The headache burst not long after she hung up on Beckmann. She waved away the concerned hand—Jago or Besson, she could not tell through her narrowed eyes—and groped for the glass door. She walked the corridor blind. The metronomic click-clack of her shoes spoke to deep memories, and her nausea grew.
The toilet was arctic. She opened the tap and let her cupped hands full of water, seething but chill, and she dropped her face into the swirls.
Do I get migraines? she asked her chip. Is this normal?
It was silent.
She pressed her temples. If she pushed hard enough, could she override this pain with another?
Whom do you ask? said that unfamiliar voice in her head. Me or you?
Saskia looked at her reflection. ‘Who said that?’
Whom do you hunt? Proctor or yourself?
Saskia followed the shape of her mouth. ‘This. Is. Me. Talking.’
Confused?
‘Who are you?’
The hawk.
‘The hawk that returned?’
Spin, measure, snip.
She closed her eyes. Her imagination opened on a snowy archipelago. Each memory formed an island bridge: the Zippo lighter in Jago’s hand; the statue of Prometheus at the West Lothian Centre; the name Ute.
And smoke.
At first, it would be mistaken for smoke from a cigarette. Then its deep, toxic wave would overwhelm. Plastic. Coughing. Yes: panic.
A building on fire.
‘Is this the key to the cipher?’ she asked the archipelago. ‘Is this my key?’
Whom do you ask?
‘Who said that? What are you?’
Ute.
‘What about her? What about her?’ Saskia grasped desperately at the ghost of the memory.
‘Kommissarin?’
Saskia gave a start. The archipelago slipped aside like an inner eyelid. She blinked. She was still in the toilet cubicle, in the basement of the police station, and Charlotte Garland held her arm. She was not in…
‘Saskia?’
…in Cologne.
Chapter Nineteen
Besson opened his clamshell computer. The heat of his fingertips summoned a keyboard, red-glowing, as Jago, Saskia and Garland watched a projection on the wall. One pane showed a taxi against the frontage of the Park View Hotel. The other was crowded with a set of image processing tools.
‘I’ll say this for you,’ murmured Jago. ‘You’re well connected.’
‘I am,’ Saskia replied. ‘Paul, go.’
They watched the video from beginning to end. The story was simple: a car drove in from left of frame and stopped; Proctor opened the door, hesitated, then closed it. The windows remained opaque with reflected sky. Five minutes later, he opened the door a second time and walked out of the frame. The taxi drove away. For a period during those five minutes, he had made the transmission.
Saskia asked, ‘Ideas?’
‘The door,’ said Jago. ‘Why did he open it twice?’
‘Yes. He is the only person in the car. What model of car is that? Does it have an advanced computer?’
Besson shook his head. ‘That’s a Merc with a hands-off driving module. The computer is thick.’
Saskia approached the projection. ‘McWhirter said that Proctor used an industrial prototype to detonate the bomb. Perhaps his computer handled the communication too. Picture it: Proctor arrives, he opens the door, then the computer calls him back in. He closes it again and receives the transmission.’
Jago grunted. ‘Maybe the computer announced the caller.’
Saskia clicked her fingers. ‘One day, you will make a fine Kommissar, Deputy.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Paul, can we see a plot of the sound at that point?’
Besson nodded. On the projection, Proctor reversed towards the car and opened the door. Besson wound it back still further. The door closed. He kept cuing. Thirty seconds later—for Proctor, five minutes earlier—the door opened again. ‘Alright,’ Besson said, ‘here’s a visual of the sound.’ The image was replaced by two graphs, each with a tiny peak halfway along. ‘I’ll play it. Quiet.’
As it played, Saskia heard a component deep inside the sound. It might have been a footfall, a snapping branch or a voice.
‘Anyone?’ she asked.
‘Hold on, I can enhance it.’
They waited for Besson to select a smudge in the spectrogram.
‘This is it. Quiet again, please.’
A voice, swept with wind, said, ‘Professor Proctor, it is your daughter.’
Saskia clapped Besson on the back and shared a nod with Garland.
‘N’bad,’ said Jago.
While Jago spoke to his boss about arranging an interview with Jennifer Proctor, Saskia donned her glasses and monitored the virtual workspaces of Besson and Garland, who were engaged in a review of communications between David and Jennifer Proctor. Pictures and text fluttered into the foreground and disintegrated, or joined to represent relationships suggested by Nexus, the semantic parser used by the UK Police Service.
‘Interesting,’ said Garland. ‘David Proctor is flagged for surveillance. Turns out this isn’t the first time he’s blown something up at the West Lothian Centre.’
‘How does that help us?’
‘Here,’ said Besson. In Saskia’s glasses, a data tile rushed towards her. She stopped it with a thought. It was a scan of a paper document, headed ‘GCHQ’. ‘Proctor has been flagged since 2003. Some analysis has already been carried out on his correspondence.’
‘Can we use that to our advantage?’
‘It should speed up the process. Hey, Charlotte, is that video of our man?’
‘Yeah. A robotics conference in Amsterdam in ’21. Looks like Proctor was the keynote. Nothing doing, though.’
Saskia tuned out. Beyond the graphical interface—which she could slide away on command—was a world where she had committed murder. There would be data for that too. Photographs. Video footage. Court documents. Witnesses.
In Cologne.
And yet she could not investigate a datum of it. The previous morning, when she had stood with the revolver in grisly salute, Beckmann had marked her limits. Any attempt to investigate herself would not be tolerated.
Forget it, Brandt.
‘Wow,’ said Garland, ‘look at this.’
It was an email. Garland highlighted some text in the centre and tossed it towards Saskia.
b2kool 2 use an encrypted transmission, dad
‘What did her father say to that?’ asked Saskia.
‘The reply is missing.’
‘Shame.’
‘Kommissarin,’ said Besson. ‘Read these.’
In the latest transmissions, Proctor seldom wrote more than two lines. They were invariably apologetic: ‘Sorry I can’t write any more right now,’ ‘CU Gotta go,’ ‘Write more soon, I prooomise!’, and so on, but the follow-ups were never sent. Jennifer’s e-mails shortened. She made jokes about her father’s tardiness, jokes that became sardonic and accusatory. At the same time, Proctor’s replies became defensive, hurt and confused. The messages described a dying relationship. Saskia could not suppress her sadness.
The e-mails dried up. There was no code.
‘Okay,’ Saskia said. ‘Tune out for a moment.’ She removed her glasses and watched their faces. ‘Charlotte, the e-mail about the cipher. When was that sent?’
‘Back in ’21,’ said Garland.
‘The cipher would have to be complicated,’ Besson said.