Peter Hamilton - Great North Road

Sid was watching the preliminary autopsy report slither across his iris smartcell grid. The neat tabulations on cellular decay and stomach contents were superimposed over the pasta he was twirling onto his fork. Around him the bustle of the station canteen continued apace as people took their lunch break. He ignored it completely as he put the information together in a list he could use. The body had been immersed for barely two hours, which gave them some figures on how far it could have drifted down the Tyne. Which was almost irrelevant compared to the shock that was estimated time of death: the morning of Friday the eleventh, three days ago. A North had been missing for three days and no one had called it in. That wasn’t merely suspicious, realistically it was impossible—and that was downright creepy.

He was beginning to think it was a domestic that had gone horribly wrong. Simple scenario. Some poor girl had found the North was cheating on her (everyone knew they could never keep it in their trousers) and picked up some weird brass ornament in fury, lashing out with typical crime passionelle strength. Explaining the body dumped in the river was a little more tricky. But not impossible, especially if you assumed her family had gang connections; brothers and cousins rushing around to her place and carting the corpse away—oh, and extracting the smartcells, which was a big stretch. She’d be out of town now, having a long weekend break with witness friends and with a little help from a bytehead running up place-and-time-verifiable credit bills. So when she returned at the end of this week—why surprise, her North boyfriend was nowhere to be found. Call the police and put on a worried voice to report it. Yes, Officer, I did think it was a little odd he didn’t call while I was away, but he’s been so busy lately…

Sid munched down some garlic bread as he reviewed the premise. It simply wouldn’t fly, no matter how much he wanted it to. Not even having family gang connections could explain away the missing stealth smartcells. And the murder weapon—the wound didn’t allow for it to simply be a handy objet d’art you picked up in a moment of rage. Which in turn left him a huge problem. Fingerblades that could ram through a rib cage to shred the heart it protected? So far the database search had found nothing that matched. Not even close. No armament manufacturer files, nothing from history. His e-i was constantly expanding the search.

“He needs you on the sixth floor.”

“Huh?” Sid looked up to see Jenson San standing beside the table. “Aye, man, don’t creep up on people like that.”

“I didn’t. You were in a different universe.”

Sid pointed at his eyes. “Autopsy results. It was a strange one, you know.”

“No I don’t, actually. That information is case-coded. And make sure you keep it that way.”

Sid wasn’t sure if that was a bitchslap or not. “I know my responsibilities, man.”

“Come on. He wants you.”

“This is my lunch break.”

“Not anymore.”

“I have a call code, you know.”

Jenson San’s face remained impassive verging on contemptuous. “If the chief constable had wanted to use that he would have. Instead he found out where you were and sent me to collect you. Do you understand, Detective?”

Punching the senior staff representative in the middle of a police canteen probably wasn’t the best idea the day after you return from suspension. Satisfying, though.

Sid took a big bite of garlic and exhaled in Jenson San’s direction. “Lead on, then, man.”

O’Rouke had a corner office on the sixth floor. Of course. Sid hadn’t been in it many times. He could’ve sworn it got bigger each time he did visit.

The chief was sitting behind a broad desk with a wall of screens that were rolling down as Sid walked in. “Out,” he barked at Jenson San. The door closed, and the blue secure seal lit up around it. Both window walls turned opaque.

“What?” Sid exclaimed as O’Rouke glared at him.

“Not you,” O’Rouke admitted. “I’ve just had a message from the Brussels security commissioner himself. This case just became a whole lot more complicated. Access to all data is now restricted to those already working on the case. Nobody else is to be brought in, no external agency work is to be contracted until further notice. It’s been reclassified: Global Restriction.”

“You can crap on that okay. Why?”

“They don’t bother telling me that. All I know is that some specialist supervisor is coming up from London this afternoon to take charge . Fucking Brussels bastards. Take charge! This is my city. No government fuckface comes prancing up here and tells me what goes down on my streets.”

“Augustine must have stuck his oar in. Which is odd, since Aldred said they wouldn’t.”

“This isn’t the Norths. This is something else.”

And Sid could see that not knowing was hurting O’Rouke badly. “Do they want me to close it down?”

“No. That’s the weirdest piece of this crap. You’re to keep going.”

“But if I can’t call in experts when I need them, I can’t get anywhere.”

“I know. Look, Hurst, you’ve built up a shitload of data this morning. Get it all processed and ready for this supervisor dick. He’s the one who’s going to say where the investigation goes. Your priority now is to brief your team and make fucking sure nothing gets out. I’ll send down some network nerds to beef up your systems security.”

“Okay. I’ll get to it.”

“Are you anywhere near a suspect?”

“Chief, we don’t even know who he was yet. And that can’t be right, not for a North.”

“You’ve no idea? None?”

“No. But…”

“What? Give me something, man.”

“Autopsy said he was murdered on Friday.”

O’Rouke gave him a blank look. “So?”

“Friday was when they announced the fusion station contract.”

“Corporate crap,” O’Rouke hissed.

“I don’t know. But that’s a lot of money even for Northumberland Interstellar. And that much money becomes political. Now we’ve got Brussels interested. I’m joining dots, here.”

“Shit. All right, this prick will be here late afternoon, apparently. Keep the team at it until he arrives. And Hurst.”

“Yeah?”

“Be nice to have a name for the dead North when he gets here. Show the arsehole we don’t need him for anything.”

“You got it.”

Sid went back down to the third floor and found the team still busy at their zone consoles. “A new brief for you,” he told them once the secure seal was on. “This is bigger than we originally thought. So big that Brussels has decided to piss off O’Rouke and send an expert over here to take over from me.”

“What have they got that we haven’t?” Eva asked indignantly. “The Norths have given us an unlimited case budget. We can have this solved by tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh,” Sid said. “Ari, Abner, have you got a name for me?”

Abner shook his head diffidently. “Sorry, boss. Not yet.”

“According to the autopsy prelims, the victim was killed on Friday late morning,” Sid told them. “In other words a North has been missing since then and nobody noticed. Come on, people! This was never a normal case to begin with. Now this. So… we carry on correlating our data, open up some fresh lines of inquiry ready to show our new super-detective when he arrives. Get to it, please.”

Sid went over to the consoles where Ari and Abner were working. “Really?” he asked in a low voice. “Nothing? Not even a brother who hasn’t been seen for a while?”