The Colours of Death

by Patricia Marques

  ‘All right,’ Isabel says to Jacinta, ‘let’s get in there.’

  It’s one of the older-model trains. The outside is scuffed from its long years of use and bad weather and decorated with spiked letters in green spray-paint. The interior isn’t much better; its seats are worn and paint flaking. Voronov walks beside her and Isabel doesn’t bother to hide her assessing gaze.

  The doors to the carriage have been left open. The air carries with it a tinge of the threatening rain and the lingering smell of spilled coffee and blood. It makes her think of stepping inside a butcher’s shop, the metallic tang always in the air. It seems stronger in this compact carriage, maybe because it’s so out of place.

  The shape of the man on the floor looks odd in the empty carriage. Still and large, slumped in the space between the seats either side of it, surrounded by shards of glass. Behind it, the closed carriage-door window is broken, glass jagged and red-stained, the door dirty, large spots of red on its surface.

  As they walk through, there’s a scarf discarded on the floor, a forgotten bag is tucked into the corner of a seat and an umbrella in another. They approach the body and Isabel tugs her coat tighter around her. The carriage is freezing.

  ‘How long has he been here?’ Isabel asks.

  Jacinta hangs back, peering around Voronov at the body on the floor. ‘We got here within half an hour of the call coming through. He was dead before we got here.’

  Isabel lowers herself onto her haunches, keeping a bit of distance as she looks over her second body of the day. The two couldn’t be more different.

  The body lies on its side, one arm trapped beneath it and the other stretched out. Isabel can just see the side of the face. A white male. His skin looks as if it’s been peeled off by a child who’s mistaken it for plasticine, falling away from his face in some spots, torn and drooping, brutalised and bloody in others. The eye she can see is swollen and battered, but there’s a gleam where the dead gaze still peers out at her from behind a half-shut eyelid. Like he’s staring at her. The dark hair at his temples is matted with blood.

  Isabel makes a concentrated effort to look away. ‘What happened?’

  Jacinta steps out of the aisle and wedges herself between a set of seats facing each other.

  ‘Got a report of an emergency at the station. When we got here, the scene was barely secured, hysterics everywhere. People panicked and tried to rush out of the carriage.’ She slants a look at Isabel. ‘You can imagine how well that worked out.’

  Isabel looks over her shoulder at Voronov, who is standing quiet, towering over Jacinta and staring down his long nose at her.

  ‘I’m hoping that means witnesses,’ Isabel says, reaching up to rub at her temple. The first pulses of a headache are beginning to settle.

  Jacinta shakes her head. ‘Mostly confused commuters who have no idea what in the hell happened. One passenger thought the deceased was having a fit or just losing his shit’ – Jacinta gestures at the broken window on the door – ‘says he up and started smashing his head against the window, alarming the other passengers. Train was packed.’

  Isabel nods.

  ‘The guy closest to him actually tried to do something about it,’ Jacinta says, ‘he tried to keep him from bashing his face against the door but wasn’t all that successful.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Isabel asks.

  ‘They’ve taken him to the break room, him and whoever else they could catch that didn’t run out of the station as soon as they got clear of the train. Think some paramedics are with him to check for damage but he seems to be mostly okay.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Isabel tears her eyes away from the one staring eye and looks around the carriage. Beneath the smell of the blood is a different smell, really subtle. Isabel frowns and tilts her head, trying to identify it. There’s something familiar about it but she can’t place it.

  Isabel stands. ‘The Chief told me it was being reported as a possible Gifted crime.’ She glances at Voronov to see if there’s any outward reaction to that but there’s nothing.

  Jacinta shrugs. ‘Like I said, people don’t know what they saw. The woman sitting next to the deceased says it looked like he was yanked out of his seat. She said it was like he was just plucked up into the air.’

  Chapter 3

  The station is eerily silent as Isabel and Voronov cross it. They can hear the noise of angry protests from commuters outside. None of their thoughts reach Isabel now though.

