by John Macken
He looked up and frowned at Sarah. ‘You want to know something?’
Sarah drained what remained of her drink. ‘Why don’t you spell it out, Dr Maitland?’
‘Michael Brawn has just become personal,’ he said.
Other decisions now needed to be made, other courses of action followed. Something deep in his coffee-sour gut told Reuben that things were going to get nasty. He took out his mobile and dialled Stevo.
20
Immediately, there was something in his nose which spoke of school PE lessons. A rough comp in West London, which had nevertheless splashed out on a state-of-the-art gymnasium, almost as if it had decided to swap physical education for mental. Although it had been built several years before Reuben began attending the school, the pinch of sweat, the sweetness of leather and the freshness of wood had hung permanently in its air. Now, as with all nasal matters, the smell seemed to travel up through his sinuses, diffusing through the sphenoid bone directly into his brain. Dusty memories were slowly coming alive, as if they had been lying there for twenty-five years waiting only for that one unique odour to wake them from their coma. Reuben saw sadistic PE teachers, shivering boys running the full gamut of pubertal development, games treated more like punishments than pastimes.
He scanned the gymnasium. All around, wooden bars lined the walls. Several well-pounded punch bags were supported from the ceiling, and battered medicine balls loitered in heavy static lines. Reuben looked back at Stevo, who was standing in front of him wearing a head-guard, his tattooed hands out front.
‘We ain’t talking about boxing here,’ Stevo continued. ‘This is different. This is fighting. You saw what went on the other night.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Reuben answered, adjusting his tracksuit top. He had wanted to witness the way men fight, knuckle to knuckle. Sooner or later, Reuben suspected, the knowledge would come in useful. Now he had decided to take the next step.
‘You get punched in the ring, fine, it hurts, but you’re OK.’
Stevo reached forward and jabbed Reuben in the shoulder. Reuben peered through Stevo’s padded head-guard and into his eyes, trying to gauge what to expect.
‘You know what I mean? You take one from a fist – no gloves now – or an elbow, or a knee . . .’
Stevo jabbed him again, harder this time.
‘Right,’ Reuben grunted, his shoulder complaining. Stevo was enjoying this, his eyes ablaze, and for a second the apparition of a PE teacher returned to Reuben.
‘One of those and you’re going down.’
Stevo stood still, in control, his hands by his side. Reuben felt his shoulder, which jarred slightly as he moved it. Then Stevo punched him sharply and suddenly in the guts.
‘Doesn’t matter who you are.’
Reuben bent over, caught out, winded, unable to breathe. He had barely had time to react. He fought for air, angry, his brain struggling to keep up. The rules were changing by the second. Stevo was going to hurt him.
‘And forget the films. No one’s coming back at you after two or three good punches.’
Reuben straightened, hands on hips, finally inflating his diaphragm. He monitored Stevo intently. He was examining his knuckles, rubbing his thumb over the point which had connected with Reuben’s chest bone. Stevo looked up. There was meanness in his face. He smiled, blue eyes and yellow teeth. This was for real. Reuben lifted his hands, ready to protect himself. Stevo continued to wait, revelling in the moment, and Reuben wondered what he had actually let himself in for. People like Kieran had very nasty contacts. Men who did what you asked them to do, with no question or hesitation. Men like Valdek Kosonovski, iron bar at the ready. If these were the sorts of friends Stevo had, then Reuben should be on his guard. This wasn’t a game. This was fighting. But Reuben had made the rash decision when he saw his counterfeit signature staring back at him the previous day. It was time to toughen himself up. He had a bad feeling about what lay ahead.
Stevo lowered his hands. He was grinning under his head-guard. And then he launched a punch. Reuben tried to duck, but it struck him on the side of the head. His ear rang; it was on fire. Then something changed. PE teachers, playground fights, Phil Kemp . . . Stevo aimed a kick at Reuben’s gut, but Reuben reacted and grabbed Stevo’s leg. He jerked it round and pushed it hard, sending Stevo reeling back, slamming on to the mat.
