Halfhead Read online

  He frowned. A set of cleaning equipment sat abandoned in the corner: mop, wheely-bucket, scrubbing brushes, big container of industrial disinfectant.

  ‘What happened to the halfhead?’

  The Bluecoat in the green suit frowned. ‘Halfhead?’

  Will pointed at the mop and bucket. ‘Know anyone else who’s going to be scrubbing urinals in this part of town?’

  ‘Damn.’ Her mouth became a thin line. ‘I’ll get someone to look in to it.’

  That was two points he’d picked her up on. Have to watch that if he didn’t want the old hostility back.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, while Will did one last tour of the crime scene, ‘down here halfheads go missing all the time. We’re pretty sure it’s the local militia: they grab them, torture them for a couple of days, then kill them. Never any proof, but we know they do it.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Believe it or not, there’s a rumour going round that they eat them. Kind of a ritual cannibal orgy thing. Can you believe that?’

  Something cold slithered down Will’s spine. All he needed now was the sound of homemade drums in the darkness. Corridors. Death. Blood. His heart hammering rusty nails into his chest.

  He wiped a hand across his damp forehead, then turned to see if Beaton and Stein had finished, so they could get the hell out of here…but something made him stop.

  The SOC team were wrestling the victim’s torso into the body-bag. Beaton’s dress uniform was covered in a thin film of dust, the chrome buttons smeared with dark red. Will reached out and stopped her from closing the tags over the body.

  There was something tugging at his memory, something dark and familiar.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Something he’d seen before.

  ‘Hello?’—Ms Green Suit was staring at him.

  ‘What? Oh…nothing.’

  He stood back and let Beaton seal the bag. The last tag snapped shut, hiding the victim’s ruined face from view.

  There was something here. Something he half recognized, but couldn’t quite grasp.

  Something that had killed before.

  3

  The bluebottles have flown away, looking for something dead to feast upon, letting the buzzing in her head settle down to a dull ache. Everything hurts: the colours, the sounds, the smells. Sharp and sparking. Like electricity dragged across her brain…

  She does not think about that. She shuts it out and keeps on walking.

  Sparks, and the smell of burning meat.

  SHE DOES NOT THINK ABOUT IT.

  She stops, one hand resting against a wall of hot brick, the surface rough beneath her fingers. Warmed by the sun and the beat of the darkened heart.

  This is what happens when she does not take her medication. Things…break.

  A bird lies in the gutter, on its back, a ragged hole in its side, wings crawling with mites. Beak open. Praying to the beating sun in the voice of dead things.

  It’s a lovely sound.

  She wants to sing. Like the dead bird. But she can’t, because of the sparks and the burning meat.

  Because of Him.

  She struggles on the operating table, fighting against the restraining straps. It won’t make the slightest bit of difference, but this is no place for rational thought. She’s authorized enough halfheadings to know that. These sharp, broken, terrified thoughts will be the last ones she’ll ever have.

  The surgeon tries to say something, but she screams him down. Her mouth is operating on automatic: hurling abuse, obscenities, threats. Then the pleading starts: wild bargains and promises to change. The small part of her that is still lucid watches all this with detached interest: a professional behaviourist, categorizing the mental stages of the condemned mind. She wets herself.

  An orderly presses a hypo against her shoulder and pulls the trigger—pins and needles swim through her body as the sedative rides her bloodstream.

  She opens her mouth for one last scream, but nothing works anymore. All broken. Her body sags against the chilly metal.

  The man is talking again, describing the procedure to the viewing gallery. She closes her eyes and does something she’s not done since she was a little child. She prays. She doesn’t pray for salvation, or forgiveness, or world peace, she prays that the surgeon will fuck this up and kill her on the operating table. That she won’t have to spend the rest of her life like the other lobotomized slaves. That she won’t…

  And then the sound starts.

  The surgeon pulls the ultrasonic blade from its holster. The sound jumps to a screech as he runs it across the test block—just a few practice incisions—getting a feel for the wand’s hair-trigger with his long, thin fingers.

  ‘We begin,’ he says, ‘by splitting the lower jaw.’

