Time to put you out of your misery after last chapter's cliffhanger ending.
Strange Encounter
Chapter Fifty Two
For the first time in decades I froze in the face of danger. I was stood in Llangyfelach Lane in the pouring rain watching Suzie Costello move up behind a man, someone she was preparing to kill, a victim of her obsession with the Resurrection Glove. So many emotions hit me at the same moment. I had a sinking feeling deep in my gut as I realised this was the proof I had been looking for; Suzie was stalking this guy. The nausea came next with the realisation that this was all my fault. I had given Suzie the Glove and then left her to it, never checking properly what it might be doing to her. Finally there was fear that if I didn't act fast she was going to going to kill this guy in front of me. It was that final realisation that sparked me into action.
"Suzie!" I yelled, striding fast towards her, ignoring the rain running down my face and finding the gap at my collar to get down inside my greatcoat. I didn't want to run at her in case it prompted her to use the knife.
She faltered and turned, as did the guy. If I'd hoped my presence would bring her to her senses I was mistaken. She grimaced, her face pulled into a grotesque parody of a normal smile, and whipped back to face the guy who just stood there gormlessly, a metre or so in front of her. She took a step towards him and the knife was brought up in a classic thrust through the stomach, under the ribcage and into the heart. But it didn't connect. I threw myself at her and wrenched her to the side. We fell in a heap on the filthy, sodden ground and rolled over ending up in a puddle.
"Run!" I yelled at the bloke still standing like an idiot in the middle of the lane.
I glimpsed him move off before Suzie aimed the knife for my heart but found my left forearm instead. The blade slashed through clothes, flesh, veins, tendon and muscle to find the bone. The pain was excruciating but I didn't let her go. She must have been expecting me to react to the wound, to rear back and release her, maybe even try and stem the flow of blood, but I had died too many times to be affected in that way. My left arm was all but useless but I was marginally on top of her and used my greater weight and height to pin her down beneath me. I caught her wrist and dug my fingers into tender flesh until she released the knife.
"Let me go!" she hissed, reaching with her other hand to claw at my face. She scratched like a cat and I felt skin tear around my eye and the warm oozing of blood. "Get off me!"
With the knife a safe distance away, I ignored her writhing and the repeated thumps to the side of my head and brought her right wrist towards my left and managed to snag it. We both had one hand free and she was fighting me all the time. One well-aimed blow landed just behind my ear and my head rang with the impact. I had taught her unarmed combat and knew just what she could do to me unless I overpowered her completely and quickly. Now straddling her, I wedged my left arm against her windpipe and pressed hard, forcing her head back. With my right hand I scrabbled in a pocket for the universal sedative I always carried. She was choking, her face going red as she fought for breath, but I didn't let up. I injected the sedative into one of the bulging veins in her neck and waited. Five seconds later she went limp. I waited another ten before I completely relaxed the pressure on her throat and eased back into a sitting position, still straddling her.
It was done. Suzie was not a danger - for now.
My breathing slowed and I took a moment to check my arm. The blood was still pouring out so I took the belt of my greatcoat and wrapped it round the wound, over the sleeve, not so much as a bandage, more to keep the flesh together as it mended. I got off her and sat on the ground, the shock of blood loss and what she had become hitting me hard. Tears ran down my face, lost amid the continuing and relentless rain. I had lost a good friend and colleague this night all through my own stupidity and blindness. Someone clearing their throat not far away made me look up quickly. The boy was back.
"Are you all right?" he asked in a Welsh accent. He stared at Suzie as she lay in the puddle. "Is she … dead?"
"No, just unconscious. You shouldn't be here." I levered myself up using my good right arm.
"She attacked me." There was amazement in his voice, as if he couldn't believe it. But Suzie had come at with him a knife, he couldn't have missed that.
"That's right. But we were watching for her. Now, you get off wherever you were going. No need to be bothered about this."
He took a pace or two away but then stopped, looking from Suzie to me. "Don't you need a statement? Thought police always needed statements."
This was not going to be as easy as I had hoped. If he was thinking of statements and enquiries he could become a problem. "I was going to leave it until tomorrow but if you have time …" I left the question hanging.
"Yes. I'd rather do it now. I was on my way home anyway. My name's John Tucker by the way." He smiled slightly and stood with his hands in his pockets looking at me boyishly. At any other time I might have been tempted but not then.
