The Foreigners

by James Lovegrove

  “Yes, sir,” said Avni, uncertainly.

  “Come on then.”

  Apartments in Scriabin Heights were not large, so it didn’t take them long to give the place a thorough going-over, especially since Hosokawa favoured such spartan decor. In a chest of drawers they found socks in rolled rows and folded shirts with sharp creases. In a wardrobe they found shoes and coats and the kimono from which the strangulating sash had come. In kitchen cupboards they found cooking utensils racked and crockery stacked and groceries organised systematically. No item did not have a location in which it rightfully belonged. The only thing in the entire apartment that seemed untidy and thus inconsonant with its surroundings – other than the corpse, of course – was Hosokawa’s FPP badge, which, instead of being pinned to the lapel of his uniform jacket as one might have expected, was perched on his home board, propped against the screen. Parry pointed this out to Avni. She agreed with him that it was an odd place to put your badge and wondered if Hosokawa had left it there to remind him to do something.

  Parry looked back at the corpse, stiff and still and silently awful. Why? That was the question, wasn’t it? That was always the question. Why had this happened? And why strangulation? Why the kimono sash? Why the near-nakedness and the clasping-together of the hands? Everything had to have a reason. A death like this did not occur without some logical justification.

  The hands...

  He looked more closely.

  Christ, how stupid not to have noticed that immediately.

  Hosokawa’s right index finger was locked around the lower joint of his left little finger. The remaining three fingers of each hand were wrapped tightly around the opposite hand. His thumbs were buried between his palms, out of sight.

  A hand-symbol. Clenched at the moment of death. Fixed in place by rigor mortis.

  TRUST.

  Parry looked from the hands to the badge on the home board; from the badge on the home board back to the hands.

  A couple of seconds later, he was at the home board. He picked up the badge, moved it to one side of the screen, and struck a key. The home board awoke from dormancy.

  Onscreen there was text.

  The first few lines of a letter.

  Addressed to him.

  Locating, unboxing and putting on his spectacles would have meant several seconds’ delay. Instead, Parry bent close to the screen and, squinting to counteract his presbyopia, started to read.

  Good morning, Captain Parry.

  If all has gone as I hope, you will be reading this on your work board, with Guthrie Reich under close guard downstairs. Perhaps you will have managed to extract a confession from him already. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, as soon as you arrested him, he started to brag about what he has done. I think, from my acquaintance of him, that he’s that type. If I’m wrong about that, then ask him where he was while his bands were rehearsing the Sunday evening before last. If he tells you he was with them, he is lying.

  I’m sorry about this. I’m taking the coward’s way out. I should have told you everything when I went to see you yesterday evening, but when we were face-to-face I found I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of what I would see in your eyes when you heard what I had to say. Contempt, but worse than contempt, disappointment. I don’t think I’m flattering myself when I say that I feel you had high hopes for me. I deeply regret that I’ve let you down. I’ve let myself down too, if that’s any consolation.

  I used to consider myself an honourable person, modest in my wants and ambitions. But we never truly know ourselves, do we, until we are tested. And I was tested and found that what I thought I was far exceeds what I actually am. Here is someone who used to believe that becoming an FPP officer was the best thing he could ever do, someone who chose the job because he had all sorts of noble ideals about improving the world, serving the public, helping Foreigners, being a paragon of honesty and respectability. Selfish ideals, I can see now, but at the time heartfelt. And here I am, having betrayed all that I believed in because of an ideal much stronger and more alluring. The ideal of a life of moneyed luxury, enough wealth never to have to work again, a future of endless leisure and pleasure. The materialistic ideal that we all, I think, from time to time dream of. Even maybe you, captain. An existence much like that of a Foreigner, gliding from one sun-kissed location to another, pursuing recreation without a care in the world.

