Adika grunted his disapproval. “Cador had months to solve this case and failed. You should make it clear that the Admiral called us in to take over the investigation, so you’re in charge of the case now.”
Lucas shrugged. “I’d prefer to avoid having jurisdiction arguments with Cador. The important thing here isn’t who’s in charge but that we catch our target as soon as possible. I’m not giving crystal units to Cador, Emblyn, or Juniper, so my Tactical team can speak freely to me during this run, but I may not be able to answer openly.”
There was a resigned groan on the crystal comms that I suspected came from Emili.
“Now let’s collect Juniper and head out to meet Cador and Emblyn,” said Lucas.
Adika led the way through the fire doors and down corridor 5. Juniper was waiting in the observatory, and grimaced as she saw Forge in his nosy outfit.
“I’ll need both Juniper and Amber to stay close to me,” said Lucas. “Juniper will be explaining things, and Amber will be relaying information from the nosy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Juniper.
“Alpha Strike team is moving,” said Adika.
“Tactical ready,” said Emili’s voice.
“Liaison ready. Tracking status green,” said Nicole.
I checked the team list on my dataview screen, and as an afterthought adjusted the aerial on my headband. “We are green.”
“Crystal units to visual,” said Lucas.
Juniper watched, fascinated, as the camera extensions of our crystal units unfolded.
“Visual links green for all Strike team,” said Nicole.
Adika opened the door, and we went out into a wind that smelt strongly of smoke. As the Alpha team moved into a defensive formation around Lucas and me, I turned to look at the beach. The remains of the bonfire were still burning, the embers at its heart glowing bright orange, and I had a peculiar moment where dream images and reality blurred together.
I felt the fleeting touch of a hand on my arm, and discovered Lucas was frowning anxiously at me. I hastily gave him a reassuring smile, and our group started moving along the path to the seawall, Juniper came to walk next to me, her frequent glances over her shoulder showing she was uncomfortable with the nosy walking right behind us.
As we moved away from the bonfire, the scent of smoke vanished, and the bitter cold of the wind finally brought me fully awake. Now I was familiar with the path, it seemed to take far less time to reach the seawall than it had done yesterday. Cador and dark-haired Emblyn were waiting there, and Cador gave us the briefest of greetings before rushing into explanations.
“I’ll start by covering how the poisonous chemical was stolen. One of our veterinary staff was in the hangar to meet the aircraft bringing the crates of supplies. She took the crates on a trolley across to the bank of lifts that serve the Haven inland entrances, and went down to the main entrance. If you’ll follow me …”
Cador gave a beckoning wave of his arm and hurried off.
Emblyn shook her head apologetically. “I’m afraid Cador gets a bit overenthusiastic sometimes.”
“I’d noticed that,” said Lucas drily.
We followed Cador along a path that sloped upwards, curving round the side of the Haven hill. He stopped by a large paved area, and pointed across at large doors in the hillside. “The crates were brought out of the main entrance and transferred to the land train.”
“What’s the land train?” asked Lucas.
“One will be along in a minute. We have a set of them running along the road loop, so people only have to wait ten or fifteen minutes at most before one goes by. The land trains always go the same way round the loop, because they need to go down the steepest section of road rather than up. That means they go from here across to Tropics, up to Harvest, across to High Fold, and then down the steep road to here in Harbour again.”
He lifted his right forefinger. “Ah, I can hear the land train coming now.”
There was an odd mixture of humming and rumbling sounds, and I saw a strange object coming down the wide path towards us.
“The train itself is electric powered,” said Cador. “It usually tows two carriages for passengers and has a trailer at the back for bulky items. The crates for the veterinary centre went in the trailer, and the member of staff rode in the second carriage.”
The land train halted in front of us. It had a curiously shaped wheeled object at the front, with a woman sitting on it. The two things behind it, with windows and doors, had to be the carriages. The trailer was like a giant trolley and carried a jumble of bags, two crates, and a cage containing a bird with resplendent feathers.
