Hoodie stepped back.
‘Look, think about it. We’ll be here tomorrow or the next night, okay? You be here, we can talk.’
Hoodie moved and was gone. Dog thought he saw him for a moment in the crowd. He watched above but if the sneak used that exit again he managed to do it without Dog seeing.
Dog sighed and took a swig of the beer he had swiped then reached into his pocket. All he found was an empty pie wrapper.
‘Thieving little bastard,’ he said without rancour.
Chapter 15
Mitchell
Mitchell stopped off at the cafeteria and paid over the odds for two high-percentage coffees, then returned to the lift and made his way down to the underground car park.
Lament would be watching, of course, or one of his automatic systems.
Mitchell had been a cop before the crash; he had stayed on duty the whole time—almost the whole time. The police had been issued with guns when it became clear how bad things were getting. His official record of freak kills was a fraction of what he’d done before people started counting.
He placed the coffee cups on the roof of his car. The door unlocked as he gripped the handle. He placed the cups inside and then took his seat on the passenger side.
The coffee smelled good.
It was another five minutes before Yates opened the driver’s door and climbed in. Once the door was closed Mitchell waved his hand at the second cup in the cavity.
Yates hesitated. ‘We’re not going anywhere, are we?’
‘Not unless Lament decides to give you another lapful.’
Yates picked up his cup and sniffed it. ‘Nice.’ He sipped it and made an appreciative sound. ‘Can’t remember the last time you bought me a coffee.’
‘I never have.’
Yates took another, bigger, mouthful. ‘Very nice.’
For once in his life Mitchell was not sure how to proceed. He was sure he could trust Yates; the man gave the impression he was completely self-centred and he never hesitated in breaking a rule if he felt it would do him some good. The question was: How would he feel about this?
‘You know what I’m doing?’
He shouldn’t, of course.
‘Babysitting the Purity.’ Came the instant response. Mitchell shook his head, it was impossible to keep any kind of secret.
The car park was dark, only half the lights worked, and there was no one around. That was suspicious; there was always some activity. Mitchell frowned.
‘I imagine you’ve been reassigned.’
‘DI Merchant gets your job. I’m working with him and his DS in an advisory role.’
‘He’s a good copper.’
‘Yeah. Good as in no imagination.’
Mitchell shrugged. ‘I may require you to carry out some additional duties.’
‘Not entirely above board?’
‘Can you do it?’
Yates glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sounds like fun.’
They both took drinks from their cups.
‘The Purity might be party poopers.’
‘Goes without saying.’ He turned and flashed his pearly-whites at Mitchell. ‘Bigger stakes, double or nothing.’
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘Who else could you ask?’
Mitchell was silent again. The next thing he said would, at best, get him fired, at worst, who knew?
But Yates spoke before he had a chance. ‘Seems to me that the Purity want to solve this important case that the police couldn’t. That will give them the justification to get their fingers into a pie they haven’t yet been able to touch directly.’
‘That’s what the Super thinks too.’
‘Really?’ Yates sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Dix figured that out? Can’t be as stupid as I thought.’
‘He was a good copper too, once.’
‘Yeah, bureaucracy’s a vampire.’
Mitchell had been keeping an eye out. Still no one had come down into the car park. Not a car coming in or going out. Nobody walking through to or from their vehicle.
‘Bit quiet out there, isn’t it?’ said Yates.
‘Let’s get this wrapped up. Dix wants the credit for finding the girls before the Purity, but without annoying them.’
Yates made a rude noise. ‘He always gives you the easy jobs.’
Mitchell turned in the seat to face Yates. ‘He’s missing the point. It’s our job to find and rescue these girls. With the Purity here we might never see them again even if we find them.’
Yates frowned in noncomprehension.
‘Finding them isn’t enough. The Purity could spirit them away and accuse us of failure, or anything they like. That would be their best outcome.’
‘Are you saying we don’t want to find them?’
‘Maybe, maybe not, we won’t know until the time. But the important thing is that we have to try to rescue them without the Purity getting in the way.’
Mitchell sat back and took a drink. The coffee was getting cold and the taste of chicory was coming through.
Yates drained his cup and opened the door. ‘I may have to call you to ask questions on behalf of Merchant,’ he said and climbed out. ‘Quite often.’
Mitchell nodded. ‘We’ll work something else out when that’s run its course.’
Yates shut the door and Mitchell watched him walk away in the mirrors. He’s a good man, he thought to himself and drank the rest of his coffee.
Once Yates had gone up in the elevator, Mitchell got out of the car and waited for it to lock itself before heading back into the building. He was halfway to the elevator when there was a squeal of tyres as three cars came into the car park.
Five policemen vacated the elevator as he approached; they were complaining about a delay. Mitchell knew what it meant and wondered whether Dix had given some very specific orders.
Chapter 16
Chloe
Chloe lay face down and stared at the floor a yard below her. She could see Ali’s feet as he moved around her. He had given her shoulders a thorough investigation, digging in his thumbs and fingers almost to the point of pain—except she could feel the tension releasing as he did it.
