Hashtag

by David Wake

  Oliver sat back and brought his forefingers up to his pursed lips: At Doctor Ridge, would an aircon setting of cool change your prognosis about the time of death? But all he got was a dull ache; good enough reason not to drink on duty.

  Mox thought that it had been a glorious waste of time because the dead woman’s fingerprints hadn’t been on the database or on any of the car’s controls.

  The car ceiling boomed: Oliver jumped. Jellicoe had banged his hands on the roof. He leaned in, leering.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure what to look for,” Oliver admitted.

  “Did you notice that the car was unlocked?”

  “Yes!”

  Oliver noodled the list and set the time parameters from when they found the body back to the beginning of time.

  “Come on, come on – detect!” Jellicoe demanded.

  I am thinking, Oliver thought, only to get an error because of the alcohol still in his blood stream.

  Oliver remembered what he knew anyway: there were no missing persons unaccounted for. He noodled for any exceptions and there were some people ‘lost at sea’, ‘down a sink hole’ and so on. He noodled to check them against the body they’d found, and then, after an exasperating wait, he remembered that there wasn’t a match. She could be the body of someone before the thought revolution… no, she’d had an iBrow, Series 5.

  Oliver rubbed the skin above his: I’m getting a hangover, he thought and then realised that his iBrow had detected he was sober. He could think at the car and drive it now… if it had had battery power.

  He rethought to Doctor Ridge: At Doctor Ridge, would an aircon setting of cool change your prognosis about the time of death?

  There was a sloshing noise by his ear. Jellicoe was shaking his hip flask at him.

  “No! Thanks.”

  Jellicoe put it away. “Tricky,” he said.

  “Yes,” Oliver admitted.

  “You’ll have to do some old–fashioned police work.”

  Doctor Ridge thought he was busy and yes, it would alter the time of death: a week earlier maybe.

  Jellicoe opened the back door.

  Oliver hadn’t got a clue what Jellicoe was talking about, so he noodled, of course, and remembered tall helmets, buttoned jackets, ‘evening all’ and ‘hello, hello, hello’, Peelers and members of the public asking for the time and directions. Everyone knew the time or directions nowadays, he thought.

  At Ollie, people without iBrows, Mox thought.

  Mithering’s thought intruded: At Ollie, what have you found?

  Give me time.

  Jellicoe unscrewed the hip flask cap and poured some amber liquid onto the back seat, wetting the upholstery where the body had been.

  “Hey?” said Oliver.

  “Smell it.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Smell it.”

  “I will not.”

  “Smell it, that’s an order.”

  “Sir, I er… oh… fine.”

  Oliver shuffled round and leaned over the back.

  “All the way down, properly.”

  Oliver did so, leaning right down and putting his nose almost against the seat.

  “What do you smell?”

  Nothing for it, Oliver breathed in through his nose.

  “Whiskey,” he said.

  “Any particularly variety?”

  “The variety in your hip flask.”

  “But not steak?”

  Oliver shuffled upright. “No!”

  “So she wasn’t killed here, not enough blood.”

  “But forensics…”

  Oliver hadn’t read the report. A quick noodle and he remembered that there weren’t any substantial blood stains; some, enough to look nasty, but not the four or five litres that ought to have soaked into the seat. It was all there, clearly in his memory.

  So… she wasn’t killed here, he thought, or scalped here.

  “If it wasn’t such a new car,” Jellicoe said, “we could have examined the sat nav and found out where it had been.”

  New car!? The Tiger Fire’s hardly new, but to have a sat nav, it’d be positively ancient.

  “Inspector–” Oliver began, but the man wasn’t behind him anymore. Oliver struggled in the awkward space to see where he’d gone.

  Chen pointed: That way.

  Jellicoe had stepped away and was calling him out of the car with a curling forefinger. Oliver got out and followed him around to the front of the vehicle.

  The Inspector waved his hand down towards the radiator grill.

