The Perfect Corpse

by Giles Milton

  ‘She says you’ve got a cool car.’

  ‘That’s true. Always drive a cool car. It’s an important lesson in life.’

  ‘Now you two go off and play,’ said Tammy. ‘I’ve got a ton of things to show Jack. And I don’t want you bothering us.’

  She led him into the family room, a spacious area with sliding double doors. Outside there was another spread of lawn. The room had scrubbed wooden floorboards of bleached oak and two large rugs with abstract designs of birds. A piano stood on the far side of the room with a row of framed pictures in a neat line on the top. Tammy took one of them down and handed it to him.

  ‘Here’s grand-daddy. Taken somewhere downtown, near the courthouse I guess.’

  Jack studied it closely. Grandpa Fox looked more like a successful businessman than a scientist. Sharp suit and expanding girth. The propeller plane in the background hinted at foreign travel.

  She picked up another photo. ‘And that’s mom and dad. Both dead, too, but at least mom lived long enough to see the kids.’

  Jack lifted the lid of the piano and ran his finger along the keyboard.

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘You play - ? Is there no end to your talents?’

  ‘Only to de-stress.’

  He launched into a Bach sonata, but broke off just before he reached the second movement. If he’d been at home, Karin would have come into the room right at that moment. She said the second movement was the best thing Bach ever wrote.

  ‘Don’t stop. It's great. Good to hear the thing played for once. No one round here plays it.’

  He started the piece from the beginning again and by the time he’d finished, Fran and Elsie had come downstairs and were standing next to him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Play more,’ said Fran, sliding between Jack and the piano. ‘What else d’you know?’

  Tammy looked at Jack, shaking her head. ‘You’re going to make yourself one popular guy with these two if you’re not careful.’

  She sent them both back upstairs and then pointed to the boxes behind the sofa. There were eight or ten of them, some open, some still closed.

  ‘I got them down earlier. Felt like I needed to be doing something. Stupid, probably. But he’s out there on the loose and he’s killing people and Jesus, Jack, who’s going to be next? Another couple who’ve never hurt a fly? When’s he going to stop? It’s on my mind every second of the day.’ She sighed heavily. ‘We’re going backwards rather than forwards.’

  Jack walked over to the opened boxes. Papers, letters and notebooks were scattered across the floor. Photos, too, and a few unopened files.

  ‘There’s hours of work here,’ she said. ‘D’you want a drink? I’m having a vodka tonic. But I guess you’ll – ’

  ‘Without the vodka,’ he said. ‘And lots of ice.’

  He picked up one of the files and looked through. It was stuffed with papers and receipts, mostly from the late sixties. There was a photograph of ZAKRON taken on an instamatic, over-exposed, tinged with orange. A huge Chevrolet was parked up outside the main entrance.

  Tammy reappeared with the drinks. ‘Instant relax. Haven’t slept since Monday. And I won’t ’til he’s caught. Feel kind of sick inside, like someone's twisting my guts.’

  Jack took the glass from her hand. ‘I should have let you pull the plug. It was your call. And I’m a stubborn bastard. But I’ll tell you one thing, even though you won’t believe it. Each new murder gets me here -’

  He held his finger to his chest.

  ‘I know you don’t think I feel like shit. But I do.’

  He turned back to the boxes. ‘Confession over. What’ve you found so far?’

  She put down her glass and swept her arm over the papers on the floor.

  ‘Useless,' she said. 'All ZAKRON stuff. And all from the late-forties, when it was first set up. Prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, that was their business then. Guess it makes sense. You’ve got thousands of soldiers returning from the war and half of them have got legs and arms blown off.’

  ‘And cryonics?’

  ‘Much later. Didn’t start till the sixties. That’s when the company changed from ZAKRON Prosthetics to ZAKRON Cryonics. But cryonics was only a tiny part of it. Wasn’t until quite recently that it started making money. And that’s how it’s been for twenty odd years. Tom, for all I hate him, is successful. Businessman first, gangster second. Or is it the other way round?’

