Lethal Outbreak (7 page)

As soon as Troy saw Lexi’s overnight results, even before breakfast, he arranged to meet her outside Precious Austin’s house. ‘To catch a worm,’ he said on the phone, ‘you’ve got to be an early bird. Bring your evidence bags and something to scrape paint.’

Waiting for his partner by the front garden, Troy watched bees investigating the wallflowers and primroses. When Lexi arrived, she asked, ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Didn’t you see what Precious had at the bottom of her back garden?’

‘No.’

‘A motorbike – with plenty of chrome.’

Lexi smiled. ‘I’ve always fancied riding one. I like the way they take corners. I’d like to feel that sort of speed with one knee centimetres from the road surface.’

‘Just scrape the paintwork, not your knee.’

Precious Austin was not pleased to see the two detectives again, but she didn’t seem surprised. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘I use a chrome-type spray paint. I like to keep the bike looking good. Why?’

Ignoring her question, Troy asked, ‘Have you still got the spray can?’

‘No. Do you want to go into my workshop to prove it?’

‘No. Lexi will just take a sample off the bike.’

‘What?’ She looked horrified.

‘A tiny scrape will do. No one’ll notice.’

Precious glanced at Lexi. ‘Do you have to?’

‘No. I could take a great big bit instead. A scratch that everyone’ll see.’

Precious scowled at her. ‘You know what I mean. Are you being deliberately provocative?’

Troy smiled to himself. His partner
was
being deliberately provocative. She wouldn’t admit it, though. But it was what Precious deserved.

Lexi said, ‘I’ll take as much as I need – which isn’t very much.’

While Lexi went for the sample and Precious eyed her carefully from the window, Troy asked, ‘When did you leave the Shallow End job?’

‘Three weeks ago. Friday the twenty-first of March.’

‘Are you going to tell me when the members of Two Races Apart are getting together?’

‘I’ve got no idea.’

‘But you’re a member. I’ve got a witness who says so.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘A reliable witness. There’s no doubt.’

‘In that case, yes, it’s tonight at eight thirty.’

‘The community centre in the second quarter? Not far from here?’

‘So I’ve been told,’ she replied.

Afterwards, Troy looked at the small evidence bag in his partner’s hand and its streak of silver paint. ‘If it matches, it’s yet another piece of evidence against her. But does it make her look more guilty – or more innocent?’

‘Innocent?’

‘Exactly.’

‘How do you make that out?’

Troy explained, ‘I still can’t believe that someone
splattering graffiti on a sports stadium is the same person who’s threatening an outer massacre. They’re worlds apart. Would a murderer spray evidence against themselves over a public wall? It just doesn’t figure.’

‘All I do is get evidence,’ Lexi said, ‘but, if you want me to tread in your territory, what about a double bluff?’

Troy frowned. ‘You mean, she wanted us to pin the graffiti on her because we wouldn’t believe that the vandal and the murderer were the same person?’

‘Result? We dismiss her as a murder suspect.’

Troy sighed. ‘Well, she left her bike out where we’d see it, but even so … I’m not buying it. Something’s telling me … ’

‘What?’

‘It’s just too easy. She’s not a fool. Would someone so clever make it so easy?’

‘Don’t ask me. You’re the one who’s good on human behaviour. I just think if she’s that clever, she could work out a double bluff.’

Lexi worked on the paint sample while she nibbled at her breakfast, laid out in front of her like an entomologist’s display. Troy concentrated solely on his black pudding and curry sauce. By the time he’d finished, Lexi announced, ‘Hey presto. It matches. That’s not proof Precious Austin’s our graffiti artist, but it’s not bad. Do you want to arrest her on suspicion of defacing a public building?’

‘Not really,’ Troy replied, wiping his mouth. ‘I want to catch a multiple murderer who’s holding every outer on the planet to ransom.’

‘And I haven’t convinced you they’re the same person?’

‘No.’ Troy paused before asking, ‘Do you want to arrest her?’

‘No. If she’s playing a double bluff game, I don’t want her to think it’s working. It’d be better to keep her in the dark about what we’re doing.’

‘Agreed.’

‘By the way,’ Lexi added, ‘last night I went through footage from my spy cameras outside Shallow End Laboratories. Nothing.’

‘I think the horse has already bolted.’