  Gloved hands pull at her lower lip and the wand screeches. Ionized blood and bone fills her mouth. It’s the last thing she’ll ever taste. She tries to tear her head away, but the only things she can move are her eyes, sweeping the operating theatre, the viewing gallery, looking for something, anything to stop this from happening. This is not how it’s supposed to end. She was careful. She was so very careful.

  There is a cracking noise. Her whole head shifts, as the surgeon works one half of her jaw free of its socket.

  Then her eyes find Him.

  He’s sitting in the front row, His face close to the glass, Network-issue, dark-blue suit almost invisible in the dim light of the viewing gallery. Here to watch her suffer. The ragged scar she gave Him is just a faint purple line now, snaking its way down His face like a tear of drying blood. Soon there will be no trace of it left, scrubbed away through the miracle of modern medicine. But the scar she’s given His soul will be there forever.

  Will stood underneath the cooling unit, enjoying the breeze on the back of his neck. Outside, the sun was at its zenith, broiling the air until it shimmered. But in here it was nice and cold.

  It was always cold in the mortuary.

  ‘Any luck yet, George?’

  The man in the green plastic overalls looked up and shook his head. A human jigsaw was spread out on the slab before him and, as Will watched, the pathologist dropped something unsettling onto a tray then smeared his hands down the front of his chest.

  George waddled over to a little sink and rinsed his gloves off. ‘How was Worrall’s funeral?’

  ‘Hour and a half late. The family weren’t particularly impressed.’

  ‘No pleasing some people…’ George sniffed, pulled out a handkerchief, and made horrible sticky snorting noises into it. ‘Machine’s still trolling through the database, but while we wait for an ID, want to see what I pulled out of your dead friend here?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  George smiled, stretching his podgy face as far as it would go. ‘Thought you weren’t squeamish.’

  ‘I’m off for lunch in twenty minutes. Cafeteria do a good enough job of putting people off their food, they don’t need any help from you.’

  ‘Ah, funny you should mention lunch…’ He grabbed a clear plastic bag from the bench behind him. ‘Tada! Stomach contents!’

  ‘Wonderful.’ Will took one look at what was sloshing around in the pouch and changed his mind about having the ratatouille.

  ‘Knew you’d like it.’ George gave a huge, gurgly sniff. ‘Want to know what’s in it?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘Oh, I can do that all right: human flesh.’

  Will’s face froze. The drumming started again; the long dark corridors sticky with blood; the mutilated faces…’Please tell me it was his own.’

  The pathologist shook his head. ‘Nope. It’s someone else’s. Consumed at least eight hours before he popped his clogs.’ George grinned, obviously happy to have ruined someone’s day. Rotten little gnome that he was. ‘Now you go off and enjoy your lunch. I’ll give you a shout if the machine comes up with anything.’

  Will’s new office was a lot larger than the last one, but there was the same lack of personal detail. No pa
intings, no knickknacks, no holos, not even a framed plaque. If it weren’t for the words ‘ASSISTANT SECTION DIRECTOR WILLIAM HUNTER’ on the door, there would be no sign that anyone worked here at all.

  He reached out for the mug, sitting on a bland grey coaster, and took a mouthful. Gagged. Then spat it back into the cup. It used to be tea; now it was a cold, beige, watery liquid with a film of artificial milk scumming the surface.

  He carried the offending beverage out into the corridor and poured it into the nearest pot plant.

  ‘Mr Hunter?’

  Will froze. Oh…bugger.

  He turned to see the woman voted ‘most likely to inspire murder’ at last year’s Christmas party. In her stocking feet she would have been an unremarkable five foot four, in her power heels she was an unpleasant five foot seven. Her hair hung round her head in a no-nonsense pageboy cut, framing features that could be generously referred to as ‘lumpy’.

  ‘Ah, Director SmithHamilton. How nice to see you.’

  His boss beetled her neatly trimmed eyebrows. ‘What exactly are you doing, Mr Hunter?’

  ‘I…The…plants were looking a little dry. Probably the weather. Thought I’d give them a drink?’

