A Quantum Murder

CHAPTER FOUR

Greg stood behind the moss-covered stone wall of his farmyard and watched a swarm of bilious clouds buffet the southern sky, blocking out the clean gold and orange colours of the low morning sun. Fast, cool gusts of air chased random wave-patterns in the shaggy grass around the lime saplings, twitching the slate-grey water of the reservoir into small peaks.

In the long thistle-mottled field running between the groves and Hambleton Wood he could see the rabbits venturing out of their huge warrens hidden below the dead trees. Small tawny mounds sloping through the nettle clumps and spindly mildewed forget-me-nots which flourished around the rank of perished hawthorn bushes marking the boundary of the wood. There must have been over eighty of them. He and Eleanor went out on rabbit shoots two nights each week, infrared laser hunting-rifles picking off fifty at a time. It never seemed to make the slightest difference to their numbers the next morning.

The hot climate had expanded their breeding season to ten months of the year, and the impenetrable tangle of lush undergrowth in the wood meant he couldn't reach their warrens to cull them properly. A Forestry Commission logging team was scheduled to fell the dead trunks in a couple of years, replanting with Chinese pines, otherwise he would probably have torched the wood at the height of summer, and to hell with the owner. The rest of the peninsula's citrus farmers certainly wouldn't object.

Rabbits were a countrywide problem; despite the massive shooting and trapping campaigns which had turned them into a cheap staple meat, they were making serious inroads into England's food crops. The Ministry of Agriculture was holding discussions with the Farmers' Union about releasing a new virulent strain of myxomitosis. It was a nasty virus, but Greg couldn't see an alternative.

He shrugged his black leather jacket over a dark-blue short sleeve cotton sports shirt. His olive-green trousers had a tropical weave, which should keep him from sweating. He would have preferred shorts, but that was pushing it. At least he could wear comfortable suede ankle boots today, the Armani suit and shiny black leather shoes Eleanor had made him put on for the roll out ceremony had been a torture. Too stiff, too hot. It reminded him of the dress uniforms he had had to wear for regimental dinners. But at least they had been introduced to Prince Harry at the VIP reception, which made up for a lot. Then Julia waylaid him with her oh-so-reasonable favour.

He shook his head at the memory. He was irritated, more by the fact that she had automatically assumed he would help the police than being dragged back into that kind of work, but he couldn't honestly say there was any real anger. In any case, the idea of a killer as psychotic as Kitchener's stalking the district wasn't a particularly welcome one. Just so long as this wasn't going to set a precedent. The citrus groves were his life now, and hopefully children before too long.

Eleanor came out of the front door and blipped the lock. She was wearing a navy-blue waiter-cut jacket over an embroidered Indian cotton blouse, deep purple culottes. Her gaze ran over the windows she had been painting before the weekend; the frames were coated in a dull-pink undercoat, waiting for the white gloss finish. She crinkled her nose up.

"Maybe I should stay," she said, sounding unconvinced.

"Not a chance, if I have to go, so do you. I've still got those limes to plant. And our neighbouring army of killer bunnies is waiting for a chance to eat the ones I did put in, look."

She glared at the mounds of brown fur bopping about through the undergrowth. "Perhaps we ought to torch the wood after all."

He opened the EMC Ranger's door, and climbed in behind the wheel. "It's too near Hambleton, and it's not the real solution anyway."

"I suppose." She sat in the passenger seat. "I hate the idea of myxamitosis."

He drove up the slope, and into the village. The broken windows on the Collisters' cottage had already been boarded up with clean sheets of plywood and a heavy padlock held the front door shut. Someone had picked all the ripe brambles from the hedge.

Eleanor gave it a sombre look as they went past, but didn't say anything.

