Torchwood Long Time Dead (11 page)

'Yes, sir.' Andy Davidson was dutifully scribbling
it all down, and Cutler was once again grateful
to have been given such a competent sergeant to
work with. They might be clutching at straws, but
Davidson knew that didn't need pointing out. And
sometimes it was the straws that saved you.

'The message. What do you make of it?' Cutler
asked.

'How do you mean?'

'It's strange for final words. No apology. No love
for those left behind. It's almost a message.'

'Or some kind of warning. Or threat.'

Threat?' Cutler asked.

'Yeah, but I can't put my finger on why. They're
like some kind of accusing finger. Whatever it
is they remembered, it wasn't good.' A shadow
passed across the sergeant's face and Cutler
was surprised by it. What dark memories did he
have?

'Well, there's a link somewhere between them
that we're not seeing. There's no way this could
be a random coincidence. I don't care how many
monkeys are typing in a room somewhere.'

'Sir?'

'Don't worry. Just a saying.' He stared at the
smiling face of Rebecca Devlin. She had been
a pretty woman with an open smile. Something
triggered her that morning, just as it had for
Andrew Murray. He sighed and his mind ran over
their morning. Murray finishing work and heading
home. Rebecca Devlin getting up and getting her
family ready for the day.

'Who died first?' he asked.

'Rebecca Devlin. Andrew Murray was

approximately an hour and a half after.'

'And how did he get home from work?'

'He walked.'

Something was bugging him. Even if they

couldn't figure out what the two had remembered,
the trigger had to be somewhere. 'What had
Rebecca Devlin done since getting up?'

'Not a lot according to the husband. They talked
in bed for a few minutes when the alarm went off

- usual stuff, when he was getting home, what the
kids had on. What to have for dinner. He got in the
shower and she went downstairs to start getting
breakfast ready.'

'And downstairs? What did she do?'

Well, there was cereal on the table, and bowls.

And she'd put eggs on to boil. They were boiling
over when her husband got to the kitchen.'

'That's it?' There had to be something more.

'Oh - and she put the rubbish out. The husband
was upset by that because it was his job to do it
and he knew she'd be mad at him because she
hated doing it.'

Cutler stared at his sergeant. 'So, she went
outside?'

'Just for a couple of minutes.'

'Where are the bins? Front or back?'

'Front. By the pavement.'

Cutler stopped tapping his pen. 'That's it then.

She must have
seen
something out there that
triggered whatever was so terrible that it made
her kill herself.' He paused. 'And then, on his way
home from work, Andrew Murray saw the same
thing. Or person.'

'Bit coincidental, don't you think?'

'Maybe. But not necessarily.'

'I don't get it,' Andy said.

'Think about it. These two killed themselves,
but for all we know whatever they
remembered

could have happened to a hundred people - or a
thousand. If that was the case, then two people
seeing the same trigger would be less of a
coincidence. Get someone chasing CCTV cameras
of Andrew Murray's route home, and anything
near where Rebecca Devlin lives. Let's see if we
can find something or someone to connect them.

Maybe the same car, hopefully the same person.'

Til get some people on it. But it's going to take
a while. And the DCI won't be happy - a lot of
manpower for suicides.'

'He owes me for rolling over so nicely for the
Department.'

'Which reminds me,' Andy said. The press

conference is in an hour. I'll get on to Commander
Jackson's people and see what they want you to
say.'

'What they want me
not
to say is more likely.'

The phone on the desk rang out, and Andy grabbed
it and listened before holding it out for Cutler. 'It's
Spanton. They've got some results in.'

At least the pathologist had called him instead
of going direct to the Department. That was
something. Cutler pressed the loudspeaker button.

'What have you got, Doc?'

'Nothing simple, I'm afraid. Although all the
victims suffered a stab wound that was direct into
an organ - mostly the liver - that's not what killed
them.'

'What do you mean?' Cutler and his sergeant
exchanged a glance. 'Have you figured out what
happened with their eyes?'

'Figured out would be stretching it. I haven't
seen anything like this before, and the bodies
are heading off to some Department lab for
further testing, but it looks as if their eyes burst
due to sudden pressure from a massive brain
haemorrhage. And I mean massive. To put it in
layman's terms - in fact, I'm not sure there even

is
a medical term for something like this - their
brains were pulped. All of them.'

Cutler ended the call and looked at Andy, who'd
paled slightly.

'Did he say "pulped"?'

'Yep,' Cutler nodded. 'But I'm guessing that's
one piece of information that won't be going into
the press conference.' He looked back up at the
board with the suicides' pictures on it. What the
hell was going on in Cardiff?

At night she could breathe. She could be herself.

All day she'd smiled and flirted with the old
Commander and made him feel at ease with

her. She'd discovered nothing useful as yet, but
she would. Today wasn't the day for that. She'd
shed her red dress and changed into fitted black
trousers, high-heeled boots and a strappy top
before heading back to the bars of the Bay. Her
eyes glittered with sparkly shadow and her lips
were filled in red.

