Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  He was awarded a muttering of ‘yes sir’ from the team, and nodded gruffly at them. ‘Good, I’m sure you will make me proud.’ He inclined his head at Sid. ‘Detective, a word.’

  Here we go. Sid walked into the small office, watching as O’Rouke first went over to the two 2Norths and shook each of them by the hand, muttering: ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  Bastard.

  Surprisingly, the Chief didn’t bring his aides with him as he joined Sid in the office. ‘Good move calling me right away,’ O’Rouke said.

  ‘Frankly, I didn’t know what else to do. A murder I can handle. But this . . . Fuck! A North!’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not even going to tell you how much shit I’ve showered in already today. The Mayor is crapping bricks the size of a bungalow; and the city prosecution director has retained a London firm to handle the case when you take it to court – which you will be doing. You’ll be getting a call from them in about half an hour to discuss strategy and the level of evidence they’ll need.’

  Sid leaned back slightly and looked at the imposing Chief Constable with slightly narrowed eyes. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, you, Hurst.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘No other fucker on the second floor will step up and put his dick on the block. It’s you.’

  ‘Shit! Okay.’

  ‘You screw up every now and then, who doesn’t? But Chloe and Jenson went over your record after I woke them up at one o’clock this morning – they hate you for that by the way – but they say you’re an okay detective, you know procedure, and you know the system. And face it, you can call down whatever covering fire you want with this one; Christ, you want to hire CERN for forensics, you got it. We have a tap directly into Northumberland Interstellar’s primary credit account. Every agency we’ve ever dealt with is going to be calling in favours all over the station just for the privilege of meeting you so they can hand you and your boy season tickets to St James’ Park for the next ten years.’

  ‘Christ.’ Despite the shock, Sid was actually enjoying the idea of being left in charge. Typical that everyone else was so shit-scared for their career they’d even risk defying O’Rouke. And that same second-floor ‘everybody’ thought he was on his way out – which he was, but just not in a way they imagined. Besides, unlimited budget for real, that was like watching the Gunners get a five nil result over Man U.

  ‘So what have you got?’ O’Rouke asked.

  ‘Sweet FA so far. I don’t even have a name yet, but I’ve put our pet Norths on finding out. I figured that was safest.’

  ‘Okay, but they’re not here just for show. Use the buggers, don’t patronize them. They’re going to provide Augustine the proof I need him to have about how effective and dedicated my force is to finding the bastard that did this.’

  ‘Right . . .’ Sid said cautiously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Circumstances. He was naked, and that was a weird wound. This isn’t some mugging that went wrong.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying it could get unpleasant.’

  ‘No shit, genius?’

  ‘What if we find stuff the Norths don’t want people knowing about them?’

  ‘Then they’re going to be seriously pissed off with you, aren’t they?’

  Sid took a long look at O’Rouke’s face, ruddy from high blood pressure, the craggy skin arranged in a viciously belligerent expression. Challenging him. Daring him. The same pissing contest as always.

  ‘I’m due a promotion,’ Sid said.

  ‘You’re just back off suspension.’

  ‘Aye, but I’m covering your arse on this. You don’t get that for free. I want grade-five or I walk.’

  ‘Fucking walk then.’

  Sid turned and went for the door. Calculated risk . . .

  ‘You stop right there you little motherfucker,’ O’Rouke snapped.

  With his back to the Chief Constable, Sid grinned before turning round.

  ‘If you don’t solve this, and I mean get the bastard convicted, I will personally fry your balls for breakfast and feed them to the Norths,’ O’Rouke said.

  ‘Deal.’

  O’Rouke jabbed a fat finger under Sid’s nose. ‘And be clear, there is no weird, no kinky, no tox involvement, nothing that drops a turd on the North family. He was a decent man murdered by scum.’

  ‘That’s what I believe. That’s what we’re working to prove.’

  ‘Okay then, you and me get what this shit is about. Update me every two hours.’ O’Rouke delivered one last warning glare before he pulled the door open. Chloe Healy and Jenson San fell in behind him as he left Office3 without a further word.

  Everybody else turned to look at Sid with expressions ranging from curious to fascinated. He walked over to the door and shut it carefully, waiting until the blue rim light was on.

  ‘All right then,’ Sid told them. ‘This is how it is. Last night a male we’ve preliminarily identified as a North was pulled from the river. There’s a wound to the chest, and he was naked, which gives it a one-oh-one classification. What we’re focusing on this morning is finding his identity and where he was dumped into the Tyne. Detective Dobson, what do we have by way of river traffic last night?’

  ‘We identified three possibles,’ she said. ‘River police intercepted and inspected all of them.’

  ‘Good work,’ Sid said.

  ‘Thanks. The first was the Menthanine: corporate charter boat, clean record, taking a group of four businessmen on a fishing trip. According to the captain, they’d been toxing up on board since late afternoon, and he was taking them out to the Scottish Isles overnight so they could start fishing when they were awake and sober.’

  ‘Toxed argument that ended badly?’ Ian queried.

