Mal stood by the small window in the office. It was pitch black outside. The only light in the room came from the naked bulb of a lamp on top of an empty, rusted filing cabinet. The office was the back room of what had once been an electricals shop. With online shopping and various new streaming technologies, many small businesses like this had long since become defunct and their premises turned into low-rent accommodation.
He’d not long arrived and Sarge wasn’t there.
‘You’re late.’ Bizzy said. ‘He’s gone to see a man about a dog.’
Mal suspected ‘dog’ meant ‘gun’.
Life must be easy for Bizzy. He had his army pension and regular work in the food waste recycling plant during the day. As a manager, Bizzy didn’t even actually have to be in the room when the trucks full of rotting, stinking food were processed. He probably sat in his office and ordered the lower echelons of workers to pour it into the vats of cockroaches which devoured tons of leftovers every day. He was in charge of the breeding rooms, and when the new batch of roaches reached maturity he would order his staff to grind up the old ones and feed them to the poultry housed on the other side of the plant. How hard could that be?
Mal, on the other hand, was used to getting his hands dirty. He didn’t mind his cleaning job at the police station. It was early in the morning, he worked on his own and it was fairly easy. He also had access to things that Diros needed. The other part of his paid employment – cleaning crime scenes – was more unpredictable, and occasionally he didn’t make it to the office on time.
He picked up a shell and started scrolling. ‘Tier Three, Tier Three,’ he was saying as he moved his fingers. He’d better find something for Sarge to make up for his tardiness.
‘Jesus, Mal, can you stop saying that? It’s driving me nuts.’
‘There’s a fella got done for drug-driving,’ Mal suggested, ignoring his comment. ‘Caught a student under his wheels. Treated last August.’
‘Hmm…’ Bizzy murmured. He leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, staring at nothing in particular. ‘Hit and run… no close physical contact. You know what Sarge will say – not much skill involved. We need something good now all our work is hitting the headlines. We need a good case just to push the protestors over the edge. Make them really flip out. Hurry up. He’ll be back soon.’
Mal needed to find something good in the Aversion Therapy files or else there’d be trouble. This was it – the crescendo, Sarge had called it – although Mal wasn’t really sure what that meant.
‘Oh, what about this one…’ Mal said. ‘A woman poisoned a water tank to get back at her ex’s new woman. Made a whole apartment block sick.’
‘Boring. You’re going to have to come up with something better,’ Bizzy said.
‘You find something then!’ Mal snapped. He turned and kicked the filing cabinet hard, and the metallic rumbling sound echoed around the room.
Bizzy grinned at Mal. ‘Oooh! Getting cranky are we?’ he mocked, but then his mood turned surly. ‘I can’t wait until this mission is over and we can just spend the night hunting paedos.’
It sounded like Bizzy would enjoy that sort of thing, a light-hearted night out for a sadist like Biz, like joyriding but for killers. But there was no way Sarge would let Bizzy out to play – well, not unless Biz found a vigilante gang who were already killing paedos to hide behind.
Too base and barbaric, Sarge had said when they’d suggested it in the past. Too visceral. No art to it.
Mal had pondered his words for some time.
‘I don’t think Sarge would be too impressed by that suggestion. He likes something meaningful that he can replicate perfectly.’
‘What, you’re an expert on the boss now?’ Bizzy barked, leaning over the desk. ‘I learned more about that man in Africa than you ever will know. You think just because you bring him tidbits from the police station that you know him? You fucking moron.’
Mal shrugged. He was used to Bizzy now. So what, he’d been in Africa with Sarge? He’d heard all their stories – too many times. And maybe Bizzy was right. Mal knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but at least he had a good reason for doing the work they did. Layla would be proud of him.
But she wouldn’t have liked that woman dying in the fire.
Not at all.
‘You’d better find something good, Mal. He’s in one of his moods and that’s partly your bloody fault for questioning his methods,’ Bizzy snapped.
It was true. There had been some discussion late the previous night about the death of the woman in the fire with Begbroke.
Mal could easily have ended up one of those people Sarge despised, who lived on the streets and died on drugs. Sarge had found him kicking an old man to death – someone who’d been outed as a sex offender, who’d made advances to a few of the very young street dwellers that Mal knew. Instead of grassing on him, Sarge had helped him hide the body and taken Mal under his wing.
He owed Sarge. But how had he repaid him? He’d questioned the death of Begbroke’s ex, questioned the mission.
Insubordination, Sarge had said.
