Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘There,’ Eva said. She enhanced the image, centring on a burned-out vehicle.

  ‘Aye, that’s the one,’ Sid said. The bodywork was instantly recognizable, even though the carbon and aluminium had melted and sagged. It must have been a fierce fire to do that, he thought, there was nothing left of the internal fittings. Which spoke of an accelerant, and quite a lot of it judging by how much snow had melted around the wreck. ‘I want it.’

  *

  Sid took Ralph in his car, following the big agency BMW GroundKing vehicles as they joined together in a convoy along the A191 heading east from the centre of the city out to Fawden.

  Eva called. ‘Clear route,’ she said.

  Sid’s grid threw up a streetmap. The city traffic management AI had shunted everyone off Jubilee Road, giving the convoy absolute priority.

  Strobes flared and sirens began their high-pitched wail as the lead GroundKing turned into Jubilee Road. Sid was grinning as he accelerated sharply. Traction stability warnings flashed amber on the dashboard as the car began to slip on the sparkling frost that was smothering the tarmac, then the auto compensated, and they were racing down Jubilee Road. It was damn childish, but you just couldn’t beat being at the front end on a deployment like this.

  ‘Doesn’t this sort of tip them off?’ Ralph asked, raising his voice above the noise.

  ‘The whole city knows we’re here,’ Sid told him. ‘Gangs monitor the traffic just for times like this. Besides, no one involved is going to be within a kilometre of the taxi.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Keep the civilians out of the way. I don’t want any accidents.’

  ‘So it’s overkill?’

  ‘We need the taxi, and this is a GSW area. My forensics team has to be safe, that means a minimum number of constables to secure a perimeter. And as we have an unlimited budget . . .’

  They crossed over the metro track. The lead GroundKing, beefed up with riot-armour and protective buffers, didn’t bother with going along the side of the GSW area to an official gateway – it rammed straight through the flimsy fence and charged directly at the burned-out taxi. Sid crossed into the GSW and slowed, taking care to keep in the track marks of the vehicles in front. You never knew what was lying around in the filth and rubble of somewhere like this.

  Government Services Withdrawn meant just that: a civic area that had been designated surplus due to emigration. Inevitably, it was the poorest areas of town, when their dwindling population fell below a certain density, taking it below the cost-effective level for a city council to maintain. Then the remaining homeowners and businesses were bought out and the streets closed down and sealed off. After that, the neighbourhood simply awaited redevelopment, theoretically through either the private or public purse. In reality it always had to be a GE grant; financial institutions directed their investments to the new worlds these days. Nobody cared about dreary collapsed slumzones on Earth, because there was never a decent return to be made. So inside the perimeter there were no utilities, no transnet connections, no council services provided; no fire brigade tenders would respond to an incident inside, nor would ambulance or police. Businesses were not permitted to operate within a GSW. Legitimate businesses, that is; for every other sort of enterprise the GSW areas were a godsend. Which was why the smartdust ringing the boundary was always under constant rip-attack and EM pulsed and sprayed with toxic crap. The city renewed sections on a weekly basis. Police didn’t intervene much with the occasional glimpses of lowlife excess the meshes gleaned amid the debris and the derelicts; only visible murders and all-out riots were subject to suppression operations, when the riot squads ploughed in, cracking heads and dragging off the known recidivists for a one-way ticket to Minisa.

  Grid graphics showed Sid the GroundKings encircle the taxi. Agency constables in light body armour and carrying automatic weapons jumped from the back of each vehicle, and started to fan out, securing the surrounding land. Sid climbed out carefully, the bullet-proof vest worn under his leather jacket restricting his movements. For once he didn’t trigger the badge on his coat. No need to give the GSW residents an obvious target.

  His e-i quested a direct link to Tilly Lewis. ‘Okay, we’re secure. You can come in.’

  Two Northern Forensics vans drove in, followed by a big tow-truck. Lighting rigs telescoped up from the vans, immersing the blackened wreck in a pool of brilliant white illumination.

