Inescapable (11 page)

‘Right.’

There was a
short pause and then Fox was blinking at an indicator in her vision
field. ‘Why am I being asked to acknowledge a voting delegation
from Helen Jane Dillan?’

‘Because I
think that the Chief Investigative Officer of a respected security
company which seems to have my political interests at heart is a
good person to delegate my law and order voting rights to.’

‘That,’ Sam
said, ‘is an excellent assessment.’

In Fox’s
display, a second acknowledgement request was added for Samuel
Peter Clarion. She shook her head. ‘You’re nuts, both of you, but
okay. Thank you for your confidence, I think.’ She looked at her
glass of white wine, considered it briefly, and then emptied it
before turning to the bartender. ‘I’m going to need another one of
these.’

3
^rd
April.

‘Oh God… Why does a
night out with you always end up with pain?’ Dillan washed down a
couple of painkillers with water and sat with her head in her hands
for a second. ‘And me in just a pair of panties?’

‘Because you
can’t hold your liquor?’ Fox suggested.

‘You don’t even
look like you have a headache,’ Dillan moaned.

‘I don’t. Take
a shower, you’ll feel better.’ Leaving her friend to sort herself
out, Fox wandered into the lounge and turned to the small kitchen
counter area which, importantly, had the coffee machine. It was, of
course, already brewing delicious, dark brown liquid.

‘Detective
Dillan seems to have more trouble with alcohol than you do,’ Kit
commented as Fox found a couple of bottles of egg mix to make
omelettes.

‘I blame the
Army. One of the many useful skills one learns as a soldier is how
to drink to excess and survive. She was pretty slammed last night,
but she’ll be fine once the Painaway kicks in.’

‘She seems to
be feeling better. She’s streaming IB-Nineteen’s news feed.’

‘Huh. Well, I
hope she’s in the mood for omelette.’

Dillan emerged
from the bedroom, rubbing at her rose-tinted mop of blonde hair.
‘You got a robe or something I can put on for a few… Are those real
eggs?’

Fox laughed and
shook her head. ‘Good-quality fakes. I usually want the protein
first thing and the taste is usually good enough. There’s coffee
brewed and there’s a wrap on the back of the bedroom door.’

The detective
vanished and returned a few seconds later in the silky wrap and
without the towel. The wrap was a little longer on her than it was
on Fox: Fox was a couple of centimetres taller, but they were
similar builds. Dillan was a pretty, oriental-featured woman, slim
and fit, with a delicate nose, dark eyes, and a small heart-shaped
mouth. This time she had ended up in Fox’s bed after drinking too
much she had not needed to ask whether they had done anything other
than sleep at least.

‘The coffee is
going to be good.’ Dillan poured two mugs, placing one nearer to
Fox. ‘I got a message through saying someone in eighteen wants the
records on the Doran case. Something about a homicide up that way.
Nothing in the news feeds about it though.’

Fox pushed egg
protein around a pan. ‘Doran, huh?’ Dillan had made something of a
name for herself over the Doran case. He had killed four people in
the spring and summer of 2059 before Dillan had spotted him on
video, pulled him in on a routine interview, and cracked him open
like an egg. He had confessed everything, claiming that he had been
possessed by the Devil or something and forced to murder four total
strangers. ‘Now that was a whack job.’

Dillan rolled
her head on her neck. ‘Yeah… Though if there was ever anyone who
was going to make me believe in demons, that was him. I mean, he
really
sold the whole demonic possession thing. He said it
was subtle at first, twisting what he saw and whispering to him.
Then it started making suggestions and then demands, and it was
there in his head and he couldn’t get rid of it.’

‘They checked
his implant, right?’

‘Oh yeah. He
had one of those LANGrove units. The new one they brought out ahead
of MarTech.’

‘The
LANVisor-Six,’ Fox supplied. ‘I remember the advert feeds. “The
most advanced implanted computer available this side of
tomorrow.”’

‘Their product
is adequate,’ Kit said, appearing on the opposite side of the
counter, ‘but MarTech’s is clearly superior and not rushed to
market.’

