I noticed Cador was talking now. I’d obviously missed part of the discussion and guiltily forced myself to concentrate again.
“We took a lot of people off the suspect list on the basis of alibis for one or other attack,” said Cador. “If there are two people behind the attacks, then those alibis don’t mean anything. That specific attack may have been carried out by the other target.”
“We’ll now focus on the two murders.” Lucas tapped at his dataview and the two areas of missing notes reappeared, highlighted in an ominous red. “The methods used in the two murders were very different. Hazel was poisoned, while Treeve was hit over the head.”
“That could mean one target killed Hazel and another killed Treeve, sir,” said Emili.
“Or it could just mean Hazel’s murder was planned in advance, while Treeve’s murder was carried out on impulse,” said Gideon.
“Very true,” said Lucas. “The first murder victim, Hazel, was an imprinted fifty-year-old school teacher who lived in the Tropics region. She died from eating some poisoned stew, and analysis showed the poison had been added only minutes before she ate it. It seems unlikely that a drone could have got into her house to poison the meal, so it was probably done by a person. None of your surveillance cameras showed anything useful, Cador?”
“Hazel lived right next to the school,” said Cador. “There weren’t any functioning surveillance cameras near her house, because the children had been throwing paint eggs only a day or two earlier. We’ve positioned some extra cameras high up on the glasshouses since then, but that was far too late to help with this.”
Lucas sighed. “Why would anyone want to kill Hazel?”
Cador waved his hands in a graphic gesture of bewilderment. “Everyone in Sea Farm Security has been baffled by that for months. Hazel had been teaching at the Tropics school for thirty years, and all her pupils adored her. Any child could go to Hazel with a problem and be sure she’d keep their secrets and give them all the help she could.”
“Did Hazel have any failed relationships?” asked Lucas.
“Hazel never married, sir,” said Juniper. “She had a couple of relationships that ended amicably. The worst thing any of her neighbours had to say about Hazel was that she shouldn’t have let her pupils paint her new henhouse. They chose a painfully bright orange colour.”
“What’s a henhouse?” I asked.
“It’s where you keep chickens,” said Juniper. “Hazel was very fond of her chickens.”
Lucas nodded. “Cador, you said you’d asked the coastal patrol base for lists of everyone who’d called or been called by the murder victims in the weeks before their deaths.”
“Yes, I’ll send those to you now.” Cador tapped at his dataview. “There are about ninety people on Hazel’s list.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “That’s a large number of people.”
“And I’ve personally interviewed every single one of them,” said Cador. “Most of the calls were about ordering school supplies or making arrangements for a school Halloween event. Three calls were from worried mothers. One had a shy daughter who was nervous of having to appear in the Halloween event, another was concerned about her daughter being bullied by a classmate, and the third had a son who was struggling with reading. A few calls were chicken related, like Hazel discussing a sick chicken with a vet or offering to take in some unwanted birds. Hazel also regularly exchanged calls with six relatives, including Emblyn.”
“Did any of these people have a grievance against Hazel?” asked Lucas.
Cador shook his head. “Everyone seemed very happy about how Hazel dealt with their concerns. There was a minor family argument going on about a borrowed hat, but that hardly seems a motive for murder.”
Lucas added some notes to the red text on the wall about Hazel. “I have to ask an obvious question now. The first series of trap-setting attacks stopped when Hazel died. Could they have stopped because Hazel was the person setting those traps?”
Cador and Juniper gave him matching affronted looks.
“I realize you won’t consider this as being evidence,” said Cador passionately, “but I grew up in Tropics, and Hazel was one of my teachers. She organized fun activities for her classes, like teaching us how to make paper and how to weave baskets out of willow. When I had a long illness, she went to endless trouble to make sure I could continue my studies at home, and then slowly build up the hours I spent in school again. I’ve never forgotten how she helped me, and I find it impossible to believe she’d ever try to injure anyone.”
“Actually, I consider that compelling evidence,” said Lucas. “It’s extremely hard for a person to hide their true nature for decades.”
