The Lover's Children Box Set

Chapter 11

Michael’s phone buzzes. He glances at the screen and taps in. “Hi, Kylie? Yes?” His eyes flick my way… “Fine, bring it across to the house… Oh? Just him?” His brows rise. “Okay, we’ll be there in five.” Shoving the mobile back in a pocket, he eye-points Mitch, then surreptitiously head-points me to the door.

Out in the hallway, he raises a finger to his lips, jerking his head toward the front door. Outside, and out of earshot, “Sorry about that. You’ve had a delivery. You have to sign for it personally. The courier says he has instructions to take it away if he can’t deliver it to you, and only you. From the sound of it, it’s those files Will Stanton said he’d send you. I’m guessing the contents aren’t very pleasant.” He plucks at a lip… “Um… I’d prefer Charlotte doesn’t fall over them in her current state of mind.”

onlyAutopsy reports…

Personal details of the woman murdered…

“Couldn’t agree more. And I don’t want Mitch seeing them either.”

In the hotel reception area, two large cardboard crates await me, well taped up. I sign… Lars Waterman… and the courier relinquishes them to me.

Lars Waterman… Michael hefts one box. “Where d’you want them?”

“In the trunk of my car for now. I’ll read them when I’m in private.”

*****

I tap in the number Stanton gave me. It answers within seconds. “Anderssen.”

“Is that Borje? Larry Waterman here. I was told to call you to…”

He snaps in, his voice cool. “Yes, Commissioner Stanton contacted me directly, requesting that I cooperate with you and supply any information you request.”

He hardly sounds welcoming, but then, our relations thus far have been less than congenial.

Ignore it…

“I’d like to see the latest victim of your so-called ‘Surgeon’. This morning if possible.”

“What’s left of her,” he huffs. Then, sounding more conciliatory. “And he’s certainly not my Surgeon. I’d string the bastard up if I could. So, if you’re helping with the effort… I’ll tell them at Reception to expect you…” A pause… “Don’t eat before you arrive.”

my*****

“I’m here to see Borje. He’s expecting me. Larry Waterman.”

The receptionist purses lips. “Doctor Anderssen said to expect you, Mr Waterman. And to send you straight through to his office.” She angles an arm along the corridor. “To the end, then second on the right.”

Doctor My stomach rumbles as I follow her directions. I took Borje’s advice, but my breakfast wore off some time ago.

I’ve had many years of brushing shoulders with death, one way or another, but this is the first time I’ve been in a mortuary. My shoes, clipping on ceramic tiling, echo down the short passageway. It’s oddly unsettling.

Don’t be so f*****g stupid…

The office is easy enough to find. I tap on the door but there’s no answer, so I try the handle and as it turns, enter.

No more than a small office, it’s unoccupied other than the squawk box spouting the receptionist’s tinny voice. “Doctor Anderssen? Your visitor is here. I’ve sent him on as you instructed… Doctor Anderssen?”

I call out… “Anyone around?” No one replies.

Raising my voice, “Hello?”

Crickets…

To my left, a door stands closed.

Viewing Area

Another door stands ajar at the end.

Mortuary

From beyond the door, comes a faint buzz. Trying the handle, it turns and I step through to be met by a mechanical whine…

A drill?

It’s a plain room: white walls and ceiling. White floor tiles too. The lighting too is very bright, almost too much so for comfort.

One wall is lined by a block of stainless-steel cabinets. Another by a series of matching steel tables. Double swing doors face me from the far end.

The drainer of a stainless-steel wash basin is stacked with handwash, antiseptics and a box of latex gloves. A notice board crowns it. Safety Instructions… Wash your Hands… Close by, a hose lies coiled by a bin… Biohazard… The smell of bleach and formaldehyde overlie a sweetly foul odour.

Safety Instructions… Wash your Hands… Biohazard…The raw lighting highlights stainless steel tables set out with metal trays of pliers, scalpels, toothed forceps, scissors and shears.

A be-gloved figure in green medic’s scrubs, mask and what looks like a plastic shower cap stoops over one of the tables: laid out with…

… as I approach…

… the source of the putrid odour: a corpse, grey-blue, male.

A sheet drapes over the feet, but the remainder is naked. The cadaver has already seen some work, its chest laid open, the cavity dark. The liver lies on a weighing scale, a clipboard of notes and a ballpoint alongside. A series of small bottles contains what I assume to be tissue samples.

