by John Macken
‘What else did she see?’
‘Not a fat lot. Gave us a vague description, nothing we could use. She was too pissed for the police artist to sketch anything sensible.’
‘And that’s it? All your hunting, all your media splash, all your detective work. You have the testimony of a single unreliable witness?’
Veno straightened again, pushing forward, invading Reuben’s space. ‘And what the hell do you have from your case? A morgue full of fingerless corpses, some cages full of rats, a grade A psycho on the loose. When you do something useful, Maitland, rather than tinker with forensics, then you come and criticize my work. Until then, keep the hell out.’
Veno pushed past him, striding out of the kitchen and down the hall. Reuben stayed where he was. The events of the morning were catching up with him. A list of possible suspects at GeneCrime, the investigation starting to gather momentum. And then his sudden dismissal, escorted out of the building, a civilian again, just a thirty-eight-year-old man with a missing child being shouted at in his wife’s kitchen by a fractious police officer.
The amphetamine was beginning to ebb in fits and starts. Reuben could feel himself crashing. Nights of broken sleep, racing through the capital in anonymous cars, suspicions and paranoia rattling around inside his brain. He needed to get some rest, re-group, lick his wounds. But even as the thought came to him he realized he couldn’t do it. While Joshua was missing, sitting still was out of the question.
Reuben patted his pockets and located his mobile. He scrolled through its numbers until he found the name Moray, then pressed the dial button with his thumb and paced out of the kitchen. He picked up his laptop case in the hall, and as he waited for the call to be answered he opened the front door and strode out into the street.
2
Long steep escalators dragged Reuben ever deeper beneath the surface of the city. As he was lowered through the ground, he finally began to sense the degree to which he was trapped. He was the only person involved in the hunt who knew that the murder of four members of a clinical trial was inextricably linked to the kidnap of his son. Reuben tried to look at this positively, knowing that he would be able to make deductions the police couldn’t, that he could act more quickly and directly than they could, that his son’s life didn’t hang on health and safety appraisals or the execution of warrants, or on hierarchical and procedural decision-making. But none of this cheered him. From now on, he was cut off, an outcast, and everything he did would hang or fall on his own abilities.
Reuben also knew there was little to gain from informing CID of the link. That moment had long since passed. GeneCrime had struggled to get useable DNA profiles from the cigarette butts, and had even less information on Joshua’s kidnapper than he did. At least Reuben had spoken to him, knew what he sounded like, how cold and logical he was. No, the events of the morning had served only to reinforce Reuben’s conviction that he would have to do this from the outside now, surviving on his wits, without the resources of the police to call upon should it all go wrong.
Reuben reached his platform on the Central Line. He watched a rat poke through a hole in the wall and scuttle between the tracks. A woman stared at Reuben for a couple of seconds and looked away. He flashed back to the news interviews. He was public property now. The woman risked another glance. Reuben tried not to notice. A train appeared, bursting from the tunnel and out into the light. He guessed the rat would carry on beneath its wheels obliviously, hunting for scraps, gnawing at the detritus of human life, just getting on with it.
Reuben climbed on to the train and found a seat. As the Tube stuttered between stations, he opened his laptop case and began to peruse its contents. He had grabbed everything he could from his office on the way out. Items of information he knew already, and fresh reports that had come through while Sarah and Commander Thorner were busy suspending him. The carriage was half empty and he had enough room to sift through the papers in relative comfort. Give it half an hour, peak lunchtime, and there would barely be room to stand. He took out preliminary reports on the four main suspects GeneCrime had drawn up, reading each in turn, absorbing everything he could. CID had performed initial background checks, unsubstantiated profiles drawn from public and private databases. Occupations, employment history, credit ratings, education, DVLA data, hospital records, passport details. Facts and figures housed on disparate systems that together told the rough truth about each of the men.
