by Jem Tugwell
‘Exactly, there are still a lot of tweets, but these are the ones the search found.’ Zoe’s fingers moved upwards, and the display wall scrolled up and showed four tweets:
‘Hi to all you film fans, horrible day outside so I’m going to settle down and watch “10 Items or Less”. Should be exciting.’
‘Hi to all you film fans, quick poll. Which film do you prefer “Se7en” or “The Magnificent Seven”? Both classics – you decide.’
‘Hi to all you film fans, enjoying a sci-fi classic today. “The Fifth Element”.’
‘Hi, film fans. Going old-school and watching “The Fantastic Four” tonight.’
‘The dates of the tweets match the dates of the selection process,’ Zoe said as Clive nodded, a smile growing on his face.
‘That’s brilliant, Zoe.’
‘That’s not all. When I looked in detail at all the tweets sent since Phillipe’s death, I found more.’ Zoe moved her fingers up again and the display wall obeyed. It showed another tweet.
‘To all you Reece Witherspoon fans, just finished watching “Overnight Delivery”.’
‘The date of that tweet matches the delivery that Jay said he picked up. Then there’s these.’ More finger movement and two tweets scrolled into view.
‘Hi to all you film fans, I’m watching “The Departed” and enjoying every minute.’
‘Hi to all you film fans, a sports comedy theme today. I was tempted by “Run Fat Boy Run”, but I settled on “Ready to Rumble”.’
‘They match the dates when Lilou said they travelled and then when the game started.’
Clive started clapping, his smile so big that it almost stretched to his ears. ‘Zoe, you’re brilliant. These tweets must be progress reports to someone who can’t risk receiving a real message. Someone whose messages are saved by iMe.’
Zoe nodded. ‘Someone here in the UK. Not a foreign government.’
***
Clive’s knee jiggled under the table of the New Scotland Yard conference table again.
Zoe settled in the chair next to him and pushed her elbow into Clive’s arm. He looked at her, surprised, but when he saw Zoe’s sharp nod down, he got the message and told his leg to stop.
While they waited, Zoe threw her HUD at the conference room’s wall and prepared a set of stacked windows, with the tweets and photos of the conference in Rouen.
The door opened and Lance’s hand appeared. He must have ushered Bhatt through ahead of him as she appeared before Lance.
‘Creep,’ muttered Clive.
Zoe jabbed him in the arm again. ‘Senior officer first,’ Zoe hissed.
‘So why did you come in here before me?’ Clive said, but Zoe was already standing up.
‘Show us what you’ve got,’ Bhatt said, as always cutting out all option for small talk.
Zoe talked and swiped and scrolled her way through the tweets and the photo of the conference.
‘All you’ve got is some people at an ancient conference that hundreds attended, and some tweets from a dead man’s account,’ Lance said.
‘No,’ Clive said, his voice cracking as he tried not to swear at Lance. ‘We have a link between Rouen and the Prime Minister, Karli Neilson, Miles Raven and Issac Townsend. Those cryptic messages mean that the person behind this is in the UK and not a foreign government.’
Lance shook his head. ‘When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. I’ve just come from a briefing with the PM and there’s growing concern that the French link means the attack is from Pan-Europe. Certainly not the PM herself.’
‘She and Karli stand to gain more power. They’re using this to squash any pretence at privacy and upgrade iMe,’ Clive said, trying not to think about the upgrade that Issac wanted.
‘There’s more,’ Zoe said. ‘Miles Raven is a subscriber to those tweets and Cyber have confirmed that the recent post came from a place called Poses. It’s only twenty-one miles from Rouen.’
‘Did Miles Raven start following the film blogger recently?’ Bhatt asked.
‘Uh… No, ma’am.’ Zoe stumbled over her words.
‘When?’
‘A year ago, ma’am.’
‘Look I know it seems a long time ago, but they must have been planning this for a long time. Those controllers needed building, the network of people…’ Clive faltered, he didn’t have anything conclusive, but there was definitely something there.