  It was a Tiger Fire – obviously. Oliver shrugged.

  “The registration,” Jellicoe said.

  Just below the radiator grill was a plate with letters and numbers.

  “Ah!” said Oliver.

  He noodled the car registration’s owner.

  Finally, progress, he thought.

  Mithering liked this.

  Jessica Stenson, Oliver remembered, owned the car and another noodle meant he knew her address.

  At Jessica Stenson, he thought, are you alive?

  You think the body is Jessica Stenson, Mithering thought, but there aren’t any of the murder victim’s fingerprints on the car’s controls.

  What sort of stupid question is that, thought Jessica Stenson.

  Police, Ma’am, Oliver thought, we’ve located your car.

  What! My car’s on the drive.

  The Tiger Fire?

  That thing! It was stolen months ago. Have you only just got round to checking?

  Oliver was surprised and noodled about the car registration.

  Our taxes pay your salary, you know, thought Jessica Stenson.

  Oliver remembered Mrs Stenson’s original thoughts on the stealing of her car, its inconvenience above anything else and that it had only just been serviced. They were new tires.

  The trouble we had registering the crime, Jessica Stenson added: You had to do it on–line with a computer, I ask you. It’ll be paper forms next.

  Oliver took a deep breath, but caught sight of Jellicoe. The old man shook his head and mouthed, as if Mrs Jessica Stenson could overhear, ‘go and talk to her’ while he held up his hand and did a walking gesture with his first two fingers.

  Ma’am, Oliver thought, I shall be coming round to interview you.

  A house call?

  Yes, Ma’am.

  Whatever for? Do you do those? Why? Oh, this is just ridiculous.

  Which it was really.

  Chen had already started the car when Oliver reached him. He got in and set off; obviously he’d followed enough of their thoughts to know the next destination. Oliver didn’t know where Mallard Drive was, exactly, but Chen would have noodled it.

  Oliver settled down to go through the recent thoughts in his Thinkerfeed to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important.

  Freya thought the report was fine, so that was a relief.

  Mithering was curious about what Jessica Stenson could add to the enquiry.

  Snatch Squad Charlie were having their beer and skittles on Friday now.

  Jasmine was really upset and wanted to make things work.

  The Palatine Restaurant was changing its menu.

  Perhaps he should combine those two–

  “What the hell!” Jellicoe shouted.

  Oliver panicked: he’d missed whatever had happened – a bang, an explosion, something had hit the car.

  Ahead, and to the right, a group of protesters had gathered, yelling, throwing–

  Oliver caught something on recognition: Bog ‘em and Take this, you Tepee bastards!

  Chen saw it first: “Incom–”

  Another missile arced through the air, almost leisurely, and landed on the bonnet with sudden, shocking solidity.

  Their car swerved.

  “Shut up, shut up!” Chen shouted as he thought, Bloody auto–pilot. The drive would cut out if he hit the kerb, but instead Chen swerved back and put his foot down. The engine blurted a revvin
g noise through its external speakers and the pedestrian alarm went off, but the group scattered before it affected the drive. Or perhaps Chen had activated the override.

  Fascist Tepee pigs, murderers, came a thought at Oliver. It was the woman, Martha_556, from the riot; he’d recognised her when she got close to the car.

  He thought back: What?

  At Ollie, you killed a woman protester in Chedding car park.

  We did not.

  Lying pig!

  Why hasn’t she been picked up?

  I’m too clever for you, Tepee.

  Oliver looked back through the rear window and saw the figures coming back together, too far away now for his iBrow to recognise, and to his eyes they were just black shadows in the glare of the sunlight. Another object came towards them, but they had accelerated away. It split on the ground: a brick.

  She’s a martyr, Martha_556 thought.

  We did not kill anyone, he thought back.

  Murderers.

  “Bloody hell, bloody hell,” Chen repeated and then he laughed, relief rather than humour.

