17. Given

Lui Ping sat holding her daughter as the child struggled to break free. The woman would not make eye contact with Jeremy, which annoyed him. “She can play on the floor if she wants,” he said. But he had nothing for the child in his office: no blocks, no crayons. Lui Ping released the child, who tottered off before sitting down abruptly on the plush carpet. “I always wanted children,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to put her in the crèche?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Sir, we have long flight. We’re both exhausted.” There were indeed bags under Lui Ping’s eyes. She was quite pretty in that generic Chinese way, a way that no longer interested him. She didn’t speak English particularly well, but then he didn’t speak Mandarin particularly well, so it had to be English.

“I won’t keep you long,” he said. “I’m investigating the June First attack, and I have some questions about what happened to your fiancée, Jiang Wei.”

That got her attention, as he knew it would. The child was momentarily forgotten. “Yes?” she said. It was obvious that she was afraid to say more.

“Your fiancée and five other men were sent into the reactor to try to repair the damage, and they all subsequently died of radiation sickness,” he explained. “None of the men were given protective clothing. Yang Po gave the order.”

Lui Ping’s face darkened and he knew he was onto something. “I met this man,” she said. “You are his friend?”

“No. I’ve just replaced Mr Yang as Director of Security. He’s had a heart attack.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, but he’s very frail. He’s had to go back to China.”

Lui Ping looked at him and her face told of her defiance. He liked that. “Don’t expect me to say I hope he gets better soon,” she said. “He killed Lijia’s father.” The child had made her way over to the door and was reaching up toward the handle. He could see that Lui Ping’s attention was wavering.

“Yes, he did. And now I want to know why,” he said. “What did Yang Po say to you?”

“He came to hospital, here in Australia. Jiang Wei was dying. He came to speak to us.”

“What did he say?”

“Mama!” Lijia said, her fingertips touching the door handle.

“Excuse me.” Lui Ping got up and scooped little Lijia into her arms. “I don’t want trouble,” she said, sitting down again. “All this, it’s finished. I work. I look after Lijia. I don’t try to remember all of this.”

“Yang Po killed Jiang Wei and the other five,” he insisted. “What would you say if I told you that he could be prosecuted, even jailed?”

“He has heart attack,” Lui Ping said. “He’s a sick man.”

“That’s true,” he said. “What about this ‘Controlled Waking State’ trial that Jiang Wei was part of?”

Lui Ping stroked her daughter’s head. The child was falling asleep. “They mess with Jiang Wei’s mind,” she half-whispered. “He told me about it in Dreaming State. He start to lose his mind. Then they send him into the reactor.”

“So it’s a cover up,” he said. Lijia’s eyes were closed and she shook her head rhythmically from side to side. “The trial was failing and Yang Po wanted to cover it up, so he killed off Jiang Wei and the others in the reactor.”

“Mr Peters, maybe you a good man, but I don’t think you can help.”

“I want to help you,” he said. “I want you to stay here in Yellowcake Springs for a while. You won’t have to work and everything will be paid for. Think of it as a holiday. You can spend the time with your daughter.”

“Thank you,” Lui Ping said. Lijia lay motionless in her arms.

“I’ve organised an apartment for you here in town. I’ll give you a few days to settle in, and then perhaps we can discuss what happened to Jiang Wei in a little more detail.”

“A few days, yes,” Lui Ping said. “I will try to remember more.”

He saw them to the door and had Natasha organise for them to be taken to the Green Zone.

Mondays were always difficult to stay motivated right through until five o’clock, but Jeremy had brought a bottle of expensive American bourbon into work today. He used to be a big coffee drinker but in recent times he’d found himself needing something stronger to get through the day. It was still a little early to give in to the temptation though. There were a number of things he could be doing that didn’t involve the bourbon, but his heart wasn’t in any of them. He reached for the drawer. In the same instant, one of his worker bees flashed up on the screen.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but it’s important,” the man said. Jeremy couldn’t put a name to this guy’s face. His standards were slipping.

Jeremy shut the drawer casually, as though it were nothing. “Yes? What’s happened?” He wanted to add ‘Mr Jones’ or ‘Mr Foster’ at the end of his sentence, but he didn’t want to get it wrong.

“Sir, there’s been a murder.”

“In town? Have we got footage?”

“In the Green Zone, at one of the residential apartments. 214 Heisenberg. White male, twenty-four years old. His name’s Robert Given, works in Health & Wellbeing. Not sure about footage as yet, but I’m positive we’ll have something.”

“Are you certain we’re looking at murder?” Jeremy demanded.

“I’m not a hundred percent certain that it’s a murder, Mr Peters, but Robert Given was shot in the back of the head. I guess it’s possible that he could have done it himself.”

“This isn’t happening,” Jeremy said. “Not today. How many murders have there been in Yellowcake Springs?”

