Proximity

by Jem Tugwell

  ‘Not a Wilde member,’ he moaned, and stared at his hands. Finally, he said, ‘Let’s start again. Can you check the signals of all the suspects and track Art again?’

  I didn’t get Clive’s certainty about Art. Sure, Art’s a bit pervy, but there’s nothing linking him to anything.

  I clicked into a stored search and threw the summary screen for last week up onto the crime wall.

  ‘Knew it,’ said Clive.

  In bright, full colour I could see nice solid signal lines for Doris, Ameobi and Bailey, even one for Esteban.

  Art’s signal was encrypted over the weekend.

  ***

  Clive was being unbearably smug, but I couldn’t argue with the data. Art’s signal had been encrypted over the weekend, and now he was in Parliament. We would have to see him after he left, so I went to see how the crew were doing.

  They had formed a tight little clump in the office. Connected enough to sit close to each other, even though they never talked amongst themselves. They messaged each other instead, using their HUDs, hands waving in the air: poking, swiping and pinching the items on their screens. Just the hand-dance that you saw everywhere. It was what I did with my friends.

  ‘Anyone got anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing new on Ameobi,’ Ezra answered, his diamante earring sparkling.

  Ava, the brightest crew member, was bouncing in her chair. If she was still at school, she would have had her hand up in the air and be shouting, ‘Miss, miss’ waiting to be asked.

  ‘Ava?’ I said.

  ‘Well, basically, it’s Emma Bailey.’

  Her blond hair was held in two ponytails, which flicked and jumped in time with her excitement. I was tired and drained and felt a flash of irritation at her energy. I stopped myself saying anything in case I sounded as old as Clive. After a breath, I asked, ‘What have you found, Ava?’

  ‘Well, it’s her TrueMe account. She’s posted some photos of food and recipes. They’re from her house.’

  ‘Show me.’ Ava threw her display at my HUD, and I flicked through them. ‘But these were posted last week.’

  ‘Yes, but look at the meta-data embedded in the photos.’ She pushed into one of the photos. ‘See, the location shows her home address which is where her signal says she was, but look at the time stamp. The photos were taken on the evening Karina went missing.’

  This confirmed that Emma Bailey was at home on that evening. She was so quiet and timid that she didn’t really fit the profile of Karina’s killer anyway.

  Ezra interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘There’s a new message on Alan Kane’s TrueMe account.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I’m home.’

  34

  DI Clive Lussac

  Alan’s TrueMe account and his ‘I’m home’ message made us think he was OK, but he still didn’t have a signal. I booked a car to get us to his home to see what was going on, but it was mid-morning and the streets were choked with cars. To save time, I sent a forensics drone ahead of us.

  When people used petrol cars to get about it ruined the air quality, but rush hour would come and go. People commuted, parked and then roads became quieter. Now people got their self-drive cars to drop them off at work and told them to circulate. The cars drove themselves around and around the roads close to their owner in case they were needed at short notice. The cars found a recharging point when they were low, but otherwise they were on the roads. Rush hour lasted all day now.

  We had become commuters of habit: I travelled backwards, Zoe faced forward, the screen between us. Zoe connected our car’s screen to the drone’s image feed. It hadn’t arrived at Alan’s yet, and we stared at the blank screen as the car crawled along, our frustration growing with each slow mile. Finally, the screen flickered into life and we could see the road Alan lived on. The drone approached Alan’s house, its image focused on the wide-open front door.

  ‘He must be there,’ I said. ‘We definitely shut the door after our search.’

  Zoe said, ‘The drone’s too big to get through the front door.’

  ‘OK, tell it to park and deploy the micro-drones.’

  We watched as the drone got closer and closer to the ground. As it settled on the tiny patch of land in front of Alan’s house, the screen changed to a useless view of the dense weeds that were higher than the drone.

  The car’s screen blanked and divided into six separate sections. One by one, they filled with a view of Alan’s open front door as each micro-drone got airborne and came online.

