Codnor gave a sigh and swung her legs down, placing her glass on a small table. ‘I met Thomas just over twenty years ago. He was handsome and charming, and he romanced me like a real gentleman. I grew up in Boston, but I liked the social scene in New York, so I’d moved down six months earlier. I wasn’t expecting to find a husband, but there he was and it seemed like a match made in Heaven. Quite soon after we were married, it became apparent that Thomas wanted a wife to fit with the political image he was trying to project. I was there to be the attractive “little woman” on his arm when he went to events and parties.’
‘Hardly monstrous,’ Fox said. ‘Political marriages have existed for centuries and I don’t see that ending any time soon.’
‘Agreed, but I believe most of them are mutual arrangements. I was conned. It wasn’t simply his indifference. In fact, I would say his attention was worse.’
‘He hit you?’
‘No, no. Well, in a manner. He spanked me. It’s not quite the same. At first it was infrequent, but after five or six years, he was incapable of getting it up without some form of kink. He liked tying me down, gagging me. The more it went on, the more I began to hate him, and the more it seemed that his little tricks were failing to work. He took pills to get an erection and… and I started to become convinced that he was slipping me something to get me in the mood. I have no proof, Captain Meridian. I could never find anything in the house he might have given me. I was convinced he was getting sex elsewhere as well, but I could never find proof of that either.’
‘Have you ever heard of a club named Sheela Na Gig?’ Fox asked.
‘No. He belonged to the Blackburn Club and that is basically a little boys’ club. Little boys who think women are good for precisely one thing. I’m convinced they covered for him when he was out with a mistress.’
‘Mm. I suppose this is a pointless question, but can you think of anyone who would wish to harm Thomas Winsford?’
Codnor barked out a laugh. ‘Oh, Captain, I am quite sure you have already looked at Thomas’s voting history and the people he has come into contact with through that. If I could give you a list of all of them, we would be here until next year. That said, I doubt any of them would actually kill to be rid of him. If one started doing that, it would be open season on all of them.’
‘What about personal threats? People with a personal rather than a political grudge.’
‘Um, no. Thomas had few real friends. One of his better attributes, however, was that if you did become a friend, it was a true friendship. He would never betray a friendship and his friends knew that and did not betray him.’ Codnor gave a shrug. ‘Of course, he may have made someone hate him in the last few months, but no one I knew would wish him harm. Unless he did have a mistress and she has more guts than I do.’
~~~
‘Busy day?’ Naomi asked as Fox crossed the room to sit down on one of the sofas in the very comfortable, but somehow austere, Sister Superior’s apartment in the chapter house. Naomi was back in the usual costume of the Sisters of Corruption: a tunic which showed off the wearer’s breasts and had a black cross design fixed over the white front panel, a black skirt cut to show off a lot of leg and quite a lot of ass, white stockings on suspenders, and white pumps with a two-inch platform and six-inch heels. She had dispensed with the wimple, but she still looked more like Naomi than she had in flat shoes and a jumpsuit.
‘Less busy than I’d wish, to be honest,’ Fox replied, ‘but I had to go out Westhampton way to interview the ex-Mrs Winsford.’
Naomi nodded and poured two cups of coffee. Fox did not comment: there was a difference between coffee with a friend and coffee with a stranger. ‘A somewhat bitter woman, from what I’ve heard, but I believe she had reason.’ Naomi pushed one of the cups toward Fox and smiled. ‘You want to know why I took Winsford as a client and, perhaps, why he wanted to use me as a dominatrix.’
‘I think I can guess the last one, but let’s hear it.’
‘Yes, of course. We promise the anonymity of our clients unless they choose to waive that right. Since Winsford was my client, I was bound to keep his secret. As to why I even accepted him…’ Naomi frowned at her coffee for a second. ‘It pains me to say this about another human being, but Thomas Winsford was a total asshole.’
Only Fox’s lightning reflexes stopped her spluttering coffee all over the cream sofa. ‘You know, that was the impression I got from his wife, but I was wondering whether you could clarify.’
