“Yes, yes. The parents were killed, the children weren’t. You pulled a suspect out of the Assembly just before shift-change. Tell me something I can’t get from the news. What made you suspect that man you interrogated?”
“The night-side door to Unit 6-4-17 opened at three a.m. It closed again just over three and a half minutes later. At around the same time the suspect, Glastonbury, went off-net. It’s too big a coincidence for that to have happened at the same time as the Greenes were murdered.”
“And what evidence do you have that the murders took place at three o’clock?” Arthur asked.
“I told you. That was when the door opened.”
“Right, right. And what did I teach you? What does the door opening actually prove?”
Ely hesitated. “Okay, that just proves that’s when the door opened, and alright, I can’t be sure that was when the murders took place. But again, if it wasn’t, that would be a big coincidence.”
“And yet, you tell me this other coincidence, this one with Glastonbury being off-net, that that had nothing to do with the murder?”
“Ah, yes. I see what you mean. You’re saying two coincidences in one night can’t be any coincidence at all.”
“Well, maybe,” Arthur said. “We’ll come back to that. What happened to the bodies?”
“They were sent to Tower-Thirteen for autopsy.”
“Fine. Good. Well, that should confirm the time of death for you. Of course, that will take time, won’t it? Now as I understand it, no alarms were sounded when the couple died.”
“That’s right,” Ely replied.
“Well, since they clearly did die, that means that someone was able to tamper with the pods.”
“Yes, I’ve got Vox looking into it.”
“Vox?”
“Vauxhall, the Controller.”
“Ah, right. And do you trust her?” Arthur asked.
“I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Come on, Ely. You just agreed someone was able to tamper with the system. She’s the most likely suspect isn’t she?”
“Not really. I know that she has the ability to do it, but she’s also got the ability to cover her own tracks. She wouldn’t have arranged it so the only evidence pointed directly at herself.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Ely said, firmly, “I am. She’s checking the logs, working out how and when the system was hacked. Maybe that’ll show us whether the door-logs were changed.”
“Well, I expect she won’t be able to find that out quickly. But it’s important you know whom you can trust. What else do you know?”
“There were no fingerprints.” Ely didn’t want to admit he’d forgotten to look for them. “But two weeks ago, someone went into that unit and moved the camera. They turned it to face the wall, and they did it whilst the occupants were asleep. That had to have been done by the killer.”
“Does it?” Arthur asked.
“What were you saying about coincidences?”
“After nearly sixty years with nothing more serious than a few fights, there are two sets of crimes discovered on the same night. Of course they’re connected. I’m asking whether it was done by the same person. Was the killer acting alone? What else have you found out? What about the weapon?”
“Their deaths must have happened so quickly that it had to have been a large, heavy blade, something with a handle at each end, pressed down on the neck with a sort of chopping motion. Where are you going to hide that in clothes like these?” He plucked at his jumpsuit. “I can’t see how the killer could have gone wandering the halls with it, so I think it was disposed of in the chute.”
“Hmm,” Arthur said with a sigh. “Then look at it the other way. If they carried it into the room, then they could have got it out of there, right? So if you want to know where it’s hidden now, start thinking about where it was hidden before the crime.”
“You don’t think it was destroyed?”
“I can’t think of any reason why it would be. So there, that’s a part of the puzzle that you can solve. Find where the weapon could be hidden, find out who went there. But that’ll take time as well. Is there anything else? Any other evidence.”
“Well, it’s more the absence of evidence. No one appears on the cameras. Vox has gone through the schematics and thinks it’s possible, if it’s timed correctly, for someone to walk down the corridor without being recorded.”
“And how much time did she spend doing that?”
“What? I don’t know.”
“See, it occurs to me, that you’re being led to think in a particular way here. You’ve got to distinguish between evidence and conjecture. You say that this suspect, Glastonbury, had nothing to do with the murder?”
“He was just stealing hot water.”
“He was doing what?” Arthur exclaimed.
“Sorry,” Ely said, realising how dismissive he’d sounded of the crime. “He’d found that the system recording hot water usage resets itself between three a.m. and half past every day. That’s why he woke up. He was off-net because he was in the shower.”
“Ah. Wasting energy like that is a serious crime regardless of anything else that’s going on. I mean, here I am, giving up a good night’s sleep so I can stew up leaves and roots on that stove, and here’s someone stealing energy just for his own pleasure.”
“Not just him, there are forty-six others doing the same. It’s been going on for a year, and there’s not a single mention of it on the other-net. They managed to spread the word amongst themselves without me ever knowing.”
“That is very serious. So, who told Glastonbury about this?”
“I… I didn’t ask.”
“Oh, come on lad, that’s not how I taught you.”
“But does it have anything to do with the murders?”
“Think for a moment. Just sit and think, and then you tell me.”
Ely thought.
“Alright,” he said. “No matter what time the murders took place, there was no way of covering up the fact that they had happened.”
“No.”
“I mean, even if you got rid of the bodies, there would be two missing people, right?”
“So?”
“So if they did happen at three a.m., then why pick that time? And if it wasn’t at three a.m., but the killer had a way of altering the logs, then why pick that time to have me investigate?” And then Ely understood where the older man had been leading him. “Either the killer knew about the theft of this water and chose that time on purpose, or at least one of those forty-seven is involved and chose that time to ensure there were so many suspects I couldn’t possibly interview them all.”
“And that, my lad, sounds more right than you know,” Arthur said.
“But why?” Ely asked, not really listening to the old man’s comment. “I mean why bother going to all that trouble? The autopsy results will come back, and no matter whether they alter or delete some of the camera footage, they can’t get rid of all of it. It’s just a matter of time before I work out the truth.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. That’s the answer to all these riddles.”
Ely looked at him blankly.
“Time,” Arthur said. “That’s what this is all about. Or timing.”
“Timing? Timing of what? Wait, are you saying this has something to do with the election?”
“Oh no,” Arthur said, glancing over at Ely’s helmet. “I’m not suggesting anything of the kind. Come on, why don’t we go for a stroll? There was a kink in the irrigation system yesterday. Almost flooded the radishes. Leave your helmet though. You keep shifting it around.”
Leaving his helmet, with its camera and microphones, by Arthur’s cot, Ely followed the old man out of the small chamber, towards the allotments.
“So who do you think—” Ely began.