Michael Preston was born in 1962 and currently lives in North Wales.

After careers in both music and the screenwriting trade, he is now concentrating on being a fulltime writer of fiction. Shifters is his second novel.

SHIFTERS

Dedication

William Peter Blatty for inspiration and insight.

M i c h a e l G. P r e s t o n

SHIFTERS

Copyright Michael G. Preston The right of Michael G. Preston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 84963 338 3 www.austinmacauley.com First Published (2013) Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd. 25 Canada Square Canary Wharf London E14 5LB

Printed & bound in Great Britain

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the editors at Austin Macauley Publishers for editorial help and encouragement; Vinh Tran and the production team for their production coordination skills; Annette Longman and Robert Brookes for guidance and faith in my work. And to my close friends and family for your encouragement. Thanks everyone.

PROLOGUE
Our whole existence is balanced on a razors edge. I think were going to die. All of us. She paused to take a long breath, her cobalt-blue eyes darting towards the nearby window. You are in danger merely by listening to me. Jason Werrett watched as Meg Carroll gazed a moment at the treetops beyond the window; they didnt flinch under her scrutiny. Somehow hed expected them to. Somehow hed expected the whole of the Wellington Hotel and the nearest perimeter of Vincent Square to move a few yards under his roommates gaze. He even imagined the rooftops of Westminster School, visible through the tree boughs, suddenly crumbling away to dust. Such was Meg Carrolls gravity. Such was her seriousness. Such was her fear. Richey saw the truth, she was saying now, almost mumbling it to herself, then swallowing deeply, she said, I shouldve listened to him. And louder, I shouldve listened to him. Jason Werrett held his roommate with a cautious stare, and when she made a sudden movement with her head and shoulders, her eyes darting back towards him, he couldnt help jerking abruptly back on his chair as if hit by a sudden surge of electricity. He tried to smile at her, and this as much for his own comfort as hers, but the smile didnt work; Meg Carroll, he knew, didnt believe in smiles any more. The thing is, she began, at the same time scanning the hotel room in the same way shed scanned the fourth -floor room upon entering it as if expecting unwanted visitors to be lurking in the shadows the thing is, you see, if everything, everything, is written down, then maybe, just maybe, people will begin to believe in them. His voice was as soft as he could make it as he replied, In the Shifters, is that what you ?

People need to know the truth, she cut across him. They must know what they are dealing with. Somebody needs to put it all down on paper. Your book will open peoples minds to what is going on. How can you be sure? he sniffed dismissively. I mean to say, even I dont know what they are the the so -called Shifters. She was up off her chair in a flash, her right hand raised towards him, a set of rosary beads biting against her knuckles as she pointed her forefinger towards him, saying, You must piece Richeys story together. Then you must do the same with mine. Its all there. She switched her pointed finger towards the folder on the table between them. Everything is in that folder. You h ave all Richeys paperwork, and all mine. When you have put everything together, when you have found your beginning, middle and end, then you will understand what they are capable of. Then you will know them. He looked at her for a long moment. Once, he imagined, Meg Carroll had been a composed, sound and logical being; she had the look of a thinker, an analytical furrow baring justice to this as it held its place above her dark eyebrows. Yes, he thought, she looks into things. Perhaps too Before he had time to think anything more, Meg Carroll cried, her voice full of entreaty, In the Name of the Father and of the Son, working the rosary now and of the Holy Spirit. I believe in God, the Father Then silence. As if the prayer had frozen on her lips. He waited a while, trying not to look at her, but at the same time, unable to help himself, he found himself staring at her. He saw the tears as they began to bleed from the corners of her eyes, saw the sad festoon of drool as it attached itself to her bottom lip. Its terrible, she was saying now, shaking her head between words. Sometimes I cant believe it myself dont want to believe it. And yet I have no choice. I I know, you see. I know. Im sorry, he said, stumped for words. Im really sorry. She paused to shake herself; then with her eyes all of a sudden trained on Jason Werrett, her tears freefalling down her pale cheeks, she said with as much determination as she could muster,

