by Malcolm Rose
The manager checked out a monitor on her desk. ‘Yes. She went to a fish breeder in Tight End on Friday the twenty-fifth of April. I put aside a day for it, but she didn’t come back to work on the Saturday. I don’t know what she did afterwards. It might have been because it was a lovely weekend up on the north coast. Like summer. Warm and sunny.’
‘Thanks,’ Troy replied. ‘That’s helpful.’ He terminated the call and turned to his partner. ‘Good lead. Fancy a trip to Tight End?’
‘A few hours alone with you in a car? To the fifth corner of the country? Sounds great.’
He ignored Lexi’s jokey sarcasm. ‘I knew you’d jump at the chance. Plenty of opportunity for you to meditate.’
Like most majors, Troy had just rested his body with a long period of overnight sleep. Outers like Lexi refreshed themselves with short periods of meditation. Several times each day, she would turn off for fifteen minutes. The distances that they were travelling in this case were ideal for her regular relaxation.
Lexi clicked the keypad of her computer. ‘There’s a recycling factory there. It deals with batteries and that sort of thing. Worth a visit.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘By the way, no recycling centres have got back to me about thefts or break-ins. No mercury reported missing recently.’ Browsing more tourism information, she said, ‘Thinking about Richard Featherstone, there’s a golf course somewhere near Tight End as well.’
‘There’s a golf course somewhere near everywhere.’
‘Yeah. True. There’s a sports centre down the road towards Loose End. No swimming pool, but it’s got a gym, climbing centre, running track and a velodrome for cycling. That might have attracted Miley Quist.’
‘What about Keaton Hathaway?’
‘Last night I checked every single scan of his notebooks – and copied the lot into our life-loggers. There’s no mention of Loose End or Tight End.’
‘Maybe there was on the bits that got torn out. Let’s go take a look.’
SCENE 9
Wednesday 7th May, Afternoon
It was difficult to imagine that, ten days ago, Tight End had enjoyed a summery weekend. As Troy and Lexi emerged from their car, a fierce wind blew rain almost horizontally across the town. The young detectives leaned into the gale and dashed to the fish breeding centre. They slammed the door, shutting out the raging storm. Inside, the reception was calm and warm. An oasis. Brightly coloured tropical fish flashed inside rows of tanks. Air bubbling through the water made a soothing gurgle and the lights of the aquaria shimmered attractively.
Lexi and Troy shook the raindrops from their coats while they waited to see a supervisor. Fascinated by the hypnotic movement of the fish, Lexi said, ‘I’ve always fancied being a scuba diver. Swimming with fish, especially sharks. They’re powerful, sleek and charismatic.’
The supervisor entered the reception and, overhearing her, said with a smile, ‘We don’t keep them, I’m afraid. We only supply fish that are quite a bit smaller.’
Once he had introduced himself, he sat down with two fish tanks behind him at shoulder-height. The detectives took seats opposite him. Troy angled for answers and Lexi gazed at fish.
Showing an image of Alyssa Bending on his life-logger, Troy said, ‘Have you had a visit from her recently?’
‘From the rather nicely named Pullover Creek Garden Centre, as I recall.’
‘When was she here?’
The supervisor consulted his small laptop. ‘Friday the twenty-fifth. April, that is.’
‘Did she seem okay to you? I mean, she didn’t look ill or anything?’
‘Quite the opposite. She looked very happy.’
‘And she didn’t have any accidents while she was here?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘Did she say where she was going next?’
The supervisor took a breath as he thought about it. ‘I don’t think so. I didn’t ask. It was all very business-like.’
‘Do you use mercury-containing pesticides?’
Shocked at the suggestion, he said, ‘Absolutely not. Read the small print on almost any pesticide. Harmful to aquatic organisms. Keep away from fish. Causes long-term damage to aquatic environments. That sort of thing. So, no, we don’t allow any in the building at all. On pain of death.’ He hesitated for an instant. ‘That’s a joke, by the way.’
Showing the photographs of the other three victims, Troy asked, ‘Have any of these people ever dropped in?’ He recited their names.
