STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller) (14 page)

‘Now, I’m happy for you to try. Sometimes a new brain can come up with a new approach, so yes, Jet, I’ll introduce you to my system. I’ll need your ID for the scanner.’

‘A voice sample?’ he asked, as he handed over his police ID.

‘No, just the ID. I’ve already got your voice,’ she said with a grin. What she hadn’t told him was she’d already stored the data from his microchip, as well as that of the Commander. This was overkill, but she didn’t want to give anything away if she could help it.

She made a rapid pass over the console then said, ‘Computer one, temporary access for a guest user. Police ID. Execute.’

Please advise level of access.

She scanned his ID and a few seconds later the computer spoke in its neutral voice:
ID verified. Temporary access level 3 on computer one to Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Willis Blanchard
.

‘How can you verify my ID … oh, okay no questions. Right, if I can’t find it in an hour, that’s it. Ma’am, you are just too good.’

Verity slanted a look at him then said firmly, ‘Computer, exclude access to all other units. Internet access unit one is enabled. Execute.

‘I’ll leave you to it. The computer will recognise your voice now. You engage its attention with the word “Computer One”. It won’t carry out a command until you say “Execute”. That’s an intercom—just touch that icon and talk if you need anything,’ said Verity pointing to one side. ‘It’ll find me.’

Adams spoke then. ‘I have a few more questions, Ms Burne. Perhaps we could step outside.’ It wasn’t really a request—the note of command in his voice made that clear.

‘Very well. We’ll go into the kitchen if you don’t mind. I’ll make coffee.’

She wanted him out of her study and now he had made it easy.

Chapter 23

The kitchen made the study seem cosy. Black granite and chromo-steel predominated with the only splash of colour provided by a red bowl of green apples on the centre island. Nothing else was on display, no appliances, no knick-knacks, no artistic displays of gourds, no gingham curtains, in fact no windows. A control panel was etched into the bench top and at a touch a panel on the opposite wall opened to reveal a coffee machine.

‘You take it black as I recall, Commander.’

‘Thank you, yes. And can we drop the “Commander” and “Ms Burne”, please?’

‘Was that one of the questions you wanted to ask?’ She pulled out stools from under the island bench. ‘If you are going to interrogate me we might as well sit down.’

‘Actually, it was. And you didn’t answer. Now, will you please call me Nicholas or even better, Nick?’

She smiled then, the first time since he arrived. She went over to the coffee machine, poured two mugs of coffee and handed him one. She pulled out a stool for herself, looked down at her coffee mug.

‘Alright, Nicholas,’ she said quietly. ‘But I reserve the right to withdraw permission.’

He said, ‘Fair enough. But give me fair warning … Verity. Now, I got that information I mentioned just before we left. You asked me if there was another aspect of the case. Well, there were a couple of leads we were following up. One was to do with a deserted house not very far away. The other was why the gate was closed but I think we can figure that now.’

‘The old house burned down before we got to investigate it, suspicious in itself, suggesting someone knew we were about to go there. We think the gates were closed to make sure someone would walk up there. If they drove there was a chance the bodies wouldn’t be found for a long time.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘There is something else I wanted to ask you.’

Before he could continue they heard Jet’s voice from the intercom on the kitchen wall. ‘Ms Burne, I got a problem. Can you, uh, come in here, please?’

They found Jet pacing up and down in front of the console. ‘I can’t get anywhere. This system—I don’t understand. Your operating system—this
is
Horizon 6, isn’t it?’

‘Oh sorry, I forgot. I’m beta testing a new one. I should have reverted before you started. Just a sec.’ She walked over to the console and said, ‘Computer, revert to Horizon 6. Execute.’

Reverting. Advise access level.

‘All current instructions to stand. No change to access. Execute.’

Jet looked at her and shook his head, bemused.

‘Mmm,’ Verity said. ‘Well, this should work for you now. Do you want to have another go at tracking that email?’

‘You’ve managed to impress our young friend. Do you think it’s worth his effort to go on?’

‘I think he’ll do better with the current system. Another half hour perhaps. If there’s no progress by then I think we can forget it. I got bounced around the world, the moon and various satellites. He’s good, very good.’

‘Can I have coffee before I go on? Need the boost,’ said a subdued Jet.

They all went back to the kitchen and perched while Verity filled a mug with black coffee. Jet piled in three sugars and gulped it like an addict. Adams half listened while the other two chattered away in near unintelligible e-talk. He sat and enjoyed looking at Verity’s animated face.

