‘My feet are not size nines,’ said Gwen curtly.
‘He was selling crack, or “slinging rock”, as I believe you young people say these days. I attribute this to the pernicious influence of American television. The terminology I mean, not the drug dealing.’
‘So he was dealing on the Machen estate. . .’
‘Well, on the car park of the supermarket across the road, actually. At least that was where the body was found. The body parts.’
Gwen steeled herself to look dispassionately once again at the divided corpse. Businesslike, that was the order of the day. ‘So, what do you think did this to him?’
‘If you’re talking about the actual implement used, then it’s definitely alien in origin.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘The neatness of the job,’ Jack told her. ‘He was sliced in two with a single smooth blow. And the wound was heat-sealed, virtually instantly, so there was no blood. You all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Gwen. ‘Fine.’
‘At first the police thought he’d been killed somewhere else and the body drained of blood and cut up before he was transported and dumped outside the Happy Price supermarket. A kind of Black Dahlia number. But with a gender flip. There was no trace of blood there in the car park, so the police assumed he must have been—’
‘Killed elsewhere and transported there,’ supplied Gwen.
‘Right. But there was no blood for a completely different reason. The heat sealing. Boiled off any bodily fluids. Or solidified them. You know, sort of cooked or coagulated. You sure you’re all right? Looking a bit green round the gills, there. Not that I’m saying you have gills. Unlike some I could name.’
Gwen forced a smile. ‘No. I’m fine. Go on.’
‘Well, that’s about it, really. Like I say, alien weaponry of some kind. Nothing currently available on Earth would have made such a—’
‘Don’t say neat again.’
Jack nodded, as though acknowledging the reasonableness of this request. ‘Such a precise job. No conventional contemporary human artefact could both cut and burn like that. So it has to be something else. Something from off-world.’
‘Right. OK. Great. Is that all we know?’
‘No.’ Jack shook his head and walked over to a bench where surgical instruments gleamed in stainless-steel bowls. Propped between the bowls was a green rectangular plastic folder containing papers. Jack looked at the folder. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘We also know he’s not the first.’
‘There’ve been others?’
Jack tapped the folder with his fingernail. ‘That’s what Ianto seems to think. Isn’t that right, Ianto?’
Gwen realised he was now addressing his communications earpiece. He had an annoying habit of doing this, entirely without warning, in the middle of a conversation with you.
‘Yes,’ said Ianto, his voice, responding to Jack’s question, was suddenly also alive in her earpiece. Gwen pictured Ianto back at the Hub, ironic expression on his face, sitting in front of a computer, no doubt with a coffee. ‘Judging by that autopsy report, this killing could be the same as at least two others.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Gwen.
‘I’ll need a tissue sample to be certain.’ Ianto’s voice was businesslike and matter-of-fact, but intimately close in her ear.
Gwen’s eyes strayed again to what had once been Rhett Seyers.
As if reading her mind through the sheer proximity of the earpiece to her brain, Ianto’s voice said, ‘But none of them were cut in two like your victim, though they were apparently killed with the same device.’
‘Or the same kind of device,’ said Jack.
‘You think there might be more than one?’ Gwen saw the implication. ‘More than one alien heat-weapon out there? Capable of this?’
‘I’ve learned to be pessimistic,’ said Jack.
‘So we’re looking for at least one person and possibly more running around the streets of Cardiff with this very dangerous alien weaponry.’
‘Maybe not running,’ said Jack, and smiled.
Gwen didn’t smile back. She didn’t think the situation was in any way funny.
Ianto’s voice murmured in her ear, ‘Your friend on the table there—’
‘On two tables actually,’ said Jack.
‘Well, like him,’ continued Ianto, ‘the other two victims were also drug dealers.’
‘So someone has somehow got hold of this alien weapon—’
‘Or weapons,’ said Jack.
‘And they are going around with it, killing drug dealers.’
Jack gave a thoughtful shrug. ‘Either that or we have an alien heat-gun complete with an alien gunman using it, and it’s this alien who is specialising in bumping off drug dealers.’
