by Alex Caan
‘Are you there, Professor?’ Dr Kapoor called out.
There was a cough, and Professor Gerard confirmed his presence. He and the rest of his team were watching the digital autopsy live back at the main hospital. Seeing and hearing everything that Kate and Dr Kapoor were.
The 3D body was grotesque naked. Kate looked at the ruptured pustules on his torso, and the full bobbled ones, like pockets of limestone had seeped under his skin. His body hair was matted with blood and pus, and she could see his stomach was concaved. She guessed it had probably sunk, like his face. Yet his legs and exposed genitals were unscathed. No boils or spots, and hardly any blood.
Dr Kapoor picked an image of a scalpel, used her fingers as though using a smartphone, tapping the chest, expanding and contracting. The image changed from flesh, to muscle, to nerves, to bone. Underneath that lay his organs, before she brought it back to the top image where he was human again.
‘They haven’t changed the method for a post-mortem for a hundred years,’ said Dr Kapoor. ‘When you think how many advances there have been, this critical function has not moved on. I can say, hand on heart, the scalpel-led autopsy is no longer the gold standard.’
Dr Kapoor touched the body, and it seemed to lift off the table, as she rotated it, zooming in to particular points.
‘Just checking the equipment,’ she said. ‘You ready to go in?’
Kate nodded.
Dr Kapoor clicked on the scalpel again, touched the body with it. The skin disappeared, revealing the muscle and blood vessels below.
Chapter Sixteen
Justin Hope surveyed him. That was the only way to describe it. His eyes travelled up in an instant from Zain’s muddied boots to his faded jeans, his tight T-shirt under his jacket and unzipped hooded top sticking out the back. The smudges of charred soot on his cheeks, the tiredness hanging like mountaineers under his eyes. Zain felt light headed, from lack of sleep mixed with whatever the green pills were starting to do to him. Yet he also felt strangely awake. He wouldn’t trust himself to make any important decisions, and fuck he needed some rest, but he was alert, pumped. Maybe his body was releasing adrenaline and pushing him to limits he didn’t have.
Yeah, as if there were any limits left his body hadn’t already traversed. Zain had been to the brink of everything he could tolerate already. To a place where there was nothing left to give. He swallowed, his throat tightening under PCC Hope’s intense stare. The man could wither you without saying a word, but Zain was no fresh recruit. And he had stuff on Hope, stuff that meant he didn’t have to be scared or care what he thought of him.
Zain had kept records and evidence of his role as PCC Hope’s spy, the things he had been asked to do. He was keeping them for a day when he needed to pull in favours. That day would be a momentous one, but he wasn’t going to play that card for PCC Hope’s usual self-aggrandised bullshit.
Still, respect was due. Justin Hope was the only black face at his level in the country. The second most powerful police officer in London after the Met’s Commissioner, the indomitable Sonya Varley. Hell, between them, Hope and Varley were probably the most powerful cops in the country. Even the Prime Minister seemed to defer to them. That was real power, real success. It wasn’t in the material wealth you accumulated, or the titles others gave you. It was when you did the impossible.
PCC Hope often described himself as the impossible man. Born and brought up on a council estate, by Afro-Caribbean parents, he had clawed his way to the very top. Zain thought about scum rising to the surface, but still, PCC Hope must have kicked like a maniac to break through. Then again, so had Varley. It said something when a woman and a black man were London’s gatekeepers of justice, controlling access to the most important offices in the land. They had sledgehammered the glass ceiling.
Zain would give PCC Hope respect for that. Even if he was a slimy, untrustworthy dick. Zain felt the hypocrisy burn inside him. He was in no position to judge. Not with his own track record.
Unlike the rough and ready ‘blend in with the crowd’ look Zain was sporting, Hope was immaculate in a suit, definitely designer, and manicure, with nothing out of place. Polished. Poised. Poisonous.
Zain swallowed hard again. Fuck his stupid throat that kept constricting under the scrutiny. He was not some limp-dicked nobody, he was DS Zain Harris. He had credentials, he had paid his dues. He stared back, his eyes locking with Hope’s.