The giant water beetle on Lexi’s plate was about seven centimetres long. It had been lightly boiled and salted. She picked it up and said, ‘Saved the best till last.’ First, she yanked off and threw away the tough and inedible wings. Next, she detached the head. Some juice oozed out as she squeezed and pulled. A few sticky strings of saliva stretched out like melted cheese as the head came off. Then she tucked into the body, sucking all of the meat out of it. ‘It’s a bit like prawn,’ she told Troy. ‘And liquorice.’ She put down the empty shell and said, ‘Now for the highlight. The head. This one’s too strong to bite through, so … ’ She used her finger to extract the lump of meat from inside and popped
it into her mouth. ‘Mmm. Like crab and liquorice.’

Troy grimaced. ‘It’s more like watching a biology practical than breakfast.’

Lexi smiled. ‘You eat prawns and lobster, don’t you? You rip them apart to get to the meat.’

‘Not if meatballs are on offer instead,’ Troy replied. He looked down at his life-logger and immediately the mood changed. ‘We’ve got another demand. Just a photo this time.’

‘Yeah.’ Lexi was looking at it on her own life-logger.

The image contained the familiar vial and cardboard background. Only the words were different.

Lexi shook her head and sighed. ‘First, the sports stadium. Now, restaurants. What next? Schools? Whole towns?’

Thinking of one of his favourite mixed restaurants, Troy muttered, ‘No way. I love The Hungry Human.’

‘This is a point of principle,’ Lexi said. ‘It’s about apartheid. Not just a threat to a diner you happen to
like.’ She transferred the image to her computer and displayed it on the large screen.

‘I was using The Hungry Human as a way of life. A place to mix. The opposite of apartheid.’ Attempting a grin, Troy added, ‘And they cook a mean sausage.’

‘The message went to Saul Tingle – like the last one – and he forwarded it to us,’ Lexi said. ‘And it’s cut-out words again – from magazines or printed out from online articles.’

‘They came from sporting pieces last time,’ Troy replied. ‘Just to rub it in. So, let’s check if these are from restaurant reviews, recipes, and that sort of thing.’

Lexi nodded. ‘Yeah. We’ll see. Good thinking.’ She hesitated, peering at the magnified image, and then said, ‘Actually, you do it while I go over this picture.’

‘I can do better than one pair of eyes. I’ll ask the commander to put fifty of her best people onto it. That’ll speed it up.’

They worked quietly and separately until Troy said, ‘I’ve just been told someone’s identified the word
DIFFERENT
. Looks like it comes from a magazine advert for a restaurant. “Fancy tasting something different?” The font, colour and size are identical. I’m
sending you the source. That’s source with an “o”, not sauce with everything.’

‘Huh.’

‘How are you getting on with the picture? Found anything?’

‘Yes,’ Lexi said. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to do the maths and I’ll show you.’

Almost exactly two minutes later, Lexi pointed at a spot at the bottom of the card, near the centre. ‘See that?’

Troy saw very little. ‘There’s a slight mark. A shadow?’

Lexi smiled. ‘I’ve enhanced it. This is what it looks like after I let loose the best software for defining shape – the sort of thing they use to map craters on the moon.’ She tapped the screen to bring up a detail of the area. ‘I found a crater in the cardboard.’

The image wasn’t entirely clear but there was definitely a small, round dent. ‘It’s got a ridge around the edge, hasn’t it?’ Troy asked. ‘And a line – not quite vertical – in the middle. Weird.’

‘I’m sure it’s the impression of a button. The card’s corrugated, so it’s soft, and I think someone wearing a long-sleeved shirt or blouse has leant on the card when they arranged the message. If the sleeve had a cuff, pressing down would leave a
dent in the shape of the button. That’s what we’ve got. The line’s the thread between the holes, I think.’

‘Fantastic. Can you measure its size?’

‘Not directly,’ Lexi replied. ‘But I measured the height of the letters of
DIFFERENT
from a life-size version of the online food magazine. That gives me a scale to work to. If I use the same ratio on the impression of the button, hey presto, it’s got a diameter of twelve millimetres. Plus or minus half a millimetre.’

‘Great. We’re looking for someone wearing a sleeve with a cuff held together by a twelve-millimetre button.’

‘Not a four-hole one. It’s a two-hole button because the thread’s just a line.’

‘Nice work,’ Troy said, nodding at his partner. ‘It’s a little needle in a big haystack, but it’s a lot better than nothing.’

