A Quantum Murder

CHAPTER SIX

The silver-white Dornier executive tilt-fan dropped through the cloud layer above the imposing condominiums and exclusive shopping arcades of Peterborough's New Eastfield district and banked to starboard, heading out over the Pens basin. Julia ordered her nodes to cancel the company's last quarter financial summaries which they were displaying behind her eyes. They would be landing soon.

Another bloody ceremony. Wheel me on, point me at the cameras, and wheel me off again. Might as well use a cyborg.

But it was important, a crux in company development, so she had to go.

When isn't it important, vital?

She was sitting on a white leather settee in the lounge at the rear of the little plane. Alone for once. Her staff were in the forward cabin. She imagined them swapping gossip, laughing; it would have been easy to go forward and join them, or invite them back. They weren't that inhibited around her. But it didn't fit her mood.

Being alone was becoming a precious commodity these days

It might have been her mood, the broodiness which came from anticipating the meetng later in the day, which had prompted her rather drastic image overhaul this morning.

She had dressed up in full Goth costume, improvising with a three-thousand-pound velvet Deveraux skirt, a scarlet one, sweeping round her ankles, then black suede boots from Paris, five gold Aztec pendants hanging on thin leather straps round her neck, and a black web-like jacket from Toska's. Her maid had darkened her hair and given it a tangled arrangement. They had argued about make up; eye wings of black mascara on her complexion would have been criminal, so in the end they settled for some strategic highlighting. She was quite pleased with the effect; it was far less stuffy, and lots more fun, than yesterday's outfit at the spaceplane roll out. It would certainly make people take notice.

She looked out of the window. All she could see ahead was mud; dun-brown supersaturated peat tinged with an elusive grey-green hue from the algae blooms. It came right up to the city's eastern boundary, slopping around the ruins of the Newark district, long regular silt dunes freckled with bricks and fractured timbers marked the outline of drowned streets.

Newark had lacked that crucial extra metre when the tide of sludge came oozing and gurgling across the Fens.

Three parallel green lines stabbed out from the southern end of the city, the Nene's new course, stretching into the gloomy heat haze which occluded the eastern horizon. It had been dredged deep enough to allow cargo ships to sail right into the heart of the city where a flourishing deep-water port had been built. The banks were gene-tailored coral, covered with thick reeds, intended to prevent the mud from dribbling back in, although two dredgers were on permanent duty sailing up and down the channel, scooping out the sludge which did build up, and flinging it back over the banks.

The Nene would have to be widened soon, she knew, the volume of traffic it could carry was approaching its limit. Just like everything else in Peterborough these days. The city's own success was turning against it, stalling further development.

Ninety per cent of the Fens refugees had retreated to Peterborough, establishing a vast shanty town along the high ground of the western perimeter. They'd found dry, high land, and a working civil administration; it was enough, they were through with running, they sat there and refused to budge.

The PSP was faced with a nightmare of relief work at the worst possible time, when every resource in the country was being deployed against the ecological destruction and economic collapse. The refugees needed work and housing. The Treasury certainly couldn't fund the kind of massive schemes necessary, so the Party was forced into making an exception to its ideological golden rule of repudiating any form of foreign investment, the bogeyman of economic imperialism.

Peterborough was declared a special economic zone, and huge concessions granted to any investors, planning regulations became virtually nonexistent. Money began to pour in, and new housing estates rose up to replace the shacks of plastic and corrugated iron. They served as dormitory villages for the fast-growing industrial estates occupied by kombinate subdivisions and the supply companies which sprang up to provide them with specialist services. Their products were exported, duty free, all over the globe, helping to pay off the loans for the housing. A self-contained micro-economy, free from the decay and chaos rampant throughout the rest of the country. Peterborough was unique in the PSP decade, prospering while every other English city declined. After the PSP fell Philip Evans selected it as his headquarters when he moved Event Horizon back to England. With its plethora of modern industries to supply the company's cyber-factories with components it was an ideal location.

