you sure?’ Bailey asked cautiously. ‘She sure doesn’t look like she wants it opened.’
‘Screw what she wants,’ Viggiano fired back.
‘Sir, I really think we should check it out first,’ Bailey insisted, sensing from the woman’s desperate expression that she was trying to warn him of something. ‘There must be a reason they’re signalling. Don’t you think we should at least make contact and see what the hell they’re doing in there?’
‘It’s pretty goddamned obvious what they’re doing in there, Bailey. Some fucker locked them in. And the sooner we get them out, the sooner we all get a hot shower. Vasquez?’
With a shrug, Vasquez unbolted the first door and pulled it open. But as he reached the door on the other side, a shout stopped him in his tracks.
‘Look!’ Bailey pointed his torch at the inspection window of the second door. It was almost entirely taken up by a scrap of white material on which a message had been hastily scrawled in what appeared to be black eyeliner.
You’ll kill us all.
‘What the hell…?’ Viggiano began, but he was interrupted as Vasquez began to cough loudly, his body doubling over with the effort.
‘Gas,’ he gasped. ‘Get out…gas.’
Bailey grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him towards the exit, his last sight the woman’s face pressed to the inspection panel, her eyes large and round and red. As he watched, she collapsed out of sight.
‘Get everyone out of here,’ Bailey shouted, shoving a convulsing Viggiano back up the stairs, into the kitchen, out through the hall and back outside. The rest of the SWAT team spilled out on to the snow ahead of them.
‘What happened?’ Sheriff Hennessy came running up as they emerged, his sweaty face creased with alarm.
‘The place has been booby-trapped,’ Bailey panted, releasing Vasquez into the care of a team of paramedics, then bending to rest his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
‘Booby-trapped?’ Hennessy looked in bewilderment at the farmhouse entrance. ‘How?’
‘Some sort of gas. It must have been rigged to the door. They’re all still inside. They’re dying.’
‘They can’t be,’ Hennessy cried out in an anguished voice, his desperate eyes wide with fear and confusion. ‘That was never the deal.’
Bailey looked up, his exhaustion and revulsion momentarily forgotten.
‘That was never what deal, Sheriff?’
Forensic Science Service, Lambeth, London
6th January – 3.04 a.m.
The stump was bloody and raw, with strips of muscle, nerve fibre and severed blood vessels hanging loose like wires, and the tip of the ulna peeking out from under the loose skin with a white smile.
‘Well, the wounds are certainly consistent with the manner in which the victim’s arm was removed…’ Dr Derrick O’Neal rotated the limb, examining it under a high-powered magnifying lens, the glare of the overhead halogen lamps making it appear waxy and fake, like something wrenched from a shop mannequin. ‘But the DNA tests will confirm whether it’s his. We should have the results in a few hours.’
He yawned, clearly still missing the warmth of the bed from which Turnbull had summoned him.
‘It’s remarkably well preserved. Where did you find it?’ O’Neal asked, looking up. He had a large, misshapen nose speckled with odd hairs. A thick, wiry beard covered the lower half of his face, and his small green eyes sheltered behind a large pair of black-framed glasses that he kept balanced on his forehead, only to have them slip to the bridge of his nose whenever he leant forward.
‘In someone’s freezer.’
‘That makes sense.’ He yawned again. ‘Strange thing to hang on to, though. Who did you say you worked for again?’
‘I didn’t, and it’s better you don’t know,’ Turnbull replied. ‘What can you tell me about this?’ Turnbull pointed at the loose, pale flesh of the inner arm. A livid red rectangle showed where a patch of skin had been cut out.
O’Neal’s glasses slid down his faces again as he bent for a closer look. ‘What was there?’
‘A tattoo.’
‘Strange shape. What sort of tattoo?’
‘The sort you get in a concentration camp.’
‘Oh!’ Turnbull could see that this last piece of information had finally jolted O’Neal awake.
‘I need to know what it said.’
O’Neal sucked air through his teeth.
‘Oh, that could be tricky. Very tricky. You see, it depends on the depth of the incision.’
‘In what way?’
‘The skin is made up of several layers…’ O’Neal reached for a pen and a paper to illustrate his point. ‘The epidermis, dermis and hypodermis. Typically, the ink on a tattoo is injected under the epidermis into the top layer of the dermis. It’s actually quite a delicate and skilful operation. It has to be deep enough to be permanent, but not too deep to scar the sensitive layers below.’
‘You think this was done delicately?’ Turnbull asked with a hollow laugh.
‘No,’ O’Neal conceded. ‘As far as I know, the Nazis employed two methods for tattooing. The first involved a metal plate with interchangeable needles attached to it. The plate was impressed into the flesh on the left side of the prisoners’ chests and then dye was rubbed into the wound.’
‘And the second…?’
‘The second was even more crude. The tattoo was just carved into the flesh with pen and ink.’
‘So, hardly skilful?’
‘No,’ said O’Neal. ‘Which means that it will be deeper than usual. And, over time, the ink will have penetrated the deep dermis, maybe even the lymph cells, which could also assist us with recovery. But, even so, if the people who have done this have cut right down into the hypodermis, it’s unlikely we’ll find anything.’
‘And have they?’
O’Neal examined the wound more closely.
‘We might be lucky. Whoever’s done this has used some sort of scalpel, and he’s sliced the top layer clean off.’
‘So you might be able to get something back?’
‘It’s possible, yes. If the scarring is deep enough it will show up. But it’s going to take time.’
‘Time is one thing you haven’t got, Doctor. I was told you were the best forensic dermatologist in the country. I need you to work some magic on this one. Here’s my number – call me as soon as you get something.’
In war, truth is the first casualty.
Aeschylus