Chapter 20.
“Who is it?” Dark Angel shouted.
“Who is it?” Joshua shouted.
“Who is it, please?” Nat asked.
Silence. Then a few muffled words. Then another rap.
“Open up!”
“Not until you tell us who it is!” Joshua shouted again. Then, to Dark Angel – “one of your lot?”
She shook her head. “I always work alone.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“And you mean by that, what exactly?” she asked.
“Well just that…”
“Guys!” shouted Nat. “Come on!”
“What’s your problem?” asked Joshua. “You can’t even keep hold of a finger!”
“What finger?” asked Dark Angel.
“None of your concern” said Joshua.
“It is my concern if it concerns me”
“Well now of course I’m going to tell you.”
She stared at him. “Well. I’m waiting.”
“Jesus. Don’t they teach you sarcasm in…”?
“Guys!”
Another rap. “Open up, Nathan! Sounds like you’ve got quite a party going in there!”
“Who is it?” asked Nat.
“Ah, Nathan, I’m disappointed you don’t recognize my voice.” Then another voice, sounding angrier. “Open the door or I will kick the fucker in.”
Nat glanced at Joshua. Joshua shrugged. “I guess you better do what he says. I think you’ve created enough damage, don’t you?”
Nat’s instinct was screaming at him not to open the door, and he had to almost physically fight against it as he stepped forward and yanked it open.
“There! That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Detectives Phil Maker and Justin Dredd were standing in the doorway.
“What took you so long?” growled Dredd.
“Erm, I, well…”
They both walked in and took in the scene, the destroyed hotel room, the sight of Dark Angel and Justin.
Maker sniffed the air. “Have you been smoking in here, Nat?”
“Erm, no?”
“I think you have. That’s an offence, you know. Smoking in a building. We may have to report you for that, don’t you think, Justin?”
“I’m making a note of it as we speak” Dredd said, doing nothing.
“Just kidding, Nat! Don’t worry” Maker said. “I think smoking is the least of your troubles, wouldn’t you agree, Justin?”
Dredd studied his nails. “Where he’s going, he’ll be begging to be charged with smoking.”
“I will?”
Maker gave him a big smile. “Let’s just wait and see shall we. Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Erm, yeah, I guess. Guys, this is Inspector Maker and Inspector Dredd. This is” he indicated Dark Angel.
“Irmtraud Bizinska” Dark Angel interrupted quickly. She stuck out her hand. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
Maker nodded his head thoughtfully. “Irmtraud. That’s an interesting name.”
“Yes, it’s…” she started but he turned to Joshua. “And you are?”
Joshua coughed. “Err, Josh. Joshua.”
“Hello Josh Joshua” Maker said.
“No, I mean…” but Maker had turned to Nat.
“How are you, Nat? How have you been keeping?”
Dredd snorted. “Looks like he’s on drugs. Probably dealing.”
“Now now, Justin.”
“I told you we should have booked him when we first met him… when was it?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yeah. Yesterday. I remember now. He was the guy that was into cannibalism.” He turned to the others. “Are you people all right? Not lost any limbs? Haven’t found him trying to cook you and eat you?”
“Talking of limbs…” Maker added.
“Yeah” spat Dredd. “Talking of limbs…”
“Lost any fingers recently?” Maker asked Nat, a big smile on his face.
Nat gulped. “What?”
Joshua flinched, like someone had hit him, but Maker and Dredd didn’t seem to notice.
“I was just wondering” Maker asked, “if you had misplaced a severed finger?” He spoke calmly, courteously, still smiling, as if the whole thing was a joke.
“Erm… no, I don’t think so?” Nat’s voice was trembling.
“He’s probably eaten it” grumbled Dredd.
Maker turned to him, slightly frustrated. “We’ve got it, Justin, remember. He’s clearly not eaten it.”
Dredd stared at Nat angrily. “Yeah, well he was probably about to eat it.”
“You’ve got it?” Nat asked.
Maker clapped his hands together. “A clear admission of guilt.”
Dredd unbuttoned his black jacket, revealing a shoulder holster over his impossibly white shirt. He reached in with a practiced air and brought out an automatic, which he raised and pointed at Nat, in a sleek, effortless movement. “Come on, this guy is guilty as sin. Let’s finish this now.”
Maker raised his hands. “Justin, Justin, calm down. We can’t just go shooting suspects without any provocation.”
Dredd mumbled something and put the gun away. It sounded a lot like “fucking liberals.”
He turned back to Nat and pointed instead. “You. You told us that you’d never met Terri Jenkins.”
“In fact,” Maker added, “you told us that you’d never even heard of her.”
Nat glanced at Joshua, who was keeping his eyes down to the floor. Nat chose not to say anything.