But now, four years later, Event Horizon was suffering from space restrictions inside the city boundaries. New cyberfactories were being parcelled out around the rest of the country, easing the load. But they were subsidiaries, noncritical; what Julia wanted was a nucleus, a focal point for administration, research, finance, security, and the strategically important giga-conductor manufacture. The data age notwithstanding, distance brought control problems, exacerbated by England's shoddy transport links. It all added up to reductions in efficiency that even her grandfather's NN core couldn't compensate for. They needed the major installations in one area, under their collective thumb.

She sighed lightly, shifting in her seat. Management problems were like a fission reaction, each one triggering a dozen more. And if they weren't dealt with swiftly and correctly, they would soon multiply beyond her ability to solve.

Still, at least she'd circumvented the expansion problem. For a price.

The communication console bleeped for attention. The call was tagged as personal, Eleanor's code. Julia leaned over the leather settee's arm rest, pecked the keyboard to let it through, and Eleanor's face appeared on the bulkhead flat-screen. She was sitting at some kind of table, scratched wooden surface piled with printouts. Her forehead was damp with perspiration, she looked irked.

"That bad?" Julia said quickly. Get in fast, and be disarming. Eleanor was more big sister than a friend, she could tell her anything without ever having to worry about it being splashed by the tabloid channels. But at the same time she could be a trifle formidable. And not just physically; Eleanor was only three years older, but her adversarial background had given her self-determination in abundance.

"No messing," Eleanor said.

"Where are you?"

"Oakham police station. We've just arrived back from taking a look round Launde Abbey." Eleanor shivered. "God, I hope we catch the killer soon."

"Did Greg find anything out there?"

"Several ambiguities."

"So it wasn't one of the students?"

"Can't say for sure; he's interviewing them now. We should know in an hour or so. But assuming none of them did it, I have some requests."

"Sure, shoot."

"First we want to talk to Ranasfari about these wormhole theories he had Kitchener working on. Tomorrow afternoon, we're both busy in the morning."

Julia loaded a memo into her node's general business file. "He'll be at Wilholm waiting for you."

"Fine. Second, I take it Event Horizon has a biochemical research division?"

"Yes, of course."

"Anyone there conversant with neurohormones?"

Access Biochemical Division Files, Research Facility Departments: Current Projects and Specializations. The list slipped through her mind, a cool jejune stream of bytes.

"Yes," she said. "We have two projects running. After Greg's last case for us, Morgan decided it would be a good idea to introduce psychics into the security division. I thought it best that we weren't dependent on external sources."

"Good. There were some ampoules of themed neurohormones at Launde. I want them analysed. The police forensic lab is good, but this is somewhat out of their league. No doubt that is going to bruise some pride…" Stress lines appeared at the corners of Eleanor's mouth as she tightened her jaw muscles. Julia remained prudently silent. "Well, the hell with them," Eleanor said. "We need to know what the theme is as soon as possible, please."

"Weren't they labelled?"

"No. The endocrine bioware which produced them was deliberately killed, and its control 'ware was wiped. There are no records. It was one of Kitchener's private projects. But it's obviously an important one for the murderer to single it out like this. Nothing else in the lab was touched."

"I see. No problem. I'll have a courier at Oakham within the hour."

"Which brings us to the final point," Eleanor said with a baleful relish that had Julia squirming. "Greg and I have just become media megastars again. Julia, there are hundreds of bloody reporters here! They've already connected us with you, God knows what conspiracy theories they'll be producing by the evening bulletins."

Julia closed her eyes, and let out a groan. "Oh, dear Lord." She should have foreseen it. Hindsight was so bloody wonderful.

"A bit of intervention on your part wouldn't hurt," Eleanor said. "We're not circus performers, you know."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know about the reporters. I'll do whatever I can, I promise."

Eleanor gave her a quizzical look. "All right. But for God's sake, no strong-arm tactics, don't make it any worse."

"I won't," she said meekly.

"Sure. See you tomorrow."

"Yah, unless one of the students did it," Julia said.

"Don't hold your breath. Bye, Julia."

"Bye."

Eleanor's image blanked out.

"Bugger!" Julia yelped. Why could nothing ever be simple?

A pre-Warming map superimposed over the quagmire would have told Julia the Dornier was descending over Prior's Fen, six kilometres due east of Peterborough. Below the extended undercarriage bogies thick concrete groyne walls were holding back the mud from a hexagonal patch of land three hundred metres in diameter. Five large Hawker Siddeley cargo hovercraft were docked to raft-like floating quays outside; and a couple of saucer-shaped McDonnell Douglas helistats were drifting high overhead, their big rotors spinning idly as they waited for the ceremony to finish so they could start unloading.

