Altered States (7 page)

Mila, on the other hand, looked considerably more elegant, when she arrived. But women are good at that kind of thing: looking elegant. She walked over to Conner, took one look at him and broached the expected remark.

‘What happened to
you
?’

‘Long story,’ he moaned. ‘Drink?’

Conner procured a white wine from the bar and they settled down to study the menus. The fact that this exquisitely accurate homage to ale houses of old actually
had
menus didn’t strike either of them as vaguely inconsistent. But that’s progress for you.

Over their meal Conner told Mila about the events of the previous night and she made all the right noises of sympathy and dismay. Then they chatted about nothing work-related, which was somewhat of a rare occurrence. Conner began to realise that he didn’t know as much about Mila as perhaps he should.

‘Us. Here. Now. And don’t give me an innocent look. It doesn’t take a detective – which I
am,
by the way – to determine that this is an unusual turn of events; that something is up. So what is it?’

Conner conceded with a nod.

‘Shall we adjourn,’ he said, motioning to one of the booths. The booth in question was furnished with a battered leather sofa and a low wooden coffee table. They slumped back into the sofa and Conner produced a small package from his jacket.

‘Before we do the
what’s-up
thing, I want you to try something?’ Conner unfolded a piece of paper to reveal two white pills.

‘So, where’s the difference? You can get
these
over the counter in a convenience store. Trust me, the chemicals in these have been subjected to far greater scrutiny than that banoffee pie you’ve just eaten.’

Mila was apprehensive. ‘What do they do?’

‘It’s called EZB. It’s designed as an end-of-evening calmer. Extends all the mellowing, relaxant qualities of alcohol without enhancing the bad ones. Even lessens the effects of a hangover.’

Mila pouted in consideration. ‘If I do this will you tell me what’s going on?’

‘Deal.’

It wasn’t strictly true that you could buy EZB – pronounced ‘easy-be’ with an American ‘Zee’ – over the counter. Not yet at least. Although it had gone through FDA accreditation and was awaiting final sign-off as safe for consumption. It was important for drug companies to take market control quickly after approval of a product, before rogue parties managed to synthesize the drug and start pumping out fakes. So, as it was close to a done deal the well-known drug company that held the patent for EZB had started the production lines rolling in the Far East. Consequently, a number of pills had seeped onto the grey market early. Conner had acquired his from Crystal Seth at quite an extortionate rate, but it would be worth it.

One effect that EZB had was to lower one’s guard and diminish inhibitions; to make you feel more open and confident. Like when a person is drunk, they will say things that they’d never say when sober: will confide personal details that they would never have shared otherwise. EZB has this effect, only stronger. It’s the closest thing there is to a truth serum.

Mila popped a pill and then popped the question again. ‘So why are we here?’

Conner swallowed down his pill and followed it up with a deep breath. He looked straight ahead to avoid eye contact, because he knew it was easier that way. Words didn’t come immediately. He managed a few false starts, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, but with no actual sounds. He tried shuffling around in his blocks a bit, to make sure he was comfortable. He wasn’t. But he had to start sometime. Eventually, the words came out.

‘One thing you might not know ... about guys,’ he began, ‘is that sometimes they need to be vulnerable. They need to be able to show weakness; to be afraid, or sad, or just tired. Culture dictates that they cannot do this very often. Not with strangers or workmates or children. Not even with friends. But with a partner they can. A partner can smooth his feathers, pat his head and say everything’s going to be okay.’

Conner paused momentarily to steel himself.

‘Since I’ve been on my own, since Lisa left, this is what I’ve missed the most. I didn’t expect that, but it’s true. And I’ve been so focused on work and my own problems, that I’ve felt like there’s been no one looking out for me; no one I can be vulnerable with.’

He took a long draw on his drink and then continued.

‘But then, suddenly, I realised something. When I didn’t go into work this morning and I was sitting at home alone, I found myself
expecting
your call; actively
anticipating
it. I realised at that moment that all those mornings when I’d not been eating properly and bagels had appeared on my desk ... somebody had
made
them appear. And when I was down about something, somebody
knew
that I was down, somebody was there asking me if I was okay. I know this sounds bloody obvious but another thing about guys is that they can be fucking dumb sometimes.’

Conner looked up at Mila and laughed at his self-deprecation. She smiled back coyly. Then the seriousness seeped back into Conner’s face. ‘Anyway, it’s bad enough that I didn’t realise this sooner. But what’s much worse is that I didn’t reciprocate, even subconsciously.’ He looked away ashamedly. ‘I guess this makes me a pretty bad person. But the point is,’ he locked eyes again, ‘I’m truly sorry, Mila. This is the very least I can do to start making it up to you. And to say thanks for looking out for me.’

‘Well,’ Mila smiled with dewy eyes, ‘you are welcome.’ Her lips stayed parted as if more words were to come, but none arrived, and silence reigned for a while. There was a palpable tension in the air. Mila could not be fully aware as to why, but that would soon be rectified...

Conner formed a smile; a smile that a select few people in the world would call a Duchenne smile. He just knew it as fake. He fell quiet and focused on the pint glass he was rolling between his hands. He downed what remained of its contents and then placed it heavily on the table, before pulling himself up in the chair and ringing his empty hands together anxiously.

‘The thing I don’t understand, considering all this, considering what a great friend you have been to me all these months...’

‘Yes?’

‘The thing I don’t get is...’ – the thought was thundering through his mind like a runaway locomotive and there was no way he was going to stop it from vocalising – ‘...is why you attacked me last night?’

