Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘So is there a connection?’ Sid asked.

  ‘To your case?’ Scrupsis said. ‘We don’t know, obviously. But this is the second major trans-stellar criminal incident in five weeks – actually in twenty years. That’s pushing it for a coincidence.’

  ‘What was Umbreit’s speciality?’

  ‘He is head of a D-bomb design team. You know what a D-bomb is, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh crap on it,’ Sid grunted in complete dismay. ‘Yeah, I know; it’s the nuke they fire into a Zanthswarm.’

  ‘To be specific, it’s the nuke they fire into the spacetime rift that the Zanth use. It distorts the rift at a quantum level, and makes it useless – for a while anyway. The Zanth adapt to everything we throw at them, that’s why the designs have to be constantly improved. As a rule of thumb, what worked last time won’t work next time.’

  ‘Aye. Look, man, I can see what a huge deal this is, but really I don’t figure a connection with my case.’

  ‘What do you think your case is, Detective?’

  ‘Find the alien who murdered the 2North.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  Which wasn’t a question Sid had any intention of answering. ‘It’s a very unusual case, and that’s why it has the resources it does.’

  ‘Good answer. If there are aliens running round Earth, then they might well be trying to acquire our advanced weapons technology. Speaking for myself and my department, I believe that to be a pile of crap. This is vile corporate manoeuvring, conducted on the grandest scale, and we intend to expose it for what it is.’

  Sid turned to O’Rouke as if he was appealing to a priest. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Continue exactly as before,’ Scrupsis said. ‘Run down the gang which killed the North. When we have them, we will have their corporate paymasters. Then we will step in and close this whole shoddy enterprise down permanently.’

  ‘Aye, I can do that.’

  ‘Good man.’

  ‘Give me updates as soon as you have anything new,’ O’Rouke said. ‘I’ll liaise with Mr Scrupsis.’

  ‘And what about Ralph Stevens?’ Sid asked levelly.

  ‘You continue to report to him,’ O’Rouke said. ‘After me.’

  ‘Aye,’ Sid said. He glanced back at Scrupsis. ‘You and Stevens, you don’t work from the same office, do you?’

  ‘No, Detective, we do not.’

  ‘Got it.’ He turned to leave.

  ‘How’s the taxi hunt going?’ O’Rouke asked.

  Sid’s e-i quested the door to unlock. The blue seal light faded. ‘Absolutely bloody nowhere, man.’

  Friday 22nd February 2143

  By eight o’clock in the evening the last of the day’s thin clouds had blown away over the North Sea, leaving the stars shimmering harshly in the thin clear sky. The temperature had been dropping all across the city for hours. It was going to be a cold night even by Newcastle standards.

  After he parked his car at the end of Falconar Street, Sid pulled the jacket zip right to the top, and put on a woolly hat. He could make out his cloudy breath in the pale streetlights as he walked along to Ian’s place. It was so tempting just to forget about all this and go home. Immerse himself in the noise and fun chaos of the kids, a meal together with Jacinta, some time alone after the kids went to bed. A good answer to a week that had been pure hell, starting with Kavane’s gruesome murder and the alert over the Umbreit kidnapping. He absolutely hated the politics of it all, Ralph’s office against Scrupsis, neither of which he could control; O’Rouke’s involvement too made him more wary. Then he’d had a meeting with Aldred. It was the same little Jamaica Blue café on John Dobson Street as their very first encounter. It had taken a while, and some delicate investigation, but Sid finally discovered why Aldred didn’t mind having a conversation in broad daylight with him: Northumberland Interstellar owned the franchise; all the smartdust was deactivated while they were sitting together – nothing was recorded, so no lip-reading software could ever be applied. It gave Sid an appreciation of just how extensive the North family’s influence was.

  Aldred had come in on the Wednesday morning, and they sat in their usual corner booth, away from the door.

  ‘I take it you want to talk about Umbreit?’ Aldred asked.

  ‘And Scrupsis.’

  ‘Ah, the man from Alien Affairs. Bad name I always thought, makes it sounds like they’re shagging them rather than investigating them.’

