Body Harvest (12 page)

Even as the plane taxied away from the terminal, Sergio Treize was alert. His seat belt wasn’t buckled. He had laid it across his lap so it looked fastened, but he was prepared for any attempt to arrest him. When he saw Lexi’s fist, he lurched instinctively to the side. His lightning-fast reaction saved him from the full force of her punch. Athletically, he sprang into the aisle and faced her.

Lexi knew already that he was a formidable opponent. She had recognized the immobilizing punch that he’d used on Melanie’s mother.
Inhaling, she adopted her favourite sidewise high stance.

With superior height and reach, Sergio unleashed a brutal strike aimed at her jaw.

Lexi put up a knife-hand block and used her momentum to chop at the side of his neck. She knew the hit would have been painful but it wouldn’t disable him.

He twisted and directed a kick at her upper right leg. She slid her foot across the limited floor space to dodge the blow and, with practised timing, slipped her right hand under his heel and thrust it upwards. She hoped to make him fall flat on his back, but Sergio was cunning and slippery. He lurched backwards but nimbly kept on his feet.

Steadying himself, he smiled and said, ‘You’re good.’ Immediately, he launched a straight punch to her solar plexus.

Lexi stepped to the left and her thigh crashed into the side of a seat. Impeded, she couldn’t deflect the blow with the outside of her right arm. For a moment, she thought that the strike hadn’t injured her. But she soon realized that she was struggling to breathe. She did her best not to show her discomfort, though. She didn’t want to encourage him.

She parried his next blow but a knife-hand strike
came crashing into her upper right arm. Straightaway, she felt the damage to her muscle.

With a twitch of his head, Sergio sneered. ‘But not good enough.’

He allowed her to land a punch on his body to show that she had lost much of the power in her right arm.

Lexi glanced beyond him and knew what she had to do. She could take him if only she could drive him backwards again. She relaxed her posture, feigning an attitude of defeat, because this time she did want to encourage him. He came at her with a low kick. She parried it and, surprising him, moved inside his defences, pummelling him with short stabs. They were never going to overwhelm him. They didn’t have to. Her attack simply needed to be uncomfortable and annoying.

It worked because he shuffled his legs, moving away from her flurry of blows.

And that’s when he fell over Melanie who had curled up into a tight ball on the floor of the aisle.

His head cracked against the foot of one of the seats. Lexi jumped over Melanie and, to make sure, delivered a knock-out punch to his right temple. It shut down his brain in an instant.

Straightaway, Lexi turned to Melanie and asked, ‘Are you all right?’

The girl nodded.

‘Thanks, Melanie. Nice move. I remember it from school. Always good to use on a bully.’

‘Nasty man.’

Lexi took Melanie’s hand and, as the passengers clapped and cheered, took her to her still groggy mother. ‘There was a mix-up in seat numbers,’ Lexi said with a grin. ‘I think Melanie should be next to you.’ Then she shouted to everyone, ‘Sorry, folks. We’re going back to the terminal. You’ve got one too many passengers on board.’

Security staff had boarded the aeroplane and taken Sergio Treize to the airport holding cell. At Lexi’s request, his clothing and a sample of DNA were taken while he was out cold. It was an hour before he regained consciousness and another hour before a doctor gave Troy and Lexi the go-ahead to interview him.

Troy was ragged and exhausted but eager to talk to the man with so many different names. ‘You don’t look like a Sharon,’ he began.

Wearing a prison uniform, Sergio ignored the
comment. Instead, he stared at Lexi. Almost snarling, he said, ‘You’ll be hurting.’

‘Yes, but I can walk out of here after we’ve had a chat. You’re not going anywhere.’

‘What tripped me up?’

‘Never underestimate little girls. Resourceful creatures. And vindictive if you get on their wrong side.’ Lexi looked down at his shoes and said, ‘Nice trainers. I checked out the tread while you were sleeping it off.’

Troy took over. ‘The same prints turned up at three graves next to Langhorn Reservoir.’

Sergio laughed. ‘Well done. You’ve just proved that I go fishing there sometimes.’

‘And they were at Olga Wylie’s place.’

‘Who’s Olga Wylie?’

Troy smiled. ‘She’s the person you and Ely Eight killed with a heart mix-up. Ely’s admitted it – and told us about you. Olga’s also the woman you burgled. You left a sapphire from your ring in her study.’

‘A stone that could have been from my ring turns up at a burgled house? It could have come from any bit of jewellery in the same range. How does that prove I’ve committed murder? You don’t have any real evidence. Nothing.’ Sergio hesitated and added,
‘Just the ramblings of a crazy old surgeon who lost his last job because he was unreliable and forgetful. Not an ideal witness.’

