‘The house where they filmed Thriller is around here somewhere,’ said Dilip.
‘We’ll have to bring Sage.’
They forgave Ax. Any fool knew that Ax had been fighting demons of his own all through this trip: no wonder he’d collapsed. They had to forgive Sage too, because…well, the Zen Self champion, towering genius, is notoriously wet kleenex in any emotional crisis. The guy can’t help it.
Rob sighed. ‘I wish he was with us on this. I hate to say it, because I truly love him, but Aoxomoxoa can be a flake, betimes.’
‘I hate to agree with you,’ said Dilip. ‘But you’re right.’
‘Back to the foot slog? Maybe we’ll snag another false positive.’
False-positives had acquired irrational value, they were such a relief from the endless negatives. Chip and Verlaine would even go into places when Ammy had said no, and do the private detective thing. The others frowned on this practice, but the kids maintained it couldn’t do any harm: Fiorinda’s disappearance was public knowledge by now. Rob glanced up at the dull sky, would it piss with rain again? Trust us to come to Southern California the year they have a shit summer.
‘DK? How much, er, “talent” do you think Ammy has?’
‘A nano-teaspoon in the Pacific ocean,’ murmured Dilip, leaning back with his eyes closed, ‘into which by some complex chance a fish may swim.’
‘You’re bushed, man,’ said Rob. He was trying to give DK plenty of rest-stops but he could see it was time to fall a halt. ‘There’s five on foot here, I’ll do them and we’ll quit for the day.’
‘No,’ said Dilip, ‘I’ll perform the ritual with you. It’s all we have. Ah, Fiorinda, who would have thought I would follow you down to the river?’
They walked together: the South London band-leader, righteous political brother, and the tranced-out Midlands intellectual, dance-culture veteran; alone in this alien city, bound together by a lost Utopia, and by their devotion to a certain wilful, heroic red-head. The next address was upscale, with a parking lot shaded by real, leafy trees.
‘This should be on the women’s list,’ said Rob.
Rob’s Trade Union points of order could be exhausting.
‘Let’s do it anyway.’
They called Ammy—who was back at Sunset Cape, sky clad, breathing the smoke of lavender and rosemary to sharpen her inner senses, Smelly Hugh in solemn attendance. They sent her a picture. She said yes.
‘False positive,’ said Rob. ‘Have you seen this girl? No, I’m not the police, I don’t have a licence. Then the bum’s rush. Do people really do this for a living?’
‘They have licences. Shall we both go in?’
‘No, we don’t break the rules. You stay out here.’
For a moment on the threshold Rob paused to consider that this might be the door with monsters on the other side, and if it was he was sure to screw up. He was not good with personal danger. Wish Ax was here: wish Sage was here. He squared up and went in. Dilip walked down the street and waited: with the option that he would get out of here and report back, should Rob fail to reappear.
Rob talked to the receptionist, who said, whoa, that’s Fiorinda!
‘Did she have an appointment here? About two weeks ago?’
‘Oh, you’re one too. One of those English radical rockstars. I recognise you! Well, I don’t know. It’s confidential, but, you’d better talk to Dr Trigos.’
Dilip saw Rob coming along the hot, grey street, in his parrot-blue suit: shoulders hunched, head bowed. ‘What happened? False positive?’’
Rob shook his head, and thrust into Dilip’s hands a page printed out from an electronic appointments book. He turned away, trying to control his emotion.
‘Oh, God,’ breathed Dilip. ‘She went to see a doctor!’
‘The doctor-lady says it was a positive consultation.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Call them.’
Rob called Ax. ‘Hi. What’s happening with you?’
Silence, and then—
‘We’ve seen a body, a suicide we are told. No face. We’re on our way back.’
Well, fuck that. Rob swallowed, ‘Fiorinda didn’t kill herself.’ He was so choked he could hardly speak. ‘Whatever the bastards want us to believe. We’ve just found out what she was doing that afternoon. She went to a fertility clinic, and the doctor-lady there told her she could have a baby.’
6
The Scientist
‘Did you know, this freaky rain is supposed to mean the big one is finally on its way? It’s all over the doom news.’
‘Really.’
