Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“No,” Greg said curtly.

“Shame about that.”

“Yeah.”

Vernon held up his police-issue cybofax. “I asked the lab to re-run tests on the samples Beswick supplied.”

“And?”

“No trace of scopolamine, or any other drug. The boy’s blood chemistry is perfectly balanced.”

“OK, it was just a thought.”

“I asked the lab people about scopolamine. You think Beswick made himself forget the murder?”

“It’s one option, because he certainly doesn’t remember. There must be a reason. What about his medical records?”

Vernon handed over the cybofax. Greg skipped down the datasheet it was displaying. There wasn’t much; the usual childhood illnesses, chicken pox, mumps; a bad dose of flu when he was five; a sprained ankle at eleven. The last entry was a routine health check when he started university: again perfectly clean. Nicholas Beswick was a healthy, ordinary young man.

“Bugger,” Greg mumbled.

“Anything there throw any light on the problem?” Vernon asked.

“No, not a bloody thing.”

“Didn’t think there was.” He beckoned. “This is Sergeant Keith Willet,” he said as his companion came forward. “Been at Oakham quite a while now.”

Greg shook hands comfortably. The sergeant was wearing white shirtsleeves and shorts, regulation black tie in a tiny knot. He was in his early fifties, with the kind of hardened patience that said he’d just about seen it all, If he’d been in the army he would have been perfect sergeant-major material.

“You were here during the PSP years?” Greg asked.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Twenty years’ service in Oakham now”

“You might have been right about Launde,” Vernon told Greg. “Though I still don’t see how this fits in with Kitchener’s murder.”

Greg looked at Willet. “You remembered something about the Abbey?”

“Yes, sir. There was a girl drowned in one of the lakes in Launde Park.”

“Shit, yeah!” Now he remembered. It had been on a local datatext channel, quite a few years ago. The report had gone on to say that the police were questioning the Abbey’s other residents about the accident. At the time he had assumed it was the start of a PSP campaign against Edward Kitchener.

Anything like that had interested him in those days; someone as prominent as Kitchener would have made a tremendous addition to the underground opposition. But nothing had ever come of it.

The detectives had all turned to stare at his exclamation.

Greg ignored them. “Can you remember her name?” he asked.

“Clarissa Wynne,” Willet said. “She was one of Dr Kitchener’s students.”

The name didn’t mean anything. “When was this?”

“About ten years ago, sir. Can’t say exactly.”

“Do you remember anything about the case?”

Willet glanced at Langley. He nodded, albeit with a trace of reluctance. Greg wondered what had been said before he arrived.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid I do. We were ordered to shut it down, straight away, enter a verdict of accidental death. It came direct from the Ministry of Public Order.”

“Jesus, the PSP wanted it kept quiet? Why?”

“I’ve no idea, sir.”

“Was it an accidental death?”

Willet took his time answering. Greg sensed the disquiet in his mind, a real conflict raging. It was almost as though he was confessing a sin, relieved and shamed at the same time.

“The detective in charge was unhappy about the order. The girl had been drinking, but he thought it was more than student high-jinks that had gone wrong. But there was nothing he could do, certainly not launch an investigation. London said frog, and we all hopped. That was all we ever did in those days.”

“Who was the detective?”

Willet gazed straight at him. “Maurice Knebel, sir.” said Greg. Maurice Knebel was the major reason Oakham’s police force had such poor relations with the local community. In the last two years of the PSP decade, when it was obvious to everyone else that the Party was faltering, Maurice Knebel had done his best to maintain their authority in Rutland, sending out the People’s Constables at the smallest provocation. He epitomized the petty-minded apparatchik, blindly following the Party line, the kind who had inflicted almost as much damage on President Armstrong as the urban predators themselves. He was on the Inquisitor’s top fifty wanted list. Notoriety of sorts. Nobody had seen him since the night the PSP fell. He had escaped the station minutes before the mob arrived, high on the deadly scent of freedom and vengeance. Not all the People’s Constables had been so lucky.

“I didn’t even know he was a genuine detective,” Greg said.

“Yes, sir, started out a regular officer. He didn’t go bad until later.”

“How much later?”

“Sir?”

“You said he was upset about being ordered to close the book on the drowned girl. Was he a Party member then?”

“I think so. But he wasn’t fanatical back in those days. He saw joining the Party as a way to promotion. It was the last three years, after he was appointed as the station’s political officer, that’s when the real trouble began.”

“OK, fine, I appreciate your help.”

“Sir.” He left the CID office, visibly relieved.

“Well?” Langley asked.

The detectives were still watching him, waiting for the verdict. The psychic’s pronouncement.

“Why on earth would the PSP want to hush up a girl student’s death? Kitchener wasn’t exactly one of their own.”

“You think Kitchener killed her?” Langley asked. He thought of that white-haired old man watching Isabel undress. The picture he’d built up from all the students, Ranasfari, the worship they awarded him. A larger than life character, capable of both disgraceful roguishness and unselfish charity. “No, I don’t. Let’s have a look at the coroner’s report. I suppose it’ll be a whitewash, but there may be something in it.”

Langley rubbed awkwardly at his chin. The detectives were all abruptly occupied at their work again.

“Sorry, Greg, we can’t do that.”

“I thought my Home Office authorization is still valid.”

“It is,” he said drily. “But the local coroner’s office has the same problem we do. The hotrods crashed their memory core when Armstrong was ousted. There are no records left for the PSP years.”

“They crashed a coroner’s office? What the hell for? Coroners weren’t anything to do with the PSP.”

“I’ve no idea. Perhaps they regarded all officialdom as the same:

That familiar cold electric charge compressed his spine.

And the gland was barely active. He almost smiled, despite the worry. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Intuition.” He turned to the group of detectives. “Amanda, would you run a check through the Home Office for me? I want to know how many other coroner’s offices were burnt by the hotrods when the PSP fell.”

She nodded and sat behind one of the desks, activating its terminal.

“Look, Greg”-Langley was trying for the reasonable approach-”I really appreciate your help in finding the knife. But Clarissa Wynne’s death is hardly relevant.”

“Two deaths in the same community, the first one questionable, the second one bizarre. They’re connected, no messing.”

“How? They’re ten years apart.”

“If I knew more about Clarissa Wynne I might be able to tell you.”

“I can hardly expand the Kitchener case to cover her death. For a start there isn’t a single byte on her remaining. We don’t even know what she looked like.”

“Yeah.” He let instinct drive him. Important, the girl’s death was important. “Tell you, we’re going to have to rectify that.”