‘Just thought I’d save them the trouble of paying out on my police pension,’ MacNeil said. Then, ‘See if you can find out who it was I pulled from that car, Ruf. Just out of interest. The army must have to make some kind of report on it.’
‘Sure.’ He picked up a phone, then paused. ‘By the way, that property in Routh Road. It’s owned by a company called Omega 8. The letting agents are based at Clapham. They say they are not currently letting the property. The owners told them it was being used to accommodate company employees.’
‘Omega 8,’ Dr Castelli said. ‘Wasn’t that the name on those letterheads at the house?’
‘You’ve been at the house?’ Dawson said, surprised.
‘You didn’t hear that, Rufus,’ MacNeil told him.
‘Been meaning to get my ears syringed for weeks,’ Dawson said, and he started dialling.
The detectives’ office was almost empty. A couple of clerks were chattering away on keyboards at the far end. The overhead strip lights had been turned off, and desk lamps cast pools of bright white light only at desks where people were still working. A feeble orange glow cast itself across the office from the street lights outside.
‘Have you a computer I could use?’ the doctor asked.
‘Sure.’
‘I can probably find out who Omega 8 are.’
‘Help yourself.’ He waved his hand vaguely towards any of half a dozen terminals, and she sat herself down at the nearest.
MacNeil retrieved the strip of photographs from his fire-damaged jacket. The plastic of the evidence bag had shrivelled from the heat, but the photographs were still intact. He carefully drew them out and laid the strip on his desk, under the glare of his desk lamp. Choy stared back at him through her heavy-rimmed glasses, a strained half-smile betraying her unease. His eyes were drawn to her mouth. Why hadn’t her adoptive parents done something about it? He was certain that in this day and age plastic surgery could have done much to improve it. He felt inestimably saddened by her wistful gaze, almost as if she were appealing for help. Someone, somewhere, someday, surely, would see this picture and know that she needed rescuing. And it had fallen to MacNeil to see it. But it was already too late.
He was about to put the photographs away in a drawer, when something caught his eye and he looked again. It was the first in the series of pictures, the one where she was looking towards someone off-camera. Asking a question, maybe. Or replying to one. In the curve of the lenses was the reflection of that someone. One in each lens. Silhouetted against the light behind it.
MacNeil held the photograph up to the light to try to get a better look. But the image was just too small. He glanced around. ‘Anyone got a magnifying glass?’ he called. No one had.
Dawson hung up and came across. ‘No report filed by the army yet,’ he said. ‘What do you want a magnifying glass for?’
MacNeil showed him the picture. ‘Shit,’ Dawson said. ‘Is that the little girl you found in the park?’
MacNeil nodded. ‘See how there’s someone reflected in the lens of her glasses?’ he said. ‘That could be our Mr Smith. Could be our killer.’
Dawson looked at the photograph thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t we scan it into the computer? We’ve got some pretty sophisticated photographic software in there. We could blow it up, enhance it.’
‘You know how to use that stuff?’
‘Sure.’
MacNeil looked at him. ‘You see, that’s why you’ll never make DI, Rufus. You’re far too smart.’
The scanner hummed, bright light seeped out from around the edges of its lid, and then a jpeg file appeared on the computer screen. Dawson flicked his mouse towards the applications folder and opened up the photographic software. When the programme had booted, he pulled down the File menu and opened up the jpeg on the desktop.
Suddenly the photograph of Choy’s sad little face filled most of the screen. It had scanned at full resolution, and was remarkably sharp. Dawson manipulated the cursor to make a box of flashing dots around the right-hand lens of her glasses, and hit the return key. Now it was just the lens that filled the screen. The definition was seriously reduced, but the image of the man leaning in towards little Choy was hugely enlarged. It was not, however, clear enough to identify his features. Dawson selected just his image, and enlarged it again. Now they had the shape of his head. But the pixels were so large and spaced that it was just a blur. Dawson reduced the brightness and increased the contrast, and features began to emerge. They could see now that he was also wearing glasses. His hair seemed blond, or silver, and was cropped very short.
Dawson pulled down another menu and selected the ‘enhance’ option. Now the software filled in the gaps by cloning the nearest pixels, and suddenly there was a face looking back at them. The face that Choy had seen in that very moment, on the day they had her passport photographs taken. The man looked to be in his forties. He had large, dark eyes, beneath thick black eyebrows. His blond hair was crew-cut, and his spectacles had silver-rimmed oval lenses. MacNeil looked at him with a jarring sense of recognition. And yet he had no idea who he was.
‘Look familiar to you?’ Dawson asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Me, too. Don’t know where from, though.’
‘Me neither.’
Both men stared at it. Dawson said, ‘Damn, I know that face.’
‘You should. It’s been on television every other day.’ Both men were startled by Dr Castelli’s unexpected intervention. She stood behind them, and between them, looking at the screen. ‘Although the mask was a convenient way of keeping it relatively anonymous.’
‘Who is it?’ MacNeil said.
‘Dr Roger Blume. He heads up Stein-Francks’ FluKill Pandemic Task Force.’
MacNeil looked at the face again and cursed softly. That’s why it was so familiar. He had watched him speak at that televised press conference just yesterday morning. He turned back to Dr Castelli. ‘You know him?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve met him a few times over the years. Very smooth, very charming, and a real little shit. He comes about second in the pecking order at Stein-Francks.’
MacNeil sat trying to come to terms with the implications. Blume was Mr Smith. Blume was Choy’s adoptive father. Blume was a senior executive of a pharmaceutical company which stood to make billions from the pandemic. ‘Oh, my God,’ he whispered.
‘It gets worse,’ said Dr Castelli. ‘Or better. Depends how you look at it. Omega 8 is a small pharmaceutical services laboratory in Sussex. It was privately owned until last year when it was bought over by Stein-Francks.’
MacNeil stood up and said to Dawson, ‘Can you print me off a copy of that?’ He flicked a thumb at the image of Blume on the screen.
‘As many as you like, Jack.’
‘If we can get the neighbour at Routh Road to make a positive ID...’ He turned to Dr Castelli. ‘And if you’re prepared to go before a magistrate and tell him you think Choy is the source of the pandemic, then we can get a warrant to tear that house apart stone by stone.’
II
Amy turned left at the roundabout at Lambeth Palace, into Lambeth Road. She could see that there was activity on the bridge. Military vehicles and a gathering of soldiers next to what looked like a burned-out car half up on the parapet. There was an ambulance, medics standing around idly, and an orange light flashing on a camouflaged jeep.
But she was preoccupied. Still focused on her troubled night, random thoughts rattling around inside her head: the genetically modified virus that Zoe had found in the bone marrow; Sam’s sudden abandonment of their online conversation; the intruder who had cut the hair on Lyn’s head; the call from Tom, his strange insistence that she bring head and skull back to the lab. And MacNeil. Where was he? Why had he not answered her call?