by Oisin McGann
‘Lean your head forward a bit,’ Cleo told him. ‘There. So, what are the police in on? What’s the big plot?’
‘Maslow’s been trying to find out. He says the way they’re after Dad, it sounds like something serious. I think it might have something to do with all the accidents that have been happening lately. Maybe even the crane wreck. It was the same day Dad disappeared . . .’
His voice drifted off, and Cleo wiped some soap off the blade with a cloth, then went back to doing the nape of his neck. He liked the feel of her fingers on his skin, and the way she directed the position of his head with gentle movements of her hands. Sometimes her hips touched against his back, and he closed his eyes and thought of Ana. After seeing his teacher at home – off duty, as it were – he had thought he would feel closer to her, but instead, it had just made him realize that she had a very full life out of school. It was funny to think of teachers that way. And the age gap was becoming more of a turn-off – she still talked to him more like a mother than a friend. Cleo’s fingertips brushed against his neck and his skin tingled.
‘It sounds like you’re in way over your head,’ Cleo observed. ‘And you’re out there on your own with some guy you don’t even know. Who says he’s not on their side? Whoever they are. You need to go to the cops. Ms Kiroa could go with you – make it official.’
‘Maslow’s for real,’ Solomon said coldly. ‘He saved my life. And he’s the only person who’s doing anything about all this. I’d be dead now if he weren’t the real thing. And I don’t trust the police. You wouldn’t either if you’d been in that interrogation room with them. I don’t need their help now.’
‘What you doing here then?’ Cleo sniffed. ‘I’m assuming you didn’t just come to get your hair done.’
She brushed her fingertips over his cleanly shaven scalp; when she pushed them back the other way, it had a texture like very fine sandpaper. Sol turned and looked up at her as she rinsed off the blade and handed him a towel.
‘As far as they’re concerned, you’re nobody special to me,’ he said, drying his head. ‘But we used to be pretty good friends, y’know? And . . . you’re sound, and I think you’ve got more sense than most of the others in the class. And I reckon you’ve got the nerve to try something I need to get done – but I can’t do it myself. Will you do me a real favour?’
She arched an eyebrow.
‘If you’d seen the back of your head, you’d know I just did.’
Section 12/24: Grief
CLEO WAS SITTING in the school library during lunch hour, doing a search for Francis Walden. Sol had asked her to get in contact with the man’s widow. She found the Waldens’ contact details in the city register and, taking a deep breath, clicked the link to their home screen. The woman who answered the call was not the one she had seen weeping at the head of the funeral procession, but she resembled her enough to be a sister.
‘Yes?’ the woman asked.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Walden?’ Cleo enquired tentatively.
‘What do you want?’ The woman’s blue-black face and stern voice gave the impression that Cleo was only one of a long line of people looking for Mrs Walden, and they were all plum out of luck.
‘My name’s Cleo Matsumura. I was one of the students in the crane car that passed her husband’s before it . . . before he died. I was’ – she cleared her throat – ‘I was wondering if I could talk to Mrs Walden.’
‘No. She doesn’t like talking onscreen, and she’s not taking visitors.’
‘Please – I won’t take up much of her time. I’d just like to talk to her for a few minutes.’
‘Why?’
Cleo hesitated. The truth – that she had been asked to do this by a boy who wasn’t really a friend of hers, and whom she didn’t know very well, and who was on the run from the police and debt collectors, searching for his father who was also on the run, and trying to find out what his problems might have to do with a bunch of professional killers and their possible connection to the crane wreck – was probably not the best route to take.
‘I wanted to find out a little about her husband,’ she said finally. ‘I suppose . . . Well, I saw him die, and I didn’t know him at all. And I’d just like to know what kind of man he was. That’s all.’
The woman stared at her for a moment, then her face softened.
‘Hang on a second.’
A hold screen came up, and Cleo waited. A minute later, the woman was back.
