Great North Road (12 page)

“I get it,” Will said with a grump.

Sid grinned. If anyone ever found a way to download a person, Will’s generation would dive headfirst down the fiber-optic cable, never questioning.

“I’ll set it up for the weekend,” Jacinta said.

“Okay.”

“You will be around, won’t you?” she asked pointedly.

“I’ll be here.” He smiled at the kids. “And I’m taking you to school today.”

Vance Elston was waiting in the Office3 when Sid arrived at eight fifteen, well ahead of the team. He introduced Ralph Stevens, who apart from having Nordic-pale skin and thinning blond hair seemed like a junior version of Elston himself. Sid started to wonder how many years he’d have to hang around either of them to see a single smile.

That somber manner they both possessed was immediately picked up by the team as they arrived in the office. They turned up gripping their takeaway cups of coffee or tea—in Eva’s case, hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows—smiling and chattering, speculating on what was going to happen today and how tough the new “supervisor” would be. Then they caught sight of Elston and Stevens in the midst of their masters-of-misery act. Smiles blanked out and the chatter muted.

It wasn’t a complete surprise to Sid when he saw Aldred turn up with Abner and Ari; after all, if anyone was going to take this seriously it would be the Norths. He waited until everyone was inside Office3 and the blue seal came on before starting the briefing. There were two additions to the team, which he’d arranged with Human Resources after last night’s meeting: Constable Dedra Foyster and Constable Reannha Hall, both data analysis specialists with high security clearance ratings. A clearance that had subsequently been checked and approved by HDA. Ralph had told him that. It was about the only thing he had said so far.

“Good morning,” Vance said formally. “I’m sorry for the delay and confusion yesterday, and I thank you for your tolerance. This briefing will explain everything.” He walked over to a zone console and made a show of putting a chip in. The big central wallscreen flashed up file symbols that Sid hadn’t seen before. They didn’t open.

Sid saw Ian and Eva give each other schoolkid grins.

“Can you …,” Vance said to Abner.

Abner went over to the zone console. “Sure thing.” The screen curved around him, and his hands hovered in the keyspace flicking at icons only he could see.

Nothing much happened. The chip’s files remained stubbornly closed.

Sid waited with growing embarrassment. Abner even seemed to be having trouble with his own operating topography system, and as to resolving the format problem … It was going to reflect badly on Sid.

“What program is this?” Abner asked lamely.

Sid gave Reannha Hall an urgent gesture.

“It was recorded twenty years ago,” Vance said as Reannha sat down at the console next to Abner. Manicured fingers speedflipped icons. “Here you go,” she said as the file symbols on the wallscreen mutated to familiar modern symbols. “They just needed a reformat, that’s all.”

Abner’s face was blank as he gave her a tight smile.

“Right then,” Vance said, reclaiming the briefing. “The reason this case is now the most important event on the planet is because the murder method has been used precisely once before. You will not know this, because it was classified and not released into the public domain. How many of you are familiar with the name Angela Tramelo?”

Forewarned after last night, Sid was watching Abner and Ari. Both of them stiffened with shock. He wasn’t surprised, since the name had triggered a whole bunch of neural connections that sent coldsparks trickling down his own spine.

Ian looked like he didn’t give a shit, while Eva frowned thoughtfully. “Wasn’t she the, oh—” She broke off and gave the Norths a guilty look.

“Angela Tramelo was convicted of murdering Bartram North and thirteen of his household,” Vance said. “The atrocity was committed in one night, twenty-one years ago in Bartram’s mansion on St. Libra.”

One of the file icons migrated to a wallscreen and decompressed into a matrix of thumbnail pictures. Vance expanded the first. Sid tried not to grimace at the raw carnage it illustrated. The body was that of an older North, sprawled across the marble floor of some grandiose room, clothes saturated in blood, with yet more blood pooling around it. Another body was visible, lying crumpled across the sofa behind it. The image switched, showing a close-up of the kill wound: a fingerbladed stab pattern above the heart. More wound pictures: long, deep slash marks across arms and backs, always running in parallel. Defensive wounds, Sid thought.

