Torchwood Long Time Dead (19 page)

'Over Cardiff?'

'Yes.'

'So where are these people now?' she asked.

'This Torchwood?'

'I don't know where they are, but here's the
funny part. The site you're working on? That
Commander Jackson is excavating?'

'What about it?'

That was their base. The Hub, they called it.

There was a lift where the water tower used to be.

If you came out that way then no one in the street
could see you until you stepped off. What a crazy
place. Jackson and his people must be trying to
get out as much of the alien shit stored there as
they can.' He leaned sideways and lit another
cigarette, blowing the smoke away from her body.

'I bet there'll be something alien at the bottom of
these murders too. No wonder I've been drawn to
the site all this time. My brain has been trying to
make me remember.'

The site? Where I'm working?' She thought
carefully before speaking. She couldn't overplay
this. 'God, I'd heard rumours that it was something
a little bit
X Files,
but alien hunters? It's too much
to take in.'

'Have a dig around in your boss's computer
tomorrow. Or sneak a peek at the stuff they're
bringing out. Then you'll believe me. There's been
enough weird shit going on if you think about it.

When all the kids went freaky for one.'

'Yes,' Suzie said. The more I think about it, the
more I can see it. They're definitely bringing some
strange stuff out of the wreckage of that building,
and I suppose that's why they have Department
scientists there. Like the one who died.'

There's something else,' Cutler said. I've
got this bad feeling. A really bad feeling. Like
something terrible is coming, and there's nothing
I can do to stop it. It's like a doorway's been opened
somewhere and it needs to be closed.'

Suzie turned to face him and cupped his face
in her hands. 'You've had a shock, that's all. This
sudden rush of memories is bound to be unsettling.

Let's go back to bed and get a couple of hours' sleep
and then come to work with me. We can talk to the
boss. See what he's got to say.'

'I remember,' Cutler muttered, looking at some
empty space over her shoulder. That's what the
suicides wrote. The same two words that are
ringing in my head.'

What suicides?' Suzie asked.

'They remembered.' Cutler was momentarily
lost in his own thoughts. 'Just like me. These
people - I think they were given the same drug I
was. Whatever it was that made us all forget. And
now they're remembering.'

Retcon.
That's what they would have given
him. 'But you don't feel like killing yourself, do
you?' she asked. Despite herself, her curiosity was
engaged, just as it would have been back when she
was Torchwood. She was pretty much all that was
left of Torchwood now. The last one standing. You
could never keep a good girl down. Not even with
a couple of stints of death.

'No.' Cutler shook his head and then stroked
her hair out of her face, tucking it carefully behind
one of her ears. 'Certainly not tonight. I feel a bit
like my whole life of late has been a lie, but I don't
feel suicidal.' He pulled her mouth towards his
and kissed her. 'Quite far from it,' he continued
when they broke away, 'even with this sense that
something bad is coming.'

'So why would these people kill themselves and
not you?'

'I don't know. Maybe because I'd already had
an experience with Torchwood in London before
the Cardiff lot gave me their drugs? I knew about
Torchwood and all this alien stuff for
years
before
they wiped me. These people might have been only
a day or so. Perhaps that's the difference. What if
this feeling of dread is worse for them somehow?

Maybe we're remembering because we
have
to.

Because this is some kind of alien thing that's
coming - something so terrible that our basic
survival instinct is kicking in and because we've
come across this stuff before we can
see
it in a way
ordinary people can't?'

That's a lot of maybes,' Suzie said. A haggard,
haunted look had settled on Cutler and she found
it suited him better than his previous almost
carefree expression. Jack Harkness had been
stupid not to hire DI Tom Cutler. He'd have been
better than Miss sweet-and-sickly Gwen bloody
Cooper. Maybe Jack was incapable of hiring
someone that didn't want to sleep with him. She
swallowed the bile. Torchwood was gone. Maybe
she and Cutler could start their own branch...

maybe they could go somewhere like America...

She shut the thoughts down. There was no

future for them. It was a childish idea that belonged
to the old Suzie who, somewhere deep down, just
wanted everything to be normal again. That Suzie
was dead, she reminded herself. If she hadn't been
totally eradicated the first time round, the second
long stretch of nothing had finished her off.

She couldn't let Cutler live. He was too smart.

Soon enough he'd figure out that she
was
the bad
thing that was coming. It was all inside her on the
other side of her eyes.

'Let's go back to bed,' she said, gently. There's
nothing we can do about it all now. In a couple of
hours it will be morning, and then we'll find the
Commander. I promise.' She leaned forward and
kissed his head. Til get you a glass of water.' She
smiled. Tor after.'

Her eyes watered as she wrapped herself

around him again and she swallowed down the
tears. They still had an hour or two before she'd
have to kill him and she wanted to make the most
of it.

When Cutler woke up, he was struck by three
things. First, that his head felt as if a truck had
driven through it, second that his phone was
ringing, and third, that the space beside him in
the bed was empty. He frowned and peeled his
tongue from the roof of his mouth. God, he felt like
crap.

'Sue?' he called out, his voice like gravel. There
was no answer. The flat was silent, no running
water from the shower, nor a kettle boiling in
the kitchen. He sat up, ignoring the throbbing
drumbeat in his skull and looking around the
room. Her clothes were gone. What time was it?

