Something Coming Through

32. Little Dave

Mangala | 30 July

When Vic drew up outside Danny Drury’s house, Alain Bodin and Maria Espinosa got out of the unmarked Ford Victory that blocked the gate, and told him that there was no sign of Drury. ‘Just the husband and wife who do the cooking and cleaning, look after the garden,’ Alain said. ‘And the guy who answered our knock.’

Little Dave was sitting in the back of the unmarked car, his wrists cuffed behind his back. Looking up when Vic tapped on the window, looking away.

Vic said, ‘I guess he isn’t in the mood to talk.’

‘The piece of shit didn’t even ask us what it was about,’ Alain said, with a spasm of anger and disgust. ‘Because, of course, he already knows.’

Maria said, ‘How are you, Vic?’

‘After I deal with this, I’m heading out to Idunn’s Valley to pick up the body. The stupid fucking kid,’ Vic said. ‘Trying to play that boy-detective shit. Thinking he was in his own personal action film.’

‘You must not blame yourself,’ Maria said. ‘He did what he thought he had to do.’

‘Kid fucked up, is what it is,’ Alain said.

‘He didn’t say one word about what he was planning,’ Vic said. ‘If he’d told me, I could have done something, stopped it…’

The three investigators shared a quiet moment.

Vic said, ‘What about the other two? The husband and wife?’

‘We talked to them,’ Maria said. ‘They claim that they don’t know anything.’

‘They told us that Drury and the others rolled out a couple of days ago,’ Alain said. ‘They don’t know where they went or when they will be back. Your friend claims to know even less. You want to talk to him here or in the squad room?’

‘I want to take him for a drive,’ Vic said.

Alain and Marie extracted Little Dave from their car and walked him over to Vic’s. The man was nervous, avoiding Vic’s gaze.

As Little Dave stooped to wedge himself into the back seat, Alain put his hand on the stubbly boulder of the man’s head, gripping it like a bowling ball, and banged it against the sill. ‘Oops. I forget to tell you to be careful how you get in when you are handcuffed.’

Little Dave had the sense not to reply or complain. Sitting on his hands in the back seat, staring ahead, trying not to flinch when Alain slammed the door, almost succeeding.

When Marie handed him the handcuff key, Vic said, ‘I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m just going to put him on the spot.’

Alain said, ‘Why are you telling us? We aren’t even here.’

In the car, Vic adjusted the rear-view mirror and stared into it until he had Little Dave’s attention. The fucker looking like a child who knows he’s been caught but is trying to tough it out. Piggy eyes smouldering with resentment, lips clamped tight.

Vic said, ‘Don’t ask me what this is about, because I know you know. In fact, I don’t want to hear one word from you until we get to where we’re going. If I do, I’ll pull over and haul you out and shoot you in the face and send a photo of it to your fucking mother.’

Part of it was his tough-cop act, a role he could put on and take off. Part of it, surprising him, was for real.

He drove north and east out of the city, past the airport and into the hills beyond, following the road to the quarries that supplied much of the construction stone for the city. He overtook flatbed trucks, tipper trucks, and about five kilometres out turned down a track that dipped into a valley where a small swift river ran between tumbled rocks, and parked on a flat ridge near the stark frame of a burned-out wooden house.

Vic got out and opened the passenger door and told Little Dave to get out too. He made the man assume the position against the side of the car, unlocked the handcuffs. ‘Let’s go for a little walk.’

Little Dave followed him to the edge of the rise. Fans of scree fell to the river. A herd of biochines, jointed six-legged things, was grazing amongst stiff bushes up on the far side. In the distance something was making a nagging whine that sounded exactly like a plane saw, rising and falling in the cold breeze.

Vic said, ‘Way back when, people tried to raise goats here. The goats didn’t make it past the first year. All of them got eaten. But we should be safe enough for a little bit.’

The biochines were harmless herbivores, but Vic was pretty sure that Little Dave didn’t know that.

Little Dave took out an ecig. Trying to look casual, although his gaze kept going back to the biochines. He was in shirtsleeves, hunched against the cold clean wind. He said, ‘I’m dying for a puff. All right?’

‘Best not. It can drive biochines crazy.’

‘If you’re trying to put the fear in me, it isn’t going to work,’ Little Dave said, but he put the ecig away.

‘You came up five years ago,’ Vic said. ‘Ever been outside the city before?’

‘What’s the point? It all looks like this.’

The man was uncertain, sullen and suspicious. Watching the distant biochines rather than Vic.

