7
The Quad breakfast catch-up and more. 69 Hanbury Street.
Thicke is scouring through the logs. He only has a few more to go through. The red signal in the screen on top of his head, where he sits, shows that another crime had been committed in the city. Everybody ignores the signal. Chloe and Agim are obsessed with the facial data. They keep on mining more codes and browsing more data. Chloe hasn’t slept for two days. She hasn’t eaten well either. Agim has been doing the same. Unable to function like normal human beings, they both have chosen to spend longer hours in the office. Thicke felt like he must do something about it, so he offered them sleeping pods by the Old Spitalfields Market. Agim refused or at least he said that he will do so this afternoon after he gets some more results first and then Chloe just hasn’t even thought about it at all. Thicke has organised a collegial breakfast meeting with everybody. The round table is plenty enough in size to fit everybody around. Two portions of full English and two portions of continental breakfasts are served. Maria, the Brazilian chef is the one pillar of the house that glues these people together. Although Thicke had tried to reduce her hours as most of the time he has been eating outside, lately he has had a change of heart. He knows that Maria is there for them, in situations like this. Unable to go out to fetch food, they bestowed to the idea that food is served and is served nicely in-house.
‘I am about to complete the whole set of London Data. Nothing out of the ordinary is noticed. So far anyway.’ Thick said with his head down. ‘Any news on the facial front?’ He asks by looking at Chloe. ‘No Bill. Nothing yet. We have scoured through dozens of files, but nothing is inconsistent. Very much all the people we come across it feels like we know them all. They look very familiar with each other, and they are all the bloody same.’ Agim is mouthful but feels like he wants to say something before Kwame starts to talk. ‘I think CCTVs would give us better angle. As far as I am concerned all these mobile CCTVs aren’t capturing what they are supposed to capture. I see a lot of them are targeting food transporters or traffic queues but nothing any inconsistencies in terms of human behaviour!’ He waffles his bacon and sausage bite all at once. Thicke is not sure whether the overall focus ought to be on human behaviour only, facial recognition or even transport data. Because he knows full well that the chances are that the killer is within their midst, in town, in London and that the killer seems to know londoners habits. He understands something about their psyche and their weaknesses. He pulls his smart phone and closes the blinds in the room whilst opening the presentation sheet in the wall next to the screen. The red signal still flashes but no one seems to have noticed yet or they have but they are not very much interested in it as they are too hungry to be distracted. In the case of Chloe and Agim they are too tired to even contemplate in taking on new material. The sheet opens and Thicke pointing the beam from his smartphone draws three circles symbolising the three lines of enquiry. He also draws a squared box on top of the circles to symbolise the Pyramid that the killer draws when victims are found in the street. ‘This.’ Thicke pointing at the facial circle ‘is one enquiry that will bear us no results whatsoever. So, what I want us to do is cancel enquiries there.’ Chloe doesn’t know whether she should be relieved or mourn about this decision. Whereas Agim is more circumspect and awaits to hear more. Chloe keeps on looking at Agim but doesn’t receive any reaction at all. He is more interested in filling up his tummy. ‘This.’ Thicke pointing at the CCTV data ‘is our key to seeing things, to feeling the murderer, to intercepting any inconsistencies and to be able to seize any opportunities we may have out there. I think…’ He points at the third circle ‘That the best chances are that we will find something on these mobile drones. These are our lifelines. I will, in the meantime be making a few enquiries by interviewing people, eye-witnesses in the retail parts of the area.’ He points the beam on the pyramid ‘I think that the pyramid is a statement, a message, a supernova which is staring us in the eye and telling us something. Anyhow!’ he wipes his mouth and slurps more tea before getting up and saying ‘So, what I want you three to focus on is that circle over there…’ He points at the CCTV. ‘I will be heading for the spots to see if I can get some people to talk.’ He leaves the table, grabs his jacket, takes his taser and heads off for the door. Chloe, Agim and Kwame look at each other. ‘Is it me or has he just reduced our workload! So, our workload is getting smaller!?’ Agim said. ‘Huh, I wish. This is not a smaller job I can tell you that. I think this has become more significant. I think he is onto something but isn’t telling us.’ Chloe adds. ‘What do you mean?’ Kwame asks posing innocent. ‘What are you telling me that this isn’t beyond Bill’s nature to overlook the workload and not care a damn think just because this case is bothering him!? Really?’ Chloe said. Kwame and Agim aren’t convinced and are not showing any signs of a slight suspicion that they might have on Thicke’s behaviour. ‘He’s just under pressure. A lot of pressure!’ They both comment simultaneously. Chloe patting her lips, drinks her water and heads back at the desk to see what the new reassignment means for her. ‘Thank you, Maria. As always, a beautiful breakfast. I loved it. We loved it. Didn’t we boys!?’
