"Greg, my dear chap, there's no need to shout."
Greg let his espersense flow through the door. There were two people inside, one male, one female, sitting together.
Judging by the relaxed timbre of their minds he guessed they were watching a channel.
The door lock was mechanical, an old Yale. With Teddy standing behind him he. shoved the blade clean through the wood just above the keyhole and sliced out a semicircle.
Knebel's room was just as seedy as he had been expecting: damp wallpaper, cheap furniture, laminated chipboard table and sideboard, plain wooden chairs, a settee covered in woolly brown and grey fabric, its cushioning sagging and worn; thin blue carpet. The light was coming from some kind of salvaged lorry headlamp on the table, shining at the ceiling, powered from a cluster of spherical polymer batteries on the floor. An English Electric flatscreen, with shoddy colour contrast, was showing a channel current affairs 'cast.
Greg didn't know the woman, a blowzy thirty-year-old, flat washed-out face, straw hair, wearing a man's green shirt and a short red skirt.
Knebel had grown a pointed beard, but Greg would have recognized him anywhere. The apparatchik was wearing jeans and a thick mauve sweater, buckled sandals on bare feet. He had aged perceptibly; he was only forty, almost Greg's contemporary, but the flesh had wasted from his face producing sunken cheeks, deep eyes, thin lips. Mouse-brown hair with a centre parting hung lankly down to his ears.
The two of them were sitting on the settee, facing the flatscreen, heads turning at the clatter of the lock hitting the floor. Greg aimed the stunshot at the woman and fired. It sounded dreadfully loud in the confined space. The pulse caught her on the shoulder. She spasmed, nearly slewing off the settee. Her eyes rolled up as she emitted a strangled cry.
Greg shifted the stunshot fractionally.
Knebel stared at him, his mouth parted, jaw quivering softly. His startled thoughts reflected utter despair. He closed his eyes, screwing up his face wretchedly.
"One sound, and you won't be dead, you will simply wish you were," Greg said. "Now turn the flatscreen off."
Teddy closed the door behind him.
Knebel opened his eyes, showing the frantic disbelief of a condemned man given a reprieve. A shaking hand pawed at the remote.
Greg ignored him, his espersense hovering around the other minds on the first floor. Two of them had heard the commotion. Curiosity rose, they waited for something else to happen. When nothing did their attention wavered, and they were drawn back into the mundane routine of the evening.
He waited another minute to make sure, then pulled the photon amp band from his eyes.
Knebel managed to crumple without actually moving. "Oh my God. Greg Mandel, the Thunderchild himself."
It had been quite some time since Greg had heard anyone use his army callsign. Not since he left the Trinities, in fact.
But of course, the PSP had access to all the army's personnel files. "I'm flattered. I wasn't aware Oakham's Lord Protector had taken an interest in me."
"You were believed to be an active member of the Trinities, and you live in the Berrybut estate. No close family, no special woman as far as we knew. Very high ESP rating. Plenty of combat experience. I took notice all right."
"Lived. Lived in Berrybut. I've moved now."
"Of course," Knebel said with bitter irony, "do excuse me, I haven't accessed your file lately. My mistake."
"If you knew all that, how come you never came hunting for me, you and your Constables?"
Knebel stroked the hair of the unconscious woman, gazing tenderly at her shivering face. "And if we'd missed? Which was more than likely with that freaky Thompson woman guarding your future. I had enough trouble keeping the ranks in order as it was. You were busy here in Peterborough. The last thing I needed was a fully trained, fully armed Mindstar monster gunning for us when we left the station to go home at night."
"Figures. You people never did try anything physical unless the odds were ten to one in your favour."
"Could you spare me this ritual of insults, and just get it over with, please?"
Greg gave him a frigid grin. "Tell you, Knebel, this is the luckiest day of your entire shitty little life. I'm not here to snuff you."
Knebel's hand stopped. "What?"
"True. I only want some bytes you've got."
"An' you gonna give 'em to us, boy," Teddy growled.