Lance snorted. ‘He likes films – lock him up. Sorry, ma’am, this is a waste of time.’
Bhatt raised her hand to think.
‘I think that the leads have some merit.’ She looked at Lance. ‘Can you still spare these officers?’
‘They’ve no value to me.’
Bhatt looked at Clive and Zoe. ‘Spend some more time digging, but we would have to be very certain of our facts before acting.’
‘But ma’am–’ Lance started, but Bhatt’s raised hand stopped his complaint in its tracks.
Chapter 81
Clive and Zoe got back to the PCU office in time for their shift to end. Clive trudged home and was officially off duty, but Ava’s presence kept him working.
Clive’s shoulders ached from the time on his HUD and he stopped and rolled his shoulder. His right shoulder gave the usual clunk-clunk crunch on each revolution, but it didn’t ease the stiffness.
After all his research he knew a lot more about the Prime Minister, Karli, Miles and Issac. It didn’t help him. No leads. Nothing concrete. Dead end after dead end.
Clive’s Buddy scampered across the bottom of his HUD dragging a ‘New Message’ banner.
Clive clicked on the message icon and watched it morph into the message header. It was a reply from Inspector Bisset, in the French police.
Probably a brush off, Clive thought. He scrolled down to the body of the letter and almost fell off his chair.
‘FAO Inspector Lussac,
Re: Terror bombings in UK
Suspect Request “Serge”
Location: Rouen and surrounding area
ID: FaceFit profile
Following your request to locate suspect “Serge”, in connection with the recent terrorist bombings in UK, I forwarded your request to the local Rouen police. As expected, they have acted with typical efficiency and have detained M. Serge Wischard.
He is being held in Rouen Police Station awaiting questioning. As we can only hold the suspect for twenty-four hours without formal arrest, and allowing for the journey time for UK officers to attend in person, I respectfully offer the capability of a remote interview. English speaking officers from the Rouen police will be present to aid in translation.
Cordially,
Inspector Bisset’
Clive grabbed the message and clicked ‘Forward To’. He selected DCS Bhatt and Zoe and paused. With slow reluctance, he added Lance and pressed ‘Send’.
He clicked on DCS Bhatt’s name and touched his jaw to make a call.
‘Bhatt.’ The tone was curt but not unduly upset. Clive sighed with relief; she was probably still at work.
‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I’ve just forwarded you a message from the French police. They’ve detained Serge.’
‘Wait,’ Bhatt said.
Clive waited, listening to silence at the other end.
‘Good work, Clive,’ Bhatt said eventually. ‘I’ll liaise with Lance.’
‘I’d like to be involved in the interview, ma’am. And Zoe. After all it was us who found him.’
‘Not happening, Clive. This is a Terror case. Lance will handle it.’
‘But–’
‘No buts, Clive.’
The line went silent again and Clive crossed his fingers. Maybe she was reconsidering. Maybe he would be at the front of the interview.
‘Best I can do is send you a link to the interview stream. You can watch and listen, but absolutely no questions from you.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Clive said.
It was better than being out in the cold.
***
Clive sat on his sofa, staring at the display wall. His HUD screen was split in two. On one side, he had the link for the interview open. He was online early and all he could see was an empty room. Uniform dull grey walls, a table and four chairs. On the other side of his HUD, he had a one-to-one TrueMe chat window open with Zoe.
Clive saw the door to the French interview room open and a uniformed officer entered the room leading two men. The first was a perfect match to the FaceFit that Lilou had provided of Serge. The second man was younger, fitter and carried a briefcase.
The message half of Clive’s screen blinked and the words ‘Serge – great match. And solicitor’ flashed up from Zoe.
He typed a quick ‘Yep’ reply, and was in time to see two women arrive in the room and sit opposite Serge and his solicitor. The camera angle was behind the women’s backs so Clive couldn’t see their faces, but he had a clear front-on view of Serge.
