by John Macken
Sarah watched Charlie Baker for a second. He was mesmerized by the dissection, taking it all in, eyes moist with fascination. Other members of the room were contrastingly circumspect. Working silently and efficiently, the pathologist used a sterile plastic spatula to spoon the lumpen stomach contents into the bag.
Sarah appreciated the risks Reuben was taking as well. An underground lab, associating with known criminals, the type of men he had hunted prior to his sacking – this wasn’t easy. The bag slowly engorged, its corners inflating, its middle bulging. There was a slurry of orange paste, fragments of fibrous meat, a white-ish slime which Sarah took to be detached stomach lining. For a second she saw the intensity of Reuben’s motivation, the willingness to sacrifice everything in order to hunt down the corrupt, the criminal and the fraudulent, those who falsified, altered and distorted, the users and abusers of forensic science, the police officers and scientists who undermined the whole of criminal detection through their deliberate actions. While Sarah knew that these people were the exception, she had seen it happen with her own eyes, but had failed to recognize it. Only Reuben had been sharp enough to spot what was going on.
The pathologist struggled for a second, digging his spatula deep into the recesses of the shrivelling organ. He gave up, instead pushing his gloved fingers inside and pulling out a series of pale stringy remnants. Sarah looked away again. And now, in a society where the underworld were wising up to the power of forensics, where police needed better and better methods of detection, where the pressure to identify and arrest those who murdered and raped had never been higher, the stakes were massive. This was what Reuben had seen from the outset. The power of forensics for good, and also for bad.
The pathologist muttered something through his mask, and Sarah’s brain scrambled to process the words, trying them on for size. Then she understood. ‘Tripe,’ he had said. ‘No idea people still ate it.’ Sarah belatedly appreciated the reason for the slow progress: he hadn’t been clear whether he was removing parts of a cow’s stomach or the corpse’s. She shook her head slightly at the thought of a stomach lying within a stomach. Sarah had seen more bizarre things come from the bellies of the dead, but still, she had yet to witness anything pleasant.
Mina Ali, senior forensic technician, stepped forward and passed the pathologist an extended cottonwool bud, which he delved deep into the open stomach before passing it back to her. She watched Mina carefully insert it into another plastic bag and seal it. Mina, petite, dark and bony, raised her eyebrows at Sarah on her way out of the morgue. For a second, Sarah longed to follow her, but she knew that she should be seen to be present.
Aside from the rare sight of partially digested tripe, nothing untoward had come out of the corpse’s digestive tract yet. They had no DNA, no nothing. Just striation marks and signs of condom-protected rape. But last meals occasionally revealed things that no one alive could tell you.
24
The door crashed open, a dull thud echoing through the lab, metal plating slamming into the wall. Reuben looked up, pipette mid-stroke between two sets of coloured tubes. Moray was holding a bulging carrier bag in one hand, a folded newspaper in the other.
‘What’s up?’ Reuben asked.
Moray paced quickly into the flat, locking the door behind him. ‘Trouble. Big trouble.’
‘Like what?’
Moray tipped the contents of the carrier bag on to the floor. A multitude of newspapers tumbled out.
‘So you’ve got a paper-round?’
‘This is serious,’ Moray answered.
He stooped down and arranged the papers – the Sun, the Mirror, The Times, the Mail – so that their front pages could be seen. Reuben scanned the headlines, which screamed FOOTBALLER AND WIFE DEAD, SUICIDE RIDDLE OF ARSENAL FULLBACK, ENGLAND DEFENDER IN DEATH PACT and ACCOUTEY’S FINAL SCORE.
‘Fuck.’ Reuben picked up the Mirror and focused intently on the text sheltering under the huge headline. ‘Says here the police aren’t looking for anyone else in their enquiries.’
‘Right, but listen to a couple of these. They don’t make good reading.’ Moray rummaged through several editions, licking his thick stubby fingers for grip. ‘“Jeremy Accoutey, who was imprisoned in 2004 for his part in a brutal fight outside a nightclub, was yesterday described by team-mates as having a long-term fascination with firearms.”’
