The Mandel Files, Volume 1

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Eleanor pulled her jacket hood up and allowed him to take her arm as they walked to the front door. The roses along the Abbey’s façade looked very scraggly now, sodden and beginning to rot. A uniformed bobby standing in the porch gave a quick salute as they hurried in out of the damp.

  There were a lot of people milling around in the hall, the familiar figures of the CID team; Gabriel and Ranasfari standing together along with Ranasfari’s bodyguard. The physicist was in earnest conversation with Denzil Osborne. A couple of uniformed bobbies made up the complement.

  Greg spotted Nicholas Beswick standing at the foot of the stairs, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his elbows sticking out at awkward angles, avoiding eye contact, trying to go unnoticed amid the hubbub of small-talk. The affection he felt at the sight of the boy was spontaneous; he wanted to go over and put a hand on his shoulder, reassure him everything was going to be all right: there was something oddly appealing about someone so timid.

  He watched Nicholas very closely as Eleanor greeted the others in the hall. The boy turned round to see what was going on, full of reluctance. Then he caught sight of Eleanor. His brooding expression twisted into shock then outright fright. Both hands lurched upwards, almost as though he was warding off a punch. ‘You!’ It came out as a mangled yell. He took an instinctive pace backwards, and tripped on the bottom step, sitting down jarringly.

  Everyone in the hall froze, staring at him. Colour began to rush into his cheeks.

  Greg went over and offered him a sympathetic arm. ‘She was your ghost wasn’t she?’ he asked gently.

  Nicholas struggled to his feet, still staring thunderstruck at Eleanor. ‘Yes, but look, she’s real now. She’s alive.’

  ‘No messing. Allow me to introduce you; this is Eleanor, my wife.’

  Nicholas gave him a wild trapped look. ‘Wife?’

  ‘Let me explain,’ he said kindly.

  ‘About time,’ Eleanor grumbled in his ear.

  ‘You knew all along,’ Eleanor said, she was hovering between anger and bemusement. Undecided.

  ‘I guessed all along,’ Greg temporized. And Lord preserve us if she decides on anger.

  They were sitting on the circular bed in Nicholas’s room. All the furniture was still in place, but swathed in plastic sheeting, embargoed by the forensic team, although there had been no need for the wholesale dismantling exercise which had occurred in Kitchener’s room.

  Nicholas had claimed the chair behind the desk, the translucent plastic rustling at each tiny movement. He had shrugged off his reticence as Greg explained his hunch about the ghost and the retrospection neurohormone. Asking questions, making observations. Almost behaving like a regular person.

  Ranasfari was sitting on the window-seat in a virtual trance state. One hand stroked the stonework absently. Greg wondered what ghosts Launde had conjured up for him.

  Gabriel had listened to him explain with a smile blinking on and off. She had assumed that knowing air of elder sister tolerance he remembered so well.

  Vernon, Amanda, and Denzil were grouped together in mutual confusion, attentive but saying little, swapping moody, baffled glances.

  ‘You are saying this looking-back notion has already worked?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘No,’ Greg said. ‘Just that the retrospection neurohormone will work. I had some reservations at first, you see.’

  Eleanor’s hand squeezed his leg playfully. ‘You wait till I get you home, Gregory.’

  ‘But … Oh, I don’t know.’ Amanda’s arms flapped in expressive dismay. ‘You really think this drug is going to let you look back and see who murdered Kitchener?’

  ‘She has pervaded the correct tau co-ordinates,’ Nicholas said. ‘I saw her. Dressed exactly as she is now.’

  Amanda’s eyebrows shot up.

  Probably never heard him speak unless he’s been spoken to before, Greg thought.

  ‘So what would happen if Eleanor doesn’t take the neurohormone?’ Gabriel asked. Her whole attitude was pure wickedness. ‘We know it works, so why don’t we give it to someone else? Vernon here, he’s a likely lad, and it is his investigation.’

  ‘Behave,’ Greg said. The others wouldn’t be able to tell how serious she was. Gabriel took some getting used to. He’d known her for close on sixteen years, through the good times and the bad, and he wasn’t sure he really understood her. Made for interesting company, though.

