Hashtag

by David Wake

  “What the hell was that?” he said.

  “Rioters,” said Jellicoe.

  “It was a fucking lynch mob!”

  A lynch mob, he thought, and if Jellicoe hadn’t been there, I’d have been for it.

  You’re welcome, Chen thought from the front seat.

  A thought popped up from Mithering: Are you all right?

  I’m still following the bastard was another thought: Martha_556.

  “I’m fine,” said Oliver, then he realised she was in his head. I’m fine, he thought.

  Thank goodness, Mithering thought.

  The car bounced up over some speed bumps.

  Sorry, Chen thought.

  And again.

  They turned a corner.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Drink this,” said Jellicoe handing him a flask.

  “I don’t think… OK.”

  Oliver took a sip, almost choked as it threatened to go the wrong way. It was whiskey, but that hardly mattered. He knocked back the medicine and waited for the familiar prickling sensation.

  “Clear?”

  “Yes,” said Oliver, “so where are we going?”

  “I’ve a spare room,” said Jellicoe.

  Chen sniggered and lolled.

  They drove down the Pelton Road in silence, putting distance between them and the city centre. Finally, after a few turns, Chen dropped them off.

  “Thanks,” said Oliver. That new?

  Yea, the old Panther’s in the shop.

  Oh yes, OK, see you.

  And then he was standing on the pavement facing a broken iron gate across a grass patched driveway to a dilapidated garage. Jellicoe’s house was in the Pelton district, an old three storey property on a corner. The ferns and bushes threatened to stop them going up the winding path to the old–fashioned porch. Jellicoe fumbled with his keys.

  Inside it was dark, the hall had a high ceiling, and a smell that Oliver couldn’t place, or even noodle, that increased as they penetrated the interior rooms.

  “Drink?” Jellicoe said as he got out two tumblers and a bottle.

  “No, thanks.”

  Jellicoe poured two generous measures.

  “Come on.”

  Oliver took it with a shaking hand and downed it in one. It burnt, tasted peaty and hot.

  “Good man,” said Jellicoe. “Switches off the little grey cells – just what a detective needs.”

  “Thanks.”

  The wall of the lounge was covered in objects hanging from hooks seemingly randomly placed. There were plaques, awards perhaps, and masks: Phantom of the Opera, that Guy Fawkes mask and Eighteenth Century Masked Ball variants for both men and women. They reminded Oliver of the theatre show he’d seen with Jasmine, and he had the distinct impression they were staring down at him. He shivered: strange to be fine with having people reading your thoughts and yet be disturbed by the gaze of inanimate objects.

  “Sit.”

  Oliver did so, sinking slightly into the large sofa, its springs twanging in complaint. He rested his now empty glass on the arm and it was soon filled up again by Jellicoe.

  “Tough day.”

  “Yes,” Oliver agreed.

  “Has the whiskey done the trick?”

  “Thanks, I feel better.”

  “Is your brow still quiet?”

  Oliver tried to think, couldn’t and so said, “Yes.”

  “All clear then.” Jellicoe sat in an arm chair opposite and picked up his own drink. “Hello scotch, glad to meet you,” he said.

  Oliver took another sip and then waved his glass aloft. “Why?”

  “Most criminals are discovered because of their thinking.”

  “Of course.”

  “We just go through the motions, mostly to keep the legal vultures happy. I mean, why tell someone they’ve the right to remain silent–”

  “Well, they do.”

  “When you’re reading their thoughts. All fairly pointless, but it’s procedure.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Occasionally though, we get one that eschews thought.”

  Oliver grunted; he was coming down from an adrenalin rush and still felt jittery.

  “And then we have a proper murderer,” Jellicoe announced. “Help yourself.”

  Oliver shook his head, so Jellicoe heaved himself up and poured a third generous measure into Oliver’s glass.

  “It’s single malt,” the old man said.

  “Thanks.”