  For a moment, Oliver didn’t know what to think and then thought: Hash 999, officers attacked on Stephenson Street, corner of…

  “Radley,” Jellicoe said.

  Radley Street.

  No–one had any real coherent thoughts for the rest of the journey. Oliver let the police feed, friend updates and anything else slip by. Everything from the Thinkersphere he followed was there, of course, but only so much came to the attention of the conscious mind. He was aware, in a non–thinking sense, of his breathing, deep and ragged, and of a sting in his blood caused by stale adrenalin and alcohol derivatives.

  Mallard Drive was in suburbia, full of triple glazed semi–detached houses dating from the previous century.

  “I’ll stay here,” said Jellicoe.

  “Chen?” Oliver asked.

  “What?” Why are we talking, Chen thought.

  “It’s…” never mind, Oliver thought.

  Oliver got out and walked across the tarmac of the pavement and up the brick laid driveway passing alongside a fancy, dark green car as he did so. Someone was gardening, he recognised her name as he passed, but she looked like hired help rather than the owner.

  Oliver rang the doorbell and waited.

  Presently, a woman appeared in the distorted glass and he recognised Jessie. When the door opened, Oliver saw that she was wearing a pinafore over an expensive designer dress, and she had flour dusted over her hands and wrists.

  Yes?

  Police, Oliver thought, Detective Oliver Braddon.

  I know, I recognised you, thought the woman, but show me your warrant card.

  You’re not being very helpful.

  Warrant card.

  Oliver fished it out and opened his identification. The woman peered at it, her eyes quivering as she remembered his details.

  You were involved in the riot.

  Yes, Ma’am.

  Give ’em what for, I say, she thought.

  About your stolen car, there’s been a development.

  Come in, tea, coffee, left… yes, that door.

  The lounge was clean and pristine, more of a drawing room. Clearly she has money, he thought.

  Mrs Stenson continued on to the kitchen: My husband works in the building trade.

  Mrs Jessica Stenson was alive, so one particular theory, which didn’t fit the facts, was shot down in flames.

  We found your car, he thought.

  Yes, but it’s the insurance company’s problem now, I have the new Leopard Supra.

  Oliver sat, awkwardly, because the sofa seemed to try and envelop him. He perched on the edge, feeling off–balance. He had no idea what to ask her. He knew it was her car, when it was stolen and what was done to find it (not much when the initial thought search brought up nothing). And that was more or less it.

  Have any of your friends gone missing?

  Missing, what do you mean?

  Missing as in… missing.

  The woman clattered in with a tray, placed it on a glass coffee table and then poured a cup of tea from a tea pot. Oliver took the cup and saucer, and sipped from the light brown, almost beige liquid.

  “Lovely,” he said.

  You wouldn’t have said it if you’d meant it.

  We found a body in the back seat of your car.

  Really, the woman thought, sipping her tea without any change of expression, hopefully one of the youths who stole it.

  We don’t know.

  An Unbrow… that’ll be an immigrant then – typical.

  No, Madam.

  So they had an iBrow?

  Yes.

  And the victim hasn’t been identified.

  No.

  And they had an iBrow?

  Yes.

  I pay my taxes, do you know that? What for, I ask you?

  At Ollie, ask her about her husband, Mithering thought.

  Oliver ignored her. “We do our duty fully and responsibly,” he said to Mrs Stenson.

  Just incompetently.

  Ma’am–

  It’s taken you two months to find a car.

  Mithering rethought: Ask her about–

  Tell me about your husband.

  We don’t follow each other anymore.

  Oliver noodled for her husband and then for John Stenson. He remembered that he ran Stenson Supplies for the building trade. He specialised in steel reinforcement, copper cabling and aluminium cladding. Oliver followed him only to see that he was making apologies for having to miss some sailing club get–together, because he was at a trade event in the States.

  Oliver thought the obvious: Why?

  “This interview is over,” said Mrs Stenson.