Dillan grinned.
‘We all know
you’re
superior, Kit. Doran’s implant was
normal. No signs of virus, no malfunctions. Everything checked out
so they put him down as “suspected psychological problems” and
locked him up on the psych level in Rikers. I think they went with
paranoid delusion eventually. They were considering moving him to
Cold Harbour, but I don’t know if they ever will.’

Fox gave a
grunt and began to distribute fluffy, yellow food onto plates. Cold
Harbour was a maximum security facility on the Moon, underneath the
Mare Frigoris. It was run by the UNTPP for a number of states and
it was meant for people who were not expected to ever return to
society. ‘So someone in precinct eighteen has a homicide and they
want to connect it to Doran?’

Dillan shrugged
as she chewed omelette. ‘Good luck to them. It wasn’t just the
confession that nailed him. With him in custody, we could lock him
in as a probable on the other murders. If they’ve got something
similar, then they’ve got a copycat.’

4
^th
April.

Fox had seen the area
around Sam’s new house from the video feeds, and had got a look in
the dark when she had intervened with Brownlow, but in daylight and
in person the place was more impressive. The MCD tended to be home
to people with a little more money than sense, the kind of people
who hired Sam for an evening of entertainment, actually, but here
on the southern side of it the houses were a little more modest,
older, and they had more character. There was definitely a feel of
something from the early years of the
last
century about the
house Felix Kenan and his partner had put up, though Fox knew it
was younger. The area around it did not make it look out of place;
maybe someone had developed several blocks with an eye to creating
an area with a pleasant, neighbourhood feel to it.

Shrugging at
the vagaries of architecture, Fox headed for the small flight of
stairs which dropped from the sidewalk at the side of the house to
the dark green door of the basement apartment. There was a button
for a buzzer, so she pressed that and waited. It took only a minute
for the door to open and Fox found herself looking at the young
face she had seen previously on the stills Kit had grabbed.

‘Hello?’ Marie
said, a query in her voice.

‘Hi, I’m Tara
Meridian from Palladium Security Solutions. I believe Sam Clarion
mentioned I’d be dropping around.’

‘Oh, you’re his
friend. Yes, he said you’d be coming over.’ Fox watched the girl’s
face, her image enhancement software picking up and tagging minute
shifts in expression. Marie was not entirely pleased with what she
was seeing. ‘I’ve shown your techs and consultants around upstairs
already.’ Not happy with the intrusion, or something else?

‘Uh-huh. That’s
mostly the security side. They’ll be back this week to beef up the
building’s safeguards. I’m here to look at some other stuff. Sam
said you could let me in.’

‘Sure. I guess.
Hold on…’ Marie vanished back into the apartment and returned in a
pair of plain, grey sneakers which did not quite go with the
neon-green tube top or the pink shorts.

‘Great,’ Fox
said, smiling as she followed Marie up the steps. ‘If you could
just hang around for a few minutes while I check over some things.
Better if someone keeps an eye on me and I may have some questions
about the house.’

‘Yeah, okay,
Miss Meridian.’

‘Fox.’

‘Fox?’

‘It’s the hair.
Kind of fox-coloured. Kids called me that at school and I kind of
got to like it.’

‘Right.’ The
door responded to Marie’s presence, the locks opening up as she put
her hand on the latch and activated a transmission from her
implant. ‘You’ve known Sam for a while, I take it?’

The hall was
just as Sam’s memory images had indicated. Lots of dark wood. Warm.
‘A couple of years. His apartment is next to mine, though he may be
moving in here. That’s the closet they went for?’ Fox pointed at
the door under the stairs, starting across the room.

‘That’s it.
It’s just cabling in there.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Fox
opened the door and looked inside. At the back, mounted to the
wall, was a heavy, metal plate with a yellow triangle printed on
it. Within the triangle was a stylised lightning bolt. ‘You heard a
thump downstairs?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘We found
scratches on the screws holding that cover in place. It’s the main
electrical distribution access. I’d say they dropped it getting it
off.’

‘But it was
screwed in place when Sam looked in there.’

Fox took a
screwdriver from her bag. ‘Yeah, let’s see if we can see what they
wanted.’ It took a couple of minutes to undo the six, heavy bolts
and then she lifted the plate free and looked inside. And then she
reached in and pulled three of the fuses out of the lower part of
the box while Marie made little whimpering noises. ‘That would be
the upstairs lighting circuits,’ Fox said as Kit found her the
wiring schematic. ‘Turn on the lights up there and wait a short
while and…’

‘Fire?’ Marie
squeaked.

