Текст книги "The Survivor"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Five

‘We should have stayed at the school,’ Felicia said to Striker as they raced north on Imperial Road. It was the third time she’d made the statement in the past five minutes, and her words were grinding into him.

‘We have to pursue.’

‘But kids are dying back there, Jacob – they need us.’

He gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles blanched.

‘This prick gets away, he’ll kill even more kids. Another school, another place. Who knows how many he’ll hit before the cops can get him?’ He gave her a hard look. ‘Make no mistake about it, Feleesh, it was a fluke we were on scene when it happened, and that fluke probably saved fifty more lives.’

‘We don’t know if he’ll kill more – but we do know there are wounded kids back there. Shot, dying. We can save them, Jacob.’

‘Other units are already on scene.’

‘But not enough of them.’

Striker’s jaw tightened. She was right; he knew that. By leaving St Patrick’s High and pursuing Red Mask, they had guaranteed some kids an early grave. But if Red Mask got away, there was no telling how many more children might die. He had to be stopped. At all costs.

Either decision was the wrong one. A no-win situation. And no matter what choice he made, the consequences would be dire. His actions would be questioned by all. The sickeningly sweet odour of Felicia’s perfume was making his headache worse. He powered down the window, let air bluster through the car.

‘Jacob,’ Felicia started again.

‘We’re looking for the gunman.’

‘Fine. Target Three it is.’

‘Call him Red Mask. We’re looking for Red Mask.’

Felicia frowned at the words, but nodded her agreement.

Striker followed the same route Red Mask was most likely to have taken. It wasn’t easy. Fall’s frosty moisture slickened the roads, and the wheels of the undercover police cruiser skipped on the asphalt as they rounded the bend of Imperial Road.

Directly ahead, in the faraway distance, were the North Shore Mountains – blackish peaks of uneven rock, covered with white patches of snow. Above them was pale blue sky. The image suggested a calm that didn’t exist.

A storm was coming.

Striker could feel it in the air like a static charge.

Slowly, methodically, he drove on. He scanned the next alley to his left, saw the wideness of the road, the lack of open garages, and the minimal number of areas of possible concealment. Not the best place to dump the vehicle. So he continued north.

‘Clear left,’ he said at the next lane.

‘Clear right,’ Felicia responded.

And so they went. It had been less than ten minutes since Red Mask had escaped, and already the memory felt surreal. The adrenalin from the shootout was thinning in Striker’s blood, and the shakes were hitting him hard. His palms sweated. His mouth was dry. And his chest felt hollowed out. He stared at the GPS, studying the map.

‘Where are the quadrants set?’

Felicia was on the radio with Dispatch, ordering more emergency units to the school – Ambulance, Fire, Ident, the whole gamut – and broadcasting the last known direction of travel of the suspect. When done, she hung up the mike and rotated the terminal to face him.

‘We got a weak box. Just six units in all. From Sixteenth to Thirty-third Ave, and from Blanca Street all the way to Dunbar.’

‘That’s a lot of land. Any mobiles?’

‘Just two.’

‘Two? But that makes only eight goddam cars.’

Felicia shrugged helplessly. ‘All units not in containment have been ordered back to the school. The Emergency Response Team is doing a full clear.’

‘How many units there?’

‘Four.’

That still made for only twelve units in total. ‘Where the hell is everyone?’

Felicia brought up the unit status, frowned. ‘Most are coming from way down south.’

‘Why so far?’

‘They had a gun call in Oakridge not an hour ago. Couldn’t be any further out. Real bad timing.’

Striker cursed. The timing of the gun call was too convenient, and he wondered if it was a diversion tactic. He looked down at the computer map. The box they’d set up was too large, and there were too many holes in it. To make matters worse, many of the roads serpentined through and around the forest of the nature reserve – which was another problem in itself. Even if they had the proper number of units – which they didn’t – visual continuity would be a bitch.