  If you’d just tell–

  “Over, out! Otherwise you are trespassing.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Oliver stood, and Mrs Stenson ushered him out quickly, saying “out, out, out” almost like a mantra.

  That was pointless, Oliver thought as he made his way down the garden path back to the car. And embarrassing.

  Yes, you should be ashamed.

  Jessica Stenson was still following him.

  He reached the car: Chen was nodding his head, clearly following some music, and Jellicoe was flicking through a something. It took Oliver a few moments to realise what the black card–and–white lined paper object actually was. It was a notebook.

  It was like the whole world was slipping back in time, he thought.

  “Tried and trusted method,” said Jellicoe.

  Really?

  Oliver looked at the man, but he was concentrating on his scribbles.

  “Really?” Oliver said, deliberately trying to squeeze as much sarcasm as he could into the two syllables.

  “It means you don’t forget something.”

  This is beyond a joke, Oliver thought, when you can noodle the sum total of human knowledge in an instant. What was two dozen small pages of illegible handwriting in comparison?

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Must be home time now, Oliver thought at Chen.

  Chen laughed.

  “Just one more thing,” Jellicoe said. “Milltown, James.”

  “Sir,” said Chen: That is so irritating, he thought.

  Don’t let him know, Oliver thought.

  He knows.

  Oliver looked at the Inspector patiently pencilling in his notebook. Potentially he was following them and knew of all their exchanges and opinions. They could follow him, but considering the man’s alcohol intake there wasn’t anything to follow. The man’s liver must be a wreck, and without accessing social thinking properly he couldn’t have any friends, could he?

  Jellicoe looked up at Oliver, either in whatever passed as thought for such a man or because he knew Oliver’s point–of–view.

  Let him, thought Oliver.

  Milltown was a posh suburb, sprawling as more and more streets on the edges claimed the heritage, so it stretched, it wa
s said, from one red light district to another. Oliver didn’t know for sure as he’d never worked vice, and noodling it produced an awful lot of hearsay and twaddle.

  “Left there,” said Jellicoe. “And then there.”

  They reached Almond Drive and came to a rest at a spot Jellicoe called ‘here’. Jellicoe leaned back, examined the street up and down before producing a pair of binoculars. He hummed and harred under his breath.

  Oliver noodled his location and then found that Number 37, the one under Jellicoe’s gaze, belonged to Alfred Westbourne. It looked boarded up to Oliver.

  “Westbourne?” said Oliver, by way of trying to elicit a reason for this visit.

  “Nasty piece of work,” said Jellicoe, not looking round.

  Oliver noodled and remembered the libel action that a newspaper had paid out to Westbourne when a report had claimed he was the head of an organised crime syndicate. He’d been able to afford some pretty strong lawyers.

  “Newspaper!” said Chen. Clearly, he’d noodled the same thing.

  “This is old news,” Oliver agreed. “Very old news if it was in a newspaper.”

  “Never caught him,” said Jellicoe.

  “No?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “Presumed dead or dead?” Oliver asked.

  “Disappeared.”

  “Disappeared with a brow?”

  Jellicoe hummed in reply: yes.

  “Is he, er… thinking?”

  “Yes, not much… Alzheimer’s, tends to think he’s in the South of France.”

  “Is he?”

  “Not according to our colleagues in the Nationale.”

  “Right.”

  “And his son has disappeared too… not Alzheimer’s.”

  “Son? The body in the morgue is a woman.”

  “Yes, but interesting that he’s ‘disappeared’ and she’s ‘appeared’.”

  “He had a sex change,” said Chen.

  Jellicoe spat his answer, “Don’t be facetious!”

  “Sir.”

  “Does he think?” Oliver asked.

  “Yes,” said Jellicoe and he lowered his binoculars. “But he doesn’t think about his location – ever.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “You’d think.”

  “Do you think the, er… cases are connected?”

  Jellicoe put the binoculars back to his eyes and gazed out. “He’s got to be up to something.”