At the end of the table, a wheeled trolley, slung with wires and feeds, carries a camera and a computer screen, currently displaying some output from the camera: a shot of what could be a knife wound. But judging by the surrounding bruises, the owner of the knife didn’t stop at a simple stabbing.

The stooped figure is the source of the whining sound, working on the skull of the cadaver with a circular bone cutter, the tool revving up to a screech as he applies pressure. Fascination wars with revulsion and I find myself moving close enough to see where the crown of the skull is being separated from the remainder like the top of some overgrown boiled egg. There’s less mess than I would expect, but nonetheless, dark fluids drip to the glazed floor tiles and away down a small drain.

My footsteps are drowned out by the sound of the saw. Certainly, intent on his work, the figure shows no sign of realising I am there. After half a minute or so, he switches off the saw, sets it to one side, then adjusting his position, reaches in toward the skull…

Taking out the brain…?

… I clear my throat. Quite loudly. “Doctor Anderssen?”

He looks up, but only with his eyes, then jerking upright, yanks the sheet back from the feet to cover the body. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“Your receptionist sent me through.”

“The hell she did…” his voice is muffled by the mask. “…To my office, yes. Not…”

I keep my voice calm. “I knocked. No one answered. I entered. I called out. No one replied. I came through. I’ve been here for at least two minutes.”

knocked.“Oh.” Borje blows air. Glances at the body. “Sorry.” Then, returning the glance to me, assessing, he lifts his chin. “I take it you’ve seen corpses before?”

“One or two. I’ll not keel over on the mortuary floor if that’s what you’re asking.” I nod down to the draped cadaver. “What happened to him?”

Borje straightens up, slipping into professional mode, speaking as though delivering a report. “Attacked by an intruder as he was changing a flat tyre in his garage. Stabbed and beaten. His attacker got a pocketful of change and was driving the car as the police caught up with him, joyriding, two days later. He was three times over the alcohol limit.” He blows air. “This poor bastard hadn’t even been missed by then. The police came looking and found him on the garage floor when the neighbour let them in with a spare key.”

professional“May I?” I glance for permission, then as Borje nods, flick back the sheet. The corpse looks no better on second viewing. “What was the cause of death?”

“Blunt trauma to the cranium... Tyre iron.”

I jerk a thumb at the monitor. “And the stab wound?”

“Carpet knife. They found it by the body.” He blows out his cheeks. “People can be stupid. Viciously stupid.”

I tug the cover back into place. “I’ll not disagree with you there. I imagine in your profession it qualifies as an occupational hazard. This can’t be a line of work where you see the better side of the human race.”

Peeling off the gloves, he shrugs, then tugs off the mask. “I suppose. It does no favours for my social life, that’s for certain.”

“I’m sure you don’t sleep in the basement. Or avoid daylight and mirrors.”

Borje stares at me, then my graveyard humour seems to catch hold. He bursts out laughing, slaps me on the arm. “Perhaps you and I got off to a bad start, Larry. We’ll call it quits, shall we.”

“I’d prefer that. We’re both on the same side here.”

His laughter fades. “You’ve come to discuss the Surgeon’s latest victim?”

“Perhaps to discuss. First, I’d like to see the body. View his handiwork.”

He hesitates, then, “Fine.” Moving across to the cabinet block, he opens the door to one section, then pauses. “Just a warning. It’s not a pretty sight. What you just saw on the other table doesn’t compare.”

“Duly noted.”

He draws out a sliding tray occupied by another sheeted cadaver. Slipping back the sheet, he reveals the ruins of what was once a woman"s body.

I’ve seen death before, in many forms. I’ve been responsible for enough of it. Then too, Stanton showed me the photos, the mutilation inflicted by the Surgeon. I knew what to expect. But it’s still not an easy sight.

In life, I imagine she was beautiful. Perhaps twenty years old, with long, glossy hair, the intense black of the Asian and Oriental types. It would have dropped straight as an arrow to hang by her waist.

But now that hair trails from her bloated face. The skin is bluish, speckled deep purple-red with ruptured blood vessels. The eyelids are almost completely dark, a purple heading for black. Grooves at wrist and ankle, deeply bruised, mark where restraints have bitten in. Her hands and feet too, are bloated and dark.

