by John Macken
‘I can’t. I can’t fucking think,’ Carlton shouted, spit spraying his panic into the damp air.
‘You want me to do the thinking for you? Because I’ll stand here thinking about the business falling apart, the house I’ve left and the police hunting me down. I’ll consider the fact that my face is on the computers of coppers all through the Met. I’ll think about the forensics wankers combing my cellar, looking for the DNA of John Collins and Iqbal What’s-his-name. Going through my personal stuff. My letters, my photos, my bank details. Ripping up my carpets, testing my toothbrush, taking hairs from my comb. Fucking ants gnawing away at me. You know how that feels?’ Mark scratched his scalp irritably. ‘Like being fucked from the inside. Having bits of you chopped up and taken to pieces. I tell you, Carlton, those cunts are the only cunts worse than cunts like you.’ He stared down at him. ‘So, you know which one I’ll pick?’
‘Not like this …’
‘I’ll choose all five of them. But I’m a libertarian.’ Mark Gelson stopped pacing around. He stared intently at Carlton, the muscles of his jaw twitching. ‘Do you know what that is, Carlton? Yeah? It means I believe in freedom, in people’s right to choose. Now, I’ll ask you again. How do you want to die?’
‘It was Jonno’s idea, for fuck’s sake.’
‘I’ve always liked you, Carlton. You’re smart. But I’ve already been to see Mr Machicaran. And guess who he implicated as the next link in the chain? That’s right – your good self ! Now it really is time to make a decision.’
‘Please. ANYTHING. Please.’
‘You see, on my way here I thought you might have a problem deciding. Now, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to choose a preference. Time is marching on and I need information. I need to know who else fucked me over. Which coppers you dealt with and what forensic samples got taken. So it’s time to speed things along. Hold out your fingers.’
Carlton bunched his fists, knuckles taut, his body shaking. Mark dragged the chair back to the wall, and punched him deep in the gut. He took a hammer out of his bag, and lined up a six-inch masonry nail. Carlton’s body was limp, rasping for air. Mark Gelson pressed Carlton’s left hand hard against the wall, pushed the nail quickly into his palm, and struck it smartly with the hammer. Carlton rocked upwards, swinging his head round to scream in the direction of the pain. Mark forced a tennis ball past his teeth, wedging it into his mouth. He examined the nail and hit it again, watching it burrow through skin, bone and plaster, immersing itself in the wall. Carlton spasmed and shrieked, his torture muted by the obstruction. Mark picked a Biro off the kitchen work surface and wrote the numbers one to five on successive fingers of Carlton’s hand. He walked slowly back to his implements and picked up the kitchen knife. ‘So what do you say? We’ll let the knife decide.’
Carlton shook frantically in his chair, trying to pull his bleeding hand away from the wall.
Mark Gelson took aim, three or four metres away. Then he threw the knife. It missed Carlton’s hand and dislodged some plaster a few centimetres too high. Mark picked the knife up and strolled back for another attempt.
‘You know which one Jonno chose?’
Carlton wet himself, eyes wide, his wrist ligaments tearing in the struggle to be free, the nail dragging through his palm.
‘Well, when he was in a similar position to yourself, he decided on drowning. With a little encouragement, of course. In fact,’ Mark Gelson uttered, aiming the blade carefully, ‘he lived above a shop as well.’ He cast his heavy eyes around the room. ‘A nicer crack-den than this though. Must have been getting more money from the cops.’ He flicked his wrist and the blade somersaulted in the air, pounding handle-first into the wall, this time fractionally to the right. Mark whistled. ‘Getting closer,’ he said, smiling. Carlton screamed through his wedged teeth, his cheeks bellowing like a trumpet player’s. ‘Now I think about it, Jonno really put up a fight. I had to slice him up fairly bad before he’d give me the names of the CID he’d been dealing with.’ Mark steadied himself, sighting down the blade. ‘I’m aiming for your middle finger, number three,’ he explained. ‘Shooting. Or, if it catches your index finger, poisoning would also be good. Got some very interesting pills. Ten of those and your heart will fucking explode.’ He threw again, and the knife sliced into the outside of Carlton’s thumb. ‘Well, well,’ he said as Carlton shook, shrieked and fought, ‘stabbing. Who’d have thought? My favourite!’ He eyed the knife, which was embedded in the wall. A thin trickle of red leaked from the point where the blade had cut into Carlton’s digit, and mingled with thicker fluid from his palm.