‘No.’
‘Did you do a deal with Alyssa?’
‘She was impressed with our quality. Anyone would be. She ordered some chevron tang, mandarin fish and quite a few tetras. With options for others later.’
‘And that was it? Nothing unusual to tell me?’
‘No. Oh, you asked about where she was going. I left her here in reception but I remember she went up to the desk …’ He turned and called out to the receptionist, ‘That rep from Pullover Creek Garden Centre. Did I hear her ask you for directions?’
‘Erm. I believe she did, yes.’
‘Where to?’ Troy asked.
‘It was … er … a restaurant.’
‘Any particular one?’
The receptionist paused, his fingers fiddling with a small gold badge on his lapel. ‘I think it was the Doom Merchant. That’s where most people go around here.’
‘Weird name,’ Troy said with a frown.
The supervisor smiled wryly. ‘Someone’s idea of wit. It stands for Dining Outers Or Majors.’
Troy faced Lexi and said, ‘Fancy a bite to eat?’
The Doom Merchant was huge. It had one large dining area and several side rooms for small groups. On each table were two menus. One was labelled Major Feasts and it was a list of meals based on animal protein, designed for majors. The other was called Ins and Outs, offering a varied insect diet for outers.
Troy and Lexi ordered their separate meals before showing the waiter a photograph of Alyssa Bending. He glanced at the image, shrugged helplessly and waved an arm vaguely around his busy restaurant. ‘There are probably a few in right now who look quite like her.’
‘If she booked in advance …’
Impatiently, the waiter interrupted. ‘We don’t take bookings. It’s first come, first served.’
Wind and rain battered the nearest window, as if trying to get through to the two detectives.
While she waited for her fried locusts with chilli and lime, Lexi used her life-logger to circulate Alyssa’s name and image to all hotels in the area. ‘She must have stayed somewhere overnight,’ she said to her partner.
Troy nodded. ‘Worth a try, but she could have gone a long way before bedtime.’
‘We’ll see.’ Lexi looked at him and said, ‘In case you’re wondering, no one online is moaning about food poisoning or feeling ill after visiting the Doom Merchant. Hey presto, no mercury in the meals.’
‘That’s comforting.’
Lexi examined her life-logger again and said, ‘Switch to Pickling mode. I’ve just got the results on the hair from Keaton Hathaway’s journal. The DNA wasn’t mine. Don’t know whose it is. The profile wasn’t in any database. But here’s the good news. I asked the specialists to give me the best picture they could from analysing the DNA. First, it’s a man’s – almost certainly. Definitely an outer, probably brown eyes. He might be taller than average, but that’s little better than a guess. Is that enough welly for you?’
Troy smiled. ‘Yeah. Shiveringly good.’
Lexi let her life-logger hang on her waist again. Keeping her voice just above the hubbub in the restaurant, she said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask. What have you got against Pickling?’
At once, a cloud came over Troy.
He was saved from finding an immediate answer by the waiter, who returned with a grey squirrel pie for a major and fried locusts for an outer.
After he’d gone and they’d both begun their separate meals, Troy said, ‘I don’t talk about this. I’ve never
told anyone. But you’re … different.’ He studied his fork for a moment, before finding the courage to continue. ‘Pickling’s got a prison. That’s where my dad is.’
‘You mean he’s a guard? Or …’ She stopped as she looked into his sombre face.
‘No, he’s not a guard.’
‘Oh,’ Lexi gasped. ‘What happened?’
‘It’s a long story.’ For Troy, the other diners had dissolved. It was just him, his memories and the matter-of-fact outer girl who had become a friend as well as a work partner. ‘You’d probably look it up in police files if I didn’t tell you, so … It started with Mum. Like my dad, she was a police officer. She was off-duty one day when she saw two thugs – lads with guns – go for a much older man. Thinking it was a mugging – as anyone would – she stepped in, protecting the man on his own. It was an impulse thing.’ Troy gazed down at his plateful of pie, soaked in brown sauce. ‘She saved him. She took the bullets herself.’
