The Hand of God

by James Craig

  ‘Sorry to burst in on you like this, Paul,’ said Callender, taking a half-step backwards to reveal Carlyle hovering in the background. ‘This is one of my colleagues, John Carlyle.’

  All the young constable got from the scientist was a facsimile of a smile and the briefest of nods. ‘No, no, not at all,’ he responded, immediately turning his attention back to the older man, ‘but didn’t I hear somewhere that you’d retired?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Callender explained, his tone more than a little apologetic. ‘We moved to Berkshire. Mrs C had fancied it for some time,’ he added, sensing that some kind of explanation was necessary.

  Poor sod, Carlyle thought.

  ‘My commiserations.’ The scientist chuckled. ‘How long did it take you to realise that you were bored?’

  Callender smiled sadly. ‘About two weeks.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ the professor mused, ‘the things we do for the sake of domestic harmony. Anyway, what brings you to Imperial College?’

  From his holdall Callender retrieved a clear plastic evidence bag about the size of an LP cover. Inside was what appeared to Carlyle to be a pair of knickers. ‘I was wondering if you would look at something for me.’

  Taking the bag, Lamb held it up to the light above their heads. ‘Messy.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Callender. ‘There should be plenty of genetic material on there for you to find.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’ Lamb tossed the bag on to a nearby workbench. ‘Give me a couple of days, okay?’

  ‘That would be great. Thanks.’

  ‘Do I have something to compare it to?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Callender grinned sheepishly. ‘Soon.’

  Lamb nodded. ‘Is this official?’

  The inspector’s grin grew wider. ‘Not yet. Soon.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ The professor shook his head, as if he was dealing with a troublesome but likeable student. ‘I suppose it is better if I don’t know. Come back in a couple of days. In the meantime’ – he gestured towards a pile of files on the bench – ‘I’ve got work to do. Forgive me if I don’t offer you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Callender, winking at Carlyle. ‘I think we’ll head off for a glass of something stronger. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Fair enough. The Union Bar is just across the road. It has some good guest ales at the moment. Cheap, too.’

  ‘Sounds perfect.’ Callender gestured for Carlyle to lead the way. ‘See you the day after tomorrow.’

  12

  They arrived at the bar to find it packed. There were one or two funny looks, but no one said anything about his uniform. Carlyle gestured towards a small TV screen hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the room. It commanded the rapt attention of about ninety per cent of the almost exclusively male clientele. ‘I’d forgotten about the football,’ he groaned. ‘England are playing Argentina.’ From what he could make out, the game was still scoreless.

  ‘Maradona will stuff ’em,’ Callender muttered under his breath as he pushed past a couple of dishevelled-looking students to reach the bar. ‘Hopefully.’ Catching the eye of the girl behind the bar, he ordered a whisky. ‘What d’ya fancy?’

  Carlyle glanced at his watch. ‘Technically, I’m still on duty.’

  ‘Pfff.’ The inspector scowled.

  ‘Okay, I’ll have a lager.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Edging backwards into the drinkers behind him, Callender carved out a niche for them. To Carlyle’s left, a pair of middle-aged academics were discussing the various shortcomings of their respective students; it appeared that they were the only people in the bar who were uninterested in the World Cup. Checking over his shoulder that he had a reasonable view of the screen, Carlyle began to make himself comfortable.

  A roar went round the room as the teams came out. ‘Don’t you think Lineker could cause them some problems?’ Carlyle asked as he took a sip of his pint. The lager – a brand he’d never heard of – had a nasty chemical taste, but it was cold and slipped down easily.

  ‘Nah.’ Callender shook his head. ‘The English never get any further than this. They’re worse bottlers than us.’

  ‘You Scottish, then?’

  ‘Yup. You?’

  ‘My parents are from Glasgow,’ Carlyle explained, ‘but I was born down here.’

  ‘Carlyle,’ Callender grunted. ‘Good Scots name.’ Downing his drink, he ordered another round, waving away Carlyle’s protests that it was his turn with a brusque I know how much a constable gets paid. ‘Born in Dunoon,’ he added.

