Hashtag

by David Wake

“The word ‘tong’ means ‘meeting hall’ in Cantonese, it’s a literal Chinese Room.”

  “Right.”

  “Who was the bitch?”

  “Maxine… it’s a common reaction.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a box, but a code word for something else. What was in the wardrobe?”

  “Let me see,” Oliver said. He tried to picture himself back in the bedroom, the photographs littering the floor, the single bed, the shredding machine, the mirror on the wall, the door, the police, the wardrobe. Here, he’d thought, no box here. Unconsciously Oliver held his hand up, echoing the move he’d made to pull the wardrobe door open: shirts, he thought, shoes… a case.

  Jellicoe picked up on the word: “Case?”

  “Black, shiny, one of those er… attaché cases.”

  “Something Jürgens would have?”

  “No, it was… clean.”

  “Made in China perhaps.”

  “I better go and see what’s inside it.”

  “I’ll come,” said Jellicoe. “I need the exercise.”

  Oliver wasn’t sure whether he was being sarcastic: it was difficult to tell with speech.

  Chen was ready with the car and they sped back to the Jürgens’ place. Chen parked in the same spot he had the first time around. Oliver went up, Jellicoe with him. The door had been repaired, the new wood looking stark and unpainted against the old rotten frame. There was blue and white police tape lying on the floor, damp and forlorn.

  “Locked,” said Oliver: Damn, I forgot to get the keys from the Duty Sergeant.

  “Let’s have a look round the back,” said Jellicoe.

  There was a path round the house and they went past some bins and piles of bricks. Jellicoe picked one up.

  “What’s that for?”

  “A key.”

  They reached an over–grown garden.

  “I’m not sure I agree with this,” said Oliver, but then he saw the back kitchen door. It had been forced.

  “What do you say?” Jellicoe said.

  They went in – Officers suspecting a crime, Oliver thought for the record – and upstairs. The bedroom was exactly how Oliver had left it. The floor cleaned of photographs.

  “Here,” said Oliver.

  He opened the wardrobe: shirts, down at the floor shoes and a smart attaché case. He picked that up, it felt light, but something moved inside it. Oliver glanced at Jellicoe and it was clear from the man’s expression that he too had heard the hollow bump. Oliver put it down on the bed and pulled the clasps, but it wouldn’t open.

  “Combination,” he said.

  “What are the numbers now?”

  Oliver checked: ‘000’ and ‘010’. He moved the wheels and they caught at zero.

  “Damn,” said Oliver.

  “A proper Chinese Puzzle,” said Jellicoe, “although rather more modern than the traditional push here, pull there.”

  “We’ll have to ask Jürgens.”

  “Don’t be so wet,” said Jellicoe, “it’s only six numbers. Solve one and you’ll probably be able to deduce the other. Come on.”

  Oliver set the left set to ‘000’ and then advanced it to ‘001’. It didn’t open. He started to add one, ‘002’, ‘003’ and so on, getting the rhythm of it reasonably quickly.

  “That’s it,” said Jellicoe. “One a second is only…”

  Oliver noodled it and remembered that 1,000 seconds divided by 60 was 16 minutes and 40 seconds. “This’ll take over a quarter of an hour!” he complained.

  “Get on with it,” said Jellicoe. “You do to 300 and I’ll take over.”

  Jellicoe sat on the bed.

  Using both hands, Oliver found he could move the lower digit with one finger and the other two dials with the other. At ‘300’, he passed it over. Jellicoe grunted and, all fingers and thumbs, he took over. Oliver eased his fingers and took the opportunity to look around the room.

  “We only came for the stalking case,” Oliver said. “It never crossed anyone’s mind that there was another case involved.”

  “I suspect the one led to the other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve found – bugger, this is fiddly – that those who break the law tend to find themselves victims of bigger sharks. If he was a stalker; well, we found him via Noodle, so others may have found him first in the same way. He was open to persuasion, I’m sure. Do this, or we’ll turn you in. Your go.”