As an outer, Lexi didn’t have parents, but she knew that they meant a great deal to majors. She said nothing. Instead, she reached out and touched his arm.
After a few seconds, Troy looked up again. ‘The funny thing was who the older man was. The godfather of a gang. Blackmail, drug dealing, armed robbery, people trafficking, the lot. The lads who attacked him were two of his victims.’ He sighed and wiped his eyes. ‘The gang was very grateful. The boss “compensated” Dad. Made sure he was “comfortable”. I was too young to know what was going on. I just knew I didn’t have a mother any more. I like to think Dad refused the money at first, but … I don’t know. He started getting all sorts of favours. His next cases got solved when witnesses came forward. I guess, being on the inside, the gang knew who was up to what and delivered the culprits to Dad. Suddenly he was north of successful and had wall-to-wall cash.’ Troy shook his head. ‘The next step was the worst. The boss paid him to look the other way while they were doing jobs. To cut the story short, a detective got whiff of a nasty smell and Dad was done for corruption.’
‘The law comes down heavily when it’s a police officer who’s been turned.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You said you’d never been to Pickling. I know prison visits aren’t exactly encouraged, but haven’t you been to see him?’
‘No.’ Troy looked up at the ceiling before adding, ‘Two muggers robbed me of a mother but you don’t expect your own dad to rob you of a father.’
The storm had blown itself out. It ceased to hammer on the window.
Lexi gazed sadly at her partner. Deciding that he’d had enough, she said, ‘I don’t know about squirrel pie, but locusts aren’t improved by being cold.’
Feeling oddly lighter in mood, Troy tucked into his tepid pie. At the same time, he applied his mind to the investigation. It was a sure way of burying more painful thoughts. Between mouthfuls, he said, ‘That connection you made – two mobiles, one lost and the other reset. You might have a point. If you think of mobiles as places to put information, Richard’s and Alyssa’s have both gone. It’s a pity phone records aren’t backed up to some great big remote database. Anyway, Keaton wrote information down in a notebook. His latest has gone. A brown-eyed, silver-haired male outer probably ripped it out. Miley never stored it in her phone or wrote it down in the first place.’ He shrugged. ‘Missing information. I suppose it’s more a case of things turning out the same than a real connection. So …’
‘We carry on looking.’
‘Exactly. And hope we recognize the link when it’s staring us in the face.’
‘We’ll see.’
SCENE 10
Wednesday 7th May, Late afternoon
The chief scientist of Tight End Recycling Facility – an outer called Caroline Seventeen – pointed to a metallic contraption, about the same height as Troy, and said proudly, ‘This is state-of-the-art. As far as I’m aware, it’s the best available technology in the country for removing and capturing mercury. No other processor comes close. It makes recycling easy.’
The grey box, about a metre wide and another metre deep, had several digital monitors and control buttons on the front. A large silvery chimney was attached to the top. The shiny vent rose vertically and disappeared into the roof of the building.
‘It’s a retort, basically,’ Caroline explained. ‘A hi-tech incinerator. It burns any household item containing mercury – thermometers, fluorescent lamps, LCD screens and flat-screen TVs are the main ones – and filters organic gases from the waste stream. A highly efficient condenser and cold trap captures the mercury. Over ninety-nine per cent of it.’
‘And then what happens to it?’ Troy asked.
‘The recovered metal’s completely sealed in a safe receiver. We sell it to companies that need it to make new products.’
‘What’s your safety record like? Any accidental release of mercury in the last week or two?’
‘Our record’s perfect,’ she claimed proudly. ‘It has to be. The whole process happens under a slight vacuum so, if there’s any leak, air goes in and contaminated air doesn’t come out. We monitor performance at all stages, twenty-four seven. We keep all the data if you want to see it.’
Lexi said, ‘I get all that. It’s impressive, but it can’t be as clean and easy as you make out. If the lamps and screens aren’t broken, perhaps it’s all smooth. But what if someone’s getting rid of a broken thermometer or a cracked computer screen? The mercury’s already leaking.’