  If I seem to be rambling, I apologise. I have this urge to explain myself to you properly and in the clearest possible terms (praise be to language-enhancement software) so that you might at least understand why I did what I have done, if not sympathise with it or even forgive it. That, I realise, is what this letter is – part justification, part confession.

  Guthrie Reich first contacted me last autumn. At the time I had no idea who he was or why he selected me rather than anyone else. He told me later that mine was the personality-type best suited to what he needed. Even now, I don’t know whether to be flattered by that or ashamed.

  It started out with an exchange of e-mails, Guthrie dropping hints here and there about what he wanted from me and what he was offering in return, saying just enough to keep me interested, leading me on, tantalising me, until, without realising it, I was already half committed before I even knew what I was committed to. He made it sound so unambiguous, so easy. All I would have to do was say a few things at the right time, follow his instructions, let him know what was going on at HQ, smuggle out a few necessary items – in short, be the worm inside the apple. He made my part in his scheme seem vital but at the same time simple. I would have to do so little, and for such a huge reward!

  He was highly plausible even over the e-ther. In person, he was ten times more persuasive. We met just the one time, a month ago. He came here to my apartment and we talked for several hours, and when we were done we had made a deal. And he thanked me. I will never forget that. As though I had done him a favour. Yet he also made me feel as though I was the one who should be grateful to him. He won me over, Captain Parry, utterly and completely, and I believed I never would have a qualm about doing what he told me to do.

  That morning at the Amadeus, however, when I was confronted for the first time with the horrific consequences of what I’d become involved in... Well, you recall how I vomited. But it wasn’t merely at the sight of the Siren’s body. It was at the realisation of the part I had played in his death. I was sick not just to my stomach but to my soul. And it was then that my conscience, which I had managed to wrap up in cotton wool and put away somewhere where it wouldn’t bother me, escaped from its hiding place and began to badger me. I carried on doing what I was supposed to, being Guthrie’s puppet, speaking the lines he gave me, misdirecting you, sabotaging your investigation, but all the time the voice in my head was getting louder, saying, “What are you up to? Why are you betraying this man, this captain whom you so admire? Why are you

  The letter ended, abruptly, with that truncated sentence. Parry tried scrolling down further, but there was no more. Leaning back, he exhaled, frowned, and ran a hand backwards across his scalp, smoothing flat what was no longer there to be smoothed flat.

  “We had him,” he said at last, voice low and hard. “Damn it, we had him and we let him go.”

  “Who, sir?” Avni had been reading the letter over his shoulder. “This Guthrie Reich person?”

  “Down in the basement. Christ, and Hosokawa thought we’d keep him there. He thought he was safe. He thought we’d have Reich all neatly confessed-up and bang to rights, and he could write this letter and then sneak out of town before anyone could find out he was Reich’s accomplice, his inside man.”

  “But this is a suicide note, sir, isn’t it?” Avni scrolled back through the text to the second paragraph. “Yes. Look. ‘I’m taking the coward’s way out.’ That’s classic suicide-note language.”

  “This isn’t a suicide note. Yoshi wanted me to know what he’d done so he wouldn’t feel so bad about himself. ‘Part confession’.
Confession in the telling-the-vicar-about-your-sins sense. He was a coward only because he chickened out about saying all of this to my face. He planned to write this, send it, then pack up a few belongings and get the hell out of New Venice. But he couldn’t finish it.”

  “Because his guilt got the better of him and he gave up writing it and went and hanged himself.”

  “No, he couldn’t finish it because he never got the chance. He was interrupted. Someone came round. Someone he wasn’t expecting to be at liberty any more. Someone who had come to kill him, for no other reason than sheer spite.”

  “Guthrie Reich.”

