by Oisin McGann
According to Manikin, Nimmo had taken the phone from a man in Veronica’s apartment. FX had decided to use that information. Most of the millions of surveillance cameras in London did not actually belong to WatchWorld—they were just privately owned eyeballs that fed into the wider network. So their security wasn’t always the best. FX had cracked the Barbican’s surveillance system a couple of weeks before, blinding the cameras so Move-Easy’s men could do some job in there. He wondered now if it had had something to do with Veronica Brundle. But it meant that getting back in again didn’t take long.
Once he had access to the camera feed, he was able to find the video file that showed Nimmo entering the flat, carefully hiding his face and disguising the way he walked. Minutes later, a man appeared in the corridor, wearing a security guard’s uniform. He too opened the door and went inside. A few minutes after that, Nimmo came out again, still keeping his face turned away from the camera, and walking off.
FX made a copy of these video segments for himself, then corrupted the files on the Barbican’s system. He found the cameras that had picked out the fake security guard and tracked the man backwards, to where he had first entered the complex of buildings. The man did not use his phone while he was in the Barbican.
A quick hack into the network of a small department store across the road, and the camera over their front door showed the man getting out of the passenger seat of a white Ford Transit van which had just pulled up to the curb. FX saved a picture of the van. From this angle, he could just make out the driver, and he froze the video and saved a blown-up copy of the pic to record the man’s face. He would run both men’s faces through his face recognition software and check them off against every database he could find to try and identify them.
The van drove off, and the fake security guard took out his phone, tapped the PIN number into its keypad, and made a phone call. FX couldn’t make out the number from this viewpoint, but he saw there was a business supplies shop on the far side of the street with a camera that had a view over the man’s shoulder. FX took note of the time of day on the video file. It took a few minutes for him to find that shop’s network, not much longer to crack it, then another minute or two to find the video file from their front door camera for the same time of day. Having found it, he watched the fake security guard tap the numbers “1972” into his phone.
“And that’s a wrap, people!” FX said with a smile. He kissed the screen, and then picked up the stolen phone and tapped in the number to unlock it. “I love it when a plan comes together. Now let’s see where that van came from …”
Scope had set up a makeshift lab in a disused room in the old warehouse. Lamenting the poor working conditions, she cleaned it out as well as she could given the time constraints. Making sure that FX was fully engrossed in his digital world, she sat down at a scrubbed steel table to examine the contents of the plastic bags Nimmo had given her.
This was how she preferred it. Scope did like people—she found them fascinating. But they were also frustratingly irrational, emotional and prone to acting on impulse, rather than thinking things through. Especially in social situations. For Scope, it was a constant source of exasperation: what was the point in having higher brain functions if you continued to allow yourself to be governed by animal urges?
It was one of the reasons she liked Nimmo. If he was driven by animal instincts, it was difficult to tell, as he let so little of himself show. He seemed calm and deliberate in everything he did. He had thoughtfully labeled each of the small zip-lock bags of evidence: “Clothes Fibers,” “Hair,” “Under Fingernails,” etc. At first glance, it didn’t look like there was much to go on, though one of the bags of scrapings from Brundle’s fingernails contained what looked like a tiny black seed. If he had snagged that off his attacker’s clothing, it might provide some clue to their identity. There were some other hairs and particles that she thought could provide some useful information too. There was a faint smile on her face as she studied the tiny pieces of evidence.
Scope couldn’t deny the pleasure she felt to be finally living up to her gran’s hopes, analyzing the forensic traces of a crime, rather than faking them, as she did so often for Move-Easy.
There was also a data key with photographs on it. She had her console with her, and she linked the key in and looked through the photos. Scope clucked her tongue in disappointment at the poor resolution and lighting, but then resigned herself to making the best of what she had. It was a disturbing experience, seeing the body of a dead man—one whose life they were so busy sifting through in such fine detail.