Swellings of terror and hope disrupted the surface thoughts of Knebel's mind. "Are you serious? Just information?"
"Yeah."
He licked his upper lip, glancing nervously at Teddy. "What about afterwards?"
"You join her in dreamland, we leave. And that's a fucking sight more than you deserve."
"God, you must be loving this, seeing what I've been brought down to." The eyes darkened with pain. "Yes, I'll plead with you for my life, I'll tell you anything you want, answer any question, I don't care. Dignity isn't something I have any more, your kind broke that. But you gave me something in return; I've found there's a great deal of peace to be had once every pretension has been stripped out. Did you know that Mandel, can you see it? I don't worry about the ways things are any more, I don't worry about the future. That's all down to you now. Your worries, your power politics. And you've wasted your time coming here, because I don't know anything about the Blackshirts' weapons stocks, they never tell me anything. I'm not a part of that."
"Not what we're here for."
"Speak for yourself," Teddy muttered.
"What then?" Knebel asked.
"Launde Abbey."
"What?" Knebel blurted loudly. He shrank back when Greg motioned with the stunshot. "Sorry. Really, I'm sorry. But ... is that it? You came to ask me about Launde Abbey?"
"Yeah. Now I've come a long way, and gone to a lot of trouble to rap with you. So believe me, you don't want to piss me off. You know I'm empathic, so just answer the questions truthfully."
"All right. I saw you on the newscast the other night. You were appointed to the Kitchener murder, something to do with Julia Evans." His eyes lingered on the 'ware modules hanging from Greg's belt.
Greg switched in the communication module's external mike. "Tell me about Clarissa Wynne."
"Clarissa? God, that was years and years ago. I'd almost forgotten about her until the other day. That newscast brought a lot of memories back."
"Ten years ago. What can you remember?"
Knebel closed his eyes, slim eyebrows bunching up. "Ten? Are you sure? I thought it was eleven."
"It could have been."
"Well, what does it say in her file?"
"That is the reason I'm here, Knebel. Someone has erased every byte of Clarissa Wynne from Rutland's memory cores; police, council, local newspapers, you name it, the lot."
"God."
"Do you know who?"
"No."
"Right. You say you thought she died eleven years ago?"
"Yes, I'm sure it was eleven."
"OK, what orders did you get from the Ministry of Public Order about her death?"
"To wrap it up immediately, make the coroner enter a verdict of accidental death, not to cause any ripples, especially not to antagonize Kitchener and the other students."
"Why not? Why was the PSP so anxious to hush the girl's death up? What made her so important?"
Knebel gave him a humourless smile. "Important? Clarissa Wynne wasn't important. God, the Ministry didn't even know her name. She was an embarrassment. You see, eleven years ago, the PSP was applying to the World Bank for a very large loan, billions. You remember that time, Mandel; the seas were reaching their peak, we'd got hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring inland from flooded coastal areas, we didn't have any food, we didn't have any industry, we didn't have any hard currency. It was a fucking great mess. We needed that loan to get the economy started again. And the Americans didn't want to help a bunch of Reds. No matter we were elected—"
Teddy growled dangerously. Greg held up a hand,
sensing just how hostile Teddy's mind was.
"OK. All right. I'm sorry," Knebel said. "No politics. But look, the point was, the PSP couldn't afford a human rights issue. The Americans would have leapt on it as an excuse to block the loan, destabilize the Party. Kitchener, for all he was bloody obnoxious personally, was internationally renowned, someone whose name people knew all over the world. Can you see the disinformation campaign the Americans would have mounted if I'd started questioning the students and Kitchener thoroughly? Their friend and colleague has been tragically drowned, and all the PSP does is persecute them with inquiries and allegations. It would have been Sakharov all over again. We needed that money, Mandel, people were starting to starve. In England, for God's sake! Pensioners. Children. So I did what I was told, and I kept my mouth shut afterwards. Because it was necessary. And to hell with you and your rich bitch mistress. I don't care how wise after the event you are."
So much anger, Greg thought, and just from one question. Will we ever heal the rift? "Morgan? Did you hear all that?"