At once, Caroline realized that Lexi was a forensic scientist. She launched into a lecture. ‘As long as the integrity of the item isn’t compromised, recycling’s straightforward, as you suggest. We’ve got different procedures in place to deal with samples that aren’t intact. First, the owner places the damaged device in one of our recycling containers and then we look after it from that point. All my workers are fully trained, have the highest level safety equipment, and they’re monitored for signs of mercury contamination. We’ve got an outstanding health and safety record, fully approved by the relevant environmental agency and complying with all regulations for processing hazardous waste.’
Troy smiled. Clearly she had delivered exactly the same message many times to clients, visitors and the environmental authorities.
‘Who’s he, over there?’ Lexi asked, pointing to a worker in a fluorescent yellow jacket. The man was taller than Lexi but he had the same short hair, somewhere between silver and blonde.
‘Jon Drago Five,’ Caroline replied. ‘In charge of the distribution of recovered mercury.’
‘Perhaps he could join us,’ Troy suggested.
The chief scientist called over the brown-eyed outer.
‘You might be able to help us,’ Troy said. ‘I was about to ask where the mercury goes from here.’
‘We have a safe collection point at that end of the building,’ Jon answered, waving to the right. ‘That’s my domain. A fleet of secure vans carry sealed, impact-proof containers to their destinations. That’s when it’s out of our hands and under the control of a manufacturer.’
‘Do you go out on deliveries?’
He shook his head.
Caroline added, ‘You’ve only gone out on a run if you’ve needed to discuss something with the business it’s going to.’
‘That’s true,’ Jon agreed.
‘Do you keep a log? I guess you must do,’ said Troy.
‘The regulations are clear. We have to account for every gram – where it goes and when.’
‘Have you been to – or through – Pickling in the last couple of weeks? If you’re not sure, consult the log.’
‘I don’t need to,’ Jon replied. ‘I know we haven’t made any deliveries there for a while.’
‘Is there any point in the process where mercury could go missing and you wouldn’t know about it?’ Troy asked.
Caroline and Jon exchanged a glance. ‘Look,’ Caroline said. ‘I’m well aware of our responsibility to keep mercury
out of the environment. I’m well aware of what can happen if someone gets sloppy, especially if it leaks into water and gets into the fish and water-borne creatures that majors eat. There was a case in Japan – a coastal fishing town. A factory dumped methylmercury – extremely poisonous – in the sea. Children and unborn babies are particularly sensitive to it. It was tragic. Hundreds died. People who ate the local seafood – and the ones who ate meat from animals fed on the local fish – lost control of their bodies. So did their pets and feeding birds. That’s the effect of methylmercury on the brain. Half of them died and major women gave birth to horribly deformed children. It’s said – I don’t know how true it is – that some babies were born without brains. So, yes, everyone at TERF takes their duties very seriously.’
Jon said, ‘Once we hand a consignment over to the end client, though, it’s their responsibility, not ours.’
‘But,’ Caroline added quickly, ‘I vet my entire workforce and the destination businesses. They’ve got all the necessary licences. I make sure we don’t have any rogues at any point in the chain.’
‘So, you don’t mind giving me a list of employees and clients?’
‘I’ll send it to your life-logger within twenty-four hours.’
‘Thanks,’ Troy said. ‘One final thing.’ He lifted up his life-logger and showed the victims’ pictures. ‘Do either of you know these people? Richard Featherstone, Miley Quist, Alyssa Bending and Keaton Hathaway.’
The two outers both shook their heads.
Looking into Jon Drago Five’s face, Troy said, ‘Sure?’
He turned his head away, covered his mouth with his hand and coughed loudly. Then he replied, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
Loose End was smaller and sleepier than its sibling town. Built beside a river, the quaint village seemed to be a place where nothing really happened. Behind it, a range of hills rose up impressively, almost vertically, dwarfing the village. Once popular with climbers, the rock face was riddled with caverns. It was topped by Loose End Edge. Further along, waterfalls plunged over the peaks and splashed into pools and rivers below.