by Chris Ward
‘He hasn’t been in contact, if that’s what you’re wondering. Do you think I’d show up here if he had? It’s just that my mother’s sick and she’s craving news. Even if he’s dead, you know, that would at least be closure.’
‘Is that all?’ the officer said, showing no sign of any empathy. ‘I have work to do if you have nothing else.’
Patrick started to shake his head, then hesitated.
‘Actually, yeah, there is.’
The whole sensible part of his brain that had got him through thirteen years of schooling relatively unscathed was screaming at him to shut up, but he was winging it, pulling out anything that might get some kind of answer.
‘I was up early this morning, looking out the window. I heard a sound, hoped my brother had come back. I saw someone running up the street.’
‘Did you now?’
‘Yeah. He was carrying a knife.’
The officer sat up. His eyes not leaving Patrick, he flicked the pages of the file back to the front. ‘I’m listening.’
‘He was heading south, in the direction of the Carmichael-Jones Robotics Factory. His face was flushed, and I’d swear there was blood on his shirt.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Just before six-thirty.’
‘How did you see him in the dark?’
‘There’s a streetlight outside my house. I saw the glint of the knife, and his uniform had a patch of dark that looked like blood.’
‘I thought you said it was a shirt?’
Patrick flushed. He backtracked. ‘Yeah, like a uniform shirt.’
‘What exactly was he wearing?’
‘A Carmichael-Jones uniform,’ Patrick said before he could hold the words on his tongue. ‘I mean, I doubt it was anything significant, but you know, we’re supposed to report anyone breaking the curfew. Isn’t that right?’
‘You’re a model citizen,’ the officer said with a sarcastic smirk. ‘There was an incident this morning.’
‘Was there?’ Patrick said, trying to look surprised. He wondered if the officer could tell how hard his hangover was drumming at his temples.
‘Yeah. We’ll need to take a statement from you.’
Patrick started. ‘I thought I just gave you one?’
The officer leaned forward. ‘No. An official one. I’m just the desk clerk. Take a seat, won’t you?’
Patrick started to protest, but the officer waved at him to sit down, then gave an obvious nod to a CCTV camera in a corner that was trained on the waiting room.
Headache pounding harder than ever, Patrick sat nervously in a corner, squeezing the material of his jeans to try to keep his nervous hands still as he waited for a DCA agent to appear. He tried to review what he had told the officer in order to make sure his story didn’t change, but he could barely remember what had come out of his mouth.
He was flicking through a dog-eared fly-fishing magazine from three years ago when his name was called. He looked up to see a burly DCA agent with greying streaks through what was left of his hair standing in the corridor, waving him forward.
‘Mr. Devan, come with me please.’
He followed the agent down the corridor to a bland office room. It wasn’t what he had been expecting of an interview room, with comfortable chairs and pleasant framed landscape paintings on the walls.
The agent sat down across a table from Patrick. ‘Tell me everything you remember,’ he said. ‘Leave nothing out.’
Patrick did his best. He was sure a couple of times he contradicted himself, but the agent simply nodded along or asked occasional questions as he jotted Patrick’s words down on a notepad.
‘Is that all?’ the agent asked as Patrick wrapped up his fabricated account. ‘Anything you might have forgotten?’
‘No, I think that’s it.’
‘Well, thank you for coming down, Mr. Devan. If you remember anything, please stop by again.’
The agent led him to the door and held it open. Patrick let out a huge sigh of relief, just as a strangled scream came from farther up the corridor.
Two agents were dragging a bound girl out of one door and towards another. The girl kicked one agent in the shin, and for her troubles received a hard cuff across the face. She recoiled then snapped upright, darting at the agent with her teeth bared. He managed to avoid her as the other grabbed her arms to hold her still.
Patrick stared. One side of her face was puffy, but otherwise Suzanne was unmistakable. She had bitten him once, too.
‘Suzanne!’ he shouted, before he could help himself.
She glanced up as the agents pushed her through the door. ‘Patrick!’ came a strangled cry, then the heavy door was pulled shut, cutting off the sound.
Patrick stared at the space where she had been standing as though a ghost had just passed through the walls. A flood of relief that she was alive backed up against her obvious injuries. At least he could prove to Tommy that she was alive.
He wanted to go to her, but it was impossible. He turned to leave, and found the agent’s gun pressed into his stomach.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ the man said. ‘I think it might be worth extending our chat a little, don’t you?’
7
Urla
Urla Wynne lowered the phone with the delicacy that her perfectly manicured nails deserved. She stared at it for a moment, recalling the conversation with her London-based superior in vivid, exact detail, then gave a short nod and stood up straight. As she turned, she caught a brief view of herself in the wall-length mirror behind the door, revealing a lithe figure in a dress so dark she could almost disappear into a shadow, below an angular face framed with a symmetrically designed bob of dyed black hair.
She was looking thin, she thought. She ought to eat better.
‘Justin. Come in, please.’
Her voice, high like an angry cat, could cut through the wood of her office door while other voices would be masked. From outside came the shuffling of feet and then a tentative knock.