‘Helena isn’t feeling up to taking visitors at the moment, but she said she’d see you. You can come round this evening, if you want. Say, about seven?’
‘That’d be great, thanks.’
‘See you then.’
The screen cut out and went back to the main menu. Cleo sighed and pushed back her chair. She should never have agreed to this; she was dreading meeting this grief-stricken woman. But something about being asked a favour by a hunted fugitive made her reluctant to refuse. Cleo had to admit that she’d been flattered by Sol’s trust in her, and tantalized by the challenge to get involved in his adventure. Time would tell if she’d been monumentally stupid.
The rest of the school day dragged by as she wavered between anxiety and excitement at what was ahead of her. Getting on the tram at the junction outside the school, she grabbed an empty seat and rehearsed what she was going to say. Helena Walden lived out in the Easy Circle; the address was South Wall Villas, the large, spacious townhouses that nestled in the brightest quarter of town. Francis Walden had been an executive in the Schaeffer Corporation; a young man on his way up the corporate ladder, and already earning enough to live in one of the best areas in town.
When the tram had taken her as far as she could go, she got off and walked the rest of the way. It gave her a chance to ogle at how the other half lived. The houses were large, with expansive windows – some which even curved up into the roofs. Much of the architecture represented throwbacks to earlier centuries: the clean-cut, curving lines of the 1990s; the geometrical shapes of 1930s art deco; the intricate details of baroque décor. Nostalgia for times these people had never known. Cleo had played with the idea of being an interior decorator when she was younger, but she would never have the connections to make it into these circles, and they were the only ones who could pay. It took serious money to build something that was more than just functional.
People walked past her, and she could tell by their looks that her clothes weren’t right. She always wore the latest street fashions, but in a place like this it was who made the clothes that counted. Their skin had more colour to it too; a brown, healthy glow. She felt pasty and white by comparison, despite her oriental complexion.
There were a lot of cars in this area, and many of them looked like old, expensive ones. Everything was clean and well maintained; most of the houses had window boxes, and some even had gardens. Cleo was amazed. Anybody who even left fake flowers out within reach in her area risked having them stolen. She stopped for a moment by a freshly mown lawn and breathed in the smell of cut grass. There wasn’t even a wall round the garden. Looking round warily, she knelt and pressed her face into the green carpet. She could have stayed there for hours, savouring the surroundings. She stood up again, feeling embarrassed. There was a flowerbed to one side of the lawn and, as she passed it, she scanned about for any witnesses, and then plucked a bright yellow chrysanthemum from the bed, pressing it to her nose as she walked away. They wouldn’t miss just one.
The Waldens’ house was modestly small for the area, part of a terrace of identical buildings, all Georgian-imitation concrete moulding with glass-tiled roofs, all immaculately kept. The woman who answered the door was the same one who had answered the webcall.
‘I’m Virginia, Helena’s sister,’ she said, introducing herself. ‘You can’t stay very long – she’s been getting a lot of harassment and she just can’t handle any more stress. Don’t upset her, you hear me?’
Cleo nodded. Virginia led her down a clean, stylishly severe hallway
into a back room with a window two storeys high that made the most of the dome light shining into the space. The décor, with its abstract metal wall hangings and clean-cut furniture, was a little cold for Cleo’s tastes, but it had enough of a homely feel about it to keep it comfortable. This was obviously a room for entertaining guests. Helena Walden sat on a straight-backed chair, looking dignified but fragile. Virginia waved Cleo to a divan and took a seat next to her sister, holding her hand.
‘Cleo; that’s short for something, is it?’ Helena said.
‘Cleopatra,’ Cleo told her. ‘My parents thought the Egyptians were just wonderful.’
The offhand remark made the widow give a weak smile.
‘Young people, you’re always shortening things,’ she said. ‘I like things to have their proper names. Do you mind if I call you Cleopatra?’
‘No, of course not,’ Cleo replied, although she thought it a bit stiff. But then it did suit the mood.
‘What would you like to know about my husband?’