Ill contact you, dyou understand? In good time, Mr Werrett, Ill contact you. He half nodded, at the same time watching her as she began to move towards the door. I am sorry too, she said suddenly, pausing a moment to look back at him. I am sorry for all of us. A number, he asked her it was all he could manage to say just then. A contact number. Have you got one? Her voice came back low and hurried, No. No number. I will contact you. And with that she was gone, leaving Jason Werrett to ponder her words, leaving him with a story to tell. Not a fiction. Not a narrative driven by personal quirks and chance encounters. But a story dealing with facts. A story about a world he thought he knew: the world outside anybodys window. The world of now. The world of today. Richey Monitors world. Meg Carrolls world. His world. Your world. Sullenly now, he moved over to the window and looked out. He took a deep breath: Westminster School was still there. Vincent Square hadnt moved a single inch. The surrounding treetops offered a kind of agreeable and dormant foreground to this realisation. And yet the folder was right there, just a few feet behind him. And soon he would reach it across the table. Then, even though he didnt want to admit it, things would never be the same again.

RICHEY
September grey sky. A fine pulse of washed-out sunlight pastes itself above the London skyline. Flight Lieutenant Paul Springfield sees the light. It is a signal. Below, rising towards his Red Arrow now, is the Supermarine Spitfire PRXIX. It looks solid enough though insubstantially solid because of Red Fours sudden turn of speed. Everything banking. As if the whole of Biggin Hill is rising along with the PRXIXHangars runways airport aprons flying club banners terminal buildings Everything whirling in a sudden and dizzying chaos. Red One is calling him back: Do not break the formation, Red Four! Do not break But the Diamond Nine formation is already broken. A matter of seconds. And Red Four and the Supermarine Spitfire are no more than a ball of flame and black smoke. A churning, spouting geyser of Hell. Already reaching towards the other TIAs, now shearing away from the epicentre of the blast. In the last seconds of his life Paul Springfield felt pity for the pilot he was about to murder. He also felt pity for himself. It was not enough. *** As he moved away from the mobile police canteen, Richey Monitor shivered. It was a strange one. Along with the regular forensics crew from the Met, he noticed a number of Service Police personnel so-called Snowdrops in their white caps sauntering about the mouth of the terminal building. Not that it

mattered to him. Not really. They could do as they liked. His job was to record the aftermath of the crash. Not to draw conclusions. As damn strange as this SOC might prove to be. Dont reckon youll pick much up down there, Monitor. Eh? He turned to see Gordon Noble, DI Noble, squinting across at him with the same look of disgust and distrust reserved for the criminals Noble dragged to the Scrubs. Have you been down there already? Noble made a faint titter as he tipped back the remainder of a Styrofoam of coffee; then his voice growing suddenly officious, he said, Its like they dont believe were good enough, right? I mean to say, I know this place was a famous fighter station Battle of Britain and all the rest but why do we need White Caps swarmin all over the place? The Yard can handle it, for Gods sake. Just protocol, I guess, Richey said, readying himself to move away. DI Noble turned his gaze away from him now and looked back towards the terminal building where the Snowdrops were still congregated. Fuckin headless chickens, he spat after a moment, thats what they are. A bunch of fuckin headless chickens. With a non-committal shrug Richey began to move away. Theyre sending a couple of MOD guys over to the crash site, Noble called after him. Shall we say fifteen minutes for you to get your snaps? Richey half turned, shrugged an Okay with me shrug, then continued on his way to the crash site. Always it was the same approach. Whether it was a suicide in the Thames, a knife crime on The Farm, or a kamikaze dive by a Red Arrow at a local Air Day show. The equipment in Richeys case a non-digital Nikon FM2, 50mm lens, 22mm wide angle, a Metz45 flash for indoor work became a distancing tool, a way of keeping his emotions out of his work. Checking and rechecking exposures, making sure each and every photograph was crystal clear and impartial, such was his way, and the way of many, if not all of his colleagues, of keeping the daily grind from creeping into the soul. He moved silently through the long grass bordering the eastern side of the airfield. Already he could see the first shards of plane wreckage beyond the cordon, a series of blackened spirals of

