Mal and Bizzy stood back and observed as Sarge did his thing. This was his method – absorbing the atmosphere of a crime scene, as though he was psychically connecting with the victim and the criminal.
He was crouched on his haunches, looking across the floor of a living room that was bigger than Mal’s whole flat. The carpet, a sign of wealth in itself these days, had already been removed for forensic investigation. The family would have to move out. Who would want to watch a screen in the same room where their husband or father had bled out?
So much blood. Mal stared into the Rorschach stain that had soaked through onto the wood below – images of violence, pain and fear emerging from the red-brown smudges – and felt a quivering in his knees. Extreme cleaners would be sent in, judging by the mess, and a joiner to restore the floorboards. Hell, they’d have to replace most of the floor.
What had passed through the mind of the victim as he lay dying, feeling his life force seeping out, hot and wet, from between his legs? The thought worried and fascinated Mal at the same time.
‘Bizzy, what have we got?’ asked Sarge, standing up to full height and tucking his shirt into his trousers. Mal knew Biz liked to think of himself as the tech genius and the critical thinker of the operation. He thought more like a copper than Mal did.
But Mal himself wasn’t without skills. He was the evidence man, after all, essential to their team mission. He knew more about forensics, DNA and trace evidence than the other two put together, even though neither of them would admit it. All that reading and studying had been worth it, however much of a struggle it had been at the time.
And Sarge – he was their leader, their mentor and so much more. Sarge had shown Mal how to be part of a team, how to be driven to the point of obsession, how to get the sort of results that were essential for success.
Sarge had taught him how to see.
‘Perps came in through the back door,’ Bizzy began. ‘The alarm system was disabled. No one home but the victim. In my opinion, the perps will have known this. In previous attacks they’d been stalking their victims for weeks. Not much sign of a struggle.’
Mal hated the word ‘perps’.
‘Victimology?’ asked Sarge.
‘He made a lot of money, and I mean a lot of money on the Chinese stock exchange and exporting.’ Bizzy continued. ‘He’d been accused of a number of sexual assaults and rapes. According to my sources, money – and we’re talking big amounts – made most of the accusations go away.’
‘Yes, but not all,’ Mal chipped in.
‘He also had influential friends,’ added Bizzy, glaring at Mal before turning back to Sarge. ‘On the force, and in government.’
‘Never convicted,’ Sarge said with a sigh.
Bizzy went on. ‘The one case that got to court, the evidence was questionable. He claimed consensual, his victim claimed he drugged her, possibly with the same type of drug that was used on him.’
‘Toxicology?’ Sarge directed this towards Mal but kept his eyes on the bloodstains, as if the victim were still there.
‘Neuromuscular blocking agent in the blood,’ Mal said. ‘It’s a clinical paralytic. Would have kept him corpse-still while they castrated him.’
Bizzy winced.
Mal glanced at the bloodstain again, astounded by how a drug that had been designed to prevent damage caused by a scalpel if a patient moved during surgery could have such an insidious use outside of the operating theatre.
‘Exsanguination would have taken a little time,’ he added. Exsanguination. He loved words that made him sound clever. He wrote them down when he studied his books and said them over and over until they became familiar in his mouth. ‘Traces of the drug were found in his blood,’ Mal went on, ‘but only because the pathologist was looking for it, as it had been found in one of the other cases and he considered it odd the victim wasn’t restrained but didn’t have any defence wounds. It’s not the easiest drug to detect – it passes out of the blood so quickly.’
‘Which is why there was no evidence that his rape victim had been drugged,’ Bizzy interrupted. ‘They threw her case out of court.’
He can’t stand being out of the limelight for a moment.
Sarge nodded. ‘They let him bleed out. Looks as though they didn’t trust the Tier System to deliver justice, so they took it into their own hands.’
‘Literally,’ said Bizzy, with a smirk. Sarge shot him a glance and he frowned.
Mal thought Bizzy was crude and vulgar. He suspected Sarge did too. He liked it when he and Sarge were of the same mind.
‘Revenge,’ Sarge said with a sigh. ‘The greatest reward of all.’
Mal gazed at Sarge in admiration until he looked directly back at him and Mal cast his eyes down. You didn’t stare at the alpha.
‘Where was the blocking agent sourced?’
