Peter Hamilton - A Quantum Murder

"Ah!" Julia cried. She grinned at the curious faces. "Grandpa, that financial profile we assembled on Diessenburg Mercantile should still be in our finance division memory core. Access it, and run a check for me. See how much money Diessenburg Mercantile is loaning the Berkeley company."

"You all hear that?" Philip's voice boomed. "Now that is a true Evans. Laser sharp. My granddaughter."

There were times—like now—when she wished the NN core was only loaded with a simple Turing management program.

"Got it," Philip said. "The Berkeley company has borrowed eight hundred million Eurofrancs from Diessenburg Mercantile. There are extension options covering another two and a half billion, but they're all subject to some kind of clause. Dunno what, it's classified, board members only."

"MacLennan succeeding with the laser paradigms?" Morgan suggested.

"Very probable," Philip agreed.

"Three and a half billion," Julia said, ruminating out loud. "That's more than Diessenburg loaned us before Prior's Fen."

"How much would it cost to build and operate an entire continent's educational and penal services?" Greg asked.

"A lot," she said. "And Karl Hildebrandt is on holiday. Unavailable for two months. I asked his office yesterday after you said you wanted to meet him."

"We can't really blame them," Morgan said. "They were just protecting their investment. Natural corporate reflex."

Julia didn't approve of that attitude at all. "That doesn't take away the fact that MacLennan is a double murderer, nor that an innocent man is in jail because of him."

"You'll have a terrible job trying to establish degrees of complicity," Morgan said. "I doubt Karl will ever reappear anywhere under English jurisdiction. The Diessenburg Mercantile directors will disclaim any knowledge of the affair. And if the bank does allow any of them to come into our courts to testify, you can be sure they will be genuinely ignorant so that Greg here won't be able to implicate them."

"Maybe," Greg said. "But at least we've got MacLennan nailed."

"Yes," Morgan said. "I'll get on to the Home Office, they'll have MacLennan arrested first thing tomorrow morning."

"I'd like the Oakham police to handle the actual arrest," Greg said. "They need the credit. I'll rap with Langley, explain what actually happened. And we'd better have a premier-grade programmer on hand to serve the data warrant. I'd hate anything to happen to that paradigm now."

"Right." Morgan loaded a note into his cybofax.

Greg climbed to his feet, stretching laboriously.

Julia stood and tugged her windcheater jacket from the back of the chair. "Thanks again for helping, Teddy."

He took a last swig from his beer bottle, and gave her a shrewd look. "No problem, gal, does me good to get out and about, keep my hand in. But you leave off Greg once this case is over, hear me? He's a fucking orange farmer now. Nothing else."

"I hear you, Teddy." She blew him a kiss.

It was midnight when Greg and Eleanor reached the farm. Fog had given way to a steady rain, the darkness was total. Greg could hear the wind rustling the tops of the new saplings on either side of the driveway. The EMC Ranger's tyres splashed through long trickles of water as Eleanor let it roll slowly down the slope.

He ran a hand through his greasy hair. What he wanted was a shower, a drink, and bed. Worst of all, he wanted to go to bed to sleep. Arms and belly muscles were stiff and sore from hanging under the Westland ghost wing.

Surprisingly, given all the aches, plus a persistent post-mission edginess, he still felt easier than he had for a week. He grinned at his weak reflection in the side window. I knew Nicholas didn't do it.

"What's so funny?" Eleanor asked.

"Nothing. Tell you, I'm just glad it's over."

"Me too."

"Yeah. Thanks for understanding."

"Make the most of it. Next time, I'll stomp my foot and say no."

"Good," he said, with feeling. "You'd better go and see Mrs Beswick tomorrow, give her the good news. I expect I'll be having quite a busy day. Christ, and Vernon was upset about the murder being complicated before."

"He'll survive. Like you said, they'll get a lot of credit for wrapping this up."

"Yeah." There's justice. But at least it will make life in Oakham more tolerable for everybody.

Beyond the window's reflection, Maurice Knebel's mirage rippled unsteadily on the edge of reality. Greg knew his last memory of the ex-detective would take a long time to dissipate. Knebel had closed his eyes tightly, teeth clamping down on his lower lip, whimpering softly as Greg aimed the stun-shot at him. In the background Teddy had muttered snidely about using the Uzi instead.

Then there was the trip back to the warehouse. Walton's minacious streets crowding in on him, plaguing him with the prospect of running into some kind of hazard now the mission was over—the oldest squaddie fear in the book.

The EMC Ranger's headlight beams tracked across the side of the barn, unnaturally bright under the cloud-blocked sky. They touched the house briefly, a flash of moth-grey stone.

Greg began searching round with his hand, lifting the stun-shot from the back seat. He slung it over his shoulder. Bloody good job Langley can't see me now, he thought. He had always been dubious of Greg's real motivations, the underground politics behind his assignment to the case. Seeing him in full combat gear would confirm every black paranoid suspicion about Julia's undue influence.

Eleanor stopped the EMC Ranger in front of the door, and the porch light came on automatically. They both climbed out, shoulders hunched against the rain. Eleanor blipped the lock, pulling her navy-blue jacket tighter across her sweatshirt.

Greg heard the lynch mob first. Footsteps crunching on the wet gravel behind the EMC Ranger. His gland gave a lurch, discharging the neurohormone into his brain. He grunted in shock as the five minds trespassed on his consciousness. They were all identical, possessed with unrelenting berserker arrogance, thought currents devoid of any rationality. A teratoid insanity. Recognition was instantaneous; he had encountered that mind once before: Liam Bursken.

They walked into the splash of light thrown by the porch light, a soft dead smile on their lips—Frankie Owen, Mark Sutton, Les Hepburn, Andrew Foster, and Douglas Kellam.

Eleanor twisted round. "What—"

Mark Sutton raised a double-barrelled shotgun. Thoughts radiant with cool delight.

Greg's training took over. He fired the stunshot even as he was bringing it to bear. The pulse was dazzlingly bright to his night-acclimatized retinas. It missed Sutton, fizzling voraciously as it sliced through the rain. But it was enough.

Sutton jerked aside, complacency shattered. The shotgun went off, blowing out one of the EMC Ranger's rear windows. A lethal blast of crystalline splinters slammed into the stone wall to Greg's right. He felt stingers of pain jab down his chest where the combat jacket was open. Spots of blood bloomed on his white T-shirt.

He saw the other four men jumping back into the concealing murk of rain and darkness which cloaked the rest of the farmyard, surprise and outrage rampant on their faces. Fury that their victim should dare to fight back, resist the Lord's will. His fumbling fingers found the stunshot's fire selector catch, and flicked it to continuous. A solid stream of glaring blue-white lighting speared out of the barrel as he tugged the trigger, illuminating the entire farmyard. Its end grew ragged over by the barn, flickering spasmodically as the close-packed pulses lost cohesion.

He swung the weapon down and round, not really aiming, simply chasing Sutton as the man scrambled for cover behind the EMC Ranger. The torrent of pulses caught him on the shoulder, spinning him round as if it was a high-pressure water jet. The shotgun went flying off into the night as he whirled around, arms extended.