Breaking Point (19 page)

He tried to sound calm and rational, an efficient young professional. ‘If this is about a programming matter, drop me an email and I’ll get to it ASAP.’

‘This isn’t about work,’ the man replied.

Then leave me the hell alone. I don’t need this right now. I only need one thing, and you have no idea of who you’re dealing with.

‘Look …’

‘It’s critically important that we talk. Face to face would be best. I have some news for you. Bad news, information that could be vital to you.’

Nick thought about hanging up. But something in the man’s tone of voice was pulling at him, making him listen. He scratched his face hard, nails digging into the skin.

‘Just tell me what the hell it is,’ he muttered.

The man on the other end sounded like he was sighing. Nick closed his eyes, rocking on his heels. The whine of an engine, maybe, and muted sirens, like he was in a car driving somewhere.

‘OK, here we go. You have a genotype – a genetic make-up – that is unusual. Although you may never have been in serious trouble before, there is a chance, quite a strong chance, that at some point in the future you will—’

There was a squeak of trainers on the wet tiled steps. Nick opened his eyes. The far door slowly swung open. There, in the doorway, an Asian male, hands in his jacket pockets. He stared at Nick, then entered the toilets, glancing around, angry eyes scanning the open cubicles. The voice in his ear was still talking, but Nick wasn’t listening. Suddenly everything else was irrelevant.

‘Forget it,’ he said.

He flipped his mobile shut and made a point of turning it off before sliding it into his pocket.

The Asian man came closer. He was larger than Nick, and looked like he was on a short fuse. His hair was long, a wavy streak of grey flowing through it. Not what he had expected at all. Nick stood his ground, waiting for the man to say something. This had become a matter of life or death, something he hadn’t needed to do for quite a while.

The man stared at him and asked, ‘I hear you want to buy something?’

Nick nodded.

The Asian man looked at the door, then turned back to Nick. ‘Well, what exact substance is it that you want?’

14

REUBEN STARED HARD
into the black reflective surface of his mobile. His mood was dark, and getting darker by the minute. He’d arrived ten minutes late to pick up his son and had missed him, Lucy obviously not hanging around. The traffic had been interminable, the city slowly grinding to a halt. A forty-minute journey from the lab had taken over an hour. And now Nick Furniss had ended his call mid-sentence with the words ‘Forget it’.

‘Fucker hung up on me,’ he said.

Moray half glanced at Reuben and muttered under his breath, ‘Aye, well, what d’you expect?’

‘I mean, I finally get through to him after days of trying, and the bastard cuts me off.’

‘So stop grousing and call him back.’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Reuben held the phone to his ear. ‘Bloody thing is ringing through to messages.’ He pressed the Off button in disgust. Almost as soon as he’d ended the call, the phone came to silent life in his hands, buzzing and vibrating his fingers. ‘Yes,’ he answered irritably.

‘Reuben, it’s Mina,’ the voice said. ‘And boy do you sound cheesed off.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Well I’m about to make things worse for you.’

Reuben raised his eyes at Moray, who stared grimly at the road in front of him. Solid lanes of traffic, engines idling, drivers and passengers looking bored and angry.

‘Go on.’

‘I realized something when I went back through all the data. We know that thirty-eight people of the thirty-six thousand exclusion samples on the Negatives database have been associated with recent crimes. And that, according to your Psychopath Selection, six of these have potentially unstable genotypes. Future psychopaths, as you like to call them.’

‘Yep.’

‘So I was double-checking everything, now that Sarah knows what we’re doing, just to make
sure
I hadn’t missed anything obvious. And I think maybe I have.’

Reuben rubbed the skin of his forehead, which felt tight and dry. ‘What exactly?’

‘That there’s one we’ve missed. One man who didn’t get attacked. One man who may have the wrong genotype. One man who actually perpetrated an extremely serious crime.’

Reuben sat up in the smooth leather seat of the Saab. ‘Who?’

‘Danny Pavey.’

‘The guy who murdered the stranger in a bar?’

‘And who is still on the run, God knows where.’

‘They haven’t got him yet?’