‘Why didn’t we know this?’
Moray continued to read from the article. ‘“During his Arsenal career, Accoutey was capped twelve times for his country. It appears that, after taking his wife’s life, he turned the shotgun on himself.”’
‘Oh God.’ Reuben was scanning the inside pages of the Sun. ‘“Lesley Accoutey was described by a close friend as bubbly, vivacious and beautiful, with not a care in the world,”’ he quoted. There was a colour picture, an amateur modelling shot taken, he presumed from the clothes, some time ago. Reuben had never met Lesley Accoutey. She was elegant and lovely, smiling out at the camera, unknowing. A few years later, a shotgun to the head, her cranium shattering, her face collapsing, her world ending.
‘There’s worse. Check out The Times.’
Reuben picked up the paper with a look of sad premonition. He read out loud, half whispering, his voice tight with misgiving. ‘“Commander Robert Abner, head of GeneCrime, a pioneering Metropolitan forensics unit, commented, ‘The investigation is currently centring on the circumstances which led up to and precipitated the tragic and bloody events.’”’
‘Like an envelope full of forensics,’ Moray muttered, ‘explaining how his wife was banging the team physio.’
‘With our prints all over them.’
‘Fuck, indeed. And look, even your old mate’s getting involved in the action.’
Reuben took a copy of the Daily Mail from Moray, folded to reveal a half-page editorial. He mouthed the words to himself. ‘“DI Charlie Baker, leading the inquiry, said, ‘It is only a matter of time before we make an arrest.’”’
Reuben pulled off his latex gloves, which were grey with newsprint, and threw them in the bin. He scratched the back of his neck, angling his head to the side, biting into his top lip. This was never supposed to happen. No one was supposed to get hurt. That was the code they had adopted. Forensic detection for independent corroboration. Final proof when all other avenues pointed to the same conclusion. But nobody had mentioned firearms.
Reuben slumped down on a plastic and metal lab stool, designed more for leaning against than for comfort. As he scanned the room, he appreciated that laboratories rarely offered solace. The benches were sharp and unyielding, the machines cold and grey, the solutions stoppered and toxic.
Moray tidied the papers into a pile, equally silent and absorbed. After a few moments, he straightened and said, ‘So, what now, big man?’
Reuben remained still. Two people had died as a consequence of his actions. He saw the next few weeks. CID sniffing around, finding the lab, closing him down. The balance shifting. Being compromised again. Making himself vulnerable. And all the while having to stop trawling through GeneCrime cases, letting doctored science slip through the net, allowing it all to happen again.
He made a quick, silent decision, brutal in its simplicity, dangerous in its implication. It had been gnawing at him for days, but he had kept it at bay. Now he saw that it was the only option.
‘Gotta go,’ he said to Moray. ‘There’s someone who can help.’ He smiled a sad smile at his partner, and opened the door. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
Reuben took out his mobile as he walked, and dialled a number. ‘There’s only one person who can make it happen,’ he whispered, waiting for the call to be answered.
25
Central London at rush hour. Barging, jarring, pushing, jostling, forcing. Reuben stared through Admiralty Arch and up the long straight drag of Pall Mall. At the end, and out of sight, Buckingham Palace sat in stony defiance, gazing over the vehicles grinding their way past like a huge impatient parade. The traffic
was virtually static, four lanes fighting to get home, engines running, tyres heavy, fingers drumming on steering wheels.
Reuben glanced at his watch. A light changed somewhere, or a roundabout opened up; a momentary easing, vehicles moving forward, first gear to second, then quickly back again. He watched a battered maroon Fiat Punto take advantage of a gap and pull over in front of him. A rear passenger door opened and Reuben peered inside. Kieran Hobbs was grinning at him, all white hair and white teeth. Even at dusk, he was virtually a beacon. Reuben climbed in next to him and closed the door. In the front, Kieran’s minder Nathan indicated and pulled back into the traffic.
‘Hey, doc,’ Nathan grinned in the rear-view mirror.
‘Hi, Nathan,’ Reuben replied. He took a moment to survey the interior of the car, and turned to Kieran. ‘Hard times?’ he asked.
