where they are, but here’s the funny part. The site you’re working on? That Commander Jackson is excavating?’
‘What about it?’
‘That was their base. The Hub, they called it. There was a lift where the water tower used to be. If you came out that way then no one in the street could see you until you stepped off. What a crazy place. Jackson and his people must be trying to get out as much of the alien shit stored there as they can.’ He leaned sideways and lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke away from her body. ‘I bet there’ll be something alien at the bottom of these murders too. No wonder I’ve been drawn to the site all this time. My brain has been trying to make me remember.’
‘The site? Where I’m working?’ She thought carefully before speaking. She couldn’t overplay this. ‘God, I’d heard rumours that it was something a little bit X Files, but alien hunters? It’s too much to take in.’
‘Have a dig around in your boss’s computer tomorrow. Or sneak a peek at the stuff they’re bringing out. Then you’ll believe me. There’s been enough weird shit going on if you think about it. When all the kids went freaky for one.’
‘Yes,’ Suzie said. ‘The more I think about it, the more I can see it. They’re definitely bringing some strange stuff out of the wreckage of that building, and I suppose that’s why they have Department scientists there. Like the one who died.’
‘There’s something else,’ Cutler said. ‘I’ve got this bad feeling. A really bad feeling. Like something terrible is coming, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s like a doorway’s been opened somewhere and it needs to be closed.’
Suzie turned to face him and cupped his face in her hands. ‘You’ve had a shock, that’s all. This sudden rush of memories is bound to be unsettling. Let’s go back to bed and get a couple of hours’ sleep and then come to work with me. We can talk to the boss. See what he’s got to say.’
‘I remember,’ Cutler muttered, looking at some empty space over her shoulder. ‘That’s what the suicides wrote. The same two words that are ringing in my head.’
‘What suicides?’ Suzie asked.
‘They remembered.’ Cutler was momentarily lost in his own thoughts. ‘Just like me. These people – I think they were given the same drug I was. Whatever it was that made us all forget. And now they’re remembering.’
Retcon. That’s what they would have given him. ‘But you don’t feel like killing yourself, do you?’ she asked. Despite herself, her curiosity was engaged, just as it would have been back when she was Torchwood. She was pretty much all that was left of Torchwood now. The last one standing. You could never keep a good girl down. Not even with a couple of stints of death.
‘No.’ Cutler shook his head and then stroked her hair out of her face, tucking it carefully behind one of her ears. ‘Certainly not tonight. I feel a bit like my whole life of late has been a lie, but I don’t feel suicidal.’ He pulled her mouth towards his and kissed her. ‘Quite far from it,’ he continued when they broke away, ‘even with this sense that something bad is coming.’
‘So why would these people kill themselves and not you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe because I’d already had an experience with Torchwood in London before the Cardiff lot gave me their drugs? I knew about Torchwood and all this alien stuff for years before they wiped me. These people might have been only a day or so. Perhaps that’s the difference. What if this feeling of dread is worse for them somehow? Maybe we’re remembering because we have to. Because this is some kind of alien thing that’s coming – something so terrible that our basic survival instinct is kicking in and because we’ve come across this stuff before we can see it in a way ordinary people can’t?’
‘That’s a lot of maybes,’ Suzie said. A haggard, haunted look had settled on Cutler and she found it suited him better than his previous almost carefree expression. Jack Harkness had been stupid not to hire DI Tom Cutler. He’d
have been better than Miss sweet-and-sickly Gwen bloody Cooper. Maybe Jack was incapable of hiring someone that didn’t want to sleep with him. She swallowed the bile. Torchwood was gone. Maybe she and Cutler could start their own branch… maybe they could go somewhere like America…
She shut the thoughts down. There was no future for them. It was a childish idea that belonged to the old Suzie who, somewhere deep down, just wanted everything to be normal again. That Suzie was dead, she reminded herself. If she hadn’t been totally eradicated the first time round, the second long stretch of nothing had finished her off.
She couldn’t let Cutler live. He was too smart. Soon enough he’d figure out that she was the bad thing that was coming. It was all inside her on the other side of her eyes.