  Isabel hopes they haven’t caught the attention of the press yet, though that’s probably a fruitless hope. No doubt if she were to turn a TV on right now, RTP Notícias would be right in front of the station with a pretty news reporter giving them a run-down of the situation. After all, the death of one man had brought the terminal to a standstill.

  Isabel tries to put that to one side now and glances at her new partner as they make their way to the break room. His strides are longer than hers, but he’s shortening them to keep pace with her.

  ‘What are you thinking about this case?’ she asks, keeping her voice low. She checks that their Guide, Mateus, can’t hear them. She doesn’t need any more information getting out than it has to.

  ‘That it’s going to be a mess,’ Voronov says.

  Brutal. But Isabel doesn’t think he’s wrong. Not when what she’s seen so far is supporting the fact that there’s more to it than just a man who lost his shit.

  ‘Odds are,’ Voronov says, pulling her out of her thoughts, ‘it’s someone who’s lost it and caused a panic.’

  She arches a brow at that. ‘It’s possible. But seems a bit extreme for someone who “just lost it”, don’t you think?’

  He looks at her then. ‘A suicidal episode would be extreme.’

  Isabel is surprised when she spots Carla and Daniel outside the break room. She hadn’t expected the Chief to send anyone else – at least not until they have more information. It’s a sign of how even the Policía Judiciária is feeling the tension when, at the mere possibility of a Gifted crime, an entire team is dispatched to deal with the situation.

  Carla is new in the Investigations department, having started with them in January. Gifted, like Isabel. It had been a surprise to everyone when the Polícia Judiciária had continued to recruit without any obvious discrimination. It’s a dangerous game for the PJ to play. Public opinion is lying heavily with the PNP, Portugal’s right-wing political party. Their anti-Gifted agenda, spearheaded by the party leader, has taken a strong hold with the Portuguese people.

  Isabel doesn’t know what Carla’s classification is, has only spoken to her in passing. Carla works with Daniel. All thanks to the new policy, every Gifted officer in the PJ is required to have a Regular partner.

  A year or so ago, on a busy Saturday afternoon, a Gifted teenage girl had levelled an entire section of a shopping centre. She’d somehow slipped through the net, her Gift level having been misclassified, which had brought Portugal’s National Testing Institute under fire. Their responsibility was to properly test and determine a Gifted’s affinity and level to make sure incidents like these didn’t occur. Gifted people come under two affinities, telepathy and telekinesis, and their levels of power are measured on a scale of 1–10, though Gifted at the higher end of the scale are few and far between. And dangerous. Well, according to NTI and the government, that is.

  No one had noticed when the girl’s control had started to slip or when she started to break under the weight of her telekinesis. There’d been no Monitor on her case because they hadn’t known she was a high-level Gifted.

  The result had been twenty-eight people dead, eight critically injured and many more who had had to be seen to by paramedics. Public uproar had been intense. Isabel still remembers the moment when the news had broken out; she’d been scraping the burnt layer off a piece of toast in her kitchen when the news presenter’s voice had filtered through. They’d never shown the girl’s face.

  That was the point when hostilities against Gifted had become more o
pen. The government had been quick to come forward with fail-safe policies in case another Gifted ‘went rogue’.

  For the PJ that meant that every Gifted officer would have to have a non-Gifted partner.

  Isabel glances over at Voronov. Hence the addition to her team of one. Something else the public could thank the PNP for. Clearly, their tax money was hard at work here keeping them safe from the big, bad and corrupt Gifted population.

  Daniel looks like he’s just rolled out of bed; his hair is all over the place and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s sucking down that cup of coffee like it’s got the answer to life.

  Carla looks apprehensive. She’s a petite woman with a prominent nose and pretty eyes. Her dark hair is scraped back from her face and tucked into a sleek ponytail atop her head and she’s huddled into her coat, wrapped tight around herself.

  Isabel stops in front of them, eyebrows high as she takes in Daniel’s face. ‘You look like shit,’ she says.