‘Half the Met is looking for him as a high-priority target. But he’s remained entirely elusive so far.’

‘And potentially very dangerous.’ Reuben stared out of the side window as he spoke. A silver Mercedes with blacked-out windows, anchored to the spot. Behind, the pavements busy, people walking rather than face being trapped in their cars or poisoned on the Underground. Word had spread. More newspaper articles had appeared. A silent terror was gradually taking hold. ‘But what makes you think Pavey might have the
wrong
genotype? Just because he’s already on the Negatives doesn’t mean anything.’

‘You mean apart from the fact that he recently killed someone, entirely out of character, with little provocation and apparently in front of his wife and friends?’

‘Apart from that.’

‘Because when I looked back at the batch testing, you know, the unusual database traffic dragged through what appeared to be an early version of Psychopath Selection, Danny Pavey’s name was there. Prominently there.’

‘How could you tell?’

‘By using my brain. His DNA profile had last been accessed a week
before
he killed. There’s no conceivable reason why anyone would have been interested in him, given that the case he was excluded from – the hit and run – happened eighteen months ago and was already put to bed.’

‘You said that lots of profiles were accessed, though.’

‘Clearly. But none of those have just beaten people to death.’

Reuben frowned. This changed things. Until now, all they knew was that six men throughout the capital, males who had been DNA-tested purely
to
narrow the field of numerous Metropolitan investigations, were being systematically harassed and intimidated. But none of the men had exhibited any evidence of previous criminal activity. Reuben knew this for sure: Sarah had allowed Mina to check back through CID records and cross-reference with crime databases. Danny Pavey had raised the stakes, however. If a future killer had become an actual one, events had just become a whole lot more serious. And if someone inside GeneCrime already knew this information, then this brought a truckload of worrying implications.

Reuben chewed a fingernail as he thought. ‘Listen, Mina,’ he said, ‘I’m going to need to perform Psychopath Selection on Danny Pavey’s DNA. We need to know for sure before we get carried away. But if he does come out as a future psychopath, well …’

‘I know,’ Mina said. ‘I’ve been worrying myself silly about it. The words “shit” and “fan” come to mind. I’ll get his DNA to you somehow. And also some from a guy called Lee Pomeroy.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘The only punter I can find on the database who has actually been deleted.’

‘Does he fit the profile of recent victim?’

‘No. In fact, he’s actually in prison. A serious assault a few months ago. But this is how the whole mess happened. No one got deleted from our Negatives when they should have been. No one at all.’

‘Except Lee Pomeroy.’

‘Exactly.’ Mina coughed, a dry, high-pitched hack that smacked of a sore throat. ‘And another piece of worrying news, while I’m at it.’

‘Go on,’ Reuben said flatly.

‘The house of Dr James Crannell’s estranged wife and children was attacked last night. Two men broke a patio window and then left.’

‘Any more?’

‘Two more. Navine Ayuk, the pharmacist, was assaulted near his home. And Ewan Beacher reported a break-in at his garage. Nothing stolen, but lots of documents systematically destroyed.’

‘They’re stepping things up,’ Reuben muttered.

‘Looks like it. But how are they tracking everyone down so easily?’

‘Let’s not overlook the police link in all of this. Someone on the inside of GeneCrime is feeding someone on the outside.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. But this sort of thing happens all the time in just about every police force. Coppers
divulging
information to criminals and gangsters in return for rewards. Third parties benefiting from sensitive information and manipulating situations. You know, Bent Coppers 101.’

‘Anyway, just thought I’d let you know. See if I could put a smile on your face.’

‘Cheers.’

Mina ended the call, and Reuben again found himself staring into the blackness of his phone display. He caught his reflection in it, his brow creased, his forehead appearing to be squeezed tight, as if the frontal lobes below were knotting themselves together.

The car picked up speed and Reuben again looked up. They were pulling into a familiar car park. In the windows above, men and women continued to pound treadmills and weights machines almost as if they hadn’t stopped since yesterday. Moray brought the large car to a halt and killed the engine. A suit climbed out of a black Audi A8 with a small package in his hand and walked towards them. Moray reached past Reuben into the glove box.