**
His overcoat feels sometimes too big on him. He even says that to people he meets for the first time. Like when he met Tim, who owns his pub, and it is Thicke’s ‘resting place’, or it has been for a while now. ‘Ah hello stranger.’ Tim said. ‘Hello, hello. Would love the usual please!’ Thicke asks. The usual is the dry gin with a stint of coke and Jack Daniels. Three shots in one go. ‘Hardcore today mate!?’ Tim responds. ‘I know, I know. It’s a tough day at work. I am not getting the results I want.’ He absorbs the first shot while Tim is prepping the other one. ‘Well. You know how to deal with that though…don’t you!?’ Tim adds. Being a former cop himself and a good colleague of Thicke, for Tim giving advice when he notices his friend when he is a little bit down, is the least he can do. ‘I wouldn’t care about the presentation, stamina of the Met or even what the public think. I would just go for the big bazooka. I would just park all of my tanks in their lawn and aim for their eye-sights!’ Tim responds. Takes his apron and asks one of his staff to take over. ‘Don’t charge him. He is a cop. He is trouble.’ He tells his staff. ‘Cheers. Thanks mate. A minor contribution to my already shitty reputation.’ Thicke responds. Tim walks away. ‘Brenda throws me my wallet please!’ Tim shouts from the door. ‘Primitive prick. Can’t believe you still carry a wallet!’ Thicke said. With his mate gone out following his dreams. Thicke continues to live enraged on his own world. He starts talking to Brenda, but one thing doesn’t stop bothering him. The wallet, the wallet, the wallet. ‘Sorry Brenda I must dash.’ He pulls a tanner from his side pocket and heads off. He rings Agim and asks him to see if amongst the last victim’s belongings if there are any wallets or personal items that are found? ‘No!’ is the answer from Agim. Now, fielding more questions in his head he asks Kwame if he can send him the toxicology report on the victim. He bites his fingers. Throws the butt of the cigarette on the floor and looks at it does not extinguish. Troubled by the pressure of looming insoluble situation, he stares at the fag unbent but onto something. He walks the distance to the taxi rank and asks the driver to take him to Hanbury Street. He arrives at Hanbury Street and asks the driver to stop right outside Poppies. The crowd of food delivery drivers swarming around by the Adidas wall provides him with a challenge. He must ask politely if they could help him with the enquiry. ‘Does any of you smoke?’ He asks to much of everybody’s surprise. ‘No!’ they all shake their heads. ‘That’s good he says!’ ‘I do but I only smoke the wrapped stuff. The green stuff.’ They all laugh. It’s about twenty of them, London vibrant youth. Thicke laughs. ‘Of course, you do.’ He responds. ‘Listen lads. I need a huge favour from you all.’ He says almost in a calm and ‘rally the troops’ manner. ‘I need you to form a perimeter of protection around this distance.’ He draws in the ground a semi-oval shaped line from wall to wall, covering a long batch of the pedestrian area together with the cycle lane and the main road. ‘Now, I need you all too see if you can identify cigarette butts for me. Anything you find you just point them to me, and I will collect and put this in this bag!’ He shows the bag up. They take their helmets off placing them in the wheels of their bikes. Some of them laugh and think that this is ridiculous and some others almost in a noticeably louder voice say that he is a famous cop and needs help. Almost thirty-three cigarette butts are collected and put in a bag. Thicke is extremely happy. ‘Does it mean we can go speeding now and not get stopped by police!?’ One of the youngest drivers shouts from amongst the crowd. Thicke after thanking them for their help, tells them to send their tickets to his office if they get caught speeding. They all laugh but Thicke doesn’t. He walks down the road heading straight for the office. ‘I need to verify all these cigarette butts…asap!’ Thick tells his team. Agim volunteers, picks up the bag and while looking at it he says: ‘I thought we collected those when we done the cleaning up!?’ They all look at Thicke for a response. ‘I believe they haven’t done a good job. I wouldn’t pass our minds that they have missed something important and significant.’ They all nod. Agim rushes to the lab to run the tests whereas Chloe has a few items to catch-up with Thicke. ‘As we were closing in the session earlier, we run into this!’ She shows him three pictures of random faces. ‘Who are they?’ Thicke asks impatiently. ‘Well. We run a few checks and find out that these two, the blonde woman and the bold headed guy do not seem to reside or work or have any kind of attachment to the city. They come from Scotland. The other one is a German citizen who resides in Swindon but has not particular attachments to the city. I mean, you know he could be a tourist for all that we know. But I think our best bet is to start by interviewing them as soon as we possibly can and see where that takes us. I have spoken to ‘Legally Matters’ and they are willing to give us an injunction provided that this has enough, strong and justifiable grounds for an interview.’ Thicke without any hesitation says, ‘Go ahead. Also, please, please make sure that I have something by this Friday as I need to send the investigation logs to the Met.’ ‘But interviewing will take at least three days.’ Chloe said. ‘Well, try and make it three of them in one day please!’ ‘Of course. She responds.’ Thicke sits in his desk and scurries through some paper. ‘You heard about the missing Museum staff, didn’t you?’ Kwame tells Thicke. ‘No. I missed that.’ Almost complacently but with a preoccupied mind Thicke rises on his feet. ‘Oh yes. She has been missing for three days now. No one has come forward with any information at all. I tell you what this one has weird stuff in it.’ Kwame walks away leaving Thicke with an increased curiosity. What does this mean for him and his company! What does it mean for his involvement and whether there are implications for his cases – are all the questions that he asks himself and they go through his head fleetingly.
