by Malcolm Rose
‘Does it?’
Troy nodded. ‘How do we know for sure Charon Angel’s in Switzerland?’
‘Terabyte found out online.’
‘Do you believe everything it says online? I don’t think so.’
‘The site administrator – Sergio Treize – said so as well.’
‘Do you always believe witnesses – and the data they’ve been given by a suspect?’
‘No, but it’s a good bet the size twelves don’t fit her,’ Lexi replied.
‘That begs another question.’
‘Oh?’
‘How do we know Charon Angel’s female?’
‘Because Terabyte found out her real name’s Sharon.’
‘More online information,’ Troy observed. ‘Not exactly proof.’
‘So, where do you go from here?’
Troy sighed. ‘I’m thinking about it.’
Distracted by her life-logger, Lexi read the latest messages with a broad grin on her face. ‘You know you wanted more information? Well …’
‘What have you got?’
‘The results on Olga Wylie,’ Lexi replied. ‘Something and nothing. First, the nothing. There’s no record of travel before she disappeared. Maybe she turned up and bought a train ticket with cash. Or the underground clinic is within walking distance.’
‘Or the clinic sent a car for her.’
‘Here’s the something,’ said Lexi. She transmitted a photograph to the screen so Troy could see the rich blue gemstone. ‘Found at Olga Wylie’s place. It’s a sapphire and the team found nothing that matched it among Olga’s jewellery, so it could have come from the intruder. It was hidden in the carpet pile near her desk.’
The round sapphire had been photographed alongside a ruler, showing that it was barely two millimetres in diameter.
‘It was clean,’ Lexi told him. ‘No DNA. The sort of stone that fits into a brooch or a ring. Part of a decoration.’
‘Well,’ Troy said. ‘You’re right. It’s something. Can your wizard forensics give it some welly?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Can you do any fancy analysis on it?’
‘Oh, yes. There’s always something. Microspectrometry in this case, I should think. Different gems absorb and reflect light at different wavelengths. That’s why the colour varies. It’s all down to charged iron particles in each bit of sapphire.’
‘So, you can tell if this stone matches another one in the same piece of jewellery?’
‘I can map the colours – in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum – and find out if they’re much the same. If they are, hey presto, they’ll have the same source.’
‘All we need is an item of jewellery with a hole instead of one of its sapphires, then.’
‘Yeah. And the person who’s wearing it.’ For the benefit of her life-logger, she said, ‘I’ll get the lab to do the spectrometry.’
‘Would it be expensive, this sapphire? It’s tiny but I don’t know anything about jewellery.’
‘Sapphire’s pricey, but one that size … Not cheap, but it wouldn’t ruin you.’
‘Any other finds?’ Troy asked.
‘No, but Kofi Seven wants to see us in Pathology.’
SCENE 20
Friday 11th April, Mid-morning
Kofi stood back from the female body on the plinth and gave the small electric saw to his assistant. ‘You do it. Standard access to her brain, please. I need to talk to these two. It won’t take long.’
Shivering at the whine of the rotating blade and then the dreadful grinding noise, Troy didn’t look back to watch the deputy’s work. He left the room with Lexi and the lanky pathologist.
In the corridor, Kofi ran a hand over his hairless head. ‘I got a specialist to run more extensive tests on the DNA from the outer’s heart. L4G#4. As you’ll know, it’s usually about matching one DNA profile with another in a database. Does profile A match B? If so, A is B – or at least an identical twin. But with time and care, these days you can build up a picture from DNA. You can deduce gender, hair and eye colour and estimate height and weight. It’s never perfect but it’s better than nothing at all.’
‘What can you tell us about L4G#4?’ Lexi asked eagerly.
‘Gender, female. Almost certain. Brown eyes, ninety-four per cent sure. Blonde hair, but not so sure. Sixty-seven per cent likely, I’m told. Height somewhere between you and me. Average weight for an outer. Quite slender.’
‘Odds on the height and weight?’ Lexi prompted.
‘Slightly better than guesswork. Now,’ Kofi said, ‘if you don’t mind, I’ve got a brain to remove, slice and examine.’
