by John Macken
‘I’ll give his mobile a try.’
‘So that’s why I’m not saying where I’m going or who I’m staying with. Someone knows where we all live. Mina was followed home. Run and Sandra were attacked at their houses, and Lloyd . . . I know I’m next. Reuben, he’s coming for me.’
‘So what about the other suspects in the case? What’s happened to them?’
Judith rammed two pairs of shoes into the side of her bag and tried it for weight. ‘I said no more info.’
‘OK. Last piece.’
‘We haven’t got a whereabouts for the other two strongest potentials, Lars Besser and Mark Gelson. We’ve got CCTV, and we know they’re in London, but that’s all. It’s been difficult to tie them to the crime scenes, and not much has emerged from house-to-house in Lloyd Granger’s street. But there is some good news.’
‘What?’
‘The forensics on Lloyd are due imminently. Literally hours until we get the profile.’
‘Which will probably be mine again.’
‘Not this time. Sarah suggested eyeball sweeps—’
‘Wonder where she got that idea?’
‘And Mina reckons she has something promising. Then we can start to trawl the databases and look for previous. We’ve also been able to exclude one more of our initial four – Stephen Jacobs – who turned out to be very cooperative, largely because he’d been seen hanging around schools, and was desperate not to go down again. So that just leaves Besser and Gelson, both of whom are on the loose. And, of course, Maitland.’
‘I thought I was a done deal. Why are they persisting with Besser and Gelson?’
‘I get the impression that, at heart, Phil Kemp still isn’t a hundred per cent convinced it’s you.’
‘Nice to know.’
‘It’s about as good as you’re going to get.’ Judith took a final glance out of the window. ‘And that, Reuben, is as much as I can tell you.’ She hoisted the bag over her shoulder and took the phone into her hand. ‘So I guess this is it,’ she said, almost formally.
‘I guess it is.’
Judith walked briskly down the stairs, the extra weight magnifying the thump of her shoes on the carpet. ‘Look after yourself, Reuben,’ she said. ‘Because no one else is going to.’ Judith pressed the Off button on her phone and left the house. She ran to her car and engaged the central locking, checking the doors were safe before she started the engine. As she drove, she monitored the rear-view mirror and cursed herself. Although she was shaky and uncertain, a lead-weight of regret clung to her and refused to leave. Judith decided it was best for everyone concerned if she disappeared for the time being.
5
Reuben placed his phone on the lab bench beside him. Jez’s mobile had rung straight through to Messages. Staring intently down, he saw for the first time a fine layer of dust on the surface of the worktop, and noticed a couple of hairs languishing next to a brightly coloured plastic rack. Spraying 70% ethanol on to a paper towel, he scrubbed the bench slowly and methodically, a surgeon washing his hands before an operation. Even when it was clean, he continued to scour, lulled by the motion, soothed by the mechanics of preparation. The tissue dried, its alcohol evaporating in fine films, and began to squeak in complaint.
Reuben stopped cleaning and began to search around, on the shelves, in the small fridge under the bench, in an upright freezer at his side, once again picking out the ingredients he needed for the cookery of molecular biology. He entered a trance-like state, calculating volumes, estimating temperatures, working out concentrations, labelling tubes, scribbling notes, programming cycles, assembling plates, pipetting liquids, extracting nucleic acids, equilibrating arrays, scanning read-areas, gauging quantities, loading reactions, monitoring electrophoreses and initiating algorithms.
He thought about his brother, repeated the words he had said to Judith, listened in his head to her short, rushed sentences, mulled over Jez’s disappearance, attempted to guess what the eyeball samples were going to show him, chewed a sandwich, etched the uninjured face of Lloyd Granger into a fresh square of canvas, called Moray, who was stuck in Finland, of all places, paced around, monitored the door, scratched his stubble, slept, screwed up the canvas image and threw it in the bin, considered Kieran Hobbs and Maclyn Margulis, thought of the warm rush of pure amphetamine, tried to shut out images of his alcoholic father, wondered again who had attempted to kill him in the alleyway, leafed sadly through photos of Joshua, stifled notions of Lucy and Shaun Graves raising his son, repressed the notion that Joshua would become someone else’s boy, someone armed with a baseball bat, and fought the tightening in his throat and the cold ache in his ribs.
