Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Embraced by the warmth and folds of shadow he had learned to cast off reticence, taking his lead from her. Eleanor didn’t care, wasn’t ashamed. Maybe rampancy was a gift of youth, or just part of her nature. So he was free to lose himself in the feast of sensuality, the feel of her body. Long powerful legs wrapped round him, big breasts weighed down his hands. He sucked on an erect nipple, caressed her belly. A tiny neurohormone secretion showed him her body’s reactions, which action brought the greatest rapture. The material world faded to dream silhouettes, revealing Eleanor’s nerve strands alive with neon-blue light, her naked excitement. He slid inside her, a drawn-out penetration accompanied by her fervid groan, and joined her at the centre of that blazing animal euphoria.

But afterwards intuition, or possibly plain confusion, played hell inside his skull and he couldn’t let go of the case. He lay back on the crumpled sheeting, hands behind his head, staring up at the shivers of firelight on the ceiling. Snapshots of Launde, the students, Kitchener, police reports, they all chased across his consciousness in endless procession, sharp-edged and insistent.

“So much for my prowess,” Eleanor grumbled softly.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“No.”

“Sorry.”

“This really has got you bothered, hasn’t it?” She sounded more concerned than annoyed. “You were never so intense about a case before, at least not since I’ve known you.”

He rolled on to his side, his face centimetres from hers.

Warm breath gusted over his cheeks. “Tell you, what I don’t understand, what’s really got me beaten, is why bother?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is the point of murdering an old man in such a grotesque fashion? Even if one of the students had murdered Kitchener, it wouldn’t be like that. You’ve read the statements, what happened when they found him. They were having fits. And I don’t blame them, that hologram was bad enough. I’m bloody sure I couldn’t do it, not like that. A maser beam through the brain, quick and clean, yes. But who could do that to someone else? Like Cecil Cameron said, it was one sick fucker.”

“Sick enough for you to perceive with your espersense?”

“I would have thought so. That’s one of the reasons I want to visit Liam Bursken tomorrow, so I know what mental characteristics to look out for.”

“Urgh.” She shivered slightly. “You’re welcome to him. Even in the kibbutz we heard about him.”

“Yeah, he was notorious enough. But he was mad. He didn’t have a reason for killing. Somebody had a reason for killing Kitchener. And a lot of preparation went into it. But I just don’t understand why the tekmerc used that method.

It can’t be an attempt to throw us off the scent, because even the police were convinced it wasn’t one of the students. And that was before my interviews backed up their alibis. So why bother? Why not just send a sniper into Launde Park on a clear night? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Her forefinger traced a line from the corner of his eye to his mouth. He sucked the tip gently.

“Like you said; this tekmerc is good,” Eleanor said. “The snuff was done this way for a purpose. We don’t have all the facts yet, that’s why it seems so weird.”

“Yeah. Paradox alley, and no messing.” He frowned, trying to remember some scrap of conversation; word association was involved. “Hey, do you know what CTCs are?”

“Aren’t they the things which helped to screw up the ozone?”

“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

Eleanor’s finger had reached his chin, she tickled his stubble. “Who?”

“Nicholas Beswick.”

“The wimpy one?”

“He’s not wimpy, just very innocent. You’d probably like him. Trigger your maternal instinct.”

She made a fist and rapped on his sternum. “Chauvinist!”

“Parental instinct, then. I went easy on him; anything else would have seemed like bullying. It was like coaxing answers out of a ten-year-old.”

“But you were hard enough to be sure it wasn’t him.”

“Oh yeah, no room for ambiguity… except, the sensor data was questionable.”

“In what way?”

“He said he had a shower about quarter-past seven Thursday evening. And the police gave him a scan at nine o’clock the next morning. He was still quite clean. His body ought to have picked up more dirt than it did in that period.”

“How reliable is that kind of scan?”

“It’s not the scan, that’s perfect; if the body has any contaminants, the sensor will detect them. Vernon told me afterwards they could never take the dirt accumulation record into court, because no one could say how much dirt he would have picked up in that time, not with any degree of certainty. There are far too many variables; where he was, how active he was, how dirty his sheets are, even if his clothes picked up a static charge. They are all contributory factors. But as a general rule of thumb, it should have been more.”

“Did he lie about the time of the shower?”

“No.”

“So he didn’t wash off the bloodstains?”

“No. Actually, he was one of the students who did touch Kitchener. But Cecil Cameron confirms that, it’s in his statement. So that’s not in question.”

“Hmmm.” She placed her hand palm down on his chest and began to stroke him, moving in an expanding circle. “What does your intuition say?”

He leant closer and kissed the end of her nose. “Nothing. Not a bloody thing. You were right. We need more information.”

“In the morning.”

He slipped his hands round her hips, squeezing the taut curve of her buttocks. “No messing.”

The next morning began with a break in the rainclouds. Only a few immobile strips of cirrus were left crouched over the eastern horizon, fluoresced a pale saffron by the rising sun. According to the channel weathercasts, the next stormfront would arrive by teatime.

The A47 into Peterborough was even more snarled up than usual. Scooters were in the majority, the city’s morning shifts on their way to work, riding up to four abreast in the spaces between juggernauts, vans, and company buses. They were used to the traffic, Eleanor wasn’t. By the time she reached the section of road which ran alongside the Ferry Meadows estuary she was shouting at the three riders keeping station two metres ahead of their bonnet The glittery red and blue metallic helmets with their black visors remained unmoved by her diatribe, easily anticipating the surges of the methane-powered van in front of them, braking smoothly. In comparison she seemed to be hopping forwards like a kangaroo. A steady stream of cyclists zipped by on the inside. Infuriating.

Thirteen years ago the raised land to the north of the estuary had been a mix of open countryside and pleasant woodland. Twelve years ago it had been swamped by a slum zone of shanty housing the like of which Europeans had only ever seen in ‘casts from the Third World. Now it was a solid cliff of whitewashed apartment blocks, long balconies dribbling fronds of colourful vegetation from clay pots, washing hanging on lines between support arches. Solar-cell roofs glinted brightly in the morning sun.

Below the concrete embankment the tide was going out, leaving long stains of milk-chocolate mud visible above the sluggish water. A line of artificial stone islands was strung out across the two-kilometre width of the estuary, the eddy turbine barrage, creating vast, slow-moving whirlpools in each gap.

The first time she had ever come to Peterborough-the first time she had ever been to any city-she had accompanied Greg along the same route, visiting the same person. Even two years on, the difference was pronounced. More traffic, more people, more urgency, less tolerance. It was all due to Julia. Event Horizon’s arrival had tweaked the city’s dynamic economy into overdrive. After ten years of copious growth and financial exuberance Peterborough still hadn’t lost its Frontiersville verve. Everybody was on overtime, chasing impossible directives. And they seemed to thrive on the compulsive achiever atmosphere.