Torchwood Long Time Dead (7 page)

She wasn't safe. Not at all.

Behind her the pan was boiling over, steam
rising in the small room. She didn't notice. Her
mind was lost in what she knew of the shadows.

Her foot had touched it. Now, with her mind and
memory unlocked it was as if she could truly
see

it. The awfulness inside. The pain that waited.

The horror that lived there. It was coming.
The

screaming of millions.

She took the black marker pen from the scribble
board on the wall that told her on Friday she and
the boys had dentist appointments, Saturday was
football for Noah, and where a shopping voucher
was attached by a magnet they bought in Cornwall
last year. She rubbed it all out with her dressing-gown sleeve. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

Her mind was a fog of darkness and she scrawled
her message in big black letters.

I REMEMBER

It was all she could say. It was the remembering
that had done it. The handsome American with
his cup of tea,
here you go, drink that, it'll make

you feel better
, had made her forget, but now that
the remembering was done, she could see what
was coming.
Did he know that would happen

when he messed with her brain, the handsome

American, and oh no her mascara has run and

he's so breathtakingly handsome and who are you

anyway?

Torchwood.

She pulled a knife from the block. Her mind
was lost in the darkness. She wouldn't let it come
for her. She couldn't. Not the screaming. Not
her screaming. Upstairs, a million miles away,
the music was turned off and a door opened. She
plunged the knife deep into her stomach.

There was screaming when she died. She could
hear it as she stared up at the white ceiling that
needed a fresh coat of paint. But it was OK, she
thought, a small smile drifting across her lips. It
was only her children screaming. That was fine. It
was only her children. Not her soul.

'We're not getting much on Eryn Bunting or any of
her neighbours,' Andy Davidson said. 'She's lived
in the same house since 2005, and her boyfriend
moved in in 2006. She's never been burgled or
had any other crime perpetrated on the property.

None of the neighbours have any criminal records

- apart from one man, several doors down, but
that was a drunk-driving conviction.'

'Maybe it was just opportunistic then,' Cutler
mused, leaning back on the desk. He'd slept like
a log for the two hours between five and seven
and felt surprisingly awake. His mouth still had
the lingering taste of cigarettes though, despite
having brushed his teeth twice. It was the only
solid reminder he had that anything strange had
happened in the night. He put it down to alcohol.

Or maybe sleep-walking of some kind, not that he'd
done that before, but there was always a first time.

Whatever it was, he'd put it out of his head. Apart
from the cigarettes. Looking at the crime scene
photos on the board, the before and after images of
poor Janet Scott in particular, wasn't helping.

'Unlikely. Eryn Bunting keeps all her bank
statements and payslips.' Andy sipped his tea. 'I
didn't actually know people like that existed. I
don't know where my payslip is for last month, let
alone last year, and the last thing I want to keep
in my flat is evidence of my overdraft, but Eryn
Bunting is a filer. At least she was until everything
went online.' He smiled. 'She's a paper-saver too.

But she had her bank slips for 2007. There was
one missing.'

'Really?' Cutler frowned. Thus far, his money
had been on the killer just having gone through a
random recycling bag until he found something.

'Is she in a flat or a house? Any way our killer
might have been able to steal her post?'

'Again unlikely. And anyway, if she was this
anal about filing, she'd have noticed if a statement
didn't turn up.'

'Anything on Janet Scott?'

'Clean as a whistle.'

'Great.' Cutler chewed the end of a pen. 'Well,
until forensics get back to us, we've got nothing.

Let's hope we get something from the body. The
killer must have left something behind. Hair or
clothes fibre.'

'Yeah, but how long will that take to come
back?'

'Fast I hope. We're not exactly overrun with
this kind of murder. We should get bumped to the
top of the list.'

'Sir?' A uniformed constable, Sue Fellowes,
interrupted them from the doorway. 'Have you
got a minute? Could you come and have a look at
something for us?'

Cutler smiled slightly. If anything odd came
into the station then they always got him to take
a look at it first, as if just because he'd been a DI
in London for several years that meant he must
have seen anything and everything.

'Sure,' he said. 'What is it?'

'Come and see.'

'We just weren't sure,' Fellowes said. 'Is it from
that site? The head bit's not there, though. And
I don't know what these things look like really.

I haven't paid much attention to them when I've
been down the Bay.'

Cutler stared at the contamination suit laid out
on the table. 'Where did you say this was found?'

'It was stuffed behind some bins at the back of
a restaurant. The chef found it this morning.'

'And no helmet?'

She shook her head. 'Is that important? You
think it's from the army site then?'

Cutler didn't answer, his memory replaying a
scene from the previous morning. A suited figure
striding casually out of the site, suit still on.

Why hadn't he stopped them or said something?

It seemed crazy looking back on it. He was a
policeman. He should have
known
there was
something odd about that. It was as if he somehow
zoned out when he was staring at the people
working behind the barricades. A sudden flash
of memory hit him. Taping up the cupboards. A
terrible sense of something being opened that
shouldn't be. He pushed it away.

'It looks like it,' he said.

'Shall I call them and see if there's one
missing?'

