The press were already outside when the police took Esme away. Behind the huge reception desk with its ornate swirl of exotic blooms, under the still-moving pictures of the dead Tobias, Jarrod stood to watch, his face yearning and confused as she passed.
A cacophony of questions and flashbulbs greeted the widow, but her exquisite face remained a study in sorrowful composure.
North wondered what would happen. Would it get to court? Would a jury credit her story – believe she’d murdered her own husband, a husband she loved deeply, to save humanity from machines? She was a persuasive woman with truth on her side, but surely they’d have to find her guilty? He wondered how many years she’d serve, and what strings Hone could pull to make them bearable.
‘Chin is going to be upset with me,’ North said.
‘I hope so.’
‘I may have to have a word. Explain that Fang is not to be bothered.’ North hoped Hone would be all right with that, because he was doing it anyway.
‘I would expect no less.’
‘You knew Esme killed Tobias, didn’t you?’ He watched the one-eyed man. ‘It’s why you brought her back to the museum. To contaminate the scene.’ Hone knew Esme backwards and forwards. Even as he’d held her at Postman’s Park. Had he seen it in those violet-blue eyes as she insisted she had to see Tobias’s body? ‘Is that why you fired me?’
‘I fired you because Britain’s leading computer scientist died on your watch and because you’re a liability.’
‘You knew I’d figure it out.’
‘Her timing was off. Kirkham’s men would have done it for her – shut Tobias up before he had the chance to spill his guts.’ The one-eyed man took out a cigarette and put it, unlit, between his lips.
‘Kirkham must have denied that his men killed Tobias, even if he admitted the rest of it to the powers that be?’
Hone shrugged. ‘The powers that be can’t shove their fingers in their ears fast enough when Kirkham talks. And anyhow, that kind of conversation is above my pay grade.’
North didn’t think it was. ‘And if the attack on the museum had never happened, would she have accepted the fallout? Like she said?’
North had his doubts. Esme had made sure Paulie came to the gala. If she couldn’t persuade Tobias, was she planning to pass the murder off as Paulie’s work? An envious, resentful colleague, who lost his job and his reputation when Tobias fired him? If the Thinkers hadn’t attacked, was the plan to find Paulie, tell him Tobias had reconsidered, to go talk to him one more time, only for Paulie to find a corpse? And a gun? Could she have justified Paulie’s arrest to herself? That she had to be a free woman to keep Syd in check and humanity safe?
Hone shrugged.
North remembered again the sound of silk against her skin in the sewers. His desperation as he searched the dark waters for her – the exhilaration when he found her and dragged her out. Her certainty that machines deciding for themselves to kill a human being was wrong and could never be right in any world for any reason. The calculations flickering behind the violet-blue eyes as she regarded him – a gun in her hand. ‘You realize that your ethicist niece strangled a would-be rapist, point-blank shot her husband, and crushed a monk under a statue of a pharaoh. She could have killed at least one of us.’
‘I taught her to ride a bike.’
‘Then I’m lucky to be standing here.’
‘North, you are both the luckiest and unluckiest man I ever met. What can I tell you? She was trying to save the world. She sacrificed the man she loved for a greater cause. Idealists can be ruthless that way.’
North wanted to believe Esme was a warrior, not a fanatic. The death of the rapist was self-defence. Killing the mad monk was the only reason North was alive. As for Tobias Hawke, he was an obsessive who’d presided over the slaughter of children. He’d have been responsible for God knows how many deaths in the future, courtesy of his weapons. All these deaths seemed plenty justified to North.
‘Can she get away with killing Tobias?’
‘Perhaps. If she agrees to keep quiet about the autonomous weapons.’
‘And if she refuses to keep quiet?’
‘You know how it goes, North. Driven insane with grief at the death of her husband, the tragic widow will kill herself. It will certainly look that way, at least.’
Hone moved the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. Somehow, he had managed to light it without North noticing. Finally, he understood why Hone had wanted him involved rather than putting out Esme’s protection to his own people. Hone sensed from the start that the government was involved and knew the Establishment would have no concerns about sacrificing Esme if it meant they could protect their secrets.
‘And the General and Rafferty get away scot-free? All those deaths at the museum? The boys buried under the church? They get to carry on as if none of it ever happened?’
Hone scrutinized North’s face. ‘Kirkham is one of the country’s most senior generals and Rafferty has the power of the state behind him. What do you think?’
‘Kirkham tried to kill me,’ North said. ‘He and I aren’t done. He knows that and I know that. And you realize he’s a threat to Esme too.’
‘Rafferty is as much a threat to Esme as Kirkham is.’ Hone’s voice was disinterested, as if he had no stake in the game but was a mere observer. ‘But as Home Secretary he has all that police and close protection. Anyone interested in taking out Ralph Rafferty would have to know what they were doing. And they’d have to have help on the inside.’
‘I have a plan for Rafferty,’ Fang said as she handed Hone Tobias’s tablet. North hadn’t realized she was suddenly standing between them. ‘You guys will love it. Very old school.’