The Mandel Files, Volume 1

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Come on, Gregory, never mind the details; start thinking. Assume you are right and Nicholas is innocent, what do we do next?’

  ‘Prove he was framed. Find the real killer.’

  ‘See? Simple.’

  ‘Thank you. Do you have any equally impressive suggestions how we go about it?’

  She gave him a pensive look, tapping a forefinger on her teeth. ‘The first thing to do is find out if someone else had a motive to kill Kitchener. Once we know who, we can start to work out how they pulled it off. What does your intuition say?’

  ‘Good question.’

  He ordered a small neurohormone secretion, and reached inwards, down into that pool of silent solitude at the core of his own mind, rooting round for convictions. The only time his intuition had tweaked him during the case was when he saw the three little fish lakes at Launde. Which he had then gone on to conveniently forget about once Eleanor had infused the retrospection neurohormone. The lakes, they were the reason he doubted Nicholas’s guilt.

  But why?

  Greg switched the flatscreen in the lounge to phone function as he relaxed back into the settee. He flicked through the notes stored in his cybofax until he found the number for Stocken Hall, and squirted it at the flatscreen’s ’ware. A secretary answered and tried to fob him off when he asked for James MacLennan, so he did his conjuring trick with his cover-all Home Office authority again.

  ‘You’re getting to be a real bully with that,’ Eleanor observed. She was sitting in a chair opposite the settee, out of the flatscreen camera’s pick-up field.

  ‘Yeah; feels pretty good, too.’ He spread his arms out along the back of the settee with a gratuitous sigh.

  She gave him a derisory sneer in return.

  Stocken Hall’s director appeared on the flatscreen, sitting behind his desk, wearing a smart blue suit. The picture window’s blinds were closed, as before.

  ‘Mr Mandel, I believe congratulations are in order.’ A warm regular smile displayed perfect teeth.

  ‘The police have a suspect in custody, yeah.’

  ‘Excellent news. Perhaps the media will now leave us all alone.’

  ‘Don’t bet your life on it.’

  ‘No. Quite. How may I help you? My secretary said you were calling on urgent Home Office business.’

  ‘Tell you, I need some information on the way the human brain works, specifically in your field: memories. That suspect, Nicholas Beswick, he actually managed to fool me. Now he’s the very first person ever to have done that. As you can imagine, that makes me a little nervous.’

  ‘Indeed. By fooling you, do you mean your empathic sense?’

  ‘Yeah. He said he didn’t do it and I believed him. You see, there was no evasion, no duplicity. Any mention of that murder should have triggered his memory of the event, and with it all the usual associated feelings of guilt and remorse. But I didn’t sense a single suggestion of iniquity or deception. His mind appeared utterly normal, nothing at all like that cracked monster Liam Bursken.’

  ‘I see. It does seem somewhat strange.’

  ‘What I wanted to know was: is it possible he could deliberately make himself forget? I mean, even subconsciously; just wipe the murder from his brain? Beswick is still claiming he hasn’t done it, even though the evidence is pretty conclusive. I remembered you mentioned some kind of drug which would cause forgetfulness.’

  MacLennan’s smile downgraded to serious concern. ‘Scopolamine. Yes. It’s a common enough substance, extracted from plants. Normally it’s employed as a mild sedative, and for travel sickness. And it has been used for ritual purposes for several centuries. But large doses can be used to induce what amounts to a trance state. There have been many cases of scopolamine intoxication identified, especially in Latin America. It was quite a problem with criminal gangs around the turn of the century. If you mix it with a tranquillizer it can be used to render someone completely docile. And it can be administered with a simple spray. Under its influence people would hand over their valuables, even empty their bank accounts from cash dispensers, and then have no recollection of ever doing so. It went out of fashion when the cashless society became firmly established, of course. Money transfers can be traced too easily these days.’

  ‘Jesus.’ The idea was unnerving, muggers armed with aerosols instead of knives, and you knew nothing about it until hours later when you returned to reality in a daze. He didn’t like that at all – maybe it had happened to him already, how could he tell? – but then drugs always left him cold. ‘Could Beswick have taken scopolamine to forget the murder?’

  ‘Oh, no. It doesn’t work that way. Besides, I’m sure the police would have found traces of it in his blood.’

  ‘Yeah. But would they have checked for it?’ ‘I’ll ask.’ He loaded a note in his cybofax. ‘Is there any other method you can think of?’

  MacLennan gazed inwardly for a moment. ‘As I told you, memory is perhaps the least explored facet of the human brain. However, there are two types of natural amnesia which I would offer as applicable in this case.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Indeed. A condition called transient global amnesia allows its victims to perform their usual jobs and maintain their standard behaviour pattern. But at the end of the day they cannot remember any event which occurred. An example: you could hold a long and intricate conversation with them, to which they would respond entirely within character; yet if you asked them about it the next day they would have no recollection of ever having talked to you.’

  ‘Is there any way of telling if someone suffers from it?’

  ‘The person concerned will often realize for themselves, especially if the condition is acute. It’s not very common, but a doctor would certainly be able to recognize the symptoms from what the patient was describing.’