  “And a pound gets you five, the murderer has tuned into the police hashtags.”

  “Eh?”

  “He’s following your thoughts.”

  Oliver examined the whiskey, seeing the speckled pattern on his thighs, a refraction of the weak light from the bulb above.

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “No, but you’ve thought everything else, every step of the investigation.”

  “What investigation!?”

  “This one.”

  “We don’t know anything we didn’t know on the first day of noodling it.”

  “We know a lot more.”

  “Oh, really, the name of the woman who owned the car, that it was a series five iBrow, that they left the aircon on, that… nothing of any value.”

  Oliver went to stand up, but fumbled on the seating and flopped back again.

  “I don’t have a toothbrush,” he said.

  “I have spares.”

  “You live here alone.”

  “No woman’ll have a drunk like me.”

  “You admit it then.”

  “Goes with the territory.”

  “You’re sharper than you pretend.”

  “It’s my disguise,” and then, when Jellicoe saw where Oliver had glanced, he added, “Presents. I put one up, someone saw it, bought me another, and from then on everyone assumed I was a collector.”

  “Right.”

  “You think chummy is a collector of scalps?”

  “Could be.”

  “And the victim?”

  “Unknown.”

  “You’ll have to find out.”

  “How?”

  “Look.”

  “Short of thinking to everyone in turn: are you alive? I can’t think what else to do.”

  “You’d have to see them in person.”

  “In person!”

  “Because whoever she is, the system thinks she’s still thinking.”

  “Or has a damn good reason to assign her death to something else.”

  Jellicoe lurched forward and stabbed his finger towards Oliver: “That’s it! But what?”

  Oliver spread his arms, almost spilling his drink as he did so, and breathed in for a few seconds. “I dunno, I can’t think how to phrase the question to Noodle.”

  “You’re someone who skips to the back of the textbook first to look at the answers.”

  “I don’t read books,” said Oliver. “Who reads books? It’s the twenty first century.”

  “Why are you getting so aggressive?”

  “Because I’m drunk.”

  “Another?”

  “Yes.”

  FRIDAY

  Chen thought to Oliver to let him know he was coming to collect them. Jellicoe wouldn’t drive in despite having a perfectly good car, something to do with being drunk later. Oliver was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and his charge was around 65%.

  I’ll have to get some stuff from my apartment, he thought.

  We’ll be waiting.

  Shit.

  Ha ha.

  Why hasn’t Martha_556 been arrested?

  Too clever.

  Lots of her followers liked that.

  Breakfast in the kitchen was tense, Jellicoe was unaccustomedly sober. The older man had been taking his tablets and was not pleased when Oliver barged in.

  “Don’t you bloody dare,” Jellicoe said.

  Oliver had in fact been about to follow him, a reflex reaction when seeing someone not on his list.

>   OK, OK, Oliver thought.

  “OK?”

  “OK.”

  Jellicoe took a plate and knife from the drainer. Thick pieces of toast gave off smoke under the grill and came out both black and white. He had butter and marmalade.

  “Help yourself.”

  “Where are the plates?”

  Jellicoe waved, and Oliver realised that the man didn’t know himself, so he began a search, pleased that the banging of the cupboard door clearly irritated the Inspector. Oliver found a plate and eventually a knife. There didn’t appear to be any coffee worth talking about, no Hasqueth’s Finest certainly in Jellicoe’s cupboards, so Oliver had to make do with an own brand. He too had toast, although Jellicoe had finished his by the time Oliver’s was ready. Oliver sat down opposite Jellicoe just as the old man got up, washed his single plate and knife before returning it to the drainer. Oliver’s seat was too close to the fridge, so he had to shift to let the man through.

  “Chen’s here,” said Jellicoe.

  “Ur… um…” but Oliver’s mouth was full. Chen, stall him so I can finish breakfast.

  No chance, Chen thought.

  Jellicoe chuckled.

  Oliver was still trying to put on his tie, and eat his toast, as he came out to join Jellicoe.

