Another Life (2 page)

‘So, what’s his name?’

‘I don’t know what his—’ She bit off the rest of her sentence. ‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’

Jack smiled at her. Now she’d been working with him for a while, Gwen knew that he was trying to encourage her, not mock her. That still didn’t stop her feeling like he was patronising her. ‘It’s all relative,’ Jack said. ‘Which of us will be missed? And when? Next year? Ten years? A century? When they’re building the next Millennium Stadium, in Cardiff or whatever Cardiff has become by then, who will miss any of us?’

Gwen stood up again. ‘Don’t give me that “the universe is an atom in a giant’s fingernail” bollocks. If you exaggerate the context, of course nothing’s significant. What we
do
is important. What Mitch does is important.’ She saw Jack puzzling over this. ‘Him, that poor policeman down there, staring at his own spew, he’s significant.’ As if to prove it, she began walking back to Mitch’s beaten figure.

‘Name any famous cop from two hundred years ago,’ Jack called after her.

‘Robert Peel,’ she snapped back without having to think.

‘Wrong. He was the Home Secretary. Go on, name anyone from his police force.’

She faltered in her step, reconsidered, and kept walking.

‘Joseph Grantham,’ Jack told her. ‘Who remembers him? He was the first officer killed on duty. People have moved on, many times over. They don’t care. They’re all living their own lives. Existing, breathing, screwing, remember? But see, that’s why I like you, Gwen Cooper. You do care. It’s at the heart of you. It motivates you. And it makes people see they can be better themselves.’

‘Sometimes I don’t think you care about anyone,’ she muttered. She was standing by Mitch again, helped him to his feet. She mimed ‘moustache’ to him by waggling her finger under her own nose, and offered him a tissue to wipe away the vomit.

‘C’mon, Gwen.’ Jack was calling her back.

‘Have you radioed in?’ she asked Mitch. He nodded mutely. ‘OK, I’ve got to go now. Sorry.’

Jack was angling his mobile phone at the dead youngster. He had the mobile on speaker, so that he could talk to Toshiko at the same time as transmitting a crime-scene image back to her at the Torchwood Hub.

‘… second one within a one-kilometre radius of his apartment. Starting to look like we’ve got our man, Tosh. So, where is he?’

‘Working on it, Jack,’ Toshiko’s voice told him from the radio.

‘Are these pictures any good? I mean for analysis, I wasn’t gonna get them printed up and framed for my desk back at the office. People hated that last time.’

‘They’re ideal,’ enthused Toshiko. ‘I can cross-reference the upload with structured information in pictures and captions from the Police National Database. Smart stuff they’ve got – a multimedia setup that integrates the text, image, video and audio data at the level of the bit-stream so that they can be stored, accessed and processed by the same system.’

Jack rolled his eyes. ‘I was interested right up to the point where you said “upload”.’

Gwen tutted. ‘All the SOCOs I know would love that kind of system. Something that could identify patterns that link directly to individuals. Like persistent offenders whose patterns of offence haven’t been obvious to investigators.’

Jack grinned at her. ‘Oh, you and Tosh were just made for each other.’

A breeze was starting to lift litter down the narrow alley, and swirl it around their feet and onto the corpse. Sweet wrappers stuck in the blood and vomit.

Gwen studied the sky. Dark grey clouds were obscuring most of the blue now. ‘Weather’s deteriorating.’

‘Yeah,’ said Toshiko’s voice. ‘There’s a strange cold front over the city. Not what we’d expected from the forecast. Plenty of rain on its way, and the temperature’s unusual for this time of year. Low 60s. Like Owen’s IQ.’

Jack pulled his collar up as the breeze stiffened. ‘OK, Tosh, your smart system has had plenty of time now. So where’s our killer?’

‘Already left his office. Office mates said they thought he was going into the city centre, not back home. Then we lost his trail behind a lorry on the M4, and missed his exit junction.’

‘Options?’

‘I’m trying to get to his secretary,’ said Toshiko. ‘And we’re still scanning for his car.’

Jack considered the corpse at his feet. ‘All right, Gwen and I are going into the centre. Tosh and Owen, we need clean-up here for the corpse. Location…’

‘Got it from your GPS signal,’ Toshiko said. ‘Post code CF24 9XZ. You’re in Gwion Lane, Splott.’

