Breaking Point (2 page)

‘So,’ he began, ‘I’ve got your chances of violence, read from your DNA on this chip. Are you ready?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’ Moray fought his sizeable mass to sit up straight. The exertion added to the fine sweat that lined his forehead.

Reuben switched screens and scrolled slowly through a list of red and green numbers. ‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. Here goes.’ Reuben squinted at the digits. ‘The answer is …’ He paused, churning through the calculations in his head.

‘Look, there
will
be some fucking violence if you don’t get a move on.’

‘One in four lifetimes.’

Moray appeared less than impressed. ‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Well what the hell does that mean?’

‘That on average you would commit a serious act of violence once in every four lifetimes.’

‘And is that good?’

‘It’s all right.’

‘You’ve factored in my Celtic ancestry?’

Reuben grinned. ‘If it wasn’t for that, it’d be one in forty.’

Moray made a mess of folding his newspaper and dumped it on the floor. ‘So, if I’ve got your scientific mumbo-jumbo right, once in every three hundred years or so I might get myself involved in some serious bloodshed?’

‘That’s if you lived to be seventy-five each time.’

Moray grunted. ‘Back in Aberdeen, seventy-five gets you a telegram from the Queen.’ He slumped down on the sofa, his excitement ebbing. ‘Who else are you going to test?’

‘DCI Sarah Hirst. Judith Meadows. Anyone else I can think of.’

‘And what about you?’

Reuben paused. ‘Scientists shouldn’t get involved in their own experiments.’

He fixed his eyes on the distant JCB again. It continued to gouge its way forward, almost like it was coming directly at him. He swallowed another mouthful of pure alcohol. He knew he was almost there. Just another couple of weeks of testing and Psychopath Selection would be ready. And then crime detection could change for ever.

3

SOL WATCHED MACLYN
Margulis light a final cigarette and replace his gold lighter on the table. He noted the shallow drag and the way the smoke was exhaled through pursed lips. Sol understood the sigh that accompanied it. It said ‘I don’t believe you and I’m getting impatient’. Sol’s fear jumped up another notch.

Sol stared past Maclyn at the man standing silently behind him. Valdek Kosonovski. Trouble with a Polish surname. Sol’s left leg was shaking. He was breathing hard, his lungs working overtime, but he tried not to let it show. The stench of smoke was all around him, invading him, encircling him. He had heard about this place. Somewhere in the middle of London, so deep underground you were surrounded by rocks
and
nothing else. Wide and low, the walls brown like the earth, so dark in places that you couldn’t see the corners. All the mechanics of the room visible, the wiring and plumbing and ventilation all stuck to the inside. Nowhere to hide. There were two doors at the far end, one behind a steel shutter, the other halfway along, concealing God knows what. But what had most disturbed Sol was the ceiling. It was barely seven feet high. Valdek had had to stoop as he bundled him out of the car and into the room.

Sol blinked a few times, reliving the last twenty minutes. Valdek dragging him across the room, forcing him on to the metal chair, pushing his hands on to the stark wooden table and holding them there for long second after long second. The reason for that had taken a few moments to become clear. And now the implications were making his left leg shake uncontrollably.

Maclyn Margulis leaned forward across the table and carefully placed the lit cigarette between the index finger and thumb of Sol’s left hand. Next to it on the desk was an empty tube of superglue. Sol glanced at his hands, trying to calm his breathing. His ten fingertips were slightly splayed, pads down, and in each of the crooks now burned a cigarette. Eight filterless
cigarettes
in total with eight matching spirals of smoke reaching upwards. Sol tried to guess. Five minutes, maybe. He prayed to fuck they would go out.

Sol could feel the meagre heat from the lights above. He was starting to sweat now, a cold stickiness in his armpits, a fine dusting of moisture on his forehead. Maclyn didn’t say anything. He had stopped talking while he lit all the cigarettes in quick succession and put them in place. The silence was unbearable. Central London, and you couldn’t hear anything, not even the rumble of the Tube. This far down and beyond the concrete walls lay nothing but solid rock, indifferent and unmoveable. Utterly soundproof, and only one way out. He was in a lot of trouble, and he knew it. His only hope was keeping quiet.

Suddenly Maclyn half turned. Light sparkled off the diamond studs in each of his ears. He said the single word, ‘Valdek.’