  “None other. Reich turned up on his doorstep, and Yoshi had no idea Reich knew he had shopped him. He must have assumed I’d arrested Reich but had to release him, or else that I’d not got the clue he gave me and hadn’t arrested Reich at all. Either way, he’d no choice but to let Reich in. Otherwise it would have looked suspicious. So he put his board to sleep and welcomed Reich in and tried to act as though everything was normal and hunky-dory. But at some point he must have sensed that something was up, that Reich was here for more than a social visit.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “The badge, Rachel. He could even have put it there on his home board before he let Reich in. I think it’s possible Yoshi knew what Reich was here to do. I think he may actually have wanted to die.”

  “So his hands...”

  “To make absolutely sure that whoever found him would also find the letter and know who his murderer was.”

  “But sir, surely you didn’t tell Reich that Hosokawa was the one who had put you onto him. Did you?”

  “As a matter of fact...” Parry slid a thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose and dug them hard into the inner corners of his eyes. “I did. Not exactly. Not in so many words. But Reich asked us some questions while we had him in the basement at HQ, and damn it, Lieutenant Johansen actually said Yoshi’s name. He couldn’t have known that Reich knew exactly who ‘Yoshi’ was. And besides, by that stage the bastard had managed to convince us that he was innocent. We didn’t really have any evidence against him other than Hosokawa’s word, and his alibis seemed credible. I should have checked them, but then that fourth shinju turned up and there was no way Reich could have done it because Pål and I were talking to him when it happened. For God’s sake, Hosokawa picked such a bloody roundabout way to implicate Reich! And I wanted to give Reich the benefit of the doubt. I’d taken this sort of knee-jerk dislike to him when we met, and I wanted so badly to be wrong.”

  “But what does it mean in the letter... Where is it? This bit. Here. ‘Misdirecting you, sabotaging your investigation.’”

  Parry remembered Hosokawa mentioning shinju to him in the lift at HQ; remembered him at the Bar Brindisi, talking about weapons designed to kill Foreigners. There was your misdirection right there, the first attempt successful, the second not so. And sabotage? How about his phone message to Quesnel from the Debussy, the one that went astray? It was Hosokawa who erased it from the commissioner’s work board. After Parry called HQ, Hosokawa asked Kadosa to sit in for him at the front desk and went upstairs, entered Quensel’s office and wiped the message. Early morning. Hardly anyone around to see him. Not such a difficult trick to pull off, not in a building without locks, and not for someone in uniform in that building, someone who had a perfect right to be there.

  “Like the letter says, he didn’t have to do much,” he said in answer to Avni’s question. “But what he did was more than enough. Anyway, we can sort all that out later. What we need to concentrate on right now is the fact that I’ve fucked things up and they need to be unfucked. So let’s go get Reich. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “No matter where he is or what he’s doing, the bastard is coming back to HQ with us.”

  The only slight problem was, Parry had no idea where Reich was staying. He did, however, know someone who might.

  Snatching up the phone receiver from Hosokawa’s home board, he dialled a number.

  Three rings.

  Be in, he thought. Please be in, Anna.

  A fourth ring. Then: “Hello?”

  “Anna.”

  “Jack. You sound strange. What’s up? Do you have a sore throat?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry, Anna, I need to be quick. Reich. Guthrie Reich. Which hotel’s he staying at?”

  “Um, now which did he say it was? The Górecki, I think. Yes, the Górecki. Why do you want to know?”

  “You’re sure it’s the Górecki?”

  “Yes. Sure.”

  “Thanks.” Parry made to hang up.

  “But you won’t find him there right now. Jack? I said you won’t –”

  “I heard. Where is he?”

  “Off on a trip.”

  “A trip? Where?”

  “What’s going on? What do you want with Guthrie all of a sudden?”

  “A trip where, Anna?”

  “El-Ghaita.”

  “The hum farm?”

  “He said he’s never been to one before. He wants to see what it’s like.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “I’ve never heard you like this before, Jack. What has he done?”

  “Anna, when did he leave?”

  “He came by about an hour ago. I let them borrow the launch to get to the mainland. They’re going to rent a car from there.”

  “‘They’?”

