Authors: Christopher Heffernan
“Riding in these
things always make me feel sick. I prefer a car.”
“This isn't an
airliner. We don't keep sick bags on board,” Hill said. He reached down and
pulled out the empty ammunition can from under his seat. “If you're going to
blow, use this. I don't want your vomit washing all over the floor and ruining
my boots.”
“Two minutes,” a
voice said over the radio.
“To be honest, I
don't know how some of you even end up as detectives. You're all greener than
the fungus between my toes,” one of the other policemen said.
“Private
military companies are buying up a lot of people. Assurer have to compete with
them for personnel. There's only so many people in the pool before they have to
start recruiting from further afield. PMCs are in hot supply; there's another
flashpoint over natural resources every month. The pay is good, but I don't
rate your chances of survival,” Corporal Hill said.
“Is the pay good
enough for a place on the plate?”
“Maybe, but you
probably wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it.”
“Then I guess
I'll stick with Assurer, even if they are a bunch of French bastards.”
The vehicle
stopped, and Hill slapped the button to open the rear door. They stepped
outside and found themselves blinded by a spotlight.
Hill beckoned to
them. “This way, this way.”
An electric
perimeter fence surrounded them. Police snipers looked out from four guard
towers, others patrolling the grounds. Richmond pillar rose upwards, thicker
than a sky scraper and a hundred times uglier. Metal and concrete branched out
at the top like a tree canopy to support Upper London. Polluted water and toxic
waste rained down from leaking pipes wielded to the underside of the platform.
They moved past
a barracks building to the maintenance lift. Corporal Hill removed both safety
chains and lowered the lift's access barrier. “I've heard it's raining up there
today.”
“God damn acid
rain,” Richard said.
“It's less toxic
than whatever it is leaking down on our heads,” Michael said.
“All right,
Private Taylor and I will come up there with you. The rest of my section will
wait down here,” Hill said.
They stepped
onto the maintenance lift and secured the access barrier. Corporal Hill hit the
button to raise the lift. A siren rang out; orange hazard lights flashed as
they began to ascend. The police outpost shrank below.
Michael felt a
wave of dizziness overcome him. He backed away from the edge, gripping the
guardrail with a cold and clammy hand. The wind grew stronger. Coats, ties and
hair flapped violently. Private Taylor walked to the edge, leaned over the
barrier and spat.
“It's quite a
view, as long as you don't slip,” Corporal Hill said.
The city was a
sprawling mess of darkness and decay, kept alive by small outposts of lights,
advertisement displays and burning fires. One tower vanished in the blink of an
eye like somebody had performed a magic trick with it.
“Fucking power
cuts,” Taylor said.
Some of the city
ruins were tall enough to nearly touch the underside of the platform, blocking
his view to the east. Michael looked up, as a hole in the platform swallowed
them. They passed through layers of metal. Bulging electrical cables and pipes
crawled in and out of every crevice like wild ivy, and sparks flew from an
electrical box with a noise that sounded much too similar to gunfire.
Dim light filled
the lift shaft, growing stronger. Michael heard the patter of rain and the
sounds of electric cars. A chain fence and security checkpoint surrounded them
on all sides as the lift came to a halt, and black clouds drifted overhead with
unnatural speed. Puddles formed in the concrete.
The policemen up
here wore grey urban camouflage with a different company logo stitched onto the
sleeves. One of them, a lance corporal, opened the fence and waved them
through.
“We've been
expecting you. This way, the crime scene isn't too far from here.”
Michael
tightened the collar on his coat. His watch said one-twenty. Their guide led
them through a mess of twisting and turning back alleys formed from buildings
that had been left unfinished for God knows how long.
Neon displays
flashed, trying to burn advertisements for beauty products onto his retinas.
They gave the world a strange kind of red hue, casting hard shadows that
shifted and changed with every frame of video played. Scores of bicycle bells
rang from a nearby road.
Their journey
was further than the lance corporal implied. The house stood separate and
detached from the surrounding urban sprawl in Upper Richmond. A private garden
and vegetable allotment was penned in by chain fence and barbed wire. Security
cameras watched the perimeter.
Further on was a
rectangular hole in the platform, sealed off by construction signs and safety
barriers. He saw down into the streets below. Policemen stood guard outside,
talking to two members of a forensics team clad in white plastic suits. A dead
bodyguard was still slumped against the wall, leaving a trail of blood down the
brickwork where he'd fallen.
“We'll be
outside,” Corporal Hill said.
They pulled on
gloves and shoe covers before going inside. The floor was laminated wood and
littered with spent shell casings, so many that the forensics team hadn't even
bothered trying to preserve their location.
