The synapse sequence, p.8
The Synapse Sequence, page 8
Taking Durrant to the point of his beating is very likely to result in synapse shock, read the note. You stand a good chance of killing him in one. Sorry.
As she dropped the pages back on Cody’s seat, Anna noticed a final scribbled message, something that explained the A4 printout rather than the information being emailed: We have a slot for a technician. Look, I know you enjoy ‘looking after’ her – but you should apply for transfer BEFORE she wrecks this for you. Rumour is that Jake is looking to cut his tech staff again. —B.
Jake would go batshit if he knew someone was trying to poach her technician. Or any technician, for that matter. Still, she gave the chair a push forward so that Cody’s seat moved tight against his desk, to give the impression she hadn’t even noticed the papers.
Cody arrived about an hour later, holding a coffee-to-go and a pain au chocolat. He didn’t look surprised to see her there before him, gave her a quick greeting, and then swept the papers from his seat onto his desk. He read them as he ate his breakfast. ‘So what’s the plan?’ he asked finally.
Anna took a breath. Not for you to abandon me, she thought. ‘We start looking back through the records,’ she said. ‘Find a new investigation.’
Cody turned back to his terminal, ostensibly complying with her instructions. But then he stopped. Anna heard his chair swivel. This is it, she thought. He’s going to ask me for a transfer. Shit. Come on, Cody, not now…
‘Check your messages,’ Cody said. ‘Something from Fowler. He wants to meet us at Amblinside.’
Anna sighed. ‘We’re not going,’ she said. ‘That project is over.’
‘No,’ Cody replied. ‘You’re definitely going to want to read the message.’
13
S&P Build 14.224a – Recommendation Module
Situation #GIHHCLTYYEN: Female (15) reported missing. Downtime 12 hrs. Female (15) – Chosen Name Beth Hayden – now designated as Target.
Demographic Class: B3
Relevant History: Target missing (Situation #RONULBDCDRM), outcome returned home.
Connected Case 1: [Redacted, Authorisation: Deng]
Connected Case 2: [Redacted, Authorisation: Deng]
Bot Sweep Inputs: No data found at home address.
Board Feeds: Recent target board searches logged for Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Biolog Data: No target biodata being received (unknown reason). RED FLAG.
Recommendation: Target likely home runaway. Add Edinburgh and Cardiff to search area. Add routes to Edinburgh and Cardiff to search area (limit time window). Continue biolog monitoring and add face to recognition cam list. Identify friends of Target. Class friends of Target as Potential Associates, and interview remotely via AI. Class immediate family members of Target as Potential Future Suspects and interview directly via Bot and Officer. Begin biolog harvesting to identify all other adults in contact with Target over last six months. ENDS.
‘FINALLY! YOU CAME on your own?’
Anna stiffened at Fowler’s shout. Yes, she’d come on her own. For one thing, Cody’s job was to operate the synapse tech, not get involved in the investigative work. For another, she was more than aware of what they both had at stake. She didn’t need the constant hints and reminders. And, anyway, with her away and the office door shut, maybe Cody could finally get some decent sleep.
‘I came as soon as I read your message.’
‘You have any trouble getting in?’
‘No,’ Anna replied coolly. Public entry to Amblinside was via an oversized sentry station built into a fence that enclosed the entire development. The gates and fence were more ornate than imposing – anyone with a small amount of determination could probably have climbed it – but then they’d have run up against the movement traps and the facial recognition software. And the priority line to local law enforcement.
The cameras had tagged Anna at the sentry station. The attending bot hadn’t asked her any questions, though. After all, she was on the guest list, and it must have waved through people with more interesting personal history.
‘That damn bucket guarding the gate made me wait for five minutes,’ Fowler complained. He turned towards a house set back a good fifty or so metres from the street, and swept a hand through the side of his lank, greasy hair. He still hadn’t shaved. No surprise, then, that the sentry bot had been cautious. Even for someone not on a database, an untidy appearance would raise a flag. Behavioural cams were calibrated to sense if someone might be about to do something illegal, and the ones on the sentry station would have been given a clear view of Fowler’s face. ‘I’ve already been to check in with the family. Thought it better to wait for you out here, though. Come on, let’s go!’
