Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘National security?’ Her mouth stretched into a thin line, turned down at the edges.

‘I managed to get into Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s main computers and-’

‘William! What have I told you about unauthorized data access!’

‘Peitai and his boss both worked at the hospital six years ago: Kikan was a halfheader, Peitai was a PsychTech data-monkey. Whatever they’re up to, it’s got something to do with the PsychTech programme. I’ve got profilers and analysts going over the files and-’

‘I’ve told you time and time again not to go traipsing around in other people’s computers without my express permission! Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve got us into?’

‘Turns out Alastair Middleton wasn’t the only killer Doctor Westfield built. I’ve got proof that-’

‘Ah, I see.’ She settled back in her chair, arms tightly crossed across her chest. ‘Now we get to it.’

Will pulled a datablock from his pocket and slapped it down on Director Smith-Hamilton’s desk.

‘These are the files I got out of the PsychTech programme. They prove Colin Mitchell was another one of her ‘little projects’, and so was Allan Brown. All three of them turned into killers by that murdering bitch. She-’

‘This is all about you getting revenge isn’t it?’

‘What? No. Peitai and Kikan are-’

‘Don’t think I can’t see the connection. Doctor Westfield scrubs toilets at Sherman House, so you can’t stay away. One of your own people gets killed because of your obsession-don’t interrupt-and even though you’re told not to go back again, you do. Then you go gallivanting off looking for files from the project she was in charge of and Detective Sergeant Cameron suffers severe head injuries!’

She slammed a hand down on the desktop, making the holo of Mars jiggle. ‘And now Services tell me you were running around yesterday trying to arrest halfheads. Half-heads! And you sit there trying to justify your bizarre behaviour with a spurious tale about some big conspiracy!’

‘That’s not true! Peitai and Kikan-’

‘Work for some very important people, and I won’t have you interfering with their project!’

Will played his last card: ‘They’re giving people VR syndrome.’

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t been suspecting that. No matter how much political pressure she was under, Director Smith-Hamilton still knew right from wrong. Hopefully.

She sat there with her mouth hanging open for a moment, staring at him. ‘You have proof?’

Will nodded. ‘We’ve got two corpses in the mortuary, both with traces of a chemical residue in their brains. It mimics the effects of the syndrome perfectly. George has sent samples off for analysis.’

She leaned across her desk and picked up the datablock with the PsychTech files in it, turning it over in her hands. ‘I don’t like this, William. I don’t like this one little bit. You should have informed me right from the very start. How dare you go behind my back and set up a major investigation without my knowledge!’

‘I-’

‘Your behaviour has gone rapidly downhill ever since Doctor Westfield died. I checked with our counsellors, you haven’t made an appointment with any of them!’

‘I didn’t think it would be-’

‘You will go back to your office and make an appointment for a week of extended therapy sessions.’

‘But-’

‘Or you can go downstairs and clear out your desk. Your choice.’

Silence.

Then Will said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You will then make yourself useful and go supervise your team! Agent Alexander has one of the poorest clear-up rates I’ve ever seen. It’s supposed to be your job to make him produce results.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Shape up, Mr Hunter. Shape up or you’ll find yourself looking for something else to fill your day. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Now get out of my sight.’

She sits in her toilet-paper nest, examining her lovely new face in a stolen mirror. The skin’s swollen and puffy, black and blue, but to her it’s beautiful. Dr Stephen Bexley-God rest his tortured soul-really was a genius. Before his unexpected, messy, painful death.

The bruises will disappear within twenty-four hours, as long as she keeps taking the post-operative drugs. The swelling will take a little longer. It makes her face lumpy and bumpy, as if she’s stuffed her skin with half-chewed fruit gums.

Her long blonde hair is still sticky and matted, clinging to her head like strangled string. She can’t wash it till this evening when the skinpaint has fully cured; the last thing she wants is for her new face to start melting.

The handful of blockers she snapped into her neck after getting rid of Stephen’s body have left her blissfully relaxed, but she longs to get away from this dungeon, with its racks of bedpans and piles of plastic sheets. She wants to feel sunlight on her new face.

She slides out onto the storeroom floor and peels off Stephen’s old surgical gown. He doesn’t need it anymore: he’s all burned away.

The clothes Kris wasn’t wearing when she and her boyfriend were caught in flagrante delicto are clean and disinfected: washed by hand in the little sink. The lacy confectionary pretending to be Kris’s undergarments is a bit cheap and tarty for Dr Westfield’s tastes, but she slips into them anyway. The bra hangs on her, its cups empty and sad. She hasn’t got breasts any more, just a pair of U-shaped scars where the surgeon hacked them off-de-sexing her so no one would be tempted to live out their filthy fantasies by screwing a serial killer. She cheers the bra up with a few handfuls of toilet paper. The panties are slightly more disturbing: her catheter makes a tiny tent in the front, like a little erection. As soon as she’s taken care of business here she’ll go somewhere new and book herself some more surgery. She will be a woman again.

Dr Westfield pulls on Kris’s green trousers, T-shirt and white trainers. They make her look like an intern, but there’s nothing she can do about that. So she throws the white labcoat over her shoulders and examines her reflection again.

Her new face makes her look…odd, unfamiliar. It’s not just the swelling, or her old nose-it’s the bottom jaw. She hasn’t had one for six miserable, brain-dead years. Carefully she pulls back her top lip and exposes her teeth. That’s what she’s used to, that hideous parody of a human face.

She slips her new credit cards into her pocket-Kris, her dead boyfriend, and Stephen won’t be needing them any longer-along with one or two medical supplies that’ll come in handy later. Then Doctor Fiona Westfield says goodbye to the storeroom that’s been her home for the last five days.

She doesn’t look back.

Will stood in the rain with his collar turned up and his mouth turned down. On the other side of the ‘CRIME SCENE’ tape half a dozen of Glasgow’s finest were slowly picking their way through a mountain of rubbish skulking beneath the Kinning Park flyover.

Agent Brian Alexander was knee-deep in filth, directing the search with all the joy of someone who’s just found a jobbie in his bathtub. Will ducked under the yellow-and-black tape, trying not to think about what he’d just stood in. It was brown and it squelched, and that was more than he really wanted to know.

‘Why is it,’ he asked, dragging his shoe along the side of a pile of sodden paper, ‘that you always end up with cases like this, Brian?’

Brian grunted. ‘Because the Bitch Queen hates my guts, that’s why. I mean look at this!’ He waved a fat arm at the vast pile of rain-soaked garbage. ‘Why does this need real people? I could’ve grabbed a bunch of halfheads to grub about in the shite, but no! That would be too easy. What we want is some poor Network bastards up to their knees in pish!’