Within two minutes I had completed the transaction. My card was credited with the return part of the fare, also for the use of a sleeping compartment I no longer required, four pre-paid meals I would never eat, cabin services I would not be benefiting from. The compensation and refunded tithes Frejah had mentioned almost doubled the total amount. Mutability discounts added a few further cents.
The total refund was in simoleons, and as I hurried back to the car I knew that the problem of the hotel bill was mostly solved.
The car door opened. I swung myself inside. I was chilled through. The door swished closed.
‘Thank you,’ I said to Frejah Harsent. She boosted the heater, floored the accelerator pedal.
6
Strangers in a Car
The road leading out through the suburbs of Dearth City was narrow and congested with traffic, a steady uphill climb past long terraces of uninspired housing, industrial units and large complexes such as hospitals, schools and government buildings. Frejah drove patiently but the engine of the supercharged car was in a state of constant change, snarling then idling in turn, as it responded to pressure on the throttle. The forward motion of the car remained smooth and unaggressive. Only once, on a short strip of divided highway, did she give the powerful car its head. I felt the thrilling surge and pressure of the violent acceleration as we shot past a line of cars, trucks and delivery vehicles with almost insolent ease. But most of this early part of the journey was dull, giving me the chance to take in more details of the interior of the remarkable vehicle.
The dashboard was low and designed elegantly with both an eye to aesthetic appearance and functionality. There were no dials, merely a series of clear digital displays, more instruments than I had ever seen in any other car. Beyond even these were several other pieces of equipment, situated clearly but unobtrusively to each side of the driver’s eyeline. None of them appeared to be in use, but they all had tiny pilot lights glowing.
A row of switches was on the door surround about Frejah’s head.
Immediately behind the steering wheel, itself small, ergonomically oblate, clad in fine leather, were several communications boxes attached beneath the dash. I assumed at first they would be a radio, music player, etc., but as soon as the thought formed I realized that a car at this level of sophistication would not simply bolt on such commonplace gadgets. I had come to the realization that where Frejah was sitting was less the driving seat of a car, more the cockpit of a small plane.
The traffic gradually thinned as we reached the city limits. Frejah reached forward beneath the dash and pulled out a wireless headset with ambient-sound-cancelling phones. She spoke immediately. ‘Ya . . . not until tomorrow . . . late afternoon, early evening, ya . . . I’ve got a 6/17 with me. Off-island, ya.’
By this time we had reached such an elevation that we were passing through intermittent low cloud, only glimpsing the great southern peaks rising around us snowclad. The land immediately to each side of the road was frozen, or had coverage of recent snow. The road surface itself, although recently ploughed of loose snow, and marked with the tyre traces of the traffic that preceded us, clearly bore large patches of black ice. Frejah appeared to pay them no heed, driving without hesitation, even through an increasing number of corners.
She took another headset call. ‘Harsent . . . ya, send them in. Can’t say – I’m with a 6/17.’
As she spoke she glanced away from the road, a mannerism, not a way of looking at where we were going. I was tense all over, rigid with anticipation of some catastrophic accident in this hostile and unpredictable landscape. I wondered briefly: she spoke in code. Was I the ‘off-island 6/17’ she was with? An instrument on the dash revealed the outside temperature to be -24°C. Neither of us spoke to each other. I felt incapable of words. Frejah was obviously not entirely concentrating on her driving, but appeared relaxed and expert. Something else was coming through on the headset. ‘Ya, Harsent . . . no, I said no. Get it done.’
A few minutes went by, then she pulled off the headset and pushed it under the dash. Both hands back on the steering wheel.
Finally, she said: ‘You haven’t said anything since we left the city.’
‘You’ve been taking messages.’
‘There won’t be any more until I decide. I can catch up later. Or this evening. What’s on your mind?’
In fact, her hairline control of the car was what was on my mind. She exuded confidence, while I felt every muscle tensing.
I said: ‘If this is your car, what do you normally use it for?’
‘Watch this.’ She reached forward to one of the gadgets attached to the top of the dash. ‘See that truck coming towards us?’
In fact I could barely see it in the wintry haze, a dark shape in the distance ahead, lumbering up a long hill towards us. A head-up display flashed on to the interior of the windshield, almost like a three-dimensional image from virtual reality. It was a close-up of the truck. The licence number appeared superimposed brightly above the image, as well as the driver’s name, his address at work, his goods operator licence number, the current tachograph data, the quantity of fuel remaining in the tank, the weight and axle distribution of the payload. The truck was travelling at just above seventy kilometres an hour.
‘He has rear axle overload, and he’s using an unregistered turbo booster to get up the hill,’ Frejah said. ‘Want me to haul him over?’
She touched another device. The truck disappeared from the HUD, replaced by an apparently close-up image of the car in front of us, travelling in the same direction, still some distance ahead. While I looked at the new image the truck with the weight overload and turbo booster roared past us. It was emitting a stream of dark smoke. Frejah said nothing about that. The image of the car ahead revealed the same sort of information as had appeared for the truck, but in addition there was a space for a list of existing driving misdemeanours against the driver. In this case the driver was a woman (I learned her name and address), and she happened to have a clean record.
