Halfhead

2

‘Control, this is Delta One Four, do you copy?’

‘Affirmative Delta One Four. You are cleared to proceed.’

‘Jacobs, you’re on sweep. Phillips: back door. I’ll take point. On three, two, one…’ The heavy plastic door slammed back against the toilet wall and suddenly the low, stinking room was full of flies. ‘Move! Move! Move!’

Jacobs charged in, his Field Zapper pointing everywhere at once. Out in the corridor Phillips was facing back the way they’d come, covering the entrance. Detective Sergeant Cameron ran into the toilets…then slithered to a halt on the blood-smeared tiles. Seven years with the Bluecoats and she’d never seen anything like this. There was something dark and sticky smeared all over one of the toilet cubicles. It used to be a man.

DS Cameron reached one hand up and keyed the little switch buried beneath the skin of her throat.

‘Control…’ She turned her back on the butchered remains. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

‘Now, can anyone tell me what this is? Anyone? Yes, Sophie?’

A small girl in a neon-blue tabard dropped her hand and grinned a gap-toothed grin. ‘It’s a bad person.’

‘That’s right Sophie!’ The teacher smiled. They were good kids. ‘Now, can anyone tell me why they cut bad people’s heads in half?’

There wasn’t even a moment’s pause: all twelve of them leaped up and down screaming, ‘Because they’ve been naughty!’

To be honest, the halfhead they were staring at didn’t look all that naughty, just another poor soul who wasn’t going to cause any more trouble. A man with half a face, a fried brain, and a barcode tattooed on his forehead. He was slowly mopping his way across the entrance lobby, cleaning the marble-tiled floor until it sparkled. The small group followed him, ignoring the priceless works of art lining the walls. They’d found something much more interesting. Some of the children pulled faces, sticking out their top teeth, pulling in their chins and rolling their eyes. One or two of them pretended to clean the floor with special, invisible mops. It was amazing just how much imagination they had.

‘Now, then,’ the teacher said as they rounded the corner, ‘what do you think the bad person did? Nigel, what do you think? What did he do?’

Nigel examined his boots for a minute. ‘Wath he mean to thomebody’th cat?’

‘Ooh, that would be naughty wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes!’ they screeched.

‘Excuse me.’ The voice came from a well-dressed man waiting for the lift.

‘Just a moment. Young persons, what do we say to the nice man?’

‘We don’t talk to strangers!’

‘That’s right!’ The teacher turned and beamed at the gentleman in the dark-blue suit. ‘Aren’t they clever!’

There was a slight pause, then the man said, ‘Delightful.’

‘We like to come here and look at all the pretty paintings, don’t we?’

‘Yes!’

For the first time the stranger smiled. Obviously the children had worn down his initial reserve. They’d taken someone they’d never met before and, in a matter of seconds, turned him into a friend. They were wonderful that way.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing your question, “What did he do?”’

Nigel jumped up and down, waving his hand in the air, desperate to be the centre of attention again. ‘He wath mean to thomebodie’th cat!’

The stranger reached forward and ruffled Nigel’s hair, bringing an even bigger grin to the lad’s face.

‘He was indeed. A lot of them are to begin with. Before they escalate.’ The man dropped down and winked at the circle of children. ‘Moths, frogs, cats, dogs…Then this one turned his attentions to little boys. He liked to cut their fingers off, one by one, and stick them somewhere dark and private.’

‘Ooh!’ A little girl tugged at the stranger’s sleeve. ‘Did he stick them up their noses? Did he? Nigel’s always sticking his fingers up his nose.’

‘No I don’t! Don’t lithen to her, she’th a poo-head.’

‘Am not!’

‘Are too!’

‘Er, look, I don’t think this is entirely appropriate.’ For the first time the teacher noticed that the stranger’s smile didn’t go as far as his eyes. In fact, now that he really looked, there was something decidedly sinister about the man. ‘Come on, children, we…er…have to be going.’ He gathered them together, trying to get them to safety, but the nasty man kept on talking.

‘Then, when they didn’t have any fingers left, he would cut off their toes. If they were lucky they died from shock. If not, they were still alive while he opened up their tummies. With a kitchen knife.’

