Питер Мэй - Lockdown

— What do you mean, weird?

— I don’t know. Just a bit... spaced, I guess.

— How is the investigation going?

— He seems to be making progress. He thinks he knows where she was killed.

The cursor blinked again for a long time.

— How on earth does he know that?

— I’ve no idea.

— Where does he think it happened?

— He said something about a house out near Wandsworth Common.

— That’s not too specific.

— He wasn’t being very specific.

Their conversation lapsed. More blinking. This time two minutes, maybe three, passed without any further exchange. Amy found her eyes wandering across the room to the child’s head once more. The girl was watching her, almost reproachful in her silence. Why couldn’t Amy do more? How difficult could it be to find her killer?

Then wwwooo-oop .

— Amy, did you ask for a DNA sample in the end?

— Yes, Sam. Might be a day or two, though.

— I wouldn’t get your hopes up for finding a match.

— I’m not . And then Amy remembered about Zoe. — I did ask for a PCR test, though, to see if she’d had the flu.

Another long wait.

— Why did you do that?

— You always tell me every little detail helps when you’re trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

The cursor blinked some more.

— So did you get a result?

— Yeah. We’ve got a post-grad molecular genetics student training at the lab. Zoe. She’s a bit of a ladette. But really clever. She’ll be good when she grows up. Stupid girl took so long over the test that she missed the curfew, so she’s stuck at the lab all night. Tom’ll be pleased. He can’t stand her!

— What did she find?

— The little girl did have the flu.

There was a short, cursor-blinking hiatus before Sam replied.

— Which doesn’t really help with anything, does it?

— I suppose not. But here’s something strange — Zoe said it wasn’t H5N1. At least, not the version that’s caused the pandemic.

— How does she know that?

— She said she’d recovered the virus, and the RNA coding. It’s all a bit beyond me, Sam. Something to do with restriction sites and code words that shouldn’t be there. Anyway, she said this virus was genetically engineered.

Their conversation lapsed for so long, Amy began to think that Sam had gone.

— Hello, Sam, are you still there?

— I’m still here, Amy.

— So what do you think? Amy watched the hypnotic blinking of the cursor.

— I think that changes everything.

Pinkie watched the drab rows of mustard-harled council flats drift by. It was fun driving about in the deserted city. No traffic, no lights. So much easier to get around. And he hadn’t been stopped once. It was sufficient for him to slow to walking pace as he approached the army checkpoints. Their cameras fed his number into the computer in seconds and they waved him on. VIP. No contact required. Everyone was happy.

At Clapham Common, MacNeil had taken a right turn, and Pinkie was sure he had no idea he was being followed. It was impossible at night to see a vehicle three hundred yards behind you with no lights. As long as Pinkie could see the merest hint of MacNeil’s tail lights he wouldn’t lose him. At least, not while he stuck to the main thoroughfares. The danger would be if he went off-piste and made turns that Pinkie couldn’t see. Then he would have to get closer, and that would become dangerous.

The phone lying on the passenger seat fibrillated in the hushed interior of the car. Pinkie glanced over at the display and then answered the call.

‘Hello, Mr Smith.’

‘Hello, Pinkie. Where are you now?’

‘We’re on Battersea Rise, Mr Smith. Heading towards Wandsworth Common. I think Mr MacNeil is heading for Routh Road.’

‘I’m afraid he is, Pinkie.’

‘We’re in trouble, then.’

‘In more trouble than you think. The stupid cripple asked for PCR on the bone marrow.’

‘And is that bad?’

‘It’s very bad, Pinkie. They found the virus.’

Pinkie shook his head. That stupid little shit, Ronnie Kazinski. He’d got them all into so much trouble. Pinkie almost wished he hadn’t killed him, so that he could be made to see the consequences of his actions. ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Smith?’

‘I think we need to leave Mr MacNeil for the moment, Pinkie. We are required to take other action now.’

Routh Road was at the end of a collection of streets they called ‘The Toast Rack’. Not unreasonably, since Baskerville Road, which backed on to Wandsworth Common, and the five streets which ran off it at right angles, made a shape not unlike a toast rack. Although it might just as easily have been called ‘The Comb’. Wandsworth Prison was a stone’s throw away, on the other side of Trinity Road.

David Lloyd George had lived here once, in Routh Road. At number three. These were substantial detached and semi-detached town houses built in red-brick on three floors, nestling darkly behind walls and railings, and screened from the street by trees and hedges in gardens which had taken more than a century to mature. The kerbs were lined with BMWs and Volvos and Mercedes.

MacNeil parked on Trinity Road and walked down to the address on the slip of paper. It stood in darkness behind a black wrought-iron railing. There were no lights in any of the houses, but this one bore an air of sad neglect. The small front garden was overgrown and uncared for. Empty bins lay spilled on their side. Curtains or blinds were drawn on most of the windows. It was in stark contrast to the manicured gardens and well-kept facades of the other properties in the street. In daylight it would have stood out like a sore thumb, a single bad tooth in a dazzling smile.

The house was detached on its left side, but brick bomb shelters built between it and its neighbour during the Second World War meant that there was no way round to the back, except through the house. MacNeil stood in a pool of yellow light beneath a lamp post and looked at it appraisingly. It did not look inhabited. The gate protested loudly in the dark as he opened it and walked the few paces to the steps which led up to the front door. He could see now that this was an original door, recently restored to its former glory. Stained glass panels all around it would splash the hall beyond in coloured light on sunny days. The house itself was not as neglected as the garden. There was no nameplate on the door. There was a bell push to the left of it, and MacNeil pressed it and held it for a long time. He heard an old-fashioned bell ring distantly from somewhere deep within the house. But it elicited no response. He rattled the flap of the brass letter box, and then crouched down to lift the lid and peer inside. Apart from the faint light that seeped through the stained glass from the street lights beyond the trees, it was almost pitch-dark and MacNeil could see very little. There was an unlived-in smell that breathed out through the letter box from the interior of the house, damp and fusty, like bad breath, confirming MacNeil’s earlier impression that the place was empty.

He went back down the steps and walked along the front of the house. The neighbours appeared to have converted their half of the bomb shelter into a walk-through shed with a blue-painted door at the front end. MacNeil reached over the fence and tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. But suddenly the garden was flooded with light, a bright, blinding halogen light. MacNeil’s movement had triggered the neighbour’s security lamp. He took an involuntary step back and tripped over a shrub, landing in the long grass, exposed to the full glare of the halogen. A window on the first floor of the neighbouring house flew up, and an elderly, balding man in a pale blue nightshirt leaned out with a shotgun raised to his shoulder. He pointed it directly at MacNeil. ‘Get out of the garden!’ he shouted. ‘Go!’