Lockdown

I

Amy drove east on Tooley Street in her little yellow Toyota. It was the Japanese motor manufacturer’s concept welfare vehicle, especially adapted to take her wheelchair. A clever arrangement with a backward-sliding driver’s door and an extending ramp with a short rise and fall that slid her neatly in behind the wheel. It had not come cheap — none of the accoutrements of disability did — but the compensation money had enabled her to equip herself for a life as normal as she could make it.

It was easier getting around now that the streets were mostly deserted. Not that she ventured out much these days.

She passed a convoy of military vehicles speeding west and glanced north towards the river and the tilting curves of the glass and steel edifice that was City Hall. All that glass, the Mayor had once said, should be seen as a metaphor for the transparency of government. Now you could see right through it. Because it was empty. Hollow promises which had come to nothing. For all their planning, they had never envisaged anything on this scale.

She turned north on Three Oak Lane, where presumably three oaks had once grown. But they were long gone. In Gainsford Street she turned into the multi-storey car park and drove up the ramp to her parking place on the second floor. It had been the only spot she could get at the time, and it left her always at the mercy of the lift. If it was working, there was no problem. If it was not, then she was in trouble. Today it rumbled down to the ground floor without a hitch, and she steered herself across the cobbles to the gated entrance of Butlers and Colonial Wharf, a collection of new-build and warehouse conversions around an open concourse. The whine of her electric motor seemed very loud in the quiet of this still grey day, a strange blue light leeching all colour out of the honeyed brick. There was not a soul to be seen. Once, in a bygone age, these streets and alleys and buildings would have heaved with life. Dockers and warehousemen and stevedores. Ships sailing up the estuary to the Pool of London to unload exotic foodstuffs and spices from the far reaches of the British Empire. Girdered metal bridges ran at peculiar angles overhead between towering warehouses. A huge, arched gateway gave on to the Thames, where workers had queued daily in the hope of picking up a few hours’ work. Now these were the homes of those renaissance city dwellers who could afford them, serviced by the wine bars and gourmet restaurants which animated the cobbled lanes. The silence was eerie. Not a single echo of the past remaining.

Amy tilted up the ramp to her front door and unlocked it to let herself in. This had once been a warehouse for the storage of spices. The old lady who sold it to her told her she had toured the building in a hardhat before the conversion work began. ‘It was heavenly, my dear,’ she’d said. ‘The whole place smelled of cloves.’

It was on three floors and Amy had the top two. Quite impractical for someone in a wheelchair, but she had been determined not to sacrifice anything to her disability. If she’d had the money before the accident, she would have loved to live in a place like this. Now that she could afford it, she was determined not to make any compromises. So she had installed stair lifts on both flights of stairs and a wheelchair on each floor. She slept on the first floor and lived on the second — in a huge open space up amongst the rafters which she had subdivided with furniture and bookshelves. In the far corner she had an open-plan kitchen, and on the back wall, French windows led out on to a square metal balcony where, in summer, she could sit and read and soak up the sun.

Amy transferred from her wheelchair to the bottom stair lift. She had developed strength in her arms to heave herself about, although there was not much weight in her slight frame. Sometimes she found the lift frustratingly slow. Today she simply closed her eyes and drifted up with it, cradling the small package in her lap. It had been a traumatic morning. To find herself identifying with a murder victim was a unique experience. But something about this poor little girl had touched her in a way she had not believed possible. She thought of all the corpses she had handled, the heads she had brought home to work on, and how she had always been able to separate herself from the unpleasant reality of her job. Until now. There was something about that collection of small bones which somehow still contained the spirit of the child. Amy found it disturbing, and when she held the skull in her hands, she could almost have sworn she felt the child’s fear, passing through bone into her very own flesh.

All the doors on the first floor landing were closed, and only the light filtering up from the front door permeated the darkness. There was a faintly unusual smell hanging in the air, but Amy was distracted, putting down her package to enable the move to the wheelchair at the top of the stairs, and it didn’t really register. She didn’t mind the dark. Sometimes she would sit for hours with the lights out and pretend that none of this had ever happened. That she would simply decide to turn on the light and get up and do it.

