There is a special kind of feeling that is reserved for seeing your lover dead before you. At the moment, that feeling hits, all the love, empathy, small annoyances, and funny memories, and hopes for a better future, one has of that person, collapse into one, overwhelmingly final thing. One realizes that the other is gone. That all the feelings you might have shared are now yours alone, and can’t change any more, and will always remain incomplete, like a conversation abruptly ending mid-sentence. That you are alone, and your grief, fuelled by your loss, is now self-pity, because the person you would share it with is gone.
It took Dirk a minute to get a grip of himself and step forward to inspect the body. Detective Brandt had joined him and the coroner, but the two just stood there in silence as Dirk circled around the steel table Ruth was lying on. Apart from the obvious neck wound, Dirk hadn’t seen anything of note yet. The wound appeared to have been made with a sharp hook or other ripping implement. The skin was not cut, but rather pulled open. It was unusual.
“Have you found the weapon?” Dirk asked, but Detective Brandt and the coroner just shook their heads.
Then he noticed two small holes drilled into Ruth's skull at her temples.
“What are these? They look to have been made post-mortem.”
Brandt looked at him, calculatingly.
“You didn’t know?”
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”
Brandt gave the coroner a hand sign, and the man quickly went into his office to fetch some papers.
Dirk and Brandt waited, without exchanging words, until the coroner returned and handed Dirk the autopsy report and pointed on the last page.
Dirk read, and didn’t like what he read one bit. Apparently, Ruth had sold her brain to a research company called MindWave Technologies, and someone had already been here earlier this morning and collected their proprietary hardware. Meaning, they had sucked her brain out of her skull through a tube.
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“What do you have on MindWave Technologies?” He turned, asking Brandt.
“Nothing. And that is why you are here, Mr. Vandergast”
“Explain”
“You see, Mr. Vandergast, MindWave Technologies is like a black box to us. They seem very open and forthcoming on the outside, but as soon as I send one of my men to them, my implant starts ringing with calls. I’m not stupid, it is clear that someone very powerful does not like his pet project to be brought to the light, but I cannot be the one to do that, because if I try to, I will be replaced, along with all my men. What I want you to do, is to dig deep into these people, and find the fucker that did this, so we can go home in peace.”
“I will.”
Brandt looked visibly relieved.
“But,” Dirk went held out his hand for a shake, “I have a favour to ask…”
“What do you need?”
“Earlier this morning, a Kid knocked on my door, he is why I am here now, told me his Boss send him and that he had been there last night. He didn’t see the Killer, but his Boss will burn him and pin the murder on him unless it is resolved in a timely manner. He is with me now, and I think he will be useful. I need your men to keep him off the records and his hands off him until this case is solved. Do we have a deal?”
“Until when? I will be making myself vulnerable to uncomfortable questions if I miss out on a prime witness.”
“You will be painting a big fat target on him if he comes into contact with your institution.”
“What’s the time frame we are talking about here?”
“About a week, hopefully. Maybe more. Just make sure that if he is brought in for questioning, you do so discreetly and off the books. I don’t want his name mentioned anywhere unless it is avoidable.”
“We have a deal, Mr. Vandergast.”