The EMC Ranger's fat, deep-tread tyres made short work of the slushy vegetation matting the peninsular link road. Monday night's rains had left the flat fields beside the road looking like rice paddies. They were planted with gene-tailored barley, a design which utilized the increased level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to produce high yields. Long lines of verdant green shoots as thick as his thumb were poking up through silver pools of water; flocks of gulls waded up and down the ranks, pecking up the bounty of worms which had risen to the surface.

When they reached the roundabout on the Oakham bypass, Greg steered straight round and headed down the A606. The fields of gene-tailored barley gave way to cacao plantations for the last kilometre into town. Over the last few years Oakham had gradually been encircled by the bushes, and more ground was being prepared, expanding the plantations outward like a vigorous mushroom ring. They were a valuable addition to the town's economy. The price of the seed was rising all the time as processed food factories came back on stream, bringing chocolate back into the shops; and the gene-tailored variety flowered twice a year. Their cultivation also soaked up a fair fraction of the unemployed refugees who had been billeted on the town when the Lincolnshire Fens were flooded by the rising sea.

The expanse of small amber flowers was just starting to bloom, but Greg ignored it. In his mind he was still running through yesterday afternoon's conversation with Julia.

"It'll just be half a day's work for you," she'd said. "It's really important to me. Please, Greg."

All he could see was a pretty young oval face and big tawny eyes looking up at him entreatingly. That kind of sly appeal, the not quite innocent adolescent adoration, was really below the belt. Typical Julia. The number of boys with broken hearts left in her wake could populate a small city.

"I'm a psychic," he said out loud.

Eleanor turned and gave him an expectant glance. "Yes?"

"So how come I can never win an argument with Julia?"

"Because you want to lose. You know the way she feels about you."

"Why didn't you object? This Kitchener thing, it's exactly why we moved out to the farm, to get away from it."

She flashed him a dry, knowing smile. "I didn't object because you were interested. Julia was right when she said you could clear it up in an afternoon. And once she mentioned it, you were hooked. Admit it."

"Yeah," he said. Immensely grateful that she understood, once again. Though right at the back of his mind was a tiny smack of disquiet, a subliminal certainty that something didn't quite gel. His intuition playing up again, although he hadn't used his gland since leaving the Collisters' cottage. It had started as soon as Julia mentioned Kitchener's murder at Launde Abbey. And the more he tried to resolve it, find the reason, the more elusive it became. It would come eventually, of course, and then he'd kick himself for missing the obvious.

Inside Oakham, the road surface improved noticeably, thistles and twitch grass still burrowed up through the tarmac near the kerbs, but the streets were open to two-way traffic. Scooters and bicycles clogged the middle of the town, forcing Greg to reduce speed; horse and cart rigs queued up patiently behind pre-Warming juggernauts. The big lorries had been converted to burning methane, true dinosaurs now, paintwork scarred and fading, drive mechanisms cannibalized from a dozen different wrecks.

The ramshackle stalls which used to run the length of the High Street during the PSP years had recently been evicted, and the tarmac sealed over with thermo-stabilized cellulose.

Greg used to enjoy the souk-like atmosphere of the town centre, but the economic upswing was steadily squeezing street traders and spivs out of national life. Die-hard stall-holders had moved back to the market square, but it wasn't the same. Shops were in vogue again. Almost two-thirds had re-opened, and he could see another three being refurbished; although they mainly sold consumer products and clothes, the market retained its hold over supplying fresh food. He wondered sourly how long it would take for the supermarket chains to re-establish themselves. Back to sanitized mass-produced packets of tasteless pap. A sure sign of prosperity.

The way the country was right now was just about perfect, he reckoned. Emerging from the nightmare past, and looking forward to a future rich with promises—most of them made by Julia.

They turned off the High Street and drove down Church Street, past Cutts Close, the central park. It was bounded by earth ramparts, and terribly overgrown; dead oak trees lying where they had fallen, waist-high grass choking the ancient swings. The affluence of the High Street didn't extend far.

