Kéthani

by Eric Brown

  Did he really want to know?

  He wondered if Richard Lincoln’s last pearl of wisdom had provoked him into action. “Doug, perhaps you’d feel better about life in general if you could sort things out with Amanda, one way or another.”

  Perhaps he’d had long enough of feeling powerless. Who had said that knowledge was power? He shook his head. The alcohol was fuddling his thinking. He really should turn around and go home, leave Amanda to whatever petty adultery she was committing.

  He hunched over the wheel and concentrated on the road ahead.

  Five minutes later they entered the village of Hockton and the VW slowed to a crawl and pulled into the kerb beside a row of stone-built cottages. Standish drove on, overtook the parked car, and came to a halt twenty metres further along the road.

  He turned in his seat and watched as Amanda climbed out and hurried through the slush. A light came on in the porch of the cottage where she’d parked, and the figure of a man appeared in the doorway.

  Amanda ran into his embrace, then slipped into the house. The light in the porch went out. The door closed. He imagined his wife in the arms of the stranger and then whatever else they might get up to in the hours before midnight.

  The strange thing was that he felt no anger. No anger at all. Instead, he experienced a dull ache in his chest, like an incipient coronary, and a strange sense of disappointment.

  Now he knew, and nothing could ever be the same again.

  He turned his car and drove back past the house, noting the number. He would check on its occupant later, when he had thought through the implications of Amanda’s actions.

  He drove home, considered stopping at the Dog and Gun for a few more, but vetoed the idea. Once home, he tried to eat the meal Amanda had left for him, managed half of it and threw the rest.

  He went to bed, but not in the main bedroom. He slept in the guest room and wondered why he hadn’t had the guts to do so before now.

  He was still awake well after midnight when Amanda got back. He heard her key in the front door and minutes later the sound of her soft footsteps on the stairs. He imagined her entering the bedroom and not finding him there, and the thought gave him a frisson of juvenile satisfaction.

  A minute later she appeared in the doorway, silhouetted in the landing light behind her. “Doug? Are you okay?”

  She was a small woman, dark-haired and voluptuous. He recalled the first time he had seen her naked.

  He wanted to ask her why, but that would be to initiate a conflict in which he could only finish second-best. He knew why. She no longer loved him. It was as simple as that.

  She waited a second, then said, “Pissed again, are you? Well, stay there, then.”

  She pushed herself away from the jamb, and Standish said, “Don’t worry, I fully intend to.”

  She hesitated, considering a rejoinder, but thought better of it and moved back to the main bedroom, turning off the landing light and filling the house with darkness.

  Later, in the early hours, Standish awoke suddenly, startled by the burst of white light as the Onward Station beamed its freight of dead humans to the orbiting Kéthani starship.

  That night he dreamed of angels.

  He awoke early next morning and left the house before Amanda got up. It was another crystal clear, dazzlingly bright day. A fierce frost had sealed the snow overnight and the roads into Bradley were treacherous.

  The desk-sergeant apprehended Standish before he reached his office and handed him a printout.

  Detective Inspector Singh wanted to see him about the Roberts case.

  “He’s here?” Standish asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. “Up at the farmhouse with a forensic team.”

  He drove from Bradley and over the moors, taking his time. He crested a rise and, before him, the spun-crystal pinnacle of the Onward Station came into view. It looked at its best in a setting of mow, he thought: it belonged. He wondered at the homeworld of the Kéthani, and whether it was a place of snow and ice.

  How little we know of our benefactors, he thought as he arrived at the farmhouse.

  A fall of snow during the night had filled in the footsteps made by Standish, Lincoln, and the others the evening before, but a new trail of prints led up the drive from two police cars parked outside the gate, now unlocked. He climbed from his car and hurried over to the house.

  Detective Inspector R.J. Singh stood in the front room, arms folded across his massive stomach. He was a big man in a dark suit and a white turban, and when he spoke Standish detected a marked Lancastrian accent. “Inspector Standish. Glad you could make it. Good to have you aboard.”

  “I hope I can help.” They shook hands, and Standish looked down at where, yesterday, the body of Sarah Roberts had sprawled.

  Today, a series of holographic projectors recreated the image. It was the first time Standish had witnessed the technology at work, and he had to admit that it was impressive. But for the presence of the three small tripod-mounted projectors, he might have believed that the body was still in situ.

  Even though he knew it was not the real thing, he still found it hard to look upon the ethereal beauty of the spectral image.

  A couple of forensic scientists knelt in the corner of the room, minutely inspecting the carpet with portable microscopes.

  Singh questioned him about the discovery of the body, and Standish recounted his impressions.

  They moved across the room, to where a series of photographs had been spread out across the table. They showed the farmhouse and the surrounding snow-covered grounds from every angle.

  “Not a clue,” Singh said, gesturing at the photographs. “Nothing. The killer came and went without leaving a trace. We’ve thought of everything. I don’t suppose you’ve come up with anything?”

  He told Singh about his theory that the killer might have concealed himself somewhere in the house.

  “Thought of that,” Singh said. “We went through the place with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Standish shook his head. “I don’t know what else to suggest. I just can’t see how the killer did it.”