‘Thanks,’ Troy said.
Lexi nodded her appreciation. Once Kofi had gone back into the cold laboratory, she said to her partner, ‘You did ask for more information. That god of yours is smiling on you today.’
SCENE 21
Monday 7th April, Early afternoon
Troy and Lexi had agreed to share the workload. Troy tried to find out if a woman matching the description of L4G#4 had died recently in dubious circumstances. Lexi trawled through databases of missing persons.
‘How’s it going?’ Troy asked her.
‘Not easy. She could have been abducted ages ago and kept on ice. But I’ve got one candidate. I’m sending a crime scene officer to get a sample of her DNA from where she used to live. I’ll see if it matches L4G#4’s heart.’ She swallowed a crispy-fried beetle and washed it down with white wine. ‘How about you?’
‘Waiting. I’ve put out a request to hospitals for a female outer – brown eyes, blonde hair, average build and a healthy heart – who suffered a suspicious death in the last week of March. And I put in a bit about anything weird happening after death. Like a scar appearing on her chest. I sent it to all mortuaries, undertakers and crematoria, just in case.’
Lexi grinned mischievously. ‘Not to temples, though.’
Troy knew his partner was baiting him. ‘Somehow, I don’t think an outer would opt for a temple burial. But God made all creatures great and small. That includes outers, even if you won’t admit it.’
‘Hey. Don’t inflict your god on us,’ Lexi said. ‘There’s no need to conjure up the supernatural to explain life. That’s what science does. It explains everything – including the evolution of both human races.’
‘Science is the brick wall you build against belief in God. Scientific explanations have got nothing to do with it.’ He took a drink of blueberry juice.
‘All right,’ Lexi said, as if she were accepting a challenge. ‘If your god made his presence felt right now in this room – officially and undeniably recorded on life-logger – you wouldn’t be happy, would you? Proof that God exists does away with your need for faith.’
‘I wouldn’t be as unhappy as you,’ Troy replied with a smirk.
Lexi laughed. ‘True. It’d be a bit embarrassing from my point of view. I’ll give you that. But, let’s face it, it’s not going to happen. We can both carry on being happy. I say there’s no such thing as an invisible overlord and you keep the faith.’ Plainly, she couldn’t resist a final dig because she added, ‘Even though it’s irrational.’
‘Maybe it is a bit crazy but, with all the bad stuff we see in this job, it’s helpful. It reassures me.’ Checking his life-logger, Troy frowned. ‘What do you make of this? It’s … um … a hall of rest, they call it. A place to keep coffins – of majors or outers – before burial or cremation. Usually just overnight.’
‘A posh mortuary, then?’
‘I guess. It’s never locked up in case families want to spend time with … Anyway, they’ve had a few hints that someone’s been up to no good now and again. Scratched coffins and the like. Not serious vandalism.’
‘Are these coffins closed? Are the lids fixed down?’
Troy read the details from his life-logger. ‘As a general rule, majors’ coffins are left open for families and friends who want to say their goodbyes. Outers’ are usually sealed, re
ady for cremation.’
‘So,’ Lexi said, suddenly interested, ‘if I was after body parts, it’d be simple to take stuff from majors, but it’s almost certainly going to be noticed. If I wanted parts from an outer, I’d just need a lever to force open a coffin, take what I want, reseal, and, hey presto, no one would know a thing about it.’
‘Exactly. You might leave a scratch or two on the coffin. Nothing more.’
Lexi threw the last fried beetle into her mouth, crunched it up, and finished the wine. ‘Let’s get going. Where is this place anyway?’
‘Hurlstone. We’re off to the seaside.’
SCENE 22
Friday 11th April, Evening
They stood together on top of the cliff and, as the sun dipped towards the horizon, watched the sea. The hall of rest behind them, the scene was suitably peaceful. The breeze coming off the sea was light and cool. Miniature waves caressed the rocky beach below, hardly making a noise, barely jostling the stones and pebbles.
