Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02] by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

visi-contact with superior at Kandalay Security.”
     
    Vaughan said, “Dependants, next of kin?”
     
    “Victim’s marital status: Married, no children. Spouse: Hermione Kormier.”
     
    “Address?” “Two Gulshan Villas, Allabad, Level One.”
     
    He looked at Kapinsky. “Anything else?”
     
    “Ask about his last job posting, when he arrived on Earth, things like that. It’s a long-shot, but you never know.”
     
    “Victim’s last professional posting?”
     
    “Information unavailable.”
     
    “Arrival on Earth?”
     
    Again the information was unavailable. Kapinsky shrugged. “We’ll get all that when we question his boss at Scheering-Lassiter.”
     
    She nodded to the corpse boys. “Okay, we’re through here.”
     
    They moved in, and Vaughan turned away—but not fast enough. With the dispassion of their calling they lifted the corpse onto the waiting stretcher, torso and legs first, leaving behind the head and arms like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
     
    Vaughan looked around at the rusted stanchions. He shook his head and said to Kapinsky, “We’re out of luck if we thought a security cam might’ve caught the killing.”
     
    “None installed?”
     
    “Once upon a time.” He gestured to the vandalised remains of surveillance cams.
     
    He turned and stared across the park, wondering if a cam surveying the streets beyond the park might have caught something. It was a long shot, but one worth checking out later.
     
    He copied the information to his handset’s memory, ejected the pin and handed it to Kapinsky.
     
    He watched the corpse-wagon rise into the air and bank low over the decrepit panelling of the amusement park, leaving silence in its wake. Gaudy advertisements for unlimited family fun hit the eye from every direction, contrasting with the forlorn ghost-town aspect of the abandoned park. Vaughan thought it a ghoulishly apposite setting for a laser slaying.
     
    “Two things, Lin,” he said. “What was Kormier doing here anyway, and why at midnight?”
     
    “Meeting someone?” She shrugged. “Okay, looks to me like we have two obvious lines of enquiry. His employers—the Scheering-Lassiter outfit—and his widow.” She went on before Vaughan could state a preference, “I’ll take his bosses. You talk to his widow, find out if—”
     
    “Lin, I know what to do, okay?”
     
    She flicked him a smile. “Two years out of practice, driving a tanker...”
     
    “Fuck you, Kapinsky.” He strode towards the waiting Russian flier. “I’ll take the taxi, okay?”
     
    “You’re such a gentleman, Vaughan.”
     
    He slumped into the padded rear seat and said, “Gulshan Villas, Allabad.”
     
    He stared out as they rose. Far below, Kapinsky was a tiny figure dwarfed by looming epitaphs to a happier time.
     
    He watched the streets flicker past, then turned his thoughts to Sukara, and their daughter, and wondered what his wife was doing now.
     
    * * * *
     
    FOUR

     
    VOICE
     
     
    “Pham...”
     
    A voice nearby, and a hand on her shoulder, waking her up. She opened her eyes and blinked up at a small brown face. She recognised the young boy, then remembered his name.
     
    “Abdul?” She sat up. “How did you find me?”
     
    He grinned. “You told me you’d spend the night here, remember?”
     
    She did, and she remembered everything else, too. The ghost train, the laser killing, the white light that had smashed into her face.
     
    Then the voice in her head.
     
    She had been so sleepy that she had thought it might have been a dream. The voice had said nothing more, just told her not to be frightened, that it could help her.
     
    Then silence, and she had slept all night.
     
    Abdul was kneeling before her, staring into her face as she rubbed her eyes with both fists. “What happened, Pham? When I got away I waited for you in the Level Two tunnel. You were ages, and when you did appear you just ran off before I could catch you.”
     
    Pham smiled. “The