We had lift-off.
Chapter Ten
Despite the automatic belt that had moved over my lower midriff with a hum and a click, I was clutching the sides of my seat, expecting a sudden surge of power. Although I hadn’t been on a plane since the early years of the century, I still remembered the way your stomach suddenly seemed to empty as the brakes were released and the gunned-up engines sent the aircraft down the runway like a giant artillery shell.
I was to be disappointed, or rather, pleasantly surprised; I was never the world’s best passenger. The helijet was making a fair amount of noise but it lifted itself off the museum roof smoothly, no blast or jolt to shake its occupants up.
“Bloody hell,” Davie gasped, staring out of his egg-shaped window. “Isn’t this something?”
“It’s an aircraft,” Katharine said sarcastically. She closed her eyes and relaxed, unmoved by the hyper-advanced machinery.
I was with Davie on this one. What we were seeing really was something. From the window on my side I watched as the centre of Edinburgh sank away beneath us, the castle’s imposing bulk getting more like a kid’s toy by the second. Even Arthur’s Seat was reduced to the status of a minor mound, the aerial perspective flattening the green hill and the dark scars of the crags. Initially I could distinguish the inhabited areas inside the city line, but soon the devastated buildings and potholed roads of the outer suburbs where the drugs gangs once held sway looked no different from the rest of the city. It was as if twenty-five years of Council rule, of penning the city’s remaining populace inside the carefully guarded border, had achieved nothing. The guardians should all have been given a trip on the helijet. It might have taught them humility.
“Look,” Davie said. “The mines.”
Directly beneath us the patchwork of fields – green pastureland, cereals and root crops interspersed with brown ploughed areas – was pockmarked by blackened earth and rundown buildings. For ordinary citizens it was difficult to decide which punishment rota was worse: a month underground hacking out the coal essential for electricity generation, or a month being drenched or parched, depending on the season, on the city farms. I couldn’t recommend either.
Then we began to ascend more steeply, cutting through layers of cloud that soon became thick enough to obscure the view. Edinburgh was gone, lost in the mass of white. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I let myself sink into the luxurious seat and had a more detailed look at the control card I’d been given. After a few minutes of fumbling I managed to work out how to access the different options that appeared on the small screen when I touched the numbered keys. That way I made the back of the seat move backwards and forwards like a tree in a strong wind, got myself a packet of what looked like desiccated rabbit droppings, though the label called it Nox Vitamin Snack, and obtained my very own strong wind from a panel above.
“Have you finished playing, citizen?”
I jerked forward. The voice came out of a speaker next to my ear that I hadn’t noticed.
“If so, come to the front of the cabin. I want to talk to you.” Administrator Raphael was in her autocratic mode. When she said “want” she meant “require”, not “desire”. I gave her a minute to wonder whether I was going to respond.
Before I did, I entrusted my bag to Davie. Then I walked up the gently sloping floor, feeling my boots sink into the thick dark blue carpet.
It was about time Raphael came clean.
I passed Professor Raskolnikov on the way. He gave me a scowl that made me wonder if I’d unwittingly deleted all his crime and punishment files when I was fiddling with the control card. Then I saw the empty seat across the aisle from the administrator and realised that he’d been expelled to make room for me.
“Sit down, Citizen Dalrymple,” she said, inclining her head to the right.
I decided to take my life in my hands. “You can call me Quint, you know,” I said as I obeyed her command. “What’s your first name?”
For a moment she looked nonplussed, then she turned her piercing eyes on me. “Administrators in New Oxford are not addressed by forename.”
“But you do have a first name? Family and friends use it, don’t they?” I took in the unrelenting expression. “You do have family and friends?”
Raphael seemed uncertain for a moment, the skin on her face less taut than usual. Then she went back to type. “Administrators are expected to give all their attention to their work,” she said, raising her nostrum from her chest and glancing at the display. All I could see was a matrix of numbers and letters. “We avoid all distractions.”
“Now I understand why you’ve been getting on so well with Edinburgh guardians,” I said. Although Sophia had recently had a child, she was the only one of her rank to have taken advantage of the loosening in the Council’s celibacy regulations and rejoined the human race.
Raphael gave me a sharp look. “Be serious for a while, citizen. If you can.”
“I am being serious, administrator,” I replied with a grin.
“And grow up.”
That was a trickier one. I let it pass.
“Very well.” Raphael pushed her thin frame back in the leather seat and formed her hands into a pyramid underneath her chin. “I said I would impart certain information to you during the flight and that’s what I intend to do.” She glanced at her nostrum again. “We only have half an hour at most.”
I looked out of the window and saw that the cloud layer below was passing at what seemed like a very high speed.
“First of all, some points of detail you should know. The footprints you found on the floor of the derelict flat in Leith.”
“Oh aye?” I said, remembering the heavily ribbed mark from a shoe or boot.
“An identical print was found on the staircase outside your own flat.”
“What? I never heard that.”
The administrator gave me a tight smile. “I’m sure the public order guardian didn’t intentionally keep the updated scene-of-crime report from you.”