Jack broke the connection, and started back towards the SUV. Mitch had got to his feet now, and stood to an awkward kind of attention as Jack and Gwen approached. This meant he stood between them and the Torchwood car.

‘I radioed for back-up, and they’re on the way. Until then, anything I can do to help, sir?’

‘Radio them again and cancel,’ Jack told him, ‘Torchwood will handle this now.’ Gwen saw Mitch’s face flush with embarrassment. ‘Go ahead,’ Jack urged him. Mitch fumbled for his radio and did what he was told.

‘You know,’ Jack said to Gwen, ‘I was kind of worried that we’d never find a big-boned policeman to vomit copiously on our victim and then cower on the pavement. But I was wrong. Here was Constable Mitchell, ready to fill that vacancy.’

Gwen prodded Jack in his side with an angry finger.

‘All right,’ grumbled Jack. ‘Constable, keep any arriving bystanders away from the body until the Torchwood clean-up team arrive. And here…’ From one of the flapped pockets in his greatcoat he pulled an evidence bag, transparent plastic with a coloured seal. He thrust it at the baffled policeman.

‘Try not to throw up on anyone else.’

All Gwen could do was smile an apology to Mitch as she climbed into the SUV. Jack swiftly dropped the car into reverse and the SUV’s tyres squealed their way back up through the trash-strewn alley. In the reflection of the side-mirror, Gwen watched Jimmy Mitchell sink slowly back to the pavement, still clutching the plastic bag.

THREE

They sat in the Casa Celi café and watched the street outside. Jack had previously brought the whole team here for what they’d all thought was an evening jolly, recognition for the hard work they’d put in during the Cyclops business, or maybe a bonding exercise. Fat chance, Gwen had realised afterwards – it was just that Casa Celi afforded a clear view of The Hays shopping area, and it had been ideal for spotting a vagrant Weevil that Jack was hunting that evening. They should probably have guessed when they saw Jack was carrying the defensive spray and the hand-clamps, because they obviously weren’t designed for a fun night on the town. In the end, Gwen hadn’t even got to finish her antipasto.

Now they both took the same pavement table as that earlier night. A couple of city types – striped shirts, pint glasses, clouded intellects – sprawled at an adjacent table and leered at Gwen. Jack propped himself in a metal chair, still wearing his greatcoat but draping it so that the chair back was between his body and the coat.

By sitting next to him, Gwen got the same clear view of the street, ideal on a sunny day and still acceptable as the sky became more overcast and early evening began to draw in. There was a pre-storm smell in the air, ‘the ozone tang of unspent lightning’ Jack had called it as they’d sat down. The tarmac released the day’s earlier heat. Shoppers bustled past with too little time and too many bags on their race back to the car parks against the coming rain.

A small knot of Merryhill pupils, still in school uniform, jostled past another group from Roath High. The early evening concert at the Millennium Centre must just have finished, thought Gwen, spilling a brawling crowd of secondary-school kids into the area on their way home. God, it was bad enough keeping them apart when they got older and got bladdered and went on the town. She hoped they weren’t going to have to keep them apart when they were in their early teens as well.

Then she remembered that wasn’t her job any more. And wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or just relieved.

She and Jack were served by the same good-looking waiter who had served Gwen on their last visit. Her mental notebook told her he was Enrico ‘Rico’ Celi, early thirties, second-generation Welsh Italian, with almost stereotypical Latin looks but an incongruous South Coast accent. He’d inherited the café from his dad. Jack teased him that his tan was fading the longer he stayed in South Wales. Rico could swear in Welsh, Gwen discovered. But he didn’t seem to mind Jack slapping his backside as he stooped to deliver their drinks.

Gwen had a lemonade, ice and lemon, tall glass. Jack ordered a still water in a plastic cup. He paid for it as soon as it arrived by dropping money into the ashtray on the metal table. ‘Means I can get up and go whenever I need to. Rico’s too cute for me to rip him off,’ Jack explained to her when she asked. ‘Or steal one of his glasses.’

Gwen fingered the coins in the ashtray. ‘Exact change,’ she noted. ‘No tip?’

‘He’s not that cute.’

Throughout this, Jack’s eyes never left the street. He obviously wasn’t going to let their target slip past unnoticed while Gwen was making polite conversation.

