Breaking Point (3 page)

He gave another muffled scream as the first cigarette burned into his flesh. He tried to wrench his hand away but it wouldn’t move. The small cone of fire gnawed into the skin between the little and ring fingers of his right hand. The first one Maclyn had lit. He convulsed, jolting his head from side to side, trying to escape the pain that was tunnelling towards his brain, eating through membranes and skin and hairs. The smell of tobacco and burning flesh. His eyes streaming
in
pain. Another two fingers shrieking with fresh burns. Living by the sword, dying by the sword.

Maclyn Margulis held the mirror up to him again. And Sol was ready to tell him absolutely anything he wanted to know.

4

DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR
Sarah Hirst examined her new office, trying to view it as if she had never seen it before. It was nearly four weeks since she had inherited it from her predecessor. Commander Malcolm Abner’s idea of decor had been dull metal plaques, pictures of guns, stacks of training manuals and a slowly failing pot plant. And now he was dead. Sarah tried not to feel too bad about it, given all that had happened. But the fact was that she had inherited a dead man’s office. The best one in GeneCrime, but a dead man’s office nonetheless. And now she was giving it life. Plants lined one entire wall and sat in the corners and on her desk – ferns, an orchid, three small varieties of cactus, a couple of dragon trees, a baby palm. The large open space that had
previously
reeked of testosterone and male power was becoming almost habitable again.

Sarah looked up at DI Charlie Baker, wondering if the improved atmosphere of the room would make any difference to him, or whether he had even noticed.

‘Any previous on Danny Pavey, our pool cue hero?’ she asked.

‘None,’ Charlie replied.

Sarah studied DI Baker. He was hairy to the point of fascination. She wondered where it all ended, or whether his entire body was covered in the same furry mat that formed his beard, ran down his neck and threatened to poke out the top of his collar. She flashed momentarily to an image of Reuben Maitland, and his comparative hairlessness.

‘But I thought someone said he was on record?’

‘Just on the Negatives database. Tested for exclusion in a hit and run eighteen months ago.’

‘Why was he tested?’

Charlie pointed at a chair. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Be my guest.’

Charlie sat down and Sarah frowned as he shifted a plant pot to get a better view.

‘The accident involved a white Mercedes
transit
van, similar to the one Pavey used for his work as an electrician. But this was unusual. The driver stopped to administer first aid, then panicked and drove off when he realized the girl he hit wasn’t showing any vital signs. The Forensic Science Service ended up testing nearly two hundred punters with the same make of van, until they matched a profile with one left at the scene.’

‘But not Pavey’s.’

‘No. Just coincidence that we’ve seen his profile before.’

There was a knock at the door. ‘Come,’ Sarah said. After a respectful pause, Dr Mina Ali entered, ripping off a pair of vinyl gloves as she walked, stuffing them in her lab coat pocket.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, heading for a chair that wasn’t supporting a plant.

‘Mina, we’re just discussing the Danny Pavey case,’ Sarah said. ‘As acting head of Forensics, what’s the division’s stance on this one?’

Mina took a second to compose herself. ‘All straightforward. We already have profiles, fingerprints, hairs, the murder weapon, you name it. Just a case of watching his home, keeping his friends under surveillance, and letting our colleagues in blue hunt him down.’

‘And then we throw it out to general FSS testing?’

‘Sure, if you want.’

‘Well, what do you want?’ Sarah stared hard at Dr Ali. ‘This is your remit.’

Mina paused, weighing up the options, sensing Sarah’s body language. ‘Let’s pass. Nothing we can learn from it.’

Sarah turned to DI Baker. ‘Charlie?’

‘I say we take it ourselves.’

Sarah peered closely at him. ‘Why? This is an open and shut. A bar-room brawl that got out of hand. A man who beats another man to death in front of numerous witnesses. Watertight forensics. Just a case, as Mina said, of finding him and nailing him. Wouldn’t you say we had other priorities?’

‘Danny Pavey had no previous. Nothing. We’ve checked. Decent background, stable relationship, good job.’

‘So?’

‘So I don’t want this fucked up.’ Charlie glanced from his boss to Mina and back again. ‘Excuse the usual, but you know how pub cases go. A lot of his friends there, half the witnesses pissed, clever barrister gets stuck in. We’ve got him on file here, might as well handle it internally, make
sure
we get a firm prosecution without some dolt in a lab somewhere else in the country losing the samples.’

