House of Dust (31 page)

I looked at the victim's brother. “Come on, give us a hand, Pete. We're not going to put the bulldogs on to you.”

“Wouldn't care if you did,” he said with grunt. “I've been inside most of their fucking prisons.”

I stared at him. “Most of their prisons? How many are there? And what did you mean about undercover bulldogs? I was told that they didn't run that kind of operation in New Oxford.”

Pete and Maddy both burst out laughing.

“Come on, mate,” the victim's brother scoffed. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Call me Quint.”

“Well, Quint, it seems to me you need an education.” He grunted again. “And not the kind they give those poncey fucking students up town.” He looked at Maddy. “I hope I'm not cocking up here, opening up to these foreign goons.”

She took in Katharine's encouraging smile, thought for a bit then shook her head.

“All right,” Pete said, pulling back his arms and watching the muscles ripple. “Here's how it is.”

What he said turned out to be more than a little enlightening.

“Where are you taking him?” the bulldog at the checkpoint on the slip road off the bypass demanded. This time the Chariot had stopped automatically because Pete Pym didn't have the necessary access code.

“Murder investigation,” I replied. “We have full Hebdomadal Council authority.”

The bulldog looked up from his nostrum. “I can see that. I still need to know where you're taking him.”

Davie leaned across. “Look, he's not co-operating. I'm going to find a secluded spot and beat the shit out of him.”

Pym let out a high-pitched moan.

The bulldog cast his eyes round the inside of the Chariot then smiled at Davie. “Very good. Let us know if you need any help.”

That brought another petrified whine from Pym.

The vehicle moved off smoothly and in a few minutes we were passing through thick woodland. There was no sign of anybody and Pete Pym gave us the nod.

Davie told the Chariot to stop. “Right, you sack of pus,” he said, turning to Pym. “Out.”

We all stepped down, our feet sinking into the mulchy forest floor. Katharine and I followed as Davie dragged the prisoner deep into the dank undergrowth.

Pete ran his eye over us as we gathered round him. “Okay,” he said, completing the check. “No Nox gear, no nostrums?” We all shook our heads, having left the devices in the vehicle on his whispered instruction. “We're out of range of the Chariot's surveillance system now.”

“I got agreement from the chief administrator that we wouldn't be subject to surveillance of any kind,” I said.

Pym laughed. “Did you, Quint? Bloody good for you. And you believed the cow?”

I raised my shoulders.

“We rigged up an anti-snooping field in Appleby Street last month,” he said, “so what was said in Maddy's place shouldn't have got back to the bastards. But your visit will have made them suspicious. That's why we're playing this game.”

I examined the burly figure leaning against a gnarled oak trunk. He looked more like a fairground heavy than someone capable of standing up to Raphael's system.

“Why didn't we stay there if it's secure?” Davie asked

Pete Pym's face was split by a broad grin that displayed gaps between dirty teeth. “I told you – they'll have sent a squad to Maddy's by now. Besides, I want to show you something, Black Beard.” He turned towards the tree. “But first I need to make it look like you roughed me up.” He drew back his head and smashed it three or four times into the damp green bark. A blackbird burst out of the bushes, its cries of alarm echoing through the trees.

I swallowed hard. Headbanging was never one of my favourite pursuits.

“See that?” Pete pointed to the east.

We were on the summit of a wooded hill, fields and distant buildings stretching away in front of us. The rain had stopped and the sun had begun to burn off the few remaining clouds.

Davie was looking through a pair of City Guard-issue pocket binoculars that he'd taken from his breast pocket. “Some kind of blockhouse,” he said. “There are a lot of people on the land near it.”

Pym nodded. He must have been having difficulty seeing anything. The skin above his eyes was broken and there was blood around his eyes, not that he seemed to care.

“Chain gang,” he said, shaking his long hair back from his face. “Planting spuds.”

“So much for high-tech agriculture,” I muttered.

Pete Pym turned to me. “Oh, they've got modern machines, all right. They use them in other areas. The eastern parts are punishment zones.” He laughed humourlessly. “The eastern parts and the centre of New Oxford itself.” He pointed to the left of the chain gang. “Over there – see those low buildings? – they're a children's prison.” He swung his arm round. “Down there, that village is what they call a family detention unit. I was in that with my woman and our six nippers.”

“What did you do?” Katharine asked.

“Me? Nothing.” Pym's eyes narrowed. “Our Kevin, he got picked up with his mates. They nicked a Chariot, messed about with the command system and went hot rodding in it. All the families got banged up for six months of something called intensive social skills.”

I raised a hand. “Hang on, Pete. You're moving too fast.”

He glanced around. “I'm also taking a big fucking risk standing out here in the open with you. Get back in the woods.”

We followed him into the cover, Katharine giving me a puzzled look.

“Start from the beginning, Pete,” I said, squatting down beside him. “You're making New Oxford sound like a prison-state.”

The big man clapped his heavy hands together slowly. “Well done, son. That's exactly what it is.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “Come on, there's more to it than that. Nox is all about the university and the money it can make.”

“I'm not disagreeing with you,” he said. “As far as you've gone. All right, history lesson.” He grinned. “You're in luck. I actually went to school and learned to read and write. They don't give many of our kids that chance these days. Anyway, the city got fucked up big-time during the drugs wars.”

“Like most places,” Davie put in. “Including Edinburgh.”

