The Witches of Chiswick Page 4

  “Well I can tell you this. Don’t go down there again. And don’t go near those women. Do we understand each other?”

  “We do,” said Will. “Can I buy you lunch?”

  “You can,” said Tim. “And I’ll expect you at my housing unit at eight o’clock sharp on Saturday night. Try not to get yourself into any trouble before then, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” said Will. “I’ll try.”

  3

  Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday came and went and these days were very dull indeed for Will. Dull they were, and worrying too. Will worried for the painting. Would someone uncover his hiding place? A cleaner, or a restorer, perhaps? Or would the iconoclastic women return? Might they have found out that they’d destroyed the wrong painting? Would investigations ensue? His fingerprints and DNA would be upon the Dadd. He should have worn gloves. He should never have got involved at all. Perhaps it hadn’t been a risk worth taking. Will perched on the edge of his seat in a permanent state of tension. Will worried and fretted and worried some more. Gladys worried for Will.

  “You’re not yourself, little manny,” she told him, reaching forth a podgy hand to stroke at his arm. “Come out with me this evening, I’ll cheer you up.”

  “Thanks,” said Will. “But no thanks.”

  “But Friday night is Rock Night at the Shrunken Head. Your kind of thing, Will, Retro Rock, twentieth-century stuff. The Apes Of Wrath are playing and Violent Macaroni and Foetus Eater, and Lawnmower Death, and The Slaughterhouse Five.”

  “Not my cup of coffee,” said Will. “But Tim McGregor in Forward Planning loves that kind of business. And between you and me, I think he’s somewhat enraptured by you. He keeps mentioning your name in the canteen.”

  “Really?” Gladys primped at her lemonly-tinted toupee. “Do you really think so?”

  “Absolutely,” said Will. “But don’t tell him that I told you.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  Will twiddled his computer rat and viewed more boring Rothko. Dull dull dull it was, and Will remained as worried.

  He worried until it was time to go home. Then he went off home, still worrying.

  And he did have good cause to worry. Crime was hardly commonplace in these days after the day after tomorrow. And the reason for this was the almost superhuman efficiency of the Department of Correctional Science.

  A one hundred per cent clean-up rate.

  In former unenlightened days there had been a “police force”, armed officers of the law who pursued and arrested malcontents. These were “brought to justice” and then housed in prisons. This had proven to be a most inefficient system. Many malcontents managed to evade capture. Others, although captured, evaded prison, through the intercession of barristers working on their behalf. Others, who had actually ended up in prison, had their sentences cut for “good behaviour” and returned once more to a life of crime.

  In the year 2050, however, a visionary appeared on the scene in the shape of a certain Mr Darius Doveston. Mr Doveston was a geneticist. In fact it was Mr Doveston who had first formulated the Retro drug. Mr Doveston’s theory was that criminality was inherited. Dishonest parents passed on their dishonesty to their offspring, who inherited it through their genes and through “learning by example”. Mr Doveston proposed a cure for crime. It would take fifty years, he said, but when the fifty years were up, there would be no more crime – because there would be no more criminals.

  Mr Doveston’s solution to the crime problem was simplicity itself. And history does record that the simple solution (dramatic as it sometimes must be) is often the most effective.

  His solution was the compulsory sterilisation of all first-time offenders. If villains couldn’t breed, reasoned Mr Doveston, then they couldn’t breed more villains.

  It was, of course, a stroke of pure genius.

  But there are always those with motives of their own who will find something to complain about, even with such a stroke of genius as this. There was a vast public outcry. Sterilisation was some kind of punishment, went this outcry, but not much of one. Those sterilised villains would inevitably continue with their villainy. In fact, embittered as they might well be by their sterilisation, they might even broaden the scope of their villainy. And having to wait fifty years for a crime-free society? That was far too long!

  Mr Doveston gave the matter some further thought.

  Perhaps he had been a trifle hasty. He reconsidered and then drew up a plan, which pleased everyone, with the possible exception of the criminal classes.