Every job had its conventions. Rule number two, Mark Gelson reflected, walking over and pulling the knife out of the plaster, was that the more brutal you were, the less trouble you had in the long run. He felt the heavy weight of the implement in his hand. Slowly shaking his head and smiling, Mark Gelson stooped to face Carlton. ‘Now, before you give me the name of your contacts in the CID, and before you die,’ he said, ripping Carlton’s shirt open, ‘let’s see how sharp this thing is.’ He ran the blade down, from nipple to navel, slicing a narrow cut into the dark skin. Carlton bawled in blind panic. ‘Who was that?’ Mark asked. ‘I didn’t get the name. You’ll have to try harder with that tennis ball. Inspector who?’ He gouged another rut into his victim, this time a little deeper. ‘You’re not going to tell me? That’s fine.’ He examined the blade and grinned. ‘Let’s play some more.’
A few hours later, Mark Gelson left the flat, satisfied. He had the next name on his list.
4
DCI Philip Kemp tried to take in the sheer physical bulk of Commander Robert Abner all at one go. Standing squarely between Sarah and himself, the Area Commander loomed over them, forcing Phil to bend his neck to observe him fully. The angularity of his black uniform, with its squared shoulders and pressed creases, lent him the air of granite, solid and immovable, an ominous outcrop reaching up to the sky.
‘What, specifically,’ Phil asked, ‘do you want to know, sir?’
Robert Abner was an impassive and thorough man, used to getting his own way. ‘Let me see what you’re doing.’
Phil glanced at Sarah, who stared back. The unannounced arrival of Commander Abner had caught them both off guard.
‘Well …’ Sarah began.
‘I want you to walk me through your investigation.’ He turned smartly and began to stride out of Sarah’s office. ‘Literally.’
‘OK.’ Phil nodded. ‘Let’s start in the labs.’ Phil put his arm out to guide Commander Abner in the right direction, and they set off along a carpeted corridor and down a set of bare concrete stairs.
‘I need to know two things. First, what you’re up to. And second, what I can do to help.’
Sarah and Phil stopped outside a heavy white door marked ‘Lab 108’. Sarah cleared her throat. ‘You could leave the forensics in-house, sir, but help us with external matters.’
‘Such as?’
‘We’re tracking a few people. The Korean gang, Kieran Hobbs, a couple of others. But we need to focus closer to home.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘So this is the first of the two large forensic labs,’ Sarah said.
‘Previously overseen by Dr Reuben Maitland, right?’
‘I’m currently running them, sir,’ Phil interjected, immediately cursing the eagerness in his voice. Robert Abner unnerved him, made him feel like a child again, desperate for the attention of his stern father. Phil silently told himself to calm down. Poker face.
The trio entered, accompanied by a faint whoosh as the negative pressure of the lab’s atmosphere fought to equilibrate itself with the air outside. Inside, Bernie Harrison and Mina Ali were sharing quiet, serious words, hunched over an ultraviolet lamp. They straightened as they noticed their guests, and gave glancing acknowledgements. Behind them, Judith Meadows was solemnly swirling a boiling flask of agarose. To the left, Birgit Kasper traced a gloved finger down the screen of a VDU, following a vertical
pattern of red and green bands. Two technicians filled a series of Eppendorf tubes with the same deep-blue solution. In the far corner, Jez Hethrington-Andrews tapped names and numbers from a sheet of paper into a database.
‘So where are we with the pure forensics?’ Commander Abner asked.
‘Still playing catch-up, sir. Working back through Run’s system, which appears a little unorthodox, to say the least.’ Sarah puffed out her pale cheeks. ‘Trying to find out exactly what he knew.’
‘And exactly what did he know?’
