Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘Have you signed over the severed halfheads to a representative from resourcing?’

‘I told you that at the start, remember?’

‘Until they’re signed over to a representative from resourcing we can’t give out any details.’

‘We signed them over!’

‘I see. And have you received notification of identification?’

‘No, that’s why we’re sitting here. I want you to tell me who the halfheads were!’

‘I’m sorry I can’t give out that information over the phone.’

Jo couldn’t contain herself any longer.

‘Listen up you scribbly-faced bag of shite, either you get your finger out and-’ She was cut off by a beep from the speaker.

‘I’m sorry, our time is up.’ And with that the screen went blank.

‘What the fuck ?’ She slammed her palm against the screen, making the whole thing shake. ‘WE’VE BEEN HERE HALF A BLOODY HOUR!’ Jo turned to Will. ‘Can you believe this shite?’

‘Watch the door.’ He pulled a small, flat pack from a hidden pocket in his Network-issue jacket. It was full of wire tools, a tube of metaliglue, and a battered cracker. Will slid one of the thin metal slices into the joint between the screen’s control panel and the wall, then twisted. The panel popped open, revealing a small chip rack and a rats’ nest of wires.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

He pulled a pair of wires from the jumble and slapped a connector onto each. ‘Most security systems are designed to stop people hacking in from the outside. So if you want to break into them, do it from the inside…’

The cracker’s keypad rattled beneath his fingertips as he inveigled himself into Services’ local network. ‘Makes the guardian AIs a lot less sceptical.’

Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds later the cracker bleeped. Will grinned. ‘We’re in. Who’s first?’

Jo checked her notes. ‘S R dash O dash nine six two dash nine five eight.’

Will punched the code into the cracker, and the room’s main screen filled with personal details.

‘Thomas Simpson, thirty-seven. Convicted of serial rape eight years ago, been missing for four. Working at Brewster Towers when he disappeared. Next?’

‘M H dash D dash five three two seven dash eight eight seven.’

‘Hold on…Alison Campbell, forty-five: multiple homicide. Halfheaded three years ago. Went missing from Sherman House.’

It didn’t take long to see the pattern: Allan Brown liked to hunt close to home, only taking halfheads sent to clean the four connurb blocks that made up Monstrosity Square. Preying on a steady diet of murderers and rapists. There was even a serial killer in the collection of severed heads-a cannibal called Iain Foreshaw who’d butchered seven nursing students and two prostitutes. It was a fittingly ironic end to a predator’s life: brought down and eaten by one of its own kind.

In his own twisted way, Allan Brown had put himself at the very top of the food chain.

Now all they had to do was find out who’d killed him.

The mop slops dirty water from one side of the toilet to the other, back and forth, back and forth. Greasy ribbons of filth making patterns on the grubby tiles. The smell doesn’t really bother her any more. It did when they’d dropped her off here this morning, bundling her out of the Roadhugger with a mop and a pail, speaking to her like some sort of trained monkey: ‘Go in. Clean. You come back when called. Understand? I said, do you understand?’

Patronizing bastard.

For a moment she thinks about taking her mop, snapping it in half, and using the splintered end to gouge the man’s face into tattered, bloody ribbons. Pluck the eyes right out of his head…

She has always loved eyes. They look so pretty, lying in the palm of her hand.

It takes a lot of control to squash the desire. She hasn’t had her medication and it’s getting more and more difficult to keep it buried deep inside where it can burn bright and fierce. But somehow she manages. She nods and trudges into the connurb block like all the other good little halfheads. Trembling inside with bees and broken glass.

The morning passes in a reek of human waste and disinfectant, memories flickering in and out like a distant firework display. The sparks too far away to taste properly. On the tip of the tongue she doesn’t have any more.

Some time around noon the front pocket of her jumpsuit starts buzzing and she stands staring at it. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Busy little bees. Buzzing against her broken glass chest.

Hungry.

She drops the mop and walks out into the baking sun, following the other halfheads. The pig and his friend are there with their bright yellow Roadhugger. They plug a tube into her arm and fill her full of intravenous nutrients, but it doesn’t ease the gnawing ache.

Then the ugly men are gone again, and she’s left to clean and mop.

The afternoon is more lucid. Thoughts are starting to stay in her head where she can focus on them, follow them. Plan .

Food will be the biggest problem. If she disappears, the man who looks like a pig won’t feed her any more.

She stops mopping, frowning at her reflection in the dirty water. Remembering soft-green walls, squeaky flooring, men and women in long white coats. Where every room smells like the stuff they put in the buckets. The smell of safety.

She’d have smiled then, if she had enough face to do it with.

‘OK,’ said Will as they pushed their way through the crowded lobby back at Network Headquarters. ‘What do you want to do now?’

‘String that Services shitebag up by his goolies.’ A gaggle of children in garish school uniform stopped right in front of them, so they had to detour past a bus party of OAPs ogling a Cézanne.

‘I meant about the investigation.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Lot of murders in that bit of town go unsolved. Thousands of potential witnesses, but no one ever admits to seeing anything. From the state of the body, I’d say whoever did it, this wasn’t their first time. Won’t be their last either.’

‘Pretty safe bet.’

‘I dumped all the crime scene data into the system this morning, MO’s pretty damn distinctive so we’re bound to get a match.’ She grinned, eyes sparkling. ‘Nice to have the resources to really go after a case like this for a change, instead of just handing it over to the Future Boys…No offence.’

‘None taken.’

They slipped into one of the staff lifts and punched the button for the fourth floor.

‘You know,’ said Jo as the doors closed, shutting out the noisy lobby, ‘I was wondering…You’ve got a kind of reputation-Urrrgh…’ She staggered, face screwed up in a grimace, teeth bared.

Will grabbed her, holding her upright.

‘Damnit!’

‘You all right?’

‘No…’ She stayed where she was-wrapped in his arms, eyes closed, breathing deeply. In and out.

Will looked down at the top of her head. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘Coffin dodger. Someone’s gone missing.’

It might have been the confines of the lift that made Will feel suddenly uncomfortable, or it might have been the sensation of Jo’s breasts rising and falling against his chest as she breathed. Whichever it was he could feel his temperature rising inch by embarrassing inch.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. ‘Thanks. They’re supposed to put out a warning on the comlink before they do a broadcast. Give us a chance to prepare.’

Will let go. Stepped back. Cleared his throat. Stuck his hands in his pockets, hiding his embarrassment. ‘No problem.’

‘Jesus.’ Jo shuddered. ‘Nothing like a transmitter going off in the base of your skull to put a shiner on the day.’ She rubbed a hand over the patch of shiny new skin at the back of her head. ‘Why they can’t just send the bloody signal out to the poor bastard they’re looking for, I don’t know.’