Janelle brought two juice cocktails out onto the deck. Today it wasn’t raining. The poisoned beauty of the Rosa was a dazzling symphony of blue and white. Come and see me sometimes: well, she had her wish. Here he was, with his back to her weatherboard, arms around his knees like an Aztec mummy: the sun glinting on his curly cropped head, eyes hidden behind heavy shades.
‘Or would you prefer something stronger?’ she asked gently.
‘No thanks.’
‘Yep, this is earthquake weather. But they say that every year, and any kind of unusual weather will do. It’s great, Aoxomoxoa.’ She sat in her long chair, and sipped the cocktail. ‘That Snake Eyes number, wow.’
‘“Up Down Street”?’
‘Uhuh. Hard times anthems, I love ’em. The feeling you got on that reminded me of John Huston’s boxing movie, Fat City… Did I ever make you watch that? One of the definitives, California movies, maybe the greatest. The valor people find, when they know their defeat is everlasting—’
‘Mm, right.’ The shades still fixed on the ocean.
‘I thought you were coasting in your work after Arbeit, but now you’re playing with the full deck, not just the fx. Is that how it feels?’
They’d been working on his newest stuff, only sketches so far. She could have felt resentful, because Aoxomoxoa had moved out of shlock-weirdness and was invading her territory. But she was safe: he’d be back to his old groove next album. He was hooked on spectacle and fireworks.
Sage had decided not to let her loose on the Unmasked tracks, over which he’d struggled for so long. He hadn’t forgotten he was dealing with a competitor.
‘The whole deck, no-kidding digitised reality, would be powers beyond anything I’ve tried so far. The wildest thing is that it might be possible.’
‘You’ll be there in a year or two, I know you. Hey, you should take the contacts out. Be careful, you don’t want to overdo it.’
‘Okay,’ Biddable as a good child he took off his fx blockers and slipped the coding lenses out of his eyes. His beautiful hands stumbled over the task of getting them back into their case. Shit, he’s going to tear them—
‘Let me do that.’ She felt like his mother, the original older woman, and this was painful but true. His grief had made him a child again, available to her the way the adult male stranger had not been. She wanted to say something about his loss, but it’s hard to guess what will comfort the bereaved.
The English could be proud. Fiorinda’s death was a big hit with the public. Her shrine, traditional, spontaneous, at the gates of the studio village, was already a tourist attraction; crawling with media hounds, a hazard to traffic. No flowers, that was the strange thing. Candles, heaps of soft toys, embroidery, messages: no bouquets. Apparently the little diva hadn’t liked cut flowers. Digital Artists would hold a memorial service once the body had been formally identified: but the funeral would be private. There’s nothing romantic about a coffin going into the ground, or through the curtain to the furnace.
‘You don’t know that she killed herself. You only know she went away to study her soul, and took a walk on the beach. It could have been an accident.’
She wouldn’t insult him by suggesting the body wasn’t Fiorinda. They both knew the ‘formal ID’ issue was pure bureaucracy.
‘Does the bodhisattva thing help?’
‘I’m living in the same world as you
are, Jan. In which everyone I love is going to die, including me, eh? If not now then some day, if not one cruel way then another cruel way, it can’t be avoided. Yeah, maybe it helps. But the refuge is available to anyone, though it’s not as easy to reach as it sounds.’
‘This is the old chop wood, draw water thing?’
‘Yeah, same only different. You’re having a nightmare. A ravening beast is rushing towards you. You run the other way, and there’s another monster. You realise there are monsters rushing at you from all directions, and you’re defenceless. How do you escape?’
Janelle shook her head. ‘Forget it. I can never get those fucking logic things. Drink you juice, it’s getting warm.’
Obediently, he picked up the glass. ‘You wake up,’ he said; and smiled at her, the full blue voltage, from a core of happiness so untouchable it was chilling.
The body stayed in Carlsbad awaiting a DNA match, and Fiorinda’s dental records from London. The autopsy report, some of which Ax and Sage saw, confirmed the medical examiners initial assumptions. There were no signs of violence, or sexual interference. The lungs had been full of seawater, the face had been destroyed by accidental post mortem damage, and the body had been in the water for approximately two weeks. The dead woman had been in her early twenties, underweight but healthy. She had borne one child.