Anna didn’t move, purposefully not wanting to be harried into working at the PI’s pace. ‘Nice house,’ she said.
‘N’Golo Durrant spent the last few weeks living here,’ Fowler replied, coming to a halt.
‘You said both foster-parents were employed?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Any other kids in the house?’
‘The Haydens have two children of their own, Beth and George.’
Anna looked towards the Hayden house. She knew size wasn’t always a good indicator of wealth but here, right on the edge of Amblinside, it reeked of money. There’d probably be a decent-sized garden to the rear. She could just about glimpse some rolling hills beyond the boundary of the estate, topped by a small outcrop of woodland.
‘And when was the last time anyone heard from Beth?’
Fowler gave an impatient sigh. ‘Yesterday. She was meant to be home by ten. Didn’t show.’
‘And they’ve called her friends?’
‘Yep. None of them have any idea where she is. I understand they’ve all passed the first wave of lie detection.’
‘And they were able to contact all her friends? No others missing?’
‘Yes to the first, no to the second.’ Fowler rubbed his chin, scratching at his sandpaper-like stubble. ‘Can you sense them looking?’
Anna caught some amusement in Fowler’s eyes. ‘Who?’
He tipped his head back to the street. ‘The rest of the picket fences.’
Anna glanced behind her. Every house on the estate sat alone in its garden, each one built in the same style. Of course, some natural variation had set in since they’d first been occupied – some brickwork was covered by ivy and some by wisteria – but mainly the dwellings on one side of the street mirrored those on the other. Above all, though, each property had large windows which offered a relatively good view of where they were standing.
‘First time I came here,’ Fowler said, ‘an old woman a few doors down bypassed the sentry station and made an emergency call. Said I was breaking into the Hayden property. Five cops came in two squad cars.’
An emergency call from her apartment would probably have resulted in a single car. Most other places, perhaps nothing. It was all down to the type of incident and the score S&P assigned to the individual case.
‘Seems an odd place for a foster-family.’
‘Part of the new social contract malarkey.’
A tax incentive. Anna felt an inner churn of disgust. The Haydens had taken in N’Golo Durrant to save a few per cent on their annual return.
‘The boy gets beaten up; the girl goes missing. So, what do you think?’ Fowler asked, turning to her. ‘It must be a kidnapping, right?’
‘Or it’s just coincidence.’
Fowler snorted.
‘This isn’t a twenty-four-hour news show,’ she told him. ‘We have time to gather some facts. Isn’t that why we’re here?’
Fowler issued an exasperated sigh, then began to walk to the house. When Anna didn’t move, he looked back, spreading his arms. ‘What?’
‘Someone here reports a vagrant,’ Anna said, letting the thought roll in her mind, ‘and they get five cops in two cars. Emergency response.’
‘It wasn’t a vagrant,’ Fowler replied, becoming agitated. ‘It was me!’
‘Five cops in response to the appearance of a person who was on a guest list and who’d passed through the sentry station? So where are they now that a child’s gone missing?’
‘It’s illegal for the police to prioritise based on wealth.’
Anna couldn’t help but roll her eyes. ‘Only the signifiers of wealth, eh?’
‘That a quote from one of those Workers’ League leaflets you’re so fond of?’ Fowler took a few steps back towards her. ‘Look, you know the old saying “If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone”? Turns out, if rich people are victims of crime, then crime goes up. People get encouraged. Fair or not, it correlates – and it reinforces the need to protect certain groups more than others.’
‘But not when their kids go missing?’
‘The girl’s gone AWOL before. S&P’s output suggests she’ll show up in the next day or two. It’s monitoring social media, news feeds – running facial recognition. The police are working on the premise that she’ll be tagged sooner rather than later, and then they can simply go and pick her up.’