Reuben scanned the information, barely looking up as the train alternately slowed and speeded up. He wrote the four names on the back of his left hand. Syed Sanghera. Daniel Riefield. Michael Adebyo. Francis Randle. The letters were uneven, deformed by the motion of the train. Blue biro marks, deeply etched, looking almost like a tattoo. One of them the killer. One of them holding his son. His name implanted into Reuben’s epidermis. Reuben vowed to hold the names there, where he could see them, until he had Joshua back.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see he was being watched. A different woman to the one on the platform. Maybe she recognized him, or maybe she was just wondering why he had carved four names into the back of his hand. Either way, Reuben ignored her, returning to the loose sheets of paper surrounding him, following names and dates and addresses across separate lines of corroboration. He jotted rough notes on the back of a DVLA printout of Syed Sanghera’s address, and squinted through the window every time the train slowed. Every few metres a white and red sign flashed by, slowing each time. When Reuben finally read ‘Holborn’ he scraped up his papers and left the carriage.
The lift back to the surface failed to raise his spirits. The data contained in each of the files was overwhelming, even at a quick glance. He had tried to extract the important stuff. Places, names, addresses, contact numbers, previous histories. Four men who needed whittling down to one. There had been photographs of all of them. Pictures from the press. Grinning photos of four young men separately caught up in a trial that went wrong. Grainy black and whites, the sort that families provided in the aftermath of a catastrophe. This is how our son looked just months before the drug trial. Happy, confident, smiling. Daniel Riefield’s image stayed with Reuben as he left the lift and headed for the barriers. Young, fresh-faced, a smile that said ‘everything is possible’.
Reuben exited Holborn station and took a second to orientate himself. The warm air of the Underground leaked from his clothing as he hesitated, a biting wind swooping down between high-rises and tearing at his jacket and jeans. It was cold, and getting colder. Shoppers all around him walked quickly, heads down, hands thrust into their pockets. He had come out at an intersection, an area he wasn’t familiar with. Reuben scanned for street names, then spotted the one he was after. Up ahead he spotted the sign of the pub, swinging in the breeze, the thinness of its wood seeming to shiver along with him.
Inside, Moray Carnock was nursing a pint of beer, frowning into the screen of his phone. The mobile looked tiny in his large hands. His fleshy fingers poked heavily at the keypad, a look of grim determination on his face.
‘Anything up?’ Reuben asked.
‘Just a client who texts me every bloody minute.’
‘What’s the job?’
‘Corporate security. Surveillance work on a partner in an accountancy firm.’
‘What have they done?’
‘Developed an interesting overlap between personal and professional finance.’
Reuben glanced around the pub. Dark wood, a rough floor, dim lighting. Five or six drinkers at separate tables, looking like they’d been there for several hours already. If this is what your day starts like, Reuben wondered, where the hell does it end up? He battled the urge for a large vodka, licking his lips involuntarily. Every second was important, and he needed to stay sharp.
Moray peered up from his phone. ‘You thirsty?’
Reuben scraped a chair out and sat down. ‘Not really,’ he lied.
‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘We stand up and leave.’
‘There are more important things.’
Moray checked his watch and looked longingly towards the bar. ‘They’re about to start serving food.’
‘And my son might be starving to death.’
‘An army marches on its stomach.’
‘For once in your life, Moray, I’m asking you to put that large gut of yours second. There’s a child’s life at stake.’
Moray straightened in his seat, his head tilted back. ‘I’m sorry, big man. I just meant—’
‘I know what you meant.’ Reuben stood up. His mobile vibrated. A message from Judith. ‘Finish your pint, my fat friend. It’s time to go to war.’
3
Moray brought his old powerful Saab to an abrupt halt. ‘That’s the one,’ he said, nodding his head in the direction of a sixties block of flats.
Reuben peered at it. Four storeys, a low-rise square of weathered brick, probably one residence per floor.
Moray pulled a piece of paper off the dash. ‘Syed Sanghera. 11C Raddlebarn Gardens.’
