“The stupid girl came here trying to pass herself off as a policewoman. Asking questions about patients any detective would know I couldn’t answer. And in any case, I knew who she was. You’d talked about her often enough during our sessions.”
“Did I?” Michael had no recollection. He could only ever remember talking about Mora. All those hours of self-indulgent grief were a distant blur now.
“So she had to go, I’m afraid.”
“But why, Angela? What’s it all about?”
She sighed and looked at her watch. “Well, I suppose we have a few minutes. I can wait until we hear the siren before I shoot you. That way I won’t have to sit too long with you bleeding on my floor.”
“Jesus, Angela! You’re a cold-blooded bitch!”
Her smile was strained. “Yes. I suppose I am.” She drew a deep breath. “Where to begin... With Roger Bloom, I guess. A patient. Very interested when I told him my idea of starting group therapy sessions in Second Life. I’d already been in for a while by that time. Knew what I was doing and how I wanted to set things up. Turned out Roger was a real expert on the subject. Had his own software company in RL, created and scripted weapons systems in SL.”
“Wicked Wilson.”
Angela cocked an eyebrow. “Yes... You got further down that road than I expected. Well, Roger just couldn’t resist telling me how clever he was. Always in therapy, so it was confidential. Like the confessional. Plus, I think, he wanted into my panties. He tried so hard to impress me. Which made him very malleable. So, anyway, he told me he’d created and scripted a weapon that would not only kill an AV, but wipe any record of its account off the database. And — this was the really clever bit — transfer any money out of that account into his own. An untraceable transaction. But the truth is, he never saw its financial potential, Michael. He was a mischief-maker. Enjoyed the sheer act of fucking with people’s lives. A great big kid. I saw immediately how damned lucrative it could be. I mean, let’s face it, you don’t practise psychotherapy in Newport Beach without having a lot of very wealthy clients. If I could drop the idea, in casual conversation, that an SL account was an ideal place to hide money from the taxman, a business partner, a spouse, then persuade them to join my virtual group therapy... ”
She stood up and wandered toward him. Michael’s breath was becoming stertorous, as he continued to lose blood.
“A simple matter, to kill their AVs with an alt of my own, and suddenly all that secret money is in my account. Money that none of them could report missing, since it was there illicitly.” She looked at him. “You’re not going to pass out on me before I finish my story, are you? I’ve been just dying to tell someone. And I know you’re just dying to hear it.”
“You killed Wicked Wilson for his gun?”
“It was easy, Michael. I invited him over for drinks. Played on his fantasies. He’d shown me how it was possible to amend the script to pay the money into any account he chose. I persuaded him to give me a demonstration. We went online. On two different computers. But what he could never have guessed was that I’d slip a little sedative into his bourbon. And when he drifted off into his happy slumber, I took control of his AV, transferred the gun to mine, and amended the script to pay into my account. Then shot him. Simple.
“When he came round, I told him that the grid had shut down for maintenance, and that he had drunk way too much. I offered to drive him home in his car. When we got there, I shot him for real. Walked around the corner and got a taxi home. The Super Gun was mine.” She smiled. “And that’s when I hit on the really clever bit of my plan. When I persuaded a wealthy client to join group therapy in SL, I used the group to introduce the idea of hiding money in the account. Which was easy, because each and every one of the group was me. A small investment. Six computers, six AVs. Each one, in many ways, the personification of some part of me that I’d always had to keep under wraps.
“If was such fun, Michael. Hard for you to imagine. Being able to tell these poor little rich fucks exactly what I thought of them. All those hours of having to keep a lid on my private thoughts, finally given an outlet through Laffa, and Demetrius, and Dark, and the Tweedles. I could say anything through them. And I did. As you found out.”
“So you killed your patients in RL after you killed them in SL.”
“Good God, no. No need. Until Arnold Smitts, damn him! I had no idea he worked for the mob until I killed his AV, and ended up with three million in my account. Which was much more than I’d ever bargained for. He called me. Told me everything, without the least idea that it was me who had done it to him. He was terrified his employers would think he had ripped them off. But I knew that if these people started digging, there was a chance the money trail could lead back to me.
“Of course, none of the money ever paid directly into my account. I had created Green Goddess, another AV, especially for that, and to do the killing. Even so, I needed to divert attention as far away from me as possible. I had to go to Smitts place and kill him to stop him telling anyone else about his connection with me. Then I set you up to be the recipient of the mob money. Amended the script before I shot Green and sent the cash winging its way into your account. So now the trail led to you, rather than me.”
“And Jennifer Mathews?”
“A spoiled brat. But smart, Michael. Way too smart. She started getting suspicious. And when her AV got killed and the money her father had put into her account just vanished, she came to see me, asking some very awkward questions. And with the whole Smitts thing having just blown up in my face, I couldn’t afford to have her pointing any fingers at me.”
Michael fell over on to his side. He was getting very faint now. He heard her words, but was having trouble making sense of them any more.
“It was fun shooting myself to put you off the scent, and letting Dark do the dirty work. But I knew the hero in you would think I was in danger and come charging in like a knight in shining armour. It took you a while, though. I was waiting almost two hours for you to show. Almost began to doubt you.”
She took several steps back.
“Get up now, Michael. It’s time.”
“I can’t.”
“Get up!” Her voice became shrill.
Michael rolled over on to his knees and grabbed the edge of her writing bureau, trying to get himself to his feet. But his legs wouldn’t hold him. He was too far gone now to feel fear any more. But he knew he was going to die, and something in him was resigned to it.
In the distance he heard the sound of the police siren and knew that it was his death knell. She would have to do the deed before they arrived. And he speculated, as he had many times during the past months, on whether there really was an afterlife. And if there was, if he might meet Mora there again. There was comfort in the thought, even although deep down he couldn’t really bring himself to believe it.
He looked up as she raised her arm to point the gun directly at him, and he closed his eyes to brace himself for the impact of the bullets.
He heard the shots. Three of them. But felt nothing, and he wondered if death really came that quickly. He opened his eyes in time to see Angela stagger backwards, blood pulsing from three closely grouped wounds in the centre of her chest. She sat down abruptly in the armchair where he had sat so many times in the dark talking about Mora. Her arm fell away to the side, the handgun slipping from her fingers to hit the floor with a thump. Her eyes were wide, startled, staring off into some unseen distance. And Michael knew that she was dead.
He slid down to the floor and rolled over, propping himself on one elbow, and saw Angela’s killer standing in the doorway, the gun that shot her still raised.