Control

by John Macken

‘Who?’

  ‘Dion Morgan.’

  ‘Rings a bell.’

  ‘He was a placebo on the drug trial.’

  Reuben listened intently. He heard the ruffling of papers, the tap of a computer keyboard. He clenched his fist and clamped his jaw. She was going to help him.

  ‘Give me a couple of seconds,’ she said.

  Reuben stopped pacing around on the wide pavement. He caught sight of the four names etched on the back of his hand. With some saliva he began to scour off the first three. Syed Sanghera. Daniel Riefield. Michael Adebyo. Men who had direct reason to attack the trial coordinators. As he waited for Sarah, he rubbed harder, feeling the friction of skin abrading skin as he erased the letters. He left Francis Randle’s name. The owner of the blue Audi couldn’t be discounted yet.

  ‘While I’m sifting through my evidence file, I can tell you there’s absolutely nothing on Dion Morgan, Reuben. The placebos have been lower priority, but either way it’s virtually a blank piece of paper. A good job, no previous, no nothing. The only thing that many hours of police searches have uncovered is a recent caution for drink driving.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Just over a week ago. And even then he hasn’t been prosecuted, and probably won’t be. Blood test was borderline. Just came to light in a CID background search that Leigh Harding carried out.’

  Reuben started walking again. He couldn’t stand still any longer. ‘What else?’

  ‘What do you want with Morgan anyway?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Reuben answered. ‘Just a hunch.’

  ‘Your nothing muches usually turn out to be other people’s something substantial.’

  ‘Yeah, well. You found his other details yet?’

  Reuben heard Sarah take a sip of something. He pictured a cardboard cup full of strong dark coffee. Sarah’s legal amphetamine.

  ‘You do realize that you’re wasting your time, Reuben?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’ve had CID stake him out, keep tabs on him, make sure he’s not going to be a victim like Daniel Riefield. And there’s nothing there, Reuben. Nothing at all. Dion Morgan is a medic. Currently a house officer at St Mary’s Hospital. His residence is in an apartment block leased by the trust. Because it’s hospital property we’ve been able to have a look inside.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘CID found nothing at all.’

  ‘So are you going to help me?’

  ‘Your funeral. You got a pen?’

  ‘Aha.’

  Sarah gave Reuben Morgan’s address and other details, which he etched into the bluey-white skin of his hand, below Francis Randle’s name. ‘Now don’t go upsetting Dr Morgan. By all accounts he’s a nice man. One lawsuit against your name from Lucy’s boyfriend is unfortunate. Two would begin to look careless.’

  Reuben crossed the road, looking for a Tube station. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he answered. Then he thanked Sarah and ended the call.

  He spotted a familiar red and white sign ahead, illuminated and beckoning. He quickened his pace, nervous, excited and on edge, a buzz of raw emotions and feelings colliding inside him.

  10

  As the Tube sped into darkness, Reuben tried to imagine Lucy’s bus journey four days earlier. On the surface of the city, mired in traffic, a two-year-old ball of energy and fascination called Joshua bouncing around the lower deck. She was travelling with good news, words she would ring him with while he loitered outside the Command Room, anxious about getting stuck into the case of a man who removed fingertips for fun.

  It was only three stops to Paddington from where he was. It would take minutes. Reuben glanced involuntarily at his watch. Every second Joshua was with the killer his chances of dying intensified. He checked the linear map of stations above the blackened window opposite. A line with dots on it, each marked with a familiar name. A circle that looped around the city. As the train approached his station, Reuben sensed that his own circle was rapidly returning to its origin.

  Reuben took the escalator stairs two at a time, pounding ever upwards. He brushed past static passengers, his legs light, his arms strong, his breathing controlled. He checked a map at the exit and turned left. St Mary’s was three streets away. Another left, a right, left again. Five minutes and he was there, looking up. Eight or nine storeys, light brown and dark brown, red window frames, like someone had tried to brighten a dismal office block. A stretch of water behind, a canal of some sort. An ambulance bay crosshatched in yellow. Further along in his line of sight an older section of building, an archway, an elevated walkway.

