Peter Hamilton - Great North Road

Sid watched for a moment as the examiner and divers attached ropes to the stretcher so the body could be pulled up onto the promenade. He tried to work out if he’d missed anything. The basics had definitely been covered. He was sure of it. Starting the investigation properly . O’Rouke couldn’t have been clearer. In the morning, senior detectives would be moved in to assume command of the case, no doubt aided by a dozen specialist advisers Aldred North would send along from Northumberland Interstellar’s security division. By lunchtime, Sid wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.

The alarm clock’s sharp buzz dragged Sid awake. He groaned and reached out for the snooze button.

“Oh no you don’t.” Jacinta reached over him and caught his roaming hand.

He gave another groan, louder and frustrated. The alarm kept going. “All right, Jesus, pet.” He swung his legs out of the bed. Only then did she agree to release his hand. He brought it down vindictively on the clock, and the wretched noise stopped. He yawned. His eyes were blurry and he felt like he’d had maybe ten minutes’ sleep. The room was cold, even with the regen aircon whirring away behind the ceiling vents.

Jacinta was climbing out on her side of the bed. Sid picked up the clock and held it close to his face—the only way he could make out the glowing green figures.

6:57

“Crap.” He couldn’t stop yawning. His bodymesh had detected waking activity, and waited its preset one minute before activating displays and audio tones. The iris smartcells then unfolded a pantheon of ghosts across his sight, which was their basic icon grid.

“What time did you get in?” Jacinta asked. She was giving him a puzzled look. He managed to give her a weak grin in return, enjoying the sight of her. Jacinta was only three years younger than him, but she aged oh-so-much better. The dark hair was shorter now than when they had met back in London, but still as lush, and always wild this time in the morning. Her figure was similar to those days, too, slimmer than anyone who’d had two children should reasonably expect. That was all down to determination in abundance. With fat expelled and muscles toned by solid, regular gymwork—gymwork that she was pointing out more and more would stop his recent upward weight-creep—she was enticingly fit. But it was her complexion that really belied her age, as she’d kept a clear skin that seemed to defy wrinkles. Fair enough, he thought, given that half her surgical nurse’s salary was spent on creams, lotions, pharmaceutical gels, and many, many other products from that section of the department store where real men fear to tread.

Sharp green eyes peered at him as the first of the hair clips went in. “Well?”

“About three thirty,” he admitted.

“Aw, pet! Why? What happened?” Suddenly she was all sympathy again.

“I got a one-oh-one.”

“No! Your first night back? That’s bad luck.”

“Worse,” he admitted. “Not to be shouted about at work, okay, but it was a North.”

“Crap on that,” she breathed in astonishment.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “O’Rouke will take me off it about a minute into the morning shift.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah. This has to be a perfect investigation.”

“You can do that,” she said immediately, and with not a little indignation.

“Yes.” That was the shame of it: He knew he really could handle the investigation, and handle it well. In fact, he rather relished the challenge, half the night having been spent formulating a case strategy ready to begin as soon as the morning shift arrived at work. That was the thing with a career-killer—done right it could be a career-maker just as easily. “But I’m only six hours back into the job.”

She gave him a significant look. “Aye, pet, but let’s not forget why, okay? The Norths will want someone they know is good.”

“Whatever…”

Loud thumps from the landing, followed by an outraged shout, announced the morning struggle between William and Zara for the bathroom. Will was abruptly banging on the door, yelling at his younger sister to let him in. “I canna wait, you cow,” he yelled.

Her contemptuous response was muffled.

“You’ll have to take them to school for me,” Sid announced quickly, hoping it would get overlooked in the general morning chaos.

“No bloody way!” Jacinta exclaimed. “We agreed. I’ve got a full cardio replacement booked for this morning. Top-money vat-grown heart with DNA screening and everything. Her insurance pays full whack and bonus to theater staff.”

“I’ve been dumped a one-oh-one with a North.”

“You just said you’ll be taken straight off.”

“Oh away wi’ ya, pet!”

She laughed contemptuously at his attempt to speak Geordie. “My theater has been in the diary since before Christmas.”

“But—”

Out on the landing there was another fast exchange of heated insults as Zara came out of the bathroom and Will rushed in.

“It’s their first day back at school,” Jacinta said. “You’d let them go alone? In this weather? What kind of father is that?”

“It’s not like they’re just starting there.” Sid knew it was coming; she knew it, too. It was down to who broke first.

Him… of course.

“Can’t you call Debra?”

She threw her hands up. “She’ll start bloody charging us, she’s like a taxi service for our kids these days.”

“We do it for hers.”

“Aye, when there’s a month with a z in it.”

He gave her the firm-bordering-on-exasperation look. Because that made so much difference when you’ve been married for eleven years. “I’ll call,” Jacinta said with a sigh. “Given as how you’re so scared of her.”

“I am not—”

“But we’ll need to have them around to dinner. To say thanks, an’ all.”

“Oh, not John for a whole evening? If boring was a sport he’d be trans-space champion.”

“Are you taking them to school, or do you want me to make the call?”

Sid growled and shook his head furiously. “Make the call.”

Even now, with Will eight years old and Zara six, Sid still couldn’t quite get his head around seeing them in their school uniforms. They were babies, far too young to be wrenched out of the house each day. Yet there they were at breakfast, looking impossibly smart in dark red sweaters and blue shirts, like miniaturized adults.

Sid busied himself making the porridge, checking the certification seals before opening the packets. There had been talk down at the station about companies slipping unregulated batches into their processing plants, importing them from some of the settled worlds where organic verification was non-existent and cash was supreme. Nothing you’d ever find out about on the licensed news.

“Why is Debra taking us to school this morning?” Zara asked as Jacinta tried to brush her long hair into some kind of order.

“Both of us are busy, pet. Sorry,” Sid told her. The pan on the induction hob was boiling too strongly, so he turned it down to a simmer and set the timer for seven minutes.

“Are you working again, Dad?” Will asked, his face all earnest.

“Yeah, I’m working again.”

“Can we afford to move now, then?”

Sid exchanged a look with Jacinta. “Yes, we’re thinking about moving again.” They had lived in the three-bedroom house in Walkergate for five years now. A pleasant enough home, but its age meant it was never designed for the cold of today’s winters, so it cost a fortune to heat. Having only one bathroom was a pain, and the zone room was also the dining room. Then there were the neighbors, who were wary about having a policeman on the street.