Great North Road (61 page)

“So how the fuck did you do it?” Sid asked the bleak, semi-forgotten district.

He started walking, heading along Railway Terrace, with the stone embankment wall on one side topped by a disheveled wilderness of bushes and trees, and the dilapidated railings of the company yards on the other. Under another antique railway bridge on Dunn Street, just as decrepit as the last one, but with broad curving steps on one side that led up to Cuttings Garden. Along Railway Street, which had the rear entrances to another row of small companies huddled in their tumbledown frame-and-panel buildings, a refuge for the machines and electronics and crafts of previous generations. Behind them, farther downslope, he could make out the curving roof of the City Arts Arena, which was covered in scaffolding and automata as it went a full refurbishment, bringing it up to the latest venue standards. He walked the length of Railway Street, hunched against the damp air, until he came to Plummer Street, then he doubled back, walking along the side of the A695 dual carriageway that was the Scotswood Road. Traffic here was a monotonous buzz of fuel cell vehicles, churning up a mist-like spray that beaded his leather jacket as he trudged along the crumbling tarmac pavement. The Fortin singletown loomed up on his right, a drab carbon cliff inset with blank silvered windows that emitted no light. On his side of the road were the garage showrooms and the big stores of semi-industrial products, the refrigeration units and power cells and automata and engineering tools and retail fittings that a city like Newcastle bought in quantity. A prosperous stretch of road then, shielding the motorist’s eye from the grungy old-style industry that occupied the slope behind it.

Sid had no idea what he was doing, other than confronting his enemy. This was where he’d been defeated, here among the decaying tarmac and obsolete buildings. Somehow they’d been utilized to fool and mock him. Secret tunnels. Micro gateways. Something! There had to be something here they’d all missed. His ridiculous, doomed observation in Last Mile on Sunday night had triggered the conviction: Not everything is on the map.

He reached the Peperelli scooter showroom. There was a narrow alley between it and the Kiano car showroom next door, leading back down to Water Street. He glanced down it, seeing the washed-blue bridge. Footpath only—no way you could drive a taxi down there. He plodded onward, past the glass windows sheltering the cheap cars imported from Taiyuan, one of the Unified Chinese Worlds. Between the showroom and the U-Fix budget DIY store next door was a little lane at right angles to the A695, a lane that led around to the compound at the back of the Kiano showroom, and the U-Fix loading bay. Sid hesitated, then slowly walked down toward the ivy-swamped chain-link mesh that sealed off the compound from Cuttings Garden. His e-i sent out a ping, but the damp tarmac below his feet didn’t have any smartdust, wasn’t part of the city macromesh. Sid pressed his face against the wobbly chain-link mesh, peering through the ivy and thorny strands of bramble on the other side.

They’d never checked it back in January. Never seen that under a meter of snow it was a blank wilderness. Never seen this end of Cuttings Garden from the Water Street Bridge to the Regal bioil station at the end had been cleared of plants and benches and paths and ponds and the visitor information center. Never seen that it had been bulldozed flat in preparation for development.

Never queried it during 207 taxi backtracks because on the simulation the template from the city planning office still showed it as Cuttings Garden, the sweet little urban greenland amenity. And if the template said so …

Sid shoved his fingers through the mesh and pulled
hard
. The whole fence swayed back, and one of the wooden posts lifted off the ground. It was rotten, broken off at ground level. Those thick gnarly strands of ivy that wove through the mesh were just about all that held the fence in place now.

“Oh yeah,” Sid growled. He rattled the fence again, feeling his heart pound furiously as the mesh bobbed about limply. “You smart, smart bastards. Oh that was good. That was so very good.”

W
EDNESDAY,
M
ARCH 13, 2143

Sid didn’t need the alarm clock to wake up. He’d been lying on the bed with his eyes open since at least six o’clock, shifting from his back to his side, trying not to pull the duvet about too much. In truth, he hadn’t slept much at all that night. His mind was too busy, too excited. He hadn’t gotten back home until after midnight, and even when he did sneak into bed he couldn’t resist playing the small visual file over and over through his iris smartcells. Just to make absolutely sure. It had taken hours of data mining to secure the final proof he was going to need to confront O’Rouke with, and he wasn’t about to assign anyone else to the task. Abner or Dedra could probably have found the data and run the image filters in less than an hour. Sid didn’t want them involved. He was the one O’Rouke had set up. Now he’d put it together. Today was the day Sid Hurst turned it all around. And that felt wonderful.