“What sort of bird is that?” I asked.
“That’s a cockerel,” said Cador.
“A cockerel is a male chicken,” said Juniper.
The carriage doors opened, and a mob of chattering children poured out, only to go abruptly silent as they saw our nosy. They grabbed bags from the trailer and scurried off into the Haven.
“That’s the Harvest schoolchildren heading for an introductory session at the apprentice education centre,” said Juniper. “Schoolchildren do a lot of introductory sessions to help them choose what apprenticeship to sign up for when they’re fourteen.”
“How do you know those children are from Harvest region?” asked Lucas.
“They had green school scarves,” said Juniper.
I was puzzled. “I saw some children had yellow scarves.”
Juniper pulled a face. “That’s because Tropics school is still short of a teacher after Hazel’s death. Our sea farm reserve teacher was already committed to helping at Harvest school while one of their teachers had her baby, so some of the older Tropics children are having to join classes at other schools for their lessons. The Admiral has reported the situation to the Hive, and asked for the next Lottery to have the post of Sea Farm Schoolteacher flagged as an urgent priority for imprinting.”
Several adults came out of the carriages and followed the children into the Haven. A few more people came up the path from the seawall, and most of them got into the carriages of the land train, but one woman picked up the cage with the cockerel and walked off with it.
Lucas gazed thoughtfully after her. “There don’t seem to be any checks on who travels on the land train, or even who takes things from the trailer.”
“There aren’t,” said Cador gloomily. “Anyone could have gone to the trailer, lifted the lid of the veterinary supply crates, and taken the missing bottle. It was in a protective case helpfully marked poison in large red letters.”
“Wasn’t the crate locked?” asked Lucas.
“Yes, but when it arrived at the veterinary centre the catch was broken.” Cador gave an especially frantic wave of his hands. “The catches aren’t very strong. You could easily break one open with a screwdriver.”
The land train trundled off along the path in the direction of Tropics.
“The crates were going to High Fold,” said Lucas. “That means the land train would have stopped in both Tropics and Harvest before reaching High Fold.”
“It would have stopped at other places too,” said Cador gloomily. “People just wait at the side of the road and wave when they want the land train to stop for them.”
“Your surveillance cameras didn’t show anything helpful?” I asked.
Cador shook his head. “A lot of cameras on the route were out of action.”
“There have been incidents in all four regions of the sea farm,” said Lucas. “I wondered how the target was travelling around so easily, but the answer is that anyone can ride on the land train just as anyone can ride on the belt system at the Hive.”
“Exactly,” said Cador. “Closing down the land train system would make life impossibly difficult for everyone, and wouldn’t prevent the murderer getting to places on foot or on horseback. Now, Treeve and Aster’s house is on the road towards High Fold, so it makes sense for us to go there next. Massen lives over in Harvest so you’ll probably want to
use an aircraft to go there and to visit Hazel’s old house in Tropics.”
Cador led us along the road in the opposite direction to that of the land train. We passed two people who were on foot, and one who was perched perilously high on top of a large, four-legged creature that I assumed was a horse.
Some of the Strike team moved to form a human defensive wall beside Lucas and me until the horse was safely past us. I saw Emblyn cover her hand with her mouth, as if she was smothering a laugh at their protectiveness, but Cador’s attention was on what looked like two houses wedged closely together.
He pointed at the larger house. “That’s Treeve and Aster’s house, with Treeve’s workshop next door.”
I was worried that smoke was coming from the roof of the larger building, but Cador didn’t seem concerned by it.
“We’d better talk to Aster before we go in the workshop,” he said. “Can the nosy wait out here by the road? Aster wouldn’t like it entering her house.”
“Adika, Eli, Amber, and Juniper will come inside with us,” said Lucas. “The nosy and everyone else can wait out here.”
