by John Macken
‘Out of harm’s way.’
‘Enough, Reuben. Sort yourself out, man. Mud-slinging is hardly going to help you at this stage.’ Commander Robert Abner glanced sideways at Sarah and Phil. ‘Is there anything more either of you two want to say?’ His subordinate officers shook their heads slowly, almost sadly. ‘OK. Dr Maitland, I have a written statement to read to you.’
Reuben avoided the Commander’s eye. He knew what was coming, the words that had been catching him up for over a week. Once, a couple of years previously, he had sat where Sarah was now, part of a panel reading a grossly incompetent CID officer his marching orders. While Robert Abner went through the motions of dismissal, Reuben focused into the dark greyness of his suit, acknowledging that his time at GeneCrime was over, knowing that Sarah Hirst and Phil Kemp would soon be vying to take control of his section, appreciating that everything he had ever worked for was slipping away from him for ever.
Reuben didn’t wait to hear the end of the announcement. He stood up and swung the door open. A CID officer escorted him out of the building in silence, past his laboratories, his office, the lockers . . . As he walked, the only positive thought amidst the pressing defeat was that Predictive Phenotyping existed solely on his personal laptop. In firing him, GeneCrime was losing the one technology it had been crying out for. The small dab of speed he had taken earlier began to run out of steam. They turned towards the exit. Reuben breathed deeply, taking a last drag of the building with him. He didn’t stop until he rounded the street corner, letting the breath escape, the final remnant of GeneCrime seeping out of his body.
3
After the Formica blankness of his hotel room, Reuben found his mother’s lounge even more cluttered and fussy than usual. He ran his fingers over his still-bandaged knuckles, feeling for the stitches that were slowly dissolving into his flesh. In the two weeks since his dismissal from the Forensic Science Service, he had rarely ventured further than a series of bars. The fortnight had lasted an age. Fragments of its truths stayed with him, playing themselves in endless loops of regret, anger and hurt. Through the sickness, the loneliness and the encroaching depression he had reached a momentous decision. But it had left him incredibly low, so much so that he had craved the comfort of maternal support.
Despite Reuben’s silence, Ina Maitland continued to talk regardless, and he struggled to pick up the thread, distracted by the haunting image of an open wrap of speed. He tightened his aching fist. Reuben recognized that nothing in his life could truly get better until he got better. This was the first full week of cold turkey. He knew that amphetamines weren’t excessively addictive, but all the same, they were clawing at him. Cold sweats, itchy skin, nausea, his teeth feeling raw, his heartbeat erratic . . . Reuben struggled for composure in the stifling front room, with its slow-ticking clock, which thudded through the still air.
‘So you don’t feel the need?’
‘What?’ Reuben asked, pulling himself back from the craving.
‘To drink.’
‘Not to excess.’
‘A thing like that can ruin a life. Your father always said that. Even when they had him in and out of hospital.’
The dainty cup in Reuben’s hand rattled against its saucer and he put it on the table. As ever, the picture of his father beamed down from the mantelpiece. It was a drunk’s smile, an addict’s smile, sad and desperate, the eyes focusing elsewhere. In his father’s face, Reuben saw the root of his own self-destruction.
‘Look, Mum, it’s time I came clean. Lucy and I are splitting up.’
Ina Maitland held her son’s eye. ‘Go on,’ she said.
The clock ticked lazily. ‘She was having an affair. With a work colleague.’
‘The bitch . . . Oh, God. What about Joshua? What’s going to happen to the poor lamb?’
‘Lucy’s filing for custody. She says she’s going to fight to keep me away from him. An exclusion order if she can.’
‘But, surely, if she was the one having the affair . . .’
‘It’s more fucking complicated than that,’ Reuben snapped. He hadn’t meant to, but he was raw and trembling. He had an acute need for pain relief, for the bitter powder which would make him immune. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, Reuben. I thought you were so happy.’
‘So did I.’
‘Poor Joshua. And what are you going to do about the house?’
‘She’s going to put it up for sale.’ He could hardly bear to say her name.