Gwen looked at him. ‘So, what are you suggesting? An alien vigilante?’
Jack smiled. ‘Yeah. Possibly. We haven’t had one of those for a while.’
‘Or. . .’ came Ianto’s voice again.
Jack rolled his eyes at Gwen.
‘. . . it could be black market,’ Ianto went on. ‘There’s that group we’ve been trying to find for – what? – a couple of months now. Whoever they are, they’ve been selling stolen alien gear, making a fortune.’
‘Could be,’ agreed Jack. ‘Good thinking, Ianto. See what you can find out.’
Ianto ended his transmission, and Gwen turned and started for the door, expecting Jack to follow, eager to set off back to the Hub. For her own part, she was anxious to get out into the sunshine and the fresh air again.
But instead Jack lingered behind. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.
Gwen paused in the doorway and looked back at him. He was standing by the bowls of surgical instruments, looking pensively at them.
‘What for?’ she said.
‘Tissue sample.’
Gwen remembered. ‘Oh Jesus, yes, that.’
As Jack sorted through the instruments, they rang in their steel bowls, incongruously musical in the cold tiled room.
It took half an hour in late-morning traffic to get back to the Hub and another full half an hour for Ianto to complete the comparison of the tissue sample. Although, to be fair, a considerable portion of that time was taken up by him wrestling with the coffee machine and seeking to achieve what he referred to as ‘an acceptable crema’ on his cappuccino.
On microscopic examination, the damage to the tissue sample Jack had collected proved identical to the damage on the samples taken from the two previous victims. ‘The late Alex Brown and the late Bobby Pembroke,’ said Ianto. He filed the microscope slides back in a refrigerated drawer and pushed it smoothly shut.
‘And now Rhett Seyers.’
‘The common denominator,’ said Jack, ‘is that they’re all drug dealers.’
Ianto frowned. ‘Bit young, aren’t they?’
‘Not even precocious by today’s standards. Maybe the government is running some kind of fast-track scheme to get school leavers started selling crack cocaine.’
‘Don’t be so cynical,’ said Gwen. ‘It doesn’t suit you. And you know they’re dealers because. . .?’
‘Police files,’ said Jack. He was sitting with his feet up, folding a piece of paper. ‘That’s the only factor linking them all.’ He finished folding the paper into the shape of a paper plane. ‘Apart from the weapon that killed them.’ He snapped his wrist and sent the plane sailing gracefully through the shadows of the Hub.
‘Not the only factor,’ said Gwen.
Jack took his eyes off the plane’s trajectory and looked at her.
She tried to keep any hint of smugness out of her voice. ‘The victims are also all linked by the Machen Estate.’
Ianto shook his head and turned back to the computer screen. ‘No, sorry, but that’s not right, Gwen. Yes, Rhett Seyers was found there. But Alex Brown was dumped in a recycling bin in the town centre, and Bobby Pembroke was fished out of the bay.’
‘I didn’t say that they were all found in the M
achen Estate. I said they were all linked by it.’ Gwen turned to her own computer screen where she had set up a virtual incident board, comprising the facts she’d pulled off various databases in the past half-hour. ‘Alex Brown’s last known address was on the Machen. Flat 5 in Pan House.’
‘Pan?’ said Jack, his forehead furrowing. ‘Is that estate in any way connected with Arthur Machen?’
Gwen consulted her screen again. ‘Arthur Machen, yes, right, that’s the full, official name of the place. But everyone just calls it the Machen.’
‘Why do you ask?’ said Ianto, looking speculatively at Jack. ‘Who was he?’
‘Writer. Interesting guy.’ Jack nodded thoughtfully, ‘Aleister Crowley was a big fan of his. I knew him vaguely.’
‘Crowley or Machen?’ asked Gwen. She had heard of Aleister Crowley, at least.
‘Arthur Machen,’ said Jack. ‘Him, I knew.’
‘But only vaguely?’ said Ianto.
‘Well enough to feel sorry that he’s had a dump like that named after him.’ Jack stood behind Gwen and peered over her shoulder at the picture of the estate on her screen. ‘Poor guy.’