Sol watched Valdek Kosonovski walk around the table. Big and slow in his movements, his head almost scraping the ceiling. He stopped, so close behind him that Sol could smell him. The sour stench of recent exertion. There was a metallic noise, a chain maybe. And then something round his neck. Sol tensed in his chair, fingers clamped
to
the table. Valdek shifted so that he was in his line of sight. Sol saw that it was a dog lead, an old-fashioned choker. A thick silver chain with a studded leather strap. His leg began to shake more violently.

He watched the veins on Valdek’s forearms standing to attention. For a second, they were mesmerizing. His blood vessels looked welded on. Not hiding deep in the flesh, but lying on the surface, like the plumbing and ventilation of the room. Sol didn’t doubt that years of steroids and weights had played their part in the rewiring of Valdek’s blood supply.

There was another moment of utter quiet. Then Maclyn nodded, a small rapid dip of his head. The arm moved almost instantly, a violent, wrenching tug. There was a sudden burning in Sol’s throat. The links chewed into the skin of his neck, his airway utterly closed. Sol started to thrash, fighting for breath, desperate.

Maclyn stared hard into his eyes. He took a mirror out of a drawer in the table and held it up. Suddenly Sol saw it. Himself, staring back. A rasping, guttural sound escaped from deep in his throat. His face was turning red, his eyes bulging out, his mouth wide open, his tongue twitching as if he had lost control of it. This was someone
else
, some other poor fucker being tortured by the man himself, Maclyn Margulis. Sol’s eyes were blinking, wet, rapid blinks, but still he focused on the man in front of him. Maclyn Margulis. Waiting. Precious seconds watching him. The cigarettes continuing to burn. Sol knew they wouldn’t go out. Even vertical, with no air being sucked through them, the tenacious fuckers would burn with all their might. They had one job to do and they would do it perfectly.

In the mirror, Sol could see his colour changing, the red darkening, coming closer to purple. His vision was narrowing. He saw Maclyn reach under the desk and stroke his dog, calm as anything. The guttural noises were getting louder, almost as if they were coming from someone else. Sol knew he was seconds away from blacking out, and that he couldn’t tell them anything now even if they wanted to hear it. And then Maclyn nodded at Valdek again. The pressure was eased as quickly as it had come.

‘Anything new to add, Sol?’ Maclyn asked quietly.

Sol fought for air. Huge rasping breaths, something animal in the noises. He coughed and swallowed, still breathing hard. The cigarettes continued to burn their way down towards his
fingers
. Columns of ash, growing all the while, marked their progress.

Maclyn rummaged casually in one of his drawers, Sol’s bloodshot eyes on him, wide-open pupils fixed on every movement of his hands. He brought out a small metal guillotine. He placed it next to one of Sol’s thumbs. Sol started to thrash in his seat again. Maclyn turned his pale blue eyes to Valdek, who yanked on the choker.

‘Easy does it, Sol,’ Maclyn said quietly. ‘You know what this is used for? It’s for chopping cigars.’ He pushed the tip of Sol’s superglued thumb into the implement. ‘Take the tip of your thumb right off.’

Sol started screaming. He couldn’t help himself. He heard the noise echoing through the low subterranean room, bouncing off its brown walls, crashing around the sparse wood and metal furniture. A harder tug on the choker stopped him dead.

‘But don’t worry.’ Maclyn smiled, straight white teeth glinting. ‘That would be much too quick.’

Maclyn opened another drawer and pulled a fat cigar out of a box. He ran it under his perfectly straight nose, his nostrils flaring, inhaling the aroma. Sol stared down at his fingers. Eight orange
tips
stared back at him, all the time descending, burrowing their way towards his skin.

‘Smoking, drinking, drugs. All the same thing.
Vices
. Things that human beings feel they need to do. Things that take them out of themselves, let them escape for a few minutes.’ Maclyn’s voice was quiet, a calm monotone, almost soothing. ‘You smoke, Sol?’

The choker relaxed a little, Valdek releasing the tension. Sol shook his head, quick, jerky movements, the links of the chain rattling along.

‘Nor me. Not any more. In fact I don’t do any of those things these days. I mean, I sell them all, but I don’t consume.’

‘Please,’ Sol gasped. ‘
Please
…’

Maclyn raised his palm. ‘Shh. In fact, I sell a lot of tobacco. Warehouse quantities. But then you know that, don’t you?’