Cleo played nervously with her fingers. She had been hoping that the woman would have plenty to say about her dead spouse. She had this image of grieving people spilling tears and memories in massive quantities. All the questions that she had been running through her mind seemed trivial and intrusive now. She needed to hear about why he had been in the crane car that day, but decided to start with something safe.
‘Some of us have had a hard time dealing with the accident,’ she explained. ‘I think it would help if we could . . . get a sense of the two men who died – a sense of who they were. What kind of man was Mr Walden? What did he do?’
‘Francis was an excitable man.’ Helena smiled at her. ‘Full of energy. He couldn’t sit down unless he was worn out, and it took a lot to do that. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and go for walks because his head was full of ideas. But the children could calm him down . . . he was so good with them—’
Her voice broke, and she stopped to compose herself. Cleo began to feel very awkward, painfully aware that she was imposing on this woman’s grief under false pretences.
‘Francis and I have two children – I don’t know if you knew that. Francis Junior and Agnes. They were devastated. Agnes is still too young to understand, but she knows her daddy is gone . . .’
Cleo desperately wanted to leave now. She did not want to witness this woman breaking down in front of her. She hated grief – hated having to see people lose all composure and cry like hurt children. But she couldn’t face failing in her mission either. She was here with a job to do.
‘What did he do for a living?’ she asked gently. ‘Why was he up in the crane car?’
‘He had just been made Executive Director, in charge of the personnel department. The executives used the carriages for moving around the complexes. He travelled in it every day; he said they were completely safe . . .’ She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes.
‘There had never been any crane accidents at his old job.’
‘His old job?’
‘He only moved to Schaeffer two months ago. Before that, he was with Internal Climate. They’re Schaeffer’s biggest rival, but Francis wasn’t happy there—’
‘Helena . . .’ her sister said softly, a warning note in her voice.
‘Oh, what does it matter to her, Virginia?’ Helena snapped. ‘She’s just a schoolgirl, nobody’s going to be asking her questions! Who else can I talk to now? I can’t just become a hermit!’
Virginia sat back in her chair as Helena carried on.
‘What was I saying? Yes, he wasn’t very happy at Internal Climate. His boss was Armand Ragnarsson – you know him?’
Cleo nodded. Everybody knew him. Apart from Internal Climate in the Third Quadrant, he also ran most of the Second Quadrant, producing the bulk of the city’s food. Like the other executive giants – Takashi, who controlled much of the water filtration in the First Quadrant; Schaeffer, who dominated ventilation in the Third; and McGovern, who recycled the city’s waste in the Fourth Quadrant – Ragnarsson was a famous figure. They were the Big Four. Nobody was sure who was the biggest but, even more than the mayor, they were the people who influenced life in Ash Harbour.
‘Well, he worked them all very hard up at the office, and Francis especially so. Francis was responsible for dealing with accident claims. He was just the right man for that – he wouldn’t give up on a problem until he’d found out everything he could about it, and he really cared about the people who worked under him. That was the kind of man he was, Cleopatra.
‘And it was part of the reason he left Internal Climate and went to work for Schaeffer; he was finding that accidents weren’t being reported. He couldn’t do his job, because reports weren’t being filed. If somebody had an accident, it was all hushed up. He only dealt with incidents that were reported, but he found people were being fired for speaking up. They had a union in the main complex, but even they didn’t do a thing about it. There were even rumours of people going missing—’
‘Helena,’ Virginia hissed. ‘You know what they said!’
‘I know what they said!’ Helena barked back. ‘And I’ll tell you what else I know. I know that if he’d left that damn company earlier and not asked so many questions, he’d still be alive, I know that!’
‘I think you’d better go,’ Virginia said to Cleo.
Cleo nodded, standing up as Helena broke into heaving sobs, with her sister’s arms around her. Passing a polished side table in the hall, she paused and took the crumpled chrysanthemum from her pocket, setting it on the tabletop. She did not want any souvenirs from this visit. Walking to the front door, she let herself out.
