Pelquin's Comet (27 page)

She smiled at seeing one particular minister, who had narrowly survived a recent scandal that saw the media daub him ‘Randy Reggie’, whisper a few brief words to a strikingly pretty starlet half his age. Whatever it was he said – his face was at the wrong angle for the lip-reading software to be of any use and there was too much background hubbub for sound enhancement to help – earned him a quick smile and a shallow nod of response, after which he moved away to rejoin his wife, who was laughing with forced enthusiasm at some comment made by the Aleuthian ambassador.

Next she saw two notoriously bitter political rivals talking and smiling like the very best of buddies, and a supposedly gay actor clearly hitting on the same starlet the minister had whispered to a short time before. Alexis shook her head. There was a fortune’s worth of potential revelation and scandal unfolding before her very eyes. It was almost a pity she valued her job so much.

The door behind her opened, startling her, but it was only Luke. He edged into the room, balancing a flute of what had to be champagne and a plate of half a dozen mouth-watering canapés.

“I thought you might appreciate these.”

He was right. “Thanks.”

He put glass and plate down and craned forward, leaning over her, ostensibly to stare at the screens but in the process getting close, his cheek almost touching hers. She didn’t pull away, enjoying the attention. Luke was one of her more personable colleagues. A year or two younger than her but not bad looking by any means, and he made no secret of fancying her. If she ever decided to embark on a second extra-marital dalliance, Luke would be a prime candidate.

“Anything of interest?” he said, almost breathing the words into her ear.

“Not really,” She still hadn’t turned away but nor did she move closer. They were alone, completely unobserved and unlikely to be interrupted. She was tempted to look round, to tilt her head, to accept the kiss she felt certain would come, but she didn’t; in part because she hadn’t yet committed in her own mind to an affair with Luke, but also because she was enjoying his pursuit and didn’t want that phase of the game to end just yet.

“Just the usual schmoozing, networking and flirting.” Alexis felt proud of how calm her voice sounded.

Despite her earlier resolve, Alexis was almost disappointed when she felt Luke stand up and step away. “Well, I’d best be getting back to the floor before I’m missed,” he said. “You can bring me up to speed on all the juicy gossip later.”

“Will do.” She looked around. “And, Luke…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” On impulse, she blew him a kiss. He left, grinning.

After he’d gone she sipped at the champagne, her gaze resting on the screens but her attention elsewhere, as she imagined Luke standing bare-chested before her.

It took a conscious effort of will to dispel the image and focus on what she was supposed to be doing.

Second guessing the nature of people’s private conversations had lost its appeal, so she moved onto her next standard mechanism for staving off boredom and activated the monitors’ facial recognition software – this particular distraction pretty much fell within the job description anyway.

For the next half hour she took a visual tour of the room, focusing on one individual after another, allowing the software to examine the structure and specific features of each subject’s face using sophisticated isometrics, analysing minutiae that were supposedly impossible to mimic effectively. In this way she was able to confirm the identity of most of those present – no doubles in attendance tonight. The software even highlighted a couple of celebs who’d had a little surgery on the sly.

Growing bored of checking over those she already knew, Alexis turned her attention to the waiting staff and the visiting dignitaries who were unfamiliar to her. One or two, usually the more handsome males, piqued her curiosity sufficiently for her to summon up their profiles.

Then her camera focused on one face in particular and she froze. The software did its job, identifying the man as a visiting off worlder; Corbin Thadeus Drake, registered as an employee of First Solar Bank. The problem was that she knew him by a different name entirely.

At least she thought she did… But it couldn’t be. Surely he was
dead
. She kept the camera trained on Drake’s face and dredged up memories she hadn’t revisited in years. He looked a little older, and the face might have benefited from some cursory restructuring – though perhaps that was no more than faulty memory; she’d been little more than a child then, after all. The eyes, though, they were the same: so dark, and with a quality that suggested they understood the nature of the universe and mocked it at the same time. It was him. It
had
to be him. And yet…

Then she remembered her mother’s paintings. Emalia Chapel had withdrawn from society years ago, establishing a new and doubtless pampered life with a man Alexis loathed. Mother and daughter had never been close and Emalia had rarely been generous with the considerable wealth her paintings had generated, but that was okay; Alexis was content to make her own way in the world.

The only real concession Alexis ever made to being Emalia’s daughter was stored on her perminal: a digitised library of her mother’s paintings. As far as Alexis knew, Emalia didn’t even know she had these.

Taking the perminal out, she flicked the display to broadest setting, which brought a selection of icons floating in the air before her. She accessed the appropriate library and then riffled through the obliquely presented close-packed images, swiftly finding the one she was after.

A deft stab of the finger and that image emerged to take centre stage. She found herself staring at a portrait of the man she’d known as ‘Uncle Frank’. The three years he and her mother had been together were by far the happiest of her childhood, if not her entire life to date. For that brief period Emalia Chapel had found the time to notice things beyond her work, had even, for a while, made Alexis feel
wanted
…

The moment Uncle Frank left, though, everything changed, and her mother became colder than ever.

This portrait, painted from memory after Uncle Frank had gone – he would never have posed for anything like that – was all that Alexis had left of him. There were no photographs – she’d searched, thoroughly and desperately in the weeks immediately following his disappearance – none at all.

Alexis both loved and hated that painting. She’d known, even then, why he had to go, but that hadn’t made it any easier to forgive him, or to ever stop missing him.

She froze the camera image, choosing a moment when ‘Drake’ was facing her, almost straight on. She then magnified her mother’s painting and compared the two. As she studied them, trying to convince herself that this was just some form of deeply hidden wishful thinking on her part, inspiration struck.

Alexis uploaded the image from her perminal into the monitoring equipment and then used the face recognition software to run a comparison. She had no idea if this would work; after all, one of the subjects was only a painting, but it was her
mother’s
painting, and Emalia Chapel’s eye for detail and perspective was legendary.

