Blood & Magic (27 page)

“What the hell happened?” Alex said.

Alex had been found, or so she had been told, laying on the ground by a row of stalls. She remembered chasing the suspect, but then things had become a bit of a blur. When Alex came to in the arms of Dimitri, he had tried to call an ambulance for her, but of course she had refused and the pair returned to the station.

“I don’t know, you were ahead of us. We got held up in the crowds and then you disappeared. We searched around for ages before we found you. You don’t remember what happened? You’ve got a massive bruise on your face babe, did he hit you?” Dimitri said.

“I imagine so, how else would I have got that?” Alex said.

When they had got back to the station, Alex had examined herself in the bathroom and found small red blotches across her chest. They looked like old burn scars, although her clothes showed no signs of damage. What was odd, was how the metal clasp around the topaz stone of her silver pendant has loosened. It was if it had heated up and she had a corresponding red mark from the metal on her chest.

“I’m fine. I could have sworn that I saw Alice, but that’s impossible. Guess he must have hit me pretty hard,” Alex said.

“Or you tripped in the chase, you really should go to A&E,” Dimitri said.

“I’m not going. Has there been no sign of him?”

“Uniforms lost him after you led the chase, no sightings since,” Drew said.

“Damn it,” Alex said.

The crowd around Alex parting like the red sea and through the gap Alex saw Nick enter the office, his broad shoulders filling the doorway.

“Detective Inspector Stroud, how are you feeling?” Nick said.

“I’m-” Alex began to say, before Nick cut her off.

“Can you explain to me the search your partner had put on a nameless IC1?” Nick said.

“Yes, he was a-”

“An unknown male who stabbed one of the constables chasing him and then disappeared, apparently without trace?”

“Dad, listen. He was a suspect in the Greys Inn murder. We think he is the killer,” Alex said.

“A suspect in a Greys Inn murder? The case you are
not
investigating?” Nick said, he voice completely void of emotion.

“I have evidence that suggests he took the Greys Inn victim's body from the morgue, which by extension means he is most likely our killer.”

“What evidence?”

Alex removed the printed screenshot of the CCTV footage from her jacket pocket and passed it to Nick.

“I don’t think you-” Nick paused, looking at the photograph. “Where is the original footage this was taken from?”

“Lost.”

“Lost? How exactly did you obtain it, this is a government held case now.”

“An anonymous tip provided the footage, but the file was corrupted. We managed to retrieve this image.”

“You do know the policeman that was stabbed as a result of that chase is currently critical in Intensive Care?” Nick said.

“Why would he run if-”

“Alex, I think you are missing the point. There will be an official investigation, if the man doesn’t pull through then I hope you appreciate the consequences.”

“How were we to know-” Drew said, but Nick cut him off.

“How dangerous the suspect was? If he really is the serial killer we are after, he is obviously very skilled at what he does. Did you honestly think uniformed officers would be enough?”

“I didn’t think-”

“No, you didn’t. Where have we got to with the potential drugs connection?”

“Three victims have been found with links to ketamine usage, we are still looking into the rest,” Drew said. “We have found another lead though. The records of the victims appear to have been tampered with. How, I’m not sure, but there is something majorly odd going on. The paper trail suggests that all of the victims were involved with unsolved crimes. They-”

“Police records cannot be tampered with detective, they are held in the most secure system in the country. Is that really what you call a solid lead? Paperwork is sometimes slow to make it to the system. The drugs link is the most promising channel of enquiry, I want you to run with this.”

“But sir-”

Nick cut him off once again and, like a hurt puppy, Drew backed down.

“Follow the drugs, it will lead us to the killer. We need to get an ID for Alex’s suspect: you should talk to narcotics, see if it rings any bells with them.”

Nick turned and walked out of the room.

“Damn him,” Alex said, striking the desk with her fist.

“Calm down babe,” Dimitri said.

Alex glared at him.

“Sorry,” Dimitri said.

“Drew, what exactly did you find?” Alex said.