I wonder how much it's costing to keep them up there, she thought. The nodes would tell her, but somehow she didn't want to know. Everything to do with PR seemed such a folly. Yet all the experts swore by it, the God of good publicity, of customer relations, being and being seen to be a good corporate citizen.

Fan nacelles on the Dornier's canards and wings rotated to the vertical, and the plane touched down on one of the floating quays. There was only Rachel Griffith, Ben Taylor, her second bodyguard, and Caroline Rothman, her PA, in the cabin forward of the lounge. For once Morgan had stayed in his office. It must mean he trusts me, she thought, or more likely Rachel.

She wished Patrick was there as she stepped out of the plane and into the most appalling humidity. Just someone who could hold her hand, in both senses; she always hated the way the crowds stared at her during these events. But Patrick was busy in Peterborough, helping to establish an office for his family company.

Steeling herself against the incursive eyes, she smiled as her boots reached the rough metal grid of the floating quay. She put on a very foppish wide-brimmed hat of black suede, grateful for the scant relief it offered from the sun. There was a strong whiff of sulphur coming off the quagmire, mingling with brine.

Stephen Marano, the project engineer, trotted up to greet her. He was in his mid-forties, stuffed into a light-grey suit which didn't really fit. He was a perfect choice to boss the labour crews, but completely out of his depth talking to her. His smile flickered on and off, words got tangled in his throat, he seemed taken aback by her Goth get-up.

She wanted to tell him not to say anything, ease his suffering a bit, but he would only interpret that as a rebuke, so she let him struggle on and introduce her to the fifteen-strong management team of architects and site engineers. A long exercise in tedium and discomfort.

Three channel camera crews followed the procedure from a distance. She recognized one of the teams from the Globecast logo on their jackets.

After the introductions they all trooped down a long ramp to the foot of the excavation. Julia realized they were actually below the level of the mud outside. Yellow JCB diggers were parked on the black peat, crews standing around them. They whistled and cheered as she went past. She didn't actually hear any jeers, but there were plenty of wolf-whistles. Stephen Marano winced at each of them.

It was wet underfoot; mercifully her skirt hem hovered five centimetres above the ground, but her boots received a liberal splattering. The site had been crisscrossed by drainage trenches, their pumps whirring noisily in the background.

They stopped by a wood-lined square hole close to the sheer groyne wall. A big cement mixer lorry stood beside it, its rumbling dying away as the operator pressed a button on its side.

One of the managers handed her a microphone.

Access FootingSpeech.

She cleared her throat, the sound echoing loudly round the groyne walls. The camera crews focused on her. Rachel and Ben stood unobtrusively on either side, heads moving slowly back and forth as they scanned the assembled crew.

"I don't suppose you want a long speech," Julia said, suddenly very self-conscious about her finishing-school accent. "And you're not going to get one, not while you're on my time." She saw smiles appearing under the coloured hard hats. "I would simply like to say that although the company space programme draws most of the media attention, you people slogging through the mud out here are just as important. Space isn't the only direction the future lies in. Out here we have got a vast wasteland which everyone despises and resents, while back on shore there are too many people living too close together. This tower which we are starting today is going to lead the way in alleviating some of the pressure on population density, as well as the demands which industry is placing on the green belt. Land is becoming a very precious resource, and I am extremely proud that Event Horizon is setting this example that expansion is possible without coming into conflict with the environment. In the scramble to rebuild our economy, we must never forget the reasons for the Warming. We cannot afford to ignore the painful lessons of the past if we are to prevent the repetition of our grotesque mistakes in the future."

Exit FootingSpeech.

She handed the microphone back as the management group applauded loudly.

"This way, Miss Evans," Stephen Marano said. He gestured to the cement mixer.

The operator was a stocky man in a yellow T-shirt, grubby jeans, and an orange hard hat. He grinned broadly and pointed to the small control panel on the back of the lorry. It had five chrome-ringed buttons running down the centre. The green button had a new sticker above it which said:

PRESS ME.