  “I’ve studied the recordings of Roberts on the vid to the ferryman, Richard Lincoln,” Singh said. “No clues there, either. One minute she’s talking to Lincoln, and the next she goes to answer the door, comes back and… bang.”

  Standish moved to the window and looked out. The melted circle that he had noted yesterday was filled now with the night’s snowfall.

  “Did you see…?” he began.

  Singh nodded. “One of the photos picked it up. I’m checking things like underground pipes. I don’t think it’s anything significant.” He looked around the room. “She certainly kept a tidy house.”

  He had noticed that yesterday, Standish thought now, though then he’d hardly registered the fact. The place was as unlived in as a show house.

  “I’ve been looking into Sarah Roberts’s past,” Singh said. “You might be interested in what I’ve discovered.”

  Standish nodded. “Anything that might shed light—?”

  Singh interrupted. “Nothing.” He smiled at Standish’s puzzlement. “The records go back three years, during her time with over half a dozen Onward Stations up and down the country. Before that, Sarah Roberts didn’t exist, officially, that is.”

  “So ‘Sarah Roberts’ was an alias?”

  “Something like that. We’re checking with the Ministry of Kéthani Affairs. Chances are that the whole thing will be taken away from us and declared classified. If she was important enough to work for the Ministry in some hush-hush capacity, then the killing might be deemed too sensitive a matter for us mere workaday coppers.”

  “And you think the killing might have been linked to her work?”

  “Impossible to tell. Between you and me, I don’t think we’ll ever find out.”

  Standish let his gaze stray again to the projected image of Sarah Roberts. “Have the techs come up with any reason for the dysfunction of he
r implant?”

  “They’re mystified. I wondered if it could have been linked to the killing—if the killer had in some way disabled it—but they simply couldn’t tell me. They’ve never come across anything like it.”

  “And she’s… I mean, there’s no way they can save her?”

  Singh pulled an exaggeratedly doleful face. “I’m afraid not. Sarah Roberts is dead.”

  Standish averted his gaze from the ghost of the woman lying on the carpet, and asked, “Is it okay if I take another look around?”

  “Be my guest. Forensics have almost finished.”

  Standish climbed the stairs and inspected the bedrooms again. He was struck by the improbability of a woman in her mid-twenties choosing to sleep in a single bed. He looked around the room. It was remarkable only for the lack of personality stamped upon the room during the three months that Sarah Roberts had lived there: a brush and comb sat on a dresser, next to a closed make-up box. They looked like they had been placed there by stagehands, to give spurious authenticity to a set.

  He moved to the bathroom, where yesterday he had been aware of something not quite right. Now he realised what he’d missed: the room was bare, no toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, hair-gels, hand creams, or toiletries of any kind.

  Another damned mystery to add to all the others.

  He returned downstairs and found the detective inspector in the kitchen, peering into the fridge.

  “Strange,” Singh said when he saw Standish. “Empty. Nothing, not even a pint of milk.”

  Standish told him about the empty bathroom.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Singh said to himself.

  “I might go over to the Onward Station and talk to the Director,” Standish said. “If you don’t mind my trespassing on your territory, that is?”

  “Let’s share anything we come up with, okay?” Singh said. “God knows, I need all the help I can get.”

  Standish took his leave of the farmhouse and motored across the moors to the looming monument of the alien Station. A new fall of snow had started, sifting down from a slate-grey sky. He found himself trailing a gritter for half a mile, delaying his arrival.

  He thought about Sarah Roberts, her existence as pristine as the surrounding snow, and wondered if he would learn anything more from the Director.

  Five minutes later he parked in the shadow of the Station and stepped through the sliding glass doors. The decor of the interior matched the arctic tone of the landscape outside. He’d only ever visited the Station once before, for the returning ceremony of a fellow policeman, and now he recalled the unearthly atmosphere of the place, the cool, quiet otherness of the white corridors and the spacious, minimally furnished rooms.

  He showed his identification to a blue-uniformed receptionist and he was kept waiting for almost thirty minutes before the Director consented to see him.

  The receptionist escorted him down a long white corridor, carpeted in pale blue, and left him in front of a white door. It slid open to reveal a stark room with a desk like an ice-table standing at the far end, before a floor to ceiling window that looked out over the frozen landscape.

  The room seemed hardly more hospitable than the terrain outside.

  A tall, attenuated man rose from behind the desk and gestured Standish to enter. Director Masters was in his fifties, severely thin and formal, as if his humanity had been leached by his involvement with such otherworldly matters as the resurrection of the dead.

  They shook hands and Standish explained the reason for his visit.

  “Ah,” Masters said. “The Roberts case. Terrible thing.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to ask a few questions about Ms. Roberts.”

  “By all means. I’ll assist in any way possible.”

  Standish began by asking what had been Sarah Roberts’s function at the Station.

  Masters nodded. ”She was the Station’s liaison officer.”

  “Which means?”

  “She was the official who liaised between myself and my immediate superiors in Whitehall.”

  “So technically she worked for the government?”