‘If you hadn’t burnt down Ely’s house, we’d have sown it up by now,’ Troy replied with an unconcerned shrug. ‘So, we’re going to have to give it a bit more welly.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘My partner’s got a way with words,’ Lexi explained. ‘I think he means we’ve got to try harder.’

‘No problem,’ Troy said to Sergio. ‘I’ll get you moved to a police cell and in twenty-four hours we’ll speak again. That’s all we’ll need to knock you off your perch.’

For a fraction of a second, a worried expression flashed across Sergio’s face. His nervous tic made his head jolt to the side.

‘You see,’ Troy continued, ‘there’s another crime scene you forgot to destroy. The van you no doubt used like an ambulance. You abandoned it here at the airport. I’ve had officers all over the car park and they’ve found it. It looks beautifully clean. I bet you thought cleaning was enough.’ He turned to his bruised partner and asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘I think cleaning’s never enough. There’s always a trace and I’ll find the smallest scraps.’

Troy stood up. ‘For now, you’re charged with assault and child abduction – in front of almost two hundred witnesses. Tomorrow, it’ll be multiple murder.’

Troy had cleansed himself in the temple and asked for the strength to handle the final interview. He had also refreshed himself with sleep, meatballs and chocolate. While Lexi and a squad of forensic scientists had taken care of all the clever stuff, Troy had given the order to release Huw from Foreditch Crime Central and prepared himself mentally. Then, immediately before his verbal battle with Sergio Treize, he’d been briefed by Lexi. He’d heard all about her team’s successes – and its failures.

In one of the cells in Shepford Crime Central,
Sergio’s hands and ankles were clasped together with plastic ties because, during his move from the airport to Shepford, he’d attacked a policewoman in an attempt to escape. It had taken three more officers to restrain him.

Troy nodded towards the bindings and said, ‘For someone claiming to be innocent, you seem very keen to make a break for it.’ With barely a pause, he asked, ‘What do you know about Franki Savannah Fifteen?’

‘Nothing,’ Sergio replied.

‘Mmm. We don’t know much either. Yet.’

Lexi said, ‘You did a pretty good job on the clinic and whoever was inside. It’s going to take a bit longer for me to extract DNA from the bone and the pathologist to work out the cause of death.’

‘But,’ Troy put in, ‘a bit of research tells us Franki Savannah Fifteen is a promising tennis player with a heart complaint. She’s also an outer, wealthy and missing.’

Sergio shrugged. ‘No idea.’

‘Why were there traces of fuel on your clothing yesterday?’

‘I’ve got a vintage car. I was putting petrol in it. I sloshed some over the side and had to clear it up.’

‘Yes. Of course you did.’ Troy twisted and turned, probing the man sitting opposite him at the table.
‘You’re Gareth Riley Thirteen, but you’re Sergio Treize and a whole lot of other people as well. Customs tells us your passport’s forged. It’s lucky I can charge you under any name.’

‘And your point is?’

‘You didn’t destroy every bit of your computer memory. Your internet history shows you’re Sergio Treize who looks after a suicide chat room and posts messages as Charon Angel.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘There was a mark on the wall behind where you sit. Just for a split-second – when you moved – the same mark appears in the video the first time I called you.’

‘What does that prove?’ Sergio shook his head. ‘I’m not impressed by you two.’

‘At least we haven’t been outwitted by a five-year-old on a plane. Anyway, I’m taking it a step at a time. You’re not denying that you’re these different people, that the computer’s yours.’

Sergio shrugged.

‘How do you explain the fact that Dmitri Backhouse’s and Olga Wylie’s hard drives are in your house?’

He twitched before answering, ‘They’re not.’

Troy smiled. ‘Along with a lot of other electronic
junk, they’re in the bin. After you drilled holes through them, they’re unreadable. I’ll give you that. But our computer guy got serial numbers off them. One was bought by Dmitri and the other belonged to Olga.’

‘I’ve got no idea how they ended up at my place.’

This time, Troy saw a weakness, a crack in his defences. The merest flicker of his eyes told Troy that he was nervous. ‘There’s a spade at your house. It’s got a bit of soil on it. Lexi’s done all the microscopic stuff. The quartz grains match the earth at Langhorn. That suggests to me you’ve been digging holes there.’

With only a moment’s hesitation, Sergio replied, ‘Too right. I dig up earthworms as bait.’