She steered herself along to the foot of the second staircase and stopped in sudden confusion, unaware of the shadow moving through the darkness behind her. The stair lift was not there. She craned her neck to peer up and saw that it was at the top of the stairs. How was that possible? She had left it on the landing when she went out this morning. And in that moment she registered the faintly lingering scent which had eluded her just seconds earlier, and her heart seized. Just as a hand came around from behind and clamped itself over her mouth. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t open her lips, and the strength in the arm from behind held her firmly in place. She put both hands up and grabbed the sleeve as her attacker moved silently around to scoop her up and out of her chair.

Amy was helpless, legs dangling uselessly. All she could do was hold on to him as he moved across the landing and kicked open the door to her bedroom. In three strides he reached the bed and laid her down amongst the quilt and cushions. He took his hand from her mouth. ‘You bastard!’ she screamed, and she reached up and grabbed him by the neck, pulling with all her strength until he tipped towards her and she found his lips with hers.

When they broke apart she was breathless, and he was grinning at her. ‘You were brilliant,’ he said.

She couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Just doing my job, Detective Inspector.’

He kissed her again, lightly this time, then brushed her hair from her eyes. Such lovely, dark eyes. He gazed at her, full of admiration and desire. ‘What would Dr Bennet say if he could see us now?’

A shadow passed over her face. ‘He’d hate it. He thinks you’re the kind of cop who would beat someone up just because they were gay.’

‘I wouldn’t mind taking a pop at him sometime. But not because he’s gay. Because he’s such an obnoxious little shit.’

She pushed him away. ‘He’s my friend, Jack. My best friend in the whole world. I’d never have survived the last two-and-a-half years without him.’

MacNeil drew a deep breath and held his tongue. ‘I know. But you’ve got me now.’

‘For how long? As long as it takes the novelty to wear off?’

‘Don’t be silly. You know how I feel about you.’

‘I know how I’d like you to feel about me. I’m not sure you’ve ever really told me.’

‘Let me show you, then. I’ve never been good with words.’ He leaned over to kiss her again. At first she resisted. She hated it that the two men in her life were so at odds that she had to keep one secret from the other. It wasn’t even as if they were in competition. MacNeil forced her lips apart with his tongue, and finally she succumbed, passion rising in a sudden flood tide.

When they had told her that she was unlikely ever to walk again, she had thought her sex life was over. The spinal cord had not been severed, just damaged. And she had always kept control of her bladder and bowels. But she just didn’t know if she would ever have any feelings down there again. Until that first time with MacNeil. And it had been like the first time ever. Full of pain and pleasure and tears. And until that moment, she had never quite trusted his motives. Why would a healthy strapping man like MacNeil be interested in a little Chinese girl who couldn’t walk. But he had been so gentle with her that she had known immediately there was much more to him than met the eye. A complex, shy, caring man full of the hang-ups instilled in him by his Presbyterian upbringing. It wasn’t that he was homophobic, he was just embarrassed by any overt display of sexuality. And Tom wore his homosexuality like a badge.

MacNeil stripped off his shirt and slipped off each of her boots, before removing her blouse and her long black skirt. Then he paused suddenly. ‘We shouldn’t do this,’ he said. ‘I might give you the flu. I’m more exposed than you are.’

‘Then we might as well stop living now, because we’ll die anyway.’ Amy gazed up at him. ‘And if we don’t live life while we can, then we’ll die without ever having lived.’

II

The white Mercedes truck rattled east on Aspen Way. The dual carriageway was deserted. The truck passed under the Docklands Light Railway, and the lead grey waters of West India Quay slopped against the concrete berths all along the south side of the road. There was the merest thinning of the cloud overhead, and the cold morning air was suffused with a watery glimpse of insipid yellow light.

Pinkie felt uncomfortable in his ill-fitting uniform, but secure in the anonymity afforded him by the gas mask and goggles that covered most of his face. The peak of his baseball cap was pulled down low over his eyes, and he kept a careful watch on the soldiers who approached as he turned right and swung his vehicle into the opening that led to the North Bridge beside Billingsgate Fish Market. There were twenty or more troopers based here in what had become a semi-permanent camp, a Mexican stand-off with the snipers on the far side of the water. There were armoured vehicles and a barbed wire barrier. He pulled up and rolled down his window. He smelled fish on the breeze, even though the fleets had not been out for weeks now. The stink had been absorbed into the fabric of the place.

