Fatal Connection

by Malcolm Rose

  Lexi looked up at Loose End Edge and said, ‘If I lived around here, I’d be hang-gliding from there. Fantastic – jumping off and just drifting in the sky. I’ve always fancied being an instructor. Nice job.’

  Distracted, Troy watched a grey squirrel running drunkenly along the branch of a roadside tree, until he lost sight of it in the foliage.

  Loose End Sports lay between the village and its bigger partner, Tight End. Its facilities attracted clients from both places – and from further afield. Just inside the main entrance to the gym, indoor climbing centre, running track and velodrome, Troy spoke to a formidable-looking receptionist. She looked at the photo on Troy’s life-logger carefully and then shook her head. ‘I don’t forget faces. Not a single one. As I don’t know hers, she’s certainly not been here while I’ve been on duty. Miley Quist is her name, you say.’ She scrolled down a list of members on her monitor. ‘Just as I thought. Not a member. Sorry. I can’t help you.’

  ‘As your memory for faces is so good, what about these three?’ Troy said, showing the other victims.

  ‘No. Definitely not.’

  ‘That’s that, then,’ Lexi murmured.

  ‘Thanks,’ Troy said to the receptionist.

  Hesitating before they left the sports centre, Lexi told her partner, ‘And the bad news just keeps rolling in. The local hotels, bed and breakfast places and that sort of thing have no record of an overnight stay by anyone called Alyssa Bending and no one recognized her face.’

  ‘Let’s go back to headquarters,’ Troy suggested. ‘It’ll be late before we get there.’

  Lexi shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me. I’ll meditate on the way. You could try to get some sleep.’

  ‘It’s too early. Anyway, my brain’s full of the case, back at that crossroads, working out what to do next.’

  ‘Huh. You should learn to turn off and then back on again. It works wonders.’

  After her second bout of meditation in the fast-moving car, Lexi’s mind was particularly sharp. She took her life-logger in her hands and typed madly.

  ‘What’s up?’ Troy asked.

  ‘That hair at Keaton Hathaway’s place. I think there’s something else I can do with it. Not one of the routine tests. Something more … experimental. I’m sure I heard about a new method. Yes. Here it is. ‘Determining where people live by measuring the ratios of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in their tissues.’ And, yes, it includes hair.’

  ‘How does that work? Or won’t my feeble major brain understand it even after you’ve explained it?’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best to get it through to you despite your deficiencies.’ She speed-read the article she’d found and then cleared her throat. ‘When you live somewhere, your body absorbs chemicals from the water and food. You are what you eat. The ratio of isotopes oxygen-sixteen and oxygen-eighteen are different in different places. Same with hydrogen and deuterium. The plants, insects and farm animals we eat absorb the same pattern of isotopes so, as long as you eat mainly local food and drink local water, you get the same ratios in your body. In other words, the chemicals provide a tell-tale signature in your tissues.’

  ‘There’s a way of measuring these isotopes, then?’

  ‘Mass spectrometry.’

  ‘If you did it on my hair and yours, could you tell that you live in one Shepford zone and I live in another?’

  ‘No chance. We’re too close. Our water would come from the same source. But it’d easily tell different countries apart and different regions of the same country. It’d be good to know which region that male outer came from, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Sure would. But what if he travels around a lot or only drinks bottled water?’

  ‘That would be the end of that. It’s got to be someone who eats quite a bit of local food and drinks loads of local water – from a tap. Then I just compare the two isotope ratios in the hair with a database of the same ratios from different parts of the country – and overseas. If there’s a match, hey presto, we know the region where he eats and drinks.’

  ‘Nice idea. Shiveringly good idea. What’s stopping you from cracking on with it?’

  Lexi frowned and glanced theatrically round the inside of the automatic car. ‘It’s not equipped with a mass spectrometer and I forgot to bring the hair sample.’

  Troy rolled his eyes. ‘I meant, calling the forensic department and getting them on the job.’

