On the main floor, the desk officer, a guy this time, signed me out. By the time I was a free man, I spied Erica walking towards the subway entrance. I dashed out of the building and called her name.
‘Erica!’
She turned back. A smile that was equal parts relief and happiness seemed to spread on her face. We met and hugged.
‘Thanks for the alibi.’
‘I’m not saying I’d like to make a habit out of it, but if it helped keep you a free man, then all the better.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Well enough, I suppose. We’re both here, right?’
‘True. Sorry about that. You came up during an interview.’
‘About the other night?’
People flowed past us on the sidewalk like leaves on a lazy river.
‘Not at first, no. The interview started out as this’ – I swirled my hand around my face to highlight the areas I’d been punched – ‘and turned into the other night.’
She had to know what the other night was about. She read the news. She’s smart. I admired her resolve to help me out even more.
A look of concern crossed her features.
‘Are you okay?’
‘More or less. I think.’
Erica checked her smartwatch. ‘Listen, can we walk and talk? I’m late for work.’
Thrown off, I checked my own MAX. ‘Can we meet later? I need to see about my car and a few other things.’
‘Is one of them a trip to the doctor’s office?’
‘It might be.’
‘Sure, Danny.’ She touched my bruised cheek. ‘Call me later?’
‘Definitely.’
With that, Erica turned and walked towards the escalator down to the Underground station. I scanned the streets for an available cab.
The arrival of a stretch Baker Electric hijacked my attempt to hail an approaching LTI. A guy in a well-cut suit and trench coat, who looked like he could be the starting linebacker on any pro team, climbed out.
‘Daniel Helmqvist?’ he asked with a clear powerful voice and approached me.
‘It depends on who’s asking,’ I replied and almost immediately regretted it.
He grabbed me by the upper arm with fingers like a vice grip.
‘A real jokester, eh? Come on. Someone wants to see you.’
He then proceeded to walk me to the limo whether I wanted to or not.
‘Easy, pal,’ I said. ‘We’re in front of Metro HQ. I call out and you’ve got a ton of heat on you in the blink of an eye.’
He relaxed a bit and looked around as if he only now realised where we were. ‘Get in the car.’
I slid into an open space on the left side of the rear compartment. On the bench seat opposite me were two other passengers. The linebacker hopped into the space closest to the door. The car immediately merged into traffic.
The meathead sitting to my left looked to be cut from the same cloth as the one who ushered me into this luxury carriage. Together they presented a formidable pair of bruisers. I knew without hesitation that these guys took great delight in working over somebody. Sandwiched between the two pillars of muscle sat a woman of modest beauty. She had a soft chin, high cheekbones and a Roman nose. Her shoulder-length hair was a deep chestnut brown. She wore a pencil-skirt suit and that bored look popular amongst the super smart.
‘Ms Kitterman, what a pleasant surprise,’ I said with a slight smile and quick survey of the Baker. ‘This definitely beats your run-of-the-mill taxi crawling around New London but I suspect that you aren’t here to give me a lift back to my office, are you?’
The guy to her left clenched his right hand into a tight fist. Without turning her gaze from me, she patted his arm. He relaxed it a bit.
‘I have heard that you have quite the sense of humour, Mr Helmqvist,’ she replied with a soft voice that still retained a trace of Northern Ireland. ‘I thought that it was the least I could do as a thank you for the safe return of my property.’
Her ambiguity put me on edge. I all but gulped. Property? Was this about Sunday morning? Or something else related to today? The best course of action was to play dumb.
‘I don’t follow,’ I said after some hesitation.
She adjusted herself in her seat slightly, fixing her skirt as she did so.
‘I was led to believe you found my android in an abandoned warehouse today and telephoned the police.’
At that precise moment, I noticed her eyes for the first time. Deep emerald green, nearly the same shade and shape as Charlotte Rennick’s. Mara must have modelled the android after herself. The differences in face and body spoke volumes as to how Kitterman must’ve viewed herself. But the eyes… Who could forget those?
If we all had a chance to play God, I suppose we’d all make ourselves in our own image. It also explained why Mara would keep the datapad inside my client. I guess, though, Mara never underestimated the steadfast loyalty of her creation. A story as old as time. But at least she didn’t name her Eve.