‘That’s disgusting! How dare you!’

The lift doors pinged open and the man stepped backwards through them.

‘When we caught him there were fifteen little boys buried under his floorboards and three more in the freezer.’ His expression hardened as he stared straight into the teacher’s eyes. ‘Try and remember that next time you feel like taking the piss.’

A soft chime sounded and the doors began to slide shut. ‘What’s your name? I’ll report you to your superiors!’

Clunk. With a dry whirr the lift departed taking the horrible man and his unpleasant stories with it.

Safely cocooned within the glass-walled car the nasty man in the dark-blue suit reached up and keyed his throat-mike.

‘Control, this is Hunter, please tell me the staff lifts are going to be back online soon!’

A voice crackled in his earpiece: ‘Sorry, sir, Maintenance are still working on it. Won’t give us a completion time.’

‘There’s a surprise.’ Outside the lift’s glass walls Glasgow baked, waiting for the rains to come. They were late this year, the unbearably hot summer dragging on and on, outstaying its welcome by months. Everything looked on the verge of death. Himself included.

He watched his reflection slide across the glass, not liking what he saw. Dark-purple bags slumped under his eyes; his proud, squint nose sitting on a face that needed at least another eight hours sleep and a better shave than the one he’d given it. Somewhere along the way, genetics had sneaked up on him, startling his unruly mop of dark brown hair into a slow retreat. Every year a little more forehead went on display. Have to get a clonegraft organized. Not for a couple of years, but soon enough.

He dragged his eyes away, letting them drift across the Network’s shadowed forecourt. Here and there, small pockets of wilted vegetation waited for the blistering morning sun. Another party of school children was being shepherded towards the main entrance, to be lectured on the importance of maintaining law and order. Look at the pretty paintings. Or just make fun of the halfheads.

Bloody teachers.

A delicate ping heralded his arrival on the thirteenth floor and William Hunter stepped out into the corridor. Someone was waiting for him.

‘Sir.’ Private Dickson snapped off a salute. She’d swapped her usual grey jumpsuit for a dress uniform in black and chrome, a huge Bull Thrummer slung causally over her shoulder. The siege rifle was almost as big as she was, its massive tremblers sticking up past her head, the tines dangling down by her ankles.

‘Lieutenant Brand said to tell you the team’s assembled and ready to go, sir.’ She stood to attention and Will couldn’t help but smile.

‘Are you sure that’s what she said?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Those were her exact words?’

Private Dickson wouldn’t look at him. ‘Em…more or less, sir.’

‘I can check, you know.’

She sighed. ‘Sir. The Lieutenant said: “Tell him to get his arse in gear before I kick it half way to Edinburgh for him.” Sir.’ Dickson’s face had turned a delicate shade of pink.

‘Well, we’d better not keep her waiting then.’

At the end of the corridor a pair of double doors hissed opened onto the staging zone. Will followed Dickson out onto the roof and into the open air. The sudden change from climate-controlled comfort to baking heat was like being punched in the chest. Every breath was an effort as they marched past the hopperpads towards a waiting Dragonfly.

The gunship sat on four squat, hydraulic legs, a huge asymmetrical salmon sculpted from blackened steel. All of its weapons’ bays were closed; they wouldn’t need heavy artillery where they were going.

As Will and Dickson cleared the barrier rail the Dragonfly’s engines growled into life, the concrete landing pad shimmering in the downdraught.

They clambered up the rear ramp and into the relative cool of the gunship’s darkened interior. A familiar voice sounded in Will’s ear, ‘Mr Hunter, how nice of you to join us…’

‘Morning, Lieutenant.’ Will made his way down the ship’s drop bay, nodding at the troops as he passed, looking for a vacant compartment. They’d kept one for him at the far end, next to the passageway that led through to the cockpit, directly opposite the six-and-a-half-foot-tall cylinder no one wanted to look at.

He clipped himself in.

Immediately the sound of the ship’s engines changed, roaring up through the octaves to a high-pitched whine. The ground beneath his feet surged and Will went with it, riding the wave of steel as the Dragonfly leapt into the sky and accelerated away.