  ‘So much for matching a tyre tread,’ Tilly complained as she got her first good look at the taxi. The tyres were misshapen black bracelets shrink-wrapped around the wheel rims, their wire mesh poking through the frazzled slirubber.

  ‘I want everything you can get for me,’ Sid said. ‘A complete work-up.’

  ‘Boot’s open,’ she pointed out. ‘So the fire will have scoured the inside of any traces.’

  ‘They’re good, but you’re better.’

  ‘Oh please.’

  ‘Come on, pet, we’re still short of solid information.’

  Tilly pulled the hood of her green isolation suit over her pink bobble hat. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll access your report in the morning.’

  ‘Morning? You want this processed overnight?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Sid, I’ll have to call the lab techs back in. That’s like quintuple time.’

  ‘You can thank me in the morning.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘Nothing else for me to do until you produce those vital clues. The operation commander will keep your guys safe. And my bed beckons.’

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Just keep thinking: quintuple time.’ And with that he got in the car and drove home.

  Wednesday 16th January 2143

  Sid hadn’t expected to be back in Elston’s office quite so quickly. Not after yesterday’s meeting, but here he was at half past nine in the morning, barely up to speed on all the data which had come in during the night. Ralph Stevens had insisted on visiting the HDA base, so Sid drove over the Tyne Bridge in the murky gloom of a winter fog, which he hated more than the ice and snow. The car’s radar threw up slender green outlines across the windscreen, helping him steer along the road with relative confidence. The only thing he could see of the van in front was a bright scarlet smear of rear lights, and between them the central green light showing it was driving on manual, while the oncoming lane was a torrent of blue-white glare. Even with modern safety aids and auto, several cars had shunted or worse. Three times he had to slow and go around transport agency patrol cars which had arrived to sort out the prangs.

  ‘Put your log on hold, please,’ Ralph had said as they walked in to the administration sector where Elston had his office. And once again Aldred was there waiting in the office.

  ‘What did the taxi tell us?’ Elston asked as soon as they’d settled in front of his desk.

  ‘The fire was extensive,’ Sid said. ‘They knew what they were doing. No tyre tread left for us to match. Same with the interior, no hair or skin flakes. However, there were two possible mistakes. First off, a complete set of male clothes was left in the boot. They were doused in bioil, but they were bundled, which left enough residue to work out their size, especially the shoes. It’s a good fit for the corpse.’

  ‘Can you identify them?’

  ‘The lab is working on it. It looks like he was wearing an expensive silk suit.’

  ‘Well that narrows it down,’ Aldred muttered.

  ‘It’s a possible lead,’ Sid countered. ‘Of course, clothes are circumstantial, but if you’re destroying evidence it would make sense for them to belong to the victim.’

  ‘So the body was in the boot, and they used the taxi to transport it to the Tyne?’ Elston said.

  ‘That’s the way it’s shaping up, yes. Most of the taxi’s electronics were ruined in the fire, but again there’s enough left for a reconstruction and analysis. It won’t be cheap or quick, but Osborne seems to think they might be able
to recover some software from what’s left of the vehicle’s network.’

  ‘So we’ll get the log?’

  ‘No. The network’s memory chip had been removed. But if this was a professional crew, they would be using a false registration licence with the macromesh, that’s gang procedure one-oh-one. However, that kind of fix is custom written. If any of the software is still in the network, we might be able to trace it.’

  Elston pursed his lips. ‘Okay, that’s impressive, even with the number of maybes you shoved in there.’

  ‘Actually, it’s almost irrelevant. I’m not relying on that at all, it’s all very dependent on labwork that’s going to take weeks, and you’re right: too many maybes. Rule of thumb, if you don’t solve a case, or at least have a prime suspect, in the first five days you probably won’t get it to court. The good news is that the taxi was hallmarked. Nano-level threads are incorporated in the chassis and bodywork at the factory; tens of thousands of them. You can’t get rid of them; every component is riddled with them. So we identified it as a taxi that was stolen eighteen months ago from its owner in Winlaton.’