"Even I can't make a mess of that," Julia told him. Lord, what a dumb thing to say.

"No, miss." He bobbed about, delighted at being the centre of attention.

Julia pressed the button.

The mixer started up again, concrete sliding down the chute into the footings.

It looks like elephant crap, she thought.

The management team started clapping again.

She clamped down on a laugh which threatened to escape. Didn't they realize how stupid they looked?

But of course they did. They were less worried about appearing foolish than they were about annoying her.

She sobered sadly, and offered Stephen Marano her hand to shake. "I didn't appreciate what the conditions were like out here before today, Stephen. You really have done a terrific job getting this phase completed, and on time too. Thank you."

He nodded in gratitude. "Thanks, Miss Evans. It's been tough, but they're a good bunch of lads. It should be easier next time, now we know what we're doing."

She guessed that was about as subtle as he would get. It made a nice change, sometimes she was ten minutes into a conversation with a kombinate director or a bank finance officer before she realized everything said was a veiled question. Business talk was conducted in its own special code of ambiguities.

They started to walk back towards the ramp.

"The next two times," she told him. "I want to bring a couple of complete cyber-precincts out here next, and link them to the city with a train line. Of course, we'll have to build a service tributary from the Nene as well."

He gave her a genuine grin. "I wish you'd been around before the Warming, Miss Evans. A few more people with your kind of vision and we'd never have wound up in this damn great mess."

"Thank you, Stephen."

Access GeneralBusiness: Review Stephen Marano, Civil Engineer. Invite To Next Middle Management Dinner Evening.

As they reached the base of the ramp a group of about ten workers moved towards her. Rachel and Ben closed in smoothly. Nothing provocative, but there, ready.

Julia gave the group an expectant look as they stopped short. One of them was nudged forwards by his mates. He looked about seventeen, not quite needing to shave every day, wearing the regulation jeans and T-shirt, shaggy dark hair sticking out below his scuffed light-blue hard hat. He was clutching a bouquet of red roses with a blue ribbon done up in a bow. She suspected he'd been chosen for his age, there couldn't have been many younger than him working out here. And he clearly wanted to be anywhere right now but standing in front of her.

"M-M-Miss Evans?" he stammered.

She gave him a gentle encouraging smile.

"Er, I, that is, all of us. Well, we really appreciate what you do, like. Investing so much in England, and everything. And giving us all jobs as well, 'cos we wouldn't be any use in no office or a cyber factory. So, like, we got you these." The bouquet was jerked up nervously. "Sorry it's only flowers, like, but you've got everything…" He trailed off in embarrassment.

Julia accepted the bouquet as though she was taking a baby from him. She prayed the cameras weren't recording this, for the boy's sake.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Lewis, Miss. Lewis Walker."

"Did they bully you into this, Lewis?"

"Yeah. Well, no. I wanted to anyway, like."

She deliberately took her time sniffing the roses. The humidity stifled most of the scent. "What a lovely smell." She put one hand on her hat, and leant forwards before the boy could dodge away, brushing her lips against his cheek. "Thank you, Lewis."

A rowdy cheer went up from the onlookers. Lewis blushed crimson, eyes shining.

The Dornier lifted from the floating quay, cabin deck tilting up at a ten-degree angle as it climbed, nose lining up on Peterborough.

Julia thought about the incident with Lewis as the hexagonal site dropped away below the fuselage. It couldn't possibly have been one of the 'spontaneous' demonstrations the PR division was forever dreaming up. They would have plumped for something far more elaborate. The sheer crudity had made it incredibly touching.

She had given the bouquet to Caroline Rothman as soon as they were back in the tilt-fan. "Put them in water. And I want them on the dining room table this evening." Pride of place.

She couldn't get rid of the image of Lewis Walker, being joshed and having his back slapped by his mates as he returned to them. As she was returning to the Dornier; her world.

That poor, poor boy, there was something utterly irresistible about someone looking so lost. And his T-shirt had been tight enough to show a hard flat belly. Real muscle, not Patrick's designer gym tone.

She allowed herself exactly one lewd grin.

It couldn't happen, not with Lewis Walker, but fantasies existed to be enjoyed.

