Jacob's head shook as he took in the scene in his kitchen. His kitchen, stomach lurching, confused by the signals from his olfactory senses and his brain. The residual smell was clinging, that earthy, meaty smell that only a good stew delivers. It reminded him of Sophie; she made a mean Irish stew. But his brain flashed red: you must not eat human meat.
Where does that come from? wondered Jacob. Is it social conditioning or something deeper? Would humans have eaten each other back fifty thousand years ago? Early human development is still a complete mystery. What about those guys who were stuck in the Andes? Do they still practise cannibalism in Africa or Papua New Guinea or wherever? Shit, I'm going to have to throw out everything in this kitchen. Everything.
Long pig. That's what the Polynesian cannibals call human meat. Long freaking pig.
'Anyone hungry?' asked a forensics guy, taking a chunk of meat from the dish of stew on the serving spoon.
The others laughed while they could. The Commissioner was coming.
Jacob was stunned. A serving dish of stew. The pots and other cooking utensils piled up in the sink. Human flesh in the stew.
'There's a used bowl in the dishwasher,' said Jacob, gesturing at the open appliance.
'Yeah,' said a detective. 'Fucking guy ate his fill.'
Bile reached up Jacob's throat. He swallowed it back down with a burning grimace. Bizarrely, he thought of the Catholic rite of Holy Communion, the bread and wine transformed by the priest into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. For all to consume. And it’s not just symbolism, it’s transubstantiation. They actually believe it so.
'See anything different here?' asked the detective.
Jacob walked through the kitchen, craned his head around the forensics guys and the detectives and the cameras. The Gauguin was close, observing Jacob intently.
'Yeah. That stock cube there on the counter. That's not mine. Never heard of the brand.'
The detective nodded, got the photographer to take a couple of shots, picked the cube up in his gloved hand and examined it.
'Gourmet Catering Supplies. Lamb stock. Nice. If this is a restaurant brand, we have our lead. Maybe this fucking guy is a chef?'
Jacob leaned back against the wall. Jesus Christ. And the day had been going so well. Until I got home.
'One more thing, Mr Johnson. This note was on the stew dish. Mean anything to you? Please don't touch it.'
He held out a yellow Post-it, words scrawled in black felt-tip pen. All capitals.
NOSTRADAMUS WAS RIGHT!
'Shit,' said Jacob.
'Go on.'
'I bought an expensive first edition by Nostradamus last night. This has got to be just a coincidence.'
The detectives looked at each other. In serious crime, coincidences were rare.
'You're going to have to get in touch with your lawyer, Mr Johnson. We've got to bring you in for further questioning.'
Jacob knew how everything must have looked, so he didn't bother to argue. Let them go through their motions until they got something on whatever sick bastard actually did it. He didn't want to use his alibi until absolutely necessary.
But the Nostradamus connection unsettled him deeply.
'What's this?' asked an investigator, holding up an old lock block, caked in fluff and dirt and grease.
'Where did you find it?' said Jacob.
'Down behind the cooker. So what is it?'
'It's a broken lock, 18th or 19th century French, I think. I bought it in a junk shop. Haven't seen it in a couple of years.'
The investigator shrugged, bagged it.
The uniformed officers' radios crackled.
'The commissioner's here.'
'Shit,' said the black detective. 'Mr Johnson, can you please step to the side? We'll have to wait, answer any questions the commissioner may have.'
Jacob sensed the tension level increase a couple of notches. The commissioner's reputation was for maximising internal and external communications and adopting a zero tolerance approach to corruption and incompetence within the NYPD. The congressman and the citizenry loved her, as did most of the cops. The old guard called her Adolf.
She was accompanied by the congressman's detective, Danny O'Brien. They wore latex gloves and were guided through the crime scene by the lead forensics investigator. The commissioner asked questions, mainly about how long the DNA tests would take and what else had been discovered. This brought up the stock cubes and Jacob.
'Mr Johnson. I gather you've been placed under arrest?'
'Yes. I have no idea about what went on here.'
She was Hispanic, high BMI, perfectly clear skin and beautiful eyes. Add in highly intelligent and a Glock in a shoulder holster under her grey trouser suit jacket and Jacob saw that there was a formidable woman running the massive agency that thought him guilty.
'Do I know you, Mr Johnson?' asked Detective O'Brien.
'I think maybe we've met. Can't recall.'
'Wait. Do you know Sophie Wheeler?'
'Yes,' said Jacob. 'We used to go out.'
Danny whispered something into the Commissioner's ear. She looked at Jacob in disapproval.
'Danny,' said the Commissioner, 'Is it correct that the Irish resorted to cannibalism during the Great Famine?'
'Yes, ma’am. It's recently been proven beyond doubt. The Famine also gave us black pudding. Those with livestock would bleed the animals for protein, mix the blood with cereal and bon appetit,' he smiled.
'Sorry,' Jacob said. 'Am I missing something here?'