‘Let’s go back to bed,’ she said, gently. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it all now. In a couple of hours it will be morning, and then we’ll find the Commander. I promise.’ She leaned forward and kissed his head. ‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’ She smiled. ‘For after.’
Her eyes watered as she wrapped herself around him again and she swallowed down the tears. They still had an hour or two before she’d have to kill him and she wanted to make the most of it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Cutler woke up, he was struck by three things. First, that his head felt as if a truck had driven through it, second that his phone was ringing, and third, that the space beside him in the bed was empty. He frowned and peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth. God, he felt like crap.
‘Sue?’ he called out, his voice like gravel. There was no answer. The flat was silent, no running water from the shower, nor a kettle boiling in the kitchen. He sat up, ignoring the throbbing drumbeat in his skull and looking around the room. Her clothes were gone. What time was it? Somewhere on the floor his phone stopped ringing, which came as a momentary relief, and he rolled over to grab his watch. It was gone eight o’clock and he swore under his breath as he kicked the covers off and tumbled out. Why hadn’t she woken him up?
His head spun slightly, and he stumbled as he headed to the bathroom. If he didn’t know better he’d think he had a hangover, but he hadn’t drunk enough and he’d been fine before they went to sleep. He glanced at the half-drunk glass of water by the bed. Had she slipped him a sleeping pill? His head felt drugged, he couldn’t deny that, but why would she? Did she want to speak to Commander Jackson without any interference from him? Maybe this fuzziness was just fallout from what he’d remembered. As he brushed his teeth, a familiar stranger stared back. This Tom Cutler didn’t go running in the mornings and get early nights and always stop after two or three beers. This was the one who smoked for breakfast and last thing at night, and felt the urge to trip up smug joggers if they happened to cross his path. Overnight, dark circles had formed under his eyes to welcome him back, and he splashed water over his face and body to shake the mugginess away, then ran his fingers through his hair. He needed a shower – after last night he definitely needed a shower – but he didn’t have time. He sprayed a coating of deodorant over his skin and headed back into his bedroom. His mobile started ringing again as he grabbed his shirt from the previous evening and pulled it on. He’d only worn it for a few hours and it would have to do.
‘I know I’m late,’ he muttered into the phone while lighting a cigarette. ‘I’ll be there…’
‘… as soon as you can, I hope,’ Andy Davidson finished his sentence for him. ‘We’ve got three more suicides reported, and I doubt that’s it. We’re getting loads of missing people being reported too. I don’t know what the hell happened last night, but something’s freaking Cardiff out.’
A wave of terror and foreboding rushed through Cutler’s system, the sudden adrenalin rush that came with it killing off his headache. He sucked hard on his cigarette. ‘Give me ten minutes.’
He tried Sue’s number on the way to the car but it rang out. Maybe she kept it in her bag while she was working. The answerphone kicked in and he listened to the mechanical message, slightly sad not to hear her voice. ‘Hey, it’s me,’ he said. ‘Look, thanks for letting me sleep in, but I’m going to head over to the site when I’ve checked in at the station. Don’t do anything until I get there. I don’t want you to get into trouble, OK?’ He paused and then hung up, not sure how to say goodbye. He’d probably see her before she heard it anyway.
The drive through the rush-hour traffic did little to clear his thinking, nor shake his sense of unease, and when he got to work, the first thing he wanted was to make sure that he wasn’t going crazy and that these were real memories that had come back to him so suddenly. Bypassing Andy Davidson who was signalling to him while on a desk phone, Cutler strode into his boss’s office.
‘Knocking is the polite way to get my attention, Cutler,’ DCI Waterman said, looking up from his desk.
‘Torchwood,’ Cutler said. He saw the defensive tension immediately tighten up in Waterman’s shoulders. Bingo. ‘You’ve heard of them, then?’
‘Not for a while. Don’t ask me for details because I don’t have any. They weren’t in my remit.’
‘Did they step in and take over some cases?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes.’ Waterman leaned back, his lips pursed. ‘Why?’
‘Did they help out on the opera singer case? My big case?’
‘Are you saying you don’t remember?’