‘Anything, anything, I’ll do anything else, just don’t …’

Sol spun around. Valdek stayed silent and unmoving to the side of him, one thick venous arm on the choker, ready to suffocate him again.

‘The thing I don’t get, Sol, is that if you don’t smoke, why would you steal my cigarettes? And why won’t you tell me who put you up to it?’

‘I can’t, I told you, I can’t.’ Sol’s words were
sprayed
out into the air, hot and wet, the sounds of fear. ‘I just can’t.’

‘You can,’ he said. ‘You can, and you will.’

‘I mean it, anything else rather than what you’re asking me.’

‘You’ve got to ask yourself, Sol, what would you do to someone who stole half a warehouse of your very valuable tobacco products?’

Sol fought the sudden liquid feeling in his bowels, squirming in his seat.

‘You’ve heard of the phrase “living by the sword and dying by the sword”?’ Maclyn asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. He nodded at Valdek. There was another violent tug on the lead. Sol’s eyes bugged out again. An airless scratching sound rattled around his mouth.

Maclyn chopped the cigar in half with the cutter. He placed both halves in his mouth and lowered them so that they were touching two of the lit cigarettes between Sol’s fingers. With every ounce of strength Sol tried to tear his hands from the table and smash his fists into Maclyn’s mouth. But he couldn’t. His fingers were stuck fast. Maclyn drew on the two cigar ends, sucking air through, puffing the smoke out of the side of his mouth. Sol rocked back and forth, his hands static on the desk. He knew he had wet himself, a
warmness
starting to turn cold. Maclyn straightened, retrieving both lit cigars from his mouth. He spat out a small strand of tobacco.

‘Filthy habit,’ he said. ‘Disgusting. Makes me sick these days.’

He held the mirror up again and Sol stared into it. His neck was bulging, slender streaks of blood running down the skin, the chain cutting into the flesh. His face was changing again, his mouth wide open, his eyes lolling, a cold sweat sticking his short brown hair to his forehead. His chest started to spasm like his heart and lungs were about to explode. His vision blurred and narrowed. The crushing of his windpipe made him start to retch. He desperately needed to clear the blockage.

Maclyn waited another few seconds. He reached down and stroked his dog again. Then he nodded at Valdek. The grip was released, and Sol gasped for air, coughing and heaving. He turned his head and was sick on the floor. The thin lunchtime contents of his stomach mingled with the pool of urine. He wanted to wipe his chin but his hands were stuck.

Sol knew he couldn’t hold out much longer. And when he uttered the name Maclyn wanted, the man would track him down and make an example of him. A very messy example.

‘That’s fine,’ Maclyn said, blowing out more smoke. ‘If you don’t want to talk’ – Sol watched him slide a thick roll of black tape across the desk towards Valdek – ‘then don’t talk. Valdek, you know what to do.’

Valdek took the roll and unwound a length from it. Sol checked out the eight cigarettes between his fingers. A couple of minutes at most. Two minutes to decide. There was a rough feeling across his face. Valdek had pushed the wide section of tape across his mouth. Sol felt it sticking to his lips, to his cheeks, to the hair at the back of his head. Valdek wound another layer round, tighter this time. Sol couldn’t breathe through his mouth. He snorted through his nostrils, sucking in all the air he could, trying not to panic. Half a million pounds’ worth of cigarettes had seemed worth the risk. But now he knew nothing was worth this.

Belatedly, Sol wondered about the tape. No one could hear him down here, and if they had wanted to asphyxiate him they would have used the chain. He kept breathing through his nose, telling himself that he would be OK.

And then suddenly he understood. Living by the sword …

Maclyn stood up and walked around the table.
His
dog woke up and started scratching. Sol knew what was about to happen. Maclyn held both cigars and dragged on them, centimetres from his face. Sol could feel the heat. And then Maclyn forced the first of the fat cigars into his nostril, burying it deep, almost into his sinuses. Burning up through his nasal passages. Sol screamed and screamed, the noise strangled somewhere in his taped-up mouth. Then the second one, shoved right up his other nostril, the palm of Maclyn’s hand driving it up as far as it would go. And the fuckers didn’t go out. Sol’s desperate screaming needed to be fed by oxygen, and the air pulled in through his nose travelled through the cigars and made them burn. The more deeply he breathed, the more flesh they scorched. Sol was burning himself from the inside.