At this point Conner looked Mila in the eye and waited apprehensively for a reaction. Mila processed what Conner had said for a moment, before she truly grasped what he was asserting. Then her eyes widened in fury.

‘Jesus! Is that what this is all about? You get me here; you fucking
drug
me with whatever this shit is; just to entertain some stupid hypothesis of yours? Is that it?’

‘Did it ever occur to you that the reason I didn’t call was because I actually thought you were big enough to look after yourself for a day? An opinion I may have to alter after this.’

‘I’m sorry. I –’

‘Stop! Don’t even consider giving me the hard-done-by crap again. It only spreads so thin and you’re real close to putting a hole through the bread.’

Mila turned away from Conner as if deciding her next action: leave or stay. She arrived at her decision and turned back to him. Her tone was calmer now.

‘Okay, you want the truth? You want the truth that’s been staring you in the face all these months but which you’ve never seen because you spend all your time looking behind you?’

Conner nodded almost imperceptibly. Mila paused for a moment and her whole demeanour changed. Her shoulders dropped, her expression softened and then water began to well in her eyes. ‘Here’s the truth,’ she said in a hushed voice. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, as if steeling herself, and as she did so a tear seeped out. A couple more breaths and she was ready. She opened her eyes, leaned in and kissed Conner firmly on the lips. For a moment he did not react. Then he began to kiss her back but she pulled away.

In almost a whisper she spoke. ‘There is your truth.’ She turned away shyly. ‘Of
course
I was worried about you today. But a girl gets embarrassed when she’s made a fool of. When she chases a guy but doesn’t get noticed. That’s why I didn’t call to find out where you were. I was desperately hanging on to what little dignity I had left.’ She grabbed her coat from beside her. ‘Now ... now it’s all gone. Thanks.’

She stood and walked away in tears.

Conner stared forward, wide-eyed and motionless; and wondered just how much more spectacularly he could mess up his life if he
really
tried? Maybe he knew the answer.

He took out his gun from its holster. He released the clip, checked its contents and snapped it back home with a satisfying click – all in a single reflexive motion. He didn’t
need
to check. He knew the status of his gun: fully loaded. It’s just one of those things that an armed man does with his gun...

...when he knows he is about to use it.

Detextion

Hiding these days is a lot trickier than it used to be. Not that I’ve tried hiding in any previous time-period, but it’s a considered deduction. Technology is to blame – though I hate to use that word. People like to ‘blame’ technology for a lot of things, whilst reheating their coffee in the microwave. On the whole, technology is pretty awesome. But it necessitates so many extra things to worry about when you’re trying to lay low. Browsing the web is one of them. I’m not alluding to some Big Brother state here. I’m not suggesting that every word you type into a search engine is scrutinised by some government intelligence operative. It would be pointless. You would be amazed at the sheer volume of people searching for instructions on how to make biological weapons on an hourly basis. It would be a complete waste of time to assume that any of the searchers are any more of a threat to the nation than the average eleven-year-old kids from Dorset that they are. Just for the record, I’m not suggesting there is a disproportionate number of budding biological terrorists living in Dorset. It’s just an example, to highlight the impossibility of filtering the few true evil-doers from the millions of simply-curious.

Nevertheless, you’d be naïve to think that your ‘e-activity’ is entirely anonymous and unmonitored. So, I can’t be too careful. As an example of the lengths I have to go to, consider the problem of me wanting to keep tabs on anything – or anyone – known to be associated with me. Bearing in mind that the people I’m hiding from are very resourceful.

For this task I have a mechanism. I employ custom-written data-mining agents: harmless software viruses that replicate themselves across the net, sniffing out information of interest to me. They go to places far beyond the reach of your favourite search engine, sneaking past firewalls, proxies and gateways to reach potentially any resource hooked up to the internet. They can’t defeat all security measures but they come pretty close. And being benign they survive longer than malicious viruses. But they don’t go undetected forever. After a while virus scanners will learn their signature and kill them as soon as they are detected. So from time to time I have to release new ones.

An irksome but clearly necessary restriction of agents is that they can hold no detail pertaining to their owner, such as an email address or a phone number. So when they find stuff that might be of interest, they post snippets of information on public web forums containing innocuous code words that I can look out for. I can hit these forums along with the million other users that day and suddenly I’m a leaf hidden in a forest. This was the mechanism that alerted me to Pearle’s death a year ago; and to Burch’s arrest more recently.

This path to information that I must follow is not entirely undetectable; the trail is still there. But it adds enough layers of indirection to be good enough, for long enough. Long enough to finish up in whatever internet café I am visiting on that occasion and move on.

But it’s not just the web where we leave our signature. You can barely take a piss these days without leaving your watermark in
the matrix
. Every step you take through life you leave behind an electronic breadcrumb trail for anyone to follow: hard disks, cell phones, credit cards, surveillance cameras. And this trail does not get gobbled up by the animals of the woods. It stays.

Considering how heavily the law enforcement agencies rely on these sources for their investigations, it’s hard to imagine how detectives solved
any
crimes fifty years ago. Take away forensics too and I just don’t know where they’d begin.

This e-trail everyone leaves behind is not an issue for the average person on the street. Only those who are particularly paranoid, or are a criminal, or just plain have something to hide. I have something to hide. Me. So it can be hard work sometimes.

But, today, technology was on
my
side. Today,
I
was the detective.

From my meeting with Jackson Burch earlier I learned that he had
not
been involved with Pearle Jenkins’ death. He was quite confident on this issue – I could tell. Which unfortunately meant it was true. After all, he would have remembered. Worse still, he didn’t even know Pearle, or her mother. He had been framed for the whole thing.