He paused. “Let’s move on to the second murder victim now. Treeve was thirty-six years old, married to Aster, and they had two daughters. He lived in the Harbour region, and wasn’t imprinted, but did a variety of repair work in the Haven, including mending Cador’s damaged drones. Were there any connections between him and Hazel?”
“As far as we can tell, they never met,” said Cador.
Lucas stared at his dataview. “There seems to have been an error with the list of Treeve’s callers. There are only five people on it, and that includes you, Cador.”
“That isn’t an error,” said Cador. “Treeve was living and working at the mine for the last two months. He came back one morning, and was murdered six hours later. The only people he called while he was away were Aster, their ten-year-old daughter, Rose, and his friend, Massen. Aster’s brother called Treeve once about a broken heater he’d promised to repair, and I called twice to ask when Treeve expected to return from the mine.”
Lucas frowned. “The fact Treeve was away for two months, and was killed the day he got back, looks deeply significant. Why was Treeve working at the mine?”
“He went there to set up some new machinery,” said Cador.
“Who assigned Treeve to do that work?” asked Lucas.
“Nobody did,” said Cador. “People who are imprinted get assigned to specific posts at the sea farm and have a regular income. Those who aren’t imprinted do whatever other work is left over, and their income varies depending on exactly what they do at a particular time. The Mine Supervisor posted on the sea farm work list that he needed someone to set up the machinery, and Treeve decided he wanted to do it.”
Cador waved his hands. “Treeve had only done work in the Harbour region before. I was annoyed when he suddenly marched into my office and told me he’d be away for two months. We already had six damaged drones that needed repairing when Treeve took the job at the mine, and now there’s over a dozen of them waiting for …”
Cador broke off and shook his head. “Well, we’ll have to find someone else to repair our drones now.”
“If Treeve had plenty of damaged drones to repair for you, why did he suddenly decide to go and work at the mine?” asked Lucas.
“I assumed Treeve had been offered a bonus to tempt him into doing the job,” said Cador.
Juniper laughed. “You’ve clearly never met Mine Supervisor Yestin. Ask anyone at the blacksmithing centre, Cador, and they’ll tell you that summer solstice would come and go a thousand times before Yestin offered someone a bonus.”
“So Treeve wasn’t tempted to go to the mine by a bonus,” said Lucas. “Did he visit home during the time he was there?”
“Treeve didn’t come back home at all during those two months, sir,” said Juniper. “The ore gets flown between the mine and the blacksmithing centre in transport aircraft, and there was a lot of gossip about Treeve never begging a ride to visit home. His marriage to Aster went through a bad spell last year, and Aster took the children and went to live with her parents for months. Everyone thought they were having problems again.”
“Could Treeve have walked back to the sea farm to visit home?” asked Lucas.
“Treeve wouldn’t walk all the way from the mine to the sea farm in summer,” said Juniper, “let alone winter, and h
e definitely didn’t make the trip on horseback. Treeve was scared of horses.”
“Treeve chose to isolate himself at the mine for two months, so he probably suspected he was in danger.” Lucas turned to Cador. “Treeve came to see you before he went to the mine. If he thought he was in danger, why didn’t he ask you for help?”
“I’ve no idea. I didn’t like Treeve – his habit of making spiteful remarks made him unpopular with most people – but I’d certainly have helped him if he’d told me he was in danger.”
“What sort of spiteful remarks did Treeve make?” I asked.
Cador groaned. “Snide comments about mistakes people had made, disappointments they’d suffered, how they weighed too much or too little, or how their hair was thinning. It was difficult to challenge Treeve about it, because he was careful to disguise his remarks as friendly conversation. Whenever anyone did object, he’d give them a wounded look, and accuse them of being oversensitive. We all knew he was being deliberately hurtful though. Nobody could be that tactless by accident.”
“So Treeve was unpopular and unpleasant, but you kept giving him work,” said Lucas.
