Great North Road (6 page)

Two aides in smart dark suits slid in behind O’Rouke: Chloe Healy, the force’s information officer, and Jenson San, the senior staff representative. Sid struggled not to give them the stone-face of contemptuous hatred. He really despised their type—enforcers and executioners of the regime—and as for their ability to misinterpret and misrepresent on behalf of their Dark Overlord, it was something that he could never master, let alone better.

Sid braced himself. This would be the moment when he was taken aside and given his new case assignment for the week. It was a shame—he could have done with the overtime.

O’Rouke shook his hand. “How’s it going, Detective?”

“Handover from the night shift almost complete, sir. The preliminary data I requested is downloaded. I’m about to outline the procedures I want followed, and designate assignments.” He was trying not to be obvious, glancing over O’Rouke’s shoulder to see which senior crony was hovering in the corridor ready to be introduced. But Jenson San closed the office door, and the blue rim light came on to show the room was secure.

“That’s good,” O’Rouke said; he turned to face the team. “All right, people, we all know the identity of the victim is going to create a storm of media interest. I want to emphasize that you do not make unauthorized statements. So we’re perfectly clear: that is not one fucking word. Anything, any contact you have with reporter scum or unlicensed site reps, you refer to Chloe here.” He indicated the information officer. “That directive is to be passed right down the chain of command to the police and agency staff you’ll be multiplying your investigation with. I can assure you that whatever budget requirement you have, it will be met. For this I expect a positive result. Newcastle must send out a clear message that no one is above or beyond the law. Nobody arrives here and commits this kind of crime against our most distinguished family and gets away with it. Understood?”

He was awarded a muttering of “yes sir” from the team, and nodded gruffly at them. “Good, I’m sure you will make me proud.” He inclined his head at Sid. “Detective, a word.”

Here we go.
Sid walked into the small office, watching as O’Rouke first went over to the two 2Norths and shook each of them by hand, muttering: “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Bastard.

Surprisingly the chief didn’t bring his aides with him as he joined Sid in the office. “Good move calling me right away,” O’Rouke said.

“Frankly, I didn’t know what else to do. A murder I can handle. But this … Fuck! A North!”

“Yeah. I’m not even going to tell you how much shit I’ve showered in already today. The mayor is crapping bricks the size of a bungalow, and the city prosecution director has retained a London firm to handle the case when you take it to court—which you
will
be doing. You’ll be getting a call from them in about half an hour to discuss strategy and the level of evidence they’ll need.”

Sid leaned back slightly and looked at the imposing chief constable with slightly narrowed eyes. “Me?”

“Yeah, you, Hurst.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“No other fucker on the second floor will step up and put his dick on the block. It’s you.”

“Shit! Okay.”

“You screw up every now and then, who doesn’t? But Chloe and Jenson went over your record after I woke them up at one o’clock this morning—they hate you for that by the way—but they say you’re an okay detective, you know procedure, and you know the system. And face it, you can call down whatever covering fire you want with this one; Christ, you want to hire CERN for forensics, you got it. We have a tap directly into Northumberland Interstellar’s primary credit account. Every agency we’ve ever dealt with is going to be calling in favors all over the station just for the privilege of meeting you so they can hand you and your boy season tickets to St. James Park for the next ten years.”

“Christ.” Despite the shock, Sid was actually enjoying the idea of being left in charge. Typical that everyone else was so shit-scared for their career, they’d even risk defying O’Rouke. And that same second-floor “everybody” thought he was on his way out—which he was, just not in a way they imagined. Besides, unlimited budget for real, that was like watching the Gunners get a five–nil result over Man U.

“So what have you got?” O’Rouke asked.

“Sweet FA so far. I don’t even have a name yet, but I’ve put our pet Norths on finding out. I figured that was safest.”

“Okay, but they’re not here just for show. Use the buggers, don’t patronize them. They’re going to provide Augustine the proof I need him to have about how effective and dedicated my force is to finding the bastard that did this.”

“Right …,” Sid said cautiously.

“What?”