  “And you want to be a sergeant,” said Jellicoe.

  Chen sniggered in reply.

  They’re a positive double act, Oliver thought.

  “The three stooges,” said Jellicoe.

  Oliver settled down to staring out of the window and digest his meal in peace, but Jellicoe had other ideas.

  “Let’s consider the Chedding case.”

  OK, Oliver thought.

  “Motive, opportunity and method,” the Inspector said, counting the items on his fingers. “We rely far too much on the first: motive. A man wants to commit murder, or does, he always thinks about why. We noodle it, Bob’s your Uncle.”

  “And then we check his thinking for the opportunity and the method.”

  “Exactly.”

  “With the body in the car,” Oliver said, “we’ve method… and I suppose given the time frame pretty much everybody had the opportunity, but we’ve no motive.”

  Jellicoe saluted with his index finger.

  “If we had a list of suspects,” Oliver said, “then we’d go through their thoughts and we’d have our criminal.”

  “But that’s not detection.”

  You’re saying you had better detectives in your day?

  “We had to be,” said Jellicoe, without any victory in his voice, “there was no other choice and no technology to make us lazy. We dealt with facts.”

  We catch more criminals.

  “True, but there’s a flaw in the system and if others learn of this flaw, and exploit it…”

  Jellicoe let the idea settle.

  Thought was a panacea, like antibiotics, and perhaps they were seeing the first Noodle resistant criminals.

  At the station, Freya was there in person to meet him. He’d not twigged that one, and then he realised that he hadn’t got around to adding her to his list of those he followed. He did quickly and scanned back. She’d already thought at him.

  How did the exam go?

  “Fine,” Oliver said.

  I knew it, she thought in reply, and then she tilted her head as she realised that he had spoken aloud. “Has ‘no thought’ become your thing?” she asked.

  She had a nice voice, Oliver realised, almost tuneful.

  Thank you, Freya thought with a smile, and people who talk too much, don’t think.

  “Yes, I mean…” No, I’ve been staying with you know who.

  You know who?

  On account… “on account of the rioters. They protested outside my apartment.”

  “Oh yes,” said Freya, picking up on the need to talk, and more importantly not think, on this subject. “I’ll keep you two assigned together until it blows over.”

  “Thanks…” …although, thought Oliver, I don’t want to be lumbered with him all day and all night.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Freya.

  “Ha!”

  The Chief Superintendent mimed a drinking action.

  Don’t I know it… not that I’ve, you know.

  His group have special dispensations.

  Is that what it’s called?

  Anyway, well done with the exam, she thought, moving on towards the stairs. She nodded to the Desk Sergeant, which must have been a routine, because there was no thought associated before or after.

  Thank you, Oliver thought.

  Anything you need, let me know, Freya added as an afterthought. She disappeared through the big double doors.

  Will do. I’m going upstairs to do some investigation work.

  Oh, nearly forgot, you’ll need to think with Inspector Dartford, Freya added, he’s pissed that you weren’t around yesterday for questioning.

  I was taking my exam.

  Yes, but all afternoon without being able to think with you.

  Oliver followed Inspector Dartford.

  There were questions backed up, so while he climbed the stairs to his office, he noodled them together and made a questionnaire. They were all things that he’d gone over before and he was tempted to add pointers to his previous thoughts, but he didn’t. Instead, he did it properly and so described again finding Jürgens’ body and so forth. It took him until he’d reached his desk.

  One of the questions asked him about the scalping aspect of his own murder case. Clearly the man was interested in the salacious side. However, it was one area of the murder that he hadn’t explored himself. His focus had been on identifying the body, so that the victim’s thoughts would give him the answers he needed. That hadn’t worked, examining the scene hadn’t worked, but perhaps some other searches might turn up a lead.

  Facts, he thought.

  He was up on his feet and going downstairs before he realised what he was doing. Do it the old–fashioned way, Jellicoe had said. Check out the scene of the crime.

