by Mark Lingane
Hanson half-turned away. “How can you find anything in these?” She was surprised at how much the smashed bodies repulsed her. Grief and sadness welled up. She felt intense sadness for Cally. No one should lose parents like this.
“There’s enough for us to find out that they were shot before the crash. Daniel!”
A lanky man appeared wearing a large sheet over his head and body, waving his arms around. Hanson nearly jumped out of her skin.
“For Christ’s sake, Daniel, grow up.” Chelsea pulled the sheet off him. He handed over a small metallic object. “Good grief, you could’ve cleaned it.” She glared at the young man with bad acne.
“You always say to leave evidence as you find it,” Daniel replied.
“Go and do something productive elsewhere. Work-experience students will be the death of me. I blame CSI.”
Chelsea watched him cautiously as he skulked away. Once she was certain he was out of the room, she stepped in close to Hanson, lowering her voice. She grabbed the head of the father and pointed to the skull. “Examine the bullet wound and tell me what you see.”
Hanson stood blinking at the image in front of her: a body already dead before the crash? A target? “They were murdered?” she said. “How? Why?”
“Murdered. Assassinated. Call it what you will. I can’t tell you why. But I can give you some interesting facts about the wounds. Someone said you were from a military family. Have you seen these before?”
She handed Hanson a small metallic object. The red-tipped golden bullet was mangled, but still recognizable.
“Yes, it’s regulation military, used by snipers and precocious children on the firing range.” Hanson handed back the bullet.
“Do precocious children ever dig out the ammunition after firing it?”
“Er … probably.”
“And what condition are the bullets?”
Hanson absently looked at the far wall, squinting with the effort of recollection. “Pretty bad. Usually flat or twisted.”
“I’m assuming the typical firing range length, so what’s odd about this bullet?”
Hanson blinked as she thought back to the bullet in her hand. “It’s in good, well, fairly good condition.”
“Exactly. In all honesty, the sniper was lucky the shot killed them. It’s at the edge of the lethal range. That’s a risk a professional wouldn’t take unless they knew all the conditions, wind, trajectory angles, that kind of thing. And that, of course, is impossible.”
Hanson stood silently looking at the bodies. “There’s a crime here,” she whispered.
“There certainly is. And this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this.”
Hanson stared disbelieving at Chelsea. “What?”
“I’ve been doing this job for thirty-five years. I’ve seen many things, and all of them make sense. There are no ghosts, goblins or vampires, just the unlucky or unjust, the vicious or vindictive. But on rare occasions I’ve had these come through—cases where a civilian disaster covers a military assassination. Not many, less than a half dozen. Find the files and you’ll see,” Chelsea said darkly. Her eyes darted around the room.
“Why me? Why can’t you?”
Chelsea hesitated. “The files are unavailable to me.”
“I don’t understand. Can’t you get them out of the archive?”
Chelsea paused before answering. Hanson noticed she was clutching at her smock. “Someone’s stolen them.”
“Stolen? Police records? That’s a federal crime.”
They stood staring at each other, generation to generation. Which was worse, Hanson thought, stolen records or military deception? It was a world where people did what they did. Everyone was human; habitual animals at heart. History didn’t change. What was done was done. Records remain. Without them we learn nothing. Without them we are the same habitual animals. Probably even with them we are.
But taking the civil responsibility of protecting the public and deceiving them was betrayal of the trust, the oath they all took. Again a vision of her father floated in front of her. Honor. Duty. Responsibility. The three motives floated through her life stapled to her consciousness. Worse than deception was betrayal.
“A young lady with a military—”
“That was my family, not me.”
“This is a specialist skill. I’d wager not too many people have this level of ability. There will be a name. A young lady with a military background could have some old connections. Maybe there’s someone you should ask.”
Hanson looked into the eyes of the woman. It wasn’t a question.
“Perhaps someone senior.”
Hanson shrugged. “Maybe.”
“There’s a colossal crime here.” Chelsea backed away into the corner of the room, glancing around. Hanson followed her. “I’m not sure how safe we are, or who’s watching. But if someone makes police files disappear, it’s got to be one of us.”
“If they won’t let you see them, they definitely won’t let me. I’m not even sure I care.”
“You must try,” Chelsea said. “You’re a policewoman; you have to care about this.”
Hanson shook her head. “Not now. Getting suspended lends a sense of perspective to your life goals.”
“Don’t give me that. You know the rules of the game.”
“Maybe we’ve all been playing it too long.”
“What kind of woman are you if you don’t fight for the truth?”
The two women stood staring unflinchingly at each other. The hum of the extractor fans resonated gently around the room.
“Why me?” Hanson said.
“This is your case. You’re a smart young woman who is brave and dedicated.”
“Those are not personal reasons. Anyone could fulfill those criteria.”
“Because you’re Tracy Hanson. Everyone knows about you.” Chelsea handed the files over to Hanson. “These are hard copies of this case. Keep them safe. Find the other files and see if you can find the connection, because there will be one.”