  He walked straight in through the automatic doors closest to him. People sitting and standing, waiting on chairs, leaning against walls. Reuben checked another map. A hospital plan in a plain metal surround, its plastic protection scratched and scuffed. Paediatrics on the sixth and seventh floors. Paediatric Haematology on the seventh.

  Reuben checked for the lifts. He followed the blue vinyl floor to a lobby and pressed the up button. Another person joined him in the small lift. A man of twenty-five with a portable drip. Poor fucker, Reuben thought to himself. And then he remembered his words to Moray. Until Joshua was safe, there were no poor fuckers.

  The man stayed in the lift as Reuben exited at the seventh floor. Functional NHS fixtures and fittings. Embedded strip lighting, muted blues and greens, vinyl floor, cheap office furniture. Painted pictures of cartoon characters on the walls because it was a children’s department. Reuben ignored the reception desk and stepped into a communal waiting area. He sat down on an orange plastic chair, took out his phone and dialled Lucy’s number, watching medical staff come and go from the ward at the end, into consulting rooms, to the reception desk.

  ‘It’s Reuben,’ he said as Lucy answered.

  ‘Hi,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘I’m in the bathroom. Veno and his team are in the living room.’

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘Veno said they’re following up some potential sightings.’

  ‘So nothing, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Reuben listened to his ex-wife’s breathing. Slow, shallow, broken. She was falling apart.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. You?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘I’m trying to get our son back.’

  ‘Alive?’

  Reuben didn’t want to contemplate the alternative. ‘I’m bringing him home.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t want anyone else involved. You, the police, GeneCrime . . . I’ve got to do this by myself. I want you to understand that. A man has taken the thing I hold more precious than anything else in the world. And I want to stand face to face with him and make him give it back.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  Reuben ran his eyes around the waiting room. So far, he had seen a handful of doctors. None of them resembled Morgan. ‘Like I said, it’s better that I don’t tell you.’

  ‘But you know for certain who has him?’

  He didn’t know anything for certain. All he had was the testimony of a drunk. But it was a start. ‘Let’s say I’m about to narrow it down.’

  More fractured breaths. ‘Good luck,’ Lucy whispered finally.

  ‘I’m going to need it. Standing face to face with a psychopath is not something many people survive.’

  ‘Just come back safe, and bring our boy with you.’

  Reuben bit deep into his fingernail. ‘I’ll try,’ he answered.

  He ended the call and stood up. He couldn’t sit still. It was impossible. He was nervous and on edge, the amphetamine coming on strong, making him twitchy. There was a drinks machine at the end of the corridor. He bought some Coke. It tasted sweet and sickly, but he knew it would help him, keep his blood sugar from crashing. A couple walking through with tears in
their eyes stared at him as he passed. He pictured the times he and Lucy had spent in paediatric centres, realized that his face was still in the public consciousness.

  Reuben paced about, scanning around. Morgan was part of this. Reuben was sure, and getting surer. It was more than coincidence that Laura Piddock recognized him, that Joshua had been in this very hospital before he was snatched. That was all the evidence Reuben had, but it was a fuck of a lot more than he had on anyone else. Sarah had already checked Morgan, searched his house, examined his background. So that was what it came down to, Reuben realized. The word of a senior police officer against the word of a serious alcoholic.

  Reuben stretched, rubbed his face, sat down for a couple of minutes and then got up again. There was no plan. He simply needed to see Morgan, get a good look at him, judge whether he was capable of being a cold-blooded killer.

  Then, as he walked back to his seat a second time, he saw him. Tall, broad, light hair, ears that tapered in, as Laura Piddock had described. A white coat, a shirt and tie beneath, no stethoscope. He was heading out of a half-glass door, holding the hand of a young girl. The girl was thin with a tube taped up through her nose. Dr Morgan led her through to another room, then returned alone, scribbling notes into a pad. Reuben tried and failed to see him as the fingertip killer, the man who had taunted him on the phone, the man who could have taken his son. Finally, he was standing just metres away from him. And in the flesh, Reuben started to have serious doubts.

