Breaking Point (31 page)

‘But you must have full toxicology now?’

‘Yes and no. We still don’t know the exact compound for certain.’

‘Why not? This seems to be taking for ever.’

‘It’s non-standard.’

‘You mean it’s rare?’

‘Not so much rare as indeterminate. We know it’s a derivative of an arsenous compound. We know its molecular weight, its rough composition, the mass of its side chains. We’ve had it run through NMR, crystal spectroscopy, you name it.’

‘Sounds like you’ve been learning some basic chemistry.’

‘More than I’d ever hoped. But as you might be aware, the chemical composition of a molecule doesn’t tell you what it is, any more than the presence of flour, yeast, salt and sugar can point to a cake, a loaf of bread or a bloody scone.’

‘I guess you don’t do much cooking?’

Sarah frowned, scanning her side mirror for a chance to pull out. ‘Not a lot of point. But that’s where we are, frustratingly unable to determine exactly what poison we’re up against. And hence unable to trace the route of procurement.’

Reuben felt obliged to say something positive. ‘I’m sure he’ll fuck up at some point. All killers do.’

Sarah grunted, unconvinced. She pulled out with a squeal of tyres, thrashing the engine for a few seconds before a set of lights changed and the deadlock resumed again.

‘I almost forgot,’ she said, turning in her seat. ‘I’ve got some good news.’

‘That would make a change.’

‘Two earrings Charlie brought in first thing yesterday.’

‘Yeah?’ Reuben had almost forgotten ripping them from Margulis as he lay bleeding on the floor of his bunker. Identical diamond studs. A hazy,
sickening
memory of illness and torture washed over him.

‘We’ve got a preliminary match to Joe Keansey’s parents.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘The left had a minute residue of blood from Mr Keansey, brought up by low copy analysis. It should be enough to charge him. Bit difficult to explain how else Mr Margulis could have the blood of one of Joe Keansey’s parents, who were shot at point-blank range eighteen months ago, lodged in his earring. Especially as he claimed under questioning never to have met them, let alone pulled the trigger.’

‘So Margulis didn’t contaminate the scene, but the scene contaminated him.’ Reuben watched his breath haze a small patch of the window. It receded around the edges, then grew as he exhaled again. ‘How is Margulis?’ he asked.

‘I never thought I’d say this, but thankfully still alive. Bullet wound to the ribs, punctured lung, internal bleeding. Probably in a lot of pain, if that helps?’

‘Not really,’ Reuben answered. Someone else’s pain was irrelevant. This wasn’t a contest where scores counted. He had known all along that Maclyn had pulled the trigger, but hadn’t been
able
to prove it. Not until, in the midst of chemical nausea, a random and wonderful idea had come to him, and he had snatched the earrings. ‘So he’ll be fit enough to stand charge?’

‘Hopefully. It will take a bit of time, but then we’ll need to construct our case.’

‘I guess so.’

Sarah was looking at him, almost expectantly. ‘
Your
case, if you like.’

‘It’s not my case any more.’

‘I’m asking if you want to be part of that team. The one that takes Margulis down. Finish what you started?’

‘So the door’s still open?’

‘While we struggle to catch our latest serial killer, yes.’

Reuben pictured his lab, the JCBs clawing closer every day. He wondered where the hell he was going to go, and how he was going to get his sequencers and phospho-imagers and freezers and microfuges there. He ran through Lucy’s words from earlier. A proper job, something that would make him smile again, stop him from becoming a miserable bastard for all eternity. The thought of a pay cheque into a bank account, rather than cash from shady businessmen for undertaking dubious analyses.

The traffic eased again for a couple of moments, allowing Sarah to trouble third gear for the first time in the journey.

‘It’s just here on the left,’ Reuben said. ‘After the bus stop.’

Sarah pulled into the university entrance road.

‘You’re not answering my question,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t aware you’d asked one.’

‘I’m asking you to take your old job back.’

‘Let’s see what James Crannell has to say.’ Reuben released his seatbelt as Sarah brought the car to an habitually abrupt stop. ‘I want to know if he identifies any of the forensics team.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I’ll tell you my answer.’