Results from the cigarette butts flow in. DNA samples of twelve people sap in the list of cigarette puffers. For Thicke this could mean something or its just nothing at all. He looks at the data with the hawks’ eyes. He is not trembled that much. Gazes at the report that was given to him and in an uninterrupted gory way tears the paper and chucks it in the shredder. Chloe looks at him surprisingly. She is not moved by the action as much as by the typical rushed decisions that Thicke makes when he is tense and frustrated. She reprints the same sheet and goes to Thicke to show him inconsistencies. ‘There’s one person who’s only smoked once and thrown the butt of the cigarette in the area you searched – it’s her -!’ She shows the picture of a blonde woman in her early thirties. ‘…and guess what! She lives just round the corner, and she works in the Museum. We just heard that a person who works at the museum has gone missing. Coincidence? Or what?’ Now, that statement draws Thicke’s attention. He is bound to ask the regular question, the one that matters but unknowingly unaware that he should probably know better. ‘Where was this particular cigarette butt found?’ Chloe is found confused and not sure how to respond to that. ‘I don’t know! This was part of the whole bag you brought in from the ciggy butt collection!’ ‘Aha. Of course.’ Confusingly responds Thicke. ‘But…aha. OK. Of course. It makes sense. Run me the CCTV roll for Hanbury Street and let’s see what happens. Isn’t too far-fetched whatever Thicke is brewing in his mind. Isn’t too far-fetched. The sense that he will have to crack on with a focused mind, undeterred to solve the most peculiar of the crimes that is haunting the city. Kwame comes back with more results from the facial recognition platform. ‘I think I have found another inconsistency boss!’ Thicke stops looking at the picture he has in front of him of a woman whom he encountered many times down the street or so he thinks. ‘Go ahead. What are we talking about!?’ Thicke responds back to Kwame.
‘I think the same woman you have there appears in many streets of London until the late hours of the night.!’ The ‘late hours of the night’ inference frustrates Thicke. ‘I don’t know. I mean. What do you expect me to believe that every person who roams streets of London freely should be a suspect now!?’ Kwame leans back standing upright. ‘No, What I mean is that she does this almost with a military precision. She is consistent about it. She is regular and she does seem to disappear off the radar. I checked the trail and couldn’t see her coming through the door at her address just round the corner. How does she slip through!? That’s all asking boss.’ Thicke can see the tension and frustration rising on Kwame’s face. Not sure how to respond that, whether to take it as an outburst or just a glitch in sometime frosty relationship that they have. But Chloe comes into the rescue. ‘I think Kwame is right. I think that we should regard her as a suspect. We should, at least consider putting some resource in checking her out. We need to do that.’ Thicke isn’t convinced that they should rush into making her the suspect. ‘ Ok. Let’s look at her profile. Let’s see what she has to offer.’ He picks up his jacket and his smartphone and he is out. Kwame and Chloe resume the work on profiling the suspect whereas Agim is sitting there in the corner of the room biting into his red apple and making faces ‘I told you so!’.
8
Tabitha’s body has been frozen. So frosty that Amelia fingers are stuck like a glue when she checked her pulse to see if ‘Just in case’ there’s any signs of weird resilience, strange come back. ‘You never know with frozen bodies’ She mutters to herself. She pulls the frozen body from this super thin tray which stretches from corner to corner of the walking freezer room. There is a lot of containers in the room with some weird chemical names. Glutaraldehyde, methanol, alkaline, betadine but no ‘formaldehyde’ or ‘phenol’. The body has gone all heavy. Amelia is surprised from the sheer weight of it. The body in the tray is pulled away from its pocket and put on top of a table, which is adjacent to the four-level tray/rafts. With her mask on and the white coat, gloves, and a tray full of instruments, Amelia looks like the typical surgeon only in this occasion she is about to experiment on a dead body, a curiosity that has chased her from a very young age. She begins her incision from the lower part of the body. She notices as she is cutting through the area just above Tabitha’s toes, that there are still some pockets of fluid blood, live blood which sprinkles in her face due to sheer force of the metal cutter she is using to separate bone and tissue. The Blaupunkt electric saw stumbles on something hard on the bony part of Tabitha’s heel. ‘It’s metal.’ She says in exasperation. ‘What!’ She mutters further. She pulls her screen cover off her face and wants to see more before she cuts further. She notices that the cut through its going to be extremely difficult. She must change the saw. She picks up the more sharper and titanium made plate cutter. She replaces it quickly enough whilst looking at her watch. She is in a hurry. The loud ACDC music is about to explode. She pulls her remote control from her chest pocket and pauses the sound before she goes for the room to see if the temperature in the walking fridge is levelled enough for the next task. Never realising that the steel structure inside Tabitha’s heel is an implant that she might have gotten when she was in Africa. She stops for a moment and takes a deep breath. She starts thinking about Tabitha, the suffering she has endured when she was in Africa and all the stories, she has told her when they were two good friends. She sheds a tear or two, takes her mask off, lights up a cigarette and then spends some time looking outside her balcony, seeing people move about, living, breathing, and going by their lives. A thought comes at her, out of the blue. She might be able to access the black market for human frozen remains. She knows Xi. He is a formidable character well out of touch with the reality and very much so in the human body black trade. She scours through her phone trying to find Xi’s name amongst a dozen of others. She has five numbers under his name. Xi-Work, Xi-Bath, Xi-Abroad meaning China and Taiwan, Xi-Disco, Xi-RRE. The last number is Xi’s personal number. Nobody has that number apart from her. It is another matter if you ask how she managed to fetch that number out of him. It is a long story. Amelia’s Cambridge years have been driven partly by the persistent drug taking and drug dealing. The well-known, super bright, easy going, flamboyant Amelia tried all that stuff. She was not shy of experimenting stuff. I mean drugs was the least of things she would be taking. She would also be doing all sorts of dirty jobs for Xi. He was her pimp for a while at uni. I mean, for a period everybody thought that she is the ringleader who pulls all the strings. Whether you wanted a professor threatened or seduced or wanted to threaten that an institution would go in flames if certain conditions were met – I mean all these machinations, intricacies of hardcore power, Amelia and Xi were the prominent ones. She fell pregnant when she was only eighteen or so. The first three months at university she was having to deal with the idea of carrying a child, bearing responsibility for which she was never expected to worry about. Xi was irresponsible and didn’t want to know until she aborted and sent him the aborted foetus in a Dolce @ Gabbana especially made box from ivory bones with an oversized and used condom as a reminder that he ‘won’t fuck with her’. Xi was going to make her pay for the disrespectful gesture but decided not to go ahead with it due to some respect he still retained for her – mainly to do with his plans of using her for more incoming business, exploiting the new Chinese and Japanese students who were due to begin their first term at the university. Not much happened at that time and Amelia fell out with Xi. He started to get jealous because the strumpet Amelia had many one-night stands with the rival teams which caused Xi to lose some trade but also nerves until one day he approached her, apologised to her, profoundly and meaningfully. Soon after that round of apologies, they both set off on a skiing trip to Switzerland. It was a tough month. Xi received the news from Taiwan that his mother had committed suicide and that his father had been arrested on suspicion of murdering his mother. ‘Rich crisis, poor choices’ Amelia would say to him when they heard of the news. Xi wanted to know more what she meant by that, and the only explanation Amelia could give is that ‘…this kind of life is like wearing an oversized coat of your father or mother when you are ten or twelve and everybody things that you look ridiculous!’ Xi wouldn’t understand still. He’s never been poor enough to understand the inter-sibling wearing and exchanging of clothes when not enough is around to be had. For Amelia, renewing old friendships is more about how to frame a new way forward. She is a lost soul if she doesn’t have a purpose. She remembers the first words her mother told her when she was taken to a boarding school, vanishing in the thin air because Mummy and Daddy wanted to travel the world. ‘Don’t look back my child, don’t look back. Look up and investigate your heart. In the heart you will find the will to forgive me, us one day!’ For a young child barely ten years old, those were very powerful words that either turn you into steel or melt you away like a butter slice in a toasted bread slice. Amelia became stony faced and rock hearted. She didn’t find much time to reclaim her childhood innocence because all she knew what to do was to decimate the thought that she has any boundaries. There were no boundaries, there was no one there who could tell her in the most honest way that she should or shouldn’t do a certain ting or tell her that the limits of thought and deeds apply to her. Looking back to those years, she inhales the cigarette and blows the smoke away forming a dispersed cloud which dissipate as quick as her memories, her thoughts, her regrets. She shuts the balcony door and heads back to the walking freezer. The steel cutter cuts through better. As she is cutting through Tabitha’s steel plated heel, Amelia feels energised almost like a new purpose has been implanted on her. She realises that she has much more to say and do and much more purpose to give birth to. The cutting goes much smoother and the blood clots on the legs are a telling story of a Tabitha which was going to die anyway. ‘If not yesterday, probably today or tomorrow or next month…but this weak mammal was going to die soon.’ She mutters to herself.
