So Vile a Sin by Ben Aaronovitch, Kate Orman Read Free Book Online Page B

Roz caught the smell of something sour on the woman’s breath. No point talking to the woman, not when whatever complicated molecule she was narced on was dictating that side of the conversation. Roz caught the man’s eye.
    ‘I’ve come a long way,’ said Roz. ‘I’m tired, I’m in a bad mood and I don’t need this shit. OK?’
    The man got the hint, put both hands on the woman’s shoulders this time and pulled her backwards. ‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘We just got back from pitch over Van Neygen’s armpit. All she needs is a lay-me-down and some P and Q. You understand?’
    Roz didn’t but she nodded anyway. ‘Tough break,’ she said on general principles.
    The woman must have been coming down the maudlin slope of whatever chemical high she’d been up because the words seemed to mollify her. She let her companion draw her away towards the hotel’s convenience store. Once she was sure the woman was out of lunging range Roz turned back to the desk and got herself checked in.
    She’d chosen the hotel because it leased the top three floors of a tower block halfway down the Boulevard Gagarin, under the highest point of the dome. The rest of the block was leased out on a floor-by-floor basis to light industry, commercial service companies and something that advertised itself as a Memory Boutique. WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU – DISCOUNT! A long time ago, in a previous life, Roz would have paid a place like that a quick visit with a search warrant and a psyche forensic team.
    Her room was a two-star Empire Standard kind of place. A wide plastic window with a view of the city, carpet-coloured carpets, and a bed just too small to be an empress and just big enough to get lonely in. She opened a door to find a cupboard-sized fresher.
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    Roz plonked her carryall on the minuscule sideboard, rummaged around for a moment and pulled out her sponge bag.
    Inside was a feminine-hygiene kit she’d picked up at duty-free on Aegisthus Station and a lumpy shape wrapped in clear plastic film. She sat down on the bed, unpicked the plastic and turned the lump over in her hands.
    There was what looked like the drive coil from a flitter with a layer of oblong chips built up around it. A bundle of wires in primary colours snaked through the other components before terminating in the back end of a small hologram projector, which seemed to have been put in the wrong way round. The whole thing was held together at one end by gaffer tape and with a double-wrapped elastic band at the other.
    Unmistakably one of the Doctor’s creations.
    She teased out a fibre-optic cable that was bundled into a depression in the lump’s side. The free end terminated in a universal media jack.
    There was a panel below the room’s simcord screen. Roz prodded it twice until it hinged open and a standard keyboard unfolded. A slot in the side of the keyboard was the right size to take the jack. She plugged in and hit the power stud. The screen lit up and displayed the standard media-feed menu of options.
    Not quite standard. In between EmpireGold and FuryLocal was an option marked only with a single question mark; Roz selected it by touching the screen.
    At first there was chaos, multiple layers of colours and shapes as the Doctor’s box of tricks accessed every single municipal sensing system from thermal probes to Kirlian scanners. Then slowly the picture resolved itself as the machine condensed the input into a single coherent schematic of the city.
    A query box appeared in the upper left-hand corner. Roz used the keyboard to type in: TSANG MEI FENG. The answer came immediately, the schematic expanding to show the street and architectural blueprints of the buildings along it. She made a mental note of both.
    She typed in another search parameter. The answer was positive.
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    Damn, she thought. She’d discussed this possibility with the Doctor. You won’t get a precise fix, probably only down to six or seven kilometres. She hadn’t thought much of