Funny how different they were; yet only a couple of years apart. Him stammering, elated and terrified at being thrust into the limelight; her simply breezing through every public appearance on automatic, bored and resentful.

She could monitor him from afar to make sure he did all right, a modern day fairy godmother, pushing opportunities his way. Event Horizon ran dozens of scholarship schemes for workers who wanted to advance themselves. And she was on the board of two charities promoting further education.

Of course, he wouldn't dare refuse if a place was offered. Nobody in the company ever did refuse her gifts. She saw the site management team clapping conscientiously—obediently. But would he be happy plucked from what he was doing now and shoved into night schools and polytechnic training courses?

Should I interfere?

That's what it boiled down to.

No. The only possible answer. Not unasked. Not in individual lives. People had to be responsible for themselves.

She activated the phone, and placed a call to Horace Jepson. Uncle Horace, though he wasn't really, just a friend of her grandpa's, and now hers. A solid rock of support when she took over Event Horizon. He was the chairman of Globecast, the largest satellite channel company in the world.

His ruddy face appeared on the bulkhead flatscreen. He was in his early sixties, but plastique had reversed entropy, and returned him to his late forties. A rather chubby late forties, she thought disapprovingly.

"Julia! How's my favourite billionairess?"

"Soldiering on, Uncle Horace."

"You don't look like you're suffering. You look gorgeous. Damn, but you grew up pretty. I wish I was twenty years younger."

She put on her most innocent expression, and batted her eyelashes for him. "Uncle Horace, why ever do you want to go back down to being sixty again?"

"Julia!" He looked crestfallen.

"Have you been skipping your diet again?" she asked sternly.

"Terrific. I don't hear a word for three weeks, and she phones me up to nag."

"You have. Well, stop it. You know what your doctor said. You should get out of the office and down to the executive gym."

"Sure thing, Julia. I'll start tomorrow."

She sucked on her lower lip, a bashfulness that wasn't entirely artificial. "Uncle Horace."

"Oh, my God. How much is this going to cost?"

"Nothing. Um, I need a sort of favour."

"You owe me fifteen."

"Can we go for sixteen?"

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "You don't want to meet another actor, do you? Some of my guests still ain't talking to me after that party."

There was a warm tingling in her cheeks at the memory. She was sure she hadn't been as tipsy as everyone said. "No, Uncle Horace," she said firmly. "Definitely no more actors. Do you remember Greg and Eleanor Mandel?"

"Sure, who could forget Eleanor? Greg seemed like a nice guy, on the level. Psychic, right?"

"Yes. We asked him to assist the police working on the Edward Kitchener murder case."

He frowned, fleshy wrinkles deepening around his eyes. "You're involved with that?"

"Event Horizon had a research contract with Kitchener. Right now I'm praying that isn't the reason behind his death. Greg will find out for me."

"I see."

"But the press are giving him a hard time."

"Now come on, Julia."

"I don't want them to stop reporting the case," she said hurriedly. "If they could just lay off badgering Greg. He didn't want to take the case in the first place. And you know he doesn't play the political game, he's too honest. The last thing he needs is the press jumping all over him just for doing his job."

Horace Jepson sighed resignedly. "All right, Julia. I'll tell the editors to go easy."

"Uncle Horace, you're an angel."

"And I'd like you to come to a programme launch party next month." He started typing on a keyboard out of the camera's field of view. "Dreamicind Nights, it's called, a ten-part fantasy drama. It's gonna be big, Julia. This summer's ratings winner."

"I'll be there. Promise."

"Cliff is gonna be organizing it," he said hopefully.

Her contented expression never wavered. She was proud of that self-control. "That'll be nice. I haven't seen him for ages." Clifford Jepson was Horace's son from the first of his four marriages. Julia couldn't stand the sight of him, he had his father's drive without any of his father's charm. It made him come over as brattishly domineering. The trouble was, Uncle Horace had them down as the perfect match, with himself as Cupid.

"OK, Julia, my staff will squirt the details to your office."

"Fine. I'll look forward to it. And thank you again, Uncle Horace."

He signed off smiling happily.

Julia pursed her lips in antipathy. She'd solved Eleanor's grouse; but there was no way she could get out of that bloody launch party now.