by Ian Hocking
Déjà Vu
( Saskia Brandt - 1 )
Ian Hocking
It is 2023. Scientist David Proctor is running for his life. On his trail is Saskia Brandt, a detective with the European FIB. She has questions. Questions about a bomb that exploded back in 2003. But someone is hunting her too. The clues are in the shattered memories of her previous life.
Déjà Vu takes the reader on a startling journey through a possible future, though digital minds, and through the consequences of the choices we make. It is the debut novel by Ian Hocking.
Literary awards: Red Adept Indie Awards winner for Science Fiction (2011)
Ian Hocking
DÉJÀ VU
Für Britta
Saskia Brandt illustrated by Pia Guerra
Chapter One
Berlin: September, 2023
Saskia Brandt emerged from the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate and narrowed her eyes at the evening. The mirrored arches of the Federal Office of Investigation gleamed in front of her. Minutes later, she strode inside. She crossed the inlaid insignia—Ex tabula rasa—and dumped her ceramic revolver in a tray. Huffed. Stepped through the detector and retrieved the gun while the guard folded his arms and made her feel exposed with her hair down, absurd in her casual skirt, short in her flip flops.
‘You should be on holiday,’ he said, smiling.
‘I should be on holiday.’
Ghost-touched by the air conditioning, her sweat dried cold. She entered the lift, which rose on a piston and opened high in the building. Her office was one among dozens. Its plaque read: Frau Kommissarin Brandt. She licked her thumb and squeaked away a plastic shaving from the B. There was a picture alongside the name. It showed a serious, beautiful woman in her late twenties. No make-up. No earring in the exposed, left ear. Many photographs had been taken and Saskia liked this one the least. As always, she scowled at herself before opening the door.
Inside, a black desk rested on an ashy carpet and faced blinds that could wink Berlin away. A cubicle to the side, now empty, marked the extent of her secretary’s territory. To the right, beyond a Kandinsky print, were the kitchenette and bathroom, which few at the FIB were fortunate enough to have.
The office was uncomfortably warm. Saskia approached the desk and adjusted the position of its antique blotter while she thought. She stroked a framed photograph: her English boyfriend, Simon. Her ex-boyfriend of—she noted the sunburnt skin around her watch—five hours and twenty-two minutes, allowing for the time difference. She turned the photograph face down and set her watch to Berlin time.
‘The air conditioning is broken,’ announced the nameless computer that haunted her office. Two cameras hung in the dark corners of the ceiling. Each drew a bead on her mouth.
‘Why?’
‘I do not know. An engineer has been called. If you are hot, take a cold shower.’
Saskia turned to one of the cameras. ‘Thanks for the advice.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Where is my secretary? Why didn’t she report it?’
‘Your secretary is on holiday.’ The computer paused. ‘You should be on holiday too.’
Her boyfriend had been cooking pasta for a romantic meal when the recall from FIB came through and, without discernible romance, had thrown the boiling pot across the room, frustrated that she was leaving yet again. A stray tassel of spaghetti had burned Saskia’s forehead with a question mark. She had let him fuss and make his apologies, but it was over the moment that burn mark bloomed. She did not say good-bye. In the taxi to the airport, she cried.
She entered the bathroom, drew some water and splashed it over her forehead. Then she went to the kitchen. A microwave, cupboards, a coffeemaker and a large refrigerator. Her eyes stopped on the refrigerator. It promised cold, sparkling mineral water. She pulled the handle and her secretary rolled out, taut and twisted, dead joints creaking as she unwound. Their eyes met and Saskia crouched, her attention moving from those dry orbs to the hole below the secretary’s left ear.
~
As Saskia held the shoulder of the corpse, she paused in the wake of a thought: she could not remember the secretary’s name. How could that be? Saskia was tired but not exhausted. There was no reason to forget the woman who had worked in her office since the spring. Saskia had last seen her late on Friday afternoon, two days before. Why had the body been hidden? The question and its answer collided: she was being framed.
Saskia returned to her desk. Before she could query her computer, it asked, ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Kommissarin Brandt and you are my office computer. Are you malfunctioning?’
There was no reply. Instead, Saskia heard the swish of the computer’s local components, which were housed within her desk. ‘Computer, what are you doing?’
‘I am assembling a profile for Kommissarin Brandt.’
‘You shouldn’t have to. Run an internal systems check.’
‘Check complete. No problems found.’
‘My voice print was working a few minutes ago. Why would it be unavailable now?’
‘It might have been deleted accidentally or deliberately. The latter is likelier.’
‘I see.’
Had there been a break-in? Could it be the same person trying to frame her?
‘Your refrigerator reports that it is broken,’ the computer said.
‘It would.’ Saskia leaned on her desk and looked into the sky. ‘My secretary was inside.’
‘I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?’
‘We are no longer having a conversation.’
~
Herr Hauptkommissar Beckmann wore a grey Nehru jacket with a lemon-yellow flower in its buttonhole. Thirty years of criminal investigation had left him a concise, deliberate man, cold in his outlook. Beckmann was Old School. Saskia liked him. It did not surprise her to find him working on a Sunday. He was holding on for an FIB pension and the long shadows of Croatian twilight. She had to play it his way.