"Captain Jack Harkness. My car's round the corner. Let's get her inside and I can drive you home as we talk."
With Suzie in a fireman's lift over my shoulder and the knife safe in a pocket, we walked back out of the lanes and onto the main road where I'd left the SUV. I put Suzie in the back, discreetly manacling her hands and feet, and then let him in the front passenger seat alongside me. It wasn't until I was sitting inside that I realised how wet I was. The rain had soaked through the greatcoat in places and I was wet to the skin. The wet was also stinging against the wound in my arm which was already tingling as it repaired itself. Wishing for a long hot shower, instead I drove to Tucker's home in Adamstown listening as he told me what he remembered of the encounter with Suzie. It wasn't much but he had seen too much to be allowed to remember. At his place, I made him a cup of tea – great tea drinkers, the Welsh – and dropped Retcon in it. Fifteen minutes later, he was sleeping peacefully in an armchair.
The drive to the base took twenty minutes or so and I went slowly, numb with cold as well as with the events of the night. In the garage, I stood, still dripping water, and looked at Suzie lying in the boot of the SUV. How had it come to this? It was such a waste. Hefting her over my shoulder once more I walked into the Hub to see Ianto standing by the heap of Cyber equipment, the tarpaulin pulled back. My temper got the better of me.
"What the fuck are you doing!?" I shouted. "Leave that alone!"
He jumped like a scalded cat and turned to look at me, guilt all over his face before his normal impassive mask returned. "What's happened?"
"Plenty! Call Tosh and Owen and get them in here. Now!" I stormed past him to the vaults. Suzie was going into the cells, she had to be secured until I'd worked out what to do with her.
"Want me to call Suzie too?" he asked, not having recognised her inert body.
"Hardly! And tell them that if they've taken any artefacts out of the Hub I want them back." I was almost at the archway. "Now, Ianto!"
I selected a cell in an otherwise empty block and put Suzie on the shelf-bed. She would be coming round soon so I quickly removed the manacles and frisked her, taking her comms earpiece, mobile, keys, purse, credit cards, Torchwood swipe card and even a packet of mints before stepping back. Water was dripping off her onto the floor; she was as wet as me. I found a couple of blankets and chucked them in the cell for when she woke up before shutting and securing the door, adding an extra level of security. After staring at her for a few minutes, still not understanding how things had come to this pass, I finally walked back up the steps to the main area of the Hub. Ianto was hovering in the work area looking out for me.
"The others are on their way, sir," he reported. He glanced at my soaked greatcoat and general muckiness but didn't comment. Not surprising after the way I'd shouted at him.
"I need to change and shower."
I dragged tired feet into the office and tried to remove the greatcoat before remembering all the things I'd stuffed in the pockets and the belt wrapped round my arm. It defeated me and I stood wondering how to get it off. Ianto came up beside me and started to empty the pockets. If he was surprised by what he found he didn't say so. Everything, including the knife, went on my desk. Next he unwound the belt, biting his lip when he saw the slash in the sleeve, and then eased the coat from my shoulders. I was shivering now, the wet and cold was finally getting to me.
"Go and shower, sir. I'll bring some clean clothes from your quarters."
I went and once in the bathroom stripped off my sodden clothes and stood under the hot water. It was wonderful. The heat permeated my body and the sweet smelling soap took away the odours of that filthy alley. I felt human again when I stepped out of the shower to find Ianto arranging my clothes. The underwear had been put on the radiator and was warm to my skin. He handed me socks and trousers and actually bent down to tie up my boots. I could have done it myself but it would have taken awhile as my arm hadn't fully healed and the fingers didn't work as they should.
"I brought antiseptic, sir, if you need it." He didn't meet my gaze as he held out the small bottle and pad of gauze.
"I'm sorry, Ianto. For yelling at you. You were just … there."
He smiled at me, briefly. "Do you need this, sir?"
"May as well." He dabbed at the jagged gash on my arm that was already healing and no longer bleeding. When he was done, I stopped him moving away by putting my good hand on his arm. "Tell me we're okay, Ianto."
"We're okay."
He smiled again before putting the antiseptic aside and helping me into a T-shirt and then a deep blue shirt over that. With the sleeves rolled down no one could see I'd been injured; the scratches to my face were healed too. I added a waistcoat over the top to keep me warm. We made it back to the work area before Owen and Tosh arrived. They came in together; I assume they'd met as they parked their cars.
