He took a gulp of the lager; it was cold enough to numb the back of his throat. ‘But that still doesn’t explain the time they were in the Abbey before the murder,’ he said.
Eleanor gave a tiny groan.
‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘We can drop it for the night.’
‘And put up with moody silences while you’re thinking about it. No thanks. But next time Julia can definitely go find someone else. This is Mandel Investigations’ last case, Gregory.’
He flashed her a smile, squeezing her tighter. ‘No messing.’
‘So what about the time?’ She sipped at her own lager.
‘Why wait until Rosette and Isabel left Kitchener? A tekmerc wouldn’t care about snuffing them as well, in fact it would even be beneficial from the mission’s point of view. Two less people to spot him leaving, raise the alarm.’
‘But they were a complication, Greg. Killing three people in one room would be risky. Certainly one of them would manage to shout.’
‘Maybe. But it would mean he had to wait somewhere inside the Abbey for hours. No tekmerc would do that, the exposure risk is too great. And in any case, it implies he knew Rosette would leave Kitchener alone for a while.’
‘Everyone knew she was an insomniac.’
‘Her friends, yes. But how would anyone else know?’
‘Good question.’ She leant forward and rescued her cybofax from the coffee table. ‘There’s a couple of other points. Amanda Paterson and I spent the afternoon chasing up English Telecom.’ She started reading the data on the cybofax screen. ‘The only datalinks from the Abbey on Thursday were the three we’ve accounted for: Nicholas and CNES, Rosette and Oxford University, and Kitchener himself, he was plugged into Caltech, over in America. On top of that there were twenty-one phone calls made from cybofaxes; two of them were Mrs Mayberry’s, the housekeeper, one of her helpers made another, then Rosette made nine, Cecil made a couple, so did Liz, Nicholas and Isabel both made one each, the other three were all Kitchener’s. Amanda and another detective are calling the numbers and confirming the calls were vocal. We thought someone could have plugged a cybofax into one of the Abbey’s terminals, the bit rate would be substantially lower, but you could still use it to squirt a virus into the Bendix.’
‘Yeah, assuming it was done on Thursday. There’s nothing to prevent you from loading the virus a month ago, and putting it on a time-delay activation.’
She gave him a disappointed look. ‘We had to start somewhere.’
‘Yeah, sure. Sorry. But nobody’s going to remember a phone call from a month or half a year ago.’
‘I know, but what else can we do?’
‘Nothing, it was only ever a very long shot, closing off options. I can’t see anyone wanting to wipe the Bendix until after Kitchener was dead, not if the object was to destroy his work. To wipe it when he was alive would be counterproductive, he would be able to recreate his equations or whatever, and you’d alert him to the security problem. And if it was loaded a month ago, how did they know the timing, or when the students would stop accessing it. No, I’m sure it must have been done from within the Abbey after he was killed, that’s the only scenario that makes sense.’
‘You’re probably right. Anyway, while Amanda was running down the phone calls, I checked with RAF Cottesmore about the weather conditions on Thursday. There were winds up to a hundred kilometres an hour locally that night, some gusts reached a hundred and twenty. Here is their squirt.’
‘Bugger.’ He put down the lager and looked at the meteorological data which the cybofax was displaying. The purple and blue cloudforms of the weather radar image were superimposed over a map of Rutland; pressure and wind velocity/direction captions flashed across it.
‘Can you fly a microlight in that?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Not a chance. Even high level would be risky; low level with the microbursts you’d get in the Chater valley, impossible.’
She rubbed his arm. ‘Couldn’t they just hike in and out?’
‘It’s four kilometres to Launde from the A47 by the straightest possible route, eight there and back. The trip there would be in the middle of a hurricane, with a diversion round Loddington to be sure they weren’t sighted, and carrying enough gear to melt through the security system. You wouldn’t catch me trying to do it.’
‘But it could be done?’ she persisted.
‘Theoretically, yeah, an inertial guido would place you within a couple of centimetres. But that terrain, well, you saw it.’