‘We need more units.’

‘They’re making requests from Burnaby North.’

That was RCMP territory. Mounties. Any help was welcome, but they were still too far away.

Up ahead was a blockade. Striker hit the brakes and they came to an abrupt stop. He looked both ways. Scowled. Sixteenth Avenue was a long line of gridlock in each direction. In the middle of the traffic, city engineers were tearing up the median.

Striker scanned the area and saw numerous flagmen in bright orange reflective vests amid tall stacks of blue tubing and clusters of yellow work vehicles. It was construction chaos.

‘No way he got through this mess,’ Felicia said.

Striker bit his lip, doubtful. He drove up to the nearest construction worker – a fat guy with tangled grey hair that hung down to the crack of his ass. The man looked back at them through mirrored sunglasses and nodded.

‘Dude,’ he said.

Felicia flipped open her wallet, exposing the badge. ‘You see a green Civic pass through here?’

The flagman brushed some hair out of his face. ‘Across this friggin’ nightmare? You kiddin’ me? No, I ain’t seen no one.’ He turned away, then started waving the westbound traffic through. A motorcycle swerved around a reversing dump truck and the flagman started screaming.

‘He didn’t come this way,’ Felicia said to Striker.

Striker didn’t respond. He just reversed out of the work area, back to Sixteenth Avenue, and studied all routes.

‘To go west, he’d have to cut across the gridlock and drive against the traffic.’

‘Which he likely wouldn’t do,’ Felicia said.

Striker agreed. ‘It would bring him too much unwanted attention.’

‘So that leaves only east.’

But Striker didn’t like that either.

‘A right turn here is the natural turn,’ he said. ‘Especially when driving fast.’ He took a long look at the gridlock on either side of the construction zone, then grunted. ‘If he broke Sixteenth, we’re screwed.’

Felicia’s voice was harder this time. ‘He didn’t break it. And we’ve still got tons of lanes to cover to the south. Let’s do a grid search, lane by lane, right down to Dunbar.’

Striker dragged his sleeve across his brow, wiped away the perspiration. The air smelled strongly of Felicia’s perfume and of molten tar from the fresh blacktop. It left his skin feeling sticky.

‘The grid,’ Felicia pressed.

Strike finally relented. It was the logical thing to do, even if instinct told him otherwise. He cranked the wheel and made the turn.

Twenty minutes later, the grid search of the north-east quadrant was complete, and they found themselves back at the intersection of Sixteenth Avenue and Imperial Road. Exactly where they had started. The results were SFA.

Sweet Fuck All.

‘Too much time has passed,’ Striker said.

Felicia didn’t respond. She just got on the air and broadcast the areas they’d cleared, then slammed the mike back into its cradle. Her voice was gruff, tired. ‘Okay. Let’s start west.’

But Striker looked at the long procession of backed-up traffic and didn’t take his foot off the brake. He sat there, immobile, for a long moment, thinking. Debating.

Felicia punched his shoulder. ‘Earth to Jacob.’

He rammed the steering column in park, climbed out, and felt the cold winds bite into him. They blew his short brown hair in every direction. He bundled up the charcoal flaps of his long coat and marched towards the work crews at Sixteenth Avenue. The median and surrounding grasslands were torn up, with mounds of dirt and chunks of concrete scattered throughout the passageway, making it difficult to traverse.

Halfway across, Felicia caught up to him. ‘We should finish the grid,’ she said.

Striker gave her a quick but dismissive shake of his head. ‘He didn’t go that way. He knew the natural turn was to the right. And he knew we’d search that way for him.’

‘You’re giving this guy too much credit.’

‘Am I?’ He knelt down, raked his fingers along the ground and felt something sharp. Scattered across the brown-grey earth was a line of small dirty opaque cubes. He picked one up, rubbed it between his fingers, analysed it.

Safety glass. From a shattered rear window.

He turned to Felicia, held up the glass, and gave her a look of frustration.

