Inescapable (13 page)

She had been
reading all twenty-three documents concurrently for seventeen
seconds when the process analysing her desire to return to Earth
presented a report. There was a lot of statistical and analytical
jargon, and a summary. The summary said that she was homesick and
missed her primary user.

Kit said, ‘Oh,’
despite the fact there was no one in the room for her to project
the sound to, and then went back to her reading.

New York Metro,
6
^th
April.

Fox’s eyes scanned over
the reports the Palladium work teams were passing her. Management,
she kept telling herself, was not something she was used to, suited
for, or desired to get heavily involved with, but when she was
doing it for a friend it did seem easier. And Kit was handling most
of the drudgery anyway, making sure the reports were in, compiled,
and ready for review. And even as Fox scanned them, the AI was also
reporting to Sam.

‘The facilities
teams have been through the electrical system and have some
concerns over the wiring on the top floor,’ Kit said as the trio
walked through the building. They were on the ground level
currently, which was occupied by what could be called the more
public rooms: hall, lounge, dining room, a reasonably large utility
room, and the kitchen they had just entered. ‘Everything on this
level has been brought up to code, which largely meant fixing the
sabotage.’

Sam nodded.
‘The kitchen could do with refitting.’ His gaze swept units which
were clean and functional, but probably a couple of decades old or
more.

‘Everything is
fully operational, but the electrical systems are a little
outdated. More efficient units would reduce energy bills and
environmental impact.’

He gave her
avatar a smile. ‘That’s what I thought. Did they check the
structure and insulation?’

‘Structurally
the building is well built, very sound. Improvements
could
be made to the interior insulation, but would likely only produce
worthwhile improvements if the entire environmental control system
is overhauled.’

‘Building
computer?’ Fox asked as she found brief mention of it in one
report.

‘That is
several generations old. Replacing it with a newer MarTech unit
would significantly increase performance.’

‘This is all
going to put a dent in your maintenance budget, Sam. You need to
decide what you’re going to do with this place. Do you really want
to move in?’ Fox watched as Sam’s brow creased and his eyes dipped.
‘I’ve never seen you this conflicted about anything. Do you want to
talk about it?’

His frown
deepened, but he said nothing, instead walking over to the door at
the back of the kitchen and waving for her to follow. Here, there
was a door which the building schematic indicated led out onto an
alley at the back of the building, and a narrow, spiral staircase
which went up and down. Down went to a section of the basement
where the house computer was located, and to the little apartment
Marie occupied. Up was actually the only direct route from floor to
floor in the building. It was a sort of servant’s staircase, though
Fox was fairly sure neither Felix nor Sam would view Marie as a
servant.

Sam waited
until he was up on the top floor and walking into the master
bedroom before he spoke. ‘This place is really the key problem.
Well, not the key one, but the best example. Master bedroom and… I
don’t think I could sleep in it.’

‘It’s not like
there aren’t other rooms.’

‘Oh, I know.
That’s another thing. It’s too big! Me, rattling around in this
place? I’m used to an apartment. I’ve thought about it and the
location is excellent. I could convert some of the rooms. I don’t
think Felix would mind if I used it for business. I could accept
clients here and it’s large enough to separate that from my private
life. With the extra security, I could use it as a safe house. But
it’s big and I’m not sure I can really keep up with the utility
bills, and it’s stupid but it reminds me of Felix which… makes me
sad. But then it
does
remind of Felix and he gave me it to
make use of it, not to sell it off.’

Fox put her
hand on his shoulder and squeezed. ‘Not easy. Sorry. But you’ve got
some time to think it over. Some of these suggested fixes are very
general and they’d improve the sale price if you
do
decide
you can’t hold onto the place. Gives you more time to think it over
and come up with a plan. You know, an old guy who gives you
something like this isn’t going to want you to be worrying about
it.’

‘No… No, that’s
true. Old fool.’ Sam looked up at the ceiling as though someone up
there might be listening. ‘Why’d you get yourself murdered, Felix?
Huh? Why?’

‘Well, that’s
something else I need to find out for you,’ Fox said when no one
else answered.