Watson Brundle had died with his eyes half open. There was an expression of surrender on his face as he lay on his front, his head turned to one side. His left hand was under his neck, almost as if he had been lying his head on it; his right was stretched out towards the door. The only tell-tale sign that might hint at a cause of death was a slight bluish tint around the skin of his lips. There didn’t appear to be any defensive wounds on the hands, no bruises or signs that Brundle had been in a fight with anybody. From what Nimmo had told her, Brundle hadn’t been surprised by his attacker, but if it had been a professional assassin, they could easily have struck him down before he had time to react.
As well as the pictures of the body, Nimmo had also taken rather rushed photos of the lab, particularly the area around the corpse. They weren’t enough to see anything in detail, but at least they gave her an idea of how the scene had looked. Something on the worktable next to Brundle’s body caught her eye, and she put on her glasses and held the picture up to her one good eye. Lying on the table top, between a small toolbox and a large hard-backed notebook, was a packet of hazelnuts.
“Hm,” she said quietly.
The way his hand was at his throat like that—could Brundle have just choked to death? Or maybe he’d had an allergic reaction to the nuts? Could he have been allergic to nuts without knowing it? Unlikely, but maybe Nimmo was wrong. Had he imagined a dramatic fight where there had been none? If Brundle had suffered a severe allergic reaction, he might have thrashed around as his windpipe closed up, effectively cutting off his oxygen. It would explain the blue-tinted skin around his mouth.
Scope shook her head. Nimmo must have seen the nuts, and would have commented on them if
Brundle had a known allergy. That got her thinking about Brundle’s work again. There had been so little for her to go on. The man had published no articles in the past couple of years, and next to nothing had been written about him by other people. But from what she’d read, he had been obsessed with various procedures that repaired scar tissue.
According to Nimmo, Brundle was using some kind of micro-technology in his work, possibly RFIDs—radio frequency ID tags; the tiny transmitter chips that had replaced barcodes. But what was he using them for? Even the photos of his lab didn’t offer any answers. Scope had no doubt that part of his motive was to help rid his daughter of that disfiguring birthmark.
She picked up the folder of documents that she and FX had compiled on Brundle. One of the sheets listed his employment history. His last proper job had been with Axis Health Solutions. Pharmaceutical companies were notoriously secretive, and Axis was no exception; their research files were stored on a very secure database. Keeping valuable new research out of the hands of corporate spies was a serious problem in the drugs business. FX hadn’t managed to dig Brundle’s file out yet—or he hadn’t bothered.
Scope gazed down at the page, pinching her lip between finger and thumb. Axis was one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bio-tech implants—devices that could be installed into a human body. Devices that could be designed to perform any one of a huge range of functions. On impulse, she got up and went and found FX. He was still in the Hide, transfixed by his screens. It took a few moments for him to notice her, even after she opened the door.
“Hi … yeah?” He blinked, as if rousing himself from sleep. “What’s up?”
There was a wet ring from his coffee m
ug on the desk beside him, and he surreptitiously wiped it away with his sleeve. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Axis Health Solutions,” she said to him. “I think we need to know what Brundle was doing there. Not just his job, I mean, but what he was specifically working on. It might give us an idea of what he’s been up to since then.”
“That was, like, years ago,” FX said to her. “How’s it going to help us find the box? Look, I’m snowed under here. I’ll get to it later, OK?”
Scope felt herself tense up with impatience, frustrated by his response. She had to remind herself that, unlike her, he was just trying to find the case, not solve Brundle’s murder. Even so, it irritated her that FX wouldn’t take her suggestion seriously. It went against her nature to ignore an avenue of investigation when it presented itself. She had thought that, like her, FX was afflicted by an obsessive curiosity.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he declared, reaching behind him for a few sheets of paper lying in the tray of a printer. “I pulled down the coroner’s report on Brundle. Nothing mysterious after all. Cause of death was asphyxiation. Daft sod choked to death on a hazelnut.”
“I thought it was really tricky to hack the WatchWorld system?” Scope asked, feeling slightly dismayed that her work had been done for her.