‘It was no trouble at all, Ms Kitterman. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’
Not unlike her pulling up moments after I parted ways with Ashdown. Coincidence? Hardly, but I didn’t peg the detective as some two-bit stoolie on Kitterman’s payroll. It had to be someone else but the list of potentials was too long to devote a whole lot of mental energy to it. Kitterman had me in her ride for one reason: information. What did I know and what did I tell the police?
‘Anyway, there was no need to collect me from the police station,’ I continued. ‘If you wanted to thank me, you could’ve called my office or paid me a visit there in person.’ I reached for the door handle. ‘Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell the driver to stop, I’ll get out here.’
This time the goon to my right roughly pushed me back into my seat.
I gave the thug a hard look but he wasn’t impressed. ‘Or not.’
‘Don’t be so discourteous, Mr Helmqvist,’ Mara said with that patronising voice that all wealthy Brits seem to have at their disposal.
‘Me?’ I said with genuine disbelief. ‘I’m not the one taking a guy on a sightseeing tour of New London against his will.’ And a tour it was. We’d left RD1 by way of the tunnel that connected it to the IM but turned right at the Inner Ring road. The plan seemed to be to drive as many orbits around the district as it took to satisfy Kitterman’s curiosity.
Anyway, that last comment didn’t go over so well. She unleashed bodyguard No. 2 on my left, with nothing more than a furtive glance his way. He leaned over and backhanded me on the right side of my face. It was like getting hit with a frying pan.
‘I’d say something about you proving my point, but I think that I’d just get more of the same,’ I finished as I rubbed my jaw.
‘Now, now, Mr Helmqvist. Don’t be so dramatic, and I would suggest dropping the attitude. I would hate to see your face bruised any more than it already is.’
I slumped into my seat. ‘Fine. What do you want from me?’
‘I would like to know what happened today. That is all.’
‘What’s there to tell? I already gave the police my statement and I’m sure that you’ve already seen it.’
She arched her eyebrow questioningly. I knew my mouth was going to get me in trouble but it didn’t stop me from asking for more of the rough stuff.
‘Oh, come on! I suppose that you just happened to be passing by the police station and it suddenly occurred to you that I might need a lift. We both know that you knew exactly when I was being released.’
‘Are you suggesting that I have informants in the police department?’
‘Yeah, pretty much.’ This time the thug on my right leaned in and landed a solid blow to my chest. It threw me into a coughing fit. He leaned back and admired his handy work.
‘We do not have to do it this way, Mr Helmqvist. I am simply trying to learn all that I can about the attack on my employee today,’ Mara said once I finished hacking my lungs out.
‘You mean the robot?’
‘Android, yes, but Charlotte was very dear to me and I like to think of her as more than a soulless machine.’
‘Such devotion to your creation. How touching. A regular Doctor Frankenstein.’ A fiery glow sparked in the depths of her eyes and her nostrils flared in anger.
‘Such impertinence,’ she said with a voice dripping with venom. The comment earned me a love tap to the chest again by both goons. I started coughing again. Flecks of blood hit my hand as I covered my mouth. Once I regained some of my composure, I chuckled.
‘Is this how you win people over, Kitterman? Beat the hell out of them until they tell you what you want?’
‘Not usually, no. However, in cases where my guest proves difficult then, I am afraid to say, much more physical measures must be taken. You really should be more forthcoming when I ask you a question.’
‘Well, this approach doesn’t inspire cooperation. I’ll give you that one for free.’ I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and dabbed the blood away from my mouth.
‘You would be surprised at its efficiency. Now about today. What did you tell the police?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied, with an attempt at mock injury that probably looked like real injury. ‘I heard a scream. I pulled up, encountered the assailant who identified himself as James, incapacitated him, found your android, and then got KO’d by someone else.’
‘So you just happened to arrive at an abandoned warehouse in an isolated part of town? You weren’t following Charlotte or had some means of tracking her?’
‘Why would I have a tracking device on an android that I never met before?’
‘We have reason to think otherwise.’
By ‘we’ she meant ‘she’, no doubt about that. She must have been told about the earrings. This little morsel of information confirmed my belief that the guy who knocked me out and Mara Kitterman were connected. If she admitted knowledge of the earrings, she’d reveal that connection. I thought I would roll the dice and see what happened.
