Pagans, p.26
Pagans, page 26
By the time Drustan left that morning, Conwenna had made social and informational exchanges with two other locals and a delivery driver. Lots of free gifts and coffee seemed to be involved. Drustan was starting to remember why he’d never enjoyed the brief time he’d spent as a beat cop, back in the West. As far as he was concerned, you had to keep bothering people and look grateful when they bothered you.
‘Have a good day at work, dear,’ Conwenna said to his departing back as Drustan headed for the Underground. ‘Try not to oppress anyone.’
The new office, which was to say the very old office they had inherited, was spacious and high-ceilinged, too old to have a security camera, but with only half the amount of furniture they needed, even for just the four of them. Five, if they could find a way to justify giving Banba a permanent desk. What furniture it did have was chipped, scratched and covered in decades-old coffee stains.
Aedith’s plan had been a good one: a whole day copying every piece of evidence connected to the Hook, every interview transcript, boxing it up and transferring it to the new office – leaving a clear paper trail, of course. Whatever Special Branch wanted they could have. Except Tancred had no real interest in following up the Hook killings now he had all the credit for taking him down and was going to be chasing Fishers around the city instead. Although with what Aedith had told them about Hengist’s description of the Fishers as a loosely aligned group at best, with only the faintest possible whisper of a command structure, Drustan suspected the Fishers might not have too much to worry about. From that direction, at least.
‘How’s your new accommodation?’ asked Aedith, only slightly dishevelled despite nearly a full day of box-heaving and furniture-shifting. Drustan tried to ignore the thin layer of dust already covering his cleaned suit. ‘Slightly classier area of town, I noticed.’
‘I don’t know how long I’ll be staying,’ said Drustan. ‘Better furnishings than the academy, but emotionally, it might prove a little wearing. The woman I’m staying with is technically my wife. Arranged marriage, when we were teens,’ he added quickly. ‘Political purposes only.’
Aedith smirked. Banba looked faintly embarrassed.
Agapos appeared in the doorway, dragging in a heavy wooden desk that probably hadn’t been used since the days officers smoked inside the building and kept revolvers in a drawer with a clipboard you only filled in when you’d actually shot someone, and even then, you weren’t expected to count the bullets.
‘There’s more going in Financial Crimes,’ said Agapos. ‘The High Table’s been blocking them at every turn lately; their loss may as well be our gain.’
‘Excellent scrounging, Sergeant,’ said Aedith. ‘This will be reflected in your performance review. Naeku, that’s the last of it?’
‘Four more to go, ma’am,’ said the constable, hauling in the most recent in a succession of cardboard boxes. ‘I’m afraid we’ve already used up the entire photocopying budget.’
‘Something I’m realising about the Saxon system of policing,’ said Drustan, helping Aedith pin a Fengyr crime scene photo up on the wall, stretching a length of red yarn from it to another, as far as he could tell, completely unconnected photo, ‘is the possibility of using paperwork offensively. It’s something that never occurred to me before.’
‘I hate that it’s something I have to do,’ said Aedith, pulling a picture of a severed head from a box, grimacing at it and pinning it to the nearest board. ‘But I hate more the fact that I’m really good at it.’
Finally, they were done. Drustan stepped back to the centre of the room. It looked more than good enough. If the Mughal film star had been starring in a feature about a small band of determined officers chasing a deranged serial killer, the director would have congratulated this level of set-design work. Gory black and white photos, reports cut out of tabloids with question marks drawn on them in permanent marker, discreetly taken observation shots of suspects (actually pulled out of cases closed, in some instances, a decade ago), many crossed out with bright red marker in a way that asked so many more questions than it answered.
Naeku had printed out prop documents from a board game she’d found online where you had to decrypt the confessions of an insane super-genius killer. She’d even gone as far as, in a moment of artistic genius unusual in a serving police officer, soaking the paper in herbal tea, and when it had dried, slightly burning the corners with a lit match. It now looked like a document dating back to the days when the industrial revolution had finally made it to the Kingdom’s shore, centuries after everyone had got the hang of Caliphate looms and Pan-African steam power, dug up from the city’s ancient records in a desperate attempt to solve an impossible case.
‘Connection?!’ Naeku had written on a post-it note stuck over the crabbed runes and deliberately indecipherable scrawls. ‘Possible copycat?!!!’
‘Leads, then,’ said Aedith. ‘On the real case. Orva can’t give us much more. If things were different, I’d look at the other dead Fishers, open the case files. The top brass wouldn’t have been keen before, and with Tancred claiming he took out the Hook as he was about to blow up our station, they definitely won’t be up for it now and we don’t have the manpower anyway. Forensics have nothing significant. Small traces of Wettin’s blood from the second site, nothing from the killer. What about Wettin’s last movements?’
Naeku took out her tablet, scrolled through it. ‘She was working late at the Skeid, went back to her car for something, wasn’t seen again. Left her phone charging at her desk, so no chance of tracking her movements that way.’
‘CCTV?’
Naeku tapped her slate, turned it round. Eawynn Wettin, walking down the deserted corridors of the Skeid.