  Reuben sat back down again on the orange chair. He had ruled out Adebyo, Sanghera and Riefield on the basis that Laura Piddock hadn’t recognized them. Unless there was someone else, or more than one person working together. One to snatch Joshua, the other to carry out the killings. Another idea came to him in his speeding brain. He couldn’t face talking to Sarah so he texted her.

  Where is Francis Randle?

  He held his mobile out in front of him, his head bowed like he was praying to it, impatient and ill at ease. He was losing focus and knew it. Just seconds of seeing Morgan had upset his reasoning. The drug wasn’t helping. He had taken it for its energy and stamina, for its ability to push him onwards after days of constant activity and fatigue. But what he needed more than anything now was calm. He had to think coolly and rationally, consider all the evidence he had accumulated over the week – the cigarette butts, the rats, the death of Daniel Riefield, the motives of the people on the trial, the reasons it was resurfacing after four years, the witness statements, the abduction of Joshua, the telephone calls, the crime scenes. But his brain was misfiring, random impulses flashing through, coherent lines of logic scattering like marbles around the inside of his cranium. He pleaded for composure, willed Sarah to swallow her principles and text him back.

  His phone vibrated twice. Reuben read the message: Randle located close to Paddington. Highly dangerous. Not in custody. CID following. Stay away from case. S.

  Again, Reuben tried to reason it through. Francis Randle, the father of one of the trialists who had died, a military man with experience of active duty. Calling for justice after the inquest. Saying the trial coordinators should suffer as his son had. And now CID had tabs on him. Reuben saw the image of Randle from numerous press cuttings. Broad, strong, bony. Not to be fucked with. It was impossible. With no forensics the case was just circumstantial. Potential killers that CID were only just beginning to track down. Five murders happening so quickly that the police couldn’t keep up. A man with the power to incapacitate several grown men and hack their fingertips off.

  Reuben glanced over towards the ward. Morgan had swapped his white coat for a suit jacket. He shared a joke with a nurse close to reception, then made for the lift. There was no longer any time for indecision. Reuben knew he had to follow him. CID were tracking Randle. In the absence of any other option, Reuben stood up. He waited for the lift to close, then made for the steps.

  11

  Morgan stuck out an arm as a taxi approached. The driver slowed and stopped, lowered his window. Morgan spoke to the driver.

  Reuben stared up and down the street. Amphetamine mania gripped him tight. Another desperate rush. Heart racing, muscles clenched. Scanning for a black car with a yellow light. It was cold, but Reuben was immune.

  Morgan climbed into the cab. He hadn’t noticed Reuben. He wasn’t in any hurry. Reuben flashed through whether this was a good sign or a bad one. The door closed with an empty metallic clunk.

  Reuben searched the streets with wide-open eyes as the taxi rattled off. He knew how critical these seconds were. Lose Morgan now and he would lose him for hours. And that was time he didn’t have. Joshua could be anywhere, holding on, about to die. He had to know if Morgan was involved, and quick.

  Reuben combed the area in both directions. Fast and busy traffic. A wide road with three lanes each way. No reservation, just a pedestrian island in the middle of the onslaught. Cars, buses, bikes, but no fucking taxis. Morgan’s cab was thirty metres away and disappearing. Reuben dodged three lanes of movement and stood in the centre. Red brake lights came on in Morgan’s taxi, then the indicator. Reuben watched it, still frantically trawling the streets. It was slowing, drifting into the outside lane, pulling a U-turn. And then he spied a taxi. Heading in the same direction Morgan’s was about to start travelling in, on its way back past him. Reuben ran across the other three lanes towards it, his arm out, stop-stop-stop-stop grunted under his breath. The taxi slowed, its driver pulling up sharply. Reuben jumped in and slammed the door.

  ‘There’s a black cab about to pass us,’ he said, pointing out of the back window. ‘I want you to follow it.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Could be anywhere. Just follow it wherever it goes.’