‘And the second dealer,’ continued Gwen, rather annoyed that they’d got sidetracked before she’d finished presenting the facts she’d so painstakingly ferreted out. ‘Bobby Pembroke, he also lived on the Machen, with his family. In Bowmen House.’
‘Bowmen, yes,’ said Jack. ‘That makes sense. I think we better go to this place and have a sniff around.’
The Machen Estate consisted of five four-storey blocks, rectangular brown- and white-brick structures called Pan House, Pyramid House, Bowmen House, Jade House and Sangraal House. Seen in the aerial photo from Gwen’s file they were arranged like a spread hand of cards on a casino table, oblongs stretching radially back from the shallow semicircle of the access road which ran from the west gate to the east gate of the estate.
These twin gates were ornate arches set in the long red-brick wall that separated them and screened the estate from the main road. But behind this handsome old wall, ornately scrolled and topped with grubby cream brickwork, there was a shadowy wasteland of dead grass, abandoned crisp packets, plastic cola bottles and beer tins.
In the middle of this patch of wasteland was what had once been a quaint little cottage pub. It was called the Red Hand. According to Jack, this unusual name, like the names of all the other buildings, was drawn from the literary works of Arthur Machen. Gwen had printed out a map of the place and she’d studied it, scrutinising the names, on the way here.
She walked past the west gate, along the street. Putting her map away and looking around she immediately spotted the gleaming black Torchwood SUV, parked opposite the Happy Price supermarket. The Happy Price was sited facing the east gate of the estate, as though to catch unwary inhabitants of the Machen as they emerged into the outside world.
Approaching from behind, Gwen could see the silhouette of Jack sitting in the SUV. She crossed the road, glancing automatically both ways for approaching cars, and hurried over. He must have been watching in the mirror, or maybe he had some kind of sixth sense, because Gwen heard the doors unlock as she approached.
She opened the passenger door and climbed in beside him. The door thudded solidly shut behind her, sealing them in, and Gwen felt the sense of security, the reassuring protective embrace of the big vehicle, enhanced considerably by the presence of Jack in the next seat.
He smiled at her. ‘A little late, aren’t we? For the big stakeout? I mean, I’ve been here since dawn. What if I’d needed to go for a pee?’
Gwen settled into her seat. There was a pair of binoculars resting on the dashboard, and she picked them up. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Need to go for a pee.’ She opened the binoculars, widening the device like a pair of smoothly articulated wings, until the graceful eyepieces were spread to match the spacing of her eyes.
‘No. Fortunately. Where were you?’
‘Personal time.’
Jack chuckled. ‘Doing what?’
‘It’s called personal time because it’s personal, Jack.’ She adjusted the focus on the binoculars until she could see a group of young men – teenage boys actually – in the regulation T-shirts and hoodies and trainers, though with fewer, reflected Gwen, than the expected number of baseball caps. Maybe she was getting behind the times. Out of step with youth fashion. She’d have to refresh her catalogue of stereotypes.
‘All right, Cactus Woman,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t tell me then.’
‘Why Cactus Woman?’
‘Prickly,’ said Jack, shaking his hand as though stung. ‘With all these sharp needles sticking out. You reach out to touch Cactus Woman, just to make some kind of friendly contact with her, and ouch.’
‘All right. I get the idea. Well if you must know I had to visit the doctor.’
For a moment Jack’s face registered intense interest and more than a little surprise. ‘The Doctor? Oh, not “the” Doctor. You mean your doctor. Your GP.’
‘Yes. The practice nurse, actually.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘Woman’s stuff.’
‘Oh now you’ve gone and gotten me interested.’
Gwen shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. Just the results of some tests.’
‘And they were all right? The results of the tests?’
‘It’s nothing. Everything’s fine. It’s just what they call sexual health.’
‘Oh boy, now I’m really interested.’
‘Grow up, Jack. I’m fine. Fine and fertile.’
Jack was silent for a moment, watching her closely, the trace of a smile on his face. ‘So does this mean we can soon expect a little Gwen or a little Rhys scampering around the Hub?’
‘Obviously not,’ snapped Gwen.