The autopsy photographs of the faceless face, which had been secured for them by Philemon Roche, showed more soft tissue damage than they’d seen in the morgue. No telling whether this drowned woman had ever had pierced ears.
Ax accepted the condolences of Philemon Roche, on behalf of the Committee, and took a personal phonecall from Fred Eiffrich. The English PM, however, only got to talk to Allie: Ax was prostrate with grief. Sage visited Janelle Firdous, Allie talked to Kathryn Adams. Nobody could stand to speak to Harry. They waited for someone, from the bastard Committee or otherwise, to break ranks: but nothing stirred. Sage and Ax called a meeting in the derelict spa.
The Few arrived to find them talking quietly, Sage with Ax’s arms around him, the ex-dictator’s chin resting on his former Minister’s shorn yellow curls. They did not spring apart. The public display was a surprise, everyone knew what hadn’t been going on with the Triumvirate: but it made a pleasant change from the way the leaders of the pack had been treating each other recently.
‘Hey,’ said Cherry, junior powerbabe, tactful and brave. ‘What happened to Harry’s rockstar ambivalence, you guys?’
‘Ambivalence is not the message,’ said Ax, keeping a firm hold on his big cat.
‘Don’t think we’ll do ambivalence again,’ said Sage. ‘It has a nasty afterburn.’ The tiger and the wolf, having made their public declaration, separated and took their usual places, on either side of an empty space reserved for Fiorinda. They had Arbeit running upstairs, plus, for insurance, an off-the-shelf signal jammer by the side of the pool. Anne-Marie arranged incense and myrtle twigs in a small stone bowl borrowed from the Cactus Room, and everyone kept quiet while she murmured words of warding. The incense smouldered: she stayed for a moment with her head bowed, then went to sit by Smelly.
It was all ritual, the tech as much as the “magic”, it probably didn’t achieve a thing, just made them feel a little better.
‘First off,’ said Ax, ‘You all deserve an abject apology. I lost it, it was horrible, and I’m sorry.’
‘Goes for me too,’ added Sage. ‘Very sorry, I was crap.’
There was a murmur of forbearance and relief.
‘Just glad to have you back on board,’ said Rob.
‘But no more cuddling in session,’ said Allie, with a noble attempt at levity. ‘Or we’ll make you sit on opposite sides of the classroom.’
Everyone laughed, as best they could.
Ax felt that these people should fire him, but no, they could do worse, and they were doing it: he was going to have to lead the meeting.
‘Okay, recap. We’re in trouble. I’m responsible, Sage is responsible; we know it. Harry told us, with confirmation from Fred Eiffrich, that there was an illicit Neurobomb project in California, trying to weaponise natural magic. We brought Fiorinda here, knowing that she was just the person, maybe the only possible person, anyone trying to do that would be looking for. We had our reasons, seeming good at the time, but we’re not making any excuses.’
‘And now they’ve got her,’ said Chip. ‘Whoever they are.’
‘Whoever the fuck they are,’ agreed Sage, giving Chip a glance of bleak acknowledgement. ‘Yeah. Now that the fog of stupidity has cleared, our best guess is the same as yours. She found out something. Maybe that afternoon in LA, maybe later, after she left us at the cabin. Maybe she genuinely did want some time alone, to think about the fertility clinic consultation, and then she found out something, or realised something, and decided she had to handle it herself. But she got caught. The body on the slab tells us, at the least, that there’s some agency besides Fiorinda involved in her “disappearence”, and that’s a great deal. As of now, we can believe she’s still alive, not likely to have been harmed, but she can’t contact us and she can’t get away from wherever she is.’
‘She’s trapped because she won’t do what they want.’ said Rob. ‘They can’t make her into their Neurobomb. That isn’t going to happen.’
Something passed between the leaders, a dark thought.
‘Yeah,’ said Ax. ‘So it’s up to us. We have to find her, but to protect Fiorinda, we don’t let anything challenge the official story. She’s dead, suicide, very sad…that’s our line. What about your Dr Trigos, Rob?’
‘Already covered. The doctor said her staff don’t tell tales, and for a baby farmer she talked like someone with ethics.’ (Rob had been through the fertility clinic mill, he was cynical). ‘Maybe someone, a woman, should go back, nail down the point we don’t want a media fest over the tragic irony?’