It was a quiet journey: none of the usual banter that went on in the belly of a Network gunship. They stood, quiet in their bays, thinking about where they were going and how close they’d been to joining Private Worrall.

Will tried not to blame himself for what had happened. Why should he? It wasn’t his fault: Worrall had been careless. Worrall wouldn’t follow procedure. Worrall had to be the big hero.

Silly bastard…

But it didn’t stop Will feeling responsible.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Are you going to speak, or do you want me to?’ Lieutenant Emily Brand sounded a lot more subdued than she had when he’d clambered aboard. She leant on the rail surrounding his compartment, shifting her weight effortlessly as the Dragonfly roared through the sky.

Emily was built for this type of work: lean, muscled, auburn hair cropped so short it was almost shaved. Like the rest of her troops she was in dress uniform: black, tailored, four chrome bars on her shoulder to show her rank. They’d be sending Private Worrall off in style.

Will glanced across at the metal cylinder. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk if you’re not…’ He was going to say ‘up to it’, but to Emily that would sound like a challenge. ‘I’ll do it. God knows I’ve done enough of these things; got the speech off by heart.’

‘Yes.’ She looked away. ‘That’d probably be for the best.’

The Dragonfly tilted and Lieutenant Brand headed back to her command station next to the pilot, leaving Will with an almost inaudible, ‘Thank you.’

He watched her go then reached forward to switch on the monitor mounted above his booth. The screen crackled and fizzed with static from the engines, but the view from the ship’s front gun ports was still recognizable beneath all that white noise: Glasgow.

The river Clyde sparkled like a barbed-wire fence, winding its way slowly to the sea, hemmed in by the massive barrier walls that cut the city in two and wrapped all the way around the outside. Keeping the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea from swallowing it whole. On the south side of the river the city changed; there were none of the great ‘revivalist architectural projects’ or trendy sandstone communities. Over there it was all foamcrete and industrial plastic, a grey landscape of compressed urban habitation units sweltering in the sun.

Will watched as sunlight caught the windows of a massive connurb block, shining like a warning beacon against the depressing, angular landscape. ‘Stay away’ it said. Something cold marched down his spine. He didn’t need to be told twice.

‘Landing zone acquired: touchdown in three.’

He lurched against the harness as the Dragonfly’s engines howled into reverse, bringing the gunship to a juddering halt in midair. Didn’t matter what they were doing, they always flew these damn things as if they were going into battle.

The word ‘Arse’ sounded in Will’s earpiece, and then the signal cut out.

Up in the cockpit Lieutenant Emily Brand was arguing with someone on the comlink-Will couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was clear. It didn’t sound as if she was winning.

Finally her voice crackled over the tannoy. ‘Sorry people: change of plan. Bluecoats need backup and an SOC team. That means us. None of the other units can attend. I know it’s shitty and I know it stinks, but it’s orders. Start your engines people, Private Worrall’s funeral will just have to wait.’

The ship swung in the air and the engines roared again. Will watched as the nice side of the city disappeared from his monitor, replaced by the foamcrete jungle. They were heading straight for the towering connurb blocks.

‘Oh no…’

‘Listen up, people: we’re going into a known hot zone and there are Bluecoats onsite, so no itchy trigger fingers and no heroics! I don’t want to be carting anyone else back in a body-bag.’

Almost everyone stole a glance at the canister opposite Will’s booth.

‘Target is: male toilets, main entrance lobby, Sherman House.’

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no…Will tightened his grip on the handrail, palms suddenly cold and damp. Curses flew around the drop bay as the troopers moaned about the target. But there was worse to come.

‘ASD Hunter will be in charge of the pickup team. Anyone who doesn’t do exactly what he tells them, when he tells them, will suddenly find themselves having a very bad day. Understood?’

Will barely heard the half-hearted chorus of, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He was too busy trying not to throw up.

‘I can’t hear you!’

The steel walls reverberated with the deafening shouts of, ‘Ma’am, yes, ma’am!’

‘Better. We have an ETA of two minutes thirty. I suggest you make sure all weapons are locked and fully charged. Chitin will be worn! I see you out there without it and I’ll shoot you myself.’