  Carlyle looked at him blankly.

  ‘South of Holy Loch, on the Firth of Clyde.’

  ‘Okay.’ Carlyle nodded, still not quite placing it; geography had never been one of his strong points.

  Callender handed over a couple of pounds and waited for his change. ‘Came to London in ’57. Left the year before last.’

  ‘And you miss it? London, I mean?’

  ‘Aye, son.’ Callender clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Take my advice, stay where you are.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Carlyle grinned. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He took another sip of his pint and gazed at the condensation on the glass of the second one, already lined up on the bar in front of him. There was no way he was going to keep up with the inspector. Another roar indicated that the game was now under way. Happy to have the distraction, he turned to give it his full attention.

  After a nondescript first half, the only surprise was that England were still in the game. To Carlyle’s relief, Callender had switched to drinking Coke. He himself had barely made a start on his second pint, which was now lukewarm, making it somewhat less than appealing. ‘So,’ he asked, elbowing a guy in a David Bowie Let’s Dance T-shirt who was trying to push his way to the bar, ‘who’s the professor?’

  ‘Paul?’ Callender stifled a burp. ‘He’s one of the guys who discovered the genetic fingerprint.’ Seeing the lack of understanding on the constable’s face, he added, ‘DNA.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Carlyle could see the teams coming out for the second half. A murmur of anticipation went round the pub; someone gave a halfhearted cry of ‘Inger-land!’ before being laughed down by his mates. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, not really interested.

  ‘He helped me with my last case before I left the Met.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ The second half kicked off, and immediately, the tension levels around them soared.

  ‘I’d read about the work he had been doing and went to see him about the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, Dean Monkton.’ Callender leant towards Carlyle and raised his voice, in order to make himself heard over the rising noise. ‘His battered body was found in a derelict house off the Mile End Road. He had been sodomised and his head bashed in with a hammer. One of his mates, Eric Day, confessed, but it had been beaten out of him and we had no corroborative evidence. Professor Lamb was able to compare Day’s blood with samples from the crime scene. Everyone has their own genetic fingerprint, or DNA. You can get it from things like hair or saliva . . . or blood. Paul Lamb was the first person in this country to be able to identify it. In this case, according to his DNA fingerprint, Eric Day didn’t do it.’

  ‘So who did?’ Carlyle asked, both eyes now firmly on the TV.

  ‘We still don’t know—’

  The inspector was interrupted by a massive groan from the assembled crowd as Argentina finally scored. The complaints reached a crescendo as the goal was replayed from multiple angles, each one conclusively showing that Diego Maradona – who else? – had punched the ball into the net with his hand.

  ‘Cheating Argie bastard!’ someone shouted.

  ‘How the hell did he get away with that?’ Carlyle asked, genuinely shocked. ‘The ref must be blind. And what was the bloody linesman doing?’

  ‘Told you.’ Callender grinned, patting him on the shoulder. ‘C’mon, let’s get going.’

  Carlyle reluctantly pushed his way t
hrough the crowd, following the inspector to the door. They had barely made it on to the street when another collective groan followed them out.

  ‘Two nil,’ said Carlyle, a deep-fried Scottish Schadenfreude rising in his Anglo bosom.

  ‘That’s the end of that, then,’ observed Callender, making his way briskly towards the car.

  With half the population of the city glued to the TV, the roads were uncharacteristically empty. Having taken a direct route through Hyde Park, the Escort pulled up in front of Paddington station just as the match ended and England’s elimination was confirmed. Ha, thought Carlyle gracelessly, sitting in the back seat, suck on that, Dominic Silver, you West Ham-supporting ponce! With a shake of his head and a muttered curse, the driver switched off the radio and glanced at the inspector in the rear-view mirror. ‘This all right, sir?’

  ‘Perfect, thank you.’ Pushing the door open, Callender slid out, talking to Carlyle over his shoulder as he did so. ‘Come with me for a minute, would you?’