“As well as Bartram and six of his sons, three of Bartram’s girlfriends were slaughtered along with four of his staff.” The screen began to slideshow the bodies. “Bartram North kept a stable of between three and five girls living with him at the mansion at any one time. They were recruited mainly from Earth. Angela Tramelo was one of them. She was caught at the Newcastle gateway two days later as she attempted to flee. Three months after that she was tried in London and found guilty: life sentence. No remission and no parole.”

“I don’t understand,” Ian said. “Has she escaped?”

Vance shook his head. “I wish. No, she was secure in Holloway Prison at the time your victim was murdered. She’s been there for twenty years; never been allowed to set foot outside the walls.”

“Then why all this? What’s this to HDA?”

“Her defense,” Vance said. Another file expanded over the wallscreen into a paused AV image showing a courtroom with Angela Tramelo in the dock, flanked by two guards. “This is her reaction to the guilty verdict; it explains quite a lot.”

The recording started to play. Angela was struggling against the hold the guards had her in, shouting furiously. The camera zoomed in on her beautiful face as it contorted with rage. “No!” she shrieked. “No no no, I didn’t kill anybody. Why won’t you
listen,
you stupid fucks. Listen to me! The alien did it. The monster. Do you understand? It ripped them apart. I swear it—” The image froze again, catching Angela’s mouth open, spittle flying.

“She repeats that same claim for five minutes while she’s dragged out,” Vance said. “In fact, she never stopped claiming it.”

“An alien monster?” Ian asked quietly.

“That’s what she said. That was her entire defense. But of course, we all know there are no aliens on St. Libra. No animals of any kind. The planet’s evolution is botany only. And as we’ve never encountered anything remotely like she described in the century since the first trans-space connection was made to Proxima Centauri, it was clearly a ludicrous alibi concocted out of desperation. So we believed.”

“Then why did HDA classify information about the blade weapon?” Eva asked.

“Because it was never found,” Vance said. “And it was … odd, as you all know from your own case. Theoretically, Angela’s frenzy strength would be adequate to drive the five blades in. But that whole contraction thing, shredding the heart. A living claw-hand could theoretically cause that kind of damage. But what creature has one? We couldn’t be sure she was lying, and the one thing humanity cannot afford is another hostile species out there. So we investigated as best we could at the time. Nothing came of it, so HDA also assumed she was guilty as well as delusional. A real basket case who had enough just smarts left to throw whatever nasty weapon she’d concocted over a cliff while she was running.”

Ian had sat on the edge of a desk, eyes narrowed as he gazed at Angela’s manic features looming over all of them. “What kind of monster was it? Did she say? Did she describe it?”

“Yes, which was the primary cause for disbelief at the time. She said it looked humanoid, which is ridiculous, because evolution simply doesn’t work that way. And it certainly doesn’t twice produce two legs, two arms, one head; same height as a man—again, her description. The only difference was its skin, which was, and I quote: leather turned to stone.”

“Man in a powered armor suit,” said Eva. “That would even explain the human-style fingerblades.”

“Which fits everything,” Vance agreed. “Except motive. Why would anyone do this?”

“But you accepted she did,” Ian waved an irritated hand at Angela’s looming face.

“Angela Tramelo was judged a psychopath, and she was examined by several psychiatrists who all concurred. That is the only human motivation that fits for such a barbarity.”

“She’s the psychopath, or the man in the power suit?”

“There was never a shred of evidence he existed. And how did she survive? The only one out of the entire household on the seventh floor that night. Nobody else survived an encounter.”

“She ran,” Eva said. “That’s what I would do. I mean, you caught her while she was running, didn’t you?”

“Doesn’t compute,” Vance said flatly. “She said she fought the monster, then ran. Never changed that aspect of her story, stuck by it the whole time. An eighteen-year-old female going mano a mano with a hydraulically powered suit? One that has knives for fingers? And while we’re on improbables: Why did she run all the way back to Earth?”

“Very scared?” Ian said, but not convincingly.

“She didn’t even call the local police,” Vance said.

“She fought the monster?” Sid asked; he hadn’t been told that last night. “Were there any injuries? As you say, she was a teenage girl back then.”

Vance gave him a sharp look, unhappy by being questioned by someone he thought was on his side. “There were no injuries, certainly nothing that would indicate a scrap like that—no cuts, no stab wounds. Check the arrest report. It was made here in Newcastle by this very force, I believe.”

