Ken paused for a moment, letting the disembodied head turn in silence.

‘Best predictions have him taking over the Network Directorship within five years, senior position at the Ministry for Defence and Justice in nine.’

The old man nodded, holding the test tube up like a conductor’s baton.

‘And yet he claims he was here because a crime scene had been cleaned?’

Ken stroked the control pad again and schematics flashed up on the wall screens-pulse, pupil dilation, skin conductivity, thermal images. ‘All the monitors say he was telling the truth. I checked the recordings from apartment forty-seven one-twenty-two: he spent the whole time staring at the wallpaper.’

The old man set the test tube dancing again. ‘What about his employer?’

‘I threw a bit of weight around and had Governor Clark call her this afternoon: read her the riot act. Let her know she’d never get a Ministry seat if she pissed us off. By the time he was finished she was fallin’ over herself to cooperate: said she was going to have a “quiet word” with our Mr Hunter. I listened to it; she tore a strip off his ass a mile wide.’

The old man smiled. ‘Good. It would be a shame if we had to have Mr Hunter killed.’ He sat back in his chair and popped the test tube back in his top pocket. ‘Keep an eye on him, Ken. Make sure that doesn’t become necessary.’

She has no idea how long she’s been asleep: down here, in the bowels of the hospital, it’s hard to measure time. The rhythm that’s been such a major part of her life for the last six years is gone. There’s no early morning alarm, followed by feeding, followed by getting into the truck, followed by getting out of the truck, followed by scrubbing and mopping and picking up litter…She doesn’t miss the work, but her body misses the routine.

She rolls over in her nest, sits up beneath the low ceiling fan, and frowns. The storeroom is supposed to be unmanned, but she can hear giggling. Somewhere in the aisle below, two people are playing doctors and nurses.

Quietly she slides forward, peering over the wall of toilet paper. And there they are: a woman with perky breasts lying back on a big box of surgical gloves, her companion kneeling in front of her. She’s got her hands behind her head, moaning and squirming as he licks and slurps between her legs. And then it happens. The woman opens her eyes and realizes she’s being watched. She’s pretty. Not beautiful-her face is too pointed for that-but she’s definitely pretty. It is a shame she’ll have to die.

A frown flits across her face-does she tell her partner there’s someone staring at them, or does she close her eyes again and sink back into the moment?

She makes the wrong choice. ‘Norman?’

Dr Westfield would have let her come before killing her. After all, she’s not a monster. Not all the time.

‘Norman!’ The woman slaps her partner on the head and points up towards the nest of toilet paper.

‘Ow, Jesus, Kris! What was that for?’

‘Up there!’ she says, pointing again. ‘Someone’s watching us.’

‘What?’ Norman jumps to his feet and stands there, erection bobbing about like a cheeky pink sausage. ‘Jesus! Oh Jesus!’ He scrambles back into his trousers. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have come down here! Oh Jesus, we’re for it now!’

They’ve been playing doctors and nurses. Now it’s time to play killer and victims.

Dr Westfield slips out of her nest and down to the storeroom floor, spilling toilet rolls everywhere.

The naked woman narrows her eyes. ‘What’s a halfhead doing in here?’

‘Why did I let you talk me into this?’

‘I talked you into this?’

‘It’ll go on our permanent records!’

‘Oh really?’ Kris places one hand on her hip and pokes him in the chest with the other. ‘I didn’t hear you complaining five minutes ago when I was sucking your dick!’

‘I can’t afford to lose this job!’ He drags his shirt over his head and bends to grab his labcoat from the pile of discarded clothes. He doesn’t see the blow that ends Kris’s life, by the time he turns around she’s lying on the concrete floor, a pool of deep, shiny red seeping out from the back of her head.

‘Kris?’ Norman steps forward. Stops. Swallows. ‘Oh Jesus…’

He looks up at Dr Westfield, then down at the bone-hammer in her hand.

His face goes slack and he wets himself.

Calmly she steps over Kris’s body and holds up the stainless steel mallet. Clumps of hair glisten on the striking surface and she pauses for a moment to sniff the delicious coppery smell of fresh blood.

‘Oh Jesus, no…’ Tears sparkle in his big, blue eyes. ‘Please don’t kill me! Please!’ He turns to run, but his feet don’t seem to be working. He stumbles into the stack of disinfectant and goes sprawling across the blood-slicked floor.

‘No, no, Jesus no…’ Norman scrabbles away on his hands and knees, making for the door. She follows him, staying just far enough back to make him think he has a chance. She lets him get as far as the keypad before raising the hammer in her hand.

‘Three, six…three, six…’ He sobs. ‘Oh Jesus, what comes after six?’

He can’t remember the code. He knows this is his only chance of getting out of here alive and he can’t remember the code.

Something warm tingles up and down her body as she watches him struggle. She hasn’t felt this aroused in six long, dark years.

She bounces the bone-hammer off the back of his head, not hard enough to kill him, just hard enough to stun him for a while. Then she drags his flabby body into the depths of the supply room.

The man in the toilets doesn’t count-she wasn’t in her right mind when she butchered him. The Roadhugger crew were deaths of convenience and the halfheads in the back weren’t alive in the first place, so they don’t count. Kris had to die, because two people were too many to control with just a bone hammer, so she doesn’t count either. But there will be plenty of time to enjoy this one. This one counts.

‘It’s going to take a while for the machinery to analyse the data.’ George made horrible noises into his hanky. ‘You want a cup of coffee?’

‘Thought you’d never ask.’ Will sat on the edge of the postmortem table, shivering. It was freezing in here. George was wrapped up nice and snugly, but Will was as naked as the stiff on the next slab.

He hopped down to the floor. ‘Got a terminal I could use for a minute? Want to check my email.’

George pointed him at the main console, then handed him a cup of coffee and a clean-ish looking labcoat. It wasn’t much, but it was better than getting back into those gaudy tatters with blood all down the front.

Will rattled out a quick burst on the keyboard, then nodded at the little pathologist. ‘Think your connection’s down.’

‘What? It was working fine a minute ago-’

Will slapped a hand over George’s mouth and pointed at the screen.

‘I think I’ve been bugged.’

George read it, curled his top lip, then stared at Will. ‘What?’

Will poked at the keyboard with his free hand.

‘They’re probably listening right now-I want them to think the test results didn’t show anything suspicious. Understand?’

George pulled Will’s hand away and sniffed.

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

Will made a grab for the fat little man’s mouth again, but George ducked under his arm. ‘Bloody Internal Services. They’ve probably cut through the cable again.’ His podgy fingers rattled across the keyboard.

‘Might just be temporary paranoia caused by neurological trauma, but if that’s the way you want to play it…?’

Will nodded. That was exactly the way he wanted to play it.

Three cups of coffee later George returned with the test results, clutching a palmtop to his chest as if it was a hot water bottle. ‘Other than a couple of torn ligaments and a bit of dehydration you’re going to be fine.’ He handed over the palmtop and Will read the message on the screen: