The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Let’s take it one step at a time, shall we,” Richard said. “If I could see the accounts.”

  With one last reluctant look at O’Hagen, Mrs. Adams handed Richard a pair of memox crystals. “They’re completely up to date,” she said.

  He put the first crystal into the slot on his cybofax and began scrolling down the columns of figures. O’Hagen had been optimistic rather than honest when he said the company’s turnover was 70,000. This year was barely over sixty, and the year before scraped in at fifty. But it was an upward trend.

  “I’ve already identified several new software products I’d like Firedrake to promote,” O’Hagen was saying. “I should be able to sign exclusivity rights for the English market on the back of this expansion project.”

  “May I see the painting, please?” Richard asked.

  “Sure.” O’Hagen picked up a slim kelpboard-wrapped package from behind his desk. Richard had been expecting something larger. This was barely forty centimeters high, thirty wide. He slipped the thin kelpboard from the front. “What is it?” he asked. The painting was mostly sky sliced by a line of white cloud, with the mound of a hill rising out of the lower right corner. Hanging in the air like some bizarre obsidian dagger was an alien spaceship, or possibly an airborne neolithic monument.

  “View of a Hill and Clouds,” O’Hagen said contentedly. “Remarkable, isn’t it? It’s from McCarthy’s earlier phase, before he moved from oils to refractive sculpting.”

  “I see.” Richard pulled the kelpboard wrapping back on. “I’d like to get it valued.”

  “Of course.” O’Hagen smiled.

  Richard took the painting to the Sotheby’s office in Stamford on his way back from Thistlemore Wood. The assistant was appreciative when Richard told her he wanted it valued for his house-insurance policy. She took her time, checking its authenticity before giving him an estimate. Eighteen thousand New Sterling. Once again Mr. Alan O’Hagen was being financially optimistic. But all things considered, it wasn’t a bad price for endorsing the Zone 35 development.

  “I think we have an agreement,” he told O’Hagen over the phone the next day.

  There was a chuckle from the earpiece. “I thought you’d be able to appreciate a good deal. I’ll get the paperwork over to you right away.”

  “Very well. I’ll notify the precinct’s banking consortium that I have another client.”

  Suzi turned up mid-afternoon carrying a small leather satchel. She opened it to produce a thin folder. There were two partnership agreement contracts to sign, both dated two years previously; even his signature counter-witness was filled in and dated. Mrs. Adams, he noted.

  “It says here my partner in Firedrake is Newton Holdings,” Richard said.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “I thought it was held by Mr. O’Hagen.”

  “Newton belongs to him; it does his imports. You want to call him?”

  He couldn’t meet her impatient antagonistic stare. “No.” He signed the partnership contracts.

  “Mr. O’Hagen said to say you can owe him the pound for the share,” Suzi said. She gathered up one copy of the contract and handed him a share certificate with his name on it: again dated two years ago.

  “Tell him that’s very generous of him.”

  She scowled and marched out of the office. Richard glanced over the certificate again, then locked it and the partnership agreement in the wall safe.

  Richard was having breakfast the next morning when the police arrived, hammering so hard on the door he thought they were trying to smash it down. He opened the door wearing just his dressing gown, blinking … partly from confusion at the team of eight armed uniformed officers standing on his front lawn, and partly at the bright morning sunlight.

  The person knocking aggressively on his paintwork identified herself as Detective Amanda Patterson, holding her police card out for him to verify.

  He didn’t bother to show it to his cybofax. “I don’t doubt who you are,” he murmured. Three cars were parked on the street outside, their blue lights flashing insistently. Neighbors were pressed up against windows watching the drama. A Globecast camera crew lurked at the end of the drive, pointing their fat black lenses at him.

  “Richard Townsend?” the detective demanded.

  He put on a smile as polite as circumstances would allow. “Guilty of that, at least.”

  “Would you please accompany me to the station, sir. I have some questions for you.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I will arrest you.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “Your suspected involvement in the murder of Byrne Tyler.”

  Richard stared at her in astonishment, then managed to gather some dignity. “I hate to ask you this in such a public arena.” He indicated the camera crew. “But are you quite sure you have the right house?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I have the right house. It’s yours.”

  “Very well. May I at least get dressed first?”

  “Yes, sir. One of my male colleagues will accompany you.”

  He gave a grunt of surprise as he realized just how serious she was. “I think I’d like my one phone call now as well.”

  “That’s America’s Miranda rights, sir. But you’re certainly free to call a solicitor if you think you require one.”

  “I don’t require one to establish my innocence,” Richard snapped. “I simply wish to sue you into your grave. You have no idea how much trouble this mistake will bring down on your head.”

  Richard suspected the layout of the interview room at Oakham police station was deliberately designed to depress its occupants. Straight psychological assault on the subconscious. Drab light-brown walls shimmered harshly under the glare from the two biolum panels in the ceiling. The gray-steel desk in front of him vibrated softly, a cranky harmonic instigated by the buzzing air-conditioning grille.

  He’d been in there for twenty minutes alone, dourly contemplating this ludicrous situation, before the door opened and Jodie Dobson came in.

  “About time,” he barked at her. “Can I go now?”

  She gave him a sober look. “No, Richard. This isn’t some case of mistaken identity. I’ve been talking to Detective Patterson, and they really do think you had something to do with Byrne Tyler’s murder.”

  “That’s insane! I’ve never even met him.”

  “I know, and I’m sure we can clear it up with a simple interview.”

  “I want that Patterson cow sued for doing this to me. They tipped off the news team. I’ll have my face plastered all over the media. Do you know what kind of damage that’ll do to me? Business is about trust, credibility. I can’t believe this! She’s ruined five years’ hard work in five minutes. It was deliberate and malicious.”

  “It’s not that bad. Listen, the quicker you’re out and cleared, the quicker we can instigate damage limitation.”

  “I want her to make a public apology, starting with that news crew that was outside my bloody house.”

  “We can probably get that. But you’ll need to cooperate. Fully.”

  “Fine, bring them on!” He caught the tone in her voice. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve brought in some kind of specialist they want to sit in on your interview. Greg Mandel, he’s a gland psychic.”

  Richard hoped his flinch wasn’t too visible. There were stories about gland psychics. Nothing a rational adult need concern themselves about, of course. Human psi ability was a strictly scientific field these days, quantified and researched. A bioware endocrine gland implanted in the brain released specific neurohormones to stimulate the ability. But … “Why do they want him to interview me?”

  “Help interview you,” Jodie stressed. “Apparently his speciality is sensing emotional states. In other words he’ll know if you’re lying.”

  “So if I just say that I didn’t kill this Byrne Tyler, Mandel will know I’m being truthful?”

  “That’s the way it works.”

 
“Okay. But I still want Patterson nailed afterward.”

  Richard gave Mandel a close look when he entered the interview room. Approaching middle age, but obviously in shape. The man’s movements were very … precise moving the chair just so to sit on rather than casually pulling it out from the desk as most people would Richard supposed it was like a measure of confidence and Mandel seemed very self-assured. It was an attitude very similar to Alan O’Hagen’s.

  Amanda Patterson seated herself beside Mandel, and slotted a couple of matte-black memox crystals into the twin AV recording deck.

  “Interview with Richard Townsend,” Patterson said briskly. “Conducted by myself, Detective Patterson, with the assistance of CID advisory specialist Greg Mandel. Mr. Townsend has elected to have his solicitor present.”

  “I did not kill Byrne Tyler,” Richard said. He stared at Mandel. “Is that true?”

  “In as far as it goes,” Mandel said.

  “Thank you!” he sat back and fixed Patterson with a belligerent expression.

  “However, I think we need to examine the subject in a little more detail before giving you a completely clean slate,” Mandel said.

  “If you must.”