‘You come all the way to a wild alien planet, but you aren’t interested in what it’s really like, or in making a new life for yourself…’

Little Dave shrugged.

‘So why not stay at home?’

‘I was born in Romford. You ever been in Romford?’

‘I bet you were in and out of jail, back in Romford.’

‘That’s all in the past, innit. Doesn’t count here.’

‘Is that why you came up? Because you were running away from the consequences of a serious crime?’

Little Dave shrugged again.

‘Did you meet up with Cal McBride’s people in prison, or afterwards?’

‘I told your friends I don’t know where he is.’

‘You told them you don’t know where Danny Drury is. But what about your old boss? Where is he? The reason I ask,’ Vic said, ‘is because he hasn’t been seen at his hotel. The Petra Carlton, where he has a suite. He hasn’t been at the construction site for his pleasure dome, either. I have to confess, I’m a little concerned about his safety. If he’s had an accident, ended up at the bottom of a foundation trench or in a shallow grave out on the playa, you’d be doing yourself a big favour by telling me about it now.’

‘I don’t have nothing to do with him no more.’

‘That’s right. The new boss came up while McBride was in prison, and you switched sides. Just like that. As if three years of working for the man meant nothing at all.’

‘I didn’t switch anything. I’m still in exactly the same job.’

‘And what job is that, exactly?’

‘I look after the house, don’t I?’

The man sounding plaintive.

Vic said, ‘Doing what? Mopping floors, emptying wastebins…’

‘Security and such.’

‘You like to think you’re a badman, don’t you?’

A shrug.

‘There was a Big Dave once upon a time, wasn’t there? Cal McBride’s right-hand man, killed in a traffic accident. If it was an accident.’

Little Dave shrugged again, pretending to be interested in something way beyond Vic.

‘I just realised why Danny Drury and his goons still call you Little Dave, long after Big Dave copped it. Because you’re small-time. A minnow amongst sharks. You’re their pet. They let you stay on after they kicked out Cal McBride because you’re harmless. A joke. And now they’ve left you here to face the fucking music, while they’re somewhere out there playing Cowboys and Indians.’

‘I just look after the house. I don’t know nothing about any of that.’

Vic unsnapped his shoulder holster and pulled out his gun, the Colt.45 he kept locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. The gun he’d never worn on an investigation until now. It got Little Dave’s attention straight away.

‘Someone killed a cop. Not just any cop. My partner. My friend. Tell me again you don’t know anything about anything,’ Vic said, ‘and I’ll shoot you in the fucking kneecaps and leave you here.’

Little Dave stared at him, and plainly saw something he didn’t like. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right! They went back to Idunn’s Valley. And that’s all I know, I swear.’

‘This is Danny Drury and his goons.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about Cal McBride?’

‘I told you. I don’t have nothing to do with him no more.’

‘Don’t lie to me, or I swear I’ll shoot you and drive you over to that pack of biochines and kick you out of the car.’

In that moment Vic knew that he could shoot the little fuck dead if he had to. He could see himself doing it: it rose up from some deep part of himself.

Little Dave flinched from his gaze, saying, ‘You’re fucking crazy.’

‘You bet I am. You bet your life. Cal McBride. Is he alive or dead?’

‘Alive, last time I knew.’

‘Meaning Danny Drury didn’t kill him, or have him killed.’

‘Drury wouldn’t dare.’

‘Where is he now? Cal McBride.’

‘I might have heard he went to Idunn’s Valley.’

‘And that’s why Danny Drury went back there. Yes or no?’

‘Yes!’

‘Back to that Elder Culture site. Site 326.’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re both looking for the same thing, aren’t they?’

‘I think so.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Yes. Jesus, stop pointing that fucking gun at me. I’m telling you, aren’t I?’

‘What are they looking for? And don’t tell me you don’t know. I bet you spend most of your time in that house with your ear pressed against keyholes.’

‘I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it got someone haunted.’

‘Who would that be? Name names, or it’s a short ride to the local wildlife.’

‘Someone on Earth. I think it was something someone sent back. As a present, a souvenir.’

‘Something from Site 326.’

‘I suppose so. Danny, Mr Drury, he went to check it out. But I don’t think he found anything.’

‘And how did he hear about it?’

‘They have contacts back home. Bent coppers, clerks, IT people. Not Mr Drury, the people he works for.’

‘The McBride family.’

‘They’re an old firm. One of the best.’

Vic had a sudden epiphany. He said, ‘They sent people here, didn’t they? The McBride family. They sent people to look for this thing when Drury couldn’t find it. Three people, smuggled up here in a shipping container. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear anything about that.’

