by John Macken
The man didn’t react.
‘Let you out, did they?’
The man remained silent, focusing into the carpet.
‘I’ve seen some bottle in my time, but this . . .’
He still didn’t look up.
‘I’m talking to you,’ Jimmy screamed, pushing the knife so that its tip touched the man’s crooked nose. ‘The police will be here soon.’ The blade made a small indent. ‘But not soon enough.’
‘Put the knife down,’ the man answered quietly.
‘You don’t give the fucking orders here. In fact you don’t fucking come back here and expect to live.’ Jimmy lowered the blade, tracing along the silhouette of the man’s face, until it plunged off his chin and dug into his neck. A small red line appeared, where it had bitten into the skin.
‘Put the knife down,’ the man repeated, staring straight ahead.
‘In this very fucking room. You animal.’
‘I won’t ask you again.’
Jimmy stifled a laugh and then felt a sudden surge of anger. He retracted the blade a fraction and stabbed it into the man’s neck. Except that as he did so, the wrought-iron table lifted instantaneously, crashing into his elbows and forcing the knife up and away. A second later and a vice-like grip had torn the bayonet from his hands. He felt his hair rip as his face smashed into an adjacent table. As his lungs fought to breathe, he inhaled the stale powder of an overflowing ashtray, and felt a thin film of decaying beer under his cheek. Jimmy fought to see the man, but he was behind him, pinning him down. The grip was as heavy and solid as the table. Seconds passed. Jimmy strained his ears. He heard the rumble and whoosh of traffic. He willed a car to stop, the police to rush out, DCI Kemp to take the man down. Then his hair began to tear in a different direction, pulling his face up to its normal elevation, his chin pushed into the table, his eyes running across its surface. Jimmy’s bowels fought to push their cold liquid out of him, and his legs shook uncontrollably. Then the man spoke.
‘Lick it up,’ he said.
A stain of beer had half dried into the varnished wood and mingled with ash and dust. Jimmy felt sick. He yearned to scream. But instead, self-preservation kicked in. Through his half-closed teeth his tongue snaked out as far as it would go. The surface was cold and sticky. He licked back and forth, tasting the bitterness.
‘More,’ the man whispered.
Jimmy poked his tongue as far as he could. He urged the police to kick through the door, told himself he was simply playing for time, refused to believe he was utterly terrified, tried not to see the events of that fateful night. Then the man pushed down on his head, forcing his jaw further into the table, making his teeth cut into his tongue. Jimmy tried to retract it, to no avail. He watched the man, still crushing his head, swivel round to face him.
‘I asked you to drop the knife,’ he said quietly. ‘And I also hoped you wouldn’t call the police.’ He lifted the bayonet up for him to inspect, but Jimmy was transfixed by the face in front of him. The cold black pupils seemed to be sucking in his discomfort, the mouth distorted by a mix of anticipation and violence.
The man holding the knife felt himself swell. His mouth flooded with saliva and he pulled in deep, wet breaths. A rush of energy made him tingle, all the way down to the tip of his glans. It was in these moments that he was alive, truly alive, in the way that animals in the kill are alive. He saw the purity of pain, the cock-tensing pleasure of watching another being experience the power of his rage. His torso stiffened, his stomach flattened and his toes curled. He recognized in himself a leonine power and a desire for flesh. He understood that he was his father’s son. In these instants of mania, of bloodlust, this fact only served to make him stronger. He licked the bayonet, slowly running his tongue along its under-surface, and pictured steel penetrating meat, again and again. The metallic essence lingered in the back of his throat. He reached the point, and pressed it into his lip. When he was this excited, he was immune to hurt. He pushed until it breached the skin, a warm trickle of red running down his face. The man monitored the effect this had on his captive, and experienced a fresh rush of excitement. He pictured the times he had been in the barman’s place, almost wanting to be wounded himself, just to feel the smart of fresh agony as his father laid into him. He began to visualize the possibilities, his eyes watering, daydreaming about what he might do. He pictured deep, sawing cuts, sneaking glimpses of bones and intestines, repeated lacerations, the ebbing away of one existence as another grew in strength. And then, spiking through his sweet stupor came the sour prick of a siren. His eyes blinked rapidly, flicking through options. He scanned the room, tensing his solid frame, ready. He looked down at his prisoner. And, having lingered as long as he safely could, he brought the knife down hard.