‘We think he’d extracted pure DNA from several sites on Sandra’s torso, all of which were identical, ruling out the involvement of more than one person. Bernie and Mina are double-checking from the original samples that Run hadn’t made any errors. Birgit’ – Phil nodded in her direction – ‘is proceeding with the notion that Run’s new methodologies were correct, and she’s busy profiling. We’ll have that in …’
Birgit didn’t turn from her monitor. ‘Four hours.’
‘And then we can start plugging it through the National Forensic Database. Jez is currently inputting what data we have, and setting up the search parameters.’
‘Good. And Run himself?’
‘Judith is beginning the preliminary sample preps. Run should be a bit quicker because we’re starting from scratch, and not having to work back through someone else’s … well, Run’s … own system.’
Commander Abner tapped his black shoe against the white laboratory floor and frowned. ‘No one say the word ironic. So what other lines do you have?’
‘Let’s check the second lab.’
Robert Abner followed Phil and Sarah through into the adjacent laboratory, where Paul Mackay was peering into the twin eyepieces of a stereoscopic microscope.
‘Dr Mackay is overseeing gross samples – hairs, fibres, fingerprints and blood groups.’
Paul Mackay glanced up, his eyes struggling for a second to focus. Next to him, a technician held a row of slides on a metal tray. He removed the slide he was examining and swapped it for one in the technician’s hand.
‘We’re fairly low on hairs and fibres. Also, no fingerprints whatsoever.’
‘So despite the physical struggles, the killer was careful.’
‘Appears that way,’ Sarah answered, ‘although we do have plenty of blood and saliva.’ She shrugged sadly and glanced around the antiseptic brightness of the room, finding little comfort. Scientists and technicians inched through intricate protocols, subdued and mechanical. ‘Look, why don’t we head into some of the Operations Rooms.’
The three officers left the lab and headed down a long corridor populated by wood-effect office doors. Vinyl tiling gave way to a thin blue carpet, and the doors changed from wood-effect to actual wood. Phil Kemp stopped in front of one, knocked sharply and entered. Two CID officers and a couple of support staff were crowded around a large, flat-screen TV, and another pair of detectives gazed intently into a computer monitor.
‘Helen,’ Sarah said, ‘have you got a moment? Would you care to tell Commander Abner what line of investigation you’re following?’
Helen Alders, a slim, boyish CID officer in an ironed blouse and dark skirt, cleared her throat. ‘Well, sir, we’re tracing our four main suspects by working back through arrest records, previous addresses and known contacts. We’re hammering the phone where possible, or actually going on site when we need to.’ She pointed at the monitor. ‘Which is easier said than done for some of the suspects.’
‘Right.’
Sarah turned her attention to an officer watching high-resolution black-and-white images on the television screen. ‘And Callum?’
Callum Samuels looked over from the TV screen, thick glasses reflecting the light and obscuring his eyes for a second. ‘Sir, what we’re examining now are CCTV records from the streets surrounding Run’s and Sandra’s houses, and attempting to match those with the most recent photo-identities we have for our suspects. And, more importantly, we’re also looking for anyone who appears to have been at both scenes.’
‘Any luck?’
‘We’ve got over three hundred hours of footage.’ The eyes disappeared again, as Detective Samuels swivelled his head from Phil to Sarah and back to the Commander. ‘We’ve divided it up. Two other officers are currently ploughing through their allocations.’
‘How will you know if the three of you have witnessed the same punter?’
‘We’ve developed a system, with help from IT support here. We digitize each adult male face we come across, and perform real-time match analysis.’
‘Fine.’ Commander Abner turned to Sarah and Phil. ‘What else?’
Phil Kemp bit his bottom lip, thinking hard, eager to demonstrate that GeneCrime could run its own investigation. ‘So that’s Forensics and CID hard at it. We’ve got Pathology in the mortuary downstairs, mapping out the type of blade used, the pattern of bruises, whether the killer used latex gloves, or vinyl or rubber or whatever. We’ll take the lift—’
Robert Abner held up his large right hand. ‘Mortuaries give me the creeps,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk and talk. Anything we’ve missed?’
Phil Kemp’s short legs struggled to keep up with the long strides of the Commander, and he found himself almost jogging. ‘In this office here’ – he pointed to a door – ‘we’re collating witness statements from Sandra’s and Run’s locales, door-to-door reports, neighbours’ testimonies.’