Seconds, minutes and hours were measured out in microlitres, millilitres and litres. Every press of the pipette inched him towards a feature; every action of each procedure brought him closer to the face. He battled an itchy, greasy, burning tiredness. Reuben entered a stretch of thoughtless action, the mechanics taking over, scientific autopilot pulling him through. He shut down the peripherals, the distractions, the worries and cleared his head. There came a point where thinking was actually detrimental. Lost in the purity of his procedures, Reuben moved into the final stages of Predictive Phenotyping. He had resuspended, extracted, amplified, labelled, hybridized and washed. The array was complete, with signals which would turn into numbers, which would be compared with data-sets, which would be dragged through algorithms, which would appear as shades and tones and sizes and locations and characteristics. Reuben transferred the RNA chip data from the fluorescent reader to his laptop.
Coming alive again, he ran his middle finger, with its chewed nail and slender carpals, over the tracker ball. He selected the Run button, drew a nervous breath, and pressed it. The hard-drive buzzed with eagerness, galloping through the calculations and comparisons. Blurry digits scrolled upwards, flashing green and red as they went. Reuben glanced at his watch. It was 11 a.m. Somewhere he had lost another day. Time slipping through his fingers as he sought other people’s truths. The face was thirty minutes away. Already, a framework was appearing, crude lines mapping out the 3D surface it would colour and stretch into a photographic image. Reuben’s mobile rang, vibrating along the bench towards him. The ID was masked. He hesitated, appreciating that calls from Finland wouldn’t necessarily be recognized by his phone. ‘Hello,’ he said flatly, rubbing his eyes.
‘Reuben Maitland?’ the voice asked.
Reuben straightened. ‘Who is this?’
‘I think you know already.’
He stood up involuntarily, his guts filled with ice. ‘Tell me.’
‘First things first. I think you should know that I have someone with me.’
‘Who?’
‘Jeremy Hethrington-Andrews. Your old colleague, I believe?’
‘Jez? Let me speak to him.’
The phone was handed over, crackling, becoming quiet and then going live again. ‘Help me, Reuben,’ Jez said suddenly, his words bursting out of the earpiece. ‘He’s serious. I’m next. He’s going to—’
Jez’s thin, terrified plea was replaced by a firmer, broader utterance. ‘That’s enough.’
The line went dead momentarily, before Reuben could hear the scraping and scuffling sounds of the receiver being passed back.
‘Look, who are you?’ Reuben asked, almost desperately. ‘At least tell me your name.’
‘Let me get straight to the point. You have been very elusive, Dr Maitland, and now I wish to meet you.’ The voice was calm, in control, almost hypnotic. Reuben appreciated that the last utterances Sandra, Run and Lloyd had heard were the soothing tones of a man who took comfort from the distress of others. ‘As an incentive, I will be executing Jeremy in one hour if you don’t turn up. We’re at Flat one hundred and thirteen B, Alcester Towers, Penny Drive, Walthamstow. As the number suggests, we’re on the eleventh floor. It won’t be too difficult to spot whether you have come alone or not. And if you do have company, Jeremy will be exploring the pavement with a great d
eal of momentum.’ Reuben scribbled the address frantically, unplugging his laptop, folding it up, grabbing his wallet and keys. ‘You have fifty-nine minutes,’ the man stated. ‘And then we can finally get down to business.’
Reuben scanned the laboratory wildly, then ran for the door, carrying his computer. He dashed along the underground passageway which linked into the wrecked factory above, and out, over the broken glass, into the light. He sprinted through the elongated industrial estate, which was fed by a long, straight road with no pavement. He glanced left and right before deciding on the latter. About six hundred metres further was a busy intersection. As he ran he checked his watch, swivelling the diving bezel around to fifty minutes. There was just time. He pictured Jez, pupils wide, knowing that death could be within the hour.
Racing towards the junction, Reuben felt the warm laptop nuzzling into his armpit. He saw cars slowing and stopping, but no taxis. Surely he would be able to flag one down? There was no time to be standing around. Just as he reached his destination, he heard the familiar clatter of a black cab behind him. Please let the light be on, he gasped through burning lungs. He swivelled round, stuck out his arm and saw a flash of yellow. The taxi sped by, and entered the junction. Reuben swore, running his eyes desperately up and down the three intersecting roads. No other taxis were in sight. Then he saw that the cab was turning around. Reuben realized that there had been nowhere to stop. It beeped at him and pulled over. He climbed in the back and said breathlessly, ‘Walthamstow. Quick. Fifty quid if you can make it in half an hour.’