  ‘Ah: that’s what I like to see! People thinking of their working environment as more than just a series of walls and windows. Very good.’ She placed a hand on his arm. ‘Studies have shown that plants have a positive effect on morale. And anything that improves morale, improves productivity.’ Director SmithHamilton gave his arm a squeeze. ‘But then, I don’t have to tell you that!’

  ‘Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, I have to—’

  ‘Anyway, that’s not why I came to see you, William.’ She leaned in close, eyes sweeping up and down the corridor, voice dropping to a loud whisper. ‘I had a meeting with the Justice and Defence Ministry: they’re cutting the Bluecoat budget again. How those poor souls are supposed to maintain law and order with what they’ve got left is beyond me. So as part of a damage limitation exercise I have decided to launch an initiative!’ She beamed at him.

  Oh God, not another initiative—they still hadn’t finished clearing up after the last one.

  ‘Really?’ He did his best to sound positive.

  ‘The last thing we need is the rank and file resenting the Network because we get more funding than they do. We need their cooperation when we’re out in the field. Especially as we’re all going to have to work a lot more closely now. So my initiative,’ she said, ‘will be to get the Bluecoats onboard. Bring in a couple of the middle ranks to liaise and work cases with us. That way they stay in the picture, we make them feel valued, and they’ll be more inclined to cooperate.’

  Will was surprised: he tended to think of SmithHamilton as an unnecessary evil, but every now and again she proved that you didn’t get to be a Network Director by being a total mincehead. It really was a good idea, and he said so.

  ‘Knew you’d be onboard!’ She punched his shoulder again. ‘I’ve asked control to assign each of them an office on the premises: you know, share with an experienced Special Agent, get to know the ropes, that sort of thing.’ She stole a glance at the glowing numerals set into the skin of her wrist and tutted.

  ‘Oops, must dash. Got the First Minister waiting, and you know what a prima donna he is…’ She favoured Will with one last smile before marching off down the corridor.

  He shook the last drips of cold tea from his mug. Well, that could have gone a lot worse. It wasn’t as if—

  ‘Oh, Will.’ Director SmithHamilton popped her head back round the corner. ‘Before I forget: I’ve moved the ASD meeting up to three instead of four, scheduled you in for a case evaluation at two thirty and I believe the first of our Bluecoat liaison officers is already here: bright young woman, definitely going places. So if you could just nip down and sling her through induction that’d be super.’

  And then she was gone.

  He took it all back—she was a total mincehead after all.

  Will stomped back into his office, keying his throat-mike. ‘Control: the Director’s new Bluecoat liaison officer, where have you put her?’ The sooner he got the induction out of the way, the sooner he could get some real work done.

  There was a pause, then, ‘In with Special Agent Alexander, sir. Do you want me to put you through?’

  ‘No, thanks anyway.’ He killed the link and rode the lift down to the fourth floor.

  Agent Alexander’s tiny office had two grey desks shoehorned in, facing opposite walls. One was a mess of battered dataclips, the trays overflowing with unfinished files and open cases. Old-fashioned, two-dimensional photographs covered the wall above the desk; a lot of them pictures of Will and the office’s owner. Restaurants, birthday parties, pubs, standing about like stuffed penguins and grinning like idiots at some ceremony or other. Back when they both had a lot more hair.

  An explosion of foul language pulled Will’s eyes towards a pair of lurid green trousers sticking out from under the other desk, and as he watched, the desktop terminal hummed into life, beeped twice and then flickered off again. This time the frustrated cursing bore all the hallmarks of impending violence and Will was almost afraid to ask,

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’

  Ms Green Suit, the Bluecoat from the Sherman House toilets, stuck her head out and pointed at a pile of cabling. ‘Pass us over the red one…No, not that one: the one with the big square bit on the end.’

  She flashed him a smile, but it turned into a scowl when she saw the space the red thing was supposed to fit through.

  Will kept his mouth shut as she did her best to shove the ‘big square bit’ through a small round hole in the plasticboard. There was a thump. Then: ‘Fucking cock-monkeys!’ She crawled out from under the desk, sucking a set of raw knuckles.