‘Shift containment north,’ he said. ‘He broke the goddam line.’

Six

Within minutes, containment had shifted north, all the way to Fourth Avenue. Three more patrol cars arrived from the Oakridge area. They stayed mobile, patrolling the lanes and side roads. Striker was happy about the increased manpower, though he feared the response was too late.

Discovery Drive was a long, snakelike road, cutting through the thick clusters of maples and oaks and firs. On either side, million-dollar homes stood tall on oversized lots. All boasted creamy stucco, dark wood and old red brick. Walkways were flanked by sea-green lawns and gardener-tended flowerbeds.

Land of the elite.

Striker steered his cruiser down the slanted hillside while dialling his daughter’s cell phone. The line was in use, and the busy signal annoyed him. It should have gone directly to voice-mail, but it didn’t, so someone else must have been leaving her a message, too. He took in a deep breath. Courtney was safe, he knew that. She had skipped school. But that didn’t make him feel any better. He wanted to talk to her. To hear her voice. But all he got was an automated voice telling him that the person being called was not available.

He snapped the phone shut and drove on.

Now on the north side of the construction zone, he started another grid search. Four blocks into it, he spotted a middle-aged man dressed in blue jeans and a white polo-shirt standing in front of a white garage door. He was spraying off the roadside.

‘Clear right,’ Felicia said.

Striker didn’t reciprocate.

Quiet, focused, he slowed the car to a stop and hit the power button to roll down the driver’s side window. As it unrolled, the foul stench of rotting garbage blew into the car. Striker ignored it and looked at the man before him. He was of Middle Eastern descent. Tall, probably six foot three – an inch or two taller than Striker – and beefy, even in his limbs. He probably weighed in at two-forty.

The man let go of the nozzle, the spray from the hose cut off, and he turned and stared at the unmarked police car. When he found Striker’s eyes, he spoke without an accent.

‘Can I help you?’

Striker badged him and nodded. ‘You see a Honda Civic drive by here? Dark green. Had a smashed-out rear window.’

The man shook his head. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘How long you been here?’

The man shrugged. ‘Long enough to clean up the garbage. Maybe ten minutes.’

Striker looked past the man, down the lane. It was a dark alley, shaded almost entirely by the narrow three-storeys that dominated the north side of the road. When he saw nothing of interest, he looked back at the wide-bottomed garbage cans and knew where the stink was coming from.

‘What happened to your garbage?’

‘Friggin’ racoons.’ The man showed his first hint of emotion, his voice rising. ‘Gonna get a permit, set up some traps.’

Striker nodded like he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘If you see that car, don’t approach it, just call 911. Immediately.’

‘Sure.’

Striker drove on. Heading north. Always north. After four more blocks, he felt something tugging at the rear of his subconscious. He hit the brakes. Thought for a moment. Rapped his knuckles on the steering wheel.

Felicia gave him a curious look. ‘You got something?’

‘Hold on.’

He u-balled and drove back up the road just in time to see the Middle Eastern man enter his backyard. Striker rolled down the window once more, got his attention with a quick wave, and the man walked back over to the cruiser, his face looking tired and irritated. Like he had better things to do.

‘What now, Officer?’

Striker pointed to the wet pavement. ‘Racoons dump that garbage?’

The man nodded. ‘Yeah, I told you. They’re a damn nuisance.’

‘They ever do it before?’

‘Too many times to count.’

Striker looked at the righted garbage can. It was a large canister, heavy. There were no visible dents in it.

‘They normally knock it over like that, or just get inside?’

The man turned and looked at the garbage can, scowled. ‘Usually they just get inside.’

‘These racoons you got round here, they ever tip over one of those cans?’

‘Well, no, actually . . .’

Striker met the man’s eyes. ‘You see them knock over that garbage can?’

‘Nope.’

Striker nodded. ‘Thanks. Take care.’

