Kymiera

by Steve Turnbull

  ‘How do you feel about the Purity, Mrs Lomax?’ said Graham.

  Mitchell suppressed a laugh. What kind of question was that? Almost as if he was doing a survey for a manufacturer of cleaning products, or selling a cult.

  The woman hesitated. ‘We need it.’

  Graham nodded. ‘You understand that we are the only thing that stands between you and chaos?’

  She said nothing. Her arms were wrapped around herself as if she were holding in her grief and anger. Mitchell could see it even if Graham couldn’t. Ellen Lomax’s record covered the death of her husband and son, in a fire set by a mob. She was still angry.

  ‘Mind if I use your toilet?’ said Mitchell. It earned him a hard look from Graham, as if he didn’t understand it was simply an excuse to look round.

  ‘Upstairs on the left at the front.’

  Mitchell left the room as Graham started questioning Mrs Lomax about the van that had stolen away Melinda Vogler. There was no chance he would come up with anything new from her, she hadn’t seen anything—or, if she had, she wasn’t telling.

  He climbed the stairs slowly. The place was spotless, not a hint of dust anywhere. She must fill her time cleaning. Not that there would be much else for her to do. She didn’t even rate a terminal. A technological have-not on the edge of society with nowhere to fall.

  At the top of the stairs he looked around. There were three doors. The one to the front of the house was the bathroom. Yates had already checked it, and Mitchell wanted time to look at the other rooms.

  The door next to the bathroom opened on to a room with a double bed and windows that looked out on the street. Two cupboards, one empty and one with Ellen’s clothes, such as they were, and mostly old. The dressing table had glass containers that might once have held beauty products. Now gone dry. Drawers with underwear, some bulkier items like jumpers. Nothing of interest hidden beneath them.

  That left the final door Yates had mentioned.

  Mitchell had come prepared. It wasn’t a complex lock and the picks made short work of it.

  The smell was the first thing he noticed. Definitely a different smell, and not musty with age. A bed, properly made, cupboard with clothes all relatively modern and in a better state of repair than Ellen’s. Young person clothes. Shoes. He reached down and checked the size. Someone small, or not yet fully grown.

  He knew he was eating into ‘taking too long in the toilet’ territory, and he did not want Graham getting curious. He glanced round. There were no dirty clothes on the floor, so he dug into the back of the wardrobe and pulled out a shoe that looked like it had seen a lot of wear. He shoved it in his pocket.

  Relocking the door took only a moment. He went back into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. He opened the window a fraction, as if he’d left an unpleasant smell, and made a big show of coming down stairs.

  He walked through into the front room to find Ellen Lomax sitting in one of the armchairs curled up and in tears. Graham was leaning over her. ‘We can take everything away from you. What else did you see?’

  She shook her head. ‘There was nothing, I didn’t see anything. It just came round the corner fast and drove away.’ Her voice was strained but still strong. Mitchell felt a certain pride in the woman. Bloody southerners coming up north and thinking they knew what the people were like.

  She was not as completely broken as she appeared. There was someone in her life she needed to protect and she was willing to protect them with her life if need be.

  Mitchell understood that. Had she taken in a stray kid to replace her son? Not properly adopted and then hidden from the Purity so they didn’t have a riffy? Possible.

  ‘There’s nothing upstairs,’ said Mitchell. As if he had not noticed Graham’s unacceptable behaviour—well, unacceptable for the police, the Purity could do as they pleased. And usually did. But Mitchell’s comment had been designed to interrupt Graham’s flow.

  Graham glanced up at him.

  Mitchell continued. ‘She obviously knows nothing, what would you expect from someone like this?’

  Graham looked at the crushed woman in front of him. And stood up and away from her. Mitchell noticed gloves on his hands that had not been there before. Would he really have resorted to violence? Easier to imply that she was too inferior to be of value. That was a concept Graham could understand.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Toilet.’

  Graham’s eyes were piercing, as if he was trying to see through Mitchell.