‘Invisibility.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I drive my Range Rover,’ Kieran explained with a sigh, ‘half the journey your boys are in my rear-view. I travel about in this, nothing.’
Reuben ran his fingers over the cracked plastic interior of the door, which had lost its fascia, its skeletal workings open to the world. He examined the window winding mechanism for a couple of seconds, with its coil of wire and corroding levers, simple and functional, never meant to be seen by the world. ‘But still . . .’ he said.
‘You’re saying you drive something better?’
‘I don’t have a car, Kieran. Or a house. Or a bank account. Or anything.’
‘After all the money I’ve put your way?’
‘Invisibility.’
Kieran grinned. ‘I hide from the good guys, you hide from the bad guys. Right?’
‘Something like that.’
Reuben was unsettled and on edge. Images of Lesley Accoutey and her husband continued to eat into him. He knew that you couldn’t legislate for the extremity of a person’s actions, but still, his activities had resulted in two deaths. Even though he told himself that Jeremy Accoutey in all probability knew the identity of the man his wife was fucking, and just needed final proof, it still didn’t sit comfortably. All of his career had been about taking the correct path, doing what was just and right. He looked over at Kieran. Even when that seemed to be wrong at the time. But sometimes, sometimes life isn’t that simple.
‘So, where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Thought we might eat while we talk.’ Kieran leaned his chubby form forward. ‘Nathan,’ he instructed, ‘the usual, please.’
Nathan glanced in the rear-view, his thick neck turning slightly. ‘Sure, boss,’ he answered. ‘I’ll cut down the back way.’
Reuben stared silently out of the window as they picked their way around Piccadilly Circus, exiting towards Oxford Circus, cutting down side streets. He didn’t feel like talking to Kieran. Not yet, anyway. After a few stop-start minutes the ageing Fiat Punto pulled up outside a row of shops, and parked on a double yellow line. Reuben saw a traffic warden spot them and amble over, increasing his pace as he got closer, pulling out his ticket book as a visual warning.
‘Don’t even think about it, sonny,’ the traffic warden began. ‘You can’t park on a double—’ He stopped. He had noticed Kieran Hobbs climbing out of the back.
‘Is there a problem?’ Kieran smiled.
‘Oh, sorry. I never realized . . .’
Kieran waved a dismissive hand and the warden nodded obsequiously, replaced his book and sauntered away.
Reuben followed Kieran out of the car. He walked a couple of paces behind, taking a few strides to catch him up. When food was in the offing, Kieran didn’t hang about. Reuben noticed with interest that during their short journey along the pavement, four people nodded, smiled or otherwise acknowledged the presence of Kieran Hobbs. This was, he conceded, a genial and well-known gangster, old-fashioned, liked and respected by his community.
Kieran pushed open an unmarked door, which was sandwiched between a couple of shops. Reuben tracked him down a flight of stairs, which opened out into a dingy restaurant. Immediately, two waiters hurried over and escorted them to a table which appeared to be the best of a bad lot.
‘Drinks, Mr Hobbs?’ one of them asked. ‘Before you order?’
‘Leave us for a bit. We’ve got business.’
Both waiters scurried away again. This was power. Proper power. Not the sort the police wielded or governments manipulated. This, Reuben was aware, was direct and instant authority over people’s actions. For a second it irked him that a man like Kieran Hobbs should have such sway over the lives of other individuals, while those seeking only to help, to enforce and to support had none. Even a copper of Commander Abner’s seniority couldn’t muster the influence Kieran had.
‘So, this makes a change,’ Kieran said, puffing his cheeks out. ‘Dr Reuben Maitland, famous forensic scientist, ex of Scotland Yard, comes to me, asking a favour.’
‘Believe me, I don’t feel good about it either,’ Reuben answered sadly. ‘And I need it to be a free favour.’
‘That’s what I like about you, Reuben. You’ve got balls.’
‘At the moment, anyway.’
‘So, what can I do for you?’
Reuben glanced around the restaurant, making sure he couldn’t be heard. This had to be done discreetly. No one must know, or else the whole thing could go dangerously wrong.
