«Well, when you do, you'll find that Penny Maowkavitz was Boston's principal organizer.»
«Oh, Christ.»
«Yeah. And I'm the man responsible for ensuring Eden stays firmly locked in to the JSKP's domain.»
I remembered his file; Nocord was a vice-president (on sabbatical) from McDonnell Electric, one of the JSKP's parent companies. Strictly managerial and administration track, not one of the aspiring dreamers, someone the board could trust implicitly.
«If we can confirm where you were prior to the murder, you should be in the clear,» I said. «I'll have one of my officers take a statement and correlate it with Eden's memory of your movements. Shouldn't be a problem.»
«It would never be me personally, anyway, not even as part of a planning team. JSKP would use a covert agent.»
«But clearing your name quickly would help quell any rumours.» I paused. «Are you telling me JSKP takes Boston seriously enough to bring covert operatives into this situation?»
«I don't know. I mean that, I'm not holding out on you. As far as I know the board is relying on you and me to prevent things from getting out of control up here. We know you're dependable,» he added, almost in apology.
I guess he'd studied my file as closely as I'd gone over his. It didn't particularly bother me. Anyone who does access my history isn't going to find any earthshaker revelations. I used to be a policeman, I went into the London force straight from university. With thirty-five million people crammed together in the Greater London area, and four million of them unemployed, policing is a very secure career, we were in permanent demand. I was good at it, I made detective in eight years. Then my third case was working as part of a team investigating corruption charges in the London Regional Federal Commission. We ran down over a dozen senior politicians and civil servants receiving payola for awarding contracts to various companies. Some of the companies were large and well known, and two of the politicians were sitting in the Greater Federal Europe congress. Quite a sensation, we were given hours of prime facetime on the newscable bulletins.
The judge and the Metropolitan Police Commander congratulated us in front of the cameras, handshakes and smiles all round. But in the months which followed none of my colleagues who went up before promotion boards ever seemed successful. We got crappy assignments. We pulled the night shifts for weeks at a time. Overtime was denied. Expenses were queried. Call me cynical, I quit and went into corporate security. Companies regard employee loyalty and honesty as commendable traits—below board level anyway.
«I like to think I am, yes,» I told the Governor. «But if you're expecting trouble soon, just remember I haven't had time to build any personal loyalties with my officers. What did you mean that the murder's timing stinks?»
«It looks suspicious, that's all. The company sends a new police chief who isn't even affinity capable; and, wham , Penny is murdered the day after you arrive. Then there's the cloudscoop lowering operation in two days' time. If it's successful, He3 extraction will become simpler by orders of magnitude, decreasing Jupiter's technological dependence on Earth. And the Ithilien delivered the Ararat seed; another habitat, safeguarding the population if we do ever have a major environmental failure in Eden or Pallas. It's a good time for Boston to try and break free. Ergo, killing the leader is an obvious option.»
«I'll bear it in mind. Do you have any ideas who might have killed her?»
Fasholé Nocord sat back in his chair and grinned broadly. «Real police are never off the case, eh?»
I returned a blank smile. «You have been emphasizing your own innocence with a great deal of eloquence.»
It wasn't quite the response he was looking for. The professional grin faltered. «No, I don't have any idea. But I will tell you Penny Maowkavitz was not an easy person to work with; if pushed I'd describe her as stereotypically brash. She was always convinced everything she did was right. People who didn't agree with her were more or less ignored. Her brilliance allowed her to get away with it, of course; she was vital to the initial design concept of the habitats.»
«She had her own biotechnology company, didn't she?»
«That's right, she founded Pacific Nugene; it's basically a softsplice house, specializing in research and design work rather than production. Penny preferred to deal in concepts; she refined the organisms until they were viable, then licensed out the genome to the big boys for actual manufacture and distribution. She was the first geneticist JSKP approached when it became obvious we needed a large dormitory station in Jupiter orbit. Pacific Nugene was pioneering a microbe which could digest asteroid rock; initially the board wanted to use those microbes to hollow out a biosphere cavern in one of the larger ring particles. It would be a lot cheaper than shipping mining teams and all their equipment out here. Penny proposed they use a living polyp habitat instead, and Pacific Nugene became a minor partner in JSKP. She was a board member herself up until five years ago; even after she gave up her seat she retained a non-executive position as senior biotechnology adviser.»