A cluster of thirty-odd sleek white and silver trailers and caravans was drawn up in the middle of Cutts Close, looking like some kind of futuristic gypsy convoy. Greg saw the corporate logos of channel newscast companies splashed on them, a thicket of tripod-mounted satellite uplink dishes pointing up into the southern sky.

His fingers tightened around the steering-wheel in reflex dismay. Of course! How stupid, he should have realized. A groan escaped from his lips.

"What is it?" Eleanor asked.

"Them!" He nodded ahead.

The police station was sited just past the bottom of the park, backing on to what had once been the famous public school's playing fields. The rugby pitches and cricket squares had long since been dug up to provide allotments for the Fens refugees displaced by the rising seas; over two hundred families had been crammed into the school buildings by the PSP Residential Allocation bureau. It was only a temporary accommodation, they were promised. Now, twelve years on, they were still waiting for proper housing.

The main part of the station was a broad two-storey building built out of drab rusty-coloured brick, roofed by steel-grey tiles. A single-storey wing jutted out of the front, almost like an afterthought, long, narrow windows facing the road. It dated from the tail-end of the last century, and despite the architect's use of curves and split levels to reduce its starkness it had a fortress-like appearance. The image wasn't helped by the relics of the People's Constables' tenure. Metal grilles had been fitted over the long ground-floor windows, black security camera globes hung from the eaves, and the entrance to the rear car park was guarded by a high fence of thin monolattice slice-wire with skull and crossbones warning signs on each post. The brickwork facing the street was covered in ghostly remnants of paint-bomb impacts and fluorospray graffiti; an ineffectual solvent wash had left several anti-PSP slogans visible. Tapering soot scars, like frozen black flames, showed where the molotovs had hit.

The rioters and celebrants who had laid siege to the station the day the PSP fell had now been replaced by the media army.

"Good God," Eleanor murmured when they reached the end of Church Street.

Greg guessed there must have been over two hundred of them; and it was like an army, rank denoted by the uniform: reporters in smooth suits, broadcast crews in T-shirts and shorts, production staff in designer casuals. The majority had taken over the broad pavement opposite the station, although some camera operators had staked out positions on the park's earth embankment giving them a good view of the station. Several fast-food caravans had set up shop in front of the Catholic church a hundred metres further down the road. They were doing a good trade with production PM.

Greg sounded the horn as he indicated to turn into the station. A knot of twelve people were just standing in the middle of the road, channel logos on their jackets.

"Well, I suppose the local pubs will be happy," Eleanor said.

There was a lone bobby standing outside the gate in the slice-wire fence. He was about twenty-five, wearing dress whites, shorts, and half-sleeve shirt, with a peaked cap, and looking very fed up.

"Oh, bugger," Greg muttered as he lowered the window. The rear-view mirror showed him the reporters converging en masse on the EMC Ranger.

"Yes, sir?" the bobby asked.

"I'm here to see Detective Inspector Langley," Greg said. He held up his general ident card, pressing his thumb on the activation patch.

The bobby pulled out his police-issue cybofax, and the two exchanged polarized photons in a blink of dim ruby light. Reporters were clustering round the bobby, jostling to see what was going on. Two camera operators had shoved their lenses up against Eleanor's window.

"Go straight in, sir," the bobby said after his cybofax had confirmed Greg's identity. He blipped the gate lock. It started to swing open.

The action triggered off a barrage of questions from the reporters.

"Who are you, mate?"

"What have you come here for?"

"Are you a relative of Kitchener?"

"Smile for us, luv!"

Greg toed the accelerator as soon as the gate started to open, nudging the EMC Ranger towards the gap in short jerks. The bobby was trying to shove the crush of reporters to one side.

Greg switched to a broad Lincolnshire accent, and bellowed out of the open window: "I'm here to see about me bleedin' sheep, ain't I? Some bastard's been pinching 'em right out o' the field. What's it got to do with you buggers? Get out the bleeding way!"