  Mandatory death penalty for first-time offenders.

  Mr Doveston submitted his proposal in the form of a Private Member’s Bill to the House of Commons. Within two weeks of it being passed and put into the statute books, the crime figures virtually halved. Within two years, crime was all but non-existent in the British Isles.

  Which is why Will had good cause to worry.

  And had Will known what was presently on the go at the Department of Correctional Science, he would have had even more cause to worry. But for quite another reason.

  The DOCS was housed only a short tram ride from the Tate, just across the long poisoned Thames, in a magnificent black structure of obsidian and tinted glass, rising a mere three hundred storeys, fashioned to resemble an old time policeman’s helmet. Most of its floors were now given over to recreational areas, casinos, corporate whorehouses and shopping malls. The actual DOCS occupied the three hundredth floor. It was run by a team of five men, one of whom was a token woman.

  The head of the department, the Chief, was a black man by the name of Trubshaw. The tradition that a black man should always fill the role of police chief, was a long one, dating back to 1970s America, where, although in real life an impossibility, in the movies it was inevitably the case. It was a “Hollywood” thing.

  Beneath the Chief was the Chief Inspector, a white man named Sam Maggott, and beneath Sam, four policemen, one of whom was a token woman. The role was taken on a rota basis. This week Officer John Higgins was the token woman, and Officer John Higgins was on the telephone.

  “What?” she was saying. “What? What? What?”

  Words poured into the ear of Officer John, words of a distressing nature. At length the stream of words ceased and Officer John replaced the telephone receiver. “Damn,” she said, and “damn and blast.”

  Chief Inspector Maggott looked up from his doings, which were of the crossword persuasion and examined the young Officer, a vision in blue serge damask and dainty high heels. “Did I hear you say ‘damn’?” he enquired.

  “You did, sir,” said Officer John, adjusting her wig.

  “And what would be the cause of this damning?” Sam Maggott jiggled his girth about and rippled a jowl or two.

  “It would seem, sir, that we have a crime on our hands.”

  “A crime?” said Maggott. “A crime?”

  “A crime, sir. The first of the year and a big one too. A murder by the sound of it.”

  “A murder?” Sam’s flesh rippled in many directions. “We haven’t had a murder since—”

  “Third of Apple,[3] twenty-two o-seven,” said Officer Denton Colby, who was good at that kind of thing.

  “Fifteen years ago,” said Sam. “This is most upsetting. Are you certain that it wasn’t just an accident, or something?”

  “Multiple gunshots,” said Officer John, straightening a seam in her stocking.

  “A gun!” Sam made clutchings at his heart. “Which one of you lent this murderer your gun?”

  Officers patted their weapons.

  “None of us,” they all agreed.

  “Then how could a murderer have a gun? Only we have guns, and even ours don’t work properly most of the time.”

  “Perhaps he constructed one,” said Officer Denton. “If you recall the case of Digby Charlton, ‘The Cheltenham Chopper’, he constructed his chopper from cheese.”

  “Somewhat before my time,” said Sam.

  “And mine also,”
said Denton. “But the essence of good DOCS work is always to be well informed. I, for instance, have studied—”

  “What did your informant tell you?” Sam asked Officer John.

  “The informant is a performance artist, sponsored by an investment corporation. He is employed to play the part of a derelict and lie in alleyways, looking wretched and saying things such as ‘if only I’d invested my capital with such and such a corporation, I wouldn’t be in the mess I am now.’ He says it to passers-by, you see.”

  “Nice work if you can get it,” said Officer Doggart Tenpole Tudor. “I wonder if there are any vacancies?”

  “You’ve never really been committed to this work, have you, Tudor?” asked Sam.

  “Oh it’s not that, sir. I just like to get out and about once in a while. Get a bit of fresh air when there’s any going.”

  “There hasn’t been lately,” said Sam. “But go on, Higgins, what did this performance artist have to say for himself?”

