That night at home eating dinner—Walter had prepared an excellent pasty—I mentioned to Val my visit with the bishop. “Dr. Koch seemed quite adamant that every time we save an imprint off a dying soul or copy into a mech we’re somehow violating God’s plan. I’m glad I never had to bother with all of that nonsense.”
“You mean religion?”
“Yes. My father thought I should choose for myself. I looked around, experimented some, but in the end decided to leave it all be.”
Val lowered the paw she had been licking as she sat on the table and beheld me with those dazzling aqua eyes. “Yet last Christmas Eve,” she said, “we went to Saint Peters to listen to Christmas carols.”
I thought on that, remembering the young male soloist who had brought me to tears with his haunting interpretation of “I Wonder As I Wander.” Val had been on my lap.
“There wasn’t a thought in my head that night,” I said to her. “I was filled with beautiful sounds. Tremendous choir there.”
“I remember,” she purred as she walked over and sat by my shoulder, leaning against it.
“When that boy sang—you remember the one—when he sang that carol I didn’t even hear or understand the words. For a moment I flashed on that terrible night those yobs came at me in London as I crossed Trafalgar Square. The knives, all that blood.”
I glanced at Val and her eyes were closed. “When they found me and harvested my engrams I was all the way to Charing Cross Station. I don’t remember getting there, but I do remember praying. It wasn’t to some bearded gent in a long white nightshirt or even using a name. I asked whatever was out there to get me home to you. When I heard that boy sing, his beautiful voice reverberating from the walls of that ancient cathedral, I was filled with gratitude to still be alive, whatever suit I inhabited. How could that be wrong?”
“Harry,” she said, “it doesn’t appear to have bothered the entity to whom you prayed.” She rubbed her head against my sleeve. “Nor the one to whom I prayed.”
We sat like that for the twenty seconds it took for the telephone to ring. I got up, walked into the living room, and said “answer” to the tiny screen on the end table next to the couch. Val liked the screen phone because it was easy for her to ring up and talk with her friends. I didn’t like it because any nit with wit enough to punch in our number got a free peek at me. That’s why I usually used the old fashioned one in the kitchen. The screen came up and it was Shad. “Hello, old duck.”
“Hey, Jaggs. Parker and I have been at the tower all this time trying to crack Lord Bishop Fauntleroy’s alibi.”
“Find a fissure?”
“Polished titanium. He was definitely at the golf club when Darcy Flanagan was murdered. Something else, though. Do you remember that site write-up on the banquet by one Alicia Pelletier?”
“I remember.”
“Parker read the whole thing including the mention of those valued Devon Natural Pride members who, most regrettably, could not attend that day’s festivities at Oak Meadow. Ready for two of those names?”
“Stun me, ducky.”
“Sharissa Thule of Dawlish and Raymond Crowe of Exeter.”
I stood there, stunned. Half of that duo shouldn’t have been a surprise. Two out of three times, the person who finds the body is complicit in the killing. It was the second name, though, that was going to be a problem: Raymond Crowe, Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall Constabulary. His name answered so many questions it almost outweighed the overwhelming problems.
“Jaggs? I thought that making Crowe our prime suspect would at least be worth a bugger or two. You should’ve heard what Matheson said.” He held a wingtip in front of his bill. “I quite blushed.”
“Send me a cruiser, Shad. I’ll be right down.”
“He said that, too. Oh, a minor hitch in the murder weapon. The FME is amending his report. It seems that the cause of death wasn’t the beanbag.”
“Oh?”
“That caused the broken bones and precipitated his nat in stasis to peg it, but doesn’t explain how that one rib changed direction eighty degrees from the direction of impact and made it into Flanagan’s heart.”
“Shad, is it possible that Flanagan was conscious? That he knew his body in stasis was dead?”
“He was on continuous sync with his nat. It’s possible.”
I rang off and went to the hall to get my coat and hat. “Val,” I called. “I have to go out. There’s been a possible break in the Flanagan case.”
“What is it?” she asked as she came up to me. I reached for the knob.
“I haven’t sorted it all out in my mind yet, but our killer might very well be Chief Constable Crowe himself.”
“Oh, dear.”
I nodded. “Yes. Oh dear, indeed.”
The cruiser was waiting for me as I left the house. I climbed in, and the vehicle ascended into a clear night sky and turned east, sirens blaring, right-of-way signals interrupting nearby vehicles’ GPS controls, my own set of Christmas lights flashing green as the cruiser cut across Pennsylvania—St. Thomas to St. James—Heavitree Corridor. As the cruiser streaked toward the tower the pieces began falling into place: Parliament Street, the evening off for Shad and me, Parker catching the call, the pressure of the chief constable’s office to resolve the case, the media there and waiting for Parker to drop it, the missing case file on the Romila Kumar bio disappearance. It wasn’t enough to bring charges, though. Finding the rest of our case was going to be the night’s likely assignment.
Eight the next morning in the superintendent’s office, dark circles and baggy eyes all around, including Detective Constable Fatima al-Fasi and Police Constable Duke Milburn both of Exeter CID. They had been the two on call for ABCD requests and had brought in Sharissa Thule just before midnight. Detective Superintendent Matheson asked them to remain pending an additional arrest. Now the sun was up and hurtfully bright.
“I don’t quite understand why we still need to be here, superintendent,” DC al-Fasi said to Matheson. She was wearing an olive pantsuit with black turtleneck. The first impression she gave was of being young and petit—too much of both for police work. She had bobbed black hair, soft dark eyes, and no obvious makeup. It took awhile to notice the scars and calluses on her hands. She was one of those who worked out by smashing bricks and oak boards. “You have our full cooperation in making arrests,” she said. “Simply tell us who you want nicked, hand us the warrant, and we’ll bring him in.” Milburn nodded, yawned, and nodded again. Middle twenties, brown eyes, buzzed brown hair, square-jawed, and muscular. He was in the usual Exeter blue except instead of a helmet, his headgear consisted of a blue watch cap.
Matheson was seated behind his desk. He looked up at his liquid crystal ceiling. Images of little white clouds moved soundlessly across a deep blue sky. Shad and I were in chairs before the superintendent’s desk, al-Fasi and Milburn seated to our left. Parker occupied his usual seat in the WC. Matheson brought his gaze down until he was looking at DC al-Fasi. “It has taken us a while to collect enough evidence to obtain an arrest warrant, detective.” Milburn was steadily sliding down in his chair, his legs crossed at the ankles, the back of his head in search of rest.