The Remnant Keeper (Tombs Rising Book 1)

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “I wasn’t doing anything. Just because your department can’t hire a decent telepath, don’t blame me.”

  Burnfield frowned. “She said you were blocking her. Is that true?”

  “He was blocking me,” the woman said, “I’m telling you, he’s hiding something.”

  The detective got up and turned to face the teep. “Thanks, Moira.”

  Stony-faced, the telepath left the room. “You can leave as well,” the detective said to the policeman by the door.

  Once the pair were alone, the detective sat and clasped his hands together. “You realise we’re trying to help.”

  “Yes. But I’m telling you whatever just happened then wasn’t me.”

  “Could it be instinctual? Are you blocking out of habit?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. It was your teep. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

  Burnfield mulled this over and after what seemed a lifetime to Jack, nodded and smiled thinly. “I can arrange another teep to meet us at the station.”

  A light buzzing began, a vibration from Jack’s finger. His HALO was alerting him to an incoming call. “Do you mind if I get that?” he asked.

  “Feel free,” Burnfield replied, then went to adjust the datapad he’d left on the table.

  “It’s my handler,” Jack said and answered the call.

  Anna Lovett’s voice was clipped and professional. “I’m guessing you’re in the middle of an interview so I’ll keep this short. I’m on route to yours. Will be there in five minutes so make your excuses and be ready to leave.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jack replied, “I can’t just leave. Keeley’s been murdered.”

  “Under order of OsMiTech I’m afraid. The matter is out of your hands.” And she hung up. Not a note of sympathy.

  Jack rubbed a hand across his forehead, suddenly feeling very warm.

  “You’re right,” Burnfield said. “You’re not going to leave with her. In fact, it would be better if you came to the station with us instead. Let the scene of crime officers examine your house without us being in the way. We can arrange a new teep to scan you.”

  “But she was insistent,” Jack countered, wondering why Burnfield was so keen to get him out of the house.

  “You’re the only witness in a murder investigation, Mr Winston. I need to make sure you’re able to contribute to the investigation fully, and without hindrance from other parties.” He stood and picked up his datapad. Standing in front of him, Jack was struck by the man’s small frame and yet he exuded presence and confidence. “Listen,” he said softly, almost whispering. “If you go with your handler, I’m not going to be able to help you anymore. You’ll be at the mercy of OsMiTech and you know they don’t like the police interfering in their business. Please come with me to the station.”

  The detective’s HALO vibrated. Fluidly, without even glancing at the display, he thumbed the answer button and held it to his ear. To give him his due, he did his best to hide his annoyance towards the person on the other end of the call, but his ears turned a shade of red, and his responses were clipped with military precision. When he hung up, his frown had returned.

  “Seems you’re free to leave after all, Mr Winston.”

  “You’re not going to stop me?”

  “Not going to stop you,” he repeated. “But, I’m urging you to reconsider. I can’t help you once you step into your handler’s care. You’ll be out of my purview.”

  “Please find my wife’s killer,” Jack urged.

  “We’ll do our best Mr Winston.”

  “When can I come back here?” Jack was suddenly very aware that he was leaving his home with virtually no possessions and with no idea of what the procedure was for something like this.

  “Leave your number with us, and we’ll call you when it’s OK. Shouldn’t be too long.”

  And that’s when Anna arrived.

  The front door was wide open. An officer stood barring the way but Jack saw a new car stop in the middle of the street, the driver making no attempt to find a suitable parking spot. The emergency vehicles had taken up all the spaces on the crowded street, but even if they hadn’t, Anna rarely troubled herself with such things as parking regulations.

  Jack heard her before he saw her, squawking at the policemen who dared get in her way with her usual contempt for the men in uniform. Jack immediately felt sympathy for the policemen who bared her entry to the hallway of the house.

  “Easy there love, you can’t just saunter into a restricted zone like lady muck.” Perhaps hoping that a friendly bit of joviality would serve well against the unreasonable actions of the public, this particular sergeant was ill-prepared for Anna’s face thrust in front of his.

  “Don’t love me, Sergeant. Step aside or I’ll have you arrested for obstructing a government official.” She flashed her ID card and he took a step back. She crossed the threshold and saw Jack waiting for her. A thin smile passed across her lips, then she acknowledged Burnfield. The detective put forward a hand for her to shake. She smiled in amusement then shook it, her black leather gloves gripping his hand tightly.

  “I trust you’ve been taking good care of Mr Winston,” she purred, full of charm now that she was speaking to the organ grinder.

  “Mr Winston’s been through a lot in the last couple of hours. I’ve asked him to come down to the police station where we can help him come to terms with his loss, and he can assist with our investigation.”

  Anna shook her head, her hair shimmered with the movement like a bird’s neck with ruffled feathers. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take good care of him. We can arrange a time for you to visit and ask further questions if and when needed. Right now though, I’m taking Mr Winston some place safe. You need to concentrate on catching the man responsible for his wife’s death.”