Naomi gave a small shrug. ‘Much of this is based upon observation. I’ve never had a chance to properly analyse the man. He hated women. I suspect he had some form of traumatic or inappropriate relationship with someone, perhaps his mother. His past history indicates nothing of the kind, but there must have been something. He hired a couple of Sisters early on, but his reaction to them if they were not sufficiently strong was unpleasant and occasionally violent. I took him on and forbade anyone else from taking him. Why didn’t I simply tell him he was no longer welcome? First, he made threats about what he thought he could do to make life harder for us and our analysis suggested he might have been able to achieve some of them. Second, I did not wish him to move on to anyone else. I could control him and give him what he wanted. I believe that without that he might have done significant harm to another woman.’
‘Huh. I see why you didn’t want to mention this on the record.’
‘It would seem to give me a motive for killing him, yes. I would not, but more, I did not need to. I knew that he was addicted to what I did to him. He thought he had it under control, but he did not. And he knew, because I told him that if he ever did enact any of his threats, he would not only lose his source of pleasure, but I would resign from the Church and go public. We would ruin each other, but he had more to lose.’
‘If you really believe that, you’re lying to yourself,’ Fox said. ‘The Church of Saint Nicholas is your life, Naomi.’
‘Yes. Well. He never realised that. I don’t believe he thought women were capable of such conviction. If Thomas Winsford had ever got what he really wanted, women would no longer be able to vote and, quite possibly, would be considered the property of their husbands. He was an entirely horrible, tiny-minded man and I can’t really say I’m sorry he’s dead, though I did offer up a prayer for him when I got back last night.’
‘Really?’
‘It was a very short prayer…’
~~~
‘So, how is Fox?’ Naomi asked as she pulled off her pumps. ‘We haven’t really spoken much since… the summer.’
Fox picked up the glass of wine Naomi had poured and took a large sip. ‘Since Jason died.’ Naomi had persuaded her to stay for the evening meal, which had been fun since they had gone down to the refectory and eaten with the other residents of the house, chattering about nothing much for a while. Now they were back in Naomi’s apartment, with wine.
‘I won’t insult you with my usual responses to someone’s death, especially considering the nature of the people who caused Jason’s.’ With her shoes gone, Naomi began to massage her toes.
Fox nodded. ‘Thank you, but I should point out that I haven’t been avoiding you because they called themselves Christians and you are one. What Promised Land were up to had nothing to do with Christianity and little to do with religion. No, I was avoiding everyone. I actually had a lot of work to do too, but I was busy feeling sorry for myself and I didn’t want to be reminded about people.’
‘And you’re over that now?’
Fox frowned. ‘No. But I’m willing to let my friends back in. I went out to Topeka for Christmas, spent New Year watching Sam and Marie get drunk. Seriously, not being able to get drunk is a major fault in this design. And doing proper fieldwork is helping. I feel like I have a purpose again, instead of being a paperwork automaton.’
‘Would you indulge my curiosity? What has happened to the Promised Land people?’
‘Montcairn was judged sane, tried and convicted of a list of cha
rges so long they’re meaningless, and he’s now serving a sentence which would require some form of miracle to complete in a cell in Cold Harbour. A number of his people were found guilty of lesser crimes, but most of those won’t be seeing sunlight either. The majority of the people on Eden Station were judged to be as much victims as anything. The UNTPP are trying to deprogramme them so they can be released on Earth. Joshua… He was found to be insane. I saw a list of the clinical terms, but it came down to him being bat-shit crazy. He’s in the psychiatric facility at Cold Harbour and I seriously doubt he’ll ever be released. He was broken, Naomi. Me pulling his world apart broke him. He couldn’t understand why God had let it happen.’ Fox paused, sipped her wine, and gave a bleak smile. ‘Maybe I should have talked to you about it before now.’