  We followed the screen, our eyes scanning the different images as the micro-drones scoured the house. Except for a couple of closed internal doors that the drones couldn’t get through, it was a bare shell. Alan’s house, but not his home.

  Except it wasn’t exactly the same. ‘Expand number four,’ I said.

  Zoe touched the segment of the screen showing the image of the lounge and it redrew to take up the whole screen. We had a much better view now. The armchair had been pushed back against the wall, and a big silver trunk occupied the middle of the floor with its lid shut. Marks led to it across the carpet from the doorway. They were solid unbroken lines. Not like drag marks, but more like a trolley had been used to wheel the trunk in.

  ‘There’s a label on the lid,’ Zoe said, nudging the controls to move the micro-drone closer to the box until the lid filled the image. She frowned when she saw what it said. ‘What does that mean?’

  Stencilled on the lid were the words ‘Home sweet home’.

  ***

  After the scan, we shut the drones down and when we arrived at Alan’s the main one was in sleep mode, with the micro-drones stowed away and the lid shut. We wouldn’t have seen it resting in all the weeds and grass if we hadn’t known it was there.

  Zoe went into the house first and paused. I took a pace past her and then another towards the trunk.

  After a third step, I reached out and opened the lid of the trunk. I peeked in.

  I swayed, and my mouth filled with saliva as I fought to control my body.

  ‘What is it, Boss?’

  ‘Don’t.’ I tried to grab Zoe’s arm to stop her looking, but I was too late.

  She stood transfixed by my side staring into the trunk.

  On the top lay Alan’s severed head. The mottled, bluish grey of his skin was made shiny by the plastic covering that pressed tightly against each crease and fold. His eyes were open, staring at us, and his tongue was sticking out.

  ‘His tongue’s been pinned in place,’ I said, shuddering. Three round metal pin heads held Alan’s tongue tight against his bottom lip and chin: one in the tip and one on each side.

  The head was exactly in the centre of the bag and parallel to the edges. Someone had taken time and care with the vacuum packing to get the positioning so accurate. It reminded me of the care that had been taken over Karina’s body.

  On either side of the head, two smaller bags were taped to the head’s bag. Each contained one of Alan’s hands and were positioned so that the fingers were splayed out and Alan’s thumbs were touching his temples.

  Whoever had killed Alan had made him look like a kid in a playground – tongue out and hands rotating at his temples, rudely gesturing to his friends and singing, ‘Ner, ner, de, ner, ner.’

  ***

  The micro-drones hadn’t found any fingerprints but to be safe Zoe passed me some new gloves which I snapped onto my shaking hands. I separated the bags and turned Alan’s head over. The metallic ends of the severed probes glinted in amongst his flesh. His iMe had been cut out and explained the lack of a red signal from him.

  ‘There’s someone else in the house,’ Zoe said.

  ‘Who? Where?’ If it wasn’t Alan, then was it Alan’s killer?

  ‘I’ve just scanned the building. There’s a man in the kitchen.’

  We both looked at the closed kitchen door. We had no weapons, no way of protecting ourselves, and someone sick enough to kill Alan and bag
him up was behind the door.

  But I could shield Zoe. ‘Stay close,’ I told her.

  Zoe moved behind me, and we tiptoed towards the kitchen door. Jesus, I’m scared. What would I even do against an armed killer?

  We completed our slow motion, two-person conga across the room and I reached out to the door handle. I could hear movement inside – it was coming straight towards us.

  My hand was millimetres from the handle when it jerked down and the door opened. A scream made Zoe and I jump. I brought my left arm up to parry any attack and pulled my right arm back, ready to throw a punch. ‘Police! Police!’ I shouted, hoping the noise would buy me a second or two.

  But I wasn’t attacked.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ the man said. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

  I wasn’t going to take any chances, so I jumped forward, grabbing the man’s wrist, yanking and twisting it behind him and up into an arm lock. I frog marched him across the kitchen and slammed him into the wall.