She felt powerful. Gone were the insecurities
she'd felt before - the suspicion that she had
never been
good enough.
That she'd been so easily
replaced by someone
better.
Well, as it turned out,
that was all a matter of perspective. She'd almost
killed that replacement, the sickly sweet Miss
Cooper last time round, and where were all of the
glory boys of Torchwood now? Nowhere to be seen
and probably dead in the rubble. That darkness
was theirs now. Let them enjoy it. She traced her
fingers along the wall outside one bar and behind
her a small piece of her shadow detached itself
and lingered there.

Her stride was long and easy, the roll of her
hips sensual as she made her way to the bar. She
smiled brightly at the young man in a red T-shirt
who was behind the bar, Jason according to his
name badge, and ordered herself a bottle of beer.

She took a long swallow, straight from the bottle,
and let her eyes wander around the room. She'd
killed someone for the thing inside her down a
side street between the last bar and this one, now
she wanted someone for herself. The beer buzz
was good, and she rolled her head around her neck
slightly as she leaned back and rested her elbows
on the bar, forcing her torso forward. It was a
sexy, predatory pose, echoing the strength she
felt inside. She glanced down to check her vest top
hadn't risen up to reveal the pulsing light beneath
her skin. She was sure it had faded somewhat,
anyway; it had looked like it in the shower.

What did that mean, she mused, as she met
the gazes of several men, evaluated them, and
then moved on. Was the viewing device stopping
working? She didn't think so, not given the way
she'd felt that vast dimension sucking her last
victim in. She'd felt the horror without and the
horror within.
I've got something to show you...

She'd heard herself saying the phrase every time
but wasn't sure where it came from. It was more
likely that the device had moved further inside
her. Maybe the explosion hadn't just activated
it, but had dislodged it too. That should probably
frighten her, but she found that it didn't. So far,
the device had proved very accommodating to
her. Rescued her from the darkness of death and
turned her into its instrument instead. They were
a team, and long may it last. She smiled slightly
and swallowed more beer.

She remembered the gasping terror of the man
she'd just killed - the way his eyes had looked
before she'd slid the knife in him. When they'd
started to swell and she could see her own reflection
clearly in their terrified expressions. It wasn't
her they were seeing, though. It was something
beyond. Something on the other side of her eyes
and a dimension away. What was it they saw,
she wondered? And for how long? She smiled. It
didn't matter to her. She was
Death
, the deliverer

- what the awful, unnatural eternal blackness did
with the essence of those people afterwards wasn't
her business. She had suspicions though. When
she felt it opening up inside her, she was sure she
could hear distant sobbing and cries for help. Her
smile faltered slightly. Was it possible that there
was a place worse than the empty darkness that
came with being dead? The nothingness? It didn't
matter, she decided, fighting the sudden shiver;
she had no intention of going there. Her eyes
rested on a man in the corner of the room, sitting
on his own, and sipping from a bottle of beer like
her own. After a moment, he sensed he was being
watched and looked up and smiled. Suzie felt her
mood lift. He'd do. He'd do very nicely.

He got to his feet and headed towards her. His
dark hair was gelled, but not too much, and his
grin was wide and handsome. He was about the
same height at Captain Jack Harkness, too. The
eyes were darker, nearer grey than Jack's blue,
but she could get past that. This murder would
be for herself, not the growling thing that looked
through her, and the man's resemblance to her
Torchwood boss would just add to her pleasure.

'Can I buy you a drink?' the stranger asked.

His accent was Welsh, but in Suzie's head it was
smooth American.

'Sure.' She drained the bottle, letting her lips
linger at the edges of the glass as her eyes flirted
with his, no orbs of dark sucking him in, only her
own seductive brown. 'Or, we could go back to
mine,' she said. 'I've got beer there. And it's less
crowded.'

The man's grin stretched wide as if he couldn't
believe his luck. As they headed towards the door,
Suzie wondered if later on he'd see the irony. She
slipped her hand in his and led the way.

Jason kicked the side door of the bar open and
put the box of empty bottles down on top of the
stack that was forming there, ready for collection
the next day. He looked down at his red shirt and
sighed. Great. One of the bottles couldn't have
been entirely empty and had leaked part of its
sticky contents over him. It was getting quieter
inside, so he lit a cigarette and enjoyed the cool
breeze on his face. As jobs went, it wasn't a bad
one. There were worse ways of earning some extra
money through Uni, even if it didn't pay loads.

There were always plenty of girls, and most of his
shifts were with Sean, and they had a laugh.

He leaned against the wall and blew out a long
stream of smoke, watching it get caught on the
light breeze and sucked into the night. His mind
drifted to the essay that was due in tomorrow
that he hadn't even started yet, and the party
he was going to at the weekend after work, and
what clothes he should bring to change into, and
was there anywhere he could grab a quick shower
without having to go all the way home.

He frowned slightly as his gaze drifted to his
left, to a point further along the wall, and the party
and the essay were momentarily forgotten as it
snagged his attention. What was that? He stood
up and walked over to where the black patch was
spread unevenly over the bricks. He couldn't even

see
the bricks underneath it. It was night, but the
side street was well lit from a security light above
the staff door, and the rest of the wall was clearly
red, the mortar between the bricks visible. Not in
the patch though. That was simply black with no
sense of texture to its surface.