Down: Trilogy Box Set Read Online Free PDF Page B

him told me there was a funny smell about him.”
    “A body odor?”
    “In a way, but no one described it exactly like that. More like a smell of decaying flesh. Like meat gone bad.”
    John shook his head. “Wonderful. What about his clothes, his shoes? Anything identifiable?”
    “From what people said and from the still photos off the CCTV it looks like he was dressed in old farmer’s gear. Really rough kind of hand-made garments. Ill fitting. One funny thing one of the techs noted.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Said he had a rope belt.”
    “Rope.”
    “Yeah, a bit of rope to hold up his trousers.”
     
     
    John was painstakingly reviewing the CCTV footage when Trevor called.
    “Bad news, guv. There’s no finger or palm matches in the National Fingerprint Database.”
    “Shit. How far back does it go?”
    “1987.”
    “The guy looked like he was late thirties, early forties so it should’ve been there. From the way he was quick to use violence I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have an arrest record. Maybe he’s not from the UK. Can you run them through Europol, Interpol and the FBI?”
    “Already requested.”
    “What about the blood?”
    “It’ll be run through the NPIA DNA database. It’ll take several days but if the bloke’s prints aren’t there I don’t have much hope for his DNA.”
    “All right. I’m going back to talk to Matthew. He’s got a wild theory.”
    “Oh yes? What’s he say?”
    “Just trust me. It’s wild.”
    Matthew was in his office going over spectrometer plots with David Laurent.
    “Find anything?” John asked.
    “It’s very preliminary,” Matthew said. “Not the kind of thing we’d ordinarily even talk about at this stage.”
    “This isn’t an ordinary situation,” John said.
    “Right. But please take this with an enormous pinch of salt. We may have a graviton signal.”
    “And I think there might also be strangelets,” David said, excitedly.
    Matthew quickly added, “Please remember the collider was running for only a brief time before we powered down so the number of collisions was tiny compared to a full experimental set. We don’t have enough statistical power to make any hard conclusions.”
    “But there’s a chance your theory’s right?” John asked.
    “All I can say is that the conditions were possibly present to support it. You know, Emily was standing at the closest spot in the control room to the collision point of the beams. It was less than three meters under her feet.”
    “What does your colleague here think about your ideas?”
    David delivered a Gallic shrug. “You know, in science you have to keep an open mind. But it’s not something that has occurred to me.”
    “What has occurred to you?”
    “I have no explanations.”
    “That’s very helpful, thank you very much,” John said, eliciting another shrug. “I hate to ask this question but is it possible she was just, I don’t know, vaporized by some strange energy field. What I’m asking—could Emily be dead?”
    “I don’t know,” Matthew said. “I honestly don’t know. Everything’s on the table till it’s excluded by data.”
    “Christ.”
    “Has there been any progress in locating the stranger?” Matthew asked.
    “There’s an active manhunt, but no. His fingerprints weren’t in the police database.”
    “How many years does the database include?” Matthew asked.
    “It goes back to 1987. Why?”
    “Is it possible to check older records?”
    “I don’t know. I’d have to ask Trevor. The guy looked young enough to be in the database provided he was ever arrested.”
    Matthew had a queasy look. “I just think it might be prudent to check back further.”
    When he returned to his office John called Trevor in.
    “How would you go about searching for pre-1987 fingerprints?”
    “There’re cards going back to about 1900 I think. The National Fingerprint Collection used to be kept in New Scotland Yard but it got moved to secure storage elsewhere in London. You