Michael knelt
down, picked one up and held it to the light. “.45, Chinese made.”
“I expect most
of them ended up in him,” Richard said, gesturing to the bodyguard lying dead.
Another member
of the forensics team stepped into the hallway. “Don't know why you're wasting
your time coming up here, we can send the reports down to you.”
“Sometimes it's
better to see things for yourself. Information has a habit of getting lost when
you send it down to us,” Michael said.
“I love it.
Somebody thinks the killer is in your garden, so you come swarming up here like
flies on shit thinking you're something special,” the man said. He raised his
gloved hands in surrender. “You know what, mate? Be my guest. Check the place
out for yourselves and then go back under whatever rock you crawled out from.”
He pushed his
way past the detectives.
“Looks like they
had a small war in here, and the bodyguards did a lot of missing,” Richard
said. He pointed to the holes in the walls.
“Panic fire. But
what made them panic? They were trained for this kind of stuff,” Michael said.
They walked into
the foyer. The guard in here was slumped in the corner, missing everything
above the jaw. White wallpaper had been turned red by the contents of his
skull. Little lumps of brain collected on top of the skirting board.
“Careful, Rich.
Don't step on that eyeball,” Helen said.
“Shit,” he said,
when he saw it. “That's nasty.”
“I guess this is
what a late-term abortion looks like,” David said.
Maria jabbed him
in the arm with her elbow.
Michael grimaced
and tried not to look at the corpse. He pointed to an empty casing. “Shotgun.
Twelve gauge. The .45s would have come from a submachine gun, so he probably emptied
the entire magazine into the previous two guys. In a place like this, there's
no time to reload, so he swaps to a backup weapon. He must have charged right
in here, no stopping.”
“Just one guy?
With all these bullets flying about, he was bound to get hit sooner or later,”
Richard said.
Michael
shrugged. A man from forensics was checking for prints in the lounge under the
watchful stare of another policeman. He turned, adjusting his mask, and pointed
to the two corpses bleeding over the African rug. “The woman was Jim Belton's
wife. That guy there is just another guard.”
Dark mahogany
shelves held countless hardback books. The television display was nearly as big
as the wall it was mounted upon.
“Shotguns really
make a mess,” David said.
“Did they take
anything?” Michael said.
“Not that I can
tell,” said the forensics man. “Seems like it's just a straight up massacre.
Don't bother asking about those security cameras; the guy knew what he was
doing. The storage unit is smashed to pieces. Some of the lads are trying to
pull something of worth from the remains, but we just don't have the technical
capability for that kind of thing.
“What's
upstairs?”
“Another guard
and Jim Belton's son. You'll want to take a look at the latter, but I hope you
have a strong stomach. Three other bodies out back by the pool. More guards.
Nobody of note.”
Michael went up
the stairs. The wooden steps were firm and didn't creak. A line of family
photos hung on the walls with an odd piece of abstract art placed between them
here and there. Another body. More shell casings.
“5.56. I guess
he shot the guys out back first before coming up here. How many guns did he
bring?” Richard said.
“It is a lot to
carry. Two guys, maybe, but one? No way,” Helen said.
David pushed on
ahead. “Bathroom to the left, God knows what’s to the right.”
It turned out to
be a study filled with more pieces of art. Bookshelves sagged under the weight
of scholarly books. The laptop on the desk had been tagged with a police note.
“They should
just turn this whole place into an art gallery.
People would
flock to it,” David said.
“And the dead
bodies?” Richard said.
“Especially with
the bodies. When they begin to decompose, some quack from the papers will be
falling all over himself to ascribe some kind of meaning to it all. Perhaps
they'll consider it a symbolic representation of natural selection. Black and
white, life and death, beginning and end. It's a guaranteed hit."
“There's nothing
natural about dying in a hail of machine gun fire, Dave,” Helen said.
Michael went
into the first bedroom, but like the study, it was untouched. David opened some
of the drawers. He crammed a handful of jewellery into his coat pocket.
“Can you not do
that, please? It really messes with the whole idea of a God damn crime scene,”
Michael said.
“No. Nobody is
going to miss it, and it meant nothing to the killer. I can get something for
all this crap from the local pawnshop.”
“For God's
sake.”
David ignored
him.
“Kid's bedroom
at the end of the hall. You all need to see this,” Richard said.
“Yes, but you'll
regret it afterwards,” said Helen.
Michael hurried
after the others. He stopped short in the doorway, transfixed by the sight of a
young boy pinned to the wall by a barrage of industrial-sized nails.