Commander Abner stared into the room through its small panel, breath from his nostrils steaming the glass. ‘And?’ he asked.
‘It’s taking time, sir,’ Sarah answered. ‘But it’s fair to say nothing yet.’
‘And just round the corner, in the Command Room, we’ve got two more CID and a couple of support staff trawling for previous evidence of torture use in the last ten years, liaising with ports and airports …’
Commander Abner stopped. He scowled down at Sarah Hirst and Phil Kemp. ‘OK,’ he sighed, straightening his tie. ‘OK.’ He scanned left and right. ‘Exit’s that way, isn’t it?’ he asked, nodding his head.
‘Past the security desk, sir.’
‘You’re doing what needs to be done. I want you to keep me on top of things. I won’t interfere unless you ask me.’ Robert Abner craned his neck slightly down to emphasize his point. ‘But end this, and quickly. I needn’t spell out what it means to the two of you, and to the unit as a whole. Two staff dead in five days is no coincidence. Brace yourselves – I have a very bad feeling about this one.’
The Commander turned and strode towards the exit of the building, leaving Phil and Sarah standing silently together.
‘What do you think?’ Phil asked.
‘Like the man says, we’re doing what we can.’
‘But it’s taking time. Let’s say Abner’s right. Let’s say this is just the beginning. We need something quick.’
Sarah stared down at the grainy floor tiles. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘maybe there’s another way. Something we haven’t considered yet.’
5
Reuben edged down the narrow passageway that bisected a pair of smart suburban houses. As he turned a corner, his jacket scraped the rough brick-work. The light was fading. He checked his watch. Almost eight o’clock. Two thin parallel gardens stretched out behind the mirror-image houses, split by a weathered grey-brown fence. Reuben climbed on to a small outhouse and stared intently into the far garden. There were voices. The light was better here, streaming out of the patio doors and spilling on to the lawn. One of the voices was a child, the other a woman. The child stumbled around the garden, falling over, crawling, hauling itself up, moving off again. The woman vainly tried to steer the infant away from flowerbeds and other potential hazards. Reuben continued to monitor events closely, his face intent, glazed and mesmerized.
The infant screamed in the garden, and was picked up by its mother. A man appeared, wrapping an arm around them. Reuben scanned the location again, taking in a wider sweep. A row of terraces backed on to
the gardens. One or two lights were on in frosted bathroom windows: the nation putting its children to bed. In another half an hour it would be dark. He felt the familiar mix of longing and excitement pulse through his body. His right leg trembled slightly, forced against a section of guttering, and he chewed his teeth restlessly. The man walked back into the house, and the mother kissed the infant’s head. Reuben instantly summoned the memory of a smell. Sweet, cloying, fresh and melting. The scent of Joshua’s hair. Towelling him dry after bathtime. He gazed down at the two of them. And then she caught sight of him. She started, hesitated, and gathered the toddler up, taking him inside. Reuben scrambled to the ground. He turned to run away but a voice stopped him.
‘Reuben? Is that you?’
He stood, heart pounding, flushed with guilt.
‘Reuben?’ Lucy strode rapidly towards him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Nothing. I …’
‘How did you get this address?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve been following us?’
‘No.’ Reuben focused into the black surface of the floor. ‘Look, it wasn’t difficult to find Shaun’s house. The phone directory …’
‘But spying on us!’ Lucy was swollen with anger. ‘What you’re doing is illegal.’
‘I wasn’t spying on you.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’
‘I was watching Josh.’
‘Same bloody thing.’
Reuben stared at his wife. Despite the animation of her rage, she looked tired. But the features were hard to gauge, worn smooth by too much scrutiny. When he looked at her, he didn’t see the straight brown hair, the cool hazel eyes, the full lips, the slightly blunt nose, the delicate chin, the jutting cheekbones or the over-plucked eyebrows. He simply saw Lucy, the woman he had observed every day for a number of years, and then had stopped seeing. It was almost impossible for him to tell whether she was an attractive woman, because his reference point was too familiar to gain any perspective. But there was something there. Behind her, he could just make out Shaun Graves, now peering through the patio door, cradling Joshua, the one thing that truly mattered.