The man walked away without saying more. Once he was gone, Striker turned to Felicia and saw the strange look she was giving him. He gestured towards the lane.

‘Those garbage cans are damn near full,’ he said. ‘Must weigh sixty pounds each. They don’t tip easy.’

‘And you think our guy did it.’

‘Sure as shit wasn’t Rocky the Racoon.’ Striker backed the car up a few more feet to give them a better view. He pointed. ‘Look at where the cans are placed,’ he said. ‘Right at the mouth of the lane. It’s exactly where Red Mask would hit one of them if he was driving too hard, too fast. Think about it. He comes down this way, north on Discovery. At the last second, he sees a good place to dump, or maybe a flash of red and blue lights. Who knows? Either way, he cranks the wheel too hard, takes the corner too wide, and what’s he gonna hit – anything that’s placed on the north side of the road at the very mouth of the laneway.’

Felicia raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re reaching.’

‘You got to reach if you wanna grab something. Get your gun ready, we’re clearing this lane.’

He gripped his pistol in his right hand and steered with his left as they edged forward into the alley. For the first third, he saw nothing. No good places to dump. No movement of any kind. Certainly no green Honda Civic with the rear windshield blown out.

Then, near the halfway point where the road widened, he spotted something. A small patch of torn-up grass on the south side of the road – a muddy portion that looked disturbed.

Striker hit the brakes, pointed it out to Felicia, saying, ‘Cover me.’

He got out and approached the breezeway.

It was a small patch of land, rectangular in shape, maybe thirty feet by fifteen, and it flanked a closed garage. The land here was a mixture of mud and gravel and crabgrass, running from the kerb all the way back to a giant willow tree that fronted the yard.

Striker walked over to the willow tree and looked down. In the mud, there were tire tracks, fresh ones. Their deep grooves were wider at the base of the tree, as if a car had suddenly and violently shifted. Lying across the tracks were a few willow tendrils. Striker looked at the tree and saw a horizontal gouge across the bark.

Right about bumper level.

‘Something hit this tree,’ he said to Felicia, ‘and not long ago. These marks are fresh.’ He knelt down on the cleanest patch of grass and looked at the impression in the mud.

‘Is it a Civic tire?’ Felicia asked.

‘How should I know?’

‘You’d think five years in Ident would do something for you.’

He gave her a dry look. ‘Only way to know for sure is with a casting, and that’s a job for Noodles.’ He analysed the tread prints. The impressions were clean, the near-frozen mud of the lawn holding the shape together. The lateral edge consisted of two longitudinal striations; the medial sections were composed mainly of 60-degree chevrons.

Felicia came up beside him, bent over for a better look. ‘You getting anything there, Columbo?’

‘First off, I prefer Sherlock,’ Striker said coolly. ‘Or at the very least, Matlock. Secondly, it’s impossible to tell if it was a Civic or not. But whatever it was, the tires are probably one hundred and ninety-five millimetres, which would translate into a fifteen-inch wheel diameter. Most likely.’

‘And what the hell does that mean?’

‘It means,’ he said, ‘that a smaller vehicle made these impressions. Something like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Tercel. Anything more specific than that requires lab work.’

Felicia nodded, and Striker looked back down. Something else in the mud grabbed his attention. He took a closer look, blinked. Dark brownish flecks coloured some of the blades of grass. They were indiscernible in the churned mud of the tire tracks, but against the greenish-yellow of the crabgrass, they became visible in the mid-morning light.

‘We got blood.’ Striker took out a pair of blue latex gloves from his suit-jacket pocket. Put them on. He reached into the darkest area of the mud, where there was a faint glint of something silver, and took hold of a small object. When he pulled his hand back, he held a key-ring. Attached to it by three separate chains were a grey fob, a small plastic happy face, and one ordinary key.

The make was Honda.