‘She’s heading for the rear car park.’
A view from a different camera, then another. Wettin moving further from safety each time. Then nothing. Gone.
‘The CCTV in the car park wasn’t operational. No sign of her after that.’
‘The camera’s definitely not working? Not just missing footage? Forgive me if I’m starting to go a bit dark elves on this one.’
Naeku shook her head. ‘They put in a repair order a week ago, seems genuine enough, repaired it, put it back in yesterday, which doesn’t do us any good. There’s another camera watching the road exit, but no vehicles left that evening. In fact, the only vehicle in the car park was Wettin’s.’
‘May I?’ Drustan took the tablet, dragged his finger back and forth across the time bar, Wettin walking to her sad fate, being saved then pulled back to her death again over and over again. ‘What about the drones? They’re flying over the place day and night. Any way to see if any of them have anything useful?’
‘Not without tipping our hand,’ said Aedith. ‘And it’s not likely Diplomatic Protection would turn it over at the best of times. They don’t like sharing their toys. What about…’
Aedith wiggled her fingers suggestively. Drustan frowned, bemused.
‘Casting a spell?’
‘Doing your little hacking trick. Can’t ask Banba, it’s instant dismissal, for both of us. And to be clear, I’m not requesting you hack into the DP servers, I’m just asking if it’s possible.’
‘It’s not really hacking as Banba would understand it. More a few override passwords here and there. Anyway, it’s possible, but again, we’d be tipping our hand. Also, bearing in mind I’m from an allied but foreign country, a likely diplomatic incident.’
‘Well,’ said Aedith. ‘We wouldn’t want that.’
Drustan handed the tablet back to Naeku. ‘Angwin was called away from a bar late at night, Wettin almost certainly abducted from a secure venue at a similar hour. If the killer wasn’t known to the victim, he seems to be able to call them away and get them to a secondary location with considerable ease.’
‘Which a reeve could do,’ said Aedith. ‘Works late hours, trusted by members of the public.’
Saxon members of the public maybe, thought Drustan, but he didn’t say anything.
Naeku was already scrolling through a database on the tablet. ‘I could get a list of reeves who passed through or near the area Wettin went missing that night without setting off too many alarms.’
‘Would Angwin have trusted a police officer though? Enough to go off with them late at night without leaving a note of where he was going? I can’t see it.’
‘Could it have been a date?’ asked Agapos.
Aedith opened her mouth, closed it again. ‘Hmm.’
‘Didn’t sound likely, from our source,’ said Drustan. ‘But not impossible. Certainly could explain why an already slightly drunk Tribal goes off with a big blond Saxon without asking too many questions.’
Aedith leaned warily on a table, as though expecting it to fly apart in a shower of sawdust and shards of laminate any moment. ‘We don’t have enough staff to go door to door asking Wettin’s friends and neighbours if they saw anything. Banba will give us all the free time she has, but that amounts to shit-all of late. Although there’s something I’ve been wondering. How was the Hook tracking down Fishers in the first place?’
‘If he’s a reeve,’ said Agapos, ‘maybe a beat cop, he’ll meet a lot of people in the course of his duties. Keep a note of anyone with a fish mark, come back for them later.’
Aedith shook her head. ‘It’s only the kids from the home who had their marks put on where everyone could see them. The newer Fishers are more discreet.’
‘Infiltration?’ suggested Naeku. ‘They’re actively looking for new members, or they were, at least. Show an interest, join one group, take notes, move onto another.’
‘Someone would have noticed, surely. Big blond guy starts sitting in on meetings, shortly afterwards Fishers go missing? Sounds like they were pretty paranoid before this all started. I think one of them would have contacted us by now or talked to Hengist at least.’
‘That’s how he got started. What if he’s now finished?’ said Drustan.
They turned to him. ‘Do spree killers just stop?’ asked Naeku.
‘Usually only when they’re killed or caught. But the Fishers have gone to ground, as best they can now they’ve been pulled out of the shadows. Special Branch consider them a domestic threat, they’ve brought all this attention to the Summit. What’s to stop him fading away? The official word is the Hook was shot in the head in a police station foyer. He seems like a smart, patient guy, his DNA and fingerprints aren’t on record, he could just lay low for a few years, maybe pick back up again when the dust has settled.’
‘Thanks for that depressing thought,’ said Aedith.
‘…unless we tempt him out,’ said Drustan.
They stared at him.
‘You’re suggesting, what? One of us get a Fisher mark, flash it around on social media?’ asked Aedith.
‘Interesting idea, although currently I think Special Branch might get to whoever did that before the Hook could. I was thinking instead of the public- relations firm he’s been working with. If Banba’s correct, I think their relationship might have soured recently. I think that may be a way in.’
Drustan stopped. The others were gaping at him. Aedith was the first to shake off the spell. ‘Wait, he’s been working with what?’
FIFTY
A knock on the door, which opened immediately, Banba silently letting herself in. She sat on a corner desk, holding a sticker-encrusted laptop close to her chest, looked at Drustan, who nodded in return.