'No,' Cutler said quickly. 'I'll take it back. If this
is theirs then someone's broken their protocols. If
you call it through, they'll all know. I'll go and see
that Commander Jackson.' His voice was steady
but his heart was thumping. He was going to
get behind the barricades. 'You can get on to the
council and check how often the public waste bins
in the bay are emptied. If they haven't been done
since yesterday morning, get down there and see
if you can find the helmet in one of them.'

'Yes, sir.'

He was almost at the site when his phone starting
ringing and he very nearly didn't answer it. What
was it about this place that fired him up so much?

It was like it made the rest of the world entirely
unimportant. As if there was something here that
his brain needed to concentrate on to the detriment
of everything else.

His phone didn't shut up, and he finally took
the call. It was his sergeant.

'What's up, Andy? Forensics can't be back
already, surely?'

'No.' Davidson sounded strange. Subdued. 'No,
they're not, but they're going to have their hands
full from now on.'

'What are you on about?' As he approached the
barrier an army guard took a few steps towards
him. Cutler stopped and put the black sack
containing the suit on the ground and rummaged
in his jacket for his police ID.

Three more bodies have been found.'

Cutler's hand paused. 'What?'

'Exactly like Janet Scott. Stabbed to death, and
with the eyes - well - whatever happened to hers,
its happened to these three.'

'Shit.' Cutler flashed his badge at the waiting
soldier. 'I'll drop this off and be right back. I take
it the scenes are secured?'

'Yes. But the victims were all found in public
places. The press have already been on wanting
something from us and local news are running it
on the TV. The DCI wants you back here as soon
as.'

'I will be. Give me ten minutes.' He ended the
call before Andy could say any more. He didn't
want to say outright that he was going into the
site. The DCI wouldn't be happy about that. He'd
expect him just to hand the suit over and turn
around. That's exactly what Cutler would pretend
he'd done when he got back, but it wasn't what he
was going to do. Five minutes - that was all he
needed. He just wanted to get behind that barrier.

He couldn't help himself.

He'd called ahead and once the soldier had
passed a wary eye over his ID and peered into the
bin bag Cutler was carrying, he led him behind the
barrier. The DI wondered why his mouth suddenly
dried. It wasn't as if he could see much more than
he had from the other side. The excavation of the
site itself was still hidden by huge walls of white
tarpaulin and it was a calm day so the entrance
wasn't even flapping slightly in the wind. His brain
itched as if ants were scurrying over his synapses
trying to fire them up to something. He blinked
and saw the flash of a greatcoat and a charming
smile. What was it about this place that bothered
and fascinated him so much?

He followed the soldier up the steps of the
Portakabin and waited to be allowed in.

Andrew Murray had smiled at the woman as he
got into the lift and she got out. He hadn't noticed
her here before and he was sure he would have
done. She was beautiful. Maybe she'd just moved
in. He hadn't seen any removal vans, though, and,
as he worked nights and suffered from pretty bad
insomnia, he normally had a pretty good idea of who
came and went from the block. The ability to stand
out on his balcony and see what was happening in
the world was one of the advantages of having a
flat higher up in the building. He found it quite
mesmerising watching the daily traffic. When
the weather was good, he would people watch for
hours. It allowed his mainly sleep-deprived brain
to switch off a little.

It was nice to know that at least some people
out there were having a life. A combination of
an essentially bland personality, combined with
a liking for all the wrong kinds of foods had led
to a relatively lonely life for Andrew. Not that
he overly minded, but there were times when,
especially after a quiet shift at work managing
the small supermarket, and when sleep totally
evaded him, that he wished he had larger social
life than the occasional drink with colleagues or
other branch managers, and the inevitable weekly
visit to his ageing parents for a Sunday roast
which was mainly spent avoiding the question of
why he wasn't married yet.

His mother seemed completely baffled by his
single status, as if her balding son was Cardiff's
answer to Brad Pitt and there should be a queue
of women wanting to breed with him. As it was,
he'd never been overly concerned with the thought
of a wife, and he definitely didn't want children.

Most of the time he was perfectly content with the
sex that the internet and various chat rooms had
to offer him. Life was much simpler that way. But
he still enjoyed spending time watching others,
who had more inclination to grab life by the horns,
as they dashed around.

He and the tall, slim woman stepped around
each other. He'd been so lost in his own sleepless
thoughts that he'd almost walked right into her
as the lift doors opened, and they'd smiled at each
other as strangers do in those awkward moments
when their personal space has been invaded. She
smelled great. He was close enough to know that.

Expensive perfume. Nothing cheap. Coco? The
name came to him in an instant. How the hell did
he know that?

Her smiled dropped as his sudden confusion
stopped him from shifting sideways to let her pass
and he felt a shiver of something. It was almost
recognition. He must have seen her in the building
before, after all. He frowned slightly. Strange he
didn't remember her. He muttered an apology and
stepped to one side as she pushed past him. His
delay had made her drop her pretence at politeness
and she flashed him an irritated glare. A chill crept
up his toes and he looked down. He was standing
in her shadow. Within minutes, both she and her
shadow had gone, but he remained where he was,
staring at the ground.