“Then how do you explain” Maker continued, “this?” From inside his pocket he pulled out a clear plastic bag. Sitting inside it was something that looked very much like Terri’s finger.
“W-what is that?” Nat asked. He glanced again at Joshua, who was rapt, staring at it. Dark Angel (or Irmtraud Bizinska) stood back, non-committal.
“Surely you recognize a dismembered finger” Dredd snorted. “Kind of thing that people like you eat for breakfast.”
Maker nodded. “Funny thing happened to us, you know. Justin and I,” he motioned at his partner, “we were just walking back from a, ahem, a team building session…”
“We like teamwork” Dredd added.
“We do.” Maker continued. “We were just heading back from it in any case, walking to our respective homes…”
“We don’t live together. It’s not that sort of relationship” Dredd interrupted.
Maker glanced at him, annoyed. “No, we don’t. Our relationship is purely professional. As I was saying, we were walking back to our respective homes, when we were almost knocked over by this couple…”
“A man and a woman” Dredd added.
“Ahem, yes, a man and a woman, who were clearly very agitated, and in a clear hurry to get away. As I say, they almost knocked us over in their haste to get away…”
“They made me drop my cigarette” mused Dredd.
“However, they calmed down considerably when they understood that we were officers of the law”
“It was my last one” Dredd said.
“They were very keen to explain what they were running from.”
“That really made me angry” Dredd said.
“From what we understood, they had witnessed a very strange occurrence whilst walking home.”
“It’s not like there are any shops that sell cigarettes near here”
“Just outside this hotel in fact”
“And Phil’s given up, so I couldn’t take one of his”
“It seems that, whilst witnessing a discussion between two people”
“Like, me being hung out of the window!” Nat burst out
“Shut up” hissed Joshua and Dark Angel, both at the same time, both for very different reasons.
Maker chose to ignore Nat. Dredd eyed him sharply, got out his notebook and murmured whilst writing “Suspect potentially mentally impaired”
Maker continued ??
? “They became aware of something on the ground, which appeared to have fallen.”
Nat went white, as if he’d just realised the implications of what he’d said. Maker stared at Nat. “Appeared to have fallen out of the pocket of someone who was hanging out of the window.” Nat looked away.
“Poor people, they were traumatized.” Dredd turned to Maker. “We should probably add causing PTSD to his charge sheet.”
“Mmmm” Maker considered this. “We’ll come back to that. To return to my story, we asked them to identify the hotel where this incident had occurred, and that led us here.”
“Imagine our surprise” he continued, “when the receptionist confirmed that one Nathan Jones had checked in only hours before”
“I wasn’t surprised” said Dredd. “I could smell the murderous, cannibalistic urge on him the first time I saw him.”
Maker smiled indulgently. “We became even more concerned, however, after retrieving the finger. DNA tests confirmed that this was indeed the finger of Miss Terri Jenkins, who, as you know” – he looked pointedly at Nat – “we were talking to you about less than twenty four hours ago.”
“How could you possibly have DNA tests?” Nat shouted.
“There, there, no need to raise your voice” Maker said.
Dredd got his notebook out again and started scribbling. “Suspect questioned police methods, in an attempt to confuse the investigation. When challenged, suspect became violent.”
“I didn’t become violent!” Nat started shouting again, then lowered his voice. “I didn’t become violent. I just don’t understand how you can have confirmed it was Terri’s finger, in a DNA test I mean, if you’ve only just found it…”
Maker and Dredd both looked sharply at Nat. “You sound remarkably familiar with Miss Jenkins” said Maker.
“Enjoy eating her, did you?” asked Dredd.
“What? No!”
Maker waved his hands in the air and nodded. “Fact is, to be honest, Nat – you don’t mind if I call you Nat, do you? Fact is, you have to admit you are in a pretty tight spot. I expect that you were counting on, or expecting, that things like DNA matching could take days, even weeks, and that you’d be able to plan an escape, or at least a decent alibi. Technological advances, however, mean that…”
“Mean that we’re not stupid” Dredd snarled. He reached inside his jacket again, and Nat flinched. “Cool it. I’m not reaching for my piece. If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be…”
“You did want me dead” Nat interrupted.
“Oh, come on Nat, stop being so hard on us” Maker said amiably. “We’re only trying to do our job. The fact is, that with technological advances, we are able to do DNA tests on the spot, as Justin is trying to demonstrate.”
With an evil look at Nat, Dredd brought out a small, black box, about the size of a glasses case. Without saying a word, he flicked it open with one hand, to show a very smooth, shiny black screen. You could just about tell it was glass because of the way that the light shone on it.