  Oliver took back the case: it was only on ‘500’. He started advancing through the numbers. It became mechanical for him, ‘0’ to ‘9’, move the other dial, ‘0’ to ‘9’ and make sure that he spotted when the hundreds had to go up.

  “Westbourne was never involved with the Chinese,” Jellicoe said, more to himself than anything.

  “Perhaps these cases aren’t related.”

  “Did you ever play that game?”

  “I need slightly more than that.”

  “Children’s game: rubbing your tummy while patting you head.”

  “No.”

  “Did you have a childhood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Likely story.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You joined the police.”

  Oliver lost position and so moved back a hundred.

  “If you could rub your tummy and pat your head,” Jellicoe continued, “then maybe you can do one thing, while thinking something else.”

  “You’d have to do something while thinking about it, while you thought about something else.”

  “Perhaps. You’re a machine on that.”

  “Yes, well, practice makes – ah ha!”

  It had opened: quite a sudden jolt as the clasp leapt up.

  “What’s the number?”

  Oliver checked: ‘888’.

  Jellicoe had seen it too. “Go on,” he said.

  Oliver flicked the right–hand set to all the eights and – click – it opened.

  “Eight’s a lucky number for the Chinese,” Jellicoe said.

  “Let’s see,” said Oliver and he opened it.

  Inside, there was a rectangular box, beautifully lacquered in a deep red, and Oriental in design. Oliver took it out gently and carefully. It was light, airy, and he flipped the catch almost reverentially.

  It was empty.

  What does this mean?

  “Hidden base?” Jellicoe suggested.

  Oliver checked, top, bottom, sides, but it was a normal box with no obvious surprises.

  “Bugger,” said Jellicoe.

  Oliver went back to the attaché case and double checked it. There wasn’t anything tucked in any of the interior pockets of the lid. It was empty now, and had only contained an empty box.

  “A Chinese Puzzle in a Chinese Puzzle,” said Jellicoe.

  Oliver pressed his thumbs against the lacquered box checking the surface for anything that might slide. Nothing did. He opened it again and smelt the interior. It didn’t smell of anything. On a whim he did the same with the case, but that had the overpowering aroma of new leather.

  “Let me see,” said Jellicoe.

  Olivier handed them over and then sat down to concentrate on some serious noodling: who had bought a box recently, who sold these boxes, who had given one recently. The trouble was that all the various refinements in his searches either meant he remembered nothing or he remembered far, far too much. With Noodle, it was either straight away or never.

  “Check the man’s thoughts,” said Jellicoe, shaking the case and listening to it.

  Olivier noodled Jürgens’ thoughts, skimming around the perversions and focusing on anything to do with the Chinese Box.

  He was constantly worried about it… and then sometimes not. Ah, sometimes he had it, and therefore worried about it and obsessed about what might be in it, and sometimes he didn’t have it and so felt more relaxed, although he worried about having it again. He bought a case recently just for the Chinese Box. He
collected it from Tamsin and gave it to Duke. No, Tamsin was a waitress in a coffee chain. He’d ordered hot chocolate and tried to ogle down her cleavage. No, that was a distraction, he was trying not to think about the bins at the back. Between the wall and some wood, they left the box. They? Jürgens didn’t know. Sometimes there was an envelope with money in the case. He could look in the case, but not in the box. The black box. That must be a euphemism, Oliver thought. Jürgens took it across town and left it in the Duke pub.

  “He…” but Oliver found it difficult to explain, so he parcelled it all up and thought it at Jellicoe.

  Jellicoe sat. “Hmm… dead letter box.”

  “He takes it from the café to the pub,” said Oliver, “so who…”

  He noodled: lots of people went to the café; too many; less to the Duke, but there were plenty of regulars. No–one seemed to go to the bins or the corner seat that you could slide the case behind.

  “They must get the case back somehow…” said Jellicoe. “Shit! We need a drink.”

  “Drink? It’s not even lunchtime!”

  “To stop the eavesdroppers.”