‘Yes.’ She gave him back the glass of lager, and curled her legs up, resting her head on his shoulder.
He felt the kiss on the bottom of his jaw, then she was rubbing her cheek against his. Up and down, slowly. ‘You’re all tensed up,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘You won’t solve anything like that.’
For a moment he thought of pulling away. But only for a moment. Besides, she was right, he wouldn’t settle it tonight.
The bedroom overlooked the reservoir’s southern prong, a long dark stretch of water with its wavelets and gently writhing curlicues of mist. Walls and furniture were silky white; vases, picture frames, curtains, sheets, and the bedposts were all coloured in shades of blue; the oaken floorboards smoothed down and waxed until they resembled a ballroom floor.
None of that really mattered, not the surroundings, just the bed, with Eleanor. Clad in black silk and lace, naked, provocative, sensual, demanding, submissive, thick red hair foaming down over her shoulders. She possessed a myriad sexual traits, combinations ever-changing, making each time different, unique.
The only light came from the bonfire on the opposite shore, a distant orange glimmer, barely enough to show him her outline. He undid the bows and buttons of her nightdress, licking at the flesh which was exposed tasting the salt tang of damp skin, the heat of arousal.
Embraced by the warmth and folds of shadow he had learned to cast off reticence, taking his lead from her. Eleanor didn’t care, wasn’t ashamed. Maybe rampancy was a gift of youth, or just part of her nature. So he was free to lose himself in the feast of sensuality, the feel of her body. Long powerful legs wrapped round him, big breasts weighed down his hands. He sucked on an erect nipple, caressed her belly. A tiny neurohormone secretion showed him her body’s reactions, which action brought the greatest rapture. The material world faded to dream silhouettes, revealing Eleanor’s nerve strands alive with neon-blue light, her naked excitement. He slid inside her, a drawn-out penetration accompanied by her fervid groan, and joined her at the centre of that blazing animal euphoria.
But afterwards intuition, or possibly plain confusion, played hell inside his skull and he couldn’t let go of the case. He lay back on the crumpled sheeting, hands behind his head, staring up at the shivers of firelight on the ceiling. Snapshots of Launde, the students, Kitchener, police reports, they all chased across his consciousness in endless procession, sharp-edged and insistent.
‘So much for my prowess,’ Eleanor grumbled softly.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘No.’
‘Sorry.’
‘This really has got you bothered, hasn’t it?’ She sounded more concerned than annoyed. ‘You were never so intense about a case before, at least not since I’ve known you.’
He rolled on to his side, his face centimetres from hers. Warm breath gusted over his cheeks. ‘Tell you, what I don’t understand, what’s really got me beaten, is why bother?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What is the point of murdering an old man in such a grotesque fashion? Even if one of the students had murdered Kitchener, it wouldn’t be like that. You’ve read the statements, what happened when they found him. They were having fits. And I don’t blame them, that hologram was bad enough. I’m bloody sure I couldn’t do it, not like that. A maser beam through the brain, quick and clean, yes. But who could do that to someone else? Like Cecil Cameron said, it was one sick fucker.’
‘Sick enough for you to perceive with you
r espersense?’
‘I would have thought so. That’s one of the reasons I want to visit Liam Bursken tomorrow, so I know what mental characteristics to look out for.’
‘Urgh.’ She shivered slightly. ‘You’re welcome to him. Even in the kibbutz we heard about him.’
‘Yeah, he was notorious enough. But he was mad. He didn’t have a reason for killing. Somebody had a reason for killing Kitchener. And a lot of preparation went into it. But I just don’t understand why the tekmerc used that method. It can’t be an attempt to throw us off the scent, because even the police were convinced it wasn’t one of the students. And that was before my interviews backed up their alibis. So why bother? Why not just send a sniper into Launde Park on a clear night? It doesn’t make any sense!’
Her forefinger traced a line from the corner of his eye to his mouth. He sucked the tip gently.
