Torchwood Long Time Dead (20 page)

Something else was bugging him. Something Sue
had said to him the previous night had set an
alarm bell ringing in his head and he couldn't put
his finger on what it was.

'I want to know about Bunting's background,'

he said to Andy. 'Get in touch with her school. Let
me know if there was anything strange or out of
the ordinary that happened around the time her
bank statement went missing.'

'Why?'

Til let you know if it comes to anything.' He was
sending the sergeant to do an unnecessary job, but
he wanted to handle this on his own. Torchwood
had messed up his life - he wasn't going to let it
get the young sergeant too. Whatever was going
on here, he'd figure it out himself. He shut the
door to his office and dialled Jackson's office. He
hoped that Sue Costa would answer but instead
the Commander barked a greeting into his ear.

'I need to come in and talk to you,' Cutler said.

'It's urgent. I'll be there as soon as I can. Don't
go anywhere.' He let the Commander start his
protests before he cut him off. These murders
are wrapped up with Torchwood, and since you're
sitting on the Hub I need answers from you.' He
hung up before they could get into a conversation.

This was something they needed to do face to face,
and the Commander could sweat for a bit. He'd
almost got to the end of the Incident Room when
a young constable called him back. She looked
flushed and excited.

'It's the tech team, sir,' she said. That CCTV

you wanted? From the first two suicide locations?

They've been through it all and they've got
something.'

Cutler stared at her. Commander Jackson was
going to have to wait another half an hour.

Elwood Jackson stayed on the phone for a moment
or two after the policeman had hung up, the empty
tone doing little to ease his sudden anxiety. How
the hell did Cutler know about the Hub? It was
true that some of the police - especially the Cardiff
police - knew of Torch wood's existence, but not in
any detail, and they certainly didn't know about
the Hub. What had changed? What the hell had
Cutler found out about these murders that had
brought him that information?

He rubbed his forehead and sighed. It was first
thing in the morning and he was tired already. The
Department weren't going to be happy about this,
but what the hell was he supposed to do about it?

He'd never been a great sleeper but over the past
few nights the hours he'd got had dwindled below
five and were filled with nightmares of being
terrified and trapped in Hell. They disturbed
him, mainly because he wasn't a man with much
imagination and the creatures that loomed out
of the darkness in these dreams were beyond
anything he thought his mind could make up.

On top of that, with the deaths and mutilations
he'd seen on various battlefields over the years,
he hadn't thought Hell could hold anything that
might frighten him. If the experiences in his sleep
were anything to go by, then he'd thought wrong.

He almost jumped when the phone on the desk
rang again, and he answered it gruffly. If it was
the policeman with any more snappy demands,
he had a good mind to tell him to go and shove
his cockiness where the sun didn't shine. It wasn't
Cutler, however, but the Department records
administrator.

'You put in a request about a deleted file, sir?'

she said.

'Yes, that's right. Have you got the information
for me?'

'Yes.' The woman paused at the other end. 'You
wanted to know who deleted it and when?'

That's right.' His patience, thin as it was that
morning, was disappearing. 'I haven't got all
day.'

'It's just that...' She hesitated. 'It's just that,
according to the system,
you
deleted it. Yesterday
morning.'

'What?' Jackson froze. 'What do you mean, I
deleted it?'

'It was deleted with your clearance. All back-up
files. I can't even tell you whose file it was - not
without going down and searching through the
paper files for a match and that will take days.'

'Do it,' he grunted.

'But sir, I...'

Commander Elwood Jackson hung up. His heart
raced and, as it thumped, the start of a headache
beat out a rhythm in time with it in his skull. If
he wasn't careful he'd be heading for a stroke or
an aneurism or something equally unpleasant. He
didn't understand this situation at all. He hadn't
deleted the file, so the only other possibility was
that someone else had compromised his computer.

But who? Who was this person who had managed
to delete all trace of themselves in the system?

Most soldiers and Department men had their
DNA logged in several databases. If they hadn't
found their man in their own files they'd normally
come up somewhere else.

He was starting to actually look forward to
Cutler's arrival. Maybe if he and the policeman
shared their information they might both come
up with some answers instead of both drowning
in questions. He needed some coffee and stared
at the empty machine. Where the hell was Sue
Costa? Surely she should be here by now? How
late had she stayed at the party? She didn't strike
him as the kind of girl to get too drunk and sleep
in late. She was too efficient for that. He'd give it
ten minutes and then call her - it looked like he
was going to have to make the coffee himself.

He'd set the machine gurgling and was

waiting impatiently for the jug to fill when Lt
Howe knocked on the door and came in. Jackson
expected to see the policeman behind him, but he
was alone. He almost asked him to find out who'd
been in the Portakabin when he'd been out the
previous day, but then decided against it. He'd
wait and hear what Cutler had to say first. The
last thing he needed was gossip amongst the men.

The Department would no doubt be firing him for
incompetence soon enough without him making it
worse.

'Lieutenant?' he said.

'It's one of the pieces of equipment we've
retrieved, sir. Not alien, but human. The handheld
monitor?'

'Go on.'

