Torchwood_Long Time Dead

by Sarah Pinborough

‘Well, it’s a quiet night. Have a play with it. I’ll be in the office doing all the accounts that Jack’s avoided for the past three months.’

  It was two hours later that Toshiko called her back down to the lab. For a moment, she didn’t say anything but just stared at the large box on the table.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘Sorry, yes.’ Toshiko pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you until I knew whether it would work, so I just got it out of the vault myself.’

  ‘I’m surprised you could find it.’ The container that now held the small metal credit card looked just like a Perspex box. It wasn’t, of course. Perspex could never do what this could.

  ‘It did take a while. Our system for filing this stuff could do with updating. Anyway, I just thought that given the density of the metal for an item so small, perhaps it needed a pressure far greater than we could apply to activate it.’

  ‘Go on.’ Suzie folded her arms. Toshiko might be something of a mouse – and to be fair had become twice as irritating since she’d started mooning around Owen like a wet blanket – but she was clever. Which was good because since she’d been adding quite heavily to her extracurricular activities, Suzie’s own brain was invariably operating at half-speed when at work.

  ‘Well, I was right. At least halfway. Watch.’

  Taped to the inside of the clear box was a small explosive charge. Small in terms of size at least. Suzie had seen one of those go off and take half a house down. She took a step back out of habit rather than necessity as Toshiko clicked the remote detonator in her hand. The silent explosion filled the box with a bright, white light and Suzie squinted against it, turning away slightly.

  ‘Now look,’ Toshiko said.

  The credit card sat undamaged, but slightly changed, in the centre of the alien container. The three clear stones that were embedded in it had changed colour. The one in the centre flashed red, and the other two had turned an almost milky matt black.

  ‘So you’ve turned it on…’ Suzie leaned forward to get a closer look. ‘But what does it do?’

  ‘I’m monitoring the particles and energy in there. It draws energy in to kick-start itself, but then a different energy is being emitted. Nothing that the system recognises, but something is coming through there. Something quite powerful. I think it might be some kind of alien remote viewer. I don’t think it’s a weapon at any rate. Whatever it is, it could be a great source of energy if we could just figure it out.’

  The red centre light dimmed. ‘What’s it doing?’

  ‘Turning itself off. That’s happened twice now. Maybe it needs a renewable energy supply on this side to keep working.’

  ‘Or maybe whoever’s looking through it didn’t see anything that interested them.’

  She smiled at Tosh. ‘Good work. Put it in the vault for now. I can’t see any immediate use for it.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘And don’t forget to log it on the system! Let’s get these files workable.’

  Suzie left it two days before taking the item back out of the vault. If Jack had been interested he would have wanted to see it by now, but he hadn’t given it a mention. The device was already forgotten, just one more piece of Rift junk washed up in Cardiff, now safely stored away. She slipped it into her pocket. It created energy, that’s what Toshiko had said. Perhaps if she could harness that energy it could enhance the power of the Resurrection glove?

  Chapter Four

  ‘Blimey,’ Andy said.

  Cutler thought his sergeant’s reaction was somewhat understated, but then newly promoted Andy Davidson wasn’t much of a swearer. His own internal reaction had featured much stronger terms, like those being muttered by the Scene of Crime boys as they arrived.

  ‘It goes without saying no details of this hit the press,’ he said, letting them pass. ‘I don’t want to hear that you’ve even mentioned it to your girlfriends, wives or mothers, all right?’

  ‘Who’d tell their mother about this?’ Andy asked. He had a point.

  The woman sat against the wall, her legs straight out in front of her and slightly apart. She was small and petite and, even though she had to be in her fifties, the pose made her look like a doll. A badly damaged doll admittedly, given how her eyes appeared to be missing from their sockets. Blood had run in two thick streams down her cheeks and onto her shirt and her mouth was slightly open.

  ‘It’s like something out of one of those Japanese horror films,’ Andy muttered.

  Cutler, careful not to touch anything even though he had gloves and plastic slippers on, crouched by the dead woman.

  ‘So, Doc,’ he said to the figure mirroring his position, ‘what have we got?’