Even so, she half expected the comparison to draw a blank, for the system to report an error, an inability to complete the requested task… But it didn’t. Instead it highlighted correlations and concluded a 59% probability that both images were of the same person.

Alexis drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Damn! There it was. The rest was up to her. 59% still left plenty of room for doubt, but under the circumstances it was more than she’d dared hope for.

She stared at the four words displayed beneath her mother’s painting – the tag giving Uncle Frank’s full name – and wondered what the hell she was going to do next.

Did she hate this man, or love him? By rights, she should immediately contact Luke or one of the more senior officers and report this. Career-wise, it would be the making of her.
But this is Uncle Frank.

Alexis had never been one for soul-searching but right now her thoughts were in turmoil. For some reason she kept coming back to all the promotions that had slipped past without coming within reach, of all those others whose careers were progressing along faster, slicker tracks than hers. It had never really bothered her, not until now, but her loyalty had never before faced a stiffer test than this.

One thing was certain: the next few seconds would determine once and for all just how dedicated to this career she was.

Alexis came to her senses abruptly. Whatever her personal feelings, not reporting this would be an inconceivable dereliction of duty. There was only one thing to do, no matter how unpalatable it might be. She took a deep breath, preparatory to issuing the call signal… And yet…
and yet
… Still she hesitated, staring at the image one final time, as if to imprint those features indelibly on her mind. Could this
really
be him?

Pelquin and the stranger separated as soon as they re-entered the room, as if they couldn’t wait to get away from each other. The captain didn’t give the other man another glance but instead made a beeline for Drake. The banker tried to read his expression and body language as he approached, seeing there excitement, perhaps even triumph, but also a degree of anxiety.

“Everything go as planned?” he asked as Pelquin reached him.

“More or less, but we have to leave.”

“So soon? I was just beginning to enjoy myself.”

“Be that as it may, my friend Olly has suggested we make ourselves scarce and I don’t want to push our luck.”

Drake had kept half an eye on the other man – Olly – and noticed that he was now talking to a suit that just had to be security and looking in their direction. “Maybe you’ve got a point.”

They began to make their way towards the door. It was then that Drake saw her: a woman whose eyes were focused on them, specifically on
him
, and there was no question she was headed in their direction. Yet something wasn’t right. The manner of her approach didn’t suggest determination to fulfil a mission; there was nothing resolute or assured in her body language, rather she appeared ill at ease, almost furtive.

He realised they weren’t going to reach the door before she intercepted them. He stopped walking, wanting to see how she’d react. She adjusted course, coming directly towards him. That settled it.

“What’s wrong?” Pelquin asked, pausing and looking back.

“Nothing, I hope. But whatever it is seems to be about me and not you. You’d best keep walking. I’ll meet you outside.”

Pelquin followed the line of his gaze, finally spotting the woman. After another quick glance in Drake’s direction, he nodded and then continued on towards the door, not looking back.

Drake tensed as the woman came up, looking quickly around to see if there was anyone else trying to outflank him.

“Mr Drake, relax, look natural,” she intoned by way of greeting. “Smile as if we’re old friends. I had to catch you here, close to the door. It’s the one area I could arrange not to be covered by security cameras.”

So, she was part of the security set up, which was far from reassuring. She looked nervous and upset, though, conflicted even.

“Mr Dra…” she paused. After a shaky breath she continued, and what she said stunned him. “Uncle Frank…
Don’t you know me
?”

And he did; of course he did. “Alex, is it really you?” There was no chance at subterfuge, no possibility of pretending she’d made a mistake. His expression would have given him away even had he tried.

“Look, I understand…” she said. “Why you had to leave. I don’t blame you.”

Blame him?
Didn’t she know what her mother had done, how she betrayed him? Probably not.

“Take this,” and he found something thrust into his hand. “My card. Call me, when you can; please.”

“I will,” he said, with no idea whether he meant it or not.

She smiled, almost shyly. “I’ve got to get back. Don’t forget, call me.” With that she turned and was gone, hurrying off the way she had come. He swallowed on a suddenly dry throat and took a few seconds to compose himself before strolling across to the door and out to where Pelquin waited, clearly anxious.

“Well, what was it?” the
Comet’s
captain wanted to know.

“Nothing,” Drake assured him. “Nothing at all.”

“Really? Who was she then?”

“Just someone I used to know a long time ago. I hadn’t expected to meet her here, that’s all. Just goes to show how small a universe this is.”
Too small
, he added silently,
too small by half
.

Alexis returned to her cubicle to find it still empty and with everything exactly as she’d left it. She breathed a sigh of relief, only then daring to admit to herself how big a risk she’d just taken. She seemed to have got away with it, though, which meant that no one would ever know about her abandoning her station or the reason why. The thrill of a risk taken and gamble won surged through her. Clearly this was a night for such things. She adjusted the cameras covering the wide entrance hall to a more normal configuration and then simply sat there for a moment, breathing deeply and battling to recover her composure.

Would he call her? There was so much she wanted to say; so much she needed to know. She’d always felt that her mother blamed her for his leaving, as if whatever had gone wrong between them was somehow her fault. She would never forget the day, years later, when Emalia informed her – very formally, as if mentioning newly prepared travel arrangements – that her Uncle Frank was dead.

Yet here he was.

“Pull yourself together, Alex,” she muttered. There were still some things she needed to do: expunging her mother’s painting from the security systems for one. After that she’d have to cover her tracks by removing all record that it had ever been there.

She hesitated for a split second, gazing at the magnified picture one more time; her mother really had managed to capture those eyes… Then she erased the image and, with it, the four identifying words printed beneath:
Captain Francis Hilary Cornische
.