by John Macken
Reuben stood up to signify a new meeting was about to begin. ‘Right, everyone.’ It took a few seconds, but the fifteen or so members of the room quietened down. He caught Sarah’s eye, and she looked away. Reuben sensed she was still pissed off with him, unimpressed that he’d made Veno go and get a search warrant. ‘It sounds like CID have been busy. Would you care to update everyone on progress?’
Reuben sat down again as Detective Leigh Harding stood up. ‘We’ve got two operations on the go, which began late last night and resumed early this morning. The first and most urgent is to track all remaining hospital and scientific staff associated with the Vasoprellin trial. We had a strategy meeting with DCI Hirst, and decided, well . . .’ Detective Harding looked over towards Sarah.
‘I decided,’ Sarah said, ‘that we needed to prioritize potential victims ahead of searching for the murderer.’
Reuben stared at her. ‘When was this agreed?’ he asked.
‘At the Martin Faulkner scene.’
‘And why wasn’t I informed?’
‘Like you said to me last night, you weren’t around.’
Reuben recalled using the line the previous night, while dripping water on to the bathroom floor. She had a God-given knack of being able to throw things back in your face.
‘Anyway, Reuben, I’m telling you now. Look, we only have so much manpower. The Met have offered us twenty-five uniform, and they’ll do the job of guarding other staff members on the clinical trial – nurses, administrators, medics, other supporting research scientists – as we identify them. And of course you and your team are still to pursue the forensics. But prevention is the goal here.’
Every cell in Reuben’s body disagreed. For the moment, he could only think of his son. Protecting possible targets who had worked at a hospital four years ago wouldn’t help Joshua. ‘Only in the short term,’ he said. ‘And what makes you sure the killer won’t switch tack? Target people outside the trial? Keep killing for the sake of it?’
‘Impossible to know. But for now, as soon as this meeting finishes, we draw up a list of people for CID and the Met to safeguard.’
Sarah stared back at him, her blonde hair dragged tight across her scalp, her blouse stiff and ironed. Reuben knew that everything about her was held in its place, controlled and ordered. She was fierce, pulling rank, overruling him. He let it go. He was in no position to make demands or to flex his authority.
‘What else have you got, Leigh?’ he said quietly.
‘We spoke to the Clinical Trials unit. A lot of staff changes in the meantime, particularly after what happened, with procedures being reviewed and personnel moved on. But they’ve got follow-up information on most of the members of the trial.’
‘Let’s deal with the females first. What have you learned?’
‘Two of the five females were randomly assigned to the placebo treatment. One of the three who received the drug died at the time, a few hours after the trial began. Two survived, but one of them subsequently committed suicide.’
‘Jesus,’ Reuben muttered. ‘And do we know whether any close relations to the three who suffered have any previous form?’
‘Not yet.’
Reuben looked up. Sarah was edging out of the room. Doubtless more important things to do, he frowned. Reuben found that although he frequently disagreed with Sarah, and had gone through phases of wondering whether he could really trust her, the one thing he couldn’t do was dislike her. She kept her motives close to her freshly ironed chest, but they were generally good. He would talk to her after the strategy meeting, smooth things out, get things back to how they had been just three days ago.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s cut to it. The men on the trial.’
Leigh Harding shuffled on his feet. Reuben nodded at him to sit down. ‘Thanks, boss. So, one male was a placebo, the other four had the drug. Those four are’ – Harding squinted at his own writing – ‘Syed Sanghera, Daniel Riefield, Michael Adebyo and Martin Randle.’
‘We’ve already had a good look at Mr Riefield.’ Reuben turned to Simon Jankowski, three seats away, sitting upright in his chair, a bad shirt on. ‘Simon, can you get as much additional info on Riefield as possible. PNC, DVLA, DSS, any acronym with a sodding database.’
Simon smiled. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘There’s still something that doesn’t ring true about Riefield.’
‘Such as?’