‘Like you said; this tekmerc is good,’ Eleanor said. ‘The snuff was done this way for a purpose. We don’t have all the facts yet, that’s why it seems so weird.’
‘Yeah. Paradox alley, and no messing.’ He frowned, trying to remember some scrap of conversation; word association was involved. ‘Hey, do you know what CTCs are?’
‘Aren’t they the things which helped to screw up the ozone?’
‘I don’t think that’s what he meant.’
Eleanor’s finger had reached his chin, she tickled his stubble. ‘Who?’
‘Nicholas Beswick.’
‘The wimpy one?’
‘He’s not wimpy, just very innocent. You’d probably like him. Trigger your maternal instinct.’
She made a fist and rapped on his sternum. ‘Chauvinist!’
‘Parental instinct, then. I went easy on him; anything else would have seemed like bullying. It was like coaxing answers out of a ten-year-old.’
‘But you were hard enough to be sure it wasn’t him.’
‘Oh yeah, no room for ambiguity … except, the sensor data was questionable.’
‘In what way?’
‘He said he had a shower about quarter-past seven Thursday evening. And the police gave him a scan at nine o’clock the next morning. He was still quite clean. His body ought to have picked up more dirt than it did in that period.’
‘How reliable is that kind of scan?’
‘It’s not the scan, that’s perfect; if the body has any contaminants, the sensor will detect them. Vernon told me afterwards they could never take the dirt accumulation record into court, because no one could say how much dirt he would have picked up in that time, not with any degree of certainty. There are far too many variables; where he was, how active he was, how dirty his sheets are, even if his clothes picked up a static charge. They are all contributory factors. But as a general rule of thumb, it should have been more.’
‘Did he lie about the time of the shower?’
‘No.’
‘So he didn’t wash off the bloodstains?’
‘No. Actually, he was one of the students who did touch Kitchener. But Cecil Cameron confirms that, it’s in his statement. So that’s not in question.’
‘Humm.’ She placed her hand palm down on his chest and began to stroke him, moving in an expanding circle. ‘What does your intuition say?’
He leant closer and kissed the end of her nose. ‘Nothing. Not a bloody thing. You were right. We need more information.’
‘In the morning.’
He slipped his hands round her hips, squeezing the taut curve of her buttocks. ‘No messing.’
11
The next morning began with a break in the rainclouds. Only a few immobile strips of cirrus were left crouched over the eastern horizon, fluoresced a pale saffron by the rising sun. According to the channel weathercasts, the next stormfront would arrive by teatime.
The A47 into Peterborough was even more snarled up than usual. Scooters were in the majority, the city’s morning shifts on their way to work, riding up to four abreast in the spaces between juggernauts, vans, and company buses. They were used to the traffic, Eleanor wasn’t. By the time she reached the section of road which ran alongside the Ferry Meadows estuary she was shouting at the three riders keeping station two metres ahead of their bonnet. The glittery red and blue metallic helmets with their black visors remained unmoved by her diatribe, easily anticipating the surges of the methane-powered van in front of them, braking smoothly. In comparison she seemed to be hopping forwards like a kangaroo. A steady stream of cyclists zipped by on the inside. Infuriating.
Thirteen years ago the raised land to the north of the estuary had been a mix of open countryside and pleasant woodland. Twelve years ago it had been swamped by a slum zone of shanty housing the like of which Europeans had only ever seen in ’casts from the Third World. Now it was a solid cliff of whitewashed apartment blocks, long balconies dribbling fronds of colourful vegetation from clay pots, washing hanging on lines between support arches. Solar-cell roofs glinted brightly in the morning sun.
Below the concrete embankment the tide was going out, leaving long stains of milk-chocolate mud visible above the sluggish water. A line of artificial stone islands was strung out across the two-kilometre width of the estuary, the eddy turbine barrage, creating vast, slow-moving whirlpools in each gap.
