Halfhead - Страница 56

The black eye was already beginning to fade-as were all his other bruises, thanks to a hefty dose of anti-ecchymosis medication-but the sight still wasn’t pretty.

Someone had been dispatched to his flat to fetch a change of clothes and discovered the place in ruins. All the corpses were missing: no dead bodies in the apartment, no dead bodies in the lift, no dead bodies in the park. All that remained were two huge bloodstains on the lounge carpet and some sticky bits of skin on the lift walls. Short of a DNA match they weren’t going to get any names.

‘We need to get back to base,’ he told Emily as she stood watching him dress.

‘You need to get back to bed. You look as bad as you smell.’

He glared at her. ‘We haven’t got time for this! If they’ve got Jo…’ And then he remembered the listening devices sitting beneath Emily’s skin. Everything he told her went straight into the ears of that stumpy wee bastard Ken Peitai. Deep breath. ‘Sorry.’ He pulled on his trousers. ‘It’s the blockers. I’m not thinking all that clearly. You’re right. I need to go to bed.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Oh no you bloody don’t. Come on: “if they’ve got Jo,” what?’

‘Nothing. It’s been a rough-’

‘What is wrong with you Will? Why won’t you talk to me any more? What the hell did I do to you?’

‘I…’ He shut his mouth and forced his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. The blockers cut the pain, but he was still stiff. ‘You’ve not done anything. It’s me. You heard the doctor, too many bangs on the head. Concussion. It’s not…I’m not…’

‘Don’t give me that shite Will. The people who attacked you got DS Cameron. We’re going after her!’

Will smiled; it twisted his face even further out of shape. ‘Thought you didn’t like her.’

The pause was only a heartbeat long, but it was there. ‘She’s on the team. We don’t hang our own out to dry.’

Carefully he pulled on an old jacket and stood, looking at his bruised and battered reflection in the mirror, but seeing Jo: running for her life, dressed in a jumpsuit scavenged from a dead body.

Emily paced up and down the little hospital room. ‘We get them to set off her coffin dodger. We pull in the reserves. We push every button we can until someone squeals. We lean on people. We oil the wheels. We do whatever it takes to get her back.’

A good suggestion, but utterly hopeless. Whoever it was Ken Peitai worked for, they weren’t going to be hanging around in bars, ready to spill their guts for a pint of special. But it would give Emily something to do, and everything she did would be relayed back to good old Ken. Let him know they were getting nowhere.

‘You’re right. Get it started.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder and even though he felt like a complete bastard for lying to her again said, ‘I’m going home.’

Out in the corridor, the constable they’d picked up in the park was waiting. The mud had dried on her bright-blue tunic, turning it the colour of old lentil soup. She’d made some attempt to brush it off, but the thing was still a long way from clean.

‘Has there been any news?’ she asked as they drew level.

Will shook his head, winced, and decided not to do that again for a while. ‘Lieutenant Brand’s setting up a search. I’m going back to bed. Doctor’s orders.’

The Bluecoat looked surprised. ‘Is it going to be safe there, sir?’

Emily nodded and consulted her watch. ‘We’ve got two of the nightshift over there watching the place: Bull Thrummer and a Screamer. No one’s going to get anywhere near.’

‘Even so, sir.’ The constable stood to attention. ‘I’d like to escort you back. I know it’s probably not necessary, but-’

‘Good idea.’ Emily placed a hand in the small of Will’s back and propelled the pair of them in the direction of the lifts. ‘Gives me one less thing to worry about.’

‘You know,’ said Will as they climbed into the shuttle, ‘you saved my life, and I don’t even know your name.’

The constable looked down and picked a lump of mud from the ID tag on the front of her filthy tunic. ‘Catherine McDonald.’ She pulled the tag, showing it to him. ‘But you can call me “Cat” if you like, sir. My DS does.’

A frown crossed Will’s battered face. ‘Have we met?’

‘Oh, not again.’ She sighed. ‘Listen, I don’t make a habit of getting drunk at official functions, OK? And it was bloody years ago. Can we just drop it?’

‘Consider it dropped.’ He reached forward and punched ‘NETWORK HEADQUARTERS’ into the destinator, then settled back in his seat as the shuttle slid forward and clacked onto the hospital exit ramp. The brightly lit tunnel walls disappeared behind them as the car picked up speed, leaving them with the internal light. It turned the wraparound windshield into a dusty mirror, reflecting back one battered Network Assistant Director and one filthy Bluecoat. The first of the stanchion lights vwipped past, wiping their images off the glass and back on again, like the flickering lines on an old display screen.