  Burnfield turned again to Jack, and through his eyes he silently asked the question he’d raised earlier, about Jack choosing to go with him instead of Anna. He might have been talking sense. Putting himself into the hands of OsMiTech could well be the stupid thing to do, but when the alternative was the police, what choice did he have?

  3:56 PM

  Anna opened the door to her apartment and Jack followed her in. Despite the exhaustion and the feeling that his insides had been ripped out and stuffed back again, he couldn’t stop being taken aback by the sight of her home. The place was magnificent.

  A short corridor opened up into a double-height apartment, a wall of folding glass doors on the right leading to a full length balcony overlooking the river; a flight of dark wooden stairs stuck into the wall like teeth with no barriers to prevent plummeting over the side. And all the way up this left-hand wall that the stairs were embedded in, a green wall of foliage.

  “I love the outdoors,” Anna said, “but I’m rubbish at gardening.” She stepped out of her shoes and placed them in the rack by the door. “Do you mind?” she asked, gesturing at Jack’s own shoes.

  “No, of course,” he replied, stepping out of his. With no spare slot, Anna took them and set them square against the skirting board.

  “It’s wonderful,” Jack said. He walked across the polished wooden floor and approached the living wall. Evergreen pines and spider plants and ivy—other plants he didn’t recognise—all growing in and out of each other, blending into a forest mural.

  Jack had never been invited into Anna’s apartment before. Seeing the place, it struck him how little he did know her.

  Besides the dramatic forest wall, the apartment was well fitted and open plan. A lounge area with great leather sofas shaped around a copper fire pit, a dining area beyond, and at the far end of the space, a kitchen gleamed. The stairs led up to more living space and doorways he presumed to be bedrooms.

  “You need a shower,” she told him, looking up and down at her new house guest. “First floor, second door.”

  Jack didn’t need telling twice. Despite changing into clean clothes at his house, he felt grubby, slick with sweat and bloo
d that hadn’t quite washed off at home. He didn’t think he’d ever feel clean again.

  The shower was where she said it would be. A walk in wet-room affair with a glass partition separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom. He turned the temperature up high, closed his eyes, and let the water and steam envelop him.

  When he’d finished, he grabbed a towel and saw his bag had been placed by the door; Anna must have left it there when he’d been washing. He felt stupidly modest, like his personal space had just been invaded, but then grateful as the bag had another change of clothes for him.

  Refreshed but tired, he left the bathroom and heard Anna behind one of the other doors, talking on her HALO. It sounded a heated conversation, and he hesitated, seeing what he could pick up; wondering who could wind her up so much.

  The door opened and her head poked through the gap. “I’ll be down in a minute. Make yourself at home.” She closed the door again.

  Jack was alone. He thought he might be hungry but his stomach was in knots. The world around him seemed so far away, like he was being pulled back through a tunnel and the light was going out. He slumped to the floor and curled up, cradling his head into the crook of his elbow. He shut his eyes and let a silent sob escape.

  He didn’t know how long he was sat there, only that at some point an arm wrapped around his shoulders and a body leaned into his side.

  “You will be OK. We’ll get through this,” Anna whispered.

  *

  Later, Anna took him back downstairs and went to make a drink. Jack took the time to explore the apartment some more and was drawn to the high shelving units against the walls of the lounge. Items had been placed in discrete sections; ephemera like Jack had never seen. In the first couple, Jack came across items from his childhood. Toys he’d had and toys he’d wanted to have. A plastic monkey that blew rainbows from his mouth when you told him you loved him took pride of place amongst a jumble of Babble Pets and Insect Warriors. The Warriors had been a particular longing of Jack’s as a child. The manufacturer had released six different models, and they only lived for a day but if you bought more than one, they produced a bag containing two more insect eggs. If you kept them safe, they’d hatch into a million different variations.

  Anna shouted from the kitchen area. “The man who invented those had to escape Romania when a piece of artificial intelligence went rogue and the offspring insects developed a taste for human blood.”

  “What is all this for?” he asked.

  “What for?”

  “All this stuff? What is it?”

  “It’s my collection,” she replied as if that explained everything. “Look, but just be careful.”

  The next unit along held a collection of unusual pieces of tech that struck no recollection with Jack.

  “How old are these?”

  “Er, at least eighty years. Some much older.”

  “And do you know what it all does?” he asked, picking up a small rectangle screen with a thumb-sized indent on the lower bezel. It seemed big and heavy in his hands, and he could see his reflection in the surface—an old datapad perhaps?

  “Yeah, mostly. A lot of it’s broken though. A friend helps me get hold of it and she’s pretty good with the tech. So far, she’s got a whole heap of stuff working again.”

  Putting down the unidentified rectangle, Jack walked farther along the units, looking at strange fragments of history that he barely recognised.

  “What’s your fascination with this stuff?”

  “Reminders.” She approached Jack with a mug of steaming coffee. “Let’s sit,” she said, passing it to him.

  They sat on the sofas around the fire pit and Jack settled against one of the wide sweeping arms. Anna sat on a distressed leather high-backed armchair and rested her own mug of coffee on the arm. A thin bead of coffee raced down the side of her cup and landed on the leather. She brushed it aside.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “A little,” he lied, trying to ignore the aches in his arms and neck. If he closed his eyes, he could happily fall asleep. “It’s unreal. I’ve seen my wife—she was mutilated.” He had to stop talking.