"Yes, Greg."
"OK, check the date for that World Bank loan application, please. I'd like some verification."
"Right."
Knebel had cocked his head to one side, listening to Greg's side of the conversation intently. He still had his arms around the woman, cradling her. A ribbon of saliva was leaking from the corner of her mouth, eyelids fluttering erratically.
"Now," Greg said. "Why were you so upset about having to close down the inquiry? I was told Clarissa drowned in the lake after some sort of drinking session. Was it an accident?"
"I'm not sure. At the time I didn't think so. You get an instinct, you know? After you've been on the job long enough you can tell if something's not quite right. And I was a good detective, back then. Before it all ... I cared," he said defensively.
"Yeah. Keith Willet told me."
"Keith?" Knebel brightened for an instant. "God, is he still at Oakham? How is he?"
"Just get on with it, Knebel."
"All right." He shot Teddy another twitchy glance, then cleared his throat. "I wasn't happy with the circumstances around Clarissa Wynne's death. The students said they found her floating in the lake first thing in the morning, that she must have gone for a swim sometime in the night. Apparently the students always went swimming there."
"Still do," Greg said.
"Yes? Well, anyway, on the surface it was pretty clear cut. She'd been drinking, she'd infused some syntho. That was the first time we'd ever come across the stuff at Oakham. She must have got into difficulty in the water. Those lakes aren't particularly deep, but you only need five centimetres to drown in."
"So what was wrong about it?"
Knebel sighed. "She hadn't drunk much that evening, a couple of glasses of wine. And the syntho, we couldn't be sure, we didn't know much about it back then, but it looked as though it was infused very close to the time she died. Almost as if she took it and dived straight in. Which I don't believe anybody would do, certainly not a bright girl like that. I was going to have the pathology samples sent to Cambridge for a more detailed examination, then the shut-down order came through."
"Suicide?" Greg suggested.
"Nope. First thing I thought of. We did get to ask the students and Kitchener a few preliminary questions. Clarissa Wynne was one happy girl. She enjoyed being at Launde. Her parents confirmed there were no family problems. In any case, there was some light bruising on the back of her neck." He shrugged limply. "It could have been caused by bumping in to something in the water."
"Or it could have been caused by someone holding her under," Greg concluded.
"Yes. if the attacker had put her in a Nelson lock on the side of the lake, the bruising would have been consistent with her head being forced under the surface. Especially if she was conscious. She was young, strong, apparently she was in the woman's hockey team at university, a sports type, she could have put up quite a struggle. The attacker would have had to use a lot of force."
"Any sign of a struggle?"
"No. The grass around the side of the lake was all beaten down. Like I said, the students used it each day."
A dire chill slithered through the combat leathers to prickle Greg's skin as he thought about Clarissa Wynne's death. She would have struggled, that night eleven years ago, fighting her attacker under the silent, beautiful stars, without any hope of success or help. Terribly alone as her head was shoved under the cold muddy water. She would feel her body weakening, be conscious of the syntho breaking her mind apart. And all the while the red ache in her lungs grew and grew.
No fucking wonder he'd been drawn to the lake. It was a focal node of horror and anguish.
Did her soul haunt it? Was that what I sensed?
But whatever the source of the misery, it still didn't explain how her death tied in with Nicholas Beswick.
"Who did you suspect?" he asked Knebel.
"God, I never had time to find a possible suspect. That Ministry order came through in less than a day."
"Well, start thinking about it now, Knebel. What about Kitchener himself? I mean, he was sleeping with his female students the night he died. Sixty-seven years old. Eleven years ago he would have been even more capable sexually."
"No, I don't think so. He was reasonably fit, but not really what I'd call physically powerful. And if Clarissa was held down, it was done by someone stronger than her."
"One of the other students, then?"
"Yes, possibly."
"Was there anyone else staying at the Abbey that night?"
"No. And Clarissa was still alive when the housekeeper and the maid left, we confirmed that."
"OK, can you remember the names of the other students?"