‘Humour me.’ Cutler knew the answer. He’d known it as soon as his boss had reacted to the mention of Torchwood, but he needed to hear it. It was as if a film was being peeled away from the world and he was seeing it clearly.
‘They might have done. You worked the case, but they had an interest. What the hell is all this about?’
Cutler was saved answering by Andy Davidson opening the door.
‘Doesn’t anyone knock any more?’ Waterman asked.
‘Sorry, sir.’ Andy looked at Cutler. ‘You’re not going to believe this. The suicide count is now at seven, and one of the names that came up was Eryn Bunting.’
‘The teacher? The one whose bank statement was taken to open the safety deposit box?’ Cutler gave a short nod to their bemused DCI who was shooing them away, and walked out of his office with the sergeant. ‘Are you sure it’s her?’
‘Yes. She slashed her wrists in the bathroom and wrote “I remember” on the wall.’
Cutler’s mind reeled. If his theory about the suicides was right, that meant Eryn Bunting’s memory had been wiped by Torchwood at some point. If Sue’s story was true, then the murders started at the Hub, and something was taken out of a safety deposit box set up years ago in Eryn Bunting’s name. Did someone steal her bank statement while her memory was being wiped? Surely only someone in this elusive Torchwood team could have done that.
Torchwood. Everything was Torchwood, and Torchwood was everything. The dread that was growing inside him, that was Torchwood too. He knew it in every fibre of his being. Torchwood had been woven into his life for ever, it seemed, and destroyed as the Hub might be, it wasn’t letting go yet. What the hell was going on? He needed to get to the site and talk to the Commander. Something bigger than murder was going on here.
Screaming. The screaming of millions. He didn’t understand the sudden thought and, wrapped around the dread as it was, he pushed it to one side. He didn’t have time for a terror he couldn’t explain. Not until he’d got to the bottom of this. Something else was bugging him. Something Sue had said to him the previous night had set an alarm bell ringing in his head and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
‘I want to know about Bunting’s background,’ he said to Andy. ‘Get in touch with her school. Let me know if there was anything strange or out of the ordinary that happened around the time her bank statement went missing.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll let you know if it comes to anything.’ He was sending the sergeant to do an unnecessary job, but he wanted to handle this on his own. Torchwood had messed up his life – he wasn’t going to le
t it get the young sergeant too. Whatever was going on here, he’d figure it out himself. He shut the door to his office and dialled Jackson’s office. He hoped that Sue Costa would answer but instead the Commander barked a greeting into his ear.
‘I need to come in and talk to you,’ Cutler said. ‘It’s urgent. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere.’ He let the Commander start his protests before he cut him off. ‘These murders are wrapped up with Torchwood, and since you’re sitting on the Hub I need answers from you.’ He hung up before they could get into a conversation. This was something they needed to do face to face, and the Commander could sweat for a bit. He’d almost got to the end of the Incident Room when a young constable called him back. She looked flushed and excited.
‘It’s the tech team, sir,’ she said. ‘That CCTV you wanted? From the first two suicide locations? They’ve been through it all and they’ve got something.’
Cutler stared at her. Commander Jackson was going to have to wait another half an hour.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elwood Jackson stayed on the phone for a moment or two after the policeman had hung up, the empty tone doing little to ease his sudden anxiety. How the hell did Cutler know about the Hub? It was true that some of the police – especially the Cardiff police – knew of Torchwood’s existence, but not in any detail, and they certainly didn’t know about the Hub. What had changed? What the hell had Cutler found out about these murders that had brought him that information?
He rubbed his forehead and sighed. It was first thing in the morning and he was tired already. The Department weren’t going to be happy about this, but what the hell was he supposed to do about it? He’d never been a great sleeper but over the past few nights the hours he’d got had dwindled below five and were filled with nightmares of being terrified and trapped in Hell. They disturbed him, mainly because he wasn’t a man with much imagination and the creatures that loomed out of the darkness in these dreams were beyond anything he thought his mind could make up. On top of that, with the deaths and mutilations he’d seen on various battlefields over the years, he hadn’t thought Hell could hold anything that might frighten him. If the experiences in his sleep were anything to go by, then he’d thought wrong.
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