“It seems like
somebody really wanted to hammer their point home,” David said.
Michael went to
the window. It looked out over the back to where the swimming pool was, where
three corpses floated in the bloody water. Just past the swimming pool was a
small shack where he supposed the security detail lived when off duty.
"He used a
nail gun, not a hammer," Michael said.
"Yeah,
well, a single shot to the head would have been nicer," Richard said.
"Doesn't
matter. The end result is the same," David said.
Michael moved
closer to the body. “Okay, look; he's been deliberately killed in a different
fashion to everybody else. Obviously we can all see that the gunman wanted to
send a message, but check this out. The boy's weight should be heavier than the
nails can bare. They haven't penetrated far enough into the wall. It's like he
weighs nothing at all. There's something wrong with him, look at his bones.”
Helen opened
some of the drawers. “Medicines in here. Already tagged by forensics. Nice of
them to forget to mention those to us. Looks like that's everything. The guys
who did this are professionals. We won't get them. Let's bin the case now and
move onto something we can solve.”
“Good. I want to
get some lunch,” David said.
One of the
policemen stopped them on the way out. He pushed a card folder into Michael's
hands. “Preliminary report. Don't ask me how, but somebody managed to pull a
single image from the camera drives. We're still waiting to see if they can
clean the picture up. Have fun. I reckon you'll last a day tops before you give
up.”
He flicked
straight to the black and white picture. The image was broken up with strips of
print banding, and the paper still felt damp from the ink application. It came
from the first interior camera, dark, blurry with just enough definition to
show a single figure gripping a submachine gun in his hand.
The shot had
caught the muzzle flare at full intensity. Michael inhaled slowly through the
nose. He felt the others crowding around him for a better look. The gunman was
tall, dressed in a trench coat that sagged from pockets full of ammunition.
Rifles and shotguns hung off his shoulders by their straps.
“One guy. Just
like you said,” Richard said.
Helen tutted.
“He's not even flinching. Look at those eyes; creepy as hell.”
The gunman was
still on his mind when he sat down in the cafeteria. Rickety chairs and unclean
tables reminded him of the lunch hall at school. All it needed now was a bowl
of dessert with a few strands of the dinner lady's hair and a broken nail or
two in it to complete the illusion.
Michael opened
the folder and scattered the papers across the table, before unwrapping his
cheese sandwiches. He took a bite, chewed, and found his gaze drawn back to the
set of photos. There were four now, cleaned up and printed on matte-surface card.
Three of them came from security cameras at a commercial supply lift.
The man's eyes
seemed as off in these photos as the first. They had an emptiness to them,
sometimes seeming like cat eyes when the light caught them at a certain angle.
A final shot caught him riding the lift down, radio in hand, but minus the
guns.
A shadow loomed
over the photographs. “Mind if I sit?”
Michael glanced
up and recognised her as the blonde woman from the office. He nodded, gathering
up the papers and stacking them to one side. “Sure.”
She flashed him
a brief sickly smile and sat down in the opposite chair. “I'm Samantha. That
argument earlier wasn't the best of introductions. Things have a habit of
getting heated in there very easily. Sorry, just call me Sam.”
“It's fine. I'm
Michael,” he said, shaking her hand across the table.
Sam looked at
his sandwiches. “I wouldn't eat the food here either. You can get away with the
pre-packaged stuff if you're desperate; they make it off site. How has your
first day been here?”
“Strange is
probably a good word. To tell you the truth, I liked it better at my previous
station. Before the part where somebody took it upon themselves to remodel the
building with high-explosives. A lot of good people worked there.”
She brushed away
a strand of hair that had slipped loose from her hair band. “Sorry, I shouldn't
have brought it up. Looks like you've already got yourself a new case.”
Michael showed
her the photographs. “Bits and pieces of one. A lot of bodies, but not much to
go on.”
Sam grimaced at
the sight of them. “Grizzly stuff. What's up with those eyes? They look
terrible. I don't envy you on this one, or any of them, actually. Filing
reports on this stuff in admin is enough for me.”
“You're not the
first person to have mentioned the eyes. I don't know, though. Before the war
people were managing to do some pretty advanced stuff with eyes, but now? Not
so much. I think it's too early to make a judgement. Bad for the investigation.
Look at this last one, though. All those floodlights around the lift. His eyes
are doing something there, like they're reacting in some way.”
“Well, here's
hoping that neither of us run into him in a dark alley.”
Michael nodded.
“Agreed, but I expect it's a contract hit of some kind. People like this are professionals,
and they don't sit around in dark alleys waiting for victims like a serial
killer.”