metal rising like strange twisted outgrowths from the scorched ground. It was then he felt the first shiver race along his spine and he was suddenly made aware of how far he was away from the terminal building, now perhaps more than a quarter of a mile behind him; he could just about make out the cluster of whitecapped Royal Air Force Policemen next to the airport block. Perhaps it was the silence. Maybe it was the absolute silence, the stillness, that had unnerved him. That, and the wide space of the airfield behind him. He was beyond the cordon now. A distinct and overwhelming smell of airplane fuel filled his nostrils as he stepped forward, at the same time raising the FM2 and snapping off a couple of wide shots of the area. Click! Click! The intention was for the initial pictures to ground him a little. But for some reason his gambit and this had worked many times before didnt work. Again: Click! Click! He sighed contemplatively as he moved forward, inching his way around the first of the blackened engine parts, then the tip of the Hawk T1As wing, then more carnage including a wheel practically melted through, clevises, wing bolts and a large section of what appeared to be the aircrafts undercarriage, severely blackened and stripped of all but the faintest flash of red paint. Click! A final wide shot before he turned to view the flattened cockpit and detached nose of the Supermarine Spitfire. Still there was a backdraft of heat coming from the latter aircraft as if it had absorbed and was somehow holding on to the moment of impact, like a creature in shock that needed to replay to itself the act of wanton destruction that had taken its life. And then he saw them. How strange. He raised the FM2 and began to adjust the focus on the bayonet mount. Instantly the remains of the two pilots zoomed towards him. They or more specifically, what was left of them had landed close to each other. One body was no more than a skeleton with a few rag-like wraps of blackened flesh, the skull lying perhaps three or four feet away from its vertebral prop, all facial features

having melted away in the intense heat of impact; whilst the closest of the two bodies, recognisable as the Red Arrow pilot from a few torn scraps of a red material still attached to one of his arms, was literally split in half, a coagulated mess of fried intestines and muscle tissue heaped against the scorched grass nearby. Click! Click! Click! The close-ups showed that half of the Red Arrow pilots face was still intact; the other half was no more than exposed bone. Click! He leaned forward to take a further close-up and saw that the eyes were gone. Perhaps they had melted in the severe heat. His picture would show two hollow orbits. Two black holes of CRACK! That wasnt his camera. The noise had come from behind him. It had come from somewhere amid the wreckage of the Hawk T1As undercarriage. His heart thudding now, he stared a moment at the blackened remains of the aircraft. Had to be the after-heat of the collision, he told himself. The metal was still smouldering and its molecules were still shifting about. What else could? He saw it immediately. One of the blackened spirals of sheared metal had begun to move, at first only a little, side to side, as if pushed by an unseen finger, then more noticeably, a sudden grating sound accompanying its rhythm. He took a deep breath and shook himself. No, no, no! Dont be stupid! It cant be! But it was. There was also a strange whooshing sound now, as if a sudden rush of air had picked up and was unfurling a roll of tinfoil. But where was it coming from? And more to the point, what was? For Christs sake pull yourself together. Monitor! Automatically he tightened his grip against the FM2 as if about to set to work. He was almost there, back to himself, when he saw it like a heat haze, a slight shimmer in the air, rising from a fire-scarred section of the Hawk T1As wing. Growing in height and width by the second. It was almost as if the rising air were trying to find some kind of shape. Almost as if it were aware.

