The rain was a thousand frozen needles jabbing at my face and blinding my eyes. The gun was cold and heavy, an ice-sculpture of a pistol. The air smelt of ozone and madness. Lawler, dancing crazily on the edge of the roof, shouted something I couldn’t hear. The blade of his knife tore thirstily at the air.
The world was a raging torrent of confusion and madness.
The voice in my head was calm.
‘I could take an accurate shot, if you would like to give me control of our body,’ 42 said and it was true, he could. But it would still be my finger pulling the trigger and back then I’d never killed a man.
I yelled out some policeman’s cliché about the madman having no options. I never heard his reply but I saw his body vanish over the edge, into the darkness beneath. I arrived in time to see ripples spreading in the water twenty stories below. ‘Damn.’ I said, out loud, to no one in particular.
‘He’s certainly dead, Devon. His victim’s families would consider that justice.’ 42 told me internally.
‘That’s why we don’t let them judge.’
Above our head, lights flashed and the sound of rotors drew near. It sounded like the press. For once, they’d missed the show.
I turned and hurried off the roof, anxious to get out of sight of the cameras. 42 was saying something but I ignored him just as I ignored the less tangible voices telling me to go get a drink and to follow the madman off the roof.
I leaned over the railings and stared down the stairwell, through the building’s warped interior. Far below water lapped at the steps. The city was sinking and I was leading the house-band, playing the last waltz as the icy water tugged at my trousers.
I blinked and the storm faded. Having been entirely real moments earlier, it became as ephemeral as last night’s dreams. Though with my nightmares, I’m not sure how much that says. I was gripping the edge of my desk and my colleagues were trying not to stare. As ever when the memories faded, I thought of Helen. The reality of playback was so real, the smells, sounds and feelings recreated so perfectly that the temptation to call up the dead from the grave was almost too much. Almost.
I’d seen the emaciated souls on the side of the roads in filthy rags, eyes blank, smiles fixed as Head-sets replayed the dead on a never-ending loop.
The roof was my loop. I had lived it a thousand times in the last eighteen months. I saw nothing that told me why Lawler did it. He’d shown such a tenacious grip on life, his own and his victim’s. His final leap into the storm was hard to fathom.
‘Do you have any new insight?’ 42 asked me from his perch at the back of my mind.
‘No,’ I told him out loud, making colleagues look up from paper work. It was easy to forget no-one else could hear the voice in my head.
‘I wonder whether this fixation on the Lawler case is entirely healthy, Devon.’ 42 said. I heard a sort of concern in his voice. Not the concern you would get from flesh and blood friends but concern all the same. It couldn’t be easy sharing a head with me.
‘I just don’t like it, that’s all,’ I thought to 42, ‘if he somehow survived...’ The look in the Sully girl’s eyes when we’d found her corpse dredged itself from my memory without 42’s help. I tried to ignore the young, torn face and concentrated on the fact that Lawler’s was the only file in the ‘unsolved’ drawer of my desk, cluttering a space that should have been pure and unsullied by doubt. It wounded my pride. Of course, no one was forcing me to keep it open. In fact, I’d come under significant pressure to close it.
I sighed and reached for the manila folder that contained the information about the case I was supposed to be working on. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up with two folders in that damn drawer.
A gang of violent thieves had been robbing Head-shops in Hackney and Islington. They’d left a trail of depressingly obvious clues. DNA evidence identified the suspects as climate immigrants from the patch of ocean that had once been Bangladesh. 42 was already pulling names from the central database and flashing them up on my retinas. I dismissed some, kept others and was making a bet with myself as to the gang’s ringleader when the intercom buzzed.
‘Yes?’ I asked, pressing the old-fashioned button. There was something reassuring about that button.
‘I’ve got new orders for you McKinley. Come up.’ The Superintendents voice was heavy with phlegm.
‘Yes sir.’ I got quickly to my feet and 42 could tell I was glad of the distraction. Lawler had taken six months to identify, another six to catch. This case would be over before I’d worked up a sweat. I was bored.