  ‘Hard to tell at the moment.’ Dr Spanton’s Birmingham accent was as out of place as Cutler’s own North London mumble amidst all the gentle Welsh lilt. The doctor hadn’t been in Cardiff that long. Transferred down for a quiet life. He wasn’t getting one today.

  Cutler looked at the dead woman. ‘You seen anything like this before?’

  ‘Nope.’ Dr Spanton leaned closer to the body, his plastic suit rustling. ‘And I think I’d be happy not to see anything like it again.’ He lifted the woman’s blouse. ‘There’s a nasty stab wound here. Straight into the liver I would say – I’ll let you know for certain when she’s on the slab – but it should be the injury that killed her.’

  ‘Should be?’ Cutler frowned.

  ‘I’m surprised by the lack of blood. There’s so much from her eyes and so little from here. It should have been pumping out of her, but there’s nothing.’

  ‘Post-mortem wound?’

  ‘Even if it was, unless the killer hung around for a while before delivering it, there should still be more blood. A conundrum.’

  ‘So what about the eyes?’ Cutler asked. ‘Are they gouged out? Cut out?’

  ‘I wish. Look.’ Spanton pointed at something shining in the mess of the woman’s smart blouse. ‘That looks like vitreous gel to me. It’s the substance inside the back of the eye. There’s a lot of it.’ He looked up. ‘She’s wearing what’s left of her eyes in all this blood. It’s impossible but it’s almost as if they exploded.’

  ‘Sir?’ called Andy.

  Cutler nodded at Dr Spanton and left him to get on with his unpleasant job. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Her name’s Janet Scott,’ Andy told him. ‘She’s 54, divorced. Worked here since the place opened twelve years ago.’

  ‘Sir?’ A disembodied voice called out from somewhere beyond Andy. ‘CCTV’s been disabled. Nothing on the computer.’

  Cutler sighed. Nothing was ever easy. So they’d learned the killer wasn’t stupid. ‘What else?’ He returned his attention to Andy.

  ‘About Janet Scott? Not much. She was working on her own today, but that wasn’t normal. Her colleague had called in sick.’

  ‘One person working alone in a safety deposit company? Seems a bit odd.’

  ‘It’s not the smartest area of town. And this isn’t a bank.’ Andy shrugged. ‘I doubt these boxes are filled with diamonds. Plus, there’s no record of any thefts or break-ins at the premises, so I guess she felt quite relaxed.’

  ‘That was a mistake,’ Cutler said, glancing back at the body. ‘Who found her?’

  ‘The colleague. A Mr John Askew. He’s the owner, actually. Rang to check on her and after getting no answer several times came down here. Called 999 straight away. His wife verifies his story.’

  ‘Make sure he doesn’t call anyone else. I don’t want too many details in the press just yet.’

  ‘Not a serial, is it?’

  ‘It’s unpleasant. That’s enough.’ Cutler couldn’t shake the unease. It wasn’t just the murder. Gruesome as this one was, he’d seen worse. There was just something about it that made him think he wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. That this should be ringing alarm bells for him about something just out of his mental reach.

  ‘Can we find out who was the
last client in?’

  ‘I’m ahead of you, sir. Mr Askew checked before we got here, even though he was shocked. PC Weir double-checked the system and got the same answer.’

  ‘Which is?’ Andy Davidson had only been on attachment with him for a couple of weeks, but Cutler had already discovered how hard it was to get him to the point.

  ‘A woman named Eryn Bunting accessed her deposit box at 11.45 this morning. The box itself is still in that private room.’ He nodded over at one of the doors behind the slumped body of Janet Scott. ‘That’s where clients do whatever they need to do before returning it.’

  ‘I presume the box is empty.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her address was on the records and we’ve got someone over there checking it out. This was only her second visit. She was here in 2007 to open her account and that was it until today.’

  ‘I doubt very much that whoever we’re looking for is the person at that address. Like you said. This isn’t a bank. From my experience the people who have safety deposit boxes have something to hide. They’re unlikely to give their own name and address, and it’s unlikely, as long as the annual fees are paid, that anyone checks too thoroughly. Wouldn’t be good for business.’