‘Better not. If you want something kept quiet, never say so twice, it’s asking for trouble.’
‘Why the fuck not challenge the official version?’ demanded Felice, ‘It’s shaky as all shit. Where’s the money she took out? Where’s her purse? What was she doing in that Carlsbad place? Shit, I remember that girl when she was sixteen years old, crazy little kid, talent big as a bonfire. I remember when she laid down her fucking life for us, the hell she suffered, and now you say we have to…to go along with the how tragic bereavement circus run by dogshit like Harry. Why can’t we say it doesn’t add up? Ax, listen to yourself. You’re like, someone’s trying to rape you, and he says, don’t scream’
‘No,’ said Ax, grimly. ‘I’m like, someone’s trying to rape you, and he has you handcuffed to the wall with his pals holding you down and a gun at your head. If you don’t scream, you might live to fight another day.’
‘Okay, you know about rape, you called me, but—’
‘The purse could have been found on the beach and stolen, either that or it’s still in the ocean. Why was she in Carlsbad? Why not…? I’m sorry, it’s no good. The clothes were hers, the ring is hers, there was no face to identify, and if anyone gets picky, you can bet the DNA and the dental records will match Fiorinda’s. The moment we saw that body we knew we had to keep our mouths tight shut. If we protest, we’ll achieve nothing bar letting them know we’re onto them. This isn’t England, F’lice. It’s not our manor.’
‘Face it, we’re up against the US government,’ said Sage. ‘On an issue of national security. If we cause them any aggravation they can lock us up or simply deport us, and be sure they will. That’s not going to help Fee.’
‘Okay, I see that,’ muttered Felice, subsiding. ‘I just, God, hate this.’
‘So do we all.’
‘Why d’you think they’re keeping her phone?’ wondered Verlaine.
The rest of Fiorinda’s possessions had been returned, including her saltbox: bagged with the other contents of her shoulder bag, and tagged wooden ornament. Nothing was missing except her clutch purse; and the phone, which the polic
e were retaining for “further analysis”. It was a freebie from a cereal packet, not a very complex communications device. The Rugrat had also been released and delivered to Sunset Cape, valeted squeaky-clean inside and out. The car seemed fine, but the working record of its last journey and the Carlsbad carpark stay had been wiped. The police had actually explained, without prompting, that this was an inevitable consequence of the forensic examination of an AI car.
‘They broke it,’ said Chip. ‘We’ll get it back, eventually, sewn up and made respectable for the funeral.’
‘Thanks, dipstick. We needed that thought.’
Dora bent forward to crush the smouldering myrtle twigs. The smoke had been rising, threatening to trigger the sprinklers. ‘Do you really think President Eiffrich lured you guys here, to get hold of Fio?’
Ax shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I find it hard to believe, but these things happen, Dor. You’re in power, so called, you can often get forced into a blind alley, and do terrible things, when there seems no choice but bad or worse.’
‘And had you send for us? Isn’t that just too screwy?’
‘Nothing’s too screwy.’
‘I will never, never believe she killed herself,’ whispered Allie.
This was her mantra, repeated incessantly. Allie was taking things as badly, in her way, as Sage and Ax had done. They kept trying to get her at least to share the front desk hell: but she wouldn’t be parted from her job.
Dilip took her hand, ‘Sssh, it’s okay,’ he murmured, without meaning.
Ax combed his hair back with his fingers, ‘Allie, I have a wild, crazy idea even the President of the United States doesn’t expect us to believe it, but—’
The smell of disinfectant caught in his throat; the seaweed mass of hair, the flowerstem line of a girl’s throat, undisfigured… When he took the President’s call, Ax had dared to hint at some last-ditch hope that the drowned woman wasn’t Fiorinda. A tiny pause, and then a kindly, final rebuff. ‘I can’t give you the hope you’re asking for,’ says Kathryn’s uncle Fred. ‘It’s a terrible tragedy, words cannot express my sympathy, I just wish I’d known how vulnerable she was, before I called you guys here. When the identification’s done with, and they’re able to release her body, it will be easier to accept.’
Midnight Lamp Page 23