  ‘And who’s going to notice one more taxi in Newcastle?’ Aldred said.

  Elston ignored him to fix Sid with a stare. ‘So what’s your next step?’

  This was the part Sid was looking forward to, the office detective’s version of speeding down the fast lane with siren and strobes cranked to maximum. ‘It’s all down to backtracking the taxi now. We know where it ended up, in the GSW, and we know where that trip started: Elswick Wharf. So I want its route between the two.’

  ‘And how will that help?’

  ‘Firstly to see if anyone got in or out, and where it went. But more importantly once we have its time and location fixed, we can read the licence code off the city traffic register. Now they probably kept changing it, that would be part of their fix program. But if they did we’re looking for a taxi whose electronic code entered the area around Elswick on Sunday evening and never left. It’s a target to us as sure as keeping the same licence code. Once we have that, we’ll be able to visually backtrack it to wherever it picked the body up. And when we have that, we crack the case wide open.’

  ‘Sounds like a big task. You can do that?’

  ‘Aye, man; we just construct a virtual of the entire city for Sunday evening. Every smartdust mesh, every spectrum, every road macromesh; sling it all together in an AI and watch our own history play out in hi-rez detail.’

  ‘In the station’s zone theatre,’ Elston said in a neutral tone. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Expensive.’ Sid shrugged.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘My team is already on it. I told them to start this morning.’

  ‘And yet we still don’t know the identity of the murdered North,’ Ralph said.

  ‘I have to ask why not?’ Elston said, looking directly at Aldred. ‘You keep promising full cooperation.’

  ‘It’s one of us who was murdered, of course we’re cooperating.’

  ‘Not an A,’ Elston said. ‘And probably not a B. Apparently Brinkelle is as concerned about this as Augustine. That just leaves us with Constantine’s sons.’

  ‘He says no.’

  ‘You need to ask again. Ask hard.’

  ‘I’ll tell my father to make the point.’

  ‘Thank you. Sid, what about the cargo routes through the gateway?’

  Sid did his best not to wince. He wondered if Elston already knew about him shouting at Ari that morning. Everything else in the office had gone so smoothly, he’d been thrown by Ari messing up and probably overreacted. ‘Seventy per cent of the companies receiving freight in the designated period have responded to our enquiry. Their shipments were all intact, none were empty or had anything missing.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Ari is finishing the list. They’ll be called today.’

  ‘So we don’t know yet how it got through?’

  ‘Aye, not yet.’

  ‘And I don’t think that’s where our main focus is being applied,’ Ralph said.

  Sid gave him a startled look. He was cross with himself for trusting the liaison officer. Politics at this level was deadly, and he’d allowed himself to be fooled by a pleasant attitude and apparent support.

  ‘Go on,’ Elston said.

  ‘Sid is quite right. The taxi indicates a professional criminal gang familiar with the city. Not an alien.’

  ‘The method is identical,’ Elston insisted. ‘A five-blade hand.’

  ‘Yes, but it is the only connection. Nothing else. As evidence goes, that’s circumstantial at best.’

  Now Sid understood why they were having this conversation in Elston’s office, and away from any official log. The expedition was becoming a juggernaut, with politicians and HDA officers adding their weight. Whoever slammed the brakes on now was going to get crushed into the bedrock never to be seen again – not by any employer.

  ‘Something unknown is targeting the Norths,’ Elston said. ‘HDA has to know what.’

  ‘I understand. But you must be prepared for the taxi connection to lack an alien component.’

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll inform my superiors.’

  So in the end, that’s what it all boiled down to. Everyone covering themselves. Sid might have laughed if he wasn’t so busy trying to estimate his own exposure. Finding a gang which had bumped off a North ought to be protection enough. Surely?

  *

  ‘I’ll take you back to the station,’ Aldred said when they reached the base’s car park.

  ‘But . . .’ Sid gestured at his own car.

  ‘One of my people will take care of it,’ Aldred said. So Sid watched in bemusement as a suited aide got out of the black Mercedes and trotted over to the police car.