In the half-second it took for Striker to stand back up, Felicia had already gotten on her portable radio. She broadcast their location, requesting a second unit. Once she was off, Striker got her attention. He pointed to the north side of the garage, where the bay door was located, and she nodded. When she circled to the lane, he readied his pistol and approached the side door of the garage.

Both exits were covered.

The side door was white, freshly painted, and matched the stucco on the walls. Striker pulled his Maglite flashlight from his inner jacket pocket, turned it on and set the beam to cone. He gripped the cold steel of the door knob, turned it, felt it click.

The door fell open an inch.

Inside it was black. Still. Silent. And the air smelled of gas.

Striker seized the moment. He kicked the door all the way open and swung inside the garage, keeping low and moving right, getting out of the ambient light and blending into the darkness as fast as possible.

‘Vancouver Police!’ he announced. ‘Make yourself known.’

But no one responded.

He moved the flashlight in large wide circles, hitting all four corners of the garage. The room contained nothing but a small car. One flash from the Maglite showed Striker the car was green. A second flash caught the stylistic H insignia of a Honda Civic.

Striker shone the light inside the vehicle. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, their head tilted back at an unnatural angle. The body was completely still. And too short to be Red Mask.

Striker stepped closer, looked.

It was an old man. Small. With thinning white hair.

His face had been shot off.

Seven

Fifteen minutes later, Striker stood ten feet back from the Honda Civic, where the driveway met the lane. The harsh fall winds had lessened, but they were just as cold, and went right through him as if his coat were nothing but porous cheesecloth.

He dialled his daughter, put the cell to his ear and listened to a busy signal. His pulse escalated. It was the third time since the shootings that he’d tried to call Courtney, and the third time he hadn’t been able to reach her. He wondered if her voicemail was full.

‘For Christ’s sake, pick up.’

Courtney hadn’t been at the school when the shootings occurred; Striker knew that. Principal Myers had already told him she’d skipped class – yet again – and he had little doubt she would be at one of her two favourite malls, Oakridge or Metrotown Centre. Striker didn’t know what he was going to do when he found her: hug her, or rant and rave. He’d already called his neighbour, Sheila, and she was now scouring the malls looking for Courtney.

But so far no word had come back.

He swore, and slid the BlackBerry into the pouch on his belt. He tried to focus, to get his head back into the game. Work was always the best diversion; it had gotten him through the worst of the last six years, and besides that, he was damn good at it.

He assessed the scene.

Inside the garage, the interior light was now turned on, revealing the true extent of the damage the Honda Civic had taken. The rear window was partially shattered. The rest was full of holes and spider-veined. The driver’s side window had been blasted right out.

One of the bullets was still embedded in the frame of the windshield.

The sight brought Striker a small sense of comfort. He would have smiled, if not for the bleakness of the situation, and also because a bad feeling gnawed away at the back of his mind.

They were missing something.

He could feel it. Sense it. Something important. Right here in front of them. The car itself felt like a puzzle, but one with a missing piece. He stood there like a statue, and studied the scene before him. The seconds ticked by slowly.

Felicia walked into the garage from the yard.

‘Courtney’s not answering my calls,’ Striker told her. ‘Send her a text, will you?’

‘She probably won’t even read it if I send it,’ Felicia said. ‘Sometimes I think she’s got more anger at me than at you.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

Felicia offered him a grim smile. She sent the text, then put her phone away and looked at the car.

‘Good find, Jacob. Really. The alley was a good call.’

He nodded half-heartedly. Breathed in. Coughed.

The garage stunk. The death of the old man – now known as the deceased, Henry Charles Vander Haven – was fresh and not overly pungent. But the car itself reeked of gas and a combination of something else he couldn’t define. The fumes were overpowering, made his head light and his lungs heavy. The fumes were the only reason Striker had opened the garage’s bay door, instead of keeping everything secure from public view.

