Red Shadows

by Mitchel Scanlon

  "You'll just have to trust my instincts," she replied. Despite the brief period in which they had been apart, it was clear Weller's ill-defined antagonism towards her had in no way lessened. "I told you before, Weller. I've been doing this a long time. Reading psychic impressions is hardly an exact science, but over time you develop an instinct for what you can rely on and what you can't."

  "Uh-huh." From the expression on Weller's face, it was clear her answer had not been well received. "You want us to base our entire investigation on your instincts?" he said with a quiet edge to his voice. "I'll tell you what my instincts say, Anderson. They tell me you're-"

  "Control to Anderson!" The radio unit on Anderson's belt buzzed into noisy life, cutting him off.

  "Anderson receiving, Control. What is it?"

  "Just taken a report of a suspected homicide at Mary Kelly Block in this sector." Control's voice was terse. "Thought you'd want to hear about it right away. The witness who discovered the body claims it's been pretty badly mutilated. Also, the victim's throat has been cut. It's impossible to confirm this for definite right now.

  "But, you ask me, it sounds like your killer just struck again."

  FIVE

  RED MUSEUM

  She had hurt him. The Sharn woman had hurt him.

  Walking away from Mary Kelly Block, William looked down uneasily at the improvised bandage he had wrapped around his left hand shortly before he had exited the woman's apartment. The surface of the bandage was spotted with blood, while the wound in his hand throbbed painfully underneath. The Sharn woman had bitten him. Even now he could hardly believe it. He felt shaken. Not so much at the pain of the injury, as at the fact that it had occurred at all. Vaguely, he wondered whether he should get the wound treated. He had heard human saliva was full of bacteria. He could get an infection. Suddenly he realised that once the Judges discovered Velma Sharn had bitten her attacker they would monitor the city's clinics and hospitals for reports of anyone seeking medical attention for a bite wound. He would need to be careful. He had too much work ahead of him to allow a foolish mistake to undermine it.

  A mistake; briefly, he considered whether or not he had made one already. Killing the Sharn woman should have been no more difficult than any of the others. Despite that, it had gone badly. What were the teeth marks in his hand if not proof of that? As he crossed Harris Square, mindful that he needed to swiftly put as much distance between himself and his killing ground as possible, he cast his thoughts back to the events of his latest killing and wondered where things had gone wrong.

  At first, it had seemed to be proceeding as smoothly as all the rest. He had rung the woman's doorbell and claimed to be a delivery man. When she had opened the door, he had seen that her soulshadow was red. He had told her the same story that he had told the other women: Synthi-Flora delivery, flowers and candy, a secret admirer. He had only varied his story with Vincent Henk because Henk had been a man. When Velma Sharn had invited him in, he had closed the door and told her to turn and face him. Again, that was something of a recent variation, with Henk and the first one - Penrith - he had slit their throats from behind. He had soon learned that killing them that way left him dissatisfied. He wanted to look into their eyes. He wanted to see the fear there as he struck out with the knife, and they realised their lives were over. Accordingly, with Eunice Bibbs and Brenda Maddens he had made them stand and face him. Then, he had done the same with Velma Sharn.

  "Lift your chin, Velma," he had told her. "Higher. Lift your chin and soon it will all be over." She had obeyed him. He had pulled out the knife. Then, just as everything had seemed to be going to plan, William had lashed out with the knife and Velma Sharn had done something unexpected, something which William was entirely sure he could never have foreseen.

  She had flinched.

  At the very last moment, she had moved her head. Instead of hitting the neck, his knife had struck the edge of her lowered chin, the blade deflecting off the hard jawbone to rip upwards through her cheek. Blood spurting from her face, the Sharn woman had tried to scream. He had grabbed her, their bodies falling as his feet slipped on the blood on the polished synth-wood floor. Landing on top of her, he had forced his hand into her mouth to stop her from screaming. In response she had bitten down hard on his hand with her teeth. Desperately fighting to try and free herself, her nails had scratched at his face and neck. Ignoring them, relying on his weight to keep her pinned, he had pushed down with the knife in his right hand as he drew it across her throat. In seconds it had all been over. Arterial blood had pumped out across the floor from the wound in her throat, and her hands had quickly ceased their struggles and fallen limp beside her. Her face had grown slack and lifeless. Her teeth had released his hand. Her eyes had become distant, and then empty. Her aura had dimmed, and disappeared. Their struggle had ended. She was dead. He had killed her. He was the victor.