All around him Whompers and Thrummers were buzzing into life, their targeting beams illuminating the dim interior with a sickly green glow.

Will reached for his throat-mike and asked as calmly as he could what the bloody hell Lieutenant Brand thought she was doing putting him in charge of the pickup team. Sending him out there.

‘It’ll be good for you.’

Will closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Some very well-paid people with expensive leather couches and degrees in psychology had told him the same thing. If you don’t confront your fear it will always haunt you. He hadn’t believed them either.

‘ETA one minute, people. Smooth and clean. In and out. No drama. No problems.’

It was too late for Will to back out now and he knew it. It would make Lieutenant Brand look bad in front of her troops and it would make him look even worse.

Shit. Shitty…fucking…shit.

Thanks, Emily, thanks a heap.

He pulled his Zapper out from its shoulder holster and checked it was still fully charged. The small, pebbled disk sat in the palm of his hand, the dial on the top turned to a conservative ‘HEAVY STUN’.

Just because he was going back to Sherman House it didn’t mean history would repeat itself. And besides, this time he had a heavily armed assault team for backup. There was nothing to worry about. No one in their right mind would pick a fight with half a dozen of the Network’s finest. It would be suicide. Madness.

He shifted uncomfortably against his harness; the residents of Sherman House weren’t exactly known for their good mental health.

Sod it. Will grabbed a Whomper from the recharging rack. The assault rifle’s plastic casing was cool beneath his fingers as he ran a thumb over the power indicator. Telltales sparkled into life, indicating a full battery and the weapon’s readiness to blow a dirty big hole in anything it was pointed at. At least this way he could take a few of the bastards with him.

‘Heads up, people, we have visual.’

Monstrosity Square filled the small screen in front of him. Four massive connurb blocks with more than sixty thousand people shoehorned into each. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there were another eleven identical squares on this side of the river: half of them rebuilt in the aftermath of the riots.

God help Glasgow if their residents decided to go on the warpath.

Again.

Static crackled across the picture as the Dragonfly pitched into its final approach, dropping like a cannonball.

Lieutenant Brand stalked back into the drop bay, bracing herself as the gunship started twisting and turning-making itself a difficult target. She walked the length of the bay, checking everyone was chitined up before barking orders at them. ‘Nairn, Dickson, Wright, you’re on point. Floyd: rearguard. Beaton, you and Stein are on SOC. The rest of you form a defensive perimeter around the ship.’ There was a pause as Will’s escorts unbuckled themselves. ‘Stay focused, people, we’re not in Kansas any more.’

The engines slammed into full reverse. This was it: Sherman House, they’d arrived.

Oh God…

Before the landing legs had even touched the tarmac the rear ramp was open, letting in the harsh morning sun.

Emily nodded: game time.

‘Move it, people!’

The four-man defensive perimeter sprinted into place, body-wires spooling out behind them like armoured spiders. Sunlight glistened off their chitin as they scanned the crowded square, heavy weapons searching for possible targets. The blocks’ residents froze in place like waxworks: silent, staring. Hostile.

Then the advance team charged down the ramp; running for the nearest monolith, the crowds parting like a Red Sea of the unwashed and unwanted.

Will tightened his grip on the Whomper as the three Network troopers disappeared into Sherman House. The entrance had been grand and imposing once: a wall of plexi glass and chrome the size of a football pitch, moulded marble plinths and the most fashionable sculpture public money could buy. But the glass had lost its sparkle long ago.

There was no sign of the dancing figures in bronze, or the mottled-steel animals, or even the full-sized granite sperm whale. They’d all gone during the riots: blown apart by Shrikes, or Thrummed out of existence. Only ash-black shadows remained.

When the all-clear crackled in his earpiece, Will realized he’d been holding his breath.

This was a very bad idea.

‘Come on,’ he said, keeping his voice low so no one else could hear, ‘this is for your own good.’ He took the first step onto the ramp and stopped. His pulse thudded in his ears, chest tightening, stomach churning, mouth suddenly dry, the Whomper shaking in his hands.

Beaton and Stein stood behind him, wrestling with the ungainly scanning gear: a canister that looked disturbingly like Private Worrall’s coffin. They were expecting Will to take the lead.