“Circumstances. He was naked, and that was a weird wound. This isn’t some mugging that went wrong.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it could get unpleasant.”

“No shit, genius?”

“What if we find stuff the Norths don’t want people knowing about them?”

“Then they’re going to be seriously pissed off with
you,
aren’t they?”

Sid took a long look at O’Rouke’s face, ruddy from high blood pressure, the craggy skin arranged in a viciously belligerent expression. Challenging him. Daring him. The same pissing contest as always.

“I’m due a promotion,” Sid said.

“You’re just back off suspension.”

“Aye, but I’m covering your arse on this. You don’t get that for free. I want grade five or I walk.”

“Fucking walk then.”

Sid turned and went for the door. Calculated risk …

“You stop right there, you little motherfucker,” O’Rouke snapped.

With his back to the chief constable, Sid grinned before turning around.

“If you don’t solve this, and I mean get the bastard convicted, I will personally fry your balls for breakfast and feed them to the Norths,” O’Rouke said.

“Deal.”

O’Rouke jabbed a fat finger under Sid’s nose. “And be clear, there is no weird, no kinky, no tox involvement, nothing that drops a turd on the North family. He was a decent man murdered by scum.”

“That’s what I believe. That’s what we’re working to prove.”

“Okay then, you and me get what this shit is about. Update me every two hours.” O’Rouke delivered one last warning glare before he pulled the door open. Chloe Healy and Jenson San fell in behind him as he left Office3 without a further word.

Everybody else turned to look at Sid with expressions ranging from curious to fascinated. He walked over to the door and shut it carefully, waiting until the blue rim light was on.

“All right then,” Sid told them. “This is how it is. Last night a male we’ve preliminarily identified as a North was pulled from the river. There’s a wound to the chest, and he was naked, which gives it a one-oh-one classification. What we’re focusing on this morning is finding his identity and where he was dumped into the Tyne. Detective Dobson, what do we have by way of river traffic last night?”

“We identified three possibles,” she said. “River police intercepted and inspected all of them.”

“Good work,” Sid said.

“Thanks. The first was the
Menthanine:
corporate charter boat, clean record, taking a group of four businessmen on a fishing trip. According to the captain, they’d been toxing up on board since late afternoon, and he was taking them out to the Scottish Isles overnight so they could start fishing when they were awake and sober.”

“Toxed argument that ended badly?” Ian queried.

“The trip had been booked for five weeks,” Dobson said. “They were the only ones listed, and the crew confirms no one else was on board. But the
Menthanine
left from Dunston Marina, so I’ve acquired the mesh logs from its quay to review and see if our North came on board. I have to say: doubtful. The river police were satisfied their story was legitimate, too. However, they were ordered to make anchor off Tynemouth so we can run a forensic check this morning. Same goes for the
Bay Spirit
. That’s a private yacht owned by a Tammie and Mark Haiah. It’s just been refurbished, and starting off an around-the-world voyage; you can hire it for weeklong periods between nice marinas and yacht clubs. First booking begins in Normandy in four days’ time. This was the shakedown voyage; captain and the steward are a boyfriend–girlfriend crew. No one else on board.”

“And the third?” Sid asked.

“Another yacht. This seems to be the night for it. The
Dancer’s Moon,
big floating gin palace, with a crew of seven owned by Corran Fiele. He’s a director of several local service and engineering companies. He’s taking his wife and three kids down to the Med for the rest of the winter. Again, doesn’t look suspicious, but they’re anchored with the others.”

“Okay, thanks, good work. I will sort getting forensics out there to clear them. So, we still need our two basics: name and crime location. Once we have them we can work our magic and plot his time line. Now, I’m expecting friend or family or workplace to call him in as missing soon enough, but I still want us to be checking. Abner and Ari, that’s you to start with. The rest of you, I want all the riverside mesh memories confirmed then indexed on a map zone so we can see our field of coverage. It was high tide at twenty-one forty-two hours last night, so begin with that as the dump time, as the body had to have been washed downstream. We’ll narrow it down after the autopsy, but what I want to know is last night’s blind spots in the mesh surveillance. This had purpose behind it—dumping the body was deliberate—and whoever did it isn’t going to be waving at the smartdust.”