  ‘The trip had been booked for five weeks,’ Dobson said. ‘They were the only ones listed, and the crew confirms no one else was on board. But the Menthanine left from Dunston Marina, so I’ve acquired the mesh logs from its quay to review and see if our North came on board. I have to say: doubtful. The river police were satisfied their story was legitimate, too. However, they were ordered to make anchor off Tynemouth so we can run a forensic check this morning. Same goes for the Bay Spirit. That’s a private yacht owned by a Tammie and Mark Haiah. It’s just been refurbished, and starting on a round-the-world voyage; you can hire it for week-long periods between nice marinas and yacht clubs. First booking begins in Normandy in four days’ time. This was the shakedown voyage; captain and the steward are a boyfriend-girlfriend crew. No one else on board.’

  ‘And the third?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Another yacht. This seems to be the night for it. The Dancer’s Moon, big floating gin palace, with a crew of seven owned by Corran Fiele. He’s a director of several local service and engineering companies. He’s taking his wife and three kids down to the Med for the rest of the winter. Again, doesn’t look suspicious, but they’re anchored with the others.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, good work. I will sort getting forensics out there to clear them. So, we still need our two basics: name and crime location. Once we have them we can work our magic and plot his timeline. Now I’m expecting friend or family or workplace to call him in as missing soon enough, but I still want us to be checking. Abner and Ari, that’s you to start with. The rest of you, I want all the riverside mesh memories confirmed then indexed on a map zone so we can see our field of coverage. It was high tide twenty-one forty-two hours last night, so begin with that as the dump time, as the body had to have been washed downstream. We’ll narrow it down after the autopsy, but what I want to know is last night’s blind spots in the mesh surveillance. This had purpose behind it – dumping the body was deliberate – and whoever did it isn’t going to be waving at the smartdust.’

  Sid was pleased to see the way they just got on with it. The team was competent. The night shift handed over codes and they began organizing data without any time spent on bullshit office who’s-
doing-what, I-want-this. They just each took a section of river, and began indexing the mesh memories.

  After verifying the yachts were still in place and being watched by the river police, Sid called Osborne at Northern Forensics and arranged for each boat to be inspected. They were his preferred company; well equipped with decent personnel – and his secondary got a cash deposit each time he threw work their way. The call was official, logged and recorded by the police network, so Osborne kept personal chat to a minimum, but he was quick to prioritize the case after Sid showed him the assigned financial rating. He was promised a team for the boats would be at Tynemouth within an hour.

  ‘Three teams,’ Sid said. ‘One for each boat.’

  Osborne took a moment to absorb that. ‘It’s Monday morning.’

  ‘If you can’t give me what I need, I’ll take the contract to a company that can. I need this doing quickly and effectively.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll see to it personally. Three teams it is.’

  ‘I’m sending an officer and three agency constables with each team in case they find any blood spill. They’ll be at Tynemouth in thirty minutes; make sure your people are there in time.’ He shouldn’t have grinned at the blank screen after Osborne’s pained expression faded to black, but if you couldn’t act like a prima donna bitch on this one, then when could you?

  With the first round of forensics sorted, Sid started helping with the surveillance logs. He sat at one of the spare zone consoles and the slim rectangular screen immediately curved towards him with an aquatic motion, forming a semicircle around his head. Its projection interfaced with his iris smartcells, immersing him in a perfect holographic display, resembling a miniature zone. When he glanced down, his hands were hovering in the keyspace, a cube of air above the desk’s keyboard. His personal operating topography materialized, icons with cog-like protrusions which he could spin and turn in three dimensions with an easy fingertip flip.

  He took a section of the northern riverbank between the Tyne Bridge and the Redheugh Bridge. The city had sprayed a band of smartdust three metres up on all the ancient buildings set back on the other side of the road which ran above the river. That gave the pinhead-size particles a decent angle of view over the streets and the railings above the bank. Meshed together they should provide total coverage, showing him cars and pedestrians. Dobson had taken the memories from midday Sunday to two o’clock this morning. There were a few gaps, where individual smartdust motes had glitched or were smeared in pigeon crap or snow and ice had frozen over them, but the overall mesh memory had enough data to be formatted into a single 3D montage capable of being played inside a zone. That left the road macro-mesh, controlling and monitoring traffic, which had to be combined with the visual record to give an aggregate of the riverside.

  Sid scanned through the midday Sunday visual image, as if he was gliding along the street, looking out across the river, establishing the baseline resolution quality. ‘Aye, crap on it.’ He stopped the replay when he was just east of the venerable swing bridge, leaving him looking out at a nightclub boat moored to the refurbished wooden pier that extended out from the bridge’s southern support. ‘Anyone know how many party boats are moored along the river these days?’

  Ian looked up from his zone console, where he’d been reviewing meshed memories around the King Edward railway bridge. ‘Five or six, I think,’ he said.

  ‘We’re going to need all their surveillance.’

  ‘Dobson already got them,’ Eva said.

  ‘Hell, she’s good.’

  By ten o’clock Abner and Ari still hadn’t got a positive identification on the body. That was starting to bug Sid.