Troy nodded. ‘Exactly what I’d say. What do you catch?’

‘Not a lot. Roach and the occasional perch.’

‘Do you eat them?’

‘No. It’s for sport.’

‘Of course, you’re an outer. You’re more likely to scoff the maggots.’

‘I just told you. I use worms.’

‘Oh, that’s right. Sorry. I forgot you said that.’

Sergio sighed. He was both weary and wary of Troy.

‘Let’s move on to the last crime scene. There’s a
mat in the back of your van, ambulance or whatever you want to call it. Why is there a trace of fuel soaked into it?’

‘That’ll be spillage. You know, when I got that can of petrol for my restoration job.’

‘Not the fuel you took to the clinic – to help you burn it down, along with Franki Savannah Fifteen?’

His head convulsed. ‘No.’

Troy knew by instinct that the time was right to go for the killer punch. ‘Tell me, how come we found DNA from Olga Wylie, Jerome Sebastian Eleven and Dmitri Backhouse under the mat in the van?’

‘It’s not my van. It belongs to Ely Eight. Ask him.’

‘That’s strange, because you just said you used the van. To get a can of petrol.’

‘So, I borrowed it this once.’

‘Mmm. Well, we don’t have your fingerprints all over it – or on anything else – for the obvious reason. You’re an outer.’ Troy turned towards Lexi and said, ‘But whose DNA did you find all around the driver’s seat?’

‘His,’ she said, nodding towards Sergio Treize.

‘Anyone else’s? Like Ely Eight’s?’

‘No.’

‘That’s weird, isn’t it?’ Troy said, looking again at Sergio. ‘How do you explain that?’

‘Er …’

‘You’re trying to blame Ely Eight but you were the only driver.’

Sergio’s hands were in his lap, under the table. In a sudden swell of anger, he smashed them upwards, expecting to thrust the table at Troy. He didn’t realize that it was screwed securely into the floor and would not budge. He cried out in pain and frustration. Instead, he lifted his tied hands up high and crashed them down on the table top. The wood split under the force of his blow.

Realizing that he was right about Sergio’s explosive temper, Troy rose to his feet. ‘You’re charged with the murders of Dmitri Backhouse and Jerome Sebastian Eleven, and the unlawful killing of Olga Wylie. There’ll be others as well.’ He pointed to the table and said, ‘Like damage to police property.’ Wiping away his smile, he added, ‘And when we work out what happened to Franki Savannah Fifteen. I’m legally obliged to read you a complete list when we’ve got it all figured out.’

Lexi stood next to her partner and said, ‘The blue stone we found in Olga Wylie’s house – close to where she kept her computer – matches the others in your ring. That’s a charge of burglary as well. And I’ve got more bad news for you.’ With a wicked grin on her face, she told him, ‘Those sapphires aren’t
sapphires. They’re cheap fakes. You were ripped off.’

Below them, the gentle splashing sound came from the fountain outside the Rural Retreat Transplant Clinic. Lexi had retrieved her spy cameras and she was sitting on the earth next to Troy, lapping up the peaceful atmosphere. They were enjoying the feeling of being in the wood but not having dead bodies – or parts of dead bodies – to dig up and investigate.

Breathing in the fresh air, Troy said, ‘I can see the attraction for the patients, Avril Smallcross and Huw.’

‘Yeah. Nature – and doing nothing – is great for
fifteen minutes. Then you’d get bored and want some life.’

‘I suppose. Anyway, I’ve got batteries to recharge. I’m going home for a bit. Back to Grandma’s.’

Lexi glanced at her partner. ‘You live with your grandmother, not your parents?’

Troy brought the shutter down on the topic abruptly. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay. I’ll go and hang out with friends. I’d ask you along but …’

Troy smiled. ‘I wouldn’t mix.’

‘Some of them think majors have only just crawled out of the swamps.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll keep a good distance between you and Grandma as well, because it’s not the done thing to mix with those awful outers.’

Lexi laughed.

Both of their life-loggers vibrated at the same time. ‘Put that on hold,’ Lexi said as she read the message. ‘Looks like we’ve got another job.’

‘Together. Someone on high must think we did all right as a team.’

‘It’s a high-security lab full of dead scientists in Shallow End.’

‘Sounds gruesome,’ Troy said. ‘And obviously not as high security as they thought.’

Lexi stood up and brushed the soil away from her elbows. ‘Charge your batteries some other time. This’ll be good. It’s the unit that handles all the science for The National Space Centre. Perhaps we’ll get a ride into space. I’ve always fancied being an astronaut.’