‘I can’t put my finger—’ Reuben stopped. In the light of what the victims had been through, it seemed right to change the wording. ‘Let’s just keep an eye, eh?’
Simon scribbled on one of the many sheets of paper turning the table’s dark brown surface white.
Reuben returned his focus to Detective Harding. ‘So, any of those four jump out at you, Leigh?’
The detective ran a hand through his receding hair. ‘Well, there’s Michael Adebyo, originally from Somalia, unemployed and needed the money. Fairly bad injuries, which still persist according to the Royal Free, who continue to see him on a monthly basis for treatment. But Martin Randle was the only male to die directly. He’s definitely worth a look.’
‘Why?’ Mina asked. ‘He’s dead.’
‘He is. But, like Adebyo, he wasn’t a student. He’d been discharged from the military a few months earlier.’
‘What for?’
‘We’ve been able to do a quick bit of digging, and have come up with violent misconduct. That’s all we know. And there’s more. His father is ex-military as well. At the inquest eighteen months ago, Francis Randle called for the trial organizers to be punished.’
‘As in what?’ Bernie asked. ‘Smacked on the wrists and told not to do it again?’
‘We have a quote from one of the red-tops.’ Leigh shuffled some sheets until he found what he was looking for. ‘“It’s disgusting. They should have to go through what my son had to go through. Every single one of them.”‘
Reuben let the words sink in. Sinister and predictive, considering what had happened. Yet what would he say or feel if his own son had his life taken away? He hoped to fuck he wasn’t about to find out. But that was the point, he realized. Victims on both sides, someone in the middle redressing the balance.
‘So, do we have a consensus?’ Reuben ran his eyes around the scientists and CID crammed along both sides of the table. ‘Anyone?’
Mina was the first to react. ‘Considering what information we have, and what Sarah said, I guess we divide up. CID chase down anyone associated with running the trial. Forensics steps up the batch testing from all four scenes. Meanwhile we need to investigate all the trialists and their families systematically.’
‘Beginning with the four men,’ Reuben added.
‘Syed Sanghera, Daniel Riefield, Michael Adebyo and Francis Randle,’ Leigh repeated.
‘Why them specifically?’ Mina asked.
‘Because to my mind they’re the most likely candidates to commit these atrocities.’
‘Anyway,’ Mina continued, ‘the ultimate aim is to match the DNA which was present at two of the scenes to one of them.’
‘Good,’ Reuben said. ‘But bear in mind we don’t have enough evidence to order DNA tests on those four. For the moment we need to track them and get clearance for round-the-clock surveillance. And then, hope we get lucky. Because somewhere out there is another brutalized corpse waiting to happen.’
16
Reuben rapped his knuckles on Sarah’s door. It was a door of authority, real wood, unlike the pine-effect covering on all the others. In case anyone was in any remaining doubt, a blue name-plate read ‘DCI Sarah Hirst, GeneCrime Commander’.
Sarah’s voice, dulled by the thickness of the oak, shouted, ‘Yes.’
Reuben opened the door, then paused. Seated next to Sarah was Commander William Thorner, thick-set, advanced male pattern baldness, a prominent brow which seemed to shine. He smiled briefly. ‘Hello, Reuben.’
‘Hello, Commander. Good to see you.’ Reuben switched to Sarah. ‘I�
�m sorry, Sarah, I didn’t realize you were busy. I’ll pop back later.’
Sarah looked like she was about to answer, but Commander Thorner beat her to it. ‘You may as well come in,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’
Reuben found a chair, surrounded by browning plants. Thorner shuffled round Sarah’s desk so they were both facing him.
Reuben had a sudden feeling of uncomfortable premonition. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Look, William’s here because I didn’t want to tell you myself.’ Sarah stared into her desk. ‘There’s no easy way to say this.’
Reuben’s first instinct was Joshua. GeneCrime had been overseeing the forensics on Joshua’s abduction. Simon had finished processing the cigarette butts and had generated a match, or a link to something that Reuben hadn’t. ‘What have you found?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a match to Joshua?’