  The driver turned as far as his thick neck would allow, his eyebrows raised. Reuben knew he wasn’t impressed. He had broken several rules of London taxi etiquette. Then the driver rotated slowly back to face the road. Morgan’s taxi edged past, thick black smoke dropping heavily on to the tarmac. Reuben locked eyes with the driver in the rear-view. It was a cold look of appraisal. Then Reuben stared past him. Through the driver’s cage. Through the windscreen. Deep into the mayhem of the traffic. Morgan was ten metres ahead, sitting bolt upright, staring through the window. In another few moments he would be out of sight.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I just need you to help me. Please.’

  The taxi driver cleared his throat. ‘Now that depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Saw you on the telly the other night,’ he said. ‘Me and the missus watched it.’

  ‘Please,’ Reuben implored.

  ‘This about your missing boy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The driver didn’t say anything. Reuben knew what he was thinking. You killed your own son and now you want me to ferry you around. He cursed the press conference that Veno had thrown them into. Unprepared and raw, loud questions hiding silent accusations.

  There was a pause. Time fractured, slow and fast at the same time. Reuben’s brain speeding, events crashing in slow motion. He considered jumping out and stopping another taxi. But then the engine note rose and the cab pulled off hard with a squeal of tyres. As it accelerated, Reuben saw the driver turn off the meter.

  ‘This one’s on me,’ he said.

  Reuben peered forward. Morgan was just in view, slowing for a zebra crossing. Bit by bit, they were gaining, the driver putting his foot down. Reuben didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed suddenly by the driver’s act of kindness. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.

  ‘That’s the cab there,’ the driver pointed. ‘I’ll stay close enough so we don’t lose him, not so close he can see us.’

  Reuben thanked him again.

  They battled through the traffic, away from Paddington, heading south and then west. Reuben ticked off regions. Kensington. Shepherd’s Bush. Acton. Nothing direct and straight, just the zig-zag route that taxi drivers took, avoiding jams and one-way systems.

  ‘No news on
your boy, then?’ the driver asked, pulling up at a busy interchange and putting it into neutral.

  Reuben stared past the two cars in front. Dion Morgan, distorted and misshapen. Refracted through the driver’s cage and several sheets of rounded glass.

  ‘Nothing,’ he answered.

  The driver shot him another quick look. ‘How are you coping?’

  The words were soft and cockney. They played through Reuben’s racing mind. A gravelly murmur that felt warm and sincere. But Reuben couldn’t answer. He wasn’t coping. He was taking illegal drugs, hiding in the pursuit, burying his emotions under layers of investigation. Desperate lunges towards men who might have Joshua. Impulsive plans of action. Pushing on relentlessly, hour after hour. The cab suddenly felt small and cramped. The eyes in the mirror, the cage in front of him, the driver’s thick neck, dark hair sprouting above his collar.

  Before long, Morgan’s taxi indicated and slowed. Reuben inspected the area. Standard terraced housing, probably late nineteenth century. A congested row of properties wedged tight against one another. His driver pulled up, twenty metres back. Reuben watched Morgan pay and leave the cab.

  As he looked more closely, he saw there was a gap in the dense crush of terraces. A space where two or three of them had once stood. Maybe a wartime bomb had obliterated them, a tooth being punched out, leaving a gap. It had been filled with a late fifties or early sixties detached house. Newer brick, plainer design, a square box. A jarring modernist construction lurking amid Victorian elegance. Reuben watched Morgan walk up the short front path of the detached house and unlock the front door. His movements were languid, relaxed, calm. He looked about as normal as it was possible to be. Once again, the name Francis Randle came to him.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ the driver asked.

  Morgan entered the house and closed the door behind him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Reuben answered.

  He scratched his scalp hard and deep, as if he could get at the buzz of conflicting notions in his head. The taxi continued to vibrate, its engine rattling uneasily away. A couple of cars passed. The driver stared in his rear-view. A siren searched through the air, bouncing down the narrow street. Still Reuben waited, thinking, weighing it up, deciding.