He poised the FM2 in front of his eye. With trembling fingers he began to adjust the lens. There were colours now. Definite colours. Red. Pink. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. For a moment they held separate streams, a series of vertical bands, like the shades of a rainbow. Only these colours seemed to be alive, waving themselves in the air above the Hawks remains seeking recognition. Acknowledgement. Two things. In the split second after first noting the colours hed tried to take a picture: no click. And pretty much in the same instant hed heard it, definitely heard it a scream to chill the blood. Come on, for Christs sake! an inner voice warned. But without doubt he was watching them, the colours. He saw them with his own eyes as they coalesced in a single snake-like trail, held a second in mid-air like an elongated amoeba, then rose skyward and began to transform into a series of bubble-like orbs. He continued to watch as the orbs branched away from the crash site. He also saw that his hands were shaking. His fingers were trembling so much, in fact, that he could barely grip on to the chrome trim of his camera. Quickly he turned to look at the pilots remains. He was relieved to see they were positioned as before. It was as if hed expected to see them rising into the air, levitating like a magicians helpers towards infinity. You must get a grip, Monitor, the inner voice warned again. He raised the FM2 in his shaking hands and poised it at chest height. He told himself it was a test shot. A full-length shot of the Arrow pilots position on the ground. Click! A sense of relief fused through his body when the Nikon responded. Or to be more specific, he was happy to take the smallest of mercies he was at work again. After what had happened it was a blessing. God almighty, a voice called from somewhere behind him. Quickly he turned and lifted his gaze to where two plainclothes officers were standing, both looking back at him as though he were the last survivor in a war zone. Its a real mess, said the taller of the two officers.

Both wore identical black suits and ties, their starched collars reeking of Whitehall obedience. Tweedledee and Tweedledum from the MOD, he guessed. Are you almost finished over there? asked the tall one. We need some time here, said his mate, at once paling as he caught sight of the Supermarine pilots remains. Richey made no answer, but he felt his whole body quaking again. Sullenly he gazed back towards the wreckage of the Hawk T1A and in his minds eye he saw it all again the hazy shape the strange colours the orb-like bubbles. Then. The scream! When he came to he could hear one of the MOD bods puking. It was definitely time to leave. *** For a while he felt better. Just for a while. Then it came back with a vengeance. It struck him that what hed seen the strange haze, the colours, the amoebic shape it was all equally as real as the roadside trees, the half-hidden houses and the chrome bumpers of the opposing vehicles on the road out of Biggin Hill. Everything was connected. No matter how much he might want to forget what hed experienced, or at least try to forget what hed experienced, there was no way he could do it. Not this time. He shook his head and tried to focus on driving. Maybe with some distance between himself and the airfield Youve done it before, right? he scalded himself. Youve taken hundreds, no, thousands of photographs. Youve seen things that most human beings will never see in their lifetime. Youve learned to develop a short-term memory. Youve learned to cope. Suicide on Monday, murder on Tuesday, by Wednesday youve forgotten them. He redoubled his grip on the Volvo V70s steering wheel. Yes, perhaps when he was back within the confines of London again his mind would Who are you fucking kidding, Monitor? He let go a sudden shiver, attempting to hold the Volvo steady on his side of the A233. It was as if he wanted to challenge one of

