Inescapable (12 page)

Sam nodded
slowly. ‘So they had to have made the noise Marie heard once the
work was done, or most of it anyway.’

‘Uh-huh.
Maybe
the noise was accidental, but I’m betting it was
intended. They wanted you to know someone had broken in. They were
hoping you’d find the stripped cables. They wanted you scared. What
they didn’t want is for you to know that was the intention.’

Sam took a slug
of his wine, brow furrowed. ‘This is nuts.’

‘Someone killed
Kenan. Was there any indication that he was worried about anything
before he died?’

‘He said
nothing to me. Nothing unusual anyway. Maybe Marie heard
something.’

‘Okay. It’s a
good point. I’ll check with her next chance I get. I still think
solving Kenan’s murder is going to resolve the more recent issue.
And I also think you should expect more problems.’

‘Huh, yeah,
well, that’s a conclusion I was coming to without your help. Good
job I have a big security company like Palladium on my side.’

5
^th
April.

‘I believe you have
company,’ Kit said into Fox’s head as she walked out of the
elevator and into the lobby of her block. ‘Inspector Cant and
Detective Brownlow are situated near the exit.’

Fox let out a
sigh and Sam, close behind her, heard it. ‘Problem?’

‘Uh-huh,
probably. I think Brownlow’s been notified of my request for the
Kenan case files. I’d think that was that, but he’s got one of
Canard’s poodles with him.’

‘I see them, or
Brownlow and another man.’

‘Just leave
them to me.’ She fixed her face into a smile and was unsurprised
when Brownlow stepped into her path as she homed in on the doors.
‘Detective Brownlow and Inspector Cant. What can I do for you this…
overcast morning?’

‘You’re
reopening the Kenan case,’ Brownlow snapped without preamble.
‘Why?’

‘I’ve requested
the closed case file on a murder which took place in a building
Palladium Security Solutions have been contracted to secure. The
file may provide valuable data on vulnerabilities in the building.
Further, recent events have indicated that persons linked to the
homicide have returned to the building and I wish to determine
whether I can identify these individuals based on your undoubtedly
thorough investigation.’

‘Leave it
alone, Meridian.’

‘I need the
information, Detective, and I’m well within my rights to request
it. A closed case file can be accessed by such parties as have a
personal or business interest in the case, suitability of claim to
be assessed by a NAPA judicial representative of sheriff rank or
higher. If you have a good, operational reason for wanting the
request denied, you may submit your reasoning into the assessment
process.’

‘Don’t give
me–’

‘You know all
this, Brownlow, so why are you trying to persuade me to drop it?
What’s in the case files you don’t want me to see?’

Brownlow
shifted, leaning forward and pushing onto the balls of his feet. It
was a little difficult to loom over someone when you were barely
their height, but he was giving it the good old college try. Fox
was considering whether it would be better to block the blow or let
it land: she would be able to press assault charges either way, but
a bruise on her face might sell it better.

And then Cant
spoiled it. ‘David, back off. We’ll put through a reason for
denial.’

Brownlow
deflated, but he growled out, ‘Back off, Meridian,’ before he
turned and stalked away. Cant glared at Fox, though she got the odd
impression it was for form’s sake, and then followed.

‘Can they block
the request?’ Sam asked when they were gone.

‘If they can
come up with a good enough reason to. Kit will drop a warning
through to Palladium’s legal department to let them know we may
have an issue. They’ll be fabricating something if they are going
to object, which begs the question of why they’d bother. It’ll be a
delay at worst, I think.’

