Penumbra (14 page)

The Hindustan Plaza was a fifty-storey obelisk of sheet obsidian reflecting the distant lights of central Calcutta and the occasional floating ad-screen. There was much frantic activity in the forecourt: local police cars, beacons pulsing, an ambulance, redundant in the event, all watched by a gaggle of curious guests and uniformed staff.

Rana followed Vishwanath, aware that the little group of investigators and forensic scientists was the centre of attention. A local sergeant rushed up to Vishwanath, almost doubling himself up in obeisance, followed by the hotel manager who gabbled something about an ‘unfortunate incident’ and how ‘this had never happened under my managership before’.

‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Vishwanath replied. ‘Now if you would show me and my team to the room in question . . .’

They rode in the elevator to the fourth floor. Rana stepped out on to a plush red carpet and followed the dancing manager and the sergeant along the corridor. They came to an open doorway. A pulsing low-powered laser cordon barred the way.

Vishwanath said, ‘Who discovered the body?’

‘The maid, sir,’ the sergeant replied. ‘She noticed that the door was slightly open. When she looked in . . . This was at eleven.’

‘No one else has entered the room since then?’

‘Only the hotel manager and my constable, sir. He confirmed that the victim was dead and contacted me immediately.’

Vishwanath nodded and signalled to the two forensic officers. They knelt before the open doorway and removed two crawlers from silver sterile bags, then placed them on the carpet. The crawlers dashed off into the room like hyperactive turtles.

‘Do you have the name of the victim?’ Vishwanath asked the hotel manager.

‘Ah-cha. He was one Ali Bhakor. He was an eminent businessman of my very own acquaintance, sir.’

Rana entered the dead man’s name into her com-board and peered through the doorway. She could see along the corridor into the lounge, and the chair upon which the late Ali Bhakor slouched. Only the man’s left arm could be seen, hanging limply over the side of the chair.

‘Have you accounted for Bhakor’s movements last night?’ Vishwanath asked the sergeant.

‘Ah-cha, sir. I’ve detailed his known actions since six. Also I’ve interviewed the maid and bell-boy.’ He proffered his com-board, and first Vishwanath, then Naz and Rana downloaded the relevant file.

While the crawlers gathered forensic evidence, Rana took the opportunity to read the meagre file. Bhakor had arrived at the hotel at six the day before, had dined alone at seven and returned to his room at eight. He had spoken to no one during that time other than hotel staff.

The crawlers scuttled back over the threshold and were retrieved by the forensic scientists. They examined the read-outs and then passed the crawlers to Vishwanath, Naz and Rana. Rana downloaded their findings into her com-board and cross-referenced the data with that compiled by the crawlers from the scenes of the other so-called ‘crucifix killings’. She detected a number of possible correlations. Identical cloth fibres had been discovered at three of the crime scenes.

She reported her findings to Vishwanath.

‘It’s a slim connection, Lieutenant. The fibres might be of a cloth commonly worn. I want them checked and a full forensic report on type, origin, availability, et cetera.’ He killed the laser cordon. ‘Ah-cha, let’s take a closer look.’

They passed into the room.

The forensic officers filmed the scene and the murder victim and then examined the body, taking tissue samples and readings with instruments unfamiliar to Rana.

Ali Bhakor sat slumped in the armchair, arms dangling over the side, legs outstretched, his fat chin resting on his chest. There was something pathetic and undignified about his posture that was even more grotesque than the wound that had killed him. The right side of his face was blackened with the impact of the laser charge, but the left side was unburned and wore a strange expression of startled surprise. Rana had expected to be repulsed by the sight, but the strange fact was that it seemed no more sickening than the cosmetic effects of a hundred sensational holodramas.

Carved into the padded flesh of his left cheek was the bloody shape of a crucifix. Something about the mutilation, perhaps the sight of the blood or the fact that the crucifix was the killer’s cynical calling card, seemed to Rana more ghastly than the laser burn.

She noticed the com-screen in the corner of the room. After receiving clearance from forensic, she accessed GlobaLink and typed in her commands. Ten minutes later she had compiled a file of news reports and court cases concerning the dead man. She downloaded the file into her com-board and returned to Vishwanath.

‘I’ve found out a little about Ali Bhakor, sir.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Like all the other victims of the killer - if they do share a common killer - Bhakor had a criminal record.’ She passed her com-board to Vishwanath. ‘Two years ago he was implicated in the import of illegal substances from Burma - heroin-plus and slash. Ten years ago he was jailed for a year for smuggling precious gems from a colony world.’

‘Do you draw any inferences, Lieutenant?’

‘Well, obviously the branding of the corpse with the crucifix . . . Perhaps the killer sees himself or herself as taking part in some kind of moral crusade to clean up the city.’

‘That’s certainly a possibility.’

‘Or, perhaps these are vengeance killings. All the victims might have opposed the killer in some way in the past, perhaps with business deals.’

‘When you get back to HQ I want you to check all the business dealings conducted by all the victims over the past ten years - and if you find nothing, go back twenty years. Also, if these are vengeance rather than morally motivated killings, reconsider the implications of the crucifix. It’ll be a complex, time-consuming task, but this is priority, Lieutenant. Drop everything else and concentrate on this case.’

‘Ah-cha, sir.’

