Kymiera

by Steve Turnbull

  There was a short corridor to his front door. He took his coat from the hook and pulled it on. Lifting the gun from the table, he checked the safety, latched it firmly into his shoulder holster, and buttoned up the front of the coat. He put his keys into his pocket. He picked up the hat and gloves. Of course keys were unnecessary here; the police residence was fully equipped with security and riffy detectors. But he liked keys, they were real, so much in this world was not.

  The corridor was carpeted and he walked silently along the passage. None of the apartments, including his own, were numbered or even named. There was no need. Ashburne Hall had once been home to female university students. Now it was used as police accommodation.

  He turned right through a fire door into the main corridor. The rooms here were smaller, just single bedrooms with shared facilities while he rated one that was a complete living unit.

  This part of the building was nearly two hundred years old and the staircase was original. It flowed down to the ground floor in a wide sweep. Mitchell enjoyed the sensation of the wooden railing, never too cold even on a morning like this.

  There was a duty sergeant in the reception. Awake but reading a book. His name was ... Andrews. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said and got to his feet, putting the book down.

  ‘Car here yet, Andrews?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  Mitchell nodded. ‘Not to worry. You get back to your reading. I’ll wait outside.’

  The door slid open and the cold washed across him. He put on his hat, slid his hands into the gloves, and pulled up his collar.

  There was an exterior light and he stood under it. It had stopped raining but the air was filled with the frosty earthiness of recent wet. Between him and the main road was open grass that ended in a high wall lined with rhododendron bushes and bare trees.

  His breath misted and drifted away slowly.

  He heard the car tyres crunching on the gravel and glanced up to see its side lights moving between the trees like a pair of will-o'-the-wisps. The vehicle slid past and made a tight turn in the space provided before returning to stop in front of him. The locks clicked.

  Mitchell pulled open the door and slid inside, closing it after him with a solid thunk. The powers-that-be had provided the best vehicle available for collecting their important and potentially troublesome guest.

  The car moved off the moment his safety belt was fastened. The clock on the dashboard showed the time as six-oh-one.

  ‘Good morning, DI Mitchell.’ Lament’s pseudo-face appeared on the screen.

  ‘Lament.’

  ‘I hope you slept well.’

  ‘I have nothing to complain about.’

  Lament hesitated. ‘Can I update you on recent events?’

  Mitchell frowned. ‘Events?’

  ‘Chloe Dark was found unconscious on a Metrorail tram at three this morning.’

  ‘The girl I interviewed?’ Not that he expected a denial—her name was unusual and the reduced population meant name duplication was rarer than it used to be. ‘Where?’

  ‘Riffy records showed unusual movement at the stop near her home. No investigation has taken place there as yet due to the lack of light but the area has been cordoned off.’ Lament sighed. ‘Unfortunately it rained almost continuously for three hours after the event.’

  ‘You think there was an attempt to abduct her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does Special Agent Graham know?’

  ‘All information is being transferred to his departmental wirehead; I can only assume he is being kept abreast of the situation.’

  ‘He’ll be wanting to interview her as soon as possible.’

  The car drove up past the dark shops of Rusholme. The traffic lights changed in their favour as they continued north.

  ‘The doctors have not finished their examination and have sedated her.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘Yes, she might be unavailable for hours. These things are so unpredictable.’

  Mitchell stared at the emotionless face in the screen. The left eye winked.

  ‘Do you have the preliminary reports of the attack?’

  ‘Not officially.’

  Mitchell said nothing.

  ‘It seems she had been physically assaulted and burned,’ said Lament after a pause. ‘She has some defensive wounds. The burns were not serious as if she had not been hit directly. Of course the rain would have reduced the effectiveness. However her right arm was dislocated at the shoulder and there were curious tear marks in her right wrist and forearm.’

  ‘A freak.’

  ‘Most likely.’

  ‘How on earth did she escape?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘According to her records she has martial arts training,’ said Lament. ‘Jujitsu.’

  ‘Sounds like it almost wasn’t enough.’

  The car passed through the university and turned right towards the station. The clock said quarter past six.

  ‘I take it our Purity agent will be given the medical report.’

  ‘His department will be sent the official report once it’s been completed, verified and filed.’

  The car wound through the dark streets. They were empty of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. True it would have been quiet in the old days at this time, but never like this. It was as if the end of the world had come but forgotten to take him.

  ‘Oh, and Chloe Dark’s chiropractor died last night.’

  Mitchell jerked his head up. ‘What?’

  ‘Her chiropractor,’ said Lament without a trace of emotion. ‘He was hit by a refrigerated truck.’

  ‘And he’s dead.’

  ‘Very. The truck subsequently exploded killing nine bystanders.’

  ‘I didn’t think electrics could explode.’

  ‘Seems they can.’

  ‘And when will Agent Graham get that information?’

  ‘I can’t see that it’s related,’ said Lament without any change of tone. ‘Completely isolated incident. Just an accident.’

  ‘Get Yates on it.’

  ‘Already done.’