the oncoming vehicles, suddenly veer across in front of it. How easy it would be to let go, to test the boundaries that he and everyone used to keep the world in its place. Was that what the Red Arrow pilot had been thinking to himself when he decided to check out? Why the sudden desire for such wanton destruction? He remembered something his father had once told him: Some smart sherbet once said this, Richey. The only certainties in life are death and taxes. Well, maybe human beings should think a little bit about the uncertainties between their bloody D and Ts. Its only when we go gettin too certain about our lives that we eff things up. Look at bloody Adolf. The German people thought he was a dead cert. He thought he was a dead cert. Well, excuse my French! Richey Monitor frowned and switched his vehicle towards Croydon. It was beginning to spot with rain now, and he quickly flicked on the Volvos wipers thunk, thunk, thunk. He would go back to the Yard. He would check in his film for development. He would go to the canteen. He would eat stale sandwiches and drink cold coffee. He would check with his colleagues about any incoming jobs there were always incoming jobs. He would reload his FM2. He would depart for his next job. He would go home afterwards to his top-storey flat in Hammersmith. He would brood about Leslie, his estranged wife, and Ellen, his six-year-old daughter. He would wish he hadnt agreed to his father being put in a care home. He would brood some more. He would fall asleep in the early hours. Still brooding. And now he had something to think about. Something unexplainable. Something only he had seen. Something that didnt tally with the usual run of daily forensic activity. As he took the next roundabout towards Mitcham, he saw Meg Carroll in his minds eye. Meg, his best friend and colleague at the Yards PU, was smiling back at him. She looked younger than her twenty-seven years when she smiled, like a young Winona Ryder, hed told her. Winona who? shed responded. He was thinking about what shed said one time about their work. That it was the drama of it that had drew them to the Metropolitan polices photographic branch in the first place. Thats why we do it, Richey. Dont you think so? I do it because its my job, he had said in response. And I couldnt waste all that SOCO training at Centrex, now, could I?

And what about all those years at the GMP? I saw more drama in Moss Side than Shakespeare could shake a stick at. Anyway, Meg was bluffing, he knew. He remembered the time shed come back from a job in Stoke Newington. A mother had shot her six-month-old baby then shot herself. Hed found Meg in a hell of a state. For an hour hed sat in her car with her and listened to her as she tried to make sense of the senseless through floods of tears. Shit happens, theyd concluded. Sometimes the drama could be a real fucker, theyd concluded. Suddenly he stepped on the brake pedal. The brake lights of the Transit in front had warned him of a set of traffic lights up ahead. He sucked in a deep breath and glanced towards the lights. Pull yourself together, Monitor, his inner voice warned him now. Before Just then the red light changed to green. He was for a moment taken by the change of colour, reminded of the rainbow colours hed seen shimmering above the wreckage of the aircraft. A car sounded its horn behind him. Go, go, go! But for a further moment he remained still, hands fastened to the steering wheel, his foot poised above the clutch pedal. Thinking now. You cant hide away. The lights you saw are as real as the traffic lights. They exist. They are real. Again, the horn. He wanted to believe that what hed seen was uncertain wanted to believe it, yes, but knew it wasnt. It was as certain as the carnage hed photographed that same morning. As certain as death and taxes. He shivered deeply. Then, shaking himself, he drove on. *** Early morning. Just light. A mist is rolling in like a slow-motion wave. The terminal building is barely visible beyond this shifting grey-white sea. He turns full circle, sees the crown of the VOR navigational beacon, strange in itself like the dome of an extraterrestrial craft. Surely he must be close now to the crash site. No more than a few yards away.

Its different. As if the airfield is different. Maybe this is not the same place at all. Then he hears it. At first it sounds like something is moving close by, perhaps two or three feet away. Initially a snuffling sound like that made by an animal, then a prolonged scraping and pawing more and more quicker now. He halts himself, his breath catching. The animal halts too, its senses alerted. Then, suddenly, a shape darts out of the mist, heading at top speed towards one of the nearby runways. He releases his breath on a sigh of relief: a fox. Disappearing in a flash of red-orange fur. Thank God for Before he can finish his thought, he sees further movement amid the rolling mist. A figure is running towards him, arms outstretched. A few more yards, then the figure erupts in a teardrop of black-orange light. There is smoke. Fire. With a shrill scream of agony the figure tumbles to ground. Richey recognizes the Red Arrow pilot from the figures already blackened and enflamed flying suit. Rolling now, trying to put out the flames. Fighting a losing battle, the flames eating away the surface layer of skin, peeling it away as if lifting the skin of an onion. Please dont make me see The pilot is face down on the ground when something switches him over, an unseen hand swiftly rolling him until he is facing the sky. Then it starts, immediately it starts, a series of coloured orbs rising from the burning pilots midriff rising, splittin g, branching away through the air, and these followed by a solid beam of light, the white shaft penetrating the seething flames. Please dont make It happens in a single instant: the pilots pelvis is pulled away from his legs. The light begins to pulse with electrical fission amid the spillage of tissue and guts. A split second, no more, and above the pilot, again for no more than a split second, is a face, a serpent-like face, leering, flashing a pair of cataract-coated eyes at the mess below. Something inhuman. Something other. Something And there. Absolutely there. A certain

