The Mandel Files (67 page)

“I am ex-Mindstar,” Greg said deferentially. “My gland gives me an empathic ability, I know when people are lying. Somebody once described me as a truthflnder.”

“A truthfinder? Is that so? I’ve heard you spent a lot of time in Peterborough after Mindstar was demobbed.”

“Yeah.”

“They say you killed fifty People’s Constables.”

“Oh, no.”

Langley’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Greg couldn’t resist it. “More like eighty,”

The detective grunted. “Had a lot of experience solving murders, have you, Mandel?”

“No. None at all.”

“Twenty-three years I’ve been in the force now. I even stuck it out in the PSP years.” He waved a hand airily as Eleanor shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Mandel, the Inquisitors cleared me of any complicity with the Party. That’s why I was posted here from Grantham, a lot of Oakham’s officers failed that particular test. Not politically sound, you see. Well, not as far as this government is concerned.”

“I wonder if Edward Kitchener cares what political colour the investigating officers are,” Eleanor said.

Langley gave her a long look, then sighed in defeat. “You’re quite right, of course, Mrs Mandel. Please excuse me. I have spent the last four days and nights trying to find this maniac. And for all my efforts, I have got exactly nowhere. So tempers in this office are likely to be a little frayed this morning. I apologize in advance for any sharp answers you may receive. Nothing personal.”

“I didn’t know the Home Office had told you I was in charge,” Greg said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s still your investigation. I really am just a specialist.”

“Sure, thanks,” said Langley.

Greg decided to press on. It was obvious there wouldn’t be the usual small talk, the getting-to-know-you session. He’d just have to do what he could. “The press reports said Kitchener was butchered, is that true?”

“Yes. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was a ritualistic killing. Satan worship, a pagan sacrifice, something like that. It was utter barbarism. His chest was split open, lungs spread out on either side of his head. We have holograms if you want an in situ review.”

“Not at the moment,” Greg said. “Why would anybody go to that much trouble?”

Langley gestured emptily. “Who knows? I meet some evil bastards in this job. But Kitchener’s murderer is beyond me, that kind of mind is in a class of its own. Nobody knows what makes someone like that tick. To be honest, it frightens me, the fact that they can walk around pretending to be human for ninety-nine per cent of the time. I suppose you can spot one straight off?”

“Maybe,” Greg said. “If I knew what to look for.”

“Whoever he is, he’s not entirely original. It was a copy-cat method.”

“Copy cat?”

“This spreading the lungs gimmick; Liam Bursken used to do it.”

Greg frowned, the name was familiar.

“He was a serial killer, wasn’t he?” Eleanor said.

“That’s right, he roamed Newark picking people at random off the streets then butchering them. The press called him the Viking. He murdered eleven victims in five months. But that was six years ago. Now he really was psychopathic, a total loon. Newark was like a city under siege until he was caught. People refused to go out after dusk. There were vigilante groups patrolling the streets, fighting with People’s Constables. Nasty business.”

“Where is he now?” Greg asked.

“HMP Stocken Hall, the Clinical Detention Centre where they keep the really dangerous cases. Locked away in the maximum security wing for the rest of time.”

“That’s close,” Greg murmured. He conjured up a mental map of the area. Stocken Hall was only about fifteen kilometres from Launde Abbey as the crow flies.

“Give me some credit. I did check, Mandel. Bursken was there four nights ago. They won’t even take him out of the Centre if he gets ill; the doctors have to visit him.”

“There is no such thing as coincidence.” Greg smiled apologetically. “OK. It wasn’t Bursken. You say you haven’t got a suspect yet? Surely you must have some idea.”

“None at all.” The detective slumped further back into his chair. “Embarrassing for us, really. Considering there are only six possible culprits. A neat solution, somebody we could charge quickly, would have been the best thing that could have happened to this station. Not the town’s favourite sons, we are.” He flicked a finger at Amanda Paterson. “And daughters, of course. As it is, I can’t even go outside to that pack of jackals and say I hope to make an arrest in the near future.”

“Who are the six possibles?”

