“Was security something you thought she was in need of, particularly?”
“No.”
“Then why, if I may ask, did it occur to you?”
“Lev was interested in this one particular military unit in his stub, the one this fellow had belonged to. Transitional technology, slightly pre-jackpot.” He looked at Lev.
“Haptics,” said Lev.
“I thought it might amuse Daedra,” Netherton said, “the oddness of it. Not that imagination’s her forte, by any means.”
“You wanted to impress her?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Were you having a sexual relationship with her?”
Netherton looked at Lev again. “Yes,” he said. “But Daedra wasn’t interested.”
“In the relationship?”
“In having a polt as a security guard. Or in the relationship, it soon turned out.” It was, he was discovering, somehow unnaturally likely that one would tell Lowbeer the truth. He had no idea how she managed that, but he didn’t like it at all. “So she asked him to give it to her sister instead.”
“You’ve met Aelita, Mr. Netherton?”
“No.”
“Did you, Mr. Zubov?”
Lev swallowed the last of his sandwich. “No. We’d arranged a lunch. It would have been today, actually. She was quite interested in the idea. Of the continuum, the stub”-he looked at Ash-“as you will.”
“So this person,” Lowbeer said, “from the stub, the ex-soldier, would have been on duty in the period of time during which Aelita West is assumed to have vanished from her residence?”
“It wasn’t him,” Netherton said, then resisted the urge to bite his lower lip, “but his sister.”
“His sister?”
“He was called away,” said Lev. “His sister was his substitute, for the past two shifts.”
“His name?”
“Burton Fisher,” said Lev.
“Hers?”
“Flynne Fisher,” said Netherton.
Lowbeer put her cup and saucer down on the table beside her. “And who has spoken with her, about this?”
“I have,” said Netherton.
“Can you describe what she told you she saw?”
“As she was going up for her second shift-”
“Going up? How?”
“In a quadcopter. As a quadcopter? Piloting one. She saw something climbing the side of the building. Rectangular, four arms, or legs. It turned out to contain what sounds like a swarm weapon. The woman who came out on the balcony, whom she identified as Aelita from an image file we showed her, was killed with that. Then destroyed. Eaten, she said. Entirely.”
“I see,” said Lowbeer, unsmiling now.
“She said he knew.”
“Who knew?”
“The man Aelita was with.”
“Your witness saw a man?”
Netherton, no longer certain what he might say if he spoke, nodded.
“And where is she now, this Flynne Fisher?”
“In the past,” said Netherton.
“The stub,” said Lev.
“This is all most interesting,” said Lowbeer. “Really very peculiar, which isn’t something one can honestly say about the majority of investigations.” She rose unexpectedly, from the green armchair. “You’ve all been so helpful.”
“Is that it?” asked Netherton.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve no more questions?”
“Many more, Mr. Netherton. But I prefer to wait for still more of them to arrive.”
Lev and Ash rose then, so Netherton stood as well. Ossian, already standing, by the dark, mirrored sideboard, came to attention in his chalk-striped apron.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Zubov, as well as your assistance.” Lowbeer shook Lev’s hand briskly. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Ash.” She shook Ash’s hand. “And you, Mr. Netherton. Thank you.” Her palm was soft, dry, and of a neutral temperature.
“You’re welcome,” said Netherton.
“Should you wish to contact Daedra West, Mr. Netherton, don’t do it from these premises, or from any other of Mr. Zubov’s. There’s a potential for excess complexity there. Unnecessary messiness. Go elsewhere for that.”
“I had no such intention.”
“Very well, then. And you, Mr. Murphy,” stepping to Ossian, “thank you.” She shook his hand. “You seem to have done very well for yourself, considering the frequency of your youthful encounters with the law.”
Ossian said nothing.
“I’ll see you out,” said Lev.
“You needn’t bother,” said Lowbeer.
“We do have pets,” said Lev. “I’m afraid they’re rather territorial. Best if I accompany you.”
Netherton had never had any sense of Gordon and Tyenna being anything more than existentially creepy, and in any case he’d assumed they were behaviorally modified.
“Very well,” said Lowbeer, “thank you.” She turned, taking them all in. “I’ll be in touch with you individually, should that be necessary. Should you need to reach me, you’ll find you have me in your contacts.”
Lev closed the door behind them as they left the room.
“Sampled our fucking DNA,” said Ossian, examining the palm of the hand that had shaken Lowbeer’s.
“Of course she did,” said Ash, to Netherton, else she encrypt. “How could she be positive we’re who we claim to be?”
“We could bloody sample hers,” said Ossian, frowning down at the teacup Lowbeer had used.
“And be renditioned,” said Ash, again to Netherton.
“Gets right up me,” said Ossian.
“Murphy?” asked Netherton.
“Don’t push it,” said Ossian, briefly but powerfully wringing the white cloth in his large hands. Then he flung the strangled tea towel onto the sideboard, picked up two of the small sandwiches, put both into his mouth, and began to chew, forcefully, his features regaining their usual impassivity.
Ash’s sigil appeared. Netherton met her eyes, caught her very slight nod. She opened a feed.
He saw, as from a bird’s point of view, one able to hover in complete stillness, Lowbeer. She was getting into the rear door of a car, a very ugly one, bulbous and heavy looking, the color of graphite. Lev said something, stepped back, and the car cloaked itself, jigsaw pixels of reflected streetscape scrawling swiftly up the subdued gloss of its bodywork.
Cloaked, it pulled away, seeming to bend the street around it as it went, and then was gone. Lev turned back, toward the house. The feed closed.
Ossian was still chewing, but now he swallowed, poured tea into a crystal tumbler, drank it off. “So,” he said, but not particularly to Ash, else it encrypt, “we’re using student quants at the London School of Economics?”
“Lev’s agreed,” said Ash, to Netherton.
“County’s economy is entirely about manufacturing drugs,” said Ossian, to Netherton. “We might well have all we need there.”
Lev opened the door, smiling.
“How was that?” Ash asked. Netherton saw a flight of birds cross the backs of her hands. She didn’t notice them.
“What an extraordinary person,” Lev said. “Hadn’t met a senior police officer before. Or, for that matter, any police officer.”
“They aren’t all like that,” said Ossian, “thank Christ.”
“I don’t imagine they are,” said Lev.
You, thought Netherton, have just now been sold something. Very thoroughly and a good quick job of it. He saw no reason to doubt that Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer was capable of that.
27
She woke in the dark, to the sound of men’s voices, close by, one of them Burton’s.
She’d gone to Pharma Jon, picked up her mother’s meds, ridden back, helped her make dinner. She and Leon and her mother ate in the kitchen, then she and Leon did the dishes and watched some news with her mother. Then she’d gone up to bed.
Now she looked out the window and saw the rectangular bulk of the white Sheriff’s Department car by the gate. “Four?” she heard her brother ask, just below her window, on the walk to the front porch.
“Plenty for this jurisdiction, Burton, believe me,” said Deputy Tommy Constantine. “Hoping you won’t mind coming along with me and having a look, just in case you might know them.”