Dredd touched the screen, lightly, with his index finger and the words “Welcome, Inspector Dredd” appeared on it in glowing white letters.
“Nice” said Joshua.
Dredd glanced at him. The screen changed to “I hope that you’re having a good day!”
Maker shrugged. “American model.”
Joshua smiled sympathetically.
“DNA test” Dredd said.
A big smiley face came up on the screen. “Thank you for your instruction, Justin” flashed up. Then “I am glad that you enjoyed your meal with P…”
“Shut up!” Dredd shouted, going very slightly red. He glanced at Maker.
“It never works properly with your voice, Justin. Let me try” and he took it from Dredd, who scowled at him, or maybe at the machine.
“Can I have a DNA test please” Maker said in a light, pleasant voice.
“Of course you can” the screen lit up. “Please insert a sample or confirm subject.”
Maker reached out his hand to Nat and shook it, Nat allowing his hand to be shaken, looking confused. Maker, quickly but gently, took Nat’s hand and held his index finger on the screen for a fraction of a second, before letting go. The screen burst into lots of colours, then went black again and a message appeared “DNA collection complete. Please confirm subject’s name.”
“Nathan Jones.”
“Hang on a minute” Nat said, “Have you just taken a DNA sample from me? That’s illegal. That would never stand up in court…Give it back.” He reached for the machine but Dredd suddenly had him, pulled him back, pulled his arms behind his back and twisted, and Nat shouted, and Dredd pulled him close so that he stood behind him, their heads almost touching.
“Give me one more excuse” Dredd whispered.
“Jesus! You’re hurting me!” Nat shouted. Dredd smiled and twisted harder and Nat screamed.
“Calm down, Justin” Maker said calmly. He looked at Nat. “You were saying.” But Nat couldn’t speak, his face contorted in pain.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted to say something. You can probably let him go now” he said to Dredd, who did, reluctantly. Nat had tears in his eyes. “You… can’t… do…” he stammered.
“Do what?” Maker asked, beaming. “Did you see anything, Justin?”
Dredd was adjusting his cuffs; he shook his head. Maker looked over at Joshua and Dark Angel. “You guys?”
Joshua hesitated and Maker smiled at him. “Would you like me to demonstrate this with you?” he asked, indicating the machine.
Joshua stepped back. “Didn’t see anything.” He didn’t look at Nat. Dark Angel just kept her eyes down.
“Guys!” Nat shouted.
“Don’t be a drama queen, Nat. It’s very unfetching. Isn’t that right, Justin?”
Dredd grunted. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a drama queen.”
“Good. I’m glad we have that settled.” Maker said. “Now you see, Nat, the beauty of this particular machine is that I can take anything and test it. So, for instance, if we were to take, let’s see” – he made a show of stopping to think – “I know! Why don’t you give me the finger, Justin?”
A smile came over Dredd’s face. “Let’s do that, shall we?” He got out the bag with the broken, twisted finger. He opened the bag and took the finger out, handing it to Maker, who held it up in one hand, the machine in the other.
“The beauty of these machines” he waved the finger, “is that they can be incredibly sensitive. So, we don’t need to worry about touching things to destroy evidence. Now, let’s test this shall we. What do you say, Nat?”
Nat swallowed. He was sure that he had turned white. He looked past Maker at the door, before realizing how stupid it would be to try and make a run for it.
“Don’t leave, Nat” Maker read his thoughts. “We’re just starting to have some fun.”
“Wouldn’t want you to miss the show” Dredd said, “though you’d probably enjoy it less with a bullet in your back.”
“Well, quite. Now, let’s try this.” Maker touched the torn, bloody edge of the finger onto the screen. Again, the screen burst into colour and then dissolved back into blackness.
“It takes a few seconds” Maker explained.
“I can’t bear the suspense” Dredd said, drily.
Then a big happy face appeared on the screen. “DNA matches confirmed. The evidence belongs to Miss Terri Jenkins, whose DNA profile is already stored. It has also been handled by…”
The screen went blank again and a message came up “Wait for it…”
Maker smiled and shook his head. “They haven’t quite got the AI right.”
The screen came alive again… “1…. Detective Philip Maker.”
“Well, of course, me, I’ve just touched it, haven’t I”?
“2…. Detective Justin Dredd. That’s you, Justin.”
Dredd nodded at the machine.
“I will ign
ore you and your colleague, Justin, as clearly you are beyond suspicion” the machine said.
“Clever boy.”
“3… An unknown profile” the machine said. Dredd and Maker glanced at each other.
“And finally, Nathan Jones.”
“Looks like you’re ours, Nat” Maker said.
“May as well throw away the key. Then burn it” Dredd added.