Into the Silence

case had got to me and my brain was frying. His eyes were wide open and it was like looking into headlights on full beam. Bright white light poured out of him. And from his mouth too, when he opened it. It was insanity, but I was seeing it.' Cutler sipped again at his drink.

'I followed his car, and he drove out to the woods where he parked up, hidden out of sight from the lane. He got out and took a shovel out of the boot before striding in this… over-controlled way into the darkness. I stayed pretty far behind, but those eyes lit up the way through the trees anyway, so I wasn't in any danger of getting lost. He was going to the bodies of course.

'He dug like a machine, which I guess he was, looking back. His body was being used by whatever was inside him and those boys weren't buried in a shallow grave. By the time he was done, he was sweating and panting but he kept going until that light poured out of him. Then he collapsed. I watched him crying over the bodies while that light leapt and whirled and ran in and out of the dead boys, touching them all over again. I couldn't move. It was beautiful, but at the same time there was such…' Cutler struggled for the right word. 'There was such malevolence in it. Human evil is so much more mundane than whatever that thing was. Once it was done with the fun it was having with the corpses, it went back into Palmer. He reburied the bodies and drove home like an automaton.'

'What did you do?'

'Didn't sleep. Didn't call it in. I knew where the bodies were, I'd marked the three trees around them once Palmer and the thing inside him had gone. I sat on the sofa, smoked a lot, and drank a lot. I thought about the truth. The truth is out there, kept going round in my head. Mulder and bloody Scully.' He laughed, a dry, dark sound, like disturbed mud.

'And then I went into work early and dug around in the system looking for whatever department had to deal with paranormal reports or out-of-the-ordinary crimes, and time after time 'Torchwood: Classified' came up. I'd never heard of any section called that, so I kept digging and searching under that name. By 9.32, Torchwood staff and my DCI were standing at my desk wanting to know what my sudden interest was. And after a while, when my DCI had buggered off, I told them.

'And the rest, as they say, is history. The bodies were found, Torchwood caught the entity or whatever that shite was inside Palmer, and a line was drawn under the whole thing.'

'Except,' Jack cut in, 'all the evidence still pointed to Palmer. And the press had got hold of that.'

'Yeah, some bastard constable leaked it. Thought we weren't moving fast enough on the arrest.'

'Which you were busy trying to find a way to avoid.'

'Yeah.' The barman replaced their drinks, though Jack couldn't remember seeing Cutler signalling for fresh ones. Maybe their expressions said enough for the man to know they'd settled in for the night. 'But then it was all over. People were screaming for his arrest, and as all the DNA evidence clearly stated that he was guilty our hands were tied. We arrested him. Poor bastard was a mess. And I understood why. When I'd first been watching him, so bloody convinced I had my man, I knew he was wrong on the inside. But what I had been too busy to notice was that Palmer knew it too. He'd known it all his adult life, I imagine. Yes, he wanted to hurt those boys and do things to them that you and I just can't comprehend, and yes, he wanted to squeeze their lives away with his bare hands. He'd wanted to do things like that for as long as he could remember. In his head he was a sick bastard. But it was only in his head.'

Pausing, Cutler ran one hand through his hair and looked at Jack. 'He never acted on his impulses. And I don't think he ever would have if that thing hadn't got inside him. He was too strong and he knew it was wrong. Imagine living like that. Hating yourself and your desires. No wonder he was a loner. The worst he ever allowed himself to do was sit and watch little boys playing in the park. He never talked to them. He never touched them.' He paused. 'Jesus. And then this thing comes along, gets inside him and wants to do it all. All those years of restraint, over. And all we can do is put him in prison for it?'

Watching him shake his head, his brow knotted tightly together, Jack wondered if Cutler realised how animated he'd become. Behind all those defences, Cutler's anger still raged and Jack was glad about that.

'You couldn't,' he said softly.

'You're right. I couldn't. But the evidence was too great against him. So I waited until the court was in full session and then started a rumour in the press about tampered evidence. Planting of DNA. All that shit. It started to circulate. And when I got called to the stand and the defence questioned me on it, I did a big pretence of breaking down and then confessed. Said the pressure to get a conviction had been too much. They had no choice but to throw it out of court. Civil action found him guilty but he didn't really have a lot to lose by then. We gave him a new identity and sent him north for a new life. Not that it worked. Last I heard, he was a drunk, and after three suicide attempts he was sectioned off into some mental hospital. Probably the safest place for him.'

'Would you do the same thing again?'

Cutler stared angrily into the mirror. 'Yeah. I think I'm that dumb that I probably would.'

'I'm surprised Torchwood One let you go so easily.'

Cutler shrugged. 'They thought I'd handled the situation well. No running to the press or even my boss with tales of bright lights in the night. They figured I'd be useful on the force. If I heard stories of anything strange.' He smiled. 'But believe me, I don't think it was an easy decision for them. Looking back, I sometimes wonder what they might have done if they had thought I was a liability. Being young and stupid at the time I didn't give it any thought. But now…'

'I think I can see why they left you the happy individual that you are.' Jack raised his bottle. 'Cheers.'

Cutler clinked his JD against the mineral water. 'Your curiosity satisfied?'

'A story's always better told than read. If it means anything at all, I think what you did was the right thing. And most people wouldn't have done it.'

'Thanks.'

'You were never tempted to tell your wife the truth?'

Behind them, the jukebox burst into life, pumping out Britney Spears's 'Toxic'.

'You learn about people in those situations. She believed the lie too easily. Made me see her more clearly. She wasn't worth the truth.' He turned on his stool and stared at the source of the over-loud music. 'Jesus. Can't a man even have a drink in peace and quiet? Why do we have to fill every thinking moment up with noise? All I bloody want is a couple of minutes of silence to let my brain get things in order.'

Jack began to smile, and then froze. A couple of minutes of silence. He pushed the stool back and punched the bar, the thud full of vigour.

'You gotta love that Britney!' His eyes sparkled and, with his grin bubbling energy, he leaned forward, grabbed Cutler's cheeks in his hands and planted a loud kiss on his lips. 'Two minutes of silence! You're a genius! Why didn't I think of that?' He grabbed his long coat from the seat on the other side and then stared at Cutler. 'What are you waiting for? Come on. Let's go catch the bad guy.'

The detective stared at him for a long second before standing up. 'I've got no idea what you're on about, but I'm coming.' He drained his glass. 'And if you ever kiss me again I will have to terminate this working relationship with a knee in your bollocks.'

Jack's laugh danced behind him as he ran up the stairs from the basement bar and up to the pavement. 'Say what you like, I'm a great kisser. You loved it. I can tell.'

'Bloody Torchwood,' Cutler grumbled, but Jack could hear the humour in the gruff voice. 'Can't do anything like bloody normal people.'

TWENTY-ONE

Jack paced slightly in front of the Boardroom table in a narrow area that wasn't designed to incorporate a huge amount of pacing. Energy and excitement had been sparking off him since he'd bounded back into the Hub with Cutler in tow and, although it was almost midnight, Gwen's own foot tapped under her seat. Jack obviously had news — there was no way he would have brought Cutler if it hadn't been something important — but so did she and Ianto.

'OK, so here's the new plan.' Jack finally stopped moving, letting Gwen's eyes focus. 'At 11 a.m. tomorrow, we're going to hold a city-wide, two-minute silence as a mark of respect for the deaths of Maria Bruno and the