  “That is so.”

  “I presume you had daily contact with her?”

  “I did.”

  “And how did you find her? I mean, what kind of person would you say she was?”

  Masters eased himself back in his seat. “To be honest, I found Ms. Roberts a hard person to get to know. There was the age difference, of course. But even so, she was very withdrawn and reserved. Other members of my staff thought the same.”

  “She didn’t socialise with anyone from the Station?”

  Masters smiled. “She wasn’t the kind of person to, ah… socialise.”

  “University educated?”

  “Oxford.”

  Standish nodded. He was forming a picture of Roberts that in all likelihood was nothing like the person she had been. No doubt somewhere there was a mother and father, perhaps even a lover.

  “Were you aware of anyone who might harbour a grudge or resentment against Ms. Roberts?”

  “Absolutely not. She hardly interacted with anyone in any way that might have caused resentment or suchlike.”

  “Do you by any chance have a personnel dossier on Ms. Roberts?”

  Masters hesitated, then nodded. He leaned towards a microphone. “Danielle, could you bring in the Sarah Roberts file, please?”

  Two minutes later Standish was leafing through a brief, very brief, document which listed Roberts’s other postings at Onward Stations around the country, and little else. There was no mention of her work before she joined the Ministry of Kéthani Affairs, nothing about her background or education.

  But there was a photograph. It showed a fey, fair, beautiful woman in her early twenties, and Standish found it haunting.

  He pulled the picture from its clip and asked Masters, “I don’t suppose I could keep this?”

  “I’ll get Danielle to make a copy,” Masters said, and called his secretary again.

  For the next ten minutes, before Director Masters rather unsubtly glanced at his watch to suggest that time was pressing, Standish questioned the Director about Roberts’s work. He learned that she collected data about the day-to-day running of the Station, the processing of the dead from the area, and passed the information on to a government department in London. Masters could tell him no more than that, or was unwilling to do so.

  Standish thanked the director and left the Station. He sat in his Renault for ten minutes in contemplative silence, staring at the stark magnificence of the alien architecture, before starting the car and driving into Bradley.

  He spent the afternoon in his office, processing what in the old days would have been called paperwork. He took time out to look up the identity of his wife’s lover, then finished his shift at six.

  That night he ate a steak and kidney pie in the Dog and Gun, drank more than was healthy, and at closing time was sitting by himself next to the open fire and staring at the photograph of the dead woman.

  She reminded him of… what was the name of the Elf Queen from that old film, The Lord of the Rings? Anyway, she looked like the Elf Queen.

  Serene and fey and… innocent?

  He replaced the photograph in his breast pocket and left the pub. Electing to leave the car, he walked unsteadily along a lane made treacherous by black ice. It was after midnight when he arrived home. Thankfully Amanda was already in bed.

  He slept in the guest room again, and awoke only when the bright white light from the Onward Station reminded him of his destiny, and the dead woman who would never live again.

  The following morning he slipped from the house before Amanda got up, drove into Bradley and began work. Around eleven, R.J. Singh looked into the office and they discussed the case. Standish recounted his meeting with Director Masters and both men agreed that they were getting nowhere fast.

  He had a quick sandwich in the staff canteen and after lunch returned to the
routine admin work. By four, his eyes were sore from staring at the computer screen. He was considering going down to the canteen for a coffee when his mobile rang.

  It was Richard Lincoln.

  “Richard, how can I help?”

  “It’s about the Roberts affair,” Lincoln said. “It might not amount to much, but a friend thought he saw something in the area on the afternoon of the murder.”

  “Where can I contact him?”

  “Well, we’re meeting in the Fleece in Oxenworth tonight, around seven. Why don’t you come along?”

  “I’ll do that. See you then. Thanks, Richard.”

  He refuelled himself with that promised coffee and worked for a further couple of hours. Just after six he left the station and drove over the moors to Oxenworth, a tiny village of a dozen houses, two converted mills, a local store-cum-post office and a public house.

  He arrived early and ordered scampi and chips from the bar menu. He was on his second pint when Richard Lincoln pushed through the swing door from the hallway, followed by a man and a woman in their forties.

  Lincoln introduced the couple as Ben and Elisabeth Knightly; Ben was a dry-stone waller, Elisabeth a teacher at Bradley comprehensive. They had the appearance of newly-weds, Standish thought: they found each other’s hands beneath the table when they assumed no one was looking and established eye contact with each other with charming regularity.

  It reminded him of the early days with Amanda… Christ, was it really twenty years ago, now?

  Ben Knightly said, “I read about the murder in this morning’s paper…”

  Standish nodded. “We’ve got no further with the investigation, to be honest. We need all the help we can get. Richard mentioned you saw something.”

  Ben Knightly was a big man with massive, outdoor hands. When he wasn’t holding his wife’s hand beneath the table, he clutched his pint, as if nervous. “I was working in the Patterson’s top field,” he said hesitantly. “I was just across the valley. It was around four, maybe a bit later.”

  “How far were you from the Roberts’ farmhouse?” Standish asked, wondering exactly how far away “just across the valley” might be.