Halfhead (18 page)

His face doesn’t have the long, winding scar she’d given him anymore, which is a shame. It suited him: raw and painful. He was limping as he ran for the people carrier, bruised and battered, probably fresh from surgery…

Perfect. If he’s had medical treatment he’ll be in the hospital records—she can just waltz up to any terminal and find out what was wrong with him and where he lives.

She stretches in her toilet-paper boudoir like a cat in the sun.

It’s been a long time since she has visited friends.

The birthday girl sobs and moans as he drags her off the bed and over to the chair. The older woman—the one he found in a bar a week ago—lies on the table next to the window. She was a lawyer, but now she’s all peaceful and still. Content and happy. Ready to become one with the angels.

He hauls the new girl into the chair. She struggles, but a punch in the face quietens her long enough to shackle her
arms and legs. After all, it wouldn’t do to have the birthday girl falling off and hurting herself. Not when she’s so close to finding salvation.

Then, when she’s all nice and secure, he turns to the older woman, stroking her cold white cheek. It’s got that lovely, waxy pallor of the soul departed. Lucky lady.

He pulls an old, battered, but well-loved Palm Thrummer out of his pocket, twists it open, and powers it up. Then opens the living room window, high above the streets. The rain hisses and roars outside, tearing from the sky in its rush to know the ground. Silly rain. The sky is where it should be. The sky is its home.

The Thrummer buzzes in his fingers as he strips the woman’s face away, leaving nothing but a bare, empty skull behind. The skin and fat and fibre of her sinful life is whipped into a dark purple mist that drifts out the open window into the night, pulled away by the rain. The body will take a while to dissolve, but it’s worth the effort to give her salvation.

He purses his lips, whistling the DinoPizza jingle while he works.

In her seat the birthday girl watches, screaming behind her gag: knowing that she’s going to be next.

Will dragged himself out of bed and groaned his way to the bathroom in the dark. There was a fuzzy shape in the mirror above the sink. A rough, hungover outline that wouldn’t stay in focus.

‘Lights.’

The whole apartment exploded with brightness, driving red-hot knitting needles into his eyes and out through the back of his head.

‘Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgh! Down! Down!’

They dimmed to something less head-splitting and Will stood there, blinking and swearing till he could see again. God…he looked as bad as he felt. His face was grey-green on one side and purple-green on the other.

He grabbed the edges of the sink and retched. But nothing came, and gradually the swell of nausea passed. How much did he
drink
last night? The last thing he could remember was singing rude songs with Brian in the curry house. After that it all became a bit of a blur.

There was an open packet of blockers in the medicine cabinet, courtesy of his hospital visit yesterday. He fumbled one out and popped it into his neck, then let his head thunk against the cool mirror, waiting for the chemicals to work their magic.

By the time he walked into the lounge all traces of pounding headache and churning stomach were gone.

Will told the room’s controller to open the curtains: they slid back, revealing yet another wet, dark morning. The lounge reeked of stale beer, garlic and greasy meat. Seven or eight empty plastics of Greenmantle were lined up on the coffee table beside a half-eaten, ill-advised kebab.

Abandoned dataclips made an abstract mosaic on the carpet between the couch and the controller. They were all Janet’s: her favourite cookery books, films, the birthday message she’d recorded one year as a surprise, wearing nothing but his old suit jacket. Carefully, he placed them back on the shelves. It’d been a while since he’d been drunk enough to go looking for her.

He said, ‘Music,’ and the controller bleeped softly—the opening bars of
Alba Blue
sparkling into the air. Janet’s favourite opera, the one they’d played at her funeral. He left it running and went to make breakfast.

An hour later he closed the door on a tidy apartment; he’d even thrown his new clothes through the cleanbox. Seemed a shame not to give them a second outing.

Director Smith-Hamilton had told him to take a couple of days off, but hadn’t said he couldn’t spend it doing a little ‘unauthorized data access’. Whoever Ken Peitai worked for they had to keep records of some kind. The only problem was finding them. The easiest way would be to hack into the files from Ken’s underground laboratory, but there was no way of getting in there without arousing a lot of suspicion.

Unless he took Ken up on his offer of lunch…?

Will grimaced. The idea of having to eat with the slimy little turd was bad enough, but if Smith-Hamilton found out he’d gone back to Sherman House—and she would—the repercussions would be a
lot
more severe than a couple of days’ enforced leave.

So he made his way downtown instead.

Central Records was an imposing mock-Victorian pile of red brick and sandstone, straddling Cadogan Street. For some reason known only to the planning department, it didn’t have its own shuttle station, so Will had to slog through the rain from Wellington Street, stopping off to pick up a plastic of wine for the evening; this morning’s hangover totally forgotten. He squelched in through the front door, submitted to a geometric scan, and found himself a quiet corner with a private study booth.