  Mandel gave Patterson a small nod. She opened her cybofax and studied the display screen. “Are you are a partner in the Firedrake company, Mr. Townsend?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “A company called Firedrake, do you own half of the shares?”

  “Well, yes. One share, fifty percent. But that’s nothing to do with Byrne Tyler. It’s a venture with a … a business colleague.”

  “Who is that?” Mandel asked.

  “Not that it’s anything to do with you or this murder enquiry, but his name is Alan O’Hagen.”

  “Interesting,” Detective Patterson said. “The other listed shareholder in Firedrake is Newton Holdings.”

  “Well, yes, that’s O’Hagen’s company.”

  “No, Mr. Townsend. According to the companies register, Newton Holdings is owned by Byrne Tyler.”

  Richard gave Jodie a desperate look. She frowned.

  Detective Patterson consulted her cybofax again. “You’ve been partners for two years, is that right?”

  “I … I’ve been a partner with Mr. O’Hagen for two years, yes.” He couldn’t help the way his eyes glanced at Mandel. The psychic was watching him impassively. “Not Byrne Tyler. I’ve never met him. Never.”

  “Really?” Patterson’s tone was highly skeptical. “Have you ever visited the Sotheby’s office in Stamford?”

  Richard hooked a finger around his shirt collar; the air-conditioning wasn’t making any impression on the heat suddenly evaporating off his skin. O’Hagen! O’Hagen had scammed him. But how? He wasn’t a fool, he hadn’t paid O’Hagen any money, quite the opposite. The painting … Which the police obviously knew about. “Yes, I’ve been there.”

  “Recently?”

  “Earlier this week actually. I think you know that, though, don’t you? I was having an item of mine valued for insurance purposes.”

  “Was that item a painting?” Mandel asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And didn’t you also confirm its authenticity while you were there?”

  “I suppose so, the assistant had to make sure it was genuine before she valued it. That’s standard.”

  “And the painting definitely belongs to you?”

  “It does.”

  Mandel turned to Patterson. “Well, that’s true.”

  “Of course it is, I was given it some time ago by Mr. O’Hagen,” Richard said. “It was a gift. He will confirm that.”

  “I shall be very interested in talking to this Mr. O’Hagen,” Patterson said. “That’s if you can ever produce him for us.” She turned her cybofax around so Richard could see the screen, it held the image of View of a Hill and Clouds. “Is this the painting, Mr. Townsend?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “For the record, View of a Hill and Clouds by Sean McCarthy belongs to Byrne Tyler. The artist was a friend of the deceased. It was stolen from his apartment, presumably at the same time that he was murdered.”

  “No,” Richard hissed. “Look, okay, listen. I’d never even heard of Firedrake until this week. Taking me on as a partner was a way of proving its viability to the banks. O’Hagen wanted a loan from them, that was the only way he could get it. We fixed it to look like I’d been a partner for two years.”

  “Richard,” Jodie warned.

  “I’m being set up,” he yelled at her. “Can’t you see?”

  “Set up for what?” Patterson asked; she sounded intrigued.

  “Byrne Tyler’s murder—that’s what I’m in here for, isn’t it? For Christ’s sake. O’Hagen’s rigged this so it looks like I was involved.”

  “Why would Mr. O’Hagen want to do that to you?”

  “I don’t fucking know. I’ve never met him before.”

  “Mr. Townsend.”

  Mandel’s voice made Richard lurch upright. “Yes?”

  “You’ve never killed anyone yourself, but did you ever pay a man to eliminate somebody for you?”

  Richard gaped at the psychic. In his head a panicked voice was yelling oh shit oh shit oh shit. Mandel would be able to hear it, to taste the wretched knowledge. His own shock-induced paralysis was twisting the emotion to an excruciating level. He thought his head was going to burst open from the stress.

  Mandel gave him a sad, knowing smile and said: “Guilty.”