Which was about the worst guarantee of quality you could get; but Sid held his opinion on that one.

“So you think there is a monster on the loose?” Ian asked with extreme skepticism. “An alien one?”

“There are some disturbing unknowns,” Vance said. “The identical murder of a North here in Newcastle last Friday does open up a highly embarrassing question over Angela Tramelo’s conviction. If, and it is a colossal
if,
she did not perform the original slaughter, we are back to asking: Who or what did? So, people, we have a choice of two. Either it was a psychopath with a grudge against the Norths, who has built himself a power armor suit with horror-drama fingers, and has now returned for the second round. Or …”

“Alien monster,” Sid said.

“Walking around Newcastle on a Friday morning,” Ian said scathingly. “Aye, man, do you think it stopped off for a burger first, maybe? Kinda build up some energy, ready for the big slaughter rematch? Crap on this.”

“You will not
crap on this,
” Vance said in a coldly menacing tone. “You will take it very seriously indeed. HDA needs to know just what the hell went down in this piss-poor excuse for a town last weekend. We have got to know if there is another sentient species out there intent on doing us harm. So, Detective
Second Grade
Lanagin, you
will
perform your duty to the best of your moronic ability, you
will
find out what went on here right under your inadequate nose last week, and you
will
find out if this is the start of the end of our entire species. Failure to comply, failure to give this task one hundred percent of your utter devotion, will result in me charging you with genocidal endangerment and collaboration with an enemy of humanity. For which, in case you don’t know, the death penalty still applies—even here in your screwed-up
liberal
Grande Europe. Do we fully understand each other now?”

Ian was glaring furiously at the HDA agent. Sid pointed a single warning finger at him, fearful he’d actually try to throw a punch.

“Where do you think it came from?” Lorelle Burdett asked.

Vance didn’t take his eyes from Ian. “Excuse me?”

“If this thing is an alien, then I’m sorry, but Ian is right. How did it get here? There’s no way it can come through the gateway. The European Border Directorate has really strict reviews in place for people and cargo. Any refugee can walk across to St. Libra without any questions, but it’s a one-way street. Coming back is difficult. There’s no way an alien, even a human-shaped one, could just sneak through to Earth.”

“We’re going to be reviewing imported cargo as part of our expanded investigation,” Sid told her. He didn’t like the amount of hostility and skepticism building in the office. The team had arrived expecting to be shat on by a grubby little political appointee, courtesy of the Norths; not be totally screwed by a paranoid spook who believed they were facing an alien Armageddon.

“You will be granted every gateway security record you want for review,” Aldred said. “There are some pretty stringent precautions against people smuggling applied here. Grande Europe has quite the bug up its arse when it comes to St. Libra. Europe, and every other Earth nation for that matter, has managed to off-load a whole load of political undesirables on the St. Libra independencies, and nobody wants them back. Northumberland International scans all crates and boxes coffin-sized or larger; we perform random physical searches as well. It’s effective—we have electromagnetic scanners, X-rays, airborne chemical sampling, and good old-fashioned sniffer dogs. We have to be serious about it, because if anyone gets through we’re hit with a huge fine, and I’m talking over ten million eurofrancs for each incident. On the plus side, there’s not too much for us to examine. The only real import from St. Libra is bioil; because of its size the planet has no heavy metal ore in its crust, so it has bugger-all industry. Now, all this is all fine for snagging people, but if we are talking about an alien packaged up in some crate, our standard precautions clearly didn’t catch it.”

“We can only go on Angela’s description that it was man-sized, and though it pains me to admit it, she has no reason to lie,” Vance said. “Therefore our conclusion is that if it is real, it had to come through on the cargo route.”

“Okay,” Sid said, moving to stand in front of the screen so that Angela’s face formed a snarling backdrop. “For all the weird elements in play here, we’re still left with a basic murder to solve. So first off, I’d really like a positive identity on our victim. Ari, Abner; you two carry on with that, please. Now that Agent Elston has promised that he’s going to lean on Brinkelle’s people to thoroughly check out all their 2Norths, we might open up some new possibilities.”