PCC Hope smiled, revealing the fake even teeth to go with his faux-everything else. The anger was crawling through Zain, and he didn’t know why. He thought he had made peace with this man, had accepted him for what he was. The clichéd necessary evil, a man forced to be to survive. Zain could get that, surely? PCC Hope had to capitulate to the rich and powerful, because he needed their favours regularly. The PCC, Unit 3, Zain’s car, the team’s resources. They were the result of the murkiness under which PCC Hope operated; they benefited from his questionable behaviour.
Zain looked away. Wondered how Kate was. Hope was reading his mind, or so it felt.
‘Any news from the Royal Free?’
‘No,’ said Zain. ‘Sir.’ Respect where it was due. Disrespect coursing through his mind.
‘I do hope she survives.’ There was malice in every syllable.
‘No reason to think she won’t, sir.’
‘Yes, quite.’
Zain wondered if the unsaid word PCC Hope wanted to say was ‘shame’. ‘Last communication I received from her was that tests are being done. On her, Dr Kapoor, and on the victim. We still don’t have an ID.’
‘Don’t we?’
Fuck you and whichever lackey you’ve got spying for you. ‘Not officially, sir. We haven’t got a face.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘DCI Riley has a secure phone. We’re communicating using an app Michelle Cable sent her. It means no one can intercept or hack into our conversations.’
‘Not even Anonymous?’
Zain stayed quiet.
‘I see. And is it legal whatever your connections have given you?’
‘It works, and it’s keeping this from going public. I say does it matter?’
‘You work for the PCC, DS Harris. Yes it matters.’
‘And what would you rather happen? That this leaks? That a panic starts? You want to see London break down? The protests last night would be child’s play compared to ten million people thinking they might be infected with some . . . whatever it is . . .’
‘I am aware of the dangers of mass hysteria. In thirty minutes I’ll be at an emergency meeting of COBRA.’
Zain was incredulous. COBRA was the national committee that involved the Prime Minister, representatives from the intelligence agencies, the armed forces, most top government departments. They met to combat national crises, when the proverbial was about to hit the fan. They were being too hasty, he thought. The autopsy was still going on, the tox report wasn’t even processed. They didn’t know what they were dealing with, and if they thought they could keep a COBRA meeting secret? It would blow the whole thing open, and any type of investigation they could even begin to attempt would be fucked even before they started.
‘I have already briefed the comms department, they are issuing a code thirteen emergency blackout on all news and media. No one is legally allowed to report this for the next few hours, and anyone doing so will face public prosecution.’
‘Good luck blocking social media.’
‘There are ways, as you know. We will contain this, in all respects.’
PCC Hope smiled at Zain. It felt worse than being bollocked.
‘I think you’re familiar with one of the participants at the COBRA meeting. DCI Raymond Cross?’
There it was. The blow, the punch to his balance. The past in one name. Zain felt his pulse race at thoughts of the darkness that had been.
He looked out of the window, trying to steady himself. The dusty emptiness behind St James’s Palace, where military parades were held on memor
ial days. The red expanse which led to the green of St James’s Park.
‘It’s a mistake, the COBRA meeting. You are going to send up red flags. No one will let it go unnoticed.’
‘The heads of MI5, MI6 and Counter Terrorism will be in attendance. I think we can hold a secret between us, don’t you?’
‘And what about the security, the catering, the receptionists, the drivers? All the invisible people you lot probably don’t even notice anymore. Can you trust them not to let even the slightest thing slip? Even the rumour that a meeting took place will send people into overdrive.’
‘We can cover ourselves.’ Zain heard the irritation in Hope’s voice. What was unsaid. Zain Harris you are also invisible to us and a nobody. You don’t get a say.
‘COBRA is going ahead. I want to update them on whatever it is we know.’
‘You know everything I do, sir.’
