Torchwood Long Time Dead (4 page)

nothing but darkness.'

'She's right,' Ianto said, peering through it.

'Strange.'

'Well, it's a quiet night. Have a play with it. I'll

be in the office doing all the accounts that Jack's

avoided for the past three months.'

It was two hours later that Toshiko called her

back down to the lab. For a moment, she didn't

say anything but just stared at the large box on

the table.

'Is that what I think it is?'

'Sorry, yes.' Toshiko pushed her glasses back up

her nose. 'I didn't want to disturb you until I knew

whether it would work, so I just got it out of the

vault myself.'

'I'm surprised you could find it.' The container

that now held the small metal credit card looked

just like a Perspex box. It wasn't, of course. Perspex

could never do what this could.

'It did take a while. Our system for filing this

stuff could do with updating. Anyway, I just

thought that given the density of the metal for an

item so small, perhaps it needed a pressure far

greater than we could apply to activate it.'

'Go on.' Suzie folded her arms. Toshiko might

be something of a mouse - and to be fair had

become twice as irritating since she'd started

mooning around Owen like a wet blanket - but she

was clever. Which was good because since she'd

been adding quite heavily to her extracurricular

activities, Suzie's own brain was invariably

operating at half-speed when at work.

Well, I was right. At least halfway. Watch.'

Taped to the inside of the clear box was a small

explosive charge. Small in terms of size at least.

Suzie had seen one of those go off and take half

a house down. She took a step back out of habit

rather than necessity as Toshiko clicked the

remote detonator in her hand. The silent explosion

filled the box with a bright, white light and Suzie

squinted against it, turning away slightly.

'Now look,' Toshiko said.

The credit card sat undamaged, but slightly

changed, in the centre of the alien container. The

three clear stones that were embedded in it had

changed colour. The one in the centre flashed red,

and the other two had turned an almost milky

matt black.

(So you've turned it on...' Suzie leaned forward

to get a closer look. 'But what does it do?'

'I'm monitoring the particles and energy in

there. It draws energy in to kick-start itself, but

then a different energy is being emitted. Nothing

that the system recognises, but something is coming

through there. Something quite powerful. I think it

might be some kind of alien remote viewer. I don't

think it's a weapon at any rate. Whatever it is, it

could be a great source of energy if we could just

figure it out.'

The red centre light dimmed. 'What's it doing?'

Turning itself o f f . That's happened twice now.

Maybe it needs a renewable energy supply on this

side to keep working.'

'Or maybe whoever's looking through it didn't

see anything that interested them.'

She smiled at Tosh. 'Good work. Put it in the

vault for now. I can't see any immediate use for

it.'

'Will do.'

'And don't forget to log it on the system! Let's get

these files workable.'

Suzie left it two days before taking the item back out

of the vault. If Jack had been interested he would

have wanted to see it by now, but he hadn't given it a

mention. The device was already forgotten, just one

more piece of Rift junk washed up in Cardiff, now

safely stored away. She slipped it into her pocket.

It created energy, that's what Toshiko had said.

Perhaps if she could harness that energy it could

enhance the power of the Resurrection glove?

'Blimey,' Andy said.

Cutler thought his sergeant's reaction was
somewhat understated, but then newly promoted
Andy Davidson wasn't much of a swearer. His
own internal reaction had featured much stronger
terms, like those being muttered by the Scene of
Crime boys as they arrived.

'It goes without saying no details of this hit the
press,' he said, letting them pass. 'I don't want
to hear that you've even mentioned it to your
girlfriends, wives or mothers, all right?'

'Who'd tell their mother about this?' Andy
asked. He had a point.

The woman sat against the wall, her legs

straight out in front of her and slightly apart. She
was small and petite and, even though she had
to be in her fifties, the pose made her look like
a doll. A badly damaged doll admittedly, given
how her eyes appeared to be missing from their
sockets. Blood had run in two thick streams down
her cheeks and onto her shirt and her mouth was
slightly open.

It's like something out of one of those Japanese
horror films,' Andy muttered.

Cutler, careful not to touch anything even
though he had gloves and plastic slippers on,
crouched by the dead woman.

'So, Doc,' he said to the figure mirroring his
position, 'what have we got?'

'Hard to tell at the moment.' Dr Spanton's
Birmingham accent was as out of place as Cutler's
own North London mumble amidst all the gentle
Welsh lilt. The doctor hadn't been in Cardiff that
long. Transferred down for a quiet life. He wasn't
getting one today.

Cutler looked at the dead woman. 'You seen
anything like this before?'

'Nope.' Dr Spanton leaned closer to the body,
his plastic suit rustling. 'And I think I'd be happy
not to see anything like it again.' He lifted the
woman's blouse. 'There's a nasty stab wound here.

Straight into the liver I would say - I'll let you
know for certain when she's on the slab - but it
should be the injury that killed her.'

'Should be?' Cutler frowned.

'I'm surprised by the lack of blood. There's so
much from her eyes and so little from here. It
should have been pumping out of her, but there's
nothing.'