"What's the bleeding emergency, Jack?" demanded Owen. "I'd not even got home!" He glared at me, standing with arms crossed over his chest not bothering to remove his jacket.
"There hasn't been a Rift opening," added Tosh, sitting at her PC still wearing her leather jacket and opening up the screens. I don't know what she thought she'd find; her laptop and PDA had access to all the same information.
"I caught the killer of those two women," I began.
"So what? That's bloody police business, Jack, nothing to do with us!" interrupted Owen.
"It was Suzie. Our Suzie."
The words created a ripple effect. Beside me, Ianto started and gave a little gasp still not having realised that it was her that I'd locked in the cells. Toshiko's hands stopped in midair and she stared at me, her eyes wide and horror-struck. Owen's face lost all trace of colour and he groped for the sofa and sat down. None of them said a word for two or three minutes. In a way I was relieved, it meant they had not known what she was doing either. I was not alone in missing all the signs.
"You're … you're sure?" asked Owen in a hoarse whisper. One look at my face must have given him the answer. "Shit!" He buried his face in his hands.
"But how? Why?" asked Toshiko in a disbelieving whisper. Ianto said nothing, just reached for Owen's desk chair and sat down, his face mirroring his shock.
It was time to build up my team again, to rally them to face the next few days. I never felt less like doing anything of the sort. "She was affected by that damned Glove. I don't know how – that's something we have to find out – but I know it happened. In her obsession with it she took it out of the Hub and used it at home. When she needed humans to test it on … she killed them."
"Just when you think the job can't get any crappier." Surprisingly this came from Toshiko, not known for using bad language.
"How did you find out?" asked Ianto. "When?"
"It was a lot of little things," I replied. "Her mood swings over the past few weeks mostly, I suppose. I put it all together over the past couple of days. But I got the proof tonight." I moved and sat on the sofa beside Owen. "And I got that courtesy of a policewoman who wasn't afraid to challenge me." Without that woman, Gwen Cooper, I'd never have looked into the police investigation and seen the picture of the knife.
"What's happened to her, to Suzie?" asked Owen, looking up. "Is she …" He didn't complete the question but I knew what he had been going to say.
"She's in the cells, probably coming round by now. That's one of the reasons I needed you all in." This was where I had to give them something to do, to get them focussed on the future not the past. "Tosh, most important, I want all our security codes, passwords and protocols changed and all Suzie's access cancelled. We need new swipe cards for everyone. Then go through everything Suzie's done on the computers over the past month, no, make that two months. Make sure she hasn't left us any little surprises."
Toshiko had turned back to her screens and brought up a picture of Suzie in her cell. She was conscious and huddled in the blankets I'd left for her, a pile of discarded, wet clothing on the floor at her feet. She looked cold and miserable – as she should. Owen and Ianto were also looking at the screen and I could feel another wave of shock coming from all of them. I suppose seeing her incarcerated was going to be hard for them, something to bear in mind over the next few days.
"Tosh, you hear me!?" I prompted.
She jumped a little and looked over her shoulder at me. "Yes, sorry. I'll get on it now."
"Good. And when I say change everything, I do mean everything. Even the most innocuous codes. Okay?"
"Okay." Toshiko's face took on a resolute expression and she turned back to the PC.
"Owen, delve into her background. Find out everything you can that might help us in finding out what happened. Later, I want you to give her a complete physical. We need to know what the Glove did to her."
He was nodding while still looking at the screen. "What are you going to do with her? Long term?" he asked.
"I have no fucking idea." I didn't. I had got this far just reacting to circumstances and hadn't had time to consider future plans. "Ianto, go through her desk, remove and catalogue everything. I'm going to her flat, see if there's anything there. But before we do any of that," I said ominously, "this all got worse because Suzie took the Glove out of the Hub. If you've taken anything I want it on my desk, now!"
I got up and walked to the office. The Glove and knife were there with the meagre personal belongings I'd taken from Suzie. Ianto came in behind me and at my request put the Glove and knife into secure containers and sealed them. The others followed him into the room. Owen put the Valurrian aphrodisiac spray on the desk and Toshiko added the document reader. What either wanted to take those for I have no idea; there's a lot more interesting stuff lying around. I said nothing, just nodded and sent them back to work.
There was a lot to be done and none of us were in the best frame of mind to do it. It had truly been a crappy day.