  ‘It’s not a recognized method. I’m going to have to work out how best to do it with some specialists when we get back. And I’m thinking about trying another test as well.’

  Troy nodded. ‘Something useful for you to do while I’m tucked up in bed.’

  ‘What’s your busy brain come up with so far?’

  ‘We’re still on the nursery slopes of this investigation. I want to ask Richard Featherstone’s mates where he was on the weekend of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of April. We need to check out Jon Drago Five – just in case. And I’d like to visit the insect farm where Keaton Hathaway worked.’

  Lexi licked her lips. ‘Now you’re talking.’

  SCENE 11

  Wednesday 7th May, Night

  ‘Hi, Gran. It’s me.’

  ‘Late again,’ Troy’s grandma replied. It wasn’t a criticism, just a fact.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Your dad was the same. Working all hours of the night and day.’ She stopped herself and glanced at Troy.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I … er … talked about him today – and about Mum. To Lexi. It felt right.’

  ‘Lexi, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Still working with the same girl, then?’

  ‘Yes. Still getting on well.’

  Grandma frowned. ‘It’s working with an outer that keeps you away from home. That’s what I think anyway. They work around the clock so you think you’ve got to follow suit. But you don’t. You can’t. You need your sleep.’

  ‘Lexi ribs me about it, but she knows. It’s not her fault I’m late, Gran. It’s the case. We’ve just got back from Loose End.’

  ‘Oh. There’s something I’ve got to tell you, honey. Watch yourself by the back door.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The drain from the kitchen sink got blocked. When I was clearing it, a rat came up out of the sewer. I called someone.’

  ‘And they put poison down?’

  ‘Yes. Nasty stuff. We mustn’t touch it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So, where’s Loose End?’

  ‘Way up on the north coast. A few hours away.’

  ‘Couldn’t they get some local people to deal with it?’ She smiled at him and added, ‘I know you’re the best and all that, but surely there’s someone up north who can do the job.’

  ‘It’s a weird case, Gran. Some of it’s here in Shepford. The rest is anywhere from Hoops – near the south coast – to Loose End. I’ll be travelling a lot.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s good to get around. Nice to see somewhere different. Like going on holiday.’

  Troy grinned. ‘It doesn’t feel like a holiday.’

  Grandma didn’t ask for any details. Over the years, she’d had enough of hearing about police work. She’d had enough of tragedies. She heaved herself out of her armchair. ‘Never mind. Come into the kitchen. There’s something for you in the oven.’

  Remembering how Lexi had reacted to the idea of visiting an insect farm, Troy licked his lips. ‘Now you’re talking.’

  SCENE 12

  Thursday 8th May, Morning

  Lexi welcomed her partner back to work with a grimace. ‘There’s a hitch with the isotope analysis.’

  ‘But you’re a forensic genius. I thought you’d tell me where the man with the hair lived as soon as I walked through the door.’

  ‘It’s not straightforward. But I’ve briefed the experts and they’ve got the hair. They’ll do it as soon as they can. There’s another issue with it, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The
legal people are studying it. They reckon the result might not be presentable in court because it’s not a recognized forensic test. It’s not been validated for use in law.’

  ‘That fits,’ Troy said with a sigh. ‘But the result will still be useful to us.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s why I told them to go ahead anyway.’

  Troy gazed at her face for a moment and said, ‘Being the perceptive one, I think you’re bursting to tell me more. You’ve given me the bad news first and now you’re going to cheer me up with something fantastic.’

  ‘Huh. Not fantastic, but interesting.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s the same hair.’

  ‘It’s amazing what forensics can get from one tiny strand.’

  ‘Yeah. I checked it for mercury concentration and did some comparisons. My hair contains four parts per million of mercury. Almost nothing. I’m not dying of mercury poisoning. Keaton Hathaway’s hair is 705 parts per million – or ppm as us scientists call it. That’s extreme. No wonder the mercury killed him. I measured the hair in his diary at 165 ppm of mercury.’