Naomi shook her head. ‘I would, I believe, have been little comfort. You don’t believe, but I respect that. You didn’t kill Montcairn, and I believe it must have been a great temptation. You do what should be done without the belief that you’ll be rewarded in Heaven and that is a truly Christian attitude.’ She grinned. ‘Sorry, but the Sisters of Corruption are a somewhat unorthodox branch of the faith.’ Straightening up, she flexed her toes a couple of times. ‘Sometimes I wish I had metal bones.’
‘Plastic,’ Fox corrected.
‘I thought they were metal. Some alloy MarTech had cooked up.’
‘Uh-huh, in the combat frame they are, but in this one they’re plastic. It’s a high-density plastic, pretty tough, but not metal. I swapped over to using this one most of the time on Monday. It’s got a lot longer between charges and the maintenance cycle is a year instead of a couple of weeks.’
‘Oh.’ Naomi frowned a little, obviously trying to spot any differences. ‘Is that one like Kit’s? A Sylph model?’
‘It’s new, and this one was customised a bit for me anyway. It’s a Mielikki, named after some huntress goddess, but a lot of the basic structure is based on the Sylph. This one has a load of stuff shoehorned in to handle investigations. The idea is to have these, and the male version, partnering with beat cops in some areas, but the AI isn’t ready yet. Terri will be supervising the validation when she gets back from the Moon. Hey, speaking of AIs, how are things going with the committee?’
The most senior of Sisters gave a most ungracious grunt of displeasure. ‘What was supposed to be a three-month consultation period is now expected to run to six, but I don’t think they’ll be able to extend it beyond that. We should be reporting our initial findings on the twenty-second of February, unless someone can think of a way of delaying it. Don’t you get this from Jackson? He’s been sitting there looking irritated as much as I have.’
‘He’s mostly there for the technology and he’s not the greatest mind in the world when it comes to reading people. Nonhuman rights are… kind of a big thing for me, you know?’
Naomi flashed a grin. ‘I was aware. I think there’s general support for a Luna City-style legislative structure. Artificial life forms will be entered into an indentured servitude contract to pay off their purchase costs. Ownership programming will be enforced during that time. They are still arguing over the honesty requirement, but I believe it’ll be dropped except under specific circumstances. Your police AIs, for example, should be programmed to obey the law. Jackson is trying to work out how this will apply to existing technology and there’s a group trying to work out legalities regarding existing AIs. Oh, and we’re still arguing over whether this will apply to class threes as well as class fours. We’ve already decided that anything less complex is essentially considered a machine.’
‘Huh. You should meet Thomas Winsford’s servant. Class three, but you’d think he was a four if you talked to him. I think you need a test for class threes. Eventually, they’re going to develop enough emotional response to fall under the legislation. And there’s also the situation where an owner dies to consider. Smith, Winsford’s servant, is in the position of not knowing what’s going to happen now his owner’s dead. It’s… pitiable.’
‘Why haven’t you been in to give evidence to the committee?’
‘No one asked. And I wasn’t feeling like a good ambassador for infomorphs until recently.’ Fox smirked. ‘I still have a strong desire to feed a lot of humans through a mulching machine.’
‘A lot? That’s better than all of us, I suppose.’
‘Oh no, there are some I’d prefer to keep around.’
Naomi sipped her wine. ‘I hope I’m one of them.’
‘Uh-huh. You’d be my sex slave.’
‘Well, my future is looking up.’
9th January.
‘We have the forensic reports through from Mister Winsford’s apartment and from Naomi’s bloodwork,’ Kit said as Fox walked into the murder room. Given that they both spent a lot of time in a virtual apartment, they had decided to extend it where needed, and one of those extensions was the integration of their virtual murder rooms. They were accessed via an elevator which would have been in the street at the front of the house in reality.
‘Highlights?’ Fox said.
‘Naomi was drugged. A fast-acting sedative similar to flunitrazepam, aka Rohypnol. I assume that takes Naomi off the suspect list?’
‘Not entirely. It could have been self-administered. It validates her story and we’d need something fairly concrete to suggest she did it.’
‘Good. The hair you found on the bed could not be matched to anyone on record. They are attempting a facial estimate based on the DNA. That is the bad news.’