  Jellicoe pursed his lips in concentration and then went straight downstairs to the kitchen. By the time Oliver joined him, struggling with the case and box, Jellicoe had filled two mugs from a bottle.

  “Sherry,” Jellicoe explained.

  Oliver sniffed it doubtfully. It looked like piss and tasted of sugar.

  Jellicoe topped his up. “I really must carry a bottle of single malt with me.”

  Oliver felt the prickling sensation in his forehead, thankful that he hadn’t had to drink the whole mug.

  “They must have some trick like this,” Jellicoe said, swilling the sickly–sweet liquid back. “Habit, instinct – these can all be back brain stuff and they don’t come forward enough to the brow.”

  “We’ll have to ask Jürgens,” Oliver said. “Do a Maxine on him.”

  “Eh?”

  “She says odd things, or uses thoughts, to come at a question sideways. People can avoid thinking about things by thinking about something else, but it always builds up. You can’t ‘not think’ about something without thinking about it at some level. The trick is to find the right cue to get a connection.”

  “Hmm.”

  “This is technically stealing,” Oliver said putting the mug down.

  “Like Jürgens is going to make bail. Even if he does, he’s never going to come back here.”

  “I suppose.”

  Jellicoe scanned the cupboards, looking along the work surfaces and then across the grimy floor.

  “Someone else will have to move the box from Tamsin’s café to the Duke.”

  “We’ve got the box,” said Oliver, holding up the dark red object. “I’ll see Jürgens this afternoon.”

  Chen was waiting for them in the car: he was playing a cerebral or similar and looked vacant when they got in, but he soon came round. They sped through the city back to the station in silence. Chen didn’t ask any questions, but then if he’d wanted to know, he would have just followed them; at least until they had the sherry. Oliver wanted to clean his teeth and sober up so that he could think straight. A drink that could both inebriate and rot your teeth seemed doubly immoral.

  At the station, Oliver put the case containing the Chinese Box under his desk and waited to sober up. Was his mind clear? To answer that, he thought a request to Freya to interview Jürgens.

  Why?

  Well, there might be something pertinent to the Chedding murder.

  Very well.

  Oliver didn’t want to delve into that man’s mind, it would be unpleasant or, even worse, enjoyable. Some people had train wrecks for personalities.

  I should do it now, he thought.

  That’s the spirit, Mithering thought.

  He noodled the station log and made his way to the cells. Cell 15, Jürgens, was at the end and the man was on suicide watch. That was a mere precaution. As Oliver passed, the Desk Sergeant thought, hi, and Mox was sitting, bored, playing some cerebral.

  Just seeing Jürgens, Oliver thought at them both as he passed within recognition range.

  Fine, Sergeant Draith thought back.

  Mox grunted.

  Down the end of the corridor, Oliver thought at the door lock and went in. Jürgens was lying on the bed, contorted like the lunatic he was, and–

  “Fuck!”

  He was dead, pale and his face pulled back in a rictus.

  Er… shit, Oliver thought, medical emergency, cell fifteen – stat!

  Sergeant Draith reacted at once: What!?

  Stat, stat!

  Oliver put two fingers on Jürgens’ neck, but he already knew he was dead. A quick follow revealed that he’d not had a single thought for half an hour. Last thought: No, no, no…

  And then nothing.

  Oliver looked at the man’s shirt with a creeping horror and found what he feared. There were two holes, and underneath two pinpricks and bruising. Someone had – but they were banned!

  “Oh shit,” oh shit, oh shit.

  Sergeant Draith came in, and thought: What?

  Dead, Oliver thought back.

  Draith leaned over and took the man’s pulse too. “Fuck!” he said. My job.

  “Look at his shirt,” Oliver shouted.

  Draith looked instead at Oliver: My pension. Clara will kill me.

  “He’s been shot with a Taser,” said Oliver. “Someone fried his brow.”

  “Nasty,” said Draith. Oh, nothing dear, I’ll be home at the usual time, don’t worry.

  The next 30 minutes were a blur: the number of important thoughts passing into Oliver’s brow went up just as his ability to cope with them plummeted. It was shock.

