be missed? And when? Next year? Ten years? A century? When they’re building the next Millennium Stadium, in Cardiff or whatever Cardiff has become by then, who will miss any of us?’
Gwen stood up again. ‘Don’t give me that “the universe is an atom in a giant’s fingernail” bollocks. If you exaggerate the context, of course nothing’s significant. What we do is important. What Mitch does is important.’ She saw Jack puzzling over this. ‘Him, that poor policeman down there, staring at his own spew, he’s significant.’ As if to prove it, she began walking back to Mitch’s beaten figure.
‘Name any famous cop from two hundred years ago,’ Jack called after her.
‘Robert Peel,’ she snapped back without having to think.
‘Wrong. He was the Home Secretary. Go on, name anyone from his police force.’
She faltered in her step, reconsidered, and kept walking.
‘Joseph Grantham,’ Jack told her. ‘Who remembers him? He was the first officer killed on duty. People have moved on, many times over. They don’t care. They’re all living their own lives. Existing, breathing, screwing, remember? But see, that’s why I like you, Gwen Cooper. You do care. It’s at the heart of you. It motivates you. And it makes people see they can be better themselves.’
‘Sometimes I don’t think you care about anyone,’ she muttered. She was standing by Mitch again, helped him to his feet. She mimed ‘moustache’ to him by waggling her finger under her own nose, and offered him a tissue to wipe away the vomit.
‘C’mon, Gwen.’ Jack was calling her back.
‘Have you radioed in?’ she asked Mitch. He nodded mutely. ‘OK, I’ve got to go now. Sorry.’
Jack was angling his mobile phone at the dead youngster. He had the mobile on speaker, so that he could talk to Toshiko at the same time as transmitting a crime-scene image back to her at the Torchwood Hub.
‘… second one within a one-kilometre radius of his apartment. Starting to look like we’ve got our man, Tosh. So, where is he?’
‘Working on it, Jack,’ Toshiko’s voice told him from the radio.
‘Are these pictures any good? I mean for analysis, I wasn’t gonna get them printed up and framed for my desk back at the office. People hated that last time.’
‘They’re ideal,’ enthused Toshiko. ‘I can cross-reference the upload with structured information in pictures and captions from the Police National Database. Smart stuff they’ve got – a multimedia setup that integrates the text, image, video and audio data at the level of the bit-stream so that they can be stored, accessed and processed by the same system.’
Jack rolled his eyes. ‘I was interested right up to the point where you said “upload”.’
Gwen tutted. ‘All the SOCOs I know would love that kind of system. Something that could identify patterns that link directly to individuals. Like persistent offenders whose patterns of offence haven’t been obvious to investigators.’
Jack grinned at her. ‘Oh, you and Tosh were just made for each other.’
A breeze was starting to lift litter down the narrow alley, and swirl it around their feet and onto the corpse. Sweet wrappers stuck in the blood and vomit.
Gwen studied the sky. Dark grey clouds were obscuring most of the blue now. ‘Weather’s deteriorating.’
‘Yeah,’ said Toshiko’s voice. ‘There’s a strange cold front over the city. Not what we’d expected from the forecast. Plenty of rain on its way, and the temperature’s unusual for this time of year. Low 60s. Like Owen’s IQ.’
Jack pulled his collar up as the breeze stiffened. ‘OK, Tosh, your smart system has had plenty of time now. So where’s our killer?’
‘Already left his office. Office mates said they thought he was going into the city centre, not back home. Then we lost his trail behind a lorry on the M4, and missed his exit junction.’
‘Options?’
‘I’m trying to get to his secretary,’ said Toshiko. ‘And we’re still scanning for his car.’
Jack considered the corpse at his feet. ‘All right, Gwen and I are going into the centre. Tosh and Owen, we need clean-up here for the corpse. Location…’
‘Got it from your GPS signal,’ Toshiko said. ‘Post code CF24 9XZ. You’re in Gwion Lane, Splott.’
Jack broke the connection, and started back towards the SUV. Mitch had got to his feet now, and stood to an awkward kind of attention as Jack and Gwen approached. This meant he stood between them and the Torchwood car.
‘I radioed for back-up, and they’re on the way. Until then, anything I can do to help, sir?’
‘Radio them again and cancel,’ Jack told him, ‘Torchwood will