Trial by Blood

by John Macken

  Moray scanned the window of the car behind the officer. There was a figure he recognized in the back, and he knew the game was up.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘why not? My feet are killing me.’

  Moray sauntered over and climbed in through the rear door. The plainclothes CID officer sat in the front, and the car pulled off. Moray looked over at DI Charlie Baker and smiled. DI Baker was in full uniform, the severity of his black jacket combining with the sharpness of his beard to formidable effect. He didn’t smile back.

  ‘You a football fan, Mr Carnock?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Only the proper stuff.’

  ‘The proper stuff?’

  ‘Kilmarnock, you know . . .’

  ‘And do many Kilmarnock players shoot themselves?’

  Moray raised his eyebrows, thick folds of skin rippling his forehead. ‘It would be no bad thing if they did.’

  DI Baker stared back, impassive and deadpan. ‘We found some very interesting documents at Mr Accoutey’s place, documents that reek of you and Reuben Maitland.’

  ‘Really?’

  The car cut through the traffic and took a roundabout at speed. Moray realized that they had failed to spot Anthony McDower. For a second he felt put out that he had been followed while he was following someone else. He heard a clichéd Hollywood voice-over in his head: And then the hunter became the hunted. It was an amateurish mistake that might have proved costly under different circumstances.

  ‘And how do you figure that out?’

  ‘I think you’ll find, Mr Carnock, that we’re able to figure a lot of things out.’

  ‘Now this is interesting,’ Moray muttered. ‘And is that all you have?’

  DI Baker appeared to redden under his beard, an angry scarlet topsoil just about visible through the undergrowth. ‘We are talking here about the violent deaths of two people. Have you seen what a twelve-bore does to a human face?’

  Moray shook his head. He had seen a lot of un-pleasant sights, but had been spared that particular one.

  ‘It’s not fucking pretty. This is serious and high-profile. A shock to the public. One of the tabloids is apparently about to print some very disturbing pictures. Don’t know how the fuck they got them. But this ain’t fun and games, Carnock.’

  ‘I still don’t see—’

  ‘Now you tell Reuben that he’d better watch his back. Old loyalties are one thing, but the press are scratching this like the pox. And sooner or later they’re going to want to see some blood. As you well know, taking DNA from people without their knowledge is an illegal activity.’

  Moray turned away, scanning the streets. CID were on to them, and it had happened quicker than he had guessed. True, they didn’t have enough evidence yet, but they were obviously close. He wondered for a second why DI Baker was warning them, and concluded that he wanted to watch them squirm, needed to see what they would do now, had been eager to witness their reaction. He also realized that they didn’t know Reuben’s current whereabouts.

  ‘I wish I could help you,’ he said, turning back to face him, ‘but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  DI Charlie Baker held his gaze for several long moments, the look cold and appraising, an intensity gained from years of cross-examining liars and deceivers. Moray tried not to flinch. The bastard knew something else. It was there in the thin smile lurking in his beard. Something that could conceivably sink them.

  Moray turned away and chewed his lip. He needed to contact Reuben and let him know that his old unit was coming for him.

  11

  Sarah Hirst closed the door of the records room behind her. Had there been a lock, she would have gladly used it. The windowless subterranean room was one of only a handful which escaped the all-pervasive air conditioning of GeneCrime. The building, only three years old, had been constructed with security and biological safety in mind. This meant that none of its small number of windows opened, and the laboratories were kept at a slightly higher air pressure than everywhere else, to prevent the ingress of airborne contaminants every time someone entered through a door. However, the fine balancing act that the four-storey, hermetically sealed building had to maintain resulted in air-conditioned rooms which were perpetually too hot or too cold. Nowhere seemed to be just right. Her own office was ridiculously cold, no matter the time of day or year. Even in summer Sarah had to wear a jacket or a coat as she sat in front of her computer.