Lieutenant Emily Brand’s voice sounded in his ear. ‘You waiting for an engraved invitation?’

He crossed the threshold into the harsh sunlight. It was like walking into an oven with a two-ton weight tied to his bowels. Sherman House…

Sweat pricked across his forehead.

The forecourt was crowded with angry, silent faces, staring at the armoured troopers. Most of the locals were dressed in the colourful eclectic rags that were all the rage the year before last; some wore the tight, formal clothes that had been in vogue the year before that. On this side of the river they only followed fashion from a distance.

There’d be more of them, glowering down from the floors above. Watching. Waiting for the blood and the darkness to start all over again.

Will tightened his grip on the Whomper and marched across the sun-bleached tarmac, eyes fixed dead ahead. The building getting bigger with every step, until it blocked out everything.

The crowd just stood there, gaily-coloured tatters fluttering in the downdraft from the Dragonfly’s engines.

Only ten feet to go. Eight. Six. Four…Will pushed through the cracked and grimy doors into the shrouded atrium.

The huge, glass front wall was now almost opaque, a jigsaw of splintered panes and cloudy plasticboard. Green mould coated the glazed panels, throwing the huge room into shadow.

It should have been cooler in here out of the sun, but it wasn’t.

All around him, hundreds of people stood in silence, just like the crowd outside. Staring.

Beaton and Stein burst through the door behind him, dragging their Scene of Crime equipment, Private Floyd bringing up the rear. Will keyed his throat-mike.

‘We’re in.’

‘Roger that. Perimeter defence: prepare for dust-off in five, four, three…’ Outside, the ship’s engines built to a muffled roar as the Dragonfly leapt free of the ground, fading as it acceler ated away to safety.

Now they were on their own.

Will nodded at the six heavily armed men and women surrounding him.

‘Let’s do it.’

Sergeant Nairn led them deeper into the building, heading for the toilets. As the pickup team moved the crowd moved around them. No one came within six feet, as if beyond that distance they would be safe from the Whompers and Thrummers.

By the time they reached the stairs to the mezzanine level sweat was trickling down Will’s back. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat or being back in Sherman House that did it, but he felt terrible. He’d been right to stay away.

At the top of the steps the main lobby stretched away on both sides, circling the building’s central well. The space it surrounded was supposed to be a ‘landscaped oasis in the urban jungle’. From what little Will could see it looked more like an open landfill site.

They found the toilets next to the elevators.

‘Sergeant Nairn,’ Will pointed at the cracked blue door, ‘I want you, Floyd and Wright to guard the entrance. No one in or out without my say so.’

‘Understood.’ Nairn and his troopers took up their positions, weapons pointing at the crowd. The nearest inhabitants shifted uncomfortably, but the six foot bubble stayed exactly the same.

‘Dickson, you’re with us.’ Will eased the door open and stepped inside, blinking at the sharp, eye-nipping reek of ammonia. Bloody hell-it stunk in here: rancid piss, laced with bile and sweat. Will stopped short and gasped. God, you could even taste it…

Behind him Dickson swore.

Three separate toilets-male, female and differently-abled- took up a wall each. Beaton and Stein humped the SOC kit into the corridor. ‘Jesus, Dickson, smells worse than your house.’

‘Fuck you Stein.’ She shifted her grip on the massive Bull Thrummer, its spinners crackling, the tines trembling in the reeking air.

The door to the male toilets was slightly ajar. Covering his mouth and nose, Will pushed it all the way.

‘What th’ hell?’ A large woman wearing the distinctive navy jacket and brass buttons of a beat cop went for the Field Zapper strapped to her hip. Will had just enough time to duck before a sheath of blue lightning arced over his head and into Private Dickson.

There was a muffled squeal as all the muscles in Dickson’s body contracted at once, sending her flying. As she hit the far wall her Bull Thrummer bellowed, tearing the concrete floor into a thick mist of crackling dust.

The outside door battered against the wall as what looked like Sergeant Nairn burst in, the lightsight on his Thrummer making a solid bar of green in the cloud of concrete particles. ‘ON THE FLOOR NOW!’

