Peter Hamilton - Manhattan in Reverse

Some of the manors have wings dating back over nine hundred years, though the intervening time has seen them accrue new structures at a bewildering rate until some have become almost like small villages huddled under a single multifaceted roof. Legend has it that when the last of the original manors was completed, at least twelve generations of Raleighs lived together in the valley. Some of the buildings are still lived in today — indeed, I grew up in one — but most have been converted to cater for the demands of the modern age, with administration and commerce becoming the newest and greediest residents. Stables and barns contain compartmentalized offices populated by secretaries, clerks, and managers. Libraries have undergone a transformation from literacy to numeracy, their leather-bound tomes of philosophy and history replaced by ledgers and records. Studies and drawing rooms have become conference rooms, while more than one chapel has become a council debating chamber. Awkley Manor itself, built in the early fourteen hundreds, has been converted into a single giant medical clinic, where the finest equipment which science and money can procure tends to the senior elders.

The car took me to the carved marble portico of Hewish Manor, which now hosted the family’s industrial science research faculty. I walked up the worn stone steps, halting at the top to take a look round. The lawns ahead of me swept down to the lake, where they were fringed with tall reeds. Weeping willows stood sentry along the shore, their denuded branches a lace-work of brown cracks across the white sky. As always a flock of swans glided over the black waters of the lake. The gardeners had planted a new avenue of oaks to the north of the building, running it from the lake right the way up the valley. It was the first new greenway for over a century. There were some fifty of them in the valley all told, from vigorous century-old palisades, to lines of intermittent aged trees, their corpulent trunks broken and rotting. They intersected each other in a great meandering pattern of random geometry, as if marking the roads of some imaginary city. When I was a child, my cousins and I ran and rode along those arboreal highways all summer long, playing our fantastical games and lingering over huge picnics.

My soft sigh was inevitable. More than anywhere, this was home to me, and not just because of a leisurely childhood. This place rooted us Raleighs.

The forensic department was downstairs in what used to be one of the wine vaults. The arching brick walls and ceiling had been cleaned and painted a uniform white, with utility tube lights running the length of every section. White-coated technicians sat quietly at long benches, working away on tests involving an inordinate amount of chemistry lab glassware.

Rebecca Raleigh Stothard, the family’s chief forensic scientist, came out of her office to greet me. Well into her second century, and a handsome woman, her chestnut hair was only just starting to lighten towards grey. She’d delivered an extensive series of lectures during my investigatory course, and my attendance had been absolute, not entirely due to what she was saying.

I was given a demure peck on the cheek, then she stepped back, still holding both of my hands, and looked me up and down. ‘You’re like a fine wine, Edward,’ she said teasingly. ‘Maturing nicely. One decade soon, I might just risk a taste.’

‘That much anticipation could prove fatal to a man.’

‘How’s Myriam?’

‘Fine.’

Her eyes flashed with amusement. ‘A father again. How devilsome you are. We never had boys like you in my time.’

‘Please. We’re still very much in your time.’

I’d forgotten how enjoyable it was to be in her company. She was so much more easy-going than dear old Francis. However, her humour faded after we sat down in her little office.

‘We received the last shipment of samples from the Oxford police this morning,’ she said. ‘I’ve allocated our best people to analyse them.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Has there been any progress?’

‘The police are doing their damnedest, but they’ve still got very little to go on at this point. That’s why I’m hoping your laboratory can come up with something for me, something they missed.’

‘Don’t place all your hopes on us. The Oxford police are good. We only found one additional fact that wasn’t in their laboratory report.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Carter Osborne Kenyon and Christine Jayne Lockett were imbibing a little more than wine and spirits that evening.’

‘Oh?’

‘They both had traces of cocaine in their blood. We ran the test twice, there’s no mistake.’

‘How much?’

‘Not enough for a drug-induced killing spree, if that’s what you’re thinking. They were simply having a decadent end to their evening. I gather she’s some sort of artist?’

‘Yes.’

‘Narcotic use is fairly common amongst the more Bohemian sects, and increasing.’

‘I see. Anything else?’

‘Not a thing.’

I put my attaché case on my knees, and flicked the locks back. ‘I may have something for you.’ I pulled the bag containing the cigar butt from its compartment. ‘I found this in the Westhay Club, I think it’s Antony Caesar Pitt’s. Is there any way you can tell me for sure?’

‘Pitt’s? I thought his alibi had been confirmed?’

‘The police interviewed three people, including the manager of the Westhay, who all swear he was in there playing cards with them.’

‘And you don’t believe them?’

‘I’ve been to the Westhay, I’ve seen the manager and the other players. They’re not the most reliable people in the world, and they were under a lot of pressure to confirm whether he was there or not. My problem is that if he was there that evening the police will thank them for their statement and their honesty and let them go. If he wasn’t, there could be consequences they’d rather avoid. I know that sounds somewhat paranoid, but he really is the only one of the friends who had anything like a motive. In his case, the proof has to be absolute. I’d be betraying my responsibility if I accepted anything less.’

She took the bag from me, and squinted at the remains of the cigar which it contained.

‘It was still damp with saliva the following morning,’ I told her. ‘If it is his, then I’m prepared to accept he was in that club.’

‘I’m sorry, Edward, we have no test that can produce those sort of results. I can’t even give you a blood type from a saliva sample.’

‘Damn!’

‘Not yet, but one of my people is already confident he can determine if someone has been drinking from a chemical reaction with their breath. It should deter those wretched cab drivers from having one over the eight before they take to the roads if they know the police can prove they were drunk on the spot. Ever seen a carriage accident? It’s not nice. I imagine a car crash is even worse.’

‘I’m being slow this morning. The relevance being?’

‘You won’t give up. None of us will, because Justin was a Raleigh, and he deserves to rest with the knowledge that we will not forget him, no matter how much things change. And change they surely do. Look at me, born into an age of leisured women, at least those of my breeding and status. Life was supposed to be a succession of grand balls interspersed with trips to the opera and holidays in provincial spa towns. Now I have to go out and earn my keep.’

I grinned. ‘No you don’t.’

‘For Mary’s sake, Edward; I had seventeen fine and healthy children before my ovaries were thankfully exhausted in my late nineties. I need something else to do after all that child rearing. And, my dear, I always hated opera. This, however, I enjoy to the full. I think it still shocks Mummy that I’m out here on the scientific frontier. But it does give me certain insights. Come with me.’