  ‘You want some ice to put on that?’

  ‘Only if it’s keeping half a pint of gin company.’ She sat back on the office floor and scowled at the tiny drops of blood beginning to form.

  Will dropped into a crouch and peered under the desk at the offending ‘big square bit’. The hole it was supposed to go through was less than half its size. ‘What’s on the other side of the wall?’

  ‘No idea. You want me to go look?’

  He nodded and she marched out of the door and into the other room.

  ‘See anything?’

  Her voice echoed down the corridor, ‘Just a manky pot plant. Junction box is further down.’

  ‘Good. Move the plant.’ Brian always kept a spare Palm Thrummer in his desk. Will spent a whole fifteen seconds bypassing the securilock, then went rummaging through the junk-filled drawers. Brian was a good enough Agent, but he had a nasty habit of turning every place he worked into a pigsty.

  Will found the Thrummer—looking like a stainless steel vibrator—beneath a pile of discarded plastic things and dragged it out into the open. If he was lucky it would still have some charge left. He twisted the two halves of the cylindrical casing till something went ‘click’ and the tines slid out.

  ‘Stand back from the wall.’ He pointed the weapon at the offending small, round hole and thumbed the trigger. The Palm Thrummer growled and a fist-sized section of wall disappeared in a cloud of dust. There was a shriek from the other room.

  A stunned face gawked at him through the hole. ‘Do you not think that was a bit over the top?’

  ‘Call it lateral thinking.’ He grabbed the ‘big square thing’ and tossed it through.

  She grabbed the connector before it hit the carpet and laughed. ‘You’re not right in the head, you know that?’

  ‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot this morning, how about we start again?’ He stuck his hand through the hole for shaking. ‘William Hunter.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron.’ Her handshake was firm, but warm. Made a nice change to find a professional female who didn’t feel she had to prove something by crushing all the bones in his hand. ‘You going to be my new room-mate then?’

  ‘
Not really, no.’ He stood, waiting for her to come back round to the cramped office.

  ‘Ah…I get it.’ She pointed at the nameplate on the door ‘SPECIAL AGENT BRIAN ALEXANDER’. ‘This isn’t your office, but your picture’s all over the wall. What are you two, lovers or something?’

  ‘No, I’m his boss. Assistant Section Director.’

  ‘Ah…’ She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Brian and I came up through the ranks together.’ That wasn’t strictly true, he’d come up through the ranks, Brian’s career had stalled at Special Agent.

  ‘You two aren’t an item?’

  ‘Don’t think Brian’s husband would approve.’ Will settled back against the cluttered desk. ‘So, how come you got lumbered with the liaison job?’

  ‘They stuck the posters up a fortnight ago, thought it sounded like a good idea. Put my name down.’

  ‘You’ve known about this for two weeks?’

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  Will closed his eyes and had a swift mental fantasy involving Director SmithHamilton, a seven-foot skewer, an open fire, and some barbecue sauce.

  ‘No reason.’ He forced a smile. ‘So, shall we start your induction DS Cameron?’

  ‘Sir, if you’re the ASD you have to call me Jo.’

  ‘Sir?’ Not what he’d been expecting after this morning’s run in.

  ‘Just because I’m a Bluecoat, doesn’t mean I can’t follow the chain of command. And anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘I might want to join the big N some day.’

  They went through the building from the top down: toured the rooftop landing zones, walked the corridors of power on the seventh floor; pointed at the other Assistant Section Directors on the sixth; glided past the Special Agents on five, four and three; poked their noses in on the juniors and trainees on two and one; stuck their heads round the control room door on the ground floor; did more pointing at the famous paintings in the public areas; sauntered through the legal department, briefing rooms and operation zones on the first sub level; ignored the canteen and VR reconstruction suites; and ended up deep in the building’s bowels. Outside the mortuary.

  Will didn’t take long to warm to his task as tour guide. DS Cameron was likeable, bright, and she’d joined in when he’d poked fun at the tourists gawping their way around the ground floor.