  ‘We’ve got most 2Norths confirmed as alive,’ Abner said by way of compensation.

  Sid told them to stick with it. He was frontloading a lot of reliance on the autopsy now. Once they found method and estimated immersion time they’d have something to go on. Even so, a name would be a lot better.

  Jenson San reappeared just before eleven. ‘The North family have arranged for an observing coroner at the autopsy,’ he told Sid. ‘And we have the Chief Coroner himself performing the examination.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do we have the victim’s identity yet?’

  Sid shook his head, irritated by the one crucial missing item. For a victim of this high profile it really didn’t reflect well on himself and the team. And damn it, they were a good team.

  ‘We need it,’ Jenson muttered in a low voice.

  ‘Yeah, I worked that one out for myself. Thanks, man.’

  A quarter of an hour later Sid left for the city morgue, which was housed in a modern annex to the glass and steel towers of Arevalo Medical’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.

  As he drew into the car park next to the city morgue block Sid saw notices proclaiming that parking would be suspended in two months so footings could be sunk for the new oncology clinic. ‘So where do we park?’ he muttered to himself as he crunched his way over the snow and into the warm lobby.

  For all its clean modern lines and well maintained interior, the morgue always depressed him. He’d lost track years ago of just how many grieving parents, partners, and family members he’d escorted in to identify a body. Thankfully there was no one in the lobby waiting for that grim task, though the little group standing beside the reception counter was almost as off-putting.

  Chloe Healy turned from the two men she was talking to. ‘Detective Hurst, this is Aldred North,’ she said.

  Aldred shook Sid’s hand, showing a professional smile. ‘Northumberland Interstellar security director.’ He was in his late forties, wearing a suit and coat that must have been in the eight thousand Eurofranc range, a simple demonstration of exactly how far up the company hierarchy he was, which told everyone he was a 2North. ‘Sorry, but officially I’m your insurance cover liaison for the case. Hope you don’t mind. I’ll try to be as unobtrusive as I can be.’

  Sid gave him a neutral gaze, quite proud he could maintain such perfect composure. Chloe must know. She’s O’Rouke’s creature, there’s no way she can’t. ‘That’s fine, sir. I’m just sorry this had to happen at all.’

  ‘Thank you. And this is Dr Fransun, our company’s senior medical officer.’

  ‘Doctor.’ Sid shook hands, noticing how nervous the man was. But then as it was his boss’s brother/son who’d been murdered last night, it was understandable enough.

  ‘Do we know who it is yet?’ Aldred asked.

  From the corner of his eye, Sid caught Chloe wince. ‘Not yet, no, which in itself is interesting.’

  ‘How so?’ Aldred asked.

  ‘Whoever committed the murder knew what they were doing. The absence of data on this case indicates we’re dealing with a professional, someone who knows how to cover up afterwards and make our job as difficult as possible.’

  ‘You mean he was hit?’

  ‘Until we know who he is and fill in some background, I can’t speculate on why he was killed. Do you know of any member of your family being threatened?’

  ‘Nothing outside the usual cranks, no.’

  ‘Well if anything does come to light . . .’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The city’s Chief Coroner came out to greet them. ‘I’m ready for you now,’ he announced solemnly.

  ‘Then I’m back to the office,’ Chloe said. ‘Keep me updated, please, Detective.’

  Sid gave her his best insincere smile. ‘Of course.’

  ‘So how is O’Rouke?’ Aldred asked as they walked along the corridors to the exam room.

  ‘I believe he mentioned something about getting a result.’

  Aldred snorted in sour amusement. ‘My family wants a certainty here, Detective. We’re prepared to wait for that. Don’t cut corners on our account.’

  ‘With the funding you’ve made available, I won’t have to.’

  The corpse was resting on a surgical-style table in the middle of the exam room. Directly above him, long segmented metal
arms were attached to the ceiling around the bright lighting circle, each ending in a different kind of sensor. Around them were the holographic cameras to record the procedure. Screens made up one wall, while small sample desks lined the other, each with its own stock of instruments.

  Sid and the others put on pale-blue smocks, with tight gloves to prevent any possible evidence contamination. Two assistants joined the coroner.

  Under the harsh lighting the corpse somehow looked even worse than he had the night before on the boat. His skin had dried out and whitened to a classic pallor, leaving the big chest wound almost black by comparison.

  The coroner activated the cameras and started his official commentary. His assistants wheeled instrument trolleys over to the examination table.

  He began with a spectroscopic analysis, bringing down one of the sensor arms and sliding it smoothly across the body. ‘Checking for contaminants,’ he explained.

  Sid thought that was taking procedure too far; the North had been in the Tyne for hours, he’d be saturated with pollution. He said nothing, though. Samples were taken from under the fingernails; hair was combed out. Swabs were applied to mouth, nose, and ears. Then they performed a thorough visual inspection.

  ‘Note the minor abrasions on both heels,’ the coroner said. ‘They all run in one direction.’

  ‘He was dragged,’ Sid said.

  ‘Correct. Post mortem.’

  ‘He was dumped in the river after death,’ Sid explained to Aldred.