by Malcolm Rose
“One remaining.”
Luke smiled at last. “Bob’s your uncle! Plot a route to wherever she is, Malc. Where are we going?”
“Newcastle.”
“Mmm. Very nice. On the way, you’d better tell me what you know about Anne Roberts of Newcastle. Is she an electrician?”
“She is listed as a lighting engineer.”
“And what do we use to power our lights?”
“Electricity.”
“Can this cab go any faster?”
****
Luke gathered his fleecy coat around him and then pushed his hands deep into his pockets as he sat on the bench outside the riverside apartment block. On the other side of the Tyne, the Concert Hall was the shape of a giant woodlouse. The bridge that carried cabs across the river was a mass of impressive ironwork. Behind and above him was Newcastle’s spectacularly jagged skyline. The nearest clock tower belonged to Newcastle School, famed for gun sport.
“You know,” Luke said to Malc, narrowing the gap between his forefinger and thumb, “I’m this close to saving Everton Kohter. I’ve come all this way to interview Anne Roberts and she’s not at home.” He sighed. “Are you sure I can’t go into her flat and look around?”
“You can enter almost any property if you have significant evidence that the owner is involved in a crime. You have no such evidence against Anne Roberts.”
“I might if I get into her apartment.”
“It would be an illegal entry,” Malc insisted.
Luke nodded. “I know. It’s a matter of civil liberty. It’d be a way of getting warm, though.” He glanced at Malc and added, “You don’t feel the cold, do you? You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I can tolerate a wide range of operating temperatures. My systems will work down to fifty degrees below zero.”
“And you wouldn’t even shiver.”
“Shivering brings warmth to a human’s outer surface. It would serve no purpose for me.”
A jogger left the Tyne Walkway and made for the entrance of the apartment block. At once, Luke got to his feet and called, “Excuse me.”
The man came to a halt in a little cloud created by his own panting. “Yes?” he said, clearly out of breath after his run and startled that an FI should stop him.
“I’m looking for Anne Roberts. Do you know her?”
He nodded. “My place is a couple of doors along from hers.”
“Would you call her a friend?”
He shrugged. “I suppose so. She’s all right.”
“How long’s she been living here?”
“A year? No. More like two.”
“She’s not at home right now. Any idea where she might be?”
The runner glanced at his watch. “Maybe she’s still at work.”
Luke shook his head. Malc had already contacted her employer and discovered that she was not on duty.
“She’s into fitness. Try the Waterside Skills and Fitness Club. Just down there.” The man pointed along the walkway that ran parallel to the river. “Two or three minutes on foot.”
“Thanks.” Luke took off with Malc in his wake.
Newcastle had been built on two different levels. Along the grand waterfront, there was a series of restaurants, hotels, clubs and small apartment blocks overlooking the Tyne. On the higher ground behind, the main part of the fabulous city towered over everything.
Luke soon found the club and showed his identity card at the reception. “Is Anne Roberts in at the moment?” he enquired.
The receptionist studied a monitor for a few moments and then replied, “Yes. Room 14, it says here. Next floor up. You can’t miss it. Look for the long see-through wall.” He hesitated before adding mysteriously, “Be very careful if you go in.”
Luke walked down a corridor, squash courts on one side, indoor tennis on the other. By the general gymnasium, there was an elevator. He went up one storey and came out in another warm and wide passageway. On his left, some members were playing a darts tournament. The glass window of Room 14 was on his right. Inside, there were two long alleys. A middle-aged man occupied one and a stern-looking woman in her twenties stood in the other. Both were throwing knives at separate targets. There was a red warning light on the door and a sign that read Danger: No entry.
Luke watched the concentration on the woman’s face as a vicious blade flew from her hand. Spinning rapidly, it sliced through the air and, a moment later, pierced the centre of a wooden target. It was all over in a flash. Luke could not hear the thud of the knife hitting its target but he watched the steel shaft quiver with the energy that she’d put into the throw. A second or two later, its vibrations damped down and the woman looked towards the uninvited spectator.