‘Why obviously?’
‘Well, for a start, can you imagine anyone who would actually let a child run around loose in a place like that?’ She remembered her own first impression of the Hub as, among many other things, a chamber of horrors.
‘Their Uncle Jack might. He would let them see where their Mummy worked. And then their Uncle Jack would let them scamper around the office a bit. Under careful supervision of course.’
‘No their Uncle Jack bloody wouldn’t. And anyway there aren’t going to be any children scampering around.’
‘It’s all just hypothetical,’ said Jack, nodding helpfully.
‘Not even hypothetical. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m not going to get pregnant. Not any time soon. Not while I’m working here.’
‘Here?’
‘Torchwood, I mean. This job is all too difficult and complicated and. . . dangerous.’ She picked up the binoculars.
Jack sighed. ‘Pity. I quite fancied being Uncle Jack for a minute there.’
‘You’re not my brother,’ said Gwen. ‘You couldn’t be an uncle to my kids.’ Then, relenting a little, ‘Maybe a godfather.’ She peered through the binoculars, adjusting the focus, her eyes probing at the slum supermarket across the road. Her roving gaze returned once again to the group of young men hanging around outside the main entrance.
In the seat beside her, Jack leaned back and sighed again. ‘Godfather, eh? OK, thanks, I guess. But as a famous writer once said, “always a godfather and never a god”.’
‘Who was that? Arthur Machen?’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘Now since you’re hogging the binoculars, why don’t I fill you in on all the things that have been happening here in this cheerful inner-city neighbourhood? OK. Just before first light, a bunch of young men emerged from the Machen wearing the sort of rucksacks that teenagers normally carry on their way to school. These are the same kids you’re looking at over there that we’re talking about.’
‘But these lads don’t go to school,’ said Gwen. She lowered the binoculars and looked at him.
‘Right. That’s right. Instead they go over to that double-decker bus.’ He pointe
d through the smoked glass of the windshield. Gwen lifted the binoculars and looked.
The supermarket was surrounded by a car park of pitted concrete. Across the car park, abandoned and upended trolleys lay on their sides like dead buffalo with jutting legs, creating an obstacle course for the few battered cars that nosed in and out of the lot in a desultory fashion, exhausts throbbing.
And sure enough Gwen saw that among the parked vehicles there was a custard-yellow double-decker bus sitting, apparently permanently parked, beside the recycling bins that backed into the shadows behind the Happy Price. The bus said ‘City Tours’ on its side, but it didn’t look to Gwen as if it had toured any cities in a long, long time.
‘So these lads walk across the road and across the car park, heading over there to that bus. They apparently have a bit of trouble getting the bus doors open, and when they finally do, a sleepy-looking kid emerges. Obviously he’s been asleep on the bus and gets what from this distance looks like a proper old-fashioned chewing-out from that kid there – Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian.’
The figure in question was wearing a T-shirt, and the slogan Jack had just quoted was printed in bold white letters on its black cotton. However, it was clear that the T-shirt-wearer in question was not a lesbian of any description but in fact a hulking young man with dagger-shaped black sideburns jutting from below his black baseball cap and a sharply razored goatee beard. The knees that emerged from his baggy black shorts were stubby, hairy, heavily muscled and powerful. The kid wore black athletic socks on his bulging calves and all-black trainers. He was evidently the leader of the small group.
Jack turned and looked at her. ‘And why do you think he was so angry at this kid? The kid from the bus, Sleepy?’
‘Well,’ said Gwen, ‘because Sleepy was supposed to be the sentry on the bus. And he was asleep on the job.’
‘Right,’ said Jack. ‘That’s what I figured. The kid was guarding the bus. Which makes sense because they then give the kid all these rucksacks they’re all wearing. Sleepy takes them and puts them on the bus.’
‘And then Sleepy gets back in the bus and stays watching them,’ said Gwen. ‘Watching these bags.’
‘Right,’ said Jack. ‘And hopefully he’s not too sleepy this time. I don’t reckon he will be, not after the nerve jangling chewing-out he got from Nobody Knows.’
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