“We needed the best possible repairman to work on the drones, and Treeve was highly skilled and methodical,” said Cador defensively. “It wasn’t as if Treeve worked in our offices anyway. We only had to suffer his company for half an hour every couple of weeks, when he came to return the repaired drones and take away newly damaged ones, and most people came up with excuses to be out at those times.”
There was silence for a moment while Lucas stared at the notes on the wall. “There seemed no reason for anyone to kill Hazel, but there are obvious reasons why someone might want to kill Treeve.”
“If Treeve amused himself upsetting people, then he could have been murdered for a reason totally unconnected to the other attacks, sir,” said Gideon.
Lucas shook his head. “There has to be a connection to the other attacks. We know an illegal surveillance drone spied on us when we first arrived here. We think that drone was also used to poison Zak’s mattress. I believe Cador is right about that drone being an illegal hybrid made by Treeve. That directly links Treeve to at least one of our targets, so…”
Lucas walked across to study the notes on the left-hand wall. “Could Treeve have been the target who carried out the early attacks? He had a malicious nature, so he’d enjoy hurting people. He was a highly skilled repairman, so he could set traps. He was cautious by nature, disguising his spiteful remarks as friendly conversation, so he’d make sure his traps would look like convincing accidents.”
Emili’s holo head floated across to join Lucas. “That’s credible, sir. Treeve lived and worked in the Harbour region. Most of those early attacks happened there, and he could use his illegal hybrid surveillance drone to help him make attacks elsewhere. Treeve could openly fly that drone anywhere he liked, because Sea Farm Security had over thirty identical drones flying around.”
Lucas nodded. “Treeve got away with his attacks for months, but then Hazel died. Treeve stopped setting traps and went to work at the mine. That can’t be a coincidence. Could Treeve have been involved in Hazel’s murder?”
“It’s unlikely that someone as cautious as Treeve would risk getting involved in a murder, sir,” said Gideon. “It seems far more likely that the second, more reckless target killed both Hazel and Treeve.”
“Perhaps Treeve discovered something about Hazel’s murderer, sir,” said Hallie. “The murderer then killed Treeve to remove the threat.”
“That’s credible,” said Lucas, “but how could Treeve have discovered anything about Hazel’s murderer? The only link between Treeve and Hazel seems to be that Treeve’s friend Massen was sent to the Hive as a suspect in Hazel’s murder.”
“And we know that Massen had nothing to do with Hazel’s murder,” said Cador gloomily. “The nosies at the Hive confirmed he was innocent.”
“Why was Treeve friendly with Massen anyway?” asked Lucas. “Our records list Massen as a labourer living in the Harvest region, so they had nothing in common.”
“Massen used to do general repairs like Treeve,” said Cador. “In fact, they worked together years ago, but Massen was caught stealing from houses. People wouldn’t trust Massen with repair work after that, so Treeve had to stop working with him. Massen reacted badly to the split, and had a couple of fights with the people who’d refused him work.”
Lucas frowned. “What action did Sea Farm Security take about the fighting?”
“We couldn’t do anything at all. Several people witnessed the first fight and said it wasn’t Massen who threw the first punch. The second fight was with Aster’s brother, and Treeve was involved too, so Aster persuaded her brother not to make an official complaint.”
Cador waved his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Massen ended up moving to Harvest region where he could get hedging, ditching, and general labouring work.”
“So how did Massen become a suspect in Hazel’s murder?” asked Lucas.
“Massen was digging a ditch over near the Tropics school soon before Hazel’s death,” said Cador. “He left some tools lying around when he went home at the end of the day, and one of the schoolchildren tripped on them and cut his leg badly. Hazel was furious about it and got Massen fired from the job. That evening, someone found the leftover paint from the henhouse, and painted insults in large orange letters on the side of Hazel’s house.”