‘Right, I’ll give it another burst,’ said Jet. He got up and put his mug in the sink. ‘Half hour, tops.’

Nicholas finished his coffee then took a deep breath, ‘Well, I’d hoped for something a little more private but since that seems to be out of the question, I’ll say what I want to say now. I’d like to see you again out of working hours, Verity. Dinner, even lunch, maybe.’

Verity said nothing at first, looked at him, then shook her head, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Nicholas.’ She looked away, picked up her mug and drank.

He continued, looking directly at her. ‘Since I arrived in Australia most of my life has been hard work, getting to know how things work here and setting up the liaison teams. It’s been ninety percent work for months. I haven’t even unpacked most of the stuff I brought from England.’

He thought a second or two and grinned boyishly. ‘No, maybe the hardest work was beating off the mothers of Sydney. Amazing how many of them are looking for husbands for their daughters.’ He added, ‘Some of the daughters needed beating off too.’

Verity laughed then. ‘Yes, and Adelaide was one of them. She loves fresh blood.’

‘She’s lovely but definitely not my type.’

He said quietly, ‘Verity, I don’t know how much you know about me, but my wife died five years ago. Since then there’s been no other woman in my life. A few casual dates—well-meaning friends have tried to set me up from time to time but I haven’t been interested.’

Verity sat listening quietly, keeping her face and body still, but she was finding it hard not to react to what he was saying.

‘Until now … I think you know what I’m going to say. Verity, I’d like to spend some time with you, get to know you better.’

She shook her head and repeated, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’ She looked directly at him. ‘Nicholas, you are asking for more than I’m able to give. I like you and Marcus says you are a good man, but I don’t want any more than a working relationship. If I can help you track down whoever did this, whoever did that to those people, I will.’

She turned away, ‘I appreciate that you might think you have … um … feelings for me, but it’s impossible. I simply can’t reciprocate.’

‘Is it something to do with your late husband?’ he asked, remembering what Marcus had confided in him, half expecting a furious response. Instead he was amazed when she laughed, but there was a bitter edge there.

‘No, well, not exactly. Even if … it’s three years since he died and I … No, I don’t talk about that ... I don’t talk about him, but I hated that man and …’

Just then they heard a voice call. ‘Verity, Verity. Where are you, sweetie?’

‘It’s Adelaide. I thought she wouldn’t be able to resist having another go at you, Commander.’

She went into the hallway and saw Jet coming from the study.

Adelaide, followed by Lucy, rushed up saying, ‘Has he taken off the thumbscrews yet? Are you alright, Verity? Well, hello, Nicholas. What a lovely surprise.’ She stepped over to him with both hands outstretched. ‘Have you been bullying poor Verity? Naughty, naughty. Oh, and who’s this? Really, Verity. Entertaining two handsome men, greedy girl.’

Verity merely said, ‘Detective Sergeant Jet Blanchard, Adelaide Browne, Lucy Winsome. He’s a c-tec—here to try and trace those emails.’

He looked gobsmacked when she held a hand out to him and said, ‘Adelaide Browne … Jet, is it? Jet, that’s an interesting nickname. What’s the reason for that?’

‘I’m a fast worker,’ said Jet, then blushed bright red. ‘I … I … I mean fast on computers, not, you know …’ he stammered.

‘Adelaide, leave the poor guy alone,’ said Lucy sternly. ‘Hi, I’m Lucy. New York, right?’

His face lit up, ‘And you’re New York, for sure. Brooklyn?’

They started chatting animatedly, finding common ground.

Adelaide was saying to Verity, ‘Are we going to eat together? Let’s do that. Have you asked him to stay for dinner? What’s been going on? Have they traced those horrible pictures yet? And those emails?’

Adams was standing bemused in the midst of all these conversations then he shocked them all into silence as he raised his voice, a voice edged with steel.

‘Enough please! I am conducting an official investigation here, not a tea party. DS Blanchard, please take Miss Browne and Miss Winsome down to the living room and stay there till I say. Keep them there if you have to handcuff them!

‘Ms Burne, kitchen, please.’

There was a moment of stunned silence before Jet, Lucy and Adelaide turned and headed towards the living room. Adelaide took a few steps then turned with an impish look and said, ‘Oh, Nich-o-las, you’re sooo beautiful when you’re angry!’

Verity spluttered. She couldn’t help it … she had to laugh. Whether it was Adelaide’s words or the stunned look on the Commander’s face she couldn’t say, but it burst out of her, releasing the tension that had been pent up all day. She braced her hands on the kitchen bench and laughed uncontrollably. Nicholas glared at her then started to laugh himself.