Eighty-seven pieces sliced up. The biggest challenge was the blood pockets in the throat area. There’s blood everywhere. The five containers that she placed them under the table are already full. She weights the containers and overall total of blood in litres is eight and a half. She doesn’t know if she is going to strike a deal with Xi on the blood situation. She needs to ask the question at least! After a quick fag in the balcony, she resumes work of storing up the icy plates. The danger she foresees now is the melting of the ice and the contamination of tissue. She needs to store it at a minus ninety degrees Celsius. She takes two food freezer bags and sticks one lower torso slice covering a centimetre of cut vagina and anus and one slice of middle head area including a slightly visible eyes and all underlayer of the brain. The lower body slice is much bigger so she puts that in a bigger but thinner bag so it can be seen, whereas the upper body slice is much smaller, and she places it on a smaller bag. She removes a few bits of hair which are still attached to the back layer of the sliced-up piece and places it in another smaller bag which it has written on it ‘Soho 3’. She pushes the sliding metallic tray onto the shelf and pulls the thick silicon covers down. Two bags to take away and eighty-five or so left to trade.
**
Xi is hard to find. Partly due to the nature of businesses he deals with and partly because he is the most sought-after trader in the black market of icy meat. The growing appetite for icy meat has increased the demand in the city of London. No one is safe these days to assume that if one fits a particular criterion and it is within the reach of possibilities – one is gone, frozen and sold as a product of sophisticated dish requirements of the cultish forbearers of doom. Amelia doesn’t really care that much. She disembarks from Greek Street and heads towards Dean Street. There are a lot of people in the much more polished street but avant-garde in its outlook. Now street painters have taken over the street and where there was once the tranquillity of eatery and nightlife, now this street has been turned into mishmash of legit trade and dark informants whom you can’t see how and where they are operating. Amelia’s trained eye for these things distinguishes her from any normal person. She spots one of the suspected networkers. Sat in one of the highest stools in the ‘Jinping’ bar, he bestows confidence and resonates monetary security. He reminds her of Xi and his attitude towards all things life and fighting the despair. She approaches a stall which sells dried melons and rare Asian nuts. She asks for the price of a kilo of salted almonds. The old stylist tells her the price. Amelia uses the price opening to talk to the stylist a little bit longer while she is not moving here eyes staring at the guy sitting only a few yards away from the stall. He can’t see her although he is scoring his eyes everywhere, but she can see him. She knows this guy is the one she needs to approach. She picks up the nuts that the stylist wrapped it for her but forgets to pay the old lady. Only if it wasn’t for the old lady’s loud Cantonese scream, Amelia was going to walk away without pay. Suddenly the man’s attention is drawn to the stylist and Amelia. She hopes he is going to move his eyes away, but he doesn’t. She tries not to look at him. Her sunglasses provide her with an edge in her seeing him and him not able to know that. She thought she shouldn’t have worn the short skirt today. Apart from that she had her hair let down and the tight pink top make her an unusual customer of an Asian rare nuts stall. She pays the old lady and then moves west towards the far end of Dean Street. She doesn’t look back but can feel that somebody is behind her.
‘You don’t strike me like somebody who happens to stroll downtown only to buy some nuts!’ Says the voice from behind. Amelia turns her head and stops. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Ahhh come on. I know you are after something. Are you a cop? Because if that is the case than I will leave you alone. Not interested in dating cops.’ He responds. ‘Who said I was interested in dating someone?’ She rebuts quickly. ‘I don’t know. It’s just that you looked at me strangely earlier when you pretended to converse tot that old lady.’ She takes her sunglasses off, stares at him and says ‘I need to see him. Its urgent. Tell him I have something for him.’ The geezer panics, takes his glasses off and almost in a pleading way says, ‘How do you know him?’ ‘I know him because I used to go out with him, and I went to uni with him, and he is a prick anyway. So, make sure you tell him that too.’ The geezer looks around ‘You can’t say things like that about him. He is a good man.’ He comes really close to her almost touching her nose. Three other men appear out of nowhere and they surround Amelia. She doesn’t care. ‘Tell these other idiots to move away or I will scream rape.’ He gestures to tell them that he is ok. They ignore him initially but soon they leave. ‘Look.’ She tells the geezer. ‘Just tell him I have the ice. Lots of it. Fresh. Two days old. Ask him to ring me and if he is interested, I will come and meet him tomorrow first thing in the morning. Tell him not to waste my time if he thinks he can bullshit me because I know he is big in this trade. Goodbye soldier. Try harder on dating next time. You need charm. You aren’t got any master!’ She heads back via Dean Street onto Greek Street and then disappears off onto Trafalgar Square for some pigeon watching. But Xi doesn’t waste his time. He rings her. ‘Hello. Ma just told me all about you. Wow. Long-time no see. You know I can’t meet you. But I will be interested to get hold of that ice if you are interested in selling. I am attending the festival tonight. Do you want to come?’ She didn’t expect for things to turn out so quickly. She wants to think about it but then it has been tough two days and she needs to take her frustration away, so she says yes ‘But, in one condition!’ ‘What’s that?’ Xi responds. ‘I want you to promise me to buy the whole lot!’ Xi responds with a casual ‘Don’t worry about it. I am sure I can afford it. I will be there at around seven tonight. Ma will give you the address if you wait at the ‘British Empire’ pub by the firefighters station.’