‘As you are aware, DNA extractions from the cigarette butts didn’t work well first time, and only reached partial stringency on the second and third attempts. We’ve drawn a blank. I guess the butts were old or completely sodden.’
‘So what is it?’ Reuben looked from the Commander to Sarah and back again, his heart still hammering away, amphetamines refusing to let the false alarm die down. ‘There was something you were going to say.’
Sarah straightened in her seat. Commander Thorner shifted his position, turning his body to face Reuben full on.
‘We’re taking you off the case, Reuben,’ Sarah said. ‘Your position has become untenable.’
Sarah met his eye briefly, then looked across at Thorner for support.
‘Sarah feels that your behaviour is becoming somewhat erratic, Reuben. And while we all understand the reasons behind it, with bodies stacking up, you are not the right person to be leading a manhunt.’
Reuben stared back. ‘Define erratic,’ he said. ‘Half the people in this building are erratic.’
Thorner checked a piece of paper in front of him. ‘Failure to attend all the scenes. Refusing CID entry to your house. A series of lab equipment in the garage. Wiped computer files. Unusual hours. Speculation in the press about your personal life. I could go on.’
‘But all of this is to do with my missing son. Can’t you see that? I mean, what kind of hours would you keep if your child had been taken?’
‘Leave my children out of this,’ Thorner answered. ‘And that’s the very point. I wouldn’t be here. I would be with my wife, my family, not at work in charge of a manhunt.’
‘I need to stay on the case,’ Reuben said, his voice rising a notch. He’d needed to be from the second the killer first called him. Outside the investigation, he had no chance of finding his son. He tried to keep his words quiet. ‘Please, I have to stay on it.’
‘The answer is no, Reuben. Categorically no.’
‘You are to have no further contact with the case,’ Sarah added. Again, she avoided his eye. ‘I am really sorry, and this has been a difficult decision, but that’s what the Commander and I feel.’
‘Well, who’s going to take it over? Who are you going to put in charge?’
‘Sarah will run the investigation from now on,’ Thorner said. ‘Mina Ali will oversee Forensics, and Leigh Harding will collate CID.’
Reuben clenched his teeth hard. He could taste blood. Joshua was disappearing before his eyes. There had to be another way. ‘OK, use me as a consultant. Take me off overall command, but continue to throw the data out to me to look at.’
Commander Thorner stood up, his chair sliding back across the carpet. His black uniform was tight around his torso. ‘End of discussion, Reuben. You are to have no further input. I hope to God you find your son, and anything we can possibly do will be done. But grab your personal possessions from your office. You will be escorted from the building.’
Reuben got to his feet, slowly, disbelieving. This is so fucked up, a voice inside him said. So very fucked up. He turned and walked out of the office, the heavy door swinging slowly shut after him. He pictured Sarah picking up her phone. Dialling one of the CID officers that Reuben was in charge of, instructing him to escort Dr Maitland off the premises. He picked up speed. He needed to get to his office, grab as much of the case-load as he could.
Reuben ran down the extended corridor that led there. As he did, the amphetamine came to life again, increased blood flow carrying it to his muscles and pushing them on. He reached his office and started printing emails, output files, crime sheets, evidence inventories. He took his laptop out of its case, locked it in a drawer, and crammed the warm pieces of paper from his printer into the space the laptop had occupied.
There was a knock at the door. Reuben grabbed the last pieces of information and zipped his case shut. He stared at the cactus on his desk for a couple of seconds, wondering whether to take it with him. It was sharp and intense, defiantly standing proud. He told himself he was going to need to be every bit as resilient from now on.
The door swung open. A young officer called Callum stepped silently into the room.
‘It’s OK, Callum,’ Reuben said. ‘I’ll go quietly.’
Reuben took a final glance around his office and through the windows that gave on to the labs. And then he turned and walked out, leaving GeneCrime and the hunt for his son behind.