  Like the roads, the main concourse inside the station was quiet. The inspector glanced up at the departures board and grunted. ‘Platform six in three minutes. Sod it, I’m not running for that, I’ll get the next one.’ He turned to face Carlyle. ‘Pick me up when I come back, will you? I’ll have a word with your sergeant and let him know the precise time.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Carlyle, happy enough to oblige. Hanging around Imperial College was infinitely preferable to foot-patrol duty around the Castle.

  ‘And remember, you have to keep your mouth shut about all of this.’

  ‘Of course.’ Carlyle watched a pair of drunken football fans stagger on to the concourse. They seemed depressed rather than angry, which was just as well. In the provinces there would be mini riots tonight in response to the outrage of the cheating Argies; London, on the other hand, would move seamlessly on to other distractions. ‘But why are you having to do this on the QT?’

  ‘Good bloody question.’ Callender scratched his chin. ‘It’s a funny carry-on. A double murder in a county where they’re lucky – or unlucky – to get two murders a decade, and CID don’t get a look in but MI5 are all over it.’

  ‘MI5?’ Carlyle asked. ‘Why would they be interested?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Callender harrumphed. ‘Bloody spooks, they’re a right shower.’

  Carlyle said nothing. He had a vague sense of lots of pieces of information floating around in his brain, waiting to come together to form a coherent whole. He couldn’t force the process; it would happen in its own time. Or maybe not. ‘So, this DN . . . whatnot . . .’

  ‘DNA,’ Callender reminded him.

  ‘This DNA malarkey is going to help you solve it?’

  ‘Maybe. Professor Lamb has to find some genetic material on the wife’s knickers and then I have to find a match. There are no guarantees, but if I do that, bingo.’

  Carlyle watched a Bristol train pull in to Platform 3. ‘It sounds too good to be true,’ he reflected. ‘More like science fiction.’

  ‘This is the future,’ Callender replied, with more than a hint of missionary zeal in his voice. ‘Genetic testing will radically change policing for your generation. In twenty or thirty years’ time, the police will have access to massive databases that will allow them to cross-check samples from any crime scene in the country. For the criminals, there will be nowhere to hide.’

  Dream on, thought Carlyle. The inspector seemed a top bloke, but his faith in technology appeared to the jaundiced constable to be rather misplaced. Even if genetic testing was as good as he claimed it was, the Met would find ways of fucking it up.

  Sensing his young colleague’s scepticism, Callender ended the sermon and glanced back at the departure board. ‘My next train’s in fifteen minutes. I think I’ll go and grab a Standard and a coffee and then jump on. Thanks for all your help today. I’ll let you know when I’m coming back.’

  Back on Praed Street, it took Carlyle a moment to realise that the Escort had gone. The bloody cheek! Cursing the driver, he watched two drunks in replica football shirts pissing in the doorway of a boarded-up shop on the other side of the road. Five yards away, a group of passengers waiting for the 35 bus looked on in disgust. One of them, a middle-aged woman, caught sight of Carlyle in his uniform and gestured for him to do something. Not wishing to be called into action on such an unpleasant matter, he promptly turned away and strode off in the direction of Lancaster Gate.

  13

  Still sulking after his run-in with the irascible Maurice Peters, Palmer was in no hurry to return to Gower Street to be given another dressing-down by the commander. He exited the tube at Piccadilly Circus and headed into Soho. Walking up Windmill Street, the thought struck him that while there might currently be no vacancies in Port Stanley, there were plenty of other undesirable postings around the globe. Brewster could be arranging a one-way ticket for him to anywhere, from Kinshasa to Ulan Bator. Shuddering at the thought, he ducked into the foyer of the Duchess of Cornwall cinema and bought a 50p ticket for a showing of Harold and Maude and a jumbo box of Maltesers. The Duchess was a down-at-heel building that had alternated in its eighty-year existence between being a theatre and a strip club. Since the early 1970s, the place had been owned by Raymond Gordon, the self-styled king of ‘Soho smut’. He had turned it into a porno cinema, showing a loop of X-rated movies to a select clientele of men in grubby macs. By the mid-eighties, however, the video industry was taking a large chunk of the blue-movie market and the Duchess was trying to diversify to appeal to an arthouse crowd, with special showings of cult classics such as Hal Ashby’s 1971 romantic comedy featuring a young man and a seventy-nine-year-old woman.