Stevo picked himself up, taking his time, slow and deliberate, breathing hard. ‘Not bad,’ he remarked with a laugh. ‘Not bad.’ He took off his mask and wiped his forehead with the back of a hand. ‘Nathan told me you were a bit of a pussy. In fact, Kieran said so as well. But maybe not.’
‘Thanks.’ Reuben grimaced, dismissing the notion that he had been about to launch himself into Stevo, fists blazing, kicking and punching, on the verge of losing control.
‘I guess we just have to get you angry.’
21
Kimberly Horwitz pushes through the last physical barrier clawing at her to remain at work. The revolving doors hesitate, resisting her efforts for a second, before gaining a reluctant momentum and then propelling her forcefully on to the street. Increasingly of late, Kimberly feels as if the seventeen-storey building is swallowing her in the morning and spitting her out at night.
As she walks, she swings a slim case, trying not to count the days. Three months in London had sounded ideal. A chance to get away and start again. But that was the very problem. She was alone in a foreign city, perpetually out of time-zone synch with family and friends back home in Boston. If she was entirely honest, the reason she accepted the bank’s invitation to aid its acquisitions team had been more about not saying no than actually wanting to say yes.
Corporate banks seem to sway over her. Only a few persistent lights are on in the buildings which stare blackly down at her. When she looks up, she feels dwarfed by the towering office blocks which back on to the Thames. Kimberly checks her watch. Nearly two a.m. Sixteen-hour days, just like at home.
She walks around a corner, and heads towards the main road. She pictures her bed in the apartment the bank has rented for her. Her stomach growls loudly, and she is glad for the moment that she is on her own. The result of a client’s attempt at an ice-breaker, a buffet of Traditional London Fare. Or Fayre. Some bizarre Limey post-war food known as tripe, a selection of severed eels in a ridiculous type of gelatin, a paper cup full of gritty shells called cockles. She smiles to herself, her digestive system complaining again. What were they trying to do, poison them, for Christ’s sake?
Kimberly cocks her ear to one side. Amid the clacking of her high heels, a softer noise. She spins round but sees nothing. An echo, maybe, sharp spikes from her footwear bouncing back from the office blocks, muffled and restrained. She listens acutely. The rhythm stays fixed, the hard and the soft answering each other. But then they start to lose synch. The duller noise becomes quicker than her own pace.
Understanding is soon upon her. Kimberly glances left and right. A parallel street to the right, an intersection straight ahead. Someone who had been matching her pace for pace is speeding up. There is no one around. She suddenly feels a long way from Boston, homesickness mingling with fear, making it feel colder and more desperate.
The taxi rank is just one block away. Kimberly tells herself not to panic. She has come to London to do a job, then get the hell back again. Besides, the streets of England are safe. Downtown Boston, no way she’s going to be walking the streets at this hour. Central London, however, is fine. She hurries towards the intersection, scanning the cold commercial frontages of office blocks and the dull black windows of insurance agencies.
And then, from nowhere, with no sound, a figure. Coming towards her, fast and intent. She starts to scream, but doesn’t get the chance. The air is out of her before she hits the pavement.
22
The tube train surfaced in a hurry, as if it were coming up for air. Reuben blinked in the light, staring through the opposite window. The platform was bathed in a pale spring yellowness, one of t
he stations where the Underground poked its head out to see what was going on. He stretched, aware that he was stiffening up, leaking blood vessels forming deep bruises where Stevo’s fists had rammed home. He again pictured the ruined body of Ethan de Groot, destroyed by an iron bar, a mess of internal haemorrhaging, ruptured organs and broken bones. Being beaten to death was truly horrific, and Reuben shuddered for a second with the memory of having to take DNA swabs from the corpse. But this, he acknowledged sadly, was what his life was becoming.