‘Crumbly cliffs,’ Lexi said. ‘Hurlstone’s well known for fossils. Somewhere down there – in a cave – archaeologists found evidence of our common ancestor, Homo erectus. Before we split into two species six hundred thousand years ago. They even managed to get some DNA out of the bones.’
‘Makes me wonder,’ Troy replied. ‘If we find out who owned the outer heart – and she’s been cremated – how do we prove it? Where do we get her DNA from?’
‘That’s my job,’ Lexi said. ‘I’ll think of something. If archaeologists can get it out of a dried-up bone that’s thousands of years old, I’ll get some for L4G#4.’ She turned her back on the cliff top and said, ‘Let’s go and see.’
The hall of rest was serene, not macabre and analytical like the pathology laboratory. Speaking in a hush, the supervisor had a similar air of calm about him. ‘I know everyone respects what we do here,’ he said. ‘I’d never expect any … trouble. It’s unthinkable really. I can’t imagine why anyone would …’ He ran out of words.
‘Sadly, we can,’ said Troy. ‘Someone might want to break in because there’s an illegal trade in body parts.’
Spike Pennyworth stared at him. ‘Do you mean …?’
Troy nodded. ‘A good heart’s valuable, especially to a transplant patient who doesn’t want to wait in the normal hospital queue.’
‘But that’s …’ Spike seemed to have difficulty in finishing many of his sentences. Even so, his quiet outrage was plain.
‘We’re trying to find out if one of your disturbed coffins belonged to a female outer.’ Troy was about to give his vague description of L4G#4 when Lexi stepped in.
‘She’d be a bit like me. Taller perhaps, but the same brown eyes and blonde hair – probably.’
‘Same age?’
‘We don’t know about age,’ Troy told him. ‘But her heart would have been in good condition when she died.’
‘When was this?’ he asked.
‘Tuesday 25th March, or maybe the day before,’ Lexi said. ‘Once someone’s dead, there’s only a few hours to use the heart. It’d have to be removed, put in preserving fluid and chilled quite quickly.’ Clearly, she had done some extra research.
‘Spare me the details,’ Spike said with a grimace. ‘Let me check my diary.’
His records were entirely on paper. He flicked backwards through the large pages until he came to a halt on one particular entry. It described a client who had arrived on the evening of 24th March and rested overnight before cremation on the 25th. He tapped the page and the photographs. ‘Tiffany Clara One, according to some ID in her pocket. She was a bit of a mystery but she matches your description. She wasn’t visited by anyone. She was cremated – with her possessions – the next day.’
Judging by the photograph of her deathly pale face, Tiffany One was in her twenties. While Lexi scanned the page into her life-logger, Troy asked, ‘Cause of death?’
The supervisor sighed. ‘A fall. Down the cliff.’
‘She fell over the cliff? An accident?’
‘It could have been an accident, but …’
‘What?’
‘It wasn’t. There’s a fence up to stop … You haven’t heard Hurlstone’s claim to fame, have you?’
Troy frowned. ‘Fossils?’
‘I wish that was all it was,’ Spike replied. ‘No. A few people who decide to end it all come here and …’
‘They jump off the cliff?’
He nodded, apparently unable to confirm it in words.
‘Does it happen a lot?’
‘Mercifully, no.’
‘How often?’
‘There’s usually one or two each year. Still enough to get us a reputation.’
‘Where exactly does this happen?’ Lexi asked.
‘It’s about a kilometre – to the south.’ Spike waved in the general direction. ‘There’s a big overhang. Quite dangerous. They’ve put up a fence to try to stop people, make them think again, but …’
Lexi examined the photograph of Tiffany One’s meagre possessions and then said, ‘Let’s go and take a look, before we lose daylight altogether.’
‘Okay,’ Troy agreed. ‘But we’ll be back,’ he said to Spike. ‘If Hurlstone’s got a reputation, this place would appeal to someone after body parts for the black market. I want Lexi to put a camera in here.’
‘I don’t like the idea of spying on grieving …’
‘We won’t. We’ll monitor the cameras, spying on intruders, not people who’ve lost a friend or family member.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Not really,’ Troy answered. ‘But you should be pleased. You’ll want to get this sorted out as much as we do. A tiny camera no one will notice is the quickest way. Then you’ll be back to normal.’