  Now, in the aftermath of that victory, William found he was still confused. He had told her to lift her chin. He had told her to keep still. Yet, at the very last moment, she had disobeyed him. She had moved. She had flinched. How could that have happened?

  Thinking back, it occurred to him that her soulshadow had been different to the others. Yes, it was red. All those he killed were red. But the Sharn woman's aura had seemed more active somehow, more vibrant. It was almost as though her soulshadow had been more vivid than that of Brenda Maddens, Eunice Bibbs, or any of the others. At the time, when he had seen how bright and intense the colours of her soul were, it had felt as though it was an even greater prize for him to be able to take her life. He wondered whether that same intensity of her aura had also made her more dangerous. He wondered whether it had given her the power to resist him. Granted, in the end, her resistance had come too late.

  Whatever the problems he had encountered along the way, he had managed to kill her just as he had the others. All the same, he realised that in future he would need to be more cautious. The Sharn killing had not gone well. He had almost botched it. He would not care to see that repeated, not when he had so many more reds to kill in this city before his work was done.

  Twenty, William thought. I promised the Grey Man I would kill the twenty reds on his list. In his head, he did a quick series of mental calculations. Three last night, then Maddens and the Sharn woman tonight. That makes it five so far. That leaves fifteen, fifteen more reds to kill for the Grey Man. Then, when that is done, I can start killing them for myself. I wonder how many more of them there are in this city? A thousand? Ten thousand? I don't suppose it matters really. If I'm careful and do them one-by-one, eventually I can kill them all. The Judges can't stop me. They think they can. But I'm William Ganz. I'm special. That's why the doctors kept me locked up for all those years, the Grey Man said so. The Judges don't even know who they are dealing with.

  Finding himself reassured by the thought, William left Harris Square by the southbound pedway and continued his journey. As he did, he noticed the pain in his hand had not lessened. If anything, it had grown worse. He felt anger flare inside him as he thought of Velma Sharn. Then, just as quickly, he put his anger aside. It was over. He had killed her. Yes, she had injured his hand. Yes, thanks to her, the hand now ached and was all but useless, but he had already resolved the matter to his own satisfaction. To his mind, he had done what was required. No more, no less. Things might not have gone as smoothly as he would have hoped, but he had responded with all due care to the situation. He had reacted properly.

  She was a Red. She had hurt him.

  Of course, he had punished her...

  "I... I only wanted to borrow a pickling jar," the woman said. Her hands were shaking. Her face was white with shock and grief. "The block has a Pickling Competition every year and Velma... she got first prize last year... She's really good at it... She said she'd help me with my entry but when I knocked at her apartment... the door was unlocked and then... when I went inside... I saw... oh grud... I saw..."

  Her face dissolving into tears
, the woman became incoherent. Leaving Weller to continue trying to question the witness without her, Anderson pushed past them both and headed for the crime scene. Apartment 15-A, the number said on the door. Courtesy of an update from Control as she and the other Judges had made their way to Mary Kelly Block, Anderson knew the apartment was registered to one Velma Miriam Sharn. The Justice Department database had supplied the other details. DOB: Twelfth January, 2084 - making her forty years of age, and born in the same year as the other victims. One previous criminal conviction for two counts of Custodial Interference resulting in a two month suspended sentence. Twice married. Twice divorced. Two children from the second marriage, a girl of twelve and a boy of nine. Thankfully they had been visiting their father when their mother was murdered. Briefly, Anderson wondered what the perp would have done if the kids had been staying with the mother. Would he have chosen another victim, or murdered Velma Sharn and her two children together? Either way, she did not want to risk learning the answer to that question somewhere further down the line. She wanted to catch this monster now, before he killed again.