‘And all your things?’
‘Storage. Till I get myself sorted.’
‘You know you’re always welcome to stay here.’
‘It’s a one-bedroom flat, Mum.’
‘All the same . . .’
‘I’ll be fine.’
The clock beat out long slow seconds. Reuben’s muscles twitched sporadically. It would be so easy not to think, not to feel, not to hurt. Get back to the hotel, ring a dealer, buy a few wraps, as uncut as possible, let a couple of days melt away, oblivious to the head-fuck of no wife, no kid, no job, no house. He picked up the cup and made himself drink its tepid tea, eyes closed, regaining control. Reuben stayed like that until his heart slowed and his muscles ceased spasming.
Misreading his discomfort, Ina Maitland decided to change the subject. ‘Your brother seems to be doing well for himself,’ she said. ‘Came round again the other day.’ Ina smiled, a youthful grin which enlivened her whole face.
Reuben looked down at his aching fist.
‘He said you don’t see much of each other these days.’
‘Would have been good to see him.’
‘You’ve got to keep in touch with your brother.’
‘I would. Only Aaron . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’ll keep in touch.’
‘Nice clothes and everything. Even offered to lend me some cash.’
‘And did he?’
‘I said no. But still . . .’
Reuben opened his eyes. At last his thoughts found something else to occupy themselves. He bit into an already well-worn thumbnail. Aaron with money could only mean one thing.
4
Aaron stood under a tree, smoking a cigarette. It was a thin roll-up with a hint of cannabis. A few drags and it was all over. He dropped it on the tarmac and dragged his trainer rapidly back and forth across it, shredding the paper and spilling the guts of its remaining tobacco. At his feet sat a baby’s car-seat. Wrapped tightly inside a white blanket lay a doll with glassy blue eyes which stared up at Aaron, unnerving him slightly.
Aaron watched intently, waiting for his chance. A busy London nursery, with cars pulling in and out of the walled parking bay. Hassled parents extracting infants from seat restraints, persuading them in the direction of the door. Glancing at watches, tense encouragements, ‘Come on, Fabian, Daddy’s going to be late’, tugging slightly at the wrist.
For the sake of camouflage, Aaron wore a smart suit jacket and a pair of clean jeans. City casual, he told himself. The kind of clothes that demanded no further inspection from nursery parents, an outfit that said, Let’s talk business, but let’s do it in a coffee shop. Aaron snorted at the sheer rigidity of middle-class impressions. The dogged adherence to the idiom ‘clothes maketh the man’. Still. In the twenty-first century. Lawyers in pinstripes, doctors in sports jackets, architects in collarless shirts, bankers in dark suits and black shoes. As if the last thirty years of labour changes had never happened. Uniforms for the uninformed. He nudged the car-seat forwards slightly, so that the doll’s eyes lolled shut, unable to worry his consciousness with their dead, unblinking gaze.
A silver Mercedes stopped a few yards away, and Aaron leant back out of view, obscured by foliage. The mother within – pretty, busy, smart – lifted a one-year-old out and carried her towards the front door. Aaron craned his neck to get a better view of the car’s interior and swore to himself. He took out another pre-rolled. It was raining, and the dampness seemed to invade the cigarette,
making it hard to light. He persevered and checked the time. Eight-twenty-five. Peak kid-dumping time. Aaron clenched and unclenched his fists, readying himself.
A few drags later, an oversized Mitsubishi SUV entered the car park, and Aaron watched as a father of three attempted to round all his children up and encourage them forwards. This was no easy endeavour. Aaron wondered momentarily why anyone would put themselves through the lunacy of reproduction. The father was becoming flustered as various children wandered in opposite directions while he struggled with bags and nappies and bottles of milk. By his clothes, the man worked in finance. No normal person would look so solemn if he wasn’t paid to do so. Finally, his flock were cajoled away from the spotless off-roader and into the building.