For Jimmy Dunst, there was a second of nothingness. His brain frantically tried to calculate what was wrong. He stood outside himself, surveying his body, finding what the problem was, knowing only that pain was on its way. A numbness, which leaked into an ache, which grew colder and sharper, and pierced his consciousness, until the agony was all he could feel. There was the squeal of hard-braking tyres. With his peripheral vision he saw DCI Kemp burst in through the door, but something was in his line of sight. Phil shouted at him, but Jimmy was unable to answer. The words started in his throat but got no further. He began to scream.
‘Where the fuck is he?’ Phil yelled, scanning the bar wildly. He saw three potential exits that led into the back yard or directly into the street. He turned to his deputy. ‘Call an ambulance. The rest of you, round the back. I’ll watch the front. He can’t be far. Christ. Someone help him.’
Jimmy continued to scream, but it was strangled. He started to see the problem, and it scared the shit out of him. Phil Kemp put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re sure it was him?’ he asked, surveying the bayonet and knowing already that it was.
The barman shrieked and cried as fresh agonies spasmed through his tongue.
‘You’re sure it was him?’ Phil asked again. He listened to the scurry of boots across the wooden floor, the slamming of doors, the muffled shouts. Phil knew that if they were going to catch him, they would have done so by now.
Jimmy gripped the table, watching his blood leak across the surface he had just cleaned. Phil hovered, putting his fingers close to the handle of the bayonet, and then taking them away again. ‘Fuck,’ he repeated. ‘Fuck. In this pub of all places.’ As the barman continued to scream, Phil closed his eyes tight and rubbed his face. ‘In this fucking pub,’ he repeated, ‘in this fucking pub.’ A shocked WPC approached and glanced cautiously at DCI Kemp.
‘He seems to have got away, sir,’ she said.
Phil glared at her, knowing they had missed him by seconds. ‘Bag the handle,’ he ordered, ‘and then pull the fucker out.’
The WPC peered dubiously at the bayonet impaling the barman’s tongue, which was firmly wedged into the table. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
Phil shot the WPC and the barman murderous looks. ‘Just do it,’ he said.
Jimmy Dunst closed his eyes and swallowed a mouthful of blood. He sensed the blade move sideways as the WPC took hold of it. He screwed up his eyes, ready. This was going to hurt.
2
‘So, are you going to ring Sarah Hirst, or shall I?’ Reuben asked, tension straining his voice.
Judith Meadows held up her hand.
‘I mean, the sooner we get the information to GeneCrime . . .’
‘Wait. Patience. We need to be certain first.’ Judith always needed to be certain. Sometimes when the obvious was staring at her, too many years of scientific rigour refused to believe it. Judith’s instinct was often overwhelmed by her training. The attitude that something wasn’t definite until all other avenues have been investigated was characteristic of the Forensic Service. There was even a term for it: disproving hypotheses. Judith spent a frustratingly large amount of her time disproving hypotheses. It was, she felt, a crushingly pessimistic way to live, but it had taken root, and now en
snared all of her thought processes. ‘Look, let’s double-check before we do anything hasty.’ She stepped back a pace and ran her eyes repeatedly across the projected face.
‘And?’ Reuben asked irritably. He hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours. And now this.
‘Stop talking. I’m just making a hundred per cent sure.’
‘Come on. You know it and I know it.’
‘A few more seconds, that’s all.’ Judith continued to peer at the Pheno-Fit of the killer. Although she knew the answer, and had done from the second the Predictive Phenotyping crystallized, there was another potential conclusion, one she was sure Reuben hadn’t spotted. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘I reckon we can be certain.’
Reuben slumped on a lab stool. This was a head-fuck. His fatigued brain circled and circled around the truth, never quite landing on it. He wanted Judith to leave so that he could sleep. He would worry about the consequences later. She had other ideas, however.
‘I just don’t understand,’ she muttered, half to herself.
