‘Thank you, Marcel. You’ve been really helpful.’
‘You won’t say it was me, will you? To Dr Springer? I don’t want to cause any trouble.’
‘No, don’t worry.’
Darren set off at a marching pace down Brownlow Hill, back towards police headquarters. It was not a good day to take a long lunch; with the terrorist crisis ongoing it was all hands on deck and he could be needed. As he walked, he typed into his phone, looking up Ian Springer’s profile on the university website. Dr Ian Springer, Lecturer in Acoustics. A nondescript photo of a smiling middle-aged man in a shirt, tie and glasses. A list of his research interests.
And then Darren’s marching pace slowed to a walk, until he stopped completely. Because as he was scrolling down he had spotted that phrase again – sonic weapons. He read: Departmental lecturer Dr Ian Springer began his career at the University of Lancaster with a PhD and postdoctoral research in the physiological effects of psychoacoustical phenomena. He then undertook further training in electrical engineering, and for the past twenty years has conducted research into sonic, infrasonic and ultrasonic deterrents. He has consulted on projects for the Ministry of Defence, the US Army, and a number of private security companies. Dr Springer was part of the team that developed the LRAD-20, a sonic weapon used by NATO to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean.
Mikko’s repeated use of the phrase sonic warfare was stuck in Darren’s head. He turned around and headed back up Brownlow Hill, almost at a run, to the University science offices. He wasn’t sure why he felt such an urgency, and tried to remain calm as he spoke to the receptionist, as innocently as possible. ‘Hello, DI Swift from Merseyside Police, we need to contact a member of staff who I believe is not in today. A Dr Ian Springer. Would you mind giving me his home address?’
It was questionable whether an employee’s address should be given out just like that, even to a detective. Fortunately for Darren, the usual receptionist was on her lunch break and her post was being covered by an intern who clearly hadn’t been briefed on Data Protection laws. She looked up the details on her database and read everything out to him. ‘Yeah, here it is. Dr Ian Springer, 25 Delaware Lane, Aigburth.’
‘Nice one, thanks,’ he said, already on his way out. He was about to go and get his car and Colette, and pay a visit to Springer, when he suddenly thought.
Aigburth. Springer lived in Aigburth. That’s where the suspected terrorist incident was happening.
Darren took out his phone and called Colette. He didn’t have a good explanation; in fact he had no evidence whatsoever, but he couldn’t ignore the connection that he had made. Springer had something to do with that gun sighting, and the armed response team needed to know. He would think of a reason later.
Eleven
Dr Ian Springer had cancelled his midday lecture and driven home to think. He needed to be away from the acoustics department, needed to be alone in the empty house while his wife and kids were out. The quiet street of Delaware Lane In Aigburth was virtually empty, its residents all at work or school. He paced up and down his kitchen a few times before pouring himself a whisky. Surely he could extricate himself from this now? Surely these people weren’t dangerous. Not to him. It had been so exciting, the chance to take his research further than any military authority would have allowed. But it had gone too far now.
He would even give the money back, or at least some of it. He wasn’t gambling anymore; he would tell his wife about the debts, she would forgive him and they would re-mortgage, work it out. As for the technology he had developed, he was sure that Ollie didn’t have the capabilities to take it any further. But it was unfortunate, the damage that had been done. If only he had been honest with himself from the beginning. Neilson was dead, and it was his fault.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, he noticed that the whisky in his glass had started to bubble slightly. He hoped it was due to his shaking hand, but when he placed the glass down the bubbling continued. He began to detect a whirring sensation, as if there was a ceiling fan or an air-conditioning unit nearby. As an acoustician, he was attuned to vibrations such as these. Was it the vacuum cleaner through the wall to the semi-detached house next door? The drill of building work further down the street? A helicopter nearby? The rumble of a train?
But the whir became a rumble, became a pressure. He could hear it and yet not hear it, he could hear everything and nothing at the same time. He felt the whisky in his stomach bubble and fizz, the pulsing of blood in his veins, as if the blood itself was bubbling. He felt a sense of impending doom so powerful it almost knocked him off his feet.