«Five years ago?» I took a guess. «That would be when Boston formed, would it?»
«Yes,» he sighed. «Let me tell you, the JSKP board went ballistic. They considered Penny's involvement as a total betrayal. Nothing they could do about it, of course, she was essential to develop the next generation of habitats. Eden is really only a prototype.»
«I see. Well, thanks for filling me in on the basics. And if you do remember anything relevant . . .»
«Eden will remember anyone she ever argued with.» He shrugged, his hands splaying wide. «You really will have to get a symbiont implant.»
«Right.»
I drove myself back to the station, sticking to a steady twenty kilometres an hour. The main road of naked polyp which ran through the centre of the town was clogged with bicycle traffic.
Rolf Kümmel had set up an incident room on the ground floor. I didn't even have to tell him; like me he'd been a policeman at one time, four years in a Munich arcology. I walked in to a quiet bustle of activity. And I do mean quiet, I could only hear a few excitable murmurs above the whirr of the air conditioning. It was eerie. Uniformed officers moved round constantly between the desks, carrying fat files and cases of bubble cubes; maintenance techs were still installing computer terminals on some desks, their chimps standing to attention beside them, holding toolboxes and various electronic test rigs. Seven shirtsleeved junior detectives were loading data into working terminals under Shannon Kershaw's direction. A big hologram screen on the rear wall displayed a map of Eden's parkland. Two narrow lines—one red, one blue—were snaking across the countryside like newborn neon streams. They both originated at the Lincoln lake, which was about a kilometre south of town.
Rolf was standing in front of the screen, hands on hips, watching attentively as the lines lengthened.
«Is that showing Penny Maowkavitz's movements?» I enquired.
«Yes, sir,» Rolf said. «She's the blue line. And the servitor chimp is red. Eden is interfaced with the computer; this is a raw memory plot downloaded straight from its neural strata. It should be able to tell us everyone who came near the servitor in the last thirty hours.»
«Why thirty hours?»
«That's the neural strata's short-term memory capacity.»
«Right.» I was feeling redundant and unappreciated again. «What was the servitor chimp's assigned task?»
«It was allotted to habitat botanical maintenance, covering a square area roughly two hundred and fifty metres to a side, with the lake as one border. It pruned trees, tended plants, that kind of thing.»
I watched the red line lengthening, a child's crayon-squiggle keeping within the boundary of its designated area. «How often does it . . . go back to base?»
«The servitor chimps are given full physiological checks every six months in the veterinary centre. The ones allotted to domestic duties have a communal wash-house in town where they go to eat, and keep themselves clean. But one like this . . . it wouldn't leave its area unless it was ordered to. They eat the fruit, their crap is good fertilizer. If they get very muddy they'll wash it off in a stream. They even sleep out there.»
I gave the screen a thoughtful look. «Did Penny Maowkavitz take a walk through the habitat parkland very often?»
He rewarded me a grudgingly respectful glance. «Yes, sir. Every morning. It was a kind of an unofficial inspection tour, she liked to see how Eden was progressing; and Davis Caldarola said she used the solitude to think about her projects. She spent anything up to a couple of hours rambling round each day.»
«She walked specifically through this area around Lincoln lake?»
His eyelids closed in a long blink. A green circle started flashing over one of the houses on the parkland edge of the town. «That's her house; as you can see it's in the residential zone closest to Lincoln lake. So she would probably walk through this particular chimp's area most mornings.»
«Definitely not a suicide, then; the chimp was waiting for her.»
«Looks that way. It wasn't a random killing, either. I did think the murderer might have simply told the chimp to shoot the first person it saw, but that's pretty flimsy. Whoever primed that chimp put a lot of preparation into this. If all you want to do is kill someone, there are much easier ways.»
«Yes.» I gave an approving nod. «Good thinking. Who's Davis Caldarola?»
«Maowkavitz's lover.»
«He knows?»
«Yes, sir.»
The «of course» was missing from his voice, but not his tone. «Don't worry, Rolf, I'm getting my symbiont implant this afternoon.»
He struggled against a grin.
«So what else have we come up with since this morning?»
Rolf beckoned Shannon Kershaw over. «The gun,» he said. «We handed it over to a team from the Cybernetics Division's precision engineering laboratory. They say it's a perfect replica of a Colt .45 single-action revolver.»