“Yeah, but the health service’s database is like a bloody bus station. I got it off there.”
Scope was positively disappointed—she had been looking forward to figuring this out herself. Taking the pages from him, she read through the description of the autopsy quickly, a frown materializing on her face.
“Not exactly what you’d call thorough,” she murmured. “From the looks of this, he swallowed a whole hazelnut in one go. Who does that? I mean, they didn’t even check his teeth to see if he’d tried to chew it. I don’t think they even looked for another possible cause of death.”
“Maybe they reckoned the nut stuck down his throat was a pretty solid bet,” FX retorted.
“I’ve seen Nimmo knock someone out once, without leaving a mark,” Scope persisted. “It’s the kind of thing Coda could do too—anybody well trained in martial arts. Then it’d just be a matter of shoving a hazelnut down their throat and leaving them to choke on it. That’d be just the kind of thing Coda would do.”
“Except Move-Easy obviously wanted something from Brundle and he still doesn’t have it. It’d make no sense for Coda to kill him … though I suppose someone could have … Anyway, none of this is helping us. Time to move on to more box-shaped matters, I say.”
Scope wasn’t quite ready to agree with him. As far as she was concerned, the autopsy report had prompted more questions than answers. She was reading over it again as she headed back out of the door. Brundle’s medical history was there too. Frowning, she checked the autopsy photos, then looked again at the medical file. There was something here that was strange—something you wouldn’t notice unless you compared the two files. Stopping as she stepped out of the room, she swiveled back to look at FX, who had returned his attention to the screens in front of him.
“Brundle had an appendectomy when he was twenty-four.”
“Yeah?” FX murmured.
“The operation left scars.”
“Yeah, well it would, wouldn’t it?”
“So look at these photos. There were no scars on the torso.”
FX glanced over, shrugged, then turned back to his screen.
“Maybe they’re poor quality photos. Keyhole surgery’s really good now—they can do it with really small cuts. So what?”
“No, the photos are fine,” Scope said, looking more carefully. “And according to the file, the appendectomy was botched—they had to go in twice. He ended up with four different scars. The coroner’s description of the corpse doesn’t mention the marks either. And he goes to the bother of mentioning vaccination scars…this is odd.”
FX was sitting up straighter now. He tilted his head to look at the photos that Scope was holding up to him.
“Let’s say Brundle was looking for a way to remove scar tissue,” she went on, “without surgery. Nimmo reckons he was experimenting with implants. Somehow, he figures out how to regrow skin using some kind of micro-technology. Say that’s what all the fuss was about. What if he decided to test it on himself, and managed to completely remove his appendectomy scars? Somehow he figured out how to program the growth of new skin without leaving a blemish. What do you think the pharmaceutical companies would do to get hold of something like that? I mean, that’d have to be worth millions, right?”
FX had a slightly winded expression on his face.
“Billions,” he said softly. “Worldwide? Billions of pounds…or euros, or dollars, or whatever. That kind of thing would be like the Holy Grail for the medical industry. It’d be worth a bloody fortune.” That was when the two rat-runners realized just how much trouble they could be in. They knew too many people who would kill for that kind of money—kill without a second thought. And there had to be any number of powerful organizations who’d do the same to get their hands on such a piece of technology. Even Move-Easy could be out of his depth.
“No wonder Brundle was scared,” Scope sniffed.
“Ah, balls,” FX sighed. “OK, I’m just trying to track down this guy, Frank Krieger, that Nimmo ran into. I’ll check out Axis after that, all right? What are you up to?”
“Going back through Brundle’s file, seeing if there’s anything we missed,” she lied. “I could really do with checking out his lab. Anyway, I’m going to get back to it.”
“Awrighty,” FX chirped, turning back to his screens again. “I’ll be right here.” He thought about the kind of money that could be at stake, and the kinds of people they could be up against. He stood up, hitching up his loose-waisted combats. “Actually, I have to go to the toilet. But I’ll be back here eventually.”