Somewhere on the floor his phone stopped ringing,
which came as a momentary relief, and he rolled
over to grab his watch. It was gone eight o'clock
and he swore under his breath as he kicked the
covers off and tumbled out. Why hadn't she woken
him up?

His head spun slightly, and he stumbled as he
headed to the bathroom. If he didn't know better
he'd think he had a hangover, but he hadn't drunk
enough and he'd been fine before they went to
sleep. He glanced at the half-drunk glass of water
by the bed. Had she slipped him a sleeping pill?

His head felt drugged, he couldn't deny that,
but why would she? Did she want to speak to
Commander Jackson without any interference
from him? Maybe this fuzziness was just fallout
from what he'd remembered. As he brushed his
teeth, a familiar stranger stared back. This Tom
Cutler didn't go running in the mornings and get
early nights and always stop after two or three
beers. This was the one who smoked for breakfast
and last thing at night, and felt the urge to trip up
smug joggers if they happened to cross his path.

Overnight, dark circles had formed under his eyes
to welcome him back, and he splashed water over
his face and body to shake the mugginess away,
then ran his fingers through his hair. He needed
a shower - after last night he definitely needed
a shower - but he didn't have time. He sprayed
a coating of deodorant over his skin and headed
back into his bedroom. His mobile started ringing
again as he grabbed his shirt from the previous
evening and pulled it on. He'd only worn it for a
few hours and it would have to do.

'I know I'm late,' he muttered into the phone
while lighting a cigarette. I'll be there...'

as soon as you can, I hope,' Andy Davidson
finished his sentence for him. 'We've got three
more suicides reported, and I doubt that's it. We're
getting loads of missing people being reported too.

I don't know what the hell happened last night,
but something's freaking Cardiff out.'

A wave of terror and foreboding rushed through
Cutler's system, the sudden adrenalin rush that
came with it killing off his headache. He sucked
hard on his cigarette. 'Give me ten minutes.'

He tried Sue's number on the way to the car
but it rang out. Maybe she kept it in her bag while
she was working. The answerphone kicked in and
he listened to the mechanical message, slightly
sad not to hear her voice. 'Hey, it's me,' he said.

'Look, thanks for letting me sleep in, but I'm going
to head over to the site when I've checked in at the
station. Don't do anything until I get there. I don't
want you to get into trouble, OK?' He paused and
then hung up, not sure how to say goodbye. He'd
probably see her before she heard it anyway.

The drive through the rush-hour traffic did little to
clear his thinking, nor shake his sense of unease,
and when he got to work, the first thing he wanted
was to make sure that he wasn't going crazy and
that these were real memories that had come back
to him so suddenly. Bypassing Andy Davidson
who was signalling to him while on a desk phone,
Cutler strode into his boss's office.

'Knocking is the polite way to get my attention,
Cutler,' DCI Waterman said, looking up from his
desk.

'Torchwood,' Cutler said. He saw the defensive
tension immediately tighten up in Waterman's
shoulders. Bingo. 'You've heard of them, then?'

'Not for a while. Don't ask me for details because
I don't have any. They weren't in my remit.'

'Did they step in and take over some cases?' he
asked.

'Sometimes.' Waterman leaned back, his lips
pursed. 'Why?'

'Did they help out on the opera singer case? My
big case?'

'Are you saying you don't remember?'

'Humour me.' Cutler knew the answer. He'd
known it as soon as his boss had reacted to the
mention of Torchwood, but he needed to hear it.

It was as if a film was being peeled away from the
world and he was seeing it clearly.

'They might have done. You worked the case,
but they had an interest. What the hell is all this
about?'

Cutler was saved answering by Andy Davidson
opening the door.

'Doesn't anyone knock any more?' Waterman
asked.

'Sorry, sir.' Andy looked at Cutler. 'You're not
going to believe this. The suicide count is now at
seven, and one of the names that came up was
Eryn Bunting.'

'The teacher? The one whose bank statement
was taken to open the safety deposit box?' Cutler
gave a short nod to their bemused DCI who was
shooing them away, and walked out of his office
with the sergeant. 'Are you sure it's her?'

'Yes. She slashed her wrists in the bathroom
and wrote "I remember" on the wall.'

Cutler's mind reeled. If his theory about the
suicides was right, that meant Eryn Bunting's
memory had been wiped by Torchwood at some
point. If Sue's story was true, then the murders
started at the Hub, and something was taken out
of a safety deposit box set up years ago in Eryn
Bunting's name. Did someone steal her bank
statement while her memory was being wiped?

Surely only someone in this elusive Torchwood
team could have done that.

Torchwood.
Everything
was Torchwood, and
Torchwood was
everything.
The dread that was
growing inside him, that was Torchwood too. He
knew it in every fibre of his being. Torchwood had
been woven into his life for ever, it seemed, and
destroyed as the Hub might be, it wasn't letting go
yet. What the hell was going on? He needed to get
to the site and talk to the Commander. Something
bigger than murder was going on here.

Screaming. The screaming of millions.
He didn't
understand the sudden thought and, wrapped
around the dread as it was, he pushed it to one
side. He didn't have time for a terror he couldn't
explain. Not until he'd got to the bottom of this.