‘Not about any shipping container.’

‘What, then?

Little Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and he looked away.

‘We’ve come this far,’ Vic said. ‘You know you have to go the distance.’

‘As long as you understand I didn’t have nothing to do with it.’

‘As long as you didn’t, that won’t be a problem.’

‘And this is just between you and me. I won’t stand up in court for it.’

‘Have I read you your rights? Is your lawyer present? We’re just having a little chat, completely off the record.’

‘Because if anyone finds out I told you this, I’m dead.’

‘Anything you tell me here, it’s as my confidential informant. Strictly between you and me.’

‘You swear?’

‘What are we, kids in a playground? Just tell me, or you’re walking home.’

‘All it was, Mr Drury heard that two police were coming up on the shuttle. Something to do with this artefact, back on Earth. The one that got someone haunted.’

‘Let me guess. Two police by the names Redway and Parsons.’

‘They came here to look for the source of the artefact. Mr Drury was having them followed. He wanted to find out who they were seeing here, where they were going. He thought they might cause him all kinds of inconvenience if they got too interested in his business.’

‘Because this artefact had been found in that site in Idunn’s Valley.’

‘If you know all this, why are you asking me?’

‘Did Redway and Parsons get too close to Drury’s business? Is that why he ambushed them?’

‘That wasn’t Mr Drury,’ Little Dave said. ‘All he was doing was having them followed. Discreet like. They went out to the shuttle terminal and someone jumped them. One went down, the other took off, disappeared…Mr Drury had his street crews looking for him, and then I suppose he must have heard he was out in Idunn’s Valley.’

‘And Drury and his goons went after him,’ Vic said, thinking of the gun battle out at Winnetou.

‘I wouldn’t know about that, would I?’

‘And I don’t suppose you know who killed John Redway, either.’

‘I heard it was Mr McBride, but I couldn’t swear to it. I suppose he had contacts too.’

‘I suppose he did. What about the three people in the shipping container?’

‘I don’t know anything about them, Mr Gayle. On my mother’s life I don’t.’

They went over it again, but either Little Dave really didn’t know anything else, or he had given up all he was willing to give up. Vic believed it was the former: Drury probably didn’t trust Little Dave with anything important.

Vic put his Colt away and said, ‘One more thing. Tell me about the ray gun.’

‘The what?’

Little Dave trying to look as innocent as a schoolboy.

Vic said, ‘The thing Cal McBride used to scramble the brains of people he didn’t like.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. Who has it now? McBride or Drury?’

‘Mr Drury turned the house upside down when he took over, looking for business records, all kinds of shit. And he didn’t find everything he was looking for. Mr McBride knew he was going down, and he squirrelled stuff away before he did.’

‘Is that your way of telling me McBride has it?’

‘All I know is that Mr Drury doesn’t. So,’ Little Dave said, ‘what about me?’

‘What about you?’

‘What do I get for being your confidential informant?’

‘I’ll give you a pass on this, and some advice, too. Think long and hard about the course of your life, and start making some changes.’

‘What else is someone like me supposed to do?’ Little Dave said. Now he thought this was over, he’d regained something of his confidence. Probably believing that he’d got away with something, because that was how people like him justified what they did. ‘First thing they do when you arrive here is shove you in a camp, expect you to do work for free. I thought, fuck that, and took off. But you need an ID card to get work, and you can’t get an ID card until you’ve finished working for the city. What choice did I have?’

‘You should have done your piece in the Orientation Camp, like everyone else,’ Vic said. ‘Contribute something to the community, help build this new world, and learn something about it.’

‘I was never cut out for that shit. Too much like school. I got out of that when I was thirteen, and never looked back.’

‘And how’s that working out for you?’

Little Dave didn’t reply.

‘What I want you to do now,’ Vic said, ‘is clasp your hands behind your head and fix your eyes on the horizon. No, don’t fucking look at me. At the horizon. And don’t you dare turn around.’

Little Dave protested, but did as he was told. Vic got in the car, saw in the side mirror Little Dave look around when he started the motor. Little Dave running after the car as Vic floored it, dwindling in the red dust. At the junction with the road, the Ford Victory parked there flashed its headlights. Vic returned the signal and drove past, turning towards the city and the airport. Alain and Maria would pick up Little Dave and take him in for questioning, put his story on the record. Meanwhile, Vic had a flight to catch, and some hard questions to ask the police in Idunn’s Valley.