And what’s been done to her…

doneMutilation isn’t a strong enough word. She’s been, essentially, disembowelled. s***h wounds cover her thighs and stomach, what’s left of it. Her left leg is missing flesh from the calf, although the damage, to my eye, looks more like mauling than something committed with a blade. The left hand is missing two fingers, with only bloody stumps remaining. Her thighs are bruised and bloody.

MutilationI suck some saliva into my mouth. “Do we have a name for her?”

“Susumu Takaki. Eighteen years old. Local girl.”

“Who ID’d her?”

He checks a note. “Name of Ayesha Laghari. Her… working partner…”

“This Ayesha had reported her missing? To the police?”

“Not to my knowledge. But you’d have to ask the investigating officers.”

I keep my voice level. “Was she still alive when this was done to her?”

Borje delivers a monotone reply. “Most of what you see is post-mortem: the slashing of the breasts, abdomen, thighs and genital area, the removal of the internal organs. But both external and internal damage to genital and anal areas indicate violent s****l assault while she was alive.”

“r**e? She was a hooker, wasn’t she? Or do I have that wrong?”

“You have it right. Nonetheless, I doubt she thought this was on the menu.”

“Stanton said COD was suffocation?”

“Yes… Just a moment...” From an adjacent locker, Borje produces a plastic zip-bag. Unzipping, he tweezers out the contents: crumpled paper, soaked, almost mushed.

I’d not know what I was looking at if Stanton hadn’t already told me. “Money? He blocked her airway with bank notes?”

“That’s right. They were jammed down far enough and tight enough that he must have used something to do it with. Then he taped over her mouth so she couldn’t cough it up. This is one as it was removed from her throat. And here’s the second…” He produces another bag… “…which we opened up and smoothed out.”

The second bag contains a twenty, creased and wrinkled, but flattish. Dark stains streak contours along the creases.

“Just the two notes? Both twenties?”

“Just the two.”

“Couldn’t she have coughed them up? The gag reflex would usually…”

“As you can see, she was bound ankle and wrist. And her mouth was taped over. If you look here, you can see…” He extends a finger, drawing a rectangle in the air around her mouth… “… faint marks left by the tape before it was removed. Also, the skin and flesh in that area are slightly swollen compared to the rest of the face.”

“Why the swelling?”

“Think about having a band-aid over a cut for a day or so. You peel it off and…”

“… and it’s white and swollen underneath.”

“Yes.” He regards the remains of Susumu Takaki. “Even if she succeeded in coughing up the banknotes, or in swallowing them, he could have repeated the process until he succeeded.”

“Did he?”

“Not in this case. Susumu’s stomach contains only the remains of her last meal. However, Victim Number Two, Achara Saelim, did succeed in swallowing the banknotes. The first set at least. They were found in her stomach during the autopsy. But in that case, yes, the killer simply repeated the process. Although he didn’t waste more money on her. He used newsprint for the second attempt, again ramming it down her throat until the airway was blocked and she asphyxiated.”

Borje’s warning not to eat before I arrived was good advice. I tap on the bag containing the flattened banknote. “Are those stains blood?”

“Yes. Whatever it was he used to force the notes down, it damaged her oesophagus and trachea.”

“What does damaged mean, in this context?”

damagedBorje pauses, breathes. “He forced the notes down her throat using some semi-sharp instrument. In the process, he ripped her throat lining. Banknotes aside, there’s a good chance she would have choked on her own blood.”

My stomach churns. “Can you speculate what this sharp instrument might have been?”

“Something long and blunt-ended, but sharp enough to cut the lining of the throat. Probably metallic.” He rocks his hand. “Screwdriver maybe?”

“Was it the same with all the previous victims?”

“Yes, each woman. Identical method each time. Two twenties. Jammed down far enough to block the airway and cause asphyxiation. The violence committed on the bodies afterwards has escalated, but the murder method has remained the same.”

I ponder. “What will forty buy you these days?”

He arches brows. “From a street hooker in those areas? Pretty much anything most clients would ask for I’d have thought.”

I gesture down to the brutalised corpse. “But not this.” I’m thinking aloud, not really expecting a response, but he replies anyway, his voice quiet.

“No, not this.”

“Where’s the rest of her? Do we know?”