‘I already told you to come in.’
She enjoyed having a male secretary. Not just because it represented a gender reversal still frustratingly rare after decades of continuous campaigning, but because she had been gifted the opportunity to choose the holder of the position herself, and had taken a fine specimen who would fulfill all her various needs. Justin Bower was a hard worker, both behind a desk and between the sheets. In between, he kept his mouth shut, and his head down … unless she requested otherwise.
As Justin entered, he kept his eyes respectful, perhaps knowing the time was never far away when both they and his hands would be free to roam.
‘I have heard reports of protests,’ Urla said.
Justin nodded. He glanced down at his hands as though inspecting an invisible file, then looked up. ‘Two in Taunton organised for next week. One in Glastonbury that spontaneously broke out yesterday, and I’ve heard word from my underground sources that another planned for tomorrow could erupt violently.’
Urla rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘These people never learn. Act 14.2 should have taught them something but they continue to cause upheaval. The time is coming when they may find themselves savaged by a most brutal crackdown. However, I prefer to warn them first. I have a task for you.’
‘Of course, Ms. Wynne. Anything.’
Urla smiled. ‘Check the prisons. Select me a handful of bright young things, those most likely to be missed. I will have them publically executed. It is time that a standard is set.’
‘Ms. Wynne … is that ethical?’
Urla smiled. Dear Justin, so hopeful that things might improve. His innocence was just one part of him she found delightful, particularly the way his morals were shed like a snake’s skin when she pulled him down on top of her.
‘I’m afraid that sometimes one has to be tough in order to protect the greater good. The people don’t seem to understand that we’re only trying to protect them. They should be shouting their thanks, but instead al
l we get is protests and terrorist violence. It’s time to stamp it out once and for all.’
Justin nodded. ‘As you wish, Ms. Wynne.’
Urla smiled. ‘And when you are done, please return. We will … talk on this further.’
Justin was clever to allow just a hint of a smile. Urla felt a warm glow spreading out from below her waist.
‘As you wish, Ms. Wynne.’
The feeling regrettably died as he went out. Urla walked to the window and peered out on to the street four floors below. It looked like a normal, peaceful town. Perhaps the absence of vehicles beyond public transport, a couple of parked DCA vehicles, and a few more with special permit stickers her keen eyes could spot from here, but what did it matter? The air was so much cleaner since the reduction of private ownership regulations came in. People were healthier being required to work. The insane number of stumbling lard buckets which had plagued the country had clearly decreased. Smoking was almost unheard of, drinking was down. Illegal drugs were a treat enjoyed by those with money who could find them on a black market her DCA agents were slowly squeezing out of existence.
It was the dawn of a new golden age, and when this year’s elections finally ousted those remaining of the old government, things would get even better.
She glanced down at a promotional poster on her desk. It simply said “Vote Maxim Cale: For a New Beginning”.
A light tap came on the door. Justin opened it without waiting to be asked, his face beaming.
‘I found some,’ he said. ‘A young couple who appear to know each other, held for disorder.’
‘Disorder?’ Urla frowned. ‘We need something stronger than that or we’ll start another riot.’
Justin shook his head. ‘That’s just what they were arrested for. The girl is also the daughter of the disappeared robotics magnate Stanley Carmichael-Jones. At the moment, all evidence suggests that he’s left the country. With a little embellishment, she could be charged with conspiracy to escape, which itself carries a charge of treason, and her friend could be charged as an accessory.’
‘And treason already holds a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.’
Justin nodded. ‘Which, as I’m certain you know, could soon be obsolete when the government’s restoration of the death penalty motion is passed in the next couple of weeks. We’d only be pre-dating it by a short time, and with news moving so slowly these days….’
Urla smiled. Justin was right. As much as a decade ago, those in power had realised what a terrible waste of finances it was to keep prisoners who would never be released in already-crowded prisons. It was counterproductive situation that finally, with the gradual fall of the old government and its outdated, steadfast rules, was becoming unstuck. Within a year the prisons could be cleared out, the new space used for harsher punishments on petty criminals, and the saved costs spent on better policing.
‘You’ve done well.’ Urla smiled as she went to the windows and pulled the curtains closed. ‘I think you deserve a little bonus. Lock the door.’
Justin smiled as he turned, flicking the internal door lock with one hand, and then advanced towards her. Something about the way he moved, like a predator on the hunt, drove her to near madness.
She was breathing hard even as he got his hands on her, and by the time he shoved her back against her desk, his body like a rising wave, she was ready to give herself over in total submission.
8
Tommy
With each new change in the law, a fresh round of claims, questions, and requests would inundate Tommy’s office as the downtrodden and the needy sought out the help of Somerset’s best known civil lawyer. And with the change in the Freedom of Speech Act last year, Manda had struggled to find time to make tea or polish his boots.
It was a grave situation indeed.
As she stood in the doorway, the phone held to her chest, she mouthed something about a civil claim on a forced redundancy. Tommy shook his head and drew a hand across his neck.