  “Cissy’s gone with him. He asked her if she would. I don’t think she wanted to very much, but then again, she doesn’t visit the mainland often and she’s never seen a hum farm either, so I think she was curious. Guthrie said they could stop by one of the souqs as well, and you know how Cissy is about shopping. Any chance she can get.”

  “Christ.”

  “‘Christ’? Why ‘Christ’ like that, Jack? What’s happening? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Anna.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Everything’s going to be fine. Trust me.”

  “Jack? Tell me, Ja –”

  He put the receiver down.

  He looked at Avni.

  “Sergeant. Take me to the mainland. Now.”

  44. Transposition

  THE STRAIT BETWEEN New Venice and the mainland was relatively calm that morning, and they made the crossing in a little under twenty minutes. The FPP launch, not designed for open water, lurched and lolled clumsily in the ocean swell, but Parry, remembering the advice of an old song, kept his eyes on the blue horizon, and suffered the odd queasy twinge but successfully staved off full-blown seasickness.

  Halfway across, Avni broached the topic of FPP jurisdiction on the mainland, or rather lack of same. She chose her words carefully, knowing she was drawing attention to a fact of which her superior officer was already perfectly well aware. She asked him if the proper thing to do in the circumstances would not be to alert the mainland authorities and leave it to them to locate and apprehend Reich.

  Parry’s reply was curt. “Of course it’d be proper thing to do, but frankly, I don’t care. As soon as I’m on the mainland, it’s as if I’m not wearing this uniform.”

  Avni nodded, understanding. “Then what would you say if I volunteered to accompany you to El-Ghaita?”

  Parry looked at her, and she could see he was touched by the offer. “I would say I appreciate it very much, but getting me this far is more than enough aiding and abetting. I can’t ask any more from you. Silly for both of us to lose our jobs over this, eh?”

  And that was the end of the discussion.

  Situated on the point on the mainland closest to New Venice, the port that was their destination looked as if it had stood there for several decades, but in fact it antedated the resort-city by just a couple of months. Before then, there had been only cliffs, a promontory, a spit of beach which the rising sea-levels were steadily encroaching on, a few fishermen’s dwellings. Then two great curving crystech breakwaters were planted, like a pair of embracing
arms, and inland access roads were constructed, and an entire service infrastructure was put in place to meet the logistical requirements of New Venice’s creators and builders: wharves for the loading of freight barges, moorings for the ferries that took workers to and from the site, restaurants, cafés, a small hospital, cheap accommodation. Without design, at random, all manner of domed, rounded, white-stuccoed buildings sprang up along the breakwater like some fungal growth, while two kilometres away across the water something far more delicate and elegant and intentional began taking shape.

  It had been anticipated that once the whole mighty city-raising enterprise was over, the port, having fulfilled its purpose, would quietly fall into disuse. However, some entrepreneurial types spotted an opportunity. Visitors to New Venice might want to venture onto the mainland, mightn’t they? And what about those who had jobs in the city but did not live there? They would need a place to embark from and return to every day.

  And so the port (which had no name, but then things that birth themselves seldom have names) gained a second lease of life, as ferry companies established themselves there, tour operators took over buildings and set up offices, car-hire agencies likewise purchased premises, and souvenir vendors moved in too, erecting their stalls along the length of the seafront promenade, until soon the port was given over almost wholly to commerce of one sort or another. This did not make the place any lovelier to the eye – if anything, the opposite – yet in its bustling, dusty functionality there was a certain vigorous charm. The port faced New Venice across the strait unblinkingly, not pretending to be anything other than what it was, the supermarine metropolis’s lesser cousin, conveniently situated, there for a purpose, utilitarian where New Venice was utopian.

  Avni steered into the calmer waters of the manmade harbour and hove to in front of the promenade. As Parry stepped out, he looked round at her. He started manufolding GRATITUDE, but then thought better of it and, unclasping his hands, said simply, “Thanks.”