And then his eyeballs began to vibrate uncontrollably, so he ran to the mirror in the hallway to look at himself, and he saw them, saw them moving by themselves, bulging. He lurched up the stairs, grasping for the bannister as best he could; if he was going to die, at least he could get the money out of its hiding place first, for his wife to find. But, realising it was too late, he pivoted back towards the front door – perhaps he’d be safer out in the street. As he teetered on the stair, the pressure within his body suddenly increased exponentially, and his lungs were crushed.
He had already suffocated when his skull collapsed in on itself, splattering brains and bone across the white plaster walls and the carpet. His headless body remained upright as it slipped down one carpeted stair. Then it took a final, macabre, step forward, before it crumpled and tumbled down into the hallway.
Twelve
Colette, Darren, Superintendent Canter and Sergeant Dave Briggs stood in the kitchen of 25 Delaware Lane, watching through the doorway as the CSI team stepped gingerly around the gruesome scene in the hall.
‘This is bizarre,’ said Canter. ‘It looks as if the head has been completely blown off – there’s none of it left. Absolutely nothing at all. What could possibly have caused that, other than a series of gun shots, or some sort of decapitation? But there’s no trace of bullets, no shrapnel, and no sign of forced entry. And it doesn’t explain the state of the rest of him.’
The body was fully clothed, but they could see that Springer’s hands were a dark purple colour.
‘It’s like a severe allergic reaction,’ said Colette.
‘The type of allergic reaction that makes your head explode,’ added Darren.
‘More to the point, though, Darren,’ said Canter, looking at him accusingly. ‘How the bloody hell did you know about this address? Who tipped you off?’
Darren sighed. ‘I went back to the university at lunchtime. To talk to Marcel Rees. Professor Neilson’s student. I just felt that something wasn’t right. It was our duty to investigate what he was trying to tell us.’
‘Sorry, Darren, you’ve completely lost me,’ said Canter, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. ‘Who’s Professor Neilson? What was he trying to tell us?’
Colette explained, automatically leaping to Darren’s defence even though he had once again gone off at a tangent and left her out. ‘Neilson was another academic at the university acoustics department. The other day he died suddenly in his office, and we were called to the scene. It didn’t get up to you because it was just routine, you know. On the professor’s desk was a USB in an envelope addressed to Merseyside Police, with a hidden message. The word ‘Napier’ recorded backwards. Anyway, the point is we discounted it because he was suffering from paranoia, and then the autopsy confirmed a heart attack. So the case was closed.’
‘Ok.’ said Canter. ‘But you decided the case wasn’t closed, Darren?’
‘I just had a bad feeling about that USB. And about the student, it seemed like he knew something. So I went back to see him and he told me that Neilson had been arguing with Springer. And then I found out that Springer was off sick today, that he lived in Aigburth, and…’ he trailed off.
‘Jesus, Darren. What a weird hunch. Pretty lucky. Not lucky enough for this Springer bloke though, and there’s a shooter still out there. This feels very targeted, like an assassination, so it will proba
bly be downgraded from terrorism to a murder enquiry, but we’re still on high alert.’
Darren had an urge to test the beginnings of a theory on them.
‘What if I told you that I thought the two deaths were connected?’
‘Springer and this Neilson? You think Neilson was murdered, now?’
‘Murder? Not sure. But it’s something to do with their work. What if I told you that I thought Neilson and Springer were killed… by sound?’ There, it was out. The faces of his colleagues betrayed worry, sympathy. He wished he had kept quiet.
‘I would say that is your most far-fetched theory yet,’ said Canter, but she mused on it for a moment. He sighed inwardly, because he could tell she was treating his theory with semi-seriousness, out of some sort of pity only.
‘I know you can have sonic weapons,’ she said. ‘Even Merseyside Police have got sound cannons in case of riot. My local off-licence has got those anti-loitering devices that emit high frequencies to keep the scallies away. I can’t hear anything at my age but I have to cross the road when I’m with the dog, because animals can’t stand it…’ she paused.
