Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Thudding feet rampaged down the short landing outside. Ending as the bathroom door was slammed shut.

  ‘But I was first,’ Zara wailed in end-of-the-world torment. Her little fists beat against the bathroom door in rage. ‘Let me in, ya dosshead.’

  ‘Stuff you,’ Will called out happily.

  Sid started laughing. He disentangled himself.

  Jacinta just rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Ah well. At least I got to remember what it was like.’

  Sid climbed out of the bed. Looked around in puzzlement at the cases and boxes which took up most of the floor. Yesterday’s clothes were slung over a pile of plastic cartons printed with the removal firm’s logo. ‘Er . . . where?’

  ‘Clean shirts in the blue case,’ Jacinta pointed, then started shoving clips into her hair.

  ‘Thanks. Um, socks?’

  She gave him an exasperated look. ‘If you were here to help, as you keep saying you will be—’

  ‘I know. I’m a pig. But, pet, this is so close to over.’

  ‘You’re very certain about that, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mum!’ Zara cried. ‘Will’s finished, but he won’t come out. He’s doing it deliberately.’

  ‘Am not!’ Will’s muffled voice claimed indignantly.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Sid said blithely, which earned him another curious look from Jacinta.

  Breakfast was a glass of orange juice and a Marmite toast sandwich packet lifted from the fridge and shoved into the microwave. He noticed there wasn’t much of anything left in the fridge.

  ‘You should eat better,’ Jacinta said as she poured cereal into bowls for their feuding children.

  ‘I’ll get a proper lunch,’ Sid claimed, knowing there’d be no chance. Today was yesterday revisited, yesterday as it should have been. He hadn’t felt this upbeat in ages. ‘But I’ve got to get into the station early.’

  Will and Zara had both started eating their cereal. Jacinta gave them a careful glance, before fixing Sid with her gaze. ‘You do remember we’re moving on Saturday, don’t you, pet,’ she said in a low, warning voice.

  ‘Aye, man. I know. Some credit, please.’

  ‘Good. Because you’re here on Friday helping me finish the packing, then we’ve got to clean this place top to bottom.’

  ‘We can get a firm in to do that. We’re not broke, and you deserve a break.’

  ‘Sid . . .’ She was genuinely worried now.

  He went over and kissed her. ‘I mean it. Now, I’ve got to go. And I’ll probably be late again tonight. But I’ll call and let you know, I promise.’

  ‘You are all right, aren’t you, pet? The North case?’

  ‘I’m good. And tonight I’ll sit down and tell you all about it.’

  *

  Sid was mildly surprised when the lift took him up to Market Street’s sixth floor. You had to press the button and have your e-i enter a code. He wouldn’t have put it past O’Rouke to restrict him, especially after he went walkabout yesterday afternoon – then told his e-i to refuse all calls from his police colleagues while he sat in an empty office on the second floor to datamine until late into the evening.

  O’Rouke’s PA protested when he walked into the corner office’s ante-room, but Sid simply ignored the bluster about appointments and a full diary and following protocol. ‘I’ll wait,’ he said, and went over to the window to watch the drizzle soaking early commuters scuttling along Pilgrim Street.

  Sure enough, O’Rouke arrived at eight fifteen, as he did every morning. Dressed in his immaculate uniform, tailored to de-emphasize the gut, with gold braid shining on his shoulders. Head down and scowling as he stomped across the ante-room towards the safety of his office. Obviously pre-warned Sid was stalking him, there was no attempt at eye contact or acknowledgement. Jenson San was with him, like some kind of wingman interceptor ready to thwart any attempt Sid might make to plead for more time.

  ‘Good morning, sir, I need to see you,’ Sid announced in an annoyingly sprightly voice. He knew he should be aiming for conciliation, but what the hell . . .

  O’Rouke kept on going for the sanctuary of his office. He didn’t quite hesitate, but it was close, because he knew Sid just didn’t have any right to be that confident.

  ‘I know who did it,’ Sid said.

  O’Rouke hadn’t quite made it to his office door. This time he hesitated. Fatal.

  ‘You know shit,’ Jenson San said. ‘You didn’t even file a summary as you were ordered. That’s a disciplinary offence. Another one on your woeful record.’