Luke beckoned to her.
She turned and said something to the other member of the club and then made for the corridor. As soon as she swiped her identity card and opened the door, the red light and the warning notice disappeared. Staring at Luke, she said, “Yes?”
“Anne Roberts?” he asked.
“That’s me,” she replied tersely, as if annoyed that he’d interrupted her practice.
She had thin lips, a severe nose, tied-back bundles of hair, and a lean neck. Her wiry features gave her a harsh appearance. And she still had a knife in her hand.
“Put the weapon away, please,” Luke said. “My mobile might get nervous and zap you.”
She glared at him for a second and then reluctantly slipped it into a leather carrier around her waist.
“Right.” He showed her his identity card and then said, “Can I see yours, please?” He put out his hand. Once Anne had placed her card in his palm, he examined it briefly and then held it out so Malc could scan it.
“What is this?” she demanded to know.
Ignoring her question, Luke returned her identity card. “Now your hands, please. Hold them up.”
She did not follow his instruction. Instead, she glanced at Malc before remarking, “You’re young to be an FI.”
“Yes, but you still have to do what I say. Palms outwards so I can see your fingers and my mobile can record your prints.”
She raised her eyebrows and sighed but held up her hands in a gesture of surrender.
As soon as Malc had completed his scan, Luke looked at her fingers closely. He could not see a scar. Not even a tiny one. And there was no sign of cosmetic surgery.
“You’re good with knives,” he observed.
She put her hands down, placing them at the ready on her sports belt. “It requires discipline – it sharpens the mind – but it’s a form of relaxation at the same time.”
“Where did you live before you came to Newcastle?”
“Why are you asking? What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing,” Luke replied. “Just a possible technical issue with your identity card. So, where did you live?”
“London, but I’m not proud of it.”
“Whereabouts in London?”
“Hounslow.”
It was the location of the airport and an up-and-coming sports venue, kilometres away from where Camilla Bunker and Rowan Pearce used to live, but not far enough to provide a firm alibi.
Heart thumping, Luke turned to Malc and asked the most important question. “Do the prints you’ve just recorded match any others in this case?”
“No.”
Luke was taken aback by Malc’s abrupt answer. “No?” Luke checked.
“Correct. They are grossly different from any in the crime scene file.”
Luke’s idea had collapsed even before he’d begun to put pressure on Anne Roberts. Her fingerprints proved that she could not be Camilla Bunker. More importantly, Luke’s idea for saving Everton Kohter had collapsed as well. He tried not to give the impression of being disappointed, but inwardly he groaned.
Spitefully, Anne said, “Looks like you’ve finished with me. Looks like you never had a technical issue to resolve. And I’ve got training to do.”
Luke nodded. “Yes. T
hanks. That’s all.”
****
Back in Sheffield, gazing at his own personal planetarium projected by Malc, Luke shook his head. “This theory about Camilla Bunker is the only thing coming between Everton and the sword that’s hanging over him.”
“Incorrect,” Malc said. “Everton Kohter will be executed by lethal injection.”
“Yes. All right. But that’s not my point. I thought I was on the right track with Anne Roberts but she hasn’t got any skeletons in her cupboard.”
Malc replied, “You did not have legal access to her living quarters so I was unable to scan inside her furniture.”
Luke sighed and said, “I think you’re programmed to do this to me on purpose. Open dictionary. Skeleton in the cupboard means hiding a guilty secret.”
“Entered.”
“I just don’t know where the logic went wrong.”
“The interpretation of the impressions on the pad of paper was far from certain.”
Luke nodded. “I’ll show it to my assistant investigator tomorrow. See what she makes of it.”
“You do not have an...”
“My unofficial assistant. Jade.”
“She is not trained in forensic techniques. There is no reason to believe that she will decipher the impressions differently.”