  He was in his early thirties, a little shorter than me with a wiry build. I held his wrist in my right hand and my left arm pushed his back and neck into the wall. The left side of his face was tight against the wall and I glimpsed something wet on his lip, nose and down his cheek. What’s that smell?

  The sweet, putrid aroma of fresh vomit bit into my nostrils and triggered my gag reflex. I looked around the room to find the source of the smell. The sink held a puddle of brownish liquid and lumps that I didn’t want to identify.

  ‘Gross,’ Zoe said as she caught the smell and saw the sink. ‘He’s a journalist, and he’s already posted photos of the trunk.’

  I pressed him harder into the wall. ‘Shit. Do you know what you’ve done? This will go viral and everyone will question their safety.’

  He smirked as he said, ‘Yeah, but the people have the right to know what Alan’s TrueMe message really meant. They deserve to know iMe isn’t foolproof.’

  ‘You bastard,’ I said. ‘You only care about the money.’

  ‘No, it’s about the truth.’

  I pushed the guy harder into the wall, wanting to hurt him, then snapped my head around at the loud buzzing sound in the lounge. I let him go, then sprinted to the noise.

  ‘Shit, shit.’ I pulled my jacket off. ‘Zoe, shut the front door.’

  A TV news camera drone hovered over the trunk, streaming the image of Alan to a shock hungry world. My jacket hung like a matador’s cape as I approached it from behind, not wanting to be seen on a screen.

  I got closer and threw my jacket over the drone, wrestling it down using the sleeves of my only jacket, smelling the burning as the drone’s hot motors attacked the lining. Now I really would have to get a new suit.

  The drone kicked and bucked but stopped buzzing. As I lay panting on the floor next to it, I answered the call ringing in my head.

  ‘Clive, what the fuck’s going on?’ Bhatt bellowed at me. ‘The images are everywhere. The PM’s screaming for an answer. Get to my office now.’

  ***

  My thoughts swirled and crashed around in my head. Each dark one attacked me.

  I had the sunshine and safety above me and I knew I should climb back up, but I had earned my monuments to failure. Black, twisting grotesque shapes sculpted by my pain and despair. I laboured hard over many, many hours to make them strong. I couldn’t leave them because I couldn’t forget. Now, I had new shrines to failure to build.

  Karina, she’s dead because I didn’t find her.

  It came at me like a broiling noxious cloud. I shut my eyes to it, but it snaked up and around me. Writhing along me, then down my leg. My failure weighed heavier than any ball and chain, and it dragged me further down.

  Another thought came to encircle me. So is Alan – I’m useless.

  The cloud grasped my other leg, adding to the pull. I was falling. The others joined in – all my old shames and mistakes. They all had their claim, and I let them take me. How could I fight the truth?

  ‘Clive!’

  I lifted my head from my hands to look at Bhatt.

  She stood above me. I could feel her frustration pushing down on me. She was going to attach more blame and doubt.

  I looked at her and waited. I felt like the real me was a small black silhouette stored inside my body. My true face, hopeless and despondent, was hidden by the bigger mask that the world saw.

  A tender, gentle hand touched my face. Something in her eyes made me see the pain she carried as well. How can we all be so carelessly blind to the despair of the people we see every day? We had our own burdens to carry. Maybe we would break if we added their load to our own.

  ‘Clive,’ Bhatt said again.

  ‘Am I fired?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ Her laugh was the last thing I expected. ‘No, but nearly. I’ve spent some shitty hours with the PM, the home secretary and the chief constable.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I let my head drop and roll.

  ‘I had to sit and take a bollocking. Lots of threats: none of them subtle. But I eventually managed to calm them down.’

  ‘So, what’s happening?’

  ‘I finally convinced them that they needed traditional policing methods to solve this case. I said that technology wasn’t going to help – in fact, the technology is the problem.’

  I tried to make myself think a positive thought. ‘Ain’t no school like the old-school,’ I sang, flat and off-key, the words to a half-remembered song.

  Bhatt winced. ‘Don’t sing, Clive. It’s not helping, and you haven’t exactly got anywhere with the case.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  Even the tiny criticism of my terrible singing added to the downward suck of my failures.