  Walking through the floor-to-ceiling stacks of records, Sarah ran her index finger over the paper and cardboard files almost absently, enjoying the still, natural air. She had requested Michael Brawn’s record the previous week, but hadn’t pulled it herself. From now on, she decided that if the opportunity arose she would hunt out what she needed without requesting support staff help. Just getting out of her office for half an hour felt like a major escape act.

  The records room housed all the case notes, files, general information and forensic evidence available, around a third of which wasn’t housed on the GeneCrime server. Even in the hunt for a modern serial killer, Sarah was well aware that there was no substitute for the depth and sheer volume of knowledge that old-fashioned paper filing systems housed. Currently, she was cross-referencing witness statements from the three murders, and examining the last-known routes of each victim. Sarah pulled the files she needed and lugged them over to a small area which housed a number of chairs and a couple of desks. Again, she could have carried them back to her office, but the thought of staring into her computer screen and shivering herself towards another biting migraine filled her with dread.

  Sarah was deep into the testimony of the man who had discovered the body of the second victim, DI Tamasine Ashcroft, when the door opened. She looked up and saw the neat, crisp form of Commander Robert Abner. Sarah had vowed from day one not to be intimidated by him, and so far had been reasonably successful. There was something strong and paternal about him which she found somewhat difficult to deal with. Her own father had, even through the eyes of a devoted daughter, been weak and inconsistent.

  He approached her desk, almost hesitantly.

  ‘DCI Hirst,’ he muttered, ‘do you have a moment?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Sarah glanced down at the files strewn everywhere, the photos of the victims, the typewritten statements and the photocopies of evidence. ‘Excuse the mess.’

  ‘Sorry to disturb your work.’ Robert Abner indicated a chair. ‘OK if I park myself?’

  ‘Sorry. Of course.’

  Sarah detected the slight awkwardness in her boss’s approach, and the automatic diffidence in her own behaviour. Since he had arrived to oversee the division and put it back on track, she had never spent more than a few minutes alone in his company. He was a remote boss whom she respected, and who in turn allowed Sarah to get on with her work. From this, she surmised that the commander trusted her, largely because he wasn’t interested in her daily activities. And she was more than happy with the arrangement.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Commander Abner said. ‘When was the last time you saw Reuben Maitland?’

  ‘Two or three days ago, sir.’

  ‘Do you have a current whereabouts for him?’

  ‘’Fraid not.’ A small voice inside told Sarah not to say anything daft. She had barely breathed since the first question. ‘All I know is that he’s away on a job.’

  Commander Abner frowned, and Sarah noticed that the crease of his forehead and the wrinkling of his eyes made him almost handsome.

  ‘What kind of a job?’

  Sarah exhaled, hoping to God that she wasn’t blushing. She had arranged Reuben’s entry into Pentonville without her boss’s knowledge. Maybe the commander knew more than he was letting on. But it was too late to tell him now. She decided to feed him a vague and unincriminating version of the truth.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered. ‘Just heard along the lines that it was something underground, you know, out of the way.’

  ‘Out of t
he way,’ Commander Abner repeated, partly to himself. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not that I know.’

  ‘But you’re in touch with him?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes. I know he’s not necessarily welcome around here, but his depth of forensic knowledge is legendary. And, of course, he still has access to predictive phenotyping. Plus he’s given us some potential avenues in the hunt for DNA from what we think might be the first victim.’

  Robert Abner tipped his head back and regarded Sarah for a moment, his eyebrows pulled so tight together that they almost met. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s no bad thing to have Reuben on our side. I dealt with him myself recently.’

  Reuben had told her all about the meeting, and about Abner’s assertion that he might soon be requiring his services.

  ‘Just wanted to know where he was at the moment, and what he was up to. That’s all.’

  Sarah folded her arms in her lap, forcing them still so they couldn’t betray her with a sudden twitch or scratch of the face, or any other of the subconscious tics of the liars she questioned on an almost daily basis. ‘Like I say, some sort of job, I think, sir.’

  Commander Abner stood up again and straightened himself, smoothing the creases of his uniform. ‘Right.’ He aimed a smile at her and turned for the door. ‘I won’t disturb you any more.’