  He scowls at her. ‘So do you. We were on nights. Just had time for a shower before the Chief pulled us back in.’

  Isabel rolls her eyes. ‘All right, sorry.’ She gestures at Voronov. ‘You guys met?’

  They all make their introductions and with that out of the way, they turn back to the business at hand.

  Daniel finishes his coffee and crushes the cup. ‘So, where do you need us?’ he asks.

  ‘We have a group of witnesses inside. I’m interested in talking to the passengers who sat closest to the deceased, particularly the one who tried to help him. Take statements,’ Isabel says, ‘and if you think we would benefit from me speaking to them personally just come and grab me. Unless . . .’ She looks at Carla questioningly.

  Carla shakes her head. ‘No, no. I can’t do any of that.’

  Voronov gives them both a questioning look, which means that the Chief has been as forthcoming with him in regard to Isabel as she has been with Isabel in regard to him. ‘She means that she can’t look into people’s memories. Which I can,’ she says.

  ‘I’m a class-two telepath,’ Carla explains. ‘I can only do very low-grade stuff. Nothing that would be of use here.’

  Isabel doesn’t bother to look Voronov’s way to see how he’s taken that.

  The break room, they find out, isn’t much of a break room. It’s a tiny square with a kitchen attached and a door that Isabel assumes leads to a supply cupboard.

  There’s a small electric heater on and a handful of people gathered around it. The rest are sitting, hunched in on themselves, on hard plastic chairs lining one side of the room. When Isabel asks the officer present to identify the witness who had tried to hold the deceased back, he points at a young man sitting with a blanket around him. His elbows rest on his knees and his hands are clasped together. He’s staring at the floor and doesn’t so much as twitch when they enter. The others turn quiet and watch them, eyes wary. There’s an empty cup at the guy’s feet and the lingering scent of coffee fills the room.

  Isabel calms her breathing, reaching out with her Gift.

  Once the pill takes effect, it’s like her Gift is draped over by a very thick, very dark blanket and she has to pull a little harder. She doesn’t mind it. It keeps things in check and keeps her from going crazy. Literally. What she does mind is the way she’s had to learn to work with a constant headache whenever she’s taken the pill. Even if recently it doesn’t help her quite as much as it used to, as if her body has learned to fight it off.

  Voronov stops by the officer guarding the door, has a few words and a second later comes back to her.

  ‘He says there’s an office to the side of the staff kitchen we can use.’

  ‘Perfect, thanks.’ She approaches the young man in the chair and lowers herself so that she’s at eye level with him. ‘Hi,’ she says.

  It takes him a moment but then he looks up.

  ‘Would you mind speaking to me for a bit?’ She gives him a small smile as she says it, projecting as much calm as she can. ‘They have a small office here so we can talk in private.’

  He doesn’t say anything, gathers the blanket in his hands, bringing it higher around his shoulders, and follows her.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Take a seat for me, okay?’ Isabel offers the witness the seat closest to the door of the office, trying to put him as at ease as possible. An electric heater is already heating the room, which should help.

  ‘May I sit?’ she asks, as she drags over one of the fold-up chairs so that it’s facing him, making sure not to crowd him. From the sounds of it, that train carriage had been crowded enough.

  As if coming out of a dream, he lifts his head up and looks her in the face. He’s young, in his early twenties, mixed race. His hazel eyes are glassy. He blinks a couple of times and then looks from her to Voronov, who has taken root next to the door, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets.

  The witness is looking back at her now.

  He’s got blood on his hands. They’re unnaturally steady.

  ‘I’m Inspector Reis, that’s my partner,’ she keeps her voice gentle but to the point, gesturing at Voronov, ‘Inspector Voronov. We’re here to try and find out what happened today. I understand you were there when the incident on the train took place. What’s your name?’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Voronov get a notepad ready.

  Something flickers in the witness’s expression for a moment, a quick thing, and the vagueness of his stare abates, enough awareness coming back to add some life to him. The blanket around him shifts as he straightens his shoulders, and the hands that he’s got clasped together start twisting.