  ‘Perfectly legitimate question.’ She affected injured innocence. ‘Nicholas says he saw her, so what would happen if she doesn’t go?’

  ‘You and your paradoxes,’ Eleanor muttered.

  ‘Nothing would happen,’ Ranasfari said. ‘As I explained yesterday, quantum mechanics eradicates any inconsistency. The ghost which Nicholas witnessed originates from a universe in which Eleanor will infuse the neurohormone. There are others in which she does not.’

  ‘Another me,’ Eleanor said wonderingly.

  ‘This version does me fine,’ Greg said. But there was an image in his mind he couldn’t shake free; a million Eleanors saying yes and infusing the neurohormone, another million pandering to Gabriel’s whim, and refusing. Universes torn asunder. And never the twain shall meet.

  Eleanor smiled at him, hand gripping tighter.

  ‘Well what’s it going to be, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ll infuse it, of course.’ She looked at Nicholas, her smile turning impish. ‘I’m sorry I’m going to startle you last Thursday night.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ His eyes shone adoringly.

  Greg had the uncomfortable thought that Eleanor and Nicholas were actually both the same age. Only chronologically though, an evil voice said inside his mind.

  Eleanor lay down on the bed and let Denzil fit the somnolence induction loop round her head. A pearl-white tiara with a coil of cable connecting it to a slim oblong box of blue plastic. It reminded Greg of the neural-jammer collars at Stocken. The technology was the same.

  ‘You should be able to reach down the landing into Kitchener’s bedroom without any trouble,’ Gabriel said. ‘I could tell what was going to happen to a general area about a kilometre across. Or if I fixated on a person, I could track him three or four days into the future even if he went to Australia.’

  ‘She used to fixate on a lot of men,’ Greg told the room at large. Nicholas started to giggle.

  ‘Bugger you, Mandel.’

  ‘I’ll be happy if I can just manage to find the Abbey last Thursday,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘You did,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or you do, I don’t know which.’

  ‘Shall we just get on with it,’ Eleanor said.

  Greg could feel the nerves building in her belly. ‘OK.’ He sat beside her, plumping up a pillow, then took her hand. Her grip was strong, in search of reassurance, of a rock of stability.

  Denzil handed him the somnolence induction box. There were three buttons and a small liquid-crystal display on the front. A column of black numbers changed occasionally below a row of symbols he didn’t recognize.

  ‘I’ve preset it,’ Denzil said. ‘Press this button and she should be under in five seconds.’

  ‘Right.’ He rested his forefinger lightly over the button. Hoping to God he wouldn’t have to use it.

  Gabriel held up an infuser tube. ‘You want me to do this?’

  ‘Please,’ said Eleanor.

  Gabriel bent over her, face sober and professional, and pressed the tube to her neck, just over the carotid.

  ‘Keep your eyes closed,’ Gabriel instructed. ‘You’ll be seeing enough visions without trying to untangle optical images as well.’

  Eleanor’s eyes closed and she clamped her jaw shut, facial muscles hard as stone. Greg ordered a secretion – gland thudding away like a second heartbeat – and joined her in the country of the mind.

  Eyes closed, blockading the sleet of photons into the brain’s reception centre, a tide of starless night engulfed him. Eleanor’s mind rose silently into the void, a gas-giant as seen fr
om one of its innermost moons. Vast and heavy. Thought currents swirled, individual strands showing pink, white, and ochre-red, like meandering stormbands, curling round each other to produce complex interlocking vortices. Stains of trepidation bled up out of the deeper psyche, dissolving into the surface thoughts, quickening the rhythm.

  Relax, he told her.

  The mind’s superficies quaked in surprise, sending out distortion ripples.

  Greg?

  Yeah. Why, who did you think?

  Just remember this is all new to me.

  I haven’t experienced this sort of affinity many times, myself.

  Oh. Greg? I think I can see the bedroom. My eyes are still shut, aren’t they?

  He snatched a fast look. Yeah, they’re shut. He let his own mind relax into passivity, a pure receiver. That eerie phosphorescent cloudscape lost cohesion, filming over with watery streaks of alien colour. When he studied them closer they resolved into walls, furniture, people, himself. He was still sitting on the side of the bed. Gabriel was stuck in a ridiculous posture; mouth open, hands captured in mid-gesture.