  “Don’t try to understand.”

  “But, I have to. What was it for?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  Jack sighed. He couldn’t look at Anna. He didn’t want her sympathy. “She wasn’t meant to be there. Damn it, I wasn’t even meant to be working. Why was that case so fucking important anyway?”

  “I don’t know. OsMiTech contacted me and asked if one of my keepers was available. Something must have gone wrong with the original assignment.”

  “Like what?”

  “Perhaps they were taken ill. I don’t know, Jack. I’m not privy to all of that. I’m meant to just look after you.”

  You’re doing a great job.

  Damn. He checked himself that he wasn’t broadcasting. With a class three in the room, there was always the chance she’d pick up on it. He didn’t mean that. She sat impassively on her chair, calm and serene, patiently waiting for him to talk it out. If she’d heard him, she was being polite enough to ignore it.

  “They took her eyes. She must have seen him and been able to identify him.”

  “It’s becoming more commonplace. Murderers clearing their tracks.”

  “He took them. He could have damaged them and left them.” An image of Keeley flashed before him. Dead on the floor. Eyes missing. He brought his attention to the view across the river instead.

  “Don’t try to understand. At least not yet,” Anna said.

  “I need to help catch him.”

  “The police are on it. Forensics will have been all over your house by now. They’ll catch him.”

  “They’d better.”

  She paused. “You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid are you?”

  It had gone dark outside and he stared at his reflection in the window.

  Anna continued, “You’re angry. You need time.”

  The anger was all that was keeping Jack functioning; it boiled through his veins. “I’ve still got the case eye in my head. I want it out.”

  “I’ve been onto OsMiTech. They’re coming over tomorrow to take it.”

  “Damn it, Anna. I don’t want the fucking thing in my head anymore. I want it gone.” He got up and stared out across the river. Drone lights floated along the water’s edge.

  “Tomorrow.”

  He banged his fist against the glass. The window shook. “Not fast enough. What tools have you got?” He headed back to the stairs.

  “I don’t keep any extraction tools here. Why would I? You’ve got your own.”

  “Back at the house. I’ll get them.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t. The police have sealed your house.”

  “Then get OsMiTech. Tell them I’m coming in now.”

  “There’s no one there now.”

  “But you spoke to them.”

  “Yes. I spoke to an administrator. There’s no one there who can get access to the tools you need. And besides, you need a memory box. You can’t just take it out and forget about it. That eye is part of a murder investigation.”

  “I don’t care,” he cried.

  “Yes, you do. How would you feel if you knew someone had Keeley’s eye and was prepared to sacrifice it and an investigation into her death?”

  Jack sat down on a stair and wiped away a tear. She was impossibly right, but it was so easy for her to preach about the right thing to do when it was him wearing somebody else’s eye. The headaches from earlier had ebbed, and he was getting more used to the different lens strengths. Small mercy.

  “I could scan you,” Anna said casually, interrupting Jack’s thoughts.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You want to help catch Keeley’s killer. Maybe I can help pull out some of your memories from the attack. I could find stuff you didn’t think to tell the police.”

  Jack hesitated. “
The police tried that at the house. They had their own teep.”

  “You didn’t say.” She turned around on her armchair, leaning on her elbow on the back of the chair, watching him with curious intent.

  “But, it didn’t go well. She made a mess of it. Accused me of blocking her.”

  “And were you?”

  “No. I was stressed. That might have been part of it, but I wasn’t pushing her away.” Jack remembered the pain. “I’m telling you, so you can go carefully. When she stumbled, it hurt both of us.”

  “So,” she said cautiously, “we’re going to try this?”

  “Yes.”

  Anna finished her coffee and let Jack come back over to the sofa before she swiped her HALO and the lights in the apartment dimmed. A rash of goosebumps broke out over Jack’s skin and he tried to pretend it was due to the cold, despite the temperature being set in the high twenties.

  “Lie back,” Anna spoke softly.

  Jack laid back and rested his head on the arm of the sofa.

  Anna stepped across the space between them and dropped a cushion to the floor. She got down on her knees beside him. Jack tried to shut out the memories of the police teep and to relax. He kept telling himself this wasn’t so bad. Before she put her hands to his forehead, Jack put a hand out to stop her. “Why were OsMiTech spying on me?”

  She hesitated, and Jack twisted his head to see she’d rested her hands in her lap.

  “What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?” he pressed.

  “What makes you think OsMiTech spies on anyone?” she said.

  “The police interrupted the call I made—like literally interrupted. I was speaking to the police minutes after it happened and they were already on their way.”

  “You’ve been through a lot. You misheard.”

  She raised her hands to Jack’s head but he brushed them aside and sat up. “Why are you lying?”

  “I’m not.”

  They stared at each other. “OK. I’m leaving.” Jack stood.

  “And where would you go?”

  “Friends. I can stay with them.”

  She frowned. “You’ve got no friends.”

  “The police then.”