Jack nodded. “She watched him do it. Booth was terrified.”
The pathways faded. Jack faced the prospect of losing himself in the fractured remnant. He withdrew his fingers.
“Excellent,” Burnfield said, smiling. “You’ve done a fantastic job.”
Something slotted into place. Jack remembered the man’s voice from the HALO conversation. How could he have forgotten? He’d only heard it yesterday. “He was talking to Adam, my handler.”
“What’s a handler doing talking to him?”
Jack looked at the body, focused on the clean contours around his eye sockets. “Booth had been a remnant keeper once, but there’s no implants. He’s gone through the reversal process.”
Jack looked around the room for somewhere to wash his hands. He hurried to the sink and scrubbed, using the lemon soap from the dispenser. The water almost scalded him but he didn’t much care, holding his hands under the taps for as long as he could bear.
“We need to find Indira,” said Burnfield.
Jack finished washing his hands and used the drier on the wall. “I don’t know how to break this, but she can do what Anna could.”
Anna Lovett, aka, Gwenith McKean was the country’s first positively identified telepath. The woman who’d orchestrated the death of his wife had powers far beyond what the traditional telepath scale measured.
Jack continued, “Anna could put thoughts into your head. Twist your perception. She made me think she’d been shot in the head.”
“I remember,” Burnfield said, “And you think that’s how Indira made Booth terrified of rats?”
“I don’t know what else to suggest.” Jack came to stand by the body, then not bearing to look into the dead man’s face anymore, he lifted the sheet and let it drop gently back over Booth’s features.
“It’s a big leap, Jack.”
“It makes sense.”
“And that’s what scares me to death,” Burnfield said, running his hand through his hair. “How are we meant to deal with people that can do this? What else did you see? Did she say anything to Booth at the pub that might help?”
Jack wished there had been. “The images weren’t that clear. Everything moved so fast.”
“And what about this lab? Was that where he worked?”
“I think so,” Jack replied.
“Where was it, were there any windows? Anything that could help us find the place.”
“I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything like that.”
Burnfield sighed and suddenly looked to the doors, as if he’d heard something.
“We still don’t know why she took his eyes,” Jack said. “This can’t be about her protecting her identity. Booth knew something she wanted.”
“If she’s that powerful a telepath, why couldn’t she just scan him to get the information she wanted?”
Jack had been thinking about this since he’d been inside the simulacrum of Booth’s home. “I think it’s to do with the conditioning. The adjusters have done something to Booth’s mind to make it difficult to read.”
“We need to find that lab,” Burnfield said. “Find out what Booth was doing there. I’m sending a car to pick up your handler. He knows the victim. But most importantly, we’re going to track down Indira.”
The morgue doors opened behind them. A woman strolled in. “There’s no need to track me down, gentlemen. I’m right here.”
Jack’s heart froze as he stared at the newcomer.
Indira.
3:12 PM
Burnfield was the first to react. He had a stun gun in his hand before Indira had taken another step into the morgue.
“You’re not going to need that,” she said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Burnfield replied. “Where’s Oswald?”
“Taking a nap.”
Indira wasn’t alone. A man stepped from the corridor behind her into the light. It had been a couple of weeks since Jack had last seen Frazier Growden and the sight of him now made him want to run.
“I see you’ve been making progress with our friend Booth here.” Growden’s chiselled smile chilled Jack to the core.
“I’m arresting the pair of you for the murder of Booth Maguire—”
Growden brought out a stun gun and fired at the detective. Burnfield collapsed in a heap.
Indira glared in Jack’s direction and Jack knew he was in terrible trouble. They weren’t interested in Burnfield; they’d come for him.
Growden walked into the room. “All right, fella. I reckon you and I have unfinished business.” Jack edged his way behind the trolley with Booth’s corpse.
“I’m not going with you,” and there was the most incredible pain shooting across the back of his head. “Get out of my head!” He focused on his blocking patterns but felt her stronger mind, ripping them aside almost as fast as he could build new constructs.