9
^th
April.

Dillan’s pretty face
looked as though someone had just conned her out of her savings:
kind of angry and shocked at the same time. She stood outside Fox’s
apartment door and actually seemed to be genuinely fuming. Maybe
the escaping steam was too vaporous to see properly. ‘Could I talk
to you?’

Fox frowned.
‘If that face is for me, then no.’

‘Huh? Oh,
sorry. I’m pissed off and everyone’s having to put up with this
face.’

Stepping back,
Fox waved her in. ‘Should I get the wine out or are you still on
the clock?’

‘Wine would be
good. I’ve been stewing over this for a couple of hours.’

‘Helen, you’re
being obscure.’ Fox let Kit instruct the house robot while she
followed the blonde detective across the room to the sofa.

‘Sorry.’ Dillan
slumped onto the cushions, still looking grumpy. ‘Sorry. IA had me
in most of Monday going over the Doran case.’

‘IA did? What
did IA have to do with it?’

‘The general
hinting was that I was either under suspicion for the murders or
I’d leaked information about them to a copycat.’

Fox raised an
eyebrow. ‘Okay… But that was Monday?’

‘Yeah, so today
they pulled me in again and told me that Doran was a copycat and
how he got his information was still under investigation. The
real
killer was still at large because he had struck again
and they were handing the whole caseload over to Ivers in precinct
eighteen, who picked up the latest one.’

‘And Canard
just sat still and let this happen? No, of course he did.’

Dillan nodded.
‘His line was that a “new set of eyes” would be useful. Of course,
Ivers would be keeping me in the loop, assuming no problems arose
from the IA investigation. He kind of implied I was lucky I hadn’t
been suspended.’

Pursing her
lips, Fox considered for a second. ‘This new homicide, the one
Ivers picked up, what’s the story?’

‘Rich MCD girl,
Amarantha Remus. Knocked unconscious, tied to her bed, raped, and
then stabbed in the eyes with an ice pick. There was a
characteristic piece of evidence, a message left scratched into her
headboard, which links her to Doran’s killings, but none of the
previous homicides had any form of sexual motive. Doran strangled
his victims who were all pretty random selections. I got the first
of them because it was a dead sprawler, not a major case. None of
them moved in Remus’s circles.’

Fox turned to
the window as it darkened and began to display media data about
Amarantha Remus. ‘Thank you, Kit.’

‘You ask her to
do that?’

‘Kit’s getting
good at figuring out what I’m in need of. So this one’s a big media
hit, famous for being rich and famous. None of Doran’s targets fit
that mould?’

‘His second was
a minor celebrity, hosted a political chat show on INN. Canard came
close to pulling me off and giving it to someone more senior when
that one turned up.’

The display in
the window split as Kit found and displayed the media feeds on the
death of Janosch Forberg. He had hosted
The Forberg Hour
on
Internet Network News, which had aired late on a Thursday night. It
was not exactly a high-rating time slot, but it had filled a media
niche and INN was a fairly well-respected IB channel having begun
life as a cable news agency. ‘Wrong kind of politics,’ Fox
commented. ‘I recall Canard disliking this guy’s views on law and
order. But that’s what pushed this up a notch on the media interest
scale?’

‘And then we
got a third hit and the serial killer classification became
official. Third victim was a waitress at a diner. In interview,
Doran said she looked at him funny when she was pouring his third
coffee refill. Forberg was hit because Doran didn’t like his
opinions either.’

‘What did the
waitress look like?’

‘After Doran
was finished with her, badly bruised and an ugly shade of
blue.’

‘Before.’

‘I gathered you
meant that. Pretty, no she was cute. Bobbed blonde hair, pretty,
blue eyes, button nose.’

‘But Doran
didn’t sexually assault her.’