Hope steepled his fingers in front of his face. It was a signature move. Was he praying or sharpening his fingertips? Either way, it was a warning that he was thinking deeply, and he was thinking about how to come out on top. How to crush his opponent.
‘A name, DS Harris.’
Deborah had already told Zain that PCC Hope knew the name. She had given him that warning at least.
Zain weighed up the options in his head. Kate had said to keep quiet. Still, Hope already knew, so revealing it wouldn’t cost anything, not really. And instead, it might be some sort of alliance with him.
Zain repeated Julian Leakey’s name. A beat. PCC Hope raised his eyebrows, as though hearing it for the first time. Then relaxed his fingers.
‘I can’t reinforce how sensitive this is, DS Harris. Leakey was one of the top civil servants in the country. He had access to everyone. And everything.’
‘We don’t know it’s him for sure. There was only an ID found on the body. Doesn’t mean it’s him. We are looking for him. It’s what I was doing before you called me here. Sir.’
‘Why would someone else have Leakey’s identification?’
‘The possibilities are there.’
‘Have you tried contacting him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Try harder.’
Zain kept his mouth closed. Start counting, stay grounded, let your senses do the anchoring. He heard the advice in Kate’s voice. Always in her voice, no matter which therapist he got. Kate had taken on the role of his conscience. Or rather his conscience had taken on her voice. A meaner, more twisted voice whispered to him then. You are obsessed with her. Zain shut it down, clamping his jaw tight as he did.
Obsessed. Was it too strong a word, or was it simply the truth? She had rescued him. He loved her for it. And hated her for it.
‘I was on my way to his residence, sir.’
‘So you said. By yourself? What are you going to do there?’
‘His wife is home, alone. She hasn’t seen her husband since yesterday morning.’
‘Doesn’t that give you your answer?’
‘Not necessarily. He keeps rooms at a gentleman’s club somewhere in Mayfair. Often uses them. Someone is checking he wasn’t there, but they are a bit cagey about revealing members’ details.’
PCC Hope raised an eyebrow, but nothing more. Genuinely new information or another fake response? Zain couldn’t tell. PCC Hope would be a killer poker player.
‘So you are heading to Julian Leakey’s home address. A site where he was potentially infected with an unknown substance that may have caused him to die horrifically, and you are going in alone, unprotected?’
‘I spoke to his wife briefly. She isn’t feeling unwell, sir.’
‘And we know how whatever this is works, do we? She isn’t going to have a delayed reaction of some sort?’
Fuck. He was right.
‘I suggest, DS Harris, you find yourself a protective suit and some experts at this sort of thing. Quite honestly I will not risk the lawsuit if I send you in to a hazardous situation without protection. I’ve put in a call to the DCD, they are sending a team to meet you there.’
Zain felt the air rush from him. Department for Communicable Diseases? It properly hit him then. Leakey had died horribly by all accounts. And Zain was about to retrace his life, his last known steps.
And somewhere along the way, at some juncture he didn’t even know yet, he would hit ground zero. The source of infection. And if he wasn’t prepared, he would die just as savagely as Leakey had.
Zain rarely cared for his life. Except in those moments when he felt it under imminent threat. And that’s exactly what he was feeling as he left PCC Hope’s office.
Chapter Seventeen
Kate felt her breath catch in her throat, and genuine fear run through her. How had this happened? She looked again into the open corpse of what they had to assume was Julian Leakey. No pliers were needed, as with delicate touches Dr Kapoor simply removed the ribcage. The organs were weighed by the scanner, based on density and size. It seemed odd, there was no damage to any of them. Dr Kapoor was expecting some level of trauma at least, yet there was very little. Blood vessels that could burst under stress, some internal bruising, possible patches of haemorrhaging. Nothing that could explain the level of blood loss, and ultimately death.
‘Cardiac arrest is visible, but that would always be the end for most people, no matter what injury was sustained,’ explained Dr Kapoor. ‘Actual cause, it’s not there.’
Dr Kapoor checked the laptop that they had been given as part of the makeshift autopsy suite.