  He looked around him. Suddenly confined space felt oppressive. ‘Let’s get out of here and get a coffee. There’s nothing we can do until we get some more information.’

  Twenty minutes later, the two men were sitting in a basement bar around the corner when Andy Davidson’s phone began to ring. Cutler was sipping a large, frothing cappuccino, but the slim, fair-haired sergeant had opted for a lemonade. Cutler had almost smiled. Who ordered lemonade these days? He watched as Andy sipped it and was about to smile and make a joke about what had policing come to and why weren’t they drinking beer in a pub, when he froze. As he blinked, Andy Davidson disappeared. In his place was a tall man in his late thirties. His hair was dark, unlike Andy’s. He was handsome, but he wasn’t smiling. The weight of the world sat on his shoulders.

  Cutler’s breath raced in his ears, drowning him in the sound. The man was sitting on the stool next to Cutler and sipping a glass of water. He turned to look at Cutler, his mouth moving but in the roar that filled his head, Cutler couldn’t hear the words. He frowned, his own mouth moving. This was wrong. This was very wrong. He blinked again, but the man was still there. What was his brain doing? Had he been drugged? Was this LSD at work? The man was still speaking to him, and he reached forward and gripped Cutler’s arm.

  ‘Sir?’

  The word cut through the white noise in his head, distant at first, and then suddenly loud.

  ‘Sir?’ Andy repeated.

  The man was gone. The sergeant was back, his lemonade – just like a glass of water – sitting on the bar. Cutler looked down. Andy’s hand was on his arm. His other held his mobile phone.

  ‘Are you OK, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his breath catching slightly in his throat. ‘Yes, sorry. Just wandered off somewhere for a moment.’

  ‘You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’ Andy frowned, concerned. ‘Maybe time to lay off the caffeine.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Cutler smiled. He took a deep breath. It had been nothing. Just his brain playing a trick on him. Maybe Andy was right. Maybe he did drink too much coffee.

  ‘That was Jon Weir calling, sir,’ Andy said. ‘They’ve checked out the owner of that box, and you were right. Eryn Bunting is a schoolteacher. Knows nothing about any safety deposit box and has been teaching all day. She was in a lesson when Janet Scott was killed.’

  ‘Get back on the phone. I want a list of her friends and neighbours. Anyone she shares any rubbish bins with. Someone used her ID. She must know our killer.’ Cutler looked at the half-drunk coffee. He suddenly didn’t want it any more. ‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and take a look ourselves. I could use some fresh air.’

  He was glad to get out of the bar and back out onto the streets. He wanted to put some distance between himself and that strange moment. It was just his brain, he thought again, playing tricks on him. Happened to everyone. He climbed into the passenger seat and stared out of the window as Andy drove.

  It was the coat that was bothering him. Why would his brain have dressed up a figment of his imagination in a Second World War greatcoat?

  Chapter Five

  It was amazing what the internet could do when you knew how, and Suzie had made sure she’d known how. Within three hours spent hunched over the slim laptop, she’d created a passable history for Sue Costa, her new persona. A few brief news stories on the right websites, the inevitable Linkedin account, and the activation of a website for the fictional company that she had apparently just left the employment of.

  It would be enough should anyone conduct a quick search on her. She doubted they would. Most people were relatively slack, and the higher up the food chain you went the more likely it was that you’d presume someone else had already done the checking. She remote accessed the required email account and smiled to find that it was still working. She’d been prepared to run a dictionary attack to find a new password, but it seemed that even in the Department no one in the admin offices listened to the drill of ‘change your passwords frequently’. She sent her message and then logged out. Everything was ready.

  She poured herself a drink and then paced the bland, overly modern flat, before eventually stopping by the window and looking out over the water that glinted in the moonlight. She knew she should run. Get out of the country. Go and live in some warmer climate and sit by a pool all day. That was probably the sensible thing to do, but she needed to know exactly what the situation was first. And anyway, she felt like being a little daring.