“Kitchener’s students. And a bigger bunch of wallies you’ve never seen; bright kids, but they’re plugged into some other universe the whole time. Typical student types, naive and fashionably rebellious. They were the only ones in Launde Abbey at the time. The Abbey’s security system memory showed no one else sneaked in, and it’s all top-grade gear. But I’m not just relying on that as evidence. It was a nasty storm the night Kitchener was murdered, remember?”

“Yeah,” Greg said. He remembered the day of Roy Collister’s lynch mob.

Langley climbed to his feet, and went over to the big flatscreen on the rear wall. “Jon Nevin will show you what I mean. He’s been checking out all the possible access routes to the Abbey.”

One of the other detectives stood up; in his late twenties, thinning black hair shaved close, a narrow face with a long nose that had been broken at some time. He made an effort to rein back on his hostility as Greg and Eleanor trailed after Langley.

The map was centred on Launde Park, an irregular patch coloured a phosphorescent pink. A tall column of seven-digit numbers had been superimposed alongside. From the scale, Greg judged the park had an area of about a square kilometre; he hadn’t quite realized how remote it was, situated half-way up the side of the Chater valley. A lone road bisecting the valley was its only link with the outside world.

Nevin tapped a finger on the little black rectangle which represented the Abbey. His face registered total uninterest. If he’d still been in the army, Greg would have called it dumb insolence.

“Because of its isolated position we don’t believe anyone could have got to Launde Abbey at any time after six o’clock last Thursday afternoon,” Nevin recited in a dull tone.

“What time was Kitchener killed?” Greg asked.

“Approximately four-thirty on Friday morning,” Langley said. “Give or take fifteen minutes. Certainly not before four.”

“The storm arrived at Launde Abbey at about five p.m. On Thursday,” Nevin said. His hand traced northwards along the road outside the Abbey. “We estimate the bridge over the River Chater was submerged by six, completely unpassable. The rainfall was very heavy around here, fifteen centimetres according to the meteorological office at RAP Cottesmore.

Basically, that bridge is just a couple of big concrete-pipe sections with earth and stone shovelled on top; it’s a very minor road, even by the last century’s standards.

“That just leaves us the route to the south. The road goes up over the brow of the valley, and into Loddington; but there is a fork just outside Loddington which leads away to Belton. So in order to get on to the road to Launde you have to go through either Loddington or Belton.”

Greg studied the villages; they were tiny, smaller than Hambleton. Long columns of code numbers were strung out beside them. He could see where Nevin was leading. They were small insular farming communities, and anything out of the ordinary—strangers, unknown vehicles—would become a talking-point for weeks. He pointed to the thin roads that led to Launde Park. “What sort of condition are these roads in?” he asked.

“The map is deceptive,” Nevin admitted. He swept his hand over the web of yellow lines covering the land to the west of Oakham; it was a bleak stretch of countryside, furrowed with twisting valleys and steeply rounded hills. A few lonely farmhouses were dotted about, snug in the lee of depressions. “All these minor roads are down to farm tracks in most places. Some stretches are completely overgrown, you have to be a local to know where to drive.”

“And you’re saying nobody went through Loddington or Belton after six o’clock on Thursday?” Eleanor asked.

“That’s right, there wasn’t even any local traffic,” Jon Nevin said. “Everybody was battened down before the storm began. We did a house-to-house enquiry in both Loddington and Belton.” He pointed at the columns of numbers. “These are our file codes for the statements; you can review them if you want, we interviewed everybody. You see, the streets in both villages are very narrow, and if any vehicle had gone through the residents would have known.”

Eleanor shrugged acceptance, and gave him a warm smile. The detective couldn’t maintain his air of indifference under those circumstances. Greg pretended not to notice.

Langley went and sat behind the nearest desk, hooking an arm over the back of the chair. “In any case, the important thing is, we know for a fact that nobody came out of the valley between six o’clock Thursday evening and six o’clock Friday morning. The murderer was there when we arrived.”

“How do you figure that?” Greg asked.

“The Chater bridge was still under water until midday Friday. That just leaves the south road again. If you were coming out of the valley, you had to use it.