‘It’s really a case,’ he said quietly, ‘of what your friends might be able to do for me.’
26
Moray Carnock summed up the punters in the bar with the bitter word ‘aspirational’. Moray hated bars. What was wrong with pubs, old-fashioned cosy retreats, warm beer, a warm fire, a place to wallow in what was good about the country? Not the country he still called home, of course, his accent refusing to lie down and surrender to pervasive English vowels and softly spoken consonants, but his naturalized home, here on the wrong side of the border. Fucking London and fucking bars, he sighed.
He picked up the drinks, trying to blend into the background, being careful not to catch the man’s eye. Again, he cursed the fact that this was a bar and not a pub. Who was going to notice one more overweight slob in a public house? But in a smart Islington bar, Moray was well aware that he stuck out like a tramp at a temperance meeting. Cursing his luck, he placed the glasses down in front of Reuben.
‘Fucking hate these places,’ he grumbled.
‘So you’ve said. About twenty times now.’
‘I mean, why does the cunt have to choose a place like this?’
Reuben glanced around at the stylized fittings, which looked to have been ripped wholesale from a series of studio apartments. Not that he would admit it to Moray, but he did have a point.
‘Could be worse. What’s he done?’
Moray tapped the side of his nose. ‘Need to know basis only.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘But it’s nasty. Could get himself in a lot of trouble from the law.’ Moray glanced over in the direction of the man he was tagging. ‘That’s if the company decide to turn him over.’
Reuben ran his fingers across the CID file in front of him. It was slightly creased, and he felt the soft undulations in its cardboard surface. He had finally persuaded Sarah to lend it to him for a few hours.
‘Let’s get back to this,’ he said.
‘OK. But when he leaves, I’m leaving.’
Opening the file, Reuben said, ‘So GeneCrime helped in the convictions of forty-two criminals that year. Now, a lot of those would be as outside help – where we took over cases the FSS was struggling with and got a result for them.’
‘And the rest?’
‘Would have been split fairly equally between my lab and Phil Kemp’s old lab.’
‘And the Michael Brawn case?’
‘Not one of mine. Which is why I guess the name was only vaguely familiar to me. Just one of GeneCrime’s forty-two cases in an average year.’
‘So what we’re saying is that Michael Brawn was convicted about the time you were genetically
profiling your wife’s lover and getting yourself sacked for gross misconduct.’
‘Thanks for the memory. But the sacking has something to do with it all. OK, I crossed the line. And when Shaun Graves announced he was bringing a public prosecution against the Met for wrongful arrest, that’s when it changed from being a reprimand to a dismissal. But Robert Abner is reasonably convinced Phil Kemp forced Graves to go public, which effectively ended my career.’
‘What makes you so sure Phil leaked the details? Could have been anyone.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like Sarah Hirst. Or Charlie Baker. Or Mina Ali. Or anyone else in GeneCrime who had something to gain from your dismissal. Kemp’s the obvious one, but he’s only one of many.’
Reuben took a moment for a contemplative sweep of the bar. ‘I guess so. But here’s the thing, Moray. Have a look at this sheet.’ He extracted a thin piece of paper from the file and handed it over to him.
‘What?’
‘You see the scrawl at the bottom? Supervising forensic officer on the conviction. Someone ripped off my signature. It’s close to mine, but too shaky, like it was traced from something.’
Moray inspected the writing closely and frowned, a succession of deep parallel creases rippling the surface of his forehead. ‘Now that changes things. Why would someone falsify your signature?’
‘I had the authority to pass the evidence on to the next level.’
‘But how come you didn’t spot it at the time?’
‘Things were messy. Must have happened right when I was getting myself sacked.’ Reuben breathed in the fumes of his vodka as he swallowed the liquid; it was as if he was getting two hits for the price of one. He felt the anger return, the violation of having his signature used and abused. ‘But what really matters is this. My authority was misused to get Michael Brawn put away on fake evidence. Meanwhile, Brawn is languishing in Pentonville making no waves about false imprisonment.’