Scope left him to his business and headed back to her makeshift lab. Picking up the little bags of evidence, she began looking at them one by one. She desperately wanted to be back in her own lab, with all her equipment. This was a puzzle she’d have fun solving. She cast a self-conscious glance down at the photos of the dead man on her screen. Perhaps ‘fun’ might be the wrong word.
CHAPTER 18
VAPOR
FX STOOD ON the seventh-floor balcony of a derelict apartment building, looking down at the alleyway below, where the white van was turning a corner and disappearing from sight. Scope stood to his right, leaning her arms on the railing. It was nearly noon and the sun made hard sharp shapes of the shadows between the buildings. Across from the two rat-runners, on the other side of the alley, was a newly refurbished five-story office block whose near side was still encased in scaffolding. The scaffolding was wrapped in plastic, as it was being used by a sandblasting team who were cleaning the outside of the building.
“That’s gotta be it,” Scope said.
“What’s the stuff called again?” FX asked.
“Garnet,” she replied. “It’s often used to replace silica sand in sandblasting operations. Fewer health risks for the guys using it. But it still makes a mess. Even with the plastic sheeting, bits of it are going to get everywhere. This has got to be the place.”
FX nodded. He was still disappointed that he hadn’t solved this himself, but there was no denying that she’d cracked it when he couldn’t.
The phone Nimmo had taken from Frank Krieger had divulged only three phone numbers. There were no names listed. FX had found the service providers for all three numbers, and pulled the records. The positions of the phones had only been recorded intermittently across London—obviously these guys were careful, and pulled the batteries when they didn’t want to make calls. But all three phones had been used in this part of the city a number of times, on the Greenwich docks, not far from the Blackwall Tunnel. That was as close as he could get to finding a specific location. When he had hacked into the city’s camera network—the privately owned ones, not the WatchWorld installations—he
had been able to follow the van carrying Krieger and his partner back to this area, but then they had disappeared. That had been damned odd, until FX discovered that camera feeds had been interfered with. There was a hacker working ahead of him, covering the tracks of the van. Any footage showing the van once it entered Greenwich had been edited out. FX found that a little bit scary. Impressive, but scary. These guys were really good.
Scope had found him sitting at his desk, staring at the phone. He had entertained such high hopes that it would provide answers. Instead, all he had were more questions. It was Scope who had thought to examine the phone itself. She had discovered a distinctive kind of dust in the grooves and buttons. Just looking at the phone, the stuff had been barely detectable to the human eye, but once wiped off and enlarged under the microscope, she had been able to identify it.
“Garnet,” FX said softly.
Alluvial garnet grains were used for sandblasting the exteriors of buildings, removing the stains left by pollution. FX had checked the street cameras. There was only one building in that area undergoing sandblasting. As luck would have it, they had arrived just in time to see Krieger and his partner driving away down the alley in their van.
“So what now?” Scope asked.
“We take a closer look,” FX responded.
“Carefully. Really, really carefully.”
“What about Nimmo and Manikin? This is more their bag, don’t you think? Want to call them in?”
“Do you?”
Scope shook her head. She was tired of being stuck inside all the time.
“Right,” FX said tightly. “Then let’s go.”
Manikin and Nimmo had both been out when Scope had made her discovery, so she and FX had taken this bit of reconnaissance upon themselves. Following the rat-runs through the city, they had found their way here to this condemned apartment block overlooking their target. From the sides of the building that had no scaffolding, they could see that the windows of the first three floors were barred, but the floors above were less secure. FX was confident he could get in on the fourth floor. A two-and-a-half-meter-high hoarding surrounded the base of the scaffold, the top half of the boards coated with greasy red anti-climb paint. He and Scope would have to get over those boards to reach the scaffold. There was no easy way of grabbing hold of the scaffolding bars, since they were covered by the taut plastic sheeting. The plastic was filthy, nearly impossible to see through, but there was a rip in the sheeting at the level of the second floor, above the hoarding. It was small, but big enough for an agile twelve- or thirteen-year-old to push through.
