Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (17 page)

“Look.” Saskia took out her notebook and showed Hannah. She watched his face, a smile on her lips. There were no notes. She had drawn a caricature of Garrel: bow-legged, a chest full of medals, swagger cane in one hand and a salute in another. It was signed: “Brandt”.

Hannah chuckled. “Not bad.”

Garrel walked briskly across the foyer with the air of man who had marched in his youth and had never recovered his relaxation. Saskia was glad that Hannah did not stand.

“Detective Brandt, follow me please.”

Both Saskia and Hannah stood, but Garrel shook his head at the DI. “I can talk to the FIB, no one else.”

Garrel walked away. In the middle of the foyer he realised that he was walking alone. He turned. “Are you coming?”

Saskia was busy with her notebook. She was writing something.

“Sign here,” she said to Hannah. He scanned the sheet and grinned.

“Fine.” He signed.

Saskia and Hannah approached Garrel. “DI Hannah is now an emergency deputy of the Föderatives Investigationsbüro. As such, he is now entitled to the rights and privileges of a detective-officer.” She imagined she had said the words a thousand times before.

Garrel slapped his haunches in resignation. “What a circus. Come on then, otherwise we’ll be here till midnight.” They crossed the foyer in silence. Garrel turned left into a corridor that was narrow and dark. In the distance, she could hear the crackle of handheld radios and an unplaceable, constant tapping.

“Ooh, this is exciting,” said Hannah. He mimicked Garrel’s march. Saskia giggled.

They walked past picture windows. She had expected a garden, but it was a lawn, lush green and smooth. It was surrounded by firs. Secluded. It would be peaceful even when the community’s nearby sports facilities to the were busy. One more thought struck her: Garrel was right. The circus was in town. Two huge tents had been pitched.

“What is the purpose of the tents?” she asked.

Garrel glanced over his shoulder at them. “One is a hospital. The other covers an excavation.”

“An excavation of what?” asked Hannah.

“Hasn’t she told you, deputy?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Yes, I have,” Saskia said. “The West Lothian Research Centre is beneath our feet.”

Hannah said, “Oh.” He dropped back and murmured to Saskia, “You make me feel like a sidekick.”

“A kick?” Saskia asked.

“You know, a sidekick. He asks the hero dumb questions so that the audience knows what’s going on. The sidekick is also the first to die when there’s any trouble.”

“Ah, I understand.” Saskia smiled. A memory – a precious jewel – glinted. “That happens on Enterprise, the TV show. You beam down with the captain. If you are wearing a red shirt you will be subject to a fatal special effect.”

Hannah laughed heartily and clapped her on the back. It hurt. “You’d better call me Scottie, then. He never gets killed.”

They came to a cloakroom. It was empty. Saskia could not understand why the cloakroom was so far from the main entrance. Garrel stepped to one side and she saw a splintered hole in the centre of the floor. She felt, simultaneously, a need to jump down the hole and a need to run away from it. Another discovery, then: she was scared of heights.

“This room is where the scientists entered the research centre. The whole room would sink to the ground floor of the complex, twenty metres down. Proctor went down there last Sunday.” Garrel spoke like a tour guide.

Hannah whistled. He stepped as close to the edge as he dared. Saskia remained in the doorway. Hannah stepped back. He said, “Are you saying there was a research centre down there?”

“Yes. The corpse, anyway. It was operational from 1996 to 2003. It was bombed in May 2003. The structure was seriously weakened, but it didn’t collapse.”

“So you just left it?” asked Saskia.

“Not me. But yes, it was left. All of the access routes except for this one were capped. It was unusable. There was nothing else to do. Though, actually, I believe a good deal of reinforcement work was carried out to alleviate the threat of a cave-in.”

Hannah nodded. “What kind of projects did they do here?”

“Radical stuff. The kind that doesn’t normally get funding.”

“For ethical reasons?”

Garrel laughed. “For John Hartfield. Heard of him? He runs research centres all over the world.”

“But he has government help.”

“Yes. A public-private partnership. I’m sure that, as a new employee of the FIB, you’d appreciate that even better than me.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Saskia said. “I would like to view the crime scene.”