He had tutted. He only tutted when she had really managed to mess up something in her back. Well she knew she had done something bad; she just had no idea what.
‘Are you eating properly?’ he said as he worked his fingers on her lower spine. Spikes of what seemed like energy ran down her legs and out of her toes.
‘More than usual,’ she said. ‘I seem to be hungry all the time.’
‘Maybe you’ve got a tapeworm.’
‘Is this a common dad joke?’
‘Well, I could swear you’re losing fat.’ When he worked his fingers to the sides of her waist it almost tickled but he always managed to avoid that.
‘I haven’t got any fat, Ali.’ When she had first started to visit him, after a bad fall at the dojo had done something aggravating to her left hip joint, she had called him Mr Najjar, and she had been Miss Dark. Over the last ten years they had achieved first name terms. Not that she fancied him; he was in his forties and married with kids. There was a picture of them on his desk.
‘No, not a lot of fat,’ he said. ‘But you have less than you should.’ He stopped. ‘And you say you’re eating more?’
‘Yes.’
He grunted an acknowledgement and began to work his way up her spine.
Chloe relaxed and let his fingers take away the strain. He worked on her shoulder-blades.
‘What have you done here?’
‘You’re the chiro, you tell me.’
He dug his fingers in more. She could almost see his frown. ‘Did you fall? Did someone put you in a hold badly?’
‘Well, I don’t remember exactly but I must have done something.’
He felt around some more. ‘It’s really very solid. Hard to believe you only just did it. You’re more flexible than this.’
‘Sorry.’
He laughed. ‘No worries. Sit up.’
She pushed herself up on the treatment table and into a sitting position while he lowered it until her feet were touching the ground. She was only wearing her bra and shorts but any embarrassment she had felt in the early days was long gone. He was always professional. On the other hand she was aware her bra was a little looser than it had been. But it wasn’t something she was going to mention. There were limits.
The way he ran his fingers along the vertebrae of her neck, put his arm round it and the other hand on her head, she knew what was coming. She relaxed as he applied sudden pressure and something in her neck popped.
Chiropractors: the only people licensed to break your neck. She smiled. He checked her neck again and seemed satisfied.
‘I want to do a scan of your back,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell what’s going on in there. Just get in the booth, will you? Pop your bra off when you get in. Grab the bar and hold still.’
The 3D ultrasound scanning booth was fully enclosed and, he’d said years ago, fully automatic. She had been in it a dozen times and never felt a thing.
She went in and he closed the door behind her. The light inside was subdued but there wasn’t much to see. The bar, made of some very light but strong plastic, could be raised and lowered to the person’s height and was only there so the patient did not move. The scanner itself was mounted in the ceiling. It descended in spirals so that a 3D image resulted.
‘Okay,’ he said, his voice muffled by the wall. ‘I’m just initialising to scan from your neck down to the bottom of your ribcage. That should show everything we need.’
Moments later the machine whirred quietly. She watched the mechanism descend to neck level.
‘It’ll take about ten seconds in all,’ he said. ‘Three...two...one...’
The universe screamed like a banshee.
Chloe gripped the bar convulsively as her body went rigid. Her ears were pummelled by a screech she could not even begin to describe. Like the whine of a dentist’s drill but so much louder and pitched so high she should not even be able to hear it.
She was dizzy with the noise; it whirred around her head and descended. The pain of it diminished as it seemed to drop towards the floor. She was panting and her muscles quaked.
Then it shut off and all that remained was the winding down whir of the motor that drove the ultrasound device as it rose up above head height once more.
Her eyes stung as sweat dripped down her forehead. Every inch of her was soaked with perspiration. She sat down on the small bench behind her while she pulled herself together.
Absently, she picked up her bra and put it back on. She pulled herself up with bar and adjusted the straps. Ali tried to keep the place at a neutral temperature but she felt cold as the sweat evaporated from her body. There was an electronic beep from the outside, in the main room.
‘You okay, Chloe?’ Ali called through.
‘Fine, be out in a moment.’ Clearly Ali did not know anything strange had happened.
The throbbing in her head was diminishing and her muscles had stopped quaking. She took a deep breath and focused on the door.
Should she tell him? But tell him what? That she’d heard a screaming sound that was so loud it felt as if it was going to make her head explode? She shook her head and regretted it as the throb intensified. No. Any sign of strangeness would bring the Purity down on her and ruin any chance she had of getting in—except as an unwilling guest.
She was not going to let what had happened to her friends happen to her.
She pushed the door open and exited the booth. She smiled at him and then felt embarrassed as he very openly stared at her from head to foot.
‘What?’ she said.
He did not say anything and found a towel which he tossed across to her. She looked in one of the full length mirrors. Her body was glistening with the slick sheen of sweat.
‘Did you run a race in there?’ he asked, but pointedly looked away and operated his desk-workstation.
She ran the towel across her arms and legs then rubbed down the rest of her exposed skin. ‘Wrong time of the month,’ she said.