Sid was pleased to see the way they just got on with it. The team was competent. The night shift handed over codes and began organizing data without any time spent on bullshit office who’s-doing-what, I-want-this. They just each took a section of river, and began indexing the mesh memories.

After verifying the yachts were still in place and being watched by the river police, Sid called Osborne at Northern Forensics and arranged for each boat to be inspected. They were his preferred company, well equipped with decent personnel—

and his secondary got a cash deposit each time he threw work their way. The call was official, logged and recorded by the police network, so Osborne kept personal chat to a minimum, but he was quick to prioritize the case after Sid showed him the assigned financial rating. He was promised that a team for the boats would be at Tynemouth within an hour.

“Three teams,” Sid said. “One for each boat.”

Osborne took a moment to absorb that. “It’s Monday morning.”

“If you can’t give me what I need, I’ll take the contract to a company that can. I need this going quickly and effectively.”

“Of course, I’ll see to it personally. Three teams it is.”

“I’m sending an officer and three agency constables with each team in case they find any blood spill. They’ll be at Tynemouth in thirty minutes; make sure your people are there in time.” He shouldn’t have grinned at the blank screen after Osborne’s pained expression faded to black, but if you couldn’t act like a prima donna bitch on this one, then when could you?

With the first round of forensics sorted, Sid started helping with the surveillance logs. He sat at one of the spare zone consoles and the slim rectangular screen immediately curved toward him with an aquatic motion, forming a semicircle around his head. Its projection interfaced with his iris smartcells, immersing him in a perfect holographic display, resembling a miniature zone. When he glanced down, his hands were hovering in the keyspace, a cube of air above the desk’s keyboard. His personal operating topography materialized, icons with cog-like protrusions that he could spin and turn in three dimensions with an easy fingertip flip.

He took a section of the northern riverbank between the Tyne Bridge and the Redheugh Bridge. The city had sprayed a band of smartdust three meters up on all the ancient buildings set back on the other side of the road that ran above the river. That gave the pinhead-sized particles a decent angle of view over the streets and the railings above the bank. Meshed together they should provide total coverage, showing him cars and pedestrians. Dobson had taken the memories from midday Sunday to two o’clock this morning. There were a few gaps where individual smartdust motes had glitched or were smeared in pigeon crap or snow and ice had frozen over them, but the overall mesh memory had enough data to be formatted into a single 3-D montage capable of being played inside a zone. That left the road macromesh, controlling and monitoring traffic, which had to be combined with the visual record to give an aggregate of the riverside.

Sid scanned through the midday-Sunday visual image as if he were gliding along the street, looking out across the river, establishing the baseline resolution quality. “Aye, crap on it.” He stopped the replay when he was just east of the venerable swing bridge, leaving him looking out at a nightclub boat moored to the refurbished wooden pier that extended out from the bridge’s southern support. “Anyone know how many party boats are moored along the river these days?”

Ian looked up from his zone console, where he’d been reviewing mesh memories around the King Edward railway bridge. “Five or six, I think,” he said.

“We’re going to need all their surveillance.”

“Dobson already got them,” Eva said.

“Hell, she’s good.”

By ten o’clock Abner and Ari still hadn’t gotten a positive identification on the body. That was starting to bug Sid.

“We’ve got most 2Norths confirmed as alive,” Abner said by way of compensation.

Sid told them to stick with it. He was frontloading a lot of reliance on the autopsy now. Once they found method and estimated immersion time they’d have
something
to go on. Even so, a name would be a lot better.

Jenson San reappeared just before eleven. “The North family have arranged for an observing coroner at the autopsy,” he told Sid. “And we have the chief coroner himself performing the examination.”

“Thanks.”

“Do we have the victim’s identity yet?”

Sid shook his head, irritated by the one crucial missing item. For a victim of this high profile it really didn’t reflect well on himself and the team. And damnit, they were a good team.