“But I—”
Chelsea placed her hand on Hanson’s back and turned her toward the door. “Go.”
As Hanson walked away, Chelsea whispered, “Find yourself a date. The date.”
Hanson strode down the corridor leading back toward the central offices, puzzling over Chelsea’s last words. She slowed as she approached the main entrance. She glanced around the many cubicles full of industrious officers, each working to their maximum, not suspended as she was. The bitterness of being cast aside returned, enhanced by this latest headmistress experience.
Next to her was an empty cubicle. She dropped the files on the desk and walked away.
18
CALLY’S ROOM WAS a dead zone; no signals got in or out. Anyone wanting to talk to the world had to leave. Chambers went for a coffee and sandwich in the temporary mess and caught some fresh air out by the Thames.
The nice girl with the big smile, the tight black uniform and the Afro that looked like a slo-mo explosion who served him in the severe military canteen was the only bit of brightness in his day. She reminded him of a girl back in the dorm, Lucy, or Lu-lu, as she was known after the incident. Lu-lu had hated the dorm and everyone in it, but had been dragged away to her new family, screaming, afraid to leave. Like all of them.
The news bulletin came in: a plane down in Paris. Most found it hard to make room after the Manhattan crash. Fox did it so well it was hard to compete. Another tragedy in a world capital and the world hardly shrugged. The media was beginning to feel the stretch.
Chambers’ friend left the message, a strange mix of “the Frogs deserved it” and “we’re all in this together against the terrorists.” The words reflected the sentiment thundering through the news outlets. Confusion and fear were sweeping through the suburbs, and people—especially when in groups—were reacting dangerously. Chambers watched the locals trying to continue living their lives, avoiding that moment of reflection that would make them give up and run for th
e hills. The stiff upper lip was only going to last for so long.
He pressed the delete button.
And in the center of it all was the young boy. Chambers had odd feelings toward him. He had spent his life looking at desperate and dangerous situations that could end lives in a heartbeat, and he got the same feeling from Cally. His instincts roared that the boy was dangerous. But the thought was laughable. He was just a boy; what harm could he possibly do?
Yet the scientists kept coming and going, wordlessly and with concerned faces. What were they measuring?
His phone buzzed. The Met wanted him, again. He sighed. The whole test they were forcing on him for the super role irked. He felt like he was in competition with someone. He glanced back at the building. If he went back inside, he wouldn’t get a connection. All he needed was an hour’s peace, and then he’d be happy to file the inane report. He made a run for it back to the hospital.
“How you doing, kiddo?”
“How d’you think?” Cally replied. He sat with a sour expression, flicking through the vetted cable channels.
Chambers sat down and watched him.
Eventually, Cally turned. “What do you want?”
“You know, I lost my dad a while ago. We didn’t end on good terms, and I regret it. He got stabbed in a turf war. I was really angry with him—angry at leaving me and me ma over something so pointless, angry how his ego and rep were more important than us. Angry how I’d never been able to tell him how I felt, and how much I missed him. My ma went down and then the drugs took her. You know what I learned?”
Cally shook his head.
“Grieve, but don’t let it define who you are. I’m okay now because I let it go. It took a long time and a lot of brave, scary steps, but I got there. This first step will help with the rest of your life. The past is a trap that will drown you.”
“The future is as much a trap as the past.”
“Lots of my estate mates ended up going the same way. Knifed themselves, or in jail for knifing someone else because they got defined by their anger. They weren’t smart enough to see the truth.”
“You don’t want to know the truth.” Cally turned off the television and lay down.
Chambers smiled. “Be smarter than that.”
“Has the Paris crash happened yet?” Cally asked. He continued to stare at the ceiling as Chambers sat down next to him and patted the young boy’s arm.
“Just happened … how did you … did you see it on the news?” Chambers looked up at the television, knowing the selected channels specifically contained no news.
“No. Where is Paris?” Cally picked up his iPad and switched it on.
“Everyone knows where Paris is.”
“No, I mean where is it in its destruction?”
Chambers hesitated. “There’s only been one crash, but the plane took out the Eiffel Tower and the tourist sector next to it. It’s bad, but it’s not ‘destruction’.”
“Oh.”
Chambers turned to face the young boy directly. “This room is electronically dead; there’s no way information can get in here. Is there something you should be telling me?”
“I guess not.” Cally stared down at his iPad, tracing a picture on the screen.
“You need to be honest.”
“I don’t know when it will happen,” Cally said quietly, “but there will be other planes. One crashes into the famous arch at 12:30. Then another crashes into the train station with a fancy front at 9:09. Then more, like Big Ben at 5:47. I’m not sure which days.”
“Big Ben, but that’s … how do you know? Have you overheard this?”
“No. I saw it in the car.”
“Cally, you must tell the truth.”