‘It’s pretty
clever, scraping the insulation away like that. It’s quite possible
it would be entirely missed or blamed on rats. They like eating the
insulation.’

‘Oh…’

‘Hmm. Which
room was Mister Kenan found in?’

The sudden
question had Marie stepping back, her eyes widening. ‘The lounge.
Uh… through here.’ She turned, walking to a door and opening it.
‘He was–’

‘Sam described
the scene to me. I got the memory impressions when he called me
down here.’

‘He called you
down?’

‘I used to be
with the nineteenth precinct and I knew the cop assigned to the
case. When Sam said he was having problems, I came down to stop him
being dragged into HQ.’

‘Detective
Brownlow?’

Fox could tell
from the girl’s tone that she was not impressed with the man.
‘That’s him. Bit of an asshole.’

‘He questioned
me about Felix’s… about the case. I think he thought I’d done
it.’

Fox turned and
looked at her, blue-green eyes hard, emotionless. ‘Did you?’

Marie’s mouth
opened and stayed that way for a second. Then she got it closed and
Fox watched the look of shock flash over into anger. ‘No I didn’t!
Felix was… Felix gave me… How can you…?’

‘Go ahead and
slap me if you like,’ Fox said. ‘I’m not a cop so it’s not
assaulting a police officer.’ She saw tears brimming in Marie’s
eyes, which was really not what she needed when she was trying to
get her own emotions back on a level. ‘Please don’t blubber. I’d
really prefer the slap.’

‘How could you
ask me that?’ Marie asked, her voice small. ‘Just come out like
that and ask?’

‘I needed to
know. I needed to be
sure
it wasn’t you I was looking for.
And it’s not, unless you’re an
infinitely
better actress
than anyone’s given you credit for.’

Marie gave a
sniff. ‘I guess it’s a good job I haven’t started the coaching yet
then.’ Fox gave her a grin, at least partially because the tears
seemed less likely. ‘Um… Are you and Sam…? I mean… Have you,
uh…?’

Fox blinked at
her. ‘Have we had sex? No, never.’

‘Why on Earth
not?!’

‘He’s a
licensed, professional prostitute. Sex is his job, so why would he
want to do it for recreation? If he asked me then I’d probably
accept, but I prefer him as a friend. Sex
can
be a
complication, especially when you live next door. Not saying it
would be, but it could. We’ve never risked it. Normally, he doesn’t
bring me murders to investigate and I don’t press for a
demonstration of his undoubtedly exceptional bedroom skills.’

‘I never
thought of it like that. I guess he probably does spend a lot of
time… uh, doing it.’ A thought struck her and she added, ‘But now
he’s brought a murder to you.’

‘Yeah, maybe I
should see if he’s worth the money.’ Fox grinned and Marie looked a
little relieved. ‘Don’t think so. After a couple of years of not
going there, it would seem kind of weird.’ Yes, Marie was pleased
that Fox was
not
sleeping with Sam. Fox sighed and turned
back into the hall. ‘Let’s see what we can make of the damage to
these cables.’

~~~

‘So the plan was to
have the house burn down?’ Sam asked. ‘I… decide to spend the night
there and the place burns down around me? They were trying to kill
me too?’

‘Don’t think
so,’ Fox replied, handing him a glass of wine.

‘No? I’m having
one of these and that’s it. There was quite enough drinking last
night.’

Fox flashed him
a smile. ‘Response time on the call Marie put in to NAPA was good.
There was a vertol overhead in minutes and they detected no one
leaving the building aside from Marie. It’s a supposition that they
heard the vertol engines.’

‘And you’re not
suggesting Marie did this?’

Leaning back on
the counter, Fox shook her head. ‘She’s not involved in this, aside
from living in the building. The people who broke in had to have
left before the cops arrived. It took me and Marie ninety seconds
to remove the cover from the junction box, more like two minutes to
get it back in position. The wires were carefully scraped and
nudged to ensure a short circuit, but it was supposed to look like
an accident. They were careful. They had to pull the fuses, strip
the insulation, bend the wires, and put the fuses back. Only way to
do it safely.’