The lead soldier approached cautiously, pointing his weapon up at the driver’s window. He held his hand up for Pinkie’s papers, gave them a cursory glance and then handed them back. He flicked his rifle through the air. ‘Take the mask off.’

Pinkie’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought they would ask that. He removed his baseball cap and snapped off the mask.

The soldier looked at him suspiciously. ‘Where’s Charlie?’

‘Sick,’ Pinkie said. And he saw the soldier take an almost involuntary step back.

‘Did you have any contact with him?’

Pinkie shook his head. ‘Don’t know the man. They took me off another run.’

The soldier seemed relieved. ‘Put the mask back on.’ He turned and shouted to the engineers at the barrier, ‘Let him through.’ And the soldiers peeled back the rolls of barbed wire to make a path through to the bridge.

Pinkie pulled his mask into place and slipped into first gear. The truck grunted and lurched forward towards the bridge. On the far side of the water, glass skyscrapers rose sheer into the mist. Company logos betrayed ownership. The McGraw-Hill Companies. The Bank of America. Pinkie ran anxious eyes along the skyline, looking for the snipers he knew had their rifles trained upon him. But he saw no one. He drove slowly up the ramp, past an empty blue security booth and stopped in front of the bridge. It was raised from the south side at an angle of around forty-five degrees. It was designed to let large vessels pass beneath it, but it created a very effective barrier. Someone, somewhere, threw a lever, and the bridge began a slow descent until it became, once again, a roadway passing south across the water into Canary Wharf, and the Isle of Dogs beyond.

Pinkie eased the white Merc slowly across to the other side, and in his side mirror saw the bridge begin to rise again. He glanced at the clipboard on his dash. The route and drop-off points were clearly marked. He would have to follow it meticulously to avoid arousing suspicion. He knew there were other checkpoints at Trafalgar Way and at Westferry Road, below the Bank Street roundabout. His exit on the return leg was through the checkpoint on West India Avenue, heading for Westferry Roundabout. But until then, he was in no man’s land. An island of self-imposed quarantine in the heart of East London.

Pinkie had often wondered why it was called the Isle of Dogs, when in fact it was really a peninsula, a deep loop in the river. Only now did he realise that the loop had effectively been cut off from the north bank by the network of wharfs and waterways built to serve what had once been the busiest docks in the world. Apparently it was where Henry VIII used to keep his dogs, hence the name. At least, that’s what Charlie had told him, just before Pinkie gently slid six inches of cold stainless steel between his ribs. He was a nice boy, Charlie. Shame he’d had to die.

Pinkie headed south, through Canada Square towards Jubilee Place, along canyons of tarmac between towering structures. There was no sign of life, not a single, solitary soul in the streets. Canary Wharf was like a ghost town. Opposite the tube station, the statue of a partially headless creature, half-man, half-horse, flanked by six stark leafless trees, gazed out east towards the hazy but distinctive shape of the Dome on the far bank of the river. An armless torso lay canted at an angle beneath the horse’s belly, a head set into a niche in its flank. Pinkie allowed himself a tiny smile. And they called this art?

He swung right at Bank Street, and ahead of him saw the span of the blue-painted metal bridge carrying the Docklands Light Railway over the water between Canary Wharf and Heron Quays. There was no evidence here of the vandalism that blighted the city centre. Nothing was boarded up. Shops and restaurants were shut, but exposed to the world. The Slug and Lettuce. Jubilee Place Mall. Anyone who did not belong here, anyone who might be a carrier of the virus, would be shot on sight. So nobody ventured out, even the residents, because questions were only asked afterwards — by which time it would be too late.

Pinkie caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A white golf buggy, driven by a man in blue uniform, a rifle sticking up at his side. It was just a flash of white and blue, and then it was gone, turning quickly into a darkened loading bay. Many of the original security men here had joined the vigilantes and commandeered the buggies. The big mystery was where they had got the guns. But wealthy and powerful people lived here. And where money and lives were at stake, anything was possible.