The EMC Ranger must have added authenticity, a mudcaked farm vehicle, even though it was new and expensive. A chorus of groans went up. The reporters gave each other annoyed shrugs, and gave up.

The gate closed behind them.

Eleanor was smiling broadly. "Very good. I give it less than twenty minutes before they discover you are the Greg Mandel who had Julia Evans as a bridesmaid at his wedding."

"I expect you're right."

There were five police vehicles parked in the yard, four old EMC electric hatchbacks, powered by high-density polymer batteries, and a rust-spotted Black Maria with ten-year-old number plates. Greg parked the EMC Ranger next to a line of scooters.

There was a woman officer waiting for them. She introduced herself as Detective Sergeant Amanda Paterson, a pleasant-faced thirty-year-old with mouse-brown hair, wearing a white blouse and fawn skirt. She shook hands with a surprisingly strong grip, but her manner was fairly reserved.

"I'll take you to see Inspector Langley," she told them briskly. "He's heading the inquiry."

"Are you working on the case?" Greg asked.

"Yes, sir." There was no elaboration. She opened the door, and ushered them into the station. The air inside was cool and stale, there were no fans or conditioners to circulate it. Biolum strips screwed on to the ceiling cast a weary light along the corridor. The original electric tubes had been left in place, their pearl glass covers grey with dust.

It was all very basic, Greg thought, as she led them to the central stairwell. The grey-green ribbed carpet was badly worn, walls were scarred with rubber shoe marks above the skirting-board, cream-coloured paint had darkened, doors were scuffed and scratched and didn't even have 'ware locks.

The police didn't enjoy much public confidence right now, he knew. But starving them of money and resources was hardly going to help their morale and efficiency, certainly not at a time when the New Conservatives were trying to claim the credit for resurrecting an honest and impartial judicial system.

They passed a mess room, and three uniformed constables glanced out. Their faces hardened as soon as they saw Greg and he began to wonder just what sort of stories were orbiting the station.

The CID office was on the second floor. Amanda Paterson knocked once on the door, and walked in. Greg followed her into the noise of shrilling phones and murmuring voices. There were six imitation-wood desks inside, three of them occupied by men, detectives in shirt sleeves typing away at their terminal keyboards, one with an old-fashioned phone handset jammed between his shoulder and jaw. They all stared at Greg and Eleanor. Metal filing cabinets were lined up along the wall next to the door, kelpboard boxes piled on top. A big flatscreen covered the rear wall, displaying a large-scale map, with half of Oakham showing as a red and brown crescent along the right-hand side. The air was warm despite two of the windows being open; a single conditioner thrummed loudly.

Detective Inspector Vernon Langley was in his late forties. He was almost a head smaller than Greg, and his dark hair had nearly vanished, leaving a shiny brown pate. He was sitting behind a desk at the head of the room, jacket draped over the back of his chair, mauve tie loosened, buttons on his white shirt straining slightly, looking about seven kilos overweight.

The desk was littered in printouts, folders, thumb-sized cylindrical memox crystals, and sheets of handwritten notes. Langley was typing on an English Electric terminal. The model was a decade out of date, and pretty inferior even when it was new. English Electric had been a nationalized conglomerate formed by the PSP, a shotgun marriage between a dozen disparate 'ware companies. Only government offices used to buy their equipment, everyone else went to black-market spivs for up-to-date foreign gear.

He stood up to greet them, wincing slightly, one hand rubbing the stiffness from his back as he rose. He had obviously been working close to his limit on the Kitchener case: his face was lined, there was a five o'clock shadow on his chin. Greg felt exhausted just looking at him.

"I wasn't informed that there would be two of you," he said as he shook hands with Eleanor.

"I act as Greg's assistant," Eleanor said levelly. "I am also his wife."

Vernon Langley nodded reluctantly as he sat back down again. "All right, I'm certainly not going to make an issue of it. Find yourself a seat, please."