The first time she had ever come to Peterborough – the first time she had ever been to any city – she had accompanied Greg along the same route, visiting the same person. Even two years on, the difference was pronounced. More traffic, more people, more urgency, less tolerance. It was all due to Julia. Event Horizon’s arrival had tweaked the city’s dynamic economy into overdrive. After ten years of copious growth and financial exuberance Peterborough still hadn’t lost its Frontiersville verve. Everybody was on overtime, chasing impossible directives. And they seemed to thrive on the compulsive achiever atmosphere.
My God, is this what regeneration is bringing us back to? Traffic jams and yuppies?
At least none of the vehicles was burning petrol. Not even Julia could take that short cut. Energy generation and supply was becoming a problem again, countrywide. Worldwide, from what the ’casts said. Solar cells simply couldn’t meet industrial demands, coal was out of the question. Hydro dams were one possibility for England, given the increased rainfall, but the country’s chronic land shortage all but ruled them out. Tidal barrages were a viable option, but they were big, their construction time could be anything up to a decade. England needed the electricity now. Peterborough had its eddy turbines in addition to its quota from the beleaguered National Commerce Grid, but even that fell well below the level demanded by Event Horizon, the kombinates, and the plethora of smaller light-engineering companies nesting in the suburbs.
Eleanor couldn’t think how Julia intended to power the tower and cyber-precincts she was beginning out at Prior’s Fen. It couldn’t be fusion; the JET5 reactor at Cullham had passed the break-even point a year ago, but commercial applications were still seven or eight years away, and looked like being at least as expensive as fission. Perhaps Julia was planning to ship it in using old oil tankers converted to carry giga-conductor cells. They could be charged up in equatorial ports; the power would be there if she spread a few hundred square kilometres of solar cells over the new deserts in Africa and Asia. Her Prior’s Fen project was certainly pitched at that sort of macro-scale.
The channel breakfast newscasts had devoted a lot of time to reports of Julia pouring the first footings of her new headquarters building. Eleanor and Greg had watched it in bed, eating toast and sipping tea, enjoying the quiet period of togetherness. Because she damn well knew it would be the only one they’d get today.
The traffic began to quicken, her three helmeted outriders opening some distance. She drove past the entrance to the Milton park estate. Normally she used it as a short cut into Bretton, but at this time of day she would have to fight her way through the traffic in the Park Farm industrial precinct. Quicker to stick to the trunk road.
A comet’s tail of red brake ligh
ts flared up ahead.
Bretton was a hive of construction activity. Neglected through the PSP decade as the vivacious new developments flourished in what had once been the green belt, it was now back in demand with property developers despite its strategically disadvantaged position sitting between Mucklands Wood and Walton. Housing and industrial units tussled for space in old parklands, streets were parking yards for the lorries of various building contractors.
Eleanor parked behind a low-loader carrying a pair of factory-new dumper carts. The first thing she missed were the children. Bretton used to be swarming with them.
Rounded up and carted off to school, most likely. And a good thing too. There was so much catching up to do. The one thing she always regretted was not having a formal education; all the kibbutz had given her was the basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and databasing lessons, then they put her straight into animal husbandry courses. She had enjoyed them at the time, because it meant that for three nights a week she went into Oakham to the sixth-form college. Two hours just sitting down and not having to work. Heaven.
The adult courses, or at least getting out of the kibbutz and seeing there were alternative ways to live, had planted the seeds of rebellion which ultimately resulted in meeting Greg that night two years ago. She knew all she needed to run the groves with Greg, although she still toyed with the idea of going back and picking up some more qualifications. One of those warm misty daydreams which helped life slip down a little easier, a what if which was slightly more than idle fantasy.
Now, of course, education for children was a New Conservative priority, and a real one, not just a manifesto declaration. One of the reasons for the current bout of inflation was the amount of money the Treasury had to print to pay for repairing schools and providing them with up-to-date equipment. So Julia always said. But then it was Julia who was so insistent that total education be implemented as soon as possible.