First stop was an underground car park on the south side of the square. Pinkie turned down the ramp and into a gloomy, deserted parking area that covered the entire footprint of the building. A low roof supported on metal beams. There were a handful of vehicles here, but no sign of life. Of course, he knew there must be someone watching. He pulled up and left his engine idling, and jumped down to throw open the doors at the back of the truck. The next half hour was spent loading boxes on to the pneumatic ramp, then lowering it to the ground and unloading them on to the concrete. Pinkie was fit, but it was hard work, and by the end of it he was sweating profusely. There was nothing on the boxes to indicate what was inside, but he was pretty certain it was tinned food. As many as twenty vehicles a day made the circuit, trucking in supplies for the nearly twenty-five thousand people who lived on the island.

As he shifted the final box, a bare arm fell out from behind a stack right at the back. Charlie’s hand was locked in a position which gave the impression he had been clutching a cricket ball that someone had just removed. There were specks of blood on his forearm. Pinkie kicked it quickly out of sight and glanced around to see if anyone watching might have seen it. But still, he saw no one. He moved some boxes to ensure that Charlie made no more unwelcome appearances, and jumped down to swing the heavy doors shut again, locking the corpse away from prying eyes.

It was hot and uncomfortable inside his mask. Sweat was running into his eyes. He heaved himself back up into his cab. This was going to be a long couple of hours.

III

Amy lay on her back gazing up at the ceiling. Her right leg was raised and propped on MacNeil’s shoulder. He knelt in front of her and his big hands worked down the muscles of her calf, strong flat thumbs kneading giving flesh. He worked around her knee, and then down her thigh, in long sweeping strokes. She wished she could feel it. It was the strangest thing, knowing she was being touched, and yet having no sensation. She doubted if she would ever get used to it.

Occasionally she thought she had the faintest impression of pins and needles in her feet, and hope would flood back. Maybe one day life would return to these useless appendages. Maybe one day she really would walk again. The doctors said no. But on optimistic days she would tell herself that doctors could be wrong. And then on pessimistic days she feared that the pins and needles were only a figment of her imagination. Just wishful thinking.

But for MacNeil there was no question. Of course she would walk again. And she must keep the muscles supple and strong. It would be an awful thing to let them wither. And so he spent hours working her legs, exercising the muscles in groups, bending her legs at knee and ankle. Back and forth, back and forth. He had endless patience, it seemed. They never spoke during these sessions. He worked in silence, and she enjoyed a tranquillity she had never known before. Sometimes she closed her eyes and just drifted, her mind empty of all thoughts. At other times she would let it range over things that troubled her, problems at work, the estrangement of her brother. And often she would find answers, or partial solutions, or comfort in thoughts which had not occurred to her before.

Today she broke their unspoken code of silence. ‘I’ve brought her home,’ she said.

‘Who?’ MacNeil frowned and paused in mid-stroke.

‘Lyn.’

‘Who the hell’s Lyn?’

‘The little girl with the cleft palate.’

MacNeil leaned forward to look at her. ‘What are you talking about, Amy?’

‘That’s what I’m calling her. Lyn. She’s got to have a name, and I’ve always liked Lyn. I had a cousin called Lyn in Hong Kong, and I used to always wish my parents had called me that.’

‘I like Amy,’ MacNeil said. He started working her leg again. ‘What do you mean you’ve brought her home?’

‘I’m going to do her head. A reconstruction. It would help to know what she looks like, wouldn’t it? She’ll be very distinctive with that disfigured upper lip. Easily recognisable, I’d think.’

‘You mean you’ve got the skull with you here?’

Amy nodded.

‘Won’t it stink?’

‘A bit. But I’ll work at the French windows upstairs. You know, where there’s a little balcony overlooking the garden. As long as it’s dry, I’ll keep the windows open and it should be okay.’ She drew herself up on to her elbows. ‘Take me up and I’ll show you.’

MacNeil liked the space at the top of the house. There was room to breathe here, and the sense of elevation helped. It couldn’t have been more different from his claustrophobic little bedsit in Islington. He helped Amy set up a table at the French windows and gather together the materials she kept in a large cupboard against the back wall. He had never seen her working on a skull before, and had been quite taken aback by the row of heads that stood along the shelf in the middle of the cupboard. A bald man, a young woman, a boy, two older women, an unfinished man with a serious head injury.