Frejah turned off the image.
‘You’re a cop,’ I said.
‘I’m in semi-retirement. I told you last night.’
‘You’re still a cop. Is this car a police vehicle?’
‘That is how it is registered. I don’t own it, but I have exclusive use of it.’
She suddenly produced a slim leather wallet, with a warrant card visible in the front. She held it up so I could see it, but she whipped it away before I could learn anything from it.
‘Let me see that again,’ I said.
‘That is your inalienable right as a citizen.’ She intoned the familiar words, spoken in TV crime shows every week. They momentarily chilled me.
The warrant reappeared in her hand. She held it so I could read it properly. Her photographic image was a hologram. Her name was Commissioner Frejah Harsent. She was a detective in the Transgression Investigation Department, Dearth Seignioral Police.
‘So you are a cop,’ I said.
‘Only on intermittent duty.’
‘Are you on duty now?’
‘Yes and no. Yes, because I’m investigating an open case. No, because at the moment I’m giving you a ride to Tristcontenta Hub.’
‘Me being the 6/17 you’re with?’
‘You know what that means, or did you work it out?’
‘I worked it out. Is giving a ride to a 6/17 disallowed by the police?’
‘I am the police on this island.’
‘Commissioner’s a high rank on Salay,’ I said.
‘It’s the same here.’
‘You can’t be the only commissioner.’
‘No – of course not. There are five of us. We share responsibility across the island. But I am the senior commissioner. I report direct to the seignior’s office. The other four report to me.’
‘And that’s how you were given this car.’
‘The force gives you nothing,’ she said. ‘I had to argue for it for more than a year.’
She was overtaking an articulated truck as she said this. There was a turn ahead, from which an oncoming lorry suddenly appeared. Frejah put on a burst of speed, the car accelerating like a rocket opening up, and we slipped back to safety with a margin. The corner the truck had appeared from proved to be a sharp right hand turn lacking a protective crash barrier, with a drop below. The car negotiated the corner at high speed. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.
When I could breathe again, I said: ‘Frejah – Commissioner. There’s ice on the road.’
‘We agreed. Call me by my first name. I’m not on duty when I’m with you.’
‘OK, but the ice—’
‘This car has the best anti-skid system ever devised. I know what I’m doing, because the people who built this car knew what they were doing. You want me to slow down?’
‘Maybe a little, maybe not,’ I said, because in spite of the frequent moments of hair-raising terror I was thrilled by her skilful driving, and the performance of the car. ‘Do what’s best.’
‘What’s best is to remember it’s a long way to Tristcontenta.’
After another hour Frejah spoke again into the headset. ‘Ya, Harsent. Off the road now.’
A roadside area of retail concessions was ahead, and we turned off for it. It had been snowing for the last twenty minutes and as we slowed down we could see that it was intensifying and wind borne, blustering from the south and east. Drifts were heaping up at the sides of the parking lot and against the bodywork of many of the vehicles. Frejah ignored all directional signs and drove through an unmarked gated area – the barrier rose almost as we turned towards the ramp. We drove down to a small underground parking area. A place marked Security was vacant.
We left the car and ascended by metal steps to a refreshment bar. We were both peckish, not hungry. My hangover had all but vanished – the cold air, the adrenaline surges from Frejah’s driving? We ordered biscuits and a couple of savoury pastries, with coffee, sitting side by side on tall stools at the counter. The guy who worked behind the bar stayed close to where we were seated, apparently searching through till receipts, moving glasses around. The bar stretched all the way to the other side of the room. Other customers were there. He could have stood on their side too.
Frejah kept glancing towards him, but said nothing.
Then she said: ‘Would you give us some privacy, please?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. He moved away, but only as far as a small counter at the rear. With his back to us he started folding paper napkins.
We picked everything up and transferred to a small table in a far corner.
‘I’ve called in here a few times recently,’ Frejah said. ‘He’s connected me with the car. I don’t want him listening to us.’
‘Could he be someone you’ve had to arrest in the past?’
‘I arrest nobody. There aren’t any criminals on Dearth. This you know by now.’
‘No criminals, no crime. But you drive around in a pursuit car, armed to the teeth.’
‘I’m not armed,’ she said. ‘Neither is the car.’
‘There’s the semi-automatic in the trunk.’
‘That’s true. But that’s not part of the ordnance of the car. And it’s not a pursuit car. It’s C&C – command and control. We bought it secondhand from a force on one of the other islands.’
‘We bought it?’
‘The force did, yes.’
‘So why do you need it?’ I said.
‘I wanted it more than I needed it,’ she said. ‘It’s a car I dreamed about having. They saw it as a retirement gift, one I can keep until I really do retire.’
‘When’s that likely to be?’
‘I’m on an open case. I’ll retire when that’s complete. Not until.’
‘But there’s no crime here.’
‘True. Or true enough.’ Music started playing from overhead speakers. Not loud, but intrusive. Frejah glared at the barkeep, but he turned away and the level of the music did not change. ‘We’ll drive some more as soon as we’ve finished these coffees,’ she said.