‘Any nausea and fatigue?’ he said, not looking up.
She hesitated. ‘No, should I?’
He glanced up. ‘You can get dressed.’ He turned away again before continuing. There was an area for changing near the door. ‘Hormone imbalance after ovulation can cause those symptoms. Have you had it before?’
The safest answer was to make everything appear normal. ‘Once or twice.’
‘Well if you have any serious problem with it you should see your doctor.’
‘Okay.’
She finished dressing and emerged from behind the screen.
He smiled. ‘You got a ping from your mother—do you want to read it?’
‘Probably better, do you mind?’
‘Not a problem, I’ve cued it up,’ he said.
He went off to the other side of the room as Chloe sat down at his desk. The machine detected her riffy and her mother’s image appeared on the screen.
‘Play,’ she said.
The image animated and her mother’s voice pounded out of the machine. ‘HI, SWEETHEART. WE—’
‘Pause,’ she said quickly.
‘My bad,’ said Ali. ‘I talk to my wife while I’m working here sometimes, need to be able to hear her wherever I am. Try setting three.’
‘Volume to three. Play,’ said Chloe. The image started up again.
‘—got a message that Debenhams has new clothes in. So we’re going down there this evening to see what we can pick up. I know you’ll be out with your friends but I just wanted to tell you we might not be home when you get in.’
Chloe checked the time on the message: a couple of hours ago while she had been at Ashley’s, helping with her homework. She glanced at her watch; they would have left by now to arrive in time to be near the front of the queue. When one of the major shops got a big shipment they would close up while they prepared for the guaranteed rush. It could get nasty. She wouldn’t be going as well; she would have to join the back of the queue because people could get very unpleasant about what they perceived as queue jumpers. Mum knew what she needed.
‘Thanks, Ali,’ she said. As she moved away from the screen it blanked the message and returned to the usual holding screen.
‘Not a problem. Make sure you don’t strain your back any more than it already is.’
Chloe put on her duffle coat and pulled the hood up over her head. Her black hair was pushed forward to frame her face. ‘I won’t. Sensei wouldn’t let me train anyway.’
‘Good. I’ll take a look at the scans and let you know when I want to see you again,’ he said as he held the door open for her. ‘Okay?’
She paused in the doorway. ‘Okay, thanks, Ali.’ She headed out into the small hallway and opened the front door. It was dark outside.
Ali Najjar
Ali watched as she pulled the door shut. There was a cold, damp draught from the outside and he shut the inner door to keep the examination room warm. The clock on the wall told him he had about twenty minutes before the next patient.
He sat at his desk and brought up the scan of Chloe. It was a little fuzzy in places; she must have moved. Still, if she was hit by that hot flush it was hardly surprising. There might have been cramps as well, but while they knew each other in a semi-familiar way it was only as if they met on a train each morning going to work. It wasn’t real friendship. But he liked her.
As the first step, required by the Purity, he fired off a copy of the scan to Chloe’s central medical records. Then he launched an image of it on his screen.
He could not afford—and did not rate—a 3D projector but the gesture controls were effective enough with a flat image. He turned the scan and expanded it so it showed the spine between the shoulder blades.
He adjusted the colour controls to make the denser bone structures appear dark blue. The skin stayed whi
te and transparent, while the muscle and connective tissues became shades of translucent green.
There was a whole section where the trapezius muscles, on both sides, looked odd. Normally they ran from the spine up and over the shoulders in wide sheets but here—he adjusted the colours to highlight the tendons as well—they seemed to have new strands running out to thick areas that seemed to have the density of bone.
Could she be developing osteophytes? Bone spurs were usually a symptom of osteoarthritis, and he had never heard of it occurring in symmetric formations, or with associated muscle changes. These were identical on both sides. He went deeper but found the inner musculature and rib structures to be normal.
With a flick of his fingers he restored the image to show the osteophytes, then sat back and stared.
He froze with the sudden realisation of what this meant. It was strange. He spent his life working with muscles and bones while every day he, like everyone else, was bombarded with information about the freaks and S.I.D infections. He glanced up at the poster on his wall with the smiling face of Mercedes Smith.
He had met her once, briefly, at a dinner given for medical practitioners in Manchester. His equipment was part-sponsored by Utopia Genetics.
Chloe was infected. He could feel his extremities going cold with fear—not for himself but for her. He had seen DI Mitchell’s latest kill and the shots of the freak he had destroyed. Ali thought about that happening to Chloe.
If he reported her now the Purity would pick her up and she would be disappeared, her family would be put into quarantine—and so would he. He would be signing her death warrant, but no, that had already been signed. She would die one way or another. He would be signing her execution order.
He got up and paced. If he didn’t report her the pain would get worse and she, being a good citizen, would go to the doctor and he would report her. Ali liked that option better. All he needed to do was destroy the evidence. He sat again quickly and brought up the details of the scan that he had sent.
Occasionally there were bad images and he would delete them; this was no different. He found the file and issued the delete command. The file was removed.
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