Greg drew up a couple of plain wooden chairs. At a second nod from Vernon, Amanda Paterson left them to go and sit at a desk next to the other three detectives. The four of them put their heads together, talking in low tones.

Greg was tempted to use his gland there and then, but he guessed the only emotion in the room would be resentment. They had all been working hard on an important case, under an immense, and very public, burden to produce quick results, now some civilian glamour-merchant had been brought in over their heads because of political pressure. He knew the feeling of frustration well enough, army brass had worked according to no known principles of logic.

"The Home Office called me at home this morning," Langley said. "Apparently you have been drafted in to act as my special adviser on this case. Officially, that is. Unofficially, it was made fucking clear you are now in charge. Would you mind telling me why that is, Mandel?" The lack of any inflection was far more telling than any bitterness or anger.

"I am ex-Mindstar," Greg said deferentially. "My gland gives me an empathic ability, I know when people are lying. Somebody once described me as a truthfinder."

"A truthfinder? Is that so? I've heard you spent a lot of time in Peterborough after Mindstar was demobbed."

"Yeah."

"They say you killed fifty People's Constables."

"Oh, no."

Langley's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Greg couldn't resist it. "More like eighty,"

The detective grunted. "Had a lot of experience solving murders, have you, Mandel?"

"No. None at all."

"Twenty-three years I've been in the force now. I even stuck it out in the PSP years." He waved a hand airily as Eleanor shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, don't worry, Mrs Mandel, the Inquisitors cleared me of any complicity with the Party. That's why I was posted here from Grantham, a lot of Oakham's officers failed that particular test. Not politically sound, you see. Well, not as far as this government is concerned."

"I wonder if Edward Kitchener cares what political colour the investigating officers are," Eleanor said.

Langley gave her a long look, then sighed in defeat. "You're quite right, of course, Mrs Mandel. Please excuse me. I have spent the last four days and nights trying to find this maniac. And for all my efforts, I have got exactly nowhere. So tempers in this office are likely to be a little frayed this morning. I apologize in advance for any sharp answers you may receive. Nothing personal."

"I didn't know the Home Office had told you I was in charge," Greg said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's still your investigation. I really am just a specialist."

"Sure, thanks," said Langley.

Greg decided to press on. It was obvious there wouldn't be the usual small talk, the getting-to-know-you session. He'd just have to do what he could. "The press reports said Kitchener was butchered, is that true?"

"Yes. If I didn't know better I'd say it was a ritualistic killing. Satan worship, a pagan sacrifice, something like that. It was utter barbarism. His chest was split open, lungs spread out on either side of his head. We have holograms if you want an in situ review."

"Not at the moment," Greg said. "Why would anybody go to that much trouble?"

Langley gestured emptily. "Who knows? I meet some evil bastards in this job. But Kitchener's murderer is beyond me, that kind of mind is in a class of its own. Nobody knows what makes someone like that tick. To be honest, it frightens me, the fact that they can walk around pretending to be human for ninety-nine per cent of the time. I suppose you can spot one straight off?"

"Maybe," Greg said. "If I knew what to look for."

"Whoever he is, he's not entirely original. It was a copy-cat method."

"Copy cat?"

"This spreading the lungs gimmick; Liam Bursken used to do it."

Greg frowned, the name was familiar.

"He was a serial killer, wasn't he?" Eleanor said.

"That's right, he roamed Newark picking people at random off the streets then butchering them. The press called him the Viking. He murdered eleven victims in five months. But that was six years ago. Now he really was psychopathic, a total loon. Newark was like a city under siege until he was caught. People refused to go out after dusk. There were vigilante groups patrolling the streets, fighting with People's Constables. Nasty business."

"Where is he now?" Greg asked.

"HMP Stocken Hall, the Clinical Detention Centre where they keep the really dangerous cases. Locked away in the maximum security wing for the rest of time."