  ‘My report will go direct to Ralph Stevens,’ Sid said. ‘I have his personal and direct interface code. Do you really want the HDA to be told I know how to solve the case and you blocked it?’

  ‘I’m not blocking anything, you useless turd,’ O’Rouke barked.

  ‘Good, then I need to run the theatre simulation one last time.’

  O’Rouke took a step towards Sid, his ruddy face darkening, highlighting the web of tiny blue veins on his nose and cheeks. ‘You think I don’t know who manoeuvred Elston into reactivating that theatre? Did you think that was funny? Did you?’

  ‘I don’t think it was funny. I needed it. I got it. That’s all that matters. Same as this.’

  O’Rouke was silent for a moment as he considered his options. ‘What the fuck have you got?’

  Sid gave a pointed glance at the PA, then Jenson San. ‘This case is classified as high as anything ever can be.’

  O’Rouke’s mouth squashed to a bloodless line. Sid half-expected to hear teeth grinding.

  ‘Get in here,’ O’Rouke snapped and stomped into his office.

  Sid grinned a taunt at Jenson San and followed O’Rouke in. The door closed and the blue seal came on. Windows turned opaque.

  ‘You’ve got some balls,’ O’Rouke said grudgingly as he sat in his desk chair.

  ‘Because I can back it up. We both knew this was going to be a pig right from the start.’

  ‘Don’t I fucking know it? The Mayor isn’t even taking calls from me any more. Scrupsis won’t stop calling me. Those HDA shits still haven’t paid us a single Eurofranc. And I’ve got you spending money like a New Monaco parasite.’

  ‘Parasites don’t produce anything useful.’

  ‘All right, enough with the fucking gloating. What did you find yesterday after you walked out on your team? And it better be good.’

  ‘The map is not the territory.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They outsmarted me. That’s what happened. They know our procedures, the gangs always have done. And they were ready for us. Look, you’ve just murdered a North – a North for fuck’s sake! – and you know that’s going to bring a universe of turds tumbling down on you, since the resources the police are going to devote to the case will be phenomenal. But you fool us into thinking the bodydump was ordinary, that you’re going by the numbers, just like the investigation. It was a decoy. The ripped meshes, the burn-out in the GSW district. All designed to show us they were playing their side of the game straight down the middle. A taxi drives to Elswick Wharf, throws the body in the Tyne, and drives out to the GSW where it’s firebombed. We know that happened. So we devote everything we have to finding that taxi driving to Elswick. And I mean everything: money, political clout, man-hours, AI time. There’s never been a simulation this big before, it’s unheard of, it simply doesn’t get any more impressive. But they know what we’re looking for, they guided us into thinking they’d buggered the roads and surveillance across the city so they could sneak the taxi in there without us being able to confirm it. And we – I – fell for it.’

  ‘All right, smartarse, so what did happen?’

  Sid told his e-i to activate one of O’Rouke’s wallscreens. A map centred on Water Street materialized.

  ‘We tracked every taxi that went into that general area for two hours before the body was dumped on Sunday night. That’s how we got our two hundred and seven. But we didn’t co
unt them back out again. Why would we? We knew it had to be one of them – after all, we found it in the GSW. If we had counted them out we’d have found the discrepancy. They pulled a switch on us.’

  He pointed at the western side of Cuttings Garden, standing above the Armstrong Industrial Park. ‘This isn’t a community park any more. It was sold off last August to a developer, a typical dodgy Newcastle property deal, with the council selling off public land to the highest bidder, and no doubt a few backhanders pumped into secondaries because of it. But it’s still on the City database as Cuttings Garden because they haven’t filed their planning application yet. So in our simulation it’s still a park. All the developer did was clear the site as they’re entitled to do. And they did that last September, by cutting a road through these trees behind the Armstrong Industrial Park and driving their bulldozers up it. A temporary dirt track that also isn’t on any kind of registry. In other words, there was a way down from the embankment and straight to Elswick Wharf in the area where there isn’t a single working mesh. And this chain-link fence here, the one at the end of the lane that leads round the back of the Kiano showroom, it’s easier to move than a bloody gate. I actually went there in person, I checked it out. I could push it down with my hand, never mind driving a citycab over it. Now look at this.’