‘A low S&P score for N’Golo is one thing – but for a girl with this background it should have been off the chart…’
‘But it wasn’t. The family’s pretty upset, Anna. Let’s not debate the merits of S&P in front of them, eh? And remember, this is my investigation. I asked you here just so you can see why I’m so interested in getting access to your sequencer.’
She conceded the point and followed him up to the front of the house. As soon as they’d ducked under the small portico, Fowler rapped on the door, which was already slightly ajar. A tall, sharp-suited man soon yanked it open. Roger Hayden, Anna assumed. He seemed far from panic-stricken, although there was a definite line of tension in his jaw.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘You’re back.’ He turned and shouted up the stairs, ‘Millie, come down and make us some tea!’
Hayden showed them through to a rustic kitchen. They sat down at a thick oak table that dominated one side of the room. By the back door, a couple of pairs of wellington boots rested incongruously next to a briefcase. The briefcase was an anachronism; something certain people still liked to carry to signify they had a job – and a good one – even though it was probably empty. At least Millie Hayden would be putting the wellingtons to good use, if she worked with animals.
Hayden cocked his head towards Anna. ‘Who’s your assistant?’ he asked Fowler.
‘This is Anna Glover. She works for—’
‘Oh, right. The tech company.’ Hayden’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second as maybe some little part of his brain registered recognition. It soon evaporated. ‘You want to use some sort of entertainment system to interrogate the foster-kid?’
Anna could tell Fowler wanted to say something, but he looked deferential in front of the man paying his bills.
‘I haven’t agreed to anything,’ she said. ‘But that’s certainly what’s been put to me.’
Hayden glanced at Fowler, a little confused. ‘This was your idea?’
‘A line of enquiry,’ Fowler said.
‘The boy’s not worth that much.’
‘But your daughter might be.’
Fowler’s words caused Hayden to shrink back into himself. Before he could recover, a woman appeared in the doorway and moved quickly to gather some mugs from one of the cabinets. She was accompanied by a ginger cat, which constantly weaved between her feet.
‘We’ve still had no word from Beth,’ Roger Hayden said, his voice now quiet. ‘The police are telling us she’ll turn up either today or tomorrow, though. Eighty-five per cent likelihood.’
Fowler nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘I’m happy with your contract variation,’ Hayden continued, clearly thinking about the remaining fifteen per cent chance the police were wrong. ‘I’ll ping you the instruction after we’ve finished.’
‘Fine.’
Millie Hayden placed four mugs of tea on the table just as Anna was about to cut in. The cheap mugs looked out of place in the plush kitchen. The tea was already mixed with milk, and there was no sign of sugar. As she handed Anna a mug, Millie froze. ‘You’re—’
‘Oh, shit,’ Hayden interrupted. ‘That’s right. Fuck!’
Both Roger and Millie Hayden were now staring at Anna, probably trying to confirm in their minds whether the pictures they’d seen on the boards matched her appearance.
‘We haven’t yet agreed fees for Anna’s involvement,’ Fowler said, nerves clearly audible in his voice. ‘If you’d prefer to—’
‘I’m willing to pay,’ Hayden interrupted.
Anna glanced at Hayden’s wife. Millie Hayden didn’t look as if she’d slept the previous night; her eyes were red and her hands were shaking slightly. And now the drinks were served, her attention had moved down the table to where no one was sitting. Away from those talking about her daughter. She was detached, like this was happening to somebody else.
‘Seems an odd move,’ Hayden said. ‘Air crash investigator to PI?’
Anna couldn’t help but prickle at the notion. ‘I’m not a private investigator,’ she said, ‘though I work in the investigation team at Synapse Initiatives. It’s all ultimately about saving people’s lives.’
Anna immediately regretted her answer. She’d meant it to sound noble, but both the Haydens and Fowler probably had one thing now buzzing through their minds. All the lives lost in Tanzania, through the bot attacks and drone strikes. The ones that had missed their intended targets; the multiple scores of needless dead. Roger Hayden raised an eyebrow; his wife made an incredulous noise. ‘The last time Beth ran away,’ Anna asked, trying to get things back on track, ‘how long was she gone?’