There was no point. They would all fail. The cards were stacked, the deck loaded. Twenty years of bad decisions and now the government was closing in like a pack of hounds. He had seen it coming, but few others had. Now it was too late. All that was left to do was prepare for the descent into the underworld when the time came.
Tommy’s list of underground contacts was now longer than his office one. All that was left to do was play the game a while longer then bail at the right time, before the DCA came knocking at the door for all the wrong reasons.
His secretary was back at the door, holding up a sheet of paper. ‘This could be big,’ she said. ‘It appears Carmichael Industries has changed hands.’
‘So that bastard did jump the country after all,’ Tommy said. He remembered what Patrick had said about his girlfriend. Stuck in the DCA lockup, accused of conspiring to leave the country illegally along with her father, who was apparently already gone.
‘And the new owner has laid off eighty percent of the workforce. They’re requesting a joint claim for damages.’
‘How many?’
‘Sixty-four people. Including every member of floor or control management. He’s kept on a handful of the lowest level workers as though he needed people to sweep the floors, but everyone else has gone. Fired with immediate effect. They were given half an hour to collect their things and get off the premises.’
‘Strange. This could be worth pursuing. Do you have the name for the new owner?’
‘The deal has been registered with the local authorities under the name of Mr. Crow.’
‘That’s it?’
His secretary nodded. ‘“Mr.” was given as a first name.’
Tommy reached for his jacket. ‘I’d like to meet this person for myself.’
He was one of the last people on his street to own a car. It was electric, getting around the current ban on combustion engine vehicles for private use, but he had still needed a special permit. That it was in good condition was another bonus, but that the recharging stations were slowly being pulled down was not. He had a year at best before he would be walking everywhere along with the rest of the masses.
The law was supposed to be restricted to urban areas, with a promised mass increase of public transport as the result. That, however, had so far failed to materialise, leaving the majority of workers with long walks to work. Even bicycles were of little use, because most of the roads outside the main centre had been pulled up, the asphalt hauled off somewhere, and gravel left in its place. Of course, there had been protests and riots at the outset, but like everything, after a few months of resisting change, the people had settled down and the government had carried on.
The road bumped beneath him as the car left the last section of asphalt. He dropped his speed, following the wheel ruts that had already developed, heading out to the industrial estate beyond the town populated by a couple of dozen blocky warehouses, more than half of which were now abandoned and empty.
Carmichael Industries stood in the back corner, set against the encroaching woodland. Tommy pulled up in a space outside, his car one of just three in the wide car park. The tyres were flat on the other two, and most likely they had been there some time, perhaps only noticed now that the rest of the workforce had gone.
Tommy climbed out and shut the car door. He picked a piece of lint off his suit and gave the bulge under his arm a quick pat. He was packing lead—a revolver he had bought on the black market years ago. It was an offence that would get him twenty years, but as a lawyer he could usually brush off any DCA searches with a few lines of legal spiel, and when he was out of lawyer mode they would never get near him. Even so, he rarely carried the gun anymore. Today, however, he had felt a prickle of nerves he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The factory stood silent. He walked to the main entrance, noticing how the security cameras no longer followed him. For all the world the factory looked abandoned, but as he reached the doors they slid open on sensing him and lights came on in the small cu
stomer lobby.
Everything looked as he remembered the last time he’d had cause to come in through the front door. Framed prints of random faraway cities on the walls, a cheese plant in a pot next to a desk calendar showing pictures of old motorcycles. The only sign of a new owner was a little solar-powered nodding crow toy. It bobbed its head at him, grinning inanely as he went to the reception desk and pressed a buzzer.
On the occasions he had visited previously, the factory had always been filled with the sounds of industry: the hum of machinery, the thud, clunk, and press of systems operating in the vast warehouse space beyond the front lobby. Only last year, Carmichael-Jones had signed a government contract to begin the building of prototype defense robots: Tommy himself had overseen the deal in a legal capacity. It wasn’t a negotiation but a requirement; Carmichael-Jones had faced closure without it. What it had achieved, though, was to preserve his company a little while longer, and with it the safety of his family.
For him to disappear, selling the company off to a stranger, made no sense.
And even if it had, he would surely have told Tommy.
His own contacts across the channel were starting to panic about their delayed robotics shipments.
‘Damn you, Carmichael, you jelly-bellied fuckwit,’ Tommy muttered under his breath. ‘We had it going good until you went tits up.’
As if on cue, a door opened at the back of the reception desk and a short figure shuffled through, its face entirely covered by the hood of a cloak. Tommy lifted an eyebrow in surprise. Quite the change. Carmichael-Jones had always employed decent local pussy for his front desk, women who’d been prepared to do what it took to keep even the lowliest of jobs. The times really had changed.
‘Yes?’ the figure said—no, hissed—not looking up. ‘How can I be of assistance?’
‘My name is Thomas Crown,’ Tommy said. ‘I was the legal counsel for Stanley Carmichael-Jones. I’d like to speak to your boss, if I may.’