Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) (24 page)

No expense would be spared in determining cause of death. The eyes of the international media were now firmly fixed on London, and the heat would continue to build until the manner of death was established.

***

Nothing. Ant had been looking out for a newspaper article to confirm that his hit had taken place as planned for three days. He realised that a run-of-the-mill murder rarely made the national press anymore, but the local press should have picked it up. Nothing had appeared on the Internet news sites, and Ant was beginning to wonder if he had been conned.

He hoped it was simply that the body had yet to be found, but something in his gut told him it wasn't true. He would give it a few days before trying to confirm himself whether Jake was still alive. Hopefully it was simply taking a while for the police to release details to the press.

If he hadn't heard anything inside a week then he would have to take matters into his own hands, and pose as a student on the telephone to determine whether or not Jake was alive.

***

'If I have to take many more samples then we'll run out of blood,' Larry joked. The coroner was a jovial sort. Morton supposed he needed to be to work with the dead all day.

'How many samples have you taken?'

'Dozens. One came back with a result.'

'What was that?' Morton inquired.

The doc spread the reports on his desk, wetting his finger to help him unstick two pages before finding the results he was looking for.

'We found taipoxin.' The doc's face had become ashen as he had read the results. It was a startling transformation. A cherub-like glee had turned sunken in a nanosecond.

'What the hell is that?' Morton's brow creased. He had never heard of taipoxin.

'It's an incredibly rare neurotoxin. I hadn't seen it before but I did some research.' The doc spun around to the desktop computer on one of the few exposed work surfaces in the room, and begun to hit hyperlinks in quick succession.

The screen glowed with reams of information, little of which made much sense to Morton.

'Taipoxin is an acetylcholine inhibitor.'

'Hey, Doc, in English?'

'Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter the brain uses to tell muscles to move. Without it, muscles don't move. That includes the heart.'

'That'd explain why he appeared to literally just stop breathing then.'

'Yes, as well as why no other symptoms were present. Whoever killed him knew what they were doing.'

'Where would one get taipoxin?'

'You don't get it, you make it. It's made from snake venom, from a particularly rare snake.'

'Which snake?'

'Oxyuranus microlepidotus.'

Morton just looked at him.

'An Australian inland taipan.' The doc looked a tad flustered at having to translate himself.

'I'm guessing those aren't found in pet stores.'

'No. Mostly zoos and the like here in Britain. The snake is the easy part though. Even once you have the snake you still need to milk huge quantities of venom, and then process the venom. You'd then need to filter it using gel filtration. That bit isn't too hard, as long as you have access to a laboratory.'

'Could it be done here?'

'Yes. We'd simply use Sephadex 75.'

'What does that do?'

'It removes certain molecules by weight. In this case, all the bits we wouldn't want in the venom would be taken out and chucked away.'

'Is that it?'

'No. The next and final part is what makes it almost impossible. You'd then need to use column zone electrophoresis.'

'You what?' Morton couldn't even pronounce it.

'You use electricity to sort by ion in an electric field.'

'Try me again.'

'You purify the toxin.'

'So who could do it then, Doc? Am I looking for a mad scientist?' Morton tried to lighten the mood.

'Can't help you there. Good luck.'

It looked like the source of the taipoxin would be the key to nailing the killer.

***

He had waited long enough. Picking up his pay-as-you-go mobile, Ant dialled the switchboard, and made his request to be put through. Moments later Jake answered the phone. He was alive.

Ant rang off. The darknet contact had broken their deal, and failed to deliver. He thrust his fist into the coffee table in anger. He had been duped.

In a fit of rage he almost threw his laptop. Before he did a small voice told him to contact the other party. A simple delay he could live with.

'You haven't carried out your end of the bargain. Why the delay? Let me know new date for delivery.'

He reread his message. It certainly made it plain he wasn't happy, but it fell short of a threat. If the situation wasn't remedied soon, the threats would follow.

CHAPTER 46: LOOSE LINKS

Edwin should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

An invisible hand had Edwin's heart in a vice grip when he saw the darknet message light appear. He had thought it was over. Eleanor was dead, and so were those who knew anything about him.

The problem was one of his contacts had baulked. He had passed on the details of the last kill personally, acting as the connection between the two without either side realising it. Now one of them had failed to carry out their end of the deal, and Ant was demanding the deal be fulfilled.

Edwin debated ignoring it. He could just play ignorant, never check the darknet messages ever again, but there was the most meagre of all chances that Ant would use his darknet details to try and track him. Edwin was perfectly willing to risk that. Indeed, the whole plan had hinged on Edwin's having confidence in his own ability to conceal both his identity and his whereabouts on the network. There was, however, a cleaner solution.

He could simply reply to the message telling him the deal was off, and slip Yosef's details into the equation somewhere. He had enough to identify him, and that way the inevitable backlash would solve a problem rather than creating a new one. It was ruthless, but Edwin had abandoned any semblance of a conscience long ago.

First, though, he would check that it wasn't simply a delay. If so, then he could urge Yosef to advance his plans and fulfil his obligations.

***

Yosef knew that his contact would realise he had not killed Jake eventually. He should never have agreed to take part in any such swap. As much as he wanted to help his son, he believed in the sanctity of life. He could at least be satisfied that, because he was going first in the deal, nobody had lost out. They could both simply walk away, having never committed a crime. All they had done was plan the murders, and as far as Yosef was concerned that was a moral crime for which he could receive redemption.

His reply was simple, and to the point.

'The deal is off. We both walk away, and pretend this exchange of messages never happened.'

It was non-negotiable, but that much was implied. His contact couldn't force him to kill somebody, and as they had lost nothing it was likely they would simply move on to find another prospect. He doubted he was the only one in London who knew how to work a computer and be willing to accept such a deal. All Yosef could do was pray for their souls.