  ‘It was a battle,’ Bhatt said, and then threw me an unexpected lifeline. ‘I told them that I trusted you. I told them that you were the only person who could solve this.’ Her words came down to me, fastened under my arms and started to draw me up.

  ‘I will,’ I choked.

  35

  DI Clive Lussac

  The indoor roof garden of iMe’s office in Richmond displayed West London’s greenery at its best on this bright afternoon: uninterrupted views of Richmond Park, round to Kew Gardens, and even a glimpse of Hampton Court. We’d been told that all the meeting rooms were booked but that everyone used this less formal space. Manu and Emma sat opposite Zoe and me. We each had a colourful balance-ball to perch on. I couldn’t keep the stupid thing still while I puzzled over the drinks menu. Eighteen different types of still water. How could they be different? I clicked a random selection.

  ‘Excellent choice,’ Manu said. ‘It’s my favourite.’

  The chilled vibe of the iMe offices felt like nothing was wrong. Manu and Emma looked too relaxed.

  ‘I’ve got two dead bodies, your current boss with an encrypted signal and your old boss running around with a Suppressor,’ I said, irked and venting. ‘What’s going on?’

  Manu looked shocked. ‘We’re all working flat-out to resolve the situation.’

  Gentle laughter drifted over from a group nearby. ‘Sounds like it,’ Zoe said, looking past Manu at the group.

  ‘Why doesn’t it work then?’ I stared at Emma, trying to get her to contribute something, anything.

  Eventually, through a tight mouth, she said, ‘It does.’

  ‘Then show me who my killer is.’

  Manu and Emma exchanged a glance, and Manu spread his hands. ‘We’re all trying.’

  Emma just stared.

  ‘Try harder,’ I shouted, and lost my balance. I caught myself and stood but my foot hit my balance-ball and sent it bouncing across the floor. All the heads spun towards the noise.

  ‘Let’s go, Zoe.’ I raised my voice so that whole roof garden could hear. ‘No one here seems to give a shit.’

  ***

  ‘I don’t understand the problem, ma’am,’ I said. ‘Before Alan’s body showed up, our next step was to talk to Art about his encrypted signal.’

  I was
pushing for a full, public confrontation to rattle Art as much as possible and pile the pressure on him. Either as Art left Parliament or in his office, but Bhatt smiled as she vetoed the idea. ‘I’m brave, but not stupid. You’ve no evidence against him,’ she said. ‘I’ll get him to come here for an interview. Tread carefully until we have something concrete.’

  ‘But–’ I protested.

  She held her finger up. ‘But we have to live with him if we can’t prove anything.’

  I had a feeling about Art being more involved than he was saying, but what if I was wrong? He would make a powerful enemy.

  ‘And what about Esteban?’ Zoe asked.

  True, there were Esteban’s Suppressors to think about.

  All the years of not having to think made me indecisive. Every cop was warned about paralysis by analysis, but I was more a case of paralysis by indecisiveness. But what was that phrase Esteban had used? ‘Fuck that shit.’ I liked it; it was like reliving a favourite flavour. I let it play around in my head.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘FTS.’ Time for action. ‘We’ll interview Art first and then Esteban.’

  ***

  Now Art stretched out in his chair in Interview Room One, relaxed and confident despite the contrast of the small room to his own luxurious office. Bhatt and the chief constable were both watching the interview through the one-way mirror. I couldn’t afford to screw this up – my leg jiggled up and down under the table.

  ‘Mr Walker, I’ll ask you again. Where were you when your signal was encrypted?’

  The side of Art’s mouth rose a little, letting his contempt show through. ‘I don’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘We are investigating two murders, and you’re refusing to help us. Why would you do that if you have nothing to hide?’

  ‘It’s not relevant to this case and you know iMe encryption is covered by the Official Secrets Act.’

  We had anticipated this response and the CPS was looking for a legal route to force disclosure. It was time to switch to Alan.