‘That’s nice. Really it is. But can you prove I had encountered your robot before today?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
She held her breath slightly when she said that. A lie. It had to be, and spoke volumes as to her willingness to protect her relationship with a guy who looked like her dead father. Nevertheless, her response gave me the confidence to push my own lie a little further.
‘Like I said, I’ve never seen her before in my life.’
She narrowed her eyes again and I braced for impact. Instead, she checked her smartwatch – a MAX model I’d not yet seen – and then adjusted her suit jacket.
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I looked out the window and could make out the Res 1 dome on our left. Kitterman simply stared at me, waiting for me to spill the beans. I knew I needed to say something to escape her clutches.
‘Look,’ I said after I cleared my throat, ‘the only thing I can add to the conversation is that it looked like the James character had torn something out of your android – most likely a storage device. Then, if I am right, he transferred the information to an internal storage device that was later ripped out by the party-crasher. But I suspect that you knew that already.’
Her eyes narrowed and the two punks flanking her tensed again like coiled springs. I prepared for the worst but then she relaxed. As if on cue, the two guys did the same.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That you’ve probably already got the female back in your lab and have seen the extent of the damage. Plus, since she is your property, whatever was inside of her, you put it there. I think what you should have asked me all along, Ms Kitterman is: “at any point did you look at the information on the storage device that was forcibly taken out of Ms Rennick?” To which I would answer, no.’
She laughed. It was – and I hate to admit this – a very charming laugh.
‘Perhaps you are right, Mr Helmqvist. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so enigmatic with my intentions today.’ She paused and whispered something to the driver. At the next roundabout, I glanced out the window and saw that we turned right again. We were heading back to RD1. I might just make it through this after all.
‘The information carried by Charlotte is of a sensitive nature. In the hands of the wrong person, it could pose a serious risk to my company. I do apologise for all the theatrics of our little meeting but I had to be certain that you didn’t steal the device for the purpose of selling my secrets to the highest bidder.’
I folded my handkerchief and put it back in my pocket.
‘That’s rich. I don’t ever remember going to the theatre and getting my ribs broken. At least you believe me so that’s something I guess.’
‘Make no mistakes, I don’t believe you… not completely,’ she replied with a smile, bordering on the sinister. ‘But I have no evidence to prove otherwise. So I think it best we part ways for now.’
The Baker entered the dome proper and pulled over at first opportunity. No need to keep me in the car any longer than was necessary. My usefulness had run its course.
‘It’s the other assailant,’ I said as I climbed out.
‘I’m sorry?’ she replied as she leaned forward to address me.
‘The other guy. The one that clocked me. He’s the one with the goods now, or at least that’s my theory. He’s the one that you should be driving around in your car beating the crap out of until he tells you what you want to know.’ I left out the part of him looking like Nolan Kitterman because she probably already knew that as well.
‘Of course, Mr Helmqvist. I shall look into the matter more fully. Good day to you,’ she said as bodyguard No. 1 closed the door and the limo sped off.
Watching them go, I thanked my lucky stars to still be in one piece. Once they’d left my field of vision, I hailed the first available LTI and rode in peace to the nearest health clinic.
X-rays confirmed that I had two fractured ribs. The doc gave me this girdle-thing to help align the ribs, a prescription for some more painkillers and a lollipop for my troubles. I didn’t really care too much about the girdle, but the pills would definitely help me through another pain-filled episode of my life.
I hopped into another taxi to Theo’s shop in order to retrieve my gym bag from the trunk. En route, we swung by a drug store and I choked down a handful of pills in one gulp. On the ride back to my place, I gave Erica a quick call to see if she wanted to stop by my place when she finished her shift. We agreed on 8pm.
All told, it was around seven when I finally walked through my front door. I made myself a double whisky, neat. Only after the sour mash mingled in my gullet for a few minutes did I dare to have a look in the bathroom mirror. I had bruises in too many places to care about or enumerate. Suffice it to say, I looked like Rocky at the, well, at the end of most of those pictures.
I went back to the living room, drained my glass and had set myself up with another one when an image on my MAX smartwatch showed Erica’s gorgeous face looking into a tiny camera.