The remains of the sun were gone from the street, and the glow from the dome just made the twilit surroundings darker. It was another gloomy grey evening and it suited her mood perfectly. She had more questions than answers, and now that she had seen that woman break down in front of her, she realized that she was no longer content to stand back and mind her own business. Cleo wanted to know what the hell was going on.
The ratting den smelled of hard alcohol, smoke, sweat, damp hair and blood. The mood was loud and boisterous, and Sol felt intimidated by the aggressive shouting and laughing of the men around him. The place was filled almost exclusively with men – women did not often gamble on blood sports. As Maslow led him past one of the pits, Sol was jostled by moving bodies as they pushed against each other for a better view of the fight. Down within the ring wall, a pit bull terrier was engaged in a frenzied struggle with a horde of rats. Sol stopped to watch for a moment, transfixed by the violence. The floor of the ring was already spattered with blood, and several rats lay torn open under the feet of the combatants. The dog was tiring, wounded and half blind, but its ferocity was undiminished. Sol looked into the faces of the spectators and saw no sympathy for the animals, only a feverish lust for blood and winnings.
‘Stay with me,’ Maslow said from behind him. ‘I don’t want you being caught in here without me.’
They made their way through the crowd; the room with its low ceiling and bare concrete walls was in one of those lost, forgotten spaces between the engineering sections of the city. Hidden in the Filipino District, it was a place where men gathered to gamble on the fights, and drink and smoke their troubles away for a few stolen hours. The staff were all Southeast Asian, and the books were run with strict efficiency – the place had a reputation for being fair, but a man’s life could still be ruined here with a few bad choices.
A bar had been constructed at one end, and four pits set up in what had once been reservoirs sunk into the floor. There was no proper ventilation, and the air was heavy and humid. At the bar, Maslow shoved in between two larger men and got the barman’s attention.
‘Tell Cortez I want to see him,’ he shouted over the noise.
The barman didn’t ask who he was, and Sol presumed that Maslow’s face was known around here. The man waved to a boy at the other end of the bar and yelled som
ething to him. The boy disappeared through a door at the back of the room.
‘Cortez runs this place,’ Maslow told him. ‘He runs the whole district. If your father came here regularly, then Cortez will know him. If he owed money to a Filipino, then Cortez probably owns the debt.’
The barman got his attention and nodded his head towards the door in the back.
‘Looks like we have our audience,’ Maslow remarked.
They crossed the room to the door, and Sol was about to follow Maslow through when he spotted a tortoise making its painstaking way along the floor at the base of the wall. He reached down and picked it up.
‘Somebody could stand on it,’ he told Maslow.
‘Nobody’s going to stand on that thing,’ Maslow chuckled. ‘Not if they want to stay healthy.’
Down a narrow corridor, they were ushered into a small, dimly lit room away from the noise of the hall. Sol put the tortoise down in a corner, and the animal started for the door again in resigned disgust.
‘That Mayon,’ a voice grated. ‘He was born under a wandering star and no mistake.’
Sitting in a simple chair at a table set for dinner was an old man. Standing by a door behind him was Necktie Romanos, the man who had threatened Sol on the steps of the Earth Centre.
‘Maslow,’ the old man nodded in greeting.
‘Cortez,’ Maslow replied respectfully.
‘Who’s the pup?’
‘Gregor Wheat’s son,’ said Maslow.
‘Ah.’
Cortez regarded Solomon with a piercing gaze. His round, benign face did not hide the coldness in his eyes. This was the look reserved for those who owed Cortez money, and Sol began to suffer a renewed fear for his father.
‘How much?’ Maslow asked.
Cortez turned his gaze on the younger man.
‘Three hundred, plus a week’s interest. Are you taking it on?’
Maslow took out a roll of plastic coins and threw three hundred and fifty credits on the table.
‘That should more than clear him. I don’t want to see Necktie or any of your other people near this boy again.’