  ‘Her bedroom and another one that no one is using.’ Not even technically untrue, nobody was using it right now. And he didn’t mention the fact it had been locked, that would have made it far too interesting.

  ‘All right, let’s go.’ Graham stalked out of the room.

  ‘If you think of anything, or you need to talk to anyone,’ said Mitchell—he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out an old business card with his details. ‘You can reach me on this number.’

  Ellen Lomax took it out of his hand almost on automatic. Mitchell knew what was going through her head. Mitchell had just lied to the Purity, to protect her, and that put him on her side. If she really hadn’t been hiding anyone she could have got the Purity off her back by revealing his lie.

  But she didn’t, which only confirmed Mitchell’s ideas.

  He took his leave and followed Graham out into the street. Graham was standing just outside the gate and staring around. ‘Most people try to live in groups,’ he said. ‘For safety, and for the comfort of having others around them.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Lomax lives in a house on her own.’ He gestured briefly with one hand. ‘People do that when they have secrets.’

  ‘Sometimes the secret is only a hate and loathing for everyone whose family survived when your own did not.’

  Graham turned to face him. ‘Like you, Detective Inspector Mitchell.’

  ‘I have had to come to terms with it.’

  ‘Have you?’ said Graham. ‘The most effective killer of freaks in the country? Are you sure you aren’t deluding yourself?’

  ‘I don’t let my personal feelings get in the way of my work, if that’s what you mean.’

  Graham said nothing more and they got into the car.

  Chapter 4

  Dog

  Dog hated watching other people eat, especially when he didn’t have any food of his own. And the way that freak-boy ate was even worse. His nose tentacles floated above the food as the kid held the sandwich, or whatever he was eating, underneath them. For a moment they would waft backwards and forwards as if he was sniffing it, then he would put it in his mouth and eat it normally. He had teeth and a tongue. Unfortunately what he didn’t seem to have was a voice.

  Dog thought he was being extremely tolerant. He didn’t talk; just waited. Salivating.

  Finally the eating was done. The freak-boy sat back in his chair.

  ‘Thanks for not running away,’ said Dog. ‘You see, Mr Mendelssohn, my boss, well, he’s not so understanding of people who fail him. Not that he’s unfair, but still, if you’d run away he wouldn’t have been very understanding of me.’

  Dog waited expectantly for his ex-prisoner to say at least something. A thank you would have been nice. Nothing. The boy glanced over Dog’s shoulder as if he hadn’t even spoken.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude or anything but—’

  The scream that broke through the room had qualities that Dog was sure would break glass. That was one of the things about Delia, she could move silently when she wanted to. Still, Dog was pleased to see he wasn’t the only one to slam his hands over his ears. Freak-boy hadn’t much liked her scream either.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Delia,’ said Dog. ‘Anybody would think you hadn’t seen a bloody freak before.’

  He turned and saw her standing in the doorway. She had an odd taste in clothes, when she wore them, not that she ever went naked, but she spent a lot of time in the pool. On this occasion she was wearing one
of those tight dresses that emphasised every curve down to her hips, then spread out. The pattern on this one gave the impression of some sort of fishtail. Dog didn’t think it was very subtle, but she was a bit weird. Nice, but weird. Over the top she wore a pink cardigan for warmth. She liked pink.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I just wasn’t really expecting...’ Her voice tailed off and she waved her hand in the direction of the kid and his tentacle face.

  ‘No need to apologise to me,’ said Dog. ‘You could try apologising to freak-boy here, but he’s not very talkative.’

  Jason

  The girl had screamed so loud it hurt. Slamming his hands over his ears had been his reaction, but the time taken even for him to get his hands to his ears was plenty enough for her to do damage.

  He’d never heard anyone scream like that. And on his nights out, when he had not been careful enough and had been seen, he had heard plenty of screams.