Gwen let her eyes linger on him for a while instead of the street. Jack had told her once that he drank water because it kept him hydrated, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Apart from what he wore, and a few minor and rather odd artefacts back at the Hub, Jack didn’t seem to own anything. He was tall and broad, a big presence physically and personally. And yet if he disappeared he would leave little evidence behind. Though he would leave a large gap in her life.

A couple of months had passed since she’d first become aware of Torchwood, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Jack was like the ideal boss she’d imagined back in the force. When she did the right thing, he told her. When she screwed up, he told her that too. That didn’t make it comfortable, but it meant she knew what was expected, understood it, accepted it. No soft soaping, no bullshit. None of the fast-track bollocks she got from Inspector Morrison, no discussions about structured career paths for officers who showed ‘flair and potential’. No courses on assertiveness without aggression. And no listening to fellow officers like Andy, bleating about the inadequacies of the system, giving her grief about being overtaken by smartarse graduates who wouldn’t know an arrest form from their arsehole.

She had no idea where this job with Torchwood was taking her. The more important thing was, she didn’t give a toss about that either. She only knew that she loved it. When had she last had to give evidence in court, escort a scumbag to the cells, go through the rigmarole of writing up a witness statement?

She loved every day. She loved working with Owen and Toshiko and Ianto and Jack. Just now, she couldn’t conceive of leaving them. Couldn’t imagine Jack disappearing. Losing him.

Jack sneaked a quick look at his watch, then at Gwen, then straight back to the street. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or irritated. Shouldn’t you be watching for our guy instead of watching me?’

Gwen snapped her eyes back to the street, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Yeah.’ She fumbled for her palmtop computer, and called up the image that Toshiko had sent them earlier. The screen showed her a badly lit, flat-featured picture – a face with the rictus grin that characterised any security photo. Guy Wildman, early forties, grey suit collar to match his hair. What made him the killer of four vagrants in Cardiff?

What made anyone?

She and Jack observed the pedestrians flowing through the street. An old lady in a patterned headscarf hobbled along, a Tesco bag in each hand. A pinstripe suit beside her flicked a finger at the city types on the next table, who jeered a boozy chorus in response as he joined them. A blue one-man dustcart paused outside the café to empty a waste bin. Jack was on his feet immediately, getting an unobstructed view, shooing the driver on, watching the street beyond. Watching a tired woman struggle with a squealing preschool child along the opposite pavement. Watching two teenagers as they idly peered through a newsagent’s window, their shirt tails stuck out below their school pullovers and each with their backpacks slung low over one shoulder. Watching a bleach-blonde woman in a too-tight skirt and fuck-me shoes totter in the opposite direction with a supermarket trolley full of groceries. Watching a crumpled man thread his way through the thinning crowds on his way north. Watching him shoot looks to left and right. Watching him clasp his briefcase firmly in one hand, and clutch his collar tightly to his throat with the other.

The man’s demeanour drew attention to him. He was short, maybe five foot six, broad rather than athletic. He was in a hurry, but trying not to look it. He was grey-haired, dishevelled, on a mission. The way he grasped his beige raincoat collar, it was as though the weather had already worsened and he was walking through a non-existent rainstorm. He was Guy Wildman.

‘That’s our boy,’ said Jack. He swerved around the dustcart, and manoeuvred into the street thirty metres behind the target. Gwen fumbled her palmtop computer into her jacket, and started after him. As she did, her sleeve caught the half-empty glass of lemonade. The glass fell, rolled across the table, and smashed on the pavement. The city types at the next table cheered and clapped sarcastically.

Wildman heard the noise. Turned and saw Gwen.

She flicked a look at Jack. Immediately cursed at her own tactlessness.

Wildman was already looking back at Jack. Seeing Jack’s hand reach beneath his greatcoat for a weapon. A panicky look of disbelief. And Wildman darted into a side street and away.

Jack was after him in an instant. Pedestrians scattered like a flock of startled pigeons as he burst through their midst.

Gwen launched herself after him, half-colliding with the woman pushing the supermarket trolley. She ignored the woman’s stream of obscenities, resisted the temptation to stop and give her a hard slap, and chased down the narrow side street after Jack. She could see the tail of his grey greatcoat twisting behind him as he shimmied between a couple of shoppers. Far ahead of them, Wildman was rounding the next corner.