Another split second. Richey Monitor was awake. He sighed and blinked his eyes as he tried to focus on the room around him. He was still in the living room, the TV still on with the volume switched off, a table lamp shedding a flickering beam of light across the sofa where hed fallen asleep. He checked his wristwatch: 02.35 a.m. Then he remembered. The face. The serpent thing. How in the name of all that was rational had he come up with something like that? Sure, he had had dreams before after a particularly gruelling job. Sure, he had jumbled the usual fantasy stuff with reality, regularly ending up with six Cheshire cats and a brutalized corpse. But this whole thing was different. It was hitting him hard. Youre letting everything get under your skin, Monitor, came the inevitable warning from within. Slowly he pushed himself away from the sofa and headed into the tiny kitchen next door. Ignoring the unwashed pots on the drainer, he took a last bottle of Budweiser from the fridge and padded back into the living room. It was hard not to look at the photo on the sideboard. It caught him every time. It was a holiday snap hed had framed. The Algarve was supposed to be an attempt to patch things up. Ellen was beginning to suffer at school and it wasnt fair that her mum and dad were wearing their grievances on their sleeves. They had to do something. The holiday should have been their new beginning. Instead it became the beginning of the end. The photograph was a hopeful group hug taken on their arrival at the Rafael Suite Hotel. With a sullen shake of his head he moved towards the nearby coffee table, picked up the bottle opener that hed earlier discarded there, plucked off the lid on his bottle of Bud and continued on towards the window. He flipped the curtain and looked out. The street was empty that is, empty except for a lone tabby mooching across the road. Everything looked decidedly derelict. Perhaps it was the squadron of litterbins, many heaped to the brim with black bags and waste, that made him think this way. Or maybe the dereliction was something more. A moral dereliction that had spread itself through every household in the city, tainting every individual that lived and breathed within its compass. Maybe.

Or maybe it was him. Nice one, Richey. It wasnt as if hed had an affair. It wasnt as if Leslie had had an affair. Theyd just drifted apart. Shed told him that she didnt love him any more. Hed better move out. Suddenly he shivered. He was thinking about Leslie and Ellen because he didnt want to think about that and that was the truth. He didnt want to see it again, that damn serpent face, because it challenged him. It asked him to think about why a Red Arrow pilot, a professional airman of many years, would take it upon himself to murder a colleague in such a brutal and selfdestructive way. It asked him to think about why human beings murder one another with no shame. With no conscience. Why? Automatically he dropped the curtain across the window, and there was a frown on his face as he said, Why do I never get the dreams with the paradise island and the beach babes? Out of all the dreams I could have, I get the serpent face! *** Richey Monitor gazed around Peelers New Scotland Yards main canteen and realised how very few of the faces he recognised. New officers seemed to come and go in all departments, and you didnt have to be so analytical to see there was a certain amount of downsizing going on. Even in the forensic departments, in the photographic branch, for instance, there was a steady bloodletting going on. Only the other week theyd lost two good professional photographers to News International. Meanwhile the crime figures continued to rise more shootings, more knifings, more unrest. Particularly that: unrest. A palpable sense of things going west, both economically and morally. And nobody in charge of the ship. You look like you need some jungle juice, pal, a voice suddenly whispered right beside his ear. Am I right, or am I right? He looked up as Andy Littlejohn, DS Littlejohn, plumped himself down without ceremony in the chair beside him. The smile never changed. It was a cynical smirk, a permanent twitch at the corners of Littlejohns lips, a challenge to the world to take a run and jump.