‘I’ll find out,’ answered Mal, eyes still averted. It was never No, Sarge. It was either Yes Sarge, Right away, Sarge, or I’ll find out, Sarge. Mal looked forward to the day when his own minions would be too afraid to say no to him. It would happen one day.
‘What else?’ Sarge demanded.
‘This is the seventh attack of this nature in as many months,’ said Bizzy, taking centre stage again, ‘by a very particular set of vigilantes. A number of victims of sexual offences, male and female, have banded together to mete out punishment to their attackers. Call themselves Payback. They take turns to torture and kill the rapists, and the original victim stands by and watches their version of justice being done – the other members of the group do the actual killing. Therefore, it was initially difficult to make the links between the person who died and the killers. This will be the second attack in a week.’
Mal knew from personal experience that the Tier System could never be enough to get revenge for someone you loved.
‘Two reoffences in a week?’ Sarge said. He unfolded his arms and stretched, yawning loudly before saying, ‘Might look like things are getting out of hand.’
Disturbing thoughts had accompanied Grace all the way home from the compound. She’d completed her work in a daze, trying hard to focus on prescribing medication and organising therapy sessions. But her mind had constantly strayed to Remy. Would he have stayed on the straight and narrow if she’d remained with him in London instead of leaving for university? Or would they have gone their separate ways after Lottie died anyway? Maybe it was true that people, however close they were, split when they lost someone. The pain in the other’s eyes was a constant reminder of what you yourself had lost. Their little family – as dysfunctional as it might have seemed to the outside – the prostitute mother, the rebel son, the adopted orphan daughter – had been close and loving. It had meant Grace’s survival after her mother’s death. Love, wherever it came from, kept you rebuilding yourself.
As she closed the front door, she heard Dan singing to himself as he pottered in the kitchen cooking the dinner. The aroma of home cooking and his low-pitched humming soothed the annoyance she’d felt with him that morning.
She leaned against the kitchen doorframe. ‘Hi.’
He swivelled around, surprised. ‘Oh hi,’ he smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry about putting you on the spot before.’
Yes, she’d been annoyed with him. But things had changed for Grace since she found out about Remy.
She also knew that Dan wasn’t going to give up so easily.
‘I get it. You want to solve the puzzle,’ she reassured him.
But now she had a puzzle of her own. Information went both ways, didn’t it? If Remy had been to Tier Three and the treatment hadn’t worked, then maybe Dan could find out something that could explain why. Could they even figure it out together? She smiled briefly. But then Remy’s face came to her mind.
She owed him so much. She remembered being seven years old and Lottie had gone missing for a week. Remy had shoplifted all her favourite foods to cheer her up. They had feasted on small marzipan cakes, spicy crisps and brightly coloured fruit juice. When she was fourteen, Remy had taken a beating from Lottie’s pimp, protecting Grace from having to join his other women on the street. She didn’t want to think about that. And then there had been all the times in between, the fun, the fights, the everydayness of their belonging.
There was no way she could let him go to Tier Four.
‘Are you feeling okay? You look really washed out.’ His eyes travelled down to her stomach. ‘Hey, you haven’t got something to tell me, have you?’ He looked back up at her questioningly, the hope in his voice triggering her guilt.
‘It’s something else,’ she told him, avoiding his gaze so she didn’t have to see his disappointment. She sat down at the kitchen table, and he sat opposite and waited. He laid both hands out in front of him, palms down, his face open, interested.
Grace’s mind bubbled like the water in the pan on the hob as she tried to find the words.
‘This story about Tier Three not working,’ she began. ‘Mikey Kilgannon…’
Dan sat up a little straighter.
‘Do you think it’s true?’ she asked. ‘I mean, do you think Tier Three is faulty? It’s just that there’s never been a case of repeat offending after Aversion Therapy.’
Dan’s brow creased for a moment. ‘Kilgannon killed that old man, Grace. The facts speak for themselves, but the more I’m looking into this, the more I’m starting to see that there’s something bigger going on. I’ve heard from one of my sources that the police suspect an ex-Tier Three offender carried out that attack on the post office in Golders Green a couple of months ago, but it was hushed up.’
She chewed her lip and then said, ‘Dan, you can’t break this story. If this gets out, if the public find out…’
His expression hardened for a moment before he smiled and said, ‘You married a journalist, you know.’