  ‘An in-between figure.’

  ‘So, you’re not a complete dud at maths. Yes. It’s an outer who’s been around mercury quite a lot.’

  Troy nodded. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what I said.’

  ‘Nice work.’

  ‘If we’re looking at murder – if it was deliberate – I still don’t know why the bad guy opted for mercury, though. It’s a strange choice.’ Lexi hesitated, thinking, before she carried on. ‘I mean, everything’s a poison. It’s not so much about what gets into your body. It’s more about how much gets in. We all die if we drink too much water or swallow enough salt. No matter what it is, if it’s more than your body can cope with, you’re poisoned. So, if you were going to poison someone, there are better ways of doing it. Much easier than mercury. Like poisons that kill in such tiny amounts that they don’t leave a trace.’

  ‘You’re on fire today.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Me, I’m struggling with motive,’ Troy admitted. ‘Why those four people?’

  ‘Maybe this just adds up to an accident – a miniversion of the Japanese mercury pollution story that Caroline Seventeen told us about.’

  ‘And it killed people in Shepford, Pickling, Pullover Creek and Hoops?’

  ‘Yeah. Okay. We’re still looking for the fatal connection.’

  ‘Talking of Hoops …’

  Lexi nodded. ‘A round of golf with Richard Featherstone’s friends?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Troy paused before adding, ‘And talking of people who work at Tight End Recycling Facility …’

  ‘We need to run that check on Jon Drago Five.’

  ‘Come on. We can start it on the way.’

  SCENE 13

  Thursday 8th May, Late morning

  Speeding southward in the car, Troy said, ‘I wish we’d got a DNA sample from Jon Drago Five when we were at TERF – to see if it matches the hair.’

  ‘We don’t have a reason to make him a suspect,’ Lexi replied. ‘Matching a vague description isn’t enough. Hundreds of other male outers would do that.’

  ‘I know. But he works with mercury.’

  ‘Still not a good enough excuse to grab his DNA.’

  All police officers wore life-loggers to record everything they did and said. The recordings were used to make sure that every investigation had been carried out correctly. The devices also prevented most attacks on police officers, because the crooks knew that their actions would be captured on video and transmitted to the nearest police computer.

  ‘But if we turn up anything shifty about him …’ Troy left the sentence hanging in mid-air.

  ‘We’ll see. But remember Caroline Seventeen said she’d vetted him.’

  ‘We’ve got bigger and better databases. And you’re more thorough.’

  Lexi laughed. ‘Yeah. More methodical.’

  Troy said, ‘Caroline probably vetted him for scientific competence and honesty. We’re vetting him for poisoning. Has he got any friends – or, more importantly, enemies – who’ve been ill? Does he have a police record? Does he run a black market in mercury? Do all TERF’s checks and balances add up, or has someone fiddled the figures?’

  ‘No matter how thorough and methodical I am, I don’t think I’m going to get all the answers in a car that’s going in the exact opposite direction from where he lives,’ Lexi replied. ‘I’ll get onto Tight End Crime Central and see if they can spare us a local to dig around.’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘We’ve got a list of TERF’s workers and clients as well. Loads of leads in there.’

  ‘That’s one thing we’re not short of. Things to investigate.’

  They spent the rest of the journey researching the people and organizations on Caroline Seventeen’s list of contacts. That included Jon Drago Five.

  ‘Here’s something,’ Lexi said. ‘Well, not very much, but a company called Switcher – they make electronic switches – buys some of TERF’s mercury and they’re based in Pickling. Not far from Keaton Hathaway.’

  Troy nodded. ‘Onto the spreadsheet with them.’ He took a breath and then said, ‘Jon Drago Five doesn’t work at weekends. I don’t know where he was on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of last month.’

  ‘His numbers add up, though,’ Lexi replied. ‘I’ve been through TERF’s records. The amount of mercury they’ve reclaimed over the years is the same as the amount they’ve sold plus the stock they say they’re holding right now.’