She ate some of
the salad from its plastic packaging and then paused. “Think you can catch
him?”
“Maybe,” Michael
said. He finished another sandwich. “If somebody else doesn't find him first.
Everybody is wanting a piece of the case at the moment; big bonuses to be had,
but it always tails off sooner or later. They disappear, we lose the trail, and
we find an easier case to solve. He's using a radio handset, though. We have
listening posts for that kind of thing. They might have picked something up.”
They finished
their food. He gathered up the papers and slid them back into the card folder.
“It was nice
meeting you anyway. I'm sure we'll run into each other again sooner or later
around here,” she said.
Michael dumped
the remains of his lunch in the bin. He turned around to find a policeman
queuing up behind him with an expression of vague amusement. The corporal had a
squashed nose and broad jaw that reminded him of the thugs who skulked about at
night in gangs clamping people's cars.
Michael looked
at the name tag. “Oh, you. I didn't recognise you.”
Corporal Hill
gave him a wry smile. “Some of the lads are saying there were a dozen people
nailed to the wall, with their heads mounted on spikes in that house.
“Yeah, the usual
rumours. All it takes is one person mouthing off. Nobody had their heads cut
off, unless you count a close range shotgun wound, and it was just one person
nailed to the wall. A kid.”
“That's a bit
harsh. I suppose I'd chuck myself off the platform too if I came home to see
that.”
“You have kids?”
Hill's smile
faded. He nodded. “Two daughters. Biggest regret of my life. This isn't the
world I want them to grow up in. Sooner or later they'll run into trouble, and
I won't always be around to sort it out for them. Don't have kids, Detective.
Not if you're smart.”
The others had
been eating their lunch in the office, but there were only three now. He shut
the door behind him and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness
and green glow of the monitors.
“Just a heads
up. David and Helen have been redeployed to another case; the underclass are
getting worked up about it. I'm sick of having to placate these mobs all the
time. Every time something happens that they don't like, they turn up at one of
the stations and throw a hissy fit,” Maria said.
“Pretty much,”
Richard said. “It's just you and me on the case for now. At least until we can
come up with something concrete; the major will wheel out the firepower, then.
You should have seen David. He was pissed.”
“It's more than
the money for David. He thrives on this kind of thing because it's the closest
he'll ever get to being somebody important. You put a few drinks in him and all
he'll go on about is how he was going to become some hot shot banker before the
war,” Maria said.
Richard put a
finger to his lips and hushed her. “Do you hear that? It's somebody playing a
very, very small violin. I shed a single tear for his dead end career. Put David
in charge of a bank and you'd get a second financial crash. We all know how the
first one turned out.”
Michael flipped
his briefcase open and took the spiral-bound travel guide from it. “Do you know
the nearest listening point for the Wimbledon access lift? I'm heading over
there to see if they picked up any radio transmissions after the killing.”
“Wimbledon?
Yeah, let me think for a second,” Richard said. He picked up a red dry marker
and flipped through the book. “Right here.”
Maria left her
desk and looked over his shoulder. “It's a little hard to find. I've been down
there once or twice. The post isn't on the main street; you'll have to park and
take a back alley into this little dead end. There used to be a shop up there,
but I can't for the life of me remember its name. Archibald, do you know it?”
Archibald shook
his head. “Not the name. It was a chemist though. You can't miss it.”
Michael gathered
his stuff. “All right, let's go, Richard.”
"Sorry, but
I'm going to have to sit this one out. I'm waiting on a phone call, and I've
got to speak to the guy in person. A message isn't going to cut it."
“Might have been
nice if you mentioned it before hand.”
Richard sighed.
“Look, you might not think I take my job seriously, but I do. I've been barking
up a few trees while you were eating lunch in the cafeteria.”
"What kind
of trees? The dead one outside on the grass?"
“Like you said,
it was a professional hit. Everyone knows the politicians have dirty hands. He
had to have pissed off somebody for that guy to start shooting people up in his
house. I'm trying to get some information on any official dealings he might
have had, but the people up top aren't exactly eager to talk about anything.
I've been asked five times already if I'm from the press.”
"Because if
you were from the press, you would mention it when asked."
"Exactly."
“Okay, fine. If
something comes up, contact me over the radio.”
“Hey, you might
want to watch your back over there; security is weak. They keep getting
redeployed further north. Be ready to get out of there quick if something
happens,” Maria said.
“I'll keep it in
mind.”
Michael went
down to his car and set off for the listening point. There was enough traffic
on the road to slow him down for once. Office blocks glowed bright in the dark
and below them the remains of society walked the streets. He passed small parks
devoid of foliage, where mountains of burning litter rose out of the ground
like volcanoes spouting lava.