Striker understood the significance of the fuel. Red Mask had been planning on torching the vehicle; of that there was no doubt. But something must have startled him, changed his plans, made him improvise. Striker wanted to know what. Maybe the gunman was injured. Maybe one of the shots had made a critical strike.

He turned to Felicia. ‘You talk to the wife?’

‘The woman’s a basket case,’ she said, squinting against the vapours. ‘Not that anyone could blame her. Got Victim Services and the paramedics with her now, but it ain’t helping much.’

‘She tell you anything?’

‘Yeah. Hubby here’s got a brand new Lexus. LS600. Flagship of the fleet, apparently. It’s glossy black with lots of gold and chrome.’

‘Get a plate?’

‘Fox-lima-lima three forty.’ Before Striker could say more, she held up a hand. ‘Already broadcast it. Everyone out there’s on the hunt.’ She studied the car. ‘What you get in here?’

Striker moved further out of the garage, away from the fumes. ‘Go run the plate of the Civic.’

‘Already did over the air. It’s stolen. Obviously.’

‘Run it again. On our computer.’

Felicia gave him a queer look, then walked over to the undercover cruiser. She hopped in the driver’s seat, rotated the terminal, punched in the plate, then hit send. Ten seconds later, the computer beeped when the feed came back:

ON FILE.

Felicia turned back to face him. ‘Like I said, it’s stolen.’

‘The car’s not stolen, the plates are,’ Striker corrected. ‘Look when.’

She did. ‘Stolen just this morning. Seven hundred block of Howe Street. That’s the north end of District One.’ She scanned the report. ‘Without keys. No witnesses. No video. No nothing.’

Striker was silent. He moved back inside the garage, up to the driver’s door, and stared through the front windshield. Through the cracks and lines he made out the Vehicle Identification Number – the serial number unique to every vehicle.

‘Run this VIN for me,’ he called out to Felicia. He read out the eighteen letters and numbers, and she typed them into the computer, then read them back for confirmation. Again she hit send.

‘It comes back the same,’ she said, a few seconds later. ‘A ninety-four green Honda Civic, two-door. Stolen.’

‘When was it stolen?’

She looked at the screen, and her brow furrowed. ‘That’s odd . . . says here the car was stolen over nine days ago.’

‘That’s because it was.’

‘How—’

‘This is a different car from the one the licence plates were stolen from, just the same year and manufacturer.’

Felicia drummed her long clear fingernails on the terminal. ‘Why go to all the bother of stealing this car a whole week ago when they could just have stolen it today? Either way, the cops are gonna run the plate and find out it’s stolen. Makes no sense.’

‘It made sense to them. There’s a reason.’

Felicia’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘If anything, it actually increases their chances of getting caught – they had a stolen car with them for over a week.’ She stopped drumming her fingernails on the computer terminal, let out a tired sound, climbed back out of the cruiser. ‘Any ideas, Sherlock?’

‘Just one, but I need some time to think about it.’

Striker approached the vehicle. The Civic had already been searched once, but only cursorily. It needed more. He put on new gloves, then moved to the driver’s side door, which was already wide open. He looked around the immediate area, being careful not to disturb the dead body of Mr Vander Haven. A pack of Player’s Filter Lights was wedged under the driver’s seat against the middle console.

Strange.

When the gas fumes got to be too much, Striker leaned back out of the car and gasped for a breath of fresh air.

‘Any history on the registered owner?’ he asked Felicia.

She shook her head. ‘RO’s just some ordinary Joe from downtown.’

‘Get a hold of him. Find out if he smoked or not, and if so, what brand.’

She gave him a long look, her dark eyes holding a spark of resistance, then nodded reluctantly and turned back for the cruiser.

Striker continued rummaging through the car. He did so carefully. Vehicle searches were always a double-edged sword, not just because of the legal ramifications, but because of the difficulty in obtaining untainted evidence. DNA, microfibres, cellular material – it cross-contaminated with the slightest touch. Best case scenario would have been to leave the vehicle untouched for Ident, but Striker knew if he didn’t get in there now and search for clues, the passing time could be detrimental to finding Red Mask.