  “He said he was lying in an alleyway in Chiswick last night, when he saw what he described as ‘a real bright light’. Then, out of the light, right out of nowhere, this big naked man appeared. The performance artist said that the naked man’s eyes were completely black and that he ‘smelled something rotten!’ And he stole the performance artist’s trousers.”

  “Another crime,” said Sam. “No, hang about, who got murdered?”

  “The owner of an antique weapons shop across the road from the alleyway. The performance artist saw it happen. The big, smelly, black-eyed, naked man, well, naked but for the trousers, shot the proprietor with one of his own antique weapons.”

  “I think we’ve solved the mystery of the murder weapon,” said Officer Denton. “One up to the DOCS I think.”

  “Buffoon,” said Sam. “So, is that it? Is that all your informant had to say?”

  “No, sir, apparently then the half-naked, big, smelly, black-eyed man, now hung all about with antique weaponry, came out of the antique weapons shop, crossed the street, turned around and tossed a hand grenade into the shop, blowing it all to pieces.”

  “There goes the crime-scene evidence,” said Officer Denton.

  “Shut it!” shouted Chief Inspector Sam. “What else did he say, Higgins?”

  “He said that the murderer returned to the alleyway and shook my informant about and demanded information.”

  “Asked the right chap then,” said Officer Denton, giggling foolishly. “Information from an informant.”

  “Shut it!” shouted Sam once more. “What information?”

  “He wanted to know the year,” said Officer Higgins.

  “The year?”

  “That’s what he wanted to know. My informant told him and the big man flung him to the ground. Knocking him unconscious, he’s only just come to.”

  “That’s assault, probably GBH,” said Officer Denton. “That brings the crime tally up to three. This big, near-naked, smelly, black-eyed fellow is a regular one-man crime wave.”

  “Officer Higgins,” said Sam Maggott. “Exchange clothes with Officer Denton. He can be the token woman for the next month. Perhaps that will shut him up.”

  “I’ll bet it won’t,” said Officer Denton.

  “It damn well better,” said Chief Inspector Maggott. “Or I will be forced to—”

  But his words were cut short by the ringing of Officer John Higgins’s telephone.

  The hand of Officer John took to hovering just above the receiver.

  “Well, answer it, man,” cried Maggott.

  “But it might be more bad news. Wouldn’t it be better if we just pretend to be out?”

  “What, with a maniac on the loose?”

  “I’m really not keen,” said Officer John.

  “Denton, you do it,” ordered Sam. “This needs a woman’s touch. Go to it. Hurry up.”

  Officer Denton took up the receiver. “DOCS. Policewoman Denton speaking,” she said.

  Words tumbled into Denton’s large-and-unshell-like.

  And presently she too replaced the receiver.

  “So, what is it, Officer?” Sam demanded to be told.

  “It’s another murder, sir. A body has just been found in a Brentford housing unit. Chap by the name of Will Starling has just been shot to death.”

  4

  The headquarters of the DOCS had plenty of high-tech state-of-the-art equipment. There were heaps of holographic how’s-your-fathers and digital directory doodahs. There were even some inter-rositors, which were powered by a complicated process involving the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter. Most of it however had long since ceased to work, and that which still did so, did so at irregular intervals.

  Officer Denton was au-fait with the running of all the equipment that still worked. She possessed the necessary operational skills and had certificates to prove it. Not that any of her comrades had ever expressed a desire to see them. Officer Denton set to the task of tracking down the killer.

  “This should be a challenge,” she told Chief Inspector Sam, “but not much of one. We’ll soon have him.”

  “I fear not for this,” said her superior. “Would you care to take us through the method you will be employing?”

  Officer Denton put aside her nail varnish and blew on her fingertips. “As you are well aware,” said she, “at any given time it is possible for us to locate any given person. No one can travel without being iris-scanned. Folk are constantly scanned in their housing units by iris-scanning systems installed within their home screens.”

  “Which is not something known to the general public,” said Sam, tapping his nose in a significant fashion.