"That's close," Greg murmured. He conjured up a mental map of the area. Stocken Hall was only about fifteen kilometres from Launde Abbey as the crow flies.

"Give me some credit. I did check, Mandel. Bursken was there four nights ago. They won't even take him out of the Centre if he gets ill; the doctors have to visit him."

"There is no such thing as coincidence." Greg smiled apologetically. "OK. It wasn't Bursken. You say you haven't got a suspect yet? Surely you must have some idea."

"None at all." The detective slumped further back into his chair. "Embarrassing for us, really. Considering there are only six possible culprits. A neat solution, somebody we could charge quickly, would have been the best thing that could have happened to this station. Not the town's favourite sons, we are." He flicked a finger at Amanda Paterson. "And daughters, of course. As it is, I can't even go outside to that pack of jackals and say I hope to make an arrest in the near future."

"Who are the six possibles?"

"Kitchener's students. And a bigger bunch of wallies you've never seen; bright kids, but they're plugged into some other universe the whole time. Typical student types, naive and fashionably rebellious. They were the only ones in Launde Abbey at the time. The Abbey's security system memory showed no one else sneaked in, and it's all top-grade gear. But I'm not just relying on that as evidence. It was a nasty storm the night Kitchener was murdered, remember?"

"Yeah," Greg said. He remembered the day of Roy Collister's lynch mob.

Langley climbed to his feet, and went over to the big flatscreen on the rear wall. "Jon Nevin will show you what I mean. He's been checking out all the possible access routes to the Abbey."

One of the other detectives stood up; in his late twenties, thinning black hair shaved close, a narrow face with a long nose that had been broken at some time. He made an effort to rein back on his hostility as Greg and Eleanor trailed after Langley.

The map was centred on Launde Park, an irregular patch coloured a phosphorescent pink. A tall column of seven-digit numbers had been superimposed alongside. From the scale, Greg judged the park had an area of about a square kilometre; he hadn't quite realized how remote it was, situated half-way up the side of the Chater valley. A lone road bisecting the valley was its only link with the outside world.

Nevin tapped a finger on the little black rectangle which represented the Abbey. His face registered total uninterest. If he'd still been in the army, Greg would have called it dumb insolence.

"Because of its isolated position we don't believe anyone could have got to Launde Abbey at any time after six o'clock last Thursday afternoon," Nevin recited in a dull tone.

"What time was Kitchener killed?" Greg asked.

"Approximately four-thirty on Friday morning," Langley said. "Give or take fifteen minutes. Certainly not before four."

"The storm arrived at Launde Abbey at about five p.m. On Thursday," Nevin said. His hand traced northwards along the road outside the Abbey. "We estimate the bridge over the River Chater was submerged by six, completely unpassable. The rainfall was very heavy around here, fifteen centimetres according to the meteorological office at RAP Cottesmore.

Basically, that bridge is just a couple of big concrete-pipe sections with earth and stone shovelled on top; it's a very minor road, even by the last century's standards.

"That just leaves us the route to the south. The road goes up over the brow of the valley, and into Loddington; but there is a fork just outside Loddington which leads away to Belton. So in order to get on to the road to Launde you have to go through either Loddington or Belton."

Greg studied the villages; they were tiny, smaller than Hambleton. Long columns of code numbers were strung out beside them. He could see where Nevin was leading. They were small insular farming communities, and anything out of the ordinary—strangers, unknown vehicles—would become a talking-point for weeks. He pointed to the thin roads that led to Launde Park. "What sort of condition are these roads in?" he asked.

"The map is deceptive," Nevin admitted. He swept his hand over the web of yellow lines covering the land to the west of Oakham; it was a bleak stretch of countryside, furrowed with twisting valleys and steeply rounded hills. A few lonely farmhouses were dotted about, snug in the lee of depressions. "All these minor roads are down to farm tracks in most places. Some stretches are completely overgrown, you have to be a local to know where to drive."