  Mitchell sat back. There was not the slightest chance this was a coincidence.

  The car mounted a series of ramps and came to a standstill at the pick-up point at the rear of the station. The time was six twenty-one.

  Special Agent Graham smiled amiably and extended his hand. Mitchell hesitated. You did not shake the hand of a stranger. But this man was the Purity; if you could not trust him, who could you trust? And if you implied distrust, what did that say about you?

  Mitchell took his hand and gripped it firmly. ‘Special Agent.’

  He didn’t trust the Purity in the slightest, and the feeling was no doubt mutual.

  ‘DI Mitchell, thank you for meeting me.’ His tone possessed the relaxed air of someone who knew how much power he could wield. The creases in his suit were knife-straight, and there wasn’t a single black hair out of place on his head. He did not look like someone who had arrived on the overnight.

  ‘Is this your first time in Manchester, sir?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ He glanced around at the concourse. A local train had arrived at platform one, and a dozen passengers moved towards the exit. ‘It’s very quiet.’

  ‘The place will be teeming in an hour,’ said Mitchell. ‘It’s still early.’

  ‘Of course.’ He paused. ‘I imagine Chloe Dark won’t be available for interview for a few hours.’

  ‘I understand she has been sedated.’

  ‘Unfortunate.’

  Mitchell shrugged. ‘The hospital staff were not to know.’

  Graham looked around the station again as if he was assessing a threat.

  ‘Do you want to go to the Purity office first?’

  ‘There’s no need.’ Graham focused his attention on Mitchell. ‘So, they assigned their best killer to nursemaid me?’

  ‘I’ve been in the job longest, I have seniority.’

  Graham sm
iled. ‘The person least likely to screw up.’

  Cold was beginning to penetrate Mitchell’s coat. ‘I couldn’t possibly second-guess the Superintendent’s intentions.’

  ‘This is not my first assignment of this sort, DI Mitchell.’

  ‘Where would you like to start?’

  ‘Let’s try the Chloe Dark crime scene.’

  Chapter 3

  Yates

  ‘What a fucking mess,’ muttered Yates. Dawn was beginning to crawl into the sky beyond the grey clouds but here, at the start of December, it took its time.

  The lorry was a tangle of metal. An occasional wisp of smoke floated up from its innards and escaped into the frosty air. The main body of the vehicle had opened like a grotesque flower with the incinerated load at its heart. The bodies of the passers-by had already been removed though chalked outlines showed where they had fallen as the explosion scattered them like seeds.

  Market Street had been closed off. Beyond the police barriers to the north, east and south were gawking bystanders with the mist of condensation from their collective breath hanging above them. On the far side Forensics had provided a space for the commuters to shuffle by and rubberneck the accident, a uniform kept them moving.

  The cab of the truck was crushed against the wall. The driver was still in his seat, squashed against dashboard and window, while the pulverised remains of the victim had yet to be revealed in full. However, the feet and lower legs were visible if you shone a light under the front axle. Almost no blood though; there had been no circulatory system remaining and nothing to pump with after the impact.

  This was a crap job in more ways than one. An abduction attempt was made on Chloe Dark, and the same night her chiro got rubbed out by a truck, along with a bunch of witnesses. A professional job. It had to be murder.

  Why would anyone take out a hit on a chiropractor?

  The old TV cop shows they ran and re-ran were weird. They had been made before the plague and all their reasons seemed so unnatural. Of course there were burglaries, thefts, prostitution just like always, and sometimes ordinary people broke down and killed someone. But now there was almost always the question of the Purity somewhere in the mix. If you were a detective and you didn’t make that number one in your possible motives, you wouldn’t solve a lot of crime.

  Unfortunately they also had this Purity agent to deal with as well.

  Yates saw a well-padded and familiar figure—even more familiar when she was naked and lying in his bed. ‘Ria!’

  She looked round. The protective goggles she wore acted as an Alice band for her straight black hair. She held up a finger and turned back to what she was doing, digging something from between two paving bricks.

  Yates wandered over.

  ‘Hey, Harry,’ she said without looking up.

  He peered over her shoulder as she prised a piece of metal from the packed earth between the herringbone brickwork. ‘What’s that?’

  She brought the sliver up to her face and stared at it.

  ‘Looks like half of a child’s hair clip.’

  ‘Relevant to the case?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He stepped back as she stood and stretched. ‘There was no child caught in the explosion as far as we know.’ She looked across at the truck and then back at her feet. ‘It was well-buried and the angle is completely wrong.’

  She dropped the metal into an evidence bag and handed it to her assistant. ‘You on this case then, Harry?’

  ‘Seems like.’

  ‘Where’s your boss?’

  ‘Babysitting the Purity agent.’

  Ria nodded. ‘Broken up the dream team then.’

  ‘Got anything interesting?’

  ‘It’s all interesting, Harry,’ she said and pushed up her goggles. ‘I like my job.’

  There was a stirring in the crowd which parted as a lorry with a crane mounted on the flatbed reversed into the area, spewing methane fumes and smelling of a farm.