  Ahead of her, the apartment door was open. While she and Weller had paused to interview the witness, Noland and Yoakim had gone in to inspect the scene. It was better that way. By gaining entry to the crime scene before anyone else could inadvertently contaminate it, the chances were higher that the Tek-Judge and Med-Judge might find some crucial evidence that could otherwise be missed. Such was the theory anyway, and right now Anderson needed every bit of help she could get. With five people dead, it was becoming increasingly clear that the perp would keep on killing until they stopped him.

  As she moved to the door to gaze into the apartment, she saw Yoakim standing beside the kitchen doorway further inside. He looked pale his features almost as white and drawn as those of the witness in the corridor.

  "Be careful what you tread on," he snapped angrily as he saw her in the doorway. He seemed to regret his outburst immediately. Shaking his head, he sighed. "Sorry. I've done a preliminary search of the floor between the front door and the kitchen so you can walk on it without disturbing any evidence. The body is in there." He nodded towards the kitchen. "It's bad, really bad. He..." For an instant it was as though the words failed him. He shook his head again, more sadly. "There's just no describing it. You have to see it for yourself."

  Disturbed by the sudden change in the Tek-Judge's manner, Anderson advanced towards the kitchen. Noticing blood stains and drag marks on the polished synth-wood floor leading to the kitchen, she realised the killer had followed the same pattern as in the Maddens' murder - killing his victim in the hallway, and then dragging her body to the kitchen to begin the mutilations. Then, as she stepped inside the kitchen, she saw what the Tek-Judge had been unable to put into words. It was appalling, disgusting, monstrous...

  The woman's body was lying on its back, spread-eagled on the kitchen table. Again, as in the Maddens' case, the killer had cut a long vertical incision across the victim's torso to open her up from the neck to the groin. This time though, he had not restricted himself to simply removing her liver and small intestine. Instead, gazing around her in silent horror, Anderson saw that the killer had removed more than half a dozen of the victim's internal organs and placed them in pickling jars arranged at intervals throughout the kitchen. It was a grisly sight. Spread out on counter tops already awash with gore, they looked like exhibits at some blood-stained and red museum.

  "Heart, lungs, spleen, liver." Standing beside the body, Med-Judge Noland pointed at each of the pickling jars in turn as though they were in the midst of some perverse anatomy lesson. "Large intestine, small intestine, kidneys, her uterus. He used a screwdriver and meat hammer to crack open her ribs, then he removed every organ in her body. The incisions he used to remove the organs are pretty slapdash. He's no expert. He's a butcher, rather than a surgeon. All the same, he must have been working on her for an hour at least." He looked at Anderson significantly. "I don't know about you, but I'd say his rage just peaked."

  "Tell me something..." Anderson said. Given the many gruesome sights she had seen in her years as a Psi-Judge, she had thought herself inured long ago to any trace of squeamishness. Now, she felt her gorge rising. Doing her best to ignore the sickly-sweet stench of blood, she gulped in deep draughts of air and tried to fight the urge to vomit. "Anything about the perp. The weapons he used... Anything... Anything that might help me when I have to psi-scan this... atrocity."

  "He was more methodical this time," Noland said. Well-versed in what the insides of a human body looked like, he seemed detached from the horrors around him. "As I say, he's a butcher, not a surgeon, but when he mutilated the other victims there were always additional wounds accompanying the major mutilations. He gouged out Vincent Henk's eyes, and beat his face in. He cut off Eunice Bibbs' arms, and stamped on her body. With Brenda Maddens there were stab wounds to the torso as well as the central incision. This time, he was more precise... More ordered in his work. There were no extraneous or unnecessary wounds. He performed the incisions needed to remove the organs, and that was that. It's almost as if the more enraged he becomes, the colder he becomes with it."