For a long moment nobody answered. Hayden glared at Fowler, who pulled a face. ‘That’s irrelevant,’ Hayden responded. ‘She was a little girl, and we’d just seen some kids’ film about a group of children who’d run off to see Santa. She got overexcited, that’s all.’
‘Very different to a teen runaway,’ Anna said.
‘Except it scores the same on S&P,’ Fowler explained. ‘Factoring in the five-year decay variable on cases like this.’
Decay variable? Fowler seemed to know quite a bit about how S&P worked. It would be useful to pick his brains on it later, Anna thought, when they were back at the hub.
‘There’s a big difference between ten and fifteen,’ Roger Hayden said, his voice bitter, like the debate was fresh in his mind.
‘But lots of teenagers run away for a day or so,’ Fowler said. ‘That’s why S&P scores it as likely in this case.’
Anna looked down at her arms as they rested on the oak table, and then tugged at her sleeves, adjusting the bangle that clumsily hid the first signs of scarring underneath the cuff. What Fowler had said was true. She’d wanted to disappear many times in her teens. And it was a pattern of behaviour that was evidently accounted for in S&P’s calculations. There were far too many such incidents for the police to dedicate resources to searching for every single one, especially when they could just wait for the missing children’s faces to crop up in a public space and be snagged by a cam. But the low S&P score for Beth’s disappearance was only one reason why they were sitting round this table. ‘Did Beth have much involvement with N’Golo?’ Anna asked.
‘Involvement?’ Roger Hayden looked sharply at his wife, but she was still staring down the table towards the empty spot.
‘How did they get along?’ Anna clarified. ‘Generally speaking.’
‘Neither of my children… well, they don’t appreciate having other kids here. George hated him. Beth… well, Beth has some funny ideas.’
Millie reached out and took her husband’s hand. ‘Roger…’
‘How do you mean? Funny ideas?’
‘She occasionally volunteered at feeding stations,’ Hayden replied dismissively. ‘Having someone like N’Golo here seemed to be a bit too close to home for her.’
‘And how many foster-children have you had before N’Golo?’
‘Four. Previously, they’ve all matched the descriptions given on their docket.’
‘But not N’Golo?’
‘No. And it was stupid to put someone of his sort with a family like ours.’
The whole tone of Hayden’s conversation left a bad taste in Anna’s mouth, but Fowler was nodding along sympathetically – it was clear he was used to soothing unlovable clients.
‘Look,’ Hayden said. ‘We can agree fees. If the police are wrong, then I want you to find my daughter. The boy can wait. The deadline isn’t until next March but – yes – I do want to know if he’s mixed up in Beth’s disappearance.’
Deadline? The question died on her lips. He meant the date by which he’d need to apply to take on another foster-child. It was wishful thinking on his part. With his last ward in hospital and his own daughter missing, he’d be blacklisted. His tax bill was about to get bigger. He was probably already trying to balance the value of the tax incentive against the cost of using the sequencer.
‘Do you have children, Miss Glover?’ Millie Hayden asked, sounding distant.
‘No, I don’t.’ Anna realised none of them had touched their tea.
Millie continued to stare down the table. ‘I’m not sure you really care, that’s all.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘All those children, Miss Glover. All those children who were killed in their beds in Tanzania. I didn’t have a good night, thinking about my daughter. But you look well rested. I just wonder how you can sleep at all.’
14
N’GOLO WAS THERE, kneeling at my side. Nonetheless, I tried to keep my attention on Sean or, more specifically, on his pen and paper. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you explain a little bit about what you know already,’ I said. ‘So I can see where we’re starting from?’
My suggestion didn’t go down well. I could see the cogs whirring in his mind; he was searching for a way to politely decline and get me talking again. After all, that was his reason for being here: to hear my side of the story. And I suppose part of my question was born of devilment; so much had already been written about what had happened, it would be as well to flush some of the crap out of his mind now rather than later.