“Three, Mr Peters, and they were all domestic. This one looks like it could have been a professional hit.”

“Well, keep me informed. Day or night, you understand?”

“I understand, sir.” The connection winked out. Jeremy got out the bourbon and poured himself a measure. Then he turned back to his computer and brought up Robert Given’s employee file. Given was a tough-looking Aussie. Brawny. Strong jawline. Where had he seen that face before?

The glass slipped from his fingers, spilling the precious nectar onto the expensive carpet. Given was the guy who’d been fucking Jeremy’s wife.

It couldn’t be and yet it was. If anyone had a reason to knock Given off, it was Jeremy. And yet he hadn’t authorised such a thing. Not for something as trivial as an affair. But if they found out that Given had slept with Hui it would make him a suspect. He had the means, a whole apparatus at his disposal.

Someone was trying to set him up: it was the only explanation. He retrieved the glass and reached for the bottle again. He knocked back a glass in one gulp and wiped his mouth. He had to act decisively, but how?

First thing had he to do was to go down to the crime scene. Any Director of Security worth a damn would do that. Then he’d have to decide whether it was more incriminating to try to destroy the evidence linking Hui and Given, or to leave it there. He was the Director, after all. Only the Grand Director could authorise an investigation without his approval. He put the bourbon away, told Natasha where he was going, and made for the door.

Private transportation was virtually unknown in Yellowcake Springs, but when you were the Director of Security, and when there’d been a murder, an exception could be made. He had his own private flitter downstairs in storage, which so far he’d never used. It occurred to him as he strode through the Eye that someone in his position ought to have a bodyguard. Given’s killer was still out there, and for all Jeremy knew he too might be on the hit list. He’d lived in Yellowcake Springs long enough to have more or less forgotten about things like murderers, bodyguards and police forces. Pervasive surveillance was supposed to have done away with all of that. But people were still made of flesh and blood and they still did stupid things, even if they knew they were being watched.

The flitter was a transparent, teardrop-shaped bubble and it was green in colour. It waited patiently for him in the subterranean storage area beneath the Eye. Programmed to recognise his approach and his authority, the flitter prepped itself, its headlights winking on in greeting. He climbed inside and peered at the holographic panel, not entirely sure how to operate the controls. As the flitter was entirely automated it could not be manually steered. He set 214 Heisenberg Street as the destination and sat back as a ring of lights came on around the flitter. The roof above the flitter opened and a platform with the flitter on it ascended until it clicked into place at street level.

The flitter made its way along the wide pedestrian concourse. There was a siren of sorts, but it was only loud enough for those in the immediate vicinity to hear. The speed on the panel ticked up to thirty kilometres an hour and hovered there. People looked at him through the transparent fibreglass and he looked back at them.

The apartment in question was like any other: reasonably new, brightly coloured and tidy from the outside. Heisenberg was one of the older residential streets in Yellowcake Springs, making it about five years old. There were plenty of parks, a primary school and even an artificial lake within walking distance. It didn’t look like the kind of place where someone would be murdered, but then nowhere in town looked like such a place. The side of the flitter opened, depositing him on the doorstep, before folding back up into itself to await his return. There were two Security officers present, one at the top of the external stairs and the other inside. The man inside was the one Jeremy had spoken to earlier, but he didn’t think he’d run into the other before.

“What have we got?” Jeremy asked the man on the stairs.

“Not much as yet, Mr Peters,” he said.

“No witnesses?”

“No, sir. The death was reported via the victim’s implants.”

“Any word on murder versus suicide?”

“I don’t see how it could have been a suicide, sir. To do that to yourself, you’d have to hold a pistol to the back of your head. In my opinion, the wound isn’t consistent with the impact having been made at point blank range. I think Ballistics will be able to rule it out, but we’ll have to wait on their report.”

“What about the surveillance footage?” Jeremy asked. “Have we got something from inside the apartment?”

“We’re still working on that, sir. I’m told there might be a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

The man faltered. “Ah, we seem to be locked out of the file to this particular apartment, and the street view as well. There’s a note attached. It’s signed with your name, sir.”

“What? I signed nothing!” Jeremy reeled. Something was happening to him and he didn’t understand it. It had happened and it was still happening. He walked into the apartment and went into the bedroom, where the other Security man stood in the corner of the room. Robert Given lay face down across the bed and he was naked. A lot of blood had seeped from the head wound onto the sheets, but there was very little else in the way of carnage.

Jeremy looked down at the dead man. Given’s face was turned to one side and his expression was one of surprise. “What the fuck is going on here?” he said quietly. Locked out of the very Security surveillance that was supposed to protect the citizens of the town? It was unheard of. It was a setup for sure, and he would have to figure out what was going on quickly or he was going down. He’d have to talk to the Grand Director and try to obtain access to the footage. He’d even have to talk to Hui about Given, find out if she knew anything.

First he was going to need another drink.