The monitor buzzed and crackled into life. He spent a couple of minutes entering convoluted search criteria, before sending the system off looking for old ministerial directives. It didn’t matter if they found anything or not, he just wanted to make sure there was a record of him doing something legitimate.

Rule Number One: always establish your alibi
before
you do anything wrong.

While the machine plodded away, searching and cross-referencing, Will slipped the cracker out of his pocket and popped open the service panel under the table. He checked to make sure no one was watching, then teased a pair of wires out of the main data trunk and slapped the cracker over them. Then hacked his way into the main system and started doing a little searching of his own.

Three hours later he switched the cracker off and stifled a yawn. Ken Peitai didn’t work for any of the biotech companies, none of the big conglomerates, or any government department. His National Insurance Number didn’t connect to anything—no driver’s licence, passport, or pension. The man was a ghost.

The only record Will could find was a bonus payment made half a dozen years ago in the PayFund database. It was a considerable sum of money, which was the only reason he’d found it: large payments had to be approved by the PayFund Manager, and that meant there were records. It also meant
Peitai really did work for the government…or at least he had six years ago.

The payment record was staggeringly short of detail. Will had been hoping for a home address, bank account, phone number, but no joy: whoever Ken worked for back then, they kept their information well away from the main channels.

Will stretched the knots out of his back and checked the time: twelve fifteen. Lunch. Brian wasn’t answering his phone and neither was George, and unless hell had frozen over in the last twelve hours, there was no point calling Emily. It’d be weeks before they were on speaking terms again.

He raised his eyes to the large stained glass window at the end of the records hall. He could hear the rain hurling itself against the multicoloured panes. Still chucking it down…but he wasn’t that far from the West George Street Bluecoat Stationhouse—where Jo worked when she wasn’t at Network HQ. Maybe she’d be in?

That’d be nice. More than nice, actually.

Will ran a hand through his hair and checked his reflection in the study booth’s monitor. He still looked like crap.

Ah well, too late to worry about that now, wasn’t as if he could do anything about it.

OK…

He rubbed his palms on his trousers. No problem. Not like he was asking her on a date was it? Just two work colleagues having lunch together.

He closed his eyes and murmured, ‘Just try not to make an arse of yourself…’ Then he pulled out his mobile, called the Bluecoat switchboard, and asked to be put through to DS Cameron. Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds later Jo’s face appeared on the tiny screen, one eye an opaque, milky grey.

‘DS Cameron, can I help…’
A small crease appeared between her eyebrows.
‘Who is this?’

With a small start Will realized he was sitting there with
his thumb over the phone’s camera. She’d be looking at a blank screen. ‘Ah, sorry,’ he moved his hand so she could see his face in all it’s bruised glory, ‘force of habit. It’s Will, Will Hunter.’

The frown disappeared, but didn’t quite turn into a smile.
‘Afternoon, sir. Why the anonymous act?’

‘I’m over at Central Records and I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch.’ He shrugged. ‘Thought you might be hungry.’ He paused. ‘As it’s…er…lunchtime.’ He cleared his throat. So much for not making an arse of himself.

She stared at him for a moment, then said,
‘Where?’

‘Downtown?’

‘When?’

Will did his best to look nonchalant. ‘Look, if it’s a bad time it’s not a problem, I can—’

‘Chiswick’s: fifteen minutes.’
A smile flickered across her face and then it was gone, disappearing into a little grey dot as she cut the connection.

Will put the phone back in his pocket, then caught sight of his reflection, grinning away in the monitor screen like a hormonal teenager. The smile slipped. He’d spent the wee small hours looking for his dead wife’s memory, and now look at him.

Lunch, with a side order of guilt.

Fourteen minutes later he was sitting at a corner table, examining the menu. Chiswick’s was small, cheap, and just close enough to the West George Street nick to attract a handful of blue uniforms.

‘This seat taken?’ There was a bright flash of colour and Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron slid into the chair opposite. Electric Lime and Volcanic Orange: gathered in tight at the waist. The jacket was surprisingly flattering, hugging her chest like a…Will tore his eyes away from the area in question. He’d not been on many dates in the last six years, but he
was pretty sure that staring at a woman’s breasts wasn’t the way to make a good impression.

And then she took off her jacket, exposing a fashionably clingy emerald top.

‘Nice bruises,’ she said.

‘Thanks. Picked them out specially.’

She laughed. ‘So what have you been up to today then?’

‘Not much.’ He nudged the plastic of wine in its bag under the table. ‘Just getting a few things in for tonight. You?’

‘Loads. We took your advice and grabbed all the cleaning stuff we could find at the Kilgours.’

‘Lemon-scented bathroom cleaner?’

‘Yup: three partials and one perfect thumb print. They don’t belong to any of the family or the cleaners. We’re ninety-five percent certain it’s our boy.’