The journey all the way to Hanbury Street was a happy one. She feels that she has just pulled off one hell of a deal. Xi can open the avenues for her and she can just kick out the nine to five boredom and do something that she finally will enjoy. She doesn’t know how and when is going to be the final one. Contemplating that the way Tabitha has fallen out with her and all the malarkey about hard life and never being able to be happy. I mean for Christ’s sake women pull yourselves together and have some guts to live in a real world. Not enough had been misspent living a life of lies and untruths and then coming round telling the world that you had suffered and that we owe these people their lives. Don’t think so. She mutters to herself as she is about to enter her front door. She took a shower and dug some of her clothes out of her wardrobe. There’s so much to choose from and goes for the slim blue dress with a silver shiny belt around her belly, no bra, no knickers just free commando and red lips with her hair down. That’s what she imagined for a second whilst she was staring at the blue dress. She goes back into the walking fridge and looks at the tray that she worked on earlier today. Temperature is picking up, but she flicks it a bit higher to mean colder. Its minus ninety-five now and that will be it for the evening. A small handbag and her smartphone that’s all she needed to take with her but then she realised she needs to take her tampon. It’s the menstrual week. She needs all precautions. Car waiting outside is Xi’s people. She hops on and a woman driver tells her to switch her phone off immediately because of the tracking risk. Down the road, there are a lot of drone CCTV’s scouring the area. ‘there’s been a murder around here the other day and they are all over the place.’ The woman driver says. ‘They as in who…?’ Amelia asks. ‘Sorry, meant to say the police. All these drones are just doing my heading. I had one peering over my window while I was reading threw me the laser into my eyes and nearly sent me blind.’ Amelia looking uninterested but curious to know why should she switch off her phone now so early ‘Why do I have to switch the phone off now? I mean we have quite a long journey I believe. I need to send a few emails at work. I will switch off the phone once I am done with these.’ ‘No problem of course. Let me know when you are ready to move.’ She pulls up just outside the All-Saints boutique and stares at Amelia half frustratingly. ‘No, it’s fine, no its fine. Here we are I am switching it off. Let’s move on. I don’t want to be late.’
“Welcome to Rare Costumes Grange Festival” the big sign off A3 motorway the Northington Down junction. The road is snaky and dark elevating slightly to the top where four guards standing there with torches pointing the light at the driver almost blinding her. ‘Christ’s sake.’ She mutters. Amelia only looks on unable to say anything. Wanting to keep quiet. The car drives for another mile or so and then it follows this road up the hill and then left onto a sloped road. ‘Here we are young lady.’ The driver says. She can tell that she is a former well-trained military, hard-nosed and brutish looking, she opens the door wide. Another woman standing with her hands on top of one another in dark glasses awaits Amelia. She greets her ‘Welcome to the Grange. Please follow me ma’am.’ Amelia obeys and follows her. The pathway all the way to a cottage which is attached to the car park is all lit up with little fire batons. Its dark but the person in front is wearing dark what seemed to be sunglasses. The helicopter noise from afar draws Amelia’s attention. But she is keen to follow the person in front until they arrive at the front of the cottage and then two well-built men take over from her and ask her to hop on a car with them. The Apple car is of a tremendous size. Very spacious inside and a glass of cocktail has already been opened for her sitting in a tray in the split part between the two seats at the back. Amelia is very thirsty. She glurps the drink and leans back whilst enjoying the hovering vehicle sliding down the slope heading towards somewhere she can’t see or know. They approach a gigantic house which is right at the top of the hill all lit up and looking glorious. Amelia begins to think slightly more seriously about any shortcomings she may have. Now, it is serious stuff. She can smell it. She can sense it. She knows it. The car pulls outside the main entrance to the house. A long-legged brunette with very long hair is waiting outside. Amelia steps out and is greeted by the brunette who asks her to follow her into the house. At the far end of this corridor there’s a man standing, waiting. ‘Good evening Ams!’ He shouts from the seat. Amelia wants to have a better look at him before responding. For some reason he doesn’t sound like Xi. She gets closer and the man turns around on his sofa. She doesn’t recognize him at all. He is much bouncier and fatter. He stands up and looks her in the eye. ‘You have changed so much. My god. You always looked beautiful. Even after all those years uh!’ In a way, Amelia feels like she doesn’t want to know who this person is. Although she knows very well that Xi has undergone some kind of deep tissue plastic surgery and he looks ugly but, also, he can pass by passport controls without any problems whatsoever. ‘What have you done to yourself Xi!?’ She asks him curiously. ‘Ah well I have engaged in a mission to transform the world. Come and sit down. Let’s talk before our event. I like your dress by the way!’ He escorts Amelia to the lounge which is more than just a lounge – far from it – it’s a huge library hall with many rare books and about three or four computers scattered around the four corners of the room. ‘It’s empty you see. We can talk. I need first to know who this person is? Whose life, was it? And I need to have a health certificate to know before we proceed.’ She looks at him with a surprising itch. ‘Health certificate? Go away. You are never going to get that. I mean she is dead and frozen, sliced up and ready for the market. Listen. I don’t have to make any deals you know. I can just find someone else to do the trade.’ She drinks from the glass while she doesn’t stop looking at Xi. ‘Ok, ok. I just don’t want that person to have had disease. That’s all!’ ‘She was my mate for fuck’s sake. She was my good mate. Her name was Edith. She was well alive, and I have taken her life just the way you describe in your auction in the web.’ Amelia said. ‘You mean she was alive while you have cut her three times before the fatal hit?’ ‘Yes. I have stabbed her four times and then the fifth was a slit throat…she bled for a while before passing on.’ Xi looks her in the face. ‘You haven’t done this for money have you?’ Amelia drinks another turn. ‘No, I haven’t actually. I have done this because I always wanted to do it. Taking someone’s life has always fascinated me. I was a shitless child and a coward of a teenager and this, now, what I have become has given me a lot of control and power and I don’t feel useless at all. So, answering your question, I think I am much more philosophical about all of this – I have done that because I CAN, and I am on the market if you pay well.’ Xi breathes a sigh of relief. Even breathing sounds strange on him. Amelia notices that he breathes through an artificial pipe which it can be seen peering through into his nose via his chest and throat, neck area. ‘You really have messed up yourself here…’ She spoke. ‘Why have I messed up girl? I had to do it. I didn’t have any choice.’ They walk around the room. Xi feels uncomfortable when somebody comments about his physical appearance. He knows full well that he has gone to extremes to deny himself the greatest gift of life, your natural look, the look that your mamma has made you. He tells her how the state has been conducted in a war on him and his businesses everywhere. How he chose to live in Hong-Kong and then Taiwan before moving back to the UK, how his house got burned by a rival gang and how he managed to get revenge on them and how he avoided tax and still managed to get through and then a few months later he managed to set up the clan. This clan. Bunch of super rich timewasters who love laying around eggs and implant pain and destruction in women’s lives. ‘Are you ready?’ Xi says. ‘Ready for what?’ Amelia responds. ‘Well follow me. But I need you to pretend you are not acting like you have never been here before. Don’t act shocked or surprised.’ Xi asks her to follow him via the back door past the swimming pool and then onto a long corridor which leads to another corridor, then a stairway with steep and spiral downward direction. Shortly after that they reach a thirty yard below corridor and a huge lift appears right in front of them. Two women bodyguards appear by the side of the door. ‘Please go in. After you!’ Xi says. Amelia proceeds in and looks immediately behind. Xi follows her. The lift is very fast. Within fifteen seconds the doors open, and they are through another corridor, a very long one all lit up, with glass mirrors and middle eastern tapestry everywhere. They enter this black and silver handle double door and there it is the whole society is there. From the richest of people to the most famous. They are all sitting on their private booths munching on things. Amelia can’t work out what they are eating, delicatessen followed up by huge wine glasses and sparkling water. Xi proceeds on straight for the main booth right at the back of the hall. The sound of music is a strange mix classic baroque, techno with a twinge of reggae, mento or calypso style. Amelia’s legs are starting to shake, and she is unsure how she is going to react to all this that has been thrown at her. She tries to investigate people’s faces, and she recognizes every single one of them. She is pleased. She is scared. She is hopeful. They sit in this huge booth where you can easily fit at least twenty people with still spare room left. Maids, high-class escorts, all-nude women, and men of all ages posing and holding trays with small glasses on them. They rotate and swing their trays as if there is nothing in them. There is something about their bodies which draws Amelia’s attention. Some of them have one limb and some others have one limb too many. This is peculiar, she thinks to herself. And then you have the others who look weird with bacon rashers attached on their necks and some of them have even their front stomach skin layer ripped off and you see their internal organs through a see-through silicon skin replacement layer. One of the maids, as they call them, they are waiters and waitresses and escorts really – offers Xi and Amelia a drink. She feels she wants to throw up. Xi looks her in the face unsure what to say. ‘Is this to your expectations!? Amelia looks at him but doesn’t give him any answer. All sorts of things are going in her head now. The throwing up, the touch of all these people who have decided to take some bits of their body for the sake of some cause, their looks, some of them beautiful women and men, Xi and his plastic surgery - it’s way too much. She asks for the bathroom and Xi tells her to follow one of the escorts and she does. This tall, very tall blonde long legged and very kind, with a lot of make-up on and cat whiskers implanted in her upper lip – actual whiskers, surgically have become part of her face and the tail, I mean, for Christ’s sake, this is a real tail, of a rare animal. She follows the tail lady, and she can’t stop staring at her tail and this tail wags itself, wags along the way and it’s a real thing. The tail lady shows her where the bathroom is and offers to be of the assistance. Amelia goes straight to the cubicle and throws up big time. She doesn’t seem to recover herself quickly enough. She doesn’t want to show a sense of weakness, but never realising that the tail lady is standing next to the door of the cubicle and checking If she is ok. Once Amelia spots her standing next to her tells her to go away as she can manage without a babysitter. She cleans