“Yes. Her internal organs were still with her, scattered over the surrounding area. We retrieved them piecemeal.” He gestures vaguely to the second locker where, now I look, I see several boxes of the kind a hospital might use for the transport of biological materials.

“When you say scattered, was there any kind of pattern? As though he’d been trying to arrange or display them? Or was it random?”

“Random so far as we can judge. You have the photos of the site where she was discovered, I believe?”

“That’s right.”

“Judge for yourself then. But the investigating officers saw no pattern to it. And neither did I.”

“And in the earlier cases?”

“In the earlier cases, the damage was not so severe. The body was mutilated but still in one piece. The scale of the post-mortem assault has escalated in each case. Susumu is the worst so far.”

Borje maintains a steady monotone. I follow his lead. “And did you find… all of her?”

all “Almost all. Not all the damage was inflicted by the killer. There are teeth marks on some of the bones and flesh. Canine teeth.”

Almost“Dogs?”

“Or urban foxes perhaps.” He shrugs. “Can’t blame them. The body was out in the open. From the point of view of the local wildlife, she was just meat by then. They were doing what came naturally.”

“That’s what predators and scavengers do.”

“Quite. Her liver was partially eaten. And her limbs had been gnawed, as you can see from the damage to the calf of the left leg and hand. But…” He raises a finger to underline the word… “…what certainly wasn’t due to the City wildlife was that Susumu here, and all the other victims, each had a strand of hair missing. Clipped short, close to the scalp.”

But…wasn’tandI chew that one over. I’ve known some of the psycho types that kill and torture for fun. Some of them had me in mind as a target. But I never made a study of the mindset. “Some serial killers do that, don’t they? Take…” I flounder for a moment, trying to think of an appropriate word… “… souvenirs?”

souvenirs?“Yes. It’s a common pattern, and this one apparently fits that pattern. Give me a second…”

Borje extracts a pair of vinyl gloves from the box by the washbasin and snaps them on, then returns to the cadaver. Reaching in, he parts the woman’s hair to reveal the scalp. “If you look here… In each of the murders being attributed to the Surgeon, you’ll find something similar.”

hereFrom the exposed area, a stump of hair, perhaps half an inch long, protrudes amid the remaining hair. “… You can see there’s a lock been cut.”

“And it remains missing? It wasn’t found with the… scattered remains?”

“That’s correct. I went to…” Borje pauses as the double doors bang open ahead of a green-uniformed orderly towing a steel trolley, the draped hump of the latest of the deceased laid out on top. A second orderly pushes from the rear. Fitted green caps cover their hair. Matching masks are pulled down under their chins like green beards.

“Where do you want him, Doc?” asks the first. “Car smash. Joy rider. DOA. No ID yet, but the fire crew said what was left of the car stank of whiskey when they pulled him off the steering column.” He glances at me, apparently registering a stranger, then sniffs, screwing up his face. With a sharp look at the covered male cadaver… “f**k me…” … he tugs the mask up to cover his nose. His co-worker follows suit.

Borje gestures vaguely to the table at the far end of the room. “Thanks, Ricky. Number Four, please.” He blows out his cheeks. “It’s not even Tuesday yet.”

The pair of orderlies wheel the trolley to the end table, their manner brisk and, while not exactly cheerful, with the air of having done this a thousand times before. Between them, they transfer the still-obscured corpse to the table. A dark trickle from under the cloth drips to the floor.

‘Ricky’ unhooks a clipboard from the trolley, produces a ballpoint, signs at the bottom, then trots across, passing the board to Borje. As he sees what’s on the tray, he stiffens. “Jesus Christ. Is that her?”

Christ.Borje doesn’t comment, merely giving a short nod as he scribbles the medically required unreadable signature at the bottom of the sheet.

The second orderly joins him, staring at the gutted remains. “Holy Mother,” he murmurs. “What some people do…” He shakes his head, jerks his thumb back to where he came from. “That silly bastard got what was coming, but this…” The pair of Trolley-Dollies hover over the corpse, gawping.

Borje scowls. “Alright, Liam,” he snaps, whipping the cover back into place. “That’s enough. She’s not a damn showpiece.”

‘Liam’ flinches and backs off. “Sure thing, Doc. Sorry.” The pair reverse out of the morgue, taking the trolley with them.

