On the walk from Cumin Place to Thirlestane Road, Hannah tried to get her pulse to slacken and her anxiety to drop. She went along Beaufort Road, the high, blackened wall to her left hiding Grange Cemetery. She checked the feeds on all the cameras in the Chalmers place on her phone then put it away as she turned into Marchmont Road, then left past the Warrender swimming pool to José’s tenement flat. He wasn’t expecting her, that was the point. She buzzed and waited. She felt weird with the empty rucksack on her back.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Hannah Skelf,’ Hannah said. ‘I was just in the area.’
Crackle on the intercom. ‘And?’
‘Can I come up?’
Pause. ‘Sure.’
He was on the top floor of four. Judging by the detritus on the stairwell, the flats had a mix of students, young families, old folks and all points in between. When José opened the door he was wearing a black T-shirt with a splodgy white circle on it, like a cool coffee stain. He was also in patterned pyjama trousers, had bare feet and his hair was a mess.
He waved her through to a room off the narrow hall.
‘Cool shirt,’ she said.
‘It’s from the movie Arrival. Seen it?’
Hannah nodded. ‘That’s their language, right?’
‘The heptapods,’ José said. ‘But it’s more than a language. It’s circular because their idea of time is non-linear. It’s the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, how language and thoughts are interconnected and influence each other.’
He smiled, realising how intense he sounded. The room was some kind of office, old cornice work and a wrought-iron fireplace, but two big modern desks along the walls, each with computers and several terminals, flashing boxes and a jumble of interconnected wires. Hannah imagined the huge number of electromagnetic waves in the air right now. 5G conspiracy theorists would have a field day here.
At the window was a massive telescope, black-and-chrome finish, motors around the base, a digital box at the eyepiece with a screen, keypad and red LEDs. It was an impressive piece of kit.
‘Wow, that’s something,’ Hannah said.
José held out a hand towards it but didn’t touch it. ‘Coronado SolarMax. It’s not great in the city, too much light pollution, but I like to take it on the roof, you can get pretty good detail if you’re lucky.’
It looked expensive.
‘Sit,’ José said, pointing at a functional plastic chair. He plonked himself in a padded ergonomic seat that would be invaluable for hours of staring at screens.
‘Olivia not around?’
‘At work.’
Hannah knew already, she’d called Söderberg, pretending to be Olivia, and checked her shifts. She wanted to see José alone.
‘So,’ he said, glancing at a screen. It had a screed of code and numbers, a fuzzy graph with a dip in the middle. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just thought I should check in about the case.’
José leaned forward. Hannah noticed empty Coke cans and Pringles tubes in the bin. Healthy body, healthy mind.
‘I spoke to your workmates at the observatory,’ she said.
‘And?’
Hannah put her hands in her lap. ‘You want me to be honest, right?’
‘Of course.’
‘They don’t seem to hold you in high regard.’
‘So, they could be playing a prank on me, with the message?’
Hannah stuck her bottom lip out and nodded. ‘They could be. But how easy would it be to doctor the data?’
‘Hard without me noticing.’
Hannah chewed her lip. ‘And I spoke to Rose McAllister.’
‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t tell her why, did you?’
‘Would that be a problem?’
‘She’s my boss.’
A message pinged on one of the screens. Hannah imagined aliens from light years away sending a perfunctory email, ‘Hi, hope this intergalactic message finds you well’.
‘I was discreet. She didn’t know anything about it, and I don’t see why she would be involved.’
José shook his head and Hannah wasn’t sure what he meant.
‘And I spoke to Olivia.’
José sat up. ‘I told you I didn’t want her involved.’
‘Why?’
José swivelled in his seat, hands on the armrests.
‘It’s got nothing to do with her.’
‘Come on.’
José frowned. ‘What?’
Hannah sat back and turned her hands palm-up. ‘She told me you were sectioned.’
José swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Goddamn.’
Hannah tilted her head. One of the screens went to sleep and the screensaver was from Arrival. Amy Adams had her hand against a glass wall, on the other side was a colossal alien tentacle with seven fingers splayed out, copying her. The need for connection across the cosmos.
Hannah looked at José. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? You hired a private investigator.’
‘It’s not what you think.’
Hannah sat back and folded her arms. ‘Tell me.’
José breathed heavily through his nose. ‘You shouldn’t have spoken to her.’
‘But I did and now I need this explained to me.’
José leaned forward, rubbing his head as if trying to make his thoughts coalesce. ‘That had nothing to do with this.’
Hannah set her face hard. ‘That’s not good enough.’
‘I asked you to investigate the message,’ José said. ‘Please just do that.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s all about context, José. I need to know what’s going on with you and Olivia.’
He rubbed his neck, agitated. He shook his head over and over again. He pointed at one of the six screens, an astronomy chart in one window, an illustration of a black and magenta marble.
‘Have you ever wondered what life is like on exoplanets?’ he said. ‘The universe is fucking crazy. They’ve found a planet made of diamond, one where it rains rubies and sapphires. There are planets a billion years older than earth and some that are ten times bigger than Jupiter. One planet is so black it only reflects one percent of light, that’s less than coal. Waterworlds, circumbinary planets, gas giants, exomoons, pink planets, mega-earths. Imagine what life is like in these places, it can’t be anything we could possibly imagine. How would we communicate, how can we make sense of their experience?’
‘McAllister said we’re asking the wrong questions,’ Hannah said despite herself. ‘And you didn’t answer my question.’
José scratched at his chin and turned in his seat to the furthest screen, a jumble of code and numbers, a mass of information waiting to be unscrambled.
He tapped the screen. ‘I’ve had another message.’
Hannah breathed deeply, closed and reopened her eyes. Tried to stay solid in this space. ‘What does it say?’
José turned and looked her in the eye.
‘We can’t wait to meet you.’