Aedith was still reeling. ‘A public-relations firm?’
Naeku and Agapos were saying nothing, a brief glance passing between them suggesting this was well above their pay grade.
‘It makes sense. According to what your father said,’ continued Drustan, ‘there’s a loose affiliation of powerful interests who don’t want this Summit to succeed, correct? Interests who have more to gain through the three Kingdoms remaining divided. Let’s say a loose conglomeration of billionaires and multinationals, a couple of tech giants who like things just as they are. Some Pan-African, some Mughal, but national borders mean very little at that scale, ironically enough.’
‘That’s more or less what he implied.’
‘And that’s how these forces operate on the earthly plane, isn’t it? Through lawyers and thinktanks and, when you want to really influence popular opinion one way or another, public-relations firms.’
Aedith rubbed her eyes tiredly. ‘Okay, look. What my dad said has been backed up since by… let’s say sources I can’t reveal. But so what? We can’t take on those kinds of higher powers. We’d need an army of lawyers, a hundred reeves just to carry the paperwork, forensic accountants and we’d still never get near them. All we can achieve here on the mortal plane is to take down the Hook.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Drustan. ‘But what if there was someone between that higher realm and a spree killer going around nailing up Fishers? Someone we’ve already brushed against throughout this whole case, but never quite knew what we had? Someone who might be within reach.’
Aedith sipped her tea, pulled a face.
‘Go on.’
‘That manifesto put out by the Hook was nonsense, wasn’t it? Covered too many topics, had no logical through-line, but it got people’s attention, didn’t it? What did Banba say about the video? It was cheap, but whoever did the editing knew their stuff. Now it’s possible that the Hook, as well as being able to lift up a victim with one hand and nail them to a tree, is also a talented media expert, but it seems unlikely. I think that stuff was put together by professionals. The sort of team you’d assemble to launch a new car or get a star athlete into the papers. Or keep him out of them.’
‘The fake Hook, the bomber,’ said Aedith. ‘He’d been given a script, told to look for the camera. Are you saying someone focus-grouped his lines?’
‘Maybe. Either way, we’re not just looking for the Hook, we’re looking for the professionals behind him. A team, who were asked to help disrupt the Summit and found themselves an enthusiastic killer to help them do it. And they had to be led by someone.’
‘Wait,’ said Naeku. ‘My cousin interned for a public-relations firm for a month or so. They had her sending out press releases out to different journalists, posting positive comments whenever a client appeared on the gossip sites, that sort of thing. I don’t think they ever killed anyone.’
She’d got more confident, Drustan thought, willing to cast doubt on his theory, and he couldn’t blame her – it wasn’t like he’d mentioned only putting two and two together via a drug-fuelled flashback.
But Aedith was shaking her head, her gaze still fixed on the laptop screen. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘My family have worked with some of the big firms in the past. They’re players, they can do some nasty shit, use the socials to swing a vote a few points in whichever direction you want, turn a war hero into a snivelling wretch or the other way around. This is definitely a move right off the board though.’
‘Banba,’ said Drustan. ‘Show us what you found.’
She opened her laptop, spinning it around so they could all see the screen, currently occupied by an animated knot design, turning itself inside out over and over again, subtly changing form each time, from dolphin to hunting dog to hawk and back to dolphin again. The iconography was almost, but not quite, Tribal. The faint otherness of it was unsettling. Drustan had to look away after a while.
‘My own,’ said Banba, tapping the spacebar quickly, the animation vanishing, replaced by a series of overlapping spreadsheets. ‘Not supposed to bring my personal tech in, but I’m with Property Crimes at the moment, and their stuff is riddled with malware. Someone in Novgorod really doesn’t want them to know how much property in London is secretly owned by the Tsarist Conglomerate.’
‘Not even going near that one,’ said Aedith.
‘Banba has managed to trace Ash and Stone,’ said Drustan. ‘Or whoever owns them.’
Aedith pulled a face. ‘The party-supplies company? Thought they’d vanished?’
Banba’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Spreadsheets started duplicating, nesting in infinite stacks. Drustan had to look away – it was even more discomforting than the knot animation.
‘If they ever existed in the first place. They didn’t have a real address, just a temporary location where items could be picked up and dropped off. Not quite a shell company, more of a disposable one. It’s becoming more common with businesses that do a lot of different things, but don’t want to get too tied down. You buy off-the-shelf corporate software that runs the invoicing, payments, all that.’
‘So,’ said Aedith, ‘you found another party-supplies company run by the same people? I’m always happy to buy balloons and honeycakes, if that’s the more legal end of their wares, but I’m not sure this gets us closer to the Hook.’
‘What I went looking for,’ said Banba, clearly trying not to sound as though she was being patient, ‘was another company using the same combination of software packages, with the same serial number. The serial number isn’t supposed to transfer across, but I thought if they’d been a bit slapdash before, using the wrong account to get that phone delivered all over town, they might do it again. I had run a brute-force comparison analysis—’
‘Keep it simple,’ said Aedith. ‘We are but humble reeves here, unable to comprehend the higher dimensions in which you operate.’