17

ANNA WAS SITTING
in front of a cell culture hood. She was wearing a low-necked top which displayed the tattoo between her shoulder blades like an exhibit. Her arms were inside the glass partition, a sterile environment separated from the rest of the laboratory. The hood made the sound of a fan heater as filtered air was driven through it. A radio to her side played a song Reuben didn’t recognize. It was cheerful and upbeat. He wondered what Lucy would make of the fact that it sounded so alien to him, like music that made young people want to dance.

Reuben cleared his throat. Anna half turned, her Gilson pipette hovering midway between several plates of cells she was busy treating with various media. The media were in slim Universal
tubes
, and were subtle shades of orange, red and yellow. The cells were in plastic dishes filled with pale pink fluids. The colours caught Reuben’s attention, an antidote to the whiteness and greyness of the rest of the lab. Like music against the stillness.

‘Are you looking for James?’ she asked.

Reuben nodded. ‘Is he about?’

Anna returned to her pipetting, quickly taking small quantities of liquid from each Universal and adding them to the wells of clear plastic plates. ‘Give me a second,’ she said. ‘I’ve almost finished. Then I’ll go and find him.’

Reuben and Sarah stood silently, watching. Reuben appreciated that this was science performed on living cells rather than dead ones, the manipulation of active biological systems rather than the cataloguing of passive forensic material.

After a couple of minutes Anna pulled her hands out of the hood and threw her vinyl gloves into the bin. ‘I think he’s in another building,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I’ll send him over.’ She switched off the hood and left the cell culture area.

Reuben raised his eyebrows at Sarah.

‘Proper science,’ he said.

‘Great. Except it doesn’t catch murderers.’

‘But it might help make you better if you’re ill.’

‘I don’t get ill,’ Sarah answered sharply.

‘I was just saying.’

‘So, you happy to leave the questions to me?’

‘Fine. You got it all figured out?’

‘I have a list of questions, yes. And then there’s the photos I want him to look at.’ Sarah rubbed a hand across her forehead. To Reuben she seemed tired and stressed. ‘But what unnerves me is if he identifies one of the team, you’re going to have some very unpleasant issues to deal with when you come back.’

‘If I come back.’

‘I mean, we know that Grainger had scientific input from GeneCrime. Now, let’s say it’s Bernie, or Simon, or Rowan, or even Mina … Are you listening?’

Reuben turned back from the culture hood and its flasks of cells. ‘Avidly,’ he replied.

Sarah frowned. ‘Look, if we prosecute them, that’s going to weaken any other case we’ve successfully brought based on their evidence.’

‘If it comes out in the public domain.’

‘It will. Everything leaks given enough time.’

Reuben shrugged. ‘Let’s just see what Dr
Crannell
can give us. And I suggest you’re nice to him. There’s a lot at stake, and this is by no means a routine line of inquiry.’

‘Aren’t I always nice?’

He took in her neatly pinned hair, the contrastingly scruffy jacket, the jeans that looked ironed, the white blouse she seemed to wear whatever the outfit. A senior CID officer struggling to look casual, almost yearning to put on a uniform. Sarah Hirst. Hard, bright, capable of manipulating you, but also capable of making you feel damned good about yourself.

Reuben declined to answer. Instead, he began to walk around the laboratory. There was a lot of equipment, things his own lab could do with. A couple of thermo-cyclers, some dry blocks, a bench-top vortex, a finely calibrated digital balance, a plate reader. All of it looked to be four or five years old, like it had been bought on an equipment grant that had since run out. There was an impressive array of glassware and chemicals, again all appearing slightly tarnished, as if they would soon need replacement. But Reuben was well aware that funding in academia, even in cancer research, was tough.

‘Oh, one more thing,’ Sarah said. ‘One of the punters on your list, a Mr Furniss I think, was
arrested
late last night. Stabbed someone with a flick knife.’

‘Really? Who?’

‘No one who rang a bell. Just saw the details on a report first thing this morning.’

Reuben absorbed the new information. Nick Furniss had stabbed someone.

Before he could get to grips with what it might mean, Anna entered again.

‘Sorry, thought the boss might be over in Chemistry. Apparently he’s in the animal house. Do you want to follow me?’

‘Are we allowed?’ Sarah asked.

‘It’s OK. I’ll sign you in. We only do mouse work here, and I can’t imagine you’ll be stealing anything.’