‘You’re not going back to your apartment?’ said Constable ‘Cat’ McDonald as the shuttle bumped onto the main shuttlenet.

‘No, I’m not.’ Will dragged out his mobile. ‘I’m going to Network HQ, I’m going to get my hands on some very big guns, and then I’m going to blow some very big holes in the people that grabbed DS Cameron.’ He dialled Brian’s home number, waiting for it to connect.

The constable shook her head and placed a hand on her sidearm. ‘Oh no you’re not.’

‘Trust me, there’s no way-’

‘Grmmmmmmf?’ A bleary face-squeezed too close to the camera-peered out from the little screen. ‘Will?’ it said prising its eyes open, ‘Fuck’s sake, do you no’ know what time it is?’

‘Brian, I need your help.’

The face pulled back a bit and frowned. ‘What the hell have you done to your head? Looks like a fat bird’s jumped on it.’

‘Shut up and listen. They broke into my flat. They got Jo.’

‘Jesus!’ Brian suddenly looked a lot more awake. ‘When? How?’

Will told him everything, watching the Bluecoat out of the corner of his eye. She fidgeted with the Field Zapper on her hip, a frown on her face as he got to the part where she saved his life. Will held the phone out to her. ‘Tell him what you heard.’

‘I didn’t see anyone, but I heard some American bloke shouting that if anyone did or said anything he was going to cut the DS’s face off.’

‘American?’

Will took the phone back. ‘That’ll be Ken Peitai. Speaks like he’s just jumped off the tunnel. Newnited States? I’ll bet he’s never been west of Govan in his life.’

Constable McDonald pursed her lips and frowned. ‘And you’re going after him?’

‘And his bastard boss. Anyway,’ said Will going back to the phone, ‘I’m stopping by the office to get tooled up. I can’t ask you to come with me Brian, but-’

‘Away and shite. You know fine well I’m no lettin’ you go off after the buggers without me.’ He turned to look at something off camera and smiled. ‘James here can make his own breakfast for once.’

The Bluecoat was still staring off into the middle distance when the destinator finally chimed their arrival at Network HQ. Will reached out and gently touched her shoulder-her hand flashed up and wrapped round his wrist like a vice.

‘Are you OK, Constable?’

She blushed and let him go. ‘Sorry, sir, I was miles away.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got to go arrange things here. Thanks for the escort. You can take the shuttle back to your station-’

‘Oh no you don’t, sir.’ She followed him out onto the platform. ‘If you’re going after the DS I’m going with you, whether you like it or not. She’d do the same for me.’

‘Fair enough.’ Will turned and swiped them both in through the staff entrance. ‘You know where the armoury is?’

She shook her head.

‘Ask at Reception. Tell them you’ve got orders to draw some Whompers, a tracker and anything else that takes your fancy. They can confirm by calling me.’

‘Where are you going to be?’

Will straightened his shoulders and headed for the lifts.

‘There’s something I have to take care of first.’

Most of the lights were off in the mortuary, filling the antiseptic room with thick chunks of darkness. Will sat on the edge of a post-mortem slab with a surgical blade in his hands and blood running down his left side. An Anglepoise lamp cast a hot-white spotlight on his left armpit, making the scarlet blood sparkle and shine. With gritted teeth he cut deeper, pulling the edges of the wound apart. It didn’t hurt-the last of his hospital-issue blockers had seen to that-but the sights and sounds were making him nauseous.

George had said one of the trackers was beneath his left arm, on the wall of his chest, but Will was beginning to realize that finding the transmitter wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. The blood was making everything slippery and difficult to see.

The blade slid from his fingers for the third time in as many minutes, clattering against the stainless steel tabletop.

Fucking thing.

How was he supposed to hold onto it when it was slick with blood? How hard did this have to fucking be?

He grabbed the handle and hurled the knife away into the darkness. It clanged off something metal hidden in the shadows.

He put his bloody hands over his eyes and slumped back on the cold post-mortem table.

This was impossible. He couldn’t go anywhere near Sherman House with a pair of locator beacons buried under his skin. They’d all be dead before they even set foot in the place.