  He told his e-i to change the file. A grainy blue-grey image appeared, showing a dual carriageway with snow falling on it. Buildings along the side were indistinct shadows. Streetlighting was poor. Vehicles were blobs with headlight beams crawling along. ‘They ripped and burned the macromesh at the A695 junction with Park Road, which is almost level with this lane. Meshes which give a visual on this stretch of road were also ripped. But I found this last night after two hours searching the logs we didn’t access before; it’s a visual from the mesh on a timber yard on Georges Road, five hundred metres away. They didn’t bother to rip it – it’s got a piss-poor angle and worse resolution because it wasn’t set up to look down the A695. But even with all those disadvantages, it does actually give us a glimpse at the lane. You’re seeing an enhanced image here. Now this is ten oh three Sunday night.’

  The e-i illuminated a pair of headlights coming out of Park Road with a purple bracket. ‘As far as our preparative analysis of the macromesh showed, this taxi drove down Park Road and took a right turn onto the A695, carrying on westward. The macromesh around the junction was ripped, but that didn’t matter, because the taxi licence is the same, from when it enters the rip and then again thirty-two seconds later when it leaves it. All the simulation data shows us a taxi driving along normally, so there’s nothing to check. We didn’t include it in our list of two hundred and seven. Why should we?’

  He told his e-i to play the image. O’Rouke leaned forward. The double splash of the taxi’s headlights turned right onto the A695, then took a sharp left into the lane. The headlights vanished. But another vehicle swung out onto the A695 at the same time. ‘Another citycab, same licence code,’ Sid said. ‘They synchronized the switch perfectly. They probably parked the replacement decoy there on Saturday, after all they spent the whole day preparing the bluff for us.’

  O’Rouke nodded at the screen, his eyes never leaving the bright glimmer of the headlights. ‘Run the theatre simulation again,’ he said in an angry whisper. ‘Find that motherfucker and bring him to me.’

  *

  This time the zone theatre control room was packed. This time people wanted to be there, wanted a part of what was happening. News of Sid confronting O’Rouke that morning had been round Market Street Station within seconds. Then the private meeting was over, and Sid had authorization to reactivate the big theatre simulation . . .

  So the original investigation team were there, with Dedra and Eva on the consoles. Ian standing to one side, along with Abner and Ari. Lorelle was there, completely ignoring Chloe Healy and Jenson San, who were standing right next to her. Right at the front, with his breath misting the glass, O’Rouke was watching Sid himself wading through the knee-high photonic cityscape as he backtracked the taxi through the tangle of those snowy Sunday night streets. Aldred 2North had arrived at Market Street just as they began running the simulation, standing behind O’Rouke’s shoulder, watching intently.

  The image unwound five seconds at a time, allowing Sid and Dedra and Eva to check and confirm the log data each time, ensuring they were still watching the same taxi, that it hadn’t changed its licence code, that there hadn’t been another switch.

  ‘You’ve done this for two hundred and seven taxis?’ O’Rouke asked. ‘Just like this, stopping and checking?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ian said.

  ‘Bloody hell. That’s . . . good work.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Sid heard the exchange, but held his tongue. O’Rouke had put him back on probation, pending the outcome of this backtrack. Sid knew it would work out okay, but there was no point in deliberately antagonizing the Chief Constable. He still had a way to go before he could claim his grade-five detective’s pension and take up Aldred’s job offer. Though, actually, O’Rouke’s job would be opening up in a couple of years. No! That was unthinkable – the politics, the backstabbing, the deals.

  After forty-three minutes working the simulation, Sid watched the taxi slip down a ramp on Stanhope Street which led to an underground garage beneath the huge St James singletown. The time on the log was nine fifty-one. He froze the image as the taxi was half out of view down the concrete slope, and gave the bonnet a knowing smile. ‘This is it,’ he said softly. The taxi hadn’t stopped anywhere, hadn’t picked up or dropped off any passenger. ‘This is where they collected the body.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ O’Rouke asked dubiously.