Garrel led them out. “We can’t go down this way. It’s blocked. There was a cave-in ten minutes after Proctor went down with McWhirter.”

They emerged from the rear of the hotel onto the enormous lawn. They headed towards one of the two circus-sized tents. It was eighty metres away on the uphill. They were silent for a while.

“Who is McWhirter?” Saskia asked.

“Head of security before me. He’s dead.”

“I see. How did he die?”

Garrel didn’t turn around. “We haven’t found the body yet. We only have Proctor’s statement. There was a cave-in. Convenient, perhaps. McWhirter believed that Proctor was responsible for the first bombing.”

“In 2003.”

“The same.” Garrel slowed down. He was sweating and so was Hannah. Garrel continued, pausing often: “There wasn’t much direct evidence, but plenty of clues. Proctor had put in a number of complaints about the new direction of his research. In this kind of place, the scientist doesn’t control his research programme – it is dictated by his superiors on the basis of his,” he glanced at Saskia, “or her, findings. If you don’t like it, you quit and don’t ask for a character reference.”

“About the bombing,” urged Saskia.

“Getting there.” He took a breath. “The afternoon it happened, there was a concert in the main hall. Proctor organised it. At one day’s notice, this is. In the intermission, the bomb went off. Most people were at the concert so casualties were minimized. The bomb was placed inside Proctor’s laboratory. Inside his locked work room. It should have destroyed the equipment in Proctor’s lab, and only that.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No. It started a fire, which soon spread. Ceilings collapsed. Eight people were killed. Six staff and two scientists.”

Saskia pursed her lips. She was not sure if this information was relevant but she wanted to feed her instinct. “What about his research partners?”

“He had only one. A man called Shimoda. He was ruled out because he was blind. Oh, he was fairly capable, but planting a bomb was beyond him. He also had a watertight alibi. Proctor, on the other hand, had the motive, the means and the opportunity. He had no account for whole portions of that day and the surveillance tapes for his laboratory were missing.”

“It does point to him,” agreed Hannah.

“Plus,” said Garrel, “he was evasive during his initial interrogation and then again to the panel who carried out a confidential inquiry into the bombing. In their report they mention their suspicions, but there was never enough evidence. He slipped through the net.”

“Until now,” said Saskia. “When he slipped through the net again.”

Garrel grunted.

They had reached the tent. It was nearly ten metres in diameter. A man in civilian clothing stood next to its entrance. He had a long machine gun cradled in his arms. He saw Garrel, saluted, and the three of them walked inside. In the gloom, men and women wearing army fatigues steadily and silently packed office equipment into large, green crates.

Garrel turned around. “Lucky you came today. We would have been gone by this evening.”

Saskia and Hannah ignored him. They were staring at the centre of the tent. The structure did not have a pole because it was self-supporting, which left room for a crane-like rig to hang suspended over a hole large enough to swallow a car. Three or four ropes dangled into the shaft.

Hannah walked gingerly to the hole and peered down. Then he looked at the rig. From his expression, Saskia could tell that he was not impressed by the method of transportation. “You were going to tell us more about Proctor,” he prompted.

“Indeed.” Garrel folded his arms and stared at the loading operation. He clearly had faith in the discretion of these people, because he began to talk freely. “Proctor was invited to come here on Sunday and help with some consultation. It appeared that his former research partner, Dr Bruce Shimoda, had broken into the research centre and connected Project New World to the hotel power supply. New World was the codename for their research programme. I know very few details. It seems to be some kind of virtual reality computer. A user enters it as though it were a game.”

Saskia produced her notebook. Proctor’s movements were critical to her understanding. “How did Shimoda enter the complex? You said it was sealed.”

“Good question. We don’t know. And now that he’s been blown to smithereens, there’s a good chance we’ll never know.”

“He was blown up?” asked Hannah.

“Yes, remotely. Proctor detonated the bomb from where you’re standing.”

“Hang on,” said Hannah. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Proctor arrived for the consultation and then what?”

Garrel related the events of the previous weekend. He did not seem to mind that Saskia recorded his words in shorthand. Her scribbles were a mixture of broken German, Greek maths-like symbols, and pictograms. Her hand produced the script quite automatically. P for Proctor. WL for West Lothian Centre. Sam for Saturday, Son for Sunday. C for computer.