"I think so. There was five of them. Let's see: Tumber, Donaldson, MacLennan, Spencer—"
"Wait! MacLennan? James MacLennan? Dr James MacLennan?"
"Yes. That was his first name, James. I didn't know he was a doctor."
"Shitfire," Greg whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Julia could barely see the far side of the rooftop landing pad. The fog was pressing in, turning the circle of close-spaced white lights around the perimeter of the pad into a hazy line of phosphorescence. The edge of the Event Horizon headquarters building was lost completely.
She was wearing a light nylon windcheater jacket over her plain amethyst-coloured stretch jersey dress. It was too warm to zip it up, but the fog was almost thick enough to be called a drizzle. Her hair was already hanging limply, sprinkled with a sugar coating of droplets. Rachel stood at her side, suede jacket buttoned up, collar raised around her neck. The rest of the reception party—Eleanor, Gabriel, and Morgan, plus some security people—were huddled together a couple of metres away.
Eleanor's smile was blinking on and off; the outright relief on her face making Julia feel like an intruder just for looking at her.
Thirty seconds, Juliet. Can you hear it?
Not yet, Grandpa, she answered silently.
She saw Morgan raise a palm-size communication set to his face and listen for a moment. "They're coming in," he announced.
Now she heard it, the whine of the turbines, low-frequency hiss of air escaping from the fan nacelles. It grew louder and louder until the dove-grey security division tilt-fan was suddenly there above the landing pad. Landing gear unfolding, small red and green wingtip strobes flashing. Its fuselage was coated in water, shining dully.
In the end she simply couldn't stay away. She didn't approve. She had made that quite clear. But ultimately it was her responsibility. Greg was only on the case because she asked him. There was no way she could go out clubbing in New Eastfield while he was risking his neck on her behalf.
Another night lost to duty.
The tilt-fan's broad low-pressure tyres touched down, hydraulic struts pistoning upwards as they absorbed the weight. The forward hatch hinged out and up, airstairs sliding down. The pilot cut the turbines. Micro-cyclones of steam
poured out of the nacelles as the fans wound down.
Greg was first out, his black leather combat jacket open to show a white T-shirt, his hair sweaty, clinging to his forehead. He had a stunshot with a shoulder strap riding at his elbow, 'ware modules clipped round his belt, skull helmet thrown back, photon amp band hanging over one shoulder. He looked so ... dangerous.
She watched Eleanor walk over and embrace him, arms going round his waist, a brief kiss, then resting her head on his shoulder. He hugged her tightly. It was far more eloquent than whoops of joy and backslapping.
How she'd love someone to greet her like that. Not to be, though. Although perhaps Robin ...
Teddy came down the airstairs, scowling round suspiciously.
"Hello, Teddy," she said brightly. "Thank you for going in with Greg. I'm really very grateful."
He grunted in disgust. "Goddamn fucking stupid thing to do, you ask me, gal. Still, we're back in one piece." He patted one of the 'ware modules on his belt. "An' these guido bytes gonna come in mighty useful sometime soon."
She smiled warmly. Teddy always used to intimidate the hell out of her, with his size and his menacing authority. Not any more. He was a pushover. "Oh? Going to impress a lady friend with them?" She batted her eyelids.
"Je-zus wept!"
Then the security crash team started to emerge from the tilt-fan. They were wearing suits similar to Teddy's, all of them in their mid-to late-twenties. They shouted a few boisterous greetings at her, and she grinned back. She knew most of them by their first name; they treated her almost as though they were a rugby squad and she was their mascot.
Morgan always kept one team on standby in case there was ever any attempt to kidnap her. She had watched them training a few times. Lord help any tekmerc who ever went up against them.
"Gabriel?" Greg was looking at her, one arm still around Eleanor. "Where's Colin?"
"One of my people drove him home," Morgan said.
"How was he?"
"Not too bad, considering," Gabriel said. "He'll need to rest for a week or so. Proper rest. I said I'd pop in tomorrow, make sure. You know what he's like."
"Yeah."