‘The sun’s going down,’ Lexi reminded her partner.
‘Back soon,’ he said to the troubled supervisor.
SCENE 23
Friday 11th April, Sundown
The remains of the sun sent a yellow beam across the sea from the horizon. It was just enough light for Troy and Lexi. Near the edge of the cliff, there were several notices giving details of organizations that could offer advice and help. There was also a wire fence and a warning notice. A long way below, there was nothing but vicious jagged rocks.
Troy checked out the fence. ‘That’s not going to stop anyone determined,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ Lexi replied, stepping back and taking a short run at it. ‘I’m going over.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Going over the fence.’
‘Careful.’
‘I didn’t know you cared.’ Sprinting past him, she flew over the fence in one athletic leap.
‘Why are you …?’
Heading for the overhang, she pointed to a spot one stride away from the sheer drop. ‘Collecting evidence,’ she said, quickly putting on latex gloves. ‘See that bit of blue material on the gorse? If I’m not mistaken, it matches Tiffany One’s coat in the photographs.’
‘That’s thin ice you’re skating on,’ Troy called after her. ‘Watch out. Crumbly cliffs, remember.’
She stepped carefully towards the bush, the piece of fabric and the cliff. ‘One day, I’ll make an interesting fossil,’ she said as she peered over the unnerving rock face. She took a breath of sea breeze, plucked the material from the prickly gorse and immediately made for the safety of the cliff-top path. ‘But not yet.’ She clambered back over the fence and held out the small piece of fabric. ‘Hard to tell in this light but I’ll check the colour with the photo. If there’s a flake of skin, this is a shortcut to her DNA. Then we don’t have to find where she lived.’
SCENE 24
Saturday 12th April, Morning
‘That woman I found on the missing persons’ list,’ Lexi announced, ‘isn’t L4G#4. Her DNA profile is nothing like.’
‘What about Tiffany One?’ Troy asked, unwrapping a sturdy chunk of black pudding.
Lexi sat back and closed her eyes
, just about to enter another period of meditation. ‘Waiting,’ she murmured. ‘Relax. Patience required.’
Twelve minutes later, her life-logger vibrated and she stirred slowly.
Troy called out, ‘Rise and shine.’
Refreshed, Lexi sniffed. ‘What is that?’ She looked at the remains of Troy’s breakfast and let out a groan. ‘Yuck.’
‘Black pudding. Shiveringly good.’
‘What’s in it?’ she asked. ‘Smells revolting.’
‘It’s a sausage made of pigs’ blood, onions and oatmeal. Or something like that.’
‘A sausage made of blood? Disgusting.’
‘At least it doesn’t crawl around like your insect food. It’s not a baked spider or whatever.’
‘Spiders and scorpions aren’t insects. They’re arachnids.’
‘All right. Let’s call them bugs, then.’
‘Or invertebrates,’ she replied, reaching for her life-logger, ‘but that would include some major favourites – like prawns. Not as tasty as a bowl of caramelized mealworms.’ She read from the screen and smiled. ‘Hey presto. The DNA on the blue material is a pretty good match with L4G#4. We may only have her heart, but I think we’ve got her name. Tiffany Clara One.’ Straightaway, she began to update her spreadsheet. ‘One homeless man, one transplant error and two suicides. That’s probably one real suicide and one that the victim definitely didn’t perform himself.’
‘That’s called murder. And it happened to both Dmitri Backhouse and Jerome Eleven. We’ve got a whole load of other charges as well. Unlawful killing in the case of Olga Wylie, burglary at her house, probable abduction of Jerome, mutilation of bodies for sure, prevention of proper burial or cremation of three of them. I bet we’d think of some more if we put our minds to it.’
‘I doubt they’re the only victims,’ Lexi said. ‘When we get the bad guy and the clinic, I reckon there’ll be lots more we don’t know about yet. Lots more offences. Your first case is going to set some sort of record.’
‘If we crack it.’