She gathered her books and charts and dowels and cakes of plasticine around her, and MacNeil watched, fascinated, as she set up the skull on a pedestal, manoeuvring her wheelchair into the best position for working on it. The smell wasn’t too bad with the windows open.

‘You’re going to build a face over the skull itself?’

‘No, I’m going to make a plaster cast of the cranium, then cast the mandible in a cold-cure resin. We don’t want to damage what might be evidence.’

He watched, fascinated, as she began her preparations. ‘How do you know what the face looked like just from the skull? I mean, they all look the same, don’t they?’

Amy grinned. ‘Just like the Chinese?’

MacNeil felt his face colouring. ‘You know what I mean.’

She nodded and smiled and said, ‘I’m going to bore small holes at thirty-four reference points around the skull, and then glue little wooden dowels into them, just two-point-five millimetres in diameter. The dowels are marked at average soft tissue depths, according to a scale determined by a man called Helmer, who calculated them from ultrasound measurements made on living people. So they’re pretty accurate. Then I’ll sculpt the face, using what they call the American method. It’s a scientific rather than an artistic process. You join the average tissue depths with strips of plasticine about five millimetres wide, effectively building up the layers of muscle beneath the skin. The teeth and the jaw will determine the shape of the mouth, and in particular the cleft lip. The shape of the nasal bridge is decided by the dimensions of the nasal bones. There are charts and measurements to shape the line of the eyelids, and of course race will play a part in that.’

‘Where did you learn all this stuff?’

Amy shrugged. ‘I was always interested in it. But after the accident, it was one of the few things I didn’t need legs to do. Of course, I’ve had a lot of help from my mentor at BAHID.’

MacNeil knew that Amy was a member of the British Association for Human Identification. It was an informal academic association of experts from various fields of forensic expertise, from pathologists and policemen to lawyers and dentists. But he didn’t know anything about mentors. ‘You have a mentor?’

‘Yeah. It’s not unusual for some of the older practitioners, usually retired, to take some of the younger ones under their wing. My mentor’s a retired anthropologist. Sam. We communicate by email and instant messaging.’

He watched her work for a while, marvelling at the dexterity of her fine, long fingers. She had the most beautiful pale, ivory skin, and lips that curled in what always looked like a smile, a reflection of a disposition which had been sorely tried by trauma and tragedy. He wanted just to pick her up and hold her, to possess her, to absorb her into himself. He had never felt like this about any other human being before. He was surprised, even shocked, by the feelings she aroused in him. Feelings he never knew he had.

‘Scotland the Brave’ jangled in his pocket. He took out his mobile and glanced at the screen. MARTHA, it said, and he was about to cut it off.

‘Is it her?’

He glanced up to find Amy looking at him gravely. He nodded.

‘You should answer it, then.’

And something about the look in her eyes made him feel guilt at having spent the morning avoiding doing just that. He hit the green button. ‘What do you want, Martha?’

‘Where in God’s name have you been, Jack? I’ve been trying to get you for hours.’

Something in her voice set alarm bells ringing. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Sean.’ He heard her voice crack.

‘What about him?’

‘He’s sick, Jack.’

IV

Pinkie swung south-west along Manchester Road, past the Christ Church and St. John with St. Luke. Through gaps in the houses, and beyond the trees in Island Gardens, he could see the twin domes of the Old Royal Naval College at the University of Greenwich on the far side of the river. The air was cold, rising up from dull grey water, and veiled in a thin mist. Beyond the Docklands Light Railway station he turned left into Ferry Street, swinging right then past the Poplar Rowing Club and along a street of red-brick new-build apartments overlooking the Thames.

The Ferry House pub on the corner was closed, but the gates into St. Davids Square stood open. Charlie had told him that he always took a fag break here, and if anyone was watching, they’d never objected. Pinkie drove on into the square, past the Elephant Royale Thai restaurant. Six-storey apartment blocks rose all around, with white-painted balconies and French windows. What light there was played blue in a pool and fountain at the centre of the square. The river side of it was open to the view across mud flats to Greenwich. There, the three masts of the Cutty Sark rose above everything else.