‘Yeah.’

Troy pointed to the left of the impression. ‘Is that orange mark part of the cardboard?’

‘I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. It’s like a grain of sand. But I can’t do much with a photo. If I had the actual thing in front of me, I’d be able to tell you. There’s another orangey brown splodge near the top
as well.’ She shrugged, frustrated by the lack of physical evidence.

Remembering that they needed to find out if Precious Austin worked on SUMP or knew about its toxicity, Troy called Julia Neve Nineteen at Shallow End Laboratories and asked, ‘When exactly did you get the Mars soil sample? And when did you start working on it?’

‘The beginning of March.’

‘What date?’

Julia was silent for a while, obviously checking her records. ‘Tuesday the fourth.’

‘And did you start working on it straightaway?’

‘Almost. Once we’d housed it safely and split the sample between the three different cupboards, we began testing on the Wednesday.’

‘Did Precious Austin get involved?’

‘No. She was on a different line of research.’

‘Did you discover how lethal it was before she left on the twenty-first?’

‘Mmm. Let me … ’ There was a gap of about fifteen seconds before the lab supervisor replied. ‘Yes. We knew it killed outer cells by then. My notes on the eighteenth say we suspect there’s a Martian microorganism that incapacitates outers’ metabolism but doesn’t affect the cell chemistry of majors.’

‘So, Precious might well have known that result before she lost her job?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Thanks.’

Lexi listened to her partner’s conversation while she checked if she’d received any more messages. When Troy finished the call, she said, ‘Last night, I sent a request for information on what Dominic Varney had learned at the pharmaceutical lab he’d infiltrated.’

‘Didn’t he use an alias?’

‘Yes. I got that from the commander’s office first. The important thing is,’ she said, nodding towards her life-logger, ‘they’ve just told me he worked in all containment levels. Including four.’

Troy raised his eyebrows. ‘Time to go and take a look at his shirtsleeves?’

Lexi and Troy discovered Dominic Varney in his front garden. The undercover police officer turned to face Troy with a chainsaw in his hand. Just for an instant, Troy spotted annoyance in his face. When the fleeting expression vanished, Dominic nodded towards the nearest tree. ‘It’s an ash and it’s got a fungal disease. It’s coming down.’

‘That’s harsh,’ Troy replied.

Dominic shook his head. ‘When there’s an infection going round, killing off a whole species, it’s best to be ruthless. Chopping down and burning reduces the risk of it spreading.’

Troy wondered whether his attitude would be the same if a bacterium from a Martian soil sample were to infect and kill outers. ‘I’ve got to ask you what you were doing at eight o’clock on Sunday evening.’

Dominic scowled at him and then carefully put down the chainsaw at the base of the doomed tree. ‘I can’t tell you that, man.’

‘Why not?’

‘What’s made me move from witness to suspect?’

‘Hopefully just a few coincidences. You can move back again easily enough. Just tell me about Sunday night.’

‘No can do.’

‘Where were you, then? I’d be satisfied if you can prove you were well away from our crime scene, even if you won’t tell us what you were up to.’

‘No can do,’ he repeated.

The cuffs of his shirtsleeves were protruding from the arms of his jacket. While he was talking to Troy, Lexi took a sneaky photograph of the nearer cuff.

‘So, there’s something more important than getting off our list of suspects?’

‘Spot on.’

‘Okay. You know how it works. I’ve got to put you down as not having an alibi, meaning we’ll have to poke around some more.’ Troy didn’t hesitate. ‘Lexi’s
going to want to take a photo of every shirt you’ve got.’

‘You’ve got a clue, then. Some material? A make? A size?’

‘Does she have your permission to go inside and crack on?’

Dominic shrugged. ‘Be my guest. You’ll find them in the upstairs wardrobe. And maybe a couple in the washing basket. That’s the lot.’

While Lexi went inside, Troy asked, ‘How did you find working in a high-security lab?’

Realizing that Troy and Lexi had been researching his recent past, Dominic grinned. ‘Those overalls are seriously unpleasant, man. Before you know it, you fill the gloves with sweat.’

‘Yuck.’

‘Made me feel like a goldfish, looking out of a bowl.’

