BY THE TIME I get back to the hotel I’ve chosen what I’ll have for a lunch so late, it’s barely worthy of the name. Reviewing the menu was far more enjoyable than enduring Sondra’s sulking. I don’t know whether she’s upset that I had to go back to get her, or that she lost out on a dedicated gaming space. I don’t particularly care. The job was done and I say as much to Nadia when I deliver Sondra to her office. I leave them to whatever conversation they need to have and put in the food order at reception on the way up to my room, keeping my head down and eyes fixed on where I’m going so no one else has a chance to initiate a casual conversation. I look at the dark circles beneath my eyes in the mirrored elevator interior and wonder if I’ll be sleeping in London tonight.
The top floor is silent with the SOCO team gone and the police officer who was guarding the Diamond Suite now reassigned. I pause, feeling a short-lived temptation to go back to the suite. Unable to think of a decent reason why—knowing that wallowing in grief is far from decent—I carry on to my room.
I’m filled with the need to occupy myself to stop thinking about Alejandro’s last act. I check my messages, deleting all of the ones in my public in-box without reading them and studiously avoiding any news feeds, to protect my blood pressure after seeing just the top trending headline. Someone in Korea is claiming that the famous Pathfinder was his half sister and that she told him the contents of the capsule before she left Earth. Fresh meat for the media vultures to feast upon, and another reason to avoid the mainstream for as long as I can.
My MoJ in-box has two messages of note: Selina Klein is on her way to Heathrow, Collindale escorting her, and the data team have finished reviewing the hotel and cottage local-node hard drives.
I shrug off my jacket, pull off my shoes and flop onto the bed. I’m less interested in the hotel-cam data now that I know what happened, but I check that it fits with what I’ll be putting in the report nonetheless. The notes from the data specialist make interesting reading: original data fully destroyed both locally and on the cloud, which is rarely achieved by the average hacker, and new data expertly inserted to make the hotel corridor look inactive after Selina and Alejandro went to their room. Interestingly, the team also uncovered evidence that data being uploaded to the cloud was being monitored by clandestine software added on the same day Arlington arrived at the hotel, software with a “distinctly American signature,” notes the report.
A thrill pulses through my chest. If Alejandro was chipped, he would be uploading to the illegal cloud space via the local node, and perhaps Arlington was monitoring what he sent. If he uploaded something suggesting he was about to kill himself and she saw that, it would explain why she knew he had just hanged himself. She certainly couldn’t have known about Buckingham’s spy-cam footage, otherwise she would have destroyed that data too.
No. Linda said there was no sign of Alejandro being chipped. Either Delaney was wrong about what Alejandro paid that crim-org for, or ze was lying. Why lie about that though? Alejandro’s final words would make far more sense if he had been chipped; he could have been instructing his APA to send a letter digitally.
This hint of a greater puzzle than the one I have solved still irritates me. I feel like I stood back from the table for a moment, seeing the pieces I’d fit together with a short-lived pride, only for Delaney to come along and tell me it’s only one corner of the picture. I force myself to remember that either way, it hardly matters in terms of my official investigation. It’s time to write the report.
With my meal due to arrive any minute, I sort through my notes rather than getting deep into the writing. Just as I’m about to review the data from the cottage’s hard drive a request for voice contact comes in from fucking Stefan Gabor, of all people. I reject the call, with no small amount of satisfaction, and go back to the data report.
Again, the cam footage has been tampered with and it’s the same digital signature as that of the hotel. It takes only a few minutes to review Arlington’s registered-location pings at the hotel, cross-reference them with the public nodes that run along the Ashburton high street and figure out that while she hacked the hotel node to make it look like she was in her room the whole day after Buckingham checked out, she was actually trailing him to the cottage. Maybe she didn’t know about the public nodes—they don’t have that system in the States—or maybe she just didn’t care once she knew the lawyers were stalling everything long enough for her to do whatever she did and get out of the country.