  She pulled more items from the boxes.

  ‘ZAKRON in nineteen-forty-six.’

  Jack took the papers from her hands. The building in those days was a tunnel-shaped prefab built of corrugated metal. It looked like an airport hangar. A large sign hung over the entrance: ZAKRON Prosthetics.

  ‘And some of their patients.’

  She handed him a picture of six men, all war-wounded, forced smiles. ‘That’s grand-daddy again, only this time with the team.’

  ‘They’re so young. The scientists, I mean. Like they’re still in their thirties.’

  She nodded. ‘They were young.’

  ‘And they all worked at the base?’

  ‘Think so,’ she said. ‘But what’s that got to do with it?’

  Jack looked at her and shrugged.

  ‘Clutching at straws.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Their half-drunk glasses were on the table, ice cubes melting. Tammy looked at her watch. It was already seven-thirty.

  ‘A suggestion – ’

  Jack glanced up from one of the files.

  ‘I cook for these two here.’ She squeezed Fran and Elsie protectively towards her. ‘I’ll cook for us as well. You get the rest of the stuff down from upstairs. It’s all in the spare room. If there's anything about the military base, it'll be in the boxes at the bottom. But first – ’

  He looked at her.

  ‘This is going to sound real weird.’

  She checked to see that the children weren’t listening. ‘Everything that’s happened, Jack, it’s making me jumpy. Nervous. Would you mind going round the house? Double-checking it’s all locked. Doors, windows. I’m sure they are. But you know how it is?’

  ‘Sure. No problem. If it makes you feel better.’

  ‘Mom, Mom, what’s Jack doing? Mom, can we help Jack?’

  ‘No. But you can go upstairs with him. Get ready for bed. No food ’til you’re ready.’

  Jack went upstairs with Fran and Elsie trailing behind him. They clutched onto his arms and tried to hang off him, two dead weights.

  ‘Carry us, carry us.’

  ‘You weigh a ton.’

  *

  Tammy made her way into the kitchen. With the children upstairs the house fell silent. She inched open the kitchen door then pushed it hard with her foot. It banged against the wall. The freakiest thing was the way he’d managed to get into their houses without them knowing.

  She was used to being alone. Ever since Bill walked out, she’d spent dozens of nights on her own, the children at sleep-overs, school trips and what-not. Tonight it felt different. ‘Serial killer’ was all over the TV, the newspapers, the internet. It was impossible to avoid it. ‘Who’s Next?’ screamed the headline on the Hanford Courier. Twitter was full of the latest on the Pereira couple. Rayno was the target of public anger.

  Tammy went over to the walk-in cupboard and eased it open, checking inside. He could be hiding. She looked up at the clock. And then she glanced out of the window at the darkening sky. The sun had sunk in the last ten minutes. Now, the sky was a dull sheet of steel. Night in half an hour, then seven hours of darkness.

  He struck at night. That was one consistency. Always killed with the same weapon. Another. And always the skull. He was methodical, that’s what Jack had said to Perez. Trained to kill.

  She heard Jack coming back downstairs. Reassured, she put the children’s pasta in the microwave.

  ‘We’ll feed the kids first and then we can eat once they’re in bed. I’m making a spaghetti sauce. At least a sort of sauce. A sa
uce without onions, cos I haven’t got any.’

  She gave it a stir and then held up the spoon and pointed towards the bottle of vodka. ‘Feel like I need it just to keep going. Every evening I get these nerves, like I’m sick inside. Christ, it’s like being pregnant again. It’s fine in the day. Life goes back to normal. And then the evening comes round and I feel like I’m playing some sort of crazy waiting game. I mean, who’s next on his list? He could strike anywhere. Could be me. Or you. It freaks me out, Jack.’

  When the children had finished their pasta she sent them off to brush their teeth in the first floor bathroom.

  ‘Right, bed.’ She turned to Jack. ‘Down in a minute.’

  ‘I’ll get those other boxes.’

