“Just give me a—”
“Constable. I’ve already told you. You’ll have to wait.” She clicked off.
Ely took one last look around the unit. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, a loose recollection of something he’d once read, but he couldn’t place exactly what. He was still tugging at the thread of memory when the nurses arrived. They were pushing the same two stretchers they’d brought to the lounge a few hours ago. It seemed like an aeon to Ely.
“You said two bodies?” Bradford, the male nurse asked. “Two natural causes in the same pod? That’s got to be a…” The man trailed off as he saw the Greenes’ bodies.
“It’s murder,” Ely said.
“Obviously,” Bradford said.
Ely glared at him.
“Well?” the man snapped, unapologetic. “What do you want us to do?”
“Take the bodies away.”
“Obviously,” he said, again. “I meant after that.”
“What’s the procedure for murder?” Nurse Gower asked.
Ely wasn’t sure there was one.
“Take them to the infirmary,” he said. “I have to inform the council. They’ll make the decision on what we need to do next.”
Together the two nurses manoeuvred the bodies onto the stretchers. Ely removed the visor and two wristboards from the slot at the side of the bed, and placed them on the stretcher. They would go into storage, ready to be used by someone else. The City couldn’t afford the energy required to make any more.
“And you said that you’d come up and take that man’s statement,” Gower added, pointedly.
“I will,” Ely said, following the two nurses out of the door.
He hesitated briefly in the doorway, again feeling like there was something he’d forgotten. Something important. He stepped out onto the day-side corridor. The door closed, and this time the pods were vacant, the room was empty. And then Ely remembered. Fingerprints. He swiped his hand down the sensor. It was too late. The room was already being sanitised.
Chapter 2 - The Civic Service
“Well?” Nurse Gower asked. She’d stopped a few yards along the corridor.
“What?” Ely asked, still staring at the door.
“That felon, Grimsby. You still need to sentence him.”
“Right. I will,” Ely said. The nurse opened her mouth to protest. “But like I said, I’ve got to inform the council first,” he added, hurriedly.
Reluctantly, the nurse followed her colleague towards the elevator.
Ely had only said it because he wanted some time to collect his thoughts. He knew he wouldn’t find it in the close confines of the elevator with the two aloof nurses and the bodies of the victims. But as he watched the nurses push the stretchers into the lift, he realised that he did, indeed, need to inform the council. He pulled up the contacts for the office of the Chancellor, but then hesitated. Cornwall was going to win the election, and until he did, he was still the Councillor for Tower-One. Ely placed the call.
“This is the Office of Councillor Cornwall,” an assistant whose voice Ely recognised but had never met, answered. “How can I help you, Constable Ely?”
“I need to speak to the Councillor.”
“Of course. And what does this relate to?”
“A crime.”
“I guessed as much. I assume this is in regard to the incident in the lounge earlier today?”
“No,” Ely said.
“It isn’t? Well, what crime are you referring to?”
“I need to inform the Councillor directly.”
The assistant’s derisive snort jarred through Ely. He was glad that even if the administrator pulled up an image from one of the half-dozen cameras in the hallway, his helmet hid his expression.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Constable. It’s the middle of the night. Councillor Cornwall is asleep.” The council, like the retirees, operated on the outside day/night schedule.
“There’s been a murder,” Ely stated, as matter-of-factly as he could.
“A what?”
“Two murders, actually. A double homicide.” Ely felt some pride he’d remembered the phrase.
“I see… I…”
“You can check the footage I recorded from inside unit 6-4-17, if you want, and while you’re doing that I can call the Chancellor. I just thought Councillor Cornwall would want to be informed first.”
There was a long moment in which he thought the assistant had simply ended the call. Then he heard the Councillor’s brusque tones.
“What’s this about a murder?” Cornwall demanded.
“Two murders, sir. The Greenes. Husband and wife. They were killed in their pods whilst they slept. That was in Unit 6-4-17.”
“Constable, I can understand you are under some considerable strain. That, however, is no reason to forget the correct nomenclature.”
“Murdered in their ‘beds’, sir, in Sea View,” Ely corrected himself.
“And you’re sure this is murder?” Cornwall asked.
Ely took a breath. “Sir,” he said, “there’s camera footage of the bodies. If you check the recordings from my visor you will be able to see for yourself.”
“Just a moment.” There was a pause before Cornwall spoke again, “I see. And who did it?”
“I… I don’t know sir.”
“Well, I thought that would be simple enough to find out,” Cornwall said. “Who went into the room last night?”
“Just the Greenes.”
“I meant other than the Greenes?
“No one, sir.”
“It says here that they have two children. Well, it was probably one of them.”
“No sir, I don’t think so. I’ve checked their activity this morning and it seems normal.”
“Murderers are not normal, Constable. Would we expect someone who could commit such a heinous crime to be remorseful afterwards?”
“During the shift in question, the door to the unit, I mean the ‘home’, opened at three a.m., shift time. It opened again three minutes and forty seconds later. During that time both of the children’s pods, I mean ‘beds’, were closed. I really don’t think it was either of them.”
“Could it have been murder-suicide?” Cornwall asked, but continued before Ely could answer, “No, I suppose not.”
“No sir. If it was, the weapon would have still been in the pod.” He didn’t bother correcting himself this time. “It wasn’t there.”
“No? Where was it?”
“I…” Ely decided a guess was better than uncertainty. “It was destroyed, sir. In the recycling chute.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“No sir, not without absolute certainty. Nor will I, without draining out the recycling vats. If you want to authorise that…”
“No, no. We can’t have any more disruption. If you think that the weapon has been destroyed, then I’ll take your word for it. That is something, though. It suggests that whatever the motive for this vile act, there won’t be a repeat of it.”
That wasn’t what Ely had meant. Before he could think of a way to correcting the Councillor, Cornwall continued, “What else do you know?”
“Their throats were slit.”
“I can see that. What else?”
“Well, er… it happened quickly. The killer entered the room, murdered the Greenes, and left again without any hesitation.”
“I see. And how does that help you apprehend this felon?”
It didn’t.
“I’m following up on a number of leads, sir. The camera was turned to face the wall, and the cameras in the corridor didn’t record anyone going in. I’m operating under the assumption that this killer has a way of accessing the records in our system.”
There was a sharp intake of breath.
“That’s impossible,” Cornwall said. “I was assured that could never happen. I have… I have other calls I must make. Keep me informed, Constable. Keep me informed.” The Councillor clicked off.