I pull up the visa transaction data for her trip and see that she bought a bottle of that same brand of whisky found with Buckingham at Heathrow on the day she arrived. I also note the purchase of a packet of ibuprofen and paracetamol and smirk. All too easy to find the needle when you know exactly where to look in the haystack. I make a note of the connection in the case file and speculate that she went to the cottage to confront Buckingham, who may not have needed much persuasion to kill himself. Maybe she held a gun on him. Again, tying the loose end gives no real satisfaction. The only part of the puzzle left—why Alejandro killed himself—is the one I’ll have to fight to put together.
My food arrives but before I remove the shining metal dome from the tray, I let Tia pass on the voice mail just left by Gabor.
“My husband tells me you still haven’t interviewed him. This is unacceptable. It’s almost the end of the working day and I do not want to be told that you didn’t get round to him today. Make this your priority, as he is required in London.”
“Overprivileged asshole,” I mutter to myself. Interviewing the trophy husband had slipped my mind; once I had Buckingham’s spy-cam footage it was clear the younger Gabor had nothing to do with it after all. He probably insisted on them staying at the same hotel in the hope of being able to meet the object of his obsession.
“Send a message back to Stefan Gabor,” I say to Tia as I shake out the linen napkin and lay it across my lap. “The investigation is currently at a critical phase and the interview with his husband will take place as soon as it is convenient for me.”
“Should I apply courtesy protocols to the message?”
“No. Just send that.” Fuckers like him don’t deserve courtesy. They never give it to anyone else so why should he get it back? I smile at the thought of his jowls turning red as he reads my slap-down. I’ll interview Travis Gabor after I’ve drafted the main body of my report. I doubt anything he says will merit inclusion in the final draft.
My smile widens when I lift the metal dome and the smell of the pork belly wafts up. I’m able to gaze at it for a couple of seconds before the cutlery is in my hands. The pork is so tender and succulent that I have to close my eyes to devote my full attention to it. Oh God, if only there could be some sort of development that would persuade Milsom to give me another night in this place.
I lick the plate clean, and then out of nowhere I am crying at the thought of Alejandro never being able to experience any sort of pleasure again. I set the plate down and rub my eyes, trying to push the grief back in its box. I’m just tired—that’s all. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be able to handle this better.
The twilight is deepening into darkness outside and I dread the thought of having to leave the warmth of the hotel to return to London. I have three and a half hours left and I need to get back to the report, but instead I start on the strawberry pavlova I ordered for dessert. Surely if the report takes a couple of hours I’ll be able to have dinner here before I leave?
A low rumble coming down the road drags my focus from the meringue and cream (real fucking cream!) and I go to the window. A single bright light pierces the gloom, traveling the wooded road up to the hotel. A vintage motorcycle. I spoon the last mouthfuls into my mouth as the rider parks, glittering red boots sparkling with the light that spills from the lobby. Linda. I lick the small plate clean as she pulls off her helmet, revealing her spiked hair, and slip my shoes back on as she heads for the door into the hotel.
She’s at the reception desk when the elevator doors open onto the lobby and she waves with a broad, warm smile. She’s carrying a small plastic box and holds it out to me as she approaches. “You heard the bike?”
I nod and take the box. “What brings you here?”
She shrugs. “Well, I finished the second PM and I was on my way to visit my niece and it’s not too far from here, so I thought I’d drop off the spare gingerbread.” When I look down at it, she adds, “For you to enjoy in a quiet moment. I can only imagine how tough today has been.”
“Thanks.”
“My niece is actually my grandniece, but that just makes me feel so bloody ancient. She’s adorable. We write silly little stories for each other.”
I blink at her. “Oh. That’s . . . nice.” I can only imagine how awkward my smile has become. Is this some sort of weird, clumsy pickup attempt? “You finished that second PM quickly.”