  ‘They think your brother’s murder and the kidnapping are connected. Scrupsis believes it’s all part of some big corporate scam.’

  Abner’s eyebrows rose. ‘A D-bomb scientist is part of corporate manoeuvring? Did he say in what way? Are our rivals going to nuke us?’

  ‘Aye man, don’t you start in on me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Aldred grinned as he blew gently at the chocolate sprinkled foam on top of his cappuccino. ‘But it is funny. Two government agencies in a jurisdiction war, and they accuse the corporates of arming up as an excuse to cage-fight.’

  ‘So who does want a D-bomb scientist?’

  ‘The distant worlds, most likely.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Distants. Planets like New Persia, or Kofon, or True Jerusalem, or Georgia. Worlds that don’t have gateways to Earth, that were opened by nationalist societies that want to propagate colonies made up entirely of believers; pure cultures taken from the old country. They need protection from the Zanth just like everybody else, and as they’re distant, the HDA can’t help them.’

  ‘I thought True Jerusalem was just a rumour. And I hadn’t even heard of the others. Are they real?’

  ‘Who knows? As you and I aren’t Jewish we’d never get the secret invitation handshake, would we? And I’m certainly not Chinese nor Muslim, so same goes there. The much better rumour is there’s another US world out there somewhere; apparently their government will evacuate to it if we ever lose Earth.’

  ‘I don’t need this, man, I really don’t.’

  ‘Look, you’re here for my advice, right?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother us who gets involved higher up the ladder, okay? It’s a government turf war – irrelevant to what’s actually going on. You are the one finding out who killed our brother. And you’re doing it properly. That’s what matters. So . . . kiss the arse of whatever idiot is putting the most pressure on O’Rouke, flog your team, file your reports with everybody, but don’t slow the investigation. We’re relying on you, Sid.’

  The Norths were about the only people who were, Sid reflected that night as he made his way to Ian’s flat. Everyone else was waiting for him to screw up so they could initiate stage two of their conflict. As he opened the front gate on the little terraced house he contemplated exactly what he should tell Ian and Eva. It might just be time to cut them loose, make sure their careers weren’t tainted too badly by the case. Even as he thought it he realized he’d all but given up on the taxi simulation.

  ‘Evening, Detective.’

  Sid jumped. There was a dark blob in the shadows of the tiny front garden, only visible as it moved forwards.

  ‘Kaneesha! Aye, man, what the hell?’ He couldn’t make out her face at all, just another shade of darkness between coat and whatever hat was pulled down over her hair. Even her wisps of breath were faint.

  ‘Jolwel Kavane used to be my informant,’ she said with a thread of anger in her voice. ‘I recruited him back in the day. I ran him for seven years. He was a perfect snout, he didn’t know what was going on at the top, but everything else he told me was solid gold. I owe him a couple of promotions at least.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘He was reliable, Sid. He would have told his controller whatever he knew. You don’t pressure people like Jolwel to find things out, that’s not how it’s played. You listen to what he says, you hear the names, and you turn the heat on them because they’re new nobodies, the expendable ones, not Jolwel. He’s not an expendable. T
hey knew that, that bitch Fullerton and her crew, they knew it and they didn’t fucking care. They were too greedy, they wanted things fast. That’s not how it works in intelligence, you put a case together slowly, take years if you have to. But this mad North murder, it’s fired everyone up so hot they can’t think of anything else but the prize at the end. So they put pressure on him. They got him to ask, when it should have been them doing the asking. See, pet, everyone knew Jolwel didn’t ask about things he wasn’t involved in. He was never the curious one; he was a solid gang lad. A dependable who didn’t fucking ask! And when all that changes, when he’s different, you know he’s grassing you up.’

  ‘I don’t want to make it worse, but Hayfa’s intelligence hasn’t given me anything. I’m no closer to solving this.’

  ‘Aye, and now everyone is ducking for cover. That stupid fatherfucking bitch. She couldn’t organize an orgy in a brothel. How the hell did she ever wind up in charge?’