A forensic officer stood up after examining the corpse. ‘Standard 100 laser charge, sir. Might have been any one of a dozen types of weapon available over the counter. Just like all the charges used on the other victims. We estimate that he died between eight and eight-thirty yesterday evening.’

Rana moved to the window and stared at the screen of her com-board, reading through her notes on the other killings. She knew that somewhere among the morass of data and evidence were the facts that would lead to the solution of the puzzle. They would not leap out at her, but had to be considered minutely from every angle.

She looked up from the board. ‘Sir.’

Vishwanath lowered his own board. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘It just occurred to me. The scenes of the crimes - there is a link.’

Across the room, she noticed Naz look up with irritable curiosity.

Vishwanath fingered the touch-pad of his com-board, frowned at the screen. ‘I don’t see . . .’

Rana wondered whether she had been mistaken in mentioning this. ‘Well, the connection is tenuous, to say the least. There were three hotels, three parks, a public toilet, a nature reserve and a golf course.’

‘And the connection, Lieutenant?’

‘None of the victims was killed at home or at their offices. Maybe—’

She stopped. She had just called up a street map of the city, and positioned the crime scenes on the map. She stared at the screen of her com-board.

‘What is it, Lieutenant?’

Silently, Rana held out her com-board to Vishwanath, who considered the revealed pattern on the street map. The locations of the murders, joined like a dot-to-dot, formed a crucifix spanning the city limits of Calcutta.

‘So, it looks like they’re connected, Lieutenant.’ Vishwanath paused, staring at the screen. He handed it back to her. ‘What do you notice about the crucifix?’

She stared at the cross, laid over the city on a roughly north-south axis. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry . . .’

‘It isn’t complete. Look - the vertical bar is made up of six points. The lateral bar comprises two points to the left, but only one to the right. There is a point missing, to the right.’ He stabbed a forefinger at the place where the next point should logically follow. ‘A region of slums to the east of the city, Lieutenant. If our killer has a symmetrical mind, then perhaps this is where he will strike next.’

‘And if he isn’t symmetrical,’ Rana added, ‘then it might be anywhere at these three points, north, south or west.’

‘I’ll have patrols concentrate on those areas,’ Vishwanath said. He stared at the screen. ‘Also, for the killer to form this crucifix suggests that he arranged to meet his victims at the various locations. It’s hardly likely that he’d just happen upon people he considered evil-doers at these points. Which suggests that he must have known, or at the very least had contact with, the victims to arrange a meeting.’

Rana nodded. ‘I’ll run checks and interviews with the victims’ contacts to see if they received calls from a common acquaintance.’

‘Excellent, Lieutenant.’ He gave a slight smile, and Rana felt as if she had received a medal of honour from the president himself.

Ten minutes later Vishwanath decided that they had done all they could at the scene of the crime. The body was loaded on to a stretcher and taken away, the room sealed for a more thorough forensic examination later.

As they left the room, Vishwanath said to Naz, ‘I want you to stay here, Lieutenant. Interview the staff. The usual routine. Download the file to my terminal by noon.’

Naz saluted, trying not to let his disappointment show at being given the donkey work.

Vishwanath and Rana descended in the elevator, moved through the crowd still gathered outside the entrance and climbed into the squad car.

Rana’s shift was due to end shortly after she arrived back at headquarters. She spent a further hour making her report, downloaded it to Vishwanath, and asked if she could leave. She was tired after the long shift and the mental effort of collating her report. Seconds later the reply flashed on her com-screen: ‘Off you go, Lieutenant. Well done.’

She took the elevator down to the ground floor and paused on the steps. She recalled her earlier resolution to visit Vandita and the other kids when her shift ended. But the sun was rising, burning up the grey mist of dawn, and the kids would be up and at work by now. She would call on them tomorrow.

She left the police headquarters and began the short walk home through the rapidly increasing heat of another Calcutta day.

* * * *

9

Bennett and Mackendrick were checking supplies and equipment in the cargo hold when the Cobra gave a sudden jolt. The sensation of riding an elevator indicated that the floor of the repair pit was rising to meet the deck of the spaceport. Bennett grabbed the tail-gate of the open-topped transporter, swaying with the motion.

‘If that’s it down here we’ll join Ten,’ Mackendrick said.

They took the lift-plate to the upper deck, standing side by side in silence. Mackendrick was wearing a black flight-suit, so tight that it shrink-wrapped his thin frame, emphasising his prominent rib-cage and scooped pelvis. Since learning of the tycoon’s illness, Bennett had never been able to look at Mackendrick without thinking that soon, perhaps within a year, the man would be dead. He wondered how one could go on living with the knowledge that death was imminent. He thought of his father, and how he had coped with the fact of his approaching end. Then he realised that right at this minute, in Mojave Town, the remains of his father were being interred in the grave garden. He recalled his father’s eyes, as he died, accusing him, and he felt a sudden and painful stab of guilt.

The flight-deck was finished in ubiquitous regulation black: jet carpet, couches and curving walls, the better for the pilots to apprehend the dozens of illuminated readouts and screens. Through the delta viewscreen Bennett watched a tug reverse towards the nose of the Cobra, engage grabs and take the weight of the ship. Slowly they trundled forward, past the terminal building, towards the vacant blast-pad and posse of waiting technicians and mechanics.