He scratched his chin. It hadn’t always been like this. From being a junior CID officer, the return to education, a Ph.D. in molecular biology, the switch to forensics. Academic publications, pioneering research, high-profile breakthroughs. Head-hunted for GeneCrime, an élite national forensic detection unit being assembled in Euston. Rising to the position of lead forensics officer. Becoming a media spokesperson on crime. Building a loyal team who looked up to him and helped him push the science of what was possible. And then everything going wrong, with Lucy, with Shaun Graves, with GeneCrime. The very newspapers Reuben had written for demanding his dismissal for abuse of position.
The train began to move, accelerating in small electric jolts, disappearing down into the ground once again. Reuben’s options had narrowed. He had lost his wife, child, job and home, in a matter of weeks. But he knew that GeneCrime needed monitoring. Rumours from his old team abounded. And so he had set up a covert lab, had begun testing GeneCrime evidence smuggled out by Judith, while pursuing private cases to finance the investigations. Holding hands with the devil in order to do what was right.
Reuben shook his head. Ten months, and he was starting to sleep properly again. But things were still messy. A new lab, new private clients, helping the gangster Kieran Hobbs figure out who was trying to kill him. The police taking a sporadic interest in the form of Sarah Hirst, keeping him under observation, tolerating his activities in exchange for his insight. None of it sat well. He was caught between just about everything: between the police and the underworld, between his wife and his son, between what was right and what was wrong. But all the time knowing that if he didn’t police the activities of GeneCrime, no one else was going to, and wondering how many other Michael Brawns were out there, the scent of false genetic evidence leaking from their skin.
At the next station Reuben stood up and left the train, climbing two sets of escalators to emerge into the tainted air of the city. No house, no car, no bank accounts, no nothing. That had been the idea. Invisible and untouchable, free to go where he wanted, beneath the radar of the people he investigated and the clients he served. As a disgraced police civilian, Reuben was well aware that his only protection was anonymity. That and fight training. He made his way to a bus stop and stood in line. Once famous, respected and feared, now just a scientist in a bus queue.
Moray had beaten him to the laboratory. He was sitting on the sofa fingering a padded envelope, looking apprehensive.
‘Post,’ he said quietly.
Reuben inspected the package. ‘Funny, the print . . .’
‘It’s the same as the other ones.’
Reuben pulled on a pair of gloves and ripped it open, pouring its contents on to the bench. Several very tightly wrapped wads of used fifty-pound notes dropped out, along with a piece of paper. Reuben scanned the note and slid it along to Moray.
‘The truth to GeneCrime lies in the genes of Michael Jeremy Brawn,’ he muttered. ‘Find out who he is. PO box 36745.’ Moray whistled a long, low note and picked up two bundles, weighing them in his palms as if he could guess their value.
‘What do you reckon?’ Reuben asked.
‘Twenty to twenty-five.’
‘I mean, about the note.’
‘Someone has an axe to grind about GeneCrime and is prepared to pay.’
‘But who? And what are they really after?’
‘They need you to get involved in whatever’s going on.’
‘But what is going on? All we know is that GeneCrime seem to have put someone away based on false DNA. And someone else wants to know the truth.’
‘Who do you figure?’
Reuben picked the note up again. The same font as before, used by just about every computer in the world, probably cut from the same sheet of paper as the others. The envelope was self-sealing. He examined the adhesive flap up close, knowing that it could have trapped enough skin cells for forensic analysis. But Reuben’s instinct told him that whoever sent the notes was being more careful than that.
‘If I was a gambling man, I’d put my money on Abner.’
‘Why?’
‘Just a few things he said last week. Dropping hints like they were going out of fashion.’
‘About what?’
‘GeneCrime is a mess that Abner’s trying to mop up. One bent officer doesn’t spoil a division, but things take time to settle down. And while they do, everything has to be right. Abner needs to have independent knowledge of any potential impropriety.’
‘But why not come to you directly?’
‘He couldn’t risk it. Anyone got wind of the fact that I was digging about in GeneCrime and he’d have all sorts of nightmares on his hands. Think about it. The press, his fellow officers, GeneCrime CID and Forensics . . . there’d be mutiny. And all this in the middle of a major investigation.’
