Philip Kerr - Gridiron

Curtis unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on the desk. It was Cheng Peng Fei's handbill, protesting about the Yu Corporation's human rights record. He floated it towards Coleman.

'You know, I read that thing,' he said finally. 'He's right. Any company that's as involved with the Chinese government as the Yu Corp shouldn't be allowed to trade in this country.'

'Tell that to Congress,' said Coleman. 'We just renewed China's favoured-nation trading status.'

'It's like I always say, Nat. The whores on the hill.'

'Actually, I've been meaning to tell you Frank,' said Coleman.

'Something I heard this morning. Immigration is holding three of those other Chinese kids.'

'Why, for Chrissakes?'

'They said they were in violation of their visa requirements. They were working, or some shit like that. But I got a friend there who said that someone in the mayor's office pulled strings to get them kicked out of the country. Since when the demo outside the Gridiron has packed up and gone home.'

'That's interesting.'

'It seems this architect guy has a lot of friends up there.'

'Is that so?'

'In less than seventy-two hours they'll be on a plane back to Hong Kong,' shrugged Coleman. 'Or wherever it was they came from.'

'Cheng is still here, right?' said Curtis.

'Right. But even if he did meet Sam Gleig, forensic still says he couldn't have killed him.'

After a silence Curtis said, 'They never came back to us, did they?

Those Martians at the Gridiron were supposed to get an engineer from Otis to come and check the car's safety. It's been a week now. That's long enough in a homicide inquiry, wouldn't you say?'

'Maybe the computer forgot to make the call,' said Coleman.

'I've been thinking about that photograph, too. Supposing it was a fake, who better than someone in the Yu Corporation building to make it? That's a pretty fancy computer they've got there. How about this, Nat? Here's the motive: there is something wrong with those elevators, only someone wants to cover it up for a while. Maybe one of those architect guys. They've got a lot of money riding on this job. Millions. One of them said as much to me. He more or less asked me to keep the lid on any publicity. Said it would look bad if someone was killed in a smart building. Now would he think it was better that some pain-in-theass demonstrator should take the blame for an accidental death instead of their own damn building? What do you think?'

'I could buy that.'

'Good. Because so could I.'

'Want me to give them a call?' Coleman said. 'Those fuckin' Martians?'

Curtis stood up and lifted his coat off the back of his chair.

'I've got a better idea,' he said. 'It's Friday afternoon. They'll be winding down for the weekend. Let's go and make a nuisance of ourselves.'

Ray Richardson was the kind of architect who did not like surprises, and it was his standard practice to inspect exhaustively floors, walls, ceilings, doors, windows, electrical equipment, services equipment, sanitary-ware and joinery, accompanied only by the members of his own project team before repeating the same procedure formally with the client.

Even informally the inspection looked like it was going to take up one whole long day. Tony Levine would normally have preferred

Richardson's pre-PCI to have been carried out across several short periods rather than one protracted one when, through Richardson's own irritability, the result might be prejudiced. But as usual, his senior was working to a tight schedule.

After five hours of trooping round the building like a bus-load of tourists, the project team had progressed as far as the Gridiron's swimming pool. Measuring twenty-five metres long and eight metres wide, this was located under a curving rectangular louvred glass roof at the rear of the building and, with the exception of the sapphire colour of the 85deg water, everything — the walls, the floor tiles, HVAC louvres, even the corrosion protection barrier coating on the ceiling's steel trusses —

was the same grey shade of white. The general effect was both antiseptic and relaxing.

Behind a glass wall that protected the poolside refreshment area from being splashed by swimmers, Richardson checked the adhesion of tiles, the cleanliness of surfaces, the electric switches on the walls, the gully gratings on the floor, the high output coil solar cylinders for heating the water, and the joins between the suspended panels of silicone glazing.

'Do you want to enter the pool area, Ray?' asked Helen Hussey.

'Why not?'

'Then everyone will have to remove their shoes to protect the pool deck,' she ordered. 'The last thing we want are heel marks on those nice white tiles.'

'Good thinking,' he said. Leaning against the wall to remove his handmade English shoes, another thought occurred to him.

'It certainly looks like a nice enough pool. But looks are one thing, the experience another. I mean, what's it like to swim in? Did anyone think to bring a costume? Because someone should go in and report on what it's like. Maybe it's too warm. Or too cold. Or too chemical.'

'Or too wet,' someone murmured.

He looked at the team and waited.

'How about a volunteer? I'd go in myself if I had time, it looks so good.'

'Me too,' echoed Joan. 'But Ray's right, of course. Design considerations are one thing. Bather acceptability is another.'

Finally Kay Killen said, 'Well, I don't mind swimming in my underwear.' She smiled brightly and shrugged. 'In fact, I could use a nice swim. My feet are killing me.'

'Good girl,' said Richardson.

While Kay went into a changing room and removed her clothes, Joan, Tony Levine, Helen Hussey and Marty Birnbaum took off their shoes and followed Richardson on to the pool deck. Mitch stayed behind the glass wall with Aidan Kenny, Willis Ellery and David Arnon.

'You know what this reminds me of?' said Arnon. 'It's like we're all party functionaries following Hitler round his new Reich's Chancellery. Joan's Martin Bormann, right? Agrees with whatever he says. Any minute now the guy's going to fall down and start chewing the poolside, after which he'll send us all to a concentration camp.'

'Or back to the office,' shrugged Mitch. 'Same thing, I guess.'

They watched as Joan bent down and dipped her fat, heavily ringed hand into the water.

'So she's not a vampire,' remarked Kenny.

'Isn't that running water?' laughed Mitch.

'You're both wrong,' said Arnon. 'She's only putting her hand in the water to make it colder. Like the Snow Queen. Just in case Kay might enjoy it.'

'Bitch,' snarled Ellery. 'Why doesn't someone shove her in?'

'You go right ahead, Willis,' said Mitch. 'We'll sponsor you.'

Kay appeared on the pool deck wearing a purple bra and panties.

'Purple,' Arnon said triumphantly. 'What did I tell you? Pay up, suckers.'

The other three men groaned and handed him $5 bills as Kay walked to the poolside, collected herself with simian toes curled over the edge, and then executed a perfect dive, with no more splash than a well trained dolphin.

'What's the water like, Kay?' called Richardson.

'Beautiful,' she said, surfacing. 'I mean, really warm.'

'What kind of girl wears purple underwear?' complained Ellery.

'Girl with a tattoo, that's who,' said Arnon. 'You see that thing round her ankle?'

He was referring to the delicate daisy-chain of red-and-blue flowers that made Kay's foot look as if it had been carefully sewn on to her leg by some botanically-minded genius of modern micro-surgery.

'Where does Dave get his information. That's what I'd like to know?' said Ellery.

'Sometimes Kay wears see-through blouses,' said Kenny.

Arnon kicked off his shoes and moved towards the door to the pool deck.