‘Time to hand over the goods,’ he said. ‘Anything I need to tell them about the DNA analysis?’

Reuben shook his head. This was not where he
wanted
to be. He wanted to be with his son, in a proper house somewhere, doing an undemanding job that didn’t straddle both sides of the law. He felt a sudden surging need for escape, simplicity, normality.

Moray lowered the window and held out the padded envelope full of call records, fingerprint photos and genetic ID. A tiny SIM card that had suddenly expanded and become so large. Reuben closed his eyes and waited for the grubby transaction to be completed, distracted by thoughts of Joshua, and how Danny Pavey could be connected to everything.

15

REUBEN WATCHED DR
Crannell’s Ph.D. student walking briskly around the lab, from workbench to workbench, from machine to machine. He took in the tattoo positioned exactly between her shoulder blades. A green and yellow sun with a face at its centre. On someone else, it would have been naff; on her, it was magnificent, as if the ink had absorbed the luminosity of her skin and was radiating it back out for all to see.

She was carrying out the kind of science that appealed to him all of a sudden. Cancer research was everything forensics wasn’t. It had a freedom to it, a variety, an impulsiveness that was entirely at odds with the carefully routined manipulations he had helped perfect during his time at GeneCrime. Forensics was about
repeatability
, about specificity, about being certain of one fact at a time. Manipulating cancer cells was joined-up science. Finding out how to stop them growing and dividing, understanding how they responded to signals, watching them shuttle fluorescent proteins around their internal spaces. She squinted into a monitor. On its screen, human prostate cells were lit up in blue, green, yellow and red, irregular-shaped yet beautiful, extra-cellular processes reaching out and grasping blindly for one another.

The door opened and James Crannell strode in, a slim folder of papers under his arm. He thrust his hand forward and shook Reuben’s. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Been over in the animal house, then in the confusing world of the chemistry department. Long story. Hey, that looks good, Anna. Cells finally playing ball?’

Anna nodded slowly, her eyes glued to the screen. ‘So far so positive,’ she answered.

James smiled broadly, and ushered Reuben towards his office. When they were both seated, his expression changed, and Reuben could tell that he had been putting on an act. A sadness settled into his features, his head drooping, his eyes becoming dull and listless.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.

‘No problem,’ Reuben answered.

‘I’m frightened that it’s starting to get to me.’

‘You won’t be the only one,’ Reuben said.

James Crannell looked up. ‘You mean there are others in the same situation as me?’

‘Five at least.’ The name Danny Pavey came to Reuben. ‘Maybe even six. And that’s just the ones we know about.’

‘Christ. Who are these people?’

‘Ordinary people like yourself. No previous convictions, no outward signs of anything untoward.’

‘But all genetically deviant.’

‘
Potentially
deviant. That’s all we can say at this stage. Like you, they are being systematically targeted, again and again.’

James Crannell ran a tired hand down his face, fingers coming to rest across his mouth. Two days of grey and brown stubble dusted his chin.

‘They even turned up at my wife’s house. Smashed a patio window. Scared the kids something rotten.’

‘I heard,’ Reuben said.

‘I mean, giving me the occasional roughing up would be bearable, if they’d leave my daughters out of it. I can’t understand what pleasure they
would
get from scaring children. What kind of animals are they?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did, but we’re utterly in the dark. Please try to remember they’re not after your kids. It’s you they want.’

James grunted. ‘Some bloody comfort.’

Reuben stared down at the fingers of his interlocked hands. He rubbed his thumbs together, trying to think of something positive to say, a shred of good news to reassure the man in front of him. He wondered for a second how he would respond if someone came and threatened Joshua, and appreciated he wouldn’t necessarily be as polite as Dr Crannell was.

‘The important thing is not to react.’

‘Yeah, well. That’s what I’m beginning to worry most about. My reaction.’

‘How do you mean?’

Reuben watched him. There was a distance in his eyes, almost a defence mechanism kicking in and making him focus on other things.

After a few seconds, he said, ‘The anger. The helplessness. Switching between fear and pride, between extreme vulnerability and a sense of vengeance.’