Maybe Mal should have kept his mouth shut, but he hadn’t signed up to Diros to kill innocent people. He’d joined to get justice. The previous night he hadn’t been able to sleep, wondering what might happen to him if he showed doubt in front of Sarge again. He decided for the time being he’d keep his mouth shut and stay under Sarge’s radar.
‘I still don’t understand why he’s so angry,’ Mal said. ‘I thought he’d be made up that the plan’s finally coming together. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? And now it’s even in the news.’
But Bizzy didn’t have a chance to answer as the door flew open and Sarge walked in. Bizzy jumped to his feet. Sarge placed a handgun on the desk and then sat down in the chair that Bizzy had just vacated. His folded his arms.
‘Have you found our next task?’ he asked, putting his feet up on the desk and crossing them at the ankle.
‘No, Sarge, I’m working on it.’ Mal could hear his voice tremble.
Sarge launched himself out of his chair, tore the shell from Mal’s hands and flung it across the room. It nearly hit Bizzy, who pulled his arms up protectively. ‘When I came back from Africa, I didn’t expect to have to fight here as well,’ he snarled, spittle flying. His minions cowered. ‘Look what we have to put up with! Scumbags! Rats! Everywhere. People who lack discipline, who don’t follow rules! I didn’t survive out there just to come back and turn to drugs and end up sleeping on the streets like so many of my army brothers. Don’t you get it?’
Mal and Bizzy nodded.
‘I survived for a reason, a mission. We have work to do, lads. Now find me something worth doing!’
He stormed out again, leaving Mal and Bizzy staring at the door.
That poor woman who’d died in the fiery bedroom. Was that part of the mission? Something in Sarge had changed. Mal was sure of that now. And he didn’t like it.
‘Isn’t he happy that Janus is all over the news?’
‘You don’t even know what’s up with him, do you?’ Bizzy sneered.
Mal didn’t reply.
‘Remy Wilson is out and about,’ Bizzy said, looking miserable. ‘If you’d been here on time tonight, then you’d have known.’
Mal had repeatedly heard the stories about Sarge and Remy serving with the British army. They’d been trying to prevent conflicts over minerals used in tech production while keeping the flow coming to the West. Sarge had saved Remy’s life in an ambush, and then Remy had, for a short time, joined Diros. Remy was another man who owed Sarge, although it looked as though Remy wasn’t paying up.
‘The police haven’t caught him yet?’ asked Mal. ‘But we put all the evidence in place. What’s the problem?’
Bizzy frowned. ‘Oh no, we set him up perfectly. The police got him, but he did a runner.’
The usual routine was to ensure the criminal they were copying either died at the scene, like Noah Begbroke and Oliver McIntyre, or else they made sure it was easy for the police to catch them, like Mikey Kilgannon. But Remy Wilson was a whole different kettle of fish.
‘Slippery bastard,’ Bizzy said bitterly.
Mal often wondered about Remy.
They’d been a strong team in the beginning. They’d started out as bounty hunters – collecting offenders for the authorities and getting well paid for it. Money and justice, Remy used to say, what’s not to like?
But when things started to change, when Sarge had started to change, putting a stop to their bounty hunting, calling the team Diros and moving into something darker, then Remy lost his enthusiasm. He told Mal that Sarge’s mission wasn’t aligned with his own any more.
Sarge began to focus on Janus, pouring all his anger and frustration about the things that had happened in Africa, and the crimes of the fugitives they’d caught, into a campaign against the company – which Sarge believed was a traitor to justice. He saw himself as a crusader.
And then people started dying.
But Mal and Bizzy – they’d just gone along with Sarge.
Mal because he had nowhere else to go, no one else to go to. And if he was really honest, he could never avenge Layla’s death, but this was damned close.
And Bizzy did it because he enjoyed what they did.
Maybe Remy had been right about Bizzy too – cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
It was only Remy who had questioned the new mission.
And Sarge couldn’t have anyone questioning his authority. Of course, by then, Remy knew too much. It could only have ended badly.
One evening, Mal turned up late to the office after a particularly difficult post-crime clean, and Remy was there alone. He told Mal he was leaving soon and asked him to come along. Said he had a plan, somewhere to sleep, the possibility of a job. Mal had refused – out of loyalty to Sarge, or had it been fear? Regret overwhelmed him when he remembered telling Sarge what Remy had said. That night, they killed a drug dealer, and Sarge had framed Remy, not only leaving his jacket covered in the dealer’s blood at the scene, but also giving handfuls of the dealer’s drugs to the local addicts in exchange for them describing Remy in great detail to the police.
