Carol’s eyes snapped open, heart pounding. In her dream, a heavy cell door had slammed shut, leaving her a prisoner of cold, sweating windowless walls. Still groggy from sleep, it took her a moment to realize that the familiar weight of Nelson’s body wasn’t lying across her feet. She heard footsteps, the rattle of keys being thrown on a table. A narrow sliver of light spilled through the few inches of open door Nelson required for his comings and goings. She rolled over with a groan and grabbed the clock. Ten past ten. Robbed of twenty minutes’ precious sleep by Michael’s noisy return.
Carol stumbled out of bed and pulled on her heavy towelling bathrobe. She opened her bedroom door and walked into the enormous room that made up most of the third-floor flat she shared with her brother. Half a dozen floor-mounted up-lights of different heights cast a warm and elegant glow on the room. Nelson appeared from the kitchen doorway, bouncing lightly on the stripped-wood flooring. Then he crouched and, in a leap that seemed to defy gravity, bounded into the air, touching briefly on a tall thin speaker before landing delicately on top of a blond wood bookcase. From there, he stared superciliously across the room at Carol, as if to say, ‘I bet you can’t do that.’
The room was about forty feet by twenty-five. At one end, a group of three two-seater sofas covered with quilted throws surrounded a low coffee table. At the opposite end stood a dining table with six chairs in the style of Rennie Mackintosh. Near the sofas was a TV and video on a black trolley. About half of the back wall was occupied by shelves crammed with books, videos and CDs.
The walls were painted a cool dove-grey, except for the far wall, which was exposed brickwork, with five high arched windows looking out over the city. Carol walked across the room till she could just see the edge of the black ribbon of the Duke of Waterford canal below. The city lights glittered like a cheap jeweller’s window. ‘Michael?’ she called.
Her brother stuck his head out of the narrow galley kitchen, looking surprised. ‘I didn’t realize you were home,’ he said. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘I was getting up soon anyway. I’ve got to go back to work. I was just grabbing a few hours,’ she said resignedly. ‘Is the kettle on?’ She walked across to the kitchen and perched on a high stool while Michael made tea and carried on building himself a sandwich with ciabatta, beef tomatoes, black olives, spring onions and tuna.
‘Eat?’ he asked.
‘I could handle one of those,’ Carol admitted. ‘How was London?’
Michael shrugged. ‘You know. They like what we’re doing, but could we have it finished yesterday.’
Carol pulled a face. ‘Sounds just like the Sentinel Times’s editorials about the serial killer. What exactly is it you’re doing at the moment anyway? Is it explainable in words of one syllable to a techno-illiterate?’
Michael grinned. ‘The next big thing is going to be computer adventure games with the same quality as videos. You film real stuff and digitize it and manipulate it to produce gameplay that’s as real as a movie. So we’re on to the next, next big thing. Imagine you’re playing a computer adventure, but all the characters are people you know. You’re the hero, but not just in your imagination.’
‘You’ve lost me now,’ Carol said.
‘OK. When you install the game on your computer, you’ll plug in a scanner and scan photographs of yourself and anybody else you want in your game. The computer reads that information, and translates it into screen images. So instead of Conan the Barbarian leading the quest, it’s Carol Jordan. You can import pics of your best friends or your lust objects to be your companions in the game. Anybody you don’t like, you turn into the baddies. So, you could have an adventure with Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid and Martin Amis, and fight enemies like Saddam Hussein, Margaret Thatcher and Popeye,’ Michael explained enthusiastically as he stuffed the ingredients into the bread. He dumped the sandwiches on plates and together they walked back into the living room and sat staring out over the canal as they ate.
‘Clear?’ he asked.
‘As it needs to be,’ Carol said. ‘So once you’ve got this software up and running, presumably you could use it to put people in compromising positions? Like blue movies?’
Michael frowned. ‘Theoretically. Your average computer nerd wouldn’t even know where to begin. You’d need to know what you were doing and you’d also need seriously expensive hardware to get decent quality stills or videos off your computer.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Carol said, with feeling. ‘I was beginning to think you were creating a Frankenstein’s monster for blackmailers and tabloid journalists.’
‘No chance,’ he said. ‘Anyway, close analysis would show it up. So what about you? How’s your quest coming along?’
Carol shrugged. ‘I could do with a few superheroes to help out, to be honest.’
‘What’s this profiler like? He going to shake things up a bit?’
‘Tony Hill? He already has. Popeye’s going around with a face like a melted wellie. But I’m hopeful we might get something constructive out of him. I’ve had one session with him already, and he’s bursting with ideas. He’s a nice guy as well, no hassle to work with.’
Michael grinned. ‘That must be a refreshing change.’
‘You’re not kidding.’
‘And is he your type?’
Carol pulled a piece of crust off her bread and threw it at Michael. ‘God, you’re as bad as the sexist pigs I work with. I haven’t got a type, and even if I did and Tony Hill was it, you know I won’t mix work with pleasure.’
‘Given the fact that you work all hours and spend all your spare time asleep, I guess you’re looking at a lifetime of celibacy,’ Michael replied drily. ‘So is he gorgeous, or what?’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Carol said stiffly. ‘And I doubt whether he’s even noticed I’m female. The man’s a workaholic. In fact, he’s the reason I’m working again tonight. He wants to see the scenes of crime at around the time the bodies were dumped so he can get a feel for it.’
‘Shame you’ve got to go out again,’ Michael said. ‘It’s ages since we’ve had a night in with the telly and a few bottles of wine. We see so little of each other just now, we might as well be married.’
Carol smiled ruefully. ‘The price of success, eh, bro?’
‘I guess so.’ Michael got up. ‘Oh well, if you’re going to work, I might as well do a couple of hours before I sack out.’
‘Before you go … I need a favour.’
Michael sat down again. ‘As long as it doesn’t involve doing your ironing.’
‘What do you know about statistical pattern analysis?’
Michael frowned. ‘Not a lot. I did a little bit when I was doing part-time jobbing work while I was doing my PhD, but I don’t know what’s state of the art right now. Why? You want something looking at?’
Carol nodded. ‘It’s a bit grisly, I’m afraid.’ She outlined the sadistic injuries to Damien Connolly. ‘Tony Hill has an idea they might yield some kind of a message.’
‘Sure, I’ll have a look for you. I know a bloke who’s almost certainly got the latest software in the field. I’m sure he’d let me have some time on his machine to fiddle about with this,’ Michael said.
‘Not a word to anybody what it’s about,’ Carol said.
Michael looked offended. ‘Of course not. What do you take me for? Listen, I’d rather get on the wrong side of a serial killer than you. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Just get the stuff to me tomorrow, and I’ll