As his weapon was blasting out molten lead, some students had attempted to run away down the corridor. Russell Rod had tried to get as many of them as possible. Not without a certain sadism, according to a maths teacher who had seen it all. He said Russell had aimed for the legs of the fleeing students and then gone and shot them point-blank, if possible in the face.
A massacre.
Russell had done everything to ensure that there would be as few witnesses as possible.
Then he had gone into the janitor’s closet. There was a gunshot, then silence. Several seconds had gone by before crying, groans and shouts of pain started up.
Lamar pushed the pile of reports to the side of the desk, putting a rubber stamp-holder on top of them so that they wouldn’t be displaced by a draught, and went next door to the nurse’s office.
The youth who had been found in the cupboard, one Chris DeRoy, lay on one of the four beds, wrapped in a silver survival blanket. He was brown-haired and brown-eyed, with freckles and a few spots. He was lying in his own filth, waiting for his parents to come with clean clothes. He was slowly recovering from his terrifying experience.
He had spoken to Lamar, in a very quiet voice. He’d seen Russell come up the stairs holding his submachine gun. He’d also had a clear view of a girl’s head exploding. So he’d thrown himself into the walk-in closet and tried to hide in a corner. He’d heard the unrelenting gunshots. Everyone was running around. At first he could hear yelling, but then everyone who wasn’t dead and hadn’t already fled outside understood that if they wanted to survive they would have to shut up in order not to attract the attention of the madman.
Minutes passed and then the door opened and Russell walked in.
He had recognised him. He was wearing what he always wore: combat trousers and a hooded sweatshirt with the name of a heavy-metal band on it.
Chris had seen him come in. He thought he’d heard him mutter something, but he hadn’t been able to make out what. Then Russell had taken his Uzi in one hand and pointed it at his head and fired. Half his head had been blown off and splattered over the opposite wall.
At that moment, the door, which closed automatically, had slammed shut and Chris had waited in the dark until the police arrived.
Lamar came over to his bedside.‘Your parents will be here in a minute. Are … are you sure you don’t want to go to the bathroom and clean yourself up?’ He hoped the youth would prefer to be undressed but clean under his survival blanket.
Chris shook his head.
‘All right then …’
Lamar was about to offer him a hot drink when the door opened to reveal a well-coiffed brown-haired middle-aged man, closely shaven and dressed in a three-piece suit. Newton Capparel.
‘Lamar!’ he exclaimed. ‘Give me the low-down; we only have a few minutes before the press conference. They’re getting impatient out there.’
Lamar folded his arms across his chest.
‘Are you taking over the case?’ he asked.
‘I prefer to say “coordinating”. It’s the big cheese who’s asked for me.’
Lamar nodded. Of course. Capparel was articulate, he knew how to handle journalists and he was more presentable than the hulking Lamar, approaching forty and still wearing an eighties anorak over his enormous shirts. At least today he had spared them his beige and brown striped woolly hat. He had forgotten it in his hurry this morning.
‘Lamar,’ Capparel went on, ‘you’ll have to come to the press conference as well, but … er … stand a little behind.’
Lamar guessed that he would be there to provide the local colour. He would be the token black face to satisfy political correctness.
‘Sure,’ he mumbled.
He turned to Chris. ‘Hang in there, buddy. Your parents are on their way.’
And then he left with Newton Capparel, who was already running over his spiel for the cameras.
The black mouths of the cameras were poised to swallow whatever they were offered and Lamar retreated into the shadows. He detested these corners of buildings flooded with light for filming, nests of microphones pointed up at your chin. After a few minutes the floodlights began to generate warmth despite the autumn wind ruffling everyone’s scarves. The effect was surreal, and Lamar found the whole scene disturbing. It was inappropriate and lacking in respect, he thought, whilst being aware that he was out of step with the modern world and its media needs.
Capparel’s ‘coordinating’ meant that he would benefit from everyone else’s work without lifting a finger. He would write the final report and take all the credit. Lamar was used to his methods, common to all the big shots in the NYPD, who had their eye on a political post in the medium or long term.
Shortly before eleven o’clock Lamar left the school to return to Precinct 13 on 21st Street in Lower Manhattan where he worked. He got out of his car and went to buy a cup of coffee before going in. He shared his office with one of the teams from the Manhattan homicide squad. As he went into the large room, he heard two men swapping notes and whispering over the file in front of them. The rest of the chairs were empty except for the one opposite Lamar’s. Doris Kennington. She was Lamar’s favourite work partner. As tiny as he was tall, she was a slim blonde, a bundle of nerves and muscle, a keen practitioner of combat sports and the only woman Lamar knew who never missed a single episode of Ultimate Fighting.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be working on the massacre in Harlem?’ she said in surprise.
‘Capparel has stolen the show.’
She raised an eyebrow in a gesture that spoke volumes about what she thought of Capparel.
‘Mrs Pathrow called from Bellevue Hospital,’ she reported, consulting her notes. ‘Her husband has just died, so the attempted murder charge has been changed to homicide and the DA wants to talk to you about it.’
Lamar nodded. ‘Is that it?’
‘Yes. Maddox and Rod have gone to the West Side. Someone found a body on an apartment balcony. A good start to the homicide day.’
Lamar quickly checked his emails then grabbed his famous woolly hat and went off to the DA’s office.
Doris watched him leave with his apologetic stride, his interminable arms hanging by his slim thighs, his orange anorak in one hand. Lamar was a phenomenon, as singular in appearance as he was sensitive inside. A giant who lived on his own and devoted himself to his investigations. Doris felt a pang to see him leave.
Her eyes went back to the TV, which was silently showing images of the high-school massacre on a loop.
East Harlem Academy was the starting point of a virus.
The source of an epidemic.
Evil was now spreading across the city.
Very soon it would be manifest everywhere.
And would kill, again and again.
Doris leant over and extinguished the tube of doom.
3
‘What hope is there for a world in which the young have gone mad?’ asked the journalist. The voice crackled in the depths of Lamar’s old Pontiac.
Three weeks had gone by since the killings in Harlem.
There had been another massacre at a high school in Queens a few days ago. Twenty-two dead and thirty-one wounded. The crazed gunman, a pupil at the school, had fled after his shoot-out. He had been found at home, having killed himself with a shot to the head.
Neither Lamar nor his closest colleagues had attended – it was outside their jurisdiction. Detectives from Queens had speedily concluded their investigation.
Two teenagers in ten days had opened fire on their schoolmates. The media were obsessed with the story. New Yorkers were beginning to agonise. The entire city trembled in incomprehension.
Lamar contented himself with following the story from afar. As with the Harlem case, no one knew what had motivated the killer. Various psychiatrists were paraded on television to explain that at that age it wasn’t necessary to have a clear motive for violence. Persistent emotional disorder coupled with the various violent influences in m
odern society could culminate in such acts. On other channels, other psychiatrists, equally convinced of their own theories, declared that, on the contrary, the perpetrators would have to have suffered some significant trauma. The experts argued the toss endlessly.
In truth, Lamar concluded, no one knew what caused such things.
What troubled him most was the absence of any leads at all on where the murder weapons had come from. They had nothing to go on in either case. Lamar hoped this would soon change.
He parked in the underground parking garage of the building where he had his meeting and took a lift that smelt of pizza. A bearded man wearing thin glasses and a bow tie greeted him. He was Professor Gavensoort.
‘Welcome, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see you here. Newton Capparel sent you, I presume?’
‘Yes, I’ve come about the Uzi that was used in the highschool shooting in Harlem. Apparently you’ve got some news?’
Gavensoort raised a forefinger. ‘Oh, that, yes! Come.’
He strode off down one of the corridors of the NYPD ballistics lab until he came to a room with white tile flooring, where several firearms were laid out on a lab bench amongst vials and swabs.
‘Lieutenant …?’
‘Gallineo.’
‘Yes, I remember now, Lieutenant Gallineo. I’m sure you’re aware that nowadays criminals try to cover their tracks by filing off the serial numbers of their weapons. That way they hope we won’t be able to trace where a particular gun has come from. In fact, for a good few years now forensics have been able to reveal numbers that have been rubbed off. It’s not a new technique, but it still works just fine. It’s a two-pronged approach, polishing the surface and applying an acid wash.’
‘Have you found out where the Uzi came from?’
Seeing that Lamar wanted to get straight to the point, Gavensoort skipped the explanations and got down to the facts.
‘No. The serial number was melted off, probably using a blowtorch delicate enough not to have damaged the rest of the weapon. They’ve gone so deep there’s nothing left of the engraving at all.’
Lamar scratched his chin.
‘Would you need specialist tools for that?’
‘Not really. Plumbers, firefighters, mechanics … all kinds of people use that sort of thing.’
‘I can’t imagine the gunman, a seventeen-year-old kid, going to that amount of trouble to get rid of a serial number.’
‘Gangs can usually organise it if they know what they’re doing,’ countered the professor.
‘From what I’ve been told, Russell wasn’t exactly a model student, but he wasn’t part of a gang either.’
Gavensoort shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, that’s up to you to work out – my job’s just to look at the technical side of things. But I’ve got something else you might find interesting,’ he added without pausing for breath, pointing to two pistols.
As far as Lamar remembered, no other weapons had been found at the scene at the high school or even at Russell Rod’s home.
‘These two semi-automatics were used in the Queens high-school shooting last week. I was brought in on that one too.’
‘And?’
Gavensoort stared back at the detective, drawing out the suspense.
‘The serial numbers were erased in exactly the same way as with the Uzi,’ he eventually explained. ‘So there’s a link between the two attacks. As to who and why, well, that’s your ball game. My report’s on the table in the lobby. I’m sending a copy to the Queens detectives.’
Lamar was standing open-mouthed when his cell rang. Doris’s piercing voice came down the line.
‘Lamar, you need to get over to the Lower East Side right now.’
There was panic in her voice.
