The Burning Man

3

The holding cell was starkly lit and smelled of ammonia. Church felt like a gorilla in a zoo as various men and women in suits cast a cursory, puzzled eye over him before moving away, deep in hushed conversation. Every protest, every request, every comment he made was ignored. His visitors gave no sign that they even heard him speaking.

After three hours he was led to an interview room with a single table, two chairs and a mirror along one wall. The two detectives waited for him in shirtsleeves. Church was shown to a seat with a politeness that somehow managed to infer incipient menace.

‘Detectives Nelson and Brinks interviewing suspect Jack Churchill,’ the ginger-haired one announced for the recording. Nelson sat at the table. Brinks remained standing, like a big cat ready to pounce.

Brinks grinned broadly. ‘Tombstone, they call me. I haven’t decided if that’s an unfortunate slur on my size and the colour of my skin, or the destination of the people who annoy me.’

‘Good cop, bad cop is a bit of a cliche,’ Church said.

‘You see, you don’t get to be smart,’ Nelson said calmly. ‘You don’t get to be wry. Or aloof. Or British. You don’t get to pretend you’re a normal person. We’re extending you the courtesy of treating you like one, but we all know you’re not.’

‘Anyway,’ Tombstone noted with a slow nod, ‘we’re bad cop, worse cop. And we have a competition to see how bad we can really get.’

‘Funny,’ Church said.

‘Says the man carrying a sword strapped to his back,’ Nelson said. ‘At least, we think it’s a sword. Seems to be some debate in the Evidence Room. Care to enlighten us?’

‘No.’

Nelson flipped open a plastic folder. ‘Okay, let’s review. This afternoon we responded to a nine-one-one on Delancey. Blood leaking through a light fitting into the apartment below. We found two deceased — one white male, one Chinese-American female. Look familiar?’

He tossed Church a handful of crime-scene photographs. The bodies were in such a gruesome state that Church gave them only half a glance before handing them back. ‘I don’t know these people. I’ve never been to that apartment. I didn’t kill them. Categoric enough for you?’

‘Take another look. You’ll see that the bodies are missing several organs. Let me draw your attention to the close-up of the male torso. You see the jagged edges of the wounds? The crime lab tells me those are teeth marks.’

‘I’m sorry for these people, but I had nothing to do with their deaths.’

Nelson glanced at his partner. ‘Detective Brinks?’

Tombstone threw another file on the table. ‘Crime scene number two. Partially eaten victim in a Dumpster at the back of the Happy Chicken fast-food joint on Houston. Time of death around ten p.m. About a half-hour before we picked you up.’

‘We were in McSorley’s half an hour before. There were witnesses.’

‘We got witnesses, too, haven’t we, Detective Nelson? Ours don’t lie or have random memory failure.’

Nelson opened his laptop and spun it towards Church. Grainy CCTV footage played out above a time-code. Three people feasted on a body next to a Dumpster. One by one they glanced up at the camera. It was unmistakably Shavi, Tom and Church.

‘It’s a fake!’

Nelson shook his head firmly. ‘The digital signature holds up. Anything you want to tell us now?’

Church wrestled with the images he’d just been shown. Some kind of set-up by the spider-controlled elements of the NYPD? Why go to so much trouble?

‘We’ll get you a lawyer,’ Nelson began.

‘No point. There won’t be time.’

Nelson and Tombstone exchanged worried glances. ‘You’ve got something else planned? Bomb?’

‘I’m not a terrorist, either.’

‘No, you’re a freedom fighter.’ Nelson was uneasy now. ‘Let’s get the Homeland Security guys.’