  Two—A Suspicious Fall

  Detective Amanda Patterson had never visited Bisbrooke before. It was a tiny village tucked away along the side of a deep valley just outside Uppingham. Unremarkable and uneventful even by Rutland’s standards, which made it a contender for dullest place in Europe. Until today, that is, when one of the uniforms had responded to a semi-hysterical call from a cleaning agency operative, and confirmed the existence of a body with associated suspicious circumstances.

  The unseasonal rain beat down heavily as she drove over from Oakham, turning the road into a dangerous skid-rink. Then she had almost missed the turning off the A47. As it happened, that was the least of her navigational worries.

  “Call him again,” she told Alison Weston. The probationary detective was sitting in the passenger seat beside her, squinting through the fogged-up windscreen trying to locate some landmark.

  “No way. Uniform will crap themselves laughing at us if I ask for directions,” Alison complained. “It’s got to be here somewhere. There can’t be more than five buildings in the whole godforsaken village.”

  Amanda let it go. Hailstones were falling with the rain now, their impacts making clacking sounds on the car’s bodywork. She braked at yet another T-junction.

  Bisbrooke was woven together by a lacework of roads barely wide enough for a single vehicle. They all curved sharply, making her nervous about oncoming cars, and they were all sunk into earthen gullies topped with hedges of thick bamboo that had been planted to replace the long-dead privet and hawthorn of the previous century. With the rain and hail pummeling the windscreen, it was perilously close to driving blind. The only clue they were even in the village was the occasional glimpse of ancient stone cottages and brick bungalows huddled at the end of gravelled drives.

  “You must be able to see the church,” she said. The address they had been given was in Church Lane.

  Alison scanned the swaying tops of the bamboo shoots. “No.” She gave her cybofax an instruction, and it produced a satnav map with their location given as a small pink dot. “Okay, try that one, down there on the left.”

  Amanda edged the car cautiously along the short stretch of road where Alison was pointing. The tarmac was reduced to a pair of tire tracks separated by a rich swathe of emerald moss.

  “Finally!” The junction ahead had a small street sign for Church Lane; a white-painted iron rectangle almost overgrown by a flamboyant purple clematis. This road was even narrower. It led them past the village church, a squat bui
lding made from rust-colored stone that had long since been converted into accommodation units for refugee families.

  The lane ran on past a big old farmhouse, and ended at a new building perched on the end of the village. Church Vista Apartments. Its design was pure Californian-Italian, completely out of place in the heart of rural England. Five luxury apartments sharing a single long building with a stable block and multiport garage forming a courtyard at the rear. Climbing roses planted along the walls hadn’t grown halfway up their trellises yet.

  There was a tall security gate in the courtyard wall. Amanda held her police identity card up to the key, and it swung open for her. A police car and the cleaning agency van were parked on the cobbles beyond. Amanda drew up next to them. The rain was easing off.

  They moved briskly over the cobbles to the door of apartment three. One of the uniforms was standing just inside, holding the heavy glass-and-wood door open. She didn’t have to flash her card at him, as Rutland’s police force was small enough for them all to know each other.

  “Morning, Rex,” she said as she hurried into the small hallway. He nodded politely as she shook the water from her jacket. “What have we got?”

  “Definitely a corpse.”

  Alison slipped in and immediately blew her cheeks out. Her breath materialized in the air in front of her. “God, it’s bloody freezing in here.”

  “Air-conditioning’s on full,” Rex said. “I left it that way, I’m afraid. Scene-of-crime, and all that.”

  “Good,” Amanda muttered, not meaning it. The chill air was blowing over her wet clothes, giving her goosebumps.

  Rex led them into the apartment. It was open-plan downstairs, a single space with white walls and terra-cotta tile flooring, Mexican blackwood cabinets and shelving were lined up around the edges. There were pictures hanging on every wall; prints, chalk and charcoal sketches, oils, watercolors, silver-patina photographs. Most of them featured young female nudes. Three big plump cream-colored leather settees formed a conversation area in the middle, surrounding a Persian rug. A woman in the cleaning agency’s mauve tunic sat on one of the settees, looking shaken.