He watched the luminous figures on the clock head toward seven o’clock, and reached over to switch the alarm off. The movement was too big. Jacinta groaned and stirred. Those enchanting green eyes peered at him as if confused by what she saw.

“What time did you get in?” she asked.

“Late. Sorry.”

“How bad is it? You look happy. Did you find the taxi?”

“It’s good. I’ve cracked the case.”

She shuffled up onto her elbows. “The backtrack worked?”

“Not quite.”

“But—”

“Hey, have a little faith.” He leaned over and kissed her.

“Sid!” It wasn’t exactly a protest. They kissed again, moving closer as blood heated. Hands pushed impatiently at the duvet, shoving it down. He started unbuttoning her PJs, slower now, heady with promise. Jacinta’s chortle was enthusiastic and amazingly dirty.

Thudding feet rampaged down the short landing outside. Ending as the bathroom door was slammed shut.

“But I was first,” Zara wailed in end-of-the-world torment. Her little fists beat against the bathroom door in rage. “Let me in, ya dosshead.”

“Stuff you,” Will called out happily.

Sid started laughing. He disentangled himself.

Jacinta just rolled her eyes and sighed. “Ah well. At least I got to remember what it was like.”

Sid climbed out of the bed. Looked around in puzzlement at the cases and boxes that took up most of the floor. Yesterday’s clothes were slung over a pile of plastic cartons printed with the removal firm’s logo. “Er … where?”

“Clean shirts in the blue case.” Jacinta pointed, then started shoving clips into her hair.

“Thanks. Um, socks?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “If you were here to help, as you keep saying you will be—”

“I know. I’m a pig. But, pet, this is so close to over.”

“You’re very certain about that, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Mum!” Zara cried. “Will’s finished, but he won’t come out. He’s doing it deliberately.”

“Am not!” Will’s muffled voice claimed indignantly.

“I’ll get it,” Sid said blithely, which earned him another curious look from Jacinta.

Breakfast was a glass of orange juice and a Marmite toast sandwich packet lifted from the fridge and shoved into the microwave. He noticed there wasn’t much of anything left in the fridge.

“You should eat better,” Jacinta said as she poured cereal into bowls for their feuding children.

“I’ll get a proper lunch,” Sid claimed, knowing there’d be no chance. Today was yesterday revisited, yesterday as it should have been. He hadn’t felt this upbeat in ages. “But I’ve got to get into the station early.”

Will and Zara had both started eating their cereal. Jacinta gave them a careful glance before fixing Sid with her gaze. “You do remember we’re moving on Saturday, don’t you, pet,” she said in a low, warning voice.

“Aye, man. I know. Some credit, please.”

“Good. Because you’re here on Friday helping me finish the packing, then we’ve got to clean this place top-to-bottom.”

“We can get a firm in to do that. We’re not broke, and you deserve a break.”

“Sid …” She was genuinely worried now.

He went over and kissed her. “I mean it. Now I’ve got to go. And I’ll probably be late again tonight. But I’ll call and let you know, I promise.”

“You are all right, aren’t you, pet? The North case?”

“I’m good. And tonight I’ll sit down and tell you all about it.”

Sid was mildly surprised when the lift took him up to Market Street’s sixth floor. You had to press the button and have your e-i enter a code. He wouldn’t have put it past O’Rouke to restrict him, especially after he went walkabout yesterday afternoon—then told his e-i to refuse all calls from his police colleagues while he sat in an empty office on the second floor to data mine until late into the evening.

O’Rouke’s PA protested when he walked into the corner office’s anteroom, but Sid simply ignored the bluster about appointments and a full diary and following protocol. “I’ll wait,” he said, and went over to the window to watch the drizzle soaking early commuters scuttling along Pilgrim Street.

Sure enough, O’Rouke arrived at eight fifteen, as he did every morning. Dressed in his immaculate uniform, tailored to deemphasize the gut, with gold braid shining on his shoulders. Head down and scowling as he stomped across the anteroom toward the safety of his office. Obviously pre-warned that Sid was stalking him, there was no attempt at eye contact or acknowledgment. Jenson San was with him, like some kind of wingman interceptor ready to thwart any attempt Sid might make to plead for more time.

“Good morning, sir, I need to see you,” Sid announced in an annoyingly sprightly voice. He knew he should be aiming for conciliation, but what the hell …

O’Rouke kept on going for the sanctuary of his office. He didn’t quite hesitate, but it was close, because he knew Sid just didn’t have any right to be that confident.