Cador shook his head. “I guessed Massen had done it, went to talk to him, and he admitted his guilt. I made him repaint the whole outside of Hazel’s house as a punishment. When Hazel was poisoned a few days later, I naturally thought Massen had killed her, and included him in the first group of suspects we sent to the Hive. It was a complete shock to everyone when he was sent back from the Hive confirmed innocent of the murder.”
Lucas made some more notes. “Tomorrow morning, I want to find out more about how the poisonous chemical went missing, visit the sites of the two murders, and talk to Treeve’s wife, Aster, and his best friend, Massen. If we’re correct that Treeve was the first of our two targets, then either his wife or his best friend may be able to tell us something useful.”
“Tomorrow morning?” Cador scowled. “Can’t we do some more today?”
“We’ve already done a huge amount today, and I’m not going roaming around the sea farm in the pitch dark,” said Lucas. “You shouldn’t be so impatient when you’ve been chasing this target for months.”
“I’m impatient because I’ve been chasing this target for months.” Cador suddenly raised a hand and pointed to the beach. “What’s happening out there?”
It had been totally dark beyond the walls of the observatory, but there was a burst of orange flames down on the beach. I went across to the far wall to look out through the glass, and Lucas came to stand next to me.
“Rothan’s using an accelerant to set the furniture on fire,” he said.
“Why do you want to burn all that furniture?” asked Cador.
Lucas laughed. “I ended the live broadcast with a comment about metaphorical fires. The Admiral didn’t want the furniture back because he was worried there might be more traps in it. I thought it would be nicely symbolic to have an actual fire to send a message to our target.”
He paused. “I arranged for us to arrive with an escort of fighter aircraft to impress the people of the sea farm, but also to try to intimidate our target into ceasing their attacks. Instead, our target seemed to see our arrival as a challenge, and responded by poisoning the mattress. I want to make this fire into another challenge, and keep the target’s attention so focused on us that they don’t attack anyone else. I just hope they see it.”
“I think our murderer will see your fire,” said Cador. “I think everyone at the sea farm will see it.”
The orange flames were growing in height, spreading up the towering stack of furniture on the beach, and sending a fountain of sparks leaping upwards. It was writing a message in the sky,
telling our target that we would hunt them down.
Chapter Thirty-three
That evening, the electricians got the kitchen units working on a reduced power setting, which meant the menu was extremely limited. Lucas and I had soup, which I supplemented with some of the Strike team’s efforts at camp fire cooking, while Lucas stuck to protein bars. By the time we’d finished eating, I was exhausted, so Lucas and I went straight to our apartment, and made a makeshift bed out of camping mattresses and heat sacks.
My sleep that night was disturbed by occasional clanking noises from the heating system. Those somehow triggered a dream sequence about Morton and Claire. They were standing on the beach by our great bonfire, and having an argument, while the hunter of souls and his pack lurked in the darkness beyond the light of the flames.
The next morning, I woke later than usual, and felt sluggish as I washed in lukewarm water. Lingering dream images hovered in the back of my mind as Lucas and I breakfasted on fruit strips and crunch cakes, dressed in our thick outdoor clothing and combat armour, and headed out into the corridor. We found Adika, the Alpha Strike team, and Forge in his nosy costume waiting by the fire doors that led to corridor 5. I was confused to see our electrical specialist, Sakshi, was with them.
“Sakshi, have you managed to fix the problem with Forge’s nosy mask?” asked Lucas.
“Yes,” said Sakshi. “It was a bit of sand in the acoustic distortion system. Forge needs to avoid going near sand in future.”
“There’s sand everywhere Outside,” grumbled the weird, nosy voice.
Lucas laughed and spoke on the crystal comms. “Listen carefully, everyone. We’ll be taking Juniper with us on our run today, because her knowledge of local gossip will be useful. Unfortunately, Cador insists on him and his deputy joining in our investigation as well, which puts us in an awkward situation.”
Lucas sighed. “Juniper has no status at all at the sea farm, so has little choice but to accept our decisions even when she doesn’t agree with them. Cador is the head of Sea Farm Security though, and may try to push us into doing things his way.”
Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 29