Reuben guessed it was on the second floor. Flat 11A would be the ground level, 11B the first, 11C the second. He was quiet. Judith’s text had merely said blue audi registered keeper francis randle sorry for delay. A second text after he’d dragged Moray out of the pub had given the address Randle had registered with the DVLA. It matched the address GeneCrime had. For a short period of time, Francis Randle had become priority number one. But Moray and Reuben had simply found a derelict block of flats. They had nosed about, kicked a few doors open, but there had been no sign of life. Nothing but mass abandonment of a building in Battersea. Reuben was still digesting the information. That the man following him in a blue Audi with a broken headlight was Francis Randle, father of one of the trialists who died. His address was false. GeneCrime didn’t know any more than he did. Was it possible that Randle had Joshua?
‘Let’s hope we have more luck this time,’ Moray said. ‘Registering your vehicle to a fucked tower block is actually quite smart.’
Reuben frowned, continuing to think.
‘What do you want to do?’ Moray asked.
‘Kill the engine. Let’s just keep an eye out for a bit.’
Moray turned the key. The Saab made a series of clicking noises as its engine cooled. Reuben wound his window down. A cold blast of air streamed in and Moray fastened his overcoat tight. Reuben scanned the building, the small area of grass beside it, the people walking past the cul-de-sac, the cars parked around them, every sign of life his eyes could perceive. Moray drummed his fingers on the wheel. From time to time he shuffled through the pieces of paper Reuben had given him, muttering to himself and making notes.
After several silent minutes, Reuben said, ‘There.’
He pointed below the level of the windscreen, out of sight of passers-by. Moray followed with his eyes. A white Ford Focus, twenty metres away. One man in the driver’s seat.
‘The white ones are cheaper, you know,’ Moray said. ‘And it’s an LX. No optional extras.’
‘Keeps plod from feeling superior,’ Reuben answered.
‘Mind you, some of the cars you used to drive weren’t bad.’
‘The privilege of rank and the need to get to crime scenes quickly.’
‘Not any more, though.’
‘Thanks for the reminder.’ Reuben ran his eyes back and forth between the Focus and the flat. ‘Who do you reckon?’
‘Can’t see him well, but general plod. Average plainclothes CID. Nothing too senior.’
Reuben flashed through the scenarios. ‘You think there’s an officer in the flat? Maybe carrying out a search?’
‘Dunno. If you came to search you’d come mob-handed, wouldn’t you?’
‘And I guess you wouldn’t worry about keeping a low profile.’
‘I guess not,’ Moray answered.
‘But if GeneCrime have thrown this out to general CID, anything’s possible.’ The officer in the car was alert, scanning the area just like Reuben. ‘The problem is, I don’t think they have enough on Sanghera to order a search.’
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘What I want to do, Moray, is to march in, smash the front door down and see if my son is in there. But if CID are staking the place out, that’s not exactly an option.’ Reuben flicked his top teeth with the nails of his left hand while he thought. ‘I don’t want to do this,’ he said, taking out his mobile, ‘but I don’t see another option.’
‘What?’
Reuben entered a number into the keypad. ‘This.’ He waited for the call to be answered, then said, ‘Sarah? It’s Reuben.’
Sarah treated Reuben to her coldest tone of voice. ‘Hello, Reuben,’ she answered.
‘Look, can you tell me something?’
‘Probably not. But go on anyway.’
‘Are you staking out the home addresses of the four suspects?’
‘And which suspects are these?’
Reuben glanced down at the back of his left hand and quickly looked away. He didn’t need to read the names. They were embedded in his consciousness, flashing letters that burned into every thought he had. ‘Syed Sanghera, Daniel Riefield, Michael Adebyo and Francis Randle.’
‘They’re not all official suspects yet. Besides, we don’t have an address for Randle.’
‘I know.’
‘Look, Reuben—’
‘Sarah, I need to know whether you have warrants. Do you have enough evidence to enter their houses, or are you just keeping tabs?’
‘I don’t know why this concerns you any more, Reuben.’