On the way up the damp and peeling staircase I passed other officers, mainly uniform. They stopped talking when they saw me but most of them nodded in my direction. I even nodded back to a couple. The chattering restarted as I left earshot. I could have got 42 to listen in for me but I probably wouldn’t have liked what they had to say.
At the top of the stairs I opened the double doors and walked in. Grace was behind the reception desk. She smiled when she saw me. When Grace smiled the creases and wrinkles that lined her ancient face rippled and flowed.
‘Well now, Inspector McKinley. We don’t see you up here much these days,’ she said. Accents were so unusual these days that some people had difficulty understanding her lilt, but not me. Grace reminded me of my grandmother.
‘I guess you’ve got better people to see,’ I told her, smiling.
‘If we have, I don’t know who they might be,’ she tutted, ‘things have been so quiet I sometimes wonder if Nexus has forgotten us.’
‘The city’s drowning, Grace. We’re the only fools still paddling around down here.’ She laughed and offered me a cup of tea. ‘No thanks I’ve had the stuff they call tea up here before. Any idea what he wants?’
‘No, though if I’m any judge it’s nothing good. He’s been in a foul mood since this morning.’
‘What happened this morning?’
‘He got a call from Nexus command. I think it was about you, dear.’
‘Maybe the Doctors predictions have come true. Maybe I’ve finally gone mad.’ I stuck my tongue out and rolled my eyes. Grace laughed and flapped a hand at me.
‘Get on with you. He’ll be waiting.’ I doffed an imaginary cap and walked over to the Super’s door. I knocked and he answered in his unhealthy wheeze.
‘Enter.’
Superintendent Carter sat between two carefully constructed paperwork mountains. Some of the younger officers laughed at Carter’s towers. I knew that each pile hid a tray, one reading ‘IN’ the other ‘OUT’. It was to Carter’s eternal credit that the two were always roughly balanced.
‘McKinley. Sit,’ he commanded. I obeyed. He stared at me, his hard eyes weeping. He pulled a tissue from a box and blew his nose, loudly and lengthily, before dropping the tissue in an overflowing bin by the desk.
‘How’s the Head-shop case?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I exaggerated.
‘Nexus is transferring you,’ he blurted suddenly. I was momentarily struck dumb.
‘To where? Why?’ I asked, eventually.
‘Albion City,’ he sniffed, ‘as to why, that should be obvious. Your clean-up rate is extraordinary. Plus, you’re one of Nexus’ little pet projects.’
‘A spectacularly failed one,’ I pointed out, ‘besides, I’m needed here.’
‘Devon, there’s no one left to police in London. All the rats are jumping ship. Nexus alone knows how long the Yard’s going to operate. St. James’ has been underwater for three months now; latest thinking is it won’t be coming back. We’re sitting on a rapidly shrinking island.
‘Nexus is moving anyone of any importance North. I‘m surprised I’ve been allowed to hold on to you this long.’ He stood up and reached out a hand. I took it sourly. ‘I’ll miss you Devon. My stats are going to drop through the floor.’
‘What if I don’t go? What if I quit?’ I asked, knowing the answer.
‘Then we take your gun, your pension and half your brain.’ He shrugged. ‘It is police property.’
I grimaced and turned to leave. 42 was twittering excitedly in my head. The details the new posting were already coming through. Nexus worked quickly.
‘It sounds challenging, Devon. I know how bored you’ve been with the cases we catch here,’ he said.
‘I like being bored,’ I snapped, out loud. Carter snorted.
‘You’ll want to sort that out, Devon. We’re used to your eccentricities. They’ll section you if you start talking to yourself up North.‘
I ignored the jibe, I was used to them. Carter might be sorry to see my clearance rate walk out the door but he wouldn’t be sorry to see the last of the Special’s go. I was drenched in too many bad memories.
42 jabbered on in my head.
‘It will probably mean a promotion, more money for you, higher level access for me. We’ll have some fascinating work. Perhaps we’ll get to work on some international investigations!’ 42 was right. No doubt Albion was the place to be.
But it would mean leaving London, leaving Helen. It didn’t matter to me that her earthly remains were long since swallowed by the river. It didn’t matter that she wouldn’t know I was gone, or care.
It was enough that I’d be gone.