Филип Керр - The Second Angel

By twenty-first-century standards, three hundred murders hardly ranked as noteworthy. There were many more egregious instances of blood felony, some of them involving several thousand victims. Just such an example had been reported in the current edition of New York Today.

Carl Dreyer was sentenced to death yesterday after being convicted of the ‘depraved’ murders of over two thousand men and women. He greeted the sentence with the same pallid, blank expression he has worn throughout the three-week trial. Dressed in the sober black suit he has worn almost every day in court, he looked more like a lawyer or a civil servant than the pitiless killer he has been shown to be. Today, as Dreyer prepares to meet the executioner, police are appealing for more information about scores of other people who may have fallen victim to him and his partner in blood felony, Tony Johannot. Last week, Johannot hanged himself in prison.

During the trial, the Supreme Court of Justice heard the two men described as a modern-day Burke and Hare. Between 2064 and 2066, the two drove around North America kidnapping their RES Class One victims, then cutting their throats and hanging their bodies upside down in the back of their customized furniture van in order to drain them of blood. At one stage they were probably killing as many as eight people a week.

Detectives remain uncertain as to the ultimate market for these supplies of quality-assured whole blood, but it’s generally believed the ultimate buyers were illegal P2 clinics in the Far East. When apprehended, Dreyer and Johannot were in possession of bank accounts totaling some $1.5 billion. Both men’s computer records confirmed them as officially classed P2. Following their arrest, however, medical examinations revealed no trace of the virus. A complete change of blood in conjunction with the drug ProTryptol 14 remains the only way to cure P2.

Chief Inspector Paul Arthuis said: ‘In nearly all cases involving vamping, first and foremost the perps are seeking a cure for themselves. But when they see how much money there is to be made from the trade in illegal blood, it becomes hard to stop. Sixty percent of murders today are blood-felony related.’

Even by the standards of the day, the case has horrified people throughout America, and several congressmen are already calling for more to be done to help the victims of P2. Congressman Peter Piers said: ‘This kind of thing will go on happening as long as P2 victims are condemned to a living death with no hope of a cure. That’s the real horror of what has been revealed in this appalling case.’

Perhaps the grimmest aspect of the facts that were presented to the court was the way in which Dreyer and Johannot disposed of the bodies once they had been drained of blood. The panel of five judges heard how the pair had fitted the furniture van with a fully automated disposal system, enabling them to reduce the bodies to a fine powder, and all without the risk of foul odors, air emissions, or wastewater discharges. Microcomputers controlled the parameters of the operation, which included a shredder, a reduction system to further reduce particle size, and a grinder. After a period of holding in a tank containing a chemical condensate, a steam-jet-ejector vacuum system expelled the end product through the van’s exhaust gases. The two men might never have been caught but for a police spot-check of emissions from vehicles running on compressed gases. The suspicions of the two officers were aroused when they noticed a spray gun on the van’s passenger seat of a type used by the military to knock out enemy soldiers. When the van was searched, the officers found four bodies drained of their life’s blood and awaiting pathological waste processing. Chief Inspector Paul Arthuis said: ‘It looks as if these two guys could probably have taught the SS a thing or two.’

Throughout the trial, Dreyer said nothing. It remains to be seen whether the dreadful sight of the cartwheel [34] Under a ruling of the Supreme Court (Directive 35/56a. Proper Means of Carrying Out Executions) mutilation and bloodshed are considered necessary in all cases involving blood felony, not least to demonstrate the state’s power over the offending individual. The greater the mutilation and bloodshed, the greater the demonstration of the state’s power. Breaking on the wheel was a method of public execution in France until the invention of the guillotine, toward the end of the eighteenth century. The past few years have seen its reintroduction throughout the commonwealth. and the executioner’s crowbar will encourage the condemned man to try and explain himself.

Dixy sat down on her nonexistent chair and crossed her legs carelessly. She seemed about to tell him something, then checked herself for a moment before saying, ‘It’s Ogilvy. He wants to speak to you.’

‘Put him on the window,’ said Dallas.

Ogilvy was a commodities analyst at Merrill Lynch. Over a period of two or three years he had helped to make Dallas a considerable fortune by speculating in the blood futures market. It didn’t matter what Dallas was doing — he always took Ogilvy’s calls.

A neat-looking man with a bow tie and glasses appeared on the faux fenêtre, and seeing Dallas simultaneously on-screen in his own office, Ogilvy leaned forward to examine his client’s features a little more closely.

‘Jesus, Dallas,’ said Ogilvy, frowning. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘What’s the matter? Is that baby keeping you up at night?’

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Dallas. If only, he thought. A bit of lusty crying from his daughter’s cot would have sounded good, certainly preferable to the unnatural, unhealthy silence that prevailed there.

‘Haven’t you got some child care or something? I mean, a guy as important as you, Dallas. You need your sleep, right?’

Dallas had no intention of explaining that it was anxiety about his daughter’s health that was keeping him awake at night. He had talked about it to Dixy. That was enough. Like most people with his background, Dallas thought there was something vaguely shameful about ill health. So he just shrugged and muttered something about Aria not wanting anyone but herself looking after her baby — at least until the child was a little older.

‘Women,’ remarked Ogilvy.

‘So what’s happening?’ asked Dallas. ‘What’s your analysis?’ The fact was, he’d been looking forward to a call from Ogilvy. Speculating, making money, it was all a welcome distraction from his troubles at home. Whatever the problems with Caro’s health, he could at least make sure that her financial position would always remain sound.

‘Blood prices just surged for the third day in a row,’ Ogilvy said gleefully. ‘The market’s up almost twenty percent this week. Can you believe it? The First National Blood Bank lifted the price of a half-liter by seventy dollars because of the soaring futures market and the strength of the yen against the dollar. Also there’s a strike by U.S. transfusion workers, which has blocked some seven hundred thousand units coming onto the market. I heard that talks aimed at ending the strike just broke down.’

‘Sounds like the market is setting up for an explosive rise,’ observed Dallas.

‘I’d say so. Naturally you’ll want to go on buying futures?’

‘Please.’

‘Consider it done. But what about selling some of that blood you’ve got on deposit? Maybe take some quick profit.’

Dallas shook his head. ‘Actually I think I’ll just hang on to it a while longer,’ he said.

‘Know something I don’t, is that it? You know, each time they build a new blood bank, the five hundred mill price skyrockets. Are you designing another blood bank?’