A slight flush rises in her cheeks. “It was very straightforward. Suicide, from the pills and booze, as we thought. I’ve put the reports in the case file. Nothing of note, really.” She looks at the box in my hands for a long moment and then back at my face again. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr. Fancy London Pants. Sure you don’t want a spin on the bike before I go?”
I pat the air with my free hand. “No, no, you go on ahead without me. And thanks, Linda, for this too.” I hold up the box.
She grins. “My pleasure,” she says, and puts the helmet back on. “Don’t let that get stale,” she says through the visor, pointing a gloved finger at the gingerbread.
I wave her off from the doors and go back to the elevator. Just as I’m about to press the button to call it, a text message arrives from Milsom and I almost drop the gingerbread. My heart hammers as I open the message, as if she knows I’ve been dragging my heels and just ordered a meal that costs more than a week’s allocation.
Interview Travis Gabor NOW and eliminate him from the investigation as soon as you can. I’ve just had his husband mouthing off at me and I don’t want to hear that man’s voice again.
I allow myself a sigh, a mixture of fatigue and relief, and head back to the reception desk. Magill, the man I interviewed earlier, smiles at me. “Is Travis Gabor in the hotel at the moment?”
“I know he went out for a walk earlier, but he may have returned while I was on my break.” He consults a screen below the desk’s countertop—all part of the hotel’s vintage charm, I suppose—and nods. “He ordered a meal from his room fifteen minutes ago, sir.”
“Which number is it?”
“Number six on the second floor, sir. Would you like me to call his room?”
“No, it’s fine. He’s expecting me.”
—
A tray is resting on one of the hotel trolleys just to the right of the door to room six. Another very late lunch, probably because he was out walking. When I met him in the restaurant I wouldn’t have pegged him as the sort of person to don walking boots and go trudging about the bleak countryside in November. I knock on the door and lift the largest of the two silver domes in the hopes of deducing what he ordered.
I find a full plate, the steak untouched and tragically cold. It’s then that I see the cork still firmly in the neck of the champagne bottle.
This time I hammer on the door. “Mr. Gabor?” I call through the wood.
No reply.
And then I see him, clear in my mind, hanging from the light fixture, just like the man he was stalking. That was why he was so keen to be left behind by his husband, a man he was clearly afraid of—because he planned to kill himself.
“Tia, open the door to room six, second floor. Justification: suspected suicide.”
The lock clunks and I push open the door. There is no body swinging from the light and I release the breath getting stale in my lungs. Stepping inside, I pull the door closed behind me.
“Mr. Gabor?”
There’s no one here. No one alive, anyway. I cross the room to the en-suite and find that empty too. An assortment of hair-product bottles are scattered on the marble shelf next to the sink, a couple on the floor. Has this place been turned over?
I go back into the main room. The bed is unmade and a pair of socks and underpants lie on the floor beside it. A compact leather-covered box for carrying jewelry when traveling lies on the dressing table. I go over and open it. It’s filled with cuff links studded with precious stones and a limited-edition Cartier watch. Flipping it over, I see it’s been engraved. “My darling. For all time. S.” I shiver and close the box.
A clothes hanger is lying on the floor next to the wardrobe and one of the doors hasn’t been closed properly. Expecting a body, I open it carefully with the tip of my thumbnail, only to find a few pairs of shoes, a few shirts and a pair of trousers that’s been mostly pulled off the hanger and left dangling by a belt loop. I breathe out heavily. I need to get a grip on myself.
Two heavy-duty cases are stacked on a luggage rack in the corner, and from the weight of them, they’re empty. I see a slipper poking out from beneath a corner of the sheet hanging down from the bed and search for the other but it’s nowhere to be found. When I move the bedding to search under the bed, I reveal a slab of black plasglass lying next to one of the pillows, presumably the device Travis was using to connect to the Internet in the absence of his chip.
Leaving it untouched, I go back to the bathroom. There’s no sign of a toothbrush, paste or shaving equipment and no wash bag tucked into the corner anywhere. A gentle melody from the bedroom draws me back to the bed to see a call coming in from the husband. I stay a few paces away, repulsed by the picture of Stefan Gabor, topless and licking his lips.