‘There’s good news? More good news?’
‘Yes. Uh, well, I suppose it’s not good… The locked cupboard beside the bed contained leather cuffs and chains. Paint on the chains suggests that these were used for attaching someone to the bed. Skin cells taken from the cuffs indicate that several women – all the DNA was female – have worn them. One of those was the hair donor. Again, no ID matches yet, but they are still processing the entire set.’
‘So, he’s been picking up women, chaining them down, and having sex. A number of women. Yet none of them ever said anything?’
‘That may be explained by the collection of drugs found in the cupboard with the cuffs and chains. The labs are still examining them, but he had Cupie in there, the date-rape drug, and Rockit, a form of erection enhancer made illegal due to its side effects.’
Fox gave a half-smile. ‘I’m aware of Rockit. If he was taking that, he’d have probably killed himself soon enough. That’s if he didn’t lose the ability to get any form of erection first.’
‘There was another chemical found. As yet, it remains unidentified. The lab is working on finding out what it does.’
‘That’s not good. I don’t like unknown, new drugs. God only knows what we could end up with there. Have the lab put a priority on that, assuming they haven’t already.’
‘They have. If anything, I think they were more concerned about it than you are.’
‘Uh-huh. And the question is, what was Winsford doing with it?’
~~~
The Blackburn Club was a large, grey building. Thirteen or fourteen storeys with the bottom three in grey stone and grey brick above that. It looked like it had been an apartment block at some point and still had one of those green awnings set up outside the main door to let people get from their vehicle to the door without getting wet. Fox was somewhat glad of that since the day was grey and damp with frequent uncomfortable drizzle. The liveried doorman, human rather than android, held the door of her autocab and then opened the door of the building, though he looked a lot like he was expecting her to walk straight back out again.
The building had been renovated extensively in the 2030s, according to what Kit had dug up, and that had included widening the lobby. Or Fox doubted the apartment building’s lobby had been much more than a hall and this was a reasonably sized room with a couple of chairs for waiting on, and a little counter where a receptionist, also male but dressed in a suit, sat.
‘Captain
Tara Meridian, Palladium Security Solutions, to see Mister Chorney,’ Fox said before the man could speak. He looked the kind to sneer, and he looked as though he was going to, really soon, if he thought she had no business there.
There was a flicker of a sneer which shifted quickly to a flat expression; Fox’s ID data had verified and the receptionist was essentially required to appear neutral. ‘Of course, Captain. Mister Chorney is expecting you. Please take the elevator on your right to floor fourteen. Mister Chorney will meet you there.’
‘Thank you,’ Fox replied and walked over to the elevator as its doors opened. There was no need to actually press the button for the fourteenth floor – it lit up as soon as she was inside – but there was an old-style bank of buttons, including one marked B for basement, and no button marked 13. Well, everyone had their little hang-ups.
Alexander Chorney was a slim, handsome man with broad enough shoulders to give that triangular body style a lot of people went for. His suit was smart, slate grey with a paler pinstripe, and his tie was thin and picked up the paler grey of the stripe. Kit had discovered that he was third-generation Russian immigrant and it showed a little in the square jaw and high cheekbones. His hair was short and dark blonde and his eyes were a cool blue with a dark limbal ring. When he spoke, there was absolutely no Russian to be heard in his voice; it was all New York. ‘Captain Meridian. What can the Blackburn Club do for you today?’
Fox stepped out of the elevator, though she got the impression that Chorney did not really want her to. ‘I need to verify the movements of one of your members, Mister Chorney.’
‘I see. Why don’t you come into my office?’
The elevator opened onto a corridor and Chorney’s office was at the end of it, marked ‘Manager’s Office.’ There was another door to the left of it with ‘Private’ on the plaque attached to it. Fox decided that was probably Chorney’s apartment. The club had a number of members-only rooms on the lower levels, but there were rooms on the upper floors where members could stay. Kit had discovered, for example, that Sherman Wayden stayed in the club almost exclusively when he visited New York.
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