Sarah suppressed a smile. Charlie was good, and getting better. He was up for promotion soon and would make a worthy deputy inside GeneCrime. The recent birth of his baby daughter seemed to have brought out a level-headedness in him, a resolve to look first before leaping. Maybe that was what reproduction did to people in general, Sarah wondered. Fat chance she’d get to find out at this rate. Her mind leapt again to Reuben Maitland, and an interlinked thought.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘we’ll keep it in house.’ Sarah made a show of checking her watch. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock. You’d better round everyone up. The service will just be finishing. It’s one thing deciding not to go to the funeral, but we shouldn’t miss the pub.’ She pursed her lips. ‘People would talk.’

‘I’ll round the troops up,’ Mina said quietly.

Sarah waved a strand of blonde hair away from her eyes. ‘I’ve invited Reuben, by the way.’

‘Permission to rough him up a bit, ma’am?’ Charlie grinned.

‘Permission denied,’ Sarah said. ‘You leave that to me.’

5

REUBEN ENTERED THE
pub with a sense of unease. The stale odour of spilt drinks awakened a rush of memories. CID celebrations, cases solved, backs patted. Sometimes still wired from amphetamines, drinking hard on the back of the speed. Colleagues who were dead now, or arrested, or who had fallen by the wayside. Trying to forget about the competition, the tensions, the divided loyalties inside GeneCrime, where cutting-edge crime detection was carried out by the ambitious, the ruthless, the sometimes subjective. Brief peaks of success among endless troughs of slow, meticulous procedure. Life as it had been. All-consuming, pressured, out of control.

Reuben picked out some of his previous
colleagues
from the throng. He saw a few of the lab people. Judith Meadows, sipping a Coke, her belly swollen. Mina Ali, dark, diminutive and bony, her glasses square and black. Paul Mackay, still on the edge of things, looking like he was never going to properly fit in. DCI Sarah Hirst, in the middle of the crowd, talking and holding court. Around her, plainclothes CID officers, the odd forensic technician, a couple of Pathology staff. The usual rabble at a police wake.

He was about to head for the bar when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He spun round.

‘Dr Maitland,’ Detective Leigh Harding said.

Reuben watched him run a hand through his sandy hair, unsure of whether to offer it. He had only known him briefly, so Reuben decided a handshake wasn’t necessary.

‘Leigh,’ he answered. ‘How are you doing? Settling in OK?’

‘It’s been a while now. I think I know my way around.’

‘So you didn’t go to the funeral?’

Leigh glanced around. ‘No. We were kind of told not to. You know, after the delays and all that happened.’

Reuben followed the direction of Detective
Harding
’s gaze. DCI Sarah Hirst. Blonde hair pinned tight, stiff white blouse that hugged her figure, a dark skirt that ended just above the knee. A knot of CID surrounding her, listening intently. Controlling and in control, a force to be reckoned with. And a magnificent force at that.

‘She’s settling into her new job all right?’

‘Did you ever think she wouldn’t?’

Reuben monitored her again as an obvious plainclothes entered the bar and headed over. ‘It’s what she always wanted,’ he muttered.

The man approached, and Leigh made the introductions. ‘Reuben, this is Detective Simon Grainger.’ Reuben took him in. Run-of-the-mill cop. The sort who doubtless saw GeneCrime as an academy of boffins. Grainger was tall, greying on the sides but not the top. Leigh turned to Reuben. ‘And this is the famous Dr Reuben Maitland.’

Detective Grainger shook his hand with enough force to dislodge it. ‘I read some of your stuff,’ he said with a grin.

‘He didn’t understand it though,’ Leigh added.

‘Mind him,’ Simon said. ‘He thinks he’s funny.’

Reuben grunted. A police double act. The force was littered with them.

There were a couple of moments’ silence. Reuben wondered how well Leigh and Simon knew each other. Cops were like that. Running into the same officers in the same pubs, at the same shooting ranges, on the same training courses. The invisible but all-important division between being a friend and being a colleague. Either way, Reuben surmised that things were probably more the latter than the former. He sensed a slight distance, gaps in the conversation. Leigh’s career was taking off. Detective Grainger, on the other hand, looked like any other CID officer in the Met, wearing clothes that were not quite casual enough, trying to blend in, chatting to an old friend who was climbing the ranks and catching villains in ways he could only imagine.