When the music stops I assume Stefan has given up and cut the call, but then I see a notification flash up in a dialog box, too fast for me to read it, and then I hear Travis.
“Hello, darling.”
“Has that useless man interviewed you yet, or do I need to call Barbara again?” So Stefan really is on first-name terms with the commissioner.
“He said it would be soon,” Travis replies, and I call up my v-keyboard.
Tia, intercept the call coming into Travis’s slab. Where is Travis speaking from?
Only one incoming call detected through the local node, from Stefan Gabor, Tia reports. I cannot identify his location without explicit permission via his lawyer. Would you like me to request permission?
No. Travis is routing his call through the slab; track where his call is coming in from.
“It had better be soon.” Stefan’s voice is more a growl. “I’m sending the car down for you, Boo. I need your arse in London. I’m hungry.”
Travis Gabor’s responses to the incoming call are generated by the Artificial Personal Assistant. Presumably programmed in advance by Travis to trick his husband into thinking he’s still in the hotel.
“There are a thousand restaurants in London, Boo Boo,” the fake Travis replies.
“I’m not hungry for food,” Stefan says. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, darling. I’ll see you soon. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“The car will be there in two hours,” Stefan says. “In four and a half I want you on the bed in Mayfair, naked.”
“Anything you want, master.”
There’s a sigh, heavy with lust, and the call ends, much to my relief.
“Tia, review the cam footage from the second floor of the hotel and the lobby for the last four hours. Isolate any footage of Travis Gabor.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, smiling to myself. So Travis found a way to leave his odious husband. That was the only reason he asked to be interviewed and why he specified it should be the last one I did, to give him time to escape. He must have been planning it for months, perhaps even searching for Alejandro so much to lead his husband to think he’d run off to the Circle when he started investigating his disappearance. Clever. I underestimated him.
Tia shows me footage of Travis leaving his room more than two hours ago with a sleek backpack and stout boots on his feet instead of those ridiculous shoes he was wearing in the restaurant this morning. I watch him go into the lift and then the lobby’s cam picks him up leaving the elevator. He pauses to have a brief conversation in the corner of the lobby with Collindale, of all people, and then he leaves after they shake hands. It’s the last time he was in the hotel. Magill simply assumed, thanks to the preplanned meal order, that Travis had returned from his walk when he was away from the reception desk.
Why Collindale? The American liaison went out of his way to try to get me to investigate the Gabors—no, Stefan in particular—so what was that exchange about in the lobby?
“Tia, have flights been arranged for Selina Klein to return to the States today?”
“Yes.”
I double-check her status via the MoJ case file and see that she was officially transferred into the care of Collindale on behalf of the North American gov-corp, to be escorted back to the Circle.
“Did Collindale sign off on the flight booking?”
“Yes.”
“And how many people is he traveling with?”
“Two. Selina Klein and John B. Smith.”
I laugh out loud. John B. Smith is one of the pseudonyms agreed in the Religious Freedom treaty with the States to allow a citizen of Norope to travel to North America without their real name entered in the flight manifest, should it be deemed necessary in the protection of their right to religious freedom. Travis must have made a deal with Collindale to get him out of the country without his husband finding out.
“Is there any debt recorded against Travis Gabor?”
“None.”
So that “master” mentioned in the fake conversation was a just a sexual thing. I recall the way Stefan grabbed his husband in the restaurant, the desperation in Travis’s eyes.
“When does their flight leave?”
“In two hours.”
So Travis is still in the country. I see no reason to report his absence; he’s been ruled out of the investigation already. There’s no debt to any corporation filed against him, so this is a purely civil matter that’s outside of my remit. By the time his husband’s car arrives to pick him up, he’ll be on a plane to America and then God knows where. “Good luck, Travis,” I say, and leave his room as I found it.