The brief break has given me the chance to get my thoughts back in order. “The mutilation. Stanton suggested it was done with a scalpel?”

Borje glances away, then back...

Uncomfortable at the suggestion it could be another doctor?

“…For the organ removal, a sharp blade, certainly. And yes, it could have been a scalpel. But it would have needed something heavier to open up her ribcage the way he has.”

“A bone saw? Of the sort you were using when I came in?”

“No.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Something much cruder.”

“Such as?”

“Ever seen that TV series? The one where the Viking chief performs the Blood Eagle on his enemy, using an axe to open him up?” Borje pauses.

“I get the picture.” I consider that… “Another question. I gather that in the previous cases, the women were found dumped: alleys, back lanes, the river. Was it the same this time? The site in the park, where she was found. Was that the actual murder scene? Or had the body been moved?”

“Moved…” Borje takes a deep breath, looking down for a moment, his mouth and throat working. “… Since the time of death, and not just by foxes. When you and I had our… encounter… I don’t always visit the crime scene. I do most of my work from here. The corpses are brought to the lab after accidents or misadventure, like...” He gestures to the end table… “… John Doe over there. But on this occasion, I’d seen the site the day before, when you saw me running in. Even given what I do for a living, it was the stuff of nightmares. But I wanted to go back.”

encounter“For some specific reason?”

He hunches. “Partly, I thought it might give me some insight, professionally speaking. In truth, when I saw her the first day, it was so shocking that I wasn’t sure I’d been thinking clearly. I wanted to be sure I’d not overlooked anything. But really…” He spreads palms… “I suppose I felt the girl needed some acknowledgement. That some recognition was due to her.”

Recognition?

I suppose…

Keep it professional…

“And what did you find?”

He breathes deep, looks up again. “Nothing really. Not that wasn’t already covered. I mean… I wasn’t going to find it because I didn’t really know what I was looking for. The investigating team and the sweepers had already been over the scene. It looked on the face of it, as you suggested, like a Ripper-style murder. The grassed area in the park where she was found was awash with blood because the killer scattered her internal organs over a wide area. But it wasn’t the kind of spray pattern you’d get if she’d been alive while he was cutting her. It took a while for the photographers to finish their part of the work. After that, they brought her to me here…”

going“Was it the same pattern with the other women?”

“Broadly, yes.”

“That’s not something that’s appeared in the papers.”

Borje shudders. “You imagine the police want copycats out there?”

Fair point…

“Serial killers work to patterns. I have that right?”

“I’m not an expert, but that’s my understanding.” Borje sweeps a hand through his hair. “I’ll say that I have become more knowledgeable on the subject since this started.”

becomethis “So… Were the women similar physically? It wasn’t easy to judge from the photographs. Were they all Asian types perhaps? Like this one? Petite and athletic? Tall, dark and well-built?”

“Nope.” He gives a sharp jerk of the head. “No, not at all. The first victim, Olivia Wilson, was Caucasian, tall. Perhaps five feet nine. So was the third, Emma Williams. Number Two. She was the oldest, at twenty-four years old. Achara Saelim was Thai. About five feet, five. And the youngest at seventeen. Number Four, Anna Jansons, was East European… Um… Latvian, I think. Five, seven. Susumu here, she was of Japanese origin. And as you see, about five feet, five.”

“How about hair type? You said he took some from each of them.”

Another sharp jerk. “Achara, Thai, and Susumu, Japanese, were of course, both dark-haired. Anna had the typical looks of an East-European. Blondish to fair. Olivia was strawberry blonde. Emma was brunette. I’ll get you the files. And the in-life photographs. But I would never have put that set of women in a group and thought, ‘there’s a man’s type.’”

in-lifethat typeHe stares into space for a moment… “They do… did… all have one thing in common. Long, straight hair. Different colours, but all long and straight.”

did“Is there anything they did have in common, from the medical point of view?”

didHe pauses, apparently considering his words. “Our killer is choosy. The women were all unusually healthy, especially given that they were low-end s*x workers. I regularly see their… co-workers… come through here overdosed on one drug or another. Typically, they’re old before their time. Used up. They’ve spent years running on uppers, downers, h****n or c***k. A lot have run out of veins. Some would be on a bottle of vodka a day. There’s often a trail of abortions and miscarriages. Not to mention beatings and abuse by the handlers.”