'The tech team have got it working again. The
specifications for it were stored in the back-up
drive.'

'Get to the point, soldier.' The machine finished
bubbling and Jackson poured himself a mug, glad
that his hand was steady. He had a feeling that in a
moment he was going to need something stronger,
but coffee was going to have to do for now.

'We're picking up some very unusual readings
from it. Massive spikes in activity. We're trying
to pinpoint the focus and locations, but we're
learning as we go.'

'Could it just be faulty or damaged?' Jackson
asked.

'No, sir. As far as we can tell, the machine is
working perfectly. We just need to understand
what it's trying to tell us.'

'Then get back to it, and I want to know the
minute you have anything further.' The Rift
Monitor. That's what Howe was talking about. If
the handheld one was showing lots of activity then
there was something alien at work in Cardiff.

'Yes, sir.' Howe disappeared and, as the door
closed behind him, Commander Jackson sipped
his coffee. God, it was awful. He never quite got the
quantities right. Where the hell was Sue Costa?

Suzie sat in the train station and listened once
again to Tom Cutler's message on her phone.

Around her, people scurried on their way to this
train or that, eyes fixed on departure boards or
looking for waiting friends rather than the dark
shadows that crept too far from her body to be
quite natural. No one sat in the seats around her,
though, and despite her hunched shoulders and
the tears streaming down her face, not a single
stranger stopped to check on the beautiful crying
woman in the middle of the station. Their sixth
sense was working quietly for them by ignoring
her. Those that walked by might not think they'd
noticed her sitting so still in the midst of the
hubbub, but their dreams that night would be
plagued by darkness and demons and pain.

Suzie felt alone. She was also terrified. She
should have killed Tom Cutler. She really should
have. Why hadn't she? It couldn't be love, that
would just be ridiculous. It had to be the bond she
felt with him over Torchwood. Something about
that shared experience made her vulnerable
to him. He'd
weakened
her. Her eyes blurred
with fresh tears and she clenched her fists with
frustration at herself. It was all going wrong - she
could feel it. The darkness was too greedy, and
although she'd killed another two since leaving
the policeman's flat it wanted
more.
It was always
going to want so much more. She was coming to
realise that it wanted it all. It wanted to take the
whole world into its black embrace and drag it
through her to the place between dimensions and
she had no idea at all how to stop it, and even if
she could.

Her best chance was to spend her life feeding
it and hope that it would die with her when the
nothing eventually came for her again. Somewhere
in the last twenty-four hours, that future had
started to feel a little like hell. That moment had
come at precisely the point when she'd realised that
she couldn't kill stupid DI Tom Cutler, because
the old Suzie, the one that she'd thought was dead
but it seemed was very much alive, had gone and
felt sorry for Cutler. He'd been messed up enough.

She felt connected to him in a way she hadn't with
anyone else. Bloody Torchwood had made wrecks
of them both. God, she'd been pathetic standing
over the bed with the knife. She'd even shoved a
sleeping pill into his glass of water so he might
feel it less. It hadn't helped. She still couldn't kill
him. He looked so calm and handsome lying there
asleep, and she couldn't imagine him cold and
blue and lost into nothing. It made her cry. And
here she was, hours later. Still crying.

She looked up at the board again. Any one of
those trains would do for now. She needed to get
to London, get to her secondary safety deposit box
in the basement of Selfridges, and then catch a
flight to somewhere warm. They'd never catch her,
not if she kept new Suzie in charge. She was too
clever for them. Cutler might, though. He'd want
answers. Especially when he
knew
about her. What
scared her most was that she almost liked the idea
of him catching her. It would mean she could get
to
see
him again. For the first time in what seemed
like forever, she wished Jack Harkness was here.

Perhaps he could make things right. Maybe he
could get rid of the screaming that was starting
to fill her head.

She looked back up at the board but, as the
creeping shadows lengthened a little on either side
of her, she still couldn't bring herself to move.

'Play it again.' Tom Cutler couldn't believe what he
was seeing. A cool slick nausea had crept outwards
from his stomach and his face tingled. How could
that be? Of all the things that he might have
expected to see on the CCTV footage, it wasn't Sue
Costa. But there she was. The first film started
again and there she was, about to turn down
Rebecca Devlin's street, striding confidently in the
early morning light, her gaze straight ahead.

This would be pretty much the time Rebecca
Devlin was putting the rubbish out,' Andy
Davidson said. 'It's likely they would have seen
each other.'

'Play the next clips again.' Cutler's mouth felt
like sandpaper. Sue. Sue Costa, if that even was
her name, which he now very much doubted. She
wasn't answering her phone and had left him
sleeping and now this. He thought about the awful
vagueness and headache he'd woken up with. Had
she drugged him? On screen, she walked out of
Andrew Murray's block of flats, and then a second
clip played, recorded a few seconds earlier, inside
the building. Andrew Murray came in and then
pressed the lift button. He yawned but didn't look
in any way anxious or unsettled. He didn't twitch
or move from foot to foot, but simply stood there,
bored, and waited for the lift. Not what anyone
would expect from a man half an hour or so away
from hanging himself from the balcony.