Aaron threw down his cigarette, picked up the car-seat and ambled over to the vehicle. He pulled a rear door open and slotted the baby-seat in. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat. The keys were in the ignition. Aaron started the diesel engine and reversed slowly out of the space. If you needed distracted people, ones who would routinely leave valuables, briefcases and, occasionally, car keys in their vehicles, nurseries were the place to come. Easy pickings. And the more exclusive the nursery, he had learnt, the more distracted the parents and the better the cars. Aaron picked his way slowly across the car park, even stopping to let someone pull out ahead. He knew that dropping off children was never a quick event. Aaron also suspected that the nursery’s CCTV system didn’t record to tape. Either way, the trick was not to hurry or attract any attention. To blend in with the other parents. And in a nursery, there was no better way to ensure invisibility than by carrying an infant in a car-cot and driving slowly out, paranoid about running over someone else’s brat.
On the main road, Aaron took a few moments to examine the interior of the Mitsubishi. A year or so old with less than ten thousand on the clock. A sought-after 4 × 4. He turned down a side street, slamming the heavy vehicle over a series of speed bumps, which did little to impede its momentum. In a matter of minutes, he was heading out of Chelsea, away into more familiar territory. Aaron pictured the father of three pacing around the car park, staring at the empty parking space in mild disbelief, shaking his head, making certain, charging back to the front door, ringing the bell insistently, striding in and demanding someone call the police, desperately trying to picture the fucker who had taken his pride and joy . . .
Aaron smiled. He would only own the car for a matter of hours, until he passed it on. But they would be sweet hours of victory. Before that, he would have to wipe the surfaces down for fingerprints, make sure he left no forensic evidence of his time behind the wheel. And then, enough cash for a fortnight of excess.
5
From the top deck, the bus took corners impossibly wide, seeming almost to hover over the pavements and roads below. As Judith Meadows talked, Reuben looked down on the heads of shoppers scurrying along, fighting for room, a clawing tangle of movement, pressing in conflicting directions. The bus swayed violently through a junction and Reuben gripped the metal bar in front of him. His attention switched to the knuckles of his right hand. Six weeks had seen the broken bones reconciled, the cuts stitch themselves closed, the swelling subside, and the lingering ache of contact with his living-room wall confine itself to memory. But it had been a slow process, an unrelenting pain which nagged at him, reminding him, healing with stubborn reluctance. He shook himself free from that night and the ensuing six weeks of a life which had been sucked inside out. While the bus staggered and tottered like a drunk, Reuben tried to lose himself in Judith’s words.
‘I told them I was cataloguing a few of our old cases, clearing the freezer room, et cetera, and I noticed that several inventories were incomplete.’ Judith was wearing a pale-blue blouse that Reuben had never noticed when he was at GeneCrime. The colour suited her. He pictured her picking her way through the crowds to buy it, flitting untouched between heavier, sturdier shoppers, nimble and quick. ‘So Sarah asked which cases, and I said the Hitch-Hiker Killer, the Edelstein rape, a couple of others.’
‘And this rang alarm bells?’
‘You’d have thought so. She just said that they were closed, punters in jail, and a few tubes here and there wouldn’t make a lot of odds.’
‘What else?’
‘Asked me to keep it to myself. Said she didn’t want the rest of the team getting excited about the fact that a few tubes might have been mislaid.’ Judith turned in her seat to face Reuben. ‘I’m beginning to believe you’re not quite as paranoid as I once thought.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Look, this is the leading forensics centre in the country. It’s either unforgivably sloppy, or . . .’
‘What?’
‘You know what I’m saying. You’ve said it before yourself. Not in so many words, but when our reagents started getting used up, it was there in your eyes, in what you didn’t quite spell out to us.’
‘You trust the team, though?’
‘Most of them. But GeneCrime’s a big unit. A lot of people have access to the labs, the samples and the databases.’ Judith toyed with her wedding ring, twisting it round her finger. ‘It’s not inconceivable, that’s all.’
Reuben hesitated for what seemed to be long minutes, weighing up whether to involve Judith. In the weeks since he had lost everything he held precious, a new purpose had begun to form. From a budding, embryonic thought, it was starting to kick and thrash. Reuben’s restless yearning for truth was gradually forcing him back to life. Day by day, he was piecing himself back together. Coping.
