Rule 34 - Charles Stross [144]
“It’s all here,” says your Girl Guide, blinking innocent peepers that have seen far too much. She gestures at the opening. “We havena officially ID’d him, but if you can help—”
“We were here less than two hours ago,” you say. “Can I see?”
“Sure. We havena finished uploading the map into CopSpace though—there’s no much bandwidth in these old uni buildings—you’ll have to use your eyeballs.”
You approach the membrane and peer through it. Then, after a moment, you step aside and make room for Kemal.
You swallow bile. It’s Dr. MacDonald, of course. He’s slumped backwards in his chair, mottled bruises around his throat exposed to the tripedal camera bots as they delicately step around the room, scanning everything. Fumes of cyanoacrylate smoke rise from a fingerprint blower in one corner; blue laser light flickers as another robot systematically scans the dimensions of the room. There’s something wrong with MacDonald’s hands.
“I can ID him,” you say. “That’s Dr. Adam MacDonald, Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, and a person of interest to BABYLON. I interviewed him earlier this morning in this very office, less than two hours ago.”
“I, too,” Kemal adds. “What is wrong with his hands?”
Bunny-girl’s eyes narrow queasily. “Did you not see? The sick bastard who did this started to peel them. Used sodium hydroxide first, to hydrolyze the subcutaneous fat. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
You swallow. “Did you find the, uh, the . . .”
“Tha gloves? No luck so far. We’ll be looking, though. Maybe he wants them for biometrics.”
You take a deep breath. “Where’s everyone else? Up or down?”
“Up.” Bunny-girl points at the ceiling. “You’ll be wanting to take the stairs.”
Back over the boot barrier and up the stairs, you follow the blue police tape to a common room, where a handful of SOCOs and uniforms are busy working their drones. (Humans aren’t welcome in crime scenes these days: too much risk of evidence contamination.) The inspector in charge, DI Terry—you know her: efficient, good middle manager, married with two kids, not your type—comes over. “Liz. Inspector Aslan. What brings you here?”
“Dickie MacLeish thought we ought to look in, seeing we were here two hours ago to interview the deceased,” you say, taking no great pleasure in her abrupt reaction. “He’s Dr. Adam MacDonald, Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University, and we were here to interview him as a possible material witness with knowledge bearing on the BABYLON investigation. I’m sorry, we had no idea someone was going to whack him like this. Otherwise, I’d have brought him into protective custody.”
“You’re certain it’s connected?” She raises an eyebrow behind her specs.
“Oh, come on! How often—”
“Correlation does not imply causation,” Terry says drily. “Just saying. But I’m not betting against you: I just think we’ll need something more than coincidence before we hand it to the Procurator Fiscal.”
“Okay, how about this? Do we have the entrance security-camera footage yet?”
“It’ll be in the can as soon as the warrant’s signed off by the Sheriff’s Office. Give it another hour.” She looks as impatient as you feel.
“Oh. Well, then.” You spot Kemal opening his mouth, and add, “We’d better be going. We shouldn’t keep you. I’ll formally report the positive ID as soon as I get back to the office.”
“Excellent.” She turns her back on you: not being rude, just taking a call from higher up the totem pole.
“Inspector Kavanaugh, shouldn’t you—”
“Hold it.” You beckon Kemal back towards the staircase. “We have a connection. Are you ready to follow it?”
“John Christie. Yes? And the next person on his list is . . .”
“Our friend Mr. Hussein.”
Kemal is two steps ahead of you on the stairs, hurrying on down. You charge after him. “You think Christie