  ‘Want to stay for the big reveal?’ she asked.

  ‘Sounds delightful,’ he said having to raise his voice over the noise. ‘But really what have you got? How could a truck blow up?’

  Ria gestured to him and he followed her to the imploded window of the shop next door. She pointed to melted metal embedded in the brick work.

  ‘That is probably aluminium,’ she said. ‘Aluminium can explode under certain conditions.’

  ‘What sort of conditions?’

  ‘It needs to be molten and come into contact with water.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘From a meat truck?’

  ‘Those vehicle batteries hold a lot of power. If the crash twisted the contacts so it all discharged at one time it could have melted aluminium that came in contact with some rain water collected in the engine.’

  Yates thought about it. ‘That’s a lot of ifs, buts and maybes.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘Could that be done as deliberate sabotage?’

  ‘Of course, but is that likely?’

  Yates hesitated. ‘Might be but can you keep it out of the report?’

  She frowned. ‘I won’t be putting the whole thing back together, Harry. That’ll be someone else. It’s not my area.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘Tony Jacobs.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  ‘Well, don’t try asking him for any favours; he’s a true believer.’

  ‘Right.’

  Yates looked round again. There was nothing here for him. He needed witnesses.

  ‘Can I use your van?’

  ‘Joy ride?’

  ‘I need to talk to the wirehead.’

  Ria waved in the general direction of the two Forensics vans pulled up on the corner. ‘Be my guest.’

  Yates slammed the passenger door and settled back into the chair. The van wasn’t warm but it was better than outside. He glanced around. The cab was spotless, not a food wrapper or receipt to be seen. He opened the glove compartment. Vehicle maintenance manual, a notepad (unused) and a couple of pens. Forensics were weird.

  ‘You wanted me, DS Yates?’

  Lament’s voice emerged from the speaker before the image materialised on the screen.

  ‘Witnesses?’

  ‘There were quite a lot because of the sale. Uniforms took their statements.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There was a crash, a delay, and an explosion.’

  Yates nodded, public statements tended to lack useful detail.

  ‘How much of a delay?’

  ‘It was exactly forty-seven seconds between the driver and victim’s riffy signals stopping, and those of the bystanders.’

  Yates stared at the screen picturing how the people must have been crowded round to see if they could help, unaware their lives were about to be cut short. Did you know when you died that fast? Were you aware of the cessation of life?

  ‘Ask me another,’ said Lament.

  Yates focused on the face. ‘What?’

  ‘Here, let me replay it for you.’

  The face disappeared to be replaced by a three-dimensional mock-up of the area with figures representing the people involved. The victim crossed the road from Debenhams looking to head up to the tram station.

  The lorry crossed the junction and ploughed into him. Some bystanders moved away from the incident, others towards it. One in particular moved straight up to the vehicle, paused for perhaps ten seconds, and then moved away. The other people were edging closer but this one just crossed the street.

  The mock-up on the screen zoomed out and switched to a map view. The truck exploded and the nearby dots went red. The other one continued away from the incident.

  ‘So, who is he?’

  Lament reappeared on the screen. ‘I have no idea.’

  For a moment Yates was at a loss for words. ‘How can you not know? He has a riffy.’

  ‘Yes, he does. But its code does not match anything in the records.�
��

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘There are several possibilities.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘One: He’s been removed from the records. Two: He has a riffy that hasn’t been added to the records. Three: He’s foreign. Four: He has a device that acts like a riffy but is external.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Well if it was any of one to three then I would have no way of knowing. But it’s the fourth.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Seriously, I seem to be doing all the work. Who did you sleep with to get to be a detective sergeant?’

  Yates looked out of the window; it was fogging up and in the increasing light the people outside moved like ghosts.

  ‘Biometrics,’ Yates said finally.

  ‘And you win today’s prize!’

  The screen image dissolved into four lines. The top three were jagged and their peaks increased in size in the same place. The other had a similar underlying pattern but much smoother and without the increase.

  ‘Our surprise guest shows a completely regular and normal heartbeat despite the situation.’

  ‘It’s a fake.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you track it?’

  ‘It stops about half a mile away.’

  Yates sat forward. ‘How about where it came from?’

  ‘It will take a while.’

  ‘All right. He won’t be there now but send someone to check it out and Forensics when they’re available.’

  ‘You want me to send someone else?’

  ‘It’s Sunday, I’m not doing any more than I have to.’

  ‘Mitchell won’t like that.’

  ‘He’s not my dad.’

  Lament said nothing.

  ‘I’m coming back to the station.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Get me a car for about three.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Chapter 4

  Sapphire

  The pair of high heels clicked down the empty hospital corridor. Sapphire Kepple had the confidence of knowing the strength of the Purity was behind her. She paused at the reception. The administrative person behind the desk, not a nurse, continued tapping away at her terminal. Sapphire cleared her throat. ‘Chloe Dark.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ said the woman. She did not look up but raised a hand. She continued typing for a few more moments, and then hit the return key with a flourish. She smiled at Miss Kepple.