‘Better get the
security upgrades done then,’ Sam said, and set off again for the
door.

~~~

Dillan stepped off the
BQ-line train and into the station near the base of precinct 18’s
HQ tower. The local administrative computers recognised her
immediately, even though she was from precinct 19, and they
directed her immediately to a bank of elevators. The computers knew
why she was there. The computers appeared to know more about that
than she did.

Precinct 19’s
building was out on Governors Island, which gave it a little more
security and something of a commanding presence. The tower she was
now walking through was also on an island within its precinct
bounds, but the reasoning was a little different: the residents of
the MCD wanted fast responses, but they did not want a great big
police building messing up their view. So the tower had been
erected on Randalls and Wards Islands, right on the BQ-line as it
turned south-east and crossed Hell Gate. It was close to all those
rich folks, but also out of the way, along with the psychiatric
facility and the water treatment plant which occupied a large
amount of the remainder of the island.

It was when the
doors opened on the floor she was being directed to get off the
elevator at that she began to worry. There was one thing about the
precinct 18 building which everyone knew and tried not to think
about, because the last thing you wanted was a visit from
them
. It was kind of like those ghost stories where you have
to avoid thinking about the ancient evil spirit or it might hear
your thoughts and come looking. Cop superstition. Internal Affairs
was the kind of thing NAPA officers got superstitious about.

Dillan paused,
wondering what the Hell she was doing there, and realised she was
being looked at. Her gaze scanned over a tall, black man with a
bulky, muscled body and close-cropped, black hair, but pale, hazel
eyes suggested some mixed heritage. He was dressed in a sharp,
black suit and white shirt; colour was lent to his high-contrast
appearance by a dark blue tie with a green geometric pattern woven
into it. He had the kind of expression on his face Dillan thought
she might see on a shark at meal time, though that might have just
been her own paranoia. What did IA want with her?

‘Detective
Dillan,’ the man said. He had a voice to go with the barrel chest.
‘I’m Inspector Robbard, with Internal Affairs.’

‘I’d gathered
that,’ Dillan replied, ‘because this is IA’s corner of eighteen and
you’re waiting for me. What’s this about?’

‘Please come
with me. You’ll be briefed and then we have a few questions.’ He
led the way to a conference room not far down the corridor, opening
the door and stepping inside ahead of her. ‘This is Inspector Ivers
of this precinct.’

Dillan found
herself looking at a woman sitting at the far end of a short
conference table. Older than she was, but not letting it show
heavily, Ivers looked like she had had a little work done to smooth
out her eyes and sharpen her lips. A blue-eyed blonde with
shoulder-length hair and a striking figure, dressed in a skirt suit
which Dillan was reasonably sure she could not afford.

‘Inspector,’
Dillan said, nodding down the table. Decked out, as she normally
was on duty, in slacks and a leather biker jacket which had a
flexible armour layer built into it, Dillan was feeling distinctly
underdressed. ‘You’re not with IA?’

‘I drew the
Remus homicide,’ Ivers responded.

‘I don’t…
You’re the one who pulled the Doran case files.’ She frowned,
looking at Robbard. ‘What does IA have to do with that?’

‘We’ll get to
that,’ Robbard replied blandly, indicating a chair as he settled
into one himself. ‘Inspector Ivers, would you take the detective
through the evidence on the Remus case?’

Ivers gave a
nod and looked at the back wall where a pair of photographs
appeared in the room’s viron. ‘Amarantha Louise Remus, known as
Amy.’ Both stills showed the same face, but it was hard to tell.
The one on the left looked like it was taken from some sort of
publicity shot: it showed an attractive woman with blue eyes,
honey-blonde hair that fell past her shoulders to full breasts
which were probably not natural. The carefully sculpted features
suggested at least a little cosmetic work. In the right-hand
picture, her eyes were gone, and blood obscured much of the
fashionably pale skin and turned her hair into strawberry-blonde.
The attack had been focused and efficient, but vicious. Dillan took
it in in an instant and continued the examination as Ivers went on.
‘Cause of death was brain trauma. She was stabbed with an ice pick,
twice. The second blow resulted in the weapon being lodged deep in
the socket of her left eye.’

The pictures
changed. Now they were looking at wide shots of the room, a bedroom
with a huge bed in it. The head and footboards had thick posts at
the ends, and Remus had been tied, spread-eagled, to them. ‘She was