'Post-mortem wound?'

'Even if it was, unless the killer hung around
for a while before delivering it, there should still
be more blood. A conundrum.'

'So what about the eyes?' Cutler asked. 'Are
they gouged out? Cut out?'

T wish. Look.' Spanton pointed at something
shining in the mess of the woman's smart blouse.

That looks like vitreous gel to me. It's the
substance inside the back of the eye. There's a lot
of it.' He looked up. 'She's wearing what's left of
her eyes in all this blood. It's impossible but it's
almost as if they exploded.'

'Sir?' called Andy.

Cutler nodded at Dr Spanton and left him to
get on with his unpleasant job. 'What have you
got?'

'Her name's Janet Scott,' Andy told him. 'She's
54, divorced. Worked here since the place opened
twelve years ago.'

'Sir?' A disembodied voice called out from
somewhere beyond Andy. 'CCTVs been disabled.

Nothing on the computer.'

Cutler sighed. Nothing was ever easy. So they'd
learned the killer wasn't stupid. 'What else?' He
returned his attention to Andy.

'About Janet Scott? Not much. She was working
on her own today, but that wasn't normal. Her
colleague had called in sick.'

'One person working alone in a safety deposit
company? Seems a bit odd.'

'It's not the smartest area of town. And this
isn't a bank.' Andy shrugged. 'I doubt these boxes
are filled with diamonds. Plus, there's no record of
any thefts or break-ins at the premises, so I guess
she felt quite relaxed.'

'That was a mistake,' Cutler said, glancing
back at the body. 'Who found her?'

The colleague. A Mr John Askew. He's the

owner, actually. Rang to check on her and after
getting no answer several times came down here.

Called 999 straight away. His wife verifies his
story.'

Make sure he doesn't call anyone else. I don't
want too many details in the press just yet.'

'Not a serial, is it?'

'It's unpleasant. That's enough.' Cutler couldn't
shake the unease. It wasn't just the murder.

Gruesome as this one was, he'd seen worse.

There was just something about it that made him
think he wasn't seeing the bigger picture. That
this should be ringing alarm bells for him about
something just out of his mental reach.

'Can we find out who was the last client in?'

'I'm ahead of you, sir. Mr Askew checked before
we got here, even though he was shocked. PC

Weir double-checked the system and got the same
answer.'

Which is?' Andy Davidson had only been on
attachment with him for a couple of weeks, but
Cutler had already discovered how hard it was to
get him to the point.

'A woman named Eryn Bunting accessed her

deposit box at 11.45 this morning. The box itself
is still in that private room.' He nodded over at
one of the doors behind the slumped body of Janet
Scott. That's where clients do whatever they need
to do before returning it.'

'I presume the box is empty.'

'Correct.'

'Who is she?'

'Her address was on the records and we've got
someone over there checking it out. This was only
her second visit. She was here in 2007 to open her
account and that was it until today.'

'I doubt very much that whoever we're looking
for is the person at that address. Like you said.

This isn't a bank. From my experience the people
who have safety deposit boxes have something to
hide. They're unlikely to give their own name and
address, and it's unlikely, as long as the annual
fees are paid, that anyone checks too thoroughly.

Wouldn't be good for business.'

He looked around him. Suddenly confined

space felt oppressive. 'Let's get out of here and get
a coffee. There's nothing we can do until we get
some more information.'

Twenty minutes later, the two men were sitting
in a basement bar around the corner when Andy
Davidson's phone began to ring. Cutler was
sipping a large, frothing cappuccino, but the slim,
fair-haired sergeant had opted for a lemonade.

Cutler had almost smiled. Who ordered lemonade
these days? He watched as Andy sipped it and was
about to smile and make a joke about what had
policing come to and why weren't they drinking
beer in a pub, when he froze. As he blinked, Andy
Davidson disappeared. In his place was a tall
man in his late thirties. His hair was dark, unlike
Andy's. He was handsome, but he wasn't smiling.

The weight of the world sat on his shoulders.

Cutler's breath raced in his ears, drowning him
in the sound. The man was sitting on the stool
next to Cutler and sipping a glass of water. He
turned to look at Cutler, his mouth moving but in
the roar that filled his head, Cutler couldn't hear
the words. He frowned, his own mouth moving.

This was wrong. This was very wrong. He blinked
again, but the man was still there. What was his
brain doing? Had he been drugged? Was this LSD

at work? The man was still speaking to him, and
he reached forward and gripped Cutler's arm.

'Sir?'

The word cut through the white noise in his
head, distant at first, and then suddenly loud.

'Sir?' Andy repeated.

The man was gone. The sergeant was back, his
lemonade -
just like a glass of water -
sitting on
the bar. Cutler looked down. Andy's hand was on
his arm. His other held his mobile phone.

'Are you OK, sir?'

'Yes,' he said, his breath catching slightly in his
throat. 'Yes, sorry. Just wandered off somewhere
for a moment.'