Free The Devil's Home on Leave (Factory 2) by Derek Raymond Page B

sounds far out.’
    ‘Yes, sure. Got any ideas?’
    ‘Just one so far. It’s guesswork, but I’ve got to start somewhere.’
    ‘Anything on the humane killer angle?’
    ‘How the hell did you hear about that?’
    ‘I’ve got a friend in the lab.’
    ‘You pick useful friends,’ I said. ‘OK, well, keep in touch.’
    Next I rang the internal number upstairs.
    ‘Where have you been, for Christ’s sake?’ said the voice. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning.’
    ‘I was in bed asleep for once.’
    ‘Well, what the hell did you take that baby wonder from
Boy’s Own Paper
up there with you for?’
    ‘Because I wanted someone who was prepared to think for himself,’ I said, ‘not some world-weary hack. I took Cryer up with me because I got the idea he could think, print what he thought,and make a good job of the story. All of which he did.’
    ‘You’d no right whatever to let them offer a five thousand pound reward for information without clearing it with me first - none at all! The whole thing was a carve-up thanks to you. When television and all the rest of the mob got round there everyone had gone, no spokesman, not even a copper on the door – the whole place shut up like a clam and not a plastic bag to be seen!’
    ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I fixed it like that. I just wanted the one story in the one big circulation daily that every villain reads. That way the hot tip, if there is one, will go to the one man who covered the bags with me. I got the story out where I wanted it out, the way I wanted it out.’
    ‘I don’t care what you wanted!’
    ‘Well, that makes it tricky,’ I said, ‘because it’s my case unless you want to take me off it.’
    ‘Don’t talk rubbish, sergeant. What I mean is, a man like Bowman wouldn’t have handled it like that at all.’
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘well, our methods are quite different.’
    ‘You’ve made a completely obscure murder look like a national flap.’
    ‘Who knows but it might turn out to be one?’ I said. ‘I know the public are pretty jaded, but this is nasty enough to make even them sit up. Besides, slickly done like this was, it could be connected to something else – a well-buried connection. It’s unlikely, but it does happen. And another thing – no murder’s completely obscure. Luckily. Otherwise, we’d never solve any of them.’
    ‘Are you coming the acid with me, sergeant?’
    ‘I don’t frankly know,’ I said, with a rare burst of honesty, ‘but I have got an idea.’
    ‘What idea?’
    ‘How many people have we got on file, professionals, most like with form, that might use a humane killer on a wet job?’
    ‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ said the voice, ‘I’ve just read the lab report.It’s those things they use on cows, knackered horses etcetera. They work the same as an air pistol, don’t they? You can put them in your pocket. Yes, my daughter-in-law’s got one down on her farm in Somerset.’
    ‘That’s the gadget. You hold it against a head of some kind, then you pull the trigger and it fires a fucking great nail through your brain.’
    ‘Mind your language, will you, sergeant?’ The voice thought for a while and added: ‘Still, it’s a remarkable choice of weapon, that.’
    ‘It was certainly remarkable for the victim.’
    ‘We don’t know who that was yet, do we?’
    ‘Not yet. But we will. I see it as a question of who’s vanished. It won’t be just anyone. It must be someone who someone else thought it worth spending money on to help the vanishing trick along. I’m having everyone likely checked in a quiet way.’
    ‘Yes, good,’ said the voice. ‘You’re cheeky, sergeant, but you know what you’re doing, I’ll say that for you.’ It added: ‘Yes, a humane killer. Stands out, that does. I can’t think of a single killing done with one of those, not in my experience. It kind of sticks in your mind.’
    ‘You could certainly say that.’
    ‘Just keep on being funny,