  When he had left, Sarah rubbed her head and stared down into the folds of her skirt. Lying to an area commander was not good. She rewound through the conversation, trying to gauge whether she’d left enough grey areas, and whether she’d been vague and noncommittal where it counted. Then she wondered whether she should just have come clean. After all, if Reuben was right, Abner was actually behind the internal investigation into Michael Brawn. Although this made a lot of sense, she had no direct evidence of it. But this was her case, and the fewer people she told the better. And when Reuben completed his mission in a couple of days’ time, and they had the result she needed, she would take all the glory, and no one would ever care that she had gone behind Abner’s back.

  12

  Reuben realized it was getting close. The time to take a sample from Michael Brawn was fast approaching. Every extra day he spent in Pentonville increased the chances of disaster. Twelve hundred inmates; surely someone would recognize him soon. He had to take an unambiguous DNA sample from Michael Brawn, and then get straight to the governor. But as he sat on the toilet seat of a flimsy cubicle, examining his Kinder egg and picking out its forensic contents, he knew he was going to have to be an opportunist. When the moment arrived, any moment, he would have to seize it quickly and without hesitation. And also without Michael Brawn or anyone else knowing.

  In many ways, the SkinPunch weapon would have been ideal. Reuben had designed and built it for just such an eventuality. The anonymous and certain removal of a skin specimen, a few thousand fibroblast cells, pure and untainted DNA. But Reuben knew he could never have smuggled the gun through the searches. And if he had, it would have been substantially less fun to remove than the Kinder egg. He continued to play with a small pair of tweezers and a short cottonwool bud, lost in thoughts of how and when. While he pondered, Joshua’s face drifted in and out, lying in a hospital bed somewhere, the terrible word ‘tests’ hanging over him.

  Reuben was about to pack his kit away when the door to the toilets opened and closed, and he heard a voice he half recognized, echoed and distorted by the high ceiling. He peered through one of the many deliberate gaps in the cubicle’s structure. Standing in front of a long row of porcelain sinks, Damian Nightley was washing his hands quickly and hurriedly. Reuben sensed someone else in the toilets too. Damian turned his head towards the urinals, which were hidden from Reuben’s view.

  ‘Just leave me the fuck alone,’ he said.

  Reuben strained to see who he was talking to. Running water obliterated the reply, which was short and sharp.

  ‘I’m connected,’ Damian replied. ‘You should think carefully about that.’

  He turned the tap off and walked over to the hand-towel. From his movements, Reuben sensed he was acutely uncomfortable, but unwilling to back down and leave the toilets in a hurry.

  And then the voice came again. This time Reuben heard it clearly. ‘I’ve got my eye on you,’ it said. It was a hard, dry Mancunian accent. It was Michael Brawn.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Damian asked.

  Reuben focused intently through the space between the door and its formica wall. The sound of footsteps. Not trainers, like most of the rest of the prison, but leather shoes, slapping the tiled floor, ricocheting around the hard surfaces. Then he saw him. Michael Brawn walking over to Damian, face to face. Peering slightly down, sneering and pale. ‘If you don’t know by now, son, you haven’t been paying attention.’

  A toilet flushed close to Reuben’s, and its door banged open. A man Reuben didn’t recognize walked over to the sink and began washing his hands. Reuben returned his attention to Damian, who remained motionless, staring long and hard at Brawn, before eventually walking out. Brawn lingered a moment, looking blankly in the mirror. He didn’t smile or alter his expression. He just took it all in, his own mouth and hair and eyes, a statue facing a statue. Reuben wondered what the hell he was thinking. What would be on my mind if I was Michael Brawn? Reuben asked himself. And then Brawn spoke into the mirror. Three short words which Reuben strained to hear. But they were unmistakable.

  ‘Not long now,’ he hissed.

  He turned and disappeared from view.

  Reuben packed the forensic contents of his egg away. This could be it. The moment. He waited a beat, then flushed the toilet. If he could follow Michael Brawn to his cell, he would stand a chance. He slid the bolt back and pocketed the Kinder egg. All he would need were a few hairs or access to his toothbrush.