Mine was still hot. Frejah was taking small, frequent sips.
‘Last night at the conference, I felt I was floundering with this concept of a crime-free state,’ I said. ‘The Historical Society wanted it as the subject. All I could do was theorize about it. Once I started I felt I had been set up. The people in the audience knew more about it than I did.’
‘I was there,’ Frejah said. ‘You didn’t do a bad job. People on this island take it for granted, but they would never intellectualize about it. I think a lot of people were in the audience because they had read your books. Most of them enjoyed your lecture – you received more applause than many speakers do.’
‘Some people rushed away the moment I had finished.’
‘Some people had to get home.’
‘Is intellectualizing what it sounded like? I was just pushing at a theory. Not even my own theory.’
‘Pushing at a theory is what they wanted you to do.’
‘I realized soon after I started speaking that I really had no idea what I was talking about. Crime is everywhere, whether you admit it or not. If somebody takes something away from me, or hurts me, or defrauds me, or kills me – that’s a crime. It’s a crime if the attacks are on someone I love, or someone I just know, or even if I don’t know the victim. It’s still a crime. It’s a crime here as it is anywhere else in the world.’
‘What if the law is different?’
‘All laws in any civilized society are essentially the same,’ I said. ‘Only details are different. Different societies prioritize the matters that concern them most. Laws are a consensus – what ordinary people will put up with, and what they won’t. If someone deviates from the consensus, they commit a crime and become a criminal.’
‘I don’t disagree with that.’
‘So why do you say there’s no crime?’
‘Because on Dearth we have a civil code, not a criminal one. What you call a crime we call a civil transgression.’
‘Same thing, different name. Is that all it is?’
‘Perhaps . . . but most transgressions are not classified as crime, and the culprit does not acquire a criminal record. The outcome is usually compensation to be paid, or time spent working for the community without pay. A record is kept, but it is time-limited, and eventually scrubbed. The lower courts deal with almost all traffic offences, minor offences of violence, most thefts, most of the transgressions involving drug or alcohol abuse, many burglaries. These courts are set at serf level, but of course not all transgressors are serfs.
‘More serious transgressions are dealt with by seignioral process. The procedures are set by whichever of their Lordships and Ladyships are sitting that day, so they are unpredictable. The penalties usually amount to the removal or denial of privileges and property, and the loss or partial loss of land. Some are sent for military service. Corvée is an alternative for those without land. Most serious transgressors are also reduced to basic serfdom, which is of course only what they deserve. It’s the most effective deterrent for others.’
She was unsmiling, watching how I reacted. In fact, I was still persisting in thinking that the theory of a crime-free society was not mine.
Crime everywhere is the same, the law everywhere is the same. Only details vary. My books were published in many different island groups around the world, each one of which had its own penal code. The crimes I described were recognized and understood everywhere, or at least I assumed they were because no one ever complained that they didn’t recognize the laws that my villains broke. How could they not? One human killing another is murder, whatever you call it.
But something she said was also sticking in my mind: reduction to serfdom as a punishment? That did interest me, coming from the woman who said she ran the police here. I thought about it for a while.
Then I said: ‘Do you have something against serfs?’
‘Nothing at
all.’
‘You said reduction to serfdom was a punishment.’
‘It is.’
‘And you agree with it?’
‘It’s never my decision. Police have nothing to do with sentencing.’
‘But you just said you thought they had it coming,’ I said. ‘Vassals who transgress – they are downgraded to serf as a deterrent to others. So it’s essentially about class and privilege.’
‘Deep waters, Todd. Years ago, when I was young and still learning, I made a huge mistake. I’m not talking about police work now. It involved a couple of serfs – I thought I could trust them, and did so. They betrayed me. I’ve never forgotten that.’
‘And they did this because they were serfs?’
‘I couldn’t think of any other reason.’
I was confounded by her prejudice, so openly declared. She was the top cop on the island. Shouldn’t she factor out personal grudges?
I had finished my snack and I pushed the plate away from me. I drained my cup of coffee, which had cooled. I stood up, kicking back my chair. I was irritated by her. My situation as a member of citizen serfdom is irrelevant to me. I never think about it, not as a generality, not for any specific reason. She must have known: I am usually class-recognized wherever I go. Most people are. But now it seemed to me as if she was winding me up. Why should she do that? A long journey with this woman cop lay ahead. Within the first couple of hours of starting out everything felt as if it had changed. I was stuck with her.
We were by a window: outside, the snow was still falling, cold and hard, fine like drifting dust, but billowing in the wind, intense and accumulating. A small group of people crossing the yard from where they had parked their car had already picked up swathes of snow across their clothes and hoods.
Frejah stood up too.
I said to her bluntly: ‘You know I’m a serf, don’t you? A citizen serf. I thought you realized that.’
She reacted. ‘I didn’t know that, Todd. I’m sorry. Is that true?’
‘Of course it is. Why should I make it up?’
The Evidence Page 6
