Déjà Vu: A Technothriller by Hocking, Ian (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📕

its lip as a ramp. He was airborne. The hedge was a brief glimmer of dark green below. He heard the wheels swish across its surface. He reached his apogee and became weightless. The bike touched down on its front wheel. It bounced immediately. David watched as the steering column rose up and met his chin. His teeth bit together with a crunch. The back wheel touched, bounced, then the front did the same again. The bike became a bucking bronco. But the intervals shortened and, though the bike wobbled and swerved, the onboard computer was able to keep the bike and its rider upright. It came to a graceless halt some thirty metres from the hedge. David sagged in exhaustion and tapped the petrol tank.

“Good job,” he breathed.

He flipped his visor and risked a look over his shoulder. The other bikers had stopped to watch him. He wondered why they didn’t race on to the nearest gate. Surely they would know its location. But they didn’t move. They stared at him. David managed a little wave and began to ride away.

When he looked back again, he saw that one of the men had removed his helmet. He was speaking into a phone. His free arm was waving about madly.

David carried on. In a few minutes, he came to a road and turned left. The spiked tyres rattled uncomfortably before the computer retracted the spikes. According to Easy RiderTM, that way led, via a tortuous pre-programmed route involving minor roads and country lanes, to London Heathrow. It would take one day, nine hours, twenty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds. If he rode without a break.

It was 8 a.m. It would be a long day. He rode on.

The Scene of the Crime

Saskia took a taxi to the airport. With no time to pack, she had taken nothing but her gun. She checked-in early and shopped: a coat, a few T-shirts, some nice blouses, shoes, a skirt, and some jeans. She also bought some tampons. Thanks to Jobanique, she had no idea when she had had her last period. In the supermarket she flashed her ID and jumped the queue.

She flew into London Gatwick at 10:40, twenty clock minutes after her departure, and spent the next hour wandering. Her attempts at English were largely successful, though she felt no familiarity or confidence.

Gatwick was uninspiring. She bought another coffee and listened to the announcements. She watched children play and discussed British hamburger beef with a French businessman.

At midday she sat in an old Boeing 737 as it lumbered up the runway and, almost impossibly, achieved flight. She touched down an hour-and-a-half later in Edinburgh. She spent some time talking to a customs officer who was unimpressed by the paperwork for her revolver. Two phone calls later, the gun was in back in its holster on her hip.

In arrivals, she saw a suited man with a card that read ‘Brandt’. She shook his hand. He directed her to a car and they climbed into the back. It was an old manual Ford.

“In your own time,” he said to the driver. Saskia wondered what would happen. She was relieved, but also puzzled, when they pulled away into traffic. “Your luggage has been sent on. You’re staying at the Old Train Inn in Whitburn. Why did you want to stay there? The last sighting of Proctor was in Northumbria.”

She considered his words before replying. He spoke in a whisper she associated with French. “The murder,” she said simply.

He nodded and flicked some ash from the window. Some fell on a ‘no smoking’ sign near the handle. She guessed the man was in his mid-fifties. In England, she knew, police officers could serve a maximum of twenty five years. He would be near retirement age. His cheeks were rouged with broken blood vessels. White hair had begun to creep from his ears. She wondered what he thought of her and was surprised, given what she knew about British politeness, to be told immediately.

“You’re a bit young, aren’t you?”

“Between us, I forget how young. Will you offer me a cigarette?”

He seemed surprised. She smiled sweetly. “Aye. Have one.”

She took it. “Not many people smoke any more.”

“They do in Scotland.”

“Why’s that?”

“First time in Scotland?”

“Yes.”

“Light?”

“Please.”

He took out a gold Zippo, flipped it open on his thigh on the downstroke and lit the wick on the upstroke. Saskia watched the gesture. She had seen it before. It was a memory with roots beyond the black wall that had fallen between her new life and the old. She reached out.

Nothing. Nothing more than a familiar gesture. Soon, even the familiarity was gone.

The man frowned and checked his lighter. “I’m Hannah. Detective Inspector George Hannah.”

“Oh.” She shook his hand. “I’m Saskia Brandt. Detective FIB.”

She looked at his warrant card, nodded, and he examined her gold badge, smiled.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No. I –” she faltered, and lost herself in the shops passing by. She felt a deep frustration about travelling...a frustration she was certain she had felt Before too. She could never get far enough away that the scenery really changed, became properly alien, properly foreign. Edinburgh was full of traffic lights, people, modern buildings. Brussels with different lighting. “I once knew a man who did that with a lighter,” she lied. Then she added, almost to herself, “He’s dead now.”

The detective nodded. “It happens.”

“Tell me about Proctor.”

He opened his notebook. “Professor David Proctor, aged fifty-two. Wanted for the murders of Sergeant Caroline Saunders and Dr Bruce Shimoda, both in Whitburn. Details are sketchy. Official Secrets Act covers a lot of it.”

“Official Secrets Act? Is that a law?”

“Yes. Once you’ve signed a secrecy contract, the government can stop you from snitching. Talking about certain things, that is. The act means that we can’t know certain things about the murder.”

Saskia was puzzled. “That makes it rather difficult to investigate.”

Hannah sighed. “Yes. But our job is to find him, not solve the murder. My Super and a judge – a sheriff,