“There’s no reason to believe she’ll see it like I did either. No harm in giving her a go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Luke sat beside Jade in her sound studio on Saturday morning and shivered. This time it was pleasure that made him tingle. Her latest electronic piece – a series of unhurried soundscapes – was the perfect antidote to a murder investigation. Yet, every now and again, there was a disturbing low frequency rumble that seemed to vibrate right through his entire body.
When the music came to an end, Luke looked at her in wonder. “Brilliant! Again.”
She laughed. “Not exactly party music. Soothing but a bit unsettling as well, if you know what I mean. Just something I put together in the last few days – while you’ve been touring around the country, having a holiday.”
“A holiday?” he replied, pretending to be annoyed. “If only. The bad guys never take time off so I’m the same. Listening to your stuff now is my biggest holiday. But...”
Jade looked at him with suspicion. “What? Don’t tell me you’re sitting here with me thinking about a case.”
“I wanted you to take a quick look at something and see what you think it says.”
“You mean, use my eyes? But I’m a musician. My ears are my strong point.”
Luke pointed at the blank wall of the studio. “Beam it up there, Malc.” Then he turned back to Jade. “Just have a try. It’s a name and I can’t quite make it out.”
Jade ran her hand through her mostly bronze hair and cocked her head on one side. “Well, there’s the number twenty-six at the top. Then it’s... someone Roberts.”
“Mmm. Have a stab at the first name.”
“I don’t know. Is it Angie? Or maybe A, N, O, E, like the end of canoe, but that doesn’t make sense.”
Luke nodded. “I thought there was a curly letter after the N as well, but couldn’t make anything of it, so I guessed it was Anne.”
“Looks more like a C to me. As in the end of dance.” She shrugged. “There’s something before it and then an S.”
“I thought it might be Ms. Ms Anne Roberts.”
Jade stepped back away from the image, shaking her head. “Two things wrong with that. You could write Ms Roberts or Anne Roberts so everyone knows you’re dealing with a girl or a woman, but why use both? If you say Anne, you don’t say Ms as well. That’s overkill.”
“Good point,” said Luke. “What’s the other thing that’s wrong?”
“Well, the S is as big as all the other letters. That’s a bit weird. Most people write the s smaller than the M in Ms.”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s not Ms after all. But...” He sighed.
“No, I don’t know either,” Jade told him.
Luke stood at Jade’s side, his arm brushing hers, but concentrated on the image. “You know, there’s something strange. The lines are unbalanced.”
“What do you mean?” Jade asked.
“If you write a name in capital letters on a small pad like that, you more or less centre the words on the page. Don’t you? I think so. The ROBERTS is shifted over to the left. You’d expect the E to be in the middle of the page because it’s the middle of Roberts, but it isn’t. Look. It’s centred on the R. There’s four letters to the left of it and only two on its right. Maybe there’s a couple of letters after ROBERTS to balance everything up, but I’m not seeing them.”
“Nor me,” Jade added, “but I can guess. If there’s a hidden O and N, you’ve got Robertson.”
Luke glanced at her and nodded. “It’s not just good ears you’ve got. Your other bits aren’t bad.” He turned back to the white wall serving as a screen for the impression analysis. “The first line’s off-centre as well. You’ve got the four letters of Anne – or five of Angie or whatever it is – on the right, and just MS or something on the left. Maybe it’s part of a longer name. If that’s right, I reckon there’s a couple of letters missing on the left. You’d need them to balance the line. What are the possibilities, Malc?”
The mobile searched a database of names and said, “There is no known female name with MS in that position.”
“Perhaps it’s not an M,” Luke replied. “Farrah thought it might be an N, so let’s try it. We’d have: blank, blank, possible N, S, blank, A, N, a curly letter maybe, then E.”
“I’ll stick to music,” Jade muttered, tired of peering at the faint doodles.
“Malc, try to fill in the gaps. What fits?”
It took Malc only sixteen seconds. “There is only one viable solution,” he said. “The female name of Constance would fit the impressions.”