“These women, as a group, were clean by anyone’s measure. Not one was a smoker. There was no liver damage. No sign of drug or alcohol abuse. I took samples from all of them for testing. They were all clean. Above-average I’d say.”

These“So, he likes attractive, healthy women. Is that such a surprise? Most men do.”

“I suppose not.” He sucks air through his teeth. “But if you take a random sample of street hookers, what are the chances?”

“Alright, granted. And you would say the violence committed is escalating?”

“Absolutely. In the first case, Olivia, there was slashing of the breast and genital area. But there was none of the… elaboration… of the assault you see here.” Borje stumbles his words. “You know, someone has to do this, but there’re times I hate my job.”

I swallow. The combo of formaldehyde, disinfectant, semi-decayed corpse and the butchered Susumu is getting to me in a way I wouldn’t have credited. “Borje, do you have time to talk? Outside of here, I mean?”

He huffs. “Are you kidding? Sure. Want some air?”

“S’there someplace round here we can get coffee?”

“There’s the staff canteen, but the stuff they serve there is crap. I’ll take you round the corner. There’s a little cafe there where they know how coffee’s supposed to be brewed.”

*****

“Two coffees. Strong. And two…” Borje speaks over his shoulder to where I sit by the window, drawing long breaths of clean air… “Ready to eat yet? They do a good all-day breakfast. Decent food and they don’t mess with the portions.”

“Why not?” In truth, my stomach roiling, I don’t much want it, but…

Bridges to build…

“Two coffees and two A.D.Bs.”

.The breakfast is everything Borje promised. The staff clearly know him, and the plate of food is generous. By the time I’ve downed one cup of bitterly strong black coffee and I’m working on another, I find the meal appeals after all.

Borje works at ham, eggs and toast until nothing remains but crumbs, then swipes his mouth with a napkin. “Lars, that"s a Nordic name.”

His enquiry sounds friendly enough. “My family has Norwegian roots.”

“Not Norway itself?”

“British Columbia.”

“You see them often? Get over there much?”

“No.”

Time for a change of subject…

I finish my meal then drop the fork to the plate with a clatter. Borje seems to take the cue. “So… that day you and I met down in the park… What happened?”

“It’s a public park. I was out in the square with James and the rest having lunch. We saw the alarm go up and the police arriving. It looked like all hell was breaking loose. We packed the women off home, but I wanted to see what was happening.”

A thought rears up. “That can’t have been earlier than one o’clock. I know you said the murder itself happened elsewhere, but even so, the killer couldn’t have done what he did during daylight. How did the body remain undiscovered until that time?”

Borje flags down a waitress for a coffee top-up, waiting until she’s out of earshot to reply. “You saw the position. The path from the park gate leads straight down the hill toward the river. The area where the body was dumped is cordoned off as a matter of course. It’s designated as a wildflower meadow. The remains were partially concealed by plant growth. It wasn’t much of a cover, but it was just enough to conceal the body given that those using the path, pedestrians, cyclists etc, had their attention elsewhere. The alarm was raised by a jogger who went to investigate when his dog wouldn’t recall.” He sips at the coffee and grimaces, setting the cup down. “Poor bastard’s probably still having nightmares.”

Borje spoons sugar into his cup. Stirs. “You were suspicious of me. Why?

“I followed someone I considered suspicious. I found you at the end of the trail. I had no idea at that point that you have a role with the police.”

you“Do you still believe it was me you followed?”

“No. It’s clear enough that you’d been on the scene for some time. It couldn’t have been you.”

He clicks his tongue. “Good.” Then, a touch of challenge enters his voice. “What"s your interest in Georgie?”

I keep my words dry. “Georgie’s young enough to be my daughter. My interest is that she"s, as you know, actually the daughter of a friend of mine. James. So you can get that rod from out of your ass.”

interest Borje stiffens, eyes narrowing, then relaxes, looking rueful. “I am… very fond… of Georgie. I want to do right by her, and that means that I’m taking things slowly, and very carefully, with her.”

He pauses, seeming to choose his words. “You might like to know that James told me of your part in Georgie’s rescue last year, when she was taken and attacked. For what it is worth to you, you have my thanks for that.”

I’m lost for words. Borje also, grinds to a halt. We share an awkward pause.

“So…” he says. “What’s your next move?”

*****