  "What about the weapons?" Anderson asked. Overcoming her initial revulsion at the hellish scene before her, she took a step into the room. "You said he used a meat hammer and a screwdriver? I take it he left them behind, then? If they belonged to the perp, I might be able to lift some of his direct psychic impressions from them."

  "They're in the sink," Noland told her. "Bad news on that front though. The hammer and screwdriver both have tags reading 'property of Apartment 15-A'. It looks like they belonged to the victim. I guess it was the same with the pickle jars. The killer must have seen them lying around and felt a sudden burst of inspiration."

  "Some kind of inspiration," Anderson said. "I wonder if-" She heard movement behind her, and then a man's voice quietly exhaling in shock and disbelief.

  "Holy drokking Mother of Grud..."

  It was Weller. Standing in the doorway, he seemed as appalled at the treatment meted out on the victim as Anderson had been. His face recoiled in horror, and the stony façade of the archetypal Street Judge gave way to a reaction that was entirely more human and unguarded. Standing next to him, Anderson saw a sudden image in her mind's eye of a ruined and shadow-haunted street piled high with violated corpses. In that moment, she realised she had inadvertently caught a glimpse into Weller's mind. The shock of seeing Velma Sharn's mutilated body had caused a remembered image deep inside him to drift to the surface. A fragment of memory perhaps, or something he had seen in his nightmares. Given the bloody history of Mega-City One, it was hard to be sure.

  "I checked out the witness," Weller said. Regaining control of his emotions, his flint-faced demeanour returned. The image in his mind faded. His tone became businesslike. "She didn't see anyone entering or leaving the apartment or anything else that could help us. I sent her to the block doc for counselling and told her we might want to speak to her again later. After that, I did a quick canvass of the other neighbours either side of the apartment to find out whether anybody saw or heard anything suspicious. One guy heard a scream two hours ago, but didn't do anything about it. Claims he thought somebody must have been playing their Tri-D too loud. I gave him six months for Failing to Report a Crime in Progress and called the Catch Wagon to pick him up. I also checked with the block super and found out that the block doesn't have surveillance cameras inside it. Called PSU and asked them to run the exterior surveillance footage and look for any delivery men entering the block in the last twelve hours. I'm still waiting for them to get back to me on that."

  "You did all that in ten minutes?" Anderson lifted an eyebrow.

  "Don't like to let the spike-grass grow under my feet," Weller replied. He gestured towards the body of Velma Sharn. "Looks like our boy is getting worse. Either that, or the Sharn woman found a way to really piss him off."

  "Could be both," Noland said. Bending forward
over the body, he lifted one of Velma Sharn's hands and inspected the fingers. "I can see blood under the fingernails. It looks like she fought her attacker. I'll take swabs and test it for DNA." Taking a small flashlight from his belt, he pulled upon the victim's mouth and shone the light inside it. "Also there's more blood inside the mouth. No sign of any wounds or tears to the mouth itself. I'd say she bit him. If we take a cast of her mouth, we should be able to match it to the wound on the killer if we can find him."

  "When we find him," Anderson reminded the Med-Judge. She turned towards Weller. "We'll have to get the Justice Department to issue a city-wide advisory to all hospitals and medical facilities ordering them to forward records on any patient who shows up looking for treatment for a bite wound."

  "I'll handle it," Weller told her. Whatever recollections had been triggered inside him by the sight of Velma Sharn's body had passed. He was cold and hard again, his manner brusque and businesslike. "I'll also chase up PSU about the surveillance footage and extend the door-to-door canvass to the rest of the apartments on this floor. There's no telling what some block busybody might have seen that could help us." He paused as he pointed unflinchingly at the mutilated body lying ruined on the table before them.

  "In the meantime, I'd say you've got a psi-scan to complete."

  SIX

  DIVERSIONS, THEORIES & AGENDAS

  "There." The doctor's soulshadow was a serene and self-satisfied shade of golden yellow, daubed with occasional patches of calm, unruffled blue. "That should just about do it," he said as he applied a final piece of adhesive tape to hold the dressing in place. "You know, that really is a rather nasty wound. You say you bit yourself?"