Reuben watched her go through the mental gymnastics, wondering if he would detect a change in her body language. Surely one of the strongest possibilities would occur to her, and frighten her. Judith pulled a strand of hair away from her mouth. She walked back and forth, occasionally stopping and tapping her right foot rapidly. After a couple of minutes, she said, ‘I see five options.’
‘Which are?’
‘One. You contaminated the samples with your own genetic material.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Two. Your Predictive Phenotyping is bollocks.’
Reuben shrugged. ‘Three?’
‘You have accidentally been sent the wrong samples.’
‘No way of knowing. But it’s doubtful.’
‘Four. You are a cold-hearted murderer with a grudge against forensic scientists, bumping your ex-colleagues off one by one . . . In which case I should leave.’ Judith squinted at Reuben, who felt a flood of affection. In this moment he wanted to lunge forwards and wrap his arms around her. Instead, he dragged his eyes away.
‘And five?’ he asked.
‘It’s not you.’
Reuben swivelled to examine the picture once again. It was there, down to the hair colour, the nose length, the chin cleft, the eyebrows . . . the lot. On the screen was an almost identical image of his face. The eyes were a little dark, the jaw on the jowled side and the earlobes too padded, but it was like staring into a virtual mirror. In fact, when Reuben had first looked at the visage, he wondered why it didn’t move when he did. He was also disconcerted by the fact that the face appeared fresher than his own. Clearly, he had quickly reasoned, his phenotype had lived harder than his genotype had designed. But all of this was inconsequential compared to the real issue. His own technology predicted that he was the killer.
Judith’s words struggled through the cacophony of his thoughts and finally made themselves heard. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘It’s not you on the screen.’
Reuben examined Judith’s face for clues. ‘So who else is it?’
‘Someone who shares your DNA.’
Aaron. The single word crashed into Reuben’s consciousness.
‘I remember you telling me once that you have a brother. Whom you’re not close to any more. Well, how alike are you?’
‘Physically?’
‘Yes.’
Reuben stared into the dull brickwork. He hadn’t seen Aaron for nearly three years. ‘Reasonably similar.’
‘How similar?’
‘He had the brains and I had the looks . . .’
‘But could this be a picture of him?’
He glanced up, scanning the features hard, trying to see them differently. As he did, key fragments of his adolescence played themselves within his optic centres. He saw his brother happy, angry, indifferent, protective, destructive and unfathomable. Born only fifteen minutes before him but always a world apart. ‘No,’ he lied, ‘Aaron and I are different.’ Judith appeared slightly put out, and Reuben realized that she had been proud of her explanation. ‘I’m sorry, Sherlock, I don’t think it’s him.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘Fuck knows.’ Reuben was on the verge of exhaustion. He rubbed his face, the killer’s face.
Judith swapped her shapeless lab coat for a tight cardigan which hugged her slender figure. For the first time, Reuben saw vulnerability in her. ‘I’d better be making tracks.’
‘Right.’
‘Here, before I forget.’ Judith passed him a small plastic tube. ‘The dried-down sample.’
As Reuben took the Eppendorf, both sets of fingers lingered momentarily, skin brushing skin, a brief warmth in the contact, before he moved his hand.
‘Judith . . .’ Reuben looked into her eyes.
‘Uh-uh?’
‘You still believe in me?’
Judith stood facing him, pupils huge, not moving. He held back, longing for her, caught for a second, the warmth still in his fingers, yet knowing she was married, wondering whether his motive was simply loneliness. She stepped closer, her arms by her side, her eyes wide. ‘Yes.’
‘You sure?’
Slowly, she raised her arm and placed it on Reuben’s shoulder. ‘I always have been,’ she said, still staring into him with the faintest of smiles. Reuben tingled. She moved her other hand. He paused, fighting it. Then he leant forwards and kissed her.