It was another no-win situation.

Striker did his best not to touch anything, not even the broken cubes of window glass. He deftly lifted the floor mats, opened the consoles, flipped through CD cases and registration papers. With two fingers, he picked up the pack of cigarettes and opened the top flap. When all he saw inside were ordinary cigarettes, he closed it and put it back down on the passenger seat.

Last of all was the key he’d found in the bloodied mud. It was a possible source of fingerprints, though everything Striker had seen so far suggested that Red Mask would not have been foolish enough to leave any prints behind.

Certainly not on the key.

Striker removed the first pair of gloves he’d touched the cigarettes with. Once he had a new pair on, he took the key from his shirt pocket and looked it over. It was black and silver with an H at the base, but there were no scuff marks on the steel, meaning it was new. He then studied the grey plastic fob and the yellow plastic happy face, looking for clues.

Felicia returned from the cruiser. ‘The registered owner’s name is Taylor Drew,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t smoke, and he says no one ever smokes in his vehicles.’

Striker looked up. ‘Good. Don’t touch the cigarettes, we’ll see what Noodles can find on them.’

She gave him one of her you-think-I’m-an-idiot? looks, and turned her attention to the items in his hands.

‘That’s what you found in the mud outside?’

Striker nodded.

‘Lucky,’ she said.

‘Strange,’ he corrected. ‘Even stranger is the fact he had a key at all. The car’s a stolen, right? Taken without keys. And there’s damage on the driver’s side lock, so we know how they got in.’ Striker held up the key. ‘But this is a Honda – the same key that starts the ignition also opens the door. So the question is, why break the lock to get in if you got the key that opens the door in the first place?’

‘Maybe the key that starts the car isn’t the same one that opens the door.’

‘Exactly,’ he said, then gestured at the steering column. ‘And why aren’t we finding a broken ignition plate and some loose wires in there?’

Felicia shrugged. ‘We’re dealing with extremely careful guys here. They know if any cop sees a broken ignition, they’ll think it’s a stolen vehicle.’

‘But the stolen plates would already tell them that.’ Striker turned the key-ring over in his hand, looked at the fob. It was a small grey thing. Completely generic. He pressed the button, but none of the doors or trunk unlocked. ‘The fob’s for something else.’

‘Garage?’ Felicia asked.

‘Maybe. Or an elevator. Or a building entrance.’ Striker looked at the yellow key-ring charm. It was connected by a short chain. He flipped it over. On the opposite side was a happy face, though someone had painted a bullet-hole between the eyes, with a red blood trail running down the centre.

Felicia scrunched up her face. ‘How quaint.’

Striker said nothing. He just kept thinking it over and rolling the happy face between his finger and thumb. He was in the same position, still thinking, when a marked patrol car pulled up. The engine was overheated, and it died with a rattle.

Constable Chris Pemberton stepped out, all six foot six and three hundred pounds of the man. Striker was six foot one and worked out hard with weights, yet Pemberton made him look ordinary. Pemberton was a five-year guy, solid for patrol, and soon to be on his way to a specialty squad.

Striker briefed him on the situation. ‘No one comes in or out except us and Ident. Keep a ledger with precise times. If Deputy Chief Laroche shows up and pushes his way in, make sure he signs the ledger. That prick has a pattern of contaminating crime scenes.’

Pemberton nodded.

‘When more units get here,’ Striker continued, ‘I want them to canvass the entire area, north and south. Witnesses, video, everything. Call my cell if you get any hits. It’s always on.’

‘Will do, Boss.’

Striker took one last look at the happy face key-ring. It was part of the solution, he knew. There was a reason for it being there, one he just couldn’t yet understand. He also wondered how Red Mask had lost it in the mud. Had he simply dropped it? Or was he hurt? Making his first mistake?