  She was calm now. She and the Dog were talking to each other. He thought he should probably be listening, but he was lethargic after the amount of food he had eaten. He hadn’t eaten that much in years; in fact he couldn’t remember the last time. She wasn’t wearing perfume, like the Dog, but there was something else artificial about her. And rotten fish. She must eat a lot of it. The scent of artificiality pervaded the human world. Both the women and the men poured stuff on their skin to change the way they smelled. This Mr Mendelssohn had it last night, although it wasn’t overpowering. Unlike the driver, who wore a scent that was like having your nose dragged across sandpaper.

  But it was odd, he thought to himself; this Dog had said something about them being the same, about them smelling the same. As far as Jason knew, his sense of smell was so far beyond humans they were like the blind where he saw everything in vivid colour. Except it was scents. He knew what Dog meant. There was something they all shared and it was distinct now he was looking for it.

  But apart from that, Dog did smell a bit like a canine. There were overtones, though he was clearly human too, as much as Jason was human at least.

  And this new one, she had an overtone as well, something Jason had never experienced before—and it wasn’t the rotten fish. He took a deep breath in through his nose. It folded out to expose the extra-sensitive surface on the inside. Yes, there was something similar about the three of them. He homed in on the specific scent, sifting it from all the others. They were freaks but not freaks, and they shared this smell.

  ‘Why is he staring at me?’ said the girl.

  Dog had said her name was Delia.

  ‘What do you mean, staring at you?’

  Jason put his attention back on the world through his eyes, rather than simply through his nose. She was staring at him.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘He’s still looking at me.’

  Jason was aware of a slight change in the way the Dog smelled. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it seemed aggressive.

  ‘Hey, freak-boy, it’s rude to stare at people.’ Dog turned his attention back to the girl. ‘I don’t think he’s been around people very much. He doesn’t know how to behave.’

  Jason turned his attention to Dog; he was definitely more aggressive now.

  ‘What’s his name?’ said Delia.

  Dog shrugged. ‘No idea. He won’t talk.’

  ‘Perhaps he can’t talk,’ said Delia. ‘I mean, look at his face, maybe he doesn’t have any... voice.’ She had hesitated as if she was searching for the right word but failed to come up with it.

  ‘You mean larynx,’ said Dog loudly and clearly. ‘Well, freak-boy, can you talk?’

  Delia laughed at him. ‘He’s not deaf.’

  ‘Anybody would be deaf after that scream.’

  Delia moved up close, no longer scared apparently. She hunkered down so her head was at the same height as Jason’s. ‘Are you a mute?’

  Jason found her scent to be... now even he couldn’t quite figure the word he wanted. He finally settled on attractive. He nodded.

  ‘You poor thing. That’s terrible.’ She reached out to take his hand, but he moved it and her fingers came down on his leg.

  She jerked her hand away. ‘So sorry.’ She turned to Dog. ‘His fur is so soft.’

  Dog pushed back his chair with a scrape. ‘I think you better be going now, Delia. Your dad would throw a fit if he knew you were in here. How do we know he isn’t dangerous?’

  Delia stood up. She was taller than Dog. ‘Well, you weren’t getting very far with him, were you? You hadn’t even found out that he couldn’t talk and you’ve been trying to have a conversation for hours. You need me.’

  ‘All right, I’m grateful you discovered he’s dumb,’ said Dog. ‘But your dad would explode if he was here and saw you with him—not tied up.’

  ‘He’s not going to find out, is he?’ she said. ‘Not unless you tell him.’

  ‘You need to leave,’ said Dog.

  ‘I’m staying here,’ said Delia.

  ‘I’ll chuck you out.’

  ‘I’d like to see you try.’

  Delia crossed her arms and set her feet as if ready for his attempt. Dog just stared at her, and then sat down. ‘Fine, whatever, the important thing is that freak-boy—’

  ‘Why don’t you find out what his name is?’

  ‘Because he can’t talk, as you so cleverly discovered.’

  ‘Well, maybe he can write.’

  All the time the two of them had been arguing Jason had the feeling they wouldn’t even have noticed if he left.

  ‘Well, as long as you’re here,’ said Dog, ‘you might as well help. Let’s see what else we can get out of freak-boy.’