Mal still felt bad about it. It was a shame, really, he’d liked Remy. He’d always spoken to Mal as though he was his equal, with a little respect even, which was more than Sarge and Bizzy ever did. But their priority was to protect Diros at all costs. Loyalty is the key Sarge often said.
‘No wonder the boss is pissed off.’ Bizzy sniffed loudly and then hawked a gob of phlegm into the rusted metal bin. ‘Remy’s the only weakness in our armour. We should have got rid of him when we had the chance. If the police get to Remy first, then he’s going to tell them everything.’
Remy should have kept quiet. Asking questions was where the trouble started. Mal knew that only too well. Mouth shut, eyes open his dad used to say.
Maybe Mal could find out where Remy was and get on the right side of the boss. But he’d make sure not to tell Bizzy, so he couldn’t take the credit as he always did. Mal would keep his eyes wide open and his mouth firmly shut.
Grace’s arms are pinned in place by a sheet wrapped around her, so tight that she can hardly breathe, her lungs only taking in tiny amounts of oxygen, starving her brain and giving rise to panic.
There are sounds of footsteps around her, whispers.
She tries to move, but her body won’t respond. She can feel her fingers, her legs, her arms, but no matter how much she wills them to shift, they remain static. She can feel people pawing at her, and the sting of a sharp needle as it punctures her skin. And then a woozy sensation, like slipping into a hot bath, and the sound of her own heartbeat getting louder and louder until it becomes a thudding, throbbing vibration that seems to fill the whole room.
Her eyes won’t open, there’s something holding them shut, smothering her face, but somehow she can still see.
And what she sees and feels is horrifying.
Her mother’s lifeless body, clamped around her, clawing into her, eyes open, staring, blue irises surrounded by bloodshot sclerae, her lips blue, mouth slightly open…
Grace can’t even scream.
She fights against her restraints and finally manages to free her arms. Raising her hands, she feels a metal band across her face and, with some difficulty, pulls it away. Her eyes blurred, she can see shadows moving around her.
As her vision comes back into focus, she sees Siberia ward. She feels the soft bristle of her shaved head. Above her, a screen. She looks down to see her arm punctured by a cannula.
In the bed next to hers, head shaved and dead to the world, lies Remy.
Grace sat up in bed, the sound of her rapid breathing loud in the dark. She instinctively reached out for Dan but he wasn’t there.
She was in a single bed.
Then she remembered she was in the spare room. When she’d got home the night before, after talking to Remy, Dan was already fast asleep in their room.
So much for being worried about her.
Still shaken from her dream, she got out of bed and stood in the hall, listening to Dan sighing in his sleep. She pushed the door open and in the faint light of the approaching dawn she cast her eyes over him.
For a moment, the near decade they’d been together, the good times, the holidays, the cosy nights in all swam in her mind. She considered his warmth and charm, his dedication to his career, his desire for a family.
As angry as she was with him for the news reports, she realised that Dan was perfect – but perfect for the Grace she’d conjured, the Grace with the amazing job, the magazine-photo home, the lifestyle that many would envy.
But what would Gracie want? Remy coming back into her mind had brought something out of her that she’d tried to suppress for so long. Gracie was back, and she was questioning everything.
You know where to find me.
After she’d gone to university in Durham, their phone calls and messages had become fewer and more difficult. He became more taciturn, she more resentful, as his feelings of abandonment suffocated their bond. But now he was back.
Where are you, Remy?
Maybe at Lottie’s place, the two-up two-down in the East End? That was the last place she’d seen him. Had he inherited it after Lottie died? She wasn’t Lottie’s biological daughter, didn’t have any claim to it, and even if she had, she’d heard nothing from solicitors. But then how could she have? Gracie had moved, changed her name, covered her tracks.
Dan sighed in his sleep again – deep and slow. What would she lose if she let the past thaw? Was it worth the sacrifice?
She crept back into the spare room, but stopped before climbing into the still-warm bed. The sheets reminded her of her dream and the prone bodies of the offenders at Tier Four. Her mind had abandoned sleep and turned itself to considering the problem and searching for a solution.
She’d already developed a synthetic self-esteem drug at Tier Two. It had taken the best part of five years, with the drug trials and licensing and all sorts of other hoop-jumping.
She didn’t have that sort of time.
In fact, she didn’t have any time at all.
She picked up her phone from beside the bed.
5.27 a.m.
She had to prove to Conrad that she could fix the therapy before the police arrested Remy, or worse still when they got to him, whoever they were.
She would get up, get herself a coffee and get to the clinic.
There was work to be done.