Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Greg calling, apologetic but firm, ruled by duty. Idiot, she’d answered; trying to disguise a jumble of secret worries and heart-wrenching concern with stiff resolution. He respected toughness. Both refusing to yield.

He’d promised, she’d told him, promised solemnly. But he’d shaken his head, saying it wasn’t like that. She’d cried herself to sleep, imagining terrible things happening on the di Girolamo yacht.

How silly it all seemed now. Words spoken, never meant.

Eleanor gave Rusty a submissive thumbs up and headed for the surface, too weary to rush, a few wriggles with her flippers every couple of metres keeping her ascent steady. Rusty orbited her laggardly.

The hireboats had all returned to the fishing lodge at Whitwell, away down the other prong of the reservoir. Even the windsurfers had packed up. The Berrybut estate’s bonfire was sending flames shooting into the neutral sky, a spectre-light swarm of sparks lingering above the rectangular clearing in the still air.

Rusty insinuated himself between her legs, and she hugged his dorsal fin gratefully. The ride back to the shore was nothing like the usual turbulent dash. A slow smooth glide. Now why couldn’t people be like dolphins-sympathetic, gentle, perennially happy. Magnificent creatures.

The sun had fallen behind a pearl crescent horizon piled high with lacy clouds when Rusty let her off. She stroked his head and bent to kiss him. Rusty would understand. He chittered wildly and sank below the surface, suddenly leaping up again five metres away, twisting in midair and landing with an almighty splash. She laughed, first time all day.

The pebbles on the drying mud cut into her feet as she walked out of the water, her skin like soft crinkled putty after such a long immersion. It’d been midday when she’d begun harvesting. Greg had sworn he’d be back by early morning. Eleanor had waited until lunchtime for him to return, then her tolerance had snapped, and she’d dived into the water, sulky and furious.

Duncan was fire warden this evening. He lived two chalets down from number six. Eleanor stopped to say hello, letting the bonfire’s ruddy furnace heat dry her puckered skin, welcoming the warmth permeating through her limbs. Duncan gave her a couple of baked potatoes out of the raw clay oven-tunnel which ran through the heart of the bonfire, eyeing her chest as the flames threw liquid orange ripples across the dull-sparkle nylon of her one-piece costume. She thanked him, straight-faced, and juggled the hot potatoes back to the chalet. Duncan was sweet. And his covert schoolboy glances started her thinking about how she and Greg could spend the evening making up.

The Duo hadn’t returned. Eleanor almost dropped the potatoes. Greg had been gone for thirty hours now. No matter how big their row he wouldn’t have done that without telling her.

She dumped the mirror lung and the potatoes on the porch, blipping the lock. Inside, and the snug familiarity of the little lounge offered no comfort at all. She activated the Event Horizon terminal, loading Greg’s cybofax number.

The delay warned her. Connections never took more than a second. After fifteen seconds the flatscreen printed: THE UNIT YOU HAVE CALLED IS CURRENTLY OUTSIDE EUROCOM’S INTERFACE ZONE.

Now the dark worry she’d held back really began to mount.

She didn’t even hesitate before loading Gabriel’s number.

THE UNIT YOU HAVE CALLED IS CURRENTLY OUTSIDE EUROCOM’S INTERFACE ZONE.

The heartflutter of panic didn’t come from fear, it was not knowing what to do next. Instinct cried out to call the police. But snatching that Katerina girl was incredibly illegal. Eleanor wondered if they’d got caught, flung into prison. She could hardly ask. Then she remembered Gabriel had been with him all the time. Nothing could go wrong with Gabriel there to provide advance warning. A doddle, he’d said, a late, lame attempt to reassure her.

Then why wasn’t he back here, her cold mind screamed silently. The ludicrous notion of him running off with Gabriel intruded. Dismissed instantly. She thought for a second, then raced for the bedroom and her cupboard. The Trinities would know-maybe where he was, certainly what to do next.

The card Royan had given her was still in her bag. She showed it to the terminal, praying. The flatscreen remained blank, but she heard scuffling sounds from the speaker.

“Yeah?” The voice was male, flat and uninterested.

“I want to speak to Teddy-Father.”

“No shit?”

“Now!”

Eleanor thought she’d blown it, there was only aching silence. Cursing her brittle nerves.

The screen cleared to show Teddy’s face. “Eleanor, right? What’s up, gal?”

She let out a sob of relief.

Teddy’s frown grew as she explained. She wondered if she was coming over like a hysterical jilted girl. He had to realize how important this was.

“Greg didn’t leave any message for you at all?” Teddy asked when she finished. And he was taking it seriously. Her confidence rose a fraction; she wasn’t alone any more.

“None.”

“That ain’t right,” Teddy said. “Greg would always cover himself, standard procedure. And Gabriel’s cybofax is dead too?”

“Yes; at least, English Telecom says both of them are outside the satellite footprint.”

Teddy paused for a moment. “OK, my people left ‘em going into the Event Horizon finance division office. I can’t believe the company would waste ‘em. They knew they could trust Greg, and it ain’t that sort’ve deal anyway. Sides, they let my people get clear. Thing that bothers me is Gabriel. She’s like invincible, you know?” He started typing on his terminal keyboard, looking at something off camera. Unintelligible voices stuttered in the background. “OK, I want you to call that Morgan Walshaw guy for me. You’ll get shoved around by secretaries and the like, don’t take no shit. Insist on speaking to him, Him only. Ask him if he knows where Greg is. Then call me right back; you’ll get straight through this time. I’m gonna see what I can find out about Gabriel, if she ever got back.”

“How?”

Teddy’s face melted into a fast keen grin. “I got friends everywhere.”

“Oh.” She felt foolish asking.

“Eleanor, you did good calling me, gal. We’ll get him back for you.”

And he was gone before she could thank him.

Eleanor tugged on a silk blouse before she called Event Horizon, respectable from the waist up, twisting damp hair into a pony tail. Morgan Walshaw’s number was in the terminal’s memory core.

The screen lit with a polite-looking young man in a neat powder-blue business suit.

Eleanor swallowed. “This is Mandel Investigative Services,” she said. “I’m returning Mr Walshaw’s call on a case we’re covering for him.”

He shrugged; friendly, she thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t reach Mr Walshaw at the moment.”

“If you check you’ll see our company is cleared for direct access.”

“Hey, I’m not giving you the run-around, not someone as pretty as you. Mr Walshaw really is out of touch.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“Very. There’s some big glitch in our communications net right now, really shot it up. It’s headless-chicken chaos around here at the moment.”

“I see.” But she wasn’t sure she believed.

“Listen, if it’s really urgent why don’t I call you back as soon as the glitch has been debugged? We’ve got Mandel Investigative Services number on file. Who shall I ask for?”

“Eleanor, Eleanor Broady.”

“Pleased to meet you Eleanor, I’m Bernard Murton.”

“That’s very kind of you to offer, Bernard. Have you any idea how long it’ll take to debug this glitch?”

“Nope, sorry.” He smiled ingratiatingly. She wondered if he’d have enough courage to ask her out for a drink. Struck by how bizarre this all was, being chatted up by a randy assistant while God knows what was happening to Greg. Sliding her mind back on to the problem.