  ‘What now?’ Sid asked as the Merc’s passenger doors folded down and the auto took them out of the base. There was a lot of traffic coming in through the gate, Sid noticed, just as there had been yesterday. He’d been so sure a positive result on the case would protect him, but all those people and equipment arriving for the expedition made him feel vulnerable again.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Aldred said. ‘He wants to see you, that’s all.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Augustine.’

  ‘Oh, crap on it.’

  The Merc took them to some big office tower in Westgate, one of a dozen owned by Northumberland Interstellar in the city. There was a helicopter waiting on the roof pad, contra-rotating blades already turning idly.

  ‘I don’t even know where Augustine lives,’ Sid said as he settled back into the cabin’s surprisingly comfortable seat.

  ‘It’s not far,’ Aldred promised.

  The helicopter’s soundproofing was excellent, and Sid could barely hear the turbines as they powered up. Then they lifted smoothly, and immediately banked, curving round to head north. After that his sense of direction gave up. He tried looking through the window, but the fog was still cloaking the city. Flying through impenetrable mist was ten times worse than driving through it.

  ‘I have a favour to ask,’ Aldred said.

  Sid was glad of the excuse to concentrate on the cabin again. ‘Aye man, this is my season for handing them out.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re coping remarkably well. I’m rather looking forward to a virtual of the entire city. Has it ever been done before?’

  ‘No. They ran a virtual of the whole Byker district four years ago for the Eiricksson case, that’s the biggest we’ve ever done.’

  ‘Anyway, I’d like you to ease off on Ari.’

  ‘He ballsed up. He was supposed to compile a complete list of importers.’

  ‘You switched him round from finding the body’s identity. That office is spinning so fast it’s confusing.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘Sid, he’s a 3.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘He’s a 3.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Everyone prejudges us at the best of times. Yo
u’re all very prejudiced towards the 3s.’

  ‘I resent that.’

  ‘You automatically assumed Ari was a 2. Why? Simple enough: you were sure a 3 wouldn’t be capable of any meaningful detective work. This whole city knows for sure that 3s aren’t the smartest, it’s a rock-solid urban myth. In reality, the replication errors are never the same. Ari is one of the good guys, Sid, he’s doing the best job he can, and trying to shield himself from additional prejudice at the same time.’

  ‘Is he your son?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Crap on it. Okay, I’ll try not to be such a bastard.’

  ‘Don’t let him off completely, I don’t want positive discrimination, that’s the worst you could do. Just understand, that’s all. He’ll get there in the end.’

  By the time the helicopter flew out of the fog they were north of Newcastle. Sid saw what he thought was Alnwick – easy enough to recognize the huge old castle on the edge of town. They were descending by then.

  The land was wilder here, a lot of farms had been sold on to land investment companies who were quick to milk money from GE naturalization schemes, allowing the hedges and meadows to revert. They flew over deep valleys and wooded slopes, the coastline just visible on one side while the hills rose up towards the west. Their destination was never in question: a mansion set in extensive grounds with a meandering stream and two lakes separated by a waterfall – all frozen. The whole expanse was surrounded by a thick barrier of trees, guaranteeing privacy from anyone on the ground. You could walk by without ever knowing it was there.

  As to the pyramid-shaped mansion, its modernist façade was made up from huge rhomboid glass windows set into a gridwork of thick black steel beams. To Sid it looked like the top section of some New York skyscraper had been sliced off and dropped down in the middle of the countryside. It didn’t really belong in the rolling English landscape; but like every billionaire before him, Augustine wanted to make a statement.

  The interior was equally lush. Massive glass doors opened into a broad arched hallway which led directly to the central atrium. With solar lighting backing up the meagre daylight seeping through the glass apex far above, it was like walking into a botanical greenhouse. Huge ferns and tropical trees rose out of long troughs, fat verdant leaves waving in the air currents spinning off from the humidor mist jets. The largest tree, right in the middle, had strange branches that were curled into tight-packed spirals, extending horizontally from the trunk.