  Sadly for the cinema’s management, nothing could be done about the clear odour of ejaculate that hung over the auditorium, deterring even the hardiest cinephile from countenancing a return visit. Taking his seat in the back row as the opening credits rolled, Palmer was not surprised to find that he had the place to himself. ‘Oh well,’ he mumbled, crunching through the honeycomb centre of one of his chocolates, ‘I suppose having my own cinema makes the experience all the more decadent.’ This was hardly the first time he’d bunked off work for a bit of much-needed light relief, and he settled in, trying to put the exasperations of work behind him, at least for a little while.

  Ruth Gordon had been Palmer’s earliest crush. Seeing her in Rosemary’s Baby had given him his first erection, but it was only after watching Harold and Maude at boarding school that he realised he had a particular interest in much older women. Since then, he must have seen the film – ‘the greatest love story of all time’ – at least twenty times.

  Ten minutes in, he was still the only person in the cinema. Throwing the last of the Maltesers into his maw, he munched happily as he unzipped his trousers and began rummaging around in his Y-fronts. From experience, he knew how to get the most out of the movie and wanted to pace himself.

  ‘Hey, mister!’

  ‘Ugh . . .’

  ‘Mister!’

  Palmer dragged his eyes from the movie to be confronted by a small Asian-looking woman pointing a torch at his crotch. Following the feeble beam, he looked down at his glistening erection. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You no do that here,’ said the woman, in a tone so matter-of-fact it left him feeling offended.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he spluttered, allowing one eye to return to the screen. ‘This is the Duchess, for God’s sake. You get a packet of tissues with your ticket.’

  The woman frowned. The deep lines on her forehead made her look a hundred years old, almost too old even for Palmer.

  ‘Well you should do.’

  ‘Do yourself up,’ she demanded, gesturing with the torch.

  ‘Bugger off,’ hissed Palmer, feeling his member quiver in the face of this unexpected altercation. Gripping it gently with his fingers, he began massaging the tip. ‘I’ve paid for my ticket,’ he said huffily.

  ‘It’s illegal!’ the woman screeched. ‘I’ll call the police.�
��

  ‘Go away.’ Palmer gestured with his free hand. ‘I want to enjoy the rest of my film.’

  Leaving the cinema as the closing credits rolled, Palmer placed his used tissues in the empty Maltesers box, closed the lid and smugly placed his rubbish in the bin next to the cigarette vending machine in the foyer. He considered himself a fastidious man; it was one thing to make a mess, quite another to expect anyone else to clean up after him, at least when it came to bodily fluids. Even at home, he was careful to spare his mother from having to deal with his waste.

  The next feature of the afternoon was Klute. He vaguely remembered having seen it, but Jane Fonda was not one of his favourites; she was too young for his tastes and a pinko to boot! A young couple were buying their tickets from the bored-looking girl sitting in the kiosk. Palmer shuddered. What was the bloke thinking? Even he wouldn’t bring anyone here on a date. Hovering by the concession counter, he was contemplating treating himself to more chocolate when he caught sight of the usherette who had objected to his antics in the theatre. She was glaring at him. As he turned to give her a winning smile, she lifted a bony finger.

  ‘That’s him. The dirty boy!’ she hissed.

  Glad you liked the show, Granny, Palmer smiled. Only then did he notice the two police officers – a constable and a WPC – hovering behind the woman, under a poster advertising a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His grin evaporated as his eyes flitted between the pair of giant red lips on the poster and the two police officers. You two would fit right in, he thought glumly, as a passable Brad Majors and Janet Weiss.

  Taking a deep breath, he threw his shoulders back in an attempt to look like a vaguely respectable citizen. ‘Officers . . .’