‘I thought it might be an error,’ she said, pointing to the screen. Kate followed her gloved finger, saw where it was indicating, and felt her stomach tighten, a shiver run up her spine.
‘Only one way to be sure,’ said Kate.
Dr Kapoor touched the head. Normally, she would need a scalpel to serrate the skin. Now with just one touch, she began to peel it back, taking the thick dark hair with it, as though the victim had been sporting a wig. Underneath, his skull was covered in the detritus of the skin that had been cleared away. This is where she would have been forced to use an electric saw, under normal circumstances. Now she simply touched the skull, and it disappeared. Revealing the horror underneath.
The skull came off, and Kate stared at what the iGene table was reflecting back to her.
‘I don’t understand, where is the brain?’ she asked.
‘Are you seeing this, Professor?’ Dr Kapoor said. There was a tapping sound before Professor Nick Gerard’s deep voice came over speakers hidden in the corners of the Portakabin.
‘Yes,’ was all he said.
Dr Kapoor looked up at cameras hanging from the ceiling like birds frozen in mid flight, hoping to prod a more detailed reaction from the professor possibly.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ said Kate. She felt her skin crawl, and an ache start in her head. She watched as Dr Kapoor tapped, and the contents of the victim’s mouth were on display. More deep copper colouring. Dr Kapoor did the same to check the ear canals, and then again where the nasal cavity was. All of it covered in the same gooey, copper red detritus.
Kate looked in disbelief, as Dr Kapoor walked slowly around the table, her movements laboured as though the suit and the day had taken their toll, tired her out. This can’t be true, Kate thought. How did something like this happen? It was the stuff of science fiction, of nightmares. Only it was now here, in this room, a reality.
‘Dr Kapoor . . . Rani . . . I need to be sure. What I’m seeing here . . .’ Kate stopped. How did you even frame the question? ‘It looks as though the victim’s brain has simply dissolved and poured out of every orifice it could?’
Dr Kapoor stared at her hard, then simply nodded.
‘Yes, DCI Riley, that’s exactly what seems to have happened.’
The pooled blood and the puddles of lumpy flesh they had seen in the park. Kate could finally make sense of it, of what had killed their victim. Or at least what it had done to him, the very final assault on his body. The pain he mus
t have endured, as he literally burned up from the inside out. How could a man enduring that much go ignored? Someone must have seen him, or heard him? And how had he managed to find his way into the very heart of a public park?
Kate needed to sit down. And then her mind went there, the place she tried to keep it from going. If she had been infected, this was her fate too. She looked at the ravaged body, and imagined herself in his place. Then thought about the nightmare if whatever had done this was out there somewhere, waiting to take hold and cut down thousands of unsuspecting people.
*
The watcher had been following Kate’s movements since the morning. He had tracked her as the day had burst alive, following her to St James’s Park and from his vantage point seen the chaos that had ensued. The precautions being taken as Kate had been suited up and sprayed down. He felt something inside him hope that she was infected with whatever they were trying to contain.
The watcher was no fool. He knew which protocols were being observed, what was being played out in front of him. And then he felt cheated. No, it would be too easy a death for Kate Riley, dying like this. She had to suffer. And not suffer the pains of a disease, but suffer in every way possible.
Kate Riley had dismantled his life. And the lives of those he was working for. Trapped in a metal box, contained on the premises of the Royal Free hospital in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in London, that was not how she would be allowed to die.
The watcher dialled a number.
‘So she’s very much alive, for now,’ he said.
‘Keep her that way,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘There are plans in place for her. Meanwhile, while she is locked away . . .’
‘Yes, I was thinking the same.’
It didn’t need to be said. With Kate Riley unavailable, her mother Jane was alone and vulnerable. And it was Jane Morgan who would be targeted next by the watcher. With a long overdue message from her beloved husband.
Chapter Eighteen
Vauxhall was typical for London. Gay fetish clubs jostled alongside Nandos and the MI6 building, penthouse apartments looked out over council estates, and traffic ran through it and over the bridge on a constant loop.