  *

  Jack followed them upstairs and switched on the light in the spare room. It was full of clutter. Two large wardrobes. Old chairs. A single bed. And a pile of boxes and cartons. He opened one of them to look inside, but then closed it again and started taking them all down to the family room.

  Tammy came down soon after he’d finished.

  ‘Jeez, you’ve found tons. Been meaning to go through it for years. When Bill walked out I’d told myself I’d do it. Break from the past. It’s good to do that sometimes. But, hell, you know how it is. Work. Children. Life gets in the way.’

  ‘What happened with Bill then?’ ventured Jack when they sat down to eat. ‘He walked out?’

  ‘I guess he did. Or rather, well, I kind of threw him out. Just had enough. Fact is, it never really worked. He gets the kids every other weekend.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘And you? Mystery Man. Maybe that’s what you want.’

  Jack was silent for a moment. Then he picked up his knife and tapped it against his plate. ‘You sure know how to make a pasta sauce.’

  They went through to the family room when they’d finished eating. Jack sat on the sofa and drew one of the larger cartons towards him. It was filled with box-files marked with stickers. One contained account books dating back to the nineteen fifties. Another had medical records from 1963.

  ‘Not sure I should even have these,’ said Tammy. ‘How long d’you have to keep them?’

  ‘Ten years. In the UK that is.’

  There were deeds for the purchase of the ZAKRON plot and legal papers about the construction of the first structure.

  ‘If there’s anything about the war it’ll be in the ones down there.’

  Jack edged out the carton at the bottom of the pile and removed one of the folders. Inside there were five envelopes tied together with black string. Four of them contained papers about ZAKRON’s first year. But the fifth, coloured pink-beige, was marked in faint pencil: Station H G.

  ‘Eureka! Maybe.’

  Tammy got up from her chair, picking up her wine glass. She sat down next to him on the sofa and watched him extract the papers. Three typewritten memos, letters, some cuttings from scientific magazines.

  He handed Tammy her grandfather’s identity pass. ‘That’s how he looked during wartime.’

  ‘I like a man in uniform.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s just one of those things you say.’

  He looked through the rest of the papers, pulling out photos from an envelope.

  ‘This must be the base.’

  There was a row of six corrugated iron warehouses and two smaller buildings of concrete. In the far background were the low pale hills that marked the boundary between Nevada and California.

  ‘That was taken close to the Fifty,’ said Tammy. ‘Right by the highway. Near Jazzy Joe’s. There’s still a dirt track.’

  Jack pulled a typewritten letter from its envelope. Printed across the top in faded red ink was a single word: secret.

  ‘Not for much longer.'

  He straightened the paper and held it up between him and Tammy. It was typed on thin foolscap, like tracing paper. He had to put it in front of a blank sheet to be able to read it.

  Dear Captain Fox,

  The Combined Chiefs of Staff have now had the chance to consider the results of your latest tests (18 March, 1944). The ability to produce endospore anthrax in such quantity - and to be able to trigger its activation in this fashion - is indeed a major breakthrough. General Vincent Caldwell is calling it the greatest biological innovation since the outbreak of war.

  The Combined Chiefs of Staff have taken the decision to place an initial order of 200,000 anthracakes, subject to joint approval by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. (For your information, their approval is seen as a formality, as they have already signalled their agreement to the Combined Chiefs of Staff.)

  As you are aware, the greatest concern remains the means by which the anthrax is to be dispersed over Germany. General Caldwall wishes to have further information before any final decision is taken on this front. To this end, a gifted young meteorologist named Sergeant Ferris Clark will be joining you at Station Hanford Gap in order to discuss the effects of wind patterns on the dispersal of anthrax.

  Sergeant Clark is an expert on wind patterns and turbulence and it seems opportune for you and your team to have the benefit of his expertise before he takes up his post in Greenland.

  It is hoped that he will be with you at Station Hanford Gap on Thursday morning at the latest. I will be arriving on the following Monday, along with Major Caldwall, when we can discuss these matters more fully.

  Colonel Ray D. Smithson.

  ‘Shit.’