  ‘It drove from here directly to make the Cuttings Garden switch; this has to be it. Even if it isn’t, we can always backtrack it further. But for now I want every log from every grain of smartdust in the St James singletown, running from the Thursday before the murder to Monday morning.’

  ‘Aye, man, I’ll get down there myself,’ Ian said. ‘A little personal contact with the security office always smooths the way, and that’s a lot of data we’re asking for.’

  ‘Yeah, good call, man, get on it,’ Sid said. He glanced at O’Rouke. ‘I think we need to finalize strategy, sir.’

  *

  ‘That was a real phoenix flight you pulled off this morning,’ Aldred said in the lift on the way to the sixth floor. Having him along made Sid feel a whole lot safer.

  ‘A phoenix?’

  ‘Rising out of the ashes.’

  ‘I told you he was the man,’ O’Rouke said. ‘Right back at the start. I said our Sid would crack this for you.’

  ‘I do remember,’ Aldred said. ‘But nonetheless, that was impressive.’

  ‘The map is not the territory,’ Sid explained.

  ‘That’s what I tell all my detectives on their orientation day,’ O’Rouke said. ‘Set them straight, get their heads screwed on right to begin with.’

  ‘We rely too much on data analysis,’ Sid said, brave enough to ignore the Chief Constable. ‘We don’t get our hands dirty any more. It allowed the gang to take advantage of us.’

  Aldred gave him an approving nod. ‘Well that’s just come to an end.’

  This time Sid was offered a seat opposite O’Rouke’s desk as the windows turned opaque. With Aldred in the chair next to him, he knew whatever he asked for would be granted.

  ‘We need to have absolutes now,’ he said. ‘So I want all the logs Ian collects from the St James singletown to be worked into a simulation. I’ll need agency help formatting the memories, and a lot of AI time.’

  ‘I’ll clear that for you,’ O’Rouke said.

  ‘Thank you. But what I really need to know is what to do about our two observers, Stevens and Scrupsis? I’m supposed to update both of them immediately we have a critical development, and this certainly counts. We do have to tell them, but I really don’t think we deserve interference now.’

>   ‘Inform them both together,’ Aldred said. ‘Let them battle for jurisdiction. I’ll have a word with Augustine, he’ll know who to call; we need to make sure they don’t ruin this by having a turf war that attracts attention in Brussels. We haven’t got the taxi driver yet. And we can’t let him slip away from us now. This situation must remain absolutely secure.’

  ‘Working up another simulation should help,’ O’Rouke said. ‘It’ll damp down expectations around the station.’

  ‘There’s something you need to know,’ Aldred said.

  Sid gave the North a surprised sideways glance. He didn’t like the tone at all – it verged on embarrassment, which was completely wrong for any North, let alone Aldred. O’Rouke, whose political awareness was infinitely greater than Sid’s, also stiffened up. ‘Anything you contribute will be valuable,’ the Chief Constable said in a neutral voice.

  ‘I live in the St James singletown. A penthouse in the South Wing.’

  ‘I see,’ Sid said, trying to work through implications. Legally, Aldred probably couldn’t continue as their case liaison, any defence lawyer would argue his presence was prejudicial, a potential evidence contaminant. But then this was never entirely about what would go to court.

  ‘In fact there are several of my brothers living in the St James,’ Aldred said. ‘I suppose it’s inevitable. The place is exclusive, and slap in the centre of town. It’s perfect for us.’

  ‘It might have some implications on the case,’ O’Rouke said carefully. ‘From a purely legal perspective. Detective?’

  Oh, thank you. ‘Do you have an alibi for the Friday of the murder?’ Sid asked with a level voice.

  ‘An alibi?’ Aldred lifted both eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, sir. As soon as we can confirm that, then we can show any defence lawyer reviewing our logs that there’s no prejudicial influence involved.’

  ‘Ah, I understand. Actually, I was in London that day, taking some meetings. Let’s see.’ He muttered something to his e-i. ‘I left the St James in my car that morning at 9:45, drove straight to my department’s headquarters. My helicopter was booked and on the roof pad, so I flew down to London. My e-i can give you the meeting schedule, along with the names and contact codes for everyone in the meetings. I flew back up to Newcastle at ten that night. Got back to the St James about one o’clock Saturday morning.’