Leigh took a swig from his drink. Simon Grainger glanced longingly at the bar, and Reuben followed his line of sight. He spotted his former senior technician Judith Meadows making her way towards it, slowing to take a twenty out of her purse. He monitored her progress. The female body was amazing. Just a few weeks ago there was nothing to see, and now a nascent bulge, a
future
promise, a swelling that would grow and grow until she could barely walk without back pain or swollen joints. Then, if she was anything like his ex-wife, a few more months and she would be back to her normal slender self. He felt an ache of something that took a second to pin down. A paternal longing. A feeling that Joshua wasn’t enough, that another child would make him more fulfilled. No hope, he sighed, given his record.

He returned to the conversation as Leigh cleared his throat and said, ‘How’s that lad Charlie Baker was telling me about?’

Simon Grainger breathed in and out and said, ‘Crutches for life.’

‘Which lad is this?’ Reuben asked.

‘Some schoolboy athlete who got beaten up on Simon’s patch a couple of months ago.’ Leigh took a hefty swig from his drink. ‘Sounds like he’ll never run again.’

There was another silence, another lack of continuity. The background din of drunk-and-getting-drunker conversation seemed to get louder. Reuben glanced at the bar again. Judith had already been served and was walking back the way she had come.

‘At least we got the bastard,’ Simon said. He
winked
at Leigh. ‘Proper old-fashioned police work. None of your DNA mumbo-jumbo. And apparently he’s going to plead guilty.’

Reuben cleared his throat. A man could only stay thirsty so long. ‘Anyone need a drink?’ he asked.

Leigh downed his pint and handed over his glass. ‘Guinness please, Reuben.’

Detective Grainger tilted his head to one side, almost sadly. ‘Back on duty in an hour,’ he said.

Reuben smiled as DI Charlie Baker came over and shook hands all round. ‘I’ll catch up with you in a bit,’ he said to Charlie, leaving the three of them to it.

A police wake was bad. A sober one was worse. The same old conversations: cases solved, cases not solved; people hurt, people saved from hurt; colleagues you knew well, colleagues you didn’t. Often stuck with the ones you didn’t really miss, while the ones you did eluded you.

As he waited to be served, he spotted DCI Sarah Hirst making her way across to him, the sharp heels of her shoes tapping out her approach, louder with each step. He watched her, side on, trying not to stare. He wondered how long her fine features would survive in
charge
of GeneCrime. The unit had a habit of chewing up its superiors and spitting them out. And he should know.

‘So, Dr Maitland,’ Sarah said, ‘care to come over and join us?’ She pointed her gin and tonic in the general direction of the throng.

‘I’m not staying. Just a quick drink to pay my respects.’

‘You don’t like hanging around CID any more?’

‘Who says I ever did?’ Reuben smiled.

‘What’s wrong with you scientists?’

‘The same thing that’s wrong with you coppers.’

‘Which is?’

‘Figure that out, and you won’t end up like me.’

‘Old and grey?’

‘Disgraced ex-copper. And I think you mean experienced and distinguished.’

Sarah smiled for the first time. It was brief, a light going on and off, but Reuben enjoyed it all the same.

‘You got somewhere better to go?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not necessarily better.’

‘So?’

‘I’m already late. And it’s a fair slog on the Tube.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘That depends on your point of view.’ Reuben glanced at his watch, and momentarily caught Judith’s eye. ‘But it certainly won’t be dull.’

6

DR JAMES CRANNELL
flicked through to his closing slide. He was finally starting to calm down, the lecture taking his mind elsewhere. Another email had turned up on his university account earlier in the day, with the same unspecified threat. Lower-case letters, Arial font, a new address that had escaped the filter he’d set up:
we are on to you. we are coming for you.
He sighed out loud, the exhalation lost in the gap between his lectern and the students, a vacuum that seemed to hang permanently between them.

Dr Crannell paused, ready to make his final point, running his eyes intently around the room. It was an old-fashioned lecture theatre, with wooden flooring and wooden seats. In fact, the whole place, as he looked at it, was made of
wood
. Hundreds of trees cut down to line the walls and form the desks bored students gouged their names into. Recently, the room had been revamped with video projectors and new screens. In whichever direction he looked, his tired words stared back at him. Health and Safety had insisted on a sprinkler system as well. James was more than sure it would never be used in his lifetime. Air conditioning had been added, too, shiny ducts running along two of the walls, metal vents jutting obtrusively through the wood. What had once been a dignified lecture theatre now seemed to have had cheap trinkets slapped on to it to make it look youthful.