Rule 34 - Charles Stross [22]
You’re not sure just what it is that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but you sit there and stare at the transcript for a long moment, then air-type:
QUERY: What is $PERP’s background?
It’s a minute or so before Karl spots your addition and replies, during which time you’re perusing a report on trends in toxicant inhalation among youth in the seedier Parisian banlieues, then:
$PERP is a scam artist—bulk-mailing fraud and tax evasion. Why?
Your fingers shaking, you reply:
Maybe nothing, but we have a weird one here, too. Our $PERP had a record: pharmaceutical spam, illegal sale of medicinal products, counterfeit goods. We are investigating as murder due to circumstances of death.
More waiting:
What circumstances?
At this point you pause to authenticate Karl’s identity credentials. Karl Heyne is indeed an officer of some kind in the Kriminalpolizei in Dresden, according to your departmental authentication server. He is, in the loosest possible sense, one of your colleagues. But on the other hand—you check the department newsfeed for confirmation—Dickie has indeed escalated the case of the late Mr. Blair to Murder in the First Degree as of lunch-time, and the ironclad rule of criminal intelligence is: assimilate everything, disclose nothing. You think for another minute, then:
I am not principal investigator. Suggest you contact DCI MacLeish (profile attached) for further information. Tell him I noted circumstantial similarity.
(Bye.)
At which point you could wash your hands of the whole affair and consider your duty done—but that’s not enough, is it? You stare at Karl’s note for a full minute, letting it all percolate together, trying to quantify your sense of déjà vu.
Item: $PERP is a spammer.
Item: $PERP is found dead, in a weird and improbable accident, at home.
Item: rogue domestic appliances are implicated.
Item: so are inappropriate intoxicating substances.
Naah, that never happens, not in real life, outside of the movies. Does it?
“Dickie will think I’m off my trolley,” you mutter to yourself. Then you pick up your phone, shake it, and speed-dial.
“Chief Inspector? If I can have a moment . . . ? Really? That’s too bad . . . Listen, I don’t want to add to your work-load, but I have a possible lead from—it’s a long shot—Germany. Yes, it’s intelligence-led. They’ve got a circumstantially similar case on their hands in the past twenty-four hours. No . . . Not exactly the same, but I spotted at least four points of similarity. So far, no, no, they’re still treating it as accidental-but-weird. No, I know. I told him I’m not the lead, gave him your details. Yes, I—I’m sorry, but in my judgement there’s something very fishy about it, and I think you need to talk to the man. No I—no. Look, you know what I do, don’t you? I’m here to watch for—well shit.”
You put the phone down carefully, in case it explodes. Or maybe in case you explode. Anger management is one of those compulsory people-skills hingmies they put you through on a regular basis; clearly Dickie’s overdue for his next refresher.
You can fully appreciate how busy he is, and how he’s got the brass breathing down his neck—Scotland as a nation gets about a hundred murders a year, but Edinburgh accounts for less than a tenth of that—and you know this is but a circumstantial what-the-fuck? indicator, most likely a coincidence. But there’s no call to bite your head off. If Dickie disnae want to carry it, he can always fob you off on one of his minions. There is absolutely no fucking call to swear at a fellow officer like that, much less a sometime classmate, and it is indicative of a distinct lack of respect and professionalism, and you have half a mind to—
No, scratch that. Leave the formal complaint for some other time, when he isn’t being shat on from above and trying to juggle a murder investigation and his regular