‘Any luck on a match?’

‘Not yet.’ She grabbed a menu. ‘We’ve got the system churning through every record for the last twenty-five years. If he’s been tagged we’ll get him. Just a matter of time.’

‘Good.’ He watched her reading the menu, the little pink tip of her tongue poking out between her lips from time to time. That clingy emerald top stretching every time she breathed. Will tried really hard not to stare.

‘See anything you fancy?’

‘I…em…’ He could feel his cheeks flush. ‘Er…whatever you’re having.’

Jo smiled, and Will couldn’t help smiling back. Even if he did feel like an idiot.

She punched their order into the tabletop. ‘What did you do to Brian last night? He’s done nothing but eat pickled onion crisps and swig coffee all day.’

‘Ah, the Agent Alexander patented hangover remedy. We got a bit hammered last night; kind of drowning our frustrations.’ He fiddled with the tomato sauce. ‘Director Smith
Hamilton’s banned all return visits to Sherman House until things calm down over there.’

‘So we can’t go anywhere with the Allan Brown investigation.’ She scrunched her face up. ‘Arse…’

‘Sorry, Jo.’

‘Damn it. I thought this time we’d actually be in with a decent chance of proving something.’ She sat back in her seat and sighed. ‘Like I said, it’s pretty clear one of the Road-hugger crew did it, but still…Be nice to get closure for a change. How long’s it off-limits for?’

‘No idea. The whole square’s under quarantine till further notice.’

The starters arrived—two bowls of Cullen Skink—and they ate their soup in silence. Slowly the mood began to lighten. They talked about old cases, movies, made fun of the sour-faced passers-by scuttling between the puddles. The main course was barely on the table before Jo sat bolt upright in her seat, her left eye going from golden brown to milky grey. ‘Sod it…’ She dug a bright-red fingerphone from her jacket pocket and slipped it on. Pointed it at herself.

‘DS Cameron, go ahead.’

Will paused, fork halfway between a bowl of ruby-coloured goulash and his mouth.

‘Negative.’ She pushed her plate away. ‘I’ll be at the station-house in about thirty seconds. Fire up a Hopper, we’ll meet them there.’

Jo stuck the fingerphone back in her pocket and stood. Will followed her. ‘What’s up?’

‘Got a match on the Kilgour prints.’ She dragged her green and orange jacket back on. ‘Pickup team are waiting for me.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Oh no you don’t: you’re confined to barracks, remember?’

‘But—’

‘No buts.’ She pushed him gently back into his seat. ‘Stay. Eat your dessert. I’ll let you know how we get on.’

Then she was gone, running out of the door and into the pounding rain. Will watched until her brightly coloured suit was swallowed up by the drenched crowd. A minute later the café’s windows rattled and the roar of a Hopper’s engines cut through the lunchtime rush.

Slowly he sank back into his seat and looked down at the plate of clotting, dark-red lumps. He just wasn’t hungry any more.

The hospital’s hum has become as familiar to her as her own breathing, warm and reassuring. She sits in her cosy nest of toilet paper, with a datapad on her lap, doing a little light reading. Her personal research notes have always been part of the PsychTech files, hidden away amongst the endless records of bed-wetting, insomnia, shoplifting, father-hatred, mother-love, sibling-rivalry, and all the other mental debris of the people she and her team interviewed.

But her files aren’t like the other PsychTech files: her files are secret, hidden away in an obscure subdirectory. Password protected, and encrypted.

PsychTech. She headed up the project for five happy years, monitoring a cross-section of Glasgow’s most vulnerable citizens, making sure they didn’t become a danger to themselves or others. Of course it was all
her
idea. She campaigned for it, pushed it through committee, dazzled them with her dedication and brilliance. Made them see that if you knew what the criminal mind looked like, you could start going through the population, picking out people who fitted the profile. People who might not have done anything wrong
yet
, but had all the right screws loose to do so in the future.

And who knew more about the criminal mind than her?

So she rose up through the ranks, her budget and remit snowballing as she climbed. It was a Ministry for Change flagship project—a vast psychological experiment designed to make Glasgow a better, safer place.

She wriggles deeper into her nest.

They didn’t have a clue about her own special project: Harbinger.

Her fingers stroke the datapad, opening the secret research notes…Opening…She stops. Frowns at the screen. There’s something not right, something that tugs at the holes in her memory.

Something…

Never mind, it’ll come to her in time.

Dr Westfield works her way through the case notes, following her children’s progress from the first time she saw their parents. There’s a lot to read through; some of them weren’t even born when she started to mould their psychological development. When the Ministry shut down the PsychTech programme they cut off her children. No therapy, no analysis, no one listening to their problems and twisted little fantasies. Six years without her guidance and advice.