***

London Zoo had two inland taipans. They were the only known examples of the species in the capital. As a potentially lethal animal anyone who wanted to keep them was required by law to obtain a licence to do so under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976. These were granted by the local council to prospective owners after they had proved that they could care for the animal safely and securely. Morton thanked his lucky stars for such bureaucracy. Normally, such rules and layers of red tape were the bane of his existence, but in the Fitzgerald case the snake venom was the only real lead he had to go on. The need for a licence showed how finite a pool of suspects there were for the murder. They had to get the venom from somewhere, after all, and fewer people still would be able to process it properly.

He called out to the WPC who was now acting as his personal assistant.

'Stevenson! Five minutes, we're going to the zoo!'

It was one of the oddest commands that WPC Stevenson had heard in her time at the Met, and she couldn't help but be a wiseass, even though she knew Morton might chew her up for it later.

'OK, Daddy, will you buy me an ice cream?' She smirked, but grabbed the car keys all the same.

***

It was clear Yosef had no intention of carrying out the hit he had agreed to. Edwin could engage in verbal sparring with him over the darknet, but it would be of no use. It would be far better to let Yosef think he had accepted the withdrawal, and simply pass his details on to Ant. If there was one thing Edwin had learnt as a newspaper editor it was that, when possible, you let someone else deal with your mess. Edwin had never been a fantastic writer, but his ability to delegate was extraordinary.

He knew he would have to slip the information in casually. Not:

'Sorry, couldn't fulfil on time. My kid was in hospital due to his Tay-Sachs. When next? Yosef'

That one message would probably be enough to identify him, but Edwin wanted to string Ant out a bit further. There wasn't much benefit to it, other than gaining him credibility for slipping info in, but Edwin had begun to enjoy the feeling of power that surged through him when he successfully manipulated people.

CHAPTER 47: SNAKES

WPC Stevenson wouldn't stop talking. She had a tendency to babble when excited, and it been non-stop since they got in the car.

'Did you know the reptile house is almost a century old, and it was used to film Harry Potter in?'

Thankfully, it was a short car journey. The keeper in the snake house had readily agreed to talk to them when they had phoned ahead. When they got there, the snakes were waiting, as was the keeper.

'Hi, are you the keeper we spoke to on the phone?' Stevenson opened her mouth before Morton could raise a hand to stay her.

'I'm not a keeper, but yes, we did speak on the phone.' A wry smile appeared on Dr Philippa Aldridge's face.

'If you're not a keeper, what are you then?' It was Morton's turn to seize the lead in the conversation.

'I'm a herpetologist. I study amphibians,' she explained.

'We're investigating a death involving taipoxin. Who could have access to your inland taipans?'

'Anyone with a key to that door.' She pointed at the keeper’s entrance allowing access to the rear of the tanks.

'Got a list?'

'Nope, but I can tell you no one's been near these babies but me.' Her voice was strong and confident.

'How's that?'

'Look there.' She was pointing at the corner of the snake habitat. It took a moment for Morton to spot what she was gesturing at. London Zoo had installed web cameras in the cages to help monitor all the animals, as well as provide marketing footage. Anyone who had been in contact with the snakes would have been on the video.

'We're going to have to see the footage,' Morton said calmly. She had just made herself the only viable suspect, and Morton doubted this woman was a deadly killer. He'd check her alibi anyway, but his gut was rarely wrong.

'Sure thing, just talk to our IT department. They keep it for about six months before it gets trashed.'

'Thank you for your time, Dr Aldridge.' Morton nodded respectfully as they made their departure.

***

It was obvious that the contact was a time-waster. Ant had exchanged dozens of messages with him, and he was still no closer to getting the deal upheld. They had agreed that it would be carried out the previous evening, but once again the darknet contact was full of apologies and excuses when Ant confirmed that Jake was still breathing. It simply wouldn't suffice. Ant would have to do it himself. He already had blood on his hands, so the risk of a second life sentence was not much of a deterrent. He'd been in jail already, and he knew that being known as a mass murderer would actually get him respect in the joint. With a reputation for multiple kills the rumours would spread, and no one would dare touch him. He might be back inside, but it wasn't as bad as the general public thought. He could even do a degree for free, when on the outside he'd be charged nearly nine large per year. Ant chuckled; so much for its being a punishment.

A decent lawyer and he might even get away with it. He could act crazy if it would see him walk away scot-free. It was time for Ant to take matters into his own hands.

***

Morton's hunch was on the money. The herpetologist was clean. No one else had been near the snakes, and she hadn't been on the ferry. It was possible she'd milked the snakes and sold the venom, but her lifestyle was modest and nothing in her financials suggested such impropriety.

The IT techs said the video file was clean too, so Morton could rule out tampering there to cover up illicit access. That left three categories for possible access to the snakes: other licensed dealers outside London but in the UK such as other zoos, unlicensed owners, or foreign import. The research said that the venom remained viable for a considerable period after it was milked, and with proper storage it was perfectly possible that access had happened months ago, or that the venom was shipped in. It was the only angle that the police had to pursue on the forensic front, but it was beginning to look like a dead end.

Morton sighed. It looked like the investigation would need to delve more deeply into the victim's past, which he knew was tied up with the previous attack by the late Peter K Sugden. He suspected that the whole thing might be a tangled web of insider trading, but he just couldn't find the right thread to pull to start unravelling the mystery. It pained Morton, but it was time to swallow his pride, and go talk to the dandy from the FSA.

***

To get the job done properly, Ant knew he would have to do it himself, and he firmly believed that there was no point putting off until tomorrow that which could be done today. His plan was already coming together. This time, it would be fatal. The kill would take place in another city, and he hadn't had contact with the victim in a long time.