‘She’s priceless, your cousin,’ he said when he’d recovered enough to speak. ‘But she’d drive me crazy. She never shuts up!’

‘Oh, you get used to it. I just tune out and keep one antenna twitching. There’s always a point to what Adelaide’s saying but she tends to bury the important stuff amongst trivia. Now did you get what she was saying, or rather, asking, before? The important message there was … did we trace the origin of those images … she has a huge feeling of guilt about those murders.’

‘That’s ridiculous … why should she feel guilty? Because she announced they were to be on her show? She didn’t kill them. Only the people that did are guilty, not Adelaide … and not you either, Verity.’

‘I can hear a lot of laughing coming from out there. Maybe we’d better see what’s going on with that trio. Is that Adelaide?’

‘No, that’s Lucy and Jet. And I think we’d better break
that
up.’

Adams looked at her, wondering why she would say that. It seemed pretty harmless to him—two Americans far from home, sharing thoughts in an alien land. He stepped out to the hallway and called him.

Jet came back to the kitchen. ‘I don’t need any more time on this search. I know this is going to keep going round in circles, same result you had, Ms Burne. Anyway, um, Miss Browne and Lucy have asked me over to their house for supper. So I’ll go over with them, if that’s okay with you, sir. Thanks for letting me play with your stuff. And it was great to meet you, Dr Burne. Um, you mentioned about the
Tyle
. Any chance I could see it before I go?’

‘Lucy has one. Tell her I said you could look at it. Please keep quiet about anything you may have seen or heard here. Some of that equipment is not on the market yet.’

Nick asked him, ‘What about your game?’

‘Well, sir, I called my buddy and put that off. Why get hot and sweaty with a guy when I can be cool and comfortable with two lovely ladies! I’ll get my bag.’

He went back into the study, grabbed his bag then rushed back to the living room and joined the other two as they headed out the rear doors and through the back garden to Adelaide’s house.

Nicholas turned to Verity, ‘Well, that’s quietened things down a bit.’

In the kitchen again Verity poured two more coffees.

‘Look, I want to talk to you about this case again, Verity. Off the record, I think you might be able to help with certain aspects.’

She made a non-committal sound.

‘Just say yes, please. There’s something stewing in the back of my mind, and I want, need your help to get some information on the quiet.’

She looked at him with raised eyebrows and said, mockingly, ‘On the quiet. Why Commander, do you mean an illegal act? There are strict laws against bypassing the central computer,
BigSys.
I’m shocked that you would suggest such a thing.’

‘I may not be up to your standard in computing but I
am
a detective and I can detect a tricky set up with my eyes closed. You don’t have to confirm or deny, but I think you’ve got a link through a certain private satellite. I’m not sure quite how that works but I suspect those images were sent via some similar connection, his or someone else’s. Now that means there’s someone out there who’s as smart as you perhaps, someone who has managed to break through the formidable encryption of that connection. That must irk you.’

Verity merely said, ‘No comment. Look I’m really tied up with some important, um, stuff now.’

‘What sort of stuff? Something for
Circe
.’

‘No. It’s something to do with a money laundering scheme. Don’t look at me like that—all the information is for the fraud squad. I have to keep this quiet. My name, or rather a pseudonym I was using, leaked last year and I had some pretty nasty threats.’

At his horrified look she said, ‘They didn’t know who I was but I know how to defend myself … I learned from Amy. She was my bodyguard for a while and we have a session at least once a week. Adelaide too.

‘And the one a couple of weeks ago who attacked Adelaide—he landed on his arm and it broke when she tossed him. By then the security guards had arrived. Addie didn’t want him charged but since he attacked one of the guards it turned out she didn’t have to be involved in any charges.’

She thought for a few seconds. ‘We have a sort of at-home almost every Sunday at Adelaide’s place, so if you’re at a loose end next Sunday you’re welcome to drop in. I think Adelaide’s latest flame, Dr Richard, will be there, so you’re safe from her.’ She grinned at that.

Nicholas was a little surprised at her invitation and said, ‘I’ll look forward to that. Now you didn’t actually say you’d help me.’

Verity thought about what her uncle had said about Nicholas Adams.
He is a good honest man, Verity. I knew his parents, I know him and there isn’t a bad impulse in him. He can be as tough and hard as he needs to be for his job, but he has the respect and loyalty of everyone who’s ever worked with him. Trust him, Verity, he’ll never let you down.