Pinkie spent fifteen minutes unloading boxes, watching carefully for any sign of life at any of the windows which overlooked the square. There must have been dozens of pairs of eyes on him, but he saw nothing. He wondered how these boxes were divided up. Did they come out in ones or twos? Was there a rota? How did they settle disputes? He could not imagine what their lives were like, but even though he could not see them he could feel their fear. It was in the air, in their silence, and in the absolute absence of any sign of human life.

He finished unloading and closed up the truck, then strolled casually towards the riverside walkway, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. But he had no intention of smoking them. To his left, a door led into the lobby of Consort House, numbers eight to forty-two. He sat for a moment on the wall next to the canopy and took out one of the cigarettes. He let his eyes wander along the line of the roofs opposite. It was now or never. He knew he would be seen going in, but who was going to stop him? Unless they had a gun. And who was going to open their door, or check on the old lady? They were all too afraid. He crushed his unlit cigarette and threw it away as he stood up. He pulled the door open and walked inside, waiting for the bullet in his back. It never came. In the lobby he drew a deep breath and took the elevator to the top floor. Stepping into the hall he ran his eye quickly past the numbers on the doors. Number 42A was next to the far wall. He moved quickly along to the window at the end of the corridor and glanced out across the water. A group of seagulls chased each other low across the river, swooping and diving and shrieking, before soaring skywards and beyond his field of vision. He knew she wouldn’t answer the door, and it would make too much noise to kick it in. But he had other skills. He drew a slim plastic pack of thin metal rods from his pocket and examined the lock for a moment before drawing one out.

The hall beyond the door was carpeted, and absorbed the sound of his footsteps. He closed the door gently behind him and moved carefully down the hall towards the daylight spilling from the room at the far end. He paused at its open door, pressing himself back against the wall and tipping his head to look inside. It was a large, open room with windows looking out over the Thames, and patio doors opening on to a narrow balcony. The walls were covered with paintings and framed family photographs. Old-fashioned, chunky, patterned furniture made the room seem smaller than it was, but homely somehow. Pinkie liked the feel of it. He could live in a place like this. It reminded him of his grandparents’ house. Except that they could never have afforded to live here.

He heard a chattering sound coming from beyond the angle of the door, and he took a cautious step in to determine what it was. An elderly lady with silver hair cut in a bob, a fringe dipping over her eyes, sat at a desk, fingers dancing with well-practised ease over a computer keyboard. Wire-rimmed spectacles were pushed back on her forehead, and the table beside her was covered in papers. She had a stunning view out across the river. But her eyes were fixed on her monitor. What a waste, Pinkie thought. People spent far too much time at computers.

He stepped into the room. ‘Hello,’ he said.

The old lady turned, alarmed, piercing blue eyes staring at him in startled disbelief. ‘What — who are you?’

Pinkie smiled. She made him think of his grandmother. ‘Your salvation, granny.’ He slipped the gun from beneath his overall, its barrel extended by its silencer, and fired a single shot. It made a neat hole in her forehead, but the exit wound was messy, and blood and brain was spattered all over the window. She fell forward, face-first, and her blood soaked into the carpet. Pinkie winced. He didn’t like to leave a mess. Cleanliness, tidiness. These were virtues that his mother had dinned into him. Honesty, kindness, loyalty. Diligence. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Never start something you can’t finish.

He crossed the room to look at the family pictures on the wall. There she was. The matriarch. Head of the family. Children and grandchildren around her. Happy and smiling. And Pinkie felt a fleeting sadness that it was he who had taken all that away. It was a pity, really.

A sound like a baby crying startled him. He turned, pistol raised, to see a black cat with white bib and socks sniffing at the dead head of its mistress. It knew something was wrong, but had no idea what. Pinkie slipped his gun away. ‘Aw, puss,’ he said. ‘Who’s going to feed you now?’

The cat responded to his tone, and walked towards him, tail erect, slightly curled at the tip. Pinkie stooped and picked it up, and it let him cradle it in his arms, stomach exposed for him to rub gently. This was an old cat, well used to human handling. It was almost choking on its purr.

Pinkie carried the cat through to the kitchen and put it down on a worktop while he searched the cupboards for cat food. It was below the sink. He opened two tins and emptied them on to a couple of plates. That would keep the poor old thing going for a bit. It arched its back as it ate and he ran his fingers gently along its spine. ‘Poor pussy,’ he said. ‘Poor old puss.’