The driver pulled off and Reuben opened the laptop on his knee. It was still buzzing, and the face had changed. Colours were deepening, the relief map gaining contours, sprouting hairs and cutting teeth. He typed in a couple of commands and then took out his phone. He dialled DCI Sarah Hirst’s number, saying ‘Come on, come on’ with each ring.
‘Dr Maitland?’ Sarah said. ‘Why are you—’
‘No time,’ he interrupted. ‘We’re into the endgame. The killer called me. He’s holding Jez, and is about to execute him. I’ve got’ – Reuben examined his Dugena – ‘forty-four minutes to get to Walthamstow. He wants a face to face.’
‘Why you?’
‘I guess this is where we’ve been heading.’
‘Are you armed?’
‘No. I want to be met somewhere within a mile of Penny Drive, Walthamstow. A firearm, something small like an S and W. Then I’ll go on alone.’
‘It’s going to take a bit of organizing.’
The taxi swung through corners, its hard suspension rocking over the bumps, throwing Reuben around in his seat. He clung on to the computer. ‘Organize it or Jez dies.’
‘Look, give me the address. We’ll get a team out there.’
‘There’s no time. And he’s promised to teach Jez how to fly if he sees anyone but me.’
‘Where are you now?’
He peered through the window. ‘Hurtling through the back streets of Bermondsey.’
‘And do you think you’re going to get there?’
‘Should just about do it.’ Reuben braced himself in the corner of the seat. ‘So you’ll ring me with an address for the handover?’
‘I’m typing the route in. Can you see any street names?’
He careered through a T-junction. ‘Jamaica Road.’
‘Jamaica. Jamaica. OK. Let me see. Bermondsey. Come on, come on. Right, got it. I can see where you’re heading, give or take. We’ll set something up, meet you en route. How long now?’
‘Forty-one minutes.’
‘Shit.’ Reuben heard echoing footsteps and appreciated that Sarah was running down a corridor in GeneCrime. He was with her as she crashed through a door and clopped down a flight of stairs to the Incident Room. ‘Reuben,’ she breathed, ‘no heroics. You’re not a copper. You don’t shoot people.’
‘I don’t intend to,’ he answered.
‘I’ve got to go. Phil – we’ve got a situation. Reuben’s in a cab, on his way to the killer. Yep, he’s on the line. Bermondsey. You want a word? Phil says good luck. Right. Reuben, remember what I said. See you on the other side. Bye.’
Reuben mouthed the word ‘Bye’ and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He stared into the screen, captivated, nerves firing, stomach churning, heart galloping, sweat forming, fingers clenching. The image was becoming real. Features which before were simply budding were now flowering. The program had moved from constructing to tweaking. It was, he realized, just playing, trying things on for size, like painting on the final layer of make-up before a night out. This was the man he was about to meet. And as he stared into the face before him, Reuben knew for the first time that this was the killer. Because the face was familiar. He had seen it, and within the last few days. This time there was no resemblance to himself or to his brother. The features were coarser, darker, more menacing even on the screen. He gazed into the eyes, then took in the peripheral characteristics: the thick lips, the heavy brow, the padded earlobes, the dense hair. But still the identity was elusive.
Reuben shook his head, fast-winding through recent events, flashing up everyone he had encountered: people he had walked past in the street; images he had seen in Judith’s case notes; members of Kieran Hobbs’s gang he had observed in the café; Maclyn Margulis and his accomplices in the restaurant; the bodyguards of Xavier Trister; everyone his retinas had scanned since the death of Sandra Bantam. He gritted his teeth and tapped his forehead. The taxi swung through a mini-roundabout. Reuben checked his watch. Thirty-four minutes. He looked for street signs. Still the face wouldn’t come. It was an itch at the back of his brain that refused to be scratched. He noted that the roads appeared familiar. Reuben glanced at the taxi driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. He felt a sick premonition. He recognized the bumps of the street they were on. He examined the screen of his laptop again. He heard the central locking kick in. He rewound to the junction. The taxi. The driver. The man. The face. The face. The cab slowed. They were at the junction again. They pulled over. The driver looked round. Reuben saw two similar images, one on his laptop, one behind the driver’s screen. One of them was neutral; the other was smiling. Through the payment hole poked the dead eye of a gun. Reuben folded his laptop shut. He was looking at the killer.