  Everyone ended up in Meeting Room Three as other police, brought in to relieve the staff took over the vital functions of the station. Inspector Dartford had taken on the case, and quickly switched from noodling it to coming across in person. Clearly it had become politically wise to be seen to be investigating.

  He’d noodled the facts. Everyone had noodled. Oliver too.

  So, Oliver remembered where everyone was at the time of the murder: he had been at this desk thinking about Chinese boxes, which now seemed utterly trivial in comparison; Draith had been at his desk; Mox had been on guard and had already apologised about playing a cerebral on duty; Chen had been in the garage fiddling with spark plugs; Freya had been out having a coffee with a colleague, and so on… and on and on, spreading out across the Thinkersphere. The trouble was – the big trouble was – that no–one had thought: I’m going to kill you, Jürgens.

  Dartford paced up and down in front of them.

  They sat like naughty schoolchildren.

  Dartford thought of nothing significant. They all had the same information and had each noodled it several different ways.

  Basically, no–one had thought it.

  An Unbrow couldn’t have got past security. There were two doors to think at for starters and Sergeant Draith was at his desk. There wasn’t another way in. Everyone else could be accounted for due to their thoughts.

  “CCTV,” said Chen. “Why don’t we check the CCTV?”

  Dartford swivelled on the balls of his feet. “For God’s sake, don’t be such an–”, but he thought better of it: Get the CCTV – now!

  Chen and Mox were on their feet and out of the door.

  Oliver thought it was a good idea and wished he’d thought of it.

  Yes, thought Dartford, I wish you had too.

  Zack added an idea: Do the doors record the opening?

  Don’t be stupid, Dartford thought back.

  There’s no need for the doors to record their openings because the thought to open them is in the Thinkersphere along with the identity of the thinker, Oliver thought.

  Thank you, DC Braddon, Dartford thought, better late than never.

  The next to last thought about opening the cell was Draith when he, Zack and Mox had put the prisoner in
his cell. He had been fine, checked by the police surgeon beforehand, then later every fifteen minutes by Draith or Mox. The door wasn’t opened again. Food was passed through a special hatch. The man had had a long thought conversation with his brief, Mellors_Jnr. Draith and Mox had continued to look in and think for the record that he was still alive. The last check was by Mox a mere ten minutes before Oliver had arrived.

  And he was fine, Mox thought.

  Finally, Oliver had thought the cell door open and found the body.

  Yes, thank you for that summary, Dartford thought, all very obvious.

  Clearly Inspector Dartford had been through all the suspects’ trains of thought. Oliver was probably the main suspect on most people’s list. Except that he’d been dead for more than five minutes when Oliver had thought the door unlocked.

  Perhaps it was because of this Chinese Box, Chen thought.

  He wouldn’t be killed on account of an empty box, Oliver thought.

  Dartford was on it in an instant: What’s this Chinese Box?

  It’s something that Jürgens had and we wondered if it related to the Chedding car park murder enquiry.

  What’s that?

  Oliver noodled, then thought: Hash 83,648,819.

  And does it?

  Not as far as we can confirm.

  And what is it?

  It’s an empty Chinese Box about yea – Oliver held out his hands as if holding the box – big, fancy, but not worth anything.

  And what was in it?

  Nothing.

  Where is this box?

  It’s by my desk, Oliver thought.

  Valuable?

  What do you mean?

  Antique? Collector’s piece?

  Nope.

  Sounds like a dead end, Inspector Dartford thought.

  Everyone back to work and let Inspector Dartford get on with his investigation, Freya thought.

  They all stood and filed out with their heads down, each gradually taking over from the relief personnel.

  The Chinese Box was waiting for Oliver when he reached his desk as if taunting him to work it out.

  He considered it: What’s this about?

  What indeed, Mithering thought.

  It might shed light on the Jürgens stalking case (although that wouldn’t come to court now), the Jürgens murder or the Chedding car park murder.

  Any would be progress, Mithering agreed.