‘But what will happen to the clinic if this hits the headlines? There’s already a lot of hostility towards the Tier System. You’ve seen the protestors outside Janus.’
He reached over and patted her hand briefly. ‘Look, there might be nothing in it. It might not come to anything. I need more time to investigate, so there’s no need to worry about the clinic just yet.’
She didn’t feel particularly reassured. ‘If Conrad thought anything was wrong with his precious Tier System, then he’d shut that story down, whatever it took.’
‘And I bet the DoJ don’t want this getting out.’
Grace nodded while scratching at a mark on the white tabletop with a fingernail. Would Dan know anything about Remy from one of his sources? She didn’t want to draw his attention to her old friend, but it might be the only way to find out what was going on.
She took a deep breath. ‘I saw something in work today,’ she said. ‘A report about an offender who’s on the run. Shannon says he’s already been through Tier Three.’ She felt her pulse quicken.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Remy Wilson.’
‘Remy Wilson,’ Dan repeated.
Grace’s heart clenched as she heard her husband saying his name, her two worlds colliding – her hidden, painful past, and her settled, successful present.
‘I haven’t heard anything,’ he said.
Disappointment and relief rose in her.
‘Anyway, if there’s a cover-up at Janus, they won’t be able to keep it quiet forever,’ he said flatly. He stood up and began stirring the food on the hob. ‘And I’m going to make sure that NewsFlex is the first to get the full story.’
Grace felt annoyance at his determination to get a story – even if it meant serious consequences. Yes, it was a great scoop, but what would the backlash be? Dan being silenced by whoever was trying to bury the information? What about her own safety? The clinics would be at greater risk from attacks by the protestors. If she accepted Conrad’s offer, then she’d be at risk too.
But on the other hand, if she took the job she’d gain access to information that might get to the heart of the problem and, more importantly, help Remy.
‘I don’t think I can get hold of Mikey Kilgannon’s files,’ she said, ‘but I think I might know how to get you some information.’ Oh God, am I really going to do this? ‘What if I take Conrad up on his offer of a promotion?’ The very idea of it made her insides turn to water.
But it was the only way.
Dan sat back down at the table. She couldn’t decipher his reaction.
‘But that goes against everything you’ve ever said about the Tier System,’ he said finally.
‘I know. But if it meant we found out the truth, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?’
‘And what about us?’
‘What do you mean? We’d be working together, a team.’ She patted his hand uncertainly. ‘Cracking the story together.’ She tried to smile.
‘I mean what about having children.’
She drew her hand back. ‘What about it?’
‘Grace, Tier Three is very stressful. You said so yourself yesterday. You get upset when one of your Tier Two lot comes back. Tier Three will be much worse. We’ve been trying for so long. The doctor has said there’s no reason we shouldn’t get pregnant. Maybe stress is the problem.’ His eyes travelled down to her stomach again.
Grace felt a wave of guilt at his ignorance. But then a resentment grew. Why did it always have to come back down to this? Maybe if Dan only knew what she’d been through then he might be more understanding.
That was her fault for not telling him. But how could she?
There were more pressing issues right now. She had to get into Tier Three and see what was going wrong. Maybe Conrad would let her try to fix Remy when the police caught him, instead of sending him up to Tier Four. It was a long shot.
Could she do the job, though? She’d have to toughen up and go against her principles. All those years of trying to help, trying to meet people’s needs and assist with their rehabilitation, and now she was going to throw it all away to brutalise offenders with Aversion Therapy.
But if it meant she could solve the puzzle and save Remy it would be worth it.
Wouldn’t it?
‘Dan, listen to me. I’ll take the job just until I can find out what the problem is. We’ll be able to figure this out together. You’ll get your story and I might even be able to fix whatever’s wrong.’
Dan looked uncertain. ‘You’ll have to get out of Tier Three as soon as the story breaks. It really won’t be safe for you there once it’s all out in the public domain.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘What if Conrad realises that you’re the informant for NewsFlex?’
She’d already considered this. It would be the end of her career in the Tier System altogether. No more helping those who really needed her at Tiers One and Two.
‘Then I’ll stay home and make Baby Gunnarsson my priority.’
She gritted her teeth. Dan didn’t deserve being lied to.
‘You’d do that?’ The excitement in his eyes made her feel like a traitor.
‘Of course,’ her lips said.
But her heart said: No, I’m doing it for Remy.