  ‘Right, thank you.’ Greg made another series of notes on his cybofax. ‘What is the second condition?’

  ‘Trauma erasure, which is even rarer; but there have been recorded and verified instances where it has occurred.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A certain type of event, often violent or terrifying. Something literally so horrible that the mind simply rejects it. A particularly bloody road accident, for instance. People have witnessed them, and then failed even to remember they were present when questioned afterwards. Police often have to deal with mugging victims who cannot remember what their attacker looked like even though they were in close proximity for several minutes. But it would have to be an extraordinarily potent event to trigger such a radical neural mechanism.’

  ‘An event like a grisly murder?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. If Beswick acted in a fit of rage, he may not have been able to accept what he had done once that rage wore off. Under those circumstances trauma erasure may have been enacted. I offer no guarantees, of course, I am merely generalizing.’

  ‘I understand. If Beswick is suffering from one of these types of amnesia, would a psychiatrist be able to coax the memory out?’

  ‘I don’t know. It depends how deeply it is buried. You say it is beyond even subconscious recall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hypnosis may give us access. But from what you’ve said I wouldn’t hold out much hope. In any case, it would definitely be a long-term project. There would be a lot of counselling required first, he would have to want to recover the memories.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you for your time.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘We’re not exactly helping our cause, are we?’ Eleanor said after MacLennan’s mechanical smile vanished from the flat-screen.

  ‘Not a lot, no. But at least we know it is theoretically possible for Beswick to forget he murdered Kitchener. It explains why my interview with him was such a dud.’

  ‘It might help rebuild your confidence in your psi ability, but it’s also a terrific bonus for the prosecution,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Hey, you were the one that told his parents we’d continue the inve
stigation.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She folded her arms like a rebuked child, giving the carpet a moody stare.

  He squirted another number at the flatscreen. Amanda Paterson answered, and once more the Home Office authorization was deployed like a blunt weapon.

  ‘I know what I’d tell you to do with it,’ Eleanor murmured airily, her gaze switching to the ceiling.

  The flatscreen showed a slightly out of focus view of the Oakham CID office, a couple of detectives working at their desks, the situation screen on the back wall still displaying a map of the town and surrounding countryside. Vernon Langley’s face slid across the picture as he sat down facing the camera. ‘I was interviewing Nicholas Beswick,’ the detective admonished.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Would you believe the little cretin still says he didn’t do it? We’ve even shown him the report on the knife, confirming the fingerprints on the handle are his. He claims he was framed. Christ, and they all said he was the smartest of the bunch. Makes me wonder what the thick one must be like.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a real poser, isn’t it?’ Greg had felt like this once before, demob happy. When it didn’t matter what he said to the brass, they couldn’t do a thing about it. This time it was the sheer audacity of going up against ridiculous odds, confounding authority, which was producing an anarchistic glee.

  ‘What did you want?’ Vernon asked suspiciously.

  ‘Several things. Firstly, I’m chasing you up over the search program. You haven’t squirted over the results yet.’

  ‘What search program?’

  ‘For previous incidents at Launde Abbey.’

  ‘But the investigation is over.’

  Eleanor’s hands traced an imaginary bulge over her belly, she grinned broadly.

  ‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings,’ Greg said cheerfully.

  ‘Hell, Greg, we’re busy.’

  ‘Did you run the search program?’

  ‘I think so. Hang on.’ Vernon started typing on a terminal keyboard, his face resentful.

  Like old times, Greg thought.

  ‘We ran it; there is no record of any previous police call-out to Launde Abbey. Satisfied?’

  Greg closed his eyes, considering options. ‘How far back do those records go?’

  ‘Four years. The station ’ware was infected with a virus when the PSP fell, the memories were wiped. A lot of stations had the same problem, they were all plugged into the Ministry of Public Order mainframe when the circuit hotrods crashed it. The fallout was pretty severe, they did a lot of damage. And of course the People’s Constables weren’t exactly sticklers for procedure. There was very little in the way of back-up memories. One of the reasons the New Conservatives formed the Inquisitors is because so many records from that time were lost.’

  ‘And you were transferred to Oakham after the PSP fell, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, I want you to go around everyone who was stationed at Oakham during the PSP decade, and ask them if they remember anything about Launde Abbey.’

  ‘I see,’ Vernon said in a voice which was excessively polite.

  ‘Good. I shall be coming into town to interview Beswick again this afternoon. You can tell me what you found then.’ He referred to his cybofax. ‘There is also Beswick’s blood sample.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘All my file says is that it doesn’t contain any syntho. There are no tabulated results.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Did you run any other drug tests?’

  Vernon started his laborious typing again. ‘There were some traces of alcohol, that’s all.’

  ‘Call the lab, I want to know if they checked for anything else, and if so what they found. And even if they did check, I want a full-spectrum analysis run again on both the urine and blood samples today. Tell them to look for scopolamine.’

  ‘Scopolamine?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anything else?’ The irony hung poised like a scalpel.