'Just trying to join the dots, Mr Johnson. That's a classic Irish stew sitting on your counter,' she nodded towards the kitchen. 'Only, classic Irish stew doesn't normally contain human body parts.'
'And the Famine?'
Detective O'Brien said '1845 to 9. The potato crop sustained the peasant population. It got infected with blight, a fungus. One million died from starvation or disease. A million more emigrated. Which is why I'm here now.'
'A million dead?' said Jacob. 'I had no idea.'
'Most people don't,' said the detective. 'Given the population at the time, it's equivalent to fifty million Americans starving to death in slow motion.'
'Dear God. But wasn't Ireland a British colony back then?'
'For sure. The British were sending what crops there were off to London while the locals starved. It kind of explains the IRA and all that hatred, was the catalyst that eventually led to independence - '
'But does it bring us any closer to catching our man?' interrupted the commissioner. 'Mr Johnson has been good enough to give us one lead, the stock cube.'
'We've got nineteen thousand restaurants in Manhattan alone.'
'So we'll start with those. Do we have a number yet from the cube suppliers?'
'They're high end, pricey,' said a detective on a call, 'I'm talking to Gourmet Catering now, just three hundred customers in Manhattan.'
'Good. I need that restaurant list emailed immediately and I want names of every staff member in every one of those restaurants who was off last night or didn't show up. Start with kitchen staff. Can we take it that our perpetrator is a chef?'
Shrugs. Not a cook among them.
'Then we'll need a chef in here,' said the commissioner.
'I know just the woman,' said Detective O'Brien, flipping open his mobile.
'Very good. Now, Mr Johnson,' she said, her hands on her hips, no trace of a smile, as though she was addressing a naughty schoolboy 'what are we going to do with you?'
Jacob said nothing. The gravity of the situation was making him nauseous. Christ, the Nostradamus book had to be picked up, assuming the payment had gone through okay. Then there was the new job, got to nail that, got to. The magazine. Oh Christ, the magazine, three days to finish off the new issue. And last night, Jesus, what were the implications for work? For everything?
The commissioner took the quiet female detective to the hallway for a talk well out of earshot. Jacob stood, swaying, fearing a dank, windowless cell from which he might never be freed.
'Mr Johnson?' said the commissioner again, shaking him from his mindmelt.
'Yes?'
'Sorry to trouble you, but you're being taken down to the station. My gut tells me that this isn't your work - you don't look stupid enough to piss in your own soup - and most, I repeat most, of my team agrees with me. But there's something more, too many connections. I just don't know what's what. So, see you later.'
Jacob was cuffed and led from the building, to the tut-tuts of his neighbours. The glare of the startlingly bright day brought on the headache that had been threatening. Detective O'Brien followed.
'By the way, the Irish got some help from America during the Famine.'
'Really?' said Jacob.
'Sure. The Choctaw Indians, down in Florida, they sent a shipload of food across to the Irish. Ain't that something?'
'It is. Listen, I’m from Florida, so how about you hand me a break here? What goes around and all that?'
‘Go on.’
‘Got any Tylenol?’
O’Brien shrugged as Jacob was shoved into a marked police car. Just then, Sophie arrived in hers.
Sophie found the high-speed trip down to the crime scene exhilarating, her heart freezing whenever they screamed through a red light.
The officer explained that a woman had been mutilated by a cannibal and cooked - cooked! - and the detectives needed to know if the guy was a professional or what.
'Don't worry, ma'am. The victim is long gone.'
'Thank God for that,' said Sophie, relieved. 'I've never been to a crime scene,' she lied. 'I don't think I could handle a corpse.'
'No, no,' laughed the cop. 'She's alive. Fucking guy cut her up and kept her alive while he ate her. Pardon my French.'
'Jesus. Poor girl.'
Sophie thought about this as Broadway's neon jungle flashed by. There was a goldfish on the big screen at Times Square, advertising some junk that nobody really needed. Buy it, seven seconds later, forget why you wanted it. Western economy. Chinese-made garbage. Nobody ever really, genuinely, actually satisfied with what they have. Bill Hicks, the great, dead comedian had it right. If you're in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence. But the fish. Yes. Chinese dish, Ying Yang Fish. Also known as Dead-and-Alive fish. Take a carp. Using a towel, hold its head tightly. Roughly descale its flanks with a knife, then hold it tail first in boiling fat. Serve on a plate with some sweet and sour sauce. Pick at the cooked meat while the fish looks up at you - still very much alive - its mouth moving, the damned fish saying Why are you eating me while my heart still beats?
Or Japanese Ikizukuri sashima. Now there's a dish. The diner selects the fish from the tank. The skilled chef delicately fillets the fish, without damaging its heart or any internal organs. The fillets are diced and laid on the plate with the still-alive fish as dressing. Again, the fish looks at you while you're eating it and says Why? The diner says Fresh!
As they pulled up outside Jacob's apartment building, Sophie caught a glimpse of a familiar tousled head in a squad car that was pulling away. Then she saw where they were. Jacob?