  Sid was getting more than a little curious why Kaneesha was here. Not just for rant therapy, that was sure. So he humoured her, quietly confident this was going to be the gold he’d been praying for since the beginning. ‘O’Rouke. How else?’

  ‘Aye, crap on it. When he’s gone, this city’ll see the sun again, I tell you.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  Kaneesha let out a long sigh. ‘Marcus Sherman.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Marcus Sherman, he’s the one you have to watch. He’s the organizer, the one with the contacts and the muscle and the money. He’s putting this together. Not that it’s his operation, he’s not that high.’

  ‘Never heard of him. He wasn’t in any of the intelligence reports.’

  ‘Of course not, nor will he be in any database you can access; he’s not as stupid as Fullerton. He used to be in Northumberland Interstellar security before he went freelance. That’s how come he’s the contact point, Mr Go-To. And the corporate boys trust him because they know they can disown him faster than shit falls down a sewer. There’s no way he’ll ever turn on them if he did get charged. He’d know about a warrant being granted before the case detective, and if that ever happens he’ll disappear. He’s got the money for it, he only stays because the game is his blood.’

  ‘Nobody is going to apply for a warrant, Kaneesha. Not with this.’

  ‘Good man.’ She held out an envelope. ‘This is a photograph of him.’

  ‘Thanks. Kind of primitive there, man.’

  ‘Kind of cautious, Detective. If you ever were stupid enough to try and build a case, his lawyer would be entitled to your log. They’d work the devil’s own backtrack. He doesn’t get my name, Sid.’

  Which is why she was waiting for me here, because she knew this night would be off-log. Jesus, that’s smart paranoia. ‘Okay, I understand.’

  ‘I hope so. You have to be super-careful, Sid. Marcus doesn’t need proof. If he even hears your name there’s going to be trouble, big trouble.’

  ‘None of this will go through the station. That’s not how I’m working the case.’

  ‘All right. Final details, he’s got a lot of houses around town, and he never stays at one for more than a couple of nights at a time. But he does have a boat called the Maybury Moon, berthed at Dunston Marina. He’s sweet on it, maybe too sweet. Apart from that, he’s hot on smartdust and software security. If you’re going to hack him you’ll need a bytehead a lot better than anyone at Market Street.’

  ‘Thanks, Kaneesha.’

  She opened the gate and stepped out into the gloomy frozen street. ‘Stupid thing this. Man, I didn’t even like Jolwel. Nobody did. But then nobody deserves to die like that.’

  *

  ‘What’s up?’ Ian asked when Sid walked into the flat. Eva had claimed her usual place against the wall, sitting on a pillow, and holding up a shot glass. ‘Brennivin,’ she said. ‘Decent Icelandic schnapps. I thought we’d toast the death of the case in style. It’s been a long time dying.’

  Ian couldn’t stop staring at Sid. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Put the bottle away,’ Sid told Eva. ‘We just got our first break.’

  He’d drunk two bottles of beer by the time he’d finished explaining everything: Umbreit, Kavane, and Scrupsis; the bureaucrat fight; Aldred’s distant worlds theory.

  Sid cracked open his third beer. ‘So what we have is a wild connection that’ll probably be completely wrong. But it’s a connection. Like I said, I’m not interested in the reason, all I want is the bastard who stabbed the North to death.’

  ‘And Marcus Sherman can give us that?’ Ian asked dubiously.

  ‘If my source is right, he probably organized the cover-up afterwards.’

  ‘Hey, that might explain why there was such a gap between the murder and dumping the body,’ Eva explained. ‘If the murderer hadn’t planned on killing the North . . .’

  ‘Then there wasn’t a plan in place to dispose of the body,’ Sid carried on. ‘And it took time to set up. Saturday and Sunday to be exact.’

  ‘So how do we tackle Sherman?’ Ian asked.

  ‘Like rancid plutonium.’ Sid ripped the envelope open with his forefinger, and pulled out the photo. It showed a man in his mid-forties, dark skin and black hair, stylish stubble on his cheeks and a tiny goatee. Sid couldn’t ever imagine a face like that smiling. ‘So we start with low-level observation, and that means finding him. He’s fond of his boat at the Dunston Marina, which is where we’ll begin. Once we have him in real time we can track remotely. Ian, can you set up a secure link to the police network, one that doesn’t register?’

