“I've already identified several new software products I'd like Firedrake to promote,” O'Hagen was saying. “I should be able to sign exclusivity rights for the English market on the back of this expansion project.”
“May I see the painting, please?” Richard asked.
“Sure.” O'Hagen picked up a slim kelpboard-wrapped package from behind his desk. Richard had been expecting something larger. This was barely forty centimeters high, thirty wide. He slipped the thin kelpboard from the front. “What is it?” he asked. The painting was mostly sky sliced by a line of white cloud, with the mound of a hill rising out of the lower right corner. Hanging in the air like some bizarre obsidian dagger was an alien spaceship, or possibly an airborne neolithic monument.
“View of a Hill and Clouds,” O'Hagen said contentedly. “Remarkable, isn't it? It's from McCarthy's earlier phase, before he moved from oils to refractive sculpting.”
“I see.” Richard pulled the kelpboard wrapping back on. “I'd like to get it valued.”
“Of course.” O'Hagen smiled.
Richard took the painting to the Sotheby's office in Stamford on his way back from Thistlemore Wood. The assistant was appreciative when Richard told her he wanted it valued for his house-insurance policy. She took her time, checking its authenticity before giving him an estimate. Eighteen thousand New Sterling. Once again Mr. Alan O'Hagen was being financially optimistic. But all things considered, it wasn't a bad price for endorsing the Zone 35 development.
“I think we have an agreement,” he told O'Hagen over the phone the next day.
There was a chuckle from the earpiece. “I thought you'd be able to appreciate a good deal. I'll get the paperwork over to you right away.”
“Very well. I'll notify the precinct's banking consortium that I have another client.”
Suzi turned up mid-afternoon carrying a small leather satchel. She opened it to produce a thin folder. There were two partnership agreement contracts to sign, both dated two years previously; even his signature counter-witness was filled in and dated. Mrs. Adams, he noted.
“It says here my partner in Firedrake is Newton Holdings,” Richard said.
“Yeah. So?”
“I thought it was held by Mr. O'Hagen.”
“Newton belongs to him; it does his imports. You want to call him?”
He couldn't meet her impatient antagonistic stare. “No.” He signed the partnership contracts.
“Mr. O'Hagen said to say you can owe him the pound for the share,” Suzi said. She gathered up one copy of the contract and handed him a share certificate with his name on it: again dated two years ago.
“Tell him that's very generous of him.”
She scowled and marched out of the office. Richard glanced over the certificate again, then locked it and the partnership agreement in the wall safe.
Richard was having breakfast the next morning when the police arrived, hammering so hard on the door he thought they were trying to smash it down. He opened the door wearing just his dressing gown, blinking…partly from confusion at the team of eight armed uniformed officers standing on his front lawn, and partly at the bright morning sunlight.
The person knocking aggressively on his paintwork identified herself as Detective Amanda Patterson, holding her police card out for him to verify.
He didn't bother to show it to his cybofax. “I don't doubt who you are,” he murmured. Three cars were parked on the street outside, their blue lights flashing insistently. Neighbors were pressed up against windows watching the drama. A Globecast camera crew lurked at the end of the drive, pointing their fat black lenses at him.
“Richard Townsend?” the detective demanded.
He put on a smile as polite as circumstances would allow. “Guilty of that, at least.”
“Would you please accompany me to the station, sir. I have some questions for you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will arrest you.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Your suspected involvement in the murder of Byrne Tyler.”
Richard stared at her in astonishment, then managed to gather some dignity. “I hate to ask you this in such a public arena.” He indicated the camera crew. “But are you quite sure you have the right house?”
“Oh yes, sir. I have the right house. It's yours.”
“Very well. May I at least get dressed first?”
“Yes, sir. One of my male colleagues will accompany you.”
He gave a grunt of surprise as he realized just how serious she was. “I think I'd like my one phone call now as well.”
“That's America's Miranda rights, sir. But you're certainly free to call a solicitor if you think you require one.”
“I don't require one to establish my innocence,” Richard snapped. “I simply wish to sue you into your grave. You have no idea how much trouble this mistake will bring down on your head.”
Richard suspected the layout of the interview room at Oakham police station was deliberately designed to depress its occupants. Straight psychological assault on the subconscious. Drab light-brown walls shimmered harshly under the glare from the two biolum panels in the ceiling. The gray-steel desk in front of him vibrated softly, a cranky harmonic instigated by the buzzing air-conditioning grille.
He'd been in there for twenty minutes alone, dourly contemplating this ludicrous situation, before the door opened and Jodie Dobson came in.
“About time,” he barked at her. “Can I go now?”
She gave him a sober look. “No, Richard. This isn't some case of mistaken identity. I've been talking to Detective Patterson, and they really do think you had something to do with Byrne Tyler's murder.”
“That's insane! I've never even met him.”
“I know, and I'm sure we can clear it up with a simple interview.”
“I want that Patterson cow sued for doing this to me. They tipped off the news team. I'll have my face plastered all over the media. Do you know what kind of damage that'll do to me? Business is about trust, credibility. I can't believe this! She's ruined five years' hard work in five minutes. It was deliberate and malicious.”
“It's not that bad. Listen, the quicker you're out and cleared, the quicker we can instigate damage limitation.”
“I want her to make a public apology, starting with that news crew that was outside my bloody house.”
“We can probably get that. But you'll need to cooperate. Fully.”
“Fine, bring them on!” He caught the tone in her voice. “What do you mean?”
“They've brought in some kind of specialist they want to sit in on your interview. Greg Mandel, he's a gland psychic.”
Richard hoped his flinch wasn't too visible. There were stories about gland psychics. Nothing a rational adult need concern themselves about, of course. Human psi ability was a strictly scientific field these days, quantified and researched. A bioware endocrine gland implanted in the brain released specific neurohormones to stimulate the ability. But…“Why do they want him to interview me?”
“Help interview you,” Jodie stressed. “Apparently his speciality is sensing emotional states. In other words he'll know if you're lying.”
“So if I just say that I didn't kill this Byrne Tyler, Mandel will know I'm being truthful?”
“That's the way it works.”
“Okay. But I still want Patterson nailed afterward.”
Richard gave Mandel a close look when he entered the interview room. Approaching middle age, but obviously in shape. The man's movements were very…precise moving the chair just so to sit on rather than casually pulling it out from the desk as most people would Richard supposed it was like a measure of confidence and Mandel seemed very self-assured. It was an attitude very similar to Alan O'Hagen's.