‘DON’T SHOOT!’ Will stepped forward, then froze, arms pinwheeling, one foot hovering over the edge of a huge hole, straight through to some sort of maintenance room on the floor below. ‘Shit…’ He staggered backwards. ‘We’re on the same side!’

The woman with the oversized Zapper stayed where she was, the snub barrel pointing straight at Will’s face.

‘Prove it.’

‘OK. I-’ He coughed up a lungful of concrete dust. ‘I’m reaching into my inside pocket to get my ID card. Are we all happy with that?’

She didn’t object, so Will slipped the small plastic rectangle out of his wallet and showed it to her. The hologram on the front looked like someone had startled a chimpanzee, but it seemed to do the trick.

‘Well, well, well: an Assistant Section Director as I live and breathe. What’s th’ matter, Network?’ she asked, ‘You think us poor wee Bluecoats would screw it up without you here to hold our little handies?’

‘You asked for SOC support, OK? Urgh…’ He grimaced and spat: gritty saliva. ‘And for the record, I think it’s bloody ridiculous they cut your budget, again. How are you supposed to-’

‘Save it for someone that cares, Mr Assistant Section Director, cos I’ve had my share o’patronizin’ bullshit this month.’ She stepped aside and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘In there.’

Will bit his tongue-fighting with her wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

On the floor behind him Private Dickson was groaning her way back to consciousness. He made sure she knew what day it was and how many fingers he was holding up before ushering the SOC team into the gents’ toilet.

It was a filthy room, the metallic smell of fresh blood adding to the oppressive urine reek. The tiles had been white once, now they were stained a dark cherry red. Bloated flies filled the air, drifting in fat, lazy circles. A couple of younger Blue-coats stood in the corner, keeping as far out of the way as possible. One of them was pale grey, shivering, and as Beaton and Stein started assembling the scanning booms, Will found out why. The smell was bad, but the sight was worse.

‘Was the body like this when you found it?’

A voice sounded behind him: ‘No, it was all in one piece. We hacked it up for a bit of a laugh.’

You know what? Screw this: if the Bluecoats wanted a fight, they could have one.

‘Right,’ he said, slowly turning around. ‘I have had enough of your lousy attitude. We’re here because we have to be, not because we want to be. You…’ Will drifted to a halt.

He’d been prepared for another blue uniform carrying a grudge the size of Peebles, but instead he was confronted with the most violently green suit he’d ever seen in his life. Its occupant was female, slightly taller than average, with skin the colour of milky coffee. Her hair was gathered up on top of her head in an asymmetrical bun-very fashionable. The frown she was wearing was almost as unpleasant as the suit.

‘Oh, I see.’ She crossed her arms. ‘What a shame you’ve been dragged all the way down here to play with the lower classes. What’s the matter, Network? Termite lives don’t count? This not white collar enough for you?’ Somehow she’d managed to clench her entire face.

Will’s voice never rose above a low growl. ‘We don’t want to be here because one of our team got blown apart yesterday. We don’t want to be here because right now we’re supposed to be placing him in the long walk, and I’m supposed to be telling his wife and his daughter what a great man he was.’ Will stepped forward, staring Ms Green Suit straight in the eye. ‘We don’t want to be here because this is not a Network job. But some bean-counting mincehead decided to slash your budget and give all the extra work to us, so here we are. And I do not have the time, or the inclination, to fight with you about it: I have a funeral to go to.’

She tilted her head to one side and studied him for a moment. The scowl slid from her face. ‘I see.’ She pointed at the cubicle done out like an abattoir. ‘Victim’s an I-C-one male. Roughly five foot eight, hundred and ninety pounds.’

Will opened the cubicle door all the way. The remains were slumped back on the toilet, chunks of meat and innards lying in sticky clumps on the blood-soaked floor, smears of scarlet and black all up the walls. The head was almost unrecognizable. ‘Wow…’

‘Chest cavity was split with a knife, at least eight inches long, probably serrated. No sign of the murder weapon on scene. Internal organs have been removed and slashed. The same chevron pattern is evident on both thighs.’

Will squatted down in front of the tattered body, peering into the emptied chest cavity. ‘Anything else?’