“Okay, Scottish git,” Pym said with a laugh. “I'm not saying we got it any worse than the rest of you.” His face darkened. “Not in the beginning, at least. Except the farmland all over central England got polluted to buggery by those arsehole big companies with their arsehole chemical fertilisers and their arsehole genetically modified crops. Not to mention the thousands of cattle with BSE that were buried all over the place when the disease came back strong in 2005.”

“The Poison Fields,” I said.

He looked impressed. “You know about them? That's a start. Anyway, they were a disaster for everyone else, but a godsend for the scumbags who wanted to set up the university again.” He stood up and moved an arm round in a great sweep. “The Poison Fields were an excuse for them to cut the city off from prying eyes.”

I nodded, remembering how the first Council had done the same thing with Edinburgh, blowing the bridges and railway lines, blocking the roads and putting up high fences on the borders.

“You had the same kind of thing, did you?” Pete asked. “Yeah, well, the administrators managed to attract money from the big companies – the same fuckers who'd destroyed the UK, of course – and they got the university going again.” He raised a thick forefinger. “But on a lot of conditions.” He slapped the finger against the flesh of his palm. “One: they were only to teach courses the companies wanted.” Another slap. “Two: they were to set up factories producing high-quality gear to pay back the companies' investment.” He looked round at the three of us and brought his finger down again. “And three: they were to turn the whole state into a living laboratory.”

We were all staring at him.

“A living laboratory?” Katharine asked. “What do you mean?”

Pete Pym ran the back of his hand across his mouth. “We subs – you know they call us that? – we subs are their guinea pigs.”

“Jesus,” I said, thinking of the incarceration initiative back home and the windowless blocks in the colleges on Broad Street. “This city's a criminologist's dream.”

“Yeah,” Pete said grimly. “And a citizen's worst nightmare.”

After a while Pete Pym looked at his badly scratched watch. “We'd better get back. The dogs will be beginning to wonder what we're up to.” He moved off through the woods.

“Did your brother say anything about his place of work?” I asked, catching him up. “Did he say anything that might explain why he was killed?”

He shook his head. “Nah. He used to talk all the time about how strange the people in the lab were. Apparently the ones who work nights are the ones even the administrators don't want to see. But he never told me anything that'll do you any good.” He stopped and leaned against a fallen trunk. “You've got to understand, Quint. They treat us like morons. Slaves, actually. All we're allowed to do is menial work – fetching and carrying, cleaning like Ted, working the fields. The students and researchers do all the brain work. We haven't got much of a clue what goes on in the labs.” He caught my eye. “But I'll tell you something. His killing, the arms hacked off, blood all over the shop – it wasn't the first like that.”

“I heard it was the first inside the university area,” I said. “They did tell me that there are murders in the suburbs from time to time.”

“I'm not talking about those,” Pete said, shaking his head. “They're usually provoked by Nox undercover people for research reasons and they're just knifings or bludgeonings – minor gang warfare stuff. No, I'm talking about full-scale mutilation.” His face darkened. “Like happened to my poor bloody brother.” He glanced at Davie. “They send the biggest and nastiest bulldogs out to the farms nearest the Poison Fields to patrol. There've been stories about infiltrators and escapers being torn to pieces out there.”

“Christ,” I said under my breath. “You think Ted was killed by a bulldog?”

Pete Pym shrugged. “My money's on that. Probably another fucking research project. But you'll need a hell of a lot of proof to force the administrators to change their ways.” He started walking again.

“Pete?” Katharine said, moving alongside him. “Maddy said something about boarding schools for the most gifted children. Why don't they educate all the kids?”

He laughed bitterly. “It's obvious, isn't it? They only want the kids they can place in the transnationals afterwards. Those ones become students. You've probably seen how scared they are.” He shook his head. “They're not getting any of mine, even if it means they end up working on the farms or cleaning up after the shitheads in the colleges.”

He strode away and I heard him singing part of a song I thought I recognised.

“Here, Pete,” I called.

He stopped and looked round.

“Big Maceo and Tampa Red,” I said, smiling. “‘County Jail Blues.'”

He stared at me. “No, Quint. That's an O-blues standard. I haven't got a clue who wrote it.” He started to sing again. “‘The Oxford jails, they ain't no place to go . . .'”

As we followed him towards the Chariot, I heard a cuckoo for the first time since I was a kid.

Chapter Fourteen

“Now what?” Davie asked as the Chariot went through the bulldog post at the western boundary of Cowley and moved towards Magdalen Bridge.

All the way back from the woods I'd been pondering what Pete Pym had told us about the regime in New Oxford. None of us had said much since, so I assumed Katharine and Davie had it on their minds too. Everything the dead man's brother had described made sense: Administrator Raphael and her team's involvement in the prison back home, the sophisticated surveillance dome on the Radcliffe Camera, the subjugation of the university's activities to profit. Now it was impossible to look at the city's buildings without wondering what kind of prison or research facility might be housed in each of them. I took in the eccentric grandstand-like structure on stilts on the other side of the roundabout. Maybe it was a detention centre for dissidents; I could remember that football grounds had been used for that purpose in Holland before mainland Europe went back to the Dark Ages in 2004.

We crossed the bridge, the great bell-tower on our right. I hadn't noticed when we passed it earlier that a screen had been placed over the recessed openings beneath the pinnacles. Large red numbers informed us that it was 15:03, as well as advertising the name of the donors. Presumably NOXON was some kind of power company.

“Let's take a look at the murder scene,” I said, bending towards the transparent door as the Chariot responded to Davie's direction with a rapid left turn.