  Jason looked up at Delia; at this particular moment she seemed very tall indeed. And she put her fists on her hips, like his mother used to when she got angry with him.

  ‘Listen, why don’t you start treating him with some respect. You might get what you want a bit faster.’

  ‘What would you suggest?’

  ‘Well, stop calling him freak-boy for a start. I mean, seriously, pot-kettle-black’ said Delia, then she turned her attention to Jason and came down to his level again. ‘Can you write?’

  Jason was confused. He spent all his life running away from everyone except his mother, and now in the space of just two days everything had changed. He had a full stomach, and people were talking to him. It didn’t even matter that Dog was rude. It was just someone was talking to him as if he was really there, and not some sort of ghost. Not some sort of night demon that scared people as he flitted through the shadows.

  There were no shadows here, and he couldn’t hide even if he wanted to. And just at this moment, hiding was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Chapter 5

  Dog

  ‘Well?’

  Mr Mendelssohn had summoned him at around seven in the evening. He had entered his boss’s inner sanctum: an office with no windows in the middle of the house. To Dog’s eye it was part of the big lounge area that had been partitioned.

  But the partition was steel and stone. The door was heavy and moved like thick oil on its hinges. The office itself, as much as Dog understood these things, was just an office. Papers, folders, filing cabinets and that ancient typewriter. Nothing electronic, just the electric lights.

  Mr Mendelssohn stood behind his desk drinking his pure coffee. Its scent made Dog salivate.

  ‘His name’s Jason Lomax, and he can’t talk.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He can see the benefits of being part of the team, but he’s worried about his mother.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘She’s kept him secret all these years, she’s not about to start telling anyone now. Harbouring a freak is—’

  He stopped. He didn’t need to tell his boss the penalty. He was fully aware that, of all his crimes, that would be considered the worst. And the punishment was execution—after all, you couldn’t trust anyone who put their own interests above those of the whole human race.

/>   ‘So?’

  ‘I thought I might pop over and have a chat with his mum. Apparently she’ll be worried sick because he’s never been away for so long.’

  ‘But he’ll work for me?’

  ‘Yeah, he will.’

  Mr Mendelssohn smiled. ‘Excellent. I have just the job to try him out.’ He sat down and started looking through the papers in a folder. Dog stayed where he was. Mr Mendelssohn looked up.

  ‘Why are you going to talk to his mother?’

  ‘He doesn’t like going out in daylight—who can blame him, you’ve seen his face—and...’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He wants to stay here,’ Dog said. ‘I know that’s totally out of the question and I told him so. Ridiculous, after all you don’t like me staying here, and there’s your daughter, of course. Too much temptation.’ It came out in a rush, and somewhere along the line he lost control of his mouth.

  Mr Mendelssohn stared at him for a short while, holding his coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

  ‘He can stay here.’

  ‘What?’ said Dog. ‘I don’t think that’s a good course of action, sir.’

  Mr Mendelssohn put his head on one side, in a way that made Dog think he was being made fun of. He never did that cute head thing that real dogs did. Did he?

  ‘Are you arguing with me?’

  ‘Of course not, sir.’

  ‘He can stay.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Dog, ‘so, can I—’

  ‘No.’

  Knutsford to East Manchester was a bit of a distance, ten miles or so, and even though Dog had settled into an easy trot that ate up the distance it still took over two hours.

  There had been a gang on the main street in Altrincham. He’d been moving so comfortably—and the wind was in the wrong direction—that they saw him at the same time as he saw them.

  They didn’t have his skills, but dodging them had delayed him by another half hour.

  When Dog arrived in the street that Ellen Lomax lived in, he saw a car driving away. Not just any car, he recognised a plainclothes police car when he saw one. They smelled.

  Worse still: when he reached the gate he caught the unmistakable whiff of DI Mitchell. Just as well he hadn’t turned up much earlier, they might have caught him here. He’d never live it down if he was caught on a mercy mission, as opposed to working some heist.