raped?’ Dillan asked.

‘A violent
penetrative sexual act has been confirmed. Given her placement we
assume rape. She’s not in a position to confirm her lack of
consent. We found no DNA evidence of the attacker on her body.
We’re going over everything we could find in her home, but even
eliminating the easy clears it’s still a huge number of
potentials.’

‘Easy clears?’
Dillan was fairly sure what Ivers meant, but she wanted to hear
it.

‘Most of the
local residents can be dropped off the list immediately. They
wouldn’t do this. Frankly, they don’t need to go to these lengths
to have sex. They just need to open their wallets.’

Dillan tried to
keep the disgust out of her voice. ‘Rape is very rarely about sex.
This is about–’

‘Peter Rosco
Doran,’ Robbard interrupted. ‘That is what this is about.’

‘He’s in
Rikers, in the mental wing.’

‘There was a
distinguishing feature to the crime scenes you investigated, am I
correct? Something which was never revealed to the public?’

Dillan frowned.
‘He’d leave a message near the victims. “No Escape.” In the
interviews after he said that it referred to him as well as them.
He couldn’t escape his “demon” and they couldn’t escape their
fate.’ Her eyes flicked upward as the image changed. Someone had
scratched the words ‘No Escape’ in shaky letters, possibly with an
ice pick, into the headboard of Remus’s bed. ‘A copycat?’ Dillan
asked, though it was more to herself than the others.

‘Someone is
copying something,’ Robbard agreed. ‘Who is copying what? More
importantly, how did the copycat get this information?’

Dillan
considered for a second. ‘You want to hang a leak of crime scene
information on me.’

Robbard’s cold
eyes warmed as his lips curled into a smile which Dillan did not
entirely believe. ‘We want to find out how this information got out
of NAPA, and we want to be sure that we have a guilty man in
Rikers.’

‘And we want
Amy Remus’s murderer put there beside him,’ Ivers added coldly.

‘How can I
help?’ Dillan asked, spreading her hands on the table.

‘Let’s begin by
you telling us everything you can about Peter Doran,’ Robbard said.
His smile showed far too many bright, white teeth.

Jenner Research
Station.

Kit perched on one of
the swivel chairs in the Yliaster project’s control room because…
Well, she was alone, the lights were dimmed, and having her avatar
sit on a chair made her feel like she was interacting with the
environment. Interacting with anything was a positive: she was
bored, lonely, and when she was not actually involved with Miss
Martins or Miss Marchant, she was largely useless.

She looked
around the room. The physical consoles were closed down and none of
the virtual ones were active. Behind the security glass, Yliaster
was fermenting away in its tank, running the latest iteration of
its software which Miss Martins had high hopes for. Maybe they
would let her transfer back to Fox soon and she could get on with
being what she was meant to be.

A thought
crossed her mind and she devoted processor time to the analysis of
her current thought processes. She wanted to know
why
she
felt it necessary to look around the room when she could see
everything in the room through the surveillance cameras. She wanted
to know why she had a desire to leave and transfer back to her home
server.

Seconds later,
she had her first answer: she looked around the room because her
avatar animation routines were designed to make her appear more
human. ‘Fitting in’ was a useful talent. Her gaze turned to the
tank: Yliaster was never going to fit in, but from what Kit had
managed to determine, the intelligence of the swarm in the tank
would never be complex enough to need it. The individual machines
in the tank were
so
simple that even in vast profusion they
could never achieve a more complex intelligence than, say, an ant
colony. That was still impressive, but the tank swarms were always
going to be machines. Kit believed that people considered her more
than that.

Fox considered
her more than just a software construct and the computers it ran
on. Kit was sure of that. She was fairly sure that Miss Martins
felt the same, most of the time. Right now, Teresa Martins was
stressed and not thinking of anything much aside from getting
Yliaster to work. Kit had a suspicion, based on some evidence, that
this was because of what had happened in Dallas: Miss Martins
wanted to see that all those deaths were not in vain. Yliaster
seemed to be important, which was a little odd considering how…
mundane
the system appeared to be. It made things. New
things. It made new things, new materials, but just things. Kit
accessed the station’s primary library system and requested the
project synopsis documentation for Yliaster. She had a momentary
thrill to discover that her security clearance was easily high
enough to obtain those documents, and then she put that aside and
began reading them.