"And you're saying nobody went through Loddington or Belton after six o'clock on Thursday?" Eleanor asked.

"That's right, there wasn't even any local traffic," Jon Nevin said. "Everybody was battened down before the storm began. We did a house-to-house enquiry in both Loddington and Belton." He pointed at the columns of numbers. "These are our file codes for the statements; you can review them if you want, we interviewed everybody. You see, the streets in both villages are very narrow, and if any vehicle had gone through the residents would have known."

Eleanor shrugged acceptance, and gave him a warm smile. The detective couldn't maintain his air of indifference under those circumstances. Greg pretended not to notice.

Langley went and sat behind the nearest desk, hooking an arm over the back of the chair. "In any case, the important thing is, we know for a fact that nobody came out of the valley between six o'clock Thursday evening and six o'clock Friday morning. The murderer was there when we arrived."

"How do you figure that?" Greg asked.

"The Chater bridge was still under water until midday Friday. That just leaves the south road again. If you were coming out of the valley, you had to use it.

"The students called us from the Abbey at five-forty on Friday morning. It was Jon here and a couple of uniforms who responded. They took a car down to the Abbey just after six."

We were the first to use that road after the storm finished," Nevin said, "and we had a lot of trouble. It was covered in fresh mud from the rains, and it was absolutely pristine. No tyre tracks. I was very careful to check. And you couldn't cut across country, not with the ground in that state, it was saturated; even your EMC Ranger would sink in up to the hubcaps. The only people in that valley when Kitchener was killed were his students."

Greg checked the map again, and decided they were probably right about the roads. He thought about how he would go about killing Kitchener. There had been enough similar missions in Turkey. Covert penetrations, tracking down enemy officers, eliminating them without fuss, stealing away afterwards, leaving the Legion troops unnerved by their blatant vulnerability. An old man confined in a verified location would be an easy target.

"What about aircraft?" he asked.

Langley let out a soft snort. "I checked with the CAA and the RAE. There was nothing flying around the Chater valley early Friday morning, nor Thursday evening for that matter."

"Can we shift this focus to show the rest of the Chater valley?" Greg asked.

"Yes," Langley said. He waved permission to Nevin. The detective started to tap out instructions on a desk terminal. After a minute the map blinked out altogether, and he cursed.

Amanda Paterson joined him at the terminal.

"This is how it goes here," Langley said, half to himself. "I don't suppose your Home Office contact considered allocating us a decent equipment budget as well?"

"I doubt it."

He curled up a corner of his mouth in resignation.

The map reappeared, flickering for a moment, then steadied and slowly traversed east to west until Launde Park touched the left-hand edge of the flatscreen.

"Is that all right?" Paterson asked.

"Yeah, thanks," Greg said. He tracked the River Chater out of Launde Park towards the east. It was almost a straight course. Further down from Launde, the floor of the valley was crossed by a few minor roads, but essentially it was empty until he reached Ketton, twenty kilometres away. "If it was me," Greg said, his eyes still on the map, "I would use a military microlight to fly in. You could launch anywhere west of Ketton, and cruise up the river, keeping your altitude below the top of the valley to avoid radar."

The detectives glanced about uncertainly.

"A microlight?" Langley said. His mild tone betrayed a strong scepticism.

"No messing. The Westland ghost wing was the best ever made, by my reckoning anyway. They had a high reliability, a minute radar return, and they manoeuvred like a dream. Nobody could hear it from the ground once you were above a hundred metres; and you glided down to a landing." His fingernail made a light click as he touched the screen above Launde Park. "The gradient of the slopes around the Abbey would be ideal for an unpowered launch afterwards."

They were all staring at him, humour and contempt leached away.

"The winds," Eleanor said matter-of-factly into the silence.

"Yeah. They could be a problem, certainly right after that storm. We'd have to check with RAF Cottesmore, see what speeds they were around here."

"This is somewhat fanciful, isn't it?" Langley asked mildly.