  ‘Rodrigo,’ he says.

  Isabel nods. ‘Rodrigo, I’m going to ask you some questions, just about what you remember from this morning. Can you tell me when you noticed something was wrong?’

  Rodrigo’s eyes drop back to his hands. ‘I’m missing my class.’

  Okay, she can work with this. ‘You were on your way to university?’

  That brings his attention back up and he focuses on her again. ‘Yes. I was running late. Normally, I’m on the first train. My car’s broken down, so I can’t drive right now.’

  ‘You travel from here often?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the man you tried to help?’

  Rodrigo shakes his head.

  ‘Ever seen him before?’

  Rodrigo shakes his head again. Stops. His mouth turns down and he shrugs like he’s confused. ‘I mean, I don’t think so. I didn’t know him, but you know when you look at a person and get that sense of déjà vu like you’ve seen them somewhere? At the station, maybe. I don’t know. I can’t really place it.’

  ‘That’s okay. So, you were sitting near him? You guys were in the same carriage?’

  ‘Yes. He sat down across from me. I was trying to get some last-minute reading done. Everyone was getting on and it was getting cramped. We were right at the end of the carriage near the connecting door.’

  Isabel stays quiet, lets him figure his way through it. His eyebrows pucker and he looks like he can’t make sense of whatever he’s trying to convey to them, as if there are too many words and his mouth can’t quite fit around them. He’s too young for what he’s seen in that carriage.

  No one is ever old enough to deal with shit like this.

  ‘I’m staring down at my book and next thing I know he’s knocking me into the woman beside me. When I look up, he’s already scrambling and there’s someone else on the floor. Then . . . then he’s h-hitting his face against the door. It made no sense but – he was screaming—’ Rodrigo’s breathing picks up and his eyes have gone wide like he still can’t believe what he’s seen. ‘Just, I didn’t understand. People were getting up and I thought, I don’t know what I thought. Maybe he was having some kind of fit? I thought maybe if I calmed him down—’ He swallows and looks down at his feet.

  ‘What did you do then, Rodrigo?’ Isabel asks, trying to draw him back into the
room with them.

  ‘I-I got my hands on his shoulders. Tried to talk to him. The lady next to me tried to get out of her seat and I tripped. But. I don’t know . . .’ He looks up at Isabel, shoulders hunched, looking lost, like he’s still in that moment and not knowing what to do. ‘I couldn’t understand what was going on. Everyone started yelling and the train was packed. Then the window breaks and when I look, this guy is smashing his face in it over and over and over. I-I tried to pull him away. I even managed to get my arm around his waist but-but it was like he was possessed. The weird thing is that—’ He stops, shakes his head again and rubs his hands over his face, leaving rusted specks on his chin, ‘when I lost my grip on him? It’s not like when someone pulls away from you, you know? Like they’re straining away.’

  ‘What do you mean, Rodrigo?’

  ‘It felt like when I was tugging him away, something else was tugging back.’

  For a moment, Rodrigo doesn’t say anything else, and Isabel doesn’t push. He sags in his seat, back to the same place of shock he had been in when they’d walked in. Isabel looks at Voronov and finds him staring at the kid, eyes narrowed. ‘If you’d seen . . . I saw the expression on his face,’ Rodrigo whispers.

  Isabel snaps back to him, focusing. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘He looked scared. He looked so scared. After, I thought he wasn’t in control. I mean, I know with fits or just . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.’ He falls quiet then and rests his head on his hands.

  Isabel eases back in her chair and watches as a fine tremble takes over the kid.

  She gets up and crouches in front of Rodrigo. ‘Rodrigo,’ she says and hears the deep breath he takes before he looks up at her again. She doesn’t feel comfortable doing this here, with a new partner she knows nothing about. But it’s one of those situations where if she doesn’t take advantage of it, the information will slip through her fingers.

  She tugs at the badge around her neck and holds it up for him to see. ‘I’m Gifted,’ she says.