“The students called us from the Abbey at five-forty on Friday morning. It was Jon here and a couple of uniforms who responded. They took a car down to the Abbey just after six.”

We were the first to use that road after the storm finished,” Nevin said, “and we had a lot of trouble. It was covered in fresh mud from the rains, and it was absolutely pristine. No tyre tracks. I was very careful to check. And you couldn’t cut across country, not with the ground in that state, it was saturated; even your EMC Ranger would sink in up to the hubcaps. The only people in that valley when Kitchener was killed were his students.”

Greg checked the map again, and decided they were probably right about the roads. He thought about how he would go about killing Kitchener. There had been enough similar missions in Turkey. Covert penetrations, tracking down enemy officers, eliminating them without fuss, stealing away afterwards, leaving the Legion troops unnerved by their blatant vulnerability. An old man confined in a verified location would be an easy target.

“What about aircraft?” he asked.

Langley let out a soft snort. “I checked with the CAA and the RAE. There was nothing flying around the Chater valley early Friday morning, nor Thursday evening for that matter.”

“Can we shift this focus to show the rest of the Chater valley?” Greg asked.

“Yes,” Langley said. He waved permission to Nevin. The detective started to tap out instructions on a desk terminal. After a minute the map blinked out altogether, and he cursed.

Amanda Paterson joined him at the terminal.

“This is how it goes here,” Langley said, half to himself. “I don’t suppose your Home Office contact considered allocating us a decent equipment budget as well?”

“I doubt it.”

He curled up a corner of his mouth in resignation.

The map reappeared, flickering for a moment, then steadied and slowly traversed east to west until Launde Park touched the left-hand edge of the flatscreen.

“Is that all right?” Paterson asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” Greg said. He tracked the River Chater out of Launde Park towards the east. It was almost a straight course. Further down from Launde, the floor of the valley was crossed by a few minor roads, but essentially it was empty until he reached Ketton, twenty kilometres away. “If it was me,” Greg said, his eyes still on the map, “I would use a military microlight to fly in. You could launch anywhere west of Ketton, and cruise up the river, keeping your altitude below the top of the valley to avoid radar.”

The detectives glanced about uncertainly.

“A microlight?” Langley said. His mild tone betrayed a strong scepticism.

“No messing. The Westland ghost wing was the best ever made, by my reckoning anyway. They had a high reliability, a minute radar return, and they manoeuvred like a dream. Nobody could hear it from the ground once you were above a hundred metres; and you glided down to a landing.” His fingernail made a light click as he touched the screen above Launde Park. “The gradient of the slopes around the Abbey would be ideal for an unpowered launch afterwards.”

They were all staring at him, humour and contempt leached away.

“The winds,” Eleanor said matter-of-factly into the silence.

“Yeah. They could be a problem, certainly right after that storm. We’d have to check with RAF Cottesmore, see what speeds they were around here.”

“This is somewhat fanciful, isn’t it?” Langley asked mildly.

“Somebody killed him, and you say it wasn’t any of the people who were there.”

“We haven’t proved any of them did it,” Nevin countered.

“But we’re still interviewing them.”

“Even if someone did fly in like you say,” Paterson said, ‘they still had to get past the Abbey’s security system.”

“If a hardline tekmerc had been contracted to snuff Kitchener, he would go in loaded with enough ‘ware to burn through the security system without leaving a trace.”

“A tekmerc?” Langley asked. Disbelief was thick in his voice.

“Yeah. I take it you have drawn up a list of people who disliked Kitchener? From what I remember, he was a prickly character.”

“There are a few academics who have clashed with him publicly,” Nevin said cautiously. “But I don’t think a grudge over different physics theories would extend to this. Everyone acknowledged he was a genius, they made allowances for his behaviour.”

Greg looked round at the stony faces circling him. He had entertained the notion, absurdly guileless now, he realized, that he would be welcomed by a team who would be delighted to have his psi faculty at their disposal. He wasn’t expecting to be taken out for beers and a meal afterwards, but at least that way he could have approached the case with some enthusiasm. All Langley’s dispirited squad could offer was a long uphill yomp.

“Did any of you know that Kitchener was working on a research project for Event Horizon?” he asked.