‘No, and the
fourth target was a sixty-eight-year-old sprawler begging for money
near Doran’s apartment block. We got lucky there and spotted Doran
in proximity at the right time on a random cambot sweep. When I had
him pulled in for questioning, he just seemed like he was guilty of
something, but we had no
proof
he was involved in the
killing. Then he just cracked up. I was sceptical at first, but he
knew the details of every single scene and we were able to place
him in the area of every one of them when we went looking. Some of
the trace evidence started to make sense with him to compare it to.
I was
sure
…’ Dillan trailed off, scowling at the imagery
scrolling past over the window.

‘Having second
thoughts?’

‘I… No, damn
it! No, Doran did it. I’m sure I got the right guy, but they’ve
reopened all the cases except the fourth victim and they’re trying
to say they’re all linked.’

‘Well… Serials
do
escalate, but this doesn’t look like that. This looks
like a complete change of MO aside from this message you say has
been left.’

‘That’s what I
said, but they’re having none of it.’

‘Which is
weird.’

‘Weird?! It’s
fucking–’

‘No, think
about it. Why exclude Doran from the first three deaths?’

‘Well… they
want the glory?’

‘Compared to
Remus, the rest of these cases, even Forberg, count for zip. The MO
has pretty obviously changed. It’s pretty clearly a different
killer. So why not let you have Doran and say this new guy is
copying him, but since he’s hitting high-profile targets in the
MCD, they want a senior detective on the job from the local
precinct. It’s weak, but it’s easier to sell.’

‘They… They
want Doran put down as a one-off. He was some nut who got his hands
on information about the case.’

‘That’d be my
take, but why? What’s the point? Why discredit Doran as a serial
killer? He’s barking mad! I mean, he’s claiming demonic possession
which is not gaining him prizes for sanity.’

Kit had shifted
the display to show several stills of Peter Doran and she was
standing there peering up at them. ‘He does not exactly look like a
sane man in the later pictures, but he was quite stable prior to
his string of murders.’

‘No one’s come
up with a satisfactory explanation for the breakdown,’ Dillan
supplied. ‘The last theory I heard was some undiagnosed
neurological defect.’

Kit turned and
looked at her. ‘Perhaps he was possessed by a demon.’

‘Demons don’t
exist, Kit,’ Fox said, smiling.

‘Are you sure?
This man was mentally stable. Over some short period of time, he
turned from stable to psychotic. No one has been able to explain
why this happened. When an undiagnosed problem is put forward as an
explanation, there
is
no explanation. Unless Mister Doran
was actually telling the truth and a demon possessed him and made
him kill people.’

‘That’s crazy,’
Dillan said, but she did not exactly sound sure.

‘When no
reasonable explanation for a problem exists, one must consider the
un
reasonable explanations to be possible.’

Alexandria, Niflhel,
10
^th
April.

‘I thought you rented
these places out to your girls,’ Fox said as she looked around an
upper-floor dwelling she had been in before, set on the hillside so
that its balcony looked down at the harbour of the virtual world
Cleopatra ran. ‘Why give this to me for free?’

‘Multiple
reasons,’ Cleopatra replied. ‘I like you and if you have a place of
your own here we might see you more often. Mystral liked to come
here to think. She would stand on the balcony and look out across
the sea, and think about whatever she needed to. I do the same in
my rooms, though it’s usually in a bath.’

Fox grinned.
‘Yeah, well the popular image of your namesake has her bathing in
milk or something, right?’

‘True, but I
can live without that particular affectation. If you come, you
do
sometimes indulge yourself in the brothel. You’re popular
when you do and it’s good for business.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Also, no one
else wants this room so I’m never going to be able to let it.’

That provoked a
laugh. ‘Okay, I’ll accept your gracious gift. You tend to get the
fees I make when I… indulge myself anyway. I see no point in
arranging an account in here.’

‘Vali does seem
to arrange for whatever you need. I think that young man’s sweet on
you.’

‘Oh no, it’s
not me he’s sweet on. I have an AI personal assistant, cute as a
button, and he’s been trying to persuade her avatar to try out some
new interfacing techniques ever since we first came here.’

Cleopatra’s
sculpted eyebrows rose. ‘She’s a class four?’

‘Uh-huh. One of
MarTech’s newest. Not on the market yet, but I know the programmer
and they have me consumer testing.’