Instantly, they were in each other’s mouths. Wet desperate kisses. Pulling at clothes. Grabbing at flesh. Lifting her on to the cold lab bench. Riding her skirt up. Opening her blouse, frantic and needy. Swiping away the clutter. Tubes and racks and tips cascading on to the floor. Sensing her yearning. Her abandoned, almost rough, touches. Widening her legs. Kissing her neck. Moving her knickers. Pushing into her. Hearing her sighs. Images of Lucy. Judith’s eyes screwed shut. Her palms down on the lab bench. Pushing against him. Flashes of his wife. Judith getting louder. Sighs becoming moans. Neck arched, cheeks red, mouth open, fingers grabbing the edge of the bench. Reuben starting. The itch, the ache, the burning, the tightening. Eyes wide. Trying to escape Lucy. Pushing and pushing, teeth clenched, muscles spasming, time stopping . . . Breathing. Quiet. Holding her. Beginning to sense her discomfort. Stepping slowly back and hitching up his jeans. Silence. Deep, laboratory silence. Barely looking at each other. The hum of a train. Judith standing up and readjusting her skirt and cardigan.
‘Are you OK?’ Reuben began.
‘I’d better go,’ she answered, flushed and awkward.
‘I just . . .’
Judith pecked him on the cheek. ‘I know.’ With an edgy smile, she made for the door.
‘Judith . . .’
‘I’ve really got to go,’ she repeated. Judith left the lab and picked her way hurriedly out of the building.
Reuben stayed where he was, trying not to think about what had just happened. He blinked slowly, in a dream-like state. It had been almost automatic, two needy humans slaking their thirsts, rapid and unthinking. A few moments of pleasure after years of business. And then nothing. Judith leaving before he’d even got his breath back.
After a couple of quiet minutes, he walked back to the computer. However depressing, loneliness was at least simple. In a corner of the lab lay a mattress and a sleeping bag. Next to it, propped on a packing crate, the half-finished face of an oriental male. Reuben hesitated. Despite his exhaustion, a nervous energy tingled within him. He had two options, and he drummed his fingers as he worked through them. First, he could discard the evidence of the Predictive Phenotyping, and pretend the technique had failed. This would not solve the problem, however. Sarah Hirst would ask him to repeat it. Reuben scratched the back of his hand with three days’ worth of stubble, and sighed Judith’s name. The second option was tantamount to suicide. But, as he thought about it, the only alternative. He opened his email and typed a message.
sarah, attached the results of pp. ring me when youve thought what this means
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He deliberated over the words for a couple of seconds, then added,
think about the reason I have sent this to you
Reuben inserted the words ‘dirty science’ into the Subject box. He attached the Pheno-Fit picture, grimaced and pressed Send. He was tense and edgy, pacing slowly towards his makeshift bed alone. Tell the truth, he muttered to himself. Always tell the truth. No matter what the consequences. As he tossed and turned, urging his body to ignore the adrenalin pricking at his heart, his brother began to appear increasingly. Coming home in squad cars in the early hours as a teenager, his mother’s exasperation, his father’s drunken indifference, the solvents, the cannabis, the ecstasy, passing Reuben small wraps of amphetamine under the kitchen table, refusing to meet Reuben’s eye at their father’s funeral. The phrase which had marked him like a tattoo: Too clever for his own good. Reuben screwed his eyes and forced his breathing to slow. Too clever for his own good.
3
The new information arrived in Phil Kemp’s office through the wires of his phone and into his red, spongy ear, courtesy of Sun reporter Colin Megson. What was significant was that it hadn’t come via the usual routes. Even amongst the media frenzy for knowledge, any knowledge, the police usually got there first. Phil often wondered if there would be more newshounds than detectives soon. It was an increasingly close-run thing. And today was a case in point. The media knew before the police.
Megson played hard to get. Phil, who had taken the call languishing with his feet on the desk, straightened bit by bit until he was sitting bolt upright with his shoes pushing hard into the carpet. ‘Cut to the chase,’ he growled, on the verge of losing his temper.
The hack continued to play the situation for all it was worth. ‘As I say, Chief Inspector, all in good time. But first, you have to help me. A few details of the other two. That’s all.’
‘Look, Megson, don’t mess with me. I’m a bad enemy to have.’
‘Easy, plod. I’m only trying to get my back scratched.’
‘Besides, I’m going to know very soon.’