‘Herr Hauptkommissar.’
‘Kommissarin.’
There was a sour edge to his smile this morning. His eyes, as ever, his had the unsettling penetration of an arch prosecutor. They shook hands.
‘No milk, sorry,’ she said, passing the coffee. ‘Perhaps you could fill me in.’
Beckmann had a habit of putting his tongue tip into a cup before he drank. He swallowed audibly.
‘In the early hours of this morning,’ he began, ‘your computer sent an enquiry to a refrigeration subcontractor about your fridge. I intercepted the e-mail and sent a man to investigate. Why? Because it flagged up as unusual. You had a new fridge fitted last year. A simple statistical test indicated that the probability of it failing within five years was less than one in twenty. I sent the man around as a precaution. He’s from the Moscow office, originally. Klutikov.
Saskia looked at the picture of Simon, the blotter, the plant in the corner and the secretary’s little desk. She imagined a man and his gloved fingers.
‘You believe me, don’t you?’ she asked.
Beckmann paid out a silence the length of two coffee sips.
‘Let us be rigorous. Let us be rational. Here are the facts according to Klutikov. Your secretary was killed on Friday evening. She died of a single stab wound below the ear. The blade was at least six centimetres long. The wound led to a fatal brain haemorrhage. The deceased -’
‘Mary,’ Saskia blurted, excited by her victory over forgetfulness. ‘Her name was Mary.’ She looked at the fallen photo-frame. ‘Why did the murderer put her in the fridge?’
‘A large, hot object will strain
the fridge’s gas compressor.’
Saskia nodded. ‘That links with the broken air conditioning problem. It made the air warmer and forced the fridge’s compressor to work harder.’
‘Inevitably, then, the fridge will break. The next step is quite predictable. Your computer will send a request to have the fridge examined and repaired. The repair subcontractor will then send an engineer for Monday morning. He will discover the body and, as simply as that, you will be framed.’
Saskia sat against the desk. She was unused to the skirt, and her thighs rubbed.
‘Of course. I was not due back until Tuesday, after the bank holiday. But why frame me so elaborately?’ Her eyes jumped to his. ‘I have the answer. I left the office around six o’clock on the Friday evening. If it could be proved that the act happened later than that—which it did, because Mary was still in the office when I left—then my alibi would have been provided by witness statements from the taxi driver and the airline staff. By storing the body in the fridge, the time of death is less predictable. It would leave open the possibility that I murdered Mary before leaving for London.’
‘So why would you, in your role as a murderer, put the body in the fridge?’
‘I could store it here and carry out the pieces over the next weeks.’ Saskia stopped her thoughts. She said, ‘This is conjecture, of course.’
Beckmann placed the empty cup on her blotter. Saskia looked at it, then moved it off.
‘And your postulated motive, Frau Kommissarin?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I must tell you that Klutikov searched Mary’s pockets and found photographs of a lesbian nature.’
Saskia took a breath and sighed. ‘Someone wants to make this look like a lover’s tiff. The photos are fabrications, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Beckmann studied her expression. ‘Frau Kommissarin, it is 1:15 p.m. The technician will arrive at 8:00 am tomorrow.’
‘How do you think we should proceed?’
‘We? I told you that I don’t want the Internal Section parachuting in here unnecessarily. Handle this yourself. I’ve told Klutikov to keep quiet for the time being. If you cancel the technician and the murderer is monitoring your communications, he will be forewarned. I suggest you retain your only advantage: his belief that he has succeeded. Now listen to me. If I don’t have a satisfactory answer by the time the repairman arrives, the Internal Section will be activated. You don’t want that. What with their methods. If I’m satisfied you’ve identified the perpetrator, you and Klutikov can run him down.’
Saskia stared, unfocused, at the wall. ‘It’s not good, is it? If I’m convicted, the courts will have me killed.’
‘After the Richter ruling, you might be lucky and just have your brain wiped. Street-cleaning isn’t so bad. They wear epaulettes.’ Beckmann put the flower to his nose. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’
Chapter Two
Hauptkommissar Beckmann had been gone for an hour. In that interval, Saskia had checked the security recordings of the cameras in the foyer. The recordings had been deliberately scrambled. While she worked implication after implication, two cleaning spiders entered her office. She watched them groom the carpet around her feet—touches to map her calf—and climb the desk, lift the blotter’s corner, shoo away the dust. The spell broke when a spider approached the kitchen.
‘Computer, get rid of them.’
The spiders slipped under the door and were gone.
‘How about some Vivaldi?’ she asked.
‘I don’t understand. Would you like to improve your accuracy by reading some training texts?’
‘No. Play me some music by the composer Vivaldi.’
‘Which symphony?’
‘The Four Seasons.’
‘Which piece?’
‘Winter.’
It played.
‘Louder.’
Louder.
She looked at the photograph of Simon. His eyes flashed green. Saskia turned to the blinking diode of a camera high on the wall. ‘Computer, you use those cameras to disambiguate voice commands, correct?’