  “Naturally not, sir. But if the scanners actually happen to be working, then they do give us the edge. We know where people are and we know where they should be. Whether they are in employment. And if not, where else they are. There are iris-scanners on the corners of every street. In every shop, store and supermarket. We shall tune in our instruments to the unit of this William Starling and see who paid him a visit.”

  “It’s all too easy these days,” said Officer John. “Sometimes I hanker for the good old days, when police officers had to use their wits to apprehend villains.”

  Chief Inspector Sam made shudderings. “Stuff all that,” said he. “Far too many margins for error. See if you can get any life out of the instruments, Denton. And if you can, we’ll identify the malcontent and despatch an execution squad. And then we’ll all have a nice cup of coffee.”

  “Ten four, sir,” said Denton, in the time-honoured fashion.

  The officers of the law gathered about their token female counterpart as she twiddled dials, pressed key-pads and made enigmatic finger-wavings over sensors and scanners and the Lord-of-the-Laminates knows what else.

  And when nothing happened, she took to hammering the equipment with her shoe.

  Presently she said, “Oh.”

  “Oh?” said Sam. “I like not the sound of this ‘Oh’.”

  “It’s a bit of a tricky ‘Oh’,” said Officer Denton, applying lipstick in the general area of her mouth. “There’s nothing recorded on the iris-scanner in the home screen at William Starling’s unit, other than for William Starling.”

  “So the malcontent somehow shielded his eyes from the scanner?”

  “Possibly so, sir. Remember the performance artist said that his eyes were completely black. Perhaps he was wearing opaque contact lenses to avoid recognition. But there’s something more. The thermascan didn’t register anything either.”

  “For the benefit of those who might not know about the workings of the thermascan,” said Sam, carefully, “perhaps you would care to elaborate.”

  “Well, as you obviously know, sir,” said Officer Denton, with more than equal care, “thermascans are incorporated into all home screens; on the off chance that crimes might be committed in the dark. The heat signatures of human beings are as distinctive as their iris patterns. According to the thermascan in the home screen of
Mr Starling, which, I am impressed to see is actually working, he was all alone when he was shot to death.”

  “So it was suicide.”

  “No, sir, not suicide. The thermascan registered the heat from the gun as it was fired. It was several metres away from Mr Starling.”

  “So what exactly are you saying, young woman?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t know what shot Mr Starling, sir, but it wasn’t a human being.”

  The mortal remains of William Starling, known to his friends and family as Will, were bagged up by paramedics, their uniforms made gay with holographic logos, which flashed fetchingly and falteringly all around and about them.

  Chief Inspector Sam Maggott, now at the crime scene, viewed the bagging up with a sad and jaundiced eye. “This just won’t do,” he told his team. “No thermascan, no iris identification, no murder weapon. Any physical traces, Denton?”

  Token woman Denton was scanning the bright orange walls of the breakfasting area, with something that resembled an electronic frying pan. “Let you know in just a minute, sir,” she replied.

  “And what, exactly are you doing now?” asked Sam.

  “Checking auditory residuals, sir. It’s a very technical business.” Policewoman Denton gave the electronic-frying-pan affair a hearty whack with her fist. “It’s working now,” she said.

  “I’ll leave you to it then.”

  Officer Denton went on with her very technical business. Sam glanced around and about his surroundings. The surroundings were not in tiptop condition. They presented a scene of utter destruction. The rooms of the housing unit had been thoroughly trashed, furniture smashed to laminated splinters, pictures torn from the walls and shredded. The polysynthetic carpeting had even been ripped from the floor.

  “These places depress me,” Sam said.

  “Why so, sir?” asked Officer John.

  “Because I grew up in one of these. Crowborough Tower, Tooting sector. Five hundred and nineteenth floor. South-facing, which was fine on Thursdays, of course. But they’re all the same. On the rare occasion that there is a crime and I have to visit the crime scene, it’s always like going home to the unit I was brought up in. It’s almost as if every crime is committed in my own front room, against one of my own family. Do you understand what I’m saying?”