‘You direct from here,’ the man said.
‘Where’s Jez?’ Reuben asked.
‘Jez has gone. Now you’ll have to show me the way. I know we’re close. And no fucking about if you want to live.’
Reuben swallowed hard. ‘Third left. Then follow it round towards the arches.’
The taxi lurched forwards and headed into the industrial estate.
‘You recognize me?’ the man asked.
‘I recognize you. But it’s been a while since I saw you properly.’
‘It certainly has,’ he answered.
‘On the right,’ Reuben instructed. He ground his teeth together to stop the sickness climbing his throat. He saw Sarah Hirst heading desperately towards Walthamstow, half of London’s CID in pursuit. He saw Moray Carnock bugging a hotel room in Helsinki. But mostly, he pictured the cuts, the burns and the protracted tortures of Sandra, Run and Lloyd. As they picked their way through the broken building and down into the basement, the sharp, honest nose of the gun digging into his back, Reuben realized he was utterly alone in a city of eight million. He entered the lab and blinked along with the neon lights. He could scream for days and not be heard.
1
External chaos had a perversely calming influence on Phil Kemp’s state of mind. In the midst of panic, he alone walked clearly through, considering the information, separating the extraneous noise from the main signal. Although frequently absent of late, his calmness had helped him in his steady rise to the position of Detective Chief Inspector. During the early days, caught up in flammable situations or messy crime scenes, he had been able to exert an authority absent in many of his peers, purely through the ability to remain unruffled. And now, as Sarah Hirst bark
ed orders and scribbled frenzied notes, he forced his brain to regain its customary composure and focus on the single important issue.
Sarah had arranged for an Armed Response Unit to meet Reuben Maitland’s taxi, for the illicit handing over of a small revolver, for roads to be sealed, and for helicopter back-up. But, Phil realized grimly, this was potentially a lose-lose situation. He picked up Sarah’s CID mobile and scrolled through Options until he reached Records, and then Calls Received. Phil wrote the number down. He knew that there was little point informing his colleagues of his actions. No one would listen. Experience had told him that in the heat of battle, people only heard the firing of guns.
Sarah approached him and retrieved her phone.
‘Well, here we are,’ Phil said. ‘The endgame.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Look, Sarah, what matters is we catch the bastard. That’s all.’
‘And don’t tell me’ – Sarah glared – ‘you want to be the one to take him down.’
Phil was unusually contemplative, weighing up his answer. ‘No, I’m not saying that.’
‘So what, then?’
‘Just . . . let’s get this right,’ he replied. ‘You go get him, and I’ll cover the base.’
‘You sure?’
Phil nodded. ‘I’m sure.’
Sarah’s eyes thanked him. She turned and left the room, CID officers swirling behind her. Phil watched her hurried departure. The real glory was in the chase, in capturing the killer. Running the Incident Room was unrewarding and remote. But whatever he had to do. For once, he was content to let Sarah take the praise. As he tapped the telephone number into a computer, he reflected that it had been an intense struggle from the moment Sandra Bantam had been murdered. GeneCrime had suffered. The death of its personnel would taint GeneCrime’s name for ever, given that the unit was now public knowledge, written about on front pages, speculated about in filler pieces.
But there had been another problem. The murders had opened up deep schisms in the ranks, scientists versus CID; gouges had been carved out between the two which might never be healed. Even Sarah and himself had been sucked in, failing to agree, fighting like children, vying for promotion. He wondered what the future held for his Division, and failed to see anything positive. A small flare of regret singed his calm. Phil had dedicated his professional life to running the advanced forensics unit, and it was possible this would be taken away from him after the killer was caught. There would be an investigation into his actions during the manhunt. Questions would be asked about morale, cooperation, the sharing of knowledge and a whole host of other policing issues. Sarah, he realized sadly, was on the verge of victory. As he scrolled through screens of data, Phil picked up his phone and dialled an on-screen number. He reflected that as his self-control had leaked away in the course of the investigation, he had gradually been losing the game.