Rule 34 - Charles Stross [47]
“Mike? It was at the Admiral Duncan, in London, about six months ago. Or maybe eight? Or was it after Pride? Anyway, we, er . . . got to know each other quite well.” You clear your throat. “It’s personal. He invited me to drop round if I was ever in Edinburgh, and I’m here for the next week on business, and I was hoping he didn’t have anything else on for the weekend. Is something wrong?”
Brown’s expression morphs through a whole sequence of emotions as you give him the Big Lie, backed up by some telegraphic wiggling of eyebrows and seasoned with just the tiniest bit of camp. You have not, in fact, ever met Mike (and you hope to hell he’s lying dead in an autopsy room so he can’t contradict you); even if you had, you wouldn’t want to fuck him. On the other hand, the Operation’s files went into quite a lot of detail on the subject of his personal life, and getting off with him after a Pride march in what has long been one of the biggest knocking shops in London is entirely plausible. The Scottish Polis get all red-faced and sweaty at the merest suggestion of locker-room homophobia: It’s amusing to watch the cop switch from investigating-person-of-interest mode to dealing with bereaved significant other in the space of a sentence. (It works even better if there is some latent locker-room homophobia, so you’re careful to lean just a little too close and hold the eye contact a second too long.)
“Is something wrong?” you ask, feigning worry, as he begins to open his mouth. And you know that, really, nothing is wrong. If you were neurotypical and going up against the speech stress analysis he’s watching in his fancy-pants glasses, you’d be in deep doo-doo, getting flustered from all the falsehoods: But you’re not, and the cops’ sexy tech passes the handicap to their side when they get to deal with the likes of you. It’s only if they get you in front of a psych with a PCL-R check-list that you’ve got to start worrying.
“Mr. Christie, John, I’m really sorry.” He takes a deep breath. “Would you like to sit down?” He’s all solicitude, waving you into the spotless kitchen (which is interestingly bereft of forensic turds). “I’m very sorry, but—”
“Oh God,” you say, shoving the “distraught” slider all the way up to eleven. “He’s been in an accident, hasn’t he?”
There’s another cop coming down the staircase, and they’re going into full-on sit-down-and-have-a-cup-of-tea mode, as if they expect you to go into shock. “What makes you think there’s been an accident?” asks Brown, but it’s just a residual autonomic cop reflex—he’s already bought your spiel on outline.
“Mike’s big on water sports,” you say off-hand, then make to look horrified. “Oh God. What’s happened?”
“I’m really sorry.” PC Brown looks sideways at the newcomer, DET SGT GREEN. (Yeah, right, you think.) “Um. There’s been a, a fatality, sir. We’re still trying to ascertain the precise nature of events.” Which means it wasn’t an accident. “I’m sorry to intrude on your grief, sir. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a saliva sample.” They’ve already got your fingerprint biometrics off the driving license: This means they’re serious about logging identities.
You nod shakily. “Sure. Oh God.” You hunch up a little and do the weepy thing—not too much of it, you don’t want to ham it up and tip them off. “I can’t believe it.” Which is entirely true. Mikey’s dossier said he’s never been involved in anything serious enough to warrant a hit—that was one of the reasons you were going to interview him. Walking in on a homicide investigation is classic dumb bad luck. Your immediate task is to stop it graduating into a classic fuck-up, which is best done by cooperating with the cops for the time being. There are forms you can serve later to get “John Christie’s” DNA taken off the database once they figure out that he’s an innocent bystander, then you can retire the ID with a “do not recycle” flag.
Brown produces a sample tube and