THREE
1
‘Statistically, your son is dead. You know it, I know it.’ Detective Veno arched his back, his gut pushing forward. ‘No point beating round the bush.’
Reuben swayed on his feet, battling an urge to punch Veno square in the mouth.
‘You look at any child abduction over the last twenty years, do the maths. Trafficking or murder. The age of your son, it’s not sexual. Not unless we’re dealing with someone who makes general paedos look tame and friendly. No, you want my guess, he’s not in the capital any more. He’s been smuggled out, maybe even abroad.’
Again, Reuben fought his natural inclination to smash the man in front of him in the mouth. Veno was either goading him or was insensitive to the point of abusiveness. He wondered how Veno got assigned to missing child investigations. Did he act like this with other parents? Reuben suspected he wasn’t quite as blunt.
‘So this is just to warn you,’ he continued. ‘The search is going to switch. We’re throwing it out to the provincial agencies, the European ones as well, see what they come up with. Of course we’ll still maintain a presence here, keep the publicity grinding through, but behind the scenes we’re going to be spending a lot of time talking to our colleagues around the UK and overseas.’
Reuben checked the kitchen clock over the detective’s shoulder. Just after eleven a.m., the minute and hour hands pointing out a wide V. The best part of a long day stretching ahead with no job, and nothing to do but think. The last thing he needed was Veno coming round and pointing out the brutal facts of the matter, misguided though they were. Joshua wasn’t overseas. He was in London, probably within a radius of three miles or so, where he had been for the last seventy-two hours. And this wasn’t about trafficking. This was about blackmail and coercion.
‘See, you snatch a child, you suddenly feel the need to get away. You watch it on the news. Cops combing the area the child was taken from. Even if you didn’t intend taking the kid somewhere, you feel compelled to. Out of sight, away from the centre of all the attention.’
Veno stared into Reuben’s face, awaiting a response. Reuben grunted at him and turned away. ‘Do what you’ve got to do,’ he said. ‘But just because you can’t find him in London doesn’t mean he’s somewhere else.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Veno asked sharply.
‘Nothing. But if I was running a manhunt, I’d concentrate more on the area someone originates from than where they might end up going.’
‘But you’re not running a manhunt any more, are you, Dr Maitland?’
Reuben turned back to face him. Veno’s cheeks were flushed. He’d shaved at some point since he’d last seen him, the ruddiness of his stubble retreating back un
der the skin, ready to emerge again in a few more hours. ‘News travels quick,’ he said.
‘When it’s good news. Sacked from GeneCrime.’ Veno rocked on the balls of his feet, arms behind his back. ‘What was it in total? Three whole days?’
Reuben let him enjoy himself. ‘Something like that.’
‘I said it was a mistake for the Met to take you back, and it looks like I was right.’
‘Well done.’
‘Three days and then they fire you. Meanwhile a killer is still on the loose.’
‘I’m not fired, Veno.’ Reuben fought for calm. ‘Just suspended.’
‘Same thing.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘So really, Dr Maitland, whether you’re fired or suspended or whatever the fuck you are, you don’t run manhunts any more, and you therefore don’t have any right suggesting how I should run mine. Is that clear?’
Reuben stared back at him, impassive and blank. For the third time in quick succession he battled the instinct for violence. The amphetamine wasn’t helping. It was lingering in his system, hardening his muscles, tensing his sinews. Attacking the officer hunting your missing child wouldn’t look great, he appreciated. If the press were already on the attack, this would give them enough ammunition for a concerted war. For the moment, and through teeth that were grinding tight together, he was determined to be nice.
‘So there are no fresh leads?’
‘Nothing useful.’
‘What about this witness? The one you described as an alcoholic.’
Veno took a pace back, leaning himself against a counter. ‘We’ve interviewed her from drunk to sober and back again. She was close to the newsagent, just coming out of an off-licence. Said she saw a man drop his fag, then push a buggy away. We didn’t have to wait till she saw your performance on the news because she came forward at the scene. Probably a good job really. Maybe she wouldn’t have come.’