The animal house turned out to be a windowless two-storey block of concrete between Biosciences and the adjacent chemistry department. As they walked along its edge to the single entrance door, Reuben was struck by the rows of anti-pigeon wire everywhere. Animals trapped on the inside, birds kept strictly away from the outside.

They were duly signed in, and Anna pointed them in the direction of some poorly fitting shoe covers and off-white lab coats, a look of resigned apology painted across her features.

‘Pop those on and you can wait in there on the left,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and hunt the boss down. I think he’s probably operating in one of the side rooms.’

Reuben followed Sarah into yet another room.

‘Pretty,’ she said, putting on her lab coat.

‘Not my type,’ Reuben answered.

‘No? And what is your type?’

Reuben sensed the curiosity in Sarah’s face – an eyebrow raised, her lips up at the corners. ‘That would be telling, DCI Hirst.’

Sarah looked him straight in the eye. ‘You ever wish something happened between us?’

‘Why don’t you just come right out and ask it?’

‘I thought I just had.’

‘Why are you asking now?’

‘When would you prefer?’

‘I mean, this isn’t exactly candles and music.’

Reuben looked around the room, something gnawing through the playfulness of Sarah’s words. It was small and lined with cages on either side, stacked eight high. One mouse per cage, each with the same water bottle and trough of pelleted food. Labels on each cage with numbered and lettered codes. But it was the smell that had begun to strike him. The damp, acid stench of rodents. Wet sawdust, urine, faeces, helplessness. It had taken
a
few seconds properly to enter his consciousness but it was now eating into him, intensifying with every moment that passed.

‘And as for the smell …’

‘Certain people would read something into your evasiveness.’

‘Maybe they would.’ Reuben smiled. ‘How about you?’

‘It could have been a disaster. People like you and me don’t form good relationships.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of who we are. Because of what we do. Because of the way we’re built.’

‘So you’ve never been in love?’

Sarah paused. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe? Who with?’

Sarah didn’t move her eyes from his. ‘Someone I used to work with. One of the only men I ever respected.’

‘Care to narrow that down a little?’

‘No,’ Sarah said flatly, ‘I would not.’ Belatedly, she moved her hand over her nose and mouth. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘it’s like a thousand pet shops, only worse.’

Reuben glanced at his watch impatiently. As unglamorous surroundings went, this was a new low. It smacked of standard police work. Being
kept
waiting, traipsing from location to location, constantly in unpleasant environments. He thought again about GeneCrime, whether he had seen too much freedom to want to return to a routine existence. Certainly it couldn’t be worse than finding yourself in the depths of an animal house, breathing in the stench, waiting to talk to a potential witness who could finally provide all the answers.

Reuben didn’t know what to do with himself. The meaning in Sarah’s words had been clear enough. He looked around while she leaned against a lab bench, leafing through the photos she had brought, one hand still clamped over her nose and mouth. This was the kind of research he might have pursued had he not become obsessed with forensics. What was it Dr Crannell had said? Altering the growth rate of prostate and breast cancers. The appraisal of potential new chemotherapies in human cells and mice. Stopping malignant tumours from proliferating and dividing.

Reuben examined a shelf of laboratory consumables, lost in the feeling that to cure cancer in humans you had to cause it in mice. He picked up an elongated off-white tub which looked like it had once held ice cream. It was packed with
small
plastic vials, beautifully vivid ochres, deep ambers, sunset oranges, pale crimsons. They glinted under the strip light, some colours seeming to lighten, others to deepen.

There was a noise at the door of the anteroom. Reuben looked up, feeling guilty for his intrusion, like he was about to be caught rummaging through a friend’s possessions. James Crannell entered. He was wearing a white surgical face mask, a lab coat, blue shoe covers and purple vinyl gloves. Reuben held on to the box. Sarah turned to face him, sliding the photos back into their folder.

James walked over to her. He pulled something out of his coat pocket. Reuben glanced back at the box of chemicals. Department of Chemistry stamps, labels handwritten in marker pen. Sarah offered her hand. Crannell took it. Then he yanked Sarah towards him, spun her round. The smell seemed to increase, acrid and raw. Reuben saw what was in his hand. A syringe. Crannell stabbed it into the skin of Sarah’s neck.