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

with a sofa. As they sat down, Saskia said, “Not bad for a foreigner.”

“Not bad,” he agreed. “We’ll either get the facts or a bullet in the head. Anyway, it’s further than I got.”

Hannah undid a button on his jacket to let his belly out. Saskia stared at the fat mass in wonder. This was the least vain man she had ever met. He reached for a cigarette, offered one to Saskia, and they smoked thoughtfully.

“Have faith,” Saskia said.

Hannah became serious. “Faith is believing in something without evidence. The hallmark of a fine detective.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Look.” Saskia took out her notebook and showed Hannah. She watched his face, a smile on her lips. There were no notes. She had drawn a caricature of Garrel: bow-legged, a chest full of medals, swagger cane in one hand and a salute in another. It was signed: “Brandt”.

Hannah chuckled. “Not bad.”

Garrel walked briskly across the foyer with the air of man who had marched in his youth and had never recovered his relaxation. Saskia was glad that Hannah did not stand.

“Detective Brandt, follow me please.”

Both Saskia and Hannah stood, but Garrel shook his head at the DI. “I can talk to the FIB, no one else.”

Garrel walked away. In the middle of the foyer he realised that he was walking alone. He turned. “Are you coming?”

Saskia was busy with her notebook. She was writing something.

“Sign here,” she said to Hannah. He scanned the sheet and grinned.

“Fine.” He signed.

Saskia and Hannah approached Garrel. “DI Hannah is now an emergency deputy of the Föderatives Investigationsbüro. As such, he is now entitled to the rights and privileges of a detective-officer.” She imagined she had said the words a thousand times before.

Garrel slapped his haunches in resignation. “What a circus. Come on then, otherwise we’ll be here till midnight.” They crossed the foyer in silence. Garrel turned left into a corridor that was narrow and dark. In the distance, she could hear the crackle of handheld radios and an unplaceable, constant tapping.

“Ooh, this is exciting,” said Hannah. He mimicked Garrel’s march. Saskia giggled.

They walked past picture windows. She had expected a garden, but it was a lawn, lush green and smooth. It was surrounded by firs. Secluded. It would be peaceful even when the community’s nearby sports facilities to the were busy. One more thought struck her: Garrel was right. The circus was in town. Two huge tents had been pitched.

“What is the purpose of the tents?” she asked.

Garrel glanced over his shoulder at them. “One is a hospital. The other covers an excavation.”

“An excavation of what?” asked Hannah.

“Hasn’t she told you, deputy?”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Yes, I have,” Saskia said. “The West Lothian Research Centre is beneath our feet.”

Hannah said, “Oh.” He dropped back and murmured to Saskia, “You make me feel like a sidekick.”

“A kick?” Saskia asked.

“You know, a sidekick. He asks the hero dumb questions so that the audience knows what’s going on. The sidekick is also the first to die when there’s any trouble.”

“Ah, I understand.” Saskia smiled. A memory – a precious jewel – glinted. “That happens on Enterprise, the TV show. You beam down with the captain. If you are wearing a red shirt you will be subject to a fatal special effect.”

Hannah laughed heartily and clapped her on the back. It hurt. “You’d better call me Scottie, then. He never gets killed.”

They came to a cloakroom. It was empty. Saskia could not understand why the cloakroom was so far from the main entrance. Garrel stepped to one side and she saw a splintered hole in the centre of the floor. She felt, simultaneously, a need to jump down the hole and a need to run away from it. Another discovery, then: she was scared of heights.

“This room is where the scientists entered the research centre. The whole room would sink to the ground floor of the complex, twenty metres down. Proctor went down there last Sunday.” Garrel spoke like a tour guide.

Hannah whistled. He stepped as close to the edge as he dared. Saskia remained in the doorway. Hannah stepped back. He said, “Are you saying there was a research centre down there?”

“Yes. The corpse, anyway. It was operational from 1996 to 2003. It was bombed in May 2003. The structure was seriously weakened, but it didn’t collapse.”

“So you just left it?” asked Saskia.

“Not me. But yes, it was left. All of the access routes except for this one were capped. It was unusable. There was nothing else to do. Though, actually, I believe a good deal of reinforcement work was carried out to alleviate the threat of a cave-in.”

Hannah nodded. “What kind of projects did they do here?”

“Radical stuff. The kind that doesn’t normally get funding.”

“For ethical reasons?”

Garrel laughed. “For John Hartfield. Heard of him? He runs research centres all over the world.”

“But he has government help.”

“Yes. A public-private partnership. I’m sure that, as a new employee of the FIB, you’d appreciate that even better than me.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Saskia said. “I would like to view the crime scene.”

Garrel led them out. “We can’t go down this way. It’s blocked. There was a cave-in ten minutes after Proctor went down with McWhirter.”

They emerged from the rear of the hotel onto the enormous lawn. They headed towards one of the two circus-sized tents. It was eighty metres away on the uphill. They were silent for a while.

“Who is McWhirter?” Saskia asked.

“Head of security before me. He’s dead.”

“I see. How did he die?”

Garrel didn’t turn around. “We haven’t found the body yet. We only have Proctor’s statement. There was a cave-in. Convenient, perhaps. McWhirter believed that Proctor was responsible for the first bombing.”

“In 2003.”

“The same.” Garrel slowed down. He was sweating and so was Hannah. Garrel continued, pausing often: “There wasn’t much direct evidence, but plenty of clues. Proctor had put in a number of complaints about the new direction of his research. In this kind of place, the scientist doesn’t control his research programme – it is dictated by his superiors