  And then the door flew open and Michael Brawn stood in the door-frame, wide-eyed and bristling with violence. He shoved Reuben back, stepped inside the cubicle and locked the door.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said.

  Reuben had no time to react. Brawn’s long straight arm pinned him to the wall, his open hand pressing into Reuben’s sternum. With his free hand he reached forward, still holding eye contact, and forced Reuben’s right sleeve up. Then he licked his index finger slowly. A thousand fears flashed through Reuben’s mind. Alone in a cubicle with a psychopath. Off balance and trapped. The porcelain of the toilet cold against his leg. Brawn ran his wet finger across the surface of Reuben’s tattoo. A light seemed to go on in his eyes, sparkling in the gloom, never moving away from Reuben’s.

  He pulled a small penknife from his trouser pocket. Reuben tried to edge back, but there was nowhere to go. Brawn’s strength defied the relative leanness of his torso. He lowered the blade until it touched Reuben’s tattoo. He pushed it down, and Reuben felt the sharp nip of the cutting edge. Then, slowly and deliberately, Brawn sliced the blade across the tattoo. A cold sting, a tingle somewhere in his groin, a biting pain opening up along the line marking the knife’s progress. The burning tear of skin, the spasm of slit muscle, the deafening scream of bisected nerves. Droplets of red pushing their way through the dark inky-blue epidermis, lining themselves up into an angry stripe, merging into larger drops, oozing over hairs, funnelling along the pattern of the tattoo, dropping on to the floor. Michael Brawn, his eyes enjoying the sight of blood.

  ‘I don’t know what you want,’ he whispered, folding his knife in a quick, seamless movement. He slapped Reuben half seriously, half mockingly around the face. ‘But you keep the fuck away from me.’

  Michael Brawn unlocked the door, stepped out and walked smartly away, his footsteps echoing behind him.

  Reuben clenched and unclenched his right hand, feeling for damage. His grip was fine, as were his movements. He looked down at the cut, straight and sharp, through the heart of his tattoo. Superficial damage only. Blood continued to fall on the tiles, and Reuben stooped to clear it up with some toilet paper. He wrapped another wa
d around his arm, pulled his sleeve over it and left, gritting his teeth, blocking the pain.

  The mission had just become a lot more complicated.

  13

  Damian’s cell, like most of the others in the block, was defined almost exclusively by the pictures stuck to its walls. The images reminded Reuben of tattoos. They were the visual story you wanted to tell, the parts of your life projected for public consumption. And whereas Narc’s pictures were eclectic and virtually unreadable, Damian’s were obvious and straight to the point. Reuben felt that he knew Damian’s entire life story from one glance at his wall, and that Damian wanted it that way. Three children, two boys and a girl, at various stages of development; school mugshots in front of identically blurred backdrops; holidays on beaches and at campsites; a smattering of weddings, parties and family occasions. In some shots a squat, dark-haired woman stared bleakly into the camera, never quite smiling. Reuben wondered who had taken most of the photos. Damian had spent long years under detention, so it certainly hadn’t been him. But the message was there all the same: this is my family, and this is what really matters to me.

  Reuben couldn’t help but wonder why, if that was the case, Damian had risked everything by being so deeply involved in the supply of firearms. He hoped Sarah was wrong, and that former associates of Kieran Hobbs wouldn’t go straight back to their criminal ways. With a bit of luck, Damian would change careers when he was released in a few weeks. Certainly, Reuben wouldn’t want to see him arrested by any of his ex-colleagues at GeneCrime.

  Reuben decided to ask the question that had been refusing to abate for the last two hours, while the cut on his arm throbbed acutely and refused to stop bleeding.

  ‘What do you two know about Michael Brawn?’ he asked.

  Damian caught his eye, a flash of hostility. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘Best kept clear of,’ Cormack answered, turning the page of his newspaper. ‘He’s got form and a half. Involved in a lot of not-nice things.’