From the movement of her head, it looked like the female police officer on the right spoke. There seemed to be a lot of discussions in French which Clive guessed was the formal procedural beginning of the interview. It ended with Serge giving a shrug and blowing a short breath out of the side of his mouth.
Then the police officer spoke in English.
‘Monsieur Wischard has confirmed that he is happy to conduct the interview in English. Chief Inspector Grannum, are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
Clive grimaced as Lance’s voice came through the speakers. Lance had done nothing to find Serge, but here he was running the show. ‘May I call you Serge?’ Lance asked.
‘OK,’ Serge said.
‘Serge, can you confirm that you organised and ran a game called Forbidden Island?’
Serge ducked his head to listen to some whispered words from his solicitor.
‘I sent some emails. I collected ten people and I ran some exercises. That’s it,’ he said and emphasised the end with a quick upturning of his hands.
‘Did your selection process result in four contestants for the game?’
‘Oui.’
‘Did you send four people to the UK, provide them with game controllers and then cause the game controllers to explode?’
Serge’s solicitor muttered something, and Serge said, ‘No. I gave them tickets. No more.’
‘How do you explain the explosions?’
‘I saw in the news, they have an electronic hand and it exploded. Maybe it was broken. A fault.’
Clive slouched back into his sofa. The interview wasn’t going well. Lance’s questions seemed messy and unstructured, but he had no way to intervene. Clive watched the interview go from bad to worse, before Serge’s solicitor spoke in rapid French to the two officers in the room.
The officer on the left nodded. Serge sat back in his chair and placed his hands casually in his lap.
His solicitor cleared his throat and said, ‘My client has given all of the information that he can. He admits that he ran a selection exercise from his executive training facility at the request of a company in Chile. This is my client’s legitimate business. This is the full extent of my client’s involvement. He has no knowledge of any game controllers or explosions. Unless the English chief inspector can provide any evidence other than the bogus claims of two terrorists, then I demand you release my client.’
The room was silent. The female officer said, ‘Chief Inspector, do you have the evidence?’
Clive jumped to his feet. ‘Come on, Lance, do something.’
Lance said, ‘No concrete evidence at this time.’
Serge smiled at his solicitor, and they rose to leave.
‘Shit,’ shouted Clive, and collapsed back onto the sofa.
Chapter 82
A bad night’s sleep worsened Clive’s mood. He banged around in the kitchen, each cabinet door closed unnecessarily hard, cutlery thrown in drawers, plates moved with no care.
It didn’t help and all he had to show for it was a small chip on a plate. He dabbed his index finger on the end of his tongue and touched the now homeless little piece of blue ceramic, using the moisture on his finger to pick it up. He flicked it onto the floor in front of the sleeping cleaning robot. Harry woke with a whir of fans and rotating brushes and rushed out to see what had arrived on the floor like a dog hoping for a carelessly discarded scrap of food. He tracked back and forth over the ceramic and headed back to his charging point to rest.
If only this case was so easy to clean up, Clive thought, examining his over-long fingernails and reminding himself to trim them.
Had Lance been deliberately useless in the interview of Serge? The questions had been clumsy and disjoint. True there wasn’t a lot of evidence, but he could have tried to trick and trap Serge.
The case went around and around in Clive’s head during the journey to the PCU office, like a wheel of fortune, except that it didn’t stop. Instead, it clicked past labels for Terror, Miles, Issac, Government, iMe, Karli, PM, Lance, Ava. Back to Terror. Round and around.
As the car arrived at PCU and the door opened, Clive added another segment to the wheel. Money.
***
Clive and Zoe perched on their habitual desks and looked at the PCU office display wall.
A glass of water balanced on the edge of Clive’s desk. He wanted coffee. Strong, black and full of caffeine. The office vending machine had other ideas.
Some recent incentive had changed the coffee suppliers and the organic, eco-friendly coffee tasted like soggy cardboard. According to his FU allowance page on his HUD, even the caffeinated version was so low in caffeine that it wasn’t worth suffering the flavour.