I was as sure about that as I was that the drinking water ration would be increased in the summer, but I kept my thoughts about the Mist to myself; although Raphael bawled her out before we left Edinburgh, the pair of them had seemed to be pretty close before that.
“Anyway,” the administrator continued, “that isn’t the most important point about the print.”
That sounded interesting. “It isn’t? What is then?”
She looked down at her knees. They were pressed tightly together, the black material of her trousers creased out of line. “That particular marking is to be found on a make of boot produced by Nox Footwear Industries.” She looked at me sternly. “I understand that its design number is NF138B and that it is sold exclusively to students of the university.”
I started to scribble in my notebook.
“I will supply you with a full digital record of our conversation, citizen,” the administrator said.
“I prefer to write my own record.” I turned to watch her. “Sold exclusively to students, you said. Does that mean only students wear that kind of boot?”
She nodded. “And – to pre-empt your next question – none of the Oxford personnel who have been in Edinburgh is a student.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Students wear different shoes from university staff?”
“You’ll find we’re very organised about that kind of thing, citizen.”
“Is that right? So how do you explain the prints in Leith and outside my place, administrator?”
She met my eyes with her own. “That’s one of the things I’m expecting you to do.”
Before I could take her up on that the man in the silver suit appeared and leaned over Raphael. I couldn’t hear much of their whispered conversation but I did hear a reference to “the large man with the beard”. Oh shit. What was Davie up to?
The administrator looked at me round Silver Suit’s legs. “Apparently your colleague Hume 253 has asked to visit the cockpit. Can you vouc
h for him?”
I nodded. “He’s never flown before.”
She dispatched the steward and shortly afterwards Davie came past, looking like he was in seven times seventh heaven.
“Let’s move on,” Raphael said briskly. “The next—”
“Hang on, we haven’t finished with the footprint yet.”
“I told you, citizen, you’ll get a full record.” Her eyes were steely. “Kindly refrain from interrupting.”
I got the feeling that there was a lot more discipline in the university than there had been in the past, as the New Oxford incarceration initiative back home suggested.
“The next matter is the bullet.” She knew that would get my attention and she met my eyes impassively. “As you correctly deduced, it too was made in Oxford. By Nox Ballistics and Weapons Technology. That is one of the university’s most successful commercial operations.” She took another look at her nostrum. “It’s an experimental model known as the Eagle One.”
I was scratching my head, taken aback by her sudden openness. “Why didn’t you admit that when I told you about the NOX marking on the bullet?”
Raphael raised her hand. “I knew nothing about the Eagle One at that stage. It’s a highly sophisticated, top-secret development. I needed to be sure.”
I bit my lip and watched as Davie came back from the cockpit, a beatific smile on his face. “I need to be sure too,” I said in a low voice. “You’re telling me that a hot design product from your home city was fired at you by someone who isn’t a student but was wearing a student’s boots. Jesus Christ, Raphael, someone tried to kill you. Why?”
The administrator didn’t react to my use of her surname. “Again, citizen,” she replied in a cool voice, “that’s what you’re here to find out.” She rubbed her hands together. I caught sight of the implant in her wrist and wondered again about its function. She ran her tongue along her lips. “There’s something else.”
“Oh great,” I said with a groan, still trying to work out why she wanted me to catch an assassin from her own city.
“With hindsight I realise I should have told you sooner.” Raphael was taking care to avoid my eyes now.
“This is getting better and better. Let’s have it then.”
The administrator pressed her forefinger against her lips. “Very well.” She turned towards me, eyes still lowered. “A week before we left for Edinburgh, the mutilated body of a young man was found in central Oxford.”
I felt my heart start to beat faster. “Mutilated,” I repeated.
She nodded. “But on that occasion both arms had been removed.”
Administrator Raphael certainly had been keeping a lot to herself.
Shortly afterwards Raskolnikov came back to his seat and signalled to me to get out of it. “We’ll be arriving soon, citizen,” he said, giving me the usual stony stare. “Then you’ll have to show how good an investigator you really are.”
I returned his stare and threw in a smile for good measure. “Just watch me,” I said, brushing past him. As I went I heard the administrator say something to him in a muted voice. After she’d told me about the Oxford murder, she shut up shop and started to commune with her nostrum. Perhaps she urgently felt the need of some time with a machine after spending half an hour with a human being who answered back.
I passed Davie and repossessed my seat. The Russian had left a curious smell behind, something sweet and sickly like incense cut with sweat. It seemed that Nox Underarm Protection Industries wasn’t a world leader in its field. Across the aisle Katharine was asleep, her head in profile against the soft leather. In repose she had none of the fierceness she’d cultivated over years of hardship in prison and working the land. Her long eyelashes and high cheekbones still gave her an exotic air, but the slackness of the skin around her mouth made her look like a child at rest – a child who was innocent of the horrors of the world.
“Look what I managed to get,” Davie said, turning to me and holding up two handfuls of Nox snacks.
I tossed over the one I’d declined to open. “Don’t eat them all at once, big man,” I said.