  Tammy looked at Jack. ‘Anthrax. That’s what they were up to.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He thought for a moment then turned back to the letter.

  ‘What’s it called? Endospore anthrax. And they were going to dump two hundred thousand of them on the Nazis.’

  He put down the letter for a moment, thinking it through. ‘It’s no secret Churchill wanted to drop anthrax on Germany. All came out a few years ago. His idea was to wipe out every cow, pig and sheep in the land. Operation Vegetarian.’

  ‘British black humour.’

  ‘Very. They even tested it on some island in Scotland. Dropped tons of the stuff.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Wiped everything out in minutes. And that was just regular anthrax.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘At least one thing makes sense,’ he said. ‘We now know why Hitler was so keen to send Hans Dietrich here. He wanted to kill the scientists before they wiped Germany off the map.’

  He tapped his fingers on his knee. ‘Also explains why Hitler wanted Ferris Clark dead. Christ, he was the lynch-pin to absolutely bloody everything. Churchill needed his expertise for the anthrax drop. Roosevelt needed his forecasts for the Atlantic convoys.’

  ‘And it all happened here,’ said Tammy slowly. ‘Seems crazy. I mean, just think about it. Ferris Clark must have known grand-daddy. They must have met. Even worked together.’ She paused. ‘I mean, Christ, Jack, there’s every chance Ferris Clark came here. Sat in this room.’

  ‘Guess there is.’

  He picked up the folder again and handed half of the papers to Tammy.

  ‘We need to go through the lot.’

  He sifted through the files at speed, checking for any that might be relevant. There were some newspaper cuttings, more photographs and a long report about anthrax testing in Scotland.

  ‘What’s the date on the letter?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Twenty-first of March.’

  ‘Then here’s the reply. Or sort of reply.’

  She pointed her finger to the last line. ‘And look who it’s from.’

  To Colonel Smithson,

  I feel moved to protest in the strongest possible terms about the proposed endospore anthrax drop on Nazi Germany. Were this operation to be undertaken, and in optimum conditions, the effects would be devastating for the civilian population.

  Further, it would only take a slight shift in the wind speed and the atmospheric pressure to bring about catastrophic
and wholly unforeseen consequences.

  I have already briefed Captain Fox and his team at Station Hanford Gap, but I feel I must see you and Major Caldwall in person before I take up my post in Greenland next week. Could you be kind enough to let me know when would be a convenient time for me to drop by your office?

  Sergeant Ferris Clark.

  Jack looked at the letter, thinking it through.

  ‘Anything else?’

  They looked through the rest of the papers but there was nothing more about anthrax and no other mention of Ferris Clark.

  *

  Tammy yawned and looked at her watch. Almost one.

  ‘It’s late.’

  ‘Very.’

  Jack looked at all the unopened boxes they’d yet to go through. ‘We’ll never do all this tonight.’

  ‘We’ve made progress at least,’ said Tammy. She thought for a moment.

  ‘Look, I’ve got a guest room. Not the spare one. Another. Why don’t you stay over. Save you going back to the Comfort Inn.’

  She paused and looked at him, gauging his response. ‘And if I’m completely honest, I’d feel happier having a guy in the house, what with everything that’s going on.’

  She gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘I mean - well - you’re a guy. And you’re in my house.’

  Jack laughed.

  ‘Course I’ll stay. Willingly. The Comfort Inn’s not exactly – ’

  ‘Comfortable? Can’t promise you five star. And the kids’ll almost certainly wake you in the night. And you’ll probably hear me talking crap in my sleep but – ’

  ‘Couldn’t have sold it better.’

  They both got up then Tammy ran through the nightly checklist. ‘Front door locked. Back door locked. Windows locked. Alarm on. Windows all closed.’

  She suddenly turned to face him.

  ‘D’you think I’m crazy?’

  ‘No. I think you’re –’ he searched for the right word - ‘exotic.'

  'Exotic! Again! Next you’ll be saying I should live in a zoo.'

  'It’s a compliment.'

  'I'll take it as one.'

  TWENTY-EIGHT