The display wall was showing Miles Raven’s bank statements. They were trawling through looking for payments to Serge, or someone else who might have funded the game, just as they had already done with Issac, Karli and the PM.
‘For a socialist, there are a lot of credits in his accounts,’ Clive said. ‘Salary, speaking engagements, endorsements.’
‘How is that relevant?’ Zoe asked with a frown.
‘Just saying.’
‘We need to focus on what leads us to Serge, Boss.’
‘Sure.’ Clive flicked his eyes to the debit column as Zoe paged down.
Miles’ personal account showed nothing incriminating.
Zoe closed down the accounts and changed the search to the bank statements of Miles’ Eco-Socialist Democracy party.
There were pages and pages of results.
‘Can you filter out the donations to start with?’ Clive asked.
Zoe clicked a menu and the number of pages halved and she stated paging down through salary payments, office rent, advertising and a thousand other expenses.
Three years into the accounts Zoe said, ‘There.’ She moved the mouse over a payment to ‘ReGrow SARL.’
‘What is it?’
‘Some sort of eco-farming project. Its name came up on some other searches.’
‘Not unreasonable for an eco-socialist party to fund eco-projects, Zoe.’ Then Clive noticed her smile.
‘What?’
‘It’s based at the same address as ExecUGrow SARL.’
Clive frowned in confusion. ‘They’re growing what?’
‘Executives. It’s Serge’s executive training company.’
***
Clive stared out of the car window replaying Lance’s words: Lussac, the payment doesn’t prove anything. Leave it to me.
But Miles had been in Rouen, saw the film tweets and made the payments. Clive had been forced to leave the interview with Serge to Lance, and that was a disaster. This, he would do himself.
He’d left Zoe at PCU, tricked by a small lie. Of course she didn’t want to come with him to his latest hospital appointment. If she bothered to track his signal it would be too late. She’d see him go past the hospital and then head towards Hammersmith.
She’d see him arrive at Miles Raven’s meeting for his constituents where they could air their worries and grievances.
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Clive wasn’t a constituent, but he had a big grievance. Ava’s was bigger.
***
The meeting was in the old Hammersmith library. Miles’ party had ‘recycled’ it into their main offices when it had shut down, and all the books had been removed and sent to be recycled themselves. No one cut down trees to make paper for books anymore. Not when the HUD provided a nice, clean, zero-carbon footprint version.
Clive waited with his back to a wall that might once have held shelving but now was bland and empty. He watched Miles Raven talking to an old couple in the centre of the room. Not much privacy for their concerns about their safety and what their neighbours were up to.
Clive had been given the number fifty-seven when he arrived, and he waited. The couple had got up and shuffled over to talk to Miles when the display wall flashed the number fifty-six.
Finally, the couple shook hands with Miles, and they shuffled off.
The number on the display wall clicked up one and Clive walked over.
‘Mr Lussac,’ Miles said, still standing from saying goodbye to the couple. ‘I can see from your registration that you’re not a constituent, but I’m happy to talk to everyone. We’re all trapped in the government’s eco-catastrophe.’ He waved at a chair. ‘Please.’
Clive sat. The plastic of the old chair had retained the heat from the old man’s visit.
‘How can I help you?’
‘I want to know your thoughts about the bombings.’
‘Terrible. Terrible business, but if they can be a catalyst for change then the deaths of the innocents might save many more lives.’
‘Easy to use empty words when it’s not your friend blown up.’
Miles sat back in his chair and gave Clive a hard, flat look, like he was re-evaluating the conversation.
‘Who did you know?’ he asked.
Clive could see a calculation running in Miles’ eyes – only bombers, scientists or police had died. Miles’ fingers moved like he was trying to use his HUD without being too obvious.
‘Ava. She was brave and good and sacrificed herself to save lives,’ Clive said.
‘Ah, I see. Inspector Lussac.’
‘Why did you do it?’ Clive asked. It was a clumsy attempt to trick Miles into admitting his involvement, but Clive’s brain was jumbled with memories of Ava and his own failure to win her justice.