As Garrel paused to order his thoughts, Saskia chewed her pen. “The miniature computer contained the bomb.”

“Exactly. He managed to sneak it past security because McWhirter underestimated him. He did not insist on a body search. This personal computer contained enough explosive to bring down a small building, if put in the right place and given a little luck. Proctor left his bomb haphazardly. It was near enough to the computer for it to be destroyed but it did very little structural damage. Apparently that was due to its proximity to the shaft we sunk over there. It acted like an open pressure valve.”

“What evidence is there,” asked Saskia, “that Proctor killed this soldier called –” she consulted her notes – “Caroline?”

Garrel shook his head. “If you’re looking for a smoking gun, you’re not going to find it. It’s not how this guy works. He’s a thinker. A professor, remember.” He tapped his temple. “But Proctor must have lured her into the computer. Why else would she have gone in? She was under orders to protect the computer and Shimoda, nothing more. Guard duty is not the kind of job that you interrupt for a quick game of Scrabble.”

Saskia smiled. “I am sorry. Sometimes you talk too fast. Could you repeat this evidence?”

Garrel became still. His eyes took on the hawkish look of the man they had met in the foyer of the hotel. “Your job, Detective Brandt, is to find this man, not advocate his innocence.”

Saskia took a deep breath. It was counter-productive to antagonise him, even if she felt good doing it. She needed more facts. “I apologise. Proctor is clearly a criminal who should be apprehended at the earliest opportunity. I only wish to gauge the extent of this criminality.”

“Fine,” Garrel said. His expression softened. “All I’m saying is, this guy is dangerous. I debriefed him after the event. I read his file. I know him. I am in no doubt he killed that guard. No doubt.” He paused to direct some packing. Saskia wrote G P V: Garrel interrogated Proctor. “As I was saying, Proctor was injured during the evacuation and slept it off in the medical tent. Next morning, he woke up and persuaded the doctor to let him go for a walk. At that point, you understand, he was not really under suspicion. He was still in the role of ‘consultant’. He walked into this tent, sent a radio message to his discarded personal computer, which started a fire to clear remaining personnel from the research centre. It was a prelude to the bomb.”

“But Shimoda remained down there?” asked Saskia.

“Had to. If we disconnected him, he would have died from strokes.”

“And then the bomb went off.”

“Indeed. It killed Shimoda.”

Hannah asked Garrel about Proctor’s escape from custody. He spoke at length. Saskia did not take any more notes. She had read the police report on the flight to Edinburgh. She was impressed by Garrel’s innocence. The blame could be attributed to every object and process in the known universe that was not called Garrel. He was particularly piqued by the funeral. “God only knows whose idea that was, to send a terrorist to the funeral of one of his victims.” He went on. An expert lawyer and sympathetic judge – combined with the lamentable fact that the closest Japanese translator was in Leeds – meant that the entire family were now en route to Osaka.

Saskia smiled. This was an interesting case. She did not mention that it was her first. There were many fascinating aspects. Someone had helped David Proctor. They had made sure he attended that funeral, even made sure that there was a funeral. They had arranged a complicated escape. Was the fake priest behind everything? Or the family?

“What about the priest?” Saskia asked.

“Her description narrows the search to about five million suspects. She’s aged between late thirties and early fifties. Bit of a looker. Long brown hair. English. That’s it. We would have her in custody if it wasn’t for the local police. They had a WPC and a jailer on David, plus a guy driving the van. This priest tied them up with their own handcuffs before disappearing. All of this was watched, of course, by the cast of The Mikado. As for a photofit, you should ask DI Hannah. His friends are taking care of the plodwork.”

Hannah smiled as though receiving a compliment. “We like to be useful.”

Saskia put the notebook in her pocket. She removed her coat, handed it to Hannah, and removed her suit jacket. Both men stared at her. “What do you think you’re doing?” Garrel asked.

“I came here to see the crime scene.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Garrel said quickly.

“Me either,” said Hannah.

Saskia removed her earrings and put them in a trouser pocket. “Colonel Garrel, or whatever your rank is, I am not asking for your advice. Just your cooperation.”