‘So what about Michael Brawn?’
‘What’s really weird is he pleaded guilty at his trial.’
‘So?’
‘A fake DNA sample should have got him off the charge. There would have been no forensic way of linking him to the crime. It’s the wrong way round.’
‘Maybe that’s why Abner wants you to pursue it.’
‘If it’s him.’
‘But what can you do anyway? The guy’s in prison.’
Reuben shrugged. ‘At least he isn’t going anywhere for a while.’
‘And where’s a copper going to get twenty-five grand?’
‘I hope you don’t need me to answer that. Believe me, for paying off informants and oiling the wheels, there’s always money available. Just look at the sums seized on drug raids. Twenty-five grand is child’s play.’
Moray smiled. ‘I always did wonder what happened to all the seizures of cash, and the sale of assets.’
‘Another grey area in the universally grey area of crime detection. Whatever you’ve got to do to catch the bad guys.’
Moray stood up and made a show of checking his watch. ‘Should be our motto. Listen, I’ve got to run. What do you think, though? Twenty-five grand could buy a lot of equipment, keep us going for a few months.’
Reuben was still holding the note, gazing at it, almost focusing through its neatly typed letters. ‘How could I not be intrigued?’ he asked.
‘Right enough,’ Moray answered, heading for the door. ‘But a word of caution. When someone wants you to do a thing so bad, you’ve got to wonder why.’
‘So you’re saying I should do what exactly?’
Moray shrugged. ‘Fucked if I know,’ he said.
Reuben pulled his gloves off. ‘Thanks a lot.’
Moray grinned, opened the heavy door and slammed it as he left. Reuben glanced up at a vial labelled ‘Oblivion’, and licked his dry lips. There had been no point asking Moray. He knew exactly what he was going to do.
23
DCI Sarah Hirst was beginning to regret the large Danish pastry she had just eaten. It wasn’t that being around the dead made her nauseous any more, or that the smells and sights of the GeneCrime morgue still unsettled her constitution. It was simply that as she watched the pathologist’s retractor open the deep scalpel wound just below the sternum of Kimberly Horwitz, she knew what was coming next. There was something about viewing the contents of a dead person’s stomach that resonated deep in her guts, almost as if intestines could see and had empathy.
Sarah enjoyed watching the scientists the most. They were awkward, disjointed and withdrawn during the pathological investigation, impatiently waiting
to take samples – a skin punch here, a swab there, a scrape wherever possible. By contrast, CID were stolid and unmoved, cracking gags to while away the time and camouflage their discomfort. Even after so many investigations, the professions kept themselves isolated. Sarah wondered whether the gulf in personality would ever be bridged. Reuben Maitland had come close – a scientist with the loyalty of CID and Forensics alike – but then his work and home lives had collided like light bulbs smashing, imploding and showering shards of debris far and wide.
The thought of Reuben ate away at Sarah like the sharpness of the formalin invading her sinuses. She took a lot of risks on his behalf, turned a blind eye to his investigations, maintained communication with him when most of her colleagues still bore grudges. But much as she kept him where she wanted, Sarah was aware that using someone whom you only partially trusted was a dangerous way to proceed.
Sarah focused on the examination in small bursts. The Path technician held open a clear plastic bag. Symbiosis wasn’t quite the right word with Reuben. He was more like a commensal parasite. Digging his way into the soft underbelly of GeneCrime. The chief pathologist slit the bluey green stomach, which was distended and bloated. And while Sarah didn’t doubt that GeneCrime investigations had gone awry, Reuben’s motives almost seemed too self-absorbed. There was a thin leaking of gas, putrid and sick, which nearly made Sarah retch. She glanced away, hand over her nose. That, or she had underestimated Reuben. Sarah had made that mistake once before, and it had proved costly. Still, his obsession with knowing the truth about his former unit bordered on the fanatical. The incision was widened, teased apart with two pairs of blunt forceps. A thick acrid liquid seeped out, running darkly over the surface of the gland, like a punctured animal bleeding.