‘Why? What is it, Doris? You sound—’
‘There’s been another shooting, at a high school …’
The school was very close to the Williamsburg Bridge, a neighbourhood that roared with continual traffic noise. Three police cars had pulled up outside the main entrance, their lights still flashing, and a uniformed officer was sealing off the area with yellow and black tape.
Lamar walked into the entrance hall, strangely similar to the one at the school in Harlem, and was met by wailing and tears. First-aiders moved busily amongst lifeless bodies, their feet slipping in pools of blood. Dozens of red footprints zigzagged across the floor.
Lamar stopped an officer passing within earshot.
‘Lieutenant Gallineo,’ he announced. ‘What do we know about the gunman? Still here?’
The officer, a Hispanic woman, shook her head.
‘No, witnesses say they saw him go out the back, toward the little park. We’ve got cars out looking for him. He’s been described as medium build, wearing blue jeans and a hooded black parka. Nothing more at the moment.’
Lamar thanked her. As he wrote these meagre facts down in his notebook, Doris appeared at his side, eyes wide and darting around the room.
‘Doris, can you start gathering information? I’m going to look for the gunman – he could still be in the area.’
She gave a quick nod and Lamar bounded off down a long corridor, at the end of which he found the back entrance to the school.
A park made up of narrow paths and scrawny shrubs ran along the other side of the road, surrounded by grey and brown tenement buildings.
Lamar headed down the nearest path and took out his gun. This was the part of his job he least enjoyed. Hunting down a suspect. Maybe because his size made him an easy target he’d never felt comfortable in pursuit. Observation, interrogation and deduction suited him much better.
Holding his Walther P99 against his thigh, Lamar continued along damp pathways, passing a bench and a fountain before coming to a crossroads from which several routes led further into the park. Although the park wasn’t very big, there were several entrances and the gunman could easily have escaped by now. Lamar let himself relax slightly.
Now’s not the time to lose focus!
That was how accidents happened.
He decided to take the path on the left, but changed his mind when he saw something shimmering on the lawn in front of him. As he got closer, he saw that it was a shiny cartridge. He was about to lean forward to get a better look, but stopped himself at the last moment. He gripped his gun tightly. He was already squatting and, without standing up straight again, scanned his surroundings.
He had the feeling he was being watched.
Fear breeds fear …
It was enough to have the sensation of being watched to convince yourself it was actually happening; your imagination played tricks on you. He had to force himself to concentrate.
There were several clumps of thick shrubs around him, one larger than the rest, and a little bit nearer. Lamar stood up and stepped very slowly towards it, his finger ready to pull the trigger. The shrubbery was neatly trimmed into a U shape with the opening to the side. Lamar moved closer and closer, but still couldn’t see inside.
A dark patch began to emerge through the branches and the few leaves that were still on the plants. There was something in there.
Lamar held the Walther P99 out in front of him.
With a quick sidestep, he faced the opening head-on, primed to dive in and shoot.
The thicket was shaped like this in order to allow workmen access to maintenance tunnels. The dark patch Lamar had seen was a water point, probably used by the gardeners. Next to it was a steel double trapdoor. A tiny sign forbade unauthorised entry.
Lamar took a small torch from the pocket of his shapeless anorak, tucking it under the arm holding the gun before lifting the trapdoor with his other hand.
There was a ladder leading down several feet into the total darkness.
Lamar clenched his teeth. He couldn’t stand situations like this.
But, even if he called for backup, someone would still have to be the first to go down. Lamar bent down to shine the light around.
Nothing jumped out at him. He wedged the torch between his teeth and ventured down the metal rungs. With each step, he sank further into the city’s underbelly.
He was breathing heavily as his foot touched the ground.
He’d made it down; no shots had greeted his arrival. Still, he circled round, making sure there was no immediate danger.
Pipes and knobs of all shapes and sizes jutted out from the floor and walls, climbing up towards the surface. In another part of the wall, there was a door with a chain and an old broken padlock across it. And then Lamar found the shooter.
He was right there.
Right in front of him.
Watching him without batting an eyelid. His weapon gleaming in the faint torchlight.
4
Lamar emerged from the underground room, breathing out heavily.
He took out his cell phone and called Doris.
‘I found him,’ he said as soon as she picked up. ‘He’s put a bullet through his chin. His brain’s stuck to the ceiling.’
A few minutes later, the park had been cordoned off and the forensics team was bringing the corpse up in a black body bag.
Lamar found Doris standing to one side, away from the scrum of ambulances and journalists.
‘What have you got?’ he asked.
‘Nothing concrete yet, just a kid who says it might be a guy named Mike Simmons. He recognised what the gunman was wearing, especially the black parka. But he couldn’t formally identify him.’
Lamar rubbed his face vigorously with his huge hands.
‘What’s going on, Lamar? Three high schools in three weeks. Three kids losing it, mowing down their classmates and then putting a bullet through their own brain. Don’t you find that alarming? Why do you think it is? Too many video games?’
‘No,’ he said, without explanation.
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