“Eat them?” he said. “No chance. I’m keeping them to throw at the locals. Here, what did the woman in charge have to say?” he asked, his expression suddenly intent.
“I’ll tell you later,” I replied. “When Katharine comes round.”
He glanced at her then shook his head. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Do you know what our cruising speed is?” He wasn’t going to let me answer, not that I had a clue. “Nine hundred and fifty kilometres an hour.” He looked at me. “How many miles is that?” The original Council went back to imperial measurements in an attempt to erase the supposedly malign effects of the crumbling European Union in the early years of the millennium.
“About six hundred,” I estimated.
“Aye. And the pilot told me we’re flying at over twelve thousand metres.”
“About forty thousand feet,” I translated. “Why so high?”
“Because there are some headbangers around what used to be Leeds who have ex-Russian army ground-to-air missiles that can reach ten thousand metres. It seems they don’t like anything from New Oxford.” Davie grinned. “Any idea why?”
I laughed. “Nice, easy-going people like Raphael and Raskolnikov? An overriding interest in discipline and imprisonment? Beats me.”
Suddenly there was a reduction in the engine noise and I felt my stomach jump. Then, almost imperceptibly, the front of the aircraft tilted groundwards.
“We’re on our way down,” Davie said, sounding disappointed.
“Aye,” I replied, shaking Katharine’s knee gently. “The fun’s about to start.”
“Mmm?” she asked, her voice languid. “What fun?”
Good question.
For a short time everything was obscured by clouds. Then we were through them and descending at an angle that wasn’t too threatening. Looking down, I made out a curiously regular band of grey earth that must have been at least ten miles wide. As I sat back, Silver Suit came down the aisle.
“What happened down there?” I asked, pointing out of the window. “Looks like a desert of ash.”
The operative glanced nervously towards the area where Raphael and her team were sitting, then nodded. “You’re not far off. They’re the Poison Fields. They surround the university-state on all sides. There was massive pollution caused by the fertilisers they used at the turn of the century. There’s only one safe way through them and that’s to the south of the city.” He looked round again and continued on his way.
The Poison Fields. That sounded pretty ominous. I took them in again, seeing no sign of habitation or infrastructure. Then I remembered the bloody message on my wall. In this area there were apparently no roads leading to Oxford at all.
Davie’s nose had been glued to the window. “Have you seen the way it looks down there, Quint?” he asked, turning to face me. “It’s like a bloody great dartboard.”
I looked again, this time to the front beyond the helijet’s swept wings. He was right. We were in the airspace over a huge roundel, the ashen fields forming an outer ring. Then there was a wider band of what seemed to be intensely cultivated land – the green fields much larger than the ones around Edinburgh – and, further ahead, a distant centre circle of buildings. The angle of descent became more acute. It looked like we were in the process of scoring a bull’s eye. Or an ox’s eye.
The sun was lower in the west now and the nerve centre of the university was caught in its light. As we approached, I became aware of the shape of the city: a long, narrow strip running from north to south, separated from other built-up areas to the east and the west by the thin, meandering blue of rivers and the green of fields and woods. The streets in the suburbs were much shorter and closer together than those among the central buildings.
“Shit!” Katharine snapped her head back from the window and ran her hand over her eyes. “Watch out. You need sunglasses.”
I peered out again gingerly and blinked as the sunlight was reflected off what seemed to be a large expanse of glass near the centre of the city. Shielding my eyes with one hand, I made out several more patches of shiny roofing in the area. Either the university’s scientists had come up with a new building material or a double-glazing salesman had made a major killing. Looking to the left, I realised that the suburbs were not endowed with reflective roofs.
The belt tightened itself over my belly and a few minutes later we were hovering over the golden heart of New Oxford. The crenellated towers and battlements of the colleges came into focus as the final descent began. Directly below us was a large area of parkland, in the centre of which was a landing zone surrounded by transparent blast walls. There was a large black identification mark on the white concrete.
“X” marked the spot.
“Citizen?”
The speaker by my ear made me jump again.
“What?” I replied, deliberately omitting Raphael’s title.
“I have arranged for the proctor to meet you and your people.”
“Really? And what’s a proctor?”
I heard a faint sigh. “The proctor is responsible for order and discipline in New Oxford.”
“Ah,” I said. “Your equivalent of the Mi— The public order guardian.”
“Along the same lines, yes,” she replied. “He combines university duties with those previously undertaken by the late and unlamented Thames Valley Police Force.”
“So the proctor was in charge of the armless murder case.”
“Correct. He will give you a full briefing. And you will give me your preliminary thoughts at dinner this evening. Farewell.” There was a muted click from the speaker.
The belt round my midriff had undone and rewound itself. I stood up and watched as the administrator and her entourage disappeared through the front door.
Silver Suit was standing just in front of us, pointing to the rear. He smiled unconvincingly and nodded. “Farewell.”
That seemed to be the standard term around here. I began to wonder if the helijet was a time machine. Or maybe today’s Oxford people just got a kick out of speaking like characters from the stories of H.G. Wells.
House of Dust Page 17
