Ричард Морган: The SF Collection

‘Of course.’

‘My husband’s waiting for you in the seaward lounge. I’ll take you to him immediately.’

The inside of the house was light and airy. A maid met us at the veranda door and took Mrs Bancroft’s tennis racket for her without a word. We went down a marbled hallway hung with art that, to my untutored eye, looked old. Sketches of Gagarin and Armstrong, Empathist renderings of Konrad Harlan and Angin Chandra. At the end of this gallery, set on a plinth, was something like a narrow tree made out of crumbling red stone. I paused in front of it and Mrs Bancroft had to backtrack from the left turn she was making.

‘Do you like it?’ she asked.

‘Very much. This is from Mars, isn’t it.’

Her face underwent a change that I caught out of the corner of my eye. She was reassessing. I turned for a closer look at her face.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said.

‘People often are. Sometimes I do handsprings too.’

She looked at me narrowly. ‘Do you really know what this is?’

‘Frankly, no. I used to be interested in structural art. I recognise the stone from pictures, but…’

‘It’s a Songspire.’ She reached past me and let her fingers trail down one of the upright branches. A faint sighing awoke from the thing and a perfume like cherries and mustard wafted into the air.

‘Is it alive?’

‘No one knows.’ There was a sudden enthusiasm in her tone that I liked her better for. ‘On Mars they grow to be a hundred metres tall, sometimes as wide as this house at the root. You can hear them singing for kilometres. The perfume carries as well. From the erosion patterns, we think that most of them are at least ten thousand years old. This one might only have been around since the founding of the Roman empire.’

‘Must have been expensive. To bring it back to Earth, I mean.’

‘Money wasn’t an object, Mr Kovacs.’ The mask was back in place. Time to move on.

We made double time down the left-hand corridor, perhaps to make up for our unscheduled stop. With each step Mrs Bancroft’s breasts jiggled under the thin material of the leotard and I took a morose interest in the art on the other side of the corridor. More Empathist work, Angin Chandra with her slender hand resting on a thrusting phallus of a rocket. Not much help.

The seaward lounge was built on the end of the house’s west wing. Mrs Bancroft took me into it through an unobtrusive wooden door and the sun hit us in the eyes as soon as we entered.

‘Laurens. This is Mr Kovacs.’

I lifted a hand to shade my eyes and saw that the seaward lounge had an upper level with sliding glass doors that accessed a balcony. Leaning on the balcony was a man. He must have heard us come in; come to that, he must have heard the police cruiser arrive and known what it signified, but still he stayed where he was, staring out to sea. Coming back from the dead sometimes makes you feel that way. Or maybe it was just arrogance. Mrs Bancroft nodded me forward and we went up a set of stairs made from the same wood as the door. For the first time I noticed that the walls of the room were shelved from top to bottom with books. The sun was laying an even coat of orange light along their spines.

As we came out onto the balcony, Bancroft turned to face us. There was a book in his hand, folded closed over his fingers.

‘Mr Kovacs.’ He transferred the book so that he could shake my hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. How do you find the new sleeve?’

‘It’s fine. Comfortable.’

‘Yes, I didn’t involve myself too much in the details, but I instructed my lawyers to find something… suitable.’ He glanced back, as if looking for Ortega’s cruiser on the horizon. ‘I hope the police weren’t too officious.’

‘Not so far.’

Bancroft looked like a Man Who Read. There’s a favourite experia star on Harlan’s World called Alain Marriott, best known for his portrayal of a virile young Quellist philosopher who cuts a swathe through the brutal tyranny of the early Settlement years. It’s questionable how accurate this portrayal of the Quellists is, but it’s a good flic. I’ve seen it twice. Bancroft looked a lot like an older version of Marriott in that role. He was slim and elegant with a full head of iron grey hair which he wore back in a ponytail, and hard black eyes. The book in his hand and the shelves around him were like an utterly natural extension of the powerhouse of a mind that looked out from those eyes.

Bancroft touched his wife on the shoulder with a dismissive casualness that in my present state made me want to weep.

‘It was that woman, again,’ said Mrs Bancroft. ‘The lieutenant.’

Bancroft nodded. ‘Don’t worry about it, Miriam. They’re just sniffing around. I warned them I was going to do this, and they ignored me. Well, now Mr Kovacs is here, and they’re finally taking me seriously.’

He turned to me. ‘The police have not been very helpful to me over this matter.’

‘Yeah. That’s why I’m here, apparently.’

We looked at each other while I tried to decide if I was angry with this man or not. He’d dragged me halfway across the settled universe, dumped me into a new body and offered me a deal that was weighted so I couldn’t refuse. Rich people do this. They have the power and they see no reason not to use it. Men and women are just merchandise, like everything else. Store them, freight them, decant them. Sign at the bottom please.

On the other hand, no one at Suntouch House had mispronounced my name yet, and I didn’t really have a choice. And then there was the money. A hundred thousand UN was about six or seven times what Sarah and I had expected to make on the Millsport wetware haul. UN dollars, the hardest currency there was, negotiable on any world in the Protectorate.

That had to be worth keeping your temper for.

Bancroft gave his wife another casual touch, this time on her waist, pushing her away.

‘Miriam, could you leave us alone for a while. I’m sure Mr Kovacs has endless questions, and it’s likely to be boring for you.’

‘Actually, I’m likely to have some questions for Mrs Bancroft as well.’

She was already on her way back inside, and my comment stopped her in mid-stride. She cocked her head at an angle, and looked from me to Bancroft and back. Beside me, her husband stirred. This wasn’t what he wanted.

‘Maybe I could speak to you later,’ I amended. ‘Separately.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Her eyes met mine, then danced aside. ‘I’ll be in the chart room, Laurens. Send Mr Kovacs along when you’ve finished.’

We both watched her leave, and when the door closed behind her Bancroft gestured me to one of the lounge chairs on the balcony. Behind them, an antique astronomical telescope stood levelled at the horizon, gathering dust. Looking down at the boards under my feet, I saw they were worn with use. The impression of age settled over me like a cloak, and I lowered myself into my chair with a tiny frisson of unease.

‘Please don’t think of me as a chauvinist, Mr Kovacs. After nearly two hundred and fifty years of marriage, my relationship with Miriam is more politeness than anything. It really would be better if you spoke to her alone.’

‘I understand.’ That was shaving the truth a bit, but it would do.

‘Would you care for a drink? Something alcoholic?’

‘No thank you. Just some fruit juice, if you have it.’ The shakiness associated with downloading was beginning to assert itself, and in addition there was an unwelcome scratchiness in my feet and fingers which I assumed was nicotine dependency. Apart from the odd cigarette bummed from Sarah, I’d been quit for the last two sleeves and I didn’t want to have to break the habit all over again. Alcohol on top of everything would finish me.