  ‘Leave it with me. There’s an access code I can use which can’t be traced back to me.’

  Sid took a good guess why he had that, but didn’t voice it. ‘Fine. I’ll get us some basic equipment. Once we’re following him we build a pattern of movement, get a list of where he stays in town, find out who he’s seeing. Somewhere along the line there’s got to be some crossover. Once we have that, we can refocus the official investigation.’

  Saturday 23rd February 2143

  Her name was Jen. Ian knew that because her name was in the quick-memo section of his iris smartcell grid when he woke up. He’d loaded it in the cache when he went out after Sid and Eva had left. It took a while to get Jen out of the flat. More time than Ian normally allowed for. The normal routine was fuck as soon as he was awake: make the toast and tea while the girl was having a shower, then the phoney fix up to meet up agreement, call a cab and show her the door. That was Saturday morning standard. Maybe Jen had started to have regrets about the night, maybe she was needy, or had issues, or maybe her place was a tip, or she couldn’t afford to heat it so she simply wasn’t in a hurry to go back there. Whatever it was, she lingered in bed after he got up, fired off casual questions, even propositioned him again while the kettle boiled – well, he wasn’t going to say no and disappoint a lady now, was he? They were doing it on the lounge floor when the toast popped up, which made them both laugh. That was bad, a shared moment. She took another hour to leave, asking him about himself, telling him stuff he didn’t want to know about her. Nothing he didn’t know anyway; he’d harvested her profile days ago.

  All of which meant he was late for the gym, which was a large part of his Saturday morning standard. Ian had membership of five gyms and health clubs strategically placed round the city; his biggest thing was for girls who were serious about keeping themselves in shape. Thanks to clingy Jen it was after ten o’clock when he arrived at Harley’s Fitness Machine, on St George’s Terrace up in Jesmond. The main hall had a decent range of modern equipment, and smartdust packs that could complement a standard bodymesh to monitor heartrate, oxygen consumption, and muscle performance. Ian didn’t need the packs, as he already had an extensive suite of smartcells which constantly watched over every health aspect of his body.

  He went for a full ninety-minute workout; with his bodymesh linked to the equipment, making sure muscles were used to full capacity, while chec
king that tendons and ligaments didn’t get near a tear point. Hydration level, blood sugar, toxins, endorphins were projected into a simple multicoloured graph whose sine waves danced elaborately across his grid. The patterns were second nature to him now, he could read them and adjust his body tempo at a near-autonomic level. At the end he requested a full physiology analysis, making sure body fat was down to the accepted minimum. Sid and Eva had stayed longer than expected last night, so he’d had a couple more beers than he ought. Six-pack continuity assured, he hit the shower.

  Two girls were signing in when he left the changing room. Joyce, who was marathon-runner thin, and tall with it, asking the receptionist about the midday disco workout.

  ‘Aye, man, I’ve missed that,’ Ian complained in cheeky dismay.

  Joyce smiled back, and they started the flirt talk about favourite pieces of gym equipment and city jogging routes. She was a dancer with the Sage tour group, he found out. Her friend, Sammi, became all sullen when Ian told them he was a policeman. Genuine police, not agency, he promised. That made no difference to the sulk. He liked that, a challenge made success so much sweeter. He wished them both a good time at the disco workout, and caught the Metro back down to Monument.

  Ian’s shift started at midday. He went to the locker room to change into a suit. Sid was in there, also changing. They had the same dark-green shoulder bags, and when their lockers were open side by side they made the switch like a pair of pro dealers working a club full of celebs.

  It was an effort to walk into Office3 these days. He and Sid had spent time discussing what to do about the despondency crystallizing round the case team, and hadn’t produced much of a strategy to reverse it. With the taxi backtrack still ongoing and barren, they now thought the whole idea was a complete waste of time. All so very different to the crackle of excitement when the whole city simulation came on line the first time. Now it was just a drudge routine, performed evenings and weekends purely for the overtime.