  You are smiling, Eleanor said.

  I’ve just seen me as you see me. It’s interesting.

  The room is all still, like a hologram.

  Yeah. Now, what I want you to do, very slowly, is hunt round for a watch, and just imagine yourself sliding towards it. Got that?

  No problem.

  The perception focus shifted, they curved out and upwards, an eagle in flight, heading for Gabriel’s wrist. Her watch was a plain silver band with dry scarlet numbers flush with the surface, as if they were floating on a lake of mercury.

  Nine forty-seven, Greg read. About eight minutes ago. OK, now can you see anything around the fringes of the room?

  Like what?

  A lack of definition, something like the blurred multiple you get right at the edge of a mirror.

  No. Nothing like that.

  OK. Pull back from the room, the opposite of when you zoomed in on the watch.

  Ah, yes.

  The image flowed, rushing past so fast he thought he could feel the wind of its passage. Yet the walls, the furniture, the fittings, they all stayed in the same place. Darkness fell, siphoning out every shade of colour. In the night sky outside the window, stars traced sparkling arcs across the heavens, flickering in and out of existence as blankets of cloud churned past at supersonic speed.

  Very good, he told her drily, but can you stop?

  The vertiginous motion slowed. Halted. It was dusk, a paltry smattering of rain leaking from bleak clouds. The room was deserted, its frost of plastic sheets glimmering a dirty indigo.

  Bloody hell, said Eleanor. There was a dazed quality to her thoughts, almost like giddiness. I did it, Greg. The past!

  Yeah. Yesterday evening, I think. How are you standing up?

  OK. There’s this feeling of pressure. Inside, you know? Like I’m pushing against something.

  If it ever gets to be an effort, then stop. Right away, Eleanor. Don’t try and tough it out.

  OK.

  Any sign of alternatives yet?

  God, no, Greg. This is bad enough.

  Just asking. Now let’s go back to the night of the murder. One week, Thursday night, midnight, or as close as we can get.

  All right.

  The room surged around him again.

  They stopped a few times, watching Denzil or Nicolette come in and run hand-held sensors over the furniture and carpet. Sometimes they would bag an item up and take it out.

  Last Friday was a blur of activity, with as many as seven or eight people crowding in at once, whizzing around. The sheets of plastic crumpled up, shrinking, vanishing, leaving the chairs and tables exposed again.

  Night closed in.

  Here we go, Eleanor said.

  He could sense the tension, and the effort, in her mind, thoughts stretched as taut as an athlete’s sinew.

  Nicholas Beswick was sitting at the desk, absorbed with the dense sapphire graphics slithering through his terminal’s cube. Erratic moonbeams were raking the parkland outside.

  You were right about Nicholas, Eleanor said, he does need looking after, doesn’t he?

  Yeah. I like him.

  Me too.

  This ought to be about the time when Rosette and Isabel traipse off to see Kitchener. Move in to the bedside cabinet, we’ll have a look at the clock.

  The perception point drifted downwards until it was level with Nicholas’s head. Surprise scrawled across his face, eyes widening.

  He can see me!

  Greg could sense her own startled thoughts as Nicholas opened his mouth to emit what must have been a gasp. There was no sound. Perturbed, Eleanor started to pull away, the image slowing. Graphics in the cube moved with increasing sluggishness until they finally froze.

  This is what we came for, he reminded her.

  Sorry.

  She had moved directly above Nicholas when animation returned to the scene. Nicholas jerked round frantically in his chair, searching about. After a moment the tension seemed to evaporate from him, he rubbed his hands over his eyes and typed a code into the terminal. Then he stiffened, his head turning slowly until he was looking at the door.

  This is it, Greg said. I want you to try and follow Rosette and Isabel down to Kitchener’s bedroom, OK?

  Do my best.

  Nicholas had walked over to the door. Greg watched him gathering up the courage to turn the handle.

  As soon as the door opened, Eleanor glided through it, staying near the ceiling and looking down. Rosette was wearing a green silk kimono. Isabel was just in her bra and jeans; her raw sexuality was devastating.