Cador went up and knocked on the door of the larger house, and a woman with short, fair hair opened it. As she looked at us with a tired, strained expression, a small girl appeared from behind her, and tugged impatiently at her arm with a chubby hand.
“Mine bikkit!” the child demanded imperiously.
“Please come in,” said Aster.
We followed her in through a cramped hallway, to a long thin room. I was unnerved to see an alcove in the wall had burning logs in it. That explained the smoke coming from the roof, but I didn’t see how it could be safe to have a fire inside a house.
Aster gestured at some chairs. Lucas, Cador, Juniper, and I sat down, while Adika and Eli lurked by the walls. I noticed another girl, this one old enough not to be wearing a tracking bracelet, was peering out of the front window at the rest of our party. I had a feeling I’d seen her somewhere before.
“Nosy! You brought a nosy to our house!” She turned to face us, and spat the words at us in disgust, before sprinting out of the room. I heard a distant slam of a door, and then glimpsed the girl running off past the window, her long fair hair flying out behind her.
“Mine bikkit!” demanded the smaller girl again.
Aster groaned, took a box from a shelf, opened it, and handed the child a biscuit that had what seemed to be a rabbit drawn on it in pink icing sugar. “I’m sorry about the children. Rose would normally be at school, and Poppy at nursery, but I’m having a few days off work to …”
Aster didn’t finish her sentence, just slumped wearily down in a chair.
I finally worked out why Rose looked familiar. “I saw Rose in the audience for the broadcast yesterday evening.”
Aster groaned again. “Rose wanted to watch the broadcast in person. She said that someone had murdered her father, and she wanted to know what was being done about it, but I couldn’t face joining the audience.”
She sighed. “I knew everyone in the crowd would be making falsely polite comments about Treeve when the truth was they’d all disliked him. I told Rose we’d stay at home and watch the broadcast on my dataview, but she sneaked off to the seawall when my back was turned.”
I felt dreadfully sorry for both Rose and Aster. It was understandable that Rose would be angry about her father’s death, and want to know what we were doing to catch his killer. It was equally understandable that Aster was too lost in despair to do more than huddle at home with her children.
Lucas gave a sympathetic nod. “I’m very sorry that we have to trouble you with this visit. Do you know anything that could help us find out who attacked your husband?”
Aster sighed again. “You must have heard Treeve enjoyed upsetting people. He never made spiteful remarks to the girls or me, but he did to my friends and my family. My parents and brother hated Treeve, which made life horribly awkward. Worst of all, Rose began to copy her father’s behaviour.”
Aster stared down at her hands. “Treeve and I had a major argument at the start of last year. I ended up taking the girls over to my parents’ house and stayed there for ten months. Eventually, Treeve coaxed me into coming back. He promised he’d behave better in future, and he did. He still managed to annoy a few people, but … I don’t know why anyone would choose to kill him now.”
“Do you know why Treeve went to work at the mine?” asked Lucas.
Aster turned to glare at Cador. “That was Cador’s fault. When he told Treeve there wouldn’t be any work for him for two months, Treeve had no choice but to take the job at the mine.”
Cador gave her a startled look. “But …”
Lucas interrupted him smoothly. “Thank you for answering my questions, Aster. Would you allow us to see Treeve’s workshop before we go?”
Aster hesitated.
“You don’t have to go in there yourself,” added Lucas. “Just tell us the door code, and we’ll let ourselves in.”
She frowned. “Door code?”
“Can we borrow the key please?” asked Juniper.
Aster took a couple of metal objects from her pocket and held one out to Juniper. “Please don’t touch Treeve’s tools. He took great care of them, and hated anyone touching them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with those tools now. Rose loved watching her father repair things, and says I should keep them because she wants to repair things herself one day, but …”
“We won’t touch Treeve’s tools,” said Lucas.