“Nick said to go with the…”

Alex shot Drew the same look she had just given Dimitri.

“Okay, okay. On paper, all of our victims look to have been suspects in major crimes, weirdly though, never one investigated by anyone in this unit, but I suppose that’s nothing. According to the paper records, each victim looked to be the likely perpetrator, except nothing could be proven because of lack of evidence or a mistake in the investigation,” Drew said.

“How many victims records have we looked through?” Alex said.

“Four,” Drew said.

“So we think someone has been taking justice into their own hands?” Dimitri said.

“Yes, it-,”

“Then the killer is whoever destroyed these records?” Alex said, cutting Drew off yet again. Sometimes she was more like her father than she intended.

“Most likely, or the killer got someone to do this for them,” Drew said.

“Can’t you tell that? On the computer?” Alex said

“No, it’s not that simple. The records were deleted from the HOLMES database, so we have no electronic record of the incidents
at all
. You can’t just remove stuff from HOLMES, there is supposed to be a trail of everything. It means if someone deleted the files, they did it in a more sophisticated way than we can detect. We could give internal affairs a shout,” Drew said.

“I don’t want to have to go through them. Does this mean we are looking for someone on the force?”

“Not necessarily. A skilled hacker I suppose? Or someone with unrestricted government database access. Our killer and the scrubbing of this information could be unrelated, although if justice is the motive behind these killings, then I don’t think that someone within law enforcement or the prosecution service is a bad shout.”

Alice. Could she be involved? If she was working with Byron, he could organise for records to disappear, surely? There didn’t appear to be any limits to his reach.

“If we could get hold of a government terminal, with the right access, we could look at the archives and find the record. The government keep a backup of all electronic records, they use the data to analyse to trends and patterns in all sorts of things. I can make an application for access,” Drew said.

“Who holds that data?”

“The Department of Alternate Studies, which is some big Whitehall thing. Does more than just police records, but there is no chance of getting them to share it with us over the telephone, we need to make a request.”

“And how long will that take?” Dimitri said.

“A few weeks.”

“I might know of another way."

Alex was in her car and heading toward Whitehall before she could explain what she was doing. Dimitri had tried to join her, but she couldn’t allow him to accompany her this time. She felt like she was chasing a ghost and at last, through her relationship with Charlie, she had the upper hand. She just had to hope Charlie would agree to see her, they hadn’t spoken since the incident at the restaurant.

Driving up to the gate outside the Old Admiralty Building, Alex gave her name, asking to speak to Charles Harper. The intercom went dead and she waited for a response, but there was none.

With a rumble, the water in the bottle gripped in the cup holder rippled. Alex turned around in her seat and saw them: a mob of people forming out of the darkness, a mass of hooded jackets, bandannas covering faces as light from brandished flames shimmered as a haze in the distance. They were moving quickly towards her. Even if it was just a protest rally, Alex didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of it. She pressed the intercom again and again, all the time looking back to the oncoming crowd as chanting drowned out their footsteps.

“Deliverance! Deliver us from repression, deliver us from segregation, deliver us from persecution!”

The chants echoed along the road, the car rattling from the vibrations of the words.

The doors to the complex opened and Alex pushed hard on the accelerator. The car propelled into the courtyard, screeching to a halt outside the front entrance. Charlie was already running down the steps to meet her as armed guards filled the courtyard.

“Alex, what are you doing here?” Charlie said.

“Who are those people?” Alex said.

“You need to get inside.”

Charlie took Alex’s hand and guided her up the steps and into the building.

“What’s going on?” Alex said.

“Protestors, why are you here?”

“Protesting against what?”

“Anti-government, it doesn’t matter.”

“This is data research department isn’t it? What is there to protest about?”

Charlie diverted them into an office and slammed the door behind them.

“What happened to your face?” Charlie said, reaching for Alex’s cheek.

“A suspect, it’s nothing. Look I need-”

“I know we need to speak, but not now.”

“No, I need-” Alex said, but was interrupted by a siren going off. She looked to Charlie and, for the first time since she had known him, saw fear in his eyes.