  ‘So, if someone’s hijacking a bit, they’re cooking the books as well.’

  ‘Yeah. It’d be somebody with access to the company’s computer and all its logs. Or maybe they’ve got less mercury on site than they think – because some’s been nicked.’

  After a few more minutes, Lexi exclaimed, ‘Hey. Listen to this.’ Her life-logger piped rock music into the car and, for a while, her head nodded in rhythm. ‘Mmm. Not bad.’

  ‘What is it?’ Troy asked.

  ‘A group called Mercury Splash.’

  ‘Choosing a name like that doesn’t make them guilty of poisoning.’

  ‘The drummer’s good, though, isn’t he?’

  Suspicious, Troy said, ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I know what Jon Drago Five does at weekends. He packs up his drum kit and tours with Mercury Splash.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Unusual for an outer to play music.’

  ‘Some say the drums aren’t a musical instrument. Anyway, even outers can keep time. The rest of the group are majors.’

  ‘So, where have Mercury Splash been gigging for the last few weekends?’

  ‘Thought you’d never ask. Quite a few places. I’ve downloaded a list. The ones we’re interested in are Pickling and Shepford.’

  Troy nodded. ‘Yesterday, Jon Five told us he hadn’t been to Pickling for a while.’

  ‘That’s right. But, to be fair, he was talking about not making any deliveries there.’

  ‘Still, it’s a bit strange he didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Musicians!’ Lexi muttered. ‘They never know what town they’re in when they’re on tour.’

  Troy laughed. ‘Playing a gig or two each weekend isn’t what I’d call a tour. Anyway, you’ve got a definite link to Pickling and Shepford. That’s a possible link to Keaton Hathaway and Miley Quist. And Miley’s dad said she went to a music festival. But …’ He hesitated and shook his head. ‘Would you call yourself Mercury Splash if you were about to kill people with mercury?’

  ‘Maybe the name of the group came first. Then changing it would look even more suspicious.’ She checked her life-logger again. ‘They played Shepford Music Festival a couple of weekends back.’

  ‘What about the Pickling gig? Did your forensic team find a ticket for it at Keaton Hathaway’s place?’

  ‘No. Not one of the items they lo
gged.’

  Troy called Alyssa Bending’s husband and asked if Alyssa had been to see a group called Mercury Splash. Mr Bending couldn’t be sure, but he doubted it. The band was more likely to appeal to his children than to his wife.

  Troy ended the call and sighed. ‘This connection is looking south of certain, but I’ll ask Richard Featherstone’s mates if he’s the sort to go and see Mercury Splash.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  What was left of the morning was clear and bright. From the large window of the clubhouse at Hoops Golf Course, Troy could just see the south coast. The eyesight of an outer was not as sharp as a major’s, so Lexi couldn’t make out the sea. To her, the end of the land, the sea and the clouds on the horizon merged into an indistinct grey.

  Standing in front of three of Richard’s golfing friends, Troy asked, ‘Have you heard of the group, Mercury Splash?’

  Only one responded. ‘Yes. Do I get a prize?’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Would Richard have liked them?’

  ‘Possibly. He was a bit crazy like that. Acting younger than his age.’

  ‘So, he might have gone to one of their concerts?’

  ‘Possibly,’ the same friend repeated.

  Troy scanned all their faces. ‘But you don’t know for sure.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Where was he on the weekend of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of April?’

  ‘He said he was going on a fishing expedition.’

  ‘At sea or in a river?’

  ‘Could have been either. He did both.’

  ‘With …?’

  ‘Solo.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Anyway, knowing Richard, he’d probably change his mind twice before he got there. He was a bit unreliable like that. Shooting off all over the place.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’d got restless feet.’

  ‘It wasn’t to do with furniture making, then?’

  ‘Sometimes. He went to art and craft shows. That sort of thing. But he was always after a thrill, finding a new challenge.’