  Rosette said a few words to Nicholas, then both girls left him behind as they walked down the gloomy corridor. Greg didn’t like the stricken expression on Nicholas’s face, not one bit. The boy was far too young to have his heart broken so cruelly. But then, when is a good age?

  That poor boy, Eleanor said.

  No messing.

  The two girls exchanged furtive whispers as they headed for Kitchener’s room. Both of them looked guilty.

  Hope you choke on it, Greg wished them silently.

  Kitchener was wearing white cotton pyjamas. He greeted both girls with an effusive smile. The old man gestured a lot, Greg saw, arms constantly on the move. Rosette and Isabel were both kissed exuberantly. Some of their chirpiness had returned.

  The first thing Rosette did was go over to a bedside cabinet and take out an infuser tube. It was gold plated, the size of her middle finger. She applied it expertly to Isabel’s neck.

  Wants to get her cloudsailing before she says anything about Nicholas to Kitchener, Greg thought.

  Isabel wriggled sinuously out of her tight jeans as Kitchener sat himself down in a big armchair beside the bed. His eyes never left her, Isabel moved into Rosette’s embrace where her hair was stroked, cheeks caressed. More than anything it looked like she was being soothed, calmed like a skittish animal.

  Tell me, Gregory, exactly how much of this do you envisage watching?

  He sensed she wanted to make a joke of it, but the mental tone fell terribly short. In a body a long way away anticipation was building like a static charge along his spine. He had said he couldn’t envisage what kind of man would commit such barbarism, now he was going to be shown the atrocity in its entirety.

  A naked Isabel stood at the side of the bed, facing Kitchener, her head tipped back slightly, eyelids fluttering, hands rubbing insistently up and down the outside curve of her hips. The old man’s eyes traced over her figure as he sipped a glass of port. Rosette began to kiss her throat with provocative tenderness, tongue licking at the curves and hollows of flesh. She descended along the cleft between Isabel’s conical breasts, on to the flat expanse of belly, hungry now, her hands clasping the smaller girl’s buttocks. Isabel’s mouth parted to sigh, her eyes and soul shining by the light of syntho’s icy fire.

  Take us ahead to when they leave, Greg sa
id.

  Isabel lay back on the sheets, spreading her limbs wide, torso flexing sensually. Rosette dropped her robe and climbed on to the bed, slowly lowering herself on to Isabel.

  Eleanor’s focal shift accelerated the two squirming figures into hazy smears. The third figure rose from the chair and joined them. In combination the trio had that same rarefied blur as a dragonfly wing.

  The girls left at twenty-seven minutes to three. They were leaning against each other, Rosette with her arm thrown protectively around Isabel. The smaller girl was drowsy, a lifeless smile of satisfaction on her lips. Kitchener snoozed on the bed, white hair askew.

  How are you coping? Greg asked.

  That feeling of being squeezed, it’s much tighter now.

  OK, let’s shift forward a little then.

  The door opened at eighteen minutes past four. Nicholas Beswick walked in.

  ‘Greg!’ The voice encompassed anguish and dread, finishing with a tiny whimper.

  He heard it, actually heard it, the force breaking through the neurohormone’s isolation.

  No no no, her mind cried.

  Stay with it. Keep centred, Eleanor, you must keep your mind centred here.

  But Greg!

  I know. It might not be him. Just a few minutes more, that’s all, please.

  He’d said it, but he didn’t believe it.

  Nicholas was wearing a brown apron, naked underneath except for a pair of underpants. His right hand gripped a thirty-centimetre-long carving knife.

  Through a clammy chill of disbelief, Greg watched the boy walk over to the bed. He put the knife down on the cabinet, and picked up one of the pillows. Kitchener stirred briefly. Nicholas lowered the pillow on to the old man’s face.

  Greg, oh Greg, stop him.

  I can’t, darling. I can’t.

  Kitchener woke at the very end, scrawny limbs thrashing about. Nicholas’s teeth were bared in a feral smile, biceps standing proud as he kept the pillow in place. The feeble scrabbling stopped after less than half a minute. Nicholas didn’t lift the pillow for another ninety seconds. After that, he put it back with the others at the head of the bed, smoothing out the wrinkles with the edge of his hand.