"Somebody killed him, and you say it wasn't any of the people who were there."

"We haven't proved any of them did it," Nevin countered.

"But we're still interviewing them."

"Even if someone did fly in like you say," Paterson said, 'they still had to get past the Abbey's security system."

"If a hardline tekmerc had been contracted to snuff Kitchener, he would go in loaded with enough 'ware to burn through the security system without leaving a trace."

"A tekmerc?" Langley asked. Disbelief was thick in his voice.

"Yeah. I take it you have drawn up a list of people who disliked Kitchener? From what I remember, he was a prickly character."

"There are a few academics who have clashed with him publicly," Nevin said cautiously. "But I don't think a grudge over different physics theories would extend to this. Everyone acknowledged he was a genius, they made allowances for his behaviour."

Greg looked round at the stony faces circling him. He had entertained the notion, absurdly guileless now, he realized, that he would be welcomed by a team who would be delighted to have his psi faculty at their disposal. He wasn't expecting to be taken out for beers and a meal afterwards, but at least that way he could have approached the case with some enthusiasm. All Langley's dispirited squad could offer was a long uphill yomp.

"Did any of you know that Kitchener was working on a research project for Event Horizon?" he asked.

The reaction was more or less what he expected; flashes of disgust, quickly hidden, tight faces, hard eyes. Langley dropped his head into his hands, fingertips massaging his temple.

"Oh shit," he said thickly. "Greg and Eleanor Mandel, who had Julia Evans as their bridesmaid. How stupid of me. She had you sent here. And there I was thinking that it was just the Home Office panicking for a quick arrest."

"Did you know about the contract?" Eleanor asked waspishly. Her face had reddened under her tan.

"No, we didn't," Langley replied, equally truculent.

Greg touched her shoulder, trying to reassure her. She flashed him a grateful smile. "Well, I suggest that corporate rivalry is now a motive for you to consider," he said. "Does that make any of the students a likely candidate?"

"No, of course not." Langley was struggling to come to terms with Event Horizon's involvement. Greg guessed he was trying to work how this would affect his career prospects. Maybe a quiet word when the rest of the CID wasn't looking on would help smooth the way. It certainly couldn't make, the situation any worse.

"Does Event Horizon have any idea who might have murdered Kitchener? Which rival would benefit from having him snuffed by a tekmerc?" Langley asked.

"No. No idea."

"They don't know? Or they don't want us to know?" Paterson asked.

"That'll do," Langley said quickly.

She gave Greg and Eleanor a sullen glare, then turned and went back to her desk.

"What sort of research was Kitchener doing for Event Horizon?" Jon Nevin asked.

"Something to do with spatial interstices," Greg said. Julia hadn't managed to explain much about it to him. He didn't think she entirely understood it herself.

"What are they?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Small black holes from what I gather. It all goes a long way over my head."

"Are they worth much?" Langley asked.

"They might be eventually. Apparently you can use them to travel to other stars."

This time the silence stretched out painfully. The detectives clearly didn't know what to make of the idea.

Join the club, Greg thought.

"All right, Mandel," Langley said. "What is it you wish to advise me to do now? Because I'm buggered if I know where to go from here."

Greg paused, attempting to put his thoughts in some kind of logical sequence. Most of the training he'd received in preparation for Mindstar had been data correlation exercises.

"Firstly, I want to visit Launde Abbey, have a look round. Then I want to interview the students. Where are they?"

"We're still holding them."

"After four days?"

"Their lawyers advised them to co-operate. For the moment, anyway. It wouldn't look good if they start throwing their legal rights around too much. But we had to agree that six days is the maximum limit, after that we'll either have to apply to a magistrate for them to be taken into police custody or let them go."

"OK. I want to see their statements before I meet them. And the forensic and pathology reports as well, please."

"All right, we'll assign you an authority code so you can access the files on this case. And I'll take you out to Launde myself."