“What’s going on Charlie, you look terrified? How could this place be attacked? It’s done up like Fort Knox and aren’t we right next door to the Ministry of Defence?”

“It’s my fault they are attacking. Someone accessed my codes and our security systems were breached this morning. They got into our databases and have been trying to publish Government data to the internet all day. Looks like they are now trying a different tactic and coming straight to the source. I’m to blame for all this.”

“How could they-”

But Charlie was gone, running out of the room as the door closed behind him, locking with a deep clunk. Alex looked towards the desk, and the government terminal that sat above it. Charlie's passwords had been used to gain access, but how could that have happened? He was more than careful… But he was forgetful. Charlie kept a list of all of his passwords at home locked up in their safe, that he used when his somewhat terrible memory failed him. What if he didn’t just store personal passwords there? Byron had organised lunch for the two of them, a predefined time when he could access the flat and be assured they wouldn't be in. The stupid meal that had ended their engagement and that Alex had agreed to. Byron never did anything without reason, that had been what he was after all along.

But the terminal had been the reason she had come here in the first place and now she could access it, she could deal with her conscience later.

Moving the mouse to wake the screen, Alex took a deep breath. All she needed to do was to work out what Charlie’s password was, find out the information she needed and then, get out of there.

Five minutes later and another incorrect code, Alex began to doubt herself. Five characters, how difficult could it be? She knew him enough to guess this. Her birthday, his birthday, his mother’s name, his rugby club’s name, every single password she could transform into five characters all resulted in the same angry beep. Alex thought herself lucky there wasn’t an auto lockout feature, which was a little surprising for a big secretive government department like this.

Alex let out a huff, this was ridiculous. Fiddling with her necklace, winding her fingers between the chain, Alex tried desperately to think of another combination, when the solution hit her.

'T-O-P-A-Z'.

Turning green, the password box faded out as Charlie's desktop loaded with a picture of Alex as the wallpaper. Alex opened the search functionality, a grey screen hiding her own picture as the cursor blinked eagerly. ‘Henry Fellows,’ she typed.

Henry's picture flashed on the screen, the page filling with all of his government held information. Underneath the picture was a box with a crest inside, similar to the royal coat of arms, but with a dragon instead of a lion and, below it, the words ‘Inquisitor - First Class’. The only Inquisition Alex knew about were those from the crusades to remove witchcraft from the world and she very much doubted that this had anything to do with this, Henry didn’t exactly look like a witch hunter.

She scrolled down the page and saw that ‘Mark Ford’ was listed as his father and next to it, a picture she knew only too well. Mark was the Greys Inn victim. After all this time she finally had a name for him. It was odd though, Henry’s
paternal
father was listed below as Harry Fellows. Which was right? Alex clicked on Mark's name, which opened a new record.

At the top of the file were details of his murder, the crime scene photographs, statements and evidence, all available to her in a single click. In the corner of the screen was a tag that read, ‘Evidence secured by C. Harper, by request of Wade Oswald’.

Evidence secured
? Charlie had been the one to take the case from her? Alex found herself dumbfounded. How, and more importantly why, had the man she thought she knew done this? Was he a spy? Even intelligence officers tell their wives what they do, yet Charlie had said nothing. He had lived the lie, even when he knew his actions were affecting a case she was working on.

Shouting erupted outside the office as orange light pulsed against the frosted glass. An explosion shook the walls, sending vibrations through the floor; a sign something very bad was happening outside. Alex wasn’t going to be safe here for long, but she had come here for a reason and she’d be damned if she left empty handed.

Alex returned to the screen and opened the HOLMES Database Records. She brought up the first result that she knew had been tampered with, which loaded an identical record to the one they had on their system. Triggering the file history option, a window loaded showing the actions completed against the file. The third item down listed an associated case file, relating to the drug offence, as being deleted from the database. The person it showed as deleting the file made no sense… Frantically, Alex accessed the second victim’s record and checked the file history. The same name was listed.