‘But they’re non-lethal, that’s the whole point,’ Canter continued. ‘Look, DCI McGregor is on his way, he’s going to be SIO on this. If you want to tell him your theory, Darren, be my guest. Good luck with that. But you’re on short hours, and that trial documentation isn’t going to do itself. Don’t forget.’
A CSI appeared in the doorway. ‘Ma’am, we found something upstairs.’
She presented a clear plastic evidence bag which contained two large brown envelopes. ‘One envelope was taped to the inside of the boiler cupboard, the other was in a shoebox at the back of the master bedroom wardrobe. There’s fifty-thousand pounds in cash in each.’
‘Any evidence of someone going up there to look for it?’ asked Darren.
’No, it all looks pristine up there, no sign of disturbance. It wasn’t very well hidden, either. I mean, it was hidden, but not a very professional job, so it wouldn’t have taken an intruder long had they been looking to burgle the place.’
Colette drove the squad car back to Canning Place with Sergeant Briggs in the passenger seat.
‘Dave, let’s get ahead on this, show McGregor we mean business. Can you start doing some background on Springer? Pull up his bank accounts, get IT to go through his laptop… Dave? Are you listening?’
Dave was nodding along to himself, almost imperceptibly. His eyes were glazed over, his mouth was moving silently, hands tapping his thighs incessantly.
‘Dave. Where are you mate?’ Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, she whacked him across the chest with the back of the other. He shook himself into the moment.
‘Sorry, sorry. Yeah. Distracted for a minute. I’ve got this song stuck in my head. You know when that happens?’
‘Oh yeah, first song you hear in the morning. I hate that. What song is it?’
‘Erm. It’s more of a beat really.’
‘Maybe you should cut down on the clubbing, eh? I know you want to support Lacey with her DJing, but you don’t need to go to the Lumina every night, do you? She’s a big girl. She can manage by herself.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s just… Her music is so – amazing.’
‘Dave, I’m not your line manager so you can tell me before Darren finds out.’ Colette was silent for a moment, thinking. Then she took a deep breath and asked, ‘You’re not taking anything, are you?’
‘No! Never in me life! Never even touched a ciggie, never mind drugs. It’s just… that music. I can’t get it out of me head. Can’t seem to concentrate on anything else. Anyway, I’ll get on with Springer the minute we get back. Nice one. Sound.’
Colette shook her head. She could tell he wanted to get back to his private nodding.
The Third Ear
If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out
If thine left eye offend thee, pluck it out
Now you will hear the sound of truth
Now you will hear the sound of the Universe
And that is the sound of Hell
Remove the eyes
And open the Third Ear
Scoop from the brain end with silver spoon
Rusted pliers make sockets cavernous tombs
Now your field of view is nowhere, everywhere
Now thou shalt look upon the true sound
And that is the sound of Hell
Remove the eyes
And open the Third Ear
Enucleation
Evisceration
Exenteration
Extirpation
Oedipism
Loss of lenses
Heightened senses
Eyeballs bulging
Tendrils drooping
Do thine eyes deceive thee?
Then feed them to the bats!
Gnawed plasma
Eye juice splattered
Tear ducts remain and fill with pleasure
Remove the eyes
And open the Third Ear
Vox Inferi (taken from the 2013 album Gouge)
Thirteen
As he drove home that afternoon, his hangover finally abating, Darren’s state of agitation was compounded by the intolerable traffic. It was only four o’clock. What did they expect him to do with the rest of the day? The last thing he wanted was to be on short hours, and this case was exactly what he needed to keep him busy. Whether it was linked to Shawn Forrest or not. He wished he had held back on the sonic weapons theory. Colette and Canter hadn’t been ready for it. He might have had a chance of being put on the case, if only he’d kept his mouth shut.