‘You know, Jude, the more I think about it, the more I suspect I just gave them the excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway. Large factions of GeneCrime wanted rid of me, even before I went.’
‘Why, though?’
‘I don’t know. But I intend to find out.’
Judith stared hard at him, a critical look which came from years of scientific rigour. ‘But if you couldn’t prove anything while you were there, what chance do you stand now?’
‘I’ll call you next week,’ Reuben answered, making the decision. ‘There’s someone you should meet.’
6
The following week, on an overcast day in June, Reuben stepped reluctantly into a packed betting shop in Waterloo. The single word ‘Loser’ hung in the stale cigarette smoke swirling from the tips of a hundred roll-ups. All the men except one faced the same direction, searching the TV screens, quiet desperation in their bloodshot eyes, shallow excitement in their drawn faces. Near the counter stood a fat, untidy man, who seemed to have little interest in the horse races, football scores or greyhound results lighting up the screens. Reuben approached him, trying to gauge from his body language what his answer would be.
‘Hey, Moray,’ he said, shaking his hand. ‘A betting shop?’
Moray Carnock glanced around himself as if noticing the place for the first time. ‘Believe me, there’s a good reason.’
‘So you’ve had a few days to decide.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Well, what do you think?’
Moray narrowed his eyes, peering at Reuben from behind dark, bushy eyebrows. ‘Poor background. Good education. Sometimes unsure of yourself. Awkward, like by rights you shouldn’t be what you are. Classic case. Working-class boy betters his parents but struggles with his identity.’
‘I mean about the proposal.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, you are the proposal. Tell me, what did your father do?’
‘Scotch, mainly.’ Moray laughed and Reuben saw this as a good sign. ‘So what about you?’
‘Now, I am posh. Daddy was an architect, Mummy a GP. I’m just slumming for kicks.’
Reuben struggled to see Moray as anything but the down-at-heel slob he appeared to be. ‘OK. Seriously though.’
‘Seriously? There are issues. And I’m worried about your mental state.’
‘It’s a passing thing. Catastrophic few weeks.’
‘Aye, well. It had better be, b
ecause—’
‘Hang on,’ Reuben interrupted. ‘Here she is. Let me do the talking.’
Reuben caught Judith Meadows’s attention as she entered the shop. Judith skirted around the hypnotized punters staring into banks of monitors. As she reached him, Reuben said, ‘This is Moray Carnock. Moray, this is Judith Meadows. I guess we should talk.’
Judith shook the man’s hand. It was soft and yielding, quite at odds with his rough appearance.
‘Moray’s a corporate security consultant.’
‘Right.’
‘Knows a lot of people with very specific problems.’
‘How do you two know each other?’
‘We met a couple of months ago in a bar, when I was working on a case. Moray had some information that might have been of use. For the right sum of money, of course. Told him where to get off.’
‘And then came crawling back.’
‘Yeah, well. It wasn’t exactly through choice. Judith, the idea is that Moray acts as the point of contact when—’
‘Look,’ Moray interrupted, ‘let’s cut to the chase. I hate betting shops.’
As they talked, customers came and left the shop. No one appeared happy. Even those approaching the counter to cash their winnings seemed edgy and unsatisfied, as if this was just a temporary reprieve which would soon be followed by more misery.
‘So, overall, what do you think of Reuben’s idea, Mr Carnock?’ Judith asked.
‘Good and bad, depending on your perspective.’ Moray turned to Reuben, his voice struggling to be heard over the background grind of defeat. ‘To do what you’re proposing, you’re going to have to effectively disappear. Go underground. No house, car, insurance, tax, no credit cards, nothing. Anonymous hotels . . . A lab well out of view.’
Judith ran her eyes quickly over the rotund Scotsman. ‘Why so cautious?’
‘We’re not talking about testing for colour-blindness here. If you’re going after the big game you need to stay well out of the way.’