‘Yes, a multiple constraint satisfaction framework is -’
‘Do you store the video? Show me.’
‘Yes, I use it to help process difficult utterances.’
‘I said show me.’
‘Raw video or my compressed representations?’
‘Raw.’
The blinds rotated and the daylight died. Four projected squares expanded. Each showed a live view of Saskia’s face. ‘Show me the video for last Friday afternoon.’
‘It has been deleted.’
Saskia saw herself scowl. ‘What?’
‘Please wait. I have located a back-up.’
The squares changed to show four profiles of her secretary, Mary. She was sitting at her desk.
‘Overlay a time stamp in the corner of the lower right frame.’
The time-stamp read 12:07 p.m.
Saskia nodded. ‘Now jump to 7:00 p.m.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Go forward to 7:00 p.m.’
The computer did so. An empty room.
‘Back to 6:30. Play it in real time.’
Saskia watched the secretary as she typed at her terminal, as she passed her moments, as she yawned, dug her nose, and tweaked an earring. There was a knock at the door, loud and abrupt. Both Mary and Saskia flinched. Mary walked to the door and opened it. Saskia tried to construct the scene from the traces of background and but the cameras cherished Mary’s portrait. She was expectant, then puzzled, then afraid. The visitor said nothing.
Pull back, Saskia willed.
Two cameras were retasked as the visitor entered. They moved from Mary to the murderer. Saskia leaned forward, then swore. His face was obscured by a broad-brimmed hat. The viewing angle made it impossible to see beyond his shaven chin. His coat was baggy but nondescript. Wordlessly, he moved to Mary. His head tilted to kiss her. Then a gloved hand flashed at her neck, fast as a tongue at an insect. Mary died sliding down his front. Unbalanced by her weight, he laid her out and wiped the blade on her collar. Then he hauled her towards the kitchen. Beyond the cameras.
‘Go back to the frame where the person walked in.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Back five seconds. Forward two seconds. Back three frames. Print that.’
Saskia opened the blotter and removed the single, blank sheet. As she watched, the murderer appeared mid-stride. His height was difficult to judge, though the computer could calculate it. He wore a long raincoat and dark gloves. His shoulders were narrow. Not enough detail. Nothing diagnostic.
~
Saskia took a lukewarm shower. She dried slowly and twisted her hair into a towel. She wiped a space in the bathroom mirror’s condensation and examined her eyes. She closed the wings of a white bathrobe around herself and returned to the office. The carpet tickled the gaps between her toes.
‘Computer, play the video once more. This time from 6:34 p.m.’
Again, Mary was disturbed by a knock at the door. Again, Mary was murdered. Saskia sighed; the unchangeable and dead past. But, on the brink of an idea, Saskia stepped closer to the window and tilted her head.
‘…Stop.’
The murderer froze with his knife on Mary’s collar.
‘Zoom in on the blade.’
Camera One filled the window. The knife was pixelated but Saskia hoped it had caught something essential of the murderer, as her darkening office had perhaps caught something of Mary’s expiration. Saskia’s thumbs itched.
‘Computer, can you analyze the image on the knife?’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘I want a true representation of the object that caused the reflection on the knife. The object is a human face approximately thirty centimetres from the blade. However, do not share the analysis with any other computer. Is this clear?’
‘If I distribute the analysis, processing will take minutes. If I do it myse
lf, hours will be required.’
‘How long?’
‘Twelve hours, plus or minus one.’
Saskia looked at her bare wrist. Her watch was still in the bathroom. ‘What time is it?’
‘It is 7:45 p.m.’
The analysis might not be complete by 8:00 am, when the engineer was to arrive. But, with a face, Saskia could pursue the investigation, could absolve herself. It represented the difference between being controlled and being the controller. It might save her from the life of a street sweeper, rehabilitated, the crinkles on her brain smoothed clean.
‘Begin your analysis.’
‘Yes, Kommissarin.’
The night was long. Saskia dressed again. She did not want to eat or read. She had nobody to call. Finally, she fell asleep in her chair, lulled by the swish-swish of the data carousels as, pixel by pixel, the computer formed its answer to her question. She dreamed she brushed the streets, swish-swish, until they were as blank as her.
~
Night terrors for the kommissarin, whose dreams carried her to a campfire on a dark plain. Around it sat three old women. Clotho, she spun the thread of life. Lachesis, she measured a length. Atropos, she cut it.
Spin, measure, snip.
~
Awake, she witnessed each tick of the dawn. The city restarted. The empty streets gathered their people. Saskia watched them. In the bathroom, she studied her reflection. She brought cold water to her face and massaged her eyebrows and her eyes. She pressed until her vision clouded. It was 7:50 am. If the engineer was punctual, he would arrive in ten minutes.
‘Saskia,’ called the computer, ‘I have completed the image processing job.’
She returned to her desk. ‘Give me a hard copy.’
As the reconstruction of the murderer’s face appeared on her blotting paper, there was a knock at the door. Saskia folded the paper in half.
‘Computer, who is that?’
‘The Hauptkommissar. He has not requested an appointment.’