  No–one had thought the cell door open, so it was a locked door mystery, but the thing had a code, for God’s sake. You go up to the door and into recognition range, and you thought to open it, it knew who you were, and if you were on its list, it opened.

  A simple noodle revealed all the people who had thought to open this particular door, whether they succeeded or not. There was no way that a euphemism could get around this, because the door had a code. Anyone could find out the code, of course; it only existed to identify this particular door from the billions of other doors: it was the person’s ID that flicked the switch. You had to be on its list, which gave them a very convenient and finite set of suspects: themselves.

  Drink is Jellicoe’s system to stop being followed, Oliver thought. What else might work?

  You could be asleep, Mithering thought.

  No, even if you sleep walked to the cell, you wouldn’t be able to think and therefore open the door.

  Drink or drugs prevented thought and so that was a non–starter.

  Sergeant Draith was on duty, looking far more alert and on edge than normal. Mox was on guard, again he was at his imposing best. Indeed, such was the disaster that the whole station was nervous and fired up.

  I’m checking the cell, Oliver thought.

  Why? I’m not sure you should, Draith thought, getting out of his seat.

  Got to do something.

  Draith nodded.

  Oliver went down the corridor to Cell 15. There was crime scene tape across the door, which seemed a strange and surreal sight inside a police station.

  Oliver thought at the door: it clicked although the heavy metal itself didn’t move. He pushed it open and looked inside, half expecting to see Jürgens, his contorted face staring up at him accusingly. Oliver ducked under the tape.

  How?

  We don’t know, Mox thought.

  Oliver was half–in and half–out of the cell.

  It was a c
ell: a simple shelf for bedding, a steel toilet, white tiles, a high window with bars, the thick metal door he was holding open with its sliding hatch, and high up some LED lights in the ceiling. Concrete floor, walls, ceiling.

  And then he realised: The murderer fired the Taser through the hatch!

  It’s got security glass, Draith thought. Everyone’s come up with that one.

  Oliver looked: he felt foolish. The window in the hatch was slightly smeared and had a grid of wire reinforcement set in the glass.

  Oliver ran his thumb up and down the heavy door: it was impossible. He felt the sharp steel of the lock, the recessed bumps of the screws holding it together.

  Fired through the keyhole.

  Electronic thought lock, Draith thought. Most people came up with that one. You’ll have to do better.

  I saw an old movie where the first person to find the body had fired a gun as everyone rushed to the scene, Mithering thought.

  Except I was the first person to find the body. Oliver didn’t remember firing a Taser. Noodle confirmed that. Unless my thoughts have been manipulated? That was stupid. God, he needed a coffee. Or a beer.

  He’d know if he’d handled a Taser, the things always made him nervous as did electricity in general. No–one wanted to short–out their brow, the shock could kill you. It had killed Jürgens.

  Oliver felt something catch, a slight stickiness on the door edge. He’d been moving his thumb up and down, idly, but now he squatted down and took a good look.

  There was… something white above and below the bolt.

  He pushed his finger against it and thought the door locked.

  The metal jumped, detected the slight pressure of his finger and stayed put.

  The door was locked, but not locked.

  To all intents and purposes, to anyone walking past, the door would noodle as locked. It had been locked, it was just that the bolt hadn’t engaged. So, this stickiness might have been left by a piece of tape. Any number of officers could come and go, lock and unlock the door, and the heavy steel would stay shut and lie that it was locked.

  But Jürgens would have just been able to walk out.

  “Dead end,” Oliver whispered to himself.

  But why would he?

  Why would he what, Draith asked.

  Nothing, Oliver thought. If the door was closed, you’d simply assume it was locked. And – Oliver checked – there was no handle on the inside.

  “It wasn’t a locked door mystery,” Oliver whispered to himself. “It was open all the time.” Someone had done something really quite complicated and premeditated without thinking about it. But how?