‘Teeth and jawbones were shattered by some sort of blunt instrument. There’s something in his mouth: think it’s his genitals, but I can’t tell for sure till your Scene of Crime bods are finished with the scanning. No idea what happened to his eyes.’

Hard light flickered through the low, stinking room as Stein and Beaton finally got the scanning booms set up. Any minute now it was going to get very noisy in here.

Will levered himself back to his feet.

‘You’ll agree,’ Ms Green Suit said, as he stepped gingerly over the cables snaking across the sticky floor tiles, ‘that the attack pattern looks frenzied, disorganized. Furious. I’d say our killer was white, male, aged between twenty-four and thirty-two. Slovenly appearance. Lives alone or with his mother. She’s got no idea what he’s up to.’ She didn’t need to say unemployed, on this side of the river that was a given.

Will smiled-it was the classic serial killer profile, straight out of the field manual. ‘I know this isn’t my case, but are you sure your killer’s disorganized?’

‘Course he is. Attack’s too messy for him to be anything else.’

Will pointed at the remains. ‘Look at the hands.’

She frowned. ‘What about them?’

‘The fingertips are pulped, so we can’t take any prints. The jaws have been demolished, so we can’t use the dental database. The eyes have gone so we can’t take a retinal scan. The only way we’re going to get an ID is if our victim’s got a record and his DNA’s still on file. If not: chances are we’ll never know who he was.’

Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment. Then, ‘So the killer must be organized enough to cover his tracks.’

‘At the very least.’

The scanning array gave a low rumble and a clank, then fell silent. Stein treated it to a brief bout of swearing and a good hard kick. The machinery started up again, the sonics grumbling and buzzing like a catarrh-filled geriatric full of wasps.

‘OK, people,’ Beaton flipped a switch on the side of the casing, ‘time to vacate the premises if you don’t want to be immortalized in glorious, invasive scanovision.’

They all shuffled out into the corridor, avoiding the hole in the floor, and waited for the scanners to do their thing. The low phlegmy rumble turned into a deafening whine-the closed door cut the noise a little, but not much.

The concrete particles were settling, coating everything and everyone in a thin layer of gritty grey dust. Private Dickson stood at the far end of the group, cradling her Bull Thrummer and nursing what looked like a pretty big grudge; glowering at the Bluecoat who’d treated her to that bout of electroconvulsive therapy.

Ms Green Suit leant over and said something Will couldn’t really hear.

‘What?’

‘WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL?’ She had to shout directly into his ear before Will could hear her over the scanners.

‘WHAT? CALL WHEN?’

‘WHEN YOU CAME BARGING INTO THE TOILETS. WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL AND LET US KNOW YOU WERE OUT HERE? IF YOU HAD, YOUR LASS WOULDN’T HAVE GOT HERSELF ZAPPED.’

Will swore under his breath. ‘I…’ He couldn’t come up with a good excuse, so he kept his mouth shut and waited in silence like the rest of them.

The floor beneath their feet trembled as the subsonics kicked in and Will shut his eyes, leaning back against the wall. That way he didn’t have to look at the large hole in the floor, or Dickson’s angry face. Good job Bluecoats weren’t allowed to carry anything stronger than a Zapper, or Will would have another funeral to speak at. And this one really would have been his fault. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

At last the scanners gurgled and pinged to a halt.

‘Right, that’s your lot.’ Stein stuck a finger in his ear and wriggled it. ‘Give us two minutes to pack up and we can all go home.’

They filed back into the blood-smeared toilet, doing their best to stay out of the way as Beaton and Stein battered and cursed the equipment into its casing, then chucked it out into the corridor for Private Dickson to look after. Beaton produced a body-bag, squatting to pick up chunks of red and purple meat from the sticky tiles.

Now that the scanning gear was out of the way there was nothing obscuring Will’s view of the dirty room. Broken sinks. Walls covered with graffiti. Cracked mirror. The floor was peppered with dead flies, their little shiny bodies not robust enough to stand up to the scanners. Blood everywhere. Will didn’t envy the poor sod who’d have to sanitize the scene when they’d gone…

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.