We walked back out of the house, and Juniper opened the door of the workshop. When we went inside, I saw sets of pristine tools hanging on the wall, and pieces of what was probably a drone laid out carefully on a table. Crates were lined up along one wall, holding more pieces of drones and other machinery that I didn’t recognize. I thought sadly that it seemed as if Treeve had just stepped out for a moment and would come back to continue his work later.
“Aster found Treeve’s body lying on the floor by the table.” Cador gestured at a gap in the neat sets of tools. “He’d been hit on the head by one of his own hammers. We’d realized that the murderer had taken Treeve’s dataview. Presumably, the murderer took the illegal drone as well.”
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “No wonder Aster doesn’t know what to do with those tools. Treeve took such perfect care of them, but one of them was used to kill him.”
Lucas walked across the room and studied some objects lying on a shelf. “Treeve was away for two months at the mine. Aster said that he hated anyone touching his tools, so I don’t believe she did any cleaning in here, but everything on the table is clean and free of dust. Treeve must have cleaned it as soon as he got back from the mine. In fact, he cleaned everything in this workshop except the items on this shelf. It’s as if he didn’t have a use for them any longer.”
Lucas took out his dataview. “Nicole, I think these items are light switches from the Haven. I’m sending you some images of them. Please get Sakshi to look at them and tell me her thoughts.”
Cador went over to stand next to Lucas. “There’s no reason for Treeve to have Haven light switches here. The Haven has imprinted people who maintain the electrical and lighting systems.”
“Sakshi is an electronics specialist, so she may be able to tell us what Treeve was doing with the switches,” said Lucas.
Cador paced up and down restlessly. “Can I have one of those ear things you’re wearing so I can hear what your electronics specialist says?”
“That would be a bad idea,” said Lucas. “Our nosies are speaking on the crystal comms, complaining about the conditions at the sea farm. At least, I assume that’s why they’re making that hideous screeching noise.”
“It’s mostly complaints,” I said.
Lucas gave me a disapproving look. “I’ve told you before that the nosies should only speak on the crystal comms when absolutely necessary.”
I made a despairing gesture with my hands. “The
nosies hate it here, sir. There’s a limit to what I can do to control them.”
There was a minute or two of silence before Sakshi’s voice spoke on the crystal comms. “Those light switches have been altered. When someone switches them on or off, there’s likely to be a power spike. There should be some sort of fuse or safety system that stops anyone getting hurt, but the power will go out until someone makes repairs.”
Lucas repeated Sakshi’s words to Cador and Juniper.
“We had several power cuts in the Haven last summer,” said Emblyn. “People thought it was problems with the old wiring.”
Cador groaned. “These switches prove you were right about Treeve setting the first series of traps. I can imagine he’d have enjoyed causing those power cuts. Most of the Haven doesn’t have windows, so having everywhere plunged into darkness was terribly inconvenient.”
“It was more than inconvenient for the Blue Zonies,” said Juniper grimly. “It traumatized the ones working in the Haven.”
“What do you mean by Blue Zonies?” asked Lucas.
“A year or two ago, there was a massive power cut at the Hive in an area called Blue Zone,” said Juniper. “A lot of people were trapped in crowded lifts in the dark, in some cases for days.”
I blinked. I knew all about that power cut. I’d been caught in it myself when I lived on Teen level. It was only after I came out of Lottery as a telepath, that I learned the power cut had been caused by a wild bee, and was an example of how vulnerable the Hive was to acts of sabotage.
Juniper shuddered. “Some of the people in lifts ended up with claustrophobia, and a couple of hundred of the worst cases were sent here because they couldn’t cope with living in the Hive any longer. The poor things have been struggling between their fear of Outside and their fear of inside, trying to adapt to strange new lives. Most of them have been working in the Haven, and Treeve used to make fun of them, calling them moles, so I’m sure he arranged those power cuts to torment them.”
“Treeve was a ghastly man,” said Cador. “There won’t be many people at the sea farm mourning him.”
Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 30