up and then takes wet towel which is held by this black guy with a stony face, and she jumps never noticed he was standing there with the load of wet but warm towels. She says thank you, but he doesn’t respond. She decides to look at him. She looks at his upper, its slightly dark with dimmed red lights. She gets closer wants to see if the guy is a real thing. He is attached to the wall, almost like attached. His lower body is cemented onto the wall and the upper body is slightly bent forward in the manner of providing a service. He doesn’t seem to move. But behind him there’s a cupboard where some of the personnel do the maintenance and the reanimation of the person holding the towel. Amelia has reached the utmost level of weirdness and shock. She can’t take it anymore. She leans against the wall amidst the loud and ever louder music noise in the background. She thinks about all these people who are there and enjoying themselves. How can they? Well, she also thinks about herself, and her deeds and her killing of Tabitha, and her slice of her flash she carries with her to do a trade. I mean isn’t that not disgusting enough!? She wants to give it all up for the sake of her sanity but is unable to decide. She can’t bear the thought that she is going to become part of this lot. ‘What do I …!’ she keeps telling herself until she gets noticed by another woman all nude with what it looks like leopard tail and long whiskers, very beautiful but there’s something funny about her as she approaches Amelia to speak to her. ‘Are you ok my dear friend?’ She asks her determined to get an answer. ‘Am ok, am ok. Sorry. It’s the month!’ The whisker lady goes away after she had tightened her lips and feeling partly sorry for Amelia. She has not got many options left. She must go back to the booth and pretend is all fine. Xi knows that Amelia can’t take it. His mind is split between keeping Amelia within the circle or just utilise her skills for more ice. ‘I have a proposal for you, my friend!’ Xi said. Amelia still not feeling very well responds with ‘Ok. Am all ears.’ ‘As you can see this is a niche business. It’s very simple. These people are willing to pay big bucks for the privilege of tasting the icy nourishment. I know that this is shocking for you but next time, If I were you – I would preserve the litres of blood because for that, here I pay a fortune. Look…’ Xi with an already aroused arrogance ‘You are not an angel. Far from it. I mean you killed your own friend you, probably now have become a bloodthirsty mammal. That’s what we all are here. I mean look at these people. Two thirds of them are the richest in the land and beyond, some of them are the cleverest brains and some sportsman and women – what do they have in common!? Well, I tell you what they have in common an important thing – the zeal, the hunger, the desperation, long lasting one to FREEDOM. This is no small feat my friend. I serve them meat, am pretty much like a donner kabab seller, a glorified one, and they, in turn come here, turn up with a lot of money and wealth, network, express their weakest and cowardice behaviour to each other and the wider community but in the end, they have fun. I serve them the sustenance and the drink, and I provide security and safety and of course confidentiality of the highest order. This last bit is very important. All you would do for me is keep doing what you are doing and sell me T’s body for a price.’ Amelia isn’t shocked to hear Xi’s inference to Tabitha, but she is surprised to know that Xi is convinced or he has convinced himself that she will need him. She doesn’t. She looks at him with much more confidence than she felt earlier. The proposition sounds interesting to Amelia, not that she didn’t expect that Xi was going to propose the idea. ‘I want to know more about all of this.’ Amelia said, using her index finger to point at the booths all around the hall. ‘These, I mean these. What is exactly happening in here!?’ Her confidence and robustness shake Xi a little bit. He orders somebody on his team to bring the batch. The batch consists of pinkish, violet type of liquid which he uses a type of sterilizer and then he spills a couple of large drops of this liquid in this pipe burner made from bone and glass. He inhales the lot of it and turns around to Amelia and says ‘You see this is how it’s done. Better than coke or Heroine. It’s the best thing in the world. You should try some!’ ‘No thank you.’ Amelia said. ‘So, you asked me what this is all about. I tell you that this is my business. I have three very discrete suppliers of bodies. People who are murdered in our ever-over-crowded London. One of my suppliers is a police officer, the other one a judge and my favourite is the forensic scientist who does all the cleaning. Filtering and draining of the blood from bodies, preserving it with the right chemicals and it helps me launch a fantastic product. Nice and rare. I advertise openly in the dark net. I don’t care if somebody is coming over to investigate or chase me for the stuff, we do here…’ He inhales the second round of dripper as they call it. ‘ …and I can just express my unhappiness with that lady over there…you see her? The black lady?’ ‘I know her. She is the mayor!’ Amelia says. ‘Exactly. She is the one that can help me overturn any stupid investigations coming my way. Every time they tried to close my shop every t ime, I had opened it even more robustly and successfully and every other time they came round and became members. Exclusive members. You see they are shiesty officials, corruptocrats and always hungry for status. So, I found their cure. Come and join my secret society.’ He laughs out loud, so loud that it gets in Amelia’s nerves. ‘Ok I get it.’ She responds. ‘You better bring me that bod before it becomes an outdated soul…hahaha!’ Xi laughs.
They strike the price, and all Amelia wants to do is never step in this place ever and just continue to live her life and begin her hunt for the next prized possession.
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