As he finally crossed the flyover and approached Waterloo, he began to dread the empty house that awaited him. He supposed he would go to the gym, or jog along the beach to Formby. But there were only so many hours you could spend exercising, pounding away your grief.
He spent much of his spare time on the beach now. Not that he hadn’t before; it had always been his favourite place. But now he hated the gym, where he would have to look at himself in the mirror. The vast drama of the beach invoked a loneliness so profound that it approached something equal to his grief. Or perhaps it was the opposite; the smaller and less significant he felt, the lesser was his grief. If he were just a speck on the edge of the void, maybe Matt’s death didn’t matter that much. Sometimes he would go down to the beach twice a day, three times, loitering there with no self-consciousness, because there was no-one to see him, in this liminal space. He would run along the sand all the way from the Waterloo docks to Hall Road car park, dodging the Iron Men, and then feel a grim satisfaction when he turned back to see his tracks in the sand. Sometimes at low tide he would dare himself to step out onto the mudflats near the water’s edge, ignoring the danger signs, wondering if it were really possible to sink. Then he would head slightly inland and dash up and down the dunes, ankles wobbling on clumps of plant matter, the wind whistling through the marram grasses as if they were strings in a giant harp.
Sometimes he would stay until it was so dark that he could barely see his way back, and would use the red lights on the tops of the distant cranes to guide him. At night-time the Lumina building sparkled constantly in the background, taunting him. The whole structure flashed in rainbow colours, and from the roof an infinity-shaped searchlight roamed the sky, as if looking for him. Even without his kitchen table incident board, there seemed to be no escape from Forrest; there were constant reminders of him, all over the city. Darren had thought of leaving Liverpool, requesting a transfer, but he didn’t have the energy. The roadworks seemed to be fencing him in. And anyway, the only other time he had left, on secondment to the Met in London, it hadn’t exactly worked out. He had been inexorably drawn back. This was where he belonged.
Looking out into the void, out towards the horizon marked by wind turbines, he felt closer to Matt than at his grave or looking at his photo. He pondered questions he had never pondered before. Where was Matt now? Was he out there? If on
ly he could believe in something. He thought about Mikko’s ridiculous new album, and belief being more important than truth. What could he believe that could make him feel better? Could you make yourself believe?
He had a strange urge to speak to Andrew Shepherd again. Suddenly the issues that had consumed Shepherd’s life, that had seemed so pointless before, now seemed to him urgent, immediate. He knew that madness was not far away from his current state of mind, and he didn’t fight it.
Darren pulled into Abbott Road in Waterloo and, to add to his irritation, his usual parking space outside his house had been occupied by a large black van. There was someone in the driver’s seat. Darren was about to go over and tell him to move when he realised that the driver was a monstrous figure with a long beard and a thick black cross tattooed on his forehead. It was Knut. And then Darren saw Helen, wearing a Total Depravity hooded sweater, jeans and wellingtons, knocking on his door. Shit. Hazy memories of the previous night… he remembered that he had absurdly agreed to go to North Yorkshire with them in search of a secret black metal concert. Shit. It was too late to avoid them, because Helen had seen him now, and was approaching his car, waving.
‘Darren, there you are. Come on, if we get to Yorkshire while it’s still light we have a chance of finding the place…’
He was about to begin making his excuses when Mikko hopped out of the back of the van. ‘Dude, you need to get changed first. There’s no fucking way you’ll get in wearing a suit.’
Darren wavered for a moment. Fuck it. Tonight he would forgo the sweet torture of the beach and the empty house. He had got himself into this, and didn’t have the energy to extricate himself. He went inside to get changed.
Fourteen
At Aintree Pathology Lab, DCI McGregor and Colette faced Dr Colvin across the brushed steel table. They both tried to focus on Colvin, to avoid looking at the remains that lay in front of them. Springer’s naked body was striped purple, the rivulets of his blood vessels raised above the skin. His torso bulged black where organs had burst. From the neck up, there was very little left. What remained of Springer’s head had been collected in a separate box. His neck was opened up like a monstrous flower.
Sound Page 6
