in the lounge, DS Cameron was still cursing her way through the pile of severed heads, scowling at the reader. ‘Come on, you little—’
‘I know why he did it.’ Will said as she banged the handheld device against the floor. ‘No, scratch that. I don’t know why he did it, but I know why he thought he was doing it.’
She hurled the reader at the heads, settled back on her haunches, then looked up at him, her face all pinched and lined. ‘Why does nothing ever sodding work?’
‘The angels: there’s another one in the bedroom. They’re made up of little bits of the Book of Revelation. Chapter fourteen.’
She frowned for a moment, then started to recite in an almost singsong voice, ‘“If any man worship the beast and his image”—’
‘“And whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”’ Will pointed at the heap on the carpet. ‘It’s the tattoo.’
He turned the lightsight on his Whomper down to a more reasonable operating level. ‘Tell the SOC team to start scanning the place. When they’re done, have them bag and tag anything that looks like a body part. Start with the fridge. But tell them to get a shift on. Sooner we’re out of here the better.’
‘OK.’ She stood, then stooped to pick up the discarded reader. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘The other body George showed us, he lived two doors down. I’m going to take a look.’ He turned and made for the door. ‘Oh, and see if you can dig a VR set out of this midden. If our halfhead-hunting friend really did have VR syndrome, there’ll be one in here somewhere.’
The door to flat 47-122 swung open after a small amount of fiddling with the lock. It wasn’t as quick as DS Cameron’s hairgrip method, but it didn’t leave any physical evidence of tampering. The tiny hallway was as nondescript as its neighbour, but the rooms beyond it were completely different. Allan Brown’s flat had been a lair. This had been a home. Right up to the moment when Mr Kevin McEwen came home and shot his wife Barbara in the face. Then he’d gone into the second bedroom and done the same thing to his two children, before turning the gun on himself.
The council clean-up crew had stripped the place back to the fixtures and fittings, leaving it bereft and lifeless. Will stood in the middle of the empty living room and tried to imagine it before Kevin McEwen wiped out his entire family.
Like all connurb block flats it was surprisingly small, even with all the furniture removed: a lounge with a screened off kitchen, one master bedroom, a toilet-shower, and a secondary sleeping cubicle. The rooms were decorated in ancient wallpaper: the pattern a mixture of dirty yellow and green, faded with age. Picture frames had left shadows on the walls, keeping rectangles of wallpaper rich and vibrant. A faint dark line marking the top edges. The McEwens must have been a house-proud pair, because other than that, the whole place was scrupulously clean.
A faint rumble sounded from down the hall. The SOC team had started scanning.
Will wandered from tiny room to tiny room; amazed that anyone could live somewhere this small, let alone raise two kids here. Every apartment in Monstrosity Square was the same: a testament to the ingenuity and inhumanity of the planning department.
Compressed Urban Habitation they called it. Cram as many people into as small a space as possible, then sit back and wonder why they start killing themselves. And each other.
He checked his watch, gave the meagre flat one last look, then headed back out into the hallway, locking the door behind him.
As Will hurried up the corridor the floor started to tremble. By the time he’d reached Allan Brown’s flat the sonics were in full swing. He had to shout to be heard over the din in the kitchen.
‘HOW MUCH LONGER?’
Stein puffed out his cheeks. ‘DONE THE LOUNGE AND BEDROOM, BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS: SOMETIMES THE MACHINERY WORKS FIRST TIME, SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO KICK THE HELL OUT OF IT.’ He aimed a boot at the scanner’s dented canister. ‘AND IT’S ALWAYS US! I MEAN IT WOULD BE FAIR ENOUGH IF IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S TURN NOW AND AGAIN, BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE: EVERY SODDIN’ TIME?’
Thankfully the howling scanning booms meant that Will could only catch snatches of the rant. He nodded in sympathy and when the subsonics kicked in mimed his concern and buggered off through to the main bedroom.
It was slightly quieter in here, but not by much, even with the door shut. DS Cameron and Sergeant Nairn were picking through the mounds of rubbish. A transparent evidence sack sat in the middle of the cluttered bed—there wasn’t much in it.
‘ANY LUCK?’
DS Cameron squinted at him. Then cupped a hand over her ear. ‘WHAT?’
‘HAVE YOU HAD ANY LUCK?’
‘A BIT. WHAT ABOUT YOU?’
‘WASTE OF TIME. THE MCEWENS’ PLACE IS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE, READY FOR THE NEXT POOR SODS TO MOVE IN. NOTHING LEFT.’
‘SORRY, CAN’T HEAR A THING OVER THAT BLOODY—’ The scanners fell silent and DS Cameron paused for a moment, then sighed. ‘God, that’s better…What were you saying?’
But Will was heading back to the kitchen: the scanners still had another cycle to go. If they were quiet now it meant they weren’t working. He burst into the room to see Stein and Beaton on their knees, poking at the equipment.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
Beaton jiggled one of the leads. ‘It’s buggered: that’s what’s wrong with it.’
Will checked his watch again. They’d been here almost fifteen minutes. Give it another six or seven to get back to the roof. Twenty-two minutes. Even then that was probably going to be tight. Running at full tilt the scanners would have interfered with all electronic activity within six hundred feet: that included the public virtual reality channels. Robbed of the only real escape they had, the locals would start looking for something else to fill the gap. Religion might have been the opium of the masses, but VR was their crack cocaine.
And no one liked going cold turkey.
‘How long to fix it?’
‘Don’t know.’ Beaton looked up at her colleague who gave a shrug. ‘Five, maybe ten minutes?’
That made it over half an hour. Will shook his head—there was a difference between reasonable risk and reckless stupidity. ‘You’ve got two.’
‘No chance. We’ve got to recalibrate the whole array or it’ll just fall over again.’
‘Then pack it up. We’re leaving.’
Stein shook his head and smiled as if he was talking to a small child. ‘You don’t understand—’
‘If you two aren’t ready to go by the time I count to ten, we’re leaving you behind. You can take your chances with the natives.’
‘But we—’
‘One. Two. Three—’
‘But,’ Stein pointed at the machinery’s dented casing. ‘The subsonics—’
‘Five. Six—’
‘We’ve got to recalibrate, or—’
‘Eight. Nine—’
‘But—’ He was beginning to go red in the face.
‘Ten. Time’s up.’ Will turned and shouted into the bedroom, ‘Sergeant Nairn, get your team together. We’re pulling out.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Nairn emerged from the bedroom with an evidence bag slung over his shoulder. DS Cameron was carrying one too, lurching after the sergeant into the lounge. With fifteen severed heads stuffed into the transparent sack, she looked like a macabre Santa Clause.
‘Did we get a VR set?’
‘Nairn’s