A gang of
skinheads roamed the street. They carried machetes and hammers, and wore
necklaces made of bone, bodies lean and emaciated. The local shops had dropped
their shutters. The road drained itself of life.
Wells' chemist
had been smashed and looted years ago; dusty shelves lay bent and scattered
across the floor. A red logo remained above the entrance, fixed to the wall by
brackets that looked about ready to give. Bin fires burned inside, and the
silhouettes of homeless people camped around the flames, raising their hands to
feel the warmth.
Michael pulled
up onto a curb. His sight drifted to the mirror, watching the reflection of the
skinheads further down the street. They had stopped and gathered around a
parked car. One of them had a sledge hammer; he put it straight through the
windscreen. The others joined in with building materials scavenged from a front
garden.
They set the car
alarm off, only for it to be silenced again by a hammer blow to the front of
the bonnet.
Michael felt the
tingle of sweat on his skin and the vibrations of the steering wheel, as the
engine rumbled softly. He drove back onto the road and headed further along
until he could take a left turn and parked out of sight. The houses here were
bordered up and condemned; yellow leaflets warning of disease outbreaks drifted
across the street. More were taped to doors and windows.
Michael got out,
locked the door and double-checked that it was secure. He inspected his .45 and
pulled back the slide to chamber a bullet. The skinheads were still at the
other end of the road when he came back round the corner. He walked slow,
trying not to draw attention to himself.
One of the gang
stared at him with the hollow cheeks and dark, sunken eyes of a heroin
addiction. He slipped into the alley next to the chemist. The rubbish had been
swept to either side of the path, and an iron fence blocked his path. The gate
was locked and bolted shut with a padlock. Blue paint flaked away, revealing
orange rust beneath it.
He pressed the
buzzer mounted on the wall. Footsteps came from behind, and he turned in time
to see somebody run past the alleyway. A lone figure descended a set of metal
steps in matching blue paint. The staircase rattled.
The man wore a
police uniform, and he carried his rifle in one hand, eyes darting back and
forth across the courtyard as he moved to the gate.
“Are those
skinheads still out there? They dropped out of sight of our cameras,” the
policeman said. He fumbled with his set of keys.
“They're at the
end of the road laying waste to somebody's car,” Michael said, flashing his ID
at the policeman.
The policeman
unlocked the gate. “Come on, we should get inside before they come back.”
He relocked the
gate with trembling hands once Michael was inside.
“Anything I
should know about?” Michael said.
The policeman
shook the gate to check it was secure, rattling the razor wire mounted on the
top. He shook his head. “Just the usual trouble. We need to get inside before
they hear us.”
Michael followed
the policeman up the stairs. “They've already seen me coming in. Is that a
problem?”
“Probably not.
They take a lot of drugs, and it turns them into a bunch of vicious dogs.
Generally you're okay as long as you don't draw too much attention to yourself.
No sudden moves, no loud noises, and no staring at them. They've been roaming
this area for a days. I keep calling HQ for support, but they're stretched
pretty thin at the moment. Skinheads rank a little lower on the priority list,
know what I mean?”
They went inside
the flat, and the policeman locked and bolted the door behind them. Two others
were inside the lounge, backs turned, hunched over computers. They wore
headphones. Tape recorders clicked and whirred.
“Charlie, we've
got a visitor,” the policeman said. He shook the man on the right.
Charlie
swivelled around in his chair. His eyes widened a little as he ripped off the
headphones. “Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Ten years, and you still don't look so
different.”
Michael smiled.
He shook Charlie's hand. “What are you doing here? If I'd known you were
working for Assurer, I would have stopped by ages ago.”
“I've been
around a bit. Got myself a rather cushy job here, if you ignore the roving
gangs outside. So you're a real honest to God detective?”
“If you can call
it that.”
Charlie spun in
his chair to face the others. “I was in the war with this guy. Fucking Berlin,
what a mess. I thought you were dead when they dragged what was left of you
back to England on that helicopter. What brings you here, anyway? Want a
drink?”
He flipped open
the mini-fridge by his foot and removed a soft drink. “No alcohol, sorry.”
“It's okay, I'm
fine. Business brings me here. You heard all the radio chatter about the
shooting up top?”
“Oh, that,”
Charlie said, nodding. “Yeah, that's been non-stop.”
Michael glanced
at the stack of tapes and burnt discs. “You've been recording it all, right?”
“What we could.
We have to monitor the surrounding areas as well. Most of it is unimportant
junk communication.”