“I know who did it,” Sid said.

O’Rouke hadn’t quite made it to his office door. This time he hesitated. Fatal.

“You know shit,” Jenson San said. “You didn’t even file a summary as you were ordered. That’s a disciplinary offense. Another one on your woeful record.”

“My report will go direct to Ralph Stevens,” Sid said. “I have his personal and direct interface code. Do you really want the HDA to be told I know how to solve the case and you blocked it?”

“I’m not blocking anything, you useless turd,” O’Rouke barked.

“Good, then I need to run the theater simulation one last time.”

O’Rouke took a step toward Sid, his ruddy face darkening, highlighting the web of tiny blue veins on his nose and cheeks. “You think I don’t know who maneuvered Elston into reactivating that theater? Did you think that was funny? Did you?”

“I don’t think it was funny. I needed it. I got it. That’s all that matters. Same as this.”

O’Rouke was silent for a moment as he considered his options. “What the fuck have you got?”

Sid gave a pointed glance at the PA, then Jenson San. “This case is classified as high as anything ever can be.”

O’Rouke’s mouth squashed to a bloodless line. Sid half expected to hear teeth grinding.

“Get in here,” O’Rouke snapped and stomped into his office.

Sid grinned a taunt at Jenson San and followed O’Rouke in. The door closed and the blue seal came on. Windows turned opaque.

“You’ve got some balls,” O’Rouke said grudgingly as he sat in his desk chair.

“Because I can back it up. We both knew this was going to be a pig right from the start.”

“Don’t I fucking know it. The mayor isn’t even taking calls from me anymore. Scrupsis won’t
stop
calling me. Those HDA shits still haven’t paid us a single eurofranc. And I’ve got you spending money like a New Monaco parasite.”

“Parasites don’t produce anything useful.”

“All right, enough with the fucking gloating. What did you find yesterday after you walked out on your team? And it better be good.”

“The map is not the territory.”

“What?”

“They outsmarted me. That’s what happened. They know our procedures, the gangs always have. And they were ready for us. Look, you’ve just murdered a North—a North for fuck’s sake!—and you know that’s going to bring a universe of turds tumbling down on you, since the resources the police are going to devote to the case will be phenomenal. But you fool us into thinking the bodydump was ordinary, that you’re going by the numbers, just like the investigation. It was a decoy. The ripped meshes, the burnout in the GSW district. All designed to show us they were playing their side of the game straight down the middle. A taxi drives to Elswick Wharf, throws the body in the Tyne, and drives out to the GSW where it’s firebombed. We know that happened. So we devote everything we have to finding that taxi driving to Elswick. And I mean everything: money, political clout, man-hours, AI time. There’s never been a simulation this big before, it’s unheard of, it simply doesn’t get any more impressive. But they know what we’re looking for, they guided us into thinking they’d buggered the roads and surveillance across the city so they could sneak the taxi in there without us being able to confirm it. And we—I—fell for it.”

“All right, smartarse, so what did happen?”

Sid told his e-i to activate one of O’Rouke’s wallscreens. A map centered on Water Street materialized.

“We tracked every taxi that went into that general area for two hours before the body was dumped on Sunday night. That’s how we got our two hundred and seven. But we didn’t count them back out again. Why would we? We knew it had to be one of them—after all, we found it in the GSW. If we had counted them out we’d have found the discrepancy. They pulled a switch on us.”

He pointed at the western side of Cuttings Garden, standing above the Armstrong Industrial Park. “This isn’t a community park anymore. It was sold off last August to a developer, a typical dodgy Newcastle property deal, with the council selling off public land to the highest bidder, and no doubt a few backhanders pumped into secondaries because of it. But it’s still on the city database as Cuttings Garden because they haven’t filed their planning application yet. So in our simulation it’s still a park. All the developers did was clear the site as they’re entitled to do. And they did that last September, by cutting a road through these trees behind the Armstrong Industrial Park and driving their bulldozers up it. A temporary dirt track that also isn’t on any kind of registry. In other words, there was a way down from the embankment and straight to Elswick Wharf in the area where there isn’t a single working mesh. And this chain-link fence here, the one at the end of the lane that leads around the back of the Kiano showroom, it’s easier to move than a bloody gate. I actually went there in person, I checked it out. I could push it down with my hand, never mind driving a citycab over it. Now look at this.”