  ‘I need to look at Beswick’s medical records. If you could have them ready for when I come in, please.’

  ‘Is this official, Greg?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘In connection with the Kitchener murder?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘All right, I’ll phone the lab.’ The image blanked out.

  ‘The first thing he’s going to do is phone the Home Office,’ Eleanor said. ‘Find out if you’re still authorized to shove him around like that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Greg mumbled. He patted the settee, and she came over.

  ‘Second thoughts?’ she asked. She sat with her legs up on the armrest cushions, back resting against his shoulder.

  ‘Not just yet.’ He put his arm around her. ‘You do realize we are basing all this on my one tenuous belief that there was some incident in Launde’s past. If it does turn out nothing happened, then all we’ve achieved is to bury Nicholas even further.’

  ‘You really can’t remember what it was?’

  ‘No. I’m even starting to question if I did remember anything. It seems so fragile. Maybe it’s me who’s suffering from transient global amnesia.’

  ‘Not you, my love.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He tapped out a number on the cybofax, and squirted it at the flatscreen.

  ‘Who are you calling now?’

  ‘Julia. I want to make sure my Home Office authorization isn’t withdrawn. And then she can request a search through all the national and international commercial news libraries for me, going back say fifteen years just to be on the safe side. See if we can find out what happened at Launde that way.’

  Eleanor giggled. ‘A search through fifteen years’ worth of every library’s news files?’

  ‘No messing. She ain’t broke.’

  ‘She will be after that.’

  18

  Julia knew she shouldn’t be feeling so exultant, it wasn’t gracious, but to hell with that for one long sweet moment. Things were coming together just dandy. Maybe people were right when they called her a manipulator.

  She was sitting at the head of the table in Wilholm’s study. It was a wonderfully sunny Monday outside. For once the windows were wide open, letting her hear the sound of querulous bird-song, a muggy breeze stirring the loose ends of her hair. She wore a sleeveless champagne cotton blouse and a short aquamarine skirt, dangling her leather sandals right on the end of her toes.

  There were twelve memox AV crystals lying on the glossy tabletop around her terminal, recordings of Jakki Coleman’s show going back six months. Event Horizon’s media research office had compiled them for her.

  Caroline Rothman had delivered them that morning when she brought the usual stack of legal papers which required a signature. She hadn’t said anything as she put them down on the table, but she must have known what they contained. Julia guessed the entire headquarters building was chittering with delight over Jakki Coleman’s audacity, waiting for the inevitable counterstroke. This time they were going to be disappointed. It was too personal for threats of sanctions and financial blackmail screamed down the phone to the channel editor. This time she was going to be adult and subtle. But in the end there was going to be just as much blood spilt, and it wasn’t going to be hers. What better way to start the week?

  Glowing with a strong amber hue in the middle of her terminal’s cube was Jakki Coleman’s bank statement. She could thank Royan for that, his patient tutoring had enabled her to worm her way round Lloyds-Tashoko’s guardian programs last night, splitting their memory cores wide open. Of course, it wasn’t every hacker who had exclusive access to top-grade Event Horizon lightware crunchers to assist in decrypting financial security algorithms. To each their own …

  She hadn’t emptied the account, though, that was far too easy. Besides Lloyds-Tashoko would know it was a hotrod burn as soon as Jakki complained, the money would be refunded, another point added way down the decimals on everyone’s insurance premiu
m. All she wanted was to look.

  The figures burned with cold brilliance. The high-flying finances of a channel superstar laid bare.

  Except we’re not quite so valuable to the channel after all, are we, Jakki darling? Not if that’s all they’re paying you.

  Beside each transaction was the creditor’s code. A standard finance directory search would take care of that. Julia set it up, and watched identities wink into existence alongside the columns. She knew some of them, big-name companies, department stores, travel agencies, hotels; the rest, the unknowns, she plugged into another search program.

  It was interesting to see what was there, and even more interesting to see what wasn’t. Jakki Coleman didn’t buy any clothes, not one single item in the last three years.

  Julia clapped her hands in delight, and slotted the first memox AV into the player deck beside her terminal. Jakki Coleman, six months younger, but looking just as antique, smiled out of the flatscreen above the fireplace. She was wearing a black two-piece suit with a bold mauve and green jungle-print blouse.

  ‘For that fuller figure,’ Julia said to the flatscreen. She studied the style intently – the suit was either a Perain or a Halishan – and loaded a note into a node file, coded JakkiDeath. She moved on to the next show.

  The last show the media office had recorded was the previous Friday’s. There was Jakki in a black and white classical suit with an oversize side-tie. And herself, in her purple blazer, and her long white skirt, and her straw boater, with her hair pleated into a long rope, walking along a line of fit young men in dark red swimming trunks, the team coach introducing her to each of them in turn. And afterwards, sitting at the side of the pool while the squad went through their training routine for her.

  ‘Dear Julia seems to have regressed to her school uniform today,’ Jakki said. ‘Now I remember why I was so eager to get out of mine after finishing lessons every afternoon.’