A voice in Reuben’s head screamed, Because my fucking son could be in one of the addresses! ‘It just does.’
Sarah’s voice cooled another notch. ‘You’re not on this case any more, Reuben. I thought I made that abundantly clear.’
‘So—’
‘So, no, we don’t have anything that would allow us to carry out searches. We have ten people on a drug trial, most of whom are still alive. We have their family and friends, some of them doubtless harbouring grudges. We have other trials that the murdered men were associated with, as well as whole teams of researchers who worked alongside them. And other than that, no tangible evidence to put any of this coachload of people within a mile of any of the murder scenes.’
‘And if I came up with some evidence?’
‘Don’t.’ Sarah breathed out, an extended exhalation in Reuben’s ear. ‘I mean that. Thorner made it quite clear. Stay off the case, go home to your ex-wife, help Detective Veno, do everything you can to find your son. Please stop thinking you can do anything to help us. We’re big boys and girls. We’ll manage without you.’
Reuben smiled briefly to himself. Being told off by Sarah was becoming a daily event. ‘The trouble is, Sarah, I can’t leave the case alone. And it would be very difficult for you to stop me simply sitting in a car and observing things if I wanted to do that.’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘I’m just saying, what if I come up with something that gave you sufficient evidence for a search?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like anything. Like the scant evidence Veno had that allowed him to tear Lucy’s house apart.’
‘Just don’t, Reuben.’
‘But if I do?’
There was a long pause. An Asian male emerged from the flats and walked briskly through Raddlebarn Gardens towards the main road. The driver of the Ford Focus started his engine and pulled off slowly after him.
‘If you do . . .’
Moray fired the ignition of the Saab.
‘What?’ Reuben asked.
‘Let me know what you find.’
4
Francis Randle sat hunched in his car, staring at passers-by. Normal people going about their business, dressed in blues, greys, browns and blacks, material pulled tight against the cold wind. Civvies making lives for themselves while he rotted in combat clothes that had seen b
etter days.
He took the pistol out of the glove box, ran the barrel under his nose. The familiar scent of violence, of promise, of the settling of scores. An oily, metallic, scorched smell. Simultaneously clean and not clean. An instrument for making people do things they wouldn’t do under any other circumstance. Making them entirely willing to lie down and subject themselves to whatever you wanted of them.
He went through the drill. Flicking the safety on and off, loading and reloading the cartridge, sliding the rounds out and slotting them back in again. A mechanical process that allowed him to lose himself for a few minutes.
A well-dressed man passed the car, a couple of metres away. Randle took aim, his gun below the level of the window, tracking the man’s progress. He looked like a lawyer or a city worker, something professional and well paid. Randle lifted the nose of the pistol, calculating the angle for a headshot. The man disappeared behind a parked van, then emerged again. Randle had another sight of him along the snub nose of the gun, before letting him go. ‘Next time,’ he said under his breath.
Randle resumed his scan of the streets. He checked his side mirrors and the rear-view. From time to time he caught his reflection. The buzz-cut hair, the cleft of his chin, the flattened-off ear.
Another male, mid-twenties, caught his eye. Broad, upright, muscular. A sense of pride about him. Randle was transfixed. ‘Martin,’ he whispered to himself. ‘My son.’ The man entered a silver phone box, made a call. Randle craned to see him. He slid the gun back in the glove box, slammed it shut, and continued to watch, fascinated, absorbed. Then the man opened the door and came out. Glanced around. Randle ducked down. He didn’t want to be seen. The man turned back the way he had come, engulfed in the mass of people hurrying in all directions, trying to keep warm.
Randle stroked the top of his right ear, felt the bluntness, flashed to the moment a piece of shrapnel could have ended his life. Instead, it took a small piece of him he didn’t need anyway. Instants of life that could have changed everything. His son dying in a hospital in London, while he walked away from a roadside bomb in Ulster. Events years apart but feeling as entwined now as if they’d happened simultaneously.