Troy wanted to know if Dominic still had access to a chemistry laboratory, but he didn’t ask because it was pointless. If the undercover officer was guilty, he’d deny making hi-tech sticky tape that could ooze acid. He’d deny storing a sample of alien soil too. So, his answers would be the same as an innocent person’s. Troy hoped that Lexi would quickly look for any locked or hidden rooms that could house a secret laboratory.

‘What did Commander McVeigh tell you about what we’re investigating?’

‘Very little. A serious hate crime. And that my knowledge of TRAPT might help your enquiries. That’s all. It doesn’t take much to work out that you’re looking into a major versus outer quarrel. Then, yesterday, you asked me about anyone – a major, I assume – plotting atrocities against outers. Now you’re going on about lab protection suits, I’m guessing it’s got something to do with science as well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m on holiday. I don’t want to know any more.’

Probing Dominic’s opinion of outers would also be pointless. He would not admit to prejudice even if he loathed the whole species. Instead, Troy said, ‘When you’re undercover, you must mix with a lot of dodgy characters. You must be expert at hiding your real feelings about them.’

‘It goes with the territory. Why? Do you think I’m hiding a deep-seated hatred of outers?’

‘My point is, I wouldn’t know. But I’ll try to find out.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

Troy shrugged. ‘I could look at your record of arrests. I’d guess it’d be about a fifty-fifty mix of majors and outers. If there were a lot more outers, that might suggest something.’

Dominic looked unconcerned. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue what my ratio is. That’s how little it means to me, man. I acted like a bigot in TRAPT, but I’m not one. I’m not your bad guy.’

Troy smiled. ‘You’re a good actor, though.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll admit to that.’ He bent down to pick up the chainsaw again. ‘But telling the difference between truth and lies is your problem, not mine.’

‘I’ll go in and see how Lexi’s getting on.’

Dominic was either comfortable with his innocence or completely confident that his guilt was well concealed. Carefree, he replied, ‘Okay.’

Troy made for the door while, behind him, came the loud growl of the chainsaw, hungry for timber.

Troy found Lexi peering slyly inside a ground-floor study. ‘Is that where he keeps his shirts?’ Troy asked with a grin.

‘I’ve done all that,’ she told her partner in a whisper. ‘I was just wondering if he’s converted a room into a lab. Nothing so far. I can’t be too long or he’ll get suspicious. But I’d like to check an outbuilding at the back.’

‘He’s busy. Listen,’ said Troy. ‘That’s his chainsaw. We’ll be okay while he’s making that noise.’

Unseen, the saw’s motor idled for a few seconds and then revved into action once more.

Together, Troy and Lexi crept out of the back door and into the rear garden. They crossed the lawn towards a wooden structure. It was too large and solid to call a shed, but not large and solid enough to be a cottage. They were half way across the grass when the chainsaw fell silent.

Caught in no man’s land, they decided to carry on. But, when they were five metres from the door, Dominic’s voice called out, ‘No shirts in there.’

They turned towards the detective. He was standing at the corner of the lawn with the saw still in his hand.

Troy didn’t try to disguise the fact that they were having a sneaky inspection of his home. ‘What is in it?’

Dominic lifted the chainsaw to waist height. ‘I take my gardening seriously. Tools. You can’t go in right now because it’s locked. No key on me.’

‘Never mind,’ Troy said. ‘Lexi’s finished anyway. We’re off.’

‘Good,’ Dominic replied.

In the car, Troy muttered, ‘Strange he didn’t have a key for his shed. How did he get the chainsaw out?’

‘As far as I could see, if he’s got a chemistry lab, it’ll be in his hut.’

Troy nodded. ‘We may have to go back but, for now, how did you get on?’

Lexi tapped some keys on her life-logger. ‘He’s got one shirt with a button that could’ve made the impression. It falls within the error limits.’

‘I feel a “but” coming on.’

‘If it was the only button in the world that fits … Hey presto, we’ve got our man. But we don’t know how common it is.’

‘So it’s good evidence but south of definite. It keeps him on the hit list.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve been checking out his record of arrests.’ Troy glanced at his own life-logger. ‘He’s bagged far more outers than majors. And that’s not all.’

‘Oh?’

‘There are some bits of kit that aren’t accounted for.’

‘Such as?’

‘He had some miniature surveillance stuff and he hasn’t returned it yet. Like a spy camera.’

‘What else?’

‘A couple of bugs.’

‘For listening or eating?’ Lexi asked with a smile.