Luke beamed. “Now I’m getting somewhere. Check surnames as well, Malc. Are there any options other than Robertson?”
“Robertson is the only surname of that length. You may wish to consider the possibility of Robertshaw.”
“All right. Do a complete search for anyone called Constance Robertson or Constance Robertshaw, twenty-seven to twenty-nine years old, living north of Coventry since the plane crash.” While Malc consulted The Authorities’ files, Luke faced Jade and said, “Thanks. I reckon this forger in Glasgow gave Camilla Bunker a new identity. He jotted down what she wanted to be called – and her age – while he faked her card. This,” he said, waving at the scored image of the pad, “is what’s left of his writing.”
Jade smiled. “Great idea to call yourself Constance when it means something that doesn’t change.”
“Search completed,” Malc announced. “Within the parameters you set, there is only one person. Constance Robertson is an electrician, twenty-eight years old, living in Ballachulish.”
Luke punched the air. “Fantastic. Where’s Ballachulish?”
“It is an isolated village in the Highlands. It is on the bank of Lake Leven at the far end of the Pass of Glencoe.”
Luke cut short his celebration. “That’s what I call north,” he said with a groan.
“From here, the journey will take between four hours thirty minutes and seven hours by cab.”
Looking puzzled, Luke asked, “Why so uncertain?”
“In winter, the Pass of Glencoe is often blocked by snowfall.”
Eagerly, Luke said, “Request a snowplough, then, because Ballachulish is where we’re going. I can’t wait to interview her.”
“You will have to wait a minimum of four and a half hours,” Malc replied.
Jade merely giggled.
****
The cab went slowly past a mountain rescue unit, over a river and entered the Pass of Glencoe. A corridor with pure white walls had been carved out of ice and snow. The roof of the cab completed the feeling of going into a cave. Only the murky daylight told Luke that he wasn’t completely enclose
d.
Making Luke jump, Malc started to speak with the voice of The Authorities. “FI Luke Harding. We are positive about your potential as a forensic investigator but we were expecting more progress in the Sheffield corruption case.” The voice sounded frustrated and maybe even annoyed. It was also crackly. The interference was probably a result of distance and the weather conditions.
Straightaway, Luke was on his guard. “I’m making a lot of progress...”
The voice interrupted. “There has been very little feedback from your Mobile Aid to Law and Crime. There can only be two reasons for this. Either the case is not advancing as well as you say or your mobile is faulty. Its self-diagnostic programs are not reporting faults.”
Luke had no option but to lie. He hoped that a logic circuit somewhere in Malc would work out why and not correct him. “I’m getting plenty of evidence but it isn’t the sort that can go in case notes. Once I get good physical evidence, I’ll wrap it up pretty quickly, I think.”
Luke held his breath but, much to his relief, Malc didn’t contradict him. His mobile must have figured out that correcting him would have revealed their suspicions that The Authorities were guilty of incitement to commit a crime.
“Very well,” the voice said. “Continue. But if the situation does not improve soon, we will recall your Mobile Aid to Law and Crime for an extensive service.”
Luke knew what that meant. It was a threat. The Authorities’ would extract all of the data from Malc’s memory. They could delete anything that they didn’t like. Luke feared that, when Malc was released to continue his duties, any incriminating evidence would have been erased.
The cab slowed to a crawl to take a tight bend. On Luke’s left, there was still some flowing water. The stream came over a ridge, rolled over a massive bulge made of merged icicles and fell into a hole in the snow below. Somewhere under the white covering, there must have been a liquid pool. Beyond the frozen ridge, Luke could see the imposing mountains, cloaked in snow. The mountaintops were much whiter and brighter than the grey sky that lumbered above them.
He turned towards Malc and said, “Can you get me a link to Sadie Kershaw? She’s got very powerful computers. I want you to download a copy of all your information on the Pairing Committee corruption case into one of her systems. She can keep it just in case you’re... serviced.”