  She smiled and let a mouthful of brandy burn her mouth before she swallowed it. It made her feel alive again. She would go abroad soon enough, but not to laze around in the sunshine. Maybe she’d set up a business of her own. Her eyes hardened. She could turn a hobby to a profit. Everybody wanted someone else dead, and she was more than happy to make them that way.

  The sea was black and endless beneath the night sky. From behind the closed sliding door, it was also silent. There was no gentle splashing of waves as they rolled over each other to spill in surf upon the stony beach. Suzie stared, and to her there was no nature in that eternity of darkness. She shivered. It was like death out there, waiting to reclaim her. Her eyes were tired from the hours spent concentrating on the small computer screen, but she didn’t want to sleep. She had a horrible feeling it would try to take her while she slept. She didn’t like her fear. She was death. She had nothing to fear from that darkness.

  She wondered about perhaps drinking some more until she finally passed out, but instead of walking to the kitchen, she found that she’d headed to the hall and was pulling on a coat. Her heart thumped and she smiled as the terrible dimension behind her eyes cooled her insides. The surprise she’d felt at its presence was fading and, as it looked out through her, she turned inwards to explore it. She gasped. This wasn’t the nothingness of death. This was no empty, black non-existence. This was… she couldn’t find the words for the sudden dread and terror she felt. Evil? Was that it? It was as close as she could come.

  She pulled back and took a moment to compose herself. Whatever it was, it had brought her back to life.

  She smiled as she passed the mirror in the hallway. Her eyes swirled slightly and she caught a glimpse of what others would see. A glimpse of the horror of that strange dimension. Her eyes were a gateway and she was death. Energy pulsed inside her. It was hungry. If she fed it some more, then perhaps she wouldn’t need to sleep at all. Her heart raced and she gripped the knife. The excitement she felt had nothing to do with the need to feed the beast within, and everything with her own desire to kill. The front door clicked shut behind her and she rode the quiet lift down to street level. She was smiling when she stepped out into the night streets, and wondered, idly, when murder had turned from a practic
al necessity, to something she enjoyed so much?

  *

  Detective Inspector Tom Cutler couldn’t sleep. Something was bothering him. Lots of things were bothering him, in fact. It wasn’t just the man in the long greatcoat that he had seen in that weird moment in the bar. That did keep itching at his head – especially the coat – but it was more than that. That was like a side show to the main event and he couldn’t figure out why. It was something to do with the poor dead woman. Something to do with her eyes filled him with a quiet dread. The greatcoat. The eyes. There was something there that he just couldn’t connect; or something that his brain was refusing to connect.

  As his brain whirred, he’d given up any attempt at sleep at around 1 a.m. He’d got out of bed, made a cup of tea, and then turned the TV on. There was bound to be some sport showing somewhere on the millions of channels he had and, unlike most men, if there was one thing that was likely to cure his insomnia, it was watching sport. He’d found some baseball and tried to zone out in front of it. He sipped his tea. He’d forgotten sugar.

  In the kitchen he pulled open a drawer for a teaspoon and then just stared at it. His brain quietened. Something just out of reach played in his mind, emptying everything else out. He closed the drawer, opened it, and then closed it again. His tea sat cooling on the side as he worked his way around the small room, pulling open cupboards and then closing them, repeating the action several times with each before moving on to the next. He worked on autopilot. A film settled on his tea. On the TV one or other of the teams won the game, and the commentators moved onto something new. At some point Cutler sat down.

  He woke up with a stiff neck at 5 a.m. to the sound of rugby playing out somewhere in the world. He stared at the TV confused. His head was thumping, his throat was sore and his mouth tasted like shit. He frowned. It wasn’t shit. It was…

  There was a mug of tea on the low coffee table in front of him and something was floating on its surface. He leaned forward. It couldn’t be. What had he done? He stared at the cigarette butts floating in the cold liquid. After a moment he counted them up. Six? He’d smoked six cigarettes in the night? He frowned and rubbed his head. He needed painkillers, that was for sure. He remembered not being able to sleep and getting up and making a drink. That was about it. Had he hit the bottle at some point? Surely he’d remember something?