“I am,” he shouted. “I saw everything.” He folded his arms and stared at the ceiling. Beyond that, he refused to speak, and within minutes he was asleep.
“Thanks for calling,” Hanson said. “It’s good to get out of the house.”
She was dressed in casual clothes for the first time. Even though her demeanor was ill at ease, and she looked oddly vulnerable without her suit, to Chambers she seemed far more normal than usual and radiated a general concern like the rest of the populace.
The streets of London were beginning to return to a halting sense of continuation. Several small shops were bravely opening up. The banks had not been flexible during the disasters and had taken the opportunity to raise their interest rates to record levels. Chambers wondered, after all they had done, why no one had rioted against them.
They wandered down Edgware Road to the Arch and found a café open.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been kicked off the case?”
“It was nothing to do with you. You’re not my partner,” she snapped.
“What are we then, Strictly Ballroom fans?”
“Sorry.” She leaned forward on the table and rested on her elbows. “I don’t know what I’m thinking anymore. I was meant to be going for this big position over at the Met, the super, but they reneged. And ever since then, I don’t know, I feel I need to prove that I’m right and they’re wrong.”
Chambers went quiet. He cleared his throat.
The café owner, a solid Greek man, placed the coffees on the table, one in an espresso cup and the other in a pint glass. Chambers waited until he’d moved away before speaking.
“But you didn’t have the authority to go questioning Randeep. You definitely didn’t follow procedure.”
“You can’t let a simple thing like procedure”—she closed her eyes as the familiar words rolled out—“get in the way of investigation.”
“That’s the Tracy I’ve seen. So what do we do now?”
“They’ve told me I can’t do this.”
“And you’re going to listen to them? You don’t listen to anyone.”
“I don’t want to hear about it. We can’t make a difference,” she replied angrily.
“There’s a crime here, DCI Hanson, right in front of your eyes. You were the one who said the police never sleep.”
“But what’s the point?” she cried.
“Once a copper, always a copper. What do your instincts tell you to do?”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel. What difference can I make?”
“There’s a plane crash. There’s this Candle Fire bomb. A physicist from Candle Fire is sneaking around with extremely powerful contacts. At the center of it we have an extremely suspicious person.”
She looked out the window. A double-decker bus crawled past. “You mean Cally?”
Chambers nodded. “There’s something about … look, he says he saw the Paris crash in the car before the crash, in a vision.”
“He’s probably making it up, to deal with the trauma.”
“He says there are going to be more.”
“He’s looking for attention.”
“He named the sites and times.”
She shook her head and turned away. “Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn’t know the future.”
“He’s trouble, Tracy. I can feel it. Surely you can, too.”
“He’s not trouble, he’s just some kid whose parents were murdered. It’s not the first time it’s ever happened,” she finished off sourly.
“Murdered? Who … how …”
Hanson sighed. “Forensics tried to offload some paperwork onto me. Turns out his parents were assassinated, or murdered, by a military sniper. Why’re you looking at me like that?”
“How long have you known this?” His face verged on fury.
“Only a couple of days.” She filled him in on the details of her visit to the morgue, but left out the part about dumping the files.
“A murder, come on, that’s something new. Have you been kicked off that?”
“I’ve been suspended! No cases at all. I’m as useless as a freaking one-legged man in an ass-kicking competition.”
“The world is still turning. People are keeping calm and carrying on. A lot of lives have been hurt by
these crashes. If you can step up and find something that explains what’s going on, don’t you owe it to those people? All those who’ve died?”
Hanson looked down at the floor. She felt the shame of her own self-obsessing, caught between her guilt and the accompanying disgrace.
“You said sniper, right? Do you know the trajectory and range?”
“Vaguely.”
“Maybe we can have a look around. See if we can find something. If we move now, we’ll have a good couple of hours before the sun sets.”
“No. There’s no way I’m going back there. I can’t face it. That’s my final word on the matter.”
19
CHAMBERS AND HANSON stood at the security fence waiting to be admitted through the gate into the crash zone. Body collectors were now the prevailing personnel, sifting through rubble to find the bent and broken human remains. The mood inside the fencing was somber. Authorities were still trying to ascertain a body count, and numbers ranged wildly. The authorities agreed it would be in the high tens of thousands; it was the worst of all three crashes.
“We’d better get moving,” Chambers said, “the sun’ll be down soon.”
Crash debris stretched out in all directions. They worked their way over to Cally’s family hatchback, its crushed shape tiny and forlorn in the extensive destruction surrounding it. Hanson sat on the front of the car and leaned against the piece of wing stapling it to the ground. Her eyes roamed around the horizon.
“Chambers, you said you knew this street. How high were the buildings?”
“Standard three or four stories.”
Hanson held her hands out toward the west, estimating the area a bullet could conceivably come from. It would have been a distant shot, potentially one to one-and-a-half miles. It had to have come from a building that was taller than all the others. Angle of entry would have been about ten degrees. That meant a possible area of two square miles, which was not an impossible …