You were down at the airfield yesterday, right? Littlejohn continued. The DI says it was a fucking massacre. There was a lengthy silence between them before Richey said, I thought youd be down there. How come Noble gets all the choice cuts? A stabbing over at the Hamlets. Andy Littlejohn paused to wink at a female officer at one of the nearby tables. The kid was just eight. He was bunkin off school. A Bangladeshi kid. He took it through the neck. Died on the way to the Royal. Investigation ongoing. Richey heard his own voice muttering a faint reply, something like Got you, before adding, Its a real shame. Littlejohn turned towards him. Eh? The kid, Richey replied. Its a shame. Oh yeah, Littlejohn breathed, still smiling. At which point, much to Richeys relief, DI Noble appeared in the canteen doorway and began to wave in Littlejohns direction. Richey nudged Littlejohns arm and pointed towards Noble. In an instant Littlejohn was up on his feet, shrugging himself back into his leather jacket as he veered away towards the exit. Nobody in charge of the ship. That was the top and tail of it. What was it Noble had said at Biggin Hill yesterday? Hed called the Service Police headless chickens. Well, as far as Richey was concerned, the Met could join the coop. The Commissioner wasnt in charge. The Assistant Commissioner wasnt in charge. The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister werent in charge. It cant just be me, he thought. It cant just be me whos recognised the sudden decline in Just then, he shifted his gaze to the doorway. He saw that Meg Carroll had just entered the canteen. She was over at the counter now, chatting to one of the canteen employees, a Styrofoam of coffee clutched in her right hand, either a doughnut or a croissant in her left. She was nodding and kicking her feet in her usual way, a bundle of tomboyish energy that not even the Met, or a whole bunch of rising crime statistics, could truly diminish. Turning round now, she saw him. Immediately she came across to his table. Hi, he greeted her, at once trying to raise a smile or half of one, at least.

Hi, she threw back, placing her breakfast things on the table as she sat down in the chair opposite him; then looking under her eyes at him, she began tentatively. You look Then, changing tack, Are you all right? He managed the smile. Didnt sleep. You should try Nytol, she gave. They work for me. Right. She nodded with exaggerated conviction. Dreamless sleep. Even better. No side effects. She held up the doughnut between the forefinger and thumb of her right hand. Maybe a slight increase in appetite. He laughed a little as he watched her wrestle with the doughnut, a slight spit of jam at once attaching itself to her chin. She looked younger than her twenty-seven years just then, he thought, her face free of the analytical seriousness that she expressed there when working on an assignment. Also the short choppy cut of her reddish-brown hair, the few freckles like a skim of honey on the bridge of her nose, added to the image of someone much younger than her years. Your pictures came in from the lab this morning, she was saying now, as if slightly embarrassed by the way he was staring at her and thus making an attempt to draw him away from his thoughts. Theyre good. I know, I know, she stopped him, at once expecting some kind of protest. I know you dont like those kind of judgements. But you have to remember that I was a college grad. You cant get the art out of this girl. Im not like the rest of you. You got that right, he joked. Thanks. She flashed her blue eyes in mock defiance. Its nice to know my aesthetic judgements are appreciated. He shrugged, cocking his head to the side. If Id wanted art Id have been a painter, not a police photographer. Yesterdays sunrise was kind of lost on me. I had two burnt-out aircraft and two Suddenly his mobile began to beep. Meg watched him as he took the call. Already she knew it was another job an A1 incident by the sound of it. It wasnt, for one thing, a job seeded from the SERIS computer. It was Tim Grosvenor, their colleague, at the other end of the line.

We have a major mess-up, Richey said after cutting the call. North Peckham. A shooting. Multiple victims. Meg looked at him for a long moment, Richey shaking his head, wanting to say more but not knowing what to say; in the end Meg spoke for him, Well double up that okay? In truth, he didnt feel okay about any of it. ***